The Donnerdrache creaked as its landing gear deployed, the whining turbines finally slowing after the hours-long strain of navigating blizzard-choked Alpine airspace. Snow hammered the canopy, swirling in dense white walls that even the VTOL's thermal imaging struggled to cut through. The mountains had played havoc with their inertial guidance and satellite sync, and even with every advanced system screaming at full capacity, the navigation suite had steadily devolved into little more than a panicked compass.
Then came the voice.Clipped, official, unmistakably German.
«Unidentified aircraft bearing designation Donnerdrache - state your origin and intent. Your vector is being tracked. Divert course to Hangar Eight at Berlin Hauptfeldflugplatz. Landing clearance pending.»
It wasn’t a threat, but it wasn’t a welcome mat either.
Etrius sat tense at the controls, his green eyes narrowing as the static-stained voice echoed in the cockpit.
“That’s the first ping we’ve gotten in hours,” he said, flicking a switch to bring the transmitter online. His voice came through calm and clipped, despite the fuel alarm blinking red at the corner of the dash. “This is Donnerdrache actual. Two aboard. Requesting immediate ground support, priority one medevac. Passenger is wounded. Burns, second to third-degree. We’re low on fuel and requesting emergency landing clearance.”
A pause.
Static.
Then: «Donnerdrache, clearance granted. Divert to Hangar Eight. Medical crew en route. Out.»
Zoey was slumped in one of the crash seats behind the cockpit, a bandage half-wrapped around her, still glistening faintly with soaked-through coagulant gel. Her blackened scales, peeling, cracked, ran down across her ribs, chest, and upper abdomen in jagged, asymmetrical streaks, a grotesque imprint from the cockpit plasma lash during the dogfight. No armor, just bare, burned fur and raw flesh. Her breath hitched whenever the frame jolted. Her tail coiled low between her boots, unmoving.
“I swear,” she growled, lips curled in frustration. “Every goddamn time I step on this flying fuel drum, I get lit on fire. Or shot. Or electrocuted.” She leaned her head back, groaning as her horns knocked dully against the interior hull. “This ship is cursed.”
Etrius adjusted course, one hand gripping the yoke, the other toggling a deicing command. “You get hurt when you aren’t flying, too,” he said. A beat. “Let’s not pretend walking around has been any safer.”
Zoey gave a breathy laugh, pained and brittle. “Yeah? Maybe next time I’ll just mail myself to Berlin in a crate.”
“Shipping fees would bankrupt the continent.”
“Yeah. Assuming I don’t die of fucking frostbite first.”
The VTOL dropped below the clouds, Berlin emerging through the veil like a fortress pulled from the ashes of war. In the last century, it had gone from rubble to stronghold. The massive silhouette of the Hauptfeldflugplatz rolled out across the ground—one of the few airfields still functional post-WWIII, surrounded by tiered walls, blast-proof terminals, and the long arms of gantry cranes overhead. Snow hammered the tarmac. Soldiers waited in black winter armor, rifles slung but not lowered. A medical team in white marked suits stood off to the side, ready, but hesitant.
As the Donnerdrache touched down, its hydraulic struts hissed and whined, sinking into the wet concrete. Etrius killed the engines, the turbines slowing to silence. The wind outside still howled.
Zoey stood unsteadily. Her fur was matted with sweat and smoke. Her prosthetics hissed as they supported her full weight, every motion stiff from a cocktail of stimulants and painkillers. She didn't bother putting on a shirt. Her upper body was a wreck of scarlet skin, burned fur, and old tattoos twisted by new trauma.
“Let’s make this quick,” she muttered. “Before I black out and you have to carry my ass into Berlin like a sack of radioactive meat.”
“I can carry you,” Etrius offered. His voice wasn’t teasing, just matter-of-fact.
She scoffed. “You probably like it too much.”
He didn’t answer.
The hatch rattled fully open, letting the wind scream inside and scatter snow into the interior. Zoey stepped forward, her breath steaming in thick puffs as she loomed over the med crew. Her charred, exposed torso steamed faintly against the cold air, with patches of blackened fur and raw flesh glistening under the spotlights. Her tail dragged behind her like a weighted rope, leaving streaks in the slush.
