There was a knock at the door. Olivia looked up from the book she was reading. Or at least, had been trying to read. She'd been staring at the same page for most of a half hour.
"I'll get it!" She called up the stairs.
David was at work, and Clark was in his room doing his homework. That was what he'd told her, but it wouldn't surprise her if she opened the door to a red-haired girl sat at Clark's desk.
Olivia opened the door.
"Clark!"
When he heard his mum's shout, Clark felt the world freeze. He switched from Atom-Eve to Invincible in a fraction of a second. Then, moving dozens of times faster than the human eye could process, he rushed down to the door.
Olivia had barely finished saying her son's name, when he appeared suddenly in front of her.
Clark's face was hidden beneath a silver mask. He'd woven in some titanium fibres since he'd last used it in the alien invasion.
Two men were standing on the doorstep. The one closest to the door wore a grey suit and dull glasses.
Clark could hear their heartbeats. Or at least one heartbeat. The man in the grey suit didn't have one. All he could hear was an impossibly faint hum of machinery, it was too quiet for any normal person to hear. He doubted that it would be detected by most sensors.
Clark's fingers twitched. He didn't care who the men were. If they displayed any sign of drawing a weapon, he would shatter both their arms.
"We aren't a threat. We won't hurt you. My name is Donald, I work with an agency called the GDA. We work alongside superheroes such as yourself to keep earth safe." The man in dull glasses said. His voice had a monotone quality, but his tone was friendly.
Olivia squeezed past Clark. She put her body between him and the agent named Donald, "He's a child! He doesn't need a government agency!"
"I know ma'am, I apologise that we are meeting under these circumstances. But-"
Olivia cut him off forcefully, "But what? You want him to work for you? He's a child! Doesn't that mean something to you?"
Donald looked down to the ground. Beneath his dull glasses, his eyes were guilty, "I'm sorry ma'am."
"They wouldn't be here if it wasn't important mum." Clark said.
Olivia clenched her fists. She wanted to shout and tell Donald and whoever else to leave her son alone. He was just a child, he didn't need to get caught up in trying to save the world.
She forced herself to stop and think. It had only been three days since Clark saved David's life from the invading aliens. None of them were their normal selves, not yet.
As a parent, Olivia wanted Clark to be safe above all else. But she knew that the world wasn't black and white. Her son could do incredible things, she'd watched him fly through the air and turn water into steel. Powers like that came with a responsibility to do good, to try to make the world a better place for normal people. And she was just that, a normal person.
Olivia sighed heavily. Since Clark had got his powers, she'd known that she wouldn't be able to keep him safe forever. She'd just thought that she had more time.
She gritted her teeth, "Fine."
Donald felt the tension in the air lift. He cleared his throat. He'd come for a reason, "The aliens who invaded a few days ago. They're back."
Clark's shoulders stiffened. His knuckles turned white as he clenched his fists. He spoke in a low growl, "Where are they?"
Donald took a device out from his jacket pocket. The screen showed a pulsing red dot in the centre of the city.
"Honey!" Olivia grabbed Clark's arm.
Clark could've avoided it. The fury he'd felt from seeing his dad in danger was rushing through his veins. All he wanted was to fly into the air and tear apart the green-skinned aliens. But he allowed his mum to grab his wrist.
Olivia raised her other hand to her son's face. She stroked the silver mask that covered his face. The material was cold on her skin, "Be safe."
Clark squeezed her hand, "I will."
Then he was gone. The force of his takeoff created a violent gust of wind that swept across the street. Olivia steadied herself against the doorway.
Clark moved through the air at an impossible speed. He heard the sounds of traffic, and dogs barking and filtered them out. The screen Donald had showed him already gave him a rough idea. It only took him a fraction of a second to capture the sound of people screaming.
The Teen Team were already on the scene. Atom-Eve created enormous pink barriers that blocked dozens of laser beams from cutting down terrified civillians. Robot's back opened up to reveal a complicated set of machinery which fired off two rockets. These rockets flew through the air and exploded where the invading aliens were clustered most densely.
Clark crashed down into an alien tank. The vehicle had become several sizes larger and more lethal looking since the previous invasion. Their efforts were useless, the tank's hull was still just as fragile as it had always been.
The tank exploded as Clark tore through its circuitry. To the aliens' horror, the ruined machine rose into the air. Clark hurled it towards another one of the alien tanks. The resulting explosion killed dozens of the green aliens.
"Kip liga! Kip liga!"
Clark heard a menacing hum. A beam of energy as large as a manhole cover exploded outwards from an alien device. The force behind the attack pushed him back by half a step.
He roared angrily in response. With a thought, he propelled himself towards the alien device that was sustaining the energy beam.
The invading aliens had anticipated his decision. A squad of soldiers stepped forwards, holding guns that looked different to those that fired laser beams. Thick grey sludge poured out from the barrels of their weapons.
Clark saw them pull their triggers. His perception accelerated as he did. To him, the world was moving at a snail's pace.
The green aliens had spent decades creating tactics to deal with the powerful human defenders. Before Clark could move out of the way of the approaching grey sludge, multiple energy cannons fired simultaneously. The enormous red beams forcibly countered his effort to change direction.
The grey sludge landed all over Clark. It underwent a rapid chemical reaction in the air, becoming denser and extremely durable. The sudden change in weight brought him to the ground.
For the briefest instant, it seemed as if the aliens had suceeded. But then, with a furious cry, Clark burst free from the grey sludge. He tore through a dozen energy cannons before their tracking systems could even register that he was moving.
Clark wanted to rip the aliens and their weaponry into pieces. He forcibly suppressed his urge to do so, and instead turned his attention to the perilous state of the Teen Team.
