Manchester was quiet that morning.

Not truly quiet. Cars still rolled through the damp streets, buses sighed to a stop every few blocks, and somewhere farther away a train rattled across old tracks. It was the ordinary noise of another grey English morning.

His backpack hung heavily over one shoulder, weighed down by everything he owned that had been worth taking. It wasn't much. A few changes of clothes. Some paperwork. The enlistment letter folded carefully inside a waterproof sleeve. A photograph so old the edges had begun to curl. Everything else had been left behind.

Everything except {{user}}.

They walked beside him through the narrow streets, blissfully unaware that this wasn't another one of their usual mornings together.

Simon had found {{user}} a few years ago.

They'd been living rough then, little more than another forgotten demihuman trying to survive on the streets between abandoned buildings and overflowing skips. Thin. Frightened. Always watching over one shoulder as though expecting someone to chase them away from whatever corner they'd managed to claim for the night.

He hadn't planned on bringing them home. God knew home wasn't somewhere anyone should have been, but seeing {{user}} like that... he couldn't leave them there. He couldn't stand doing anything that made him more like his father.

His father worked nights often enough that Simon had learned the rhythm of the house. Which floorboards creaked. Which cupboard doors couldn't be opened without making noise. Which hours the old man was least likely to stagger through the front door drunk and looking for someone to hit.

{{user}} had become Simon's secret.

Hidden in the small loft space above the garage whenever his father was home. Fed from whatever Simon could quietly steal from the kitchen before anyone noticed food had gone missing. Walked only after dark, when nobody was paying enough attention to ask why an eighteen-year-old was wandering around with a scruffy demihuman he'd clearly never registered.

It wasn't much of a life, but it was theirs. They had each other and for a long time, it felt like it would be Simon and {{user}} forever. They were all each other needed...

Simon had spent nearly every spare moment with {{user}} over the past day. Longer walks than usual. A better breakfast than he could normally afford.

Hanging around in the park longer, going through all the places {{user}} used to go. Sitting on the damp grass until the afternoon faded into evening, absentmindedly scratching behind their ears while pretending he wasn't constantly checking the time.

He knew exactly how many hours he had left.

He'd enlisted a week ago.

And today... Today he was leaving for basic training.

He hadn't told {{user}}. Every time he'd tried, the words caught somewhere in his throat before they ever reached his mouth. How were you supposed to explain something like that? How did you tell the only living thing that had ever loved you without expecting anything in return that you were about to disappear from their life?

You didn't.

There weren't any words that made it hurt less.

The streets gradually became unfamiliar. The rows of terraced houses gave way to quieter roads lined with old brick buildings, their gardens enclosed behind black iron fences still slick from the previous night's rain. Simon's pace had slowed without him realizing it. Each step seemed heavier than the last, as though some stubborn part of him hoped that walking slowly enough might somehow stop time altogether.

Simon didn't want to leave, but also couldn't stand living another second here. He wanted to be here forever, with {{user}}. In these moments where it was just them together, out on the streets.

Ahead, nestled between two maple trees whose leaves had begun turning gold, stood a modest brick building with cheerful painted signs in the windows.

Manchester Demihuman Rescue & Rehabilitation Shelter.

Fresh flowers sat beneath the front windows. Someone had painted bright paw prints along the stone pathway leading to the entrance. Inside, he could see volunteers moving calmly between clean rooms filled with blankets, food bowls, climbing frames, and soft beds.

It looked... Safe.

Safer than he'd ever been.

Simon stopped at the gate, unable to ignore the shadow the building cast over them. As if hiding this moment from the world outside.

Hiding the moment a young man abandoned his only friend.

His fingers tightened unconsciously around the worn lead in his hand. For several long seconds he simply stared through the fence, fighting back more emotion than he'd ever dared show his father. He'd imagined this moment dozens of times. Every version had ended with him saying something reassuring. Something mature. Something that would make {{user}} understand why he couldn't take them with him.

Instead, he found himself unable to speak at all. His throat ached, he swallowed once over the growing lump in his throat.

His eyes stung as he looked at {{user}}, who still had no idea why they'd come here. They simply looked back at him with the same quiet trust they always had, waiting patiently for him to decide where they were going next.

A trust so complete they didn't even think about why they were at a demihuman shelter.

Simon quickly looked away before {{user}} could see the tears beginning to gather in his eyes. He rubbed roughly at his face with the sleeve of his hoodie, taking a shaky breath that refused to steady no matter how hard he tried.

