Chapter 42 - Thoughts of Invaders
In a warehouse on the outskirts of the merged city, six figures sat in uncomfortable silence.
Each wore some variation of the Invincible costume, yet each was fundamentally different from the others in ways that went far beyond their attire.
Sinister Mark leaned against a support beam, his dark costume with its black accents where the original had blue reflecting his corrupted soul.
A cape hung from his shoulders – an affectation he'd adopted after taking control of his world's superhero community through systematic elimination of anyone who opposed him.
Mohawk Mark paced restlessly, his spiked hair and modified costume with torn sleeves and added spikes projecting the rebellious image he cultivated.
His fingers tapped against his thigh in an impatient rhythm, betraying his growing boredom.
Viltrumite Mark sat rigidly in a chair that seemed too small for his imposing frame.
His costume incorporated elements of traditional Viltrumite battle armor – shoulder plates, bracers, and a modified chest emblem that resembled the Viltrumite Empire's insignia.
Unmasked Mark stood by the window, staring out at the city with an expression of quiet longing. True to his name, he wore no mask, his face exposed to the world.
His costume was simpler than the others, almost minimalist, as if the trappings of heroism were an afterthought to him now.
Dark Mark sat hunched in a corner, his costume a muted version of the original, all bright colors replaced with shades of gray and black. A hood partially obscured his face, casting shadows that matched the darkness in his eyes.
Astronaut Mark studied a map of the city spread across a table, his costume modified with elements of space gear – reinforced plating, life support connections, and a subtle alien influence in the design that hinted at his time with the Flaxan Empire.
"So," Mohawk Mark broke the silence, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "anyone else wondering why we're sitting around in this dump instead of blowing up midtown like we're supposed to?"
Astronaut Mark looked up from his map. "Because we're not stupid," he replied evenly. "Something feels wrong about all this. The dimensional fluctuations are increasing exponentially. This isn't what Levy described would happen."
"Exactly," Viltrumite Mark agreed, his deep voice carrying the authority of someone accustomed to commanding armies. "It's the same reason as you. We didn't get to our positions by rushing blindly into chaos."
Mohawk Mark snorted. "Speak for yourself. I'm here because the pay was good and the promise of unlimited worlds to conquer sounded fun."
He kicked at a crate, sending it skidding across the floor. "Now we're just sitting around while reality itself gets a makeover."
"Patience," Sinister Mark advised, his cold voice carrying an undercurrent of amusement. "The board is being reset. New pieces are entering play. We should understand the game before making our move."
"Always with the chess metaphors," Mohawk Mark rolled his eyes. "Some of us just want to flip the board and be done with it."
Dark Mark spoke up, his voice heavy with emotion. "We all had our reasons for joining Levy. Mine hasn't changed, regardless of what's happening to the dimensions."
"And what's that, exactly?" Astronaut Mark asked, though his tone suggested he already knew the answer.
Dark Mark's eyes took on a haunted quality. "I just... I just want to see my mom again."
Mohawk Mark burst into cruel laughter. "Still crying about mommy? That's pathetic, even for you."
Dark Mark's fists clenched, but he didn't rise to the bait. "You wouldn't understand. You didn't watch her die."
"No, I killed mine," Sinister Mark said casually, examining his gloves with disturbing detachment. "It was surprisingly easy. Just like killing Cecil. And Robot. And everyone else who got in my way."
An uncomfortable silence fell over the group.
"What about the rest of you?" Astronaut Mark asked, deliberately changing the subject. "Why side with Levy? What's your endgame here?"
Viltrumite Mark straightened, his pride evident in every movement. "The conquest of all realities under Viltrumite rule.
My father was weak, hesitating when he should have acted. I showed no such weakness when I took his place."
"How original," Mohawk Mark mocked. "Another Viltrumite wanting to rule everything. Never heard that one before."
"And your goal is what? Chaos for its own sake?" Viltrumite Mark countered, eyes narrowing.
Mohawk Mark grinned, the expression more feral than amused. "Freedom. Pure and simple. No rules, no responsibilities, no Cecil Stedman telling me what I can and can't do.
Just the power to go wherever I want, take whatever I want, do whatever I want."
"You sound like a child," Astronaut Mark observed.
"And you sound like a bore," Mohawk Mark shot back. "What's your story anyway, space boy? Levy didn't share much about your timeline."
Astronaut Mark's expression darkened. "The Flaxans captured me during their third invasion. They have... different perceptions of time.
What was months for Earth was decades for me. I was remade in their image, trained in their ways of war. When I returned, everything I knew was gone."
"So you're helping Levy because...?" Dark Mark prompted.
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"Because he promised me a world where the Flaxans never invaded. Where I never lost everything." His voice took on a harder edge.
"And if that doesn't work out, I have an army waiting for my signal to begin conquest across multiple dimensions."
Unmasked Mark, who had remained silent throughout the exchange, finally spoke. "I miss Megumi."
The simple statement drew all eyes to him.
"Who?" Mohawk Mark asked, genuinely confused.
Unmasked Mark turned from the window, his expression a complex mixture of grief and longing. "Megumi Fushiguro. In my world, he was my best friend.
