"I beg your pardon," I spoke, blinking owlishly at Shrinking Rae as she stood in the middle of my workshop. Currently, I was supervising the newest printing of her set of shrinkable tags, a process that had streamlined what most shinobi would have needed to do by hand. "Can you repeat that?"
"The man that we rescued from the rubble is gone in the wind," Shrinking Rae stated, arms crossed as she met my eyes.
There was a tension in her posture when she spoke to me, but I didn't quite know why. It wasn't as if we'd ever had long, intimate conversations, or I'd ever done anything to her. Not knowing the answer was like an itch on the back of my brain, yet I turned my ponderous attention to the topic at hand.
"How? He was handcuffed to the bed, and I'm pretty sure he didn't have any super strength or speed." That much Rudy and I verified independently. Massive amounts of physical energy in a person usually signalled a comparatively robust build.
It was how I knew Thokk was going to be such a pain in the ass to deal with. Blessedly, Allen had taken the frozen alien off of our hands ages ago after I'd dumped an ocean of chakra into keeping him on ice back into Talescira. Battle Beast was known to the Coalition of Planets, and the promise of inevitably fighting a Viltrumite was something Allen believed would prove enticing enough to fight for them.
Cecil accepted, if only to get the living weapon off of our rock and as far away as humanly possible. But I was getting off-track.
"From the looks of the footage from the secured hospital room he was in, he woke up, started swearing vengeance on Invincible, and created a portal underneath the entire hospital bed."
"... What?" Who exactly was praying on Mark's downfall this badly? I wanted to know, truly.
"I know," she smiled, looking as if she could understand my incredulity. "It's a little silly."
"Well, it isn't like they expected him to be capable of anything that weird," I admitted with a soft shrug and a sigh. "I guess we're not going to be getting any answers anytime soon."
"The Mauler Twin that's alive has closed his trap about the matter, no matter how much Cecil has threatened him with hard time," she confirmed, shrugging gently. "So I think that'll be the case for a while yet."
"It's annoying when the mysteries don't have a clear and tidy explanation."
"Yep."
We stood there awkwardly as the conversation trailed off. There was a distance there, and one that I recognized, but I wasn't sure how to actually broach it.
"I guess I'm gonna go… train, or something." Rae spoke, turning to leave.
In the end I settled for just bluntly stepping over whatever awkwardness might have existed.
"Hey, Rae?"
She stopped, stiffening. "Yeah?"
"Why are you afraid of me?" It was a fair question, given that all of the signs I was reading from her body only could draw the conclusion of fear. I just wasn't sure how it'd gotten to this point.
The brunette sucked in a breath, removing her glasses as she looked over at me with a considering stare. "I'm not afraid of you."
"Your heart races when you're in my vicinity, within arms reach, and not in the way that tracks to sexual interest or romantic interest," I stated, calmly laying out the reasons for my conclusions. "Making eye contact with me makes you uncomfortable, too, and you twitch a little when I move too fast."
Closing her eyes, the girl seemed to be thinking over her words carefully before she spoke again. "I'm not afraid of you," she carefully stated, and reading her tone and body language, I felt like that was the truth. If not the whole story. "I'm afraid of what you might do, Genji."
"You're strong enough to beat Omni-Man in a fight, and you're fast, durable, and have enough tricks that you could probably take us all out before we'd even have a chance to stop you." I opened my mouth to speak, and she raised a hand to stop me. "J-Just wait, alright? I'm getting to a point."
Opening her eyes again, Rae focused on me, the little nervous jitters that she had starting to fade the more she was allowed to speak her mind. "Before, I didn't really mind it, y'know? I'm not a bruiser, and when I was getting trained to use my powers, I never was taught to be one. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee type of style."
"You were the strongest, still are, but before Omni-Man pulled the whole Chicago Incident, you seemed more… human, I guess? Still went through the motions of breathing, your smiles felt warm and real, rather than you just doing it for the sake of the cameras. Now it's just, it's just…" She didn't seem to know where to go with the words, even as they sank into me. "That fight took something out of you, Genji. Have you spoken to anyone about it?"
