Mark!
Obligatory Disclaimer : I do not own anything (except maybe OC characters) all characters, places, worlds, universes…etc mentioned here belong to their respective owners and/or companies.
This is purely a work of fiction. Not meant to offend or incite, but to entertain and (maybe) inspire.
*.*.*.*.*
MARK!
*.*.*.*.*
"I'm not happy about this, Cecil." Omni-man said with a stern frown and his arms folded. He then turned to me "Mark, your responsibilities are to this family and this planet, anything else is secondary."
"Dad, you're here, the Guardian's aren't. Nothing's going to go wrong on your watch. They need me and you know I can handle it." He looks into my eyes and he understands exactly when I'm trying to get across.
"Still doesn't mean I'm happy about it. Do you even know how much school you'll be missing?" He rubbed his brows.
"Two weeks. Nothing too drastic, you've seen my grades." I shrugged, adjusting the gloves on my hands. Oh, I was going, with or without his approval, I'd prefer to have it but it is what it is.
"Nolan, we need this win, especially after the invasion. People need to have their faith restored." Cecil implored. Leaving it unsaid that he originally planned to have Nolan go off world so they'd investigate the murders in relative peace and secrecy. But I guess people needed to see that the government could hold its own in space and against aliens without the help of superhumans.
"Fine." He sighed. "When do you leave?"
"In an hour." Cecil answered in my stead. Leaving his regards and thanks as he teleported away.
Debbie was out, either showing her clients a new home or meeting up with the demon who was either about to be sent back to hell or murdered by Omni-man.
I got suited up, grabbed my phone and a PSP because spending two entire weeks staring at nothing but the stars was bound to get boring.
"Stay safe." Omni-man said with a weighty tone, his heavy eyes on mine, his hand—a mountain—rested atop my shoulder. What he meant was for me to destroy whatever it was that stood in the way of my return or attempt on my life.
"I will." I replied in tone. There was another weight on my soul that made it so I couldn't just run off, said weight guaranteed my return. And despite all the red flags I was planting against myself, this wasn't such a big deal, for me at least. I was adamant on going to mars for a reason, a threat on it had to be neutralized while it remained dormant.
BzzT! BzzT!
I held up my phone and checked the messages coming in.
Amber: Can we meet up?
Mark: Not today. Busy.
Amber: Tomorrow?
Mark: Busy too. A two week trip to my Uncle's.
Amber: Is it an emergency.
Mark: Not really, it is personal tho. So yh.
Amber: Oh ok. Fine. Get back soon.
Mark: Amber, I'm not making shit up to ignore you, I really will be gone for a while.
Amber: I'm not that insecure asshole.
But she was tho.
Mark: Don't miss me too much. L8tr.
Amber: You too, stupid. Xoxo.
Mark: I luv me too.
Amber: Asshole.
Made me miss Melissa, at least she starts her texts with nudes. Wonder how her back is doing.
I strapped on the breathing gear and the utility belt containing consumables; I needed neither but it was nice to be equipped.
I breached the stratosphere and stared down the horizon, the gigantic spacecraft bore through the atmosphere like an oversized bullet, leaving a trail of fire and vapor as it ascended past the planet's orbit.
Alhamdulilah, the Emperor has blessed my eyes. Pride welled up in my chest, pride and fascination. Humans built this behemoth, this winged hunk of steel and powered it with explosives and it actually flew. It was amazing to behold, to have a front seat to human ingenuity and advancement. I was proud of my race, proud to be human despite the Xeno blood that ran in my veins. Imagine what more we could accomplish should petty desires and conflict be set aside. Should we be united under a single banner.
'Be the emperor we need.'
For once brain, for once you have a valid point.
"Invincible, come in."
"V here and still ghost."
"Great, this has to be a win for humans." The everyday ones. I was unbothered at the implication between the line, despite my powers I was still human at core and that's what mattered regardless of the average joe's ignorance.
