Wilson Fisk was not a patient man, despite the carefully cultivated image of calculated composure that he projected to the world. He had built his empire through a combination of strategic brilliance, overwhelming force, and the absolute certainty that no slight would go unanswered. The alien entity known as Sylux had not merely declined his generous offer—the creature had deleted the message without response, an act of dismissal so complete that Fisk's blood pressure had required medication for the first time in years.
Three weeks had passed since that insult, and Fisk had used the time productively. He had acquired information—expensive information, gathered through sources that even SHIELD didn't know he possessed—about Sylux's patterns, capabilities, and known associates. He had arranged for assets to be positioned at locations the entity was likely to visit. He had prepared contingencies and backup contingencies and backup contingencies for the backups.
Tonight, those preparations would bear fruit.
The warehouse in Red Hook had been selected specifically because intelligence suggested Sylux was planning an operation against a smuggling ring that operated from the adjacent facility. Fisk's people had ensured that the smugglers would be gone—relocated to a safer location as a favor that would be repaid with interest—leaving only the trap.
Thirty-seven men, equipped with the best weapons money could buy, including several items of Chitauri derivation that had cost more than some small nations' annual budgets. Three snipers on adjacent rooftops with specialized ammunition designed to penetrate advanced armor. Two enhanced individuals on retainer—nothing spectacular, but capable of providing additional complications for any target.
And Fisk himself, watching from a command vehicle parked two blocks away, because he was not foolish enough to be physically present when engaging an entity that had defeated the Hulk.
"Sir," his lieutenant reported through the communication system, "thermal imaging confirms a single heat signature approaching from the north. Moving on foot. No vehicle detected."
"That's him. All units, prepare for engagement. Remember—we want him alive if possible. Dead if necessary. But under no circumstances is he to leave this area without understanding that Wilson Fisk is not to be ignored."
The operation began well. The snipers acquired their target and fired in coordinated sequence, three high-velocity rounds designed to strike simultaneously from different angles. The enhanced individuals moved to flanking positions. The ground forces prepared to advance once the initial assault had softened the target.
It was, objectively, a professional and well-executed ambush.
It lasted approximately forty-seven seconds.
Sylux had been aware of the trap since before he entered the engagement zone. His sensors had detected the snipers during his approach, had mapped the positions of the ground forces through their communication signals, had identified the enhanced individuals by their distinctive biological signatures. He had known, with absolute certainty, that this was an ambush rather than his intended target.
He had come anyway.
The sniper rounds impacted his armor and accomplished nothing. The kinetic energy was absorbed, converted, added to his reserves with the same contemptuous efficiency that characterized all interactions between his technology and Earth's primitive weapons. He didn't even slow down.
The ground forces opened fire as he entered the warehouse, and the interior became a storm of projectiles and energy beams that would have reduced any conventional target to component atoms. Sylux walked through it. His armor registered the impacts as data points—threat levels, energy signatures, trajectory calculations—and found nothing worth concern.
The first wave of attackers fell in six seconds. Not dead—he had made a conscious decision to minimize fatalities for this engagement, because killing Fisk's men would escalate the situation in ways that might become tedious—but thoroughly incapacitated through precisely applied force that left them unconscious or writhing in pain from joints that had been manipulated beyond their design tolerances.
The enhanced individuals attacked next. One possessed superhuman strength—not Hulk-level, but significant—and the other generated some kind of energy field that was supposed to disrupt electronic systems. Neither ability proved relevant.
The strong one threw a punch that Sylux caught in one hand, then squeezed until bones began to creak and the enhanced individual's expression shifted from confidence to alarm to panic. A single application of pressure to a nerve cluster dropped him to the ground, and Sylux was already moving toward the energy-field generator before the first one had finished falling.
The disruptor's power washed over his armor and accomplished exactly nothing. His systems were not electronic in any sense that Earth science understood—they operated on principles that made electromagnetic interference as irrelevant as harsh language. He walked through the field, grabbed the generator by the throat, and applied exactly enough pressure to render him unconscious without causing permanent damage.
Twelve seconds. The enhanced individuals had lasted twelve seconds.
