The Immortal
He hovered a thousand feet above an endless quilt of farmland. Cornfields stretched towards every horizon, interrupted only by ribbons of asphalt and the occasional farmhouse dwarfed by its own shadow.
“...Trajectory unchanged,” Cecil said through his earpiece. “They’re still coming.”
The Immortal grunted an affirmation.
Waiting somehow proved harder than dying. The rage had dulled, less molten than it was minutes ago. It no longer demanded Omni-Man’s blood. Instead, it demanded answers whose absence only fuelled the rage further. He hadn’t known Omni-Man long. At least, not compared to War Woman and Aquarus. But Omni-Man was like them in that he was someone who understood what centuries felt like.
So, how could he—
“Here they come.”
His head snapped towards the eastern horizon. Two white streaks ripped across the sky. One chased and the other fled. …No. Not fleeing, but having been thrown. Invincible tumbled end over end through the air before righting himself just in time for Omni-Man to hammer him back down again. The shockwave flattened a swathe of crops beneath them. Omni-Man glanced up too late. The Immortal buried both hands in his chest and drove him through the earth. The impact parted soil like water as Omni-Man’s back struck the bedrock.
“You again,” Omni-Man growled. “Why won’t you just die?”
To that, The Immortal gave the smile that nearly made its way onto the five-dollar bill. Omni-Man’s fist arrived before the words had finished and folded The Immortal in half. Air exploded from his lungs as he rocketed backwards, skidding through two hundred metres of dirt before digging his heels. He launched himself straight back, burying Omni-Man into the ground as his feet were starting to steady. Omni-Man leaned with the blow. The explosion of dirt and rock around them hid his boot until it smashed into his side. The Immortal could almost hear his own ribs crack as he crashed through the remains of an abandoned grain silo.
He burst out of the rubble before the dust had settled. Omni caught his punch, though the momentum had pushed him back a few paces.
“You killed us. Why?”
Omni-Man punched him across the jaw.
“Was any of it real?”
Another punch. This one, The Immortal leaned away from before responding with one of his own. Omni-Man’s head whipped back from the force of the blow.
“Did you ever consider us your friends?”
He cocked a fist. Omni-Man caught his arm, squeezing the limb painfully. The Immortal drove his forehead into Omni-Man's face anyway and smiled through crimson teeth. Omni-Man hit him hard. With what, he didn't know. Sky. Ground. Sky. Ground. His vision blurred between the two axes till he slammed into the earth and ground to a stop. He glanced up at Omni-Man, whose blue eyes turned frighteningly cold as he descended.
Invincible hit Omni-Man from above like a meteor. Father and son vanished together into another explosion of dirt. The Immortal rolled onto one knee, coughing blood into the grass. He watched them blur across the countryside, exchanging blows that cracked in the air, forcing himself upright to join them. Three figures became one violent knot of fists. Omni-Man drove Invincible backwards with a single punch.
The Immortal’s fist hit him from the side, allowing the boy some much-needed time to recover, delivering a satisfyingly solid crunch to Omni-Man ribs. Invincible dashed after his father, slamming a fist into his face.
The Immortal chased after the tumbling bastard and laid into him with a punch of his own. For a handful of glorious seconds… Omni-Man actually had to defend himself. The illusion broke when he slipped beneath Invincible’s advancing swing and easily dusted him.
“...It’s time to put you in the ground for good this time.”
Omni-Man grabbed The Immortal by the throat, forcing him to the outer edge of the vast field and straight through a wind turbine. He claws at the hand squeezing his throat as devastation rained onto the crops around them. Omni-Man’s grip only tightened as blood dribbled down The Immortal’s mouth. He could almost hear his neck threatening to snap.
“No!”
Invincible slammed into Omni-Man, shattering the earth. The Immortal hung above them, coughing and hacking into the open air. It seemed that, despite his true purposes being revealed, Omni-Man only intended on killing him while leaving his son alive. He’d gotten the run-down from Cecil earlier as they watched Green Lantern rescue civilian after civilian. Regardless, this was a dynamic The Immortal and Invincible could exploit. Omni-Man seemed to understand that, too, as The Immortal rejoined them on the ground in time to kick the man off his son. Omni-Man righted himself in the air and looked first to Invincible, then to The Immortal.
