"You're looking well," Angstrom said, the harsh glare of the artificial sunlight from the bed panel momentarily blinding me.
"I've been better," I rasped, sitting up slowly. "How are things?"
Taking a closer look at him, I noticed a few sleek, new cybernetic modifications seamlessly integrated into his body—specifically, a polished, metallic right hand and intricate, glowing implants lining his temple.
"What happened to you?" I asked, pointing at the implants.
"Oh, these?" he said, lifting his metallic hand and flexing the articulated fingers. "They're the results of outer-dimensional ingenuity. They're truly remarkable. They barely feel like they were artificially made."
"Did the Maulers make them?"
Angstrom let out a dry, exhausted sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose with his organic hand. "No. When the variants escaped their captivity and decimated the planet, one of the Maulers and myself barely managed to escape to another dimension. Which led us to meet the ones who enhanced us."
I raised a brow. "One of the Maulers? So, does that mean—"
"Yes," Angstrom interrupted, his tone dripping with annoyance. "Unfortunately, one of the Maulers did survive the conflict. But worry not. The remaining Mauler was able to improve his cloning technology and already has his other self up-and-running again. And it's all thanks to our new benefactors... the Technicians."
My eyes widened slightly. Those guys, I thought. In the canon, they were people from a doomed, uninhabitable world who had turned their entire anatomy into machinery just to survive. But more importantly, I knew their trajectory. After they forcibly got their "utopia" from Angstrom and ruled like gods, their greed pushed them into attempting a multiversal invasion of Earth. They were essentially multiversal parasites who became technologically advanced through necessity rather than innovation.
"And what do they want in return for fixing you and the Maulers?" I asked, keeping my face perfectly neutral. "I don't think people are that nice just to be nice. There's always a price."
Angstrom nodded. "They want to escape their current uninhabitable situation. To inhabit their own utopia where they can live freely without interruptions from their work."
Yep, that's exactly how it starts, I noted internally.
"Interesting," I said aloud. "And is that all they're asking for? Nothing more?"
"At this current moment, they only seek to leave the dead world they are in for a better one, to create their utopia."
"Mmm, but that's for now," I countered. "What happens when they want more? Do you think they'll really just stick to their word?"
"Probably not," Angstrom replied pragmatically. "Their understanding of technology is incredibly advanced. With proper time and the right resources, they might replicate a way to cross into other dimensions themselves. However, I'm looking less at what they might do, and more at what they can currently offer us."
"And that being?"
"Upgrading your Smart Atoms further."
I swung my legs off the bed panel, my interest genuinely piqued. "How so?"
Angstrom stepped closer, tapping his temple implant. "The Technicians don't just build machines; they integrate cybernetics at the atomic level. They've proposed introducing Dyson-Sphere Nanites into your bloodstream. These nanites would form a microscopic, invisible lattice around your smart atoms. Instead of leaking unstable radioactive heat—forcing you to constantly 'bleed' thermal energy just to avoid overloading your system—the nanites will capture that excess radiation."
"And do what with it?" I asked, intrigued.
"Convert it," Angstrom smiled. "Into pure, stored kinetic energy. It completely fixes your leakage problem. And eventually, once integrated, it will allow you to release that stored kinetic energy not as heat, but as massive, concentrated physical shockwaves without burning your own flesh."
Hmm, that's a massive upgrade, I mused internally. It fixes my biggest flaw, but dealing with the Technicians is like playing with a loaded gun. If these nanites are to enter my bloodstream, who's to say they won't have already tampered with the tech and use it to control me like they did with Angstrom in the canon? At the same time, can I really afford to be picky when an opportunity like this falls into my lap? It could be a trap, but a trap with a very big upside.
After another moment of pondering, I ultimately agreed.
"Fine, we can help them build their utopia, but only as long as it doesn't impede on what we're doing," I said. "And we should implement strict contingency plans. We don't share any foundational multiversal travel data with them, and we track their movements constantly when they're out of our sight. If they ever do decide to double-cross us, I want to be ready to pull the plug before it turns into something unmanageable."
