A/N:
" " : Speech,
' ' : Thought,
"Italicized text" : Telepathy/Space Speech,
[ ]: Simulation Speech & Notifications.
From now on, I'll be referring to the aliens by their nicknames, save for the new ones Ben's gotten.
You can place your suggestions for their names in the chapter comments.
Also, I've been thinking of adding some of The Ink Tank's 5YL original aliens. Yea or nay?
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Omniscient POV
After some time, Codex came out of the R&D complex, with Invincible and the Teen Team following behind him, their faces having clear anticipation for their next stop. Eve had multiple small samples of different materials that she had never come across, or even thought of, in her hands.
When the cubes of Proto-Infinitum and Infinitum-B proved too heavy for her to carry, even after reducing their densities, smaller cubes were taken off them and given to her. She also received a small sample of the gel and its variants, as well as a small sample of unstable molecules, and some crystals from Diamondhead. She would have asked for more, if Codex hadn't made it clear that most of the samples she was interested in were dangerous to humans in close proximity, which was why, even while under display, they were put in containment.
Robot and Invincible asked for Infinitum-B, and Rex asked for the original iteration of the gel. Kate, despite her curiosity, decided to not ask for any samples of the materials, as nothing that she could use them for came to mind.
"I still can't believe that little cube was over 250 tons." Invincible said, holding his piece of Infinitum-B in his hand. "And yet it retains a tensile strength unlike anything on Earth. With such density, one would expect it to at least be somewhat brittle." Robot said, astonishment leaking into his flat tone.
"Don't worry. There's still a lot more for you guys to see. After all, that was just one of the five main sections of the place." Codex said, moving the maglev platform they were on towards the Omni-Core's agricultural complex. However, before reaching there, he called over one of his XLR8 clones, telling it to bring masks for the Invincible, Rex, Eve, and Kate.
"Why would we need masks again?" Rex asked. "You ever been to a farm, Rex?" Codex said, and Rex shook his head. "Well, regular farms stink… a lot. Even with the work that's been put into the agro complex, getting rid of the stench has proven difficult. Then again, Methanosians and Floraunas aren't known for their pleasant aroma." He said, and the clone came back, handing him four masks, which he gave to the others.
Soon, they reached the agricultural complex, and it was mainly populated by 6 of Codex's aliens. Swampfire and Wildvine were responsible for the upkeep of the plants, as well as their growth, Waterhazard and his Atlantean forms were responsible for providing water for all the ship's water needs, be they farming, plumbing, or otherwise, and some Clockwork clones that were heading to what looked like grain silos.
Mature crops were efficiently harvested and cleaned by machines clearly under Upgrade's influence, and the harvest was moved down a large conveyor belt that delivered them into boxes, which after filling, closed and shrank to the size of a sugar cube, then were placed into large carts that held hundreds, if not thousands of these cubes, which were then moved into the silos, where they dropped their payload, before exiting to return to the cycle of harvest, packaging, and storage.
"Um, what are those?" Rex asked, pointing at the shrinking boxes. "Oh, those? They're boxes we made by implementing a few bits of tech we made. The internals work with two types of spatial tech, and the shrinking is just that, shrinking tech." Codex replied, piquing Robot's interest once more. "Spatial technology?" Robot asked, and Codex nodded.
"So, creating tech that affects space is easy for you, but a cure for cancer isn't?" Rex asked. "Your understanding and my understanding of the word 'cure' seem to be very different, Rex." Codex said, noting his skepticism. "You see, when most people hear the word 'cure', what they think of is treatment. That's to say, they have the disease go, but there would be a chance for it to return later. But a cure resolves the disease permanently, making sure it can't ever return." He explained.
"With something like tech, the results you get are more conclusive, more concrete, especially when you can make accurate predictions. But biology on the other hand, especially carbon-based biology, is quite fickle, and can have vastly different reactions to the same stimuli. So no, creating an outright cure for cancer and autoimmune diseases is still taking some time. Making quick treatments, however, was pretty easy." He said, then turned away from Rex, as if saying that he didn't want to elaborate on that for the time being.
"So, have you given these plants the vaccines you made?" Kate asked. "Yeah. And since every seed in each of them is viable, the immunity that these plants have gotten will pass down to any future plants." Codex answered. "I see. So what's the place for, feeding your clones?" She asked, familiar with the travails that come with the upkeep of a large amount of clones. "Not really. While I and my clones do make stuff to help Codex be more effective as a hero, this complex is made more for the people that need it." He replied.
