[INDENT][COLOR=1E90FF][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]A B S O L U T E ( L Y ):[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR]
[CENTER][sup][h1][center][img]https://elestoque.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Ex-iyx6WQAAk95S-900x503.jpg[/img][/center][b][color=black] I N V I N C I B L E[/color]
[color=yellow]I N V I N C I B L E[/color][/b][/h1][/sup]
[color=1E90FF][sup][i]Volume One[/i][/sup][/color][/CENTER]
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[indent][COLOR=DARKGRAY]The early morning bustle of Downtown was interrupted by a sudden shriek. A woman bypassed the bank's revolving doors by clearing the front window entirely, her body skipping off a sedan's hood before settling in the asphalt. Behind her, three men stepped over the jagged frame. The largest reached out, fingers sinking into the masonry like it was wet clay, and peeled a slab of the facade away. To his left, the ATMs groaned. The bolts shrieked as they sheared off, the heavy metal casings swinging toward the second man's open palms. Sunlight hit the third, and the air hummed. Blue arcs leaped from his knuckles to the nearest lamppost, the current snapping with the sound of a whip.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY]For all their powers, none of them had time to react to the sudden blur of blue and yellow.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY]Mark hit the large one from the east. The impact shoved the man back, his spine meeting the stone with a crack that echoed off the surrounding storefronts. An elbow slammed into Mark's ribs—a dull, heavy thud that stole his breath. He shifted his weight, hooked a hand under the man's bicep, and drove him downward. The road buckled under the man's face.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY]The air grew ozone-thick as the electrical one pivoted. An ATM, redirected mid-flight, caught Mark in the forearm. The force spun him thirty feet back, his boots skidding across the grit before he found his purchase. He looked up as a blur of grey and red intercepted the sparks. Nolan absorbed the arc across his chest, the light blinding for a heartbeat, before he clamped a hand around the man's wrist. They hit a lamppost together. The steel pole folded. A fist caught Nolan's jaw, snapping his head to the side, but his grip remained. He forced the man into the pavement, the struggle dying under the weight of a single hand.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY]Mark closed the gap on the woman. Her eyes darted, her focus fracturing, and the levitating ATMs crashed into the street. She caught Mark's throat, her fingers digging into the muscle. He gripped her forearm, twisted until the pressure gave, and pinned her. It was a careful balance knowing when surrender had finally been achieved, something his father had spent a good deal of time trying to teach him. Usually he preferred to have an officer on hand with cuffs right away, it took some of the dangerous guesswork out of it for him.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY]Nolan stood over the [i]lightning man[/i], barely showing any sign of the brief physical confrontation. He didn't look down at the man beneath his boot; he looked at the bank.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY][color=CC2200]"There's another, inside, I have these."[/color] Nolan's voice came through in the controlled timbre he used in public as 'Omni-Man.' Those few of Mark's friends who knew exactly who he and his father were had commented they could barely tell the difference to his private self, but to Mark it was night and day.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY]Inside, the tellers were prone, faces pressed to the carpet. The fourth intruder tossed a teller aside as he clocked Mark's speeding form rushing towards him. The human projectile was enough to slow him down, carefully checking his pace before they could strike him like a bug on a windshield. By the time Mark had set the teller aside, the attacker was on him. His first punch sent Mark through the customer service desk, the wood splintering into a cloud of laminate and dust. Mark scrambled up, shaking plaster from his hair. The man lunged again, moving with a velocity that blurred the edges of the room. Mark retreated toward the structural columns, drawing the man into the narrow space. As the intruder committed to a wide swing, Mark stepped into the arc. He caught the arm, wrenched it upward, and slammed the man's forehead into the marble.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY]Nolan was already standing with a police sergeant at the cordon as Mark helped the would-be hostages out of the ruin of the bank face.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY]The three from the sidewalk were handcuffed and slumped against the cop cars. The block began to breathe again, the distance between the crowd and the craters narrowing, the glow of phone screens reflecting in the broken glass. A car alarm continued its rhythmic piercing wail, ignored by everyone.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY]Mark handed the woman off to the paramedics. He rotated his arm, feeling the joint pop at the slight resistance of displaced sinew. The ache subsided into a dull throb. Nolan appeared at his shoulder, his gaze sweeping over the cratered road and the ruined ATMs.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY][color=CC2200]"Shoulder?"[/color][/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY][color=1E90FF]"Fine."[/color][/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY]Nolan nodded once, the movement sharp and brief. [color=CC2200]"I'm glad to see college hasn't completely set you back."[/color] Most would probably just hear admonishment, but Mark could hear the teasing joke in the tone, through the authoritative voice of Omni-Man.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY][color=1E90FF]"Don't worry, I've been keeping up on my homework."[/color] In this case he meant of the hero variety, he was [I]definitely[/I] already behind on his actual homework. [color=1E90FF]"Besides, I've been training with the Titans, that helps keep me sharp."[/color][/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY]His father let out a sigh that didn't attempt to hide a defeatist sense of disapproval. [color=CC2200]"You have greater promise than anyone at the GDA can understand, Mark."[/color] There was a brief pause, erring on dramatic, before Nolan turned and smiled, placing one hand on his son's shoulder. [color=CC2200]"But I am proud of you all the same."[/color][/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY][color=1E90FF]"Sure, Dad. We can't all be a whole hero team all by ourselves."[/color] Mark laughed, although he couldn't help but feel the spark stir within him that always followed the continued revelation that [I]his[/I] dad, the man who had saved the whole damn world countless times, was proud of him. Still, his dad had been doing this a long time, had fought beside some of the greatest heroes of the past decades, yet never quite settling to join a team. None of them had been [I]his tempo[/I]. Mark wasn't sure that's what he wanted for himself.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY][color=CC2200]"Not all, but you can."[/color] It was about as close as his dad would ever get to dropping the issue, a begrudging final word. [color=CC2200]"Still, while you're in town, you should drop by, we both miss you."[/color] As easy as anything, slipping from heroics to the perfect little slice of Americana life.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY][color=1E90FF]"It's barely even been half a semester, Dad, you can c-"[/color] Just as Mark was about to continue a resounding pulse in his ear distracted him. He'd accepted a [I]gift[/I] from the Titans in the form of a communicator to reach him for [I]auxiliary[/I] emergencies. Frustratingly, they'd never quite got the settings right for his advanced senses. Still, aside from the pain to his eardrums, he was able to pick out the information from the noise. The team was fully deployed elsewhere, but there was something going down in New York, a big [I]something.[/I] [color=1E90FF]"Sorry, gotta cut this short, needed elsewhere."[/color][/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY]Mark didn't wait to hear his dad's response and he burst away into the sky, but he felt the steely gaze of Omni-Man following him long after the streets bled away behind the cloud cover.[/COLOR][/indent]

