Shrinking Rae
What even was a normal life? Rachel didn't know, if she was being entirely honest.
From the moment that her parents had understood that she had a gift, superpowers, things had never been normal for her. They'd told her that she had something to offer the world, something that ought to be nurtured and supported. Given that she was a kid at the time, she didn't actually know any better.
At the time, she didn't know what she was giving up in exchange for that sort of career. Rachel didn't understand that she was giving up regular, mundane friendships. She didn't understand all of the experiences that other teenage girls had, that she'd be missing out entirely. While they were fretting about boys, homecoming, and prom, she was going through rigorous drills to push her powers to their utmost limits.
Rachel lacked the qualia, the lifetime of little odds and ends that'd give her the framework to comprehend what she was missing. At least, that had been the case at first. It wasn't until she'd actually gotten out into the world and been exposed to the wider superheroic community that she could see the edges of what had been taken from her.
Even her career, such as you could call it in the beginning, had proven relatively lackluster. Most of the crimes she stopped were small-scale, kiddie stuff, the kind of bush league business that any C-lister with a pulse could bring to a stop by themselves. There'd only been one actual supervillain in a two-hundred-mile radius of her home.
And frankly, most days she struggled to consider Professor Khaos all that troublesome. He was more like a deeply, profoundly troubled man who needed mental health services rather than actual jail time. She'd always felt a little bad about knocking his lights out or giving him nausea by jumping around in his inner ear.
It wasn't that surprising that anyone would begin to feel like all of those years of training and effort were wasted. Rachel could have been doing anything else with her powers, but her parents had focused on one thing and one thing only. To the exclusion of anything else that the brunette could have offered the world.
Or so she might have continued to feel, if it wasn't for her big break.
As awful as it was to even think, the deaths of the original roster of the Guardians of the Globe were the kind of once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for someone's superheroic ambitions. They'd always been reticent to add more members, especially seeing as a good chunk of the roster had known each other for decades, if not centuries. Adding new ones came piecemeal, here and there, and usually with requirements on power that Rachel didn't meet.
She was under no illusions as to the type of abilities she possessed. Nobody would be turning to her to lift up oil tankers or to punch the Mauler Twins from one side of the White House lawn to the other. Of course, maybe that was her own dissatisfaction with her career at the time.
When Robot had extended the invitation to independents from across the country and world for the tryouts, she didn't have anything to lose by applying. Not when her parents were in her ear, eagerly pushing her to give it her all. She didn't have anything to lose, so she tried.
And against all odds, she succeeded.
To her parents, it was like a validation of everything they'd done over the course of her life. All of their lessons, their training, their regimens, and their routines. Every carefully balanced sheet of nutrition, optimizing her growth, or the martial arts and gymnastics classes she'd been thrown into. All of it, in their eyes, had been fulfilled.
Even Rachel would concede that she was pleased with how things had gone. The new version of the Guardians, as the days turned into weeks, then months, and now almost a full year, had proven popular. She had proven popular.
There were little girls trying to buy versions of her costume for Halloween. Her own popularity skyrocketed, with wiki entries and maybe less ideal creeper shots of her at unflattering or overly flattering angles. She was making the kind of money that most girls her age usually had to flash some serious skin to meet.
The resources for developing her powers had been generous beyond measure, too. Apparently the new alien that was a member of the team took it as a personal offense that they were 'weak' by his standards. She might have been offended too, if it wasn't objectively true in every way that mattered. So, he sat down with Robot and tinkered up ways to improve the efficacy of everyone in the team.
Everything was going so well that she had forgotten that she also shared a team with someone who was certifiable in some ways.
"Excuse me, what?" She said in obvious confusion as the Guardians of the Globe stood on the edge of the superheroic forces. Most of them were still tied up in the active battle going on around them. "That's an insane thing to say."
And then, the unofficial second in command's gaze turned to her.
Genji's gaze could prove hard to meet at times. There were moments when he was putting in the effort to react like a human, when his chest moved up and down gently to expand like he was breathing, or when his mannerisms twitched and flexed in all of the microexpressions that someone would expect from a normal person. And then there were times when all of that humanity was stripped away.
Like right about now.
