Chapter Text
Sunset on the horizon, wind striking his back like shards of glass after being frozen by a blizard, his face stared down the peaks of each building that rested bellow his feet as the orange/pink hue inhabiting his face like a call from the heavens in a nice summer day. Down was his mask that was held in a honest grip, to let him feel this moment face to face.
What a beautiful view, it always was like that, all of it one day made his senses above skin level, and another air shrouded him, not one of linger intesity and frightining inducing redundancy, but of increables authors of that cared him to do great lenghts of actions. And once all of this sensorial despositions got into his core It made his heart throb faster, each hair of his body tingled in fear, excitment, chills and a pit down on his stomach that made every single moment envolving this as surreal as waking up in a diffrent world, even after the 100th time it was amazing.
Now, as a reminecent of a great era, everthing felt dull, hollow, missing the point and sometimes he forgets the porpuse. Flying became as sallow as diving on a sea without anything to wonder, as breathing he just did it, and nothing more was there to him. He inhales in a brief moment and exhales seconds next, even if the air was rarefied his lungs were filled, reminding him who he was, who he was since he was 17.
5 years, a lifetime in It's micro scale. He had to push forward, people needed him, he needed they... He needed something so he could make up to everything else, as the matters lingered more by the shadows of meaning, hazy thoughts but it was still there.
He opens his eyes, his heart flying away from his chest, now a diffrent Mark was there, a angsty, on edge look appeared on his face with no room for weakness, and no room for regrets. He puts his cowl back on and embodied the man in the suit, as he stood up after all this time Invincible, but now he became the Destiny so they can overcome their own fates by him as the consequence for their actions.
Dive in, in a sea of unmatchable height, avoiding with a keen eye every fliying animal, plane or any entity that were in the same height as him. As he reached the city level he started patrolling, every corner, every ally way, every place that any man could fit. True location: Detroit, the place was wonderful and it was growing better throughout the years, even though there was still some parts that unfortunately had unimagineable amounts of crime, it was a place that he learned to appreciate and for that he had to keep vigilant as his patrolling was going on.
Finally he saw something, or to better put it, heard. By the Ramsen street, yells, voices of both men and women alike saying things like "leave them alone", "you're not getting away with this". He flew there so he could see, and everything was shaped as what he was expecting, a coletive group of people around a house, police officers and their cruisiers stopped by the middle of the road, reporters comenting loudly about that scene, that only sound as a hostage situation, but he had to know this condition properly before doing anything. Mark stopped by the negotiator upfront the cream colored house, the gust of wind that his sudden stop brought almost dropped every police officer caps and their eyes in that very moment landed on him.
"What is the situation?" The hero says, no emotion behind the phrase as the police officer and him exchanged eye contact for a brief moment, but mark was seemly unbothered istead of the sort of on edge look of the cop.
"Finally, thought you were in vacation." The familiarity was noticeable in his tone, Mark didn't bother acknowledge his remark, the officer sizes that atitude and decided to shrug.
"Three men and one woman around the ages of 25 and 30, heavily armored and holding two hostages inside the house, one of them is a child. We were trying to negotiate but nothing seems to get into their heads, they were only repeting, "just bring me Destiny" "only Destiny can free these people" in a certain degree i was asking myself what type of bullshit philosophical cuckoo head talking are they are trying to pass by now?" He passes by the introduction semantics.
"Than we noticed something, they were calling for you, pity to only know your true name now, i could only put myself in the short and no brainer names to call you, if we knew we could've call your attention to come earlier, and for that we also had to know if you were around, so a heads up every now and than would fit just fine if yoi wouldn't mine."
"And do your work instead?" He says while under his cowl he scoffs.
"My work? I don't see the part were i was trained to take down a lizard freak that shoots quills so big that it can be compared a whole small tree log. To be frank, for me you were only the new kid in town, just a new painted in new colors "wannabe caped crusader", just another baby omni man with their scrowls in check and big promises only to one week later the new big bad would turn you into ground beef in mere seconds, and my work would be hell again. But aparelly you're not that useless. That's a big fucking bummer for noticing only now, but for that we gotta cooperate." As he comments it sounded like he was almost nonchantly brushing off a way more difficult history, however his complaint cared a truth, he knew his place and wouldn't by pass a territory that wasn't part of his calling.
In a certain part Mark was suprised, there were few times that a lower power scale group called him out, and a organization like the police never got out of their way to do something like this.
"Do i know you?" He asks carefully.
"Well no, but i know you, and i'll give you a name and a title, we don't need a coffee stop now when there is this shit happening. Officer Harold Taylor."
Mark face softly grimaces, a foul air of a strange sensation filled his gut, that was new, but villains had ways of each day be more creative in their respective dominantors, he had to know, no time to thread carefully.
