Chapter 286 - Ch: 359-363

Ch: 359-363

359 School Days Get Better

After giving Debbie exactly what she wanted, a great pounding into her mattress and more orgasms than she could count, I slipped out of her bedroom and flew to a random alleyway. It was the middle of the night and the perfect time for Atlas to handle a few problems that Robot's files had shown me. I made myself invisible and stepped into the prison and one of the cells of the Mauler Twins.

I stunned the tall blue skinned mutated being and used my telepathy to pilfer his mind for the cloning technology and the mind copy device. Both machines were a lot more power intensive than Robot's reports and a lot more involved to construct, not to mention expensive and they used rare components.

They were almost useless as they were, so I would need to work on the plans to fix them and to figure out what components to replace to make them more cost effective. Why did the idiots enjoy seeing their subjects being shocked as the machines worked? It wasn't necessary for either the clone creation or for the mind transference.

I erased the plans for both things from the prisoner's mind and spent the next half an hour doing the same with all the other technology he had created. Since I couldn't do it to one without doing it to the other, I stepped to the other cell that the second Mauler Twin was in and went through his mind as well.

Surprisingly, he had slightly different thought processes and it explained why he always cloned himself to give himself a second perspective. Once he copied his mind, he became a separate existence and his own person, even if they started out as a clone... which meant Rudy wasn't really Rudy. His original body died as himself and Rudy was actually Rudy 2.

I blanked his scientific mindset like I had his twin and stepped out of the cell and walked along the hallway. I was still invisible, so I didn't have to worry about being caught. I checked into each cell and then used my cell phone to go through the information Robot had. Hacking into the prison's actual systems wasn't necessary, not with how detailed Robot's and Cecil's files were.

I went along and copied and erased each of their powers, even Multi-Paul's, and left his six split selves alive and removed their powers as well. It was going to be funny the next time he picked a fight with someone in the prison and they severely hurt or killed him, only for him to not be able to replace him.

When I was done going through the entire prison and taking all their powers and their scientific knowledge if they had any, which no one would notice for quite some time, I stepped from there to inside Amanda's room in the Guardians of the Globe's base. I was sure she was quite frustrated about me having to leave that afternoon and I hadn't given her new form a good going over.

I held in my laugh at seeing a naked and content Monster Woman asleep in her new form with a very happy Shrinking Rae cuddled up in her arms. Any port in a storm? I asked myself and gave the both of them a good look. Their bodies were very different sizes; but, it was in a good way.

Monster Woman's breasts were massive and hung off to the sides while Shrinking Rae's were barely a handful in size and very perky. Both dark green nipples and bright pink nipples looked covered in saliva and their openings were dripping with slightly white fluid, as were their mouths.

I wasn't going to disturb them after they successfully got each other off and put each other to sleep, since their thoughts confirmed they really had satisfied each other. I stepped to a random alley in town near my house and changed back to my Mark Grayson persona before I stepped back to my room.

Olga was still there with a contented look on her face and I stripped off and climbed back into bed. I knew she had to be up early in the morning to catch her flight back to Russia and I set my alarm for a good time to let her choose if she wanted another quickie or to leave before I pretended to wake up. She didn't move when I hugged her from behind and I closed my eyes to wait for a few hours for the morning.

I went over the knowledge I pilfered from the prisoners and there was a lot to go over, especially when I started applying the thinker powers I gained back in Worm and the things I learned when I was Clark Kent in that combo universe with my research lab. The memories from my dimensional clone came easily to me and I started parsing out everything.

Since everything I learned was from super-science worlds, they were quite easy to combine and intertwine to make the expensive machines the Mauler Twins created into more affordable and more reliable ones. There would be no overloading power, superfluous lightning generated, or the chance it would explode if one single thing went wrong.

Morning came quickly and my alarm went off. I had turned it down, just in case Olga did choose to not have another fun time. She stirred and easily slid out of my embrace, because I wasn't holding on tightly or restricted her movement, and she turned off the alarm clock. I felt her hover over me as her thoughts went over how happy she had been the night before and then went through a fast forward of the rest of her life.

After a few minutes, Olga made her choice and leaned down to give my lips a tender kiss and she thanked me for giving her a wonderful memory that she would remember for the rest of her life. She quietly left my room and went into my mom's, gave her the same tender kiss, and went downstairs. After she dressed, she called for a taxi to the airport and wrote out a short note for us, then locked the door when she left.

I climbed out of bed and went to the bathroom to shower, dressed for school, and grabbed my backpack as I went downstairs to make breakfast. It was the least I could do to make the morning smoother for mom when she woke up. I finished cooking just in time for her to come down the stairs and she had a huge smile on her face and a pep in her step.

"Good morning, Mark!" Debbie exclaimed and practically danced over to me, gave me a quick peck on the lips, and sat down at the kitchen table. "Where's Olga?"

I handed her the note she left on the fridge and Debbie read it with a chuckle.

"I guess I don't have to tell you that her attitude towards her husband was similar to Amber's." Debbie said and put the note aside.

"They both made it pretty clear they were done with the whole hero scene." I said and put a plate of eggs and bacon in front of her.

Debbie grabbed my hand to hold it for a second and let it go. "At least she didn't promise to come back to visit as much as possible."

"Or asked me to fly over to visit her, even though she knows I easily can." I responded and sat down to start eating.

"That could be a good surprise, as long as you called first to warn her." Debbie said with a smirk and I chuckled, because it wasn't a surprise if she knew about it. "Just showing up would piss her off, because that was what Red Rush used to do to her all the time."

I nodded, because Olga's thoughts had gone over her relationship with her dead husband as she looked down at me this morning. She felt the same things Amber felt, because she knew her husband had been a superhero and still resented that he would leave in the middle of their dates to stop crimes and save people.

I finished eating and put the dirty dishes into the sink. "I'll wash them when I get home." I promised and walked over to my mom to give her cheek a kiss. "Have a good day at work."

Debbie smiled happily. "You, too."

I chuckled and picked up my backpack. "Consulting at the Pentagon every couple of afternoons and on the weekends is downright easy compared to your work."

Debbie laughed and pulled me down for a quick hug. "Don't sell yourself short, Mark. You work just as hard as I do." She said and let me go. "People like us can't help ourselves but put our all into whatever we do."

"That we do." I agreed and left the house. I had a bit of time before I had to be at school and took my time as I walked along the street.

I went over the plans again and would have to visit one of the labs at the GDA and see what kind of resources were available. I might even introduce a few things I made as Ron Stoppable for the Global Justice Network.

"I wonder what Cecil would say if I gave his equipment development division the plans for a working supersonic hover-jet?" I asked and started laughing as I imagined them recruiting all of the scientists working there to hound him about increasing their budget to let them develop the hover technology and the automated guidance systems.

I reached the school and my smile seemed to be infectious and attractive, because the girls from lunch the day before suddenly surrounded me and greeted me with their own smiles. It was something they never did before and I soon found out that a couple of them were in a few of my classes. I immediately apologized for being an idiot and not noticing them before, which made them giggle and give me needy looks.

We went inside the school as a group and I was carried along as if I always belonged. It would have been funny if the two girls that gave me their numbers hadn't said they would have liked to hear from me last night. I apologized and told them most of the truth. I was busy at my after school job and then had supper with my mother and her friend, then I watched a movie with them and went to bed.

Most of the girls looked happy about the job part, gave me searching looks at spending the evening with my mother, as if trying to decide if I was kidding or not, and looked wistful at the mention of going to bed with me.

"You really were busy." Gail said and leaned against my shoulder slightly as she flicked her blonde hair over her shoulder to give me a clear view of her face.

"How do you know that?" I asked, curious.

"You gave too many details to be making it up." Gail answered and looked at the other girls. "Meet at the bell like usual?"

The other girls nodded and we all split up to go to our first morning class. Gail went with me and she talked about what she did last night. I listened of course, because I somehow knew she was going to bring things up later at lunch and would expect me to remember what she said.

We sat near the back of the room and she kept whispering when class started and she kind of made things out to be like our own little world as we sat together and the teacher couldn't distract her from talking to me. It was a little flattering and I couldn't help smiling at her as she kept it up for the whole class. The bell rang and we gathered our things up and left the classroom.

