"So we meet again..."
Mark looks forward with a serious expression.
"My new and old nemesis..."
He looked ready to fight for his life. Prepared to kill and be killed, for this was an enemy unlike anything he had dealt with at this point.
"...paperwork."
Mark sits in his room at his desk and looks at the paperwork concerning his buildings. If anyone had told him that he might ever slightly fear something, he would have laughed in their faces and then kicked the shit out of them. But here he was... facing his greatest challenge yet. And he was losing. Quite badly at that.
"Ugh."
*BAM*
His head hits the desk, and he throws his head up in defeat. Thankfully, someone knocks at his window and looking out, Mark sees Eve floating there.
"Oh, thank the heavens, an excuse to stand up." Mark says and opens the window.
"Eve, my smoking hot, pink lifesaver, what can I do for you?" he asks her.
"Uhh... well, I wanted to talk to you, Mark," she says after being once again caught off guard by his unbothered way of speaking his mind.
"Sure sure, tell me whatever you want. Tell me everything." Mark says.
"I... I'm quitting, Mark." Eve stars.
"For real? I didn't know you had a job."
"Mark!"
"Haha, I'm sorry. Alright, what are you quitting? School, secret relationship?" Mark asks.
"I don't want to be Atom Eve anymore. I don't want to be a superhero. I'm done."
"Mm-hmm mm-hmm"
"Is that it? No questions? Just... that?" Eve asks, seemingly annoyed at something.
"Well, why are you quitting then?"
"Why not? I can do whatever I want, and I can not do whatever I don't want to do." I'm done - this is stupid, I'm quitting." Eve says.
"Of course, I understand."
"Do you even know what my powers are? I asked Rex one time, and he thought I could make pink stuff with my thoughts. God, he was an idiot. My powers- I can take matter and rearrange it into different matter. I can take a rock and turn it into an apple. I can rearrange atoms on a level that Robot deemed 'ridiculous'. My powers are fantastic- and what do I do with them? I put on a super cute outfit, and I fight bank robbers and aliens with it. Why in the world did I choose to do that? And now I'm going to college, so I can get a job to pay for my stuff, like all the other prones in the world. And I was dating that obnoxiously immature guy, it's just... Do you see where I'm going with this?" Eve finally asks after unloading all of that.
"Absolutely, you have the power to create money, so why study to get a job to earn money? You can just create it and shorten the process. Makes perfect sense." Mark says, stroking his chin as if he were thinking hard.
"It's just that my powers are wasted on this. The world has guys like you out there saving it. My powers could be put to use elsewhere, doing more good than I'm doing now. I'm going to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. I could do so much good for those people. I could feed the hungry, build houses for the homeless... I could improve those people's lives. College, homework, boys, superheroics... I'm wasting my potential here. I could do so much more. Am I making any sense?" Eve asks.
"Sure. You want to leave the heavy-hitting world-saving to 'guys like me' while you go out and do the softer world-saving with your broken powers." Mark says.
"NO! I don't mean it like that!" Eve says, but Mark starts to laugh.
"Haha, I'm kidding. I don't mind anyway. It's your life, do whatever the fuck you want with it."
"Oh, Mark... I'm so glad you understand. I thought for sure you'd try to give me some speech about fighting the good fight or... well, now that I think about it, that's not really something you do, is it?" Eve says.
"Nah, you do you. Freedom is the highest good in my mind."
"I never should have thought that."
"So, you ditching tonight or what?" Mark asks her.
"Yeah, I'm leaving tonight. My parents are going to flip out. I didn't know how to tell them, so I just left them a note. They never really were too comfortable with me having powers anyway... this is going to kill them. Truth be told... they kinda deserve it." Eve says.
"Ah, shuggs. It's going to be bothersome without you. Now I have to deal with the obnoxious William alone. I really should have found more friends..."
"Oh, Mark. We can see each other as fast as you can fly. I'll hope to see you as soon as I settle in and let you know where I am... and... well..."
"We were like superhero buddies, like Bonnie and Clyde," Mark says, sighing.
"Those weren't superheroes."
"But a team."
"Haha, I'll miss you... I-I mean this... this banter. That's why I couldn't leave without saying goodbye..." Eve says and gives Mark a hug. There is something more that she wants to say, though.
"Mark, I... sigh..."
"What?"
"I wanted to say something else... it's..."
"You know what? How about I accompany you until you find the place you want to crash for the time being? That might give me an excuse not to do the cursed paperwork over there."
"That... would be lovely," Eve says, and so the two fly through the sky, not realising that Debbie and Nolan are having an argument of grave proportions below in the house.
.
