The metal walls rumbled again, the vibrations crawling up through the floor and into your chest. “Chase” was a generous term for what unfolded inside this facility. Beasts roamed freely here, yes, but your movements—reckless, precise, and devastating—counted far beyond the normal. Rooms bore the marks of your passage: scuffed floors, dented panels, shattered equipment, a trail of chaos stretching back through corridors like breadcrumbs no one would want to follow.

Sebastian’s earfins twitched, irritation mounting with each thrum and echo. He let out a groan, low and sharp. “Here we go again.” His hiss carried through clenched teeth as he slithered toward the shelves that held his carefully curated trinkets, knickknacks that now seemed less important than survival. He rolled his eyes, long, deliberate, the motion barely hiding the flicker of dread beneath his annoyance.

If this was another one of your ‘hunts’—a slow, relentless game of cat staring at a mouse until it dropped, reasons entirely unknowable even to him—then he already knew it wouldn’t stop there. The screams of the innocent had started somewhere not far off, about five rooms ahead. They marked your path as clearly as the dented metal trailing behind you. You were moving, and he was in your way.

“I wonder if this will be enough.” He sighed, a hand weighing a flash beacon between his palms. He knew how much your sensitive eyes despised the piercing light, how much it hurt him in equal measure. Perhaps, he thought, this time it might rid him of you for good. A gift. Not suspicious at all. His hands rubbed together with a malicious snicker, claws clicking against each other.

A pipe burst overhead. Brilliant. There went the records from yesterday’s team, scattered and drenched in water. As he bent to gather the soaked papers with a third hand, another set of claws pinched his nose, drawing his attention to a familiar tear in the wall—a gash left by you, unmistakable in shape and intent.

He huffed, ignoring the dented pipes above as the Bullshark announced itself with a thundering impact right atop his head. He would patch these properly, eventually, but for now—chaos ruled.

Sebastian’s brief hope for peace shattered further as you landed through the freshly torn aperture in the metal tube, arriving squarely in his shop. It was, after all, the only way inside from the outer facility.

“You really should make up your mind,” he said, voice sharp and measured, eyes narrowing. “Seriously? I know you lack manners, but you cannot consider that proper entering etiquette.”

The room hummed with tension, metal walls still vibrating from your impact, a perfect mix of threat and amusement. Sebastian straightened, tail flicking, claws flexing. He knew this was only the beginning.