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Chapter 38: Did You Think I'd Miss Peak?
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Adam shrugged, picking up his own blade; a sleek, modern thing that hummed with brilliance.
"There is no other partner. It was a mechanical arm with a sniper rifle, controlled remotely. It might sound complex to the likes of you, but it's actually very simple. I'm sure even Frank could do it."
Elektra's eyes narrowed. "Where is the girl, then? Your other partner."
Adam's answer was breezy. "She's buying us some shawarma burritos for the celebration later tonight." He gave her a disarming smile. It was, of course, a complete lie.
Elektra studied him, carving the image of his calm, smiling face into her memory.
"You've made me curious," She admitted, a rare thing for her. "I am not used to talking to my targets. But unfortunately, you have to go. Don't resist. It will be less painful that way."
Adam took a deep breath. He swung his blade in a slow, practiced arc, getting a feel for its weight. "Don't worry," He said, his voice dropping to a near whisper.
"You will have all the time to satiate your curiosity later. I am planning to hire you. Assassination techniques are what I lack most right now."
She let out a soft, incredulous giggle. "You think you'll live past today? That's a pipe dream."
As she spoke, Adam's expression underwent a final, chilling transformation.
All traces of humor, charm, and eccentricity drained away. His face became a placid, frightfully calm mask.
His eyes, which had been so expressive, turned into still, deep pools.
He raised his head, looking down at her from his full height as he took a single, deliberate step forward.
"You're kind of right," He said, his voice now devoid of all emotion. "It won't be easy for you to live past today."
The air grew heavy. "I advise you to make me feel pain. Something more than an itch. Do not disappoint me. Because that will decide whether you are of value, or merely another dead body I walk by on my path above."
The sheer, absolute weight of his words, the glacial calm, the utter certainty; it all coalesced into a pressure that sank deep into Elektra's bones.
[The aura just multiplied by a thousand!]
[Aura ++]
[Yeast Farmer Adam!]
[Phew, I'm in Love!]
[Elektra felt that in her SOUL.]
Adam traced his fingers along the flat of his blade. As he did, a faint, blue-white electricity erupted from his palm, crawling over the metal with a soft crackle, enveloping it in a shroud of raw power.
It was Mechanical Force, augmenting his weapon. He was sure the material by which her weapons were made is far stronger than his; she'd likely slice through them.
Not anymore. The mechanical force has many uses, this being one of them.
Adam moved like a man of focus, but he deliberately kept his mutant abilities sheathed.
Only the faint crackle of Mechanical Force coated his sword, enhancing its edge and durability.
The blade itself was a marvel of his own design, layered with monomolecular filaments and internal heating elements.
He wanted to feel this fight, to learn from it. He was the one who leaped forward first, a testing swing aimed at her shoulder.
Elektra met it with one sai, the clash of metal ringing sharp in the night air. Her other blade was already in motion, a viper's strike toward his ribs.
Adam twisted, his own swing continuing its arc to parry, the enhanced force of his block shoving her slightly off-balance.
It was enough to turn a killing thrust into a shallow gash across his chest.
She used the momentum, her body a study in fluid grace, rotating and launching into a series of stabbing attacks that flowed like water.
Adam realized the disparity immediately. She was faster, her flexibility allowing for attacks from angles he couldn't hope to match.
His physique, a balance of muscle and lean efficiency, sacrificed that limberness for raw power.
Against the monsters he knew lurked in this world's future, he was painfully aware of his own inadequacy. This was a necessary crucible.
[He's holding back his main power. He's using her as a training dummy!]
[This is so reckless! Elektra is not someone you play with!]
[The man is obsessed with self-improvement to a terrifying degree.]
[But is he not afraid of dying? One mistake, and his head would be sliced off. This is so stupid.]
[I assume he trusts the Doom in him to be able to react in time, but also, if he dies, then he failed. I don't think he's afraid of dying.]
[Yup, he's afraid of not progressing more than dying.]
[I mean, it's already been established that he's broken beyond repair.]
The fight became a brutal symphony of clashing steel. They danced a dance of death across the rooftop.
Adam was on the defensive, losing most exchanges. Her twin sai were a whirlwind of crimson and silver, finding his arms, his legs, his torso.
His suit, once immaculate, was shredded in a dozen places, each tear weeping blood.
He was a mess of superficial wounds, but he was learning, adapting, his mind cataloging her patterns, the weight distribution in her stances, the micro-expressions that preceded her deadliest moves.
His only successes came from brute force. When he could lock blades and push, his superior strength could overwhelm her, creating a fleeting opening.
But she was too smart, too fast, and too experienced to let him capitalize on it for long.
Then it happened. A feint, a twist of her wrist he misread. Her sai slipped past his guard, with a precise, deep thrust into his thigh.
She ripped it free as he moved backwards, and blood poured out in a pulsing stream. She had nicked the femoral artery.
Elektra wasn't triumphant; she was frustrated. It was taking too long.
He was a capable fighter, yes, but his most unnerving trait was his reaction time and his ability to fluidly switch between fighting styles; from kendo-like slashes to brutal, military-style disarms.
He was a chameleon in combat.
Suddenly, Adam disengaged, leaping back out of her range. She moved to pursue but halted, sensing a fundamental shift.
His eyes were wide open, unblinking, flickering with an unnatural light.
They darted erratically, seizing up her entire being and the rooftop environment as if it were a complex schematic.
His first action was pragmatic and brutal. He brought the flat of his superheated sword down onto the gushing wound on his thigh.
The sizzle of burning flesh filled the air, the stench joining the coppery tang of blood.
He sealed the artery shut at the cost of a third-degree burn, his face a mask of stoic perseverance.
"Thank you," He said, his voice eerily calm. "You helped me understand something." He gave a slight, formal bow. "My name is Adam. I look forward to working with you. If you survive today."
Elektra frowned, her grip tightening on her sai. The feeling he gave off was now completely different.
"Elektra," She responded curtly. "What did I help you understand?"
He took a step forward, his movements now possessing a new, predatory certainty. "You helped me understand you. And that I can see… more."
He didn't elaborate. He simply sprang forward, and the fight resumed.
But the dynamic had irrevocably changed.
Adam was as if a different person entirely; he was predicting.
He saw the subtle tension in her shoulder before a lunge, the shift in her weight before a spin.
His intellect, magnified by Doom's genius, was working at full capacity, processing her like a line of code.
He was reading the information she exuded; every twitch, every glance, every micro-expression; and compiling it into a predictive algorithm.
Not only that, he was reading the information she didn't even know she exuded, information that maybe only he could see.
He began to replicate her own fluid movements, but twisted them into something more brutal.
He no longer avoided her strikes. He now calculated the exchange. He would gladly take a shallow cut to his arm if it allowed him to deliver a deeper gash to her side.
He understood her, and in understanding her, he found the most efficient path to her defeat: mutual destruction, weighted in his favor.
[He's unlocked ultra-instinct!]
[He's treating a fight to the death like a math problem.]
[Ahh, I love this so much! This is the kind of fucking fighting I like, bloody and brutal, a man's romance.]
[Could it be that he comprehended some kind of fighting style or technique so quickly?]
[He has Doom's intellect. If he's somehow comprehended Power Cosmo, I wouldn't be surprised.]
[I wanted to watch this with my kids, but this is too bloody for children. Bye.]
[Well, understandable.]
[This is becoming even more bloody and gory than the Punisher and even the Boys.]
[Alright, I'm back, I've sent my kids to play in the mud.]
[...]
[What? Did you think he'd actually miss peak?]
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