The Invincibles

by Michael McNichols

  “Ahhhhh, Hyperman!” a genteel, German-sounding voice said. “Excellent to see you!”

  The awkward alien-human hybrid Centizoid stalked forward. Long, lopsided centipede-legs stabbed out of his sides with gleaming sharp pinchers at their ends. Two sets of bulky metal arms with claws also extended out of his rotund, ill-proportioned, hard plastic torso. He wore a helmet with big, obnoxious-looking goggles that masked most of his ugly, blackish-green face. His teeth chattered together into a menacing smile.

  “As you well know,” he said, “my Cierilan and human genetics experience difficulty accepting one another as I age. Thus, my organs fail me more and more every year. I have no choice but to replace them, and I demand only the best! The best, of course, being your magnificent biologics! However, you have not been forthcoming in donating to me. Therefore, I’ve had to make do with what you see before you. Though I could give you a chance to reconsider and volunteer to take these poor souls’ place in front of my scalpels?”

  His pinchers snapped excitedly together and he nodded toward Lindsey and the other specimens. Squinting his eyes, Hyperman saw the different kinds of swirling energy particles layering everything around them, whether it was the ship, the specimens, Lindsey, and even the Centizoid.

  “Magic and hard light holograms,” Hyperman said and smirked. “This is all an illusion. A mind game. I’m not really anywhere near New Daedalus, am I?”

  “What are you rambling on about, man?” the Centizoid asked.

  “This!”

  Hyperman smashed his fist into the creature’s hideous face, and the Centizoid exploded into a mass of multicolored zeroes and chaotic lights before vanishing completely.

  “The Answer and his tricks,” Hyperman muttered. He erupted out of the saucer and let it crash down below to the patchy, orange-brown soil in a fiery wreck off in the distance. Landing and wiping ash from off of his shoulder, he watched the fire blink away into nothingness.

  He studied his surroundings. A faint blue colored the sky. Ponderous blackish-brown mountains ranged across the horizon with a thin yellow sun creeping above. Craggy rocks and dirty desert swept all across the landscape. He recognized where he was. He had been here many times before. “Mars,” Hyperman murmured. He even spotted the Quarry sitting on the other side of the planet. His hyper-vision showed the complex to be completely empty, without a single prisoner or guard anywhere in sight.

  He realized he was breathing. Here on Mars, he was breathing. He didn’t have to breathe, but he normally liked to and finding that he could here was quite the shock. His hyper-vision showed Dynamo-Man’s virus-sized robots pumping oxygen into the air. His skin prickled when it felt Liandra Dark’s magic wash over the landscape in magnetic, wavy bursts, affecting the air and atmosphere. He felt energy crackling and burning nearby. He saw electrons lining up and bursting. So he wasn’t shocked when a scratchy hologram of Nightshadow blinked into existence before him.

  “There’s still time, Cal,” Nightshadow said. “We don’t have to do this.”

  “You and your allies attacked me,” Hyperman replied. “You’ve made my choice for me.”

  “You’re forcing my hand here. Look at your recent actions. You’re not thinking straight!”

  “I’m thinking more clearly than ever. What I’m doing is for everyone, Night! Even you! Especially you! I know how your knees and back hurt. I know you hate looking in the mirror every morning. But you’ll never have to worry about any of that again when I’m done.”

  “No, Cal, you don’t decide what my life is for me or for anyone else.

  “You don’t know what you’re turning down!”

  “It doesn’t matter. I don’t want anything that you’d offer. I’ve seen where it leads.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Nightshadow paused and looked away briefly, as if talking to someone. “When was the last time you checked in on El Dorado or Mutagen, Cal?” he asked.

  Hyperman frowned. “Why…why would I need to?”

  “They’re both dying. El Dorado developed two brain tumors almost overnight, and Mutagen has three different kinds of cancer.”

  “No! Impossible! I didn’t…I didn’t see anything like that in their systems!”

  “Their conditions only recently worsened. They both have days to live.”

  “I…I can fix them! I can figure out a way!”

  Nightshadow vanished and another hologram shimmered into existence. This one took Hyperman aback. Stephanie, his beautiful young worshipper who’d faked being a ritual sacrifice, fidgeted nervously before him. Creases marred her still mostly youthful face, and sleepless black smudged the edges of her eyes. Her almost divine luster had faded, and she looked small, ordinary, and plain.

