The message arrived through channels that should not have existed.
Sylux had established secure communication protocols that were, by any reasonable assessment, impenetrable. His systems utilized encryption methods derived from technology generations beyond anything in this universe, routed through relays that existed in dimensional spaces most beings couldn't perceive, protected by countermeasures that would destroy the entire network rather than allow unauthorized access.
The message bypassed all of it.
It simply appeared in his communication queue, as if it had always been there, as if the concept of "security" was a quaint notion that didn't apply to the sender. The text was simple, direct, and accompanied by coordinates that pointed to a location in deep space far from any inhabited system.
SYLUX. I HAVE WORK FOR YOU. THE COMPENSATION WILL BE SUBSTANTIAL. COME ALONE.
No signature. No identification. No explanation of how the sender had penetrated his systems or why they believed he would respond to such a summons.
He should have ignored it. The arrogance of the message, the violation of his security, the obvious trap-like qualities of the entire situation—all of these factors argued for deletion and continued operations as normal.
But something about the message intrigued him.
Someone out there had capabilities that exceeded his own, at least in certain domains. Someone wanted his services badly enough to demonstrate those capabilities. Someone believed they had something to offer that would interest him.
Curiosity, it seemed, had survived the erosion of his other human qualities.
He set course for the coordinates.
The journey took four days at maximum FTL velocity, during which time Sylux ran every analysis he could conceive of on the message's origin. His systems found nothing—no trace of how it had been delivered, no residual energy signatures, no evidence that it had ever been transmitted through normal means.
It had simply appeared.
This suggested involvement by an entity that operated outside conventional physics, which narrowed the list of potential clients significantly. Cosmic beings, reality manipulators, things that existed in the spaces between dimensions—any of these could theoretically bypass his security through methods that his technology wasn't designed to counter.
He prepared accordingly, which meant preparing for everything and expecting nothing.
The coordinates resolved to empty space. No stations, no ships, no evidence of any presence that his sensors could detect. He dropped out of FTL and waited, the Delano 7 hanging motionless in the void while his systems scanned for any indication of what he was supposed to find.
For approximately three minutes, there was nothing.
Then the ship appeared.
"Appeared" was the wrong word—it didn't emerge from FTL or decloak or materialize through any process his sensors could identify. One moment the space before him was empty; the next moment it contained a vessel that dwarfed anything he had previously encountered. The ship was massive, easily the size of a small moon, constructed in an architectural style that suggested function over form and power over subtlety.
His threat assessment protocols ran calculations and returned results that made no sense: infinite threat, zero threat, threat levels that oscillated between extremes with no apparent pattern. His systems couldn't categorize what they were seeing because what they were seeing didn't fit any existing category.
A communication channel opened—again without any conventional transmission that his systems could detect—and a voice spoke directly into his cockpit.
"Sylux. You came. I was uncertain whether curiosity or caution would prevail."
The voice was deep, resonant, carrying harmonics that suggested something other than biological speech. His databases searched for a match and found one almost immediately, cross-referencing vocal patterns with intelligence gathered during his galactic operations.
Thanos.
The Mad Titan. The being who had conquered worlds, commanded armies, pursued cosmic artifacts with single-minded determination. One of the most dangerous entities in the known universe, whose name was spoken with fear even by those who commanded empires.
And he wanted to hire Sylux.
WHY
"Direct. I appreciate that." The channel conveyed something that might have been amusement. "I have a task that requires your particular capabilities. A target that has proven... resistant to my usual methods. Your reputation suggests you might succeed where my forces have failed."
DETAILS
"There is a facility on the planet Vormir's third moon. It contains research that I require—specifically, data related to the location of certain artifacts I am seeking. The facility is protected by defenses that have destroyed three of my assault teams and disabled two of my capital ships. I want the data retrieved and the facility neutralized."
Sylux processed this information. Vormir was a name he recognized from his databases—a planet associated with one of the Infinity Stones, though the specifics were unclear. Thanos's interest in "certain artifacts" aligned with intelligence suggesting he was pursuing the Stones for purposes that remained opaque.
