Torn Cape

by gothicjedi666

Another of my stories from QQ that I am posting here. This story involves a version of me in the world of The Boys as a hero, or as much of a hero as I would ever be in that world. Please don't review as I won't be posting more or reading them.

1. Chapter 1

I used a CYOA to set myself up as a new hero in the world of The Boys or at least what passes for a hero in this world.

Commissioned by The Hero Named Villan.

Torn Cape

Part 1

Rooftop. New York City.

Even from up here, I could still hear the sirens as the emergency services sent out their forces to try to handle the damage I'd done to this city due to my rather energetic arrival.

The people of this city were lucky that the ROB who had set all of this up, after my sudden death, hadn't dropped me onto the city from orbit as that would have made much more of a devastating impact, and I might have even survived it.

As it was I'd wrecked some sort of apartment complex. I wouldn't say that I'd totally demolished it and I didn't think that I'd done too much harm to the locals upon my arrival when compared to what could have happened, yet I must have killed quite a few people.

I should feel bad about that, however, I couldn't bring myself to care much. I should be feeling a at least little guilty even if it wasn't really my fault. Had I been a better person then my crash landing on this world could have guided my future actions.

Perhaps I might have set out to become a real superhero, to make amends for the harm done to this city. Alas for the locals that just wasn't in my nature. I simply couldn't bring myself to care about the fates of total strangers.

Maybe this was due to me having become Half-Viltrumite thanks to me being able to set up my new life, or maybe I'd always been this way and now that I was a superior being, I just didn't have to pretend to have empathy towards people who I would never interact with.

Granted, I had chosen my method of arrival, with some encouragement, but I'd been under the impression it would be like time travel in the Terminator movies. That there would be a lot of flashy effects and I'd turn up naked, not that I'd destroy people's homes.

I'd managed to fly out of the crater that I'd made of some park after crashing through that block of apartments, hopefully, before anyone got a good look at me, and I was glad that it was nighttime.

Because of the darkness and the sheer speed of my arrival. No one should be able to pin the blame on me for the ROB's actions. The sudden storm that started with my arrival should have helped with that.

Before anyone could see me I'd flown off, rather slowly at first and then I'd found this rooftop to hang about on that gave me a great view of the city. I didn't yet know how to make use of my new powers so it was good that flying turned out to be so simple.

I would have been soaked to the bone right now if not for my Rider Belt which had deployed a set of armour for me, to keep the rain off. The suit also contained its own AI. Having my own version of Cortana would be a big help in the future.

While looking down at the streets below I saw one of the many advertisements. I could see that in this world Superheroes were everywhere, they were the new gods, revered by millions maybe billions of people, and no pantheon was more worshipped than The Seven.

They were the Justice League of this dimension, The Avengers, at least in the eyes of the naive, and they could have been a great threat to me if their hands weren't so bound by public opinion, as long as they cared about the opinions of the masses they little more than slaves of Vought.

As I began to formulate my plans for this world and for mw life, I quickly realised that I would need to become one of The Seven if I was going to rise to the top of this society. Something I had to do before I could begin to shape it.

Sure I could have become a real superhero, one outside of Vought's control, and served as an example of what a superhuman hero should be, but I'd already ruled that out since it wasn't in my nature to be so selfless.

Besides, as a superior being, I had every right to be adored as members of The Seven were. That a group of mere humans were considered to be so far above me rankled my pride. I wouldn't have minded so much if they were decent people. Okay, maybe Mavue wasn't that bad, and Starlight was simply naive, but the rest were only it for f and fortune.

I considered taking over directly using brute force, as there wasn't anything short of a nuclear strike that could threaten me, but that wouldn't work out well as I'd have no support or any way of actually ensuring the people were accepting me as their leader, other than simply killing anyone who didn't now before me.

No, I'd need to climb the social ladder, gather followers, become wealthy, obtain resources and then take over once I was ready to seize power.

Maybe if enough superhumans teamed up they could threaten me. Only that would never happen as they were divided by their own pettsues and without unifying none of them were strong enough to threaten me.

Homelander was the only superhuman who might be able to hurt me one one-on-one. Viltrumites were vulnerable to intense heat and he has hihadaser eyes, however, Homelander was merely a bully and wouldn't know how to handle someone whose abilities surpassed his own.

He might have a mental breakdown just from finding out that there was someone so much stronger than him in this world.

I'd slap him down if I needed to and if he went crazy before lashing out because he was no longer top dog, then I would be there to save everyone. If he could be made to serve me, then I might have some use for him.

My plans didn't end with me becoming the top dog in the superhero business. No, I was thinking of becoming something much grander. In time I would take over the entire world and rule, but since I could live for thousands of years there was no rush.

It wouldn't be easy. I'd have to win the respect of the people and become powerful in different ways. I'd need to master my powers without the guidance of a teacher, that would take time and effort.

In the short term, I would need to set myself up. I would need money, food, and a place to stay. Then I could think about getting myself a reputation as a superhero. While I had no intention of helping others out of some sense of civic duty, playing the role would be necessary for my plans.

"Cortana," I said to my suit's AI.

When working with the ROB to set all of this up there had been no question of who my AI would be and I knew from the start that having her on my side was vital to my plans. Aside from having someone who could gather and sort information for me, Cortana could easily hack the computers of this time. They were extremely primitive when compared to her.

"Yes, Boss," replied the AI.

Cortana's image could be seen by me since I was wearing my helmet and I could hear her voice in my ear.

"I need you to find someone for me," I told her.

Assuming that the ROB had been telling me the truth, then it had only been a week since A-Train, The Flash of The Seven, had run right threw Hughie's girlfriend. Because of this Hughie, one of the main characters, would meet Billy Butcher before long and that psychopath would drag poor Hughie down a dark path.

Not that the fate of a single human mattered to me, it was just that I'd rather not have Butcher's little group of terrorists getting in the way of my plans. Best to deal with them quickly so that I could focus on what mattered.

"I'm looking for a white male called Hughie" I informed Cortana "He works in an electronic store and lives here in New York".

That wasn't much to go on.

"He lives with his father, if that helps," I added "And he won't be a manager because I remember that his girlfriend was trying to get him to talk to his boss about a promotion".

Before long Cortana had a lot of information about Hughie Campbell for me to go over. She'd shown me some photos to narrow down the search as Hughie is a more common name than I'd thought.

After the death of his girlfriend Robin, Hughie joins The Boys in ordetongeance on superheroes and he becomes the love interest of Annie/Starlight. He also becomes increasingly savage due to Butcher's influence as the series progresses. He outright murders one of the Seven despite that superhuman having walked away without harming Hughie.

"I found him. He's employed at Bryman Audio" Cortana let me know "It's not that far from here".

She even hacked into the video footage for the store's security system for me. Now, I could see a very depressed Hughie Campell at work.

"Keep an eye on him I want to know the moment that a man called Willam Butcher makes contact with him" I ordered.

That wasn't something I needed to deal with right away and The Boys weren't the only issue I'd need to handle The ROB had given me the challenge of having to deal with some antagonists from other fictional universes.

My adversaries wouldn't simply be out to kill me, at least not all of them, as that wouldn't be much fun. They would want to foil my plans, challenge me, to give me obstacles that I would need to overcome. All for the amusement of the ROB who had set this up due to somehow having mishandled my soul, and to ensure that I didn't get bored in my new life.

"For now, I need somewhere to stay, and some sort of ID. I need to have been born in this world," I said "Cortana, can you help me with that".

The ROB had clearly altered her to look more appealing to me and the image she projected in my field of vision was distracting, to say the least.

"Boss, I'm a UNSC AI" she reminded me "The servers here might as well have no security at all. I could bring 21st-century life crashing down around us if that is what you want".

I wondered if she'd actually do that if I commanded her to. Not that I would since I wanted a world filled with modern comforts and a population that was easily controlled by social media.

"No need for that" I assured her "Just sort out some kind of ID for me and I'll need a lot of cash if I'm going to stay in a nice hotel for a while".

My thinking was that if I could throw enough money at someone they'd let me stay somewhere even without a passport or driver's licence to show them. I was British so I could pretend to be a tourist who had lost his personal effects.

"Give me a fake name and I can have you booked in for a luxury suite at the New York Ritz in mere moments," Cortana informed me.

Wow, she was good.

"Nolan Grayson will be my name," I told the AI.

Getting things in motion didn't take long.

"Find a few ATM ATMs I'll get you all the money you need" Cortana offered "Then you'll need to go pick up the driver's license that I just fabricated for you at the nearest DMV. It's closed so you'll need to break in. I'm also diverting some funds around on the web and creating a proper identity for you in this world".

I was very impressed by her work.

"You can do that?" I asked.

She seemed amused by my question.

"We're in New York in 2019," she pointed out "From here we're connected to the whole world. Creating the physical documentation was the hard part since I can't fabricate things for you directly. We will need our own base of operations for that".

The problem with setting up a base is the issue of there being no place on Earth I could go where the governments of the more advanced nations could not spy on me and I would need a secure location as a base.

It wasn't until I looked up into the night sky, and saw the clouds parting to show the moon, that an idea struck me. In his show, Invincible was able to fly to the moon, heck he'd hung out there and had a telepathic conversation with an alien. Therefore I should be able to fly to the moon and back without too much trouble.

"Cortana could you help me set up a base on the moon if I fly us there?" I wondered.

She took that query in stride.

"It depends on how much you can carry" she mused "And how long you last on the surface of the moon. We'll need to do some testing, but if you can fly that far and hang around for a while we could set up a base. We'll need some prefabricated buildings, and I can design those for you. We'll use a numberseveralnt companies to provide us with what we need".

Cortana showed me some diagrams.

"Setting up a moonbase is well within the capabilities of the people of this world the issue is that it would cost more than any country can afford to transport all the required materials to the moon," the AI told me "And it wouldn't be worth the expense. But you can just fly there and you should be able to set things up if I give you precise instructions".

If I had a base that no one else could reach, at least not without recreating the Apollo Programme, then I'd have a secure place to work from. I could imagine that from within that base, as long as I had the right equipment and supplies, Cortana could build me all sorts of things.

Once I had a better grasp of my powers, it might be possible for me to fly to other planets in this solar system, and to bash apart asteroids for raw materials.

"Get started on that" I instructed.

I'd need a proper home here in New York before I put much effort into a moonbase, and there was plenty of fun to be had here on Earth. So no rush.

Torn Cape

Part 2

Hotel. New York City.

Former Cerberus Operative, Miranda Lawson drank a glass of something expensive, that she'd gotten from the small bar in this rather costly suite, as she thought more about the extremely unexpected twist her life had suddenly taken.

From her perspective a few hours ago she'd died while trying to get her little sister away from their insane father.

Shepard had done his best to prevent the loss of life, as he always did, however, Miranda Lawson had died in her lover's arms, or should that be the arms of her former lover given that he had gone back to his asari partner.

Whatever, it had all been very romantic if you liked that sort of thing, and Ori's safety was what had mattered most of all.

Yet rather than simply fade away or end up in Hell, which Miranda admitted to herself was something she deserved given some of the things she'd done, the genetically engineered woman, had been offered a new chance at life by a very strange creature.

Miranda had been okay with dying, but she'd chosen to keep on living even if it meant starting over somewhere new as death was so final. As such, she'd found herself on some version of Earth in the early 21st Century.

There were worse periods and places she could have ended up in, it wasn't as primitive here as it could have been, but for a woman used to space travel and sharing the galaxy with alien races, this world seemed so backwards even if New York was nicer than some colonies she'd been forced to spend time in, and at least it smelt better than Omega.

The entity that had offered her a second chance wanted her to act as the enemy of another person who had also been offered a new life. She didn't have to kill this person, who she knew next to nothing about currently, but she and others had to be their enemy.

Miranda got the impression that this was all the amusement of some great power who must be bored of its existence, and while others might resent having their lives directed by some higher being, she was ready to play her part.

For all her intelligence and power she'd never been much of a leader, but give her a task, even one that seemed impossible, and she find somfoundy to carry out her mission.

She wondered about those other people who like herself wouldn't belong in this universe. Had they all chosen to come here rather than die?

They would not be allies of hers, not unless she made truces with them and they would all be in this for themselves. so they couldn't be trusted. As such, Miranda knew that she would have to take precautions and have plans ready for when she was betrayed. She would need to be prepared to betray others.

Miranda didn't have much of a choice in all this as the alternative was death and never getting to see her sister again. Oriana was still in a galaxy filled with Reapers and people who had worked for her father.

The entity who clearly getting something out of all of this, had promised Miranda that her sister would be brought here should her efforts prove entertaining. She didn't know if that was true, and she was willing to take the entity at its word since it had no reason to lie to her.

To carry out her objective, Miss Lawson knew she would need to be in a position of power to challenge someone who would prove a worthy enemy to her and in that she had a valuable ally.

EDI, or at least some version of her, had been installed into her Omni-tool, despite the device not having nearly enough processing power to run such a complex series of programs.

"Are you feeling well Operative Lawson?" asked the AI.

All things considered, she was feeling okay.

"I'm fine, EDI," she said as she addressed the hologram "I'm just thinking about what happens next".

With her own skills and a 23rd-century AI that had access to a vast amount of information, there wasn't much Miranda couldn't do as long as she made good plans. Defeating some unknown enemy was important, but there was so much more she could accomplish while here.

She'd studied history, she studied a lot of everything, so she knew that this time in human history was one when humanity needed to deal with many challenges it didn't seem willing to face.

In her time most industrial work took place in other parts of the solar system, and the resources brought in from off-world had been used to tackle poverty. Sure Earth in her time was far from perfect, but before the Reapers came the standard of living had been improving.

Thinking on it Miranda wondered if she could push this version of humanity into space. Without access to Element Zero, there would be no means of reaching other solar systems within a human lifetime, but there was a whole solar system out there ripe for exploration and terraforming was always a possibility.

Simply dumping the information on the Internet wouldn't work, that would cause a lot of problems, so she'd have to disseminate it carefully and use it to progress mankind's development during her own long lifetime. Thanks to her gene enhancements she still had a lot of life ahead of her, as long she didn't get murdered.

If she made herself very rich and powerful while doing that then it would just make it easier for her to be a good enemy for whoever it was she went up against.

She'd know who that was soon enough, as well as the identities of the others who would come here to challenge her. The higher power had given her the chance to settle in first, and some time to prepare. She intended to use that time well.

It was tempting to go off the grid, to disappear, so that she could strike from the shadows, but she'd never be able to stand such a life and it wouldn't allow her to make something of herself.

So she would let herself be seen. She'd become a public figure and invest in a great deal of security.

If she made herself valuable enough then no one from this world would want to hurt her and she'd find a way to deal with this enemy when she knew who and what they were. Then perhaps she could make a deal. Just because these other people were her enemies that didn't mean they had to slaughter each other. There were other ways to be an adversary and some wars were cold.

Miranda would need to negotiate from a position of strength and that meant becoming wealthy very quickly.

"EDI how is going acquiring me those credits?" she asked.

Miranda was still learning about this world, and she knew no matter what she ended up doing it would be easier if she had plenty of funding, and there were no banking VI in this world to prevent EDI from getting her those funds, or at least altering people to the tampering.

"Dollars, Operative Lawson" the AI corrected "And it has been simple to acquire the funds you desire".

There were plenty of wealthy old men to steal a little from. It all added up.

"I'll need to set myself somewhere permanent and secure," she told the AI.

She already had a new identity. Miranda had been born in Brisbane, Australia, in the year 2150, and it wasn't much work to alter her date of birth and to create the Lawson family, who according to this added bit of history, had been a wealthy and reclusive lot ever since the first European settlers had reached that country.

Miranda would need to have graduated from some business school if she was going to enter that arena. Altered records wouldn't be enough, she'd have to patent certain bits of technology and convince a few people that they had known her their entire lives.

The former Cerberus Operative wasn't worried about that. She performed long-term undercover missions before, this wouldn't be much different, and she'd never had an AI to help her before.

"I'll look into acquiring a suitable property," EDI informed.

This hotel suite was nice, but she would need a proper home and a private space for her work.

"Alright EDI," said Miranda "I'm going to get a few hours of sleep. I have a feeling that we'll be busy tomorrow".

The AI stopped projecting her hologram, but she didn't stop working, they both had a lot to do in this new world.

Streets. New York.

Jason Todd AKA The Red Hood, certainly felt as if a bomb had gone off, yet when he woke up he wasn't in that abandoned building in Crime Alley with rumble all around him, he wasn't in any kind of cell, nor was he again dead.

He'd escaped death for the second time, thanks to the invention of some higher power. Maybe the third time would be the charm. Not that he was eager to go find out.

Jason found that he was outside in a more well-lit area, and it was raining. He wasn't even in Gotham anymore, that city had a certain feel to it that Jason could feel the absence of whenever he left the city. If nothing else this place smelt a lot better.

