inFAMOUS: Legacy of the Beast

Chapter 2

"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood.

Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."

~Marie Curie

Cole clenched his fist once the dust had settled, grabbing a handful of gravel and sediment. The power transfer had left him weak and lethargic. His vision was grained and blurred as if he had not used his eyes in decades.

He had no idea how long he had been unconscious. It could have been a few minutes or a few hours for all he knew.

He considered the notion that he was waking up in a Hell perfectly suited for him. When he came to find that he was not actually dead but still living in the world as he had left it, he confirmed that he had allowed it to cross over to Earth.

Erupting into a fit of coughs from the fallout, Cole attempted to pull himself out from beneath the remains of the cathedral. He let out a pained grunt at an intense stabbing in his abdomen. His heart hammered in his chest, syncopating with pulsing throbs in his temples.

Gripping the edge of a demolished wall he pulled himself wearily to his feet. The tired effort had caused his skull to fog and his sight to spin. Taking one unintentionally precarious step he heard something snap beneath his shoe.

His blood turned cold as he looked down and realized what it had been.

He had crushed the tinted lenses of Zeke's sunglasses he had worn with dedication. The black plastic frames were bent into irreparable condition from the blast.

Beside the shards of darkened glass were the pieces of metal shrapnel from the RFI.

Now he wished with every fiber of his being that he could take it back.

Cole looked around to take in the world he had damned himself to. The entire cathedral and its surrounding keep had been torn to shreds, fallen into a condemned crater created by the blast. The scene reminded him immediately of the Ray Sphere explosion that had granted him his powers.

Just looking at it made his blood boil.

Electricity danced and splined down his arms. Releasing his contained anger in this way always seemed to keep him from losing whatever sanity he had left.

At this point he assumed that sanity was something he was lacking altogether.

Without warning, sparks began to fly wildly from his hands. They popped and cracked faster and faster, even as he tried to contain the reaction.

What followed next was the proof Cole needed that nothing would ever be the same again.

The electricity began to flash and burn into flames, although he felt no pain from the fire. The anomaly left his heart racing in fear. He fought to quell the blaze just as he would with his lightning, but it raged hotter and brighter the more he tried until it burst forth into the sky.

Once the inferno finished roaring, the embers covering his skin flickered out in silence.

With uneven breaths Cole lowered his eyes to his hands. His fingers twitched and trembled from the sheer amount of energy he had released.

Normally, he would have welcomed the addition of a new power to his ever-expanding arsenal. But this—a strength the likes of which he had never held before—frightened him. Not because it was new or that it proved that his limits never seemed to end, but because he knew where he had obtained such power.