William was still reeling from the fact that he had just recovered from being torn in half when he heard Cecil's voice.
He turned his head as his reddened skin slowly repaired itself and returned to a normal, although enhanced, state, which caused the agents who weren't used to seeing such things to become nauseous at the sight before regaining their composure with help from their training.
William attempted to stand, but he had yet to regain feeling in his legs, causing him to stumble to the ground, only catching himself with one hand.
"Crack!"
The asphalt under him forcibly split apart when he applied too much force, and suddenly his arm was buried into the road, causing his as well as Cecil's, and the agent's eyes to widen in response.
"CRACK!"
William pulled his arm free of the asphalt and checked for wounds, he had a surprised look on his face when he saw that not only did the road not puncture his skin, but it did not even leave a scratch.
"Woah!"
He could not help but mutter as the agents watched with slack jaws, and Cecil's eyes became slits.
Cecil was about to ask William something when Immortal appeared in the air with Darkwing in his arms.
The damage he received to place Nolan in the shadow dimension was nearly fatal, luckily, he was only missing his forearm and what appeared to be parts of his legs, which were all bandaged.
"WHERE IS THAT BASTARD!"
Immortal yelled out as the veins in his neck became visible, but when Darkwing winced in his arms, he allowed himself to cool off before once again asking with a much colder tone.
"Where did Nolan go?"
He asked William with a stern gaze, as Darkwing had explained to him that Nolan had been the last one to be with the Viltrumite.
William looked up towards the silhouette of Immortal and noticed the rest of the living Guardians arriving shortly after, with War Woman taking point, followed by the person in a strange green suit and an even stranger-looking alien man, along with a fish-headed merman.
War Woman had a relieved expression appear on her face when she saw William was alive, but her expression grew grave when she noticed the holes in his uniform caked with long-dried blood.
"A... Are you okay, William? What happened?"
She flew down and landed in front of William, who immediately explained all he knew, which, although it was still much, gave the Guardians a slight lead on where to search for Nolan.
However, their immediate priority at the moment was to recover from the damages received during the unexpected attack.
While the Guardians were catching up with William in the distance, Nolan could be seen floating in the clouds, a large scar running down the side of his face from one of the shadow domain creatures getting in a lucky slash.
He touched his hand to his face and felt the blood pool into his once pristine white glove before squeezing his hand into a powerful fist and disappearing in a certain direction.
Cecil had arranged for medical transport for the young man lying unconscious on the ground with a hole seared into his shirt, and eventually, a GDA Vertibird arrived on the scene, and a group of highly trained medical and scientific personnel stepped off with some taking scans and others heading for the young man.
Within moments, the medical unit had placed him on a stretcher, and they, along with the wounded Guardians, flew off towards headquarters for their personal medical needs.
Cecil, who was still at the site of the portal opening, stared deeply into the spot where the door to darkness once was, and his gaze grew dark.
He is one of the few people who know the horror of that place and its denizens, as they had left him with a rather nasty lasting gift on his face.
As the Vertibird flew towards its destination within the body of a young man, a war between two souls was underway.
A being of utter darkness was in the process of devouring the soul of a young man, but in the last moments before the last droplets of light within the soul are snuffed out, suddenly, within Conor's soul space a brilliant light pierced the shadows swarming what was left of Conor's soul and lashed at the shadowy figure attempting to devour him.
Unfortunately, Conor's soul was left in tattered and sparse remnants, forcing the glowing tentacles to pause before reaching into nothingness, and after what seemed like an eternity, the strange glowing entity's tentacles returned holding onto an even stranger source of light before seemingly forcing the strange orb of light with the remnants of Conor's original soul.
"RUMBLE!"
The soul space within Conor shook the very moment the final fragment of the soul was absorbed, and a brilliant light began to explode outward from the center, which would have blinded any onlookers if they were capable of seeing it.
A brilliant, blue, and iridescent sun that represents Conor's soul body appeared in the center of the mass of light.
However, deep within the roiling mass of life and light, a shadow struggled against its bonds.
"LET ME OUUUUUTTT!"
A voice echoed within the soul space.
"LET ME OUUU..."
The voice was suddenly cut off as Conor opened his eyes and snapped up from his bed, as the last thing he remembered was a shadowy figure slamming into his chest and knocking him unconscious.
"Woah, woah easy!"
A nurse who was in the process of refilling his liquid IV noticed his movement and rushed to assist him in case the sudden burst of movement ended up exacerbating some unknown injury.
Conor was naturally shaken as he had woken up in a strange place with strange people.
