The final bell rang as students poured into the hallways like a chaotic river.
Todd stood at his locker, calmly placing books inside.
When he closed the metal door, Amber stood right there, arms crossed.
She was striking an African-American, with her black hair styled so the front was pulled back neatly while the back remained full and voluminous.
Todd raised an eyebrow.
“What?”
“I need you to apologize to Mark,” Amber said bluntly, lifting her phone.
On the screen were several embarrassing photos from the old Todd’s parties, him puking, pants clearly wet, passed out in humiliating positions.
“Or I’m releasing these.”
Todd stared at the phone for a second, then let out a low, chuckle.
“Wow. What a warm welcome back for your schoolmate who just got out of the hospital, Amber.”
Her eyes widened slightly.
“Wait… you were in the hospital?”
“Yeah. I was hit by a car. Five days unconscious,” Todd said flatly as he started walking away.
“But I guess no one noticed or cared.”
Amber hesitated, lowering her phone.
“Todd, I—”
He raised one hand without looking back and waved lazily.
“Post the pictures if you want. I don’t fucking care.”
Most students gave him a wide berth as he walked down the hall.
Whispers followed him.
Todd thought with a smirk.
‘Heh, my reputation here really is garbage.’
He entered the cafeteria, grabbed a tray of standard-issue food, and sat alone in the corner.
The old Todd’s bully friends tried to wave him over, but he ignored them completely.
He had no interest in that crowd anymore.
Across the room, he spotted Mark Grayson eating with William.
On another table sat Eve, glancing occasionally toward Mark.
Todd ate quietly, sipping the milk from his tray.
The taste felt strangely comforting.
As he stood up to return his tray, he saw Mark and Eve quickly leave together, almost rushing.
Todd’s lips curled into a sharp smirk.
‘Something’s happening.’
_____
Downtown, chaos had erupted.
A massive black portal tore open in the middle of the road.
Flaxan soldiers poured out in organized ranks, far more prepared than their previous attack.
Advanced tanks and hovering gunships followed, bristling with unfamiliar technology.
The injured Flaxan commander from the first invasion had returned, now promoted and leading the charge with cold fury.
The Teen Team and Invincible descended from a rooftop to meet them.
“They’re not aging!” Rex Splode shouted, hurling explosive disks.
“Robot, why the hell aren’t they getting old?!”
“They appear to have developed resistance to our time dilation field,” Robot answered calmly.
“In Three days!!!” Rex shouted.
“Three days for us… decades for them.”
“Who cares?” Dupli-Kate said, splitting into multiple copies.
“Their bones still break!”
“So do ours!” Rex yelled back.
The fight turned ugly fast.
The Flaxans had studied their enemies well.
As Dupli-Kate’s clones charged, specialized energy guns deployed, disintegrating several duplicates instantly.
Rex threw more bombs only for the tanks to fire repulsion fields that sent the explosives flying back at him.
He barely dodged, cursing loudly.
A strange rifle locked onto Robot, unleashing a devastating electromagnetic pulse that shut down his systems mid-fight, leaving him twitching on the ground.
One Flaxan soldier fired a bizarre device at Atom Eve.
It clamped onto her face like a living mask, scrambling her thoughts and preventing her from focusing enough to use her powers properly.
She staggered, clutching at it.
Invincible roared and tried to help her, smashing through soldiers but four heavy tanks focused fire on him, their plasma cannons forcing him to dodge and weave constantly.
While he was distracted, the Flaxan general barked an order.
Goo cannons fired, spraying a sticky, rapidly-hardening resin that pinned Mark’s feet and legs to the street.
He struggled, but it hardened like concrete within seconds.
The general laughed cruelly as his troops gunned down more civilians trying to flee.
“Pathetic heroes! This planet is ours!”
The Flaxan leader grabbed Atom Eve by her hair, yanking her up painfully.
He pressed a glowing pistol against her temple, smirking as he looked at Invincible’s horrified face.
“Now… watch her die.”
BZZZTT!!!
Suddenly brilliant red beam lanced down from the sky without warning.
The Flaxan leader’s head exploded into ash and molten slag before he could pull the trigger.
His body crumpled, releasing Eve.
The battlefield fell into stunned silence.
Everyone, heroes, soldiers, and civilians looked up.
Floating majestically in the air was a man in a striking dark blue suit with metallic sheen.
Red gloves and boots, gleaming gold shoulder pads and bracers, and a proud cape patterned like the American flag billowing dramatically behind him.
His blonde hair was slicked back perfectly, and his presence radiated absolute confidence.
Todd hovered with arms clasped behind his back, chin raised, looking down on the battlefield like a king.
His voice boomed across the area, powerful and charismatic, enhanced by his superhuman lungs.
“Insects”