"Mark, what was the teacher talking about?" Gail asked me with a hopeful expression.

"I have no idea." I lied, because I had easily heard her and made notes in my inventory.

Gail beamed a smile at me, as if I had said the perfect thing. "I've got chem class next, so I'll hand you off to Sarah."

"You're going to hand me off to another girl?" I asked with a grin and wiggled my eyebrows.

Gail laughed and swatted at my arm. "That's so bad!"

I chuckled briefly just before we met up with her regular group of friends. Gail let out a little giggle as she tagged a brown-haired girl, then she whispered in her ear about what I joked about. We all split up again to go to our classes and a blushing Sarah walked with me to math class.

"It was a joke." I whispered to her and she gave me what I thought was a shy look.

Instead of saying anything, Sarah led me to the very back of the room and sat me down in the corner. She moved her chair and sat right beside me, a lot closer than usual, and she waited for class to start before her hand slid into my lap. Her fingertips tapped on my zipper and she kept her face blank to not give anything away.

I didn't bother asking if she was sure and carefully opened up my pants to give her access. She slid her hand into my boxer shorts and her face went a little red as her hand encountered my already hard member. Instead of pausing or chickening out, she gripped me gently and started stroking me. Her thumb explored the tip as she played with me and she did a fairly good job without looking.

We both stayed silent as class continued and her hand kept stroking me. Before I could warn her I was getting close, she felt me starting to twitch and intentionally dropped her pencil on the floor. A few of the other students looked over and she made a frustrated sound as she slid her chair back, then she dropped to her knees and disappeared under the table.

I felt her warm mouth engulf me and she started sucking, so I reached a hand under the table and caressed her face. She paused as I did so, probably because she expected me to grab her hair and force her to go deeper. I pulled my hand back and kept writing down the answers to the problems on the chalkboard.

Sarah made a happy sound and started sucking again. She was mostly quiet as she worked on me to get me back to the edge, since the few moments she stopped moving had given her a slight reprieve from me blowing my load.

I felt her mentally prepare for the salty taste and odd consistency, and didn't correct her assumption, mostly because she was about to find out the truth. I let myself go, just like she wanted, and she did her best to take it all. There was quite a bit to it and she needed a couple minutes to swallow it and then clean me up.

I handed her a napkin and felt her surprise at the gesture before she took it and wiped off her mouth and chin. Sarah picked up her pencil and stood up and sat on her chair again. She had kept the napkin and gave me a look full of desire. Her mind was solely focused on how good I tasted and that I hadn't tried to ravage her face when give the chance.

I glanced around and no one was looking, so I leaned in and gave her a peck on the lips. "Thank you." I whispered and the look of desire on her face increased, as did her thoughts of what it was going to feel like to impale herself on such a wonderful penis.

I tapped my finger on my papers and she took the hint to start writing out her answers as well. I let her copy mine, which was only fair, since she had been busy the last few minutes. Sarah gave me an occasional glance, as if I was going to somehow disappear on her, and I kept a smile on my face and finished writing out the last of the answers.

The bell rang and Sarah needed another minute to finish, so I stayed beside her at the desk as she did. I took the opportunity to put my pants back in order as everyone else scrambled to pass in the worksheet. Sarah and I finished our tasks at the same time and we gathered our things up and were the last to hand in our sheets.

The female teacher gave us a knowing look and winked at Sarah, whom blushed at being caught. I glanced back at our table and could clearly see underneath it, so the teacher had seen Sarah on her knees and going at me.

"Thanks for the great class, Miss Gilbert. I'm just sorry we only have one more class next week before exams." I said.

The teacher let out a soft laugh and Sarah's face went to a deep red. I nodded at the teacher for not giving us detention and took Sarah's hand to lead her out into the hallway.

"I can't believe you said that to the teacher!" Sarah hissed in a whisper as her blush faded.

I let her hand go and put my arm over her shoulders. "It's all right, Sarah. I've come to realize something important lately and I don't mind sharing it with you."

"What's that?" Gail asked as she joined us.

"Legitimization through audacity." I said and grinned at her. "If someone calls you out on something, it's better to admit it and own it."

"Oh? And what did you admit to?" Another girl asked me as the rest of the girls joined us and we all walked down the hallway to the central corridor of the high school.

I could tell she was testing if I really would admit to what they all knew Sarah would have done for me in the classroom. She was fairly easy and would put out if she thought you were worth it.

"That Sarah is going to enjoy finding out how long my tongue is during lunch." I told her.

Every single girl in the group, and in the hallway, made surprised sounds. Yes, every single one.

Sarah shivered under my arm and her face went right back to flaming red. "M-Mark..."

"Yes, I mean it." I said and kissed her cheek. "I've got history next. Does anyone else?"

None of the girls shared it with me, so I was on my own until lunchtime. As I walked away from the group of girls, a whole lot of longing looks followed me down the hallway.

360 Power Plays

Sarah nearly chewed off her own hand trying to keep herself quiet as I spent half of the lunch period eating her out. She had been genuinely surprised I wasn't lying about wanting to do that with her, especially with her thoughts about how she didn't believe she deserved it and Gail should have been there in her place, because she was a much better person than her.

Those were the reasons I had chosen to get it out of the way first, actually. Instead of going to the cafeteria and spending half of the period eating and giving Sarah the chance to beg off and switch places with Gail, I'd taken her to a rarely used janitorial supply closet and went down on her.

As Sarah enjoyed her fifth orgasm just as my set aside time with her came to an end, she still couldn't believe it had happened to her. I made short work of cleaning her off with a handi-wipe and a dry cloth, then I put her panties and her pants back into place. When I tried to help her stand, she couldn't get her legs to work right.

We both exchanged looks before we started chuckling. Sarah because she liked having the proof it happened and me because I hadn't taken her physical reactions in mind when I had planned it out. I sat back down beside her to wait for her to recover and she hugged my arm.

"I should have stopped at four." I said and she gave me an odd look. "We're not going to have a lot of time left to eat before the bell rings."

"Oh! I thought you meant..." Sarah stopped talking and looked away from me.

"Hey, now. Don't think like that. I only stopped because of the time constraints." I told her and she blushed. "I'd carry you to the cafeteria if the attention we gained was worth it, and it's not."

Sarah nodded and turned her head to look straight ahead as she rested her head on my shoulder. "You know, everyone in the school knows you do things like this."

I couldn't let that comment pass without responding appropriately. "You mean like what everyone knows about you?"

Sarah blushed and nodded. "Yeah."

"Then I guess that means we're in the same boat, so I'll do what you do. Smile knowingly at everyone, ignore the ones that are rude and don't matter, and give my attention to those that do."

Sarah lifted her head from my shoulder to look at me. "Really?"

"It's worked for you." I said and smiled. "Also, there's only a week and a half left to school. Who cares what other people think? We're probably never going to see them again after we graduate."

Sarah looked surprised for a moment and then smiled, too. "You're right."

"Of course I am. It's my middle name and you can call me 'Right' from now on." I joked and she made a snort sound and laughed.

We sat there in silence for a few minutes, then Sarah made a grunt sound and used my arm as a brace to stand up. Her legs weren't weak and shaky anymore and she pulled me up by the arm. She still used it like a lifeline as we left the storage closet and we passed several students in the hallway that had already eaten.

There were only 20 minutes left for the lunch period when we entered the cafeteria and the entire place seemed to fall silent as we walked over to the counter where the food was served. I offered to pay for hers, of course, and she thanked me. We walked over to the table her friends were using and all of them were staring holes through us.

"We didn't go all the way." Sarah said, which carried across the quiet room and almost echoed off the walls. She blushed and didn't say anything else as she sat near the end of the table. I sat beside her, if only for solidarity's sake, and the noise and conversations picked back up at the other tables.

"Now you have to give us details." Gail said, or ordered really, and Sarah glanced at me.

"It's okay. You have to brag to your friends after that." I said with a smirk.

"Are you going to?" Someone else asked.

"I would if I had any friends left." I said and she looked surprised. "We had a falling out and they never apologized, so I didn't forgive them and now it's way too late. Even if I end up going to college and it's the same place as them, I doubt we'd see each other at all on campus."

"Why?" Gail asked.

