Dexter, The Slums. Yesterday night

Dexter stood outside a severely neglected parking garage. Large cracks revealed the rebar and steel frame of the building. Plants grew out of the cracks closest to the ground making it seem like the ground was wrapping its arms around the concrete structure to keep it from falling over. Inside, Dexter could see that it was illuminated by failing fluorescent lightbulbs and was almost completely empty save for a few abandoned cars on the bottom level. On the third level, he could hear the sounds of people talking, though the echoes of the multi-story parking garage distorted them too heavily for him to understand.

Taking a deep breath, Dexter tied the black bandana around his face and put on a pair of cheap black sunglasses as he flipped up his hood. For his disguise, he decided to take inspiration from Freya's unchanging wardrobe and went with baggy sweats and a sweatshirt with a deep hood. All black of course as it was easily the most threatening color he could choose. Though maybe he should have gone with red. It did have a more commanding feel to it than black in his opinion.

“Something to consider later,” Dexter thought as he built up the confidence to enter the building.

“Alright, no turning back now,” Dexter whispered to himself as a wave of calm and a surge of confidence entered his body. “These assholes deserve what I’m about to do to them.”

Dexter walked into the parking garage and quickly made his way to the third floor. From the outside, the interior of the parking garage didn’t look that bad, but now that he was inside he saw that was not the case. Plastic bags, cigarette buds, and other assortments of garbage and filth covered the badly worn and cracked ground.

“Is this thing even structurally stable?” Dexter thought.

As he reached his destination he spotted a group of six people smoking a mixture of weed and cigarettes surrounded by both crappy and expensive cars. Among them were Samuel and his last remaining goon. The rest wore bandanas, hats, and t-shirts of different colors. 2 wore blue, the other 2 wore green. Clearly part of the larger color gangs present in the slums judging from the firearms tucked into the front of their waistbands.

“Why do people even do that? Why not buy a holster for the gun? Keeping a firearm in your pants just seems like a good way to shoot yourself in the family jewels.”

“Damn, where the hell is Alex and Joe!” Samuel complained. “They were supposed to be here 10 minutes ago!”

Joe and Alex were the names of the people Dexter killed. Guilt pushed to the surface. For as bad as they were, Joe and Alex were still human beings, and he had killed them. The only thing that kept Dexter together at the thought that he killed 2 people was one was out of self-defense, and the other was an accident. Swallowing his guilt, Dexter decided it was time to make himself known.

“Joe and Alex won’t be joining us today,” Dexter said. He surprised himself with how his voice was surprisingly calm and low.

The gang member's head’s snapped over to Dexter. Samuel's eyes narrowed in suspicion as he watched Dexter slowly approach.

“Who the hell do you think you are-” Samuel held up his hand, shutting up his goon as Dexter approached.

“Careful Zac,” Samuel warned. “In my experience, only two kinds of people walk with that sort of hesitation. Nervous gangster wannabes trying to make a show of confidence, and powerful individuals making themselves known for the first time. So which one are you?”

“I’m your new boss,” Dexter said. “You work for me now.”

Dexter tried to sow his power into his voice, but it wouldn’t respond to his command. The gangsters laughed, and Zac pulled out a gun. “Why isn’t it working? That was supposed to hypnotize them!”

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“I’ll take care of this joker,” Zac said.

“Crap, this was a bad idea!” Dexter thought as dust, pebbles, and loose concrete shards began to move away from him, creating a large 5-foot circle around him.

“What the hell are you doing?” Samuel exclaimed. “Don’t kill him! We can’t afford police-”

BANG!

Dexter flinched as Zac fired his gun. He closed his eyes and prepared for the pain, but it never came. That’s when he noticed a copper bullet frozen mid-air, inches from Dexter’s chest.

“Holy crap!” Dexter thought, his heart pounding. He had wondered if he had telekinesis, but his memories from the night he got his powers were foggy up until the point he killed Joe so he wasn’t sure. “I had no idea I could stop bullets! Did I really use telekinesis last night? Only one way to find out.”

