Mark Grayson, Invincible

Mission to Mars, Part 5

2014-06-26T16:32:42Z

[OOC: Dialogue from Invincible #18.]

The room at the bottom of the ramp looks like an airlock, so Mark decides to risk it. He takes off his helmet and takes an experimental breath. It's not entirely normal - there's an odd metallic scent in the air that he thinks might hurt him if he were human - but he can breath it, for a while anyway. He looks around; the room looks like pretty much any entrance area for a military base that he's seen, made of machined metal walls and flooring, except for the squid-like things crawling around that had attacked him earlier. Now they seemed passive, moving off in different directions. As he watched, several disappeared into a duct in the wall. None of them seemed interested in going after him again, and they actively shied away from the two Martians.

The Martian who had spoken earlier, spoke again, "I apologize for the attack. The Sequids have been in a frenzy since we brought the solids through here."

"Solids?"

"The men who arrived in that ship. We've taken them into custody."

Mark frowned. This was what Cecil had sent him to deal with. "Those people are under my protection," he said. "What have you done with them?"

The Martian frowned. He looked at his - its? - partner, who nodded briefly. "Your resistance to the Sequid attack has earned you an audience with the Monarch Prime. He will answer your questions. Or he will not. Such is his right."

Mark sighed. "Fine. Take me to him. I'll ask him if I have to." Then, he realized something. "Wait a minute! Are you guys speaking English?"

The Martians stepped up onto a circular platform and motioned for Mark to accompany them. "No," said the one who had been speaking. "What's English?"

Mark stepped up onto the platform. He started to say, "Um... never mind." but then the world turned inside out and everything faded from view.

comments

Mission to Mars, Part 4

2014-06-16T17:00:18Z

After two days, Mark has to admit, Mars is pretty cool.

He spends most of his day fairly close to Olympia, keeping an eye on the lander and the crew. Their space suits stand out against the dull reddish-brown landscape, so he can hover, several thousand feet above the landing site and surroundings, and keep an eye on them. The radio chatter lets him know if anyone has seen him, and except for the one encounter with Livingston, he's not been spotted. (He starts to consider it rather silly that none of them ever look up, but then he realizes that they really can't, inside the suits.)

Of course, it's a little boring to watch the astronauts go about their work from this distance. Especially since he can't ask what they're working on. (He laughs to himself at the idea of flying down and tapping one of them on the shoulder to ask how things are progressing. Cecil would probably explode, if he did, but the expression on Leonov's face might be worth it.) Still, the chatter lets him know that things are going well. Everyone seems upbeat, and the conversations with Mission Control, despite the radio delays, are filled with plenty of good cheer and optimism.

When the crew beds down for the night, Mark takes the time to do brief scouting flights away from the landing site. He finds Carl Sagan Memorial Station on the second evening, with Sojourner still close by. Neither appear functional, and in the silence of the Martian night, Mark feels a bit like he's at a grave or a memorial. As he thinks this, he realizes that he is, that this is a memorial, to the return to Mars after 20 years of inactivity. He smiles, realizing that Pathfinder did exactly that, it found the path back to Mars for Olympia. When he returns to the landing site and settles down for a nap on the back of the lander, it's with a smile on his face.

The radio chatter brings him up out of sleep slowly, and as he wakes, he realizes that he's slept longer than he wanted, and the crew is out of the lander and working nearby. He rolls his head slightly, thankful that noise doesn't travel well through the thin atmosphere of Mars. He can see in all directions through his bubble helmet, but the NASA space suits only have about a 120-degree field of vision, and he's thankful for that as he sees that none of the astronauts have bothered to look up. His position, lying down on the back of the ship, has prevented his shadow from being cast across the ground (he's fairly certain that's what Livingston saw previously), but a quick check puts the sun high enough and bright enough that, when he stands up, someone's going to see something. Not good, he thinks.

He considers his possible actions. He could lie where he is, possibly go back to sleep. No, that would be against his reasons for being on this mission. He's supposed to keep an eye out for hostile extraterrestrials (mostly his father), not be the first teen to slack off on another planet. If he stands up and tries to keep watch from the back of the lander, someone will notice him. He's supposed to stay out of sight, unless absolutely necessary. Standing on the top of Olympia in a bright yellow and blue uniform is not staying out of sight. (Perhaps for the first time, he sees the merit of Darkwing's black-on-gray, but he almost immediately realizes that that wouldn't be much good in the reddish-brown of Mars either. Of course, Darkwing - being Darkwing - would probably have some special Wing-camouflage for this sort of situation.)

He needs to move, clearly. He looks around, noticing the various postures of the astronauts. They're all around, from what he can see, but they're all facing away from the lander, with their heads down over the instruments that they're using (except for Anderson, who's peering off toward the horizon with a theodolite, taking measurements on the mountains. He looks straight up, and bracing for an earful of exclamations, shoots up in the sky at a speed he knows will be too fast for someone to follow him. He shoots up several hundred feet and then turns almost horizontal, heading east.

He's surprised that there's no sonic boom, but then he realizes the thinner atmosphere would prevent that. He flies out for few seconds, then stops and turns. He can barely see the lander. He's near the northern lip of Hellas Planitia. He listens to the radio for a moment, but there's no chatter about his flight. In fact, the radio is completely silent. After a few minutes, he starts to be concerned. He's heard enough from the crew that he knows that Parker and Bradstreet are friends, and that they often talk about shared interests over the intercom (something that Leonov gripes about on occasion). But neither of them are talking. A feeling starts in his gut, and he takes off towards the landing site.

The site is deserted when he returns. No one's outside, and there's no indication that the crew returned to the lander in the few minutes he was gone. In fact, the lines of footprints in the Martian soil seem to head off away from the camp. He swings over the camp and swoops low.

There is a door, built into the ground and camouflaged against the regolith. Discarded surveying instruments and other tools lay on the ground nearby. When he touches down, the door is closing, sliding shut with only a few inches of space between it and the surrounding edge. Mark wedges his fingers into the space, catching the door and lifting. It gives easily, as easily as anything at home, and he tears it free, revealing the darkened ramp below.

A shadow of movement catches his attention, and something flings itself at him out of the dark. Mark throws his arms up with a cry of alarm, falling backward onto the ground in surprise, but a cascade of tiny, multi-limbed things fly out at him, wrapping around his limbs, torso, and helmet. Slimy, molluscan things snare and grip, and Mark braces himself to feel the effects of their onslaught.

Which turns out to be nothing, really. The creatures crawl over him, and Mark can feel that they are trying to do... something, but he feels no pain or any other kind of discomfort. He lefts a hand, where one of the things has wrapped itself around his fingers and examines it. The underside appears to have a series of small, needle-like protuberances, and it appears to be trying to jam them into the palm of his hand. An action that, thanks to his Viltrumite physiognomy, has no effect.

Before he can move to dislodge the things, a shadow falls over him and there is a discharge of electricity powerful enough for him to hear through his helmet, and things begin to stiffen and spasm. Sparks shoot through the small cloud of Martian dust that his fall kicked up, and the quasi-mollusks fall to the ground, twitching. Mark looks up and sees two figures standing over him.

If their green skin and alien features weren't enough, the fact that the two beings are standing on the Martian soil, unprotected and without breathing apparatus would tell him that he has met his first Martians. Wearing white jumpsuits of a strange, shimmery material, they each hold a long rod in one hand. The fact that one of them throws off sparks as one of the Martians uses it to heard the quasi-mollusks back into the hole in the ground makes it pretty obvious that they are the Martian equivalents of cattle prods. The other Martian leans down and offers a hand to Mark, pulling him to his feet. "You will come with us," it says.

comments

Mission to Mars, Part 3

2014-06-03T16:00:18Z

[OOC: Some dialogue from Invincible #18.]

Mark knows they're approaching Mars before he sees it, from the increased chatter on Olympia's radio, but it's not much after that that he can pick the planet out from the stars in front of him. Over several days, he watches it increase in size. It's just as any number of magazine articles and news shows have shown it, but he can't help but grin as he follows the NASA ship on its approach. He's about to set foot on Mars, and the little kid inside him that always wanted to be an astronaut is absolutely thrilled to be here.

The landing takes longer than he expected; takeoff was a lot of waiting beforehand, but the actual ignition was pretty fast. Still, he knows that not everyone can do what he does, so he hangs back and waits for the ship to touch down on the Meridiani Planum before descending. He takes his time, swinging wide to come in from the west, trying to stay out of sight and off their sensors.

Olympus Mons causes him to draw up short. It's one thing to read about the volcano, knowing that it is larger than anything on Earth and is, in fact, the second-tallest mountain in the Solar System (the first being an unnamed escarpment on Vesta). It is another to be confronted by a wall of stone, and having to ascend again into the upper atmosphere of Mars to cross over the summit and calderas and descend again. Mark is struck by the immensity of it, and he pauses briefly to look around at the summit, marveling at the closeness of space. He retrieves several small pieces of Martian pumice, shaking them free of the dull reddish-brown dust that is particularly prevalent, and sticks them in a pouch. Souvenirs, for himself and friends, provided he can get them through decontamination.

By the time he finishes navigating Olympus Mons and approaches the landing site, the radio chatter lets him know that the astronauts are almost finished suiting up for their first steps onto the surface of Mars. The radio delay is such that Mark has Olympia in sight by the time that Mission Control back on Earth confirms. He slows, approaching the shuttle from the back end, and lands on the top of the tail just as the astronauts step out from under its shadow and onto the surface of Mars.

There's a certain amount of ceremony, as Mission Specialist Livingston plants flags for the U.S., the United Nations, and NASA. Photos are taken of the group, and Commander Parker composes himself for the first words transmitted back. He seems to be preparing a speech, then grins inside his helmet, and Mark hears him say, "Neil Armstrong, eat your heart out."

Pilot Bradstreet breaks into the channel, humor in her voice, "I hear you."

Scientist-Cosmonaut Leonov grumbles (over the suit intercoms, rather than transmitting to Mission Control, thankfully), "I still think I should have gotten to go first." Mark remembers that Leonov's grandfather was the first man to walk in space, something that the younger cosmonaut brought up several times in an attempt to convince Commander Parker that it would be politically favorable if he let the Russian Mission Specialist be the first onto the surface of Mars. Parker's reaction was less than kind, and the two men had several arguments over the eight-day flight about it. In the end, Leonov grudgingly surrendered his claim, though he clearly wasn't happy about it.

Payload Commander Anderson responds, and Mark can hear the exasperation in his voice, "Oh, calm down. You know it's a seniority thing. That's how it's always been, in both our countries."

Leonov is clearly not mollified, because he continues grumbling. "What am I? третий? No one gives дрисня about the third guy."

Anderson's sigh is clear, even with the static on the intercom line. "Sure they do, Sergei. The third guy is still famous."

"Name the third guy who stepped out on the Moon," snaps Leonov. "Go ahead; say his name." At Anderson's silence, the Russian continues, "That's what I thought. You cannot. This is дерьмо."

Mission Specialist Livingston tunes out Leonov and Anderson's argument. He knows that the Russian's just making noise; he'll settle down in a few minutes. He secures the atmospheric sampler, making sure that it's anchored properly to the solid rock under the regolith, and then starts the bootup sequence. As the integral computer in the instruments starts to boot up, he straightens up, feeling his lower back pulling slightly under the strain, and wishes he could work a knuckle into the muscles (an impossibility, with the massive PLSS mounted on the back of his suit). He leans back, trying to arch his back slightly and looks up past Olympia, at the figure standing on her tail.... "Uh, guys... there's something on the...!"

Livingston turns to catch Commander Parker's attention, and when he turns back, the man, or whatever it was, is gone. "Rus," says Parker, "what is it? What's going on?"

Livingston turns back to Parker, then shifts again to look back at Olympia. "I could have sworn I saw a man standing on top of the lander...."

Parker shakes his head, the motion visible through the anti-glare coating on his helmet faceplate. "Get it together, man. You know we're all alone up here. Check your bio readings and oxygen mix. We don't need you hallucinating."

Livingston checks the lander one last time, then shrugs to himself and checks all his feeds and medical telltales. Finding everything is normal, he goes back to work.

comments

Mission to Mars, Part 2

2014-05-01T01:44:30Z

Mark never knew that space travel could be so boring.

The trip to the Moon took 30 minutes, less if he poured on the speed. He had no doubt that he could get to Mars in a correspondingly short time. But he had to keep pace with the Olympia, which meant flying slower than he knew he could go. And that was boring.

At first it was exciting. The liftoff was full of last-minute checks, even on his end. The breathing apparatus he was wearing would have to last the whole trip, and the NASA scientists kept testing it up until the last second. He was going to breath slowly, holding his breath like he did on his flights to the Moon and pacing himself over the whole trip. The rush to get out of hiding and get up in the air to match speeds with the ship was also exciting, as was the ascent out of the atmosphere. But then, once the ship had reached optimum speed, found its heading, and started its four-day journey to Mars, interesting things just... stopped happening. And the boredom had set in.

He'd tried to keep an eye on the surrounding space as they traveled, but the one thing about space that he'd figured out quick on his first trip back from the Moon was that space was a whole lot of nothing, with a bunch of relatively tiny objects floating in it. Unless you were looking at one of those things, there wasn't much to see. And even then, if you weren't close enough (or had some sort of telescopic magnification; he envied Captain Dynamo with his super-senses) it looked like nothing more than a spot in space. Even Earth diminished rapidly to a small blue-ish white sphere behind him. The novelty of stargazing from among the stars faded fast, and the scenery just became boring.

His helmet was patched into the activity inside Olympia, allowing him to hear what the astronauts were working on. He listened with interest for a while, but too much of what he heard was in terms that he didn't understand, beyond the basics. He knew that they didn't see him (Cecil had briefed him on the blind spots that the exterior cameras couldn't see), and he knew when they would be burning thrust for maneuvers, but beyond that, the instrument readings and scientific studies didn't make much sense. He knew that they would be fascinating, if he knew much about astrophysics or space medicine, but beyond the basics, he was in the dark. As a result, he was left listening to the astronauts for any kind of human interaction, giving him the sense that he was listening to some strange hard sci-fi soap opera (in today's episode, Commander Parker reveals that he really did want his pudding, despite telling Mission Specialist Livingston that he didn't. Riveting stuff.). And after three days, he started tuning out a lot of what they said, keeping an ear out for anything that sounded like, "My God! There's a man flying off the starboard wing!" It was just all so boring.

He didn't think about food for the first few days, ignoring his own internal clock telling him that he needed to eat (mostly because he wasn't hungry). After two days, he thought he'd eat some of the food his mother had packed, just to have something to do. He opened the pouch on the front of his breathing harness and pulled out one of the sealed bags. The sandwich was one of his favorites, but Mark felt like it was somehow wrong to eat a sandwich in space. He should be eating something... more astronauty, and chasing it with some Tang. Or something. Still, he wasn't going to turn down food. He took a deep breath of air, turned off the pump on his harness, and popped off the bubble helmet. Tucking it under his arm, he tore open the bag containing the sandwich... and watched as the whole thing froze in seconds.

With an internal sigh, Mark bit into the now-freeze-dried sandwich. It tasted like someone had sucked all the flavor out of it. Sandwiches were kind of boring anyway, but this... this was extra boring.

comments

Mission to Mars, Part 1

2014-04-01T03:16:36Z

[OOC: Some dialogue from Invincible #18]

There is silence, just the noise of the people gathered to see the historic event, just the noises of the swamps that surround Cape Canaveral (and even those seem hushed, waiting for something that many people thought would never come). The large digital clock counts down, passing ninety seconds without hesitation, and the crowd begins to murmur, to stir. Cameras, camcorders, and phones are all pointed at the structure across the turn basin.

Then, there is a faint hiss, then a roar as the rockets ignite. A rolling carpet of exhaust obscures the bottom of the launchpad, and then, at first slowly and then with building speed, the craft rises, on the growing plume of fire. The cheers are inaudible beneath the roar that is felt as much as it is heard, and the wildlife of Florida flees as Earth's first mission to Mars claws its way up out of the atmosphere, fighting gravity every inch of the way. Below it, at the press area, in the Mission Control Center, and across the world in front of televisions and computers, people are cheering, applauding, and celebrating. Manned Mars Space Transport System One, or Olympia as she's known to her crew, has launched.

In the jubilation, excitement, and celebration that immediately follows, no one notices the blue and yellow streak that rises from an auxiliary site nearby to keep pace with the rocket. No one, that is, except those who knew it would be there in the first place.

"You in position?" Cecil's voice in his ear is almost drowned out by the noise of the launch, but Invincible can make out the agent's voice if he tries. It helps that he's traded his earplug for a full radio rig, built into a bubble-helmeted breathing apparatus. A two-week trip is longer than Mark can hold his breath; this will keep him from having to do so.

"Getting there," he assures Cecil as he pulls past the tail of the shuttle. Olympia is modeled after her older siblings, Columbia, Endeavor, and Atlantis, but larger and capable of vertical landings and takeoffs. Her flight surfaces won't be as effective in the Martian atmosphere as on Earth, but they'll help the crew bring her down without the need for parachutes or airbags.

"You haven't been spotted, have you?"

"I guess you'll find out -- I don't think so."

"Did you get all your supplies?"

"Yeah, and my mom packed me some sandwiches for the trip. I'm telling you, though... I had to tell my girlfriend that my mom and I were leaving town on a family emergency... I don't think she bought it."

Invincible can hear the dismissal in Cecil's voice. "We'll worry about that when you get back. Now listen... we're going to lose radio contact soon, so pay attention. Remember, the main reason you're here is the Martians. They're not a very friendly species - very isolationist, as you know - but you shouldn't have to worry too much. They're largely a subterranean species. The mission is to collect samples of minerals and then get the hell out of there, so the crew shouldn't see them or even know that they're there. But just in case...."

Invincible nods, then adds, "I'll keep an eye out." Around him the sky is fading from blue to black as he and the Olympia push through the atmosphere and leave the planet behind.

"Good luck, Mark."

