Chapter Text
The house is the same.
Mark thought it would be different. There are enough differences between their universes, even if there are more similarities, that he was sure this would be one of them. A different childhood, so, a different house. Maybe the same city, or neighbourhood, but not the exact same street, same house, same-
Through the window, he can see the TV is turned on to the news. Footage of the other Marks appear on it, shots taken from a distance and a scattering of shaky close-ups, before changing back to a reporter.
The TV is on, and there’s a car in the driveway, and…and a heartbeat inside.
Before he can second guess himself, he lowers down onto the patio and looks through the glass doors. He forgets how to breathe.
(It isn’t an issue. It hasn’t been for a long time.)
Mom. It’s Mom standing behind the couch staring at the TV.
It’s been years but he’d know her anywhere. He’s not mistaken this time, because this version of her never died. She’s alive.
The patio door isn’t locked when he tries it, the door handle twisting beneath his grip and the glass cracking when he doesn’t restrain his strength properly. Mom whirls around to look at him, and it’s like-
It’s like one of Dad’s punches, the only thing that can really hurt him anymore, driving into his chest until his ribs crumble from the force. But, but worse, because those punches don’t feel like this, they haven’t since he was much younger. They don’t ache like seeing Mom alive does.
He takes a step inside. She flinches back, grabbing onto the couch behind her.
“Stay right there!” she snaps, and she’s glaring but she looks scared. Scared of him.
Somehow, it hurts even more.
“I-” His tongue feels thick and heavy in his mouth. His throat aches almost as much as his chest. “I won’t- I won’t hurt you. Don’t be scared.”
He lifts a hand, half-reaches for her before he can stop himself. She looks at him like she thinks he’s going to attack her.
His hand drops back to his side. “Please.”
She stares at him for a long moment. She’s older here. There are wrinkles he doesn’t remember, doesn’t think he remembers, on her forehead and at the corners of her eyes. Around her mouth, like she smiles a lot. But she looks tired, too. Weary in a way Mom- his Mom wasn’t, not in his memories of her. Though memories aren’t…the most reliable. Not like this is, a version of her alive in front of him, just a few feet away.
“Why are you here?” she asks finally, a slight tremble in her voice despite how firm it is otherwise. Brave. Mom was brave, she had to be - marrying Dad and knowing part of what he was. She was brave when she-
Mom is brave here, too.
“I’m not here to hurt you,” he says, repeats himself, but it’s- it’s important that she knows that. She can’t think he’d ever want her harmed. That he’d ever be able to do it. “I just…He…” He swallows and forces his hands not to shake. “Dad, he…There aren’t any photos left so I just wanted to, to see you.”
She’s still holding onto the couch, but she stands straighter. Her eyes dart to the front door and he keeps still.
If she runs…If she runs, it’s okay. He’s seen her. He got what he wanted from the moment Angstrom Levy showed up talking about another dimension. He has this new image of her, a new memory, and it doesn’t erase the last one he has but it’s…something. It’s more than he had yesterday.
But she doesn’t run. She looks at him, taking in his uniform, and something in her expression changes. Goes hard in the thin line of her lips, the narrowing of her eyes. When she takes an abrupt step forward, towards him, he flinches.
She stops. Looks at him again, for longer this time. It’s hard not to fidget, the urge to run almost enough to overpower the need to stay as long as he can. Almost.
Her voice is forcefully calm when she speaks. “You came here with those other versions of you, and they’re out there killing people. They’ve already killed hundreds, maybe thousands of people, they’ve attacked heroes - they’ve attacked my son, my Mark. And you want me to believe you won’t hurt me?”
Not calm, he realises dully. Cold.
It really is a good that he doesn’t need to breathe as much as a human. He doesn’t think he can right now, when his lungs feel like they’re twisted up around that aching, broken part in the centre of him.
She hates him. Mom hates him, and he deserves it, he knows he does, but it still hurts. He’s still weak. He’s always been weak, and he keeps proving it constantly, over and over. At least this time, Dad might not find out about it.
Can he fix it? Fix this, when he can’t fix anything else?
He doesn’t want to leave with her hating him.
“You’ll believe me if I help him?” he tries, desperation threading through the offer.
Mom- this version loves her son, she hasn’t had any reason to stop, so if Mark helps him then Mom won’t hate him as much anymore, right? He hasn’t helped anyone in a long time but this is just a fight, and he knows how to do that. He knows how to win.
“Yes.”