  “Stephanie!” Hyperman said. “Don’t worry! I’ll come for you! I’ll find you wherever they took you. I won’t let them hurt you.”

  “No!” she said. “Please! Don’t! They’ve all been super nice to me! They saved me, and they’ve been protecting me. The Hypermanians went on the warpath and were shooting up all the other groups. They tried raiding my hospital, but the Answer got me out, and they’ve been keeping me somewhere safe. They…they’ve told me about some of the things you’ve been doing. It doesn’t sound like you. Are you really working with Alexander Mors? I know people who know him! He’s a bad guy!”

  “Let me explain!” Hyperman said, reaching for her without thinking. However, his hand brushed off her shirt collar. But how could that happen? Wasn’t she a hologram?

  Rainbow-hued zeroes flashed and flared across her clothes and skin. The Answer now stood in her place, and he crossed his arms sternly on his chest. “The Hypermanians found her safe house and shot it up with MorsWorld-designed vortex guns that they had purchased on the black market,” he solemnly said. “I took all my dialogue from the diary entries she was writing before she died. I think it made my performance more authentic, don’t you?”

  Hyperman’s face tightened and darkened.

  “You’re making it all up!” he snapped. “You’re making up everything about her and Mutagen and El Dorado! You’re trying to screw with my head!”

  “No,” the Answer said. “Look at my heart rate. Read my pulse and body language. I’m telling the truth.”

  Hyperman did, but grimaced. He snatched the Answer up by the throat.

  “YOU’RE LYING!” he snarled. “YOU ALWAYS FIND A WAY TO LIE!”

  His hand twitched and the Answer’s neck audibly snapped.

  “NO!” Hyperman gasped.

  He scanned the body he held limply in his hand, hoping that it was another trick. The real Answer had to be hiding somewhere nearby, chuckling at his own cleverness. However, Hyperman saw the organs and blood and even read the Answer’s DNA. It was him. There was no doubt about it. He had killed the Answer.

  Or had he? How could anyone ever truly know with the Answer’s illusion powers? It could be another part of this whole mind trip! The Answer was probably fine. He’d faked his death hundreds of times before. This was no different. It was just another part of Night’s plan. It had to be.

  Hyperman tossed the body aside, but from out of nowhere, a mountainous fist blasted him across the face and sent him hurtling across the dusty desert. He crashed down and bloody-red lightning lanced repeatedly down into him from out of a clear sky. Gritting his teeth, he struggled back up and gazed around. He laughed. Somehow, a planet-sized army had appeared and now surrounded him. Liandra Dark hovered above them all, sitting Indian-style, making strange gestures, and playing with red lighting, flames, and mists. Standing amongst the troops, Gilgamesh shook out his hand and drew his spear. Next to him, Sea Devil loaded his trident-rifle. Dynamo-Man and a S.I.L.E.N.T. fleet crowded across the sky. The Spider-Specter web-slung from jump-jet to jump-jet. At the head of the army, Paul Wrath, decked out in massive robotic armor, gimped up. Nightshadow accompanied him, brandishing a massive, double-barreled laser rifle with a shiny, space-age design.

  Every
superhero on Earth also lined up with the thousands of armored S.I.L.E.N.T. troops bearing their enormous guns, shields, and laser-swords. The Briar Bowman, Ghosteyes, Sol Flame, Mountain Man, Amon, Tiger Strike, Redemption, the Golden One, Watcher Wiseman, the Titan Brigade, the Silver Swords, and the Pact; Night and Wrath had left nobody out.

  Force fields shimmered. Hover-tanks noisily thumped up. Many of the guns, blades, and armor pieces gleamed with some shade of Diatomite-x. The black variety coated Nightshadow’s wing-suit from head to foot. He shone darkly even in the dull Martian daylight.

  Hot, sick sweat dripped down Hyperman’s face and his neck burned anxiously. A migraine headache blasted away inside his head. Chest pains racked him. His stomach twisted painfully in on itself. He sniffled, coughed, and twitched. This massive amount of Diatomite-x together in one place was actually affecting him. There had to be heaps and heaps of it in everyone’s weapons and armor. There was probably more Diatomite-x collected here and now than there had ever been anywhere else.

