The Invincibles

by Michael McNichols

  ***

  Shrieking and cursing, Phoenix Bright threw fire and lightning all over his throne room, knocking down the walls and ceiling. Danny pranced, ducked, and twisted out of the way, always just barely missing every blast. Nightshadow dragged Wrath down behind the throne for cover. He noticed that when Bright’s magical blasts struck the white-flaming hostages in their cages, it only made them burn stronger and brighter. He wasn’t sure what that meant or how to free them, but luckily, there was an expert on magic nearby.

  With Danny distracting Bright, Nightshadow whisked around the throne and grabbed the jar throbbing with Liandra Dark’s spirit. He slammed it down against the short steps leading up to the throne, but the glass didn’t break. Snatching it back up, he beat it against the hard stone floor, but it didn’t even crack. Finally, he picked up Paul Wrath’s arm and aimed the wrist-blaster on his gauntlet point blank at the jar. He pulled the trigger, and energy shot out in a thin white, sizzling line.

  Glass shards flew everywhere, and a bloody-pink mist seeped through Nightshadow’s facemask up into his nostrils. He couldn’t help but suck it all in and thought he was going to suffocate. His lungs and guts felt fit to burst. He shuddered, spasmed, and choked. Hard white flashed across his eyes.

  “Relax, it’s me,” a familiar, accented voice said deep in his head.

  “Liandra?” Nightshadow asked aloud.

  “Yeah, we’re roommates now, Night, dear, and here’s my share of the rent.”

  Nightshadow gawked and choked as centuries of knowledge filled up the inner reaches of his mind. Spells, curses, forbidden languages, mythologies, maps to other realms, and strange, inhuman rituals all flowed together.

  “Thank you for being my little library, Night,” Liandra said. “I see your life in here too. I’m sorry about your family. You were only a child, but there was the explosion and the bridge collapsing. All these people were screaming and you didn’t know what was going on and almost died yourself. You’ve never been able to process what happened and what you’d lost. You never process any of your pain. You just block it out and I see it in here, building and building. I don’t know how you can stand it, Nathan.”

  “Don’t call me that,” Nightshadow said. “I’m not him.”

  “Sorry. I can see that he’s completely gone.”

  Almost of their own accord, Nightshadow’s hands began circling in the air, trailing fiery green and purple vapors. The magic bled across his wing-suit and hardened into semi-transparent armor. His mouth moved of its own accord, chanting ancient words that hurt his tongue to pronounce. Power built up and burned inside of him, aching to erupt.

  “Now we can settle this,” Nightshadow and Liandra said together.

  ***

  Smoke filled the air and formed into hissing, glowing-green snakes that wrapped and writhed around Danny, pinning and holding him down to the floor. Phoenix Bright brushed the remaining webbing off his armor before taking aim at him with a fireball.

  “Now!” Liandra told Nightshadow.

  While she chanted away in a dozen different languages deep inside of him, he concentrated and formed a knife out of his armor. He flung it at Bright, who dissolved his fireball to catch and crush the knife in his hands. The cyber-sorcerer turned toward Nightshadow. Bright’s armor shimmered as the flames embedded in it came to life.

  “You had your chance to be spared!” Phoenix Bright said. The flames leaped off of his armor, turning into dozens of flaming daggers that darted at Nightshadow.

  In response, Nightshadow threw his arms wide, knowing instinctively what to do with Liandra and all her knowledge lurking inside of him. A flickering-flashing shield appeared in front of him and caught Bright’s daggers as one after the other speared into its transparent, thick magical glass. The shield cracked under the stress. Bright then brought a massive sword of smoky black fire down against the shield and shattered it into pieces, which was exactly what Nightshadow had wanted him to do.

  The shield parts flew, melting along the way and becoming swampy-green water that splashed up against the fire cages. The magic water drenched the hostages and put out the fires, reducing the cages to weak, blackened metal. The cages snapped free and fell to the floor, breaking and spilling the hostages out, though they were all wet with sweat and soot.

  “NO!” Bright hissed.

  “YES!” Liandra yelled with Nightshadow’s voice. A giant, blue-burning hammer flared up in his hands, and he slammed it down at Bright, who caught it.

