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13tinysocks · 1 month ago

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My Dead Girlfriend

He lied about being a superhero. You lied about not having freaky ass mind powers. You broke up- bitterly. End of story. No shot Invincible and some superpowered grunt for Machine Head would ever work out in any reality. Except. When he comes in droves, hoards of himself, brokenhearted and wanting, wrecking cities for a chance to get one last glance at you.

[Invincible Varients x Reader] [Ao3] [current overall word count: 138k]

[long form, multi-arc, eventual smut, dark fic]

[6.7K, part one of ?] [2] Took a lot of liberties with this. Wanted the variants to be more distinct. Please excuse formatting issues, tumblr is actually ass. Header art is mine. Buckle up, I write like a bad girl with a hope for better days. TW: Lots of death, bad things, worse people.

1 * Buck Fifty

Where I think that we’re all gonna die, Just to get fucked in some parallel life, While a strange martian fungus sprouts, From our sexier parts. Canoeing on Mars - Go Hang Music

Semantics are a funny thing, really. You say, “Go jump off a bridge,” most people do just that. Jump. Here’s the not so fun part, some people, they go, “Well, what bridge?” And it’s a back and forth, you pushing, them pulling until you find that magic sweet spot in their logic and they finally jump. So because you were chatting with this asshole for the better part of ten minutes, people run to you asking questions. “Did you know him? Is he okay?” Clearly, he wasn’t. The guy’s brains were dashed on a rock, blood following the runoff stream, too shallow to break the fall. Your attention slides off the body. To the couple that pulled over the second he went over the ledge. Early thirties. Medium-ugly man, pretty girl with her hand on her swollen belly. Engagement rings glinting under the spring sun. “Get back in your car.” Power rolls off your tongue. Thick, heavy, and sour. “And drive away.” Concern leeches out of their eyes. Glazing over the moment the words meet their ears. The woman gets in first, shutting the passenger and sliding a seatbelt over herself. The man steps around the car, into steady traffic flowing carefully away from their car. He’s nearly clipped by the side mirror of a sedan that blares it’s horn. Swerving away, scraping the opposite side of the bridge’s barrier. He gets into the car. Unblinking as car after car rams into the sedan. A pileup in the making but he looks nowhere but straight ahead. The couple’s car, a buggy, pulls off the narrow shoulder. Catching a pickup in the side, sending it careening into the sedan’s front. You watch the sedan driver pop like a pimple and the buggy drive off.

You look back down, to the target, the only one supposed to get hurt here. He’s dead alright. Job’s done. Collateral doesn’t matter, not here anyway. Pileups happen all the time for no good reason at all. Still, you tug up your hood and make your way down the side catwalk of the bridge. Going the opposite direction of the pileup. Smoke thick in your nose. Air displaces, a woosh overhead. You’re at the bridge’s end, at the corner of Park and Main when the spandex clad cavalry arrives. You know that pink glow anywhere. Atom Eve sprung into action. Resetting metal, fixing tires. You make yourself watch her, not the blue-black blur that’s scooping civilians out of cars to safety. You catch a look at him anyway. Still at last, because the job was done that quick. Your gut tightens, brows press together, a sour lemon frown on your lips. He’s smiling at her as they talk about money. The city of New York a brand spanking new client of Invincible Co. Payday for them. You too. So stop being such a dill, and get a move on. You turn before Mark can see your face. He wouldn’t think of you as the culprit. A long ago thing of the past, pre-powers. Good, it’s better if you’re not on his shit list. The best if he had no idea you were still rolling with Machine Head. He’d seen you in his superhero skin at Machine Head’s side. God, how that ended. No longer seventeen. No longer needing desperate money for college. No longer innocent or wanted. When they start asking questions to bystanders, you’re already halfway down Main. You walk fast, you’re late. Twenty minutes out from the tower on foot without a car when the meeting was in five fucking minutes. Wasn’t your fault the guy had to be persuaded to kill himself.

Machine Head wouldn’t see it that way. You caught somebody by the arm. Alone, in nice enough clothes. They turn, lip curling, about to yank their arm away. “Give me your wallet.” You say low.

