A/N:
" " : Speech,
' ' : Thought,
"Italicized text" : Telepathy/Space Speech
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Omniscient POV
The next Monday after the kaiju fight, Benjamin and Mark were walking down their high school hallway, when they both noticed a familiar face. "Huh, Whaddaya know? It really is a small world." Benjamin said, approaching the red-haired girl. "Hey, Eve." He greeted her.
"Oh, hey. Benjamin, right? And you're… Mark, right?" She asked. "Yeah. I guess seeing me without a mask on is a little strange." Benjamin said, and she raised an eyebrow. "We just wanted to say hi after yesterday." Mark said. "Yesterday?" She said, looking at both of their faces. "Oh." She said in realization, linking them to the two superheroes she and her team came across taking down a kaiju.
"Wait, if you're the one that was in the yellow and blue, then you're…" She said, pointing first at Mark, then to Benjamin. "Yep. Nice to meet you, Sam. Or do you prefer Eve?" Benjamin said. "Eve, thanks. I don't think this is exactly the place to talk about this. Follow me." She said, and the two followed her away from the hallway.
As they left, a pair of girls looked at the trio while speaking in hushed tones. "I heard he just let Todd hit him. Like twenty times. He didn't flinch or anything. Todd got so freaked out, he didn't come to school for a whole week." One of the pair said, speaking about Mark. "Yeah, and whether he knows it or not, it was good for him. Apparently, during those days, Todd had to go to the hospital because the other guy punched him. I heard he only punched him once." The other of the pair said, speaking of the short altercation between Benjamin and Todd.
"Wait, are you talking about Mark Grayson?" A third girl's voice suddenly interrupted the pair's gossip. "Duh. Of course, Amber. And Ben too. Apparently, since Todd knew that Ben would beat him up if he came at him, he went after Mark. I'm sure finding out that his punches did nothing to Mark broke him." The first of the pair said, seemingly enjoying the fact that Todd was acutely unnerved by Mark and Ben. Of course, Benjamin heard everything that they said, and silently laughed to himself.
The trio of teenage superheroes moved to the school building's roof, with Benjamin using his magnetokinesis to open the door to the roof. "You know, I never recognized you before." Mark said to Eve. "No one does. It's a psychology thing. If you don't expect to see a superhero in your school, you don't see a superhero in your school." She replied.
"Huh, I guess that makes sense. If you aren't like Ben over here, you'd probably not notice it." Mark said, right as they walked onto the roof. "How so?" Eve asked. "Super senses." Ben said curtly, looking down at the football field. "That, and I don't let go of my suspicions easily, so if I think that a hero that I've seen is familiar to me, I'd investigate until I'm proven right or wrong." He said.
"Well, I guess it's good that not everyone is like you, otherwise a lot of heroes would have their identities known to the public." Mark said, then let out a long yawn. "Sorry about that, I'm still kinda new to this. I just hit two months." He said with a tired look on his face. "You'll get the hang of it." Eve reassured Mark, while Benjamin handed him a small can.
"What's this?" Mark asked. "It's a stimulant. Coffee won't work on you the way it works on regular people and other superheroes." Benjamin explained. "It's kinda like smelling salts, but instead of giving you a rush of energy that you need to use pretty quickly, this one kinda works more like a pick-me-up. It'll clear your head and leave you with enough energy to last you about 10 hours. But you must absolutely make sure that you eat within that time period, otherwise you'll end up taking a 12-hour nap." Benjamin warned.
"Yeah, thanks." Mark said, then popped off the can's cap and sniffed. Almost immediately, he felt his drowsiness disappear and his mind clear up. "Woah! That's crazy!" He said, his eyes no longer having the marginally groggy look he had been carrying earlier. "I'm sure that other heroes would probably kill for this." He said, then returned the can to Benjamin, who resealed it.
"Not really, at least, not if they actually know of how it's been engineered." Benjamin said, then lifted his shirt, and plunged his hand into his torso, putting the can away. "Okay. First off, what the hell was that? And second, what do you mean, other heroes won't try to get something like that? It's practically like 8 hours of sleep in a sniff." Mark asked.