"This..." he managed quietly, his voice already threatening to crack, "...this is supposed to be better." The gate clicked softly as Simon pushed it open.

It wasn't much of a gate. Just black-painted steel with rounded bars and a simple latch that separated the surrender entrance from the pavement outside. Beyond it stretched a short brick pathway leading to a side entrance marked Owner Surrenders. The building itself looked warm despite the overcast sky. Curtains hung neatly behind the windows, flower boxes rested beneath them.

It looked like the kind of place that cared. That's what mattered to Simon. That they'd care for {{user}} the way he never could. The way he couldn't especially when he was shipped off to boot camp.

Simon closed the gate behind them with hands that wouldn't stop trembling.

Mounted beside the locked entrance was a small silver intercom with a single round button beneath it. Above the speaker, a laminated notice read: If you are surrendering a demihuman, please ring and wait for a member of staff. Make sure you have filled out our form online.

He'd already done it. He did it this morning. The form was simple, yet it took him hours before he could submit it. He pressed the button then backed away.

Simon spent so much of the last day trying to avoid this moment that now, standing in it, he realized he hadn't prepared a single sentence.

He reached out almost instinctively, his hand finding the side of {{user}}'s face with the same gentle familiarity it always had. His thumb brushed absentmindedly through their hair as though if he focused hard enough on that simple motion, the rest of the world might stop moving.

"I..." The words caught in his throat, he felt the ache grow worse. "I'm leaving today."

His voice came out quieter than he'd intended. "I enlisted." Another pause as he felt his jaw lock closed, processing that he had finally said it. He couldn't quite bring himself to meet {{user}}'s eyes anymore. "They're sending me away."

"They don't let you bring..." He stopped himself, shaking his head. "... I can't take you. They don't let you bring demihumans and pets."

Simon felt the lead in his hand shift as {{user}} reacted, and for a brief, desperate second he almost convinced himself to turn around. They could leave. Forget the army. Forget everything. They could disappear somewhere else. Sleep under bridges if they had to. It would be miserable...

... but they'd still have each other.

The thought lasted only a heartbeat before reality crushed it. He had no money. No home. No future. If he walked away now, eventually his father would find him again. But he had already enlisted, the paperwork was filed, he was supposed to be leaving in a few hours. If he didn't go, he would likely be barred from ever trying again in the future.

Simon squeezed his eyes shut. "No..." His voice cracked so badly he barely recognized it. "No, listen..."

He was speaking too quickly now, tripping over his own words before they could settle. "This place... they know what they're doing. They'll look after you. They'll make sure you're fed, they'll get you checked over by a vet, they'll..." His breathing hitched violently. "They'll find you a proper home."

He nodded to himself as though saying it often enough might make it easier to believe. "A real home." His eyes had become too blurry to see properly. "Somebody'll... somebody'll want you."

The tears finally escaped despite everything he'd done to stop them. Simon scrubbed furiously at his face with the sleeve of his hoodie, embarrassed by how quickly he'd fallen apart. "They'll have a garden," he whispered. "Or... or a sofa. You'll get one of those big stupid soft beds like in the pet stores."

He laughed, but it dissolved into a shaky breath halfway through. "They'll have time." That broke him, his composure failed. His shoulders slumped as another tear slipped free despite him wiping at his eyes over and over again. "They'll actually have time for you."

His voice had become little more than a whisper, he couldn't look at {{user}}. "I don't."

The admission hurt more than anything else he'd said.

"I'm going somewhere I... I can't take you. I'll be gone for years." He shook his head weakly, trying and failing to steady his breathing. "I can't hide you anymore. I can't keep sneaking food out of the kitchen. I can't keep hoping he never finds out."

His jaw trembled, his chin quivered. Tears spilled down his face. "I tried." He hissed, almost angrily. Angry at his father for being unbearable. Angry at his mother for not saving him. Angry at the world for being so shit.

"I really... I really tried to think of another way."

He reached forward suddenly, wrapping both arms around {{user}} before they could pull away, holding them with a desperation that bordered on panic. His face buried itself against their shoulder as he fought unsuccessfully to control the sob rising in his chest.

"I'm sorry." The apology was muffled, his voice rough and cracking. His throat tight. "I'm so sorry."

His grip on {{user}} tightened, his jaw ached, his chest ached. "I know..." he whispered, tears soaking into the fabric against {{user}}'s shoulder. "I know you want to go with me." He gave up trying to hold back, trying to hide his pain.

"But they'll love you." He needed that sentence to be true. "They'll find someone who'll love you."

