["What happened twenty-five years ago?"] repeated the woman microphone in hand.
Her voice echoed through the loudspeakers of the moving carriage.
The expectant eyes fixed on her made her falter, as she murmured: ["Uh… let me think how to put this…"] while searching for the right words for her eager audience.
When she believed she had them, she adjusted the microphone, and her voice grew firm, recalling an event seared into her memory:
["In 2025, on a night that seemed to offer humanity a celestial meteor shower… the gift revealed itself as poisoned. They weren't meteors burning in the atmosphere, but bio-capsules."]
Seeing the bewilderment on their faces at the strange term…
The striking woman, wearing sunglasses and with long silvery-gray hair tied in a ponytail that glinted like silver, dressed in a white shirt and jeans, added a theatrical touch: she lifted her hand to her face and wiggled her fingers like tentacles.
["Like wicked seeds, fallen from space!"]
"Ahh…!" The sound rippled through the carriage, a murmur of comprehension mixed with fear among the youngsters staring at her with full attention—mirrored in the uneasy faces of the parents at their side.
She nodded silently, giving her words the weight of lived memory and old scars.
Continuing her tale with gestures that captivated her young audience, the woman with silver hair clenched her hand into a fist, then slowly opened it with a sharp impact:
["When they struck the ground, those 'seeds' released invisible spores… drifting through the air. They entered everything that breathed: plants, animals… and us. At first, no one noticed. Our bodies' defenses held it back, a hidden guest within us. But not every living creature proved so resistant…"]
She raised a hand and traced the outline of an animal in the air.
["The first to change were those with weaker immune systems:
Farm animals, pets, sickly birds… Cows that stopped grazing and began to seek out flesh, as if they had turned carnivorous. Dogs attacking their owners, as though they no longer recognized them. Birds hunting within their own flocks…"]
The children listened with wide eyes. Some shrank closer to their parents.
The woman drew in a deep breath, lowering her voice.
["And then… it grew worse. The next generation of those infected animals… no longer belonged to the same species.
The first ever recorded was the calf—"]
"Carl!" the children chimed in, a blend of excitement and unease, shouting a name they had learned almost as soon as they'd learned their own, or that of their parents.
She nodded with a half-smile and continued:
["That's right… the calf Carl. Though he was born weak and sickly, he revealed leathery wings sprouting from his back… and a scaled tail lashing like a serpent's—terrifying and fascinating the entire world."]
She paused for breath, memories tugging her back to that turbulent era, one steeped in disinformation and wild speculation—even religious visions.
["Imagine the same footage replayed on every news channel, in every corner of the planet, while no one truly understood what was happening."]
Another hush settled over the carriage as the children struggled to picture that distant time, a time before the constant threat that had already shaped their young lives.
["Carl was like a grotesque parody of the monsters from ancient myths: half barnyard animal, half nightmare. That's why, in the end, we came to call those mutated creatures… Chimeras."]
At the name, an uneasy silence spread through the carriage—not only among the children, but also their parents, and even the teacher who had invited her to answer her students' questions.
Still, she pressed on.
["Those first Chimeras were failed forms of life. Unstable creatures that collapsed within hours, or at best survived only a few days before dying of massive organ failure.
We tried to contain them, to hunt them, to burn out the sources of infection. And in part, we succeeded… but beyond our reach—in the depths of the jungles, in the oceans, in hidden corners where we had no control—they kept mutating.
Adapting.
Each generation lasting longer than the one before. Until, at last, they grew strong enough to mark us as their prey."]
At that moment, the train slipped into a tunnel, plunging the carriage into shadow, staining her words with an even darker, more foreboding hue.
["That was when we understood. Humanity was not under invasion. This was not an open war. Without realizing it… we were in a race of forced evolution."]
And yet… with a simple gesture—lifting her sunglasses—
That despair turned to wonder in the children's eyes, making her smile as she revealed her gaze, no longer human.
Her pupils, slit like those of a lizard—or perhaps of something far greater—gleamed beneath the fleeting darkness of the tunnel, hypnotizing everyone present with their blue radiance.
