A Dangerous Heist

Siltri's heart pounded as he crouched behind a thick tree, watching the men in uniform unload various equipment from the airship and mercenaries advance through the grove.

The strange machine they carried emitted a faint, rhythmic hum as it scanned the area, its glow casting eerie, shifting shadows. The oppressive silence of the grove made every breath feel deafening. Siltri tightened his grip on his weapon. This mission had just become far more dangerous.

Siltri became silent for a moment and heard voices from people. He could hear the rustling getting closer, he quickly drew his gun and moved behind a nearby boulder, signaling for Vee to follow.

Vee crouched beside him, muscles tensed, his keen eyes tracking the mercenaries' every move. The wolf's fur bristled, and he let out a low growl, a primal reaction to the unseen menace in the air.

"They're getting too close," Siltri whispered. "We have to move."

Siltri counted at least 30 mercenaries approaching, all dressed in black tactical gear and carrying an assortment of weapons. Some carried assault rifles, while others wielded pistols or blades. One of the mercenaries even had a rocket launcher and jet thrusters attached to his back.

As they drew nearer, Siltri could see that their equipment was state-of-the-art, with night-vision goggles, body armor, and communication devices. The strange machine they carried appeared to be a high-tech scanning device, likely used for detecting the presence of something.

As Siltri scans the group of people, he notices a familiar symbol. It was the symbol of the illegal group of mercenaries, the Black Brigade.

The Black Brigade is a dangerous and notorious illegal organization made up of highly skilled mercenaries who engage in illegal activities like assassination, kidnapping, and extortion to achieve their clients' objectives.

It was clear that whoever had hired these mercenaries to retrieve something in these unknown lands was willing to spare no expense to get their hands on it. Siltri knew that he and his team were outmatched in terms of firepower and technology, but he also knew that they had something the mercenaries didn't - a deep understanding of the terrain and the ability to navigate it quickly and quietly.

Siltri gestured to Vee to retreat into the cover of the forest, hoping to avoid detection for as long as possible. He knew that their mission had just become much more difficult, but he was determined to succeed despite the odds stacked against them.

Just as they were about to retreat, a pulsating noise was heard from the machine that the mercenaries carried. The pulsating sound intensified as it sliced through the heavy air like a warning bell.

One of them signaled an order. "We have a reading. The target is nearby. Spread out!"

"What target?" Siltri doubted his ears and decided to follow them sneakingly.

Siltri pressed himself deeper into the damp earth, his body perfectly still, heart beating in sync with the whispering wind. The scent of moss and decaying leaves filled his lungs as he exhaled slowly, eyes locked on the figures ahead. Vee crouched beside him, his fur bristling, ears flicking at every shifting sound that broke the silence.

They had moved carefully, every step calculated, weaving through the tangled undergrowth until they were close enough to see without being seen.

The Black Brigade had reached the grove's center, where an enormous, ancient tree loomed—its bark a gnarled mass of twisting knots, its limbs sprawling like skeletal arms reaching for the sky. Shadows pooled beneath its towering form, the moonlight struggling to pierce through its tangled branches.

The mercenaries advanced, their weapons raised, their movements practiced and precise. Their formation spread in a disciplined arc, rifles sweeping the darkness.

Then—a sound.

A low, rhythmic hum.

Siltri's gaze snapped to their hands. The scanner. Its screen flickered softly, its pulse steady but rising.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

They had locked onto something.

Siltri narrowed his eyes as one of the mercenaries tapped commands onto the glowing interface. The beeping quickened, its cadence becoming urgent.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

A presence. Hidden. Watching.

The mercenaries shifted, rifles angling upward toward the gnarled mass of branches above. Their fingers tensed over the triggers, muscles coiled, waiting.

"There it is." The hushed murmur cut through the tension like a blade.

Siltri squinted into the darkness, trying to catch sight of what had drawn their attention. His breath hitched. Something was up there.

But before he could focus—

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

The scanner's tone shifted. No longer a steady rhythm, but an erratic, overlapping cacophony. Like a panicked heartbeat. The glowing display flickered, pulsing wildly.

A new signature appeared.

Then another.

Then another.

Dozens.

The beeping became a frantic alarm. A single presence had turned into a swarm.

"No… not just one."

The Black Brigade's leader stiffened. His hand shot up in a sharp signal—defensive positions.

The mercenaries reacted instantly, shifting into a tight perimeter, weapons sweeping in every direction. Their training kept them disciplined, but there was something different in their movements now. A new tension. They had been prepared for a hunt.

Not for this.

Then came the rustling.

Soft at first. A whisper through the leaves.

Then louder. Heavier.

The very air seemed to thicken, growing colder, pressing in on them like an unseen force. The branches creaked, their twisted limbs shifting—slowly at first, then with deliberate purpose.