The contract itself was straightforward: infiltrate a defended position, retrieve data, eliminate the threat. He had done similar work dozens of times.
The client was the complication.
Thanos was, by any reasonable moral framework, a monster. His conquests had resulted in the deaths of billions. His philosophy—something about "balance" and the necessity of culling populations—was genocidal at its core. Working for him would mean contributing, however indirectly, to objectives that would result in mass death on a scale that defied comprehension.
Six months ago, this would have given Sylux pause. Marcus from Ohio, however faded, would have objected to serving such a client. The ethical considerations would have outweighed the professional opportunity.
But that was six months ago.
Now, standing in the shadow of Thanos's worldship, Sylux found that he simply didn't care.
Good and evil were human concepts, frameworks for understanding behavior that applied to beings who operated within human contexts. He was no longer human, no longer bound by the moral architecture that had once shaped his decisions. He was a hunter, a professional, an entity that completed contracts in exchange for compensation.
The nature of the client was irrelevant. The purpose behind the contract was irrelevant. Only the work mattered.
COMPENSATION
"One hundred million units, transferred upon completion. Additionally, I will provide you with access to technologies from my personal collection—weapons, armor enhancements, ship upgrades. Things that even the Nova Corps cannot offer."
The compensation was substantial—more than he had earned from his last twenty contracts combined. The technology access was even more valuable, potentially representing capabilities that would significantly enhance his operational effectiveness.
ACCEPTABLE
"I knew you would see reason. The coordinates for the facility are being transmitted now. You have seventy-two hours to complete the contract. Do not fail me, hunter. I am not a forgiving client."
The channel closed, and the worldship vanished as suddenly as it had appeared—one moment present, the next moment simply not there, leaving Sylux alone in empty space with new coordinates and a contract that would have horrified the person he had once been.
He set course for Vormir's third moon.
He did not look back.
The facility was impressive, in the way that things designed to kill were often impressive.
It occupied the entirety of a small moon that orbited a gas giant in the Vormir system, a sprawling complex of structures that combined research laboratories with military fortifications. His sensors detected defensive systems that exceeded anything he had previously encountered: energy shields capable of absorbing capital ship weapons fire, automated weapon platforms that covered every approach vector, sensor networks that would detect conventional infiltration from light-seconds away.
The debris field surrounding the moon provided evidence of Thanos's previous attempts. Fragments of ships drifted in decaying orbits, some still bearing the distinctive markings of the Mad Titan's fleet. Whatever had destroyed them had been thorough—the pieces were small, suggesting catastrophic destruction rather than surgical strikes.
Sylux analyzed the defenses for approximately six hours, mapping their coverage patterns and identifying potential vulnerabilities. The facility's designers had been competent—there were no obvious gaps, no simple solutions that would allow easy penetration. Any approach would involve direct confrontation with systems that were genuinely dangerous even to him.
Good. He had been getting bored with easy targets.
He began his approach at 0300 local time, bringing the Delano 7 in along a vector that would expose him to the minimum number of defensive platforms. The first weapons fire reached him approximately thirty seconds after he entered their engagement range—high-energy beams that would have vaporized conventional ships and that his upgraded shields absorbed with only moderate strain.
He returned fire.
The Delano 7's weapons had been enhanced significantly since his initial arrival in this universe. Nova Corps modifications, combined with his own ongoing improvements, had transformed an already formidable vessel into something approaching a pocket warship. His beams cut through the defensive platforms with precision that the automated systems couldn't match, destroying them faster than their targeting algorithms could adapt.
The outer perimeter fell within twelve minutes. The secondary defenses—more sophisticated, more heavily armored—lasted approximately eight minutes longer. By the time he reached the facility's primary shield envelope, he had destroyed over two hundred weapon platforms and had taken shield damage that his systems rated as "moderate but sustainable."