Fear doesn't breach their eyes. They simply pluck the leather bound thing from their jeans, detach it from a chain, and hand the whole thing over. You hold a thumb out until a taxi pulls up. You didn’t have to pay. With powers like these, you could’ve done anything. You could be living large. Countless pretty things on your arm, willing to do anything at your say so. But you’re here. In debt. A criminal. Because you don’t know where to go or what else to do or what else you’re good for. They’d find you anyway, you could tell them to go and forget you existed but somehow, through mental gymnastics, you told yourself they’d come back. Kill you for trying to leave. You pay the taxi fair out of courtesy because you once worked a shitty customer service job. You’re a killer, not evil. Consider it a good deed for the day. You run through the double glass doors. Careful not the leave prints on the glass. Machine Head was very particular. An evil megalomaniac, but particular. You know you’re late by the time you push open the Italian maple doors. He’s standing, ramrod straight, back to you, machine eyes (cameras you supposed?) scanning the city. His city. For a time it wasn’t. He was usurped, locked in the same jail house as you. You thought that your difference in sex would keep him away from you. But no, you were still working for him in the slammer to keep your back shank-free. He got out, took The Order by the throat, and now you were out too and- “Fifty-three seconds. You made me wait fifty-three seconds. Do you know how much money I could’ve been making in those fifty-three seconds, (Y/n)?” He turned to you. Suit crisp. Metal shining. You feel drastically under dressed in your sweats and hoodie. Lightly stained from cheap takeout. But you wouldn’t change it, it was practically the uniform of the average New York streetwalker. Not noticed. Perfect for the casual assassin, burglar, and occasional drug mule. You don’t apologize. Don’t explain. Because that’s more time wasted, more money piled onto your dept. “Granger is dead.” “Yeah, of old age.” You swallow back the anger. After five years of cat scratches like that, you’re more than used to keeping your feelings in check. “My next assignment, sir?”

His circuitry clicked. “Nothing. Maybe I’ll give you something next time if you aren’t so inconsiderate with my time.” You turn for the door. No argument there. “Oh and, (Y/n)?” You stop, hand on the polished knob. “Be here twelve tomorrow. Sharp. Or I’m adding another month.” His threat is real, but hollow. Another month under his thumb means nothing when you’re too useful to ever let go. Shallowly, you nod and slip out the door. *** Another two hundred. A month after the last raise in rent. You could kill her. Tell her to jump off the complex roof while doing a hand spring. “Miss Neighbor?” A voice behind you makes you look down, down, down. She’s a tiny thing. A sprout though she’s supposed to be eleven. “Caligula got out again.” Her arms piston forward, presenting the fluffy thing. Eyes slited and soft belly exposed. You sigh, taking him into your arms where he melts and purrs. “Thanks Cecelia.” You say, foot kicking open your ajar door. Caligula figured out how to turn the knob last year. Ever since you’d been vigilant about double locking the door but some days you were in a hurry and too stressed to worry. Like today. “I owe you one.” Your hand slipped into your hoodie, pulling out the last remaining dollars and coins stolen from the stranger. You spot a fifty in the wad that her eager hands wrap around. You hold on a little too long before letting go. There’d be more pockets to pick tomorrow. You could make rent with a few extra hours. Though, man, you didn’t want to. You were tired enough as it was. Her eyes glittered as she thumbed through the cash, the little capitalist. She slipped a single dollar and two quarters into one hand. The rest of the fat stack in the other. Ah, reward money for giving her money. Child’s logic. She holds out the wad to you. “Thanks Neighbor lady, but I just need a buck fifty for the vending machine down the hall. Gonna get me a Reese's Pieces.” She yelled a thanks more heartfelt than yours and toddled down the hall, knees awkwardly bowed. You watch her turn the corner. Slack jawed. For a change, somebody let you keep something. Something good happened, even after you made a stupid decision.