The Red Hood then remembered. He'd blown himself up when Bruce had refused to do the right thing and finally end The Joker, so he'd decided to end them all in one big boom.

Looking back he wasn't quite sure what he'd been thinking when he set up. It would have made far more sense just to kill the clown in front of Bruce and then use the bomb as a diversion to escape, or better yet he should have just killed the Clown and had it out with Bruce.

Maybe his dip in Ra's Al Ghul's magic pit had messed with his mind. Thankfully he was thinking much more clearly now and starting to see the mistakes he'd made. This was good as Jason knew that he was going to need his wits as well as all of his skills if he was going to not only survive in this new world but prosper.

As Jason Todd found some shelter in yet another abandoned building, he wondered what exactly he was going to do with his new life. He couldn't go back to Gotham since he knew it didn't exist in this world and he had a job to do here.

He'd made a bargain and now he had another role to play. He needed to be an enemy of some other toy of that cosmic being. For this he would need all of his skills and tools, some minions wouldn't go amiss.

Bruce had trained him well, and Jason could acquire some new toys easily enough once he got his hands on the right materials. Even now he was far from helpless, but since he didn't yet know who or what he would be going up against he needed to be prepared for anything.

That would cost money, as would a proper place to stay, and thankfully he had a way of obtaining all the money he needed.

Sure he didn't know New York as he did Gotham, but Bruce had trained him very well, and he knew how to find crooks easily enough, he'd learned that they were similar in their actions no matter where you went.

First of all, he needed some weapons, and that could easily be sorted by breaking into the right place. Then he'd locate some street-level dealer before he began working his way up the food chain until he found the bosses.

The upper-level crook would tell him everything he needed to know before they died and Jason took over his operation. Red Hood knew how to make a man spell his secrets without things having to get too messy.

He'd done it before and he could do it again. He'd rise to the top of the criminal underworld and this time there would be no Batman to get in his way, and he doubted that the cops here would fair any better against him than those in Gotham.

Jason would need to take control of at least part of the drug trade to make sure he had plenty of income, and from there he could branch out, and offer protection against other gangs, as well as whatever capes they had in this world.

There would be heroes, there were those who felt they had the right to inflict their outdated morality upon others, who went around thinking that their actions made any difference in a world that needed someone to give it a proper cleaning up.

Todd knew that he'd have to move fast as before long the cosmic being would let him know who he was up against and they would know at least a little about him. So he'd needed a secure base and some security to start with.

That would have to wait a few hours. He'd had a very long day and he needed some sleep. Tomorrow he would begin to do what needed to be done.

Torn Cape.

Part 3.

Bryman Audio. New York City.

Once again I was hanging about on a rooftop and sadly the view wasn't very impressive from here as there were many taller buildings around. At least this time it wasn't raining.

As I stood and waited I once again wondered if I was going about this the right way. I'd selected a path for myself that would serve my needs, but I could still go another way. I could try to be the good guy even if this world wasn't built for them.

I could be the very thing that all those naive people thought Homelander was, a true hero, a Superman, someone that people could look up to and make people feel as if there was hope for the future.

Although I would never wear a cape I could still be a great hero. I could try to guide the other superhumans onto a better path.

With the technology Cortana had access to mankind could advance itself at a rapid pace. It would just have to be carefully managed and I felt certain that my AI companion could manage that while I saved kittens from trees or whatever.

Nope, I just couldn't summon any willingness to go do that. It would be a lie and I'd tire of it quickly as it wouldn't be any fun.

This was my new life, my second chance to find some sort of happiness, and I didn't owe it to anyone to spend time working in their interest.

"Vought International hosted its 2019 Shareholder event this week," said the news reporter as I watched her show via my helmet "In a public address The Deep of the Seven announced the retirement of Lamplighter and introduced their newest member Starlight".

Events were playing out as I'd known they would. Starlight had joined the Seven and become disillusioned with it very quickly thanks to The Deep.

Cortana was doing a great job of filtering out the unimportant information from the news channels, such as the endless adverts, to make sure that I only heard and saw the important stuff.

This meant I had plenty to think about as I stood on the roof of the electronic store and waited for the fun to begin.

I'd not been lazy while waiting for Billy Butcher to make contact with Hughie Campbell. By following the instructions of my AI I'd been able to set myself up in a Manhattan penthouse apartment and to ensure that I had all the right paperwork.

As soon as Translucent died, an event I planned to bring about a little sooner than in the show, The Seven were going to need a replacement. Invincible, or whatever it was the media labelled me, would become that replacement.

Soon I'd appear all over the city and start to save people. Cortana was already working on a program that should allow her to predict crises and crimes which I could respond to. Vought did something similar just with much more primitive methods.

It would be important to gather my own following online if I wanted to join The Seven. Which was where I needed to be in order to reach the heights I desired.

If nothing else it would be easier to slaughter all of The Seven if I knew when they would all be in one place. I didn't think it would be much of a fight if I took that course of action.

Although I did hope to subvert The Seven and Vought, to make use of the organisation so that it could serve my plans. I could bring it all crashing down later on if needs be.

Heck, I wouldn't even need to get my hands dirty as Cortana could destroy the company electronically with just an order from me. Destroy its stock and expose incriminating information to the world.

Once people got a look at me in action there was no way Vought would be willing to pass up on the chance to acquire a superhero whose powers would appear to be much like those of Homelander.

I would have to make sure not to look too powerful when performing my rescues as I didn't want that man-child to realise that I could surpass him, at least not yet.

Also, I need to be enticing to Vought without making myself look like too much of a threat to them. That was why I wouldn't wear my armour when saving people because if nothing else Vought would want to put me in a costume of their own design.

The armour disguised me and enhanced my abilities, so I wanted to keep its existence hidden as I did the existence of my weapons.

"Vought also premiered its plans for the future, in which a superhero will guard every city in America" reported the news anchor.

The pretty woman on the screen wasn't the only person with something important to tell me. As expected I now had information on my adversaries.

"For now, we have two opponents to worry about" Cortana let me know as she displayed some pictures "A man known as the Red Hood and a woman called Miranda Lawson. Do those names ring any bells, boss?".

They did and they were surprising choices. I wondered what the ROB had been thinking when he chose them.

"I know of them," I told my AI.

The Red Hood was a comic book character and he was a peak human anti-hero. Given his training he could be a threat to me as like his mentor he had the intelligence to find a person's weaknesses and the willingness to exploit that weakness.

Jason Todd wasn't his mentor's equal and he wouldn't have excess to Bruce Wayne's fortune, but I would be foolish to assume that this meant he couldn't a real threat as he was willing to use lethal force.

Not that he nor Miranda Lawson needed to kill me to be my enemy.

Thinking about it I quickly reasoned what the Red Hood would do. He had no allies to call upon and no flashy superpowers as such it would make sense for him to do here in New York what he did in the Gotham of his world.

Going up against me even was going to take more than a few toys and special training. While I'm no Omni-Man, and sure I might only be Half-Viltrumite, I knew that it takes a lot of sheer power to hurt us with mere brute force so I wasn't worried about physical attacks.

Aside from setting himself up as a crime lord, so that he would have access to plenty of money, and maybe some minions, I figured that Red Hood would take the time to study me, to suss out my weaknesses, which I did have.

Only when he was ready to defeat me utterly would he strike and he'd do so when I was expecting it. Assuming that he was mentally stable enough for such a plan.

I shared my musings with Cortana before I began thinking about the other person she had named.

Miranda Lawson was in my view a very odd choice for the ROB to choose as someone for me to go up against given she was someone from a very different setting than this one. However, she was a sort of spy and could be very dangerous.

She might be able to pass off her biotics as a superpower given to her by the use of Compound V but didn't think she'd come at me that way or try to join the Seven.

Miranda Lawson was not the hero of her story, that was Shepard, she was an administrator and sometimes an operative. So how would she transfer her skills so that she could become successful in this world?

I just couldn't see her trying to become a superhero. Was there anything like Cerberus here? Would she join up with some sort of intelligence organisation? Maybe go into business?

I wondered if she'd try to seduce me. I might let that happen since she was very attractive and I had been thinking about having a few children to help me rule. I'd have to be careful with them and not let them team up against me.

"Boss, something is happening" warned Cortana.

She showed me some CCTV footage of the door to the store opening on its own. Either a ghost was haunting the electronics store or someone invisible had just entered.

It would be Translucent, The Seven's invisible superhero, a power he possessed thanks to his carbon metamaterial skin that bends light, which also made him bulletproof.

He was a master of stealth, he could sneak anywhere and give bad guys the surprise of a lifetime. Given that he'd walked in the front door it seemed that he was not expecting trouble in dealing with Hughie.

"That's him," I said "Now we just need to wait for Billy Butcher to drive his car through the store's window".

This happened soon enough and I jumped down on the street as I grasped the handle of my darksaber.

I didn't really need a weapon and one came with my armour anyway, so buying a lightsaber hadn't been the best use of my points, yet I'd been unable to resist purchasing the weapon.

It did make for an interesting weapon of murder because no one else had one in this world, at least not yet, and the wounds it was able to make should baffle whoever did the autopsies.

Once I was inside the store I moved fast, killing Hughie Campbell before he could do whatever it was he did to disable Translucent. He was a mere human and the darksaber ended his lift with next to no effort by me.

Translucent, who was invisible and wrestling with the cockney punisher was tougher to kill. His strange skin actually resisted the energy blade.

Alas for him a lightsaber could defeat the blast doors on a starship so even the bulletproof skin of Translucent only slowed down the blade as I drove it through where I guessed his heart to be.

"What the fuck" Billy Butcher had time to say.

His head hit the floor before he could do more than stare at me while cursing, and his body joined it a moment later. With that, it was all over.

"Fuck you, canon timeline" I muttered.

I decided to take Translucent's body with me as I wouldn't mind having Vought waste some time looking for him. I could throw the corpse into space without much trouble.

"Boss, I can't find any trace of a Red Hood" I was told.

She wouldn't since Todd would be living off the grid and would know how to cover his tracks.

"Just tag any police reports involving harm done to criminals and go over them" I ordered "You'll find a pattern or at least an idea of what Todd is up to".

I'd look at them later.

"Oh, I found Miranda Lawson" reported Cortana.

She showed me a new image and a file as I took the air, letting my black armour blend me in with the night sky.

"A graduate of AIM Business School" I read out "The Australian Institute of Management Education and Training. Heiress of the Lawson family, and she's already opened up her own technology company".

She'd gotten that done fast. Something I commented on to Cortana.

"I think she has her an AI with her," said my digital companion.

Now that did surprise me.

"Are you sure?" I asked.

That was worrying. Cortana was advanced, but I didn't know how well she'd do against another of her kind.

"The AI she's teamed up with, it is very good at covering up its tracks" my companion let me know "I'd say it was designed for electronic warfare because I'm seeing some of the tricks I've used myself when I didn't want people to know they'd been hacked".

By now I'd stopped up in the air because I needed to think. I held onto the invisible corpse of Translucent as I hovered above the city.

"EDI," I said "She's an AI who works with Miranda Lawson in the Mass Effect series. She starts off as this electronic warfare AI for a warship and grows from there".

Having an AI partner was serving me very well, and Miranda Lawson was smarter than me. This made her much more dangerous than I'd originally thought.

"This EDI has been avoiding me, and she seems to know that I already exist" I was informed.

I looked over the file that Cortana had already put together for them.

"She has a house just outside of the city. I think we should go visit her" I said.

Since Miranda was the person I was supposed to PVPing against EDI shouldn't be an issue if I just went over to Lawson's place and crushed her skull. But that might not be the best idea as the ROB will simply send someone else.

I knew Miranda Lawson I was sure that I could handle her, so perhaps we could come to some sort of truce.

"Are you going to kill her?" asked a curious-sounding Cortana.

She wouldn't try to stop me or render any kind of judgement. That wasn't her purpose.

"We'll see how the night plays out" I answered.

First I needed to get rid of the corpse I was lugging around. Then I would go see Miss Lawson and decide what to do with her.

Torn Cape.

Part 4.

Private Residence. New York State.

Miranda Lawson couldn't help wondering if she was becoming like her father. She didn't need a home as large as this yet she'd brought it anyway when EDI had offered to quickly get her moved in.

Until now she'd actually preferred her living spaces to be much more basic and small because she liked to keep things orderly.

Now she had a mansion that she was never going to find the time to keep clean.

That meant having some staff who she would have to order about, as her father used to frequently when Miranda was going up.

She hoped that she would do so with more manners and a lot less shouting. As she'd gotten older she hated her father's yelling more and more. That man had always loved the sound of his own voice.

At least she could somewhat justify the house as a means to impress potential allies, and it was easier to keep her work private when the neighbours were miles away.

Despite that, she knew she could have settled for a nice apartment within the city and found ways to keep her activities hidden.

It might have even made things easier for her given how many meetings she would need to attend in the future as she entered the world of business.

Her father had always felt the need to show off, and to have the best, a big house, the newest aircar, and the perfect child.

If the old bastard hadn't been such a good businessman with an accountant who'd known how to get around quite a few tax laws, Henry Lawson would have ruined himself long before Miranda was even born.

As for the perfect child. He'd never gotten one of those despite how much time, credits and effort he'd poured into that project.

Even Miranda, who was as close as he'd gotten, hadn't measured up to his impossible standards. No matter how much she studied, trained and tried to please her father it had never been up.

She really hoped that she'd be a better parent when it was her turn, and while she hadn't planned to become one when first making her plans.

It did seem like the best way to handle this half-viltrumite who was calling himself Nolan Grayson, at least according to the file that EDI had been sent from somewhere.

Miranda Lawson didn't know what a viltrumite was, but given the context in the file, she figured that this Grayson was part alien, as silly as that sounded.

Even the asari didn't actually breed with other species despite what some idiots thought and yet breeding with someone with alien DNA looked like it would be a good way for Miranda to gain some control over this Grayson.

His file supported the idea that he could breed with a human and that he could control his own fertility because he'd chosen to be able to do that. This feature also removed any issues the woman might have with her pregnancy.

She didn't have much of a choice other than her sexuality as some sort of defence, and unless this Nolan was a complete monster he was unlikely to harm the mother of his child.

At least not while she was pregnant, and that would buy her some time because this Nolan Grayson was going to find her sooner or later. She'd not made any effort to hide.

Getting knocked up during a PVP was risky, however when compared to the Red Hood guy this Grayson seemed to be a much greater threat.

Perhaps she could get them to go up against each other if she played her cards right. From what she knew of this Red Hood he wouldn't be a threat to Grayson in a straight-up fight.

That combined with the fact that she was already thinking about how to use a child against his or her father, showed that in her case the apple really hadn't fallen far from the tree.

"Operative Lawson," said EDI as she projected her hologram "TSomething is headingthis way".

Miranda had been able to install a few sensors around the property. They were rather crude things compared to the technology she'd gotten to use as the leader of a Cerberus cell, but she had to make do with what she could fabricate with her omni-tool.

She watched via a camera as a man in normal-looking black clothes simply dropped down to the ground in front of her house as if he hadid not needo employ any kind of stealth.

From what Miranda had read on the file she'd been provided with he didn't need to worry much about anything short of a nuclear strike. If that had been an option she certainly was going to escalate things that far.

Grayson was powerful enough to fly through space, he had super strength and super durability. To make matters even better they were known to be a violent race. AlHoweverhe same could be said for humans.

If he was anything like that Homelander, and he was likely much more dangerous, then nothing she had would do more than annoy him. Any direct conflict was out of the question.

Good thing she'd slipped into some nightwear and Miranda was if nothing else something of an actress. So she made herself appear to be relaxed and poured a drink for herself along with her guest.

She considered using poison, but she had no idea what was lethal to a viltrumite, she knew how to kill humans that way, but she didn't know if they would work on a half-breed or even if he was half-human. Although his picture suggested he was.

He wasn't at all bad looking now that she'd some proper images to check out. Tall, dark-haired, and powerfully built. His fashion sense could use some work. Perhaps she could offer some tips.

She did feel an attraction to powerful men and he was supposed to be some sort of superhero, his superior genes mixed with her could make for an amazing child.

Cold-hearted of her to use a child that way, but seduction was her only option here. She needed to play for time and gain some sort of leverage over a man thwhoould kill with ease.

Well, at least she wasn't going to be bored, and she was doing this to survive, not because of her ego, unlike her father. She would treat her child right.

"EDI go dormant" she ordered.

"Logging you out Miss Lawson," said the helpful AI.

The doorbell rang and Miranda took a deep breath before she went to answer it. When she did she made sure she looked a lot more confident than she currently felt.

"Hello, Greyson" she greeted.

It took quite a bit of effort for him to look into her eyes and for once she wasn't offended or even annoyed that he was staring at her breasts, because it was a good sign. What if he'd been gay or into blondes?