  No wonder he felt horrible!

  The very idea made Hyperman chuckle, and in that moment, his old allies and friends attacked.

  ***

  Ray guns and missiles exploded into him. Hammers, swords, shields, lasers, knives, and fists punched, sliced, jabbed, and bludgeoned. Lightning and flames erupted. Grenades and cannons went off. Force fields slammed against him. He even felt telepaths prying into his mind with psychic razors, cutting into his memories and thoughts. With enough concentration, he steeled his mind and forced them all out, despite standing at the center of a maelstrom of never-ending attackers and fire.

  His nose broke and bled. His vision blurred and dimmed at its edges. Strange heat lashed at him and actually burned his skin. Cuts raked across his weakening, blackening, and once completely invulnerable flesh. Burning gas seeped into his nostrils and mouth down into his lungs. Sickness clenched his bowels and stomach. Agony swathed over him. Pain filled him up.

  He let out a shaking, universe-piercing scream and stopped thinking or feeling. He simply raged. He became a storm unto himself, darting everywhere at once, hissing out ice breaths, blasting eye-beams, and reaping and ripping through his enemies with his bare hands. Bodies piled up in pieces. Jump-jets and hover-tanks heaped up in smoldering wrecks. Fire and smoke warped the sky. Blood and guts stained the Martian dirt.

  Hyperman blacked out here and there, coming back to himself still in the midst of battle, smashing a hover-tank down into a regiment of soldiers or eye-blasting a jump-jet squadron. After one blackout, he awoke to find his hands wrapped around Nightshadow’s throat. He frothed at the mouth and tasted his own blood. Nightshadow’s armor had been stripped away to burning shreds. Hyperman tore off Night’s mask to reveal the bruised and bloodied face beneath.

  “YOU WANTED THIS!” Hyperman screamed as fire and lasers slammed into him to no effect. “YOU WANTED IT!”

  Before Hyperman could bash in his old friend’s skull, Gilgamesh tackled him off Nightshadow and down to the ground. He jammed his spear into Hyperman’s gut to hold him in place and mounted him. He started rocking him with deity-killing, knockout blows.

  “YOU’RE MAD!” he shouted. “YOU’VE GONE MAD!”

  Hyperman’s eyes erupted with nova-blue fire, which scorched Gilgamesh’s face. The demigod screamed and his hands went to his face, which gave Hyperman the chance to jerk out the spear and plunge it straight through Gilgamesh’s heart. He then shoved Gilgamesh into some hover-tank wreckage.

  Grimacing and pressing his hands across his wound until it healed, Hyperman staggered a few paces, feeling laser-blasts unloading into him from behind. He saw Sea Devil loading his trident-rifle with black Diatomite-x and aiming. The black was the worst kind of Diatomite-x. It darkened and rotted away his flesh. Hyperman didn’t know how much of that he could take. Luckily, a carefully aimed eye-blast caused the trident-rifle to explode in Sea Devil’s hands and into his face. Another eye-beam burned his body to a crisp.

  Anger festered and boiled within Hyperman. He hated killing his allies and his friends! But he had no choice! They had come after him!

  Dynamo-Man hammered at Hyperman with hundreds of little guns sprouting out of his armor, all shooting different kinds of Diatomite-x. The bullets needled and burst into him, hurting, sickening, and weakening him. Screaming incoherently, Hyperman blazed up and ripped Dynamo-Man to shreds and eye-blasted several jump-jets diving toward him to burning pieces.

  He sighted Liandra, hovering up through the atmosphere, sitting in a perfectly calm lotus position. She floated down, using her long, bleeding nails to scratch open otherworldly portals. Reddish-black bats with many, many snapping venom-spewing mouths flew out. They swamped and swarmed around Hyperman, biting and tearing into his formerly invulnerable flesh. He slashed through them with eye-blasts and turned the same onto Liandra, burning through whatever magical shields and charms she tried conjuring up to protect herself.

  Her spirit leaped out of the exploding mess that was her body. The dull, flickering ghost glided down and slipped inside a burned-to-death female S.I.L.E.N.T. troop whose flesh was still mostly intact. Once she’d gained possession, she jumped up in her new body and fired its yellow Diatomite-x-powered rifle at Hyperman.

