The silence in the room wasn't just quiet—it was engineered.
No ticking clocks. No humming lights. No distractions. Only stillness, thick and deliberate, pressing down like invisible armor.
Six people sat around a conference table forged from reinforced obsidian, its smooth surface reflecting cold light from the recessed panels above. No windows. No organizational charts. No names on the walls.
Because this wasn't a place for politicians or press briefings.
This was the war room of Aegis Division—a black-ops task force so classified, most governments didn't even know they existed.
Not officially tied to any country. Not bound by borders or bureaucracy. Aegis operated in the shadows to confront threats that didn't belong in any news cycle—things whispered about in redacted files, denied in public, but feared in private.
For decades, they dealt with anomalies: relics that defied physics, creatures that didn't match any known taxonomy, incidents that vanished into cover stories, and fabricated disasters.
But this time?
They would be dealing with something that had been gone for more than twenty-five years.
Beasts.
Monsters that once walked as men—smiling faces by day, slaughterers by night. They tore through neighborhoods like paper, turned streets into graveyards, and left cities destroyed behind them. In every case, there was always one common thread—a ring.
The silence broke with a voice sharp and precise.
"We're looking at three confirmed beast-men," said Paige Carter, rising slightly from her seat as the lights dimmed and the central monitor lit up. She stood at the opposite end of the room from the man who commanded not just the space, but the respect of everyone in it.
Paige was the youngest at the table, a sharp-minded field tactician with an instinct for pattern recognition and a reputation for calling things before the analysts could. Her blonde hair was tied back, her jaw clenched with focus. She might've been a Captain, but in this room, she was also the one everyone was waiting on.
At the head sat Admiral Gary Holden, his silver buzzcut and weathered features carved by decades of shadow warfare. He was one of the five Admirals in Aegis—leaders who didn't answer to flags or borders. And right now, he was watching. Listening. Saying nothing.
The monitor displayed the alley—cracked concrete, debris, claw marks etched deep into brick. Then, movement. The screen zoomed in on a towering figure with hooves and thick horns barreling through the narrow street, cracking pavement with every step.
"This one," Paige began, gesturing to the footage, "is what we classify as a Type-Taurus. Common across all known beast-related incidents. At least seven confirmed appearances across Chicago, Atlanta, Austin, Phoenix, and two in Detroit. Always the same behavior: charge-first, brute-force, low tactical variation."
On-screen, the bull-man roared as he charged forward. The camera feed trembled as nearby windows shattered from the impact.
She tapped the screen, shifting the footage. A long-limbed silhouette emerged from the alley shadows—skin glistening like emerald glass, tail whipping behind him.
"The second target is less documented," Paige continued. "A Type-Serpentis. We've only had three reports of lizard-like beasts as of now. All fast. All are extremely agile."
The room stayed quiet as the lizard-man lashed out on-screen, his tail snapping through a stack of crates like it was made of matchsticks.
Paige didn't stop.
"But this one—" she paused, switching to the next angle.
The camera now showed a rooftop. A tall, black-feathered figure hunched at the edge, talons gripping the concrete ledge, red eyes gleaming beneath the shadow of its wings.
"—is a first. We've never had a confirmed visual on an airborne variant. Type-Corvus. Flight-capable. Tactical awareness. Possible command-tier behavior. This one spoke. Watched. Waited."
She let that hang in the air as the crow-man swooped down on the footage, claws extended, striking with precision instead of fury.
Still, Gary Holden said nothing. His hands were folded. His face unreadable.
The recording continued—grainy, jerky. A flash of motion. Two unidentified young men were on the ground, locked in combat with the beasts. Then came the moment that had every Aegis analyst hitting pause.
One figure—wearing a pair of Converse a moment ago—landed a kick, and as he pivoted, sleek golden-black armor materialized around his legs, feline in design. His foot dug into the concrete like a blade finding a sheath.