"We have different interests and goals." I said with a shrug. "We barely have any classes together and this is high school. With the way college schedules work, if we signed up for the same courses, we still might not get the same teacher or the same time slot."

All of the girls at the table looked at each other with determination.

"We are totally showing up to register at the same time." Gail ordered and they all nodded.

Sarah and I ate fairly fast, since we didn't have a lot of time left, and the bell rang. I didn't share any afternoon classes with any of them, so I said goodbye to them in the central hallway.

"Call me." Sarah suddenly said when I started walking away.

"I have work this afternoon and might not get home until late." I warned her.

"I'll be awake doing homework anyway." Sarah responded.

I nodded and walked to my next class as the other girls praised her for being so forward. The rest of the afternoon passed by without incident, except for a few longing looks from a few of the girls. One redhead had been rubbing her thighs together for a while, too. Was she edging herself as she imagined I was going down on her?

I left the school when the end of day bell rang and found an empty alleyway, then stepped to another one in Arlington and changed into my Atlas persona. I flew over to the gates and the guards there greeted me and checked my ID. I was allowed inside and went over to the side entrance I always used. It opened before I reached it and Agent April Howsam was there waiting for me.

I laughed when she held out an 8x10 picture of me with my shirt off and a black marker. "I'd be happy to give you my very first autograph."

April beamed a smile at me as I signed my name to the bottom corner, so it didn't ruin the picture. I thanked her for all her hard work and we kept talking as she led me to Cecil's office. Carol saw us and held up her own copy, so I had to borrow April's marker and signed hers as well. She buzzed the office door open for me and I thanked her.

I went inside and spent a few minutes debriefing with Cecil and he told me about the equipment they modified for The Giant to allow me to take him with me out to harvest that asteroid. I had to stop off at the White Room to pick it up and had to laugh when they turned off the light generator and I saw the giant fish-bowl helmet and large air tanks.

"You guys have really outdone yourselves." I praised them and patted the clear glass. "This thing is great!"

"Hold on, is someone actually praising us for a job well done?" One of the scientists asked. "It's a miracle!"

That had a lot of the other scientists crack up and laugh.

"It's a thankless job to thank people and I'm happy to do it!" I proclaimed and struck a hero pose and gave them a bright smile, which made them laugh more. "Did the head honcho tell you about my secondary ability?"

"We were briefed." Another scientist said as she walked over to me. She had dark brown hair pulled back in a very tight ponytail and wore glasses. "Do you mind if I observe?"

"Is using scientific equipment covered by that open question?" I asked and kept the bright smile on my face.

She raised her eyebrows at me. "You understood the implication?"

That earned another laugh from a few of her colleagues.

"I'm not just a pretty face and a fantastic physical specimen, Dr. Justine Neiman." I said and posed again.

"Humble, too." She said and her lips twitched briefly into a smile.

"Heh." I said and dropped the exaggerated act. "Dr. Sinclair is lucky to have you backing him up."

Her eyes dropped to my broad chest for a second and she looked up at my face. "Quite."

The scientists laughed again, because they knew she understood what I was implying.

"I should tell you to stop hitting on my girlfriend." D.A. Sinclair said as he walked over to us. "I doubt it will make any difference, however."

I smiled at him and placed a hand on his shoulder for a moment before letting it go. "I'll flirt a little, because it's difficult to ignore someone with both intelligence and beauty, as you very well know."

He gave Justine a glance and saw her face was slightly red. "Agreed."

"I will never do more than that, because it's disrespectful to both her and you." I said and they both nodded. I turned my head to look at Justine and used a thumb to indicate the giant helmet. "I assume you have as many scanners and detectors as possible pointed at this thing?"

She nodded, as did a few of the other scientists. I smiled and walked over to the thing to place a hand on it. Since I had a multitude of powers, it was easy to simulate what I had told Cecil my storage power was like. I used gravitational waves and 'shrunk' the thing down to an infinitesimal size and then stored it.

There were a lot of beeps, a couple buzzers, and an alarm, then every single scientist scrambled around to look at various monitors and all of the data they had just gathered. Neither Dr. Sinclair nor Justine were immune to this behavior and were just as excited about it.

"I'll pop by later to help design a few new sensors and detectors." I promised and walked towards the door as the White Room reappeared around me. I left there and went to the side entrance to the GDA and walked back over to the gate.

The guards let me out and told me to have a good day. I waved and flew up into the air to a good height and flew at subsonic speeds to the warehouse facility that had been modified for The Giant. I had to admit that the guys Cecil had working for him did a great job. The oval office was huge and The Giant looked really happy as he sat behind the desk and played with some toys.

I knocked on the giant door and flew up to open it. "I'm sorry to bother you, Mr. Astronaut President. I'm here for our scheduled consult and flight out to Jupiter."

"WHAT?!?" The Giant gasped. "They weren't joking about that? I thought they were joking!"

I landed on his desk. "No, sir. Your job is real, this place is real, and we have a lot things to do to have fun..." *cough!* "...I mean, we have real work to do as we smash up asteroids that are dirtying up your command area."

The Giant beamed a smile at me. "We're doing that, too?"

I pulled out the giant helmet and air tanks and he gasped. "We just have to get you fitted properly and I'll fly us right out into space."

"YAY!" The Giant cheered.

*

Cecil watched the live footage with a smile as thousands of tons of raw materials, precious metals, and rare isotopes were gathered by his newest project and loaded into giant cargo containers.

"BEING THE ASTRONAUT PRESIDENT IS AWESOME!" The Giant yelled and his huge fists smashed into the mountain-sized asteroid that Atlas was holding still for him and hundreds of pieces broke apart. If Atlas hadn't braced it, both The Giant and the asteroid would have flown off into space after a hit like that.

"Remember, this is supposed to be work! We're being paid a lot of money to do this." Atlas said.

"WE'RE BEING PAID?!?" The Giant yelled and he started laughing as he continued to smash apart the whole thing with even more enthusiasm than a moment ago.

"Damn, kid. You're playing him like a fiddle and he's working even harder." Cecil said, proudly. "I wish I'd thought of this scheme years ago."

His phone beeped and he hit the button. "Yes, Carol?"

"Your 4 o'clock will be here in a moment, sir." Carol answered.

"Thank you. Send him in." Cecil said and hit the button again.

The door buzzed a moment later and The Immortal walked in wearing his weird-looking hero suit. No matter what the PR department wanted him to change into, he refused to alter what he thought was an iconic look.

"Have a seat." Cecil said and left the large display playing the live footage.

The Immortal gave the screen a look and his face changed from blank to a frown. He sat down and kept staring at The Giant pounding space debris like he had pounded his face and chest.

"I'm happy to see you've recovered so quickly." Cecil said.

The Immortal tore his gaze from the screen and lost the frown as he look at his boss. "Am I approved for active duty?"

Cecil gave him a pointed look and hit a button to turn off the screen. "We need to have a talk about procedures and how to handle certain situations."

Immortal sighed. "We couldn't wait for Bulletproof to show up to give us another heavy hitter. The Giant was already rampaging and we had a hard enough time corralling him. If we had waited, who knows what the death toll could have been, not to mention the collateral damage."

Cecil pulled a report out of the stack and slid it across the table. "We do."

Immortal looked down at the folder and didn't open it. "I don't want to know how much worse it could have been."

"Yes, you do." Cecil said and sat back in his chair. "Go ahead and read it. It's quite enlightening."

Immortal gave him a disbelieving look and picked up the file folder. After a few minutes, he closed and and gave Cecil a flat look. "I don't believe it."

"That's the thing about arrogance. It's quite difficult for someone to admit that solutions to problems that others come up with might just be better than what they come up with themselves." Cecil said and folded his hands together on his stomach.

Immortal bristled and sat up straighter. "I was in charge and..."

"I suffer from this problem myself." Cecil interrupted him and Immortal closed his mouth. "I can honestly say that it didn't occur to me to actually give in to the unreasonable demands of a villain and let them have exactly what they asked for."

Immortal stayed quiet as Cecil turned the display back on.

"The Astronaut President is having fun working for us, is making tons of money, and no longer has any desire to fight, cause havoc, or leave his very spacious office." Cecil informed him. "We tried to give him a bedroom and he refused. He actually sleeps in a nest of giant canvas tarps underneath his desk."

