No Strings Attached

Maelstrom's power coursed through my veins like liquid lightning, begging to be used. But raw power without control? That's just suicide with extra steps. I found an abandoned quarry outside Shanghai. Perfect place to experiment without nosy civilians calling the cops about "strange weather phenomena" and "reality-bending horrors."

First lesson about absorbing god-level powers: they don't come with an instruction manual.

The first time I tried calling lightning, I blew up half a mountain. The second time? Set myself on fire. By the third attempt, I managed to create a decent thunderstorm without accidentally deep-frying my internal organs. But weather control wasn't enough. Not for what was coming.

Torque. The Fellowship's resident mind-fucker. Woman who could turn a skyscraper into origami with a thought. According to rumors, she once lifted an entire football stadium because someone catcalled her. Dropped it too.

I needed an edge. Something she wouldn't expect.

That's when I discovered something interesting about my strings. They didn't just drain power – they could channel it. Wrap lightning around them like Christmas lights from hell. I spent three days practicing. Creating strings of pure electricity. Weaving them into nets that could catch thoughts. Building cages of lightning that could trap a god. On the fourth day, I accidentally created a tornado of razor wire. Watched it shred through solid rock like wet paper. Now that had potential.

By day seven, I had it down to an art. Could pull lightning from clear skies, shape it into whatever I needed. The strings were evolving, becoming something new. Something hungry.

Time to go hunting.

***

Finding Torque wasn't hard. The Meridian Tower stuck out like a middle finger to architectural sanity – all twisted metal and broken windows. Maelstrom's intel was good. For once, death hadn't made him a liar. The lobby looked like someone had let a bull loose in a glass museum. Everything broken, everything sharp. Classic Torque – subtlety of a brick to the face. I took the stairs. Elevators are death traps when your opponent can turn them into modern art with a thought.

Thirty-seven floors. Each step a countdown to violence. My strings writhed with anticipation, thunder rumbling in my bones. The door to her floor was gone. Not broken – gone. Like someone had decided doors were optional in this reality.

"I was wondering when you'd show up," a voice echoed from the darkness. Female. Confident. Slightly unhinged. "The puppet master himself."

I stepped into what used to be an office space. Now it looked like a junkyard having an existential crisis. Twisted metal everywhere. Broken concrete floating like lazy asteroids. In the center of it all, Torque sat on a throne made of compressed cars.

She wasn't what I expected. Small. Delicate-looking. Like a porcelain doll that could tear your spine out through your nose.

"Nice place," I said, stepping over a piece of rebar that tried to spear my foot. "Love what you've done with it. Very post-apocalyptic chic."

She smiled. It didn't reach her eyes. "You killed Maelstrom."

"He had a shocking experience."

"Cute." A filing cabinet exploded into shrapnel. I didn't flinch. "You know why I'm here."

"To add your party trick to my collection? Yeah, pretty much."

The air grew heavy. Reality groaned like a dying animal.

Every piece of metal in the room started vibrating.

"You're not the first to try," she said, rising from her throne. The metal around her warped, creating a corona of floating debris. "They all broke."

I let my strings emerge, black lightning dancing along them. "I'm not like the others."

She laughed. The sound made my teeth itch. "No. You're worse. You're a thief. A parasite. At least the others had the decency to try killing me honestly."

"Honesty's overrated."

The fight started like they always do – with someone trying to turn me into paste.

Every piece of metal in the room launched at me like the world's deadliest game of dodgeball. Steel beams, office furniture, chunks of wall – all of it moving fast enough to break sound barriers.

I danced. My strings cut through metal like it was tissue paper, lightning turning solid steel into molten rain.

"Stop. Moving," she growled, sweat beading on her brow.

"Make me," I shot back, childish but effective.

She screamed in frustration. The entire building shuddered. Windows exploded outward. The floor buckled like ocean waves. I surfed the concrete tsunami, strings spinning a web of death around me. Every piece of debris that got too close got sliced, diced, and turned into modern art.

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"You're starting to piss me off," Torque snarled. Her eyes glowed with psychic energy.

The pressure hit like a freight train wrapped in migraine. My nose exploded in a fountain of red. Blood vessels burst in my eyes, turning the world crimson. Something in my brain felt like it was trying to claw its way out through my skull.

But pain? Pain's an old friend. I pushed through, strings seeking flesh. One caught her arm. Drew blood. The cut went deep, exposing bone. Her scream of rage shook the building to its foundation. Her reaction? She tore out a support column and tried to beat me to death with it. The first hit caught me in the ribs. Bones shattered like glass. The second hit sent me through a wall, lungs filling with blood and concrete dust.

