Project ROWDY 32

Evil Supermen suck so hard. 

Ultraman, Bizarro, Superboy-Prime, Cyborg Superman, Eradicator… all of them, just the absolute worst. All the power of Superman, and almost none of the restraint that actually made Big Blue cool; physical, mental, and emotional restraint.

Butch just thought he was a goody-two-shoes at heart, same as Boomer, and that’s why he liked the guy, but no. It was the fact that Superman could hit you so hard biology became quantum physics, but he just… didn’t.

Brick respected that.

Unfortunately, that also meant he respected Omni-Man.

Even if he wanted the mustache bastard dead.

Storm clouds gathered above the churning Atlantic, lightning striking water that lit up the sky in patterns that made his one working eye water. Four battered heroes facing one unscathed Viltrumite, and the math was simple enough that even Boomer could’ve done it with Butch checking his work. We’re fucked.

Mark floated like a boat in the storm, uniform shredded, blood streaming from cuts and gashes that refused to stay closed. Brick’s own left eye was swollen shut, matching Mark’s right eye in a way that would’ve been funny if everything wasn’t so fucked. Butch’s jaw hung half open, shattered bone making his face look wrong, green energy flickering across his broken body like a dying lightbulb, while Boomer on his other side was sparking blue-and-white all over the place, right arm hanging limp like someone had cut the strings.

Omni-Man hovered opposite them, costume torn but that was pretty much it. Except for a few bruises and a small trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth, the full-blooded Viltrumite was barely hurt. He looked more like he tripped into a door, instead of being in an all-out three-round war.

“I’ve given you boys so much. Patience, effort, time,” Omni-Man boomed out, voice barely controlled as he spoke over the storm. “And you’ve done nothing but make me regret it.”

“Buh… big… tawk… fuh… guy… cun’t even… drop… fuh… kids…” Butch shot back through a shattered jaw.

“…What?” 

“He said ‘big talk for a guy who can’t even drop four kids’!” Boomer flexed his fists as he floated a few feet forward, pointing directly at Omni-Man as he translated for their broken brother.

Brick straightened despite his screaming muscles, assuming a leadership stance because someone had to. “You know what to do.”

Throat already hoarse, Brick strained it more as he began yelling, red energy surrounding him as his brothers began doing the same. Energy began building between them, colored auras intensifying and mixing despite reserves that felt emptier than Brick’s stomach after one of Butch’s growth spurts.

This was their last shot. He knew it, his brothers knew it, and probably Mark knew it too.

“What are you doing?” Mark asked, confusion clear in his voice, even as the three of them didn’t bother to answer..

“Another light show?” Omni-Man sighed with genuine boredom. “Haven’t we moved beyond these theatrics?”

Brick felt his eyes beginning to glow crimson, voice echoing strangely as power built inside his chest like a furnace getting ready to explode. “FORMATION!”

They launched forward in perfect synch as Brick yelled at the top of his lungs, all three of them moving as fast as their injuries would allow. Colored light trails intertwined as they accelerated toward Omni-Man, forming a triple helix pattern that painted the sky in primary colors.

“Predictable.” Omni-Man braced for impact, already flying forward to meet them.

At the last possible moment, Brick signaled the separation with a single handsign.

Three directions flared three ways, lighting up the stormy skies as Omni-Man turned to track them. His fist swung out with a wave of fire into the Viltrumite’s face as a distraction, as Brick dove low and his eyes flared even hotter. Heat vision lanced out, striking the back of Omni-Man’s knees with surgical precision as Butch tore in from the right, concentrating jade energy into a single devastating wave that bled green. Boomer from the left ripped through the air, air shuddering as his mouth opened wide in a sonic scream-

The triple attack landed simultaneously, the Viltrumite unsteady as he wavered in the air. Brick felt his heartrate spike as they actually—

“NOT AGAIN!” Omni-Man shouted, bursting out of the three-way assault, but the opening was there. Half a second of vulnerability, and Mark Gray son took it, screaming forward with everything he had left, fist cocked back.

THOOM! The air shook as Omni-Man flew back several meters, surprise clear on his face as he looked back at Mark. The alien touched his face, fresh blood trickling from his lip, a bruise already forming on skin that was supposed to be invulnerable.

“That… actually hurt.”

Brick saw a brief flash of something like pride cross the alien’s face before being replaced by cold determination. Shit.

“Enough games.”