The display changed and showed the giant oval office and the bed and pillow under the desk.

"You wouldn't believe how many normal pillows are inside that thing." Cecil said with a chuckle and turned it off.

"I don't see how this is relevant." Immortal responded.

"That's why I wanted to talk to you, because it is relevant. You are a man that holds a grudge and I am ordering you to drop your plans of revenge on The Giant." Cecil said, his voice stern.

Immortal almost growled. "He beat me bloody and broke nearly all of my bones!"

"Yes, he did." Cecil said and leaned forward to frown at him. "What he didn't do was smear you across the pavement, or stomped you into paste, or pulled your head off."

Immortal lost his angry look and his face went blank. "You're bringing that up now?"

Cecil nodded and sat back again. "The Giant easily could have made sure you couldn't revive and he didn't. He fought you with respect and didn't maim you or gave you any permanent injuries."

Immortal kept his face blank, despite his feelings.

"He really is an 8 year old kid that was changed into a monster. He didn't choose to be like that and he doesn't understand a lot of things. Treating him like the child he is, simply never crossed my mind. Now it has and I need you to understand that it has to cross your mind as well."

By the look on the Immortal's face, Cecil knew it wasn't going to be that easy for the ancient man to accept that his normal rules of engagement needed to change.

361 Put Chapter Title Here

When our shift at work was done, I dropped The Giant off at his place. Surprisingly, he tried to give me a hug and thanked me for playing with him. I couldn't resist reminding him that it was supposed to be work, not a play date, and we were being paid. He laughed, winked his sole cyclops eye at me, and said goodnight before closing the huge door.

I laughed as well and flew back to the Global Defense Agency to drop off the containers of materials at the supply depot and the helmet with attached air tanks at the White Room for the scientists to check it over and refill the tanks. I flew back to my home city and it was nice to just float around for a while with no obligations or urgency... and then I heard gunshots and smashing concrete.

I sighed and flew over to the national bank and saw two of Machine Head's goons, or I guess they were Titan's goons now. I had forgotten about him tricking me into helping him depose Machine Head to take over his criminal empire. I flew down and the lava guy yelled about me appearing and tried to shoot me with a stream of molten rock.

I blew out freezing breath and his entire form changed from molten rock to just rock. He looked shocked, as did his partner Tentacle Master or whatever he was called, so I flicked his forehead with my finger and knocked him out. It really made me wonder why Invincible had such a hard time with these B-class villains.

I turned to the police huddled behind their police cars and waved. "I apologize for interfering. I was just passing by and heard the ruckus." I said and walked over to the closest car and leaned against it. "Do you need me to stick around for a witness statement or to help fill out the report on this incident?"

The two police officers stood up and exchanged looks, then nodded.

"Sure. I'll take your statement and Ed can go cuff the suspects." The cop on the right said.

"How the hell am I supposed to cuff solid rock, Shaun?" Ed asked.

"It's only solid on the outside. I didn't want to kill him for a simple robbery." I said and they looked surprised. "He'll probably reform into his normal molten state in a few hours."

"Riiiight. I'll let the transport know they're both still potentially active with powers." Ed said and went to the trunk of his car to search for a second and closed it. "Does anyone have a tow chain in their kit?"

Two cars over had a cop raise their hand.

"Grab it and give me a hand securing the statue." Ed said and pulled out two sets of handcuffs from his belt and walked over to the suspects.

The first officer named Shaun pulled out a notepad from his back pocket and I spent the next few minutes giving him my statement. It wasn't much more detailed than what I already stated, except when I added that I had been coming from the Global Defense Agency and showed off my ID, the cop looked both relieved and satisfied. Being accredited by the GDA went a long way with officers, apparently.

I also offered to testify if it went to court and the cop looked shocked, then he enthusiastically wrote it down and thanked me for maintaining my civic duty to ensure criminals were justly prosecuted. I gave him my cell phone number and he shook my hand just as a large transport van drove up.

"If you need a hand moving them, I'll help." I offered.

Shaun smiled. "You're shattering my normal expectations of heroes, Atlas."

I had to hold in my laugh at hearing that and he chuckled and motioned towards the transport. We went over to it as the back dropped down and showed off the secured cells inside.

"Nice." I said and then went over to the chain wrapped rock statue and carefully carried it over to the transport and put it into one of the cells. The other officers carried tentacle guy and tossed him none to gently into the other one. I raised an eyebrow in question at them.

"He grabbed me by the crotch the last time and I couldn't walk straight for a week." One of them answered.

"Fair enough." I said and reached out and popped my fist into a quick jab into the villain's crotch. The body jerked and didn't move. "Let's see how he likes it."

The man nodded and the other cops smiled as both cells were locked and secured. The transport drove away and I looked over at the bank. It looked close to collapsing on that side of the building where most of the bricks were broken out of the wall for the villains to escape through.

"Excuse me for a minute." I said and flew off to a construction site, pretended to grab a bunch of bricks in case cameras were watching. I was actually just copying a bunch of them and gathered them on a spare pallet and a few containers of mortar mix. I flew the huge palette back to the bank and everyone stared at me as I landed it right beside the huge hole.

I moved at almost super-speed as I made braces first to hold the building up and then quickly rebuilt the wall and filled in all the cracks and holes the broken out wall had. Surprisingly, no one said anything as I worked, not even the bank employees that had come out to gather the money the criminals had stolen.

"You could make a mint working construction!" A man said after I slid the last brick into place and removed the temporary supports.

I turned and smiled at him. "I'm sorry, sir. I'm a hero, not a scab. I'd never take away a job that another hard working citizen needs."

"You just did!" Someone else shouted and pointed at the repaired wall.

"No, the building was close to collapsing without most of the wall to support it. I just fixed it enough to hold it in place. I'm not certified as a bricklayer or have a permit for construction." I looked over at the bank employees. "You'll need to hire someone to check it out and sign off on it, or have them replace the wall as it's supposed to be."

"We'll do that." The man said. "If only to ensure our insurance still covers it."

"Exactly!" I said and gave him a thumbs up. "I'm just here to help."

I walked back over to the officers. "Is there anything else you need from me?"

"No, we got everything." Ed said. "Thanks, Atlas."

"Anytime." I said and floated up into the air, waved at the crowd, and flew off in a random direction. I landed in an alleyway and changed back into my Mark Grayson persona and stepped from there to an alley near the house. I walked out and down the street to where I lived and used the key to enter the house.

"I'm in the kitchen!" My mom shouted.

I shut the door and followed her voice to see her standing in front of the stove and humming happily. I walked over to her and hugged her from behind. "Is it you that smells so good?"

Debbie let out a little chuckle and leaned back against me for a moment, then she stood up straight and turned her head to kiss me on the cheek. "You're so sweet."

"That wasn't a denial." I joked and she laughed. "Thanks for agreeing to have a late supper."

"Mm hmm." Debbie hummed. "You had Cecil's secretary call and tell me your consulting job was running late. Delaying when we sit down to eat isn't a huge inconvenience."

"So, it was an inconvenience!" I fake gasped to make her laugh and gave her two cheek kisses. "Thanks, mom."

"It's nothing." Debbie said with a huge smile on her face. "The stir-fry is almost done, so grab the casserole out of the oven and set the table."

"You got it." I said and went to the drawer in the cabinet beside the stove and grabbed two oven mitts.

Debbie lifted the large frying pan off of the burner and stepped aside to make room for me to open the oven and pull out the large casserole dish. I set it on the large cozy in the middle of the kitchen table and uncovered it, then set aside the cover and the oven mitts.

I set the table for two and she turned off the oven and the stove top as she finished stirring the contents of the frying pan, then she dished out a third for herself and two thirds onto my plate. I gave us each a scoop of casserole and we sat down and enjoyed another family meal.

Debbie was a little shocked when I talked about how I had helped set up an asteroid mining operation and that our accounts were going to have a huge influx of government cash in the next few weeks. Apparently, virgin minerals were worth top dollar, as were the various precious metals that were in very short supply on Earth.

"Are you being serious right now?" Debbie asked me, her eyes wide.