["The Chimeras, to extinguish us. And we… to survive."] she finished, lowering the glasses once more.
She let the microphone sink, ready to end it there. But the unsatisfied stares of the children before her—her own son at last lifting his gaze from his console, along with other parents—made her go on.
["In those first years, we lost entire cities to a threat no nation, no matter how vast or powerful, could contain. We even turned to weapons of mass destruction… which wrought more devastation than the Chimeras themselves."]
She did not soften her words, nor dress them in comfort for such young ears. She knew they were the ones who would carry the torch and keep on running the race.
Faces of many shades and backgrounds tightened with disgust, recalling the images of destruction brought by the old governments.
["It was then, to keep us from destroying our own planet, that the Defense Council was born."] Her voice trembled with restrained force, raising gooseflesh on every listener, child and adult alike. ["To coordinate our survival. To give us, at last, a chance to fight as the species we are."]
The darkness in the carriage flickered as the train neared the tunnel's end. Her voice shifted, softening:
["And in these twenty-five years… with no borders, no nations, no flags to divide us… but with the united effort of an entire species, and by learning from our enemy— We ceased to be prey… when we created the Hunters."] She said, her chest swelling with pride, igniting the same spark in the children's eyes.
["For the first time, we had the power to face head-on the threat that had terrified us… and that, ironically, had also united us..."]
She paused briefly to catch her breath. The timing could not have been more perfect: just then, the train emerged into the open air and sunlight flooded through the windows in a blinding flash.
The woman smiled radiantly and stretched out an arm, pointing to the vision unfolding before them:
A city clean and resplendent, its bioclimatic skyscrapers rising like columns of light, vertical gardens climbing the steel of their façades, and magnetic trams gliding through the air around them—just like the train they were riding.
["…Of rising above what we once were. Of rebuilding cities like New Mombasa, right before our eyes, to heights we once could only dream of. And of leaving behind, at last, the inequalities and enmities of the old world that divided us for far too long."]
At the very moment her voice faded from the carriage speakers— A single clap.
Then: clap-clap. Followed by a few more—Clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap-clap… Until, within seconds, the sound filled every corner of the carriage—parents and children alike breaking into unanimous applause.
The teacher smiled and waited for the ovation to die down before lifting her own microphone:
["Thank you so much for your answer, Joy… and above all, for being here today with the class and the other parents."]
She paused, looking at her with genuine admiration.
["And also, of course… for your service as a Hunter."]
Scratching the back of her head in embarrassment as another round of applause broke out for her service, Joy handed over the microphone.
"Sorry if I went on too long."
Scratching the back of her head in embarrassment as yet another round of applause rose for her service, Joy handed back the microphone. "Sorry if I went on too long."
"No—no, not at all," the teacher blurted out, still visibly moved. "Even for those of us who already know the story, hearing it from a hero—"
"Please," Joy cut her off, visibly uncomfortable. "Even if the posters and interviews don't show it, that kind of thing embarrasses me. Just… treat me like any other parent."
The teacher hesitated, then nodded with a resigned smile.
"That'll be hard… but I'll try."
Glad Joy couldn't hear her inner fangirl screaming, desperate to tell her parents and friends how she'd met her idol—and even gotten her autograph.
Turning back to the rest of the class with the microphone raised, the teacher said: ["So, which parent wants to volunteer for the next question? And before you say it, kids—no, Joy can't go again. We need to give the others a turn, alright?"]
Soft laughter and light groans rippled through the carriage as Joy returned to her seat. Settling in beside the children she had accompanied, she lowered her voice and asked them conspiratorially:
"So? What did you think?"
"Hm…" Her son deliberated, more focused on the console in front of him than on the elaborate speech he had heard hundreds of times. Finally, he said, "I give it a 7.2."
Joy's eyes widened as if she'd been struck. "Only that!?"
"I liked the one you did last year in the Korea subsector better," said the girl beside him, same age, also glued to her console.
