Chapter 01 - January 15th, 2084 - Found You

Rusted Fang - West Spire

Benjamin Croft had never liked the Rusted Fang when it was crowded.

The place pulsed with too much life.

Laughter spilling over the music. Smoke crawling toward the ceiling fans, the stench of liquor, sweat, and metal hanging in the air.

He preferred it in those rare hours of the day, when the bar's heartbeat slowed to a whisper.

Tonight, the Fang was packed shoulder to shoulder. The floor stuck faintly beneath his boots. Every surface vibrated.

He stood at the far end of the counter, his tall frame cutting through the blur of mercenaries, dockhands, and off-duty Vestal soldiers.

He didn't belong in the chaos, and somehow, it showed.

"Something to drink, Ben?"

The voice rose bright and easy over the din.

Behind the bar, Damien worked like a magician of glass and flame. Seventeen and already legendary among the Fang's regulars, sleeves rolled past his elbows, towel slung over his shoulder, he juggled mugs and bottles with effortless precision.

Golden light caught in his dark hair every time he moved. Fast and assured. A craftsman born for the stage of noise. His reflexes snapped bottles midair with unnatural sharpness.

Benjamin's reply was quiet, nearly swallowed by the music.

"Not tonight."

He studied the boy for a moment.

The unscarred confidence, something untested behind his eyes.

"Don't you think you're a bit too young to be working like this?"

Damien grinned, boyish and utterly unafraid.

"Come on, Ben,"

He went on, laugh light but edged.

"What choice did we have?"

A faint shrug.

"Might as well enjoy it."

Ben tilted his head slightly.

"Do you?"

Damien's smile narrowed into a thin smirk.

He set three shot glasses on the bar with practiced ease.

"So far..."

He uncorked a bottle of tequila. Golden liquor splashed into the first glass.

"Acceptable."

The second.

"Manageable."

The third filled to the brim before Damien looked back up at Benjamin, his grin widening.

"Never dull."

He raised his voice toward the far end of the bar.

"Three shots to kill ya!"

A rare softness flickered across Benjamin's face.

The slightest curve at the edge of his mouth.

He reached across the counter and ruffled Damien's hair.

Rough, almost brotherly. Awkward in its humanity.

"Suit yourself," he muttered.

He turned toward the door.

"Off somewhere?"

Damien called, still smiling as he wiped down the counter.

Benjamin paused in the doorway.

"For air."

Then he was gone.

...----------------...

Old Quay - South Bastovar

Rain had come and gone, leaving cobblestones slick beneath the lamps.

Bastovar's Old Quay breathed in smoke and half-lit sign. Light rippled across puddles like molten gold. The scent of salt, oil, and faint tang of rust lingered heavy in the air.

The murmur of cargo ships far out at sea, creaking cranes, and restless waves blurred into a single pulse beneath his ribs. Sharpening his instincts and a hunger already too familiar with all of this.

He turned down a narrow side street where the light was dimmed and the air sharpened with cold.

A rusted gate appeared marking the entrance he sought.

At a glance, it looked like nothing more than an underground maintenance access, sitting half-hidden behind forgotten crates and creeping vines.

He stepped in.

The gate groaned as it gave way behind him. He slipped through and continued descending.

The stairs descended slow but steady, drawing him deeper underground.

Bootsteps echoed against wet concrete. The drip of unseen water. The faint hiss where tunnels met Bastovar's underbelly.

A vibration, off-pattern, hit him. Growing stronger with each step. Pulling him toward the darkness.

Even faint, it was there, a warm hum at the edge of perception.

Distant but growing clearer.

Corruption clung to the air like iron, thick enough to taste.

The tunnels beneath Old Quay twisted through sewage and steel. Remnants of a district abandoned after the fall of the Old Iskander Council.

When the Old Council collapsed, it hadn't died clean.

It rotted.

Each districts that once was held by the Council, had bled in its own way. Chaos spilling into the Republic's veins until the Dynasty stepped in to cauterize what others had abandoned.

Old Quay had once been one of them, now it was his sector. His burden. His wound.

The mouth of a festering wound beneath the city.

He guarded it like a wolf guards flesh that refuses to heal.

And in that decay, things like the Crawlers fed.

A mistake.

An abomination.

Once human now something far from it.

Old Quay was infested with them.

They called it governance failure.

Benjamin knew better.

It was infection.

So.

Crawlers.

He had hunted them since he was sixteen.

