~CRUNCH~CRUNCH!~
The crunching of the snow beneath Maxim's boots echoed as he approached the old customs warehouses. A few rusted trucks were parked idly by the docks, their engines already cold, but their occupants warm and armed, watching behind the tinted glass.
Hidden cameras were mounted between steel girders and frost-crusted concrete. Infrared. Motion sensors. Trip-lasers. The technology was advanced, much more advanced than any normal street crime organization would have access too.
However, none of it mattered.
Maxim arrived just short of the open yard, his breath freezing instantly in the icy Moscow night. The Mind Stone gleamed faintly at the center of his brow like a second sun. His coat rippled slightly as psychic energy coiled around him in an unseen current.
He raised a hand, palm facing forward, and exhaled a single word.
"Sleep."
A pulse of golden energy radiated outward like the toll of a bell, utterly silent but impossibly vast. The minds of the two guards in the trucks seized instantly, slumping into a forced unconsciousness so deep they might have been mistaken for corpses.
The drones above, linked by neural relay to the system below, faltered and spiraled downward like falling birds, the Mind Stone bending their weak AI networks like damp wire.
Maxim used his telekinesis to halt the drones from crashing into the ground, gently resting them down to avoid alerting the enemies.
Simultaneously, he infiltrated the technological network of the warehouse, placing the feed the drones were sending on loop so anyone watching the cameras wouldn't notice a thing.
With nothing else holding him back, Maxim stepped forward, the heavy steel doors of the warehouse groaned open before him, not by automation, but by the sheer pressure of telekinetic force pushing them apart.
One warped on its hinges as though struck by a battering ram. Inside, halogen lights flickered to life, illuminating rows of stacked crates, half-dismantled pallets, black-market tech, and gang members scrambling to grab their weapons.
"СТОЙ!"
( FREEZE! )
"КТО ТАМ?"
( WHO'S THERE? )
"ЛЮБОЕ ДВИЖЕНИЕ — И МЫ СТРЕЛЯЕМ!"
( ANY MOVEMENTS AND WE SHOOT! )
Tens, if not dozens of guards flooded immediately, holding and raising their rifles, shouting over each-other as they saw Maxim.
Still, Maxim didn't stop walking.
~BOOM!~
A burst of psionic force lashed outward as he swung one arm, and half the warehouse exploded into chaos.
~BANG~BANG~BANG~BANG!~
Some of the men were hurled like ragdolls, crashing into various walls and crates as their limbs twisted unnaturally mid-fight as the kinetic force in the air around them was warped.
A heavy crate cracked open like a shell, splintering wood flying across the floor. A man hidden behind it screamed as nails embedded in his leg, immediately causing blood to gush out and splatter across the ground.
Another tried to sprint toward a panic switch near the stairs, his body froze in place, suspended in mid-air by invisible threads. Suddenly, Maxim enclosed these threads upon the man.
~SPLAT!~
The first second, nothing happened, but then suddenly. Lines appeared on the man's body, before it all suddenly crumbled like blocks, blood and precisely sliced flesh crashing to the floor.
Maxim tilted his head, eyes glowing brighter now. "Let's see how tightly your minds are held."
He turned to another guard, frozen in fear and pierced into the man's consciousness like a surgeon sliding a scalpel through cloth, no mess, no wasted effort, just immense precision.
Thoughts bloomed open: panic, fear, memories of Borisov barking orders. The blueprint of the entire facility laid bare in seconds. Every weapon stash. Every escape route. The location of the inner sanctum, shielded in lead and desperation.
"Thank you," Maxim said softly, then with a flick of his fingers, snapped the man's mind into a coma, dropping him like a puppet with its strings cut.
He leapt into the air without effort, rising above the chaos as men below scrambled and fired at shadows.
Bullets stopped inches from his coat, suspended midair, spinning slowly before dropping like spent shells. One of the lieutenants shouted orders in Russian, too late.
Maxim raised both hands and fired twin beams of golden energy, each one a condensed spike of psionic pressure. They tore through steel crates and shattered bone alike.
One man's weapon turned to ash in his hands. Another's mind burst from the inside, unable to contain the surge of false visions Maxim seeded into it, his family burning, his death a hundred times over.
From the catwalk above, three mercenaries opened fire with mounted turrets. Maxim simply raised his gaze.
They vanished.
In the span of a blink, they ceased to exist, disassembled at the molecular level. Clothes, flesh, weapons, bone, all erased by a direct application of the Stone's density manipulation.
It wasn't a beam, not even a flash, just raw intent projected with divine precision.
"How did Vision fuck up this stone so much." Maxim muttered in his thoughts. He truly couldn't comprehend how someone could be so weak with the full capabilities of the Mind Stone at his disposal.
"Plot truly is all supreme." He muttered and continued on his way.
Now the warehouse was in full panic. Men screamed. Some tried to flee, but the main doors were already shut behind Maxim, sealed tight by his will alone. Others huddled behind stacks of narcotics, praying their boss had something better than bullets.
From the back, a thunderous boom echoed. A new figure emerged—Borisov himself, taller than most, dressed in tactical armor adorned with a reinforced exosuit and embedded dampeners. His face was a mask of rage and adrenaline.
"Ты выбрал не то место, чтобы умереть," Borisov growled.
( You picked the wrong place to die )
Maxim said nothing. He merely descended slowly from the air, touching down like a god disguised in flesh. His eyes never left Borisov.
"You've spilled enough blood in this city," Maxim said, calm, even gentle. He knew Borisov was a death man in front of him just delaying the inevitable.
Borisov raised a sonic cannon mounted on his arm and fired.
It hit Maxim square in the chest, and dispersed like wind through smoke. The impact rippled across Maxim's coat, flaring in golden sigils that cracked the air like breaking glass.
"My turn," Maxim whispered.
He reached out with his mind, not to Borisov, but to his exosuit.
The tech buckled. Gears twisted. Circuits fried. With a crunch of metal, the suit imploded inwards, Borisov screaming as the artificial limbs constricted. Before he could collapse, Maxim seized his mind.
Unlike the others, Borisov had tried to resist. His consciousness flared with anger and stubborn will.
But it wasn't enough.
Maxim dove in deeper, peeling back Borisov's memories. He saw the names of partners, the list of distributors, encrypted deals with offshore accounts. He saw the man's soul, brutal, greedy, hollow.
He rewrote it.
Not just wiped it. Rewrote it. Borisov's mind flickered like a dying lightbulb, then stabilized. When Maxim pulled back, the man blinked, confused. Terrified. But loyal. Subservient.
"Gather what's left of your men," Maxim said. "Bring them to the docs at 10pm tonight."
Borisov dropped to his knees. "Yes… yes, of course…"
Maxim turned without another word. He immediately released some more psionic energy, creating a psychic bomb set to explode at 10pm at the docs, killing all of Borisovs remaining men.
With that, he walked back through the ruined warehouse, stepping over unconscious bodies and scorched metal. He left the doors open behind him this time. The night wind howled through, sweeping snow over the bloodstained floor.
Back outside, he inhaled the cold air deeply, letting the burning rage inside him settle. He looked up toward the city skyline of Moscow in the distance.
"This was fun." He muttered.