A flash of animal panic went through my mind when I thought about Nolan's hands squeezing around my wrist and shoulder. The surety that he would tear me apart if I let him. Dangerous, thoughtless, bestial drive to free myself, no matter the cost, as I roared and gave in to that part of my brain that screamed for me to brutalize or kill to prove my own supremacy.
Ever since I'd woken up, I knew that there was something different. I guess that I hadn't really noticed how different it was, though, if the people around me could take note. Before, I had been enjoying playing a human. Going through the motions, enjoying life, not really taking things seriously on the same degree.
Pretending, basically, that I was the man who'd woken up in this alien body. Doing my best to mimic and ape his lifestyle before, if you'd given him as many resources as he wished to live a life of leisure. Learning instruments, bingeing comics and manga, stuff like that. Everything that wasn't preparation for the future had been thrown out the window. Any instinct that was related to that old life of mine was placed on the backburner, including all of those oh-so-human telltale markers, like the need to breathe. Or eat.
When was the last time I'd actually had a meal and hadn't just subsisted off of the chakra in my body?
… Probably somewhere in the range of two weeks, with the last item being a protein bar I'd munched on to just clear my mind. Two weeks since I'd eaten something, and it'd passed me by without me noticing.
The pendulum had swung wildly the other way since I'd fought Nolan. Maybe I'd gone a little too far. Abandoning my desire to delve into Ōtsutsuki machinations wasn't going to happen, yet perhaps I could course-correct just a touch.
I took in a breath and gave her a shake of my head. "I haven't spoken to anyone, and frankly, I don't think I'm in the sort of mental state where the talk would be conducive. However… I'll concede that I might be reacting badly to the fight."
"We all saw you when they got you back to the hospital. There's no shame in something like that being hard for a guy to deal with."
"There's no one else who can pick up the weight, Rae," I smiled. "I'm the only one who can."
"Bullshit. No one's perfect, Genji. You're only—" She spoke, before stopping herself.
"Human?" I wryly finished for her, smirking softly.
"Well, not quite, but you know what I meant by it."
Nodding, I gave her a weary smile. "I know. And when Robot and Invincible are strong enough, I'll feel a lot better about sharing the weight equally with other people. But until then, someone has to play Atlas and hold up the world."
"Some people might call that arrogant."
"It's not arrogance if it's true."
That got her to snort as she rolled her eyes gently. "Sure it isn't. Anyway, whether or not you're coming apart at the seams, a few of us were planning on heading out together."
"Really?"
"Rex, me, Kate. She even managed to wrangle Rudy into it."
It wasn't hard to imagine how that had happened. Rudy was such a smart man, but he had made plenty of mistakes as well. And in this specific instance of interpersonal interactions, he was being entirely waylaid by the passive, low-pressure interest that Kate was demonstrating in him. She was going to eat him alive, mind you, but I felt like it would be a good learning experience for him. There were a lot of basic human milestones that I suspected he missed while floating in his tank. Not quite to the extent of a failure to launch situation. Just in those certain dealings with other people, he acted like a much younger man.
So yeah, regardless of whether it crashed or failed, I felt like the actual process of getting into a relationship would be good for him. What about myself? Shut up. I was busy trying to save the world. A very Reed Richards response… until I thought about the fact that this guy was married, with multiple children, and a wife that he was famously satisfying with his stretching powers.
Maybe I didn't have an excuse, now that I thought about it.
"I might be able to make it," I noncommittally responded. "There's a couple of matters that I've got to take care of."
"The world will keep for a few hours," she assured him, flashing a smile his way. "When's the last time you actually had fun?"
"... It's been a bit," I conceded to her, glancing away.
"Just think about it, Genji. It'd do you some good." With those parting words, Rae left, leaving me alone in my cold workshop.
This marked the first time in a long time that I'd been invited out with friends. Even in my past life, it'd been a while, as real-life obligations had torn me away from all sorts of opportunities for it. I wasn't sure if I was going to actually go for it or if I was going to aim for something else, but the offer was notable all the same.
And if even Rudy was heading out, albeit unknowingly led along by the wiles of a canny girl, then what excuse did I have?
I tucked thoughts about the matter to the back of my mind as I went on toward my other engagement of the day. And one that was bound to prove far more stressful and irritating than anything else.
