Rex: Tch... Just had to save her, HUH, Rex... (He took a moment to collect himself, gasping for air, the world blurring. He glanced around the once-luxurious reception area. He was in some kind of bank. The windows were blown out, shattered, and several desks were scattered and broken across the lobby.) A bank... funny.
He pushed himself further up, his good arm trembling violently. He was broken, his chest a canvas of agonizing pain, his vision doubling and tilting with every ragged breath. He was dead, he knew it. The creature outside was simply waiting to deliver the final, brutal blow. But as he stared at the shattered glass and marble floor, a strange, profound calm began to settle over the storm of his pain. His eyes, fixed on a distant, broken chandelier, began to glow, not with the familiar purple of his power, but with a vibrant, blinding bright purple light.
A low, resonant hum vibrated in the air around him. Rex watched, bewildered, as tiny, sudden sparks of electricity began to crackle and dance across his torn jacket and skin. The air felt thick, heavy with potential energy. He had no idea what was happening, only the dim, panicked recollection that this had happened before—a moment of blinding, overpowering force back in the prison.
What the hell is this? he thought, his mind struggling to form a coherent thought through the pain.
Rex Kenway's Mutant Ability awakening – Kinetic Absorption
Rex Kenway's original power, Kinetic Charge, allowed him to charge anything he touched with kinetic energy, turning it into a controlled explosive. However, his near-death confrontation with the Behemoth Enforcer in Chapter 24 acted as a brutal, involuntary catalyst for his Awakened Trait.
This transformation flipped his power from offensive charging to Defensive Absorption. During the fight, his body, unknowingly, began to absorb every strike, slam, and ounce of pain inflicted upon him. Instead of merely storing this energy, it triggered an evolution of his mutant ability, granting him Kinetic Absorption, unknowingly.
Kinetic Absorption: Rex can now unconsciously absorb kinetic energy—the energy of motion, impact, and force—as raw fuel, strengthening his physical condition and healing his body at an accelerated rate proportional to the impact. Once this absorbed energy reaches a critical limit, it triggers the trait's secondary ability: Kinetic Energy Release. This allows him to unleash the stored energy in a massive Kinetic Wave of Energy, an uncontrolled discharge that can devastate the surrounding environment, as evidenced by the near-collapse of the Enforcer facility.
The constant, overwhelming torment inflicted by the Abomination—the jet-speed ascent, the bone-shattering collision through three buildings, and the final slamming backhand—has not killed Rex. Instead, it has pushed him past his previous limit, forcing the switch to the Awakened state. The crackling electricity is the visible sign of his body frantically siphoning, processing, and storing the excess energy of the Abomination's brutal assault.
Rex stared at his hands, the bright purple light illuminating the grime and blood. The crackling electricity was growing, pulsing with the silent, stored fury of every blow he'd taken. The agony in his body was still there, but beneath it, he felt something else: a cold, immense surge of potential. He looked up at the shattered doors, a desperate, feral grin stretching across his bloodied lips. The Abomination was just waiting.
The crackling electricity intensified, tracing pathways of light across his arms and chest. The humming grew into a low, menacing thrum that rattled the few remaining panes of glass in the ceiling.
The prison…
A memory—bright, painful, and fleeting—flashed through Rex's mind: the monstrous form of the Behemoth Enforcer looming over him, a torrent of endless blows, and the sensation of overwhelming, crushing force. Then, the blinding, all-consuming light, the shriek of metal, and the sudden, unnatural silence as the prison structure buckled and groaned. He didn't remember doing it, but he remembered the feeling: limitless, raw power. That same, terrifying potential was humming beneath his skin right now.
He forced a smirk, the expression a painful, cracked mask on his face.
He fixed his gaze on the shattered entrance where the silent creature hovered. Slowly, agonizingly, he extended his right arm, his palm trembling and bathed in the violent purple light. He remembered the force, the direction, the sudden, cleansing release of energy.
Just like before... Fire.
He focused his will, pushing the immense, coiled potential into his hand, fully expecting a concussive wave, a blinding beam of pure kinetic force to erupt toward the Abomination.
But nothing happened.
His hand remained open, empty, and trembling. The brilliant purple light persisted, the electricity still snapped and danced across his skin, but there was no discharge, no beam, no sudden outward explosion.
Rex: H-huh?! (He frowned, the smirk faltering.)
Rex: Oh, come on! Fire! (He swung his arm back quickly, the motion sending a jolt of fresh agony through his cracked ribs, and thrust it forward again, grunting with effort.)
Still nothing.
He stared at his useless hand, a flicker of bewildered panic replacing his feral defiance. In that instant, as his mind wrestled with the unexpected failure, the connection was lost. The vibrant, blinding purple light vanished, sinking back beneath his skin. The electricity sputtered and died. The low, ominous hum that had filled the air faded into silence, leaving only the sound of his ragged, uneven gasps for air.
The Abomination, hovering with an eerie lack of motion outside the shattered glass doors, seemed to sense the sudden loss of energy. It tilted its head, its empty black eyes fixated on the struggling man inside. Then, with another sickening burst of maximum speed, it barreled through the shattered entrance and slammed into Rex, smashing him back into the marble lobby wall with a deafening collision. The force was monstrous, enough to leave Rex's body embedded into the white limestone, the wall cracking and groaning around him.
Rex's eyes stretched wide with the agony of the impact. His body was pinned, his breath punched from his lungs. A wet, bubbling sound escaped his mouth, and he coughed violently, spitting a terrifying quantity of bright red blood onto the white marble floor and down his chin.
The Abomination did not roar or make a sound. It simply pressed its immense, clawed palm directly onto Rex's chest, right over his sternum. Rex could feel the sluggish, terrified rhythm of his heart beating against the cold, sickly grey flesh.
Then, the creature began to push.
It wasn't a sudden crushing blow, but a slow, horrifying application of immense, silent pressure. Rex instinctively tried to wrench his body free, tried to push the creature's arm away with his one functional arm, but his strength was gone. He was utterly still, his body locked in place, pinned against the cracking wall.
The Abomination's palm pressed harder and harder into his chest, forcing the air and another plume of blood from his lungs. Rex's eyes rolled back slightly, his vision tunneling into a desperate, crimson haze as he felt the agonizing sensation of his ribs beginning to yield and splinter under the overwhelming, deliberate force. The Abomination was silent, emotionless, and intent on feeling the final beat of his heart stop.