[Cecil POV - GDA Headquarters]
"Donald, what the hell were you thinking?"
I didn't raise my voice because I'd learned decades ago that the quiet fury was infinitely more effective than screaming, but Donald Ferguson still flinched like I'd slapped him across his sleep-deprived face.
"Sir, I—"
"You sat in that studio," I continued, my voice deadly calm. "Next to Neelesh Kumar. A man who took over Black Rock ten days ago and immediately evacuated the eastern seaboard's nuclear grid. You sat there while he quit on live television. You sat there while he proved we framed an innocent man. And at no point did your intelligence team flag him as a Kaisen operative?"
Donald's hands clenched at his sides. "Kumar's background was thoroughly vetted when he took over Black Rock, sir. It was a rapid corporate ascension, but the paperwork was immaculate. There were zero traced communications between him and John Kaisen prior to the invasion. He operated entirely in the blind until he stepped onto that stage."
"That's exactly the problem," Cecil muttered, rubbing his temples. "We spent the last month playing four-dimensional chess with Omni-Man, and we let a teenager outflank us in the press. We look completely incompetent, and John looks like the second coming of Christ."
I rubbed my temples, feeling the familiar pressure of a migraine building behind my eyes.
"Do you have any idea how many world leaders have been calling my direct line in the past six hours? How many governments are demanding we put them in contact with Kaisen now that he's publicly displayed his powers? He created Greta Thunberg's utopia, not to mention the scientists and architects flooding from all over the world to study the new city and those magical fruits of his."
Donald's jaw tightened. "Seventy-three, sir. I've been fielding the overflow."
"Seventy-three," I repeated, reaching into my desk drawer for the industrial-strength painkillers I kept specifically for days like this. "Seventy-three world leaders who now know that the GDA lied to them, that Omni-Man was a traitor, and that the man we labeled a terrorist is apparently the only person on the planet who can rebuild entire cities from rubble."
I swallowed a handful of pills dry and felt them scrape down my throat.
"Please tell me the other plans are on track. Please tell me we have something to show for this cracked catastrophe of a week."
Donald pulled out a tablet and started scrolling through reports with the urgency of a man running on coffee and spite.
"We've confirmed that Debbie Grayson is in full control of Nolan's actions. We tested it by having him lie to Thula, convincing her that she needs to stay near her 'mate' and avoid strenuous activity or being near any device that could produce radio waves until the baby is born. Though…"
"What now?" I asked, already holding my breath.
"She attacked him when they first met, not recognising him since Kaisen slapped his moustache off. Something about abandoning Viltrumite Honour."
I coughed, trying to mask my laughter, but continued with the questioning
"And she believed him?"
"Completely. It's her first pregnancy, and she's being very careful and is currently under house arrest with Brit in a GDA safe house, thinks she's resting for the good of her child, and Nolan delivered the lie with the angle of her child being half-human to convince her.."
I nodded slowly, filing that information away for future use. "What else?"
"Sinclair has Vidor's remains secured in the sub-levels. He's already stripping the cellular structure to graft onto a Viltrumite-grade ReAnimen prototype. He requested clearance to test it against live targets," Donald reported, his expression darkening. "And our best scientists are analyzing the frequency vulnerability Kaisen shared with Robot during the battle to see if we can find other such weaknesses."
"Make sure Sinclair stays on a tight leash. I don't want him getting creative with alien biology, and how is progress on that weakness front?"
"Slow but steady. The frequency has to be incredibly precise to affect their inner ear without causing collateral damage to human bystanders, but we're working on it."
Donald swiped to the next report, his expression darkening.
"Atlantis is in complete disarray after the warning attacks from the submarines. Queen Aquaria is demanding reparations and threatening to withdraw from all surface treaties."
"Of course she is," I muttered. "Remind her again that hoarding resources during a global crisis has its repercussions."
Donald continues his notetaking. .
"What about Conquest?"
"No signs of him anywhere. We've scanned every inch of the planet, sent out satellite sweeps, and contacted every intelligence agency on Earth. Either he's dead, or he's hiding somewhere we can't detect."
"Or he left Earth entirely after Kaisen nearly killed him," I said quietly. "What's the status on the Guardians?"
Donald's fingers tightened on the tablet.
"Rex Splode is alive but suffering from severe PTSD. The psychological evaluation came back recommending immediate retirement from any heroic activity and long-term therapy. He's not fit for active duty and might never be again."
I closed my eyes and added Rex to the growing list of casualties this week had produced.
"And the Immortal?"
"That's the strange part, sir. He flew out of one of Nakime's tatami gates completely whole, which shouldn't be possible because we had half of his body in cold storage. According to the medical team."
