Ankaradomome Star sat deep in a forgotten corner of the galaxy.
No valuable mineral veins.
No strategic position.
No interstellar empire claiming ownership.
Just a remote planet with a breathable atmosphere and enough infrastructure for ships to dock, refuel, and disappear for a while.
Which made it perfect for raiders.
Pirates, smugglers, scavengers, bounty hunters, black-market tradersā¦ all kinds of garbage drifted through the planet like cosmic sewage.
Normally, business there ran smoothly.
Today, unfortunately for them, they ran into a group far worse than criminals.
They ran into Kryptonians.
Drex Valen had always been fascinated by Marvel's alien technology. Meeting extraterrestrials in person only intensified that curiosity.
Especially when the extraterrestrials in question were expendable pirates.
"Die!"
A raider fired an energy rifle point-blank.
The glowing beam slammed directly into Esdeath's palm.
She caught it barehanded.
The pirate froze.
His expression shifted from rage to absolute horror in less than a second.
Esdeath looked mildly disappointed.
Then she crushed the rifle in her grip like brittle plastic.
Four Kryptonians moving together could flatten nearly anything in the universe. Even Thanos would have problems dealing with them head-on.
A bunch of low-tier raiders never stood a chance.
While Esdeath and Lyra Yan cleaned up the resistance, Drex casually inspected the pirates' ships.
A few minutes later, he acquired his first substantial amount of interstellar currency.
"Thank God everything's digital," he said while transferring credits into a freshly created galactic account. "Physical money across multiple civilizations sounds like a logistical nightmare."
By cosmic standards, he was still broke.
Painfully broke.
Apparently Marvel's economy had absurdly stable currency systems.
Tifa Lockhart stayed beside him instead of joining the fight, watching with interest as Drex dismantled alien systems and dug through stolen databases.
Eventually, he found what he was looking for.
A navigational star map.
Drex smiled.
"Ladies, we're moving."
His voice echoed directly into Esdeath and Lyra Yan's minds through telepathy.
Esdeath stopped mid-slaughter and exhaled slowly.
Frost spread outward instantly.
The remaining raiders froze solid where they stood, terror permanently locked onto their faces beneath layers of ice.
Lyra Yan didn't object.
She wasn't exactly merciful herself.
Once everyone returned to the ship, Drex entered the newly acquired coordinates and guided the vessel toward another spatial node.
Their destination:
Angoragangzi Star.
One of the largest black markets in the known universe.
The planet itself was bizarre.
Extremely dense.
Extremely massive.
Its gravity far exceeded Earth's, while the atmosphere was so thick the entire world appeared like a glowing purple gemstone from orbit.
The name made sense once you saw it.
Every illegal thing imaginable passed through this place eventually.
Weapons.
Slaves.
Biotech.
Forbidden AI.
Stolen starship cores.
Military-grade planetary scanners.
If someone in the galaxy wasn't supposed to own it, odds were high it could be purchased here.
Drex almost hoped he'd run into the future Guardians of the Galaxy.
Though timeline-wise, they probably hadn't formed yet.
Their ship punched directly through the atmosphere.
Most vessels would've been torn apart by the pressure.
Drex's ship barely vibrated.
The triple-alloy hull of vibranium, proto-kryptonite metal, and adamantium handled the descent effortlessly.
Once they broke through the cloud layers, the first thing everyone noticed was the cold.
Then a tractor beam locked onto the ship automatically and guided it toward a docking platform crowded with alien vessels of every imaginable design.
Thankfully, Drex had stolen universal translators from the raiders earlier.
Combined with Kryptonian cognitive processing, language barriers wouldn't last long anyway.
A market existed because demand existed.
That was true whether the setting was ancient Earth or the center of a galactic criminal empire.
Angoragangzi Star's gravity was several times stronger than Earth's, but the Kryptonians ignored it completely.
Their biofields filtered toxins, radiation, pathogens, and nearly every environmental hazard automatically.
To them, hostile environments were just scenery.
"I hate this cold," Lyra Yan muttered.
She didn't actually feel cold.
She just disliked the atmosphere.
Tifa stared openly at the crowds surrounding them.
"So many strange-looking peopleā¦"
Scaled species.
Furred species.
Insectoid species.
Reptilian lifeforms.
Some creatures looked disturbingly close to living jellyfish.
Compared to all of them, humans almost seemed exotic.
"In this place," Drex corrected calmly, "we're the aliens."
Honestly, Marvel handled extraterrestrials better than most sci-fi settings.
At least the galaxy wasn't populated entirely by humans with different-colored skin paint.
Even if most lifeforms were still carbon-based.
The deeper they moved into the city, the uglier things became.
Kryptonian senses were monstrous.
Enhanced hearing and vision exposed details ordinary people would never notice.
Drex rapidly realized how brutal the cosmic underworld really was.
Entire species whose home planets had been destroyed were being sold openly as luxury collectibles.
Scarcity increased value.
The fewer survivors remained, the more expensive they became.
Some were sold as servants.
Others as entertainment.
Others as living trophies.
The universe was enormous.
Which meant cruelty scaled accordingly.
"What are we actually doing here?" Esdeath asked.
"Buying knowledge."
Drex's eyes remained fixed on the endless data markets surrounding them.
"These lunatics are selling scientific research like it's grocery produce. Advanced technology is the most valuable resource in existence, and they're trading it openly."
So he started buying.
Aggressively.
Propulsion systems.
Energy conversion frameworks.
Exotic metallurgy.
Weapons engineering.
Planetary-scale communications architecture.
Drex purchased everything he didn't already possess.
Then immediately absorbed and processed it using his Kryptonian brain.
Unfortunately, knowledge was expensive.
Very expensive.
Within hours, he had burned through nearly all of his money.
That made him briefly consider robbery.
The only problem was reputation.
If he started looting black-market hubs across the galaxy, humanity's image would probably become radioactive overnight.
Masks wouldn't help either.
Galactic scanners were sophisticated enough to identify biological signatures through most disguises.
Unless someone possessed Skrull-level shapeshifting.
And Skrulls were terrifying.
Perfect biological mimicry.
Memory replication.
Advanced Super-Skrulls could even duplicate powers.
Their infiltration capabilities were basically nightmare fuel.
While Drex was wondering how to fund his growing technology addiction, something else caught his attention.
Bounty contracts.
Hundreds upon hundreds of them scrolled across the holographic listings.
Escort jobs.
Smuggling routes.
Pirate extermination contracts.
Planetary pacification operations.
Hunts for cosmic beasts.
And at the very topā¦
A contract worth four billion credits.
Target:
The Orb.
The cosmic sphere containing the Power Stone.
Drex's eyes narrowed slightly.
Now thatā¦
That was interesting.