The Gotham shipping yards were a graveyard of rusted iron and forgotten cargo, stretching out into the murky black water of the bay. It was the perfect place for a ghost to disappear, or for a newly minted meta-human to have a panic attack.
Elias skidded to a halt atop a stack of orange shipping containers. His sneakers, glowing faintly with residual friction heat, left steam trails on the cold metal.
He was miles away from the Bowery now. The run had been… instructive. He wasn't just fast; he was frictionless. When he moved at speed, the world didn't blur so much as warp around him. He didn't push against the air; the air seemed to get out of his way.
"Okay," Elias panted, sitting cross-legged on the wet container. The rain here was torrential, drumming a deafening rhythm on the metal, but Elias barely felt the cold. His metabolism was running so hot he was practically a space heater.
"Time to figure out the UI."
He closed his eyes and focused inward, diving past the physical sensation of the rain and the smell of sea salt, down into the hum of power in his chest.
The interface appeared in his mind's eye—a holographic heads-up display hovering in the void.
Status: Base Form.
Chaos Emeralds: 7/7 (Dormant).
Ring Energy: 0.
"Zero," Elias muttered, opening his eyes. "That's the problem."
In the games, Sonic needed fifty rings to activate the Super form. Once activated, the ring count ticked down like a timer. If it hit zero, you turned back to normal. Simple game mechanics.
But Elias didn't have floating golden rings to collect. He hadn't picked up anything in that alleyway, yet he had transformed.
"The system said 'Kinetic Energy Equivalent,'" Elias recalled. "My heart rate was spiking because I was about to get stabbed. Adrenaline. Movement."
He stood up. The logic tracked. In this universe, 'Rings' weren't physical objects; they were a measurement of bio-electric charge. A battery percentage.
"So, to go Super, I have to charge the battery," he theorized. "And to charge the battery, I have to run."
He looked down at the maze of shipping containers. It was a dangerous obstacle course of narrow gaps, hanging cranes, and slick surfaces. Perfect.
Elias took a breath. He didn't just run; he revved.
He began to jog in place. At first, it looked ridiculous, but within seconds, the blue sparks returned. They arced from his shoulders to his heels. The sound of a turbine spinning up—a high-pitched whine—began to emanate from his chest.
Ring Energy: 5… 6… 7…
"It's working," he grinned.
He bolted.
He ran a lap around the perimeter of the shipping yard. He wasn't breaking the sound barrier yet—he didn't want to alert the entire city again—but he was moving at a solid two hundred miles per hour. He banked off a crane, wall-ran along the side of a tanker ship, and leaped over a twenty-foot gap between containers.
With every step, he felt the reservoir in his chest filling. It was a sensation like drinking espresso straight from the pot. His senses sharpened. The rain droplets seemed to freeze in the air.
Ring Energy: 35… 40… 45…
He hit the center of the yard, skidding in a tight circle, generating a vortex of wind that pushed the rain away.
Ring Energy: 50.
THRESHOLD REACHED.
INPUT COMMAND.
Elias stopped. He was vibrating with potential energy. The blue electricity was no longer sparking; it was wreathing him, erratic and wild.
"Okay," Elias whispered. "Showtime."
He didn't just pull the trigger this time; he embraced it. He mentally reached for the seven suns in his chest and shouted.
"HAA!"
The transformation didn't explode outward this time; it imploded. The blue electricity turned white, then shattered into a brilliant, blinding gold.
The rain vaporized in a fifty-foot radius. Elias floated upward, his feet leaving the metal container.
The feeling was indescribable. Base form felt like being a sports car. Super form felt like being the star the car drove around. It was omnipotence. It was the absolute certainty that nothing in the universe could hurt him.
He looked at his reflection in a puddle of water that hadn't evaporated yet. Gold fur. ruby eyes. An aura that flowed like liquid fire.
But then he saw the counter.
Ring Energy: 49… 48… 47…
It was ticking down fast. One unit per second. That gave him less than a minute of godhood.
"No good," Elias said, his voice flanged with harmonic resonance. "If I have to run a marathon just to get sixty seconds of power, I'm useless in a prolonged fight. I need to stabilize the burn."
He closed his eyes, hovering ten feet in the air. He ignored the feeling of invincibility and focused on the drain.
He could feel the energy leaking out of him. The golden aura was massive, billowing out wildly. He was acting like a flamethrower when he needed to be a pilot light.
