The adrenaline dump was nearly as violent as the transformation itself.
Elias had managed to run—or rather, skate on a friction-less cushion of chaotic energy—about four miles before his legs gave out. He had blurred past the neon-drenched squalor of the Bowery, crossed a bridge that looked like it was held together by rust and prayer, and collapsed into the open window of a condemned apartment building in the Narrows.
Now, he sat on the floor of a bathroom that had likely last been cleaned during the Nixon administration. The tiles were cracked, the sink was stained with rust, and the single bulb hanging from the ceiling flickered with a buzzing drone that sounded like a dying insect.
He gasped for air, his chest heaving. The hunger hit him first. It wasn't the normal rumble of an empty stomach; it was a ravenous, hollow ache that felt like his body was eating itself to replenish the calories the Super form had incinerated.
"Note to self," Elias wheezed, clutching his midsection. "Need... calories. Lots of them."
He dragged himself up using the porcelain sink for leverage. His hands were shaking. He turned the tap. Miraculously, water sputtered out—brown at first, then clearing to a murky grey. He didn't care. He splashed it onto his face, desperate to wash away the grime of the alleyway and the lingering heat of the Chaos energy.
He kept his eyes closed for a moment, letting the cold water drip from his nose. Okay. You're alive. You're in Gotham. You have superpowers. You just went Super Saiyan—no, Super Sonic—on three muggers. Just breathe.
He opened his eyes and looked into the shattered remains of the medicine cabinet mirror.
Elias froze. The breath he had just taken caught in his throat.
He leaned closer, gripping the edges of the sink so hard the porcelain groaned.
"What..."
The changes hadn't reverted.
His face was still his—mostly. He had the same jawline, the same nose. But the colors were wrong. All wrong.
His eyes, once a nondescript, muddy brown, were now vibrant, piercing emeralds. They didn't just reflect the dim light of the bathroom bulb; they seemed to hold a faint, internal luminescence of their own. They were the exact shade of the Master Emerald. When he blinked, the irises seemed to shift and swirl like liquid energy.
Then there was the hair.
Before the truck hit him, Elias had kept his black hair short and professional, a standard corporate cut. Now, it had grown out significantly in the span of twenty minutes. It wasn't black anymore.
It was blue. A deep, midnight blue that verged on indigo in the shadows but caught the light with a distinct, electric cobalt sheen. And it refused to lay flat. It swept back naturally into six distinct, quill-like spikes that defied gravity. It wasn't messy; it was aerodynamic.
He ran a hand through it. The texture was strange—softer than it looked, but incredibly resilient. He tried to push it down, to flatten it against his skull, but the moment he took his hand away, the hair sprang back into its swept-back, spiky formation.
"I look like a cosplayer," Elias whispered, his voice trembling. "I look like a hyper-realistic, gritty reboot of a cosplayer."
He turned his head side to side. The mutation wasn't grotesque, thankfully. If anything, it made him look... enhanced. Sharper. But in Gotham? In a city where "freaks" were usually hunted down by a billionaire in a tank or recruited by a clown with a knife?
"I stick out like a sore thumb," he muttered. "Blue hair and glowing green eyes? I might as well wear a neon sign that says 'Meta-Human: Please Arrest Me.'"
He looked down at his body. He pulled the collar of his black jacket aside. The faint, rhythmic pulse he had felt earlier was visible beneath his skin—a very subtle network of bio-electric veins tracing up his neck, glowing faintly blue before fading.
System Analysis, he thought, trying to trigger the voice again.
The chime responded instantly, echoing in his skull.
Subject Analysis: Chaos Fusion in progress.
Synchronization Rate: 15%.
Physical Alteration: Permanent.
Reason: The human vessel is insufficient to house the Chaos Force without structural adaptation. Genetic rewriting required to withstand high-velocity movement and energy channeling.
"Great," Elias said dryly to the empty room. "So I'm not just wearing the powers. I'm becoming the powers."
He stepped back from the mirror, his red and white sneakers squeaking on the dirty tile. He needed to hide this.
He checked his pockets. Wallet? Gone. Phone? Destroyed in the truck accident. He had nothing but the clothes on his back: the high-collared jacket, the cargo pants, and the shoes.
He grabbed the hood of his jacket and yanked it up. It was large enough to cast a shadow over his face, hiding the glowing green eyes and the distinctive blue quills. It would have to do.
His stomach gave another violent growl, loud enough to echo in the small room.
"Food," he decided. "Then information. Then... panic."
Elias moved to the window and looked out. He was on the fourth floor. The fire escape looked like a death trap of rusted metal.
