Morning came grey and smoke-stained like always, and they moved.
Nana had been thinking about strategy while she slept—how to kill vampires more efficiently, how to clear territories faster, how to make Linkon a little less hellish one creature at a time.
"Vampires sleep during the day," she said while checking her weapons. "We should hunt them now. While they're vulnerable."
Zayne nodded, already manifesting ice around his fingers. "What do you need?"
"Chains. Something to drag them down from wherever they're roosting. Then I'll finish them."
Simple. Direct. Brutal.
Exactly Nana's style.
They found their first target in an abandoned office building three blocks east—a vampire hanging upside-down from a ceiling beam, wings wrapped around its body like a grotesque cocoon. Asleep. Defenseless.
Perfect.
Zayne formed chains of ice with surgical precision—links flowing together like frozen water, solid and unbreakable. He launched them upward, wrapping around the vampire's neck before it could wake, and *pulled*.
The creature crashed to the ground with a shriek, claws scrabbling at the ice, wings flaring—
Nana's twin axes came down in perfect synchronization.
One through the chest. One through the skull.
It dissolved into ash before the sound faded.
"Easy," Nana said, wiping ash from her blades. "Fast. Quiet."
Zayne smiled slightly. "Good strategy."
They moved through the ruined city like a hunting pair—him providing restraint and range, her providing execution. Ice chains dragging vampires from their roosts. Axes severing heads. Ash scattered in the wind.
They didn't make much noise. Didn't attract attention. Just cleared building after building with methodical efficiency.
By the time they stopped for breakfast, they'd killed seventeen vampires.
.
.
.
.
.
The cafe was still standing.
Well—mostly standing. The windows were shattered, chairs overturned, blood streaked across the walls. But the structure itself remained intact, and Zayne recognized it immediately.
This was where Nana used to follow him during his lunch breaks. Where she'd order strawberry cake and he'd get coffee and they'd sit across from each other making small talk that slowly became real conversation. Where he'd fallen in love with her without understanding why his heart recognized someone his mind didn't remember.
Before he knew about Avalon. Before he knew about the specimen program. Before the world ended.
Zayne smiled at Nana as they stepped inside.
She was already scanning for threats—checking corners, listening for movement, hand on her gun—but when she caught his expression, something softened in her eyes.
"I remember this place," she said quietly.
"Me too."
They scavenged what they could find. Canned food from the storage room in back. Candy bars from behind the counter. Bread that was somehow still edible despite being a week old.
Nana sat in one of the chairs—the same one she used to sit in—and ate like nothing had happened. Like the world wasn't ending. Like they were just two people having lunch together on a normal day.
Zayne watched her, curiosity getting the better of him. "Can you actually taste it? Like a normal human?"
Nana paused mid-bite, looked at him with those green eyes that had seen too much, and nodded. "Of course I can. My taste buds work fine. It's the metabolism that's different—I burn through calories faster, need more fuel, won't starve even if I don't eat. But I can still taste strawberry cake and coffee and all the normal stuff."
She smiled slightly. "That's why I liked coming here with you. The food was good."
*And the company,* Zayne thought but didn't say. Because he knew. Because she'd told him once, in Avalon, before he died and forgot everything.
They finished eating in comfortable silence, then kept moving.
The evacuation zone was in the central plaza—military helicopters still landing, soldiers still fighting, survivors still stumbling from the ruins with desperate hope on their faces.
Nana and Zayne worked the perimeter.
Zayne shot flying vampires and hybrids with his ice bow—perfect aim, perfect timing, arrows manifesting and launching in seamless rhythm. The creatures dropped from the sky like stones, crashing into pavement or buildings or other creatures.
Nana finished them on the ground.
Dual guns. Twin axes. Combat knife. Whatever worked fastest. One shot, one kill. One strike, one corpse. She moved through the chaos like a dancer, like a weapon, like exactly what her parents had designed her to be.
They worked as a team—him providing ranged support and crowd control, her providing close-quarters execution. Covering each other's blind spots. Calling out threats. Moving in synchronized patterns that came from trust and practice and love.
When Nana started getting tired—aether core depleting from constant combat—they found higher ground. Climbed to a rooftop or upper floor of a stable building, took defensive positions, and rested while she recharged.
Zayne kept watch. Nana closed her eyes and breathed steadily, feeling the blue glow in her chest intensify as her enhanced metabolism converted rest into energy.
Fifteen minutes. That's all she needed to go from depleted to fully operational again.
Weapon efficiency at its finest.
Some moments were almost funny.
Like when Nana tried to catch a demon to carry supplies in her backpack—grabbing it by the horns, trying to force it to obey—and the demon just snarled and tried to bite her face off.
Zayne shook his head, fighting a smile. "They're not pack animals, Nana."
"They could be if they just listened," she muttered, kicking the demon away before shooting it.
