[T-minus 57 Days Until Dimensional Event Ritual Completion]

Agent 714 stood at the far end of the debrief chamber. The door behind her hissed shut with finality. No guards. No surveillance nodes in the open. Just General Wang seated behind a black obsidian desk too old for this century – carved with characters no longer used.

The room was quiet. But not still.

A ring of holographic screens glimmered behind him – military sat-feeds, surveillance overlays, tactical sweeps of western China. None of them moved. But Agent 714 had the creeping sense that something in the room was watching.

She stepped forward and saluted, spine straight. "Reporting in."

Wang didn't return the gesture. He gestured instead to the chair opposite.

"You're late."

"I was buried under three tons of reinforced steel and anti-tamper concrete, sir," she replied. "Apologies."

He smiled but it was slow, as though the gesture had to be remembered. "So I read."

She pulled a data drive from her coat and slid it across the table.

"The site was listed as the Grimm Estate. Beneath it was the Burrow – an Institute black site. Purpose: meta-human experimentation, anomalous containment, Class-C weaponization. It's gone. The vaults are gutted. Research assets destroyed. High-threat entities encountered."

Wang didn't touch the drive.

He folded his hands, index fingers steepled.

"I'd prefer your own words."

That wasn't right. He always reviewed data first. Always prioritized empirical structure. This felt like a test. Of her. Of something else.

She straightened her shoulders. Not to posture – to anchor.

"An anomaly called 'The Mirror' was contained there. It got out."

Wang blinked. Once.

She paused. Then continued, voice quieter now.

"I saw it in the footage. It moved through walls. It shattered containment fields. It fed on thought. Grimm had been experimenting with it. There are clips of operatives talking to themselves and not realizing until their throats were already cut."

Wang didn't interrupt. Just watched.

"Grimm tried to kill it. Failed. He detonated a seal matrix in the east wing and almost collapsed the site on top of himself. And then it got worse."

She drew a long breath.

"A man referred to as 'Mammon' appeared."

Wang's eyes narrowed – subtly. Almost imperceptibly.

"You're certain of the name?"

"Yes, sir. Grimm said it aloud. So did Max Jaeger. Mammon — capital M. Not a code. A title."

Wang's fingers laced together.

"What did you see?"

She glanced at the drive. "The footage wasn't stable. The deeper into the Burrow I went, the more corrupted the logs became. But I saw enough. Mammon is not human. He didn't breach the vaults. He rewrote them – with gold that ate steel and memory alike. Max Jaeger fought him. Barehanded."

She stopped herself from pacing. Recentred.

"He shouldn't have survived. No one should have."

"And yet," Wang said, "he did."

She nodded. "Yes. And he wasn't alone. I pulled footage of five others. Some children, barely sixteen. The footage tagged them as unknowns. One was a girl who phased through walls. Another emitted a golden healing field. The man with the shattered arm regenerated on camera. Two others fought like war-hardened predators – none listed in any registry. And all of them followed Max Jaeger."

She swallowed. "And Max Jaeger… he wielded flame. Not napalm. Not pyrotechnics. Flame that consumed."

This time, Wang's eyelids flickered. Briefly.

She went on. "They moved together. Like a unit, but not trained. Uncoordinated. But aligned. And every single one of them did something impossible. Beyond all known augmentation models."

She looked him squarely in the eye. "They weren't just anomalous. They were outside the framework."

"And your interpretation?"

Agent 714's jaw tensed. She adjusted her weight – not quite shifting stances, but recalibrating.

"I think the Institute wasn't studying anomalies," she said. "They were trying to bargain with them. I think there are layers of this conflict we haven't been allowed to see. Forces moving that don't answer to governments."

Wang nodded faintly. "And what forces would those be?"

A silence.

She exhaled. "There's a word that keeps surfacing. In footage. In metadata. In places that were never meant to be seen. There were glyphs, sigils – carved into the stone like warnings. One appeared again and again: a horned shape, bleeding. Each tagged with a word."

He didn't respond.

"Not a codename. Not a call sign." She met his eyes.

"Demon."

No twitch. No blink. Nothing at all changed on his face – and that was what set her teeth on edge.

