Mark of the Multiversal Pretender

*Typing sound!* 

"Aaannnnd, we're in!"

*Tap!*

With a final tap on the keyboard, Buddy uttered the most iconic hacker line in the world of Hollywood.

*Fwooosh!*

At the same time, the red screen embedded on the metallic door blinked in green before opening with a dramatic mist, that blew Leo and Buddy's hair.

"Awesome." Buddy muttered to himself, staring at the door with indifferent gaze.

As for Leo, his sharp senses have already flooded inside, taking in all the equipment and advanced technologies he could see.

"Stables or this?" Leo asked without moving his eyes away from the inside.

The hideout turns out to more than just a hideout. It looks more like a laboratory. An advance one at that, the large glass tubes that could fit an entire human being gave it all away, not to mention the vials with weird colorful liquids and syringes placed on a nearby shelf.

"Definitely this." Buddy answered as quickly as the question appeared, no hesitation.

"Well, don't mind if I do." Leo grinned and extended his leg forward, stepping on the metallic ground inside the hidden hideout, as if he was Neil Armstrong stepping on the moon for the first time.

Leo continued until he was finally inside. As for Buddy, well you know him. He's already inside before Leo could take another step.

"This is so cool. Why'd grandma never tell me about this? Does father and grandpa even know about this?" Buddy asked Leo, while walking around the laboratory and carefully inspecting the things inside.

"Who knows. Maybe your grandma is some kind of superhero? Is she?" Leo replied, though his reply already contains a hint of his suspicion towards Buddy's grandma.

"Superhero? Hmm, maybe? But I'm leaning more on her being a great scientist working in a large company like DevTech." 

'DevTech? That sounds familiar. Where have I heard it?' While pondering to himself about the company that Buddy just mentioned, Leo's eyes suddenly caught an inconspicuous white folder with the large title of Confidential lying on top of the table.

"What's this?" Leo muttered confusedly, his guts were telling him to go and grab open the white folder.

And grab he did.

As soon as Leo's fingertips touched the white folder and slowly opened it, his eyes suddenly widened in surprise and he muttered in shock.

"No fucking way...."

***

While Leo just discovered a ground breaking discovery, Buddy was tinkering with a small gun that looked alien and out of humanity's level of technology when suddenly, he heard the familiar sound of his grandma's rusty truck's engine stopping nearby.

"Oh no. No no no no!" Quickly dropping the ray gun back on the glass table, Buddy quickly turned around and saw Leo's back.

"Leo! Leo! We gotta hurry! Let's leave, grandma's back!" Alerting him, Leo also seemed to have heard the rusty truck, however before the both of them could make a move, they heard a shout through the other side of the metallic door.

"Mother fucker! Another bunch of rats trying to steal my life's work!" Hearing this angry shout, Buddy bit his nails and his blood started to run cold, he knew he just fucked up by angering his grandma and with no way out, Buddy is definitely dead this time.

Thankfully for him, Leo was not the type to give up.

Quickly grabbing Buddy's wrist, they rushed towards a nearby janitor room and quickly hid inside just inside as the metallic door's screen turned green and majestically opened with the same mist.

Stepping inside was grandma Vivian, her sharp eyes looking around.

What made her weird was her outfit. She wasn't wearing any normal clothes that can be seen on a grandmother. Instead, she was wearing a weird tight suit with a black cape on her back.

The tight suit consists of black and white with the large letter of V.

On her two hands were sharp daggers that glint upon exposure to the light bulbs inside.

"I can smell you. Whoever you are. You will not get out of here no matter what!" With that final say, Vivian started walking towards the middle of the room where a bunch of advanced computers lay.

"System! Run diagnostics and scan this entire facility! Also, review the security camera a few minutes after I left. Set the speed to maximum." Quickly giving several orders with nothing but a single shout, the computers all looked like they came to life as the screens blinked and showed several codes and programs while another computer showed a window tab that shows the entrance inside the basement.

Luckily for Leo and Buddy, Vivian never set up a camera outside the basement, instead it was inside.

"We are so dead." Both Leo and Buddy muttered in unison.

[I won't forget you, Leo. You have my prayers.]