"It's another one of my abilities. Also, if anyone takes it, and their body doesn't at least have a level of resistance to everything like you do, it'd be like pumping them with over a gallon of liquid meth. So, instead of them going from tired to well rested, they'd go from tired to meth rage." Benjamin said. "Wait, are you saying that thing's got meth in it?!" Mark asked, alarmed by Benjamin's choice of words.
"It doesn't. But remember, I said it was a stimulant. And methheads are the most violent drug addicts I know, with steroid addicts being a close second." Benjamin said, not doing anything to allay Mark's unease. "With bodies like ours, we're much more resistant to… well, everything. So that just works as a quick energy booster, instead of a pack of compressed roid rage." He said, his tone nonchalant.
"Huh… I guess that makes sense." Mark said, his tone still holding just a smidgen of skepticism. "By the way, you gonna show me your base anytime soon?" He asked. "Maybe." Ben replied, a playful smile on his face. "His base? Oh, yeah. You did mention something about a base back then. Can I come see it?" Eve said, a bit curious of the process by which Benjamin made unstable molecules.
"If the chance comes around, then sure. If not, who knows." Benjamin replied. "But right now, we should probably start getting back to class. It's AP Physics, and you know how Mr. Hiles gets." He said, and Mark groaned. "Ugh, don't tell me about it." He said, then began walking towards the door. "You guys too, huh?" Eve said, and they looked at her with eyes that said "Explain."
"Well, it seems that on top of us being in the same school, I also share an AP Physics class with you." Eve said, and the trio looked at each other with sympathetic expressions, knowing how grating it could be to deal with their AP Physics teacher. They all let out a long sigh, then headed to their class, with Benjamin using his magnetokinesis to lock the roof door.
…
A few days later, Benjamin was flying through Chicago's skyline as Codex, this time, letting a clone take his place at his home. As he was moving through the sky, he suddenly stopped above the Twin Pines Mall, then shot down through the building, heading to its court, where he found a blonde teenage boy laying unconscious on a bench.
Recently, a few students at his school had gone missing, and although the school administration and the authorities hadn't yet noticed, he had. The boy he saw in the mall was one of those students, who just so happened to be one of Todd Williams' friends, Terrence Jefferson. He flew down to his schoolmate, and looked past his shirt, seeing a metal vest that seemed to be fused to his torso, with a digital clock ticking down to zero, with only 5 seconds left.
Grimacing underneath his mask, Codex put his hand on the contraption, interfacing with it and deactivating it. Terrence, who had been woken up by Codex's jostling, looked down at the black and green clad hero, then down at his own chest with widened eyes. "What is this?! Where am I?!" He shouted in panic.
"Hey. Hey! Calm down." Codex said, gently shaking him. "Do you know who did this to you?" He asked, and Terrence simply shook his head. Codex sighed then sprayed Terrence's face with dust from his Nemuina transformation, making him unconscious. "Well, now's as good a time as any to bring them over." He said, then grabbed Terrence, and flew out of the mall.
As he flew in the air, he sensed Invincible approaching his position, then slowed down. "Hey, Codex. What's… Wait. Is that Terrence?" Invincible asked as he reached Codex. "Yeah. It's not been noticed, but a few students at school have gone missing. He was one of them." Codex said. "Oh, yeah. I hadn't seen him for about three days now. I thought he'd decided he was too cool for school, or something like that." Invincible said, but his suspicions weren't misplaced.
While Invincible looked over their unconscious schoolmate, Codex tuned his suit's comms to the Teen Team's frequency. "Hey, guys. It's Codex…" He said, but stopped speaking, as he heard the faint sound of explosions, energy blasts, and heavy impacts. "… Sounds like you guys might need a hand." He said, as the sounds of their clash continued.
"We're doing fine!" Rex Splode shouted, and a moment later, a loud explosion went off. "Really? The frequency of the explosions I'm hearing isn't convincing me of that." Codex said, then grew out a second pair of arms, then motioned to Invincible the direction of the Teen Team, and the both of them adjusted their course of flight. "Despite the chaos here, Rex is correct. But the extra help would definitely be appreciated." Robot replied.
"All right, then. We're on our way." Codex said, then grabbed Invincible with his third arm, stopped time, and flew straight to the area where the Teen Team was fighting. As he reached the area, he saw the four of them fighting a large mech with a man in a chamber that was built into its chest piloting it. The man had a bulbous head, with multiple cables attached to it. This wasn't any villain that he was familiar with, but he felt no threat from him. He then lifted the time stop.
