Mod Superhero

Chapter 7.40 - Speaking into the Void

One of Mod's earliest tools was his superpower database. He'd built it long before the Resistance, even before he became a hero. He'd spent the bulk of his life compiling as much information as possible about any super he could find—news reports, eyewitness accounts, and even hacked information from the Summit of Heroes. Everything went into it, and his database had grown exponentially once TINA started adding to it.

Some heroes were easier to learn about than others.

Ricardo Olivera, codename Amarque. Summit veteran. Class 5 reality warper. One of the top 5 most powerful entities on the planet. Reality warping was one of the least understood types, but that was where Amarque's advantages ended. He had flaws and limitations.

Amarque wasn't omnipotent. Most of his immense power relied on his concentration and willpower. Ironically, the strongest aspect of Amarque's power was the one he was quickest to discount. He was nigh-invincible—his powers reacted subconsciously to keep him alive and unharmed. Even Paragon himself could only knock Amarque unconscious.

Despite all that power, Amarque was still human. Reality warping let him sense some things outside of the human sensory range, but he had limits. He wasn't omniscient. Amarque could see energy, but had trouble distinguishing between electromagnetic fields and thermal energy. He couldn't hear or smell outside of normal human ranges either.

But Amarque's most exploitable weakness was his personality. He was a narcissist who loved an audience—interviews with the press, dramatic monologues mid-battle, and flourishes that telegraphed his abilities. All that vanity had left a trail a mile wide. Mod and TINA had reviewed hundreds of hours of footage. One engagement in particular—Amarque's battle alongside Helion—had been dissected to single frames and compared against Resistance data from their own confrontation with Helion in New Venice.

Mod would use all the information to his advantage, including that Amarque wasn't the type to let an enemy get the last word in. Mod used that to his advantage—used it to delay until his preparations were complete.

Mod could've stalled even longer, but he was overflowing with power.

Once Arsenal began siphoning power from the magma pool, she couldn't just turn off the flow. After Mod finished moving everyone out of the Vault, he had nothing to do with the excess flow. It had just been building and building, saturating his fusion cores and the nanite web. His systems were overloaded and overclocked. It was more power than he had ever wielded.

It was intoxicating. And dangerous.

Instead of unleashing it in a surprise attack, Mod held onto that power a little longer.

He waited until Amarque made the first move.

Amarque waved his hand dismissively, and power lit up the darkness, like a bomb had gone off. To Mod, it looked like a kaleidoscope of light shining in every wavelength.

With a thought, Mod tapped the shard of magic mirror in his chest. It'd slowly become second nature to him, as easy as controlling his swarm or reforming the structures of his own body. Mod reached out with his willpower, and a wall of blue UV light met the oncoming destruction.

Amarque's power crashed through Mod's barrier like it was made of glass, but Mod was already making half a dozen more barriers. Instead of meeting the attack head-on, he angled the barriers slightly. Each barrier nudged it a little further off course until the attack passed by completely.

Even though Amarque's attack didn't touch Mod, it still passed with the force of a locomotive, rattling the darkness between the two supers.

Mod ran system diagnostics just to check, but they all came back the same.