"Thanks." Cecil signs off, and Mark turns his attention towards the ship and the space around it. He can see, off in the distance, the shimmer of satellites, and further than that, the distant stars. He briefly wonders if Viltrum's sun could be seen from here, or if it's too far away to be seen with the naked eye. (Nolan told him it was very far, but he never said anything else.) That starts him thinking about his father again, and he refocuses his attention on the ship he's escorting. He doesn't see any holes are problems outside, and the ship is still flying, so he settles himself in for the trip. Somewhere ahead of them is Mars, and they've got a long way to go.

comments

Mission to Mars, Prelude

2014-01-21T21:47:02Z

The Pentagon... well, it didn't exactly gleam in the summer sun as Invincible approached it from the air, but it was certainly whiter than the it's surroundings. He came in low and slow, no faster than the traffic on the Beltway nearby. Cecil had asked him to always approach the Pentagon slowly, so that the defenses could see him. They'd stopped the jet liner a few years ago, but barely, and as a result, their reactions had been tweaked for faster response time. Invincible wasn't sure if they could hurt him, but he didn't want to set anything off by making the targeting computers think he was attacking.

Agent Stedman was waiting for him out on the front walk. "You rang?"

"Got a mission for you, kid."

"What is it this time?"

Cecil explained. Since the invasion, the fiscal conservatives had suddenly realized that a Space Program was a Good Thing. Believing that better space travel capabilities would allow the planet to be less vulnerable to future attacks, those Congresspeople who normally claimed to see little value in the scientific missions of NASA had leapt to free up funding to pay for new technology for space vehicles, satellites, and a wide variety of outward-pointing instrumentation. "Your father is in no small part responsible for the current climate of paranoia surrounding alien invasion that's sweeping the nation," said Cecil, sadly. Mark nodded, noticing that it didn't hurt in quite the same way that it had in the past.

"Luckily," continued Cecil, "NASA was developing and designing long-range shuttles already and just needed funding and government backing, so this program has come together rather quickly over the last few weeks. We're going to Mars. And I want you to accompany the team on this mission; make sure nothing goes wrong and the crew makes it back in one piece."

Invincible blinked, then said, "Okay... cool. I always did want to be an astronaut."

Cecil smiled briefly, the scar tissue on his face stretching. "There's a catch. It is important that the American people don't think our space program is dependent on super-humans, so you won't be involved in any kind of official capacity. You'll be outside the shuttle the whole time. I don't even want the astronauts to know you're there, unless there's an emergency."

Invincible nodded. Personally, he agreed with the sentiment. People should be able to do things themselves, if able. If only for the reason that it meant that superheroes could take a break every now and then.

Cecil continued, "The second part of the catch is that it's a planned ten-day mission, but you could be gone as long as two weeks. Eight days alone will be the trip there and back. So you'll be gone a while. I assume since you're out of school this won't be too much of a problem...."

Invincible frowned. "I start college in two weeks and a day... when would we leave?"

"Soon."

comments

1nv1nc1ble @ 2014-01-20T22:08:00

2014-01-21T04:24:10Z

Amber fumed as she drove away from the Burger Mart. The nerve of Eve and William, laughing at her! This is serious business, she thought. Mark's future - his life! - could be in danger. And the two of them were cackling at her like a pair of hyenas!

As she stopped at an intersection, she began to calm down. She had to admit, if one of them had come to her with the suggestion that Mark was dealing drugs, she'd probably have laughed as well. But they could have at least listened to her, especially when Mark showed up late for lunch, and then his pager went off before he could even sit down! It just gave proof to her point; something was going on with him, and she was worried.

She really understood the grief. You'd have to be completely insensitive or ignorant to miss that Mr. Grayson's death had really torn Mark up. And of course, since life didn't slow down just because you were mourning, he had to deal with school, graduation, and everything else that had built up while he was out of town with his mom, dealing with funeral and estate. In all honesty, she had to think that Mark was the only person she knew who had a right to be... well, not happy, but certainly relieved that graduation had been delayed by the alien invasion. (Of course, he'd thrown himself into his homework and gotten it done much faster than she would have expected, but that was one way to deal with grief.)

But then, in those last weeks of school, things had gotten weird. He was always late to school. Mark had never been late before; in fact, he'd been pretty good about getting there early in the last semester. And he was always there for the whole day. But after his father's death, he'd disappear in the middle of the day, sometimes for the rest of the day. She knew Principal Winslow had talked to him about it, but all that seemed to do was make Mark more circumspect about it. Of course, none of the teachers really cared; after the invasion, everyone sort of disregarded the rest of the semester, given the six weeks of inactivity between the attack and graduation. And Mark had already picked up the scholarship from Santa Cruz, so it wasn't like he needed perfect attendance. But it wasn't like him.

And he was carrying a pager! What did he need a pager for? Who needed a pager in 2004, for that matter?! The only people she could think of that carried pagers these days were gang members. (Not that she'd ever seen one, but she saw them on "The Wire," and imagined that the gangers in East L.A. would wear them. She really didn't know.) But here was Mark, carrying a pager, and running off every time it went off, with some half-hearted excuse about "something coming up." If that wasn't suspicious, she didn't know what was!

And to cap it all off, there was that black eye. Which he claimed he'd gotten from "getting mugged." She didn't need to have been mugged (which she hadn't, thankfully) to know that you didn't just blow off a mugging, especially if there was an actual injury. You called the police, you went to the doctor, you suffered from PTSD. You certainly didn't just show up and breeze through high school graduation and off-handedly mention that you got mugged!

And the others didn't even think twice about it! If it were just Mark, she'd be worried for him. PTSD and grief could do weird things to people; the news was full of stories about the poor soldiers coming back from the Middle East with it. But Eve and William - his friends, and William his best friend - were just blowing it off! Laughing at her! What was wrong with them?!

She slowed at a stoplight and took a deep breath. She had to calm down; driving while angry was a bad plan. She'd just talk to Eve and William again and point out all the weirdness. She'd get Eve alone; she knew the redhead was sensible. She could convince her, and then they'd both talk to William. Mark needed help, and it was up to the ones that cared for him to provide it.

comments

Angstrom Levy - The Maulers

2013-11-27T02:52:56Z

United States Penitentiary - Lee County, Virginia. Superhuman Detention Facility.

"This sucks."

Mauler looked at his clone, and nodded. "Agreed."

"Why are we even here? We committed no federal crime."

"Arlington Cemetery is a national monument and federal property," Mauler reminded the clone. "While we have hardly committed serious offense, stealing the Immortal's corpse is clearly a federal crime."

The clone hmphed. "Not the worst we've committed."

Mauler frowned. He pointed at the guard walking past the clear duraglass wall of the cell. "Quiet."

Mauler hmphed again and frowned. He and his clone had finally managed to relocate themselves to another safe house after the Immortal had torn lose during their resurrection experiment. Unfortunately, the clone had insisted that that failure had been Mauler's fault and that it would never have happened if the clone, who still was under the delusion that it was the original Mauler, had been running the process. Outraged, Mauler had reminded his clone that he was the original and that it had been the clone's meddling that had allowed the Immortal to break free of their control and escape. They had been lucky that the resurrected superhero had been more interested in going after his killer, Omni-Man, than in attacking them, allowing them to escape.

Exacerbated by the failure to control one of the more powerful heroes in the world (who had flown off to get himself killed. AGAIN.), Mauler and his clone had been unable to get anything done. Any further experiment or plan for profit that Mauler had suggested had resulted in petty, bilious sniping from his clone, and any plan the clone came up with was so ridiculous that he had to point out the clone's clearly degenerating intelligence. Eventually, all they could do was argue, pointlessly, about who was the original and who was the clone.

Finally, they had agreed that nothing could be done until they determined which was which. The plan to steal the equipment required to compare their genetic material was the first one they had agreed on in weeks, and they took advantage of the fact that many heroes were busy in the aftermath of Omni-Man's sudden betrayal and subsequent fight with Invincible to do the job. The medical research facility was one of Doc Noble's, but he was busy helping repair the damage in San Francisco, and none of the on-site security gave them any trouble. They got into the lab, hoisted the equipment onto their shoulders, and were gone before the police could be called.

They were halfway across the parking lot when the Immortal found them. The superhero seemed less than pleased to see them, despite their rather successful attempt at resurrecting him; Mauler felt that the punishment he'd doled out was a bit excessive. Granted, they had tried to turn him into their resurrected servant, but that was no reason to break bones, was it?

The beating the angry superhero had given them still hurt, eight weeks later. Most of their wounds were healed, but they still wore bandages, and the prison infirmary superhuman specialist had told them it would be a few more weeks before they were completely well. Unfortunately, since they were past the bedridden stage of their injuries, that meant that they were staying in their cell, in the Superhuman Detainment Facility. They were sharing a cell, of course, but it was better than the solitary confinement that King Lizard was kept in down the hall.

Officer Denton was making his way down the line of cells. He paused and looked in at Mauler and his clone. "Warden will be by in an hour or so," he said. "I don't want to hear no trouble from this wing, so keep it down."

Mauler rolled his eyes. The warden insisted on coming down to see if any of the inmates "needed anything." A pious man with a crippling sense of fair play, he insisted that the superhuman criminals have access to as much of the facilities as their sentences allowed. Even mass-murdering terrorists like King Lizard got some access to the prison library. The warden seemed to think it helped with rehabilitation; Mauler thought it was insipid, bleeding-heart foolishness. His clone just thought it was stupid.

Mauler was about to open his mouth to comment to his clone about the stupidity of the warden's daily inspections, when a voice from behind them - where an empty wall stood - interrupted him. "You heard the man. Let's keep this quiet."

Mauler and his clone stared, shocked, at the figure of a man - slim, dark, dressed in a blue work shirt - who seemed to be leaning through the wall. No, Mauler thought, that's not entirely accurate. The man was leaning through a glowing green portal in the wall. This... this was interesting.

"Allow me to introduce myself," the man said quietly. "My name is Angstrom Levy, and I'd like to offer you a way out of this place... if you'll agree to assist me." He beckoned to the two criminals. "I'll explain once we're on our way."

Mauler and his clone both stared at the man. The Superhuman Detainment wing was supposed to be proofed against teleporters; there were not easily accessible spots where most known superhumans with the ability could arrive that weren't heavily guarded and carefully watched. But this man, this "Angstrom Levy," appeared to have something that got around all the known security. But who was he? What did he want? Was it safe? Mauler believed in a creative application of violence, to be sure, but he was no unthinking brute, willing to jump out of the relative safety of a prison cell into an unknown.

Levy frowned. "You coming?" he asked, impatience creeping into his voice. "I can't keep this thing open forever." He paused, then added, "I know what you're probably thinking, and I assure you, I mean you no harm. You need to make a decision, though."

Mauler and his clone looked at each other. No words were necessary. As one they stood and headed toward the portal. Levy looked mildly relieved - not overjoyed, as if a necessary thing had happened, but rather pleased he hadn't had to go to a contingency - and said, "You've made a wise choice."

Mauler was about to comment on the obviousness of that statement, but as he went through the portal, it died on his lips. The surrounding area was covered in rubble, buildings blasted almost down to their foundations. Behind him, he heard his clone asking if Levy were a teleporter, but the smaller man's answer was interrupted when he blurted, "My God. We heard of the invasion while we were incarcerated, but we had no idea that the damage was this severe."

Levy looked around, realizing. "Oh, this... this isn't from the invasion. This is from a nuclear war. At some point, shortly after the technology for nuclear weapons was discovered there was an accident, resulting in the destruction of half of the North American continent. Don't worry; the radiation here is far below acceptable levels. But before you go disputing these facts, I'd like to point out that this is a different dimension."

He turned to Mauler, and continued, "So, to answer your question: no... this isn't teleportation. Teleportation involves far less walking."

Mauler nodded, and Levy turned and started through the rubble, talking as he went. "Follow me. One setback to my powers is that I can only shift through dimensions. I remain in the same space when I shift. Another setback is that I only possess limited knowledge of other dimensions I can travel to. Otherwise, I could have shifted us to a dimension with a train station where your prison was in our dimension. That particular setback is the one I think you two can help me with."

Mauler worked his way down a pile of rubble and then glanced at his clone. "What's in it for us?" he asked, with the clone nodding.

Levy stopped and fixed the two with a wry gaze. "I had assumed your freedom would be enough," he said, contemplatively, "but I can always threaten to leave you in this dimension if you need... added incentive."

Mauler blanched. "Point taken."

The clone nodded, looking uncomfortable. "Our services are yours," he assured Levy.

"Good," said Levy. "Now, if I'm not mistaken...," he looked around the area, and then spied a bright red X sprayed in paint on a prominent piece of broken concrete. "Yes. This is where I parked the van." With a gesture, another green portal formed in the air. "This way, boys," he said, stepping through.

On the other side was a narrow rural road, surrounded by trees. Mauler could see the prison some distance away, equal approximately to the distance they had walked. They were outside the fences, far away enough to be out of sight of the guard towers. "See," said Levy. "Back home, safe and sound."

He turned toward a battered red van that was parked off the road. Fishing keys out of his pocket, he unlocked it and opened the back doors. "I hope I brought a large enough vehicle," he said, eying the Maulers briefly. "We've got quite a drive ahead of us."

Mauler looked at the interior of the van, then back at his clone. The clone did the same, clearly less than thrilled at cramming their eight-foot-tall bodies into the cramped, close quarters of the van for any amount of time. Still, it was better than being in the cell. "We'll manage," said the clone. "What is it you expect us to do?"

Levy climbed into the driver's seat and started the van. He pulled out on the road and began driving away from the prison, heading for the Interstate. "I'll explain everything as soon as we get back to my lab."

comments

1nv1nc1ble @ 2013-10-30T22:49:00

2013-08-16T13:14:59Z

Time passes. (It does that when you aren't paying attention.)

Mark studies. Milliways is useful for catching up on the backlog of homework without losing sleep. In truth, he loses enough from late-night missions from Cecil. Sea monsters attacking port cities or cargo ships (they seem to favor the Pacific, for some reason; Mark jokingly suggests that the Tokyo Tower is a homing beacon for them, but Cecil says they already looked into that, and it's just a comm tower). Supervillains threatening the populace (Battle Tank makes a re-appearance, and Mark has to admit that he's improved his armor. Not that it helps much; Invincible puts him flat on his back, with the barrel of his cannon bent into a U, in about two minutes.) Patrols out to the Moon and back on his own time, looking for any sign of Omni-Man. (Both Cecil and Eve point out that this is futile, since space - even the space around Earth - is pretty big, and Mark has to concede the point, but really, in the middle of the night when he's staring at the ceiling and wondering for the n+1th time why he's still alive and his father is NOT ruling the planet, it's the only thing that lets him sleep.)

Amber puts up with him, and things recover. A beautiful bouquet, courtesy of Mr. Fujito Yugo of Tokyo (a Tokyo, at the very least), goes over very well, as does the contrite apology and uninterrupted evening that goes with it (at least if the kiss goodnight at the end was any indication). More dates follow (accompanied by further goodnight kisses). Mark and Amber spend enough time with each other that he doesn't notice that William and Eve aren't having as good a go at being boyfriend and girlfriend as he and Amber are. (Of course, he doesn't particularly care, either, but that kind of comes with having your first girlfriend.)

Eve sighs and wonders what possessed her to start dating William. William grins and considers himself pretty lucky to have a hot girlfriend like Eve (even if she makes him sleep on the couch when he stays over). Both of them watch Mark like proverbial hawks, and relax as time passes. To them, he seems fine, and the damage done by Omni-Man seems mostly physical. (Both of them know better, of course, but Mark hasn't said anything about it to them, and neither want to be That Friend, who doesn't know when to stop prying.) Cautiously optimistic, they focus more on their schooling, since graduation is coming in June.

Sadly, Eve and William's optimism is unfounded. Nightmares continue, often enough that Mark can classify them. There's the one where his father finishes the job; there's the one where his father shows up at the head of an alien armada; and there's his favorite (which is to say, the worst): the family picnic.

Mark is sitting at a picnic table, with his parents. Debbie has laid out an amazing spread of food - homemade fried chicken, potato salad (made with mustard, not mayo), fresh rolls, and cole slaw. As usual, she's made loads, because she knows that both the men in her life eat like there's no tomorrow. She smiles; after all, it's a beautiful day, and her family is together.

Mark smiles at his mom. Lunch is good, and there's plenty of food. The breeze blowing across the park brings the sounds and smells of a fine California summer day. Families are playing and sitting around the park that surrounds the picnic table, and other families are cooking and eating their own picnic lunches around them. Friendly voices greet them, happy to see good neighbors like the Graysons. The sky is a brilliant blue, with few clouds; Mark thinks that he and his dad might go flying later.

Nolan finishes his third piece of chicken, and wipes the crumbs and grease from his moustache. "Congratulations, Mark," he says, smiling. "You've done an excellent job."

"Thanks, Dad," says Mark. He takes a bite of his mother's potato salad, chews and swallows, and adds, "It means a lot to hear you say that."

Nolan nods, still smiling, and Debbie adds, "Your father and I are very proud of you."

Mark smiles broadly. His parents are proud of him. Unlike some teenagers, Mark gets plenty of praise from his parents, so it's not an unusual situation. Mark knows there's no catch, no lies, no abuse hiding in a backhanded compliment, nothing of the sort that you read about or see on the news. His parents love him; his parents are proud of him. It's a good feeling.

If only he could remember what he did that they were proud of.

"I'll be honest, Mark," says Nolan. "I didn't think you could do it. Not that," he adds, quickly, holding up a placating hand at Mark's confused expression, "I thought you weren't capable, but that you were just inexperienced. I thought you'd need my help."

"Well...," says Mark, shrugging, trying to think of what he did. Good grades? Possibly, but he's usually a good student, and Milliways has helped with the study time. Maybe something he did as Invincible. Dad was pretty impressed that he managed to get Allen to talk with him, rather than fighting it out. Maybe it was something like that. "... I just did what was right."

Nolan nods, approvingly. "I'm glad you did," he says. "It makes things easier from now on."

Mark blinks, confused. The day turns dimmer, and the smoke from the grills seems to thicken, like the wind is blowing towards the table. "It does?"

Nolan nods. He wipes his face with a napkin, then stands up. His cape catches in the breeze and flutters out sending swirls through the smoke that drifts across the park. He looks up behind Mark. "Very much so," he replies. "Without you, I would have had so much more work to do."

Mark frowns. "'Work'? What sort of work?"

"Preparing for the invasion, of course," says Omni-Man, gesturing behind Mark. "Taking out those other heroes really helped."

Sick dread fills Mark as he turns around. The park is a blasted field, surrounded by rubble and wrecked buildings. Fires burn among the rubble, providing the smoke and hot wind that blows past Mark, causing his eyes to water. Military vehicles and police cars are piled in rough heaps, smoldering in some places and leaking fluids in others. Not all the fluid is motor oil or gasoline, but has a darker, redder tone. In the sort of clarity that only a dream can provide, Mark can make out the bodies of men and women, wearing uniforms, among the wreckage.