"I'm being totally serious. Since it was my idea, as was using the new government assets of Atlas and The Giant as workers, I'm getting a full 25% of the profits." I said and her mouth dropped open. "There's barely any overhead costs and only the maintenance for wear and tear on the containers and equipment can be claimed as part of the program."

Debbie sat there and stared at me, completely at a loss as to what to say.

"The best part? Both Atlas and The Giant are having fun. They think it's like a superhero playdate where they can blow off steam and don't worry about holding their strength back as they smash thousands of tons of raw materials into small and easily harvested chunks." I said, proudly.

Debbie put her fork down and stood up, walked around the table, and bent over to look me right in the eyes with a bit of a glare. "Mark!"

I didn't dare blink at her very serious look. "Y-yes?"

"Thank you for being so smart and for putting the welfare of your family first." Debbie said as she lost the glare and then gave me a quick peck on the lips. "I love you."

"I love you, too." I responded automatically.

Debbie smiled warmly and patted my shoulder, walked back around the table, and sat down to start eating again. It took me a moment to realize she had used her scary mom powers to make me nervous and gained my full attention, then she thanked me and made me feel relief at not being caught at something.

"Damn, you're good." I whispered with awe and reverence.

Debbie beamed a smile at me and kept eating. I resumed eating as well and she told me about her day at work. It was nowhere near as exciting as mine, even if she did close on a house and earned almost ten grand in commissions.

I figured it was my turn to return the favor and tried to do her tactic back to her, stood up and walked around the table, and glared at her before thanking her for putting the family first. The thing is, this failed miserably. Why? She was giggling the whole time and only stopped laughing long enough to accept the quick peck on the lips.

I did succeed in putting a huge smile on my mom's face for the rest of the meal, though. Debbie decided to have a nice relaxing bath instead of a shower, so instead of relaxing on the couch with her, I had the rest of the evening to myself. I remembered that I had something to do and went upstairs and took out my cell phone, checked Sarah's number in my inventory, and dialed.

"Hi, Mark." Sarah said right away.

"You weren't sitting by the phone waiting for me to call, were you?" I asked.

"No, my mom was by the phone and passed it to me."

"Wait, your mom was waiting for me to call? You better put her on!" I joked and she chuckled. There was a whispered question and Sarah whispered back what I said, and I heard a feminine laugh and a short whisper.

"Mom just said you better come over for dinner tomorrow or she'll never forgive you for making her worry about you not calling tonight." Sarah responded and I could hear the amusement in her voice. There was no way her mom said all of that with only a few words.

I chuckled. "Well, I'd hate to disappoint her." I said with a chuckle. "Tell her I'll be there promptly at 6 and I'll bring a nice bottle of wine."

Sara was quiet for a moment. "How are you going to get it?"

"I'm going to swipe it from my own mom, of course." I lied. I had hundreds of bottles in inventory and could easily copy them as many times as I wanted.

"Don't you dare!" Sarah gasped and then giggled. "That would be funny, though."

"Moms like sharing." I added and she laughed.

There was more soft whispering before Sarah spoke again. "If you're not joking, she said to dress up a little. No hoodies or jeans."

"I can still wear sneakers, right? Shoes might scuff up her floors."

"Nope, shoes, too." Sarah said without consulting her mom.

"Damn, she drives a hard bargain." I said and there were a couple more whispers. "All right, I'll be there. I'll even comb my hair."

Sarah chuckled. "I'll let her know that important fact as soon as I hang up."

"No, no. You can tell her now. I'll wait." I said and started humming some elevator music.

Sarah laughed. "Why couldn't I have met you years ago?"

"I was too ignorant and wrapped up in my own head back then." I responded without hesitation. "I missed a lot of things that were right in front of my face. It wasn't until recently that I started to realize how screwed up my life has been."

Sarah was quiet for a moment. "Mark, I... I'm sorry... about your dad."

"It's okay. It was sudden and took us all by surprise." I said, truthfully. "I kind of got over it during my time off and I wouldn't have gone back to school if I wasn't ready to move on with my life."

There was some more muffled whispering and I stayed quiet to let her and her mom talk.

"If you ever need to talk about things, I'm willing to listen." Sarah eventually said.

"Thanks, Sarah." I said, gratefully. "I better let you go. I have my own homework to finish before going to bed."

"Oh! Right, you need to do that, too." Sarah responded and fell silent for a few seconds. "Don't forget about supper tomorrow."

"I won't." I said and smiled. "You'll be reminding me again tomorrow at school, too."

"Darn right I will." Sarah said with determination. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight." I responded and hung up. I spent a moment to create the paper and homework answers I needed and put them into my backpack, changed my clothes, and climbed into bed. Tomorrow was going to be a typical school day and I could use a good sleep to replenish myself mentally.

*

Eve sat at the far corner table in the cafeteria and tried to not think about what she couldn't stop thinking about. Word of what Mark did and didn't do with Sarah had spread like wildfire across the entire school. The envious looks Sarah had received really made the girl's ego soar, too. Her friends were a lot less obvious about their envy, probably because Mark was sitting right there with them.

How did he suddenly become so popular? Eve asked herself and absently ate her food, not realizing she had answered her own question already.

"You're looking lost." Will said as he sat across from her.

Eve let out a sigh and pushed her tasteless food away. "I just can't get over how much we screwed up."

Will looked over at a laughing Mark and back to her. "Me, either. I didn't realize how much I've been ragging on him about Amber until he pretty much shouted it in my face."

"I... I know. I..." Eve shook her head. "I automatically associated their breakup with what happened to me, so I put Mark into Rex's role and Amber into mine. I assumed Mark was at fault without even bothering to listen to his side of things. It was wrong and completely unfair."

"Yeah." Will said and looked down at the table. "I was wrong, too."

The pair of them sat there and didn't say anything else for the rest of the lunch period. Without Mark to talk about, they really didn't have anything else in common. When the bell rang, neither of them said goodbye and went their separate ways. By unspoken agreement, it would be the last time either of them would ever meet again.

362 Intermission Dinner and Dancing

I knocked on Sarah's door and waited. After lunch, we had gone our separate ways and I was sure she had rushed home to get ready as soon as the end of school bell rang. Of course, I totally went overboard and changed my clothes into a full tuxedo, taking her 'not casual' comment to the extreme, just to see the look on her mom's face and hopefully make her laugh.

The door opened and an older woman wearing a nice blue cocktail dress stood there, her mouth hung open, and she stared at me as if she was trying to figure out if I was real or not. My own eyes dropped to her modest cleavage and then to her hips, which were a nice width, proving she had given birth at least once in her lifetime.

"I hope I'm not too early?" I asked and handed her a huge bouquet of wildflowers that she tucked into the crook of her arm, which seemed like a well practised move, and I handed her a bottle of wine, too.

She barely glanced at the wine and tried to smile at me, then her eyes widened and she looked back at the wine bottle with clear disbelief on her face. One of the benefits of jumping through time periods as well as worlds was that the things I bought could be more valuable or even worthless, depending on where I went next.

That particular bottle I had purchased back in the Incredibles Universe. Since that time period was set in the 1960s, the bottle had been a nice vintage then. Now? Ooo, baby. There was a reason Olga liked visiting my mom to share a drink whenever she visited the United States. The funny part about that was my mom didn't care one whit about how old the wine was, just that it tasted great, which it did.

"You look ravishing, by the way." I said and she made some kind of sound in her throat, almost a whine, and I barely stopped myself from making a pun about that. "Is Sarah ready? I can come back later if she needs more time."

A second later, her dainty hand grabbed mine and yanked me inside and slammed the door shut. She held onto me as she gave me a very particular look, as if she was wondering if the caramel center inside the ice cream was worth chewing through the outer layer or if she should dig it out to eat it first.

"I thought I heard the door?" Sarah asked as she walked down the stairs in red stripper heels, like an expert. They really showed off her calves to full effect, too. She wore a very short black skirt, a red sleeveless top that looked like silk, and a strapless bra that the outline could be easily seen through the thin cloth. She blushed when she saw me in full formal attire. "M-Mark, what... what..."

"Hey, I was meeting your mom. I had to go all out." I said, completely seriously, and they both made that whine sound. Was it genetic or learned?

