The Invincibles (Book 1): The Invincibles

by Lee, Tristan

  “Dude! That was our secret,” Fastball cries. “What happened to the bro code?”

  “When your wife wants an answer, she gets an answer,” Titan says simply. “Bro code or not.”

  “Traitor,” Fastball mutters darkly.

  “Let’s just go save this godforsaken city before this conversation gets weirder, okay?” Nightshade asks.

  “Deal,” Ronin says.

  “Unstoppables, don’t stop believing!” Titan yells enthusiastically.

  Before any of the team can complain about their new name and catchphrase, a swarm of Aotiuer fighters break away from the fleet and bear down on them. The ships deploy Aotiuer infantry instead of attacking, and before long, the heroes are facing an entire army of scaled gorillas.

  “Well, shit,” Demoness says.

  “We should name these things,” Fastball suggests. “Let’s call these ones bruisers, the skinny ones . . . drones, I guess, and the flying ones flies.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Dr. Invictus contemplates. “We do need to keep track of them.”

  “You know what a better idea is?” Defender asks sarcastically. “Killing them.”

  “Agreed,” Ronin says.

  The Aotiuer legion halts their march a scant hundred feet away from the strike team, their weapons primed and ready to fire. However, they do not open fire on their vastly outnumbered opponents.

  “Should we shoot first or something?” Fastball asks.

  “Hold your fire, they may want to communicate,” Dr. Invictus says.

  The Aotiuer start to chant loudly and rhythmically, their chant growing faster and faster as their ranks part. Finally, the legion is divided in half and a new Aotiuer is revealed. This Aotiuer stands taller than any of the others and is even taller than Titan. It looks like a larger version of the Aotiuer classified by Fastball as bruisers, but, other than the obvious size difference, this one has two red eyes and various spikes and ridges protruding at random places across its body. Heavily muscled, the giant Aotiuer kicks a car, sending it flying down the street before roaring loudly.

  “That doesn’t look like an Aotiuer,” Nightshade says uncertainly.

  “It’s not,” Ronin says. “That’s the Gorgon, Beyomaht.”

  Beyomaht used to plague Earth trying to replace his destroyed home planet of Gorgos. He was finally defeated twenty years ago by Michael Stone’s illegitimate son, Perseus. Perseus banished him to a bleak corner of the universe called the Nethersphere, or the World of Darkness.

  “Beyomaht? I thought this guy was a myth,” Fastball says.

  “You have superpowers and you think an alien is a myth?” Demoness asks incredulously.

  “Cut the chitchat,” Defender orders. “We need a plan of attack.”

  “Titan, how much did you say you could lift?” Dr. Invictus asks.

  “Seven hundred tons,” he answers.

  “Beyomaht is going to be stronger than you, but you’re more mobile,” Dr. Invictus says. “I want you to take him down. The rest of you, thin out the Aotiuer.”

  “Yes sir,” Titan says with a salute.

  Beyomaht roars again, expressing what seems to be impatience with how long it is taking to start the battle. Titan walks up to Beyomaht and looks him straight in the eyes as Beyomaht roars in his face. Unperturbed by this display, Titan punches him in the face. Beyomaht’s head snaps to the left as a result of the punch and he slowly turns back and faces Titan.

  “Huh, normally that knocks people’s skulls off,” Titan says. “And it always sends them flying.”

  Beyomaht roars again and grabs Titan by the throat; he slams the Prince of Xor into the street over and over until the ground cracks open and Titan is dropped into the crater. The Aotiuer start to chant again, but Titan flies out of the pit and grabs Beyomaht by the scruff of his neck as he flies up.

  “That’s our cue,” Dr. Invictus says. He unleashes the destructive power of his lasers on the Aotiuer, each of his targets has whatever limb the laser made contact with blown off.

  Defender swings his grappling hook like a flail; the hook tears off chunks of flesh from the Aotiuer and the two weighted prongs cave in skulls with ease. He retracts the hook and fires it at a line of charging Aotiuer; the hook punctures the skull of every Aotiuer until it runs out of line, at which point it retracts, soaking Defender’s fist with black Aotiuer blood. A lucky Aotiuer tackles Defender to the ground, but he elbows the Aotiuer in the head and puts its eye out with a boomerang. Defender throws the boomerang at another Aotiuer; it makes its mark in the Aotiuer’s head, but is too deeply embedded to be retrieved.

