James Patrick Bates sipped from a can of Bloodless as he glanced at the colleague sitting on the other side of the table. It was a light, flimsy plastic thing, but it was round, and that was what mattered to Breakout.

Clarisse Anne Simmons sat cross-legged, staring through what she said was supposed to be the cafe's walls, through to Jim, it just looked like a ceiling-to-floor window. Despite the rain splashing against it, the glass wall was fairly clear, allowing even a normal human to see the people walking the street outside, mundanes and paranormals going about their business, or just walking.

It was...peaceful, especially considering everything creation had gone through recently. Especially for Detroit. Organized crime might've been one of the city's bigger problems, but it wasn't the only one. When news had gotten out about how everything had almost ended, there had been looting, self-declared prophets going on apocalyptic rants, even a rowdy crowd that could've started a riot.

But Breakout had helped reestablish order in her town, the FREAKSHOW agent working alongside her counterparts from several other agencies to calm people down and assure them nothing like that could or would ever happen again: such random cosmic disasters had become a thing of a past that had never been, now that the nature of existence had shifted.

It had been one of the more optimistic statements ever made by the USA's paranormal law enforcement agency, but the two agents were here today to make sure people believed it...among other reasons.

Jim's crimson, black-slit eyes narrowed as he noticed Clara's wistful expression behind her stars and stripes balaclava. The woman seemed to be smiling with her eyes (something he'd learned to spot decades ago, more out of necessity than pleasure), her dreadlocked raven hair swaying slightly as she slowly nodded for no apparent reason.

Or maybe she was headbanging to a remembered tune? With how peaceful the day was going, Jim was expecting Breakout to blurt out that "too quiet" line, or lyrics from a song written by a chump with more passion than talent.

Instead, she seemed...content. As calm as today's events, or rather the lack thereof, had been.

Jim was not unsettled. The vampire liked to think that fighting in the Civil War, back when he'd been human, followed by over sixteen decades of unlife, had inured him to fear. Seeing one of his most rambunctious friends at peace still had him on guard, though, because the knucklehead usually only acted like this before springing some prank on him or demanding a spar, things of that sort. She didn't even seem to notice how she put people at rest before turning their world upside down, but, in a way, she was just as much a predator as he was.

The handful of nights they'd shared over the years had firmly convinced him of that, in a manner far more pleasant than the sharp lessons that changed his life usually did. It was funny. Jim knew mundanes were a relic of the past, an ancestor species that would be discarded, replaced as transhumanism spread and people began to change and augment themselves, but...heh.

His instincts, that false mind that began to talk back to vampires when they reached a certain age or drank enough blood, were pragmatic. The creature, which appeared in his mindscape as a blood-spattered, dry husk of a soldier-how he must've looked after being turned by the First Vampire.

The Bloodfather had found him hanging from the tree where he'd been hanged by angry, vengeful blacks. He'd been on the wrong side of the war, as he'd decided later, so he wasn't surprised that the former slaves had tied the noose with more enthusiasm than skill. By the time Primus had found him he'd been choking and gasping through a purpling mouth, feeling his neck swell as bones broke.

The freed slaves had glared at him with satisfaction, feeling avenged for the slurs he'd thrown at them. A time of petty arrogance and petty, shallow superiority. Jim was glad he'd got over it, but at the time, he'd deserved it.

Primus had hidden among the freemen, maybe charming them with his hypnotic gaze so they'd ignore hm as he turned Jim. After a short exchange, which Jim had only managed to nod during, the Bloodfather had bitten his throat. Reeling from his undeath as his mind tried to adapt to the unbreathing body of a vampire, Jim had stilled, partly in disbelief.

Satisfied with his apparent death, and likely addled by Primus' powers, the freed slaves had left on their way. Primus had shortly followed, and even today, Jim still wasn't sure why he'd been turned.

Shaking his head, as if to shake off the memories, Jim cleared his throat-something he only did when he wanted to draw someone's attention, rather than out of any necessity. "Penny for your thoughts?"

Breakout slowly turned her head to look at him, moving at only three quarters the speed of light. "Funny. Never thought you give a damn about what I think, Jimmy boy, much less cash."

Jim snorted. The pet name was annoying though starting to wear on him. Even without that, though, it was a helluva lot more bearable than that stupid reference to the Jim Crow era FREAKSHOW had chosen as his codename. For perhaps the first time, Jim wondered if, perhaps, it would've been better to keep quiet about his stance on mundanes, and just wait for them to fade into obsolescence, then nonexistence. Just a curiosity in the history books, the link between apes and mankind's paranormal descendants.

Jim leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms. "Pretend I do, Clarisse," he said in his best drawl.

Breakout just looked at him for a few nanoseconds, saying nothing as she fidgeted with her balaclava. Then, quietly, she asked, "Did you break the ice cuz it's more obvious when I'm thinkin' 'bout something than you are? Or are you just curious?" Smiling with her eyes again, she spoke before he could answer, a metaphysical mirror of her voice reverberating through the aether. "You're thinking about human extinction again, aren't you?"