"Yeah… better than that time in Central America, when the bus broke down and you had all the time in the world to go on and on while we roasted in the heat," added the boy, staring off at the horizon as though haunted by the flashback of a war.
"Yeah, that one was…" The girl, hidden behind her console despite the sunglasses on her face, finished simply: "long."
"Oh, come on! Enough already, you little brats!"
Knowing his mother better than anyone—and knowing when she was only pretending to be angry—her son asked: "What did you expect?"
Lifting his dark eyes from the screen through the curtain of his brown bangs, he added:
"It's always the same questions when people find out you or Dad are Hunters… or Alex's dad."
"That's true: 'Can you show us your armor?' 'How do I become a Hunter?' and finally: 'What really happened…?'" the little girl listed, sounding older than her tender seven years—especially when she finished with a weary sigh: "It's exhausting…"
Joy couldn't help but smile with a mixture of tenderness and sorrow. Because of their constant base transfers, the children lived in a perpetual Groundhog Day: always stuck in the first stages of friendship, never able to truly grow close.
At least she was grateful her son had Alex—another Hunter's daughter to grow up with, almost like a sibling.
Then… ["Gather your things, kids… we're almost there: the zoo!"] The teacher's excited voice burst from the loudspeakers, cutting through the chatter of parents and children on the field trip.
-
The train slowed with an electric hum and came to a stop at the elevated station, hovering between two parallel tracks—one above the other like an inverted mirror.
The doors slid open with a metallic hiss, and at once an orderly tide of children and parents stepped out in neat rows.
Everything flowed smoothly—until someone disembarked.
The convoy shuddered with a deep groan, forced to readjust the magnetic field's strength as though ten burly adults had suddenly stepped off at once.
Heads turned in unison. The jolt dissolved into nervous smiles and forced gestures of normality when they saw it was Joy who had stepped down.
She pretended nothing had happened, fumbling awkwardly with her sunglasses. Renn and Alex, however, didn't bother to hide the amused grins slipping across their faces—at her unexpected "extra weight."
Once outside the station, the group was greeted by the colossal New Mombasa Zoo.
A massive white structure—sealed and impenetrable, not merely a bunker disguised beneath playful curves and flowing asymmetries, but one built to safeguard Earth's dwindling biodiversity from contamination.
At the entrance, Joy, Renn, and Alex passed through the airtight doors, engulfed in a disinfectant mist that smelled of ozone and synthetic lemon before being allowed inside.
The first thing the children noticed, once within, was the cool, artificial air, laced with the damp fragrance of vegetation: the scent of wet earth and green leaves, a sharp contrast to the dry heat outside.
They lit up at the sight of the vast open space, where several paths branched out like veins toward the different habitats. Walkways rose to higher levels, allowing visitors to gaze down at the animals in their environments. Below, digital walls recreated rolling savannas, dense Amazonian jungles, and other ecosystems—each carefully designed to soothe and accommodate the species that lived there.
Lions lounging. Exotic birds chattering. Herds of herbivores grazing on virtual-walled pastures.
All of it under the unblinking surveillance of drone swarms buzzing overhead, ensuring the animals remained ordinary—untouched by the spores that had changed the world.
The drones cared not only for the creatures, but also for the visitors, monitoring them and scrubbing away any trace of contamination with jets of sterilizing vapor—extreme measures to ensure nothing, absolutely nothing, could infect them and unleash a mutation.
Renn, who truly loved animals, exclaimed in excitement as he scoured the signs pointing to shelters, restrooms, and the zoo's different areas:
"Come on! I want to find all of Eco's ancestors!"
"Your dog?" Alex asked, lifting an eyebrow in skeptical surprise.
"Yes!" the boy affirmed, brimming with enthusiasm, before darting ahead and seizing his friend's hand.
Alex didn't pull away—if anything, she blushed—while grumbling at Renn's logic: "But he's just a holographic pet…"
"So what!" the boy shot back with a wide grin, his brown eyes sparkling beneath the filtered glow of the glass domes.
