A/N:
" " : Speech,
' ' : Thought,
"Italicized text" : Telepathy/Space Speech,
[ ] : Simulation Speech & Notifications.
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Omniscient POV
Ten hours had passed since Omni-Man was taken into intensive care at the Pentagon by the GDA, and the Grayson residence was being visited by a pair of GDA agents. Debbie had been worried about Nolan, seeing that he hadn't returned home over the night, and although Mark had told her that she had nothing to worry about, the news that they brought only confirmed her worries.
After a little over two hours of flying, they landed at the Pentagon, where Debbie and Mark were promptly received by Donald. "Nolan's receiving the absolute pinnacle of care. As the Global Defense Agency, we have access to medical technology far beyond any normal hospital." He told them as they went down to the GDA's headquarters underneath the Pentagon in the GDA's high-speed elevator.
As they walked down the hallways, Mark looked around at the advanced suits and vehicles that the GDA had, and simply said "Neat.", as the technology level of the GDA, while ahead of majority of Earth, wasn't up to the level that Ben had shown him on the Omni-Core. "Ah, that's one of our threat-response teams. They're able to get anywhere…" Donald continued explaining, but got interrupted by a disgruntled Debbie.
"We aren't in the mood for the tour, Donald." She said, and Donald, reading the room, apologized. "My dad never mentioned you guys." Mark said. "That's the idea. We work with superheroes like your father to keep the world safe. And who knows, maybe someday, we'll even work with Invincible." Donald replied, a knowing smile on his face.
"What about Codex?" Mark asked, and Donald's expression became complicated. "It seems like he's not interested in working with us. We've tried reaching him multiple times, but we get nothing." Donald said. Mark simply hummed, not surprised by his answer, as Ben had told him that he doesn't trust the government, and by extension, the GDA. "Well, at least he's doing some good work." Donald said with a sigh, just as they reached the medical room where Nolan was being held.
Once the door opened, Mark and Debbie rushed to the side of Nolan's bed. His vitals were stable, despite the fact that a considerable area of his torso was still damaged enough to keep him unconscious. Despite his swollen eyes and bruised face, Debbie lovingly stroked his hair, and Mark looked at him with worry. His father, widely seen as the strongest hero on the planet, had been beaten badly enough for him to be sent into intensive care for recovery.
"He's gonna be okay, right?" He asked Donald. "We… hope so, and our doctors are doing their best, but we don't exactly get a lot of Viltrumites in here." He said, and Mark let out a sigh before turning back to Donald with a stern expression. "Who did this?" He asked.
"We have no idea. Not yet, anyway, but we'll find out, and when we do, they'll look a hell of a lot worse than your dad right over there." Cecil said from the doorway, taking care to manage his expression as he spoke. He walked up to Mark and put out his hand. "Cecil Stedman. Director of the GDA." Mark looked at him for a short few seconds, then shook his hand.
"Deborah, I'm so sorry." Cecil said, but Debbie turned to him, anger bubbling within her. "Cecil, you've got some nerve." She said, but went quiet as Cecil interrupted. "Someone murdered the Guardians of the Globe last night." He said, causing Mark and Debbie to exclaim in surprise. "All of them. Tore 'em limb from limb. Now, we tried like hell to bring 'em back, but Nolan was the only survivor." He said, looking at the unconscious Viltrumite.
"How's that even possible?" Mark asked, unable to believe that there was someone on the planet that could and would kill the Guardians. "We don't know yet. We also don't know why your dad was at Guardians' HQ." Cecil replied, trying desperately to keep from revealing the truth to them. "Now, working theory is that whoever killed the Guardians lured him there, tried to wipe 'em all out at once." He said.
"Why?" Mark asked. "Why? Well, that's the easy part." Cecil said, walking over to Donald. "There isn't a supervillain alive who doesn't want Omni-Man and the Guardians six feet under." He answered. "We're keeping all this hush-hush for now, but news will break. I wanted you and Mark to know first." He told them, and Debbie wiped her tears.
"Cold towels and ice water, and have a cot brought in here for me." She said in a strict voice. "Deborah, we've got the best-trained…" Cecil began, but Debbie interrupted him. "I've patched Nolan up for 20 years, Cecil. I am not leaving." She said, and Cecil quietly sighed, understanding that it would take a miracle to move her from the room.