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[color=lightgray]I N V I N C I B L E[/color][/center]
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[indent][COLOR=DARKGRAY]The air pressure shifted as Mark cleared the final skyscraper, the wind screaming against his suit before he pitched into a steep, vertical dive. Times Square appeared as a fractured mosaic of bright lights and smoke. Below, the Beast thrashed, its mismatched limbs churning the wreckage of the square. Mark accelerated. He hit the creature's flank with a shoulder-first impact, a solid crunch of scales and muscle that sent the massive entity sliding five feet, crashing through a series of metal railings which detonated as easily as plywood.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY]The serpent-head whipped around with a hiss of escaping steam. Mark took to the sky again, a sharp burst of momentum that carried him upward just as the jaws snapped shut. The sound of the teeth meeting was a gunshot in the crowded square. He pivoted in mid-air, boots finding purchase against the steel frame of a hanging billboard. The metal groaned and buckled under the leverage, shedding a curtain of sparks as he launched himself back down.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY]He drove a fist into the creature's temple. The impact produced a deep, resonant boom that rippled through the Beast's hide, sending a shudder all the way down to its hooves. It staggered, the serpentine neck coiling as it fought to regain its balance. Just before Mark could follow up with another blow, the whipcord force of its tail struck home. He felt his breath leave him in a rush, and in the next moment he struck the pavement, [I]hard[/I]. A chasm a hundred meters long ripped through the ground of the square, splintering beneath the tumbling form of Mark. In that moment he didn't feel particularly invincible. Still, before it could get any worse, he had sprung back up.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY]Dust choked the air, smelling of wet copper and burnt rubber. To his left, the four-armed giant held his ground; nearby, the man with the sword shimmered through the haze. The Beast's tail swept the perimeter, a heavy, scaled wrecking ball that leveled a nearby newsstand. Mark reached out and caught the mass mid-swing. The force drove his shins through the pavement, burying him to the knees in grit and old concrete, but his grip held.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY]He dug his fingers into the gaps between the scales. Muscles in his back and shoulders snapped taut, a singular line of tension as he held it in place. It had been a long time since he'd fought anything that could even hold him to a stalemate, let alone gradually gain the upper hand, but at least while he held it in place for a moment it wasn't destroying more of the city.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY][color=1E90FF]"Hi."[/color] Mark managed as a greeting between breaths. It wasn't quite the snappy one liner that his dad always seemed to have in his back pocket, but it would do for now. He was about to ask what the plan might be, before with a roar and a flick of its tail, the creature sent Mark spinning through an obnoxious neon advert for a skincare routine.[/COLOR]

[COLOR=DARKGRAY]Not the best of introductions.[/COLOR][/indent]

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[right][color=FFD700][sup][i]"Did you guys at least film the bit before I stacked it through that Kardashian ad?"[/i][/sup][/color][/right]
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