"It's for disaster relief." Eve said, figuring it out after a few seconds of silence amongst them. "Exactly. That, and for just giving food to people that need it. If you ask me, it's pretty fucked up that the food production around the world is easily enough to make sure that people won't starve, but the greedy, sadistic bastards in charge choose to waste food instead of feeding other people." He said, his frustrations with the state of society from his past life still being present.
For a few seconds, the air went solemn, as they all knew that what he was talking about was a very real problem that existed all over the Earth. Eve felt the most guilt, as she knew that with her abilities, making food and homes for people around the world was just a matter of going to the place and using her powers. Although she was definitely fascinated by all that she'd seen on the Omni-Core, it had begun to make her feel like she had wasted most of the time she had spent as a hero. "Who knows, maybe I might actually go ahead and make something like a soup kitchen for the world." Codex said with a shrug.
"I see. If I may ask, what are those?" Robot asked, pointing to the silos. "Those are our main storage units. As for how they work, my clones and I use an alien form of ours that can control time to temporally lock the space within them, so that way, we won't have to worry about decomposition. When we need to take anything out, we just remove the temporal lock, then put it back once we've taken out what we want to." Codex responded.
"I'm sorry… control time?!" Kate asked. "Yeah. I've got aliens that can do pretty crazy stuff. Controlling time is just one of them." Codex said, his tone remaining casual. "Wait… That's how you evacuated everyone that time you guys were facing that kaiju!" Rex said in realization. "And how I put them all back so quickly." Codex said, his answer stunning them into silence.
After thirty seconds of them walking through the outer parts of the agricultural complex, Robot finally spoke up. "How do your abilities work?" He asked, causing Codex to smile behind his mask. "You see, this is why I like talking to smart people. You ask the right questions when needed." He said, his jovial tone seemingly increasing. "What's that supposed to mean?" Rex asked, more confused than curious.
"Every time he has mentioned his abilities, he has always mentioned them as coming from one of his transformations. Yet, I have not once seen any of these transformations in the information I have gathered about him, save for his clone transforming against Mechamax earlier." Robot said, and save for Invincible – who already knew how Codex's abilities worked, everyone else's eyes widened in realization.
"That's true. Neither I nor my clones have ever transformed while saving people. And it's simply because we haven't really needed to." Codex said. "Not needed to?" Kate asked. "Yeah. But, answering Robot's question first. Look at it this way…" He said, then formed multiple spheres of water, each having different volumes. "Treat every single alien as a single sphere of water." He continued, then began pulling out smaller spheres of water from each of the spheres he had already made.
"Whenever I transform into my alien forms, I retain their abilities, but at about… let's say 20-30% of their original capacity. Some of them have weaknesses that other forms have immunities against, and a good number of them have similar abilities. Since I retain this from every single alien, it all compounds, increasing my human form's strength and versatility." He said, pooling together the smaller spheres into a separate sphere that grew progressively larger.
"So, while my human form seems like it should be weak, it's actually considerably more powerful than some of my alien forms." He said, the diameter of the sphere of water meant to signify his power in his human form now being almost two metres. "With enough training, I can increase my base capabilities, and therefore, increase my power when in any of my dozens of alien forms."
"How exactly would you train your powers? You're probably strong enough that there's nothing on Earth that can give you the strain needed for training." Invincible said. "Well, your question came at the perfect time, seeing as there really isn't much else to check out over here." Codex replied, as he started moving to exit the agricultural complex.
"Huh? But we haven't even..." Rex began, only to be interrupted by Robot. "He's right. Beyond the volume of the harvest and the technology built into the storage units, nothing here is of significant note. Anything interesting here already has its own explanation, which we should implicitly know from what he has shown us." The drone said, following Codex out of the complex.
"From the point that I understood my powers and how they worked, I always knew that increasing their potency would be an uphill battle." Codex said as they neared their next destination. "With my strength, simply finding something heavy wasn't gonna be easy, so I used the resources I had available to create something equivalent." He said as they all stopped at the entrance to the Omni-Core's training complex.
"Welcome to my training grounds." He said, and the others felt the ground beneath them ever so slightly quake. "Hmm, I guess that we're gonna have to improve the physical training area." Codex seemingly said to the air.
"Sorry about that. Please, come on in." He said, and the doors at the entrance opened up, revealing that the training complex was split into two areas: a larger, more reinforced area, that was dedicated to physical training and conditioning, and a much smaller area which was assigned to simulation training.
Codex entered the simulation room, with the others following closely behind him. The simulation room didn't seem that big, as it was just half the size of a large boardroom. Like the rest of the Omni-Core's interior, the simulation room was colored predominantly in black and green, with some white to create contrast. At the center of the room was a large table with a large screen on its face, with a single chair at its head, and a large screen on the wall behind the chair.