'Genesis, if you ain't gonna help, you might as well shut your mouth.'

Inside the janitor room, although Leo and Buddy can't see anything outside, they can still use their ears and the moment they heard Vivian's recent words, they knew they fucked up.

As for Leo, he was already preparing to use his Thunder God mark and teleport both Buddy and him outside.

The only reason he preferred to stay was to see what Buddy's grandma is up to. His curiosity is literally killing him right now.

Outside the janitor room, Vivian's eyes stayed glued on the screen, making sure to not miss anything.

And just as the camera footage was about to end, Vivian ordered.

"Pause! Set the speed back to normal." Vivian was curious. She was curious why the footage ended this short without any intruders showing up.

"Could I be wrong? But the basement door was smashed open into pieces." She muttered under her breath.

That's when the answer to her questions were finally answered.

On the screen, she saw a glimpse of shadows through the middle gap of the basement door.

"Gotcha." Vivian smirked and crossed her arms as she watched the basement door get smashed open, that's when suddenly a small metal piece flew from the basement door and unfortunately landed on the camera, destroying it.

*Bizzz!*

"Wha-..." Vivian's smirk quickly disappeared from her face as she couldn't believe what she just saw.

"....System, please tell me what I just saw." Vivian gritted her teeth and rubbed her temples in frustration as she asked her personal A.I.

<Good morning, Ms. Vivian. According to my observations, it seems like the lock of the basement door coincidentally flew towards the security camera right as the unknown person outside broke through the basement doors.>

"Coincidence? I think not!" Vivian slammed her gloved hand on the table, making the papers fly out.

"I should've placed cameras inside also. I wasn't just expecting someone would discover me this early. Who is it?" Vivian raised a question to no one but herself.

"How about the scan? Anything unusual in the facility?"

<The Scan was just completed. According to the scan, only two items were moved during your absence. The Confidential Folder and the Transgendering Ray Gun.>

"Quickly scan for fingerprints!" Vivian immediately ordered.

<Please allow me to remind you that you created the Transgendering Ray Gun out of an anti-fingerprint material. But I can scan the confidential folder for fingerprints.>

"Tsk! Do it!" Vivian realized this and sighed in defeat.

<Scan complete. Matching the scanned fingerprints through the database of the FBI network system.....Match not found.>

"Not found, huh? So we have a ghost...This is tough. Is it Evelyn? Did she come here to threaten me for not being able to hold the end of the agreement? No, this is not something that she would do. Perhaps the government...." Vivian clenched her fingers and gave another order.

"Keep scanning for fingerprints through the database of several agencies around the world. I don't think someone is capable enough to truly hide himself from the digital world." Vivian confidently said, smirking on the process.

<Affirmative. This process would take 15 minutes to complete.>

"Take your time. In the meantime, we're going to change our location. So after you're done, save all of our files and transfer it to a private server that can only be opened through my specified authentications." With the blink of the computer as if communicating, Vivian smiled in satisfaction at the work of her personal A.I and was about to turn around and leave, when suddenly her eyes fell on the confidential folder that contains a project that she has been working on ever since her husband died.

"System. Change the name of the project. Change it from Project Kronos to Project Vendetta, just like my name." Giving one last order, Vivian grabbed the folder that reveals itself to be the folder for Project Kronos and caressed it as if it was alive.

"Oh Frank. This world is so against us. I'll make sure to make them pay. All the Supers will pay for taking you and Max away from me! I'll make sure all of them die! Especially that Super Macho Man! I'll make sure to give him a special treatment!" And with that being said, Vivian turned around and resumed her leave, but this time, she was holding the confidential folder in her hand.

***

'The Project Kronos. It looks like my interference changed its name but that doesn't mean it also changed the intention.' Leo whispered to himself.

'Eradicating all the Supers huh? So that's probably the purpose of those weird vials over there. Those vials might be her weapon against the Supers either it can be used to temporarily disable a Super's powers or maybe it's much more than just that. How fascinating but chilling.'

'I'm sorry grandma, but it seems to me you were part of the reason Buddy became a super villain in the first place.'

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[Next Chapter: Ch. 111 - V for Vendetta or Vivian?]