The Invincibles (Book 1): The Invincibles

by Lee, Tristan

  Nightshade sighs, “Where to, Ronin?”

  Ronin puts a finger to his temple and his eyes turn the same luminescent blue that they have previously, only this time the glow stays instead of just being a pulse. He cracks his neck and slowly walks around the hangar, searching for something. After five, fruitless minutes, Ronin draws his sword as well, holding it out in front of him as he walks like a blind man with a cane. Admittedly a bad example, since he is blind. The sword acts like a compass, the point tilting towards and away from certain directions of its own accord as it guides Ronin to a wall. The blade then pulls up, so he plants his foot against the wall, checking to see if he is still able to execute his plan. Satisfied, and much to the disbelief of his teammates, Ronin begins to walk up the smooth and completely vertical surface of the wall. He continues to walk up the wall and onto the ceiling until his sword abruptly brings itself down into the center of the ceiling. Ronin grips the handle and cuts out a plate from the ceiling, revealing an opening to the ship’s vents.

  “Up here,” Ronin says, sheathing his sword and climbing into the vent.

  Titan picks up Nightshade in one hand and gently tosses her up high enough so she can grab onto the edge of the opening. She gives him thumbs up with one hand before clambering into the vent. The Prince of Xor then picks up his wife and flies both of them up to the vent, letting Demoness go first before entering the vent himself.

  “Aw, shit,” Titan says upon entering the vent. The space inside the vent is square in shape and extremely cramped. The other Invincibles can crawl on their hands and knees, but Titan’s size means that he has to inch forward on his belly.

  His initial remark aside, Titan makes no complaint as they crawl through the vent, nor do any of the other Invincibles. Remaining silent is imperative as they sneak above the heads of the Aotiuer, so all conversations are held through their cerebral connection. The heat inside the vent also becomes a problem. The surfaces do not get too hot, only lukewarm, but the Invincibles can feel the discomfort as the temperature rises, peaking at about ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit. The tight space and high temperatures aside, Ronin is an excellent leader and effortlessly guides them through the vents until they reach a dead end. It is not impassable, though, since the vent leads upwards about a hundred feet before opening to an opening that would allow them to proceed as they have previously.

  “I need a rope and an arrow,” Ronin requests.

  Nightshade supplies both to Ronin with some difficult, since the vent is too cramped for her to reach over her shoulder. Once extracted, though, she slides them forward along the side of the vent to Ronin. He ties the end of the rope securely around the shaft of the arrow and uses telekinesis to lift both of them up the vent and into the horizontal opening. Once a foot inside the opening, Ronin spears the arrow through the bottom of the vent. Then he proceeds to climb.

  Ronin does not need the rope, he just climbs up the side like how he scaled the side of the wall in the hangar, albeit not standing up. When he is halfway up the vent, he experiences a blinding flash of pain behind his eyes, making him fall back to the bottom of the vent. Ronin manages to slow himself enough that he does not hit the bottom of the vent, but he still rubs his head, which is pounding from the severe pain he just felt.

  “Are you alright?” Nightshade asks.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” Ronin says. “Just lost focus, I guess.”

  “Do you want to take a break? We can stop here if you want.”

  “No, we need to press on.”

  “But you’re hurt.”

  “I’m fine,” Ronin says, beginning to scale the vent again. “I just lost focus for a second.”

  “If you say so,” Nightshade relents reluctantly.

  “Clear,” he says once he pulls himself into the opening.

  Nightshade starts her climb, scaling a vertical surface with nothing but a rope would be hard enough, but the space is too narrow for her to plant her feet against the side of the vent. Using upper body strength alone, Nightshade slowly pulls herself up into the opening, panting heavily and drenched in sweat.

  “Clear,” she says, exhausted.

  Demoness takes a deep breath and begins to pull herself up. Since Titan does not need the rope, they can go up at the same time, except Titan has to be below her because there is not enough clearance for them to be at the same height. Although she is, for the most part, in exceptional physical condition, Demoness’s upper-body strength is lacking. She struggles the most out of any of them to climb the rope, sweating, grunting, and swearing all the way.

  “Do you need some help?” Titan asks kindly.

