"CRUNCH!"The sickening sound echoed like thunder through the silence, amplified by the bloodstained wind that swept across the battlefield. William's hand clenched with godlike force, and in a single act of terrible finality, Thragg's spinal column shattered like brittle glass, his skull violently torn free from the rest of his body. The head tumbled to the ground with a grotesque thud, the now lifeless husk of the Viltrumite warlord collapsing in a twisted, broken heap. The once-mighty symbol of imperial dominance was reduced to nothing more than discarded flesh and shattered bone.
A hush fell across the battleground, eerily still, like the breathless moment before a storm returns.Weapons quivered in uncertain hands. Coalition soldiers and Viltrumites alike, sworn enemies seconds ago, now stood united in a singular emotion: dread. It wasn't just fear of death; it was the bone-deep terror of something worse, something unstoppable.They pointed their weapons at him, fingers trembling on triggers, but in their hearts, they knew.This… was no longer a battle.This was judgment.
And then his eyes moved.Blazing, golden orbs, burning with unrelenting fury and divine grief, locked onto a sight no warrior, no father, should ever endure.
Mark's body lay still beneath the storm.Nolan cradled his son's limp form, the old warrior's arms shaking under the weight of both body and memory. Rain poured from the heavens like the mourning of gods, mixing with the blood that soaked Mark's suit.A father's tears, raw and ragged, slid down Nolan's cheeks.Visible. Vulnerable.Even the skies wept with him.
Veins bulged along William's neck like serpents under his skin. His aura, once pulsing with controlled power, now crackled with chaotic energy. Lightning arced across his body as if the world itself couldn't contain his fury.
"WHOOSH!"He vanished, a blur that split the air like a cannon shot.Gasps rang out. Some flinched. Others closed their eyes, expecting the next moment to be their last.
Seconds later, he returned.This time, he held someone.
A young woman in a torn, pink unitard, her face pale and expression dazed from the speed of travel. Atom Eve.
He dropped her beside Mark with almost mechanical care. For a heartbeat, she forgot the force that had snatched her from wherever she had been.Her eyes fell on Mark.
She froze."No…"Eve collapsed to her knees, her breath catching in her throat as her hands hovered helplessly over his chest."Mark… please," she whispered, voice cracking.Rain mixed with her tears.Nolan looked up, blood on his gloves, grief in his gaze. "It's okay, son. He's gone. You can wake up now."
But Mark didn't move.
His blood was soaking Nolan's suit, turning silver into crimson. His warmth was fading. And yet they waited. They hoped.
"BOOM!"The sound shattered the mourning. William shot back into the sky like a comet of golden fire.The rage had returned, and this time it wasn't silent.It roared.
He descended upon the remaining Viltrumite forces like a divine executioner.Every energy blast that tried to intercept him was swatted aside.Every plea for mercy fell on deaf ears.Every soldier who had raised a hand against Earth met a swift, brutal end, reduced to a streak of red across concrete and steel.
Buildings trembled.Air cracked with sonic booms.Explosions littered the city like fireworks, except these left no beauty behind, only carnage.Through it all, he moved like a long-haired golden reaper, his fists painting trails of death with each impact.
Then, he found him.Battle Beast.
The monstrous feline warrior had been attempting to flee, limping across the city's crumbled edge with his once-proud mane matted in gore. But the moment he felt the sudden presence above him, his spine stiffened.The chill that crawled down his back was not from the rain, but from the deathly silence of what hovered just beyond his vision.
He turned.His slit-pupil eyes met William's.And he knew.
"BOOOOM!"A golden hand wrapped around his face and drove him downward, harder than gravity, faster than thought.The impact ruptured the Earth.The ground didn't crack, it erupted, streets curling upward like paper as shockwaves rippled for miles.
"BANG! POW! POW! BANG! BANG! POW!"Dust filled the air, and yet the sounds echoed, brutal, rhythmic.The sound of fists breaking flesh.Of bone giving way.Of justice, terrible and merciless, delivered with every blow.
When the air cleared, William stood in the center of a crater, fists dripping with blood not his own.Battle Beast was a ragged shadow of himself, twitching, groaning incoherently.
"Ughuguguh…"A sound more beast than man.A plea.An admission.A surrender.
William grabbed him by the arm and took to the skies, the feline's body dragging limply like a trophy behind him.
