Nick Fury stared at the communication logs on his desk with the kind of focused intensity that usually preceded someone having a very bad day. The logs showed a series of attempted contacts—seventeen in total over the past six weeks—each one sent through the channels that had been established during their meeting, each one ignored with what could only be described as deliberate and absolute contempt.
"He's not responding," Maria Hill said, stating the obvious in the way she did when she wanted to make a point without explicitly making it. "He hasn't responded to a single check-in request. He hasn't acknowledged any of our intelligence sharing. He hasn't even opened the encrypted files we've been sending."
"I can see that."
"The agreement was that he would check in regularly."
"I remember the agreement. I was there."
Hill paused, consulting her tablet. "We've confirmed at least twelve operations he's conducted since our meeting. All successful. All fitting his established pattern of targeting human traffickers, weapons dealers, and organized crime figures with particularly egregious records. He's not deviating from his methodology."
"He's just ignoring us completely."
"Yes, sir."
Fury leaned back in his chair and contemplated the ceiling, which offered no insights into the psychology of silent alien bounty hunters who apparently viewed formal agreements as suggestions rather than obligations.
The situation was frustrating on multiple levels. Sylux was clearly not hostile to SHIELD's broader objectives—his targets aligned remarkably well with their own priority lists, and several of the criminals he had eliminated had been on their radar for months without any viable approach strategy. In a sense, he was doing them favors.
But he was doing those favors without coordination, without communication, without any acknowledgment that SHIELD existed or had any authority over his operations. He was acting as a completely independent agent in their territory, and that kind of autonomy was not something Fury could allow to continue indefinitely.
"What about Spider-Woman?" he asked. "She's still in contact with him?"
"Regularly. Our surveillance confirms she's been present at or near seven of his twelve confirmed operations. She doesn't seem to be directing his activities—more like she's... accompanying him."
"Can we use her to establish communication?"
Hill's expression suggested she found this option distasteful. "We could try. But our previous attempts to recruit her into a more formal relationship with SHIELD have been unsuccessful. She seems to prefer operating independently."
"Like him."
"Like him."
Fury considered his options. Direct confrontation had limited appeal—they had seen what Sylux could do to the Hulk, and while SHIELD had resources that exceeded a single gamma-enhanced individual, the cost of a confrontation would likely be prohibitive. Diplomatic approaches had failed. Surveillance continued, but produced nothing actionable.
The remaining option was intervention. If Sylux wouldn't come to them, they would go to Sylux.
"Next time we detect one of his operations in progress," Fury said, "I want a team on site. Not to engage—to observe. Make contact if possible. Remind him that we have an arrangement and we expect him to honor it."
"And if he doesn't respond to the reminder?"
"Then we escalate. Carefully."
Hill nodded and left to make the arrangements.
Fury returned his attention to the communication logs, reading through the ignored messages one more time. Each one was polite, professional, exactly the kind of diplomatic outreach that should have produced at least an acknowledgment.
Nothing.
It was, he had to admit, almost impressive. He had never encountered anyone who could ignore SHIELD so thoroughly and so consistently. Even their most recalcitrant assets usually responded eventually, if only to tell them to stop calling.
Sylux didn't even do that.
He just operated in complete silence, as if the entire organization simply didn't exist.
Fury found himself wondering if this was personal, or if the alien simply didn't care about anything beyond his immediate objectives. Either way, it was a problem that needed solving.
The opportunity came eleven days later.
Sylux had been tracking a particularly elusive target for approximately three weeks: a man named Heinrich Volkov who operated a network of laboratories that conducted human experimentation for various clients who preferred their research subjects untraceable and their results unreported. The work being done in those laboratories was monstrous—Sylux had accessed enough data to confirm that much—and Volkov himself was directly responsible for the deaths of at least four hundred people whose only crime had been being vulnerable enough to be acquired.
The target was challenging for several reasons. Volkov was paranoid, security-conscious, and protected by a private army that was better equipped and trained than most national militaries. His laboratories were distributed across multiple locations, making a single decisive strike impossible. And he had connections—political, criminal, corporate—that allowed him to operate with near-impunity despite the nature of his work.
Sylux had spent three weeks mapping those connections, identifying the locations of every laboratory, and developing a strategy that would eliminate not just Volkov but his entire operation in a single coordinated action.
