"Sorry—those are my friends. I'm taking them home. And if you're planning to invade Earth, how about… don't."
Saitama looked at Ebony Maw as a translucent info pane slid across his vision:
Name: Ebony Maw
Role: Black Order General
Intelligence: 6
Strength: 5
Speed: 6
Durability: 6
Energy Projection: 7
Fighting Skill: 7
Justice: −5
Note: One of the Black Order's four generals; telekinesis user.
The spread didn't look gaudy, but "Energy Projection: 7" and "Fighting Skill: 7," combined with telekinesis, made the lieutenant a serious handful.
Well—serious for normal people. For one bald, dead-eyed hero? Not so much.
"Take them… home?"
Ebony Maw blinked, then chuckled. Was this cue-ball confused about who owned the field? On this ship, everything answered to him. Walk off with prisoners? Cute.
"Of course," he said pleasantly.
"Thanks."
Saitama nodded and reached for Stark and Strange.
"But first," Maw's voice turned serrated behind him, "leave your head."
All around, fixtures lifted from their mounts. Metal boiled into a storm and crashed down toward the bald man.
Clang-clang-clang-clang—!
The barrage shattered on impact—not Saitama's skull, but the steel. Even shots aimed square at his temple crumpled into scrap.
"What… is that body…?"
Ebony Maw felt a chill. He had toured starfields beside Thanos, seen civilizations rise and fold—but never a physique like this. Even among the Titan-born, few could match this obscene durability.
Body or not, the insides and the mind are where telekinesis lives.
Hummm—
A low thrumming filled the bay as Maw's will clenched.
"Careful, Saitama—this is… bad!" Tony managed before the field crushed him flat again. Armor groaned; the deck dented beneath him.
Three hundred Gs.
Organs turned to anvils. Faces flushed purple. Tony Stark and Stephen Strange spat breath through their teeth, pinned and shaking.
"Note to self," Tony rasped, "micro field-shield… inside the armor."
Maw watched, amused. He could push higher, but overclocking too far might tear his own ship apart—
The smile went stiff.
His pallid face slackened into disbelief as his eyes bulged at the sight ahead.
"Impossible…"
The bald man was still standing there. Casual. Bored, even.
"What the hell, JARVIS?" Tony croaked.
"Telemetry indicates Mr. Saitama… is unaffected by a field of this magnitude," JARVIS said, sounding like he didn't quite believe his own words.
Saitama scratched his head. If not for the way the deck kept warping like taffy under his boots, no one would have accepted that he was planted in a 300-G well.
"This is telekinesis, right?" he asked, curious—then walked forward.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Each step was unhurried—and light for him—but the alloy plates exploded into craters underfoot.
You're kidding me.
Pressure that folded alloy like paper—and the bald guy strolled through it?
"No. My telekinesis isn't—can't be—useless," Ebony Maw whispered, eyes wide.
"Oh. If it's telekinesis… it's, uh… not that impressive," Saitama said.
Not that impressive?!
Tony felt personally insulted by physics. He and Strange had teamed up and still got bullied by this guy back on Earth—even with Vibranium. Telekinesis was a bug: invisible, inescapable, impossible to guard.
But for Saitama, telekinesis was old hat. Blizzard of Hell, Terrible Tornado—either one could match or surpass this lieutenant's mind-grip. Even that octopus on Boros's ship—once touted as the strongest psychic in space—had stronger lift than Ebony Maw. It hadn't made a dent.
"If that's all," Saitama said mildly, "you're going to lose."
He advanced.
Ebony Maw snarled. The field spiked again.
Five hundred Gs.
His brain screamed at the load. Alloy shrieked, pleated, and ripped, avalanching toward Saitama like a steel tide—
Riiiip—
A gentle tug of Saitama's hand, and the collapse disintegrated into confetti.
"…no effect?"
Maw's mind blanked. Five hundred Gs—enough to crush his own neurons if he held it too long—and it didn't register. No breach. No stagger. Nothing.
If his telekinesis couldn't even scratch the target, and his mental force couldn't bite… what was left?
He did the smartest thing a Black Order general could do.
Run.
He shot backward, already writing Stark and Strange off for later. Put distance between himself and the monster. Then blow the ship. That might—might—leave him a path.
"Going somewhere?"
The voice came from behind him.
He whirled. Saitama was already there, the polished dome gleaming as he drifted in midair—without thrusters, without effort.
"Damn you!"
Maw swerved—then froze. Not by choice.
His body locked in space, as if the air had turned to iron. Breath hitched. Limbs refused to answer. Panic clawed up his throat.
"What—what is this?!"
Saitama hovered, ambling through the air as if strolling a sidewalk. A new line flickered into his sight:
New Talent Absorbed: Telekinesis Control (from Ebony Maw)
(End of Chapter)
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