“Are you finally going to tell me why you killed us?”
Omni-Man scoffed. “Does it matter?”
…No, it didn’t. But part of him longed to know why, perhaps, as it always did after betrayal. Knowing why wouldn’t change a thing, he knew that… but he couldn’t help but want to hear what could drive him to commit such betrayal.
“I learned that attachment clouds judgement and that you would one day stand before me as you’re doing now.”
“We were your friends, Omni-Man. I’m not naive enough to ask, ‘how could you?’ but in the decades we’ve known one another, I have seen you change more than most do in a lifetime. Perhaps we were not the only ones lied to. You’re lying to yourself, too.”
Invincible nodded. “W-Whatever you were before, Dad, you were happy here!”
“...Sure. I was. But I’m loyal to Viltrum. This was all meant to be temporary one way or another. But then you got powers, Mark, and I could no longer be your father or your mother’s husband.”
Omni-Man looked at The Immortal sympathetically.
“You, of all people, should understand.”
The Immortal frowned.
“You’ve watched kingdoms rise and fall, buried wives and children. Seen the ends of entire civilisations. You know the agony of outliving everyone you’ll ever care for, but you won’t have to anymore.”
The Immortal’s shoulders eased.
…They’d talked about this before, years ago one night over a beer he’d brewed in the name of one of his wives. Back then, he’d looked forward to one day meeting this storied race of long-lived peacekeepers. Perhaps finding among them someone to love who would not leave him a widower after a few decades. But that was then, and this was now, after the lie of an entirely altruistic empire had run its course.
“...No.”
Omni-Man frowned.
“You’ve lived long enough to know better. I’ve lived long enough,” The Immortal said quietly, “to know every empire promises peace under their boot. Those who refuse that boot face death as an alternative. Am I wrong?”
Omni-Man didn’t answer as The Immortal wiped the blood from his mouth.
“They all say it’ll be different under their tyranny.” He raised his fists. Invincible did the same. “Lie to me one more time.”
“...So be it.”
An ugly look flashed over Omni-Man’s face, leaving his moustache to twitch and writhe in incredulity. He sighed and took up a stance with no small amount of resignation in his eyes. Invincible tore across the space between them with a roar. The Immortal followed half a heartbeat behind. Omni-Man waited until the last moment before shifting. Invincible’s fist skimmed past his cheek. The Immortal came in low, driving both knuckles into his ribs hard enough to buckle the farmland beneath their feet. Omni-Man brought his elbow crashing into the back of The Immortal’s nape.
The Immortal struck the ground face-first, bounced, and forced both hands beneath himself before Omni-Man’s boot could crush his skull. He rolled out of the way. The heel buried itself deep enough to split the earth in branching lines. Invincible caught his father across the jaw after a second. The Immortal lunged from below and buried a fist in his stomach. Invincible followed with another punch. Then another. Omni-Man gave ground beneath the barrage, boots dragging trenches through the soil. The Immortal hammered his liver. Invincible struck his face. Whenever Omni-Man turned towards one, the other capitalised on his blind spot. This time, however, Omni-Man caught Invincible’s punch in one palm and crunched his forehead into the boy’s nose.
Blood burst across his moustache. Invincible staggered, and Omni-Man seized the back of his head to jam it in the way of The Immortal’s incoming fist. The collision jarred The Immortal’s shoulder to the bone. Invincible sagged to the ground, and his father kicked him away without looking in his direction. The boy crossed half a field before tearing through a hillock and disappearing beneath it. Growling under his breath, The Immortal’s next punch landed cleanly against Omni-Man’s temple. The second struck his throat. He hooked an arm around Omni-Man’s neck and wrenched backwards with everything he had.
Omni-Man reached over his shoulder. The Immortal freed himself before those fingers could close around his skull, dipped beneath the grab, and drove a knee into his spine. For all of that, Omni-Man lurched one step forward, so The Immortal punched him in quick succession before Omni-Man’s counter came. He turned and pounded the air out of The Immortal’s chest with a heavy punch. Invincible emerged from the ruined hill and caught his racing body before he hit the ground.
