Venn blurred across the metal, heading straight for Jakk.
Jakk met him halfway.
He didn't charge. He shifted. A small angle of weight, a turned shoulder—just enough that Venn's reaching hand, fingers splayed for skin, caught only hot air and a burned sleeve.
Jellyfin lightning snapped between them, bright for a heartbeat, then died.
"Still afraid to touch me?" Venn taunted, pivoting into a low sweep.
Jakk hopped back, letting the kick skim just shy of his knee. Heat shimmered off his skin, the Brinefurnace reef lodged in his spine humming like a banked engine.
"Just remembering how many times I've had to peel idiots off the floor after you 'encouraged cooperation,'" Jakk said.
He kept distance—always just outside arm's reach. Venn's palms were the danger, dotted with the almost-invisible hypodermic needles that delivered volts straight into flesh. Jakk had seen enough men crumple to know better than to give him that grip.
Venn came in again, fast and economical. A feint to the ribs, a real strike angling for Jakk's shoulder. Jakk rolled his torso in a sloppy-looking sway that somehow put his center of gravity exactly where it needed to be. Venn's palm brushed his shirt—cloth smoked—but Jakk's skin didn't.
He answered with a short, brutal hook to Venn's ribs, heat flaring around his fist.
Venn grunted, sliding back. Jellyfin light crawled up his spine, tracing along his vertebrae like a string of angry stars.
Behind them, Gin pushed himself up on one elbow against the wall, vision doubling once, then grudgingly lining up. His bones pulsed with a low, disapproving ache. Rell had Tamsin tucked behind the overturned half of the table like a makeshift cover. Marren stood near the door, reef sword loose at his side, watching as if this were another ledger line to be balanced.
Venn spat pink onto the floor, eyes never leaving Jakk. "Sloppy, like always," he said. "Even in the training pit. Flailing around like you thought you were in a tavern brawl instead of an examination."
Jakk's mouth tightened. "And you always did talk too much."
Venn smiled, fingers hooking in the laces of his boots.
He kicked his boots off in two quick jerks and left them where they fell.
Bare feet hit the metal with a soft slap.
For a heartbeat, nothing changed. Then the jellyfin lines along his spine brightened, the glow burning hotter and bleeding down his legs, branching like lightning chasing a new path. It pooled in his arches, his heels, the balls of his feet.
Tiny glints pushed through his skin.
Needles. Fine as hairs, arranged in tight clusters along the soles.
Gin swore under his breath. "That's new."
Venn flexed his toes. Sparks danced between his feet and the deck, crawling across the grated metal in a spiderweb of light.
"You're not the only one who's been… training," he said lightly. "Floodborn loyal to the Hydrachy get upgrades. Perks. You'd know that if you'd stuck around instead of running off to play beast-hunter."
Jakk's hands curled into fists.
"Someone had to kill the things chewing on our hulls," he said.
"And someone had to keep our numbers in the green, so your precious hull didn't sink under the weight of charity." Venn's voice sharpened. "We all got our leashes, Jakkon. I just made good use of mine."
He launched himself forward.
This time, when his foot connected, it wasn't a glancing sweep. He slammed a heel into Jakk's thigh, needles driving through battered cloth into hot skin.
The world went white.
Electricity knifed up Jakk's leg, nerves singing in protest. His muscles seized, jerking him sideways. Heat roared out of the Brinefurnace reef in a reflexive blast, skin going incandescent where the needles bit.
Venn hissed, the skin along his sole blistering, but he didn't break contact.
Jakk's back hit the wall. The Hydrarchy seal flickered from the surge.
"Jakk!" Tamsin's voice cracked from behind the table.
He dragged in a breath that tasted like metal and smoke. His hair clung to his forehead, sweat evaporating almost before it formed.
Venn stepped back, toes smoking slightly, and laughed. "You burn? I burn brighter. You hit? I hit harder. You drink to fuel that thing in your spine? I siphon the power grid every chance I get."
He rolled his shoulders. Lightning crawled up, down, around him, his entire nervous system a live wire.
"You think refusing the promotion track made you noble?" he snapped. "You were scared, Jakk. Scared of becoming what you already were: a weapon pointed where Marren said. I accepted it. That's why I'm still useful."
Jakk pushed off the wall, leg trembling.
"You don't even hear yourself," he said quietly. "You call being used a promotion."
"You call drowning yourself in rum a rebellion," Venn shot back. "We both survived that night. The pirates, the ferry. The only difference is I grew up about it."
The words landed like another kick.
The dead boy's hand. Cold fingers. Jakk's own knuckles scraped raw from clinging until they pried him loose.
Jakk's jaw clenched. "Growing up isn't the same as giving up."
Venn's smile thinned. "No. Giving up is what you did when you crawled into the bottom of a bottle and decided killing beasts on command was somehow less dirty than keeping the books that let this Hull function."