Handle Terrorist Attacks with Care
Handle Terrorist Attacks with Care
"Lightning Punch....?"
The forest in front of my mansion.
I was there, coaching Choi Se-hee through her ability training.
"Yeah. Wrap electricity around your hand, make a fist, and throw the punch."
"Huh? Do I have to? Wouldn't it be better to just fire it long-range from my hand?"
"Humor me and try it once."
I kept pressing, and though skeptical, she followed my instructions without much fuss.
She clenched her fist and concentrated the electricity there.
Just as the charge started gathering around her closed hand, I spoke again.
"Now push it further. Focus it like you're gathering every last spark you've got."
"I'm already doing that.....!"
Gritting her teeth, she channeled even more power into her fist.
When it looked ready, I gave her the signal.
"Now! Let it fly—over there!"
"Taaaaah!"
Se-hee thrust her lightning-charged fist toward the forest.
In that instant. Boom.
The electricity gathered in her fist erupted, sheathing her arm like a massive gauntlet as it shot forward with an earsplitting crack.
KRA-KOW.
An electric shockwave attack with terrifying force, ripping apart a whole swath of the forest.
The trees in front of her were obliterated, debris scattering everywhere, and even the ground was carved up and blackened by the pulsing electric projectile. Surge after surge of yellow current, like captured lightning, swept across the field before her.
As the smoke cleared, the wreckage of the forest came into view.
She stared blankly at the destruction, mouth hanging open. I grinned and tossed out a comment.
"So? That's Lightning Punch. Badass, right?"
"...Wow. Holy shit."
Even while gasping for breath, she couldn't tear her eyes away from the devastation she'd caused.
The sight of that section of forest, blown clean away. Total wreckage.
"That's enough for today. The more you practice, the lighter the strain gets. Here."
I handed her a towel while she was still dripping sweat.
She took it, wiped her face, and spoke up.
"...Wait, so just concentrating electricity into a fist and throwing it makes this much difference? How does that logic work? Why is it this strong?"
"Ahh, it's because... a punch carries 'romance'..."
"The hell does romance... Anyway, how do you even know about this? That channeling it into a punch makes it stronger?"
She looked at me like I was some kind of puzzle.
How had I known? Because it was the technique she would eventually use as her mainstay, obviously.
In the Original Work, she discovered it herself later through a great deal of trial and error, but now that I was here, did she really need to take the long way around?
Of course, I couldn't tell her that, so I only grinned and said:
"Didn't you know? There's nothing I don't know."
"Hah. Aren't you something."
"Keep practicing calling down lightning too."
"Got it. Hey, but... that cringey-ass line you told me to say, do I really have to?"
"Absolutely. That's the whole point."
"Hahhh... fuck my life..."
"And remember. The first objective is to shock Stardus as much as possible with your electricity."
I had to build up her durability a little.
"I got it, I got it!"
I chuckled at her grumbling as we walked back to the residence together.
Right. Choi Se-hee—Electra, in other words—had now learned lightning bolts, electric shockwaves, electric storms, and Lightning Punch. Her proficiency was still rough, but on the surface she was already fairly close to Electra's final form in the Original Work.
Walking beside her as she carried the towel, I thought it over.
Honestly, judging solely by the Choi Se-hee I had first met, she'd never have beaten Stardus. She probably would have taken a couple of hits and been crushed the moment the fight began.
But with her abilities as they were then...
Maybe she could hold her own against Stardus for a while.
***
And now, back to the present.
Smack in the middle of downtown Seoul, at an intersection.
"Ngh."
Stardus gritted her teeth and dodged.
The tendrils of electricity lashing in from all sides were closing in to the point where evasion was becoming impossible.
In the end, to close the distance with the villain, she decided to take a few hits on the way in.
"Khhh..."
Hundreds of thousands of volts slammed into her, and a sharp, jarring pain tore through her.
But as a physical-enhancement ability user, she forced herself through it with sheer will. Right. She could endure this much pain—for now.
"Hahahaha! Is that all an A-rank hero amounts to?"
While Stardus struggled to punch through the electric storm, the villain taunted her with a wild cackle.
Buildings around her were being smashed, the ground ripped open, and every kind of fixture destroyed.
Even so, Stardus avoided every obstacle and flew steadily toward Electra.
But Stardus dodged every obstacle and flew steadily toward Electra.
One solid hit. Just one clean, direct hit and it was over.
Of course, with Electra constantly fleeing, even that was no simple feat.
And so the battle continued.
Electra, riding atop the gale of an electric storm, kept blasting 100,000 volts at her. Dodging those attacks and trying to snatch Electra out of the air, Stardus kept circling and swooping all around her.
Whenever Stardus closed in, Electra would ride the storm surge to bolt away, or keep calling down lightning strikes across the surrounding area—anything to widen the gap and escape.
Stardus kept pressing Electra at the same steady pace, her breathing only slightly rougher despite being electrocuted. Electra, by contrast, was visibly wearing down as the fight dragged on.
Her orange hair whipping in the wind, Electra spat out curses.
