Felicity's Beast World Apocalypse-Chapter 67: Let It Be

She did not think.

She reached.

The Light responded instantly, not as a blast but as compression. It surged outward from her palm in a concentrated wave that struck the creature mid leap and drove it sideways into a bank of dented freezer doors. The impact rattled glass. The thing shrieked.

Ivan finished it before it could recover.

When the store fell quiet again, dust floated lazily through fractured sunlight.

Her breathing came faster now.

Damien stepped in front of her without looking at the bodies. His attention remained entirely on her face. "You are shaking."

"I’m fine."

His tail brushed her wrist. "You are."

She glanced down and realized her hands trembled faintly. Not fear. Adrenaline. The reminder that this world did not pause for soft moments.

Victor approached last, scanning the perimeter one final time before his gaze settled on her. It was not worried.

It was assessing.

"Good control," he said evenly.

Approval from him always felt heavier than praise from anyone else.

Ash exhaled slowly near the entrance. "They’re getting closer to old city limits."

Pope nodded once, eyes distant. "The Light guided us here for a reason."

Victor ignored that.

"We move," he ordered.

But as Snow team regrouped and began filing toward the open wall, Damien lingered half a step behind her. His tail brushed lightly against her fingers, subtle and grounding.

"You still smell like rain," he murmured.

Despite everything, her mouth curved.

"Not meat?"

He tipped his head to one side, nose scrunching up like he was solving the world’s most important puzzle.

"Rain," he announced with a tiny, triumphant smile.

Outside, the sky hung heavy and colorless above the ruined city. Somewhere far off, something howled.

Victor took point without looking back.

Snow team followed.

Felicity stepped down from the broken concrete threshold and into the wind, aware of the eyes that watched her, the power that hummed beneath her skin, and the men who had chosen her long before she understood what that meant.

The world was still ending, But it was ending around her, They shifted without a command.

Bone rolled beneath skin painfully, reluctantly as if the body fought its own nature. Fur tore through fabric that had been chosen with care that morning.

Wings punched the air open with a sound like regret. Hooves cracked pavement, leaving marks that couldn’t be undone. Snow Team and Ivan’s people transformed into their beast forms, becoming what they were built to be while part of them remembered what they’d rather remain.

Victor knelt down, his powerful frame with restrained strength, and gathered his Little Fox into his arms. Her weight was nothing to him as he cradled her against his chest, her blonde hair spilling over his forearm. With a single powerful thrust of his silver midnight wings, they shot upward, leaving the ground far below. The wind rushed past them as Victor carved through clouds, his massive feathers gleaming with hints of obsidian black at their edges. She buried her fingers into the soft down where wings met shoulder, holding tight as the patchwork landscape of Beastworld unfurled beneath them like a dangerous, beautiful tapestry.

Voss moved below.

Ivan drifted to the outer flank, mist thin and ready.

They moved.

The city ahead was quiet in the wrong way.

They had been walking for nearly an hour when Felicity started humming.

It slipped out of her unconsciously, thin and soft, weaving between the scrape of boots and the distant rattle of loose metal in the wind.

Victor felt it before he registered the sound itself, a faint vibration against his chest where she rested in his arms.

He flew low.

Not high enough to silhouette them against the skyline. Not low enough to risk debris catching his wings. Just steady. Controlled.

Felicity’s head rested against his shoulder. Her fingers were curled lightly into his vest, tail brushing his side with every slow beat of air.

She wasn’t casting.

She was just singing.

The melody rose gently, clear and unforced. None of them recognised it, but every one of them reacted.

It carried through the ruined street like warmth slipping into cold hands.

"When I find myself in times of trouble..."

Victor adjusted his grip instinctively, one arm firm beneath her knees, the other secure across her back. His wings angled slightly, shielding her from the draft as they passed broken storefronts and hollowed buildings.

Below them, formation tightened.

Voss noticed first. Then Damien. The spacing between bodies shortened without discussion. Eyes lifted. No one broke stride.

Damien kept his eyes on her, unable to look away as her voice wove through the air like silver threads catching sunlight. His breath caught in his throat, trapped there by the beautiful melody that seemed to reach past his scales and coil around something deeper.

Warmth spread through him, melting the cold vigilance he’d maintained for so long, softening the hard edges of his curse. In that moment, with her gentle song surrounding him, he knew she was his angel, descended into this blood-soaked realm where he’d never dared hope for salvation.

