Project ROWDY 2-8B

They arrived in Washington D.C. to a warzone, punching through the sound barrier so low it shattered every window on the south side of the Treasury building. The air was thick, heavy with the stench of fire and smoke; burning rubber, melted metal, scorched grass almost enough to make Brick’s nose wrinkle. Red eyes darted around, a deeper frown on his face as all five of them shrieked to a sudden stop at the target they’d been sent to. Who sets the White House lawn on fire?

Idiots. 

A bunch of stupid supervillain idiots, that’s who.

Brick knew well enough how annoying actually trying to take over the world was. Even if the Boys had felt like it, Mojo and HIM had made it pretty obvious that it just wasn’t worth the effort or time.

The whole sky was a chaotic swarm of random robots and thugs on hover-platforms, laser fire stitching fiery, stupid lines across the once-pristine white walls of the White House.

“Nazis, meta-terrorists, alien invasions..." Super-Patriot’s cybernetic limbs whirred as they shifted, the centagenerian’s body a blur of red-white-blue as he jumped around, arm-cannons spitting fiery yellow plasma. "And somehow you thugs still scrape the bottom of the barrel!"

The guy was outnumbered, though, even with his oldest set of twins backing him up. Liberty and Justice were doing their part, even if they lacked all the nano-mechanical bits, as they fought back-to-back-to-back with dear old dad. Both dressed like they were about to compete in the most patriotic pageant ever, they clearly weren’t holding anything back. The blonde woman swung a lamppost like a club, metal whining and clanging with each hit. Her brother wasn't holding back either, the big guy actively whack-whack-whacking a robot’s skull in with another robot's arm.

Strong enough, Brick gave them that. Stronger than their little brother and sister.

But they were slow, or at least nowhere near fast enough to fight off an army this big without getting swarmed. 

That’s where they came in.

The impact was a four-point landing, eight feet touching home with meteor-strike force square in the heart of the White House lawn. The shockwave of displaced air and scattered turf rippled outward in the world’s loudest hello, tossing a whole two dozen armored thugs off their feet exactly the same way Boomer played with action figures.

"'Bout time!" SuperPatriot whooped like a maniac, the old man barely even looking at them as he tugged and tore the turret off a Vicious Circle tank. A split second, he put those nano-implants to work, hurling the thing like a frisbee. 

Spinning metal carved through a half-dozen mecha-minions, all of them making sounds that were not at all clean or neat as they fell apart. "We were thinking we were running out of asses to kick!"

"Dad, focus!" Damien's mom shouted over at him. A quick second later, the busty blonde took off sprinting before hurling herself forwards. Super-strong legs moved like a missile as a villain learned what a drop-kick from a woman who could bench an easy ten tons felt like.

"Good one, Libby!" Justice yelled back. The biggest man there wasn’t letting his sister have all of the fun as his fist drove its way home through a robot's torso, the thing splitting in half around his knuckles.

A spear of pink the size of a minivan and twice as long tore into a tank, an explosion worthy of an insane action movie director going off almost immediately. It didn’t stop there, as a half-dozen more lanced above the four boys’ heads as Atom Eve dropped to the ground right behind them. Wrapped in semi-translucent pink armor, her force field keeping the airborne toxins out, Eve was already proving she could hold her own. 

"Whoa!" Boomer's voice spiked high, because of course it did, the blue Rowdyruff’s eyes going wide and sparkly. "Goooo, Super-Patriot!"

Jesus. Brick held back a sigh.

"Man..." Butch grunted beside him, each knuckle crack from him as loud as the gunfire from the Secret Service. "If these guys are already wreckin' shit, what are we here for?"

"To do our job, moron!" The words snapped out harsher than he meant as he rounded on a wide-eyed Butch, flames already licking at his palms, heat familiar and spiking brighter with his own temper. "Focus! Robots first, they're the guns. Thugs are just noise. Eve's shielding the meat-bags." 

Red eyes darted at Mark, the Viltrumite’s head snapping between targets. "Mark, just... hit things and… try not to hit the house."

"Right. Hit things.” Mark's voice came out as tight as his fists were at his side, all that pent-up violence making him sound more like Butch than anybody else these days. “Don't hit the house."

