The Vrexus moved like a storm given flesh—each step compact with force, each breath rolling through the clearing like heat bleeding from a furnace. The beast's eyes glimmered with a dark, thinking malice, its shoulders rolling in a predatory sway as it circled the Fangs. Its claws carved long trenches into the earth, dragging slowly, tauntingly, as if savoring the tension rippling off the group.
Sonny's flame-marked arms pulsed with thin lines of fire. Lisa's metal whip floated weightlessly beside her palm, shards held in orbit by her magnetic pull. Vince perched in the thick branches overhead, muscles coiled. Vice shifted his weight low to the ground, half-crouched and focused, serpentlike bloodline stirring beneath his skin.
Orin stood to Sonny's rear, his dual cleavers gripped tight. His pulse was a loud, steady drumbeat—fear, yes, but something else too. Something deep. Something he didn't have a name for.
The Vrexus paused.
A single twitch.
That was all the warning they got.
"MOVE—!" Vice hissed.
The Vrexus vanished in a blur.
Wind slammed into them a heartbeat later, bursting in a rippling shockwave that rattled branches and showered the ground with leaves. Orin pivoted hard, cleavers rising—
Too late.
A thick, muscled tail cut through the air like a blackened battering ram.
It crashed into Orin's ribs with a force that felt like the world collapsing sideways.
The impact launched him off his feet.
Branches snapped.
Bark exploded.
His body hit the trunk of an old oak—so hard the massive tree splintered down the center. The trunk cracked open like a ribcage, the entire upper half toppling with a groaning collapse.
Orin crumpled into the ruin.
The world dimmed. Sounds became distant. His cleavers fell from limp fingers, clattering uselessly against the roots.
Something wet trickled down his side. His breath staggered in short, broken gasps. Then even that slipped away.
Everything went dark.
—
"ORIN!" Sonny shouted, twisting toward the shattered tree.
He didn't get to run.
The Vrexus barreled through the space between them, a streak of shadow and muscle. Sonny ducked under its swipe and slammed a flaming fist into its ribs, but the hit only staggered it for half a breath.
"Vice, cover the right!" Sonny barked.
"I'm on it!" Vice lunged low, blade flashing.
"Vince!" Sonny shouted upward. "Drop now!"
"Already falling!" Vince kicked from the branch, plummeting like a stone spear.
The Fangs fell into motion—flawless, practiced, ready.
But this time, they were one fighter short.
Lisa's whip spun into a sharp arc, shards biting into the Vrexus's forearm. Sparks skipped across its hide, but it barely flinched. Its head whipped toward her, jaws peeling open.
Vice slid under its lunge, blade carving a shallow mark across its flank.
Vince landed on its back, arms clamping around the beast's throat with Blood Hunter strength that bent metal in lesser fights.
Sonny closed in with fire flaring brighter along his arms, eyes narrowed with focus.
But even together—
This thing was faster.
Smarter.
Hungrier.
"Fall back to Orin!" Sonny ordered through gritted teeth. "We stay around him! We don't let this thing near him!"
Lisa pivoted toward the broken tree. "Vice—left!"
Vice darted to her side, serpentlike agility cutting a tight path around the Vrexus's legs. Vince kept his hold on the beast until it slammed backward into another trunk, crushing him off.
He hit the ground hard, air blasting from his lungs.
"Vince!" Vice shouted.
"I'm good—just buy me a breath!" Vince coughed, rolling to his knees.
The Vrexus turned its head—toward the still form trapped in the broken tree.
Orin.
The beast took one step.
Lisa struck first.
Her whip snapped upward, curved by magnetic pull into a tight hook that lashed across its muzzle. The hit carved a clear line, dark fluid trailing downward.
The Vrexus snarled and lashed out.
Lisa dodged the first swipe.
The second caught her across the arm.
She spun from the force, metal shards scattering before her magnetism snapped them back into orbit. She planted her boots and braced her stance despite the pain.
"Not him," she hissed. "You don't touch him."
The Vrexus turned its attention back to her.
Good.
They wanted that.
Vice flanked low. Vince surged high. Sonny burst forward.
The three collided with the Vrexus in a unified strike—Vice's blade, Vince's heel, Sonny's fire all hitting at once.
The beast staggered.
Barely.
—
Behind them, Orin lay half-buried in splintered wood.
He didn't hear the fight.
Didn't see the flashes of fire. Didn't feel the tremors from the blows rattling the ground.
