Location: Portside Industrial Stretch — Docks — Night
The ship groaned against the dock.
Ropes as thick as a man's arm strained against metal cleats. The gangplank descended with a clatter that echoed off the container stacks. Crew members moved in practiced silence—tying off, checking lines, securing the vessel for its brief stay before the next voyage.
Elijah stood at the railing.
The Azaqor mask was still pressed to his face. Nathan Drayke's smug, punchable expression stared out at the Portside industrial stretch—the cranes, the warehouses, the yellow lights that never seemed to turn off. Behind him, the captain's cabin was dark. The party had ended an hour ago.
Wilder appeared at his elbow.
His coverall had been exchanged for a windbreaker—bright yellow, the same one from the speedboat. His cracked glasses had been replaced with a spare pair. He looked almost respectable.
"Well," he said. "This is it."
"This is it."
"We part ways. Like strangers."
"Like people who don't want to raise suspicion."
Wilder nodded. His expression was uncharacteristically serious.
"Erickson's right. The turf cliques have eyes everywhere. Spies. Informants. People who get paid to watch who walks in and out of the port."
Elijah's gaze swept the dock.
He saw them now—the ones who didn't belong. A man in a long coat leaning against a stack of pallets, his posture too still, his eyes tracking the gangplank. A woman sitting on a forklift, her phone held at an angle that suggested she was recording, not scrolling. Two figures in a parked van, their silhouettes barely visible through the tinted glass.
His perception brushed against them.
Not the full spectrum—not the overwhelming flood of data from the speedboat. Just a whisper. Just a flicker of something that felt like... anticipation. Watchfulness. The kind of attention that preceded action.
They're waiting, he thought. For us to separate. For one of us to make a mistake.
"We'll contact you," Erickson said.
He had appeared on Elijah's other side, silent as always. His hands were clean now—the blood had been washed away in the captain's quarters. But something about him still felt sharp. Edged.
"Through the game," Elijah said.
"The game."
"Wilder's idea. Anonymous accounts. No names. No faces. Just text."
Erickson's jaw tightened.
"I still think it's stupid."
"It's brilliant," Wilder countered. "No one looks at a gaming chat. Everyone looks at encrypted messages. Everyone looks at burner phones. But a group chat in a mobile dungeon crawler? With avatars? It's invisible."
He grinned.
"I already made mine. RockSteady. Because I'm reliable."
"You're not reliable," Erickson said.
"I'm steady. That's the same thing."
"It's not."
"It is in my head."
Elijah sighed.
"I'm EMI," he said. "First letters of my names."
"Creative," Wilder said. "And you, step-brother? What's your handle?"
Erickson was silent for a long moment.
"Downer," he finally said.
Wilder's face lit up.
"Did you just make a joke? Did you—did you make a self-deprecating joke about being a downer? I'm so proud. I'm going to cry."
"Don't."
"Too late. The tears are already forming."
Elijah turned away from them.
His eyes found the van again. The figures inside hadn't moved. But one of them—the driver—was holding something that caught the yellow light. A phone. Aimed at the gangplank.
"I can take care of myself," Elijah said.
"I know," Erickson replied. "But there's something else."
He stepped closer. His voice dropped.
"Don't use the Mandate as Nathan Drayke. If you have to use it—if you have no choice—make sure no one sees your face. Not the mask. The technique. The rings. The Severance."
"Why?"
"Because Nathan Drayke is a foreign bloke with a punchable face and a bad accent. Nathan Drayke is not someone who can manifest seven rings of fire and turn people into mist. If those two things become connected—"
"Everyone comes looking for me."
"Yes."
Elijah nodded.
"Noted."
---
The Veyron purred beneath him.
Elijah sat in the driver's seat, his hands on the wheel, the engine idling. The Azaqor mask was still in place. Nathan Drayke's face stared out through the windshield at the Portside industrial stretch—the warehouses, the container stacks, the skeletal cranes silhouetted against the bruised sky.
He pulled out of the dock.
The road was rough—potholes, patches of gravel, the kind of surface that had been repaired so many times that the repairs had become the road. Streetlights flickered overhead, casting pools of orange light that barely reached the asphalt.
They're following me, he thought.
He had noticed them as soon as he left the dock. Three cars. Low to the ground. Painted in colors that didn't belong in the Portside—deep purple, electric blue, neon green. The kind of vehicles that teenagers drove in Vidflash videos, not the kind that belonged on industrial roads.
Stallion 2000s, he remembered. Custom rims. Modified exhausts. The official car of the Morrecca fan club.
His internal voice was dry.
Either I'm being followed by fans, or I'm being followed by something worse.
The cars stayed behind him—one in his lane, two in the next. They didn't try to pass. They didn't try to box him in. They just... followed. Patient. Waiting.
Morrecca, Elijah thought. He's not done with me. Of course he's not done with me. I embarrassed him. I made him look weak. And people like Morrecca don't forgive. They don't forget. They just wait for the right moment.
He turned left.
The cars turned left.
He turned right.
The cars turned right.
Fine, he thought. Let's see how far you're willing to follow.
---
The beach emerged from the darkness like a dream.
Not the tourist beaches—the ones with boardwalks and Ferris wheels and vendors selling overpriced food. This was the other side. The forgotten side. The place where the city dumped things it no longer needed.
