The Citadel – Flaxan DimensionTime Elapsed: 1 Year, 11 Months:
"Gravity at 300 times Earth norm," a Mauler Twin announced over the intercom, his voice distorted by the magnetic shielding.
"Stabilizing."
I didn't answer. I couldn't. The air in the chamber was so heavy it felt like I was breathing soup. My bones creaked, audible grinding protesting against the sheer weight of existence. Every movement was a war against physics.
I was doing handstand push-ups.
"One," I grunted, sweat pooling instantly on the floor beneath me.
"Heart rate is elevated but steady," Angstrom noted from the observation deck. "His muscle density has increased by 40% since arrival. The smart atoms are adapting faster than predicted."
"Two."
I pushed back up. My arms shook, veins bulging against my skin like bridge cables.
This wasn't just exercise; this was torture. But it was necessary. I remembered the feeling of Battle Beast's mace caving in my chest. I remembered how helpless I felt. How breakable I was.
"Three."
I collapsed. The gravity field slammed me into the floor mats, pinning me there like a bug under a thumb.
"Kill it," I wheezed.
The hum died down. The oppressive weight vanished, leaving me feeling weightless. I took a deep, greedy breath of air.
"That's a new personal best," Mauler said, walking into the room with a towel and a specialized protein shake that was made to enhance recovery. "You're getting scary, kid."
I sat up, wiping the stinging sweat from my eyes. I looked different. My shoulders were broader, my neck thicker. I had a few new scars from the combat simulations I'd been fighting for nearly two years.
"Not scary enough," I muttered, chugging the shake in one go. "Not yet."
"You have twelve hours left before your return," Angstrom reminded me, looking at his data pad. "We have one final simulation."
"Load it up," I said, standing up and flexing the stiffness out of my joints. "I'm not leaving until I can tear a tank in half like it's wet cardboard."
Twelve Hours Later…
The simulation room was a wreck. Holographic emitters were smoking, and the smell of ozone hung heavy in the air.
I stood in the center of it all, chest heaving, knuckles bruised. But I was standing.
"Simulation complete," Angstrom's voice came over the speaker. "Performance rating: Optimal."
Meaning, I was getting my ass whooped, but survived somehow.
I walked to the locker room and looked in the mirror. A stranger stared back. I had a thick beard now, unkempt hair, and the eyes of a person who had battled constantly for twenty-four months.
"Ugh, I look like I beg for change near the freeway."
I grabbed a razor—specifically designed by the Maulers to cut Viltrumite hair—and began the process of de-aging myself. The beard fell away, revealing the face of a high school senior. I trimmed my hair back to its usual length.
Gotta get my shit straight again. My lining's all fucked up.
I looked in the mirror again and I felt improved.
"You ready?" Angstrom asked, leaning against the doorframe.
"Yea," I said, pulling on a fresh set of Earth clothes—jeans and a hoodie that now fit a little tighter. "Will the soldiers be ready? I'm going to need them when the time comes."
"They'll be prepared," he assured me. "Just give the signal."
I nodded and we made our way towards the portal room. I stepped onto the platform. The green energy swirled, a window back to a world that had only aged a day.
I stepped through and the shift was jarring.
One second I was in a high-tech fortress; the next, I was standing in the original woods at left from. The gravity felt nonexistent. I felt light, floaty, like I could jump into orbit by sneezing. I took a second to recalibrate my strength so I didn't accidentally crush a tree while leaning against it.
I took a breath. The air was thin compared to the Citadel, but it smelled like pine and rain. It smelled like home.
I dug up my phone from under the root where I'd stashed it. I didn't know how the dilation would have affected the battery, so I had powered it down. It booted up fine. Everything seemed normal except for a recent text from Eve sent a few hours ago with a GPS pin drop.
She's close. I should pop in. I've been stuck in a sausage fest for the last 2 years, I might as well unwind a little.
I launched into the air—controlling the sonic boom so I didn't announce my arrival to the whole state—and drifted toward the coordinates.
Through the canopy, I spotted a flash of pink. A treehouse, but not one built with wood and nails. This one was grown, warped into a perfect living space. Eve was sitting on a branch, legs dangling, looking out over the forest.
I landed softly on the branch next to her.
"Yo, Eve."
She jumped, nearly blasting me with a construct shield. "Mark? Jesus, you scared me."
She seemed well. Relaxed. The 'finding herself' journey seemed to be working.
