The hunger woke me like a fire in my spine. Not for food. Not for sleep. For Orgone. For heat. For violence. I stood in the middle of my apartment, the city humming behind the window, and I knew I wouldn't sleep tonight. Not a voice—just presence. Like a hand tracing the nerves along the inside of my skull. I didn't argue.
I stood in the dark, bare, then willed the armor out. It responded instantly. My skin rippled—ridges forming, tiger stripes pulsing, bio-plasma crawling up my limbs like liquid steel. My spine lengthened. The tail extended fully, prehensile and twitching. My horns arced forward, catching stray light from the balcony.
"Beast mode!" I snickered.
12:36 AM – Rooftop to Rooftop
The wind was sharp at this height. My claws dug into crumbling brick. I sprinted along the spine of an old hotel, leapt to a pharmacy sign, then vaulted a ten-foot alley gap with barely a grunt. My body moved like it wanted this. Every step was effortless. Every landing, perfect. No ankle roll, no stumble, no hesitation. I was a goddamn panther wearing an exosuit made by the universe.
Below, the city glowed sickly orange. Pockets of heat. Pockets of prey.
I flipped on Herja's infrared overlay. Boom—light everywhere. Body heat bled through drywall and insulation. I could see people asleep in beds. Couples arguing. One guy was microwaving pizza. Another had a shotgun across his lap, paranoid and twitchy. Three blocks down—motion. Four figures. Hot. Walking in formation. Their heat signatures flickered. Cybernetic interference. I zoomed in with Herja's reticle system. It was a Splicer crew.
Light tattoos. Chrome limbs. One with a reinforced jaw and a carbon-steel arm mod. Gang-marked. Not CENO. Unauthorized street-tech. Predatory behavior.
"Bingo!"
I dropped down like a ghost, not making a sound. I watched them from the shadows—no movement. I kept still. Tail coiled up, breath low. They were cornering someone. Female. Young. Backpack. Tried to bolt, but the one with the mechanical ankle caught her. "Just a question, sweetheart," he said. "Just one."
His breath steamed in the cold air. The others laughed. Their fingers flexed blades unsheathed from under fingernails. Perfect. I moved. A blur of plasma shimmer and trailing bio light. I hit the ground behind them with a thud, tail whipping, claws extended.
"Three seconds to leave," I said, voice not quite mine. They turned. Too slow. The girl screamed—then stopped when she saw me. Something in her mind told her not to run. The Splicers didn't hesitate. "Take it down!" the leader barked.
Wrong move.
The big one lunged. I side-stepped. Caught his wrist mid-swing, snapped the elbow with a twist, and drove my claws into his gut. He blinked once—then screamed. The other two split up, flanking.
Smart.
But I was smarter. I slid under one's legs, sprang up behind him, and tore his cybernetic spine module out in a single, practiced motion. Sparks. Gore. Silence. The last one turned to run. My tail snagged his ankle mid-stride, yanked him down, and I was on him before he could cry out. His eyes widened. "W-wait! I didn't—!"
I opened the hand suckers and Let my palms fangs do the rest. Orgone...It tasted like smoke and copper and electric rain. Like victory.
The girl was gone. Good.
The alley was red. I stood on a billboard's steel arm, the city spread out beneath me. My heart was beating in my chest. Calm. Even. I didn't feel sick. Didn't feel guilty.
I felt... full.
Then—
motion.
Across the next rooftop. A flicker. A shape. I spun, claws out. Nothing. Just heat shimmer. But someone had been watching. They were gone before I could scan.
1:04 AM – Three Blocks Away
A security camera rotated silently above a pawn shop. The feed was black-and-white, grainy. But the figure on it?
Beautiful.
Predatory.
Alien.
The splicer crew was scattered. Two dead. One barely twitching. The girl was missing. In the security room beneath, a man in a dark vest tapped the screen. His tattooed fingers dialed a number. "We found her," he whispered. "The one from the Thirteen Meeting. She's real. She's feeding." Silence. Then the voice on the other end said:
"We must find out who she is."
1:11 AM
The room stank of cold coffee, ozone, and incinerated data. Special Agent Marla Cruz stood at the terminal, spine straight, arms crossed behind her back. She wore the CENO high-collar tactical trench, black and reinforced at the seams—no badge, no nameplate. Just the silver sigil over her left breast: a looping ouroboros entwined with code glyphs. Her eyes tracked the playback footage in real time. No blinking. No reaction. "Pause. Enhance Sector 7-Lima. Frame 331 through 336."