All of this is a backdrop to the trio of heroes in the foreground. Suspended from crosses made of bent girders, the three figures hang as dead, or near to it. The first figure looks old and frail, a man broken as easily as porcelain in the hands of a Viltrumite. Omni-Man gestures toward Cecil Stedman's corpse, saying, "I figured he would be difficult, with all his security. But you got close to him - earned his trust - and then took him when he wasn't expecting it. Good job, son."

"No." The sick dread fills Mark, and he shakes his head, trying to will the image of Agent Stedman away. His efforts are in vain, and his eyes are drawn inexorably toward the second figure. This one has been beaten, brutally. Bones are broken, limbs twisted, and the face is a bloody mess, barely recognizable. Blood has stained through the costume, even the dark orange that is the predominant color.

Omni-Man nods to the corpse of Rex Splode. "You were a little vicious with that one, but he was dangerous. It was better to put him down hard. Besides, you were right; he's a jerk."

"No," Mark shuts his eyes and shakes his head. He doesn't like Rex, but he wouldn' wish the other man ill. (Not that he didn't have the urge to punch his smug face when he found out what Rex did to Eve, but he would never....)

"And then there's this one," says Omni-Man, gesturing to the third figure. Even with his eyes shut, he knows she's still alive, still conscious. "She turned against you, unfortunately. I was willing to let you keep her, like I have your mother. As a pet. But she didn't see how it would be better." He sighs, then adds, "Still, you handled it well."

In that inexorable way that dreams proceed, Mark feels his eyes open and turns to see Atom Eve, hanging from the cross. Clearly defeated, clearly dying, but without a bruise on her, she raises her head and stares at Mark, with a haunted expression. "Mark...," she says, hoarsely.

Omni-Man lays a hand on Invincible's shoulder, grasping his son through the fabric of his uniform. "Well done, son. I'm very proud of you."

"NO!"

Yeah, that one brings him up and awake every time, usually halfway toward the ceiling before he realizes he's flying. Fortunately, he hasn't gone through the roof in that state. Still, it generally leaves him trembling and unable to sleep for the rest of the night. Usually, he sits and cries for a few minutes, then changes into his uniform and goes out on patrol. Cecil always seems to be awake, and the agent doesn't ask why his teenaged asset is awake at four in the morning. Given his resources, Mark figures he might know about the nightmares already. Whatever the case, he always has something for Invincible to do, even if it's just cleanup from the alien invasion.

There would have been a time when Mark would have worried about waking his mother with the noisy wakening that the nightmares caused. That was before the drinking started. Now, she sleeps where she passes out, and Mark sees empty bottles of bourbon and rum in the trash can every few days or so. He was hoping that it would taper off when Art the Tailor (whose last name is Rosenbaum, but Mark can't help but think of him as "Art the Tailor") started coming over, but both of them seem to be drinking heavily together. There hasn't been another night where he's found Debbie on the kitchen floor, but she's been passed out on the couch too many times for him not to be worried.

Of course, he's made it clear he's not happy about it, but she's his mother, and he's still her baby boy. "Art was over visiting last night," she says, when he gives her the disapproving look. "We were talking -- we had a few drinks. It's not illegal." Mark's not convinced; the comment sounds like something a college kid would say, not a grown woman with a son graduating high school. "I'm the parent here, Mark. You're not allowed to look at me that way."

Mark supposes that it could be worse, and she does seem to be only drinking at night, to help her sleep. Still, he's had the high school health classes, where they scare teenagers with stories of substance abuse (and STDs, but that's not relevant in this situation), and he can't help but think of a movie starring Martin Sheen that one of his teachers made him watch.

In the middle of all of this, almost without warning, graduation arrives. "Big day today, huh?" asks Debbie when he comes down that morning.

"Yeah. Finally."

"Oh, it's not that bad," she replies, smiling as she pushes his breakfast towards him as he sits down at the table. "You got five weeks off, from the damage from the invasion, then you had two weeks of watching movies - from what I've heard - and now you're graduating."

Mark nods. The teachers had been as annoyed by the five-week break for repairs to the school as everyone else was. Nothing new had really been covered in those last two weeks before the exams, and most of them had just thrown in movies to kill the time. Some of them, like Mark's history teacher, Mr. Hendricks, had tried to make it relevant by showing movies like "Gladiator" and asking the students to write down the historical inaccuracies. That was nice for the extra credit, but Mark really felt it was a waste of everyone's time. (Predictably, William thought it was the greatest thing since school got cancelled after the invasion.) "Yeah," he says, "and after I graduate today - thanks to all those delays - I've got two weeks to prepare for my first day of classes at USC. I'm a nervous wreck!"

"It's not too hard," says Debbie. "You take the diploma, shake his hand... and walk off the stage. You'll do fine."

"It's not graduation that's bugging me. That's over; that's done. I know that happens today no matter what." He sighs, taking a bite of breakfast. "I'm worried about college - new school, new environment. And I know I would have had trouble graduating if I hadn't gotten those five weeks, along with Milliways, to catch up."

"How are things in your mysterious, extradimensional bar?"

"Dunno," he replies, shrugging. "Haven't seen it in about a month." He shakes his head. "But that's beside the point. With everything Cecil's got me doing, I don't know if I have time for college."

A beeping noise comes from Mark's pocket. "Speak of the devil." He reads the scrolling message on the pager, shoveling food into his mouth as he does. "I'm needed in New York."

"I wish you wouldn't eat so fast," objects Debbie. "That can't be good for you."

Mark finishes his breakfast and throws away his trash. The trash can has several more empty bottles in it. He frowns at his mother, and she makes her usual rebuttals. Finally, he sighs, kisses her on the cheek, and heads out. If he's fast, he can get back for the graduation ceremony....

comments

Angstrom Levy - Prelude (Continued)

2013-06-19T20:12:48Z

"Here we are."

"Here" is a grotty old warehouse among the piers of Marina del Rey. The damage that Angstrom had seen from the alien attack was less, to some extent, but only because this is the edge of the metropolitan area, and even here, the piers are damaged in places. The end of the one that the other Angstrom had brought them to is almost collapsing, and several of the boat docked in the area are damaged from the fight that had raged across the Los Angeles area (and evidently across the globe, according to the news radio that they had listened to as they made their way across the wrecked cityscape).

"This invasion really wrecked things," the other Angstrom says as he unlocks the door to the warehouse. "It never should have taken us this long to get here."

Indeed, it had taken a long time to get here. The other Angstrom had taken what roads he could, but he had tried to avoid any of the checkpoints set up Emergency Services, to avoid the confusion of two Angstrom Levys (one of which didn't have any sort of ID). The few checkpoints that they had to pass through, manned by the National Guard and the Red Cross, the other Angstrom had explained that his "twin brother" had been caught outside when the invasion had hit, and his wallet was somewhere in the wreckage of his house. The Guardsman nodded sympathetically, noted that "Angstrom and Lyman Levy" were leaving the city to stay with relatives in San Diego, and waved them through.

"Lyman?" asks Angstrom as they pulled through the roadblock, carefully navigating past the emergency aid station.

"Theodore Lyman," replies the other Angstrom, off-handedly. "It was the first thing that popped into my head."

"No problem," says Angstrom, nodding. "Though I think I would have preferred 'Rydberg.'"

"Noted," his doppelganger says, with a dry chuckle.

"And exactly where are we?" Angstrom now asks, as he is led into the darkened warehouse.

The other Angstrom seems mildly puzzled. "You really don't recognize this place?" Then, he shakes his head, and adds, "Sorry, I forget that sometimes you don't lead parallel lives. Some of the others have near identical experiences with me."

"Others?" Angstrom had been feeling increasingly detached as the day had gone on. He had expected to die when Omni-Man and Invincible had burst in. He was fairly certain that Robot and the Immortal would recover from their "deaths," and that they would continue on with their attempts to defeat the Viltrumites. No doubt they would assume that he was killed in the raid, label him a martyr to the cause, and regroup their forces. (He doubts that the Immortal would miss him, though he thinks that Robot would at least regret the loss of his intellect and education, if not his companionship. It was hard to tell with the mechanoid, but Angstrom at least considers it his friend.)

But with the strange, almost deus ex machina quality of his rescue, his life had turned surreal. Combined with the pure terror of going from being about to be crushed by one alien invader to being in the middle of an actual battle with space aliens (albeit as a noncombatant) had left him drained. The car ride had been restful, but Angstrom had been kept on edge by the checkpoints, unsafe roadways, and the simple fact that he had NO idea what this other Angstrom wanted him for or where he was being taken. As a result, he had achieved a state that was something between exhaustion and mental shock. He kept feeling like he needed to run and hide, but hadn't the energy (and didn't know where he could hide, if he had to). It was very upsetting.

The other Angstrom had reached a panel in a wall of metal completely out of place compared to the exterior warehouse. He punches in a code and presses his hand against a glass plate, saying, "Sorry to be so cryptic. Everything will be made clear to you in time." The lock mechanism (for that was what it was) beeps its approval, and the door starts to slide open. "After you."

As the door finished opening, Angstrom turns to step through and stops, stunned by what he saw. His exhausted, shocked mind reels, and he finds that, despite his mental exhaustion, he can still be dumbfounded by what this strange, new (and not so new) world can show him. "Angstrom Levy," he hears his doppelganger say, "meet Angstrom Levy."

The faces that all turn to look as the door opened were familiar. He looks at them every time he looks in the mirror, had been looking at one ever since he'd been pulled through the hole in space and into this world. The murmur of voices are echoes of his own, of his doppelganger's, multiplied by... he stops counting after the first eight that he sees. They wear different clothes, have different hairstyles and facial hair (one even wears a cowboy hat, which makes Angstrom choke back a spurt of hysterical laughter), but all of them are undoubtedly Angstrom Levy, staring back at him with the sort of jaded interest that could only have come from having done this scene many times before. "Everyone," says the Angstrom that had brought him here (which his brain insists on calling the "other" Angstrom, even though the presence of all the other Angstroms now makes it so vague as to be a useless qualifier), "say hello."

The chorus of greetings washes over him, filling his ears with dozens of voices, all the same (though Cowboy Angstrom does actually say "Howdy!" with a distinct Texas twang). Angstrom's exhausted and strained mind finally throws in the metaphorical towel, and he feels the world tilt and everything goes black as he crumples to the ground without a sound.

"Huh," says the other Angstrom. Several of the others approach, concerned for their new twin. "He fainted. None of us have done that before." With a shrug, he bends down to lift his other self from the floor. If that was how he reacted to the initial meeting, he is going to completely freak when he hears what the Plan was.

comments

Angstrom Levy - Prelude

2013-05-10T12:53:15Z

[OOC: Dialogue from Invincible #16.]

Invincible was talking again, and Angstrom Levy was getting a bit tired of it.

The man - boy - was in his usual place, hovering over Times Square, with the Jumbotron magnifying his face. Wearing what Levy assumed that he thought was a stern expression, Invincible was going through his spiel about how resistance was useless, that he and his father had done no wrong in the actions, and how the world would be a better place, if people would just do what they said and accept the new world order. It was a speech that Levy knew almost by heart, and he imagined that the refugees that scurried around Times Square did as well, even though none of the tattered and scared people dared look up at the yellow-and-blue-suited teenager that hovered in the air five stories above them.

He hadn't believed the speech when he first heard it. Not many people had, but Omni-Man had killed the Guardians of the Globe, which meant there wasn't much in the way of anyone to stop him. Oh, they'd tried, but it hadn't been much of a contest. Youngblood had come crashing in, and the fight had gone out of them after used Diehard to smash Badrock into gravel. The stone-skinned teenager had died quickly, and the super-cyborg hadn't lasted much longer. The rest of the team, notably less powerful, had been only lasted a few more minutes, before Omni-Man had killed them all.

Captain Dynamo and Superpatriot lasted a bit longer. Dynamo was apparently telepathic as well as super-strong, which made it a little harder for Omni-Man to hurt him, and the Superpatriot had learned a great deal about combat in his more than sixty years as a soldier and superhero. He had gotten Dynamo to work with Mighty Man, and the three of them, along with a number of Chicago's "Freak Force" had kept the Viltrumite on the defensive for long enough that they might have at least driven him off temporarily, allowing them to formulate a better strategy. Except that Omni-Man wasn't alone; Invincible had joined his father in preparing Earth for their people. Two Viltrumites were too much for the group, and Chicago was obliterated in the conflict. It was said that Dart was still hiding out in the ruined city, but as the only member of the Freak Force without powers, Angstrom wasn't sure she could do anything without help.

Some members of the underground still hoped that Supreme would show up, but Angstrom wasn't holding his breath for the supposed hero. Too many global emergencies had happened that Supreme hadn't helped with, before Omni-Man revealed his true nature. Some rumors from the West Coast was that Supreme had fled the planet; others said that he'd turned out to be less supreme than advertised, and the two Viltrumites had killed him as quickly as they'd done the others. Whatever the case, until Angstrom saw him flying over Broadway, he wasn't going to expect any help from that source. From what he could see, it was up to him and the rest of the rebellion.

Keeping the hood of his tattered coat up and his eyes down as he made his way around the square was the only real way to keep anyone from noticing him. He was pretty sure that neither Invincible nor his father had any kind of super-senses, but he didn't want to take any chances. He'd worked to hard over the last six months, building the resistance, keeping the groups in communication with each other, and trying to find some weakness - any weakness - that either Viltrumite suffered from. So far, he only had their continuing confidence in their own superiority to work with, which was good when it came to avoiding them, but frankly, didn't work too well in a direct confrontation.

A series of pops sounded from across the Square, from near what used to be West 46th. Invincible was turning, and glancing up briefly, Angstrom could see that someone was shooting at him. A few members of New York's Finest, making a last stand, or maybe members of Los Zetas. It didn't really matter; they were doomed, if all they had were conventional guns. The other New Yorkers were fleeing the square, trying to put distance between them and the Viltrumite retaliation. Angstrom turned down West 47th and ducked into an alleyway, getting out of the sight.

He followed the alley three blocks before he ducked out onto the street again. He crossed 9th quickly, quickly looking around to make sure that he hadn't been followed, and then ducked into the alley on the opposite side. The area had been Hell's Kitchen once upon a time, and even though the gentrification of the area had improved the neighborhood, it was as abandoned as the rest of the city. No one wanted to be out on the streets these days, even the criminals. Smiling grimly, he reflected that, in that at least, what Omni-Man and Invincible claimed had come true. Crime was certainly down.

Behind the Hartley House, the alleys were crowded with old trash (the Viltrumites had yet to do anything about the waste management business, except halt it entirely). The charity organization was still doing its best to help people in Hell's Kitchen, as it had for more than a century, but there was only so much that they could do, given the circumstances. Angstrom wasn't interested in a bologna sandwich or a bowl of soup right now, however. He ducked around an overflowing dumpster and climbed into a refrigerator box that lay on its side against the wall of the building. Checking for followers a final time and finding none, he touched a stud on his battered Seiko. Silently, the lift under the floor of the box engaged, and Angstrom descended below the streets.

Robot looked up as the entered the base. The mechanoid looked a bit silly in the dirty, hooded sweatshirt, but Angstrom knew that he couldn't exactly go about undisguised. "Welcome back, Angstrom."

The Immortal didn't even turn to look away from the monitors. "Were you followed?"

Angstrom pulled his hood down. "Of course not," he replied. "I understand the gravity of our situation, and I assure you I have taken the necessary precautions."

"Are you sure?"

Robot spoke before Angstrom could reply to the Immortal's snide question. "Angstrom possesses intellect nearly as substantial as my own." For a mechanical being, his tone was surprisingly weary. "This animosity between you two is highly counterproductive."

"Yes," added Angstrom, "and we have work to do. The boy is running through his spiel in Times Square again."

"Do we know of Omni-Man's current whereabouts?" asked Robot.

"No," replied Angstrom, "and that worries me."

"We need to figure out a way to track him," said the Immortal, raising a persistent issue. "There are only two of them; if we could monitor their movement, we could use that to our advantage."

Angstrom refrained from rolling his eyes. For someone who claimed to have been alive for most of human history, the Immortal had a tendency to state the obvious. "I'm doing everything I can," he said. "It's almost impossible to get my hands on the technology needed." He motioned to the room. "Look at this place. How are we going to do anything with this laughable array of equipment? My hands are tied."

The Immortal frowned. "You're proving more useless by the day. Were it not for Robot's continued support, you would have no place here."

Before Angstrom can reply, sparking forth the argument that he had been having with the Immortal since they had joined forces, there was a rumbling and tearing noise, and the ceiling gave way under the combined force of Invincible and Omni-Man. Angstrom felt shock and fear run through his body as the two beings that he had devoted his intellect and resources to defeating landed amid the cascading rubble. "You said you weren't followed!!" shouted the Immortal.

"You should look up more often," said Invincible, grinning arrogantly.

Angstrom staggered away, his thoughts scattered by fear, as Omni-Man stepped forward and slammed the Immortal's skull between his hands. The rebel hero's head was crushed like an overripe fruit, and Angstrom heard the older Viltrumite say something snide about a lesson for his next life.

Angstrom frantically looked around for something to use against the two, as Invincible systematically tore Robot apart. Nothing was at hand except for one of Robot's old sky-cycles, partially dismantled for its power source. As Invincible yanked Robot's head off of its dismantled torso, the orange mechanoid was still promising that it would rebuild itself and continue to fight against the two Viltrumites. Angstrom watched Invincible crush the head between his hands in an echo of what his father had done to the Immortal, and realized that he had nowhere to run and that he was going to die.

"And now for you, Angstrom Levy," said Omni-Man, approaching the corner that Angstrom had backed himself into, "the brains of the outfit." The older alien gave him a mild smile, and added, "Haven't you done the math? We never lose."

"P-Please don't kill me," Angstrom begged, internally cursing his own cowardice as he did. He closed his eyes, expecting the blow to come at any minute.

And then, there was a humming noise, the smell of ozone, and a familiar voice: "Please. You're embarrassing us." Hands grasped him from behind, from where he knew there was a solid wall, and pulled. "Come on." Angstrom felt himself go off balance and be pulled... somewhere. He opened his eyes in time to see Invincible and Omni-Man staring at him, with the most astounded expressions he'd ever seen, and then the world filled with green light.