"Lawson," he said.

There was no sense in having their discussion outside.

"Come on in" she invited.

She turned her back to him leaving herself vulnerable. Not that it mattered since she felt fairly certain that she could spend the clip in the pistol she'd been carrying when appeared in this world and that it wouldn't have made any kind of impact.

"You've done well for yourself" commented Nolan as he took the drink Miranda offered.

EDI had detected another AI poking about on the Internet. EDI had avoided that intelligence and Miranda knew that there was a chance this unknown AI was in league with Grayson, yet there was no reason to confirm anything by admitting she had help.

"I've infiltrated much more sophisticated societies," she said.

Nolan clearly knew something about her. Given that he could relax in her presence that meant he knew she wouldn't be stupid to directly attack him and that he likely had some knowledge of her skill set.

"I'd like to propose a deal" informed the former Cerberus Operative as they sat down.

If Grayson had been intending to outright kill her he'd have done it already of that she felt mostly certain.

"What kind of deal?" inquired the hybrid.

At least he was willing to hear her out.

"I don't want to die. Not again." admitted the genetically engineered woman "So I've decided to give you a reason not only to spare my life but to protect me".

He looked interested.

"I've seen your file" shared Miranda "So I know you can control your fertility and that you can breed with other races".

Grayson betrayed a little surprise. This made her realise that he might not have known that his adversaries would have access to that much information about him

It might also mean he'd not been as well briefed as her. She wondered if this was some attempt by the power who had set all this up to even things out just a little.

"So I want you to put a baby in me" the 22nd Century woman then said.

Grayson needed a moment before he could reply to that. He might have been expecting her to use sex as a tool, but clearly, he'd not thought that Miranda would suggest making a baby together. At least not so soon.

"Why would I give you a child who you could raise to hate me or even use against me?" he questioned.

So he wasn't an idiot. That was good she'd hate for her child to inherit their smarts from his or her father if he was a fool.

"Because that would take a couple of decades and I wouldn't cut you from access to your own child" she pointed "Besides if the entity who sent us here keeps sending more people after the both of us we might need each other's help".

Sometimes you had to make alliances with one enemy to defeat another one.

"Allowing me to be the mother of your child or even children, would motivate you to protect me," she said.

She figured that Grayson saw the logic in this.

"It might still end up with the two of us facing each other down," he said.

But that could take years, decades if she got pregnant a few times. Miranda was in this for the long haul, and not just for herself.

"I have perfect genes and I want the strongest man in this world to mix his genes with mine" she stated "And you can fuck me for fun if that is what you want. I wouldn't let any other man touch me, and I wouldn't expect you to limit yourself".

If Nolan was the jealous type she pitied any man who tried anything. Not that she couldn't handle the man of this world on her own and frankly she wasn't interested in any romantic relationships.

Falling in love with Shepard had been unexpected and wasn't likely to happen again. No one would have compared with John in any case.

"Generous terms" commented Grayson.

They had to be.

"I'm not stupid" pointed out Miranda "You basically a version of Superman who doesn't let antiqued morality chain him down".

The former Cerberus Operative stood up and let her nightgown drop to the floor to show the tasteful bra and panties she wore underneath. She didn't know Grayson's taste so she hoped this outfit worked.

"Grayson, I'm ready when you are" she declared.

She didn't want to give Grayson time to think too much about this offer. She wanted him to trust his male drive to reproduce with the best female on offer.

With a smirk he took up the offer and moved over to her, to grab her and start touching her. There was nothing romantic about this arrangement, yet she didn't mind the feel of his strong hands on her body.

From a practical point of view, Nolan was the best choice as a father to her offspring since he was powerful enough to protect them from almost anything, and if his abilities were hereditary as the file suggested they were, then their children would be superior to everyone else on the planet.

Miranda didn't think about this for much longer. Grayson seemed to know exactly what he was doing and while she attempted to take control of the action he was having none of that.

Like some sort of caveman, he began doing what he pleased to her. He ripped her expensive underwear, leaving her naked for his viewing pleasure.

This wasn't what she had planned. She'd want to take him to her bedroom, and then ride him to orgasm. She'd planned to use her words to flatter his male ego and to find out what words he liked to hear.

Yet there was something primal and enjoyable about letting this superior example of a male bend her over the arm of the couch before he began to undress.

He was going to fuck her and Miranda didn't doubt that despite her preference for controlling the action during intercourse, she was going to enjoy it.

She was wet for him, and even if becoming pregnant was part of her plans to survive, she found herself wanting this to happen.

Lawson didn't even mind that he spanked her arse a few times, after all, she wanted him to keep coming back for more, for him to desire her. So it was good to know what he liked to do to a woman.

To that end, she'd let him do what he wanted to her, and she wouldn't even have to pretend that she was enjoying it since his file suggested he'd take measures to make himself superior to other men in many ways.

He felt very good as he forced himself inside her perfect pussy, which she had used to get what she wanted from many a man and no doubt it would again.

Miranda really began to enjoy what was happening. She'd never had sex like this before. She'd never let herself simply take it. Apparently, she'd been missing out.

"Yes! Y-Yes, Fuck me! Please fuck me harder! Breed me! Knock me up!" she yelled.

She was going to be used by him, she was here to be fucked, to be impregnated, so all Miranda could do was be fucked.

Miranda quickly lost the power of speech as her body responded to what was happening to her. She wanted this man's babies to grow inside her. Her biology was demanding this of her.

Nolan had his hands on her hips so he could push her back into him as he forced his cock deeper inside her. He spoke to her and she made no effort to reply as the only thing that mattered to Miranda was that he cum inside her.

He did so when he wanted to, and when it happened it barely registered as Miranda had already orgasmed, and her brain had been flooded with endorphins.

As the night went on and Grayson fucked her a few more times before leaving some hours later because he had something else he wanted to go do.

That night, Miranda Lawson forgot her concerns about becoming more like her father, at least for a while.

Torn Cape.

Part 5.

Abandoned Building. New York City.

Serge or Frenchie as he was called was not someone who I had originally cared enough about to take out because with Billy Butcher there were no The Boys to get in my way.

Alas for poor Frenchie I'd come across him because among other things he was a weapons dealer and thanks to my AI I knew that the city's new crime lord was using money taken from the drug trade to purchase weapons.

Cortana hadn't been able to track down the Red Hood himself, he was off the grid and used to hiding, but she was able to work out some sort of pattern for his movements based on his interactions as other criminals weren't so careful about who they spoke to.

This had brought me to a boarded-up Tony Cicero's restaurant that really should have the police swarming given how many crooks I'd seen coming in and out of the place.

"You never take me anywhere nice" complained Cortana.

I rather liked having an AI companion with a sense of humour.

"We've been to the moon" I pointed out "Some women tend to think of it as romantic".

I'd needed to go there to find a suitable site for my moonbase. Cortana had ordered the creation of a few specialised prefab buildings from many different companies that I would later be able to move from Earth to its only natural satellite.

Before Cortana could finish pointing out that the moon was an airless lump of rock covered in craters and therefore not romantic, I spotted my target.

"Someone went to a lot of trouble to delete this guy's history" said Cortana "There's hardly anything in his CIA file and I can't find him at all in the police's database".

That made sense since The Boys had worked for someone high up in the CIA. I just couldn't recall who and it didn't much matter since if that organisation ever came after me I could dismantle it with the help of Cortana.

"Looks like they are having a meeting as expected," I said.

Not unexpected given that the Red Hood was known for organising criminals. He would offer them protection from the capes in exchange for part of their profits and access to certain resources.

That was why I'd not already killed Frenchie and his friends, as while it would be good to kill a man known for coming up with ways to defeat sups, he wasn't a big deal compared to the Red Hood.

Once it looked as if everyone who was coming to the meeting they were holding had arrived, I deployed my special armour that covered up the outfit that Cortana had sorted out for me by ordering parts from different companies all over the seaboard.

I didn't really need armour I just wanted an outfit that would stay together as I flew about and fought crime. It was very important that my two sets of armour remain separate as I didn't want anyone to associate Invincible with the guy who was going around butchering criminals.

It was part of my long-term plan for the public to see Invincible, a name that I had supplied to the media as a Superman-like figure and I didn't mind saving people as it was a good way to test my abilities.

"This is where the fun begins" I whispered.

I detached the darksaber from my belt and smiled because I knew that there was no chance of anyone figuring out that it was a type of lightsaber due to Lucus having never made the Star Wars movies.

The superhero genre had grown to dominate the film industry over the decades, starting at the end of World War Two until the point that by now the folks in Hollywood made little other than superhero movies.

As such Lucus had spent his career working on those kinds of films in more of a support role. Sad that no one in this world got to see Star Wars the original trilogy, but at least they were spared from the disappointment that the movie franchise became.

The guard at the door, who pretended to be someone just hanging around having a smoke was the first to die as I swooped down from above and almost bisected him. If not for the feature of lightsabers cauterising wounds then I would have made quite a mess.

I wasn't going to bother with stealth as I had the ability to overwhelm my targets with sheer force. With that in mind, I kicked down the door and headed into the boarded-up restaurant which was as expected filled with weapon dealers.

Because of this I suddenly had a lot of people reaching for the merchandise or guns they carried on their person. Not that it mattered I was on them before the shooting started and no bullet was going to do me any harm.

I simply ran forward and began cutting crooks down with my darksaber, I enjoyed this, the feeling of power, knowing that I could end so many dangerous men with such little effort.

There was a lot of screaming as I killed, I didn't even know if I managed to end Frenchie, who was a target of mine even if he wasn't a very important one.

Any concern I had over that man's fate became unimportant to me when I got hit by something with enough kick to it that I was made to stagger backwards and it left me feeling dizzy.

One weakness we Viltrumites have is our inner ear, which is delicately balanced and part of why we fly so well. Thousands of years of evolution and getting used to moving through a full 360 degrees of motion in the air has its drawbacks. Someone was exploiting this weakness.

As I'd known he would be The Red Hood was here. He'd come out of the kitchen with a grenade launcher that must be loaded with something very potent to have staggered me.

He fired again and again, each time causing me to be pushed back, and the next thing I knew the entire building was collapsing on top of me.

As I quickly dug my way out, I was surprised by what happened, the grenades hadn't done much to me, but the fact they had been more than annoyance meant that the Red Hood had been able to put together some sort of weapon that could at least slow me down.

At the very least he'd been able to buy himself enough time to get away and maybe saved some of his new minions who would now owe him.

"I'll start designing you a person shield" offered Cortana "Something that helps you handle concussive force".

While she did that I was going to go have a drink. I had a headache and I was in a foul mood. It didn't help that I had no idea if the Red Hood somehow knew about one of my few weaknesses or if he'd pulled out that trick because he knew he was dealing with someone with superpowers and screwing with my inner ear had been unintended.

"That would be helpful," I remarked.

I would have another chance to deal with the Red Hood. He was just a mortal man. I would find him and put my fist through his chest.

Vought Tower. New York City.

Stan Edgar and Madelyn Stillwell sat in Madelyn's office as they watched the video that had gotten the attention of many people around the world.

A new superhero was flying around the East Coast, waging a one-man war on criminals and saving people from their own stupidity. Compared to the heroes under the employ of Vought this new cape was very active and also very good at his job.

Not that either Stan or Madelyn cared that his new hero was going out of his way to keep causalities down and reduce property damage when possible. They only cared that this new superhuman wasn't under their control.

"He hasn't stopped to talk to the press much," said Madelyn "We know that he calls himself Invincible, but beyond that, we don't know much other than he's from across the pond".

Of course, she'd found Invinicible's public identity, he was no one special and seemed to have come into his powers recently. Nolan Grayson had inherited his wealth and done nothing with it.

"He's foreign?" asked Stan "So where did his parents get the Compound V from?".

Superheroes didn't just pop up they were manufactured.

"We have no idea" said Madelyn "It's possible that he doesn't even know the source of his powers and he appears to have no interest in discussing the matter when he does bother talking to people".

As Vought's Senior Vice President of Hero Management, it was Madelyn Stillwell's job to manage the world's greatest superhero team, The Seven.

It was also her job to ensure that they were profitable for the company to keep despite the trouble they could cause, to that end, she'd taken an interest in this Invincible.

Her ambitions went beyond merely having superheroes fighting crime on America's streets; she desired to put them in the military, through a multi-billion-dollar government contract, and this Invincible might be able to help her with that.

"I assume you want to bring him under our umbrella," said Stan "You don't need my blessing for that".

He was quite happy to let Madelyn handle the talent while he did the actual work of running Vought.

"I want to bring him into the Seven" stated the Vice President.

That did surprise the CEO of Vought International even if he barely expressed it.

"He's not even part of the company" Stan pointed out "We have entire lines of heroes ready to compete for a place in our flagship team".

This was an odd move, but Madelyn had her reasons.

"I think he might one day be a match for Homelander," said Madelyn "He flies, he's strong, he's fast, he's bulletproof and I think he's still discovering what it is he can do. I think this Invincible could help us keep Homelander in line".

Stan was willing to listen. It had always been a fear that Homelander would grow impossible to control if he ever stopped caring about the admiration of the masses. Thankfully the leader of the Seven was so eager for validation and affection that Madelyn was able to keep him on a leash.

"What if he is like Homelander?" enquired Stan.

She had already thought about that.

"Invincible is still flexing his muscles" she said "I think he's out there learning what he can do and isn't prepared for what it means to be a superhero. He could do with some guidance and I intend to offer that. If I can get to him before he's too certain of himself I think I can guide him in the right direction".

Stan smiled just a little. Madelyn had always been good at dealing with the talent.

"As long as they don't team up we can set them against each other if we have to" he mused.

Madelyn knew that there was no chance of Invincible and Homelander becoming friends as the current leader of The Seven was much like a dog. He wouldn't like having someone around who could challenge his dominance.

"And what if he's worse than Homelander" the CEO wondered.

Madelyn had already thought of that.

"Then we brand him as an enemy and set The Seven on him," she said "We have enough supes on the payroll to bury this Invincible in bodies if we need to".

Stan gave this some thought.

"It's not without risk, however, having someone to pit against Homelander could be useful" he reasoned "But if he isn't strong enough he might not be worth the investment. Still, we can risk anyone else getting their hands on a superhero that powerful".

He wasn't interested in how exactly Madelyn would get this all done and he could trust her to have already thought of the details. She wouldn't have asked him to come to his office if she didn't already have a well-thought-out plan of action for acquiring this Invincible.

"I assume you want Invincible to replace Translucent," said Stan "Is there still no trace of him?".

Madelyn knew that she could get the blame for this and it was part of why she wanted to get a new superhero on the team so quickly. Invincible was becoming a household name and people would forget all about Translucent as soon as she could dangle Invincible in front of them as a distraction.

"None at all" she replied "As far we can tell he isn't anywhere on Earth".

Given that he could turn invisible there wasn't much chance of ever finding Translucent if he didn't want to be found and he seemed to have figured out a way of removing his tracking chip.

"Pity," said Stan without any conviction "He's in violation of his contract so let's wash our hands of him".

Neither of them had ever liked Translucent as he was known to be a pervert.

"This Invincible he dresses like Soldier Boy" commented the CEO as he rewatched the video "But without the iconography".

Compared to what most superheroes wore the outfit was rather practical and sedate.

"My department thinks he's trying to project strength without coming off as overly hostile" the Vice President informed her superior "And he isn't American so he won't be wearing the red, white and blue".

They had entire teams of people who could come up with a new image so it wasn't important.

"He sees himself as a warrior, not a soldier," remarked Stan as he got up to leave "Something to keep in mind. Now if you'll excuse me I do have a meeting after what will sadly be a short lunch".

Madelyn stayed in her office and watched as Invincible tore the door of a van, pulled out the driver and then handed over the crook to the police before flying away.

The superhero didn't stick around to receive praise, or make any statements, he got the job done and then left. He was a very different kind of hero and she would have to figure Invincible out if she was going to get him into the Seven.

Torn Cape.

Part 6.

Penthouse Apartment. New York City.

"So I didn't even rate a visit from Madelyn Stillwell in person," I said as I answered the door of my penthouse apartment "Please come on in Miss Barret".

Thanks to Cortana I had this fancy apartment wired up. No one could get near the place without her knowing it so I'd know that Ashley Barrett was coming to meet me before she'd even entered the building.

This kind of security was required because I was sure that by now quite a few groups had figured out who Invincible was when he was at home. Once the general public found out I might have to move.

The woman I let into my apartment was someone I knew well enough as I'd studied the files my AI had gotten me about the people working at Vought.

Ashley Barret was Madelyn Stillwell's assistant and had been assigned to handle Starlight as she settled into the Seven. Given that Starlight had never fitted in with the Seven and never could have due to having morals, then Miss Barret had been doomed from the start.

