Soren reappeared just outside the massive crater, the air still humming with residual static and scorched ozone.
The scene before him was nothing short of apocalyptic… concrete liquefied by the blast, metal twisted like paper, and flames licking the edges of the broken street.
He took one look at the pit, still radiating a bluish glow.
"...No way that's just from one strike."
And then the light returned.
With a crackle like a thousand televisions tuning in at once, Maxwell Dillon emerged again from the glow, his form reconstituting from energy to flesh, still humanoid but grotesquely changed.
Skin was armored in iridescent scales, his veins glowing like plasma channels, and his eyes now vertical slits.
But what chilled Soren wasn't the monster's strength.
It was his expression.
Excitement.
"He's... eager?" Soren's fingers tightened on the grip of his weapon. "He wants this?"
As if answering the question, Max let out a distorted, garbled roar, not quite human. He lunged forward, limbs crackling, electricity screaming around him.
Soren didn't wait.
"Let's see if you can digest this, you freak."
He aimed and fired.
The weapon released with zero soundly, a blinding spear of light that streaked out and slammed directly into Max's chest.
"HRRAAAAGH!"
Max's roar was a fusion of agony and ecstasy. The compressed energy ripped through him, causing his armor-like skin to superheat, glowing fiery red before melting at the edges like molten steel.
But he didn't fall.
Instead, he absorbed the energy like a starved beast.
"Unbelievable... He's able to... feeding off it?"
Within seconds, the energy ball on Max's chest, glowing like a reactor core, had nearly vanished, swallowed whole into his expanding body.
The only visible result? Skin reddened and cracked from the unbearable heat.
"He just tanked it!?" Soren hissed.
Soren reached into his belt pouch and pulled out a small triangular object, shimmering blue with core energy.
"Then let's up the dose."
Max watched him. Eyes widening. Breath ragged.
Soren clicked the new Tri-Core Element Ring into place.
"Round two, asshole."
Another blinding flash.
This time, the impact visibly pushed Max back, feet skidding across the pavement as energy ruptured his inner current. His body flickered, becoming translucent for a heartbeat.
The armor cracked louder, steam bursting from joints and chest.
"RRRRHHRRRAAGHH!!" Max shrieked, body trembling, now truly in pain.
Cracks webbed across his torso.
His energy was destabilizing.
And still, he wanted more.
Pain is familiar. Pain is power. Must absorb. Must grow. More. More. More...
His mind, once brilliant, now boiled down to pure instinct. HYDRA had reduced him to a weapon, programmed for hunger, addicted to energy.
He saw Soren loading a third triangle core.
Too much. Can't contain. Can't... stop him.
Max's arms twitched. He tried to summon lightning, but nothing. The energy circuits were all rerouted to absorption. He was full. Overflowing.
He couldn't fight back.
As the third ring discharged into Max's chest, Soren's expression was focused.
"You wanted this, remember?"
Max's body glowed brighter, uncontrollably. Cracks widened. Currents spilled out of his skin like leaking plasma.
Still, Soren didn't stop.
Click.
Fourth ring.
"You're not walking away this time."
Fifth ring.
"You're not evolving again."
Sixth ring.
"You're not coming back."
By the sixth blast, Max's form had ballooned, three times his original size, skin stretched taut and crisscrossed with lightning-filled cracks. He looked less like a man and more like a walking fusion reactor seconds from failure.
He couldn't scream anymore. The pressure had collapsed his vocal cords. His mouth opened in a silent wail as electricity spilled from every pore.
Soren stood motionless, weapon still humming.
Soren started prepping the seventh ring.
And Max, his intelligence all but gone, understood one thing.
If he took another hit…
He would explode.
He stumbled backward.
For the first time since the battle began… Electro tried to run.
Soren fired seven!
BOOOOOOMM!!!!!!!!
It was as if a god had slammed the earth.
A sphere of lightning burst from Electro's unstable body, pure energy compressed to the edge of collapse, finally detonating like a star going nova.
A wave of force rippled outward, warping air, cracking pavement, and shorting out every power grid within half a mile.
Every window shattered.
Every streetlamp exploded.
Soren opened his eyes slowly inside the Medical Hall, having teleported there at last moment, its absolute defense shimmering faintly around him like a protective womb.
His vision swam in a haze of white and color ghosts. The light had been too intense, like staring into a dying sun.
"Damn it…" He muttered, shielding his eyes. "... that flash almost cooked my retinas."
The world came into focus again, bit by bit.
And what he saw…
Didn't have words…
Outside the shimmering field, trees were charred skeletons, still flickering with flames. The once-gray streets were jet black, bubbling from residual heat.
At the epicenter, where Maxwell Dillon once stood, was now a crater laced with crackling arcs of residual energy and scattered bone fragments, each scorched pitch-black.
Only the Medical Hall remained untouched, pristine and glowing faintly with energy.
Soren exhaled long and slow.
"I don't know if it's overkill… I still have three rings left."
He stepped out, boots crunching over carbonized stone, and raised a hand. His Psychokinesis flared, sifting through the wreckage.
Bone fragments hovered in the air, twenty, maybe thirty, like ashes frozen mid-fall. Soren guided them into a containment pod, the pieces still glowing with residual heat.
"Hardly anything left... Just a handful of fingers and a bit of spine. Guess that's all he had left to give."
The remains sat beneath a glowing gene extractor, humming softly as molecular structures were isolated, unraveled, and analyzed in real-time.
Lines of code scrolled across the transparent monitor...
[Gene Extraction Complete.]
[Electro: Maxwell Dillon]
Gene Components:
Ordinary Human Genes
Electro-optical Mutation
Biochemical Modification (Defective)
Soren's eyes narrowed, lips curling into a frown.
"Biochemical… defective? That explains the instability. That wasn't evolution, it was corrosion."
He turned to the system console, eyes sharp with curiosity.
"System. Can I use the genetic scalpel to perfect the defective biochemical gene?"
A short pause.
[Affirmative.]
[Perfecting the biochemical gene will significantly enhance strength, agility, and resilience. No effect on cognitive function. Physical changes are expected]
Soren leaned back in his chair, gears turning in his mind. Slowly, a grin began to form.
"No loss of intelligence... but a body that can hold that kind of power?"
He stared at the sample. "…"
He had a crazy, mad scientist idea.
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
Dare you peek into my other tales? The opening three chapters of select stories are free to all.
PhantomDream