The primary facility was in New Jersey, hidden beneath a pharmaceutical company that served as a legitimate front for decidedly illegitimate activities. Sylux had observed the security rotations, mapped the underground complex through ground-penetrating sensors, and identified the optimal entry points for maximum efficiency.
He struck at 2:47 AM on a Thursday.
The outer perimeter guards died before they knew they were under attack—not unconscious, not incapacitated, but dead, because Sylux had reviewed the personnel files for this facility and determined that everyone employed here knew exactly what was happening in the laboratories below. There were no innocent workers, no unwitting accomplices, no one who could claim ignorance of the horrors they were enabling.
His previous reluctance toward lethal force did not apply here.
The Shock Coil hummed as he moved through the facility, and every encounter ended the same way: a brief moment of terrified recognition, a desperate attempt to raise weapons or sound alarms, and then the draining. Bodies fell in his wake, guards and researchers and administrators who had made their choices and were now experiencing the consequences.
He felt nothing.
He had stopped expecting to feel anything about these situations. The part of him that had once been Marcus from Ohio—the part that had felt guilt over minor social infractions and apologized to inanimate objects—seemed to have been subsumed entirely by whatever Sylux was. He wasn't sure if this was a feature or a bug of his new existence, but it made his work significantly easier.
The laboratories were in the deepest level of the underground complex, and what he found there confirmed every assessment he had made about the nature of Volkov's operation. Rows of containment cells held subjects in various states of experimentation—some alive, some dead, some in conditions that defied easy categorization. Equipment hummed with the particular frequencies of medical devices that had been repurposed for purposes their designers never intended.
Sylux documented everything. The evidence would be useful for destroying what remained of Volkov's network after the primary operation was complete.
He was in the process of accessing the facility's central database when his sensors detected incoming aircraft.
Multiple contacts. SHIELD quinjets, based on their energy signatures and flight patterns. Converging on his location with the kind of speed and precision that suggested they had been waiting for exactly this opportunity.
His first reaction was irritation.
His second reaction was to calculate the optimal response to this interruption, which presented several options ranging from "ignore them and continue the operation" to "engage and neutralize the interference."
He chose to continue the operation. SHIELD's presence was an annoyance, not a threat, and his primary objective—the elimination of Volkov and the destruction of his laboratories—took priority over managing relationships with intelligence agencies that couldn't take a hint.
Volkov was in a secure room at the heart of the laboratory complex, surrounded by the last of his personal security and apparently preparing for emergency evacuation. Sylux moved through the intervening corridors with the same methodical efficiency that had characterized the entire operation, eliminating resistance as it presented itself.
The SHIELD team made entry approximately three minutes after his sensors first detected their approach.
He was aware of their presence—his systems tracked their movements through the facility, noting their tactical deployment and the caution with which they advanced through the evidence of his work. They found bodies. They found the remnants of security systems that had been systematically dismantled. They found the aftermath of what happened when someone interrupted one of Sylux's jobs by being in his way.
He reached Volkov's secure room before they reached him.
The door was reinforced steel, designed to withstand significant assault. The Shock Coil cut through it in approximately four seconds, the metal glowing and then failing as the weapon drained the very molecular bonds that held it together.
Inside, Volkov was surrounded by six guards who immediately opened fire.
Sylux walked through the bullets. They impacted his armor and accomplished nothing, kinetic energy absorbed and converted, the guards' desperate defense meaningless against technology they couldn't comprehend. He reached the first guard in three strides and the Shock Coil activated.
The man didn't even have time to scream. The draining was immediate and total, his body collapsing like a puppet with cut strings, and Sylux was already moving to the next target before the corpse hit the ground.
Three. Four. Five.
The sixth guard threw down his weapon and raised his hands, terror overwhelming whatever training or loyalty had kept him at his post.
"Please," he said. "Please, I'll tell you anything. I'll give you everything. Just don't—"
The Shock Coil activated anyway.
Sylux didn't have time for prisoners and didn't have interest in mercy for people who had chosen to protect a monster. The guard fell like the others, and then there was only Volkov himself, backed against the far wall with an expression that suggested he was finally understanding that wealth and connections couldn't protect him from everything.
"You can't do this," Volkov said, and his voice was steady despite the circumstances—the steadiness of a man who had seen terrible things and caused terrible things and had convinced himself that he was beyond consequence. "I have arrangements. Agreements. People who will—"
Sylux grabbed him by the throat.
