Chap 104: Primal Warning

After spending a day at the park, Tee and her teammates headed straight to bed. But that didn’t stop her from waking up in the middle of the night to grab something light to munch on. To her surprise, Zod and Miko were up in the kitchen. They froze the moment she entered, as if caught doing something wrong.

“What a coincidence,” Zod blurted.

Miko spoke quickly, words tumbling out as if her life depended on it. “Tee, we’re so sorry. We didn’t mean to be talking about you behind your back.”

Tee’s heart spiked. She slammed the cupboard shut so hard that the silence afterward felt tense enough to choke on.

“What?” she demanded, pulse racing.

Were they talking about her? Surely they didn’t know she was a Xeno-victim. She looked between them, waiting for an explanation, refusing to speak another word.

Zod folded his arms and glanced at Miko. “Well, you were the one who brought it up.”

Miko’s lips twitched, trying not to smile as she turned to Tee. “You and Kie went to an onsen together,” she said, nudging Tee’s shoulder playfully. “Did anything happen between you two?”

Zod groaned loudly. “Alright, I’m leaving.” He started toward the door.

“No,” Tee said flatly, tearing open her snack and peeking inside. “Absolutely nothing happened.”

Zod heard what he needed and walked out without looking back.

“Oh,” Miko said, quickly shifting topics. She started talking about the swimsuits she’d bought for everyone and forgot to hand out. Even Snickers had its own mini pool. She wanted to plan a pool party soon. How fun.

Tee wondered if that would be a good time to tell Miko the truth about being a Xeno-victim. What would she say? Tee grimaced, imagining the nasty things Miko might whisper about her afterward.

The next morning, Tee got her usual good-morning kiss, then spent the time roaming Primus with Kie. He still refused to tell her what she wanted to know, but she counted his story about the explosion that caused his scars as a step in the right direction.

Later, the Commander announced that their training session would be replaced with a Leak mission. The breaches that allowed monsters from across the Veil into their world were unpredictable. No one ever knew when or where one might occur.

Just like before, the Commander kept their destination a surprise to train their minds to adapt to the unexpected.

Zod pinched his nose the second he teleported in. His dull eyes scanned the deformed trees poking through the fog, twisted shapes that no longer looked like slender monsters with too many arms—just freaks of nature.

“This is by far the worst place the Commander has sent us,” he said in a nasal tone.

“I’d say so,” Saeda replied, pinching her nose.

Her dark-green outfit blended perfectly with the moss-covered ground. She released her nose, her nostrils slowly returning to normal.

Tee didn’t comment. She was already scanning the area for the Leak, too focused to hear them. Kie stood beside her, keeping watch in case something attacked while her senses were occupied. He also just liked watching her.

To pass the time, Zod kept talking. “Speaking of getting teleported to places…” He rested a hand on his chin and hummed thoughtfully. “What if we suggest destinations for our next outing to the Commander? Who’s up for it?”

Miko stopped hugging herself as if she were cold, a smile brightening her face. “Oooh, me! I’m up for it.” She stepped closer to Zod. “Where are we going?” Her eyes drifted past him toward the fog-blurred trees. “How about JiaNova in District Thirty-Eight? It’s the entertainment capital of Geovalon—”

“Whoa, whoa,” Zod interrupted, stepping back to create space between them. “Let’s not go overboard. It might not even happen. For first-time appeals, the rule of thumb is to start small. Somewhere low-key but super fun—and not expensive.”

“It doesn’t seem like money’s a problem at Primus,” Saeda said.

“You’re right,” Zod replied, his lips stretching into a grin.

Saeda didn’t bother getting her hopes up. She kept her eyes fixed on Kie’s boots—far more productive than trying to sense auras. She was done frying her brain trying to figure out why her ability only worked when it felt like it.

Tee caught sight of the same four-eyed toad on a log for the fourth time and concluded it had probably killed the Leak. With her Absolute Vision, there was no way she could have missed the beast from across the Veil. Clearly, her foreseeing vision wasn’t the key to finding it.

