Mars — Desert Region
Martian sand crunched beneath the astronauts' boots.
The ship had landed only a short while ago, a white blur against the faded red of the desert. Now, a good distance away from it, two figures floated behind a rocky formation—a ridge of stone rising like a frozen wave of dust.
Kai hovered a few inches above the ground, his Infinity suit adapted with an oxygen tank and helmet. Mark, beside him, followed the same pattern, both visors reflecting the horizon of dunes and the rust-colored sky.
Far ahead, the astronauts were walking toward a chain of rocks, dragging equipment, flags, and sensors, each step stirring up a small ghost of dust.
Time kept slipping by.
Mark rested his forearms on the edge of the rock, watching the white dots move at a crawl.
"This is going to take a while."
The sound came out muffled through the internal communicator, but the boredom was crystal clear.
At his side, Kai remained with his arms crossed, gaze fixed on the astronauts.
"Yeah, best case."
Mark let out a breath, took his eyes off the horizon, and slipped a hand into the side compartment of his suit. He pulled out his phone.
The screen lit up, a familiar rectangle of bluish light in the middle of Mars.
He started scrolling through photos. Him and Amber. Crooked selfies, honest smiles, a world that knew nothing about red dust.
Kai turned his head, the screen's reflection flickering across his visor.
"You brought your phone here?"
Mark gave him half a smile.
"No one said it was forbidden."
The photos kept sliding by. The visor reflected a movie that didn't belong in the landscape around them.
A few minutes later, the glow of the screen faltered. The battery bar flashed one last stubborn red, and the display died.
Mark stared at his own dark reflection for a second.
"You think the ship has a charger?" He lifted the dead device. "Worst case, maybe a little adapter, borrowed cable..."
Kai tilted his head in his direction.
"Of course. Let's go introduce ourselves, explain we're a secret escort detail, and ask to borrow a USB-C charger."
Mark put the phone away, shaking his head.
"Okay. Fair point."
They stayed quiet for a while longer. The internal radio crackled softly with interference from the dust.
"Shifts?" Mark suggested. "One watches, the other rests."
Kai nodded.
"You sleep first. If I sleep and leave you in charge of watch, you'll get distracted thinking up excuses for Amber."
Mark opened his mouth to argue, but in the end he just adjusted himself behind the rock, leaning his back against the stone. The shell of the suit creaked lightly.
"If something happens, just kick me."
"If you snore with the communicator on, I'm sending the audio to Amber."
Mark closed his eyes.
The silence of Mars was different. There was no traffic, no real wind, no city in the distance. Just the internal sound of the suit, his own breathing, and, far away, the astronauts' technical communications.
The exhaustion from the day before came to collect fast.
He blacked out.
...
"Kai, everything quiet over there?"
No answer.
"Kai?"
Still nothing.
Mark woke with his own head lolling forward, his neck protesting the angle. He opened his eyes, half groggy.
"Kai?"
This time the answer came through the line, firm.
"Mark. Problems."
His visor was already filled with the sight of the rocks dropping away. Kai was rising, leaving cover, the subtle burst of movement kicking dust up beneath his boots.
"What do you mean, problems?" Mark sprang to his feet, dusting the red powder off his suit and taking off after his brother, passing over the stone ridge.
What he saw on the other side had not been in any NASA briefing.
The astronauts were surrounded.
Creatures with pale olive-green skin, long limbs, tall rectangular heads, no hair, minimal armor, and spears tipped with metal points that looked more technological than primitive. Their dark, alert eyes tracked every movement the humans made.
Kai landed in front of the astronauts, his back to them, facing the group of Martians like someone who had seen everything before and wasn't impressed, but hadn't dismissed the danger either.
The Martians raised their spears in a coordinated reflex.
One of them—his posture marking him as the leader—stepped forward.
"Come with me." The voice came through the brothers'. "It is dangerous to remain here."
Mark landed beside Kai, his feet sinking slightly into the red sand.
He looked at his brother, then over his shoulder, checking whether the astronauts were still intact behind them. "There goes the secret part of the mission."
One of the astronauts turned his helmet toward them.
"Invincible and Infinity." His voice sounded far too emotional for the situation. "My son's a big fan of you two."
Kai kept his eyes on the Martian in front of him.
"Why is it dangerous?"
The Martian held his gaze, the rectangular shape of his head shifting only slightly.
"Because of the Sequids." He pointed with the tip of his spear toward the darkness beyond the rocks. "Come with us. Our leader will decide what to do." His eyes slid toward the astronauts.
Kai's fingers curled into a fist.
His whole body registered everything that didn't add up: their readiness, decide what to do, the fact that they had found Earthlings so quickly on a planet this vast.
Mark set a hand on his brother's shoulder.
"Easy." His voice came lower. "Let's just hear what they have to say."
Kai's jaw loosened a little. He nodded without taking his eyes off the Martian, then turned his head toward the astronauts.
"What do you say?"
A murmur broke out over the astronauts' private channel. One of them, the one who had spoken before, stepped half a pace forward.
"We might discover something new here." The excitement leaked through his voice. "I think we should take the risk. This is a unique opportunity."
Another objected over the same line.
"We have clear orders. We shouldn't be moving away from the mission area..."
The third cut in, "If these things wanted us dead, they would've done it already."
The fourth stayed silent. Even at a distance, the movement of his helmet showed hesitation, not refusal.
A majority formed almost immediately.
So they went.
The Martians surrounded them in formation, spears ready, though aimed more at the surroundings than directly at them. The group advanced toward a series of larger rocks, where narrow fissures split the ground open.
The terrain changed slightly beneath their feet. Dust, then gravel, then a platform that looked almost carved. Fissures opened wider, revealing passages leading downward. The party descended.
Mark looked around, trying to take in everything at once—the architecture, the symbols on the walls, the guards' movements.
"Have you noticed they speak English?" he asked, more to fill the discomfort than out of genuine curiosity.
Kai was scanning the tunnel, counting how many spears were within immediate reach.
"Out of all the weapons pointed at us, that's what you're worried about?" His eyes cut toward the Martians ahead and behind them. "Seriously?"
One of the Martians walking nearby turned his head toward them, as if he had heard every shade of that remark.
"What we speak is not 'English.'" His tone held no offense—only correction. "It is Martian. You are the ones who call it something else."
Kai returned the look.
"And what do you call what's happening right now?" He tipped his chin at the narrow corridor, the encirclement, the spears. "An escort or a kidnapping?"
The Martian held his stare long enough to show he understood the subtext. Then he turned back to the front without answering.
Mark drew in a long breath through the helmet filter. The sigh carried loudly enough to be heard.