"Uh, Mom…" Mark called. "Yes, Mark. What is it?" She asked. "I know someone who can help Dad." He said, and she sighed. "Not you too, Mark. I'm…" Debbie began, just about to shoot down Mark's suggestion. "Mom, He's actually familiar with Viltrumites. Just… let me help out, Mom. Please." He said, and she sighed. "Alright. But who is it?" She asked.
"It's Codex." Mark replied, as he pulled out his phone, but instead of going into his contacts, he instead opened an app whose icon was Codex's symbol. "Y'ello." Benjamin's voice came from his phone. "Hey, Codex. I need your help." Mark said, and immediately after, his phone let out a loud alarm.
"Well, you picked a bad time to have an emergency. A portal's opening up in downtown Chicago." Ben said, and silently created five clones that he sent over to his home city. "So, what's up?" He asked. "Listen, I need some of that Regen Serum that you made…" Mark said, turning to his unconscious father. "It's urgent." He said, his voice solemn.
"Who got hurt?" Benjamin asked, his voice losing its earlier levity. "It's… my dad." Mark replied, and after a few seconds of silence, Benjamin responded. "Alright, I'm coming over to you." Ben said, with a loud pop going off, a sound that Mark had come to know to be a sonic boom. "Thanks, man." Mark said with a relieved sigh. "No problem, just get suited up. For some reason, there's no heroes near the invasion, and it's not gonna stop itself." Benjamin replied.
"Alright, got it." Mark said, then cut off the call. He then turned to Cecil and Donald, who had also received an alert about the invasion underway in Chicago and already began moving to attend to it. "You guys got somewhere I can change?" He asked, and Donald guided him to a changing room, while Cecil left the room so that he could get to the command center, where he would issue instructions to the threat-response teams that were already headed to Chicago.
While Mark was changing, Benjamin, as Codex, phased into Nolan's care unit, where Debbie was still watching over her husband. "Hello, Mrs. Grayson." He said, becoming visible and tangible. His sudden appearance caused her to flinch, but she knowing his identity behind the mask, she soon returned to watching over Nolan. "It's really you. You know, when Ca…" She began speaking, but he put his hand up, stopping her from mentioning his mother's name.
"I understand that you that I'm Codex, but I'd prefer it if my civilian identity remains unknown to the GDA." He said, then took out an injector and a vial of Regen Serum from his storage. He walked over to the right side of the bed, lifted Nolan's shirt, stuck the needle of the injector into his chest, and pushed the green liquid into his bloodstream.
"There. He should be done healing up within the next 12 hours. As for when he gets up, that's up to him." He said, and Debbie looked at Nolan, and noticed that the worst of the bruising was already fading away. "Thank you, Codex." Debbie said, her voice now ever so slightly relieved. "You helped my mom at the lowest I'd ever seen her. This is the least I could do." He replied, gently patting her shoulder.
"Oh, you're here." Mark said as he rushed into the room, now dressed in his Invincible suit. "Yeah. Don't worry about your dad. He'll be fine. We've got an invasion to take care of." Codex said, walking over to him and grabbing his shoulder. The next instant, a bright flash of green light filled the room, but only for a second, and when the light left, Codex and Invincible had been teleported away.
…
Benjamin Everett Tennant POV
As we teleport in, we see that the Flaxan invasion is already in full swing, but the clones I'd sent ahead had evacuated all the civilians, and planted and activated shield generators around to protect the police, vehicles and buildings from the aliens' blaster fire. I look over to Mark, and notice that his expression is the same as when he came out of the training simulation. His heartrate climbs, as the memories of what he experienced play at the forefront of his mind. I'd know, since I can read minds.
"Hey. Remember when I said that you have to understand when someone's a serious threat or not?" I ask him, pulling him out of his own head, if even for a little bit. "Well, these guys are a serious threat. Maybe not to you and I specifically, but they are a threat to everyone we want to protect." I tell him. "Look over there." I say, pointing to the area where all the civilians had been evacuated to.
"If my clones hadn't been fast enough, many of those people would be corpses on the streets. So understand that you holding back against these guys that are invading, is you playing with their lives." I tell him, and his face becomes stern. "The main reason you don't kill every person you punch is because you're used to having the natural mental limiter that exists in all humans. Now, you have to try and disable that limiter." I tell him, then turn to my clones.