"This is the simulation training room. I use it to train for scenarios that could happen on Earth, in outer space, or otherwise. While I could have had my clones make it large, like the physical training area, this felt like a more efficient use of resources." Codex said, walking to the table's side. "As for how the simulation works…" He said, putting his hands on the table, activating the screen. "…, the helmet on the chair essentially works as a bridge, allowing the wearer to have their consciousness enter into the virtual world that is created for each scenario." He said, and an image of Earth was projected from a volumetric display that was built into the table.
"So, who wants to try?" Codex asked. "Wait a second. Doesn't that mean that whoever wears is basically doing a Matrix? You know, putting themselves into a simulation?" Rex asked. "Essentially, yes. The only difference is that you aren't being used as a biological battery by sentient machines." Codex responded, and Rex stepped back apprehensively, not particularly enthusiastic to have his mind be fully pulled into a virtual world.
"Why don't I check it out?" Invincible asked, his interest piqued. "Alright. Go ahead and take a seat while I set this up." Codex said. As Invincible floated to the chair, Codex set up the scenario that he would face, editing the environment, the objects, and the entities that would spawn once the simulation began.
"Okay. So, what do I do now?" Invincible asked from his sea, holding the helmet in hands. "Just wear it like you're wearing a baseball helmet. I'll take care of the rest, until you're inside." Codex instructed, and Invincible wore the helmet. "Commencing scenario in 3… 2… and 1." Codex said, and Invincible felt his consciousness drop into a plain black expanse. 'Just don't hate me for this, Mark.' Codex thought to himself, as the simulation began streaming to the screen on the wall.
[Hey. Hey, M̷̢̨͉̻͔̭͔̥̟̬̻̙̑́̀̎̂̅̀̿͒̌̏́͘̕͜ͅa̸̡̛̳͍̞͎̮͔̫̘̥͚̍̈̈̈͌̒́̀̅̔̕͘ŕ̷͕̣̝̟̜̒̽̉̎̃ķ̸̡̻̤̮̖̳̻̿̇̇̈͐̇̒͂̒̌̾̈́͗͐̕͘͜͝. Wake up.] Codex's voice came from within the simulation, with one word coming out garbled. "What was that?" Rex asked. "To protect our civilian identities, every time our identities or the identities of our loved ones are mentioned, they'll come out garbled in such a way that the sound can't be decrypted." Codex replied. [I'm waking up, already. Jeez.] Invincible said, then stopped and looked up in shock.
[Whoa. This feels… real.] Invincible said, looking at the environment – the top of the Willis Tower, with amazement. [What do you mean, 'feels real'? You passed out, and we finished the tour while you were in the med bay. I brought you up here so that no one would bother you. As for the others, they've already gone their own way.] Codex said, then patted Invincible on his back. [Come on, you can come by some other time. Just let me know first.] He said, then flew off into the horizon.
Invincible stayed on top of the Willis Tower for another minute, still trying to understand whether he was in a simulation or back on Earth. But his train of thought was quickly derailed, as the sound of a powerful explosion went off a few blocks away from his position. Shelving his thoughts on the simulation for later, he flew in the direction of the explosion, and as he got closer, the sounds of screams became louder.
Arriving on the scene, Invincible saw a large, muscular man – who he estimated was about 10 feet tall, with small bone spikes jutting out of his elbows and knuckles. The man was shirtless and had flames that were burning the left half of his torso. [You wanted a monster, Mobius!!? Fine, then! You'll get one!! This world will come to fear me!! This world will fear… Onslaught!!!] The man, now a supervillain, shouted as he tore through more civilians, quickly increasing the number of casualties.
"Onslaught, huh? Not a bad name." Rex commented off-handedly.
Invincible pushed off the air, accelerating towards Onslaught, and upon reaching the villain, threw a wild haymaker at his face. Invincible's fist slammed into the villain's face, releasing a shockwave from the collision and launching him over a hundred feet away into the wall of a commercial building, smashing concrete and mangling steel. "Ooh. I don't think that guy's getting up from that." Rex said. "It's not enough." Codex calmly said, and just a few seconds later, Onslaught stood up.