  “YOU ARE NOTHING!” Bright roared as he threw the hammer and Nightshadow back. As Nightshadow fell backwards, the hammer broke into pieces that pelted into him. Bright formed an orb of sickly orange power and hurled it through the air at him. The orb crackled and pulsed with power and was seemingly ready to explode. Nightshadow thought he couldn’t dodge quickly enough away to avoid it. However, an elegantly jeweled spear lanced through it, and the orb exploded back onto Bright and knocked him over.

  Gilgamesh emerged from the shadows and picked his spear back up from the floor. Behind him, Dynamo-Man burst through a nearby wall and launched a barrage of mini-missiles at the fallen Bright. This allowed Sea Devil to sneak in through the hole in the wall and shoot Bright with his trident-rifle as he struggled back up. Phoenix Bright lashed up his hands and threw a wave of flames that sent everyone reeling back. He tried conjuring another orb, but a bright, bursting light appeared and the Answer bounded out of it to give Bright a powerful uppercut that put him down.

  Gilgamesh stared at him. “I thought I’d killed you!”

  “That was only an illusion to help me escape,” the Answer replied. “No hard feelings though, Gil. I know you weren’t yourself.”

  With the other Invincibles taking over the fight, Nightshadow ripped Danny free from the snakes. Each twitchy, hissing serpent evaporated into smoke once they were torn apart. Then Nightshadow and Danny joined up with the other Invincibles in a battle formation. However, when Bright stirred, Paul Wrath staggered shakily up and shot him back down with his wrist-blaster. With a weary smile, Wrath collapsed down onto the throne.

  “Nice to see that we all found our way here,” he said. “Must be magic, which comes down to you, Liandra, darling. You are inside of Night there, aren’t you?”

  Under his mask, Nightshadow’s mouth crested up into Liandra’s smile. “It’s the spell of unification,” she said with his voice. “Too bad Hyperman and Areva are too far out of reach for me to summon.”

  “We’re fine without them,” Gilgamesh said, stalking toward Bright and rubbing his hardened, clenched fists.

  ***

  After impaling Phoenix Bright to the floor with his spear, Gilgamesh began hammering down at him with explosive, shell-shocking punches.

  “The astral plane!” Liandra chirped as everybody watched Gilgamesh pummel the sorcerer. “Bright’s trying to sneak out to the astral plane!”

  Nightshadow felt her slip out of his body like a breath. He went cold and numb and nearly toppled over. All of Liandra’s magical knowledge was vanishing in a flush, but he vaguely saw her on the misty, chaotic astral plane, slamming a fiery soul-spear down through Phoenix Bright. It impaled him there much as Gilgamesh’s spear did for his physical body here. She blew Nightshadow a kiss as she started drawing a circle in soul-blood around Bright to exile him to another realm.

  The image faded from Nightshadow’s mind, and the real world of Bright’s fortress came hurtling back, painted in harsh, eye-hurting colors. It hit him like a punch, and he went reeling back. He shouldered stiffly into a wall and leaned up against it to regain his bearings.

  S.I.L.E.N.T. troops rushed in and saw to the hostages, while the other Invincibles went to finish off the last of Phoenix Bright’s forces. Gilgamesh called for Nightshadow to join them on the hunt as he tore his spear up out of Bright’s motionless sack of a body and lumbered off.

  Instead, Nightshadow approached Danny, who was checking on hostage after hostage, offering them consoling words or he
lping with their bandages. He saw Nightshadow, excused himself, and drifted over with Nightshadow to a corner behind the throne away from everyone else.

  “So it’s over?” Danny asked.

  “This is, yes,” Nightshadow replied and offered Danny a hand. “We need to talk,” he said.

  Danny shrugged. “I guess we do.”

  He took Nightshadow’s hand with a firm, hard grip. Nightshadow triggered the electro-shock. Danny screamed, shuddered, and shook before falling over unconscious. The chemical spray on Nightshadow’s wing-suit had kept him from detecting any danger.

  “That’s one way of talking things out,” Wrath said, waltzing over. He’d stripped off his robo-armor and had his most serious burns treated and bandaged.

  “Put Danny in a cell,” Nightshadow said. “Then we’ll clean up here.”

