"Have you two lost it?!" I yelled over the deafening boom of exploding drywall. "That eco-terrorist will wipe out half of humanity without a second thought if it meant saving a single cup of clean water that's being used!"
"B-boss, take it easy," Isotope stuttered, ducking as a piece of a shattered marble column flew overhead. "You're still recovering!"
I grabbed my head with both hands and yelled straight at the ceiling. "Ahhhhhhhhhh!"
"Hey look, don't be like that," Titan said, trying to stay composed behind our shrinking concrete pillar. "Imagine how we feel. Everything was going smoothly and according to plan… until he escaped."
I massaged my temples, feeling a massive migraine forming right behind my eyes. "Are we actively searching for him at least?"
"Ever since he escaped," Titan replied. "However, he's found a way to completely evade us. We tried tracking his specific heat signature, samples of DNA we've taken, and even attempted to predict where he might go based on the pattern of his previous movements. But we got nothin'."
I pinched the bridge of my nose, taking a deep breath to keep from losing my mind. "Do we even know how he escaped in the first place?"
"Yes, but it's pretty insane," Isotope said, nervously peeking around the corner of the pillar. "He used his own damn body to break out, it was crazy! You gotta see the security footage later to believe it!"
I groaned loudly. "I don't feel well. Why is it always like this? Can't we have a year of peace, at least?!"
"If the world was too peaceful, it'd be boring," Titan rumbled.
"And if the world isn't, we get moments like this," I said, gesturing to the two unstoppable forces of nature currently tearing my headquarters apart. "We still gotta figure out a way to stop this before handling that overgrown lizard."
"Well, we better think fast because I ain't going in there," Isotope squeaked.
Titan looked serious for a moment—the most serious I've ever seen him—and then slowly loosened his tie. "So this is how I die," he finally said, shaking his head. "Welp, can't say I didn't enjoy the ride while it lasted."
I did a double-take. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! We are not giving up yet!"
"We aren't?! How in the hell are we supposed to stop them?!" Titan shouted. "It's going to take some kind of miracle, like your powers magically coming back or—"
Titan got cut off as a blinding beam of pink plasma came hurtling straight toward our pillar. Eve had launched it at full blast, but Anissa had batted it away like a baseball, deflecting the lethal energy right into our blind spot.
Titan's skin instantly hardened into solid, jagged stone as he threw his massive frame in front of me. Isotope scrambled to grab both of our arms, his eyes wide in absolute terror as he tried to force a blind teleportation jump.
Out in the atrium, Eve gasped in pure horror, realizing her deflected attack was about to vaporize me. "MARK!" she screamed, frantically trying to pull the energy back.
Oh shit! I thought, watching the beam head towards me. I'm done for.
CRAAAAAASH!
Suddenly, the reinforced glass ceiling shattered into a rain of sparkling fragments. A high-tech metallic shadow dropped straight out of the sky, slamming onto the floor between our pillar and the incoming plasma beam in a perfect three-point landing.
The Tech Jacket armor flared bright gold, its energy batteries humming with a deep vibration as it absorbed the entire stray blast without moving an inch.
As the smoke cleared, the alien armor retracted from her face, revealing Zoe looking back at us with a confident smirk.
"Need a hand?" she asked.
I let out the longest sigh of my life as Titan's skin softened back to normal and Isotope sank to the floor, clutching his chest.
"Ayyyyyye, Zooooeeee!" I exclaimed, a genuine smile breaking through my stress as I stepped around the pillar. "Am I ever glad to see you."
"Likewise, Mark," she said as her Tech Jacket armor retracted into its body armor stage. She walked over and pulled me into a brief, warm hug, taking care not to crush my distinctly human frame.
"How's your dad?" I asked, hugging back. "And... are you doing okay? After everything with the Coalition?"
"He's good," She replied softly. "When your dad got me back to my father's space station, I was able to come down here to Invincible Inc. and explain what happened. About your coma, the war... and you being some kind of alien prince." She gave a dry chuckle. "Which is how Cecil got word, by the way. Sorry about that. Your team explained how you guys haven't really been seeing eye to eye."
"Don't worry about it," I waved off. "Cecil was gonna find out one way or another. And it's better that he did.
She paused and looked down for a moment. "And about Oliver…"
"Hey now, don't get so down," I said, reassuringly. "We'll get him back. He'll be here before you even know it."
Zoe nodded gratefully, but before she could answer, a pink aura flared from the dust cloud across the room.
"Mark?!"
Eve's voice cracked with raw, breathless desperation. She landed hard on the marble floor, her glowing eyes instantly locking onto mine. The sheer fury that had been driving her moments ago completely evaporated, replaced by overwhelming, tear-filled shock.
"Mark... you're... you're awake!"
She flew across the ruined atrium, throwing her arms around my neck and tackling me into a desperate, crushing embrace.