You push inside the studio and push away all thoughts of killing Cecelia’s greedy bitch mother. Who would find Caligula if she had to move to her aunt’s? Plus, if you got rid of her mom another, greedier landlord would probably replace her. There wasn’t a point. Early dinner was phoned in because you were so frazzled after this afternoon you’d forgot to grocery shop. Pizza. You waited, splayed on the couch, Caligula purring away on your knee. A Youtube stream pulled up on your junk laptop because you didn’t bother with a TV. News was a good thing to keep an eye on when you were a criminal. A knock at the door. You rise. The pizza boy looks about the age of minimum wage. Still, you tell him, “Give me your wallet and the pizza.” Before shutting, and locking, the door in his face, no tip. Good deed already done for the day. Another knock should come. Him demanding payment and his wallet. Instead, footsteps recede. He’s already forgotten. He’ll remember vaguely later, making a regular delivery. Losing his wallet, maybe in his car on while packing pizzas. He’ll panic, pause his debit card that you’ll never touch out for fear of being tracked. Working for Machine Head meant cash only. You’re back on the couch, indulging. Caligula licking grease off your fingers. You skip from one news stream to the next. Looking for yourself. You weren’t the costume and flashy mask type of supervillian. If you considered yourself super at all. No inhuman strength or speed or shape shifting. Just, talking and making people listen. You were lucky. Only caught the once. It was the second time Mark saw you rolling with Machine Head, a month after your cataclysmic teenage breakup. A year in the slammer, slap on the wrist. Machine Head paid your way out of papers and records. It was three months later, after a particular fuck up, Machine Head revealed to you that Mark came to the prison the day you were supposed to be released. You’d been let out a day early. At the time you thought they just wanted you out because of overcrowding. But Machine Head knew Mark would come. Would try and persuade you to his side of things. Maybe make up and be sweethearts again. By then, through prison and three months of being an official card in Machine Hand’s deck— you’d crossed lines Mark wouldn’t forgive. You couldn’t go running back, saying you saw his side now. Because you didn’t. Imagining what Mark would say if he saw you again, if he knew you stayed with Machine Head, it was enough to make you cry right in the middle of Machine Head’s office. He didn’t even have to rub your nose in the shame when you’d do it yourself. You were so angry. At Mark for putting you in jail, playing you right into Machine Head’s hands. At Machine Head for never letting you out from under his thumb. At everything, all of the time.

Working for Machine Head wasn’t all bad. Got his endless supply of grunts to teach you a thing or two about tact and not getting caught. Things like not abusing the pizza boy every day. You saved it for once every few months. Never the same boy twice. Any repeats would be begrudgingly paid. Another slice finds it’s way between your fingers. You’re mid-groan as your attention catches on the latest stream. Not ten minutes ago you were bored out of your gourd. Now, “A devastating attack has left Seattle’s space needle— gone.” The camera panned up, up, not that far up because the iconic slab of concrete was fucking leveled. Your brows raise but you make no move. Not your circus, not your monkeys. The camera raises further. “And it seems the destruction was at the hands of—“ The stream cuts, going blue on your computer scream. You scoff, lean forward and beat the corner as flashes of blue and yellow mock you. Finally, it clears, and you see somebody. Decked in white. Hovering hundreds of feet about the needle. The pizza turns sour in your stomach but you lean forward, elbows on knees. Unable to see a face but so familiar with the shape of that body. For every time you saw it, on the news or overhead, your stomach went sour. “What the fuck is he doing without his mask on?” You squint. Just seeing the dot of tanned skin that was his head, no details beyond. Caligula yowled, crossing over your laptop keys to get at your fingers. The stream changes. “—le are evacuating Universal Studios Hollywood in droves. Authorities are unsure what’s caused the majority of the studio to collapse.” A crash off screen. The camera pans. Smoke rises from the skyline. Wind carrying it down to pollute the central valley. There’s that shape, that body again. Silhouette dark in the smoke, with something else, something you hadn’t seen. A new low. A fucking cape? Caligula takes another step. The stream changes. “This just in, Big Ben is gone.” An anchor takes up the screen, pale and balding forehead shining with sweat. “Sorry, Keith, uhm, what do you mean gone?” “I mean it’s gone, Jared. Cut— Cut to the footage!” The stream flickers. There’s the London sky. Gray and dreary. Clouds overshadowed by pillars of smoke. Chunks of rubble litter the street. Cars with their horns still blaring, engines burning crushed beneath. People squashed like grapes.

