Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Turns out, worldwide terrorism doesn’t account for overworked college students taking naps. 

Somewhere, most likely under you, your phone vibrates, then abruptly stops just to start back up again in a continuous loop. You briefly consider blindly searching for it to shut it up, but the second of quiet each round has you knocked back out. The noise level upstairs bumps up to an easy eleven with waves of recurring stomping and thumping. It sounds like every student on floor four decided to start the morning off by jumping up and down in place. It steadily morphs into background noise, completely ignorable, so you fall back under.   

The phone buzzes to life again. How many times is it now? The fifteenth, sixteenth call? Your manager can’t be that desperate. It’s half past ten in the morning, and you’re fresh off the early morning shift. Legs dangling off the bed, too tired to strip from your work uniform but not willing to forgo a speedy forty-five minute nap before class, you’re ready for the day to be over with. 

You barely register the sound of your roommate bursting into the room, slamming the door closed behind him. The TV clicks on and you try to burrow deeper into your shitty, thin mattress when he settles on an action movie and cranks up the volume to the max. Odd. William’s been on a big reality show stint as of late. 

“Dude. Turn it down,” you grumble, slapping your hands over your ears.  

There’s no response. 

Now that’s really odd. 

You peel an eyelid open and flip onto your back. William stands less than a foot away from the TV screen, phone held up to his ear. 

“Shit. Shit. Shit!” 

He rounds on you with the mortified look usually reserved for when he spots one of the pet-sized cockroaches the dorm can’t seem to permanently exterminate. You’ve slipped off a work shoe in response when his hands wrap around your forearms in a death grip. Wordlessly, he points to the TV. There’s a tremble in his hands that chokes out whatever remnants of drowsiness still cling to you. The thought of sleeping easy at all blows away in the wind when you realize the New York skyline getting leveled on TV isn’t from a high-budget action movie, but on the news channel. 

“Rick's not answering.” 

The video feed switches to San Francisco, Paris, Tokyo, a half-dozen other places on your ‘dream travel destination’ list, all smoking and crumbling like half-finished cigarettes. You watch on as a crowd of people splatter under raining debris in Moscow before the feed can cut. 

The spandex-wearing culprits shoot through buildings like they’re made of eggshells and toothpicks, too fast for you to get a clear look at no matter the location. The banner near the bottom of the screen spells it out for you: ‘Invincibles’ causing widespread destruction. Death tolls expected to reach the hundreds of thousands.’ 

“No shit,” you mutter.  

The footage gets local, too local, and you fumble off the bed, your phone sliding off alongside you. It hangs an inch off the floor from the charging cord, still buzzing. The buildup of missed calls from friends and family both stresses you out and keeps you from freaking out more than you already are. If they can use a phone, that means they’re still alive. 

You console your family over the phone, subconsciously counting the voices in the background while watching William pace the room. He mutters wildly under his breath, glancing every so often to the television as you switch channels robotically. Without fail, every channel broadcasts the same gruesome scenes. 

You drop the call when William shoots for the door. 

The next thirty minutes are a blur. Villain protocol is that everyone on campus picks the nearest safe room and waits. It shouldn’t be hard to get to one, the nearest being just a level below the first floor of the dorm you’re in. That’s the thing, though, it shouldn’t be hard. With a hysterical friend worried to death about his boyfriend and growing increasingly irrational by the minute, it gets hard. 

“I need to go find Mark. Seriously,” William grits out for the sixth time while you bodily block the open door. He pushes at you with his shoulder, and your fingers grip ever tighter around the door frame. 

“How the hell is finding Mark going to help us find Rick?” You grunt when William’s elbow accidentally clips your ribs as he tries to climb over you.

Behind you in the hall, students sprint past, screaming and dragging their friends along in a horde of moving limbs. You try not to let the noise freak you out, but you can feel the fear-fueled irritation hum hotly in your chest. 

This is seriously, seriously happening. You can hardly believe it. 

“Just cause both aren’t picking up their phones doesn’t mean they’re together!” You holler over the noise, voice tight. “They’re probably hiding out in a safe room, like we should do before one of those Invincibles gets any closer.” 

He shoves at your shoulders, trying to bulldoze over you, but pulls back when you don’t budge. “That,” he waves angrily towards the TV screen, face red hot in indignation, “is not Invincible.”

“Whatever,” you concede, “the Not-Invincibles, then.”  

He scoffs, all throaty and dramatic-like, but his attention diverts from rushing you back to his endless pacing around the cramped dorm room. You take the break for what it is and catch your breath, closing the door he’d forced open once more to gain back an advantage. 

William’s harder to keep locked up than expected. You've only ever seen him this motivated when he’s systematically tearing you apart at the bowling alley on Wednesday nights or skimming over four screens to snatch concert seats from the pre-sale queue on Ticketmaster. 

He makes two laps around the room before turning on you again, face pinched and eyes relit with frustration. You’ll never understand where he gets all that energy to argue from. 

“Why can’t you just take what I say at face value? Huh? Would it kill you to move five inches to the left?” He points a thumb at himself and digs it into his puffed-out chest. “I have a right to leave my dorm when I want, asshole.” 

You cross your arms, trying to keep a cool head. Your patience lasts as long as it usually does when the two of you argue. “How about no! Man! If you want to die so badly, go drown in the bathtub or something!” Your voice rises steadily in frustration at about the same rate as the death toll on the screen behind him. 

William flicks his arms in the air like you’re the one being ridiculous. “Stop yelling at me!”

You copy the motion. “You started yelling first!” 

“My god! You’re insufferable!” he hollers, voice exasperated.  

“Oh yeah? Well, you're stuck with it! How about that?” You lean back on the door, fixing your eyes on the wall across from William. He scoffs once, then a second time, louder, when you don’t take the bait. Ignoring him, you try your luck with an early game Hail Mary and call the only hero you know, Eve. It goes straight to voicemail. 

When it comes to Eve, if she doesn’t pick up the first time, she’s not picking up for a while—spam calls or not. William lobs a snide comment about ‘wishing he’d thought to try calling her first’ at you. 

You won’t let him bait you into letting him kill himself, but you do consider tossing him out the window for a split second. 

Sighing, you tap your phone to your forehead, eyes closing. Any irritation directed at him drains out of you because, really, you get where William’s coming from. His boyfriend’s missing. Just that is enough reason to freak out. Then, right after, he finds out his best friend is too. But, Rick’s smart and level-headed. He’s the resident designated driver and straight-A student of your friend group, and the most well-equipped for surviving a situation like this. Well, best equipped for surviving as a civilian. Eve takes the cake for overall survivability but not everyone can pull a pink machine gun out their asshole so what’s the point in comparing? 

There’s also the possibility that Mark’s the safest in the friend group—a perk of being the boyfriend of a superhero. Mark and Eve are on month three of the most sappy, sickening honeymoon phase you've seen in your whole life, and you’ve worked the Valentine’s Day shift for three years now. Minute one of the invasion, and high chance Eve whisked him off into the sunset to some ultra-mega-supreme-safe-bunker in Antarctica. 

If not, may god bless his poor soul. He’d be taking the top spot of your ‘I’m extremely worried about’ list. 

Mark is more of a friend of a friend, considering he’s flaked on more group plans than you can count, but he’s a fun guy to hang around when he does show up to the bowling alley, dorky as he is. He put you on Seance Dog, lets you have first dibs on his mom’s leftover takeout at the end of the week, and holds back when you lose one too many rounds of Super Smash Bros, so you’ve grown attached enough. 

William whips out his phone and starts calling numbers again. Rick or Mark, you don’t know. Mark rarely picks up the phone on a normal day, so you don’t hold your breath if it is him. He can be air-headed at times, so really, you get why William wants to make sure he’s not wandering around the city trying to take selfies with the Not-Invincibles or something equally ridiculous. But, spam calling is one thing, and running out into the middle of a war zone on the off chance Mark is out there is another. 

“William, seriously, work with me here,” you sigh, eyes flicking to the carnage on TV. The Big Ben in London gets chopped in two and slops off to the side, flattening a double-decker bus like an empty can. You flick your eyes back to William. “Chances are, they’re safe and they want you safe. So, let’s go downstairs.” 

He just tenses up further, clicking away at his phone. 

“Put some trust in them,” you push further, not sure if you're trying to convince William or yourself. 

You don’t say, chances are, if they aren’t in a safe room, they’re probably dead. There are a million and one ways to die outside at the moment, you've seen about fifty or so ways on TV, so you aren't positive anywhere but on the moon is safe. Regardless, a Not-Invincible’s on the other side of the city at the moment, and you can’t afford to get William riled up by talking possibilities. You can’t afford to get yourself riled up, or you’ll start making stupid mistakes. 

You tell yourself freaking out and leaving William to fend for himself would be a huge, stupid mistake. You don’t want to lose any more friends if the other two are dead. 

“Fucking shit!” William’s phone gets Mark’s annoying fake-answer voicemail again, and he chucks it at the TV, which cracks, flickers, and finally goes dark. He drops heavily onto the end of his bed and places his head into his hands. 

Five more minutes. You’ll give him five more minutes, and then you’re dragging him down all three flights of stairs in a chokehold if that’s what it takes. 

Time passes in tense silence while William breathes steadily, in through his nose, then slowly out through his mouth. You consider following along. You’re feeling a little lightheaded yourself. 

“I’m not asking you to come with me.” You can just barely see William staring at you from under his fringe, voice strained and quiet. “I just—I just have to know.” 

Your heart thumps in your chest, feet feeling flighty. 

“William, please.” 

He watches for a minute more, assessing, weighing his options. Then, he drops his head back into his hands and screams into his palms. The muffled noise makes you flinch, regardless of the noise outside the room, but you collect yourself when he makes eye contact once more. 

“Fine.” 

Chapter Text

The safe room’s a hot mess. The plaque outside says max one-fifty occupants but there must be over two hundred people packed together like sardines, bumping into each other and breathing in the same stale air. The air filtration system near the entrance tries its best, blowing freezing cold air into the room, but it's a short-lived relief before the heat of multiple bodies hits you. 

William is a silent, brooding form behind you, glowering down at his shoes. You feel a flash of embarrassment in your gut like you have any control over how shitty the conditions are. 

Honestly, the two of you are lucky you were even allowed in as late arrivals. After slamming on the outside of the reinforced bunker door for longer than felt comfortable, two men wearing campus security uniforms had cracked the thick doors open a hair and hauled the two of you into the overcrowded room. The bright fluorescent lights and oppressive heat in the bunker nearly made you spin on your heel, but you thought of what waited outside, and you continued on. The guards stationed at the door, blocking it, also had a part to play in your decision. 

Now inside, you squirm past people to find the back wall, William snapping at anyone who accidentally brushes into him. To keep from being separated, you two grip onto each other’s sweaty hands. The back left corner is where you stop when you've determined there’s a sufficient amount of space between the door and you two. 

What are the chances the Not-Invincibles use the front door? Low, you think, but you want the feeling of security even if it comes in the form of two hundred human meat shields and a terrorist’s theoretical need to be a polite executioner. 

William leans onto the wall without another word, and you settle beside him since there’s no room to sit. The group beside you, a handful of faces you recognize, asks if your phone has any service. A girl with a spa mask and baby-blue bath robe wrapped around her cuts in and explains how the safe room has too much metal for phones to work. You check your phone regardless and begrudgingly shut it off to save battery when no bars pop up. No service means no phone calls, another huge blow to your already foul mood. 

The tall girl beside William earns herself a nasty glare for actively dry heaving on him while you team up with a group of girls to console a weeping student. Through uncontrollable sobs, you're able to piece together that his family was at ground zero in one of the leveled cities. You fan him off and try to offer consolation that doesn’t sound like you're pulling it out your ass. 

In the middle of the room, the RAs hover around a small radio seated on a rickety stool. You can’t hear a word of it with the loud chattering, shifting of bodies, and crying. After a time, there’s an absurd bout of shushing, a few heated curses thrown around, and then an equally deafening silence. The man on the radio doesn’t give any information that you don’t already know outside of an update on one of the flying assailants. It looks like the one destroying up town had finally grown bored and left. The talking begins again, and his voice is drowned out.

You recognize the pattern after a second go around. The noise level falls into a cycle of off-the-charts noise to eerie silence. You can’t say you ever grow used to it, but you find yourself following along, stopping your one-sided chattering to William when you can begin to hear yourself clearly. 

At some point, the man on the radio describes an Invincible fighting alongside the heroes, bolstering Williams' mood enough for him to eat one of the granola bars passed out. You eat yours quickly and stash the trash in your back pocket. The safe rooms on campus were said to have some form of food stock on hand, but you can’t imagine it lasting very long. Villain attacks aren't supposed to span enough time to need food to last over multiple days. Just how long can you afford to stay here? 

You force yourself to drop the thought. It won’t magically make more food appear. 

Passing time in the safe room becomes less of a waiting game and more of a minute-by-minute fight to keep the nearest people around you calm. The packed room and endless standing makes people antsy and short lived arguments morph into physical altercations. The pushing and shoving sends people into others which creates a domino effect where you end up crushed to the wall. 

The radio’s not helping the morale of the group, and it sparks a room-wide argument about whether or not they should keep it on. You throw in your ten cents to William, who agrees that the radio needs to stay on no matter what. It’s the only eyes and ears to the outside anyone in the bunker has. The majority come to the same conclusion, and the radio stays on. 

The show of democracy inspires some to argue other points, like the fact no one can leave due to the campus guards doing their jobs. Those in favor move to the front of the room towards the only entrance and make their case to the guards. It’s a small enough minority you break off and attempt polite small talk with a boy who’s shaking so hard you can hear his teeth chatter.

Time drags, and a throbbing headache starts to build up behind your eyes. The cause could be a number of things, but you choose to blame it on the water rationing. Only one plastic water bottle per twenty-four hours, if even that much. The campus guards might as well take you out back and beat you to death. 

It’s only hour eight, and you’re stuck with cotton mouth.

You wait in an hour-long line for the single bathroom and take a second to yourself inside the cramped space. Someone bangs furiously on the door after five minutes, hollering for you to “wipe your ass and get the fuck out.” You take it as your cue to leave after refilling your empty water bottle with sink water. The water from it tastes like hot metal and dirt, but it soothes your dry throat all the same. 

William’s still semi-catatonic, only responding to you with a glance, nod, or brief word maybe once every ten times you interact. Sliding back into your spot beside him, you stare at him from your peripherals. Keeping an eye on his mood is the best route to keeping ahead of whatever insane plan he tosses at you next. 

Eyebrows pinched to the point of deep wrinkles, William’s stress is palpable. His shifting eyes, another tell, lets you know he’s deep in thought. Thinking for William always snowballs into action, and there’s a very short list of priorities he has at the moment to be mulling over. 

You mentally prepare for another argument to break out between you. It never comes.

By the end of the day, both security guards are gone for one reason or another, nothing verifiable. You heard through the grapevine one got tired of stopping people from leaving the safe room, and the other left to find family. Though, you take the news with a grain of salt after hearing a version of the story where they supposedly left to ransack the GameStop down the block, damn scalpers, then one was supposedly a member of the Guardians, and finally, another story of them leaving for takeout since the food stock had dwindled down to just packets of applesauce a month out of date. 

William never gets up to leave like others are doing. The relief almost puts you to sleep. Just almost because sleeping at all in the safe room is damn near impossible. The fluorescent lights don’t turn off, the temperature in the room has gone up by a few degrees based on the sweat beading at your hairline, and the never ending sobbing by the people around you has left much to be desired. 

The upside is, with the handful of people leaving the safe room, you and William have just enough space to sit with your knees pressed tight to your chests. It puts you in a sunny enough mood to poke an elbow into William’s side, grabbing his fickle attention. Jokes have been one of the only things he’ll respond positively to, which you have taken advantage of for the past day. Still, only a one in ten chance he’ll respond at all. 

“I’ve been in Airbnb’s worse than this,” you comment quietly during the early hours of the morning, fluorescent lights burning your eyes. You fiddle with the ends of your shoelaces, tying and untying them just to do it all over again. 

“Doesn’t even make the top three,” William murmurs, cracking a wry smile, “not one rat.” 

You laugh, bumping him with your shoulder this time. “We might be wishing this place was a rat infested shithole. Another couple hours of no food and I’d get two rats, put one between em’ and boom—rat burger.” 

His mouth turns down into a frown, and you hiss out an exhale between your teeth. Your jokes have been falling real flat since the world went to hell, but you didn’t think it was that bad. 

You accept that he’s done talking for the night just as William whispers your name and twists around to stare into your face, his expression serious. Your knees knock at the new position, and he leans in further to whisper conspiratorially to you.  

“What if I told you I had a way to get us somewhere safer? With actual food?” He pauses, eyebrows furrowed as he looks away. Opening your mouth to speak, he cuts you off with a pointed look. “But, you can’t ask any questions.” 

You hold back an exasperated eye roll by the skin of your teeth. “I would say, gee, William, does getting somewhere safer involve us first going outside where the worldwide super terrorists are?” Your voice goes all high-pitched and tinny in the way you know drives William up the wall. 

You expect him to bite back, but he deflates instead, staring down at his hands. Making up the lost space, you drop a hand on his shoulder. 

“Like I said earlier, I’m not asking you to go with me. And really, I don’t need your permission at all. I just, well, I need to figure some stuff out and really, if this works, we’ll be at the safest place on the planet.” 

It feels like you're a dog and he’s dangling the phrase ‘safe’ over your head like a treat. 

The hilarious part is, it's almost working. 

His plan sounds half baked at best, suicidal at worst, and with how vague he’s speaking, you’d think he was making up the plan on the fly. It’s a shit plan only stupid people, or stupidly desperate people, would attempt. Regardless, William is not stupid—crazy sometimes, maybe, but not stupid.

“Why can’t I ask any questions?” 

Unlike you, he doesn't hold back an eye roll. “Cause you’ll start figuring stuff out and end up at the bottom of a river with cement around your feet or something.” 

Now that’s rich. Between the two of you, William is the nosy one, Sherlock Holming his way into figuring out people's secrets. You on the other hand couldn't care less as long as it’s not directly affecting you.

Sure, you had put two and two together that Mr. ‘Happily Married’ Professor Rodney was banging his young TA, but they were making it too obvious! Or that time you figured out William bagged Rick because he left his laptop open with his photo editing software zoomed in on a touched up photo of one of his own nudes. Not your fucking fault! If anything, people just love leaving out their dirty laundry and getting mad when you can make a pair.

“You involved with the mafia?” 

“Stop guessing.” He throws you a charged look, one you see clearly because, again, fluorescent lights. “Just think on it.” 

Oh, you’ll think on it all right.

Chapter Text

You convince William to stick around until midway through the next day. With no one blocking the exit, no food, and nearly three fourths of the original crowd having already cleared out, the reasons to stay had dwindled down to just a measly one. That one being it was safe, which was not a good enough reason for William. 

“Alright, I gave it twenty four hours.” William pushes himself off the floor, patting off his jeans with a jittery energy that he’s been pushing down since the day before.

“I’m heading upstairs,” he announces, pausing in place. His back faces you, shoulders stiff like he’s waiting for you to give chase.

Your neck aches from the wicked angle you passed out in, the room smells like hot ass, someone clogged the only toilet, and you still need signal to check on your family. 

“Fuck it.” You roll onto your feet and pretend you don’t see William’s tense form smooth out a hair. 

The safe room is a bust. The amalgamation of the ‘come and go as you please’ approach to the only exit, the lack of food, and the fact one of the RA’s took the radio with them in the night makes the decision for you. If William’s right about his mystery safe spot, mysteriously connected to finding Mark, you’re willing to risk it. 

Better than sticking here as sitting ducks. 

William exhales, rolls his shoulders out, and leads the way to the exit to the safe room. A few students half-heartedly try to convince the two of you to stay put, but they’re tired and you're tired, so you thank them and both groups tell the other to stay safe. 

If only it were that simple. 

The way back up to your shared dorm room is riddled with students loitering around the halls where there’s no windows. Some smoke or drink, slumped on pillows and dragged out mattresses. Someone offers William a beer with a cheeky wave of a Four Loko. He declines while you eye a pair of students flipping through their textbooks, scratching down notes. Even in an apocalypse, the threat of a revoked scholarship holds weight. 

The main staircase has been transformed into a mini safe room since it has thick walls, lacks any windows, but still gets phone service. There’s enough people sitting on the steps it becomes a royal pain to climb, forcing you to maneuver around huddled bodies and the items they dragged from their dorm rooms. You briefly consider taking the elevator, but you don’t want to risk it. The last thing you want to do is get stuck in an elevator right now.

The third floor door swings open, and you and William spill out into the hall. There’s more pulled out mattresses and students here as well, no level clear, so you crawl over and side-step until you reach your dorm room, which opens with a push.

“Fuck. Forgot to lock up.” Expecting the worst, you’re suspicious when the room is as you left it. Nothing is missing or misplaced and the only damage is the glass from the busted TV. 

“That TV costed so much,” William groans, kicking at some of the glass with his shoe. 

“Your throwing arm is worth more. Should’ve played baseball,” you laugh, passing him. He makes a disgruntled noise in response.

While you search around, William goes to the back of the room and shuts the blinds before pulling the curtains. Satisfied that no one has been in the room, you plug your phone onto a charger and turn it on. 

First things first, you call your family, a handful of friends, some not answering, and then click on the first news website that pops up. There’s not much more to do than watch, sift and store the information flashing across the small screen in your head, and think, and think, and then try not to think about who didn’t pick up their phone. 

You try to force your focus on the only problem you can actually solve: how to give yourself and William the best shot at surviving this. It’s not looking promising. 

“Are you more of a casket guy or would you rather be cremated?” you mutter rhetorically, staring down at the news reporter on your phone screen. The clips from the day before play on a loop. Once they cycle through, the footage switches to live as a helicopter crew hovers over a fight in Madison. Well, fight is putting it nicely. If anything, it’s a one-sided massacre. 

The Not-Invincible, this one stopping long enough for you to get a clear look at his costume, rips the jaw off one hero before cutting clean through a second one’s battered arms with the dismembered jaw bone.

“Oh my fuckin’—oh, ah, I’m gonna throw up,” you groan, dropping your head back to stare at the ceiling.

William stops overstuffing his backpack with random items from around your dorm room and walks over to look at your phone. He squints down at it, getting up close and personal with your screen.

“You see that?”

“Yes, I did. In HD quality, William,” you deadpan, using all your brainpower to wipe the image from your memory.

“No, not that. His costume, it's different…ugh that’s disgusting—” He flinches, bringing his hand up to cover his eyes. “He’s got symbols on the side of his suit.” 

Humming, you go back to staring at the footage, the time for squeamishness over. He’s sporting the classic Invincible colors, possibly a different suit design since it doesn't look completely accurate—not that you would be able to put your finger on what. The gallons of blood drying to the fabric makes it difficult to tell, but there does seem to be a symbol on the sides of his shoulders. 

You have to wait another minute until he has moved enough to fling the blood off his upper body, but you get a clear view. The symbol looks like three parallel lines descending down like a set of stairs, nothing you’ve seen before. You mentally file the information away.

While you were tucked away, twiddling your thumbs in the safe room, the internet was booming, filling up with video after video of random people filming the apocalypse from their point of view. It’s a treasure trove of information, one you plan on utilizing to the absolute fullest. It’s just a matter of scouring the internet for slowed down videos, theories, or any crumb of useful information on the Not-Invincibles. A messy, taped-together semblance of an info sheet forms naturally from your searching and you’re able to understand just a little more clearly just how fucked the world really is. 

From the strength ranking poles on popular forums, the collective group is put near Omni-Man level, if not higher, based on feats. It’s hard to argue which one’s stronger, considering Omni-Man’s dead, but you’d like to think Omni-Man would decimate at least three-fourths of the Not-Invincibles if not all. You had to scroll past the replies underneath arguing the ethics of ranking heroes and villains like video game characters. You don’t care how they present the information, as long as you can get your hands on it. 

You lean back in bed, your phone playing the news beside you while you split-screen your laptop and copy paste information. Never one to be a huge, drooling fan for heroes, you don’t know much about any singular hero’s powers or usual location other than Omni-Man’s, who was a fan favorite of your family, even though he wasn't local. Familiarity breeds likability, so after hearing all the good he did, he’d become your favorite hero as well by proxy. 

That was before he went psycho and leveled a city with Invincible's face. Don’t let your family hear you say that, though. They're still convinced he was brainwashed.

You aren't opposed to using any card to get your way, even if it's playing to your family’s obsession with a serial killer. So, during the summer when you had found a cheap apartment and double-checked all your credits would transfer to Upstate University, one of the winning reasons you’d given your parents was that this city had been one of Omni-Man’s old stomping grounds. His sidekick Invincible was still working, filling in big shoes, so it was well protected. 

They ate it up, begging you to take photos at all the popular sites and hunt down Invincible to sign the Omni-Man magazine cover they kept on the mantle in the living room. Invincible doesn't exactly do fan events, and even if he did, based on no-audio videos of the fight you can find online, he’d most likely snap you in half for showing up with Omni-Man merch. You’d kept the magazine under your bed and mailed it back home months ago.

If you survive this, you doubt your family’s going to stay Invincible fans, but maybe he’ll get the Omni-Man special treatment. Hell, all the Not-Invincibles were just having a bad day—give them a break!

You skim over some graphs tallying up what abilities the Not-Invincibles have shown. Power-wise, they fall in the same categories as Invincible: super speed, flight, insane strength, and durability. Essentially the full package.  

Supposedly, there’s a few “confirmed” deaths or, at the very least, a steep drop in sightings for some of the Not-Invincibles. Regardless, there’s a lot more dead heroes. You found a link to a forum listing out the MIA or confirmed-dead heroes, and it took you fifteen minutes to scroll down to the bottom.  

The theories on why the Invincible look-alikes decided to drop in and hit every major city, destroy centuries worth of historical buildings, and murder endlessly are all scattered and hotly debated. One thing is for sure, they’re indiscriminately tearing their way through city after city, continent after continent, without an end in sight. 

On a fairly hilarious note, like some kind of cartoonishly evil boy band, the not-Invincibles have costume differences, but instead of sticking to leather jackets or dying their hair, some wear capes. It’d be funny if only they weren’t reducing people to piles of mush while sporting those same capes. 

The further down you go, the more questions you have. There’s whispers of science experiments gone wrong, wormholes, aliens, and different universes, with a now busted link that once showed a grainy video of what looked like humanoid forms zipping out of green portals over an ocean somewhere. The amount of content from YouTube videos, independent live feeds, to comment sections has decreased drastically since yesterday as well. The death toll sinks its claws in deep, making it completely impossible to avoid seeing its effects. 

Clicking on a video covering emergency first aid, you feel in real time as the information hits your brain, then slips out of reach. An unskippable ad pops up, and you shut your laptop, picking up your phone to check on the news. 

“You think they’re shapeshifters? Maybe clones of Invincible or something?” you question over your shoulder to William. It’s not a far-fetched theory with the absolute bullshit major villains get up to in big cities. If so, you’re almost pissed at Invincible for getting a blood sample or strand of hair snagged. “Emotionless robots, for sure, are off the table. That guy is having way too much fun.” 

The live feed is still playing the symbol wearing Invincible from earlier, this time a city over in Milwaukee, where he’s tearing apart four, barely clinging-on-to-life, heroes desperately trying to take him down. His mouth moves the whole time and doesn't close—a monologuer, no doubt. There’s audio, but it's just the helicopter wings whirring, so you can’t listen in. 

He’s strong, strong enough to slice through the heroes in a second, but he’s unnecessarily dragging it out, savoring it maybe. You take a closer look at his face, the pull of his lips, the flash of teeth. His right hand wraps around the shoulder of some hero wearing purple and gold. He squeezes, and the bone gives out, shoulder falling in on itself until it looks like the hero's arm is being held to her torso by only loose skin.

You belatedly realize you had it all wrong. The look on his face isn’t pleased. He’s disgusted, nearly grim with some type of sadistic dissatisfaction. The heroes aren't dying slow because they’re strong, they’re dying slow because they’re weak. 

He’s punishing them for it. 

“Turn that off for a second,” William groans, face strained from nerves just like yours is. So focused on discerning the Not-Invincible's mood, you hadn’t even felt William walk up on you to watch. “You’re just going to make yourself sick.” 

You don’t turn it off, but you do turn down the volume, until the sound of the helicopter's blades is just a tiny buzz in the background. 

“Milwaukee is pretty close to here. You don’t think Symbol will come this way, right?” William asks, pointedly not looking down at your phone.  

Your face scrunches up in confusion before it clicks. “We’re nicknaming them now? And Symbol, seriously? That’s weak.” 

He shrugs. “I don’t hear you coming up with anything.” 

“Good point.” 

By this morning, the people on the internet settled for numbering them, since no nicknames stuck worldwide—language barriers and all. Originally, it was based on their locations, but they move faster than fighter jets, so that fell through as well. Symbol is a rare case, staying in one spot long enough to get a good, crisp look at. If only the others would be as thoughtful. You’ve had to squint at too many grainy photos to count, only being able to discern color schemes and the occasional blur of a cape. You guess that’s grounds for a personalized nickname, if not a shitty one to even things out. 

You make your rounds around the room, pulling out all your snacks from three or four different drawers and placing them into a loose pile on your bed. “I think if he does come here, we’re dead.” 

William clicks his tongue. “Totally.” 

Three bags of chips are stress devoured and you suck down the few meager drips of water that falls from the sink’s spout. The college has gotten lucky no Not-Invincible has blown through, but one must’ve hit important infrastructure in the city because the waters been cut for an hour. With all the damage, it’s strange the internets still up.

You try to keep yourself busy while time passes. William spends it pacing and packing while you read out any useful information to him. You try everyone’s numbers again, including Rick, Mark, and Eve. Amber finally picks up around seven pm, saying she's at her boyfriends. The news lifts some of the weight off your shoulders. You talk for thirty minutes before hanging up, leaving out the part where you and William plan on going out. Knowing her, she'd somehow convince you right back into the bunker or worse—come here herself to make sure you and William stay put.  

After, in the vaguest way humanly possible, William lays out the basics of his plan, which boils down to ‘go to Mark’s house.’  It’s so full of holes you’d think it’d been hit with buckshot. You’re sure to let William know it. 

...

“So when are you going to fill me in on the full plan?” It’s nightfall already, hours passing since you and William left the safe room, but he’s stayed uncharacteristically quiet outside of the few conversations you’ve shared.

“I’m leaving when the—”

“Yes, when the sun comes back up,” you say alongside him, remembering the shitty rundown he gave you earlier. “The full plan, please.”

He doesn't look up from his phone, so you jump onto his bed, nearly sending him off.

 “And seriously, I’m going too,” you tack on, using your shoulder to bully him into giving you more space. He scoots over reluctantly, and the two of you lie side by side on your backs. 

William rolls his eyes like you’ve ever been the type of person to pull out. Unlike Mark, you aren't a flaker. 

“I’m not sure if you should come along. Might be better if you stay here,” he offers lamely after a long pause, sounding unsure himself. 

“Huh?” you scoff. “What about downstairs, when you’d said we’d get to a safer area together? You were using a lot of we’s then…”

He scoffs right back, turning his head to the side to glare at you. “What part of ‘I’m not asking you to go with me’ did you not understand? And I said all that when I thought you would stop me from leaving!” He exhales huffily. “Besides, it’ll be dangerous.”

“No shit. We both watched the same videos. I should come along because it’s dangerous. Don’t act like you want to go out there alone.” 

“Of course I don't! Do I look like John Wick to you? Or, uh, I don’t know—” He waves his hands around. “Someone else. What kind of idiot would want to go out there alone?”

You stare back at him, expression deadpan.

“You know what? Just shut the fuck up.” He rubs his forehead wearily. “I’m just saying it’s dangerous and I don't want to force you by, like, peer pressuring you to go–”

“I know you're not peer pressuring me. I've seen you peer pressure!” You cut him off impatiently, pushing up by your elbows to glare down at him.  

“I just don't want you to die because of me!” He hisses back, shoving at your shoulder.  

You consider yourself to be a William expert all things considered. From day one, when the two of you had sat in the very back row of a busy lecture hall and shared snacks, you'd hit it off immediately. He’d dragged you into his friend group in just a few days, keeping you busy on your downtime between work and school. 

When Mark finally dropped out of college after going AWOL for months, and William offered up the empty side of his dorm to you, you went straight to the Housing Office and got your keys. No more struggling to get to class on time since your earlier commute involved a trip on the subway. 

“I could die staying here too, you know. The safe room wasn’t exactly a premium hiding spot,” you argue, voice even. This conversation hasn’t been productive in the slightest.

William grits his teeth, voice falling into a murmur. “There’s more to this than just getting to Mark’s house.”

You groan, falling back on his bed, feeling a little jealous of how expensive his pillows feel. “God, don’t go all ‘you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into’ on me.” 

William has his secrets, yes, and you respect it, knowing there is stuff he would rather keep away from you. You gave him and Rick the dorm when he would storm in, fear-riddled from the aftereffects of surviving the campus attack early on in the first semester. You gave all your friends space when they needed it, wouldn't pry when they shut down, or go through the journal William kept on his shelf, even though you were regularly tempted. 

“Either tell me what’s up or don’t. Just stop acting all tortured about it,” you grumble, growing tired of the back and forth. 

William scoffs weakly and runs his hand down his face. You wait while he visibly struggles trying to determine if he should spill or not. You give him time to think it through, resulting in five minutes of him tossing and turning before he levels you with a deeply exasperated look. He doesn’t offer an explanation.  

“You really, really need to reconsider this,” he tries. 

So, because you’re nothing if not reasonable, you reconsider. The safe room isn’t actually safe. William is a good friend, great even, and there’s no way he’d purposely put you in harms way. You're willing to put your trust in him. And really, someone has to be out there watching his back. Also, if William is correct and you survive the trip, you’ll be at an actually safe place. 

“Okay, just reconsidered,” you declare. 

William perks up, waiting expectantly. 

“We.” you say, “ We, me and you, are going to Mark’s house.”  

He deflates, putting his hands over the whole of his face. “Sure, sure, whatever. We pack up, set out when there’s none of those freaks around, then get ourselves safely to Mark's house.” William sits up and lets his legs hang off the side of the bed. “He should be around his house at some point, or at least his mom should, somebody has to.” 

You blink slowly. “How the hell is talking to his mom going to keep our names from ending up on a tragedy monument?” 

“It just will,” William huffs, gripping his knees. 

“Okay,” you agree, satisfied he’s accepted your choice to tag along. “But, we're going to need to actually plan this out.” 

William laughs. It’s a reedy, sharp thing. “Yeah.”

...

You slap the top of your shitty, battery-operated printer as it jams. It makes a loud buzzing sound, then sputters out the last page you need. You pass them to William after checking for blurring, and he lays the pages out flat, all four coming together with liberal amounts of tape to make a map that covers both the east dorm where you are now, Mark’s house, and all the miles in between. He circles the house with a red sharpie, ink sinking through the paper. 

