Years Seventeen to Twenty-Two:
The multiverse is vast, but arrogance is universal.
In Year Seventeen, Angstrom located a dimension that made the Imperator look like a child playing with toy soldiers. This evil variant hadn't just conquered his Earth; he had expanded into the cosmos. He had hunted down and killed the legendary Space Racer, taking his weapons, and then systematically plundered the Gelderian Empire.
When I stepped through the portal to put him down, I expected another brawl. Instead, I almost died.
The variant wore a massive, high-tech Gelderian exoskeleton (Tech Jacket) that perfectly channeled cosmic energy. He didn't try to punch me with Viltrumite brute force; he blasted me with concentrated, weaponized light that sliced right through my dense skin and bio-electric field.
The fight was a nightmare. My internal energy had become increasingly volatile over the last few years, and taking hits from Gelderian plasma cannons nearly pushed my reactor over the edge. I only won by getting inside his guard, ripping the exoskeleton's power core out with my bare hands, and crushing his skull while the suit powered down.
I stripped the tech from his corpse and dragged it back to the Citadel, bleeding and exhausted.
Back in the lab, the Maulers didn't celebrate the victory. They drew my blood, ran it through their diagnostics, and panicked.
"You're a walking dirty bomb," one of the Maulers said, pulling up a holographic scan of my cellular structure. "We call it a Cellular Supernova. Your smart atoms are absorbing solar and kinetic energy too efficiently, but your body doesn't have a natural exhaust valve."
"If you absorb too much radiation without expending it," the second Mauler continued grimly, "your cells will literally begin to cook you from the inside out."
The symptoms had already started. During the fight, my veins had glowed with a blinding, burning light. I had experienced violent muscle spasms and aggressive, neurological 'roid rage' that clouded my mind.
"If you hit critical mass," Angstrom added, staring at the readouts, "you won't just die. You'll detonate with the force of a dying star. You'll wipe out an entire continent."
Hoooooo! Can't have that.
I stared at the stolen Gelderian exoskeleton resting on the lab table. "Then how bout a fix?"
Months Later…
The Maulers were able to break down the Gelderian tech, reverse-engineering the cosmic energy channels and fusing them with adaptive Flaxan fabrics.
They didn't just build me a uniform. They built a Bio-Reactive Containment Suit. It acted as an external heatsink and a master regulator for my smart atoms.
I designed the aesthetics myself. I needed something practical, tactical, and terrifying. The final result looked like a hybrid between the Black Panther and Nightwing's suits, cast entirely in pitch black. The classic, optimistic yellow "I" insignia on the chest was redesigned, heavily outlined, and rendered in a dark Jet Grey.
But the genius was in the deployment.
The suit's activation matrix was tied to two specific pieces: a sleek domino face mask and a heavy, metallic necklace. Both pieces were forged from hyper-dense Flaxan alloys and weighed a literal ton. When the suit was deactivated, I wore the necklace constantly and had the mask with me at all times. They acted as extreme training weights, forcing my muscles to carry the burden as I went through my daily life in the Citadel.
But when I donned and activated both, they triggered the nanotech from the serum already streamlined into my bloodstream. The tech would lock onto my smart atoms, and the full suit would flow over my body in a fraction of a second.
The suit was woven with solar-absorbent nanofibers that pulled in ambient radiation, storing it safely in hyper-compressed Gelderian micro-batteries housed within the armor. When I took a hit from an opponent, the suit also absorbed the kinetic impact, stored it, and allowed me to release or redirect it in short, devastating bursts.
Just like how my body would function.
If I needed to hit with the force of a solar flare, the suit would funnel the energy perfectly from the batteries directly into my fists. It also featured built-in frequency communication and environmental adaptability, meaning the suit's continuous supply of solar energy could sustain me perfectly in the vacuum of space. I would never be without an energy source again.
It's not just a suit but an extension of me.
But the suit was only a patch. To truly survive the Cellular Supernova, the Maulers taught me a technique called Thermal Bleeding.
I had to learn how to consciously vent my excess stored energy. Every few weeks, I would step through a portal to the Radioactive Wasteland dimension—the dead world I had claimed from the Broken King. And I would deactivate the suit and unleash massive, continent-shattering blasts of pure thermal-kinetic energy into the dead atmosphere.
I emptied the tank and kept my cells stable, which led to my mind staying terrifyingly sharp.
Years Twenty-Three to Thirty:
During my final seven years in the Citadel, my physical evolution had somewhat plateaued for the time being. My body was an indestructible, self-regulating weapon of mass destruction. The agonizing growing pains of the Mauler serum were a distant memory.
And the best part about it was that I wasn't even in my prime yet. My smart atoms still worked in the way in which the older I got the stronger I would become. Mix that with my enhancements and you got a being that will treat these multiverses like light exercise.
With my physical capabilities maximized for the moment, my focus shifted entirely to strategy.
I thought about the times where I wouldn't be available to stop imminent threats at any given time. I thought about how everyone else from my dimension was essentially cannon fodder for extraterrestrial threats other than the Viltrumites. These thoughts made me realize that I needed everyone else to reach their potential just as much as me.