A sharp sting shot behind her eyes, and then came Kie’s voice in her right ear.

“Thirty-four minutes.” He lowered his telecom. “Great. Now which direction is the beast?”

The others snapped back to focus on his words. Once Tee gave the direction, they could finally start working on escaping that stinking swamp.

Tee inhaled deeply, filling her chest with confidence, then met Kie’s eyes. “I didn’t find the Leak,” she said. “I scanned everywhere in this swamp-forest. There are no trees on the higher ground surrounding this place—but I checked there too.”

Kie glanced at his three teammates. “We split up. Make contact if you find anything—and no heroics.” His gaze lingered on Tee for a moment before the purple line on his black shirt vanished with the blur of his movement.

Miko zipped off next, then Zod and Saeda. Tee turned in the last remaining direction to continue her search. The words no heroics echoed in her head, contradicting what she planned to do. After all, she still needed to prove herself as the best Sentinel.

Sitting on that disgusting, soggy ground wasn’t an option. She could already imagine the jokes Zod would make about her “pooing herself.” Instead, she stood and prepared to scan again—that time, the air. Maybe the Leak had wings.

With her hearing sealed off, the world sank into suffocating silence. Tee stood perfectly still, breath trembling in her throat. Somewhere ahead, something watched her. The weight of its gaze pressed against her skin—cold, patient, deliberate.

The black water rippled. Then—slowly, deliberately—two curved horns breached the surface, slick with grime and algae. They rose higher, followed by the faint shimmer of fins unfolding from either side of a face too wide, too still. The fins flexed open like webbed hands testing the air, each movement sending small waves crawling toward her feet.

Tee’s spine prickled. A deep, primal warning screamed through her nerves, urging her to move—to run—but the ground beneath her was soft and treacherous, half-slush, half-mud. Her legs felt glued in place.

She forced her eyes open just as the water burst open.

The creature surged upward with impossible speed. Its mouth gaped wide—a perfect circle lined with fine, brittle spines that quivered like hairs. The sight jolted her backward. Her heel slipped, and she fell hard into the mud, cold splattering up her arms.

Then it was on her.

The spines scraped across her face and neck, searing like acid. Her scream caught in her throat as a numbing burn spread through her veins, freezing her limbs one by one. She tried to crawl, to lift an arm, but her body refused.

The last thing she saw was the creature’s mouth descending, stretching wider than seemed possible. Darkness swallowed her scream, and when its jaws snapped shut, the sound echoed only once—wet, final.

Her outstretched arm lingered a moment above the surface before it, too, sank out of sight.

After searching with no progress, Kie decided to check his holomap. Two minutes of staring at Tee’s location tag told him she wasn’t moving. Not again. Why was there always something up with that girl? She was either captured—or had gone solo.

He gritted his teeth and headed straight toward her signal. When he arrived, he froze. A severed hand lay on the ground, a telecom still wrapped around its wrist. He glanced at his holomap and confirmed it was Tee’s hand. The bloody gash at one end still oozed fresh blood onto the bright green moss.

“What the…?”

He scanned the area. Signs of struggle marked the ground, and a long, shallow groove stretched through the mud toward the water, already starting to fill back in. The surface still rippled.

Did she cut off her own hand to use as bait? It would be a crazy but genius move. But why leave the telecom attached? Something wasn’t right.

He picked up the hand and removed the telecom carefully. Wherever Tee was, he hoped she was still alive. Keeping silent, he scanned the fog around him. Maybe the Leak was still nearby, watching. Slowly, he walked away from the scene, planning to observe from a distance.

Once he was far enough, he decided he couldn’t keep it to himself. He activated the telecom. “Kie to Team Alpha—Tee is missing again. I found her telecom. It was attached to her amputated hand. There’s no way we can find her—”

The wind blew his hair aside. He stopped mid-sentence. Miko stood in front of him, breathless.

