The Thorn Knuckles seed felt like a shard of obsidian in Kael's palm—cold, jagged, and hungry.
He sat on a rusted crate in the shadows of a transit tunnel, just out of sight of the Rust-River's toxic glow. Elara was a few meters away, keeping watch at the mouth of the tunnel, her silhouettes sharp against the fluorescent haze.
"Do it now," she whispered, not turning around. "The longer you hold a raw seed, the more it bleeds its Essence into the air. You're already a beacon; don't make it brighter."
Kael didn't need the reminder. The Orchard in his mind was already reaching out, the grey soil pulsing with a demanding, hollow ache. He pressed the obsidian seed against the back of his right hand.
[GRAFTING INITIATED: THORN KNUCKLES (GRADE E)]
[Bio-Load Cost: 1.0 Units.]
[Calculating DNA Compatibility...]
[Compatibility: 99.9% (Inert Bias).]
The pain wasn't like the Acid Spit's fire. It was structural.
Kael felt his own knuckles crack and shift, the skin splitting not to bleed, but to accommodate the growth. Four jagged, obsidian-black spurs erupted through his skin, anchoring directly into his metacarpal bones. They looked like calcified shards of the Scrapper's own skeleton, pulsing with a faint, dark rhythm that matched his heartbeat.
[GRAFTING SUCCESSFUL]
[Current Bio-Load: 1.5 / 3.0 Units.]
[System Status: 50% Capacity.]
"Ah—" Kael gasped, his hand feeling twice its normal weight. He flexed his fingers, the obsidian thorns clicking against each other with a dry, predatory sound. They felt natural, an extension of his own skeleton that he hadn't known was missing.
"It's done," he said, stood up, and immediately stumbled. The stamina refund from pruning the acid had kept him conscious, but the new graft was already demanding its own share of his biological reserves.
"Good," Elara said, finally turning around. "Because we have company."
She didn't look at Kael. She looked toward the far end of the transit tunnel where the shadows were moving—too fast and too coordinated for Feral Scrappers.
Two men stepped into the flickering violet light of a dying chem-stick. They were dressed in the mismatched gear of Sprawl thugs—scavenged Ironbark plates, stained guild-colors, and rusted scrap-shot rifles.
"Well, look at that," the taller one sneered, his eyes fixed on the glowing emerald light beneath Elara's gene-doctor smock. "The Pruner and her little pet Blank. Jax wasn't kidding about the bounty."
"Jax is an enforcer," Elara said, her voice dropping into that clinical, dangerous cold Kael had come to recognize. "You're just carrion-eaters. Leave now, and I might not tell him you tried to jump his claim."
The thugs laughed—a harsh, jagged sound that echoed off the damp tunnel walls. "Ten thousand Essence says we don't care what Jax thinks once we have your heads. Grab the girl. Kill the Blank."
Kael felt a cold, sharp spike of clarity. The fear that had defined his life as an Inert didn't vanish, but it was suppressed by the humming power of the Orchard. He moved out of the deeper shadows, his right hand clenched into a fist, the obsidian thorns glistening with the toxic moisture of the tunnel.
He didn't look like a scavenger anymore. He didn't look like a mule.
The thugs stopped. They looked at his hand—at the dark, jagged weapon grown directly from his bone.
"Let her go," Kael said, his voice quiet but carrying a weight that hadn't been there an hour ago.
The shorter thug raised his scrap-shot, but his hands were shaking. "What is that? What's an Inert doing with—"
Kael stepped forward, the Orchard pulsing with a sudden, violent surge of green light. "I said, let her go."