LOCATION: SECTOR C.

  TIME: PRESENT.

  "Please..." Lunaria said with effort. Her voice was a broken thread, barely a whisper among the rubble. "Stop... please."

  No one answered her. There was only a wet sound.

  Crack.

  "Why...?" Zarbac landed another blow on the motionless body beneath him, splashing fresh blood on the floor. "Tell me why!"

  Two drops slid down Lunaria's dirty face.

  From her right eye, the healthy one, fell a transparent tear, clean and bitter. From the left, swollen and bruised, welled a thick, dense red drop. It smelled of iron.

  Both fell in unison, marking the dust on the floor.

  "Why?" Zarbac let his fist fall once more. "Tell me why you don't amuse me anymore?!"

  No one answered. The silence of pounded flesh was his only reply.

  Zarbac stopped instantly, bored.

  He rested his left hand on Krzytof's chest to push himself up and stand. The pressure on the fractured sternum provoked an immediate reaction: Krzytof spasmed and expelled a mouthful of blood and bile from his mouth.

  "Despicable..." Zarbac raised his chin upon feeling the hot drops staining his glove and his clothes. He looked at his victim's face with deep disgust. "How dare you stain me with your filthy blood?"

  He finished standing up, brushing himself off.

  Krzytof's face was no longer a face. It was a deformed mass.

  His cheeks were so inflamed that the skin shone, taut and split. His eyebrows were matted with red, and his eyes were two swollen black lines, forced shut by the inflammation.

  But the saddest part of the image wasn't him, but what lay beside him.

  Thrown on the floor, bathed in red fluid, were his glasses.

  That essential part of him, which he always wore with neatness, was now twisted, the lenses shattered.

  "Well then..." Zarbac adjusted his gloves, stretching his fingers with a crunch. "Let the fun continue."

  In the reflection of one of the broken lenses, Zarbac was seen turning around. His boots crossed the hole in the wall, moving from the room to the hallway where Lunaria lay.

  "Do you want to play with me?" Zarbac stopped in front of her, drawing a smile that seemed too big for his face. "It will be very fun... I promise you."

  "Fuck you..." Lunaria coughed, and a bubble of blood burst on her lips.

  There were a few seconds of heavy silence. Only Krzytof's agonizing death rattle could be heard in the other room.

  "Pay attention, damn it," Zarbac bent his knees to crouch in front of her, face to face. "If I ask you if you want to play, you play."

  Lunaria half-opened her only good eye. She gathered all the saliva and blood she had in her mouth.

  "I said... fuck you."

  She spat.

  The red sputum hit Zarbac right on the cheek.

  Zarbac lowered his gaze immediately. With a terrifying calm, he wiped his cheek with the back of his glove. He looked at the red stain on the leather.

  He looked up.

  It was a cobra's strike. Fast. Inevitable.

  His hand shot toward her and grabbed her short hair. Lunaria exhaled sharply in surprise. Zarbac didn't hesitate: with a violent yank, he slammed her head against the metal wall.

  THUD!

  Her skull bounced. Lunaria went limp for an instant, her eyes rolling back from the dizziness.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  "I don't like how you play," Zarbac let out a light giggle, releasing her hair. "But I promise you I will win."

  He stood up, imposing over her.

  "Bastard...!" Lunaria grunted, trying to protect herself, panting in pain.

  "My turn."

  Zarbac raised his leg and brought his boot down on her.

  LOCATION: HALLWAY ADJACENT TO SECTOR C.

  TIME: SIMULTANEOUS.

  "Report..." said a male voice, agitated by physical exertion.

  "I have been able to gather little information on what is happening on the Blitz," a female AI replied directly in his ear. "The target inside Sector C is a Hunter. He boarded the frigate thanks to the docking of the rebel corvette."

  The owner of the voice ran down the hallway. His footsteps were heavy, rhythmic, a continuous hammering of metal against metal. On his pauldron, under the emergency light, shone a golden emblem carved into the black armor: three intertwined wolf heads.

  "Is it known who he is?" he asked. His red hood fluttered with the friction of movement.

  "Partially... According to the AI that called for help, there is only one antecedent of first contact."

  "Did he belong to a Cradle?"

  "I highly doubt it..." the AI answered with icy certainty. "Analyzing the imperial rosters, there is no record of him in any Cradle."

  He slammed on the brakes as he turned the corner.

  His black medieval armor, designed for the shadows, contrasted violently with the white walls of the hallway.

  In front of him was the spectacle.

  Zarbac kicking a woman on the floor.

