The discovery happened by accident, as most significant discoveries do.
Sylux had been conducting routine maintenance on his armor systems—a process that was less "maintenance" and more "allowing the self-repairing technology to do its work while he monitored the results"—when he noticed an anomaly in his power distribution readings. The energy reserves he had absorbed from the Hulk during their confrontation two months prior had not dissipated as he had expected. Instead, they had integrated.
His armor's diagnostic systems presented the data in formats that would have been incomprehensible to anyone without his particular neural interface, but the conclusion was clear: the gamma radiation that had powered Bruce Banner's transformation had not simply been stored as fuel. It had been processed, refined, and permanently incorporated into his baseline capabilities.
He was stronger than he had been. Significantly stronger.
The diagnostics indicated a seventeen percent increase in physical output, an eleven percent improvement in defensive capabilities, and a curious new resistance to radiation-based attacks that his systems had automatically developed in response to the gamma exposure. His armor had not merely absorbed energy—it had adapted, evolved, become something more than it had been.
This was unexpected. The Shock Coil was designed to drain and utilize energy, not to permanently integrate it into the user's baseline. Either this universe's physics operated differently than the Metroid universe's, or there was something unique about gamma radiation that his systems could exploit in ways he hadn't anticipated.
He needed to test this. To understand the full extent of what he had become.
The opportunity presented itself three days later, in the form of Jennifer Walters.
She had contacted him through the legal channels they had established during their first meeting—channels that had, somewhat to his confusion, become increasingly personal over the intervening weeks. What had started as professional correspondence about residency status and operational frameworks had evolved into something that more closely resembled casual conversation, or at least as casual as conversation could be when one party communicated exclusively through text projection.
"So I was thinking," She-Hulk said, standing on the rooftop where they had agreed to meet, "that we should spar."
Sylux looked at her.
"Not like, a real fight. A training exercise. I want to see what you can do, and honestly, I could use a workout partner who can actually keep up with me." She cracked her knuckles, the sound like small rocks grinding together. "Most of the people I train with can't take a hit from me without going to the hospital. I'm guessing you don't have that problem."
She was correct. He did not have that problem.
He nodded once, indicating agreement.
"Great! There's a facility upstate that's designed for superhuman training. Reinforced walls, shock-absorbing floors, the whole works. Stark built it, which means it's annoyingly well-designed." She paused. "Unless you want to do it here? I know a place in the city that's—"
He shook his head and projected coordinates in the air between them: a location in the Nevada desert, far from civilian population centers, far from observation, far from anything that could be damaged by whatever they were about to do.
"The desert? Really going for the dramatic, huh?" She smiled in a way that his social processing was beginning to recognize as flirtatious. "Fine. Meet you there in two hours?"
He nodded, then stepped off the rooftop and dropped toward the street below, his suit's systems managing the descent with casual precision.
Behind him, She-Hulk watched him fall with an expression that combined professional interest with something less professional.
"Definitely going to be a thing," she muttered to herself, then leaped toward her own destination.
The Nevada desert was appropriately empty: miles of sand and rock and scrub vegetation, uninterrupted by human habitation or observation. Sylux had selected a location that his ship's sensors confirmed was not under surveillance by SHIELD, SWORD, or any of the various other agencies that might be interested in observing superhuman activities.
She-Hulk arrived approximately fifteen minutes after he did, having apparently run most of the way from New York. She wasn't even breathing hard.
"Nice location. Very... barren." She looked around at the featureless landscape. "You really don't like being watched, do you?"
He didn't respond, because the answer was obvious.
"Right, silent. Okay." She stretched, muscles rippling beneath green skin, and Sylux's threat assessment protocols provided updated calculations that reflected her significant capabilities. "So, rules. We stop when one of us taps out or when I say stop, because this is training and not an actual fight. No permanent damage—I assume your weird energy weapon can be set to non-lethal?"
He nodded.
"Good. And if I actually hurt you—which I'm not sure is possible, but just in case—you signal somehow. Flashing lights, text projection, whatever. Agreed?"