There he is again. But. No. Not really. This shape in the sky, this man had the same makeup but wider, thicker. You lean closer to the screen, sure you’re seeing things and not his old super suit. Your phone vibrates in your pocket. The news is forgotten, half eaten pizza slice thrown to the pen box where Caligula pounces to lick pooled oils off the cheese. You don’t have to look to know it’s work. Nobody calls you for anything but work and you only work for Machine Head. “Boss is feeling generous.” Isotope’s voice grits through the speaker. “Get back here on the double.” Seeing what you mistook for your ex on so many streams has soured your mood. Spiked your daring. “You can’t just teleport me?” He scoffs. “You’ve got legs don’cha? Use ‘em.” Machine Head’s voice spiked the other end of the line. Isotope sighs. “Don’t move.” You wipe your hands off on your pants before he’s in your apartment. Appearing through a haze of radioactive green light. You don’t even get to stand before his hand is on your shoulder and you’re zapped into Machine Head’s sprawling high rise. You stumble but straighten. Isotope leaving your side to stand at attention by Machine Head. Who was currently heaving over his desk. Papers, pens, and pretty mugs dashed to the floor. It’d only been a few minutes. Did Granger survive? Did somebody see you? Report you? Is Machine Head going to have you killed, right here, right now? Power coils in your throat. Words ready to shoot like bullets to protect yourself. “Tell me, Dregs.” The word spits off his electric voice box like sparks. Your stomach cinches. In this room, on the street, in the normal world, you were (Y/n). On jobs with fellow grunts you didn’t trust, in Machine Head’s scant paper trail, you were Dregs. He reserved calling the insult of a ‘villain name’ for when he was particularly unhappy with you. The name wasn’t your doing. It was a nasty nickname that stuck when Machine Head, near dead, overheard Invincible, breaking up with you in the shattered remains of his office all those years ago. “You— you’ve been— you’re—“ His lip quivered under his mask. “I did this for us.” You’d said. “I needed money to go to college with you. It’s just a one time thing!”

“They tried to kill me. He hired you to help kill me.” His voice had changed then, matured a fraction. Gone was the boyfriend that called you dude. Here was the man, mask held in his hand, identity shocking you to your core. “I didn’t know it was you!” “So you were fine with killing somebody?” “I thought it was all talk!” You’d pled with him. In the middle of this very room, now reconstructed and shiny. “Well it wasn’t!” “I saved you.” You’d protested. “Without even knowing it was you— I saved you!” Because you had thought it was talk. You thought it was an easy paid security guard gig and you weren’t ready to kill someone for money. How times would change. “You— How long have you been working with these—“ He gestured to the room at large. The dead. The dying. The bloody. He wasn’t looking great himself, but you spared him most of the pain with your words. A few suggestions here and there could save lives. You could’ve been a hero. His face sucks in then the word comes flying out, “Dregs of society— these fucking—“ And it stuck. Hearing it always made you want to hit something. Though your punches weren’t particularly affective. You could tell Machine Head to jump out his shiny bay window but you don’t because there’s always a bigger thumb. “Why-“ You’re back to the present, “the,” staring down your shitty bosses back, “fuck,” thinking about killing him, “is,” again, “your ex boyfriend tearing apart my city!?” “What?” Now that, was not what you were expecting. “You heard me!” His voice synthesizer spiked, turning the words into a melody. “Use your eyes!” You look past his heaving form. So focused on the idea of being murdered you neglected the city scape. Sky scrapers were sliced in half. Twisted metal supports reaching for the sky. Smoke billowing, fire brewing. You heard it now, the screaming from below. A black streak cuts the horizon. Blasts straight through the empire state building. The top half of the building groans, hitting nearby buildings as it comes down, shaking the city. People fall out the windows, go splat on the ground. Others are crushed under fresh rubble. Standing up in the air was unmistakably Mark. Wearing his Invincible skin, the new blue and black one that made you angry with how good it looked on him. But he wasn’t wearing his mask, which was unlike himself. He also had a mohawk, which was also unlike himself.

