"Make him?... You control time?" Carl's mental fog cleared as he used his deductive skills for the first time in 33 years, effectively. "Wait, that means..." Carl looked between Luke, himself, and Alex the horror on his face growing. For all intents and purposes, the new life he was given left him a normal civilian, inexperienced with the alien technology he encountered as a Cyber Space Warrior, "we should all be the same age..." he whispered.
Captain Clockwork was momentarily shocked Carl could overcome even part of the mental reconditioning he imposed, but the setback was so minor given his position he couldn't help but laugh. "Oh Carl! Carl, Carl, Carl. You should see your face right now! Priceless. Hope you didn't burst a neural pathway coming up with that... you need to ration your brain cells over your last 20-40 years..." He cackled maniacally at his own joke.
"We should all be the same age!" Carl said firmly, this time... "You... you somehow made me older! That's why you're being so rude!"
Captain Clockwork found the statement hilarious. Time around them warped and froze, Carl was experiencing this seemingly for the first time... "Bravo puny human, Bravo... As a reward for seeing past my manipulations," a menacing glee was dripping off every word, "I'll set you all to the same age! But what age are you supposed to be?" he asked giggling darkly.
Carl stammered looking to his friends who were frozen in time. 6 couldn't be right, quickly ruling out Alex, Lucas was only a high schooler, he couldn't join the military let alone save the world from interdimensional space invaders! They couldn't possibly all be 50 year olds... "I know! You have to balance things! Average our ages!"
"Oh? What gave my limitation away?" If his mechanical eyes could twinkle they would. "A deal is a deal. You're lucky I'm so impressed with your mental acumen. I'll even set you all mentally to match your biological ages."
"No, leave my mind alone!"
"It's all or nothing, you want a 6 year old in a 20 something year old body? A teenager let loose to gamble, do drugs, have sex? Its all your call... but its all or nothing old man. Even you should want the mental shift, how cynical would you be as a middle aged man forced to relive your 20s, 30s, and 40's again."
"No! That would be... an issue." Carl said quickly seeing the problem.
"Very well, average ages, minds to match." With that time unfroze and Lucas was the first, aging 7 years. Carl was the second having 26 years of age and experience ripped away from him leaving him lean and spry once again. Finally Alex was aged to match the others, rapidly becoming a muscular behemoth. Lucas was beginning to complain that this still isn't right, they are all too old and supposed to be high schoolers but Carl countered that they are superhero's he obviously set him up to believe he was a high schooler, because, how insane would it be to entrust superpowers to a hormonal kid!
Lucas faltered for a second and Captain Clockwork remapped his mind to make him mentally a 24 year old, followed by Alex, and finally Carl.
The trio blinked in confusion as a clock themed robot opened a dimensional portal and stepped through leaving the group to figure out their new lives. Captain Clockwork could have aged them to death, or deaged them to the point their lungs weren't functional, however, the brilliant majesty of scrambling their minds and letting them suffer the fallout as they realize nothing is as it should be... They expect jobs, cars, homes, and relationships befitting mid 20 year-olds, everyone else in their lives expect teenagers. Carl guessed wrong, and even if they want to still be superheroes, every aspect of their lives are suddenly in shambles. They can't go back to high school, they don't actually have any school to corroborate the diploma or degree they think they have, and places they remember working don't actually exist and never did.
Captain Clockwork stepped through the portal into the dark hallway, each footfall forcing the ominous tick tock. "Hello Colleagues, it appears I'm just in time to give you my update."
"Get on with it Clockwork." came the moaning hiss from Void, the ominous mass of writhing shadows in the corner.
"Our time has come and time is of the essence!" Captain Clockwork exclaimed jovially. "The Cyber Space Warriors are left physically and mentally displaced in time, none the wiser for the time being. The next few months at least will be trying to rebuild the lives they think they had and trying to put up with family, friends, and possibly human society treating them like the children they were. If we don't overthrow it first."
Dr. Mayhem cleared his throat as he looked at the other 12 members, "Does that mean my drones may test my new ray guns on the humans immediately? We all agreed I get to be first to measure the effectiveness of Clockwork's distraction attempt! Our research of their culture uncovered fear of beings merged with a wolf or bat specifically and I'd love to pick a young one and put there parental instincts at odds with their self preservation! For science of course. And that's just my gene splicing ray, I have several other prototypes I've been waiting to test." His skin flashed an excited flurry of colors as his tentacles writhed in anticipation.
"Lord Skullface wants us to cow the Earth quickly, with little resistance." Embodiment said through his servant. His ability to suppress and override the consciousness of another at a distance appeared after an accident took his ability to walk. That was scary enough but he learned to transplant the consciousness as well, forcing body swaps, and can make these swaps permanent if he so chooses and gets them within several feet of his original body, the only reason he hasn't given it up.
"Yes, the seeds have been sown, within a few Earth hours, the formerly young lads, Earth's greatest resistance will find the lives they now lead are a lie and they will be distraught and confused. But if we attack immediately they won't even know something is wrong until after they defeat us. We should make final preparations and attack in 6 earth hours." Clockwork said.
With that the meeting adjourned as the attack had begun and the second phase was preparing to be unleashed.