"Who are they?" Mark carefully sizes it.
"Well, there is a guy with a skimask and ripped out lab coat and a blue bullet proff vest, a all white strange jackass that has nails and barbs all around him, a woman that puts my deranged nightmares look like bunny cuddling tell tales, and a snake freak that somehow shoots quills, of what manhole he crawled out i don't know. The risk is high and they just shot one of my men, but with you... Maybe this family will have a chance."
He looks at the house again, taking in that information.
"You still didn't answer my question, who are they?"
"Like i fucking know?! For me they are both the circus and what my dog leaves on the asphalt combined, everthing i know that they don't have any register or documentation in our data, so your guess is as good as mine." He answers.
Towards the ambulance a police officer was being treated in there, a overgrown Porcupines quill buried inside the officer arm that was ebbed with blood and a darker fluid, thick as oil, but a unhuman green and yellow tone covering his lower arm, blood was oozing out as the man was in a mixture of pain and a feverish delusion, his mouth wide open as bubbling saliva, a rabid like drool was being formed there. The medics were trying their maximum to keep him grounded, no luck in that sense either. Mark acknowledged way too quickly, the air thickens and that nails with a great grudge, upsetting him in every way he could fathom; he aimed his gaze to the house once more, he felt those chills covering his body again, this time uncertain of what could happen.
"I'm going in, step back and shoot anything that goes out without me." He flew directly to the second floor window, opening a hole on the wall, seeing the kidnappers openning smiles as they held the hostages by gun and blade points.
"Finally you're here." A hiss, a snake like intonation reached his ears, a partial burned yellow snake skinned man with quills apearing from his arms and back stared at him with intese reptilian eyes, golden with tones of reddish carmin.
"I'll say only once, let them go." He stared hardly at the trio, a colder stare couldn't compete with his own at that moment.
A growl, almost canine like gutural chuckle was left from the man upfront the hero, his eyes siziling in malicious intent and something else, something bordelining amusement.
"If you're asking so nicely, i can't help myself but to agree. Yes, we don't need this mess after we got what we finally wanted to see. But you need to make a choice, Destiny."
His snake eyes kept trying to pin him down, Mark hands tensed in one fist, serrated to the point of resembling knife edges, if it wasn't for the little girl near him he would've already broke his arms off, but he needed to keep level headed now. The skimask villain tries to sneak upon him, Mark didn't even let him have the chance. He take the man by the throat and slams his head on the ground, making the female villain almost shoot a bolt at him however the lizard-looking-man stops it, the very ski mask villain shows up behind the creature seconds later, unharmed and unphased.
"We can see your senses still intact, good looks on your sense, Mr.hero." He sibyls a laugh.
The mask didn't show his suprise however somehow something beside the snake-man groans, from the shadows the man that wore nails and barbs all around his body felt shivers, shivers that phisically showed in his torture devices that were stuck on his skin, the nails moved around causing him to almost moan in excitment, exciment that only appeared after Mark shows his nervouness.
The only girl of the group chuckles, she press one of the nails more into the man, making him rolls his own eyes in excitment, his body becames rougher, like a beaten muscle he bulges out his own original figure form, the barbs that before look like a net, seemly pointless to be there, as his body grows with the pulsing they started ripping more his skin, cutting, bruising, vivid blood start puring as she presses the nail and his body grows bigger. Mark was tense and becoming more on edge, he sees the little girl crying by her mother arms.
"Now, we can see that your choices are slim here, one wrong move and these two can just become history, but you can change that, like you change many others lifes." Another hiss rowls through his forked tongue.
"Pick your choice, how ever you chooses is going to watch the other have the diffrent treatment, no deaths, no life long traumas, just right here and right now, mother or daughert." He presses one of his quils on the back of the woman that intesely cries and hugs more the little girl.
That was the final straw for the hero, his eyes are blood shot in anger and he wouldn't alow this to keep going.
"I don't wanna hear your games." As he finished his sentece he flew directly to the villain but before he could land the first punch the snake man pushed the mother directly to him, but not with a arm push, but a quil knockback. The woman cries as the black venom and blood spilled out as it hitted her, Mark eyes widen in suprise and stress.
Another demonic laugh was heard from the creature, it tsked only to implement on his sadistic humor.
"Look what you did kid, bad choices in a world of big consequences." With soft movements of his fingers he controls the flow of the venom, that made the mother curl into a ball of agonizing pain, the little girl desperate cries to her mother.
