The scavengers dropped from the shadows like feral dogs.
Dirty bandanas.
Rusty blades.
Eyes that hadn't seen mercy in years.
One of them grinned, spit hitting the concrete.
"Look what crawled outta the trash."
He pointed at us with a chipped machete.
"Fresh parts. Fresh meat."
Lira muttered, "Don't engage unless necessary."
I cracked my neck.
"It's necessary."
The scavengers charged.
The first one came at me fast—too fast for a starving human.
But I'd seen faster.
His blade slashed across my chest, scraping the burnt plating with a metallic hiss.
I grabbed his wrist.
He realized his mistake too late.
My grip tightened—
bones cracked—
he screamed—
and I swung him into another scavenger like a blunt weapon.
They both dropped.
Behind me, the kid yelled, "Bro's wildin' again!"
Yeah.
And it was getting worse.
Heat surged under my skin, brighter, rawer than before.
The cracks across my collarbone crawled down to my ribs, glowing like sunlit magma.
The scavengers hesitated.
Lira didn't.
She raised her rifle and fired two shots, dropping a pair trying to flank us.
"Don't stand there!" she snapped at the others. "Move!"
But something was wrong with me.
My vision doubled.
The world warped at the edges.
The sun-core pulsed like it was chewing through my insides.
"More," the Crown whispered.
"Give more."
A gang leader lunged with a jagged spear.
I dodged—
—or tried to.
My body staggered instead.
Heat shot up my spine.
My knees buckled.
"What the hell—" I gasped.
Then it happened.
A sound tore from deep inside me—
a bone-deep crack.
My ribs shifted.
Not broke.
Shifted.
The plating on my chest split, revealing a glow so bright the scavengers shielded their eyes.
Lira froze mid-reload.
"K-17… what is that?"
Not what.
Who.
The Solar Fracture bloomed.
A jagged, molten line ripped across my left side—
veins glowing gold,
skin tightening,
muscles twisting into something too strong and too wrong to be human or machine.
My left arm spasmed.
The plating bulged.
Something beneath it growled.
Not me.
Something inside me.
The leader tried to stab me again.
Bad idea.
I caught his spear.
Crushed the metal shaft in one hand.
Then slammed my fist into his chest—
His ribs caved in.
He flew back five meters and hit a crate so hard it dented.
The fight paused.
Everyone stared.
Even Lira.
The kid whispered, terrified and awestruck:
"Bro… you're going beast-mode…"
I felt it too.
The heat.
The strength.
The hunger.
It was intoxicating.
And terrifying.
The remaining scavengers decided running was smarter than fighting whatever the fuck I was becoming.
They bolted.
Lira stepped in front of me, rifle lowered but not dropped.
"K-17," she said slowly, "look at me."
I did.
Her eyes widened—not with fear, but with calculation.
She was reading me, analyzing the mutation, trying to predict if I'd snap.
"Is this… part of you?" she asked. "Or something taking over?"
"I don't know," I said, panting, voice cracked by heat. "But it's not stopping."
Another pulse.
Another flash.
The cracks spread further—up my neck, down my arm—glowing brighter with every breath like hot gold seeping through stone.
She stepped closer.
"You need to stabilize before you burn out."
"I'm fine."
"No," she hissed, grabbing my forearm. "You're frying alive."
Her hand touched my skin.
It should've burned her.
But instead—
the light dimmed.
Just a little.
She blinked, startled.
"What the—?"
The kid whispered, "Bro, she's cooling you down!"
Lira yanked her hand back like she touched a live wire.
"I—I don't know what that was," she muttered. "But don't get used to it."
The mutation pulsed again, less violently this time.
The worst of it passed.
But the damage—
the change—
remained.
My left arm was different now.
Heavier.
Hotter.
The plating warped, reshaped, almost organic in its brutality.
A partial Sun-Beast limb.
I exhaled, smoke curling from my mouth.
"We need to move," I said. "Before the scavengers bring friends."
Lira nodded, eyes lingering on my cracked ribs for one heartbeat too long.
Then she turned.
"This way," she said. "The city's close."
We followed her into the narrowing tunnels, deeper into the underbelly of Erebus.
But with every step, the fracture whispered under my skin.
Alive.
Hungry.
Growing.
And for the first time…
I wasn't sure I could keep it buried.