Dungeon chains trembled like living things under moonlight, blue copper corrosion flaking at Alyssa's touch. She counted guard footsteps—seven-pause-three pattern unique to Layne's mechanized sentinels.
"Dinner time, mutt." The guard's silver mask distorted his laugh. His tray held rotting nightingales, beaks threaded with her hair. "Master said you like... vocal meals."
Moonflare hatchling burned in her gut, quenched by azurite solution weeping from chains. When his gear-toed boot crushed her dislocated pinky, she smelled funeral spices identical to mother's coffin preservatives.
"Fun fact." She grinned around rusted chain links. "Layne builds self-destruct codes in all his toys."
Chains erupted into seventeen shards. Her spinal gears whirled, flinging the first shard through the guard's mask—out came a control chip flashing Evelyn's sigil.
"One." She whispered into his corpse, twisting his mechanical arm into spirals. Moonflare shifted gunmetal-red, flame hawk's tail feathers melting his skin to reveal clockwork skeleton.
Alarms blared as Alyssa tore into the second guard's mercury-laced arteries. Silver blood branded barcode patterns matching Wolf Mother's lab specimens.
"Mass-produced trash." She kicked the corpse at surveillance cameras. Layne's neural pulse vibrated her spine: "Finished tantrum, little Wolf Mother?"
Her reply was chain-strangling the third guard. Projections from his ocular implants showed Layne dissecting her thirteenth clone, scalpel gliding over identical features.
"Vampire aesthetics..." She tightened chains around metal vertebrae, sparks catching blood-crusted lashes. "...are cheap enough to vomit."
Moonflare phoenix exploded through ceilings, impaling four reinforcements on molten doors. The doorknob bore mother's engraving: When chains sing, remember it's a lullaby.
Twelve corpses reconfigured. Mechanical bones formed wolf skull contours, melted flesh filling gaps. When the final gear clicked into eye sockets, the tattoo howled under moonlight. Alyssa stuffed her severed hair into fang positions—strands igniting eclipse patterns in azurite-blood eyes.
"RSVP." She wiped blood from her eyes, noticing silver neural fibers weaving micro-constellations. Layne's projection materialized from the wolf's jaws, phantom fingers gripping her chin:
"Know why I chose this dungeon?" His elongating fangs pierced the hologram and her brow. "Wolf Mother's birthing room."
Blood fog eclipsed moonlight. Chains self-assembled into three-century-old obstetric tools. The final piece revealed an inscription: Delivery Unit #73,000, Operator: L. Shadowclaw.
The wolf tattoo lunged skyward with her in its jaws. Weightless, Alyssa saw dungeon walls peel away, exposing clone chambers at every growth stage. The oldest label read: Prototype: A. Silvermoon fetal hair sample.
Chains coiled around her throat. Layne's voice bled from every link: "Now you understand the true dance."
Spire gears shrieked. Before asphyxiation, Alyssa glimpsed Kane's arrows shattering clone tanks, her Moonflare hemorrhaging toward—