"My bad. Just wanted to see how the whole 'one with nature' thing was going."
"It's going well," she said, the tension leaving her shoulders. She looked me up and down, her eyes narrowing slightly. "You look... different, Mark. Have you been working out more?"
"Something like that," I shrugged. "It must be my physiology. It's always adapting."
"Well, it shows. You look..." She trailed off, searching for the word, her eyes lingering for a second longer than usual. "Solid."
Solid? The fuck?
Before I could respond back, her eyes darted upwards. "What is that?" she said, a big plume of smoke clearing in the sky.
I shrugged. "It might be something or it might be nothing. You know how these things go."
She stood from the branch. "We should check in with Cecil, maybe he'll know."
"Ight. Might as well see what's happenin'," I said.
Eve waved her hand, and pink energy washed over me, replacing my civilian clothes with my yellow and blue suit.
We took off. As we got closer, the vibrations in the air got intense. Whatever was hitting the ground was hitting it hard.
Eve tapped her earpiece frantically. "Cecil? Cecil, come in! The network is jammed. I can't get a signal!"
"Just keep flying!" I yelled over the wind.
We broke through the cloud layer near Chicago, and the scene was chaotic. A massive, tentacled Kaiju—a Class-5 nightmare—was tearing through the downtown area. And there was a red blur smashing into it.
Oh shit. Is it happening right now? Is Omni-Man crashing out?
"Eve, hang back! Try to get that signal working!" I shouted. "I'm going in!"
"Mark, wait!"
I dove downwards fast.
"Need a hand?!"
Nolan looked up as he backhanded a tentacle the size of a subway train. He didn't look relieved; he looked furious. His eyes were wild, darting between the monster and me, like he'd been tearing the city apart looking for something other than the Kaiju.
"Where the hell have you been?!" Nolan roared, his voice tight with stress. "I've been looking everywhere for you!"
"I was busy!" I yelled back, feigning innocence.
"We don't have time for this!" Nolan snapped, ducking a massive claw. "Just flank him! We need to end this now!"
"On it!"
I caught its claw. WHAM. The impact shook my bones, but I didn't fly back. I dug my fingers into its hard upper shell, spun in the air using the momentum, and pulled.
"Hit the eyes!" I yelled, acting the part of the good soldier.
Nolan didn't hesitate. He drove both fists into the creature's ocular cavities. The beast shrieked, thrashing wildly.
"It's not going down!" Nolan shouted, wiping slime from his visage.
I scanned the area. High-tension power lines ran along a nearby bridge.
"Grab the tail!" I yelled. "We need to fry it!"
Nolan dove and grabbed the massive, scaled tail. I locked my arms around the head, struggling to keep the snapping jaws away from my face.
"On three!" I shouted, muscles straining. "One! Two—"
"MURDERER!"
The scream tore through the sky, louder than the monster.
Before I could say "three," a sonic boom shattered the air. A blur of blue and gold slammed into my father with the force of a freight train. Nolan lost his grip on the tail, knocked clean out of the sky.
"What?!" I screamed.
The weight of the Kaiju shifted entirely onto me. The beast sensed the freedom; it twisted, whipping its tail around and catching me in the ribs. I gasped, tumbling toward the river, barely keeping my grip on its neck.
Above me, the Immortal—alive, deranged, and furious—was hammering Nolan with punches that cracked like thunder.
"You killed them!" Immortal screamed, his eyes glowing with hate. "You killed us all!"
"Get off me!" Nolan roared, shoving him back, but the Immortal dove in again, relentless.
I was on my own.
The Kaiju snapped at me, its teeth grazing my suit. I gritted my teeth, grabbed the beast by the throat with both hands, and flew upward with everything I had.
"Just... die already!"
I spun in the air, using the momentum to hurl the beast downward. It crashed directly onto the high-tension lines.
ZZZZZACK!
Millions of volts surged through the wet Kaiju. It convulsed violently, lighting up the Chicago skyline blue and white. It shrieked one last time, fried from the inside out, before slumping off the wires and splashing dead into the river.
Panting, I floated there for a second, wiping sweat and slime from my face.
Damn, that was tougher than I expected.
I looked up. High above, illuminated by the spotlights of hovering news helicopters, the Immortal had Nolan in a chokehold.
"Liar!" Immortal shrieked, striking Nolan in the jaw, drawing blood. "I saw you! The Globe! You slaughtered us!"
Nolan's face changed instantly. "Enough!" he growled.