"So this is the guy keeping you busy." He said, drawing the attention of the Teen Team and the villain to himself. He then released his grasp on Invincible, then brought out three clones. "Foolish children!! I am Mechamax!! And I will not be stopped by mere children playing dress-up!!" The villain shouted, then the mech's right arm shifted, turning into an energy cannon. "Die!!!" He shouted, shooting at Codex, who still had Terrence in his first pair of arms.
"Shit!" "Codex, watch out!!" Rex and Eve shouted as the energy beam got closer. Fortunately, a clone stepped in before it could reach him, and began absorbing the energy as it moved closer to Mechamax. Mechamax was shocked to see that the energy beam he had expected to burn through the newcomer had not just stopped, but was shrinking and approaching him. The Teen Team watched as Codex's clone quickly reached Mechamax, then crushed the cannon arm with telekinesis.
"Upgrade. Then take him somewhere more fitting for a hothead like himself." Codex instructed the clone. "Got it." The clone responded, and with a flash of green light, he transformed into a Galvanic Mechamorph, then melded with the mech. "Hey! What the hell?!!" Mechamax shouted, as he suddenly lost control of the mech, which was already being altered by the clone that had fully taken over it.
"That's enough out of you." The clone said in its robotic voice, then formed thrusters at the feet and hands of the mech, and flew away in the direction of the sun, very quickly disappearing from everyone's range of sight. "Cool." Invincible said, his eyes still fixed on the horizon.
"Hey, Codex. What the hell was that?!" Rex Splode walked up to Codex and asked, his tone carrying a healthy dose of incredulity. "I'll get to that." Codex replied. "Hey, Codex… That's Terrence! What's that on his chest?" Atom Eve asked, surprised to see a regular schoolmate. "A bomb. Long story short, he got kidnapped, the kidnapper then attached the vest to him, then dropped his unconscious body at the mall. If I hadn't gotten to him in time, he'd have been atomized by now." Codex replied.
"Then why not hand him over to the GDA? They could help him." Robot asked, looking at the unconscious teenager in Codex's arms. "They could stop the bomb from exploding, but they won't be able to get the vest off him, especially with how it's been connected to him." Codex said.
"Connected… what do you mean 'connected'?" Rex Splode asked. "Yes. You mentioned that the vest is attached or connected to him, rather than being on him. Elaborate." Robot said. "It's exactly as I've said." Codex said, pulling Terrence's shirt back and pointing to his shoulders, where stitches, mechanical screws and seams were visible. "It's connected to him, and the GDA's doctors and surgeons won't be able to get it off him without putting his life at severe risk. They're actually more likely to leave him with the rest of the vest after taking out the bomb." He said.
"However, I and my clones should be able to help him get back to living normally, at least." He said, covering Terrence's chest once more. "Wait, how would you even do that?" Rex Splode asked, and Codex smiled behind his mask. "About that… since we're all here now… Beam us up! And don't forget their hoverbike." Codex said, causing the others to look at him with confusion, and less than a second later, all six of them vanished in a bright flash of green light, only leaving behind the pair of Codex's clones.
"So, I work on cleanup, and you head over to Rudy's place?" One of the clones asked the other. "Yeah, and when he gets back from depositing the mech-head into the sun, he''ll help me with it." The other clone responded. "Cool." The first clone said, then immediately flew away.
…
Meanwhile, in outer space, the Omni-Core, still with its cloaking field active, had received 6 new visitors. "Where the hell is this?" Rex Splode asked. "What on Earth is this?" Atom Eve asked as her senses were trying to analyze the material the spacecraft was made of. While the other superheroes were looking around in awe, Codex called over a clone and handed Terrence over to it, sending him to the R&D area of the spacecraft.
"Umm, B… Codex. Where is this?" Invincible asked, almost blurting out Codex's actual name. "Well, Rex over here asked how I'd be able to help Terrence over there, and I was already thinking of bringing you guys over, so I thought 'Why not?'. But leaving the boring stuff behind… Welcome to the Omni-Core." Codex said, flourishing his arms as he presented the futuristic base to his fellow heroes.
Chapter End.
Word Count: 2,525
Thanks for reading!