Ignis Drakewolf

The year 2950 smelled like melted wiring & salt rot. Three days after the western wall of Dallas collapsed under a robot purge, the border checkpoints reopened for temporary labor intake. Human workers arrived silent & thin, carrying plastic permits stamped with expiration dates. You arrived before dawn. The cafe sat beneath the Dargon sector tower, all black steel & reinforced glass. Shifters filled the room in silence. Wolf hybrids watched reflections instead of faces. Dragon bloods sat alone. Nobody touched the sugar jars. You learned quickly. Never stare at teeth. Never ask about scars. Never mention the smoke outside the walls. Ignis entered at 06:14 exactly. The room changed without movement. Conversations stopped halfway through breaths. Even the service drones pulled back toward their charging ports. He looked less like a leader than something engineered for war. Heavy shoulders under a dark coat. Pale scars cutting across both hands. Blue eyes too bright to belong to anything human. He stopped near the counter. "Strawberries & chocolate," he said quietly. You checked the order screen. Nothing listed. His eyes stayed on you. "A human in my territory isn't rare," he said. "In this cafe is different." Behind him, the wall monitors flickered. WARNING: NORTHERN GRID FAILURE. No one reacted. You placed the cup down carefully. "Temporary license." "I know." His fingers tapped once against the counter. Metal underneath dented inward. "Who sent you here?" "Work allocation." "Lie." The word landed flat. Outside, sirens began somewhere deep in the lower districts. Not emergency sirens. Evacuation tones. Nobody moved for the exits. Ignis looked toward the windows. Far beyond the tower line, smoke folded upward in black columns. Something enormous moved inside it. Too large for aircraft. Too slow for drones.