Felicity's Beast World Apocalypse-Chapter 77: Dad?

Rot. Old blood. Decay that had been sealed behind walls long enough to become abstract.

Voss took the second one that stumbled into view from the right, snapping its neck with a movement that was almost bored in its familiarity. Ivan dispatched a third with a clean stab through the skull that did not waste motion.

Felicity watched all of it.

Not to admire.

To remember.

Damien glanced down at her. "Still with me."

"Yes," she said quietly.

He nodded once, approving the steadiness.

They moved fast, not because anyone chased them, but because lingering near a city gate was always a mistake. Sound traveled. Blood traveled. The dead followed.

Once they cleared two blocks and reached the broken highway that angled toward the outskirts, Victor slowed. He looked back once, toward the city.

No one was pursuing.

Not yet.

Maybe not at all.

"That’s it," Legend said softly, and Felicity realised he had come out with them too, along with Kai and Pope. "We just... walked out."

"We walked out," Marx agreed, but his gaze was sharp as he scanned the streets. "Don’t start celebrating."

Ash sighed. "I wasn’t celebrating. I was marveling. There’s a difference."

Pope looked back toward the city gates. "A door opening is not the same as freedom," he murmured.

Felicity kept walking.

The shock of leaving hadn’t hit her fully yet. Her body still felt like it was inside that training level, hands on Voss’s chest, pouring everything she had into him while the Supreme lay unconscious behind them and a city of hungry men stood outside the door pretending they weren’t.

After an hour of steady movement, Victor chose a ridge line for camp. It was close enough to the city that they could see it if they climbed a broken section of overpass, but far enough that they wouldn’t be pulled into immediate pursuit if things shifted inside.

The ground was dry. The view was clear. The wind cut just enough to keep scent from settling.

"Here," Victor said.

Voss nodded. "Good sight lines."

Damien immediately started moving debris, checking angles. Ivan walked the perimeter without speaking, his mist faint around his fingers like a warning he kept leashed.

Felicity sank onto a slab of cracked concrete and let the tension drain from her shoulders in a slow, reluctant release.

Legend dropped beside her with a groan. "So. That was awful."

Kai gave him a look. "Understatement."

Legend leaned back, staring up at the sky. "I’m going to say something very controversial. Zombies are still worse."

Felicity huffed a quiet laugh despite herself.

Victor’s gaze flicked to her, catching it, and something in his expression softened.

He crouched in front of her, wiping dried blood from his knuckles with a cloth. "You okay."

Felicity opened her mouth and nearly said sorry out of habit She stopped.

She felt all four of them watching her in that tiny pause, like they could see the old reflex rising in her throat.

Instead she swallowed and said, "I’m tired."

Victor nodded as if that was the only acceptable answer. "Then you rest."

Voss came up behind her and pressed a kiss to the top of her head, gentle but possessive. Ivan leaned in and brushed his lips against her temple, then pulled back as if he didn’t trust himself to linger.

Because whatever strange gravity had formed around her, it did not remove the fact that the world was still rotting.

Damien sat close enough that his thigh pressed against her side, anchoring.

The clinginess returned immediately, not as smothering but as reassurance that they were still there, that the world hadn’t taken them yet.

Felicity looked at them and felt something inside her settle into a harder shape.

They weren’t going to let her apologize her way into being small again.

Not after today.

As dusk approached, the city lights flickered on in the distance. From their ridge, Felicity could see the gates as tiny moving lines of shadow and metal.

At first there was nothing.

Then, slowly, a small group emerged.

No banners. No escort. Just movement.

They stood at the threshold like they were arguing with themselves, then stepped out and began walking along the road away from the city.

More followed after several minutes. Not a flood. Not an exodus. Just steady trickles of decision.

Colt watched them with narrowed eyes. "It’s starting."

"They’re choosing," Pope said softly.

Sam’s mouth twisted. "Or they’re getting ahead of whatever punishment comes next."

Victor didn’t answer. His gaze remained on the city, expression unreadable.

Felicity hugged her knees and watched the small figures moving away from the walls.

Ivan did not sleep that night.

