Brooklyn. Midnight.
The wind bit at your jacket as you stood atop a weather-worn rooftop, the sharp scent of ozone lingering in the air. Below, the skeletal remains of an unfinished construction site stretched toward the sky, twisted rebar jutting from cracked concrete, rusting scaffolds climbing like the ribs of some long-dead creature. Floodlights buzzed and flickered like dying stars, casting erratic shadows over the desolate pit.
But beneath the decay and silence, something else stirred.
Something alive.
You could feel it—an oppressive weight pressing down on your chest. Not just heat. Not just danger. This was deeper. Primal. A hum in your bones, a whisper in your nervous system. Instincts are screaming before your mind can catch up.
Beside you, Pulse adjusted the comms unit in his ear, his fingers steady but his jaw tense. The neon streaks in his visor reflected the flickering light below.
"Echo says we're close," he muttered, his voice low but urgent. "He's down there."
You didn't need the confirmation. The air was wrong—dense, vibrating with barely restrained power. The kind that made every hair on your body stand up.
You nodded, hands twitching at your sides. The familiar current danced beneath your skin—lightning coiled and ready, waiting for your signal. But tonight wasn't like the others. This wasn't a mission.
It felt like a warning.
"Name's Samson Creed," Pulse continued, voice hushed like he didn't want the night to hear. "Used to be a radiation tech at a classified Banner-adjacent site. He was there when the reactor destabilized."
"And they left him behind?" You—Dante—asked, already knowing the answer.
"They always do," Pulse said darkly. "Now… he melts everything."
The silence that followed was broken only by the groan of shifting steel and the distant flutter of tarpaulin in the breeze.
You leapt first, dropping into the hollow of the site. The impact cracked through your boots as you landed on ruined concrete. A wave of oppressive heat washed over you—humid and acrid, like the breath of an oven. The ground steamed. Ash clung to your shoes. Something had burned here. Recently.
Your eyes scanned the surroundings. Support beams were warped and blackened. Scorch marks streaked across walls and floors like the shadows of forgotten explosions. A melted hard hat lay crumpled near the base of a half-collapsed scaffold, its edges fused to the stone.
Then you heard it.
A low, animalistic growl. Not loud. But deep. And wrong—like something caught between man and machine, flesh and furnace.
You raised a hand, sparks licking your fingertips, and moved cautiously forward.
Then, from the shadows, he emerged.
Samson Creed.
He was massive. Towering over seven feet tall, his body was a grotesque tapestry of swollen muscle and fissured skin that glowed with an unearthly, sickly green. Gamma veins pulsed across his frame, crawling like vines under cracked flesh. Steam hissed with each breath, and his eyes—luminescent and unfocused—flicked toward you with animal confusion.
"Who..." his voice came in fractured syllables, like gravel grinding inside a steel drum. "Why... follow me?"
Your instincts screamed to brace, to strike, but you held your ground, palms raised.
"We're not here to hurt you," you said calmly. "You need help."
His brow furrowed. His entire body twitched, like it didn't fit together properly. "You... feel like me. Different... but the same."
Before you could respond, Pulse dropped down behind you, boots slamming into the scorched concrete.
"He can sense your energy," Pulse warned quietly. "He's syncing to it. That's not good."
You barely had time to process the words before Samson staggered, a pulse of gamma light surging through his arms. He roared—loud and guttural, not with fury, but with pain. The concrete beneath his feet began to bubble. Steel beams nearby melted at the edges, warping like wax near a flame.
"IT WOULDN'T STOP!" he bellowed, and then he charged.
You moved on instinct, dashing to the side just as his massive body tore through the air. The heat of his passage seared your cheek. He struck a nearby pillar with titanic force, reducing it to a cloud of shattered stone and twisted metal.
You flipped backwards, letting your momentum carry you up a nearby scaffold. Sparks danced across your palms. You launched a bolt of lightning—white-hot and crackling—into his side.
The blast landed. Samson staggered, snarling as smoke hissed from the wound.
But he didn't fall.
He absorbed it.
You froze.
"No..."
Samson looked at his hands, now crackling with the very same energy you'd fired. Lightning surged chaotically around his fingers—unstable and overcharged, mixed with the green radiation pulsing from his veins. He stared at them like a child who'd accidentally broken a toy.
"Y-You... gave it to me?" he mumbled.
Pulse's voice cut through the tension. "He's copying you! Your energy—he's feeding on it!"
Your heart dropped.
Samson's body convulsed. The fusion of your power and his radiation was wreaking havoc on his system. His muscles twitched erratically. His breath came in sharp, broken gasps. Green light and electricity bled from his skin in jagged pulses.
"It HURTS—!" he screamed.
And then he exploded.
Not literally, but energy burst from his body in a storm of violence. Arcs of electricity, pulses of radiation, and molten heat blasted outward in a deadly shockwave.
You were flung through the air, your spine slamming into a scaffold with a sickening crack. Your ribs protested with white-hot pain as you collapsed to the floor.
"Dante!" Pulse yelled, diving toward you. He fired a pulse blast in front of him, creating a temporary barrier of force that absorbed the worst of the backlash.
The heatwave passed.
You groaned, rolling onto your side. Blood trickled from your lip. Through bleary eyes, you saw Samson crumple to his knees. His hands trembled. He clutched at his chest, whimpering.
He wasn't attacking anymore.
He was breaking down.
"He's not trying to kill us..." you said hoarsely, "He's trying to survive."
Pulse knelt beside you, grimacing. "The gamma and your electricity—it's too unstable. He can't control it."
Samson writhed, pounding the ground with his fists. Concrete cratered beneath him.
You forced yourself to stand, ribs screaming in protest. The lightning buzzed at your fingertips again—but this time, you hesitated.
You looked at him—looked.
And you saw the truth.
He wasn't a monster. He was a man carved into one by tragedy. Twisted by science, by carelessness, and by pain. And now he was a bomb with a soul.
And the clock was ticking.