Somewhere to Belong Ch. 39 (DC/Multi) (Patreon)

(Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N: The day is won, but at what cost?

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In the direct aftermath of exiling Mark and his father from Earth, Eve shares a quick goodbye with Myk-Zod. He has to return to his ship on the Moon, to get back to his companions given that one is still injured apparently. Meanwhile, she has to get back down to the surface of Earth so she can begin helping clean up the mess that their would-be conquerors had left behind.

Before they part ways though, Myk-Zod promises to bring his companions down to Earth once the one that she hasn’t met yet is fully recovered. Eve, meanwhile, promises that they’ll receive a warm welcome when he does. Technically she can’t necessarily guarantee that… but she says it anyways, confident that she can convince the ‘Powers That Be’ to roll out the red carpet.

After all, Myk-Zod was not only the reason that they weren’t becoming a part of the Viltrumite Empire, but he was also stronger than both Viltrumites had been, and Omni-Man had easily been the strongest alien on Earth until now. So yeah, Eve is pretty confident she can convince whoever is in charge to go along with things.

Of course, that’s before she gets back down to Earth’s surface and quickly learns something horrifying… nobody is in charge. Omni-Man had started his conquest of the world with America and every other ‘First World Country’. Meaning that the so-called ‘superpowers’ of the world had all been rendered headless as Omni-Man killed his way through dozens if not hundreds of government officials in each country in order to make way for Mark to give his ‘we’re all in this together’ speech.

They had repeated this playbook across more than half of the planet, hitting the most advanced countries first and then going down the list. Meaning that the only nations not impacted by the attempted Viltrumite Takeover tended to be in places like Africa, where they were already struggling with disease and war and other things like that anyways.

Otherwise, every member of the UN Security Council was gutted, the UN itself was gutted, and the majority of the member states of the European Union were gutted. It was, to put it succinctly, a fucking disaster.

And that was only the political side of things. On the hero side of things, it was even worse. The only member of the new Guardians of the Globe to survive Omni-Man was Dupli-Kate and that was because she’d had a backup copy of herself completely hidden away.

Everyone else had been massacred by the same man who apparently killed the original Guardians. Rex Splode, Monster Girl, Shrinking Rae, Black Sampson, and Robot had all been killed, with the latter somehow cloning himself a new body mere hours before the slaughter.

From there, other hero groups in a variety of locales had of course tried to stop Omni-Man and Mark from their conquest of the planet as well, but none had succeeded and most who took a stand died. Only those smart enough to hide and fight another day were still kicking and breathing.

Oh and of course the Global Defense Agency was also headless. Cecil Stedman had been the GDA’s Director for decades, serving it and Earth well and doing everything in his power to keep the world safe, secure, and free of outside influence.

However, in doing so he’d consolidated more and more influence and power to himself and him alone. Donald Ferguson was the closest thing that Cecil had to a protégé or inheritor, but he was absent as well in the first few days after the attempted takeover, and he was presumed dead.

So Eve could do nothing but… try her best. With no one to direct her, she simply had to direct herself, fixing what she could, helping where she found people in need of help, and putting out fires all over the place. She was just one woman though and while she could reliably cover the whole of Chicago, going further afield meant leaving her city vulnerable to opportunistic assholes.

Just when she was starting to think she couldn’t do it anymore, however, the GDA was suddenly back in action. Donald Ferguson had shown back up after all and was taking over as Director in Cecil’s stead. Meanwhile, Debbie Grayson of all people had joined him as his second in the GDA. Her traumatic experiences both witnessing the massacres by her husband and son as well as being made a prisoner by them having hardened her into something… tougher.

Between Donald and Debbie, some sort of structure slowly started coming back to the world. Politicians could be replaced and all over were steadily doing so. The Vice President had died with the President, but the Secretary of Agriculture still lived and was sworn in along with a new cabinet. The US was getting back on its feet utilizing protocols that had almost never had to be used before. And with them, pretty much everyone else was doing the same.

There was also a semblance of… ‘us versus them’ that Eve couldn’t bring herself to truly mind that much. Mark had been an idiot for a lot of reasons, but he’d been an idiot the most for putting his face out there after every single one of his father’s massacres. His speeches generally tended to infantilize the human race, making it sound like they needed the Viltrumite Empire and that if they didn’t submit, they were being stupid.

Well, there was nothing and nobody more stubborn than your average human being. Tell a human that they’re ‘being stupid’ and they’re far more likely to double down and keep ‘being stupid’ rather than changing their minds.

This might not have been the case if they had continued to go largely unopposed and proven to be impossible to defeat, mind you. But the recordings of Mark’s condescending-as-fuck speeches alongside his and his father’s defeat at the hands of Myk-Zod were being memed to hell and back all over the internet.

The most important result to this was the vast majority of the human race coming together, reaching across previous divides like racial and national, to take each other in hand and stand against the ‘Viltrumite Menace’. It was more than a little uplifting, even if the rise in general xenophobia alongside it was a little less so.