You’d been to Mark’s house only twice, once for his birthday dinner where you first met his mother, Debbie, and a second time to marathon all previous seasons of Seance Dog when the fourth season dropped. Both times, you had taken the subway before hopping on a bus and walking the last stretch on foot. 

Ever since William’s car got totaled, getting around became a real pain. Though your chances of dying due to reckless driving had gone down—it would’ve only been a matter of time with him behind the wheel. 

“The station is still standing, but the subway line to Mark’s is flattened. Not that we could take the subway,” you say, thinking back on what routes the news reporters had listed as unusable the first day. It had only gotten worse since then, with the majority of subway lines filled with rubble or blocked off. 

“It’d be nice, though,” William hums, using a yellow highlighter to map out the safest route to Mark’s place. You stand over where he sits at his desk. “The touristy areas aren’t far off. Maybe we could find one of the horses from the carriage rides? Sing and hold hands all the way up town.” 

You laugh, imagining the two of you attempting to wrangle and mount a horse in the middle of a war zone. “Death by horse rather than super villain. I like it.” 

You watch as he pauses and checks the notes you made of all the inaccessible roads. The highlighter hovers over a stretch of highway before moving right and coloring a zigzag line that cuts through a city block. It’s a smart move to keep out of flat areas, but it’ll add time. 

“Since the trains aren’t going, we could’ve walked the tracks to not be out in the open as much, but that’s not an option anymore,” you reason, drumming your fingers on the desk, watching the yellow line stretch closer to Mark’s house. “Can’t jack a car. Partly, because I don’t know how to hotwire one, but even if we could find keys, the roads are congested.” 

William hums as you speak your thoughts aloud, stopping his hand before continuing on until the yellow line hits Mark’s neighborhood. The finished route is winding and full of wrap-arounds. You could be in real trouble if you miss a turn.

It’s essentially the opposite of a shortcut. 

“Okay, all I can do is guess, but it looks like we’re going to be walking, uh,” he shakes his head side to side, “like five or six hours, probably more, if we hit dead ends.” He leans back in his chair and smiles wryly. “And just being realistic, with it being us, we’ll hit at least five or six.” 

“Fuck off, man. Don't put that on us.” You punch him in the shoulder and lean over to stare at the finished map. William grabs a green highlighter and marks out backup routes while you mull over the journey.

“So, what do you think?” He questions, tapping the highlighter’s end to the desk. 

“Our chances?” You pretend to think on it, humming. “twenty-five, no, fifteen percent chance.” 

The tapping stops. “What?” he squawks, “it’s a solid thirty percent, minimum!”

You loudly blow air out from between pursed lips and walk away to dig through his bag, tossing out the useless crap. For god’s sake, he didn’t even bother throwing in the small first aid kit under the bathroom sink. 

“Hey, stop messing with my bag. Everything in there has a use,” he calls out from the desk chair. You sigh and toss back in half of it.

Having a heavy pack will weigh you down, but give you more tools to work with. Is it worth the trouble? With the winding route, changing environment, and mass murderers flying around, the two of you are already stuck at a snail’s pace. If you do take things out, what if you leave out the one thing that you really, really need? But, what if being too slow gets the two of you killed?  

What if? What if? What if? 

You’re not used to your decisions deciding if you live or die. 

“Whatever.” You toss in the other half back into William’s pack. You’ll just go light on yours to balance it out. 

Having the luxury of mulling over decisions will be a comfort left in the dorm. You’ll have to figure something else out ahead of time to cut down on stupid, knee-jerk decisions. 

“We should lay down some basic rules while we’re out.” A set guide for making decisions should do the trick. “Starting with, we don’t yell. Ever. Even if people start going all Mad Max because of the apocalypse and try to eat our faces.” You raise a brow at the three pairs of socks in his bag, but elect to leave it be. 

William leans back in his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Okay, okay, rule two: I’m not going to the bathroom by myself.”

“Sure. You want me to hold your dick too?” A highlighter hits the back of your head and bounces off. “Shit!” 

William whoops before pushing the chair out and moving over to the closet, pulling out the plastic tub where he keeps all his snacks. He leaves it on your bed and starts separating the sweet and salty stuff. 

“Rule three: Looting dead people isn’t that bad.” 

“Save it for the courts, dumbass. And that wasn’t even structured as a rule,” William says dryly, checking for stale snacks. “Actual rule three: Loot dead people when necessary. There.” 

“I was just testing the waters.” You wave him off. “And rule two wasn’t structured right and I didn’t point it out.”

He raises a brow, and you roll your eyes.

“Rule four,” you continue, unperturbed, “No splitting up.” 

“Five,” he raises, “No dying allowed unless we talk about it first.”  

“We can leave it to a group vote,” you nod, closing your eyes in mock-seriousness. You miss William underhand tossing a bag of chips at you. It smacks you and slips to your lap. 

Moving from your sitting position to your back, you pop the plastic open. “Rule six: No pausing for a break unless necessary. Like, only if there’s a Not-Invincible around or something equal to that.” 

The two of you go back and forth, brainstorming rules until they start overlapping. After tossing out three rules without William cutting in, you use your elbows to sit up. 

William fiddles with the end of a plastic sleeve of cookies, teeth chewing at his lip. He glances up at the movement, forehead creasing.

 He considers briefly if he should leave it unsaid or not. 

“Rule eighteen: We don’t stop for anyone.” He pauses, taking time to watch your face. When it doesn’t sour, he continues, slowly, like he’s unsure how to put it. “To help, I mean. We can barely take care of ourselves.” 

“Yeah,” you agree easily, the hero death toll flashing across your mind. “Avoid playing heroes. Good rule.” 

He lets out a quiet sigh of relief and peels open the sleeve, tossing a cookie into his mouth. “Okay,” he claps his hands once, crumbs falling to the floor. “We leave the second the sun comes up.” 

...

Dinner is an interesting affair. As college students, there’s enough snacks in the dorm room to feed you for a week, but there’s not much nutritional value in any of it. Both your appetites are shot, but you reason it would be better to eat heavy tonight to save room in your backpacks tomorrow. 

William scrapes out the last of the peanut butter sticking to the sides of the tub before tossing the container into the trash. You zip up your freshly packed bag, testing the weight. Satisfied, you leave it by the door and head back to the desk, where you stare at the map again. 

The plans are cemented and have been gone over twice with very little tweaks. The overall plan has been kept simple outside of the dedicated route to Mark’s on account of William’s reservations in giving information on what you’ve chosen to call his ‘contacts’. He doesn’t like the title, but he can’t stop you from using it.  

Embarrassingly enough, the plan is still essentially ‘Get to Mark’s house.’ From there, you’ll either be clued in, you assume, or you won’t have to make any more decisions since William’s contacts will do the work. 

Your running theory is Mark is involved in some kind of underground criminal organization—possibly high ranked enough to get someone to care about his home’s security. It would explain some things, like his random disappearances, general irritability lately, and why William would be so against telling you. If you’re right, Eve’s going to be pissed. 

You leave it as a theory, since you can’t imagine Mark a criminal. You can’t imagine Eve not knowing about it either, which opens up even more questions. 

You’re missing something. You just aren’t sure what exactly. 

By nightfall, the hanging guillotine that is leaving the dorm tomorrow looms over your head, lighting up your nerves. The continued destruction on the news doesn’t help, which leads you to drag your mattress from the frame and set it in the furthest corner from the window. Wordlessly, William does the same, shoving his twin mattress beside yours. 

You both get in bed, shoulder to shoulder, and try to force sleep. He takes the inside, staring up at the ceiling and tapping his hand on his stomach. After a time, he turns onto his side, facing away from you. 

Sleep comes in the form of half-consciousness, where you can’t determine if you’ve actually slept at all or not. You’ve left your phone on the charger, playing the news muted to soothe your paranoia, but it just leads you to peek at it obsessively. An hour or two passes, long enough for you to think William’s fallen asleep. You’re proven wrong when he shifts onto his back again, shoulder pressed against yours once more.  

“Hey.” His voice is barely above a whisper, feather light, but you hear it loud and clear. You hum, not wanting to break the calm you’ve been desperate for the last two days. 

“Thanks for sticking with me.”

You exhale, hand finding his and squeezing. 

“Duh.” 

His hand squeezes back.  

Chapter Text

The next morning has a buzzing energy to it that leaves you on edge and jittery, jolting you out of your already poor sleep long before the sun comes up. Rechecking the bags gets your mind on track, busying your hands.

William’s first alarm goes off just as you zip the bags back up. He grumbles and flips over on the bed, hand slapping at his phone stuck between the mattress and wall. Two more alarms have to cycle through before he kicks the covers off and shuffles zombie-like out of bed. 

“Did you sleep as bad as I did?” he grumbles, rubbing at his eyes. The alarm goes off once more, blasting the intro song of one of the many trashy reality TV series he's forced you to half-watch with him. “Thought I turned it off,” he mutters sourly, clicking his phone on to shut it up.

“Worse. Hard to sleep with you kicking me the whole night.” You toss the clothes pre-picked out the night before at him. It hits his chest, and he catches it before it can fall to the floor. 

“I’m a delight in bed, you know,” he sniffs petulantly, waving you off as he heads to the bathroom to change. 

Already dressed, you dig through the snack tub to pull out breakfast and pass it out as he leaves the bathroom. From there, you both rehash out the route, going over possibilities and how the two of you should handle it— if you can even handle it. 

The trip hits its first hiccup immediately, typical for any half-put-together plan made from metaphorical duct tape, lint, and two college students’ hopes and dreams. 

At five in the morning, when you're set to leave, a black and yellow Not-Invincible breaks the ‘within fifty miles’ rule and wipes Green Aspen Park, the third largest park in the state, off the face of the planet. He continues pounding it into a crater for an hour and a half while you and William curse at him from behind the safety of a screen. He shoots off, and you give it another thirty minutes before layering up, shrugging on your bag, and double knotting your shoelaces. 

You take the mini LED flashlight you won from an arcade off your bag and stick it in your pocket, feeling the cheap plastic bend under your grip. 

“You ready?” William asks, standing by the open door, overstuffed bag hugging his back. 

“Fuck no.” 

He lets out a nervous laugh while you put in one earbud from your wires and click to the local news site. If a Not-Invincible shows up, you’ll at the very least be aware. 

You follow out behind William and close the door behind you, locking it after. The hall lights are off, but enough people are on their phones that you don't bother with a flashlight. The majority are still asleep, so to be polite, you carefully tiptoe behind William until you get to the staircase.

The staircase is as packed as the day before, and there’s not nearly enough space to get down without stepping on someone. 

“Shit, sorry,” you whisper, toeing someone’s bag from underneath your foot. 

The railing on the side is a lifesaver. You lean most of your weight on it to get down each step, only slipping up once or twice. There’s a few helpful people who hold out their hands as well, which you take advantage of. 

You’re halfway down the first flight of stairs when, far out, a resounding clap of noise has you freezing in place. What sounds like a fighter jet in the distance stirs people awake. Still groggy from sleep, there’s yawns and shuffling, but that quickly changes when a second clap sounds through the air. You, along with those sitting on the stairs, whip your heads in the general direction of the sound. The steady noise crescendos into a whistle, and then there’s an ear-piercing crack—closer this time. 

Your palms sweat where they’re latched onto the railing. Head craned back, heart thumping wildly in your chest, you pause. There’s the noise again, louder, then silence. Someone gets up behind you, one curses. Then, the booming sound starts and doesn’t stop, dragging out into one long, deafening screech. 

The screams start next. Everyone in the stairwell stands up and moves as one downstairs, pushing and shoving the whole way down. The ground trembles underneath you, and in your ear, the local news lady announces a ‘hostile’ has been spotted nearby.

It’s too damn late. 

You’re pushed to the side, stomach pitching into the railing. Someone’s arm hits your wires, and your phone is dragged from your jacket pocket, disappearing under the stampede of feet. You shove back at the body pinning you, gaining room, but the second of reprieve ends when another person slams a shoulder into you. 

Feet slipping, a hand around the front of your jacket saves you from going under. William drags you forward as best he can, and you set your hands on his back to give him leverage and keep yourself steady. Together, you push forward, ignoring the sound of concrete splintering nearby as buildings crumble at their foundations. 

Get outside. You need to get outside. 

The two of you burst out of the stairwell to the first floor alongside a horde of running students. The first floor residents are in the same position, scattering like headless chickens and stomping over each other to get outside. Your group slams into them, forming into a mob as everyone shoots for the same exit down the hall. 

Something hits the building, and it shudders. The sharp pop of windows exploding and walls shredding barely registers as the top floors cave in. The stairwell behind you seems to implode on itself. You are slung forward, barreling over bodies, head-over-feet until you slam knees first into the floor. Your momentum doesn’t stop there, and you barrel roll a yard or two before your hands shoot out to catch yourself. You ignore your bones vibrating to push back to your feet, scrambling forward, with your arms reaching out for—

William's not in front of you. 

The ceiling cracks under the weight, and you instinctively dive towards a mattress left out in the hall, wildly kicking your legs to worm your way under. A second force blows the ceiling to the side, debris flying back towards the destroyed stairwell, turning people into paste and collapsing walls. 

There’s a grating screech of metal as the building separates. Large chunks of concrete are knocked loose from the structural beams, raining down upon the first floor. One flattens half the mattress you're taking cover under. Curled up into a ball, it misses you, but the weight spreads out and pins you to the linoleum floor. A second wave of debris, smaller and lighter, drops and bounces off the mattress. 

Where’s William? 

You shake off the natural reaction to want to stay frozen and hold still, knowing the rest of the building could give out at any moment. Your sweat slick hands grip at the floor as you wiggle the front part of your body from under the mattress, sucking in air. From the mix of dust circling the room and adrenaline pumping hotly through your veins, you’re disoriented and jittery. 

You shrug your backpack off, tossing it to the side to give yourself more control of your body. 

The hall itself is trashed beyond recognition. There’s a gaping hole in the ceiling towards the center of the hall that cuts completely through the side of the building, letting in the red glow of the sunrise. It throws shadows into the husk of the dormitory and lights up the dust swirling off the rubble. The majority of the upper floors are just a pile near the stairwell, cutting the hall in half. 

You think of all the people who were behind you. Only half remain, possibly only half of that half are still breathing. Body parts litter what’s left, blood coating the floor and walls where rubble settled. 

Scanning over limp bodies and slack-jawed faces, you search for William, his bag, his body, hell, you’ll take anything. 

Nothing.

Your view is limited, so you drag yourself further out and freeze as something, no, someone floats from the sky down through the collapsed ceiling. Just a silhouette shrouded in ash, his back facing you, the man appears like an apparition.

Squinting through the dust, you catch mostly red over a backdrop of black, blue, and yellow. Terror cuts through you, nearly peeling a fearful choke of breath from your aching chest. 

He hasn’t seen you yet—couldn’t have. The mattress you're under is more than ten feet away from the man, shadowed under a patch of surviving ceiling clinging stubbornly to the shell of the building. 

He hovers a foot above the cracked floor, back straight as he glides forward.  

Just past him, a girl groans out and rolls onto her stomach. Her long hair spills out onto the floor as she coughs up spit and bile. She fights to get her arms under her, one folded in on itself three times over, gushing blood where bone juts out from beneath stretched skin. 

Unceremoniously, he sets a foot on her back and presses. Her ribs pop and shatter, snapping closed on her organs like a steel trap. Blood and viscera burst from her torso, splattering the bottom of his suit. He doesn’t even twitch. 

The boy beside her lets out a harrowing scream that gets the people still conscious up and moving. They stand on shaky or broken legs, using the walls, crawling if they have to. Unlike them, the man does not rush, picking up his foot again. It casts a long shadow over the boy's face, who blubbers incoherently, limbs shaking.   

You watch, wide-eyed, body stiff and unmoving as the reality of the situation slams down on you without mercy. His foot drops down on the boy's head, flattening it. 

It shouldn’t be possible to die that easily. 

The screaming around you doesn’t register. Trancelike, you watch as the man ignores the boy near the wall using his hands and knees to shuffle away. Instead, he stomps down on the corpse of a blonde girl near his right foot. Then, he does it to the next unmoving body, working his way down. Your head falls limply to the side, cushioned by your shoulder, while you come to terms with what’s in front of you.

He’s making sure everyone is dead. 

You place a quivering hand over your mouth to stop from breathing heavily, swallowing down a dry heave. You need to compartmentalize—be objective. 

There’s the wet sound of an unstoppable force caving in a person's head. 

You tremble, scanning the floor for William. He was wearing a black and gray shirt, not his favorite color combo but it’d help him blend in outside. You wish he were wearing an obnoxious neon orange at the moment. 

Your eyes betray you, glancing at the exit across the way, set in the lobby of the dorm. The glass doors have shattered, leaving behind an empty frame that leads out to the parking lot. If you could just quietly squirm from underneath the mattress, it would be a straight shot, nothing in your way. 

The man continues to move further away from you, deeper into the guts of the building.  

You swallow and twist carefully onto your back. The large slab of concrete, an inch from crushing your legs, has your stomach churning. If it had fallen just an inch closer, you’d be— 

You shake your head, teeth grit, and place your hands against the lip of the mattress. Pushing up, it moves away from your stomach, giving you the chance to peer down at your legs.

There’s another ear-piercing scream, then a crunch, soft gurgling. 

With some maneuvering, your left foot joins the rest of your body, but the right foot stays stuck and out of sight. There’s no pain, just pressure. You tug at your ankle and the mattress shifts, letting out a damning squeak. 

Joints locking, your breathing stops. You can’t force yourself to look away from the underbelly of the mattress, terrified you’ll see the man coming.  

There’s the sound of guts spilling. 

You tug again. No luck. 

Seconds turn to minutes as you work up a cold sweat, heart rate rising until the thundering of blood in your veins is all you can hear. The screams are gone, cut short by that thing down the hall. 

Are you the last one alive? 

There’s a yelp, and your head whips to the side without thought, eyes locking on a pile of bodies near the mountain of debris in front of the staircase. The man has a limp corpse in one hand, tossing it off to the side like trash. His other hand shifts out of the way, and you see it—in the middle of the pile, tucked expertly between two bodies, someone’s still alive. 

You see brown hair, styled in that ridiculous haircut he’s had since you first met him. His arms are held out in a surrendering motion, face pale and sickly, with blood spray dripping off him.  

Oh, god it’s William. 

Oh, god, it’s William . 

The relief you feel shrivels up and lights itself on fire, scorching your nerves to embers. Everything freezes while you burn up from the inside out.

The man finally touches down, feet settling on the floor, something you thought he wasn’t capable of. He seems to freeze as well, the muscles of his back corded and bunched up as he goes statue-still. Silence reigns—no screaming to break it apart. 

All at once, like a tidal wave, he moves, dropping down onto his heels. His hand wraps around William’s head, blood-soaked fingers gliding through his fringe. The blood sticks, mixing with the red already dripping down William's face.

Your heart stutters in your chest, nausea rolling wildly in your stomach. 

He’s going to sink his hands through William’s head! Put him down like some sick animal. 

You tug at your ankle hard enough that your fingernails draw blood. Ignoring the sound of the mattress shifting, you throw your full weight into sliding out. After a third full-body heave, something gives. One more and your foot slips from your shoe, flinging you away. You roll backwards, hitting the floor hard. 

You're on your feet before the pain registers. 

Moving past the clear shot to the parking lot, you stalk forward like a man possessed. Bodies and debris blur together, and you step over each without a passing thought, every inch of your body quivering in animalistic fear. 

It doesn’t stop you.

When you get within ten feet of the scene, your eyes scan the floor—bingo. Your hands wrap around a sizable piece of concrete, heavy enough that you have to get into a squat to lift it up. You settle it against your chest where it bites into your sternum, weighing you down. 

One step forward, another, another, until you're close enough to hear the words spilling from the man’s mouth.  

“No, no, I—you,” he stutters, voice heavy with emotion, “You went to an out of state college.” His words are heady with accusation, going starkly against the pathetic warble in his voice.

William tries to pull away, but the gloved hands follow along, still cradling his head. 

Another step, then another, you creep up behind him, breath stuck in your chest. From underneath his suit, you can see the tenseness in his body, how his hands press tighter around the edges of William’s horrified face. 

The concrete is painstakingly lifted high over your head, muscles screaming, heart and lungs screaming. 

William’s gray eyes lock with yours. His terror mirrors yours, both of you stupidly worried for the other.

“You shouldn’t even be here!” The man stresses. 

The concrete chunk is swung down, gaining momentum faster than expected. You're dragged down with it as it lands dead center on the top of the Not-Invincible's head. It splinters upon impact, bursting into a bomb of dust and rock. 

Look at you. Playing hero like a fucking idiot. 

A hand shoots out and wraps around your throat, squeezing the breath from your body and blacking you out for half a second. Your feet leave the floor, and you kick out, hands flying out to grab, pull, and claw. No damage is done as your hands slip off the fabric of the man’s suit. 

Death hangs over your shoulder as you slowly choke, eyes snapping open to look into the face of the piece of shit that’s about to take your head from your shoulders. 

It’s familiar. There’s almond eyes under dark, thick brows, a sharp jaw—features that all come together to form a vacant expression that looks at you like you're nothing but a shit stain on his suit. You go limp in his hold, mind struck dumb at the sight in front of you. 

‘Mark?’ You mouth, the ability for speech long since dragged out of you. In the background, you faintly hear William screaming something under all the blood pooling in your head. 

You blink wildly, hoping to clear your spotty vision. It can’t be. There’s no possible way it’s Mark. 

But, somehow, it is, because Mark’s face shudders and then that mask of indifference slips off. Your neck is released, and you drop to the floor, trying to cough off the chokehold like it’s a piece of food stuck in your throat. Confusion, pain, and a throbbing head sends you faceplanting to the floor. It’s second nature to place your hands out to keep yourself steady, forehead resting on the cold tile while you heave.  

Mark stands impossibly tall over you, arms dropped to his sides. His wide-eyed stare is lost on you as you bathe in the shadow he casts over your curled up form. You’re reminded of the boy from before, head crushed flat under this freak’s heel. William doesn’t move, so you do, rising up to your feet to do…to do what? Something. Anything.

Your throat burns. 

Before you can get all the way up, a hand settles onto your shoulder and presses. Instead of obliterating bone and shredding muscle, it’s a steady pressure, willing you to sit down. 

You fight against it, but it’s like pressing against the side of a mountain, completely impossible to move. You find yourself back on your ass, side by side with William. Mark drops his other hand on William's shoulder, locking the two of you in place. 

Without thought, you find William’s hand, slipping your fingers between his. There’s a sharp squeeze from him. It’s the only evidence you have that, yes, the situation is as insane as you believe it to be.

Mark shifts forward and settles onto his knees, where he lets his head tip forward. Eyes haunted, he stares just past the two of you. 

“They shouldn’t be here.” 

It’s a sentiment you can get behind. If anything, you agree so much that if he'd get his heavy paws off you, you’d grab William and disappear this very moment. 

He repeats himself, whispering it under his breath again and again. 

Then, there’s silence. His eyes focus, pinning you to the floor as his body pulls closer, dragging you and William’s chests closer to your respective knees. Mark settles his head into the gap between you two, too close for comfort. You feel his breath on the crown of your head, labored and quick.

“What should I do?” It’s not even loud enough to be a whisper this time, just a thought that slipped from his brain and out his mouth.

You hear William swallow.

“Let us go.” He finds his voice first. Stupid, brave William, who curls up his fists and straightens up his back as much as possible. 

Mark pauses, leaning back just enough to make eye contact with him. William fumbles in the face of it, expression going tight. 

“Yeah, we’ll leave,” you say to back him up, dragging the attention off of him and instantly wanting it off you again. It’s obvious the man has a problem with you and William being here, a problem easily rectified that just so happens to end in the same goal you have.

Mark stares at you, focus wavering like you’re see-through. He blinks rapidly, dropping his head down to his chest and breathing in short, shallow breaths. His hand stays on your shoulder, too warm and completely unmoving. If anything, it tightens, curling painfully over the slope of your shoulder. 

The man’s unstable, you determine. And, based off his strong reaction, recognizes the two of you. Your brain whirls to life, attempting to place the right pieces in the right places. 

Suspending your disbelief, the facts state Mark is Invincible. The question remains: Is this your Mark or not? A quick glance around the trashed dorm building, multiple bodies, and blood splatter on this Mark’s face says no. Your gut says hell no. 

Not-Mark makes a choked sound, and you make terrified eye contact with William over the man’s muscled back. Freaked smooth out, you pat at the hand clutching your shoulder in a wordless gesture for him to remove it. You pick up the subtle trembling of his hand under yours. The show of vulnerability feels less like an opportunity for reversing your roles and more like a final warning before a rabid dog loses its mind, speeding straight towards full blown insanity. 

The man’s at the edge of a cliff, and no matter what, you can’t let him tip over—can’t give him the opportunity to turn and bite you.  

“Are you,” you pause, bending down with your head tilted just enough to get a better look at the guy's paling face, “…alright?” You keep your voice soft and unobtrusive, cautious of the ticking time bomb holding you and your friend. 

He flinches at the tone, a flash of guilt swimming across his face. Both you and William flinch in response. Everyone looks at each other like the other is going to snap. Only two of you have any right to be scared.

Not-Mark’s voice catches in his throat. His hands drop, and he gets off his knees, taking a large step back. Heel catching on the end of a torn off leg, he nearly stumbles, checking down before the carnage pulls at his attention. Finally, his eyes take in the room around him without that film of indifference over them. 

“I—,” he starts, before cutting himself off with a jerk of his head. 

Without taking your eyes off him, your hand flies out and grabs William’s shirt to drag him up. Catching the memo, William attempts to shift up, hissing out when he accidentally sets his hand on a sharp piece of rubble. 

The noise freezes Not-Mark stiff, and his attention lasers back onto William. He nods once to himself, pinched brows smoothing out.

 “Right.” 

Without warning, he clears the meagre space between them in less than a second, going straight back to invading William’s personal space to feel along his palm. It’s just a graze, not deep enough to even bleed. Not-Mark mutters under his breath, too low for you to pick up this time, while he delicately wipes the grit from William’s tender palm.

You try to drag William out from under him and it backfires, as Not-Mark grabs your right wrist and pulls you down onto your stomach with the ease one would have against an infant. You don’t scream like one, but it’s a near thing. From there, his hands don’t return to his side. Instead, he pats the two of you down, running his hands along your arms and pulling out one of William’s legs with the speed and efficiency of a professional. He thoroughly tests the bend, which sends William into a fit.

“Wow!” Williams squeaks, kicking repeatedly at Not-Mark’s iron-like chest with his free foot. “Hands off!” 

Distantly, the rational part of you recognizes Not-Mark is checking for damage. That doesn’t stop the feeling of doom that strikes you down when he has you curled under him while he runs his hands along your head. Just five minutes ago, he was splattering brain matter around your home, killing, murdering, another thousands words that all mean the same bad thing. You don’t want his bloody hands anywhere near you, least of all your head. 

When his touch loosens, you shoot to your feet and jerk backwards, teetering unsteadily into the pile of bodies William had used as a hiding spot before. You sink in far enough, your feet leave the floor, and the new position puts your face within an inch of someone’s smashed in head. The cooling warmth of the corpses shoots through your layers of clothes and closes your throat up in raw horror as you try to squirm free. 

Not-Mark pulls you out before you can do it yourself, staring nervously at the fresh layer of blood coating the majority of your back.  

It somehow warrants another head check. 

He has William pinned with his back to the floor while William claws at the hand splayed out over his chest. Not-Mark finishes looking over you without moving his hand away once. A satisfied, if not relieved, noise slips from his mouth, and you expect his touch to finally fall away. Again, you're sorely disappointed as he clasps a palm around your arm and carefully pulls you to your feet. William’s treated the same way, though he is much louder about his dislikes towards the treatment.

You’re skillfully maneuvered into sitting on Not-Mark's left arm, stomach half pressed into his shoulder. You stare down his back, thinking, before wildly kicking your legs out, but it’s like you're strapped into a roller coaster seat with the steel bars replaced by the guy’s arms. 

The ground shifts, moving away as Not-Mark takes flight. It’s a slow liftoff that gets you and William squirming and screaming. William throws himself backwards, trying to buck out. You settle your elbows heavily against Not-Mark’s shoulders, attempting to pry your legs out. 

Not-Mark takes it all in stride, fixing his grip to be even tighter without a word. He flies up through the hole in the ceiling but stops at the second floor, hovering towards the corners of the buildings where the frame still stands. A handful of rooms stick to the walls, some raining down bits and pieces onto the floor below. He passes the first three rooms, peeking his head into the fourth before moving on. You try to ignore the bodies. 

To check the room, Not-Mark floats close enough to the walls for you to latch your hands around the door frame, sinking your nails in. When he continues forward, noting where the floor has collapsed inside, he doesn't notice your struggle.

The pressure mounts on your fingers, and you flex your arms, trying to delay the point of force where your arms could pop out of their sockets. Before your trembling hands can give out, a chunk of the door frame shoots off, hitting Not-Mark in the back.  

He stops, turning his head far enough back to see the broken frame. He floats further from the walls, keeping towards the middle of the hall. 

“Careful,” the man chides weakly, glancing up at your hands with furrowed brows. When he makes accidental eye contact with you, he breaks it quickly, head tilting down just far enough where your attention isn’t caught in his peripherals.  

You consider changing tactics and attacking him while his hands are busy carrying you and William like children, but reconsider. If a block of falling concrete couldn’t put a scratch on him, your fists will do nothing but piss him off. 

The second floor doesn’t have what he’s searching for so Not-Mark goes further up to the third floor. There’s even less rooms here to look through, but he checks each one thoroughly. You have no way of knowing what requirements he's made up in his head, but each one doesn’t make the list. Some get close, you think, as he enters them fully, eyes scanning the walls. You and William fight the whole way, attempting the grab and cling method enough times Not-Mark grows visibly frustrated. 

He checks the majority of the third floor, except for two final rooms. The first one passes the outside inspection, so he hovers inside, doing a three-sixty turn while you try shifting your knees up to escape his hold. When that doesn't work, you eye the room as well, searching. 

The room is mostly spared from his abuse, with minimal cracking on the walls or floors. The decorations that once lined the walls have come down, posters and tapestries piling up in the corners. The ceiling is miraculously still in one piece, but the ceiling fan sits in a broken heap on the floor, idly spinning in a circle.  

Not-Mark seems to notice the lack of destruction as well, landing for the first time since his strange search began. His new position on the floor puts you in range of the tall lamp by the door and you take advantage of his mistake, snaking your hands out. 

His shoulder digs into your stomach, and your fingertips miss the metal base of the lamp by a hair. You refrain from clicking your tongue in frustration, sure that Not-Mark’s aware of the botched attempt. Better to not call attention to it either way. William watches you from where he’s folded over Not-Mark’s other shoulder, bone tired from his impressive fifteen-minute screaming and kicking fit. 

Neither of your escape attempts are doing jack shit. 

Not-Mark continues ignoring the two of you, scanning the floor. He stomps his foot down once, and when it holds, he walks to the other side of the room and tries it again. The back corner flooring creaks but doesn’t bend.

He does a final loop around the space, purposely taking heavy steps that shake the floor. You settle your hands on Not-Mark’s shoulder, expecting the floor to finally succumb to the pressure and fall out beneath his feet. It doesn’t, which bodes badly for you—if he’s found what he’s looking for, his attention will fall back on you and William. 

You don’t know what that entails, and you don’t want to know either. 

Confident in the room's stability, Not-Mark delicately sets you and William down, or tries to, as the second his grip wavers, the two of you surge out of his arms. Scurrying away, you gain distance, warily eyeing the dangerous man blocking the door. William stands rigid at your side, strained breathing back under control. 

Not-Mark doesn’t spare a glance in your direction, instead studying the open door. He pushes it and it stays on its hinges, letting out a squeak. His gaze falls to his arms next, which he turns over and back before wiping against his suit pants. It does nothing to clear the red away. 

He stands silently at the doorway, arms falling back down to his sides. Then, without a word, he leaves, floating out the opening and disappearing out of sight. The oppressive silence returns. Neither you or William moves, waiting for the Not-Invincible to double back. Minutes pass, and nothing changes.

William’s head turns, slowly, oh so slowly, as you copy the motion, both your faces sharing twin horrified expressions. 

“What the fuck!” he whisper-yells, gripping you by the shoulders. He shakes you back and forth as you try to wrap your head around the situation. 

“No idea. What was that? What was that!” You sputter, just as confused as him.

You clutch at each other, completely lost for what should be done. Neither stay lingering on that thought for long. The only logical choice is right in front of you, wide open. 

You and William rush for the door. 

You set your hand against the frame and peek out, looking left and right. No signs of Not-Mark. William looks over your shoulder, noticing the four to five feet of flooring in front of the door before it opens up into the levels below. It’s a long fall.  

Just one single step outside the room, and Not-Mark appears unexpectedly, floating down from above. 

The both of you shriek and retreat further back into the room.

He looks startled at the outburst, blinking rapidly as he glances behind him, like there could be anything more dangerous than him here at the moment. He halts just outside the door, lingering like he’s waiting to be invited in. The moment passes, and he enters, eyes glancing over your faces. 

When William takes a step back, Not-Mark stops. His frown deepens, and he looks around before sitting down near the door. He tucks his knees into his chest, back curving, appearing smaller than he is. 

It feels like a trap. 

You take him in with skepticism, scanning him for signs he’ll go back on his killing spree and tear the two of you apart. Instead, a detail catches your attention. The blood that once covered him like a second layer of skin has been wiped clean from both his suit and face. It still lingers, in his hair where the light catches, on his back where he couldn’t quite reach, under the soles of his feet. Some things, you think, just can’t be wiped off. 

Neither you or William sit down. 

“Hey.” Not-Mark’s voice comes out clunky, unpracticed, like he’s attempting friendliness but can’t clear the first hurdle. If he’s going for reassuring, he’s failing spectacularly. He doesn’t make eye contact, instead choosing the wall to the left of your group to stare at. 

Eyebrows raising in disbelief, you glance at William. You weren’t expecting your— what, exactly? kidnapper? to be conversational. 

Not-Mark wilts at the lack of response, shifting slightly where he sits. His arms wrap around his knees, heels pressing up against his body. You consider letting the silence fester, but quickly reconsider. If he’s willing to talk, you’ll take what you can get. 

“Are you guys from a different universe?” The question has been eating at you since yesterday—even more so after seeing Mark’s face on this guy’s head. In reality, knowing the answer won’t do much at the moment. 

He blinks, once, twice, like he’s surprised you’d ask. His eyes shift off the wall and onto you, the question just odd enough to grab his attention. You force your face into pure neutrality, unsure what expression could kill your chances of getting an answer. 

“Yes.”

You wait, hands sweating. He doesn’t add on anything else, letting the conversation die. 

“Cool.” 

