Inconceivable Ch. 41 (Invincible AU) (Patreon)

(Every character depicted in the story below is a consenting legal adult over the age of 18)

A/N: Like watching a train crash in slow motion.

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Alright, Allen could admit it… this was a low point for him. A real low point. He’d fucked up… big time. Being one of the Coalition of Planets’ top evaluation officers… that was like his whole thing. Hell, it was why he’d been tasked by Thaedus to investigate the Viltrumite Disappearance in the first place!

After being thoroughly taken to task for disobeying his orders regarding that, Allen was honestly looking forward to trying to… well, get back to basics so to speak.

Sure, he’d risked a hell of a lot by trying to go to Viltrum himself and Thaedus had been incredibly unhappy with him, but at least he knew how to do this, right? It wasn’t like he’d been fired or anything… he was just being sent back to do the job he’d already previously been doing.

Only now here he was, finding out that he’d been a failure and a screw up a lot longer than just the most recent incident concerning the Viltrumites. He’d literally been going to what he thought was Urath for over a decade now, once every few years, all to assess whether they were ready to defend themselves from the Viltrumite Threat.

Omni-Man, as Allen had just learned was his name, had pretty much met him in low orbit each and every time and they’d fought for a bit before he’d let himself be chased away.

… Until now. This last fight, Allen had legitimately feared for his life for a moment. Omni-Man had become a lot stronger and pretty much thrashed him like… well, like he was a child. Allen hadn’t been beaten this badly since his Unopan creators sent him off to try and fight Viltrumites for the first time.

Though admittedly that was a lot worse than this… he’d been brought within an inch of death back then. This was… well, thankfully Omni-Man had respected the rules of timeout, Allen supposed. And shit, he hadn’t even known the rules!

Because the planet was actually called Earth and not Urath! Allen had been traveling to the wrong fucking world for over a decade! No wonder Omni-Man had pumped up his training to kick Allen’s ass, seeing as he didn’t even know Allen’s intentions until now.

Ugh. It was just… it was all so embarrassing. Allen was embarrassed. Part of him didn’t even want to go back to the Coalition at this point. How could he possibly look General Telia in the eye after this? Not to mention Thaedus! They already thought the worst of him, that he was an insubordinate, reckless idiot who couldn’t be relied upon. And now look… he was going to have to go and tell them what had happened and prove them right!

Part of him wanted to just go crawl under a rock and never go back. The Viltrumites were gone, after all. Their entire star system had somehow been destroyed. So really, it wasn’t like the Coalition needed him anymore…

… No, Allen knows better. He’s not that irresponsible, and besides… it was like Thaedus had said. The Viltrumites hadn’t killed themselves. They hadn’t destroyed their own planet and star! Something or someone had destroyed them, completely and utterly. And until they knew what had happened, the Coalition needed all of the help they could get.

Allen grumbles to himself as he continues to fly away from Earth and its Moon, where he’d been so thoroughly trounced. If only he could find a way to soften the blow regarding his latest fuck up. If only… hang on a second.

Pausing, Allen looks down… where the star system’s fourth planet from its sun hangs below him. Now, according to his files, this planet was supposed to be named ‘Fars’… but that probably wasn’t accurate, all things considered. Here’s the thing though… Allen had been to this fake ‘Fars’ once before, mostly because he’d had a free moment and seeing new alien planets was one of the true joys of being an evaluation officer.

He’d immediately ran into the planet’s sequid problem however, and quickly left. Not that a sequid could actually hurt or infect him, he was too strong for that, but Allen simply didn’t want to deal with the creatures. They were considered a Stage Four Galactic Parasite for a reason, after all. In fact, their protocols for dealing with such creatures was one of the few things the Coalition and the Viltrumite Empire had in common. Extermination.

The thing was… Allen wasn’t assigned to evaluate ‘Fars’. He was assigned to evaluate Urath. And the Coalition was already stretched too thin fighting the Viltrumite Empire anyways, so they couldn’t justify the expenditure necessary to cleanse ‘Fars’ of its sequid infestation.

… But things had changed, hadn’t they? Technically, Allen wasn’t assigned to evaluate Earth either. And this wasn’t the real ‘Fars’. So in reality… there was nothing stopping him from hopping down to the planet and offering the Coalition’s services, now was there?

If he could get this little red planet to join the Coalition in exchange for a purging mission, then not only would the Coalition of Planets get a new member, they would also be able to be seen doing something rather than just wringing their hands over the disappearing Viltrumites and whatever had killed them all!

It was the perfect plan and with a broad grin on his face, Allen flies down to the surface of the red planet, eager to make friends. The place is as dusty and rocky as ever of course, but Allen doesn’t have to wait long before he comes across signs of life, a ‘hidden’ tunnel that leads into a subterranean system.

Almost immediately, he finds himself held at energy spearpoint by some of the natives and lifts his two-fingered hands into the air in the universal gesture of surrender.

“Whoa! Hey, not here to fight! Uh… heh, how about you take me to your leader so we can chat, yeah?”

The natives exchange looks at that before eventually circling around him to lead him deeper into their city. Allen tries to remain as unthreatening and lacking in menace as possible as this happens, smiling brightly and looking around. To his mild surprise, he doesn’t see any sequids hanging around… perhaps they’re all quarantined elsewhere and the natives keep them out of their cities, or something?

It would make sense, given the last time he was here what little he’d seen of these ‘Fartians’ had made it clear they were also immune to the sequids, hence why they remained a mere pest problem rather than scouring the entire planet.

“So… you guys got a name for your world? I’m new around here. Obviously.”

