That night, deep enough into the woods that the camp lights didn't reach, Kruger had his cadets in formation.
He hadn't left. Technically they were trespassing, but that was a detail he'd decided not to dwell on.
"Sir," one of the cadets said carefully. "Is this — I mean, the property does belong to one of them. Doing something like this feels—"
"Cadet."
"Sir."
"Did I ask for a moral assessment?"
The cadet went quiet.
Kruger looked across the line of them, ten faces lit by nothing but the dark between the trees, and let the silence do some work before he spoke.
"We were humiliated today," he said. "In front of Outcasts. In front of students who didn't earn a single thing they have — they were born different and they've spent their entire lives being told that makes them special." He let that land.
"You weren't born with anything. You trained. Six months, every morning, every drill, every exercise I put you through. And then you stood there today and watched a boy with inherited property look at you like you were an inconvenience."
He looked down the line.
"Tell me that doesn't bother you."
Nobody said it didn't.
"Good." He straightened up. "So we're going to find that boy. And we're going to show him — show all of them — exactly what six months of real training produces." He looked at the trees in the direction of the camp. "Something you can't inherit."
The cadets exchanged glances. Whether it was legal was a separate question from whether they were going to do it, and the answer to the second question was already clear.
"Yes sir," they said.
Not all at once. But close enough.
They moved through the trees professionally, which was the most professional thing about what they were doing.
Then they heard voices and stopped.
"What the hell is even out here?" An irritated voice, somewhere ahead. "All I see is trees. More trees. Different trees."
"Patience." The second voice was different — low, unhurried, the kind of calm that didn't come from being relaxed but from having nothing left to be anxious about.
"I waited centuries for opportunities far smaller than this one. You've been walking for a few hours. This is why humans remain so limited."
Kruger held up a fist. Everyone stopped.
He looked through the trees at the two figures ahead. One looked normal enough — just a person standing in the dark. The other wasn't casting a shadow.
It was a shadow. A shape made of dark that had decided to hold still and take up space, and the only reason you could see it at all was because the darkness around it was slightly less dark by comparison.
Kruger looked at it.
The cadets looked at Kruger.
The collective expression moving through the formation was very clear and required no words: we trained for six months and followed you into the woods at night because of your pride and now we are standing in front of something that is not a person and this is entirely your fault.
"Oh," The shadow's voice shifted, almost amused. "You didn't notice we have an audience?" It tilted toward its companion. "Should we have some fun?"
Ten cadets turned and ran simultaneously.
No formation. No order. Just ten people making the same sensible decision at the same time and executing it immediately.
Kruger stood alone for exactly one second before he followed them.
Tyler watched them run.
He smiled — slow, genuine, the first real smile that had crossed his face in months.
Then the change started moving through him. His spine lengthened, shoulders broadened, the shape of him pulling apart and rebuilding itself in the dark between the trees without any of the resistance it used to carry.
"Looks like your audience isn't staying for the show," the shadow said.
"That's fine," Tyler said, his voice already dropping, thickening at the edges. "I'll catch up to them."
Ahead of him Kruger was crashing through branches at full speed, all that chest-out chin-up posture completely gone, shouting into the dark like volume was going to help him.
"Move move move — go go go — don't look back just RUN—"
"Sir what is that thing—"
"I SAID DON'T LOOK BACK—"
Six months of training. Formation. Discipline. All of it gone in under thirty seconds because of a shape that didn't quite look right in the dark.
Tyler rolled his neck once.
"Back in a minute," he said to the shadow.
"Take your time," it said. "We have all night."
Tyler stepped forward into the trees and let his Hyde nature take the rest of the way.
The footsteps ahead scattered — branches snapping, boots on dead leaves, ten people running with no idea where they were going. Then something changed in the sound of it.
One of the cadets caught a tree root and went down hard, boot catching it wrong, the crack loud enough to cut through everything else.
"Marcus—"
The cadet behind him stopped without thinking, grabbed his arm, pulled him halfway up—
Something landed on the downed cadet's back.
The scream that came out of him wasn't words. Just sound, raw and high, cutting through the woods and scattering birds from the branches above.
The cadet trying to help him stumbled backward and fell into the dirt himself, looking up at what was crouched over his friend.
Hyde. Full form.
"Oh god—"
"HELP—"
"RUN—" someone screamed from further ahead, still moving, not stopping.
The blood hit the ground dark and fast, spreading into the dirt, and the cadet on the ground stopped screaming.
The one still on his back in the leaves scrambled to his feet and ran, not looking, not thinking, just moving because moving was the only thing left.
Tyler straightened up slowly.
He looked at the blood on his hands.
The smile came back.
He liked this.
That was the part that felt new.
He stepped over the body and walked after the others.
***
A/N: And on Patreon, The Boys arc started.
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