  Chapter 11: FARTHER THAN HEAVEN

  Hyperman ripped another Blood Seraph in half by its bony, lopsided wings and eye-blasted three more swooping down at him. Even a cursory scan showed that the Blood Seraphs weren’t even close to being alive. That meant killing them wasn’t murder. Best of all, Hyperman had read in Prism’s golden-glowing aura that it possessed self-regenerative powers. No matter the severity of the damage the planet took, it would heal and replenish itself!

  Knowing this, he let completely loose.

  He hurled entire city blocks of crystal towers at the invading armies. He picked up entire mountains of gold and silver and dumped them down onto the Blood Seraphs. Bounding up into the sky, he fired eye-blasts anywhere and everywhere, roasting any fleeing enemies. At mind-numbing hyper-speeds, he blitzed back and forth all over the planet, smashing and burning everything to get at the enemy. Floating cities, cloud gardens, ocean song farms, and computer forests, he set them all blaze and didn’t worry about it. They’d heal, regenerate, or grow back.

  He no longer had to hold back at all. This truly was heaven.

  He’d gotten so caught up in destroying the invaders that he’d lost track of Areva. She’d blended in with the legions of other Silver Seraphs fighting alongside him. However, he was sure she was fine. She was more used to these types of cosmic clashes than anyone he knew.

  Unfortunately, despite the combined efforts of him, her, and all the other Silver Seraphs, more and more Blood Seraphs poured down from the skies. While Hyperman could have joyfully kept this up forever, he knew the war was taking its toll on his comrades. Their dead fell from the sky and piled up on Prism below. He had to do something more to turn the tide in their favor.

  Focusing his hyper-vision out into space, he pinpointed the wormhole the Blood Seraphs continually spilled out of just beyond Prism’s orbit. Like a gigantic foaming mouth, it threatened to engulf the entire planet. Yelling at all the Silver Seraphs to hang back, Hyperman started whirling around and around. Seconds later, he spiraled around at the center of a massive tornado that lashed tendrils out all across the planet. Concentrating, Hyperman levitated upwards, bringing the storm with him up through the dim orange sky. The twister tore and thrashed through the Blood Seraph armies, sucking them all up into its vortex.

  Hyperman heaved the massive windstorm whipping up through the atmosphere into the wormhole. It took the Blood Seraphs with it into the shimmering dark through to the other side. That much mass passing back through destabilized the wormhole, causing it to shudder and blink. Finally, the wormhole collapsed back into itself and closed, vanishing as if it’d never been there at all.

  The Silver Seraphs cheered and went to finish off any remaining Blood Seraphs. Hyperman sped back across the planet, knowing his work wasn’t done yet. Lucifer still lurked somewhere on Prism, and he was probably as dangerous as all the Blood Seraphs put together.

  Hyperman zoomed toward the very heart of Prism across a gold grassy plain that dominated the landscape, fluttering the perfect, saintly white roses that grew there. A chunky, black plateau mounted up on the horizon. The Sacrosanct Keep sat on top with a luminous white sun boiling in the sky above. An Edenic garden of sweet-smelling, star-shaped fruit grew around the gigantic Keep. The Keep’s strange, shiny aura blurred Hyperman’s hyper-vision and prevented him from scanning its insides. High silvery-white walls and gigantic golden-bronze doors greeted Hyperman as he landed down in front.

  He bashed in the tall, intimidating front doors. Inside, dust motes swirled and scattered about the corridors. Colored light splashed down through the stained glass windows depicting the Celestials and their good works across the universe. Through another set of huge doors, rows and rows of seats with kneelers led down to a central amphitheater with a platform that boasted a gorgeous white round table. A starry-silver podium bounded up next to it.

  Celestials lay dying all over the place. The smell of them alone almost dropped Hyperman to his knees. He recognized a few of them from his travels across space-time. There was one-eyed Odin cloaked in raven wings, peacock-feathered Hera, and falcon-headed Horus with his sharp, taloned feet.

  Ordinarily, Celestials possessed tight sculpted muscles, perfect youthful looks, and glowing unblemished skin. However, ugly, purple tumors now burst open across their dull, flaky skin and sick pus erupted out. Veins spider-webbed across their eyes. Black blood dribbled and foamed out of their nostrils, ears, and mouths. Before, bright, golden-green auras had shone around them, but murky black had leaked across and threatened to overwhelm that usually brilliant, powerful color of life.