"Thank you, Mr Grayson," she said choosing to ignore my first remark "Or can I call you Invincible".

I didn't care either way, neither of those names meant anything to me. If the ROB ever sent a magic user after me it would be wise to keep my real name hidden as some types of magic could make use of your real name.

"Call me Nolan" I offered.

While I was disappointed that I hadn't rated a home visit from someone more important there was no sense in acting rude.

"Can I get you something?" I asked.

She politely refused and followed me into the sitting area.

"So what does Vought want from me?" I inquired.

It had just struck her that she'd never introduced herself.

"How do you know I'm from Vought?" she asked.

"I knew who you were as soon as you entered the building" I admitted "I have wonderful security".

No need to go into the details. Not that she would have understood them. I didn't understand a lot of it.

"You are Ashley Barrett, you work in public relations for Vought and I'm a superhero," I said "It's not hard to guess why you are here. You've been sent to recruit me".

She pretended not to be upset that I had stolen her thunder. No doubt she'd thought that I would be amazed by her offer and grateful to her for coming here to offer it to me in person.

I was actually a little insulted that the leaders of Vought had sent a lackey, but I was doing my best not to show it.

I'd seen the show and read her file so I knew that Ashley Barret was not a good person, she would suck up to whoever had power and she'd be willing to stab me in the back in a second if it meant advancing her own position or simply maintaining what she had.

"As a matter of fact that is why I am here" stated the woman "You're trending hard right now and your public approval is through the roof. This is the time to capitalise on your success and jump right into The Seven".

She no doubt expected me to be shocked by this. However, I kept my cool.

"I'm not interested in making more money," I said "I have plenty so I don't need to capitalise on anything".

Once you had your penthouse apartment in Manhattan and enough money to never have to work a day in your life the desire to obtain more wealth seemed rather pointless.

I could always have Cortana get more money if I really wanted it. Perhaps my lack of interest had to do with the fact that I wasn't putting in any effort to obtain money.

"Money isn't everything," said the Vought representative.

Judging by the look she was giving me Ashley thought me to be a little unhinged.

"Vought can manage your career, we have the best lawyers in the world, we can protect you from any fallout" she was now saying "Then there's the chance to have your own movie trilogy, a TV series, and think of the merchandise. You could have a music career or have books written about you. Who wouldn't want that?".

They really should have sent Madelyn Stillwell in person or just had this fool invite me to meet with her.

Vought didn't want to come off as too eager and they were prepared for me to reject the offer since there had been no word online about Vought seeking a replacement for the invisible guy who vanished some time ago.

That or they wanted to make sure it was a done deal before making any declaration to the public. I would find out which before too long.

"I don't have a career" I pointed out "I'm just helping people out. I'm not an actor, nor am I musical and my life isn't something for people to find amusement in".

It was easy to forget just how shallow the heroes of this world could be. They could dominate the planet or act as the true guardians of this world, instead, they were too busy tweeting to bring about any real change.

"Be a good little minion and go back to Madelyn Stillwell" I ordered keeping up a somewhat friendly tone "Tell her to call me when she wants to take this seriously".

While it might make sense for me to simply take up the offer I knew that I needed to play hardball or Vought would spend the next month trying to screw me over with contracts. I was the desirable one, they needed to seduce me properly.

"What?" asked Ashely "You can't just refuse to join the Seven. There are plenty of people out there just waiting to enter the big leagues".

The idea that someone wouldn't jump through hoops like a trained dolphin just for the opportunity to join the Seven was an alien one to this poor excuse for a human being.

"Then you don't need to waste your time with me," I said.

The poor woman simply sat there looking not unlike a goldfish that had been left out of the water.

"Was there anything else?" I asked.

She managed to get herself together long enough to make her way out of the building.

"So do you think they'll send Homelander to intimidate you into joining?" I heard Cortana say.

If so that would only aid my plans as I could send him packing and that would make me even more attractive to Vought.

"I don't know" I replied "I suspect that when Barret reports to her boss that I didn't appear interested then Stillwell will invite me to meet with her personally".

That should have been their opening move. They should have tried to impress me with a tour of the tower. Did they not want me near Homelander this soon?

He was unstable and might find me threatening enough that he'd do something stupid if his handlers didn't manage him right.

"Until then we need to make sure that I remain beloved in the eyes of the public," I said.

Which meant going out there and stopping more criminals.

If I had the means I might even make a supervillain appear just so I could defeat them. The me who went around with my darksaber while wearing armour couldn't perform that role since that would require me to be in two places at once.

Besides only a few criminals had ever seen the guy and they had pictures to post online, nor did they wish to draw attention to themselves by telling everyone about the other me.

Red Hood couldn't play that role for me as he clearly didn't wish to work with me at all, and I'd knocked up Miranda so I didn't want her in any kind of danger.

So unless the ROB added another player to the mix I'd have to keep myself popular by helping people in danger. Which wasn't such a bad way to pass the time.

Thinking on Red Hood I realised that I should have hit those weapon merchants harder and faster. I need to get a better grasp of what it was I could do and maybe try to train myself.

I also needed to finish what I had started with those arms dealers. In the short term at least Miranda wasn't a threat as she wanted a cold war, however, I couldn't let Red Hood obtain too much in the way of resources, wealth and manpower.

Even with the help of an AI, there was still much for me to do. Cortana would find me my target once he poked his head up above whatever hole he was hiding in.

"Find me some people to help," I instructed Cortana.

With that, I went to get changed.

Vought Tower. New York City.

Madelyn Stillwell was not as alarmed as she might have been when she heard that Invincible had little or no interest in becoming one of the Seven.

It was surprising, but Madelyn had known that there was a chance that Barret would manage to screw things up. At least she could clean up this mess.

"There's no need to get upset, Ashley" she assured her assistant "Sometimes negotiations take time. He only refused our opening offer, and it was a rather vague offer"

The less experienced woman didn't see things that way. She was pacing and mumbling. Barret really needed to learn how to take these things in stride or she'd have a mental breakdown sometime in the next few years.

"Who refuses to join The Seven?" said Ashley "No one does that".

Stillwell had an answer to that question.

"Someone who either has no idea what he'd be passing up or someone who is playing hard to get," she said.

The Vice President unmuted the television and the two women watched as Invincible pulled off another daring rescue.

A house fire had gotten out of control, trapping a family on the top floor of an apartment block. Invincible had gone in and saved the family, much to the joy of the onlookers.

"He's going to be all over social media" stated Ashley "And we can't manage any of it because everyone knows he isn't one of ours".

Madelyn had dealt with superheroes who had been unwilling to make themselves an asset to Vought.

Only they had always been more low-level supes, a few of which had actually cared about helping their communities, even if such types were few and far between. She'd worn them down and gotten them under her thumb.

Offering more money was pointless. Invincible had more than enough, as such offering anything he could buy by himself was also a waste of time. She would have to offer this man things he couldn't get on his own.

If Invincible did for some reason actually care about people, or at least want people to think that he cared, then she could use that against him.

Many heroes openly supported worthy causes that actually did some good in the world, even if they existed to help save Vought a few million since they were all tax deductible.

Failing that there was always the promise of sex. Not with herself, but there were always desperate young women who would whore themselves out if meant they could hang on the arm of a rising star.

Young men could be controlled by Madelyn in many ways.

"Are you sure you even want this guy in The Seven?" asked Ahsley "We've been looking for ways to make the team more diverse and he's a white male".

Had they known that he was half-alien this wouldn't have been a concern. Although it certainly would have caused other issues.

"Invincible has something that matters more than diversity" answered Madelyn.

The less intelligent woman clearly didn't grasp what that was.

"He has power, Ashley" the smarter of the two women explained "That is what matters. We can't have someone with that kind of power just going around doing whatever he wants".

Having another woman on the team would have been great, or a man with some sort of ethnic background, and they could always make room if needs be. Not all of the Seven had powers that were flashy enough to impress the public.

"What the fuck is this?" a voice demanded.

Madelyn knew that her job had just become more complicated. Homelander must have found out about the attempt to recruit Invincible and how it had so far failed.

News got around this building fast and even without that Homelander had superhearing. It bothered her that he saw and heard so much.

"Who the hell does this guy think he is?" the leader of the Seven demanded to know.

Madelyn gestured for Ashley to leave. It would be better for her to handle him alone.

"If you are talking about Invincible then don't worry, I have it handled" she assured Homelander.

He wasn't soothed so easily.

"What, does he think he's too good for us?" the man in the cape asked.

Madelyn worked to hide her smile. It was good that Homelander felt a little threatened as long as he didn't actually do anything about it.

"Is he starting his own team?" was the next question.

That couldn't happen. Invincible was only able to act outside the law without Vought backing him because he was so well-liked. However, if he put a team together he'd been seen as too much of a threat by those in power.

"Invincible is just playing hard to get" Madelyn assured Homelander "He might have some idea of how much he is worth, so he can afford to make us dance to his tune for a while, but don't worry I'll seal the deal. I always do".

Homelander gave the matter a little thought.

"I can go and meet with him" he offered.

Madelyn wondered what the result of such a meeting would be. But she needed to get more of a measure of the man before she put up against Homelander.

If Invincible proved too difficult to bring under her control then perhaps she'd have Homelander deal with him before he became too strong.

"I'll take care of him" she promised "Don't I always".

For now, she needed to soothe Homelander and then set up a meeting with Nolan Grayson.

She was confident that she would find something that he wanted and once she knew what that was she could use it to guide this new superhero.

Torn Cape.

Part 7.

Mons Bradley. The Moon.

Thanks to the base that I was working on under Cortana's instruction I could now listen to news shows from Earth while on the Luna surface so I was keeping in touch with what was happening on the alternate version of my homeworld.

The prefab buildings I'd flown here and then set up were just the start I was now working on digging into the solid rock so that we could have all sorts of things stored here that would remain hidden underground.

Cortana wanted to be able to fabricate equipment for me, and I wanted somewhere to store anything I confiscated because if the ROB was going to be spending more people for me to fight in some sort of PVP they were bound to bring things with them that I wouldn't want to fall into the hands of the natives.

Just having access to Compound V had in many ways radically altered this world making it very different to my version of Earth even if many things were similar. This made it clear to me that I didn't want any of the major factions getting their hands on magical items or advanced tech.

I was taking a break from punching my way into a mountain on the moon that was about four kilometres high and had a thirty-kilometre diameter.

It was actually rather time-consuming work because I couldn't go full force with damaging the buildings that I'd set up and needed those intact because I could only go without oxygen for so long.

Sure I could fly back to Earth for a break, but it was best to stay up here and focus on my work. If I let myself get distracted I wouldn't get anything done.

I needed a base that no one on Earth could reach, at least not without putting a lot of funding into the space programme, and even if they did that I had plans to relocate to Mars once I had some way of carrying enough air with me.

"Minecraft makes this look so much easier than it really is" I commented.

Cortana was eager for me to keep working.

"Buck, up boss," she said "There are a lot of useful minerals here"

I envisioned having vast stores of gold hidden inside my base. My AI had different ideas.

"Here on the moon we will find vast amounts of iron, magnesium, calcium, aluminium, manganese and titanium" Cortana informed me "All of which are valuable resources for us if we want to build a proper base and start building some spacecraft".

Even Cortana couldn't build an FTL drive, but we could help mankind colonise the solar system.

"In your opinion has the appearance of Invincible played an important role in the sudden decreased of crime here in New York?" asked a voice.

Cortana was keeping me informed about how the public was seeing me. It was important for my plans that I remained well-liked by the sheeple.

"I would say yes" answered the government official who was speaking to some daytime radio host "Compared to most superheroes Invincible isn't wasting all his time peddling merchandise and attending movie premiers. He's out there helping people and making an effort to aid law enforcement without supplanting its authority".

There was a pause to let the listeners absorb those words.

"You make it sound as if the other heroes out there are lazy, at least when compared to Invincible," said the host.

I hadn't expected people to pay much attention to how much effort I was putting into my work.

"Aren't they?" questioned the guest "How many people do the heroes working for Vought actually save each month? I know the answer because I have access to police reports from all over this state and the numbers would surprise you. Even those heroes who actively patrol neighbourhoods don't save as many lives as you might think. Heck, some of those so-called heroes are the reason for 911 calls. Invincible goes out of his way to keep injuries and property damage to a minimum".

Impressive considering how new I was to my powers even if I did say so myself. Maybe the other supes had gotten lazy. They certainly did spend a lot of their time at events getting their photos taken rather than acting as if they were heroes.

I knew this, I just hadn't known that there were people who weren't happy about it, and I'd thought that the people in authority would be supporting this because it kept the supes too busy to cause any real problems for them. Such as fighting corruption.

"That's going make Vought even more eager to get their hands on you" commented Cortana "You're making their heroes look bad".

As I got back to work an image popped on my helmet that let me know Miranda Lawson was heading to my penthouse.

"What does she want?" I wondered.

Cortana didn't say anything she knew that question had been rhetorical. I knew that I would need to go and find out for myself so

I quickly flew back to Earth. Slowing down as I entered the atmosphere as I needed to worry about the intense heat caused by reentry.

The sonic boom caught up with me as I landed on the roof of my apartment building. Lucky for the people in New York I'd decreased my speed while some distance away so there was no damage done to the city and the boom sounded as if it came from far away.

Before going inside I took off my armour and let it return to the belt from where it had been deployed. When I got into my apartment Miranda Lawson was already sitting on my couch and had helped herself to something to drink. Non-alcoholic I hoped.

Upon seeing her I was reminded that Henry Lawson had designed his child to be genetically perfect, to be superior to every other human woman. She was stronger, faster, smarter, and apparently, sexier as well.

The outfit she wore, some sort of tailor-made business suit, was accentuating every curve of her body. Drawing attention to her large breasts and spankable ass.

She raised her head as I entered the room and smiled at me.

"I went to the doctor's office" she said rather than greet me "Well done, Daddy".

That was she pregnant didn't shock me as I decided that she would be allowed to be the mother of at least one of my children. I just hadn't thought she'd know for certain this soon as we'd not fucked that long ago.

"How did you get in here?" I asked.

Miranda smiled again.

"You're not the only one with an AI" she reminded "Your security is great, but it's not foolproof when your AI isn't heir to watch the system".

Cortana didn't say anything and neither did the AI that Miranda had with her. Which I assumed would be EDI.

"I thought we should celebrate so I brought some sushi" Miranda let me know.

She seemed very happy.

"Looking forward to becoming a mother?" I asked.

She stood up and took off her jacket. Letting me see that she'd undone a few buttons on her blouse.

"Things haven't been easy for me," she said "Before I died I was spending my time moving from safehouse to safehouse to avoid my old boss tracking me down".

Miranda moved closer to me.

"Then when the war started I was trying to dig up some old contacts to procure resources for the Crucible" she was now saying "Add to that all those meetings I had with Admiral Hackett who needed to go over everything I knew about Cerberus, and things got rather stressful for me".

She was telling me this so I would feel some sympathy for her. I did care since while I am a self-centred jerk I'm not incapable of feeling empathy for the people who are part of my life.

"Then I was searching the entire galaxy for Oriana. That led to a lot of messy business on Horizon" she added.

Horizon had been the location of a top-secret Cerberus base, a testing ground for technology meant to turn the indoctrinated slaves of the Reapers against their masters. I had no idea how that would have stopped the Reapers themselves since they were self-aware starships with a lot of weapons. They would have simply blasted the Cerberus base from orbit.

"Compared to that setting up my own business and becoming a mother doesn't seem so scary" she was now saying.

I was interested in hearing more.

"You're setting up your own business?" I asked.

Miranda was happy to tell me more.

"Cerberus Defence Contracts" she answered "Cerberus, the one I worked for, was originally supposed to be about defending mankind from a hostile galaxy. It only became about human domination later. I want my company to take up that role and to prepare mankind for the future".

Noble goals. I hoped that she stuck to them. My long-term projects should also benefit the human race.

"That leads me to my other reason to visit you" confessed Miranda and she undid her blouse and exposed her large breasts to my eyes "Grayson, I want you to join Cerberus and be a superhero mascot for my company".

Now this was a surprise.

"You know we are supposed to be enemies" I reminded her "I shouldn't be helping you with publicity".

Of course, she hadn't forgotten.

"You plan to join The Seven, I'm attempting to derail that plan by luring you over to Cerberus," she said as she took off her blouse "Although it could benefit you because if Vought heard that you were even thinking about working with me they'd be more eager than ever to get their hands on you. There is a small concern that they might target Cerberus, but it's more their style to throw money around to solve their problems".

Miranda's tits were an impossibly arousing sight, firm and gravity-defying, and her nipples were noticeable even through the material of her bra. She noticed my staring and the reaction her body was having to mine.

"Did I do that?" Miranda said as she smirked at me "The mighty Invincible isn't so hard to deal with".