"Which means Kaisen has resurrection capabilities we didn't know about."
"Or we have a clone on our hands, sir."
I stood up and walked to the window overlooking the command center below, watching analysts scramble to process the mountain of data still pouring in from the invasion.
"There's more to the shitshow, isn't there?"
"Kumar released information about rejuvenation pills that can reverse ageing by exactly one year per pill. World leaders and oligarchs are practically throwing their national budgets at him just to secure a single dose."
"And the public?"
"They are lapping it up," Donald confirmed. "Civilian populations are protesting outside capitols across Europe and Asia, demanding their governments sign defense and reconstruction contracts with Chaos Incorporated. The public pressure is immense. We are losing our monopoly on global security."
"Of course it is," I said, my voice flat.
I didn't spend decades at the head of the GDA without developing a healthy amount of paranoia.
Kaisen had the ultimate upper hand. He had the public, he had the money, and he had the power.
But power always had a source.
"The tickets," I muttered.
Donald blinked. "Sir, even if Kaisen was bluffing when he baited Nolan with that red ticket, the fact remains that he needs those tickets to acquire new powers. He made sure to take the metallic ticket that materialized in Nolan's hand after he was cursed, and our analysts believe we might be able to reverse-engineer the mechanism or at least study it if we could get a hand on it."
I turned away from the window, a slow smile spreading across my face for the first time all day.
"Getting that ticket is impossible. Might as well ask Immortal to beat Nolan alone."
"Correct, Sir, though we are running the footage of him tearing tickets to gain powers, just in case."
"Good." I sat back down at my desk and pulled up the next crisis report. "Now get back to work. We've got seventy-three world leaders to placate and a public relations nightmare to contain before this situation gets any worse."
Donald nodded and turned to leave, but I stopped him at the door.
"And Donald? Next time you're invited to a live television interview about a classified operation, run it by me first."
"Yes, sir."
The door closed behind him, and I was alone with my monitors, my migraine, and the growing certainty that John Kaisen had just shifted the entire balance of global power without firing a single shot.
[Elsewhere on the Internet]
♦ Topic: Megathread: The Invasion (The Hero, The Fascist & The Redemption)
In: Boards ► Meta Incidents ► Breaking & Wild
►ModeratorMachete (Original Poster) (Moderator) (Verified Sanity) (Tired)
Posted On April 30th 2021:
Here is the megathread for general discussion of the three-day period now being called "The Invasion."
[Here] are resources for anyone displaced by structural damage across multiple cities.
[Here] is the missing persons board. If you got separated during the pocket-dimension evacuations, check here.
[Here] is Chaos Incorporated's official statement.
Alright, people. The servers are finally stable enough to handle the traffic.
We all saw the broadcast. We all saw the CNN meltdown. I'm centralizing everything here because the timeline of the last three days is an absolute clusterfuck of biblical proportions.
Keep it civil. I'll be watching this thread. Discuss.
►SurvivorInChicago (Verified Survivor) (At Ground Zero)
I was in my apartment when the ground opened up beneath me.
There was this sound, like someone plucking a stringed instrument, a deep TWANG that I felt in my chest, and suddenly there were these Japanese sliding doors appearing on the floor and walls.
I fell through one and landed in this wooden hallway that made absolutely no sense. Every time I tried to find an exit, I'd turn a corner and end up right back where I started. It was like being trapped in an Escher painting, and there were hundreds of other people wandering around just as confused as I was.
We were stuck there for almost six hours.
►ArchitecturalAnomaly (Verified Architect) (Non-Euclidean Expert)
@SurvivorInChicago I need you to describe the architecture in detail because what you're describing should be physically impossible. Were the hallways actually looping, or was it spatial manipulation?
►SurvivorInChicago (Verified Survivor) (At Ground Zero)
Both? Neither? I don't know how to explain it. The hallways looked normal but behaved wrong. You could see the same door from three different angles simultaneously, and walking toward it would somehow take you further away.
But even weirder was the food and water that started appearing on tables that definitely weren't there before. Nothing fancy, just bottles of water and packaged sandwiches, but it kept appearing whenever people got hungry or thirsty.
And then there were the deer.
►WhatDeer (Verified Confused)
Bro I'm sorry, the WHAT?
►SurvivorInChicago (Verified Survivor) (At Ground Zero)
Small deer made of light. They were maybe two feet tall, completely white, and they glowed like they were made of condensed starlight. They would prance around the halls and whenever they touched someone who was injured, the wounds would heal instantly.
I watched one of them touch a guy who'd been bleeding from a head wound and the gash just sealed itself like it had never existed.
People tried to pet them but they'd phase through your hand like ghosts.