  Defender leaps over an Aotiuer and slides another grappling hook launcher onto his other forearm; this one has a spearhead on the end and Defender can send a powerful electric current down the line by touching a contact on his palm. He fires the shock harpoon into an Aotiuer’s gut, a nonlethal wound until Defender fries it with a million volts of electricity. Now using the two hooks in conjunction, Defender fires his regular hook to yank an Aotiuer into a closer proximity, then he fires the shock harpoon through its skull, shocking and puncturing the Aotiuer’s brain.

  Fastball is a blur, he dashes around the Aotiuer moving faster than the speed of sound. His punches and kicks shatter bones and send the Aotiuer flying, but Fastball does not have superstrength. Instead, he relies on his momentum to power his blows. To Fastball, everyone around him moves in slow motion while he moves at normal speed, whereas in reality, he is moving far too fast for the eye to see. Fastball leaps a hundred feet into the air, and impatient with how slowly gravity is pulling him down, runs down thin air before delivering a kick to an Aotiuer that sends its head spinning around, neck broken.

  He grabs two of Defender’s boomerangs out of the sky and uses them like knives to slice through Aotiuer. Once he slices four of them apart, he releases the boomerangs so they can resume their flight path. Fastball comes up behind an Aotiuer and hammers it with lightning-fast punches until its innards turn to paste beneath his fists. He swings his hand at the side of an Aotiuer’s head like a karate chop, but Fastball’s momentum makes his hand slice through the Aotiuer like a knife through butter.

  Demoness uses her powers superbly; she sends a tide of fire crashing down onto the Aotiuer ranks, burning them under the heat of a thousand suns. Her energy bolts pierce the Aotiuer’s scales easily and leave charred holes as they exit. The Aotiuer open fire on her, so she throws up a bubble shield around herself that absorbs the Aotiuer ammunition. Once they pause to reload, Demoness fires their ammunition back at them to devastating effect. She hits an Aotiuer with an energy blast that cuts through it and maintains enough power to keep going and kill several more before dissipating. An Aotiuer gets a little too close for the Living Star’s liking, so she sweeps its legs out from under it and sets it on fire.

  Although formidable at any range, Demoness was never properly trained in close-quarters combat, leaving that to Titan. This proves to be quite the weakness as Aotiuer swarm her, getting closer and closer to her until one of them manages to grab her shoulder. Upon contact with her, the Aotiuer explodes, as do all the Aotiuer in a ten foot radius of her.

  Ronin wields his sword and telekinesis so well that it seems that both were simply extensions of his arms. The blade of his sword passes through Aotiuer flesh as easily as it would pass through thin air and his telekinetic blasts throw Aotiuer off of their feet or crush their bones. An Aotiuer firing line lets loose a barrage of their cannon fire at Ronin, but he extends a hand and stops the cannon fire before it can reach him. Dumbfounded, the Aotiuer do not have time to react when Ronin hurls the cannon blasts back. He sees an Aotiuer about to shoot Nightshade in the back a hundred yards away, so he teleports behind the alien and runs it through with his sword. Ronin throws his sword like a discus and uses telekinesis to control the blade as he fights the Aotiuer with his bare hands.

  As he snaps necks and spines and beats the Aotiuer to death, the sword flies a circuit around the battlefield, slaying what
ever Aotiuer it encounters. Ronin opens his right hand and the sword flies back into his grip so he can bring it down in a brutal, two-handed overhead blow that splits an Aotiuer’s head in half. After making sure that none of his comrades are in the range of his next attack, Ronin starts to twirl the blade. At first the sword moves slowly, but it grows faster and faster until finally it is moving far too fast for any man to see. Now, with the sword spinning like a helicopter rotor, Ronin pulls the Aotiuer into his spinning blade; the effect is very similar to pureeing a raw steak, only with black blood.

  Nightshade slides both of her stilettos into corresponding slots on her crossbow, making twin bayonets. Now equipped with a deadly bladed crossbow, she stabs and shoots the Aotiuer, sometimes both at once. Her crossbow sends steel-tipped carbon fiber bolts flying through the air with more than two-hundred pounds of force behind them, making each one more than capable of piercing Aotiuer hide. Most of her arrows have armor-piercing heads, but there are variations such as explosive, incendiary, and corrosive. None of them, however, are nonlethal. She stabs an Aotiuer in the gut with her bayonets and shoots it at close range while it is still skewered on her crossbow. The arrow kills it, but the bayonets are pinning the corpse to her bow, making it impossible to fire another shot.