He landed before Thaedus and Allen with a thunderous gust, dropping the half-dead warrior like garbage. Allen caught him reflexively, but even his Viltrumite strength faltered under the weight of what had just happened.
William's gaze bore into them, stern, unblinking.
"Keep better watch over your toys," he said, voice like a blade. "Or next time… they might end up broken."
Then he stepped closer.Closer to Thaedus.Their eyes locked.
"And now… gather your men. Leave this place. Congratulations, by the way—"His voice shifted suddenly, sharpened steel turning to velvet silk."As of today, the Viltrumite Empire is no more."
The words struck like a bell in a cathedral.Clear. Resounding. Unstoppable.
Thaedus and Allen stared. Stunned. Silent.Then the words sank in. Their chests rose in unison. Their eyes widened.
"…It's really over," Allen whispered.
Up above, the Coalition fleet was still. Not a single ship moved.Not a finger touched a command console.Not a breath was wasted.
All eyes were glued to the scene below.The god among men.The scattered corpses.The still-smoking remains of Thragg.
No one dared speak it aloud.But the truth hung in the air, heavier than the rain.
The war was over.
And William… had become something more than a warrior.
He was the man who did the deed almost single handedly he was definitely a monster.
In the war-torn distance, surrounded by ash and fire, Atom Eve knelt beside Mark's corpse, her hands trembling, her heart thundering in her chest. Sweat poured down her face like a storm, soaking her pink unitard and dripping from her chin. Her breathing grew ragged, sharp, pained gasps tearing from her lungs until her exhales became visible in the cold, smoke-laced air. Her power flared wildly, unstable at the edges as her construct flickered around Mark's body. The reconstruction process had reached sixty percent, but her mind was fraying, and her cells were burning out from the sheer strain.
She was running out of time, and worse, running out of herself.
Then, snap!
A golden hand, radiant and hot with barely contained fury, appeared in front of her face. Before she could react, two fingers pressed against her lips and slipped a small, green bean past them. Her teeth instinctively clenched, crushing the mysterious capsule with a faint crunch.
Her eyes flared with reflexive anger as they snapped upward toward William, who stood over her like a sun-crowned war god, his aura crackling around him like the wrath of Olympus itself. But before her expression could solidify into outrage, a rush of raw life surged through her body, unfiltered, pure energy flooding her veins like liquid lightning.
She gasped, her body convulsing for a brief moment, before bursting into a blinding bloom of radiant pink light.
"WHOOSH!"
Her aura exploded outward in a shockwave of cosmic pink brilliance, and her newly-empowered hand extended above Mark's broken corpse like a celestial spirit descending upon a fallen hero. Her fingers trembled, her energy field expanding until Mark's lifeless form was fully enveloped in luminous power.
All around them, the battlefield fell silent again. The rain dared not fall within the radius of her light.
Muscle fiber began knitting together before their eyes. Snapped bones shifted and slotted into place. Torn sinew and shattered cartilage realigned in a breathtaking, almost sacred display of anatomical rebirth. With each second, Mark's ruined body regenerated—he was being rebuilt not by science, nor magic, but by sheer, unrelenting will and love forged in cosmic flame.
The pink aura pulsed, once, twice, and then flooded through Mark's chest, saturating every cell, every mitochondrion with radiant life. A final flare burst outward.
Then, Mark breathed.
His chest rose.
His eyes snapped open, and for a moment, they glowed with an ethereal cyan brilliance, deeper and more vibrant than ever before. Then, slowly, the glow faded, replaced by his natural dark blue irises, wide with confusion… and life.
He was alive.
But as the energy faded, so too did Eve. Her constructs flickered. Her body drooped. She began to fall, weightless and unconscious, a puppet with its strings cut, hurtling toward the jagged pavement below.
Yet before the ground could embrace her, a pair of strong, glowing arms caught her mid-air.
William.
He cradled her gently, despite the storms of golden, godlike energy still rippling from his skin. His expression, so often cold or battle-hardened, softened as he looked down at her fragile form. One massive hand brushed a few damp strands of pink hair from her face, tucking them behind her ear.
"Thank you," he whispered.
