I knew I was underprepared to fight this Black Exodus operative or whatever it really was. I had to train to be able to unlock or control that power enough to even have a chance at fighting and taking down that bastard. I'd take 3 months of non-stop training until my body felt like it was going to break and collapse! It's not like he was really going to go far from that warehouse. That's where his base of operations is I'd imagine.
Skipping to my training, the first month was hell, but not for the reasons I expected. Sure, my body screamed every morning when I dragged myself out of my bed which was actually a park bench at 5 AM. Push-ups until my arms gave out, sit-ups until my core felt like it was on fire, followed by a five-mile run through the empty streets. But the real torture was the power lying dormant inside me – I could feel it there, just beneath the surface, like electricity waiting to surge through my veins.
Through another short meet with that entity it referred to it as "godly adrenaline," but it felt like so much more than that. During those first sparring sessions, I'd catch glimpses of it. A moment where I'd move faster than humanly possible, where my punch would hit with the force of an explosion. But then it would slip away, leaving me gasping and frustrated.
"Your body can't handle the full surge yet," it warned after I'd pushed too hard one night and collapsed, blood trickling from my nose. "That power will tear you apart from the inside if you're not careful."
By the second month, I'd learned to listen to my body's limits. The breakthrough came during a patrol in the warehouse district. Three armed thugs had me cornered, and desperation finally cracked something open inside me. I felt the familiar surge, but this time I didn't fight it or try to force more. I let it flow naturally, filling maybe half of what I sensed was possible. The difference was incredible. My reflexes sharpened to the point where their movements looked sluggish. I could see the bullets' trajectories before they fired. My punches sent grown men flying into shipping containers, denting steel like it was cardboard. But I kept it controlled, kept it at that fifty percent threshold where my bones wouldn't shatter from the strain. The power lasted maybe three minutes before exhaustion hit me like a freight train. But those three minutes had shown me what I could become.
The third month was about mastery. I could tap into that fifty percent consistently now, though holding it for more than a few minutes left me drained for hours. Marcus had me practice activation drills – calling up the power, maintaining it, then letting it fade without burning out. My body had adapted, grown stronger to handle the enhanced state.
During combat training, I learned to fight in two modes. My baseline human abilities for extended encounters, then the enhanced state for crucial moments. A perfectly timed surge could turn the tide of any fight, but I had to be smart about when to use it. The power was finite, and once it was gone, I'd be vulnerable. I studied every piece of footage I could find of Black Exodus in action, calculating when I'd need that enhanced state. His patterns, his tells, the moments where that extra fifty percent of power could make the difference between victory and defeat.
Now, as I stood in the mirror adjusting my gear one final time, I could feel the power humming quietly beneath my skin. Not the uncontrolled surge of three months ago, but something I could call upon when needed. I knew my limits now – fifty percent was all my body could safely handle, but fifty percent of something extraordinary was still more than enough. I pressed my hand against my chest, feeling the steady rhythm of my enhanced heartbeat. Three months ago, I'd been a guy who didn't even know he had power. Tonight, I was walking into that warehouse with the strength of something beyond comprehension flowing through my veins. I was ready.
So I set off at the dead of night to the warehouse and guards are swarming the place. How am I even supposed to get in?! The only way in is through brute force. I can take all of them!
The concrete wall exploded inward as my shoulder connected with it, chunks of debris cascading down around me like deadly shrapnel. I rolled through the dust cloud as the warehouse erupted into chaos.
"Breach! BREACH!" someone screamed, but their voice was already drowned in the symphony of shouting and dying.
A guard with crackling electricity dancing between his fingers rushed me from the left. His flare was impressive—blue lightning that could probably fry a normal man's nervous system instantly. Too bad I wasn't feeling particularly normal today. I felt that familiar burn in my chest, the godly adrenaline finally responding to my call. Fifty percent. I could feel it coursing through my veins like molten steel.
I moved faster than physics should have allowed, ducking under his lightning bolt and driving my elbow into his solar plexus with enough force to rupture organs. He folded like paper, electricity flickering out as he hit the ground convulsing, blood frothing from his mouth.
Another guard, this one with stone-hard skin, charged me with what looked like a sledgehammer. His flare made him nearly indestructible, but the adrenaline was powering me up; it was in my blood now, whispering secrets of violence I'd never fully tapped into.
I caught the hammer mid-swing. The impact should have shattered every bone in my hand, but instead I felt the weapon's handle crack in my grip. The guard's eyes went wide behind his tactical mask before I ripped the hammer from his grasp and brought it down on his armored chest. Stone skin or not, I heard ribs crack like kindling. He crumpled, coughing up blood that splattered across his mask.
More guards poured from the catwalks above—a woman whose hands blazed with white-hot flame, a man who moved like liquid shadow, another whose touch seemed to freeze everything it contacted. Their flares painted the warehouse in impossible colors: fire-orange, shadow-black, ice-blue. And soon, crimson red.
