D-Animal
Rafael stared at Elara in silence for a few seconds.
It wasn't a suspicious look.
It was an attentive one.
The corner of his lips lifted almost imperceptibly when he noticed the subtle shift in her posture—the way her weight adjusted, her gaze sharpened, her breathing far too controlled for someone who was merely "observing."
He spoke bluntly, as always.
— "Do you have a plan?"
The voice came out rough by habit, but there was respect there. Curiosity, even.
Elara didn't turn right away. She merely glanced over her right shoulder, her bicolored eyes gleaming under the aggressive light.
— "Yes," she replied naturally.
A short pause.
— "Of course I do."
She ran her tongue over her dry lips to moisten them, let out a measured breath, and crossed her arms over her chest. Her gaze returned immediately to the cell gate, assessing every detail—hinges, lock, wear on the metal.
Around them, the environment betrayed the effects of confinement.
In the cell ahead, a woman crouched in a corner, her index finger drawing an invisible circle on the floor again and again, as if following a logic that existed only in her mind.
In another, a man lay on his side, murmuring disjointed words, broken phrases, his eyes lost on a point no one else could see.
The lights were doing their job.
Elara clenched her teeth.
— "I'll have to wait for Lucas to wake up," she murmured, more to herself than to Rafael.
He answered immediately, without much thought.
— "You don't have to."
He shrugged.
— "I'll carry him."
Elara looked at him for a moment. Then she nodded.
— "Alright."
She took another deep breath and murmured almost inaudibly, as if speaking to herself:
— "Never underestimate a determined woman…"
She stood.
Walked to the cell gate with steady steps, despite the persistent pain in her back. She raised a hand to her hair and, with quick, precise movements, pulled two hairpins hidden among the strands of her bangs.
When she released them, her hair fell over her eyes for a second. She pushed it back behind her ears and crouched in front of the lock.
The metal was worn. Old. Functional, but far from modern.
Malik watched everything from the neighboring cell, arms crossed.
— "That's a waste of time," he said, tired. — "Opening a gate like that with hairpins only works in movies and bad TV shows."
Rafael leaned back against the wall, hands clasped behind his head in pure mockery—but there wasn't a shred of doubt in his eyes.
He knew that kind of silence in Elara.
She slowly raised an eyebrow, without even looking at Malik, and smirked.
— "There's always a bit of truth in myths," she replied calmly, fitting the first pin in place.
— "Just like there are always lies among truths."
The second pin slid in right after.
Her fingers moved with surgical precision, almost invisible. A faint internal click answered her touch.
She twisted her wrist carefully.
— CLICK.
The dry sound echoed through the corridor.
The gate unlocked.
For a full second, no one moved.
Then Elara stood calmly and opened the bars just enough to slip through.
Rafael didn't waste time.
He moved to Lucas, lifted the boy with surprising care for someone his size, and secured him firmly on his back.
Malik's eyes were wide open.
— "…You've got to be kidding me," he murmured, incredulous.
Elara shot him a quick look.
— "No," she replied. — "I'm leaving."
She stepped out of the cell.
For the first time since she'd woken up in that place, the sound of bars didn't mean imprisonment.
It meant possibility.
Elara flicked her hair back with a quick, automatic motion, sliding the hairpins back into her bangs as if she had never taken them out. The simple gesture restored some of her ordinary appearance—almost too ordinary for someone who had just picked the lock of an underground cell belonging to a secret organization.
She paused for a second in front of the open bars and looked at Malik.
— "We'll meet again in the future," she said casually, her bicolored eyes steady.
A brief pause.
— "If time allows us to survive."
Malik opened his mouth to reply, but no words came out. He simply nodded slowly, still processing what had just happened.
Elara turned and began walking down the corridor.
Cells followed one after another. Tired looks. Distrustful ones. Hopeful ones—far too hopeful for that place. Some prisoners stood when they saw them pass. Others looked away, afraid that hope was just another form of punishment.
Rafael followed close behind, steps silent despite Lucas's weight on his back. The boy slept deeply, his face pressed against Rafael's shoulder, completely unaware of the chaos around them.
As they moved, Elara murmured softly:
— "And the D-Armilla blockers?"
Rafael didn't slow down.
— "I'll handle it."
She raised an eyebrow, curious.
— "How?"
— "When I ordered my D-Animals to shut down," he explained dryly, — "one of them didn't come back."
Elara understood instantly.
A low laugh escaped her lips.
— "Kaine?"
Rafael just nodded.
— "Already put him to work."
As if answering a silent command, tiny metallic spiders began to emerge discreetly from the seams of Rafael's jacket, spilling onto the floor and walls with almost organic movements. They spread like living shadows, following the group without making a sound.
Two of them peeled off and slid back toward Malik's cell.
Rafael spoke out loud without even looking back:
— "Consider it a favor!"
The group reached the door of the underground sector.
Elara pushed carefully.
It opened with a minimal creak.
The air changed immediately.
The smell down there—old sweat, rusted metal, fear—gave way to something different: damp concrete, machine oil, forcibly recycled air. Still unpleasant, but breathable.
They began to climb.
Step by step.
Elara kept a hand close to her D-Armilla, ready to react. Rafael climbed with extra care because of Lucas, his body tense, alert to any sound out of place.
As they advanced, Kaine's spiders worked.
