Flaxan Invasion

Author's Note: If you enjoy this story, come check out my Patreon at banmido. I've got many more like this, early access chapters, giveaways, and other fire content.

Chapters up to 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20. are currently available to patrons.

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Mark hadn't come back to school for two days.

When he finally showed up, he didn't speak to anyone. Just walked the halls lifelessly. Like everything inside him had been scooped out and left somewhere behind the burning rubble of the Guardians' HQ.

His eyes were sunken. Not from just crying but from holding it in too long.

Naruto found him after last period, standing alone at the edge of the track field with his backpack at his feet and his gaze lost in the clouds.

Naruto didn't say anything at first. Just stood beside him, hands in his pockets, watching the same sky.

A silence stretched. Comfortable only in the way shared hurt could be.

Then,

"…You still want me to come over and play video games?"

Mark blinked. The question hit like a rock through a fogged-up window.

"What?"

Naruto shrugged his shoulders. "You invited me last week. Thought you were just being polite, but figured I'd ask just in case."

Mark stared at him. The silence this time felt different. Fragile really.

Then, for the first time in days, he smiled.

"Y-yea.. Yeah, I'd like that." he said.

Mark's room looked exactly like you'd expect from the nerdy Highschooler. Movie posters. Dirty clothes in the corner. A TV mounted too high. A sleek white-and-black console humming on the shelf excitedly.

Naruto sat cross-legged on the floor, holding the controller like it was a foreign relic.

"Okay," Mark said, grabbing his own controller and tapping the home button, "so that one's your light hit, that's heavy, that's block, and that's… kinda like a grab depending on the context.."

"None of these words make sense," Naruto muttered, frowning down at the buttons.

Mark snorted. "Don't worry. You'll lose a bunch until you get it. It's all a part of the process."

On screen, the menu loaded up and TEKKEN 8 blared in bold chrome letters, followed by a pulse of bass and theme music.

Naruto tilted his head. "What's a tekken?"

"…I don't actually know," Mark shrugged, "It just sounds cool I guess."

They picked characters. Naruto scrolled through the roster with narrowed eyes, then finally pointed.

"That one." he said firmly.

"King? You sure? He's a grappler. You have to get close and time throw-"

"He has a jaguar for a face." Naruto said, "He must be an incredible warrior."

"…Yeah. Okay. Fair enough."

Mark picked Marshall Law. They jumped in.

The first match lasted nineteen seconds flat.

Naruto died with his thumbs still on the wrong buttons. King flopped over like a broken statue. Mark tried not to laugh but failed.

"Okay okay, here! Just don't press everything at once. Watch what I'm doing closely."

Another round.

And another.

And another.

Ten matches later, Naruto had learned how to block, combo, counter, and most terrifyingly adapt.

By round eleven, Mark was already sweating.

"Wait! NO, stop! How are you reading my movements?!"

Naruto said nothing. Just ducked under a flying kick and suplexed Mark's character into the floor with an ungodly roar.

FLAWLESS VICTORY.

Mark dropped his controller. "You suck. You've never even played before this."

"I watched you," Naruto said flatly. "Your thumb twitches before a low sweep."

"That's not normal."

Naruto smirked faintly. "Both of us are far from normal"

"Yeah, but you're a cheat code."

They kept playing. Match after match. Somewhere between the fake violence and real laughter, the weight in Mark's chest cracked loose, just a little bit.

He wasn't okay. Not even close.

But for a moment, it felt like being a kid again.

Suddenly the screen glitched.

Static overtook the victory screen, crackling just long enough for Naruto to glance up. Then the newsfeed hijacked the display.

EMERGENCY BROADCAST LIVE

Unidentified hostiles attacking downtown Chicago. Estimated casualties in the hundreds. Civilians urged to shelter in place. GDA forces expected en route.

The footage stuttered into clarity.

The city was a warzone.

Streets burned beneath alien boots, green-skinned soldiers in matching suits marched through smoke with glowing white-and-orange rifles that pulsed with energy. They moved in squadrons, precise, militaristic, flanked by insectoid walkers with mounted cannons and shifting plates of armor.

At their center stood something even worse. A towering brute in reinforced exo-armor, with one hand raised and glowing. His face was blank, mechanical, and mouthless. A deep red cape trailed behind him like he'd stepped out of some fascist pantheon.

He barked an order. It was untranslated and guttural but the soldiers responded by opening fire on a crowd of fleeing civilians.

Plasma raked the pavement.

Cars exploded. Concrete split. People vanished into fine red mist.

Mark dropped his controller.

The echo of fun died instantly.

He was already on his feet, yanking his Invincible suit out of his bag like it had been waiting, too.

He began pulling the zipper up with shaking fingers.

"You coming?" he asked.

Naruto didn't move.

Mark froze mid-motion, incredulous. "Dude. Did you not see that? People are dying!"

"There are other heroes on Earth," Naruto said. "They can handle it."

Mark's voice cracked. "They're not us."

"They don't need me."

