Rin's POV
I spotted a man approaching fast. He grew from a dot on the horizon to a massive Greco-Roman statue with proportions that would make world-class bodybuilders blush. His muscles had muscles, and he wore a ridiculously dense spandex suit and a cape. His salt-and-pepper hair and immaculately trimmed mustache lent him an air of authority and experience.
I immediately knew who he was and understood why we wouldn't be getting along. Tapping on my gauntlet, I deployed one of the newer enchantments that Uriel developed for us—a runic barrier. Plates of rune-covered arcanite ejected from my suit and surrounded the wrecked ship, forming a grid pattern for a cube. Telekinetic, gravitic, and density energy currents pulsed from each metal plate, forming a semi-opaque energy shield.
Rising into the air, I spread my hands wide and commanded my helmet to recede, displaying my face. I still looked fairly human after all of the evolutions I've undergone. I'd lost all of the baby fat around my cheeks, and Kitty told me I looked like a knockout now with my stormy grey eyes and short black hair.
It did look pretty unusual with my ethnicity, though.
"I come in peace," I announced, rather loudly. A few miles behind the man was an array of tiny camera drones that must've been deployed from somewhere closer. The way Dante told it, Omni-Man was capable of faster-than-light travel.
I technically was as well, but not through pure acceleration. I was still orders of magnitude below that. In fact, all of my conventional stats put me well below that—at least until I activated my cloak and started absorbing energy.
My declaration stopped Omni-Man in his...steps?
"You speak English. And you're not using a translator. What are you?" he demanded.
"Human," I said with a shrug.
"Humans don't have the kind of technology you're wearing," he said. "And they don't fall out of wormholes either. I'll ask you one last time: who are you, and why are you here?"
I could see him getting ready to charge. The tensing of his muscles, the slight quiver in his mustache. The determination in his blue eyes.
Jeez. I'll have to choose my next words carefully or risk him going off. Something told me he'd go off anyway. He's here to conquer Earth.
We're extraterrestrials, and he's determined to keep competition off his turf by whatever means necessary. He could always tell the rest of the world we were dangerous aliens. Wasn't like there were any witnesses to say otherwise—well, except for the cameras.
"My name is Rin," I said, "and my friends and I had to flee our home after it was destroyed by a battle between two Outer Gods. My master is a dimensional traveler, and he told us that we might be safe in this reality. Our arrival was more turbulent than we anticipated."
Omni-man blinked slowly.
"Outer Gods. Other dimensions," he repeated. "That sounds like the plot to a bad science fiction novel."
"And you would be the expert, would you?" I asked and raised a brow. My telepathy bio-enchantment runes courtesy of Dante told me I was on the money. He was actually a writer by trade. Fascinating.
"I know a liar when I hear one," Omni-Man said, his mind flashing with violence and irritation. He was resigned to kill me, and everybody in the ship behind me. His only regret would be letting Cecil access whatever scraps of my technology he wasn't able to rip apart.
"Yet that's not up to you to determine, is it?" I said, looking straight at the camera drones, "Unless my master is wrong and Earth has suddenly become a dictatorship since the last time he visited."
Omni-Man followed my line of sight and spotted the drones too. He wasn't pleased to discover he was being watched.
There was a flash of white near the ship, and a man appeared. He was dressed in an inexpensive suit—the type government bureaucrats wear—and he had balding white hair and a nasty scar that ran down from his mouth to his jaw.
"No," the man said, "whoever this your strange master is didn't have it wrong. We need to talk, you and I."
I teleported down, startling both him and Omni-Man, maintaining my distance from the agent so as not to spook him any further.
"I take it you're in charge of him? I'd introduced myself, but you already know my name," I said.
"No, Omni-Man does what he wants, but he listens to me on most days," the man said.
"Cecil," Omni-Man called as he touched down between us. "Let me handle this. Extraterrestrials are my area of expertise, and as far as the Viltrumites are concerned, the multiversal theory is just that. A theory. He's clearly lying."
"Then how else do you explain what our scanners picked up?" Cecil asked. "Up until 20 years ago, we didn't think aliens were real. We didn't know about the first superhuman until World War II. My point is, there's a lot you don't know, and seeing as he can teleport, and he stopped a spaceship the size of a cruise liner from crashing into the surface of the planet with a wave of his hand, I think we ought to exhaust our diplomatic options before we consider anything else, don't you?"
Omni-Man had a hell of a poker face. I didn't need Telepathy to know he was furious. The big man folded his arms. "I think this is clearly a mistake. But I'm not leaving you alone with him either. Make your case, alien. Try anything, and I'll rip your ship apart."
"Message received," I said, summoning a chair and sitting in it casually. Cecil raised a brow at that. He thought I was testing him. He wasn't wrong.
"I'm sorry, you want one too?" I asked, and he blinked.
"Why not."
He settled down in the chair comfortably. It was made of Arcanite, much like everything else on our ship. I caught Cecil staring at it, the thing with a barely veiled interest.
"So," I said. "Where would you like me to start?"
"How about by answering Omni-Man's question?" Cecil said. "He can be a bit of a war hawk when it comes to unknowns, but that's because we already have our own share of problems down here. We don't need a threat from space."
"I assure you, we're not here to cause trouble," I said. "But I don't suppose you'll take my word for it. Maybe I will start at the beginning.
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