►TruthNuke_99(Verified Skeptic) (Awakened)
Are we really believing the "healing light deer" narrative? Be so fr right now. The GDA pumps hallucinogens into the water supply during mass-evac panics to keep the sheep calm. You guys were tripping on military-grade copium in a bunker, not hanging out in a magic wooden castle. Touch grass.
►MedicalMiracle(Verified Nurse) (Verified Survivor)
@TruthNuke_99 I'm an ER nurse and I was stone-cold sober triaging people in that castle when the deer showed up. They healed compound fractures, internal bleeding, third-degree burns, everything. I watched injuries that should have required months of recovery just disappear.
According to the official GDA count, approximately 30,000 civilians were evacuated to that castle in a single night.
Unfortunately, the casualty count was still 347 deaths of innocent souls.
►StatisticallyImprobable (Verified Analyst) (Math Nerd)
Those numbers don't make sense. This kind of survival rate during a multi-day invasion with four Viltrumites actively engaged in combat across multiple cities? Someone was managing triage on a level that shouldn't be humanly possible.
►TheRealMVP (Kaisen Truther)
Because it wasn't human. It was Kaisen's team running the entire operation while he was out fighting Viltrumites.
Let's break down what actually happened over the night:
Blonde Viltrumite attacks Upstate New York college campus. Kills approximately 40 students before the new Guardians arrive and manages to hold him off until the Tech Jackets (the brother-sister duo, which is WILD that there are two of them) and Atom Eve showed up.
Another one of those alien attacks Cook County with multiple witnesses recorded what can only be described as a kaiju battle between her and something that looked like a green freak with tentacle face.
All this while Omni-Man attacks the upstart Invincible and Old Guardians of the Globe(give me all my grief back), all the while turning Chicago to dust and reveals he was working for the Viltrumite Empire the whole time.
Throughout ALL of this, tatami gates were opening across the country, evacuating civilians to the castle, and Kaisen was apparently fighting another Viltrumite across the eastern seaboard while simultaneously coordinating rescue efforts.
►GuardianWatcher (Verified Critic)
And where exactly were the GDA and military during all this?
According to leaked reports, Rex Splode literally sacrificed himself fighting Blondy and the team was getting systematically destroyed.
The "official" heroes were barely holding the line while the "terrorist" was doing the actual heavy lifting.
►PepsiManSupremacy (Verified Prophet) (Brand Ambassador) (Hydration Evangelist)
EVERYONE IS SLEEPING ON THE REAL MVP.
PEPSI MAN.
While the Viltrumites were fighting the heroes, every gang in America tried to take advantage of the chaos. Supervillains, terrorists, organized crime, they all saw their opportunity.
And Pepsi Man was EVERYWHERE stopping them.
There's footage from Detroit of him preventing a gang war by smashing glass bottles on them. Surveillance from Miami shows him stopping a prison break while shooting aluminium cans. Reports from LA of him shutting down a supervillain team-up by shoving you know what, you know where.
He's been working for THREE DAYS STRAIGHT. No breaks, just constant rescue operations and crime prevention.
And he's handing out Pepsi to everyone he saves. The man is COMMITTED to the brand.
►CorporateLegalTeam (Verified Lawyer) (PepsiCo Representative)
Following an internal review of the recent global incursions, PepsiCo officially endorses the hero known as "Pepsi Man." We are prepared to offer a Global Brand Ambassadorship, including full tactical corporate backing, a seven-figure retainer, and unlimited product supply.
Furthermore, to support our new ambassador's mission, PepsiCo is launching the "Refresh the Rebuild" initiative, pledging $50 million to Chaos Incorporated's disaster relief efforts.
►MarketingGenius (Verified Business Analyst)
@CorporateLegalTeam You guys went from "we don't endorse vigilantes" to "here's $50 million please be our spokesperson" in two weeks.
This is the greatest pivot in corporate history and I'm genuinely impressed.
►PressBriefingAnalyst (Verified Journalist) (Media Watcher)
The Neel Kumar broadcast was INSANE.
He walked into CNN, sat down next to the GDA Agent, and calmly unraveled every lie they'd told us.
He had video evidence. And on top of that, he hijacked every screen in the studio to show it all.
The Agent confirmed it was true and admitted the GDA framed an innocent man to cover up Omni-Man's betrayal.
Then Kumar quit Black Rock on live television, announced he was joining Chaos Incorporated, and told every government on Earth they could hire them for disaster relief.
The balls on this man are LEGENDARY.
►MediaManipulator (Verified PR Expert) (Grudging Respect)
@PressBriefingAnalyst From a pure marketing perspective, what Kumar pulled off is TEXTBOOK.
