Esdeath might have been interested in "training" Emma Frost, but once Drex Valen made his position clear, she had no intention of disobeying him.
Part of that loyalty came from her natural worldview. Strength ruled everything. The strong stood above the weak.
The rest came from the absolute loyalty Drex had implanted into her mind.
Either way, she obeyed him completely.
High above Earth, Drex had constructed a private orbital station specifically for her. Positioned dangerously close to the sun, the station used manipulated magnetic fields to resist solar gravity while concentrating immense amounts of sunlight directly into its structure.
In simple terms, it was a Kryptonian charging chamber.
And lately, Drex had begun noticing something.
Esdeath was becoming terrifyingly strong.
"You want to fight, Boss?"
She sensed his attention immediately, excitement flashing across her face.
"Sure," Drex replied.
The next instant, both of them vanished.
They reappeared inside a massive combat chamber forged from atomic alloy, durable enough to withstand full-force combat between Kryptonians.
Esdeath attacked immediately.
No hesitation.
Her fist exploded through the air at hypersonic speed, the shockwave detonating around her arm before the punch had even fully extended.
Drex raised a hand casually.
Electromagnetic force spread outward from his body, seizing control of the surrounding magnetic fields before collapsing them around Esdeath.
Her punch slowed.
Then slowed again.
Then stopped completely less than an inch from Drex's face.
Millions of tons of invisible pressure crushed down on her body, pinning her in place.
Esdeath frowned.
"Boss, that doesn't count."
She wanted a real fight.
Not one where he casually erased the battle before it even started.
Drex shrugged.
"Fair enough."
The pressure vanished instantly.
Esdeath moved the moment she regained control, pivoting into a vicious right hook aimed directly at his head.
Drex tilted aside effortlessly.
Then he countered with two punches to her torso.
The impacts blasted Esdeath backward across the arena, though her bioelectric aura absorbed most of the damage.
The next second, she vanished.
Her speed surged several times past the sound barrier, yet her bioelectric field suppressed all friction, heat, and sonic disruption. No thunderclap. No atmospheric burn.
Just instantaneous movement.
She appeared behind Drex with both fists clasped together overhead, slamming downward toward him like a meteor strike.
Drex glanced upward.
Esdeath smiled.
Got you.
Her eyes flared crimson.
Maximum-output heat vision erupted point-blank.
The chamber drowned in scarlet energy hot enough to melt steel into vapor.
But when the beam faded, Drex stood exactly where he had been.
Untouched.
Not even his hair had moved.
His slicked-back hairstyle remained immaculate.
The reason was simple.
Drex's bioelectric aura was overwhelmingly powerful, and unlike ordinary Kryptonians, he possessed energy absorption abilities none of them had. Esdeath's heat vision had been entirely absorbed into his body and converted into permanent reinforcement for his physical strength.
Then Drex's own eyes ignited.
Blue light.
Freezing rays exploded outward.
Esdeath's heat vision froze solid in an instant, crystalline frost racing backward through the scarlet beam itself before engulfing her body completely.
Bizarro's freeze vision and thermal breath were never abilities Drex needed to transform in order to use.
After mastering gravity and electromagnetic manipulation, converting heat vision into freezing rays or cold breath into thermal breath had become trivial.
Especially for someone capable of transforming energy itself.
Ice shattered apart as Esdeath broke free.
She inhaled sharply, preparing to unleash freezing breath.
Then she saw Drex raise one hand toward her.
Gravity surged.
Esdeath was violently dragged across the chamber at lightning speed straight into his grasp.
The force was overwhelming.
Even a Kryptonian couldn't resist that level of gravitational pull.
The moment he caught her, Drex opened his mouth.
Esdeath instinctively did the same.
Thermal breath collided with freezing breath at point-blank range.
Fire and ice annihilated each other between them in a violent explosion of steam and energy.
Then Esdeath's expression changed.
Drex's flames compressed.
Condensed.
Focused.
Until the thermal breath transformed into a concentrated thermal beam.
Her freezing breath collapsed instantly.
The beam punched straight through it and slammed into Esdeath, blasting her backward across the chamber before pinning her against the wall.
The continuous stream of thermal energy illuminated her entire body in blazing light.
Even so, her bioelectric field held.
Barely.
With a roar, Esdeath smashed through the beam itself and dodged away.
Then she raised a hand.
"I surrender."
There was no point continuing.
Even without using electromagnetic manipulation, Drex's abilities completely overwhelmed hers.
The difference between them had become too large.
Drex stopped immediately.
Truthfully, he'd never cared much for physical combat anyway. Electromagnetic manipulation suited him far better than trading punches.
Not that many beings could survive hand-to-hand combat with Kryptonians in the first place.
The moment the battle ended, Esdeath leaned herself against him.
"What?" Drex asked.
He still hadn't fully adjusted his hormonal responses, so emotionally he could be surprisingly dense sometimes.
Esdeath wrapped her long legs around his waist.
"I want another duel with you, Boss."
Drex blinked.
"…Another duel?"
It took him a few seconds to understand what she actually meant.
After that, there wasn't much left to discuss.
The next battle lasted over three hours.
And once again, Drex emerged victorious.
His body had just undergone another major reinforcement from absorbing Esdeath's energy earlier.
At this point, Esdeath was no longer remotely capable of matching him physically.
Meanwhile, Pietro Maximoff woke up.
The first thing he noticed was the darkness.
Absolute darkness.
At first, he thought someone had blindfolded him. Panic surged through him as he frantically touched his face.
Nothing.
No blindfold.
Cold sweat covered his skin.
Am I blind?
Then fragments of memory returned.
The nightclub.
The men in black suits.
Getting beaten.
The freezing cold.
His entire body ached, proving it hadn't been a nightmare.
"What the hell happened?!"
"Is anyone there?!"
"Help me!"
Outside the chamber, the Zoanoids barely reacted to Pietro's screaming.
Human energy had limits.
He'd already been beaten half to death, frozen overnight, and left starving. Eventually he would exhaust himself.
Besides, even if he screamed until his throat tore apart, nobody would hear him.
The room had been specially designed to block sound entirely.
After a while, Pietro's shouting degraded into weak hoarse growls.
Then even those stopped.
Darkness consumed people in ways pain never could.
Pietro couldn't see anything.
Couldn't judge time.
Couldn't even properly feel his own existence anymore.
The silence became endless.
His mind drifted through an infinite void like a ghost sinking deeper and deeper into a bottomless abyss.
Time itself seemed to slow.
Then disappear entirely.
Only darkness remained.
Eternal.