Or when a hybrid attacked from behind and Nana actually jumped onto its back, riding it like some kind of apocalypse rodeo while laughing—genuinely laughing—before slamming her heel down on its chest and driving it face-first into the ground.
Zayne felt pride surge through him, warm and fierce.
So strong. So fierce. So perfectly herself even in hell.*
But most survivors didn't see it that way.
They were trying to guide a group of five people toward the evacuation zone when Zayne noticed them staring.
Not at the creatures. Not at the ruins. At Nana.
She was fighting a hybrid twenty feet ahead—moving faster than humans should move, hitting harder than humans could hit, taking damage that should have broken bones but just left bruises. Her aether core glowed faint blue through her shirt when she exerted herself, visible proof that she wasn't entirely human.
The survivors' faces shifted from gratitude to fear.
"Is she... what is she?" one whispered.
"Enhanced," another said, voice shaking. "Like the specimens from the facility. Oh god, is she going to turn on us?"
They started backing away. Slowly at first, then faster. One of them ran—just turned and sprinted in the opposite direction despite Zayne calling after them that it wasn't safe, that they needed to stay together.
The others followed, choosing to risk creatures over staying near Nana.
She noticed. Of course she noticed. Her enhanced hearing picked up their whispers, their fear, their rejection.
Her expression didn't change—stayed focused on the fight, on the mission—but Zayne saw the way her shoulders tensed. The way her movements became more mechanical, less fluid.
They're afraid of me because I'm not fully human.
She'd told him that once, in a moment of vulnerability. How people in the Hunter Association had looked at her differently after discovering her enhancements. How her friends had started keeping distance. How even Tara and Nero had treated her like she might snap and attack them.
Because weapons were dangerous. And people who'd been turned into weapons were even more so.
Zayne caught up to her after she finished the hybrid, placing a hand on her shoulder.
"They're just scared," he said quietly. "They don't understand."
"I know," Nana replied, voice flat. "They never do."
She reloaded her guns and kept moving.
But Zayne saw other survivors hiding when she approached—ducking into buildings, pressing against walls, choosing to stay in danger rather than accept help from someone who wasn't fully human.
It made him angry.
These people would be *dead* without her. Would have been torn apart by creatures days ago if not for hunters like Nana fighting to protect the city. But now that they knew the *how* behind her strength, now that they saw the proof of her modifications, suddenly she was the threat?
He wanted to yell at them. Wanted to drag them out and force them to see that Nana was helping, was saving lives*
, was choosing to protect people who feared her.
But he knew it wouldn't matter.
Fear didn't listen to logic.
So instead, he stayed close to Nana. Fought beside her. Made sure she knew that at least *one* person saw her as human, modifications and all.
They cleared another three blocks by mid-afternoon.
Killed forty-two creatures total. Guided eight survivors to evacuation (though six of them looked terrified the entire time). Scavenged enough food and water to last another week if rationed carefully.
When they finally stopped to rest on a rooftop overlooking the plaza, Nana sat with her back against an air conditioning unit and closed her eyes.
"They're right to be afraid," she said suddenly. "I am dangerous."
"You're a hunter," Zayne corrected, sitting beside her. "There's a difference."
"Is there?" She opened her eyes, looked at him with that devastating honesty she sometimes showed. "I was built to kill things. That's what my parents designed me for. Combat capabilities beyond human limits. Weapon efficiency. Specimen 21."
She touched her chest where the aether core hummed. "This isn't natural. I'm not natural. I'm exactly what they're afraid of—someone who was turned into a weapon and might not be able to turn it off."
Zayne took her hand, lacing their fingers together. "You're also the person who jumped back into Avalon to save me. Who fought for nine months to keep us both alive. Who cried when the hospital fell because you couldn't save everyone. Who tried to *ride a hybrid* this morning because you thought it would be funny."
He squeezed her hand. "Weapons don't do that. People do. And you're a person, Nana. Enhanced, modified, specimen-numbered person. But still a person."
Nana stared at their joined hands for a long moment.
"You always know what to say," she murmured.
"I'm a doctor. Good bedside manner is part of the job."
She laughed—small and quiet but *real*—and leaned her head against his shoulder.
They sat there while the sun dipped lower, while the city burned and creatures hunted and survivors fled or hid or died. Sat there and just *existed* together for a few stolen moments of peace.
Then Nana's aether core finished recharging, glowing steady blue.
She stood, checked her weapons, and looked at Zayne with determination in her eyes.
"Ready to keep going?"
He smiled and manifested his ice bow. "Always."
They descended from the rooftop and returned to the hunt.
Together.
Weapon and doctor.
Specimen and human.
Two people who'd survived hell and chosen each other anyway.
And somewhere in the ruins, more survivors watched them with fear and awe and gratitude they'd never voice.
Because Nana was terrifying and fierce and dangerous.
But she was also the only reason some of them were still alive.
.
.
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.
To be continued.