"I need three of you to come help out here. It's about time the world has some idea of what Codex can actually do." I instruct my clones. ""Got it."" They respond, and begin flying towards the Flaxans, absorbing blaster fire as their bodies tear through the air. "So, you got your head in the game?" I ask Mark, and he nods.
"Oh, yeah. Stay off the ground as much as possible." I tell him, then rush down the Flaxans before he can even ask what I mean, quickly landing on the asphalt. "Upgrade!" I quickly instruct one of my clones as I transform into Clockwork and drastically slow time, and he flies at the leftmost tank from the three that had come through the portal, absorbing the energy beams it fires on the way. Once he's close enough, he immediately transforms into Upgrade, his momentum causing him to splat over the tank's barrel and hatch.
Immediately he makes contact, he takes over the tank, and from the sounds I hear, he knocked the Flaxan inside unconscious. The Flaxans around the tank are shocked, as they notice one of their tanks suddenly turn black, with green circuitry all over it. The tank's barrel suddenly swivels and fires a powerful green beam of energy that goes through the other tanks, destroying them.
After destroying the tanks, the energy beam continues on, until it eventually hit one of the energy barriers from the shield generators and fizzling out. "You two, Water Hazard, now." I instruct the two clones, and they shift, their skin and suit swiftly replaced by a red carapace. "Flood the streets." I tell them, and they point their hands out, each of them firing a veritable lake's worth of water from their hands.
I release my transformation, and the massive amounts of water they had begun firing in slowed time flowed out at such a high rate that the streets were flooded in just 3 seconds. The fact that the water didn't penetrate the shields helped keep the water from draining away, and contributed to the speed at which the water gathered. By the ten second mark, the amount of water that had accumulated had gotten high enough to reach the Flaxans' midsections.
Of course, with me being on the ground, the water is also touching me. Before making any moves, I instruct the clone that had taken over the tank to get off the floor, then I transform into Frankenstrike, and let out a powerful omnidirectional blast of electricity that swiftly conducts through the water, electrocuting every Flaxan touched by the water. With the amount of electricity flowing through the water, even the air has started becoming more charged, and so the towers on my back are absorbing more electricity, creating a feedback loop, allowing me to keep releasing hundreds of gigawatts of electricity.
I switch to Heatblast, and create a sphere of intense heat that evaporates all water in a 10ft radius, causing a large amount of steam to be created. "Terraspin!" I shout to the two clones, and the sound of rushing water quickly shifted to that of powerful, speedy winds. As that happened, the steam was blown over to the open portal, temporarily obscuring the Flaxans' vision. To keep up the evaporation, I let out a powerful stream of flames, carbonizing any Flaxans caught in its path, and ramping up the production of steam.
My clones continued to blow the steam towards the Flaxans, which just continues to go into the portal, very likely irritating the ones yet to make their way through it. "You know, after everything that you said, I thought I'd actually get to do something." Mark says, as he hovers right above me. "Oh, yeah? Well, you've got your chance to do something now." I say as I revert my transformation, and the wind clears out the steam.
At the opening of the portal are multiple charred Flaxan corpses, but those don't stay for much longer, as another tank comes through the portal, running over them without a care. "Remember what I said…" I begin, and Mark interrupts. "Yeah, yeah. Don't pull my punches with these guys." He says, bending his knees in the air. "I'm being serious." I tell him. "So am I." He responds, and launches off the air, leaving a sonic boom behind, as he charges at the Flaxans coming through the portal.
The tanks that come through are destroyed with single shots from my Upgrade clone, and Mark hits the foot soldiers with enough force to instantly reduce them to clouds of red mist. "Don't forget to dodge, Mark. Just because you're as strong as you are doesn't mean you can't get damaged, or at least knocked back by their weapons." I tell him, then turn my legs into XLR8's, and bring out Rath's claws from my wrists.
I then shift the material of the claws to Diamondhead's crystals, then elongate the claws to be 1.5ft long. Once I finish the transformation, I zip over to the Flaxans that had gotten through the portal, swinging my arms and cleaving through multiple of them in the blink of an eye. Blood, flesh, bone, and guts fly around as the Flaxans are bifurcated from different angles, and in the midst of that, I feel four familiar presences arrive.