Normally, he would have been terrified of the height. Now, looking down at the alley below, his brain calculated the distance, the wind speed, and the structural integrity of the railing in a millisecond. It wasn't conscious math; it was instinct.
Base form abilities: Enhanced agility, reflexes, and durability.
He didn't climb down. He hopped onto the railing.
"Don't think. Just flow."
He dropped.
The wind rushed past him. As he neared the ground, he curled his body forward instinctually. He hit a dumpster, not with a thud, but with a roll. He spun, his feet touching the metal lid, and he rebounded off it, landing silently in a crouch on the wet pavement.
He stood up, dusting off his knees. "Okay. That was cool."
He kept his head down, hood pulled tight, and walked out onto the street. The Narrows were crowded even at night. People here walked with their heads down, avoiding eye contact. It was the perfect camouflage.
Elias merged with the flow of foot traffic. The sensory input was overwhelming. He could hear heartbeats. He could hear the distinct click-clack of a gun being loaded three streets over. He could smell frying onions from a food cart two blocks away.
The smell hooked him. He followed it like a shark following blood.
He found the cart on a corner under a flickering streetlight. The vendor was a gruff old man flipping burgers that looked greasy enough to stop a normal heart. To Elias, they looked like ambrosia.
He patted his pockets again, knowing they were empty. He hesitated. Was he a superhero? A thief? A survivor?
"Hey, buddy," the vendor grunted, eyeing Elias's hood. "You buying or loitering?"
Elias licked his lips. "I... I'm broke. Look, I can wash dishes? Carry crates? I really need to eat."
The vendor scoffed. "I ain't got dishes. I got a grill and a line. Beat it."
Elias sighed. He turned to leave, his stomach cramping painfully.
Suddenly, a screech of tires cut through the ambient city noise. A black sedan swerved around the corner, clipping a parked car and slamming into a fire hydrant. Water geysered into the air.
Two men stumbled out of the car, dazed, clutching duffel bags. Bank robbers? Gang members? In Gotham, it didn't matter.
"Run!" one of them yelled, shoving past the food cart. In his haste, he knocked the vendor's cash box off the counter. Coins and bills scattered across the wet sidewalk.
The thug didn't stop for the money. He kept running.
Passersby froze. The vendor shouted, scrambling to pick up his earnings.
Elias saw it happen in slow motion. A stray ten-dollar bill was caught by the wind, fluttering toward the sewer grate.
Opportunity.
Elias blurred.
To the vendor, it felt like a gust of wind had just blown past. One second the bill was floating toward the drain; the next, a young man in a hoodie was standing there, holding the bill between two fingers.
Elias walked up to the counter and slammed the bill down.
"One burger," Elias said, his green eyes flashing from under the hood. "And keep the change."
The vendor stared at him, bewildered. He hadn't even seen the kid move. "Uh... right. Coming up."
Elias took the burger—a greasy, wondrous mess wrapped in foil—and devoured it in three bites. It barely touched the sides, but the immediate agony in his stomach subsided to a dull roar.
As he wiped his mouth, he noticed a row of TVs in the window of an electronics store across the street. They were all tuned to GCN (Gotham City News).
The headline banner was red and urgent: LIGHTNING STORM IN THE BOWERY? GCPD INVESTIGATES MYSTERIOUS GOLDEN EXPLOSION.
The screen showed grainy cell phone footage. It was the alleyway from an hour ago. The video was washed out by blinding golden light, followed by a silhouette floating in the air—a silhouette with glowing upturned hair.
"Witnesses claim a meta-human incident," the reporter was saying. "Commissioner Gordon has issued a statement urging citizens to stay clear of the area. Unconfirmed reports suggest the involvement of unknown energy weaponry."
Elias pulled his hood down lower.
"Unknown energy weaponry," he muttered. "If only they knew."
He caught his reflection in the store window again. The blue spikes of hair were pressing against the fabric of his hood, creating lumpy, unnatural points.
He needed a better disguise. He needed a base. And he needed to figure out how to unlock the rest of the Chaos Arsenal before Batman figured out that the "Golden Explosion" was just a hungry IT guy from another dimension.
But as he turned to leave, he felt a prickle on the back of his neck. Not the wind. Not the rain.
It was the sensation of being watched.
His new ears twitched. He heard the soft whir of a camera lens zooming in from a rooftop three blocks away.
Elias didn't look up. He didn't panic. He just grinned, a sharp, confident expression that felt entirely new to his face.
"Catch me if you can," he whispered.
Blue sparks crackled around his red sneakers. In a heartbeat, he was gone, leaving nothing but a scattering of wet leaves and a sonic boom that set off three car alarms.