[center][h2][color=0072bc]Shou Zheng[/color][/h2][/center][hr][hider=Shock and Fog]Cold.

It enveloped him, the clammy embrace of a loveless lover, sucking the heat out of his body, dragging down his clothing with saltwater weights, even as his adaptations warmed his blood and maintained his strength. Every kick away from shore sent him deeper into the abyssal fathoms, his soundscape the only method of navigation he could rely on. Yet his head hurt, the whispers of the ocean pulling at the seams of his mind. Not suggestions, not orders, not demands, but deathly statements. It was best to hide. He ought to hide. He must hide.

His skin felt like it was being sanded off. His bones vibrated with every exertion of strength. Meager sensations, incapable of stalling the progress of a trained Egoist, but sensations that affected the mind nonetheless, repulsive sensations that grew with greater force as he drew himself towards the ‘continental shelf’ of the artificial island. And then, five hundred meters off from the shore, Shou felt it.

The agony of electricity ripping through his skin and scales, meat and bones, a magnitude of power many times removed from what he had felt in the morning. This was no longer a mere deterrent. This was meant to [i]kill[/i].

What was that phrase? Curiosity had killed the cat? Shou may have been no feline, but the phrase certainly seemed fitting as he gritted his teeth and pushed through the assault on both his body and mind. The irritation of hiding away like a coward because of an unwelcome memory would not disappear unless he confronted it. Discomfort and pain were no strangers to him, but companions on the path to ascension. That his body struggled meant that he had further to develop and adapt. 

The sudden and almost complete loss of control over his body was jarring, but not unwelcome once Shou had a moment to fight through the haze as his muscles tensed and locked on him. His heart hammered erratically in his chest, and he was already starting to sink as he failed to continue swimming. He was not dead yet though, the pain was not blinding, and he could still struggle! 

His tail snapped erratically and slowly pushed him back over the edge of the island’s continental shelf. Back out of the electrically charged death zone and towards the merely uncomfortable waters. It was truly dangerous and life-threatening, but that also meant the greatest possibility to adapt and evolve even further.

Shou was, after all, an Egoist. A warrior of unrivalled might, one whose flesh alone could survive the lightning guns of the Occident, the thunderbirds of Abya Yala. With three powerful snaps, he pulled himself back closer to the shore, the pain fading moments after doing so. Whatever this field was, it appeared to exist strictly at the five hundred meter mark, and unless the technology Bermuda utilized was beyond even that of the military, it shouldn’t extend much further either.

If he could brave the storm for just long enough, perhaps he could break through too. But with immeasurable darkness below and the all-consuming fog above, should he?

It wasn't strictly necessary, but Shou broke the water's surface anyways and took a deep, gulping breath. It certainly came more easily this way with his gills still tensed up. As he tread water and the feeling started to return to his limbs, he took a moment to consider his situation.

In all likelihood these measures were meant to keep something away from Bermuda's shores. Much like the weaker currents kept predators away in the daytime. Exactly what warranted such extreme measures was the big mystery though wasn't it? Along that line of thought, was the fog meant to conceal the island as well? Curious, curious. 

Whatever the case was, the whispers made a bit more sense if his current assumption was correct. Breaking through the killzone only to run into whatever it was meant to keep out while exhausted sounded like a terrible idea. On the other hand though, using the charged waters as training to spur on his own adaptations sounded like a great idea. While he couldn't hope to grasp at the charges filling the waters and turning them deadly, his body could be molded to better endure them. His senses could be tuned to read the electricity as it raced through the waves. All he needed was to experience it for himself. Time and time again until the sensations were ingrained in his flesh.

It was mad, perhaps, but what self-centered artist upon the path of the dragon was not? Again and again, the carp floundered against the falls, again and again, lightning seared into his flesh. Repetition caused injuries to deepen, worsen, to become visible. Beneath the cold waters, Shou’s flesh became scarred and swollen by the electric current that surged at that unseen boundary line, each shock of electricity tracing another path, another mark through his body. Indeed, before meditation, before theory, before delving into the mindscape that allowed an emboldened soul to reshape their body to the idealized form, what one needed was experience.

In the void-like space just before Bermuda’s continental shelf, Shou swam in and out, risking death over and over again. So he could visualize it and feel it. The sensation of lightning crawling beneath his skin, the sensation of his flesh searing when facing that ultimate force. Blood filled the water, clogging his senses with the rusty taste of his self. But on this side at least, he was the apex predator, and all mundane beasts could only look upwards from their sheltered wells.

No pain, no gain was it? The phrase was certainly apt as Shou looked down at himself and slowly clenched his hands. Burnt flesh cracked at the motion and he winced a bit as he could barely feel anything from his extremities. His nerves must have been rather damaged if he barely felt more than a flicker of pain. 

A flick of his tail stirred up the blood-clouded waters around him and Shou finally pushed himself away from the boundary instead of breaching it again. A trail of red followed after him, but the fresh waters ahead offered a respite from the metallic tang that had tinged each breath for the last… Just how long had he spent testing himself against the island’s security measures? 

It was hard to be sure as most of his focus had been directed at keeping what control he could over his body. Breaking the surface again wasn’t very helpful either as the fog hanging just overhead was still thick as before. He should have waited the rest of the curfew out right off the shoreline. Beneath the waves, he could have meditated and reflected on the ordeal he had put himself through. Even now he could already visualize the newest addition to his markings, jagged and branching in contrast to the smooth flow that characterized most of his. 

Planting one foot firmly into the sand and forcing himself to stand straight though, Shou hissed as cracked flesh was finally exposed to fresh air. The distant streetlights were just barely visible as blurry orbs of light, but they were enough for him to trudge towards. His tail left a trail behind him as he dragged it, but he couldn’t be arsed for the effort to raise it. The drops of blood would mark his passing on the streets much more clearly anyways, so he’d have to find some place to start recovering before curfew ended. It wasn’t like he had any way of getting back inside his room before it anyways.