He just stares, in that bizarre way new hires at your job do when they can’t think of anything else to say but want the conversation to keep flowing. You hope he doesn’t share their want for camaraderie. 

“…How are you feeling?” He tries, seemingly coming to the obvious realization that there’s no way in hell either you or William is going to start small talk of all things with him. His gaze flicks to William, tentative but heavy all the same. 

“How do you think?” William deadpans, as Not-Mark cringes at the stupid question, deeply aware he’d asked the wrong thing. 

You squint at him, feeling a wave of second-hand embarrassment you would never expect to apply to someone with a high a kill count as him. But, something about him is getting under your skin, possibly the awkward air he holds or the sad way he’s trying so hard to force conversation. 

You realize what it is exactly he reminds you of— Mark. He’s doing the same awkward chit chat Mark does when he’s hours late to a hangout, somehow finding a way to step on every conversation landmine while further digging himself in the hole. 

Not-Mark’s feeling guilty, enough so to hide his teeth and claws. The familiarity of the situation does the opposite of what you expect. Instead of endearing him to you, ire pools in your chest. 

Since day one of the apocalypse, your anger’s been tempered by the knowledge that, outside of luck, being level headed is the only thing keeping you alive. But, with this lunatic in front of you, curled in on himself like he’s awaiting trial, you’re itching to play judge and executioner. 

“You just murdered a whole building’s worth of people.” The accusing words feel right shooting off your tongue, razor sharp and fueled with righteous anger. 

Not-Mark opens his mouth and then closes it, expression souring. His eyes find that spot on the wall again.

“Yes.” 

The admittance throws you off kilter, your mouth closing and staying that way. You had expected a fight, or an easy toss off of responsibility onto someone else. Not…this. This weird resignation. Once more, you find yourself at a loss.  

No one says anything after. 

The three of you take turns staring at each other, Not-Mark’s attention lingering on William, who in turn fights back a nasty scowl. He does a poor job of hiding his distaste. 

“Now what?” William questions, voice edging on bitterness he’s too nervous to toss at the man in front of him. It seems you’re not the only one stuck on what should happen next. It’s not every day you have a back and forth with a homicidal version of a friend. 

Not-Mark doesn’t have any outward reaction to the question outside of a quick glance away. His eyes naturally zone back onto William in mere seconds, then to you, and then back to William. You shift where you stand in place when his gaze flicks around your face, down to your clothes and shoes. 

You wonder what Not-Mark sees. Familiar faces? Friends? Does it even matter?

The man runs his fingers over his knuckles in a familiar soothing motion, an accidental show of vulnerability— another piece of Mark that fits but shouldn’t. He sucks in a breath, letting out a shaky exhale that rings loud in the quiet. 

You don’t miss the longing gaze he’s been shooting in William’s direction.

Seriously, what the fuck is going on? 

“William.” The man in question stiffens at his name. “You’re my boyfriend back home.” The silence hangs heavy, but Not-Mark cuts right through it, leaving you and William utterly speechless. 

“William, my William, he’s dead.” His voice trembles at the end, like it’s still fresh, like some part of him was still human, even after slaughtering your neighbors, classmates, people. He glances at you, eyes swimming with something you refuse to name. 

‘Grief,’ your brain supplies, unhelpfully.

“My version of you died too.” 

You hear William suck in a startled breath at the revelation, no doubt surprised by the knowledge he, or at least a version of him, dated Mark. Specifically, dated a totally batshit insane Mark. 

You cross your arms over your chest, pushing down the urge to tap your foot nervously. The news of both your ‘deaths’ holds an unexpected weight. It feels like a bad omen, regardless of the universe it happened in, so you’re quick to steer the conversation forward and away. 

“Why exactly are you here?” you ask. That seems like the best next question.

“I didn’t, I didn’t want you to die,” he continues imploringly, blowing over your question, “Either of you. I know I should’ve done more.” His hands turn into fists in his lap. “I’m going to do more.”

It’s a promise you should take seriously, but don’t. 

His words don’t make much sense to you. Hell, they aren’t even actually directed at you, so you don’t know how to respond. You just send up a little prayer to the dead version of you who had to put up with this total nutjob. 

“When this is over, I’m going to do things right.”

You nod placatingly, relieved he can regulate his emotions well enough to stay sitting down. Whatever wires are crossing in his brain to lump you in with his versions might just come in handy. 

“Can you…not destroy our world?” You pause, hedging, “for uh, other versions of your friends’ sakes?” 

William catches on quick, nodding his head in agreement. “We could use the backup.”

Not-Mark seems to snap out of his trance, letting out an exhale that could be passed off as a huff of laughter if you stretched it. Whatever humor there drains from his face within a second, and his expression gets cloudy, distant. He swallows. 

“I…can’t.” He sighs, eyebrows pinching. “Won’t.” His voice gets stronger, decision made, hands clenching further. In one smooth motion, he stands up to his feet. Whatever bits of Mark you saw on him slips off like a costume a size too small. 

You back up further, sensing the mood shift back to how it was before— cold and violent. Danger seeps off Not-Mark, keeping you on edge as you hit the back wall. Whoever and whatever he is, he’s not a friend, regardless of the face and name he shares. 

You don’t stop him as he turns around and nears the open door. His hand settles on the handle, twisting it off with a sharp snap. He tosses the warped metal into the hole in the hallway, the ting of it hitting rubble on the first floor echoing. When his head turns back, you puff up, unable to break eye contact with his flinty gaze, holding it not out of rebellion but from some childish belief that keeping him in sight will stop him from hurting you. 

“Stay here. Do not go outside this room.” His voice is steady, commanding. Some part of you curls up like this thing wearing your friend's face has the authority to tell you what to do.

Not-Mark doesn’t wait for confirmation, turning on his heel and slamming the door so hard into its frame it warps. Outside of the room, there’s a violent crack, then a scraping sound as he drags something heavy and leans it against the door. 

You’ve lived in the dorms long enough to know which way the door swings out. 

The two of you are officially trapped. 

Chapter Text

Facing death puts things into perspective, making a world where your unemployed friend part-timing as a superhero possible. With Not-Mark gone, you’ve circled right back to disbelief. 

Invincible is Mark.

Mark is Invincible. 

The surprise lasts for half a second, and then your brain beams off every ‘of course Mark is Invincible’ situation you had brushed off in the past as him being odd, or awkward, or funny. 

Mark was always different. You never held it against him. He never seemed to get drunk, no matter how indulgent the hangouts got. He always seemed a little hurt, bruises here and there, but any worry you’d expressed was masterfully shrugged off by the group. And all those scheduling issues. The impossible way Mark would miss more than half of any hangout, even the ones he had planned with obvious thought and excitement. Then, once they passed, he’d crawl back offering weak excuses and platitudes. 

It was so obvious in hindsight.

You put your hand to your forehead, groaning. He had a super hero physique for fucks sake! You had just assumed good genetics and the same gym-obsession every college-aged guy seemed to have nowadays. 

Then there’s all the personal life stuff your other friends had hinted at vaguely. He lives with his parents, isn’t in college, and dropped out first semester, has a job but doesn’t when you ask him—you had assumed everything but him being a hero. Things like mental illness, addiction, home life troubles, being involved in some criminal empire, etc, etc, etc. It was all on the table. 

You never pushed because why the hell would you? You’re just a tagalong William invited in, not a longtime friend that could step in and ask ‘hey, what the fuck is going on?’ like you really wanted to.

You two were cool, of course. But, not cool enough he’d drag you into his hero lifestyle. The pool of people who already knew too much was overflowing, and he didn’t plan on adding any new members. 

Mark kept you at arm's length, rarely cracking badly enough to be forced to use your shoulder to lean on. It still occurred, sometimes when you just so happened to be the only one around at the dorm, or when Mark felt like the others just knew too much. You were a blank slate compared to them, willing to listen and give advice without judgment. 

You aren’t aware of it, but you’d been a cornerstone member of team ‘Kill Angstrom’, telling Mark that some people were better off dead when he’d explained the situation via hypothetical, replacing names, powers, and motivations until it was unrecognizable—you’d assumed he’d plucked it right out of one of his beloved comics. He’d argued and you’d argued right back, getting heated enough to start pulling sources off the internet to “argue properly,” as you’d put it. 

It was silly, he thought, but that night was the first time he’d slept soundly since he’d killed Angstrom.

From there, he’d divulged his feelings at times, nothing specific, usually stress and fear of failure, both feelings you understood well enough to help soothe him. When he’d stop talking, you’d consider the conversation over. 

You know now you should have been more pushy.

Your brain runs through all the other information it knows on Mark, trying to connect it to what it knows of Invincible. You think of your time at his house, of his father who supposedly died in some freak accident on the highway a couple months before your first meeting. It was fresh enough William gave you a quick rundown before leaving the dorm to avoid any awkward conversations. 

At Mark’s birthday dinner, there were no pictures in the house of his dad, Nolan, if you remember correctly. It’s not hard to connect the dots—Omni-Man is Mark's dad. The timelines add up. The shared abilities add up. It all adds up. 

Talk about a fucked up home life. 

The next time you see Mark, you’re taking the whole friend group out for drinks and fronting enough money to get the poor guy dead wasted. You’ll take out a loan if you have to. The next morning, while everyone’s nursing hangovers, and whatever watered down version Mark gets, it’ll be time for Seance Dog marathon number two, extended cut, where you’ll encourage him to nerd out. Then you’ll crack open the comic series and let him explain in way too much detail all the stuff the show left out, why not? You’ll watch forty hours' worth of deep dive YouTube videos on the subject if that’s what he wants. A little Uber Eats here and some group bonding and Mark-loving there, and you’ll slip into your apologizing and groveling session. After, throw in a coupon for some type of therapy—all the therapies and then do it all again and again until Mark starts feeling even an itty-bitty bit better about his seriously disturbing life.  

You’re stepping up your friend game to hard-core mode and it starts by not being a major dickhead to William, regardless of what he’s been keeping behind closed doors. If it’s for Mark’s sake, you’d hide a body at the moment. The very least you’d do is hide his super big secret from a roommate. 

Your internal monologue is interrupted by the room shuddering in place as Not-Mark brute forces the nearby buildings to the ground. Feet slipping and sliding on the shaking floor, you throw your arms out for balance. It doesn't help much. You and William fall into each other, using the other as a crutch to keep standing. 

Breath held in your throat until the tremors stop, you pat William’s shoulder and separate. As long as the room stays together, you’re safe. Not-Mark wouldn't go through the trouble of squirreling you and William away just to kill you from the room falling in on itself. So, you turn to William, ready to get some answers. 

“William.” 

Forgiveness has been earned, but coming off as cross might get you further than not. 

William glances at you, trying to get a read on your blank face. He clicks his tongue. “I can not take you being mad at me right now.”

Well, maybe being a hardass isn’t the best plan.

William stands near the back wall, hands wiping down his arms while he glares weakly at you. His hair clings to his forehead from a mix of blood and sweat, and the rest sticks up in various directions from where Not-Mark dug his hands in to check for head trauma. The sickly paleness to his face hasn't let up, contrasting darkly with the blood splatter drying against his skin.  

He looks like someone dropped a building on him. It’s essentially what happened, so you shouldn’t be surprised. You probably look worse.

“I guess I’ve never seen Mark and Invincible in the same room,” you joke, clearing the air.  

William sighs, long and hard, wiping his hands off on his pants. “I’m surprised it stayed secret for as long as it did. Mark is horrible at the whole secret identity stuff.” 

You cross your arms, ignoring the blood flaking off your jacket, and try to reason away the embarrassment turning your face hot. You’d been duped by one of the worst liars you know, probably looking like a total idiot to the rest of your friends. You suspect everyone but you knows about Mark’s double life, adding another layer to the humiliation. 

“For what it’s worth,” William starts, mistaking your shamed silence for irritation, “I’m sorry. I probably should’ve told you earlier.” 

It’s the understatement of the century. Half-assed apology aside, there’s more important things to focus on. One being, how much information you can squeeze out of William before he starts lying, unlikely, or shuts down. 

You’ve gathered that the information he’s withholding isn’t his to give out. You just have to convince him that you knowing all of it outweighs the cons of him telling you. Thinking back on the crumbs he’d left for you in your heated talks in the dorm and safe room, one at-the-time innocent comment stands out. 

“You said if not Debbie or Mark, someone should come around the house. Who?” The answer is, of course, his ‘contacts’ but you want details now.  

William looks at you with offense, like he expected you to willingly keep yourself in the dark. You were long past playing along. 

“What?” he asks, stalling. 

You don’t say anything, choosing to wait. 

He groans, turning around to speed walk to the door while muttering something mean under his breath. He shoves at it with his shoulder and it doesn’t budge. Walking up behind him, you watch as he ignores you to mess with the door.

“Who, William?” 

He slams into the wood again, mouth a thin line. You circle him until you're sure you’re in his peripherals. 

“William?”

His head tucks, and he switches shoulders to have his back facing you once more. The door stays stuck against the frame.

“William.” 

He hits it wrong and his shoulder dips, sending his forehead bouncing off the door. 

“Fuck!” He clutches at his head, backing away like the door will shoot off its hinges to hit him again. He turns on you next, arms held up in exasperation. 

“Fucking shit! Fine! There’s these, I don’t know,” he waves his hands around sporadically, frustration loosening his tongue, “Special Ops government guys. They work with heroes like Invincible. They helped out his family. They could help us out.” 

The government is supposed to be your saviors? The two of you are so fucked.

You steady him with a hand on his shoulder when he teeters back. He glares at you, but doesn’t shake off your touch. 

“Happy now? Say goodbye to privacy because now you’re going to have people up in your search history, keeping tabs on you like the rest of us.” He crosses his arms, shaking his head like a disappointed parent. “If not worse,” he tacks on, for good measure.   

You nod just to piss him off.  

There’s still something that doesn’t make sense. How does Rick fit in between the Invincible reveal and deep government bullshit. He’s too busy with college to be an agent, and he’s definitely not a hero. The hero type, sure, but not a hero. He’s around the dorm too often to have a second life. 

Though there was that time downtown when the group went clubbing. Rick had been at the back of the pack, watching as you all stumbled drunkenly to the subway station. You had been at his side, holding him up, since William was too sloshed, too. You’d been drunk yourself when Rick stumbled and clipped a corner, the brick cracking and crumbling to the sidewalk. You’d shrugged it off, blaming it on too much force and shitty, old brick. 

Just what were you missing?   

“Rick’s involved somehow,” you state, injecting enough confidence in your voice to sway William to silence.  

William’s grave face sends you into silence as well, eyes wide and expression strained. Your words come as a slap to the face, neither of you bringing up Rick since day one in some unspoken agreement. 

You’re both painfully aware he may really be dead.  

You swallow, moving past your nerves to continue on, convinced you’re close to something big. 

“I don’t care that you hid shit from me before. We’ve known each other for what? Eight months? You didn’t owe me other people's secrets. But out here?” You wave around like the gesture can encompass everything, the blood, the death, the fact that you two are dealing with a multi-universal threat with empty pockets and no backup. 

“Out here at ground zero with multiple evil Marks flying around? I need to know what’s going on.”  

William tilts his head back, a shaky exhale hissing out between his teeth, before his focus snaps back to you. 

“Yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” He rubs at his eyes, expression pinching. “It’s just…I’m going to sound like I’ve lost my mind.” 

You perk up. “I literally could not care less,” you say hurriedly, scared he’ll take it back. 

A tight laugh escapes his lips, weak and shaky. “Okay. Okay. Let me think,” his eyes scan the floor. “So, Mark’s house. The place is definitely monitored, Mark said so. It could get us in contact with the government guys. Or, maybe it has a safe room of its own, like, a really good one.”

You nod, taking it in. “Wait, but if you and the others are monitored for knowing Mark’s Invincible, why aren’t the government guys coming now? You know, other than they have more important stuff to do than help us?” 

“I said keeping tabs, not monitoring. Mark’s house has cameras and some type of audio-satellite thingy or something. I don’t know—Mark didn’t do a good job of explaining it.” 

“Shit. Do they see him…you know?” You grimace, “Eve goes over pretty often.” 

“I don’t even want to think about it. Let's just leave it at that.” Sighing, he glances down at the bruises starting to turn blue on his arms.

“Anyway, getting to a safe place is important, of course. Huge, huge reason why we’re going, but also, they should be able to find Rick,” he admits, voice cracking towards the end. 

“Right.” That makes sense, maybe. “Is Rick a…member of the government? An intern?” You question, feeling lost. 

“He’s a cyborg.”

You blink. Sure, why not? Your friend who struggles waving off solicitors is a superhero, and your other friend is a cyborg. 

William takes mercy on you and explains further before you ask any stupid, accidentally insensitive questions.

“Remember that attack on campus? He was collateral.” 

He spits the word ‘collateral’ out with vitriol, face scrunched up in anger. You wonder who had the balls to talk about Rick that way to William’s face. 

“He’s technically property, or at least his parts are, since he definitely didn’t pay for the surgery. Tax dollars, for sure. They got to have a tracker in him. Or, I don’t know, something traceable.” His straightforward explanation falls into theorizing muttering, losing you completely as he jumps from one thought to the next. 

You listen half-heartedly as he continues on, thinking on how the new information can help the two of you out. The half-baked plan from before is way, way, way, more undercooked than you first suspected—it’s just straight up raw. 

Bad news: William really was just stupid desperate. 

The worse news is, no matter how you cut it, the shitty plan is still the only viable option. The two of you can’t stay here. By the far off thundering in the distance, you doubt you’ll be able to get to any of the other safe rooms on campus. They’ll either be flattened or under too much rubble to dig to. That’s not even considering if William would even be up for it.

“You still going to Mark’s house?” You ask, cutting William’s muttering short. 

You already know the answer. 

He shifts, straightening his back. 

“Yes.” 

Right. Okay, then. You aren’t a flaker. You love your friend. You will not leave him to stumble around outside until he dies. 

“We have to get out of here first.” You collect your rampant thoughts, pointing towards the door, “—and I think that way isn’t going to work.” 

…

With all the supplies needed scattered around the dorm room, you and William push back escape, debating Not-Mark’s next move. It’s either he’ll come back or not. The choice will determine everything. 

If you try to escape while he’s still on campus and he sees the two of you, chances are, he’ll break your legs and toss you in another, probably shittier, room.  

If you don’t escape while he’s on campus and he circles back…you have no idea. 

Then, there’s the chance he won’t come back at all. 

You and William cycle through the argument, once, twice—both of you scared of leaving right then but keenly aware of your chance dwindling away as the minutes pass by. 

The decision to escape once Not-Mark leaves the campus is based on two seemingly inconsequential points: Not-Mark’s choice to leave you here appears to be spontaneous, and there's still some unsaid goal that has yet to be completed by the Not-Invincibles. 

Uh, probably. Maybe. 

In short, you and William are cowards, and hopefully, hopefully, Not-Mark has more cities he has to destroy instead of playing with you two. 

For now, you shred the sheets from the two beds in the room while William ties them together. Thank god for his short stint in the Boy Scouts. Looking for more fabric, you near the window and pull the drapes from the rod up top. You leave it in a neat pile beside William after going at it with the scissors. 

You throw the scissors to the side, heading for the closet. “So are we going to talk about the whole ‘your boyfriends with Mark’ thing?” 

It came as a major surprise to you, considering Mark is the epitome of straightness, but it makes sense that there would be differences between universes. It’s just a little hilarious that the Mark doppelganger that drops down on campus is not only evil, he's gay, and boyfriends with your roommate—talk about layers to the drama. 

You hear William choke on his spit. “Shut up! Damn!” He hits his chest, glaring daggers at your back.

“That stays between us. I do not need that getting out. Can you imagine Mark finding out a version of me was getting all up on a psycho version of him?” He shudders, looping the fabric in his hands.

You start taking shirts off hangers, eyeing the overfilled laundry basket in the corner. “Well, whatever. All I have to say is, god bless your variant for taking that dick. It just saved our lives.” 

William curses at you, pissed he doesn’t have anything to throw back in your face. That copy of Mark really screwed him over, handing you premium harassment material and then leaving him locked in a room with you. This is just a step above hell. 

“Amber told me about her first time with Mark,” he says instead. “Trust me when I say I’m not missing out by not tapping that.” 

You shake your head ruefully, tossing a handful of clothes onto the pile at his side. 

Digging through the shoe rack, you find a pair of sturdy shoes that slip on easily enough. You peel the blood-soaked sock off your right foot, disgusted at the texture, and search for a clean one. Leaving your one shoe on the rack, you put your new shoes on and double-check the fit. You refuse to run around in shoes that’ll make your feet ache.

“Eve would say different,” you tease, turning over to dig through the dirty laundry. 

“Rick’s is better.” He’s steadfast on that point, retying a loose knot. 

You laugh, dragging out the thicker material laundry first—denim and canvas. Whoever’s room this is, they lose points for most of their clothes being dirty, but gain some for their impressive collection of jean jackets. 

“Any ideas for names for the guy?” You ask, turning your nose up at the dirty underwear you nearly picked up. “I say either ‘The Campus Collapser’, ‘Mark-X-The-Spot’, or, um, ‘The Graysoning’.”  

“That’s fucking stupid.” William waves out his hands, trying to soothe his aching wrists. Tying all these knots takes more hand muscles than he expected. 

“Jerk,” you shoot at him. “Your turn.” 

“Uh,” he pauses, “Maskless? Cause of the no mask?” 

“You are on a roll,” You bark out a laugh. “Maskless it is.” 

You walk out and take a seat on one of the stripped mattresses. Slicing through clothes and braiding weaker material strips together, you place them aside for William. You groan when your bruised-to-shit elbows accidentally press into the bruises on your knees. You had gotten off easy compared to others, but you still got ragdolled, and your body won’t let you forget it. 

It feels like someone tied you up and beat you with a sledgehammer for an hour.  

William’s looking slighter better, considering he wasn’t thrown down the hall like a football like you were. His scratches and cuts are easily covered with the bandages you found in this dorm room’s bathroom. After wiping all the blood off as best as possible with the bedsheets, you two don’t look half bad.

Another thirty minutes of mindless small talk and enough time has passed without signs of Maskless you consider it game time. William leaves you to handle the window, which thankfully has thick cracks spider-webbing across its surface. You wiggle one of the drawers off its glides until it pops out, holding it to your chest and testing its weight. It seems sturdy enough.

The window takes an embarrassing amount of hits with the drawer before busting out, glass raining down and shattering into tiny pieces on the floor. With care, you remove all the glass still sticking to the frame until the window is just a big hole in the wall. You kick at the glass shards near the floor to clear a walkway, unsurprised but still disappointed the room doesn't have a broom. 

William finishes tying one end of the homemade rope to the bedpost before throwing the other end out the window. He tugs on the rope, checking it’s secure. It holds, and you’re relieved by the neat and tidy appearance of the knots as you two look it over once more. This may actually work. 

“I’ll go first,” you offer, head out the window, staring down the thirty-plus-foot drop with false bravado. William doesn't argue over your choice, just thins his lips out into a line and shrugs his shoulders.  

You pop your head back in and glare at him. “At the very least, give me a little push back.” 

He gives another helpless little shrug, still staring at you with that ridiculous expression. 

“nooo ~” he starts, voice dry and flat, “Please, don’t offer to sacrifice yourself. I couldn't take watching from safety…I want to break my legs first. For you.” A grin slowly slips onto his face, and you kick at his shin until he giggles and moves away from the window.

“How was that?” he asks, insincere. He waves his hand in front of him like he’s shooing you away. “Don’t offer unless you mean it.”

“I was going to do it either way,” you sniff, feeling caught. “But now I’m going to get down there first and light the rope on fire so you have to jump.” 

“Asshole!” he hollars, tossing a handful of leftover fabric scraps at you. It hits your arms harmlessly and slips off.

“And then when your legs are all broken, I’m going to hook you up to a piece of scrap metal and use you like a sled dog–” his next shot has better aim and hits you right in the face, “allllll the way to Mark’s house.” 

“Shut up! Just get out the window already.” He runs out of projectiles and corners you, pushing your shoulders playfully to steer you towards the window. 

“Alright, alright. But, you have to help.”

…

Getting out the window is an embarrassing endeavor, with William holding your sides while your hands grip painfully around the rope. 

“Seriously, if I fall, just leave me. I won’t get mad.”

“Stop saying that!” William huffs, sweat beading on his face.

You’re standing in a low squat on the frame, with your body facing the inside of the room. The soft breeze from outside hits your back, and you fight the urge to give up and crawl back inside– to hell with the consequences!

Maybe Maskless was making a good point. If you really think about it—

You shake your head like a wet dog, dislodging that stream of thought straight out of your brain. Now's not the time to get all freaked out from the possibility of a little fall. 

Eyes doing the last thing they should be doing, they glance down to the faraway ground.

Okay. Maybe a good-amount fall. But, not a super large one. 

Ignoring the pit in your stomach wailing that you’re definitely going to slip and splatter on the ground, you move. Your head clears the top part of the frame, and William’s hands fall away with hesitation. 

“Okay,” you breathe out, “I’m going.” 

You shimmy your foot back, trying to seal it to the vertical brick wall. Your other foot goes as well, and you pull on the rope to act as an anchor. The moment both feet leave the frame, only the rope holding your weight, the line goes slack.  

William screams, and you plummet a few feet down, shocked into pure silence. The bed slams into the wall beneath the window, and the line stops, nearly yanking your arms from its sockets. You dangle from your hands, feet kicking as the rope swings you from side to side.

“Holy shit,” you whimper, death grip around the fabric keeping you from dropping like a brick. William’s head peeks out the window, and he stares, horrified, down at you. 

“Forgot about the bed! Shit!” His wide eyes scan your sweaty face. “The rope’s good. The bed just got dragged. Almost got me.” 

“You good? ” Both of you ask at the same time. 

You exhale a pinched laugh, hands pumping the fabric between your palms. “Good. I’m good.” He nods stiffly at you, and you will your hands to move. 

“Okay. I’m going to start moving then,” you call up, more than ready to get your feet back on something solid.

“Go slow,” William says nervously. “Take your time.” 

Like in the spy films you’ve watched, you hold the rope with your hands and keep it pinned between your thighs, working your way down. The rope ends about ten feet up, so you ditch the leg hold and keep going down until your hands are at the very end of the rope. You drop and aim for the bushes before your mind can convince you that falling less than five feet could kill you. 

The drop is low enough to not cause any harm, and you scurry out of the scratchy bushes to send William two thumbs up. He waves at you, and you coach him through as he clears the window frame and starts his way down. He’s a pro and scurries down the rope like a squirrel, keeping his eyes up instead of down. But, instead of dangling like you did by his hands at the end of the rope, he just drops.

“Bush! Bush! Bush!” you holler as he lets go, nearly flinging himself far enough to hit the concrete sidewalk that wraps around the building. You hold your arms out, and he hits your chest, slinging you both into the bushes. 

Neither of you sustain any injuries that you didn’t already have, but it still hurts. You sputter and cough on the floor while William moves off of you sheepishly. Brushing the dirt off your arms, he helps you up and wipes the dirt off your back. 

“…sorry.”

…

Before leaving the dorm completely, the two of you enter back into the building you had risked both legs to escape. You go through the glassless doors and head into the first-floor lobby for your bag. It’s right where you left it and in one piece.

You don’t bother opening it up to check for any damage to your stuff. The faster you can leave this slaughterhouse of a hallway, the better.

You ignore the gore staining the hall red and carefully walk through with William, looking around for his bag as well. It is supposedly near the end of the hall, just beside the mountain of debris. William had wormed out of it immediately to hide under the bodies and hadn't seen it since. 

Regardless of your searching, he finds it first, under the upper torso of a girl you recognize from the library. She had lent you her charger once or twice, you think. 

She’s dead now. William shifts her off his bag and you lay her down flat, using your fingers to move the blood-matted hair from her face. You don’t know her name. It bothers you more than you thought it would. 

William unzipping his bag sounds like a gunshot in the dead silence on campus. He holds out his shattered phone, lips downturned. 

“Shouldn’t have put it in the top pocket,” he mutters, flipping it from front to back.  

There’s a lot of things you should’ve done compared to the opposite, but regret won’t do anything to help you at the moment. For now, you help William up and leave the building behind. 

The campus just isn’t, anymore. All the buildings you can see are flattened, reduced to concrete and glass. There’s no movement or life at all, only an eerie stillness. 

You doubt the city will look any better. 

Chapter Text

The five-by-five concrete block he’d pulled from the exterior wall on the far side of the building settles against the door, locking it firmly against the frame. He drops his hands, watching carefully in case the door gives out and collapses in. It holds, but he waits a moment more just to be sure, hands hovering less than a hair’s breadth over the surface of the concrete. 

The urge to push his responsibilities to the side and re-enter the room and explain himself, explain why he’s doing what he’s doing, reason away the fear on their faces, tugs at him, leaving him stuck just outside the room. 

But the mission.

Mark needs to finish the mission.

His body drags him away, always the first thing to react. The internal promise he’ll come back to check on the two people inside the room recenters his focus, tossing away any unnecessary thoughts. 

He makes quick work of the people still alive in the five floors above ground, listening for heartbeats and quick rabbit breaths. When he’s done, he checks for a bunker, since he’s noticed a common theme in the larger cities. If the building has more than three floors, there’s a secure room somewhere for emergencies. 

It doesn’t take long to find, tucked away in a thin stairwell apart from the rest. The stairwell leads down to a bunker sheltered behind reinforced metal. The entrance pops open with a press of his hands. He cleans up in there as well, double checking the bodies.

Going above satisfactory is a necessity, ensuring Angstrom is impressed with his work. If that involves spending a few extra seconds to properly clear rooms, Mark doesn't mind.

The University has an upwards of ninety buildings, significantly larger than the college his William and you went to back in his universe. He wonders if the versions here like the bustle of it more, if the amenities make up for the distance between classes. Do they like the food better? The library? The classes?

Would his versions rather have gone to a more popular college? 

Maybe he shouldn’t have pushed them to apply to some little known college like he did.  

The buildings are cleared out in a quarter of the time it took for the east dorm, since he doesn’t have to go room by room to keep part of the building intact. The buildings closest, he’s more mindful of, but as the distance grows, he shoots through the foundations, flying up and slamming back down until the buildings fall flat. 

When he’s done, he makes good on his reward and flies back towards the east dorm, listening for two pulses—both beat strong and level. The two don’t show signs of attempted escape either. It’s a relief.

Mark feared facing them again, especially in the case where he would have to subdue or intimidate them. He’s already done enough damage to their perception of him, forcing them to see him covered head to toe in the blood of their schoolmates. 

He knows he won’t have the opportunity to make it up to them. It shouldn’t matter, but it does. 

He heads west, out of the city, this time to clear more areas left untouched by the others. The wind whips at his face as he gains speed, splintering buildings from just the shockwave alone. 

He had no intention of meeting this universe's version of William or anyone he was familiar with, really. He dropped in with one goal—complete his end of the deal by destroying his share of the major cities and kill, at a minimum, one hundred thousand people, though he didn’t plan on keeping count. 

No one here mattered, since everyone he would put to death would simply live on in another universe. There would be no room for guilt, no pulled punches, nor mercy. To make up for it, he’d do the opposite in his promised universe, be the hero. He’d make things right—better even, for everyone. 

All he had to do was continue killing, stopping for nothing, putting everything he has in. 

That resolve collapsed the second he pulled his long-dead boyfriend from the pile of fresh corpses he’d just slaughtered, catching his disgusting, blood-drenched visage reflected in William’s scared eyes. 

It crumbled further when you’d appeared behind him, looking just as lively as he’d left you. 

It didn’t matter that the college in his home city shouldn't have had either of you enrolled, because that wasn't the case here. They should have been in college a state over in a school far enough away from his dad’s home to avoid suspicion, but close enough that Mark didn’t have trouble visiting. 

It was a poor decision on all fronts.

Back home, you’d figured out his identity as Invincible because of his impromptu late night visits when he’d taken every part of his suit off except his mask, too distracted with the thought of seeing his boyfriend and you. Well, he thought that was the moment you realized, but you were quick to show him your lock box of evidence: times he’d left to go be a hero, text messages that didn’t line up right cross-referenced with Invincible sightings, a poorly photoshopped photo of his face on Invincible. Really, his fuck up just cemented what you already knew. 

He stopped wearing the mask altogether when his dad killed The Guardians and conquered Earth, reducing Mark to a pile of broken bones and hurt in the process. He was still comatose when his dad completely took over, cutting the GDA down to a fraction of its prior might, leaving Earth’s main defense toothless and sick like an old lapdog. Desperate to keep what was left of Earth's inhabitants alive and not stuck in the dark ages, the GDA conformed. 

Mark had woken up to a completely different Earth, the Viltrum Empire on their way for a check-in, humanity stuck under its heel. A place for Mark was carved out by his father’s side, and he fell into the role with little pressure, feeling cowed after his loss against Omni-Man.  

The only thing left for him to clutch to his chest was William and you. Both your powerlessness was a blessing in disguise. All his other friends, superpowered as they were—Rex, Eve, everyone else, had been killed for having a leg to stand on. Not you and William. 

His father knew, of course he did. Knew of his interest in William, of the dorm Mark snuck off to between Omni-man’s harsh training and his job as Invincible before everything went to shit. His dad never explicitly stated it, but you and William were leverage, a comfort he allowed Mark to keep for being good, for turning his back on earth. 

Turns out, a state over wasn’t far enough away— stupid of Mark to believe that. You died first after Mark refused some order or another from a squad of Viltrumites. His father pointed your way, not laying one finger on him.

It felt more shameful that way.

Mark can’t even remember what the order was, something stupid, something he’d do a hundred times over if he got to choose now. 

He regretted a lot at your execution. He regretted not fighting it. He regretted not joining the rebellion before. He regretted being so scared they would make an example out of William next, he stood by. He regretted ever meeting you in the first place. But mostly, he regretted not putting his shame and better judgment to the side to visit you at least once in the months between Earth’s subjugation and your death. 

He'd been avoiding his boyfriend and you to boost the chances of survival–out of sight, out of mind, he thought. That was just the half of it. In truth, he was ashamed after all he’d done alongside the other Viltrumites, at what he’d allowed. 

It was all just so useless. Nothing he did before did anything but make him suffer in the moment. 

William had even been dragged to the pathetic excuse of an execution, screaming so dreadfully that Mark could have mistaken it for a dying animal. It hung heavy in the air, ear-piercing and memorable. 

Other than those haunting screams, Mark’s memory of the execution is spotty, to the point it’s just a smear in his memory—almost as if he’d had his eyes closed the whole time. He didn't. He knows he didn't. He couldn't take his eyes off you.

Losing you had been heavy but bearable, because it had to be. William still needed him, needed someone to guide him through your death. Mark buried what bits of you he could after the execution. It wasn’t much. 

William blamed him. 

His death happened a year later, regardless of Mark’s precautions. He’d moved William into his quarters rather than the large living facilities for humans both you and he had been staying in, took on more responsibilities, made shaky alliances with certain Viltrumites, a million other small choices that should’ve tipped the scales in his favor.  