James would've taken offense with her phrasing (why had she said it like it was something he always did, and in an annoying manner to boot? He didn't hang around so many telepaths for his thoughts to be bothersome, and those he did meet regularly with were used to much worse), but he noticed that both her voice and what he could see of her expression had softened. "So what if I am?"

"You know," Breakout began, propping her elbows on the table, "some days, I wonder if you're tired of humans, or just disappointed in your pare-"

"Don't go there," he said softly. Then, realizing he'd almost snarled, the red of his iris almost filling his sclera, he added, "Please."

Clara pursed her lips behind her balaclava, posture stiffening briefly. Then, she sighed. "Fine." When Jim began nodding gratefully, she said, "Dealing with it on your own time still means dealing with it, James."

"I am aware," he murmured, the whites of his eyes visible once again. "But you didn't invite me here to get me to open up."

Given his sometimes-lover's sense of humor, Jim would've expected a bad joke at this point.

"Just wanted to cheer you up before the mission's start," she replied instead.

Jim frowned. "What mission? I was not informed I would be going on any today."

"You have just been. I am now debriefing you." Clara matched his incredulous look with a wry one. "I've just finished being a fly on the wall while Stacker and Congress deliberated whether to send you or not. They've decided you're going."

Jim grunted. Telepathy (clairvoyance? Cosmic awareness?) was one of the less outlandish abilities Breakout's power to ignore restrictions had given her. "Did they also happen to say where I'm going?" he deadpanned.

"Curb your enthusiasm." Clara smirked. "Listen: there's this reality-outside of what you'd recognize as our multiverse-where something has gone wrong. One of its foremost defenders is missing, and no one there would know where or why, even if they noticed his absence." Almost thoughtfully, she added, "Which they should fairly soon, provided you don't step in."

"Then why haven't you sent me already?" he demanded.

Clara held up a hand. "Cool your jets. Our timestreams are different enough that you aren't late. The idea is, we're doing them a favor, essentially, which they might or might not even notice. You're supposed to end this bloodthirsty sonofabitch before he notices there's no one beating his head into the ground and leaves to do worse than he already has, on countless worlds."

"Not that I'm going to refuse," he hardly had anything better to do, "but why am I being sent, rather than you or Armament, or Dust Devil? You've always hit much harder."

Clara's pipe shone with reflected light (and it felt damn strange to see the length of yamadium not dripping with the blood of a poor fool whose head she'd just bashed in) as she twirled it with one hand. "I'm surprised you haven't asked why they're sending a FREAKSHOW agent instead of the army."

"The thought did cross my mind."

Clara snorted at his dry tone. "Yeah, well, keeping armies around to strike back against invaders from the wider macrocosm means sending soldiers preemptively tends to make people twitchy."

"What, and sending glorified cops doesn't?"

"As you pointed out, you're not a heavy hitter. You ripping people a new one is less of a reason to worry than me taking a walk to put boots on throats, because I could whoop your ass on my worst day."

"You just can't stop massaging my ego, can you?" James asked, eyes hooded. "And you didn't answer my question."

"Hey, we're law enforcement. Easier to spin as proactive defense or whatever they'll call it than a military action." Jim scoffed. "Yeah, that was my reaction as well," Breakout said. "But president Simmons thinks we're at a delicate point, and scaring paranoid nutjobs into think we're overreaching is not on her bucket list. Even if a couple of the tougher jarheads would wrap this up quicker than you will."

It never ceased to amuse Jim how Clara, as passionate and emotional as she was - not to mention fond of outbursts he often found ridiculous - was capable of phrasing herself like this when talking about her daughter's position. When it came to any other aspect of the woman's life, her mother referred to her as Mary, though the proud, loving tone never changed.

And...'you will'. James did not consider himself a vain man. He certainly didn't let his ego dictate his actions. And yet, he was not immune to flattery.

Knowing Clara was so certain in this victory was almost enough to make his dead heart beat.

Still, no reason to let it get to his head. Better to know what he was getting into before jumping into it. "Did our gracious overlords happen to offer us any information on this," his fangs showed as he repeated her earlier description, amused, "bloodthirsty sonofabitch?"

"You'll probably get shredded a few times; he should hit harder than you, and you'll probably break his hands on him. Don't expect to have your head punched off before you can react or anything - he doesn't usually move faster than you can. We think his reflexes speed up in proportion with how fast he's moving, though."

So he has to move first in order for his mind to catch up with his body? Could catch him off-guard, I suppose, Jim thought. "I see."

"His atoms are also hard to manipulate, so you won't be glaring him to dust any time soon," Breakout continued.

"Why, Clara. When I have ever given the impression I prefer to kill people that cleanly instead of tearing them into one, two, three pieces? Ah, ah, ah," Jim said in a nasal voice.

"Trust me: you're gonna get tired of that asshole in no time. He's a scrappy fuck: as long as he's in one piece and can breathe, he won't quit."

Certainly doesn't sound like half the people I work with. "Since you insisted we both come in uniform, I suppose I'm leaving now?"