"You've heard it before," she said, voice softer now.

Wang leaned back in his chair. The shadows from the monitors flickered across his cheekbones.

"I've heard many things."

Agent 714 paused.

"Sir..." She said with steel in her voice. "I don't think the man I'm speaking to now is the same one who briefed me in 2023."

He smiled again. Too slow. Too even.

"The world changed."

"That doesn't mean you had to."

He didn't answer right away. Instead, he studied her – not like a subordinate, but like an artifact. A relic from a previous version of the world. One that might still be useful.

"You've always been loyal," he said. "To the mission. To the country."

"I still am."

He smiled again.

This time, she noticed.

He didn't blink once.

"You'll be redeployed within the day," he said. "Pack light."

The voice didn't quite match the mouth anymore.

She rose. Saluted.

As the door sealed behind her, she didn't just exhale.

She memorized the weight of his voice – so she could recognize it again, if it ever changed more than it already had.

…………………

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The first one arrived without a sound.

Ferron was the first to notice — not by sight, but by pressure. The way the grass lay flat in a perfect ring. The way the birds stopped singing. His hand closed around the hilt of his kusarigama without a word.

Max was still seated, his hands trembling from soul-depletion, when the second creature came screaming through the trees.

Not a scream. A tearing — like rusted chains dragged across bone.

Chloe froze. Dan's staff flickered to life in his hands — gold surged but wild, unsteady. Alyssa snapped into a stance, gauntlets hissing with pent-up charge.

And Victor, still sore from yesterday, growled: "We've got company."

From the fog, shapes emerged.

Three of them – wrong in ways the eye tried to reject.

The first dragged its length like a centipede wearing human remains. A ribcage stretched sideways, warped into an armoured thorax, each rib sharpened into fang-like legs. Where a face might have been, there was only a mess of twitching mouths – stacked, lipless, whispering in languages no throat should know.

The second walked upright – barely human in silhouette, but stripped of flesh. Its skin hung from hooks across its shoulders like a ceremonial robe. Beneath, a skeleton thickened and gnarled by fused teeth – molars, canines, incisors – all stitched into its chest and arms, each one chattering independently, as if hungry for separate things.

The third was the worst.

It wore patchwork skin like a butcher's apron but the sewing was crude, almost gleeful. Dozens of human arms had been stitched into its torso and back, some writhing, others limp. A child's leg jutted from its hip, twitching rhythmically. Its head was upside down – a swollen face with glassy eyes, stitched open, lips peeled back to show a jaw full of mismatched bones.

They didn't snarl.

They didn't scream.

They just watched – twitching, quivering with anticipation – as if scenting something old, familiar, and long-forbidden in the soulprint of the clearing.

"They're here because of the awakening," Ferron muttered. "The soul flare pulled them in."

Max struggled to stand. Alpha didn't move.

Omega grinned.

"Perfect," he said. "Let's test the upgrades."

The fog peeled back like skin.

The first demon moved with impossible speed – a blur of clawed limbs and clicking ribs – and lunged straight at Chloe.

She blinked.

Too late.

A rib-limb sliced through the air, catching her shoulder – tearing through jacket, missing flesh by less than a breath. Her body flickered, phasing an inch out of alignment before snapping back with a gasp.

Then Alyssa hit it.

Not punched – collided. She'd densified mid-run, her fists lead-heavy, body compressed like a collapsing star. Her knuckles met its midsection with a sickening crunch, and the demon imploded – ribs shattering inward, body folding into the dirt like meat dropped from a rooftop. The earth cracked.

It twitched. Still moving.

Too slow. Too scattered.

The second husk twisted – a blur of bone and teeth – and lunged at Dan.

He didn't run.

His fingers closed around the staff and it flared – golden veins racing across the shaft. It snapped outward mid-swing, telescoping from baton to spear, humming with light.

Dan didn't attack.

He blocked.

The demon slammed into the spearhead, screeched – the sound like wet metal tearing – and was thrown back, tumbling across the ash with limbs flailing.

