The GDA facility smelled like antiseptic and crushed hope. Not the grand apocalypse scent I'd pictured—more hospital janitor than the literal end of the world..
We were buried under God knows how many tons of concrete, tucked into a newly-acquired, off-the-books bunker—the kind of place that only exists when the world's about to die. One of the last safe zones, slapped together in a panic after the first Marks started showing up.
You know the ones.
Evil, unhinged, multiversal versions of Invincible, wearing his face like some grotesque cosplay. They didn't just destroy cities—they methodically gutted every GDA stronghold, as if memorizing our playbook. Power grids, comms towers, secret bases—poof. Gone.
Either they'd once worked for us in their own timelines…
Or they'd spent years learning exactly how to kill us.
I didn't like either option.
I stood outside Room 17, rifle slung heavy across my chest, playing the role of glorified doorstop. Guard duty. Specifically, the one-room VIP suite housing Atom Eve's busted ankle and Invincible's broken priorities.
All according to plan.
Through the door, I could hear Director Cecil Stedman. His voice—controlled, clipped, half a cigarette away from collapse. The sound of a man trying to hold back a tsunami with duct tape and caffeine.
"Mark, the world needs you!" Cecil wasn't yelling—yelling was for amateurs, people who had never stared down demigods and budget committee hearings—he talked in that barely-contained growl he'd perfected over decades of wrangling superheroes.
And then came Mark Grayson's answer. Cold. Detached.
It had only been two days. Two days where the world went to shit at the hands of the invincible variants. Alternate versions of Mark Grayson, our very own invisible.
Countries had been wiped off the map. Capitals destroyed.
London. I'd seen the drone footage before it cut out. A scarred Mark, all prison tattoos and rage, had dive-bombed Big Ben, shattering it into shrapnel that tore through crowds like a meat grinder. The Thames was a red slurry, while another Mark, in a knockoff Omni-Man suit, ripped Buckingham Palace apart, painting the walls with guards' entrails. Five million dead, maybe more. Nobody was counting.
Mexico City didn't fare better. A yellow-caped Mark had flown through Zócalo Square at Mach 10, the shockwave turning bodies into a red mist that coated the cathedral's spires. Another, wielding the Angel of Independence like a club, smashed skyscrapers into rubble, crushing millions under golden debris. Streets slick with blood and bone. Ten million, gone.
Parts of Berlin had become a mass grave. The mohawked bastard from Paris had torn through the Brandenburg Gate, impaling families on its pillars like grotesque ornaments. He leveled the Reichstag, punching through its dome and bathing the city in glass and fire. The air stank of charred flesh, survivors choking on screams, hundreds of thousands dead at least.
Eavesdropping wasn't in the job description, but neither was watching the world end while I babysat a broken hero and his girlfriend.
"You are not listening to me," Cecil's voice dropped, heavy with…something. "The world's on fire. You do not get to sit here playing Florence Nightingale while civilization eats itself."
Still no answer.
I could picture Mark in there. Chair pulled up to the bed like it was a throne. Arms folded on the sheets. Head down. That brooding angel routine, soaking in the silence like it made him noble.
It would've been romantic.
If it wasn't the most selfish goddamn thing I'd ever seen.
Yeah. I said it.
Mark Grayson—Invincible, humanity's last hope—was a selfish prick.
The world was a slaughterhouse. Entire nations were ash. Families gone. Cities turned into punchlines for alien war crimes.
And our strongest weapon?
Was parked next to a woman with a fractured ankle like that somehow balanced the scales.
Cecil didn't let up. "They hit Nevada last night, Mark. The quantum relays—our only shot at tracking Levy's portal tech. Gone. They carved a message in the desert, big enough to see from space: 'Invincible Wins.' Your name, your face, their body count. You gonna let that stand?"
I clenched my jaw, the rifle creaking under my grip. Invincible Wins. A taunt, a knife in the gut. Those evil Marks weren't just killing—they were mocking us, branding their carnage with Mark's name. And the real Mark was here, holding Eve's hand like that'd erase the blood.