And in that quiet moment, amidst the wreckage of war and the ashes of a broken empire, a flicker of peace returned, for just a second
Elsewhere in the ruined city…
Amidst the echoing wails of distant sirens and the crackle of collapsing infrastructure, a single light flickered within a modest home tucked away from the warzone's center. Inside, the walls trembled with every far-off explosion, but none of that mattered to the woman kneeling in front of the television, her body wracked with sobs.
Debbie Grayson.
Her eyes were locked onto the screen, wide and glazed, tears pouring down her cheeks with such force they had soaked the front of her shirt. Her breathing was erratic, short, panicked gasps barely bringing in enough oxygen. Her lips trembled as she whispered incoherently, her words mangled by the tidal wave of grief crashing through her soul.
She had just watched her son die.
No warning. No build-up. Just a sudden, brutal end. A mother's worst nightmare realized in horrifying high definition.
Her trembling fingers clutched the television stand like a lifeline, but her body was starting to give. Her muscles ached, her nails bloodied from clenching too hard, and still she stared.
Then, through the tears and static and distant sound of chaos, a golden light appeared on the screen.
William.
Her breath hitched. Her tear-streaked face twitched with confusion and something else, something deeper. A flicker of memory. Of hands that once held her gently. Of a night weeks ago, shared in loneliness and understanding, when grief had made her vulnerable, and William had simply been there in a way no one else had been since Nolan left.
She knew that silhouette. That power. That presence.
And then he was gone from the screen, only to reappear again, this time not alone. Eve was with him. And in a swirl of radiant pink energy, Mark's broken body began to mend.
The moment his eyes opened, those bright, beautiful blue eyes, Debbie screamed.
It was a sound of disbelief, of heartbreak cracking under the weight of hope. She laughed and sobbed at the same time, her face a mess of tears and mucus and uncontainable joy.
"My baby... he's alive... oh my—"
The words caught in her throat.
Too much. It was all too much.
She swayed as the screen blurred, her vision tunneling. Her body, running on sheer adrenaline for far too long, finally gave out. Her knees buckled and she collapsed, her hand catching the edge of the television as she fell. The device tumbled with her, crashing onto the hardwood with a resounding shatter, sparks briefly flaring from the broken screen.
Debbie's body hit the floor seconds later, unconscious. But not cold. Not empty. For the first time since this nightmare began, her heart was filled with a light she thought she'd lost forever.
And in that quiet moment…
A shimmer of distorted light pulsed inside the room.
Four operatives de-cloaked around her, their suits matte black with glowing insignias marking their allegiance, Cecil's elite.
The lead agent knelt by her side, fingers pressed against her neck. "Pulse steady. She's out cold. Get the gurney."
"Relay visual confirmation," another said into his comms. "Mark Grayson is alive. Subject has seen resurrection. Secondary emotional collapse, likely due to relief."
The report flew through encrypted channels at breakneck speed, reaching the very top within seconds.
Deep inside the GDA facility...
Cecil Stedman's single good eye narrowed as he stared at the incoming report. The cigarette in his mouth smoldered, untouched.
"…Debbie," he muttered, almost to himself. There was a silence in the war room that hung heavy, like respect.
He turned toward his staff.
"Get her to the comfort suite. Facility Three. And I want her stabilized. No sedatives unless absolutely necessary."
He paused, then added, "William's seen her before. If he comes to visit... let him."
The room stilled. Not out of protocol, but because everyone knew. Everyone remembered that brief window of time, post-Nolan, when the world felt like it had collapsed on her… and William Parker had quietly stepped into that void. Not as a savior, but as a man who understood grief. A man who held her when no one else could.
Now, that same man had just brought her son back from the dead.
And somewhere, deep in her subconscious, cradled in darkness, Debbie dreamed of that night, the warmth of his chest, the way his hands didn't tremble, and the sound of his voice when he promised that one day… it would be okay.
And now, maybe, just maybe, it was.
As William ascended above the broken city, his body still wreathed in divine golden flames, he was a vision of celestial vengeance, a golden god hovering midair, blood-streaked and battle-worn, yet radiating immeasurable strength. The battlefield below had gone deathly silent. Not a whisper stirred. Even the rain had seemed to yield to his presence.
And then, reality itself split.
"RIIIIIP!"Like paper torn by invisible hands, the sky behind William shuddered and peeled open, revealing a yawning void, not black, but awash in blue and speckled with stars, like a living cosmos. From within that impossible rift emerged tendrils, not of flesh, but of energy, iridescent, shimmering blue tentacles, glimmering like galaxies woven into thread.