Regardless, with Director Ferguson and Debbie using the GDA to help out more and more, Eve found her workload back to a more manageable place… or so she’d thought. Because just when it felt like everything was actually going to work out, about a week after Myk-Zod had sent Mark and his dad packing… the villains decided it was time to come out of the woodworks.

Eve had really thought, at least for a second, that Earth’s villains might stand in solidarity with the rest of the planet. That they might all turn over a new leaf and try to rehabilitate themselves after seeing what True Evil looked like in the form of Omni-Man.

… That had clearly been nothing more than pure naivety on her part. The seven days that the villains of Earth had given the rest of the planet before starting up their bullshit again were clearly not some planned reprieve either… no, they were just making sure that Omni-Man and Invincible weren’t coming back. More than that, Eve suspected they were making sure there were no further sightings of the stranger who had beat Omni-Man and Invincible either.

With no Guardians of the Globe and a stretched-thin Global Defense Agency just doing its best to hold things together, the villains pretty much had free rein to do as they liked. Emergency services and first responders weren’t doing any better after all, and law enforcement all across the world were outright labeling certain areas of their jurisdictions as ‘red zones’ and refusing to respond to calls within them, all in the name of ‘triage’.

Just when Eve thought she was getting her footing back under her, it was all going to shit again… but she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t just give up or give in. She was a hero… she always had been.

Unfortunately, she was also exhausted. And that led to moments like this, where she found herself fighting the Mauler Twins and barely managing to react in time as they tried to steal whatever they were trying to steal.

“You seem tired, Atom Eve!”

“Can’t quite keep up with it all, huh?”

Their taunts don’t make anything better, even as Eve’s power flickers half the time she tries to use it. She’s been going on little to no sleep for days now, working as hard as she can to try and get things to a place where she feels like she CAN risk a full night sleep without having innocent lives on her conscience.

And now there’s these assholes mocking her for it.

“You fuckers couldn’t just keep your heads down for a little while longer?! The world is hurting you assholes! Seriously, what the fuck is your problem?!”

The Mauler Twins glance to one another, the big, blue, and bald lugheads blinking for a moment before sharing a laugh.

“Who gives a shit about the world, sweetie?”

“Yeah, this world ain’t ever done anything for us anyways!”

Growling, Eve grits her teeth and digs deep. She’s never been this tired before. Never been this weak either. But she has no other choice but to keep fighting. She refuses to let these assholes get away. She’ll take them down and let GDA lock them up and at long last they’ll be off the streets and-

Eve blinks as her vision suddenly swims and her legs give out under her. She groans as she collapses to the ground, everything going dark for a moment. When she comes back to a few seconds later, she realizes she’s passed out, her extensive power usage quite literally causing her brain and body to give out on her.

Worse still, when she opens her eyes again, the Mauler Twins are looming over her, standing there looking down with pitiless gazes.

“You know, we owed your friend Robot for his fucking treachery…”

“Yeah but then he went and bit it to Omni-Man before we could get payback.”

“Heh, I suppose we’ll just have to take our lump of flesh from you instead.”

“You know, we can probably claim the bounty on her head while we’re at it.”

Eve can barely prop herself up onto her elbows as she glares weakly up at both twins. The one carrying an advanced laser rifle lifts it up and points it at her face… and then lowers it to point at her chest instead.

“Heh, good call. Let’s leave the head intact for that then.”

His finger begins to squeeze on the trigger and Eve just keeps on glaring, refusing to close her eyes or beg for her life, even in the face of certain death.

Only, instead of shooting her… the Mauler Twin suddenly pulls his hand off of the trigger guard as his eyes start to glow blue and his face goes slack. Beside him, the other Mauler Twin does the same, his hands dropping limp to his side and his eyes also glowing blue.

Both hulking blue giants step over to the side, the first dropping his weapon as they both drop to their knees and place their hands behind their heads in surrender.

Eve stares in confusion for a moment… until she looks up and sees three individuals descending from the sky towards her. Two of them she recognizes. Myk-Zod and the blonde one, Raven. The third is held in Myk-Zod’s grasp and has red hair up in a ponytail as she holds up a hand towards the Mauler Twins, her own eyes glowing blue.

As they all land, Myk-Zod gives Eve a lopsided grin and a helping hand to get her back on her feet.

“Looked like you could use a hand.”

Eve takes his hand, tiredly noting how strong and coarse his palm feels against hers… and then she proceeds to almost immediately collapse again. Myk-Zod catches her of course, leaving her braced against his broad chest.

For a moment, all Eve feels is embarrassment over her weakness and the position it’s left her in. But then the past week truly catches up with her and the embarrassment falls to the wayside as she finds herself completely and utterly overwhelmed.

For the second time, Eve begins to sob into Myk-Zod’s chest as she has a bit of a breakdown. This time though… her tears are tears of gratitude alongside tears of grief. Maybe, just maybe, if Myk-Zod and his companions are here to help, everything will be alright.

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A/N: Remember to Vote, leave a Like, and let me know what you think!

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Google Doc Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gbktuj-BbVEfnaEL9xQGZ21XjkKZj54OnaPuT3iOv5o/edit?tab=t.0