It didn’t matter. None of it. Seems his father was just waiting for a reason to kill the last thing Mark held sacred. 

After, there was nothing left for Mark to clutch onto. He killed his dad, made it hurt, made it last, drawing it out until the disappearance of the two of them caught the attention of the Viltrumites still stationed on Earth.

Killing his dad should've changed something, and it did, but it couldn't undo anything. That’s what drove Mark half-crazy—the knowledge that things could have been different. If he wasn’t weak, if he wasn't such a coward, if he had never lost that first fight against his father, things could've been different.  

Mark never put back on the mask because what was the point in a secret identity without a second identity? He was just Invincible, Viltrumite soldier. Had been for a long time. Mark Grayson was buried alongside bone fragments, William’s silk-wrapped corpse, and the set of letters you had written in the facility. 

After the anger fizzled out, he was nothing at all. Floating through space as a living corpse after abandoning his only home because Viltrum hated deserters, Mark let the grief lead him to the edges of the universe. Nostalgia brought him back to earth months later, uncaring if it would lead to his execution. 

At that point, he would have welcomed it. 

Instead, he came back to a shell of what once was, even when Viltrum had taken over. Earth was covered in a blanket of smog, radiation buzzing at his skin. All out Nuclear warfare was Cecil’s final playing card, a last ‘fuck you’ when humanity was sent spiraling into extinction from Viltrum’s abusive resource harvesting. Mark doubted Cecil was the one to set them off. Well, it didn’t matter. 

The shared grave was gone, the top layer of soil blown away to just hard rock. He laid over where it once was, wishing he’d had the foresight to at least grab one letter before leaving.

‘Markus Sebastian Grayson, you imperialistic crazy fuck. It’s day forty-nine and they’re still feeding us calorie dense slop in the cafeteria. A Viltrum enforcer came by (a different one) and called me a ‘sniveling Boulays—Bowlaes?’ when I “accidentally” stepped on his foot during my shift. Not sure what it means but it made William smile for the first time in days when I told him. By the way, everyone in room fourteen has finally agreed on that slur for Viltrumites I was talking about on letter three. I won’t say because I plan on using it when you finally show your face. You better come to visit! Bring your weird attachment to your absent dad, your Hawaii-sized kill count, and some alcohol. The really shitty cheap stuff. I miss you. William does too. There’s no way to send this but I’ll keep…’

He had months to memorize them, but it wasn’t the same as being able to feel it, see your handwriting, hold something with the knowledge you had held it as well. You’d even convinced William to write one, though he wasn’t nearly as nice as you in his letter. 

‘Just in case it wasn’t clear, I’m definitely breaking up with you.’  

Mark got the full experience when William moved in with him—the yelling, crying, kicking, the pure hate William somehow held on to until the very end. 

Mark dug his fingers into bare rock, and it crumbled like sand in his grip. He gives up.

He waits to die. 

A sick, neon green was the first color, but brown and black he’d seen in weeks. Angstrom appeared, offering a second chance. 

Then, he’s Mark Grayson again. He followed Angstrom, recouped in another universe, and thought on how things would change, how he’d make things different. He received a fresh duplicate of his Invincible suit, the old one far past being anything but scraps. He retired the old one, slipping into his new suit and considering the mask that came along with it.  

He doesn't put back on the mask.

What's the point in a secret identity without a second identity? 

Mark flies higher, hitting the stratosphere and speeding up further until he’s just a blur against the blue sky. He’d chosen to trash Upstate University on a whim, simply because he wanted to stay away from his old house for a few hours more. 

That choice almost got the two of you killed.  

He had destroyed his share of locations and far surpassed his expected casualty count during the night before. All that was left was for him to meet at the rendezvous spot at his old house. 

The place didn’t instill any good memories, and he had nearly scoffed when one of the variants suggested it. Others had agreed on the spot, though it was blatant it wasn’t because they wanted to revisit old memories. Multiple had bragged about killing their versions of mom earlier on, flashing their wounds like trophies. 

It makes him sick thinking he could’ve turned out like them had things been different. Though maybe he wasn’t like them at all. Some talked about their Williams, all unlike the way he thought of his, so the similarities might’ve only gone skin deep. He wasn’t nearly as homicidal as the others seemed to be. 

His actions the last three days speak differently, but it was necessary. There were very few deaths he savored. Killing heroes that failed him back home felt therapeutic, he’ll admit, but the rest of the casualties were completed with the military mindset his father would be proud of, distant and efficient. 

It would all be worth it in the end.

His ask of Angstrom was simple, straightforward, double so compared to the other Marks’ wishes for countless universes to dominate like the mindless megalomaniacs they all turned out to be. The ask being just one universe. He just needs Angstrom to find one universe where he and William worked out. No Viltrumites to get in the way or responsibilities as Nolan’s one son to live up to. He’d take his time deciding the right fit before making his decision and cementing the universe as his.

After Angstrom leaves him to his own devices in his new universe, he’d take his time observing, picking apart how that earth runs and how his double’s relationship with William is. How to keep it sustained. He’ll have to see how you are doing in that universe, if there’s any differences he’ll have to be aware of. 

Once he’s gathered enough information, it’s only a matter of removing the double, tying up any loose ends, and smoothing out any sharp edges that might tip off William or you. Then, he’ll live life like it should have been with William beside him and the planet safe and secure. 

All that for destroying one Invincible’s universe, a deal he just couldn’t pass up. 

The question swirling his mind now is, did he make the right choice? He’d made his decision hastily, leaving the two of you trapped in the college dorm, letting his emotions take the wheel. But, everything had abruptly become so real—the death, the destruction, the blood sticking to his face. 

So high up, Mark shouldn't be in the path of anything except planes, which he’d shoot right through upon impact. Instead, he bashes into a body equally as sturdy as his, sending him spinning backwards with enough force to snap him out of his thoughts.

He rights himself, scanning for–

He’s attacked from above, the person clasping their hands together and swinging down, striking him harshly in the back. Mark catches himself before he can spin out and hit the ground. He boosts himself higher, gaining distance.

“The fuck are you doing?” Mark hears, coming face to face with a variant. A mean snarl turns the man’s face dark, beady eyes staring him down. “Watch where you're going.” The variant spits out. 

“Sorry.” Mark apologizes, not meaning it in the slightest, but finding it necessary to move along. 

He’s unlucky, running into one of the wilder variants, this one sporting an ugly mohawk and an even uglier personality.

The variant looks him over with a raised brow, unimpressed and still pissed at being run into going over Mach 2. 

“You know you're going the opposite way to the house, right? You one of them that’s bad at directions?” The question is rhetorical, pointed out to shame and only said to cause offense.

“No.” Mark keeps his body facing the variant, watching for any signs he’ll abruptly attack. He’s convinced he could take him in a one-on-one, but what’s the point? There’s nothing to be gained here. 

The variant blows air out his nose in a scoff, already finding the conversation boring—typical when talking to someone as dry and lame as his maskless counterpart. Regardless, the variant plans on getting something out of this, if only a quick verbal spar. 

“Whatever.” He shrugs his shoulders. “You don't have to admit it if you're embarrassed. I plan on getting there first anyway. I’m dying to kill my bitch of a mom one more time.”

There’s no physical evidence of it, but Mark finds himself illogically upset, temper cut short at the comment. He shouldn’t care who this idiot kills, regardless of familial connections. Mark doesn’t even remember knowing his mom back home since she died when he was young. He shouldn’t care. Shouldn’t be so pissed. Shouldn’t open his mouth. 

“Killing her won't make you feel any better,” is what spills from his lips, void of emotion but still pointed, made to gut.

It’s a weak argument, one that isn’t even true. If he could find the Omni-Man of this universe, he’d feel great killing him again. 

“What? You going all soft?” the variant jeers. “Don’t tell me you’re bailing.” He floats too close to Mark, trampling over his personal space and stuffing his mohawk up into Mark’s face.

“If you’re deserting, I guess it’s my job to kill ya’.” A nasty grin splits the other’s face, violence oozing off him in waves.

“Angstrom owes me,” Mark says simply, not breaking eye contact. “I won’t be going anywhere until I get it.” 

The silence stretches as neither move, one praying for the other to just throw one punch, the other counting down the seconds until he can finally leave. To the variant’s building disappointment, Mark doesn't act, and any fun to be had here turns out to be just a fluke.  

Giving it one last shot, the mohawked variant roughly pushes his cheap copy’s chest once—a clear attempt at riling him up. The other moves back but doesn’t attack, just stares all weird-like into his face. 

Great, another variant with a few screws loose, the mohawked variant thinks. Like there’s not already enough of those. 

The novelty of dealing with the maskless variant wears off. There’s a whole world out there and he’ll be damned if he wastes it away by continuing the world’s lamest back and forth with the multiverses’ lamest version of himself. The variant turns, excitement bubbling at the thought of what might be waiting at his childhood home, at what suffering he can squeeze from this universe before he’s rewarded. 

“And don’t call mom a bitch,” Mark says, voice level. He turns away as well, needing quiet to think and space away from this splintered, dirty version of himself. 

“Grow up. Clinging on to your mom like an oversized baby,” the variant scoffs, flying off without another word.  

Mark twists his head slightly to watch him disappear in the distance. Then, he continues on, going at a more reasonable pace. 

Maybe the variant’s right. ‘Too sentimental, too weak’ is what his dad had said, ‘sympathizing with lower life forms.’ But, if being a real Viltrumite like his dad wanted him to be turns him into an absolutely insane sad-sack like the rest of the Marks, he’s better off doing what he wants.

What Mark wants is a do-over, for the tiny group of people he considers family to be safe. He thought that wouldn’t extend to extra ones, he only needs the one set, but when faced with the two from this universe, he couldn’t just leave them be and let fate take the reins. 

They had been geared up, wearing layers and darker clothes on the first floor of a building that should’ve been in lockdown. It wasn’t difficult to discern their next move—a suicidal trip outside. 

Mark had to intervene. 

Now, they’re safe, stuck in an area of the city he cleared out himself, so no other Invincibles will feel obligated to swoop down and complete the job. 

Angstrom wants Invincibles' name to be drug through the mud, hated, and for that to stick, there needs to be people, a universe left to remember. This version of William and you just have to survive long enough for Angstrom to get his fill. 

They just have to stay in the room.

…

Leaving the room is a large enough milestone for you and William that you high five, momentarily forgetting that you left the impromptu cage just to walk into a complete shit show. 

The campus is a wake up call. 

You stand outside the only building still standing, looking more like an arena due to the gigantic crater in the middle than the dormitory it once was. The plots of land near it that once held the library and administration building are just scorched earth and rubble now. 

There’s a thousand ways you could look at the campus’ complete destruction—an unimaginable catastrophe, a waste of student loans, the spot where all your personal items got decimated, or something that should’ve never ever happened, no matter what, but somehow did. All of them would be correct. 

In between digging through your bag’s contents and checking for damage, you keep an eye out for any signs of survivors.

There are some things you don’t want to accept but have to, because the only other option is being completely delusional. You’d consider it if being delusional at the moment didn’t ensure your death and most likely William’s as well. 

Everyone’s dead. You have to accept it. 

“Map’s all good. Not even one tear,” William says, relieved, carefully running his fingers down the sides of the papers.

You peek at it once more from over his shoulder, making sure the route engraved behind your eyelids hasn’t changed since the last time you stared unblinking at the map. William folds it back up and stashes it into the same spot in his bag.

Swinging his backpack into place over his shoulder, William’s eyes scan over the ruins of the campus.  

“Damn.” 

That about sums it up. 

Without another word, William starts stalking through the parking lot with you hot on his tail. Weaving between cars, you avoid the main road that connects to the parking lot to instead hit the patch of trees that the school planted to make the campus look fancier in the pamphlets. Cutting straight through takes about five minutes, and then you and William walk the perimeter to stay beneath the tree cover. 

When Hershel Street pops up, the first important checkpoint on the main route to Mark’s, William stops and carefully leads you into the city. The area isn’t wartorn, just deserted—a breath of fresh air after the hellscape on campus. 

The quiet on Hershel Street breeds a type of eeriness you’d usually ward off with mindless chatter, but the risk of garnering unwanted attention is sky high. You settle for counting familiar buildings, businesses, and street signs, wondering just how many people are hiding out nearby in safe rooms and bunkers.  

Keeping to the sides of buildings, there’s no talking, just two pairs of eyes scanning for movement in the sky. It’s clear of Not-Invincibles, but the direction you’re heading has smoke billowing to the skies. Almost every direction does, depending on the distance, so you can’t complain too much about it. The pace drops significantly when the street opens up to a couple city blocks worth of destruction. Fires ravage flipped cars and spread rapidly over the ground and between buildings. There's people milling about in the distance, dragging friends and family away from various dangers. 

“That way is not going to work,” you say, just loud enough for William to hear.

Avoiding others is one of the many rules you and William had spitballed yesterday, and for good reason. Joining into a group, or god forbid a crowd, could get everyone noticed and then massacred. 

William cuts left, using one of the green backup routes. It’s maze-like, forcing you through a tight stretch of alleyways with each section tighter than the last. At a point between two mid-sized buildings, a one story tall rubble blockage stops you in your tracks. 

Doubling back and picking another alleyway spits you and William out at what used to be a patch of motels, but there’s not much left of it now. The only untouched part is the large sign out front, welcoming the two of you in.

Two out of the three motels are caved in, with the third being partially standing. It’s a light yellow color, faded and peeling on the outside, with two stories to its name. There’s a structural failure on its right side where the top story collapsed, spilling debris over into the parking lot. The first floor holds strong from the looks of it, but it’s only a matter of time until a full collapse. 

The destruction looks fairly old, further suggested by the long since dried blood splashed on the asphalt. A few corpses are the only people around, so you and William quietly go circling the side of the remaining building. 

Walking past a cracked wall, you hear it just barely over the sound of glass crunching underfoot. There’s a wheezing breath, wet and weak but unmistakably human. 

You and William pause. 

Cutting off the empathetic need to help is easy when the people are nothing but specks in your peripherals. You’d been lucky, only passing directly by dead people, free of the burden of deciding to leave someone to die. 

Rule eighteen echoes in your head: ‘ Don’t stop for anyone. ’

William’s beside you, focus stuck straight ahead. You grit your teeth, willing your body to take a step forward. Your feet don’t move. His don’t either.

There’s another wet cough. 

You don’t have any proper medical supplies, no training, and no real shot at saving anyone. There’s a time limit, and you really, really, don’t want to watch anyone die. No one would blame you for just…walking away. No one would even know. 

You’re stiff, fingers gripping the straps of your backpack. William’s still staring blankly ahead, sweat collecting at his shirt collar. 

There’s a soft exhale of breath, weaker than the last.

Both you and William move at once, circling debris to the left of the wall. A part of the roof slipped off, with the majority of the salmon pink shingles still holding on for dear life. 

“Hey! Can you talk to us?” William says just a tad too loud. 

You flinch at the volume and quickly scan the horizon. Maskless could be anywhere, and you have no way of knowing how good his hearing is. You refuse to be caught so early on this close to campus. 

“Dude.” You send William a glare.

He cringes, shrugging his shoulders. 

There’s more groaning and a rattling inhale that has William looking at you with dread. A puddle of drying blood peeks out from under the roof, growing tacky from exposure. 

You remove your backpack and get on your stomach, thrusting your hand under the edge to move smaller debris out from obstructing your view. You pull your hand back when it lightly skims over clammy skin and grimace at the coagulating blood covering it. 

“Hello?” You move further down, resting on your side to stare into the gap you've made. There’s the outline of an arm, maybe a head too curled towards a shoulder.

“Say something,” you urge.

There’s grumbling but nothing clear you can make out, just garbled nonsense. You fish out your mini flashlight and shine it, seeing gray hair and a worrying amount of red. 

“Should we try to lift it?” William asks, sounding breathless. 

No. The answer is probably no, but there are no ambulances coming, no hospital falling from the sky, and no actual help outside of two college students who are already at a loss for what to do. There’s no knowing how much damage the person under has sustained or how much longer they can survive being pinned under the rubble. If anything can be done to help, it’ll have to be now, and if you two will be able to do anything now, the debris will have to be moved away. The decision makes itself. 

“Yeah, one sec. Lemme’ see if…” You go around the rubble once more, searching. 

There’s a bit of concrete elevated up on one side, thick and sturdy enough to be of use as long as the roof stays together. 

“Alright, I’m going to lift from here. You’ll have to drag them out,” you order shakily. 

Blowing out a few shuddering breaths, you wipe the blood off onto your pants, which catches on the dried layer of blood already there. If your grip sucks, everyone’s screwed, so you wipe and wipe until your hands are clean. Reaching for your bag, you pull out the first aid kit and set it to the side for later. 

Getting up to your feet, you squat down and let your hands slide across the edge of the roof chunk, feeling the rough texture of the shingles under your fingertips. You find passable handholds and readjust accordingly, spacing your feet out, breathing in and out.

“Be careful,” William warns, arms tensing where he stands off to the side.  

“Ready?”

He nods once, and you push with everything you've got. Immediately, you realize you overestimated your strength by a long shot. The roof shudders, shingles slipping off the sides and smacking into the floor, bursting into bits and pieces. Surprisingly, it moves up, just the tiniest amount. The weight settles on the point of concrete across from you instead of crushing the person beneath, and the rest falls on you to hold. The roof creaks and squeaks, but stays together. 

You groan, legs trembling as you grit your teeth. You won’t be able to hold it long. William doesn’t waste a second, dropping onto his stomach and slipping his upper body under the rubble without hesitation. Your wrists burn, weight pressing down on them, unrelenting and quickly edging towards unbearable. The only reason you don’t drop the weight is because William’s under it now. 

His legs kick for leverage, and he squirms out, dragging a screaming man out with him by the ankles. 

“Fuckin’ shit!” The man screams, a thick New York accent catching your attention, the exact subcategory evading you. “Ah!” 

“Okay, okay, got it!” William hollers, using his shoulder to wipe the blood and dirt off his neck and chin.  

The roof drops and you fall back on your ass, coughing at the dust plume that kicks up from the debris. You rub at your hands, trying to circulate blood back into them, and kick the shingles off your feet. 

The blood-curdling noise the man shrieks out when William sets his legs down as carefully as he can sends you straight back up to your feet. You run to William’s side, squatting beside him to get a clear view of the man. 

He's on the older side, short and stout, and probably in his late fifties with a chin strap beard and curly hair that’s nearly dyed pink from a mix of blood and sweat. His thin lips curl into a pained snarl, and he mutters profanities, blinking his green eyes rapidly at the sunlight hitting his face. 

You run a hand down your face, fighting back a dizzy spell. 

His injuries are excessive. There are large cuts spanning down his arms where debris cut through his jacket. His head’s bleeding from a bloodied wound on his forehead, a flash of white bone under the gore, and his left arm is mutilated to the point you can’t tell which way it’s supposed to be oriented. 

The large rifle strapped to his chest makes an eyebrow raise, but you ignore it to check on his shallow breathing. It quakes and shakes on the exhale. 

You don’t know where to start. Where you should apply pressure—if you should even apply pressure. 

Reaching out a hand, you stop when his eyes, now focused, pin you down. 

“Coulda’ been more gentle, ya?” He huffs, voice grumbly like rocks spinning in a blender. He squints, glancing from your nervous form to William. Blinking once more, his thick eyebrows furrow. 

“You kids should be,” he’s cut off with a painful hiss, “ah, hiding out. What the hell are you doing?” 

You don’t have an answer to give him, too horrified by his worsening condition to even consider opening your mouth. Blood from his forehead wound drips down into his eye, and he blinks it away as William circles him.  

“Fuck.” You hear William whisper with horror, eyes pinned to the man’s side. His head twists, like he wants to look away. 

You follow, stopping in place, stomach dropping to your feet when you see it. There’s a wood shard, six or so inches that you can see, plunged gruesomely into the man’s side just under his ribs. Blood weeps freely from the wound, collecting on the ground and gaining distance quickly. 

“Don’t look,” the man grunts, using his good arm to try to take the gun off his shoulder with little success. 

He glances down at the side of the gun, where the base has splintered. The trigger swings back and forth loosely, busted, and the guard’s missing, left somewhere in the rubble. A disgruntled noise slips from his throat, and he lets the useless gun drop to his chest. 

“Went out to…to check on the kids in one-oh-three. They’re ma, Lucy, wouldn’t be home til’ late.” 

The movement makes the wound on his side gush, and your brain finally catches up to speed. You drop to your knees and hold your hands against the wound on his side, trying to avoid screwing with the wood sticking out from him. There’s nothing in the first aid kit that will do jack shit, not even pain pills to soothe the ache. 

The man hisses at the contact but doesn’t yell at you. Instead, he squints at the sky, where the sun cuts straight through the clouds. The lines of his face smooth out, just barely. 

“What’s today?” He asks.

William mutters out the date, putting his hands over yours when the blood seeps through your fingers. His hands shake or yours do, it’s hard to tell. Maybe both your hands are shaking. 

“Been here since yesterday, then.” He tilts his head forward and pats down the pockets on the front of his shirt. Some loose change falls into his palm, and he stuffs it back in. 

You grit your teeth, stomach churning at his relaxed demeanor, needing him to be present, focused. 

“You’re dying.” You deliver your diagnoses without any prior medical degree—at this point, you don’t need one. Anyone with eyes can see it’s a lost cause. 

You regret saying it the second it leaves your lips. The man’s eyes drag back to you. 

“Was dying before, too. Feels a lot better having that piece of shit roof off a’ me.” He doesn’t laugh, but you can hear the humor in his voice. 

Your frown deepens. There’s nothing funny about this. 

Instead of using his hand to help stop his own bleeding, he checks his pant pockets, pulling out a large knife handle. He flicks it, and the blade stays locked in, unable to flip out. He sighs, stopping to cough painfully halfway through, before tossing it away. 

“You two not looting, right?” His eyes pass over your clothes and bags, judging in that special way only old people can pull off. You feel awkward under his scrutiny and quickly remember why you’re out here in the first place. 

“No. We’re going to find our friends,” you say, frantically motioning for William to get the first aid kit with your head.  

The man hums gravely, pulling more useless crap out of his pockets before tossing it away. “That’s nice.” An ancient and broken Motorola flip phone comes out of his pocket, held together by a wire. “Tried calling?”

“Only a million times. Phone’s busted.” William explains shakily, which pulls a pained grunt of a laugh from the dying man. 

He tosses the phone to the side as well, a small pile of personal items stacking up. You aren’t sure what he’s searching for.  

You continue holding down on his side wound while William grabs the kit. Cracking it open, his face drops as he pulls out low-grade medical supplies, a stack of cartoon character band-aids, and a half empty bottle of antiseptic spray. There’s barely enough supplies in it to clean and wrap a child’s nasty bicycle accident, let alone a man in critical condition.    

The man licks his dried lips, squinting. A thin layer of sweat beads at his forehead, dripping down the planes of his face. 

“Room twenty-two. They got a military fanatic there. You two could use some better gear.” 

“What happened to not looting?” You say, voice tinny. You force your hands to press harder against the wound, but the blood won’t stop. It just won’t stop. 

“I didn’t say nothin’ bad bout it.” With a painful lift of his shoulder, he gets his hand into a back pocket, dragging something out. He exhales, a satisfied look crossing his face at the small blade that flicks out from the multitool. 

“Go check on one-oh-three for me,” he mutters, wrenching your hands from his side with surprising strength. He puts the tool in your hand, balling it up into a fist. “I’d give ya the gun but…” he shrugs, or tries too. 

You don’t want his busted gun, or even the working one he had before the roof collapsed on him. What you want is for him to stop actively dying on you. 

“Dude, stop moving!” William hollers, horrified, running over with thin gauze clutched in his hands.

He pushes William back with a shove when he tries to settle his hand against the open wound. You try as well, and the man bats at you, brows pinched and teeth bared. 

“Go. Don’t come back. You hear me?” The man’s voice grows weaker by the second, his face going pale, but he pushes you back, stubborn and insistent. “Get those kids and get to a safe house. There’s one down the street at the bank on Canary. Go!” 

You toss the tool to the side and grab some of the gauze from William, knowing that anything you do will just make dying hurt more. Still, you have to do something. 

You and William do what you can, wrapping gauze around the slashes on the man’s arm, covering his forehead gash, and fighting him to hold his main wound closed. He shifts enough to pull at the wooden shard, which bites further into his stomach, ripping through delicate tissue. 

Voice weak, the man still finds the strength to yell through the pain. “Pick up the god damn knife and use those thick heads of yours and leave!” He huffs, blood settling into the grooves between his teeth. “I’m dying. You don't need to see it.” 

“Stop talking. Just lay down,” you beg, hands pressed against the layers of gauze on his side, the blood seeps through it in seconds and new layers meet the same fate in half the time. 

The man hisses and spits at the contact, loopy with pain and blood loss. William leans his weight down on his shoulders to keep him from rolling over and pushing the wood shard deeper into himself. 

Desperate, you grab the multi-tool off the ground and slip it into your jacket to try to calm him down. Waving it before so that he’d see it. It works, just barely, but you're afraid the reaction is simply the blood loss sinking its teeth into his limbs, weakening him. You're proven right when his condition plummets. He stays stable for five more minutes, then the trembling starts. 

William and you panic, trying to gain back his attention, but his focus slips off you, eyes rolling up into his head. The seconds between breaths lengthen until it stops altogether. One moment, there’s a rattling exhale, and then, no inhale. 

Neither you or William takes your hands off him, still trying to keep his blood from leaking out onto the floor. The minutes rack up and the blood stops, then cools. 

He doesn't take another breath. 

His eyes don’t open back up. 

“William.” You don’t recognize your voice.

“Yeah?” 

“I think he’s dead.” 

“Yeah.” 

It’s the acknowledgment you need to let your blood-covered hands fall away. William pulls back as well, hands slipping off the crusted gauze covering the man's head wound. 

Your hand goes into your jacket pocket and fiddles with the multi-tool the man had given you. Fingers finding the clip on its side, you pull it back and let it go. It makes a ‘tink’ sound when it hits the base, breaking the silence, if only for a second. 

You do it again, and again, until your fingers pass over a strange looping ridge on its side. For the first time, you notice the engraving on it. Mechanically, you pull it out, eyes leaving the not-quite stranger in front of you.

How could you two be strangers if you were the person he spoke his last words to?

The multitool is thick, rectangular, with metal tools flipped down into the middle. You slowly turn it over. There are four letters carved into the wooden casing— ‘Andy’

“Let’s find room one hundred and three,” you mutter, mind blank from shock. 

William nods stiffly, and you two leave Andy on his back, not covering his face because after a day under debris, you're sure he’d rather go without.

The surviving building doesn’t have a room one hundred and three. It doesn’t matter how many times you look, the rooms don’t go past fifty. You and William head to room twenty-two, trying to ignore the implications. It’s not fair. None of it. 

Room twenty-two isn’t even locked. Pushing the door open, you pause at the entrance and search for a gun-toting lunatic or a wire trap or something. What you see instead may just be worse. 

Yes, Andy was right about the man being a military fanatic, but instead of 'doomsday prepper', the decor leans more towards 'history appreciator'. The guns are all antique, completely useless to you, and the knives are so large you’d pose more of a threat to yourself than anyone else. 

It pulls a hysterical giggle from you. 

There are shelves of knick-knacks, military hats, collectible sets of tiny tanks, and fake medals. Empty spaces dot the room where items were dragged off in a hurry. In the process, other things got knocked to the floor and now litter the ground. Most likely, the owner of the room got out in time and was smart enough to grab their favorite collector's items while doing so. The unlocked door makes more sense. Both hands being busy would explain the error.

William sits down at the desk nestled in the corner of the room that’s backdropped with a wall of stacked up vintage radios. One box radio sits on top of the desk, the metal sheen of its casing and wires running out of it catching his attention. It’s a double-decker, looking more like a bomb from a spy movie than a radio. 

You look through the cupboards, finding more items wrapped in plastic. There’s a section full of chemicals and cleaning supplies, but nothing useful. Making some type of mustard gas weapon via mindless chemical mixing would be cool, but you’d be long dead before actually getting a kill with it.    

“I think this one may work,” William mutters, fiddling with the switches. One switch flip on the bottom right lights the radio up, and William pumps his fist. “Nice!”

You give him a little cheer, knowing you two desperately need a win, and get back to dragging out stuff from the cupboards. William turns the dials until the static morphs into what could be considered voices. A couple more minutes and you can finally make out individual words. He finds the dial to switch channels, discovering most are not being used.  

The majority of frequencies don’t have anything at all, just a buzzing noise that gives him a headache. A little more searching over the radio’s cover unveils a tucked antenna. Pulling it out until it fully extends, he finds there to be more frequencies he can listen in on.

While he runs through channels, you scribble a name and a number on a loose napkin, folding it and placing it into your back pocket. 

‘Lucy, 103, Star Santiago’s Motels’ 

Some channels actually have people talking on them, discussing the carnage or asking for help. There seems to be a handful of ground groups—could be volunteers, could be not, making their way through the rubble or dousing small fires. The damage to the city is more extensive than you first thought, pushing you to conclude that more Not-Invincibles have visited the city since early this morning. 

The police frequency William comes across sounds like hell, voices overlapping, and locations being shared. They’ve prioritized saving people, trying to minimize damage instead of facing any Not-Invincibles. They’re stretched thin, and by the sound of it, racking up more casualties than they can keep up with.

The hospitals are either overflowing or completely destroyed, with smaller clinics being so overrun with patients that emergency field medical attention is considered the only option. They've started skipping over anyone in critical condition, focused on people who have a shot at survival instead. Even then, the already wimpy medical supply is dwindling by the second, and with every large city in the USA leveled, there’s no one available to send extra supplies. It’s every city for itself—a total death sentence at the moment. 

You find military rations and toss them aside, digging through a stack of CDs tucked in the back corner. You're hoping to find an illegal firearm, something to make the pitstop in this nightmare of a motel worth it. Nothing. 

William stays on the more used channels for some time, trying to make sense of what he hears, but it’s too chaotic the majority of the time. Frustrated, he gets up, massaging his forehead, ready to quit. 

“I can go through,” you offer, swapping spots with him. 

William digs through the pantry, huffing about people with shitty tastes in snacks. He finds an unopened bottle of alcohol, the label faded to all hell, and deeply considers it before shaking his head and placing it back where he found it. Now’s really not the time. 

You find yourself having the same issues William had while working the radio and end up mindlessly flipping through channels, letting them play for a second before going to the next. You hope to find a news channel but so far you've been unsuccessful. 

“The buildings are collapsing on Fourth Street! Get to a– ”

Flick

“Fire spreading to residential areas… north…if someone can…please!” 

Flick

“Has anyone seen the–”

Flick

“GDA goons on Amborlan, going towards Chanler Avenue.”

Flick

“SOS! Fourteen people stuck…bridge on… ”

You nearly flip the channel when William slams his hands down on the desk, almost making you fall out of the seat.  

“Wait! Wait! GDA.” He slaps your hands off the dials, and you put them up in a surrendering motion. “GDA was the government guys' Special Ops company name. I couldn’t remember it off the top of my head.” 

The map flashes across your mind, crystal clear. “Amborlan’s close,” you breathe out. You stand up to your feet, heart fluttering erratically in your chest. 

Finally something! If you could get to a GDA member, you could cut out the middleman and avoid the full trip to Mark’s place. You’d be shaving off hours of on foot travel through the crumbling city—a chance neither you or William could pass up. William comes to the same conclusion, sitting down in the chair and flicking the dial back. 

“—I have eyes on an Invincible. Two GDA goons, one hero, and four noisemakers.” 

A second passes and a new voice cuts in, smooth and sharp, “Understood.”

Immediately, William grabs up the microphone, dragging it to his face and pressing the buttons on the side until a red light flashes on the device. He sucks in a sharp breath. 

“You said Amborlan?” he asks, hands sweating. He can’t lose this opportunity. Can’t risk having Rick missing for any longer than absolutely necessary. 

There’s silence, then crackling. You hold your breath while William glares a hole through the radio. A minute passes. Then two. Three.

“You got weapons?” Another voice answers at last, tone rough but with an unmistakably feminine edge.

William whips his head back to stare at the unusable weapons stash, all old and ammoless. He grimaces and looks at you, lips in a thin line. You’ve searched the room longer, so you know personally how weaponless you two really are. You exhale, taking the comm from him and placing it to your mouth.  

“Yes.” 

“Meet on–” more crackling, “Lexus. It’s a block down from Amborlan. Come prepared.” 

You sincerely doubt any amount of prep could prepare you properly for this. Still, you and William are going to Lexus Street and hunting down a GDA member if its the last thing you two do.

Hopefully, it won't be.

Chapter Text

This universe is underdeveloped, ill-protected, and was already heading full speed towards an extinction event outside of the one he’s currently taking part in. Regardless, the guilt still nips at Mark’s heels as he floats over Sydney’s smoldering husk, the heat signatures of any nearby survivors glowing red in his goggles.

Killing them quickly is a mercy. 

He doesn’t linger for long, shooting off to the next city he’s been tasked to level. The last forty-eight hours before Sydney had passed with him securing only the first six thousand kills, putting him behind. That added on top of his constant hit and miss searching has left him with a cocktail of turbulent emotions boiling away his better judgment. Chest tightening from a mix of building stress, dread, and worst of all, hope, Mark feels he’s circling the drain. 

His downward spiral started the second he dropped in behind the herd of variants on day one, where he cut away from destroying his first condemned city to stop by the exact coordinates of his home. 

A two-story suburban house is what he finds, rather than the high-rise skyscraper and surrounding megacity that should be there. He hoped for an exact replica of his universe, no matter how statistically improbable. If he could just follow his usual route home, go up to floor forty-seven, and find room 306B to his family waiting for him, he'd drop to his knees in gratitude. 

Instead, the house is dark and his goggles aren’t picking up bio-signs from any humans. Regardless of what his suit says, he still follows the plan on the off chance someone’s inside. Unless he confirms no one’s there with his own two eyes, he won’t be leaving.

He spends five minutes politely knocking at the front door before he lets himself in, careful to only break what he has to to get inside. He waits at the doorway and calls out, disclosing his identity, his good intentions, and how he plans to search the house. 

Another five minutes is given for anyone listening to come out before he starts a measured walk around the house, checking hiding spots as he goes. He doesn’t threaten, doesn’t add any intimidating commentary as he looks under the bed and opens the closets, shifting the clothes around. 

He doesn’t want this reunion to be traumatic by any means, even if that’s a big ask.   

There’s evidence his mom’s been living here—the familiar decor choices, the family photos on the mantle in the living room that he pauses to stare at for longer than he should, the stacked-up boxes of takeout in the fridge. Mom’s terrible skills in the kitchen haven’t changed, it seems. The sight of it makes him painfully nostalgic, and he’s forced to sit on the couch for a moment to calm down. 

