William floated motionless in the endless black of space, golden hair dancing like firelight in a windless void. His aura flickered, not wildly, but steadily controlled, lethal, divine. Beside him, Mark hovered, bloodied and bruised, his armor cracked and sparking. Silent. Watching.
Before them, across the cold stretch of the solar system, a beam, colossal, crimson, and crackling with world-ending fury raced toward Earth like a divine spear hurled by wrathful gods.
Its pulse slowed.
Its roar dimmed.
But its threat lingered.
Then—
BOOOOM!
A titanic asteroid, wrenched from its orbit by Thragg's raw rage, collided with the tail end of the beam.
What followed wasn't just an explosion it was an event.
Space itself seemed to scream.
The beam ruptured, blooming into a blinding, violent blossom of energy that spread like wildfire through the stars. In the stretch between Mars and Earth, a second sun was born smaller, yes, but cruel, volatile, and red as blood.
For a moment, all of Earth basked in its apocalyptic light.
The skies turned crimson. Cities stopped. From the Sahara's golden dunes to the icy peaks of the Arctic, people and alien refugees alike looked skyward, breathless and afraid. Oceans shimmered like liquid rubies, and glass towers reflected a light that didn't belong.
It was beauty… forged in destruction.
And it terrified them.
Back in orbit, William didn't flinch.
His gaze stayed locked on the unnatural sun as it pulsed and flickered, finally collapsing inward in a crackling implosion that left only silence.
Then he moved.
Without a word, he reached into his System Space and pulled a single green senzu bean. He handed it to Mark.
The younger Viltrumite's hands trembled as he took it. One bite, and a surge of healing ripped through his body. His armor hissed, sparking to life with a sudden surge of auto-repair. If not for it, he'd have been ash in space.
"You remember what I taught you about Ki?" William asked, his voice quiet too quiet for the weight it carried.
Mark blinked, mind still reeling. "Yeah… I've been using it. Not well, but… if I focus before a hit lands, I can reinforce my body. It helps barely."
William said nothing at first. He looked Mark over with sharp, glowing eyes, sensing the unstable yet determined spark within him.
Raw.
Untamed.
But present.
He gave a single, slow nod. "Good."
Then turned back to the dark.
Because the silence that followed wasn't peace.
It was only the pause before the next storm.
From the drifting ruins of space, a shape stirred.
Thragg.
His body floated among shattered stone and flickering energy, a grim monument to his own fury. Blood trickled from his lips. A gash marked his temple. His Viltrumite armor, once regal, now clung to him in tatters his red cape trailing behind him like a funeral shroud.
He opened his eyes.
And rage surged.
They locked on William.
"You?" Thragg growled, voice laced with disbelief and fury. "How did you escape?!"
He didn't wait for an answer.
With a primal scream, he launched forward faster than light, faster than sound, faster than thought. Space fractured around him, tearing open in his wake.
To any normal eye, he was a blur.
To William?
He was crawling.
Mark gasped as Thragg ripped past him.
BOOOM!
Thragg's punch came with the force of a collapsing star, aimed directly for William's skull.
Mark instinctively braced for the impact.
But then, silence.
Not a crack.
Not a crash.
Just a soft, dull thud.
"…What?" Thragg and Mark breathed together.
William hadn't moved.
He didn't need to.
He stood effortlessly still, one hand clasped around Thragg's fist. The mighty strike had stopped cold in his grip. His golden aura flared, casting an ethereal glow across Thragg's furious face.
Like a god… swatting a fly.
William's eyes narrowed.
Then his other hand clenched.
And fired.
WHOOOOOM!!
The punch struck Thragg dead in the stomach.
Space warped behind him. Time seemed to bend. The sheer force tore through Thragg's back like a shockwave, armor vaporizing, bones trembling from the blow.
"PFFFFOOOOH!"
He folded.
Then vanished flung across the stars like a comet, tumbling end over end, trailing smoke and fire and pain.
William didn't chase.
Instead, he turned to Mark.
"Your fight is not with me, Thragg!" William called into the void, voice cutting through space like a divine decree. He turned his eyes back to Mark. "He's yours. I'm only watching."
His eyes flashed again, divine power flickering like lightning in his pupils.
"Unless you make me move… I won't kill you."
Mark hesitated, eyes wide.
