Timothy had been sharing a room with Tim ever since he escaped from the lab, and even now, the two of them still felt like they had been pulled from different worlds and forced into the same house.
Timothy's style was louder. He liked midnight utility jackets, baggy jeans, streetwear that looked effortless even when it clearly wasn't, and sometimes old-fashioned street clothes that made him look like he had stepped out of a different version of the same city. On some days he wore carrot-cut trousers or fitted jeans with hoodies, always with a kind of confidence that made the clothes feel like an extension of him.
Tim was simpler. He kept to fitted trousers, long sleeves, pullovers, shorts when the weather got too hot, and the occasional pair of nerdy glasses or cool ones to hide the orange in his eye lens whenever school made it harder to pretend he was normal. Sometimes he wore formal clothes, sometimes something halfway between formal and street, but no matter what he put on, he still looked like Tim. Timothy looked like somebody else entirely. And no matter how many people kept saying they were one and the same, the truth sat between them in plain sight. They were different in taste, different in habit, different in the way they carried themselves. If anything, they only looked like the same person when nobody was paying close enough attention.
A few hours after the race, Tim came rushing home and upstairs, still panting, still irritated, still carrying that sour look people get when they know they have been played and hate that they can prove it.
"The deal is off," he said, still breathing hard. "You let me win."
Timothy leaned back like he had been waiting for this exact moment. A smirk touched his face. "Wasn't planning on leaving anyways," he said. "And I'm guessing you really loved seeing me fly. You should've seen your faces."
Tim looked pissed, but after a second he dragged that anger down where it could not become a scene. He had other intentions. "Think of this as a trade," he said. "I'll let you be, and I'll try my best to stop being mean if you teach me how to fly."
Timothy knew exactly what he had. "I'll try to help you out," he said, "if only you call me big brother."
Tim's face changed immediately. "The deal's off."
Timothy shrugged. Not bothered at all. "Fine by me."
That made Tim hesitate. He hated that Timothy seemed to know how to get under his skin without even trying. After a second of silence, Tim gave in a little. "I'll call you big brother," he muttered, "just five times and that's it."
Timothy lifted a brow. "I'll think about it."
That was the problem with him. He could stand there and say almost nothing, and still make Tim feel like he was losing a fight.
At the dining table later, Tim wanted more sauce and ended up trapped by the one person in the room he least wanted to ask. Timothy was sitting right beside it like life had arranged the seat just to embarrass him.
Tim hesitated long enough for everybody to notice, then forced the words out anyway. "Could you please pass me the sauce, big brother?"
Timothy handed it over without even blinking. "Here you go, kiddo."
The silence that followed was so sharp it almost became funny. Tora stopped chewing. Jane looked up, puzzled. Grey Owl gently set down her fork just to understand what she had just heard. Falcon Empress looked from Tim to Timothy and then broke first, laughing before anybody else had a chance to catch up. One laugh became two, then three, until the whole table started laughing.
Tim was beyond embarrassed, but it was the first time Grey Owl and the others had laughed in that house like that. It changed the room. It made the house feel less like a place people were hiding in and more like a place people were actually living in. For a moment it felt jolly. It felt warm. It felt like the beginning of something family-shaped.
Summer break was fast approaching after that, and Falcon Empress's locker was already stuffed with love letters. So many of them it was ridiculous. If they had been money, she could probably have bought a car. Timothy had almost nothing in that department, but it didn't seem to shake him at all. He carried that same calm like it was part of his bones.
Not long after, Timothy put Tim through balance training and calisthenics, Andrew joined in most of the time. At first there were arguments. Then insults. Then more arguments. Then a long stretch of work that tested both of them in different ways. Timothy pushed, corrected, and pushed again until, finally, he seemed satisfied.
The creek sat behind the town like it had no business being seen by anyone, tucked away in the kind of quiet that made every sound feel sharper than it should. Water moved over the stones with a low, steady murmur. The wind slid through the grass and brushed the bank in long, warm strokes. It was the sort of place that looked harmless until somebody started trying to learn something dangerous there.