“Jesus.” You say. Thinking of clones or illusions or shape shifters. Villain of the week type of bullshit. “Is that you trying to fix things? Stop him!” Machine Head’s hands go to his head, gripping metal like hair. “Now!” That’s how you ended up here. Standing on the roof of Machine Head’s high rise. Jerry-rigged megaphone in hand. No ordinary Walmart megaphone would do in a situation like this. Had to be a ‘roided up version of the original. Double speakers on the sides with complicated volume amplifiers in its guts. You’d been here before. Ontop a building, shouting into a megaphone. There was almost nothing ridiculous you hadn’t done to get someone to hear you. To do what someone wanted you to do. Usually it was ontop of a bank, shouting at police to leave, to forget about the robbery, to forget your face. This was new enough that your palms were slick with sweat around the plastic handle. Mark sliced through more buildings with his body. They went down like soft butter. His laugh cracking and wrong as people burst open on the streets. The cavalry had arrived. Nobody low-levels on the city’s payroll. Mark cut through them easier than the buildings. Not Mark, you tell yourself. Mark didn’t kill. You did. Mark wasn’t bad. You were. That’s why things didn’t work out. You breathe in. Anger surging. Whoever or whatever this loser was— was going down, hard. “Hey!” The megaphone twisted your voice from one to multitudes. From a shout to a building shaking scream. Not Mark paused midair. Holding a half dead hero against him. Fists beating his cheat while their guts spilled out their midriff. He was half a mile away, a spec, but you still felt his eyes on you. Hard and boiling a dot through your skull. “You! Yeah, you!” Getting their attention was always the worst part. If he didn’t think you were talking to him, your power would fall flatter than a popped balloon. One of the many drawbacks that’d nearly gotten you killed time and time again. The hero dropped. Still falling. You didn’t see him coming, human eyes too weak to see faster than light. He’d be on you before the hero hit the ground. “Stop!” The air cracks. You stumble back. Eardrums crackling. One good thing about having powers? The littlest, stupidest things are enhanced. Not your hearing, no, but your ability to not go deaf. You literally can’t. Sure, you could’ve had a naturally amplified voice, super speed, healing, but nope! You get— anti-deaf powers, if you could call it that, as a cherry on top.

Not Mark is suspended midair, a flower preserved in resin. Fist reeled back ready to punch a hole through your head. A grin that’s more of a snarl on his lips. Black piercings shining in the light of nearby fires. Brow, bridge, cheek, lip, like lizard spikes. Mohawk flattened against his head. Blood on his teeth, on his knuckles. Close up, he is Mark. A clone or deft shape shifter, but so close to your Mark it throws you off balance. Worse is the no mask part. Your ex-boyfriend stares at you will his full naked face. Eyes brown but darker, more sunken than you remember. With bags beneath, like being evil is so fucking exhausting. Shape shifter for sure, and a bad one. He blinks. Still in air. Eyes sharp on your features as you lower the megaphone. Something about those eyes scare the shit out of you. You expect glazed complacency. You except no expression at all. But he’s looking at you with so much emotion, too much to be really under your control. There’s no time for machinations. You knew aliens or other powered individuals could give you trouble. But nobody was able to fully resist, not yet. So you say, “Kill yourself.” Just as he says, “It’s you.” You’re both surprised. You double down. Power leaden on your tongue. “Break your own neck, now.” His arms move like an animatronic. One hand poised on his sharp jaw, the other poised on his shoulder for purchase. There’s no snap, death groan, and falling five stories. He is staring at you like you’re actually precious to him. Like he misses you. Like he didn’t dump you then throw you in jail a month later. Like he didn’t see other people, like Atom Eve and him weren’t going steady. It pisses you off. Power roils in your throat. You growl this time, “Rip out your throat.” His hands fall to his sides. You’d met resistance before but a rephrase, a second or third command always did it. He wasn’t dead and that was a very, very bad thing. “You made it.” He says. Soft but voice gruff. “To New York.”

“Die!” You command. Though your power didn’t work on vague words like die. “Die, right now!” His feet touched down on the ledge. You step back. “Stop breathing.” At those words he sobers. A smile, sharp toothed and easy and so un-Mark-like stretches his face. “Guess we want each other dead in every reality.” The words are an inside joke that make him laugh. “I almost respect the forwardness.” "Break your legs.” You spit, taking another step back. Megaphone falling to the floor. “Break your arms." “I think-“ He follows you in slow, languid strides. “You shouldn’t talk to your emperor and boyfriend like that.” Your words like bullets on kevlar armor, on viltrumite skin. They make him pause momentarily, shudder, then he breaks right though your hold and keeps coming. Boyfriend? Boyfriend!? You couldn’t have a boyfriend working for Machine Head. You’d seen what he threatened Titan with. You couldn’t have Mark, of all fucking people, as a boyfriend because of what he did. So you couldn’t let yourself have a boyfriend because you were so scared you’d get the same fucking reaction. And if things got to be too much you’d tell them forget, find someone else. You see red. “Eat your heart and shit it out.” “Jeez, did I really fuck up this bad here?” He chuckles, and it sounds like Mark. Your Mark. “Now!” The power forces out of you in waves. His step wobbles but he just keeps coming. “You really must want me dead! What’d I do, take over your planet? You know a man’s got needs, baby. No biggie.” The door to the stairs bursts open. Machine Head heaves with the effort of racing up the flights. Isotope behind him, less winded. “Dregs!” Machine Head hisses. “Fuckin’ kill him already!” “Dregs?” Not Mark tests the name on his tongue. “Is your name here fucking Dregs? Do- oh shit-“ His eyes alight, “Now I geddit. You’ve got powers in this universe!” He says like it wasn’t obvious. “That’s like your hero name, right? Oh (Y/n), baby, that’s so stupid it’s cute.” “Fly into the sun.” Power rips out you, sizzling through the air. He actually hovers off the roof. You wait for him to blast off and become a solar flare. His muscles tense and untense. “So that’s what that is. Shit, I thought it was just like, true love and stuff.” And he was going to kill you. “Man, that feels… weird. Do it again.”