In a few seconds, she had unzipped my trousers and freed my erection from its confines,

"Hard to imagine you managed to fit this bad boy inside me" she teased.

As her fingers wrapped around my shaft, she stroked the tip with her thumb. This made it tricky for me to focus on our discussion.

"I assume your plan is to trap me with some sort of contract so you can limit my rise" I reasoned "Maybe I'll even be around to protect you from Red Hood and whatever else the ROB throws at us. Is that the plan, Miss Lawson?".

She didn't verbally confirm or deny it. Instead, she went for a distraction.

"How do you want me?" she said.

I'd think more clearly after I'd fucked her.

"Up against the wall," I ordered.

She slowly walked over towards the adjoining wall, treating me to the sight of her firm ass swaying from side to side as she moved into position.

Miranda placed her hands on the wall and pushed her ass as she moved her legs apart. She clearly had no issue with letting me do what I wanted to her.

To start with I cupped her breasts from behind. As I squeezed her tits, she moaned with pleasure and I could tell that she was pushing into the wall.

Slowly, I slid my hands downwards, away from her breasts, so that I could remove the skirt that looked as if was something she'd wear to a business meeting if she wanted to distract any men in the room.

"Have you been showing people what is mine?" I wanted to know.

I enjoyed that little shiver of fear she displayed when I asked that. I wouldn't hurt my baby factory and she must believe I wouldn't or she wouldn't have requested that I get her pregnant, but she still feared my power.

"No," she said "Never. I promise. My body is yours, Nolan".

I enjoyed hearing that.

"Well I don't see my name on you" I joked.

Miranda made a sort of whimpering sound that was adorable.

"Let me sort that out. I'll fix it" she promised.

Once the skirt was done with I stopped to admire the underwear she'd worn for this encounter. A black thing that looked like I could floss with it.

She had clearly dressed with me in mind and she was willing to have sex with me so as to try to get me to do what she wanted. As such I didn't feel bad about using her.

"You came prepared" I commented.

She was more relaxed now.

"I always aim to impress, Grayson" she replied, craning her neck around to look at him "Do you like what you see?"

No heterosexual man could have resisted the sight. At least not in my opinion.

"What a silly question," I said.

I pulled down her panties until they were bunched around her ankles and then I got them off her. She was not going to get them back.

The former operative's ass was now on full display for my viewing pleasure as well as for touching. I squeezed her cheeks and slapped her ass quite a few times. I enjoyed how her backside got redder.

Miranda took it and made noises that suggested that she actually rather enjoyed the treatment. I rubbed her pussy for a little while to make sure of this. She was wet.

I undressed and while she turned her head to look at me she stayed in position. She understood that my commands were to be followed.

"So, Nolan," she said as she breathed in deep "Which hole do you want?".

Before long, I began pushing my cock into her waiting asshole. She was clearly eager to be fucked this way or she thought it would make me more accepting of her idea. Not that it mattered to me as I was going to fuck her arse and do it well.

"Fuck that's a big cock!" she yelled.

Her body tried to move away from me so I grabbed her hips and pulled her back. She kept her hands on the wall as I used her. It was a very good thing that I had no next-door neighbours since my home was at the top of the building. Anyone below me would just have to suffer the noise.

Torn Cape.

Part 8.

Vought Tower. New York City.

While having a moonbase was nice, and Miranda was setting up Cerberus Defence Contracts within a fancy building of her own, if asked I would have admitted that the tower I was currently touring was certainly an impressive set-up, and it served well as the headquarters of both Vought International and The Seven.

I knew that at some point I might need to destroy this tower or maybe infiltrate it for some reason, as such, when Madalyn Stillwell offered me a tour I accepted. I came along at a time she decided upon even if that gave her some tiny measure of control over me.

The fact that she didn't meet me herself at the front desk was another little power game. If the deluded woman thought that she could control me as she did Homelander, then she was in for a very rude awakening.

There was no harm in listening to whatever offer Vought made. The fact that Starlight was the one showing me around was a nice bonus as she was pleasant to look at and I didn't find her voice to be annoying.

Since I'd killed Hughie Campbell she should be single. Starlight also looked really good in her short skirt and she didn't seem to mind the fact that I was checking her out.

At her core, Annie January was an idealist and one of the very few superhumans who truly cares about helping others and doing what she believes is right.

As such, her joining The Seven had been a wrong move as there was nothing heroic at all about that group. She'd have been much better off working on her own or finding a team that was more active.

It shouldn't be too hard to disillusion her enough that she was willing to leave Vought and maybe come to work with me. Perhaps I should make an effort to seduce her?

I didn't think it would be that hard to do since unlike most other men, I wouldn't feel threatened by the fact that she was stronger and tougher than me because she wasn't.

"Invincible, welcome to Floor 99," Starlight said.

This was where the Seven lived and worked. When they weren't off at some movie premiere or other event that let them preen for the cameras. This part of the building was filled with things that demonstrated how Vought controlled its talent.

All the pictures and statues made the superhumans feel as if they were larger-than-life figures when they were just a means for Vought to make even more money.

The Seven also had apartments here on this floor. I was not invited to check out any of them since they were meant to be private.

I took note of some of the other rooms. They were for meetings between members of the Seven and other Vought employees, there was also a dining room, a gym, and a rather nice lounge for people to hang around in.

"And this is where we have our meetings" Starlight let me know as we entered the most important part of this floor.

The Seven meeting room consists of an open circular space containing a large table in the shape of the Vought Seven logo which is a conjoined V7.

On one of the walls, I saw a number of screens that displayed information that must be important to the Seven, and there was also a set of windows that allowed for an impressive view of the city.

The subordinate six members are seated so they can face Homelander as he enters from the doorway and his chair, which I went and sat on, and the design allowed him to face any member of the Seven just by turning a little in his seat.

"I can see the appeal," I said, "If you are shallow and like bowing to the whims of unimportant people who bitch on social media about injustices rather than actually doing something about them".

Starlight looked more uncomfortable about what I was doing than the words I'd spoken. She knew as well as I that if Homelander saw what I was doing he would see it as a threat to his dominance.

I hoped that he did come in and give me an excuse to slap him down. That was the other reason why I'd decided to come here as it was time to declare myself top dog.

"You're scared of him, aren't you?" I asked.

She made an effort to deny it. It was a wasted effort as I could see the fear in her pretty little eyes.

"No, of course not" she insisted "Homelander is great, he's wonderful".

Even if I hadn't known the truth I wouldn't have been convinced by those words.

"So I assume that Stillwell told you to sell me on the idea of joining The Seven," I said.

I was giving real thought to working closer with Miranda despite the fact that we should be hostile towards each other. The more I looked into what the heroes who worked for Vought actually spent their time doing the less appealing it become to join The Seven.

I'd spend so much time getting my picture taken and attending meetings that I'd never get anything important done. The whole point of me wanting to originally join The Seven was for power and influence, but even if I could get that here I didn't think it would be worth all the crap I'd have to put up with.

They were already trying to suck me into that sort of life. That was why there had been so many reporters outside when I'd arrived. Had I appeared in costume rather than walking in the front door in a business suit and a pair of shades, I would have been swamped.

Stillwell had wanted me to get a taste of the attention I'd get as a member of the Seven. Had I been a vain person her little trick might have even worked.

I felt sure that the other reason was so that everyone would know that Vought was in talks with me. It hadn't been declared that I'd been offered a place in The Seven, however, if people saw Invincible visiting Vought Tower they would draw their own conclusions.

"She only asked me to show you around" Starlight replied.

I smiled upon hearing that.

"She asked the most attractive member of your team, who happens to be the newest member who knows the place the least well, to show me around," I said, "Madelyn Stillwell is very good at her job".

When you want something from someone there are two direct ways to get it. The carrot and the stick. You either offer them something they want in exchange, or at least offer something you make them think they want, or use the stick to beat them into submission.

She wasn't actually offering up Annie January to me, she was simply and subtly suggesting that I could get close to Starlight. Soon would come the actual offer, money, fame and all that jazz.

Plus since Starlight wouldn't know as much about this place as others who worked here she was the least likely to give away important information.

"You think I'm the most attractive?" Starlight enquired "Not a big fan of Maeve".

It wasn't even a contest and I took note that Annie enjoyed it when I flattered her. I'd never gotten the impression that she was a shallow person so I assumed that something must have happened recently to make her feel bad about herself.

She might still feel like trash because of what The Deep had her do when she joined The Seven. I made a mental note to go and hurt that jerk at some point.

"By far," I said, "Given your looks, smarts, and your power, it's a real shame that you are letting yourself be wasted here. Getting treated as a commodity rather than the hero you could be".

Before she could find out what I meant by that Stillwell entered the room.

"I see that you are already making yourself comfortable" she commented.

Starlight took her own seat and smiled at me. She was still naive enough to think that joining the Seven was a good thing.

"So what do you think of Floor 99?" asked Madalyn Stillwell as she sat down.

Since I had my own penthouse apartment in Manhattan and I had an AI who monitors things for me, such as my social media presence, that meant Vought had nothing to offer me other than distractions. Something that I should have realised sooner. I'd almost fallen for the same trap as the other superhumans.

"I'm impressed by this fancy cage you've made" I answered.

Stillwell looked confused and I didn't bother to elaborate. The whole reminded me a little of the pilot episode of the original Star Trek series that involves the Captain of the Enterprise getting captured by some telepathic aliens who trap him within illusions.

"So make your offer," I invited as I put my feet up on the table.

Stillwell's lackey, that annoying Ashely woman they sent to my home not so long ago, took a contract out of a suitcase, and presented a contract to me. I made a show of reading it.

If you didn't know what to look for it could seem rather inviting. Stock options, health care for you and your family, insurance, legal defence, a share of the profits from products that use my name, and so on.

But it wasn't all good. I'd be required to jump through a lot of hoops, to make public appearances, star in movies, to appear on chat shows. It would all be a waste of my time when I could keep the public loving me by saving people.

To ensure that the public didn't get bored of me I'd have to up my game. It was a shame I couldn't work with the Red Hood as I did with Miranda Lawson. If we did then we could have staged a terrorist attack for me to foil.

"I'm not an actor and I'm not at all musical" I pointed out.

That wasn't the deal breaker it might seem to be, at least not for Vought.

"We can work around that" assured Stillwell "We can set up acting lessons and..".

I stopped her there as she simply wasn't getting the message.

"No I mean I'm not an actor, I'm not a musician" I argued "I have no talent or any interest in such things. I'm a superhero and there's not much in here about helping people".

I had no intention of actually accepting any contract I just wanted to take this chance to show Starlight how meaningless all this was. Perhaps I could convince her to come and work with me.

"That's not true" insisted Ashley "The Seven support a lot of good charities".

I put the contract down.

"None of which make any difference in the real world," I stated "These good causes exist to help Vought save millions in taxes and they create good publicity".

Poor Ashley didn't get where this was going.

"You can set up new charities if that is what you want" she offered.

I ignored that idea as it would just lead to Vought using it to generate more good publicity.

"That's not what I mean by helping people," I said, "Don't the Seven ever go out and stop crimes. I mean ones that you don't stage for publicity".

Starlight suddenly looked a lot more uncomfortable. Perhaps she hadn't considered that Vought staged events so as to make the heroes look good. I didn't know if that was actually true and I moved on before anyone could make a denial.

"Then there's this whole part about you owning my image" I mentioned.

Madlyn handled this apart.

"That's to protect you from any legal actions," she said "Any lawsuits made against you would have to go through us".

In theory, that sounds good, but I could have Cortana handle such things by destroying any electronic records that could incriminate me and simply removing any records of the lawsuits.

Not that this mattered as the real reason they wanted to control my image was that they sell my name to other companies who could they stick my name on any bit of crap they wanted to.

Stillwell soon got the heart of the matter.

"What exactly is it you want?" she asked.

I sighed.

"From you nothing at all," I said "I'm never going to join Vought. I did want to at one time, but the more I learn about this company the less appealing it became to become a part of it, and I have other options now".

The two company women seemed to be having trouble accepting that I simply didn't care about anything they thought I should care about.

"No one can offer you more than Vought" insisted the Vice-President "We can make you a household name. Merchandise, books, your own TV show, every kid in America is going to want Invincible on their lunchbox".

They simply couldn't understand.

"I don't care about any of that" I explained "My ambitions aren't so limited. I want to be more than Vought's way of making a few more bucks".

The doors opened and Homelander entered the room. He'd been listening in as I'd figured he would do.

"I knew it!" he yelled "He's planning on building his own team".

That was something I'd considered, but there wasn't anyone who could keep up with me, and while a team might be good for publicity for Cerberus that was Miranda Lawson's concern, not mine.

"I've given it some thought" I admitted.

Stillwell got between the two of us before Homelander did something stupid.

"I told you that I would handle this," she said.

Homelander looked mighty peeved.

"He's not interested in joining The Seven" he stated.

If I played my cards right I could end up in a fight with Homelander and be able to humble him.

"Why should I work under you?" I asked, "Maybe I should be running the Seven".

He did not like hearing that.

"I LEAD THE SEVEN!" he yelled.

Stillwell did her best to calm him. She was very much like a mother trying to soothe a toddler who was having a temper tantrum.

"No one is taking over the Seven" Stillwell stated "Invincible was invited to tour the tower, that is all".

Given the contract sitting on the table in front of me that was clearly a lie. Yet Stillwell was able to soothe the overgrown manchild.

"Good boy" I mocked "Listen to Mummy".

At this point, I'd decided that I was defiantly going to slap Homelander down and that I would do it hard. If only for my own amusement.

As it turned out, the mummy remark was too much for Homelander to handle and he came right up to me as I stood up. He punched me in the face. He knocked the fancy table aside with ease as he made his way over to me.

"I actually felt that," I admitted as I rubbed my cheek.

Despite not doing me much harm at all the asshole in the cape looked very pleased with himself. He should be a little happy, as until now the only thing that had even distracted me in a fight was getting shot at by a guy with a grenade launcher.

Then he flinched as if he'd been slapped. That must be the reflected damage I'd been told about when this all got set up by the ROB. I assumed that Red Hood hadn't felt it when he attacked because he'd only disoriented me.

"I'm the real hero," he said "America loves me".

Hearing that made me snigger.

"America," I said with a snort, "You think in such limited terms".

With that, I pushed Homelander right into the monitors on the wall. The screens that weren't outright demolished would still need replacing.

"You ladies might want to give us some space" I advised.

Only Starlight was willing to stick around and I wondered if she was going to try to separate us. There was still enough power in this room for her to channel into a blast and she was strong enough to try getting in our way.

Not that she got the chance as Homelander tackled me and we both went flying out of the window. We didn't stop until hit the inside of some sort of office block that happened to be occupied.

"Finally someone who might be a challenge," I said.

I'd been transformed into a member of a race of conquerors who had become a great power by turning themselves into fighters. There was a part of me that longed to challenge myself against a strong foe and Homelander might just be tough enough for me to get some exercise while beating the shit out of him.

"It's Homelander!" someone called out.

The guy in the cape actually got up and waved at everyone.

"Is that Invincible! a woman yelled.

It was hard to tell since I wasn't in my hero outfit. Although I had lost my shades.

"Don't worry. This is just an accident," he said "We were sparing at the tower and things got out of hand".

I got up and punched him in his stupid face with my right fist which caused Homelander to stagger backwards. He took the blow well.

"Can't you go five seconds without getting your picture taken?" I asked.

People were taking photos and recording us with their phones. Not that Homelander kept caring about that as he tried to punch me. Well, he managed to punch me, but the blow was rather weak.

"Please," I said.

That was when he backed off so that he could strike at me with his heat vision and that did hurt a little. Something he noticed right away and it made him smile. It was also an extremely reckless thing for him to do as we were surrounded by office workers.

Since getting a load of bystanders killed would only harm my image, and because there was no sense in harming random civilians, I grabbed Homelander and took us both out of the building and into the sky.

What followed was a lot of punching and kicking that would have made us look more like two young boys fighting in the schoolyard if it hadn't been happening up in the sky.

I really hoped that if someone was recording this that it looked much cooler from a distance.

"Can you handle space?" I asked.

As I took us higher. He fired off his laser eyes again, and this time the beams went wild, but since we were up in the air there was nothing for them to hit unless some unfortunate bird happened to be flying by.

This was followed up by lots of weak blows as I took us both even further up.

I didn't get the chance to see how he handled space as Homelander headbutted me with enough force that I lost control of the flight and then he was pushing down on me as we fell back to Earth. He was saying something, I just had no idea what as the air was too thin up here and my focus was elsewhere.

By the time I managed to get control of our flight, I was able to use Homelander to cushion my fall. He hit the helicopter landing pad, taking the impact, and we both went through the foot and ended up back on Floor 99.

"You need to train," I told Homelander as I got off him.