A wide smile spreads across his face as relief surges through him. The expression feels weird, his skin too tight, but it feels good too. When did he last smile? It doesn’t matter.
“Okay, Mom.” It gives him a thrill to call her that, even if part of him knows it isn’t right, not fully. He just wants to say it one last time.
They weren’t at Levy’s freaky base for very long before coming here. Mark was one of the last to show up, he thinks, but it was strange enough seeing a whole bunch of…hims. Not really him, obviously. Most of them look older, for one thing, and one guy had a moustache like he was trying to look like Dad, which made Mark cringe and even a few of the others pulled faces.
But Levy set out the plan before anyone could talk. Or, well, fight. Probably fight, given how the…sorta doppelgangers were acting - all on edge and at least a couple throwing insults, mostly about each other’s outfits (fair. Some of them looked really dumb, even beyond personal grooming choices).
Plan. Kind of a plan.
A guideline?
Levy didn’t give them much direction beyond “destroy everything and make them hate Invincible”, which expanded to mean go for the major cities and make sure they get caught on camera. They each had somewhere to go, and wouldn’t coordinate beyond that. That’s what the robo-ball paired up with them was for.
It was supposed to be pretty sturdy, but a testing flick destroyed it before he went home, so maybe Levy gave him a weaker one because he’s the youngest?
Anyway. The last image on the TV was of New York, so he starts there.
He arrives to buildings toppled and torn apart, thousands of corpses, and heroes dead, unconscious, or retreating from three versions of himself. Weird that they clustered together. But it’s New York, so…If he was gonna destroy a city, he’d want to do New York too. It’s home.
He hesitates high above the city. It’s been four hours. Shouldn’t the city be totalled by now? There shouldn’t be anyone alive at all, but it looks like they’ve barely started. Loads of people are still alive - he can hear them, screams and crying and calling for help.
It doesn’t matter. They might just like playing with their food or something. And Levy did want them on the news plenty, which can’t happen if they’re efficient.
He focuses on the doppelganger in something close to his old hero costume, just with the wrong colours - different shades of blue and yellow, no black, a looser fit and a…veil instead of a domino mask, huh. That’s a choice.
The doppelganger is by the broken remains of a skyscraper, taunting one of the heroes on the ground (why hasn’t he killed the hero, instead of going on about how the hero is weaker than the one in the doppelganger’s world? Is he that bored?), and he hasn’t noticed Mark’s arrival yet. Distracted. His training must have been sloppier than Mark’s.
Mark shoots towards him, careful of his speed so he doesn’t do any more damage to the city. Still, the doppelganger doesn’t look up.
A disorienting blow first then, one with enough force to knock the doppelganger away from the heroes. He’ll follow it with another to throw him out of the city, to reduce the chances of survivors getting harmed in the fight, especially since - being older and all - the doppelganger should be more dangerous. Then-
Mark’s fist slams into the back of the doppelganger’s neck and tears straight through.
He jolts to a halt before he can hit the ground, shocked by the lack of resistance, and hovers a few feet up. The doppelganger’s body smashes into the rubble, and he- he doesn’t understand how he managed to behead him, or how the head can be crushed just from the force of a weak punch.
Not even direct force - from proximity to the punch. It looks half-melted and grossly gooey, kind of like microwaving a marshmallow too long until it pops. But with bits of bone in it, and hair.
“Holy shit.” The hero is gaping at him from where he’s sprawled on the ground beside two unconscious heroes, a man and a woman. He’s clutching a broken arm, blood staining his chin and the front of his costume. “I mean, shit, thanks. Uh. I’m assuming you’re not with those guys, right?”
Mark nods slowly, a sharp gesture of his hand splattering the blood on the ground. It’s weird to see heroes again. The last one to make an appearance was…sixteen years ago? A small group of them, whose leader kept trying to talk to him before Dad arrived.
“I’m gonna…” Mark trails off, gaze falling to the corpse of his doppelganger.
Can he really call it that? No Viltrumite would die that easily, would be so weak. He’s only been calling them doppelgangers because it’s a fun word.
He was into crossword puzzles for a while when he was a kid, even though he wasn’t good at them, and he’d felt so smart when he remembered the word from a cartoon (he can’t remember the name, but it was made up superheroes and villains, and even a guest appearance - in animated form - of Darkwing, how cool is that?) and scratched it onto the paper with his Science Dog rubber-tipped pencil.
So, these aren’t…exactly doppelgangers. In the classic sense. Very, very obviously now, really, if this one can’t survive a single punch.