"Well, you guys sure took your time." I tell the Teen Team. "What the?! Since when could you do that?!" Rex shouts as he jumps off of Rudy's hoverbike, and throws four charged marbles at the Flaxans, blowing 3 of them apart with their explosions, and killing 4 others with the pressure wave produced by the explosions. "I could always do it. After all, brainwaves are just electrical signals." As I respond, spears made of Eve's signature pink energy fly past me and into the chests of a few Flaxans.
Kate jumps of the hoverbike, as Rudy takes a quick detour to park it out of the range of the fighting. With the Flaxans' number so drastically reduced, the situation isn't as dire, so he has the freedom to do stuff like that, otherwise, he'd probably have used the bike as a ram. "Codex, Invincible. You've done well minimizing the damage." He says, firing small energy blasts at the Flaxans.
The wave of enemies seemed endless, but Mark and I continue to keep their numbers down. My Upgrade clone continues destroying any tanks that come through, while protecting itself with an energy barrier, and firing at the foot soldiers with smaller turrets. We were pushing the Flaxans back, but not hard enough for my liking, so I involved my two clones that were staying in the air.
They reverted their transformations, and flew down to join the fight, their fists reducing the invaders to mist upon contact. As they joined, we all noticed something; the Flaxans were slowing down. Finally, their time was catching up with them.
Everyone soon noticed that the few that were unlucky enough to get past Mark, my clones, and I had become weaker, and their skin and antennae began to sag and wrinkle. Their bodies seemed to shrink underneath their armor, as they speedily aged towards the end of their biological lives. Multiple Flaxans dropped to the floor, their bodies either weak or dead, and the few that still had strong enough bodies turned and ran back into the portal.
"Uh, what just happened?" Rex asks, but before he can get answer, my Upgrade clone approaches us. "Hey, original. You might wanna see this." He says, then pushes out the Flaxan that was in the tank, letting us see what had happened to it up close. Much like the other Flaxans that escaped our attacks, this one had aged to the point that most of Earth's elderly population was in better shape than them. That is to say, that this one had died of extremely old age.
Its bones had undergone multiple decades' worth of osteoporosis in a matter of minutes. Its skin had aged as if it had spent its entire life sunbathing, with it being riddled with sunspots and its natural pigment having faded to a darker, almost corpse-like hue. "Eurgh, this guy smells like death farted." Rex says with disgust. And I understand him, as the decay that the Flaxan's body is going through is speeding up, which is like a chemical assault against my nose, but using Gutrot's powers, I can keep the smell from drastically affecting me.
"I'll take this one, one of their guns and a tank, have my clones analyze them, and bring our findings over to you guys." I say, and they turn to me, all of them except Rudy holding questioning gazes. "We didn't beat the Flaxans back, they ran back. Normally, that means that they'll come again, and depending on their capabilities, it could be a lot sooner than we think." I say, and I hear their thoughts as the reality of the Flaxans' retreat is revealed to them.
"I see. It's understandable." Rudy says. "Hey, Robot. Why don't you take some of them and analyze them as well, see if there's anything you can find out that I might miss?" I tell him, while fully understanding that the chance of me or my clones missing something useful in the analysis is unlikely. "Of course. I'll analyze them and make my own preparations as well." He responds.
"Alright, then. You two, take 'em up. I'll deal with the clean-up." I say, and one of my clones takes the dead Flaxan, and the Upgrade clone, who's still possessing the tank, back up to the Omni-Core. After those clones leave, I create 10 more, and we each pull out a launcher from our storage devices. This launcher is different from the one I had used to give Mark, Kate, and Rex their UMF suits.
This has two drums loaded with balls of hydrogel, specifically the variant that dissolve biological matter and the cement variant, and it has a heating chamber fused with its loading chamber. The heat is needed to help the gel expand, and while we can just heat it with our pyrokinesis, we made the launchers to be used even if a hero without fire powers could use it. We use the cement gel to fill the holes that had been shot into the ground, and as we do that, the last of the three clones I had brought along transforms into Ghostfreak, and used telekinesis to pull all the Flaxan corpses into a pile out of the way, even the carbonized ones.
Once we finish with the holes in the ground, we walk over to the pile of corpses and use the dissolution gel to clear out the corpses and blood, leaving behind hundreds of empty Flaxan soldiers' uniforms. With the majority of the clean-up done, I contact the clones that are with the civilians, and tell them to deactivate the shield generators and return the civilians to where they had initially taken them from.