The boy’s nose sat slightly crooked.
“You good, sir?”
“...No.”
Invincible chuckled. “Same.”
They released one another and flew.
Omni-Man met them head-on. The Immortal ducked a swing. Invincible blocked the following one with both forearms and still spun away from the force. The Immortal struck Omni-Man’s jaw, but because he was too slow on the return, the Viltrumite caught him by the shoulder. Invincible came careening with an elbow to his father’s head before he could tighten his grip and The Immortal tore himself free. They were landing blows, and plenty of them at that.
Their punches hurt Omni-Man, proved by the growing fury in his eyes… but they simply didn’t hurt enough. Their enemy’s blows were far more decisive. He struck them once and came out all the better for it, while they hit him a dozen times and bought themselves mere seconds.
Omni-Man slipped between them like the wind and thrust his palms into their chests to break the pair apart. The Immortal righted himself first and surged back in. Omni-Man accelerated towards him, and The Immortal raised his guard. Then, Invincible appeared between them and Omni-Man pivoted so sharply the air burst around him. He ground his fist into his son’s ribs instead. Invincible folded over with a gasp. Omni-Man carried him on his knuckles, releasing him with a sharp uppercut that lifted him into the sky. Before Invincible could recover, he vanished after him and struck him with another uppercut.
The boy became a distant speck.
“...Damn,” the Immortal cursed.
Their strategy wasn’t at all hidden.
Omni-Man’s unwillingness to kill his son had kept The Immortal alive where he’d died in their fight at the Guardians HQ. But Omni-Man had exploited that reluctance just as they had to create a one-on-one situation. So, The Immortal raced after Invincible, but Omni-Man was simply faster. He crashed into The Immortal with both hands clasped together. The blow drove him from the sky and through the roof of a barn. Timber exploded around him as they burrowed below the ground and landed in darkness beneath the foundations. A warmth ran over his eyes. He wiped it away and saw blood smear his fingers.
The barn above groaned in warning of Omni-Man’s arrival. The Immortal rolled out of the way of a fist that pulverised the ground he’d been lying on. He kicked Omni-Man’s knee and struck him across the face as he rose, but a simple punch to his stomach cut his efforts short. A follow-up broke through his guard.
He swung; Omni-Man caught his wrist. The Immortal drove his other hand forward only for Omni-Man to catch it, too. They stood there beneath the ruined barn, arms locked. The Immortal’s body strained against a strength that did not seem to strain at all.
Bit by bit, Omni-Man slowly forced his arms apart.
“You made him predictable.”
The Immortal gritted his bloody teeth.
“Took a while, but now you’ll die. Perhaps then he’ll learn.”
The Immortal continued struggling until Omni-Man broke his nose with a headbutt, loosening his grip. Omni-Man twisted both arms behind him and hurled him through the barn’s remaining wall. The Immortal struck the field outside and rolled to a stop. He tried to stand but his right leg collapsed beneath him. Omni-Man walked through the opening in the barn. The Immortal glanced up. The boy was already returning, a distant shape hurtling through the sky.
“Really? You’re relying on my teenaged son? He won’t reach you before I do,” he said with a derisive snort.
He forced himself upright on one leg. Omni-Man blurred across the distance. The Immortal swung with everything he had left. His enemy batted the fist aside, seized him by the throat and lifted him clear off the ground. Omni-Man chambered his free hand, fingers held extended and rigid directly at The Immortal’s chest.
“Perhaps destroying your heart might kill you for real this time. But for whatever it’s worth… know that this was never personal.”
Concentric rings shimmered through the air between them, warping the light itself as they expanded to cover them both. Omni-Man fingertips stopped inches from The Immortal’s chest.
“...Gh—”
The emerald ripples passing over them only intensified.
“AAAAARGH!”