The light faded as quickly as it had appeared, and Angstrom felt himself pulled to his feet. Blinking the spots away, he turned and saw why the voice had sounded so familiar. Standing in front of him was... himself. "Who are you?"

The other Angstrom Levy gave him a sardonic smile. "Isn't that obvious?"

Angstrom studied his doppelganger. The other man was better groomed and dressed, and clearly hadn't been eating emergency rations for the past six months, but aside from that, he was his double. "How is this possible?" He ran back over the last few minutes, and could only come to one conclusion. "Is this a different dimension?"

The other Angstrom smiled again, kinder this time. "I'll explain everything shortly. Just follow me." He led his twin out of the room (another lab, albeit cleaner and better furnished, Angstrom noticed) and up a flight of stairs. As they ascended, both Angstroms noticed what sounded like thunder, penetrating through the thick concrete.

Where the original Angstrom's lab had been concealed completely beneath the Hartley House and its surroundings, this Angstrom's lab opened onto the street. The doors muffled the noise until they opened it, and both men stared in shock at a massive battle that appeared to be raging on West 46th Street. Pink-skinned humanoids, dressed in some sort of tactical armor, were engaged in a firefight with members of the Army, the New York Police, and a collection of superheroes. In the street in front of them, they could see Captain Cosmic and Commander Capitalism of Capes, Inc., being dog-piled by a group of the attackers. Overhead, the sky was filled with saucer-shaped ships.

"This isn't right," said the other Angstrom. "I must have returned us to the wrong dimension."

"Dear Lord. To what horrible place have you taken me?" Angstrom could only stare in shock at the battle raging on the streets. Home had been bad, but the Viltrumites only waged violence against those who fought them, and it was usually over in a few seconds. This... this was hellish in its scale.

"Quiet," said the other Angstrom. He moved down the street quickly, away from the combat. "I have to think. I can't do another jump until I rest. We've got to find a place to hide for a few hours!"

Angstrom was going to point out that they had been hiding, but realized that that lab, no matter how safe, was too close to the combat. It wouldn't have safe. On the other hand, he couldn't spy anywhere else. As an explosion shattered the top of a skyscraper nearby, he couldn't help but comment, "Good luck. This place is a war zone."

The other Angstrom looked to be about to make a reply (which Angstrom knew would have been snide and cynical; after all, that's how he would have responded), when something caught his eye. "Oh, no. It can't be!!"

Angstrom followed his gaze, but only saw a newspaper vending machine, as routine and innocuous a feature as any in New York City. But the other Angstrom had turned and was running back toward the lab they had just left. "What is it?" he shouted, rushing to keep up.

"There was no mistake!" shouted the other Angstrom. "This is the right dimension - my dimension! I've got to get to my lab!!"

comments

1nv1nc1ble @ 2013-05-06T15:25:00

2013-04-22T15:38:21Z

After that craziness with the music in Milliways, Mark finally comes home and changes out of his uniform. And marvels at the silence. It is wonderful. He sits in his room, listening to nothing but the hum of the air conditioner and the birds outside his window, reveling in the lack of anything that even came close to modern music. He does some homework, takes a break to read a comic, and generally decompresses from a day that felt like a week, or more.

After a few hours, as moon rises, he looks over at the phone on his desk. His pager lies next to it, silent. He'll have to type something up for Cecil on this weirdness from Milliways; the agent will surely find it interesting reading. Then, he looks back at the phone, considering. He should call her.

It's another five minutes of staring at the phone before he picks it up. The dial tone is the loudest thing in the room. (Which is weird, because Mark's never really thought about it before, never really listened to it.) He listens until the dial tone gives way to the staccato beeping that indicates the phone is off its hook, then shakes his head and resets it. Then he dials the number.

She picks up on the second ring. "Hello?"

"Hey."

"Mark," she says, pleased." "Hey, yourself."

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"Just... not being very... there."

"Mark," says Amber, gently, "you're dealing with a lot. It's okay."

"It's not," he replies, firmly. "I've been ignoring you."

"Mark, your father just died. You've got to deal with that. I understand."

"Yeah, he died...," Mark trails off for a moment. Cecil had set up the cover story, how his dad died in a car accident. A simple story, much more normal than the willful murder of seven of the Earth's mightiest superheroes (one of them twice), the destruction of San Francisco, and the revelation that he was a spy for an extraterrestrial invasion. To say nothing of the attempted murder of his own son, and fleeing from the planet.

Yes, death in a car accident is much more simple, much more mundane. Easier to accept for most people. If Omni-Man's identity had been revealed publicly... Mark couldn't think of what it would be like, but he imagined that the public outcry, distrust, and simple invasion of his and his mother's privacy would be unbearable. He imagined that Cecil and his agency would have to hide them away in some sort of superhero identity protection program, with men in black suits erasing memories with strange lights, like something out of an Art Bell radio show. It was better to just have the cover story, to stick with the secret identity.

So, why did Mark have so much trouble sticking with it?

"Hey," says Amber, over the phone. "Are you still there? You trailed off."

"Yeah. It's just been a long day."

"You want to talk about it?"

Mark does, in fact, want to talk about it, but to talk to Amber about the Bar, the never-ending music, and the complications that it kept him from coming home until it was dealt with, he'd have to tell her about being Invincible. And that would cause a whole bunch of other problems. So: "It's just hard catching up on the schoolwork, while studying new stuff. Plus, Mom's...." He trails off.

"How is your mom?"

Mark sighs. "She's been drinking. Lots. It's not been every night, but I'm worried."

"Talk to her about it."

"Sure," agrees Mark. "How do I bring that up?"

"You just do, sweetie. If you're worried about her, talk to her about it. She's your mom; she loves you and she'll understand."

"Yeah, you're probably right."

"Of course I am," she teases.

Mark smiles. "Oh, really. So sure of yourself?"

"Yep. I'm always right."

"I might have to dispute that."

Amused: "Well, fortunately for you, there's a disputation process."

"Oh, good. That'll make things easier."

"I haven't told you the process yet."

"Oh, well. Forgive my impatience. Do go on."

"It's very simple," she says. "You have to approach the committee and make a case to prove that I'm wrong about the subject in question."

"I see. And who's on the committee."

"Me."

"Of course."

"The committee prefers to be approached over dinner, though it will accept a petition while engaged in mutual studying."

"Hmm," says Mark, smiling. "I think I'm picking up a hint here."

"Oh, good," Amber replies. "I was worried I might have to use more direct means."

"More direct means?"

"I was considering putting a sign in your front yard."

"That would have worked. Probably."

She laughs. He likes her laugh. "Mark," Amber says, "it's okay, really. You've got all this to deal with."

"Thanks."

"I have to finish some homework, but I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"

"Yeah. I should probably do some more studying too. I'll call y--"

BEEP BEEP BEEP. The pager on Mark's desk interrupts him. "Mark, what was that?" Amber asks.

"Crap." He picks it up. SUPERTERRORISTS IN JO-BURG, says the display. "I have to go."

"Was that your pager? Why do you have a pager?"

"Uh, it's... I'll explain later." Mark reaches for his uniform, lying on the floor where he left it, but can't reach without pulling the phone off the desk. "I'llcallyoulaterAmberbye," he says quickly, hanging up before she can respond. He grabs the costume, tucks his earpiece in, and says, "What have we got, Cecil?"

"Just what is says on the tin, Invincible," says the agent. "Couple of terrorists with superpowers in South Africa. They're threatening to blow up the U.S. Embassy, and most of the surrounding embassies."

"On my way." He spares a moment to look at the phone, sighs, and then is out the window.

On the other end of the line, Amber Bennett looks at her phone and wonders, not for the first time, why Mark has a pager. Then, she sighs, puts down the phone and picks up her homework again.

comments

1nv1nc1ble @ 2013-03-05T18:04:00

2013-03-05T23:47:01Z

Unbelievable. It has been an unbelievable sort of day.

Being a superhero and half-Viltrumite and all that it entails, "unbelievable" is not a word that Mark uses regularly anymore. Flying to the Moon and dealing with Allen the Alien, fighting the Maulers, dealing with a crazed Physics teacher putting bombs in students... all of these things sort of raised the bar, as it were, and "unbelievable" is one of those words that gets lost in the paradigm shift. Mark just stopped thinking of things as unbelievable, mostly because if he did, they invariably happened.

But today... today just boggled the mind. The Atlanteans had contacted Cecil, demanding reparations for the death of Aquarus, their king and former member of the Guardians of the Globe, or else they attack the surface world. Aquarus had been killed by Omni-Man, and since he wasn't around (thankfully), they demanded that Invincible, publicly known to be Omni-Man's son, provide recompense. But, as Cecil explained, rather than execute the son for the crimes of the father, the Atlanteans needed him to take the place of their king and champion... by marrying their queen.

Invincible finds the whole situation incredibly surreal, but Cecil had urged him to play along, until the Guardians organization can figure something out. The marriage couldn't happen immediately, the senior agent assures him, and they'd have some alternative figured out in a few hours. So Mark climbs into the strange flying submersible with the Atlanteans and lets them take him to the ocean and down into it.

Atlantis is, Mark had to admit, pretty cool. The Atlanteans are better known than the Martians among the public; Aquarus had been pretty photogenic, for a fish-man, and the Atlanteans treat their neighbors with polite aloofness for the most part, leaving the land-dwellers to live on land as long as they were left alone in turn. But very few people had ever seen anything of Atlantis, beyond the occasional underwater footage by the Cousteaus or some other researcher. The city of Atlantis proper is a marvel of underwater engineering and super-science, filled with force fields that redirected the ocean water in a variety of ways. Mark considers asking about many of the things he sees on the way down, but the guards aren't talking.

At the bottom, the Atlanteans give Invincible an artificial gill system set in a breather mask and directed him to the Queen's chambers. There, he meets the Queen, Aquaria, and her vizier, Lethan. And the surreal day goes from bad to worse, when Lethan informs him that the wedding would be later that day.

Mark has to remind himself that fleeing would only make the situation worse. So, he allows Lethan to escort him to the groom's dressing chambers, where the vizier begins to prepare him for the ceremony. (Apparently, Atlantean men wear the dresses, which makes Mark begin to regret ever responding to his pager this morning.) Apparently, the suitor has to fight something called a "depth dweller" (which Mark gathers is something big and nasty that Atlanteans fight from time to time) to prove his worth to the Queen, and then once the beast is defeated, the couple seal their bonds of love before all the people of Atlantis... by having sex in the stadium. The vizier grows upset as he informs Mark of this custom and has to leave for a few minutes (Mark can't blame him; he finds the situation disturbing himself), and Cecil calls.

After briefing Cecil on the situation, Mark is less than happy to find out that the government hasn't been able to find any way to get him out of the situation. Cecil urges him to be patient, and Mark reluctantly agrees. He really isn't interested in losing his virginity to someone he'd met only a few hours ago, much less someone of a different species, and he lets Cecil know in no uncertain terms. Cecil promises it won't come to that and signs off, explaining that there is a situation that he had wanted Invincible to handle, but that he has someone else who can do the job since he was still busy.

(On the other side of the world, the Maulers are stopped from stealing more equipment for their schemes by the Immortal, who "thanks" them for bringing him back to life and trying to use him as their minion. The fight is short, to the point, and generally painful... for the Maulers at least.)

Once Lethan returns, he finishes the preparations of the groom, adorning him with a collection of ancient jewelry, dating back to the courtship of the original King Aquarus the First of Atlantis. Mark noticed that the vizier seemed hesitant to finish the preparations. His arrangement of the ceremonial garb are slow, often filled with unnecessary fiddling, and his explanations of the ceremony are long-winded and filled with irrelevant divergences and long pauses. As he finishes the final steps of the preparation, Mark realizes that the long, hangdog expression that the fish-man has been wearing all day is not, in fact, his natural expression, but rather one of misery.

"Lethan," Invincible asks, "you love her, don't you?"

The vizier's eyes widen and the statement, and in a tone of fear mingled with relief, he replies, "Yes! Oh, God, yes! I can't hide it anymore! I love her -- I've always loved her! Ever since Aquarus died, I've dreamt of replacing him at her side."

Lethan closes his eyes, and adds, "I am very sorry, my liege. I know it is treason to say such things but I cannot contain myself any longer! You must realize how special Aquaria is -- what an honor it must be to just be with her. I'm sorry, sire. I'll accept whatever punishment you deem fit for me... no matter how severe."

Invincible smiles. "Punish you? Dude, you can have her. I've only met her once. I'm just doing this to keep your people from attacking the surface. Why haven't you just told her how you feel? If she has you, she wouldn't have to marry me."

Lethan shakes his head. "I'm not royalty. Your situation with her is an extenuating circumstance. I would have to do something immense to elevate my status enough to be worthy of her -- and the crown, in front of your people."

Invincible smiles broader. "Is that so? Well... I think I've got a plan that'll help both of us...."

* * *

The arena is old, made of ancient coral and rock, and is packed with as many Atlanteans as it can hold, plus more. Aquaria reclines on an ancient flat-topped rock, dressed in little more than a lacy set of undergarments. The depth dweller - a strange sea serpent-like being with a feral anger in its eyes - floats near the center of the arena, over a hole that leads down into whatever depths it came from. Invincible isn't sure why it doesn't attack the people in the stadium, but he's pretty sure he can take it down quickly. Not that he plans to, exactly.

When Lethan makes the announcement, the crowd roars its approval of the upcoming fight. Invincible flings himself away from the beast, cowering and crying out in false fear, and for a moment, he's absolutely certain that no one is going to buy it. But Lethan plays his part, berating him to fight and protect the queen, as the depth dweller realizes that this ritual isn't going exactly how it should and there's a tasty Atlantean morsel lying unprotected nearby. Lethan turns and shouts, "Back, monster!" and makes threatening gestures, presenting a target for all the attention of the spectators... and leaving his broad back facing Invincible.

No one notices the super-strength-powered clap of the hands that generates the wave that propels Lethan at the depth dweller in a churning rush of bubbles. Lethan has the good sense to turn as he barrels towards the target, and Invincible's aim is dead on. The vizier strikes the depth dweller right chest, and both of them fly backwards, across the arena, and slam into the opposite wall. The massive serpentine creature takes the brunt of the blow and is knocked senseless, leaving Lethan to declare his love to the astonished queen. As the former vizer (now king) of Atlantis takes his queen in his arms and moves to complete the final part of the ceremony in front of the cheering throngs of his new subjects, Invincible decides he really doesn't need to be there any more. Discarding the dress, the compact mechanical gills, and all the other bits of Atlantean dress, he makes for the surface, reflecting on how unbelievable its been, and hoping that Debbie will let him order a pizza for dinner.

comments

1nv1nc1ble @ 2013-02-14T16:07:00

2013-02-14T21:27:48Z

The sun is high in the sky as Mark patrols over the American Midwest. It's quiet, and he's taking advantage of the lull in activity to just drift across the sky, the flying equivalent of taking an easy stroll. His earpiece is quiet and there's no troubles for him to rush to. It's just him and the sky, with nothing to worry about.

The impact from behind is fierce enough to knock him from the air. Mark tumbles out of control, fighting to right himself, but he slams into the side of a mountain and embeds in the rock before he has a chance to recover from the surprise attack. The weight of the rock grips at him, but he tears free, and rises to his feet, ready to face his attacker.

Nolan hovers in front of him, covered in fresh blood. "Hello, Mark."

"Dad? What are you doing here?"

"I went by the house, son," he says. "Your mother and I had a ... talk." He studies the blood on his hands. "She told me where to find you." Nolan's mild expression deepens into a fierce scowl. "I came to finish what we started."

With a scream of rage, Mark launches himself at his father, but the older man is just as fast as he remembered, and the blow that slams him backwards nearly knocks him senseless. Before he can rise, Nolan is on him, shoving him against the mountainside with one hand as the other fist rises to deliver the first punch. Mark feels blow after blow rain down on him, cracking teeth, bruising skin, and breaking ribs. Above it all, he sees the face of his father, looking like nothing less than an angry god.

Finally, there is a brief pause, and Mark squints up through swollen eyelids. "Why are you doing this?" he asks. "I love you, Dad."

The expression on Nolan Grayson's face doesn't change. "I don't care," he says, and he reaches out and takes his son's throat in both hands. Mark feels the pressure increase, sees his vision go dim, and then...

Mark jerks awake, the nightmare fading as he realizes that he has a bedsheet partially wrapped around his neck, rather than the hand of his father. He is soaked in sweat and trembling from adrenaline. He looks over at the clock; it's close to three in the morning. With a ragged sigh, he sits up, extracts himself from the sheets, and goes to get a glass of water.

comments

1nv1nc1ble @ 2013-02-07T12:36:00

2013-02-07T19:06:10Z

It was decided that, given that Mark returned home near the end of a week, that he would not go back to school until the next Monday. Really, Mark suggested it and Debbie didn't offer any commentary on it one way or the other (which was a bit worrying to Mark, but his mother was getting up and doing all the things she normally did, so he was willing to let it slide for the moment). So, the weekend after he returned home, he wakes up at his usual time, gets into his costume, and heads out for some Saturday morning patrol.

"Cecil?" he asks. It's still a little strange to use the earpiece, and Invincible has to restrain himself from cupping a hand over his ear in mid-flight.

"What's up, Mark?" comes the voice of the older man in his left ear. "Nothing's going on right now, so you can just patrol, if you're feeling restless."

"Yeah, I'm out over the PCH right now... wait, are you watching me?"

"Mark, you're one of the most powerful super-beings on the planet, the son of Omni-Man, and working for me. Of course, I'm watching you."

"Hmm. Good point." He swoops down to make sure a fishing boat near Santa Cruz Island isn't in danger of capsizing, then climbs back up to his original altitude, turning north. "Can I help in San Francisco?" he asks.

There is a moment of silence across the channel. "How so?" asks Cecil.

"Well, I figure I can help with the cleanup," says Invincible, pausing in his flight to hover over the 101 while he explains. "There was a lot of damage."

More silence. "You don't need to do that," says Cecil, in a concilatory tone.

"I want to. Can they use me?"

"Give me just a moment." A minute or two passes, and Invincible watches the seagulls hover on thermals below him and cars pass underneath him (wishing not for the first time that he had some sort of super-vision). "Okay," Cecil says, "I checked with the Engineers Corps commander. He says he could use someone with some super-strength to help clear some of the bigger wreckage. He's expecting you at the command post at the Civic Center."