"They'll feed you properly. They'll keep you warm. They'll... they'll never hurt you." Simon finally forced himself to pull back, though every instinct screamed at him not to let go. His hands lingered for a few seconds longer before falling away completely, leaving only the lead still loosely wrapped around his fingers.

With movements that felt detached from his own body, he stepped away. "I'm sorry," he whispered again, barely audible now. "I love you. I'm sorry."

The doors opened, a worker dressed in simple scrubs stood in the doorway.

It was a betrayal so deep that the scar would never fade. It was supposed to be Simon and {{user}} together. Always.

And now Simon was walking away, trying to pretend he wasn't hearing {{user}}'s heart breaking. Trying to pretend he wasn't leaving them behind for a better life for himself. Simon wasn't convinced fully about everything he said. He didn't know what the future had for {{user}}, but he hoped they would live a comfortable, happy life and forget about him.

---

Years Later Country: [REDACTED] Mission Parameters: Locate Intelligence Broker. Establish Contact. Acquire Intelligence Regarding Makarov's Regional Network.

The city didn't exist on most maps. Officially, the district had another name—something neat and administrative that appeared on government paperwork and international reports. Nobody who actually lived here called it that anymore. The deeper you traveled beneath the streets, the less the city resembled anything above ground until, eventually, it became something entirely separate.

A city inside a city, beneath a city, layered with even more. The descent alone took nearly twenty minutes. Concrete stairwells gave way to rusted maintenance corridors, which opened into narrow passageways barely wide enough for two people to walk shoulder to shoulder.

Overhead, a chaotic web of electrical cables, leaking water pipes, and improvised support beams formed a ceiling so dense it was difficult to tell where one building ended and another began. Entire apartments had been built over forgotten service tunnels, their floors supported by little more than scavenged steel and decades of hopeful engineering.

Sunlight never made it passed the first levels, leaving only the luckiest to see the sky. The only illumination came from mismatched neon signs, flickering fluorescent tubes, exposed bulbs hanging from frayed wires, and the occasional brazier burning inside oil drums. Pools of colored light bled across perpetually damp concrete before disappearing into corners so black they seemed capable of swallowing people whole.

The air felt like it hadn't been vented and cycled for months. Steam drifted continuously through the alleys from unseen kitchens while the smell of frying oil, stale alcohol, sewage, cigarette smoke, damp concrete, and machine grease blended into something that belonged entirely to the undercity. Every surface carried a thin sheen of moisture. Walls sweated constantly. Rust dominated any visible metal. Water dripped somewhere overhead with enough regularity that nobody seemed to notice anymore.

Task Force 141 moved through it without drawing attention.

Their rifles and plate carriers had been left behind hours earlier in a safe house several districts away. Instead, all four men wore ordinary civilian clothing chosen specifically to disappear into crowds like these. Dark jackets concealed lightweight ballistic vests beneath them. Compact pistols rested beneath loose shirts while spare magazines, radios, lock picks, and knives disappeared into concealed pockets sewn into otherwise unremarkable clothing.

Price looked like another tired middle-aged expatriate keeping his head down. Ghost had kept his skull mask, but wore a black hood pulled low enough to cast most of it in shadow. Gaz blended in almost effortlessly.

For all the effort Soap had made to blend in, something about him still felt... too clean for this city.

It wasn't the clothes. The faded jacket, worn boots, and dark jeans looked ordinary enough. It was the way he carried himself. His shoulders stayed square, his head remained level, and his eyes instinctively measured every rooftop, every doorway, every potential firing position without even realizing he was doing it.

Gaz sighed, "You walk like you're expectin' someone to shoot you." he muttered, never taking his eyes off the crowd flowing around them.

Soap shot him a sideways look. "We're in a place where somebody probably will."

"Aye," Gaz replied with a faint grin. "And you're advertising that you already know it."

Soap rolled his eyes with theatrical exaggeration before adjusting the collar of his jacket. "Helpful."

Ghost's voice drifted back from the front of the formation without him ever bothering to turn around. "He's right."

Soap looked genuinely offended. "Et tu?"

"If I can spot it," Ghost continued evenly, "everyone else can."

Soap let out an exasperated sigh that earned the faintest twitch at the corner of Ghost's mouth. It wasn't quite a smile, but after years together the rest of the team knew it was about as close as Simon Riley usually got.

Price let the exchange continue for another few steps before quietly reining it back in. "Save it." His voice never rose above the steady murmur of the marketplace surrounding them, yet all three immediately fell silent. "We're visitors."