  Quickly adapting to the situation, Nightshade spins around and uses the Aotiuer’s body as a shield against the other Aotiuer’s cannon blasts. Finally, the blasts vaporize most of the body, leaving a few chunks of meat hanging on the blades. She loads a green-tipped corrosive arrow into her bow and fires it into a crowd of Aotiuer. Tiny nozzles along the shaft and head of the arrow open upon impact and begin to spray highly concentrated sulfuric acid, burning the Aotiuer and melting through their flesh.

  Dr. Invictus’ lasers effortlessly outclass the Aotiuer cannons. His lasers punch holes through Aotiuer easily, none of his shots requiring more than half a second of exposure to burn a hole straight through an Aotiuer. He flies over the battlefield, shooting Aotiuer down before most of them even think to look up. Dr. Invictus lands and removes a plate of armor on his arm. The plate expands once removed until it is a small helicopter with a turbine on each side. It looks like a toy helicopter, but its body is actually a miniature Gatling gun. He throws the drone into the air, where it activates and begins to seek out its targets automatically like Ronin’s sword did.

  While the drone is causing havoc for the Aotiuer, Dr. Invictus puts his hand-to-hand combat skills to the test. He kicks an Aotiuer in the chest, sending it crashing into one of its allies. An Aotiuer armed with an axe tries to split Dr. Invictus’ head open, but he blocks the blade with his forearm and shoots the Aotiuer in the face when it tries to push through his arm. The laser burns a hole straight through its skull, and although the skull is disintegrated where it was shot, the brain is still intact, albeit somewhat singed. Dr. Invictus drops the body and tackles an Aotiuer trying to sneak up on Demoness. He bashes it in the face with his fist and then dives out of the way so his assault drone can shred it apart under a hail of bullets.

  Titan hammers Beyomaht with blows that have more force behind them than eighteen-wheelers. Beyomaht, however, only reacts like a regular man getting hit by a regular punch. Dr. Invictus is right in his assumption that Beyomaht is stronger than Titan, a fact that the giant alien has already proven several times by repeatedly smashing Titan into cars and buildings. Titan is thrown down the street by his adversary and skids to a halt, gauging Beyomaht’s abilities. Before either of the two can resume combat, more Aotiuer swarm him. Titan throws an elbow into one of them, sending it flying. He rips them off his body like leeches and uses the ones he pulls off as improvised weapons against the others, smashing heads with other heads, snapping arms with other arms, so on and so forth.

  Finally, the field is relatively clear and Beyomaht charges at him with his signature roar. Titan sidesteps Beyomaht like a matador and plants his foot rather roughly into Beyomaht’s posterior. Beyomaht tumbles to the ground, so Titan presses his newfound advantage, using every skill taught to him by Old Man Hucklebee, the grumpy old ex-marine who taught him how to fight, to keep Beyomaht on his back. Titan punches Beyomaht in the face, alternating between his left and right fists as his blows slowly but surely use Beyomaht’s head like a hammer uses a nail to make a hole in the ground. Eventually, Beyomaht does not even try to avoid or block Titan’s punches, so Titan’s eyes turn orange as he lets out twin torrents of his heat vision on Beyomaht’s face.

  Beyomaht roars in pain as the streams of heat begin to cook his flesh and boil his blood. Titan is thrown off of Beyomaht by a lunging Aotiuer, noble, but Titan’s heat vision is still going, blowing the Aotiuer’s head off. However, this gives Beyomaht a much needed respite and delays Titan since he temporarily goes blind after using his heat vision. Beyomaht kicks Titan in the chest, sending him hurtling down the street. Titan flips onto his feet and flies full speed at Beyomaht as Beyomaht sprints full speed at him. When they reach each other, both of the god-like beings swing punches at the exact time with the exact same target in each other’s minds. Their fists collide, sending out a shockwave that throws both Aotiuer and Invincible off of their feet.

  “Watch it!” Demoness yells as she climbs to her feet.