  “No thanks,” Demoness says. If they were not speaking cerebrally, she would have been grunting through gritted teeth. After five or six minutes of climbing and a less than an eighth of the way up, Demoness pauses, extremely tired.

  “I don’t want to rush you, but we need to get moving,” Ronin says. “The Aotiuer have almost certainly called for backup.”

  Demoness nods and begins to struggle up the rope again. After a few seconds, Titan glides closer and gently pushes against her posterior, raising her up at a much faster rate. She does not thank him, but she does not complain either, and she does let out a little sigh of relief. Once the duo have entered the opening, Ronin pulls out the arrow and the rope, handing both of them back to Demoness.

  “Burn them,” he orders. “No evidence.”

  “In such a small space?” Demoness asks doubtfully. “We might lose a lot of oxygen.”

  “Why don’t you drop it down into the passages below us and burn it there?” Nightshade suggests in a slightly irritated tone.

  “Oh,” Demoness says, turning red. She drops both of them down and uses her powers to push them to the limit of her powers, at which point she sets it on fire.

  “This way,” Ronin instructs as he continues to lead them to the ever-strengthening brain waves from Defender and Fastball.

  Hijack

  August 10th

  Elsewhere, Defender is peeking around a corner at a bruiser squad marching down the hallway towards him and his allies. Although not marching particularly fast, the Aotiuer will eventually reach them and there are far too many to fight while maintaining stealth.

  “At least forty,” Defender whispers. “Maybe more.”

  “Fastball, can you fight?” Dr. Invictus asks.

  “Probably . . . not,” Fastball says. “If you could get me some cocaine I might be able to, but right now I won’t.”

  “Allow me,” Kaiju says.

  “We need to stay quiet,” Defender reminds him. “I don’t want to hurt your feelings, but an eight-foot-tall four-armed alien ripping apart Aotiuer with his bare hands isn’t very stealthy.”

  “I won’t be eight feet tall,” Kaiju says simply.

  The hulking alien cranks the gem on his belt counterclockwise until he shrinks out of sight. After a few moments of complete silence, a bruiser’s neck snaps. The Aotiuer look around, weapons raised, looking for whoever killed their comrade. They shriek to each other in distress until three more Aotiuer are killed, at which point they start shooting randomly. Several Aotiuer are struck by the cannon fire of their comrades as a miniature Kaiju wreaks havoc amongst them. Finally, only an armored Aotiuer is left, bewildered and terrified by how fast its allies were killed. It looks around, in fear of what he must believe to be a vengeful spirit. At last, the spirit does strike; Kaiju launches himself forward into the bruiser’s exposed eye. The bruiser screams in pain and begins to beat at its own head until it quite suddenly drops dead.

  Kaiju grows back to his normal size, soaked in black blood and breathing hard, “Problem solved, stealth maintained.”

  “Truly impressive,” Dr. Invictus praises.

  “Dude! That was the single most sexually attractive thing I’ve never seen!” Fastball exclaims. “You’re way too raw I don’t even get it.”

  Kaiju looks at him strangely, “Forgive me, but I do not understand what you mean by me b
eing, as you so skillfully put it, ‘way too raw’.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Defender explains. “If Fastball said it, it’s probably not important.”

  “Heads up,” Dr. Invictus warns.

  Apparently Kaiju was not as stealthy as he thought, or the Aotiuer security system was vastly underestimated by Dr. Invictus. No less than five Aotiuer squadrons come charging out of the passage the Invincibles just emerged from, and a further five squadrons rush forward from the hallway Kaiju had just cleared. Although each squad is smaller than the one Kaiju destroyed, there are still well over seventy Aotiuer, all of them bruisers and at least half of them armored. They brandish their weapons, a combination of rifles and bronze-colored cudgels and spears, and shriek as they close the pincer, edging closer and closer to the Invincibles.

  “Well, this is it,” Defender says.

  “What a way to go,” Fastball says sadly. “I haven’t had anything to snort, smoke, or shoot up for like, eight hours.”

  “I’ve been in that cell alone and with no contact with anyone except myself for three hundred years and my attempt to break out lasts two hours,” Kaiju says, disappointed. “For what it’s worth, it has been an honor to fight by your sides.”

  “Don’t lose your cool,” Dr. Invictus warns, experimentally lifting a hand into the air. “We’re not in as much shit as you guys think we are.”

