Location: Container Ship — Deck — Night
---
The hijackers moved.
Not as individuals. As a single organism. Six bodies flowing in perfect coordination, their dark suits blending with the shadows between the yellow lights. The residue rose from their shoulders like steam—pale, controlled, alive.
Silver led.
Her weapon—the hilt with no blade—rotated in her hand once, twice, then stilled. The residue around her fist condensed, becoming visible as faint ripples in the air, like heat shimmer over summer asphalt.
"Sisters," she said. "Take the boy. Leave the others to me."
The hijackers separated.
Three toward Wilder. Two toward Erickson. Silver herself drifted toward Elijah—not walking, not running, but something in between. A glide. A flow. The movement of someone who had never needed to hurry because she was never late.
Wilder backed away.
His broom came up—not as a weapon, but as a shield. A barrier between himself and the three women advancing toward him. His eyes were wide behind his glasses. His coverall billowed in the night breeze.
"Hey," he said.
His voice cracked.
"Hey, hey, hey. Flowers. Venomous flowers. Let's talk about this."
They did not stop.
The first woman—Braid, with her dark hair escaping her hood—closed the distance in three strides. Her hand lashed out, not for his throat, not for his chest, but for the broom. She meant to disarm him before he could even think about fighting back.
Wilder pulled the broom away.
Not fast. Not skilled. Just... lucky. Her fingers closed on empty air where the handle had been a moment before.
"Hey," he said again. "Why so venomous? You should try to be—how you are—a delicate one."
Braid's eyes narrowed.
She struck again. This time her palm aimed for his chest—not to hurt, not yet, just to push. To unbalance. To show him how outclassed he was.
Wilder danced backward.
His feet tangled in the hem of his coverall. He stumbled, caught himself on a container, and ended up in a crouch that might have been intentional and might have been accidental.
"A delicate flower," he repeated. "That's what I meant. A beautiful, delicate—"
Braid's fist stopped an inch from his nose.
Not because she missed. Because she chose not to hit him. Her eyes studied his face—the flushed cheeks, the fogged glasses, the terrified grin.
"You are not worth the effort," she said.
She turned away.
Wilder, inexplicably, followed.
"Wait, where are you going? We were having a moment—"
Braid spun. Her leg swept low, catching his ankles. Wilder crashed to the deck with a sound that was equal parts thud and squeak.
He lay there, staring at the sky, his broom still clutched in his hands.
"Ow," he said.
---
Erickson did not wait to be attacked.
He moved while the hijackers were still separating—three long strides that carried him into the space between Silver and her sisters. His hand caught the wrist of the stocky woman before she could raise her weapon. His other hand pressed against her elbow, forcing her arm into a lock that made her gasp.
She twisted.
The residue around her arm flared—not uncontrolled, but redirected. She pulled against his grip, trying to break free, trying to create enough space to strike.
Erickson exhaled.
And as his breath left his lungs, his attack landed.
His palm struck her shoulder—not the joint, but the muscle beneath. A precise placement. The kind of strike that didn't break bones but made them useless. Her arm went limp. Her weapon clattered to the deck.
The second hijacker—Narrow-Shouldered, quick-eyed—came at him from the left.
She was faster than the first. Her attacks came in pairs: a strike to his kidney, a sweep at his knee, a follow-up punch aimed at his throat. Each movement was efficient, practiced, deadly.
Erickson breathed again.
In.
Out.
His body moved between her strikes like water between stones. Not blocking—redirecting. Her punch passed his ear. Her sweep missed his knee by a finger's width. Her follow-up struck empty air where his throat had been a moment before.
He exhaled.
His fist caught her in the solar plexus.
Not hard. Precise. The kind of strike that didn't need force because it landed exactly where it was supposed to land. Her breath left her in a rush. She staggered backward, clutching her stomach, her eyes wide.
The third hijacker—Stocky's partner, a woman with a scar across her masked cheek—hesitated.
Erickson's eyes found hers.
"Four," he said. "There were four of you coming for me. Where is the fourth?"
The scarred woman did not answer.
She attacked.
---
Silver had not moved.
She stood between the containers, her weapon held loosely at her side, her pale eyes fixed on Elijah. The residue around her body pulsed—slow, rhythmic, like a second heartbeat.
"You are not crew," she said.
It was not a question.
Elijah leaned on his broom. The coverall hood shadowed his masked face, but his eyes—visible through the Azaqor mask's eye holes—were calm.
"Observant," he said. The Australian accent was back. Thick. Obnoxious. "Most people don't notice until I want them to."
"I am not most people."
"I noticed."
Silver tilted her head.
The silver line on her mask caught the yellow light, gleaming like a wound.
"You feel different," she said. "The others—the loud one, the quiet one—they are Sutran. Or close to it. But you..."
She took a step closer.
"You are something else."
Elijah did not move.
"Flattering," he said. "But I'm taken."
Silver's eyes narrowed.
---
The fight spread across the deck.
Erickson held his ground against three hijackers—the scarred woman, the stocky one recovering her weapon, and a fourth who had emerged from the shadows with a blade in each hand. His breathing remained steady. In. Out. Each exhale marked the moment of impact.
He struck the scarred woman's wrist. The blade spun away.
He caught the stocky woman's ankle and pulled. She crashed to the deck.
He ducked under the fourth woman's double-strike and drove his elbow into her ribs.
Three down, he thought. One to go.
But they kept getting up.
