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Chapter 98: There Is Little Masochism In All Of Us
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Jean nodded, her expression turning serious. Her own power shimmered around Adam, a cocoon of invisible force that lifted him from the couch.
He went limp within it, allowing her to control his movement completely.
The last thing he did was instruct Alice to direct a nurse to attend to Domino.
The basement workshop was a cavernous, high-tech space, part laboratory, part engineering bay, part dojo.
Shelves lined with components, holographic design stations, and in the center, a clear space of reinforced concrete and energy-absorbent matting.
It was decent, nothing extraordinary, as Adam hadn't modified it much due to lack of time, but it's more than enough.
Jean released her hold. Adam's boots touched the floor.
He immediately tried to take a step, to stretch and feel his new limits.
He blurred.
One moment, he was in the center of the room, the next he was almost slamming sideways into a shelving unit filled with delicate sensor arrays.
He caught himself at the last second, his one hand denting the metal frame. The shelving wobbled precariously.
"Phew," He exhaled, a wide, exhilarated smile breaking across his face. "Okay. Much training to do."
His gaze found Anna, who had followed them down, her gloomy aura filling a corner of the room.
He saw it; the hurt, the jealousy, but deeper, the frustration. Her control was better, but not perfect. Yet she obviously desires him to feed on her.
Feeding from her, however, was a minefield; blood loss could weaken her mental grip, her deadly touch could activate… and she would never risk harming him.
Adam didn't offer soft words. He pointed with his chin to a door off to the side.
"Anna. Cabin over there. Change into something for training. I keep a variety in storage. Pick what you like." His voice was matter-of-fact.
"Elektra will be here soon. She'll be your teacher. Assassination, combat, the works. You're ready for it."
He met her eyes, his tone dropping to a warning. "It will be cruel. It will be brutal. She doesn't believe in gentle."
The effect was instantaneous. The gloom shattered. Her eyes, which had been downcast, snapped up, wide and gleaming.
He needed her. He needs her strength. To become a weapon he could use. It was the purest form of validation for her obsessive devotion.
A tiny, excited yelp escaped her before she could stop it, and she practically sprinted for the cabin, her previous frostiness forgotten.
[He didn't coddle her! He gave her a MISSION!]
[Anna's love language is literally "let me be useful to you."]
[Guys, remember the psychopath from before who taught us how to create Yanderes? I think Adam was his teacher!]
[I see it. He's taking advantage of their trauma and fears. He understands them better than anyone and accepts everything about them.]
[It's not taking advantage of anything. He's saving them! He's the messiah. It's only bad when u do it. When he does it, it's good.]
[Tf?] [Fuck off.] [I want him to take advantage of me too!]
Adam's smile returned, softer this time. He turned to Jean. With careful, deliberate slowness, he raised his right hand to his face, hooked a finger, and peeled off the hazel contact lens from his crimson eye.
He blinked, the hellfire glow now unrestrained, a stark contrast to the cool grey of his cybernetic left eye.
"I can't trust my own body yet," He said. "Don't let me ruin the place. Consider yourself my… leash." A wicked grin. "A bit of light masochism never hurt anyone."
Jean giggled, a flush of pink on her cheeks. "Well, now that you're a vampire, I suppose I can be a little rougher. You should be able to take it."
"I do like it rough," Adam laughed, already shrugging out of his suit jacket and vest with his one hand.
He tore the shirt open, buttons pinging off the concrete, revealing his torso; pale, flawless, and sculpted with the defined musculature of his new form.
He held up his right hand, focusing intently.
The muscles in his forearm corded. Veins surfaced beneath his skin, tracing paths of power.
With a faint, sickening schlick, his fingernails extended, transforming into sharp, black claws about two inches long. Vampire talons.
Without a shred of hesitation, he reversed his hand and raked those claws across the smooth, scarless stump of his left shoulder.
Dark red blood welled instantly. But before the wound could even think about closing, Adam concentrated.