Trying to act like an ordinary mother, Joy raised a hand with forced delicacy, as though afraid they might leave her behind, and said softly:
"Don't run off, kids…"
Seeing straight through her act, her son turned and shot back cheekily:
"As if we could leave you behind…" Then, giving her a slow once-over, he added: "Monster."
Joy blinked several times, struggling to contain the vein throbbing at her temple at the obvious insult. Her hand hung frozen in the air until it dropped, along with her head, drained of strength in a defeated sigh.
Unable to grasp the normality she so desperately longed for.
She recovered instantly, though, when she lifted her gaze and saw her son and Alex smiling—truly smiling—away from their screens.
It had been her idea, after all, to introduce her son to the wonders of World of Hammercraft 2—The demanded sequel to the: sandbox mmorpg in which you get to write your own story, instead of following a laid out path...
Just so they could play together whenever she was away from home. And the game had been an overwhelming success.
Not only had it hooked her son, but also other members of her unit, who used it to spend time with their children—like Alex—and with family and friends between missions.
"Is this what my parents felt?" she wondered, shifting her left leg forward in a simple step through the crowd at the entrance, as if nothing had happened.
Her mind drifted back to her own nerdy childhood and adolescence—shut in her room, immersed in video games and anime.
"And that's how it would have stayed… if my genes hadn't been so malleable," she murmured under her breath as her foot touched down. Completing what seemed like an ordinary, harmless step—until, instead of moving forward… she vanished.
Leaving behind only a faint swirl of displaced air where she had been, too fast even for the drones to catch.
Appearing a heartbeat later beside the two children… as though she had never lagged behind at all.
Just as the "monster" her son had called her… and she took her revenge with a playful smack on his backside, one that made him jump in surprise—along with a yelp of pain.
-
While Alex and Renn—still rubbing their sore backsides—ran through the zoo's corridors, weaving between groups of visitors and holographic exhibits, the girl pointed with a mischievous grin at a floating recruitment sign.
It was an interactive hologram, projecting a close-up of a striking woman with silver-gray hair, framed by her iconic Hunter armor—slanted eyes glowing with a hypnotic blue light, lips parted in an almost seductive expression.
Yet it was the suggestive caption that truly colored the image, giving it a provocative undertone—awkward and embarrassing for those who knew her personally.
[Join the Hunters. We need you… I need you.]
Joy, who had just reappeared beside them in a subtle swirl of air, blushed furiously behind her sunglasses. "Renn, don't look at that!" she exclaimed, covering her face with one hand. The boy, however, grimaced in disgust.
"That's so embarrassing, Mom! How could Dad allow these posters?"
Alex laughed slyly, but her amusement didn't last long. As if the hologram had taken offense at her mockery, the image flickered and shifted. Now it displayed a bald man covered in scars, flashing a confident, radiant smile that didn't quite match his rugged appearance.
[Enlist! For your family, for your children, for your AI pet. Any reason is a good reason to… Fight!]
This time it was Alex's turn to squirm, her cheeks burning red as Renn and Joy burst into vengeful laughter. She complained as though the man himself were standing there.
"Dad! Why does he have to smile like that? You look… ridiculous!"
-
At the same time… in a sleek, modern office inside a military base on the outskirts of New Mombasa—
A man sneezed loudly, then scratched his ear instinctively as he handed a digital report to his superior.
"Everything all right?" asked his chief—and the chief of all Hunters:
A tall, broad-shouldered man, his muscles forged in countless missions, visible even beneath his pristine command uniform. Short brown hair framed a square, stern face; piercing eyes shone with unyielding determination, surrounded by holographic screens projecting strategic maps and real-time alerts.
"Of course, First Seat. It's just that my ears are ringing… must be the effect of those new posters! I'm sure my little girl will love seeing her father looking so cool!" replied the bald man, his scarred face at odds with the kind, almost fatherly warmth of his tone.
Like a tamed bald bear, completely out of place.