Atom Eve—bless her, hero in her own right—was unconscious, sure. Stable. Recovering. But Mark?
Nothing.
Everyone was out there. All superabled individuals on the planet. At least that the GDA knew of. Heroes and villains working together to cull these world-ending threats.
The news feeds had been looping it for days, even here in this concrete tomb. The death toll was astronomical.
Mark didn't answer. I could hear nothing but a creak. I imagined him in there, slumped in a chair beside Atom Eve's medical bed, arms clasped on the sheets, staring at her like she was the last good thing in a world gone to shit.
But I guess such was the arrogance of the powerful. The ones strong enough to do whatever the fuck they wanted. Irrespective of how many men, women, children, animals, cities, countries—hell, ecosystems—got killed and destroyed. Hmm sounds like someone in the future—not me alright.
But that was fine.
Because everything was coming to a head.
The culmination of decades of quiet work, of small moves, of blending in.
I'd been planning this since high school. Playing the long game.
The A-student. Track captain. Guy who never stood out too much, never slacked off too hard. Just enough charm to be liked, just enough discipline to be trusted.
Graduated middle of the pack, nothing flashy. Exactly the kind of guy the GDA likes to slide under the radar. And they did. Took me in. Trained me. Gave me a uniform, a badge, access.
"You think Eve would want this? You think she'd be okay with you letting billions die just to play vigil? Seoul's gone, Mark. This morning. They ripped through the safehouse like it was nothing. No survivors. Not even bodies to bury."
Mark finally replied. "Find another person. I cannot leave her, Cecil. One of them could find their way here. Get rid of her to get at me. My place is with her."
My heart skipped, my grip tightening on the rifle. An evil Mark, here? The thought of that mohawked bastard or the yellow-caped psycho crashing through this bunker made my blood run cold. I wasn't built for that fight—not yet.
Cecil exhaled, a sound heavy with exhaustion.
"I know, Mark. I've thought of that. We're the only ones within a thousand miles. This place is locked down—drone swarms on perimeter patrol, laser grids in every corridor, motion sensors that'd catch a fly farting, and over fifty Reanimen standing between her and the exit. And if they get through all that, I'll be here myself, ready to zap her out."
"We both know that's not enough, Cecil." Mark replied.
Cecil's tone hardened, a final jab. "Very well, Mark. Your brother and mother are out there. I hope you can explain to Eve why you abandoned them when she wakes up."
Then the door hissed open, and I snapped to attention, my face a blank mask of "I'm just doing my job, sir."
Cecil stormed out. Didn't glance at me. Already halfway down the hall, barking orders into a comms unit about rerouting satellites and pulling agents from God-knows-where.
I stole a look through the door before it closed. There was Mark, just as I'd imagined: slumped in a chair, arms draped over Atom Eve's bed, face a wreck of guilt and grief. Eve was out, calm, her ankle cast comically large.
The heart monitor beeped steady and mocking as the door sealed with a click.
It was go time.
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Later. Teen Team HQ.
I crouched on a rusted roof beam, concussion sniper braced against my shoulder. The scope framed the scene like a panel torn out of a nightmare: Rex Splode, dangling by the throat, clutched in the fist of Retro Mark—Gogglesvincible himself.
The multiversal butcher who turned Nebraska into paste.
Now he hovered mid-air, bored, watching Rex choke.
To Rex's credit, he didn't beg. He glowed instead—charging his bones with explosive energy, even as blood streaked down his chin, even as his boots kicked for traction. A rasp of defiance, stubborn to the end.
I almost saluted him right there. From arrogant punk to brave bastard—Rex's arc had been something to respect.
But Step 8 didn't call for sentiment.
Pop.
The round hit Rex first. Head bursting like a melon under steel. Orange energy flared—then winked out.
The real shot kept going. The concussion round slammed into Gogglesvincible's face a split-second later, snapping his head back.
No gore. No detonation. Just mild annoyance. Billions in GDA R&D, and all it did was make him blink.
Fine. That was Act One.
The roof split under the weight of falling bodies.
Fifteen Reanimen hit like meteors, fists cocked.
