The Evolution System of the Drowned

Chapter 6: The Dockside Hunt

The fog over the Oakhaven docks was thick enough to swallow a man whole. I drifted just beneath the surface of the oily water, watching the Vane merchant fleet bobbing at anchor. They were loaded with the stolen wealth of the Thorne family. They wouldn't stay loaded for long.

"Did you see that?" a sailor hissed from the deck of the Vane Star. "A shadow. Just moved past the hull."

"Shut up, Jenkins," another replied, though his voice was shaking. "The Sea-Wraith isn't real. It's just ghost stories to keep us from stealing the cargo."

"Tell that to the crew of the Mercury," Jenkins whispered. "They found the ship drifting five miles out. Not a soul on board. Just wet footprints and the smell of the deep."

I surged upward, my obsidian hand clamping onto the edge of the pier. I didn't make a sound. I was the myth they feared, and I was very real.

[MISSION UPDATE: NEUTRALIZE VANE LOGISTICS. 0/3 SHIPS REMAINING.]

I pulled myself onto the dock, my skin absorbing the moonlight. I found the foreman, a man who had helped Cuthbert forge the papers to seize my father's warehouses. I grabbed him by the collar and hauled him over the edge of the water.

"Wait! No!" he blubbered. "I was just doing my job! Cuthbert said you were dead!"

"I was," I said, my voice a cold rasp. "The water didn't like the taste. Tell me, does Cuthbert sleep well these days?"

"He's terrified! He's hired the Ironbound! They're coming for you, Wraith!"

"Let them come," I said, and dropped him into the freezing surf.

As if on cue, the hum started. It was a high-frequency vibration that made my teeth ache. Three blacked-out speedboats roared into the harbor, packed with men in high-tech tactical gear. These weren't house guards. These were the Ironbound.

"Target sighted on Pier 9!" a voice boomed over a loudspeaker. "Engage the Sonic Pulse! Scramble his nervous system!"

A massive dish on the lead boat began to glow with a blue light. A wave of sound hit me like a physical hammer. It felt like my brain was being liquified. I fell to my knees, clutching my head.

[WARNING: SONIC INTERFERENCE DETECTED. NEURAL INTEGRITY COMPROMISED.]

[FORCED EVOLUTION IMMINENT. ADAPTING TO BIO-ELECTRIC SPECTRUM...]

"Get him!" a mercenary yelled, leaping onto the dock with a shock-baton. "Cuthbert wants his head in a bucket!"

The pain in my skull snapped. It didn't fade—it transformed. Suddenly, I could feel everything. Not just the sound, but the tiny electrical pulses from their boat engines. I could feel the hum of their radios and the heartbeat of the man charging at me.

[NEW ABILITY ACQUIRED: ELECTRO-RECEPTION.]

"I see you," I whispered. My vision flared. The world became a map of electrical currents. I could sense the mercenary behind me before he even swung.

I spun, catching his baton in my bare hand. The electricity surged through me, but my new system absorbed it like a battery.

"Is that all?" I asked, looking into his terrified eyes.

"How are you standing?" he gasped. "The pulse should have paralyzed you!"

"The ocean is a lot louder than your toys," I said. I slammed my fist into his chest, the bio-electric discharge from my own body stopping his heart instantly.

I dived into the water as the other boats opened fire. Bullets hissed into the sea, trailing white bubbles, but they were useless. With my [Electro-Reception], I could feel the hum of their sonar searching for me. It was like they were shining a flashlight in a dark room.

I swam beneath the lead boat. I could feel the vibration of the Sonic Pulse generator through the hull. I gripped the propeller shaft and yanked. The metal screamed and sheared off.

"We lost propulsion!" a merc shouted from above. "He's under us! Reset the pulse! Reset—"

I breached the surface like a torpedo, landing right in the middle of their deck. The Ironbound commander, a man with a scarred face and a heavy pulse-rifle, leveled his weapon at me.

"You're a fast one, aren't you?" he sneered. "Cuthbert said you were a freak. I guess he was right."

"Cuthbert is a dead man walking," I said, walking toward him through a hail of smaller gunfire that bounced off my scales. "He's just too stupid to lie down."

"Maybe. But I'm the one getting paid to put you in the ground." He pulled the trigger.

A massive blast of sonic energy hit me point-blank. But this time, I was ready. I channeled the energy through my own nervous system, using my [Electro-Reception] to ground the charge. I didn't even flinch.

I reached out and crushed the barrel of his rifle with one hand. "My turn to play with the toys."

I grabbed him by the vest and lifted him high. The other mercenaries stopped shooting, their faces pale with shock.

"Go back to Cuthbert," I told the commander, my silver eyes glowing with an intensity that made the air hum. "Tell him the Ironbound are just scrap metal now. Tell him every ship he sends out is a gift to the abyss."

"He'll just hire more!" the commander choked out. "You can't stop the Vanes!"

"I'm not stopping them," I said, leaning in. "I'm consuming them. Every drop of water they touch belongs to me. Including the sweat on your brow."

I tossed him into the harbor and turned toward the remaining ships of the fleet. I didn't need bombs or fire. I just touched the hull of the Vane Star, sending a massive bio-electric surge through its systems. Every light on the ship exploded. The engines seized.

I slipped back into the water, leaving the docks in a state of total, dark chaos. The myth of the Sea-Wraith was growing, and with it, my power.

[MISSION COMPLETE: VANE FLEET CRIPPLED. ESSENCE ACQUIRED: HIGH.]

But as I swam away from the burning docks, the system's map flickered. A new signal appeared—one that wasn't electrical or biological. It was coming from the center of the city, from the Thorne-Vane headquarters.

[WARNING: MASSIVE THERMAL SPIKE DETECTED AT VANE PLAZA. THE EXPERIMENT HAS BEGUN.]

I looked toward the city skyline. A pillar of green light shot up into the clouds from the roof of my old office building.

"What have you done, Elowen?" I whispered, my scales vibrating with a sudden, sharp dread.

The water around me began to boil. Not from heat, but from something rising out of the harbor silt—thousands of tiny, metallic drones, all shaped like jellyfish, their stingers glowing with the same green light.

[ALERT: AETHELGARD PROTOCOL INITIATED. YOU ARE NO LONGER THE ONLY PREDATOR IN THESE WATERS.]

The drones swarmed toward me, their hum drowning out the sound of the waves. I was the king of the deep, but it looked like someone had just declared war on the ocean itself.