The remaining ground forces attempted to retreat, but Sylux was faster. He moved through them like a scythe through wheat, each motion precise and economical, each impact carefully calibrated to incapacitate without killing. Men fell, weapons scattered, and within thirty seconds the warehouse floor was covered with groaning bodies and the silence of absolute defeat.
The snipers had stopped firing. They had watched their carefully planned ambush dissolve into chaos, had seen their colleagues systematically dismantled by an entity that treated their best efforts as minor inconveniences, and had apparently decided that discretion was the better part of valor.
Sylux looked up at their positions, his visor tracking each one with the patient attention of a predator that was choosing not to pursue fleeing prey.
They ran.
He let them.
The command vehicle was exactly where his sensors indicated it would be. Sylux walked the two blocks without hurry, passing confused civilians and arriving at the armored vehicle to find it surrounded by an additional security detail that had been held in reserve.
They opened fire. He walked through the bullets. They threw grenades. He kicked them back. They attempted to flee. He caught them.
Within ninety seconds, the security detail was incapacitated and Sylux was standing at the door of the command vehicle, looking at the reinforced barrier that separated him from Wilson Fisk.
He could have used the Shock Coil. The door would have lasted perhaps five seconds against the weapon's draining capabilities. But that seemed excessive for a situation that didn't require escalation.
Instead, he simply punched through the door.
The metal shrieked and tore, his armored fist penetrating the reinforced barrier like it was aluminum foil, and then he was pulling the door off its hinges and looking at Wilson Fisk, who was sitting in the command chair with an expression that Sylux's limited emotional processing could only interpret as forced calm overlaying genuine fear.
"Well," Fisk said, and his voice was steady despite the circumstances, "I suppose negotiations are in order."
Sylux reached in, grabbed Fisk by his expensive suit jacket, and pulled the massive man out of the vehicle with an ease that the Kingpin's considerable weight should have made impossible. He held Fisk at eye level—which required lifting him off the ground, since Sylux was taller even than the imposing crime lord—and stared at him through the visor.
"I understand," Fisk said, still maintaining that forced calm, "that I may have... miscalculated. The offer was meant to be generous. The response was... unexpected."
Sylux said nothing.
"Perhaps we can come to a different arrangement. Not employer and contractor. Partners, perhaps. Equals working toward mutual benefit."
Sylux said nothing.
"Or simply a non-aggression agreement. You stay out of my business, I stay out of yours. Clean separation. No further contact."
Sylux tilted his head slightly, a minimal gesture that somehow conveyed complete contempt for everything Fisk was proposing.
"What do you want?" Fisk asked, and now the fear was bleeding through the composure. "Everyone wants something. Name it. Whatever it is, I can provide it."
Sylux considered his response. He could continue the silence—it had served him well thus far—but this was an opportunity to establish something important. Fisk needed to understand, completely and permanently, that Sylux was not interested in any relationship with his organization.
He activated his gauntlet's projection system and displayed a single word in the air between them:
NOTHING
"Nothing? You want nothing from me?"
Sylux nodded once.
"Then why—all of this—what was the point?"
He displayed another word:
CLARITY
Understanding dawned on Fisk's face, followed by something that might have been grudging respect.
"You wanted me to understand that I can't buy you. Can't threaten you. Can't affect you in any way."
A nod.
"And this—" Fisk gestured at the devastation surrounding them, the unconscious bodies, the destroyed vehicles, the complete annihilation of everything he had prepared "—this was the demonstration."
Another nod.
Fisk was silent for a long moment, and when he spoke again, the fear had been replaced by something more calculating.
"I can respect that. Truly. Most people in our respective businesses are motivated by greed, or fear, or ambition. You appear to be motivated by... nothing I can exploit." He paused. "I will not trouble you again."
Sylux considered this, then dropped Fisk unceremoniously onto the pavement. The crime lord landed heavily, his dignity thoroughly compromised, but he made no attempt to retaliate or threaten. He simply sat on the ground, surrounded by the evidence of his complete defeat, and watched as Sylux turned and walked away.
The message had been delivered.
Sylux suspected he would not be receiving any more job offers from Wilson Fisk.
