BLOODCAPE
Chapter 89 – Welcome to the Cage

Chapter 89: Chapter 89 – Welcome to the Cage

The elevator was silent.

Not the kind of silence that signaled peace. The kind that enforced it. A silence designed by someone who believed noise was weakness.

Hernan stood at the center, arms relaxed, back straight, his eyes locked on the vertical strip of rising white lights. There were no buttons. No panels. No music. Just a sharp hum as kinetic lifts pulled him up through the spine of the academy tower — past the cadet living tiers, through faculty floors, beyond administration.

The elevator shaft ended in secrecy.

Above him, a recessed light flickered once.

A soft voice, synthetic and cold, whispered:"Cadet Rook Vale. Clearance confirmed. Level Seven access granted."

The doors whispered open.

And the air... changed.

Cleaner. Sharper. Sterilized past human comfort. It didn’t smell like a place where people worked — it smelled like a place where mistakes had never happened.

Zodiac Floor 7.

The corridor stretched long, flat, and white. The lighting was soft gold, humming low but clear. The tiles beneath his boots didn’t echo — some kind of sound-absorbing alloy beneath. There were no welcome banners, no holograms cheering him on, no artwork or student displays.

Just precision.

At the far end of the hall stood a woman.

She didn’t move when the doors opened.

Didn’t nod. Didn’t blink.

Her uniform was gray — no rank insignia, no flag, no house crest. One sleeve was rolled back slightly, revealing the thin ridge of an old skin-graft line. Her left eye was a matte-black implant, lens darkened. A scar like a surgical fracture ran from her jaw to her collarbone, disappearing into the fabric.

She looked like someone who’d run out of fear.

"Commander Ryl," Hernan said, his voice calm.

She said nothing.

She simply turned and walked — no announcement, no introduction — expecting him to follow.

He did.

The hallway continued without any visible security devices, but Hernan knew better. The entire floor likely read his heartbeat and bone density with every step. He noted the air vents: narrow, placed high. The walls were seamless, but probably reinforced with trace detection sensors for weapons or toxins.

At the end: a segmented titanium door, wider than most, its surface etched with Leo’s crest — a lion’s mane forged into a crown of blades.

Ryl stopped.

She did not enter.

She looked at the door, and it opened.

She gestured. Nothing more.

As Hernan stepped past her, he caught the faint shift in her weight — not uncertainty. Readiness.

Like she expected the next sound might be an explosion.

The office wasn’t what he expected.

It was too deliberate for that.

Everything in the room had been chosen. Not styled. Not decorated.

Chosen.

Dark wood floors. Pale paneled walls with no texture. A floor-to-ceiling window on the far side gave an uninterrupted view of the capital stretching across the clouds — airships hovering at a respectful distance.

But it wasn’t the view that mattered.

It was the silence.

And the things inside the silence.

On the left wall: a Martian campaign blade, stained at the edge and never cleaned.

Below it: a display of commendation badges — one set scorched around the rim.

And on a minimalist side shelf: a framed photo.

Solar Paragon Battalion, 2129.Hernan’s father, Solaris, in the second row. Not smiling. Not posturing. Just watching the camera with that same unwavering calm that lived now in Hernan’s own eyes.

He didn’t stop.

Didn’t flinch.

He let his gaze pass over the photo and kept walking, letting his mind count: one, two, three...

Then let his eyes drift back.

The photo faced the center of the room. Toward the desk.

Toward him.

Bait.

The man behind the desk still hadn’t spoken.

Captain Leo Virex — the man the world called invincible — sat in a chair designed to look understated. No cape. No medals. Armor mostly retracted at the joints, but still visible. A single shoulder clasp bore the Zodiac insignia burned into black steel.

His gaze was steady. Unblinking. Analytical.

Hernan didn’t speak first.

He completed a slow, respectful circuit of the office — letting his eyes settle briefly on the wall-mounted map of the Old Zones. No change in breath. No tightness in his hands.

Only after the full turn did he face the man again.

"Sir."

Leo tilted his head. A micro-movement. Less than a nod.

"Tell me what you want."

Hernan took the seat across the desk — low-set, softly cushioned, just deep enough to lower his spine below Leo’s eyeline. Designed to make anyone feel smaller.

Not him.

He folded his hands in his lap.

"What I want," he said, "is to serve the Hero Program at the highest level I’m capable of."

Leo blinked — once. "Safe answer."

"It’s the truth."

"Maybe. But not the full truth."

Behind the frosted divider glass, Commander Ryl stood in profile, apparently reviewing a datapad. Her attention never fully settled. She was listening.

Leo leaned back, fingers steepled.

"Vano Sector," he said.

A pause. Deliberate.

Hernan answered without hesitation. "I was born there. Stayed until I was twelve."

"Mother was a med-tech?"

"Yes. Mobile field assignment."

"She die in the gas breach?"

Hernan nodded. "Sealed our place too late."

Leo’s eyes narrowed, but not in sympathy. In observation.

"And your father?"

"Never met him."

"Strange. Your reflex patterns read like second-generation training."

"I studied a lot of old footage."

Leo let the silence draw out.

This time, Hernan matched him beat for beat.

Two apex predators in an office built like a pressure chamber.

"You don’t posture like the others," Leo said. "You’re quiet. Watchful."

"Someone has to be."

"You speak like someone older."

"I was born older than most."

Leo’s expression didn’t change.

Then: "What would you do if given the authority to kill?"

Hernan replied immediately. "I’d wait until it mattered."

Leo smiled.

Not wide. But real.

Then came the final test.

"There’s a quote. From Solaris. During Ulayar."

Hernan knew it. Every syllable.

Still — he said, "No."

Leo said it anyway:

"The cleanest kill is the one they don’t see coming. The second cleanest is the one they regret recognizing too late."

A heartbeat passed.

Hernan looked him dead in the eye.

"Sounds like something a ghost would say."

Leo stared back.

"Maybe he was one."

For several seconds, neither moved.

No breath. No shift. Nothing.

Then:

"Dismissed."

Hernan stood.

Walked to the door.

As it hissed open behind him, Leo added — to no one in particular:

"To the quiet ones... they’re always the ones who kill."

Hernan didn’t turn.

Commander Ryl stood in the hall.

She didn’t acknowledge him.

Didn’t blink.

But her stance had changed. Slightly.

Like someone mentally tracking a countdown. One they didn’t expect to finish safely.

She didn’t speak.

She didn’t need to.

In the elevator, Hernan finally exhaled.

Not with relief.

With recalibration.

His hands stayed still at his sides. His face was expressionless. But his mind ran hot behind the stillness.

He’s studying me like prey.But he doesn’t know I came to hunt.