"Master… I'm not ready," he whispered. "I'm not strong enough to beat him."
William placed a hand on his student's shoulder. A golden glow seeped from his fingers into the armor its cracked surface pulsing, then rebuilding. Shields thickened. Power surged.
"You will be," William said, firm. "I believe in you."
Then, without warning—
BOOOOM!
He launched Mark forward, hurling him into the void like a missile made of resolve and raw potential.
"H-Hey!" Mark yelped, twisting mid-flight.
But as Thragg stabilized, snarling and roaring back, Mark met him.
Fists met fists.
CRACK!
Both were sent spiraling but only for a breath.
They corrected.
Launched again.
BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. BOOM.
The stars trembled as they collided over and over, a ballet of fury and instinct and will. This wasn't just battle, it was ascension.
Mark's blows weren't empty anymore.
Every strike carried Ki. Raw. Crude. But growing stronger with each clash. The energy burrowed into Thragg's body like divine poison, igniting something inside him, something wrong.
Thragg snarled before backhanding Mark sending the young man flying in the direction of Earth where he fell into the atmosphere.
WHOOSH!
Thragg broke through the planet's atmosphere like a falling meteor, flames dancing off his form as he descended in pursuit of Mark. His boots crushed into the ruined concrete of a crumbling cityscape—once vibrant, now a hellish battleground painted in ash, fire, and blood.
The moment his feet touched ground, the smell hit him, smoke, scorched metal, and the iron tang of blood. He scanned the devastation before him.
And chaos greeted him.
Anissa and Conquest were locked in a brutal, savage duel, two titans trading blows that sent shockwaves down shattered skyscrapers. Their fists collided like thunderclaps, sending sparks and cracked teeth into the air with every exchange.
Further ahead, the rest of the battlefield had formed around her, Lady Sif. She stood at the epicenter, a living tempest of violence and wrath, her golden hair matted with sweat and gore. The Guardians of the Globe flanked her, throwing everything they had to hold back the onslaught of Viltrumite warriors.
Among them, one presence shone brighter than the rest.
Atom Eve.
She moved like a goddess among mortals, suspended midair in a protective aura of blinding pink light. Her powers had evolved, no longer just rearranging matter, but piercing into the very essence of living beings. She twisted the air with a mere gesture, and a Viltrumite's heart ruptured inside his chest. Another scream echoed as she yanked a second heart straight out, blood misting around her like red rain.
But even goddesses bleed.
Sweat streaked her face, and her hands trembled between kills. Her body strained to contain the sheer volume of power flowing through her.
Below, the streets were littered with death.
Twisted bodies, sliced limbs. Severed heads with blank, stunned expressions.
Viltrumite corpses lay crumpled among the broken forms of Earth's mightiest. There was no victor yet, only survivors.
Darkwing lay sprawled in an alley, torso carved in half at the waist by a sneering Viltrumite who had grown tired of his shadows and smoke bombs. His grappling hook still dangled loosely from one hand, frozen in its final act.
Aquarius was kneeling by a ruptured fire hydrant, its water cascading over his broken form. One arm was missing, torn away at the shoulder. A jagged gash had carved a third of his spinal fin clean off. He blinked slowly, eyes dull, but defiant.
Nearby, The Immortal, a symbol of Earth's resistance, was on his knees, disemboweled. His chest was torn open, ribs jutting from the ruin of his body like spears. Yet his expression held no fear, just grim, bitter stillness. His head was bowed, but not in surrender. Just waiting.
Red Rush, once a blur of unstoppable speed, now lay drenched in sweat, motionless. His breaths came in short, ragged gasps, his entire body twitching from the strain of burning through every drop of his stamina to dodge, to rescue, to fight.
His fingers flexed weakly.
He was still trying.
War Woman fought with blood in her teeth and fury in her eyes. The seasoned warrior stood shoulder to shoulder with Lady Sif, acting as her shield and sword in equal measure. Their rhythm was flawless, when one struck, the other defended. When one stumbled, the other lifted her back up.
Their blades danced in sync, cleaving through foes that vastly outclassed them in strength, but not in will.
Every scream, every clang of metal, was defiance given form.
Martian Man stood nearby in his true form, too exhausted to maintain a human disguise. His skin pulsed with stress, steam rising off his body as his once-fluid cells now felt sluggish and brittle. He had stretched himself thin, literally, shielding teammates, absorbing impacts, twisting his form into impossible shapes for just one more save.