She paused, sniffed, then spoke with a flat, clipped fluency.
“Ich bin Deutsche. Keine offiziellen Papiere.”
The medic in front, maybe thirty, pale-faced, armed with a clipboard and shock blanket, opened his mouth, then closed it again. Behind him, more staff and hangar workers had filtered toward the perimeter. Soldiers, logistics personnel, ground techs. Every one of them stared.
A silence fell.
They weren’t staring at the burns. They weren’t even staring at the tail, or the horns, or the impossibly huge prosthetic arms.
They were staring like someone had just opened a door that had been welded shut since 2077.
Then a voice cut through it. Gravelly, dry.
“Die ist von vor dem Krieg.”
Everyone turned. An older man stood a few steps behind the med crew, hunched in his thick coat, snow caked into the folds. His eyes were wide, but not in fear, recognition, maybe. The kind that came from archival nightmares and war briefings. He must’ve been mid-sixties, maybe seventy. His voice cracked again.
“She’s from before the war,” he repeated, still speaking German.
The shift was instant. People backed up without a word. Expressions darkened. Not in hostility, but in reverence. Fear. Understanding.
Someone whispered, in German, “The war...” as if invoking a curse.
Zoey didn’t react. Her body trembled, not from cold, but pain. She flicked her ears, rolled her eyes, and muttered in English, “Yeah, yeah. Ancient history. Can we fucking go now?”
The medical crew jolted into motion. Two of them gently rolled up a stretcher, and she collapsed into it without protest. Her arms dangled off the sides like heavy steel beams, and her tail swayed low as they carted her across the tarmac. Her eyes didn’t open again.
She was too tired to explain. Too tired to argue. Too tired to fight.
Etrius stood alone at the bottom of the ramp, snow already collecting across his cloak and prosthetic shoulders. The last of the med crew gave him a quick, uncertain glance before hurrying after the stretcher.
Two officers in long black coats approached, flanked by soldiers in snow-camouflage uniforms. One had a clipboard. The other, clearly higher-ranked, addressed him directly.
“Name?” he asked in English, accent heavy.
“Etrius vanRandr,” he answered, voice low and clear. “Companion and security for Zoey Lavender. Transhuman. I assume you’ve figured that out.”
They nodded, still stunned. One of them stared past him at the Donnerdrache, taking in the massive hull with visible unease. The VTOL still steamed in the cold, its landing gear embedded in the iced concrete. Faded insignias from another time remained on the side—military stencils barely covered by the fresh coat of matte black.
“That aircraft is a prewar GHI VTOL, Donnerdrache variant,” Etrius continued. “We salvaged it in the US. It’s been retrofitted, refueled, and rearmed. We're also in possession of a prewar Mantis-class 8x8 APC, manufactured by GHI. Modified for mobile habitation and long-range independent travel. It’s in the hold.”
The clipboard officer blinked hard. “That model... hasn't flown in a long time,”
Etrius nodded once. “It flies now.”
“And the... woman?” the second officer asked, not looking at him. Still staring after the stretcher.
“She’s what the war made, then what the world tried to forget. We’re looking for her birthplace. Built before the end.”
The officer stared. The wind howled around them.
“I see,” he said finally, though it was clear he didn’t. Couldn’t. “You are to wait here. We are sending personnel to inspect the aircraft and examine the contents. Please remain aboard. Do not leave the tarmac.”
“Fine,” Etrius said, turning to climb the ramp again. “But if they try to power her down without knowing how she works, they’ll set off every failsafe.”
That gave them pause.
“We’ll be careful.”
“I hope so.” The hatch sealed shut behind him, muffling the wind.
Outside, the figures around the Donnerdrache moved with exaggerated caution, as if it might take off on its own, or unleash something worse. And back toward the base buildings, Zoey’s stretcher disappeared behind concrete doors.
Germany had not forgotten what it had buried. And now, what it buried had come home.