Another nod.
"Then let's do this."
She moved faster than his previous assessments had predicted—not as fast as he was, but fast enough that his enhanced reflexes were actually engaged. Her first punch was a testing blow, probing his defenses, and when his armor absorbed the impact without apparent effect, her expression shifted from testing to interested.
"Okay, you can take a hit. Let's see if you can dish one out."
Sylux responded with a strike of his own, calibrated to approximately forty percent of his current capability. He wasn't trying to hurt her—this was training, as she had said—but he needed to understand what he could do.
The impact sent her sliding backward across the sand, feet carving furrows in the desert floor, and her expression shifted again to something that looked remarkably like excitement.
"That's more like it!"
The spar that followed was unlike anything Sylux had experienced since arriving in this universe. She-Hulk was strong—genuinely strong, her gamma-enhanced physiology allowing her to trade blows with beings that would have destroyed ordinary humans. She was also skilled, her legal career apparently coexisting with extensive combat training, and she combined strength with technique in ways that kept Sylux engaged in ways the Hulk's mindless fury had not.
More importantly, she was pushing him to use his new capabilities. Each exchange forced him to escalate, to draw on reserves he hadn't known he possessed, to discover the extent of what the gamma absorption had done to him.
The results were enlightening.
He was faster than he had been—not just the reaction speed his armor provided, but actual physical velocity that exceeded his previous benchmarks. His strength had increased proportionally, allowing him to match She-Hulk's blows in ways that should have been impossible for something his size. And there was something else, something harder to quantify: an aggression, a hunger for combat, that felt different from his usual clinical approach to violence.
The gamma radiation had changed him. Made him more than he was. Made him something that belonged in a universe of gods and monsters.
"Okay, okay!" She-Hulk called out, holding up her hands in a gesture of pause. "Time out. I need to catch my breath, and I think you might have cracked one of my ribs."
Sylux stopped immediately, concern flickering through his emotional processing before being suppressed by his usual neutrality. He projected text:
APOLOGIES
"Don't apologize. That was amazing." She was breathing hard now, green skin glistening with exertion, and she was looking at him with an expression that his databases were increasingly categorizing as attraction. "I haven't had a workout like that since... honestly, I'm not sure I've ever had a workout like that. You're holding back, aren't you?"
He considered the question, then nodded.
"How much?"
He projected a number: 60%
"You were at sixty percent and you cracked my rib?" She laughed, then winced at the movement. "That's... that's something. What happens at a hundred percent?"
I DON'T KNOW
"You don't know?"
HAVEN'T TESTED
She stared at him for a long moment, something shifting in her expression that he couldn't quite interpret.
"Sylux... you're not what I expected. When I first heard about you—this silent bounty hunter who beat the Hulk—I thought you were just some alien tough guy with good tech. But you're more than that, aren't you? You're something..."
She trailed off, apparently unable to find the right word.
He didn't help her, because he didn't know what word would be appropriate either.
"Anyway." She straightened, wincing again at her rib. "I should get this looked at. But we should do this again. Soon. I want to see what you can really do."
She was doing the thigh thing.
It was subtle—less obvious than Spider-Gwen's version—but unmistakable once he knew what to look for. The slight shift in posture, the pressing together of her legs, the minute adjustments that his enhanced sensors could detect even if his social processing couldn't fully interpret them.
She-Hulk was displaying the same physiological responses that Spider-Gwen displayed around him.
This continued to make no sense.
He was an armored alien who never spoke, who had just injured her during a training exercise, who showed no apparent personality beyond efficient violence. These were not attractive qualities. And yet, here was a second powerful woman displaying signs of physical attraction to his presence.
Perhaps it was a gamma radiation thing. Perhaps exposure to the same energy type created some kind of physiological resonance that manifested as attraction.
That seemed unlikely, but it was the best hypothesis he could generate.
ARE YOU INJURED
"Just the rib. I'll heal in a few hours—gamma biology, remember? We're tough." She smiled at him, and the expression contained layers he couldn't decode. "Text me about the next session? I want to try some different scenarios."