"The data," Volkov gasped. "I have data. Valuable data. Research that could—"
The Shock Coil activated at full power.
Volkov died badly, and slowly, and in a way that would have haunted Marcus from Ohio for the rest of his life. Sylux watched with clinical detachment, monitoring the energy transfer, noting the efficiency with which the weapon converted a human life into usable power.
When it was done, he dropped the body and turned toward the door.
The SHIELD team was waiting for him in the corridor.
There were twelve of them, arranged in a tactical formation that suggested they had been briefed on his capabilities and had prepared accordingly. They were equipped with heavier weapons than the standard SHIELD loadout—energy-based systems that might actually be able to affect his armor, if they were given the opportunity to fire.
At their head was an agent he recognized from his databases: Jasper Sitwell, a handler with significant experience and connections throughout the organization.
"Sylux," Sitwell said, and his voice carried the particular tone of someone who was very nervous but had been trained to hide it. "We need to talk."
Sylux looked at him.
"Director Fury sent us to remind you of our arrangement. You agreed to check in. You agreed to coordinate. You agreed to be available when called. You've done none of these things."
No response.
"We're not here to fight you. We're here to establish communication. To work together, like civilized—"
Sylux started walking toward them.
The agents tensed, weapons rising, but Sitwell held up a hand to prevent them from firing.
"This doesn't have to be confrontational. We can—"
Sylux didn't stop. He walked directly toward the formation, and the agents—trained professionals, experienced operatives—found themselves instinctively stepping aside rather than standing in his path. He moved through them like water through fingers, completely ignoring their presence, and continued toward the exit.
"Sylux! This isn't over. Director Fury will—"
He was already gone, moving through the corridors of the facility toward the surface with the same efficient pace that characterized all his operations. Behind him, the SHIELD team was left standing among the bodies of Volkov's guards, the evidence of what happened when someone was in Sylux's way impossible to ignore.
Sitwell looked at the fallen guards—at the strange, desiccated quality of their remains, at the expressions of terror frozen on their faces—and felt a chill that had nothing to do with the facility's climate control.
"Sir," one of the agents said quietly, "orders?"
"We don't engage. We observe and report." Sitwell pulled out his communication device. "Director Fury needs to see this."
Above them, Sylux emerged from the facility into the night air, where Spider-Gwen was waiting.
"Hey," she said, and her voice was subdued in a way it usually wasn't. "I saw SHIELD going in. Is everything... are they..."
He looked at her, and she did not do the thigh thing this time. Instead, she seemed to shrink slightly, as if suddenly aware that the entity she had been following around for months was capable of things she hadn't fully considered.
"How many?" she asked quietly.
He didn't answer. He never answered.
"The guards. The security. How many did you..." She trailed off, unable to finish the question.
He began walking toward the location where he had hidden the Delano 7, and after a moment, Spider-Gwen followed. She was silent—truly silent, for once—and the absence of her usual chatter felt significant in a way he couldn't quite articulate.
They reached the ship, and Sylux began the boarding sequence.
"I'm still coming with you," Spider-Gwen said, and there was something in her voice that sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as him. "I know what you just did. I know what those people in there were doing. I know they... I know they probably deserved it. But you didn't even hesitate. You didn't give them a chance to surrender. You just..."
She stopped, apparently unable to continue.
Sylux turned to look at her.
She was standing at the edge of his ship's boarding ramp, arms wrapped around herself in a gesture that suggested she was cold despite the mild weather. Her mask hid most of her expression, but her eyes were visible, and they held a conflict that his limited emotional processing could actually interpret: attraction warring with uncertainty, admiration warring with fear.
He had known, on some level, that this moment would come. That his methods would eventually cross a line that Spider-Gwen couldn't follow him across. That the violence he was capable of would finally register in a way that changed how she saw him.
He should probably say something. Explain himself. Justify his actions. Make her understand that the people he had killed were not victims, were not innocents, were participants in horrors that demanded response.
But he didn't speak. He never spoke. And he wasn't sure he wanted to explain himself anyway.
Instead, he simply held her gaze for a long moment, then nodded once—an acknowledgment of her concerns, if not an apology for causing them—and turned to board his ship.
"Sylux."
He paused.
