Boom. Boom. Boom.

Gunfire cracked through the abandoned streets, followed by the heavy thunder of metal bodies smashing through broken concrete.

One of the mechanical apes staggered as bullets struck its shoulder and neck, sparks bursting from torn synthetic skin. Smoke drifted briefly across the road, and through that smoke a motorcycle burst forward like a black streak, engine screaming as it tore through the empty city.

The rider leaned low while steering through debris without slowing.

Behind him, seated on the passenger side, Victor struggled to stay balanced while gripping the mounted gun they had found earlier.

He fired again.

The recoil nearly threw him sideways.

Bullets hammered the nearest ape, but the machine barely slowed.

"It’s barely doing anything!" Victor shouted over the engine noise.

The rider did not even turn.

"These mechanical beasts aren’t made for ordinary bullets," the man said while sharply turning into the next street. "Just keep firing. We don’t need to kill them—we only need them angry."

Another ape slammed into a ruined vehicle behind them, crushing metal under one hand before continuing pursuit.

There were five now.

Five giant mechanical apes charging through the streets after the bike, each step strong enough to crack the road surface.

The rider’s expression remained focused.

"If we pull them far enough, the others can collect supplies from the buildings those things were guarding."

Victor reloaded awkwardly and fired again, though by now he already understood the bullets mattered less than the noise.

As they passed another long row of damaged buildings, Victor looked upward by instinct.

For half a second he saw movement.

A figure on a rooftop.

Then clearly—

Tansy.

He blinked.

"Isn’t that... Sister Tansy?"

The rider glanced up briefly.

"You know her?"

Victor gave only a low sound in reply.

"Mm."

The rider’s eyes sharpened slightly.

Then he smiled.

A narrow smile Victor did not fully like.

"Good."

He adjusted course without warning.

"We lure the apes here."

Victor looked at him immediately.

The meaning came too quickly.

"And then?"

"We leave."

The answer came calmly.

No hesitation.

Victor remained silent for several seconds.

The bike roared forward while the apes kept chasing.

Dust flew behind them.

He should have objected.

But he did not.

Because silence had already begun much earlier—long before this road, before the final game itself.

It had started the previous night.

Victor had wanted to join Tyler’s side naturally.

At least at first.

He liked Rose.

Not deeply enough to call it love, but enough that every small smile she gave him had stayed in his mind longer than it should have.

She was his age.

And unlike the brutal adults around them, she still laughed without calculation.

That mattered more than Victor admitted.

But then he had seen it.

The night before the final game.

Rose and Tansy entering Tyler’s room openly, without hesitation, as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

No fear.

No awkwardness.

No distance.

Victor had stood in the corridor and watched the door close.

That image stayed.

Too long.

Too deeply.

It turned something childish inside him into something bitter.

He had left immediately after that, unable to stay there pretending not to think.

Instead he wandered into the sponsor hall.

The place where wealthy patrons and Capital sponsors gathered before the final stage.

There he saw her again.

Aruna

She acted as though nothing awkward had ever happened between them earlier.

Smooth smile.

Elegant voice.

No trace of past tension.

Victor should have ignored her.

Instead, still burning inside, he dragged her toward his room.

What followed happened more from impulse than thought, driven by wounded pride, envy, and the sudden need to prove something to himself that even he could not define properly.

Afterward, when breathing slowed and silence returned, Aruna had looked at him differently.

More practical.

More interested.

Then she gave advice.

"If you want survival, don’t stay with weak people."

Victor had asked who mattered.

She answered immediately.

Sector 7.

According to her, Sector 7 produced trained survivors—people raised harder, sharper, closer to soldiers than ordinary sector children.

Only two from that sector remained alive now.

And if Victor entered under her sponsorship, they would accept him.

That happened easily.

Aruna’s name still carried value.

Victor had joined.

At first for survival.

Then another thought followed.

If possible, Tyler should die.

And perhaps those two sisters too.

Because jealousy, once mixed with humiliation, had already become something uglier.

He hated himself slightly for thinking it.

But the thought remained.

Even now, riding through ruined streets, hearing apes behind him, he imagined Tyler standing beside Rose and Tansy too naturally.

He imagined too much. He recalled how Aruna rode on his naked body. That image is replaced by naked Tyler and Rose.

And that made him nod when the rider suggested using this street.

Using this rooftop.

Using them.

The bike reached the intersection.

The rider sharply accelerated and then cut away toward another road.

Victor fired once more before the motorcycle cut sharply into another street and vanished behind a row of abandoned buildings. The engine noise faded quickly, leaving only the heavy pounding of mechanical footsteps behind them.

The five apes did not immediately continue chasing.

Without their target in sight, they slowed.

Their heads lifted one after another, glowing eyes scanning rooftops, windows, and broken roads with mechanical precision. They had lost the moving target, and now their behavior changed completely—from pursuit to search.

One of the apes suddenly bent down, tore a long metal pole from the roadside, and threw it across the street with terrifying force. The pole crashed through the upper wall of a nearby building, shattering concrete and sending dust outward.

Victor did not look back immediately.

But after a few seconds, he turned his head slightly.

Far in the distance, on a rooftop line near another block, he saw figures.

Small from this distance.

But recognizable enough.

And he knew exactly who stood there.

Tyler’s group.

For a brief second something tightened inside him, but the motorcycle was already moving farther away.

---

Back near the garage, after defeating Four Apes, Now only one remained.

Inside the garage, Tyler stood near the half-open entrance and watched the street through the narrow gap.

The heavy footsteps outside came again and again, uneven now.

The remaining ape had lost patience.

It no longer searched carefully.

It ran through the road in bursts, smashing abandoned objects aside, circling buildings, roaring in metallic anger every few seconds as though aware something had killed the others but unable to locate exactly where.

Behind Tyler, the launcher was ready.

The improvised ballista stood locked into position, aimed directly toward the road opening.

Its frame creaked slightly under tension.

Tansy and Rose stood beside the firing controls, both focused now.

Old man Rudd remained near the wall, staff held firmly in both hands.

What rested inside the launcher no longer looked like ordinary ammunition.

Tyler had chosen something none of them would have imagined using.

Not a giant arrow. Not metal scrap. Not stone. Not debris.

Inside the launch cradle lay a thick black hairy arm torn from one of the destroyed apes.

Massive even when severed, the limb still looked grotesquely alive, with exposed wires hanging from the torn end where synthetic muscle met damaged circuits.

It was heavy enough that loading it had taken all four of them.

Now Tyler kept his eyes on the street.

Because the shadow had appeared.

The ape was directly outside.

Its giant form crossed the opening.

Tyler did not blink. Then he said quietly: "Fire."