Almost Invincible! [SI-OC] 2: Speed

2: Speed

“What is this?” Mark looked around in shock. His initial disappointment soon turned into excitement.

Had he done it!? Had reciting the speed formula worked?

The excitement ran through him from head to toe, almost making him tremble. Almost, because it was at that very moment that he noticed a serious problem.

He couldn’t move.

It wasn’t just the world around him that had frozen; he himself was completely immobile, a prisoner of his own body. No matter how much he struggled, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t exert any force.

He was totally and completely trapped.

“Shit…”

If he could have, he would have swallowed. As his panic grew, regret assaulted him: he’d been too stupid. Because of his impulsiveness, he hadn’t stopped to think about the consequences of his actions, nor had he tried to understand what kind of power he was messing with.

He’d rushed in blindly, hoping for the best, without considering the worst.

‘Will I stay like this forever?’ he wondered, and the prospect was more than terrifying.

It was while he was contemplating the magnitude of his mistake that he heard it: the sound of footsteps.

Distant at first, like a faint echo that began to sharpen as they sped up, rapidly closing in on his position like thunder rolling across the sky.

His heart jolted. Being unable to see where they were coming from, or what was causing them, sent his nerves into overdrive, cold sweat running down his forehead.

That was when he felt it: a surge of pure electricity striking him from every direction, flooding every cell in his body in a thunderous flash that sent spasms through each of his muscles.

The shock was so intense that the frozen state holding him prisoner vanished in an instant, almost dropping him to his knees.

“Urgh!” He had to fight the urge to throw up.

Staggering, he managed to steady himself just enough to lift his head and look toward the direction the footsteps were coming from.

Less than five meters away from him, and closing in, was a red-haired man dressed in a tight, full-body crimson suit, adorned with a silver lightning bolt on his chest. With every movement he made, streamers of blue energy danced around his blurred figure.

He barely managed to get a quick look at him when, in the very next instant, the distance between them had already closed and the man appeared right in front of him, leaving barely a single meter between the two.

“F-Flash?!” he stammered upon seeing him in full detail, taking a step back in surprise.

“Close, but no,” the man replied with an amused smile.

His voice was strange, like a chorus of dozens of voices speaking in unison.

Mark studied him more closely. He definitely looked like Flash… or at least like an almost perfect recreation of Wally West’s comic-book appearance brought to life.

But there was something else as well. His presence… wasn’t human; no, more precisely, it was more than human.

“Speed Force…” This time it wasn’t a question.

“Bingo!” The man nodded, his smile widening even further.

Only then did Mark remember the most important detail about the cosmic power he had foolishly and recklessly tried to invoke. Something he should have considered from the very beginning.

The Speed Force was a sentient force, meaning it possessed its own consciousness and will, and therefore was capable of choosing who it allowed to wield it… and who it did not.

“How interesting.”

Ignoring the small existential crisis Mark was going through, the multiversal entity looked around with clear fascination. His silver eyes swept across the frozen world they stood in, before lifting upward to gaze even farther beyond, as if contemplating something no one else could see.

“You know, I’m not sure whether you’re incredibly stupid or, on the contrary, an unparalleled genius. It’s probably the former,” he finally said, turning his gaze back to him.

Mark didn't even feel insulted. Not that it would have done any good, anyway. At that moment he was more worried about not doing or saying anything that might cause the omnipotent force that had decided to manifest before him to erase him from existence.

As if reading his thoughts, ‘Wally’ laughed before adopting a slightly more serious expression.

“Your knowledge, while accurate in some aspects, is also lacking in many others. If you had tried what you did in any universe other than this one, casually reciting the formula would have been completely useless. You simply don’t possess the understanding or the knowledge necessary to make it work.”

His explanation made Mark grimace. Of course, how could he forget? He might not remember everything, but the general explanation of how the speed formula worked wasn’t so complicated that it shouldn’t have crossed his mind at that moment… Even so, he had ignored it, too excited and eager after having ‘found’ a way to gain power, and had simply acted.

“But you’re here.”

Yes. Even if he’d done it wrong, even if he’d made a mistake, somehow he had succeeded, or at least achieved a partial success.

“But I’m here.”

The entity nodded in agreement and then began to walk around him, examining him from head to toe, centimeter by centimeter, as if judging something in him.

That action set his nerves on edge.

“It’s been quite some time since I last paid attention to this multiverse. Its connection to me is weak, so weak that I can barely manifest within it. So when I felt a call, however insignificant it might have been, it certainly caught my interest. Congratulations: you got lucky. You gambled, tossed a small stone into the sea… and it created enough ripples to form a tsunami.”

Mark didn’t feel very satisfied despite the congratulation.

