It had been three days since my return to Earth.
But something… something was terrifyingly wrong with me.
I was resting on the couch with Debbie. We were watching the news, catching up on the events I had missed.
The screen suddenly flashed to amateur footage of a ruined city block in Chicago.
It showed scenes of the battle between John Kaisen and a Dornian of all species.
The camera zoomed in on the footage. It showed Kaisen, his battered body covered in his own blood as he desperately fought the giant alien.
When I saw Kaisen's bloodied face under the cracked Wolf mask, the shadow of his blade seemed to haunt my vision as I saw a ghostly image of the sword pointing at my throat.
My eyes turned completely red as the irrational mania that I had managed to contain in the hospital crept up my spine with full force. The rage bypassed my logic.
I vaulted off the couch, my fists clenching so hard my knuckles popped.
I needed to fly to Chicago. I needed to find him and bash his skull into the pavement until there was nothing left but pulp. I needed him erased from existence
Debbie immediately jumped up, stepping directly in front of me and pressing her small hands against my chest to push me back.
"Calm down, Nolan!" she yelled, her eyes wide with fear. "You need to rest! You need to stay here, with me! That man sent you away to die... I... I can't take something like that happening to you again!"
"Get out of my way, Debbie," I growled.
I didn't even recognize my own voice. I sounded like a feral beast instead of a disciplined soldier of the Empire.
But Debbie was not one to give up. She stubbornly planted her feet, pushing against my immovable chest as tears spilled down her cheeks.
"Please, Nolan, think of your family!" she pleaded, her voice breaking. "Mark isn't picking up my calls, and now this is happening in Chicago... Please stay with me. Nolan, please..."
"GET OUT OF MY WAY, WOMAN!" I roared.
Blinded by the unnatural fury, I unconsciously swatted her aside.
It wasn't a Viltrumite strike. It was just a casual backhand to clear my path. The kind of absentminded gesture one uses to brush away a fly. But I forgot, in the haze of my bloodlust, how fragile humans were.
I watched in horrific slow-motion as her body was violently flung across the room. She slammed hard against the drywall, a sickening CRACK echoed, before her limp body crumpled onto the hardwood floor.
I froze. For a second, the entire universe paused with me.
Then, the rage vanished, replaced by paralyzing terror. I rushed to her side, dropping to my knees.
"Debbie!"
Thankfully, she was still breathing, her pulse strong but erratic. But there was a nasty, deep gash on her forehead from where she hit the wall. Thick, dark blood was already pooling on the pristine white floor.
Before I could call for help, the nurse whom I first saw when I opened my eyes rushed into the room. She took one look at Debbie and frantically started screaming into her walkie-talkie for a medical evac.
The nurse then slowly looked up at me. Her eyes were filled with accusing terror.
"What... what did you do?" she whispered, trembling.
I couldn't answer her. I looked down at my hands. They were smeared with Debbie's blood. The love of my life. I had hurt her. I had nearly killed my own wife because this irrational, uncontrollable anger had completely overpowered a thousand years of strict Viltrumite discipline.
"No... no, something... something is wrong with me," I muttered, stumbling backwards.
Tears welled in my eyes as I stared at the stains on my hands with my wife's blood.
Viltrumites do not lose control. We do not feel irrational hatred for insects.
We do not strike our breeding pet…our partners in blind, manic furies.
This wasn't me. This was something else. That sorcerer, Kaisen... he had done something to my mind in that castle.
He…he had cursed me.
I didn't know what had taken over me, but I knew one thing with absolute certainty: I needed to get as far away from Earth as possible before I lost control and killed my own family. I needed the Empire's scientists to purge this wrongness from my body.
I crouched low and launched myself up. I punched completely through the ceiling, being considerate enough to be away from Debbie to avoid further hurting her, through the roof, and shot into the atmosphere like a ballistic missile.
The friction of exiting Earth's orbit at top speed burned my casual clothes to ash, destroying any devices I had on me.
I needed to get in contact with the Viltrumite Empire.
But just as I broke past the orbit of the Moon, a familiar orange blur flew directly into my flight path.
"Hey, Omni-Man! Ready for another round of evaluation?" the telepathic voice of the Unopan echoed directly into my already aching skull.
Allen the Alien.
I did not have the time or the patience to play 'Earth's Champion' to keep the Coalition of Planets away.
I banked sharply to the right, pushing my flight speed to bypass him.
But the orange idiot effortlessly matched my trajectory. He zipped directly in front of me, cutting off my flight path with a barrel roll in the vacuum of space.
"Move," I warned.
"Whoa, hey! What's with the attitude, Omni-Man?" Allen's telepathic voice echoed, his cheerful tone grating against my nerves like sandpaper. "I mean, I know Earth's atmosphere is mostly nitrogen and oxygen, but you look like you just swallowed a gregyn whole. Bad day at the office?"
The telepathic voice of Allen began to itch at my brain. It felt like a physical intrusion.
I ignored him, diving low to slip beneath his bulky frame.
He just dropped down with me, crossing his massive arms with a jovial grin. "Come on, buddy! I just flew halfway across the sector for our scheduled beatdown! Don't tell me you're bailing on me. The Coalition needs my reports! How about a quick three-round spar? I actually brought my A-game this time!"
My jaw clenched so hard I felt my molars creak. I tried to fly around him one more time, but the orange idiot insisted on blocking my path, cracking poor jokes and projecting his thoughts into my head.
"Is it the mustache? You know, my girlfriend says I should grow one, but I don't think Unopans really have the follicles for it. Do you use a special comb or—"
I came to an abrupt halt.
"Move," I warned, my voice deadly quiet in the vacuum of space.
But as I looked at Allen, my eyes locked onto his single, massive eye.
The image violently overlapped in my erratic brain. The single eye of the Unopan morphed into the single, mocking eye of the pale cyclops. The one who had trapped me in that wooden hellscape. The phantom sound of her instrument echoed sharply in my skull, sending a spike of blinding agony behind my eyes.
Pure, unadulterated violence seized my body.
I didn't warn him again. I lunged forward at maximum velocity.
Before Allen could even raise his hands to defend himself, I drove my fist straight forward. My knuckles shattered his orbital bone, punching deeply into the squelching, wet mass of his single, massive eye. The Unopan let out a muffled, gurgling scream as viscera and bright blood erupted into the zero-gravity vacuum.
I ripped my bloody fist out of his ruined face. I grabbed him by his throat, spun around, and hurled his mangled, unconscious body back toward Earth like a discarded piece of trash, letting the friction of reentry burn away his corpse.
I turned my back on the solar system and accelerated toward deep space, aiming for the nearest Viltrumite outpost.
I needed answers for this irrational behaviour.
I needed backup. I needed to cure this so I could return and slaughter the bastard who had forced me away from my family.
As I sped past the star system, a single, venomous thought bloomed in my mind.
'Damn you, Kaisen!'
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