He nodded.
"Great. It's a date."
She said date again. She had said it during their first meeting, and she was saying it again now.
He still didn't know how to process this.
She-Hulk departed, leaving Sylux alone in the desert with his confusion and his newly confirmed capabilities. The spar had provided valuable data: he was significantly more powerful than he had been, the gamma absorption had permanently enhanced his baseline, and there was potential for additional improvement if he encountered other unique energy sources.
He was evolving. Adapting. Becoming something that might eventually exceed even the formidable capabilities Sylux had possessed in his original context.
The thought should probably have concerned him. Instead, it felt... appropriate. Inevitable. The logical consequence of what he had become and where he was going.
The Ghost Rider's warning echoed in his memory: the small person you were is fading.
Maybe that wasn't a bad thing.
Maybe becoming something more than human—more than even Sylux—was exactly what this universe needed him to be.
He returned to his ship and ascended to orbit, contemplating the implications.
The Skrull invasion announced itself with the subtlety of a sledgehammer to the face.
Sylux had been monitoring Earth's orbital space as a matter of routine security, his ship's sensors tracking the various satellites, stations, and debris that cluttered the region around the planet. The Delano 7's capabilities far exceeded anything humanity had deployed, which meant he typically detected anomalies long before any Earth-based system could register them.
The anomaly that appeared at 3:47 AM Eastern Time was not subtle.
Seventeen ships, each approximately three times the size of his own vessel, materializing from some form of faster-than-light transit at the edge of sensor range and immediately beginning an approach vector toward Earth. Their energy signatures were unfamiliar but clearly military: weapons systems charged, shields active, formation suggesting coordinated assault.
His databases searched for a match and found one within seconds: Skrull warships. The shape-shifting aliens who had been infiltrating Earth's institutions for decades, apparently deciding that infiltration was no longer sufficient and that direct conquest was the appropriate next step.
Sylux observed their approach for approximately thirty seconds, calculating trajectories and probable targets. The ships were heading for major population centers—New York, Los Angeles, London, Tokyo—with vectors that suggested simultaneous assault on multiple continents.
He considered his options.
Option one: allow the invasion to proceed and let Earth's defenders handle it. The Avengers, SHIELD, and various other parties would presumably respond, and the resulting conflict would be someone else's problem.
Option two: intervene preemptively and destroy the invasion force before it reached its targets.
The first option was tempting. He had no particular loyalty to Earth beyond its usefulness as an operating base, and getting involved in planetary defense was outside his established role as a bounty hunter. The complications that would arise from destroying an alien fleet—questions, investigations, attention—were significant.
But seventeen ships meant thousands of combatants. Thousands of combatants meant civilian casualties, infrastructure damage, and the kind of chaos that would disrupt his operations for months or years. The practical considerations aligned with intervention even if the ethical ones didn't particularly move him.
Also, some part of him—the part that had once been Marcus from Ohio, the part that was supposedly fading—found the idea of aliens invading Earth personally offensive for reasons he couldn't articulate.
He activated the Delano 7's weapons systems and began his approach.
The Skrull fleet detected him when he was approximately two hundred kilometers out—close enough that their response time was limited, far enough that he could engage on his terms rather than theirs. His ship's sensors tracked their reactions: shield reinforcement on the lead vessels, weapons systems pivoting toward his position, communication signals that presumably involved a great deal of confusion about the single small craft approaching an entire invasion fleet.
He opened fire.
The Delano 7's primary weapons were designed for engagements with Galactic Federation warships, which were significantly more advanced than anything the Skrulls had brought to this particular invasion. The first beam struck the lead vessel's shields and punched through them like they weren't there, continuing into the hull and detonating something critical inside. The ship broke apart in a bloom of fire and debris, and Sylux was already targeting the second vessel before the first had finished dying.
The Skrulls responded with everything they had. Energy beams, projectile weapons, missiles of various sizes and payloads—all directed at the small craft that was systematically dismembering their fleet. The Delano 7's shields absorbed the assault without apparent strain, defensive systems rated for threats far beyond what these aliens could generate.