I rolled, spitting teeth and fragments of my own bones. Every movement was agony. Perfect. Pain makes the power grow stronger. She followed up by turning the entire floor into a meat grinder. Metal twisted into spikes, concrete broke into razor-sharp projectiles. The air itself became a weapon, pressure increasing until my ears popped and blood vessels burst in my eyes.

"I'm going to pull you apart," she hissed, "one molecule at a time."

She demonstrated by telekinetically grabbing my left arm and twisting. Bones splintered. Muscles tore. Tendons snapped like guitar strings.

I laughed through the pain, blood bubbling between my teeth. "That tickles."

My strings shot out, now charged with Maelstrom's lightning. They pierced through her telekinetic shield, burning holes in reality itself. One caught her shoulder. Another her thigh. The third went straight through her stomach. Blood sprayed like a crimson fountain. The scent of burned flesh and ozone filled the air. Her scream this time wasn't rage – it was pure agony. She retaliated by turning the entire building into a weapon. Steel beams became javelins. Window glass turned to razor shards. Concrete transformed into crushing fists. I danced through the storm of debris, each movement leaving a trail of my own blood. More strings emerged, hungrier than ever. They cut through everything – metal, concrete, flesh, reality itself.

Torque lifted me telekinetically, trying to tear me in half. The pressure was immense. More ribs cracked. Internal organs shifted. Blood vessels burst.

But she'd made a critical mistake. Direct mental contact.

My strings rode the psychic connection back to its source. Black lightning met mental energy. Her defenses, strong as they were, hadn't been built for this kind of assault.

The result? Pure fucking chaos.

Reality hiccuped. The pressure in my head built like a nuclear reactor going critical. Blood poured from both our noses, our eyes, our ears. The very air crackled with power.

I could feel her abilities – raw, primal, intoxicating. Like staring into a tornado made of razor blades and bad decisions. Every object in the room began to float, caught in our psychic tug-of-war.

She tried to push me out. Tried to crush my consciousness like an empty beer can. Her power reached into my mind like hooks made of fire and ice. I pushed back harder. Fed Maelstrom's power into my strings, turning them into conduits of pure destruction. Lightning and telekinetic energy merged, creating something new. Something hungry. The building couldn't take it. Steel screamed. Concrete shattered. Support beams twisted like pretzels. Windows exploded outward in a rain of glass and blood.

"Get. Out. Of. My. HEAD!" Each word was a hammer blow of telekinetic force. Each syllable trying to turn my brain into soup.

I grinned through the pain, blood streaming from every orifice. "Make me."

She reached deeper into my mind, trying to shut down my nervous system. I felt my heart stutter, my lungs freeze. For a moment, everything went dark.

Then something snapped. Not in me – in her.

The sound was like a rubber band stretched too far, like a mind reaching its limits. Like reality itself giving up and going home. My strings, now crackling with both lightning and telekinetic energy, wrapped around her essence. They drank deep, hungry for more than just power. They wanted everything – memories, abilities, the very thing that made her who she was.

Her scream transcended sound. Windows shattered for miles. Birds fell dead from the sky. Every electronic device within a block radius fried instantly. I could feel her power flowing into me like a river of knives. Each drop a new lesson in pain and possibility. Each moment bringing me closer to something beyond human.

The building began to collapse around us, thirty-seven floors of prime real estate suddenly remembering that gravity existed. Concrete rained down like lethal confetti. Steel shrieked as it bent and broke.

I grabbed Torque's broken form – waste not, want not. Her body was light, fragile-looking now that the power had been drained from it. Blood still flowed from her nose, ears, and eyes. Beautiful, in a fucked-up kind of way.

We fell together through the collapsing building. I used her own stolen power to shield us from the worst of it, though plenty of debris still got through. More bones broke. More blood flowed. But what's a little pain between friends?

Landing wasn't pretty. We hit the ground like meat meteors, cratering the pavement. I stood up first, spitting blood and broken teeth. My left arm hung useless, bones showing through torn flesh. Half my ribs were powder. One eye was completely shot, turning the world into a crimson kaleidoscope.

But I was alive. More than alive – I was evolving.

I could feel the new power settling in, mixing with Maelstrom's abilities to create something unique. Something dangerous. The air around me crackled with telekinetic energy and lightning, reality itself bending to my will.

Behind us, the Meridian Tower finished its death scene, collapsing in on itself like a massive domino. The sound was apocalyptic. The dust cloud looked like the end of the world.

I looked down at Torque's broken form, still breathing but never going to be the same. "Thanks for the upgrade, sweetheart."

Time to make that phone call. After all, what's the point of breaking someone if you can't use them as bait?

My new powers made the phone float effortlessly in front of me as I dialed. The bleeding hadn't stopped, but who cares about a little blood loss when you can bend reality?

Two down. Two to go.

And this show? It's just getting started. After all, every puppet needs strings, and I just got a whole new set to play with.