"That's for stepping on my favourite bar you piece of shit!" Rex-Splode yelled. He threw out a handful of glowing projectiles. He then yelped and hurriedly rolled out of the way to avoid being crushed by an enormous red foot.
The colossal red cyclops roared as Rex-Splode's projectiles exploded against its skin, "Don't call me that! I'm The Giant, and I want to be president of America! And a astronaut!"
The Giant snatched up a car from the ground and hurled it through the air. Robot narrowly managed to evade it by turning his hover-vehicle in mid air.
To Rex-Splode's horror, Robot had revealed a few weeks ago that he had created a clone using his DNA. There was now a real human body inside of the bronze suit.
Dupli-Kate hurriedly created copies of herself on the ground. A chunk of falling rubble crushed one of her clones. Just before dying, the clone managed to copy itself and create another Kate to carry an injured civillian out of the path of the rubble.
Robot zoomed back towards The Giant on his hover-vehicle. He spoke to the team through a shared communication channel, "Based on his speech patterns and vocabulary, The Giant appears to have the mental capacity of an eight year old."
Monster Girl leaped into the air and landed a uppercut to The Giant's jaw. The cyclops roared in pain and stumbled back, destroying half a building as it steadied itself, "What species of eight year old?"
"We need to bring this thing down!" Dupli-Kate yelled. There were dozens of her clones lying lifeless on the floor, all of them had met gruesome deaths.
"That's an excellent suggestion Kate. There's a multilevel parking garage beneath this intersection. I will detonate stress points in the concrete and-" Robot didn't get the chance to finish his sentence.
A muscular figure in a silver supersuit swept down from the sky. With a single, almost casual, strike, he sent the enormous cyclops spinning upwards.
"Aaaa! Me don't like heights!" The Giant shouted fearfully.
Clark grabbed one of The Giant's huge fingers. He carried it higher into the sky as if it weighed nothing at all.
The Giant struggled desperately, huge tears leaked out from its singluar eye, "Put me down! Put me down!"
"Take him out to the desert, a containment team's on route. He's just a kid from Lousianna, somehow he broke an artifact at a museum and now-well now he's this." Clark heard Cecil's voice in his earpiece.
"Roger that." He replied.
Clark looked down at The Giant. He raised his voice so that he could be heard over the roaring wind, "I'm not going to hurt you! You were breaking things in the city, I'm taking you somewhere different."
The Giant scrunched up its face, as if in deep thought, "Okay! Don't break your promise! People who break promises are bad!"
An hour or so later, a GDA vehicle carrying two civillians pulled up to a remote area. The civillians rushed out of the vehicle and called out to the enormous red cyclops.
The Giant immediately broke down into tears. His booming voice echoed for miles as he apologised to his parents for breaking things in the city. Once his parents arrived, he lost all hostility and became completely docile. A huge lorry with the GDA logo arrived to take him and his parents to a secure facility. He really was only eight years old.
After The Giant was taken away, Clark flew back to Guardians Headquarters. The rest of the team were gathered in the main hall.
"Oh great! He's back! You know Mirror, you're a total glory hog! Or should we still call you Silver Giant? Any other massive fucking secrets up your sleeves?" Rex-Splode remarked.
Clark ignored Rex's outburst. He'd gotten extremely good at tuning out most of whatever the explosive hero had to say.
Whoosh!
Cecil appeared in a flash of white light. The teleporter left a faint scent of ozone on him.
"Ongoing, repeated fuck-ups of monumental proportions!" Cecil said angrily.
Dupli-Kate frowned and scoffed, "That's a little harsh Cecil!"
Cecil walked up to her. His face was almost pressed right up against Dupli-Kate's, "That was the nice way of saying it, Kate. Don't push me!"
"You're slow, unprepared, undisciplined! We've analysed the engagements from your last 15 fights, all of you might as well be Mirror's sidekicks! Is Mirror the only person on this team capable of bringing down a threat? Or are you all just trying to piss me off?
Its unacceptable, and people are getting hurt because of it!"