Siltri didn't move. Didn't breathe.

He and Vee remained hidden, unseen in the unfolding chaos.

But they both knew—

Whatever surrounded the mercenaries… was alive.

The grove was pure carnage.

Gunfire tore through the air, each shot drowned beneath the deep, guttural roar of the regenerating tree. Explosions erupted like ruptured thunder, sending shockwaves through the battlefield. Smoke thickened, swallowing everything in a choking haze of blood and burnt bark.

The mercenaries fought in desperation now. Orders barked through their comms turned into screams as the trees retaliated with monstrous force. Limbs crashed down like living battering rams, sending soldiers flying like broken dolls. Some managed to fire off their last desperate rounds before they were yanked into the shadows, their dying cries fading into nothing.

But Siltri was different, he wasn't focused on the fight. His eyes locked onto the center tree—the one that started it all.

And there it was, a fruit. Nestled deep within the gnarled, twisting heart of the tree, pulsing. Almost as if it were breathing.

"That's it."

It was the reason the mercenaries were here. And the reason he needed to get to it first.

But getting it?

A suicide run.

The tree was a monster, a living fortress. Its titanic limbs lashed out, impaling soldiers, crushing them in its iron grasp, their armor buckling like tin beneath its power. It didn't just kill—it eradicated.

But the mercenaries weren't backing down.

With every loss, they pushed harder. Heavier weapons emerged—grenade launchers, plasma rifles, a railgun sparking to life.

Then—

BOOM!

A direct hit.

The tree's outer shell shattered, massive chunks of bark blown apart, limbs torn free, sending splintered wood raining down in flaming chunks.

For the first time, the monster reeled.

A gap. A weakness.

An opening.

Siltri didn't hesitate.

His muscles coiled—then he bolted.

Vee growled low, his fur bristling, but Siltri shot him a sharp glance.

"Stay here."

Then he was gone, moving like a shadow through the wreckage.

Smoke. Fire. Blood. He weaved through it all—dodging past flaming debris, leaping over the twisted remains of fallen mercenaries, barely avoiding the crossfire screaming overhead.

The world blurred around him.

The fruit was in reach.

Then—

The air shuddered.

The temperature plunged.

Siltri felt it before he saw it.

The tree noticed him.

Every shattered limb, every severed root, snapped back to life. Bark slithered over its wounds like liquid armor, sealing the damage in seconds. Its twisted tendrils thickened, sharpened, turning into spears aimed directly at him.

It was no longer just defending itself.

It had marked him.

Siltri threw himself sideways just as a jagged branch speared through the space where he had stood, splitting the ground in a violent quake.

A trap.

It had lured him in.

Now—it would kill them all.

The entire grove woke up.

Every tree lurched forward as if summoned, their monstrous bodies moving as one. Roots ruptured from the earth, tearing apart the battlefield, snaring anything—anyone—in their path.

Screams erupted.

The mercenaries fought back, but their bullets barely slowed the onslaught.

One soldier twisted to fire—but never got the chance. A root shot up, wrapping around his torso like a vice. His shriek was cut off as the tendril snapped tight—bones breaking—before dragging him into the darkness.

Another launched a grenade.

It never detonated.

A whip-like branch struck him mid-throw, his body flung against a jagged trunk. His skull cracked like glass.

Siltri barely had time to process the slaughter before a shadow loomed over him.

The tree's massive limb shot down—aimed for his chest.

He rolled, twisted, narrowly dodging as it crashed into the ground with a force that sent shockwaves through the earth.

Then he heard it—

A voice.

Not from the trees.

From the mercenaries.

They had seen him.

"Intruder! Someone's after the target!"

Their priorities shifted.

The Black Brigade turned on him.

Bullets and plasma blasts screamed toward him, forcing him to dive behind a pile of burning wreckage.

His lungs burned, his leg throbbed from a near miss, his heart slammed against his ribs. This was no longer a battle between mercenaries and trees.

Now—it was a three-way war.

The grove had become a battlefield of nightmares. Gunfire erupted in every direction, the sharp muzzle flashes momentarily illuminating the chaos. The mercenaries, seasoned killers who had likely survived the worst of wars, were no longer hunters. They were prey. Their bullets tore through the twisted limbs of the massive trees, each round chipping away at the monstrous entities, yet the effort was futile.

The trees regenerated with horrifying speed, their splintered limbs snapping back into place as if time itself rewound for them. Each time a branch was severed, another would slither out from the gnarled trunks, reaching, lashing, impaling anything within reach. The air was thick with the acrid stench of blood and burning wood as the mercenaries resorted to incendiary rounds, desperate to slow the relentless onslaught.