Days had turned into weeks since the Chicago Incident, and outside of the normal shenanigans that came with being a member of the Guardians of the Globe, Cecil did come to me with a request. The Global Defense Agency had a lot of plates spinning at any given time, so it was natural that they'd reach out to an outside consultant to help improve one of them. And seeing it was nominally for planetary security, I didn't have much of a reason to refuse. Better yet, I'd been informed that they were the man responsible for the cyber-zombies that'd been tangling with Nolan right before his rampage. It got me excited, as I thought on my own work alongside Rudy, to know that there was another intellectual peer that I'd be working alongside.
At least until it became exceedingly clear to me that the purpose that I was going to be working with him for was exceedingly frustrating.
D.A. Sinclair was not quite the sort of man that I'd expected, from the sort of brilliant, genius mind that had created the Reanimen. They weren't quite on the same level as my own works and could only really slow down Omni-Man by any real measure, but that didn't mean they were useless. In fact, compared to a lot of superheroes, being able to take a punch from a being like Nolan was more of a ringing endorsement for the stability and sturdiness of the corpses than not.
What was more impressive was the fact that I didn't detect a hint of supernatural energies in the corpses that were already gone through the inventor's process. Everything that had been done to them to make them that hardy was pure, human scientific knowledge. At the cutting edge of it, the type that I could only barely understand the overall processes that were involved.
And most of that understanding was laid at the feet of my prodigious sight. With that said, despite the fact that his creations were truly incredible, I found the man behind them to be somewhat abominable. More so when I discovered that this was effectively a work release with an indeterminate end date, given that he'd done some incredibly damning things on the path to satisfying his own ego.
If it wasn't for the fact that Earth was at threat from a relatively unknown force of aliens, I'd have been more leery to work with him on the next combined iteration of Reanimen-Puppet hybrids. Especially since at the moment, there wasn't much in the way of genuine repentance for the actions that he'd taken. Partially because of the fact that unlike working with Rudy, who fit beside me as if he'd always been there, Sinclair was kind of a little shit. Case in point…
"You can't hollow that out; my parts need it to funnel the embalming agents through the existing capillary system," Sinclair insisted in his little whiny voice as he pointed firmly at the plans we were sketching out.
"That's less important if we follow these processes, though," I insisted, for what had to be the third time that day. "Listen, I understand you like your little means of preserving the bodies for future use. It's precious, really, and the fact that it staves off decay like that makes me wonder if it has uses for the medical field—"
"Too toxic for living tissue."
"—but the reality is that if we want to ensure that the existing chakra storage methods can interface with the rest of it, being right here in the chest compartment is our best bet."
"At the cost of my subsystems."
"Fuck your subsystems!" I yelled, getting heated at his persistent level of aggressiveness at any suggestions. He was turning a dangerously dark shade of red in the face, but it didn't stop me from going. "I want this sonuvabitch to be able to fly, to have disaster relief protocols with earth manipulation or ice, and I want it to be able to smack a Viltrumite out of the air with enough outside assistance. That's worth losing a few parts."
Sinclair sneered, which was impressive and made him look so smackable that I really had to hand it to the sallow-skinned man for being able to walk through life. "Naturally you'd think your ritualistic ways are superior to cold, hard science."
"Sir? Respectfully, go screw yourself! Are we going to figure this out, or do I need to tell Cecil that you're being obstinate?"
Which was the real clincher here. I saw it on his face and in his eyes that he hated having to work for someone else. Just from the last few sessions of this, I knew that D.A. Sinclair was just the type of guy who considered his genius inviolate. The notion of compromising did not come easily to him, at all.
Apparently, he was getting therapy as part of the terms to keep him out of prison. As for how that was actually going in the long term, well, it didn't feel like it'd changed much. Supposedly he used to be worse, according to Cecil. I'd have to take the man's word for it, even if the individual in front of me now found new and interesting ways to get on my last nerve every time we were together.
By the time we were finished, however, the model that came from our combined draft was better than it was before. Not that either of us was satisfied with what we had to give up or compromise on, but that was probably the sign of a good deal. I'd admit to a certain degree, Sinclair was right about my own overreliance on certain elements of chakra science in the design.
