The world was a giant, spinning Tinderbox constantly burning, and Cecil Stedman felt like he was the only man holding the fire extinguisher.
To make things more burdensome, the ones who slept soundly because they thought the superhero in spandex was the only thing between them and extinction didn't understand the math. That was most people. They didn't know that for every high-flying hero with a penchant for extreme collateral damage, there were ten psychopaths trying to take over the world or crack it like a walnut.
Cecil stared at the satellite feed of a localized earthquake in Kansas City, focused around the National World War I Museum and Memorial.
Doc Seismic. Again. The man had the brilliance of Tesla and the emotional maturity of a toddler with a temper tantrum.
"Why, Seismic?" Cecil muttered to the empty air of his office, rubbing his forehead. "Just once, give me a normal Saturday."
But the "big" villains weren't his biggest headache. It was the heroes. The ones who looked at the Global Defense Agency—the very organization that paid for their medical bills and cleaned up their collateral damage—and saw "The Government." They treated him like a cartoon antagonist, a shadowy puppet master pulling strings, rather than the guy making sure the planet stayed intact.
Superheroes also had a tendency to disregard his words or ignore his orders, even when lives were at stake. He'd gotten used to handling those situations. But it still irked him whenever things became a shitshow just because they didn't listen to him.
Not even the Guardians of the Globe were an exception. They were the most effective and efficient superhero team on the planet, but they were prone to occasions of recklessness just like all the others.
His train of thought was derailed by the sound of the pneumatic doors sliding open. Donald Ferguson walked in, his face set in that specific shade of "grim" that usually meant a continent was now at risk.
"Sir, we've got a situation," Donald adjusted his glasses, "It's… strange."
Cecil sighed, pushing off from his desk. "You should know by now that strange is the only flavor this world serves, Donald. Hit me."
"I think you'll want to see this for yourself," Donald said, leading him toward the main Hub.
The GDA Hub was a hive of activity. A multitude of screens displayed events happening all over the world and his people were busy at their terminals coordinating operations. But a pocket of silence had formed around Terminal 4. Smith and Wesson, two of his best analysts, were staring at their monitors like they'd just seen a ghost.
"Director Stedman," Wesson greeted. "A few minutes ago, our Spider programs caught a series of highly specific keyword searches on the net. Some of them are incredibly… concerning."
"Show me."
As Wesson moved aside, Cecil leaned in as the searches lined up on the screen. The more he read, the deeper his frown became.
"Who is Cecil Stedman? How do I get in the GDA base under the Pentagon?"
"Director of the Global Defense Agency location"
"Donald Ferguson GDA contact number"
"Olga, wife of Red Rush, address Chicago"
"The White Room."
"Omni-Man real name Nolan Grayson."
"Grayson residence where in Chicago?"
"Does it really cost billions for each use of the teleporter?"
"Sleepy Traveler motel, Room 214. I'm waiting."
What. The. Fuck.
"The hell happened?" Cecil's eyes snapped towards Donald. "Security breach? Information leak?"
"Not as far as we could tell," Donald said, his voice as level as a funeral director's. "We've run a diagnostic on every server from here to the moon. Our encryption is holding. We really have no clue how this person acquired all this classified information."
Cecil stared back at the text on the screen, his eyes narrowing until they were little more than slits in his scarred face. It was the specificity that alarmed Cecil the most.
The GDA base location? That was buried under enough black-budget encryption it made the National Security Agency look like a middle-school computer club. But Nolan? Omni-Man's civilian identity was one of the most protected secrets on the planet.
If that information got out, the hero's civilian life was over, and the most powerful superhero on the planet would point fingers at the GDA. Who else could he really blame?
"And the last one?" Cecil asked, his voice a low, dangerous rasp. "The motel."
"The Sleepy Traveler," Smith said, nodding as his fingers flew across the keys.
A map of the Chicago city bloomed on the main monitor, zooming into a dilapidated structure that looked like it hadn't seen a renovation in years.
"It's a low-rent dump. The Wi-Fi is public, unencrypted, and probably older than the new super using it."
"New super?" Cecil caught the words instantly.
"They're related to this, sir. This is the report on a battle that happened along the Chicago docks Robot just filed," Donald interjected, handing Cecil a tablet.
"We flagged the new player an hour ago at the start of their fight. A 'White Mask,' according to Robot's report. Apparently, this White Mask dismantled the child trafficking operations of Machine Head, a local kingpin, overnight. The children were being used for something called 'Project Genesis,' but that's all we know about it."