So did I, that he'd be able to take control of the fight even for a short time was simply embarrassing.

"Holy Fuck is he dead?" questioned Starlight.

Given that the guy was groaning in pain it appeared not. In fact, he was already recovering, and his eyes glowed when he looked at me so I kicked him in the face, knocking him out.

"Nah he's just all tuckered out" I joked.

To my surprise, Starlight took out a handkerchief and handed it to me.

"Your nose is bleeding," she let me know.

Given that she trying to aid me when her team leader was lying in the ruins told me just how little she cared for Homelander.

"Thank you," I said.

What a nice young lady.

"Should we call a doctor" Starlight wondered "For Homelander I mean".

Did anyone even know how to treat him for injuries?

"Vought must have some specialists" I answered "I'm just going to go home".

I gave Annie my address.

"Come over for a drink if you ever want to talk to shop or just hang out" I invited.

Smartly, no one from security tried to stop me so I was free to leave the building.

Torn Cape.

Part 9.

Penthouse. New York City.

"Boss, do you know what a dungeon keeper is?" I was asked by Cortana.

It wasn't often that she needed information from me, not unless it was about refining and altering my plans. My AI ally had access to all the knowledge of this world so for her not to be able to find information on a topic was very strange.

"Is this some sort of sex thing?" I asked back.

I'd just gotten out of the shower and now I was starting to change into my outfit for my superhero work. If I'd known she wanted to discuss something sexual I wouldn't have rubbed one out while in the bathroom.

"No, it's the name of the new player in the PVP, or maybe a title," Cortana let me know "I know that you haven't killed Miranda Lawson so I was trying to work out why we have a new enemy. Do you think it has something to do with you agreeing to be Cerberus's mascot?".

That was possible. One way to rid yourself of an enemy is to make them an ally. The ROB had never told me that I actually needed to kill anyone just that I would have enemies. Looking back I should have gotten more information, but to be fair it had all been rather overwhelming at the time.

"It makes sense, Miranda was never much interested in acting as my enemy even if she wanted to foil my plan to join The Seven" I mused "She might have even planned it to work out this way".

I had lowered my guard around, knocked her up, and chosen to work for her company, at this point we might as well be partners. So it made sense that the ROB might add a new enemy with Miranda now counting as my ally as Cortana did.

The ROB might even have wanted things to work out this way. Short of bringing the Normandy with her Miranda was never going to be a physical threat, seduction had been her only option and it had worked out for her.

"Outside of S&M, I don't think I've heard of a Dungeon Keeper," I said. "I doubt it means Dungeon Master in the D&D way because someone with that kind of power could alter this entire reality.

There was something a little familiar about it.

"I thought it might be something that is fictional from your world that doesn't exist here because of how the superhero genre nearly totally dominates all forms of entertainment," said Cortana.

There was a feeling that I should know, that some piece of information was missing.

"It might be something I saw only once about twenty years ago" I pointed out "I'm sure it will come to me".

The human brain was a strange machine. If I focused on something else then the memory I desire might pop up to the surface of my mind.

"I'll get back to you if anything jogs my memory" I promised Cortana.

For now, all she could do was look for anything odd going on while I got back out there. I hadn't forgotten about the Red Hood or that arms dealer who could be a problem if I didn't end him now.

"Boss, someone is coming" warned my AI.

A laptop screen showed the image of a redheaded woman entering the building.

"Any idea who she is?" I asked.

I didn't recognise her.

"She's Margaret Shaw," I was told.

The name meant nothing to me.

"Also known as Queen Maeve" Cortana explained.

I still did not recognise her. She looked so normal when not in her superhero outfit.

"Oh the knock-off Wonder Woman," I realised, "What could she want".

I knew from the show that she feared Homelander and wanted him taken down because he would never let her go be happy with anyone else. He would rather kill Maeve than let her love someone who wasn't him.

Because she knew that she couldn't take Homelander, not her own, I very much doubted she'd come to threaten me, and she was more likely to thank me than try to avenge him.

"So what brings you to my humble abode?" I asked Miss Shaw when I answered.

I'd always wondered why people only ever call their homes humble abodes when they don't mean it.

"I want to make a deal" she answered.

So much for small talk.

"Please come in," I invited.

I might not have any fancy psychic powers, but I didn't need them to know that Queen Maeve was worried about something and desperate for my help.

"What can I do for you?" I inquired.

Maeve reached into her handbag and took out six vials of some sort of chemical.

"This is Compound V," she told me "This is what Vought uses to make superhumans, it doesn't always work on adults, but who knows, you seem lucky, and if nothing else you can use it as a way to hurt Vought".

It wasn't hard for me to figure out that she was trying to buy protection from me. The value of what she was offering had to be in the millions of dollars. Not that I cared for that it was just a means of measuring how much this meant to her.

Of course, I knew about V and could have stolen some myself if I'd cared to. Cortana had even shown me a report on a blood sample that Vought's lab that had checked for traces of the compound. The reports didn't know what to make of my blood and Vought wasn't equipped to clone people, so I wasn't worried about that.

"Where did you just this much Compound V from?" I wondered.

If she'd just stolen from it Vought Tower then I was going to need to find out if she could survive a trip to the moon very quickly.

"Homelander has been using A-Train to smuggle V to some fringe groups because he wants to make supervillains for us to fight, so people will need us more, or that was what his plan" she let me know "I guess he'll be focusing on you if he ever wakes up as anything other than a vegetable".

I could picture him acting like that Immortal superhero who was part of the Guardians of the Globe before Omni-Man killed them all. I could see him waking up screaming my name and flying right here to try to kill me. That could be fun.

"So you want protection from Homelander in exchange for this V" I stated.

Rather a silly plan. I could have killed her at this point, and then thrown her body into space. Just as I did with another member of The Seven.

"If you need me to sweeten the deal I'm willing" she offered.

There was no need for that. I did consider knocking her up, but I'd never been much attracted to redheaded women, and I wasn't in the mood.

"No, I was just thinking of where to send you," I said.

Cortana could easily erase the existence of Margaret Shaw electronically and set her up with a new identity, but she was famous and some people other than me might recognise her. It wasn't as if I could erase people's memories.

"There's nowhere in the world I can go" she pointed out "I need you to protect me by making it clear to Homelander that if he so much as looks at me you'll finish him off".

She was desperate. I could have so easily taken advantage of this.

"I never mentioned anything about you staying here on Earth," I said.

While Maeve had a girlfriend I wasn't sure if they were together right now and even if they were I could deal with that later. It was possible to return her to the world in the near future once the heat had died down.

"How durable are you?" I asked.

It wasn't just a matter of her leaving the atmosphere, she needed shielding from cosmic radiation until we reached the base and a supply of air. I might need to borrow a space suit from NASA.

Restaurant. New York City.

"Billions of dollars and decades of effort spent for the world's most expensive nosebleed," said Stan Edgar.

Despite the seriousness of this conversation the CEO of Vought International couldn't help smiling a little as he spoke to Miranda Lawson. She'd agreed to meet him at a location of her choosing, because she wasn't stupid, and now they were here to discuss the future of both their companies in a restaurant he'd made sure would be closed for the evening.

"I've seen the footage," stated Miranda Lawson.

Stan was not happy about that bit of video making its way onto the web. It had done more to harm Vought's finances than the damage done to the building. It was humiliating for Vought and for Homelander's supporters to see the world's strongest hero lying on the broken remains of The Seven's meeting room.

Somewhat symbolic too. As if the act as broken The Seven and it certainly had removed their aura of invincibility. An aura that had been broken by someone who might as well be invincible in name as well as nature.

Homelander was in Vought's own ICU and Invincible had walked away with a nosebleed. The new hero might as well have been a schoolyard scuffle.

"What you might not know is that Homelander still hasn't woken up," said Stan Edgar "Over the years, he's been shot, stabbed, blown up, gassed, poisoned, and set on fire. None of it did more than require him to change his clothing and comb his hair. Then your company's new mascot put him into a coma".

Invincible was frightening. The Vought CEO wondered if anything short of a nuclear weapon could stop the new superhero from doing anything he pleased.

"You don't seem terribly upset, Mr Edgar," remarked Miranda Lawson.

Stan didn't normally take much notice of a person's looks as other men might, yet he took note that Lawson was a very attractive woman, and resourceful too, as she'd managed to get the most powerful superhuman on the planet to come and work for her. Most impressive.

"Please call me Stan" he invited "I prefer to use first names".

She had no problem with that.

"The truth is Miranda, Vought is fat and lazy" admitted the CEO "What's worse is that we were never meant to be a superhero company. Like Cerberus, we were originally meant to be a defence contractor, yet we have become a global leader in the media, retail, energy, and pharmaceutical sectors. Vought is a bloated monster that nearly always crushes or absorbs everything it comes into contact with".

Miranda was surprised to hear this, yet she soon deduced where this was going.

"You're planning on using Invincible's fight with Homelander as an excuse to shake things up over at Vought" she realised.

That was indeed the plan. Every crisis can be made into an opportunity.

"Vought has suffered due to this, and investors have become nervous" he shared "As for the public they can't decide if Invincible is going to replace Homelander as he supplanted Soldier Boy, or if Invincible is some kind of threat".

While the former seemed to be what the majority wanted from Invincible there were many people who saw what happened to Homelander as proof that Invincible was some sort of godless supervillain.

What Stan didn't know was that thanks to the work of a couple of AI the negative opinions kept disappearing and the positive views on the situation were popping up everywhere. He'd expected more panic from people and more outrage.

The US Government had so not spoken on the subject, yet they had to see the potential of Invincible and it helped that while Homelander was recovering the man who'd been put in a coma was still out there doing good deeds.

"Invincible is better, stronger, faster and he's new," said Miranda as she enjoyed her meal "Homelander could be getting a bit stale".

Stan nodded in agreement.

"As he's a wakeup call," said the CEO of Vought "It's not just my company that's become lazy, the talent has too. The sex, the drugs, the publicity, it all goes to their heads and makes them a nightmare to manage".

Stan sipped his cooling coffee.

"I want them to be scared of Invincible" he told Miranda "I need, we all need, someone who can make sure that they don't step too far out of line".

Lawson already understood where this was going.

"You want to use Invincible to keep the other superhumans in line," she said "But why would he agree to that. Why should I?".

Stan had already considered this.

"Cerberus is a new company," he pointed out "New and hungry, and you have some control over Invincible, or at least influence. Vought could do with some way of outsourcing a few of our problems. We'd pay for the privilege and in turn, we can help Cerberus to grow".

Miranda would be a fool to refuse that aid.

"What exactly is it you want from Invincible?" she asked.

Stan drank some more coffee before answering. It was a good blend.

"Mostly we need him to keep doing what is already doing," he said "Invincible makes every superhero on the Vought payroll look lazy and careless. As long as he is out there actually acting like a superhero the others don't measure up and they won't be able to stand that".

Their egos simply wouldn't allow it.

"I'll use Invincible and this recent incident to justify holding our superheroes to a higher standard" stated Stan "We'll cut away some of the weeds and enforce a training schedule. This way I can get rid of some of the troublemakers and find new ways to keep the rest out of some of the trouble they get themselves into".

Miranda could see the logic in this.

"We'll make it clear that the only hope Vought's heroes have of ever taking on Invincible is if they work in teams as they are supposed to and actually do their jobs," said Vought's leader "This crisis is ironically good for me, at least in the long term, and it could be good for my company".

Stan was aware that the US military and government would be nervous about Invincible. He should be able to use this to push the idea of their talent getting into the military because Invincible wasn't American and short nuking one of their own cities they could do nothing to stop Invincible.

No, they would need superheroes in the hundreds to take down Invincible, each of them trained and ready to work in teams. The military would need superhumans of their own as well.

Madelyn Stillwell didn't see it that way, she and others at Vought were freaking out about how they couldn't use Invinicble's name to sell anything because he'd signed a contract with Cerberus and that was known publicly. Vought couldn't licence others to use a hero name that they didn't manage.

Even getting a DNA sample from Invincible hadn't led to anything because the sample they'd gotten made no sense at all. Some of the experts weren't even sure that Nolan Grayson was human. What else could he be? An alien?

One that just happened to look exactly like a human, bleed red blood, spoke English and for some reason come to this world to be a superhero. Not even the fictional heroes created by Vought to sell more comic books ever had people with origin stories that silly.

No something must have either altered Grayson's DNA, a byproduct of whatever bootleg version of Compound V and genetic engineering had been made to make him, or something had corrupted the sample.

Perhaps the blood had been exposed to something in the Vought lab and it was his people who had messed up. He'd believe in the incompetence of men over the idea of an alien flying around doing good deeds.

Heck Nolan might even be some freak mutant who somehow got exposed to Compound V and didn't end up a total mess due to random chance.

He'd even considered the idea that the UK had managed to make their own Homelander, one they had trained and refined, but that seemed unlikely since the United Kingdom wouldn't have sent their Homlander overseas when they could keep him at home and paraded him around.

Stan didn't understand where Invincible had come from, but he certainly wasn't some alien as a few of the scientists in the lab had speculated and no one would take that seriously even if the idea leaked out.

"So you use Invincible as a threat to make your heroes shape up," said Miranda "I can see that working and the public isn't turning on Invincible because they don't seem to know what to think. But happens when Homelander wakes up".

Miranda was having EDI working 24/7 to make sure that public opinion remained so divided that they would never take any unified action. The main two political factions were too interested in blaming each other to get anything meaningful done.

In her time and place, this wouldn't have worked, but the people of this Earth were either led about by the nose by social media or they didn't believe the news at all.

There were a few people out there claiming that all the footage was fake and that it was all promotion for some movie called Dawn of The Seven.

"If he wakes up" corrected Stan Edger "And if he does he might be so brain damaged that he won't even know who he is. Our doctors are anticipating memory loss and a change of behaviour".

Not surprising given his head injury.

"Even if he recovers and goes for a rematch he can't beat Invisible. As long as he doesn't kill Homelander we don't really have much to be concerned about" promised Stan "Homelander is well loved yes, but he's been shown to be vulnerable now. He's not the god in a cape people thought he was".

Stan had wondered if people would be foolish to demand that Invincible be arrested, and there had been talk of that, it "had just never gotten anywhere. Which was good as to who would even be able to arrest Invincible?

"We've been downplaying Homelander's condition, trying to get people to think that he and Invincible were testing themselves at Vought Tower with some sparring and it got out of hand" Stan was now saying "Since he's remained out of sight it's hard to disprove and Invincible hasn't shown any hostility towards any other superheroes, at least not publicly".

Things could have escalated if Grayson had picked another fight.

"Alright," said Miranda "I'll talk to Grayson and let him know the deal".

With that, they shook hands and parted ways as they both had a lot of work to be getting on with.

Torn Cape.

Part 10.

Underground Base. New York.

Jason Todd knew better than to get his news from the Internet as he understood that any online activity could be tracked. Besides, you couldn't even get a wifi signal while down here, and the television, which was purely a receiver, was mostly used by Kimiko who found having it on to be some sort of comfort.

He still hadn't figured out exactly how Kimiko was connected to Vought having a chemical mixture called Compound V smuggled around. While Jason Todd felt fairly certain that it was some sort of formula that made regular people into metahumans he hadn't yet been willing to try it on himself.

Jason didn't actually know what her name was, nor did anyone else, and the only person who'd ever bothered to ask was the arms dealer called Frenchie. He was a crook that Jason had been doing a lot of business with ever since that guy had nearly been killed by Invincible.

The Red Hood as he was known to the few who ever saw him was the only person who could control the metahuman woman as he was also the only person who had been able to beat her down when she got out of control.

Oddly she didn't seem to resent him for it. Maybe they got along because they were both freaks or maybe she stuck around simply because she had nowhere else to go.

"So Invincible really did take down Homelander" muttered Jason.

He hadn't believed it at first, even with all the news reports, but no one had seen Homelander for a while now and normally that glory hound couldn't go a day without popping on some TV show or getting talked about on the news.

If he was staying out of sight it was because he simply couldn't get out there and bask in the admiration of the masses. Rumour had it that Homelander was in a coma.

It was interesting that Queen Maeve hadn't been seen either. She wasn't as much in the public eye as Homelander, yet her absence had been noticed by those who passed on information to the Red Hood, and Jason wondered what it meant.

Had she been hurt by Invincible or had she taken off? Could she have seen what happened to Homelander and decided to flee so she didn't suffer the same fate?

Given that Maeve was the Wonder Woman of this world and Homelander was the local version of Superman it worried him that Invincible could have beaten them both.

Jason was supposed to be taking on that guy in combat, he was supposed to foil that guy's plans. The whole thing seemed like a cruel joke.

Sure he'd managed to stop Invincible from killing some arms dealers during a meeting, but that wasn't much and while the main problem in taking on Invincible was that Jason couldn't do much more than annoy him there was also the problem that the Red Hood didn't know what the superhuman was actually up to.