Tommy blinked. "Is that a spell?"

Kai shook his head slowly. "No."

Ash tilted his head, his jaguar ears twitching forward beneath his dark hair as he closed his eyes to listen harder.

The soft melody of Felicity’s voice floated through the trees like morning mist, each note clear and pure against the backdrop of Beast world’s usual harshness. His expression softened almost imperceptibly. "Feels like one," he murmured, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly at her song.

Felicity sang about a mother. About stillness. About wisdom that didn’t solve anything but made the pain easier to hold. There was no crescendo. No demand.

Just acknowledgment.

"Speaking words of wisdom..."

Frost tugged on Sarge’s sleeve. "Why do I feel stronger?"

Sarge scrubbed a hand over his face. "Because people used to do that," he muttered. "Before everything got loud."

Legend’s shadow flattened against the wall, stretching long and motionless as if even it had decided to listen.

Pope stopped walking.

Everyone noticed.

He bowed his head with ritualistic precision, fingers interlacing at his sternum in the sacred vertical formation their Order required.

"The Light sings," he murmured, pupils dilating until his eyes were black pools, "and we are its willing instruments."

Sarge snapped instantly. "Don’t you dare."

Ash, suspiciously bright-eyed, whispered, "Too late."

Victor kept flying.

Low. Steady.

He could feel her breath against his neck, the vibration of her voice threading through his ribs. It grounded him in a way combat never could.

"Let it be..."

The phrase repeated, simple and devastating. Not command. Permission.

Ivan exhaled sharply. "End of the world," he muttered, "and someone brought a lullaby."

Victor glanced down once, expression hard and certain. "This," he said quietly, "is how people survived before guns."

Voss reached up as Victor passed, brushing his fingers against Felicity’s ankle.

A silent check. Damien adjusted his orbit without comment, tightening his protective range.

No one interrupted her.

Not even when her voice wavered at the last line, like she had finally put down something she had been carrying for months.

When the song ended, the silence felt heavier for it.

Felicity blinked, awareness dawning. "Oh. Sorry. I didn’t mean to."

Victor dipped immediately, landing with controlled precision. He did not put her down.

Instead, his wings folded around her, broad and shielding. One hand slid up to cradle the back of her head.

"No need for sorry words."

His lips brushed her cheek

Voss rumbled softly. "Sing again sometime."

Tommy wiped at his eyes. "I’m fine. Just emotional allergies."

Ash was already at a wall with spray paint.

Sarge closed his eyes.

White letters bloomed across concrete:

THE LIGHT SINGS EVEN WHEN THE WORLD IS ENDING

Sarge stared at it for a long moment. "I am going to pretend I did not see that."

Legend’s shadow leaned toward the text like it approved.

"Well," Legend said mildly, "he’s not wrong."

Kai swallowed. "What was it called?"

Felicity smiled, shy and luminous, fingers tightening slightly in Victor’s collar. "Let It Be."

Victor lifted off again, just enough to carry her forward.

For the length of a song, the world had remembered something older than fear.

"No church," Sarge said evenly. "No doctrine. No pilgrimages. No chanting. No uniforms."

Ash paused. "The uniforms were hypothetical."

"Especially no uniforms."

Pope folded his hands serenely. "Truth organizes itself."

"I can absolutely stop you," Sarge replied. "I have a baton."

Legend tilted his head. "To be fair, she did stabilize an entire mixed-level unit simply by existing."

Sarge turned slowly. "Don’t."

Legend smiled faintly. "If I were a survivor who had lost everything and that walked past singing about peace."

"Hard no."

Behind them, Damien observed the exchange.

Then, very deliberately, he reached into his pack, removed a bundle of dry wood, and handed it to Ash.

Ash accepted it automatically.

Pope accepted the next bundle.

Sarge stared.

"...Did you just give them more firewood."

Damien shrugged. "Faith burns brighter with fuel."

Sarge looked skyward, as if hoping something would descend and relieve him of responsibility.

Nothing did.

Damien appeared at the edge of road again, arms laden with branches, his expression unreadable as he silently deposited the pile next to Pope the third such offering since morning. Pope exchanged glances with Ash and Kai, who each had their own growing stacks of Damien’s inexplicable wood gifts scattered around their bags.