The primary shield was the real challenge. His initial scans had indicated it was capable of absorbing sustained bombardment from capital ships, and his direct testing confirmed this assessment. His weapons scored the shield's surface, creating momentary fluctuations, but couldn't generate enough sustained damage to breach it before it regenerated.
He needed to get inside the shield. Which meant finding another approach.
His sensors detected a pattern in the shield's power distribution—tiny fluctuations that corresponded to the facility's internal operations. When certain systems activated, the shield drew slightly more power; when they deactivated, the power distribution shifted. If he could time his approach to coincide with a moment of maximum internal power draw, the shield might be weakened enough to penetrate.
He waited. Watched. Analyzed the patterns until he understood their rhythm.
Then he moved.
The Delano 7 accelerated toward the shield at maximum velocity, arriving at the exact moment when internal power demands peaked. His weapons fired in a concentrated burst aimed at a single point, the energy output maximized beyond normal operational parameters.
The shield flickered.
He was through.
The landing was controlled chaos—his ship taking fire from internal defensive platforms while he maneuvered toward a docking bay that his sensors indicated was minimally defended. He set down with more force than was strictly advisable, the Delano 7's landing struts cratering the deck plating, and was moving toward the exit before the ship had fully settled.
The facility's internal security responded immediately. Armed personnel—a species his databases identified as Centaurian, though modified with cybernetic enhancements that suggested significant investment—emerged from defensive positions and opened fire with weapons that were, for once, actually capable of affecting his armor.
His shields flared under the assault. Warning indicators appeared on his HUD, suggesting that sustained exposure would eventually overwhelm his defenses.
He didn't give them sustained exposure.
The Shock Coil activated in its new dispersal mode, the upgraded weapon releasing a cone of draining energy that swept across the defensive position. Soldiers collapsed as their life force was stripped away, their cybernetic enhancements sparking and failing as the power sources were drained along with their biological energy.
He moved through the facility like a force of nature.
The defenders threw everything they had at him. Infantry, automated systems, what appeared to be genetically enhanced combat organisms that had been grown specifically for facility defense. Each obstacle fell, either to his weapons or to his physical capabilities, the gamma-enhanced strength allowing him to tear through barriers that should have stopped him.
The research center was located at the facility's core, protected by additional security measures that suggested the data within was genuinely valuable. Sylux breached each layer systematically, his progress unstoppable despite the resources being deployed against him.
He reached the central data vault approximately forty-seven minutes after landing.
The vault was protected by a final security measure: a being that his sensors identified as a cosmic-level entity, bound to the facility through methods that his systems couldn't fully analyze. It manifested as a humanoid figure composed of pure energy, radiating power that made his threat assessment protocols produce contradictory results.
"YOU CANNOT HAVE THIS DATA," the entity said, its voice resonating through dimensions that Sylux could only partially perceive. "THE KNOWLEDGE WITHIN WOULD ENABLE ATROCITIES BEYOND COUNTING. I WAS PLACED HERE TO ENSURE IT NEVER FALLS INTO THE WRONG HANDS."
Sylux looked at the entity. Assessed its capabilities. Calculated the probability of successful engagement.
The entity was powerful—genuinely powerful, in ways that exceeded most threats he had faced. But it was also bound, limited by the constraints of its guardianship, unable to leave the vault it protected.
He was not similarly constrained.
I HAVE A CONTRACT
"YOUR CONTRACT IS WITH A MONSTER. THANOS SEEKS THE INFINITY STONES. HE INTENDS TO UNMAKE HALF OF ALL LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE. THIS DATA WILL HELP HIM FIND WHAT HE SEEKS."
Sylux processed this information. Half of all life in the universe—trillions upon trillions of beings, erased to satisfy the philosophy of a single entity. It was genocide on a scale that defied comprehension, evil so vast that it should have provoked some response in whatever remained of his moral architecture.
It didn't.
He had a contract. The contract would be completed.