Unless it’s because that doppelganger was younger than him? By a lot? Even though he doesn’t look it. Mark used to be easier to hurt a few decades ago. That’d line up. Sort of.
A scream drags his attention back to his task. He hasn’t found the Mark that Mom wants him to help, but it’s gotta be a better form of help to get rid of all the doppelgangers instead of searching all over for one guy.
So he leaves the hero behind and finds one of the two remaining copies in New York several blocks away, this one wearing a black and blue version of his old costume. And- a mohawk?
Well. Mark knows now to avoid that particular hairstyle.
Mohawk-Mark is drawing his fist back and there’s a- what the fuck, a little girl in front of him, her leg caught beneath some rubble. Mohawk-Mark laughs at the girl’s fear and it’s so easy, too easy, to sink his fingers into the fake’s shoulder and rip his arm off.
Mark flings the limb away while the fake screams in pain, eyes wide and startled like he’s never been hurt this bad before. Like his Dad never did this over and over, pushed him to the brink of death so he’d learn what it felt like, so he’d heal faster and be good enough, be what Dad needs him to be.
Distracted, just like the other one. Flesh and bone just as easy to punch through, skull fragmenting around Mark’s fist.
He cleans his hand and drops to his knees.
“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” he says to the crying girl, trying for a reassuring smile. It’s stiff, unpractised - he hasn’t been a hero for decades, hasn’t had to reassure anyone - and he rips off part of the doppelganger’s costume before he lifts the piece of rubble off her leg.
It’s broken in at least two places, bone jutting through skin just below her knee, but the bleeding isn’t too bad. As gently as possible, he binds the leg with the costume pieces.
If it’s made from the same material as his old costume, then it’ll do a much better job at keeping pressure on the wounds than normal fabric or bandages. It took him forever to get any good at first aid, and he only managed it because War Woman promised she’d teach him a cool trick if he stuck with it.
The girl passes out before he’s completely done, and it’s- it’s sort of a relief. It makes it easier to pick her up (her heartbeat rapid but strong) and carry her to the hero from earlier. He lays her down near the two unconscious ones and flies away before the hero says anything.
Last one. This guy is moving around more, smashing through buildings a couple of times each to weaken them enough that they fall. He shouldn’t have to do this - just go a bit faster and all you have to do is fly nearby, and if the intention is destroying the city it isn’t like they need to minimise collateral or be stealthy.
But. The other two were weaker, and the second one didn’t fight back at all. Or, didn’t react quick enough to. So if this last one is like them, maybe he’s just…slow.
Too slow to stop Mark from ripping his head off and destroying his brain. They might be slower and weaker, but their regeneration could still be half-decent, so it’s best to be on the safe side (Viltrumites: space zombies with hang-ups).
He doesn’t bother getting the blood off his hand this time. The flight over to the next place will take care of it.
Cecil stares at the footage streaming live from the drones in New York. “Someone tell me that’s our Invincible, and he just felt like a costume change today.”
“Afraid not, sir.”
He sighs. So much for that.
He’s got a battlefield to command - several of them, all of them a damn mess. But he keeps a look out for the renegade Invincible in Nolan’s old, white-and-grey costume. The Viltrumite uniform.
Lo and behold; thirty seconds later he pops up on the Chicago feed, ripping the head off a variant Invincible with the same terrifying lack of effort he showed in New York. Mowing down the bastards like they’re nothing, when they’ve been keeping his heroes busy - killing some, and he sets that aside to deal with later, when he knows there is a later - for hours.
The amount of swearing and bewilderment over the comms is gratifying, even if it isn’t useful.
He’d appreciate the tide turning like it is if he had a fucking clue what’s causing this one to act out. The renegade is moving around too damn quick for anyone to make contact, never mind find out his motives. In the time it’s taken them to put down one, this guy’s taken out another four - seven including New York - and is still going strong.
The most that Cecil gets a glimpse of, that actually stops the renegade for a second, is when two of the variants abruptly change course and crowd in together. So when one goes down, the other sees it coming, and attacks the renegade first. Plows through several heroes like bowling pins but right now, it’s the renegade Cecil is focused on.
So he sees it when the variant’s arm crumples against the renegade’s chest, the rest of his body following in a gory mess when he doesn’t stop himself in time. Too much speed built up when he hits, when against the renegade’s opposing movement. The renegade doesn’t even have the decency to flinch back - or float back - just keeps on his trajectory for a couple seconds more.