As the gangsters stared at Dexter with confusion and shock on their faces. Dexter reached out and willed Zac’s gun to his hand. The goon's pistol flew out of his hands as it was ripped away by an invisible force as power surged through Dexter's body. It flew over to Dexter, who caught it as if he had done it thousands of times. As his hand closed around the barrel, a jittery feeling shot throughout his body. Yellow lightning arced from his fingers.

He imagined the gun crumpling into a ball like it was made of paper, and his powers responded. The gun barrel and handle folded in on themselves with a crunch of metal. Metal shards were forced back into the mass of plastic and metal as Dexter condensed the pistol into the size of a tennis ball. Annoyed that it wasn’t a perfect sphere, Dexter imagined melting the metal into a molten orange ball.

The crumpled ball of metal floated inches above his hand as yellow lighting arced off his fingertips, superheating the metal ball and turning it into a perfect glowing orange sphere.

“Big mistake,” Dexter said, as rage filled every fiber of his being. “That two-bit gangster just tried to kill me. ME! Clearly, he doesn’t understand the power I wield! A think a more dramatic demonstration is in order!”

Dexter dropped the ball of glowing red steel. It hiss as the metal splattered on the ground like putty setting fire to a nearby weed growing out of the concrete as it filled the cracks. Dexter made a punching motion towards Zac, intending to telekinetically push him with enough force to knock him onto his back. Instead, his rage manifested into orange flames. The flames engulfed Dexter’s hand but didn’t burn him as they shifted between orange, red, and blue. A jet of flames shot out of Dexter's hand toward Zac. The gangster screamed in terror and pain as he was engulfed in a ravaging psychic fire.

“WHAT THE FUCK!” a gangster screamed as everyone backed away from the burning man.

“HELP ME! HELP ME!” Zac screamed as he collapse to the ground, writhing in pain.

After what seemed like minutes, the screaming Zac stopped writhing on the ground in pain as his voice died.

“Dear god, what have I done?” Dexter thought. The horror at what he had done turned his blood to ice. Before his emotions could overwhelm him, an otherworldly force replaced Dexter’s fear with the rage he felt moments earlier. “Focus, worry about that later. I need to finish the plan.”

“I said, YOU WORK FOR ME NOW!” Dexter roared with a terrifying ferocity he didn’t know he had. “DO YOU UNDERSTAND!”

Samuel and the gangsters froze, their eyes turning white and their whole bodies relaxing. “This one understands,” they all said in unison.

“Good. Go recruit the others in your gang. They all work for me now. Deal with any that resist as you see fit,” Dexter ordered.

“To that, this one would need to borrow your power, Master,” they all said in unison.

“You can borrow my powers?” Dexter asked.

“Anything you can do, this one can do a weaker version of it,” they all said.

“Well that simplifies things,” Dexter thought. “Fine. Do whatever you think is best. Just get to as many of them as possible.”

“Yes, Master,” they all said. “This one will return when the job is done.”

“Now get out of my sight,” Dexter ordered.

The mind-controlled gang members shuffled away, leaving their cars behind and Dexter alone. That’s when Dexter spotted a security camera across the street looking into the parking lot.

“Crap! All of that was caught on video!” Dexter panicked. Suddenly, a wave of calm washed over him and an idea popped into his head. “I can control electricity right? I wonder how well…”

Dexter pointed a finger at the security camera and focused on the feeling jittery feeling he felt the first time he generated the yellow lightning. A surge of power shot through his body as a bolt of lightning arced from his fingertip to the camera.

CRACK!

With a deafening crack of electricity, the lightning struck the camera with the force of a tank shell, vaporizing the pole and camera instantly. The electricity was so powerful, the lampposts, the parking garage fluorescent lights, traffic lights, and everything else electronic controlled by the city in the slums shut off. Power lines and transformers exploded in a shower of sparks setting nearby plants and buildings on fire. Leaving Dexter in complete darkness.

“Well now, that's interesting,” Dexter said with a smile. “Very interesting…”