He moved faster than the news choppers circling us could track. He twisted the Immortal's arm, pulling him close. Then, with a sickening SHING, he drove a stiffened hand straight through the Immortal's chest.
Blood sprayed across the lens of the nearest news camera. The two halves of the Immortal tumbled from the sky, falling wetly to the ground below.
The only thing heard was the whirring of the helicopter blades, broadcasting everything to millions of people watching live.
So, it's about to go down.
Nolan floated there, blood dripping from his gloves. He didn't look at the body. He looked at the cameras, cold and unbothered, and then he turned his gaze to me.
"Mark," he said, his voice terrifyingly calm. "We need to talk."
Nolan didn't wait for the helicopters to get a closer look. He shot upward, breaking the sound barrier instantly. The boom rattled the windows of the skyscrapers below.
I followed, pushing my speed to match him. We ascended past the cloud layer, the city lights fading into a dull glow beneath us. The air grew thin and freezing, but neither of us flinched.
He finally stopped miles above the surface, hovering in the silence of the upper atmosphere. He turned to face me. The blood on his gloves had frozen into dark, jagged crystals.
"Pops," I said, keeping my voice shaky, playing the part. "The Immortal... the Guardians... tell me it's not true."
Nolan stared at me. There was no warmth in his eyes. No fatherly concern. Just a cold, calculating assessment.
His eyes narrowed slightly. He drifted closer, his gaze sweeping over my shoulders, my chest, the way I held myself in the air. He frowned, tilting his head.
"You've changed," Nolan murmured, almost to himself. "You're denser. Heavier than you were this morning."
He noticed, I thought. Of course he noticed. You can shave a beard, but you can't hide muscle density from a Viltrumite.
"You know me, always training" I said, tightening my fists.
Nolan studied me for a second longer, a flicker of something—maybe pride, maybe suspicion—crossing his face. Then he brushed it aside.
"The time for lies is over, Mark," he said, his voice flat. "You've come into your power. You're stronger than I expected. You're ready for the truth."
He drifted closer, towering over me.
"Viltrum isn't a peacekeeping organization. We aren't a benevolent charity sent to help lesser civilizations develop. We are an empire. The most powerful empire in the history of the universe."
Oh brother, I thought. He's not entirely wrong, but still.
"We expand," Nolan continued, gesturing to the stars. "We conquer. We bring order to chaos. By force, if necessary. And Earth? Earth is just another outpost. It isn't ours to protect, Mark. It's ours to rule."
I stared at him, letting the "shock" wash over my face. "Rule? Pops, these are people. Mom is one of them."
Nolan's expression flickered briefly, but got reigned in fast. "Your mother is a credit to her species. But that's all she is. A species. They live for a blink of an eye. We live for thousands of years. To us... she's more like a pet."
Naaaaaaaaah. I gotta beat his ass for her.
"A pet," I repeated, dropping the act. "Is that what you think of her?! Is that what you think of me?!"
"You are a Viltrumite!" Nolan snapped. "You are my blood! That is why I killed the Guardians. They were a threat to our mission. They were obstacles. And now that they are gone, nothing stands in our way. We can bring this world into the Empire. We can stop the wars, the hunger, the petty squabbles. We can give them order."
He held out a bloody hand.
"Join me, Mark. Think of what we can accomplish. We can create a paradise here. Or... we can burn it down and start over. It's your choice."
I looked at his hand. The hand that had taught me to throw a baseball. The hand that had just sliced the Immortal in half.
I took a deep breath, the cold air filling my lungs. I didn't need to fake the emotion anymore.
"You want the truth?" I asked.
Nolan waited, expecting submission.
"I'd rather die than do that."
Nolan's eyes narrowed. The disappointment was palpable, quickly replaced by a simmering rage. "I was afraid you'd say that."
"You don't care about order," I said, clenching my fists. "You're just a murderer with a god complex."
"I am trying to save you from a life of mediocrity!" Nolan shouted. "I am trying to show you your true purpose! Why do you resist?"
"Because I'm not just a Viltrumite," I yelled back. "I'm human, too!"
Should I start singing? Maybe it'll heal his heart or something.
Nolan sighed—a long, weary exhalation. Then he moved.
WHAM.
He moved faster than I could think. His fist connected with my stomach, driving the wind out of me and launching me backward through the sky. I smashed through a cloud bank, tumbling end over end.
I corrected my spin, gasping for air, clutching my abdomen.
