Brock leapt towards the towering monstrosity, firing through the air like a rifle shot. The scythe came swinging in remarkably quick, smashing him to the side and into one of the cavern walls in a plume of splintered rock and dust, but Brock was already springing out of the crater, debris drawn into a spiraling tail around his feet. He cocked one leg to the side, ready to sweep it across the Overlord’s midsection.

This time the scepter came down, harsh purple light flaring from the skulls along its length. A wave of force crushed Brock into the ground, bouncing him off the cavern floor, and the scythe lashed out again.

It wasn’t aimed at Brock.

...save them.

“No collateral damage!” Bindy’s shrill voice rang out from the magiphone, and Brock’s eyes whipped over towards the still-frozen squad.

The scythe was on a direct course to wipe them from existence.

Brock bent his legs and pushed. Actinic light roiled up towards the cavern’s roof, air molecules accelerated to significant fractions of light speed triggering fission interactions as he split stone and soil, and the dome of a nuclear fireball slowly bulged overhead.

Brock figured that was a problem he could deal with later.

He slammed to a halt in front of the bonescythe and threw a left cross.

Another wave of force blasted out from his knuckles and shredded the molecular edge into vaporized annihilation, splitting the scythe in half. He spun towards Cap and the others, but coruscating gateways were already engulfing their bodies, transporting them elsewhere.

“You’re clear!” Bindy chirped, and Brock felt a grin engulf his face.

It was time to really let loose.

Why am I smiling? I’m scared shitless. Is this... is this how Starak felt when he fought Sekkies?

Am I still me?

Does it matter right now?

He crouched, then exploded off the stone floor, leaving another cataclysmic explosion in his wake as he accelerated through the still-building envelopment of the first. The Overlord roared, a hellish rumble of subsonic frustration, and the twin-pairs of emerald eyes narrowed. Brock cocked his right fist back for another punch, but when he threw it a pentagram portal appeared in front of his hand.

He felt his fist contact something at the same time the back of his head was obliterated, and his body pinballed around the cavern, buffeted by the near-simultaneous nuclear eruptions. He came to on a radioactively glowing stone floor, molten rock dripping from the ceiling in sudden stalactites, the skull scepter swinging down at his face, obliterating indigo light streaming everywhere.

Brock caught it in one hand, then squeezed. The upper length of the scepter disintegrated, sending the bulbous collection of skulls that made up its head clattering across the stone. A vortex of gravitic energy appeared above him, sucking in light and matter, but he slapped himself upright and banished it between two clapped hands.

The skeletal colossus still towered over him, triple arms weaving through a complex series of motions. Dingy crimson runes in lines of demonic script rotated through the air, and a vast and fiery eye suddenly appeared above Brock, radiating deadly intent, part of some unfathomably alien creature peering through a window between worlds.

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Brock kicked it straight in its infinity-irised pupil.

The eye blinked, then disappeared, and Brock launched himself towards the Overlord again, this time propelling both of them upwards. They crashed through layers of earth and rock, trading blows the entire time, until they emerged into a midnight sky, a crescent moon looming balefully overhead, the wilderness beneath them receding rapidly. In the distance, a Yggdrasil’s wavering branches danced like phantasms against the canopy of stars.

“Your efforts are futile,” the Overlord snarled, sending sleeting shards of vacuum ice at Brock. He knocked them aside, and small glaciers appeared in the distant trees below, shattering them in silent bursts. “You can’t defeat me, and you certainly can’t defeat the Conductor. Traitor.”

Brock kicked off another group of air molecules, briefly lighting the dark with an apocalyptic fireball.

“I’m not going to lose,” he growled, cocking his right fist back again. “Not anymore, and especially not to an asshole like you.”

Let’s see if you repeat the same pattern.

Brock punched out towards the massive construct of bones, and sure enough, a fitful green pentagram appeared in front of his knuckles.

This time, though, he was expecting it.

Brock twisted his body, reversing his right fist back at the same time his left arm reached out to grab the Overlord’s waist. With a grunt, he extended his legs and propelled the two of them towards the distant Yggdrasil branches in a sonic boom leap. Light blossomed behind, but was immediately outpaced. A corona of frictional fire enveloped them, like the nimbus of a falling angel.

“What are you-”

Brock rotated ninety degrees and kicked against one of the branches now occupying the entire space around them, driving upwards into the crown of the Worldtree. A small divot appeared on the pale bark, but was quickly left behind.

“What is-”

Realities flashed around them as they ascended, growing stranger by the second, until up became down and Brock felt a familiar descent. He suplexed the Overlord into the distant shore, and scattered shards of memory drifted out from their impact across multiple dimensions.

The inside-out crab thing gabbled angrily at them, brandishing what looked like a cross between a broom and a praying mantis. Next to it, the dustpan appeared to be soaking in a hot-tub filled with nebulae. A chiming noise sounded from Brock’s neck.

“Warning. Outside of Limiter range. You have five seconds to return to Limiter range or consequences will apply.”

The praying mantis-broom flexed its bristles at the Overlord, who began rapidly decohering under the onslaught of alien physics.

“What... what’s going on? Where are we?!”

“Four.”

“I’m not entirely sure, but I’m going to leave you here,” Brock said quickly, squatting into a crouch. “And I don’t know what’s going to happen to you, but I can’t imagine it’ll be pleasant.”

The inside-out crab clacked one of its claws menacingly, as if in agreement.

“Three.”

“I- what, no!” The Overlord’s voice was panicked. The once-great bone colossus was now little more than a rapidly disintegrating sphere the size of a basketball, its four emerald eyes darting around frantically. “You can’t leave me here! I didn’t anticipate this!”

“Two.”

“Then you’ll cooperate? When we get back? No trying to kill everyone?”

The last remnants of age-weathered ossuary cracked and disappeared, along with one of the toxic eyes. The Overlord shrieked.

“I can feel them! Eating my mind! Yes, yes, I’ll cooperate, just get me out of here!”

“One.”

Brock burst outwards, snagging the trail of noxious emerald vapor with one hand. The inside-out crab and the mantis-broom both shook what he assumed were fists at him as he left, but an instant later, Brock and the much-diminished Overlord were back on the recognizable branch of a Yggdrasil.

“There, see?” Brock said, still clutching the dirty smoke. “That wasn’t so hard.” He pulled the wispy remnants of the Overlord in front of his face, its Limiter hanging crooked over the flickering three remaining eyes. “Now, who the hell is the Conductor, and why are they interested in me?”

The cloud expanded, as if to answer, then froze. An intensely brilliant pinpoint appeared in the depths of one of its eyes, so bright that Brock flinched back, letting go of his grip. The light expanded, scouring shadow and darkness from the sky until everything was noon, then noon became the edge of a star.

When the brilliance faded, all Brock saw was a Limiter lying on the scorched and smoldering skin of the Yggdrasil branch, dull grey metal seemingly untouched.

“...whut?”

A portal of coruscating light appeared next to him.

The Director stepped through, expression fierce.

He looked down at the Limiter, then at Brock.

“Alas. I do wish you’d been able to take him alive.”