His grip over The Immortal’s throat fell away completely, leaving him to crash into the dirt and watch the barely visible waves continue washing over them both. Omni-Man clamped his hands over his head, blood flooding out between his fingers and out of his nose. His knees slammed to the ground while he continued to… to scream. It was such a foreign noise coming from this man that The Immortal couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. Omni-Man, screaming in agony. It couldn’t be anything else, for agony was a noise The Immortal was all too familiar with. Emerald boxes floating down through the hole in the devastated barnyard—the origin of Omni-Man’s suffering.
Old-fashioned boomboxes.
One remained suspended over them, while two drifted to either side of Omni-Man and remained comfortably out of reach. They circled him, pulsing out visible green sound waves that distorted the air like summer heat. A green streak crashed onto the ruined earth beside him. The Immortal leaned back on his palms and squinted at the new arrival.
“...Green Lantern?”
His uniform was blackened with soot, dust, and dried blood. He looked away from Omni-Man writhing on the ground...
“Sooo...” He offered a strained grin. “I know I’m fashionably late… but you’re welcome?”
Without waiting for a response, he reached into a… glowing green portal above his hand and pulled out green and grey headphones.
“MARK!”
Invincible arrived with a concussive boom and snatched the headphones out of the air.
“They’re noise-cancelling. Put them on and beat the shit out of your dad!”
The headphones were over Invincible’s ears before his feet touched the ground.
“You know his weakness,” The Immortal said. “How? As far as I knew he had no weaknesses.”
Green Lantern’s grin fell.
“I… didn’t know his weakness per se. This was just one big gamble. I fought a creature in Atlantis that uses frequencies to damage people, so I thought, ‘Might as well see if this works against him.’ The headphones were actually for me… but seeing that the frequency worked on Omni-Man, Mark might need ‘em more, I think.”
The Immortal frowned. “...It’s damaging to humans, too?”
“Maybe. I dunno. Haven’t exactly managed to test this out. It’s all very last-minute.”
…And yet he came here anyway. That spoke more to his courage than the fifteen minutes of rescue footage The Immortal had been able to study at the GDA facility. Once more, he found an admiration for this young man—no, both young men—within himself.
“Let’s find out if I was right, Mr. President!”
The Immortal chuckled. He’d pictured this moment ever since he opened his eyes on the Mauler Twins’ operating table with his neck stitched back together. Here was Omni-Man, unable to fight—not properly anyway. The sound waves crippled him to the point where gathering his wits was a chore. Blood flooded from his ears like water from a faucet, joining the crimson streaming down his nose. His fists swung more out of twitchy instinct than intent in an sluggish arc The Immortal dodged the blows easily. Of course, if it landed, he’d be in for a world of pain, but Omni-Man wasn’t in any fit state to make use of his abominable power.
The Immortal drove a hook into his ribs. Invincible followed with a haymaker before Omni-Man had finished bowling over. He crashed through the barn’s roof, returning to the desolated prairie with the emerald boomboxes hot on his heels. Green Lantern turned to him, sweat beading on his forehead as he created yet another construct. It was a man in strange armour wearing a cylindrical helmet.
Green Lantern tapped The Immortal’s shoulder. The green light shrouding the man and his creator flooded over The Immortal, returning strength to his battered body. Dumbfounded, he rose to his feet without the ache in his right leg or the tightness in his ribs.
“You… healed me?”
“Not all the way,” Green Lantern replied as his healing man faded away. “Just enough to get you back into the fight. Mark, got any injuries that need healing?”
Invincible shook his head. “My nose isn’t important right now... but you can heal it, right?”
“Yep!”
“Then save your charge.”
Green Lantern’s smile faded. “...’kay. If we play this right, we can win, guys.”
He floated off the ground. The Immortal shared a quick glance with Invincible and the two of them barrelled after Omni-Man. There he was, kneeling on the dirt under the torture of sound of all things. It was laughable. Every time Omni-Man tried to rise, one of them was there to beat him into the ground again with a heavy boot, or a fist, or an elbow.
“Again!” The Immortal roared as the Viltrumite struck the ground.
Invincible descended like a missile. The impact blasted a ring of dirt hundreds of metres in every direction.
Another pulse flooded out of the boomboxes and converged on Omni-Man’s downed body.
“Nngh—!”
Omni-Man convulsed.
The Immortal smiled despite the blood in his mouth.