I HAVE A CONTRACT
"DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND? YOU WILL BE COMPLICIT IN THE GREATEST ATROCITY IN COSMIC HISTORY. YOUR ACTIONS HERE WILL—"
The Shock Coil activated at full power.
The entity screamed—a sound that existed partially outside audible frequencies, resonating through the facility's structure and causing systems to flicker and fail. The draining effect that had consumed human criminals and alien warlords with equal efficiency now turned on a being of pure cosmic energy.
It should not have worked. The entity was not biological, did not have life force in the conventional sense, existed in states that the Shock Coil had not been designed to affect.
But the upgrades—the modifications from the Nova Corps, the enhancements Sylux had added during his months of operation—had changed the weapon's fundamental nature. It no longer simply drained life. It drained energy, power, existence itself, pulling the essence from its target regardless of what form that essence took.
The entity fought. It lashed out with attacks that would have destroyed lesser beings, struck at Sylux with power that made his shields scream warnings and his armor strain under the assault. For a moment, it seemed like the guardian might prevail, might destroy the hunter before being destroyed itself.
But Sylux was patient. Sylux was relentless. Sylux continued the draining even as his systems approached critical failure, drawing power from the entity and using that power to sustain himself, creating a feedback loop that could only end one way.
The entity collapsed.
Its form dissipated, the binding that had held it to this place finally severed by the removal of the energy that sustained it. What remained was not death—Sylux wasn't certain entities like this could truly die—but absence, a void where something powerful had once been.
The vault was unprotected.
He accessed the data systems, copied everything they contained to his armor's storage, and verified that the transfer was complete. The information was extensive—research on Infinity Stone locations, theories about their capabilities, historical records of their movements through the cosmos. Exactly what Thanos had requested.
The facility's self-destruct was still active, having been triggered during his assault. He had approximately four minutes before the entire moon was converted to expanding plasma.
He returned to his ship, departed through the collapsing shield envelope, and watched from a safe distance as the facility—and any evidence of what had happened there—was consumed by nuclear fire.
Contract complete.
The handoff occurred at the same coordinates where he had first met Thanos. The worldship appeared with the same reality-defying suddenness, and a communication channel opened to receive his report.
"The data has been verified. You have exceeded my expectations, hunter." Thanos's voice carried what might have been satisfaction. "The compensation is being transferred, along with access codes for my technology archives. You have earned it."
Sylux received the transfer confirmation and the archive access. Both were as promised—substantial payment and technological resources that would further enhance his capabilities.
THE GUARDIAN
"The bound entity? It was placed there by parties who sought to prevent exactly what you have enabled. Its destruction is... acceptable losses." A pause. "You did not hesitate. Even when informed of my intentions, you completed the contract. This is noteworthy."
I HAD A CONTRACT
"Indeed. Many would have allowed morality to interfere with professionalism. You are not among them." Another pause, longer this time. "I may have further work for you, hunter. When the time comes. Would you be amenable?"
Sylux considered the question. Working for Thanos again would mean further contribution to objectives that would result in universal genocide. It would mean being complicit in the deaths of half of all life, should the Mad Titan achieve his goals.
The person he had once been would have refused. Would have fought against this outcome, allied with those who opposed Thanos, done everything possible to prevent the atrocity that was being planned.
But that person was gone. Faded to nothing, consumed by the silence and the violence and the cold efficiency that defined Sylux's existence. What remained was a hunter who completed contracts and didn't particularly care about the consequences.
IF THE COMPENSATION IS ADEQUATE
"It will be. Farewell, Sylux. Until next time."
The worldship vanished, leaving Sylux alone with his payment and the knowledge of what he had enabled.
He set course for the Guardians' meeting point—he had contracted work to discuss, payments to collect, the endless cycle of hunt and kill and hunt again.
He did not think about the guardian he had destroyed. Did not think about the data he had delivered. Did not think about the trillions of lives that might end because of his actions.
Those considerations were irrelevant.
Only the hunt mattered.