Being under his pale-eyed, unblinking, unmoving gaze was a weight that Rachel wasn't sure if she could easily describe to other people. It felt like everything about you was being stripped away, as if he could see deeper into you than even you could begin to understand. She didn't know if she liked that level of intensity, of the unrelenting focus that it held, or hated it for how exposed it made her feel.
Maybe a bit of both, if she was being entirely honest with herself. It might have been easier to hate if he wasn't readily the most handsome man she'd ever met in her life. Superheroes were already a group that maintained higher than average fitness and muscle tone and thus better looks than most people. Genji still had almost every one of them beat, and it was clear that he didn't even try.
Fluffy, silky-looking hair, and a well-defined, masculine face, along with a build that could appropriately be called statuesque. It might have been a problem if Amanda didn't have a literally negative amount of relevant hormones, being in a child's body, and Kate wasn't already looking to try and prowl around Robot.
… She felt bad for that man. He didn't have the faintest clue of what was in his future. Not that she figured he'd mind it, when Kate inevitably made her move. Merely that he wouldn't have the faintest clue what to do with it.
"Wouldn't it be more ideal for you to lend some active assistance?" Robot asked, sounding a touch nervous from inside of his suit.
"Of course it would be," Taijitu admitted, and it was Taijitu, as he stepped away from the friendly, affable alien she normally knew him as. This was someone else, a little removed from humanity, a step away. "But that wouldn't help you, now would it?"
"That's crazy talk," Bulletproof stated. "This isn't a goddamn cartoon, Taijitu!"
The man who they'd expected to be the voice of reason, though, was the next one to speak. And not the words they'd presumed would be on their side.
"He's not wrong," the Immortal admitted. "The last edition of the team rested on our laurels. We were so rarely pressed in genuine ways, I'm afraid we may have stagnated. Training in sterile conditions is only so effective. And with Taijitu waiting in the wings, he can ensure actual, horrifying casualties are dropped to nil."
It wasn't as if he wasn't doing it while they were discussing the matter. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted small portals opening up in the middle of the battlescape seemingly at random. Only if you paid it any amount of attention, though, could the actual effects be seen.
Projectiles that were coming too close to overwhelming some of the softer superheroes were being redirected. Anyone who was seriously hurt by Omnipotus' weird biomechanical minions was being removed from danger. Fresh reinforcements kept being brought in, placed tactically into the scene…
Not for the first time, she realized how little Genji actually needed any of them in a fight. Yet instead of solving everything himself, he spent no small amount of time trying to lift them up. To think he still had detractors, believing that this was some sort of long-term, alien plot.
"It's a good point," Black Samson admitted. "S'not every day you get an invasion tailor-made for a war game."
"I'm happy to see that everyone's coming around to my point of view," Taijitu smiled, even if the warmth in it at that moment felt largely artificial. "Now, move to it! That big, would-be conqueror won't send himself packing."
"Right…" Robot trailed off, a little off-kilter now that his presumable plan had been functionally derailed by the refusal of Taijitu to get too involved. "Then the plan will change. Immortal, you're at the tip of the spear. Bulletproof, Monster Girl, Black Samson? First two on his left of the formation, other two are on the right to create some space. I'll be bringing up the rear and beginning my attack run, while everyone else brings up the core."
Glancing toward her specifically, Robot focused on Shrinking Rae with his green lenses. "I'm going to hope that you can keep their own formations unstable by appearing at the most inopportune points. I'll be able to direct you through your communication piece."
It meant that Shrinking Rae would largely be on her own for parts of it. Then again, she had the power that was the most suited for running solo out of the bunch. With the upgrades that she'd received, she'd become even more suited for the role.
"Got it," she nodded.
"Then let's go kick this invader off our world. This isn't his planet to conquer."
From there, things began to move quickly. All of them found themselves staring down a matte black portal as Taijitu waved his hand. In the beginning, she'd been a little nervous about them. Yet at this point Shrinking Rae had gone through them so often that she didn't have much in the way of trepidation concerning their appearance by this point. Taijitu had earned that trust over the months that she'd known him.
Even if he could still be singularly, uncomfortably alien, when the mood struck him. Then again, in this instance she suspected that he was having fun toying with them. Rachel had heard plenty from Robot about his training regimens, and this seemed to fit to a T what sort of shenanigans he favored.