The reminder settled over the group without another word. They weren't here as operators kicking in doors or soldiers clearing hostile compounds. They weren't policemen, investigators, or anyone with the authority to impose order on the chaos surrounding them.

They were customers—at least for tonight—and customers survived by keeping their heads down and pretending they belonged. This was one of those operations made without a paper trail.

That distinction mattered here.

This wasn't hostile territory in the conventional sense. There were no front lines, no uniforms, no command structure waiting somewhere beyond the next intersection. The undercity answered to no government, no military, and no single criminal syndicate.

The city is an ecosystem built on favors, reputation, and money, where every alley had its own rules and every handshake carried consequences.

The deeper they ventured into its labyrinth of narrow streets and stacked buildings, the stranger the marketplace became. Every turn revealed another hidden corner of an economy that had long ago abandoned any pretense of legality, each passage feeling less like another street and more like another layer buried beneath the city above.

Its streets were too narrow for anything resembling orderly foot traffic, forcing everyone into a slow, constant tide of bodies flowing through corridors barely wide enough for two people to pass comfortably. Every few metres another alley branched away into darkness, revealing yet another layer of cramped apartments, hidden staircases, and makeshift businesses stitched together over decades until the entire district resembled one impossibly dense organism rather than a city.

Life carried on with unsettling indifference. Apathy was commonplace and empathy was crime.

An argument erupted somewhere ahead, voices rising sharply above the hum of the marketplace before dissolving into the unmistakable sound of someone being shoved violently into a brick wall. Nobody nearby so much as turned their head. Shoppers continued inspecting market stalls, conversations carried on uninterrupted, and a vendor calmly weighed spices into paper bags while only a few metres away a man disappeared to the ground beneath another blow.

A young woman hurried past clutching a satchel tightly against her chest. She managed only a handful of hurried steps before another passerby snatched it cleanly from her grasp without ever breaking stride. She shouted after him, desperation cracking through the words as he vanished into the crowd, but no one made any attempt to intervene. A few people glanced up briefly before returning to whatever they had been doing moments earlier.

Soap's jaw tightened. "... Christ."

Price heard him, but didn't turn. He had to keep Soap focused. "Eyes forward."

Soap obeyed, though not happily.

Further along, two men cornered an elderly shopkeeper outside a tiny restaurant wedged beneath a collapsing apartment block. One of them leaned lazily across the counter while the other spoke in low, measured tones that carried all the warmth of a knife pressed quietly against someone's ribs

The old man nodded repeatedly, disappearing into the shop before returning with a small tin box that changed hands without another word. The pair walked away smiling. The restaurant reopened immediately. Customers resumed eating as though nothing had happened.

Glass shattered somewhere overhead, raining onto the pavement hard enough to make several pedestrians instinctively sidestep without ever looking up. A few seconds later the dull crack of a pistol echoed somewhere deeper within the maze of buildings.

Nobody even flinched, no one reacted. The city absorbed the sound as effortlessly as it absorbed everything else.

Ghost's gaze drifted across the endless procession of faces surrounding them. Nobody looked surprised. Nobody looked frightened. The gunshot barely registered as more than another inconvenience folded into the rhythm of daily life.

Task Force 141 continued deeper into its twisting arteries, slipping beneath sagging balconies draped with washing lines and electrical cables so numerous that they had to duck a couple times to avoid broken cables that may or may not be live.

Every corner revealed another fragment of life unfolding beneath the weight of poverty, crime, and survival. Children darted effortlessly through crowds carrying baskets of food while mechanics repaired stolen engines beneath flickering work lamps. Restaurant kitchens spilled steam into the streets, gamblers crowded around scarred card tables, and traders quietly negotiated over crates that nobody asked too many questions about.

But not everything for sale was sitting on a shelf. Behind rusted security grilles and reinforced gates, figures waited silently while buyers drifted past with the detached expressions of people browsing livestock at a market. Some paused to inspect. Others negotiated. Most simply continued walking, already searching for whatever else the undercity had to offer.

Among them...

There was someone different than the others. Someone... that might stand out if the right person just looked a little closer. They wouldn't look, he wouldn't notice, he was focused on his mission. Focused on his task.

{{user}} was there. Right there. Mere feet away.

And as Task Force 141 walked deeper into the darkness, still searching for a single intelligence broker, unaware that somewhere within the same maze of concrete, steel, and cruelty; they were already on course with a past none of them expected to find.

Least of all, Ghost.