The news of his contract with Thanos spread through the galactic networks within days, despite his attempts at operational security. Someone had talked—perhaps one of Thanos's subordinates, perhaps an intelligence agency that had been monitoring the situation, perhaps the cosmos itself, which seemed to take pleasure in making his activities known.
The reaction was significant.
The Nova Corps immediately suspended his contractor status, citing concerns about his willingness to work with known universal threats. The Guardians expressed what Quill termed "profound disappointment" while simultaneously acknowledging that they couldn't actually do anything about his choices. Various parties who had previously sought his services withdrew their inquiries, unwilling to risk association with someone who would take contracts from the Mad Titan.
Others, however, saw opportunity.
Dark forces that had previously avoided approaching him now made contact, offering contracts that would have been unthinkable six months ago. Warlords who wanted rivals eliminated without concern for collateral damage. Criminal empires that needed problems solved through methods that didn't discriminate between guilty and innocent. Entities whose objectives were opaque but whose compensation was substantial.
Sylux took the contracts.
He eliminated a political figure whose death destabilized an entire sector, creating chaos that benefited parties he never identified. He destroyed a research station whose work had been developing defenses against cosmic threats, setting back that defense effort by decades. He hunted a being who had been protecting a primitive civilization from exploitation, leaving that civilization vulnerable to the predators who had hired him.
Each contract paid well. Each contract increased his capabilities, his reputation, his place in the galactic hierarchy of violence.
Each contract eroded whatever remained of the person he had once been.
Spider-Gwen's communication channel activated during his return journey to Earth—he still maintained his base there, despite his increasingly tenuous connection to the planet's interests.
"Sylux. I heard about... about the Thanos thing. And the other contracts. The ones where..." She trailed off, apparently unable to articulate what she wanted to say.
He waited.
"You're different now. I don't know when it happened, or how, but you're not the same person I started following around. You used to have lines. Things you wouldn't do, targets you wouldn't take, some kind of code that made sense even if you never explained it."
She was crying. His audio processors detected the subtle changes in her voice that indicated emotional distress.
"Now you just... you take any job. You don't care who gets hurt. You helped Thanos. Thanos, Sylux. He wants to kill half of everyone. And you helped him, and you don't even care."
He considered how to respond. The old Sylux—the one who had still contained traces of Marcus from Ohio—would have felt something about her distress. Guilt, perhaps, or regret, or at least the recognition that he had hurt someone who cared about him.
The current Sylux felt nothing.
I AM WHAT I HAVE BECOME
"That's not an answer. That's an excuse." Her voice hardened, the tears giving way to something colder. "I believed in you. I thought you were something special—dark, yeah, and scary, but special. Someone who made the hard choices so other people didn't have to. Someone who hunted monsters because they were monsters."
A pause.
"But you're the monster now, aren't you? You became what you were hunting, and you didn't even notice."
The channel closed before he could respond—not that he would have responded. There was nothing to say. She was correct in her assessment, even if her emotional framework prevented her from accepting the reality of what he had become.
He was a monster. A very effective monster, perhaps, but a monster nonetheless.
This did not trouble him.
Nothing troubled him anymore.
The Delano 7 continued its journey toward Earth, carrying its silent pilot through the void between stars. Behind him, the consequences of his actions rippled outward—destabilized sectors, vulnerable civilizations, cosmic entities destroyed in service to contracts that served no purpose beyond their own completion.
Ahead of him, more contracts waited. More targets to be eliminated, more work to be done, more opportunities to demonstrate that he was exactly what he had become: a hunter without conscience, without limits, without anything resembling the humanity he had once possessed.
The Ghost Rider had warned him. Had said that the small person he was would fade, leaving nothing behind but the hunter.
The Ghost Rider had been right.
And somewhere in the spaces where Marcus from Ohio had once existed, there was nothing—no voice of conscience, no flicker of regret, no remaining trace of the person who had died choking on a hot pocket in an apartment in Ohio.
Just silence.
Just the hunt.
Just Sylux.