Three ships. Four. Five.
The Skrull fleet attempted to scatter, abandoning their attack formation in favor of evasive maneuvers that might give them a chance to escape or regroup. Sylux didn't allow it. His ship was faster, more maneuverable, and guided by tactical instincts that had been honed in a universe where space combat was an art form rather than a crude exchange of firepower.
Six ships. Seven. Eight.
The remaining nine vessels tried a different approach: concentrated fire from all angles simultaneously, overwhelming volume intended to breach his defenses through sheer output. The Delano 7 shuddered slightly—the first indication that their weapons were having any effect—but the shields held, and Sylux's return fire continued without interruption.
Nine ships. Ten. Eleven.
The Skrull fleet was dying, and they knew it. Some of the remaining vessels attempted to retreat, engaging whatever FTL systems they had used to arrive, but Sylux had anticipated this and positioned himself to intercept their escape vectors. Two ships managed to jump away before he could destroy them; the rest were not so fortunate.
Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen.
Fifteen. Sixteen.
The final ship—the largest of the fleet, presumably the command vessel—made no attempt to flee. Instead, it turned to face him, weapons charged, and launched everything it had in a final desperate assault.
The Delano 7 flew through the barrage and delivered its response.
The seventeenth ship exploded, and the Skrull invasion ended approximately four minutes after it had begun.
Sylux surveyed the debris field, sensors confirming that no survivors had made it to escape pods, no signals were being transmitted to warn the Skrull homeworld of what had happened. The invasion had been erased from existence, and the only evidence of its occurrence was an expanding cloud of wreckage that would eventually disperse into the void.
He considered broadcasting a warning—something that would tell the Skrulls that Earth was protected and further attempts would be met with similar response—but decided against it. Letting them wonder what had happened to their fleet would be more effective than any explicit threat. Mystery was, as always, his most valuable asset.
The return to orbit was uneventful, and Sylux spent several minutes running diagnostics on his ship's systems. The shields had held, but the concentrated assault from nine vessels had pushed them closer to their limits than he had expected. If the Skrulls had brought twice as many ships, or if their technology had been slightly more advanced, the outcome might have been different.
He would need to be prepared for that possibility. This was not the last invasion Earth would face, and the next one might come with resources that actually posed a threat.
His communication systems registered an incoming signal: Spider-Gwen's frequency.
"Sylux! Are you okay? There are reports of some kind of battle in orbit—explosions, weird energy signatures, SHIELD is going crazy trying to figure out what happened. Was that you?"
He considered how to respond, then projected text through the communication channel:
YES
"You were in a space battle? By yourself? Against what?"
INVASION FLEET
A long pause.
"You stopped an invasion fleet. Alone. Just... by yourself, in your ship, you destroyed an entire invasion fleet."
YES
"How many ships?"
17
"Seventeen ships. You destroyed seventeen ships." Another pause, longer this time. "Sylux, that's... that's insane. That's not bounty hunting. That's planetary defense. That's Avengers-level stuff."
IT WAS IN MY WAY
"The invasion was in your way?"
YES
Silence on the channel, broken only by the faint static of the communication link.
"You're something else, you know that? Like, actually something else. Not human, not alien, not anything I have a word for." Her voice was strange—awed, maybe, or frightened, or something in between. "I'm glad you're on our side. I think."
I AM ON NO SIDE
"But you stopped the invasion."
IT WAS CONVENIENT
More silence.
"You are the strangest person I've ever met. And I've met a lot of strange people." She paused. "Can I come see you? After something like that, I feel like... I don't know. I want to make sure you're really okay."
He considered the request. His ship was currently in orbit, cloaked and invisible, not an easily accessible location for someone without spacecraft.
I WILL COME TO YOU
"Yeah? Okay. I'm at the usual place. The rooftop in Queens."
The channel closed, and Sylux began descent protocols.
He wasn't sure why he had agreed. Seeing Spider-Gwen served no practical purpose, and the conversation would inevitably involve questions he couldn't answer and emotional processing he wasn't equipped for.