  “Sorry!” Titan shouts back.

  His fist is still pushing against Beyomaht’s, and although he pushes with everything he has, Beyomaht is still stronger. Titan starts to slide back, making a trench in the asphalt under his feet as he goes, but this is exactly what he wants. Now, with all of Beyomaht’s power pushing against him, Titan grabs Beyomaht’s forearm with his free hand and hurls him into the side of a building. Beyomaht hits the building hard enough to crash straight through it; his momentum carrying him through several more buildings until he finally stops by smashing into a concrete support pillar in a Fast-Mart. Once there, the grey giant groans and tries to stand before collapsing and lying still.

  About the same time, the strike team finishes clearing up the Aotiuer soldiers. Panting heavily, Titan walks over to his allies, who are equally exhausted.

  “Well, that was bracing,” Defender says.

  “Thanks, Captain Obvious,” Fastball says sarcastically.

  “It’s Defender,” Defender says.

  “You’re duller than a spoon,” Fastball says.

  “Stop squabbling,” Dr. Invictus orders. “We’ve got bigger problems.”

  “What’s wrong, doc?” Demoness asks. “We beat the bad guys, and the big guy’s down for the count. Nice work, Sweetie-Pie.”

  “Thanks, Sweetheart.”

  “Oh shit,” Anna says, looking to the sky.

  “Good, someone else has noticed,” Dr. Invictus says. “Beyomaht was a diversion; the Aotiuer were stalling so they could start to move their fleet.”

  The other heroes look up to see that the Aotiuer fleet is, indeed, filing neatly into a large, purple-rimmed portal that reveals the stars and darkness of space.

  “God damn,” Defender says.

  “I can go after them,” Titan says. “I can make it up there before the portal closes, maybe infiltrate one of their ships.”

  “No, you can’t,” Ronin says quickly. “We have no idea where that portal goes.”

  “So now what?” Fastball asks.

  “We get back to headquarters,” Dr. Invictus says simply as he types into the holographic keyboard on his right forearm, calling the Falcon. “From there, well, we wait and see what happens.”

  “What do we do about him?” Anna asks, pointing at Beyomaht.

  “Titan, grab him and load him into the cargo bay, keep him sedated,” Dr. Invictus orders. “He’s far too dangerous to be left here.”

  “You got it.”

  The Falcon arrives above the strike team and descends just as Titan drags Beyomaht’s body to them.

  “Load up, people,” Defender says as the doors open. “Let’s go home.”

  Victor Gallows

  August 9th

  Belle and Chris cuddle to
gether on their overstuffed leather sofa at home, watching a show about house flipping. The strike team returned to their headquarters late into the evening the day before and were told by Sandor Burns to go home.

  “There’s nothing we can do to predict another attack,” Sandor said. “Go home.”

  “What do we do about the press?” Dr. Pryce asked. “There’s no way we can pass off San Francisco as a gas leak or something.”

  “Let me handle that, S.A.B.R.E. still has some connections,” Sandor assured him.

  “And what the hell do we do about that thing?” Anna asked, gesturing to Beyomaht.

  “We’ll take him to Isla de Muerte,” Sandor said quickly.

  Isla de Muerte used to be the island stronghold of the Srark family until the android SEU-117 took control of the island. Although the Olympians took the island back, Fabian Srark never returned to the island. The fortress and underground labyrinth were repurposed by S.A.B.R.E. as a prison built to contain superhumans. The island was briefly Sam Gideon’s forward operating base during the World War 3, but after the war it was returned to S.A.B.R.E.

  “Are they going to be able to contain him?” Frank asked.

  Sandor shrugged, “Can anyone? All I know is that we sure as hell can’t keep him here.”

  Belle checked her watch, “Sorry, squad, but me and Chris got to go.”

  “Chris and I,” Chris corrected.

  “Whatever,” she said, rolling her eyes.

  “Dismissed,” Sandor said. “That’s an order, strike.”

  Back in the present, most of the heroes, along with S.A.B.R.E., assume that the Aotiuer have fled, and the threat of their invasion is over.

  “I love nights when it snows like this,” Belle says.

  “It is quite peaceful, in its own right,” Chris agrees.

  “There’s also just something about the snow that makes cuddling so much better,” Belle says as she snuggles deeper under Chris’s arm.