Half a world away, completely isolated from the apocalyptic, continent-shattering warzones of the East and West coasts, an oddly calm breeze blew over an open pasture in the American Midwest.
It was a secluded farm, quietly purchased months ago through a labyrinth of Chaos Corp shell companies, sitting completely off the grid. The grass was a vibrant green. The sky above was relatively clear, save for the faint, distant contrails of orbital dogfights.
Then, a man descended from the clouds.
He didn't break the sound barrier. He didn't cause a crater when he landed. There was no sonic boom, no fiery reentry. The Grand Regent of the Viltrumite Empire, Thragg, touched down onto the soft dirt with a stealthy silence. His control over his own flight, his kinetic output, and his biological density was so utterly flawless that not a single blade of grass shifted out of place as he hovered above the ground.
He wore his immaculate, regal white and red uniform. His cape hung perfectly still behind him, unstained by the war raging across the globe.
Thragg looked around the isolated pasture with a gaze of cold, clinical indifference. He was hunting the anomaly—the rogue Viltrumite signature that had defied the Empire, the traitor who had abandoned his post. But before he found his target, he found something else entirely.
Standing a few feet away, casually chewing on a mouthful of grass, was Ms. Moo.
The Holy Cow blinked her large, dark bovine eyes at the Grand Regent.
Thragg stopped. He stared at the black-and-white farm animal. He had personally conquered thousands of worlds, exterminated trillions of lifeforms, and broken the spines of gods, yet he found himself engaged in a dead-silent staredown with a cow. He mistook it for a standard, unremarkable, completely pathetic Earth beast. He expected it to run in terror from his sheer presence.
Ms. Moo, however, was actively calculating if the angle of her horns was sharp enough to gore this strange, floating man who had rudely interrupted her peaceful lunch. She didn't fear him. In fact, she found his cape tacky.
After five seconds of standoff silence, Thragg grew insulted and bored. He found the animal's dull, unblinking stare to be inherently disrespectful to his supreme station. Without even bothering to take his hands out from behind his back, Thragg casually swatted the air with the back of his wrist.
It was a lazy, dismissive gesture. But the kinetic output generated a concentrated gust of wind so violently compressed that it carried the localized force of a Category 5 hurricane.
The invisible wall of wind tore toward Ms. Moo, meant to turn the animal into a smear of blood, bone, and fur across the horizon. But suddenly, a blur of motion intercepted the attack.
A man stepped directly in front of the cow, bracing his heavy work boots deep into the dirt. He crossed his arms and tanked the gust of air head-on. The shockwave tore up the grass around him, snapped the wooden fence posts like twigs, and ripped the entire roof off the nearby barn, sending wooden shingles flying for miles.
But the man didn't budge an inch.
When the dust finally settled, Thragg's eyes narrowed into slits of pure, venomous disgust.
Standing in front of the cow was Nolan. He was wearing faded denim farming overalls, heavy work boots, and a simple plaid shirt rolled up to the elbows. But the clothing wasn't what caused Thragg's upper lip to curl in absolute revulsion.
Nolan's face was clean. His upper lip was completely bare.
To a Viltrumite, the mustache was a sacred symbol of military pride, maturity, and unyielding, unquestioning loyalty to the Empire. To see his best soldier standing in dirty human farming clothes, completely shaven, was a cultural blasphemy so offensive that it made Thragg's blood boil.
"Look at you," Thragg sneered, his voice dropping the temperature of the pasture by ten degrees. "The great Nolan. Reduced to a domesticated pet. You have shed your uniform. You have shed your pride. You have even shaven your face like these weak human. You sicken me."
Nolan didn't take the bait. The old Nolan would have launched himself into a blindingly fast frontal assault to defend his honor. But he wasn't that man anymore. And more importantly, Debbie had given him exactly one strict order: Serve Ms. Moo.
"I live here," Nolan said calmly, shifting his weight into a strictly defensive martial stance. "And you are trespassing on my property."
Thragg moved.
It wasn't simply speed but effectively teleportation to the human eye. Thragg appeared directly inside Nolan's guard. Nolan didn't even have time to blink before Thragg delivered a devastating hook to his ribs.
The sound of ultra-dense Viltrumite bones shattering echoed across the quiet farm like a gunshot. Nolan gasped, his eyes going wide as he spat a mouthful of blood, but he anchored his feet, refusing to be launched backward into the cow. He absorbed the kinetic energy entirely into his own body to protect the animal behind him.
Nolan threw a desperate counter-punch, aiming for Thragg's jaw. Thragg simply raised his open palm and caught Nolan's fist. The impact created a shockwave, but Thragg didn't react whatsoever. He slowly squeezed, crushing the bones in Nolan's hand.
"Look at what you have become, Nolan. Desperate to defend this worthless beast," Thragg stated, his tone laced with mocking disappointment. "You are no longer Viltrumite, Nolan. You are a disease. A disease that I must purge."
Thragg drove his knee deep into Nolan's stomach, completely caving in his diaphragm and dropping the man to the dirt. Nolan coughed up a pool of blood, his denim overalls tearing as he tried weakly to push himself up on his one good hand.
Behind them, Ms. Moo let out a sharp, angry moo. Seeing her caretaker beaten down and bleeding, the Holy Cow lowered her head. She charged directly at the Grand Regent, her hooves tearing up the soil, intent on ramming her horns into his spine.
Thragg didn't even bother to look at her.
"Filth."
He raised his hand, flattening his palm into the shape of a sharp blade and swung his arm backward in a lazy downward arc.
"No!" Nolan roared.
Ignoring his shattered ribs, his crushed hand, and his collapsed lungs, Nolan pushed himself off the dirt, throwing his body directly into the path of Thragg's lethal strike.
SHLUCK.
[A/N]: MC's going to return in a couple of chapters pls be Patient.
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