Northern Outskirts of Hawkelin City.
07:46 AM - January 14, 2534
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The arctic wind howls a desperate, constant song, a physical weapon that strips heat from bone. Kaius Vale moves low, tracking, his entire consciousness dedicated to the hunt. His lean, muscular body, compact and kinetic at five feet eight inches, flows seamlessly with the icy terrain, a dark silhouette against the vast, unforgiving white. He isn't just looking for prints. He reads the nuances of the snow pack, the subtle heat distortion rising from the ground, and the minute shifts in wind direction that carry scent, building a real time, three dimensional threat map in his mind.
Kaius tastes the air. The faint metallic tang of exposed machinery is cut by a sharp, musky ozone smell, which means Ice Tigers have been marking the perimeter. His gloved hand flexes on the hilt of his combat knife. He calculates their speed, their hunger, and the path of their convergence. His own presence is a whisper. He's a dark shadow in a bleached landscape.
His attention locks onto the discovery: three sets of massive, deliberate Tiger prints. The trail leads downward, converging toward the basin. He accelerates, his heart rate controlled, his mind calculating the fastest, most concealed route down the slope. He allows himself no hesitation; hesitation's a luxury afforded only to the dead.
He gains the final lip of the ridge, his vantage point offering a clear, brutal view of the ambush.
Kaius sees the coordinated terror below: three massive, white predators encircling a small cluster of people. He estimates eight individuals: two large male signatures, two smaller female signatures, two distinct signatures, the twins, perpetually too close, and one tiny, vulnerable bundle. He notes the chaos, the shouting, the wall-like stance of the silent armored woman, and the frantic, useless flailing of the tall man with the glasses, who must be six feet four inches of poor equilibrium. The kill zone's seconds from collapse.
He pulls the specialized pulse pistol from his belt. It's a weapon designed not for raw power, but for precise, chaotic intervention. He loads the bespoke projectile: a dark, dense bullet laced with high concentration, corrupted tiger pheromones. He takes aim, focus absolute, his mind calculating wind deflection, distance, and the microseconds required for the pack to shift. He must break the coordinated hunt.
A sudden, sharp high-pitched whine emits from the pulse pistol's charging capacitor, momentarily cutting through the wind's roar.
The first shot thwumps, not loud, but a focused, dull impact twenty meters west of the conflict, just ahead of the leftmost flanking tiger. The projectile bursts, vaporizing instantly into a cloud of engineered scent. The tigers halt, their heads snapping violently toward the corrupted chemical signal.
The middle tiger sniffs, confused by the strong, taunting scent of a rival mate in distress, then bolts, disappearing into the ruins, driven mad by the corrupted signal.
"One down. One distracted."
Kaius simultaneously launches a dense, black ceramic sphere from his pouch, targeting the microfractures beneath the lead predator, the one directly in front of the group. The charge detonates with a muffled whump and a small, contained shockwave. The ground shears, collapsing into a chasm beneath the beast. The animal disappears with a high, terrifying shriek into the hidden cavity. Thick, black smoke immediately plumes upward, smelling of burnt sealant and ozone, stark against the snow.
Two down.
The pack's broken. One left.
Kaius doesn't wait to assess. He drops into a sprint, his combat knife drawn, focused only on the remaining tiger, which is now circling back, yellow eyes locked on the scent of fresh meat.
Below, the group's a tableau of chaos: parents shouting, a baby crying, the twins darting in opposite directions. They stare in disbelief at the smoking hole.
"The ground swallowed it! Where the hell did that c-come from?" Evin yells, his voice cracking with disbelief. He stares at the smoking hole, his pragmatic mind reeling from the blatant violation of natural law.
"Th-they're breaking f-formation! The g-geometry is c-compromised! W-we've got to move now, w-while the variable h-holds!" Solan shouts, panic spilling into useless, rambling theory. He's rooted to the spot, his hard light slate still clutched in his hand, projecting static.
The single remaining tiger shakes its massive head, disoriented, then locks onto the cluster of warmth and scent. It charges.
A voice cuts through the panic, clipped, quiet, dangerously efficient.
"Too late for geometry. Boulder, hold the line. Four Eyes, shut your mouth and move. Neon—yes, the pink hair—keep the chaos low. You're blocking the shot. Get to the access point. Now."
The names hit like gunfire. Jessa bursts into loud, nervous laughter even as she scrambles. Kade echoes the insult, momentarily forgetting the tiger in favor of the fresh shade.
"Neon? Oh, I live for the shade. But 'keep the chaos low'? You don't know me, Sir." Jessa shrieks, already moving, a riot of pink hair and insulated fabric.
"Seriously, Neon? Who says that? That's barely a nickname, it's a lifestyle! I'm not even wearing my good shoes," Kade calls out, flailing dramatically as he shoves Evin toward the access point.
Solan flinches, deeply offended. His glasses fog further with the heat of his anger and fear. "F-f-four Eyes? Th-that's not even a c-creative p-pejorative," he blurts out.