His Blood Manipulation, a signature ability of his new True Vampire physiology, ignited.
He forced the blood out, a stream of it arcing into the air before him, defying gravity.
He let it flow, then with a twitch of his will, shaped it. A wobbling sphere. A crude dagger. A tendril that snaked through the air.
The control was instinctual but clumsy. He practiced, the dark blood dancing in the air; forming a crude, shimmering shield, then a lashing whip.
The most impressive, and difficult, was when he gathered a mass of it at his left shoulder, shaping it into a rudimentary, translucent arm.
It held for a few seconds, controlling it to mimic normal arm movements, before allowing it to collapse back into a liquid shower he manipulated into a concentrated sphere.
"Fascinating," He murmured.
But theory was one thing. Practice under pressure was another.
Across the room, his backup Null-Suit; the one that had lost only a single arm in the final battle against Dracula; came to life under control.
The central V-shaped core unfolded, and the five remaining mechanical arms deployed, their claw-tips clicking on the floor.
It looked like a giant, predatory crab made of polished metal and menace.
Adam unleashed his mechanical force, a visible aura of blue energy crackled from him, enveloping the suit.
The limbs seemed to grow denser, their hydraulics buzzing with amplified power.
He looked at Jean. "I'm going to fight it. You support the suit. Use your telekinesis to reinforce its movements and protect its weak points. And beat me up a little."
"Push me. Push my body til I adapt. But for God's sake, don't let me break it. This thing costs more than a neighborhood."
Jean nodded, her expression shifting into one of intense concentration. A faint pink glow surrounded her as her telekinetic power bloomed.
The battle began with Adam tapping the ground as if testing his physical prowess, so gently that he only jumped a few meters high.
Then, with a burst of force, the battle began, Adam becoming a blur of motion.
He didn't charge head-on. He used his blood. A spray of it solidified mid-air into a stepping platform, which he used to vault over a lashing mechanical arm.
He landed, and as another arm speared towards him, he threw up a wall of congealed blood from his palm.
The claw-tip slammed into it with a thud, cracking the red barrier but not breaking through.
Adam was a whirlwind of experimentation. He formed blood-knuckledusters over his right fist, enhancing his strikes to dent the reinforced metal.
He created wings of blood from his back for sudden, short-directional bursts, dodging a coordinated pincer attack.
He used tendrils of blood like grappling hooks, yanking on the suit's limbs to throw it off balance.
Jean was a maestro behind the scenes. When Adam moved to deliver a crippling blow to a joint, she'd telekinetically nudge the suit's limb aside.
When Adam's blood-whip sought to entangle, she'd reinforce the suit's armor plating.
She used her power to increase the speed of the suit's strikes, forcing Adam to react faster, to refine his control.
Anna emerged from the cabin, now dressed in dark, flexible training gear.
She stopped at the edge of the matted area, her jaw slack as she watched the surreal, violent ballet.
Adam, shirtless and exuding controlled streams of blood, moved with impossible speed, clashing against the gleaming, telekinetically-enhanced mechanical monster.
It was beautiful and horrifying.
Adam was learning, adapting by the second. He wasn't fighting really; he was debugging his own new body and powers in real-time.
He created a blood-lance and hurled it, only for Jean to deflect it with a telekinetic shield around the suit. He dissolved the lance mid-flight and reformed it as a net.
He was pushing harder, faster, a laugh of pure exhilaration bursting from him as he narrowly avoided a crushing blow, the shockwave of the missed strike ruffling his hair.
The battle reached a fever pitch; Adam a crimson-and-pale phantom, the Null-Suit, a titanium storm protected by a telekinetic will.
And then, the elevator at the far end of the basement dinged.
The doors slid open.
Elektra Natchios stood there, clad in her signature dark red combat attire, carrying a bag that no doubt holds her most deadly tools.
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[ 1000 Power Stones For An Extra Chapter! ]
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