The dimensional rift spat Alex out into the blackness between stars. Krypton's death-scream echoed behind him, fragments of its core burning like falling suns.
His servo-skulls whirred in agitation, systems recalibrating after the jump. The Codex, the World Engines, and terabytes of Kryptonian science pulsed in the vaults of his system-space. Priceless. Dangerous.
And already hunted.
The void twisted. A colossal ship emerged, its design alien and predatory, like a vast skull encased in metal tendrils. Krypton's doom had not slowed it if anything, it had followed the scent of its stolen prey.
"Brainiac," Alex muttered, vox-grille crackling.
Green light flared across the Collector's vessel. Dozens of drones spilled forth, swarming like mechanical locusts. Their sensors locked onto Alex's lone figure in the void, a single spark against the abyss.
A voice filled the comms, flat, inhuman, undeniable.
"You interfere with perfection. Surrender the Codex. Surrender the World Engines. You are an anomaly an error to be corrected."
Alex chuckled, low and metallic."Omnissiah blesses anomalies, Collector. Let's test your definition of perfection
The first assault came not with weapons, but with code. Brainiac's signal pierced space like a spear, slamming into Alex's systems. Firewalls screamed. Viruses clawed at his network, trying to rewrite him.
Alex fell to one knee in the void, mechadendrites curling like snakes. His servo-skulls shrieked machine-prayers, projecting counter-code. The system interface lit up in a storm:
[Intrusion Detected: Brainiac AI Override Attempt][Countermeasures Initiated…][Binary Chant: Deus Mechanicus active]
His mind became a battlefield. Brainiac's cold precision versus Alex's heretical blend of Warhammer machine-rites, Marvel tech, and the impossible dimensional system. Sparks of raw binary flared like lightning.
Brainiac: "Your architecture is primitive. Yet adaptive. Unacceptable."Alex: "Primitive? Maybe. But unlike you, Collector—I laugh."
He unleashed a flood of paradox code, loops within loops, riddles that broke logical structures. Brainiac recoiled, his drones faltering mid-flight.
The swarm recovered, charging plasma lances. Alex extended his mechadendrites, and with a burst of dimensional energy, frigates unfolded from the system-space ironclad ships blessed with plasma reactors.
Tony Stark's design. Wakandan alloys. And the Omnissiah's touch.
The void erupted into battle.
Frigates fired lances of plasma that tore through Brainiac's drones, while Alex himself floated forward, chanting litanies as his weapon unfolded from mechadendrites a plasma halberd wreathed in lightning.
Drones converged on him. He cut through them like parchment, each strike leaving trails of burning circuitry.
"Gear, target his core nodes!" Alex barked.
"On it! Uploading entropy-virus payload in three… two…"
A pulse of white fire tore into Brainiac's code, corrupting his sensor grid. The Skull Ship's weapons stuttered.
Finally, Brainiac himself manifesteda vast holographic head of green fire, looming over Alex in the void.
"You dare corrupt perfection with chaos. You are a blight upon the logical order."
Alex raised his plasma halberd, sparks dancing across his armor. His vox-grille growled like an organ pipe.
"Perfection? No, Collector. I am the machine-spirit unbound. I am the union of flesh, faith, and circuit. And I will harvest you."
Their clash was both physical and digital. Brainiac's holographic tendrils struck like blades, while his drones tried to overwhelm Alex with numbers. Alex's system countered, each servo-skull firing micro-lances, each frigate volleying plasma until the void burned with artificial lightning.
And in the midst of it, Alex unleashed his greatest tool dimensional energy channelled as raw code. He wrapped it around Brainiac's data-stream, siphoning his libraries into system-space.
Brainiac roared in fury as portions of his mind were torn away. His Skull Ship recoiled, engines burning, retreating into hyperspace.
The battlefield fell silent. Fragments of drones drifted like corpses. Alex stood alone in the void, breathing heavy, his plasma halberd dimming.
Gear's voice came soft in his mind."Archive integrity secured. We pulled Kryptonian tech, planetary AI structures, and partial city schematics before he cut the stream. But he will return."
Alex lowered his helm, whispering a final prayer.
"Then let him. Every hunter is prey eventually."
With a flick of his mechadendrite, he opened the dimensional rift once more destination: Earth. Behind him, Brainiac's wrath simmered in the dark, the first great enemy Alex had truly provoked in the DC Universe.