Victor roared and met the third demon head-on – shoulder-first, all rage and weight. They crashed into each other like freight trains. He drove it backward, fists rising but his stance was off, tired, legs dragging.

The demon surged up with unnatural speed, a dozen sewn arms snapping forward, clawed fingers reaching for his throat—

And then it stopped moving.

Alpha was there.

No wind. No blur. Just a cut.

She was suddenly beside them – and the demon's skull fell into two perfect halves, split from crown to chin in a surgical flash. The body didn't even drop – it just collapsed in on itself like a folding map.

She was gone again before the blood hit the grass.

Omega stepped forward.

Grinning.

The first demon tried to rise. Its ribs had fused wrong. Its mouths were still screaming – one of them crying in a child's voice.

Too late.

Omega's shoulder cracked as a spiral of bone erupted from his elbow, then another from his wrist, then his spine. The exoskeleton grew mid-charge, impaling the thing from five directions. It rose with him – writhing as – he lifted it clean off the ground, spiked like a carcass on a spit.

He twisted. The demon tore apart like wet bark.

Silence.

A few heartbeats passed. Max exhaled.

Twenty-seven seconds.

And it was over.

But it wasn't clean.

Max stared at the twitching remains – the sewn limbs, the patchwork eyes – and felt something catch in his throat. A different memory. Hospital lights. A scream. A boy's body crumpling under claws not meant for Earth.

Jack.

Liz's boyfriend.

Just a kid.

He'd died in front of her. Because of Max.

They'd only been there because of him. Because of what he brought into the world. And he'd never said it aloud, but sometimes – when Alyssa wouldn't meet his gaze, when she spoke too sharp, or looked too long – he wondered if that was why.

Because Jack hadn't just been her friend.

He'd been hers to protect.

And Max had let him die.

He wondered if that was why Alyssa still didn't smile when he walked into the room.

A few heartbeats passed. Max exhaled.

Alpha reappeared beside the ritual circle. Not a drop of blood on her.

She looked at the team like she was counting weaknesses.

Omega let his bone armour retract, steam rising from his chest. "Three husks. That's all? C'mon. I was hoping they'd try."

Victor was hunched. Bruised. Dan was panting. Alyssa was sweating, one leg trembling. Chloe was shaking in place — but still standing.

Ferron looked at Max.

Max looked at the smoke.

"We're not ready," he said quietly.

Alpha turned, perfectly still.

"You weren't supposed to be."

A beat of silence.

Then she said:

"Now we begin."

…………………

The husks smoked.

Ash curled in slow spirals from the cratered dirt. Demon ichor hissed as it met the cold earth. The battle hadn't lasted more than thirty seconds, but the silence afterward stretched much longer.

Alpha stood with her arms crossed, blade still sheathed but aura sharp as glass. Omega crouched beside one of the ruptured husks, tapping a clawed knuckle against its shattered skull like it was a melon he wasn't quite sure was ripe.

Max exhaled. His arms trembled slightly – the aftershocks of calling soulfire without full recovery. He straightened slowly.

Alpha didn't wait for an invitation.

"Efficient?" she said flatly. "No. Survived? Barely. Improvable?" A pause. "Yes."

Omega stood, brushing demon gore from his elbow with zero delicacy.

"You've got raw potential," he said, glancing at the others. "That's all. Raw meat's still edible – but not on a battlefield."

Max turned toward them, voice hardening. "Then we fix it. Break it down. I want a full review – what went wrong. How we make sure it doesn't happen again."

Alpha nodded. "Then listen."

She pointed at Chloe. "You blink too late. Your fear makes you disappear. Decide whether it's a defence mechanism... or a death wish."

At Alyssa. "You're trying to punch harder. Try smarter. Momentum is nothing without precision."

At Dan. "First contact block was acceptable. But you flinched after. Follow through."

Victor grunted, catching his breath nearby. He'd taken a rib hit – nothing deep, but enough to leave a mark.

"Me?" he asked.

Omega smirked. "You're brute force and veteran muscle memory. Great until it gets you dead."

Victor shrugged. "Not the worst review I've had."

Max turned to Ferron. "Weapons?"

