Kyren rushes to his apartment building, runs into Mrs. Vega in the hallway.
"Oh dear, what happened to you?" Mrs. Vega asks with concern. "Did you run into thugs or one of those nasty Stormborne people?"
KYREN
"It's okay, Mrs. Vega, it's just makeup and a costume from the studio, I was in a hurry so I didn't have time to clean up or change into decent clothes."
"I am sorry for making you worry, Mrs. Vega."
MRS. VEGA
"It's alright, dear, the good thing is that you are okay, but clean yourself up quickly so that you don't worry other people."
Kyren wishes Mrs. Vega a lovely night and rushes into his apartment, takes a quick bath and afterwards wears a clean set of clothes and dumps the ones he was wearing in the trash bin.
Kyren begins pacing back and forth in his living room. It had been a while since he lost control of his abilities, satisfying the voice inside him.
Inside every Stormborne was a sinister voice that lured them to do mischievous acts, driving them into insanity, intoxicating them with power, and dragging them into a life of villainy. Only a few were still hanging onto their sanity, resisting the evil voice inside them over the last five years since the storm had occurred, birthing the Stormborne.
Kyren's stuntwork helped him ignore the voice except when he was sleeping because when unconscious, the voice became impossible to suppress.
The voice no longer spoke to Kyren as much as it did during the first three years after the storm, but he couldn't suppress it earlier in the alleyway.
"You thought that you could keep me contained, but I was lying low waiting for a mental trigger just like what happened in the alleyway." The voice talks to Kyren. " I am a part of you so you can't get rid of me unless you kill yourself."
KYREN
"No, I don't need you or your wicked abilities. I can get by without you just like I have been doing for the past two years."
"At first, I was young and naive when I first acquired these abilities and you, thinking that I was special than everyone else, Stormborne and Awakened included."
"I slowly strayed from the path of righteousness."
He looks at his mom's pendant around his neck and it brings him back some old memories.
Three years ago. Odessa, Texas.
Kyren was levitating off the ground with bolts of lightning emitting from his body to the ground, he had a hoodie and a black mask covering his nose down to his chin.
"You're a god, Kyren, show these worms your wrath." The voice whispers to Kyren.
Beneath Kyren stood a large group of mafia members aiming their guns at him.
"Do you really think those primitive weapons of yours can even lay a scratch upon me?" Kyren dares the mafia gang.
The mafia boss yells from the end of the line, telling his underlings to light the electric freak up, which they immediately did, but Kyren remained in one position.
Kyren had formed an electromagnetic field around himself momentarily; every bullet that approached him stopped in midair, caught in the magnetic field.
The mafia members stopped shooting for a couple of seconds, shocked by the impressive feat Kyren had performed.
"It's my turn now." Kyren says.
Kyren slammed amidst the mafia mob, unleashing a power surge that sent most of them flying.
Kyren then emitted electric bolts from his hands while rotating, blasting away the remaining mafias, giving them third-degree burns.
Among the mafias was an Awakened villain who was also the mafia boss, with the ability to turn his whole body into pure Titanium, one of the strongest metals in the world and with super strength to effortlessly lift a bus off the ground.
This Awakened villain was nicknamed the Jaggernaut, one of the most wanted villains in the world, and no street-level hero dared to cross paths with him otherwise they wouldn't live to see another day.
This monstrosity was now face-to-face with Kyren.
"The maggots have been squashed, it's now time to get rid of the fly." The voice speaks to Kyren.
"Don't worry, I am going to quickly dispose of this fly," Kyren replies to the voice.
"Who are you talking to, freak show?" The Jaggernaut asks. "Ah, I should have realized it, such tremendous power and your superiority complex, you must be a Stormborne."
"You can't recognize greatness when it's standing right before you, so let me open your eyes," Kyren tells the Jaggernaut.
The ruined street trembled beneath their steps. Rubble groaned, car alarms wailed in the distance, and the air itself tasted like iron before a storm.
Kyren's hand twitched at his side, sparks crawling across his knuckles. His pupils were thin slits, the sinister voice in his skull hissing with delight:
"He'll break you, Kyren… unless you break him first."