The real Invincible was trapped underneath a thick layer of the grey sludge. He was struggling fiercely, but seemed unable to break free. A squadron of aliens advanced with their guns levelled towards his head.
Atom-Eve was rolling about on the ground. Her hands clawed desperately at an alien device that had attached itself to her head. It was suffocating her.
Clark flew through the air. He ripped the alien device off of Atom-Eve's head. She immediately inhaled a huge gulp of air. Her lips had begun to turn blue.
Dupli-Kate was being killed faster than she could clone herself. Clark tore through every alien in a hundred meter radius of her, giving her a badly needed reprieve.
Robot was pinned down beneath a group of the green aliens. The green light in his eyes was flashing rapidly. Clark's intuition told him that the android was planning a retaliatory strike.
A wave of anger swept through him. It wasn't directed at the aliens. Invincible was struggling pathetically underneath a restraint that he should have been able to shred into ribbons. Clark knew better than anyone else just how strong Invincible was.
Clark blizted through half a dozen aliens between him and Invincible. He roughly grabbed the superhero by his collar and yanked him out of the grey sludge. He brought his face just an inch away from Invincible's. If it weren't for his mask, he would've been spitting in Invincible's face, "Why are you holding back? Stop acting like a fucking baby! People need you!"
Clark turned in the air and hurled Invincible like a javellin. Invincible didn't react until after he'd crashed through a group of the green-skinned aliens and turned them into pulp.
Invincible couldn't understand what was happening. The silver-masked hero had all the same powers as him. When they'd met a few days ago, he'd thought that it might be another viltrumite.
Invincible was willing to believe that he and the silver-masked hero could share the same bloodline. But the voice that had yelled at him furiously didn't belong to an unknown viltrumite. It was his own voice.
Invincible's thoughts raced. Could it be a clone of himself? Where there others like him? What the hell was going on?
"Aaaa!" Invincible screamed.
He poured out all of his anger, confusion and pain into the cry. Then, he burst into the air and charged towards the invading aliens. His speed was even faster than the silver masked hero.
With two top-tier superheroes attacking without holding back, the momentum of the invading aliens quickly began to crumble. Invincible and the silver-masked hero blitzed through the battlefield, shrugging off energy beams as if they were nothing.
"Aim for their bracelets!" Robot's electronic voice played through his speakers.
The advice was useless for Invincible and the silver-masked hero. The two powerful superheroes simply flew straight through the chests of their opponents.
Dupli-Kate's clones began aiming for the bracelets on the wrists of the aliens. Rex-Splode did the same with his explosive charges, and Atom-Eve hurled bolts of glowing pink energy.
Once the aliens' bracelets were broken, they immediately began to age. They dragged their greying bodies back towards the portals as quickly as they could, but for most of them, it was already too late,
"Please protect me. I have reverse-engineered their technology!" Robot announced.
A frequency undetectable by the human ear pulsed outwards from the bronze android. The effect was immediate. The bracelets on the aliens' wrist crackled and burst into smoke. The difference in the flow of time between the aliens' homeworld and earth suddenly became a fatal threat.
The alien army turned their backs to earth and fled back to their portals as quickly as they could. The drivers of the enormous tanks that hadn't already been destroyed by the rampage of Invincible and the silver-masked hero, tumbled out of their cockpits and crawled on their hands and knees.
The alien commander from the previous battle spat on earth's soil. He yelled something in the language of his people then leaped into the portal. The glowing dimensional doorway folded in on itself and vanished immediately after.
Rex-Splode wasted no time in unleashing his silver tongue, "Way to go psycho there Invincible! You too mystery man! You sure you two aren't brothers?"
Clark wiped the blood from his mask. He had conflicting feelings towards the Teen Team. The balance of power between its members simply didn't make any sense to him.
Dupli-Kate and her clones were all just ordinary people. In a world full of superhumans who could crumble concrete like tofu, numbers alone weren't enough. To take down a single laser-gun wielding alien, she had to sacrifice half a dozen of her clones. Her entire strategy was built around throwing bodies at every problem.
Rex-Splode was strong, but his powers were offensive by nature. In a built-up urban environment, his explosive charges could easily cause more harm than good. Clark estimated that the explosive hero had caused millions worth of damage to the city in this battle alone. The number of aliens he'd defeated didn't match his staggering price tag.
Atom-Eve was a god pretending to be human. She could probably take down the entire Teen Team single-handedly in a matter of seconds.
Robot was the most unknown variable on the team. His metal body was more durable than human flesh and bone, but he wasn't physically impressive. His intelligence was the real threat. The technology he'd reverse-engineered in the battle had sent the aliens fleeing back to their homeworld.
If Robot was given time to prepare, Clark felt that the android would have a decent chance of defeating Atom-Eve. The invading aliens had almost managed to defeat her using a drone that clamped over her face and stopped her from breathing in any air.
Atom-Eve was immensely powerful, but her durability didn't match her potential. If a sniper managed to catch her unaware, even an ordinary bullet might be enough to kill her.
'It'd be easier to work alone.' Clark reached a silent conclusion in his heart.
"Hey! Silver mask! Do you talk, or do you just stand there like a robot? No offense Robot." Rex-Splode remarked angrily.
Clark felt a strong urge to toss the arrogant explosive hero into the air. He forced himself to resist it.
An ordinary ring tone went off. Invincible hurriedly took his phone out of his pocket. By some miracle, it hadn't been damaged during the fight.
Invincible's eyebrows furrowed a few seconds after he'd taken the call.
Atom-Eve stepped forwards, concerned, "Is everything okay?"
"I gotta go." Invincible said. He turned and flew off into the air without giving Eve any chance to reply.
The Teen Team heard a loud whoosh. When they turned to the noise, the silver-masked hero was gone as well.
"Assholes!" Rex-Splode yelled at the sky.