But some part of him—the part that was supposedly fading—wanted to see her. Wanted to confirm that she was still there, still following him around, still filling the silence with chatter that he pretended to ignore.
Maybe the Ghost Rider was wrong. Maybe the small person he had been wasn't fading entirely.
Or maybe he was just experiencing attachment behaviors that would eventually be subsumed by the hunter's cold efficiency.
Either way, he was going.
The rooftop in Queens was empty when he arrived, but Spider-Gwen appeared within minutes, swinging in from a nearby building with the acrobatic grace that characterized her movement style.
"Hey," she said, landing a few feet away. "You look... the same. I don't know what I expected. Battle damage, maybe? Scorch marks?"
He didn't respond.
"Right, silent." She moved closer, and the thigh thing happened. "You really destroyed seventeen ships? That's not an exaggeration or anything?"
He showed her the sensor logs, projected in the air between them: the approach of the fleet, the engagement, the systematic destruction of each vessel.
She watched in silence, and when the projection ended, she just stared at him.
"Why?" she finally asked. "You keep saying you're not on anyone's side. You work alone. You don't care about Earth or humanity or any of it. So why did you stop them?"
He considered how to explain his reasoning—the practical considerations, the disruption to his operations, the inconvenience of allowing an alien conquest—but none of those felt like complete answers.
Instead, he projected a single word:
INSTINCT
"Instinct? Like, you just... automatically protected the planet?"
He nodded slowly, uncertain if that was accurate but unable to articulate anything more precise.
"That's..." She-Hulk's voice came from somewhere behind him, and Sylux turned to find her landing on the rooftop with slightly less grace than Spider-Gwen's arrival. "That's actually kind of beautiful."
She must have heard about the space battle. Must have tracked his communication signals or followed Spider-Gwen or simply known where to look.
"You saved everyone," She-Hulk continued, moving to stand beside Spider-Gwen. "Seventeen ships, probably thousands of invaders, and you stopped all of it before anyone on Earth even knew it was happening."
He didn't correct her assessment. The reality was more complicated—he hadn't done it to save anyone, exactly—but the distinction seemed unimportant.
"And you're not going to take credit for it, are you? You're just going to disappear again, and no one will ever know what you did."
He nodded.
She-Hulk and Spider-Gwen exchanged a look that he couldn't interpret.
"You really are something else," She-Hulk said, and she was doing the thigh thing too.
Both of them. At the same time. Looking at him with expressions that combined admiration and something warmer.
He had no idea what to do with this situation.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONCERN
The text hung in the air, inadequate and stilted.
I HAVE TO GO
"Already?" Spider-Gwen's voice held disappointment. "You just got here."
SHIP NEEDS REPAIR
It wasn't entirely a lie—the shields had taken more damage than expected—but it was mostly an excuse to escape a social situation he didn't know how to navigate.
"Fine. But you're coming back, right? You're not going to just... leave?"
He paused, considering the question.
I WILL RETURN
"Promise?"
He turned to look at her—really look, focusing the full attention of his visor on her masked face. She did the thigh thing, harder than usual.
He projected a single word:
PROMISE
Then he stepped off the rooftop and dropped toward the street below, his ship's recall systems activating to bring the Delano 7 down for retrieval.
Behind him, two powerful women watched him fall, then exchanged another look.
"I saw him first," Spider-Gwen said.
"I'm pretty sure he doesn't care about 'first,'" She-Hulk replied.
"That's... actually probably true."
They stood together on the rooftop, watching the cloaked ship ascend into the sky, and contemplated the strange alien who had just saved their planet and then immediately run away from a conversation.
In orbit, Sylux began repair protocols and tried very hard not to think about what had just happened.
He was not successful.
The thigh thing continued to confuse him.
The gamma enhancement continued to intrigue him.
And somewhere in the back of his mind, the small person he had once been wondered if maybe—just maybe—there was more to this existence than hunting and violence and silence.
He wasn't sure how to explore that possibility.
But he was beginning to think he might want to try.