"I believe we've gone over this before. I'm not particularly interested in legislating morality, and if you hadn't been the front-runner, I wouldn't have even run for office." President Thomes leaned forward on his desk; perhaps it had only been the center of the federal government for a few years now, but the new capitol building; dubbed Liberty Tower; had its own oval office, and a few scattered relics from the white house; including the Resolute Desk, currently inside a display case against one wall.

"I am, frankly, pissed off that you put me in this position, and intend to take every step I can to make sure no-one like you holds power again."

The young former presidential candidate; the seemingly permanently energetic 'Father' Martin, with pale skin, black hair, and collar that seemed to mark him as an almost stereotypical southern pastor; started to step forward, raising a finger in the middle of an angry gesture; only to stop as two secret service agents stepped forward, hands on weapons.

"..Look. Mister president. We are in the end times. By the end of your term, there will no longer be a secular world to be concerned about. If this country doesn't embrace its faith going forward, we will have been found wanting when the last day comes." He smiled, raising his hands, trying to appear gracious. "Clearly, even you must see that mankind is on the verge."

Thomes glowered down at him. "Humanity is currently residing on three planets in the solar system, in two entirely different solar systems aside from our own, numerous space stations... there has never been a time in our history when a single cataclysmic event was less likely to wipe us out. If our sun went nova tomorrow, humanity would still be there the next day. The dark times are past. The only threat to our future is men like you."

Martin waved his hands in the air dramatically. "Of course man has spread out there, but its all the Japanese! Those other star systems, its.. multicultural, UN-backed nonsense. None of us good, god-fearing americans are heading out and seizing these worlds for ourselves, and even if we were, it's here on earth that we need to focus our efforts. What good does it do us if we've spread out to the stars, only for those of us out there to be lost?"

The president glanced at the secret service agents. "If he shows up again, have him arrested. He's officially being trespassed from the building. He can take the tour with everyone else, but if he leaves that, he's in a cell." He glanced up. "Starting now, if he isn't walking out of the building."

Martin gaped for a moment... and turned, stalking towards the elevator. "There will come a reckoning, president Thomes! The power of any man or nation is nothing before the power of the lord!"

Thomes glanced at the secret service agents. "Have someone go with him and make sure he leaves. And escort my next guest up here when he arrives."

The agent glanced down at his wrist for a moment, then up at the president. "He just landed, sir."

***

Landing in Los Angeles was dramatically different from landing out in the middle of nowhere. A pair of armed interceptors escorted him in; space-capable, like most military jets these days; and he actually had to follow a very specific, pre-determined route.

He even had to submit to a medical check before being allowed to leave the hangar; amusingly enough, using a device his own company had developed and mass-produced. Normally, he would then be free to step out into the airport... but he was armed, and here to visit the president.

A secret service agent accepted his weapons; placing them in a locked case; and then, surprisingly enough, gave him a glove to put on his cybernetic hand. They had done their due diligence; he wasn't sure what was in the glove, but clearly they knew the hand was a weapon.

At first, he thought that they had done well; but not well enough; after all, he was still an incredibly dangerous man, even without his weapons; until he reached the newly constructed capital building; Liberty Tower, a bastion of white and silver standing over LA; and stopped at the front door; and shook his head with a laugh. "Vano! It's been a while! What are you up to?"

The lean, powerful form of the Shadow Master was waiting for him just inside the door; the ridiculously dangerous metahuman who'd healed him when he'd first developed his mutation, a tall, subtly tanned romani who was wearing a simple grey button-up shirt and slacks; no suit, no uniform. If he hadn't recognized him; or been able to predict that attempting to attack the man with anything but his prosthetic would result in virtually instant death; he would have thought him just another random passerby.

Vano smiled, and extended a hand. "The president has been supporting my... efforts... recently, and asked me to stop by for this meeting. I'll be flying back out tomorrow."

Eyeball accepted the hand, shaking it firmly. Right there, even if he shot the man in the face with that hidden railgun, he'd die on the spot alongside him. "I believe I know what you're talking about. I'd love to help, but I've unfortunately got something more important to handle."

The Shadow Master, with a pair of secret service agents falling in alongside, walked him through to the elevator. "Well. You've done well enough. When I found out about China... well. I almost got started before the Jotun came along. I had to be pretty strongly convinced to wait. When I saw those facilities you destroyed, and that you'd taken out the men responsible... It's like these monsters saw the atrocities of the Japanese and the Nazis, and decided to one-up them."