The superior let out a dry chuckle as he skimmed the report on his tablet. "In my case… I just hope Joy doesn't kill me for signing off on them. According to the percentages and the ratings from the Mic, they're the most effective…"
Bald as ever, Alex's father shot back: "With the gooners… absolutely!"
The remark landed like a grenade. Renn's father scowled and, with a reflexive motion, slammed his fist onto the reinforced metal desk. Crack! The surface split in two, shards scattering through the air, the digital report blinking into error.
The culprit staggered back. "I'm sure some rookie's crying my name right now… goodbye, boss!"
The First Seat of the Defense Council inhaled sharply, breathing in the dust cloud he himself had raised—only to stiffen as the holographic screens along the walls flickered and shifted.
His own face flushed as he imagined his wife's voice whispering needing him.
"Damn posters!"
And then… the first alarms began to sound.
-
Meanwhile…
After a short stop at the interactive petting area—since keeping animals at home was forbidden due to the constant risk of unexpected mutations—the children continued their tour.
On the way out, Alex proclaimed her eternal grudge against the entire feline species. "I'm never trusting a cat again!" she declared, rubbing the tiny scratch on the back of her hand with theatrical flair, though it was already nearly healed.
All thanks to Renn himself who, the moment they entered the feline enclosure, had been swarmed by kittens, meowing and rubbing their little faces against him as if he were a sacred post to be worshiped.
Wanting a share of that furry affection, Alex had reached out, only to be cruelly rejected with a sharp swipe of claws.
The dogs, however, seemed eager to make up for her lack of love: a whole pack of boisterous puppies surrounded her, showering her with slobbery tongues, while Renn and Joy joined in, each getting their own dose of canine affection.
Satisfied—and a little sticky—the children made their way deeper into the mammals' section, into a quiet corner of the zoo where the corridors narrowed and the air grew heavier with the scent of damp earth.
Before them stretched an open habitat, set at a lower level, where a pack of wolves moved with quiet grace beneath the natural light filtering through the glass domes above.
"They're just like Eco—only way cooler!" Renn said, climbing up onto the railing for a better view.
"And also made of flesh and bone…" Alex added, peering over the fence beside him. "I still like dragons and griffins from Hammercraft better… Those are way cooler."
Renn shot her a skeptical look. "Yeah, but they're also… pixels."
"Not really! There are chimeras that look like them!" she protested, her cheeks puffing up without meaning to.
Renn opened his mouth to argue back, but stopped short when he noticed something strange. One of the wolves—the alpha, a black-furred beast—had frozen in place, staring at him with unblinking yellow eyes.
The boy tilted his head… and the wolf mirrored the gesture with unsettling precision.
"Uh… hey, look at this," Renn said aloud. "This wolf is copying me."
Alex and Joy followed his gaze, and sure enough, the animal mimicked every move Renn made, with an almost hypnotic focus. But when Joy stepped right behind her son, the effect multiplied.
The entire pack turned toward her, frozen in place, until a low growl rumbled through the habitat—not of aggression, but of submission before a superior predator.
Joy frowned. She was about to pull the children back to calm the wolves when, suddenly, the zoo's alarms erupted—sharp, shrill, and unrelenting, slicing through the air like knives.
The holograms of the ecosystems vanished at once.
The glass domes sealed themselves beneath a second metallic layer, plunging everything into a suffocating darkness… until the emergency lights flickered to life in crimson.
The digital walls reconfigured into a holographic map of New Mombasa:
Sectors on the far side glowed scarlet, marked under attack.
Then, the image of a warrior goddess emerged on every projector across the city.
It didn't matter where people were—inside an elevator, in a bathroom, or in the middle of a park with not a single device at hand—the super-AI connected to every city on Earth would find a way to reach them, even if it had to dispatch a swarm of drones to deliver the message.
Her voice thundered—firm, unyielding… yet kind:
["Attack in progress. Please proceed to the nearest shelter. Remain calm."]
At the zoo, Athena's hologram lingered a heartbeat longer than anywhere else in the city—just enough to fix her gaze on a single woman among the thousands present, urging her to hurry.
