The shadow of the cyberpsycho stood motionless in the corner of the derelict warehouse I'd claimed as a base. Its blue, pupil-less eyes were fixed on nothing, a silent sentry. I could feel its presence in my mind like a quiet weight—a tool in a spectral armory. But the pain in my veins was a louder voice. The afterburn of Velocity-9 was a phantom ache, a deep thrum that promised both godhood and a grave.
The dungeon energy had changed something. It wasn't just the shadows. The dark matter in my cells felt more responsive, hungrier. And the other gift—the lightning—crackled beneath my skin, a restless second storm waiting to be shaped.
I needed to learn it. Not just throw it. Master it.
The warehouse district was a tomb of rust and silence after midnight. I stood before a towering stack of rusted shipping containers, my Zoom suit a patch of living night against the decay.
I started simple. I raised a hand, willed the power up from my core, and thought of the most basic anime trope: a bolt from the fingertips.
A jagged, brilliant fork of white lightning lanced out with a deafening CRACK. It struck the container, not with an explosion, but with a violent melt. Molten steel dripped like wax, leaving a smoldering crater. Raw, undirected force. It was powerful, but it was waste. It used too much, screamed too loud.
I needed precision. I needed a scalpel, not a sledgehammer.
I remembered the Chidori. A thousand birds screaming. Not just lightning, but lightning compressed, given a blade's edge. I focused, pulling the chaotic energy inwards, compacting it into my right hand. The air around my fist began to warp, to whine. Sparks skittered across my knuckles, coalescing into a churning, spinning orb of white-blue light. The sound built—a piercing, electric screech that tore the silence of the docks to shreds.
"Chidori!"
I thrust my hand forward, not at the container, but in a controlled, horizontal slash. The screeching blade of lightning extended in a humming arc. It didn't explode. It cut. A clean, searing line appeared across the faces of four stacked containers with a sound like tearing reality. A second later, the upper halves of the containers slid smoothly off, crashing to the ground with earth-shaking thuds. The cut edges glowed orange-hot.
A savage grin split my face. Yes.
This was the synergy. Speed was movement. Lightning was force. Together…
I let the Chidori fade. The blue lightning of my Zoom suit flickered. I focused, trying to merge the two. I pushed the anime lightning into the Velocity-fueled energy coursing through me.
The world dissolved into a blue-white haze. I wasn't running. I was becoming current.
I shot across the yard. This wasn't my earlier, stumbling translation. This was a true, continuous run, but every footfall unleashed a localized thunderclap. Shattered concrete erupted in my wake. I wasn't just moving fast; I was a moving focal point of a storm. I could feel the electrical field around me, a dome of frantic ions. I could likely short out every unshielded electronic device within a hundred yards.
I skidded to a halt, my own lightning arcing back to ground around my boots. The air smelled of ozone and scorched earth. My chest burned, the toxin in my blood singing a more urgent song. The power was intoxicating. It was also exponentially more draining.
A new idea, dangerous and bright, flashed in my mind. If I could channel lightning into my movement… what about my perception?
I willed a trickle of the anime lightning, not into my muscles, but up my spine, into my optic nerves. The world didn't slow. It overloaded.
For a fraction of a second, my vision became a topological map of energy. I could see the thermal ghost of my own path, the weak electrical currents in the warehouse wiring, the dormant power lines under the street. It was a staggering, painful influx of data—a Raikage's Lightning Release Armor perception, without the control. I cut the flow, gasping, my eyes watering. A trickle of blood dripped from my nose. The price for cheating.
But the principle was sound. I could see more. I could be more.
As I wiped the blood away, a different sense tingled—not sight, but the sovereign's sense for my shadows. The two cyberpsycho shadows in my reserve were… limited. Foot soldiers. I needed variety. I needed specialists.
As if answering the thought, the familiar static hum prickled at the edge of my awareness. Another dungeon. Not in the alley this time. The signal came from the roof of my own warehouse.
I blurred up the side of the building, landing silently. There, coiling like a serpent of corrupted data, was a new tear. The view through it was monochrome and geometric. Endless white platforms suspended in a void, with strange, floating coins and checkered flag poles.
A replica world. But not of war or dystopia. This was…
Incursion Detected: Platforming Zone (Super Mario Bros.).
Anomaly: Bowser's Minion Outpost.
Objective: Clear the Zone.
