INVINCIBLE POV
To say the last week has been hard would be an understatement.
Actually, no, that's a fucking lie. Everything has been hard. It's been a waking nightmare.
Mom has been incredibly depressed, and I can hear her crying in the kitchen late at night. She tries to keep her voice low so I won't hear, but with my hearing, I catch every single suppressed sob. Sometimes I hear her whisper Dad's name between the crying, and I have to press my pillow over my head to block it out.
And why wouldn't she cry? Dad has been thrown out of the damn dimension.
And worse, I was the one who let him get lost in that portal.
At first, I tried to blame it all on that guy. John Kaisen. I can still hear my dad screaming his name with this raw, venomous hate right before he was sucked away. I've never heard my dad sound like that in my entire life, and just thinking about it still makes me shiver.
And now, the deaths of the Guardians of the Globe have been announced publicly.
Cecil himself came to our house to deliver the news. We already knew Immortal and Aquarus were dead, but they couldn't even save the rest of the Guardians. They all passed away from their injuries, not even making it out of their comas.
A massive public funeral is going to be held in a few days, and we've been preparing to go as a substitute for Dad.
As for me, I've just been keeping busy. Now that Dad and the Guardians are gone, the planet is left completely defenseless, and I needed to step up.
Someone has to. If I keep moving, keep patrolling, keep fighting, then maybe I don't have to think about how badly I fucked everything up.
I was flying over the city when my phone suddenly rang in my ear. I was about to disconnect the call and keep patrolling, but then I saw it was Eve calling.
I hesitantly accepted the call. "Hey, Eve."
"Mark! Where the hell have you been?" Her voice practically blew out my earpiece. "You don't pick up my calls, you've missed classes, and I even visited your house and found out you've been on patrol for twenty straight hours!"
'Wait a minute,' I thought, my sleep-deprived brain finally catching up. 'Visited my house?'
"Eve, how do you even know where I live?" I asked, completely bewildered.
I heard her let out a long, frustrated breath through the phone. "Mark, you sit two rows behind me in trigonometry. I saw your face through your torn-up mask during the Flaxan invasion, and it wasn't hard to put two and two together. I saw you break down when your dad went into that portal. I'm not..."
She cut herself before continuing in a broken voice.
"I'm not just going to let a classmate work himself into an early grave."
I just let out a heavy sigh, trying to defend my position. "Listen Eve, with Dad and the Guardians gone, I need to step up. Keeping this planet safe is his legacy, and I'm his son, I have to—"
But she cut me off before I could finish. "You don't have to do anything!"
"Cecil's been deploying more and more supers just to keep sudden riots from breaking out! Villains are trying to take advantage of the panic!" I argued back, feeling the exhaustion deep in my bones.
"No, Mark. Stop nurturing your guilt. You don't have to work alone." Her voice softened, and I heard her hold back a sob through the phone. "You have your friends. You have me."
I just sighed heavily, rubbing my eyes beneath my goggles. I knew she was right. I knew I was letting myself sink into a deep depression and using the patrols to numb it, but it's just... everything was so heavy.
"Eve, can we meet?" I asked quietly.
"Yes! Yes. Where are you?"
"Uh, I was heading back home, but I think I really need to talk to someone right now."
"Alright, I'm sending you our location."
After flying for about ten or so minutes, I reached the coordinates she sent me. It was a massive, nondescript hangar. I descended through the open skylight, surprised to see the Teen Team's flying cycle parked in the corner.
"Mark, you're here!"
I turned around, only to see Eve in her full costume. The pink of her suit was almost painfully bright this close. She was walking at a rushed pace and hugging me with enough force to push the air right out of my lungs
"Hey Eve..." I muttered, not really knowing what to say as the rest of the Teen Team walked over to us.
Eve finally let go of me so she could introduce me to the rest of the team properly.
Dupli-Kate came over and hugged me as well, telling me to be strong.
Rex Splode walked up next, and honestly, I was half expecting him to be a massive jerk about the whole thing. But he just tapped my shoulder, saying, "I don't do well with the mushy stuff, man."
Robot stood a few feet back. "Greetings, INVINCIBLE," he said in his usual monotone voice.
I honestly didn't know what to say to these guys. "Um… hey guys. It's good to see you again."
There was an awkward silence for a few moments as we all just stood there in the hangar.
"Aw, man," Rex groaned, breaking the quiet. "I don't like this awkward vibe going on. It sucks."
Kate immediately gave him a hard elbow to the ribs and mouthed at him to be quiet. Rex just looked at her and asked, "What?"
I actually laughed a bit seeing their banter. It felt somewhat normal.
Eve nudged me to follow them as they made their way to their resting pad. It was way less of a relaxing space and more of a monitoring room, a gym, and a kitchen all crammed together in a messy hall. It looked exactly like what it was - a bunch of teenagers trying to play soldiers.
[Image Here]
I sat down on a worn-out couch, and Eve used her powers to create a hot, steaming pizza, cheese bubbling and crust golden brown like it had just come out of an oven, out of thin air right onto the table. "You must be starving," she said.
Which was entirely true. I grabbed a slice, and as I sank my teeth into it, the rich, creamy taste exploded in my mouth. The cheese stretched as I pulled the slice away.