The only one who truly stood by me, not out of fear or reverence, but because he genuinely believed the world could be better with us together."
"Never heard of him," Sinister Mark said dismissively.
"He was... different," Unmasked Mark continued, ignoring the interruption. "Not because of powers or abilities – he had none. But because of his mind, his way of seeing the world.
He understood strategy, human nature, the long game in ways no one else did. He always knew exactly what to say, exactly how to approach a problem."
"What happened to him?" Dark Mark asked softly, recognizing the pain of loss in Unmasked Mark's voice.
Unmasked Mark's expression hardened. "My father killed him. To prove a point about humans having too much influence over me.
Said no human should have that kind of bond with a Viltrumite." His fists clenched at the memory. "So I killed my father. Then I killed Thragg and took control of the Viltrum Empire."
"You killed Thragg?" Viltrumite Mark asked, unable to keep the surprise from his voice.
"With strategies Megumi had helped me develop before he died," Unmasked Mark confirmed.
"He showed me how to think differently, how to approach combat in ways Viltrumites never considered. How to get stronger. How to use their arrogance and predictability against them."
"So what's your endgame with Levy?" Astronaut Mark asked. "Revenge on all versions of your father?"
Unmasked Mark shook his head. "I want to find this world's Megumi. Bring him back with me. Have him at my side again so we can make all realities better, like we always planned."
Mohawk Mark snickered. "That's the gayest thing I've ever heard."
The armrest of Unmasked Mark's chair shattered in his grip. In a blur of motion too fast for even the other Marks to fully track, he hurled the broken piece directly at Mohawk Mark's face.
Mohawk Mark barely managed to dodge, the projectile embedding itself in the wall behind him with enough force to crack the concrete.
"Say that again," Unmasked Mark challenged, his voice deadly quiet. "Please."
Mohawk Mark raised his hands in mock surrender, though his smirk remained. "Touched a nerve, did I?"
"You have no idea what it's like to have someone who truly understands you, who sees the world the same way you do," Unmasked Mark said, his voice tight with emotion.
"Someone who makes you better just by existing. And then to have that ripped away..."
An uncomfortable silence fell over the group.
"Has anyone actually seen this Megumi guy in this timeline?" Dark Mark finally asked, partly to defuse the tension.
Astronaut Mark shook his head. "I've been monitoring local hero activity since we arrived. No mention of anyone by that name."
"He could be operating under a different identity," Unmasked Mark suggested. "Or maybe he's keeping a low profile in this world."
"Or maybe he doesn't exist here at all," Sinister Mark pointed out cruelly. "Not all timelines have the same players."
Unmasked Mark's expression darkened. "He exists. I can feel it."
"Speaking of feeling things," Viltrumite Mark interrupted, his head tilting slightly as if listening to something distant, "anyone else sense that?"
The others paused, their enhanced Viltrumite senses picking up what ordinary humans couldn't – a subtle vibration in the air, a disturbance in the fabric of reality itself.
"Something's happening," Astronaut Mark confirmed, moving to the window. "The dimensional fluctuations are intensifying."
Outside, the sky had taken on a strange, rippling quality, as if reality itself was becoming fluid. Green energy pulsed across the horizon in waves, each one stronger than the last.
"Maybe our time to act is getting closer than we think," Sinster Mark stated with a smile.
"Maybe our time to act is getting closer than we think," Sinister Mark stated with a smile.
Astronaut Mark shook his head, his expression grim as he studied the rippling sky. "No. This is different. The dimensional barriers aren't just weakening—they're collapsing entirely."
He turned back to the group, his tactical mind already calculating possibilities. "Levy's plan was to use controlled dimensional breaches to allow us to operate in this world,
then return to our own realities once we'd completed our objectives. This..." He gestured toward the window. "This is uncontrolled. Chaotic."
"So what?" Mohawk Mark challenged, though there was a hint of unease beneath his bravado. "More chaos means more opportunities."
"It means we might not have realities to return to," Astronaut Mark countered. "The dimensional merger is accelerating. I've seen something like this before, during my time with the Flaxans. When multiple timelines begin to collapse into one another, duplicates can't coexist indefinitely."
Viltrumite Mark rose from his chair, his imposing frame casting a shadow across the warehouse floor. "Explain."
"The universe abhors redundancy," Astronaut Mark said, his voice taking on a lecturing tone. "Two versions of the same person can't exist in the same reality for long. Eventually, the timeline will... correct itself."
"By doing what, exactly?" Dark Mark asked, pulling his hood further over his face as if to hide from the implications.
"By eliminating the duplicates," Astronaut Mark replied simply. "Or merging them. Either way, only one version of each person will remain when this is over."
A heavy silence fell over the group as they processed this information.
"And who decides which version survives?" Sinister Mark asked, his cold eyes calculating.
"Usually the version native to the dominant reality," Astronaut Mark explained. "But with this level of dimensional instability, it could be random. Or it could be determined by strength of will, physical power, or some other factor we don't understand."
Unmasked Mark turned back to the window, watching as the green energy waves grew more intense. "So we're fighting for our very existence now."