Sarah's mom gave her a commanding look before she nodded to me and held out our clasped hands. Sarah took the obvious hint and walked over to me, took my hand from her mother, and led me into the dining room. It was done up a little, in an imitation of a fancy restaurant, and I held out her chair for her with my free hand.

Sarah smiled at me and sat, gave my hand a sad look, and reluctantly let it go. She knew I couldn't sit on her other side if she kept it, so I leaned down to kiss her cheek and walked around her seat to sit beside her. I put my other arm around her back and she leaned in against me briefly.

Her mother came into the room and carefully carried in a large serving tray with two platters of food on it. I tried to protest and offered to help her as I stood, only for both her and her daughter to refuse and tell me to sit down again. I was a guest and wasn't allowed to help, even if I thought they needed it.

I sat back down with a loud sigh and her mother put the tray down, beamed a smile at me, and transferred the platters to the center of the table. I didn't ask where Sarah's father was, because I wasn't an idiot. A light probe of her mother's thoughts told me everything I needed to know about the deadbeat.

Why did so many men feel the need to be assholes to the women in their lives in this world? Maybe there was something in the air that mixed with the chemicals in the water that the GDA dosed everyone with? It was a good theory as any, I supposed.

As it was, I had a hot milf feeding me a wonderful meal, a hot girl at my side encouraging me to talk, and an entire evening to figure out what I was going to do with all of that information.

*

Sarah laid on her mother's bed and languished in the aftershocks of a wonderful multiple orgasm. It took her a few minutes to come down from such a great natural high and she turned her head to the side and watched as the nicest guy in school fucked her mother into a similar state that he had given to her.

She didn't wonder why she wasn't jealous, because she had never felt more cared for in her life. He had pampered her, made her feel valued and loved, then he railed her into the mattress at her own mother's enthusiastic encouragement.

Why? Because she had watched Mark treat her daughter with respect, despite her reputation, and she wanted Sarah to experience both ways, which were equally fun when applied properly. Sarah could do nothing but agree as her mother received a similar and yet different treatment. It made her a little more accepting of things, knowing he wasn't exchanging one woman for another, as if they were the same.

Also, Mark really knew how to use his body to make them feel really really good. Sarah had thought him going down on her had been a wonderful experience. Going all the way with him was head and shoulders better, in her opinion, because she had all of him and he had all of her. Out of the several guys she had been with, none of them could compare to what she had just gone through.

If her mother could talk between her yells of pleasure, Sarah was sure that she would agree with her. A loud and very lewd moan was heard and her mother's eyes rolled into the back of her head. It let Sarah know her mother really was going through what she just had. Or was that a while ago? It was kind of hard to tell time when your brain was kind of floating around inside your head while trying to make sense of things.

Mark pulled out of her mother, tied off the condom, and tossed it into the trash can in the corner of the room. "Hey, are you ready for round four?"

Sarah lazily blinked her eyes at him. "F-four? Isn't this our second time?"

Mark chuckled and slipped another condom on and climbed on top of her. "I am totally going to tease you about this in the morning."

Sarah opened her mouth to ask him what he meant, then he pushed his way inside of her once more and her lewd moan echoed off the walls. She forgot what she was going to say and pulled her fantastic lover down into a passionate kiss. Whatever it was couldn't have been important if she forgot about it so quickly.

*

Olivia opened her eyes and felt both horrible and better than she ever had in her life. Her body ached in places she didn't know she had places, as if she had been through the most intensive workout ever devised, then she remembered what happened the night before after she had two glasses of a bottle of wine that could have been used as a down payment for her house.

She hadn't minded sharing such a precious thing with her daughter, since she was almost 18 and about to graduate. What she hadn't expected was to pretty much throw herself on top of the most beautiful manhood that her daughter had intentionally revealed to her.

Why did her slutty daughter have to do that, anyway? To show off something she herself hadn't had in years? Well, she showed her. She took that dick like a champion! No prep work was needed, either. She had been drenched down there since the handsome young man had handed her the flowers and wine and not given them to her daughter.

It was a bit selfish to think Mark was courting her instead and the bit of mental gymnastics had put her in a great mood for the entire meal, which he praised her for. It was just slightly better than her normal fare of food and he claimed it was delicious, which really had her motor running at being complimented over something so simple.

Was she so starved for praise and attention that she would hop in bed with anyone that paid her a genuine compliment? No, she wasn't that easy. How did they end up in bed again? Oh, right. Her slutty daughter pretended to drop her fork and whipped his cock out and sucked him off right there at the dinner table. As if she could ever ignore something like that!

"Good morning." Mark whispered and she shivered with pleasure. He had whispered so many dirty and sexy things in her ear the night before that he only had to use the same tone and she came again.

She turned her head to return the greeting and his lips met hers and she lost herself in the feeling, then he was inside of her again and she mewled and squirmed under him as he gently took her again. The slight regret she was feeling was washed away as another orgasm overtook her and she promised herself that she was never going to regret jumping him as soon as she had the chance.

She was sure she lost some time somewhere, because she kind of came back to her senses as a tray of great smelling breakfast was put on her lap. Her soreness was a lot less than it was, too. How was that possible? She had no idea. In her experience, too much sex in so short a time was painful, especially after those great feelings faded and you realized you really abused your body past what it could handle.

"Should you call in sick this morning?" Mark asked her.

"I should." She responded and glanced at her unconscious daughter. "For both of us."

Mark smiled and nodded, leaned in and gave her a tender kiss, and stood up. "When she wakes up, tell her I'll call you later."

She couldn't help but chuckle at the reminder of the joke he had made the night before about her waiting by the phone for him to call and not her daughter. "I'm sure she'll appreciate it."

"As much as you do?" Mark asked and she blushed. "I need to go."

She nodded and he walked over to the bedroom door. "Mark."

He stopped with his hand on the door handle and looked back at her.

"Don't be a stranger." She said, a bit pointedly. She tried to convey her feelings about abandonment and that her daughter deserved something better than to be used and tossed aside like she usually was.

Mark walked back over to her and gave her a warm smile that made her blush even more. "You don't need to worry about that, Olivia. I don't intend to hurt either of you."

She looked into his eyes and wanted to believe him. She really did.

Mark leaned back down and gave her another tender kiss. One hand caressed her cheek and the other hand pet her hair, which was something she didn't realize she enjoyed. Was it because it physically showed that he cared about her? She couldn't say.

What she could say was that her heart sped up and almost thundered in her ears when he broke the kiss and gave her the same warm smile that had her blushing like a virgin. He didn't say anything else and left the room with barely a sound.

After that little encounter, Olivia no longer wondered if she would ever see the handsome young man again. She rolled over and tried to go back to sleep, only to sigh as it evaded her. After a few minutes, she climbed out of bed, gave her still unconscious daughter a jealous look, and went to the bathroom to do her business.

She dressed in day-old clothes instead of showering, after deciding this was going to be a lazy day, and used the telephone to call her work to book off and the school to tell them Sarah wasn't feeling well and would be staying home for the day.

With those important things out of the way, she went to the kitchen, made breakfast for herself and Sarah, put her daughter's aside, and went to the living room to recline on the couch. Her eyes barely looked at the television as she ate and her mind went over what happened last night and this morning.

The pleasant soreness she felt would be a constant reminder as well, not that she needed it. It had been an incredibly unforgettable experience and she couldn't wait for it to happen again. At least, she hoped it would happen again. His words implied that it would. That did make her wonder if he meant with the two of them at the same time again or would he try seeing them separately and at different times.

Which would she prefer? Alone, obviously. She didn't want to compete with her daughter for his attention, after all. Last night had been wonderful, and he had taken turns instead of trying to include each other in bedding the other one, which had been a relief, honestly. She didn't want to molest her daughter, no matter how out of her mind she had been with pleasure.

There were some lines that she refused to cross and that was one of them. No incest. Being in the same bed had been very close to crossing that line, too. At least her daughter had enough of her faculties to not try to kiss her or grabbed her breasts. It would have soured the mood enough to make her rethink her life choices if her daughter had kissed her like a lover.

She finished eating and went back to her bedroom to see Sarah was curled up under the blanket and her loud snore made her chuckle. That meant she was finally getting actual sleep and wasn't knocked out, so she was going to be a while before she woke up. She went back to the kitchen, wrapped up the food she made, and put it in the fridge.

