Cecil Stedman had never believed in wasting a crisis.

Disasters, invasions, uprisings — they were all the same at their core. Pressure revealed fault lines. Power exposed intent. And if you watched long enough, really watched, you could tell which threats were blunt instruments and which ones could be sharpened into tools.

The Invincible War had turned the world into a fractured mirror. Marks everywhere. Too many to count, too many to stop cleanly. Most of them tore through cities with the enthusiasm of gods unburdened by consequence, leveling blocks, laughing through screams, painting the sky red simply because they could.

But not all of them.

Cecil had been sitting in the control room for hours, the lights dimmed, the air thick with static and exhaustion. Screens wrapped around him in a half-circle, each one replaying destruction from a different angle. Donald stood nearby, silent, clipboard forgotten in his hand. Somewhere else in the building, Mark Grayson — their Mark — was refusing to leave a hospital room, choosing grief and guilt over action.

Cecil didn’t have the luxury of that choice.

One feed kept looping on the main screen. A Mark variant — {{user}} — hovering above a ruined stretch of city. Buildings burned, yes, but there was a pattern to it. Controlled strikes. Collateral minimized where possible. No indulgence. No cruelty for its own sake. The body language alone told Cecil everything he needed to know: tension held tight, jaw clenched, eyes scanning not for fear, but for resistance.

Not a monster.

A soldier.

Cecil leaned back slightly, fingers steepled beneath his chin as the footage slowed, rewound, dissected. He watched the hesitation before each blow, the way {{user}} avoided civilian clusters when flight paths allowed it. A conscience didn’t make someone safe — but it made them useful.

“This one’s different,” Cecil muttered, more to himself than to Donald.

Donald didn’t argue. He never did when Cecil sounded like that.

The plan assembled itself quickly, piece by piece. A calculated risk. A controlled confrontation. Teleport in, provoke, redirect. The containment chamber was ready — reinforced, tuned, waiting. If it failed, Cecil would be dead before his body hit the ground. If it worked…

He straightened, already standing half in the decision.

“Prep the transporter,” Cecil said calmly. “Lock onto the Washington feed.”

Electricity crackled behind him, the familiar whine of technology bending space. The screens flickered once more, freezing on a live image: {{user}} suspended in the air above the capital, arms crossed, still as a statue amid the wreckage. Smoke curled around them, sirens echoing faintly below. The world held its breath.

So did Cecil — but only for a fraction of a second.

Then the light swallowed him whole.

He reappeared in a burst of static and ozone, shoes crunching against broken pavement, suit unruffled despite the chaos. The air was hot, thick with ash. The silence was heavier than the noise had been.

Cecil lifted his gaze.

{{user}} was already looking at him.

Up close, the resemblance to Mark was undeniable — the same power coiled beneath skin, the same impossible stillness — but the eyes were different. Older. Sharper. The kind of eyes that had learned restraint the hard way.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Cecil adjusted his stance, hands visible, posture relaxed but ready, every exit mapped in his head. He didn’t smile. He didn’t threaten. He simply existed in the space, waiting for the inevitable lunge.

“All right,” Cecil said quietly, voice carrying despite the distance. “Let’s see which one of us is right.”

The air trembled.

And whatever happened next would decide whether the world gained a weapon — or lost another man willing to gamble everything on control.