"Aye, Ev—whoa! Eve!" I gasped aloud, my ribs groaning loudly under the pressure. I wrapped my arms around her waist, holding her close, but man, she was holding on for dear life. "Damn, girl... you've been working on your grip training, huh?"
Even more than usual? my libido chimed in with a sleazy grin. The last time we were in there—
Shut the fuck uuuuuup, I roared internally, shutting it down instantly.
Eve pulled back slightly, her hands grabbing my face, her eyes searching my face with intense concern. "Mark, what's wrong? You feel... fragile. And why are you breathing so hard?" She glanced around me, her expression hardening as her eyes landed on Anissa, who was floating a few inches off the ground, watching us with a look of supreme distaste. "And why is she here?!"
I cleared my throat. "Well, I caught a... sickness while we were out in space," I explained, giving Eve a subtle, meaningful look. "It took my powers away, but I'm completely fine, just recovering. And Anissa here is my... Empire-appointed bodyguard."
"Bodyguard?!" Eve repeated, her brow furrowing in deep skepticism. "Mark, she—"
"She's here under orders from the Empire to make sure nothing happens to me while I'm at a… disadvantage," I cut in quickly, trying to signal to her not to push it. "Which brings me to a question of my own... Isotope said you fought Omnipotus while I was out? And that your powers upgraded?"
Eve blinked, caught off guard by the change in subject, before letting out a tired breath. "It's a long story. Omnipotus showed up while you were gone, and things got bad. And I mean really bad. I'll tell you the details later, but... I just had to push past a few limits to keep everyone alive."
Ha! She probably whooped that boy ass, my libido murmured, practically swooning. Man, she's so fine. Aye, get them clothes off and get ready to fu—
I ignored the voice, giving Eve's hand a reassuring squeeze. "Yea, that sounds good," I said. "Let's discuss the other topics at the meeting."
*****
We relocated to the secure, medium-sized conference room.
I took my seat at the head of the long maroon table. Eve sat immediately to my right, while Titan, Isotope, Zoe, my logistics lead, and various other department heads filled the remaining seats.
The room was dead silent, and it wasn't because of the gravity of the meeting. It was because Anissa had chosen to stand directly behind me with her arms crossed. She looked like a terrifying gargoyle; her blue eyes sweeping the room, silently daring anyone in it to make a sudden movement.
Everyone was sweating bullets—except for Eve, whose fists were still glowing with a faint pink hum under the table.
"Alright," I said, clapping my hands to break the suffocating tension. "Let's get right into it. Titan, tell me what else I missed while I was off-world."
Titan cleared his throat, deliberately keeping his eyes off the Viltrumite behind me. "Well, for starters, Cecil's been sniffing around. With you gone and presumed dead by the GDA, he's been trying to encroach on our operations. Requesting 'emergency oversight' and demanding access to proprietary tech."
"Of course he is," I sighed. "We can deal with him later. What else is new?"
"Robot—well, Rudy—has officially been made the tactical field leader for the new iteration of the Guardians of the Globe," Isotope chimed in. "It's a heavy-hitting lineup. Bulletproof, Rex-Splode, Monster-Girl, Black Samson, Shapesmith, and a couple of new additions: Kid Thor and Knockout."
My eyes narrowed slightly.
So Rudy has the keys to the kingdom now, I thought, placing a hand on my chin. With him having eyes in more places and GDA resources backing him, he's definitely going to be a lot more paranoid too. Did he find anything while I was gone? Has he still been looking into my variants or the portals they came from during the Invincible War?
I forced my expression to remain neutral. "Good for him. We'll keep a close eye on their operations. Now... I suppose it's my turn to explain what's been happening."
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table. Over the next ten minutes, I told them how I was dominating the war effort at first, but then the Viltrumites began to act strange towards me.
I watched their jaws drop when I revealed that my dad and I were the direct heirs to the Viltrumite Empire—the last of the true royal bloodline.
"But the Coalition of Planets—the people I was fighting alongside—had constructed a particular plan without my knowledge," I continued, my voice dropping. "Their leader wanted to end the Viltrumite Empire permanently. They engineered a highly contagious, DNA-wiping bomb designed to eradicate Viltrumite Smart Atoms. And because of my bloodline, that included me, my dad, and Oliver."
Eve gasped softly, her hand instinctively reaching out to grab mine.
"I ultimately had to kill the Coalition leader to stop the bomb," I finished, staring at the polished table. "I was successful... but the exposure cost me my powers, and led to the destruction of the Viltrumites' home planet, which is why they are now here on Earth living amongst us."
Everyone seemed to turn towards Anissa, who still had a look of distaste on her face.
"My powers will return eventually," I said, bringing their attention back to me. "I just don't know when, or how."
The room went paralyzed with disbelief. Even Titan looked pale.
I turned my attention to my logistics lead, who was staring at me with wide eyes. "Which brings me to my next point. Is Code Iron ready to go?"