I clicked the remote. Speakers hidden around HQ shrieked Viltrumite-deafening frequencies.
Gogglesvincible crumpled mid-air, clutching his ears, screaming blood.
The Reanimen swarmed. Fists like jackhammers. Knees like wrecking balls. Every strike aimed where I told them: the head. Always the head.
Mark roared through the noise, swinging wild. One backhand reduced a Reaniman to wet circuitry. Another lost an arm, sparks flying. But for each he crushed, two more piled on.
And then—the second signal. Shoulder-mounted speakers flared, filling the air with an even tighter cage of sound.
He dropped to a knee, vomiting blood.
The pack mauled him. Fists denting ribs. Knees collapsing joints. Goggles cracked, one lens shattering under a brutal hook. He staggered, disoriented, but still dangerous—until the biggest Reaniman stepped forward, whom I dearly personally named 'The dicker' piledrived.
The impact was thunder. Mark went limp, cratering the floor.
The swarm didn't stop.
I finally exhaled.
Climbed down, legs shaking. Strapped the frequency collar around his throat.
"Stop," I ordered. "You—carry him. The rest, set charges."
They obeyed. My monsters.
Minutes later we were gone, Teen Team HQ burning behind us.
Step 9: underway.
Found myself a Safehouse. Neural rig waiting like a Frankenstein monster. Quantum processor salvaged from a trashed GDA lab in Nevada, fried during the quantum relay attack, rewired by my own blood-soaked ingenuity. Biotech filaments, scavenged from Mauler Twins tech, finicky as hell.
This wasn't just any neural interface. No sane scientist would've even dreamed of plugging into a Viltrumite mind. Their DNA, their synaptic architecture, their neurons—it was alien to human biology. The GDA had tried before. Failed. Every attempt melted processors, fried circuits, or simply produced brain-dead Reanimen rejects. Viltrumite DNA was "impossible" for a human mind-cloning machine to handle.
And yet, here it was. Somehow, I'd done it. Hours of recalibration, rewriting every line of code, modding the quantum processor to anticipate the Viltrumite neural firing patterns, creating adaptive filtration to translate their near-godlike synapses into something a human rig could map. A miracle built from scrap metal, stolen circuits, and sheer obsessive persistence.
Retro Mark strapped down like a lab rat. Goggles shattered, face a mess of bruises and dried blood. Frequency collar pulsing.
I climbed onto my own machine bed, hands shaking, neural headset biting into my scalp. Adrenaline spiking.
Step 9: rewrite a god.
"Everything's ready," I muttered.
"You're dead, Asshat!" Retro Mark weakly rasped. Frequency collar pulsing, constantly feeding frequencies making him unable to heal shit, good for me not for him
"Fuck you."
Switch flipped. Rig roared.
Pain. like Molten steel in my skull. My mind mapped, neurons scanned. Across from me, Retro Mark thrashed, screaming, animalistic. Reanimen slammed him down, restraining him, added with the frequency continuously spammed to his brain, He couldn't do shit.
My mental will poured into him, burning over his own.
80%. 90%. 95%.
My body trembled. Sweat pooling. Every nerve screamed.
Then—it was done.
I collapsed, headset slipping, brain fried. Over 80% of my neurons scorched.
I gurgled, blood and bile pooling. Dying.
Then—a sound. Metal, restraints snapping.
He stood. Retro Mark.
my body, my mind.
"Like I just closed my eyes and opened them again," he said.
Chilling. Perfect.
"Good. That means it worked."
"You too... should have everything—skills, instincts."
"Don't be sorry! This was always the plan!" I barked, voice ragged.
He blinked, my eyes, my features. "Still…no one is prepared to kill themselves."
"Evolution, not death. I live on you in you. My first real step towards my fated destiny, M—"
"My magnus opus," I croaked.
He nodded. My eyes in his. Regret? Gratitude? Doesn't matter.
I reached. "Do it."
"I'll is make it as painless and quick as possible"
I laughed, spending most of the little energy I have left.
"Do it" I reiterated, what energy left spent.
Hand into my chest. Pain white-hot. Then darkness. Silence.