Beside him, another man raised his arm, the limb shifting mid-motion. Flesh turned to muscle, then to armor—thick, golden-black plating like a rhino's hide snapping into place as his fist collided with the bull-man's jaw.
Paige tapped the controls again, letting the moment loop in slow motion.
"This is what we can't explain," she said quietly.
Zain Morris leaned forward, forearms heavy on the table. He was built like an avalanche in a suit—broad frame, buzzcut, and a stare that didn't blink unless it had to. A former black-ops demolitions expert turned Captain under Aegis' command, Zain wasn't known for subtlety. But his voice, when he spoke, was grounded.
"What kind of tech are they using?" he asked, eyes narrowing.
No one answered immediately.
The armor flickered again on the monitor—Elion's panther legs, Jordan's rhino arms. Seamless. Organic. Alive.
But Aegis had seen a lot. And this wasn't standard exo-gear, military prototype, or black market body enhancement.
This was something else entirely.
Then Silas Vane spoke.
"That's not technology," he said, voice cool and flat.
The room turned.
Silas sat near the end of the table, calm as ever. His charcoal suit looked like it had been ironed with a laser. Jet-black hair slicked back, pale skin almost reflecting the monitor's glow—he looked more like a Wall Street assassin than an Aegis strategist. But no one mistook his quiet for weakness.
When Silas spoke, people listened. Because he didn't guess.
Zain Morris shifted in his seat, arms crossed over his chest like someone trying not to punch a hole through the table. "What makes you so sure?" he asked.
Silas didn't blink. He calmly rewound the footage, tapped the screen, and froze a single frame: Jordan, mid-swing, his arm flickering. The armor that covered it wasn't just wrapping—it was transforming. And not into metal.
"Look at the shift here," Silas said. "That's not plating. It's not layered over him. It's growing out of him. Tendons. Muscle. Bone."
He zoomed in.
"Biological transformation," Silas said. "The armor isn't armor. It's part of them."
Across the table, Paige Carter leaned in, one brow raised. "But it looks like gear. Almost tactical."
Silas gave a small nod. "Exactly. Until now, every transformation we've seen has been animalistic—scales, claws, wings. But this? This suggests it can mimic structure. Replicate function. Maybe even create new forms entirely."
That hung in the air like a loaded weapon.
"And just so we're clear," another voice cut in—crisp, no-nonsense.
Clara Kwan, glasses reflecting the flickering screen, sat a few chairs down, fingers already swiping across her tablet. She didn't waste words. She just got to the point.
"The autopsy confirmed it. Fingerprints taken from the beast-men match two individuals already flagged after the Xylo Club incident."
She tapped once, and two profiles appeared on the central screen—side by side.
"Elion Hayes. Jordan Walker. Both twenty. No prior criminal records. No military history. Last seen the night of the club massacre."
The room tensed.
At the far end, Andre Cole leaned forward. Tall, broad-shouldered, with skin the color of roasted coffee and a quiet intensity that had carried him through two decades of black ops. He'd seen worse things than most people had nightmares about—but this? This was new.
"Where'd the prints come from?" he asked.
Clara didn't hesitate. "Fingers and forearms of the beast-men. Both victims."
"So they touched the bodies?" Andre asked, brow furrowed.
Clara nodded once. "They didn't just touch them. They removed the rings."
Andre leaned back slowly, one hand rubbing his chin. "They took them…?"
He didn't say more. He didn't need to. Every person at that table had seen how the rings worked. How they leaped from the corpse to the nearest breathing thing like magnets with murder in mind.
But not this time.
Clara tapped again. "We assumed the same until this."
The footage switched—different angle, same alley. Two figures. Elion and Jordan. Standing over the fallen beast-men. Jordan crouched. Pulled a black ring off the bull-man. Elion followed, removing one from the lizard-man. They paused. Examined the rings like they were checking for traps. Then slipped them into sacks that came out of nowhere.
Clara froze the footage.
Zoomed in.