They went on for a few more yards.
Something dropped from the ceiling.
A small pink blur, three tentacles writhing in freefall, and a mass that looked like exposed brain tissue.
Mark reacted before he understood.
His hand shot up, caught the creature in midair, its tentacles lashing against his suit arm, and hurled it against the nearest wall. The impact splattered a viscous liquid across the metal surface.
"What the hell is that?"
Kai stepped back half a pace, his weight shifting, shoulders lowering slightly. Fighting stance, automatic instinct.
The Martians stopped as one.
Several looked at Mark, then at the creature smeared across the wall.
The leader studied the scene with a new kind of attention, genuine curiosity replacing what had been protocol up to now.
"That is a Sequid." His focus settled sharply on Mark. "Humans are not affected by them?"
Mark raised the arm still smeared with the thing's residue, shaking it off.
"Oh, we are. I just got the crap scared out of me, actually." His helmet turned toward the leader, his tone edged. "Any chance you people can keep these things on a leash?"
The Martian took a few seconds to answer, studying not just the words, but the ease with which Mark had caught the creature in midair.
"Our leader will know what to do." He began walking again, signaling with the spear. "Come."
...
The underground city opened beneath them like an inverted coliseum.
Caverns carved in layers, circular walkways, structures raised around a wide central chamber. Crystals embedded in the walls cast a yellowish light that gave the place the strange feeling of an eternal late afternoon.
At the center, a throne.
It wasn't ornate, but it was elevated—carved stone, symbols etched into the steps. Seated there was a Martian with the posture of someone who had forgotten what it was like not to be watched. His armor was more elaborate, the edges more serrated, his head taller still, his eyes fixed on the newcomers.
The guards spread apart in front of them, leaving Mark, Kai, and the astronauts exposed in the middle of the stone clearing.
"Welcome, Earthlings."
Kai kept his arms at his sides, his expression locked in that neutral mask he wore when he preferred not to show anything.
Mark stepped forward, trying to balance diplomacy and improvisation.
"Thanks for receiving us, Martian." His mouth stumbled slightly. "Lord Mart... Your Highness."
Some of the Martians around them adjusted their posture. The title landed well enough to count.
"What is your purpose here?" the leader asked. His voice filled the hall easily, without needing to rise much.
Mark straightened a little.
"We were asked to protect our fellow humans on a mission to your... beautiful planet." The adjective came out late, but it came out. "I just need to make sure they all get home safe. Otherwise, my brother and I are going to look like idiots."
Kai did not contradict him.
The leader tilted his head slightly, studying the two of them.
"The Sequids are the reason we captured your people."
The astronauts shifted behind them, discomfort visible even through the helmets.
"They are a race that destroys worlds." The emperor's eyes drifted across the walls, as if he could see beyond them. "They left a trail of ruin wherever they passed, until they fell upon this planet. We are not affected by them." He touched his own temple with two long fingers. "Without hosts, their minds disperse. They are weak. Disorganized."
One of the dried tentacles on the nearby wall seemed to confirm it.
"The problem is when they find bodies to control." His gaze returned to the Earthlings, heavy. "If even one Sequid bonds with one of yours... they will bond with all of them, one by one, and devastate Mars. And then Earth."
Kai narrowed his eyes, the darkness of them turning sharper behind the visor.
"And what exactly are you suggesting we do now?" His tone was dry, direct. "You explained it. Great. So can we leave now and take everyone home?"
The leader rose from the throne and descended the steps slowly. Every guard around them adjusted their grip on their spear.
He stopped only a few feet from the brothers, tall enough to almost look down on them.
"They told me one of them failed to affect you." His focus settled on Mark. "How did you manage that?"
Mark lifted his chin slightly.
"We're both half Viltrumite." Pride slipped into the sentence by reflex. "You know what that is?"
For an instant, the whole hall seemed to hold its breath.
"I am Emperor of Mars." His voice dropped half a tone. "Of course I know what you are."
Something in the way he said you set off a small alarm in the back of Kai's mind. A cold, calculated respect—it didn't sound like the kind of recognition that led anywhere good.
He swallowed that instinct for the moment.
Mark caught the opening and kept going, his chest swelling a little.
"Then you know our kind likes to help." The beginnings of a smile touched his mouth. "We help where we can. If that's what you wanted to tell us, then you can let these men finish their research, and I'll take everybody home after that. Everybody happy."
The metallic sound of dozens of spears being raised at once sliced through the air.
The guards around them swung their weapons toward the astronauts.
The emperor never took his eyes off the two brothers when he spoke.
"Impossible." The word dropped like a weight. "The humans must be executed immediately."
Kai let out a very short breath, the kind of exhale that carried whole weeks inside it.
"I knew this was where this was headed."
He moved before anyone else could react.
A dark blur tore across the chamber, his shoulder slamming into the first line of Martians and knocking three, four, five of them down at once like bowling pins in low gravity. The second row tried to react—spears turning, feet shifting—but the impact of Kai's body hit them faster than any training on Mars could compensate for.
"Take them!" the emperor's voice thundered through the hall, echoing off the stone walls.
Mark was already airborne, flying toward the astronauts with his arms spread, using his body like an armored umbrella against any incoming strike. He grabbed two by the harnesses of their suits, dragging them while shoving the other two forward with his momentum, forcing a path toward the corridor they had come through.
Kai repositioned instantly, dropping back between the remaining Martians and the retreating astronauts, blocking the passage like a moving wall.
"Exit!" Mark shouted over the comms, his eyes sweeping the mental map he had made of the tunnels. "Back through the main tunnel, up, then head for the landing site!"
The Martians tried to close the net again.
They couldn't.
Two half-young, half-brutish, half-diplomatically-unprepared Viltrumites—but completely prepared for a pressured evacuation—tore through the underground city like two conscious projectiles.
Red dust flew in their wake, spears shattered, stone cracked.
And above them, somewhere, an Earth ship was waiting, still believing this was nothing more than a routine two-week scientific mission on Mars.
The surface of Mars rose beneath their feet as they burst out of the tunnel.
The rust-colored sky opened all at once after yards of closed stone, and the astronauts bolted ahead without needing instruction, their boots kicking up low clouds of red dust while the ship blinked ahead like a beacon of white metal.
Mark and Kai flew rear guard, alternating positions—one opening the path, the other covering it, then switching without needing to say a word, the rhythm of two people long used to moving together.
The first shots came from below.
