No sane person would ever shove a hand straight into someone's open chest cavity and call it medical care. That line didn't even exist in most people's imaginations, let alone in any first aid manual. Yet Ethan Pierce had never been particularly concerned with what sane people would or wouldn't do.
"Oh, relax," he said lightly, as if he were explaining a minor inconvenience. "I was giving him CPR. He's got heart problems. Figured I'd just take it out while I was at it."
His tone was casual, almost conversational, as though he were discussing a faulty car part instead of a living organ. He even added, "Now he can get a new one. Maybe something upgraded. Worked out fine for Blue Eagle, didn't it?"
With that, Ethan reached into the torn cavity with his right hand and wrapped his fingers around the still-warm heart. He squeezed once, feeling the resistance, then pulled it free in a wet rush. Bright red blood poured down his wrist, thin vessels snapping and trailing after the organ like shredded wires.
The sight alone was enough to freeze anyone in place.
"Stop right now!" Starlight's eyes flared gold, fury flashing in her pupils as her power crackled beneath her skin.
"Okay."
Ethan didn't hesitate. He crushed the heart in his fist with a sharp, sickening pop and tossed the mangled remains aside. Then he crouched and wiped his blood-slick hands on the body at his feet, scrubbing them back and forth as if cleaning grease off a workbench. Only after he was satisfied did he stand back up.
"You should probably call an ambulance for him," he added calmly.
Hughie stared at him as if language had ceased to function. His thoughts were a chaotic blur of horror and regret. How could he have forgotten? How could he have convinced himself that trusting a man labeled mentally unstable—someone who had just torn through a federal facility—was a reasonable idea? He'd gambled with a loaded gun and only now realized the trigger had already been pulled.
Ethan didn't wait for their response. He turned and walked back the way he had come, as if retracing a path through a grocery store. On the way, he stepped into the monitoring room and methodically destroyed every hard drive he could find, crushing them underfoot or ripping them out and snapping them in half. Sparks flickered and screens died one by one.
Anyone who tried to block his path met the same fate. He raised his hand, aimed, and fired in measured bursts, moving with the slow confidence of someone taking a stroll through a quiet park. There was no rush in him, no visible strain. Only purpose.
By the time he reached the main gate, he was ready to leave.
Then his eyes narrowed slightly.
At the far end of the exit road, a figure was approaching. Even from a distance, the silhouette was impossible to ignore. It was tall—absurdly tall. As it drew closer, details sharpened, and the scale became clear.
The man was over ten feet tall, a compact mountain of bone and muscle packed into a grotesque frame. His skin was a deep, unnatural purple, stretched tight over bulging muscles that looked as if they had been carved from stone. Each step he took left dents in the pavement. When he jumped, which he did casually to clear debris, he landed hard enough to crater the ground.
"What the hell… a purple giant?"
Ethan's gaze sharpened as he assessed the newcomer.
The giant carried armfuls of food—boxes, bags, entire trays—stuffing them into his mouth as he walked. Cars in his path were slapped aside like toys. One vehicle flipped and skidded across the asphalt, alarms blaring uselessly.
When he reached the outer gate, he tried to squeeze through, only to find the reinforced metal blocking his bulk. Annoyed, he drew back his leg and kicked. The wall buckled and collapsed in a spray of concrete dust.
One of the remaining survivors panicked and floored his car in a desperate attempt to escape. The tires screamed as the vehicle fishtailed straight into the purple giant.
Boom.
The impact staggered him half a step, but he remained standing. The car crumpled like foil against his torso. The food he'd been holding scattered across the ground.
His expression twisted instantly into rage.
With a roar, he brought his fist down like a sledgehammer. The driver's side of the vehicle collapsed inward, metal folding flat. With a second surge of strength, he grabbed the car and flipped it over entirely, leaving it upside down, wheels spinning uselessly in the air.
He kicked the wreck aside without a second glance at the driver and lifted his head.
His eyes locked onto Ethan.
For a brief second, Ethan felt something unusual. Not fear. Not exactly. Recognition.
There was intent in that gaze.
A cruel glint sharpened in the giant's eyes, and the corner of his mouth curled upward. It wasn't random violence. It wasn't hunger or blind fury.
It was personal.
Did they send him for me?
Ethan stood still, studying the towering figure. He had no memory of this man. Nothing from the old movies or shows had mentioned a purple brute like this. But that didn't mean much. The world he now inhabited was larger than the fragments he'd once watched from a screen.
Vought's experiments with Compound V had been extensive. There was no telling how many unstable creations had been produced and quietly buried. A monster like this was entirely plausible.
What unsettled Ethan wasn't the size or the color.
It was the look in the man's eyes. The certainty. As if he had been waiting for this moment.
The purple giant, whose real name was Marlow Wilson, had not forgotten Ethan.
After his last failed mission, Vought had quietly discarded him. Stripped of status, reassigned to janitorial work in a forgotten facility, left to rot. Humiliation had festered inside him like infection. When Dr. Carlton offered him a chance at "improvement," he had accepted without hesitation.
He survived the injection of Compound Five.
Barely.
The formula had rewritten him from the inside out. When the transformation triggered, his body expanded, skin turning purple as his musculature multiplied in density and strength. In testing, he had endured sustained gunfire from standard-issue light firearms without serious injury. His speed, his power, his durability—all amplified beyond baseline supers.
There was a cost. He could only maintain clarity for two hours each day before the instability consumed him.
But those two hours were enough.
Vought had tipped him off about the disturbance at the nearby facility. He had come expecting chaos. What he found was something better.
He had never forgotten the man who had slaughtered more than thirty of his comrades.
He had never forgotten fleeing from those annihilating beams of heat.
"Small world," Wilson muttered, baring his teeth.
He stepped forward, tearing open his oversized shirt. Steam rose faintly from his overheated skin as his muscles swelled further. Veins stood out along his arms like cables.
His heart pounded violently in his chest, each beat echoing in his skull like a drum. Blood roared through him like molten metal. The heat was intoxicating.
Is this what real power feels like?
He clenched his fists and felt the air tremble around them. He felt capable of flipping a truck with one hand. Of ripping steel apart with his fingers.
"This is what being a superhuman is supposed to be," he growled.
His eyes burned red as he locked onto Ethan.
"Remember this," he thundered, voice rolling across the ruined courtyard. "My name is Marlow Wilson!"
Then he moved.
His entire massive frame lunged forward like a runaway freight train, tearing through the broken ground. Each step fractured concrete. Dust exploded outward behind him.
Ethan's expression shifted, sharpening into focus.
If this guy scales with anger—if he's like some kind of rage engine—then this won't be simple.
But Ethan had evolved too.
He watched the purple giant close the distance in seconds, cracking pavement underfoot. When Wilson leaped, it was like a Tyrannosaurus launching itself into a charge, all raw force and weight.
There was no feint. No trick. Just collision.
They slammed into each other.
The impact detonated through the courtyard with a deafening boom. A shockwave burst outward from the point of contact, shattering windows and sending debris flying. The ground beneath them spiderwebbed with explosive cracks.
For a heartbeat, they remained locked together in a brutal test of strength.
Then they were thrown apart.
Wilson skidded back several meters, heels gouging trenches into the asphalt. He felt the sting radiating through his chest and arms, a dull ache he hadn't anticipated. Surprise flickered across his face.
In the lab, after surviving Compound Five, Dr. Carlton had praised him. Among enhanced individuals, he had been told, he ranked near the top. His metrics suggested dominance over most supers currently in circulation.
He was supposed to crush them.
Almost effortlessly.
But this.
....
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