After The Fall: Awakening

Predator Association Headquarters

A storm of panic and urgency spread throughout the Predator Association's main office.

Alarms blared, red warning lights flashed, and employees scrambled across the room, typing frantically on keyboards, yelling into radios, and throwing reports onto desks.

"We need to send Predators to the school NOW!" a senior officer barked, slamming a trembling fist onto the table.

"How the hell did we miss TWO Hollow Rifts opening in a school?!" another roared.

"This is bad... Chief Orion's going to kill us!" someone muttered in fear.

The noise built into a deafening storm of voices—until suddenly, the air grew heavy.

The lights flickered.

The office fell silent.

Heavy footsteps echoed through the hallway.

Each step was slow. Deliberate. Dangerous.

The employees froze in place, dread creeping up their spines.

The door creaked open.

A towering figure stood in the doorway, his sharp gaze sweeping across the trembling workers.

Orion.

The Chief of the Predator Association.

His presence alone made the air feel suffocating. Every employee felt like their body had turned to stone, their throats dry with fear.

Orion stepped inside. His silver hair was slicked back, and his piercing eyes gleamed with the coldness of a predator.

Then, in a voice as sharp as a blade, he spoke.

"Explain."

No one dared to breathe.

A brave—or perhaps foolish—employee finally mustered the courage to speak.

"C-Chief, please forgive them. I—I'm already handling it! We've dispatched Sentinels to the school and—"

"Did I tell you to speak?"

The man's mouth snapped shut. His hands shook, and he lowered his head, too afraid to meet Orion's gaze.

After a long, agonizing silence, Orion exhaled through his nose.

"Call the designated Awaken in our area."

Everyone stiffened.

"Azrael."

A ripple of shock passed through the room.

"Send more Sentinels. Double the forces. Call for healers." His voice was dangerously calm. "Report this to the High Council. Now."

The employees snapped into action.

"Y-Yes, Chief!"

"Right away!"

Orion didn't bother watching them scramble. Instead, he turned his gaze toward the monitor displaying live footage of the school.

His eyes narrowed.

"Let's see how this plays out."

---

Back at the School

The battlefield was chaos.

The halls were littered with debris, blood, and the corpses of Abyssals. Screams filled the air, but among them—

BOOM!

A shockwave erupted as a black blur tore through the monsters.

SLASH!

One Abyssal's head flew off.

CRACK!

Another had its ribcage crushed from a single kick.

At the center of it all was Hermes.

His body moved faster than the eye could track, his strikes precise, brutal. Each step he took sent another Abyssal to its grave.

A teacher gasped.

"H-Holy sh*t… Can you still see him?!"

"No! He's too fast!" a student stammered.

"What the f*ck—he's a one-man army!!"

At the back, Oliver and his gang stood frozen. Their faces twisted in pure disbelief.

Their former punching bag was standing atop a mountain of corpses.

Oliver's hands trembled. "T-That's… Hermes?"

One of his goons, a guy named Jay, swallowed hard. "Y-Yeah. I think so…?"

"He's the same Hermes we used to beat up, right?!" another guy, Vince, asked in horror.

Silence.

Then—

Jay looked at Hermes again, watching him rip apart an Abyssal with nothing but brute force. His eye twitched.

"F*ck. We bullied an actual f*cking war machine."

Oliver's face went pale.

Vince grabbed Oliver by the shoulders.

"Bro, we're f*cked. We're so f*cking f*cked."

Jay looked around nervously.

"Should we, uh… apologize?"

Oliver glared at him.

"Apologize?! Are you f*cking stupid?! That's like walking up to a tiger and saying, 'Hey bro, sorry for poking you with a stick.' He's gonna rip our f*cking heads off!"

Jay grabbed Oliver's arm. "Dude. If we survive this… we're leaving town."

Vince nodded. "Yeah, f*ck this place."

Oliver sighed.

"Agreed."

As the battle raged on, Rhea clenched her hands, tears welling in her eyes.

"Please… be careful, Hermes…"

Irish, standing beside her, felt her heart pounding.

---

Back to Hermes

"Sh*t, you guys aren't running out?!" Hermes growled.

The Abyssals shrieked in response, more of them pouring out from the rift.

Hermes stood in the center of it all, his blade dripping, his chest rising and falling as he caught his breath.

"Damn it… you guys just don't stop, huh?" he muttered, tightening his grip on his weapon.

Then—

He heard it.

The soft, delicate sound of paws padding against the cracked pavement.

Hermes turned his head slightly.

Three small cats—one black, one striped orange, and one white with gray spots —were walking toward him.

The battlefield fell into a bizarre silence.

Even the students, who had been screaming in terror moments ago, now looked at the scene with pure confusion.

One student squinted.

"...Are those f*cking cats?"

Another guy gulped. "Whose pets are those?"

Oliver, still shaken from witnessing Hermes fight, gawked.

"Wait, why the f*ck are there cats in the middle of a battlefield?!"

Before anyone could answer—

With every step the cats took, their bodies warped and stretched, their fur rippled unnaturally, their shapes twisted and shifted as if something powerful was forcing its way into reality.

Their tiny eyes sharpened into predatory slits.

Their paws stretched into massive, clawed limbs.

Their tails elongated, swaying with a dangerous grace.

Their bones cracked and reformed—until they were no longer harmless little pets.

They were monsters.

The small black cat morphed into a shadowy Black Panther, its sleek body blending with the darkness, its golden eyes burning with primal intelligence.

The striped orange cat swelled into a massive Siberian Tiger, its powerful shoulders rolling with every step, its presence radiating pure destructive force.

The white-and-gray cat twisted into a deadly Jaguar, its muscles coiled like a spring, ready to strike at any moment.

Oliver's gang looked horrified.

Jay stammered, "T-The cats—t-the f*cking cats transformed?!"

Vince clutched Oliver's arm.

"H-Hermes is literally a Disney princess—but for f*cking KILLER CATS!"

Oliver gulped. "...We're f*cking doomed."

The Abyssals shrank back, their monstrous shrieks turning into uncertain growls.

Hermes exhaled slowly.

He turned to his three beasts, his expression unreadable.

Then—

He placed a hand on the Siberian Tiger's massive head.

The tiger let out a deep, rumbling growl—a sound that shook the battlefield.

Hermes smirked.

"Hunt."

ROOOOOOOOAAAAAARRR!!!

The three beasts lunged.

And the slaughter began.