original

Marvel: Electro

章節 1: Chapter 1

Jack is a police officer on duty and it's late at night when he receives a complaint about noise from a neighbour's house. He is assigned to check the situation since he is the nearest to the location.

As he approaches the house, he hears the loud party music blasting from inside. He parks his car and walks to the door. He rings the bell, but no one seems to hear it over the music. He knocks on the door harder and harder, until finally someone opens it.

A teenager, holding a beer bottle in his hand, greets him with a slurred speech. He looks too young to be drinking and too drunk to stand straight. He sways on his feet as he faces Jack.

Jack asks him sternly, "Are you old enough to be drinking?"

"Sure, officer... here's my ID..." the kid says, reaching for his pocket. Instead of an ID, he pulls out some cash and throws it at Jack's face.

"Hope that's enough proof," he says, smirking.

Jack is furious. He grabs the kid by his collar and drags him to his car. He cuffs him and puts him in the back seat. As he drives to the police station, the kid says, "You're making a big mistake, officer. You don't know who my dad is."

"Don't worry, kid. I'll find out soon enough," Jack says, ignoring his threats.

He completes the paperwork and heads home, since his shift is over. But his troubles are just beginning.

The next day, when he arrives at the office, his superior officer is waiting for him at his desk. Jack asks, "Did I do something wrong? You only come to me when there's trouble."

The superior officer says, "It seems you arrested a teenager last night. I need the case file so I can have it investigated properly."

"What's there to investigate? His neighbours complained about the noise from his party. He was drinking underage and he tried to bribe me. It's an open and shut case," Jack says.

"We'll see about that after the investigation," the superior officer says. Jack has no choice but to hand over the file. He has a bad feeling about this, and he is right.

The next day, Jack's face is all over the news as a corrupt cop who made a false arrest and demanded money from a kid. He is suspended from his job and arrested for his alleged crimes. His colleagues, who work the night shift, come to his house to take him away.

Jack opens the door and sees them. He knows what they are here for. He smiles bitterly and says, "Great. Now I get to experience prison after living like a celebrity for a day."

He is handcuffed and taken to the car. They drive away, but not to the police station. Jack notices that they are going in a different direction.

He asks, "Where are we going?"

He gets no answer. He has to wait until they reach their destination.

They drive for half an hour before stopping in the middle of nowhere. He gets out of the car with his colleagues. Before he can ask where he is, a bright light flashes on and blinds him. He closes his eyes to avoid the glare.

He hears a voice say, "It took me ten years to build my empire and five years of hard work to get into politics. And you were about to ruin it all in one night."

Jack moves away from the light and sees the source of the voice. A fat man in a white suit is sitting on the hood of a Rolls Royce. Next to him is the kid he arrested a few days ago.

Jack recognizes the man as Richard, one of the richest and most powerful men in the country.

Jack asks, "So, you bribed the officers to change the case against your son, framed me as a criminal and turned my colleagues against me, all because I arrested your son?"

Richard says, "It's not about the arrest. If I wanted to, I could have gotten him out of the police station as soon as you arrested him. But that's not what I want now."

Richard gets off the hood and walks towards Jack. He says, "My son is still a kid and he might do many things in the future. I don't want to get involved every time he does something. There might be times when I might do something too, while fighting for a position. I want the police to know what happens when someone goes against me. You will be an example for all the other officers to not mess with me."

He then turns to the police officer standing close to Jack and says, "Kill him."

The police officer doesn't hesitate for a moment before taking out his gun and shooting Jack in the head.

As his vision fades and his mind loses consciousness, he has only one thought in his mind: 'I want that power, the power to make anyone do what I want.'

He can't achieve that dream since he is dying, but as he loses consciousness, he hears a voice say, "I am going to select him."

That's all he hears before everything goes dark and he can't feel anything. But then, he hears someone talking.

He doesn't understand at first, but then he focuses on the voice. He hears someone say, "Max, can you hear me?"

Jack thinks to himself, 'What is happening? Didn't I die? Did someone save me? No, that's not possible. I was shot in the head.'

He slowly opens his eyes and sees the open sky. Jack turns his head to his right, to see the person talking to him.

A man in his 40s, wearing an electrician uniform, is sitting beside him on the ground. When Jack opens his eyes, he says, "Thank God you're alive. Or else, people would blame me for sending you up there to save that man. You're very lucky. You might be the first person to survive after getting struck directly by lightning."

