The room reeked of burnt ozone and melted metal.
A single dim bulb flickered above a rusted pipe, casting eerie shadows across the basement walls. Inside, Maxwell Dillon sat slumped against the wall, his skin cracked like scorched porcelain.
Faint arcs of electricity danced over his flesh, occasionally leaping from one wound to another.
His breathing was shallow. But his eyes… burned with hate.
"Soren…" He rasped.
Then his voice dropped an octave, distorted, guttural, fused with static.
"Soren. I want to kill you. I will kill you."
The words echoed unnaturally through the basement like a corrupted signal.
"You humiliated me. Treated me like some… broken wire. A hazard to be contained." His voice quivered with rage.
"But you forgot something, doctor…"
Max stood slowly, his body flickering in and out of existence, like static on a broken screen.
"…I designed this city's nervous system."
To Dillon, the world was no longer flesh and stone.
It was a web.
A glowing grid of power, veins of pure electricity flowing endlessly, from the neon signs of Times Square to the humming transformers buried beneath Manhattan.
And they all led to one beating heart.
The New York Power Plant, for which he had built its blueprint.
Blue lightning crackled through the main switchboard.
Like liquid light, it snaked through copper cables and surged into the control room. A violent flash erupted as the surge condensed into a humanoid figure reborn in voltage.
His charred skin now glowed faintly with a deep, electric blue. His eyes were only twin orbs of silver and storm.
Max rolled his neck. The static hum of his body pulsed with each motion. "Home sweet home."
He placed a palm against the main transformer. Power surged toward him, drawn like a magnet. The arcs of lightning danced eagerly across his skin, absorbed instantly.
"Yes... That's it. Come to me." He hissed. "More. More."
"…"
"Hey! Who the hell are you?!"
Max turned slowly.
A young technician stood at the door to the turbine chamber, flashlight trembling in his hand.
"Leave now before, before I call security!"
Max's face twisted in something that might have once been a grin.
"Security?" His voice distorted, heavy with energy. "You think locks and guards can stop a god?"
The worker stepped back. "W-what are you?!"
Max's body exploded into a brief storm of lightning before reforming inches from the man.
"You called me a monster." He whispered and placed a sparking hand on the worker's chest.
"You were right."
The man didn't even have time to scream before his body convulsed, blackened, and dropped lifeless to the ground, smoke curling from his mouth and eyes.
Minutes Later~~
The power plant was dead.
No alarms.
No survivors.
The only sounds were the distant hum of energy and Dillon's voice, echoing through the storage core.
"Soren…"
The core chamber was bathed in a blinding, chaotic storm of blue-white lightning.
Cables ruptured.
Electricity poured into Dillon's body like a river into a bottomless well.
His voice echoed in harmony with the current.
"This city runs because of me."
"It breathes because of me."
"And it will burn because of me."
His arms outstretched as though welcoming a divine revelation, and the air around him began to crackle violently, warping with heat and power.
"SOREN MACALUSO—" He roared into the empty chamber, voice shaking the walls "—YOU WILL DROWN IN LIGHTNING."
The sun had barely dipped below the skyline when the lights went out
Pop!
A deafening silence swallowed the usual buzz of Times Square as the neon lights vanished in an instant. Then came screams, confused, panicked, rippling like waves across the streets.
Car horns blared. Sirens cut short. Elevators jammed. Billboards froze mid-frame.
Darkness.
The entire city had its heart and soul blacked out.
Above, two enormous jetliners glided dangerously close, blinking aimlessly in the empty sky.
"Tower, this is Flight 78! We've lost visual! Repeat, we've lost all nav!"
"Shit, this is Tower! Emergency teams… where the hell are my techs? We're blind!"
Controllers pounded useless keys, staring at dead monitors. Every second passed like a death sentence.
A pale white glow stood like a lone candle in an ocean of shadow. The only place in New York still humming with life.
Everlife Medical Center
Dr. Soren Macaluso stood by the window, arms folded as he peered out into the dark skyline, brows furrowed.
The streetlights, the signs, the towers, everything was submerged in pitch blackness. His gaze flicked down to his phone, but it was useless. No connection. The whole of New York had gone dark.
He frowned. "Why is it so noisy outside?"
A cold chill ran down his spine, and the premonition in his gut only intensified.
Before he could make another move, a burst of blinding light illuminated the streets below. Soren whipped his head toward the source. It didn't take long for him to spot the streak of light racing through the skyline, Max Dillon, or rather, Electro, was coming straight for him.
The once timid man he had battled now moved with the ferocity of a storm, as though the very lightning coursing through his veins had fused with his mind, turning him into something far beyond what he had been the previous day.
Max had absorbed all the power from the city's grid, and from the looks of it, he was more than ready to unleash it.
The crackling silhouette stood at the threshold of the hospital, lightning swirling around him like a living storm.
Where flesh once was, now flowed raw current.
Max's voice tore through the walls like a vengeful god.
"SOREN! GET OUT HERE... NOW!"
He raised a hand. A bolt of condensed thunder erupted from his palm, slamming into the reinforced doors.
BOOM!
The impact cracked concrete and shattered windows, but the doors held firm, untouched.
A moment later, the doors creaked open.
He stepped into the open calmly, his gaze locked on the monster he once called Max.
"You've caused a city-wide blackout... and killed dozens of people."
Max laughed, voice glitching like a corrupted radio.
"I've awakened. And now I'm going to put you to sleep."
Soren's system activated, panels blinking beside his vision.
[Target: Electro – Maxwell Dillon]
[Class: B+]
[Abilities: Absorb Electric Energy (LV9), High Voltage Discharge (LV9), Energy Projection (LV9)]
Soren's heart skipped a beat. "B+... In one day."
Max had made a massive jump in power. This wasn't the man he had fought before; this was a force of destruction, one that Soren might not be able to defeat alone.
Max's powers were at a terrifying level, and if he continued to grow unchecked, Soren would soon be facing a monster beyond anything he could control.
Soren gritted his teeth and prepared for his biggest showdown yet.
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
Fellow Phantoms and aspiring Phantoms to be, if you seek to access advanced parts of this story procced to my shadowy realm of p@treon.
PhantomDream