Rex-Splode stepped forwards angrily, "We put our lives on the line every-"
Cecil cut him an icy look that immediately knocked the wind out of Rex's retort, "Shut up Rex. This isn't about you! We've narrowed it down to a failure in leadership!"
Rex laughed and wiped some invisible sweat from his forehead, "Phew, off the hook!"
He paused akwardly and covered his mouth. After a moment, he placed his hand on Rudy's shoulder, "Oh. Uh-sorry."
Rudy rubbed his arm, seeming unsure in himself, "I'm still getting used to my new body."
"And I'm instituting a change." Cecil announced.
A muscular superhero with a yellow I in the centre of his suit flew down from the ceiling. He looked across the team with a stern expression.
"The Immortal's now in charge. A couple thousand years of experience should turn things around."
Rex-Splode clapped his hands in mock applause, "Nice entrance! Whoah! Was he waiting for his cue?
You were, weren't you? Like, just over there or something. Did you work it out in advance? I mean, it looked effortless, but I feel like a lot of preperation went into it!"
The Immortal didn't display any kind of reaction to Rex's mocking. He just silently looked down at the explosive hero.
"It's also obvious that the team needs more muscle! Mirror is doing every takedown, all of you need to start pulling your own weight! Meet, Bulletproof!"
A superhero in a yellow suit swooped down. He landed behind the Guardians. The team turned around to look at him.
"Hey." Bulletproof said casually.
Rex-Splode put his hands on his hips and looked the new hero up and down, "Amazing. Ho-ho! It's just a whole afternoon of new friends! And...what do you do? I mean, other than have the most obvious name ever. Bulletproof?"
Bulletproof took a step closer to Rex. They had a similar height, and build, but Bulletproof's presence was ten times larger. Rex took a step back without realising.
"I do everything you wish you could. And that's rich coming from a guy called Rex-Splode. You think up that grade school shit yourself, or did somebody help you with that?" Bulletproof's voice was deep and magnetic.
Rex stammered, he looked to the ground out of embarassment mid way through his reply, "I...came up with it."
Bulletproof made a hmph noise, he shrugged, "Yeah, I figured. Come on man, I know your type. Be better."
Rex suddenly looked lost. His eyes were unfocused, "I-I was trying to be better, I-"
The Immortal didn't care about Rex, or whatever soul searching he was doing. He gave an instruction in a clear and commanding voice, "New training schedules are in your lockers. First session is in thirty minutes. Dismissed."
The Guardians were stunned by the new changes. Without thinking, they instinctively followed The Immortal's instruction. They headed to their lockers to recieve their new training schedules.
Clark lingered for a moment. He made eye contact with The Immortal. The ancient hero gave him a nod of recognition. He did the same thing back. He then headed to his locker to recieve his own schedule.
The Immortal and Clark had met a month ago, just after his ressurection. After he'd spent a few hours scouring the earth for Omni-Man, and slightly calming down in the process, to avenge the murdered Guardians, the GDA had contacted the ancient hero and explained what had happened. The Immortal had insisted on meeting Clark and asking for himself whether there was anything that the footage from the GDA drones hadn't captured.
Clark had told him truthfully that there was nothing else. He didn't know why Omni-Man would've betrayed everyone and murdered The Guardians.
The rest of the day consisted of The Immortal bellowing instructions while they practiced for different scenariors in the simulation lab. Clark noticed that Rudy seemed downcast by his removal from team leader, he was sure that the former android would get over it soon.
Clark didn't have any problems following The Immortal's instructions. His powers came with a duty to do as much good for the world as possible. Under The Immortal's leadership, he and the Guardians could save more lives.
Beep-beep!
The Guardians were all in the gym, exercising, while The Immortal walked around like a drill seargant. He particularly liked to shout orders at Rex-Splode.
They all turned to look up at a flashing red screen on the wall. Cecil's face appeared in the pixels.
"Guardians! Got a job for you! Some kind of science experiment gone wrong, by the docks, I want you all on civillian rescue and cleanup! Invincible's already at the scene!"