While I could create gathering arrays and formations like some sort of xianxia character for natural energy, that tended to be a little too wild for the finer machinery and control we needed for this model. Which meant that using actual power units, or normal, scientific items, was what was the optimal decision.
A little of it was my own understanding that when it came to normal super science, I was definitely behind the curve. My brain was bulky enough that spatial awareness, math, and other concepts could find purchase easily enough once they were introduced to me. That was one part of being an Ōtsutsuki that I quite adored, outside of the alien instincts that gave me weird cravings.
However, none of that was enough when I was ultimately playing catch-up. I would be doing that for quite some time, until I'd acquired enough knowledge. Not that the pace of scientific advancement would ever really stop, much to my chagrin and delight. Humans were ever an inventive species…
"This is… functional," Sinclair ground out, not quite satisfied with the admission over the work that we had. "It still needs some refining."
"Naturally."
"But it should work. My Reanimen will prove even more formidable now."
"Well, technically my puppet's the core of the construct."
"Perhaps, but it wouldn't work if we didn't have my genius at the core of the matter."
"Then what about a new name?" I proposed. "This isn't really either of our babies anymore, is it? It's something new."
The pale scientist paused, giving the notion some consideration. "You're not incorrect there. I take it you have some ideas."
A darkly amused smile drifted over my face. "A few. I was going to use False Edo Tensei, but… this isn't quite that. Not yet, anyway."
I wasn't sure if I'd ever feel comfortable summoning someone to be enslaved in a butchered version of their corpse, to go fight on my behalf. A lot of these bodies were donated by soldiers, but there was a difference between letting your carcass serve a purpose and being pulled back from eternal rest to fight again. Some people might be fine with that moral compromise, but I wasn't there.
Not yet.
"...It's really quite baffling that so much of your terminology is in Japanese."
"Blame alternate dimensions," I shrugged.
"It does sound intimidating, though," he admitted with a menacing gleam in his eyes. "We'll test the branding out and see if it sticks."
"Works for me. Let's finish these up and we can call it a day." Which was something that got a little bit more excitement from the flagging human, who didn't have my inhuman stamina. Though he did a fair job of powering through it. In the schematics, however, there were a few tricks that I'd snuck in.
I wasn't so foolish as to hand the Global Defense Agency a loaded gun filled with bullets that could have my name on them. I'd known Nolan's treachery was coming a mile away, yet that didn't do much to actually remove the sting from being bludgeoned nearly to death by the man. It might have been a special kind of paranoia, but I wasn't taking any more chances.
Which was why I was working on a very tiny, very small, almost imperceptible jutsu-shiki script that was connected back to me. Not quite the hiraishin, but just a small thing that merely happened to be a bit of an explosive tag. Was it enough to create a large explosion? No, not really. But the right boom in a small enough space, like the skull of one of these Frankenstein's monsters, would be enough to put them in the dirt.
I liked Cecil. But it hadn't escaped me that the man had an agenda that would not always include my best interests. Nor had it escaped me that Donald had been put back together as some kind of horrifying cyborg abomination. Had to be, right? The last time I'd heard from the guy was after he'd kamikazed himself to deal with Nolan.
If you could do that to someone you ostensibly considered a friend, then anything else was fair game. That was a totally respectable position for the leader of an organization dedicated to global security to take. However, I had little interest in being sacrificed on the altar of a nebulous greater good without going onto it willingly with my eyes wide open.
This was just something to keep all the parties held to a proper account. If nothing happened, then I'd never have a reason to activate the contingencies. Though if someone were to begin acting unwise…
They'd be in for an unpleasant surprise.
As Sinclair went off with his minders, I wasn't too surprised to see Cecil strolling in, hands shoved into his pockets as he gave me a nod. "How are things coming?"
"They're fine. We might tentatively be past the stage where I want to strangle him every time he opens his mouth."
"High praise."
"Barely," I grunted. "It's the bare minimum."
"Though I was hoping for more of a concrete update on the project."
"Oh. Then in regards to that, I think we're likely on track for a total overhaul. The existing Reanimen models could be considered legacy units, or at least the baseline, while there's a much smaller contingent of our updated models."
