...
Nolan Grayson felt the anomaly before the GDA confirmed it.
Viltrumites were bred for conquest, but their greatest weapon was not just strength, it was instinct.
Nolan stood at the window of his home overlooking a quiet suburb that had never truly been his, arms folded behind his back, cape hanging heavier than cloth should allow.
The sky rippled for a fraction of a second, like a wound trying to close.
Something else was here.
Mark felt it too.
He hovered above the backyard, boots barely disturbing the grass, eyes narrowed.
His suit black, white, and crimson was a deliberate evolution of Viltrumite war-armor, stripped of heroic symbolism. No bright blues. No hope. Only function.
"That wasn't a Viltrumite," Mark said. "I'd know."
Nolan turned, expression grim but calm. "Correct son . And that's what concerns me."
This world had been mapped. Its resistance measured.
The GDA was inefficient but persistent. Earth was scheduled for eventual compliance once Mark reached full maturity.
The plan had never accounted for a multiversal apex predator that rewrote rules by existing.
Mark clenched his fists. "Can we kill it?"
Nolan did not answer immediately.
Debbie's absence lingered between them like a ghost.
She had died giving birth to Mark no softness, no humanizing anchor to temper Nolan's doctrine.
Mark had been raised on truth, not lies. Viltrumite history. Purpose. The inevitability of conquest.
Mark had never wanted to be a hero.
He wanted to be a worthy viltrumites.
"I don't know," Nolan said finally. "And that's unacceptable."
Their backstory was not one of fractured revelation, but of cold preparation. Nolan had trained Mark from childhood, breaking bones to teach resilience, pitting him against engineered threats, forcing him to master restraint only after mastery of brutality.
Their bond was absolute.
Father and weaponized son.
And now something threatened the timeline.
"If this thing grows," Mark said quietly, "it could contest Viltrum."
Nolan's eyes hardened. "Then it must be understood and killed or turned to our side ."
..
Machine Head loved opportunity.
The criminal kingpin watched reports scroll across a dozen monitors, metal skull reflecting blue light as his processors calculated risk and reward. The anomaly was chaos incarnate, too big to fight, too dangerous to ignore.
Perfect.
He didn't send soldiers.
He sent information.
Derrick found the invitation waiting inside the abandoned house he was using, coordinates, encrypted frequencies, and a simple message:
I don't want to control you. I want to work you.
Derrick arrived unannounced in Machine Head's penthouse, stepping out of folded space like a thought becoming real.
His mastery over space has improved.
Guards froze. Some ran. Some died screaming as Derrick casually consumed them for information just incase of a trap..
Machine Head did not move.
"You're impressive," the crime lord said evenly. "But you don't understand this world's villain economy."
Derrick smiled, back in his dark skinned human form . "I understand ecosystems."
Machine Head explained the power structures, Levi, Titan, underground tech syndicates, mercenary armies, and how villains here functioned less as anarchists and more as market forces. Derrick listened, absorbing more than words.
He agreed to the alliance
Not because he needed Machine Head.
But because villains made excellent filters and he was interested in the future villains he'll get to consume, especially that magma guy.
Elsewhere,
the GDA escalated again.
Cecil authorized weaponry never used against Viltrumites, the dimensional anchors keyed to non-native physics, reality-shear mines, predictive AIs trained on multiversal behavior patterns.
They weren't trying to kill Derrick anymore.
They were trying to limit collateral.
"Whatever it is," Cecil said during a secure briefing, "it's already operating above our threat ceiling approaching the viltrumites.
We adapt or we die."
Satellites repositioned. Black sites activated. Contingencies stacked upon contingencies.
Above them all, unseen, Derrick watched the board fill with pieces of heroes, villains, conquerors, governments.
He had joined the villains.
He had caught the attention of Viltrumites.
And the GDA was finally thinking big enough to amuse him.
The game had begun.
And this time, the world's strongest were not the apex.
....
They were simply next.
End of the chapter