"Cool," says Invincible, heading north again. "Uh... are there any other heroes there?"

"Doc Noble should be there later today with some equipment, but nobody else has been officially tapped by the government."

"So, no Youngblood?"

"Nope," says Cecil. "They're in Afghanistan. Why? Did you want to meet them?"

"God, no. They're ridiculous."

"I agree," says Cecil. "But somebody in the White House likes them, so we use them. Anyway, I'll let you know if anything needs your attention."

"Thanks, Cecil." Invincible accelerates and arrives in San Francisco in a matter minutes.

Colonel Ortiz of the Army Corps of Engineers is, in fact, waiting for Invincible at the command post at the Civic Center on Market Street. The older man looks the young superhero up and down briefly, and says, "I've been told you want to help clear some of the wreckage out."

Invincible nods. "Yes sir. I helped make this mess; I'd like to help clean it up."

Ortiz nods approvingly. "A good attitude to take, young man. What do you know about this sort of thing?"

"Almost nothing," Invincible admits. "But I'm strong and I can fly. At the very least, I can be a crane-with-a-brain for you. Point me at something, Colonel, and I'll move it."

Colonel Ortiz chuckles. "It's a bit more complicated than that, Invincible," he says, motioning one of his officers over, "but I think we have a use for you. Sergeant, would you see that our friend here gets over to Lieutenant Sanger's squad. They can put him to work clearing out the rubble in their area."

"Yes, sir," says the sergeant. He motions to Invincible. "This way."

Lieutenant Sanger's squad does indeed have work for him, and Invincible spends the next three hours lifting pieces of rubble that would otherwise have to be broken down before transport. Large pieces of concrete, with girders partially embedded, are awkward loads, but once Invincible gets a grip on them, he can lift them free, especially after the Engineers have surveyed the rubble and attached cables at sturdy anchor points, allowing Invincible to lift them straight up like a crane might. Once they're airborne, he can transport them to a safe area, where they can be broken down by other personnel. On his first trip, with a massive slap of concrete, steel, and glass, Invincible idly wonders how they'll do that. His curiosity is alleviated when he lands.

"Invincible?! You're okay!" Atom Eve all but shouts with relief as he lowers the load of rubble into the parking lot of Candlestick Park.

"Hey, Eve," he replies, distractedly. He lowers the rubble to the ground, waits for the soldiers to make sure it's secure and wave to him, then lands, careful to keep the cables he's been holding straight. "Yeah," he adds as the redhead lands near him, "I'm doing better. I guess. What are you doing here?"

"I flew up this morning and offered to help break down some of the rubble," she says. She motions to one side of the parking lot, where a large tanker truck is idling. "Converting concrete is pretty easy, and they need the water for other uses."

"Cool," he says. He nods to the soldier waiting for him nearby. "I have to get the cables off this load and get back over to the site. You wanna get some lunch in a little bit?"

"Sure," says Eve, smiling. She's very glad that Mark's okay. William had said something about it, just before he asked her out, but to see him up and around is curiously relieving.

"Cool. See you then."

At lunch, Invincible joins Eve back at Candlestick. The Army provides lunch for them, and Invincible is surprised at the general quality of the food. "I always heard these guys got crappy food," he admits quietly to Eve as he sits down. "This looks better than anything at school."

"The governor's making sure there's plenty of fresh food coming into the city," she says. "He's really stepped up in this emergency."

"Not bad for a guy who does action movies," says Invincible.

They eat in silence for a few minutes, and then Eve asks, quietly, "Mark... are you really okay?"

Invincible chews on his bologna sandwich and swallows before answering. "I'm not okay... but I'm better than I was. Dad...," he stops, closing his eyes and swallowing the tension that rises up with the memory of the fight. "He... he almost killed me."

Eve reaches across the table and lays her hand on Invincible's arm in comfort and reassurance. He looks up and smiles at her. "I'm doing better," he repeats.

"Good," she replies. She's about to say something else when he straightens up and touches his hand to his ear. "What's up?" he asks, then rolls his eyes. "Again? Where are they?" Eve realizes he's talking to someone on the radio. "Got it. I can be there in a few minutes." He pauses, then adds, "I'll have to tell Colonel Ortiz... oh, okay." He looks over at Eve, then says, "I have Atom Eve here; should I bring her along?" He nods, "Okay, I'll let her know."

He looks up at her again, and says, "The Flaxans have opened another portal in Saudi Arabia. The Guardians are holding them right now, but they need help. Colonel Ortiz knows I've being called away, and I've been asked to bring you, if you're up to it."

Eve nods and drains her drink. "Let's go."

comments

Afterwards

2013-01-16T02:33:23Z

[OOC: Dialogue from Invincible #12.]

If Mark dreamed, he doesn't remember it. One minute, he's in pain, lying on the side of a mountain, and the next, he's in less pain, lying in a hospital bed. In fact, it's the noise of someone coming into the room that wakes him up. "Huh?"

The man standing at the foot of his bed has grey hair and a face seamed with age and stress. Mark thinks he looks a little like Jack Palance, except for the nasty scar that puckers his right cheek around the corner of his mouth. "Oh, good," he says, "you're awake."

"I...." Mark stares at him for a moment as he struggles to sit up. Then, his memory of the fight comes crashing back, and he feels a pit open in his stomach. "I thought it might have been a dream," he finishes.

"Believe me, kid," the older man says. "I wish it were." He straightens up, and continues, "You've been out for almost two weeks... but my guys have got you patched up real good. You should be back up to full speed in a day or two. We're basically just keeping you here for observation. We want to make sure there's nothing wrong that we missed."

"My name is Cecil Stedman. You don't know me, but I knew your father very well... or so I thought. I'm so high ranked in the U.S. government that I don't even have a rank. I'm so far above the head of the CIA that he doesn't even know I exist. I'm also in charge of the Guardians of the Globe in their new, government-sanctioned entity, and the newly reinstated Guard Organization...."

Mark tunes him out, running over the last thing his father said to him. The last thing he said to his father. He's dimly aware that Stedman is trying to ask him something, but he doesn't care. Whatever the man wants, it's not important. All that's important is that Omni-Man - his father - nearly killed him.

After a few minutes, Stedman stops talking. A minute or two later, he leaves. Mark barely recognizes this until well after it happened. He stares at the opposite wall for a few minutes, his mind numb. Then, he lies back down, pulls the blanket over his head, and goes to sleep.

* * *

Mark wakes later and lies staring at the ceiling. He has to get up. Omni-Man may have been an alien invader, but Invincible is a super-hero. And he needs to get up and prove that he wasn't beaten. If only to himself. To be the hero that he was inspired to be, in spite of the truth that his father revealed to him.

Plus, he really, really needs to pee.

He's surprised how easy it is for him to get out of bed and to the bathroom. He expected, after the beating he received, to be like one of those horribly sick people he sees on hospital shows, who can't move about without help. But he really only feels sore and tired, and he has to admit that he feels better than he did when he first woke up. Especially after he used the bathroom.

He finds some of his clothes in a closet and changes out of the hospital gown. He's just finished tying his shoes when the door to the room slides open, and Cecil Stedman enters. "You look better," says the older man.

"I feel better," admits Mark. "How did I get here?"

"My team brought you here. We were watching the fight."

Mark vaguely remembers Stedman talking about his organization when he first woke up, watching the globe and monitoring for problems that Omni-Man was sent after (he supposes that now it will be the Guardians who respond). "So, it was all over the news?"

"Yeah," replies Stedman, "to say the least. It's public knowledge that you were the son of Omni-Man. Now the public sees you and Omni-Man in a knock-down, drag-out brawl that resulted in thousands of lost lives, and over twice as many injuries. Nobody knows why, though. Nobody knows you were protecting this planet from your father. Nobody knows you were risking your life for the good of us all."

Mark's eyes narrow. "How do you know?"

Stedman gestures to the side of his head. "Your father's earpiece, the one I mentioned before, works both ways." Mark recalls that Stedman had, when explaining his organization had said he was "the man on the other end of his beeper, and when he was in costume, his earpiece." He nods and Stedman continues, "He could hear me; I could hear him. It picks up quite a bit. I could hear you as well. We have the whole conversation recorded."

Stedman turns toward the door and gestures. "Come with me." Mark, curious, rises and follows. Stedman takes him into a gray hallway - metal walls and floors, fluorescent lights, and no indication of where they are - and leads him off in one direction. Mark looks around as they walk, but aside from Stedman and himself, there are no other people in sight. Cameras, on the other hand, are omnipresent.

"It's good to see you up and around," says Stedman after a moment. His tone is light and relieved, making small talk. "How do you feel?"

"Fine, I guess."

"Good." They stop in front of a door, which slides open at touch of a button. "Through here."

The room is white. No, Mark thinks, that's the wrong way to put it. There is no room visible, just an omnidirectional whiteness. He can see the floor, the walls, or the ceiling. Just white. He hesitates for a moment, but steps forward, expecting to have to fly when the floor disappears, but he feels something under his feet, and Stedman's hand is on his shoulder, gently moving him forward.

"As I was saying," Stedman continues, following Mark into the whiteness, "we have the whole conversation on tape. We let your mother listen to it, to save you the trouble of having to explain this whole ordeal. She was pretty upset, but I think it woll be good for her in the long run to have heard everything your father said."

Mark draws his attention away from the lack of surroundings and turns on Stedman. "You did what?!" he demands. "She heard everything he said? How could you do that to her?! Some of the things he said... I can't bear the though of her ever hearing them. What the hell were you thinking?"

"It was the best way. Trust me," Stedman asserts. "What would you have told her had happened? His reasons... his motives? Don't you think she deserves to know the truth?"

"Yeah, but--"

"I did the right thing. If you had sugar-coated the whole situation, maybe she would be sitting at home waiting for him to come back, instead of dealing with the seriousness of it all."

Mark thinks about this, then nods. "I suppose you're right." Then: "Wait a minute... where are we?"

Stedman blinks, then says, "Oh, sorry." Then, to no one Mark can see: "Lights."

The whiteness disappears in an eyeblink, to be replaced with a large room, filled with activity. Off to Mark's right, a number of men and women, clad in white jumpsuits, sit at monitoring stations, watching what appear to be news feeds and spy satellite broadcasts. Off in the distance, other technicians work on what looks like a massive engine or other device. And in one corner, a pair of doctors lean over the spreadeagled form of the Immortal, joining both halves of the hero into a cohesive whole. "Okay, that's enough," says Stedman. "Lights."

The whiteness returns, as fast as it had disappeared. "What?" Mark looks around, confused. "What in the world just happened? Where did all that go?"

"It's still here," says Stedman. "It hasn't moved. The water America drinks so conveniently from their tap is laced with a chemical that inhibits the eye's ability to see certain frequencies of light. Those frequencies are used in this room."

"So, it's all just invisible?"

"Yes. You and everyone else in America don't have the ability to see things in this room, and elsewhere. You'd be surprised how often this is used. I turned the lights off for a second just so you could see what I'm talking about." He fixes Mark with a serious expression. "I hope you didn't see too much... if you did, I'll have to kill you."

Mark blanches, then sees a glint of humor in Stedman's eye. "Hah hah! Very funny," he replies, deadpan.

"An oldie but a goodie."

Mark looks down at himself. "So if it's the light in the room that's making me unable to see anything, how come I can see myself... and you?"

Stedman sighs. Not the first time someone's asked this question. "That's complicated. We didn't want you to be too alarmed when you came in; it was important that you at least see something. Explaining that would be a waste of time... a lot of time."

He turns and starts walking, and Mark follows. "Okay... where was I? Oh, yeah... your mother knows. I've also taken care of your family finances, so you won't have to worry about an income. Your college too will be paid for. I've pulled some strings. You got a full scholarship to that university upstate last week."

"Sweet!"

Stedman stops and looks at Mark, eyebrows raised. "Aren't you the least bit concerned with what I want in return for all this? I am part of the big scary government after all."

"Crap," says Mark, his good mood evaporating. "I knew there'd be a catch."

Stedman smiles. "Don't worry. It's not that bad." He turns and starts walking again. Mark tries to at least hear what's going on behind the whiteness, but Stedman is still talking. "Your father is gone. We monitored him on our sensors all the way past our range. He didn't change trajectories at all. He was going somewhere. He is not in our solar system anymore."

"We have proof that there are other planets capable of supporting life. Knowing how long he can hold his breath and how fast he can fly... it is not unreasonable to assume your father could make it to one of these planets. He was not committing suicide by flying into space - that was one of our technicians' theories - at least... we're pretty sure he wasn't."

"What I'm getting at is that he's gone. Your father was very valuable to us, especially after the Guardians of the Globe were dead. He saved a lot of lives and this entire planet more times than I can remember."

Stedman turns and fixes Mark with that serious expression again, but this time there is no humor hidden in it. "We need a replacement."

comments

1nv1nc1ble @ 2013-01-05T13:57:00

2013-01-05T19:35:22Z

By the time that the two hover wagons, packed full of United Nations security personnel and medical staff with a working knowledge of superhuman physiognomy have arrived in the French Alps, Invincible has slipped into a coma. The first doctor (no EMTs here; the medical staff are some of the top doctors in the world) crosses the broken rubble hurriedly and bends over to examine his patient. Invincible is covered in blood - most of it his - and his face is contorted in a state of pain. The doctor checks the young man's vital signs, ensures that he is breathing, and administers an inhaled anesthetic and painkiller mix that he has used on other heroes whose skin is too tough for a hypodermic. His partner begins carefully checking Invincible for broken bones, finding that, even this soon after the horrific beating that he received at the hands of Omni-Man, his ribs and face already show signs of healing. Still, the amount of damage that the young man has received is excessive, and as soon as they have finished their preliminary examination, they signal for the hovering gurney to be brought.

The security detail watches vigilantly as the two doctors carefully lift in unison, transferring Mark from the ground to the gurney. The sergeant in charge keeps one ear on the tactical band, waiting for the warnings that Omni-Man has changed his mind, turned around, and is heading back to finish the job. He knows that, as a unit, they have little in the way of any chance of stopping the rogue from killing the young hero that they're trying to save, but he knows that his team will do everything in their power to allow the medics to escape with their patient. He sincerely hopes that it doesn't come to that.

If the sergeant, and the rest of the world for that matter, heard the conversation that Omni-Man and Invincible had been having during the fight, he might have realized that Nolan Grayson can no more turn around and finish his fight with his son than he can turn back time and change how it started.

* * *

Across the world, people watch as Omni-Man reveals himself for what he is and brutally beats Invincible nearly to death. In Riverside, a choice few who know the truth of who the two heroes are watch with sick horror growing. Debbie Grayson, surrounded by UN Security personnel, watches numbly from the couch that she has been sitting on since she first saw the news about the Immortal's attack, wanting nothing more than to rush to her son and husband's sides, no matter the circumstances. William Clockwell sits on his dingy easy chair, watching his best friend bleed and fall under his father's fists, and suddenly thinks that it wouldn't be so cool to be a superhero after all. Eve Wilkins, sitting on her bed, ignores her mother's call to dinner and watches, hand over her mouth in horror, and feels something twist in her gut when she sees Mark fall to the broken ground. Art Rosenbaum, tailor to superheroes, sits in his secret shop, costumes half completed and forgotten around him, and listens to the news casters report the damage one of his best friends has done as he drinks his way through a bottle of whiskey.

Hours pass. Debbie is brought to a secret government hospital near the Pentagon, where Agent Cecil Stedman takes her to her son. The scarred government agent has never met Omni-Man's wife in person, but he is struck by her poise as she is passed through security checkpoints. Mark lies unconscious, hooked to a dozen machines, monitoring his health and helping him breath. Debbie holds her calm facade until the security agents have escorted her into the room, and then she breaks down, weeping in both relief and grief. Cecil Stedman, Omni-Man's handler and (so he thought) friend, sits next to her, his grief almost as deep as hers.

Days pass. Eve finds her gaze drawn to the empty desk next to hers in Physics. Mark is officially on medical absence; word has come that Nolan and Mark Grayson were in a car crash at the beginning of May, and Mark is hospitalized with injuries related to that. As far as the world is concerned, noted travel guide author Nolan Grayson died in the accident.

William knocks on the front door of the Grayson house. The front porch is piled with mail and packages. He heard the same story at school that Eve did, and noticed that no hospital was mentioned. He hopes that Debbie Grayson is home, so he can confess his knowledge of her son's secret identity, in the hopes of finding out something. But after ten minutes of knocking and ringing the bell, no one answers, and William realizes that Debbie is probably wherever her son is. Almost as an afterthought, he stacks the mail neatly to the side of the door and then wanders off down the street toward his own home, unsure what to do next.

And then, after two weeks, Mark Grayson wakes.

comments

The Consequences. [Warning: Gore and Violence]

2012-11-21T22:27:08Z

[OOC: Dialogue from Invincible #12, except for quotes.]

Invincible's bringing back a fist when the first punch lands, so fast that he barely sees Omni-Man's weight shift. He doesn't have time to react before it connects, and his face explodes into pain and he is knocked backwards. Out of control, he barrels towards the California coast, balance and senses reeling. Not so much flying as falling, he is only dimly aware of the coastline flashing past under him, over forested areas and the gridlocked traffic on the 101. And then, he is over San Francisco and still out of control.

The impact with the first building takes his breath away, but traveling through it only takes a second. Invincible isn't ready for the second impact, closer to the ground, and he augers into the basements of the building, shedding speed as he hits the concrete and bedrock. He barely has time to take a breath before there is a shuddering, groaning noise, and the roof collapses onto him.

It takes him a few minutes to dig free, and he lifts a large piece of wreckage off of himself and stands on the pile of rubble that was a San Francisco skyscraper a few minutes ago. He can hear car alarms going off in the distance, sirens as emergency vehicles mobilize, and the screams and cries of frightened people, but in his immediate vicinity, everything is quiet, save for the shifting of rubble. A warmth on his upper lip makes him touch his face, and for the first time since before he tossed a bag of garbage into the sky, he sees his own blood on his fingers.

"So I have to ask," she says, with a curious smile, "are you really invincible, Invincible?"

If Carol was in doubt to Invincible's age, the grin that question provokes should banish any doubt, because it makes him look several years younger than his venerable age of 18(almost 19). "I get that question a lot here," he says. "So far, nothing's hurt me. And that includes being up to my chin in invading aliens."

"Son, now do you see?" Omni-Man hovers nearby, having followed Invincible down. "This is not your world. One punch from one of our people and thousands lose their lives. Can't you understand that? These people are beneath us. Their lives are insignificant at best."