"You and Robot being the throughline for powering them is a little bit of a downside, I'll admit," Cecil frowned. "But it's better than nothing."
"The qualitative improvement should be notable, if we're being honest about the matter," I admitted, thinking about the various enhancements to strength, speed, and general utility capacities that the preprogrammed jutsu would bring to the table. "How are the efforts with Fūinjutsu?"
"There are a couple of initiatives that have been effectively brought back to life because of the storage seals, so you've got my thanks for that."
"Good to hear," and frankly, I did mean it. "Anything else I need to worry about, or am I free to take the rest of the day off?"
"Not really," Cecil shrugged. "I'm more pleased you're actually taking a break."
"Really?"
"I told you as much when you first worked with me for a full day," the director stated. "I'm the last person to tell people to take a break because my job doesn't allow me to. I don't even have a life, kid. Now, you're strong, Taijitu, the strongest guy we've got on the planet that isn't locked in a cell. But that doesn't mean you're indomitable. Sometimes taking a break is the right thing to do."
Cecil Stedman was advocating for me not to be a superhero for a little bit. When you put the situation into that lens, I knew that it was almost certainly without question the case that I had been overworking myself. What a terrifying realization to have.
Sucking in a breath, I gave him a nod. "Then I'll be off for the rest of the day. Call me if there's an emergency."
"Don't worry, I won't hesitate," he smirked. "Try to take a load off."
"No promises," I smiled, stepping through a portal and back into my apartment for the first time in what felt like ages.
It was clean, but only by the grace of the cleaning services that the GDA had set me up with. Taking a moment to decompress, I pulled out my phone and glanced at the Guardians group chat. Well, not the whole Guardians of the Globe. The Immortal and Black Samson were kind of old, by description of Rex, and had been left out. Bulletproof, by dint of being 'young,' had gotten an invitation from Rex.
Rex: is genji comin out tonite or wat
Rudy: He's very busy with certain projects in the delicate stages of their development. I don't think I could blame him if he didn't.
Rex: nah c'mon man we haven't hung out with him in forever
Rae: I invited him, but I dunno if he's coming
Amanda: Ugh, you guys are so lucky you look your actual ages. This fucking sucks. What am I supposed to do, go to build a bear while you're having fun?
Rex: wat about z
Zandale: Got a thing with my girl, sorry
Rex: gay
Rudy: It's homosexual to have a girlfriend?
Rex: it's very gay
Zandale: Okay
Zandale: Y'all have fun
Kate: Don't listen to Rex, he's an idiot
Kate: Genji never comes out, though, so I wouldn't hold my breath
Sometimes it shocked me that these were the idiots that people around the world trusted to save the globe.
Genji: Actually, I'm down to clown. Where are we going?
Rex: holy shit
Rex: you were wrong, Kate
Rex: HELL YEH we got the man
Rudy: Please correct your spelling. It is abominable
Rex: nah this is how real ppl type
Rex: get used to it
Rae: Rex is a little correct
Kate: Can we get back to Genji actually coming out
Rex: wait so is he actually gay
Rex: if so, srry bout the jokes before
Rex: don't report me to hr
Kate: Coming to hang out you idiot
Kate: Is the world ending
Genji: Ha, ha, no, I'm just realizing that I'd like to actually hang out a little.
Genji: Is that so crazy?
Rae: A little
A smile came over my face as I fell into the textual banter with everyone else. It wasn't something I thought I'd missed, but the social interaction was a nice balm on the soul.
At the very least, it was enough to clear my mind in a way it hadn't been for months. Hopefully, whatever ended up doing would be even better.
Author's Notes
We've got a bit of build-up to future pay-offs. What I can say wholeheartedly is that despite Angstrom escaping, the Invincible War will not be occurring as in canon. There's gonna be some sidewinders there, however, having him out and about serves my purposes as a writer. Anyway, another chapter down. Let me know what you guys liked, disliked, the works.
Additionally, if you would like to read ahead, you can find up to ten chapters ahead via the linktree in my profile. For the time being, all adult content like future smut in anything I write, will be on , though in due time I'll likely try to get the processing and authentication through on to be able to post it there as well. So be mindful of where you're supporting me.