CHAPTER 150: Insurrection-19

CHAPTER 150: Insurrection-19

Marcus pressed his back against the service gate, breathing raggedly, staring at the backstage entrance. Too much time had passed without news. Every minute felt like a needle.

"Damn," he whispered to himself. "Fénix, answer."

Inside, the scene was cold and mechanical. Bruno held Fénix's Matilda as if it were a broken toy. With one hand, he bent it at an impossible angle; the barrel creaked and gave way with a dry noise. The pistol no longer existed as they knew it.

"I thought you'd be tougher," Bruno said mockingly. "The famous Uber Lycan… what a joke." He laughed, a deep sound that filled the room. "You disappoint me."

He let it drop aside as if it were a useless object and turned his gaze back to Fénix, who lay among boxes, trying to get up. Bruno grabbed him by the neck with an iron grip and lifted him until Fénix's feet left the ground.

"Still want to try, dog?" Bruno asked quietly, savoring the threat.

Fénix, against all odds, let out a rough laugh. Blood glued his lip, his eyes shone more from fury than pain.

"Hahaha…" he spat. "Do you really think you've seen the worst? Do you really think a bastard like you can finish this?"

The laugh came out like a wounded animal that still bites. His lips curved into a bloody grimace, and with the hand that still responded, he reached into an inner pocket of his jacket. He pulled out something small and cylindrical—a grenade. Bruno frowned, confident, not yet releasing him.

Fénix raised his head, looked Bruno in the eyes, and in a whisper that resonated with the truth of someone who has nothing to lose, said:

"This isn't ending today. I swear if you take me… I'll take everything with me."

Without waiting, he pulled the pin with a gesture and threw the grenade. Bruno reacted too late; the object described a parabola and rolled across the dressing room floor.

A brutal detonation tore through the air. A wave of light and sound, a blow that made the boxes and screen vibrate, and a metallic, acidic smell that stuck in the nose. The explosion wasn't clean: shrapnel and flame ripped through the space, and something more—a peculiar glow, almost therapeutic in its ferocity—swept the place. The impact threw everyone to the ground.

In the confusion, stage pieces, fabrics, and panels flew. Bruno was thrown backwards by the blast; his silhouette was outlined for an instant before disappearing behind a curtain of dust.

Fénix pulled on the strength he had left like tearing off a bandage: stumbling, crawling, with the smell of gunpowder and burnt flesh stuck to his clothes. The backstage burned behind him; small tongues of flame licked curtains and panels as thick smoke rose towards the zoo sky. With each push to get away, the heat burned the back of his neck and his throat burned.

Marcus had arrived in two strides; he found him curled up against a wall, clothes charred, mouth with dried blood. Without thinking, Marcus grabbed him by the shoulder and threw an arm over his neck.

"Get up, you bastard!" he ordered, pulling him forcefully.

Fénix got up with difficulty, leaning on Marcus like a firm stick. He breathed laboriously, his eyes shining through dust and blood.

"What happened?" asked Marcus, scanning the surroundings with a gaze split between rage and fear.

Fénix cleared his throat, his voice raspy and sharp as a blade.

"Hopefully," he said. "Elena… I told her to fuck off. She's out. She's gone." He paused for a gasp. "But don't think this is over. Not by a long shot."

They hadn't finished speaking when an enormous shadow fell over them: a dull noise, as if the night itself had shifted. They both turned in unison.

What appeared behind was an aberration of colossal size: a lycan whose stature far exceeded any creature they had seen. Easily four and a half meters tall, a humanoid mastodon. Its skin charred, tufts of burnt hair stuck to its neck, eyes that glowed with an animal light, and a jaw capable of splitting iron in any nightmare. The stench of burnt, metal, and blood floated in the air.

Marcus gasped. Fénix felt his stomach drop.

The creature didn't think. It pushed. With a single gesture, colossal and fast despite its size, it charged into the side of Fénix and Marcus, sending them flying several meters like rag dolls. The impact knocked the wind out of them; Fénix hit a service fence and rolled, vomiting smoke and saliva, while Marcus crashed onto the ground and felt a rib crack.

Before they could recover, the lycan was on them. Every claw swipe was a mace blow; every punch a localized earthquake that sparked when it struck metal. There was no technique, only primitive force and concentrated rage. It gave them a rain of blows that respected neither order nor strategy: both received equally, the world became noise and color.

Fénix tried to press himself to the ground to roll and dodge, searched with his hand for something to defend himself—a rag, a piece of rubble—but the creature swept him away with a hip movement that cut off his options. Marcus, by instinct, closed in towards Fénix, taking a blow to the side that tore a choked scream from him; his breath exploded in pain that made him see spots.

The lycan's punches weren't slow: they were brutally precise for its size. With each impact, flesh vibrated, metal screeched, and the earth gave way. Fénix felt his vision blur, his body like jelly. For an instant, the only real things were the sound: a roar coming from within the beast and Fénix's ribs resonating like broken strings.

Yet, between one blow and the next, with a split mouth and instinct sharpened by rage, Fénix managed to grab the edge of a fallen beam and, pulling on it with his last energy, threw it at the lycan. The piece didn't stop it, but it distracted it enough for Marcus, with broken breath and determination fixed in his eyes, to find the strength to rise and lunge with what little he had: a bent iron bar, a short rod he found among the rubble.