Timothy had brought Tim there for a reason, and the reason was already getting on Tim's nerves.
"Walk first," Timothy said.
Tim stared at him. "You dragged me out here to tell me to walk?"
Timothy did not look impressed. "Start there."
Tim let out a breath through his nose and stepped forward.
"Faster," Timothy said.
Tim glanced at him sharply. "You enjoy hearing yourself talk?"
"And you enjoy stalling."
That got Tim moving. He pushed off the ground harder this time, and the creek bank blurred under his shoes for a second before he caught himself. It was not flight. Not yet. It was something rougher, like the force in him had been shoved sideways and told to behave. His body shot forward in a short, ugly burst, and the dirt kicked back behind him.
He stumbled when he stopped.
Timothy watched him like that was exactly what he expected.
"You're throwing it into the ground," he said. "Stop forcing it."
Tim straightened, annoyed. "Then explain it better."
Timothy took a step back, then another, and without warning he moved.
Not ran. Not jumped. He simply pushed himself forward and rose a little, just enough for the air to seem to lose its grip on him. The grass beneath him bent from the pressure, and the space around his legs felt wrong in a way Tim could not explain yet. He wasn't hovering high. He wasn't showing off. He was staying light, balanced, and controlled, like the ground was still there only because he allowed it to be.
Tim stared at him. "That's flying?"
Timothy turned his head slightly. "That's not falling."
Tim scowled. "Same thing."
"No. It isn't."
Tim muttered something under his breath and tried again.
This time he pushed forward with more intent, and the air answered him differently. The force did not just carry him; it drove him. The movement came quicker, sharper, and the creek bank rushed by in a blur of green and brown. He nearly overshot the edge of the grass, then caught himself and turned too hard, almost clipping the stones by the water.
Timothy stepped into his path without effort. "You're still fighting it."
"I'm trying not to crash."
"That's why you keep crashing."
Tim looked like he wanted to hit him just for that.
"Then what am I supposed to do?" he snapped.
Timothy's answer came almost immediately. "Balance first. Movement second. Fear last."
Tim gave him a flat stare. "That sounded like something you made up just now."
"It still works."
Tim hated how much sense that made.
He looked down at the dirt, then at the creek, then back at Timothy. Something in him was still pushing, still waiting, still looking for the easiest way to explode out of his own body. Timothy could see it in him. He could probably see the exact moment Tim got angry enough to try to force the power instead of guiding it.
So Timothy reached down, scooped a pebble from the bank, and flicked it toward him.
Tim caught it without thinking.
"Good," Timothy said.
Tim blinked. "What was that for?"
"For this."
Timothy stepped back and pointed at the empty space in front of him. "Hit me."
Tim stared at him. "What?"
"Hit me."
Tim's expression darkened at once. "You talk too much."
"Then stop hesitating."
That did it.
Tim moved before the thought could settle. His fist came out fast and hard, no warning, no soft buildup, no careful testing. Timothy shifted just enough to let the punch pass, but Tim did not stop there. He followed through with another strike, then another, and the force behind them kept changing. The first one was raw. The second carried more weight. By the third, his shoulder and hips were working with his legs instead of against them, and the movement felt cleaner even if his temper was not.
Timothy caught the next punch and pushed him back half a step. "Too much anger."
Tim yanked free. "You said hit you."
"I did."
"So take it."
He swung again, this time lower, and Timothy's body moved with the same easy control he had shown in the creek. He was lighter than he should have been. Not in body alone. In force. In pressure. In the way he shifted through space without wasting anything.
Tim hit him anyway.
Timothy blocked. Tim hit again. Timothy moved out of the line. Tim closed the distance. The creek bank cracked under one of Tim's heavier steps, and that crack made something in him click. The same force that had been trying to push him forward in bursts now came easier when he stopped trying to win and started trying to move.
He pushed off the ground.
This time the launch was cleaner.
The air folded around him for a second, not enough to stop him, just enough to show that something was happening around the movement. He did not just run. He carried himself through the space in front of him. The speed came from the same place as the lift, only turned outward, redirected through his legs and into the ground beneath them. He crossed the creek bank faster than before, came down harder than he meant to, and landed with enough force to drive a dent into the dirt.