“How does it feel? To finally bleed and suffer as my fellow Guardians did?”
The answer came in the form of another human-sounding scream. Omni-Man cracked his eyes open, stumbling drunkenly as he swung on them. They avoided the punch easily—but it was never aimed at them. Omni-Man’s fist slammed into one of the boomboxes. Momentum carried his fist into the second boombox, and avoiding the third one was as simple as moving away from it and forcing the construct to give chase. The Immortal brought up his fists, expecting the worst, but instead of pressing his advantage against them, Omni-Man blitzed past them with an entirely different target in mind.
“S-Shit!” Invincible kicked off the ground. “Ozzy!”
The Immortal followed with the last boombox hot on their heels. Green Lantern was some distance away, creating more boomboxes to make up for the ones Omni-Man had destroyed. He looked up, and the moment their eyes met, he opened his mouth.
“...Ah, shit.”
He abandoned the barely-formed boomboxes and threw up a green wall in Omni-Man’s path. Invincible and The Immortal tore after him, with the final boombox lagging behind them. Omni-Man tore through the wall and plunged straight into the embrace of dozens of chains. They snapped taut for perhaps half a heartbeat, straining, before exploding into harmless motes of light. Green Lantern threw himself sideways rather than backwards with a yelp. Omni-Man’s fist obliterated the space where his head had been an instant earlier. The shockwave alone hurled Green Lantern into a tumbling roll.
“NOW, INVINCIBLE!”
The Immortal hit Omni-Man’s blind side. Invincible struck almost simultaneously, ramming shoulder-first into his father’s ribs. The three of them carved a trench hundreds of metres long before finally separating. Omni-Man shrugged them off with laboured breaths and rose, eyeing the last boombox zipping towards him. He circled it in an instant and shattered it with ease. Green Lantern pushed himself upright with a glowing green cane, his other hand pressed against the side of his head, seemingly woozy.
Omni-Man flew straight at him. They moved to intercept him, but The Immortal knew from the moment they kicked off that they wouldn’t make it in time. Green Lantern steadied himself, letting go of the cane. It faded into the air. Steadier than before, he thrust his ringed hand forward and waited. The Immortal didn’t even have the time to cry out a warning. Omni-Man brought his fist back, but before he could swing it, emerald light exploded out of the ring in concentric ripples. Omni-Man’s momentum carried him to his doom. He groaned, skidding to a stop far too late, abandoning his punch to clamp both hands over his ears. Invincible buried both fists into his kidneys. He stumbled away and straight into The Immortal’s vicious uppercut. He sailed upwards, and Green Lantern aimed the sound waves accordingly, even as he crashed to the ground.
…Then he crumpled onto his knee, and the sound waves faded. Now that he was closer, The Immortal could see the blood caking Green Lantern’s hairline.
“...Fuck,” Invincible grunted. “He’s got a concussion—and his ring runs off willpower. If he can’t focus, then…”
The Immortal frowned. “We’re all dead. Come, Invincible. Green Lantern is the lynchpin. We must keep him alive.”
Omni-Man inhaled sharply, rising with a chuckle. It was barely a twitch of his moustache, but they all knew what he was going to do next. Invincible intercepted him with a guttural roar. Father and son collided with enough force that the clouds they pierced through burst into rainfall. The Immortal joined them seconds later, driving both boots into Omni-Man’s spine, sending them back to the earth.
“Get them back up!” he barked across the field.
Green Lantern stared at him vaguely, sweat pouring down his soot-blackened face. Five emerald frames blinked into existence, then burst apart. The Immortal gritted his teeth, Omni-Man momentarily forgotten. A sudden fist slammed into his stomach, sending him into the air. By the time he gathered himself, Green Lantern had to abandon the constructs he was building to keep Omni-Man incapacitated. He dove, joining Invincible in pummelling Omni-Man while Green Lantern focused. Omni-Man saw him and redoubled his efforts. He brought Invincible down with a kick to his inner thigh, then smashed an elbow into The Immortal’s head before racing off.
