Hard Choices

As Mark and I shot through the sky, leaving the GDA base behind, the wind roared in my ears, but it couldn't drown out the thoughts racing through my head. The Guardians of the Globe were gone, Dad was barely clinging to life in a hospital bed, and the GDA was sniffing around like bloodhounds.

As if things weren't bad enough, we had a Flaxan invasion to deal with. I glanced over at Mark, who was flying beside me, his expression set in grim determination. For all his bravado, I could tell he was still reeling from everything that had happened. Hell, so was I, but for different reasons.

As we neared Chicago, the scene below was a war zone. The Flaxans had torn through the city like a tidal wave, leaving devastation in their wake. Fires burned unchecked, skyscrapers crumbled, and terrified civilians ran for their lives. 

The air was thick with the smell of smoke and the sound of distant explosions. I could already see them—hundreds of Flaxan soldiers pouring out of portals that pulsed with orange light, their advanced weaponry making quick work of anyone foolish enough to resist.

Immediately I go into action using my top speed, and as the world slowed to almost a crawl, I used my telekinesis to sense every single civilian within the next couple of miles, and I want to work evacuating each and every single one of them no one was going to die today.

The process took a couple of minutes in my time, but in normal time, it lasted milliseconds, and by then, I was already right next to Mark.

"Stick close, Mark!" I shouted over the wind as we descended toward the city. "We hit them hard and fast. Don't give them time to regroup."

"Got it!" Mark yelled back, his voice tense but focused.

We split off as we hit the ground, moving with the speed and precision Dad had drilled into us. The first group of Flaxans I encountered didn't know what hit them. I slammed into the ground with enough force to send a shockwave rippling through the concrete, knocking a dozen soldiers off their feet. Before they could recover, I was on them. 

My fists moved faster than they could see, punching through armor and bone alike. Flaxans were tough, but I was tougher. Each hit was calculated and aimed at weak points I had analyzed on the fly. The smell of ozone and burnt metal filled the air as I tore through their ranks.

Mark was doing the same on the other side of the street, his own attacks sending Flaxans flying. Despite the destruction around us, there was a rhythm to it—a deadly dance that we had trained for our whole lives. 

Mark's punches were powerful, but he lacked the precision that came with experience. I had to admit, though, he was getting better. He wasn't just swinging blindly anymore; he was targeting their weapons, taking out their leaders, and using his strength to outmaneuver them. It was a good thing, too. We didn't have time for mistakes.

The battle raged on, and the Flaxans kept coming. They were relentless, like a swarm of locusts devouring everything in their path. But something was different this time. They were better equipped and more organized. I noticed they were adapting to our attacks, using shields that could deflect Mark's punches and energy weapons that cut through concrete like butter. This wasn't just a random invasion; it was a calculated assault.

"Carter!" Mark's voice cut through the chaos as he flew over to me. He was panting, his suit singed and torn. "These guys aren't like the other guy you took down. They're not retreating."

I nodded, gritting my teeth as I crushed the head of a Flaxan commander under my boot. "I noticed. They're learning. That means they've been planning this."

"Planning? For what?" Mark asked, smashing a Flaxan gunship out of the sky with a well-aimed punch.

"They're testing us," I said, scanning the battlefield. "Seeing how far they can push before we break. They want to see if we're as weak as we look with the Guardians gone."

Mark's eyes widened as realization dawned. "We can't let them win, then. We have to stop them here."

"Exactly. Focus on the portals. If we can shut those down, we cut off their reinforcements." I wondered what was taking the teen team so long to get here, but that didn't matter for now. I needed to get myself through that portal.

Mark gave a determined nod, and we split up again. As I moved through the battlefield, I analyzed the situation. The Flaxans were using some kind of portal generator, likely housed in their command center in their dimension. I had to find it and shut it down, but getting to it wouldn't be easy. Their soldiers were swarming everywhere, and each portal that opened brought more of them through.

I smashed through another group of soldiers, my fists moving in a blur. Their armor cracked and shattered under my blows, but there was always more to take their place. I needed to find that command center fast. I scanned the battlefield, my eyes narrowing as I spotted a larger portal near the center of the city. It was heavily guarded, with Flaxan soldiers patrolling the perimeter. That had to be it.

I activated my comm, connecting to Mark. "I found the command center's portal. I'm going in to shut down the portals. Cover me."

"I'm on it, but Carter, make sure you can come back," Mark replied, already moving to intercept a squad of Flaxans that had noticed me.

With Mark distracting them, I flew toward the command center's portal, dodging energy blasts and debris as I went. As I slid inside, I found myself in the command center. 

The building was massive, a brutalist structure of dark metal and strange green lights. As I got closer, I saw the portal generators—three towering machines that pulsed with energy, each connected to a central control unit. That was my target.

I crashed through the outer wall, tearing through the metal like it was paper. The Flaxans inside barely had time to react before I was on them. I moved with purpose, every motion precise and lethal. I ripped one of the soldiers in half with a single punch, grabbed another by the head, and slammed him into the ground so hard the floor cracked. But there was no time to revel in the carnage. I needed to shut those generators down.

I flew toward the control unit, dodging blasts from the remaining soldiers. The control panel was covered in strange symbols, but I'd seen enough alien tech to get the gist. I slammed my fists into the control unit, crushing it under the force of my blows. Sparks flew, and the lights flickered as the generators began to power down. The portals started to close one by one, cutting off the Flaxans' reinforcements.