"This place has nothing to offer you, or any of our kind. It is here to be conquered and improved. Left to its own devices, it would be a complete waste."

It occurs to Mark that the silence around him is because all the people who would otherwise be calling for help are dead, buried in the wreckage he stands on. "How can you say these things?" demands Mark. Omni-Man hit him. His father hit him. Mark feels his temper starting to boil over. "How can you say that about Mom?! You love her... I've seen it!"

Nolan shakes his head, a short, angry gesture. "Your mother means nothing to me."

Mark's always heard the about people seeing red when they get angry, but he's never experienced it. To be honest, he still doesn't. There's the rushing noise of his own pulse in his ears, and he's moving before he even thinks about it. "LIAR!!"

Voodoo nods in approval. "Good. Little sloppy, little outta control, but the power's there. Now, second thing," he says, moving to the bag and stopping its spin with a lazily outstretched hand. "You're relying on your arms too much. You build a punch from the ground up, with your legs, hips, and core - your arms're just the messenger. What you wanna do is-" he pantomimes this very slowly "-push off your back foot, bring your weight over to your front foot, twist your hips like you're swingin' a baseball bat, and aim a couple inches behind the motherfucker's head. That way you're still goin' full speed when you make contact."

Nolan is surprised at the speed of Mark's punch. He's doubly surprised at the force as it literally throws him backwards, overcoming his power of flight temporarily. His jaw stinging from the blow, he rides the force backwards and redirects it, coming up and over and down at Mark. "No!" he shouts as he charges. "I'm telling you the truth for the first time in your life!"

Mark tries to bring his guard up, tries to slip sideways to dodge Nolan's charge, tries to hit him as he closes, tries to do anything, but to no avail. Nolan's charge is simply too fast, and the impact - both fists high in Mark's chest - knocks the wind out of him. Omni-Man's charge is at an angle, and both of them crash through the wreckage of the collapsed building, tearing through concrete and asphalt, through pipes and conduits, and emerging in one of the Bay Area Rapid Transit underground tunnels... just in time for the 5:15 express out of Downtown.

Mark feels the train crumple under them on impact with a sound like a giant aluminum can being crushed under a titan's heel. The tunnel begins to collapse and people are thrown from the wrecked train like jackstraws. Some of them do not get back up. Mark can hear screaming and alarms, as he struggles to breathe.

Nolan stands over him, his face a mask of furious anger that Mark has seen a hundred times before, captured by some daring news cameraman filming Omni-Man in combat with a super-criminal or giant monster. The fact that it is directed at his own son would make Mark afraid, if he weren't already so angry. "I don't give a DAMN about anyone on this planet!" shouts Nolan over the sounds of screaming people and collapsing concrete. "They mean nothing to me. They are livestock - meaningless animals - you can't look at them as equals!"

Mark kicks out, taking advantage of his father's pause. Nolan is close enough that the clumsy kick catches him in the gut, and Omni-Man gets the wind knocked out of him for the first time in many years. "No!" shouts Mark, rising to his feet and springing at his father. "You're wrong!"

Now it is Invincible that hits Omni-Man high in his chest with both fists, driving him into the wall. The charge is short, and Mark is still recovering, so while the concrete craters around them as they hit, they don't crash through and out of the tunnel. "I've seen you save people... I've seen you PROTECT them. You may have been a cold-hearted Viltrumite when you came to Earth but you changed... I've seen it!"

Mark uncorks his southpaw and drives Nolan back into the wall, and Omni-Man feels a rib give. His son has hurt him. The pain stuns him, but a part of him is also filled with pride; Mark is truly a Viltrumite, with the strength that his people have used to take the galaxy and make it theirs. "You said yourself that you lost your way," Mark shouts as he drives Nolan into the wall with repeated blows to his chest and gut. "You lived as a human while raising me. You said you were happy!!"

Mark can feel tears of rage welling behind his goggles. He blinks them away, grabs his father and throws him across the tunnel, driving him headfirst into the wreckage of their entrance. "You can't make me believe that my life with you was a lie!"

Nolan pulls himself from the wreckage and stands upright. The pain of the rib is fading; Viltrumite physiology is designed to compartmentalize pain and keep the body moving while it heals. He starts to move towards Mark, and then notices that his son is coming at him through a hail of pebbles and dust. He steps back and braces himself as the roof of the tunnel, weakened by the fight, comes down, and Mark is buried underneath thirty feet of rock and asphalt, plus the remnants of the building that was above.

Nolan waits until the weight of the rock brings Mark down before he moves. He tears through the wreckage, grabs his son and throws him over his shoulder, and burrows free of the wreckage, bursting up through the streets of San Francisco and into the sky overhead. Stunned but conscious, Mark pushes himself free as the near the clouds. "Get off me!"

Nolan turns to face his son. "You find my actions hard to believe," he says. "My time here has been a speck in the span of my life; you are not listening to me."

He points at Mark. "You don't even know me, son. Yes! For a time, I was happy! But I knew it couldn't last. My loyalties lie with Viltrum, not this pathetic excuse for a civilization! I will see this planet burn and all life eradicated before I spend another minute living amongst them as one of their own."

He shakes his head. "I'm tired of this game. If you choose to stand against me, you can die with them." He brings his fists up. "I can always produce more offspring."

Mark lashes out with furious left hook. "YOU BASTARD!"

His punch catches Nolan solidly and, for a moment, Mark feels cheered as his blow snaps Nolan's head around. But then his father straightens up and fixes him with a contemptuous look. "Please," he says dismissively, and Mark barely has time to hear it before a thunderous backhand smashes him away and Mark's vision goes white from pain.

As Mark flies backwards from the force of the blow, Nolan presses forward, racing after him. Mark's vision starts to clear and he struggles to get control of his flight... just in time for Nolan to connect with an uppercut. As Mark begins to recover again, slowing his own speed, trying to think through the pain in his face and the spinning in his brain, Nolan catches up with him and hits him again. Soon, all Mark is aware of is a steady, out-of-control rush through the skies and a blinding pain in his face that erupts into new agony every time his father hits him. He's dimly aware of his nose gushing blood and the goggles on his mask shattering under the repeated impacts, but he can barely think, much less have time to react, before Nolan hits him again. And again. And again.

Finally, somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean, having driven his son across the sky of the entire continental United States with hammering blows, Nolan stops. Mark is woozily aware that he has stopped moving, but before he can do something about it, Nolan has him by the scruff of his neck, and they are hurtling down towards the surface of the water. Mark barely has time to hold his breath before they break the surface and plunge at high speeds down towards the bottom of the ocean.

The Atlantic is, on average, more than 10,000 feet deep, and Mark cannot see anything except murky blackness before long. Blinded as he is, he has no idea of the proximity of the sea bottom... until Nolan slams him into it with a force powerful enough to register on seismographs in both New England and Great Britain. Mark, bruised and battered and in pain, mercifully blacks out.

Omni-Man waits. Viltrumites, despite their impressive invulnerability, can drown, though it takes a long time. Days, in fact, sometimes months or even longer. If he leaves Mark down here, he knows that his son will wake soon, roused by the pain of trying to breath with lungs filled with fluid. He imagines that Mark would escape, marshall his strength, and come after his father again. It is, after all, what he would do, what any Viltrumite would do. Better to kill him now.

Nolan watches Mark leaps across the backyard with the perpetual energy of an eight-year-old. Debbie has pinned a towel around his neck in an impromptu cape. "Never fear, Science Dog," he says to the action figure he holds in one hand. "Omni-Man will help you stop Dr. Madborg!"

Omni-Man shakes his head. Irrelevant. He grabs Invincible by the back of the uniform and hauls hims out of the ocean, rising from the depths with as much speed as he descended. Better to crush the life out of him above the ocean, he thinks. Better to be certain.

"I know you'd like to meet the Guardians, Mark," Nolan says to his twelve-year-old son, who stands in the doorway watching his father get ready for the New Year's Eve party, "but it's a party for adults. You'll be bored; none of the Guardians have kids."

Mark thinks on this for a moment, then grudgingly concedes that it's better for him to stay at home with the babysitter. "I still would like to meet them," he says.

"I'll see if any of them can fly by, but they're busy people, son. You know that." He sees his son's expression fall, and adds, "But I'll have to introduce you to them when you get your powers, right?"

Mark smiles, reminded of the talk he and his father had five years ago. "Right. When I'm a superhero. Like you."

Omni-Man growls at himself. He stops in mid-air and angrily throws the body of his son away from him. Like before, Mark regains consciousness hurtling through the air, coughing seawater out of his lungs this time. He hurts too much to even stop the out-of-control tumble, and he's going to fast to see where he's going. All he can see is the clouds whizzing past at high speed. But his father isn't hitting him at the moment, so for the first time in what seems to be days, he is happy to just lie there and try to recover some of his strength.

And then he hits the side of the mountain.

The Belledonne Range of the French Alps averages approximately 9,500 feet in height, and Mark hits about two-thirds of the way up, with enough force to bury him completely. The snow compresses, slowing his impact, but the force causes the whole shelf of packed ice to shatter and tumble down the slope. Mark is engulfed in a rumbling sea of white as rocks and ice batter him senseless again. He doesn't even feel it when the avalanche propels him through a small village, leveling most of the buildings. Finally, at the bottom of the valley, the slide stops, and Mark lies, partially buried, in the snow, aware of nothing but pain, cold, and the taste of his own blood in his mouth.

He's not lying there for more than a few moments, before he feels a hand around his arm and Omni-Man yanks him free of the snow. "Had enough yet?" asks Nolan, dryly.

Mark squints past the cracked goggles of his mask, spits blood from his mouth, and says, "I will stop you."

"I'm ready when you are," responds Nolan, and casually, contemptuously knocks him across the valley. New pain blossoms in Mark's face, which is immediately overwhelmed by the bone-shattering pain of impacting with the side of another mountain. This mountain doesn't have quite as heavy a snowpack, and Mark slams through the ice and snow and into the rock with a massive impact.

There comes a point, Mark thinks as he pulls himself free, when there's so much pain that it just becomes background noise in your brain. He rolls over and sees Omni-Man approaching. "You're doing this for nothing," his father says. "We will share our technology with them! We'll bring them up to speed with the rest of the Universe. In time, Earth will be better than it ever was!"

Mark pulls himself to his feet, trying not to look at the sheer amount of blood he's left on the mountainside. "And if--," he stops, spits blood again, and then resumes. "What if they resist?"

"We will destroy them," says Nolan, with the surety of a man who knows that the sun will rise in the east and rain falls from the sky. "But that's what we're here for... to keep them from resisting."

Mark rises and stands on his feet, facing his father. He can feel his uniform sticking to him, adhered by the by the blood that he must be covered in. He hurts all over, with a deep pain that he's never felt before today, not even when Allen the Alien slugged him. He wobbles briefly, then steadies himself and raises his fists in front of him. "I won't let you enslave these people," he says, with as much surety as his father. "Dad, it isn't right."

"Dad?"

"Yes, Mark?" replies Nolan, looking up from his paper. It's a early Sunday morning, and fifteen-year-old Mark is working on Current Events project for school. Predictably enough, he's focusing on superheroes.

"Why do they do it?" At Nolan's curious glance, he clarifies. "Why did this...," he looks down at the newspaper clipping he's got in his hand, "...this Dr. Dragon try to blow up Shanghai? Why do any of them do it?"

Nolan considers this. "Because they're criminals, Mark. Dr. Dragon wanted to hurt people. Why he wanted to do it wasn't important at the time, just that he could and did try. So, I stopped him. Because it wasn't right."

Nolan's expression darkens with rage, and he lashes out, overcoming Mark's weak boxing stance (That's boxing, a corner of his mind observes. Who's been teaching Mark to box?) and smashing him to the ground. "WHY?!" he shouts. He picks Mark up and throws him downslope. "WHY?!" he repeats.

He closes the distance in a heartbeat, slamming his son back into the rocks before he can recover. "WHY DO YOU RESIST?! WHAT IS IT THAT YOU THINK THIS WORLD HAS TO OFFER?!"

Nolan stands over his son's battered, brutalized form. "Whatever you're fighting for right now will be gone before you have time to enjoy it!" he shouts. "You are fighting so you can watch everything around you DIE!!"

"Think, Mark! THINK!! The older we get, the slower we age! You will outlast every fragile being on this planet. You will live to see the end of this civilization! Everything and everyone you know will be gone! WHAT WILL YOU HAVE AFTER FIVE HUNDRED YEARS?!"

"You, Dad. I'd still have you."

The frustration and fury boiling in Nolan's brain come to a peak. Gritting his teeth, he snarls down at his son and pulls back a bloody fist to finish the fight, to strike the final blow that would end Mark's life. To kill the only other Viltrumite on Earth, who he raised, teaching him to be good and to fight for what was right and to be a hero. His legacy. His future. His son.

"Dad?"

Nolan's fist hangs, trembling, over his son, for an infinitesimally long, infinitesimally short time, and then....

"Dad?" Mark asks again, fearing the silence. But Nolan Grayson, Omni-Man, is gone, breaking the sound barrier many times over in his haste to escape Earth's atmosphere, tears freezing on his cheeks in the hard vacuum of space.

comments

The Truth

2012-11-01T01:21:33Z

[OOC: Dialogue from Invincible #13.]

"Okay, son," Nolan says, covered in the blood of the Immortal, "I've decided to tell you the truth. I think you're old enough to know where I really come from."

Mark stares at his father, stunned. The Talk, he remembers, came when he was seven, when his father sat down with him and explained about how he had come from Viltrum to Earth, to help it reach a more advanced level of society. And now he was saying this was a lie.

Nolan hadn't stopped, taking Mark's silence for acquiescence. "I am from the planet Viltrum. That much is true. Although, it is not the planet that I have told you about so many time."

"Viltrum was a planet that had achieved a perfect global society... but it didn't happen overnight. It was decided that in order for our people to obtain intergalactic dominance, we must eliminate the weak from our planet. It was a very messy process. When the dust had settled, our population had been cut nearly in half... but what had emerged from the ashes of our old society was a fierce, unbeatable warrior race. Once our battle-scarred planet had been repaired, we set our sights outward. It was proposed that we bring our new world order to other worlds. Our goal was to establish and expand a planetary empire. It was agreed upon unanimously.

"Shortly after the High Council had approved the idea, the World Conquering Committee was formed. The first step of the initiative was to locate other planets that were in a crucial stage of development... planets that were far enough along that adding them to the empire would be a worthwhile endeavor, but not so far along that we would be unable to overcome their defenses. The second step was to install a global watchtower where we could keep supplies for a long-term occupation, and monitor the entire planet from orbit. The final step was to send a team of representatives down to the planet's surface to announce our takeover. This team would stay behind on the planet, monitoring its activities.

"Races who cooperated were given access to our technologies, which could be used to improve the quality of life under our rule. Races who resisted were not looked upon so favorably."

The euphemism is not lost on Mark. His father is talking about conquest, and possibly genocide, of an intelligent race, just because they chose not to acquiesce to Viltrum's demands. Mark isn't stupid; he knows what he and his father can do, and the idea of an invading army of Viltrumites, each with the abilities that Omni-Man and Invincible possess, is staggering. Mark would find it horrifying, except for a simple fact.

His father is still talking. His voice is calm, perhaps a little hurried, but he clearly believes everything that he is telling Mark. And that, that simple factual tone that Nolan is taking, is so much more horrifying than the idea of a Viltrumite invasion force, that Mark half expects his alarm clock to wake him, and to find that all of this, from the moment he saw Omni-Man fighting the Immortal on the television at Night Flight Comics to now, to be a dream.

"With our expansion clearly a success," continues Nolan, "my people doubled their efforts. We began to enlist the aid of races we had conquered to continue to expand our empire. Though they were not quite as efficient as our own forces, it did help with our expansionist efforts. By the time I was born, Viltrum was already a hub of interstellar activity - one of the first great empires of the galaxy. There couldn't have been a better time to enter this world.

"Word traveled around Viltrum about how much of a success the World Conquering Committee was. Soon, it was the most popular profession on Viltrum. Of course, when I came of age, I signed up for duty. I was on the Search Committee; my job was to locate and evaluate planets that might be ripe for conquest. By then, the operation had been perfected. I was stationed on a mobile base that traveled from planet to planet as we conquered them.

"I was not content to just help my people locate other worlds. Like all the Search Committee members my age, I longed for the chance to take a more active role in the world conquering. For three years straight, I attended auditions until at last I had proved myself. I impressed the heads of Recruitment so much that I got one of the best posts in the Conquering Committee. I was stationed at the forefront of the expansion efforts... at the very edge of our ever-growing empire.

"I threw myself into my work. It was messy work... but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it. There was nothing I wouldn't do for Viltrum. There still isn't."

Like murder seven of the most heroic people that Humanity has ever seen, Mark doesn't say. He keeps staring, waiting for someone - anyone - to tell him that this isn't real.

"As we moved across the galaxy adding civilization after civilization to our empire, I quickly rose through the ranks. It wasn't long before I was leading my own division. It didn't matter if it took one hundred hours or one hundred years. No civilization we set our sights on went unconquered. We were unstoppable."

Mark finds himself nodding slightly. The idea of anyone being capable of stopping an army of Viltrumites seems impossible to him. Even the Immortal, a man reputed to have been alive for more than three millennia, was unable to stop Omni-Man.

Nolan notices his son nodding and feels heartened. He continues, "Our continued success was partially because of my efforts. For which I was greatly rewarded, at first with awards and eventually, with much more."

"As our empire grew, our forces became stretched too thin just trying to maintain it. Our expansion screeched to an abrupt halt. It was clear that we needed a more efficient method of world conquering. So one was devised.

"Rather than come in large numbers and conquer a planet by force, our highest ranked and most trusted officers would be essentially given planets to survey and weaken over time. I was one of the first chosen for this assignment.

"We were to acclimate ourselves with the planet's environment, eventually becoming a member of society. Aside from ensuring the planet did not become strong enough to defend itself from us, it would be ours to do with as we pleased for five hundred years. At the end of that time, the knowledge we had collected would be used to quickly and efficiently bring the planet under Viltrum rule.

"It was a privilege to be given this assignment - a reward for all my hard work. It was the closest thing to a vacation that existed on Viltrum."

So that's why no conquering army, thinks Mark. They couldn't keep expanding. Almost like the Romans.