  A hyper-scan showed nano-bots encrypted with odd, magical formulas flooding through the Celestials’ veins, secreting mystic toxics specifically targeted for the divine. Hyperman saw the Celestials’ organs and veins hardening and blackening, and knew they had no hope. He felt his own body processing and breaking down the nano-bots to nothing, keeping him healthy. His regenerative abilities must have surpassed those of the Celestials some time ago.

  Noticing a burly, white-bearded mountain of a Celestial clawing up onto the great table and struggling to stand, Hyperman super-sped over to him. He caught him as he collapsed. Sick sweat plastered the Celestial’s cherubic-blue skin, and a red omega symbol flamed faintly across his beefy forehead.

  “Are you Yahweh?” Hyperman asked.

  Weakly, the Celestial nodded. When he talked, he sounded like he was choking. “L-L-Lucifer,” he managed to say and nodded up toward a corridor. “Library.”

  Hyperman set him gently down onto a massive, comfortable-looking chair up at the table.

  “Rest,” he told him. “I’ll take care of Lucifer.”

  Yahweh stared vacantly back at him and tried licking bloody spittle off of his lips. Hyperman wondered how a divine creature that had thought he’d live forever could accept the fact that he was now dying horrifically. It must have been as painful as the disease eating away at him to know all his works and wonders were going up in flames around him. He’d lost his eternity and legacy in one day. It would have driven Hyperman mad.

  Growls and screams echoed out of the corridor Yahweh had indicated. Hyperman jetted up toward them.

  ***

  The golden library doors lay in blackened, burning pieces. Beyond them, the library stretched out to an impossibly colossal size, somehow looking bigger than the entire Sacrosanct Keep but still fitting inside. Floor after floor of ancient, forbidden texts; computers of wild, varying designs; and strange, unfamiliar maps, both paper and holographic, towered seemingly up and up forever.

  White flames streaked everywhere, eating books and maps. Flimsy, pale smoke choked the air. Bookcases toppled over sounding like thunder, and the floors gave out. Computers sparked and exploded. Holograms became pixelated and filled with static before blinking out.

  Hyperman’s mouth gaped open. The horrific scene before him was staggering. The Celestials’ knowledge and wisdom could never be replaced. So much hope and transformative science and magic were being burned away to ash and soot. The universe was losing out on more advances in philosophy, science, art, magic and every other conceivable subject than it could ever know
.

  Far above, Lucifer peered down over a railing at Hyperman. The devil didn’t look good, and Hyperman saw that Phoenix Bright hadn’t spared him from the nano-bot plague. Lucifer’s skin had gone blotchy gray and tumors riddled his flesh. His twisted, now malformed wings drooped weakly down behind him and could probably not take flight anymore.

  Still, he held a Silver Seraph up by the throat while tearing off its wings. Nearby, a couple of other Seraphs hung impaled on their swords, both lit up like white-burning bonfires. At Lucifer’s nod, two other dying Celestials leaped over the railing down at Hyperman.

  Susano-O-No-Mikoto, the Japanese Storm-bringer, wore full samurai armor branded with thunderbolts and wielded a lightning bolt-shaped katana. Tribal tattoos covered Lugh, the savage, naked Celtic Sun, from head to foot. Across his chest, a corona beamed out yellow, pulsing fire. The plague had shriveled both Celestials up. Their visible skin rotted and smelled. Monstrous tumors stuck out of their faces, yet they still attacked.

  Casually brushing off the Celtic sun-fire, Hyperman sliced Lugh in half with an eye-blast. Susano-O slashed with his sword, but Hyperman dodged it and punched the Celestial’s head clean off. Hyperman swiped up the lightning sword and hurled it up at Lucifer. It flew high and true, piercing through the devil’s left wing into his back. It caused him to drop the Silver Seraph he had been tormenting and shake as electricity coursed through him. His flesh smoked and flashed, showing his bones encased beneath as if in an X-ray.

  Hyperman met him with a wild haymaker punch that sent him stumbling back into the white fire. A bloody smile bloomed across Lucifer’s shadowy face as his wings sizzled and burned. He wiped off his mouth and licked his own blood.

  “I’m going to rape your soul,” he said in a muffled, mocking voice.