They shot forward with the speed of thought.
"WHAT THE!?" William bellowed, but before he could move, before he could even blink, they coiled around him. Arms. Legs. Waist. Neck. The golden light around him flared violently, his aura turning into a miniature sun, searing the tentacles on contact.
But more kept coming.
Dozens. Hundreds. A storm of cosmic chains, each one tightening, dragging him backward inch by inch toward the dimensional wound behind him.
"RUMBLE... CRACK!"The very air shivered. Thunder boomed, and lightning streaked across the heavens like veins of fury. William's muscles bulged. He howled, punching, tearing, roaring. His blows shattered the sound barrier, creating shockwaves that ripped nearby clouds apart. Each golden blast he fired tore chunks of the tentacles to shreds, but they reformed instantly, this was not a foe of flesh.
He was being pulled in, irrevocably.
From the ground, thousands watched in horror. From the remnants of the Coalition to the broken Viltrumite forces, to civilians and soldiers watching from televisions across the globe, no one understood. Not even Atom Eve, still unconscious in Nolan's arms, could process what was happening.
And then—
He vanished.
With one final golden pulse bursting from the rift like the last breath of a dying sun, William disappeared into the void. The portal snapped shut, sealing behind him with a whisper.
The world went quiet.
Every screen across the Earth and Coalition fleets froze on the same image, empty sky, still crackling from the residual storm.
"What the hell just happened…?" The thought passed like wildfire across every sentient being who bore witness.
In the Interdimensional Rift
Darkness swallowed William. Not the kind of darkness born of shadows, but of concept, a space between realities, where the laws of time and matter twisted like smoke.
He was suspended midair, his body now encased in a cocoon of tentacles, a living cage of cosmic threads, spinning and contracting like a heartbeat.
Then a voice spoke.
Not from outside. From everywhere.
"I have bore your trespass long enough."
The voice was deep, calm and absolute, echoing inside his skull as though his very bones were being spoken to.
"And I hereby expel you from my universe, under my supreme authority."
Each word carried weight, not metaphorically, but physically. It pressed down on him like gravity increasing a thousandfold.
"From now on, no portal will open for you here. You do not belong."
William's fists clenched, his body trembling with restrained fury, but the moment he moved—
"POP!"
A sudden, unexpected sound echoed in the cocoon, like a champagne cork, and with it came two startled shrieks.
"What the hell?!""William?!"
Out of nowhere, Sif and Anissa materialized beside him, eyes wide and armor battle-damaged. Tears rimmed both their eyes as they instinctively clung to him, throwing their arms around his torso. Both women had thought he was dead—lost in the void—and the sight of him made their knees weaken.
"You're real... you're okay..." Sif whispered, barely audible.
They didn't get long.
Ahead, a light erupted, green and pulsing, and new tendrils emerged, these ones thinner, glowing like veins of jade. The green threads reached toward the blue cocoon, intertwining with it in a silent handshake of energies. Then—
The blue retracted.The green surged.
The trio was pulled forward, through the tunnel of unreality, toward the warm pull of familiarity.
Back in the Marvel Universe
The vacuum of space outside Asgard trembled, and tore open.
"SHHHHRRRK!"
A rift appeared, and from within it burst forth the triumphant green threads, carrying William, Sif, and Anissa like comets. They landed gracefully, if somewhat clumsily, on a floating rock, golden and bruised, but alive.
But in another quadrant of the universe...
The Power Stone Awakens
Deep within a sealed vault on a barren, forgotten planet, a purple gem, encased in a crystalline containment field, began to tremble. Sparks leapt across the room.
The Power Stone, one of six primal forces, had sensed something. A disruption. A return.
"RUMBLE!"
The container exploded outward, the force eviscerating the vault in an instant. The gem hovered, humming, its power no longer confined. And then—
It ignited.
A roaring storm of violet energy burst from it, swallowing the entire planet in a split second. The mass condensed and transformed, into a supermassive purple sun, pulsing with eldritch power. Space warped around it. Time bled into itself.
Somewhere nearby, a spaceship slowed to a crawl.
Inside the cockpit, Peter Quill, Star-Lord, stared at the blinding mass of light where his treasure was supposed to be.
"…Nope." He flicked a lever and jumped to hyperspeed, his ship vanishing in an instant.