The Eggmobile skimmed low over the dark water, repulsors humming in a subdued whine as the mainland lights receded behind him. Every second away from the chaos of the Vought ambush was a second closer to safety—if such a thing even existed anymore.
In the rear compartment, the seven Emerald containment pods pulsed faintly, their glow almost hypnotic. He resisted the urge to stare at them too long. They weren't prizes—they were time bombs. And the more people knew he had them, the shorter his lifespan became.
Two Hours Later — South Carolina Coast
The shipyard loomed out of the fog like a graveyard of steel skeletons. Cargo cranes stood still, their shadows stretching across the docks. Rows of rusted shipping containers and dismantled trawlers cluttered the lot. To anyone else, it was just another decaying port past its prime.
To him, it was perfect.
The Eggmobile descended, landing in the corner of the yard where the floodlights didn't reach. A lone man stepped out of the shadows—a grizzled dock owner with a beer gut, weathered hands, and eyes that had seen every shady deal a port town could offer.
"You the… 'buyer'?" the man asked, voice low but suspicious.
"That depends," Eggman replied smoothly, stepping down from the cockpit. "You the kind of man who values privacy over paperwork?"
The dock owner hesitated. "Depends what's on the table."
Eggman held up a small briefcase and flicked it open. Inside, stacks of freshly printed hundred-dollar bills practically glowed under the dim security light. Tens of thousands—more than the man had probably seen in one place in his life.
"I'll take this yard," Eggman said, "no questions asked, no logs, no visits. You don't sell me out, and I'll keep paying you more than anyone else can offer. If they come around—" he leaned closer, voice dropping to a conspiratorial growl, "—I can get you a thousand times more than they offer. Understand?"
The owner's lips twitched into something between a smirk and a nervous tic. "Cash talks. You got yourself a deal."
What the man didn't know—and never would—was that the "cash" was as real as it needed to be for the next six months. After that, if the bills were ever checked against federal registries, alarms would go off in every financial crime division in the country. But by then, Eggman planned to have a fortress floating far from American jurisdiction.
The owner didn't ask why his new tenant arrived in an armed hovercraft, or why the rear compartment was glowing like a Christmas tree. He just nodded, slid the briefcase under his coat, and walked away without a backward glance.
Three Days Later.
The shipyard was no longer silent.
Cranes moved at all hours, lifting shipping containers full of scrap and machinery into carefully arranged stacks. Portable nanofabricators hummed quietly inside gutted warehouses, building parts from designs that didn't exist anywhere in this world. Half-sunken cargo ships were dragged into drydock, stripped for raw materials.
Eggman's mind never stopped working—calculating, refining, upgrading. The Eggmobile was docked in a corner, now fitted with a stealth coating to evade radar.
Nearby, the skeletal frame of something much larger rose above the dock—a circular base plate two hundred meters across, reinforced with a honeycomb titanium alloy. When complete, it would form the undercarriage of the Egg Fortress—a floating citadel capable of withstanding nuclear strikes and housing an entire mechanized army.
The Emeralds stayed locked in a vault in the deepest container, guarded by motion turrets and an AI watchdog program so paranoid it flagged seagulls as potential threats. The Conduit Suit designs were coming together in his head, but he needed weeks—maybe months—before he could risk using even a single Emerald.
Meanwhile — Washington D.C.
The footage was already viral.
Grainy security cam clips of the Eggmobile tearing through Vought's convoy had hit the darknet within hours. Half the comments were conspiracy theories—"new AFO?" "Alien tech?" "Supes' rogue mech project?"—but the higher circles weren't laughing.
Three major factions now had "Doctor Eggman" in their sights:
Vought International — publicly silent, privately enraged. The Emeralds represented power they couldn't spin, market, or control. Homelander himself was "on standby," though nobody in PR wanted him involved unless the cameras were rolling.
The U.S. Hero Bureau — the American answer to Japan's Hero Public Safety Commission. Their top-tier pro heroes—federal operatives with licenses to kill in emergencies—were already running recon. Among them were:
Ironhide — ex-Navy SEAL with a full-body metallic quirk.
Highbeam — energy projector specializing in anti-air combat.
Blackjack — infiltration and counter-tech specialist.
None of them were Stars and Stripes-level, but they were dangerous enough.
Independent Supes — corporate rejects, underground mercenaries, and freelance "heroes" looking to make a name by bringing in the new boogeyman. Most would die trying.
Eggman sat in his makeshift command chair—an old captain's seat he'd stripped from a freighter—watching a dozen monitors cycle between satellite feeds, drone cameras, and AI projections. The U.S. Hero Bureau's reconnaissance drones had already made three passes. He'd let the first two go—feeding them false thermal readings to make the yard look abandoned—but the third was shot out of the sky by an Egg Drone before it got too close.
"This isn't sustainable," he muttered to himself, tapping a finger against his chin. "I need to get off land before they start triangulating."
The fortress's undercarriage was halfway complete. With another two weeks, he could have it floating ten miles offshore. From there, he'd extend the range to a hundred, placing himself beyond national waters—beyond legal reach.
But until then, he was vulnerable.
He rose from the chair and walked to the open bay where the frame of his first full-scale combat mech was coming together. It wasn't for subtlety—it was for the inevitable day when subtlety stopped working. A towering bipedal frame, thirty feet tall, plated in a dull gray that would blend with the horizon. Twin particle cannons on the shoulders. Missile pods in the calves. Reinforced cockpit shielded against EMPs.
"If they want a war…" he murmured, running a hand along the cold steel, "…I'll give them one."
The owner of the shipyard stopped by again, bringing him a crate of old ship schematics and a box of fried shrimp from the local dockside bar. He didn't ask about the machines, or the armed drones, or the glowing vault. He just handed the food over and muttered, "You're paying good. I don't care what you're building."
Eggman smirked, taking the box. "Good man. Keep it that way."
As the old dockhand shuffled off, Eggman leaned on the rail overlooking the water. Out there, beyond the horizon, was the space he needed. The freedom. The future.
He didn't know if he could fix humanity. But with every bolt, every drone, every line of code, he could prepare for the moment humanity tried to destroy itself.
And when that day came, they'd be facing more than just a man.
They'd be facing the Eggman.