The encounter with Frank Castle happened approximately two hours later, and it began with a bullet.
Sylux was traversing the rooftops of Hell's Kitchen, returning to his ship after the Fisk engagement, when his sensors detected an incoming projectile. The round was high-caliber, armor-piercing, fired from a position approximately three hundred meters away with the precision that suggested significant training and experience.
It impacted his helmet and accomplished nothing.
He turned toward the source, his visor magnifying the distant rooftop until he could see the shooter clearly: a large man in dark tactical gear, wearing a vest emblazoned with a white skull, reloading a rifle that would have been effective against anything except what Sylux actually was.
The Punisher. His databases provided extensive information: Frank Castle, former Marine, family murdered by criminal elements, now waging a one-man war against organized crime through methods that made Sylux's own approach look restrained by comparison.
The second shot impacted his shoulder. Still nothing.
Sylux began moving toward Castle's position, not running—he didn't need to run—but walking with the inevitable pace of something that could not be stopped.
The third shot hit his chest. The fourth hit his visor. The fifth and sixth came in rapid succession as Castle apparently decided that volume might succeed where precision had failed.
None of it mattered.
Sylux reached Castle's rooftop in approximately forty-five seconds, during which time the Punisher had emptied two magazines into him without any visible effect. He crossed the final distance between them in three strides and stood directly in front of Castle, close enough that the rifle's barrel was almost touching his chest.
Castle looked at him with an expression that combined frustration, evaluation, and something that might have been grudging recognition.
"You're the one who took down Fisk's operation," Castle said. His voice was rough, emotionless, the voice of a man who had burned away everything except the mission. "Saw the aftermath. Thought you might be a problem."
Sylux didn't respond.
"Armor's better than anything I've seen. Better than Stark's, maybe. Military origin?"
No response.
Castle lowered the rifle slightly, apparently accepting that it was useless.
"I've been watching you. The targets you take—traffickers, smugglers, the worst kinds of people. Good choices. Better than most." He paused. "But you're sloppy. You leave survivors. Survivors talk, reorganize, rebuild."
Sylux tilted his head, a gesture that somehow conveyed polite disagreement.
"The ones you left alive at Volkov's facility? Three of them have already reconnected with other networks. The work you did there is already being undone." Castle's voice carried a certainty that came from experience. "You want the problem solved, you solve it permanently."
This was, Sylux had to admit, a valid tactical observation. His preference for non-lethal resolution when possible did create complications that a more absolute approach would avoid. But his methods were his own, and he had no interest in being lectured by a man whose response to every problem was additional bodies.
He projected words in the air between them:
YOUR WAY IS NOT MY WAY
Castle read them, expression unchanged.
"Your way is inefficient."
YOUR WAY IS ABSOLUTE
"It needs to be."
NO
The single word hung in the air, and Castle's expression shifted slightly—not anger, exactly, but a hardening that suggested the conversation was approaching its end.
"We're on the same side," Castle said. "Same targets, same goals. We could work together."
Sylux projected his response:
I WORK ALONE
"Yeah." Castle nodded slowly. "I've heard that before. Usually from people who end up needing backup eventually."
Sylux turned and began walking toward the edge of the rooftop.
"You change your mind, I'm not hard to find."
He didn't respond. He didn't look back. He simply stepped off the edge and activated his suit's movement systems, dropping toward the street below with a controlled descent that left Castle standing alone on the rooftop.
The Punisher watched him go with an expression that might have been frustration or might have been something closer to respect.
"Stubborn bastard," Castle muttered, then began packing up his equipment.
He had a feeling they would meet again.
The third encounter of the night was the most unexpected.
Sylux was approximately three blocks from his ship's hidden location when his sensors detected something they could not properly categorize. The signature was unlike anything in his databases—not human, not mechanical, not any form of energy his systems recognized. It was, his analytical protocols reported with what seemed like confusion, fire that was not fire, heat that was not heat, something that existed at the intersection of physics and metaphysics.
He stopped walking and turned toward the source.