Holy Fucking Shit!
Nolan dove through the clouds after me, a red-and-white blur of destruction.
"If you won't listen to reason," Nolan roared, closing the distance, "then I will beat the lesson into you!"
I gritted my teeth and flew forward to meet him.
"Try it!"
We collided.
The force didn't just break the sound barrier; it shattered it. A shockwave rippled out instantly, likely blowing out windows in three different states.
My fists slammed into his forearms, and for the first time, I didn't bounce off. I dug my fingers into his suit, anchoring myself in mid-air.
Nolan's eyes widened. He expected me to crumble. Instead, I twisted my hips, using the leverage techniques I trained in and threw a knee straight into his stomach.
OOF.
Air left his lungs. It wasn't a knockout blow, but he felt it.
"I told you!" I shouted, swinging a heavy right hook. "I'm always training!"
Nolan caught my fist, his expression shifting from annoyance to genuine surprise. He grunted, twisting my wrist. "You've gotten stronger. Good."
He headbutted me.
CRACK.
My nose exploded. Blood filled my mouth, metallic and hot. But I didn't reel back. I stepped into the pain. I used his grip on my wrist to pull myself closer and slammed my forehead right back into the bridge of his nose.
THWACK.
Nolan stumbled back, releasing me. He touched his nose, his glove coming away red. He stared at the blood, then at me.
"You actually..." he started, his voice low.
"Mom's not a pet," I spat, blood dripping down my chin. "And I'm not a child."
"Then stop fighting like one!"
He blurred forward. I blocked the first two strikes—forearm, parry—but the third one caught me in the solar plexus. It felt like a cannonball. I wheezed, doubling over, but as he moved to grab my neck, I grabbed his cape.
I spun, hurling him downward with enough force to turn him into a meteor.
Nolan corrected himself instantly, stopping his fall with a sonic boom. "Enough!"
He flew up, catching me by the waist. He didn't punch; he just accelerated. We plummeted. The friction of the air heated my suit instantly. I saw the grid of Chicago rushing up to meet me—the lights, the cars, the people.
I tried to flare my arms, to slow my descent, but Nolan slammed his boot into the small of my back.
"Look at them!" he roared.
We hit the atmosphere's lower layers, turning into a streaking fireball.
I gritted my teeth. Then, I stopped fighting the fall. I spun with it, grabbing his boot and twisting. I used his own momentum to swing him under me.
"Get off me!"
I blasted him with an uppercut. It connected flush with his jaw, snapping his head back with a sickening pop. A tooth flew out, spinning away into the slipstream.
Nolan looked at me, spitting blood. He looked... impressed, but pissed.
Well, that's not good.
He grabbed my face, his fingers digging into my cheeks, and drove us straight down.
BOOOOOOM.
We slammed into the streets of downtown Chicago.
I rolled to my feet instantly, ignoring the screaming nerves in my back. There was no time to rest.
He's coming. I need to call them now!
Nolan floated above the devastation, cape billowing in the smoke. He wiped blood from his chin. His nose was crooked.
"Why do you make me do this?" he asked, sounding genuinely pained, but also breathless. "You're fighting for something that doesn't matter!"
"It matters to me," I rasped, taking a combat stance.
Nolan shook his head. "Then you need to see. You need to see the truth."
He lunged.
I didn't dodge. I slipped the punch, stepping inside his guard. I buried a left hook into his ribs—I felt the bone crack a little—and followed with an uppercut that lifted him off his feet.
He crashed through the support pillar of a bank. The concrete shattered like glass. The building groaned, tilting ominously.
Here's my chance. I thought as I quickly pressed the button on my wristed communication device.
"You want to save them?" Nolan yelled, exploding out of the rubble. He looked battered now. Bruises forming on his jaw. He tore a light pole out of the ground and swung it like a baseball bat.
CLANG.
I caught the pole. The metal bent around my hand.
"Then stop me!" he roared.
I ripped the pole from his hands and tossed it aside. I tackled him around the waist, and steered him away from the city.
"Where are you going?!" Nolan roared, hammering my back with his elbows. Each hit felt like a sledgehammer, but I held on.
I pushed every ounce of speed I had, driving us West. We became a blur, smashing through the sound barrier, leaving the shattering glass of Chicago behind. The city gave way to suburbs, and suburbs gave way to empty, dark farmland.
We hit the ground in the middle of a cornfield, tearing a trench of dirt and stalks a hundred yards long.