It's hard to foil plans when you don't know what they involve. Batman had taught him the importance of having as much information as possible for making a move. Granted sometimes who had to improvise, but this wasn't one of those times.

He couldn't even go after Miranda Lawson because she'd been removed from the PVP by the entity who had set all of this up, for some unknown reason, and while there was a new enemy Jason had no idea what a Dungeon Keeper was because he wasn't getting enough information.

So all he could do was keep his head down and try to prepare for the day when Invincible finally found him.

Hence why Jason was working on a batch of sonic grenades. He'd dealt with metahumans who had enhanced senses before and there were ways to use their strengths against them.

"Hood, there's something you need to know" said one of his contacts who was allowed to visit him "You wanted to know if anything odd happened and it turns out that people are going missing when underground".

Since he lived underground and kept his operation here this was of interest to Jason.

"I've been talking to some of the workers on the subway lines and they told me that a lot of the homeless who sleep in the stations are going missing" said the information provider "Maybe someone is taking them".

Since he didn't have any other leads he might as well look into it.

Mallory Estate. Remote Location.

Secretary of Defence, Robert Singer, got out of his car as the driver pulled up in front of the home of Lieutenant-Colonel Grace Mallory, the former Deputy Director of the CIA.

She'd retired after losing her grandchildren and while Robert was loath to do this he needed to try to convince Mallory to come out of retirement for a couple of years at least.

Despite being a member of the United States Department of Defense and the Democratic Party, meaning that he was used to awkward conversations, he was somewhat nervous about this meeting, but not because he was scared of Grace Mallory, rather he was concerned about the future.

The clash between Homelander and Invincible shook the world in many ways. The people working at the White House had been concerned about Invincible ever since he'd turned up one day and started saving people. Ever since then, they'd been watching the superhero, trying to learn all they could about this new superhuman.

Robert Singer had heard some interesting things, but they were mostly theories, and even getting a DNA sample hadn't helped much because the results of that test made no sense. Not unless Grayson was an alien and there was no real evidence of that as Vought could have screwed up the tests they made or something could have messed with Grayson's DNA.

One of the few things they knew for certain he had a legal identity and that he owned a penthouse in New York, and that he had the habit of leaving Earth's atmosphere, but until recently they hadn't known what Invincible was doing when he left the planet.

The idea that any one man could build a base on the moon was mind-boggling and Robert Singer wasn't sure that he believed it despite having seen the photos provided to him by NASA.

Seeing that base made Robert Singer reevaluate the idea that Invincible could be a creature from outer space. Perhaps Grayson's human appearance was just some sort of clever disguise.

Regardless the President wanted this information so tightly classified that the people who did already know didn't have the clearance to even think about it.

Alien or not, Grayson must have gotten help from someone in order to set it up, but so far the only person they knew who was working with Invincible was Miranda Lawson the CEO of Cerberus Defence Contracts.

Robert Singer intended to meet with Miss Lawson as soon as he could find space in his calendar and invent some pretext. He needed to find out how closely connected Cerberus and Invincible were as well as what they had planned. He doubted that Grayson was really just some sort of mascot for the company.

"Whatever it is I'm not interested," said Mallory as she opened her door.

Robert Singer had been hoping for a warmer welcome, but he wasn't surprised by Mallory's displeasure at his presence.

"This is important, Colonel" insisted the Secretary of Defence "I didn't come out here all the way from Washington for a social call".

Mallory didn't have it in her to stand here and argue. She knew that it would be better to just listen to what the man had to say before refusing his request.

So she let him and Singer's security people didn't bother to follow. Which meant whatever he had to say wasn't something he wanted them to overhear.

They moved into the living room and Singer opened up his suitcase so that he could show Mallory the files he'd brought.

"I've seen the video," she remarked as she glanced at the photos "Pity that Homelander survived".

While a few people would have been happy about that most of the country would have been unsettled, to say the least. The public was rather divided upon the issue, some supported Homelander, and there had been a few candlelight vigils outside Vought Tower recently, and some others thought that Invincible was their new saviour.

Robert remembered when Soldier Boy had been a household name and how quickly he'd been forgotten after the supposed nuclear meltdown. If Homelander died or had to retire then the people would need a new hero to place their faith in.

Perhaps that had been why Invincible nearly killed Homelander. Maybe he wanted people to put their faith in him instead.

"I'm more concerned with his potential successor" said Singer "Nolan Greyson is far more powerful and unlike Homelander he isn't letting himself get distracted by the glitz and glamour".

And wasn't that strange? Robert Singer couldn't think of a single superhero who didn't love the attention. It was as if gaining superpowers made you hungry for admiration.

"Certain people in the White House are worried about what will happen if Invincible decides that he can do more good if he's in charge" admitted the Democrat.

That had once been a concern about Homelander until it became clear that Vought had him mostly under control.

"What could anyone do short of nuking the bastard" wondered Mallory.

That hadn't been ruled out.

"For now he seems content to fly around and actually save people" Singer was now saying "So we have some time to prepare, but that's not why I am here".

The Secretary of Defence showed the retired Colonel a new file.

"So you managed to get approval for it," said the former director "Vought's been blocking the idea for years".

Singer looked pleased.

"Stan Edgar has been trimming the fat at Vought" he told the woman "Streamlining things, he's using the incident with Homelander as an excuse to make it clear that he thinks the superhumans have gotten lazy".

Which wasn't wrong. They were lazy. Most of the A-listers rarely saved anyone and even those superhumans who did go out to fight crime could cause more problems than they solved.

"Mostly he's doing this to assure the shareholders that he still has a tight grip on things and while it's good that Vought is going to be straightening some things out it is going to cause problems" said Singer.

Mallory could already foresee a few issues cropping up.

"Letting even a few of supes go means that they might turn to crime to fund their habits" she realised "That could cause chaos".

Robert Singer didn't look too concerned.

"Lawson over at CDC, has some sort of influence over Invincible" he explained "She's promised Stan Edgar that if any of the supes start causing too much chaos then Invincible will slap them down, but we need more than that. We need a department to manage this new situation, and people who are willing to bring rogue supes to justice if Invincible does bring them in".

There wouldn't be much point capturing them if they couldn't hold the superhumans and get them into a courtroom.

"Hence the creation of The Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs, a government agency meant to monitor, police, arrest and convict any members of the superhuman community accused of illegal activities" informed Singer "And we want you to run it".

Mallory put down the file.

"I'm retired" she reminded her unwelcome guest.

Robert Singer wasn't put off so easily.

"Edgar is willing to give us Lamplighter" he informed the retired CIA director "He's going down to murder. Edgar thinks that it will scare at least some of the supes into better behaviour".

Mallory was shocked and it took a few moments to think about what this meant.

"Vought would never give up someone who was part of The Seven" she insisted "They can't afford to betray one of their own like that. The supes will lose faith and start looking elsewhere for someone to write their cheques".

The Secretary of Defence would have agreed with her not so long ago.

"Invincible has changed what it means to be a superhero" he pointed out "People are seeing how lazy they are, and how they only care for publicity. I don't know what Stan Edgar has planned in the long term, but he is changing things at Vought".

Mallory was at least willing to keep on listening.

"Lamplighter goes down for murder," she said.

It was a statement, not a question.

"Double homicide" was Robert Singer's reply "This state doesn't have the death penalty and we're not sure how to kill him anyway so barring any fuck ups he gets life imprisonment without parole. We can have a special cell made just for him".

Mallory considered this.

"No superhuman is just going to accept that" she warned.

The Secretary of Defence had considered this.

"That's why The Federal Bureau of Superhuman Affairs is going to have the resources required to go after people like Lamplighter" informed Robert Singer "You'll pick your team and we might even be able to get some superhumans to help out once in a while in exchange for us forgiving minor indiscretions. Call it community service".

Mallory knew that sometimes you needed to work with people you didn't like in order to go after a bigger bastard, but that that hadn't worked out so well for her last time. Still, she couldn't give up on justice for her family when it was being offered to her like this.

"We don't want you to run it for too long" assured Robert Singer "Come out of retirement for a couple of years, train up a team, teach someone to take over, get justice for your grandkids and then go back into retirement".

It was a tempting offer.

"I'll do it," she said.

Mallory figured that if nothing else it beat birdwatching.

Part 11.

Underground Tunnels. New York.

The sonic grenade went off and ended up being far more effective than the bullets had been mere moments ago. It brought Jason, Frenchie and the woman whose name they still didn't know, enough time to start running down the underground corridors.

Alas for them they did little more than buy themselves a few more moments of life and freedom as the monsters chasing them down here in the dark were not simply going to give up.

Jason had even collapsed an entire tunnel using some of the explosives he'd been carrying, only for some small creatures to clear the rubble away in mere seconds and somehow fix the passageway.

So all that had accomplished was to give the Red Hood the time to realise that they were up against something far more powerful than he had imagined.

"What the fuck are those things?" asked Serge.

No one bothered to answer, they didn't have time for that, and they needed to keep running. Despite what was happening now the three of them had actually been rather successful in this venture to begin with.

Jason, Frenchie and Kimiko had ventured into the tunnels after speaking with one of the few homeless people they'd been able to find nearby in a mostly empty subway station.

The man had told them about the things he and others had seen moving in the dark. At first, he'd thought them to be children due to their small size, only they weren't and when they came into the light the homeless man had run from what he called monsters.

He talked about how they carried tools and how their eyes were pools of black. The creatures had not bothered him or the other homeless people he'd been down here with, if anything they had been skittish. Sadly they hadn't been alone.

What else was in the dark turned out to be much worse. There was something down here grabbing people. When had just been the homeless going missing that had mostly gone unnoticed, at least until recently.

Then one of Jason's few contacts had informed him about the people getting taken and it had turned out that the situation was so much worse than they had imagined.

"Vampires!" called out Jason "They're vampires".

Bruce had told him about Dracula and the vampires that creature had sired. The Red Hood had been the under the impression that they were all gone, but apparently, this world had other ideas on the subject.

"Vampires aren't real" insisted Frenchie.

Jason gestured to the figure that was flying down the tunnel, chasing them as they fled. They would not get away as the Keeper had ordered that none who saw his minions could be allowed to report sightings to those who lived above.

"Tell them that," said Red Hood.

Serge didn't have time to argue the fact as one of the vampires grabbed him. Jason tried to stop the creature only to feel his own life force getting drained by some sort of ranged attack. His smoke bombs and other tricks did little more than slow the enemy down.

Kimiko did a little better, but she passed out as her life force was drained by one of the vampires who had been chasing them. As she was drained she fought back as best she could, but there were simply too many vampires.

Jason had dealt with a few freaks during his lifetime, mostly as Robin, but mostly he dealt with thugs and assassins, not supernatural creatures. He simply hadn't been prepared to face vampires and whatever else was down here.

One of the undead managed to sink his teeth into the neck of Jason Todd and it began drinking his blood, draining him until there was nothing left other than a corpse.

Kimiko was the only one of the three who managed to get away and she would never speak of what happened down here because she couldn't. Not that anyone would have believed her even if she had been able to explain what she saw.

Jason's body was soon dragged away by the imps who collected the cooling cadaver, they dragged it into one of the many graveyards that the Keeper had created deep underground.

The underground graveyard stank of death and dark magic. Only a few of the corpses brought here would rise again, yet enough did to make the effort worthwhile.

Serge's fate was arguably worse. He was still alive when the imps found him as the vampires knew not to kill everyone they encountered.

So soon he was dragged off to a cell, one of many that contained the lost souls that had found their way into the ever-growing dungeon that was beneath the city of New York.

Down here in the dungeons, these poor sods would be introduced to the terrifying delights of the dark mistresses, assuming that they weren't left to die of dehydration and hunger so that they could rise as skeletons who would work tirelessly to defend the dungeon.

They might be considered the lucky ones as those who went to the torture chambers were broken in either body or mind. Those that broke in terms of the body went to the graveyards or to feed the armies of the Keeper.

Those that broke in mind became willing servants of the Keeper and would help to spread his evil.

In time Serge's mind would break and the Dark Mistresses who he would learn to love would ensure that his skills were used to serve the Keeper.

Base. The Moon.

"Think I've got it," I said as I finished with the wiring.

The new command centre was finally up and running. I'd been digging into the mountain called Mons Bradley for what felt like weeks, even if it had just been days of work for me.

Now I was finally finished setting up the last of the equipment that would allow me to monitor what was happening on Earth while staying inside the base.

Such an operation took quite a bit of equipment as not only did all the information we got from Earth need to be processed and sorted, but we also needed to make electronic records of everything in case some bit of information came in useful later.

Soon the screens came to life and began to show different news programs. I could see the conflicts and disasters that were going on all across the Earth.

Cortana monitored such sources of information for me and kept me informed of what was happening, but it was good to see some of what was going on with my own eyes.

Few of the disasters and conflicts were anything I wanted to handle. I didn't have any desire to involve myself in humanity's little wars and there wasn't much I could do about a lot of the other problems. At least not without more resources and allies.

Besides, I didn't want people to become dependent upon me, if they did then they would stop trying to solve their own problems.

"If they had any idea what he was really like they'd be demanding that Vought put him down like a rabid dog" muttered Maeve who was ranting about what one of the screens was showing "I can't believe that so many people fall for his act".

I had wrestled with the choice to bring her here or not. It was risky as she could damage my base or try to expose it, but should she do the former she'd likely get herself killed, and Cortana was able to install safeguards to prevent anyone from sending out a signal.

There wasn't anything here to send out a signal with since we didn't have any transmitters, at least not any that an organic intelligence could use.

Besides, Mageret Shaw knew better than to anger me because she knew that if I put Homelander in the ICU then I could kill her with ease. Not that I wanted to as I did need allies, so it was worth the risk to have her here.

She couldn't even lead anyone else here because no one on Earth had any means of reaching the moon. At least not without me having plenty of warning of a space shuttle or probe heading this way.

As for Homelander, people were calling my arrest despite him starting the fight, and yet Vought wasn't besmirching my name, they were too scared of me to do that.

Since Cortana wasn't the only AI messing with social media that meant the opinions of the public were so divided that no one group could put enough pressure on the government to demand that they actually do something.

I put all of that aside and focused on one of the news reports that had gotten my attention.

"So there are vampires now?" I asked.

I watched all three seasons of The Boys and I'd mostly paid attention as such I felt sure that all the weird science fiction bullshit they had in that show and this world, was the result of Compound V and there were no other supernatural or otherworldy factors aside from those that had been introduced by the ROB.

"That's what the news reports are saying," said Maeve.

I didn't trust the news reports, that was why Cortan was monitoring other sources of information for verification, but this was concerning if true.

"There isn't much for me to do up here," she said "So I've been watching the news in my room. Just this morning a body was found in New York that had bite marks on them. People think it's either vampires or someone who wants us to think there are vampires".

Nothing the ROB had done suggested that we'd end up vampires in this world. Could it have something to do with this Dungeon Keeper I'd been thinking about? Could they be a vampire? Or someone who kept vampires?

The Keeper part of the name or title did suggest that this person kept a dungeon running. Was it the kind of dungeon that contained monsters, such as in D&D?

Although if that were the case then this Keeper had been a fool not to cover up the actions of their minion. Letting a body be found would only lead to people investigating the incident.

I would have Cortana monitor the case so that if the authorities did learn something then it could aid me in my own investigations. Assuming I ever bothered to go deal with the matter.

"Must be one of Vought's mistakes" said Maeve "I've met a few supes who turned out wrong. One of them could be drinking blood".

If this was a superhuman who had a thirst for blood due to something going wrong then it was unlikely to be something that could spread. On the other hand, if this was a real vampire then the condition might spread and New York could end up overrun by vampires.

"Might need to sharpen some stakes" I muttered.

Before I could think more about that my AI wanted my attention.

"Nolan would you please come to the workshop," requested Cortana.

When I got there I found that the place was full of sets of power armour from the Fallout universe for some unknown reason.

"I don't recall you making these," I said.

Because she hadn't.

"They just got here" the AI told me "I had nothing to do with it".

"So they just appeared?" I asked.

It wasn't every dozens of sets of power armour simply appeared inside

your base.

"There was no flash of light, no weird energy bursts they just appeared in the workshop," Cortana told me as she displayed the footage on a nearby screen "All I know is that Jason Todd is dead and you're not going up against Miranda any more".

The only clue to their origin I could see was a note on one set that called them a reward. The only thing the ROB should be rewarding me for is defeating someone in the PVP, and I suppose in a sense Miranda and I had won by becoming her ally.

That might explain why my reward wasn't very good. I already had a set of armour that was much more advanced. If I had actually defeated Miranda by foiling her plans or outright killing her I might have gotten something better.

"It's a testament to how strange my life is that this stuff just appearing doesn't even unsettle me" I mused.

