We're all fine here...how are you?

People were understandably confused when the aliens that actually showed up looked nothing like the one that had destroyed the city all those years ago. None more so than Adrian Veidt, since he had never even considered the possibility of an actual invasion.

And of course, as the savior of the New World, he was the one who had had to try and negotiate with the blasted things, which is how he has ended up here, trapped inside the alien’s mothership, forced to watch as the aliens battled the Earth’s Newest Heroes for control of New York City. No, he was not going to call then The Watchmen. That was a silly name, and he had told Walter as much when he found out about it.

Walter Kovacs Dreiberg looked nothing like his parents. Red-haired, freckled and homely, he had still grown up strong, well-adjusted and with a subtle yet infectious optimism that had swayed the minds of even the staunchest anti-vigilante supporters. It was hard to believe he had ever been the bitter, angry man who stalked and beat and killed mercilessly in the dirty streets and alleys of his city. The boy still had some memories of his former life (not all obviously, or he would have thought of much worse nicknames for him than “creepy Uncle Adrian” by now), but had still chosen to take up the mantle of Nite Owl III, albeit with a slight costume change. He did look good in a trenchcoat, although he really needed a new hat. At least he had pinned it to his hair so he didn’t have to keep stopping to pick it up, or the aliens probably would have gotten him by now. They almost had. Several times.

One of them almost got him again, but his sister jumped in and smacked the ray gun out of its hands before punching out its eye. Silk Spectre III was Dan and Laurie’s child, born soon after they had settled in Long Island, deciding that a life spent constantly changing names and being on the run was no life for their children. Laurie had insisted on teaching their offspring self-defense from an early age though, so it was no wonder the child had ended up like this, spunky, self-assured, and insisting on following her brother into battle, whether it was against criminals or the German Shepards down the street.

Of course, the German Shepards down the street had turned out to belong to Gale Knightly, who was really Twilight Lady, retired and raising her children in peace. After learning that she was old friends with their dad, the kids had warmed up to her and went over their house often. Walter had even gotten over his fear of dogs, with the help of the twins.

And there they were now, fighting alongside him as Captain Metropolis II and the Twilight Gentleman. People were understandably confused about why a girl would call herself Captain, or why a boy would name himself after a villainess prostitute, but they pulled it off well. People didn’t know that the villainess prostitute was their mom, or that the captain had given his “niece” permission to use his name. (Adrian had known that Nelson had faked his death and retired to Florida all along, but he was more surprised to find out that after they had stopped writing to each other Nelson had run into Hooded Justice, who had also faked his death and moved to Florida and who was also Gale’s(Leslie’s) uncle, at a theme park. Life was queer like that sometimes.)

He  can see all of then now, alongside Miss Manhattan, a less powerful version of her father sent to aid Earth , that slightly sleazy-looking guy she hung out with who’s name escaped him, and other assorted heroes and even some villains who had come out to help fight off the invasion.  They fight ferociously, skillfully, but differently than their predecessors. They have courage, and strength, and…something, something indefinable, something his generation had lost long before, a protectiveness, a feeling of lightness and hope. He almost wants to call it heart.

Captain Metropolis is grazed by a beam and falls to the ground, clutching her arm. Adrian gasps, despite himself. Neither of them had never really acknowledged it, no one had, even though one look at them and it was obvious. The hair, the eyes, and the way they smirked…they had to know, right? He always figured he would raise proper heirs someday, Gale (Leslie) had kept them to herself even before she had found out what he’d done, and she had that right, but… Cap was still trying to fight, even as her brother tried to get her to safety, and then there was a blast, and smoke filled the screen, and he almost yelled at them.

He thought about it. The guards changed shifts in another five minutes. The disk was in his pocket. He had been planning to give it to one of his escorts, to have him sneak into the control room and contact his scientists in the Antarctic base, see if they had found any other options yet, and if not give them the location of the mothership while he himself slipped away before they beamed it aboard. Four minutes. He had been planning to send this new one to Russia, or Germany maybe, or Japan, they were getting a little feisty, but in light of the invasion and the subsequent confusion and backlash over where the first one had actually come from he had decided the best course of action was to get rid of it. He didn’t really want to send it up here, but if this could take out the mothership it could seriously cripple the fleet and maybe even end the invasion. Three minutes. The invasion was certainly helping to unite the world, but destroying the entire human race wasn’t on his agenda (no matter what Daniel said). The kids, his kids, had survived the blast and continued to fight. He could easily escape, get to them and hand over the disk, tell them where the ship was and what to do. He’d be sending them on a suicide mission, there was no way to get off the ship fast enough to escape the blast from the central control room, but if it saved the world…Two minutes. He couldn’t do it himself, the world needed him, he had to live to guide them through this crisis and the aftermath of the invasion and to assure them that the first thing that had destroyed the city and brought them all together was a real threat, it was just a different race obviously, one that these creatures had never heard of. One minute. He needed to be there, to guide everyone, but how long would it take to fly down there and explain the whole thing and have someone fly back, how many more people would die during that time, and why did he even care about something like that but what if one of his kids insisted on being the one to sacrifice themselves up here, why does it matter, you never acknowledged them as your own, they are acceptable losses, you have to live but they were his CHILDREN DAMN IT and the guards were going to change any second now, he could hear it, the escape pod was only ten yards away, and…

He cluched the disk. Laughed at himself. He was going to do it anyway, wasn’t he?