He was trying to avoid this, so much... His mind was racing, one billion thought cruised back and fourth on his mind, but everything that landed on his conciuness was to kill them all, all the villains would perish by his feet like the worms that they were! Mark couldn't think and a uncontroable force surged into him, the fibers of his body pressed in just one thing as his heels pump forward with a unreal speed, no man or viltrumite would able to capture his movement in that moment, and just like that he puts a hole on the villain head, crossing skin tissue, muscles, nerves, eyes, his skull to reach the other side with parts of his brain on his fist, still with him stuck on his arm he punched the others, back to back bodies were hitting the floor with dry thuds, the female of the group shoots him with her gun only to have her gun taken away with brute force and Mark impales her by the stomach with her very own gun. The last one to stand no longer was there, there was only him, breathing hardly as the breeze hitted him with silence and a harsher cold than before.
A yell of pain was heard, he turned only to see the mother still crying in torment as the little girl was hugging her arm, when he walks to help them he was knocked down with a quil on his spine. A intese pain travels his body like a shockwave, his toes curled and he tries to pull the thing out only to he met with a worst paralyzing pain, the iris of his eyes turned back inside his head, litters of Scorpions walked through his body and each one if them were making him prove of their poison. Each muscle, nerve, hell, even his blood was boiling with that.
"No time seems to be passed, shame on you Mark." The sybil was once again heard, the creature appears from the shadows, the hole on his head finishing regenerating.
The young man faintly could hear the villain, but only that, the mind crushing pain couldn't stop, he rolls through the floor chasing anything to stop the pain.
"How much one have to suffer just to prove himself worthy of this mantle? Your father treated you as nothing, your genes were never supposed to be the holders of peace, your father here was a mistake and you his comproved vote of that."
He was handling it, all of this... Pain, tearing him apart making his eyes stream line tears of pure hatred of himself, of everthing that was happening, all his longing, all of his expectations and wishes, everthing in ruins, the already shattered soul of the young hero falling apart by each second, and every thought on his mind that only crosed was that he was a mistake, there was no glory for something like him.
"I'll burn this city to ashes, every mother and child will only know you by the same treatment that you're having, equal like everything should be."
Mark snaps his gaze to the mother and child again, seeing their hope losing was the only fire resurged him, no... It emblazes him. He got up, even in pain, even in lost and once again his eyes were blood shot in fury and determination, the rage fills his veins and nothing seems to matter but that moment, he wasn't doing that for a duty with the people or a call of morality... No, he standing there because he was the only thing between his own expectations and meaning of porpuse, he wasn't going to lose that ever!
"You're nothing but the shadow of the minuscle ant that you forever were, Invincible." The hateful commentor spills again the acid venom, he shoots a quill towards him, and mark only dodges.
"I'm the infection of your wound, i'm the dawn of your days, i'm the flain that will torture you forever and more and the motive why you're not going to see another morning. I'm your Destiny, and nothing will stop me to happen!" He lauched again, and flys towards him and explods his upper half.
With a blink of a eyes, everything vanishes, everthing was white, a blank Canvas of nothingness but a ilusionary camp of a pointless vacum. Mark grasps and looks around in sheer suprise.
"What the fuck--"
"Hello Mark." A familar voice croses through his system, the sound of that intese intern white noise still rings his ears, but that timber petrified him in agonizing deturpation. He turned to see Cecil, in analitical eyes always so intesivily sazing everthing up, his cold gaze prowling, drinking from Mark dazed appearence.
When everthing felt down to earth Mark barely could react properly, like a puppet of his will his body moved automatically and a war cry filled the room that didn't even echooed back. Before he could land his punch the man teleported, making him look back where he was now.
"Still seeing monsters?" He mocks in a dry manner, knowing full well what happened.
Mark tries to catch him again, a dash that left only his after imagem, but no luck in that either. He growls in frustration and turned to look at him and where he headed. The older man only stares at his already breathless condition, Cecil fixes his own stance, while Mark was bent like a rabid animal aiming daggers at him.
"So that's where it all went to? You dissapier for one year, shows no sighs of explanation of how and why of this change and than a year later we found you, rampaging like a psycho while traumatizing each member of the Yamadi family to never commit a crime ever again. Everthing in a package of a new persona, a modus operadi and a path way that is competing with the conquest attack only taking away the fatal victims. If you found pleasure brutally beating these folk, even the bread smugglers with your excuse of their firecracker powers could cause a mass arson you're kidding yourself and endangering lives just because you're throwing a fit again but now you're wearing new colors."
Another intese advance Mark made, to this point Cecil was like playing with a overly excited puppy that was running imediatly to play with the ball istead of dodging a raging bull. He was in pure rage mode, and the head chef of the GDA was the very least thing he wanted to see, not after everthing he did to him.
"You're dead cecil..."