Oh well. If she wanted to live a long, prosperous life, she would have chosen to do something else by now.
Leaping through, she was already well prepared for the insanity that she was going to be entering. Just as expected, everyone on the team was dropped in the formation that Robot had asked for, as they all took stock and began to move. Shrinking Rae was on the scene, with her new and improved suit.
On the outside, her costume would largely resemble the one she'd been using for years. Her powers did not play tremendously well with too much extraneous mass or bunches of clothing too far away from her body. The fact that her glasses even worked was a miracle, and most of the time Rachel tended to rely on contacts. With those design restraints in place, one would think Robot and Taijitu wouldn't have much to work with.
One would think that.
With a part of the GDA budget that made her head hurt to think about, and the unbridled creativity of two maniacs, few problems couldn't be solved. Which was why her newest version came with several additions, under the surface. What Taijitu called a 'jutsu-shiki', designed to interface with her spiritual and physical energies, going into a bunch of magic mumbo-jumbo that she didn't really understand.
All Shrinking Rae needed to know was that when she pressed her wrists, a very small needle pricked her. Collecting just a drop of blood, in a pinch that she barely noticed. From there, it activated the array, allowing the energies in question to intermingle and create what Taijitu called artificial chakra.
Dupli-Kate and Rex-Splode had similar situations in their suits, with the end result being the boost in their strength, dexterity, and durability, for as long as the process went on. Now, this artificial chakra creation did have some drawbacks, like gassing them out before long. It could only operate for roughly ten minutes, at maximum, unless they disengaged the safety controls.
Taijitu had been very, exceedingly clear that the consequences of going that far beyond would potentially be death. These were energies that would regenerate on their own, but there were limits for the largely normal humans of the team. If the situation called for it, would she be willing to go that far…?
Rachel didn't know. She couldn't know. So instead, she focused on the activation of the suit and moved. Power fueled her limbs as Shrinking Rae raced forward before downsizing herself and entering into the fray. While she didn't entirely understand chakra, the actual upsides were more exaggerated.
Shrunken down to the size of an insect, she was normally limited to human-level strength and speed. With this suit, though…
All the biomechanical soldiers could see was a small green blur, right before she punched or kicked. Shrinking Rae was moving through the tide of seemingly endless soldiers like a dynamo, never stopping her movement as she caused limbs to buckle, necks to snap, or other grievous bodily injuries. Maybe she could have been a bit nonlethal, but it was a given among most superheroes that alien invaders were marauding soldiers coming to take their world.
Which meant that the terms of battle were fundamentally different. No one would balk at using levels of force that would make most people in the streets turn green if they pulped skulls, ran their fists through chests, or otherwise brutalized them in ways that wouldn't palatable for television. Most of the time, it was a gentleman's agreement with supervillains that kept either side from escalating too much.
No such thing existed in place for Omnipotus' forces.
If she'd been limited to only what her enhanced body could do, Shrinking Rae would have proven to be a capable force multiplier. However, her suit's enhanced capabilities weren't the only gift that Robot and Taijitu had handed to her. One of the tricks that they'd been working on was standardizing the yields and format of his weird paper tags that could be printed off en masse.
The end result had proven explosive. Or, well, poisonous, stunning, icy, or whatever tag that she was using. They were basically as thin as they could be printed and placed in a panel on her forearm to be capable of shrinking with her. Dupli-Kate and Rex's versions had their own modifications to work with their powers.
And it was a tool she'd likely never get tired of using, as she slapped one to the back of a soldier and darted away. It returned to full size moments later, no longer under the sway of her powers. Then it promptly burst, as the soldier in question and the surrounding area turned into a semi-trailer-sized wasteland of frozen bodies.
There was a grim satisfaction there, as she spared the moment to glance over at what her allies were up to. Dupli-Kate and Rex-Splode, for all of their enhancements, were not in the frontline, dealing with Omnipotus. That dubious honor had fallen to Bulletproof, Robot, Immortal, and Black Samson.
When it came to the forces themselves, though, they were more than enough to deal with them.
Testing with Rex's powers had discovered something that had Robot and Taijitu in a frenzy of invention. When he applied his explosive capabilities to anything that had chakra stored inside of it, the resulting boom was multiplicative. And it seemed to rise exponentially, according to the level of chakra that was put inside whatever storage medium they chose.
