The hospital room was quiet save for the soft beeping of medical equipment.
Sunlight streamed through half-drawn blinds, casting alternating bars of light and shadow across the sterile white bed where Eve lay motionless.
Dark Mark sat beside her, his fingers idly toying with a strand of her hair.
His expression was calm, almost serene, a stark contrast to the horrors he had inflicted upon the world - upon her.
"Your hair's growing back so quickly," he observed, his voice carrying a gentleness that made his words all the more disturbing. "The nurses tell me it's a sign of your health improving. Isn't that wonderful, Eve?"
She remained silent, her eyes the only part of her that could still move freely. They fixed on the ceiling, deliberately avoiding his gaze.
The paralysis that had claimed her body from the neck down had not taken her mind, her thoughts, or her hatred - only her ability to express them.
"The resistance in the eastern quadrant fell yesterday," Dark Mark continued conversationally, as though discussing the weather.
"They thought they could hide in the old subway tunnels. As if anything on this planet could hide from me." A smile touched his lips as he tucked the strand of hair behind her ear.
"Forty-three casualties. Much cleaner than the operation last week."
Eve's eyes flickered briefly, the only indication of the grief that surged through her. Forty-three more friends, allies, possibly people she had recruited herself, gone.
How many had died because of her failure to stop him? The number was too high to think about without crying.
"Dad says we'll have complete control of the continent by the end of the month. The European resistance is proving... stubborn." He frowned slightly. "But they'll break eventually. They all do."
His hand moved to her cheek, caressing it with a tenderness that made her stomach turn. "I've been thinking about our future, Eve. Once all this unpleasantness is behind us. Maybe a house somewhere quiet. Away from the cities. Just the two of us." He stated as his hand began to run down lower.
The monitor tracking Eve's heart rate betrayed her, the steady beeping accelerating slightly. Dark Mark noticed, his smile widening.
"You see? Even your body knows we belong together," he whispered, leaning closer. "You're the only one who keeps me... balanced. The only one who matters."
A tear escaped the corner of Eve's eye, trailing down her temple into her hair. She hated this weakness, this betrayal by her own body, showing her fear, but she couldn't stop it.
Couldn't wipe it away. Couldn't scream the rage that built inside her with every gentle touch of his hand.
"Don't cry," Dark Mark soothed, wiping away the tear with his thumb. "I know it's overwhelming.
All this love I have for you. But you'll understand eventually. You'll see that everything I've done - everything we've built - it's all been for us."
The sunlight streaming through the window suddenly dimmed, as if a cloud had passed over the sun.
But the shadow that fell across them was too abrupt, too defined. Dark Mark frowned, turning toward the window.
A massive figure stood there, silhouetted against the afternoon sun. Broad-shouldered, imposing, with a distinctive mustache visible even in shadow.
Dark Mark reacted instantly, years of combat instinct propelling him to his feet. "Who-"
His question died as he launched himself at the intruder, fist extended. The punch connected solidly with the figure's face - and stopped as if he'd struck the invincible.
A sickening crack echoed through the room as Dark Mark's arm shattered on impact, bone fragments tearing through muscle and skin. He screamed, stumbling backward, clutching the mangled limb.
"What the fuck?!" he gasped, his face contorted with pain and shock. "Who are you?"
The figure stepped fully into the room, and Eve's eyes widened in recognition and fear of the man she'd seen in various propoganda posters.
Thragg - but unknown to her not the Thragg of their world.
"Such disappointment," Thragg said, his deep voice resonating through the small room. "So unlike the boy I have come to see as my own nephew."
Dark Mark scrambled backward, confusion mingling with pain on his face. "What are you talking about? Grand Regent-"
"I am not your Grand Regent," Thragg interrupted, advancing slowly. "And you are nothing like the Mark Grayson I know."
Before Dark Mark could respond, Thragg moved with impossible speed. One massive hand closed around Dark Mark's throat, lifting him effortlessly off the ground. The other seized his torso.
Eve closed her eyes, but she couldn't block out the wet, tearing sound that followed, nor Dark Mark's abruptly silenced scream.
When she opened them again, Thragg stood holding two separate halves of the man who had tormented her for months, blood dripping from his hands onto the pristine hospital floor.
With casual disdain, he tossed the remains aside, turning his attention to the doorway where a new figure had appeared.
"Mark?" Nolan's voice came, confused and alarmed.
Then his eyes fell on Thragg, widening in shock as he took in the scene - the blood, the scattered remains, and Thragg standing in the center of it all.
"Grand Regent? What is the meaning of this? My son-"
"Was a disgrace," Thragg finished for him, his voice cold. "As are you."
Nolan sensing the danger took a defensive stance, but fear was evident in his eyes. "We've been loyal to Viltrum! We've conquered this planet as ordered! Whatever you think we've done-"
Thragg didn't allow him to finish. With a burst of speed that made him appear to teleport, he stood before Nolan, one massive hand engulfing the Viltrumite's face.