[b]R U N.[/b]

It was still a whisper, but the voice that had faded to the back of his mind as he wracked his body with pain now surged back to the forefront of his thoughts. Drowning out any other idle thought or consideration as he almost bolted into motion from it. As his body tensed though and he snapped the sword’s hilt into his grip with a flick of his wrist, Shou couldn’t help but snort mirthlessly. 

He hadn’t pushed through the boundary because he had no wish to die tired, yet here he was. It seemed like staying in the waters would have been the right idea after all. The slosh of the waves meeting the shoreline was still there as his toes curled into the sand, and Shou braced himself. Sliding one foot back behind the other as he inched towards the ocean while maintaining his posture. His arm trembled while raising the sword, so he rested the blade on his shoulder. His eyes could hardly pierce the fog, so he closed them and strained his ears instead. 

He did not run.

He closed his eyes.

And so, Shou did not see the lights on the distant street flick off, one by one by one. He was already in darkness. He had never left the abyss. And in his ears, faintly, distantly, he heard the song of whales, a foreign dirge flowing into his mind like ice melting into cracked earth.

He was an Egoist. A purebred Egoist. Not the traitor to her country, more obsessed with aesthetics than function. Not the celebrity-idol, bound to an archaic discipline out of desperation. Warrior blood ran in his veins, and the leviathans of the depths have been slain by his blade and his bones.

It was not his sense of hearing nor his sense of smell, but his sense of touch that warned him. A coalescing sensation, slimy yet undeniably substantial, pressed against his back, that saltwater chill seeping into his open wounds.

Startled as he was by the sudden contact coming from the direction he had hoped was safe, Shou nonetheless did his best to react. His body protested from the sudden exertion, but a flood of adrenaline delayed the inevitable. He’d pay for pushing his body like this later, if he was even able to. His eyes snapped open as he reversed grip on it and plunged it backwards beneath his arm. Twisting away from the cool, slimy touch to rip the blade across horizontally, he turned to bear witness to exactly what he was dealing with. 

Nothing but darkness and fog, billowing out from the ocean. The salt seeped deeper, digging into his back now that [i]something[/i] had made contact. Not a violent slash or stab, but rather tracing wounds that were already there, slithering up and down to find the deepest grooves. Whatever agony was dulled by his adaptations; he was built for duress that would make even other Egoists quake. Yet his blade had cut into only the mist as well, and even that mist had become only something that he could [i]feel[/i], drowned in the pitch-black of a lightless district.

[color=0072bc]“Ugh.” [/color]Gritting his teeth as he grunted from the discomfort of having his wounds [i]caressed[/i], Shou fought down the urge to heave. It wasn’t just the pervasive cold that spread through him that made his gut turn. There was something more to this, like poison being smeared into his wounds, and he snarled as he was forced to drive his foot down to keep himself steady as he stepped back. 

With his weapon useless, he released it and grabbed at his belt instead. Palming one of the rods there, he easily cracked it with a simple clench. One hard shake caused the shattered crystal to mix with the fluids, and the fluorescent reaction quickly began to illuminate his surroundings. 

Light shone bright in his fist, and was snuffed out just as quickly as it illuminated.

But even weakened, Shou’s mind worked fast, processing sensations that mere humans would discard in their panic. In that instance before light was drowned, he saw it: the coalescing of the mist, closing over the tube. And now, he did not need to see it to envision it, as the entirety of his body shivered at those sensations, a [i]film[/i] coating him in his entirety, expanding from his back, twisting around his limbs, clogging up his gills and racing for his face!

[color=0072bc][i]‘Really?’[/i][/color] This thing was just obstinate wasn’t it? As he felt the mass clinging to his back surge around to envelop him, Shou crouched down low. His leg muscles tense as the cold caressed his face before the sand exploded beneath him. His head swam as he tried to launch himself right off the beach with that one powerful leap. As if the blood had all drained to his legs, his landing would be an uncontrolled and messy sprawl at best.

There were legends of Egoists capable of leaping high enough to pluck the stars out of the skies. Shou was not one of those great warriors, but his desperation had granted him power to imitate their legion-crossing bounds. Wind surged through his body, shearing off some of that strange mass that clung to him, even as his legs loosened, popped from the sheer force that he had applied. It would heal soon enough.

It would heal if he lived.

He smashed bodily into a streetlamp that he could not even see. The force wrenched the painted aluminum pole right off its foundation, exposing the inner workings of its Telesma System Receptors, electricity sparking out of broken wiring. Meager light, but energetic light. Shou could see his immediate surroundings again, and more importantly, he could feel it.

The absence of that skin-crawling sensation.

Ah, how exhausting.

It was a rare thing for Shou to feel this battered and exhausted. He could feel the rough cobblestone beneath him, without any slimy film in the way, and that was a relief. Not one that he could appreciate before he suddenly emptied his stomach though. The retching carried away the lingering sense of nausea and revulsion as he spat up naught but stomach bile. 

He coughed a few more times and then spat to clear his mouth. Just barely managing to roll himself over as his chest heaved and he sucked in deep breaths of air. Even if passing out sounded like a wonderful reprieve after all this, the adrenaline racing through his veins filled his body with a twitching energy. One that his body finally could not do anything with as he sat there by the beach. The wreckage of a ruined lightpost scattered around him as the exposed wires continued to spark. 

[color=0072bc][i]‘Ah, this looks pretty bad,’[/i][/color] he thought idly as he laid back, sprawled himself out, and allowed his eyes to close again. Hopefully other people’s nights weren’t as messy as his.[/hider]