The residue around their bodies flared brighter each time they recovered. The pale steam thickened, condensed, became something almost solid. Their movements grew faster. Their strikes grew harder.
They are channeling, Erickson realized. Focusing their prana into specific points—their fists, their feet, the edges of their hands.
The scarred woman's fist blazed with pale light as she threw a punch at his face.
Erickson caught it.
His palm wrapped around her knuckles. The residue around his own hand flared in response—wild, uncontrolled, but present. He held her fist in place while her eyes widened behind her mask.
"You," she said.
Recognition. Not of him as a person, but of his face. His reputation. The stories that spread through the Portside industrial stretch like whispers through dry grass.
"It is you," she said. "The one who—"
"The one who has been hunting you for three months," Erickson finished.
He twisted her fist. Her arm bent at an angle it was not meant to bend. She gasped.
"The one whose shipments you have been stealing. The one whose routes you have been compromising. The one whose patience you have been testing."
He released her.
She stumbled backward, clutching her wrist, her eyes wide.
"I did not know you were such a fox," she said.
Erickson's expression did not change.
"You rotten flowers," he said. "You have been stealing and ruining my business for months. Did you think I would not notice? Did you think I would not prepare? Did you think I would be a real idiot and not intercept you?"
The hijackers exchanged glances.
For the first time since they had emerged from the shadows, they looked uncertain.
---
Wilder was on his feet again.
His broom was gone—lost somewhere in the chaos of Braid's leg sweep. His coverall was torn at the knee. His glasses were askew. But he was standing.
Braid circled him.
Her movements were fluid, unhurried. She had stopped trying to hurt him. Now she was just... playing. Testing. Seeing how long it would take for him to realize how outmatched he was.
"You are persistent," she said.
"I have been told that."
"It is not a compliment."
"I am taking it as one."
She struck.
Her palm aimed for his shoulder—not hard, just enough to push him back. He stumbled. Caught himself. Grinned.
"See? You're getting closer. Another few tries and you might actually hit me."
Braid's eyes flashed.
She attacked in earnest—a flurry of strikes that should have overwhelmed him. Palm to chest. Fist to stomach. Knee to thigh. Each strike was precise, controlled, the product of years of training.
Wilder blocked none of them.
But he wasn't there.
He twisted. He turned. He stumbled backward in a way that somehow became a dodge. His body moved without his permission, reacting to threats he couldn't see, couldn't predict, couldn't understand.
Braid's fist whistled past his ear.
Her knee grazed his hip.
Her palm struck empty air where his chest had been a moment before.
"Stand still!" she snapped.
"That defeats the purpose of dodging!"
She lunged.
He sidestepped.
She spun.
He ducked.
She screamed—a sound of pure frustration—and kicked at his legs. He jumped. Her foot hit the container behind him with a sound like a gong.
Wilder landed on one foot, wobbled, and somehow stayed upright.
"You are the most infuriating person I have ever fought," Braid said.
"I get that a lot."
---
Silver raised her hand.
The other hijackers stopped. Their weapons lowered. Their residue dimmed.
Erickson tensed. Wilder froze. Even Elijah, leaning on his broom, straightened slightly.
Silver's pale eyes moved across the deck—taking in Erickson's defensive stance, Wilder's disheveled appearance, Elijah's calm.
"Enough," she said.
She turned to face Erickson fully.
"You fight well," she said. "For a mortal."
"I fight well for anyone."
"Perhaps." She tilted her head. "But you cannot win. You are outnumbered. Outmatched. And soon, you will be out of time."
Her residue flared.
Not the pale steam from before. Something brighter. Something hotter. The air around her fists shimmered, distorted, became almost impossible to look at.
"You want to know how we possess the Vehl'arim techniques?" she said.
Erickson's jaw tightened.
"The old Sutran way is dead," Silver continued. Her voice was cold, clinical, the voice of someone delivering a eulogy for something they had helped kill. "In this new era, anything is possible."
She raised her fists.
The residue condensed around her knuckles—not steam now, but something like glass. Translucent. Hard. Deadly.
---
Elijah's perception expanded.
Not the full spectrum. Not the overwhelming flood of data from the speedboat. Just... a focus. A narrowing. A decision to see only one thing.
The women.
What is inside them?
His vision shifted.
The yellow lights faded. The containers blurred. The deck became a gray blur beneath his feet. Only the hijackers remained clear—their bodies rendered in shades of thermal blue and red, their residue visible as trails of pale gold.
And inside them...
Something pulsed.
Not their hearts. Not their lungs. Something else. Something that had been placed there.
It looked like a seed. A small, dense point of light buried in the center of each woman's chest—just below the sternum, just above the stomach. The light pulsed in rhythm with their breathing, their movements, their attacks.
Constitution-type frequency, Elijah thought. Not residue. Not prana. Something else.
He focused closer.
The seeds were not organic. Their surface was wrong—too smooth, too regular, too designed. They reminded him of something. Something he had seen before. Something that lived in a sphere in the orrhion chip world, waiting for a host.
The parasites.
These women have orrhion seeds planted inside them.
His blood went cold.
They are not Sutran. Not naturally. Something put these inside them. Something gave them this power.
His expression—behind the Azaqor mask, invisible to the hijackers—turned ugly.
"What the hell," he said.
The words came out flat. Not a question. Not an exclamation. Just... a statement. An acknowledgment that something had just clicked into place, and he did not like what he was seeing.
Silver's eyes found his.
"You see it," she said. "Don't you?"
Elijah did not answer.
But his hand moved from the broom.
---