  "Tsk." The man clicked his tongue.

  "But I found something peculiar about him," the AI continued, projecting an image onto the helmet's internal visor. "This woman shares genetic facial features with the target. She belonged to the Black Cradle. Currently, she is classified as a Hunter for her desertion against the Empire."

  The man didn't answer. He clenched his fists.

  He broke into a run again, but this time the sound disappeared. His footsteps, previously heavy, became light, like feathers brushing against steel.

  "These two individuals have been classified with an SS danger rank," the AI warned. "Their classification is on par with yours... Be careful, Agent Clifford."

  Clifford didn't listen to the warning. He was already in the air. He pulled his right arm back, loading the strike with the inertia of the jump.

  "Don't you want to play anymore?!" Zarbac asked, raising his leg to kick Lunaria again.

  Clifford's fist impacted his face.

  Zarbac didn't even see it coming. His laugh was cut dead with a crunch of teeth.

  He spat a cloud of saliva and blood. His cheeks rippled from the force of the impact and his body was launched sideways, skidding several meters down the hallway until he stopped.

  Lunaria, curled into a ball on the floor, protecting her vital organs, waited for the impact. It didn't arrive.

  Slowly, she lowered her arms. She thought it was a trap, a cruel pause to give her false hope.

  The hallway light blinded her only good eye, forcing her to squint. When the white spot dissipated, she saw him.

  The mysterious man. The same one who had silenced Matsumoto. He was standing in front of her, without turning his back on the enemy, blocking Zarbac's view.

  He turned his head toward her. The opaque visor of his helmet observed her.

  "Who are you...?" Lunaria asked in fear, swallowing thick blood.

  "That doesn't matter," he replied. His voice was serious, distorted by the helmet, but warm. "The important thing is that you shouldn't exert yourself... You'll be safe now."

  Lunaria looked past him, toward the breach in the wall.

  "Is he okay?" she asked with anguish, looking for Krzytof.

  "I don't know," Clifford glanced sideways toward the room. "But my scanner says you both need urgent medical attention."

  He crouched in front of her.

  With a gentleness that contradicted his armor, he slipped his right arm under her knees and his left behind her back. He lifted her into the air.

  "Thank you..." she whispered, fighting to stay conscious.

  He didn't answer. He turned toward the hole in the wall.

  Every step Clifford took seemed synchronized with Lunaria's slow blinks.

  One. Two. Three.

  On the first blink, she saw the reflection of her own shattered face in the black helmet. On the second, her sight focused on the man's chest. On the third, she saw the emblem.

  Three...? she thought, confused. She tilted her head against the cold metal of the armor.

  Before the darkness claimed her, she looked at her own shoulder. Her emblem was almost identical to his: a wolf. But hers had only one head, looking to the flank.

  She closed her eye.

  "I'll take care of everything now," Clifford said, depositing Lunaria's unconscious body carefully next to Krzytof.

  A torrent of red data blinked on Clifford's visor, superimposing an image of Zarbac, who at the same time was beginning to get up in the hallway.

  "Reaffirming: unidentified subject," the synthetic voice informed. "No match in the Cradle records. Warning: Partially unknown genetic signature. Origin... unknown. Kinship... found. Danger classification... reaffirmed."

  Clifford narrowed his eyes behind the glass. Who could he be? An alien in human form? he thought, discarding the idea instantly. No... we have only found animal alien life.

  "Always..." a low growl was heard from the hallway.

  Zarbac was getting up, stumbling.

  "Always..."

  Clifford left the theories for later and crossed the hole in the wall again, stepping out into the hallway to intervene.

  "Huh...?!" Zarbac shouted, wiping the blood from his chin. "Why do you always have to interrupt when I'm having fun?!"

  He opened and closed his fists with nervous spasms.

  "Do you have no manners?"

  There was a moment of silence.

  Zarbac looked at him with genuine irritation, as if Clifford were a loud child in a movie theater.

  Clifford looked at him from the inscrutability of his helmet: a cold, heavy, and absolute presence.

  "I apologize for interrupting your sick and extravagant tastes," Clifford replied calmly.

  Zarbac twisted his neck until it cracked.

  "So you called for help..." he laughed lightly. "Satanés tricheurs."

  Clifford tilted his head, confused by the language.

  "What did you say...? I don't speak crazy," he said, raising his fists.

  "Nothing important..." Zarbac closed his fists, adopting a combat stance. "Let's play."

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  ???????

  "When the world breaks, only two types of people remain: the monsters, and those who learn to hunt them."

  —Traumatized Veteran.

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