"Yup," Breakout answered, spacetime unfolding into a portal as she gestured. "Better haul ass."

With a wistful glance at his drink, James stood up, beginning to walk towards the portal. A part of his mind noted, with some amusement, how neither any patrons nor employees had happened to be present while Breakout had debriefed him...but then, how hard would it have been to trick their perceptions? Anyone too nosy would've had to deal with her, something James would have only wished on his worst enemies.

"Oi," Clara said softly, making him look at her over his shoulder. She'd lowered her balaclava just enough for her smile to be visible as she placed her lips where he'd drunk from the Bloodless. "Forgot this?"

Smiling in return, and at the indirect kiss, Jim took the can from her calloused hand, downing the rest of the synthetic blood. Nothing that would increase his power, but it kept his thirst at bay, as much as anything could. A safer alternative than letting impulsive vampires open a vein. "No," he told her Clara. "Just hurrying to finish this, so I can come back."

"You better," she said, covering her face again. "Good luck."

* * *

Oliver Grayson didn't know what had happened. One moment, his brother-his half-brother, fair, but his brother, in every way that mattered-was here, the next, he was...gone.

Not dead. Mark was too strong to die like that, even to Conquest. Oliver would've known. There would have been something, remains, a sign.

The Viltrumite-Thraxan's eyes darted about wildly as he flew, head swiveling around far, far faster than sound. He hadn't even seen Mark disappear, had only noticed hos absence after the deed was done - and that, only because conquest, paranoid old bastard that he was, had assumed there was some trick at play, and flown off to look for the other hybrid Viltrumite.

Oliver scowled at the thought of that wrinkly asshole dismissing him like that, but in a way, he was grateful. It had bought him time to look for his brother, though that hadn't paid off y-

Oliver stopped mid-flight, tensing. He'd felt something, a pressure, a force parting the air as it flew at him. Conquest returning, obviously. He must've failed to find Mark, as well, and the hybrid would enjoy rubbing his face in that. Maybe bring up how his sight was failing, especially with one eye. It would piss him off as much as being compared to Oliver.

But...the Viltrumite veteran wasn't here. As he halted in midair, Oliver thought that maybe Conquest had seen Mark somewhere, and changed course to go at it with him. He wouldn't have flown around to hit the hybrid from behind, that wasn't his style.

Oliver turned around, a shockwave rippling over him as the landscape shook, long before the sound reached his ears. Now that he thought about it...yeah.

The clash in the distance dwarfed the force he'd felt moments ago, but farther away as it was, the effect was about the same.

Conquest hadn't changed course, Oliver decided. He'd been forced to. Stopped, or...diverted.

Balling his fists, the Viltrumite hybrid flew closer, to see if his brother had returned.

* * *

The moment Jim stepped through the portal and into this new world, he was slammed by a living missile.

Breakout had almost certainly known this would happen, the joker. Just like her to set him up, as long as nothing but his pride was hurt.

Jim skidded to a stop, heels digging into the rocky ground, turning it to dust under his boots. His dark blue uniform was torn, strips of fabric hanging freely as his cold blood dripped off them. Dark, almost black, it moved so sluggishly it could hardly be said to flow. Undead barely bled, even with wounds as big as the one he had just been dealt.

Jim remained on his feet by virtue of his willpower alone. The hole in his torso was large enough for him to put his head and shoulders through with room to spare and went all thee way through. Most of his spine was missing, gravel-like chunks of bone scattered around for miles; he could see a handful of pieces on the horizon, covered in hairline cracks where they weren't coated in blood.

Jim mimicked a whistle as his body healed, but, by the time he had lungs again, there was no need for the sound anymore. His new friend had come to him.

Bitch must've been curious.

He looked like an old man, patches of gray hair going white. A grizzled, gnarled face, one eye milky, an old scar passing over it. Half-blind? Clearly, it did not affect him much.

But (apparent?) age aside? He was muscular to an almost comical degree, like the strongmen Jim had seen at that fair as a kid, when he'd first wondered how strong he might become. But these were not show muscles. This was the physique of a soldier, though that of a soldier more used to breaking his enemies with his bare hands than to handling weapons, if Jim was to bet.

He wore a white and blue bodysuit, three vertical white lines inside a blue circle on his chest. His boots and loincloth (why not a codpiece? He was clearly not naked under it...) were also blue, and a golden, metallic gauntlet over one hand.

His smile was as bloodthirsty as that of any vampire Jim had ever fought.

"And what are you supposed to be?" the old man asked. "Another of the boy's tagalongs, for him to cower behind?"

Jim bared his fangs in a meaningless grin. "I don't know what the hell you're rambling about, and I care even less. I'm just here to kill you."

The geezer's smile widened, something James hadn't been sure was possible without shapeshifting. "Perfect."

Jim's arms shattered, jagged bone stumps pushed into and through his chest from the force, as the old man slammed into him, fists held out in front of him, smashing through the vampire's attempt to block.

He knew what the fossil was talking about, actually-vaguely. "The boy" must've been this reality's missing champion, the one Stacker and Congress had decided he should replace for however long it took to kill this prick.

