Steel has a heartbeat.
And in the forests of Saxony, the Germans had given it fangs.
The Night Assault at Lothringen Ridge
September 17, 1914. Eastern France.
A forward Allied base near Lothringen Ridge—reinforced with two Sanglier Mk IVs and guarded by a detachment of Belgian and French troops—reported movement in the woods at 02:12.
Not artillery.
Not cavalry.
But engines. Low, guttural, mechanical.
At 02:19, the first explosion hit—an anti-tank shell. It pierced the Sanglier's flank armor with surgical precision.
By 02:25, both Sangliers were gone.
The Belgian survivors described a monster.
"It wasn't a tank," one whispered. "It was hunting us."
"It moved faster than anything that size should."
"It howled before it fired."
Leaked Footage
An Allied scout managed to capture ten seconds of grainy film during the assault.
Henriette played it for Emil and Vera in the projection room of Foundry Echo.
The frame shook as trees toppled. Then—a blur of grey steel, angular like a wedge, bearing white fangs painted across the hull.
The camera caught the name briefly:
LUPUS — Latin for Wolf.
"That's not a prototype," Vera said. "That's a finished product."
Bruno's jaw tightened.
"They skipped the experiments. They copied us and made it meaner."
"No," Emil murmured. "They made it personal."
The Lupus-Class Specifications
Ilse and Agnes spent two days decoding intelligence, matching shell fragments, engine audio, and tread impressions.
Their preliminary findings:
Top speed: 38 km/h (outruns all known Allied tanks)
Weight: Estimated 30 tons (5 more than Sanglier Mk IV)
Main gun: 88mm anti-tank cannon, low recoil, semi-auto loading
Armor: Angled front glacis, reinforced with dual-layered tungsten plates
Crew: 3–4 (autoloader likely in use)
But the worst part?
It wasn't mass-produced yet.
"They deployed a single prototype to test our weakness," Vera said.
"And we failed," Bruno added bitterly.
The Lupus Challenge
Emil paced in the design hall for hours, the chalkboard filled with crossed-out ideas.
"We can't outgun it—not yet," he muttered. "And we can't outrun it on treads alone."
Henriette entered with new intelligence.
"It's based out of Kassel. Underground design works. Codename: Fenrir Division."
"They're leaning into mythology now," Emil said. "Trying to scare us with monsters."
"It's working," she replied.
"Then we build mythology of our own."
He picked up the chalk again and wrote:
Sanglier Mk VI – "Typhon"
Operation Typhon Begins
For the next ten days, Forge Libre became a furnace.
Bruno led structural testing.
Camille returned to the driver's bench.
Ilse redesigned the transmission system using magnetic clutching—cutting noise and increasing stealth by 40%.
Vera introduced remote detonation javelins, designed to attach to enemy armor before self-igniting in a pressurized explosion.
But Emil focused on the heart of the design:
A split tread system for independent maneuvering
Reinforced hybrid armor (nickel-titanium mesh layered with ceramics)
An AI-assisted ballistic compensator—rudimentary but effective
The Typhon would not be another Sanglier.
It would be a predator of predators.
A New Pact
As the Typhon began to take shape, representatives from Romania, Greece, and Portugal approached Forge Libre with discreet offers.
"We want license to produce Sanglier under your brand," said the Romanian envoy.
"In exchange?" Emil asked.
"Fuel. Steel. Engineers. And silence."
Henriette leaned in.
"If we say yes, we become what we swore we wouldn't—a private arms empire."
"No," Emil replied. "We become a network of resistance."
He approved conditional licensing—but with one clause:
All Sanglier variants built under the Forge Libre banner must include emergency escape hatches and override protocols. No man becomes a cog.
A Letter From Fuchs
Then came another letter—unmarked, smuggled in a German helmet and left on Vera's desk.
"So, you've seen our wolf. Good. It's only the first. The next will breathe fire.
You have one chance to stop this escalation: return to France. Let the republic bury you quietly. The machine dies without its maker.
If not… the Fenrir Division will grow teeth in numbers you cannot match.
Tick, tick, tick.
—W.F."
Vera showed it to Emil.
He stared at it for a moment, then calmly lit it on fire.
"Then we won't outnumber them. We'll outthink them."
Trial by Combat: Faucon vs. Lupus
Two weeks later, the first Faucon-armed unit was dispatched to intercept a German armored column rumored to include another Lupus prototype.
The skies above Arras burned.
Three Faucons engaged the convoy, dropping penetrator javelins from 150 meters.
The first Lupus was hit in the engine bay—disabling its tracks.
The second fired back, shearing a Faucon's left wing with a flak burst.
Only two Faucons returned.
But they returned victorious.
Typhon Unleashed
In Normandy, Typhon rolled out of the assembly chamber at midnight.
Sleek. Low. Deadly.
Camille took the wheel. Bruno sat beside her. Emil stood behind, hand on the crew hatch.
"This isn't a tank," he said. "This is the next war."
He turned to Henriette.
"How many more can we build by winter?"
"If we sacrifice sleep?" she asked.
"Yes."
"Twelve."
"Make it fourteen."
"You're asking too much."
"No. I'm asking just enough."
The Next Step
In his quarters that night, Emil studied a fresh map.
This time, it wasn't of France or Germany.
It was of Bulgaria. Serbia. The Ottoman border. The Caucasus.
"This isn't just about France anymore," he whispered.
"This is about the soul of the century."
And then he circled a single city on the map.
Constantinople.