"Sir, Omni-Man is on the move!" Donald reported nervously.
Cecil sighed. One of the dozens of screens in the control room flickered to life. It showed Omni-Man flying through the air with his arms outstretched. The viltrumite's jaw was tightly clenched.
"The cat's finally out of the fucking bag huh, about fucking time." Cecil muttered to himself.
Omni-Man had just torn apart dozens of surveillance agents. They'd set off the half tonne of explosives planted under the house and it hadn't even left a scratch.
"Get in contact with Mark! I don't care what you have to do! Blow up the god-damn statue of liberty if that's what it takes!" Cecil barked an order.
The room was full of GDA agents frantically inputting commands into their computers.
"Where the hell is Clark! I want Omni-Man's trajectory mapped right fucking now! We are not letting Nolan anywhere near a populated area, I repeat, nowhere fucking near! Let's bring down the hammer people, we need time!"
Outside of the earth's atmosphere, an enormous machine hummed to life. The technology inside was the result of decades of work, and had cost billions of dollars. In a brilliant beam of light, the machine fired down tens of billions of joules worth of energy.
Far below, a circle of glowing blue light enveloped Omni-Man. The viltrumite snarled, "You wouldn't dare Cecil!"
Bang!
The strike slammed Omni-Man down to earth. A shockwave swept across tens of miles. The violent force ripped trees out of the ground. Smoke and dust billowed out from an enormous crater where the beam had impacted.
The dust cleared to reveal Omni-Man standing with his fists clenched. A few drops of blood trickled from his nose. His eyes were filled with fury.
Omni-Man roared and shot upwards. The sound barrier shattered violently. The atmosphere around him ignited into flame.
"4 billion dollars for the world's most expensive nosebleed." Cecil remarked dryly.
Multiple screens showed Omni-Man blitzing right through the oribtal gun. The circuitry inside exploded brilliantly.
Omni-Man looked with disdain at the ruined machinery. Humans were pathetic. All of their technology and innovation couldn't even imitate a fraction of a viltrumite's power.
Bang!
A fist slammed into Omni-Man's chin. He tumbled backwards through space uncontrollably for hundreds of meters before bringing himself to a stop. His jaw throbbed in pain. If he hadn't tensed at the last second, the strike might've broken bone.
Omni-Man stared coldly at his opponent. An identical face stared back at him.
Clark wore a plain silver costume, made of nanofibre fabric instead of metal. Since the fight against Battle Beast, he had stopped concealing his ability to take on different forms.
"Get out of my way." Omni-Man's lips didn't move. An implant just beneath his skin transmitted his thoughts through the vacuum of space.
Clark's silver supersuit contained a human made version of the same device. He'd adamantly refused to have any kind of foreign object implanted in his body.
"You killed The Guardians. Your family, your friends, you threw it all away. For what?" Clark responded.
Omni-Man snarled, "I don't answer to you worm. Get out of my way, now!"
Clark stared back at him, "No."
Clark burst forwards, accelerating as fast as he could. Without the constraints of an atmosphere, his speed grew exponentially faster with every millisecond that passed.
Omni-Man charged through space to meet his opponent.
Bang!
The two identical viltrumites collided in space. Clark landed a glancing blow to Omni-Man's ribs. The difference in experience between them was enormous. Most of the force behind Clark's strike dissipated into space, only a small amount was left to cause any damage to his opponent. Omni-Man's attack was more precise.
Clark gasped in pain. The coldness of space rushed into his chest. Omni-Man's hand had slashed across his stomach. He could see his own organs wriggling inside his abdominal cavity.
Omni-Man drew back his fist. He unleashed a savage punch towards Clark. The attack crashed into Clark's hastily raised forearm, the momentum sent him spinning down towards earth.
'Fuck!' Clark cursed in his head.
He needed to change bodies. Omni-Man was a much better fighter than him. In just the first exchange he'd already sustained a major injury. The wound to his stomach severely restricted his range of motion.