I rolled away, putting distance between us. My chest was heaving, my suit torn to shreds.
Nolan stood up, brushing dirt from his cape. He wasn't bored anymore. He was panting. He held his side where I'd cracked the rib.
"A change of scenery won't change the outcome, Mark," he said, though he sounded wary now.
He launched himself at me.
Yea, come at me you big bastard, I thought, adrenaline spiking. During the two years spent in that hell dimension, I've come to learn something about heavy hitters.
I didn't dodge. I planted my feet. I waited until he was ten feet away—a missile of pure Viltrumite rage.
They need their ears.
I wound back both arms and slammed my palms together directly in front of his face with everything I had.
BOOOOOOOM!
It wasn't just a noise. It was a focused shockwave of compressed air, a technique I'd spent months perfecting while fighting the Viltrumite simulations. It hit Nolan like a physical wall.
He stopped dead in the air, clutching his head, screaming. His flight wavered as his equilibrium shattered. Blood leaked from his ears.
NOW!
I didn't hesitate. I flew in, unleashing the combo designed specifically for a Viltrumite.
Throat. Solar plexus. Knee to the chin. Double-fist slam to the back.
THWACK. CRACK. THUD.
Nolan hit the dirt face-first.
I spun, catching him with a roundhouse kick as he tried to rise. It sent him tumbling backward through the dirt, snapping cornstalks like twigs.
I landed, panting, fists clenched. I'm doing it. I'm actually putting significant pressure on him.
Nolan slowly got to his knees. He coughed, a wet, hacking sound. He looked at the red smear on his glove. He looked at me, his eyes wide. He wasn't looking at a child anymore. He was looking at a threat to the Empire.
"A cheap trick," Nolan spat, forcing himself up. He was swaying.
"It worked though," I said, stepping forward.
He looked at me with cold, terrifying focus. "School's out, Mark."
He vanished.
What—
Before my brain could register his movement, he was behind me. He hadn't been using his full speed before. He was testing me. Now, he was ending it.
A fist buried itself in my stomach. The air left my lungs instantly.
WHAM.
He grabbed my ankle, spun me around with speed that made the world blur, and slammed me into the earth. The impact cratered the field. I tried to rise, but a boot pinned my chest down.
"You have spirit," Nolan roared, "but you lack discipline!"
He reached down, grabbed my leg, and twisted.
SNAP.
"AAAAHHH!" I screamed, the pain blinding me. The leverage... I couldn't fight the leverage.
Oh, shit!
He picked me up by the throat. I tried to swing at him, but he caught my fist and crushed it.
"Ahhhhh!" I gasped.
He began to pummel me. It wasn't a fight anymore. It was an execution.
THUD. "You're fighting..." THUD. "...for dust!" THUD.
He threw me. I skipped across the dirt like a stone on water, finally coming to a stop near a silo. I couldn't feel my left arm. My face felt like hamburger meat. One of my eyes was swollen shut.
I lay there, wheezing, staring up at the stars.
Okay... yea... maybe we should let him take over.
Nolan landed softly a few feet away. He was breathing hard, favoring his ribs, wiping blood from his nose. I had hurt him. I had made him bleed. But I hadn't stopped him.
He walked over, towering above me, his shadow blocking out the moon.
"Why, Mark?" he yelled, his voice cracking with frustration. "Why'd you make me do this?"
He crouched down, grabbing a handful of dirt and letting it crumble through his fingers.
"You'll outlast every fragile, insignificant being on this planet. You'll live to see this world crumble to dust and blow away! Everyone and everything you know will be gone!"
He leaned in, his face inches from mine, his eyes wild. "What will you have after five hundred years?"
Silence settled over the field. The only sound was the wind rusting the corn and my own ragged breathing.
I coughed, blood splattering the ground.
Groaning, I placed my good hand on the dirt. I pushed. My muscles screamed, my broken leg burned with white-hot agony, but I pushed.
Nolan watched, his brow furrowing. "Stay down."
I didn't listen. I wobbled, my knees shaking violently, and forced myself upright. I swayed, nearly falling, but I locked my knees. I stood there, broken, bleeding, barely holding onto consciousness.
"I can do this all day," I let out, exhaustedly.
Nolan stared at me, his fists clenching, ready to finish it. But then, I lifted my shaking arm and pointed a finger right at his chest.
And I looked him in the eye.
"You," I whispered, my voice rough but steady. "I'd still have you."
Nolan froze.
