Russell, the Face of Despair

"Spread out! Find cover nearby. Anyone with ranged abilities, return fire at will. Close-combat fighters, protect the flanks."

Russell gave the orders as Psychic Telekinesis spread outward from him like a tide, forming an invisible web of perception.

The instant he finished speaking, a cold glint appeared without warning beside his left temple. A deathly white bone spike, its tip razor-sharp, shot toward his skull at startling speed.

The attacker clearly excelled at stealth and ambush. The timing was vicious, and the target unmistakable.

At the last possible moment, Russell did not even turn his head. A thought was enough.

The speeding spike stopped dead less than two inches from his skin, as though caught in invisible glue.

Then, guided by Russell's precise Psychic Telekinesis, it shot back faster than it had come, retracing its trajectory and angle with even greater accuracy.

The formidable Psychic Power granted by his level-three Psychic Telekinesis had already locked onto the attacker.

Thud!

From the shadows around the corner came the muffled sound of a sharp object sinking deep into flesh, followed by a short, inhuman grunt. A gaunt Mutant with hair standing up like a hedgehog's stumbled out of the darkness.

The very bone spike he had fired jutted from the center of his forehead. The spike-covered Mutant toppled stiffly to the ground.

Russell had dispatched the hidden attacker with barely any effort.

But that was only the beginning.

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Several crimson laser beams came from different angles, all aimed at Russell.

But Russell sensed every beam as it entered the space a few yards around him. Under the direction of his mind, his body, with its Level Three Superhuman Healing, reacted at once. He leaned sideways at an awkward angle and dodged the attack.

At the same time, as the beams missed him, four M16s belonging to dead Mutants rose into the air under the guidance of his Psychic Telekinesis. Bullets whistled toward the space behind and beside Russell.

Several Hounds, agile as leopards, were trying to pounce on him from his blind spots.

Thud! Thud! Thud!

Bullets punched through flesh. After a few muffled grunts, the ambushers crashed to the ground.

The M16s hung in midair as Russell sprang to his feet, pushing his level-three Psychic Telekinesis to its limit.

[Psychic Telekinesis Control experience +1]

[Psychic Telekinesis Control experience +1]

At that moment, Russell was like a god of war commanding his own domain.

His Psychic Telekinesis formed a powerful defensive field, but it could also control incoming attacks with precision, turning an enemy's force against them.

If a stray attacker broke through the interference of his Telekinesis and got close, Russell's superhuman reflexes, aided by Telekinesis, let him kill or hurl them away with ease.

His Superhuman Healing let him ignore scrapes and other trivial injuries entirely.

The vast haul of Fear and Shock Emotion Points he had reaped through his bloody rampage had already pushed the unlock bar for Molecular-level Control past fifty percent on his panel.

That meant not only that the precision of his Psychic Telekinesis Control had taken a major step toward the molecular level, but also that the finesse and strength with which he controlled matter on a larger scale had improved dramatically. He was nothing like he had been when he first gained the ability.

The Hounds unleashed against him each possessed a formidable mutation: altered bones, laser eyes, superhuman speed, enhanced strength, hardened skin, and more. Their fighting instincts were fierce, and they had no fear of death.

But even the strongest among them was only level three. None had reached the level of a Level Four Mutant.

Against someone like Russell, whose abilities combined near-absolute defense, precise control, and rapid recovery, they were utterly outmatched as individuals. Their lack of real intelligence also made their teamwork stiff and predictable.

It took about ten minutes. At the cost of more than a dozen Mutants who had followed him being killed or wounded, Russell led the survivors in wiping out every Hound in the ambush.

The corridor now looked like a slaughterhouse.

Broken, charred bodies lay piled together. Thick blood pooled on the floor, and the stench of blood and burning was nauseating. The surviving Mutants were pale, still shaken by what they had endured.

Most were only level-one or level-two Mutants. Against firearms and powerful Hounds, their abilities could do only so much. Unlike a Mutant as strong as Russell, they needed luck just to survive.

Russell frowned. His Telekinesis stirred, and his body slowly rose until he hovered three feet above the blood-soaked floor.

Keeping clear of the filth below, he flew ahead toward the elevator at the other end of the corridor, the one the telepath had pointed out before dying.

As he passed a camera that was still intact, Russell suddenly stopped.

He looked up, his sapphire-blue eyes fixed on the dark lens as though he could see the terrified base commanders on the other end, their teeth clenched in rage.

Then he slowly gave the camera a cold, mocking smile, loaded with meaning.

That smile seemed to pass through every cable and screen and imprint itself directly on Colonel Connolly's retinas in the command center.

In front of the screen, Colonel Connolly jolted as if bitten by a snake. He recoiled on instinct and nearly fell out of his command chair. A chill shot from the base of his spine to the top of his head.

Then humiliation and fury at having lost control of the situation swallowed him whole.

"How is this possible? How?!" Colonel Connolly sprang up and slammed both hands onto the console. His face twisted like a demon's as he roared, spittle flying.

"Are those Hounds all worthless? They can't even deal with a Mutant who just awakened! That damned bastard, that monster! How can he be this strong?!"

He snatched up a metal cup and hurled it at the main screen with all his strength.

The cup struck the reinforced glass, crumpled, and bounced away. The screen merely shook. Russell's mocking smile remained clear as ever.

"Why? Why can't these lowly Mutants just obey? Why can't they die quietly? Be our test subjects, our materials? Why?!"

Colonel Connolly lost all reason. He screamed and kicked at things around the command room like a gambler who had lost everything.

In a matter of moments, the base had slipped from his control, the prisoners had revolted, his last resort had failed, and his career was ruined. Blow after blow drove the officer, normally so arrogant and so accustomed to treating Mutants as tools, to the brink of collapse.

Then his aide, face deathly pale and forehead slick with sweat, edged along the wall toward him and reported in a trembling voice:

"S-sir, I think you need to... need to look at this right away."

He pointed to a secondary screen displaying the live status of the base's elevator system. An icon marking a freight elevator from the lower levels was rising rapidly toward the upper floors. Its destination was... the floor where the command center stood.

"That damned Mutant monster found us. He's in the elevator... coming this way." The aide's voice broke, thick with despair.