Project ROWDY 2-25A (Patreon)

“...so we’re fighting Martians again?”The screen took up half the north wall off Guardians HQ, a still image staring back at every single one of them. It sat there in the black of space, in the middle of it all — a giant shape with too many angles and lights — its position updated every second with a new picture.“Yep.”Every second, it inched closer like a news chyron; a position marker in the form of a segmented white arrow below the screen connecting a red dot on one end to a little blue dot in the other corner. Brick’s eyes tracked the hull segments on the refreshed image, a couple dozen visible on the profile view alone and undoubtedly more on the far side. From the layered honeycomb pattern he could make out, the thing was without a doubt a ship made for war; the shielding lattice making that more than clear. “And this is the Martian ship, right?” Butch’s rasp sounded out one more time over the room’s dead air. “...Right?” The green Rowdyruff floated in front of the screen, arms crossed over the chest of his long-sleeve bodysuit. “Right?”Brick didn’t even bother to look up, attention focused forward on the same screen. What else would it be?“That’s the one.” Cecil’s attention was also on the display, hands clasped behind the back of his suit as he stood barely a few feet from the console itself.

Nobody else was doing or saying much, which wasn’t new for the Guardians HQ. As big as it was, the base didn’t really have the population to keep the place from feeling like a mausoleum most of the time  — empty and echoing. 

It never had, not even with the old set of Guardians.Even with more people on the team now, it was only the younger cohort that kept the place even the slightest bit alive, especially considering they lived here full-time. If it wasn’t Bulletproof using the main console to watch basketball, or Rex eating sugary cereal out of a mixing bowl at four in the afternoon, or somebody’s sparring drills leaking through the space, you would think no one was ever here.Right now, though, that couldn’t really be said.The Guardians — the majority of them, at least — stood around the main hall; the Immortal with his hands behind his back, Bulletproof floating off to the side, Black Samson with one shoulder leaning up against a rail, Shrinking Rae polishing her glasses, and Dupli-Kate just down to a single body with her arms folded.

“So… blow it up? Problem solved.” Another rasp came from Butch, voice landing flat into recycled air that smelled faintly of electronics and whatever antiseptic cleaner the GDA used on the floors. “Duh.”“Unfortunately, we don’t possess the weapons for that.” The kid answering stood not too far from Cecil in front of the console, a brown-haired ‘girl’ on his other side. Appearing no older than the three brothers, the mini-Rex Splode had hair closer to orange than Brick’s blood-red, and skin several shades more tan than any of the three. “Intergalactic warfare…”Rudolph Conners shook his head, folding arms that looked like they barely knew what the concept of ‘muscle’ even was. Only a few months in his newly-cloned meat suit and Brick was sure he’d yet to even peek inside a gym. “Intergalactic warfare was never high on the GDA’s list of priorities.”“Get on it then?” Butch glanced down, attention sliding from the old pale man to the young tan boy as he let loose a scoff. “You’re the smart robot guy and you’re like the president of superheroes. Build some big honkin’ space guns, already.”Cecil’s shoulders came up, Brick spotting a half-inch of movement before they dropped back down. The old man nodded at nothing, a muttler slipping out of him. “...out of the mouth of babes.”

“He’s got a point.” Monster Girl clicked her tongue from her place beside Rudy. “Sounds like he’s been watching too much Stargate but he’s got a point.”

"Yeah, I’m with Monster Girl and the green goblin on this one." Bulletproof leaned forward, the black man in the brightest orange possible. "Nobody’s got a space-laser tucked back in a closet? C’mon, man."