The flame-thrower let loose a torrent of superheated air that should have cooked me alive. Instead, I threw myself into a forward roll, feeling the heat wash over me like a pleasant breeze. The adrenaline wasn't just making me stronger—it was making me something beyond human limitation.
I came up in a fighting stance, my fists already clenched as I put myself center mass into Shadow-man with brutal punches. He dissolved into mist, trying to reform behind me, but I was already moving. The fifty percent was like having a sixth sense, every threat highlighted in my peripheral vision like a tactical overlay.
I spun and drove my boot into where his throat would be as he solidified. The impact crushed his windpipe with a wet crunch. He gasped, becoming solid again involuntarily, hands clawing at his ruined throat as he suffocated on his own blood.
Ice-touch came at me with frozen gauntlets, each punch trailing crystalline vapor. I weaved between his strikes, feeling the cold bite at my jacket but not penetrating deeper. When he over-extended on a right cross, I grabbed his wrist and twisted. Even through his ice armor, I felt bones snap like twigs.
"Impossible," he wheezed as I drove my knee into his ribs hard enough to puncture a lung. "No one's that strong—"
I cut him off with an uppercut that sent him crashing into a stack of crates, his neck bent at an unnatural angle. "Today I am."
The flame-thrower was still up there on the catwalk, raining fire down like an angel of death. I grabbed the fallen ice-guard's gauntlet and hurled it upward with inhuman force. It caught her in the shoulder, the impact spinning her around. She lost her balance and plummeted fifteen feet to the concrete floor, her scream cut short by the sickening crack of her spine snapping.
More guards were streaming in from the back of the warehouse now—at least a dozen, all with different flares. One had skin like living metal, another seemed to control the very air around him, creating cutting winds. A third was growing to twice normal size, his clothes stretching as muscle mass expanded.
The adrenaline hit that sweet spot, fifty percent fully charged. I could feel every muscle fiber, every nerve ending, every drop of enhanced blood flowing through my system. This was what it felt like to become something beyond human limitation. Something that could kill without hesitation.
I moved like death incarnate. Metal-skin came at me with fists that rang like hammers on anvils. I ducked under his swing and drove my fingers into the soft spot just below his ribs, punching through his metallic exterior and into the soft flesh beneath. Even living metal had weak points. He doubled over, and I brought my knee up to meet his descending face with enough force to cave in his skull.
The wind-controller tried to pin me down with a miniature tornado, but I pushed through it like it was nothing more than a stiff breeze. The adrenaline made me heavy, grounded, immovable when I needed to be. I closed the distance and tackled him around the waist, driving him back into the concrete wall hard enough to crack his spine.
The giant was the real problem. Twelve feet tall now and still growing, with fists like wrecking balls. He brought one down where I'd been standing, leaving a crater in the concrete. I rolled away, then charged him head-on, but my punches seemed to barely affect his thickened hide.
"Come on," I muttered, feeling the adrenaline surge higher. "Show me what sixty percent feels like."
But fifty was all I had, and fifty would have to be enough to end this.
I sprinted toward the giant, using a fallen guard's corpse as a springboard to launch myself at his face. He swatted at me like I was an annoying fly, but I was already inside his reach. I drove both fists into his left eye, feeling the satisfying give of soft tissue beneath enhanced knuckles, the warm splash of vitreous fluid.
He roared and staggered backward, one massive hand covering his ruined eye socket. I landed on his shoulder, wrapped my arm around his throat, and squeezed. Even giants needed to breathe. His struggles grew weaker as I crushed his windpipe, vertebrae grinding under the pressure.
He clawed at me, tried to throw me off, but I held on like death itself. The adrenaline kept me locked in place, muscles straining but not failing. After what felt like an eternity, he toppled backward like a felled tree, his death rattle echoing through the warehouse.
I rode him down, rolling clear at the last second as he crashed into the warehouse floor. The impact shook the entire building.
Silence fell over the warehouse like a burial shroud. I stood in the center of the carnage, chest heaving, the fifty percent of godly adrenaline slowly ebbing back to normal levels. Bodies lay scattered around me—some unconscious, others very much dead. I wasn't just a killer now, I was something far more dangerous. Someone who'd finally learned to tap into something most people couldn't even dream of surviving.
There were still more levels to this warehouse, more guards to get through. And maybe, just maybe, I'd find out what sixty percent felt like before this was over.
One thing was certain—Black Exodus had no idea what was coming for him. Now I had to head and find him so I knocked down the warehouse doors blazing once again taking down anyone dumb enough to try and take me on. This was getting far too easy!! I traveled up multiple floors until I reached his and I kicked it down and there he was…sitting there laughing like he was waiting for this very moment. You could feel the tension in the air, our auras colliding against one another as shit was about to hit the fan.