This did come with the downside of making the actual item itself have a much shorter fuse than it otherwise would have. But the makeshift, mechanical sling that they'd strapped to Rex's arm had solved that problem accordingly. Now the little marbles that let off modest explosions had been turned into some truly dangerous
"GET SOME!" Rex yelled, laughing afterwards, as he sent glowing, radioactively blue balls toward a cluster of the soldiers. Who promptly ceased to exist, the moment any of them hit their bodies. That was all the pressure that was needed to make them explode in a wave of light that almost hurt her eyes to see.
Robot and Taijitu had been apparently worried that Rex wouldn't be taking it particularly seriously. However, Rex had been a superhero for years without ever blowing himself up. She suspected that hadn't given him enough credit for how surprisingly safety-conscious he could be under the right conditions.
For a man who'd been opining about his own possible effectiveness on the field in the face of real juggernauts, this had allowed him to up his game. Well, to a certain degree, as he ducked for cover behind rocks as gunfire raked his position. "Shit!"
The more things changed, the more they seemed to stay the same.
Dupli-Kate was having a different level of success, given the fact that all of her clones were not superhumans that could prove just as effective in combat as Shrinking Rae. The downside? They had to share the same general pool of energy for magical nonsense reasons that Robot and Taijitu tried to explain to everyone. Ultimately, the girl wasn't that upset.
Not when for a brief period of time, she was a small army unto herself. Legion, as one Kate moved to basically use a soldier as a blunt force weapon, sweeping across the various others in front of her. Two more were back-to-back, having stolen some of the weapons from their foes and were liberally raking the target-rich environment with them. As for the original…
Well, Shrinking Rae didn't know where the original was in the thick of things, but they at least seemed to be having a grand time. She wouldn't begrudge them that much, not when she was in the same boat.
Rachel had a genuine smile on her face as she went about her job, enjoying things for the first time in a long time. It wasn't as if she relished the violence in and of itself. Yet the ability to actually project change and protect people, to dart in and save another superhero right in the blink of an eye before heading right back into the fray…
There was no other feeling like it. With their job being more or less handled, she hoped that the frontliners that had pushed forward could handle the major, massive seeming threat of Omnipotus by themselves. Otherwise, Taijitu would have to get involved…
… And she knew that he'd be insufferableabout it.
The Immortal
One would imagine that the passing of ages and eras would begin to hurt less as time goes on. Most, who hadn't yet felt the ravages of ages or experienced the passing of years, would think immortality a blessing. Those individuals, in his eyes, didn't quite understand what it meant to be ageless.
He was, genetically, a common ancestor for no small percentage of the human race by this point. Immortal had seen civilizations crumble to dust, forgotten rare language isolates that had been spoken by less than several thousand people in their heyday, and witnessed more of his loved ones perish than anyone could bear. Yet all of it still hurt, no matter how much he wished it didn't.
Despite everything, though, he was still here. To have survived past those whom he would have wished he could have walked through the ages with him. There was anger, bubbling and boiling deep within his core, a fury that was just as paired with his own anguish and loss.
So like any other time in history, he did his best to push these emotions toward more productive ends. Rather than allow himself to sink into an ennui that he knew from previous bouts could last for years. Perhaps even decades, under the right circumstances. Trying to cope with the fall of Camelot had been a particularly troublesome time for him.
Superheroism, and the work that it entailed, was so thick with a need for engagement that he didn't have the time to get wrapped up in himself. Which was ideally, really, as he flew into the fray alongside the rest of the Guardians, finding himself completely and utterly surrounded by foes before long.
Whatever way he went, there would be someone to strike. About as ideal of a situation to vent his emotions as humanly possible.
"Guardians, toward their leader!" Robot called over the communications as he darted forward, arms raised to let out crackles of waves of electricity that acted more like water than the leavings of a storm.
Part of Immortal rankled at being ordered by someone so much younger. The other, less hurt part of him could recognize this was just the passing of the ages. Everything had its season and if you wanted to engender the leadership skills needed to protect the world in the next generation of heroes, that meant giving them command.
"Registered!" Immortal yelled back, sending a soldier flying with a backhand as he flew through their formation. "Guardians, ASSEMBLE!"