Siltri remained hidden, crouched low behind a fallen log, his chest rising and falling in steady, calculated breaths. He wasn't just watching the carnage—he was studying. The trees had one overwhelming advantage: their regeneration. But now, as the battle raged on, Siltri's sharp gaze picked up on a change. The once-fluid, lightning-fast regrowth was beginning to slow. The movements of the trees, once precise and deadly, became slightly less reactive, their attacks a fraction delayed.

It was subtle, but it was there.

They were burning through their energy.

Then it happened—a single, split-second opening.

The massive tree at the center, the one the mercenaries had been fixated on from the beginning, lurched to the side. It hesitated. The entire structure sagged for just a moment, its enormous limbs dragging along the ground before curling inward. It was only for a breath, but for Siltri, it was enough.

He sprang into action.

With the flick of his wrist, he pulled his grappling gun free, the weight of it reassuring in his palm. He aimed, fired—the steel hook whistled through the air, embedding itself deep within the bark of the ancient tree. The moment it latched, Siltri kicked off the ground, using the momentum to propel himself forward.

The battlefield blurred around him. He dodged snapping branches, twisting his body midair to avoid the razor-sharp thorns lunging toward him. Below, mercenaries were still fighting for their lives, some screaming as they were dragged into the darkness of the grove, their bodies crushed, impaled, or swallowed whole by the living forest. Blood painted the bark, pooling beneath the roots like sacrificial offerings.

None of it mattered.

Siltri landed within the hollow of the central tree, rolling to absorb the impact. As he pushed himself up, his eyes locked onto the object of their hunt.

There, nestled deep within the core of the tree, hung the fruit.

It pulsed faintly, a soft glow radiating from beneath its crystalline surface, almost as if something within was alive. The air around it vibrated with a barely perceptible hum, a force that sent chills down Siltri's spine. His instincts screamed at him to be cautious, but there was no time.

He reached out, fingers grazing the fruit's smooth surface—

The tree shrieked.

A sound so piercing and unnatural that it cut through the gunfire, the screams, the chaos of the grove itself. The very ground trembled beneath him as the hollow he stood in twisted and contorted, massive wooden limbs curling inward like the grasp of a dying god.

"Shit—"

Siltri spun to leap out, but something whipped out from the shadows.

A vine, thick as a steel cable, lashed out and coiled around his leg. He barely had time to react before it tightened—spiked tendrils digging into his flesh, puncturing muscle and bone.

Pain.

White-hot, unbearable pain shot through his body, like a thousand needles burrowing into his skin. He let out a strangled gasp, his body convulsing as the vine yanked him backward. He crashed against the inner bark, his weapon slipping from his grasp as the tree began pulling him inside.

Then—CRACK.

A searing burst of agony exploded through his leg. Something had snapped.

His vision blurred, black spots creeping at the edges of his sight. His leg was broken, the unnatural angle of his shin making bile rise in his throat. He struggled, gritting his teeth, trying to reach for his knife—but the tree wasn't giving him a chance. It was going to consume him.

Then, out of nowhere—a blur of movement.

A streak of black. A flash of fangs.

Then—SNAP!

The vine was severed in an instant. Siltri barely registered the sensation of being yanked backward at incredible speed, his body weightless for a moment before he was suddenly airborne. The world spun violently, the pain in his leg screaming through his nerves, and then—his fall stopped.

Something held him.

Teeth.

Vee's teeth.

The wolf's jaws had clamped onto his backpack, dragging him away from the carnage, pulling him from the clutches of death itself. But something was… off.

Vee was different.

He wasn't the same sleek, agile creature Siltri had fought alongside countless times before. His body had changed—broader, more powerful. His fur had thickened into a mane, wild and unkempt, almost like armor. His claws, once sharp, were now daggers. His eyes—glowing, burning a spectral yellow in the darkness.

Siltri clung to him, chest heaving, barely able to process what he was seeing. But there was no time.

The trees were coming.

The mercenaries had spotted him now, their priorities shifting as they realized he had what they came for.

Vee's entire body tensed. His lips curled back, revealing razor-sharp fangs, his throat vibrating with a deep, guttural snarl that sent a shiver down Siltri's spine. It wasn't just aggression—it was rage.

Then—he barked.

Not an ordinary bark.

It was thunderous. Explosive. A sound that ripped through the battlefield like a gunshot, echoing through the grove with a force that shook the very ground beneath them. The trees shuddered. Even the mercenaries froze.

Vee didn't wait for a reaction.

With a powerful lunge, he bolted, tearing through the battlefield like a black storm, weaving through the madness with inhuman speed.

Siltri clenched his teeth, ignoring the fire in his leg as he held on for dear life.

The forest screamed behind them.

The Black Brigade would not let this go.

The trees would not forget.

And as Siltri clutched the fruit to his chest, feeling its unnatural warmth seeping into his fingers, a single thought burned in his mind:

What the hell had they just stolen?