Nolan struggled, his hands clawing at Thragg's arm, but it was like trying to bend a planet.
Eve turned away as Thragg applied pressure, unable to watch even though a part of her - a dark, wounded part she barely recognized - felt a surge of vindication as her tormentors met justice at last.
The wet sound that followed told her everything she needed to know.
Silence fell over the room, broken only by the steady beeping of the medical equipment and the soft drip of blood from Thragg's hands.
Eve cautiously turned her gaze back to find him looking at her, his expression unreadable.
With careful movements that seemed incongruous with his size and the violence he'd just unleashed, Thragg approached her bed.
He took the chair Dark Mark had occupied, lowering himself onto it with deliberate gentleness.
The silence stretched between them, blood continuing to drip from his massive form onto the white hospital floor. When he finally spoke, his voice was surprisingly soft.
"I am from another reality," he stated simply. "Do you know of such things? The multiverse?"
Eve, after a moment of taking it in slowly managed a small nod, the movement barely perceptible but the most she could manage with her condition.
"In my world, I am Emperor of the Viltrum Empire," Thragg continued. "I have conquered Earth, but unlike these..." he gestured dismissively at the remains, "...fools, I did so efficiently. Without bloodshed. Without needless suffering."
Eve watched him warily, unable to reconcile this articulate, almost gentle giant with the being who had just torn two Viltrumites apart with his bare hands.
"In my world, your counterpart has become... important to me," Thragg said, a hint of something almost like discomfort crossing his features. "I have come to see her as a daughter, though I do not know if she views me in a paternal light."
Eve's eyes widened slightly at these unexpected words.
"You are not her," Thragg acknowledged. "And I am not your world's Thragg. But when I learned of your situation from my world's Angstrom Levy, I felt compelled to act."
He paused, seeming almost surprised by his own admission. "This is unlike me. I do not typically act on impulse. Perhaps my time on Earth has changed me more than I realized."
He was beginning to act more like his first life self - more like Samael he internally realised.
Perhaps it was because he finally began to feel the connections Samael felt rather than the coldness of being the lonesome Emperor.
He fell silent again, studying her with those eyes that seemed to see through to her very core.
"Soon, Angstrom will arrive with doctors from my world," he finally continued. "They possess Viltrumite medical technology capable of repairing your spine. You will move again, by your own will."
He rose from the chair, towering over her bed. "I will leave you to rest until they arrive."
As he turned to go, Eve felt a surge of desperate energy. Focusing every ounce of her will, she managed to activate her powers - the molecular manipulation abilities that had once made her a formidable hero.
Pink energy flickered weakly around her right hand, forcing it to move against the paralysis that had claimed it - something she had not attempted to do in months, for each time she did, Dark Mark took her more forcefully to enforce his claim over her.
With trembling effort, she reached out and grasped Thragg's massive hand.
"Please," she whispered, her voice hoarse from disuse. "Don't go."
Thragg froze, looking down at her hand on his with an expression of genuine surprise. After a moment's hesitation, he lowered himself back into the chair.
Silence fell between them again, but Eve maintained her grip on his hand, drawing strength from the contact.
With another surge of pink energy, she attempted to push herself into a sitting position.
Thragg, seeing her struggle, gently placed his other hand behind her back, supporting her weight as he helped her upright.
What happened next surprised them both. Eve, overcome with emotion - relief, grief, hope, all crashing through her at once - threw herself forward against Thragg's chest.
Her thin arms couldn't encircle his massive frame, but she clung to him nonetheless, her face pressed against the bloodstained Battle Beast coat.
"Thank you," she sobbed, the words spilling out in a broken litany. "Thank you, thank you, thank you..."
Thragg remained motionless for several seconds, clearly uncertain how to respond to this display.
Then, with a gentleness, he carefully returned the embrace, one massive hand supporting her back, the other lightly patting her shoulder.
"You are safe now," he said simply.
Eve continued to cry, years of helplessness and horror pouring out in a flood of tears.
She cried for the friends she had lost, for the world that had fallen, for the body that had betrayed her, and for the future that had been stolen.
But beneath the grief was something she had thought lost forever - hope.
Thragg held her as she wept, his expression softening into something that might almost have been compassion.
This was not his Eve, not the young woman he had come to see as a daughter in his own world.
But in this moment of vulnerability, the distinction didn't seem to matter.
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(Author note: Hello everyone! I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!
I know, this is quite the skip from the previous one, but we'll see next chapter what's happened.
I felt we already saw quite a bit the important stuff from the important Marks and wished to do this, since finally, I can make Thragg act more human now - and logically at that.
First, he awakened, he was very emotional because he just remembered everything, then he became cold again - the way he was always in the comics -, because though he had the perspective of a human, he only felt calmness and the control of a Viltrumite.
None of the warmth, and love that a human would have for others, since he didn't have that connection. He now does though, and well, that will make him act more based on that love, and other emotions.
He'll still be the Thragg we know, don't worry, just less cold when it comes to loved ones.
Well, I hope to see you all later,
Bye!)