The two agents; both metahumans, from what Eyeball could tell, though he didn't recognize the men; fell back, as Vano tapped the button... and the elevator began to descend into the earth. "I have to ask. Destroying the camps. Ending the brutality. What did you get out of it? Usually you've been fairly mercenary; you managed to come out of the whole Ascension affair extremely well-off, and La Famiglia has blossomed in power and wealth after the Jotun war."

Eyeball grimaced. "Ahh... a broken relationship. The woman I love couldn't accept what I had to do to stop them, and kicked me out. Though... she'd lost what would've been our first children, a miscarriage, during those events, so our relationship would likely have had some dark days regardless. I suppose Taiwan is still grateful that I brought them all the children we rescued, but... I almost wish I could go back and undo it, just to get her back."

Vano nodded thoughtfully. "Would you? If some time-travelling metahuman were to show up tomorrow, and offer you a chance to do it all over, knowing what was to come?"

"...At that stage? No. I'll never know what you went through being an inmate in Germany, one of Mengele's victims. But... unless I could go back far enough to prevent it from happening in the first place, I stand by what I did, and would do it all over. Maybe take some steps to save a few more, since I'd know where everything was in advance."

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

A firm hand gripped his shoulder. "Good. Having been there, I can tell you... destroying that place, killing the people responsible, saving those you could... There's absolutely nothing better you could have done to justify the gift I gave you. I hear you asked to borrow Spike?"

"... yeah. Thomes knows why. I sent him the details a while back. He gave me a tentative yes, but wants to hash things out. Maybe bargain a bit."

The elevator stopped. Eyeball wasn't sure how far underground they were; but considering the level of paranoia Thomes had in the past, likely far enough down that a nuke on the surface would still leave him intact... and with some tunnels to get back to the surface and make whoever used it regret the attempt.

The hallway was well-appointed, and had a series of offices running down it; senators, congressmen. This place wasn't just the meeting-place of government officials, and the residence of the president, but the same sort of fallout shelter that the former president, Mccarthy, had died in. Hopefully this one had better air circulation.

Vano opened the door, revealing the oval office; with Thomes sitting behind it. The capable, seemingly young man behind the desk was a strange figure compared to the grizzled old man Eyeball had first met. The wrinkles gone. The grey hair only present at the tips, and a bit of the beard; the rest looked... almost like Thomes's son. Or grandson.

He glanced up; and then at the secret service agents. "Vano, you can stay. The rest, step outside. Vano and I have this."

Which... was mostly true. Eyeball could kill them both, but would die in the process. And actually... there was some sort of protective barrier in the desk, aside from Thomes's own space-bending abilities. He'd need to get in close to do the job.

Thomes glanced at the two, and nodded. "Have a seat. I've looked over the information about the emperor. Confirmed it with the Olympians, and what SigInt has pulled from the Jotun craft. Everyone agrees he's real, and that he's a threat. The only debate is over whether he'll come here, and when. And, of course, whether or not we can actually take him out."

Eyeball nodded, and settled into one of the chairs; before removing his helmet for the second time that day, casually setting it on the desk to meet Thomes's gaze. Sometimes it was best to let them look you in the eyes; even if his face was no longer the one on his old military records, and the red hair was entirely fake. "My powers are telling me that I need to get moving, and soon. Between the way they're pushing me, the intel from the Chain of Eternity, the Jotun, and the Olympians, I estimate that he'll arrive here sometime within the next five years. The Dragonslayer Mark II is built using titan-crafted materials, Jotun and Olympian technology, and old-fashioned human ingenuity; and can arrive in Imperial space within the year. While I'm calling this a hunt, the reality is that as soon as I do some damage, and he knows we're looking for him, he'll come out to meet us. Ideally before even getting word of events here on earth."

Thomes rapped his fingers on the desk to a beat in his head, continuing to nod along. "That's certainly plausible, based on our own assessments. And you have a plan to kill him?"

"We need a single, powerful figure. Someone with so much force they actually seem to pose a threat to him, but one he'll think he can handle; and tough enough to survive his initial assault."

Eyeball inhaled deeply. He wasn't used to controlling his expressions. He was hidden behind the mask for so long... "The Dragonslayer is equipped with a railgun that can fire a single neutronium slug with enough force to actually hurt, and stun the Emperor; though the Emperor can, reportedly, regenerate almost instantly from anything other than destruction of his brain. He apparently lost a tentacle at one point, something that masses as much as a planet, and regrew it within seconds. I'll be aiming that slug, and directing both the distraction, and our actual killer; one of your former associates, Ripper. We'll get him to the right space, at the right time.... and he'll turn the monster's brain into hamburger. Me, the distraction, and Ripper will need to get in close."