The figure that emerged from the shadows was, objectively, impossible. A skeleton—clearly a skeleton, bones visible through gaps in leather clothing—but animate, moving with the fluid grace of a living being. And on fire. The skull was wreathed in flames that burned without consuming, that provided light without radiating heat in any pattern his sensors could measure.
Ghost Rider.
His databases contained information on this entity, but the information was fragmented and contradictory. A spirit of vengeance, bound to human hosts, empowered by forces that were definitionally supernatural. The flames were hellfire—not a metaphor, but literal fire from a literal hell that existed in this universe despite all laws of physics suggesting otherwise.
The Ghost Rider stopped approximately ten feet away and looked at him with eye sockets that should have been empty but somehow conveyed intense focus.
"YOU." The voice was not human. It resonated on frequencies that his audio processors struggled to interpret, layered with harmonics that suggested multiple entities speaking in unison. "YOUR SOUL IS... STRANGE."
Sylux didn't respond. He was too busy processing the fact that his sensors were providing contradictory data: the Ghost Rider was there, physically present, but also not there, existing partially in dimensions that his technology couldn't properly perceive.
"I CAME TO JUDGE YOU." The Ghost Rider stepped closer, and Sylux's threat assessment protocols were producing results that made no sense—infinite threat, zero threat, threat categories that didn't exist. "THE BLOOD ON YOUR HANDS CALLED TO ME. THE GUILTY YOU HAVE PUNISHED, THE INNOCENT YOU HAVE... NOT HARMED."
The flames flickered, and for a moment Sylux could have sworn they formed patterns that resembled faces—the faces of the people he had killed, perhaps, or the faces of the people they had victimized.
"I LOOKED INTO YOUR SOUL TO FIND YOUR SINS." The Ghost Rider tilted its skull, a gesture that was eerily similar to Sylux's own habit of head-tilting. "BUT YOUR SOUL IS NOT... RIGHT. IT IS FROM ELSEWHERE. ANOTHER PLACE. ANOTHER EXISTENCE."
This was concerning. Sylux had carefully avoided any revelation of his origins, had constructed cover stories and maintained silence specifically to prevent anyone from learning the truth about what he was. And now a supernatural entity was casually observing things that should have been unobservable.
"YOU WERE SOMEONE ELSE. BEFORE. SOMEONE SMALL. SOMEONE WHO DIED FOOLISHLY." The flames flickered again, and Sylux could have sworn they formed the shape of a hot pocket for a fraction of a second. "AND NOW YOU ARE THIS. SOMETHING THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST. A SOUL FROM BEYOND, WEARING A FORM FROM BEYOND, WALKING IN A WORLD THAT IS NOT YOUR OWN."
Sylux remained still, uncertain how to respond to this revelation. The Ghost Rider knew. Knew everything, apparently, in a way that his silence and his armor and his carefully constructed mystery could not prevent.
"I CANNOT JUDGE YOU BY THE SINS OF THIS LIFE. YOUR KILLS ARE RIGHTEOUS, MOSTLY. THE GUILTY PUNISHED, THE INNOCENT PROTECTED." The Ghost Rider paused. "AND THE SINS OF YOUR PREVIOUS LIFE ARE... TRIVIAL. PIRACY OF MEDIA. LAZINESS. UNKINDNESS IN SMALL WAYS. NOTHING WORTHY OF VENGEANCE."
The spirit of vengeance was telling him that his previous life had been too boring to judge. Sylux wasn't sure whether to be relieved or insulted.
"BUT I WILL BE WATCHING." The Ghost Rider stepped back, the flames intensifying briefly. "YOU WALK A DANGEROUS PATH. THE SILENCE YOU HIDE BEHIND, THE VIOLENCE YOU COMMIT—THEY ARE CHANGING YOU. THE SMALL PERSON YOU WERE IS FADING. SOON, THERE MAY BE NOTHING LEFT BUT THE HUNTER."
Sylux considered this assessment. It was not incorrect. He had noticed the gradual erosion of his previous identity, the way Marcus from Ohio felt more like a memory of a memory than an actual component of who he was.