Bulletproof came from the side, his powers not entirely dissimilar to Immortal's own in many respects. If there was a difference, it was that his durability was likely slightly higher, with the tradeoff of might. When it came to bowling through the array of soldiers, the machinery and artillery they'd brought to support their invasion, not much in the way of real durability or finesse was needed.
Just the capacity to take the damage and keep on going. That was what Bulletproof could do, readily, Black Samson right there by Immortal's side, as he punched and kicked with the best of them. Despite the way the man's powers had diminished, forcing him to rely on the suit he now wore, his heroic spirit remained the same. In that brief instant, Immortal could almost imagine nothing had changed.
And then the moment passed, and the ever familiar smells of war surrounded him. The acrid scent of burnt, carbonized flesh and the coppery perfume of spilt blood. Cries that came from every which way, from distant superheroes trying to organize their own assaults and the death knells of the monstrous soldiery they fought.
He propelled himself forward, pouring his willpower into the flight that maneuvered him through the air toward the bulky, huge figure that seemed to be the leader of this invasion. Charging directly at the man, the creature seemed to give him a monstrous smirk, arms spread wide as he welcomed the blow.
"Try your might, puny weakling!" It exclaimed, as Immortal's punch was taken on the chest. The strike barely made it skid back a few feet, as he could experience how tough it was.
… Compared to Nolan, though? His capacity for unyielding, undefeatable opponents had been thoroughly raised after fighting his former ally and friend. This foe was mighty, yes, but did not share in Brit's invulnerability. Which meant that it could be slain or fended off with the right application of effort.
"WEAK!" Omnipotus yelled as his backhand took him in the face, sending blood spilling from his body as it followed it up with a blow that whistled through the air toward Immortal's torso.
Feeling the spiked fist of Omnipotus strike his chest, the Immortal could note that it hurt quite a bit. But if anything good had sprung from all of Nolan's treachery and the tragedy surrounding it, was the fact that Immortal had a brand new height for the pain that he could withstand. Being struck like that, as he went flying through the air, didn't stop him like it might have as a younger warrior.
It just made him angrier.
With a roar of his own, he stopped himself in the air and propelled himself with that strange, indelible force at the heart of his existence. Omnipotus was busy fending off blows from Bulletproof and Monster Girl alike, the shorter man able to take the damage better than he could deal it out, and the reverse being the case with the transforming woman. His unnatural gaze was focused on them until at the last possible second, it snapped up to see the Immortal rocketing toward him.
Only to experience the sensation of his fist cracking against his jaw, sending blood and one of those jagged, sharp teeth flying through the air. Immortal put all his strength into it, every iota of strength that he could muster, as he felt his muscles and bones tense and groan from the impact. It was followed up by another strike, sending their adversary's head twisting the other way as he rained down powerful blows with wild abandon.
The sheer, concussive force was enough to send his lesser soldiers flying and make Immortal's own allies briefly have to right themselves underneath the waves. Yet he didn't choose to relent, finding himself sinking into an actual outlet for his anger. No matter how unwise it might have been…
It felt good to be able to cut loose in a way that was justified. To have a foe that was evidently within his grasp, and unlike Nolan, wouldn't just tear him apart with utter ease. That arrogance cost him something, though.
"ENOUGH!" Omnipotus roared, blood having gushed from a few different wounds on its face. Wounded, and not yet put down. With a flurry of movement he could barely react to, it reached for the approaching Bulletproof, proceeding to whip the dark-skinned hero like a weapon toward Immortal.
One that was enough to actually hurt him, as the improvised, humanoid weapon could only yell as he was used to bludgeon his ally. Immortal felt his body being battered into the dirt and sand as each resounding strike drove him deeper into it. It knocked the air from his lungs, as Omnipotus ranted and raved like a madman.
"I SUNDERED THE IMMACULATE BEACHES OF PHRAX-IV, AND TOOK THEIR LAMENTATIONS AS MY ANTHEM!" It yelled, blood and spittle flying as it spoke. "I TOOK THE JEWELED CITY-STATE OF HY BRASIL, TURNING IT INTO A CHARNEL HOUSE OF MISERY!"
"WHAT MEAGER MIGHT CAN YOUR PATHETIC WORLD OFFER AGAINST MY LEGIONS?!"