Energy beams streaked across the terrain, kicking up columns of dust where they struck. Martians emerged from the fissures in the rock mounted on broad creatures with beige-yellow skin, like rhinoceroses stripped of every unnecessary angle—no horn, no neck, just compressed muscle moving far too fast for something that size. Their feet hammered the ground in sets of six, and the riders on top kept firing without pause.
Kai looked ahead, measured the distance to the ship, measured the astronauts' speed, measured how many Martians were still pouring out of the rocks.
"Stay with them. I'll hold off the idiots."
Mark flew a yard ahead, then looked back. "Try not to start an intergalactic war by killing them, okay?"
"I know, Mark." Kai's tone carried his usual dry sarcasm, as barren as the dust around them. "Right. Save the swamp so the mosquitoes don't go extinct. That's your thing."
Mark went.
Kai rose.
He gained altitude in a straight line, high enough to see the front line like a map—yellowish beasts in formation, riders reloading energy weapons, a second wave emerging from the rocks behind the first. He measured the angle, folded his body, and hurled himself toward the ground like a missile with no declared target.
The impact opened a ten-foot crater in the Martian soil.
The lateral shockwave flattened the entire front line—beasts and riders rolling, red dust erupting in every direction like a crown of sand. Kai shot out of the crater before any of them could recover, grabbed the first beast by the flank, and flipped it into the second, taking several riders down together. One of them tried to steady his weapon—Kai bent the barrel with one hand as he passed, never slowing.
A Martian farther back shouted to the others, his voice carrying the clipped force of someone who had already solved the equation.
"There are two Viltrumites. Focus on the Earthlings. Fire everything we have!"
The line of fire changed direction.
Kai was in the middle of taking down another row of riders when he saw the volleys shift targets, passing over him toward the ship.
He dropped the Martian he was holding.
Mark had seen it too. He flew to intercept, his body turning horizontal in the air, absorbing the beams that struck his chest, his arms, his back. Every hit shook his trajectory slightly, the combined force of dozens of simultaneous shots enough to disrupt his flight even if they couldn't pierce his skin.
Kai cut straight across the battlefield and reached his brother's side, the two of them flying shoulder to shoulder like a shield of flesh, absorbing everything coming from the direction of the ship. But the Martians had spread out, the angles had multiplied, and some beams were slipping past the sides, striking the ship's white hull in flashes of heat.
Kai's teeth clenched.
The astronauts were already inside. He could see the ramp retracting. But the ship wasn't taking off—probably checking damage, waiting for launch windows, following some protocol written by people who had never imagined it would be needed under circumstances like these.
"Any ideas?" Mark shouted through the comms as a beam hit his shoulder and knocked him half a yard off course. "Why haven't they taken off yet? They're already inside."
Kai processed everything at once—the rate of fire, the angles, the distance to the ship, how many seconds it needed to reach safe altitude, how many shots were hitting per second, how long it would take for the hull to give at some critical point.
"Mark. Think you can help the ship take off?"
Mark turned his visor toward him while absorbing three more beams across the torso.
"I think I can lift it, yeah."
"Then do it. Leave the shots to me."
Mark stared at his brother for one second in the middle of the rain of energy.
Then he went.
Kai stayed.
He moved toward the fire.
The eyes beneath his helmet lit up—blue, deep, the kind of blue that wasn't really the color of any natural emotion. His vision changed quality, went beyond. It was no longer a chaotic scene full of scattered points of light—now it was trajectories. Arcs of energy with measurable beginnings and ends. Every incoming beam had a path, and Kai could see the start, the middle, and the end of it like neon threads against the red sky.
The problem was that there were too many threads.
More than he could physically cross in the span of time the ship needed.
He saw the math with irritating precision: the hull would fail before Mark could get it to safe altitude.
Damn. Not like this.
Kai went quiet inside his own head for a fraction of a second.
The blasts go off on impact. If there's no impact, maybe it won't drain my energy...
He activated Mugen.
There was nothing visible. No apparent change in the air around him—no glow, no sound, no visual signature that anyone could identify from the outside. But the field was there, thin and taut like the layer of pressure that builds before a storm.
He started using Blue, the same way he had before, inside Mugen.
Not as force projected outward—but as anchoring. Using the void to pull himself along trajectories, letting the intangible field guide his direction, assisting his Viltrumite flight instead of replacing it. Every beam that came, he moved first, Mugen sliding through the energy arcs like water through fingers.
The shots hit the field and did not explode.
They passed.
Or rather—they arrived, touched the nothing that was where he was, and unraveled without impact. Without explosion, without transferred heat, without drain. The energy simply found no surface to collide with.
Right. So that's how it works.
Kai inhaled, and moved.
What followed lasted less than ninety seconds and was probably the strangest thing he had done on Mars—which was a sentence with some serious competition, considering how the day had gone.
He cut across the kill zone in impossible arcs and swerves, his body twisting at angles Viltrumite flight alone should not have allowed, Mugen serving as an invisible rail while the Martian energy beams passed through the field without meeting resistance. The alien beasts below would halt mid-charge whenever he passed overhead, their riders losing track of him, the shots continuing but hitting nothing except dust.
But the price came quickly.
The Void was like a muscle. And muscles that go unused for too long fade away slowly, so slowly you don't notice until you need them for something that actually matters. The energy draining out of him was not the clean exhaustion of Viltrumite physical effort—it was something else, deeper, the kind of fatigue that came from a layer beneath the body itself.
Months without touching this and I'm already like this? Of course.
He endured.
The ship shuddered when Mark grabbed it by the engine supports, his shoulders taking the mass, his feet driving off the ground. The hull rose in slow arcs that grew faster as Mark gained altitude, the shots from below reaching it less and less. Mark turned his head for an instant—just one instant—toward his brother, and what he saw was impossible to fully name. Movements that did not fit into the category of flight. Angles with no explanation. Speeds shifting without any visible acceleration. A body refusing to obey the rules around it.
He noticed his brother was faster than he should have been.
He did not understand why. He filed it away.
The ship broke through the Martian atmosphere with a tremor, and the vacuum of space closed around them in absolute silence.
Kai shot upward the moment the last of the shots stopped reaching him.
Flying through space, the closer he got to the emptiness of it, the lighter Mugen felt. But he was too exhausted to think about that now. The ascent was slower than he wanted. Not by much—just enough to be noticeable from inside. When he reached Mark's side and pressed his shoulder against the ship's hull, the relief of having a surface to support his weight was more honest than he had meant to let show.
"Dude." Mark's voice came through the communicator with the excitement of someone who had just witnessed something and couldn't let it go. "How were you flying like that? That was insane!"
Kai stayed quiet for a second, his chest rising and falling more than it should have with the rhythm of his own breathing.