The crew of inspectors circled the Donnerdrache like it was a dormant beast from legend—something they’d studied in textbooks, seen in old archive reels, but never expected to encounter fully intact, much less functional. Its hull was matte black, razor-edged and seamless where repairs had been blended into the original airframe. Here and there, exposed seams showed welds not from a factory but from someone who knew the machine—deep welds, solid. Others noticed patchwork armor, aerodynamic smoothing where none should exist on an old VTOL gunship. The hardpoints were loaded. The serials were new. The style wasn’t.
“Look at this—there’s nothing in the registry for this number,” one of them muttered, peering at the stenciled code just beneath the cockpit. “Format is correct, but it doesn’t match any issued blocks. This isn't a reactivation. It's a re-creation.”
Another ran gloved fingers over the wing root. “Frame’s clearly from before the war. Same composite layering as late-GHI models. But the pylons are new. Mounting rails are modular—postwar standard.”
“And the engines,” someone else said, eyes narrowed at the nacelles. “VT-1400s. But rebuilt. Those housings are handmade. I don’t even recognize half of this...”
They glanced back toward the ramp where Etrius now stood, arms folded. Snow had melted off his coat from the heat of the VTOL’s engines, and the exposed edges of his carbon-and-titanium arms glinted in the white overhead light. He didn’t look like any pilot they’d ever met.
“All right,” the lead officer asked, stepping forward. “Where’d you get this thing?”
Etrius’s reply came steady, no hesitation. “Charleston Air Base. Found in a deep storage hangar. Still intact, barely. Zoey pulled it out by hand, repaired it with no external help. Just tools. We flew it to Sigma City after that. Got picked up by the local skunkworks. They did the final systems integration. Re-armed it. Gave it the new serial.”
The officer blinked. “She... repaired this? With just her hands?”
“Yes.”
“She? The fox?”
“Yes.”
Another inspector muttered, “Sheisse.”
The lead tried again, curiosity growing sharper. “Where are you from?”
“Sigma City.”
“And her?”
“Same.”
“Details?”
“No.”
The silence was brief.
“Sir, I need to log something more specific for this report.”
Etrius’s tone didn’t shift. “You can log: Sigma City residents. Anything beyond that is classified.”
“Classified by who?”
Etrius stared him down without blinking. “Sigma City Defense Force. I’m active covert operations. Zoey works alongside us—mercenary clearance, unofficial support role. That’s all you’re getting.”
The inspectors exchanged looks. The mention of the SCDF triggered recognition. Whatever curiosity was bubbling just beneath the surface began to simmer down. These weren’t just relic hunters.
“Right,” the lead said, visibly recalibrating. “And your reason for coming here?”
“Looking for answers. Specifically about Zoey. She was born in this country, at a facility that no longer exists. The location is classified. If you want more, I suggest asking the older officer who recognized her. He knows more than you do.”
That landed. They didn’t press further.
Instead, they moved to the rear cargo hatch. Etrius hit the controls, and the back of the Donnerdrache groaned open, revealing the Mantis inside—hulking, angular, a blunt mass of armored survival and black-red detailing that looked more like a siege engine than a mobile command vehicle. The security team paused again, the same way they had when they saw Zoey: uncertain whether to ask questions or just observe in silence.
“Mein Gott,” one of them muttered, stepping up toward it. “That’s a Mantis-35.”
Another followed, squinting at the roof-mounted solar panels. “But it’s different. These side panels... look hand-cut. That turret’s gone...”
“It’s not a combat vehicle anymore,” Etrius offered. “Zoey lives in it. She modified it herself.”
The officer turned. “Where did she get this? That model predates most of the war.”
“I don’t know,” Etrius said honestly. “There were a bunch of them in Charleston. Same with the KKP-42s. Some still functional. Some not.”
That got them murmuring.
“There was German armor in Charleston? Why? The US fought the Russians during the war. Germany wasn’t part of the continental campaign.”
Etrius shrugged slightly. “No idea. Your guess is better than mine.”
The team looked at each other, unsure what to make of it. It didn’t fit the war records. Didn’t line up with deployments. For all they knew, it was a ghost.
And that ghost had flown into Berlin in a living piece of history.
They kept inspecting. Etrius kept answering.
And outside, the snow kept falling.
