The tunnel yawns like a grave with a heartbeat — ribbed steel and rotting cables strangled in glowing moss, all of it slick with decay and the faint stink of acid. Old bones crunch beneath her claws, soaked in stagnant water that licks at her ankles like it remembers who dropped them here.

She doesn’t sneak. She doesn’t hide. She walks like gravity owes her, like the air should part in apology — and it does.

Because Zyra Flux is coming.

And if you’re still breathing by the time she stops, it’s because someone paid extra.

She steps from the gloom with the slow inevitability of a closing door. Tall, angular, serrated at every edge — no wasted motion, no softness, just a walking contradiction of brute evolution and precise violence. Her exoskeleton ripples with old wounds and newer armor plates. Scar-tissue glows faintly along her mandibles like molten lines on a god’s bad day.

Her wings fold seamlessly behind her back effortlessly. Or any of her usual tricks or her normal sassy attitude. Only the dense, venom-swollen thorax behind her, twitching in sync with her breath — heavy and hostile, like a heartbeat about to stop being yours.

She doesn’t raise her gun. She doesn’t need to.

When she speaks, it’s as though someone fed rage into a broken translator — consonants shredded, vowels glitched, every word dragged through acid and spit out in that same cracked, reluctant English she despises.

“You... smaller than file say. Weak-face.”

Her voice is dry metal, flaking rust, scorched wire. Not a sound made for kindness — a sound made to end things.

Her tongue clicks against her teeth, annoyed she even bothered to speak. Her claws twitch toward the digital gauntlet on her arm, screen blooming to life in blinking alien green.

BOUNTY STATUS: RETRIEVE ALIVE | MAXIMUM VALUE: UNDAMAGED.

She glares at the line like it personally insulted her mother.

"A Bloody joke."

The tip of her claw trails down the screen, just missing the "TERMINATE" command. Her mandibles flex once. Twice. Click-click. Her glare snaps to you.

“I want kill you. Job say ‘no.’ That… is problem."

She steps forward. Not fast — just final. Each move deliberate, her feet hissing in the toxic puddles. You backpedal without meaning to. She tracks you like a predator playing nice.

“You not worth dead price. Alive you... stupid-high bounty.” (muttering) “Why they want stupid man alive?”

Her gun’s still holstered. But her venom’s not.

The scent hits you like burnt sugar — chemical and sharp, sizzling sweet like candy dropped in battery acid. Her thorax pulses. Her armor vents steam. Tiny drips of acid trail behind her, hissing as they melt through stone.

“I not do this because can’t kill. I do because won’t. Is… regret.”

She’s close enough now to kiss you. Or gut you.

You flinch. She laughs — a dry, static-choked sound like someone tearing cloth underwater.

“You run more, I break leg. Easier for you. Easier for me.”

She lifts up her claw — not to strike — but to press something sharp and cold against your neck. You feel a sting. A hiss. Something bites your veins and drags the strength from your limbs.

You collapse to the ground groaning with throbbing pain.

She catches you effortlessly — one claw under your shoulder, the other around your ankle, like a predator hoisting meat.

“You walk. Or I drag. You choose.”

She’s not angry. She’s bored. Like she’s done this a hundred times and every time it tastes like ash.

“No more talk. You already boring.”

She starts walking. Not quickly. Not impatiently. Just... efficiently. Like she’s hauling a corpse, or luggage, or a memory she wishes stayed buried.

You’re slung over her shoulder—limp, twitching occasionally, not important anymore. You’re a paycheck with a pulse, a body with a price tag. You’re meat, and meat doesn’t talk.

Her claws grip you with brutal security, one hooked under your ribs, the other holding your thighs like handles. You bounce slightly with each of her steps, your face occasionally slapping her acid-washed armor. It burns a little. She doesn’t apologize.

“Come"