"Yeah." The word came out somewhere between a strained breath and the next, sarcasm trying to arrive before the exhaustion and barely making it a tie. "It may have been insane." Another breath. "But I don't recommend it."
Mark's laugh echoed through the comms.
"Okay, I almost forgot something."
Mark let go of the ship and turned.
Then he headed back toward Mars.
Kai's eyes widened.
"What the hell, Mark?"
He pushed off the hull, ready to go after him, and his feet stayed frozen in the vacuum. His arms found the ship again, his body refusing the burst of motion he no longer had to spare.
Not happening. Damn it.
He stayed braced there, watching his brother shrink toward the red planet below.
Almost two minutes later, Mark reappeared, flying straight back up and catching up to the ship with a smile that was perfectly readable even through the helmet.
In his hand was a rock from Mars. Burnt brick red, uneven edges, ordinary in every way except where it had come from.
"Gift for Amber." The excitement in his voice was untouched. "And while I was there, I apologized to their leader. Told him there were no hard feelings."
Kai looked at the rock.
Then at his brother.
He thought about starting to complain—he had enough material, all the arguments were readily available, and none of them were weak.
Instead, he burst out laughing. Loud, real laughter, the kind that came out when something was idiotic and you respected it for being idiotic.
"Nice." He looked at the rock again. "Yeah, give her a rock. It'll go great with that old chest you gave her."
"Come on, at least this proves I remembered her."
And that was how two weeks passed for the Grayson brothers.
Planet Earth — The Last Two Weeks
On the very day Kai and Mark left for the mission to Mars, Nolan had gone out to respond to an incident in the city. The house had fallen into a strange kind of calm, with only the distant sound of the washing machine and the smell of food beginning to spread through the kitchen.
Afternoon light was spilling through the windows of the Grayson house when the doorbell rang.
Debbie dried her hands on the dish towel, checked the clock out of habit, and walked to the door, already putting together her we're not interested face for whoever was trying to sell something.
She opened it.
The man on the doorstep looked out of place with the rest of the world: long coat, hat tipped low, the air around him a few degrees colder than the rest of the hallway.
"Mrs. Grayson."
The rasp in his voice did not fit the time of day.
Debbie tightened her grip on the doorknob.
"Can I help you?"
"I would like to ask a few questions." His yellow eyes drifted over her shoulder, measuring the house. "About your husband. About the night the Guardians died."
Debbie hesitated for a second, then stepped half aside, making room.
He entered.
"So what exactly do you want to ask?" Debbie said as she headed toward the kitchen.
Damien watched her for a second.
"Your husband. Omni-Man." His head tilted slightly. "Before the Guardians were massacred. Did he act... differently?"
Debbie tightened her grip on the dish towel.
"Differently how?"
"Distant. Nervous." He stepped toward the table, the soles of his shoes making no sound. "Keeping secrets he does not usually keep."
She let out a slow breath, like someone trying to put her own feelings in order before handing them to someone else.
Her gaze drifted aside, searching her memory. "No. Nothing that stood out to me."
Damien watched the microgesture—the way she pressed her lips together, the half second it took her to answer.
"Are you sure."
It did not come as a question. It came as a test.
"If I'd seen something strange, I would remember." Debbie straightened her spine.
Something passed over Damien's face, but it did not become an expression.
"His uniform."
"What?"
"His uniform." He moved a little closer to the counter, the chain of the notepad around his neck clinking softly. "Did you find any with too much blood on it? Too badly damaged. More than what would be normal after an ordinary fight."
Debbie opened her mouth to deny it automatically.
The image came before the words.
The washing machine. The stained fabric from weeks earlier. She blinked, and the memory was shoved away by her own will.
"I don't remember anything special. But even if I had found something, it wouldn't mean anything," she said, looking at him directly now, her chin raised higher. "Nolan is always fighting. Always saving someone. Blood on his uniforms is not exactly new in my life."
Damien fell silent, but it was not an empty silence. He seemed to be listening to something beyond her words—the rhythm of her heart, perhaps, the weight of what she was saying.
He took half a step back.
"If you remember anything," he murmured, turning part of his face toward the shadowed side of the room, "anything at all..."
His eyes returned to her.
"I'll be back."
Debbie did not answer.
When she looked away for just a second, he was already gone. The air in the room seemed to warm again, slowly.
She stood alone in the kitchen, the smell of food just beginning to burn in the pan...
Planet Earth — One Day After the Twins' Departure
Nolan learned about Damien's visit the next day.
Debbie told him at the kitchen table, while the two of them had a more private conversation, his coffee still steaming in the mug. She remained standing, arms crossed, leaning against the sink. He sat with the newspaper open in front of him, as if that were still a necessary ritual in the century they lived in, and on the front page was a photo of Damien Darkblood.
"He came here."
Nolan lowered the newspaper slowly.
"Damien Darkblood."
"He said he thinks you..." She stopped, adjusting the word. "That you may be hiding something about the Guardians' deaths."
Nolan's jaw tightened. The newspaper wrinkled under his fingers.
"He came to you." His voice came out low. "While you were alone."
"I told him I hadn't seen anything." Debbie folded her arms tighter. "Because I hadn't."
Nolan drew a long breath through his nose, trying to hold something back behind his eyes.
"He shouldn't have come here."
He rose from the chair too quickly for it to be mere domestic irritation. He took his coat from the chair, the movement controlled on the surface, but too hard underneath.
Debbie stepped forward.
"Nolan."
"I'm going to deal with this." He did not raise his voice, but the air around him seemed to grow heavier.
He left.
A Few Minutes Later — Office Building, Downtown
The office was completely dark, except for a sliver of daylight cutting through the blinds and drawing a pale rectangle across the desk.
Damien Darkblood turned a page in his notebook, graphite scratching over paper in the silence. The distant ticking of a clock marked time unevenly, as though it too suspected something was wrong.
The air changed.
The temperature dropped a little before the voice arrived.
"You entered my house."
Nolan hovered in the office doorway, arms crossed, his silhouette framed by the dim light of the hallway behind him. There was no sound of footsteps, no weight—only the far too heavy presence of someone who did not need to touch the floor to dominate a room.
Damien lifted his chin toward him, the brim of his hat casting a shadow over his yellow eyes.
"I enter every crime scene."
"My house is not a crime scene."
The silence that followed carried the sentence far enough for it to cross the entire room.
"Stay away from my wife." Nolan drifted forward without moving his legs, his body gliding through the air as he shortened the distance. "And my sons."
Damien's breath came out in a cloud in the cold office air.
"If you are not guilty," he said, without retreating, "then you have nothing to fear from the truth."