But...tagalongs? Was there anyone else here? Did the guy he was replacing work with others? It would've been nice to be informed about bystanders, by which he meant potential hostages.

Tch. Nothing to do now. Just grit his fangs, until he could sink them into this meathead's almost invisible neck. Seriously, what did that head sit on-

Jim was torn almost in half as he was sent flying. The old man had opened his arms, holding his hands out like they were blades. The vampire's lower and upper halves hung together by a thread as his spine was reduced to bonemeal, making him laugh soundlessly.

Oh, that would have been a beautiful finisher, if old man had been trying to kill a human.

Jim slammed his boots into the melting ground as he landed. Launched around the planet, he'd turned everything between him and the horizon into a steaming soup of bubbling glass on impact.

The vamp brushed some of the molten mess off his shoulders as he slowed down, looking around as he waited for his playmate to try a new trick. He had something to tell him, on that note...

James wondered if the guy was going to be put off by his nonchalance as he healed his way through attempts at killing him, or if he'd just be turned to. He'd met his fair share of nutjobs with hard-ons for murder over the decades, and not all of them had even been sadists.

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Oh, well. If it looked like things were about to be drawn out, he might as well enjoy it. There was nothing of worth around to damage, and he kind of doubted the Director would get pissy if he took the gloves off with this guy. Stacker wasn't a softie to begin with, but he was high strung when it came to collateral. Bad for FREAKSHOW's image, he said.

As the old man flew down to hover a few dozen feet above and in front of him, arms crossed as he gave Jim a considering look, the vampire waved. "Thanks for the warmup~" He gestured at their molten surroundings. "Do you always do this before hitting like you mean it, or am I just a special fella?"

The fucker snorted. "A funny one, hmm? Let's hear you laugh without lungs!"

"With pleasure," Jim replied, adjusting an imaginary hat, before dodging a hand that would've torn his head off.

By now, he was used to the guy's pattern. He could fly fast and hit fast, but his movements seemed to have a certain carefulness to them. No hesitation, no stiffness or anything of the sort, more like...

As the geezer's golden fist lashed out, opening to envelop his head and crush it to pulp, Jim decided on a comparison.

The guy was moving fluidly. He was sure of himself, experienced...and also moving like he was handling a grenade, trying not to drop it. The vamp might've missed it, had he not been so often sent to bring in young paranormals who'd wrecked the environment with their clumsy strength.

Was the old man like that? Unused to his powers? It seemed strange. He clearly knew what he was doing, and yet...

Why was he hesitant? Surely, he wasn't attached to this bare rocky expanse? From what he'd been told, the guy was some kind of cosmic scumbag who'd wrecked countless planets. So what about this one?

As the geezer grabbed him with both hands, crushing him into an accordion-like shape, Jim seized the chance that the cloud of dust they'd raised represented. Without the sun's light nullifying the more esoteric abilities of his vampirism, the agent turned into a bloody mist, flowing out of his opponent's grasps to appear a few feet behind him.

Directed by his will, Jim's blood flowed through his skin, forming a greave-like construct around his leg. Before the old warhorse could turn around, James slammed a spiked knee between his legs, bringing him to one knee.

Jim's leg bent, the bones folding as the blood covering it rippled. As he was healing, the muscle head reached out behind himself with his gauntleted hand, groping blindly, before his metallic fingers closed around the vampire's ribs. The rest of his body followed allowing him to glare into Jim's smiling eyes, while grinning with teeth covered in dust and blood.

The dust cloud dispersed, Jim was down to strength and cunning to break the bastard's grip. This felt far too familiar for his liking. Too much like sparring with Armament, except without the Texan's nonsense rotting his brain.

Before he could spit into the geezer's good eye, a headbutted split his head in half, a second one reducing it to bone fragments and tatters of flesh.

Really. The guy was acting as if his regeneration was going to run out or something. Maybe he was just enjoying the fight. He certainly seemed to.

A few dozen more headbutts followed, and Jim began laughing halfway through, mirroring the old man's hoots, only to be rapidly cut off each time.

Shaking his head, Loincloth twisted Jim's around, keeping it backwards with a gauntleted grip. "You wouldn't have half this much attitude without your healing," he muttered, almost fondly.

"Maybe cuz I'd be dead, porn 'stache,"Jim replied. "Still wouldn't look like a Schnauzer fucked a thumb, though."

The shaved bear chuckled, before balling up the vamp's body, turning him into a tightly-compressed sphere and squeezing it between his hands, making it smaller and smaller.

So obliging...

Away from sunlight, Jim separated himself into a cloud of spear-like blood tendrils, crawling between the smug gorilla's fingers and under his bodysuit's sleeves, before spreading. Then, the constructs bloomed onwards while attempting to dig into his skin, leaving him covered in a writhing red wave.

With a snarl, the old man flexed, sending the vampire's shapeshifted body flying in all directions. Jim reformed from one of the splattered constructs, flipping off the now-naked steroid monkey.

Like most sights he'd been cursed with in his unlife, he could've lived without this one.