He was somewhere deeper.
Somewhere beneath the surface.
Something pressed against him in the dark.
A thrum.
A pulse.
A heartbeat that wasn't his.
THUD.
THUD.
THUD.
Each beat radiated heat through his limbs, crawling into his bones, filling the hollow spaces inside him. His breath stuttered, chest lifting unevenly before falling again.
The skin along his arms prickled.
Something beneath it moved.
And the darkness surrounding him cracked with a sharp, metallic sound.
Not outside.
Inside.
Bone shifting.
Muscle weaving.
A pressure building beneath his ribs, coiling into something bright—something burning.
THUD.
THUD.
TH—
His fingers twitched.
Then curled.
—
The Fangs tightened their hold on the Vrexus, driving it back inch by inch.
Vice darted behind it, blade flashing in quick, calculated strikes. Vince leapt onto its shoulder, one arm hooking around its throat while the other hammered punches into its jaw. Sonny swept in from the front, fire flaring along his arms as he delivered a heavy blow to the beast's ribs.
The Vrexus snapped its head sideways, trying to shake Vince off.
Lisa cracked her whip across its eyes, drawing its attention back toward her.
But the beast wasn't reacting like the others they'd fought before.
It wasn't panicking.
It wasn't tiring.
It was watching.
Calculating.
And behind them…
Orin's breathing deepened.
Vice noticed first.
"Sonny—look!"
He didn't have time.
The Vrexus lunged low and swept Vice off his feet with a brutal tail strike, sending him crashing into Lisa. She caught him, barely keeping her footing, but the impact rattled her entire frame.
Vince tried to clamp onto the Vrexus's neck again.
The beast slammed its body backward into a tree, crushing him off for the second time. Vince hit the ground hard, rolling to his side, gasping.
Sonny yelled, "Get up! Get up!"
The Vrexus turned again toward the broken tree.
Toward Orin.
Its muscles bunched.
It prepared to charge.
Lisa panicked. "Sonny—!"
"BLOCK IT!" Sonny shouted.
Vice stumbled to his feet. Vince rose on shaky legs. Lisa summoned her shards tighter, whip gleaming.
But the Vrexus didn't charge them.
It charged past them.
Straight toward Orin.
—
Orin's back arched sharply.
His chest expanded in a sudden, violent breath. Heat flushed from his stomach up into his throat. Veins pulsed under his skin in bright, unnatural light—faint orange streaks that crawled across his ribs and shoulders.
His teeth sharpened.
His nails curved.
His spine cracked, lengthening, muscles thickening.
Bronze skin rippled into coarse black fur.
His boots split at the seams.
His hands grew larger.
His legs folded inward, reshaping, joints bending into a digitigrade stance made for explosive movement.
At the base of his spine, something snapped free.
A long, fur-lined tail uncoiled behind him.
His skull shifted beneath his hair—jaw lengthening, cheekbones reshaping, snout forming. Horns pushed through, dark and curved, rising backward like the crown of some wild deity.
And through all of it—
He didn't wake.
His eyes stayed closed.
Breathing deepened.
Muscles tightened.
But the boy remained unconscious within the storm overtaking him.
Orange light pulsed beneath the surface of his new form—veins of molten glow snaking beneath fur, converging at a central point in his chest. Like a core. Like a furnace.
The transformation pressed outward in a final, violent ripple.
His body fully expanded.
Then stilled.
The Vrexus bounded toward the broken tree—
—but stopped.
Something not-human rose from the splintered wood.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
A massive silhouette unfolded, shedding the last remnants of shattered bark. The beast that had been Orin planted its clawed feet into the ground. Muscles rippled beneath dark fur. Steam rose from its shoulders.
And then—
Its eyes opened.
Bright.
Blue-silver.
Sharp.
But empty.
No awareness.
No thought.
Just the beast.
The Vrexus halted mid-charge.
For the first time, its expression shifted—not anger, not hunger, but something close to shock.
Sonny, Lisa, Vince, and Vice stood frozen.
The creature before them turned its head slightly, taking in the world with a slow, deliberate tilt.
Every movement was predatory.
Every breath heavy.
Every line of its body radiated raw power.
The Fangs stared.
The woods fell silent.
Orin's beast form stepped fully into the clearing, towering, luminous veins pulsing under its dark fur, horns curving back in wicked arcs, tail swaying behind it in restless motion.
And though the boy inside remained unconscious—
The beast was very much awake.