In a small swamp side town on the outskirts of the Everglades, a small sect chants softly into the humid night air. Their clothing is like something out of a zombie movie. They wear necklaces made of teeth from various animals, including sharks, crocodile, horse, and even man. The headdresses are composed of feathers from various exotic birds, wrapped in fur from dogs and cats that have been woven into a rope. The masks look like something an African tribe might wear, at least their shaman. Hide from some animal, or animals perhaps, make up the shirt and breech cloths they all wear.

The chanting increases in tempo and volume. A storm begins with lightning slamming down not far off from the group. The rain comes next. Hot wet droplets with scant millimeters between them. The ground can barely soak any of the water into it's folds. As the chanters move around the fire pit, still chanting, their feet sink into the earth, coming up on each step with a wet, sucking sound.

Two cultists bring someone out from one of the small huts. From another, the cultist leader emerges, followed by another man who seem very out of place in his military fatigues. The young man bing held pumps his legs, thrashing about against the two holding him; but it is for naught. The chanting reaches a crescendo as the leader walks up to the struggling man. He dips his hand into his pouch and then transcribes a shape onto the victim's forehead with the black paste coating on the middle finger. Instantly, the man's struggles cease.

The military man pulls a cigar out of his inside pocket and futilely tries to light it in the downpour. Throwing it down on the muddy ground, he stomps over to the leader. "Comrade, this is taking so long. I have paid much for this service and you have made me stay in this hut in the middle of the swamp for a week..." The leader holds up his hand to silence the Russian.

"Be calm. It is time. The Ju Ju is right, The night goddess gives up her silver bounty as you shall see. You ask nothing more than the miracle of the lightning ride and you shall have it. I will take it from this mutant child and allow you to embrace it. Stand forth and be struck down." The Shaman raises his hands t the sky, and the clouds part. The Full moon shines forth onto the shaman from overhead as the rain continues to pound down from the heavens. The two men let go of the mutant as if on a cue from the shaman.

The mutant falls to the ground and come to his senses. He looks with fear at the shaman and sliding around on the mud, rises up and tries to run from him. Slipping in the mud he activates his mutant power and the air around him crackles. The shaman turns to the Russian and transcribes the same symbol onto his forehead. Then it happens!

The mutant begins to transform into electricity, and a lightning bolt from the sky shoots down and slams into him. The scream of agony from the boy pierces the night. It is the last sound he will ever make as he is transformed for one last time into lightning. The lightning twirls around and around in one spot, as if trapped in a bottle. The Shaman takes a step back from the Russian and points to him. The lightning follows his finger and strikes the Russian. The scream of the boy was no less than the scream of the man...

Power flowed through the veins of the Russian, changing his DNA in every cell of his body to where it could generate the power itself. The excruciating pain of this conversion great enough to incapacitate him, leaving him laying in the mud as the rain falls and the sect completes their ceremony.

Some time later the Russian awakes on the floor of the hut he had been staying in. He rose to his feet and reached for his trench coat on a post nearby. Donning the coat he stepped out of the hut, it looked like a ghost town. It seemed the sect had cleared out while he was unconscious. This mattered not to the Russian as he now had what he came for, the power to defeat the American.

As he understood it this power allowed him to become a bolt of lightning and travel across the globe. He held out his hands and concentrated, almost instantly an electric field formed around him but he did not convert into energy. His body was still not capable of supporting the conversion. Irritated by not being able to use his newly acquired power the Russian drew a radio out of his trench coat. "This is Ivan, send out the Hip"


No less than thirty minutes later a Mi-8M "Hip" landed in the center of town and the door slid open showing a ruskii in military garb motioning for Ivan to get on. Ivan climbed into the helicopter and it ascended into the sky.

"Comrades, I now have a power to use and defeat the American and after he is disposed of I will use it to restore the glory of the Soviet Union!" As he said this he raised up his right hand and electricity jumped between his fingers and then created an aura of electricity around his forearm, the power was defiantly growing and would soon be able to transform him into lightning. "Now we must find out where our American friend is hiding. Let us go to to Georgia, my intelligence tells me that that is where the Rangers are and our American friend is a Ranger. So to the American Base of Fort Benning we shall go soon we will have him."

The base commander was being held right next to the spinning rear rotor of the copter. He felt the sting of the electricity from the arm that held him, traveling thru his body and arcing to the rotor. His involuntary jerks from the current caused more than one hair on his head to get sliced off.

"You will tell me of the one who destroyed my New York operation comrade. These others could not or would not...and you see what trouble it was being caused to them." Ten bodies littered the tarmac. At least if you put all the charred, sliced, or shot pieces together it would have been ten bodies.

"I won't tell you anything," the commander said. "and even if I go I can tell you're going with me. His eyes weren't looking at Ivan; but were instead on the last tank that had not been hit by the Russian terrorists' rockets when they first arrived. He was thrown to the side as Ivan turned to meet the threat.

