Without taking her gaze off Khyren, Xiraza knelt. The Rift-Goliath core pulsed a sickly violet against the gleaming floor, its faceted surface a little too perfect. Chitter had gone rigid on her collar, tiny claws digging into her flight suit. The Volt-Vixen’s antennae twitched, sensing the manufactured malice. Khyren Zhal’s smile had faded, replaced by a calculating glint in his amber eyes.
“A manufacturing serial number,” Xiraza murmured, tracing the faint inscription with a gloved finger. Her voice, usually so controlled, held a dangerous tremor. “This isn’t just a hunt anymore. It’s an eradication protocol against a plague of engineered nightmares.”
“My thoughts exactly, Vex,” Khyren replied, his tone surprisingly devoid of his usual mockery. “Hard to ignore the stench of betrayal when it’s stamped right on the monster’s heart. Fortunately for us, the Apex Vanguard’s archives hold the Black-Market Core Registry. And the best place to cross-reference a signature profile… is the training arenas.”
Xiraza rose, the core now cradled carefully in her hand. “Lead the way, Zhal.”
The Apex Vanguard’s Vault Arenas were a labyrinth of obsidian walls and shimmering barrier fields, designed to simulate every conceivable combat scenario. Sound-dampened to prevent sensory overload, the vast spaces hummed with latent power. Khyren guided her to Arena Seven, a multi-tiered chamber bathed in the cool glow of suspended holoscreens. A single command terminal, sleek and minimalist, jutted from the floor at the arena’s edge.
He gestured with a flick of his wrist. “Place the core in the central scanner. I’ll pull up the registry interface.”
Xiraza deposited the synthetic core onto the recessed plate. It glowed, then began to spin slowly, a faint thrumming resonating through the floor. Khyren leaned over the terminal, his broad frame brushing against her arm. The scent of ozone and something subtly spicy—his kinetic armor’s internal coolant, perhaps, mixed with his own faint, musky cologne—invaded her personal space. She felt a prickle of unease, a familiar tightening in her chest. She hated this, the close proximity, the involuntary awareness of another body. It made her skin crawl, made her want to lash out and create distance. But her stubbornness, a trait as unyielding as any Aegis-alloy, kept her rooted.
She focused on the screen, willing the flush from her cheeks. “Prioritize frequency harmonics over crystalline structure. Engineered cores often mimic natural resonance but have subtle, tell-tale deviations.”
“Always the technician,” Khyren murmured, his voice a low rumble beside her ear. His fingers, long and scarred, danced across the holographic interface, pulling up intricate spectral graphs. He didn’t need to look at her to know she was flustered. He could probably feel the tension radiating off her. The knowledge only made her press her lips into a hard, stubborn line. Chitter, sensing her mistress’s discomfort, bristled, a faint crackle of static sparking from her fur.
[ANALYZING CORE RESONANCE…]
[CROSS-REFERENCING BLACK-MARKET REGISTRY…]
[MATCHING REGISTRY SIGNATURES…]
The station flickered. The holographic projections that usually depicted combat zones in the arena shimmered, then abruptly dissolved into static. The soft hum of the scanner intensified, then warped into a shrill, grating whine.
“What the blazes?” Khyren swore, his arrogance momentarily forgotten. He slammed a fist on the terminal casing. “System override! We’ve been locked out!”
Suddenly, the arena floor rippled. Not with holographic projections, but with tangible, fleshy tearing sounds. From the ground, tearing through the reinforced tiling, burst two creatures. They were monstrous canines, their furless hides stretched taut over bone and muscle, their eyes glowing with malevolent yellow light. Mutated hounds, their jaws dripping viscous green saliva, their claws scraping against the arena floor.
“Scourge-Hounds!” Xiraza shouted, instinctively grabbing for the pulse-carbine holstered at her hip. Chitter, a streak of six-legged lightning, launched herself from Xiraza’s shoulder. The Volt-Vixen zipped towards the nearest hound, a shrill chittering cry erupting from her. A bolt of blue arc-fire shot from Chitter’s antennae, striking the hound mid-lunge. The creature spasmed, its limbs locking rigid, a faint smell of burnt fur filling the air.
The second hound, however, veered, charging directly for the control dais. Xiraza barely registered Khyren drawing his own heavy pulse-pistol before she reacted. She fired a three-round burst, the rounds tearing into the hound’s flank, but it was too late. The beast was already upon them, a snarling, putrid mass. Its jaws gaped wide, revealing needle-sharp teeth coated in iridescent venom.
Then, a piercing shriek from the first paralyzed hound. Its body swelled, hide stretching beyond endurance. Chitter, still clinging to its head, shrieked again and launched herself back towards Xiraza, a desperate, frantic blur.
“It’s going critical!” Khyren roared, shoving Xiraza behind him, his kinetic armor flaring with defensive light just as the first Scourge-Hound exploded. A sickening *wet* sound, followed by a torrent of emerald green liquid that splattered across the arena. Scourge-Rot. It hissed on contact with the floor, dissolving the reinforced tiling with terrifying speed, releasing a caustic, acrid stench that burned Xiraza’s nostrils.
The second hound, still charging, faltered. Its flesh began to bubble, and it too swelled, a grotesque parody of the first. Xiraza didn’t hesitate. She pushed past Khyren, her pulse-carbine spitting a concentrated thermal beam, vaporizing the hound’s head before it could detonate.
A cold, metallic voice crackled through the comms system, overriding all arena frequencies. It was heavily distorted, a digital mask, turning the pitch cold and flat. The voice was calm, almost clinical.
“Subject zero survived. Initiate breach.”
The words hung in the air, echoing in the suddenly silent arena. And then, the voice spoke again, the distortion momentarily failing, just for a fraction of a second, revealing a familiar lilt, a melodic cadence Xiraza had heard a thousand times.
Velza.