  The Aotiuer stop shrieking and the ones with rifles raise them to their shoulders, taking aim. They are no more than eleven feet away from the Invincibles. They are hesitant to attack, though. All of them have seen or heard stories about them, these beings that can take down battalions single handedly. Several of them start shrieking to each other, wondering what to do.

  “They’re not attacking,” Defender observes.

  “It’s because they are afraid of us,” Kaiju says.

  “Well then what are we waiting for?” Fastball asks.

  “We’re stalling,” Dr. Invictus answers.

  “We are? For who?” Fastball asks.

  “The big guy,” the Mechanical Man says simply.

  At that precise moment, as if it were scripted, Titan smashes through the ceiling into the middle of the Aotiuer that came up behind the other Invincibles. He creates a shockwave like the one in San Francisco that blows all the Aotiuer in a twenty foot radius down, killing the ones that hit the walls hard enough. While those Aotiuer are stunned, it gives Demoness, Ronin, and Nightshade a chance to slip down into the skirmish from the hole Titan made.

  “You certainly took your time,” Defender comments.

  “Give us a break, little brother,” Nightshade says. “We had to clear out an entire hangar and sneak through the vent system to get here.”

  “How could you tell that we were up there?” Demoness asks Dr. Invictus.

  “I didn’t know for sure,” he says. “But I used my powers of inference to assume that your most likely entry point would be a hangar. Furthermore, I assumed that you would want to stay quiet as to avoid attracting attention to this prison break. Thus, I hypothesized that you would be in the vents, not to mention how the magnetic attraction to the ceiling grew a little stronger because of Ronin’s sword. I tested that by using the electromagnet in my palm and pinpointed your location by fine-tuning the magnet to follow the attraction from the sword, not the vent.”

  “That was a lot of words,” Titan says.

  “I guessed where you would be and used a magnet to make sure,” Dr. Invictus summarizes.

  By this time, the Aotiuer Titan stunned are no longer as stunned and begin to shakily rise to their feet. The Aotiuer squads in front of them begin to shake off the shock as well and raise their weapons again. The Invincibles form two lines of four, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, back-to-back. Facing the recently stunned Aotiuer are the rescue team: Ronin, Nightshade, Demoness, and Titan. Facing the still-terrified Aotiuer are the escapees: Defender, Kaiju, Fastball, and Dr. Invictus.

  “Who’s ready to rumble?” Fastball asks excitedly in his announcer voice.

  The Aotiuer, trying to save face, shriek back at Fastball, who just smiles, “I can’t hear you!”

  “Frackity-whack it, let’s just kill them,” Demoness says.

  “Agreed,” says Ronin, running the closest bruiser through with his sword. That blow breaks the calm, the Aotiuer shriek collectively and start firing as the Invincibles rush forwards into the Aotiuer.

  The Aotiuer rush forward as well, so when the forces meet, the formation the Invincibles had is instantly lost under the mass of bodies.

  Kaiju twists the gem on his belt to shrink to microscopic levels again. The laws of conservation of mass still apply when he is small, so even though he is a mere millimeter tall, he still has all the mass of when he is normal sized. When Kaiju swings a punch in his microscopic form, there is the power of a six hundred pound alien behind a fist less than the size of a grain of sand. In essence, when he becomes small, Kaiju can hit with the same force of a sniper round. Another advantage to being small is that he is more agile. Kaiju is slower since his legs cannot cover as much ground, but he can jump much higher since he is not limited by how low the ceiling is as compared to his height. Using these factors to his advantage, Kaiju flits around the battlefield, completely unseen, but his presence is definitely felt. He swings an uppercut at a bruiser that rips its jaw off before leaping through the air and kicking another Aotiuer in the forehead with both feet at once. He punctures through the bruiser’s skull and has enough momentum to carry himself through the bruiser’s brain and out the other side. His jumps are so powerful he practically flies, so as the four-armed micro-giant soars through the air he can observe his allies as they fight.