Nolan's face hardened, the muscles in his jaw standing out beneath the skin.
"I'm not going to play detective with you. I warned you."
Damien held his stare. The hat, the coat, the voice—everything about him was built to intimidate. But here, with an irritated Viltrumite floating effortlessly a few feet away, the difference in scale was almost tangible.
"You may send me back to Hell," he murmured. "But the truth remains."
For one instant—just one—something darker passed through Nolan's eyes, the suggestion of a quick, definitive solution.
He turned sharply.
He left the office like a blur, shooting down the corridor so fast the rush of air slammed the door behind him.
Arlington, Virginia — Pentagon, GDA
Nolan arrived with traces of irritation still visible on his face. Donald, standing beside Cecil, looked away from the monitors.
"We have a problem," Nolan said.
Cecil struck a match, brought it to his cigar, and watched the hero through the smoke.
"More specifically?"
"Damien Darkblood." Nolan crossed his arms, his shoulders still tense. "He went to my house. Spoke to Debbie and frightened her."
Donald raised his eyebrows.
"He's crossing lines."
Cecil exhaled smoke slowly.
"Damien isn't exactly known for respecting lines."
"I thought I was past suspicion." Nolan's voice roughened. "Let me make something clear. Debbie is not part of this. My children aren't either."
Cecil studied his face for a few seconds, his eyes nearly closed.
"I'll keep an eye on him."
Nolan held his gaze.
"More than just an eye on him."
"We'll see what can be done." Cecil turned one of the screens, shifting the subject with surgical skill. "Good work yesterday stopping the robbery at the history museum."
Nolan hesitated only a little before nodding, and the atmosphere finally eased.
The days passed.
Nolan went out on missions, Debbie filled the house with silence, the world kept turning—with the new Guardians training, with two teenage Viltrumites off-planet, with a demon detective moving through shadows in search of a loose thread.
8 Days After the Twins Left for Mars — October 8th, 2015 — Thursday — Underground Base, USA — 3:35 PM
The underground base vibrated with a constant undertone, the low hum of generators and the rhythmic clicking of relays filling the air like a second pulse.
At the center of a low hangar, a metallic exoskeleton waited open, suspended by hydraulic arms fixed to the ceiling. It was not elegant—it was functional. Thick plates of dark gray alloy protected the chest, back, and shoulders, with bluish energy lines running beneath segmented surfaces. Exposed servos made tiny adjustment movements, testing their own weight. The helmet, still raised, had a narrow T-shaped visor and side housings that resembled thruster modules.
Steven Erickson climbed the short staircase toward the core of the suit, his boots echoing against the metal. He stepped into the dorsal cavity like a man putting on something far too familiar to hesitate over. The internal braces locked around his forearm with a click, and the leg sections molded to his thighs. The hydraulic arms began to lower, wrapping his body in layers of steel and circuitry.
Off to the side, leaning against a workbench littered with disassembled panels and cables, the skinny boy watched. A T-shirt too big for him, lab coat hanging open, glasses constantly sliding down his nose. Kurt kept his hands close to the parts, ready to intervene if anything failed to fit the way it should.
Erickson rolled his shoulders, feeling the weight redistribute through the exoskeleton. The helmet descended, sealing with a smooth rotation around his head. Two points of light ignited at the sides of the visor.
"This model seems to have turned out better." His voice came out slightly metallic through the internal modulator. He flexed his hand, watching the joints respond without delay. "Good work, Kurt."
Erickson turned his neck, testing the field of view, then looked toward the far tables where the shells of semi-humanoid machines lay open like dissected insects.
"And the other autonomous androids?" He gestured with his chin toward the dismantled bodies. "When will they be ready?"
Kurt glanced over his shoulder, following the motion, his eyes passing over the piles of components.
"They still need a little more time." He raised one hand, and several loose circuits near the edge of the bench reorganized on their own, turning and sliding until they locked into a new pattern around his fingers. "I improved your suit. It does everything Black Samson's did... only better." He pushed his glasses back up with the back of his hand. "But I can't configure too many sets at once. I need your base suit so I don't have to reconfigure everything from scratch, piece by piece."
From the other side of the lab, an older man with a lab coat buttoned all the way up to his neck let out a short, humorless chuckle as he adjusted a panel.
"With powers to configure and reorganize electronic components..." He never took his eyes off the screen. "That took far too long." His fingers danced rapidly over a keyboard, commands cascading across the display. "While we're out here getting multiple systems online, you limit yourself to whatever your little power can do."
Kurt inhaled slowly through his nose, his jaw tightening for a second. He did not answer. He simply pulled his hand back from the workbench, leaving the newly organized parts in place.
Farther ahead, in front of a larger screen displaying global energy maps, another scientist leaning back in his chair straightened.
"Sir." He enlarged a specific area with two taps. "I've just located that energy variation." The image zoomed in on an isolated point. "Luckily, it doesn't look like the GDA noticed."
Erickson walked over in the newly donned armor, each step accompanied by the soft hiss of actuators adjusting. The weight of the exoskeleton did not hinder his movement—it amplified it.
He stopped beside the large screen, the reflection of the armor glinting across the monitor.
"Excellent." Metal fingers tapped against the edge of the table. "Good chance to test this new toy."
Behind him, Kurt pressed a panel against his chest as if it offered some kind of comfort.
"If you lose that suit..." His voice came out a little louder than he intended. "It'll take me months to reconfigure another one, sir."
Erickson did not turn around.
One of the scientists beside him, the same one at the screen, folded his arms while staring at the map.
"Wouldn't it be better to wait for the androids?" He turned his head toward Erickson, measuring the response. "Once they're operational, you won't need to expose yourself."
The helmet tilted slightly. Even with the visor sealed, the smile showed in the curve of his jaw and the way his shoulders loosened inside the armor.
"This suit is better than the last one." The memory of Brit cut through his tone, carrying a thread of satisfied hatred. "And I almost finished Brit off."
He looked at the energy point on the screen, the eyes no one could see turning a little colder.
"What could possibly go wrong?"
Same Day — Russell's Old Laboratory, Devil's Lake State Park — 4:45 PM
The laboratory looked buried inside the mountain itself.
Rough stone walls enclosed the access corridor, the ceiling reinforced by old metal beams that creaked now and then, reminding everyone that there were tons of rock above them. Inside, the atmosphere changed completely: cold laboratory lighting, stainless steel workbenches, old computers sharing space with genetic equipment far too expensive to be in a place this forgotten.
Dr. Gero Mikhail, wearing a wrinkled lab coat and glasses slipping down his nose, held a clipboard full of notes and incomplete charts. Sweat gathered on his forehead, sticking strands of white hair to his skin.
