Psylocke Vol 2 Ch 29: The Light In The Dark!

Tristan stood alone in the center of a silent, empty city.

No birds. No wind. No life. Just him, standing in the middle of an endless stretch of cracked concrete and ruined buildings. It felt like a warzone long after the fighting had stopped—if you ignored the fact that the fighting was still happening, and he was the main target.

The ground trembled beneath his feet.

He already knew what that meant.

He looked up.

Towering above him was the same monolith of a woman who had made his life a living hell for what felt like the past three years—though, by his best guess, it had only been three days. Three days of Naomi flattening him, crushing him, vaporizing him with psychic energy or a casual flick of her finger. Mentally. Repeatedly. With zero remorse and a little too much flair.

All for some "training."

The goal? Find a ball of energy she'd hidden somewhere in this city.

Easy, right? Just a friendly little scavenger hunt, except the one hiding the item is a skyscraper-sized psychic goddess with a habit of flattening entire city blocks just to keep him on his toes.

Tristan sighed and rubbed his face. His skin still tingled from the last illusion—being flattened beneath her heel, or maybe it was the one where she accidentally sat on the city. Honestly, they were all blurring together.

"How many times have I died to this woman?" he muttered. "Seriously... I obviously don't have what she wants. Can we please stop?"

As if summoned by sarcasm alone, a familiar shadow began to creep over the city.

He looked up—again.

"...Oh, come on."

Naomi's foot—massive, obsidian, and perfectly polished—was already descending.

The air howled with pressure. The wind roared like a freight train coming off the rails. He barely had time to clench his jaw.

BOOM!!!

The city erupted.

The impact sent a tidal wave of force through the ground, flipping cars, cracking streets, and launching debris hundreds of feet into the air like a giant had set off a bomb. Buildings exploded into chunks, shattered concrete soared through the sky, and Tristan was flung upward with the rest of it, spinning end over end.

But this wasn't his first rodeo.

He twisted mid-air and used a spiraling chunk of pavement as a springboard, launching himself toward another slab of rock. Then another. He bounded from one flying piece of debris to the next like a squirrel on too much caffeine, riding the shockwave's chaos higher and higher until he saw the source.

Naomi's boot.

He landed hard on the thick ridge of the boot's sole, the rubber-like material thrumming with residual energy. Gritting his teeth, Tristan clung to it using his enhanced grip, fingers digging into the textured surface. The thing was the size of a cruise ship beneath him, and he could feel the power humming through it.

"She's insane," he muttered to himself. "Actual, legitimate crazy."

But even now, battered and barely hanging on, he remembered her words.

"Psychic energy comes from the mind. Control it. Don't force it. Let it expand outward like a radar—feel everything."

"Easier said than done," he grumbled. But he shut his eyes anyway, trying to steady his heart. His breaths were ragged and fast, but he focused, grounding himself, quieting the fear and noise.

He reached inward.

There it was.

A spark. A flicker. The energy was inside him—psychic power flowing through his core, not wild or chaotic like before, but waiting. Almost like it was listening.

He pushed it gently, spreading it out through his body, then beyond. A warm pulse expanded around him like a ripple through water.

He thought of echolocation. A bat in the dark. Ping the world, and listen.

Darkness met him at first. Thick and empty.

Then, slowly... something changed.

The rumbling faded away. The chaos around him quieted to a soft hum. The darkness behind his eyelids began to stir.

A light.

A soft, pulsing blue glow.

Tristan furrowed his brow. "What is that?" he whispered.

The glow was distant but distinct. Like a beacon—alive, waiting.

His eyes snapped open just in time to see Naomi's colossal finger descending from the sky like a meteor.

"Oh sh—!"

CRACK.

Darkness.

Tristan opened his eyes.

He was back in the city.

Again.

But this time... something felt different.

The air was still heavy with the scent of dust and ozone. The sky stretched overhead in its usual too-blue clarity, and the ruined buildings around him stood frozen like a crime scene stuck on repeat. It was the same as before—just like every other illusion Naomi had thrown him into.

But he wasn't shaking this time. His heart wasn't trying to punch its way out of his chest.

He stood up slowly, dusting off his jacket and rolling his shoulders. His muscles still ached like he'd run a marathon through a hurricane, but his breathing was steady. Focused.

A low rumble rolled through the ground like distant thunder. He already knew what it was. The same way you know the tide's coming in just by the smell of the saltwater.

Then came the shadow.

He craned his neck and looked up.

There she was.

Naomi loomed above the skyline like some ancient goddess judging a civilization she didn't have the patience to deal with. Her expression was cool, unreadable, with a single brow slightly raised as she peered down at him.

"Well?" her voice boomed, calm and detached. "Are you going to get it done this time, or is this just another waste of time?"

Her words cut through the air like a blade.

Tristan didn't flinch. Not this time.

He exhaled a long breath, running a hand through his sweat-damp hair. The concrete beneath his boots cracked faintly as he shifted his stance, but he didn't budge.

He tilted his head up to the sky, watching a few wisps of clouds drift lazily across the blue. For a moment, he said nothing.

Then, he grinned.

"Let's go another round."

Naomi blinked once. Just once. Then a faint smile tugged at the corner of her lips.

The wind picked up again.

The ground beneath him began to tremble.

Tristan's stance widened slightly, eyes sharp and calm.

He knew what came next.

And this time, he was ready.