There’s a pause at that, but eventually one of the ‘Fartian’ soldiers speaks up.

“You are on Mars, alien.”

Hah! Mars and Fars! What a fucking coincidence. Well, at least he knows they’re Martians now, not Fartians. Would have been embarrassing to call them the wrong thing.

Regardless, Allen soon finds himself led into the depths of an underground palace, and finally… a throne room. At one end of the room, sat upon the throne that gives the room its name, is what can only be their leader, a Martian in such grandiose clothing that nothing else makes sense.

He looks… tired by Allen’s estimation. Meanwhile, another Martian at his side snarls angrily, glaring at Allen like he’s personally insulted his entire lineage or something.

“You stand before the Emperor of Mars, alien! Speak and explain your invasion of our world!”

Blinking, Allen immediately raises his hands again.

“Whoa, whoa… not an invasion, promise! Not here to invade or conquer anyone… that’s pretty much the exact opposite of what I do, you see. I’m an evaluation officer with the Coalition of Planets. I’m one of the good guys.”

There’s a pause at that as everyone exchanges looks. Finally, Allen looks around at all of the confused faces and chuckles.

“Ah… you’ve never heard of the Coalition of Planets, have you?”

This place really was out in the middle of nowhere as far as galactic civilized space was concerned, wasn’t it? The tired Martian Emperor doesn’t say anything, just staring at Allen in a beleaguered fashion, but his spokesperson scoffs.

“Of course we’ve heard of the Coalition of Planets. What business do you have on Mars, ‘evaluation officer’?”

The way he sneers Allen’s title would have normally pissed Allen off if not for two things. One, it was incredibly obvious that they definitely hadn’t heard of the Coalition and were just covering up for their own ignorance. Two, it was also incredibly obvious that they’d been having a rough go of it recently.

It’s not just the tired-looking Martian Emperor, after all. It’s also… everything else. The guards who escorted him here had been rather jumpy, but Allen had just chalked that up to him being a strange alien they’d never seen before. However, everyone else in the throne room is equally nervous for some reason.

Also… the holes in the walls. They’re not immediately obvious because they’ve mostly received patch jobs, but Allen has a big round singular eye and pretty damn good vision. As a result, he can see the fact that something had recently done significant damage to the throne room, putting half a dozen holes in each wall from what he could see.

Just because the repairs were completed did not mean the Martians as a people had fully recovered from whatever they’d recently experienced. Hm… maybe it was the sequids somehow?

“Right, so… I’ve been to your planet once before. Few years back. Was really just sight-seeing. No harm, no foul.”

Judging by the angry scowl, the Martian standing next to the Emperor doesn’t agree with him. Allen just laughs sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head with his hand.

“Anyways… I noticed back then that you guys had a bit of a sequid problem.”

Everyone in the throne room goes absolutely still, including the Martian Emperor and his spokesperson. None of them move a muscle or so much as blink. Allen furrows his brow in concern at them all before hesitantly continuing on.

“… Sooo, as a representative of the Coalition of Planets, since I was in the area again… I figured I could offer our help to you guys. Obviously I can’t deal with every sequid by myself, but the Coalition has cleanup crews that are trained to handle infestations like the one you guys have been dealing with. They’ve cleansed sequid parasites from dozens upon dozens of planets at this point, and they can cleanse yours too!”

Crossing his arms over his broad chest, Allen grins.

“I figured you guys might like the opportunity to join up with the Coalition of Planets and get a free cleaning of your world in the process. And hey, if you want, you can even ask for an evaluation officer such as myself is free to stop by your planet and test your defenses every once in a while. You know, so you guys don’t get invaded and conquered by monstrous galactic tyrants or something like that!”

Though… Allen was going to have to change up his spiel if the Viltrumites were really gone, wasn’t he? No more Viltrumite Empire, no more monstrous galactic tyrants… or at least, the biggest source of tyranny and intergalactic conquest was gone now it would seem.

“… That won’t be necessary.”

Blinking, Allen is pulled out of his thoughts by the response from the Emperor’s spokesperson. No longer quite so angry, the Martian looks subdued… even hunted. Before Allen can respond, he continues on in a hurried, almost fearful tone.

“The sequids have already been dealt with. They were cleared out by… by an interloper.”

Wait what? An interloper? As in… one single person?

“Uh… you sure you guys weren’t scammed or anything? Because that sounds like you might have been scammed. It’s nothing to be ashamed of, it happens more than you think. Someone comes around calling themselves an exterminator and says they can deal with your infestation for you, but they only really handle the surface problems. I’m sure you guys paid a pretty hefty amount but-!”

“No.”

Allen immediately stops talking… because the Emperor has finally found his voice and as silence falls over the throne room, he imagines he’ll probably get himself in a lot of trouble if he’s rude to their ruler.

“It was one being. We have scanned the planet thoroughly. He killed millions of sequids and did not leave a single one alive.”

Allen’s eye bulges out of his skull.

“But that’s crazy! Who the hell was this guy?!”

The Emperor leans back in his throne, looking downright exhausted.

“The male said we had an infestation and that he would deal with it himself. He did so in a single afternoon. The female… the female called them Viltrumites. They came with the humans from Earth, the planet neighboring ours.”

… What?

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A/N: Womp womp.

Throw me a comment if you can but please leave a Like if you don’t want to, it’s the main metric I use to track whether a story is doing well or not!

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Google Doc Link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1MGnsIv1ti2br-SMvj0aOjrELY9o2pyKcIQW6NP12yyA/edit?tab=t.0