Step 1: Hijack national broadcast to reveal conspiracy
Step 2: Force government official to confirm on live TV
Step 3: Demonstrate value proposition (Kaisen rebuilding Chicago)
Step 4: Announce you're open for business
He turned a PR disaster for the GDA into a product launch for Chaos Incorporated.
Every government on Earth is now scrambling to hire them because he SHOWED them what Kaisen can do in real-time.
This is the greatest corporate launch I've ever witnessed.
►ChicagoRebuilt (Verified Resident) (Witnessed The Miracle)
I watched John Kaisen rebuild Chicago from the refugee tents.
Five minutes. That's how long it took.
But here's the wild part: the city that came back is BETTER. The Green-architecture is gorgeous. The infrastructure is upgraded. And there are fruit trees EVERYWHERE.
►NutritionalScientist (Verified PhD) (Food Science)
@ChicagoRebuilt About those fruit trees.
I'm a food scientist and I got samples of the fruit growing in rebuilt Chicago. The nutritional profile is INSANE.
One apple has the caloric content of a full meal but it's all bioavailable nutrients. No empty calories, not to mention Perfect macro and micronutrient balance.
People are reporting increased energy, better sleep, faster healing from minor injuries just from eating the fruit regularly.
Kaisen didn't just rebuild a city. He created an agro-utopia with food that could solve malnutrition.
►UrbanPlanner_Official (Verified Architect) (City Planning Expert)
I've been studying the rebuilt Chicago for professional purposes.
The urban planning is FLAWLESS. Pedestrian-friendly streets. Integrated green spaces. Optimized traffic flow. Buildings designed for maximum natural light and air circulation.
This is what every city planner dreams of but can never achieve because of budget constraints and existing infrastructure.
Kaisen had a blank slate and built the perfect city in minutes.
Every government on Earth is looking at this and realizing they could have THIS instead of their crumbling infrastructure.
►PoliticalPressure (Verified Activist) (Grassroots Organizer)
My city's government just got FLOODED with demands to contract Chaos Incorporated.
People are organizing protests. Starting petition drives. Calling their representatives constantly.
The message is clear: "We've seen what's possible. Why are you not hiring them?"
Politicians are caving to public pressure. Multiple cities have already announced they're opening negotiations.
Kaisen just changed the entire paradigm of disaster relief and reconstruction.
►LeakedInformation (Anonymous Source) (Verified Leak)
Want to know what's REALLY causing governments to panic?
The rejuvenation pills.
According to a leak, Chaos Incorporated has pills that reverse aging by exactly one year per pill.
World leaders are 70, 80, 90 years old, Oligarchs are dying and Billionaires are desperate.
They're offering BLANK CHECKS for exclusive access to these pills.
Kaisen just became the most powerful person on Earth because everyone who matters wants what he has.
►EconomicAnalyst (Verified Economist) (Market Watcher)
@LeakedInformation The economic implications are STAGGERING.
If those pills are real, Kaisen controls the one commodity every billionaire wants: more time.
He can name his price, make demands and reshape global policy just by threatening to withhold access.
He has reconstructed global power dynamics. .
►MemeLord_Supreme (Shitposter Extraordinaire) (Terminally Online)
so let me get this straight
government: "this man is a terrorist"
kaisen: saves 30,000 people
government: "he's extremely dangerous"
kaisen: rebuilds entire city in 15 minutes
government: "we need to stop him"
kaisen: creates agro-utopia with magic healing fruit
government: "...can we hire you?"
absolutely legendary character arc
►SarcasticSally (Verified Cynic) (Professional Doubter)
@MemeLord_Supreme You forgot the best part
government: "we framed you to protect Omni-Man"
kaisen: "cool, anyway here's a better city"
government: "wait we need damage control"
kaisen: already has company, CEO, and global contracts lined up
Man played 4D chess while the GDA was playing checkers
►ModeratorMachete (Original Poster) (Moderator) (Verified Sanity) (Tired)
Replied On May 1st 2021:
This thread has officially broken every record on the site. We're at 9,264 pages and still climbing.
I need sleep, alcohol and cuddles.
Don't burn down the internet while I'm gone.
►JACKETER_REAL (Verified: Kaisen Archivist) (GDA Public Enemy #1) (Never Sleeps)
@ModeratorMachete Rest well. The archive continues.
[Here] is the complete timeline with all verified footage from all three days.
[Here] is the Cook County kaiju battle in 4K.
[Here] is every angle of the university attack.
[Here] is the Omni-Man betrayal uncut.
[Here] is the Chicago reconstruction in real-time.
The GDA has tried to delete these files 847 times in the past 72 hours.
They're back up within 90 seconds every time.
The truth stays public. Always.
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[A/N]: A double Length PHO for my lovely readers.
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