Good enough.

Without another word, they broke apart and tore into the Vicious Circle, the enemies basically tissue paper against their combined and literally inhuman levels of force. Tanks, thugs, bots, or villains, they all went down the same. Pathetic. 

Butch became a green-tinted hurricane; laughing, cackling, pure destruction given form as he grabbed two six-foot robots by their heads and smashed them together until you couldn’t tell where one ended and the other started. "Eat it, eat it, EAT IT!" The air shuddered around him as he grabbed a third by the arm and with a quick spin, sent it flying fast and high into a hover-platform, through it and well…

There he goes.

While a robot broke apart in the atmosphere, Boomer blurred blue-bolt-lightning as weapon systems and power-armor short-circuited in his little brother’s wake. Sound effects left his mouth in a barrage almost as nonstop as his movements —  "Zzzzzap! Bwoosh! Pew-pew-pew!", Boomer arcing between platforms while explosions went off in chain-lightning-reactions around him every other second. "Pinball! I'm a pinball! Get it?" Boomer's voice cracked mid-yell, excitement bleeding through every syllable. "'Cause I'm... bouncing around? Right?"

Brick didn't share their joy. Much. 

Each of his punches were punishing, his kicks clean and his use of energy? Almost downright elegant.

Case in point, each burst of heat vision was a clean, red line; a scalpel slicing turrets off tanks, disabling command units from half a mile away. Boomer may have been Blitzkrieg but he was the one blitzing through the chaos, a red blur of tactical strikes. 

He wasn’t even distracted when a spike-suited villain with stupidly large fists (Macer? Yeah, Macer. An idiot who was supposed to be locked up in a super-max somewhere) came out of nowhere, swinging a chunk of concrete. Brick didn't even look as he let his arm hang out while he flew by, catching the thug’s wrist and using his own momentum to throw him headfirst into a busted fountain. Too slow. 

While his brothers dismantled and destroyed, Brick preferred decimation.

Mark, on the other hand, fought with a focus that was downright furious, teeth gritted as he turned his body into a blue-and-yellow battering ram. The half-Viltrumite wasn't dodging or ducking a single thing; no, he was proving that he was definitely tougher than any single one of Brick or the Boys as he just plowed his way through enemies. Laser and plasma and every other single bit of weaponry sparked and fizzled against his chest but it didn’t stop him. Slow him down, sure, but not stopping him. A concussive blast from a villain slammed against his head with a WHOOMP that sucked all the air around it like a vacuum, and that only made Invincible grunt. A split second later, he just punched the air, a shockwave from his fist sending the villain flying like a fly meeting the hand of God.

Brick couldn’t help the smile on his face, the same one he wore when Butch listened. He’s learning.

It took all of five minutes to do the job.

Three hundred seconds of combat and chaos and by then, the remaining Vicious Circle members around the White House were down to barely ten percent of what they were when the four of them (and Pinky) had shown up.

It took only a few seconds more for them to realize how absolutely cooked they were and with their robot support down to almost nothing and their tanks literally smoldering, the rest of the armored thugs and villains didn’t waste another minute before they took off running, flying and hovercrafting away. 

Brick just shook his head. Morons.

As if they weren’t dealing with at least four people with super-speed.

“They’re retreating!” Mark blurred up to them, coming to a stop with a skid that tore up even more White House greenery. “We… we did it, right?”

Before anymore self-congratulation could take place, their comms crackled as the Director of the GDA cut in; voice as cold as ever. “You secured one objective, Invincible. Don't pop the champagne just yet. Eve, stay with SuperPatriot and the twins. Secure the capital. The rest of you, get to Chicago. Now.”

“Chicago?” Brick glanced up as Mark dragged a hand across his goggles, blood and dirt and soot only smearing more over his face. “Why? What’s in Chicago?”

“The Vicious Idiots already secured the entire city and it’s their base of operations,” Cecil said, his voice flat. “Savage Dragon is pinned down and the rest of the Special Operations Squad just don’t have it in them to pull off a win. I want you four to rip the snake’s goddamn head off.”

Brick narrowed his eyes. “Casualty allowance?”