Although he was back on his feet quickly, he hadn't taken the blow unscathed, and this was clear to see, as his jaw now hung slackly, and his left cheek was torn, showing the muscle that was struggling to keep his jaw connected. However, Invincible soon noticed something that caused a slight chill to creep up his spine – Onslaught was regenerating abnormally. The parts of his torso that were ablaze earlier had healed, but were now covered with blood-red skin. And his jaw… oh his jaw…
Instead of the jawbone fusing back together and possibly regrowing normal human teeth, monstrous jagged teeth grew in place of those, and bone spikes grew over the jagged teeth, taking the place of his lips. The man that used to be before Onslaught was very quickly fading away, with the monster quickly beginning to take his place.
"So, what's this guy's deal?" Rex asked. "Onslaught here is one of my fabricated enemies – a villain that only exists in the simulation. His ability is reactive adaptation, but that adaptation's got a ceiling – one that Invincible can smash if he stops pulling his punches." Codex replied, as they watched Invincible and Onslaught go into a slugfest that was causing massive collateral damage, with buildings getting their walls smashed through, cars getting reduced to oversized grenades, and the bystanders that hadn't been able to evacuate getting hit by debris, and at times, Invincible himself, and dying as a result.
"Mark! Look around you, dumbass! Can't you see that wasting time is costing more lives?! Stop holding back and get rid of this guy!!" Codex transmitted to Invincible, who heard his voice as a thought in the back of his head. He punched Onslaught away, and for the first time since he landed his first blow on the supervillain, he looked around, and his stomach immediately doubled over.
Bloodied limbs and heads were strewn all over the street. The sensation of warm blood on his skin caused nausea to build up in him., The chunks that he could tell were torn and crushed organs littered the asphalt. The weight of what his prolonged battle with Onslaught had caused was suddenly laid heavily on his shoulders.
Invincible wanted to be a superhero, mainly to make his father proud, but he also wanted to save people. Seeing so many people die as a result of his battle caused a great shock to run through him. At this point, he couldn't tell if this was reality or a simulation anymore, but he quickly came to his own conclusion regarding Onslaught. [I'm gonna kill you!] He shouted as he pushed off the air, leaving a sonic boom, despite being less than 30ft away from Onslaught.
Onslaught, whose body had now truly become monstrous, with the bone spikes on his knuckles and elbows now enlarged, and new, similarly large bone spikes jutting out from his knees and lower jaw. Codex had created Onslaught as a heavily watered-down version of another adaptive monster with bone spikes from DC – Doomsday, and it showed. The human that was there was completely gone, with Onslaught's skin becoming entirely red, and his body now had bone spikes that were large and sharp enough to work as weapons.
As Invincible got closer, Onslaught threw out a punch to the half-Viltrumite's mid-section, catching him by surprise, as the bone spikes on his knuckles tore his suit and then his flesh, and the punch knocked him back. Apart from Codex, everyone else in the simulation room was shocked, as none of them had ever seen Invincible bleed. Sure, they had seen some attacks irritate him or knock him back, but that was it. It never got past being a nuisance that would at most, knock him back a bit, until now.
Stopping in the air, Invincible quickly put his hand on his chest, and felt his blood run over his hand. Despite the anger that he felt towards Onslaught for the number of people that he had murdered, a bit of fear began to creep in. He had been hurt, and the image of invincibility that he believed he had started to seem more like a façade. If he could be hurt, didn't that mean that… he could be killed?!
As he was stuck in his thoughts, Onslaught charged at him again and struck him, sending him flying into a man and a little girl that were trying to hide away from the tumult. The force with which he hit their bodies tore them apart, ending their lives as well. As Invincible got up, he looked at them, and saw the vestiges of fear and pain that were now permanently held on their faces.
Seeing more people die because of him caused a pit to form in his stomach. He was the one who had responded to the danger that was here, so he felt responsible for the lives of the regular people around him, and the weight of the lives that had been lost because he hadn't given his all in the battle. And after the guilt came anger, anger at himself for his complacency, and anger at Onslaught for murdering so many people.
As he turned his head up, he noticed the monstrous villain coming at him quite quickly, and that anger exploded in his chest. When Onslaught reached him and wanted to punch down at him, he was already in the motion of an uppercut with all his strength packed in his fist. The punch smashed into Onslaught's head and subsequently smashed his head, causing muscles, bone, and brain matter to fly out away from Invincible, painting the asphalt red and white as it fell.
After killing Onslaught, Invincible looked at his hands, now covered in blood, and felt lightheaded and nauseous, as tinnitus rang in his ears. He had chosen to become a superhero, but he hadn't expected that being one would mean… facing this. The bloodshed, the screams, the corpses of people who probably had great plans for their lives, or even more mundane ones, snuffed out without mercy. But as he was thinking that, a loud sound rang out.
[Scenario Complete.]