Cecil curses loudly. He isn’t the only one.
A drone’s got a good view of the renegade’s face for the first time so far. No mask, and Cecil would swear the kid isn’t out of his teens, takes less after Mark in maturing fast when his powers kicked in - in appearance, if nothing else.
He tracks other changes, in case they matter somehow. Slightly longer, messier hair, and Nolan's blue eyes, dark circles under them. The disgusted grimace as he wipes his face off just emphasises his age.
A teenage Invincible who, from what Cecil’s seen in the last half hour, wouldn’t have much trouble curb stomping their own. Or any other hero on the planet.
Or Nolan.
And that right there? That’s an idea.
Mark recognises some of the heroes, their faces and costumes stirring up memories he wishes he could keep buried. The best he can do now is ignore them when they call out to him, and move from place to place quickly so they can’t follow.
A couple try to attack him and he has to remind himself to be careful, so careful. If the doppelgangers break against him, few heroes would survive their own attack. Luckily, the fight is only driving his awareness to greater heights, every sense tuned in to the fakes he’s hunting and the survivors scattered around.
He helps where he can. Braces buildings and shifts them to a less populated side, piles a few unmanned trucks beneath a highway overpass to give people time to escape the collapse. In one case, it’s better to obliterate a falling skyscraper with a rapid pass through - breaking the rubble down and knocking the remains away from the streets.
But it’s the doppelgangers he has to focus on. They’re the ones doing the damage, and until they’re all dead, everyone here is in danger.
And it’s- baffling, to find some of them already killed or harmed by heroes. They shouldn’t be capable of it, not if these were real Viltrumites. The corpses shouldn’t be corpses unless their brain was destroyed completely, but there’s no life left in the few he comes across. His own face looking years older, his body taller and with muscles that make him look tiny in comparison, but…they’re all weaker.
Slow. Soft. Reactive to pain.
How did Dad let them live?
Mark shakes off the fragments of skull and brain matter from his hand as the corpse drops to the ground with a wet thump. There can’t be many more left now. They’re easy to track; all he has to do is get close enough to a hero or GDA agent to overhear their radios, or pause near a working TV, and he has his next destination.
He notices the drones tracking him, orienting to his position whenever he finds a new battlefield. Some of them are Levy’s, but others look different. If this is back when heroes were around in these numbers…Cecil might be alive. Mark thinks he catches his voice sometimes over the chatter, but it’s been so long he can’t trust his memory.
A rush of air, and a doppelganger shatters the ground as he lands a few feet away. Behind him, the Eiffel Tower creaks ominously but remains standing.
“What are you doing?!” The doppelganger looks at him as if he’s filth, scorn shot through with disbelief.
The blue, yellow and black costume looks almost like Mark’s old hero costume, with differences to the placement of colour and bolder, thick black lines, and the Viltrum Empire’s emblem slapped onto his arms. But no domino mask like Mark used to wear as a teenager - none of the doppelgangers have one.
Maybe they didn’t have a Rex who made fun of them for their baby face (as if Mark could help ageing slower), and so started wearing a mask to make it harder to tell his physical age. Though, some of them have lenses or other face coverings that…probably do a better job of it. Maybe they didn’t like comics as a kid and took inspiration from there.
This doppelganger is older, just like the rest. He should be stronger. He wasn’t here when Mark arrived, so they must be catching on. Levy could’ve sent him and if he’s been watching, he’ll know there’s no use in sending one of the weaker fakes.
But all it takes is a glance around to see how limited the destruction is, and doubt how much more this doppelganger could offer.
Buildings burning and falling, people dead or dying, heroes and soliders only managing to delay them and now either fallen or backing off to lick their wounds, a few wary gazes from those standing guard over injured teammates and civilians in the distance-
It’s been hours. All this time, and the fake he just killed had only been able to do this much to one city? Not even one city, just a portion of it. When Dad decided- when he told Mark to-
He was quicker, better. He had to be.
(He tried to make it as painless as possible. To keep the number of casualties to the absolute minimum of what was needed, every death quick and sudden. He…he tried.
It wasn’t enough.)
How can this be a version of him?
Mark’s lack of response incenses the doppelganger.
“Our goal is to expand our empires, not kill each other!” he snarls, storming towards Mark. “We need numbers if we’re going to accomplish enough for each of us! Did you forget the reason we’re bothering with that worm?!”
The Empire.
Mark closes his eyes. His skin burns with the ghost of a hand on his back, thumb set at his nape.
