Drex felt terrible.
It was the sa kind of discomfort he had felt when he first ca to Earth, when his body was still adjusting to the sun. This ti, though, he suspected sothing else was happening.
Another ability was trying to awaken.
The problem was that he already had the full package. Super strength, super speed, heat vision, frost breath, enhanced senses, psionic power. He had even developed abilities no other Kryptonian had ever shown. Now there was more?
"Drex, what is it?" Urd asked when she saw how uneasy he looked. She thought he might be sick.
"I am fine. A little sunlight will fix it," Drex said, refusing her support. He was not weak enough to need help walking.
He headed for a specially prepared room and lay down on the bed beneath the bright sunlight pouring through the windows.
Then he slept.
Black Queen began scanning his body imdiately, logging every microscopic change.
In Drex's dream, it felt as if he had been returned to a womb. Kryptonians did not have a mother's womb experience in the normal sense, given their thod of reproduction, but the sensation still felt strangely primal. Safe. Warm. Alive.
And his body was changing at a frightening pace.
When he finally woke, he understood what he had gained.
A slow grin spread across his face.
No way.
This new power was absurd.
At this point, Drex could almost be called a humanoid vibranium battery.
His new ability allowed him to absorb all forms of energy and convert them into his own power. He could then release that energy back out again.
In practical terms, that ant he could grow stronger by taking hits.
Every attack against him would only feed him.
He could absorb kinetic energy, thermal energy, and all kinds of other energy to strengthen his body, his strength, and his speed. And unlike temporary boosts, this reinforcent was permanent.
He could also convert absorbed energy into output, giving him a third ans of attack beyond heat vision and freezing breath. That output could take the form of heat, force, electricity, wind, and more.
His Kryptonian body and biofield had already made him nearly untouchable by physical attacks.
Now, with energy absorption added on top, Drex could stand still and let the world throw itself at him. It still would not be enough.
And ntally, he was protected too. His psionic power ant mind control was no longer sothing he needed to fear.
At this point, the only real threat left was mystical power.
"The Marvel sun actually caused a change this big in a Kryptonian," Drex muttered, looking at his own hands. "At this rate, I'm probably not far off from Hail's level as a super Kryptonian. Not in raw power yet, but still."
He could definitely call himself a "super Kryptonian" now.
The thought made him curious. Could he awaken even more powers?
For the mont, though, the new energy absorption ability gave him sothing else.
The capital to break free of Earth's gravity.
Drex had wanted to do this for a while.
So he did not hesitate.
He launched himself upward into the sky.
Black Queen imdiately began wiping away the traces he left behind, temporarily blocking satellite surveillance and masking his departure.
As he climbed, the shockwaves of his flight slamd into him.
Drex absorbed the kinetic energy and used it to strengthen his body further.
The heat generated as he broke the sound barrier and then pushed through thermal resistance was absorbed too. It did not bother him in the slightest.
Soon, he broke through the atmosphere and entered space.
Vacuum in space and what humans called a vacuum were not the sa thing. Human vacuum ant airless emptiness. Space ca with more than that. Deadly radiation. Dust. Harsh conditions that would kill an ordinary body almost instantly.
For Drex, though, the radiation was pure nourishnt.
He released his biofield entirely and let his body remain exposed in open space.
The sun was directly facing North Arica.
From this angle, Drex was bathed in sunlight from head to toe.
He could feel himself getting stronger with every passing mont.
Part of him wanted to drift closer to the sun itself.
He suppressed the urge.
He knew exactly how Superman had died once before. Too close to the sun, too much energy flooding in, the body unable to process it. One day left to live.
And if there was one thing he knew for certain, it was that this kind of death had Lex Luthor's fingerprints all over it.
Drex remained in the sunlight for one hundred hours before finally returning to Earth.
Blade Technology Industries had not fallen apart in his absence.
Drex disappearing for days at a ti was not unusual. He often shut himself away in his research room and vanished from view. This looked like the sa thing to everyone else.
Aside from the red sun, every sun in this universe was a trendous blessing to a Kryptonian. A cheat code, really. But even a cheat code did not an instant, endless growth.
Drex had only stayed out this long because he had awakened a new ability. His body was now saturated with energy and needed ti to digest it.
"Sir, an unexpected situation has co up," Black Queen said once Drex had returned and settled in.
"What situation?"
Drex was adjusting a machine while he asked.
Black Queen projected a video.
A giant green brute was tearing through a laboratory, smashing everything in sight.
"Hulk."
Drex's eyes lit up.
This looked like a freshly born Hulk.
Black Queen switched to a map and updated the situation. The Hulk had only just appeared. His intelligence was still childlike. After being attacked, he had retaliated, then lost interest and run off.
Under Bruce Banner's subconscious influence, though, the Hulk had not charged into the city. He had gone into the remote wilderness instead.
Drex almost wanted to comnt on how absurdly large the "remote wilderness" had to be to exist near here, but there was no point.
At that mont, Bruce Banner himself was waking up in the rain, confused and dazed.
He was wearing nothing but a pair of oversized pants. Everything else had been destroyed when his body swelled and burst out of it.
At least he rembered what had happened.
And he rembered the trouble that was coming next.
Then soone simply appeared in front of him.
With psionic teleportation, Drex only had to look at a place once and he could arrive there directly. It cost a lot of ntal energy, but a little ti in the sun restored it easily enough.
"Who are you?"
Banner jumped back in alarm.
This world still had not been flooded with endless superheroes and supervillains yet. Nick Fury had seen Carol Danvers, but he was not exactly the type to start gossiping. From Banner's perspective, a man in armor suddenly appearing out of nowhere was beyond comprehension.
"Dr. Banner, I am here to help you," Drex said with a faint smile.
He also wanted to see whether he could beat the Hulk in a fair fight.
"Stay away from . I do not need your help!"
Banner turned and ran.
He was agitated already, and he knew exactly what kind of disaster he was capable of becoming. He was not going to trust so random armored stranger with a smile and a strange sense of timing.
Drex watched him go, his eyes narrowing slightly.
Banner's heartbeat was climbing fast.
Adrenaline was already flooding his system.
One more push, and the Hulk would co out.
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