"HaHaHAHA," Ivan laughed loudly. "You think because my men are securing your office I am to be taken easily! Allow me to show you the meaning of the words that come from my mouth" He opened his arms as the power built up from inside him. It was like a lion preparing to pounce on a caribou. It moved from his torso outward as he moved his arms forward, pointing his open hands at the tank. The power surged, transforming him into a jagged bolt of lighting that traveled right int the turret of the tank. The crew inside was fried as Ivan flashed back and forth thru them all. A moment later he was back outside the tank again.

The commander was grabbed up once more by Ivan and was led back to the rotor blade. The base commander could smell the burnt flesh coming from inside the tank as Ivan smiled and said, "Now where were we comrade..."

The base commander refused to give any information, this resulted in a brutal end of his life. The fury of Ivan was easy to see, electricity was bouncing off of him and arcing to anything metal nearby as he walked to the command center of the base. If he could not get information from a person than he would have it extracted from a computer.

"Comrade Pyotr, can you get the information I need from these American computers?" Ivan asked as he points off into the command center.

"Da, their systems are not as complex as they like to think." Returned a Russian cracking his knuckles as he walked into the command center.

Ten to fifteen minutes later a call comes over the radio to Ivan, "It appears our American friend is Master Sergeant Michael Hunter. He is in 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta. This group is based in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. The base will not be as easy to take as this one, Bragg has mutants and the best soldiers America has. Over"

"Than we will have to be more creative in our approach." Ivan responds on the radio before he slides it back into his trench coat and spreads his hands, electricity bouncing from then and spreading across his body. His body converted into a bolt of lightning and he launched into the sky, a jagged yellow streak. He reformed several times on his path to the fort, each time he would have to wait a few minutes before he could return to lightning. This time was spent causing a small amount of mayhem in whatever city or town he happened to land.

Finally he slammed his lightning form into a radio tower at Fort Bragg and he rode the metal down to the ground and reformed his physical form. Before him was the base, the place he hoped to find Mr. Hunter. The base was to big and the caliber of the soldiers would prove difficult to combat in such numbers even with his new power. He knew this would require subterfuge, something his new power could aid in. He could shut down key power lines and arrive in locked location unnoticed.

((ooc: I don't want this base destroyed because a solo post I am working on requires this specific base to be in existence))

"H...H...He...He's in N....New York!! P...P...P...Please just don't kill me!!!

The mutant had the power of making a formidable force field that could deter even the shells fired from a tank. Useless against a foe who could use the electricity within the molecules of your synapses to electrocute you. The Sergeant was normally a man with a deep code of ethics. Even torture like he had already seen would not have made him crack. But he did not see before him Ivan, Russian Terrorist, Electrical Manipulator, Interrogator... He saw instead the ghostly remains of his wife, twisted demoniacally and supporting him within her death-chilled embrace. Her raspy voice threatening to destroy his immortal soul should he not provide the answers she sought.

"Crow!" Ivan commanded, "Find out from this one what we need. It seems his fears are easier to get to than the others I kidnapped from that insufferable military base." The Russian dropped the soldier in a crumpled heap and turned from him. He pulled a Cuban cigar from his pocket and used a snap of lightning from his finger to light it. The other Russian moved forward and knelt in front of the crying man. He brought the fears in his mind bubbling forth to the surface harder, overlaying his visage with that of the man's dead wife once more...to get what Ivan wanted from him.

Hours later, Ivan and the others had an address in New York. They threw the mutant soldier out of the helicopter. He ran on the air like it was the ground to get away from the wife he once had that had committed suicide. To the religious soldier, her path to hell had been inevitable, and her coming for him was just as he had feared, for all he had killed while in the service. When he hit the ground, he died... unceremoniously. The small force moved on towards it's goal.

The trip from Fort. Bragg to New York city was a long flight, partly because it was by helicopter, but also because of the anticipation. The anticipation that he, Ivan Lukasavich would now destroy the Michael Hunter, the American that ruined his chance to take hold of the greatest soviet terror organization in the world.

Ivan had considered using his power to travel to New York, but he wanted to arrive at his best and show America what he is truly capable of. His foe will not have the benefit of a fast death but instead a long arduous, tortured death. He would have his men draw out Mr. Hunter and then he would destroy him, no sense tipping his hand to his new power early.

As the modern day city of Rome, New York City, began to appear on the horizon the anticipation started to build. Ivan's hands lit up with electricity as soon he would begin exacting vengeance. "The plan ise to infiltrate his house and if it was unoccupied plant explosives and wait, see how Mr. Hunter likes it when his home goes up in giant fireball. If he does happen to be home, well than his death will be sooner!"

The pilot set the plane on the roof of what looked like a storehouse of sorts not far from his targets home, merely a few blocks north and in the twilight slipping past people unseen will be easy. "Alright men, you know what to do." With a wave of his hand the Russian terrorists rappelled down the building and set off for the home of Michael Hunter.

Nearly an hour later, night having finally settled in, a call came over the radio. "This is Pyotr, the charges are set and we are positioned down the street. When he arrives home it will be a glorious surprise for him."

"Good Pyotr, let me know when you can see him. I want to be there when he watches his home go."

((ooc: Continued on Not So Cold War))