"Bulletproof, Mirror, you're with me! The rest of you, get there as fast as you can!" The Immortal's feet lifted off the ground as he spoke. Bulletproof and Mirror did the same.
Clark was usually the first one to arrive to a Guardians callout. He was considerably faster than anyone else on the team. The same applied to Bulletproof and The Immortal.
Whatever incident had taken place at the docks had clearly been large enough to get Cecil's attention. Clark didn't want to waste time flying beside his new colleagues when he could get there faster by himself and start helping people.
"Immortal, I-" Clark started to speak.
The Immortal cut him off, "I know. Go on ahead, we'll meet you there."
Clark paused for a moment, then nodded in recognition. He accelerated rapidly, and within a fraction of a second, he was tens of miles away. The Immortal and Invincible flew in the same direction as him, at a much slower speed.
Clark arrived to the call-out within seconds. Some kind of explosion had reduced half of the docks to rubble, the ground was littered with the remains of scorched corpses.
Invincible lay on the ground, his face was bloody. Clark flew over and shook his shoulders, calling out Invicible by his real name.
"Mark? Can you hear me? Mark?"
Invincible opened his eyes blearily. His head was pounding. He saw his dad leaning over him, "Dad?"
Clark sighed, he shook his head, "No, sorry, its Mirror."
Invincible pushed Clark's hand off his shoulder. He groaned and sat up, "Fuck! What the hell happened?"
Clark looked across the ruined buildings and mangled metal that resembled some kind of advanced technology. He didn't have an answer, "I don't know. The rest of The Guardians are on their way."
Invincible's superhuman durability made him extremely difficult to kill. The explosion might've knocked him on his ass, but his injuries were minor, they'd heal in a couple of days, maybe a week at most.
Clark didn't spend any longer checking on Invincible. The half-viltrumite's ego was more badly wounded than anything else.
Clark blurred across the ruined docks. He couldn't hear any noises from survivors amidst the rubble. He lifted broken steel girders and huge pieces of concrete like they were made of air.
By the time the rest of The Guardians arrived, Clark had cleared most of the destroyed buildings. The rubble and metalwork was arranged in neat piles ready for the CDA clean up crew to take away. Clark hadn't found any survivors in the wreckage. He wasn't surprised. Any explosion that could knock out a juvenille viltrumite, even briefly, was enough to thoroughly incinerate an ordinary human.
"Mirror, did you find anyone?" The Immortal landed on the charred ground.
Clark turned and shook his head, "No."
The Immortal nodded, "I want everyone in the water, look for survivors! Check that the explosion hasn't damage any of the dock's foundations!"
Clark blinked. It hadn't occurred to him to examine the dock's structure from the water. The explosion could've caused major damage, all of his clean-up on land wouldn't mean anything if the dock suddenly slid beneath the waves.
The other Guardians only heard a whoosh, then a splash. They hadn't even taken a step and Mirror was already underwater checking the dock's foundations. They could see how the water churned as Mirror flew beneath it at high speed.
The Immortal stared at the churning water. The new team of Guardians weren't worthy of carrying the shoes of the heroes they'd replaced. They were weaker, unprepared and immature. Wonder Woman alone would've been able to defeat Rex-Splode, Robot, Dupli-Kate and Shrinking Rae.
The only exception was Mirror. In Omni-Man's body, he could deal with any threat in a matter of minutes, sometimes even seconds. If the rest of the Guardians were sheep, then he was a tiger with sharp teeth and claws.
"Leave Mirror to search underwater. Robot, I want you analysing whatever alien technology was being used here. Dupli-Kate, form a perimeter, keep everyone, and I mean everyone, out. I don't want any reporters or nosy civillians!
Shrinking Rae, Rex-Splode go look through every building and shipping container that's not already blown to pieces! Bulletproof, you're with me, scan every inch of this place, somebody wasn't bothered about finishing off Invincible, we need to know why and where they went!"
Immortal's tone didn't leave any room for discussion. The Guardians split off in different directions to complete their assigned tasks.