The city had gone quiet.
Not peaceful — just quiet in the way the dead are quiet. Buildings stood half-eaten by fire, their steel bones jutting out into a gray sky. Ash drifted like snow through the morning haze, and somewhere far off, a siren wailed once, then died.
Westpoint was broken.
And yet, in that ruin, life clung stubbornly to the edges. Wolves moved through the streets — not as beasts, but as guardians now. The surviving packs had gathered in the outskirts, near what used to be the industrial bay. Fires burned in barrels, smoke curling into the cold dawn as Selene walked between them.
Her boots crunched on gravel. Her silver-tipped coat brushed her knees. She had dark circles under her eyes — not from sleeplessness, but from the weight of leading what was left of them.
"Rogue patrol just came in," one of the wolves reported, shifting down into human form as he approached. "No signs of Lucien's men. No Pulse activity either."
Selene nodded, voice steady despite the ache in it. "Good. Keep watch on the bridges. No one moves alone."
The wolf hesitated. "Selene… it's been weeks. If Kael—"
"Don't." Her tone was sharp enough to cut. Then softer: "Just… don't."
He lowered his head and backed away.
Selene turned toward the river, the skyline's reflection trembling on its surface. Beneath her gloved hand, the moonstone pendant Kael had given her was cold — like it had forgotten how to glow.
"Where are you, Kael…" she whispered.
The wind carried no answer. Only the city's hollow breath.
---
Somewhere else — nowhere real.
Kael floated in darkness.
He wasn't sure if he was alive, or just dreaming after death. Around him was a world of glass and smoke — fragments of memory suspended in a liquid void. He saw flashes of the battle — Selene's eyes, Lucien's sneer, the tower collapsing. Then nothing.
His body didn't hurt. It didn't even exist properly. But his mind… his mind was on fire.
He reached out into the darkness, fingers brushing something solid — a ripple that spread like silver water. When he looked closer, the surface mirrored his face, cracked and ghostlike.
"Welcome back, Kael."
The voice echoed from everywhere at once.
He spun, claws forming instinctively — though there was no air, no ground, nothing but shifting smoke. "Who's there?"
The voice chuckled. "You already know me. You've felt me in your blood since the night you first changed. I am what your kind was meant to become."
"The Pulse…" Kael growled.
"Call me what you like. I prefer the Source. You are within me now — and I within you."
Kael's breath came ragged. "You used Lucien. You made him a monster."
"I make nothing," the Pulse whispered, its tone almost tender. "I simply awaken what already sleeps. You, Kael of Silver Fang… you are my perfect vessel."
He roared and lunged forward, but the world shattered around him — light bending, folding into rivers of energy. A thousand voices cried out at once — human, wolf, machine — and for a moment, Kael saw everything: the experiments, the mutations, the bloodlines tied to moonlight and code.
Then came silence.
When he opened his eyes again, he was kneeling in shallow water. Above him stretched a stormy sky of flickering data — lightning made of memory. His reflection in the water blinked back with eyes that glowed brighter than before.
Half man, half light. Half alive, half gone.
Kael stood.
"Selene…" he whispered, and even his voice sounded strange — layered, as if something else spoke with him.
---
Back in the waking world, Selene stood on the roof of an old radio tower, staring east. Dawn was bleeding through the clouds — a pale, silver dawn that made the city almost beautiful again.
"Maybe this is what peace looks like," she murmured to herself.
But her hand tightened on the railing. Peace felt too fragile to trust.
Behind her, a soft voice spoke. "You still believe he's out there."
Selene turned. It was Mira — the youngest wolf of the pack, barely sixteen, still wide-eyed despite all she'd seen.
Selene hesitated. "…Yes."
Mira smiled sadly. "Then maybe he'll come back when the moon rises again."
Selene smiled faintly. "Maybe."
But in her chest, she felt it — a flicker, faint as a heartbeat. The pendant around her neck gave off the faintest pulse of light, like something far away had just awakened.
And far beneath the earth, deep within the Pulse's fractured dimension, Kael opened his eyes fully.
The light burned through him — not the cold blue of the machine, but a fierce silver. His heart pounded once, then again, each beat stronger, louder, until the darkness cracked apart like glass.
He gasped — air rushing into lungs that shouldn't exist — and fell forward into water that wasn't water at all.
Lightning forked across the horizon.
The Pulse whispered: "Rise, Silver Fang."
Kael's hands clenched, claws gleaming, and for the first time si
nce his fall, he stood.
The world shuddered around him.
Something was coming.
And he was ready.