Clark gritted his teeth. He turned and flew rapidly back into earth's atmosphere. The air around him burned up as he reentered. Omni-Man chased after him. The distance between the two of them was shrinking. Omni-Man was a faster and more skillful flier.
Clark wasn't trying to race his opponent. He could recover from his injuries immediately by switching into a different body. Unfortunately, the healer's abilities would too preoccupied trying to keep him alive in the iciness of space to repair the wound to his stomach. He had to get back into the earth's atmosphere before he could change.
The gap between the two fighters continued to shrink. Clark looked behind and his stomach sank. He clenched his jaw tightly. Omni-Man wasn't leaving him a choice.
Clark changed into the healer's body. Pain erupted everywhere. The velocity of re-entering the earth's atmosphere scorched his skin, he could smell burning flesh.
After just a fraction of a second in the healer's body, Clark hurriedly transformed back into Omni-Man. He barely managed to dodge out of the way of another hand-slice.
"I told you to get out of my way!" Omni-Man roared.
Clark was a sorry sight to look at. The wound to his stomach had largely healed, all that was left was a faint red line. But the forceful re-entry had burned away more than half of his skin. The healer's powers weren't fast enough to keep up with the rate at which it was being destroyed.
Only half of Clark's face had skin on it. The other side was a mess of exposed muscle fibres. He was in a state of constant agony. The pain worsened when he talked, "Leave earth or die!"
Omni-Man laughed menacingly, "You think you can kill me, by hiding in my own skin? You are no viltrumite!"
The damage to Clark's skin made it easy to tell the two warriors apart. The GDA's drones captured it live as they fought back and forth between earth's atmosphere and outer space.
Clark roared in pain. Omni-Man's punches felt like asteroids crashing into him. The alien warrior completely dictated the rythm of battle. All he could do was defend desperately. His body was covered in bruises and cuts.
In order to stay alive, Clark was constantly pushing himself to his limits. But it wasn't enough. He was slower than his opponent, and the force behind his strikes was weak and scattered compared to Omni-Man. He also had another crucial weakness.
Omni-Man could predict every attack he made. He was fighting an enemy that knew what he was about to do even before he did. Nolan had spent thousands of years sparring, and at points even fighting for his life, against other viltrumites. He was one of Viltrum's most elite warriors. He had earned his position with blood.
Clark spat blood as a punch slammed into his stomach. He borrowed the momentum of Omni-Man's attack and retreated desperately. He needed to buy himself some time, just a fraction of a second would be enough.
Omni-Man's eyebrows furrowed together. His menacing expression became even fiercer. He could see what Clark wanted to do.
Unfortunately, he wasn't fast enough to stop it.
Clark changed into the healer's body. The instant he felt his powers activate, he forcefully switched back into Omni-Man.
The fight between them was taking place at superspeed. An ordinary person would barely be able to see a blur, even from tens of kilometers away. The healer could recover almost instantaneously, his powers were an automatic cellular response, but he couldn't think or react at superspeed. Clark could only spend a fraction of a second in his body before he needed to change back.
"Pathetic!" Omni-Man howled with rage.
The tiny speck of time in the healer's body was enough. Clark faced his opponent agaimn, restored to his normal state. He screamed, "Leave earth or die!"
Clark threw himself at Omni-Man with animalistic fury. He chanelled all his pain and rage into his fists. He searched inside of himself for the insatiable thirst for violence he'd felt in Battle Beast's body. He managed to grasp just a tiny lingering strand.
The rythm of the battle shifted. Omni-Man finally begun to sustain injuries. Clark clawed, and scratched, and bit like a savage beast. He gave himself entirely to his instincts. His fighting style became bloody and unpredictable.
"Get out of my way!" Omni-Man roared. He blizted directly towards Clark and rammed into him with his shoulder. The enormous force sent Clark spinning sideways.
Omni-Man didn't try to pursue his opponent. Instead he flew with all his strength down towards earth, piercing through the layers of the atmosphere. He needed to find his son, he needed to tell Mark about his people.
Clark flew after Omni-Man in desperate pursuit. No matter how much faster he willed himself to go, he still couldn't catch up. All he could do was yell with anger that had nowhere to go.