"Agreed," Angstrom nodded.
"Next order of business," I said, rolling my right shoulder. "The Flaxan dimension got completely totaled. So, we're going to need a new base of operations."
"Way ahead of you," Angstrom replied. "While scouting for the Technicians, I found a suitable replacement. It has a similar time-dilation mechanic to the Flaxan realm—a couple of days here equals decades there—but it is entirely uninhabited, and it consists of exactly twelve planets."
"Twelve?"
"Yes. And each planet exhibits incredibly extreme, unique environments. One has crushing gravity hundreds of that of Earth. Another is composed entirely of incinerating heat, while another is locked at absolute zero. It's perfect for Viltrumite training."
So, a hyperbolic time chamber of sorts with twelve different levels of hell, I mused internally, then nodded to him. How perfect.
Angstrom reached into his coat and tossed a small velvet bag onto my lap. "I also brought a few things to hold you over."
I opened the bag. Inside was a sleek, new interdimensional earpiece, a pristine wrist communicator, a small silver capsule, and a smooth, circular black device that looked like Tony Stark's arc reactor.
"The comms are a new innovation from the Maulers," Angstrom explained. "They can ping me directly across dimensions now. The silver capsule is a Terra-Reverter bomb. The Maulers engineered the delivery system, and the Technicians programmed the atomic bio-data. Detonate it in the center of that glassed desert in Nevada, and it will isolate the geography and rapidly reverse its temporal state, un-glassing the desert."
"Wow," I responded in genuine surprise, looking at the device in fascination. Then I looked at the 'arc reactor' device. "And what does this do?"
"A Solar Charger," he replied. "It contains a compressed core of pure, synthesized UV radiation. It will feed directly into your nervous system and rapidly accelerate your healing. It will take some time to get you back to one hundred percent from the radiation you've lost, but this will keep you sustained. You can keep it attached to your chest beneath your clothes, and it will remain unnoticeable."
"Good looks," I said, pressing the cold metal disk directly against my sternum. It adhered to my skin instantly, sending a rush of warm, revitalizing energy straight into my starved system. I let out a satisfied breath.
"Lastly," Angstrom said, his tone dropping. "I ran bio-scans on the residual energy trails. I know about the six variants that escaped into the solar system. I've already inputted their coordinates into your new wrist communicator."
I nodded. "I'll hunt them down when I'm at half strength," I said. "Right now, I have to deal with the things here on Earth. You can go get things ready with the Technicians, and I'll call when I've taken care of things."
Angstrom nodded, stepping backward into the glowing green portal. It snapped shut, leaving me alone with a lot of work to do. I promptly paged my logistics director regarding some changes that needed to be made.
Two hours later, feeling significantly less like a walking corpse thanks to the Solar Charger humming warmly beneath my shirt, I walked into the boardroom of Invincible Inc. and took a seat at the head of the sleek, obsidian table. Titan, Isotope, and several logistics members were already waiting for me.
"So, what do you got for me, people?" I asked, clasping my hands together like a CEO preparing for a hostile takeover. "How do I go about this press conference?"
Titan leaned forward, his massive elbows resting heavily on the table. He didn't look at the Invincible War as a tragedy; he looked at it with the keen eye of a former mob boss seeing a massive gap in the market.
"We take everything," he rumbled, his deep voice carrying absolute certainty. "Major cities are in ruins, and the government's traditional hero defenses failed miserably. This is our window to step into the power vacuum. We secure global defense contracts and we monopolize planetary security. We need to present Invincible Inc. not just as another contractual infrastructure, but as the only reliable infrastructure left on Earth."
"Titan's right on the business end, but the optics need to be absolutely flawless," the logistics director interjected, swiping her tablet to project a presentation onto the room's main monitor. "The press conference you've decided to move up to tomorrow will be held at the United Nations. It's going to be broadcast live across every network in the world. You have to be fully transparent and explicitly position yourself on the side of humanity."
"So what's the script?" I asked.
