Chain 178: Invincible

Chain 178: Invincible

Location: Baltimore City
Age: 25
Identity: Drop-In
Drawbacks: [+1300] The Gravitator’s Kindred, Paranoid Spook, Mauler's Union, The Problem With Federal Governments, The Jumper Wars

[400/2300]  You Have Been Reborn
[Free]      Benadryl Cabbagepatch
[500/2300]  Fantastic Minds
[800/2300]  And Where To Find Them
[1400/2300] Not As Easy The Second Time Around
[1800/2300] As Purebred As A Pureblood
[2200/2300] Brit
[2200/2600] (Item Stipend)
[Free]      Ear Based Beeper And Communicator
[2300/2600] Slush Fund
[2500/2600] Spider's Web
[2600/2600] Old Friends: Demona and the Conspiracy

"You ever have a day where you feel like waking up was a mistake?" I asked cheerfully, a moment after Omni-Man's fist impacted my sternum, finding it unyielding. Unlike the cloth that had torn from the force of the impact. "I feel like you're going to have one of those if you don't give it a rest." He swung again and I made no mode to dodge, his fist impacting the side of my face, a brief crack audible from the force of displaced air, but I paid it little mind beyond absently being happy that I'd placed conditional sticking charms on my boots long ago. "You see, I know exactly what you set out to do here. I've been waiting for today and I was hoping to talk to you before your eldest son does."

"Shut up and die!" snapped my adversary, before he swung for my throat. That, too, was stopped.

I aimed a level glare at him. "Okay, let's derail things right here. Nolan, you're Argall's heir." His fist, already in motion, froze mid-swing and he fell momentarily off balance. "So you ARE listening. Good. The distraction I had set up to distract Stedman will only last so long. I'm not sure which of the timelines I'm in, but that doesn't matter other than Mark having some future knowledge that won't help a whole lot. One: search your feelings, because you know that you love your sons, and you love your wife. Two: hi, nice to meet you, I am called Sovereign but you may call me Michael, and when you're not busy we need to grab some coffee and discuss the concepts of soft power and civilization uplifts."

Omni-Man crossed his arms. "You... know more than you should, but for all I know, you're a madman. Why should I trust you?"

"I didn't ask for you to trust me," I responded. "But I will ask you to trust yourself and your family. If you want a reason to trust me, you'll find it soon enough, but I fully intend to make your species immune to future plagues, and I figure if you guys interbreed with humanity, in about six of their generations, every child born on this ball of dirt will be Viltrumite. After puberty, your genes overwrite the human genome, so you effectively end up with purebloods. Get your people here, get them to join in, let the Coalition think you've given up everything to live under local standards... find locals to care about or at least have kids with. Hell, get all the men to become donors. Though it isn't enough to increase your numbers, you need a much higher tech base as well."

He looked quite puzzled at this, and asked, "What... why? Why do this? Why help me?"

I shrugged. "It should be amusing," I replied. "And if I've learned anything about galactic federations, it's that they're almost always dicks. Especially these ones - yeah, your empire wasn't nice, but winners write the history books, and history books are full of slander. I'll be happy to set anyone straight who asks. Maybe when the Empire makes a comeback it should change how it governs, but for now... there aren't enough people for your race to even call it a government in exile. Like I said, bring your people here, tell them to stay low key - heck, I'll set up fake backgrounds for them, I have the resources to make them airtight. If they want to keep busy, this is a world that could use heroes, if not... they can do whatever they want."

Naturally, the results of this were immediate and wide-spread. Oh, Mark Grayson told his father that he'd had powers, and it seemed this wasn't the Reboot timeline - so a great deal of potential mess was spared there. And while Nolan didn't have the time to explain it all in detail right then... he suggested that Mark take the day off off school and visit me for clarification. ("After all, honey, he looks a little under the weather today, wouldn't you agree?" "Uhhh... cough, cough?")

The headquarters for Cross Technologies and Industries, Inc, was conveniently placed in downtown Baltimore City. Of course, Mark had to wait until I'd finished my first meeting with Cecil Stedman. I was straightforward with the spy, within reason anyway, and told him that while I was a cape, I had a vested interest in keeping Earth intact; while it would be necessary to play the game, so far as dressing up and being a hero goes, I had no intention of leaving massive destruction in the wake of such things. I wouldn't live forever, and I wanted Earth itself to be a living legacy. Medigel would be the first thing brought onto the open market, but beyond that, the intention was to make gradual changes. Create the building blocks that others would build on, to make a better tomorrow.

(If anything, this made him MORE paranoid... but at least it gave him resources to turn toward his own ends.)

Meanwhile, afterward, Mark got an accurate depiction of the Viltrumite Empire ... from a certain point of view. I drew historical comparisons with things on Earth. Yes, their methods were harsh, and yes, there was some degree of slavery. But the same was true of the Romans. At least when the Roman empire was overthrown, no one tried to kill every Roman on the planet, and that was a far more brutal age. The nascent Coalition committed atrocities in their war against the Empire, and they received them in return. But when your back is against the wall and the enemy is trying to destroy not just your empire, not just your civilization, but every single member of it, what would one expect?

Of course, the changes I made gained a great deal of attention. The Mauler Twins came to try to steal technology they thought should be theirs by right, only to be rebuffed and fatally to one of them at that, and after that... there were a great many more Mauler clones that attacked CTI and me personally. But at least the Soldat earned their pay. As well, Nolan got the word out to other Viltrumites and they began joining human civilization under assumed names, eventually creating their own team, and were kind enough to help clear up the constant plague of Maulers that kept popping up constantly. Of course, this also got attention from the Galactic Coalition... their agents appeared periodically, whether actual agents or just those looking to make a quick buck, and they came gunning for me as often as they came gunning for Viltrumites. But that wasn't really so much a problem so much as an annoyance, and really, they were barely more annoying than the lame villains with lame names that sometimes only needed a small nudge to be put on a more righteous path.

No, the real problem came a few years in. After we'd pushed miniaturization technology and quantum computing to the public, after we'd published breakthroughs that made room temperature superconductors possible and done it in such a way that others could build on it and make less expensive ones, after we'd thrown rumors on the internet and designs that proposed reactionless drives for aircraft... then Angstrom Levy engaged in some peak-level dickishness. Oh, the various alternate versions of Invincible raising hell didn't help anything, that's for certain, but my meddling ensured there were Viltrumites that would be willing to take up the flag and defend their new home. The real problem was that there were alternate versions of ME.

Versions that were of course far weaker than me, because they were only as strong as this world could make them... but that strength left them physically invulnerable, practically untouchable by magic, and telekinetic geniuses. And also absolute dicks. Some were smart enough to go to ground. Others rampaged. And it all happened to come at the worst time... more than a dozen Maulers were actively chasing me down, while a Coalition assassination was doing likewise. But the confusion was helpful - not only did the Viltrumites help, but so did the local heroes, and Stedman had plenty of time to create contingencies that he enacted against them all. (And against me for that matter, but I played it off as friendly fire rather than him taking the opportunity to remove me as a threat. He knew I knew, and I knew he knew I knew. He knew that I knew he knew I knew, but that's how his type plays the game.)

Two dozen fought, but in the end, there can be only one Sovereign.