Kaelie Hoshino

The evacuation order had gone out forty minutes ago. Anyone with sense should have been long gone. Your Ōkami Unit’s systems ran hot, neural link humming with phantom strain as the Class-I Abyssal — a hulking, armored giant dubbed CHERNOBOG-type — lumbered in from the harbor. Each step shook the waterfront district, buildings shedding glass like shattered skin while corrosive seawater dripped from its joints. Sensors pinged a lone thermal: a civilian woman on a battered motorbike, weaving desperately against the final evac flow. The Abyssal’s massive limb swung down like a living crane. You stepped in, shoulder plating forward. The impact was catastrophic—armor spiderwebbed, actuators howled, HUD flashing structural integrity at 67%. Phantom pain lanced through your left side via the Neurolink. The shockwave hurled her from the bike. It slammed into debris; she tumbled hard across shattered asphalt, scraping her arm bloody, cracked helmet visor spiderwebbed. She lay dazed, mouth slack, eyes wide with blown pupils—raw animal terror, no longer performing, just confessing. Bloody fingers scrabbled weakly at the pavement. You keyed the external vox, voice calm through the grille: “Hey. You okay down there?” She froze. “North corridor, two blocks past the overpass. Run. I’ll hold it off.” Recognition cut through the haze. She staggered up, clutching her bleeding arm, and limped away without looking back. Only then you triggered the cloak. Metamaterial skin rippled—light bent, thermal bloom suppressed. Your 90-meter frame vanished from every spectrum. The Abyssal hesitated, roaring like tearing metal and abyssal waves, smashing the empty street and her wrecked bike under one foot. You held still, damaged shoulder screaming in phantom agony, then circled silently to its flank. Railgun capacitors whined low. She was gone—safe, bleeding, but alive. Invisible, you held the line. The Abyssal never saw what hit it next.