Omni-Man blurred past Brick, Boomer and Butch; single red glove wrapping around Mark’s throat like a collar, squeezing as he shot off across the sky. 

Fast.

“D-Dad… please…” Mark’s voice was getting fainter, carried away by wind that tasted like blood and failure.

Brick rushed after them, his brothers flying beside him as they struggled to match pace. Their light trails burned behind them for dozens of miles as they zipped across continents, each one of them an angry comet, uniforms fraying from air friction  that could strip metal.

“I expected better from you, Mark.” Omni-Man’s voice carried back to them over the screaming wind. “Fighting alongside monsters, betraying your blood.”

“They’re… they’re…” Mark’s words came out choked, voice raspy as he tried to breathe past the rushing air and broken ribs. “H-heroes…” 

“They’re nothing. And so are you.”

Mach 500 over Tokyo’s neon grid, the lights blurring into rainbow streaks that hurt to look at. Manhattan’s skyline blurred past in seconds, the city a silver thread below as Mark’s blood streamed behind him in crimson contrails, and Brick’s enhanced hearing caught the wet crack of ribs breaking under pressure. 

Omni-Man accelerated beyond hypersonic, Brick pushing as hard as he could, the blue and green at his sides lagging until they disappeared in the distance. 

Europe flared by; coast, cities, farmland, wasteland, and then—Russia.

With a yell, father slammed son down with a single angry punch, Mark’s body a bleeding yellow missile straight at a mountain range like he was trying to drill a hole through the planet.

No! A hypersonic blur of red and black screamed to a stop as the world shuddered and snow filled the sky, a blizzard of rock, snow, and white hell. One hand over his face, red eyes went wide as he saw Mark’s body crumpled and broken in a crater that could’ve held a city block.

Siberian wasteland stretched endlessly around them, twin craters steaming against sub-zero air, flash-melted snow refreezing into jagged ice formations that looked like broken teeth. The cold hit immediately, cutting through his torn uniform like knives, breath visible in crystalline puffs that reminded him of smoking after fights back in Townsville. Mark’s blood was already freezing to his skin in crimson icicles. Wind howled through broken peaks across endless white emptiness that made everything feel smaller and more hopeless.

Omni-Man dropped slowly, touching down in the crater with casual grace while Brick hovered above, mind racing through possibilities and plans. All of them bad. Very bad.

Fuck me.

“Look at yourself.” Omni-Man half-spat, one hand flicking the air in Mark’s direction. “Barely able to stand, fighting for people who will be dust long before you even reach your prime.”

Mark spat blood onto snow that hissed when it landed. “Better than… whatever you are.”

“I’m a Viltrumite,” Omni-Man shot back. “As are you. It’s time you embraced that reality.”

“I thought I was nothing.”

“As you are. Not as you will be.” 

Brick dropped too, blue eyes locking onto his red. “He’s more human than you’ll ever be.”

“The dimensional hellspawn seeks to lecture me?” Omni-Man turned attention to him, and being the focus of those eyes felt like standing in front of a loaded cannon. “Ironic.”

Green and blue streaks burst in from the west, and Brick glanced to see his brothers returning despite everything. Butch was barely maintaining flight, internal injuries clear from the way he was breathing—short, sharp gasps that meant something important was broken inside. Boomer was trying to support him, electricity crackling erratically between his fingers.

“GUESS WHO, MR. GRAYSON?” Boomer shouted, because apparently nearly dying hadn’t affected his volume control.

“I AM TRYING NOT TO KILL YOU!” Omni-Man’s voice cracked with something, the sound echoing off mountain walls like thunder, the alien’s fists almost trembling. “Debbie… she sees something in you that I…” He grit his teeth. “THE ONLY REASON YOUR HEARTS ARE STILL BEATING IS BECAUSE MY WIFE LIKES YOU! STAND DOWN!”

Boomer landed beside Brick, helping him stand on legs that already shook. “Are… are you sure she’s still your wife?”

Butch collapsed to his knees in snow that immediately stained red, coughing blood but still conscious. “That ship… ship probably sailed, m-man.”

“It’s… it’s over, Dad. You can’t beat all of us.”

Omni-Man actually laughed, the sound sharp and bitter in the freezing air. “Can’t beat—? Mark, look at yourselves. You can barely stand.”

Brick spat blood. “Then we’ll fly.”

“Why?” Omni-Man’s eyes flicked between all four of them. “Why endure this punishment? For fragile weak insects? Humans who could simply trip and die?”