* * *

Conquest couldn't believe it. A weakling who healed no matter how hard he hit him? Who remained as insufferable as any of the vermin that had ever opposed Viltrum? Oh, he could keep obliterating this runt for weeks.

Maybe he would. Why not? He knew Thragg's strength, and believed in it. The Grand Regent would surely put down the rabble that had arrayed themselves against the Viltrumites...even Nolan, that traitorous wretch, and his bastard spawn.

Where had they gone, anyway? He'd lost sight of the smaller purple one, the half-insect, but the human mongrel...had just disappeared. So fast, even his Viltrumite reflexes had spotted nothing. Almost as if something had unbound him from the fabric the universe....

No matter. Either Nolan's misbegotten pup was lost forever, or he would find him and kill him, along the rest of his kind. Unless Thragg did it first.

It was that simple.

He should probably deal with this mouthy maggot first, though. If nothing else, he was persistent. Who knew how many more tricks he had up his sleeve? Maybe he was like those Martians from the Sol system, and his healing was just the result of his control over his body. In that case, shattering his will to fight meant his body would soon follow-an inversion of the usual outcome one faced when fighting a Viltrumite.

If not-and Conquest dearly, dearly hoped so-, if he could heal no matter what, he would enjoy this for a long, long time. Maybe he would throw the worm into deep space, or the heart of a star...of a black hole. Maybe he'd even bring him along when he returned to his people. Conquest was sure the others would appreciate a new chew toy, one that could put itself back together.

And if these powers could be inherited, the women would enjoy breeding him even more than they would the sport itself.

Conquest was not one to preach about the glory of the Viltrum Empire - he preferred to let the blood on his hands spell it out -, but using a broken enemy's own strength to carve out territories was one of the greater pleasures in a warrior's life. Coupled with a duty well done? All that was missing was a good, messy kill.

And, with how damned hard to put down the regenerator was, Conquest would be shocked if the kill wasn't messy. Whatever form it took.

Conquest could've laughed. He really ought to tank Nolan's second boy for coming to this planet because he couldn't hold his breath like a real Viltrumite. If he hadn't, if he'd still been fighting what the Coalition had managed to scrape together, he wouldn't have found this talkative punching bag! And he'd soon get to kill Nolan's by-blows as well!

Everything was going perfectly, honestly. The only thing missing? Well, it was something Thragg concerned himself with more than he did, Conquest was sure, but sometimes-usually in the long, lonely silences that traveling between worlds entailed-he could not help but wish for the times before the Scourge Virus had nearly destroyed their Empire.

It had reduced them to a few dozen Viltrumites, forced to watch their step amongst weaklings lest they be caught off-guard by some trick or device. Had forced them to become...infiltrators, looking for species they could use as breeding stock to rebuild their own. The damn cautiousness rankled all of them-how could it not? But it rankled Conquest more than most Viltrumites, except, maybe, for the Regent.

Conquest was many thousands of years old when the Scourge Virus came, when the corpses that now formed a ring around their homeworld had been living, breathing Viltrumites. Back then, they hadn't needed to skulk around the universe like rats in the walls. Back then, he hadn't needed to obey so many ridiculous mission specifications: "Don't break this,", "don't kill this person".

Honestly. He hadn't survived this many millennia to be told what he couldn't do.

Conquest's eye flicked down as the regenerator put himself together once again. He was humanoid in shape, though closer to a younger Viltrumite in terms of physical prowess. It was the nature of his body that was the strangest, though: he didn't much resemble any living being Conquest had ever met. In fact, he didn't seem alive at all.

Every time his flesh hand had connected with the stranger's body, he'd only felt the coldness of a long-dead corpse. Up close, the old Viltrumite had failed to spot any of the signs of exertion common to warriors in battle, immense stamina or not. He knew how to read humanoids, and yet, he'd seen no bulging veins, had felt no pulse when he'd crushed the regenerator earlier, no heartbeat.

His appearance seemed to confirm this: the stranger's skin white as chalk, so pale it reminded Conquest of people he'd seen bleed to death rather than any albino. And yet, there was no mark on his body to suggest what lesser species would've deemed a grave wound-but then, maybe that was to be expected? He had healed from everything Conquest had done to him so far. Maybe his species just was like that?

...Or was there...yes.

There was, Conquest realized, one spot that never healed. He'd seen it, instincts keeping track of everything around him, but he'd dismissed it as inconsequential, a meaningless detail.

But there was a band of raised, ragged flesh on the stranger's throat, as if something had bitten it open. But it still looked raw, closed as it was.

Conquest shelved any ideas about focusing on the throat wound. He'd destroyed the regenerator's whole body already, so it obviously wasn't a weak point. He would rip the answer out of the stranger once he dragged him back to the other Viltrumites, learn about whatever being or force could leave unhealable wounds on such a being, and use it on the enemies of the Empire.

Provided he didn't kill him first, of course.

* * *

Jim ran a hand through his short grey beard as he stared up at his enemy. Deciding he'd had played ground-pounder enough, he stomped, turning a mountain's worth of rock to dust, and flew up to look the old bastard in the eye, coming within a few paces of him.

