Doom

Chapter 2

"Victor." A far away voice calls out to him. "Victor."
Victor stirs from what feels like a dream. His sight steadily becomes clearer and he sees his wife standing over him. "Wanda. Did I fall asleep at my desk again?" He murmurs. "Who's looking after the kids?"
"Wow, he really is out of it." A new voice joins the one sided conversation.

Victor sits up to see he's in some strange room. Then he remembers. His wife is dead. And he's not human anymore. He looks up to see Wanda and Pietro looking down at him, concerned. "What happened?"
Pietro decides to have the first word. "You exploded and now we don't have any power."
Wanda slaps Pietro's chest before turning back to Victor. "Your body wasn't glowing and you weren't moving. I thought you were dead. But when I tried to lift you, you just started back up again."

Victor shakily stands up and looks around him, seeing scorched cement and blown out lights. He turns his gaze down to his inhuman hands and clenches them. He slams a fist down on the table, effectively snapping it in half. The twins each took a few steps back, reasonably scared. Victor slumps in a chair, hanging his head in his hands.

Wanda takes a few tentative steps in his direction. "Would you... like some help controlling your powers?"
Victor gives Wanda a curt glance. "I don't want to control it, I want to get rid of it."
Wanda carefully places a hand on his shoulder. "And you will. But for now, you're dangerous, and you'll need to control it if you don't want to fry anyone."
Victor lowers his head in shame. He knew he was being irrational, but even so. He didn't want to accept that he may never be normal again. But he might have to. "Alright. Where do I start?"
Wanda smiles. "I didn't have too much trouble. Using my powers just came naturally to me. Pietro had a problem though. He'd try to take a step and hit a wall. He had bruises for weeks."
Pietro sends an exasperated look at his giggling sister. "When are you going to stop telling people that?"
Wanda smirks at Pietro. "When you stop calling my powers "red wiggly woos"."
Victor can't help but laugh. "Aright. Let's go." He rises from the chair and goes to leave before Pietro clears his throat.
Victor turns back to see a blushing Wanda and a smirking Pietro. "You may want a change of clothes."
He looks down to see that his clothes now have multiple holes burnt into them. "I need to wear rubber or something."

A few hours later, Victor was out in the woods, now donning long black latex pants and matching long sleeve shirt, doing some basic stretches. Wanda and Pietro are a short ways away.
Pietro calls out to Victor. "So, what worked for me, is I would just do whatever until I figured out what's what. So, just sorta, go to town."
Wanda gives Pietro an incredulous look. "You are bad at this."

Ignoring the sibling banter, Victor tries to focus on what's around him. He thinks to himself. 'That power I have was released in high stress situations. So it's either based on focus or emotion. I really hope it's focus.'

He closes his eyes and tries to visualise the energy within him. As he does so he feels a warmth emanating from his core. It feels... nice? Electing to ignore the pleasurable sensation he visualises the warmth travelling up his arm. As he does so, he feels a build up of pressure... in his finger? "Uh oh." Needing to find a target he aims his finger at a nearby tree and a bolt of green electricity comes from his finger and strikes its trunk.

Both the twins are taken aback, with Pietro pumping his fist in the air a moment later. "That was awesome!" Pietro's expression quickly turns to that of fear as Victor turns around to see that the tree was now very much on fire.
"Oh geez." Pietro runs back to the base and comes back with a fire extinguisher and promptly puts out the fire.
Victor rubs the back of his head. "Maybe we should have someone on fire safety."

Hours later, Victor was exhausted. His eyes droop, desperate for a sleep that will never come. Pietro runs up to him. "You alright man?"
Victor nods and attempts to wave him off. "I'm fine."
Pietro appears concerned. "Are you sure? You look like you need to recharge."
That word struck a chord in Victor. "Recharge?"
Pietro nods. "Yeah, at least for a few minutes."
Victor shakes his head and remembers what Wanda said about when he caused the power outage. "Wanda."
She turns to look at Victor. "Yes?"
He makes a vague waving motion. "I need your red wiggly woos."
Wanda's brows furrow in mild annoyance. "Why exactly?"
"Just trust me. I have an idea."
Wanda hesitates a moment before conceding. "Alright, but you can't call them red wiggly woos." She waves her hands and her eyes begin to glow along with her hands. The red psionic energy passes over Victor and he focuses on a motion similar to breathing, but through his whole body. Little by little, the red energy slowly turns green as Victor absorbs it through the cracks in his body. Afterwards, he feels much better.
'So I can't eat,' he thinks, 'but I now absorb energy instead. I'm going to have one hell of an electric bill.'

He straightens his posture as he glows brighter than before. "Thank you. I feel much better now." He stretches out his arms and notices something. 'I'm starting to slim out.' He looks over his body and sees a similar effect everywhere else. 'Despite not having traditional muscles, I'm still able to lose muscle mass. Good to know. I must have been letting myself go. I'll need to intensify my workout as well to accommodate my enhanced strength. Gah, but my work.'

Seeing Wanda and Pietro shivering slightly in the snow, he decided to set that problem aside for later. He waved over to them. "Come on. I think I've kept you out here long enough."
"Don't have to tell me twice." Pietro grabs Wanda up and runs back inside. Victor chuckles and follows them.
He wanders around and eventually finds them hunched over a collection of tapes. "What's going on here?"
Pietro groans. "Wanda's picking a sitcom for movie night. Again."
Victor looks over the choices. "Might I recommend season 6 of Friends?"
Wanda hums in agreement. "Good choice."
Victor nods. "Thank you. My personal favourite is either The One With The Ring, or The One Where Chandler Can't Cry. A close second being The One Where Ross Gets High."
"Oh those are good."

Pietro sits on the couch and flits between Victor and Wanda like a tennis match. "Hey, lovebirds, no flirting in front of the TV."
Wanda blushes while Victor has lightning arching over his head and fumbles over his words.