But Omni-Man was too late. It seemed Green Lantern had concentrated on a single large boombox. With its shape constructed, he got to work fiddling with the buttons, then laughed deliriously, none the wiser. The Immortal lunged to grab Omni-Man. Invincible caught one ankle, but Omni-Man kicked him so hard he went cartwheeling across a field. The Immortal wrapped both arms around his waist. Omni-Man growled under his breath and rocketed into the air, tilting so that his back was to the Earth, and accelerated.
“Let’s see if you’ll keep clinging to me even now.”
The world turned into an ugly smear, but right as they were about to make earth-shattering contact, the boombox drifted into place beside them. The pulse returned, and Omni-Man’s scream split the air. A handful of seconds later, another, smaller boombox joined them. Then a third and the emerald waves overlapped once more. Omni-Man writhed on the ground in agony.
The Immortal looked once towards Green Lantern. The young man was swaying on his feet, one hand pressed against the side of his bleeding head as he directed the boomboxes with sheer bloody-minded determination.
“...Hold them just like that,” The Immortal said as Invincible tore a path through the field towards them. “We’ll win.”
Omni-Man hobbled onto his feet with murderous rage in his bloodshot blue eyes. His vengeful fist caught The Immortal’s ribs. He would have avoided the blow, but truthfully, the past twenty minutes had taken its toll on him. He was exhausted, and because of that tiredness, Omni-Man’s fist once again destroyed his ribs. Pain exploded through his chest as he flew backwards, bouncing twice across the dirt before digging his heels deep enough to stop. Invincible cut through the air to punch his father so hard his entire torso whipped back to absorb the blow. Omni-Man reared with the momentum and slammed his forehead into his son’s already-bent nose.
Blood splashed onto the grass, and while Invincible was dazed, Omni-Man wrenched the headphones off his head and crushed them in his hand. Invincible cried out, his hands flying instinctively to his head. The emerald pulses washed over them both. His headphones were the only barrier between him and the skull-splitting frequency. Omni-Man’s smile vanished beneath a guttural scream as blood streamed anew from both ears. He lurched sideways, catching himself while Invincible sagged to a knee.
The Immortal buried a fist into Omni-Man’s liver, then another in his jaw. But in return, Omni-Man tore a chunk of flesh from The Immortal’s cheek with a backhand. Roaring through the pain, Invincible wrapped his arms around his father, bellowing in pain all the while, and dragged his body across the prairie with the boomboxes in pursuit. They crossed over through fences and burst into another abandoned farmhouse. The Immortal and Green Lantern rushed after them.
“...Mark!” Green Lantern shouted as The Immortal entered the fray.
“D-DON’T YOU DARE TURN THEM OFF”
The Immortal could immediately see the boy wasn’t fine. Blood poured out the headphones-shaped bruises around his ears. His balance was utterly shot—and that was ignoring the pre-existing injuries from Omni-Man. Invincible’s nose was bent out of shape, and his right eye was completely closed. And who knew what else was wrong beneath the surface?
…Not that he was in a much better state either.
Both The Immortal’s eyes were on the verge of swelling shut, every breath scraped his ribs together, and his right arm barely answered him.
Omni-Man exploded from the wreckage first, tossing his son through a combine harvester. A spinning blade caught Invincible across the shoulder. It carved a crimson furrow along his skin, then embedded itself in the dirt. The Immortal crashed into Omni-Man from behind before he could go for the boomboxes, and both men went flying.
Rolling.
Punching.
Biting.
Omni-Man’s elbow shattered The Immortal’s collarbone. The Immortal answered the injury by driving both thumbs into his bleeding ears. The Viltrumite convulsed as Green Lantern’s boomboxes pulsed again. Invincible launched himself into the fray with a scream.
He rammed his father squarely between the shoulder blades. The impact folded Omni-Man over. The Immortal pounded into Omni-Man’s head until his knuckles split. Blood sprayed, but he couldn’t tell whose it was anymore. Despite the agony, Omni-Man still answered every third or fourth blow with one of his own.
The Immortal’s vision blurred as his left knee gave out. He punched anyway. Green Lantern stood in the distance, swaying as though every pulse threatened to knock him unconscious instead.
Still… the boomboxes held.