Even though she hated running at full speed over slick ground, she’d done it anyway to see for herself. “Oh no! And I haven’t seen any signs of monsters during my search!”

“Where did you find this? She has to be nearby,” she said quickly.

“That’s what I thought. I left the hand, thinking maybe it was part of her plan to lure the Leak. But why leave the telecom? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Or maybe the Leak attacked,” Zod’s voice came through the line.

“If so, everyone regroup at my location. We’ll continue the search from here.”

They gathered quickly, swords drawn—except for Miko, who relied on her speed. She dashed ahead, eyes sweeping the mist for any trace of Tee. When she reached the edge of a dark pool, a sudden thought chilled her. What if Tee was down there? If the Leak had dragged her underwater, this was where she’d be.

Before she could think twice, she found herself sprinting straight across the water’s surface. Shock froze her mid-step.

She was sinking. Instinct kicked in, and she forced her legs to move faster—so fast the water barely had time to swallow her feet. Splashes echoed beneath her, and cold droplets struck her face as she zipped forward. She was running on water.

With new determination, she kept her speed, her heart pounding. She was going to search every inch of that swamp until she found her teammate. The Leak could wait.

Tee’s scream had long faded from her ears, but the sound of her desperate gasps still echoed in the darkness. The acrid stench in the tight space around her was the least of her concerns. All her mind focused on was the exploding pain in her left arm, spreading through the rest of her body.

The agony was mind-stabbing, but she forced herself to focus. She had to summon her sword. She tried to conjure it with her other hand, but instead of feeling a handle, her fingers twitched uncontrollably. Something was wrong.

She struggled to pull her arms apart, but her body wouldn’t move. The slimy flesh beneath her shifted, pressing tighter as it pushed her deeper into the narrowing walls. Her legs were being squeezed from every side up to her waist. The bitter taste that reached her tongue made her press it against her mouthplate to stop herself from gagging.

For someone with super strength, why couldn’t she break free? It had to be venom from the drake. Was she really going to lie there like a loser, waiting for her teammates to rescue her again—and on a lower mission? Was the universe mocking her because she was a Xeno-victim, reminding her she’d never get her way?

Rage surged through her veins. Her lips curled, and her fangs shot out. She ripped her lips apart to scream, but before a sound escaped, metal claws burst from her right hand.

The drake convulsed violently. The tightening walls shifted direction, forcing her upward instead of down. But Tee wasn’t about to be swallowed and spat out like chum. That overgrown worm was going to regret ever putting her inside its mouth.

She gathered her strength and stabbed the wall, pulling her hand back toward her face. Vibration rippled up her metal claws as they tore through muscle nearly three inches thick. Dark green light ripped through the darkness to her right. Bubbly water rushed in, splashing her face, and she instinctively held her breath.

The drake had opened its mouth—but she was going to use the hole she made to escape. The creature’s thrashing sent violent tremors through her body. She pushed forward, widening the tear until she wriggled through and burst out into the water.

The crushing walls released her legs, and she forced them to move, paddling hard. The searing pain in her left arm made her want to scream, but she bit it back and opened her eyes wider.

Millions of bubbles clouded her vision, but their frantic movement told her the drake was still writhing in pain. She angled her body upward and swam toward the dim light above. Her head broke the surface, water streaming down her face. She gasped, filling her lungs with air—and for once, didn’t care about the stench of rotten eggs.

Her claws were gone. She lifted her hand to confirm it—nothing. Had she created them? How else could she have done what she just did? Chest heaving, she looked around at the rippling water. The trees nearby looked different from the ones she’d last seen.

Then she raised her left arm—the one still screaming with pain—and froze. It ended in a bloody gash below her elbow. Her glove was missing. Her telecom was gone.

Silence filled her mind as the reality sank in. She was already battered—and she hadn’t even faced the Leak yet.