Benjamin never needed wave-trackers or resonance scanners. He was a tracker by blood. By instinct. He didn't just find them anymore.

He felt them.

In the rhythm of walls.

In the stutter of silence where life should be.

He found them soon enough.

His head snapped sharp toward the screech of claws scraping across a metal surfaces.

The first Crawler crouched near a rusted pipe, sniffing at the residue of a resonance leak.

Its mind was long gone.

What remained was instinct wearing a body.

It hadn't noticed him.

When he spoke, it wasn't loud, but it carried like steel drawn from its sheath.

"Let's hunt."

Benjamin moved.

The blade flashed once. Quick and easy.

The creature collapsed inward with a wet sigh.

He didn't slow.

Two more lunged from shadow. He cut through them in a single fluid motion, resonance flaring beneath his skin. That predatory pulse he barely contained.

Deeper still, the tunnels opened into an old maintenance chamber.

Eight this time.

Huddled around a dying generator. Twitching. Whispering in a language that scraped against sanity.

Benjamin smiled.

The first lunged. He met it with a rising cut that split sternum to throat in one stroke. The rest came in a ragged wave. Claws scraping steel, mouths gaping black.

He flowed through them, elbow to temple, blade through ribs, boot to knee. Resonance burned bright under his skin with each kill.

Then silence.

Eight bodies cooling on damp concrete.

Ended for now.

He exhaled a long, shuddering release. His heartbeat steadied. The noise inside him dropped to baseline. He wiped his blade against his sleeve.

Moments later, heavy boots echoed through the tunnels.

A Vestal patrol.

Late.

"Who's there?!"

Benjamin stepped into their flashlight beams, calm as shadow, uniform streaked with gore.

"It's me."

Rifles wavered.

"Holy, Commander Benjamin? What the hell are you doing down here?"

"Clearing noise,"

He replied dryly.

"Call for cleaners."

He didn't wait.

By the time they lowered their guns, he was already gone. Climbing back toward the surface like something returning from the underworld.

He emerged into the cool night air and retraced the route he'd taken in.

His motorcycle waited where he'd left it.

He swung onto the saddle and headed east.

Past abandoned blocks.

Past the canal.

Past quiet suburban streets that grew steadily denser as the city came back to life.

Warehouses gave way to storefronts and apartments.

Rust yielded to amber streetlights.

New Bay.

South Quay.

He stopped in front of a three story building.

Long unoccupied.

Still meticulously maintained.

He turned into the narrow alley beside it and parked his motorcycle.

Circling to the rear, he checked the back door.

Still locked.

Still intact.

Nothing appeared out of place.

Poliana had offered him the building years ago.

A place to disappear whenever he had no desire to return to Hillhigh...

...or the Spire.

Maybe not tonight.

He stepped back onto the main road.

A short walk away, a park sat at the mouth of the Strait of Thalos, wedged between the night market and the distant cranes of South Quay Harbor.

Plaza Seven.

The night breathed differently the closer he stepped into the plaza.

The market thrummed with fragile, stubborn normalcy.

Laughter rising from food stalls. Smoke curling from grills. Music drifting from open doors.

Benjamin passed through unnoticed. His dark uniform blended into shadow. The stains on his gloves might passed for oil or rain.

To most, he was simply another Vestal operative crossing the night.

He walked without destination, paying little attention to where his feet carried him.

The crowd blurred into streaks of amber and neon. The sound of conversation blends into a distant warm buzz.

Then something caught his ear.

His pace slowed.

Another step.

Then he stopped.

A sound threaded through the market's noise.

Music.

Faint at first, then clearer.

The world narrowed to that melody.

Pulled at his senses like a beacon.

It led him toward a small café at the corner of a narrow lane. Amber light spilled from its windows, warm against the cold air.

Inside, a modest band played.

Guitar.

Keyboard.

Soft percussion.

And at the center...

A voice.

A young woman's voice.

The delicate notes of a harp shimmered beneath her singing, weaving through the melody like threads of light.

He felt it then.

The hum of the wolf inside him faltered.

Through the glass, he saw her. Barely out of her teens. Black curls spilling loose over her shoulders, eyes half-closed as she leaned into the mic, singing with a grace that didn't try.

The room had fallen still around her.

Laughter softened.

Conversations hushed.

Her voice was not flawless. It trembled at the edges, brushed against imperfection. But within that tremble was something he had never encountered.

Resonance.

Unlike the cold, predatory pulse in his veins.

This was luminous.

Gentle.

Alive.

