The Dig and the Chase

Hours passed. The air in the sealed cave was growing thin. Jax’s breathing had almost stopped.

Orion lay on the cold stone, waiting to die.

Then, Jax’s hand twitched. His fingers blindly found Orion’s arm, gripping it with a weak, dying strength.

“Don't… quit,” Jax breathed into the dark.

Orion’s eyes opened. The tears stopped.

He looked at the hundreds of tons of rock blocking their path. A human couldn't move it. A frightened, bullied boy couldn't move it.

But Orion was not just a boy.

The shame evaporated, burned away by a fierce, incandescent love for the brother bleeding out beside him. Orion didn't suppress the shift. He didn't just allow it. He commanded it. He reached deep into his genetic code, pulling on the primal, adaptive power of his blood.

His body exploded with power. He didn't take the bipedal predator form. He needed mass. He needed earth-moving strength. His bones thickened to the size of tree trunks. His flesh hardened into impenetrable, dense, diamond-scaled armor. His arms bulged, transforming into massive, shovel-like limbs tipped with tungsten-hard claws. He expanded until his massive shoulders brushed the ceiling of the cavern.

Orion let out a booming, subterranean bellow. He slammed his massive claws into the cave-in. Rock shattered. He dug with terrifying, rhythmic speed, his massive form turning into a living, breathing excavation machine. He tore through solid obsidian, throwing boulders behind him like pebbles.

Light pierced the darkness.

Orion burst through the rubble, roaring as the pale sunlight of the Wastes washed over his armored hide. He turned back, carefully reaching his massive hand into the tunnel to gently scoop up Jax’s unconscious body.

He laid Jax on his broad, armored back. Then, Orion’s body rippled again. The heavy armor melted away, streamlining. His legs elongated, shifting into a swift, aerodynamic, quadrupedal form—like a massive, alien panther.

With Jax secured on his back, Orion bolted.

He moved with blinding speed, a blur of motion across the black tundra. He tracked Vance’s scent—sour sweat and fear.

Within twenty minutes, Orion crested a ridge and saw them. Vance and the bullies were trudging up the incline toward the Extraction Mesa, the distress beacon flashing in Vance’s hand.

Orion didn't roar. He simply closed the distance like a shadow.

He landed directly in front of Vance, the earth shaking beneath his paws. The bullies screamed, stumbling backward, raising their stolen rifles.

Orion shifted back into his bipedal predator form. He didn't attack them. He didn't need to. He stepped forward, radiating absolute, terrifying power. He reached out, grabbed the kinetic rifles from their trembling hands, and crushed the reinforced steel like wet cardboard, dropping the twisted metal at their feet.

Vance fell to his knees, sobbing, holding up the beacon in a shaking hand. “Take it! Just take it! Don't kill us!”

Orion looked down at his tormentor. He felt no anger, only pity. He took the beacon with one massive talon. Then, he turned his back on them, shifted back to his swift panther form, and sprinted toward the summit of the mesa.