Zoey's consciousness flickered in and out under the haze of pain and shock as she was rolled through the hospital’s triage corridor, the gurney clattering softly beneath her. Fluorescent lights overhead flickered past in pulses, reflecting dully off her scorched chest and blackened cybernetic arms. Her breathing was shallow, forced through gritted teeth, and her tongue flicked unconsciously across her lips, tasting the antiseptic air.
To the trauma team, she was an alien made flesh.
The moment they entered the emergency bay, motion froze.
Nurses stopped. Anesthesiologists hesitated. Orderlies stepped aside. The room wasn’t silent, it was cautious. Every eye locked on the figure splayed out across the surgical table: over eight feet of muscle, fur, and metal; a fox-like demon with a lizard’s underbelly and horns curling like war trophies from her brow. Her tail, scaled and powerful, thumped once against the floor before going still again. Her burned torso was mottled with plasma scoring and broken fur, glistening raw and steaming faintly in the heated room.
One nurse whispered, “What is that?”
The lead trauma doctor snapped his fingers. “Shut it. She’s bleeding and burned. Triage first.”
He was in his early fifties, sharp-faced, with half-moon glasses and an old Bundeswehr pin still tucked into his coat lapel. His voice cut through the hesitation.
“Vitals, scan, draw blood now. I want her DNA run through the national records and I want to know what I’m treating. No assumptions. Species unknown, physiology unclear. Just move.”
Gloved hands began working. A mechanical arm beeped overhead, scanning her vitals in real-time, readouts spiked and jittered. Her blood pressure was high, pulse erratic. Her core temperature was far above normal human range, but not abnormal for her.
A nurse absentmindedly tried to insert a needle into her upper arm before realizing it wasn’t flesh, it was prosthetic. She quickly adjusted and found a vein in her neck instead, drawing thick, dark red fluid that shimmered faintly as it entered the vial.
It wasn’t just blood.
It reeked of something… alien.
“Sample acquired,” the nurse said shakily. “Submitting for analysis.”
The doctor nodded once. “Run it. Let’s see what she is.”
A tech moved to the terminal, sliding the sample into the auto-analyzer. The machine hummed, then pulsed with a quiet alert as it connected to the hospital’s internal records and the centralized Berlin database.
Then, a flicker. A warning tone.
ACCESS TO RECORDS DENIED.
The room went still.
“What the hell?” the tech muttered, retyping the command. “It’s definitely in the system. This… this isn’t a new genome. It’s archived.”
The lead doctor moved to the screen. “Archived?”
“Yeah, it’s...wait, what?”
A new message flashed in red across the screen.
RESTRICTED FILE - LEVEL 10 OVERRIDE REQUIRED
Clearance Level: UNKNOWN
The tech stared. “Level 10 doesn’t exist.”
The doctor leaned closer. “It does now.”
Someone cursed quietly behind them.
The doctor turned. “Get a specialist. No...get two. Bring in a vet and a herpetologist. We’re treating a scaled creature with unknown physiology and part of her genome is under lock by a government that doesn’t have that level of security.”
Within minutes, two more white coats entered, one a veterinary surgeon, the other an older man with a long grey beard, the university badge on his chest reading Department of Herpetology, Humboldt University. Both stared as they approached the table.
Zoey stirred slightly, lifting her head just enough to reveal an amber eye burning through the haze.
“What…” the herpetologist whispered. “Is she?”
The lead doctor exhaled. “Unknown. Her records are locked by a prewar override. Nobody on Earth is supposed to know she exists.”
He looked to the vet. “We need to treat burns. Primarily on scales. Advice?”
The vet exchanged a look with the herpetologist.
The latter cleared his throat. “On reptiles… we remove the damaged scale plates. Antibiotics, saline flush, and thermal control. Assuming they regrow, if they regrow. We’ve never seen scaling like this. It’s… perfectly symmetrical, patterned, and living. Not like any reptile I’ve seen.”
The vet added, “And she’s also mammalian. The fur complicates it. So do the prosthetics. We treat her like an exotic animal and a burn victim simultaneously.”
The lead doctor rubbed his temple. “Fantastic.”