Timothy's eyes flicked to the ground, then back to him. "Better."
Tim's chest rose and fell hard. "You really don't know how to sound normal, do you?"
"No."
Tim stared at him for a second, then laughed once under his breath despite himself, though he clearly did not want to.
He looked down at his own hand.
The pressure was back.
Not in his legs now. In his arm.
He clenched his fist.
A sharp, ugly line of force snapped out from his knuckles and sliced through the air in front of him, short and rough and bright enough to leave the grass on the other side of it bent the wrong way for a second.
Tim froze.
Timothy froze too.
For a beat, the creek kept moving like nothing had happened.
Then Tim looked down at his hand. "What the hell was that?"
Timothy did not answer right away. His face had gone quieter now, sharper in a way Tim had not seen before. "That," he said at last, "was you spilling too much at once."
Tim stared at the line in the air, then at the dirt where it had cut through. "I didn't mean to do that."
"I know."
Tim swallowed.
The force in him had stopped feeling like one thing. It felt layered now. Like there was weight in it, direction in it, movement in it, and something else under all of that that was still too raw to name. He turned his hand over, then closed it again, and the pressure settled but did not leave.
Timothy stepped back once more. "Again."
Tim gave him a look. "You say that like I'm not already annoyed enough."
"You're alive. So keep going."
That should have sounded stupid. Somehow it didn't.
Tim pushed off the ground again. The movement came faster now, more controlled. The same force that had lifted him before now felt closer to his bones, closer to his joints, like it had found the right path through his body and was finally using it. He rose a little, landed harder, then moved again. The ground responded to every step. The air shifted around his shoulders when he accelerated. When he jumped, it was not a jump anymore. It was a launch.
He crossed the creek in a blur, then stopped himself sharply enough to scatter leaves across the bank.
Timothy's gaze stayed on him. "You feel it now?"
Tim stared down at the ground he had just crossed. His breathing had gone hard. His hands were tight at his sides. He did feel it.
Not the full shape of it.
Not yet.
But enough.
He looked up slowly, and the line in his eye lens caught the light.
"What else can it do?" he asked.
Timothy held his stare for a moment, then said nothing at first. He only looked at Tim's hand, then at the faint scorch where the force had cut the air, and finally back at his face.
Tim noticed that look.
Timothy did not have an answer for everything.
And that, more than anything, told Tim there was still much more to learn.
The sun sat heavy on the sports field, baking the grass till it crunched underfoot. The teacher — a wall of a man with a whistle that swung like a pendulum — paced the line, chest out, voice pitched to carry.
He stopped in front of Tim and Timothy.
Stared.
Long enough for the silence to turn sticky.
Then he planted his boots, folded his arms, and barked: "You two. Drop. Fifty. Now."
Tim's palms hit the dirt before the echo faded.
Timothy followed — no sigh, no eye‑roll, just a quiet folding into position.
Andrew's head swiveled between them. "...we're actually doing this?"
Tim's shoulders already squared. "You complain too much."
Andrew let out a long breath and lowered himself beside them. "If I collapse, I'm naming my tombstone after both of you."
"Start!" The teacher's voice cracked like a branch.
They moved.
Andrew's count was steady at first — ten, twenty, his arms burning with that familiar warmth. By thirty, the heat turned to acid. By forty, his elbows started to betray him, trembling with each descent.
He glanced sideways.
Tim and Timothy rose and fell like they were breathing — not a hitch, not a tremor. Their spines stayed straight. Their pace never changed.
Andrew hit forty‑five and froze, palms flat, chest heaving. "...nah."
"Keep going," Tim said. Didn't even turn his head.
"You keep going," Andrew wheezed. "I enjoy breathing."
Tim and Timothy finished in unison, rose in one smooth motion, and brushed the grass off their knuckles like they'd just stretched.
Andrew stayed down, staring at the white‑hot sky, his lungs burning, his arms singing. "...this is not normal."