“We do all this for a reason, Mark. None of it is senseless, or a waste of life - you’ll understand one day why Viltrum is worth every bit of suffering and dedication.
“Until then, I’m here. I won’t let you falter.”
He’s not there. Not right now.
And Mom- she needs him to do this. There’s only a few left. He can do this.
He won’t falter.
He opens his eyes, and the doppelganger is still moving towards him. He’s a little faster than the others, maybe. Fast enough to duck the first punch Mark throws, a startle before his lips pull back from his teeth in a vicious grin. Filled with ignorant confidence.
His speed doesn’t do him any favours when his fist shatters on Mark’s jaw, wrist and forearm twisting with a sharp crack.
The doppelganger screams, rage and pain melding together. No fear. There isn’t time for fear to register before his head is crushed into the ground beneath Mark’s palm, a crater shattering out from the impact, and another fake is dead.
When Mark straightens, he spots a few drones hovering at a distance. A little further is a helicopter, the news crew’s cameraman trained on him and the reporter is-
“-can confirm this is the super-human known as the Renegade Invincible, and he appears to have killed yet another of the duplicates reeking havoc!” says the reporter in fast-paced French, her hair whipping around her face.
Renegade Invincible?
A bit long, but he guesses it’s better than doppelganger number sixteen.
Feet leaving the ground, he flies closer and stays at a slow speed so he doesn’t disturb the helicopter or alarm the crew too much. The way they all freeze once he’s within a couple feet makes him wince, eyeing the delicate rotors in case the pilot dips abruptly.
“Excuse me!” he raises his voice since the reporters will struggle to hear him. His accent is terrible and he hasn’t spoken French in almost thirty years, and he only learnt it then because he was going through a phase where he wanted to learn as many Earth languages as possible before-
Anyway, he’s better at understanding it than he is at speaking.
The wide-eyed stares of the reporter and cameraman - whose grip is lax on the camera, so it’s good that it’s hooked in on some metal frame - definitely show he has their attention.
The reporter gets over it first, leaning so far forward he’s worried she’ll fall until a woman in her crew grabs a hold of the back of her blazer.
“Why are you killing the evil Invincibles?”
Wow. She’s very to the point.
He guesses that’s why he decided to come over here instead of asking a hero or waiting for the relevant info to come up on comms. But he doesn’t think the honest answer of ‘my not-Mom asked me to’ would satisfy her.
“Uh, I don’t really-” He shakes his head. This isn’t an interview, and it’s not all those years ago when he actually had a reason to stick around and chat with reporters. “Can you tell me where the other Invincibles are?”
He’s already crossed off a bunch of major cities, but they might’ve picked priority targets he didn’t think of or that differ from his world. The GDA was attacked but they dealt with that Invincible, so there’s no need to go there. He glimpsed some fighting up in the atmosphere, but no normal people are in danger there. A reporter should know where else is under attack, right?
He doesn’t end up needing her answer - her earpiece gives it for her.
“Sydney, Tokyo, Los Angeles,” a woman says rapidly. “Tell him to hurry!”
Mark smiles and yells a thank you, his flight pace slow as he backs off. Once he’s a safe distance and higher in the sky, he puts on a burst of speed that scatters the clouds.
Almost done.
He doesn’t give any of the remaining doppelgangers chance to speak.
It helps that they’re distracted, making it simple to close the distance and kill them before the even know he’s there. He doesn’t linger, shutting out the destruction and suffering with an ease he hates. He kills, and moves on, until he’s at the last stop.
Los Angeles has been turned into a battlefield by four doppelgangers. One of the four is already dead, while the remaining are occupied with the heroes trying to stop them or - in the least - slow them down.
Another cluster, and he wonders if its deliberate on Levy’s part, or if the heroes managed to coral them together. It’d be smart for reducing destruction, if they have a teleporter zap them somewhere already messed up. Less smart for picking them off, though.
Mark hovers high above the city for a moment, deciding his priorities and the best method of getting close to each target without harming anyone in the way. Two of the doppelgangers are closer to each other, though spaced out across a hundred feet. One of them manages to kick back the Immortal, and in that second, creates space around him.
Mark drops.
The doppelganger’s neck snaps beneath his foot, but his skull survives the impact with the ground as it craters beneath them, tremors cracking the road already mottled from previous, weaker impact.
Huh, this one is a little tougher than the last few. Still stunned, hands flexing weakly but no other movement from his twisted body, and blood seeping out from either side of his head. The breath the fake sucks in is a ragged, pitiful thing. Must have broken some ribs, too, to go with the awkward bend of his spine.