The sound caused a small jolt of awareness to return to him, and he looked around and saw everything around him dissolving into pixels. The blood, the air, the sounds, everything disappeared, leaving him in a black expanse once more, and an instant later, he felt like he was back in his body again.
The screen on the wall had already moved away from showing the events of the simulation, and was now showing a result page that graded Invincible's performance in the scenario.
[Damage to Humans: 1,747 dead, 2534 severe injuries, 723 minor injuries]
[Damages to Objects & Infrastructure: $12,345,675,982.75]
[Time taken: 16:53]
[Enemy Difficulty: B]
[Final Grade: D]
The helmet retracted, and Invincible let his head fall, his mind still being assaulted by the images of the torn corpses of the people that died as a result of Onslaught's rampage and his battle against the villain. And while those images shook him, the one thing that stayed with him was the fact that he had killed someone. He knew that Onslaught was a monster, but he also knew that that monster was once a man, and the fact that he had killed him gnawed at his heart.
Codex watched Invincible's mental break, and created a clone. "Show them to the physical training area. He and I need to talk." He instructed, and the clone nodded, then turned to the Teen Team. "Okay, people. Let's give them space and get on with the rest of the tour. Don't worry about them. They'll be fine." The clone said as it gently nudged the quartet of heroes out of the room.
The doors closed after the clone left with the Teen Team, and immediately became opaque. Combined with the room's soundproofing, the room immediately became cut off from anyone else trying to reach them from outside it. A chair popped out of the ground on the left side of the table as Codex approached Invincible, which he sat on. Codex retracted his mask and put down his hood, quietly looking his friend in the eye.
"I killed someone, Ben." Mark said, as he pulled off his own mask. "I saw." Ben said calmly. "I… I… Oh, my God. There were so many of them." Mark said with a shaky voice. "I know, Mark. And that's part of what I wanted you to learn from this." Ben said, and Mark looked up at him. "I know you, Mark. Hell, you and I have always fanboyed over Omni-Man, or in your case, looked up to him. We've both wanted to be the hero that always comes out on top and saves everyone. But sometimes… sometimes, you can't save everyone." Ben said solemnly.
"And how would you…?!" Mark began saying, almost accusatory, but stopped, as his mind processed just how Ben had said it. "There was someone you couldn't save, wasn't there?" He asked, and Ben nodded, shocking him. Going off the abilities that he knew Ben had retained from his transformations, he was shocked to hear that he had failed to save someone at all. "I may be as powerful as I am, but don't forget, Mark. I've only had my abilities for a few hours longer than you. I'm not yet experienced enough to use them all to their greatest potential." Ben said.
"It wasn't even that I messed up while saving him… I was just… late." He said, then let out a cool breath. "One thing that you have to realize is that as superheroes, we're still pretty green. And also, just because we're strong doesn't mean we can be lax. Out there, people's lives depend on us, so we can't afford that." He said, standing up. "And that also means that there will come times when we would have to end the lives of other beings, sapient or not." He said solemnly.
"In an ideal world, we wouldn't have to do so, but that's not the reality we live in." He said with a sigh. "I… I didn't think it would have to be like that." Mark said, still shaken by the fact that he had killed Onslaught. Killing was still a new experience for him, as even when he took down the kaiju with Ben, it had already died from Ben freezing it so deeply, and all he'd done was break apart the frozen corpse. "Yeah, it's really not how it looks on TV." Ben said. "No shit." Mark replied with a huff.
"Listen, I'm not saying that you should treat anyone you face like a serious threat, but you should learn to judge when someone or something is." Ben said, his voice filled with worry for his best friend. His meta knowledge of the events of the show stopped at Mark's first battle against Conquest, the oldest living Viltrumite, and although he was reading the comics the show was based on, he hadn't finished them, so despite having foreknowledge of some major events, he wasn't entirely sure that he could trust all of his memories.
He knew that Mark would suffer immensely in the coming years, and he wanted to prevent that. And so, he had already laid out multiple plans to have Mark become stronger without having to go through the mental and physical anguish he would otherwise go through. One of those was helping Mark learn when to kill and when not to, without having the corpse of an innocent person, or worse, a loved one, in his arms. Another was to put him through the wringer in physical training and conditioning.
"Now, come on. Let's get back to them. I'm sure you're feeling a bit frustrated, so let's get you something you can hit." Ben said as he stood up and gently patted Mark on the back. "Yeah, that might feel good for once." Mark said as he stood up and put his mask back on. Ben had his mask reform, then guided Mark over to the physical training area, with the both of them returning to their superhero personas.
Chapter End.
Word Count: 4,687
Thanks for reading!