“Kill him!” Machine Head insists behind you. “Kill yourself.” You can feel a migraine on it’s way, pounding in your temples. Powers are like a muscle. They can only do so much before giving. “Do it. Die.” Not Mark shivers, letting out a delighted laugh. “Man, you could’ve really gotten me if I wasn’t full apeshit mode. But…” He hovers closer, leering, “You didn’t, so I guess it’s my turn now.” “Isotope, take me to Seattle!” You speak before you think. Before his hand can clasp your throat. Isotope is next to you in a millisecond. Then you’re gone. Machine Head’s raging protests gone from your ears. The streets of Seattle are wet with blood and rain. Isotope stands beside you, in a haze he’ll come out of any minute. Coming here of all places was a horrible idea but you hadn’t thought. The city came off your tongue, fresh on the mind. “Help.” A voice croaks. A broken hand paws at your feet. Orange and gloved, once a defender, now an arm peaking out rubble. “Help me.” You stare at it because what the fuck? The air whips. You look overhead. He’s a hundred feet up, maybe more. Looking right back down at you. He’s more imposing than he was on your laptop screen. Broader of shoulder, uniform crisp white except where it wasn’t. Where glistening sinew chunks clung to his chest. He stares you down like shit under his shoe. You wait for sudden death that never comes. Whoever this was. Mark, Not Mark, some hot guy, he wasn’t hurting you though he clearly just killed a metric fuckton of people; and you didn’t know why and honestly? It scared the shit out of you. The hand finds your ankle. “Help. Help.” Not Mark comes down then like an anchor. Arms crossed, legs tight. Crushing the rubble beneath his feet. Making the hand go limp, blood framing around it. You knew at a distance and were even more sure now. It was Mark but wrong, again. Face too symmetrical, too sharp. Your Mark had little imperfections, a crooked nose from his Omni-Man induced beat down, ache scars on his hairline. This version was trophy husband material, mocking you in it’s image for what could’ve been. He’s taller. Why is he taller?

Not Mark number two’s eyes are cold, rock brown slates that slide to Isotope. The shift in his muscles are subtle but you know violence is coming. You weren’t staying to watch it happen. “Take me to Hollywood.” And it was done. You were in a outdoor walkway by studio six. Isotope on your arm, stupor elongated. The decision again proved to be bad, made from a sick need to check, to run. Studio six was burning and you could smell the bodies. “Take me to the road.” You command. A flash, and you’re there. Outside the heart of Hollywood, watching Universal crash and burn. The rest of the city was no better. You knew Hollywood was worse in person but you never imagined it a gray flattened husk. This couldn’t be real. You were dreaming, going to wake any second. A shadow passed overhead. You look up, nothing but smoke and sun. From behind, “Need some help, friend?” You turn. He’s back in black (and yellow), grinning with his mask on. Cape billowing stupidly in the breeze. A scar indented to his face from chin to lip. A sliver of lip gone, exposing half a tooth before the scar meandered up, under his mask. “Oh shit.” A laugh rips out of him. “(Y/n), you old so and so. What are you doing in my neck of the woods?” Like the others he’s splattered with the lives of others. Reveling, practically glowing in it. “Tell me who you are.” You say, holding tight to Isotope in case he sobers and decides to zap away. No way you were being stranded with this… thing. His body goes ridged at the command. You think he’ll resist like the other, then it comes pouring out. “Mark Grayson.” He says. “But not the one you know.” Your head pounds. He’s not lying, people can’t lie when you’re prying information out of them. “More than that. Details.” “I’m here to destroy everything I see. I’ve been…” He shakes his head, body loosening. You feel your control snap away like a cut cord. His lips seal then pull back in a wicked grin. “Oh, you’ve got different tricks here. Tell me, have I taken hold of this useless planet yet? Do you see me as someone to rise up against? Have you given up yet? Have you saved your own life by sucking my—“ "Tokyo.”