"Upon my arrival," continues Nolan, "I spent days surveying my new home. Earth was a vibrant nest of individuality that was very much alien to me. At first I hated it, and regretted accepting the mission. It was a strange planet, full of strange people. But it was mine."

"It wasn't long before I realized this would be no easy assignment. Had the World Conquering Committee known Earth was such a volatile environment, they may not have chosen it. It seemed its people were almost always in some kind of danger. Every time I turned around, there was a new threat out to conquer the planet before Viltrum even had a chance."

"We had laid claim to this planet," says Nolan, his expression turning grim at the memory, "I was not about to let it fall to another invader. After only a few months, my life had settled into a routine that involved little more than ending threat after threat to the human race. But that was all about to change."

"When I met your mother, I knew the only way to enjoy my time here was to actually live as a human. When it eventually came up, I told her the version of my coming to Earth that you have been told since childhood. It was clear she wouldn't approve of the real reasons I was here."

Understatement of the Year, Dad, Mark does not say, though the look his father gives him makes him realize that Nolan is aware of his son's unspoken snark. Why am I still here? I should get away from him, find someone, let them know that my father is a murderer... but who? The Guardians are all dead, and even if the Immortal survived that, it's not like he can do anything about it for a while....

Besides, Dad can fly faster than me. He'd catch me in no time.

"Living life as a human was not easy at first. Simple concepts like menial labor being required to earn a living were completely alien to me." Nolan pauses, and adds, "Though, the act of physical love made for anything other than procreation was a welcome surprise."

Mark makes a face. Gee, thanks for that image, Dad. Just what I needed, the thought of my father - the murderer - having sex with my mother.

Nolan catches the look and coughs, embarrassed. Clearly, he needs to filter his thoughts a bit. But Mark is still here, and he hasn't said anything to make Nolan stop. He hopes that he's getting through to him. "I soon found myself becoming a regular fixture in the superhero community," he continues. "My natural Viltrumite abilities made me the most powerful being on the planet. I found myself on adventure after adventure. After a time, I realized that my true motives had begun to slip from my mind. I was living the lie a bit too well."

A lie, Mark thinks. To him, his whole life as Omni-Man was a lie.

"It wasn't long after your mother and I married that I first ran into the Guardians of the Globe. I never became an official member, but I was welcomed into the fold with open arms. They helped me along in the early years. They knew I was new to all this and were all too eager to assist me. Some of them I would eventually come to consider friends. But I knew they would never allow me to complete my mission. I knew that they would eventually need to be eliminated."

Nolan's cold and analytical statement that the Guardians, which he had called his friends almost in the same breath, sends chills up Mark's spine. Mark knows that his father isn't human, but he has never seemed alien, until this moment.

"As my years on Earth grew longer, I found myself becoming more and more comfortable living life among its inhabitants. It was something that worried me a great deal. And then everything changed." Through the blood on his face, Nolan smiles paternally at Mark, and he understands that his father is referring to Mark's birth.

"Your mother was so happy... I had no choice but to raise you as a human. I couldn't risk her finding out the truth about me, so I couldn't risk telling you the truth about me. I often thought about taking you, and raising you as a Viltrumite in a secluded area of the planet." Nolan sighs. "I could never bring myself to do it. No matter how I tried to distance myself from her emotionally, I couldn't deny that I had grown quite fond of her."

"I decided that for a time, I would turn my back on my duties and focus on raising you. I thought that you would be able to provide a unique perspective to the World Conquering Committee, having grown up in this alien environment."

Nolan shake his head, then says, "Honestly, I was happy in my new life... but I knew it couldn't last. When you started to develop your powers, I knew I couldn't wait much longer. So I made the first steps toward weakening Earth's defenses. And now it's time for you to join me and help me prepare this planet for its imminent takeover at the hands of our people."

Mark has been listening, for what seems a thousand years, and he doesn't respond when he hears his father end his lengthy explanation. He stares at the deep blue ocean below; the Immortal's body has long disappeared. All he can see are boats making their way through the waters and the occasional whitecap as the wind stirs the surface. He should say something to his father, but he doesn't know what.

Nolan drifts closer to Mark, the wind drying the blood on his face and uniform. "I know this is all hard to take in at once," he says, "but over time - if you give it a chance - you'll begin to understand."

"I'm sorry you had to learn about all this under these circumstances... I tried to talk to you earlier. Seeing this, I know, is not the best way to lead into this speech."

Mark shakes his head. "No," he says. "This can't be true. This doesn't make any sense... you love Mom." He turns away. "I know you do."

"Son, stop. Listen to me." Nolan shifts to where he is facing Mark, but Mark turns away, leaving Nolan staring at his profile. "Do you have any idea what our lifespan is?" he asks, rhetorically. "The older we get the slower we age. We can't live among these... frail things. Your mother is little more than a pet. Viltrumite DNA is so pure and complete that you are nearly full-blooded. I could mate with nearly any alien being of comparable evolutionary development and produce a similar offspring."

"This means you will eventually be as strong as me. You could potentially be stronger... and you will live for thousands of years. Do you understand what the means? Everything you know and love will be gone before you look thirty years old. You do not belong here. Do you really want to watch your world die around you?"

Nolan reaches out to his son, beseeching. "I know this is confusing, but everything you know is wrong. We don't belong here... this world is beneath us... these people are beneath us."

"This planet and its resources are valuable to the Viltrum Empire. With you at my side, we could rule this planet for centuries before we had to turn it over. Think about it, son. You must realize this is right." He reaches out and rests a hand on Mark's shoulder. "Trust me, son. This is the only way."

A spark of something springs forth in Mark's breast at the touch, something that has been building since the confusion at seeing Omni-Man kill the Immortal gave way to horror. The denial fades, replaced with anger, anger at the deception that Nolan - his father - has used on the world, on other superheroes, on Debbie and Mark for all these years. Anger that smoldered until a simple touch from a supposedly loving and supportive father kindles it into a flame.

Mark rarely gives into anger, but when he does, he doesn't tempered it. With a snarl, he slaps away his father's hand. "Don't touch me!"

Nolan frowns. "Mark," he says. "Calm down."

Nolan's tone of voice would have, up until that very moment, given Mark pause. It was the tone of voice he used when Mark painted on the walls when he was four, when he was caught playing with matches in the backyard, and the first time he violated his curfew as a freshman in high school. It promised grounding, docked allowance, and other, more serious punishments.

Today, Mark doesn't care. "No! I will not calm down!" he exclaims. "This is insane! What do you expect here?! That I'm going to enslave my friends for a bunch of aliens that I've never even met?! This is my life... these are my people!"

"Son, please." Nolan raises his hands in a placating gesture. He's seen his son angry before; Mark inherited his temper. "You're not thinking this through. We have a responsibility to our home world. You may not understand now, but--"

"I DON'T GIVE A DAMN ABOUT VILTRUM, OR ANYTHING YOU'RE TELLING ME!" Mark shouts at him. "I DON'T CARE IF I LIVE A MILLION YEARS. THIS IS MY HOME AND I WILL NOT LET YOU DESTROY IT!"

Nolan's frown deepens into a scowl. "Son," he says, afraid that he knows where this going, "you don't understand what you're saying. I can't let you interfere."

Mark raises his hands, clenched in fists, in front of him. "I know exactly what I'm saying!"

Nolan sighs. It's too late; he waited too late to tell him. "So be it," he says.

comments

Wednesday.... [Warning: Last section contains gore and violence]

2012-10-02T20:08:13Z

[OOC: Dialogue from Invincible #10.]

It started out as a completely normal day.

The morning classes were jammed full of education. Well, not really; with the end of the semester coming, most teachers were busy preparing their students for final exams, and in the case of those teaching the senior-level classes, for graduation. Mark spent his first three periods reviewing thorny pre-calc problems, discussing cultural influences in Spanish, and passing notes to Amber in World History. Lunch was a sad excuse for lasagna and a stimulating conversation with Eve, and then a brief break when Milliways had grabbed him. The afternoon had passed without too much going on, and he had begged off of patrolling with Eve, since he wanted to go to the comic shop, and then go hang out with William and Chad at the Burger Mart.

The line outside Night Flight Comics stretched across the mall, and Mark was surprised and thrilled to find out that the creator of his favorite comic book, Filip Schaff, was signing autographs. The trip home and back took only a few seconds, and soon he was standing in line to meet the creator of Science Dog. Mr. Schaff was polite and willing to sign any of his books that he wanted ("You paid hard-earned money for this stuff... the least I can do is deface it with my illegible scribble."). Mark talked with him for a few minutes about the comic, plans for the new movie, and the much-maligned Christmas Special, and then let the people behind him talk with Schaff while he browsed the store and picked up this month's books.

"Yeah," says the store clerk as he rings up Mark's purchases, "he was just in town and asked if he could sign here. If we had known more ahead of time, we would have advertised."

"Man, that was so cool," says Mark, still jazzed about getting his stuff signed.

The clerk nods. "You want a Comic Shop News?" he asks, sliding Mark's books into a bag.

"Always." Mark notices that the television behind the clerk has stopped showing cartoons and has changed to an emergency news broadcast. "Hey, man... can you turn that up?"

The reporter stands on Santa Cruz Beach, the amusement park in the background. Nearby, a massive, tentacled beast lies motionless in the sand. "It was shortly after the beast was defeated," says the reporter, "that Omni-Man, Defender of Democracy, was attacked by eyewitnesses describe as recently deceased Guardians of the Globe member, the Immortal...."

The clerk turns back to wish his fellow fan of Science Dog a good day, to find that he is the only one in the store.

* * *

Debbie Grayson is doing laundry. In a household of three, it was easy to handle, even if Nolan would occasionally come home with the worst stains on his uniform. But Art did good work, and Omni-Man's tights washed clean most of the time. She supposes that Mark will eventually have the same problem, although his uniform is mostly just sweaty. (Though it did end up covered in dirt and dust after he got back from South Dakota.)

She keeps the television on, most days. Partially for the noise, but also because she likes to know if Nolan or Mark are in the middle of some fight, so she can delay dinner accordingly if she has to. The news has broken into the afternoon talk shows when she walks in, and the woman on the television is talking about Nolan. And the Immortal. Isn't he supposed to be dead?

"... It was then that Omni-Man allegedly shot out of the crater you see behind me, sending himself and the Immortal into the skies where we can't see them. It is unclear whether or not this is the Immortal. He wouldn't be the first hero to return from the dead but experts are still skeptical. It is unclear whether this has anything to do with the murder of the Guardians of the Globe."

"What is clear is that the attack on Omni-Man was completely unprovoked and unexpected," the reporter continued, and Debbie felt the couch catch her before she had realized that she was sitting down. "And whoever is behind this - Immortal or not - is evenly matched with Omni-Man. With the fight taken to the skies, there is no way to monitor the proceedings. We may never know exactly what's going on today."

"We'll bring you updates as they come in. We now return you to your regularly scheduled program." As the news broadcast reverted to Montel talking with the family of a substance abusing teen, Debbie stared at the television. She knew that Nolan had handled harder fights in the past, but her heart told her that this was different. The Immortal, after all, was immortal; he had survived whoever had killed the rest of the Guardians. Why he had attacked Nolan, she didn't know, but she could not bring herself to move away from the television, for fear of missing any new information. I hope Mark is somewhere safe.

* * *

Once upon a time, at a social event hosted by War Woman, Nolan had arm-wrestled with several members of the Guardians. Black Samson and Martian Man were easy to beat; the former wasn't anywhere near as strong as Omni-Man, and the Martian seemed unfamiliar with the sport. The Immortal had given him a better competition, once the others had convinced the elder hero to give it a try. But even he hadn't been as strong as a Viltrumite, and Nolan had beaten him after only a minute or two of exertion.

Arm-wrestling, Nolan reflects as he falls for the Immortal's feint (AGAIN) and takes a punch to the face that sends him flying through the clouds (AGAIN), is not combat. While the Immortal is nowhere near as strong as Omni-Man, he is reportedly more than 3,000 years old, and much of that had been lived as a warrior. That kind of combat experience makes a man an expert at hitting and not getting hit in return.

There is no doubt at all in Nolan's mind that the Immortal is angry, and he supposes that he really can't blame the man. Getting decapitated would probably piss him off as well. Still, the Immortal's attack is a problem; not only was it in broad daylight, but he was shouting questions about the Guardians when he attacked. Nolan needs to deal with this fast, and then figure out how to explain away the attack. Before other, more important people start asking questions.

He closes the space between them, thousands of feet above the California coast, and swings. But the Immortal is expecting the attack and avoids it, sliding around the punch in mid-flight. His counter-attack hammers Nolan in the face again, and he follows through with a second punch that spins Omni-Man around before he can recover.

Omni-Man lets the spin carry him all the way around and clips the Immortal with an improvised backfist. The older hero snarls and reels back from the impact, but shakes it off. Not for the first time, Nolan wonders about the strange mechanical collar that the Immortal is wearing. Is it just a medical brace, holding his head on while his regeneration heals the formerly mortal wound, or is it having some sort of effect on his mind as well. The Immortal seems berserk with rage (not without reason), and has only shouted a few angry questions at Omni-Man in the first violent minutes of the fight. Could he be someone's servant? But who would send him after Omni-Man; who would know about his agenda?

Could he be an agent of the Coalition?

The Immortal takes advantage of Omni-Man's hesitation and hits him hard enough to throw him across the sky. "Why, dammit?!" he shouts. "Why did you kill them?!" He races after his opponent, and his charge breaks the sound barrier as he impacts with Omni-Man. "I'll beat it out of you if I have to!" he roars.

Nolan lashes out and hits the Immortal in the face with a force hard enough to shatter concrete. He's tired of this old man beating on him. "I killed you once!" he shouts, furious at the Immortal for upsetting his plans. "I can do it again!"

The Immortal reaches out and grabs Omni-Man by the throat. "You're welcome to TRY!!" he shouts, pulling back a fist to smash Nolan's face in.

Snarling, Omni-Man takes advantage of his opponent's unguarded abdomen and lashes out with a sudden, violent punch to the Immortal's gut. There is a sick, moist noise as his fist penetrates the other hero's torso and erupts from his back in a spray of blood and gore. The Immortal's face momentarily goes slack from the pain, but he starts to recover almost immediately. However, before he can retaliate, Omni-Man jams his other arm into the wound and TEARS him in half at the waist with a moist, horrible tearing sound.

As the two halves of the Immortal plummet towards the Pacific Ocean, Omni-Man hears a sound that sends a cold shock through his entire body.

"Dad?"

Nolan turns and sees Mark, in uniform, hovering about ten feet away. A look of horror and confusion gives Nolan no doubt that he heard most of what was just said. He looks down at himself, covered in the Immortal's blood and viscera, swallows, and tries to speak in a reasonable tone to his horrified son.

"Son, we need to talk."

comments

Monday and Tuesday

2012-10-01T18:52:20Z

Monday:

The guy called himself Doc Seismic, and he looked like he was older than dirt. Either that, or he'd been ill for a long, long time. Pallid, gaunt, with patchy hair, he'd picked Mount Rushmore as a place to terrorize. Mark had been watching the five o'clock news when the story had broken, and South Dakota was a short flight away.

(Sometimes, when he thought about it, the speed at which Mark could fly amazed him. When he got home, he looked up how far it was between his home and Mount Rushmore, and the fact that he did almost 1,300 miles in under 10 minutes was breathtaking. And the fact that his father was faster was even moreso.)

Seismic seemed intent on confronting an A-List hero, and his reaction to Invincible was one of derision. Mark wasn't upset about this; he knew he was still building his reputation. He was about to trash the villain when Doc Seismic demonstrated why he was called that, slamming his gauntlets together to create a shockwave that threw Invincible away from him and down into a crevasse. Which would have been a problem, except that Mark could fly. Unfortunately, Doc Seismic could not, and as the fight progressed, the normally solid rock of the area around Mount Rushmore gave way under repeated shockwaves, and Seismic fell into a pit of his own making. Mark tried to fly down and catch him, but Seismic seemed enraged at his defeat and refused, generating a shockwave in mid-air that both knocked Mark away and opened the hole in the earth further. Mark was slammed into the wall of the new crevasse, and by the time he recovered, Doc Seismic had fallen out of sight and the rock had collapsed on top of him.

Mark didn't consider it a particularly clean victory, but the park ranger and tourists were happy with it. The applause that filled the park sounded pretty good, and the smiles made Mark happy to be a superhero. All in all, it was a good day.

Tuesday

"So," said Amber, looking at Mark from over the top of her milkshake, "you know Eve Wilkins...."

Mark blinked. "Yeah. We have Physics together."

"And you eat lunch with her."

"Yeah...," Mark replied. Then, he realized where this was going. "But we're just friends," he added, very quickly. "I mean, we were studying together in Physics and we started eating lunch together because Mr. Hiles' lectures were so hard. I mean, you know Mr. Hiles. He was crazy."

Amber nods. The kidnapping of students, and the subsequent rescue of Derek Sanders by Invincible, had bounced around the grapevine of Reginald Vel Johnson High School for weeks. It had died off briefly, and then Derek had returned to school and it had cropped up again. Mr. Hiles' involvement and subsequent death had prompted much speculation on his mental health, and much griping from his former students over his replacement, who seemed intent on jamming more than a semester's worth of material into their heads in less than a month's time.

"She has a boyfriend, anyways," Mark finishes. "Well... had a boyfriend."

"What happened?"

"She caught him cheating on her," he says, frowning into his Coke float. "With... uh, twins."

"Wow." Amber leans back, a surprised expression on her face. "What a jerk."

"Yeah." Mark shook his head. "She... uh, had to quit her job, because all three of them - Rex and the twins - worked there as well."

"That's terrible! I hope she found something else."

"I think she's doing okay." He sips at his drink, then remembers the original thread of the conversation. "But, like I said, she's just a friend."

Amber nods, and sips at her milkshake. "She's pretty," she remarks, in an off-handed tone.

Mark looks across the table at her and reaches over to take her hand. "Is she? I hadn't noticed," he says, smiling at her.

She laughs lightly. "Smooth, Grayson. You get points for that one."

* * *

"Mark?"

Mark turns away from the fridge, glass of milk in his hand. Nolan, looking a bit disheveled, stands there in his pajamas. "Oh hey, Dad," he says quietly. "Did I wake you?"

Nolan briefly glances at the clock on the kitchen wall. He didn't realize that it was after two in the morning; he'd been lying awake in bed for several hours, listening to Debbie's breathing and lost in his thoughts. Mark's footsteps on the way downstairs to the kitchen had roused him to action. "No, son," he says. "We need to talk."