"Your second objective is to ensure our astronauts return in one piece. We need our people back home safe and that means you have to keep an eye out for the Martians…"
Why'd he stop talking? "…Hello?" I spoke.
"You're aware of the Martians?"
"Contrary to popular belief, I read the case files and dossiers on the mission and Martian Man too." The dollar store Martian manhunter.
"Hah, smart kid. All we know is that they are relatively isolationist and dwell in subterranean systems, you shouldn't have any problem avoiding them."
Or dealing with them should they become a problem he left unsaid.
"Will do, Cecil."
"Good luck kid, mission control out."
I flew next to the spaceship, landed on its wing and made myself comfortable as it docked into the larger space station which would ferry it to the red planet. If I attempted to leave them behind and rush to the planet myself I would be leaving them unguarded and vulnerable to unknown threats. Which would defeat the purpose of the mission, well, Cecil's mission.
I leaned against the cold metal of the wing and stared into the black, noiseless vacuum punctuated by shimmering, polychromatic stars. My eyes drew shut, my heart settled to a near silent drum, I folded my hands behind my head and allowed myself to rest.
Thoughts flitted across my mind, I pondered nothing in particular but my mission, this and the greater one. As much as I disliked the weight on my soul, the sensation kept me grounded, reminding me of death akin to the constant tick of a timer on a time bomb. It guaranteed my demise should I ever let myself fail—nothing drives one forward like the threat of death.
Death. What did my first death do to those around me? Behind the curtains of my eyelids I saw my mother's face flash across, her lovely smile as she tried to be strong for my younger ones. She would cry herself to sleep, weeping only in the silent embrace of my father.
My father would wear a hard frown on his to hide his pain, I know he would constantly visit my resting place shedding silent tears upon realizing that I was truly dead and gone—he would take it the hardest despite his tough exterior. That man, I was his favorite, his best friend as much as I was his only son. Only, living son.
Living? Hah.
A warm moisture gathered on the boundary where my eyelids met, something made my heart feel like it was being squeezed in the hand of a toddler, my throat quivered, I tried breathing through my mouth but stopped that when I heard my almost raspy voice shake.
I clenched my jaw, opened my eyes to face the darkness and took deep breaths through my nose. Two transparent liquid beads slid up and floated around the corners of my eyes as I sat up.
"Man, they need to work on the condensation remover in these." I said to no one except those on the other line, tapped into the monitoring devices hidden in the equipment provided to me.
"I can't believe I'm sweating."
Sweating from the eyes huh?
Shut up brain.
I took off the breather helmet, unequipped my goggles and wiped away droplets that still floated in them. Reequipping my gear only when I was done drying my face.
Could I go back home to my world? Even if I could, with this drastically different body of mine who would recognize me? Would my return cause more harm than good?
Were questions I left to my future self to answer. I pulled up my phone and loaded the first game I found, distracting myself from all my personal and psychological issues.
'We don't need a therapist.'
That's exactly why I needed a therapist but would never go to one. I'll walk off my pain, replace my sorrow with sex and drown my loneliness in combat and the unparalleled feeling of being a superman and the probable future emperor of earth.
May the Emperor bless my halal endeavors.
*.*.*.*.*
It was a quiet and boring journey. There comes a point in time when even the vastness of space and its exotic nature becomes mundane. When the stars glinting in the endless darkness no longer inspired a spark of wonder. When the phone in my hand no longer interested me.
I ran around the dense darkness of space, racing against myself, going faster each time I pulsed through the expanse like an aimless bullet and pushing my powers to exhaustion—which was a feat of its own. I located another asteroid, this one the size of a small continent. I pulled off my gloves and got to punching, my fists blurred against the rock's face, each strike fractured a sizeable chunk of rock mass off. I dug deeper, going faster, fast enough my fists blurred and entirely disappeared.
The asteroid large enough to cause an extinction level event cracked, split and shattered into a million fragments, bursting out into open space with a silent, destructive shockwave. Dust and steam wafted off my lightly bruised fist. Having finished my workout, I pulled my gloves back on and made my long return to the spaceship.