At least the ROB was rewarding me for playing its games.

"I guess I can give them to some minions if I ever need my own security force" I mused.

Or maybe I could tinker with them and try to learn more about technology.

"You should give a few of them to Miranda" advised my AI "Part of your plan is to advance human technology and get them out into the galaxy. Introducing power armour would help with that".

Power Armor, also referred to as powered combat infantry armour, is a type of powered exoskeleton that appears in the post-apocalyptic Fallout video game franchise.

In the fictional lore of the series, it was developed before the Great War, a devastating nuclear conflict, by a group of United States defence contractors called West Tek.

This and more I learned by reading the manual that came with one of the suits of armour. I would have spent more time studying the tech if not for the fact that Cortana directed my attention to something on the news which resulted in me going back into the command centre of the base.

'Plane hijacked mid-air by 3 terrorists over the Atlantic Ocean' was the headline.

I was sure that this was an event that happened in the show and in season 1, Vought sent Homelander and Queen Maeve to take care of the situation with the intent of saving the hostages. Vought wanted to use this event to convince the public and the US Government that supes are needed in the military.

Homelander and Queen Maeve broke into the plane and successfully killed the hijackers and all seemed to be going well until they went inside the cockpit. One hijacker was still alive holding the pilot at gunpoint, the co-pilot having already been killed.

When Homelander killed the hijacker with his laser eyes in the process he also destroyed the plane's controls and after a while this caused the plane to crash.

Not this mattered to Vought as no one knew the heroes had been there and Homelander used to crash as a way of getting public support for supes joining the military.

"I'm going to go save the plane," I said.

At least I didn't have laser eyes to damage the controls with.

"I want to come with you," insisted Maeve.

That stopped me from leaving.

"I fly faster on my own" I pointed out.

Maeve was only able to survive in space for a short time because I'd let her use my special armour. I'd have to lend it to her again if she wanted to return to her homeworld.

"And if you're seen with me that will be it for you and Vought" I reminded her "You'll be seen as having joined me".

She didn't care about that at all.

"I need to go out and do something" she insisted.

She'd get all pissy with me if I left her here so I decided to take her with me. I could always dump her off somewhere on Earth if she got annoying.

Torn Cape.

Part 12.

Somewhere Over The Atlantic.

The hero called Queen Maeve had been through some twists and turns during her life, and the last few days had been much wilder than any time before.

She'd been more jaded than others when Invincible first started making the news. He'd hardly be the first hero to make a splash when they appeared only to fall into the pit that Voguht had dug for everyone who tried to make a difference in the world.

Maeve knew this because once upon a time, she had once fallen into that hole which was filled with media attention, sex, drugs and glamour. Once you got stuck in that hole you found it impossible to climb back out again.

So far that hadn't happened to Nolan Grayson. He kept going out and helping people, and while this should have people happy the folks at Vought had not been pleased that there was a hero out there that they couldn't take credit for and make money from.

They'd wanted to control Invincible to drag him down into that pit and he had simply refused to go, she hadn't been so strong when she had been so tempted.

It had been amusing to watch the management at Vought and Homelander getting so frustrated. Invincible's refusal to go down the same path as other heroes seemed to have broken something in their heads and for the first time in a good long while Maeve saw a way out.

Invincible was not Homelander, he was not an overgrown child with the powers of a god who was willing to kill people over some slight offence, he felt no need to use fear to keep people in line. Or at least that was the impression she'd gotten about the man so far.

As soon as she'd been able to confirm that Homelander wasn't the top dog any more, Margaret "Maggie" Shaw had been willing to do whatever it took to get the man's protection as she just had to get away from Homelander.

She'd have been quite happy to have sex with Nolan, only he didn't seem interested, she didn't know if he was gay or if he just didn't find her attractive. It was rather odd to meet a man who had no interest in her sexually or much interest in her at all for that matter.

Maeve hadn't thought much about that since Invincible had taken her to his moon base, and wasn't that place a surprise, now that they were flying to match speeds with a transatlantic fight she needed to keep her focus.

When Invincible opened the door the differences in pressure caused a lot of small items and one frightened terrorist to come flying out of the plane.

Invincible normally liked to hand over the crooks to the police, but he didn't have a choice this time since one arm was holding to her and the other was holding onto the door.

This means of entry was risky since it could have resulted in one or more of the passengers getting sucked out of the plane, however, they couldn't do anything else in this situation.

The passengers, the crew and the aircraft would all be lost if they didn't act. If the plane was purposely crashed into a building then even more lives could be lost.

Invincible pushed her into the plane, and she soon took hold of the terrorist who was just about to grab a hostage, before he could harm anyone she snapped his neck in one smooth motion.

A cold move for sure, yet it was also needed as they had no way of restraining these criminals, and while they could have disabled the terrorists they couldn't risk not taking them down fast as they could endanger the passengers.

Fanatics couldn't be talked down so there was no sense in trying to reason with the man with the boxcutter who was panicking due to the sudden change in the circumstances. As Invincible closed the door she went to deal with the man with the knife.

Grayson was already making his way to the cockpit as she moved towards the back of the plane. There was gunfire and a scream as Mavue dealt with the knife holder as quickly as she had the other terrorist.

Despite her use of brutal force, the passengers cheered for her as she did what she needed to do to protect them. It felt good to hear people cheering for something she'd actually chosen to do.

"They killed the pilot," said Invincible.

That wasn't good. The bastard with the gun must have decided to take down the plane once they realised that they couldn't hold the passengers' hostage or use the plane to destroy some target.

"Can you fly a plane?" Maeve asked.

She's never found the time to learn.

"No, but Cortana can," he said, "Give me the belt".

Grayson had been letting her use some sort of advanced set of armour that could be deployed from a belt. It had allowed her to survive their flights to the moon and back. The suit also kept him connected to the AI and she could indeed fly the plane.

"I guess we now just wait for the plane to land," said Maeve.

That wasn't all they needed to do.

"We should move the bodies and then check the passengers for injuries," said Nolan "There should be a few first aid kits around, and we need to keep people calm until we land".

He really was rather good at this. Maeve figured that she'd made the right choice in abandoning Vought and she hoped that Nolan would keep around. Maybe she should talk to him about forming their own team. It would be something to do while they waited for the plane to land.

Beach House. Private Island.

With a thud, I landed on the sand and set some of the annoying substance flying up into the air. I was starting to wonder if goggles weren't such a bad idea. Maybe I could get some cool shaded ski glasses.

My ability to fly had come a long way since I'd crashed into a small part of New York, yet I hadn't quite perfected my landings. I needed to take some more time to practice, I didn't feel like crashing through another building because I lost control.

The area had a nice calming breeze as the sun shined brightly in the blue sky. The tropical island was either covered by sand or a wooded area. It looked like something I might have seen in some movie about castaways.

"This better be the right island," I said to myself.

I was letting Maeve use my Rider Belt because apparently it had hidden features that could be unlocked by the right person so Cortana could only guide me via a comm.

Perhaps she could build me some cool shades with a heads-up display so that she could display information for me. It was something to enquire about later.

Loaning Maeve my Rider Belt wasn't as risky as it might seem since Cortana was the software for the device and therefore she could easily shut down the suit if anyone tried to use it against me.

This island was inhabited, it was actually owned by Miranda Lawson, and she'd sent me an email inviting me to come for a visit.

Since I could fly anywhere I wanted to on Earth without much effort it wasn't any trouble to come here and see what she wanted.

I knocked on the door to the large two-story beachfront house, only to get no response.

"Why invite me over if you're not in" I muttered.

Since I had supersenses it wasn't long before I detected the sounds of a couple of women chatting not too far away. As I followed the noise I found two women laying on fold-out beach chairs next to the ocean. Both of them were pale-skinned and had dark hair.

I began to walk towards the women and right away I knew that one of them was Miranda and the other woman looked like a younger version of her, like a twin sister who had stopped ageing some years ago while the other twin matured.

Oriana Lawson perhaps? I couldn't remember what she looked like in the Mass Effect game, but I didn't think she resembled Miranda so much.

As for their clothing, what little they wore, all Miranda had on was a black bikini and Oriana was in an equally skimpy pink bikini, and their tops barely concealed their busty chests.

"Grayson," said Miranda with a wave "I wanted to thank you for saving that plane. Because of you, CDC is getting all sorts of attention".

It might get more soon.

"Speaking of Cerberus Defence Contracts I have something that might be of interest to your company," I told Miranda.

I showed her the manual that had come with the sets of power armour. Miranda was soon absorbed by what she was reading. This left me with only Oriana to talk to.

"This is a nice place," I said

Bit of an understatement really.

"It is," Oriana replied before she changed the subject "And I'm guessing you're the father of my future niece or nephew. I don't think Miri would have invited anyone else here since she wants to keep me trapped on this island for my own safety".

Miranda put down the manual I'd given her.

"Oh poor baby trapped on a tropical island, forced to live in a beach house, are the hundreds of satellite channels and game room not simulating enough for you" teased the older Lawson sister.

I had some questions about all of this.

"How did your sister end up here?" I asked.

Miranda shifted in her seat.

"The entity running all of this promised me a reward for taking part in the madness" she explained "Reunting with my sister was my reward. I'm guessing you got a suit of power armour that you want CDC to take a look at".

That was the plan.

"More than one suit," I said "And yes I think the technology is something that CDC can use".

That was something we could discuss in detail later.

"I was on the Citadel when it was getting overrun with Reaper forces so I can't really complain about ending up here" Oriana was now saying "I just wish Miri would let me get involved with her work".

Miranda sighed.

"It's not simple" she argued "CDC is going to make a lot of enemies, Vought isn't above kidnapping people and unlike me, you don't have the training to handle that sort of thing".

I doubted that this was the first time they'd debated this issue.

"And I don't have a real-life superhero as sort of a boyfriend" Oriana pointed out.

Miranda looked smug about that.

"Nolan, would you put some sunblock on me?" Miranda said turning onto her stomach.

She was purposely showing her ass because she knew how much I liked it. I went over to her and lightly slapped her backside.

"Aren't you burning up?" Oriana asked me.

The heat didn't bother me, but I took the top of my hero outfit off anyway and then I removed my boots, much to the delight of the younger Lawson sibling. By the time I'd stripped down to my boxers, she wasn't able to do anything other than stare.

For the next ten minutes, I spread the lotion all over Miranda's body. I enjoyed touching her so much that I almost missed the fact that she'd gotten my shield symbol, the one people associated with Invincible tattooed onto her back. That was rather sweet of her. I didn't embarrass her by mentioning it.

I made sure to cover every part of her and to rub everything before offering to do the same for her sister just to see the older Lawson pretend not to be jealous when her sibling started to enjoy me touching her.

"It's not a great life," Oriana said. "You're always going to have to live in fear of being captured by Vought because they won't tolerate any rivals. Why don't you just have EDI destroy that company".

Cortana and I had discussed that. It wouldn't be much work for one of the AI to topple that business.

"Vought employs a lot of people and it keeps the superhumans busy doing meaningless rubbish" I explained "If we destroyed Vought outright it would cause economic chaos and lots of superhumans would turn to crime to support their expensive habits".

There was a bit more to all of this than that.

"Your sister and I both have plans to guide this world over the next few centuries and for our plans to work we can't let things get shaken up this soon," I told Oriana.

She knew that my words made sense, but she wasn't happy about not being able to play some sort of role.

"I'm about ready to head back inside," Miranda said "It's getting too hot out here".

She grabbed her towel and wrapped it around her waist as she got up, she then began walking towards the beach house.

"Good idea, I'm cooking out here!" Oriana said, soon following her big sister.

Not having anything else to do I got up and followed them into the house.

I headed up to Miranda's bedroom as Oriana loudly informed me that she going to take a shower. When I opened the door that was only partly closed I saw a topless Miranda pulling down the thong of her bikini.

"Hey," she said, seemingly unphased by my presence

Given that I'd knocked her up and fucked her ass she had nothing to hide from me so she pulled the thong off and walked to the end of her room so that she could go look out of the open window.

She didn't care at all that I was staring at her ass. If anything she wanted the attention I was giving her.

"My sister has only been here on this island for a few days and she's already unhappy about me planning to leave her here" I was told.

I walked up behind Miranda, taking in the beauty of her nude body as I looked at her. When I got close enough I grabbed her waist with both hands, and she pushed back so that her ass was grinding into me.

That didn't last nearly long enough as she chose to turn around and I knew that she wanted me to hold her.

"Your sister nearly died and now she's in another universe, you're the only familiar thing she has to hold on to" I pointed out "Plus, given your father's attitude to parenting I beat she's already sick of being told she has to do something for her own good".

The mother of my unborn child pushed her head into my chest.

"I guess you're right," Miranda said.

Of course, I was right. I'm a superior form of life.

"Just find a way to keep her involved" I advised.

My hard cock was poking Miranda's stomach and she reached down to feel it.

"Oh dear did I do that" she teased.

She stepped back slowly and knelt down, pulling down my boxers, and this allowed my cock to finally be free. She looked up at me with her a naughty smile on her face and then she began to work her oral magic on me.

Miranda Lawson was a talented cocksucker, I had no idea how you genetically engineered someone for cocksucking if that was what had happened, and if her father had done that, it was easy to understand why Miranda had taken her sister away from him.

"That feels so good," I praised.

She took my cock out of her mouth with a slight pop sound.

"Can I ride your cock, please Daddy" she begged.

Once I was on the bed, Miranda climbed on top of me, and we started fucking cowgirl style. She began to ride me, letting out a few loud moans.

"That feels so good, Daddy!" she called out.

Just then Oriana's voice could be heard. I'd not bothered to shut the door when entering the room.

"Miri?" she said "You call him Daddy?".

The young Lawson sibling was only in her towel, having just gotten out of the shower.

"Uhhh it's not what it looks like!" Miranda said

The younger sister was not at all fooled and she came over to get a closer look at what we were doing.

"Not sure what else this could be" she joked "Do I get a turn".

To be fair there was no mistaking what we were up to.

"Oriana!" Miranda said, "He's not a toy to be shared".

No, I was not. No matter whose home this happened to be I was in charge here.

"I can extend my protection if you agree to both get fucked by me," I said.

Despite her shock, Miranda didn't dismount. She still had my hard dick inside her.

"You want to fuck my sister?" she asked.

There was no harm in adding her to our arrangement.

"If anyone did kidnap either of you I'd come to save you," I promised "You can't ask for better protection than that".

Miranda bit her lower lip.

"Sounds fair to me," said Oriana "It's not like any other man on this planet is good enough for either of us".

Miranda got off me and soon both sisters began to play with my cock.

"I can't believe we are doing this," said the older Lawson sister.

Oriana seemed to think this would be lots of fun.

"I don't want to hide on an island for the rest of my life, so I need Nolan's protection," she pointed out "And he did save all those people. He should get a reward".

Miranda had given up fighting against the tide. She wasn't stupid enough to argue with me and I would protect her sister if I was going to use her as a breeding stock when she was older.

"If you become mine you can't let any other man touch you" I warned the younger Miss Lawson "You'll belong to me".

Oriana waved that concern away.

"Who can compare to you," she stated.

She must be into powerful men and unless there were some gods hanging about there was no more powerful than me in this world.

"Come on, I want to feel you inside of me, Daddy," Oriana said.

She soon got into the doggy-style position, and she waited for me to enter her, which I happily did. As I thrusted into Oriana's tight little cunt, Miranda got onto her knees next to me on the large bed and began to kiss me.

"Please don't knock her up" she begged "She's only eighteen".

That wasn't part of my plan just yet.

"I'll wait a few years" I promised.

Miranda accepted my terms. Not that she had much of a choice in the matter and I focused my efforts on sucking the younger woman into she was nothing more than a limp mess on the bed. This didn't take very long as I was ready to finish yet.

"My turn sis," Miranda said once Oriana had collapsed onto the bed.

I didn't normally get much use out of Sex Driven Perk because so far I had not needed it much. Pleasing Miranda hadn't been important as she was supposed to pleasure. Now things were a bit different.

Soon she was laying on her stomach, wrapping her arms around a pillow at the head of the bed. She whipped her hair back and looked over her shoulder, shaking her ass cheeks at me.

"She doesn't do anal," Miranda said.

The older sister screamed a little when I entered her, but that did not stop me from fucking Miranda, and she didn't protest, she just made a lot of noise. I decided to go easy on the mother of my child and climax quickly. There would be more time for fun later.

"That's a lot of cum!" Oriana said looking at her sister's ass.

I'd pulled out so I make a mess of Miranda's lovely backside.

"You better clean it up" I ordered.

The younger sister looked at me with wide eyes and she realised what I meant for her to do.

"Yes, Daddy," she said as she began to lick her sister's ass.

If Miranda was uncomfortable with this she didn't bother to protest.