Ferron stepped forward, wiping ichor off his sleeve with a scrap of cloth.

"Dan's staff held. That's good. That's rare. But Victor – you're still improvising with fists when your soul's calling for a cleaver. And Max…" He shook his head. "You need something permanent. Chain's gone. You're burning through power like a damn reactor with no core."

He stepped into the centre of the circle and drove the heel of his boot into the dirt.

"You won't reach Liz like this," Ferron said. "They'll crush you long before you reach Chengdu."

Everyone turned at that.

Chloe stepped forward slowly, brow furrowed. "You know where she is?"

Ferron nodded. "Not exact. But there's still a tether – psychic, weak but alive. She's being moved west. My guess? Chengdu. Ritual staging. Phase-two class."

Chloe didn't speak. But something in her eyes flickered – recognition, or dread. Maybe both.

A heavy silence followed.

Victor squinted. "Chengdu? That's panda country."

Alyssa stared at him like he'd grown a second head.

Max didn't laugh.

He just looked at the ash where one of the husks had fallen, then turned toward the others.

"We train," he said.

Dan straightened. "Starting when?"

Max looked up at the sky. Then back at the line of smoke curling from the treeline where the fight began.

"Now."

…………………

Agent 714 stood outside the redeployment hangar, boots damp with morning frost. A military drone skimmed overhead – silent, black, insectile. Her orders had come encrypted. Her destination wasn't printed on the manifest.

Just a time. A terminal. And one line:

"You'll be briefed on-site."

She didn't like it.

When the car came, it was unmarked. Civilian shell, military shielding. Inside, an attaché waited — suit pressed sharp, face unreadable. He didn't speak. Just handed her a file sealed with a biometric strip.

Inside: coordinates. A blueprint. A name.

Containment Site: Project SANDGARDEN Status: Class-Ω (Locked) Target: [REDACTED] Subject Alias: ELIZABETH JAEGER

Her stomach turned.

She didn't know why, exactly. Maybe it was the name. Maybe it was how deep the file was buried — inside a registry that didn't exist. Even to her.

She'd faced anomalies before. Broken them. Buried them.

But this felt different.

When she returned to Wang's office for final clearance, the lights were dimmer. The screens quieter. The obsidian desk looked… older.

He didn't offer her a seat this time.

"You'll travel alone," he said, voice low. "Off-grid. No contact unless initiated from my office."

"Is the girl dangerous?" she asked.

Wang tilted his head slightly — like the question amused him.

"She is… complicated."

Agent 714 narrowed her eyes. "There are no guard rotations listed. No medical staff. No command node."

Wang just smiled. "Because she doesn't need them. And neither will you."

She nodded slowly, processing. Then slipped the file into her coat.

A pause.

Then, casually – too casually – she asked:

"So, who is Verrine?"

She expected a delay. A polite deflection. Maybe a smirk.

She got none of that.

For half a second, silence.

Then the air cracked.

Wang's hand slammed the desk hard enough to crater it. The obsidian split down the centre with a sound like bone under pressure. The monitors behind him stuttered. Glitched.

His voice tore free – deeper than human, wrapped in layers of static.

"WHO TOLD YOU THAT NAME?"

Not a question. A demand. A warning. A mistake.

Agent 714 didn't move.

She didn't flinch.

But her heart pounded once – hard.

She watched as the mask unravelled.

Wang's skin pulled too tight. His cheekbones lifted, too angular. His eyes didn't glow – they dimmed, like lanterns smothered underwater. Something inside looked out.

She'd seen a lot of things in her years of service.

The temperature dropped five degrees. The hum of the holo-screens dimmed. The air itself changed – smelling like copper, tasting like static.

This wasn't tech. This wasn't mutation.

This was infestation.

Demonic.

The thing wearing Wang's voice tried to calm itself. Tried to sit back. Tried to smile.

But it was too late.

He blinked once. Slowly. The shape of his mouth had already changed.

"I see," it said quietly. The voice almost human again.

"Dismissed."

She didn't salute.

She didn't look back.

As the door sealed behind her, Agent 714 didn't just file a report in her mind.

She made a decision.

She was done following monsters.

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