The AI obliged. The feed zoomed in on the pawn shop roof. Heat distortions shimmered. Then—there. A flash of movement. Something impossibly fast dropped from the skyline, landed in the alley below with a weight that kicked up asphalt dust.
She moved like water shaped into vengeance. Like a shadow that decided to wear skin. Marla didn't blink as the splicer crew was dismantled in seconds. "Bloom event confirmed," she said aloud. Agent Koba in the room, winced. "You think it's that class anomaly?"
"Not think. Know." Marla turned to him, voice clipped. The footage played on. The creature—woman?—looked up mid-hunt. Almost like she heard the drone. Almost like she was smiling at it. Marla's brow furrowed. "Trace this signal. Run a 3-point cross triangulation off the surveillance grid. Narrow a 9-block radius. And get me a body on-site before dawn."
She tapped the screen, freezing the image. The she-beast in the frame wasn't just alive. She was thriving. Marla exhaled once. The only sign of unease.
East Downtown — Abandoned Billboard Scaffold
01:19 AM
Felicity Grey crouched on the edge of a crumbling rooftop, the neon buzz of a payday loan sign flickering behind her. Wind teased strands of her night-slick hair across her cheek. She was still bare talon footed She preferred it that way. Skin on steel. Pulse on concrete. Her cybernetic eye glowed faintly in the dark. Just enough to enhance vision, let her view savor the Orgone radiating off Herja like she was a bonfire in a starving world.
She arched her back, tail flicking lazily. She turned, walked across the roof edge like it was a tightrope, and vanished into the shadows. I dragged the Splicer into the half-collapsed warehouse by his collar, boots scraping concrete, blood dripping from his shoulder. The others were dead—crushed, slashed, or left twitching under steel beams. Only this one survived. Barely. He wasn't much older than me.
Bald.
Cybernetic ports along the jaw. Too many mods for a body that hadn't finished growing. His eyes jittered—pupil loops trying to recalibrate around Herja's outline. I tossed him into a rusted chair. The frame groaned. The Splicer groaned louder. I crouched low. Leaned in. Herja's bio-plasmic armor slithered back just enough to reveal my face, glowing with post-hunt heat.
Hair still wild from the rooftop sprint. Amber eyes burning. The Splicer flinched. "Y-you're not real. You're not possible." I smiled but it didn't reach my eyes. "I'm new," I said. "Forgive the dress code."
I pressed one foot against the Splicer's crouch—gently, at first. Let him feel the pressure. Then more.
"Start talking, for the sake of your little friend." The Splicer spat blood. "You Vein? Some kind of runaway Echo? right? Feral?" I tilted my head, what's the Vein? "I'm going to need you to try again." I pushed harder. The Splicer howled. I didn't move. This bodies strength poured through me like molten control. It scared me. Thrilled me.
I could feel the power just behind my ribs. If I wanted to snap this guy in half, I could. But I didn't. Not yet. "Who sent you?" I asked. "Why were you jacking organs from bodies in my city?"
The Splicer blinked, blood in his teeth. "We... we're freelance. No flags. Someone put a contract out. Broad-spectrum bounty. Anything with a Beast Signature that wasn't tagged by CENO. That's you." My eyes narrowed. A bounty? Already? No one knows who I am... But they know I exist. "Who posted it?" I asked. "Private channel. Untraceable. Just... credits. Big ones. Double for a live capture." My stomach turned at the words Live capture.
That meant labs. Extraction tables. Dissection. Data harvest. I growled before I realized it. The Splicer flinched. "P-please. I didn't know what you were. Just thought you were another Vein-jumper gone rogue." I stood. Pacing now. Mind racing. I glanced back down. "Wrong move. Wrong city." I reached forward, grabbed the Splicer by the chin, and stared into his trembling modded eyes. "You saw me. You fought me. You survived."
The Splicer nodded rapidly. "Good," I said. "Because now you're going to deliver a message." The Splicer swallowed hard. "Wh-what message?" I leaned in close, whispering directly into his ear. "Next crew that comes for me... dies slower." I released the Splicer, who collapsed onto the floor sobbing, clutching his leg. I turned, walking toward the busted loading dock door. My silhouette framed in desert moonlight.
And then I was gone—launched up into the night, claws scratching brick as I vanished over the skyline. The Splicer limped to his feet, whimpering, dragging his half-broken leg toward the nearest comm-link implant. But behind him—unseen—something else dropped from the ceiling.
Soft.
Silent.
Felicity.
Still smiling. Watching the space Herja had just vacated. She didn't help the Splicer. She didn't stop him either.
She just crouched and licked the smear of Herja's blood left on the floor.
"Your learning...Ash" she purred to herself.
"So fast."