Villain's Rising

"Well, don't let them hit you with those ion beams." Sam said.

"Easier said than done!" Lucas yelled while dodging a burst of ion bullets by a hair's breadth.

"Well, good luck," Sam said before turning around and flying off.

-"Stop him!"

-"Don't let him reach the tower!"

-"Everyone, aim for the Progenitor!"

"Like I would let you do that," Lucas flicked his fingers and created an intense whirling wind storm.

-"I can't aim!"

-"I can't either!"

-"Team Alpha, go after him! Die even if you have to but stop the Progenitor at all costs!"

Without minding the battle cries and sounds of people yelling orders, Sam flew toward the tower like a bullet shot from a gun.

The people coming after him to stop him weren't his problem now. They were Lucas'.

-Baaam!

Breaking through one of the tower's glass windows, Sam entered the building. But as soon as he stepped inside…

"...Huh?"

Instead of entering a hallway or a room as Sam was originally expecting, he found himself standing in the middle of an ocean.

There was a blue, sunny sky above his head with a beach in the distance. Occasionally, he would spot a bird of two flying past him over his head in the sky.

Yep. He was definitely standing in the middle of an ocean….

"...The fuck is happening?" genuinely freaked out, Sam voiced his confusion. "Didn't I just enter the White Walker tower?"

"You did," a voice that seemed to have come from all directions spoke in an authoritative manner. "And that was a blunder on your part."

Suddenly, Sam felt as if someone was standing behind him.

Abruptly, he turned around.

Only to find a white-haired boy, seemingly around the same age as Sam, with skin as pale as snow, standing right there.

He stared intently at Sam, yet there was not even a single emotion present deep within his ruby-like scarlet eyes.

"Woah! You scared me!" Sam took a step back, feeling really creeped out for some reason. "Who are you?"

"I have no obligation to answer any questions of a murderer," the white-haired boy spoke in disgust, finally showing a tinge of hatred for Sam. "But I will tell you because I want you to know the person responsible for your death."

After a brief pause, Sam arched his eyebrow and threw a satire, "Is that so? Do tell me, are you my grim reaper?"

"Ha! Act haughty while you can, Samael Gracefell. Your end is nigh." The white-haired boy snickered. "I am Riley Woods. I'm the sole son of John Woods, the late hero known as White Walker. This tower… is my home."

Finally grasping an understanding of what was going on, Sam nodded. He touched his chin and said, "So, is this some revenge shit? Are you mad that I killed your daddy, and now you'll make me suffer and whatnot?"

The white-haired boy answered with silence, basically confirming Sam's deduction.

After a moment or two, Riley parted his lips to speak

"My ability [Soul Trap] allows me to trap anyone in an illusion. I can create anything here, do anything I wish, show you your most scary memories, or even torment you for eternity. And when I'm bored with that, I'll kill you here, and you'll die in reality. And when you come back to life in reality, I'll trap you in an illusion again and continue this endless cycle! In this world… I am your god!"

"Nice! A boy my age with a god complex! We'll totally hit it off!" Ignoring the lengthy explanation, Sam put on a mocking smile and showed a thumbs-up.

"Hahaha! Ahahaha!" Riley couldn't help but laugh in ridicule. "You think you're hot shit with your ability, huh? Well, get this, Rick has created a serum that'll strip you of your ability to control and make demons and use your [Biology Manipulation] altogether!"

As Riley saw the color draining from Sam's face, the smile on his face kept widening. "And what's more, they're just about to inject you with that serum in the real world while you're acting all cool here! What? Not gonna make any jokes now?! Ahahaha Aaahaha—! W-Why are you smiling?"

Amidst laughing as a man possessed, Riley noticed Sam's expression changing from grim to bored. Then suddenly, he started grinning.

"Your father didn't trust you," Sam spoke.

That comment caused a frown to wrinkle Riley's face. "What the fuck are you talking about?"

"You know I have White Walker's ability right?" Sam pointed a finger to his eyes.

"Ha! That's your plan? Don't bother," Riley scoffed. "My father's ability can only work if he has a vision of his target. What you see in front of you right now is merely an illusion of my real body. You are not seeing the 'real' me."

"That's why I said your father didn't trust you." Sam shook his head.

Enraged, Riley barked, "The fuck do you mean?! This mental game won't work on me, you basta–"

"You don't know your father's ability's full requirements." Sam dropped those words like a bomb, plunging the world around them into silence.

"Bullshit… I call bullshit! You're bluffing! You're fishing here!" Riley waved Sam's words off.

Shaking his head, Sam said, "While it is true that White Walker's ability could work after acquiring direct vision on the target, there's one other way for his ability to activate. That's the vision 'of' the target."

It's no secret that professional heroes, especially the ones as big as White Walker or Starsuper like to keep a hidden ace under their sleeves.

After all, those guys fight with their lives on the line almost every day. It's no brainer that they would need some unexpected variable by their sides to feel safe.

For example, Starsuper's hidden ace was that he couldn't be killed. His body could regrow back from a single atom, making him nigh-immortal.

The world didn't know this since, well, he never died in front of a person or on camera.

What's more, his 'adaptability' was also kept a secret. In the end, that hidden ace gave Sam a run for his money.

Aside from a few top heroes, none of the people in the whole wide world knew these two facts.

In White Walker's case, his hidden ace was even more anonymous.

The world thought that White Walker needed to 'see' his target for him to be able to disable their ability.

In reality, though, he simply needed a picture of his target in his mind. That's all.

Even Sam came to know of this fact AFTER he killed White Walker and acquired his ability.

In a way, the hidden ace that White Walker kept was also going to help Sam here.

Feeling something off, Riley instantly decided to kill Sam off. His instincts were yelling at him to put him down.

He knew he couldn't kill Sam for real. If he kills him in illusion, he would momentarily die before he comes back to life in the real world.

Although he was specifically ordered to merely trap him in illusion so that his body would stay unconscious in the real world, Riley's gut feeling told him to run away from this monster as soon as possible.

Perhaps, he should've listened to his gut feeling and tried running away instead of going for the kill.

Since by the time he went for the kill, it was already far too late. Sam had already activated [Ability Negation].

His black eyes glowed in a hue of white, and the illusion world around them broke, shattering into a billion pieces like glass.

In the next second, Sam found himself standing in a long hallway of a tall skyscraper.

His left and right were Martian soldiers and heroes. To his immediate right was a bald man with a syringe in his hands, about to inject the contents of it inside Sam.

He escaped the illusion right in the nick of time.

-"He's conscious!"

-"Riley, what happened!"

-"Rick, step back from him! We're opening fire!"

As soon as Sam opened his eyes and his senses returned to him, he was overwhelmed by the number of people clustering around him, shouting and panicking.

In front of him, he saw a white-haired boy on his knees, sweating profusely.

For a second, they matched eyes, and Sam shot a smile, "And in this world… I am your god."

As soon as he said so, flames erupted from all around Sam, and a magnificent explosion occurred on the 22nd floor of the skyscraper.