An assistant hurried across the lab, tablets tucked under his arm, defeat written all over his face.
"Dr. Mikhail..." He stopped a step away, hesitating. "It failed." He held out the tablet. "The DNA sequencing failed again. It looks like we've hit a dead end."
Mikhail's fingers tightened around the clipboard.
"Hell!" He spun and hurled the clipboard against the stone wall. Plastic cracked, papers scattered across the floor. "I had everything I needed." His breathing quickened, his voice scraping raw. "And now we're back to square one."
He ran a hand through his hair, dragging it back as if he wanted to rip the frustration out with it.
"But I won't give up." His stare went glassy for a moment, the manic gleam returning. "Never."
The assistant opened his mouth to say something.
The door exploded inward.
Blocks of solid stone tore through the laboratory like improvised projectiles, ripping equipment off benches, shattering monitors, scattering sparks and debris. The impact knocked two scientists to the floor, papers flying like snow beneath the cold lights.
Mikhail and the others ducked instinctively, arms over their heads.
When the dust began to settle, a silhouette filled the gap where a camouflaged door had once stood.
The robotic armor took its first step inside.
Overlapping metal plates, reinforced joints, discreet thrusters on the back and calves. The eyes of the helmet lit up white, and a blue beam swept across the lab, scanning faces, shapes, heat.
It locked onto Mikhail.
The helmet opened with a mechanical turn, plates peeling back like steel petals.
Steven Erickson stood beneath the metal—middle-aged face, dark skin, neatly trimmed thin mustache, and the gleam of a man who had just found exactly what he wanted.
"Well, well. Look what we have here."
He crossed the laboratory in heavy steps, debris crunching beneath the armored boots. One metal hand closed around the collar of Mikhail's lab coat and lifted him half a meter off the floor without effort.
"You're coming with me." His eyes swept over the benches, the tubes, the incubators. A broad, ugly smile spread across his face. "I'm interested in your research."
Voices echoed from the ruined corridor, carrying an accent familiar to anyone who knew the Soviet bloc.
Natasha entered first, boots striking the floor with military precision. Dark blonde hair tied back, uniform fitted to her body, gaze sweeping the scene with almost clinical calm. Andrey came right behind her, already wearing Atlas's new uniform—or whatever name he was going by now—a black suit with Russian military camouflage patterns, vivid blue eyes, and the posture of someone who knew exactly how much he weighed in the world.
Natasha stopped a few steps from the chaos, studying the room in silence.
"Looks like someone else is after Dr. Mikhail too."
Andrey leaned slightly forward, ready, as if he were only waiting for a verb.
Her eyes settled on the armor in the center of the lab, on the man holding Gero by the collar.
"Who's the clown in the robot suit?"
The helmet sealed shut again with a sharp click, hiding Erickson's face behind the metal mask. He turned, settling into a combat stance, the thrusters on his back whispering as they redistributed weight.
"Andrey." The Soviet accent sharpened when it became an order. "Finish him."
Atlas let out a slow breath, the corner of his mouth curling upward.
"With pleasure."
He crossed the laboratory in an explosion of motion.
Erickson barely had time to release Mikhail before the impact came. Atlas slammed shoulder-first into the armor's chest, driving the man of metal into the rock wall with enough force to crack the stone. The sound reverberated through the enclosed space like thunder.
Erickson answered quickly—the thrusters on his back spat fire, throwing them both sideways. He twisted in midair, stabilized, and his right arm came up, the built-in cannon already opening its compartments.
The first energy shots hit Atlas square in the chest.
The impact shoved him backward, his boots literally scraping trenches into the concrete floor, but the skin beneath the uniform did not split. The fabric charred in spots, smoke rising from it, and that was all.
Atlas looked down at the dark scorch mark on his suit, then back at the helmet.
"That's it?"
He vanished.
Super speed filled the space between one blink and the next. Atlas appeared beside Erickson, grabbing the armored arm by the joints and twisting it to an angle no human limb could survive. The servos whined, the metal structure groaned, but the suit's design held... barely.
Erickson rotated his hips, activated a lateral micro-thrust, and used Atlas's own momentum against him, hurling the boy through an entire workbench. The stainless steel structure flew apart, tubes shattered, colored fluids splashing across the floor.
Atlas tore through the bench as if it were glass, slammed into the opposite wall hard enough to crack the stone, and landed on his feet. His shoulder rolled once, adjusting from the impact. Not a drop of blood.
At the far end of the laboratory, Natasha was already over Mikhail.
She shoved him against one of the inner support pillars, metal cuffs appearing from the case at her waist. The cold click around the scientist's wrist cut through the noise of the fight for a second.
"Who is the man in the armor?" She kept her body between him and the chaos, her gaze fixed on his face.
"I... I don't know." Mikhail looked even smaller with his shoulders hunched in. "He came in, grabbed me, didn't give a name—"
Natasha tightened the metal around his other wrist, locking the cuffs into place.
"We'll talk later."
She shoved him down, forcing him to sit on the floor against the pillar, then turned back toward the fight.
At the center of the lab, Atlas and Erickson traded blows on completely different scales.
Atlas pushed with raw force—fists that would punch through tanks, knees that would cave in steel. Erickson answered with technology—energy shields blooming from his gauntlet at the last second, micro-missiles firing from shoulder compartments, directional bursts trying to keep distance between them.
One missile struck Atlas in the chest and exploded, light filling half the laboratory. The boy's body was blasted into the ceiling, which gave way by a few inches, dust and chunks of rock raining down. He landed on his feet, shaking soot out of his hair, his skin intact beneath a uniform burned black in places.
Natasha watched from the side, expression neutral, eyes following every tiny hesitation from her son, every poor adjustment of weight, every missed opportunity.
"I can't believe you're struggling." Her voice cut through the noise, cold. "I thought you were the strongest one."
The words entered Andrey's ears and went straight down to the place that still hurt from laboratories, from experiments, from being a number.
His blood boiled.
He stopped trying to measure anything.
Atlas lunged as if the laboratory itself had shrunk.
Erickson raised an arm, preparing another volley. Atlas ignored it. He let the next shots hit his chest, his shoulder, the side of his face—the heat licking at his skin, the force driving him back, but not enough to stop him.
He grabbed the metallic collar of the suit and shoved.
The two of them tore through the stone wall as if it were drywall, carving an improvised tunnel through shattered rock. The sound of the mountain protesting filled the space, chunks falling in cascades behind them.
On the other side, in a secondary corridor, Atlas kept Erickson pinned against the rock, the armor marked by black craters where explosive ricochets had detonated.
