Downtown portals tore open across the city streets as an army of Flaxan soldiers poured out, firing their advanced energy guns at fleeing civilians.
The beams hit with devastating effect, people disintegrated on the spot, their bodies turning to ash and scattered bones in an instant.
Tanks rolled through the portals, their heavy cannons blasting apart buildings and cars.
The new Guardians of the Globe were already on the scene, but they were badly outnumbered.
The Flaxans had come back stronger.
Six floating Super Flaxans hovered in the air, firing powerful laser beams from their eyes.
Two of them dove toward Dupli-Kate’s clones, cutting them down with precise energy blasts.
Wolf Man and Monster Girl were locked in brutal combat with one of the Super Flaxans, heaving and straining as they grappled with one of the Super-Flaxans, barely managing to hold it off, let alone push it back.
Frozone was everywhere at once, moving with impossible speed and grace.
He narrowed his eyes, and the asphalt beneath the enemy tanks turned to thick, jagged ice, locking their treads and halting their advance.
With a sweep of his arm, towering ice walls rose up instantly, shielding the civilians and heroes from incoming fire, while blasts of freezing energy encased tank turrets and soldiers in solid blocks of frost.
He slid through the air along paths of ice he conjured beneath his feet, weaving between blasts to strike from above until a shadow fell over him.
One of the Super-Flaxans intercepted him mid-slide, crashing into him with enough force to shatter the road below.
Frozone grunted, skidding back, already raising a hand to freeze the creature’s legs, but it was fast, incredibly fast.
The rest of the team was spread thin, struggling against the remaining elites, while the regular Flaxan soldiers brought out new, bulkier weapons, heavy energy cannons designed specifically to hurt them.
Rex Splode shouted over the roar of battle, hurling explosive-charged debris straight at one flaxan’s head.
“Why the hell do they suddenly have powers?! Since when do they do this?!”
“It appears they genetically modified their own bodies upon returning to their dimension,” Robot’s voice cut through the comms, calm despite the pressure as he analyzed data streaming in.
“They evolved and upgraded themselves specifically to counter us.”
Nearby, Atom Eve was being forced back, her energy shields straining as wave after wave of soldiers closed in, firing from every angle.
She was cornered, glowing bright as she threw up barriers left and right, barely keeping them at bay.
The leading Flaxan commander and the remaining Super Flaxan in the sky dove down, ambushing Invincible as he tried to help Eve.
They didn’t let him.
The Commander slammed into him before he could react, driving him hard into the pavement.
Mark fought back, swinging hard, but the Commander was faster, stronger, and relentless.
Blow after blow landed, overwhelming him, pummeling him into the ground until he could barely rise.
Just as the situation grew desperate, reinforcements arrived.
A woman landed between the heroes and the enemy with enough force to crack the street wide open.
She was tall and powerfully built, her skin a vibrant green, her blonde hair tied back, wearing a long yellow trench coat over a white leotard accented with bold blue belts.
Spiked gloves covered her hands, and goggles rested on top of her head.
She didn’t speak, she just moved.
She punched straight through a squad of armored soldiers as if they were paper, sending bodies flying. This chapter was taken from g.com without permission.
When a Superflaxan floated too close, she leaped straight up, grabbed it by the leg, and hauled it down to earth with a thunderous crash, then began pummeling it with heavy, brutal strikes until it stopped moving.
Right behind her came a figure that looked like it was made entirely of folded paper and sharp, geometric shapes, angles and planes shifting constantly as it moved.
It raised a hand, and suddenly dozens of Flaxan soldiers were frozen in place, pinned to the ground by invisible, crushing telekinetic force, unable to lift a weapon or even breathe.
Then, from high above, a third hero descended.
She was young, tall, and athletically built, with long blonde hair and piercing blue eyes.
Her suit was a sleek white bodysuit, layered with a blue sleeveless leotard over the top, paired with navy elbow-length gloves and knee-high boots.