He smiled. "I... don't believe I'll survive the experience, and I give Ripper only fifty-fifty odds. Ripper will need to go back and forth several times inside the creature to get the job done, and every time he'll be dealing with enormous strain from gravity... this thing weighs more than Jupiter. If the distraction is Spike, Valkyrie, or Butcher, then the distraction will survive, and make it back here with the Dragonslayer's crew."

He shrugged. "Anyone else, and they'll be dead before they can do much good. The Emperor is like Vano here on a planetary scale; he can consume an entire world in less than a minute, devouring all of their energy, he has telekinesis, inhuman reflexes, a dozen limbs, and more physical strength and durability than anything but Valkyrie herself. The Titans can survive that sort of life-draining indefinitely; Titan himself has actually been used as a battery in just such a way for tens of thousands of years and is still, in theory, alive."

Vano rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Myself and my family are also immune to such effects. I could likely serve effectively as a distraction... actually, my granddaughter would likely serve even better if she were willing to... well. Play this Emperor's own game. In fact.... it would be exactly the right thing to draw him in."

Eyeball and Thomes both turned to look at him for a moment. Thomes spoke up first. "... Play at his own game?"

"My granddaughter, Kezia. She has my own powers, of course, and can use them to fuel... magic? Before we trained her, she accidentally killed off an entire forest when she was twelve, and has been running off of that stored energy ever since during her heroic career. She... could devour a planet, if she needed to, and created the proper focus rituals. If we went to a hostile world, one whose people were part of this Emperor's engine of conquest, she could lay out her ritual, draw in the life force... and, well. If this Emperor saw some interloper drawing in the life force of one of his planets... he'd see someone who was a threat. Someone he needed to deal with, now, or else risk her eventually reaching his own level of power."

Thomes frowned. "That... no planet would be entirely hostile. There would inevitably be men, women, children who were innocent."

"As I understand it, his people have a practice of enslaving other species, and forcing them to either terraform new, living worlds full of complex, sapient life for the Emperor to eat, or to lose one of their own populated worlds; and have done this thousands of times. If Kezia were willing, sacrificing a few Imperial worlds, worlds ruled by such vicious creatures as would support this practice and this Emperor, would be more than worth the cost. It would be a bargain."

Eyeball nodded. "And it would definitely draw the Emperor in. Still. If you're willing to loan Spike for the operation, I'd appreciate it."

Thomes stared between the two men. "...We're casually discussing the deaths of billions as part of a plot to assassinate an alien."

Eyeball laughed. "The biggest mass-murdering alien of all time, and one whose ultimate objective is to someday grow so powerful he can consume the entire galaxy, and move on to another? And even if that weren't the case, earth will be on his menu the moment he learns Cronos is gone. If I need to die, and kill a few worlds... preferably not earth... to bring him down, I consider that a fair bargain."

The president jerked back. "That... wasn't in the intel assessments. From our perspective, here on earth, it might not make that big of a difference. Where did you get that?"

After a moment, Eyeball blinked. "...I don't know. I... Well, hell. I guess I just had a vision. Of him, swollen to the size of a planet, so massive as to almost form an event horizon from his sheer mass, consuming our entire galaxy in a single vast burst... not just ending all life, but somehow causing the stars to go dark, preventing any chance of life ever forming again... and then turning his gaze to Andromeda."

Thomes sighed. "Well. Your powers might be getting more developed with time. Assuming you survive, you may, eventually, be the sort of seer Apollo was." He looked at Vano. "If your granddaughter is willing, she's allowed to go. I won't order her to... and hope she doesn't, honestly." He turns to Eyeball. "Spike will also be allowed to go, if he wants. Him, I'll ask to do it. I doubt he'll say no. But. Ripper is still wanted for the death of McCarthy. If he makes it back alive, he's mine."

"If both of us get back here alive, I'll hand him over; though my power suggests that won't happen. I've made some munitions to handle people like him, just in case." Granted, that assumed they both made it back to earth alive.

Eyeball doubted he would be coming back. And even if by some miracle he and Ripper both survived the hunt... well. It would be a shame that Ripper had passed on the way home, and some new metahuman who looked completely different happened to show up in the arena afterwards.