So, I started using Angstrom's portals for reconnaissance instead of just combat. I spent years observing and studying alternate versions of my Earth allies. I needed to see what their absolute maximum potential looked like, so when I returned I had knowledge of how to maximize them.
Atom Eve:
My dimension's Eve wasted her calories building giant pink walls and throwing massive energy blasts. During my multiversal scouting, I found a dimension where she operated as a lethal assassin.
She realized that she didn't need to overpower her opponents; she needed to manipulate their environment at a micro-level. Instead of throwing a flashy blast, she created a localized vacuum around her enemy's head, suffocating them instantly without wasting an ounce of energy. Instead of building a wall to stop a punch, she altered the air friction to zero, making speedsters violently slip and crash. And even worse, she increased the friction to a maximum, causing enemies to burst into flames simply by moving through the air.
My Eve could become a reality-warping god quicker, and not just a glorified shield generator.
Rex Splode:
Rex thought the peak of his power was throwing charged pennies and exploding batons. I found a variant of him who realized he didn't need objects at all.
He used something he called Kinetic Boxing, charging the air molecules compressed between his knuckles and his target. Every punch he threw triggered a point-blank shaped charge. Sometimes he would even charge his own sweat and blood when he was bleeding or grappled by a stronger opponent. He turned his own biological fluids into explosive countermeasures.
My Rex could become a lethal close-quarters combatant against beings vastly stronger than him.
Monster Girl:
Amanda's curse is her biggest Achilles heel. Even with Robot "fixing" her problem with the belt to stop her from de-aging when she transformed, it wasn't a permanent fix. I found a timeline where she had completely solved it.
She trained in Partial Shifting—transforming only her arm into a massive limb for a devastating hook, or reinforcing only her internal skeleton and organs to tank a Viltrumite-level hit while remaining human-sized. Even better was her training in Mass Compression: transforming fully, but consciously condensing all that dense mass into her standard six-foot frame. Her strength and durability skyrocketed exponentially, and the magical drain on her body dropped to almost zero.
With this knowledge, my Monster Girl wouldn't need her belt. She wouldn't be a giant target in combat, and she would finally be free of her burden.
Dupli-Kate:
Kate historically used her clones to overwhelm enemies with numbers. But she used it in a sloppy fashion.
One variant of hers used her clones as instant kinetic weapons. She trained them to spawn directly in front of an opponent's fist, using the newly manifested mass to absorb the momentum of the strike and kill their speed. She also learned Micro-Cloning—cloning herself mid-punch, so that a single strike instantly multiplied into a simultaneous barrage of ten synchronized hits from every conceivable angle.
With this knowledge she could become another lethal close quarters combatant.
These four were the main ones I focused on. I didn't include Robot because I felt he would have his own method of maximizing his own potential if he ever felt like it. And in multiple dimensions he also becomes a villain, so I'd rather just keep observing him before proceeding with anything.
The Final Day:
The Citadel was dead quiet.
I stood in the center of the simulation arena, the exact spot where I had "died" ten thousand times to the Anissa projection three decades ago. I was wearing the heavy, hyper-dense necklace, holding the matching domino mask in my hand.
I caught my reflection in the kinetic glass of the observation deck. My shoulders were impossibly broad, packed with the hyper-compressed, dense muscle of a veteran Viltrumite warrior.
Growing another inch (6'3") and gaining more weight (245 pounds) helps too.
I carried thirty years of multiversal slaughter, tactical genius, and suppressed cosmic energy beneath my skin.
High up on the wall, the massive digital chronometer ticked down its final seconds.
00:00:03...00:00:02...00:00:01...Zero. Two weeks had passed on Earth, while thirty years had passed for me.
"It's time," Angstrom said over the comms. His voice wasn't just respectful; it was tinged with quiet reverence. Up in the booth, the Mauler Twins stood silently behind him. There was no snark, no condescension. They were looking down at their masterpiece.
I didn't say a word. I just gave a smile and nodded. Then, I raised the domino mask to my face and locked it onto the signature of the heavy metallic necklace.
The activation matrix triggered instantly. The nanotech streaming through my bloodstream, locked onto my smart atoms. In a fraction of a second, the Jet Grey and matte black Bio-Reactive Containment Suit washed over my body, sealing with a pressurized hiss. The kinetic batteries hummed to life, instantly regulating the volatile, burning energy in my veins. The heavy, suffocating pressure of the Cellular Supernova vanished, replaced by a cold, perfect thermodynamic equilibrium.
I rolled my shoulders, feeling the terrifying power humming perfectly under my control.
My mind was filled with the tactical blueprints of a dozen dimensions. I had a fleet of Viltrumite dreadnoughts waiting in the wings, billions of cybernetic Reanimen on standby, a hyperbolic charging station, and the knowledge to turn my friends into an unstoppable force.
Across the arena, the heavy blast doors groaned. The locking mechanisms disengaged for the first time in three decades.
They slowly slid open, revealing the swirling, green dimensional tear that led back to Prime Earth.
I wasn't just ready for Anissa or my dimension's Viltrumite Empire anymore. I was ready to dominate the universe.