In some ways, it felt as if it was almost convincing itself, rather than needing to hammer in it's own superiority into his foes. Then again, Immortal had seen no small number of tyrants that had a need to pontificate on their virtues and cruelty. All of them were petty, small men, who in the end were brought low by the efforts of more virtuous heroes.
Omnipotus was going to prove no different, as his ranting was interrupted by the least likely individual out of the bunch. It was Black Samson, arguably one of the weaker members of their team, the one who hadn't quite been treated the same by the passing of the years. He leapt into action, over the heads of soldiers and monsters alike, and intertwined his hands together. Then with all of the strength of his suit, brought the knuckles down against Omnipotus' head.
It made the creature twitch, as if in sheer shock at the audacity of the strike, more than any real damage that it had done. Black Samson had never spared a thought for himself, so much as he spent his time worrying about his allies and those he could save. That was one of the many qualities of his personality that Immortal had come to admire.
At that moment it wasn't enough, as their invader's massive hand whipped out and grasped Samson by the midsection. "What is this gnat doing here?" If nothing else, as he squeezed the screaming Samson, he wasn't using Bulletproof to bludgeon Immortal. "The gall that they could defeat me…"
He seemed almost offended as he slowly increased the pressure and squeezed harder. Maybe taking some relish in how he seemed to be crushing the dark-skinned hero underneath his grip. Spitting up blood, Immortal moved to get up onto trembling hands to propel himself to go and save his friend.
Not fast enough, some traitorous part of his brain could recognize. His own weakness made manifest, as another of his friends was about to perish before his eyes. Only for someone else to swoop in and save the day.
One moment the space beside Omnipotus' head was empty, and in the next Robot was there. He punched, an armored body crackling with electricity, the strike slamming hard against the alien and sending him flying. Much as it privately galled Immortal, between his armor and his new body, Robot was already physically stronger than him.
Here and now, it was only a boon as the surprise made their foe release both Immortal and Bulletproof. With a groan, the goggle-clad superhero hit the ground but seemed more or less intact. The same could not be said of Black Samson's condition. Immortal's eyes had seen no small amount of injuries over the years, and he presumed that his friend's physique was likely in possession of no small number of broken ribs.
Unfortunate, but not unexpected.
"Bulletproof! Get Samson off of the field!" Immortal yelled.
"G-Got it," the other man grunted, moving to go and pick up the other, in hardly any condition to really naysay or go against it. Not when he was just as injured, past his incredible durability.
"Assistance here would be appreciated!" Robot exclaimed over the communications channel, as he engaged the head of the forces himself.
To his credit, he wasn't yet struck or touched by the hulking figure that he was fighting. Instead, he was managing to nimbly dodge and weave through the air, twisting out of the way at sometimes the last moment of the brutal strikes of Omnipotus. They were close calls, closer than anyone would like, and Taijitu's focus on trying to improve Robot's hand-to-hand skills seemed all the more sensible as Immortal watched.
Robot wasn't by nature someone who found themselves enormously gifted at it. He had other means of attack, those that he was very willing to use against the right foe. Panels popped on both shoulders, as thin slips shot out with pinpoint accuracy toward the foe he faced, exploding into a variety of different effects.
Ice froze against his left shoulder, restraining his movement. Arcs of electricity made him twitch and flex as it slammed against his chest. Fire blooming across his eyes, blue and of such terrifying heat, forced Omnipotus to stagger back or try to shield himself to a degree. All manner of elemental manipulation that seemed to have a greater purpose than just throwing whatever against the wall to see what stuck.
Many things could be said about their erstwhile leader, but Robot not being a calculating and shrewd combatant was not one of them. "Thermal damage seems negligible, but electricity seems to be the most ideal," Robot commented over the communications channel. "Immortal, can you give me time to set something up?"
"Gladly," Immortal snarled. "I'll buy you all the time you need."
Rushing back against the beleaguered, distracted alien, Robot took the opportunity to pull back. Right when Immortal darted forth to place a few tactical strategic blows. Rather than falling into his anger and wrath, he was careful not to let it blind him to everything. Instead, he did his best to try and deliver pinpoint accurate strikes, and pull back when Omnipotus tried to strike back.
"Stand still, you gnat!"