Omni-Man’s eyes snapped towards Green Lantern once more. The Immortal caught one wrist. Invincible grabbed the other, their boots digging trenches through the earth as he fought to overpower them through the pain. Omni roared and ripped one arm free to slam a punch into The Immortal’s face. The world vanished in a flash of white. By the sound of his fist, Invincible had thrown the kitchen sink at his father. His vision cleared in time to see Invincible laying into him.
“YOU’RE—”
A whistling right hook.
“—NOT—”
A follow-up left.
“GETTING TO HIM, DAD!”
Another right finally twisted Omni-Man’s head. Invincible stumbled with the punch and hit the ground, unconscious. The Immortal flinched at the green blur rushing past him. A fourth boombox joined the three circling Omni-Man. Between the intensified agony and his son’s punch, his legs folded beneath him. Omni-Man grit his teeth struggling onto his feet. The Immortal hobbled forwards, ignoring every protest from his ancient body, and drove one final punch into Omni-Man’s jaw with everything he had left in him.
Omni-Man struck the ground face-first, dust billowing around him with finality. The Immortal wheezed, stumbling around.
“Ozzy, he’s down—”
The boomboxes shattered all at once, and he turned to see the teenager on his back, splayed out on his back, unconscious. The Immortal chuckled to himself as his own strength finally abandoned him. He slumped onto the churned earth with a pained grunt. Flashes of blue light blossomed across the battlefield as GDA personnel poured into the devastated farmland.
Medics sprinted immediately towards the unconscious trio while soldiers spread into a defensive perimeter around Omni-Man’s broken body.
“Containment team!”
“Get restraints on him!”
A medic knelt beside The Immortal.
“Sir, let’s get you onto a stretcher.”
The medic reached for him before another voice cut across the field.
“Leave him. He’s not in immediate danger, and he’ll start healing on his own anyway. Get the kids.”
Cecil walked over with his hands buried in his pockets. His gaze swept across the battlefield before it finally settled on The Immortal.
“We need to talk.”
“T-Tell… your people to step aside, Cecil. …I’m going to kill him.”
“And leave us in the dark on what the Viltrumties want with Earth? Hell no.”
The Immortal frowned. “Can you even contain him?”
“Do you think I’d keep him alive if I couldn’t?”
“...Fine,” The Immortal gasped out after a long moment.
He’d lived through times where death was the only fit punishment for Omni-Man’s crimes, but the world had moved on from that kind of thinking—for the better, he thought. Besides, Cecil was right. Who knew what atrocities the Viltrumites would commit once they got word of his death?
“...To be honest, I didn’t think you guys would actually pull it off. Hell of a miracle.”
The Immortal struggled to look at Cecil. “...It was. If that frequency hadn’t worked...”
Cecil remained silent for a long moment.
“The kid can’t have known it would’ve worked… but then he came to fight Omni-Man knowing full well he might’ve been wrong. Sure, he could’ve escaped at any given moment, which helped sweeten the deal, but I’ve got to admit...” He glanced towards Green Lantern being lifted carefully onto a stretcher. “I’m wondering whether he actually gambled on it at all.”
“What are you implying?”
“Maybe he knew something he wasn’t telling us,” Cecil mused.
“...No, he was afraid,” The Immortal said simply, too tired to explain more. He’d have let his eyes do the talking, but they were practically swelled shut.
Cecil raised both hands in surrender.
“...Fair enough. It’s just my job to be the devil’s advocate. Either way, the kid put his ass on the line for us—and just for the record, I like him a lot. He’s like the chaotic nephew I never had. But I’ll save the conspiracy theories for another day.”
The Immortal head was starting to sag.
“...Please… do.”
Cecil strode towards the containment crews, barking fresh orders before disappearing in a flash of light. The Immortal remained sitting on the ground. His eyes drifted towards two stretchers crossing the ruined field. One carried Invincible, while the other carried Green Lantern. Both looked scarcely older than boys as they slept. He smiled despite the blood drying across his face.
“...War Woman would have liked you two,” he muttered as he finally gave in to unconsciousness, feeling his body hit the ground before the medics could get to him.