You’re somewhere you’ve only dreamed of going and it’s destroyed. You thought, since you hadn’t seen it on the news it’d be a safe bet. You could figure things out, come up with a game plan, but no. You couldn’t think with your head pounding and nose starting to bleed, power waning with overuse on too many overpowered targets. The muscle was straining. You weren’t used to this much. To resistance. To using Isotope, strong in his own right, like a puppet. It was exhausting. Isotope was wobbling on his feet. He could teleport over and over but being under your control so long as well? Wasn’t good for him. Clearly, the apocalypse was nigh so you couldn’t give a shit about anybody but yourself. You snapped back to reality standing over a pair of women, curled on the ground in fetal position. “Tell me what happened.” You say. The blonde one doesn’t unfurl but speaks, accented and injured, “He destroyed everything.” “Who?” Her arm unfurls, shaking finger pointing up. You look up, expecting. The sky is clear. The woman’s arm re-latches to her brain dead best friend. “I wasn’t expecting you here.” The voice is a river smoothed stone. Dark and solid— as a rock can be. You already know who it is before you can look. A sight you were starting to get a little more than tired of. Though you didn’t expect a red and white suit splattered with blood. He’s thicker, like the others, hair taller and spiked with gel. He steps forward, over the dead girl and her whimpering friend. The sounds catch his attention, the next step he takes crushes the living girls head. Brains dying his white boot pink. “It’s unfortunate you had to see this, but it’s better you did. We’re on the same page now.” “What the fuck does that mean?” Your power comes out weak, involuntary. You hadn’t meant to strain yourself but there you go, fucking up again. “I want you to understand that what I’m doing is necessary. I don’t understand why you fought me before. So… unneeded. You’d know you’d never beat me but you…” His brows press together through his mask. His lip twitches, “I’ve said too much.” And your hold falls away. Out comes his hand, fabric originally white but now red. “Come with me.” “Sydney.”

You stood across the water from the flaming opera house. A scream of frustration comes out as a cough, blood and mucous splat onto the cracked sidewalk. Your balance tips and wavers but you cling to Isotope who is barley upright himself. You really needed to stop going for capital cities. This one you see. Black and blue above the hundred foot tall fire. Watching it burn quiet as the night which it now was, across the world from your starting point. The mask completely covers his face, but knowing how today is going. It’s Mark, again. He disappears. You open your mouth, power rising up your throat. Air breaks. You’re thrown off your feet. He’s before you. Feet off the ground, staring you down though blue lenses. Same stupid spandex this time with a thick tool belt strapped round his waist and left thigh. A harness strapped to his chest, surely hiding things that could tear though your soft human flesh. Slight armor padding hiding his muscles. He hovers over the broken fence separating you from the water. Your panicked eyes reflected back at you through polarized blue goggles. You scramble to Isotope, splayed on the ground, bleeding from the back of his head. “Take me home.” His eyes lolled back into his head. You shake him, looking frantically behind you, to the unmoving phantom then back to him. “Hey! Wake up!” You watch the shape of a man. Terrified he’d come closer when you weren’t looking but there he stayed. Watching. Isotope’s eyes flutter. “Dregs.” He groans. “I… I can’t…” Sweat shines on his brow. You slap him hard across the face. Palm stinging. “I don’t give a shit! Take me home!” His pale narrow fingers wrap around your wrist. Green light grows slowly around you both. Not instant as if it would be if he weren’t fucked up. “Faster!” A sound from behind. You turn, finding something whipping toward you. You flinch, expecting a punch but instead find some cuff clapping onto your ankle. Thick and dark, matte finished. You don’t think of clawing at it as you’re teleported away. Yet you take one last look. He is still. Waiting. Your hovel of an apartment is like a church. You throw yourself to the unvacuumed floor, reverent. Caligula doesn’t come to love on you. When you peel up from the ground, Isotope is gaining his bearings. Eyes hazy with distaste as he zaps away, without you.