"I'm still going to follow you. I'm still going to be there. But I need you to know that there's a line. And I'm scared that you don't see it the same way I do."
He didn't respond, because there was nothing to say. She was right—he didn't see the line the same way she did. The line she was describing was a human construct, a moral boundary established by people who had never been transformed into something else, who had never been given power that made conventional ethics feel like suggestions rather than rules.
He was Sylux now. And Sylux hunted. Sylux eliminated threats. Sylux did not hesitate, did not negotiate, did not offer mercy to those who had forfeited any claim to it.
Maybe that made him a monster.
He wasn't sure he cared.
The ship lifted off, leaving Spider-Gwen standing alone in the darkness below, and Sylux allowed himself a moment of something that might have been regret before his emotional processing muted the feeling into irrelevance.
Fury received Sitwell's report approximately two hours later.
The details were presented clinically, professionally, but the implications were clear even through the bureaucratic language: Sylux had eliminated an entire facility's worth of personnel without hesitation, had walked through a SHIELD tactical team like they didn't exist, and had demonstrated a complete and utter disregard for any authority that wasn't his own.
"Casualties?" Fury asked.
"Forty-seven confirmed dead. All security personnel and researchers associated with Volkov's operation. No survivors among the armed resistance." Sitwell paused. "The subjects in the laboratories are being evacuated and treated. Most will survive. Some will need long-term care."
"And our team?"
"No casualties. He... he walked past us. Through us. Like we weren't even there."
Fury absorbed this information, adding it to the growing file on an entity that was becoming more problematic by the day.
"The bodies," he said. "What condition were they in?"
Sitwell's expression suggested he had been hoping to avoid this question. "Desiccated. Drained of something—our medical teams aren't sure what. The same condition as the previous victims associated with his operations, but more... complete. Like he was using full power instead of holding back."
"He wasn't holding back."
"No, sir. He wasn't."
Fury stood and walked to his window, looking out over the facility where his best scientists continued to fail at understanding technology that had been designed by minds that didn't think like humans.
"What are our options?"
"Limited," Sitwell admitted. "We don't have anything that can reliably stop him. The Hulk couldn't stop him. Our weapons are insufficient. We could potentially mobilize the Avengers, but even then..."
"Even then, we'd be starting a war with an entity that just demonstrated it can eliminate forty-seven armed combatants without slowing down."
"Yes, sir."
Fury was silent for a long moment.
"New approach," he finally said. "We stop trying to bring him in. We stop trying to coordinate with him. We treat him as an independent agent with objectives that occasionally align with ours and a methodology we can't control."
"And when his objectives don't align with ours?"
"Then we have a problem. But until that day comes, we watch, we learn, and we prepare." Fury turned back to face Sitwell. "And we stay out of his way. Make sure everyone understands that. No more intervention attempts. No more 'reminders' about arrangements he clearly doesn't care about."
"Understood, sir."
Sitwell left to disseminate the new directives, and Fury returned to contemplating the implications of sharing a planet with something that operated entirely beyond his control.
He had built his career on managing the unmanageable, on establishing relationships with beings that could destroy cities if they chose to. But Sylux was different. Sylux didn't want to be managed. Didn't want to be understood. Didn't want anything except to be left alone to pursue objectives that were opaque and absolute.
The intelligence file on his desk contained everything SHIELD knew about the entity: capabilities, observed behaviors, psychological assessments based on second-hand observation. None of it was particularly useful for predicting what Sylux would do next, because Sylux operated according to a logic that was entirely his own.
Fury made a note to establish contingency protocols for scenarios involving direct confrontation, even though he suspected those protocols would be useless if the confrontation actually occurred.
Some problems couldn't be solved.
Some problems could only be endured.
Meanwhile, in orbit, Sylux reviewed the data he had extracted from Volkov's facility and began planning operations against the remaining nodes of the network. There was work to be done, and he would do it, and nothing—not SHIELD, not his own diminishing humanity, not the concerned eyes of a spider-themed hero who kept following him around—would stop him.
The hunt continued.
The silence continued.
And somewhere deep in the parts of his mind that had once been Marcus from Ohio, a voice that grew quieter with each passing day wondered if there was anything left of the person he had been, or if that person had died in an apartment in Ohio with a hot pocket lodged in his throat and what remained was something else entirely.
He didn't have an answer.
He wasn't sure he wanted one.