That should've been the end.
But the teacher's boots crunched back. Slower this time. He circled them like a shark.
"How many you got there?" He jabbed a thick finger at Timothy's midsection.
Timothy blinked. "Sir?"
"How many?" The teacher's voice dropped lower.
Timothy's gaze flicked downward, then back up. He seemed to count internally, lips moving just slightly. "...seven point five or eight, I think."
Andrew lifted his head off the grass. "...what does that even mean?"
The teacher's brow furrowed. "You have eight abs?"
Timothy tilted his head — genuinely confused.
Andrew hauled himself upright, wiping sweat from his brow. "Hold on. Hold on — eight?"
Nothing from Timothy.
Andrew turned to the cluster of students who'd stopped their drills to watch. "So we're just... adding extra now? I thought six was enough. Six is normal. Six is respectable."
A snicker escaped from someone in the back.
Timothy still looked lost. "I didn't count," he said, almost apologetic.
Andrew's grin spread slow. "That's crazy. Imagine having extras and not even keeping track."
The snicker became a ripple of laughter.
Andrew glanced down at his own flat stomach, then back at Timothy's. "Couldn't be me," he added, just loud enough for the front row to hear.
That broke it. Laughter rolled across the field — sharp, bright, unstoppable.
Tim clamped a hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking.
Timothy finally sensed something was off — but not what. His head swiveled, confusion softening his features. "...what?" he asked, almost to himself.
Andrew waved him off, still grinning. "Nothing, man. You're just... built different."
He clapped Timothy on the shoulder.
But the teacher didn't laugh.
He stood stock‑still, arms crossed, eyes fixed — not on Timothy's abs, but on the way both twins had moved. Same rhythm. Same effortlessness. Same precision.
His jaw tightened.
The whistle dangled, forgotten.
He wasn't joking anymore.
In an eerily silent ghost town, the Legion survivors arrived.
They'd escaped the virus — barely — while Grey Owl and the team bought them time. Now they stood amidst crumbling facades and shattered windows, their numbers in the thousands, yet the only sound was the wind whistling through hollow buildings.
Then they screamed.
A language unique to them — guttural, sharp, urgent — slicing through the dead air.
From the darkness between collapsed storefronts, others emerged. More survivors. Faces hidden behind masks, bodies wrapped in distinct gear.
Rat Race stepped forward — short, wiry, his rat mask catching the pale light. He moved close to Hell Cat, the woman beside him whose claws still trembled at her sides.
"Where's the leader?" His voice was low, tight. "And Commander Tora?"
Hell Cat's eyes were glassy, fixed on nothing. When she spoke, her voice cracked like she'd been watching something she couldn't unsee.
"They might be dead already." A pause. "Hell, I don't know why that thing didn't chase us." Her breath quickened. "That's not human. It'll kill us all when it comes here." She snapped suddenly, grabbing Rat Race's arm, her grip iron. "This place is not safe. We're all doomed here — even our strengths are no match for it."
Silence swallowed her words.
Thousands of Legion stood motionless — a sea of masks and blades, breath held, muscles coiled. The only movement was the occasional shuffle of boots against cracked asphalt, the tightening of a grip on a weapon.
Then — footsteps.
Slow. Heavy.
Each one landed like a stone dropped into still water. Closer. Louder. The rhythm of something that wasn't hurrying because it didn't need to. The ground seemed to tremble beneath each step.
The Legion tensed. Blades slid from sheaths. Bodies shifted into combat stances. The scent of sweat and rust hung thick in the air.
The footsteps stopped.
And he stepped into the light.
The Devil's Stallion.
His stallion mask gleamed dully, horns curving back like frozen lightning. His frame was massive — broad, dense, his silhouette swallowing the dim glow behind him. He was huge, taller than any man in that crowd by a head or more, his gear dark and heavy. But even in his immensity, there was an unspoken truth that hung in the air like a shadow: he was not Wolf King. No one was. Even the Stallion's presence — as overwhelming as it was — served as a reminder that Wolf King's stature, his power, his command, remained unmatched.