  “ASSHOLE!” she yelled.

  The bullets pelted off his chest, and he clapped his hands together. The force of the impact knocked her back into a pile of smoking bodies, and they all collapsed down on top of her. Seeing the Titan Brigade and Silver Swords all mounted up into one attack force, he flew at them and blacked out.

  When he came to, his jaw hurt. Black burns covered his skin and gave off wispy smoke. He glanced around at the sloping mounds of dead and fiery wreckage that could fill whole canyons. Mountains had been smashed. The landscape had been torched and still crackled with fire. The air itself blurred and thickened with heat. In the distance, the Quarry lay in ruins.

  Had he actually done all this?

  Yet, more and more waves of S.I.L.E.N.T. soldiers blasted Diatomite-x cannons. Jump-jets bombed from above. Hover-tanks pushed forward, launching missiles. Hyperman tore and burned through them all, but even more kept coming. He scanned the whole planet, unable to pinpoint whatever portals (whether magical or super science-based) they were using to get here. However, he found Paul Wrath on top of a hover-tank, shouting orders. Flying over, Hyperman snatched him up and carried him off into the smoke-dirty sky.

  “Call them all off!” he said. “Then I don’t have to keep killing them!”

  Wrath spat in his face. The cold spittle rolled down Hyperman’s cheek. Hyperman stared, shocked at that show of disrespect. Still in Hyperman’s grip, Wrath tapped an earpiece.

  “Ready?” he asked. “Go!”

  A watery, bluish-green wormhole swished and spiraled open across the sky above. The entire Intergalactic Host of Silver Seraphs poured out, all primed for battle. Hyperman tossed Wrath screaming halfway across the planet and jetted off to meet them.

  ***

  The Seraphs hacked down with flaming swords that threw exploding balls of nova-gas. Their wings also spread wide and fired ultra-sharp spikes. Brushing off their onslaught, Hyperman slashed up through them. His eyes flashed and the Seraphs all burned.

  He caught Areva falling down to Mars and throttled her two-handedly. “WHY?” he hissed into her face. “I gave you your power back! I gave you back your lives!”

  “We didn’t want you to!” she struggled to say. “We didn’t want you to be our god!”

  “I would never have wanted that!”

  “But you did it! You enslaved us! You had no right!”

  “I was only helping you, so you could help everyone else!”

  “We’d have to help whomever you wanted in whatever way you deemed fit for us!”

  “No, I wasn’t going to interfere with you!”

  “You say that now.”

  “NO!”

  He ripped her in two and her blood splattered all over him.

&
nbsp; Floating in the air, he watched the other Seraphs crashing down to Mars, burning and screaming. After everything he’d done for them, they’d tried to turn his own power against him? Why? Why had he even bothered to try saving them? They had gotten the wrong idea about him completely.

  Sure, he would have checked in on them to make sure they were using his power wisely, but it was his power, so it was his right. Other than that, he only would have wanted their help when appropriate and for them not to interfere with what he was doing on Earth. Was that too much to ask? He had only wanted them to do as they were told. Why couldn’t anyone do that?

  He swept down through the remnants of S.I.L.E.N.T.’s forces, eye-blasting anyone still standing or any vehicles even somewhat operational. A web snagged him in the face. His eyes easily burned through it in time to see the Spider-Specter leap up and hit him with a mighty electric uppercut. It actually had enough power to knock Hyperman staggering back, though afterwards, the Spider-Specter grabbed his hand and cried out in pain.

  Hyperman rubbed his sore jaw and admitted to being somewhat impressed. All throughout the battle, the Spider-Specter had darted here and there, getting in hits and scrambling away with his danger sense always helping him avoid Hyperman. He’d done well, better than almost anybody else, and now here he was, the last man standing. Night had always seen something special in the Spider-Specter, and he had been right, though that didn’t amount to much now, not against Hyperman.

  A quick ice breath froze the Spider-Specter in place as he was firing another web. Shiny ice completely coated and immobilized him. Inside of that ice, he’d eventually suffocate.

  With his final foe vanquished, Hyperman collapsed down to one knee and held his aching head. The battle had actually taken a lot out of him, more than he’d have expected. But it was done now. He could rest.