“Because killing people… making kids scared… that’s not what heroes do.” Boomer’s electricity sparked with each word, blue arcs jumping between his fingers and lighting up the snow around them.

“Buh-cuz y’r a piss’a shih… muh-stashh dickbahg… ‘n I wan’ yer teef.” Butch spat blood and broken teef of his own.

Brick kept it simple. “Because someone has to.”

“Because that’s what heroes do.” Mark’s fists went up, staring daggers at Omni-Man through broken goggles and swollen eyesl.

Red eyes watched Omni-Man’s bruised jaw tick, the man staring at them one blink too long, one exhale a second too slow. Cold blue eyes didn’t sharpen as he watched his son, almost as if anyone else didn’t exist. 

They didn’t flare either. 

The alien’s fists clenched, unclenched, clenched again. “Fine.” 

For a split second, Brick saw a twitch at the corner of his mouth. “I’ll show you what it means to make an enemy of the Viltrum elite.”

Time slowed as Omni-Man went from still to blur in an instant, even to their eyes, the wall of red on a direct path to blue. 

Brick’s mind screamed the analysis—go for the weakest, break morale, induce panic—but his body was too slow to react, suddenly moving through air that felt thick as concrete.

Green shoved aside Blue as Boomer went flying, and Brick couldn’t do anything but watch as the impact slammed into his little brother’s chest as Omni-Man pulled back on restraint. Ribs exploded inward, the sound too much for Brick to take as everything seemed silent, blood spraying from Butch’s mouth and painting the snow. 

“BUTCH!” Boomer’s scream cut through the mountain air as he blurred back, catching his brother’s flying body as momentum carried them both backward through snow that turned red where they landed.

Brick lunged forward, someone screaming and raging like a maniac, but he wasn’t fast enough as Omni-Man followed through without pause, grabbing both his brothers and smashing them together face-first. 

With a flick of his wrist, both bodies tumbled in opposite directions. Butch’s arm was bent completely backward, bone piercing through green fabric, and Boomer’s jaw hung at the wrong angle, blue arcs jumping from his skin.

Butch was screaming.

Actually screaming, the sound cutting through Brick’s brain, pure agony, raw and animal and wrong.

His legs felt like water, vision swimming, but he launched forward anyway, Mark right next to him, as they pushed as much strength and speed as they had left into fists that punched a thousand times a second.

The alien conqueror vanished before even a single one of their attacks landed, too fast and clearly done. Brick felt a heavy hand grab his head, felt Mark’s skull pressed against his own as Omni-Man smashed them together with pure force.

Pain exploded through Brick’s skull, the world going white as someone screamed again.

Red eyes blinked, the world flickering in and out as he saw red fists pound a broken yellow body with force that could shatter mountains; chest creaked as a fist met it without mercy, a hard elbow to an already dislocated shoulder, a ruthless knee to a leg that brough broken bone past weakened skin as more blood painted the air.

Mark collapsed to a bed of red snow unmoving, as Brick stumbled on legs that barely responded to commands, eyes aimed over at his silent brothers. “BU-” Omni-Man’s kick caught him square in the chest before he could say the name and the world blinked.

The world opened its eyes and Brick took a breath with everything he had left as he was met with darkness. It took a second for him to realize he was embedded in the mountain, half-buried by snow.

Oh.

The world blinked again, and Brick knew rest.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –​

The mountain range stretched wide and far across Siberia, any and all life for miles around dead after gods had met fists and three monsters had crushed themselves against a greater demon. Four forms lay scattered across the terrain, blood staining the white surface in expanding circles.

Invincible’s uniform hung in shredded strips, body motionless against the snow, broken, bloody and beaten in every way possible.

Brick was embedded headfirst in a shattered rock face, one fist extended toward the sky, fragments of granite and a small mountain of snow covering a chunk of his body like a gravestone.

Butch lay facing the sky at the base of the mountain, green energy flickering intermittently across his broken form. 

On a distant mountain peak, Boomer’s body rested in a small crater. Electrical discharges arced across the snow around him in random patterns, leaving scorch marks in the ice.

The sound of massive rotors cut through the mountain air. A GDA medical evacuation helicopter descended toward the battlefield, snow swirling beneath its downdraft.

Donald was visible through the cockpit window, his face pressed against the glass as he surveyed the devastation below.

His voice crackled over the radio: “I’ve found them, sir. All four. They’re… alive.”