A wave that did not devour, only settled.

It shouldn't have been possible.

It didn't make sense.

For the first time in years, his body missed a step.

The storm within him, the hunger only blood and battle ever quieted, fell silent.

His pulse slowed.

At the stage, the café lights caught in her eyes as she smiled shyly at her bandmates.

The smile.

Something buried deep within him, something untouched since childhood, stirred.

He glanced at the chalkboard near the entrance.

Performing Tonight: Saloka

The name lingered in his mind. Soft yet heavy with meaning he didn't understand.

Saloka.

He repeated it inwardly, testing it like a secret. It didn't feel like a name at all. More like something already waiting inside him.

His jaw tightened, hand curled loosely at his side. The hum in his chest returned but warmer now.

Unfamiliar.

The song ended.

Applause rose from inside the room, a steady swell of sound through the glass. She bowed, her smile still bright.

One of the bandmates spoke into the mic.

"Stay tuned for our second set!"

The song was over but apparently not her night.

Outside, Benjamin Croft, stood on the wet cobblestones of South Quay and felt the first tremor of something far more dangerous than hunger.

Something that made the storm in him stall.

Under his breath, almost reverent, he whispered,

"Songbird."

He stepped closer to the door.

Clink—

The door swung open, and for the first time in a long time, Benjamin stepped into a place built for warmth instead of war.

Laughter blended with the tail end of applause. The air was thick with coffee and fresh pastries, cinnamon, butter. Softening the edges of the night.

Benjamin inhaled.

Coffee.

The café roasted its own beans. The scent strong enough to mask the iron tang clinging to his uniform. Blood, thinned beneath roasted bitterness.

The café was crowded.

Every table filled with students, office workers, couples leaning close over steaming cups.

A single table and a chair in the far corner stood empty. Back to the wall facing the stage.

Perfect.

He moved through it without a sound. A tall shadow among chatter and light. People shifted as he passed, not looking at him, not knowing why.

He took the seat.

A young waiter approached, a tray tucked neatly against his chest.

"Good evening, sir. The QR code on the table will take you to our menu if you'd like to have a look."

Benjamin looked up.

"O-or I can take your order now."

The young man's words caught in his throat.

He swallowed hard beneath Benjamin's steady gaze.

"Long black."

"Y... Yes, sir."

He nodded and withdrew quickly.

Benjamin leaned back, the pull in his chest still there.

He wasn't hunting this time.

He was simply waiting.

Something he hadn't done in quite some time.

On the stage, the girl adjusted the harp, fingers testing the strings. Applause rose again, but it reached him only as background noise.

She dipped her head in thanks. Curls slipped forward, then she looked up straight at him.

Her eyes found his across the room.

Green-blue.

Luminous.

It felt familiar.

Impossible.

She didn't look away which is impressive. Most people did. Even trained operatives broke under sustained eye contact.

But she held it.

Fragile yet unmoved.

He didn't look away either.

Even when the applause faded.

Not even when the coffee arrived and placed carefully at the edge of his table.

Untouched and irrelevant.

His focus remained fixed.

The girl's fingers returned to the harp, plucking its strings with quiet precision.

Then, she began to sing again.

There.

Again.

The rhythm inside him altered.

No longer the cold, measured pulse of the hunt. It became something else.

Unacceptable.

The storm in him leaned toward her, drawn without permission.

On the stage her gaze kept drifting back to him, again and again.

Every time.

Distance collapsed.

Benjamin's chest tightened. Hand clenched against the table.

The instinct to move, to close distance, to resolve the pull, rose sharp and immediate.

He suppressed it.

Stayed where he was.

Jaw set.

Eyes locked.

A slow exhale left him, lost beneath the café noise.

My songbird.

Unspoken.

Fixed.

Her set ended to a swell of applause.

The crowd rose.

"Sal!" a girl called her name.

The name carried.

Sal.

It can't be.

It brushed something old. A faint crease cut across his brow.

Again.

It sounds familiar but incomplete.

His gaze remained on her for a moment. Then he let it pass.

Names mattered only in use and this one was hers.

He stood.

The chair slid back softly against the floor.

A few heads turned, brief, uncertain. No one held his gaze.

At the table's edge, a QR code flickered faintly.

He scanned.

Paid.

The coffee on the table remained untouched.

Surface unbroken.

Benjamin moved through the crowd. Warmth parted around him. The bell chimed as he stepped back into the night.

And just like that.

The wolf had come and gone.

...----------------...

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