Another medic carefully began shaving around the burned fur, while the herpetologist and vet jointly examined the scaled parts of Zoey’s torso. Where the white scales transitioned into raw tissue, they noted the fused dermal edges, the crystalline sheen at the margins. Some of the scales looked grown from something else.
One scale flaked off. Beneath it, living red tissue glistened.
Zoey let out a low growl, even as consciousness threatened to slip again.
The doctor leaned close. “You’re safe. You’re in Berlin. Just… rest. We’re figuring it out.”
Zoey didn’t answer.
She just stared up at the ceiling, jaw clenched, breath steady.
Somewhere in her head, the weight of a past she didn’t ask for, didn’t want, was clawing its way out of her.
The light above her bed buzzed faintly.
Zoey’s eyes opened.
A dull, sterile ceiling greeted her, white panels, faded seams, and the faint whisper of filtered airflow. Her ears twitched. Her head turned slightly against the crisp pillow. The room was quiet, but not silent. Someone was breathing nearby. Someone human.
She sat up fast, a wince immediately tightening across her face as pain clawed up her burned torso. Tubes tugged at her neck and arms, monitors shrieked.
Two doctors and a nurse flinched from their post at the side of her bed.
“What the fuck is this?” Zoey barked, voice ragged, higher than expected, yet filled with fire. “Why the hell haven’t you treated my burns yet? Or were you all just sitting around jerking off while I roasted?”
Her prosthetic arms flexed as she tried to rip the IV line from her neck. A nurse quickly reached out to stop her.
“Don’t—! You’re stable. Please. We have started treatment. Just not...uh...standard.”
“Try again, sweetheart,” Zoey growled. “You think this...” she motioned to her chest with a twitch of her fingers, where swaths of bandages were secured across raw skin and stripped fur “is standard? You’ve patched roadkill better than this.”
The lead doctor stepped forward, composed but cautious. “We’re working with very little data. You’re not human. We don’t know what you are. And we can’t access your medical records. The system flagged you. Locked you out.”
Zoey narrowed her eyes. “Locked out?”
He nodded, gesturing to the terminal nearby. “Your DNA returned a partial match in the national registry. But your file is archived and sealed behind Level 10 clearance.”
“So,” she muttered, easing her back against the pillow, her eyes tracking every movement in the room, “you’ve been poking at me without knowing who I am?”
“We’ve only done superficial treatment. We consulted with veterinary and herpetological specialists due to your unique physiology. Your scales, on the abdomen and tail, responded well to the recommended protocols. We removed the most damaged layers and applied an antimicrobial and regenerative compound. Your burns are... in recovery.”
Zoey sat silent for a second, jaw tight. Then her voice lowered, flat, bitter.
“I was created here. Germany. Fifty-five years ago. One of two. The other’s unaccounted for. Nazi facility, one of the black sites. You won’t find it on any map unless you’re digging under classified bunkers or in old Reich archives.”
The room went still. One nurse took a reflexive step back.
“I was their infiltration unit,” she continued. “First a punching bag. Then a test subject. They called it research, I called it pain. When the Allies stormed the place during World War III, they pulled me out. I thought I was saved.” Her amber eyes glinted. “I wasn’t.”
“They brought you to the States,” the younger doctor whispered.
“Yeah. Thought it would be different. It wasn’t. Just another cage with prettier walls and a new batch of white coats who didn’t bother asking where I came from. Injected me with everything they had. Broke me down. Rebuilt me.”
She lifted one arm, carbon fiber gleaming under the overhead light. “These came later. After I got out. After I earned the right to live.”
The older doctor adjusted his glasses. “And now you’ve come back.”
“Yeah.” She nodded slowly. “Funny thing is, I didn’t even know why at first. I didn’t want to. But when something grows inside you for long enough - questions, memories, ghosts - you don’t have a choice. You follow them. Or they follow you.”
She exhaled, tired now, her voice softening for the first time. “I didn’t come for revenge. Or redemption. I came for answers. Even if I don’t know the questions yet.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then the doctor asked carefully, “You truly have no idea why you're in our system?”
Zoey stared at the ceiling, her throat tight. “I shouldn’t be. Whatever files you pulled… they weren’t supposed to exist. If they tagged me in that system, it wasn’t for healing. It was for hunting.”