Mark brings his other foot down and crushes the doppelganger’s head.
“Invincible?”
The Immortal eyes him warily, standing slightly in front of a woman in a purple costume. Several identical versions of her lay dead on the ground- Kate?
His focus shatters, drawn towards the other members of what used to be the Teen Team. They’re all fighting the last remaining doppelganger, joined by a few heroes he doesn’t recognise. Their success at holding him back, even if they clearly aren’t winning, worsens the disorientation.
It was easy. It was quick, and easy, and he- he tried to explain, right? He thinks he did. He remembers speaking, remembers their disbelief, the horror and betrayal. He remembers trying so hard to make them listen, even though he already knew that Dad wouldn’t want them alive. But he thought, maybe, maybe if he showed Dad that they would listen and not fight back, maybe they could live.
He catches the fist, crushing it before he registers that the Immortal is the one attacking him. Immortal doesn’t miss a beat, already throwing another punch despite the pain.
This one, Mark dodges back from. The second’s overreach leaves the Immortal open and he knows what to do, his fingers straightening for the simple, clean strike Dad first taught him to use on anything resistant to punches.
The Immortal especially required it, being far tougher and with better regeneration than anyone else on Earth. It’s why when Cecil suggested Mark train with Immortal sometimes - “It’ll do him good to spar with someone else for a change. Get a wider range of experiences.” - Dad actually agreed, even if he wasn’t happy about it.
This Immortal is weaker. The lack of difficulty in breaking his hand gave that away. Slower, too, even if he moves the same as the Immortal in Mark’s world did.
His determined glare is nothing like the reluctance and sorrow in the last moments of the man Mark knew.
“Don’t make me do this, Mark.”
Mark freezes. His hand loses its rigid pose, trembling.
The punch lands on his eye. He flinches and his palm snaps out, fingers stretched wide, and the Immortal is flung away from him. The force breaks the sound barrier, lagging behind the push. He didn't think, but- he angled high, he doesn't want to hurt anyone.
Mark’s eye stings like when he was a kid and he’d get eyelashes in it all the time, and it’d scare him so much. Mom had to coax him into standing still long enough to get it out. She called him her brave boy and promised she’d make cookies with smarties in them afterward, and he could have as many as he wanted, if he was brave a little while longer.
He needs to be brave.
“You’re stronger than those other copies, aren’t you?”
A doppelganger. The last one here. One of his lenses is shattered, and he’s looking at Mark curiously.
Scattered around the rubble and craters are members of the Teen Team, battered but alive, alongside other heroes. Robot is next to Monster Girl, trying to wake her without drawing attention to them. Rudy. It’s strange to see him again, when the last time…
The violent sparking of the gun, too large for Rudy to hold stable without his armour. “You were supposed to be a hero!” A hole through his middle, and he wished it was enough to make him fall. He wished it hurt more.
“Kill him!” Levy’s voice comes through the drone hovering behind the doppelganger. “He’s turned on us!”
Mark had heard him a couple other times, when he was slower killing the evil Marks. He sounds more frantic than he did at the start.
“Fuck off, I know.” The doppelganger rolls his eyes, crossing his arms. He gives Mark a look like can you believe this guy? Then he grins, wild and excited. “You’ll put up a better fight than these clowns. Let me finish them off first, and I’ll be right with you.”
Mark frowns. What is he, an appointment?
But the heroes act like they really think he’d let them be killed.
“Like hell you will!” Someone shouts- Rex? He pulls himself up from the rubble he’d been crumpled against, a gash in his side bleeding heavily and his face bloody. “Get them out of here, now!”
A hero he doesn’t recognise in a yellow suit flies over, lifting Robot and Monster Girl, even as Rudy tries to protest. “No, go back! We can’t leave him!”
“It’s the only way, so shut the fuck up!” Rex’s grin is a lot harder to see when it turns on the two of them. His teeth are stained with blood, too, and he needs a hospital. Not to be making a…a last stand. “Alright, fuckers. Let’s party.”
Mark shifts his weight, feeling kind of awkward. He floats to try to offset it. Dad always says showing his feelings like that makes him weak.
“Erm, that’s not…You don’t need to, uh,” he says, and they both look at him like he’s the weird one, and it’s unbearable.
He flies over and crushes the doppelganger’s head between his palms.
He’s gone before the corpse’s knees hit the ground.