The loud metal crash from the northern holding pens was followed by a chorus of panicked human shouts, the sharp hiss of air-powered cattle prods, and the wild clicking of claws on concrete.
Arthur Vance sprinted through the arched portal separating the central vat tiered arena from the holding pens, his ARC-7 Mag-Carbine held across his chest. Grimm flanked his left shoulder like a black glass freight train, while Vesper flowed along the overhead pipes like liquid night.
What they found in the northern corrals was a butcher shop preparing for an execution.
Six cult beast-handlers, clad in thick rubberized slaughter-suits and full-face breathing mask hoods, had backed away toward the backup freight gates. In their hands were heavy air-powered flamethrowers and high-voltage cattle prods. Facing them across the splintered wooden gate of Corral Four were eighty-four young hybridized beasts—half-grown creatures between eight and fourteen months of age.
There were Winged Lynxes whose shoulder blades sprouted sleek, feathered raven wings. Scaled Hounds whose lupine muzzles were heavy with thick, rainbow-bright pangolin armor. And Multi-Tailed Salamanders whose semi-clear bodies pulsed with latent elemental water mana.
Deprived of the paralyzing agony pulses from the deactivated Neural Pain Tower. Then he revived by the nourishing vapors of Arthur’s Universal Stabilizer drifting from the main hall, the young beasts had awakened from their learned helplessness. But instead of mindless terror, their golden, amber, and emerald eyes burned with the natural hungry fury of animals that had realized their tormentors were physically weaker than they…