Around her neck was a yellow collar that flared out into a short cape, and resting at her chest was a slim, glowing red jewel.
As she touched down, her hands began to glow bright yellow, her whole body radiating the same warm, intense light, while the gem at her neck flared blood-red.
She thrust her arm forward, and a beam of pure yellow energy shot out piercing straight through the Supeflaxan the green woman and the geometric hero had pinned down, dropping it instantly.
With the immediate threat neutralized, the three new heroes turned toward the rest of the battle to help.
The blonde hero moved fast, blasting through groups of soldiers until she reached Rex Splode, who was fighting off five elite Flaxan warriors wielding energy swords.
She shattered their weapons with a wave of light and sent them flying back with a pulse of energy.
Rex straightened up, wiping blood from his lip, and flashed her a grin.
“Thanks for the help. What’s your name, beautiful lady?”
She smiled back, confident and bright.
“I’m Blonde Blazer.”
Todd arrived on the scene just in time to see the reinforcements in action.
He frowned slightly as he observed the Super Flaxans giving the others a hard time.
Something about them bothered him, but he couldn’t quite place it yet.
He dove down to help.
Grabbing one Superflaxan that was pursuing Blonde Blazer mid-flight, Todd seized its neck and flew upward.
The alien struggled violently in his grip, but Todd felt it was much weaker than expected.
He looked it in the eyes.
“Look me in the eyes,” Todd said coldly.
The Super Flaxan stared back in terror as Todd’s blue eyes glowed bright red.
Twin beams of heat vision burned straight into its skull, creating two smoking holes.
Todd released the body, letting it crash to the ground.
He then turned his attention to the remaining army still slaughtering civilians.
Swooping down, Todd went on a brutal rampage, tearing through Flaxan soldiers with raw strength and precise heat vision.
After clearing almost half the invading force, he moved to assist Wolf Man and Monster Girl against another Super Flaxan.
He slammed into it with full speed, destroying its head with a single devastating punch.
The remaining three Super Flaxans were finally overwhelmed by the combined heroes.
One was already being swarmed by the combined force of the Guardians and the new SDN heroes; with a final, heavy blow, they finished it off.
The last two had Mark pinned again, hammering him into the pavement.
The moment the Commander spotted Todd, he roared, ready to abandon Mark and charge the new threat.
But before he could move, another figure dropped from the sky and gripped his face in a massive, iron-tight hand.
He also gripped the other Super Flaxan’s face.
“You okay there, Mark?”
“I’m alright, Dad,” Mark breathed out, bruised and tired but alive.
Omni-Man nodded.
He turned, dragging the screaming, fighting Commander and Superflaxan straight toward the nearest portal and dragged it struggling back to where it came from.
Seeing the last enhanced alien being pulled into the portal by Omni-Man, Todd watched the remaining Flaxans retreat in panic.
“You fuckers just come and go. Come back here!” Rex Splode shouted, hurling more explosives after them.
But what none of them saw was while the others were distracted, one of Todd’s Alpha-Clones had dragged the body of a dead Flaxan soldier into the shadows.
It stripped the armor and suit and put them on.
It glanced back up at Todd.
Todd gave a small, almost unnoticeable nod.
The clone turned and run with the rest of the retreating army, disappearing into the portal right before it sealed shut.
After a few minutes, the portals closed.
The Flaxans were gone.
The heroes slumped down, exhausted, while others helped the surviving civilians.
Todd lifted heavy debris to free trapped people and assisted with rescue efforts for over an hour until most of the wounded were evacuated.
As he floated down to survey the destruction, a voice called out behind him.
“Mr. Homelander.”
Todd turned to see an attractive, tall, slim, tan-skinned woman with mid-length platinum-blonde hair that had bangs swept to the left side, and striking green eyes.
She wore expensive clothes, earrings, and black high-heeled shoes.
“I’m Mirage, on behalf of SDN,” she said with a professional smile.
“May I invite you for a talk?”
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[A/N: You can look for images of the heroes and characters in the Auxiliary chapter.]