Leaving you alone in your tilted apartment. Everything was a little off skew. When you stood you stumbled back, partly from exhaust, partly from the floor literally not being at the right angle. It was then the building decided to creek. Letting you know of it’s incoming collapse.

Most of New York City had been ripped apart, so with your luck, why not your apartment? You’re out the door. Racing down flight after flight, two steps at a time. Beams whine in the walls. Pipes crack, spilling water from the ceiling into the lobby. You’re barley out when the building goes down. You run down the sidewalk, between crashed and burning cars. Hopping over bodies, bodies, bodies. When the world stops shaking, you look at the damage. Creeping closer, finally remembering your cat. The creeping gives way to frantic running. Tripping back over the bodies, screaming, “Caligula!” At the mountain of what used to be your home. You throw yourself to the most manageable bit of rubble. Throwing stone size pieces tossed away in hopes you’d reveal your cat. You didn’t have much besides the clothes on your back and this goddamn power of yours— but Caligula kept you going. Kept you hoping. Because if he could come up in life, going from a neglected stray to spoiled in a twenty-something year olds apartment. You could do the same thing. “Ca-“ “Cecelia?” You look up. Climbed to the apex of the disaster was your greedy landlord. Tossing concrete more frantically than you were. You climb up, carefully avoiding exposed leaking pipes. She had the right idea. Higher up meant maybe a better chance of survival. You search together, but separate. Calling different names. Kicking down different chunks. Waiting for heroes to come but after what you saw earlier— you doubted it. “Rrrrow?” You know that sound anywhere. Your head snaps. Watching the gray go from rock to a fuzzy back. “Oh God, Caligula!” You skid down to him and he jumps up to you. Meowing. Dust in his fur but otherwise okay. He’d gotten out again. This time all the way to the outside. He was okay. He was okay and you were so happy you cried into him. “Cecelia! Ce— Cecelia?” You shouldn’t have looked. Watched the landlord crack her back as she moved the largest piece of debris she had yet. Just to fall beside the severed arm of her little girl. Fingers curled around a buck fifty.

She threw herself on the arm. Dirty fingers clawing at the window ledge that covered the rest of her little girl’s body. Opening her nails up on broken glass. Screaming a scream so horrible you’d never forget— and you killed people for a living. A dent split open the back of her head, a waterfall of blood you hadn’t noticed before. The dent exposed her hind brain, though she didn’t seem to care, still screaming for her dead baby girl. You weighed the options. Leave. Help. Have a better chance of finding help for yourself. Put the bitch down like you’d dreamed. Survive. Chance being found by the monster that did this. You chose both. Not getting any close to her but turning. Power weak, watery but you didn’t need much. Not for the average person, distracted and distressed. “Lay down. Sleep.” She did just that. You climbed down from the rubble. Careful with Caligula in your arms. Retracing your steps away from the building. When you look back, she wasn’t breathing. *** “Where is she?” THUNK! Machine Head didn’t so much as feel pain. More so, felt his circuitry being shifted inside him. Any more of this and he’d stop working. Repairs on a piece as intricate as himself didn’t come cheap. “Probably in fucking Seattle, asshole!” He said for the fifth time. He’d explained, best a robo man could while his ass was being beat by his grunt’s now blood thirsty (or would it be oil thirsty?) ex boyfriend. “He can teleport and she took ‘im!” “Seattle’s gone idiot!” THUNK! Another punch dented the side of his head. Devastating for Machine Head, but nothing close to the skyscraper shattering power he’d seen before. The motherfucker was beating the circuits out of him but still holding back. Something was sparking and smoking within him. His camera eyes were starting to static. “What—“ “Boss!” Zip, zap, Cadillac. He was out of one man’s arms, into another. But not anywhere near far enough away from the little freak. Isotope managed to get his boss away, about thirty feet. Holding him up just barley, eyes still frosty with the mind fog that Dregs cunt had inflicted on him. He tried splitting reality again, just to fizzle out and land them right back in the same spot. Said little freak’s gaze slid to Isotope. Voice more dangerous than before. “She was just with you.” It was more of a question, a demand. Isotope was about to pass out but that didn’t leave him stupid. “At her place.” He breathed. The freak stepped forward. “Where?”