Emberclaw Protocol

Chapter 5: Identity Revealed

The moonlight at the altar flowed like liquid silver. Erin knelt on the altar etched with star charts, Cole curling his tail around her oozing wrist, the ticking of a mechanical heart synchronized with an ancient sundial. The reflection of Kaiden's sniper scope swam between the stone pillars like a viper spitting.

"The awakening of the Virgin requires a living sacrifice." The High Priest's bronze staff pointed at Cole, "Especially when the sacrifice bears the blood of a traitor..."

Erin suddenly yanked the holy tattoo chains from her neck, the sharp edges against her own arteries, "How about a different game?" She kicked over the firepit, charcoal ashes forming a genetic map in the air, "The remains of the Holy Maiden you've been worshipping for twenty years-" the flames suddenly engulfed the parchment scroll, "is actually a clone of Caden's mother!"

The wolves at the bottom of the stone steps began to stir. Cole took the opportunity to bite his fingertip and smear blood on Erin's eyelids, "Now see the truth."

The nanomachines on her retina were activated, and Erin saw the mechanical tentacles under the High Priestess's robes, as well as the blue cultures gushing at the bottom of the altar. It wasn't the Holy Maiden soaking in it at all, but countless growing clones of Kaiden.

"Father even cheated his own death." Cole ripped off his breastplate to reveal the DNA helix at the core of his mechanical heart, "He planned it the day we were born..."

The sound of breaking air suddenly rang out. Erin whirled around and twisted the flying arrow with her chains, Kayden's wedding ring tied to the end of the arrow, "Time to exchange engagement tokens, darling." As Cole swung his claws to knock down the second arrow, Erin realized the tuft was engraved with their genetic sequence.

The High Priest's bronze staff suddenly pierced Cole's shoulder, pinning him to the center of the sundial, "The ritual begins!" Moonlight focused on Cole as the shell of the mechanical heart began to melt. As Erin lunged over, the Sacred Tattoo suddenly stabbed bone wings out of his back, cutting through eight binding chains.

"Grab this!" Cole tossed out the melted shard of breastplate. The moment Erin caught it in the air, the shard extended into a long silver bow, the bowstring of which was the very same sacred tattoo chain she had ripped off.

The first arrow pierced the High Priest's mechanical tentacles, and the second detonated the incubation pod under the altar. Kaiden appeared in the chaos, dagger to Cole's throat, "You will die by my hand after all, brother."

Erin's third arrow was instead aimed at her own temple, "His mechanical heart is bound to my brainwaves." She snapped the invisible bowstring, "Shall I demonstrate the martyrdom procedure?"

The wolves let out a low growl of terror. Cole suddenly laughed, letting Kaiden's dagger cut through his skin, "You wouldn't dare kill her, brother." A golden aura surged in his eyes, "After all, you have holy blood flowing in you as well..."

Kaiden's pupils instantly turned into the characteristic vertical pupils of the wolf race. The tip of Erin's arrow turned towards his chest, "No wonder you always wear leather gloves-" the arrow suddenly split into seven streaks of silver light, "To cover the scorching marks of the Holy Ribbon's backlash!"

The altar dome collapsed at that moment. Cole rolled into the culvert with Erin in his arms, and Kaiden's roar boomed as he mixed with the current, "You can't escape the Bloodline Curse!"

The lab at the end of the dark river glows with an ethereal light. As Erin stitched up Cole's wounds, she realized that his mother's name was carved into his mechanical spine - the very same name Kayden had called out when he fell off the cliff.

"A double clone." Cole took her trembling hand in his, "You're the purity of the Virgin's genes, I'm the vessel that carries the mechanical virus, and Caden..." He pulled up a holographic projection, "is the failed attempt to fuse the two."

Erin's scalpel suddenly stabbed into the baby incubation pod in the projection, "So the riot twenty years ago wasn't an accident, it was a m******e of fathers removing failed experiments."

Alarms exploded as Kayden's mechanical wolves crashed through the blast doors. While Cole activated the self-destruct sequence, Erin ripped off her protective suit, "I need you to be fully bestialized." She injects holy blood into his carotid artery, "Then swallow me inside."

Cole's golden pupils ooze blood, "The virus will eat away at your nerves..."

"But it will shield Kayden from tracking." Erin chewed open the hidden compartment of his robotic arm and removed the EMP, "You taught how to destroy a symbiote from the inside."

When Cole transforms into a giant silver wolf and takes her into his mouth, Erin's sacred tattoo resonates with his fangs. She sees the chilling truth in her wolf vision - every mechanical wolf has a fragment of Cole's personality hidden in its chip.

"He's collecting your soul." Erin communicated with Cole with her consciousness as the giant wolf's sharp claws were tearing through the ventilation ducts, "Using our children as new carriers..."

Cole suddenly braked sharply on the edge of the cliff. Across the river in the cloning factory, hundreds of clones of Erin were slumbering in incubation pods, each with pregnancy marks on their abdomens. Kayden's voice came over the radio, "Like the bride price, sister?"

Erin's bone wings pierced Cole's mouth and flew out, the wolf blood-stained feathers stretching into a bow in the moonlight, "Love this dowry even more." She shot an arrow through the factory's energy core and fell off the cliff with Cole in a wave of explosive air.

In freefall, Cole used his tail to curl her back onto his back. As the mechanical feathers unfurled again, Erin realized that each metal feather was engraved with the date of their encounter.

"Proposals require ceremony." Cole's voice boomed as it mingled with the wind. They skimmed across the sea in a symphony of wolf howls, and Erin's fingertips touched his broken mechanical heart, "Is this your bride price?"

"No." Cole suddenly swooped down into the undersea ruins, "This is it."

Fluorescent jellyfish illuminated the sunken church with the mechanical remains of Cole's father tied to the cross. Erin's holy tattoos resonated in the water, and all the chips holding the souls captive floated up at the same time, forming giant strands of DNA.

"Now you can judge him." Cole stabbed his silver sword into his father's eye socket, "With the Virgin."

Instead, Erin turned the hilt of her sword towards Kaiden, "It is up to the victim to carry it out." She sliced her own palm and the holy blood caused Kaiden's mechanical body to begin to disintegrate, "But death is too cheap for you."

As the first rays of sunlight pierced through the sea, Cole dropped to one knee in the ruins. The moment the faded wedding ring slipped into Erin's finger, all the mechanical werewolves stopped attacking at the same time and bowed their heads in submission in their direction.

"Agreement reached." Cole kissed the blood off the back of her hand, "My queen."

The remnants of Kaiden's body suddenly let out a sneer, "You think you've won?" Before he blew up into pieces, the holy tattoo on Erin's abdomen suddenly burned - the clones in the incubation pod all opened their eyes.