"I still don't understand how your power works," I mumbled through a mouthful of cheese, "but remind me to get you catering orders later."
"Ahh…"
"Uhh…"
"Oh no."
I heard the rest of the team make a collective groaning sound.
Rex just facepalmed himself. "Dude, why you gotta say that? Now she's gonn—" He stopped mid-sentence when he saw Eve glaring daggers at him. "I mean... my awesome girlfriend will now explain it to you."
'Girlfriend?' I thought, a bit surprised. I didn't know they were actually together.
Eve started explaining to me about her subatomic manipulation powers, her hands gesturing excitedly as she broke down how she could rearrange matter at the molecular level, about mass-energy equivalence and quantum states, but honestly, after about ten minutes, I completely tuned out. My brain was just too fried. Instead, I saw Robot and Kate walking over to the giant monitors, discussing some case.
"I didn't know you were interested in the Mauler Twins," Kate said, crossing her arms.
Robot took his time to reply. "I was following an investigation regarding their involvement and planned to question them. But it seems the GDA has transferred them to an undisclosed blacksite prison."
He sounded pissed off, his robotic monotone dropping for a split second.
"Things just got more complicated, that's all."
'Huh, wonder what prison those blue twins were sent to,' I thought. It made sense, though. With the Guardians gone, Cecil was probably locking up every heavy-hitter villain he could find before they could cause trouble.
My thoughts were interrupted by a very long, drawn-out groan from Rex.
"Gnghnaaaaaaa! Eve, I know you'll put me in the doghouse for this, but give it a rest already. Let the poor man rest, that's why you called him here, didn't you?" He pointed right at me.
"No… no, please, it's fine…" I tried to say, but I saw her angry eyes shift to me and I just blurted out, "I tuned out after the first few minutes anyway! I'll probably just chalk it all up to magic!"
Eve just flared her nostrils, huffed, and walked away from the couch.
Kate walked over, giggling. She reached out and pulled Rex by the ear. "You really need to stop annoying your girlfriend, Rex." Her fingers twisted his earlobe, making him wince.
But there was something about the way she said it. Something about the way she touched him, a little too familiar.
'Wait! Are they…?'
"Oh, Robot, any leads on that bastard?" Rex coughed, quickly speaking over Kate to change the subject.
"Who? Is this one of your villains?" I asked, desperately trying to dismiss the weird thought creeping up in my head about Kate and Rex.
Robot turned to look at us. "No. There have been no public sightings of John anywhere on the globe."
My blood ran cold.
"Wait! You're talking about him. About John Kaisen," I stuttered. My hands instantly clenched into tight fists, my nails digging into my palms as flashes of that guy's face filled my vision.
I could still see it so clearly, the way he'd smiled manically like it was all a game, like my dad's life meant nothing.
"Who else?" Rex scoffed, leaning back. "We're looking for that mad bastard! John Kaisen… more like Lobotomy Kaisen, am I right?" He laughed at his own joke, clearly proud of the wordplay.
A sudden, violent urge to put my fist right through his teeth hit me.
But Robot stepped in. "Everyone should calm down and rest for tomorrow. After all, you all need to be in top shape."
"Wait, what's tomorrow?" I asked, forcing my hands to unclench.
"Oh, you don't know?" Rex grinned. "Dude, tomorrow is the audition for the new Guardians of the Globe team. It's open season now that those old cronies are six feet under—"
Before he could even finish that incredibly insensitive sentence, a glowing pink gag materialized right over his mouth.
"Mmph!" Rex moaned, grabbing at his face.
Eve walked back over, her hands glowing a bright, angry pink. "Rex! You really need to learn some control over your broken mouth!"
She then turned to me, her expression softening completely. "I'm sorry, Invincible. He doesn't really mean to be like that…"
I just huffed some air, looking down at the floor. I knew it was time to go back home, lest I actually punch that guy and start a fight I didn't want to finish.
Robot looked at me. "Can we expect you there tomorrow, Invincible?"
I remembered my dad. How he was always a solo hero, taking the entire burden of the world on his own shoulders without ever needing a team.
I shook my head. "No. I've decided to fill in for Omni—"
A blaring, high-pitched alert suddenly came from the main computer. The giant screens automatically switched to the Channel Nine news feed.
[Omni-Man is back,] the anchor announced, her voice breathless and frantic. She looked like she was about to cry, relief and shock warring on her face. [I repeat, Omni-Man has made his way back home!]
The video feed showed a red portal, exactly like the Flaxan ones, ripping open in the middle of a city street for just a moment, before a shadow stumbled out with a shockwave strong enough to crack the buildings around it and the portal snapped shut a second later.
The shadow paused, looking around wildly.
His iconic white and red suit was in absolute tatters, the chest and back torn open, and his cape was entirely missing. His eyes were blood-red and feral. His hair and beard had grown all the way down to his shoulders, making him look like a traumatized wild animal.
But I recognized him the absolute instant my eyes landed on him.
"DAD!!"
Rexplode, still fighting against the gag, managed to force out a completely bewildered squawk.
"Wait! Om-mph-man is your dad?!"
[A/N]: I'm seeing a dip in engagement, any reason for that?
Also, Drop them Stones if you don't want to be gaged by Eve.
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