Reward: Sovereign's Right.
A video game. A children's platformer. A cold, tactical analysis cut through my surprise. This wasn't about the genre. It was about the biology. The creatures in that world—turtles that could walk on two legs, mushrooms that granted growth, plants with teeth—they operated on a logic unlike anything on Earth. Their shadows would be… unique assets.
I stepped through the tear.
The world felt wrong. The gravity was lighter, playful. The colors were saturated and simple. The air smelled of digital pollen and vanilla. It was absurd. It was perfect.
I stood on a wide, white platform. In the distance, a squat castle bristled with cartoonish cannons. And marching toward me in a neat, stupid line were five Goombas. Brown, grumpy-faced mushrooms with feet.
They posed no physical threat. But they weren't the point.
I didn't use speed. I didn't use the Chidori. I simply pointed a finger.
A thin, precise bolt of yellow lightning—a mimicry of Pikachu's Thunderbolt—lanced out. It struck the first Goomba. There was no burn, no melt. The creature flashed bright white, vibrated, and vanished with a comical poof.
One by one, I picked them off. Each disappearance fed a cold point of power into me. This was farming. Efficient, emotionless harvesting.
A Koopa Troopa in a green shell waddled into view. I used a different technique—a weak, crackling net of electricity from Killua's Godspeed to surround it. The turtle retracted into its shell, stunned. I walked over, placed my hand on the shell, and willed a surge of raw power through it. The shell glowed red-hot, then crumbled to ash. The shadow that rose was different—denser, with the faint, enduring shape of the shell.
I was methodical. I cleared the platforms of Shy Guys, sniped Paratroopas from the sky with lightning shuriken, and vaporized a Piranha Plant with a concentrated bolt to its stem. Each shadow joined a growing, silent chorus in my inner darkness.
Then, from the castle gate, he emerged. Bowser. Or a mini-boss replica of him. A hulking mass of spiked shell, scales, and bad attitude. He roared, and a small, cartoonish fireball chugged toward me.
This was the test.
I let the fireball come. At the last second, I moved with Zoom's speed, not to dodge, but to appear directly in front of the reptilian king. His eyes widened in surprise.
"Sorry," I said, my voice flat. "No power-ups for me."
I placed my palm on his scaly chest. Not with a Chidori. With something new—a technique that required both my speed and lightning. I focused the chaotic electrical energy into a single, infinitely dense point, and then, using a micro-burst of Velocity, vibrated my hand.
The Raiton: Rending Vibro-Palm was silent.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then, a web of fine blue cracks spread from my hand across Bowser's entire body. He didn't roar. He didn't poof. He dissociated, his form fracturing into a million pixelated cubes that then dissolved into black smoke. The shadow that coalesced was massive, a hulking, dark silhouette with glowing blue spikes. A commander-class shadow.
The dungeon shimmered and cleared. A flood of sovereign power, sweeter and stranger than the cybernetic energy, filled me. My army now had cartoonish biology, creatures of pure game-logic. I wondered, coldly, if a Goomba shadow could trip a Kryptonian.
Back on the warehouse roof, the tear sealed. The night air of my world felt grimy and heavy in comparison. But I felt stronger. More versatile.
As I gazed at the city, a new sound pierced the night—not thunder, but the distant, rising and falling wail of sirens. Not just one or two. A chorus. They were converging. On the industrial district.
My display. The Chidori's screech, the thunderclap run, the warehouse roof lightning show. I hadn't been subtle. I'd drawn a spotlight.
A flicker of movement caught my enhanced eye. Not on the streets. In the sky. A dark, winged shape, broader than any bird, silhouetted for a moment against the moonlit clouds before vanishing behind a skyscraper. Too fast for a plane. Too deliberate for debris.
Something was watching. Something that didn't use sirens.
The fear was instant, cold, and slippery. It wasn't fear of the police. It was the fear of the unknown predator, of the chess piece moving on a board I couldn't yet see.
Deep within, the Beast stirred. The vast, red eye opened, regarding my spike of alarm with predatory interest. A single, psychic growl echoed in my skull: Let me out. I will burn them all.
I clenched my fists, the residual lightning sparking between my fingers. "Not yet," I whispered to the night, to the sirens, to the thing in the sky, and to the monster in my soul.
The game was starting. The players were arriving.
And I had just shown my first, most dangerous card.
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