"What lightning strike..." He stops talking because of the splitting pain in his head. He holds his head and grimaces.

Jack then receives memories of a person named Maxwell Dillon, a lineman at an electric company. He moved to many places due to his father's inability to hold a stable job. His father later ran away with another woman, leaving Maxwell and his mother alone. His mother didn't want Maxwell to end up like his father, so she made him join the lineman job. Maxwell wanted to go to college and be an engineer, but his mom lied to him that he was rejected from the college, which he found out after his mom's death a few years ago. He had a stable job at the electric company with low pay, and then married the billing clerk of the same company, Norma Lynn. She wanted him to get a better-paying job and this led to her leaving him and running off with an engineer. As for his situation now, he was helping a man stuck on an electric pole, for money of course, and in the process, he was struck by lightning and fell to the ground until he woke up.

(From now on, I will call him Max.)

The other worker beside him asks Max, "Do you need an ambulance?"

Max shakes his head and slowly gets up. The man tries to help him up, but when he touches Max, he feels a jolt of electricity. He falls to the ground and Max is confused as to what is happening, but he realizes that he is the cause of it.

He quickly gets up and backs away from the man. He turns to leave the scene, but then he sees the electricity flowing through the wires.

'What is happening to me? What is this?' he mutters to himself and starts panicking.

"I need to organize my thoughts. I can't stay here. I have to go somewhere safer." He says and then remembers that Max lives nearby.

He leaves the place quickly and heads to his home. As he walks on the streets, the hair of the people nearby stands up and the metal objects around him vibrate.

He sees a huge building in the distance and stops when he reads the sign on the building. It says "Oscorp".

"No...no...no...no...no...this can't be real...this is a dream that people have after death...this can't be real..." Max mumbles to himself. Meanwhile, the people passing by him experience strange things and are confused about what is happening.

Some people's phones fry up and stop working, some explode and everyone starts panicking. Max runs to his home, as the chaos around him draws attention.

When he gets home, he locks all the doors and windows, and closes the curtains to make sure no one can see him.

He breathes heavily from all the running and the panic. He looks around and sees the current flowing through all the wires in the walls and the electricity flowing through his building and the nearby buildings.

"I'm going crazy...I'm going crazy...I'm going crazy...I'm going crazy...I'm going crazy...this isn't real...this isn't real...this isn't real...this isn't real..." He repeats while pacing around the house.

As he moves around, various electric and metallic things start vibrating and a table lamp flies and hits him in the back of his head.

Max is startled and turns around to see the lamp at his feet. That blow brings him back to reality and he sits down on the bed to organize his thoughts.

After remembering everything that has happened to him so far, he can only chuckle and say, "Today is the craziest day of my life, or should I say lives. I die after arresting a kid and I'm now in the world of Marvel."

He sits still for another hour before getting up and walking to the refrigerator to get something to drink. He touches the handle of the fridge and smoke comes out of the fridge. A spark flies near the socket the fridge is plugged into and then the power goes out in the whole building.

This incident triggers the memory of Jack watching a superhero movie. He drops his beer and says, "Am I Electro?..."

He pauses for a while and says, "Yes. Now everything makes sense. Everything that I experienced until now makes sense. I didn't recognize myself for a second because I wasn't black and I didn't fall into a tank of electric eels. This might be how the comic book Electro got his powers. I might have realized this sooner if I wasn't panicking the whole time."

He then walks to the mirror, but he can't see anything since he closed all the curtains and there is no power.

"Let me try something," he says to himself and takes out a light bulb from the wall. It immediately lights up.

He takes it with him and walks to the mirror. He sees his reflection in the mirror, but he can't look at it for long as the bulb explodes from overload. He still gets a good look and he is completely different from the Electro of the movies.

He has brown hair and he is fit, not the muscular kind from going to the gym, but the kind you get from doing physical work. He also has green eyes. If he had to describe himself to someone from Earth, he would say he looks like a slimmer Henry Cavill.

Max then walks back to his bed and lies down. He says to himself, "Was my wish actually granted? Is this a chance for me to achieve the goal I had before my death? If yes, then I will definitely achieve it this time."

He then goes to sleep because he is mentally exhausted and needs rest.