The sacks were plain at first glance. Canvas. Reinforced stitching. But on the surface, near the drawstrings, faint glowing symbols pulsed—like some kind of seal. A broken circle, split by a jagged diagonal slash.
Paige squinted. "Zoom more."
Clara did.
Andre leaned forward again. "That's not for show."
"No," Zain added. "That's some kind of seal. It must be... magic."
Silas stayed quiet, but his eyes narrowed. Nobody dared to dismiss the involvement of magic especially those from the Aegis.
"They're storing the rings," Paige said slowly, almost disbelieving. "Not running. Not infected. Just… collecting them."
"I see..." Theo Ramirez finally spoke from the far end of the table, his voice calm and smooth like someone who never felt the need to raise it.
Everything about him screamed effortless wealth—the crisply tailored suit, the polished cufflinks, the immaculate posture of someone raised in a house where servants opened doors and expectations were sky-high. But beneath the trust-fund aesthetic was a sharp mind trained to cut through chaos with precision.
"Either they're immune," Theo said, resting one perfectly manicured hand on the table, "or those sacks are doing something no one else has figured out."
Clara gave a small nod, adjusting her glasses. "They're blocking the transfer of Corrupted Essence. That shouldn't be possible."
Silas leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled again. His voice was low, almost to himself. "But it is. Which means they either have access to something we don't... or they learned this from someone."
That made the room shift slightly. Not physically, but in the atmosphere. The kind of silence where everyone's thoughts were suddenly sprinting. Then, came a question that slightly diverted their attention.
"So where'd they get the sacks?" Andre asked, his eyes still locked on the frozen image on screen. "Those aren't something you just pick up at a tactical surplus store."
Clara didn't answer.
Neither did Paige.
But Zain snorted under his breath. "You're all thinking tech," he said, leaning back. "But look at that glow. Look at the symbols. That's not stitching. That's runework."
He pointed toward the screen like it was obvious.
"It's magic."
Theo let out a short breath, the corner of his mouth twitching with the faintest trace of a smirk. He tapped one finger against the glossy tabletop as if weighing how much sarcasm was appropriate for the moment.
"Yeah, Zain. We know," he said dryly. "Magic, ancient runes, cursed thread—pick your fantasy. But let's focus on what actually matters."
His eyes drifted back to the frozen frame of the video. "Where do those sacks come from? Sure, it's strange. But it's not the issue right now."
Andre, who hadn't leaned back since the footage began, finally straightened. His expression hardened—jaw tight, brows drawn.
"No," he said firmly. "Every single thing is the issue. You've seen what happens when we miss one detail. People die."
Theo's expression didn't change, but the energy between them shifted—an old friction that wasn't new to this table.
"I'm not saying ignore it," Theo replied smoothly. "I'm saying we don't guess. We don't sit around the table speculating about glowing sacks while the only two people with answers are still out there."
He leaned forward, tone sharpening.
"What's more important—trying to solve a puzzle with missing pieces... or finding Hayes and Walker and letting them fill in the gaps?"
The room went still again, heavy with the weight of that question.
The tension thickened like fog, but before anyone could speak again, Paige raised a hand.
"Enough," she said calmly. "Let's just take a moment."
The table quieted. A beat passed. Then, Paige turned her head toward the end of the room, where the oldest man among them sat—silent, still, and unreadable.
"What say you, Admiral Holden?"
All eyes shifted to Gary Holden, his weathered face unmoving, silver brows furrowed ever so slightly. He hadn't spoken once since the meeting began.
For a moment, it looked like he wouldn't now either.
Then his gaze slowly lifted to the frozen footage on the screen—Elion and Jordan crouched beside the fallen beast-men, the rings sealed inside those strange sacks.
His voice came low. Heavy.
"This isn't new," Gary said. "This has something to do with what happened… twenty-five years ago."
And just like that, the room went still again—only this time, it wasn't tension.
It was dread.