There was still a week left before we got anywhere close to the planet, considering that nothing had gone wrong so far, it was safe to assume that there weren't threats this close to home.
Earth was just that far away from everything else, the last guy to come to our solar system came entirely because he got some letters on his map wrong. Nothing would be coming this far unless it was either lost, looking for someone, or had teleporters.
Taking all this into account left me with a certain option, one I favored above all others; going to Mars alone to clear things out before the astronauts got there. The trip itself would take minutes at most for me.
Let's do it.
I broke through space and rushed out into the expanse, making my way around asteroids and the vacuum at large for what seemed like hours. Which were in fact hours.
Why were they hours when I promised to get to Mars in minutes? I got lost. I didn't know which way Mars was.
"You idiot." I whispered to myself, forgetting that I did have a space map in my HUD, one powered by an AI, regardless of it being offline since I wasn't currently connected to the internet. I made sure to have it download the spaceship's route to Mars back on Earth. I guess I was smart in some ways and dumb in others.
"Display map with marked out direction to Mars."
[Displaying.]
I religiously followed the highlighted path on my display, and with the passage of time I spotted the red, acrid ball at the edge of my vision.
"Finally." I shot down into the planet's surface. The sky was cloudless and yet the dry world itself was much colder than expected.
I made sure to plant my sole into the soil, pocketing some of it and the odd rock and pebble even.
"Whoop! whoop!" I celebrated being the…first teen(?) on Mars—to my knowledge. Now to get to work.
I found a boulder, which was like saying I found water in the ocean, and sat against it. The Martians would come for me, as they did for any living being that stepped foot on their world.
Why? They had these things called Sequids;—your basic Starro creature—parasitic alien beings that subsumed their hosts and used their vast numbers to consume, overwhelm and assimilate entire civilizations. The caveat being that without a host they couldn't unite into a single intelligence, leaving them effectively useless and scattered.
If things were left to play out, these parasites would eventually get to Earth and fuck us all up. I say strangle baby Hitler in the cradle and give the world peace.
Heavy is the head that wears the crown Emperor V.
It is brain, it is.
"Halt human!" They yelled confirming that I indeed wasn't the first person on this planet.
"I am halting." I said arms up, theirs holding four, glowing spear like weapons each pointed at my face. I observed them as they observed me. They had humanoid statures and limbs, possessed a light olive-green skin tone, elongated heads and no distinctive facial features apart from their red sclera eyes.
"Halt! I say!" One to my right says, Pointing his weapon into my face. No way, no way was this what I thought it was.
"I am fucking halted." I reply, he fires, I tilt my head to inches to the left, the green bolt of energy shoots past my head.
Ok, fuck that.
"!!!" I pull the glowing weapon away from his grip and impale him through the head with the blunt side faster than it can register in his eyes. Pink brain tissue and red blood splatters out, greedily swallowed by the soil, into which it blends perfectly.
Whip whip I slash left and right, two heads roll to the ground, the bodies flop soon after. One remains, staring at me with fear, the spear in its hand trembles with its shaky hold.
"You saw that didn't you, it was in self-defense right?" I drape an arm around its shoulder, pulling its face right to the shielding of my helmet.
"Y-yes." It nods. I can't tell if its male or female, they do no exhibit tell tale secondary sexual characteristics. I would judge on their voice but they sound the same too, for a race of shapeshifters you'd think they'd have more biodiversity.
Imagine what and who they could shapeshift into.
No. I know where this is heading.
They're the perfect fuck toys.
No, brain, we are not doing that.
Yes. Yes we are.
Despite myself, I was grinning at the frightened alien.
"Take me to your ruler."
*.*.*.*.*.*
Oraoraoraora!!! That's Japanese for wooow. I hope y'all enjoyed this chap. I pray it made your day/night better.
Stay dangerous. Live safe. I'll see ya again mi amigos
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