The similarities are there, but the differences are too stark to overlook. Mom’s wheelchair and mobility aids are nowhere in the house, a mystery explained by the photos dotting the staircase to the second floor. She’s standing in every single one, missing the rudimentary prosthetics Mark’s remembered her having since he was young.    

The second major difference is the second boy in the newer photos, young and blatantly related to Mark. He wonders who his mom started seeing to have a second son, if she made the same mistake she made with Nolan with less drastic consequences. The lack of men in any photos, Nolan or other, means her taste is still questionable. 

The boy will need to be considered in the plans as well now, once Mark has a chance to talk with Angstrom in person. Preferably, once the crazed man is too busy drowning in euphoria from a successful revenge plot to say no to Mark keeping a third person from this universe. 

A large part of him detests the idea of bringing anyone else along, especially one he doesn’t know, but his position as an interdimensional mass murderer won’t do him any favors with his family here. That and the simple fact he’s not their Mark, if that even matters. It doesn’t to him! Regardless, if bringing the kid along will make their move to his dimension easier, he’ll do it. 

Maybe he’ll even like being an older brother at some point, once the jealousy burns off. 

He stands in the last bedroom, the wrong decor confirming the most chilling difference between universes. 

You don’t live here. 

There’s no evidence of you at all. No photos with your face in it, none of your personal things in any of the rooms, no favorites of yours in the fridge or pantry. 

It makes sense. Hard to be apartment neighbors without an apartment. 

But then what? You had moved in, had dragged your life and found a way to fit it perfectly into the two-bedroom apartment with his small family and make it your own. He can’t imagine a universe where you didn’t live with him, care for him, love him. It just shouldn’t exist. 

Mark checks the surrounding houses for you, hoping the multiverse kept at least one thing straight. You and Mark as neighbors is not a universal constant, it turns out. 

That begs the question, just how far off the tracks is this universe? Your relationship with him and his mother? Have you ever even crossed paths with this universe's version of him? Of Debbie? 

The meticulously thought out plan Mark once had unravels in front of him. Mocking him for thinking he had any control in the first place. 

If you never met Debbie, you never met him. If you never met him, who’s to say you’ll be willing to swap universes to go home with them? He can’t imagine a version of you that would follow a stranger anywhere, especially through a glowing portal, even with the threat of your universe being doomed to ash and fire. 

He banishes that thought to the back of his mind—he has contingencies for this, dialogues, soothing phrases and promises to win you over. He knows you. Everything will work out in the end. It has to.   

The timer counting down on the top left of his goggles keeps ticking down, but the body count just beneath stays the same. By prioritizing his search and rescue mission, his other mission had fallen to the wayside, to Angstrom’s obvious displeasure. Mark can’t find it in himself to care, but he has to, because he made a deal. 

He gets to take home this universe’s version of his mother and you on the condition that he kills one hundred thousand people and locates both of you in a seventy-two-hour period. 

By the end of the first twenty-four hours, he’s already checked every coordinate you and Debbie had ever stepped foot on back home. Neither are anywhere to be found. Relying on his previous knowledge quickly becomes useless. 

Day two is a blur, packed with Mark ping-ponging from state to state, city to city in desperate search. Visibility is high, the sky here a bright blue without the smog and light pollution he’s grown used to. Still, he might as well be blind in a world without a cyberspace compatible with his suit. 

The lack of sophisticated tech is strange, considering it’s the same year here as it is in his universe. Mark suspects this universe missed an Industrial Revolution or five. The upside being there are no patrolling V16 Reanimen troops here to give him any trouble. The GDA still controls earth’s enforcers, but here they come as brightly dressed government dogs in spandex, humans sporting the lowest rated gear Mark’s ever seen on the field, and grossly outdated Renaimen in groups of five or less. All weak, all dead before they can waste any more of Mark’s already limited time. 

Mark never thought he’d live to see the day he’d think fondly of his world’s tyrannical methods of governing, but right now, he’d kill for their Worldwide CODIS and mass surveillance ability. 

Tracking the two of you down would be no big deal back home. 

By the time he could upgrade his mom to mid-tier cyber-prosthetics, she’d been outfitted with a permanent tracker. You were harder to convince, being one hundred percent flesh and blood, so he’d just tagged your personal items. Now, it wouldn’t be up for debate. 

Day three starts when the sun peeks over the skyline, but for Mark, it’s just a dragging continuation of the last forty-eight hours without any sleep to separate the days. While it drags on, he’d pay anything for the time to stretch—for him to have more of it. 

Time’s never been Mark’s friend, and that fact doesn’t change just because he’s in a new universe.  

Angstrom’s drone hovers over his head, an ever present sign that Mark’s still on the clock. With his deal with Angstrom relying on extra variables and his own ability to track in a universe where left is right and right is left, Mark’s so far behind schedule he’s grasping at straws to stay sane. The knowledge that he’s so close to getting his life back is the foundation he’s standing on, the fuel in his veins. 

In between his frantic searching, Angstrom’s drone tasks him with cities to destroy. Mark speeds through them to get back on track. He keeps it tactical, doing as much damage as possible and avoiding sloppy work. 

Angstrom doesn’t need to be happy, but he does need to be satisfied by the end of these seventy-two hours. For everybody’s sake

“Los Angeles, California. Be there in thirty minutes or I’m sending someone else.” Angstrom’s voice filters out from the drone’s speaker, irritating Mark. 

“I’ll be there.” 

After leveling Los Angeles, Mark stops by the San Francisco Federal Record Center in California and finds the computer with the most powerful system in the building—it’s sticks and stones compared to the tech lining his suit. Nothing he could run to speed up the process of finding you or his mom would survive on a monitor this outdated. He has to manually break through to access any programs and finds the convoluted setup for the record system agonizing to deal with. 

It only gets worse from there.  

Deborah Jang just doesn’t exist—no records, no history, no nothing. The screen stacked with over a dozen wrong Deborah Jangs nearly sends Mark into a full blown panic attack until reason whispers in his ear that this universe’s Invincible works with the GDA. They could make her go ghost if needed. 

He tries your full name next, sweat unable to form on his skin because of the internal environment his suit creates. Mentally, he’s sweated right through the fabric. The mouse cursor hovers over the ‘enter’ button while Mark battles with the possibility that you might just not exist here.  

He hits enter.

You pop up. 

Mark’s head drops into his arms where they lie across the desktop. He takes in a stuttering breath. It’s the first satisfying one he’s taken in months. 

Thank god you popped up. 

You have two loans running currently for Upstate University in Chicago, with the status labeled as ‘In School’. Scrolling further, the COA’s been adjusted for your living arrangements, the box ‘on campus’ being ticked beneath it.  

The glow of the monitor hits the front of Mark’s mask. His suit automatically locks onto the coordinates of the campus, creating a visual map to follow. 

He’ll find you. Then, he’ll stop by the GDA’s headquarters and ask for his mom. If they won’t comply, he’ll handle it. 

It won’t be the first time he’s had to eradicate the GDA.  

…

With you chasing after GDA members who are hot on the tail of a guy whose top speed could rival any fighter jet’s, you and William need to get moving quickly. As soon as the person on the other end of the radio gives the go-ahead, it’s time to pack up and leave.

Darting out of the room, you try the door handles as you jog down the hall. Six are unlocked, giving you a chance to peek your head in for a split second into each room. It’d be nice to have literally any other weapon rather than the ammoless, nineteen-hundreds rifle slung over your back. 

Any sensible gun-owner would have their weapons locked up in a gun safe or hidden out of sight, not lying behind an unlocked door where people kick off their shoes. That means there’s nothing better for you to pilfer, and you're stuck with a waste of metal and wood. 

“I wish we had more time,” you say bitterly, closing the sixth and final door back and catching up with William, who’s halfway through the parking lot. You fish Andy’s multitool out of your pocket and clip it securely on your jeans, smoothing your hand over the side. 

“I wish the radio wasn’t so damn heavy,” William replies, equally as bitter, unimaginably upset he had to leave it behind. He swings his backpack around, fishing out the map from one of the pockets. “If we’re being real, though, I wish we didn’t have to do this.” 

“That goes without saying,” you grunt, warily eyeing the large sheathed knife bouncing from where it’s attached to William’s belt. Seems he grabbed the largest one—points for intimidation, you guess.   

Plotting the quickest route to Lexus takes under a minute as it’s less than a few blocks away. William picks up the pace with you keeping to his side. Going the scenic route is tossed to the side for speed’s sake, amping up the chance for confrontation with randos. It’s a risk you're willing to take to shave time off the trip. One and a half blocks later, sweat dripping down your neck, your better judgment kicks on.

“It’s weird the people on the radio know the GDA by name, right?” You huff, wiping your face off with the sleeve of your jacket. 

“Shit. You’re right. I don’t think it’s public.” William squints, jog slowing down to a walk. “Should we stop?”

To him, the option sounds ridiculous, even though he’s the one suggesting it. He shakes his head, hoping you won’t so easily back out. 

“No. No, we can’t,” you say to his massive relief, shaking your head as well. Your pace doesn’t drop and you pass him by, twisting your head to keep your eyes on him. 

“Let’s just go a street over from Lexus and take a look at them. If it looks sketchy, we’ll go in alone,” you reason. 

“Shouldn’t be too difficult,” he hums.

… 

It turns out to be difficult. Very difficult. As your mystery teammates aren't waiting at the end of Lexus like you expected them to be. Instead, it’s a ghost town. Your only option left is to actually walk it rather than camp a street over. You want to whine to William over it, but you agreed half a block ago that any talking would be cut out for now.

At this point, it only takes five minutes for the two of you to despise the choice. By a series of confusing hand signs, excessive pointing at the map, and multiple dirty looks, William’s able to convey where he suspects they could be inside the street—hopefully, not waiting to ambush the two of you. 

In a perfect world, you’d see them before they see you. Well, actually, in a perfect world, you’d be in your college dorm watching trashy reality TV while William sporadically comments on the toxic couples face-hugging on screen. 

Instead, you’re laid flat against a grimy wall to keep your form as unnoticeable as possible, stepping on trash and other unmentionables near the edge of a dingy alleyway. It’s the first spot William suspects the radio group could be—just one of three larger alleyways a meet-up being staged would make the most sense.   

You don’t want to turn the corner and slam face-first into any strangers, specifically strangers who know you're coming. To minimize the chance, you head the back way to the alley, getting on your hands and knees. By utilizing the piled up trash around, you just barely stick your head around the corner to take a look. 

It’s empty, but the paranoia stays. 

It’s the same for the second spot as well. 

The distant sound of fighting isn’t helping your already stretched-thin nerves. You don’t have the luxury of worrying about others when you’re scurrying around the same streets. All you can do is hope the heroes are holding their own against the Not-Invincible and move along. 

The third alleyway is a straight line with no extra in and outs, vaguely disclosed by the map, making even the most careful of looks put you directly into the line of sight of anyone in it. Luckily, the first of the two buildings bracketing it is one of those older thrift shops that have too much stock to keep track of with walls thicker than a safe’s. A layer of ivy weaves over the protruding bricks on its outer walls. The combo opens up the possibility to crawl up the side, which you and William do with only minimal difficulty. 

On the roof, you sneak towards the side and lie on your stomach. William slots beside you, and the both of you carefully peer over the edge. Your breath catches in your throat when someone’s actually there, just standing idly in the center. He stares down, presumably talking into what looks to be an upgraded walkie-talkie.  

He looks tough, covered in a dark blue suit with black military-grade armor scattered around his joints. You nearly pull your head back away from the edge when you see the red, reminding you of Maskless and the way it dripped off of him. On this stranger, it’s just an accent color that makes up his boots and skims across the edges of his utility belt. 

You draw a blank on who he could be, not that you’re well versed on heroes. William squints, trying to put a face, or in this case, helmet and visor, to a name. William draws a blank as well, which means the man most likely isn’t one of Mark’s close coworkers. 

Unsure of everything about the guy except that he’s right there in front of you, the choice to join up or not boils down to, would you rather have him or nothing in between you and a Not-Invincible? His suit’s a little scuffed up in places, so you know he’s been fighting. If he’s alive, he’s gotta be okay at it. 

You're more than willing to join up with someone with combat experience. Let him do the fighting while you and William dog pile a GDA member. 

Just to have a unanimous vote, you push a shoulder into William, who gives a shallow shrug in response. There’s a go-ahead nod from him after about ten more seconds of waiting. Understanding that William’s shoving this off onto you, you throw an elbow into his side and then open your mouth to call out. Before a syllable can slip out, the man’s head turns towards where the two of you are hiding. 

A shadow falls over you. 

“There’s only two,” a voice calls out from above.

Right. There was more than one voice on the radio, wasn’t there? 

Your head whips up just as a wide, calloused hand wraps around the rifle strapped to your back. Lifted off the ground with enough ease to embarrass you, your eyes fall upon one of the beefiest and most intimidating women you’ve seen in your life. 

She’s muscle packed on muscle, white hair showing her age where it's been divided into two rows and braided back into a neat bun. She lacks the suit the other has, wearing a dirty tank top tucked into baggy maroon pants with the waistband frayed to ribbons. A thick belt wraps around her torso. You quit your scanning to gawk at the visor guy randomly taking flight—you weren’t expecting that.  

Someone groans, decidedly not the ripped lady, and you ignore visor guy’s soft landing on the roof to figure out who else is here. So focused on the huge woman breathing down your neck, you missed the lanky figure behind her, heaving himself over the edge of the roof. It’s a surprise, too, since the guy is sporting a garish green dye-job that would be impossible to miss otherwise. 

“You wanted to join?” The woman asks, thin brows pinching. She tugs the gun up, and you throw your arms out, trying to keep the strap from choking you. It only half works. 

She clicks her tongue.

“Useless weapons.” She makes eye contact with you, then William, who doesn’t bother reaching for his knife. “Weak.” Her hand sinks through the gun, warping it. It drops on your back, and you fall heavily onto your knees and palms. “A waste of time.” 

No kidding what she would’ve done if she found out the gun hadn't been loaded either. You rub your throat where the strap dug in and pray she doesn’t check the chamber.

“Cut them some slack,” the green haired man huffs, wiping his hands off on his pants. You take the time to glance over his not-costume.

Out of the three of them, he appears the most normal, looking like someone you’d pass in an Internet cafe without a second glance. The hair’s an eyesore, sure, somehow ranging from chunks of puke green to glow-in-the-dark neon before it all fades into the black overgrown roots of his hair. You’d guess he’s in his late twenties, sporting thick, dark jeans and an unzipped bomber jacket. A duffle bag is swung over one shoulder and the strap of a gun on the other. 

A sidekick, possibly? 

“They came all the way over. Why send them back?” he finishes, idly glancing over you and William. He doesn’t look impressed with what he sees. 

You reconsider the sidekick position. Sidekicks usually don’t get a say-so in situations, right? Admittedly, it’s a little hard to pin down the dynamics of this group. But, all your knowledge on hero group hierarchies is based on comics, so you could just be out of the loop. 

“If we send them back, we won’t have to watch over them,” visor guy explains, answering what you suspect to be a rhetorical question. “They don’t appear to be medical or police.”

The walkie-talkie attached to his belt goes off. “They’ve hit Mannet Avenue. The noisemakers are doing their job. Lookin’ steady.”

“We’re wasting time here. Leave them. If they're smart, they’ll find a safe area to hide away in,” the woman says, which gets a short nod from visor guy. 

Green haired dude just scoffs.

“That would be the best course of action,” visor guy agrees, looking to the other man. “They’re liabilities. The probability that they will die before being useful is high. 

Hearing it put so bluntly puts things into perspective. 

“He’s making a good point. Maybe—” William sputters.

“We might’ve overestimated—” You try.

“Be quiet,” the woman orders. Both your jaws click shut.

“We’ll need runners.” The green-haired guy tucks his hands into his jacket, pulling out a smooth box with gold trimming. It flicks open on a hinge, and he pulls out a slim cigarette and lights up. “And we're already down half the group. Might as well have them tag along,” he adds on, exhaling smoke from between his teeth. “They made it all the way here alive. Means they got to have some sense.”

Seems the ones who get to decide whether you're in or not don’t include you or William—arguably the most important people to ask. Forget about democracy. Even now, you aren't sure if getting the blessing to join versus being kicked out and following after them would be better. You know you don’t like the sound of being a runner, whatever that entails. 

“They’re civilians,” she points out, stating the obvious. 

You don’t blame her for not wanting either of you to join. If the roles were reversed, you’d kick them to the curb and tell them to appreciate their lives more. 

From where they’re standing, you can imagine the two of you look like pound puppies, rolling around on the floor while others weigh the pros and cons of taking you home. If the heroes weren’t hovering over you at the moment, you’d stand up to preserve some dignity. William shifts closer to you, tired of staring up at the group as they go back and forth.

“And you wrecked their only gun. Take some responsibility.” A cigarette is pointed at you, waved around in a circle.  

The ripped chick rolls her eyes, unmoved by his argument. “I don’t see any added benefit of them joining. Outside of it entertaining you,” she says pointedly. 

“C’mon. Let’s have them tag along. It couldn’t hurt,” he pushes, voice never tipping into begging. He doesn’t argue against her accusation, which rings warning bells in your head. 

There’s a frustrated sigh from the woman. She rubs at her forehead wearily before sighing again, softer this time. Then, she visibly loses steam, concluding that arguing further wouldn’t do anything but waste more time. 

“They will die.” It’s her final point to make, the natural end to people as weak as you joining in on a fight you have no business being in. 

The green haired man shrugs, like he can’t bother dredging up enough space in his cold little heart to pretend to care. You send a wide-eyed stare to William, who just lets his forehead drop to the floor in defeat. 

As a last ditch effort to turn the tide of this rigged vote, you stare down the third hero, hoping you can convince him with just your eyes to say no. No. No. No 

‘Do not let us join,’ your face says.

He must not see it behind his dark visor. 

“Then it’s settled. They’ll join,” he says with the kind of finality that seals fates. To you, it feels like you just got strong-armed into joining Scientology. 

Throwing a hissy fit over it won’t change their votes, so you grit your teeth and think on what happens next. Those GDA members aren't going to find themselves, that’s for sure. You’ll just have to hedge your bets on slipping off with William when shit hits the fan or when they’re just too busy to keep an eye on you. If heroes could be everywhere at once, there would be no Not-Invincible apocalypse in the first place. 

The tense atmosphere during the vote recedes somewhat, as does the ripped lady. She backs away, uninterested in interacting with either of you any further. Visor guy ends up offering his hands, which both you and William take with various levels of suspicion. Green haired dude stands off to the side, finishing off his luxury cigarette, looking mildly satisfied with the outcome.

William coughs awkwardly, standing stiff beside you. “Alright then, I’m Wi—”

Green haired guy cuts him off with a noise one would use on a barking dog. He waves his hand out in front of him, signaling for William to stop when he opens back up his mouth a second time.

“We’re not doing that,” he says flatly. 

“What?” William stutters, his confused gaze flicking to you before it falls back on the man.  

“I’m Valena,” the large woman, or Valena, gruffs out.  

“Again? Seriously? You got a do-over,” the man hisses, exasperated, turning to chew her out. He rolls his eyes and tosses the two of you a brief glance between his bitching. 

“I’m Botch.” 

“Botch?” you repeat, voice edging towards incredulity. Either his hero name was decided via word generator or his parents hated him.  

“What? You want my government name? We’re using monikers.” Botch thrusts a thumb at Valena. “Except her.”

“John.” Visor dude nods shallowly in greeting. 

“At least I think he’s using a fake name,” Botch sighs, itching to dig out another cigarette. He looks back at the civilians, ready to move past introductions. “So what’ll it be?”

William side-eyes you, and you just kind of stand there in place, unsure of what Botch is asking for. Valena gets fed up quickly, pointing a finger at William. 

“Bowie.” 

Then, to you, where your destroyed gun hangs sadly over your chest. It takes her slightly longer to come up with something for you.

“Carcano.” 

Botch raises a brow while you seethe at the missed opportunity. The nicknames suck. If it came down to it, you’d rather be Eagle One and Eagle Two. William tries to think of something quick before the opportunity passes, but fails. All that passes through his mind are old gamertags his friend group has used in the past and those wouldn’t make for very good codenames. 

Botch must see the disappointment in your faces because his lips purse in barely restrained amusement. “You’d rather be called knife and rifle?”

“No…it’s cool,” you lie, just in case he gets the bright idea to come up with something even worse. You take the rifle off you, tossing it to the floor. Turns out, it’s worse than useless—It’s actively working against you. 

The walkie-talkie in John’s hands chimes. “Who’s with you? I haven’t seen them around.” 

You recognize the voice now after hearing it a second time. It’s the original voice—the one who explained there had been GDA members in the first place on the radio. 

“The people who came across your channel. They're joining us,” John answers, fingers pressing on the side as he talks. 

“Where’s he at, exactly?” William asks, his head going from left to right as he looks around. “And what does he mean by ‘hasn’t seen us’?

“Ha! Is he looking around for me? Check across the street in the boutique.” The man sounds chuffed, definitively older, with an edge to his voice that reminds you of men who exclusively hit dive bars just to watch the games.

William does as he says, and you follow his lead, squinting as you look into the boutique. The lights are off inside, and you can’t see well past the glass. 

“I don’t see him,” William grumbles, craning his head.

“Don’t be too impressed. He’s watching through the cameras,” Valena explains, arms crossed over her chest. 

“So he’s like, your guy in the chair?” You say aloud. William makes a thoughtful noise, nodding his head. 

“I’m Chuck.” The voice laughs. “Happy to be working with you two.” 

At least one of them is excited to have you two on the team. Besides Botch, but he doesn’t seem to have your best interests in mind. Valena signals to him, and he digs around in the sides of his duffle, pulling out two gadgets and passing them to you and William. 

It’s an earpiece, small enough to fit snugly against your head and seamlessly blend in. You place it in your ear, impressed and admittedly giddy you get a fancy comm to play around with. You guess there are some actual perks to this involuntary team up.

“You have to tap the side for the microphone to turn on and off. Three taps and it’ll stay on. You won’t be able to contact Chuck, he’s only on radio,” Botch explains, checking that William put it in correctly when he struggles orienting it right. 

The earpiece turns on, and you hear Botch’s voice in your ear as he speaks. There’s no weird feedback loop or uncomfortableness—just a crisp, clear voice and your bubbling excitement. 

“This is a secure line just between our group,” Botch continues, pointing to his ear where his comm is. “It’s expensive as shit, so when you die, try to protect it. I’ll swing by later to pick it up.” 

And just like that, any excitement over the fancy gadget fizzles out. You suspected that there had to be some heroes with shitty personalities, statistically speaking, but damn—what an asshole. 

“Fight’s going steady, but they're on the move again. Still multiple blocks away from the goal,” Chuck explains. Faint tapping echoes audibly in the background, but you can’t place what kind of area the guy is hiding out in. “Have you given the newbies the rundown?”

“It can be done on the way.” John tosses the walkie-talkie to Valena, who catches it, slipping it into the pocket of her pants. 

Without preamble, Valena picks you and William up and jumps off the roof, landing in a small crater on the street. Her hands fall away, and you barely land on your feet, helping William up where he tripped and now lies sprawled out on the concrete. 

“You alright?” you mutter, pulling him up. 

“No. This is crazy!” he whisper-yells, glaring at Valena’s back as she walks ahead. “These heroes suck.” 

You can’t help but think the same. John lands behind you, holding a straight-faced Botch who moves away as soon as John’s feet hit the floor. 

“Now that’s more like it,” Botch says to John, shooing the two of you to begin moving. 

With Valena in front and Botch and John behind, there’s no room for escape. For now, it’s no problem, but you don’t like feeling like easy prey surrounded by a pack of lions. 

Valena’s pace puts the group at a steady jog, not exactly a speed one would use for an emergency. That you can overlook, but what you can’t is that John’s feet are actually touching the floor. If you had the ability to fly, no way in hell you’d be running. 

While jogging, John takes charge in explaining the plan, which you appreciate. What you don’t appreciate is how the plan sounds like it came directly out of a Looney Tunes episode. 

Fighting Invincible copies in the city has a tested method at this stage in the war—at least according to the group. For them, it starts with a first group who lures the target to a location that they have pre-rigged with explosives. When the area is clear and the Not-Invincible is damaged enough he can’t follow, they blow the area sky-high. 

“There is the chance the GDA’s group won’t make it to the location, so we will follow behind until they’re close before setting the explosives. Intervene only when necessary,” John finishes smoothly. 

You have questions. A lot of questions. 

“When do we contact the others?” you ask, voice reined in to something neutral, hoping Botch will hook you up with a direct line to a GDA operative. 

“No contact,” John replies. 

Your brows twitch. That’s odd. No contact with the only other group you’re working alongside? 

For the first time since all of you met, you take more than a handful of seconds to look at the group, really look at them. Difficult personalities aside, they’re all a bunch of strangers, even within their own ranks, it seems. 

Two of them lack a traditional hero suit. All of them lack a hero name. There’s no motivational hero talk about saving the world— hell, if anything, they seem to be confident you and William are set to die and don’t plan on doing jack shit to stop it. Not to mention their source of information comes solely from some guy with a radio, on a public channel, that even someone like you could gain access to. 

“We’ve zeroed in on the most likely location for where the GDA will herd the target—The City Hall Plaza. Eight blocks down from the target’s current location,” Valena explains.  

As Valena adds more details, William’s expression goes tight and his focus zones in on his feet as they thump off the pavement. You scan Valena, adding up slowly what doesn’t fit properly into the neat little story you’ve been running with. 

Her outfit makes you take a second glance. The frayed edges near the belt loops of her pants morph from being a fashion statement to something more, or in this case, less—the pants are the only thing left of the jumpsuit she must’ve ripped the top off of. That leaves you with a super-powered individual wearing a jumpsuit and an obvious answer for why.  

“Chuck can only follow us so far. The further in the rubble we go, the less cameras,” she continues.  

And what did Chuck call the GDA members earlier? Goons? The rest of the team hadn’t seemed to have a problem with it. If they aren’t on good terms with the GDA, aren’t friends—couldn’t be coworkers without contact—and don’t even seem to share neutral ground with them, just what are they? You don’t like any of the available explanations.  

Beside you, William’s head snaps up, eyes wide in understanding. 

The more you think about it, the more you’re convinced these guys aren’t actually—

“Holy shit. None of you are heroes, are you?” William blurts out, skidding to an abrupt stop. 

You turn to him, expression slack-jawed and blood pressure rising so high you feel a second away from dropping to the floor in a spasm. Why not just tell them straight up the two of you are flight risks right then and there? That maybe the two of you are better off dead than lackies?

The group pauses, and you compose yourself to the best of your ability, trying to make sense of the group surrounding you. Are these people even fighting against the Not-Invincibles? Or, is the dirt and scratches on them from going toe-to-toe with heroes while they’re conveniently occupied trying to save the city?

Preparing yourself to do or say anything necessary to walk away from this, you shove a shoulder into William to shut him up. You refuse to die to a bunch of villainous nobodies after surviving a run in with an alternate reality’s version of Invincible. It’s an unacceptable downgrade. 

“Looks like someone figured it out.” Botch whistles, grin widening enough you see a flash of the silver grills twisting over his canines. “Any other obvious stuff either of you want to point out?” 

The nonchalance pisses you off more than you could’ve ever expected. Botch catches your eye, brow cocked like he can see your fuse shortening. 

“Upset we’re not the spandex wearing losers you were hoping for?” He needles, practically glowing at your downturned expression. “There’s a couple around here. But I’m guessing you want to see a live one.” 

You’ve run out of fuse. 

“So what? You see a global crisis and think it’s time to poach as many heroes as possible?” You hiss, fist clenching at your sides. “I don’t think the Not-Invincibles will make an exception for you.” 

The you being criminals—possibly straight up super villains if all three are powered. The Not-Invincibles don’t seem the type to give freebies out just because, and they definitely don’t need any help destroying the planet. Everyone on earth is on the same side at this point—all dead if the Not-Invincibles keep it up. 

These dumbasses might be the only people who didn’t get the memo. 

William shoves a shoulder into you, and you snap back into yourself, keenly aware you reacted when you should’ve kept your mouth shut. Instead of taking another taunt from Botch, Valena rounds on you, teeth grit and muscles bulging. You don’t even have time to flinch back. 

“Watch yourself. We’ve risked our lives to kill one of those things.” Her hands clench around the front of your jacket, dragging you up onto your tiptoes. 

“Back up!” William hollers, pushing at her side. The attack is about as successful as a gnat's, but William doesn’t retreat. 

Your hand falls on her forearm, not pushing but holding steady, like you could stave off her killing you by not reacting. Instinct tells you to squirm, but flopping around like a hooked fish won’t do you any favors here. She shakes you, jostling your brain around in your skull. 

“You don’t know anything,” Valena grunts into your face.

Maybe you overreacted. 

Before you can attempt to diffuse the situation by apologizing for jumping to conclusions, a gloved hand falls down on Valena’s shoulder. John stands beside her, not talking, not forcing her away, but still keeping her from shaking you to death. Valena pulls her shoulder out of his loose grip, turning her burning glare on him. After a tense standoff, you’re dropped and Valena steps away. 

“If anything, you two should be singing our praises!” Botch cackles, watching from the sidelines. “Since the heroes can’t do the jobs they’re paid for, we have to pick up the slack for free. Pretty damn heroic if you ask me.” 

You smooth over the collar of your jacket and take a few steps back from Valena, worried she’ll change her mind on letting your disrespect slide. William puffs up at your side, keeping quiet only because speaking up got the two of you stuck in this situation in the first place. 

“We all have our reasons for being here,” John cuts in, voice smooth. “Best to not encourage infighting. We all are on the same side.”  

“Reasons? Ha! John, you make it sound so serious. We all live here, right? That’s reason enough.” Botch raises his arms like he’s on exhibition, hands finding their way into his jacket’s pockets. 

“Yes,” Valena agrees, anger falling on a different target now that the conversation has moved along. “Those animals can not be allowed to live. They’ve taken too much.” 

“Pretty harsh,” Botch sighs theatrically, eyes scanning down her form. “I’d wager they’re the ones who busted you out the slammer. I recognize those pants, you know.” 

Valena turns on Botch with a scowl, towering over his smaller form. It doesn’t wipe the shit-eating grin from his face. 

“Destroying the complex and killing half the inmates is hardly a positive,” Valena sneers, knowing John is correct but still wanting to strangle Botch regardless. It’s been years since she’s met anyone as infuriating as him, decades since she’s had an opportunity to act on her frustration outside of the constant watch of the GDA. 

Her better sense keeps her from jumping at the opportunity. There are worse things on the streets than him today.  

“Those things are barely human, so focused on their fists and wants all they can do is take. Not much different from you.” She flexes her hands, fists loosening at her sides rather than rearranging every bone in Botch’s face. “Men like you can’t see past their own dicks.”

His eyebrows raise at the jab. “Damn right. Those shitheads are messing with my business and my city,” Botch barks out. “That's why they have to die.” 

“You are not half as entertaining as you think you are,” Valena sneers. 

You and William subtly inch your way closer to John. Botch doesn’t seem to register the danger he’s in—maybe he’s just too big of an egotistical dickhead to care. You almost want Valena to beat his ass, but that would mean one less person on your side. 

“John keeps a bit of a tighter lid than the rest of us. What about it John? Why’re you risking your ass?” Botch asks, skimming right over Valena’s comment.  

“I have a contract,” John replies simply as you put him in between your duo and the others.

“Of course, a Murderer-for-Hire. Well, two of us are doing charity work then,” Botch grunts, tilting his head to glance behind John to William and you. “Four now.” 

He looks thoughtful for a moment, then tilts his head back and stares at John. “Unless you can work me in too? Who’s your client?” 

John’s head turns just slightly, enough so you can tell he’s looking at Botch.

“They only pay supers.” 

Botch clicks his tongue, smile wiped off his face. “Age old discrimination, huh? Typical shit. I’ll have you know I do good work without powers.” 

“You go by ‘Botch',” Valena reminds, unamused by his endless chatter. 

“It’s ironic,” he huffs, obviously having found himself in a conversation similar to this countless times in the past. “I’ve never botched a job.” 

“And your job?” you hedge, curious, even though you know giving him more fuel to work with could be a bad idea.

William nods along, feeling entertained by the near-altercation between Botch and Valena. If it wouldn’t blow up spectacularly in his face, he would’ve encouraged it further until one of them finally snapped. He doesn’t think you’d appreciate the show.    

“Thank you for asking, Carcano. I’m a supplier.” Botch seems to preen a little at the admission, making him look more like one of the exotic birds at the zoo rather than a criminal. 

“You can thank me for the radio, the comms,” he says, rifling through his duffle bag, collecting items neatly into both hands. “—and for these.” 

From where you're standing, you can’t identify the items, so you and William get out from hiding behind John. From each hand, Botch tosses four flat disks at you and William respectively. You catch yours, stacking them so they don’t slip off onto the floor. The design is sleek, fits in the palm of one hand, and is cold to the touch. 

“What are these?” William asks, flipping one of his disks back and forth in his right hand. 

“Enough explosives to level a city street, maybe even half a block.” 

William fumbles the bombs, nearly scattering them across the asphalt on accident. Clasping your hands around your own set of explosives, you send Botch a nasty look. 

“See that button on the top? Hit it, and the base will connect to anything solid.” Botch seems peculiarly passionate in his explanation, blatantly thrilled to wave around its features. “The outside creates its own semi-permanent static cling.”

You run your thumb over the top, seeing the faint outline of a button that sits flush with the rest of the surface. This might be the coolest and most illegal thing you’ve ever laid your hands on. 

“And when everything’s ready,” He waves around a small block, fitted on one side for finger holds. A button sits at the top, encased in a protective plastic shield. “—I’ll detonate it and the…what did you call him? A ‘Not-Invincible’?”

You nod, carefully placing the bombs into your bag where they won’t get jostled. If Botch can lug them around in his duffle, you doubt they’d go off prematurely in your backpack. 

“He’ll be a soot stain on the sidewalk.”  

The radio buzzes to life in Valena’s pocket, calling everyone’s attention. “You may need to pick up the pace. The target stopped playing defense,” Chuck warns. 

“Understood.” Valena puts the radio back and looks to the group. “Chuck is our eyes. If I get news and call in an order—you do it. No questions asked.” 

“You make it sound like we’re splitting up,” William mutters, dropping a tense hand on your shoulder. 

The comment earns him a dry look from Valena.“I will go ahead to the plaza and determine where the bombs should be placed. Decide your teams.” 

She turns back around and squats before jumping off the ground like an oversized grasshopper. The concrete splits beneath her, and the force of her jump throws you into Botch. William isn’t so lucky and falls back on his ass when his hold slips off.

A new hand settles on your shoulder. “Looks like Carcano’s with me. We’ll see you at the fight,” Botch says, readjusting his duffle’s strap.  

“Don’t be late, Botch. We need you on standby,” John warns, walking towards William, who tries to subtly scoot his way towards you. 

Botch waves him off. “We’ll be there. I wouldn’t miss it.” 