"You have powers, Naruto," Mark snapped. "You can do something."

"I told you I can't be a hero."

Mark's stare hardened.

"…Can't be a hero, or won't be?"

Naruto looked away.

Mark didn't wait.

He threw the window open and launched into the sky in a streak of yellow and blue, disappearing into the chaos.

Naruto sat alone.

The broadcast kept playing.

More screams. More ash.

More silence inside the room than outside.

He sighed.

Monitors flickered. Donald held a tablet, his face tight.

"Sir," he said, stepping up behind Cecil. "There's some kind of attack happening downtown. Heavy plasma fire. Alien design. Numerous contacts. Multiple casualties."

Cecil groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"Now? Of all times?"

He looked up at the screen.

The Guardians were gone.

Omni-Man was handling a serpent kaiju in Italy.

And Earth?

Earth was running out of options.

Cecil sighed.

"…Of all the times we're a little understaffed in the hero department."

The television kept screaming.

Crackling bursts of plasma. Shattered asphalt. Smoke swallowing glass towers. The camera panned across the carnage. People running, falling, burning, then cut to static before switching angles again, shakier this time, as if the reporter had started filming while fleeing.

Naruto didn't blink.

Didn't flinch. He was used to death.

He just sat there, fingers limp against his knees, staring at the screen.

The controller still sat next to him, long abandoned. A trace of King's victory roar hung in the silence. But the game had ended.

And the war had just begun.

Behind his eyes, something cracked.

And suddenly…

He wasn't in Mark's room anymore.

The air shifted.

It was dry.

Choked with dust.

The concrete under him had vanished, replaced by cracked red earth and wind that howled through hollowed canyons of glass and bone. The twin suns still hung above him, but they were dim now, barely bleeding through the ash-choked sky.

It was his subconscious, his past, and Naruto stood barefoot in the center of it, wind brushing through the folds of his hoodie.

And in front of him, a smaller version of himself waited.

A boy of maybe eight years of age. Short, wild blond hair. Big sapphire eyes. His robes were white, lined with the crest of symbol of peace and continuity.

He looked furious.

"You didn't help them," the boy said.

Naruto didn't move. "It's not my problem."

"They're dying. Right now."

"I know."

The boy's fists clenched. "You weren't raised like this."

Naruto laughed bitterly. "No. I wasn't."

"You're not like him," the boy pressed, eyes narrowed. "You're not like Father. You were meant to be better."

"Better?" Naruto snapped. "You think I'm not better? I've done nothing but survive. I've kept my head down, kept out of wars, kept people safe by staying out of their way."

"You weren't meant to hide."

"And you weren't there," Naruto hissed out, voice low now. "You didn't see it."

The boy faltered.

"You didn't see what happened when the sky split open. When our ground cracked apart. When our cities turned to ash and all I could do was drag my mother through fire and dirt to die in my arms."

The wind dropped.

Naruto stepped forward.

"You don't get to judge me. You're just a memory. You're what I was before my old life ended. Before the last sunrise. Before the last scream."

The boy's voice trembled. "But she believed in you. In us."

Naruto's mouth was a tight line.

"Mother would've hated what you've become," the child said softly.

He faded like mist in the wind.

Gone.

Naruto stood alone in the field of his own mind, empty again.

He whispered, "Yeah… well…"

His jaw tightened.

"…she's dead now."

The scent of lavender burned away.

He came back into himself with a sharp breath.

The television was still on.

The world still dying.

The image shifted, an older man with a split forehead being carried by his daughter through the rubble. Another feed showed a crater in the street where children had once played. A bloody sneaker lay in the dust beside a charred doll.

Naruto blinked.

And suddenly, he wasn't seeing Earth anymore.

He was seeing home.

The fire rising across the glass towers of Hekarisa.

The purple wheat fields choked in ash.

The bodies.

The silence that followed.

The weight of it pressed into his chest like a stone.

And then Mark's voice.

"Can't be a hero… or won't be?"

He stood and moved without thinking.

The room felt too quiet now.

He opened the closet across from Mark's bed and found what he knew would be there. A spare uniform, blue and yellow, folded neatly.

He hated it.

The color scheme was all wrong.

Naruto held the fabric in his palm and took a breath.

Natural energy gathered in his hand. The inheritance of centuries of his planet. The warmth of his mother's prayers. The raw force of a dying world's final wish.

He ran his hand over the suit.

The yellow burned away.

The blue blackened.

Replaced by deep matte black and vivid orange, his favorite colors.

He held up the mask and goggles.

Then tossed them aside onto the floor. He was done hiding from the world.

With a thunderous WOOSH, he shot into the sky, the walls rattling behind him, a streak of orange trailing from the open window.

The front door creaked open seconds later.

"Mark?" Debbie called out, bags in hand.

No answer.

"Naruto?"

Still nothing.

She walked into the living room and saw the news feed on the TV, alien soldiers in formation, armored titans stomping through the Downtown streets.

Then she walked upstairs and saw the bedroom door half open.