"You emphasize the tragedy," she outlined smoothly. "You mourn the fallen heroes and the civilians caught in the crossfire. You must explicitly distance yourself from the attackers—we are pushing the phrase 'mad clones created by a rogue faction' heavily. Paint yourself as a necessary good. Remind the world of everything Invincible Inc. has accomplished since its inception: crime rates plummeting, marginalized communities protected, and significantly less property damage than traditional hero work."
Is it fucked up how I'm moving? Perhaps. But it's for the greater good, I reasoned internally.
"I've got it," I nodded. "Let's go spin a web."
The Next Day…
The cameras were flashing constantly.
I stood before a massive, overflowing crowd of reporters on the floor of the United Nations, wearing my old blue-and-yellow Invincible suit—since my jet-black containment suit had been completely destroyed.
I kept my face perfectly stoic, heroic, and deeply sorrowful as instructed by my logistics director.
"No tech suit today, hero?" a reporter shouted from the back row before the official questions even began.
Man, shutcho bitch ass up, I thought, briefly.
"Another casualty in the efforts," I replied softly, leaning into the microphone. "But an unimportant thing in comparison to the lives we've lost."
The room quieted down, the gravity of my tone setting the stage. I started calling on reporters.
"Invincible," a female reporter from the BBC started. "Thousands of lives were lost, including several prominent heroes. How do you respond to the claims that your response time was inadequate?"
"It breaks my heart," I said, looking down for a moment before meeting her eyes with a look of heavy burden. "But the scale of this attack was unprecedented. This rogue faction coordinated strikes across the globe simultaneously. I moved as fast as physically possible to neutralize the threats overseas before returning to secure the United States, but I cannot be everywhere at once. That is a reality, and a burden, I will carry for the rest of my life."
The reporters scribbled furiously. I pointed to a man in the third row.
"You claim these attackers were 'clones,'" the reporter from the Wall Street Journal said, his tone sharp and accusatory. "But they shared your exact face, your exact powers, and your voice. Given the previous betrayal of Omni-Man, how can the public trust that you won't 'snap' like he did? What contingency is in place if you go rogue?"
Damn, I knew I shouldn't have called on you! I cursed internally. And aren't those qualities the definition of what clones are?
Outwardly, I let out a heavy, shaky sigh.
"All I can say is I'm sorry," I said, my voice thick with perfectly manufactured emotion. "I am sorry for the fear this has caused. I know what my father did. I know the trauma this world carries. But I ask you to look at my actions. I stood against my father for you. And two weeks ago, I stood against a literal army of mad clones built by a rogue faction specifically to ruin my name and break this planet."
I paused, letting the heavy silence hang in the massive hall.
"I sacrificed my own body to stop them," I continued quietly, projecting absolute sincerity. "I nearly died in that desert ensuring that the final, strongest clone was incinerated. I bleed for this planet. I always will. And to ensure transparency, Invincible Inc. will be operating with completely open channels alongside global defense coalitions moving forward."
The skepticism in the room began to physically melt away. I could see the shift in their eyes.
"With various government heroes clearly overwhelmed during this crisis, what's Invincible Inc.'s next step for rebuilding?" another reporter asked.
Checkmate, I thought, grinning internally.
"Immediate action," I announced, my voice ringing with absolute, unshakable authority. "Invincible Inc. will be personally funding the reconstruction of every affected area: Times Square, Nevada, and the international cities caught in the crossfire. We will not let terrorism halt human progress."
The room was silent for a fraction of a second before the United Nations erupted into thunderous, echoing applause.
I gave a solemn nod to the crowd, turning my back to the cameras and walking off the podium. The fear the Politician variant had tried to sow was completely washed away by deep pockets and calculated charisma. I had cemented myself not just as Earth's savior, but as its ultimate benefactor.
As I walked down the quiet hallway behind the stage, my heroic façade dropped, replaced instantly by cold pragmatism.
I touched the Solar Charger hidden beneath my suit.
Hunt down the six variants, get the nanite upgrades, train on the 12 Planets, I listed internally, clenching my fists as a dark smirk pulled at the corner of my mouth. And prepare for the Viltrumite War. So much to do, so little time.