The old man seemed to find this funny, but maybe James was just bad at reading his face. He didn't seem to have much room for expressions besides angry, focused and gleeful, in an ax-crazy way.

"Do you have a name?" the big bastard rumbled, cracking his knuckles. "I like to know who I'm dismembering."

"Guess you'll die unhappy," James purred through a fanged smile. "But who wouldn't, with that face?"

And there he went laughing again..."Yapping will not prevent your defeat. I am Conquest. I have never failed to conquer a world," the now-named Conquest's cruel grin widened as he seemed to consider something, eye gleaming, "And no one who crosses me lives."

"I believe ya," Jim said easily. "If only you knew what you were dealing with, grampaw...don't worry. I'll put you outta everyone's misery."

Had his gamble paid off? Conquest didn't seem to have superhuman senses, as such, unless one counted his sight tracking things far faster than a human could.

Jim hoped his training with changing his blood's color had paid off, or this could go from a headache to a royal pain in the ass, real quick. If worst came to worst, he hoped Breakout or another agent would pick up the phone, so to speak, even though his stupid instincts chafed at the thought of calling on another for help, even the woman whose blood they cherished above those of all others.

With a flex of his broad shoulders, Conquest scattered the dust cloud, flying at Jim with one hand aimed at the vampire's neck and the other at his waist-or lower? Was he aiming to tear him apart from throat to crotch...again?

Guy must've thought he really did have a regeneration limit, an' wasn't that just a optimistic from a headcase not even lugging something holy around?

Maybe he just didn't have options, though. Maybe, even if he was enjoying the fight, the bloodshed, Conquest had nothing to use but his hands.

Jim stowed a chuckle. At a certain age, some men just ended up like that.

The vampire turned into a cloud of mist, holding himself together through sheer willpower to avoid being swept in Conquest's wake. The old man passed through him, before stopping a few feet away, making a tight turn in midair. It seemed he'd gotten used to his shapeshifting by now.

Just as well. Jim had gotten used to the geezer's tricks, such as they were, in turn. Clara's info had been right: his gaze, which he'd honed beyond a vampire's hypnotic look into a power that could move aspects of creation and imbue them with animus, bounced off the meathead's atomic structure like a bullet off a tank. There was a slight disturbance, he thought-maybe one of FREAKSHOW's better mages could've turned the guy into the bullfrog he so resembled-but not enough to wrongfoot him, much less hurt.

Tch. Breakout had told him this wouldn't be solved with a look, anyway. He'd agreed. Hadn't been joking when he said he'd turn this musclebound creep into confetti.

Jim had seen more than enough to steel his resolve. He was no postcog, couldn't see the past, but his arcane sense was more than sharp enough to give him a feeling of age, and it dripped off Conquest like the phantom stains of blood covering him, until only the contours of his features were visible under a crimson layer in the eye of Jim's mind.

Conquest was much, much older than him. Far older than most of his colleagues and a majority of the Native American tribes, actually. There was no sensation of decrepitude, of decadence beyond the moral: only of ancient evil, glutted on slaughter, backed by monstrous strength and directed by an even more monstrous will.

And hatred...Lord above, the hatred...

Jim knew how easy it was to disdain others when one thought themselves superior. He'd fought for the Confederacy, for hell's sake. Had jeered at his would-be executioners, called them apes and puppets of flesh that mocked real people, and far worse.

But where he'd expunged that poison from his mind, Conquest had never thought about doing it. Jim doubted he ever would, even if the vampire gave him a chance instead of ripping his head of and beating his body to a pulp with it.

Even if his instincts were shrieking at him to drain Conquest's blood and shred the resulting wight for the rest of eternity. He was not opposed to indulging his vampirism out of some misguided sense of morality. He was, however, an old hand at keeping his thirst in check. Drinking real blood meant getting stronger by feeding his instincts, bringing them closer to control over him.

Which was what they always wanted, even if they were usually too dumb to realize it and not smart enough to plan towards it on most days. This shrieking might have been desperate, may have even been so, but it was not powerless.

If he saw red and tasted vitae, there was a good chance he wouldn't stop drinking until there was no more to drain. By that point, he might well be lost to his thirst. He couldn't do that.

Couldn't vindicate the hidebound, stupid bastards who had brought him into the world and told him he should've stayed dead, not come back a monster. Couldn't go mad and disappoint Clara-she'd never forgive him, just like he'd never forgive himself. What if Stacker sent her to put him down...?

He couldn't risk losing control here and now either, in this unknown universe. If he drained Conquest's blood and turned into a monster even more powerful than him, and unkillable to boot, he'd doom a cosmos, all because he'd failed wrestling with his demons.

Over the span of nanoseconds, all these scenarios ran through Jim's mind, all the while his spirit caught the scene of Conquest's murderous soul.

There was madness here. Honed by training and controlled, leashed by the old monster just like he was leashed by the one above him, but insanity, nonetheless. An endless, bottomless contempt for all but Conquest's kind-the strong, a voice like a bulldog's growl whispered to Jim's spirit. A disdain for the weak-everyone else, the other.