"Can't even defeat one Earthling, huh?" Immortal mocked, seeing the blooming anger across the man's face. Some things were universal, apparently. "I thought you were going to despoil this world! Not under our watch!"
It only had to be forty seconds, but for him, it did feel like an eternity. One where he had to dodge, block, and withstand the force of a foe he might not have been able to defeat on his own. That was fine. No Guardian truly ever fought alone.
A fact that Robot made evident as he slammed his arms together, the machinery of his suit latching together. All while the hands themselves seem to shift and transform, combining with a fine, mechanical attention to detail that boggled the mind. Rising from the barrel that had formed was a haunting, blue, glowing light that began to rise with each passing moment.
"STORM RELEASE: TESLA CANNON!"
One moment it was a normal, well-lit day, and the next there was a bright, enormous light that seemed to cause everything else in the battlefield to come to a stop. Everyone looked at the raw, impossibly bright, crackling light that poured out in a strangely liquid ray toward Omnipotus. When it struck him, you could practically see the creature's skeleton, as an agonized sound of pain was ripped forth.
It continued for a few seconds, making the massive creature drop to its knees. When the light faded, Robot's floating form seemed lesser somehow. Something in the way his shoulders sat, or the slight shifting back and forth, as that inextricable power he shared with Taijitu was drained to a degree.
Compared to the crispy, wounded, smoking form of Omnipotus, who looked far more worse for wear, Robot had gotten off lightly. The creature looked up at him with an expression that could only be seen as an angry one… but tinged with something else. Another emotion that was also universal as well.
Fear.
It made the following words that came out of his mouth all the sweeter to Immortal's ears. "RETREAT!" Omnipotus yelled, trying to marshall his forces into what Immortal recognized as a controlled retreat. "You Earthlings shall rue the day you denied my rule!"
"Don't let the door hit ya' on the way out!" Rex-Splode yelled, still flinging his explosives and sending soldiers flying.
Not that he needed to, seeing as they were all marching in good order through the portals. Immortal had seen armies and led them, and he could say with some confidence that this level of cohesion was unnatural. Though perhaps that could be rested at the feat of their modifications? Regardless of what the truth of the matter was, they still harried their would-be invaders all the way.
The last sight he saw was Omnipotus giving them a look that was filled with profound depths of hate as the creature turned to face head through the portal. And the faintest glimpse of something familiar stuck to the back of his head, strangely enough.
… Was that one of Taijitu's seals?
Whatever it was, the portals closed very shortly after their would-be conqueror left through them. It left the battered, destroyed desert landscape in their wake, subject to the ruin of countless superpowers and the effects of extradimensional weapons. That, and the unfortunate number of bodies that were left around.
Immortal suspected that the GDA xenobiologists were about to have a glut of cadavers that they could experiment on and study. Among whatever innovations could be gleaned from the admittedly limited examples of technology still intact. Regardless, victory was won, if at a cost, given the number of wounded and scant few genuine casualties.
"That was pretty good!" Taijitu commented, coming to approach the various battered but intact Guardians of the Globe moving through the battlefield. "There are a few things that I might have done differently, and I think some of you got caught up in your new toys a little too much, but it was still an effective defense."
"We'll be sure to cover what anyone could have done better at the debrief," Robot assured him. "A few facets of the battle could have been handled more effectively, even on my part. But… I can confidently say that I'm proud of how everyone handled it."
"We kicked their asses back to wherever the hell they came from," Rex shouted, pumping a fist into the air. "Can't we get a little more than just being proud?"
"No," Robot stated, though judging by the faintly amused tone in his voice, he was just teasing Rex-Splode. "Black Samson's injury is serious enough that I would disqualify it from being a pure success because of that."
"Along with the injuries of our fellow heroes," Immortal pointed out.
Taijitu nodded approvingly. "Defending this world means getting this routine of ours down pat until you're capable of doing it without any casualties, lethal or otherwise."
Between Taijitu and Robot, their healing abilities would ensure that their wounded ally would not stay in the sickbay all that long. The man in question had long since been struggling with his own capability in the field, especially since his powers had diminished. This new wounding was bound to only make him question himself even further.
"How is he?" Immortal asked.
"He'll be fine. Not the best of conditions at the moment, but between my medical jutsu and the GDA medicine, he'll be in tip-top shape in no time."