She gave the wine bottle a look, shrugged, and poured out half a glass. It was too delicious... and expensive... to gulp it down. She went back to the living room and used a throw pillow as a backrest and tucked herself into the corner of the couch and relaxed.

A smile started to form on her face as the slowly sipped wine gave her a tiny buzz. She had to patiently wait for her daughter to wake up before she could tell her what Mark said and she couldn't help herself but feel giddy at what expression Sarah could have on her face.

Who would ever expect a one night stand would want to stick around? Olivia asked herself and finished off the wine in her hand. She looked at the wine glass, at the kitchen entrance, and chose to not indulge herself with more wine that she didn't really need right then.

In her mind, she needed to save the rest of that liquid courage to help her accept that a younger man actually wanted her. He had also ruined her for any other man and he would be coming back for more, so she definitely needed to save the rest for the next time Mark came over to the house.

*

Mark stepped out of the alleyway and walked back to his house, used the key to unlock the front door, and walked inside. "Mom! I'm just stopping in to shower and change for school!"

There was a loud shriek from the kitchen and the sound of several pots and pans falling onto the floor. Mark tried to not smile at his mom being caught at something and stayed standing by the door to wait. After a minute, a severely blushing Debbie came out of the kitchen with a grinning Atlas standing behind her.

"M-Mark, th-this is Atlas." Debbie said, clearly nervous.

Mark glared over his mother's shoulder at the tall man behind her. "What are you doing here?"

"Your mom." Atlas said without hesitation.

"Greg!" Debbie gasped and then looked really embarrassed. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to give away your secret identity."

"It's all right, Deb." Atlas said and put his arms around her, then kissed the top of her head. "I work for Mark, remember? He knows all about me."

Debbie shook her head. "No, you trusted me with your real name and I broke that trust right away."

Atlas chuckled and turned her around. "No, you don't get to beat yourself up over a misunderstanding." He said and grinned at Mark, then he leaned down and gave Debbie a passionate kiss.

"Hey!" Mark exclaimed.

Atlas broke the kiss. "It's all right. We're going to be seeing a lot of each other from now on, so you need to get used to having me around." He said and looked down at Debbie. "You both do."

Debbie blushed and nodded, gave Mark an apologetic look, and pulled Atlas back down to give him another kiss. "Be careful out there."

Altas smiled warmly. "Now that I have a reason to be, I will."

Mark almost growled at him as the costumed hero walked by him.

"Relax, Mark. I won't do anything you wouldn't do." Atlas promised and patted his shoulder.

Mark opened his mouth to argue, then sighed. "Fuck, I can't even argue against that."

"Mark!" Debbie gasped.

"Sorry, mom. When he's right, he's right." Mark said and looked back at the hero when he opened the front door. "As long as I don't see it, I can't complain about it."

Atlas gave him a thumbs-up gesture, blew a kiss to Debbie, and flew off into the sky.

"Mark, I... I didn't expect you to come back this early." Debbie said, her voice low.

Mark closed the front door and sighed. "No, he's right. Like I said, I can't complain about it. He's making you happy in a way I couldn't. I can't... no, I won't hold that against him."

Debbie walked over to him and pulled him into a hug. "Thank you for being so understanding."

Mark hugged her back and let her go. "After the night I had, I'd be a huge hypocrite if I didn't."

Debbie smirked knowingly at him. "Sarah liked your attempt at overdressing?"

"So did her mom." Mark said and told her about the woman's reaction when she opened the door.

Debbie chuckled and led him inside and up the stairs. She asked him to keep talking as he showered and he went through the meal and their conversations, then how Sarah took matters in hand and brought him to bed. He didn't go into details, like her mom also being there.

"I'm glad you had fun." Debbie said when he came out dressed in his school clothes and carrying his backpack. "Try to not make the other girls jealous when they find out about your fancy date."

"Oh, you don't have to worry about that. Sarah called off sick today." Mark said and kissed her cheek. "I've got a day or so of reprieve before the glares and jealous looks start up again."

Debbie chuckled and followed him back downstairs. "Do you have the money for lunch?"

"I got it." Mark said and opened the door. "Maybe you should call off for the day, too?"

Debbie gave him a smile. "I think I will." She said and put a hand on the door. "I'll see you after work for supper."

Mark nodded and slung the backpack over his shoulder and walked away. He had plenty of time to get to school and didn't need to use his normal shortcut of stepping to a nearby alleyway. Nothing happened along the way and he entered the school with a smile on his face.

Being two different people at once had been ridiculously easy.

363 Multiples

Having two streams of consciousness was a little weird. I had my Atlas persona flying around the world and stopping crimes, a landslide in Peru, and shifting a growing sandstorm in the Middle East from one of the cities to go into the desert instead. At the same time, Mark sat in class and it was a breeze.

Even without Sarah there, I was still allowed to sit with the popular girls at lunch. Gail gave me a few pointed looks without saying anything, so I didn't say anything, either. If Sarah told her about what happened, that was on her. Although, I was pretty sure both her and her mother were going to keep quiet about it. Neither of them seemed like they wanted anyone else to know they had been so close to sharing a lot more than a mother and daughter should.

I went to work at the Global Defense Agency that afternoon as Atlas, reporting in like usual, and also showed up as Mark Grayson a short time later. I didn't have an official work ID for Mark and only had visitor status. That meant I was heavily restricted in where I was allowed to go. I made an appointment with Cecil and it wouldn't be for hours, so I spent the time taking the tour of the Pentagon.

Cecil thought it was a joke, of course. When I showed up in his office as Mark, he asked me what I was doing by shirking my patrol duties. I just sat there and tapped my ear, letting him know he could use the government earpiece Atlas wore during official work hours. He humored me and connected the call, only to stare at me as Atlas answered him and asked if it was an emergency, since he was currently flying over Berlin in Germany.

"You're not fucking around with time, are you kid?" Cecil asked without hanging up.

Both Atlas and I softly chuckled and I shook my head. "No, we're the same person. One mind split into two different bodies."

Cecil gave his phone a look and then looked at me. "How are you doing that?"

"Osmosis?" I asked with a smirk and he huffed.

"Are you intentionally confusing fusion and fission?" Cecil asked.

I laughed. "I can't pull anything over on you."

"You need a lot more experience to fool an old dog like me." Cecil said and sat back. "How are you in two places at once? Is it another aspect of your growing gravity powers?"

"That's why you asked about time first." I said in understanding and he nodded. "No, you guessed right. It's binary fission."

Cecil gave me a searching look. "Just the one?"

I nodded. "Having two streams of consciousness is weird. It's easy to pull off, as long as I ensure I don't crisscross the thoughts across the two personas."

Cecil nodded back. "How did you pull it off? It's not a common ability or power."

"Isn't it?" I asked and smiled.

Cecil leaned back and thought about it. He needed a few minutes and then his eyes widened. "Dupli-Kate and Multi-Paul can both split themselves multiple times. They claimed it was a curse that took years to get a handle on and you spent a bunch of time fixing the curse Monster Woman was suffering from, where she has a normal form and a monster one."

I tapped the tip of my nose to tell him he got it. "They're similar and different."

"Damn, kid." Cecil said, impressed. "Can you duplicate it?"

It was my turn to sit back and think about it. Should I tell him I could? Would he want it for himself or did he have specific people that he wanted to split and have them work on more projects for the government?

"It might take me a while to set something up, since doing it to myself was a lot easier, thanks to my natural resilience." I told him and he nodded. "They would need to be really smart and disciplined mentally, too. Using two bodies at the same time needs a lot of mental flexibility and compartmentalization. If they can't think about two things at once, I won't even try to split them into two halves of a whole."

"I have two people that need extra hands that they can trust." Cecil said right away.

I didn't need any other prompts to figure out who he meant. "Justine and Sinclair."

Cecil chuckled. "You barely even had to think about it."

"They're two of your most prominent scientists." I said with a shrug. "Plus, having another sexy scientist like Justine around here couldn't hurt."

Cecil huffed. "Do I have to warn you about thinking with your dick?"

I smiled knowingly at him. "I'm pretty sure it's the secretarial pool you need to warn."

Cecil couldn't stop his bark of laughter. "Carol can't stop talking about how personable Atlas is."