Erickson triggered the internal charges.
Localized explosions blasted outward from the chest of the armor, flames and fragments wrapped in smoke. An ordinary human would have turned to ash there. Atlas narrowed his eyes, muscles tightening, skin heating—but it did not break. His uniform tore apart in strips across the area, exposing skin beneath the soot.
His fists did not release the armor.
He drove a knee into the metal abdomen, stealing what little air the system still allowed its pilot, and started punching the helmet.
One.
Two.
Three.
Each hit left a deeper dent. The metal began to deform, sinking inward around the visor. Sparks flew, systems shrieking in protest. Erickson tried to raise his arms to protect himself, but Atlas pinned one of them against the rock and kept hitting.
Four.
Five.
On the sixth blow, a thin crack split the helmet from one side to the other.
Atlas stopped for a second.
The blue in his eyes lit with a colder glow.
He leaned his face toward the cracked helmet, nearly pressing his forehead to the fractured metal, and let the red rise.
The laser beams cut inward through the cracks, penetrating the shell of the helmet and finding what was beneath—flesh, bone, eyes.
From the outside, the helmet glowed from within for an instant, as if lit by a lamp far too bright. Then the body inside the armor suddenly slackened, all muscular tension vanishing in a single second. Erickson's good arm dropped heavily, without command.
The smell of heated metal mixed with burned flesh in the narrow corridor.
Atlas released the armor.
The steel body collapsed like an empty shell, its weight echoing across the stone floor.
From the laboratory, Natasha watched the mouth of the newly opened tunnel, narrow-eyed, judging not the brutality itself, but the efficiency.
Andrey took a deep breath—then looked at the lifeless armor with pride.
He slowly turned his head toward where he knew his mother was, his eyes still red at the edges, as if the light had taken time to go out.
Then he came back through the hole in the wall, dragging the armor as if it were scrap metal too heavy to be worth the trouble.
He dropped the metallic body in the middle of the laboratory. The impact made the benches tremble, sent flasks rolling, knocked a monitor sideways and into darkness. For an instant, all that could be heard was the tense breathing of the scientists still hiding behind tables and pillars.
Dr. Mikhail shrank further against the pillar, eyes locked on the crushed helmet.
A sharp beep cut through the silence.
From inside the shell, a cluster of red LEDs began flashing in sequence, accelerating.
Natasha narrowed her eyes.
"What is that?"
One of the scientists, still kneeling behind a broken bench, peeked over the edge. His trembling hand pointed toward the open panel in the armor's chest.
"Looks like... a tracker." His voice broke halfway through the sentence.
Natasha turned half her body toward him.
"Can you tell where it's transmitting from?"
He swallowed hard and rose just enough to reach a terminal that was still functioning. His fingers ran across the controls, diagnostic windows climbing up the screen, signals being traced. Lines of code. Coordinates.
"Yes." He enlarged a point on a schematic map. "It's transmitting to a base... here." He pointed, the cursor blinking over an isolated cluster of coordinates.
Natasha followed the point with her eyes, committing it to memory. Then she turned back to Andrey, who was still standing beside the armor, soot streaked across his torso, his uniform ripped open in panels.
She kept one hand on Mikhail's shoulders, the man kneeling before her in cuffs.
"Andrey." Her tone returned to the clean sharpness of command. "Kill everyone here. Then we go to that location."
He nodded, a short movement of the head, no argument.
He started walking through the laboratory, each step echoing off the stone walls. As he passed Natasha and Mikhail, his gaze was pulled by something to the right.
A cylindrical tank. Thick glass. Greenish liquid pulsing with slow bubbles. Tubes connected to the top, sensors spread around the base. Inside, a body suspended, more tubes on the face, muscles motionless beneath pale skin.
Andrey stopped.
The glow in his eyes dimmed a little, replaced by something flatter.
"What is he doing here?" The question came out with surprise and with a tone he hadn't used in a long time. His voice was even louder.
Mikhail lowered his gaze to the floor.
He did not answer.
Natasha followed her son's line of sight, giving the tank a quick assessment before looking back at him.
"You know him?" She indicated the suspended body with her chin. "A friend of yours?"
Andrey stood still for several seconds.
His fingers slowly curled shut, the knuckles paling beneath the skin. Then his face turned back toward the tank, staring at the outline of the person inside it as if he were measuring the distance between the past and that cylinder.
His gaze slid away and fixed itself on some random point on the wall.
"He's just someone from my past."
The sentence closed the door at the same time it pulled a satisfied smile from Natasha.
Andrey drew a deep breath, his shoulders returning to combat posture, and kept walking.
The scientists scattered across the laboratory tried to shrink even farther behind the workbenches when they saw the red glow flare again in his eyes. One of them raised his hands. Another started to babble some kind of protest.
The beams came out clean.
Red lines cut through the laboratory in controlled arcs, passing over tables, threading between equipment, striking exactly where he wanted them to strike. Bodies dropped without time to scream, some knocking over monitors, others simply folding in on themselves before collapsing.
The smell of chemicals mixed with the sweet smell of burned flesh.
When silence returned, only the shrill beep of the tracker in the armor and the drip of some ruptured tube filled the room.
Andrey extinguished the glow in his eyes, turned his back on the bodies and the tank, and walked back toward his mother—as if the entire laboratory had been nothing more than another training room he had just finished cleaning.
Erickson's Underground Base — Same Day — 6:41 PM
The main corridor no longer existed.
Reinforced concrete walls had become rubble, beams hung twisted like broken bones, and the hum of the power systems had been reduced to the irregular groan of exposed cables. Bodies marked the path—some split in half, others charred where they had fallen, the smell of melted metal and flesh mixing with the dust of concrete.
Natasha walked at the center of the chaos, boots kicking aside pieces of equipment without slowing. Behind her, Andrey moved at the same pace, his eyes still hot with the red that was fading by degrees.
In the central hangar, what remained of Erickson's operation looked like a high-tech junkyard. Open android shells, overturned workbenches, shattered screens.
A metallic sound shifted in the corner.
Kurt was crouched against a wall, glasses crooked, trembling hands stretched over a half-assembled shell. His fingers touched an exposed panel, and the dead components responded—circuits lighting up on their own, mechanical arms rising, red eyes blinking to life in an incomplete but functional body.
The android rose far too quickly for something so unfinished, turning its torso toward the intruders.
Atlas did not even stop walking.
He crossed the hangar in two steps, grabbed the android by its metal throat, and squeezed until the red eyes blinked once before going dark. The mechanical body fell with a crash, sparks spilling from the joints.