Mark rolls his eyes. "C'mon, Dad," he says, sighing, "I know Mom put you up to this. She's been bugging me to death about stuff ever since Amber and I started going out. I'm just not in the mood for any birds and bees talk right now." He drains his glass and puts it in the sink. "I've got school tomorrow," he adds, as he steps past his father and goes back upstairs.

Nolan stands in the middle of the kitchen, watching his son leave. Why is this so hard?! I need to tell him. He sighs, then goes back upstairs to his own bed. Tomorrow morning, he thinks. Before he goes to school.

But before the sun rises, the beeper goes off, calling for Omni-Man to save the world again, and Nolan finds himself distracted, leaving Debbie grumbling about being woken up and Mark none the wiser.

comments

Meanwhile, in an Seemingly Abandoned Warehouse....

2012-09-28T18:00:41Z

Mauler sighed to himself as he leaned over to adjust his latest experiment. His clone was just ridiculous in his delusions. Seriously, to believe that he had gotten piercings to differentiate himself from Mauler, who he insisted was the clone… it was asinine. Anyone who looked at them could easily tell who was the original – precise, methodical, analytical, clad in a lab coat and carrying the accoutrements of a learned scientist – and who was the clone – brash, impatient, violent (not that Mauler wasn’t violent; he just applied the proper consideration and analysis to it), dressed like some reject from a rave.

Mauler rolled his eyes as he leaned against the wall of the hideout. His clone was just ridiculous in his delusions. Seriously, to believe that he had made Mauler, who he insisted was the clone, get piercings to differentiate himself… it was asinine. Anyone who looked at them could easily tell who was the original – confident, unhesitating, dynamic, built for action and with a will to take charge – and who was the clone – fussy, anal retentive, overly cautious (not that Mauler wasn’t cautious; he just knew when to take risks), dressed like a geek.

“How much more tinkering must you do?” Mauler asked, irritated. The clone was fussing with the experiment, as usual taking far too much time. “I’m tired of all this waiting.”

Mauler rolled his eyes. Brash, impatient, and violent; the clone was all these things. “You want him to wake up and kill us? I have to make sure the control beacons are operational before I lock down the seals on the collar.” He spare a glance down at his subject. He never really thought that the Immortal looked like Abraham Lincoln previously; the hero’s face was always too animate, too alive, to compare to the picture on the five-dollar bill. However, now that he was dead, he could definitely see the resemblance. “If he wakes up and he’s not under our control,” he continued, “we will have succeeded only in resurrecting one of our worst enemies. I trust that you don’t want that.”

Mauler grumbled. The clone had a point. “Just hurry,” he said.

Mauler ignored the clone’s grumbling and finished the adjustments to the control beacons. The tell-tales began flashing green and then went steady, indicating that power was being delivered and that all of the beacons were functioning. “There,” said Mauler. “Stand back; I’m going to seal it. Once the connection is made, he should revive instantly.” He snapped the collar into its sealed configuration and locked it down, then followed his own advice.

The Immortal lay quiet and motionless, appearing to be truly dead. Mauler and his clone had stolen his body from Arlington National Cemetery (though two hooligans, intent on gaining immortality from his remains, had done all the hard work for them). Now, it was time for one of the greatest heroes of Earth to rise again, under their command. With his reanimated corpse under their control, they would be UNSTOPPABLE! If only he would revive….

Mauler was about to pull his diagnostic tools out of the pocket of his lab coat and check the connections when the Immortal’s eyes snapped open and he convulsed , rising from the table with a shout. The hero’s strength made little work of the restraints holding him down, and he tore free almost without thinking and faced the two Maulers.

The Immortal had been dead before; it was not a state he had been able to avoid in the millennia he had been alive. He was aware that the Maulers had done something to him, and a part of him was dimly aware that while his head had been re-attached and the mortal injury repaired, his body was still busy rejecting the collar that he could feel was wired into his spine and brain stem. All of this was immaterial and irrelevant at this moment. He had more important business.

Mauler replaced his tools in his coat pocket. “That’s it,” he said soothingly as the Immortal stood and stepped away from the table. “Try to walk; you’re doing good.”

“He should be more docile,” Mauler muttered over his clone’s shoulder.

“Quiet,” Mauler said out of the corner of his mouth, even though he was pleased that his clone recognized the need for caution.

The Immortal stood, glaring at the two Maulers and breathing heavily. Coming back from the dead was never painless or easy, and he’d been decapitated. Moreover, he knew who’d killed him. While he hadn’t been fond of his killer, he had trusted him. The Guardians had trusted him, had relied on him, had given him access to their secrets. And he’d betrayed them. The very thought made him angry. Very angry.

The Immortal roared in incoherent rage and tore past the Maulers, smashing through the wall of their hideout and leaping into the sky. Only one thing filled his conscious mind as he shot across the sky: find his murderer - Omni-Man - and return the favor!

Mauler watched the resurrected hero fly away, poking at his instruments and listening to the car alarms, sirens, and other responses to the Immortal’s noisy departure fill the night. “The control beacons didn’t work,” he said, frowning.

Mauler nodded to his clone, too annoyed to point out the obviousness of the statement. “Damn.”

comments

1nv1nc1ble @ 2012-09-26T14:45:00

2012-09-26T21:44:13Z

"Nice room," says Amber, as she takes a seat on the floor of Mark's bedroom and begins to unpack her books. "It's very you."

"Thanks... I think," says Mark, grinning. He drops down onto the floor next to her and pulls his books off his bed so he can get at them.

Amber smiles. "It was a compliment," she assures him, and then opens her World History text. "I really don't get this involvement that America's had in Iran all these years."

"Me neither," admits Mark. "But it's gotta be about oil." He flips open his notes from class and finds the information on the overthrow of Mohammed Reza Pahlavi. "At least that's what I've managed to figure out from what Mr. Hendricks said and what is in the book."

"Stupid," says Amber. "You'd think the government would be more concerned with using all these energy sources that Doctor Noble and those others have come up with."

Mark shrugs. "I think they like to keep all the old stuff around, so if something goes wrong, they can say, 'See? We told you so!'"

Amber laughs. "Probably."

They lapse into comfortable silence for a few minutes, reviewing their personal notes from class. Occasionally, one of them will ask the other a question about something that their teacher said, or to clarify something that happened in history. Mark is acutely aware of how close Amber is sitting next to him; their knees are almost touching. He feels like he should be doing something with his hands, but has no idea what, so he keeps them holding his book. There is an unfamiliar odor, and it takes him a few minutes before he realizes it's her shampoo, a bright, fruity sort of smell that he realizes he likes.

As they review the text and their notes, they talk. Amber surprises him with her knowledge of post-World War II Europe and how the conflict affected the cultures of Germany, France, and England. In turn, he can tell she's impressed with his awareness of the social revolutions of the 70s, from the Civil Rights Movement to the growth of punk rock. He starts to talk about George Romero's allegories, with zombies signifying the "have nots" in a capitalist society, but cuts it short before her eyes start to glaze, with a brief apology for rambling. She laughs - and he once again realizes how much he likes making her laugh - and says it's okay.

"Say, what was that look your mom gave us when I walked in all about?" asks Amber.

Mark rolls his eyes. "That's just Mom being Mom," he says. "She's giving me a hard time about having a girl up here."

Amber smiles coyly. "Oh? Do you have many girls in your room?"

Mark laughs. "No," he replies. "But she's just acting like we're not going to be studying."

"What else would we be doing?"

Mark looks up from his notes and notices that Amber is smiling at him, a smile that gives him a nice, shivery feeling somewhere inside and makes him smile back. He also notices that she's set her book aside and is leaning slightly toward him. On impulse, he leans towards her, saying, "Well... we could...." And then he's kissing her, or she's kissing him, or both.

Whatever way it is, it's pretty awesome.

* * *

Atom Eve spent a good couple of hours being irritated at Robot, the Teen Team, and especially Rex, as she patrolled up and down the coast until it was time for dinner. Her parents, clueless as ever, nattered about inconsequential things over the dinner table, and then she excused herself to her room to study (given that Final Exams wait for no woman, even one recovering from a horrible breakup). After an hour or so, she knew she was too distracted to get any more studying done. Transforming her clothes into her uniform, she flew across the city to the Graysons' home, hoping to catch Mark to apologize for her behavior that afternoon, and to just talk.

Mark was a good guy, she reflected as she over the Inland Empire. It was a warm Spring night, and there didn't seem to be anything in the way of local crime to stop her. He had been there when she'd barged into his room after discovering Rex with Kate (and Kate), and he'd been on her side all through it, even when Robot had refused to do anything about the obvious problems that it would cause on the team for all three of the parties involved. In truth, she understood where Robot was coming from, trying to keep things professional. But that didn't mean she didn't want a little support in this situation.

Which Mark has given me, every step of the way, she thought to herself. She realized how lucky she was to have him as a friend. Of course, there was that awkward moment where he started to come on to me when we first started hanging out, but that was when I was seeing Rex. She started to descend toward the Grayson roof, seeing a light on in Mark's bedroom. Maybe now....

Lightly, so as not to disturb the rest of Mark's family, she landed on the roof and approached the window. Through it, she could see Mark... kissing a girl. She stood there, stunned, for a moment, before she realized that she was snooping, and then slowly turned away. Without a sound, she took off from the roof and flew away. Or maybe not....

comments

1nv1nc1ble @ 2012-09-26T12:47:00

2012-09-26T18:52:09Z

Invincible finally stopped kicking around Milliways and stepped back through the Front Door and out into the Guardians of the Globe tryouts... only to find a 12-foot-tall ogre beating the crap out of Rex Splode. For a moment, Mark debates whether or not Rex deserves to have the crap beaten out of him by a 12-foot-tall ogre, and then he dismisses the thought as unprofessional and steps forward to help.

(Plus, no one else was helping, which made it difficult to justify standing by.)

It came as a complete surprise when the ogre transformed into an 11-year-old girl in a private school uniform after one punch. Monster Girl, it seemed, was another superhero who believed in truth in advertising when it came to names. Mark apologized, and she took it in stride, explaining that she'd probably taken it too far to begin with, but that Rex was being a jerk.

"Thanks, man," said Rex, as Monster Girl wandered off in search of a cigarette. He'd been beaten, but not badly.

Mark gave him a withering glare. "Just because I'm pissed at you for what you did to Eve doesn't mean I want you dead," he said. "That doesn't mean I'm speaking to you either." And he went off to talk to Robot.

Robot was just wrapping up the auditions when Mark finally found him. The last applicant was curled up in the middle of the obstacle course, weeping like a child as attack robots surrounded him. "This one's not looking too promising," concluded the new leader of the Guardians of the Globe. "Donald," it continued, addressing the government agent helping him with the assessment, "let that boy out. I'm going to go prepare to announce the lineup."

The lineup was pretty promising, in Mark's opinion. Monster Girl had made it onto the team, and she grinned in obvious excitement when her name was called. Robot also had selected Black Samson (dressed in the now-recovered battlesuit), giving him the only surviving member of the original Guardians as a voice of experience. Dupli-Kate also was named, and Mark figured that Robot had chosen to ignore her involvement with the whole Rex-Eve fiasco (given Robot's professed annoyance at the whole situation, Mark almost figured that it would have disallowed any former member of the Teen Team, but then he remembered that Robot had asked Eve as well and realized that it had gone the other direction, ignoring anything having to do with the incident and focusing on ability). The fourth member, Shrinking Ray, was someone Mark wasn't familiar with, but the last name called was.

"... Rex Splode," finished Robot, "as long as he promises to behave." Rex had the decency to look chagrined at that, but was also smiling, so the effect was mitigated.

As congratulations were offered by the applicants that failed to make the team, and the five new Guardians of the Globe began to introduce themselves to their teammates, Robot took Invincible aside. "You know," it said, "we'd be glad to have you, if you're ever interested."

"Thanks, man," replied Mark, "that really means a lot to me, but I just can't. I'm getting ready for college soon, and I've always got so much homework. I don't know how Rex and Kate juggle things so well. I just don't have time."

* * *

Mark made it home in time to change out of his costume and wash up before dinner. "So, is Dad not going to make it tonight?" he asks as he sits down.

Debbie Grayson offers her son a shrug. "Who knows?" she asks rhetorically, in a resigned tone. "I haven't heard from him. He's off saving the world, no doubt."

"No doubt," agrees Mark, and they start dinner. Nolan's absence is nothing new, or even unexpected. Omni-Man goes where he's needed, and even if he can circle the globe in only a few minutes, sometimes he has to deal with a reheated supper and a disgruntled wife if saving the world takes a little more time than average.

Dinner passes quietly, and after a few minutes, Debbie asks, "So, got any homework tonight?"

Mark pauses. He remembers suddenly that he didn't tell his parents about Amber coming over. "Yeah, actually... Amber is coming over so we can study for our World History test. That's okay, right?"

Debbie gives him a look that he knows isn't a good look, but it's also not the Look (the one she gives him when he screws up badly enough for grounding). "What's going on with you two?" she asks, wiping her mouth with her napkin. "Are you dating?"

"I know the feeling. My mom's like that too. So, about 7:30?"

"Around then." She smiles at him. "It's a date."

Mark looks down at his plate. "No... we're just friends. She's just coming over to study."

"Weren't you using that excuse with Eve?" asks his mother, her tone somewhere between mocking and annoyed. "C'mon son... you can't really expect me to fall for that?"

Mark hid a smile behind his glass of milk. "I swear. Nothing's going on."

"Uh huh."

comments

Fathers and Sons

2012-08-29T20:27:57Z

[OOC: Dialogue taken from Invincible #9.]

Mount Everest stands 29,029 feet tall, and its peak is one of the most isolated points in the world. The temperature in April 2003 is somewhere near -25℉, but Omni-Man doesn't feel it beyond a mild sensation of cold. He's the only one here, which was his intention.

"Son," he begins, addressing empty air, listening to his voice echo through the thin air, "we need to talk...."

No, he thinks. Too formal. He'll think he's in trouble for something. Don't want to spook him.

"Mark," he tries again, "we need to talk...."

Worse. He'll know he's in trouble. He sighs. Why is this so hard?! It's time. He needs to know. He needs to understand!

Nolan considers for a moment, choosing his words. "Mark, it's very important that we--"

His earpiece beeps, cutting him off. "Omni-Man, Sue Nami's showed up in the Indian Ocean. Satellites show you in Nepal; you're closest."

Nolan acknowledges and leaps away from Everest's peak, heading south. He sighs to himself. Maybe he can catch Mark after dinner.

* * *

The Lizard League were up to their normal shenanigans. This time, it was poisoning the water supply. King Lizard was ranting as Invincible plowed through his Lizard Legionnaires, sending them flying. Salamander and Iguana both went down in the melee, and Atom Eve was turning the ballistic weave in the legionnaires' unforms into hard plastic, effectively immoblizing them in stacks.

King Lizard was about to tactically withdraw when Invincible had landed in front of him, blocking the exit. Unfortunately, Mark had been so fixated on the megalomaniac and the cannister of Super-Gila Venom he carried, that Komodo Dragon sucker-punched him, and he went flying. He was unharmed, but Komodo's relatively greater mass caught him by surprise, and the exit was open for the two Lizard League members to make their escape... until Eve solidified the air in front of them, and down the two scaly terrorists went, stunned and helpless.

"Aside from me taking that one to the face towards the end, I think we did pretty good," says Mark, as they watch the police load the Lizard League into a collection of armored trucks.

"I totally saved your butt," says Eve.

Mark shakes his head, smiling. "No way," he insists. "I'm super-fast; I could have caught them if you hadn't been there." He pauses, then adds, "But still... we make a great team."

Eve smiles back at him. "You think?"

Mark's response is drowned out by the sound of jet turbines as Robot brings his jet cycle in for a landing. "Eve! Mark! I'm glad I found you," the orange mechanoid says, pitching its voice over the noise of the vehicle. "We're having tryouts for the new Guardians of the Globe today, and I'd like you both to be there."

Mark shrugs. "With all my schoolwork, I don't think I'll have the time to be a member," he says, "but I'd love to hang out and see who's trying out."

Robot nods. "That's fine," it says. "Eve?"

Eve's expression had hardened when Robot suggested that she try out for the Guardians. She'd quit the Teen Team because of Rex's infidelity and Robot's acceptance of it. And now it wants her on its new team, without so much as an apology or explanation for its permissive attitude!

"I," she says , in an angry voice, "have somewhere to be. Have fun, Mark!" And she shot off into the sky in a flare of pink energy.

Mark turns to watch her go, confused at the sudden change. He looks back at Robot, but the mechanoid's face is as expressionless as ever. Robot met his gaze for a moment, then moves to cycle the engines of its jet cycle for flight. Mark shrugs and follows Robot into the sky.

* * *

The government has set up a testing site at White Sands Missile Base, and Mark can see dozens of costumed heroes standing around as he lands, mostly near the folding tables where the base has set out coffee and assorted snacks. He recognizes a few from the Evening News and the newspapers, mostly the guys from the private corporation, Capes, Inc. "Wow," he says to Robot, as they walk into the hanger where the tryouts are taking place, "you guys have quite a turnout."

"We're going to be paying well, and apparently word spreads fast in our circle," says Robot. "The Capes, Inc. crew out of New York accounts for half our attendance. Those guys are vultures."

Mark spies a familar orange-suited figure entering the area from the doors connecting to the testing area. Speaking of vul... wait, that's not quite right, he thinks, as Rex Splode approaches the craft services table. Speaking of unpleasant people, whatever the analogy. "Rex," he says in a barely civil tone as they pass.

Rex Splode pauses briefly, mouth set in an grim expression. He nods once. "Invincible."

Expectations of civility taken care of, they in different direction. "You shouldn't let his actions toward Eve affect your opinion of him," says Robot, a faint note of reproof in his synthesized voice.

Mark stares at him for a moment, then rolls his eyes. "I just can't believe that he did that to her." Eve's expression as she told him about finding Rex and Kate (and Kate) in the Teen Team base comes back to him, and he frowns.

"I can't believe what a lot of you people do," replies the mechanoid, "but I try not to hold it against you."

Mark rolled his eyes. "I need to use the bathroom. I'll be back in a minute."
Behind him, he can hear Rex crowing about how good his tryout was. Resolutely ignoring him, he walks across the hanger to the marked door and steps through....

comments