The Beast Monarch

CHAPTER 7: Acquisition

The steel door dented again.

Not a knock. A beast skill. Something heavy, metal, S-Rank strength. The bolts on our side screamed.

Marcus grabbed Gale - still a fist-sized, angry grey chick - and shoved him into his jacket. "Evelyn, the notebooks! The incubators!"

Evelyn was already stuffing her hard drives into a duffel. Her hands were shaking, but not from fear. From rage. "That's my entire de-evolution research. Seven years. Cole wants it back."

The radio crackled again, louder.

"...repeat, Cole HQ reports breach of sealed SSS file, subject Shaw, Liam. Threat class: Monarch. Lethal containment authorized if subject resists acquisition..."

Lethal containment. For reading my own file.

Codex went ice cold in my head. Host. That's a Cole acquisition team. 5-Star handler. They don't recruit, they collect.

The door buckled inward. Through the gap I saw it - an Iron Hound. 5-Star, two meters at the shoulder, fur made of interlocked steel plates, jaws that could bite through a car door. And behind it, a handler in Cole black tactical gear, his own eyes glowing with command link.

He saw me and smiled. "Liam Shaw? Mr. Cole would like to discuss your talent appraisal. Come quietly and your friends don't get hurt."

Behind him, the Old Bridge auto-shop street was empty. Bureau wasn't coming. Cole paid them not to.

Street rule number three: When they come to collect you, you make it cost more than you're worth.

"Marcus, back tunnel. Now," I said, calm. Dominant, even though my bandaged hand was bleeding again through the gauze. "Take Gale and the drives. Go."

"Liam, that's a 5-Star -"

"That's an order, vice-lead."

Marcus stared at me for half a second, then nodded. He'd been calling me that as a joke since we were kids. Now it wasn't a joke. He grabbed Evelyn and dove for the maintenance hatch behind the incubators.

The handler laughed. "Vice-lead of what? Two F-Ranks and a fired researcher? Hound, fetch."

The Iron Hound ripped the door off its hinges and lunged straight at me.

Grim met it mid-air.

BATTLE SLIME vs. IRON HOUND. 2-Star vs. 5-Star. On paper, Grim should have been shredded.

But Grim had 100% Loyalty and I had Monarch Pressure.

"Grim! Don't block! Slide!"

Grim didn't block the bite. He turned his chest to slime and let the steel jaws pass through him, then hardened around the Hound's snout, trapping it.

The Hound thrashed, confused. Iron beasts hate fighting slimes - there's nothing solid to break.

I was already moving. I grabbed the only weapon in a bio-lab: a pressurized canister of cryo-fluid Evelyn used to freeze defective cores.

I jammed it into the gap between the Hound's plates and pulled the trigger.

White frost exploded. The Hound howled as its own steel fur froze and cracked. It shook Grim off and stumbled, half its body iced.

The handler cursed. "Mongrel slime - Hound, Iron Howl!"

The Hound threw its head back, plates vibrating. A shockwave skill. In this tiny lab, it would pulped our eardrums and brought the ceiling down.

Gale chose that moment to wake up.

From inside Marcus's jacket - he hadn't made it to the tunnel yet, he was watching - a tiny grey chick shot out like an angry bullet. He was 1-Star, defective, with one crooked wing.

He opened his beak and used Gust.

It was pathetic. A sneeze of wind that wouldn't ruffle paper.

But it hit the cryo-cloud I'd just made. And it pushed it.

The cloud of super-cooled particles flew straight into the Hound's open mouth as it howled.

The Hound's howl turned into a choking ice block. Frost sealed its throat from inside. It fell sideways, scrabbling at its own neck.

[Enemy Suppressed: Iron Hound (5-Star) - Handler Link Disrupted]

[Monarch Pressure - Bonus Effect: Beast disobeys cruel command]

I saw it - the handler's command link flickered. That Hound didn't want to be here. It was forced.

I put my hand on its frozen head. Not as an enemy. As a tamer.

"Enough," I ordered it, the same way I ordered the rift. "Sleep."

And for the first time, I felt the SSS talent do what Codex said Monarchs could do. Not evolve. Release.

The Hound's eyes cleared. The red command light in them died. It whimpered, then collapsed, unconscious, but alive.

The handler's face went white. "You... you broke a Cole Bloodline Contract? That's impossible without A-Rank -"

Evelyn was suddenly behind him, holding a stun baton she kept for defective beasts. She hit him in the back of the neck. He dropped.

Silence, except for the hissing cryo-canister and Gale chirping proudly on top of the unconscious Iron Hound like he'd done it all himself.

Marcus crawled out of the hatch, eyes huge. "Did... did Gale just combo with you? That was -"

"That was teamwork," I said. My legs gave out and I sat hard on the floor. Grim shrank down and leaned against me, exhausted. His arm was dented from catching steel teeth.

Evelyn looked at her ruined lab - door gone, incubators cracked, notebooks scattered. Seven years of work.

"They'll be back with a real S-Rank next time," she said. "We can't stay here."

"I know a place," Marcus said. "Old subway maintenance station under Old Tamer District. No cameras, no Bureau. The rejects crash there. They'd follow you now, Liam. After tonight."

I nodded. My vision swam. The System was flashing.

[Massive Energy Absorbed: +60 Points - Iron Hound Suppression]

[Level Up! Level 7 > Level 10!]

[Grim Evolution Available: Battle Slime > Abyss Sovereign Slime King - Cost: 50 Points]

[Warning: Evolution to 4-Star will trigger city-wide energy spike - Bureau will detect]

Level 10. B-Rank threshold. Two beasts. And I was still officially F-Rank.

Codex whispered, Host, we need to evolve him before Zara's fight tomorrow. Otherwise you will lose.

Before I could answer, headlights swept through the destroyed doorway.

Not Cole black. Not Bureau white. A beat-up grey bike.

Zara Cole fell off it. No makeup, hair messy, her expensive combat jacket torn. She was carrying her Frost Wyrm - not in a carrier, in her arms, like a dying dog. The Wyrm was barely breathing, black blood dripping onto her boots.

She saw me, saw the unconscious Hound, saw the ruined lab, and her pride finally, completely broke.

"They tried to put him down," she choked out. "My father ordered it tonight. Said a de-evolving dragon shames Cole. I... I ran."

She looked at Grim, at Gale, at me.

"You said trash can evolve infinitely. Prove it now. Not tomorrow. Now."