Shit. Another mad scientist project? Didn't the world have enough of those already?
"For the time being, Robot and this White Mask are currently searching for the Project's main facility," Donald continued. "More importantly, the location on the screen matches the one White Mask informed them about. The kids he saved should be with him, as well as a walking cat humanoid."
Cecil skimmed the report, his thumb scrolling and landing on Robot's analytical assessment of the new super.
'Subject displays advanced portal technology, electricity manipulation, and earth manipulation. He likely possesses a significant degree of superhuman physical prowess as well. This assessment is based on the extensive collateral damage caused by the subject's battle with the supervillains Magnattack and Kursk, as well as the lack of significant damage received by the subject.'
He won against those two by himself? Cecil reassessed White Mask's threat level. Kursk and Magnattack weren't exactly lightweight supervillains. This White Mask must be pretty strong.
However, it was the next line that caught his immediate attention.
'Subject Motivations and Character Assessment: Primarily altruistic with a high degree of volatility and the willingness to kill those he judges as guilty of severe crimes. If we had not arrived on the scene, the subject would have likely killed at least two of the defeated supervillains.'
"Jesus Christ. Volatile and the willingness to kill. My favorite combination," Cecil muttered. He looked back at the search query on the monitor, spotting the last sentence.
'I'm waiting.'
The balls it took to do this was almost refreshing. Usually, when people found out about the GDA, they spent the rest of their lives trying to hide in holes the GDA hadn't dug yet. This guy was sitting in a one-star motel room, leaving the digital light on and inviting the monster under the bed for a chat.
"He's not a rookie, that's for sure," Cecil said, more to himself than Donald. "A rookie wouldn't know about the White Room or the name of a Guardian's wife. What do you all think?"
"Could be a trap, sir," Wesson warned.
"If it's a trap, it's a sloppy one," Cecil countered, straightening his suit jacket. "And I've never been one to turn down a party. Let's see what this guy wants. Prep the teleporter."
"Yes, sir."
"Sir, I've got a tactical team ready to breach in three minutes," Donald said, already checking his watch. "We can have the entire block locked down by the time you arrive."
"No," Cecil snapped. "You send in a team, and a guy who knows this much starts talking and could activate some kind of failsafe. Or he starts killing. Despite what Robot said in his report, we have no idea who this guy really is. Besides, if he knows about the White Room, he probably knows how we move. He's waiting for me, Donald. Let's not keep the gentleman waiting."
Cecil didn't wait for a reply. His mind was already spinning through a dozen different ways this could go.
He felt the familiar, faint tingle of the discreet implant behind his ear, a tiny sliver of tech that sat right against his skull, wired directly into his neural impulses. A perk of being the GDA's director. Most people thought he needed a voice command or a remote. They were wrong.
Unlike the cinematic trope of seamless, glowing travel, this was a brutal, jarring fragmentation. It felt like his entire being had been dismantled into a thousand pieces and haphazardly shoved back together.
The sensation vanished as quickly as it arrived, replaced by the suffocating smell of stale cigarettes, cheap polyester, and something oddly out of place. The faint, crisp scent of cedar.
Cecil Stedman stood in the middle of a cramped, dimly lit motel room. He let the tension in his shoulders drop just a fraction, adopting a "friendly" mask. He scanned the room in a heartbeat. It was a dump, sure, but his eyes snagged on the bathroom door.
It was slightly ajar, and the light spilling from the crack didn't match the dingy yellow of the motel. It was too clean, too bright. The air wafting from it indicated it was the source of the cedar scent.
"Cecil," a steady voice greeted, urging Cecil to turn towards the imposing figure seated on the bed. "Glad to finally meet you."
-x-
A/N: Finished watching the first three episodes of Invincible S4. We're in for a wild ride, folks.
Also noticed some changes like the conversation Mark and Eve's dad had. In the comics, what her dad said was a lot more… sexist, to say the least. But I like the shift they made. It fits the show's version of the story well.
I also heard about them changing Tech Jacket into a woman. Seems she'll be added to the list of male comic characters that have been genderbent for some reason. If you don't know who the others are, it's Shrinking Ray and Green Ghost.
The only guess I have is that they saw this specific part in the comics. In it, Monster Girl was wondering about how there weren't that many women in the "superhero industry". But that's just a guess of mine. I really don't know what led to their creative decisions, so take my words with a grain of salt.
As for me, I'll keep Green Ghost and Tech Jacket as they are in the comics. Shrinking Rae will remain as she is because I like what they did with her character.