I forgot to upload Nakime's Image, sorry.
[IMAGE HERE]
Third Person P.O.V.
Thousands of miles away, far removed from the apocalyptic crater of Mount Rushmore, an oddly calm breeze blew over an open pasture in the American Midwest.
It was the Grayson family farm. And it looked like it had been put through a meat grinder.
Nolan Grayson sat heavily on the wooden steps of the front porch. He was wrapped in thick, bloody bandages, leaning forward, resting his elbows on his knees, panting softly as his Viltrumite healing factor worked overtime to knit his shattered ribs and punctured organs back together.
Sitting on the porch swing next to him was Mark. The teenager looked awful. His arm was wrapped in a makeshift cast, his face was heavily bruised, and he was holding a bag of frozen peas to his swollen eye. They were both still recovering from their brutal encounter with Thragg, and the terrifying rescue by Conquest, just hours prior.
Standing in the doorway of the farmhouse, clutching a double-barreled shotgun tightly in her hands, was Debbie Grayson. She looked exhausted, but her jaw was set with absolute determination.
Out in the front yard, Ms. Moo, the Holy cow, was casually grazing on the grass, occasionally letting out a low moo.
They were supposed to be laying low. But the Viltrumite Empire was currently swarming the planet, and a few strays had managed to track Nolan to the farm.
Three Viltrumite soldiers touched down in the cornfield, their white boots crushing the stalks, looking at the battered father and son sitting on the porch.
"The traitor," one of the Viltrumites sneered. "And his half-breed spawn. The Grand Regent left you alive, but we won't make the same mistake. We'll start with your breeding pet."
Nolan sighed. He slowly stood up, his joints popping, and spat a glob of blood into the dirt.
"Mark," Nolan said tiredly, raising his fists. "Keep them away from your mother and Ms Moo."
Mark groaned, tossing the bag of frozen peas aside and standing up, his uninjured hand glowing with a faint purple aura John had taught him. "I really hate your side of the family, dad."
…
Meanwhile, back at the ruins of Mount Rushmore, the Coalition of Planets' ground forces were having a miserable time.
Allen the Alien and the Guardians of the Globe were supposed to be holding the line against the Viltrumite reinforcements. Instead, they were currently playing damage control against John's summons.
"Why are there so many of them?!" Allen yelled, dodging a piece of flying debris. He flew forward and punched an Evil Mark square in the jaw, only for the shadow to laugh maniacally, instantly pop its jaw back into place, and punch Allen back twice as hard. "And why are they all so incredibly toxic?!"
"Get wrecked, you one-eyed orange freak!" the shadow Mark cackled, trying to bite Allen's ear off.
"Hey! We're on the same side!" Darkwing yelled, throwing a handful of charged explosive coins at another shadow variant. The explosions just blew the shadow into purple mist, which immediately reformed into a teenager flipping him the bird.
Since Thragg was off-planet and Nakime was currently bullying the remaining Viltrumites, the Shadow Invincible variants had gotten bored. Because they operated on John's chaotic gamer-logic, they had absolutely zero target priority. They were immortal, they were entirely unhinged, and they were taking out their pent-up aggression on anyone in their line of sight.
"I'm gonna wear your skin like a tracksuit!" a shadow Mark yelled, dive-bombing a heavily armored Coalition Rhino-alien and piledriving him into the dirt.
"Language, young man!"
A blurry figure moved at speeds that shattered the sound barrier.
SMACK.
The shadow Mark was sent violently skidding across the dirt, his jaw completely dislocated. Standing protectively over the terrified alien soldier was Supermom. She was wearing her cherry red suit, holding a plastic six-pack ring of Coca-Cola in her left hand, while her right fist was still raised in a perfect boxing stance.
The shadow Mark sat up, grabbing his chin and snapping his jaw back into place with a wet crunch. He stared at the suburban housewife in pure confusion.
"Did a soccer mom just parry me?" the Evil Mark muttered. "This universe is seriously bugged."