And now?
He could barely stand.
His limbs trembled. His mind burned. But he refused to fall.
Through it all, Thragg stood motionless. His face, for the first time in years, was unreadable.
This wasn't a battle.
This was a war.
One he had expected to dominate.
And yet, here he was, staring at the resilience of a broken planet and its defenders, cracked, bloodied, and yet unwilling to die quietly.
Then… he smiled.
A predator's smile.
Because for all their grit, for all their spirit, none of them were ready for what he would bring.
But even as he prepared to move, there was a flicker.
A light on the horizon.
William.
And Thragg's smile faded.
Because now the tide could shift again.
And in this theater of gods and monsters, the curtain had only just begun to rise.
William hovered above the chaotic battlefield, his presence radiating an aura of golden ki, crackling with the fury of a thousand storms. His eyes blazed with an intense, unwavering light, each flicker of gold and lightning a warning. His gaze was locked on Thragg, the Viltrumite regent, and every shift of the regent's posture was met with an unspoken promise of destruction. Thragg felt it, a cold shiver crawling down his spine, as if the very air around him was tightening into a noose. The power emanating from William was an overwhelming force, the weight of it pressing down on him like a storm that could flatten mountains. The Viltrumite's pride writhed under the threat, but he dared not make a move.
Below, the battle raged on. The Mauler twins had found Mark. In an instant, they were swarming around him, conjuring alternate versions of themselves using a device created by the mad scientist himself. The air hummed with the crackle of portals opening, one after another. Through the swirling vortexes came twisted reflections of the twins, each one more monstrous than the last. The warehouse was a cacophony of sounds, portals tearing open, fists colliding with flesh, the distant scream of Angstrom Levy, maddened and desperate.
"NOOOO... Don't hurt him!" Angstrom's voice rang through the chaos, a wild screech that sent shivers down even the Mauler twins' spines. The chaos of his creation, the endless cycle of alternate versions of himself, was unraveling his mind.
"BOOM!"
Mark's fist collided with the torso of one of the Mauler twins, the sheer force of the blow sending the twin careening backward, crashing into the others with a sound like a bowling ball smashing through pins.
But it wasn't enough. Mark was outnumbered, and the Mauler variants closed in. One caught him with a massive hammer blow from behind, sending Mark hurtling into the ground with a sickening thud. The world spun as he struggled to regain his bearings, but before the Mauler twins could capitalize on their numbers, a shadow fell over them.
"KRACK!"
A monstrous figure crashed into the battlefield, shattering the floor beneath them. The shockwave from the impact sent the Mauler variants flying, their bodies flailing like ragdolls, the sound of broken bones reverberating through the space. The device, still humming with unstable energy, began to malfunction, disintegrating the alternate versions of Angstrom Levy into nothingness.
Mark looked up, his body bruised and battered, only to see a terrifying sight, the towering form of Thragg, the Viltrumite regent, descending from the smoke like an avenging god. His eyes burned with fury, and without hesitation, he launched himself at Mark, his fists clenched and his body a blur of raw, unstoppable force.
"WENG!"
But before Thragg could strike, a maddened scream echoed through the lab, tearing through the tumult. Angstrom Levy, his body twisted and distorted by the power of the portal device, was undergoing a horrific transformation. His once-human form was no more, and what remained was little more than a grotesque parody of his former self. His mind, already fraying from the endless assault of alternate versions, shattered completely. The man, no longer a man, but a broken shell, waved his hand, creating yet another portal.
In a desperate, almost frantic motion, Angstrom backed into the swirling vortex, his single clear eye locked on the chaos unfolding before him. The noise of the battle was deafening, the world a blur of motion and violence. But his eyes, filled with an unyielding hate, were the last thing Mark and William would see of him as he vanished into the portal.
"GET BACK HERE!" Mark roared, his voice hoarse from the exertion, but Angstrom was gone.
William's gaze never wavered. As the Viltrumite regent bore down on Mark, ready to crush him beneath the weight of his strength, William's power surged. A golden aura flared around him, crackling with divine fury.
The moment was ripe. The stakes had never been higher. The battlefield held its breath, waiting for the next act of chaos to unfold.