Inside a specially designed containment chamber aboard the Helicarrier.
The metal walls reflected ghastly white light, and the air was so cold it nearly seemed frozen.
Sophie Frost stared blankly in silence at her unconscious sister in the chair before her.
"How did this happen...?"
As a telepath, she could clearly sense that Phoebe's mental world had become an empty, deathly silent wasteland.
"What happened to her?"
The heavy metal door slid open, and Nick Fury and Steve Rogers entered one after the other.
"Her consciousness is no longer in her body."
Miles explained to the people gradually arriving, "In this state, she has effectively lost her 'self.' Medically speaking, she has become a 'vegetable.'"
Sophie's shoulders slumped, and Miles's words utterly shattered her last shred of hope.
"So what happened before this?" Nick Fury looked at Phoebe's peaceful expression in the chair and asked gravely. "Why did Phoebe Frost end up like this?"
"Her consciousness was seduced by an evil psychic entity," Miles explained. "His name is the Shadow King."
"Shadow King?" Fury's single eye narrowed slightly as he firmly memorized the name.
"The Shadow King is a pure aggregate of psychic consciousness. He has no physical body, but he is nearly invincible in the mental realm."
Miles continued, "He can create countless copies of himself and 'parasitize' the inner worlds of any intelligent life-form. When a host is at their most vulnerable, he corrupts their will, exploits the opening, and turns them completely into his puppets."
He paused, then continued.
"The massive Mind Storm you encountered at Stark Tower a year ago was also his doing... well, or rather, it was the psychic backlash produced when he and I clashed mentally."
"What?!"
At Miles's description, everyone present—including Captain America Steve, who had just arrived—cried out in shock.
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