But just as I thought I had it under control, the ground shook, and the walls of the command center groaned as something massive approached. I turned to see a hulking figure emerge from the shadows—a Flaxan warlord, easily twice my size, clad in heavy armor that seemed to absorb the light around it. His eyes glowed with a malevolent green light, and he carried a massive warhammer that crackled with energy.

"Human," the warlord growled in a deep, guttural voice. "You think you can stop us? You are nothing."

I clenched my fists, feeling the adrenaline surge through me. "You want to find out how wrong you are?"

The warlord roared, charging at me with the force of a freight train. I braced myself, digging my feet into the ground as he swung his warhammer. The impact was like a bomb going off, the shockwave sending cracks through the walls and floor. 

But I held my ground, absorbing the blow as I grabbed the warlord by the wrist and twisted, using his own momentum against him. He stumbled, but only momentarily before he lashed out with a backhanded strike that would have sent me crashing through a wall if not for my telekinesis.

The warlord was strong, stronger than any Flaxan Soilder I'd faced before, but he was also slow. I dodged his next attack, slipping under his guard and landing a punch that dented his armor. He grunted in pain but didn't slow down, swinging his warhammer with terrifying speed. I ducked and weaved, landing hits whenever I could, but his armor was tough, and my strikes weren't doing enough damage. But I was already analyzing the molecular structure within his suit, and I had already seen my telekinesis wearing away at the bonds between the individual molecules.

As the giant alien then took another large swing with his Warhammer, I immediately caught the hammer in my hands, grabbed it from them, and slammed it into one of his legs, breaking it off entirely.

Not only did his mechanical legs break down, but I also saw bits of his blood, so I assume I just knocked off his entire leg. As he fell to the ground screaming in pain, I placed my hand on his suit and tore it apart.

Upon hundreds of individual pieces of the suit, all I had left was a giant alien, but before he got any more insults, I walked up to his head and smashed my foot.

" You don't seem to understand Earth isn't yours to conquer." I then looked at their portal generator devices and saw that they were still functional. It was—time to change that. Even a small part of me wanted to analyze how they worked.

I flew toward the generator, ripping out wires and smashing the control circuits, forcing it to overload. The generator then exploded in a blinding flash of light and heat, engulfing the room in flames. The shockwave knocked me back, but I managed to stay on my feet, watching as the blast consumed the command center.

When the smoke cleared, all that was left was a smoking crater where the building had stood. The portal generators were destroyed, and the remaining Flaxan soldiers on the other side were either dead or retreating. 

It was over. Since this was the first invasion, they hadn't had time to create any tech to stop the increasing degradation in our dimension. As I pulled up a camera of my world, I saw that the aliens were already starting to age rapidly.

Thankfully, I could sense that I could open a portal back to my world using the powers I had gotten from the jump document, but then, with my enhanced hearing, I heard the small army making its way over to me.

Looking at the small force coming to take me down, I spread my telekinetic senses as far as they could go. I reached nearly half the planet and kept going, stopping all of the individual landmasses.

Taking a deep breath, I knew that there was no going back from this, so I took two fingers and pointed them down.

The difference was already felt as hundreds upon hundreds of tons of weight spread across every single city. Millions upon millions were crushed under the weight of my telekinetic might in milliseconds.

Buildings crashed to the ground as entire cities began to shake and quake apart in the small army that was next to me or witness to all of it.

I felt each Individual being snuffed out, and I will admit, even if it is hypocritical of me, I felt sad and needless loss of life. I knew there would be no stopping these people and I need space for myself to work with.

And after only a couple of minutes, nearly every minor major city on the planet had been taken down and reduced to nothing but rubble. Pulling back my telekinesis, I see the minor nosebleed that had appeared on my face, and I wipe the blood away. I looked at the army that managed to reach my position, and they stared at me with complete terror.

I reached my hand forward, and I cut down the army that once numbered a couple of thousand in seconds using highly pressurized wind blades. In the end, nothing was left of them, barely a couple of molecules, floating into the wind, as if I had dismantled every single body in front of me.

I then looked at the sky and saw a few space stations, so I started flying towards them, using my telekinesis to increase my speed. Faster and faster, as I approached half of what I assume is the speed of light, I wrecked through both of them over and over again. I slammed my body through the space stations. Before one final pass by, I destroyed both of their reactors, sending both of the space stations into the planet.

I simply watched as they fell into the planet's atmosphere and burned up in reentry. No words were said as I looked over to their planet's moon and thankfully felt no life signs. As I looked at my clean hands, I tightened my grip and then opened a portal back to Earth, leaving behind nothing but smoke and ruin.

Mark flew over to me not a moment later, his face covered in soot and grime. "Carter! You did it! The portals are closing!"

"Yeah," I said, catching my breath. "But this isn't the end. They'll be back, and we need to be ready."

Mark nodded, his expression grim. "I know. But we stopped them today. That's what matters."

Looking at the closing portal, a smile formed on my face. " Yeah, don't worry, they're not coming back. I managed to destroy any and all traces of our dimension from their data banks, so even if they somehow find a way back, it would be a very long time from now."

Mark nodded, but before we could fly back, a certain team appeared in front of us, seemingly ready for action. As they only saw us, the one, whom I assume is Rex Splode, gave his two cents: " Well, Robot, this is probably the first time I can say that we were actually late to something. How the hell did we miss an entire alien invasion?"

I might've laughed at that more than I should have.