HIATUS

A huge black smoke can be seen in the air. Slowly the hot smoke was drifting in the wind as it travels upwards towards the clouds. Slowly the clouds were gathering together, a clear indication of heavy rain that is soon to fall in the area.

The area was quiet aside from the increasing breeze of the wind. Below the black smoke that was floating in the air, you could see 16 people with the same attire focusing their gazes on it.  If you look up above, 15 out of the 16 of similarly looking people were forming a circle, the center of the said circle was the black smoke in the air. The place was silent, then suddenly something came out of the black smoke, two photons beams at an insane speed destroyed the 15 people that were surrounding it. The 15 identical looking people disappeared in a puff of smoke when the laser beams hit each and every one of them.

"You like to play with fire, huh", said a voice inside the black smoke.

"Depends on my mood", said the masked man, the only remaining person left after the 15 identical-looking people were destroyed.

Suddenly in the black smoke, a glowing pair of eyes could be seen, the eyes radiated incredible power. Slowly the glow spread and formed a silhouette inside of the black smoke, the silhouette shouted and unleash it's power in its vicinity, causing the black smoke to be drifted in the wind.

"That was a quite brutal method, don't you think?", said Carol as she stared at the masked man. She is currently both angry and thankful at the masked man, but remembering the brief beating she took a while ago made her piss.

"I believe in the saying, 'the end justifies the means'", the masked man said as he stared at the flying Carol in the air.

"Since I just unlock my powers, shouldn't we be testing it? You know, just making sure if everything works fine. Don't you agree?", Carol said to the masked man, due to her being angry, Carol made an excuse to return the beating she received from the masked man.

The masked man did not respond immediately, he remained quiet for a while, until he eventually said, "I don't see the problem in that".

Suddenly a thunderclap was heard in the distance, slowly rain began to fell on the two people. With a smirk on her face, Carol charges at the masked man with her incredible speed, she cocked her right arm and release it straight to the face of the masked man. She wanted to destroy the mask so that she could see the identity of the man behind it.

Inside the mask, Ethan smirk at Carol's fist. He had no intention to let his face receive the fist of Carol. He moves his body to enable him to received Carol's fist with his own.

"BOOM!"

The moment the two fists collided a shockwave was released. The two individuals were both incredibly powerful, to release a shockwave just by the collision of their fist alone is a testament to their strength.

Carol seeing that her punch was blocked tried with her other hand, but this time her opponent didn't block with a fist. The masked man received her other punch with an open palmed and said, "Let's see what this brings me".

After the masked man said this, Carol felt a weird and nauseating feeling, the feeling made her weak for a few moments. She looks at the palmed of the masked man, what she saw shocked her. She immediately took her hand and moved back a couple of feet from the masked man to keep her distance and she asked in a worrying voice, "What did you do to me?".

The masked man didn't mind her and he looks at one of his hands. On that hand you could see a kind of weak glow, the glow was similar to the glowing aftereffect of Carol's powers. The masked man wanted to try and steal Carol's vitality, but in the end, he stole a portion of Carol's powers as well.

'This power is not compatible with my body. It contains radiating properties, eyeballing it, its probably gamma', the masked man thought. He saw that his hand was being damaged by the power he took from Carol. His hand was being burned and was slowly aging as well, he quickly used his chakra to force the unwanted power out into the surroundings. He was able to release the power into his surroundings which led to a unique glow that soon vanish. He quickly channeled chakra in his hand to heal it immediately, his hand was soon restored back to normal.

"Interesting energy you have", the masked man said to Carol.

The rain was slowly becoming stronger, the two of them were clearly soaking wet due to it, and Carol asked the masked man, "Was that my power?".

A sword suddenly appeared in the right hand of the masked man and he said, "I wanted to see if I could get a little bit of your vitality, but luck is not on my side".

'If this is any indication, this would mean that I won't be able to steal some of the hulk's vitality in the future due to his body having huge amounts of gamma radiation. Damn, that sucks', the masked man thought.

Suddenly the masked man vanishes from his spot and he appeared behind Carol. "You need to be quicker on your feet, Carol", the masked man said as he slashes his sword at Carol's shoulder.

The outcome of a severed limb did not happen, instead, Carol's glowing powers protected her from the blade of the coming her way.

"Tsk. Just like I thought", the masked man said. She is able to take a power stone enhanced punch in the face, a sword that has rune enhancement is fancy and all but it doesn't compare to a power stone.

"Damn it, stay still", Carol said as she turned around and tried to punch the masked man multiple times. The masked man calmly deflected all of Carol's punches by using his sword.

Carol seeing that she could not land a clean hit at her target made her even angrier. She took a step back and began charging a powerful photon blast between her two hands.

Seeing this the masked man said, "Oh, no you don't". The masked man made a stabbing motion with his sword, and then the sword extended at an incredible length, simultaneously stabbing and stopping Carol's charge. The sword continued to extend dragging Carol with it.

"You have a lot of tricks in your sleeve, huh", Carol said as she held the tip of the sword.

"Of course, I need multiple tricks to be stronger than the rest," the man said as his sword suddenly disappeared in a puff of smoke.

"I don't need tricks, all I need is one clean hit", Carol responded. She wanted to charge at the masked men but she suddenly realizes that she could not move from her position. She looks at her feet and to her shock, she realized that she was slowly sinking, below her feet was swam-like-quicksand. It was obviously a trap.

"What the"?, Carol said as she struggles to release herself.

"You are literally one tough nut to crack. Your powers make you incredibly tanky, but can you tank this?", the masked man said as his right hand produces lighting.

Carol seeing this was confident and said mockingly, "You think that can hurt me?".

"Don't be stupid, of course not, but that thing, maybe", the masked man responded as he pointed to the sky.

Carol followed his finger and what she saw shocked her. Inside the thundercloud was a huge dragon made out of pure lightning.

The masked man controlled the monstrosity and aimed it at Carol and he said in a whisper, "Kirin".

The last thing Carol saw was the mouth of the lightning dragon as it went straight towards her.