  Demoness and Titan have unsurprisingly managed to stay together during the fighting. The giant of a man rips the Aotiuer apart without any visible effort; his strength lets him tear the bruisers limb from limb while his durability allows him to shrug off cannon blasts like raindrops. The spears are not as lucky; instead of being reflected, the spears shatter against his skin. Demoness does not have her husband’s invulnerability, so she has herself covered in a full-body shield of red light. The shield reflects all of the Aotiuer cannon fire, sending the blasts flying hazardously in the general direction of the bruiser that fired it. She also fires her own bolts of red light, each one makes its mark in a bruiser’s head or skull; the bolts leave charred holes about three inches in diameter when they exit an Aotiuer.

  The truly amazing part about the two is when they use their formidable powers in conjunction. Titan throws up a bruiser that Demoness shoots through the head. A bruiser lunges at Demoness with its spear raised, so she effortlessly thrusts it behind her with her telekinesis so the bruiser slams into Titan, who promptly crushes the bruiser’s head. They fight like that, each one playing to their own and each other’s strengths.

  Alone, they have vulnerabilities; Titan’s repertoire of ranged attacks is limited to heat vision which temporarily blinds him, and Demoness has no close-quarters-combat training. Together, however, they are a veritable harbinger of destruction, not to mention that they have been fighting side-by-side for so long that their movements are fluid and fit like puzzle pieces in conjunction with each other. The duo tear through the Aotiuer with less effort than it would take to rip through paper.

  Ronin is not thrilled by the prospect, but he is far more formidable when assisted by Nightshade. Similar to how Demoness and Titan fight, Ronin and Nightshade flawlessly work together to bring down their foes. An armored bruiser swings a warhammer at Nightshade, who rolls away and fires an arrow at the more lightly-armored back of the knee. The bruiser drops to its knees in pain and Ronin takes its head off with one sweep of his sword. The Blind Swordsman throws six Aotiuer back with a telekinetic blast that shatters their bones and crushes their organs. Nightshade fires off arrow after arrow at the bruisers, breaking out some of her most lethal variations. The explosive arrow detonates on contact, sending black and bloody chunks of Aotiuer f
lying. Several chunks splatter the other Invincibles, much to their disgust. Ronin teleports behind and Aotiuer and kicks it in the back, sending it straight into Nightshade’s twin bayonets; she dislodges the body with a kick and fires a corrosive arrow at the bruiser behind Ronin.

  Suddenly, he feels the same harsh flash of pain that made him lose his grip in the vent. Ronin shakes his head and his eyes briefly glow red instead of blue before he hurls a razor-sharp throwing star at her. Nightshade gasps in shock as it pierces the flesh in her shoulder; she drops her crossbow and falls to the ground in agony as the poison from the star seeps into her veins.

  “Anna!” Defender cries.

  “Go!” Dr. Invictus yells over the screeches of the dying Aotiuer. “We’ll finish them off!”

  Ronin does not even know what he has done, he is no longer in control of his own body. The Blind Swordsman pulls off his blindfold, revealing that his eyes are now glowing red, like two bonfires burning out of control. He snarls and strides towards Nightshade, sword drawn. She scrambles backwards, still unable to stand because of the debilitating pain from the throwing star. Just as Ronin raises his blade to strike, Defender plants a flying kick into his back. Ronin is sent flying into a wall, making him drop his sword as Defender pulls the star out of his sister’s shoulder.

  “Are you alright?” he asks.

  “I’m fine,” Nightshade answers. She looks at the wound on her shoulder, which is rapidly turning black.

  “No, you’re not,” Defender says. “Take this.”

  He hands her a bubble shield, like the one Dr. Invictus had used to separate him from Titan back in the bunker. The shield encases her in its impenetrable, glowing yellow dome. Ronin shakily rises to his feet and rubs his head; for once, however, his first reaction is not to retrieve his sword. Instead, he attacks Defender with a ferocity that he had never exhibited before. All Defender can do is get his hands up to deflect Ronin’s vicious blows, but even his carbon fiber bracers begin to crack under the unrelenting onslaught. Eventually, Ronin throws Defender’s arms aside and grips his head in both of his hands. Defender struggles as he realizes Ronin’s intent, but he only manages to push one of Ronin’s hands away with both of his own. Ignoring Defender snapping his fingers, Ronin pushes through Defender’s right eye with his thumb. The supersoldier screams at the top of his lungs in agony and starts to thrash violently as blood runs down his cheek like red tears and Ronin’s thumb smashes his eye into jelly.