She shook her head, snapping out of her shock, and quickly nodded. "Yes, Sir. The prototype is fully operational and synced to your biometrics."
"Code Iron?" Zoe asked, tilting her head. "What's that?"
"It's an indicator that something has gone catastrophically wrong, and that Mark's body is in a vulnerable state and needs to be protected at all costs," Titan explained, crossing his massive arms.
That's the gist of it, but in reality it's just a hightech suit of armor, I explained internally. The full name of the code is Code Iron-Man. I had the villain formerly known as Rampage be a key developer in designing it, because the armored suit he was previously stuck in was nearly indestructible.
The lead handed me a datapad displaying the schematics of the suit of armor.
I had originally commissioned it as a precaution. I thought it would be a great failsafe for people like Debbie, or other regular people, and non-superpowered workers at Invincible Inc., so they could slip into something indestructible if anything catastrophic ever happened to Earth.
A bitter sense of irony swept over me. I just never imagined I'd be the one who needed it.
"We'll deploy the suit to my office after the meeting," I said, pushing the lingering dread aside. I looked down the table, locking eyes with Titan and Isotope. "Now... show me how Dinosaurus got out."
Isotope tapped a few keys on his datapad, dimming the conference room lights. A holographic projection hummed to life in the center of the table, displaying the reinforced interior of Dinosaurus's subterranean holding cell.
"Watch closely," Isotope said, speeding up the timestamp. "This is compiled footage over the span of a few weeks right after you went into your coma."
On the projection, the massive, red-scaled beast was doing seemingly mundane things—eating, pacing, and scratching at his scales. But as Isotope zoomed in and slowed the footage down, the terrifying reality of what he was doing became clear.
"He was hoarding the calcium from his meals," Titan said, pointing a thick finger at the hologram. "And synthesizing it with a bio-luminescent enzyme he extracted from his own shedding scales."
I watched in absolute disbelief as Dinosaurus systematically painted a highly complex, light-refracting mural on the back wall of his cell, right in the camera's blind spots.
"When the cell lights dimmed for the automated night cycle," Isotope continued, switching the feed to thermal imaging, "the mural created a perfect, thermal-matching optical illusion of him sleeping on his cot."
"And while the cameras thought he was sleeping..." I muttered, watching the footage intensly.
"He was calculating the exact micro-seismic vibrations of the nearest fault line and the city's subway schedule," Titan finished grimly. "He used a highly concentrated acidic compound—derived from his own stomach acid—to silently melt through the reinforced titanium ventilation shaft. He timed every single claw scrape and acid sizzle with the passing trains above so the seismic sensors wouldn't detect his digging."
The hologram flickered out, plunging the room back into the harsh overhead lighting.
I sat back in my chair, rubbing my temples. How can someone be that terrifyingly intelligent?
"He must have heard the news about my coma," I said aloud, piecing the timeline together. "Once he got that information, it probably gave him the perfect window to make his move and bust out of his cell."
"And he's been completely free and untraceable for three months," Eve said quietly, realizing the gravity of the situation.
"Exactly," I nodded, my heart rate accelerating. "If a genius like him has been unchecked for three months, then he's not just hiding. He's definitely building something terrifying that will probably wipe out half of humanity in one fell swoop."
I sat up straight. If I couldn't fly out there and punch him into submission, then I needed to rely on those who could.
"Titan, Isotope," I called out. "I need you two to shake down the criminal underworld. I want to know about any massive purchases of tech, chemicals, or rare metals over the last three months. Squeeze every contact you have."
"You got it," Titan nodded.
I turned to Zoe. "Zoe, I need you to head back up to your dad's space station and use the sensors to check Earth's perimeter. Look for any massive patterns terraformed into the land, or anything newly added in the past three months. We need to see if he left any clues from an upper perspective."
"I'm on it," Zoe said, her face set with determination.
But even with all the recon in the world, I knew it wouldn't be enough. If we found him, we still needed the raw firepower to actually subdue an overgrown, hyper-intelligent T-Rex.
I slowly turned my head around, looking up at the towering Viltrumite standing behind me.
"Anissa," I called.
Her eyes locked onto mine. "Yes?"
"If Dinosaurus threatens this planet, he inherently threatens me," I began. "How will you respond?"
Anissa uncrossed her arms and slightly raised a fist. "With exactly what is appropriate, of course."
"I see," I said, nodding. "Then, I formally authorize you to deal with him once we locate him and his base."
A slow, chilling smile spread across her face. After months of guard duty, she was finally given permission to let loose. "It would be my pleasure."
"Alright," I announced, standing up from the table. "Meeting adjourned."
As everyone stood to file out of the room to begin their tasks, I caught Eve's eye. I gave her a subtle, urgent nod, tilting my head slightly toward Anissa's back before gesturing towards the direction of my private office.
Eve nodded back in understanding.
The hunt was on, and I was going to need her by my side to survive whatever was coming.