Broken boat hulls lay scattered across the sand like the bones of dead animals. Fishing nets, tangled and abandoned, formed dark webs against the pale ground. Buoys—orange and white—had been stacked into a pyramid that leaned dangerously to one side. Pieces of dock, splintered and weathered, jutted from the sand like fingers reaching for the sky.
A parking lot sat at the edge of the beach.
Cars were scattered across it—old sedans, a pickup truck with a camper shell, a van that looked like it had been converted into someone's home. None of them were close to each other. None of them looked like they belonged to anyone who would ask questions.
Elijah pulled the Veyron into an empty space near the back.
He killed the engine.
The three Stallions were still behind him. They had followed him into the parking lot. They had found spaces of their own—spread out, forming a loose triangle around his car.
They're not trying to hide, he thought. They want me to know they're here.
He stepped out of the Veyron.
The air was different here. Saltier. Colder. The sound of waves filled the space between the cars—a rhythmic crashing that almost masked the sound of engines cooling, doors opening, feet on asphalt.
---
Teens were gathered near the water's edge.
Four of them. Young—seventeen, maybe eighteen. Their phones were out. One of them—a girl with bright pink hair—was standing in front of the others, her body moving in a rhythm that Elijah recognized from Vidflash.
Her hands traced patterns in the air.
Not random gestures. Choreography. Her palms faced the camera, then flipped. Her fingers spread, then curled. Her shoulders rolled in a wave that started at her neck and ended at her hips. Her feet shuffled—left, right, left—in time with music only she could hear.
The others watched. One held a phone, recording. The other two were laughing, their bodies swaying, trying to mimic her movements.
Vidflash live, Elijah thought. The comments are probably already flooding in.
He could almost see them. The gift icons floating across the screen—tiny animated flowers, digital coins, little sparks of light that viewers sent to show appreciation. The usernames scrolling past in a blur.
"QueenBree sent a Spark!"
"DancerMike sent a Rose!"
"LurkerNoMore sent a Crown!"
The pink-haired girl finished her routine with a pose—one hand on her hip, the other raised above her head, her fingers forming a v
The boy holding the phone lowered it.
His face was flushed. His eyes were wide.
And then he saw Elijah.
"No way," he said.
The others turned.
"No way, no way, no way—"
The boy ran.
His feet pounded across the sand. His phone bounced in his hand. He stopped three feet from Elijah, his chest heaving, his mouth open.
"It's you," he said. "It's actually you."
Elijah's mask—Nathan Drayke's smug, punchable face—stared down at him.
"Me?"
"Nathan Drayke. The Vault Breaker. The guy who made Nico Morrecca look like a joke."
The other teens had gathered behind him. Their phones were up now—recording, live streaming, capturing every moment.
"Hey all!" the boy shouted into his phone. "Look who I found at Scrapper's Cove! It's none other than Nathan Drayke himself!"
The comments began to scroll.
"No way it's the guy"
"Yeah I can't believe it he looks like some stranded homeless guy now"
"Give the fellow some respect drives a Veyron pretty loaded too"
"He should do a dance and freestyle a diss track about Nico"
"Exposed how useless and lame Nico and his crib crew are"
Elijah's internal voice was a scream.
I'm standing in a parking lot, surrounded by teens, being live-streamed to Vidflash, and Nico Morrecca's goons are thirty feet away.
Outwardly, he smiled.
"Just a guy," he said. "Who happened to have a disagreement with some people."
---
The Stallions' doors opened.
Three cars. Six people. They moved with the coordination of men who had done this before—spreading out, covering the exits, their eyes fixed on Elijah.
The teens didn't notice.
They were still recording, still laughing, still commenting.
But Elijah noticed.
His perception expanded—not the full spectrum, just enough. The thermal signatures of the men were hot. Not from exertion. From something else. Something that felt like... anticipation. Like violence waiting for permission.
One signature was different.
It was in the driver's seat of the electric blue Stallion. The engine was still running. The windows were tinted, but Elijah could see through them—not with his eyes, with something deeper.
The man inside was burning.
Not literally. His body temperature was normal. But the aetherflux around him—the frequency field that connected matter and energy—was concentrated. Focused. Pressed into a shape that Elijah recognized.
Rael, he thought. This feels like Rael.
But different.
Rael's aetherflux had been controlled. Precise. Like a scalpel in the hands of a surgeon.
This was... lagging. Unstable. It pulsed in uneven waves—bright, dim, bright, dim. It licked at the edges of the man's body like flames in a windstorm. It was hungry. Desperate. Dangerous in a way that Rael had never been.
The necklace, Elijah realized.
Around the man's throat was a band of dark metal—thick, carved with symbols that seemed to absorb the light. It pulsed with the same uneven rhythm as the aetherflux. It was the source. Or the conduit. Or the cage.
The window rolled down.
Nico Morrecca's face emerged.
He was younger than Elijah had expected. Early twenties, maybe.但他的 eyes were older—dark, hollow, burning with something that looked like resentment and hunger and fear all tangled together.
His lips curled.
"Nathan Drayke," he said.
His voice was quiet. Almost pleasant.
"We have unfinished business."
Elijah said nothing.
The teens had stopped recording.
The only sound was the waves and the uneven pulse of the aetherflux and the distant cry of a gull somewhere out over the water.
---