This was nothing like Jim's pity towards mundanes and their fading place in his world's society. It resembled, if anything, the hatred he'd nursed in his youth. Kicking those below him when they were down to make himself feel better, because he'd had nothing.

Conquest might've had power, he might've had the stone-cold certainty of a killer, but he had did not have anything, either.

He was a void of a person, the core of his being a hungry abyss that would only ever be widened and deepened by his namesake. Existing only to kill and destroy, to take and tear down, just as he'd done on more planets than Jim had ever walked one. Less alive, in a way, that James, soulless void wrapped in dead flesh that he was.

Yes...he'd take Conquest apart slowly. It was only fair. He'd not only given Jim every reason to cut loose and enjoy it, he'd made him feel better about himself, too.

And, though there was a minute twinge of distaste at needing such a butcher for him to come across as good, Jim decided he'd bring it up with Clara later. Usually, she was the one who cheered him up. Her reaction at being compared with the old murderer here was bound to be...interesting.

"Why do you keep dodging?" Conquest asked in an almost conversational tone, with just an edge of curiosity-or was that frustration? "Wounds are meaningless to you, but you're still a coward?"

"Just not mad anymore," Jim answered with a snarl. "Don't speak to me of cowardice. You could be bearing the cosmos on your shoulders, lifting everyone up until everyone was strong like you, and what do you do? You take the easy way out, because it's so much easier to raze than to build."

Conquest turned his head to the side, spitting. "You understand nothing of the Viltrumite way. Time to end this farce."

This time, Jim did not even think about dodging. Instead, he met Conquest with his arms spread and his claws out, slamming his head into the killer's face the nanosecond he could.

That word, that damnable word...

As Conquest's brawny arms wrapped around him, squeezing him to nothing, James bit down onto the Viltrumite's shoulder. Not the throat, tempted as he was, and not just because he was thirsting, as he always was and always would-he didn't know if this alien breed could be turn, and he wasn't eager to learn by dealing with a vampire Conquest.

When Conquest said that word, Jim's arcane sense flared to life again, drowning his soul in a cacophony of echoing wails. Species after species, culture after culture, screaming-with rage, with hatred, but with fear and despair more often than note-as their civilizations were torn down as they were forced into chains, or consigned to oblivion.

Endless greed and bloodthirst, spreading outward from a world of madmen that had slaughtered each other to purge their ilk of everything they perceived as weakness. And almost always at the forefront of this tide of atrocity, as a commander of thousands or a lone destroyer hurtling through the depths of the void, Conquest.

He'd been there from the start, or as close as to make no difference. As the Viltrumites had built their empire, Conquest had blazed a trail for his kind, performing genocide after genocide with the same bloodstained smile he was offering Jim now.

The blood was all the vampire's own.

Something deep inside him, deeper than the ragged pit where his soul had once been, rebelled at that. It raged wordlessly, soundlessly, because it did not know itself, just as James did not understand it.

Was it, perhaps, some hidden unconscious binding the vampire species, kept secret by Primus or undreamed of even by him? Jim's instincts, reacting with an animal's anger at seeing itself bleeding and its enemy mocking its struggles?

Or was it his humanity? That wretched little thing he'd left behind a more than a lifetime ago, with only relief when he'd noticed its absence?

The man he'd been, James thought...the soldier he'd been...would that blind young fool, full of piss and vinegar, been offended by Conquest? Would it have been a mere rival's rage, or something purer, more virtuous?

James did not know. He'd lost sight of the man he'd been long, long before he drained his first human.

Conquest tightened his bearhug as he flew Jim off the planet, leaving the exosphere behind in a tenth of a second, before accelerating, until millions, then tens of millions of miles fell behind them in moments. All the while, the Viltrumite wrapped himself around James, flattening the vampire with crushing force. Conquest grabbed the cloud of gore Jim had become with both hands, before fashioning it into a hyperdense sphere. After making sure nothing had escaped, he threw it with all his strength towards the planet's sun.

Then, flying faster still, he moved closer to the star, as close as he could before the light filled filled his vision, to see the sphere approaching its target far faster than light.

Smart atoms did not sharpen his senses, as such, but, when he saw and felt nothing return, Conquest began to wait, fists at his sides, muscles tense.

Then, after several moments, he turned back towards the planet, to finish what he'd started.

* * *

Jim would've breathed a pleased sigh, but there was no oxygen around. No air at all, for that matter.

The thin covering of blood had escaped Conquest's notice, after all. Changed and colored to resemble Jim's skin and hair, it had protected his body from the touch of the sun, thus allowing him to control it. Would the Viltrumite have noticed it, outside such a heated moment? Maybe. But Jim had managed to make the blood mimic the outside of his body with enough accuracy that the alien hadn't pausedor given any sign of suspicion.

Good. Otherwise, this would have been a pain in the neck.