“Wait. I want to be with—” William tries, getting cut off as John peels him off the floor and maneuvers him into a princess carry. He throws you one alarmed look before John takes off.

They disappear over the tops of the buildings, leaving you behind. Botch gives you a sharp side-eye that you don’t bother trying to interpret.

“Just so you know, I won’t be carrying you there.”

“I have two legs,” you mutter, matching his pace unwillingly as you two start moving. 

The best outcome would’ve been getting paired up with William, but now you’ll be forced to do double the work to properly slip away. Regardless, bothering to escape comes after finding and talking to a GDA member, so you have time. 

The fight is currently happening just two blocks away, close enough that the noise reaches your ears, echoing down the streets. Oddly, the pace Botch picks is relatively slow, enough so you can feel the fight being pushed further off by the minute. Once you pass Amborlan, the destruction left in the Not-Invincible’s wake starts to resister—you begin to weigh how solid the foundations of this plan are. What are the chances it even works? 

“Did you really manage to kill one of them?” you ask when the doubt rises high enough to meet your chin. Any higher, and you're scared you might just drown in it.

“Of course,” Botch replies, eyes scanning over the decimated buildings like he can tell just how much money was sunk into them— maybe he can. “But, I can’t take all the credit. It took six of us.”

Your stomach sours. That’s half his original team dead, probably more bodies too if he worked with another GDA group. Botch glances over briefly when you don’t respond, exhaling sharply and rolling his eyes at what he sees. 

“Wipe that look off your face. They were all a bunch of assholes anyway. The streets are safer without them.”

“That’s already over with. I’m worried about us,” you admit shamelessly, mentally counting all the different variables that could’ve changed since the last round. 

“The situations are different, right? It’s not like you could recreate the first fight perfectly. And your old team was more stacked too, it’s not like me or Wil— or, uh, Bowie, have any fighting experience.” 

Botch hums, going quiet long enough you think reason might’ve gotten through to him. He fiddles with the cigarette case, rolling one between the pads of his fingers. 

“Everyone with a gimmick is dead,” he starts, voice flat. “One had some shoddy telekinesis ability. He got split in half by a traffic light. The second was a crazy chick who couldn’t listen to orders for shit. I think she was some kinda shape shifter, kept turning her arms into blades. She bled to death. The last guy, biggest dude I’ve ever seen—pushing eleven feet at least—did some kind of sonic blast out his hands. He got his head turned all the way around, popped right off like a bottle cap.”  

You listen without saying a word, disturbed by the mental image Botch’s story is supplying you with. 

“You want to know why the only people left are assholes with durability powers?” His black eyes meet yours, digging into your face. “Cause’ if you can’t take a hit, you’re dead.” 

“That doesn’t make me feel better,” you mutter, finding yourself more nervous than before. You don’t know how you deluded yourself into thinking someone like Botch would ever try to cheer you up.

The cig doesn’t stay in his pocket for long, and by the time you glance at Botch again, it’s between his lips with a red tip. You’re close enough the smell settles heavy in your nose, all burnt and sharp. Seems that no matter how fancy, a cigarette’s still a cigarette. 

“I’m still alive, yeah?” Botch exhales. “You want to know my secret? Don’t get hit.” There’s no laugh after to soften his words, no punchline that could change the truth. 

“Well, that. And also, this.” He swings his gun around to his front. “Check it out. It’s an extended blaster on a modified rifle base—carries enough volts in it to fry nerves like yours into a pile of ash. Only thing it’s missing is a top-mounted rangefinder, but I make do.”

Botch thrusts it into your chest, and you throw your arms up, holding it as delicately as you would a baby. The gun’s about the size of a sniper rifle, and rests heavy in your palms. That’s where the similarities with an average rifle end. 

Covered in metal plating that extends down into the bare bones of the gun, a thick tube winds around the base to the nozzle, pumping bright purple liquid round and round. Turning it to its side, you can peek into its guts, where a four-chamber battery buzzes neon-violet in its center. What looks like some type of attachment sits near the muzzle, connected by a cable that circles the battery. 

“What about it?” You ask, not in the mood for dramatics, but admittedly pretty amazed by the weapon. This definitely outshines the bombs at the moment. 

“It’s a sup-stopper.” 

Your head whips up, staring down Botch and half expecting a ‘just kidding’. It doesn’t come, and you feel hope swell in your chest. 

“Like one-shot-kill?” The excitement in your tone exposes you as you press the gun closer to your chest. 

“No, that's ridiculous,” Botch announces meanly, taking the gun back from your hands. “I said stopper. I’ll spare you the technical stuff. Basically, it lights up the nervous system. Makes it impossible to use any powers.”

Your blank face must look too confused for him because he hums, pursing his lips and running a hand down the back of his head.  

“Think of it like this—if you got struck by lightning, you wouldn’t be able to multitask, would you?”

“Right.” That makes sense. You like the sound of that. Not as much as a single-shot killing machine, but it’ll do.

“The notes for it were all chicken scratch, pretty typical for that pair—something’s off in their brains. But it works like a charm. Usually.” He turns it over, running a scarred finger down the purple tube. 

“It looks like it’s falling apart,” you point out, wary of its exposed wires and loose plating.

“It’s a prototype, smartass.” He shoots you a glare, continuing on when you shrug in surrender. “I had contacts that stopped asking for shit. When I stopped by, the place was deserted. Waited some more, and when they didn’t show, I put everything in storage to make sure the pigs didn’t get to it.” 

“Think they’ll be mad you’re playing with their stuff?” 

Botch scoffs at the idea. “They already owe me big time. I've been wasting one of my storage facilities holding all their junk for them. The least they can do is let me mess around with a prototype.” 

You want to ask more questions—ask if he’d show you what the dials on the side do. If he’d let you shoot it once or twice. But, Valena’s voice comes through clear in your ear, snatching away your opportunity. 

“Chuck reported that all of the noisemakers are down. The surviving group is moving a street over.”

“On their current location,” John says.  

“Unwillingly,” William cuts in. 

You glance at Botch as his brows furrow. He taps on his earpiece. “Understood. We’re moving slower. Don't do anything stupid.”

He’s correct on your duo’s speed—at this rate, you wonder if Botch is trying to do as little work as possible, appear at the last moment, and get all the spoils like a slacker in a group project.   

“Why not let John carry all of us over before?” You ask, since Botch has been fairly generous with answering any questions you have. 

Botch shoots you a look but doesn’t bother giving a straight answer. So much for generosity. 

…

The wrecked streets so far have been fairly consistent—fire, bodies, destruction, the usual. This one is different and not in a good way. It’s been cleared of vehicles, multiple moved from where they were abandoned in the street to halfway up the side of a building. Dark blood is splattered all over the road, smelling like copper and burnt oil.  

Corpses have turned into a common sight in the city, and you're ashamed to admit at this point, you can easily overlook them as part of the landscape. Having Botch by your side makes it infinitely easier, since his continuous chatter has to go both ways or he’ll get pissy. Hard to get existential when someone’s in your ear asking about your top five restaurants in the city and then shitting on your choices. 

One thing’s for sure, the mass of metal and flesh littering the asphalt, dripping black blood, aren't corpses—or at the very least, aren’t human. 

One is laid out flat on its back in front of you, all four limbs twisted around with its chest flattened. On the head sits a thick helmet with a red lens taking center stage on its face plate. Huge metal arms connect to its gray torso, giving it a bodybuilder physique. Where the metal connects to the torso looks raw and burnt, like the metal chewed into its flesh. 

It looks like some psycho kid’s Frankenstein science fair project on LSD. You keep a safe distance from it, squatting more than five feet away to get a better look.

“Am I losing my mind?” You question, squinting like the thing in front of you will randomly blip out of existence. 

Mid-blink, the corpse behind it shudders, limbs spasming as it jerks to its feet like gravity has no pull on it. With a speed no human could have, it's on you, red lens flashing a deep crimson as its mouth falls open. A sound shrieks out from its gaping maw, piercing to the point you can feel it in your teeth. You jolt back, but it’s faster. 

A yellow burst of energy flings past your head, dropping the moving corpse like a sack of rocks. Its lens dilates, going dark, as its spasming limbs go motionless. Still on the floor, you choke on adrenaline, breath stuck in your throat. Botch stands over you, gun pointed at the zombie-like creature. 

“Nice survival instinct,” he deadpans, tapping you with the end of his steel toed shoes. His gun lowers, taps getting harder when you don’t respond immediately. “It’s a wonder you’ve been able to survive alone this long with just Bowie. Without running into those crazy-ass volunteer ground units too? Man, what a lucky bastard.” 

You scramble wildly to your feet, keeping your eyes trained on the kinda-corpse. “What the fuck is that?” you breathe.   

“Ah, right.” Botch nods his head, remembering he’s with an actual newbie. “Chuck calls it a noisemaker, but officially, they’re Reanimens. It’s one of the GDA’s toys. Nasty stuff. Breaks at least twenty international laws to make.” He sighs. “Worse though, it’s a bitch to sell. No one wants to buy anything the GDA touches without first breaking it down to scraps.”

Botch walks up to the side of one of the Reanimen, head shifting to the side in thought. “This set can weaken a Not-Invincible just by screaming—something about the frequency, I’m guessing. Bad news if the guy somehow took them all out.” 

You follow behind him like a skittish dog, curiosity trumping your fear when the Reanimen doesn’t move. 

“I think it’s half-human.” You squint at the skin on its chest, staring at where the flesh meets metal. The acidic smell of the corpse makes your nose turn up. The closest descriptions you can assign to the stench being antiseptic, stale chips, and burnt rubber—a nasty combo. 

“Yep,” Botch replies like it’s no big deal. “Just human corpses, though. Nothing alive.” 

“Great. I guess everything’s fine then,” you deadpan. Botch just laughs, watching as you inspect the Reanimen like a strange bug on the sidewalk. 

In his line of work, he’s probably seen worse, which explains the lackluster reaction. You're still stuck on the fact the government’s churning these things out—what the hell? Doesn’t Mark work with them? There’s no way he’d be chill with this. 

You decide to put that train of thought to the side before you start getting worked up over where your tax dollars are being used. 

You’ll admit it though, the Reanimen look pretty cool conceptually, forgetting the whole half-human bit. You could name at least two dozen people who would, without hesitation, volunteer their bodies to be used, so maybe the GDA isn’t grave robbing to make the Reanimen. Does it make it morally okay? Probably not. 

While leaning over to get a better look at the mechanics on its limbs, the thing twitches. Botch sinks another shot into its head, and it turns off again. 

“Careful. Its system’s probably fried. It can’t tell if you’re a civilian or a—” The gun sparks up and he hisses, dropping it.

“Stupid, short-circuiting piece of shit!” he shouts, slipping the strap over his head and laying his duffle bag out. 

He fishes out a mini-tool kit that he sets to the side before messing with the cigarette packet in his jacket. He pulls one out of the half-empty case and snaps it shut. The lighter takes multiple tries to spark, which infuriates him even more. 

“So annoying.”

You stand over him, shuffling from foot to foot as he starts trying tools, hands unpracticed as they mess with the wiring. It sparks again, and he cusses, waving his hand out to shake off the sting of pain.  

“Move out of my light and stop hovering. I can’t concentrate,” he orders, rubbing at his fingers. 

You don’t appreciate the bitchy attitude, especially since you weren’t the one who got him shocked. Turning away, you mutter under your breath. “I don’t think extra concentration’s going to help you.”

“What did you say?” His head whips up, eyes squinted. 

“Nothing.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” he goads, lips upturned. “Pussy.”

You wave him off, walking away so he can go back to freestyle fixing the proto-gun without someone to point and laugh over his shoulder.

Taking the opportunity to act without someone watching your every move, you find yourself staring down the inner workings of a sliced in fourths Reanimen. With its head smashed in, you see the speaker at the back of its throat, smaller than your fist and covered in a strong wire mesh. 

Botch said it himself—these guys can somehow stop a Not-Invincible just by screaming. If you could get your hands on one, you’d feel way better about popping up at a Not-Invincible fight, especially with William around. 

You take a second to look back at Botch before sticking your hand into its mouth, willing to risk losing a few fingers to see how it works. With the front part of its face plate smashed into the human bits underneath, it would probably just gum at your hand anyway.

Your fingers settle around the speaker and you pull slightly, stopping when you see the wires connecting it to something that goes down from the head. Digging your hands through the gore proves fruitful when you pull out a sphere-shaped object nestled near the mechanical spine. Inside the spine sits a thick, rope-like cord that fits neatly against the sphere, so you suspect it’s the main battery moving the body. 

This one emits no light or heat, so you’re going to assume it’s broken. Heading over to the next corpse, you stand a ways away. When it doesn’t flinch at the bit of rubble you lobbed at it, you walk up. 

You try to keep digging around someone’s corpse-turned-super-soldier remains as clinical as possible so you don’t give up from squeamishness. Hands drenched in black blood and squishy bits, you suspect that at some point, all the traumatic bullshit that’s happened over the last three days is going to catch up with you. 

Just not today. 

The corpse has both the speaker and battery crushed like a soda can. The indents on the surface of both items look eerily like it was caused by a human hand. It’s the same story for the third Reanimen's remains—wires are smoking, the battery is leaking gunk out everywhere on the insides from Botch's shots, and the speaker's spitting static. 

Your last hope comes in the form of the final Reanimen, half enveloped by a flattened bus. A piece of metal from a grab bar is speared through the speaker, but after some digging around, you pull out a glowing battery. 

It thrums warm in your hands when you pull it out, letting off a soft hum of sound. Andy’s multitool comes in handy to pry the broken speaker off the wires, removing the protective casing with some elbow grease. It’s the same story getting your hands on the working battery, but it’s worth it.

Where the speaker and battery connect has a mini port that the speaker wire is supposed to go into. They’re not meant to be split apart, so there’s no metal bit at the end that can go in and out like a headphone jack. 

You have to peel back the jacketing on the wire until the inner conductors peek out. Hoping you won’t electrocute yourself and earn the award for dumbest death during the Invincible apocalypse, you carefully place the conductors to the battery port and see a tiny spark when the inner wires touch. The speaker buzzes gently, turning on. 

A head-splitting noise rings out from the speaker and you pull the two pieces apart immediately. 

You swivel your head to check Botch’s reaction, who finds his gun still offline more annoying than the grating noise that just came from the Reanimen. By this point, he’s tossed the tools to the side in pure frustration, fingers shaking after the cluster of zaps they’ve endured. He smacks the base of the gun. Three hits in, it whirrs to life. 

Sighing, he rests his forehead against the muzzle. You wait in tense silence until he stands up and starts walking over to the bus.

“You got it working, Carcano? Lemme see,” he says, holding his hand out. You’re not in any position to say no, so you hand the two pieces over. 

Botch takes a look at the battery and speaker, checking the wires before nodding to himself. “The Renaimens got a serious update, huh? Looks like they tried to make the speaker a priority even over the rest of the body.” He turns the battery over in his hands. “Good find. Really good find. The power core’s fresh. They must’ve just finished production on this batch.”

To your surprise, he passes both pieces back. “As long as the speaker’s being powered, it’ll keep ringing. Keep that on you for now.” 

You’ll admit it. Botch is growing on you. While you toss the pieces into your bag, Botch splits off to check out the farthest Reanimen. It’s the one in fourths which he rolls over, checking the back of its head. 

He grabs the arms, flipping the top half over his shoulder before disappearing down a narrow gap between two buildings. He reappears before you can get worried, dragging off the other three separated pieces of the Renaimen. 

“Seriously?” you mutter, watching as he disappears again. 

The mystery of why Botch would rather walk than hitch a ride on John is solved. You rub at your forehead, coming to terms with it. He’s collecting future stock to sell. What an opportunistic jackass—you're genuinely impressed he’s hustling during the apocalypse. 

The next Reanimen is harder to carry, as it’s still in one piece and covered in heavy metal. Botch locks his hands beneath its arms and drags it, scraping it against the ground as he goes along. Without anything better to do, you walk up and grab its legs, hoisting it up. Botch’s eyes flick up to you, expressive pensive, and then the two of you match steps. 

The task of moving all the Reanimens off the street is finished fast enough, with instructions being supplied by Botch on how to arrange them. You wipe your hands off on your pants while Botch squats beside where they lie in a loose pile. He fiddles with their helmets, moving their heads from side to side.

“Now let’s see if this works or not.” From the depths of his bag, he pulls out a metal card and what looks to be some type of futuristic pager. 

You lean over to get a better look at it.

“The card’s a copy of a live one the GDA uses in the labs. Can’t mess with any of their tech without one. I have to get it replaced constantly—their security team is serious business,” Botch mumbles, answering your unsaid question.   

He waves the card over a hidden scanner on its neck before clicking a spot on the backside of the head, making a device slot out. He slides out the four chips on it, snapping each one in half. The other Reanimen are handled in the same manner. 

“That’ll destroy any chance the GDA has of tracking it,” he grins, tossing the chip scraps into his duffle to rid the scene of evidence.

“Sweet,” you lie, desperately wishing for a time machine.

You kinda wish he would’ve told you that before he broke all of them. Carrying around a tracker from a missing Reanimen might get you into some trouble later on, but at least the GDA would be actively looking for you. 

He tosses the card back into his bag and picks up the pager, clicking on it. When he’s done, he throws it in the duffle as well. Sighing, he stands up to full height, a satisfied look passing his face as he stretches his arms over his head. 

 “Alright, the location's been shared. My guys should get this cleared out before the GDA idiots can come collect.” As he passes you, his eyes flick to your face. 

“Hey.” 

Botch talking to you isn’t new, but he’s never directly called for your attention either, especially not with such an even tone. You turn to him, unsure where this could go. If he threatens you to keep hush-hush about the Reanimen smuggling, you’ll tell him the truth—there’s no way in hell you’re getting involved. You saw nothing, know nothing, and would appreciate it if you could keep your life. 

“Are you looking for employment?” he asks casually, like he’s not trying to recruit you into an extremely illegal business that could get you stuck in federal prison. “The pay’s real good.” 

You give him a dirty look and stalk out of the alleyway. He follows, feeling only slightly miffed you didn’t even seem to consider it. 

The next corpse in your way towards the end of the street isn’t a Reanimen, but it is the GDA’s. The dead soldier is positioned in an impossible manner, spine shattered to pieces with their feet under their head. The full body suit and flattened rifle clues you in to their associations. 

You found a GDA member, but they’re not of much use to you dead. 

Botch kicks the corpse as he passes by, but you take an extra second to fall to your haunches and pat down their sides. You find a pistol easily enough, but not what you're actually looking for. You slip off the helmet, ignoring the frozen face underneath, and pull the earpiece from the woman’s ear. The helmet is placed back where you found it. 

“Whatcha’ doing?” Botch asks over his shoulder, turning around when he notices just how far you've fallen behind. 

“Thought we should grab what we can,” you call out, standing up to your feet. You wave the pistol in the air and he nods. 

Just like your old rifle, the chamber’s empty. You stuff it into your waistband regardless. 

…

William’s convinced the deep scowl darkening his face will be a permanent feature he’ll be forced to wear. Who could blame him for thinking that? There’s nothing to smile about when hanging from John’s hands way, way, way too far up from the ground. Not to mention the man’s hands are digging into the underside of William’s armpits and making this more uncomfortable than it needs to be. 

Which, sure, kinda William’s fault. 

With enough whining, anything is possible. So, William swiftly escaped the princess' carry, but swapped it out for something equally as embarrassing and a thousand times more painful. 

Somehow, the hit to his pride isn’t even the most glaring issue. 

“I’m so serious, man! We are way too close!” he hisses in anger, arms tingling from cut-off blood flow. 

John has kept them right on top of the fight, never intervening, even when the Not-Invincible ripped apart the group of Reanimen and pulled off a textbook piledriver on an agent. Now, the GDA team is down to one agent and two heroes, all of which are scattered around the street trying to bash the brains out of the Not-Invincible as he taunts them. 

“This is the optimal distance,” John states. 

He’s purposely picked a spot just out of the way of the group, by the top edge of an office building, moving slightly when the opportunity for anyone down there to spot them arises. The constant movement keeps them safe—according to John. 

Not in Williams' opinion! If he’s close enough to hear the guy down there talk, he's too close. 

“Without your walking speakers, you guys are fucked!” The Not-Invincible barks, taking a hit to the jaw that sends him sliding back. The cloth mask obscuring his face flutters as he plants his feet in the concrete and splits the street in half to stop.

The battlefield only gets worse by the second. With this portion of the city being untouched before, all the people crammed into the buildings get spooked by the fighting and rush from relative safety into the totally unsafe streets.

The heroes try their best to minimize casualties, but this specific Not-Invincible seems dead set on turning that minimum into a maximum.  

The first hero, this one wearing what looks like a magician costume William could see being sold on the discount rack at a Party City, hangs back, trying to protect the civilians who scramble too close to the fight. Bad news is he seems to only be capable of spamming shield spells and white fireballs. 

There's only so much he can do, especially when the Not-Invincible won’t stop randomly pitching chunk after chunk of flaming debris into the crowd. 

There’s not enough spells in the world to protect them all. 

The second hero looks like some type of mutated armadillo-human mix on steroids. He’s got to be pushing at least eight feet, maybe nine if he straightened his curved back. Armadillo goes in for a second hit which the Not-Invincible counters, throwing him over his shoulder. The hero goes rolling into a group of civilians, blowing them apart. 

“Strike!” The variant whoops, throwing his arms up. 

“Stay still!” Armadillo howls, wiping the blood from his face and charging back into the fight. Three white fireballs smack the Not-Invincible in the back of his head while he’s distracted, knocking his chin to his chest.  

The last GDA soldier gives suppressive fire with their rifle, calling out to the heroes. The heroes retreat on their command, shooting down the street while the variant shakes off the white fire trying to stick to his costume.

“Get back over here!” he calls after them, moving to catch up. He’s hot on their tail, taking an extra second to blow through the civilians that got a little too close to the scene while fleeing. 

“How long is this going to go on?” William huffs, holding back a gag. “These guys suck at fighting!” 

“Both heroes have mainly defensive abilities. They will not be able to defeat the veiled one easily.” John watches with critical eyes. When the variant rounds the corner, he moves, following as well. “They are hoping to draw him away from the civilian populated areas and possibly finish him there. I doubt they will be able to.” 

“We’re so dead,” William sighs, growing even more frustrated with this stupid, stupid situation. “And veiled one? If you're going to go down that route, just call him Veil.” 

“Viel, then,” John says calmly, like he’s entertaining the whims of a cranky child. 

The ‘I’m-too-serious-to-have-any-reaction-at-all’ thing that John has going on gets old fast, especially after William’s forced to witness stuff that desperately needs a strong reaction. Like when Viel swipes some poor rando to the side and his hand blows them away into tiny bits that splatter wetly on the storefront windows. 

“You’re a paid villain, right? Can I Venmo you ten bucks for you to promise to protect me and uh, Carcano?” William does not want to be a smear on a storefront window. 

John simply ignores him. 

William considers wiggling out of his hold and dying to prove a point—what point, William’s not sure of. But, he’s pissed and it’s hard to think when he's pissed. 

Thinking on it further, it’s probably for the best that John didn’t take him up on the deal. It’s not like William has a working phone on him at the moment. He doesn’t want to know what being indebted to a contract killer is like. 

William watches on as the variant kills even more people, purposely taking out the supports of the surrounding buildings to watch them buckle beneath the weight. God, William wishes he would’ve gotten paired up with you instead. You’d have your hands on your head, slack jawed and horrified, giving him the appropriate reaction.  

He takes a steadying breath, looking up to the sky rather than the bullshit below. Since you're stuck walking the streets with Botch away from the action, William will have to be the one that steps up and talks to a GDA member. If only he wasn’t hovering over fifty feet in the air. 

“How many more blocks?” William asks, trying to put together a solid plan before the opportunity slips away. It’d be nice to run it by you for notes and suggestions, but the comms system doesn’t seem to have a way to specifically get in contact with only you.  

“Four.” 

Shit. He’s got nothing. Nothing outside of hoping he survives the fifty-foot fall and is able to crawl over to the GDA guy before dying. 

He hates to admit it, but maybe Veil is right. You guys are fucked.  

“Hey John?” 

The man in question hums. 

“What if I Venmo you twenty dollars?”

Chapter Text

As the blocks rack up, you and Botch get ever-closer to the group, but at ground level, the situation is looking lethal—specifically lethal towards you. A crowd of people rush down the street, creating a tide you’re forced to go against. Once the first three or four waves pass, you have to shake off the do-gooders trying to drag you and Botch along to safety. 

Botch handles them easily enough, waving his gun in their faces and promising threats you hope to god he could never possibly back up. By the time you’re a street over, the crowd of people has dwindled to stragglers, but the danger skyrockets.  

The first piece of evidence that you’ve gotten in way over your head is thrown eighty miles per hour across your vision from the street you’re heading straight towards. You don’t get a good look at what it is until the SUV-sized sphere unrolls out into some armadillo guy buried deep into the side of a building. 

Instead of wasting time double-checking that your eyes still work, you turn on your heel and snag the end of Botch’s duffle bag, dragging him back the way you came. Too busy fiddling with his gun to watch in front of him, he sputters, head turning back as you pull him along.

“What was that?” He yells, pumping his legs to keep up.

“Couldn’t really tell. A hero? Maybe? We’ll have to go around!” You cut into a side street, stopping behind a pile of illegally dumped radiators.

“Hey, where are we meeting? The streets a no go,” you say into the comm, bracing yourself against a wall as the ground shakes.

“A specific location, please,” Botch adds, batting at your hand around his duffle strap.  

“Get to the back of the residential building by Dowl’s Bakery in five minutes. Same street,” Valena replies. “Be there.” 

…

Regardless of Valena’s time limit, you and Botch get turned around and end up late, to the obvious displeasure of the woman. 

“You’re late,” Valena notes as you and Botch round the corner.

You don’t bother giving out any excuses, too busy bending over to catch your breath. Botch tries to get something snide out between gulps of air but gives up, letting out a disgruntled groan instead. When you’re back to seventy-five percent, he’s still wheezing—a side effect of the cigarettes, you guess—but he gets it under control when Chuck's voice filters out the walkie-talkie. 

“The GDA group is within three blocks of the plaza. It’s close enough. Set the bombs before they get any further.”   

William gets off the wall and speed walks over to you, throwing an arm over your shoulder. “Well. If everyone’s splitting up again, we're teaming,” he states, like just saying it could make it come true. 

You throw your arm over his as well in solidarity, prepared for a rebuttal from the others. Valena raises a brow, and Botch goes right back to wheezing, this time not from running. 

“Oh, you’ll be teaming all right. Did you forget your job title, runners?” Botch cackles. “You two are up.”

Valena tosses the walkie-talkie to William, who catches it, stares down at it for five uninterrupted seconds, then starts stuttering excuses. 

“You’re kidding,” you mutter, well aware of the bombs in you and William’s possession. This was an inevitability, the only reason either of you were dragged into their group in the first place. You can’t believe you forgot. 

“Dead serious,” Botch counters. 

Valena waves Botch off, unamused with him throwing his weight around. She then looks to the both of you, face neutral rather than irate like usual.  

“Calm down,” she orders. “Chuck will get you there in one piece. Place the bombs in the right spots and come back. That’s it.” From one of her pockets, she passes you a folded up note that has all drop off spots written out. 

“We’ll be in touch.” John nods his head, and you take it as your cue to go ahead and get this over with. 

Some alone time away from the group doesn’t sound that bad. If anything, it’s exactly what you need. You let William lead the way, turning to follow him out from behind the building as he stomps off. You’re stopped in your tracks by a heavy hand dropping on your shoulder.  

“If you run, I will find you both and make you set the bombs on your hands and knees.” Valena looms close enough to make you sweat, her tone icy. 

The threat to break your legs doesn’t instill any sense of loyalty on your end, but it does cement the mission as a priority. You weren’t considering ditching, truth be told. Mostly, because a dead Not-Invincible is too good to pass up if all you have to do on your end is set a few bombs. 

Now going on a little side-mission in between setting the bombs and coming back on the other hand…

Valena waits patiently for both of your responses.  

“Got it,” you try, hoping it’ll be the magic words that make her let go.

William isn’t so willing to roll over, brows furrowing on his face in that telltale way that spells disaster. 

“Sure, threaten us. That’ll make us do a good job,” William says sarcastically, glaring at John. “What happened to us being teammates?” 

The glare doesn’t move John emotionally, but it does earn William a head tilt. You’ve seen the man do it enough times now to assign its meaning—William’s got him considering something. 

“Don’t let it agitate you, Bowie. It’s simply an intimidation tactic,” John comforts poorly, in a way that makes it hard to tell if he genuinely cares or not. “You already have an incentive to complete the mission.” 

He’s hit the bullseye on that front. You and William have some serious incentive, enough so that you put yourself in a position to join up with a bunch of strangers. Dangerous strangers. 

“And having you crawl to place the bombs would be inconvenient,” he finishes. 

“Right. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience any of you.” William sneers. You groan. Of course this is the hill he wants to die on. 

“You know he doesn’t mean it like that,” you say, trying to cool him off before he crosses any lines. “It isn’t an unreasonable ask. They could send us in as suicide bombers.” 

“Dark, Carcano,” Botch laughs, throwing an arm over John’s shoulder. “How could you ever even think that? I thought all of us were teammates?” 

“Can someone that’s not him hold the detonator at least. Please!” William points an accusing finger at Botch, who holds his hands up in innocence. He doesn’t play that angle for long, pretending to reach into his pocket for the detonator. 

“Enough.” Valena orders. 

John pulls Botch’s arm away from around his shoulder while you grab William’s forearm. You’ll drag him away if need be. 

“So, group hug?” Botch snickers, grin smoothed out at the ends, missing its usual sharp edge. “Maybe go around the circle and say our favorite thing about each other?” 

You turn to Valena, choosing to let Botch wear himself out. “We’ll set those bombs and be back quick. Wait for us,” you say, getting a nod from her. 

William shrugs in surrender, which is the final confirmation Valena needs to drop her hand from your shoulder. You roll the sore limb out, turning to push William forward. 

“Wait! Everyone put your hands in and on three, yell: ‘best team ever!’ Alright? One, two...”

You walk faster. 

“Be smart,” Valena calls out. “Watch your back.”

…

You take her advice to heart. The millisecond you’re triple sure you’re out of earshot and none of the group decided to follow behind, you pull out the GDA earpiece from your pocket. You spend an extra second making sure neither you or William’s mics are on as well. 

“What’s that?” William questions, but by the shaky excitement in his voice, he’s already guessed right. His hands find your shoulders and push playfully, rough enough that you have to swat him off. 

“What’s that?” he repeats giddily, while you roll the earpiece in your hand, checking for damage that’s not there.

“I got it off a GDA member,” you start, grinning at him. “If this works, you’re paying for Friday night movie takeout for a month. No, three months.” 

He pushes you again, reaching for it. “Hurry up and try it already!” 

You place it into your ear, and when it doesn’t automatically turn on, you tap the sides. Then two times. Three. There’s no voice on the other end—not even static in your ear. Still, you explain your situation in as few words as possible into the earpiece, leaving you and William’s names. You repeat it three times before looking into William’s grim face.

“Uh. I don’t think it’s working…” You lower the earpiece, turning your backpack around to stuff it in a side pocket. 

William’s face scrunches up. “You jinxed us!”

“Whatcha got there?” Chuck cuts in. 

“We’re not ditching!” William automatically declares, even though there’s no way Chuck can hear it without you pressing the buttons on the side of the walkie-talkie. 

“Shit. Don’t say anything. I’ll handle it.” You try to subtly scan for cameras as you continue jogging, unsure how good of a look Chuck got at the device. Good look or not, better safe than sorry. 

“It’s the GDA’s. Wanted to see if we could figure out what’s happening on their side,” you explain, keeping your voice level. The best lies are fifty percent truth, or so you hope. 

“Damn. Too bad it didn’t work, then. Turn here,” Chuck exhales, sounding genuinely bummed out.

You wait for the mandatory grilling to poke holes in your story. It’s obvious the two of you only decided to use the device now rather than with the rest of the group. 

“How are you two fellas feeling?” 

A glance is thrown to William, who just squints, waiting for the other shoe to drop. You don’t know where Chuck is going with this. 

“Nervous,” you reply, sticking with the honest route. 

“That’s normal. You two are doing great out there.”

“Uh, thanks?” 

Right. You forgot normal people still exist. You’ve already adapted to dealing with the others to the point that everyday small talk feels like mental warfare. Talking with Chuck might just be a nice change of pace.  

“Feel free to chat, there’s no groups around.” There’s a pause where you can hear him typing away on a keyboard, “Valena throws a fit when I use the channel too much, but she’s not here.” 

You consider his invitation to talk, tossing around in your head ways engaging with him could end up screwing you over. None of the situations you think up seem realistic, so you decide to humor him a little. 

“Go down this next street and by the corner store go right.” 

“Alright. What are you up to?” you ask conversationally, throwing the ball in Chuck’s court. Beside you, William raises a brow, and you shrug. 

“Just checking all the cameras on this next street. There’s a jewelry shop that’s been completely wiped clean. I wonder if I could check the storage system for who— ” 

You realize now why Valena limited his talk time on the channel. The walkie-talkie gets morphed into a no-add-break podcast for the rest of the jog over, with a handful of directions tossed in for variety. 

You learn a good amount about Chuck during that time—details on his monitor setup, how he renovated his basement three summers ago to fit all the screens in for his personalized man cave, and his hobby of ‘off-the-street vigilantism’ as he calls it. It’s good to know he’s not using his access to street cameras for nefarious reasons, you guess. 

The most interesting tidbit is how Botch accidentally stumbled onto his channel on day two, kickstarting this whole team-up in the first place. Chuck helped him round up the other five criminals stalking the nearby streets to start hunting down Not-Invincibles. He switches to the next topic too seamlessly for you to ask for more details. 

“The skyline at night in Seattle at a table in 2120. A Miller Lite on the side—sharp left here—wow. Just wow. Would blow anyone away.” 

You hum in response 

“Ooo, crap. Last street with feed options. You’re going dark soon.” 

“Thanks for the warning, Chuck.” 

The destruction on the street goes from the frontlines of a newspaper to just straight-up nuclear fallout. There isn't one part of any still-standing structure without cracks or scorch marks. The plaza itself used to be a flat area speckled with trees; now it looks like the inside of a fireplace– bumpy with rubble and covered in a layer of ash. 

“Don’t forget, even if I can’t see, I’m still here to help. Let me know what I can do for you two, got it?” Chuck’s voice breaks your gawking.  

“Got it. How’s the others doing?” you mutter, still half-distracted by the plaza burning down.  

“They’re good. The GDA idiots are off track a bit, but other than that, nothing’s changed over there that I can see.” 

You stuff the walkie-talkie in your back pocket, done with it for now, and start forward, avoiding the few fires still raging near the plaza’s edge. Valena’s note is safe in your pocket, and you pull it out to check the drop off spots. 