She dropped the bags and walked forward.

The wind was still whispering through the cracked window.

She looked at the empty space, the fluttering curtain.

Then her eyes dropped to the mask on the floor.

Her heart clenched.

She reached up slowly and touched the silver necklace around her neck. Nolan had given it to her years ago to celebrate their anniversary. She held it tight between her fingers and closed her eyes.

"…Please keep them safe."

They came without warning.

One moment, the city hummed with the usual weight of modern life. Honking cars, blinking walk signs, coffee cups tilted just right under pale morning sun.

The next, the air cracked and tore open.

A glowing rift opened on the ground of downtown Chicago, tearing through space like a green wound. Dozens of figures dropped through it, some upright, others crouched like wolves mid-pounce. Boots hit the concrete hard.

The first screams came seconds later.

People turned, confused at the flashes of white and orange, at the green-skinned figures storming from the breach. They looked human only in outline. Tall, broad, faces twisted by bone ridges and battle-scars, clad in segmented armor with glowing lines that pulsed like veins. Their rifles were massive, humming with plasma energy.

They didn't even speak. They just began firing.

Downtown Chicago erupted in chaos.

Police responded quickly and opened fire from behind cars and hastily constructed barricades, but their bullets bounced uselessly off energy shields. Within minutes, squad cars were slag. Officers melted mid-sprint. Civilians were cut down in the crosswalk, their bodies tossed like dolls.

A towering figure, almost eight feet tall, more machine than green alien, barked orders from the back. Its voice rumbled like cracked glass, its red cape dragging behind armor the color of bleached bone.

Tanks followed. Sleek, white, and spider-legged. Plasma turrets spun and locked onto civilians and police alike.

No one stood a chance.

But high above, Invincible flew in fast, eyes wide, barely ahead of the panic.

He was still learning to control his flight. Still thinking in straight lines, not arcs. Still trying to hold his stomach every time he dropped altitude too fast. But when he saw the chaos below, everything else vanished.

He spotted an old woman on the sidewalk, hobbling toward cover. Her cane had splintered. Her purse lay open beside a body.

One of the invaders raised its rifle.

Mark didn't think.

He grabbed a chunk of debris, concrete, maybe from a fallen sign and hurled it. Hard.

The projectile slammed into the alien's face, sending it crashing into the wreckage of a flipped van. Its left eye was destroyed and soaked in blood.

It didn't die. But it definitely felt like it.

The Flaxan snarled, an ugly, choked sound. Its right eye implant flickered red.

Mark landed hard beside the woman. "Don't worry ma'am! I've got you!"

She looked up, dazed. Blood on her face. He scooped her into his arms, crouched low, and shot into the sky too fast.

Too low.

His foot clipped a traffic light still standing.

They spun in midair.

Mark slammed into the side of a half-collapsed building, cushioning her, but it wasn't enough. He held on, panicked. Her scream pierced his ears hauntingly.

She wasn't dead. But her legs had hit the edge.

They didn't bend right anymore.

"Oh God! Oh no, ma'am! I'm so sorry!"

A high-pitched whine filled the air.

Mark turned just in time to see the same Flaxan, his face bleeding profusely, climbed into one of the tanks and throw the Flaxan operator out on the broken concrete ruthlessly.

Its targeting lens focused instantly on him as the barrel glowed red.

Mark froze.

There wasn't enough time to dodge in his panicked state.

The cannon fired.

A pink energy wall materialized into place in front of him.

The blast hit it and scattered outward in a burst of static light.

"Hey, rookie," Atom Eve said, floating just behind him, eyes glowing. "You planning on dying before lunch?"

Mark blinked. "W-who are you?"

"The person you owe for saving your life."

Behind her the rest of the Teen Team had arrived for backup.

Rex Splode hurled three charged discs into a squad of Flaxans, scattering them like bowling pins. Dupli-Kate split into a dozen copies, charging the flank and causing chaos.

Robot hovered beside them, calculating trajectories and plans at impossible speed.

The team hit hard.

But there were simply too many.

Flaxans dropped in waves, teleporting in formation. Each one better armored than the last. Tanks spread wide, sweeping fire through alleyways. Walkers clambered over wreckage, pincers slicing through fleeing crowds.

Mark hovered back into the air, eyes scanning for survivors, but everywhere he looked, there were only more bodies. More screams. The woman he'd tried to save was being evacuated by a medic now. Her eyes didn't leave him.

He didn't know if it was gratitude.

Or blame.

He turned and flew back toward Eve. "We're not winning this."

She was already bleeding.

"Yeah," she muttered. "No shit."

Below them, Robot's voice crackled through their comms. "They're too coordinated. Too advanced. Their tech outpaces ours by decades. We need backup, now!"

And in the chaos of it all, none of them noticed the flicker of orange and black lightning breaking through the clouds above.

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Author's Note: If you enjoy this story, come check out my Patreon at banmido. I've got many more like this, early access chapters, giveaways, and other fire content.

Chapters up to 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, and 20. are currently available to patrons.