He sat against a concrete pillar, arms folded loosely, listening to Felicity breathe between Victor and Damien.

The room still held metal heat that had not faded. Burned wiring. Old oil. The residue of too many battles layered over each other.

She was alive.

She was safe.

And something in him had crossed a permanent line, This was no longer strategy.

It was love.

He simply accepted it.

If anyone touched her again the way Mason had tried to, he would remove them from existence.

No rage.

Just fact.

Across the room, Felicity stirred, She shifted in her sleep and leaned automatically.

Victor caught her.

Damien adjusted.

Voss watched.

Ivan felt something in his chest loosen and ache all at once, She would never stand alone again Outside, Ash added one final line to the wall before they left at dawn.

"THE LIGHT DOES NOT APOLOGIZE."

Pope underlined it once.

Sarge did not argue this time.

Consciousness crept back to Felicity, and she found herself staring at the ceiling.

Ivan drifted closer without thinking.

"You okay?" he asked quietly.

She looked up at him and smiled. Not the dazzling one she used when she wanted to calm a room. The small one she wore when she was exhausted but choosing to be brave anyway.

"Yeah," she said. "Just... feeling everything at once."

Behind her, Victor kept watch, a silent sentinel ready to fulfill her smallest need.

Her shoulders eased the moment her spine met his chest. His wing shifted around her automatically, the motion so practiced it bordered on unconscious. He did not cage her. He simply existed around her, solid and unmovable.

Voss lowered himself to the ground at her feet, forearms resting on his knees. His gaze tilted up to her face like it belonged there, steady and unashamed.

Damien settled cross-legged beside her, tail looped loosely around the base of the divider. His presence pressed outward, quiet and lethal, a perimeter disguised as stillness. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Ivan paused.

Then he sat too.

Close enough that his knee brushed hers.

Felicity glanced down at the contact, smiled, and nudged his leg lightly with her foot as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

That did something to him.

Something final.

Felicity bolted upright in bed, her eyes wide with panic. "The cubs Luna and Frost! Victor, they’re still in your space!"

Victor’s deep chuckle filled the room as he flicked his wrist, the air shimmering where his dimensional pocket began to open.

Luna and Frost burst out of Victor’s space like they had been shot from a cannon.

They tumbled onto the cracked floor in a tangle of limbs and laughter, chasing each other in wild loops until Luna skidded to a stop directly in front of the men.

She planted her hands on her hips.

"Dad," she said, pointing at Victor.

Victor froze.

"Dad," Luna continued, pointing at Voss.

Voss blinked slowly.

"And Dad," she finished, jabbing a finger toward Damien.

Damien stared at her like she had just handed him a weapon he did not know how to hold.

Then Frost padded forward, serious as always, eyes bright.

"...Dad," he added, pointing at Ivan.

The world stopped.

Ivan’s brain simply shut down.

Victor did not move. Voss’s mouth opened and then closed. Damien made a sound that might have been a laugh or might have been something dangerously close to emotion.

Ivan swallowed slowly and carefully.

"...Hey," he managed.

Felicity covered her mouth with both hands. Her eyes went wide before she burst into laughter so hard she nearly folded in half.

"They decided," she said between breaths. "I did not say anything. I swear."

Luna grinned. "You’re all big and scary and you keep her safe."

Frost nodded solemnly. "That’s dads."

Victor exhaled, long and shaky, as if something heavy had just settled into place inside him.

Voss rubbed a hand over his face and then laughed, low and rough.

Damien reached out and patted Luna’s head carefully, as though she might vanish if he touched her too firmly.

Ivan did not trust his voice.

So he reached into his pocket instead.

He pulled out a scrap of paper he had scavenged earlier. He folded it once, then again, fingers moving on muscle memory from a life before everything burned. The paper was thin and imperfect. His hands were not.

When he finished, he held it out.

A small paper flower.

Crude. Uneven. Perfect.

Felicity stared at it like it was something priceless.

"For you," he said quietly.

She took it with both hands.

Then she leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek.

It was not rushed. Not performative. Not strategic.

Just warm.

Ivan felt something inside his chest fracture open and rebuild itself in the same heartbeat.