The rage on his face didn't just fade; it shattered. He stared at me, his mouth slightly open, the Viltrumite conqueror dissolving into something else. Something human.
He looked at his fist, then he looked at me—standing there, refusing to fight, in the face of death.
His face contorted into a pained expression. He took a step back. Then another. He looked at the sky, then back at me, terror in his eyes—terror of what he had done.
WOOSH.
Nolan shot into the sky. He didn't look back. He tore through the atmosphere, a streak of white light disappearing into the black void of space, leaving me alone in the dark, silent field.
Thank goodness! I couldn't take another ass whooping. I in fact could not do this all day.
Relief washed through my body. Then my legs gave out.
I'm so fucking tired. We'd been fighting for hours.
I hit the dirt ungracefully. Before everything went black.
GLUB... GLUB... GLUB.
I opened my eyes and everything was green.
I was floating. Weightless. Suspended in a thick, translucent gel that smelled like ozone and crushed mint. It pressed against my skin, heavy and warm, vibrating slightly as if it were alive. I tried to take a breath, but a respirator clamped over my nose and mouth forced oxygen into my lungs.
I blinked, my vision blurry. Through the curved glass of the cylinder, I saw distorted shapes. Blue skin. Various technologies. And a man in a trench coat.
My brain felt like mush, but the pain—the bone-deep, screaming agony from the cornfield—was gone. It was replaced by a dull, throbbing ache, like I'd done a workout that lasted a week.
HISSSSSSSSS.
The fluid began to drain, swirling down a grate at my feet. It was thick, sticking to my skin like syrup before sliding off. The glass cylinder in front of me split open with a hydraulic whine.
I stumbled forward, my legs feeling like jelly.
"Easy, subject," a deep, gravelly voice said. A massive blue hand caught me by the shoulder before I could faceplant onto the metal grating of the floor. "The bio-slurry numbs the motor functions. Give your synaptic nerves a moment to fire."
I coughed, ripping the mask off my face. "Ugh. It tastes like copper."
I looked up. The Mauler Twins stood over me, checking a holographic display that projected from the base of the tank. Behind them, leaning against a console with a smug look on his face, was Angstrom Levy.
We weren't in a hospital. We were in a laboratory—a mishmash of high-tech chrome and rusted industrial beams. Through the high windows, the sky was a sickly, swirling purple.
"The Flaxan Dimension," I said, wiping the green slime from my eyes.
"Welcome back to the land of the living," Angstrom said, stepping forward. "You cut it close, Mark. Another ten minutes and your father would have turned your internal organs into external ones."
I looked down at my body. I was wearing nothing but a pair of compression shorts. My chest, which had been a crater, was smooth. I looked at my leg—the one Nolan had snapped. It was straight. There was a faint, pink scar line, but it held my weight.
"The tank," one of the Maulers said, tapping the glass. "It's a high-density nutrient bath. It forces your cells to divide and repair at an accelerated rate. We had to synthesize a compound specifically for your Viltrumite physiology."
"I synthesized it," the other Mauler corrected sharply. "You merely adjusted the viscosity."
"I stabilized the formula so it wouldn't dissolve his skin!"
"Focus," Angstrom interrupted, rolling his eyes.
I shook my head, trying to clear the fog. "The signal... it worked?"
"Barely," Angstrom said. "As soon as you hit the button, we had to wait a moment, before opening portals and deploying multiple battalions of Flaxan shock troopers into the city. Creating a big diversion for the GDA."
"What about Cecil?" I asked.
"The teleporter guy? You don't have to worry about that," Angstrom assured. "We made sure you were seen being taken."
"And my old man? What happened to him?"
"He left the solar system," a Mauler said. "Where he's gone is anyone's guess."
I walked over to a polished metal panel on the wall. I looked at myself. No bruises. No blood. Just the memory of Nolan's fist and the look of terror in his eyes before he flew away.
"Perfect," I whispered. "That buys me time."
"Time for what?" the second Mauler asked, handing me a towel.
I took the towel and draped it over my shoulders.
"Time to figure out how to prepare for when he comes back," I said. "And time to make sure that when I go back to Earth, I'm strong enough to counter other threats."
I looked at Angstrom.
"How long was I out?"
Angstrom tapped his temple. "On Earth? About three hours. Here? You've been floating in that juice for three months."
Three months?! Jesus!
"Not bad," I said, clenching my fist. The strength was there. Buried, but there. "Let's get to work."