In truth, merely knowing and reciting the mathematical formula of the Speed Force wasn’t enough to accomplish anything. The key lay in understanding it, truly understanding it, and being able to solve it. An act of such magnitude that it would require the accumulated mathematical knowledge of an entire species just to begin attempting it, along with an intellectual level beyond the human… one that wouldn’t be found even by searching through millions of worlds.

But the formula, whether properly used or not, was still a door and a key to the Speed Force. Simply knowing it and speaking it, even without understanding it, was like ringing a doorbell.

Now, whether the owner of that door decided to answer or not… That was already another matter.

“I reached the door, but I didn’t bring the key.” Mark couldn’t explain it any better than that.

‘Wally’ nodded.

“But even without the key, you managed to make me open the door… So tell me, ‘Mark’, do you want my power?”

The way he pronounced his ‘name’ made it clear that he knew perfectly well who he really was; but even so, Mark didn’t care. In fact, he had already expected it. He wouldn’t be a primordial cosmic force if he couldn’t easily see through him, right?

“Yes, I need your power,” he replied without hesitation. He didn’t lie to himself: there was no possibility of refusing. No matter how he looked at it, no matter how optimistic he tried to be, the truth was that his chances of surviving on his own were more than slim.

His knowledge about the possible “future” was limited; he even doubted it would help him plan more than a few months ahead before any change he made came back to bite him in the ass later, one way or another. He was caught in a gamble where he had no ace up his sleeve… except his effort and his perseverance.

Sure, even without the Speed Force he would still try. He would give everything; he would fight to the death if necessary. But, being honest, who prefers to suffer? If there was a way to gain an advantage and spare himself the agony, no sane person would turn it down.

“Hmm…” Wally stopped walking, positioning himself in front of him again. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully while narrowing his eyes; the intensity of his gaze grew heavier, as if he were contemplating something far away.

“Your future is blurry. The nature of your existence distorts my connection to this world’s destiny, blurring my view of time…. Besides that, there’s nothing particularly special about you. I can’t say for certain whether granting your request is a good or a bad idea; you might end up destroying the entire local multiverse… or simply die from a stupid mistake halfway through. That, I must admit, sounds amusing.”

The smile that formed on his face as he said that last part was anything but reassuring.

Without waiting for a response, the entity acted immediately, his decision already made. Extending one of his fingers in his direction, he let a stream of blue energy shoot out like an arrow.

Mark didn’t even have time to react. The bolt struck him squarely in the chest and, in an instant, streamers of electricity began to race across his body, wrapping him completely.

“I have certain expectations of you; maybe you can bring some interesting changes to this reality, but don’t get too excited. I’m only giving you a small spark. You’re still not a proper user and, much less, worthy. Your connection to me will barely skim the surface, and changing that will depend entirely on you.”

After saying that, ‘Wally’ turned around and began to walk away, his figure receding faster and faster, even though he himself seemed to be moving with an almost unreal slowness.

“Whatever you do, make sure you don’t mess it up too quickly, kid!” he said, waving a hand in farewell. Then, he disappeared.

The world, previously frozen, snapped back to normal all at once. Mark exhaled sharply before inhaling just as hard, his heart still pounding at a thousand miles an hour.

For several seconds he simply floated in the night sky in a fetal position, at least until the tension finally drained from his mind.

“Shit…” was all he managed to say before he started laughing, at first weakly, but soon bursting into full laughter.

He could have gone on all night, but he forced himself to stop. Swallowing, he straightened himself in the air and raised both hands in front of his face, confusion and excitement mixing in equal measure.

He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it inside him, racing through his veins like lightning, coursing through every part of his body like an endless surge of energy.

It was paradoxical: the connection was faint, almost imperceptible, and yet completely evident.

Turning his head, he looked with gratitude and a good dose of lingering fear toward the place where the Speed Force had vanished.

If his situation earlier that day had already felt unreal, the encounter he had just had with a multiversal cosmic entity shattered that threshold completely. The existential horror he experienced couldn’t simply be put into words, and it would surely give him nightmares in the near future.

But despite everything, he still felt deeply grateful. The Speed Force could have taken his call as an offense and erased him from existence without effort, or it could have ignored him entirely and left him to his fate.

However, it didn’t. Whether for good or ill intentions, it had decided to extend a hand to him, and that was something he would never forget.

Licking his dry lips, he pulled his gaze away from the distance and set aside any deep thoughts; for now, what interested him most was making use of his new and awesome superpower.

Closing his eyes to concentrate, he searched inside himself until he found that current of infinite energy and, when he did, he tried to interact with it, to poke it, metaphorically.