Grimacing, Jim raised an arm before his face, before biting down onto his wrist. Dead blood oozed into his mouth like sap, tasting like cold, wet mud. But Jim had been prepared, shaping the blood covering around his head, extending it into two handlike constructs to force and keep his mouth open. Luckily, this was all happening under the layer of vitae he'd constructed around himself. Otherwise, the heat and pressure of the star's core, infinitesimal as they were compared to the forces he was used to handling, might have distracted him and ruined everything.

As James drank, time flowed, or rather, his reflexes sped up. At the same time, new, greater strength flowed into him, accompanied by a sensation of his body being bound together by greater power, becoming more durable.

By the time James stopped drinking, dark blood staining his chin and beard, he wanted nothing more than to retch, to silence his thirst's protests. A curse cast by Primus, perhaps, to discourage vampires from feeding on their own kind, in the hope it would encourage them to band together and carve out the bloody empire the First Vampire had always dreamed of.

With an easy leap, Jim left thee star behind, closing the distance between it and the planet in far less time than it had taken Conquest. He found the Viltrumite looming over a kid: a purple-skinned boy with long dark hair, wearing a black and red costume, like a character from the comics brats used to like in the forties.

Conquest's fingers were digging into the struggling boy's torso, slowly prying it open; not because the old man couldn't do it faster, but because he enjoyed breaking flesh as much as he loved shattering wills. All the will, the boy punched and kicked and clawed at the hulking alien, mouthing curses.

Scowling, Jim moved behind Conquest, one hand digging through and into the Viltrumite's upper back, before tearing out a head-sized chunk of flesh as Jim sent him flying with a flick of his wrist.

Conquest found his feet a couple of nanoseconds later, turning to glower at Jim. "You again?" he asked, not with his voice, the vampire realized, but directly into Jim's mind. Not a telepath...ah. He saw it now. The foreign mass inside the body, a small device in the Viltrumite's head. A good idea to bypass the airlessness of space and communicate. "I'm going to rip out your heart and eat it."

"What, like this?" Jim asked with a dry grin. Then, tearing his chest open, he plucked out his heart, black as midnight and unmoving, and took a small bite out of it. Still smiling at the Viltrumite, he wolfed won the organ, blackening his face with frigid gore. "Is that what you wanted to do? Was that childish threat supposed to scare me?"

Before the Viltruite could reply, Jim was upon him. Staring down at the alien, he spat a chunk of chewed-up heart into Conquest's frowning mouth, shattering his teeth before the projectile flew down his throat. "I'm going to rip out your heart and drain it," Jim mouthed, while his blood tendrils held Conquest in place

And that was exactly what he did. A couple of kicks shattered the Viltrumite's legs, forcing them to bend backwards. A fraction of a nanosecond later, photons moving sluggishly around him, the vampire grabbed the Viltrumite's flesh arm, before tearing it from his shoulder. The limb snapped in half of the alien's head, breaking it open.

Jim grasped Conquest's prothesis with his other hand, shattering it like cheap glass. Gathering up the shards, he looked into the old monster's eye, gripping his chin. "After I kill you," Jim mouthed, "I'm going to shove this up your ass . Fuck you with your own tin glove until you burst. Whatcha think 'bout that, you bloated sack of shit?"

For now, he punched the shards into Conquest's throat, before forcing the powdered result upwards. Then, headbutting the Viltrumite to the ground, he tore his chest open with an almost desultory gesture.

Tearing Conquest's heart out with his fingertips, Jim met the alien's contemptuous glare with one of his own. Then. he sunk his fangs into the pulsing organ, leaving it shriveled and pale in moments.

Lips pulling back from his fangs, Jim knelt over the mutilated alien. "How about it? Still hungry?"

Not waiting for an answer, he shoved Conquest's desiccated heart down into his mouth, unhinging and shattering his lower jaw, and into his ruined throat which pushed out the dust that remained of his gauntlet as it bulged.

Eyes not leaving the Viltrumite's dimming glare, Jim laughed, before shapehisfting into a fine mist. Flowing into Conquest's nostrils and spreading throughout his body, Jim turned into a mass of barbed hooks, which dug into the alien's insides.

It took a few tries, and several hearty tugs, before James managed to turn Conquest's corpse inside out. But God, was it worth it...

And when he returned to the world, the blood covering his pale flesh gleaming with sunlight, he was the boy from earlier being helped to his feet by a taller figure. Muscular but lean, the young man gave Jim a cautious frown as he gently pushed the purple-skinned kid behind him. "Stay there, Oliver."

Judging by how Oliver was cussing as he tried and managed to keep his guts in, Jim wasn't sure in how much danger the brat really was. A flash of his arcane sense warmed the smile plastered on his face. "Ah...'s good to see ya lookin' out for your brother, son."

As he watched the young men's reaction, Jim began speaking into his mind, trying to figure if someone was listening.

Breakout? Clarisse, are you listening? Can you hear me?

...im. James? Is that you? Yes, I can hear you. Are you alright?

James nodded at both her and the boys. That I am. Mission accomplished. Now...while you prepare my ride home, why don't you ask Stacker how interested he'd be in taking some alien cold cuts to Nevada for study?