“I’m just pointing it out real quick. But if Valena chose the bomb spots and was already here and has powers, she should've been picked to do this. Not us.” William kicks at a crumbling pile of rubble, flinging it every which way. 

“No shit,” you say, squinting down at Valena’s chicken scratch handwriting. “But it's better for all our strong members to stay on the Not-Invincible in case the—” 

“Veil,” William cuts in.  

“Sure. In case the GDA team goes down. She needs to be there, I guess.” 

“Wow. Their collective dicks are so far up your ass right now,” he snorts, pushing at your back. “Gonna fold their laundry next? Massage their feet?” he pitches his voice to match yours, “Statistically speaking, I have the best folding prowess in the group, so doing laundry is a task I–”

“Dude, shut up.” You turn back to grab his arm and drag him forwards, laughing as his legs kick air. You fall with him when he snags your forearm, but you make sure to use him as a cushion as you land. 

“Like,” he's cut off with an ‘umph’ as you try to push him further into the ground, displacing ash with his head. “Like, way to be a team player.”  

His sharp, bony elbows hit your ribs, and he snakes his way behind you. You two wrestle in the ash and dirt long enough that your better judgment slaps you upside the head. Hard. The reason you're out here and the stakes you're playing with settle heavy on your shoulders.

“Wait! Off! Off!” You jerk frantically to escape his chokehold and scramble to your feet, patting at your backpack to make sure it’s still there. 

“Dude. We have crazy illegal bombs on us. We’re going against a suped-up serial killer that’s coming where we are. Right now. At this very moment.”

William sobers up quick, pushing at your shins as he stands to his feet as well. “Right…Stop messing around.”

Fighting off the wave of childishness that screams at you for a round two is difficult, but not impossible. The walkie-talkie finds itself in your hand again. 

“Chuck, we still good?”

“Good’s not the word I’d use. They’re off track three blocks in the wrong direction and the final GDA soldier just died. Useless like usual. Time’s not going to be a problem for either of you at the moment. Is everything okay over there? ”

That was quick. There goes your last shot at talking to a GDA member. 

“All good over here.” Your lips purse. “William just shit on himself a little, so it's taking more time than we–”

“Hey! Give me that,” William shrieks in mortification, snatching the device from you. 

“What?” Chuck asks.

While William unconvincingly overexplains himself to Chuck, you hand him his half of Valena’s note.

“Meet back up here. You take Chuck.”

He tries to grab for your hand. “More splitting up, seriously?”

You don't bother fighting him on it, instead running off to look for the upside-down stop sign used as a visual marker for where your first bomb should go. 

Your drop off spots make a semicircle around the plaza, each one placed about two hundred or so meters apart. After dropping off the second bomb—and testing if it really can stick to anything—you’re able to gauge the distance well enough to guess where the next spot will be. The note helps double-check, and then you’re back waiting for William.

William appears about five minutes later, giving you a thumbs up. You tap once on your comms.

“Bombs are set.” 

“Copy,” John replies. 

William gets the honor of telling the good news to Chuck, who cheers, getting about three times as excited as either of you did. Once he’s done, William stares down at the walkie-talkie, expression conflicted.  

“Alright, let's go,” you say, patting him on the back. 

William tugs on the end of your jacket as you move past him. You’re on edge the moment you see his set jaw and straight back—you know an argument brewing when you see it. 

“I know it's dumb, but I want to go back.”

At your puzzled expression, he continues before you can ask him what he’s even talking about. 

“To the team, I mean. We can't do much, but maybe we can be lookouts? Find a way to help? Veil seriously needs to die, like bad— you should've seen what he was doing to those bystanders. And I think the team’s going to need all the help they can get,” His voice starts off strong, but as he goes on, it loses strength and gains speed, going squeaky. “I've thought about it some to convince you, first–” 

You put your palm up to stop him. “...I thought we were already going back,” you admit sheepishly, never once having considered that William might’ve had different plans. 

Sure, you would’ve split off for a bit to talk to someone from the GDA, but you would’ve found your way back to the group. Getting rid of even one evil Mark Grayson while you can is just thinking ahead. If Veil stays in the city, there's a good chance you’ll run into him later if he doesn’t die now. 

William gapes at you like you just stumbled your way out of a UFO. “You want to go back?” he spits out in disbelief, going red in the face. “You bipolar asshole! What happened to not taking any risks?”

“There’s no way to not take risks out here. It’s just a matter of taking ones that might keep us alive. I’ve put some thought into it, too,” you say, throwing both hands up to stop his rant from ramping up. “If we stick with the group, we can have them chaperone us to Mark’s place. And we’re a team, kinda. Enough so that I don’t want to bail the moment they trusted us to leave and come back.” 

“Okay. So we agree?”  

You nod

“Then I guess let’s go back,” he pauses, glancing at the city hall’s frame groaning under the top story's weight. “But if it gets real crazy, let’s just run.” 

You nod again.

“By the way, can I have the electrical tape from your bag? I remember seeing it,” you ask, holding your hand out.  

…

The way back is longer than the way over. As warned by Chuck, the Not-Invincible—now named Veil by William—has been able to push the heroes wherever he wants them. You ask over the comms halfway there if the two of you should head back for the bombs and set up shop somewhere else, but John says to leave it. 

You're asked to meet up by the back dumpster of a massive luxury hotel that houses La Cuisson, a three Michelin star restaurant Eve talked fondly of in the past. Being a hero really has its perks, like not getting serious FOMO. You’d like to be invited for a free tasting.

Jealousy aside, you did appreciate Eve trying to recreate the dishes with her ability the moment you expressed any interest in the food. The result tasted like a science experiment—not that you're complaining, that's essentially what it was. Hard to recreate a taste you've tried once by mixing and mashing atom particles.

Eve ended up more disappointed than you after giving it a test bite. So, to cheer her up, you searched around for a simple enough dupe recipe on the internet, manually cooked it, and the two of you ruined that one as well. By the end of the hangout, she was in a good mood, more than satisfied with trying and failing with you, so it was easier to stomach the dish.

While you wait out by La Cuisson's rotting trash, you come to terms with the fact that this may be the only time you get to even touch the building. 

You wish Eve were here. 

John ascends down soon enough, grabbing up William and you and flying up to the rooftop, seventy floors above ground level. 

Up top, the luxury in luxury hotel is proven with loads and loads of cash. The roof has been converted into a bougie relaxation area, with an infinity pool on one end, a winding lazy river, a massive bar, and rows upon rows of beach seats and umbrellas cemented into the concrete. 

John moves past to stand with the rest of the group on the opposite end of the roof, where Valena has pulled away the safety fence over the railing. 

They silently watch the fight below, faces impassive with the exception of Botch. You make it to the edge just in time to watch Veil try to kill one of the heroes with a twenty-foot flag pole, swatting at them and missing. 

From so high up, it’s hard to make him out, but you're able to notice some differences between his suit and the others’. His has an interesting amount of yellow, which is cut apart by the light blue covering his underarms and sides. His mask is the most unique bit, draping down his face rather than fitting against it.  

Botch gives you a huff of acknowledgment as you stand beside him. “You guys came back, huh?” he hums, tapping a hand against the railing. 

“Who else is going to be stupid enough to run the rest of your bombs?” you kid, keeping yourself slightly off the railing in fear it’ll give out. 

Botch doesn’t respond, readjusting his duffle bag in silence. His good mood from earlier has been dosed, evidenced by his downturned lips and the ticked-off furrow that sits between his drawn brows. He scoffs when the pole finally lands on target, slamming the armored hero into the asphalt. 

“This is what we’re left with, huh? Invincible and Adam Eve go AWOL two days in and then we’re stuck with these half-rates.” He taps his cigarette to his lips, chewing the end in irritation. 

You and William both swing your attention over to him. “What?”

Botch isn’t put off by the distress in your tones, mistaking it for worry any civilian would have for their heroes. “You hadn’t heard? Those assholes took the apocalypse equivalent of a sabbatical.” He sighs raggedly, back slouching as he settles his weight on the railing. “Guardians of the Globe fell off the face of the planet, too. Just thinking about it pisses me off.”

Eve getting taken off the field doesn’t bode well. Bleeding hearts like her don’t just walk away from the action willingly. Mark doesn’t seem the type to either. The silver lining is, from the way Botch is talking, it sounds like they disappeared rather than died.

Them staying alive is all that matters to you. 

Armadillo guy catches the end of the flagpole once it’s swung down to hit him again. He throws his weight into it, bracing his legs. Veil heaves once, and the hero goes flinging into his teammate, who casts a shield spell to keep from going splat against his back. 

You have to admit, the wizard outfit looks pretty tacky from up here.  

“Do you know them?” you ask, unfamiliar with the heroes. 

“Mandillo and Spellex. Support heroes the GDA throws in whenever their main guys need someone else to sponge up damage. Not local but they were at the Flaxen invasion one or two years back.” 

Leave it to Botch to know what’s what about the hero world. You think you can assign each hero their chosen name without checking with him, not that it’s an impressive feat. It must be mandatory to have an obvious hero name, even if it sounds stupid. 

Spellex takes one second too long to cast a backup defense spell—a copy of the white hazy shield he did just before. The slip up gives Veil the chance to grab Mandillo around the neck. The hero is quick to protect the vulnerable area, thrusting an arm up to wack the variant upside the head. Veil catches it, wrapping his arms and legs around the limb before squeezing like a boa constrictor.

Mandillo’s screams make it up all seventy stories as Veil shatters the armor around his arms, plunging the shell into the flesh and bone underneath. You try not to flinch as his mangled arm swings about, gushing blood. 

You lean forward, brows furrowing. “We should help them out.” 

Valena sends a glance your way as Botch’s frown deepens. 

“How about fuck no. Just hold still and watch,” Botch huffs, digging into his jacket and pulling out a cigarette. “Here. Take this and be quiet.” 

You swat the cigarette out of your face, a frown of your own pulling down your expression. No matter how little help you’d be able to contribute to the group, you don’t like feeling like a dog Botch is tasked to watch. You especially don’t like him trying to shut you up with a treat.  

William doesn’t like what he sees either, walking closer to you.  

“You have a sniper gun. What, you just lug it around for nothing? Can’t shoot?” William adds in, puffing up at the dry look John gives him.  

“It’s not a snipe, dumbass,” Botch asserts, rising to William’s gall. “It’s short range only. Fifteen yards minimum for decent aim. The extender is to stabilize the core’s energy for concentrated blasts only.”  

Before William can continue, you cut in to keep the debate a debate, rather than an argument full of name-calling and yelling. “It's better to do a one versus seven, realistically five, than a three on one.” 

You glance back down to the fight, where Spellex has placed a circle of shields around his duo. Mandillo stands beside him, trying to shake the shock off while clutching at his mutilated arm. Veil beats heavily on the outside, voice loud enough you can catch the tail end of his taunt.

“—yeah? Get out here you pussies!” 

You look back to Botch, who's glaring at you for pressing him. It doesn’t deter you. 

“If the heroes play defense, Botch shoots, and John and Valena go offense, our odds would be good. Wouldn’t take long to get Veil to the plaza. Maybe even kill him here.” 

Valena listens silently as you speak, never interrupting, but her strict expression doesn’t soften. “You aren't here to suggest strategies,” she says, arms crossed over her chest.

“We wait here until the GDA team dies, then we move in. That has always been the plan,” John adds, inserting himself into the conversation. 

You grit your teeth, unsatisfied with the plan—not just because it’s a total dick move to the heroes, leaving them out to dry like that. But, because teaming up and jumping the Not-Invincible makes the most sense. This ‘wait around and fight only when there’s no other option’ strat is just ridiculous. 

“That doesn’t make sense,” you push stubbornly, not done with the argument.  

“Carcano,” John says warningly, turning to face the group. 

“Don’t ’Carcano’ them! They’re right!” William announces, hand settling on your back.  

The shield shatters under the barrage of fists, and Veil shoots through the remnants of the spell, snaking around Mandillo to grip Spellex’s face in his hand. The wizard hero’s head pops like a grape between Veil’s fingers, splattering the ground in brain matter and blood. 

William makes a disgusted sound, holding back a gag. “Look, you just wasted a good chance! Now one’s dead!” he hisses, pointing down at the scene below. 

Mandillo dodges the next attack, kicking Veil into the adjacent building. It’s a momentary break as the Not-Invincible flies right out of the rubble, laughing as Mandillo takes a flurry of punches to the stomach. 

No one on the roof even lifts a finger.  

When Veil’s able to pull half the armored shell off Mandillo’s back, you throw your backpack down and start reaching for the battery and speaker. Botch’s hand grabs your wrist, stopping you. You shake it off with a glare, and he grabs your shoulder and pushes.  

“Hey!” William hollers, eyes tracking you as your back hits the floor.

Botch stands over your bag, lips pulled back in frustration. “You want to know why the other three team members died?” he asks rhetorically as you peel yourself off the mosaic decorations spotting the roof. “Because they didn’t listen to orders. Because they rushed in without thinking. If the asshole wasn’t already so hurt, Valena wouldn't have been able to kill him before the rest of us all died.”

“But-”

“No. Some of us actually want to survive this bullshit. Have things to get back to. Stop trying so hard to get yourself and the rest of us killed,” he pushes on, temper flaring at the mulish set to your jaw.  

Pissed, you push up to your feet before stopping. Botch’s duffle bag hangs from his shoulder, catching your eye. A thought worms its way into your head.

If the bomb plan was tested, and the other half of the team died to a Not-Invincible by rushing in, how come Valena’s the one who gave the finishing blow? Either the bombs never went off, they did, and the blast didn’t kill him, or there were no bombs in the first place. 

Whichever way, it bodes badly for you. 

Botch takes your silence as surrender and settles back on his heels, chewing at the end of his cigarette. He’s not one to lose it on those he works with—usually that’s reserved for his idiot customers. 

He kicks the bag towards you, speaker and battery still inside. It’s the closest to an apology he’s capable of giving right now.

“You’ll get your chance to use it. Just not now,” he assures, voice clipped. 

Your eyes don’t even glance towards your bag as you stew in thought. William comes up behind you, hands settling on your arms. It breaks you out of your thoughts.

“So they jumped in early, died, and the bombs went off when exactly?” you ask, voice charged with skepticism. 

Botch’s head tilts, not following the line of questioning until your eyes skim over his bag again.

“How many bombs did you have when you first started?”

His jaw ticks, mouth opening, but you steamroll right over whatever bullshit is about to come out of his mouth. 

“You only have one set of bombs. There was only ever one set of bombs.” You tilt your head to his bag. “There’s no more in the duffle, is there?”

He said it himself that it took six of them to take out the Not-Invincible, never once referring to any explosives. He said the bombs could level a street, maybe even half a block. 

Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybe. 

“Alright. Stop,” John orders, staring at Botch rather than you. “The number of bombs in our possession does not change anything. We have enough explosives to take out this target. Next time, we will utilize a different method.” 

“What about the first time?” you push. 

“There were complications,” John settles on.

You sneer at his easy dismissal of the main problem—everything has changed! The very foundation of this plan is bullshit. They straight up lied about it or, at the very least, left out vital information. That may as well be lying by default. The bomb plan isn’t a tested and proven method for killing a Not-Invincible. It’s guesswork.

William reads between the lines, coming to his own conclusions. Somehow, he gets even angrier than you.  

“Did you even actually kill one?” William sputters. 

Botch and Valena visibly bristle, and John puts a hand up, stopping the fight before it can begin. 

“Yes. We did.” 

It happened late yesterday evening, only hours after Chuck helped Botch round the group up. The six criminals were volatile, unstable as a group, with Valena and John being the only two with agreeable enough personalities to work in a team setting. Even then, there were multiple spitting fits and short-lived fights. The looming threat of Not-Invincibles and the chance to kill a couple were the glue that kept them together. 

Botch came up with the bomb plan, having just enough on him after a clientele showing to guarantee death to any variant they might come across. John suggested using a GDA team as a buffer, and Botch had agreed on the condition that John pick up a package from one of his storage facilities. 

Once Botch had a weapon capable of shutting up the assholes he was running with, he got straight into ordering them around. 

Half the group had been adamant that they set the bombs on top of the GDA team and the variant, regardless of the civilian casualties, property damage, and the loss of fighters capable of taking out Not-Invincibles in the future. 

Valena had been aloof until it was suggested, where she then beat the ever living shit out of one of them for even considering destroying a heavily civilian populated part of the city. Botch aligned himself with her at once, irritated that the others were so willing to fuck up his city. 

After a democratic vote where Botch had to pull the trigger twice on his gun, it was decided they’d wait until the GDA pushed the Not-Invincible into a too-far-gone area. Valena set the bombs while John babysat the others. 

The GDA team was more put together, with a solid set of heroes, a team of soldiers, and a young hero tagging along. Botch had found the inspiration for the newbie’s hero persona distasteful—who let him take on the mantle of Omni-man of all heroes? But he’d admit it, the purple kid had some serious moves.   

The variant the GDA was dealing with was cocky but tough enough to back it up, sporting a blue cap over his head that connected down to his suit. No matter how tough, he was outnumbered and getting herded straight towards the nest of explosives. 

For the sake of keeping competent fighters, John volunteered himself to warn the heroes to leave at the last second before Botch would detonate.  

From there, once the plan was set in stone, it was only a matter of waiting. The idiots they were working with couldn’t even do that right. While sticking to the sides of the fight, some of their team got impatient, jumping the gun and rushing in when the GDA group was handling it just fine.   

The heroes were surprised by them dropping in, assuming it was an ambush. Like children, the criminals took the attacks personally and it became a three-way fight that the Not-Invincible took full advantage of. Botch, Valena, and John were forced to join to hopefully even the odds, but it was an uncontrollable bloodbath. By the time both sides realized they had a common enemy, the strongest on the field from the GDA’s side were headless. 

The fight only worsened from there. In the end only the hero kid, Botch, John, and Valena had walked away, with the youngest of them fully unconscious and sporting some serious injuries. John had dropped him off with the nearest group of GDA soldiers and called it a day. 

None of the bombs had been detonated. 

None of the surviving members had thought explaining what had happened to you or William was necessary—one of them still didn’t.

John explains the story in simple terms, bypassing any information he doesn’t find relevant. He doesn’t speak of the young hero, doesn’t give you the chance to put the pieces together that Mark has a little brother. Like usual, you’re left in the dark by happenstance.  

What he does do is hammer down the fact that jumping in early had been a mistake, one none of them should repeat here. 

“This time, we don’t take any chances. We don’t act without thought. We don’t fight the target until the GDA fails.” He looks at both of you. “Do you understand?” 

William glances away and grimaces—a bratty yes, but one nonetheless. 

“It doesn’t feel right,” you urge, one last ditch push at possibly saving the man fighting for both his life and the city’s by himself. 

“It doesn’t have to.” 

John turns back to the fight, ending the conversation. 

William mutters profanities under his breath, staying away from the edge, unwilling to watch what comes next. You walk to your bag, picking it up to inspect the battery and speaker inside. Botch scoots over so you have room by the railing and, against all odds, doesn’t crack any jokes to make you feel worse. 

Everyone stands in charged silence as the fight continues. You don’t take your eyes off of it, thinking that at the very least, one civilian should watch. Mandillo doesn’t last much longer alone, his injuries being too extensive to continue fighting with. 

In your peripherals, the rest of the team taps at the side of their earpiece three times as Mandillo is brought to his knees. You do the same. 

“You two should leave,” John suggests, not unkindly. 

Veil’s hand swings to the side like a blade, decapitating the hero. Before his head can hit the floor, Valena’s off the roof and on top of Veil, slamming his face into the concrete.  

John’s not far behind, holding Botch and letting him off at the outskirts of the fight. Not wasting a second, John rushes in, kicking Veil into the sky. You and William drop to your stomachs as he’s tossed higher than the roof, aware he’ll gut both of you like a fish if he notices two civilians hanging about. 

“You guys think you’re tough shit, huh?” he hollers, stopping midair before shooting back down to the street. “No one tapped you in!” His speed shatters the glass on the side of the building in a loud show of strength.  

“Change of plans. We move him towards the location and finish the job. I will stay when the bombs are detonated to keep him in the blast radius,” John orders, avoiding Veil’s fist as he meets the ground. 

“Don’t tell me you're the sacrificial type? ” Botch replies, sliding behind a flipped car. He leans the gun against the hood and takes aim.

“No. I’m the only one here fast enough to escape the blast.” 

Watching from up top gives you the rare opportunity to see the full playing field, and with how fast everyone is moving, you’ll need it. 

Rapidly, you come to the conclusion that the people you just spent ten minutes arguing with could’ve dropped you in a second for mouthing off at them. Valena hits Veil hard enough that the shockwave picks you up off your feet. When he retaliates, his punches slip off her, and any skin on her that meets resistance glows a soft blue. There are no signs of damage at all. 

When Botch said his teammates had high durability, you didn’t imagine something like this. 

John swoops down like a hawk, turning his body into a missile by gaining speed. Valena moves away just at the perfect moment, letting Veil take the hit by himself. When he digs himself out of the rubble, Botch proves himself a perfect shot, blasting him in the head. 

Veil drops to his knees, electricity jumping across his skin. He shakes it off just as Valena’s back on top of him. Veil takes two more shots from Botch before he decides to ignore the other two and focus on him specifically. The gun’s short range proves to be a large disadvantage. After Botch loses two hiding spots in a row, you decide it’s about time to do something rather than just sit and watch—or leave. But William hasn’t suggested following John’s advice, so you stay. Beating back your bad nerves, you grab up the noisemaker pieces.

Botch slides behind a slab of concrete stabbed into the ground while Veil and John go rolling around on the floor. Veil elbows him in the face and dodges Valena’s kick before shooting towards Botch’s hiding spot, fists outstretched. 

Thrusting your arms out over the railing to hopefully boost its effects by even an extra inch of proximity, you connect the battery and speaker, letting the wires spark. 

The screech from the speaker is louder than you remember, making you wish you had free hands to cover your ears. Veil drops to the floor in front of the concrete slab and holds his hands firmly against his ears. 

His head swivels, facing towards you as he grounds his forehead into the asphalt. There’s a short pause and then he’s moving in your direction, ire obvious in the hard lines of his body. 

As you turn on your heels, heart in your throat, Valena intercepts him. 

“Go! Go! Go!” You push at William’s shoulder and start running over the decorated roof, dodging umbrellas and vaulting over the sea of beach chairs. 

“Warn me next time!” William yells, running at your side, nearly missing a jump and tumbling into the lazy river. 

Sweat beads at your neck, making the fabric of your jacket stick uncomfortably. Of course Veil would be able to move with the speaker on. He’d already killed a team of Reanimen; what’s one more? 

The two of you hit the staircase, bolting down the first twenty or so flights of stairs before stopping at floor forty-seven, huffing and puffing. William slides down the wall in a heap, arms falling to the side. 

“Can we just—”

“Yeah. Let’s take the elevator,” you wheeze, fighting the stitch in your side. The two of you shuffle your way to the elevator and hit the ground floor button. 

William spams the close button, and both of you pray to any gods listening for the elevator to make it—just long enough for the two of you to escape. That’s it. 

You both stand in silence as the elevator music plays softly in the background, the floor numbers slowly flashing across the top of the door. William taps his foot on the ground while you try to place where you’ve heard the song before.  

With a ding, the doors open, and you sprint out into the lobby. Just as you clear the revolving door, Valena's tossed right between you and William, taking out a quarter of the support beams on the first floor. 

You cut right and don’t notice William running in the opposite direction. 

“How many times do I have to tell you to get out of my way?” Veil grunts, grappling with John. 

They nearly swipe you off your feet as they pass, throwing up debris and dust. Running for cover, you hide behind the front half of a moving van. When you’re able to catch your breath, your eyes settle back on your Reanimen parts. 

You put them together and Veils' resulting scream of pain makes your heart thump quick in your throat—he’s way too close. Curling in on yourself, you try to determine if you should leave or not. When the sound of bullet spray hits your ears, you lean out, catching William holding one of the GDA’s rifles. 

Veils grunting and groaning gets too close to your hiding spot, so you disconnect the battery and bolt out from behind the moving van. 

“Come fight me!” he yells, shoving the van thirty feet away. 

You don’t plan on doing that. 

Then starts the most terrifying touch and go game of your whole life. You go classic and try a stop and run tactic, using the speaker for intervals of thirty or so seconds before deciding if you should move or not. 

Veil’s fighting a much larger group, one that walked into this fight with a plan. He won’t get anywhere with both the noisemaker and Botch’s gun in use, but getting rid of both won’t be easy. He’s forced to decide between countering Valena’s punches if hunting you down or Botch first would be better. It’s a hard choice to make considering both are equally big thorns in his side and neither is staying in one place for long. 

A concentrated blast of energy hits him in the chest, knocking the breath out of him and giving Valena a chance to hit him upside the jaw. 

Veil’s decision is made. 

When John gets too close, Veil pretends he doesn’t see him before twisting away from Valena at the last second and whacking her with John. 

The variant bounces on his feet, adrenaline coursing through his chest when they both fling back, crashing into the concrete. He forgoes a follow-up attack, swats the bullet spray hitting him, and cuts away to where he saw the cover the green-haired dickhead squirreled away in.

Not much of a man if he won’t get out here and fight him one-on-one. 

“Stop running like losers and get out here!” he roars, eyes moving past the guy with the gun to chase after Botch, who sprints out from his cover. 

To give him some extra time, you use the speaker. William tries his best to add his support as well, but it feels like more of a courtesy than anything. 

The GDA bullets barely even tickle, so William’s on the same level as a fly on the wall. Still, the categorization means more than just William’s the safest on the field at the moment—Veil saw him and didn’t say anything. 

No asking why a variant of his best friend is here. 

No professing his love for William and alluding to his messy romance with him back in his universe.

No recognition at all.

It absolutely obliterates your William-shaped contingency plan. 

William sprays bullets like he has infinite ammo, missing the majority of his shots. When Valena reappears, giving you the opportunity to, you're moving away from where Veil and her take turns throwing punches. You slide into a gap between two crumbling walls when a stray bullet hits too close to your head. 

“Learn to shoot, Bowie,” you crow into the earpiece, heart thumping wildly as you worm your way deeper into the gap. 

There’s static on the comms before William’s voice can be heard. 

“Can someone tell Cockano that if they don’t like my shooting, then they should do it themselves?” The sound of magazine dumping filters through the earpiece. “Oh, wait. They can’t.” 

“The comms aren’t for playing,” Valena cuts in, shaking her head after a nasty uppercut from Veil.

“Where did you jackasses even come from?” Veil grunts, irritation bubbling in his chest as his attacks bounce off Valena's skin. “I don’t recognize any of yo—”

The speaker blaring cuts him off, throwing off his sense of balance and making his limbs feel lead-heavy. He groans in pain, spotting where your backpack peeks out from behind a wall. Your only warning is the whizzing sound of something big being thrown in your direction. You dash out from the gap just in time to avoid the car Veil lobbed at you.  

“Stay still!” he orders as the metal crunches against the concrete.  

You're scanning for another hidey-hole when Botch sees you. 

“Carcano! Get your ass over here!” he yells, close enough that his voice isn’t only in your ears. 

You follow his voice, sprinting over to where he’s been staked out for the past five or so minutes. When you try to peek over the cusp of the debris, he pushes you down before taking another shot.  

When it hits, John grips the back of Veil’s head and slams it straight into Valena’s waiting fist. With his joints locked up, all Veil can do is take it. They toss him in a random direction, which turns out to be ten feet away from where you and Botch hide.

“Get up. We gotta move soon,” Botch orders, grabbing you by the arm and pulling you up to your feet. 

From behind, Veil pushes himself up by his forearms, spotting the two of you retreating. He blocks a kick from Valena and then grips her leg, throwing her into John. Veil’s mask flutters from the movement as he sinks his feet into the ground, readying to lunge. 

As soon as he kicks off, Botch swings the gun around and pulls the trigger. Sparks fly and Veil doesn’t go down. 

“Shit.” Botch fumbles the gun as it spasms, and in pure fear, you grab him by the front of his jacket and drop like a brick. 

You and Botch fall into a pile as Veil flies over, momentarily confused when he hits nothing. Before he can turn around, you work the speaker and push Botch before sprinting off in the opposite direction. 

Veil covers his ears, foaming at the mouth to get at you. Ignoring Botch, Veil starts chasing you in a frenzy, more than ready to pull your spine from your back if he catches up. Botch slides into an overturned taxi and fiddles with the gun while Veil gets ever closer to you.

Without any nearby spots to hide in, not that it would save you, you continue running until Viel and John go tumbling over you in the air. The ends of Veil’s fingers skim the back of your jacket as he’s tackled, fingers nearly hooking the neckline. You keep your hands around the speaker, not disconnecting the pieces for fear it’ll get you killed. 

You’d be right. 

William tries to give suppressive fire, but it just feels like he’s shooting directly at you. A few spray by your feet and you cut right, ears ringing from the mix of noise. 

“Botch, fix it faster!” you scream in terror as Veil gets back on your tail. 

“Stop running so I can kill you!” Veil orders, trying to kick Velena off his leg.

“I’m trying! I’m a seller, not a tinkerer.” Botch slaps at the side of the gun, checking the energy stabilizer connected to the battery. It’s overworked and smoking—a bad combo. “The stabilizer is for a vat tank, not a gun.” 

You have no clue what that means, or how that could change how long it takes to fix, so you don’t respond, high-tailing towards a flashy overturned jeep. Valena takes a kick to the face, and a distinct crunch sounds under Veil’s boots. John swoops down before he can deliver a second blow, bringing the variant up high into the air. 

“I saw where you scurried off to down there,” Veil taunts, boxing with John twenty feet up in the sky. 

You pray he’s bluffing as you slip further under the jeep. 

Valena snaps her nose back in place before jumping up and grabbing Veil’s ankle. She swings him into the ground, but he counters, using her face as a buffer as they land. 

Deep under the jeep, enough sweat collects on your hands that the wire keeps slipping between your fingers, turning the speaker off. You wipe your hands frantically on your pants just as your cover, weighing at least four thousand pounds, is lifted up. 

Holding up the weight with one arm is Veil, his chest heaving in anticipation. John flies from across the battlefield, and the variant throws the Jeep into him before closing in on you. With both Valena and John occupied, shaking off his attacks, you're out of backup. 

“Caught you, you stupid little fucker.” 

“Botch! Botch! Fucking fix it!” you yell into the comms, trying to kick back to gain room. The hard earned distance is useless, and in a blink, Veil’s got you around the shoulders, dropping a punishing knee down onto your stomach to keep you in place. 

Close enough to see your reflection in his goggles, for a heartbeat, you expect him to recognize you—spare you. It’s a naive, nauseatingly optimistic thought to have. He’s staring into your face, not to look at you, but to watch the fearful glimmer in your eyes flicker out the second he rips your arms from your body. He wants you dumb from pain and then dead. 

“Not so fucking tough now, huh?” 

The sadistic pleasure in his voice makes your spine straighten in terror as his fingers grip down on your shoulders hard enough to make your bones ache. 

“Mark!” 

Veil pauses, hands falling still at William’s scream. You freeze as well, horrified that the situation has fallen so far out of control William’s outing his connection to Invincible.

Above you, Veil scans the battlefield briefly before a dry laugh vibrates from his chest. It morphs into genuine laughter, one that makes sweat slide down your face. 

“Ah, I forgot. I guess the me from here doesn’t take his secret identity very serious—” 

Before he can finish the thought, the speaker screams, and he drops your arms to cover his ears. From the flinch in his muscles, he’s surprised. You are, too. Glancing down, you realize you’d mindlessly placed the speaker’s wires to the battery. 

Ears covered to the best of his ability, Veil sloppily lifts up his leg to squash you like a bug. A flash of electricity zaps him in the back before he can kick, and he shudders, falling heavily on top of you. His loose limbs prove to be dangerous when they jerk about, cracking the ground where his fists hit. You squirm beneath him, struggling under his weight as he tries to force his uncontrollable hands into grabbing at you. 

“Get-get over here!” he grits out between clenched teeth as you avoid his hands, pushing the front half of your body from beneath him. 

A hand drags you out from under him completely, connected to a sweaty Botch who gives you a cocky grin when he aims the gun at Veil’s head and pulls the trigger. 

“It's shoddy, but it’ll hold,” he says, motioning for you to follow him. “And after this, you can explain to me how the hell Bowie knows Invincible's secret identity.” 

“Wait, you knew it?” you sputter, put off by his nonchalance. 

A corner of his grin hikes, and he shoots you a short glance as the two of you run for cover. “Now I do. Seems you do too. Wanna give me Mark’s last name?” 

You huff, splitting off from him as Valena grabs Veil by the neck and tosses him a street over, where he bounces off the concrete and slams into an empty bus. John’s on him before he can get up.   

You follow behind with Botch and William as the team pushes Veil back street by street, stopping every so often when he decides he’s tired of being thrown around. He never attempts to run, which only works further in the team's favor. 

“Two more blocks,” William says, repeating what Chuck’s told him. He’s long since run out of ammunition, hiding towards the outskirts of the fight. 

The news seems to bolster the collective group. John’s speed picks up, the man appearing behind Veil and kicking him into Valena, who uppercuts him so hard a few teeth sling out onto the sidewalk. 

At this point, Veils too torn up to escape the two, focused solely on defense. He sneaks in a few nasty hits when he can, but he doesn’t have nearly as much room to fight back. You leave the speaker blaring, and as a result, Veil gets sloppy from the ringing in his head. Regardless of the pain, his injuries, or his ever-growing exhaustion, Veil’s guard doesn’t drop. 

The more the odds stack against him, the more he starts talking—taunting, really. You’d think he was the one winning based on how he’s talking.

“Keep punching and I might start to feel it.” The variant dashes back, trying to gain room, but John’s on him, blocking his escape from the woman’s fists. “In ten years.” 

The gap he’s been waiting for finally shows itself, and Veil drops his guard to slap Valena into the building behind you. 

“I barely tapped her!” he laughs, kicking off from John as the man swings at him.  

Valena digs herself out by the time you get to where she punched through the side of the building. The close proximity lets you get a better look at that soft blue glow building up over her body. It shakes as she moves—a trick of the light, you hope. 

“Valena. You good?”

You’ve never been one to place hope over what’s right in front of your face. She’s on the downhill slide, and you need to know how much further she has until she hits rock bottom. 

Valena shrugs off the debris on her shoulders, fists clenching at her sides. At your worried expression, she gives a short nod as she passes before dragging Veil off John by the back of his suit. She must know her own limits well enough, as she doesn’t falter as she fights, easily falling back into her and John’s tempo. 

Veil proves himself to be better at taking a hit than throwing one. No matter how long the fight stretches, how many shots Botch hits him with, or how many times he’s pummeled by Valena and John, he gets back up. You’d be impressed if it wasn’t downright terrifying. 

“You’re punches are getting,” Veil’s cut off with a hiss of pain as Valena gut punches him, but he tightens his guard to avoid a follow-up. “—weaker.” 