I feel the stutter in space-time, as the clones all stop time and quickly return all the civilians. "Well, this has been fun. I'll get back to you with what we find out." I say to the Teen Team, and Mark approaches me. "Hey, thanks for the help, man." He says with his hand out in a fist, but I hear his actual thoughts. 'Thanks for helping my dad, Ben.' "Anytime." I reply and fist-bump him, after which I'm immediately teleported to the Omni-Core.
…
Omniscient POV
Behind the cloaking field that Benjamin and his clones had put up over the spaceship, the Omni-Core was undergoing multiple changes. Although it had only been 3 days since Benjamin gave the Teen Team the surface level tour of his base of operations, the environment within the spherical spaceship was becoming vastly different from what they had seen.
He observed the progress that his clones had made in what was essentially a restructuring of majority of the Omni-Core, and nodded in satisfaction at what he saw. He quickly moved over to the ship's bridge, where one of his clones was watching over all the activities that were going on around the ship.
"Well, might as well see how our guests are doing." He said as he walked up to the clone. The clone nodded, and he absorbed the clone, gaining its memories.
Red Rush had adapted fairly quickly to living on the Omni-Core, happy to have someone that could communicate with him at the same speed as his perception. Darkwing, Martian Man, and Green Ghost were still a bit apprehensive, so they hadn't left the R&R area, though they had at least tried speaking with each other. War Woman had asked around, wanting to see what he was doing to help the world, and a clone had shown her some of the things that Benjamin showed the Teen Team in the armory and agro complex.
Aquarus had tried picking fights with clones that were transformed into Ripjaws and Gillotine, but was mostly ignored, with a few warning him that he was fully outclassed. Of course, since they were mostly busy, he couldn't disturb them any more than that. As for Immortal, he stayed in his assigned lodge, not once stepping out.
Benjamin didn't care too much about the Guardians' actions, as long as they didn't become disruptive to the work that was going on. He didn't worry about them snooping around, as they quite literally couldn't go anywhere on the Omni-Core without his or his clones' knowledge or permission. Once he was done checking up on the Guardians, he split off a clone to continue watching over the activities on the ship, while he headed deep into the R&D area, specifically where he kept his cloning machine.
"So, how's it coming along?" He asked one of the Grey Matter clones that was working on Rudolph's clone body. "It's coming along alright. We've been able to weave your Corruptura into his genetic code, so that you can take control of him at any point. He doesn't have any tech that can catch it, so we're safe on that part." The clone responded.
While he hadn't been able to read beyond Mark's first battle with Conquest back in his previous life, it didn't mean that he didn't have any information of events beyond that, and this was thanks to people talking about crucial spoilers to the story online. One of the spoilers he came across was that Rudolph would eventually kill Cecil and frame Mark for it, and take over the world and essentially turn it into a dictatorship, killing villains with extreme prejudice, not even treating them as people.
At the time, he was amongst multiple people who already disliked Rudolph due to some of his more unsavory actions, but reading that spoiler made him have vitriol in his heart for him. So, while he acted cordial with Rudolph on the surface, deep down, he had been planning on doing something to stop all of Rudolph's actions that would hurt others. The first action he took towards this goal was convincing Rudolph to allow him to make his clone body for him.
This way, Rudolph wouldn't take Rex's DNA like he had done in the show, nor would the Mauler Twins be able to escape from their detention in the GDA's prison. Now, while he would keep his promise to give Rudolph a body made from his own genes, he would keep a hidden leash on him with his Corruptura.
"Oh, and before I forget... take this." He said, handing over the injector to one of the clones. While its main function was to inject its contents, it also had the capability to extract fluids, much like a regular syringe, with the only difference being that Benjamin and his clones were the only ones capable of using it to extract fluids.
In the injector was Nolan's blood. After gaining knowledge of the Scourge Virus, he wanted to perform experiments on Viltrumite blood, specifically from a Viltrumite that had survived an assault from the bio-weapon. He knew that Viltrumites were extremely similar to humans genetically, and so wanted to see if he could essentially create a vaccine to the virus.
As things were now, he might not know everything that would come for Earth, but he'd be damned a million times over if he didn't make some preparations for them.
Chapter End.
…
Don't have a clear schedule, but if I have a chapter, I will always post on Fridays, so check those days. This applies to all the works I'm writing.
Word Count: 4,454
Thanks for reading!