CHAPTER 143: Insurrection-12

CHAPTER 143: Insurrection-12

They entered without making a sound, pressed against the wall. The room was a bare rectangle: concrete floors, unfinished walls, a flickering hanging light. In the center, a scene no plan had foreseen: a dozen men kneeling in a row, heads bowed, and in front of them, Elena Strauss standing, impeccable, as if presiding over a rite. Her smile, under that light, seemed colder than any flashlight.

Upon seeing them, Elena raised her hand and her fingers pointed, with no trace of surprise, towards Marcus and Agnes.

"Well!" she said in that voice that knew how to arrange words to hurt. "Enid Corp? What a peculiar honor in a place like this. And your hunter friend didn't come to say hello?" She looked towards the entrance as if expecting a reply that didn't come. "How strange…"

Marcus counted with his eyes: twelve figures, one behind the other. There was no time to weigh options. Thirteen against two was not a favorable statistic. He calculated coldly what they could do: distance, barricade, open flanks. None were good.

"We have no margin," he whispered to Agnes through a tense jaw. "Get away from the light, find cover, and shoot."

She nodded trembling, the pistol still damp in her hand. Her breath hammered in her throat.

Elena closed her eyes for a moment, as if in prayer, then spoke in a measured, ceremonial voice.

"Today you will see the truth," she announced. "In the name of regeneration, for the future that belongs to us."

The kneeling men began to move. A subtle gesture and their bodies contorted: joints cracking, muscles tensing. In seconds, the transformation was evident: statures growing, jaws changing, nails lengthening. It wasn't entirely human; it was something wilder and faster. Lycans, Marcus thought. And statistics stopped mattering: they had to survive the first onslaught.

There were no shouted orders: a roar contained all the fury. The first ones lunged like projectiles.

Marcus fired without thinking. The first fell with a groan, the bullet finding the neck; the second came straight and Marcus stopped him with another shot to the chest; he had time to turn and fire again at the third, and another went down. Three down in seconds that felt like hours. There was blood, yes, but he didn't dwell on it: they were necessary impacts, survival instincts.

Agnes screamed, turned white, and without any rhythm pulled the trigger: a shot into the air, another into the ceiling, one that hit a cardboard box. Her hands shook so much the grip moved. She missed when she needed it most. She pressed herself to the floor behind an overturned table, knees bent, eyes wide open.

Marcus struggles with a lycan holding him by the neck. Agnes, still trembling, fires chaotically. A bullet hits Marcus squarely in the leg.

"OH, FOR FUCK'S—!" he shouts, falling to the ground, furious.

Agnes, on the verge of tears, tries to reload with trembling hands.

The lycan holding Marcus opens its jaws to rip his face off.

BANG

Its head explodes like ripe fruit.

Fénix enters, kicking down the door, the frame splintering like cardboard.

"Did you start the party without me?" he remarks with irony, advancing without hurry, his gaze cold.

The lycans hesitate for barely a second at his presence. That second is enough for Fénix to draw and open fire. Bang—bang—bang—bang—bang—his shots are clean, surgical. Three fall instantly. Two others try to flank him. They don't succeed. One takes a direct shot under the jaw. The other, in the heart before even touching him.

"Marcus… did a really intern shoot you?" he says with absolute seriousness, as if reading an accounting report.

On the ground, one remains. Second phase incomplete. Human again. Agonizing. Trembling.

Fénix doesn't even look at him. Walks straight towards Elena.

Elena has instinctively retreated against the wall. She's pale. The terror in her eyes is no longer mystical. It's animal.

"You," says Fénix without preamble. "What the hell are you doing here?"

Elena opens her mouth. Trembles. She can barely breathe.

But she doesn't answer.

Behind Fénix, the last lycan rises with an iron bar and swings it at his head.

CLANG

The bar deforms like modeling clay.

Fénix turns his head. Slowly. Terribly.

His eyes express nothing.

Piercing his chest with his hand is a casual gesture. Like moving aside a curtain.

The lycan falls dead instantly.

That single instant of distraction, Elena uses to escape through the back door. Her heel slips. She doesn't look back.

Fénix doesn't even move.

He just exhales.

"Typical," he murmurs.

Silence fell like a slab. The echo of the last screams faded until only the drip of blood on the floor and the distant hum of the facility remained. No one spoke for a few seconds that felt like an eternity.

Fénix pressed the gun stock against his thigh and mumbled, not raising his voice much:
"What the hell happened? It was a simple mission. And as always… it turned into a massacre."

Marcus, leaning against a column with his injured leg bent, tried to sit as best he could on an overturned box and exhaled, pain and weariness mixed. He looked at Agnes, who had wiped her tears and was trembling on her feet.

"It had to go wrong as soon as the transformations started," Marcus said in a grave voice. "It wasn't just a rally; it was a ceremony. They had to be many and fast. They outnumbered and outpowered us."

Agnes sobbed and knelt for a moment to pick up the pistol she had dropped; her voice didn't want to come out, but it did:
"Sorry… I'm sorry, Marcus. I shot you… it wasn't on purpose."

Marcus looked at her, between anger and disbelief, and let out a soft curse. Then he took a deep breath and his voice softened just enough:
"It's fine. Just… breathe. If it wasn't on purpose, don't torment yourself now. It doesn't help us."