Across from him, Jaggernaut rolled his neck. The sound was not bone but metal grinding—his skin shimmered, hardening. Every movement was accompanied by a weighty groan of steel. He planted his foot, the pavement cracking like glass.
"Come on, lightning boy," Jaggernaut growled. "Show me that storm within you."
Kyren grinned, wide and manic. "Don't blink."
Then they launched forward.
Their fists collided.
The impact detonated like a bomb. A ring of compressed air exploded outward, shattering storefront windows for blocks. Cars lifted a bit from the street and pushed further as the ground cratered beneath them. For an instant, both stood locked in that clash—Kyren's hand wrapped in writhing blue lightning, Jaggernaut's steel fist unyielding.
Kyren snarled, lightning crawling up his arm like a nest of serpents. Jaggernaut pushed harder, and the ground gave way, dropping them both into a crater.
The battle descended into chaos.
Kyren darted around with blinding speed, his body flickering in bursts of crackling light. He hurled spears of lightning that shattered into arcs, splitting lampposts and melting asphalt. Each strike roared like thunder in a bottle.
But Jaggernaut—immovable, invincible—marched through it. Lightning scorched his metallic skin, sparks dancing uselessly across his armored chest. When Kyren lashed forward with a crackling whip of electricity, Jaggernaut caught it in one hand, yanked him close, and hammered him into the ground.
The street split open. Kyren gasped, blood filling his mouth.
"Pathetic", the voice mocked in his skull. "You're a god, Kyren. Why let this iron beast grind you down?"
Jaggernaut lifted an abandoned SUV, twisting metal like paper, and hurled it at him. Kyren barely rolled aside as the SUV detonated against a building, raining steel and flame.
Every blow Jaggernaut landed was devastating, each punch like a cannon, each stomp like a collapsing building. Kyren staggered, chest heaving, electricity flickering weakly over his skin.
But then, he heard it—the whisper again, darker, sharper.
"Let it go. Stop holding back. Drown him in the storm."
Kyren's lips curled into a feral grin. He rose, laughter bubbling up, broken and manic. His veins lit like molten lightning, arcs tearing through his skin, splitting the air with raw, violent energy. The storm inside him was no longer contained—it poured outward, a halo of destruction.
"Jaggernaut," Kyren rasped, his voice layered with something other. "Let's see who's truly unstoppable."
He exploded forward, a streak of blinding light. His fists became blazing hammers of electricity. He struck Jaggernaut again and again—each impact thunderous, each punch carving craters in the metal man's armor.
For the first time, Jaggernaut staggered. His chest glowed red where Kyren's lightning lingered too long. He roared in fury, swinging wildly, but Kyren slipped aside in bursts of speed, appearing at his flank, his back, his throat.
Then came the final strike.
Kyren clamped his sparking hands onto Jaggernaut's shoulders. Lightning surged, not in strikes but in a continuous, horrifying flood. His laughter echoed over the crackling storm, sharp and unhinged. The titanium sizzled, then glowed molten. Metal bubbled, splitting, dripping away in chunks of liquid silver.
Jaggernaut screamed—a sound like tearing steel. Half his body sagged, molten metal exposing flesh beneath.
Kyren's eyes blazed, lightning wreathing his skull like a crown. He threw his head back, laughing—not the laugh of a hero, but of a god unshackled.
The street was lit by chaotic lightning.
And when the light died down, Jaggernaut lay broken, half of his invincible form melted into slag.
Kyren stood above him, chest heaving, grin twisted, the sinister voice in his head whispering one truth he could no longer deny:
"You are the storm, Kyren. And storms bow to no one."
The battlefield was silent—if silence could exist in a place so ruined. Smoke curled from shattered buildings, molten metal dripped from Jaggernaut's half-destroyed corpse, and the stench of charred flesh hung heavy. Mafia footmen, the unlucky survivors, writhed in agony, their screams cutting into the night.
Kyren stood in the center of it all, chest heaving, his body still glowing with residual lightning. His grin was wide, unhinged. Sparks crawled over his face like fireflies made of madness.