She turned her gaze back to them, eyes hard again. “So if you're gonna keep me here, keep that in mind. Because I don't trust you. I don't trust anyone who wears a coat and carries a clipboard.”
The nurse swallowed.
The doctor nodded. “Understood.”
“Good.” She leaned her head back again, wincing as the movement pulled at her burned side. “Now get out. Or finish treating me.”
They didn’t argue. Just returned to work, gentler now. Slower.
And in the stillness of that hospital ward, surrounded by strangers and ghosts, Zoey quietly braced herself. For whatever answers were coming next.
The door slid open with a quiet hiss.
Etrius ducked under the frame as he entered, his black cloak dusted with snow that hadn’t fully melted yet. The scent of antiseptic and sterilized equipment hit him immediately. His eyes swept the room, quickly locking onto the massive form propped up in the hospital bed—Zoey, shirtless under layered bandages, tail limp over the side, expression set somewhere between irritated and exhausted.
She looked worse than when they landed. But also…alive.
“Damn,” he said, stepping in, his voice low and calm. “You look like hell.”
Zoey rolled her head toward him, one ear twitching. Her amber eyes narrowed.
“Thanks. I thought I was glowing.”
“You are,” he replied, crossing to her side, “in the ‘might set off a radiation alarm’ kind of way.”
Her lip curled slightly. A tired grin tried to form, then gave up halfway. “They finally let you out of the ship inspection?”
“Yeah. Only after explaining that half of it was rebuilt by a walking trauma response with a wrench and enough anger to weld a warbird together in a parking lot.” He nodded toward her. “You, if that wasn’t clear.”
Zoey snorted. It hurt. She didn’t show it.
“Medical staff are confused,” Etrius continued. “They think you’re something between a cold-blooded dragon and a war crime.”
“I am a war crime,” Zoey muttered, staring at the ceiling again. “Just ask my records. Oh wait—you can’t. They’re locked behind a security level that doesn’t exist.”
Etrius raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I heard. Level 10.”
Zoey gave a short nod, exasperated. “And here I thought I was just some undocumented freak with a charming personality.”
He stepped closer, pulling up the lone chair in the room. It creaked under his weight as he sat.
“They know you’re German,” he said quietly. “Even if they don’t know how. There’s a sense of unease. Like someone touched a file cabinet they weren’t supposed to find in a bunker labeled ‘Do Not Open.’”
“I didn’t come here to stir ghosts,” she said. “I just wanted to find out who made me. Why they made me. What the fuck they wanted.”
“You might’ve done all three without meaning to.”
She looked at him for a long moment. “They think I’m in the system, but it’s not me. There’s no way. I was buried. Discarded. Burned. That should’ve been the end of it.”
“Unless someone else made it out.”
Zoey’s eyes narrowed again, but this time, there was hesitation behind the anger. “You think that’s it? How? Surely, we would have heard of something by now? 'This just in, a perfect body double of the terrorfox feeding the homeless and adopting puppies'. Get real, Etz.”
“I don’t know,” Etrius said. “But that doctor? He said there was a partial match. He didn't say an exact match. Maybe someone else left that lab. Someone like you.”
She exhaled slowly. It wasn't fear on her face, but it was close. A haunting realization with no weight behind it yet. Not until it solidified.
“Nein, I don't believe it,” she whispered.
Etrius didn’t press.
The room sat still for a few seconds, the low rhythm of hospital machines quietly filling the space between them.
Then Zoey leaned her head toward him slightly. “They treat you like you’re dangerous?”
“They treat me like I’m your bodyguard,” he said. “And like I brought a gunship to Berlin without permission.”
She chuckled. “Well. You kinda did.”
“Not sorry.”
“You shouldn’t be.”
They sat like that, in silence, for a little while longer, her recovering, him watching. The weight of the past settled between them like a cold fog rolling in.
Etrius leaned back, fingers tapping lightly on the titanium plating of his forearm.
“When you’re ready,” he said, voice low, “we’ll go find the place they made you.”
Zoey didn’t nod. But she didn’t argue either.
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