The closer the Stallion came, the more the Legion lowered their weapons. Not from fear. From recognition.
Rat Race's voice cut through the silence: "It's General—"
Before the name left his mouth, the Stallion's arm moved.
A car — a rusted wreck half-buried in debris, its frame eaten by weather — ripped from the ground and hurtled toward Rat Race in a single, fluid motion. Metal screamed through the air, a two-ton projectile closing the distance in less than a heartbeat.
Rat Race dove. The car missed him by inches, skidding across the asphalt with a shriek of grinding metal before crashing into a collapsed wall.
He scrambled to his feet, muscles straining, adrenaline flooding his system. He grabbed the car by its mangled frame — fingers digging into rusted metal — and flung it back. The effort tore a grunt from his throat, his body shaking from the sheer weight of it.
The car spun through the air, a dark comet—
But the Stallion was already gone.
Rat Race blinked.
Then felt nothing.
A blade — impossibly fast, impossibly precise — had cleaved through his neck. His head parted cleanly, two halves falling in opposite directions before his body crumpled to the ground, a wet thud swallowed by the silence.
The Stallion stood where Rat Race had been, a curved blade in his hand that hadn't been there a second ago. Red dripped from its edge, pooling on the cracked concrete.
He turned to Hell Cat.
His voice came low, smooth, almost tender.
"Why so scared?" He tilted his head, the stallion mask catching the light. "You should be in love with Death."
Her mouth opened. No sound came out. Her claws raised instinctively ...but too slow.
He moved.
One strike — not a slash, just a palm — connected with her skull. The impact was brutal, instantaneous. Her head burst like a hammer through glass, her body dropping before she even registered what had happened, crumpling to the ground beside Rat Race.
The Stallion straightened.
He scanned the frozen thousands — masks turned toward him, silent, waiting. The only sound was the drip of blood from his blade.
"The thing," he said, voice carrying across the crowd, "it's not human. It looks like one, but it's hunting us as we speak. Fast. Calculated. Dangerous." He paused, letting the weight settle. "The rituals have enhanced our bodies — made us faster, stronger, tougher than any ordinary man. But we are no match. Not now."
A beat of silence.
"We go into the Kâvènnto." He said the word like a seal. "It's the safest hideout. It'll keep us safe until our leader returns."
His gaze swept the crowd.
"She's not dead. None of them are." His voice dropped, sure as stone. "I know that for a fact."
He gestured east, where the ruins thinned into darkness.
"Kâvènnto isn't far. Keep moving. And someone — bury their corpses."
Meanwhile, miles away, the virus sat on a massive rock formation.
The rock was ancient — a slab of granite that had stood for centuries, weathered by wind and rain, its surface cracked and moss‑veined. He sat cross‑legged on its highest point, motionless, his silhouette sharp against the pale sky.
His eyes burned — two red embers pulsing slow in the growing dusk. Not glowing like a light, but bleeding — the red spreading from his irises like ink in water, veins darkening beneath his skin.
His laughter started soft. A chuckle. Then a growl. Then a cackle that split the silence, raw and breaking, like something inside him was unraveling. His shoulders shook. His hands clutched his head, fingers digging into his scalp, his grin splitting his face too wide.
The red in his eyes flared.
Then — release.
He didn't jump. He didn't launch.
He simply stopped existing in that spot.
The rock beneath him didn't crack ...it shattered, granite exploding outward in a thousand fragments, the force of his departure carving a crater where he'd been. The air itself screamed as he moved ... a sound like tearing fabric, like metal splitting — and the shockwave hit a moment later, flattening grass, bending trees, kicking up dust in a expanding ring.
He broke the sound barrier in the first stride. Then the second.
Then he kept accelerating.
The wind howled against him, tearing at his clothes, his skin, but he didn't feel it. His eyes — those burning red embers — stayed fixed ahead. Fixed on the scent of them. The memory of them.
He was hunting.
And the distance between him and his prey was collapsing faster than sound itself ... the boom of his passage rolling across the land like the sky was splitting open.