One of them infiltrated directly into the side slot of Elara's D-Armilla. A tingling ran through her wrist. The dead light flickered once… twice… until it stabilized into a faint glow.
The same happened with Rafael's.
— Crack.
A low sound echoed behind them.
Small metallic modules—the blockers—fell to the floor, inert.
The D-Armillas responded immediately, pulsing with a soft, living light, as if breathing in relief.
Elara smiled.
Before they could move further, she abruptly raised her hand.
Rafael froze instantly.
Footsteps.
Muffled voices.
Two SIF soldiers were coming down the stairs, chatting casually. Their boots echoed heavily against the steps.
Elara crouched quickly behind a support beam, her body pressed to the cold concrete. Rafael followed, flattening himself against the structure with Lucas still strapped to his back.
The soldiers passed just a few meters away.
One of them yawned.
— "Damn shift…" he muttered.
Neither looked to the side.
Neither noticed.
When the footsteps faded, Elara and Rafael exchanged a single look.
Now.
They ran.
They climbed the last flights of stairs as silently as possible, breath shortening, legs burning with effort. When they reached the top, Elara reached the final door and opened it just enough to peek through a crack.
What she saw made her eyes narrow.
People everywhere.
Agents. Technicians. Military personnel. Recruited civilians. D-Armillas glowing in different colors. The heart of the base pulsed there, fully exposed.
She closed the door carefully.
— "Too crowded," she murmured.
Rafael nodded.
That was when the metallic sound echoed again behind them—the last blocker being deactivated.
The D-Armillas responded in unison.
Elara didn't hesitate.
She raised her wrist and spoke firmly:
— "Fenrir."
The black wolf emerged in absolute silence, internal gears turning without a single clank. Three luminous bars projected from his back, forming an invisible field that rippled through the air like heat distorting vision.
Total concealment.
Sensors. Cameras. Trackers. Nothing would catch them now.
Elara opened the door.
They stepped out.
They walked among dozens of people unseen, unfelt. Fenrir advanced beside them like a living shadow, maintaining the field, metallic eyes alert.
No alarm sounded.
No head turned.
The Shadow Intelligence Forces base continued operating normally…
…while three of its prisoners escaped through the middle of it, invisible, silent, and dangerously free.
They moved with almost pathological care.
Every step calculated.
Every breath restrained.
Even so, nothing made sense.
The corridors repeated like a living labyrinth—identical walls, curves leading nowhere, false doors, staircases that descended only to rise again. The structure hadn't been built to function like a normal building. It was designed to confuse, to break orientation, to make intruders doubt their own memory.
Elara let out a short, irritated breath when Fenrir stopped in front of yet another dead-end corridor.
— "Seventh," she murmured. "Seventh dead-end corridor."
Rafael ran a hand through his hair, jaw locked.
— "This place makes no sense," he growled. "It's on purpose. They want you to give up."
Lucas slept heavily on his back, oblivious to the growing tension, his weight reminding Rafael with every step that stopping was not an option.
Elara was about to reply when—
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU—
The alarm sliced through the air like a blade.
Red lights exploded across the ceiling. Sirens layered over one another, vibrating through bone, making the concrete feel alive.
— "Shit," Rafael spat.
Before they could react—
BOOOOOM.
A deep, agonizing blast shook the entire structure. The floor sank a few centimeters beneath their feet, dust poured from the ceiling, metal plates groaned as if the building itself were screaming.
Elara's eyes widened.
— "…That came from below."
Another impact, farther away.
The walls vibrated.
Rafael understood instantly.
— "Malik."
Elara closed her eyes for a second, shaking her head in indignation.
— "He waited five minutes," she muttered. "Five."
Rafael let out a sound that was half laugh, half nervous breath.
— "I should've waited less."
They looked at each other.
The kind of look that said, without words:
What the hell is he doing… and why do I understand perfectly?
There was no more time for caution.
The labyrinth began to change—doors sealing shut, corridors closing, walls sliding slowly. The base reacted to the escape like a wounded organism.
They ran.
Turned one corner—nothing.
Another—blocked.
Another—smoke.
Then, suddenly—
Air.
Natural light.
— "There!" Elara pointed.
The exit.
A large reinforced door, half-open, outside light spilling through the cracks like a promise. Without hesitation, Elara went first, Fenrir breaking through the boundary of the base's internal field.
The world outside exploded into sound and space.
Rafael summoned Kaiser the instant he crossed the threshold. The ligre appeared with a muffled metallic roar, Rafael mounting in a leap, securing Lucas against the D-Animal's chest.
Elara mounted Fenrir.
— "Go!" she ordered.
They bolted.
They ran across the dam without looking sideways, without looking back. Concrete trembled beneath metallic paws, alarms screamed above and below, soldiers shouted confused orders that would never arrive in time.
Then—
BOOOOOOM!
A colossal explosion tore through the base's ground level. Part of the wall collapsed with a deafening crash, concrete and steel falling like an artificial avalanche, a cloud of dust swallowing half the structure.
The Shadow Intelligence Forces base was officially collapsing.
But no one stopped.
No one looked back.
Fenrir and Kaiser surged forward like living projectiles, crossing the dam, vanishing into the distance as smoke consumed everything behind them.
Behind them, the SIF burned.
Ahead of them…
the broken world awaited.