Elias was a juggernaut of muscle and instinct. To him, Jax's "boys" were as flimsy as balsa wood. As they lunged, Elias didn't just fight; he moved with the brutal efficiency of a storm.
He caught the first one by the throat, the strength in his forearm—honed by years of hauling heavy nets—sending the boy crashing into the drywall with a sickening thud. He twisted, ducked a vibrissa-blade, and delivered a kick that sounded like a dry branch snapping.
He was a force of nature, larger and leaner than the day he arrived, his body a map of scars and new, hard-earned power. He threw himself through the door, the hallway a blur of motion.
Crack
The sound of Jax's pulse-pistol wasn't loud, but the impact was transformative. The bolt didn't just hit; it seared. Elias felt a white-hot iron plunge into his side. He didn't scream—he grunted, a low, animal sound.
Dark, thick blood began to ooze, staining his shirt and warming his skin in a way that felt nauseatingly familiar.
He didn't stop. He couldn't. He ran, his boots thumping against the pavement as he dove into the labyrinth of the city. He used the shadows of the Lower Sector to mask his trail, weaving through the steam-filled alleys he knew like the back of his hand. But as he crossed the threshold into the High Sector, the world began to tilt.
Here, the light wasn't the flickering, sickly glow of neon. It was steady, golden, and blinding. The skyscrapers were pillars of ivory and glass, and the air tasted of filtered jasmine instead of burnt plastic.
Elias stumbled, his hand clutched over his wound. Blood seeped between his fingers, dripping onto the pristine, white-stone sidewalk. His vision began to fray at the edges, the golden lights stretching into long, shimmering ribbons—like the scales of the Leviathan.
A woman in a coat of shimmering silk turned the corner. Her eyes widened, her hands flying to her mouth. "Oh, heavens! Someone help! There's a man—he's bleeding!"
Elias looked at her. Through the haze of pain and the encroaching dark of unconsciousness, he felt a strange, detached peace. He didn't see a witness; he saw a ghost from a world he had finally reached.
He offered her a small, pale smile—a final act of defiance against the "Current" he had left behind—before his knees gave way.
The world went black before he hit the ground.
The next thing Elias felt wasn't the hard stone of the street. It was the softness of silk and the sharp, medicinal tang of high-end stimulants. But above all that, there was a voice.
A voice that sounded like it had been marinated in the finest cognac and polished with a silk handkerchief.
"Do be careful with the upholstery, my dear boy. That waistcoat is authentic Victorian weave, and your particular shade of 'rebel-red' is quite difficult to lift from the fibers."
Elias opened his eyes. He wasn't in a hospital. He was in a room filled with leather-bound books, crystal decanters, and a fireplace that crackled with actual wood.
Sitting across from him in a velvet armchair was a man who looked like he had stepped out of a century that shouldn't exist anymore.
He held a crystal glass of amber liquid, his posture impeccably upright despite the fact that his eyes were slightly glazed with a very expensive fog.
"Ah, you're awake," the man said, gesturing vaguely with his glass. "I am Lord Percival. And you, judging by the brine-scented blood and that rather magnificent build, are either a very lost sailor or a very handsome catastrophe. Do tell, which is it?"
...