Mark and Eve fly south, looking for a place for Eve to stay while she is on her humanitarian trip, exchanging banter as they go. Over almost half a year, or closer to 5 months, Mark has gotten used to Eve and has started to enjoy his time with her. That was surprising, since he was a difficult person to deal with. He never lied about that or thought he was a nice person. He liked what he liked, and that was that. He didn't try to appeal to anyone or make more friends than necessary. And he was regretting even the one he had made. After his mother had arranged the meeting with Amber, Mark had ignored William for the most part, keeping his distance unless he was at school, which was less and less now. He didn't even care much about William's incident when he looked at the college that he and his boyfriend wanted to attend.
But with Eve, Mark could relax. At some points, he even tried not to be too honest and kept his thoughts to himself. It was strange for him, but he let things happen as they did, not worrying about the future, since he thought that was useless. There was enough to worry about in the present.
"Here, here would be nice," Eve says as they arrive at a large forest.
"Yeah, seems good. Not a soul in sight, and peace and quiet. Not too far away from civilisation, but you can just create everything you want anyway." Mark says.
"Haha, true. But you're powers are also incredible, you don't have to be jealous of mine, do you?" Eve asks.
"Are you joking? You are a step short of reality manipulation, and think that my powers are impressive? Don't be ridiculous. You are truly broken if you use your powers right."
"Oh, yeah? How would you use my powers then?"
"If I had your powers, phew, let me tell you. I wouldn't use them like you do. The first thing I would have done, is create some bonkers training weights, and added a shitload of gravitons to it or something. Then create an entire gym for myself and go absolutely nuts on it. I sweat? No problem, I can use that to create clean water. It's hot, no problem, I can just freeze the molecules in the air and make it cooler. I am hungry. Sure have a fucking burger or drink Iced Tea. You need money? Why, you can just create whatever you need money for yourself."
"... Wow, yeah, I see that you do have some ideas. Did you think of those for a while now?" Eve tries to tease him.
"Nah. When I first saw you during the Flaxan invasion, I knew what you could do. It's actually also the reason I approached you the next day." Mark says.
"Huh? What do you mean?" Eve asks, confused.
"I wanted to ask whether you could create some training weights for me, which would challenge me. But I never got there."
"You... you just talked to me to ask for weight?! You're joking! Oh, my god, I can't believe you!" Eve says, and has tears in her eyes. She is hurt since she thought that Mark's approaching her was special, since he didn't talk to anybody. Finding out now that it was just to ask for weights, hurt her. She flies away, leaving a confused Mark behind.
"Hmm... I think I said something wrong," he says, and suddenly notices an explosion far up in the atmosphere. He doesn't think about it and shoots through the sky.
.
Mark shoots through the sky at incredible speeds, arriving at a fight scene between his father and a large Kaiju. He flies forward and waits, calling out to his father.
"Yo, Dad. It doesn't look like you need any help." Invincible says.
Seeing his son, Omni-Man flies towards him. When Invincible arrived, he wasn't struggling against the massive monster and was just about to kill it and find him.
"Mark! It's good to see you."
"You mean Invincible. We should at least try to keep up appearances." Invincible says jokingly. "So you got this or... what's going on?"
*ROOOAAARRRRR*
"Urgh, disgusting. Didn't you kill this thing already? How come it's alive again?" Invincible asks as they dodge the monster's tentacles.
*BOOM*
"Cecil sent it after me. It's tougher now." Omni-Man says after he punches the Kaiju and sends it towards Invincible.
*BOOM*
"For real? Why, though?" Invincible asks after sending the Kaiju to the ground.
"There's so much you don't know, Mark," Omni-Man says.
"Really? I think I know a lot. So, how about you fill me in after we take care of the pornographic monster here?" Invincible says.
"Sure. Do you want to-"
*BOOM*
The Kaiju attacks Invincible and smashes him to the ground.
"Raaaa!"
A distant roar grabs Omni-Man's attention. He doesn't even worry about his son, since he knows just how strong he has grown.
"Omni-Man!" In the distance, the Immortal shoots forward at Mach 3 speed.
"You bastard!"
*BOOOM*
"WHY?! Why did you do it?!" Immortal shouts and punches Omni-Man.
But he just shrugs it off and pushes the Immortal into the sky, punching him as well.
"I don't know how you did it, but you should have stayed dead," Omni-Man says.
*BOOM*
As a response, he gets punched in the face by the Immortal.
"Why, dammit!! Why did you kill them?!"
*BOOM DOOOM*
"I'll beat it out of you if I have to!"
*BOOM*
Omni-Man punches the Immortal as well.
"I killed you once! I can do it again!" he says and impales the poor sod with his fist.
"PKAAA..."
The Immortal doesn't want to give up, fueled by his anger and tries to hurt Omni-Man's eyes, but before he can do that, the Viltrumite uses his second arm to cut the Immortal in two, killing him so soon after he was revived.
"So..."
Omni-Man turns around, hearing his son's voice. He sees Invincible sitting on the corpse of the Kaiju with blood on his suit, looking at him. Invincible rises into the air until he floats in front of his father.
"Anything you want to tell me, Dad?"
"Mark... we need to talk."