Invincible's Dimensional Billionaire Chapter 4.

Chapter 4: Profit And Power.

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The clang of metal on metal sent a spray of sparks into the dim room and everything narrowed to the rhythm of steel. Each strike echoed, slow and heavy, as if the world had been tuned to the frequency of our duel. I had trained with blades for years of swordplay, polearms, a measure of spear - and the clash let me move between forms mid-fight, sliding from close work to longer reach as the moment demanded.

Battle Beast adjusted. He flung the mace aside with a roar and clenched his fists, daring me into a fistfight. That challenge sounded almost like a laugh to me. I welcomed it.

I exploded forward. The nanotech sword that had formed along my arm unspooled into armored gauntlets, filling my forearms with living metal. Battle Beast swiped his claws in wide, crushing arcs. I ducked and weaved, letting the wind of his strikes pass me, and then I answered in a blur of a flurry of measured, brutal punches. My fists found ribs, jaw, throat; the metal in my gauntlets bit into his flesh and hide.

He stood. He absorbed them. The lion’s chest rose and fell; his breathing was a storm. The exchange had dragged on too long. I wanted an end.

I burned him. Twin beams cut from my eyes, scorching his chest. He raised his arms and took the hits like armor; the lasers bit into him, searing, but he didn’t falter — he barreled forward through the heat, claws skimming my chest.

The claws tore at the fabric of my shirt, shredding threads, but my skin beneath received only a shallow cut. Battle Beast blinked, puzzled — he had never met a body that shrugged off violence like that. In that flicker of hesitation, I closed the distance and drove an uppercut into his ribs. He launched upward, a thunderous crash as he tore through the roof and beyond.

He hit the ground hard, but before he could find his footing, I smashed a fist into his face and sent him hard back down. He lay there, winded, the fight draining from his limbs. He could not rise.

He stared up at me with that raw, ancient hunger still in his eyes. “Kill me,” he rasped, voice full of the warrior’s pride. “Give me a warrior’s honor — a glorious death.”

I looked at him. For a heartbeat, I felt the tug of something like pity, or respect — whatever lived in the space between predators and soldiers. Then I said no.

“Why reject me? Are you mocking me?” he demanded.

“No,” I answered, calm. “I think I can give you better than this. Imagine facing beings stronger than you — constant challenges, the thrill of discovery. That’s the glory you chase.” My tone was measured; the offer was deliberate.

He considered it. The lion’s breath came slow and ragged, curiosity and hunger warring across his features. “Join you?” he repeated, then accepted with a slow, feral nod. I extended my hand and he took it.

Machine Head, meanwhile, had been frantically searching for Isotope and froze when he found nothing — the teleporter gone. He tumbled back, suddenly alone in a room that smelled of ozone and blood. Panic crept across his metal face.

“We can talk, Mr. Adams,” he stammered, scrambling to regain control. “You can have half of Chicago — hell, take my entire turf.”

A strange, small question escaped him in fear: “How are you that strong?” He staggered back, eyes wide.

I pulled a small bottle from inside my jacket — syrup dark as night sloshing inside like a promise. “This is super serum,” I said, plain and cold. “This is the source of my strength.” I told him, briefly, where it had come from — how a Kryptonian body discovered during my dimensional travels had led the technicians to synthesize something that amplified solar absorption in a human frame. It lasted twelve hours, it thinned the muscles a bit after the effect wore off, but in the moment it turned men into weapons.

Then I shoved my fist into his chest. The motion was brutal and certain. Machine Head’s systems failed in an instant; his eyes flickered out as life — electrical or otherwise — left him. I pulled his head free from his shoulders and held it up. His robotic skull gleamed in my hand; it was a tool now, a useful piece for whatever came next.

I scanned the room. Titan struggled to his feet, battered but already tightening into a defensive shell of rock. The sight of him stitched a calculation through my mind. Business, I thought — alliances, leverage. I stepped toward Titan, proposition ready on my tongue.

“What do you say — you and I, we work together?” The offer hung heavy in the ruined air. Titan stilled; there was fear there, the kind that comes when you consider the cost of saying yes.

Before Titan could answer, Mark’s voice cut across the chamber, raw and ragged. “No! Don’t take him up on his offer — he’s a criminal. He belongs in prison.” He was on his feet now, bloody, jaw set. Battle Beast had already taken his lumps and might have helped him stand; Mark’s resolve was a hard, stubborn thing.

I walked to him, stepping over debris, and studied the man who had tried to strike me down minutes before. He fought to stand; there was something in his determination that snapped at the edges of me.

“Why do you call me a criminal?” I said, stepping close enough that he could smell the iron of blood and ozone on me. “I saved your sorry ass, and I only want to do business.”

Mark’s face twisted. “Business?” He spat the word out like a bitter pill. “Your business ruins people’s lives. You work with criminals — that makes you one of them.”

I closed the distance, face inches from his. “I don’t give a shit who I work with as long as I make a profit,” I said, quiet and dangerous. He tightened, ready to swing, but something stopped him before his fist left his hand.

A deep, mechanical roar announced arrival: the Guardians. The room’s broken windows framed silhouettes as the last echoes of the night fell away and the law stepped into the wreckage. Their presence changed the air; authority filled the space and made the combatants feel small.

Robot lifted his head, astonished. His optical sensors locked onto another of his kind — an unfamiliar counterpart twisted up in the wreckage. Monster Girl let out a questioning sound in her altered form, and in her voice was equal parts curiosity and recognition.

“Hey — is that you?” she asked, half hopeful.

Robot’s systems ran scans. “I don’t know who that is,” he said slowly, voice electronic and strained. “He isn’t on my radar.”

Black Adam’s dark gaze landed on me, sharp and assessing. I could see the question there, bright and heavy: who is this man who held Machine Head’s head like a trophy?

Robot pulled up records, crossed sectors, and then shook his head. “I can’t identify him. There are no records of his activities or existence.” His words made the Guardians narrow their eyes at me. “He’s like a ghost,” Robot added, stunned.

Hearing that lit something in my chest — a hot flare of anger. These were the ones who’d torched my shipments. Everything they represented had been an obstacle to the calculations that built my empire.

“Ah,” I said, letting a grin spread — slow, intent. “How nice of you to come. Now all the pieces are on the table. I bet it’s time to play, don’t you think?”

The grin stayed. The room braced for what would come next — a man in a tattered suit, a robot with a borrowed head, a lion turned ally, and the Guardians who wanted order.