“Carcano. Bowie. Leave the area,” Valena orders over the comms, trying to break Veil’s arms. 

Botch lowers his gun, eyebrows sky-high on his forehead. “Wow! Wow. Calm down. Carcano’s gotta stay,” Botch replies, following the fight closely for another chance to shoot Veil dead on. 

“You as well, Botch. Hand over the gun, John and I will handle the rest,” Valena continues, ignoring him. “Prepare to use the detonator.” 

“I’ll stay!” you argue, hands gripped around the blaring speaker. “At least until we hit the plaza.”  

“No. Leave the noisemaker, Carcano.” 

Botch catches the chance to pull the trigger when Valena dodges a quick strike from the variant, leaving Veil open, fist outstretched. The shot domes him, and he tries to drop into a ball so none of his vitals are easy to hit. It’s a desperate move, one that Botch’s predatory gaze sinks into. 

“Fuck the bomb plan. Let’s just kill him here!” Botch yells as Veil slides to his knees, body jerking uncontrollably.  

“Copy,” John says, wishing to end the fight as soon as possible. 

“Fine.” Valena’s foot clips the side of Veil’s jaw, knocking his head back. 

Like some kind of cockroach out of hell, Veil doesn’t stay down for long. He punches and kicks and bites, growling out insults and trying to rip the scalps off whoever gets near. Like a cornered beast, he won’t stop until he’s dead. 

No matter how vicious he is, how durable, he’s steadily losing. Losing strength, losing energy, losing the fight.

“I’m going to make sure you die slow,” Veil grounds out around the blood pooling in his mouth as John drives his fist into Veil’s face again and again. Valena holds him in a chokehold, her ability protecting her body from collapsing under his flailing fists.  

Blood soaks the front of Veil’s suit, flowing all the way down past his waist and then some. You wonder just how much more blood he has to lose until there’s more blood outside his body than inside. You're afraid even then, he won’t die. 

By the time Veil’s string of profanities and taunts has morphed into wordless, wet grunts, you hear a sharp whistling sound. You make confused but brief eye contact with William across the way before you pinpoint the direction of the noise. 

It’s coming from above. 

Eyes to the sky, you squint when the clouds above the block split, thinning out before a rush of air hits you.  

There’s no chance to brace before something drops in like a nuke. You blink, and your feet are over your head like the floor and sky swapped places. Thrown back, your tight grip around the battery and speaker drops. They disappear in the wave of dust and debris, falling somewhere out of sight. 

Over the ringing in your ears, there’s a bone-chilling fit of shrieking, nearly deafening, coming from the center of the crater. It crackles and jumps but doesn’t stop, just a steady stream of agony that raises the hair on your arms. 

The dust settles and you see him—a humanoid figure, standing upright but leaning over in a fenty fold, limbs shaking like they've been injected with pure electricity. 

You nearly pass out from the cold wave of dread that passes over you, curdling your stomach. It’s a Not-Invincible. Another one. One you would’ve definitely remembered if you'd seen a video of him online before. 

He’s memorable. That’s the nicest way you can put it. 

What you really think is that he looks like a rat left to drown in a boiling pot of water, dragged out once its fur disintegrates and its skin peels off like a coat. The pink creature beneath being pitiful but wholly unnerving—alien, even if you recognize what it once was. Except, the half-dead thing in front of you could kill you twenty times over with the tip of his pinky finger. 

You get up slowly, carefully, quietly—every animal instinct in you begging for you to avoid the thing in front of you at all costs. Forcing your eyes away becomes impossible, even with the knowledge that having the speaker and battery on you would drastically up your shot at survival. 

Before, it felt like you were fighting a super villain. Now, you feel like you dropped into a trashy horror flick, one with some disgusting, unkillable, eldritch abomination stalking around. 

The Not-Invincible stumbles forward, nearly tumbling over his feet as they tremble beneath his weight. The right side of his pale goggles is fused into a mass of boils, digging into the seared meat of his face. It barely protects the bulging eye underneath, which rolls frantically back and forth in his head. 

His facial features have been burned flat, his other eye gone completely. The empty socket drips flesh, white bone jutting out where fire ate away skin, muscle, and fat. Nothing but scraps of his suit survived, all of which have sealed themselves to the pink tissue of his torso and limbs. 

You can barely believe it yourself, but even under the mess of dead tissue, scorch marks, and peeling skin, you recognize Mark. 

The shrieks taper off into a rolling groan, then to a whistle of pain between loose teeth. 

“Rex. I’m gonna-gonna…”  His head swivels around, twitching like he can’t keep his head straight. “Rex! I’ll fucking kill you! I’ll kill you!” 

A fist slams into the side of his face, shooting him deeper into the crater. Earth and concrete alike crack under the pressure. Valena looks like an angel from above as she pummels him down, white hair glimmering in the sunlight, jaw set tight. 

The spell breaks, and you turn, desperate to find the noisemaker parts. 

“A second one? You gotta be shitting me! They’re multiplying!” Botch hisses, already behind cover as he tries to scan for the rest of the team. “Is anyone dead?” 

“I’m alive,” you whisper into the comm, sighing in relief when William does the same 

Your good luck continues as the speaker essentially finds you, as it lies fifteen feet back behind you in plain view. Its reinforced metal kept it from suffering a scratch—thank you, GDA.  

That’s where your luck runs out. 

The battery is nowhere to be found. 

Valena’s fists get three more solid hits in before Veil appears seemingly out of nowhere, bashing her aside with his clasped together hands. She goes spinning into John, who can’t stop her momentum from flinging them both away. 

Standing over the variant, Veil watches as the duo topples a stack of back-to-back buildings like dominoes. 

“Nice assist,” Veil coughs, his hand reaching underneath his fabric mask to wipe the blood from his broken nose. “But I was handling it.” 

He bends over to look at the new guy, eyes squinting in thought. Turning his head slightly to the right to get a better look, he’s unable to recognize what version of him this is. Hard to tell under all the gunk and gross. Not to mention the guy’s essentially butt ass naked, not that there’s anything left to gawk at. 

“Wow. You look like you got put through a blender.” Veil whistles, “Your skins’ slopping right off.” 

“Rex!” The other Not-Invincible grabs his shoulders, head slamming into his chin.  

Veil shoves him away, following it up with a nasty uppercut that sends the other bouncing off the pavement. “Not Rex, you charred asshole!” 

A single shot sends Veil to his hands and knees. Following the direction it came from, you spot Botch behind a concrete barrier. John flies back in, picking Veil up and slamming into the ground while he’s down. 

“Ha! Charred might be my favorite Invincible,” Botch chortles. “Do we have to kill him?” He spots you digging around in the rubble for the battery, and his expression sours. 

“Carcano! Get your ass moving!” 

You don’t bother waving him off, too busy tossing up chunks of loose concrete. The part should be around here. It has to be. 

“Can’t. The battery’s missing!” 

He’s behind you in a heartbeat, dragging you up by your backpack. Your hands reach out to shovel more concrete, but he’s adamant, tugging harder. 

“Forget about it. Stop standing around before you get turned into roadkill!”  

You're pushed in the opposite direction of the fight as Botch circles the edges. He ducks behind cover just as John is tackled by a screeching Charred. 

Adrenaline has your heart and lungs working overtime, your body weary from terror and nonstop stress. You ignore all of it, mind singularly fixated on the missing battery you need to have. 

Botch is wrong. There’s no forgetting about the battery in a fight that desperately needs better odds. You have one job—that’s it. 

Find that stupid battery. 

You scan the ground for it as the fight rages on, Veil and Charred forming an unlikely duo in the face of the others’ attacks. As you scurry across the battlefield, avoiding certain death by the two variants circling in a whirlwind of punches and kicks, you realize that the more you look, the less it feels like you’re going to find the battery. 

The stress mounts, and mounts, and mounts. You can visualize the odds of winning, of your team’s survival, plummeting as John and Valena’s pained grunts filter through the comms. 

“William. William, please help me find the battery,” you beg into the comms, not caring for the secrecy of nicknames anymore. “I can’t find it!” 

“I’ve been looking!” William responds breathlessly, running in your peripherals. 

Veil lobs a car at Botch between trading blows with Valena, who’s started to slow down. Each hit starts to sound like glass getting smacked, and the glow from her skin shimmers and shakes.  

Botch avoids where Charred and John grapple on the floor. He dodges two more thrown cars while trying to aim and trips, rolling into rubble. 

“Can someone kill this fucker already?” Botch yells, holding his ribs as he pushes himself up to his feet.  

Your raw hands throw up more concrete, scraping away at the skin of your fingertips. There’s no light from the core, just more concrete, rubble, and trash. Your mind plays an endless loop of—find the battery—over and over and over. Botch serves as another person on the field you have to avoid catching the attention of. As you continue digging, you keep him in sight. 

Botch takes aim, following where Veil and Valena fight. Wind distills after each blow, making it harder for him to line up his shot. He shoots prematurely and it misses Veil, shooting off to the right. 

Veil backhands Valena, sinking his feet deep into the concrete before kicking off towards where the electricity came from. Botch grits his teeth and levels the gun as Veil flies at him, muzzle centered on his head. 

He squeezes the trigger. 

The gun sparks.  

“Fu— ” 

Veil’s arm spears through Botch’s head, hand cleanly piercing through the back side and spraying blood and brain matter on the asphalt. His body jerks once, then slackens, sliding off Veils’s arm when he flicks it to the side. Landing in a heap of loose limbs, Botch lies still by his gun. It jolts and shakes, electricity jumping around the base.

“Finally. He was getting annoying,” Veil sighs, flinging the blood off his arm. He lifts up his foot to finish off the gun, the final lifeline your group still has.   

“You devil!” Valena roars, hand gripping around his head and thrusting it into the pavement. As she moves forward, the ground splits where Veil’s head is raked through. 

The concrete in your hands drops. 

The sprint to Botch’s side is done in mind-numbing shock, your legs like jelly beneath you. You flip him to his back, somehow surprised by his caved-in skull even though you watched as it happened. 

“Botch. Hey, Botch.” You fist the collar of his bomber jacket, jostling him. A mix of gore sloshes out from the movement, and you set him down gently, hands trembling. 

“Botch.” 

You almost expect him to shake the damage off, turn over, and make some stupid remark about letting an Invincible ripoff take him out, or blame the gun on him messing up. Maybe he would shit talk you for losing the battery.

At the very least, he’d say or do something that wouldn’t lighten the mood exactly, but make it feel like you’re both in on some big joke the universe keeps telling. 

Botch doesn’t do any of that, because corpses don’t do much of anything. 

“What the hell?” you mutter, because what the hell? That’s all it took? A second? One slip up? 

In disbelief, you drag everything out from his jacket pockets into yours. You recognize some of it, his cigarettes mostly, but the most important thing is the bomb detonator. 

You pick up his gun next, throwing the strap over your shoulder. Leaving his body is the next step, but a hard one to follow through with. You don’t want to leave him alone without his gun. 

You have to remind yourself that he won’t need it to get yourself up on your feet.

Valena says something you can’t hear over the blood rushing in your ears. You twist your head back and forth like you can shake off the shock, trying to keep yourself present. 

Botch is dead.

Taking one last glance at him to try to memorize him, then scraping what you saw because Botch wouldn’t want to be remembered as anything but his best, you head for a spot hidden from the fight still raging around you. You reason that if you survive this, you’ll let the shock fester into grief, but not yet. 

Not when there are two Not-Invincibles roaming the street and a team relying on you. 

You hunker down away from the fight, eyes raking over the gun like you can fix it by staring at it long enough. All you have on you is Andy’s multitool since Botch left his duffle bag on the hotel’s roof, and you hadn’t thought to grab it. 

You check the controller thingy on the side that you think Botch had said was originally for some kind of vat. It hangs loosely from where it was once connected to the core of the gun, which spits sparks. 

It’s probably important if Botch had it on there, but you pry it off with Andy’s tool regardless—it’s not going to reconnect to the battery, not with your available tools. The sparks stop, but the gun doesn’t turn back on when the attachment is taken off. You mess with the gun more, trying everything you can think of. 

At some point, while you’re trying to reboot the gun like an old iPhone, William slides in beside you, clammy hands patting at the sides of your face when you don’t respond to his voice. 

“Hey. Hey.” His worried expression is all you see when he drags your face to look at his. “We should go. You got Botch’s stuff, right? I’ll give it to John.” 

“William.” You push him away softly, struggling to keep above the shock trying to pull you under. “Did you find the battery?” 

He swallows, shaking his head weakly in a no. You nod, taking in a short shuddering breath. 

“Okay.”

You turn the gun to the side and bash your hand into the base just like you saw Botch do before. William flinches back before trying to pull your hand away. The gun whirrs back on after three more violent hits, all of which are hard earned with William trying to hold you down. There’s no celebration when the gun turns on. 

You stand back up, throwing the strap of the gun over your shoulder as William tries in vain to get your full attention. 

“I’m going to meet up with the others. Valena and John can’t both fight and shoot at the same time. Someone else needs to do it,” you reason, voice far away from whatever pit you’re in. “You got to go. I’ll meet up with you later.” 

William’s hand clenches, and his fingers dig painfully around your arm. “Look at me.” 

You don’t, keeping your eyes towards the direction the fight had disappeared to. “—or you can stay here and search for the battery.” 

He shakes your arm roughly, and your eyes snap up to his, looking through him. 

“Hey. Do me a favor and shut the fuck up,” he says, face pale but expression flat—clear eyes trained on yours. “You’re freaking out. I can tell.” 

His assessment topples whatever feeble foundation you were balancing yourself on. Your body breaks out into shakes, teeth rattling against each other in your mouth. 

“Holy shit, William. I’m freaking the fuck out,” you admit, hands coming up to grip his shoulders. 

“Yeah. Yeah. Me too.” His other hand finds your shoulder, and you both hold onto each other, both shaking in terror. 

Under the terror, deep, deep under it, something else sits stirring. Both you and William feel it. 

“What do you want to do?” he asks, that characteristic bravery of his flashing across his face. 

You sit on the question, mulling over your answer. One keeps bobbing to the surface. Insistent. Unignorable. 

“I want to go help them,” you admit, softly— stupidly. 

“Me too.” 

You bob your head, running your hand along the side of the gun. Before self-preservation can rear its head, you start moving. “Alright. Let’s go.” 

His breath shakes, but there’s a grin on William’s face—small but there. “This is crazy. We’re totally gonna die.” 

A grin breaks out on your face, as weak as his and just as genuine. 

“Totally.”

…

It’s times like these you recognize that Valena and John are veterans at what they do, how fighting comes just as easily as strategy, even in the face of impossible odds. You understand it as soon as you enter the plaza where they brawl with the two Not-Invincibles. They’d been tossing them, baiting them, trying every other strategy under the sun to lure them here—and it worked.

The urge to win while you're ahead strikes you. A suicidal, cowardly option—hit the button now and kill the Not-Invincibles, at the expense of you and everyone else’s lives. 

With William beside you, it’s not an option. It could’ve been, which makes dread settle like a solid weight on your chest. 

Two blocks back, you’d argued with him about one of you staying and looking for the battery. He agreed, on the condition that you were the one to stay and search. 

You would have to be brain-dead to send a friend into a fight like that with a defective gun. There’s a higher chance of it killing him than anyone he’s pointing it at. So, because of William’s stubborn ass, you’re forced into letting him tag along, right into the biggest shitshow you’ve ever been a part of. 

You find good cover immediately, knowing that the element of surprise is the only edge you have at the moment. 

The fight’s a brawl to the death, with both sides throwing everything they have left in them into each punch. Charred’s screaming his head off fighting Valena, blabbering nonsense while he swipes at her. 

Your attention zones in on the piece of shit John’s grappling with. The variant’s blood drenched mask sways as he dodges John’s elbows; the glimpses you catch of his lips moving tell you he’s still feeling talkative. You hope to end that soon. 

A block of cracked ground, tilted up from a previous fall from one of the fighters, hides you as the gun is readied and carefully aimed. The first two shots swing wide. You kiss your teeth and block out William backseat-shooting beside you. 

You follow Veil with the gun’s muzzle, trying to readjust the gun based on the first few shots. Then the next. The fifth shot slams into his chest, missing John by half a foot. John, having heard Botch’s comm line go off, buries the urge to glance behind him. He doesn’t waste the opportunity given to him, slamming down into Veil. 

“I told you to leave,” he grunts, confirming with a glance who’s toting Botch’s gun. 

Your heart is too far up your throat to respond, so you let your actions speak for your level of resolve, shooting a second time. 

No speaker means no second means of protection, which makes moving hiding spots a top priority. You dash out from behind the concrete block, regardless of your fear. William has enough sense to stick to your back like a burr, keeping out of the way of the gun as the two of you break into a dead sprint. 

You find Charred on top of Valena, trying to put his hands in her mouth to rip her face open. With his back turned to you, there’s a clear target to hit. You aim and pull the trigger. 

He howls, rolling so hard against the ground it shreds the muscle off his back in sheets. Deep in a manic, pain-fueled fit there’s no escape from, he claws at Valena, desperate to pull her apart. She pummels him until he recovers enough to even the fight out, chasing her across the battlefield. They move fast, fast enough that you have to ditch the hiding spot for a clean shot. 

Another shot, and those terrible sparks start, spewing from the battery and sending your heart into overdrive. Dread fuels your hand as you smack the side, a jolt of electricity zapping out from between the metal sheets on the gun's surface. It hits your earpiece, and the grunts from Valena and the echoing slams of fists meeting flesh go silent in your ear. 

“Shit.” 

You’re pushed off your feet from behind, knowing only William could’ve been the one to do it. Halfway to the ground, your gaze goes up to witness a fist swing through the empty space where you just were. 

Veil’s fist makes a cracking sound as it hits nothing, throwing wind that ruffles your clothes and burns your eyes. 

“Stop dodging. I was just gonna give ya’ a love tap,” Veil sneers, reaching down as you scramble to aim the gun. 

Your finger wavers over the trigger when the heat radiating off the gun registers. The hesitation would’ve been the death of you if not for Valena tossing Charred at Veil. He goes flying, throwing up his guard at the last second when Charred’s flat hand drops down like an executioner's blade. 

Nothing but Viltrumite instinct and pain guides Charred’s fists; his conscious self melted right out of him, leaving only bits and pieces of what he was before. 

Before, he wasn’t much more than a psychotic, homicidal maniac with enough power in his veins to thoroughly indulge in his sadistic nature. He falls back onto that nature now, focused solely on pulling apart the two-legged blob in front of him, unseeing and uncaring of who it could possibly be. 

There’s only one man he hopes it is. 

William tries to scramble towards you, but John snatches him out of the way as Valena charges into the fray. They disappear to the side, thankfully away from where the Not-Invincibles tussle. Charred gets the upper hand, hammering his elbow into the other variant’s jaw.  

Veil retaliates, throwing his fist into Charred's face and then pinning him to the floor with his weight. “What did I say about hitting me?” he questions, punctuating each word with a slew of punches.

“R-Rex,” the other snarls. 

“No!” Veil yells in exasperation, grounding the other’s head into the pavement. “How many times do I have to remind you—”

Valena lands on both of them, digging them deeper into the ground. Charred tosses his double off of him, shooting towards Valena, who doesn’t dodge fast enough to avoid his swinging arm. It lands, splintering Valena’s odd glow and ripping through her shoulder in a cutting motion. 

Ignoring the heat under your hands, you pull the trigger as Valena’s arm goes flying. It lands right at your feet and hardens, going rigid as if rigor mortis set in the moment it separated from her torso. The glow minimizes into shining iridescent lines that spiderweb over the appendage. 

Your knee-jerk reaction is to shoot again, before regretting the choice as the gun keeps getting hotter under your hands. There’s too much stress building up inside the gun, the vat tank stabilizer being just as important as you first suspected. You can’t afford to let it distract you from following the fight, so you slide behind cover and scan the damage Valena’s taken. 

From her shoulder, instead of blood gushing out, a chalky substance flakes out, falling at her feet. You don’t know if that’s better than blood or not. You suspect she’s dying, regardless of how different it looks. 

Even one armed, she holds her own against the two while you go between shooting the two Not-Invincibles. Having one unstoppable asshole to deal with is better than two. By the fifth shot, the muzzle stays red hot, and the gun sears your hands as you clutch at it. You pull the sleeves of your jacket over your hands for an extra layer of protection, but it doesn’t do much. 

You risk another shot without any other options to fall back on. A slight glow spills from between the metal plates, and the faint buzzing sound of the core amps up to your growing horror. You swallow dryly, the pain in your hands falling to the wayside in favor of worrying over how much longer the gun will last. 

You wait for John, then hope he stays away if he still has William. 

Valena’s hits grow weaker, slower, as the two variants grow more frenzied, seeing the strength drain from her. Her joints seem to lock up, the glow of her skin beginning to match the one on her discarded arm. 

You grit your teeth, aim, and shoot the gun again. It hits Veil, but Charred’s not put off by the other variant falling over. He rushes Valena, bloodthirsty and desperate for relief—any relief. If he could tear her apart, feel blood coat his front, the pain might dull, if only for a second under the burst of euphoria he’d get. 

Valena tries to move back, to escape his outstretched hands, but her joints have stiffened to the degree her movements are severely impaired. She’s not fast enough, and Charred grabs her by the neck when her single arm falls rigid at her side, unable to bat him away. Ever the fighter, she lashes out with her teeth when her body fails her. She bites through the mess of flesh that once used to be Charred face, and he howls, tossing her away. 

His hysterical strength sends her bashing through the side of the remains of the city hall. She smacks into a support beam and bounces off, crashing into the pavement. Face down, she tries to force her head up, digging her chin into the ground.  

While the Not-Invincibles are distracted, you scamper towards city hall, holding back from calling out for Valena. 

Charred limps around in circles, clutching at the front of his head. Veil stops shaking on the ground from your last shot and tries to get at you, so you’re forced to hit him with another blast. The gun is so hot you drop it, letting it hang loosely over your shoulder. As it bounces against your chest, you curl in on yourself, the heat from the gun sinking past your layers of clothes. 

You're close enough to see the furrow between Valena’s brows when the harrowing scream of metal tearing makes you skid to a stop. The top part of City Hall cracks loose, dropping like an avalanche and collapsing the leftover support beams. Valena’s at the bottom of it all, unable to drag herself to her knees. 

One second she’s gritting her teeth and trying to push up, and the next there’s only rubble. 

“Valena!” you choke, throwing a hand up to protect your face as dust and debris fling out from the collapse. 

In the resulting silence, Veil’s wheezing laugh as he peels himself off the ground rings out. “That’s what she gets,” he snorts. “Her age must've caught up with her. Died from arthritis. Ha!” 

You’re without cover, standing in clear view in front of the leveled city hall. Charred shakes his head like a dog, singular eye landing on you where his single goggle lens has cracked and fallen to the ground. You suck in a breath, hands trembling, hatred rolling around with the dread in your stomach. You take aim.

Veil stops his laughing fit and rolls out his neck, pointing a warning finger at you. “You pull that trigger again and I’ll break all your fingers before I kill you.” 

You pull the trigger, hissing in pain when your hand stays on the gun for more than a second. It feels like you're pressing your hand flat on a skillet. 

“Motherfuc— ” Veil falls back into a shaking fit. 

Charred rushes over him towards you while you try to get a handle on the hot gun. A blue and red blur grabs Charred off his feet when he’s close enough to swipe at you. John, your saving grace, rakes the variant across the ground, landing on top of him and raining down punches. 

You take the opportunity to find a hiding spot, avoiding where Veil’s trying to get back up. His head follows you as you pass, eyes tracking your movements behind his goggles. When the effects of the gun wear off, he shoots after you, but is intercepted by John. Veil throws up his guard, and you get a peek at his wide grin when his mask flutters to the side. 

“After this, when I get my universes, I’m going to find all of you in each one and kill you again,” Veil grounds out, ducking under one of John’s swings.

“You talk too much,” John states, throwing his knee up into Veil’s guard. 

Hidden behind some rubble, you fan off the gun with your hands, trying to blow air into the core while John fights the two variants. They’re at a stalemate for now, but you know deep down it won’t be long until the scales tip in the variants’ favor. 

“C’mon,” you whisper, fanning off the gun harder. It’s not working. At all. 

“C’mon.” 

Nothing you’re doing is helping—not helping John, not helping the gun, not helping you. The gun’s too hot to hold at this point, hanging by the strap. The light spilling out the side and ever-growing trembling from it spells it out for you. 

Any more shots, one more pull of the trigger, and the gun’s done. If breaking it was the worst that could happen, you’d shoot until it dies, but you have a sneaking feeling this thing's going to explode.  

One more shot, and you’re done. 

You look to the gun, the fight, and then to your palms, where the top layer of skin is developing into a first-degree burn. You stare at John, how he’s focused on protecting his head and avoiding death blows. 

Both of you stare into the face of death, but you turn away first, leaving John as he fights against the Not-Invincibles. It’s easy to get away—laughably easy, especially with the variants’ attention focused elsewhere. 

Every step you take, you push harder, sprinting faster, gaining more and more distance. At the back of your mind, you try to remember what route you took, what turns to hit. 

You get to your destination with your heart in your throat, your lungs empty, and your brain categorizing every single thing that could go wrong in alphabetical order. If you had time, you could figure out examples from ‘A’ through ‘Z’, but you definitely don’t have spare time. 

Botch’s body lies in the distance, just as you’d left it. It watches over as you kick rubble, searching through the blood coated street. The search goes on longer than you’d have liked, until you’re rechecking spots you’d already gone through before in desperation. 

You find it five feet off from where the speaker was, hidden under a layer of concrete and metal. Black ash sticks to its metal coating, hiding its glow. 

The battery was five feet off from the speaker. 

Just five feet. 

You crawl off to the side and puke your guts up, dry heaving when your stomach empties. You beat back the horror, the utter unfairness of the situation, and dig through your bag before popping four or five mints in your mouth. It goes without saying, you should have looked harder earlier, sure, but you didn’t. 

There’s no going back now. 

The battery is wiped clean and stuffed away in your bag beside the speaker. You recheck your laces, readjust your bag, and leave for the battle on fast feet. 

The fight has worsened in your absence, with Veil pummeling John into the ground while Charred rolls around in the dirt, clawing at his own chest and back. He screams his head off, one foot in the grave with the second on the way. Still, he makes time to quit his self-mutilation to latch onto the other two when they get too close. 

The gun’s damn near burning a hole in the side of your jacket where it hangs. You let it fall to the floor alongside the battery and speaker, rolling the battery away when small zaps of electricity try to hit the core. The electrical tape comes out next, and you take an extra second peeling up the edge.

“You’re a sad, weak sack of shit!” Veil barks, trying to ring John’s neck. 

“Rex —” Charred snarls, chewing through his own tongue. 

You wipe your hands off and grab the wire. By now, you know the drill and connect it from the speaker to the battery, gritting your teeth at the noise. 

However loud it is in your ears, it’s tenfold in the two variants’ ears. The Not-Invincibles drop like flies, confusion rising to the surface over where—and how — another noisemaker is in use. 

They spot you easily. 

You didn’t bother hiding this time, so Veil catches your figure on the edges of the fight in under a second. He cups his hands over his ears, long past tired of the rat scurrying around the battlefield, making fighting more tedious than fun. 

While Veil’s daydreaming about crushing your head between his fingers, John grabs him while he’s distracted. Throwing an elbow into Veil’s already broken nose, John pulls him up by his hair. The Not-Invincible snarls at the pain and nearly trips when Charred latches onto his ankle.

“Goddamn ankle biter!” Veil screams, trying to shake him off, protect his ears, and avoid John’s follow-up backhand. 

It hits him dead on. 

You tug on the straps of your backpack, grounding yourself under its weight. The electrical tape William handed over earlier is put to good use. 

Before, it was going to be used at the plaza to tape the battery and speaker together so the heroes had an easier time leaving. Now, it serves a similar purpose, taping the noisemaker pieces together. You take it a step further and strap the connected pieces to the gun, making the tape go round and round until everything is stuck together. 

The concoction of unstable devices sounds like a jackhammer as you pick it up, jumping erratically in your hands. The heat blisters, but unless it blows your hands clean off, you’re grabbing it. 

You break out into a full sprint where the three men fight, hissing in pain at your hands steaming. When you’re close enough to properly aim, you wrench your arm back, suck in a sharp breath, and chuck the gun with all your might.

It goes flying, turning into a glowing mass of purple as the gun’s core overheats completely, reacting badly with the noisemaker battery. 

“John, move!” you warn, backpedaling once you realize just how close you got. 

From over his shoulder, Veil sees the weapon and, unable to think from the noise drilling into his skull, raises his hands and smacks the sides of his head. Blood spurts out both ears like a fountain. 

The noise stops, at least for him. 

The slight curl of pain in his form disappears, and he punches John off him, sending the man flying back and shooting through multiple buildings. Veil tries to escape from the heat radiating off the weapon as it falls, but the hand around his ankle stops him. Charred hangs on, mindless and angry. 

The gun’s too close. 

“—You piece of shit!” Veil growls, the whine in his voice giving away his fear, one he can’t hear with his eardrums blown out. 

Wide-eyed and with the gun nearly on top of him, Veil stabs his arm through Charred's chest and lifts him up, putting a barrier between the gun and him as the thing implodes on itself. A ring of purple shoots out, followed by an explosion that flings you back on your feet. 

You open up your eyes to spotting in your vision and a thick layer of smoke in the air. You suck in a shaky breath and turn on your stomach, coughing up a lung. Eyes burning, and ears ringing, you drag yourself to your feet. The shapes of the rubble surrounding you blur in the smoke, but you catch movement, slight but there. 

Disoriented, you stumble your way towards John, waving your hand in front of your face. The smoke clears slightly, and you feel your stomach drop to your feet. 

You freeze.

That’s not John. 

Veil’s pushed up to his hands and knees, suit burnt off his shoulders and sides. The aftereffects of the gun’s core make him twitch, electricity running along his muscles. With his muscles tensed, he looks bigger than you remember—angrier too. 

Charred lies beside him, limbs jerking like he’s in a massive seizure. He’s looking worse for wear, like a piece of roadkill that got dragged through an incinerator. The hole in his chest where Veil plunged his hand through leaks blood all over the ground, but he doesn’t die. 

“You got to be kidding me,” you whisper, arms dropping to your sides. 

They really are like cockroaches. 

Veil’s head raises, and even behind his goggles, you can tell he’s staring at you. His muscles spasm from his nervous system being overloaded, but it’s nothing compared to the loathing hatred swirling away in his chest.

“I’m going to rip you limb from limb,” he promises, voice raw. The ground cracks beneath his hands as he presses against it, pushing himself up. “You should’ve run off when you got the chance.” 

The advice punches a hysterical giggle out from you—no shit, you should’ve walked off earlier. You, out of everyone, know that best. 

This whole situation is a lost cause. There’s no noisemaker to keep them down. No GDA. No heroes. No gun. Just you. Your hand finds the detonator in your pocket, flicking the plastic shield up and hovering over. 

When your brain catches up with your body, you expect there to be some confliction, hesitation fueled by the universal fear of death, maybe, but instead your mind is oddly still. This is okay.

There’s no running now. No hiding. No other options waiting in the wings. What there is, are your dead teammates, your half-destroyed city, and your now-gone future. Every single bad thing in your life right now stems from the pack of assholes sporting the same identity as this guy. If you can’t do anything else, you can at least round up all your troubles, place them on Veil, and take it out on him. 

Despite your resolve, your hand still trembles softly as you pull out the detonator and hold it out in front of you. Veil tenses when he spots it in your hand as your thumb passes over the button, stilling over it. 

Veil sees your resolve in the way your jaw’s clenched, in your downturned brows and hateful eyes. He’s not aware of what the button’s connected to, but he’s not an idiot—he knows what a last stand looks like. 

You plan to kill both him, the half-dead asshole drooling by his feet, and yourself all in one. He should’ve ripped you apart ages ago when he had the chance. 

Catching the way your thumb dips down, he panics, more than aware he’s too far away to physically stop you in time. 

“Hey, wai— ” he shouts, reaching out for you. 

“Go fuck yourself.” 

Your thumb presses down all the way, detonation begins, and the explosives trigger in quick succession. A sea of fire explodes around you, bright enough that it hurts your eyes, searing a black splotch in your vision. You watch Veil as he tries to push up to his feet, but a body spasm sends him back to his knees. He sinks his arms and legs deep into the concrete, searching for whatever strength he has left. Charred howls beside him, just a dumb animal who has no one else to blame for how he ended up except himself. 

The heat surges in, unforgiving and hungry. You don’t close your eyes, watching Veil’s desperate fight for survival prove itself useless—useless just like he made Botch, made Valena. There’s no escape for him here. 

Heat licks at your skin just as a pair of hands pluck you from the ground, grabbing you around the middle. You're shot directly up half a mile out of the blast zone, faster than your body can take. Whiplash nearly takes your head off your shoulders, but you hold onto consciousness. 

When the wind pressure against your face settles down, you peel open your eyelids and peer up, catching a flash of a visor. 

John holds you tight against him, face impassive. Your tense body relaxes at once, going boneless in the man’s grip as he flies through the air. The heat under your legs earns the fiery hell beneath you a second look. 

Botch was one crazy ass guy, selling explosives like that. Though he wasn’t lying about the power the small bombs packed. 

The street you were just on is wiped clean off the face of the planet, the surrounding streets flooded with a wave of fire. The smoke thrown into the air from the bombs makes it impossible to see anything except the raging fire, so John makes quick work of leaving the block far behind so neither of you suffocates. 

You grip your fingers around John’s arms as the fire disappears in the distance. Your stomach rolls uncomfortably at the thought of the fate you just narrowly avoided. Now a viewer rather than a participant, you come to the conclusion that no—hell no! You are not ready to die! 

Ignoring the sacrificial bullshit temper tantrum you just threw, you try to organize your frazzled thoughts. 

William’s not with you. 

The tenseness in your form surges back, and you grip at John’s suit, pulling for his attention. “You grabbed him. I saw you grab him. William’s safe, right?” you ask, hysteria making your voice squeaky. “Bowie. Is Bowie alive?” 

“He’s fine,” John states calmly, staring ahead. “I’m taking you to him now. He won’t stop abusing the comms.” 

Under the ringing in your ears, if you listen quietly, you can hear loud chatter coming from John’s earpiece. You lean in, trying to make sense of the noise. 

“— and you better find them! Like, right now. They're dogshit at shooting, I saw it. You got to pull them out early. Knock them out or something!" 

“I’ve tried turning off the communication device to concentrate, but I can’t. I could only figure out how to turn off my microphone.”   

Your chin drops to your chest in relief. If William can bitch that loud for that long, he’s healthy— alive.  

“You fought the whole time with him in your ear?” you wonder aloud, exhaling a dry laugh at the thought. 

“Yes.” John doesn’t find the idea nearly as humorous.

“John! John! Talk to me! I heard the explosion… John! I know you can hear me. Respond!”