There were hundreds of bodies he could change into, but none of them were enough. They couldn't think fast enough to keep up with Omni-Man's terrible speed.
At the GDA headquarters, Cecil watched the fight with a tightly clenched jaw. He saw how Clark was forced to repeatedly change into a different body to recover from Omni-Man's brutal attacks. He knew the agony of skin being burned away.
"We planned for this people! Silver Giant's risking his fucking life so that Omni-Man doesn't fly down here and tear us all to pieces! He needs time! Let's give him some fucking time!" Cecil shouted an order.
In outer space, another orbital gun began to charge up. Tracking systems that had cost hundreds of millions of dollars to develop locked onto Omni-Man as he flew.
Bang!
The beam of glowing blue energy knocked Omni-Man out of the sky. He crashed down into an open area of farmland. Within milliseconds, he was back on his feet and preparing to take off again.
"Aaaah!" Clark screamed. His arms were stretched out in front of him, he grabbed Omni-Man's shoulders with all his strength. The GDA had spent billions of dollars to buy him enough time to catch up.
He wouldn't waste the opportunity.
'I don't want to die.' Clark thought to himself. Then, he made a decision.
He couldn't defeat Omni-Man, not when they were operating the same body. He needed to be stronger. There was only one way he could gain that strength.
To Omni-Man, time suddenly seemed to slow down. He saw the miniscule change in his opponent's expression, and immediately, he knew what was to come. He'd seen how Battle Beast delighted in his vicious battle against Clark.
Even against an inferior clone of the Dornian warrior, he knew that he would perish. No amount of tactics or experience could bridge the enormous gap between them.
Omni-Man felt the hands on his shoulders change into claws. The sharp tips sliced open skin that could withstand orbital bombardment as if it were delicate paper.
Since he was old enough to speak, he had lived his life in service to the viltrum empire. He had committed a crime on earth, he had created excuses to delay carrying out his orders, but he was still a viltrumite.
He couldn't die. Not here.
In the miniscule instant where Clark's consciousness was swallowed up by the insatiable bloodlust of Battle Beast's body, Nolan pushed against him with all his strength. He turned his left shoulder towards his opponent. Then, raising his hand like a knife, he cut off his own arm. His sacrifice allowed him to forcibly pry himself out from Clark's grip.
Whoosh!
Nolan flew upwards as fast as he could. He wasn't quite quick enough. He screamed in agony as claws raked down his back, gouging so deeply that he could feel the wind blowing against his spine.
Clark howled in rage. He leaped up into the air after his opponent. As he fell back to earth, he ripped the part of Omni-Man's cape which he'd managed to tear off into ribbons.
Omni-Man flew desperately. He didn't dare turn around. He was badly wounded. If Clark could regain his sanity and change back into his body, he wouldn't be able to flee fast enough to escape. He screamed in pain as the atmosphere ignited around him and burned the deep gashes in his back.
At the GDA headquarters, Cecil sighed. Their satellites mapping Omni-Man's trajectory showed that he was leaving their solar system and headed into deep space.
He turned to the live footage of Clark in Battle Beast's body. His white fur blew in the air as he charged like a mindless beast towards a nearby cattle ranch. The scent of living beings was stirring up the insatiable bloodlust inside of him. He wasn't showing any signs of rational thought.
"Send in hail mary, hopefully she'll keep him occupied for a few minutes! I want every one of those cattle slaughtered do you hear me? If anyone fucks up I'll shoot them myself! We've just avoided one major disaster, unless we want another, we need every living thing in a fifty mile radius of him blown to fucking pieces!" Cecil shouted.
The dozens of GDA agents frantically typed on their keyboards. Missile systems across the state began locking on to anything larger than a cat. Everyone present understood exactly how precarious the current situation was.
They'd gotten rid of one tiger by unleashing another. If they couldn't give Clark a chance to remember who he was, then millions of people would die.
Despite the dangerous situation, Cecil felt relieved. A rampaging battle-maniac was bad, but he preferred that a hell of a lot more to Omni-Man still being on the planet.