"Finally come out!"
Max Dillon's voice buzzed with electricity, echoing unnaturally from his blue thunderform a writhing mass of current shaped into the faint outline of a man.
His glowing eyes narrowed as he peered down at Soren.
Despite the grin, discomfort stirred inside him. There was something in Soren's unshaken expression that made Max feel… uneasy.
But unease was not enough to satisfy him. No. He needed more.
He wanted to see Soren scream. He wanted his victory to taste like revenge.
"I'll make you beg!" Max snarled. "I want to hear you WAIL before you die!"
His body exploded into a maelstrom of lightning, transforming into a storm cloud of living current. A tidal wave of blue thunder crashed downward toward Soren like judgment.
But Soren didn't flinch.
Not even when the first bolt hit.
The lightning... stopped.
Just centimeters before it touched him, the endless storm halted, frozen in mid-air, flickering violently, trapped against an invisible wall.
Psychokinesis Lv 9 — Full Force.
The air shimmered around Soren. The invisible force he controlled rippled like liquid glass, blocking and absorbing the relentless lightning strikes.
With every second, more energy piled on, but none could pass through.
The night lit up for blocks. Anyone in the city could see it, a wall of light, a barricade of lightning, all held in place by Soren's will.
With a grunt of effort, Soren twisted his fingers in the air.
"…"
The lightning didn't just stop… it began to bend.
Fold.
Collapse.
Soren compressed the accumulated current with psychic pressure collapsing the chaos into a barrier made of light itself , a cage of energy, humming and pulsing in mid-air.
And within it... Max Dillon reappeared.
His form began to stabilize under the force. No more amorphous storm, he was forced back into human shape, trapped like a bug in a jar.
"LET ME OUT!" Max roared.
Sparks erupted from his eyes and hands, his form flickering violently as he slammed into the cage walls. "I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL..."
"You'll do nothing." Soren said flatly, hovering just above him, arms crossed.
"You talk like a god, Max. But you're just a broken wire in a dead circuit."
The cage tightened.
Max screamed, not in rage this time, but in pain. Bones cracked under the growing pressure, and his electric aura weakened, sputtering like a dying bulb.
"You keep trying to kill me." Soren said, tone sharpening like a knife. "Again and again. But you don't understand. I let you run wild."
"This? This is what happens when I stop playing nice."
And yet, just as Soren prepared to end it.
A ripple in space slicing through reality.
A red blur cut through the darkness.
Soren barely had time to react before two gleaming blades slashed through the air, aimed straight for his chest.
With milliseconds to spare, Soren vanished, blinking across the street in a burst of teleportation.
The blades sliced nothing but air.
"Who?!" Soren shouted, heart pounding. "Who the hell are you?!"
From the shadows, the red figure stepped forward. Their form was agile, crouched, still. The twin blades gleamed faintly, but the figure made no move to attack again.
Strangely, Soren realized, there had been no killing intent. The blades had been aimed to drive him back, not to end him.
The moment Soren had teleported to avoid the ambush, the concentration of his Psychokinesis fractured. The invisible force field holding Max in mid-air collapsed, and with it, so did Electro.
Max hit the pavement with a wet thud.
Blood gushed from his mouth as sparks flickered weakly around his form. His blue glow, once so radiant and wild, had dimmed to a dying ember. He twitched, trying to move, but his body no longer responded. His circuits had overloaded.
Soren slowly descended to the ground, his eyes never leaving the red-suited intruder who had interrupted everything.
The figure was now clearer in the moonlight, dressed head to toe in tight crimson, face concealed beneath a mask with wide white eyes.
Twin katanas hung lazily from the figure's belt. His stance was casual, cocky even. Almost theatrical.
"Are you… Deadpool?"
The red figure paused.
Then, as if delighted, he placed both hands on his hips and turned toward Soren dramatically.
"Wow, I'm touched! I didn't even have to introduce myself. Yes! You got it in one. Deadpool! Merc with a Mouth. Lover of tacos. Breaker of fourth walls. Your local R-rated superhero full of positive vibes and gratuitous violence!"
"You nearly killed me." Soren didn't smile.
Deadpool shrugged. "Hey, if I wanted to kill you, you'd be kissing angels by now. That was a warning shot. Think of it as… foreplay." He wiggled his fingers.
"Also, you were a few seconds away from frying this guy's USB port. You're welcome."
"Why did you stop me? Max was mine."
"Oh, that guy?" Deadpool jerked his thumb toward the crumpled body of Max.
"I was hired to retrieve him. Alive. Preferably. Employer paid a fortune, and you know how expensive chimichangas are in this economy."
Soren's eyes glinted. "Who hired you?"
Deadpool crossed his arms, his tone dropping into mock professionalism.
"Tsk tsk. First rule of merc club... never snitch on the client. You should know that. It's bad for business, and trust me, I like my business."
"Then tell your client I said no." Soren said, taking a threatening tone. "Max stays."
Deadpool tilted his head. "Whoa. Easy there, mind-wizard. I'm not trying to pick a fight. There's no bonus in it for me."
"But money's money." Deadpool had said with his usual flippant tone.
And poof just like that, Deadpool grabbed Max and vanished, leaving Soren standing there, watching helplessly as his adversary slipped through his fingers once more.
Soren's eyes widened. He snapped his senses out in all directions, but nothing. Not a single spatial ripple. No trail. No echoes.
"...What the hell?" He muttered. "He teleported… but not with anything I know."
Soren gritted his teeth, being unable to pick up their teleportation trail.
Deadpool's was non-directional, and unlike his own teleportation ability, which allowed him to control his destination with precision, Deadpool's method was pure random.
No way to predict where they would land, no way to follow them.
"Fu#&g!" Soren muttered under his breath. He felt the sting of failure again.
It was hard to ignore the fact that he'd failed once more to neutralize Max, who, if Soren was being honest, had already become far more dangerous than he'd anticipated.
Max's electric abilities had grown at an alarming rate, and now, with Deadpool's interference, and now being in the hands of someone far more dangerous.
The threat was only going to escalate from here.
He kicked a crumpled traffic sign, the dented metal groaning as it flipped across the street.
All that effort, all that psychic output, and Electro was still out there.
Worse, the look Max gave him before Deadpool grabbed him was burned into Soren's memory. A promise of vengeance, full of hate. That wasn't the look of a man who had given up.
It was the look of someone who had found purpose…
Soren turned his gaze to the horizon.
There was only one thing he could do now. He had to find a way to stop Max before the electric terror became an even bigger force to reckon with.
꧁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