"Access point? What the hell does that mean? Are we talking about the maintenance tunnel?" Evin demands, bewildered, turning his head to find the source of the voice.
"Who the hell is that!?" Calyx cries, her voice sharp with sudden, disbelieving awe. She watches the approaching figure with a mixture of terror and immediate, intense fascination. She sees not a savior, but a weapon.
Kaius hits the basin floor, moving low and fast. He avoids the mess of bodies, sprinting straight for the predator. His dark leather suit and quick motion are a blur against the white.
He's already engaging the tiger, using the jagged terrain of broken concrete slabs as leverage. He uses a low wall for a partial feint, forcing the beast to commit to a direction. He doesn't stop to explain. He barks sharp, unyielding commands at the strangers scrambling around him.
Thora, the silent woman, reacts instantly. She sees the direction Kaius points: a dark, low-lying maintenance access. She shifts her stance, wordlessly gesturing for Mariel, Evin, and the children to move. Her dark eyes remain fixed on Kaius, recognizing the cold, brutal language of the fight.
Mariel, clutching Tovin, doesn't hesitate. Survival instinct recognizes the absolute authority in Kaius's voice. She pulls Evin away from the sled.
The tiger snarls, its attention fixed on the smaller, lethal figure. It lunges. Kaius meets the attack, a blur of motion. He drops his weight, initiating a deep, low Hajime No Ippo style corkscrew evasion, his body rotating beneath the beast's sweeping claw. He uses the tiger's own momentum against it, sliding beneath its belly. His knife hand, moving with the precision of a surgeon, carves a deep, bloody gash into the soft tissue of the flank as he passes beneath the animal.
He springs back to his feet, unrelenting, his focus laser sharp. He feels the searing cold of the tiger's breath on his face, the hot, enraged muscle tearing at the ground near his boots.
"Go, Four Eyes! You're a liability standing there," Kaius snaps, his voice strained with the effort of fighting. He needs Solan gone. The scientist is unpredictable ballast in a life or death equation.
Solan freezes again, shame burning through his exhaustion. His data, his theories, useless against this primal violence. He forces himself into motion, scrambling back, fumbling at his pouch until his fingers close around a pulse ball. Heavy, designed for seismic research, nonlethal but capable of a jarring shockwave.
He hurls it clumsily. The sphere hits the ice, detonating in a blinding flash of blue light. "Shield your eyes!" he shouts as a deep, thrumming shockwave ripples outward, momentarily stunning the massive predator.
The tiger snarls in confusion, staggering backward, its inner ear disoriented by the unexpected frequency.
Kaius doesn't waste the split second when his eyes open. He drives forward, capitalizing on the momentary neural disruption. His small frame launches upward, performing a precise vertical spring off a broken slab of concrete. He lands lightly on the tiger's back, leveraging his weight against the beast's neck.
His knife plunges deep into the tiger's flank, aiming for the kidney and severing the spine with a rapid, savage twist. The movement is fluid, trained, and inhumanly efficient. The struggle is brief, savage, and final. The beast collapses with a sickening thump, silence rushing in behind its death.
Kaius staggers, chest heaving, adrenaline burning through him. Pain tears through his left forearm. He looks down. His sleeve is shredded. A claw mark's deep and messy beneath the fabric. Blood steams in the snow, a vivid, terrible red. Exhaustion slams into him, forcing him to lean heavily against the carcass. The pain's a sharp, white hot presence in his mind.
Solan rushes forward, pale behind fogged glasses. He sees the blood, nausea rising with his old trauma, but forces himself to act. He grabs Kaius's uninjured arm, nanite spray in hand. "You're b-bleeding. We've g-got to t-treat that. Nanite spray, n-now."
Kaius recoils violently, eyes flashing with pain and fury. He tears his arm free, a primal rejection of aid.
"Touch me and I'll break your dominant fingers," he whispers, clipped and cold, the undertone making the promise more chilling. "I don't need your nanites, Four Eyes. Focus on the geometry, or whatever it is you do with those giant lenses."
Solan stares, stunned, his face twisting in revulsion and disbelief. He notes the extreme height difference, forced to look down at the smaller man who's radiating danger. Then, almost reflexively, he mutters, "Th-that's incredibly r-rude."
"You have other things to worry about," Kaius notes.
"Why'd you take on a b-beast like that by yourself? We c-could've helped."
"We've got to go," Kaius demands, pushing off the dead tiger, ignoring the searing pain in his arm. He forces himself to stand upright, fighting the body's collapse. He points a bloody finger toward the ridge where Thora and the others disappeared. "Move. The others will come back. They're not dead." He glances at the western ruins and the smoking hole. "The pack's broken, but they're not gone."
Solan stares at the deep, messy wound, realizing the severity of the injury, realizing the man's fighting his body's collapse purely on will. He grabs the sled, offering the only assistance Kaius will allow: pragmatic support. He turns, his fear still raw, and starts running toward the ridge line, trusting that the savage, wounded Kaius Vale will somehow follow.
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