Warren looked the self-proclaimed "One-Punch Man" up and down. No hair, no eyebrows, a smooth, gleaming dome of a skull—the whole man was a freshly peeled egg. A listless, hangdog egg-man, at that. Add the flapping bright-red cape behind him and the big gold capital S across his chest, and the total effect was of someone holding a giant placard reading: I AM A COLOSSAL MORON.
"Egg-boy, did Stark send you too? You're meant to be a superhero?" Warren jeered.
The One-Punch Man rose feebly to his feet and slumped against the broken wall, dejected. "I'm not a superhero. I've just got an unusually hard fist—can barely manage to blow up a small asteroid, that's all."
Warren's guard went up at once. Why would the man just hand over his trump card? Was this idiot actually a master—one so far beyond caring that he didn't even bother hiding his abilities? And yet—Warren had drifted through more universes than he could count, and never once heard of any "One-Punch Man."
"You little wretch. You wouldn't be bluffing this old man, now, would you?" Warren pressed.
"No. I just really don't like killing. Every time I throw a punch, it's carnage—bodies everywhere. Last time I blew apart one of the Chitauri homeworlds, and I beat that purple potato-head Thanos to within an inch of his life. Sigh. If only you could take a beating like Thanos could, I honestly wouldn't mind so much."
It was a disguise, after all, so Maya didn't bother drafting her tall tales first—she blew the bragging clear out to the far edge of the galaxy.
Holy—is he for real? You went toe-to-toe with Thanos, and wiped out a whole Chitauri planet? You bald egg off this backwater Earth—who do you think you ARE?
That the One-Punch Man knew of both Thanos and the Chitauri meant, at minimum, this was no ordinary nobody—and Warren grew more cautious still.
"You've told me all of this—so what is it you actually want?" Warren asked warily.
"You're the Traveler, aren't you? You've done enough damage today. I'd rather not add to the slaughter. So go. Leave this universe." The bald hero gave a lazy wave of the hand.
You ignorant egg-headed fool—what would you know of the cost of crossing space and time, of how deadly it is? If those Aurors hadn't hounded me to the ends of the earth, no road left above or below, would I ever risk the crossing? Even I, the Traveler of space and time, could be lost in the multiverse. That is exactly why I seized the Eye of Watoomb—to get my hands on a divine artifact and make myself stronger.
And now this cursed Eye of Watoomb wants to control its own master—otherwise, with my power as a Sorcerer Supreme, how could I have failed to contain the energy and touched off a disaster on this scale? This old man cares nothing for the lives of you ants, but I want no trouble. I meant only to refine this artifact quietly, in secret.
Why, I've got the better part of my strength tied up just suppressing the Eye of Watoomb—or would I have been reduced to this sorry state? Crossing back now would cost more than I can bear. Better to spin this boy a story. He does look remarkably stupid.
"Very well. I concede I was in the wrong—I offer you my apology. I'll take my leave at once," Warren said.
"Sure. Off you go. I'll just gather up the effects of my fallen comrades." And with that, the bald hero hopped down from the upper floor without the slightest caution and turned his back, walking toward the several still-smoldering scraps of clothing.
"Now!"
A dazzling silver light flared in Traveler Warren's one good right eye, and a soft silver glow wrapped him head to toe. In an instant his body drew out into a smear of afterimages, kunai leveled straight at the bald hero's back—right over the heart. Warren had entered Time Acceleration: fast to begin with, but now, ten seconds of his motion for every 0.1 second outside—very nearly a hundredfold. Across a gap of less than ten meters (33 feet), Warren all but teleported to the red cape.
"Now!"
In the same beat the bald hero turned, hands flashing through seals at blinding speed.
Slow the moment down ten thousand times and you'd have seen it: Warren carving a long slow streak of afterimage through the air, on the verge of reaching the bald hero's back—and at that very instant the bald hero's own form flickering, hazing, sliding directly into the silver ball of light wrapped around Warren. Time seemed to freeze. Warren's face was a snarl of triumph, the smug mockery still lurking in his eyes—he hadn't even noticed that the blade in his own hand had met nothing but the hero's empty skin-tight suit.
But the bald hero didn't freeze. Even as she flickered into the light, she swept up her right hand—fingers hooked into a claw, five deep cyan pillars of light stretching out from the five fingernails. The signature of a wind-natured Rasengan compressed to its utter limit.
"Shisui—you always were too naïve. I'll be taking that eye of yours."
(Author's note: In Naruto, this is what Danzō says when he ambushes Uchiha Shisui and gouges out his Mangekyō Sharingan. Maya thought the scene looked rather similar, so she couldn't resist the quip.)
Ssschrikk—RRRIP! Like tearing apart a flaky flatbread, Warren's left golden eyeball—along with the flesh from half his head—was ripped away whole by the Wind Blade Rasengan.
"AAAAAAAAAH!"
Even with the golden eyeball clutched in Maya's palm, a dim gold-red ribbon of light still tethered the Eye of Watoomb to Warren's skull, and the golden eye in her hand jerked and thrashed without pause, as though desperate to fly back into Warren's socket.
"NOOOO!"
Warren shrieked in agony, and his remaining good eye erupted, out of all control, with a flood of silver light. Maya's power of space and Warren's power of time crashed against each other, and with the Eye of Watoomb's gold-red power lashing wild in every direction, then and there a warped, buckling vortex of space-time tore open.
"Damn you—let go! Or we both die, you madman—this is space-time turbulence!" Warren bellowed.
"Since the dawn of time, what man does not die? I stand for the will of justice of this Earth, to wipe you—vile creature—from existence utterly. This is the sacred creed of our Stark Superhero Squad! Long live Tony Stark! Long live the Earth! Long live justice!" The bald hero was shouting at the top of her lungs.
"Shameless—shameless! Didn't you say you'd no wish to kill? And blowing up planets—and this venomous claw-blade, what in blazes was that?" Warren demanded, grief and fury in his voice.
"Boss Tony Stark taught us: against low, treacherous scum, our own methods may be lower and craftier still! And weren't you the one who said you'd leave? So why did you ambush me?" the bald hero shot right back.
"Tony Stark—you goddamn bastard—if this old man survives today, I will flay you alive!"
His curse spat out, Warren gathered his mana and threw himself into the fight for the Eye of Watoomb—only by reclaiming the artifact could he better his odds of living through this.
What is the deal with this space-time vortex, anyway? We've traded a good few hundred words by now and the thing still hasn't come apart?
Feeling the golden eyeball in her hand buck harder and harder, until she could barely keep hold of it, Maya started swearing at this cursed space-time turbulence too.
In fairness, this wasn't actually some contrived, clichéd plot device. When Warren first turned his space-time power on Maya, he'd used Time Acceleration—ten seconds inside the silver ball of light for every 0.1 second outside it. So even though the two of them had gone several rounds of banter, less than a single second had passed in the outside world.
"You want it? Fine—have it!" Maya simply let go of the golden eyeball.
"Uh—?"
Warren just gaped, frozen. And in the very instant the golden eye came flying back toward his empty socket, a low, quiet voice reached his ears:
"One-Punch Man—Serious Punch!"