“Brick. Brick. Briiiiiick…”“What?” Brick didn’t bother ungritting his teeth as Boomer leaned in sideways, his brother dipping his head until his mouth was bare inches from Brick’s ear. “What do you want?”“Uh, he’s a Martian, right?” Once again, Boomer refused to understand the concept of a whisper, voice loud enough that his not-so-subtle thumb toward the nervous-looking Shapesmith didn’t go unnoticed. “Like not — not like the brainy-jar ack-ack ones from Chicago?”Brick gave a tight nod, attention drawn to the currently human-shaped alien trying to go unnoticed behind Black Samson. Shapesmith was apparently a Martian from what Cecil had shared with them on their way here, said Martian having pulled a massive case of grand theft identity on an astronaut who went to Mars. “Oh good.” Boomer leaned back, no longer on his heels. “I was figuring he was just like Plastic Man but, you know… with the autism or something.”Brick bit down on the inside of his cheek, lips and eye twitching as he fought to keep his face as straight as possible.“Boomer…” His brother’s words didn’t go unheard, obviously; Invincible sighing with a hand over his face. “You can’t say that.”“What? Why not?” A blonde head of hair swiveled between Brick and Mark, moving fast enough to blur. “He’s an alien. They can’t have autism.”“Mmm.” Monster Girl snorted. “I don’t know about that.”“Shapesmith…” Cecil finally turned away from the console, the old man’s dead eyes settling on the alien sweating enough that he looked halfway to melting. “Go ahead and give ‘em all the rundown. From the top.”“Yes! Okay. Great, Master Cecil, sir!” Shapesmith clapped his hands once. “Don’t call me that.”“Understood, Lord Cecil, sir!” Another clap of the hands, this time with a hurried nod, before Shapesmith seemed to remember what this was all about and lowered both of them. “Right, yes! The… the Sequids…”“The what?”Shapesmith’s attention snapped up to Black Samson, Brick looking over at the man in his new black-and-gold sleeveless costume. Gold pupilless eyes aimed at the fugitive Martian, the veteran Guardian still bearing the slight change to his looks and powers since the end of the Omnipotus fight.“Th-the Sequids, they are… well, they are small. Not native to Mars, which is where I am from, which you know.” Nervous eyes slid over to Cecil, the scarred man saying nothing. “Very small little squishy parasitic things, they are not intelligent. Not even a little. They are… ah, well, we use them for labor. Mostly because they are very strong for their size and don’t require much at all. And numerous too, very numerous.”“Slaves.” The Immortal finally spoke, eyes narrowed on Shapesmith. “You describe slaves.“Well, no.” Shapesmith raised two fingers, twiddling them together in front of his chest. “They are… like, the opposite of slaves. Remember how I said not native to Mars? That’s because a long long loooong time ago, the Sequid ship crashed on Mars and with all the hosts they had aboard… uh, dead?” Shapesmith blurted out a nervous laugh with the word, nobody else laughing with him. Oddly enough, that only made him laugh a bit more. “Normally, Sequids attach themselves to bodies to control them. Weeeeelllll, they couldn’t attach to us.”“And why not?” Immortal’s answer came just as quickly, the man’s eyes still slits from his mention of ‘slaves’.“Because Martian bodies shapeshift, right?” All eyes turned to Invincible, the teenager floating not too far from Butch. “That’s why.”“Exactly! Thank you, Invincible!” Shapesmith aimed a finger at the hero. “Because of Martian cells changing constantly, they cannot get a… get a grip in the way they need to… grip. To our bodies or our minds. So for thousands of years, everything was fine. Completely fine.”Brick joined the Immortal, his eyes slitting too. “Until you showed up.”That finger, and the hand attached to it, flopped down to the Martian’s side. “...I suppose it could be seen like that.”“A ship full of demon jellyfish with super strength.” Black Samson rumbled out a sigh. “Just our luck.”“I’m assuming…” Rudy stepped forward as Shapesmith opened his mouth again, the adolescent adult frowning at the alien. “That humans do not possess that biological safeguard?”Shapesmith paused for a second, before shaking his head. “Mmm-mm. Once they get one, all the rest can keep going after you.”Rudy’s mouth fell open at that, clear surprise on his face as Brick caught what the Martian just said. “Are you implying that these Sequids are a swarm intelligence?”“No, I am not implying that.” Rudy and Brick almost sighed in unison — almost, but Shapesmith wasn’t kind enough to give them at least that much relief. “I am stating that they are a swarm intelligence.”A single red eye twitched. …I’m gonna kill this guy.“So wait…” Butch frowned at them, his head tilted to the side. "They're stupid till they eat somebody smart?"“Attach themselves to somebody smart.” Shapesmith’s twiddling pointer fingers looped together, both of them stretching and snapping together like fleshy rubber bands. “They don’t eat the brain. Attach.”

His brother grunted. "Same diff."No… Brick stared at the nervously laughing Shapesmith, every set of eyes in the Guardian HQ pointed firmly at him. No, it’s definitely not the same diff.

Black Samson (Markus Grimshaw)

Electricity-absorbing Enhancile