Charges again, a ram of such power landed in, and again and again until Mark fell on his knees in pure exhaustion as the older man stood unphased, the cold weathers that filled his iris engraves into Mark a sense of impotence, he breaths in linguid breaths, and even in exhaustion the hero still tries to do something to beat his frustrations at the man that challenged him standing tall and above him, unharmed after so much pain he caused into him.
"I didn't kill her."
He crys loudly and lauched himself again at him, this time he hits his head on the wall making him fall back on the groud, the older man reappeared behind him and sighs closing his eyes, getting mildly frustrated at it, he stares in pity but a almost dissapoitement at the state of desperation that Mark was.
"This is not a who needs blame who Mark. I have done things that caused countless of loses, but she went there on her own. Call me maniac, but i would not dive in head first on a pit full pointing up spears."
"Liar! You were the one that kept Conquest alive after i begged for you to burn him! He came back, you didn't do anything but to only fuck everthing once over! You Killed Eve." The tears runs down his face like cascates, his voice already hroarse
"You never let me explain what happen, you ran away with nothing but promises to kill each one of us, you never gave us the benefit of the doubt."
"Oh after all of that you want a talk now!? After you murdered hundreds of other people because of what?! What Cecil!?"
The agent winced, not backing down even with the clear witness pointing his errors, and he was very conciouness of them.
"We needed information for the next attack on earth, we thought - i thought that with him weaken we could've done something to stop the invasion... We probed his mind and found out he knew nothing, just bits and pieces that few had meaning and the others were nothing but grey thoughts, nothing. He was only send like a missile. No meaning behind it, only destruction. We couldn't do much, and i was too stubborn to believe at that, even with his mind open... I couldn't believe it. So when he caught his second wind not even the frequencies could stop him.- Those things happen because i could not believe and when everthing landed to me earth was almost leveled again... because i couldn't let go so easily."
Even behind those cold deliveried lines, the bitterness of guilty could be heard, in that strong pretender there wasn't nothingness, a flawed man was there, and for the first time in many years Mark saw his own errors through someone so diffrent but so similar to him, and he didn't wanted to give in so easily, but was hard to brush off the facts, but he tried because... He was better than him! He was...
"So... All of that just for nothing?" He acusses, he took out his cowl to show his face to him, eyes red and a pinkish hue forming down his cheek and jaw, bruised and blush both mixing together.
"It got to nothing at that moment. However when you finally killed him here on earth we were preparing his body to become a reanimen, one of my associates tried a experimental technolgy that could recreat parts of his memories by infiltrating in his late stage of conciuness. This technolgy is just too recent and not even good enough to be put together so we can hardly properly use it, more than half of it we already knew... but we could translate some frequencies of coherence. By the next year, when the galaxies of andromeda and the milky way atract themselves just a few more billion light years closer, the path way will clear and a small fleet of five ships but with all viltrumites other soldiers will arive. We don't know how many others are there."
"You're just proving that killing him was the better option." He yells at him.
"It's not that easy." He sighned, he didn't know how to explain the next parts without sounding like a strech.
"What? Killing isn't easy, isn't it your speciality?!"
"It's not only about his death... But what you two did in the middle of the battle before he got killed. You two got out of earth and landed in a unknown planet, there was a substance in this planet that was rich in nitrate and others that we are still learning about, it formed a great preservative that got stuck into his skin and stayed there, making it easier for us later to do this experiments and by consequence read his mind because that slowed his decay heavily."
All of those informations were landing like meteors on him, so many questions, none of them seemly had a answer, but each one that seemly didn't had a answer surged something totally outta a concept he expected.
"It... It's still no excuse! You guys... Could've done the same."
"Unfortunately we don't, not with Conquest, his cells are like ice, rigid on the right conditions but once it wasn't it starts falling apart, it decays faster than normal. It's like some type of unreal bio engenieering, just so nobody could replicate something like him in no shape or form."
His own mess ups, selfish decisions, so many things happen because... He also couldn't let go. He slumps his shoulders down and the ground caught his eyes, the tears couldn't stop and the sorrow never left him, only took their time to show it, and a home that was filled with anger was grown from a place of fear, of lost and of false promeses.
"I... Don't ask for your forgiveness, god only knows that hell is the only place that fits right for me, but we are trying to work things right, for better in-"
Before he finish he felt Mark's head fall upon his shoulder, the older man eyes widen in noteable suprise, his breath was cut, he still had a edge inside his inner thoughts that Nolan provoked years ago, and Mark by default was fierce, but now there wasn't no threats, no quests of revenge or cries for repent, only a broken kid that... He tore apart. After what happen to be minutes Cecil puts his hand on the back of Mark's head, a noteable exchange of understandings that not only he had to give to him but in the same way he knew both needed it.