"WHEN THAT HAPPENS—WHEN THE LAST OF YOUR HUMANITY IS CONSUMED BY WHAT YOU HAVE BECOME—I WILL RETURN." The Ghost Rider's empty eye sockets somehow conveyed absolute certainty. "AND I WILL JUDGE WHAT REMAINS."
The flames flared, blindingly bright, and when Sylux's sensors recovered from the overload, the Ghost Rider was gone. No trace, no residual energy, nothing to indicate that the encounter had happened at all.
He stood alone in the street, processing.
A supernatural entity had looked into his soul, seen his origins, judged his actions, and issued a warning about his future. This was significantly outside his operational parameters. His technology, his combat capabilities, his carefully maintained silence—none of it was relevant to metaphysical judgment by spirits of vengeance.
He was, for the first time since his arrival in this universe, genuinely uncertain about how to proceed.
The part of him that had once been Marcus from Ohio was still there—barely, apparently, fading but not yet gone. The Ghost Rider had seen it, had noted its trivial sins and insignificant existence, had predicted its eventual disappearance.
Was that what he wanted? To become purely Sylux, purely the hunter, purely the silent predator that this existence seemed to demand?
He didn't know.
He resumed walking toward his ship, the events of the night replaying in his mind. He had humiliated the Kingpin, establishing dominance over one of the city's most powerful criminal figures. He had dismissed the Punisher, refusing an alliance with a man whose methods were too absolute even for his own compromised ethics. And he had been judged by a supernatural entity that saw through every layer of mystery he had constructed.
It had been, all things considered, an eventful evening.
The Delano 7 was where he had left it, cloaked and invisible, waiting for his return. He boarded, initiated launch protocols, and ascended into the night sky while his mind continued to process everything that had happened.
Spider-Gwen's communication channel activated as he reached cruising altitude.
"Hey, I heard about what happened with Fisk. The whole criminal underworld is talking about it. You really beat up like fifty guys and then dropped the Kingpin on his butt?"
He didn't respond, but he didn't close the channel either.
"And someone said the Punisher shot at you? Like, a lot? And you just walked up to him like it was nothing?"
Still no response.
"You know, for someone who doesn't talk, you sure do generate a lot of stories." She paused. "Are you okay? You seem... different. Quieter than usual, if that's possible."
He considered her question. Was he okay? The Ghost Rider had told him he was losing his humanity, that the person he had been was fading into irrelevance, that eventually he would be nothing but the hunter.
He projected a response through the communication channel, text appearing on whatever device she was using to contact him:
I AM FUNCTIONAL
"That's not what I asked."
I KNOW
A long pause.
"Sylux... if something's wrong, you can tell me. You can't actually tell me, I guess, but you can like... write it. Project it. Whatever. I'm here."
He considered telling her about the Ghost Rider. About the judgment, the warning, the revelation of his origins. But what would that accomplish? She would have questions he couldn't answer, concerns he couldn't address, and the information would change nothing about his situation.
THANK YOU
"For what?"
FOR BEING HERE
Another pause, longer this time.
"That's... that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me. Written to me. Whatever." Her voice had changed, softer somehow. "You're welcome. I'll always be here. Even when you're being scary and silent and kind of terrifying."
The thigh thing was probably happening. He couldn't see it, but he was confident it was happening.
I HAVE TO GO
"Yeah. Yeah, okay. Be safe, Sylux. Or as safe as someone like you can be."
The channel closed, and Sylux was alone with his thoughts.
The Ghost Rider's warning echoed in his mind: the small person you were is fading. Soon, there may be nothing left but the hunter.
Maybe that was inevitable. Maybe that was even preferable. The hunter was efficient, capable, untroubled by the doubts and anxieties that had characterized Marcus from Ohio's existence.
But the hunter was also empty. The hunter felt nothing—not satisfaction, not regret, not the basic human emotions that gave life meaning beyond mere survival.
Was that what he wanted? To become something that existed without feeling, that hunted without purpose beyond the hunting itself?
He didn't know.
He suspected he wouldn't know until it was too late to change course.
The ship continued its ascent into orbit, carrying its silent passenger toward the stars, and somewhere in the depths of the night, hellfire flickered with the patient attention of something that would be watching.
Always watching.
Waiting for the judgment that would eventually come.