But it was like trying to hold air: intangible and diffuse. No matter how hard he tried, it didn’t seem willing to react to any of his attempts. He tried many things, but finally, after almost ten minutes without getting anything, he grew frustrated enough to decide to take a risk and, covering his mouth once more, whispered so softly that a mosquito would have sounded louder.

"3x2(9YZ)4A=?"

As he spoke the last part, thunder roared inside him. This time the entire world didn’t stop, but something changed: for a brief fraction of a second, Mark could see sparks of light blue bursting around his body, and that previously immovable energy inside him churned wildly, as if he’d been injected with a million stimulants.

Instinctively, he called to it again, and this time a small part answered, flooding every single one of his cells.

He had no words to describe the sensation, nor time to process it, because before his brain could warn him what a terrible idea this was, he had already hurled himself forward.

There was no shockwave, the air didn’t tear apart; one moment his body was still floating where it had been, and the next it vanished, leaving behind only a vague silhouette that soon faded as well.

In his vision, the horizon turned into a kaleidoscope of colors. He didn’t know how far he traveled, everything was far too blurred, but somehow he was still aware of time.

"10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 1-" just as his internal stopwatch was about to mark sixteen seconds, Mark felt a sudden sense of emptiness crash over him, as if he had instantly lost several liters of blood. His face went pale and his excitement cooled, replaced by an extremely heavy exhaustion.

"Urgh!" he growled, hunching over as he spun out of control until he slammed into the side of a mountain.

¡Boom!

"Agh! Shit!" The impact tore another groan from him. Staggering, he pushed away the rocks and dirt covering him and looked around in confusion.

"Where the hell am I?"

It was in a straight line, right? He hoped it had been in a straight line, because if not, he had no idea how he was supposed to get back.

But more importantly…

"Why am I so damn hungry?!" he exclaimed, clutching his stomach, which kept growling.

It seemed that getting another superpower wasn’t going to make things as easy as he’d thought.

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Some time later.

“What are you doing?”

The sudden question made Mark almost trip. In his hands, the pile of food he’d just taken out of the refrigerator wobbled, several still-fresh items falling to the floor, among them three eggs that smashed loudly at his feet.

"Fuck!"

“Language!”

“Sorry!” Mark blinked; he’d apologized instinctively at the scolding, even though he normally wouldn’t have.

It’s not that he hadn’t respected his mother in his previous life, but that woman had a vocabulary that would put a sailor in a bar to shame any day of the week, and she rarely scolded him when he swore himself.

‘Did that come from Mark?’ he wondered, but he didn’t have much time to think about it, because Debbie spoke again.

“If you were hungry, you could have said so,” she pointed out, walking over to him and taking a few things from his hands before they could fall too.

“Uh, well, I didn’t want to be a bother,” he replied a bit awkwardly.

Unlike Nolan, whom he feared for obvious reasons and around whom he knew every step had to be taken as if walking barefoot over broken glass, things were different with Debbie.

She was Mark’s mother, the original Mark’s, and as far as he knew she was also a good woman. He couldn’t treat her as if she didn’t exist, but at the same time, treating her as if she were his real mother, when technically she wasn’t, felt very strange. Even so, he was willing to try; at the very least, the woman deserved that.

“This is a lot of food, are you sure you need all of this?” Debbie asked, frowning as she looked at everything he’d taken from the fridge.

“Definitely!” he said, nodding firmly as he bent down to pick up what had fallen. “I think I’m growing again.”

She narrowed her eyes at him before shrugging.

“Come on, while you clean that up off the floor I’ll make you something.”

“It’s not necessary,” Mark said, shaking his head, making Debbie stop and raise an eyebrow at him.

“I mean, I can do it myself,” he added, giving what he hoped was his best convincing smile.

“Sweetie, the last time you tried to cook on your own you almost burned the house down. I think I’d rather not let that happen again.” This time Debbie didn’t leave room for more discussion; she took what she had in her hands to the kitchen counter and came back to take the rest from him, pointing at the floor before leaving again.

“Now, clean that up.”

Mark, now with empty hands, let out a sigh. That had been dangerous; he had no idea that ‘Mark’ didn’t know how to cook, but it was good to find out early. That way, he could avoid doing it in the future, at least around his parents and until he came up with an excuse for where he’d learned how.

‘I need to figure out what else you know and don’t know how to do,’ he thought, speaking to that still-blurry mass of memories inside him.

There was no response, no reaction. Just as it had since the moment he arrived in this world, that thing remained dormant and silent.

It wasn’t a consciousness, of that he was sure; he couldn’t feel any emotions coming from it, or rather, none that weren’t tied to a fragment of memory.