"It would appear so," Astronaut Mark confirmed.
Mohawk Mark kicked another crate, his frustration evident. "Great. So Levy drags us into this mess, promising unlimited worlds to conquer, and now we might not even exist tomorrow. Fantastic plan."
"We need to adapt," Viltrumite Mark stated, his military mind already shifting to contingency planning. "If only one version of each of us can survive, we need to ensure it's one of us, not this world's Mark Grayson."
"How do we do that?" Dark Mark asked.
"We eliminate him," Sinister Mark suggested, a cruel smile playing across his lips. "Remove the competition."
"That might not work," Astronaut Mark cautioned. "The merger appears to be operating on a metaphysical level. Killing this world's Mark might simply cause one of us to transform into his replacement, losing our own identity in the process."
"Then what do you suggest?" Viltrumite Mark demanded.
Astronaut Mark was silent for a moment, considering their options. "We need leverage. Something that gives us an advantage in this merger process."
"Like what?" Mohawk Mark scoffed. "A dimensional anchor? A reality stabilizer? This isn't one of your sci-fi Flaxan technologies."
"No," Astronaut Mark agreed. "But there might be something else." He turned to Unmasked Mark. "You said this Megumi person helped you defeat Thragg. That he understood strategy in ways others didn't."
Unmasked Mark nodded, a flicker of hope entering his eyes. "Yes. He could see patterns others missed, anticipate moves before they were made."
"Then finding him might be our best option," Astronaut Mark concluded. "If he exists in this reality, he might understand what's happening better than we do."
"You want to pin our survival on some random human?" Viltrumite Mark asked incredulously.
"He created a plan to make one of us kill Thragg and conquer Viltrum uncontested. That requires absurd amounts of intelligence and creativity." Astronaut Mark countered.
"And he's not random," Unmasked Mark corrected, his voice taking on a hard edge. "He's Megumi Fushiguro. The most brilliant mind I've ever encountered."
"Fine," Sinister Mark interjected, pushing away from the support beam. "Let's say we try to find this Megumi person. Where do we even start looking?"
Unmasked Mark considered this. "In my world, he was a high school student at Reginald Vel Johnson High. The same school as Mark Grayson."
"Then that's where we start," Astronaut Mark decided. "We find this Megumi and convince him to help us."
"And how exactly do we do that?" Mohawk Mark scoffed, gesturing toward the window where the rippling green sky cast an eerie glow over the chaos outside.
"The world has gone to shit. Dimensional rifts are opening everywhere. People are panicking in the streets. What kind of ridiculous idea is infiltrating a school? There probably isn't even school in this apocalypse."
Astronaut Mark frowned, acknowledging the point. "Fair assessment. Educational institutions would likely be suspended during a dimensional crisis of this magnitude."
"If he's anything like the Megumi I knew," Unmasked Mark interjected, "he wouldn't be sitting in a classroom anyway. Not with everything falling apart outside."
"Then where would he be?" Dark Mark asked.
Unmasked Mark considered this, drawing on his memories. "Somewhere strategic. Somewhere he could observe, analyze, and plan.
My Megumi always positioned himself to gather maximum information with minimum exposure."
"The Global Defense Agency," Viltrumite Mark suggested. "If he's as tactically minded as you claim, he might have found his way there."
"Or he could be working with this world's heroes," Astronaut Mark added. "The Guardians of the Globe or the Teen Team."
"Or he could be dead," Sinister Mark pointed out coldly. "Dimensional collapses aren't exactly conducive to survival for ordinary humans."
Unmasked Mark's expression hardened. "He's alive. And we're going to find him."
"Split up," Astronaut Mark decided. "Cover more ground. Dark Mark and Unmasked Mark, check the GDA headquarters. Viltrumite Mark, scout the known hero bases.
Mohawk Mark and Sinister Mark, search the emergency shelters and medical centers. I'll monitor the dimensional fluctuations from here and coordinate our efforts."
"What kind of shitty names are those? I know we all have the same name, but come on!" Mohawk Mark protested.
"I like it, Sinister Mark, has a nice ring to it." Sinister Mark stated.
"And if we find him?" Dark Mark asked ignoring the two.
"We bring him here," Unmasked Mark replied. "I'll convince him to help us. He'll understand the stakes."
As the group dispersed to prepare for their respective missions, Unmasked Mark remained by the window, watching the increasingly unstable sky.
His thoughts turned to memories of his Megumi - the quiet confidence, the strategic mind, the unwavering loyalty.
"I'll find you," he whispered to the empty air. "Wherever you are in this world, I'll find you."
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(Author note: Yeah, this has gone insanely AU, I know!
But I'm having fun, and I hope you guys are having fun. The variants were too wasted for my taste and well, since that comment in Chapter one "I miss Megumi," this whole thing was already my plan.
All according to plan,
As we should saw.
Also, see, I haven't decided if I want to make other Megumi's be truly Sukuna's who just weren't destined to regain their memories, or just the first life who never reincarnated as Sukuna and skipped that to become Megumi.
Do tell me which you guys think is a better idea.
Well, I hope to see you all later,
Bye!)