Within moments of waking up, a doctor arrived and began doing a series of non-invasive tests to make sure he was okay to be released.
While Conor was in the process of being released from the medical facility, William was undergoing a rather hardcore training regimen along with Rexplode, Dupli-Kate, Atom Eve, and a group of Robot's drones who were firing upon the group with concentrated laser beams and rockets.
"BOOM!"
An exploding rocket smashed into a barrier conjured by Eve before a series of small explosive orbs flew out from the smokescreen and struck a few of the drones, knocking down most and disabling a few.
"BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!"
William and Kate shot out from the left side of the barrier, and after creating a few clones, she used his body as a springboard to launch a few of her clones into a few of the remaining drones, some of which were blasted by the lasers, and while not injured, were left stunned.
However, William was taking advantage of the distraction by performing a leaping spinning kick toward one of the drones, causing the head to fly off the body in a spray of sparks before slamming into one of the other drones.
Robot sent a few of his remaining drones to deal with him and successfully managed to keep him busy with a flurry of lasers, punches, and kicks.
"Crack!"
A robotic foot slammed into William's chest, causing the bones in his ribs to shatter and blood to fly out of his mouth as he flew backward, but thankfully, Eve conjured a ramp-shaped construct that not only absorbed most of the impact but redirected him back towards the fray with his fists raised.
"HAAA!"
William let out a loud yell and put most of his strength into a powerful punch, managing to tear a hole in Robot's torso.
"BZZZT!"
The robot began spasming as William's hand destroyed vital hardware, and the energy source was smashed into bits that embedded themselves into his fist.
"YAAAHHH!"
William let out as he ripped his fist free from the drone and, in the same movement, pressed both of his hands into the opening in the robot's chest and, with a great amount of effort, tore the drone in half!
He was about to be surrounded by the remaining drones when a score of explosive orbs landed in their midst, and suddenly the group of robots was blown into different directions.
The bits of the robotic parts in William's fist began to fall free, clattering to the ground along with droplets of blood that stopped within moments.
Robots command robot he was personally commanding took charge and fired a blast of pure concussive force which sent the group of approaching Kate's flying in a rain of blood and gore, causing Kate, with a big one on her chest, to groan in pain.
The groan of pain elicited a response from Eve, who moved to comfort Kate.
"BOOOOM!"
An explosion suddenly erupted in front of both of the ladies, who were naturally shocked in response to the sudden force erupting past them.
However much to their shock, William stood in front of them with his arms spread out as he absorbed the brunt of the attack, which tore the clothes, flesh and muscle from the front half of his body, leaving him looking like half a skeleton with strangely dense and dark bones which after the flames died down began to visibly be covered by blood and within moments his body was fully recovered.
He flashed a handsome smile at Kate and Eve when his face fully recovered.
"Are you both alright?"
His voice was like velvet on their eardrums, which, along with his rather handsome face, caused them to blush a bit.
Kate even began pressing her index fingers together as if she was suddenly shy, but after hearing the constant explosions, both girls returned to the fray with renewed energy.
She summoned a large formation of clones, which began overwhelming the remaining robot drones with sheer numbers and Eve created a massive pink pillar that she commanded to smash into the commanding robot drone forcing the metal construct to forgo its rocket attacks against William and Rex and attempt to prevent himself from being crushed under the weight of the pillar.
"BOOM!"
The collision of the pillar against the robot drone commander's hands, which struggled and sparked under the increasing pressure.
A few seconds after the drone commander was under the pillar, it was forced to its knees, the weight behind the pillar causing the robot's joints to creak and spark as it was slowly being crushed.
"Congratulations, Team, you have succeeded!"
"BOOOM!"
The pillar finally crushed the struggling robot into the shape of a coin, leaving a pool of smoke-blackened lubricant pooling around it.
Eve huffed due to the strain of using so much of her power, and Kate's clones vanished, leaving the single Kate standing next to Eve.
Rex looked like he had just gone through a warzone, and William was forced to hide his genitals from the group as he was rendered naked by the previous explosion.
As he walked towards the door, both Eve and Kate took the opportunity to take a peek, leaving both with what appeared to be steam flowing out from their heads as they caught a glimpse of his "Pillar!"
"Hey, you two, his eyes are up there!"
Rex said as he nursed the broken bones in his hand and ribs.
The words earned him a murderous glare from both ladies, which forced Rex to shut up or suffer the wrath of two women.
[I would like to personally thank my greatest contributor, Conor Webster, who has been nothing if not a great motivator to continue writing. I hope you enjoy your character, bro!]