"Compress it," he told himself. "Don't let it radiate. Cycle it."
He imagined the seven Chaos Emeralds not as exploding stars, but as gears in a watch. They needed to turn in unison. He visualized the energy flowing out of the Emeralds, through his limbs, and then looping back into the core, recycling the waste heat.
He gritted his teeth. It was like trying to hold back a flood with a screen door. The Chaos energy wanted to be wild; it was chaos, after all. It resisted order.
Ring Energy: 30… 29…
"Focus!" Elias snapped.
He tightened the aura. The massive, billowing flames retracted, hugging his body like a second skin. The blinding light dimmed to a intense, solid gold hum.
The ticking slowed.
Ring Energy: 28…
…
…
Ring Energy: 27.
He had bought himself three seconds for every one unit. Efficiency increased by 300%.
"Better," Elias breathed.
He opened his ruby eyes. Now to test the output.
He looked at a rusted crane tower looming overhead. It was massive, weighing tons.
Elias flew up to it. He didn't speed-blitz it; he just placed one glowing hand against the steel beam.
He pushed.
There was no resistance. The metal groaned, shrieked, and then bent. The entire crane tilted. Elias wasn't straining; he felt like he was pushing a cardboard box.
"Strength: Check," he noted.
Next, flight speed.
He looked straight up at the heavy storm clouds choking Gotham's sky.
"Let's see what's above the gloom."
BOOM.
He launched.
If he had blinked, he would have missed it. One moment he was in the shipping yard, the next he was punching through a cloud layer. Cold mist whipped past him, and then—silence.
He broke through the cloud cover.
Below him was a sea of rolling grey storms, lit by flashes of lightning. But above him? It was a pristine, star-filled night sky, with a bright, indifferent moon hanging in the void.
Elias hovered there, suspended in the quiet. The air was thin and freezing, but the Super form protected him completely. He felt warm.
"I could go anywhere," he whispered, looking at the horizon where the curve of the Earth was visible. "Metropolis. The Fortress of Solitude. The Watchtower."
But he looked down at the counter.
Ring Energy: 15.
Even with his improved control, flying this fast drained the tank. The kinetic charge was burning up.
"Gravity is free," Elias muttered. "Let's save the battery."
He cut the power.
The gold faded instantly. His hair blackened, his eyes turned green, and the warm embrace of the Chaos energy vanished, replaced by the biting, freezing wind of the upper atmosphere.
Elias began to fall.
He plummeted back into the clouds, the wind roaring in his ears. He didn't panic. He angled his body, creating drag with his quills and jacket.
He broke through the clouds, spotting the shipping yard lights far below.
"Landing is going to suck," he grimaced.
He waited until the last possible second. At five hundred feet, he curled into a ball.
Spin Dash.
He revved in mid-air, generating a localized gyroscopic force. When he hit the top of the shipping container, he didn't splat; he rolled. The kinetic energy transferred into forward momentum.
He bounced once, twice, and skidded to a halt, carving a deep groove into the metal roof of the container.
Elias lay there for a moment, staring up at the rain. He was soaking wet again, and now he was exhausted in a way that went down to his bones.
"Okay," he wheezed, his chest heaving. "Kinetic charge works. Compression works. But I have a limit."
He sat up, wiping mud off his cheek.
"I can't stay Super. It's a finisher, not a default state. I need to get better at using the Base form. I need to be fast without the gold."
As he sat there, recovering, a new notification chimed in his head. It was different this time—less mechanical, more… ancient.
System Update: User has successfully cycled Chaos Energy.
Unlock Progress: Chaos Control (Level 1).
Ability: Short-range teleportation unlocked.
Elias blinked. "Chaos Control?"
He looked at his hand. In the games, Shadow used Chaos Control to warp time and space. Sonic usually needed a fake emerald or a specific circumstance, but Elias had the source code in his chest.
"If I can teleport," Elias mused, a slow grin spreading across his face, "then I don't need to outrun Batman. I just need to not be there when he arrives."
He stood up, his legs wobbling only slightly. The hunger was back, worse than before. One burger wasn't going to cut it. He needed a buffet.
"But first," Elias looked toward the city skyline, "I need money. And I think I know where the criminals of Gotham stash their ill-gotten gains."
He pulled his hood up.
"Time to go ring hunting."