"Good, good," the old man nodded. "Then we'll have to count this as a victory, provided his condition doesn't take a turn for the worse."
Bulletproof gave a grunt of agreement. "So what's next?"
"Our favorite activity," Dupli-Kate stated, her clones already shooting the man a smirk. "Clean-up."
"Ugh," Shrinking Rae sighed, stretching her arms as she stood in the loose circle the Guardians had formed. "Well, let's get it over with. The sooner we finish up, the sooner we can head back for debrief."
There were assents from all around, if not particularly enthusiastic ones. It was enough to make Immortal smile, as certain things would likely be unchanged for as long as conflicts were thought. The trials and tribulations of fighting giving way to the unwelcome toil of trying to clear the battlescape.
As everyone turned to go do their part and check in with the array of superheroes who'd answered the call, Immortal did not follow after them. Not yet, as Taijitu hung back as well, having read him as easily as a book.
"Yes, Immortal? You look like you have something on your mind."
"Did you place one of your tags on the back of his head?" Immortal asked, a little curious as to what he'd glimpsed.
"Oh. I didn't think anyone besides Robot would notice," the alien spoke, sounding vaguely sheepish at having been caught out. "Well, that's just to tie up loose ends. We wouldn't want this to turn into a Flaxan situation, would we? Continual invasions, over and over again..."
Taijitu shrugged, shaking his head at the notion. "I figured it'd be best to just nip it into the bud."
What precisely did he mean by that…?
"High yield," Taijitu stated, as if reading his mind, with an eerie smile on his face.
"... High yield?" Immortal asked, the baffled question clear in his tone.
"Very high yield."
Omnipotus
Defeat was indeed a bitter draught to drink, Omnipotus fumed as he led his forces through the gates. One that he had not been forced to imbibe in many ages, not since his attempt on worlds that no longer had names. He'd scrubbed them from the history of all who lived in his demesne, as testament to the punishment for resistance.
Much as he'd do to Earth, when the time came. This shame did not deserve to go into the annals of his legacy or the saga of his victory. And he'd ensure that it wouldn't, when nearly every trace of that misbegotten culture was wiped out of creation. That much Omnipotus could swear to himself.
"Sire," one of his underlings spoke, trembling and under the hood that represented their rank as a vizier. Someone he shouldn't squash out of turn, despite how much he very much desired it.
"What?" he snarled, making the pitiful creature quail underneath his baleful gaze. It was a drop of satisfaction in the bucket of his impotent rage.
With a trembling hand, he pointed toward his dread sovereign's head. "There is some sort of… object attached to your head, your imperiousness."
Confusion dominated over his anger, if only briefly, as his hand reached for whatever it was. Some sort of paper, parchment, something of that nature, judging by the texture, as his bloody hands pressed against it. That was all the warning Omnipotus received before the explosion occurred.
To call it an eruption was an understatement, as all of the chakra that was stored within the explosive seal, vast quantities, acted in an instant. One moment Omnipotus stood there, and the next it was an outpouring of heat, pressure, and light, as he and the staging grounds for his armies, the vast plains situated on the dread portals… ceased to exist.
Omnipotus did not weep, for he did not know that there was no world for him to conquer. Only a blackened, mangled corpse was left in the wake, along with many others.
Author's Notes
In my head, the title of this chapter was Potential Woman. I felt like I did a lot of hyping for Shrinking Rae, and if there was ever a moment to actually let any of that pay off, it'd be at this moment. Hell, I wanted all of the new changes of the Guardians of the Globe to be noticeable.
For most of the canon story, they were mooks. We're trying to make them a reasonable threat here, or at least more effective than they were elsewhere. Whether or not I've managed to capture that feeling, who can say?
As for killing off Omnipotus, he's a bit villain who is presumably strong enough to be defeated by the Guardians but also survive the event. Which is dumb, considering that he's probably not going to stop trying to invade the Earth. Genji has gotten into the habit of nipping problems like that in the bud.
Anyway, I'm feeling myself something fierce. Wrote 7k words yesterday, gonna try to make my new minimum 6k words rather than 4k, so I can create more of a backlog, as well as getting out more content. Then again, I also write pretty thick chapters multiple times a week, so I'm not sure if people are satisfied with the current pace of my writing.
Let me know in the comments!