Albert dropped the two dead PCS units at Rowland De Boyz's feet. The metallic clunk echoed in the narrow alley, sharp against the stillness of early dawn.
Rowland crouched immediately, his fingers running over the cracked joints and dented plating like a jeweler appraising lost gems. Bits of synthetic flesh still clung to the frames, twitching faintly with dying energy. He chuckled under his breath, eyes gleaming behind grease-smudged goggles.
"These things are works of art, even when broken," he muttered. "Their flesh-tech blends are decades ahead of what we've got in Morhat. I'll be eating good off these veins, boy."
Albert said nothing at first. He just watched the sunrise begin to color the edge of the guttered skyline. His hat cast a shadow over his face, boots half-buried in old soot.
"You leaving, then?" Rowland asked without looking up, already dragging the first carcass toward his makeshift operating slab.
Albert gave a single nod. "I've stayed longer than I should."
Rowland raised an eyebrow. "And the reason you came? You came crashing in with fire in your ribs. Thought you were looking for some treasure. Something called the Beggar's Box."
Albert turned, his back now to the old engineer. He took a breath, eyes resting on the misty rooftops of Morhat, still soaked in the haze of yesterday's ash.
"I found it."
Rowland stood straight. "Wait. You actually did?"
Albert shook his head slowly. "Not the way you're thinking. It's not a box. Not something you dig up or buy or steal."
Rowland squinted, his voice quieter now. "Then what is it?"
Albert stared at the crumbling skyline. " It's what's left of you after loss. It's sharing your last meal with yourself in a gutter. It's standing back up when you're not sure who you are anymore. It's the silence after you choose not to kill when everyone tells you to. That's the Beggar's Box. The Peer.... "
Rowland was silent for a while. The machines around him whirred softly, like they, too, were listening.
"You're strange, Albert. Too strange for a place like this."
Albert turned halfway, a tired smirk on his lips.
"Exactly why I'm leaving."
And with that, he walked into the light, boots quiet, past the city that no longer needed him.
....
The wind in Prada had turned sour.
Ken stood alone on the shattered path that once led to the market square, but now twisted like broken bone beneath the sky's bleeding hue. Smoke billowed in the air, curling with whispers. Then it came—slow at first, dragging itself like a wound given shape.
The creature rose from the alley's throat, all limbs and eyes, a lattice of tendrils and pulsing nerves. It was different from the others—taller than a man, denser than the dark it emerged from. Its steps made no sound, but its presence screamed. Veins of glowing red pulsed under its obsidian hide. Its face—or what passed for one—was a jagged opening of flickering teeth, wet and trembling.
Ken didn't move.
He felt it in his spine. This one wasn't just made to kill. It was made to hunt him.
The air around him cracked as his Thaumic pressure surged outward like a wave of lightning held in breath. It was raw, unrefined, instinctual. But it carried weight. A force ancient and personal. His gaze sharpened, his feet firm.
The creature paused.
Its front limbs faltered. Its head trembled, twisting as if confused. Then its chest caved slightly inward—its body recoiling not from injury, but terror.
Ken stepped forward.
His pressure doubled.
A low, metallic shriek erupted from the creature's throat. It twitched violently, limbs scraping at its own body. It tried to run—but every path forward warped, twisted, reversed in its mind. Time blurred. The scent of Ken's power spiraled through its thoughts like rot in fresh meat.
And then it screamed.
The sound tore into the sky.
It slammed its own head against the cracked stone. Again. Again. Bones cracked. Tentacles thrashed wildly as it fell into convulsions, eyes wide with reflections of something only it could see.
Ken didn't flinch.
Within seconds, the beast turned its claws inward—slashing, splitting, peeling its own flesh with mad precision. Until it collapsed in a twitching mass. Shattered by fear. Broken by presence alone.
Ken let the pressure drop.
He exhaled and walked past its corpse, never looking back.
....
The dinghy cut through the quiet river like a silver knife through dark silk.
Albert sat alone at the edge, wind pressing against his face as Morhat's ragged skyline faded behind him. The sun hadn't risen yet, but the city still looked grey. Blurred towers, rusted metal bridges, and faint cries from distant districts were all fading now. A place of grime, stitched nightmares, lost things. He wouldn't miss it though it had changed something inside him.
He loosened his collar, breathing in the scent of the river. Brine and smoke. Memory and silence.
Albert leaned back, letting the hum of the boat engine vibrate through his spine. His hand reached into his side pouch and pulled out the folded paper of his old nameplate crumpled, worn, bloodstained. He looked at it for a while. Then dropped it into the water.
"Albert's done here," he murmured.
He reached into the brown suitcase resting beside him. Its lock responded to the press of his palm and hissed open, revealing the carefully-wrapped shape beneath linen and waxcloth. He peeled back the layers.
The Staff Revolution.
It was still there. Still whole. An obsidian frame wrapped with silver veins, coiled like a storm waiting to be called. The base pulsed faintly alive in its own strange way. A relic from older battles. Older selves.
Henry Ford now. That was the name. The name stitched into deeper scars.
He set the staff in his suitcase, its weight oddly light. His fingers flexed with a new awareness, nerves humming beneath the skin. His breath began to show against the summer air, mist curling at the edges of his lips. A faint glow began under his collarbone, then across his arms and throat. Not flame. Not light.
Transcendence.
Tier III Thematic.
Henry's eyes lifted to the skies above the river. The clouds there pulsed faintly, as if something behind them stirred in rhythm with his breath. The Watcher Route wasn't just a path anymore. It was listening to him. Bending itself for him, slightly.
His trauma had been stitched too long in silence—now, it shaped him. The memory of the burning orphanage, the guilt of survival, the countless nights in the gutters with bread shared between kittens—those weren't chains anymore.
They were foundation.
His traits, once wild fragments, began aligning in slow, invisible gears. The Feather trait softened his step as if gravity were embarrassed by him. The Flicker of Hands trait pulsed in his knuckles, faster now, more precise. But newer shapes too—an emerging theme of Regret taking the form of flickering afterimages, replaying his failed moments like phantoms in movement. Guilt that slowed time around him for a heartbeat when remembered.
His mind whispered verses not his own. The Route was murmuring back.
A miracle is a belief set free.
And Henry's emotions were no longer burdens—they were the lens. The brush. The song. Anger might become force. Sadness, silence. Joy, perhaps, a blinding light. His soul was becoming syntax.
He stared out at the gentle bend in the river, where ruined cranes leaned into their own reflections. Ducks scattered from the dinghy's hum. A dead tree stuck out from the riverbank like a broken finger. The world looked different now—not because it had changed, but because he had climbed.
Henry pulled his cloak tighter and took another breath.
It had been a good journey in Morhat. He'd fought. Lost. Bled. Laughed once. Made friends he didn't expect. He gave Rowland the PCS remains, and in doing so gave Morhat something grotesquely valuable. And in return, he took something intangible.
The Beggar's Box.
It wasn't a box. It wasn't even an object.
It was the choice to live without needing to be seen. To be forgotten and still exist. To smile even while dying. To fight not for victory, but for the dignity of suffering.
The dinghy turned gently as Prada's lights came into view over the far edge of the mist. Henry sat straighter, letting the revolution staff lean against his shoulder.
He was coming home.
But not as the man who had left.