“Anything under thirty-four percent and I swear you Boys won’t have to deal with another second of late-night TV.”

“Uhhh…” Butch scratched his head. “What’s that mean?”

“It means, Butch...” Cecil bit back something that might have been a growl, “anything short of nuking Chicago and I’ll be a happy camper.”

That was all it took to make his brother grin, the green around him spiking up like his hair at the sound of that. “Chicago? Hell yeah!” Butch yelled, punching the air. “I hear their pizza sucks!”

Wa- Brick squinted again, this time for a different reason entirely. Why are you hyped about that?

“No, dude, it’s like... a casserole,” Boomer said, zipping up to hover next to him, his face scrunched up. “I wanna try it! Can we get pizza after we kill this Cyber-Snake guy? Can we, Brick? Can we?”

The look on Eve’s face was almost enough to make him smile as she blinked at Boomer’s big eyes and brutal words. Still, though, now wasn’t the time to be anything close to the nice big brother. 

“...If you shut up, maybe.”

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

CyberFace Tower scraped the clouds, black glass and steel dominating Chicago's skyline like a middle finger aimed at the sun. The air around it was thick with flying bodies, a swarm of capes and powered armor buzzing like hornets; laser fire and explosions lighting up the afternoon in strobe-flashes that hurt to look at.

"That's a lot of bad guys," Boomer's voice pitched high, excitement bleeding into awe.

"More for me to punch." Butch twitched, shoulders rolling as his tongue hung out the side of his mouth. “I’m gonna have some f-”

"No." Brick's eyes narrowed, brain processing the chaos below. “No fun.” 

The swarm looked disorganized, chaotic, but they weren't attacking the city, weren't razing buildings or killing civilians. Just... hovering. Defending. 

"This is different. D.C. was an army. This..." His jaw tightened as Brick sucked his teeth. "All of it’s just to distract anybody who sees it, too keep them occupied.  No, we don't fight them."

"We don't?" Mark slowed his approach, confusion thick in his voice. "But they're right there!"

Exactly. Brick snorted. Classic hero thinking.

"We go through them."

Brick didn’t wait for an answer, just accelerated. Red streak aimed straight at the building, air screaming past, and he heard the sonic booms behind him, the familiar thwump-thwump of his brothers scattering the sound barrier and so much glass without bothering to even control their speed. 

Mark yelled something, probably "Wait up!" but he was catching up anyway.

The Boys didn't bother with the swarm.

A tri-colored missile of raw and relentless force punched a hole straight through the middle of the Vicious Circle armada with thunder behind them; thugs and robots scattering as their attacks bounced off energy trails like rain off glass.

One second.

Pavement cracked under their combined weight as they landed in front of the tower, the impact rippling through concrete. The Boys stood in front of CyberFace Tower, the entrance clear. 

Too clear. No guards, no turrets, no force fields, nothing.

Just a single figure standing in the shadow of the massive doors.

Wha- Red eyes squinted after Brick blinked again, staring right at the doors as someone walked right out of the lobby and they shut behind him; a single scrawny kid in thick Harry Potter glasses, a red t-shirt and blue jeans. What the…

Butch scowled, stepping forward before Brick could say anything. "You lost, kid? Field trip's over."

Invincible landed hard a second later, still breathing harder than he should. "Wait... hold on.” He took in a quick breath, wiping a watery nose with the back of his gloved hand. Is he... he looks like a civilian?"

"Hey, dude!" Boomer's voice echoed across the empty plaza, way too loud as he cupped his hands around his mouth for no reason. "You gotta get out of here! It's super dangerous! There's like, a million bad guys in that building!"

The kid just smiled back, a cold look in it that looked a bit too eager and way too familiar.

Familiar for a very good reason. Wait. Red eyes widened just a little bit, something sparking in the back of Brick's brain. 

He knew that face.

He’d seen that face.

GDA files had extensive records on every major threat, potential or immediate, and this one was very much an immediate threat. Whiteside Elementary. 

The kid who—

"I'm Joey Finkleberry." The thirteen-year-old boy pushed his glasses up his nose, thumb jabbing at his own chest as he looked at all four of them like they were a waste of his time, like they were ants under a magnifying glass.

"And you're dead meat."