Berlin burned. Allied bombers had pounded the city for weeks, but it wasn't fire or rubble that froze soldiers in their tracks that morning. It was the sky.
The air split open above the Reichstag in a halo of golden light. A ring pulsed, shimmering like molten metal, and from it came the Zar' Eth.
They were giants—two meters tall, bodies forged in living gold, muscles like sculpted bronze, their sharp features catching the light as if they were statues carved by cruel gods. Their eyes glowed a pupil-less yellow, radiating in the smoke. They raised their fists, and bolts of golden energy cracked through the air, vaporizing soldiers, blasting apart tanks, and leveling streets in seconds.
Bullets bounced off them like rain. Grenades burst harmlessly against their skin. Even concentrated machine-gun fire barely slowed them. Men screamed as they watched their weapons fail. A Zar' Eth caught one soldier by the throat and hurled him fifty feet into a wall. Another ripped the turret from a Sherman tank and crushed the crew beneath it.
Only bazookas, mines, and sheer luck seemed to make them bleed.
Chris Reeves stood in a command tent outside the city, eyes wide as he scribbled frantic notes from the projector feed. "This isn't physics," he whispered. "They're pulling energy from another dimension. Living conductors of it."
Beside him, Cecil gripped his helmet, jaw tight as the feed showed Zar' Eth warriors cutting through human lines with contemptuous ease. "All I know is they're not Nazis. And they're killing everything in sight."
A colonel barked orders, slamming his fist on the table. "Get the Supes in there! Now!"
For the first time, Soldier Boy and Payback were rushed not to a stage or camera, but to the front lines. Soldier Boy's leg bounced with nerves as he gripped his shield. Crimson Countess flexed her fingers, sparks flickering. Gunpowder kissed a bullet for luck. Mindstorm sat pale and silent, sweat dripping down his brow. Black Noir said nothing at all—he sat perfectly still, sharpening twin blades with slow, precise strokes, the black of his suit drinking the light.
"They've been playing heroes," Cecil muttered. "Let's see if they can be them."
The streets of Berlin became slaughter. Zar' Eth warriors marched without fear, energy blasts tearing through buildings, fists smashing through barricades. German and Allied soldiers fled side by side, united only in terror.
Then Payback hit. Soldier Boy charged first, shield raised. A bolt slammed into it, throwing him through a storefront, but he staggered back out, bloody and furious. Crimson Countess unleashed a storm of fire, searing golden flesh. Gunpowder's rounds tore through Zar' Eth throats and glowing eyes, finally dropping a few. Mindstorm screamed psionic force into the streets, staggering the invaders long enough for his team to strike.
Black Noir moved like a shadow among flames. He vaulted a collapsed balcony, landed on the back of a Zar' Eth, and drove both blades down at the collar seam where living alloy flexed. Golden ichor sprayed. Another invader swung; Noir ducked, slid under, and opened both hamstrings with a cross-cut. When a blast took the corner off a building and hurled Gunpowder across the street, Noir was already there, catching the next alien's wrist, twisting, and burying a knife straight into the glowing eye. He never spoke, never celebrated—just flowed to the next target.
They weren't perfect. They weren't polished. But they fought—and they bled. For the first time, the propaganda mascots became soldiers.
And then the ground shook.
From the smoke stepped a man with long hair and a blade that caught the firelight. He moved with brutal grace, carving through a Zar' Eth as if it were flesh and not living alloy. Another struck him, snapping bone, but he rose again moments later, wounds knitting before stunned eyes. He decapitated his attacker and pressed on, unstoppable.
Soldiers gasped. "Who the hell is that?"
Through his binoculars, Cecil's brow furrowed. "That ain't one of ours."
It was the first recorded appearance of the Immortal. Until now, he had been nothing but whispers in history, a man who appeared across centuries and was dismissed as myth. But here he stood, bloodied, defiant, and very real.
And he wasn't alone. Reports crackled across radios from Europe and Asia—strange men and women appearing on battlefields, gifted with powers no science had given them. Some could fly. Others bent steel with their hands. A few glowed with strange energies. They had always existed, anomalies hidden in the shadows of history. The Zar' Eth invasion dragged them into the open.
The world would later argue whether they were anomalies of nature, or whether something older stirred them awake. But to Chris, scribbling equations and sketches with trembling hands, it meant one thing: Compound V wasn't the only path to power. The world had changed, and it wasn't going back.
Hours later, Chris stepped through streets littered with bodies—human and alien alike. He bent over a fallen Zar' Eth, tracing the golden skin, sketching its glowing core. His fingers trembled with both awe and obsession. Above its cracked chest, its eyes still burned faintly, yellow light dimming like dying embers. Nearby, Black Noir crouched alone on a slab of broken masonry, the front of his suit scorched where a near-miss had kissed his ribs. He tightened a fresh wrap around his forearm, blades laid out beside him with ritual care. He didn't look up when Soldier Boy limped past. He didn't need to. He had already returned to stillness.
That night, radios in New York played triumphant reports: "Our heroes, Payback, have driven back the invaders! Soldier Boy stood tall against the alien menace!"
But Chris knew the truth. The Zar' Eth weren't beaten. They were testing Earth. The golden gates still pulsed. More would come.
He stared at the faintly glowing husk of a captured Zar' Eth wormhole gate, its light throbbing steady like a heartbeat. His pencil scratched across his notes, faster and faster, as Cecil lit a cigarette beside him.
"What if the answer isn't just fighting them," Chris murmured, "but understanding them? Harnessing what they are?"
Cecil exhaled smoke into the night. "Kid, sometimes trying to understand the devil just makes you burn faster."
Chris didn't answer. His eyes were already locked on the glow, seeing not a weapon—but a future.