Andrey kept walking until he reached Kurt.
The boy tried to back away, but his back was already against the wall, his eyes wide behind the crooked lenses.
Natasha raised a hand, stopping her son two meters away from the boy.
"Leave him alive."
Andrey turned his face toward her, one brow furrowing for a second.
She stepped forward, evaluating Kurt the way someone might inspect raw material. Her pale eyes moved over his hands, still stained with grease, his glasses, his torn lab coat.
"Take him too."
Andrey relaxed his shoulders, grabbed Kurt by the collar of his lab coat with one hand, and lifted him off the floor as if he weighed no more than another loose sheet of paper.
The boy did not scream. He only looked back and forth between the two of them, waiting to see what would happen next.
Two Weeks After the Twins Left for Mars — October 14th, 2015 — Wednesday — Rome, Italy — Sant'Eustachio Caffè
Rome was already awake.
Morning light struck the old facades at an angle, gilding columns and tall windows, while the movement in the streets had already begun. At an outdoor café table, overlooking an alley that opened into a square, Debbie stirred her coffee in the cup, watching the steam rise and briefly distort Nolan's face on the other side of the table.
They were sitting almost directly across from each other, but without ceremony, like two people who had spent too much time together to need formality.
"I told you I needed to get you out of the house." Nolan tore off a piece of bread, the motion automatic. "After everything... a little normalcy won't kill you."
Debbie pulled her coat closer around herself, the morning air still cold.
"There are too many memories here, you know." She looked around, recognizing the city more by weight than by detail. "So much time."
Nolan followed her gaze, but his expression stayed calm, almost light.
"It doesn't feel like it was that long ago."
She turned back toward him with one eyebrow raised.
"Our first date was twenty years ago, Nolan."
He gave her half a smile.
"I remember." He bit into the bread, speaking the way someone might comment on the weather. "And you brushed me off right after."
Debbie laughed, the sound blending with the clatter of dishes from inside the café.
"Of course I brushed you off. You were an asshole on that date."
Nolan turned slightly in his chair, opening one hand toward the street as if presenting a magic trick.
"Come on, I took you to Rome that day." The gesture encompassed the old facades, the café, the scooters passing at the corner. "Again, as a matter of fact."
She shook her head, still laughing.
"And you were still an asshole." She lifted the cup to her lips. "The only reason you got a second date back then was because I saw you saving those kids on TV."
The smile that followed carried that pride only someone who had lived with a superhero for decades could wear naturally.
Nolan held her gaze for a moment, and the smile he returned was smaller, but real.
BOOOM!!!
A muffled blast split the air.
The tables trembled faintly, silverware clinked against saucers. Far in the distance, above the rooftops, a cloud of smoke rose too quickly to be anything normal. Then came the screams. Cars braking. Birds taking off all at once.
Debbie and Nolan looked in the same direction.
A massive shadow crossed the narrow slice of sky between two buildings, green and gold scales reflecting the morning light, its tail lashing through the air like a whip. The roar came a moment later, closer this time, making the window glass tremble.
Customers started rising from their tables, some running in the opposite direction, others pulling out their phones, panic slowly taking shape.
Debbie carefully set her cup back onto the saucer.
"Go," she said, by instinct.
Nolan did not move. He looked back at her, the dragon reflected in the storefront glass nearby.
"Not today." His voice came low. "We're on a date. The GDA can handle it. Today I'm off duty."
The people around them were already running. The dragon dropped lower, ripping away the side of a building two blocks down, the sound of twisting metal and blaring car alarms crashing together.
Debbie stood.
She walked around the table and stopped beside him, her hand resting on his shoulder for a second before sliding to his chest. The chaos was swelling around them, but her tone stayed calm.
"Go." She lifted her chin to meet his eyes behind the glasses. "I know you need to. Kai and Mark would be mad at me if I didn't let you."
She leaned in and kissed him, brief and firm.
When she stepped back half a pace, the dragon roared again, closer now.
Nolan smiled for a second and, because of that, changed his mind.
His face hardened slightly—not in anger, but in decision.
"I'll be back soon."
He stepped into the alley beside the café in two long strides. A second later, a blast of wind swept napkins and wrappers off the tables, and Omni-Man burst above the rooftops, shooting toward the dragon.
Debbie remained there, her coat flapping in the wind he had left behind, watching the point where he vanished into the sky over Rome. The smell of coffee was still in the air, now mixed with the scent of distant smoke.
At the Same Time, Somewhere Else in the World — Grayson House — 1:04 AM (Chicago time)
The Grayson house was dark. The clock on the wall showed an hour inconvenient for visitors.
Damien Darkblood crossed through the front door, entering with cautious intrusion.
He emerged in the dim corridor, the same icy breath from days earlier filling the air. He walked slowly through the living room, his eyes moving over photographs, books, the sofa, every object carrying a history he seemed to read as if it were evidence.
He went upstairs without making a sound.
Nolan and Debbie's bedroom was immaculate, the bed neatly made, nothing out of place. Damien opened the closet, ran his fingers over the lined-up shirts, the ties. The smell of cologne and fresh newspaper. Nothing.
The twins' room had more life to it—clothes left out, books, comics. He paused for a second in front of a picture of the two of them as children, holding a cake. His gloved finger touched the frame lightly.
Then he went up to the attic.
Dust, boxes, memories stacked on top of each other. He opened one here, another there, his eyes always searching for something that stood out—stains, tears, anything that smelled of recent violence. He found only old things, school trophies, relics from another life.
At last, Nolan's office.
Shelves lined with history books, maps on the wall, an old globe in one corner. Damien crossed the room, his coat brushing against the carpet, and opened the side closet.
The uniform.
Perfect. Clean fabric, vivid colors, intact stitching. He ran a hand over the chest of the suit, his fingers searching for irregularities, hardened spots, any remnant of blood that had not been properly removed.
Nothing.
He closed the closet slowly.
As he came back down to the ground floor, the feeling of being alone in the house changed.
The living room lamp was on.
Cecil Stedman was sitting on the sofa as if he owned the place, a cup of coffee in hand, his light-colored coat standing out against the dimness. Around him were two GDA agents, discreet, yet as obvious as shadows in the wrong place.
Damien stopped in the middle of the room.
Cecil looked at him over the rim of the cup.
"Nolan warned me about you."
The silence that followed was not the silence of strangers.
It was the silence of two men who knew exactly what kind of monster each dealt with on a daily basis—and who, in that moment, were looking at each other as problems to be managed.
That was how the two weeks passed on Earth. While Mars burned in red dust, the Grayson house kept collecting questions that still had no answers.