Joy answered with a nod, resting her hands on the children's backs.
"Come on, kids. Stay close to me. I'll take you to a shelter with your teacher before I join your dads and the other Hunters."
The children obeyed and took her hand.
Despite the urgency, no one panicked. The visitors, seasoned by drills and real threats alike, silently followed the glowing arrows on the floor, moving in orderly lines toward the exits.
At least… until a deafening crack tore through the air from above.
The armored layer shielding one of the domes splintered apart, as though it were flimsy plastic instead of the strongest alloy known.
Within seconds, it collapsed, shattering the glass that kept the environment sterilized.
From the explosion—amid shards of crystal falling like razor rain—burst a grotesque figure.
A chimera with the colossal body of a salamander, as large as a basketball court. Horns spiraled from its skull, twisting into a crown of living bone. Its eyes were crimson lightning, trapped beneath an iridescent film that zigzagged across its swollen face.
Its skin was not "skin." But thousands of tiny tentacles covering its body. Thin and restless, they writhed like a field of algae swaying in an unseen sea. Dark scales were embedded among them—not grown, but held and manipulated by that tangled mass of appendages. Each plate tilted, rotated, or overlapped the others in a perpetual ripple, refracting the light like the reactive armor of a tank.
One glance into those impossible eyes was enough to shatter any calm. The sheer unnaturalness of its existence, so alien to all earthly life, made it unbearable to look upon.
Parents tore their children off the ground and fled screaming.
Amid the stampede, thinking it was just a straggler from the invading horde, Renn turned to Alex with a half-ironic smile.
"Look… your dragon."
"That's not funny, idiot! Besides, it doesn't fly, and it doesn't have wings… so it doesn't count!"
Yet the children remained steady, anchored by the reassuring presence beside them. Even if their parents had been there, they would not have felt as safe.
A fleeing adult slammed into Joy—yet despite being far larger, he was the one who hit the ground, as though he'd run into a concrete wall. She hadn't even staggered.
The creature hesitated.
Its flickering gaze wavered between Joy—whose scent screamed danger—and the cowering wolves, their genetic variety promising a feast to sate its ravenous hunger.
She didn't give it a choice. She stepped forward, slipping off her sunglasses. This time, when her foot struck the ground, she did not vanish… but revealed the reason for her fame, even among Hunters.
She was the first and only one capable of achieving a perfect fusion with her organic armor: Bellerophon, Wyvern Model.
She made it emerge from within her own body, for she wore it always.
At first, it was as though her very flesh rebelled. The fibers of her muscles tore through the skin from within, rising in living strands that twisted like throbbing sinew.
Nerves and vascular cords entwined with the fibers with primitive hunger, devouring the human surface and melding into something new.
In the next instant, that monstrous naked female anatomy was sealed beneath a grayish bio-dermis, leathery and hardened, pulling every fiber and tendon taut
From her pores sprouted the same organic mineral as the Chimeras. But unlike them, it grew in perfect symmetry, following the human design etched into her genes.
And yet… before she could finish, the Chimera lunged toward the pack of wolves, tails tucked as they howled in terror.
"NO!" Renn shouted, furious.
His voice did nothing to distract the beast, which opened its vast maw—revealing an endless tunnel of inward-curving fangs, aligned in concentric circles like the blades of some organic shredder.
Across the habitat, the boy raised his hands instinctively, shielding himself from the blast of air that knocked him flat to the ground.
Ignoring the pain of the fall, he raised his gaze—just in time to see his mother's Bellerophon fist slam into the beast's armored scales. They shuddered violently, straining to disperse the impact… but, unable to withstand her, they cracked with a sharp snap, letting her strike drive deep into the creature's back and rend it open in a brutal fissure
Flesh ripped apart, and a geyser of violet blood burst under pressure, splattering the ground, walls, and ceiling as though a ruptured pipe had exploded.
The Chimera, weighing tons, howled in agony as it was hurled against the zoo's concrete walls. The impact thundered like a cannon blast, cracking the structure, spewing dust and rubble.
-