"Hah... hah. Fuck. So fucking persistent."
While Electra panted and heaved, Stardus delivered the standard warning once more.
"You called yourself Electra? Surrender now. If you do, I won't attack you any further; I'll take you into custody."
"Fuck off!"
Electra yelled at the top of her lungs, but as time passed, the exhaustion sapping her strength was clear.
The storm of electricity that had raged around her was gradually weakening, and the constant barrage of lightning arcs was visibly thinning out.
Most telling of all, Electra was now breathing in ragged gasps, with no room left to spare, barely evading Stardus's attacks by a hair.
It was the reverse of the start of the fight, when Electra had pressed Stardus with her electric assaults. Now Stardus was the one pressuring her.
Right. It was time to end this.
Seeing Electra finally enter her reach, Stardus spoke quietly.
"It's over."
The moment Stardus clenched her fist and flew straight at Electra,
Electra just looked at the scene, spat, gritted her teeth, and shouted at the top of her lungs.
"Who says I'm going down like this?!"
And then, cutting off every last discharge of electricity she'd been emitting,
She stood atop the electric storm and clenched her fist, beginning to draw every current into that single hand.
Even with Stardus closing in, she didn't flee—she stood her ground and focused her mind solely on her fist.
As the wind converged on her hand, sparks began building and crackling around her knuckles.
Only when Stardus was right in front of her did Electra finally lift her head and glare straight at her.
As massive sparks erupted from her hand, Stardus's fist came flying at her, and
At that same instant, Electra lunged forward with her own fist to meet it head-on.
"Let's see who—comes out—on top—!"
Electra Style Secret Technique—
Lightning Punch.
Through clenched teeth, Electra launched her sparking fist at Stardus, and
Stardus threw her punch in the same instant.
KRA-KOOOOOM.
An incredible roar echoed through the middle of downtown.
Rrrrrumble.
A shockwave erupted as Stardus's punch collided with the wave of energy Electra had gathered and fired.
Along with the immense shockwave, hundreds, thousands of bolts of lightning erupted outward from the pair at the center.
Boom. Buildings all around them shattered, and the intersection was swallowed by the dust cloud of collapsing debris.
How much time passed?
When the dust finally settled, the silhouettes of two figures slowly came into view.
Through the thick dust emerged Stardus, floating in the air relatively unharmed, with only a few faint sparks still flickering from her body.
Opposite her, Electra hunched slightly with one hand on her stomach, standing atop an electric storm that was slowly coming apart.
"Cough, cough. Ngh, fuck. Cough."
Was it from excessive overuse of her ability, or because she'd traded a direct blow with Stardus?
Flung far away by the shockwave, Electra staggered and barely kept herself upright.
'It's over.'
Seeing Electra's condition, Stardus reached her conclusion.
She'd held out until the end, but that last attack had been dangerous even for her—enough that she'd loosened her power limiter slightly.
This was the first time anyone had pushed her this far through raw power alone.
She still didn't know where Electra had come from, why she had staged the attack, or who the 'him' from the beginning was. Those answers would come once she captured and questioned her.
First, she would arrest the villain before her, now incapable of resisting.
Stardus flew toward Electra, who still hadn't fully regained her senses and was wobbling, to make the arrest.
But at the very moment she reached out to grab Electra, right in front of her—
Electra, who had been right in front of her, suddenly vanished in an instant.
"...?"
As if Electra had evaporated. Stardus's hand cut through empty air, as though no one had ever been there.
Where had the woman who'd been right in front of her gone? Stardus reeled, scanning her surroundings.
Then she heard something fluttering above her.
'What?'
Alerted, she reflexively looked up and saw—
The image that had been replaying in her mind constantly, of late.
A black hat.
A black robe.
A black cloak.
A grey half-mask.
And there he stood, holding Electra—who had just been standing right there—in a princess carry, looking down at her.
"Hello there, Stardus."
"Egostic...?"
Not once had she imagined they would meet like this.
"Yes! That's right. It's been a while. Egostic, at your service! A pleasure!"
Smiling brightly at her—
It was Egostic, standing right there.
***
[LIVE ON!!!!!!]
[here we go~ here we go~ here we go~ here we go~ here we go~ here we go~ here we go~ here we go~ here we go~ here we go~ here we go~ here we go~ here we go~ here we go~ here we go~ here we go~]
[PORN STREAM LET'S GOOOOOOOOO]
[Egostic! Egostic! Egostic! Egostic! Egostic! Egostic! Egostic! Egostic! Egostic! Egostic! Egostic! Mangostic! Egostic! Egostic! Egostic! Egostic! Egostic! Egostic!]
[damn that was sudden lmaoooo]
[FUCK, EGOSTIC LIVE IS ON!!!]
[if you dropped everything and scrambled to turn on the stream the second it went live you're a real one lol me first lol]
[who's the lady the second we get in???]
[SHOCKING) Egostic announces affair... dumps Stardus to cheat]
[why is the first thing I see when the stream opens him carrying a girl like a princess lmaooo]
[Erostic is gay lol]