"She framed his autograph and it's in her top drawer." I responded and grinned at him.

Cecil shook his head. "Get out of here and go bug Sinclair for a while with your tech ideas." He ordered and I stood and saluted. His hand twitched to return it before he stopped himself, so I counted it as a win. "I'll have Carol issue you a work ID to help you maintain the ruse."

"I don't have to fill everything out again as punishment?" I asked.

"I should make you do that." Cecil said and waited for a moment. "Then again, you filled everything out as Mark the first time, so technically Atlas didn't."

I had to laugh at that and had another idea. "I'll have Justine pop an error in the paperwork and give Carol the good news when my shift is over. She should enjoy getting to spend a few hours with her favorite hero redoing his paperwork."

Cecil nodded and I left his office, told Carol I was going to the White Room, and made my way there. I had the entire afternoon and part of the evening to assist the scientists there and to slip in a few of my ideas into the general conversation.

*

Carol really had been excited about having Atlas all to herself after their shift. She refused to wait to handle the mistake during normal work hours and ordered him to stay after everyone else besides the skeleton crew of the night shift had left the GDA.

Carol printed off the stack of paperwork and both she and Atlas meticulously went over it all in one of the meeting rooms and eventually found the discrepancy. It was only a small thing, barely worth all the trouble, and it gave Carol a sense of satisfaction anyway. She lived for those kinds of things and she was very good at her job.

It took only a moment for Carol to fix the error and she gave Atlas a very hungry look. He took the nonverbal hint and pulled his suit off, giving her a look at his physique without the thin cloth in the way, and she jumped on him.

Carol was a strict professional, so even though she had let him use two of her holes liberally, she didn't want him to think she was some kind of wanton woman. One night was all she could really afford to spend with him. Her life was too busy for more than that and she would remember their time together fondly for the rest of her life.

Atlas regretted her decision and told her she deserved more than a single night of happiness. If she ever changed her mind, he wouldn't hold it against her and would make her happy again.

"You are too much of a temptation." Carol informed him and gave him a chaste kiss. "If I don't say no now, with your fluids dripping out of me, I'll never say no again."

Atlas accepted that and agreed to limit himself to light flirting that wouldn't cross the line while they were at work. Carol was quite pleased with that promise and gave him another chaste kiss. They went their separate ways to clean up and then left the Global Defense Agency.

*

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Sinclair asked his girlfriend as he started up the machine that used some weird esoteric energy that didn't exist that morning. Mark's idea of splitting them like mitosis had bloomed into creating a huge machine that had a one-time use.

Justine gave him a searching look, as if assessing him of worth, then nodded. "Our work timetable will be cut in half if there are two of us."

"It's not two of you." Mark said and adjusted the settings. "It's you in two bodies."

"We can move them independently?" Sinclair asked and slipped the helm on.

Justine put her own on and laid back against the inclined surface.

Mark looked thoughtful for a second. "You know how your brain has two sides, with the left side controlling the right side of the body and the right side of the brain controlling the left side? This machine makes it so that the right side of your brain will control an entire body and the left side another completely separate body. It'll be automatic and you just need to get used to the sensations."

That explanation settled the two scientists down.

"Why haven't you done this for yourself?" Justine asked.

"You saw the components and exotic materials that went into this thing and the sheer work it needed to be completed. Heck, you could probably buy a small island with the precious metals it needed." Mark said with a chuckle and would never tell them it was all just a tinkertech abomination that merely duplicated his duplication power. "Plus, it'll only work once and that's why we jury-rigged adding the extra helmet and doubled the components. We can't waste this chance by duping only one of you."

Both scientists nodded and told him to initiate the process. Mark did so and used some of his powers to ensure it actually worked like it was supposed to. The entire thing glowed like a bright noonday sun and both Sinclair and Justine slowly split apart and two bodies formed for each of them.

The machine whined and started sparking, thanks to Mark using the information from the Mauler Twins on how to do that, and he grabbed all four of the scientists and pulled them away from the machine just before it blew up and wrecked half of the vacated research lab. The two Sinclairs blinked their eyes together, then independently, and turned their heads to look at their girlfriends.

The two Justines did a similar thing and blinked her eyes at the same time, then independently, and turned her heads to look at her boyfriends. "Physical research?"

"Physical research!" Both Sinclairs gasped and jumped to their feet, hauled the two Justines to their feet, and the four of them ran out of the lab without looking back.

"They are totally going to screw each other first." Mark said with a chuckle.

"No doubt." Cecil said over the intercom speaker. "They can have threesomes and foursomes without cheating on each other or feeling guilty about having someone else in the bed."

Mark laughed. "That why they're so enthusiastic about it. It's self-justification and sexual fantasy combined into a perfect mix."

"That it is." Cecil said. "Can you rebuild the machine?"

Mark looked around the half-destroyed lab. "Maybe in a month or so. The asteroid mining operation should replenish what this used by then, assuming we can make or buy some of the other components by then."

"We can't just throw more money at it?" Cecil asked.

Mark laughed. "If only!"

"Then you better head on home. You have school in the morning." Cecil said.

"Do I have to?" Mark whined. "I want to help design some of the hover technology I discussed with Jerry..."

"We don't have a portable power source that can handle anything like that, so you need to go to school and finish that before anything else." Cecil denied.

"Dammit." Mark said. "All right, I'm gone. Bye, Cecil."

"Have a good night." Cecil said and the intercom clicked off.

Mark went home and cuddled on the couch with his mom as he told her about his day with the eggheads in the science department. He didn't tell her it was him that designed the machine, only that he helped build it and it had worked and then blown up. She looked scared until he said no one was hurt and another one couldn't be built for at least another month.

*

The last few days at school were just review and I could have skipped them, except I didn't want to disappoint my new friends or my mom by acting like a delinquent. It did give me the chance to teach the girls more about the subjects that would be on the exams and they were all grateful for the help.

I had the whole weekend to spend with Sarah and her mother, which I split between them. Her mother was allocated all of Saturday to do whatever she wanted and Sunday was all for Sarah. The both of them were relieved I was going through the effort to give them separate dates and they had a great time basking in my full attention.

The next week was full of exams and I made sure to coach the girls before each one, even though only two of them had an exam with me, Gail and Sarah. The grateful and longing looks were common for the whole week and we spent several afternoons and evenings studying hard.

Well, they were studying hard while I pretty much attended to them and helped as much as I could. Shoulder and back massages, providing drinks and snacks, and asking questions and helping them come up with the right answers. It was almost fun for them, because I used many of the teaching techniques I had learned years ago.

By the end of the week, they all felt like they had done the best they could, which was much better than they thought they would, and I received many kisses on the cheek and a few on the lips. The bolder girls had blushes on their faces and huge smiles, because they hadn't backed down when given the chance to thank me.

I thanked them right back, of course. They had accepted me into their group with little fuss and I felt privileged to be given the chance to be friends with them before high school came to an end. That earned me another round of kisses and none of them balked and kissed me on the lips instead of my cheek.

The weekend was a relaxing one that had nothing going on, so I spent it with my mom. She had said something about Atlas having busy weekends until he worked out a better patrol routine. Plus, we had to get ready for the graduation ceremony next week. The funny thing was, there wasn't really anyone besides my mom that I wanted to invite.

While I was receiving my diploma on the stage, Doc Seismic was being dealt with by Atlas destroying all of the man's giant lava monsters and then wrecking his underground facilities. He was then delivered to the GDA and his research and technology was bought for a dollar and he was added to the growing scientist department.

With the ceremony over, my mom clapped happily as I held up my diploma and I tossed my graduation cap up into the air. Everyone else did the same and they all cheered. High school was finally over and we had the whole summer to have fun before college started in the fall. I just had to decide if I wanted to bother with it or just go to work for the Global Defense Agency full time.

I would have to talk it over with my mother and see what she had to say about it, even if I knew she was biased with Atlas being a very successful GDA agent. He helped so many people all around the world and Debbie would probably encourage me to become a part of that, as long as I stayed on the sidelines. She had become used to me not endangering myself and wouldn't want that to change.

That meant talking to Cecil as well and I was sure I knew what his opinion would be. The safety of the human race came first and everything else could be worked out later.