A Real Bummer of an Invasion

"Hello there." I greeted the assembled superheroes waiting on the Earth end of our interdimensional portal with a raised hand.

"Mark?" my dad asked in shock at the head of the gang.

"Yeah. Why so surprised? I told you I would be spending ten months to a year in an alternate dimension implementing a holistic solution to escalating invasions of our lovely blue planet." I said as the costume clad man floated over and put his hands on my shoulders.

"Mark, is that really you?" Nolan questioned hopefully.

"Yeah. Who else would it be? Well, Kate would also be a correct answer." I indicated to the woman next to me.

"Mark, you're huge!" Omni-Man barked, "How did this happen?"

"Oh, that. For some reason I thought you shrunk, then I remembered that due to environmental and personal factors I have spent the last thousand years as an eighteen year old physically, and while people only grow insignificant amounts after they turn sixteen, even growing a hundredth of an inch every year for a thousand years adds up."

"It really does." Omni-Man looked up and down my body, taking in the extra ten inches I stacked on in the Flaxen dimension and the hundred lean pounds that came with it.

Not even the extra padding or white armor on my red banded Flaxan style suit hid my incredible gains, and Dulpi-Kate's army of clones interacted awkwardly with their similarly grown alternate who now stood as tall as my dad and changed significantly from our time away.

"Invincible." Cecil greeted after he ported in, "All that negotiating over pay and you ran off within a week of starting at the GDA."

"Technically I answered a call and spent a thousand years stopping the near endless army of another dimension from raiding our planet for slaves." I chuckled as I pulled a portal trigger off my belt, "But we can talk about a thousand years of back pay after what comes next."

I raised the device and pressed my thumb down on the button. Three more portals tore open in the sky over Chicago as similar portals opened around the world, and out of those orange and black gateways poured a stream of Viltrumites. Thousands of them flying through each hole in reality.

"Dad, meet your grandkids, great grandkids, and so on and so forth a thousand years of descendants." I announced with well earned satisfaction, "We don't serve the Empire anymore," I chuckled, "We are the Empire."

Nolan watched his descendants as they carried out their work and nearby Cecil moved his jaw as he tried to find words to encapsulate this sudden upset. I walked over too him and gave him a gentle slap on the back.

"Don't worry Cecil." I grinned at the man, "They've got their lists, and you are on the priority live list."

"How…how could you betray your world like this?" the stunned man demanded with his head fixed in front of him, unable to even look at me.

"How could I make the whole world a better place you mean?" I grinned, "Don't worry. The numbers are mostly for show. This takeover is surgical. I've had stealth drones coming in from beyond your sensor range for months your time. I know all the actors on this world and everyone who is anyone important has been weighed, measured, and put on the appropriate list."

"I… we…" he growled as he turned to look at me with eyes filled to the brim with hate.

"It's over, Cecil." I interrupted him, "We are here."

"Fuck you, Mark." he spat.

"Don't go anywhere." I told the crotchety old man, "I've got plans for you to oversee. You're going to be the head of my new Illuminati."

"Like Hell I am!" Cecil sneered.

"Yes, you will, because it doesn't really matter to you who is in charge, just that humanity is safe. They are now safer than ever before." I smiled at him, "War, crime. That shit is over. Human suffering is about to spike for the next couple of minutes then is going to hit an all time low so profound that you people are going to be begging me to let you fight in space wars. You're species is cyclical. Order then Chaos then Order then Chaos. Nothing good ever lasts here because humans won't let it last. Nothing ever gets fixed because then humans wouldn't have anything to whinge about. Your kind live to whinge."

A hovercraft came out of the portal and parked in front of us, then my oldest daughter touched down. She stood just over six feet tall and built with wide hips and shoulders and a powerful core and limbs. Dark hair in a pixie cut with matching dark eyes and a slightly more olive skin tone than my own.

"It's done, Father." Cassiopeia announce.

I checked my watch, "Three minutes and eleven seconds. Nice work." I grinned and she grinned back.

The transport opened its doors and I waved my father over.

"Get in, Cecil." I commanded the man who sighed and complied.

I moved across the plush interior to the minibar and pulled out five glass flutes and a big bottle of champagne. Cecil looked at his glass like it would give him cancer.

"Dad, meet Empress Cassiopeia of the Neo Viltrumite Empire, my first daughter by birth though not conception." I grinned as I handed them their glasses, "I abdicated on her thousandth birthday. Her coronation was watched by trillions. TV event of the century."

"Yeah…" Nolan responded but was obviously still overwhelmed by the day's events, "You had nine more since you left."

"Nine… nine?" I puzzled over the number, "Ah… I forgot birth control and abortion."

I turned at the sound of a nearby glass shattering and saw Cassiopeia more furious than I'd ever seen her… and I murdered her first boyfriend in front of her.

"Who dares?" she shouted, "Who dares deny the seed of the Grand Emperor?"

"Calm girl." Kate commanded as she entered the transport and I handed her the final flute, "I wasn't compatible."

I nodded, "I figured. You're a thousand years removed from the ones that stayed behind."

"I am my own person." she stated and knocked back the entire flute.

"Hoping to get reabsorbed to assuage that guilty conscious over betraying the human race?" Cecil growled.

"I don't feel much of anything anymore." Kate responded coldly then she closed her eyes and held her face in one hand, "I'm just so fucking tired."

"Baby," I knelt down and took her hands in mine, hands that hadn't aged a day due to a combination of the Flaxan Dimension's effect and an exotic radiation produced in my body that exponentially exacerbated that effect, "We'll find that … spark … that makes you happy again. We'll be fine."

She shook her head, "You'll be fine, Mark. Humans aren't meant to live this long."

"That again!" I snapped, "A thousand years together and you just want to punch out! You want to quit!"

"Mark!" my Dad barked and he shook his head when I looked at him.

I finished off my champagne too and sat in my chair.

"I was so excited to brag about how smooth the ride in this transport is." I huffed, "Three hundred years studying engineering. I could drive this thing through a hurricane and you'd never know."

"Wait, we're moving?" Cecil asked as we sped through the sky.

"We'll be at the Pentagon in thirty seconds." I announced glumly and we remained in silence the rest of the ride.

"This was a real bummer of an invasion." I said as we landed.