Fragments that, in truth, weren’t coming as quickly as he would have liked. There were flashes here and there, sensations of familiarity with certain things; being in the house made that even more noticeable. He didn’t even have to think to move through the place as if he’d always lived there.

But that was it. The important stuff, what he was really hoping to get, simply wasn’t coming.

It was frustrating, but it wasn’t like he could do anything about it. As far as he knew, telepathy or anything similar wasn’t among Viltrumite powers, so all he could do was wait and be patient. Maybe a good night’s sleep was what he needed.

“I don’t hear the mop!” Debbie’s shout snapped him back to reality, along with the sound of his stomach growling again.

“I’m coming!” he replied, walking without thinking toward where they kept the cleaning supplies.

He hoped the food would be worth it.

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In fact, it was.

"¡This is incredible!" he said between bites, making Debbie frown.

“Manners, Mark!” she scolded him, watching in astonishment as he devoured plate after plate like an animal.

"You really were hungry," she whispered. Although she had made quite a lot of food because of his insistence, she hadn’t expected him to finish it all in one sitting.

“Slow down, if you chew that fast you’re going to end up eating the plate too.” And just as she said that, the sound of metal crunching filled the dining room.

Mark blinked, Debbie raised her eyebrows, and both of them looked at the fork in his hand… or at least the part that still remained of it.

There was a pause. Then Mark kept chewing and, after an audible swallow and a sigh of satisfaction, he looked at his mother with a sheepish smile.

“Uh… I’ll buy another one?”

Debbie rubbed the bridge of her nose in exasperation. She gave him one last look before deciding it was too late in the day to deal with this, turning around to head back to her room.

“Remember to wash everything,” she said as she left, and Mark, who until then had been enjoying his meal, froze and turned toward the kitchen only to see, in horror, the mountain of dirty dishes piled in the sink.

“Shit”

"Language!"

Once Debbie had left, Mark visibly relaxed, eating more slowly and calmly. His ‘mother’s’ presence, while not dangerous in a physical sense, still put a tense pressure on his shoulders.

He might have decided to treat her with the courtesy and respect the original Mark must have felt for her,  but that didn’t mean it was easy to do: not in the slightest.

Luckily, there was no kind of complicated or sentimental talk, sparing him the discomfort.

He already had more than enough problems to deal with; he definitely didn’t need to add motherly issues to that equation.

Now that he was alone, he could finally focus on his thoughts, the most pressing of them being his plans for the days to come. It’s not like he’d had many before, but now that he had the Speed Force, his confidence in facing the challenges ahead of him had risen several levels.

Sure, he could only use it for 15 seconds, and doing so burned through a monstrous amount of calories, forcing him to eat piles of food afterward, but setting those inconveniences aside, 15 seconds of super speed were still 15 seconds of super speed.

‘The problem is my reaction time and reflexes.’ He didn’t know if it had been because he was unprepared or because of something else, but at that moment, when he activated the Speed Force for the first time, he’d had almost no control over his movements.

Everything had been too blurry; the only thing he’d managed to do was count the seconds, and even that had been more unconscious than deliberate.

As far as he knew, the Speed Force should also enhance his ability to process his surroundings at high speeds, but in his case it didn’t seem to be working.

‘Maybe it’s because my connection is still too weak?’ He remembered that ‘Wally’ had mentioned that even the Speed Force itself was barely present in this universe; maybe that played a role too.

Or was it because he was a Viltrumite? Viltrumites possessed their own kind of super speed and super senses, but Mark had already realized that having them wasn’t the same as mastering them.

During his ‘fight’ with Nolan there had been moments when his body moved faster than he intended, sometimes even dodging long before the blow arrived; others, only reacting when he had already been hit. That earned him several extra bruises.

It was possible that the combination of his new physiology with the Speed Force was working against him somehow, but whatever the case, there was only one way to fix it.

Train, and keep training, getting used to his new physical qualities while at the same time increasing his connection to and mastery over the Speed Force. Exactly how he would do that last part was still a mystery, but at least now he had some direction to follow.

Simple goals, but that’s how you start, right?

And speaking of directions to follow, he still wasn’t entirely sure how many changes he wanted to start making to the story.

Given that his knowledge of this world was barely superficial, anything he did, whether big or small, could trigger uncontrollable waves that would render that knowledge useless.

But he also couldn’t live in fear of losing such an insignificant ‘advantage’.

‘One step at a time, I guess’.

Since it was still the beginning, he’d try to be discreet, but once his strength reached a certain threshold there would be no reason to hold back or worry about the consequences.

“I hope you’re ready, world, because I won’t be beaten so easily.”

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Note:

And here is the second chapter! The next one will be coming soon ;D