Supermom just smiled brightly, bending down to hand a perfectly chilled can of Coke to the terrified Allen. "Here you go, hon. Hydration is key! You just take a breather, I'll handle the rowdy teenagers."
Back at the Mount Rushmore above the crater, John let out a long, exaggerated sigh of relief.
He opened his system interface, watching his blue mana bar finally stabilize. The rapid drain had stopped, and the numbers were slowly beginning to tick upward.
"Oh, thank RNGesus," John muttered, rubbing his temples.
Nakime was doing the heavy lifting now, and she was doing it perfectly. With her taking the aggro and actively thinning the Viltrumite herd, the mana drain from his shadows constantly dying had finally stopped.
"GG," John smirked, looking up at the bright blue sky. "We've got the ground control on lock. This raid is basically over."
He relaxed his shoulders, rolling his neck until it popped. He had won. The shadows were on clean-up duty, Nakime was safe and currently thriving as the new apex predator of the battlefield, and Thragg was currently getting sat on by an oversized bug in the vacuum of space.
Everything was perfect. The arc was resolving nicely and he could probably grab some pizza after this.
CREAAAK.
John froze.
It wasn't a sound that came from the battlefield. Not even from the Earth itself.
It was a sound that seemed to vibrate directly inside his skull. It was a massive, structural groaning, the sound of something unimaginably large shifting.
Every single person on the battlefield stopped dead in their tracks.
General Kregg froze mid-flight. The shadow Marks immediately shut up. Allen the Alien paused mid-air. Even Supermom lowered her six-pack of Coke, her cheerful smile faltering.
Everyone in the same beat looked up.
It was daytime, but the moon was clearly visible in the blue sky. And it was glowing.
"Uh... John?" Nakime asked. She lowered her biwa, the biomechanical whips retracting back into her forearms as she stepped closer to him. Both of her eyes were fixed on the sky, her demonic instincts screaming at her that something was fundamentally wrong with the world. "Is the moon supposed to do that?"
John just stared upward, his jaw slowly dropping.
"No," John whispered. "No, it is absolutely not."
Deep, jagged and glowing cerulean blue lines were actively spreading across the entire surface of the moon. It was a terrifying, nevertheless mesmerising sight. The fractures widened by the second as brilliant, blinding blue light poured out from the cracks, illuminating the daytime sky with an eerie, cosmic glow.
The physical effects hit the Earth instantly. The very gravitational pull of the planet seemed to stutter by the microsecond. The loose gravel and dust hovering in the air from the battle suddenly lost gravity, floating upward like they were underwater. The air grew heavy, thick with a strange, metallic static.
And then, the moon cracked open like an egg.
The crust simply peeled back slowly, breaking apart into massive, continent-sized chunks of rock, revealing what had been gestating inside the celestial body for millennia.
Massive, writhing tentacles composed entirely of solid, glowing blue light erupted from the core of the broken moon.
[IMAGE HERE]
They unfurled through the vacuum of space, thrashing lazily. They were so impossibly large, so cosmically vast, that they were clearly visible from the surface of the Earth with the naked eye. It was pure, unfiltered cosmic horror, a creature so large it used a celestial body as an eggshell.
John's breath caught in his throat.
He recognized those glowing shade of blue light. Any comic reader worth their salt knew exactly what that was, and exactly what it meant for the timeline.
It was the mysterious, god-like entity. The one that had sent Mark back in time in the original comic timeline, the one that possessed absolute power over time.
And apparently, Meruem and Thragg's little wrestling match on the lunar surface had woken it up early.
Suddenly, a voice echoed across the globe.
It bypassed sound waves entirely and spoke directly into the minds of every single living creature on the planet simultaneously. It was a booming, ancient, and undeniably furious voice that carried the weight of a collapsing world. The sheer telepathic pressure was suffocating. Across the crater, even the arrogant Viltrumite warriors were forced to their hands and knees, clutching their skulls in agony as the sheer cosmic weight of the presence crushed their equilibrium.
"ENOUGH WITH YOUR MEDDLING, YOU ALIEN!!!"
[A/N]:
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