by Lee, Tristan
Fastball rams his shoulder into Ronin, sending him flying off Defender. With the immediate Aotiuer threat quelled, the Invincibles can now focus on their rogue teammate. Fastball dashes back to where his allies are, looking warily at Ronin. He is panting and snarling and occasionally bares his teeth like an enraged dog, all with his fiery red eyes flitting back and forth between the Invincibles like a cornered animal. Defender has passed out from the pain of having his eye crushed and Nightshade losing consciousness inside the bubble shield, leaving Dr. Invictus, Kaiju, Demoness, Titan, and Fastball.
“What’s wrong with him?” Fastball asks Dr. Invictus.
“I don’t know,” he answers. “But it isn’t like him.”
“Mind control?” Demoness asks.
“Possibly,” Dr. Invictus speculates, “but we’ve never encountered an Aotiuer with telepathic abilities.”
“Did this man come into contact with a being called Solomon Wraith?” Kaiju asks urgently.
“Yeah,” Fastball answers, “in San Francisco.”
“And did he kill him?”
“I think so.”
“Then we are in deep trouble,” Kaiju says. “He’s possessed by a cosmic entity called Samulhye.”
“What the frick-frack-frackity-whack is that?” Titan asks.
“Samulhye is one of four Hounds of the Storm,” Kaiju explains hurriedly. “He doesn’t have a direct corporeal form in this plane of existence, but once has a host that pleases him, he can shape his host into his otherworldly form.”
“So you’re saying that Ronin is possessed by someone’s pooch, and that same pooch is going to turn him into a dog,” Fastball says.
“Not a dog, a Hound of the Storm,” Kaiju clarifies.
“What’s the difference?” Fastball asks.
“The Hounds of the Storm are the forebears of the entity known as Stormlord. In a time before the universe, Stormlord created the concept of evil,” Kaiju explains. “The Hounds each have one aspect of evil, Samulhye is hate and his three other brothers are apathy, pain, and greed.”
“Well what do we do to get the bastard out?” Dr. Invictus asks.
“We can do nothing unless we can find a skilled exorcist who is familiar with both arcane and cosmic possessions,” Kaiju says gravely.
“I know a gal,” Demoness says. “She might be able to help.”
“Who?” Titan asks.
“My boss. Witch Doctor.”
“That’s the game plan,” Dr. Invictus says. “We get Ronin to your friend and get the twins some medical attention, understood?”
“Great plan and all, but this lovely lady is probably on Earth and we’re still up here,” Fastball points out.
“Most of the Aotiuer defenses probably came here to halt us,” Kaiju speculates. “That means the bridge is unprotected.”
“I like what I’m hearing,” Demoness says. “Can you fly this thing?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Kaiju says. “My DNA will keep me locked out. If I am correct, though, we have a man with no recognizable genetic code, allowing him to bypass the defenses on the controls.”
The grey giant looks meaningfully at the Prince of Xor.
“You’re kidding me, him?” Demoness asks incredulously. “I love him and all, but you want him to fly the cruiser?”
“It’s our only choice,” Dr. Invictus says. “Someone radio Burns, tell him to get out of here.”
“What do you mean?” Sandor asks incredulously.
“I mean that we’re going to land this damn cruiser and you don’t want to be here when we do,” Fastball says.
“Why not? I’ve left you guys behind enough.”
“Because Titan is the only one who can pilot it.”
Without further ado, Sandor leaves the cruiser at high speeds in the Falcon, and not a moment too soon because the cruiser begins its descent a few seconds after he leaves. In the bridge, Titan is standing at a silver pedestal that has two orbs. He has one orb in each hand, the left orb controls to what degree the nose is pointing up or down, and the right orb allows turning. Press the left orb in to increase speed, press the right orb in to slow down. Dr. Invictus is cauterizing Defender’s eye and has the possessed Ronin sedated and trapped in a bubble shield. Nightshade is out of her shield, but is also unconscious from the poison. That leaves Demoness and Fastball gawking at the huge viewport as their planet grows closer and Kaiju advising Titan.
“Gently, now,” Kaiju says. “Accelerate a little bit.”
“This isn’t too bad,” Titan says. “Really, it’s a breeze.”
“Do a barrel roll,” Demoness encourages excitedly.
“Don’t do a barrel roll,” Dr. Invictus warns. “Just get us on the ground, somewhere near Dr. St. Clair.”
“No problem, Doc,” Titan says. He glances at the holographic navigation system that lets him know he is still on course to the doctor’s house.
Loud shrieks come in over the communication system; the other Aotiuer are trying to contact the cruiser as it rapidly approaches the blockade over Earth.
“What do we do?” Fastball asks. “None of us know how to talk to them!”
“Push forward,” Kaiju decides. “No point in trying to fake it and the cruiser has thick armor. Full speed ahead, Titan.”
“This is your captain speaking,” Titan says. “Ladies and gentlemen, fasten your seatbelts because this is about to get really bumpy really fast.”
There is no need for the Invincibles to secure themselves because the bridge has its own self-maintained environment, unaltered by what happens outside. From directional changes to getting hit by torpedoes, the bridge will stay level. Although not felt by the Invincibles, the cruiser accelerates towards the fleet. Once it becomes level with the fleet, the other Aotiuer open fire. Titan looks at the display across from the navigation system, that one shows the integrity of the cruiser.
“Uh, I don’t think this thing is as heavily armored as you think it is,” Titan says uncertainly. “This thingy says that our armor integrity has already dropped to eighty-four percent and falling.”
Before Kaiju can say anything, there is a loud explosion that is strong enough to rock the bridge.
“Oh, and now our starboard thruster just got blown off,” Titan says. “We’re flying on three thrusters now, two on the back and the other one on the leeward side.”
“Faster,” Kaiju orders, “hold nothing back.”
As the cruiser accelerates, the Aotiuer fleet keeps firing on it; eventually armor plates begin to peel off the plate and fly away into space.
“Armor integrity seventy-two percent,” Titan says.
“We can make it,” Kaiju assures them. “These cruisers are made well and we’ve already lost one thruster, so our bad luck must-“
There is an extremely loud sound, midway between the world’s largest piece of paper being torn and a car being crushed as the leeward thruster is torn off of the cruiser.
“Well, no more directional changes,” Titan says. “I can’t change where we’re going to land, only how hard we hit.”
“We can lose them once we hit the atmosphere,” Kaiju says. “Their fleet won’t pursue us past there.”
“Fifty-six percent,” Titan says. “At this rate, we’re not going to survive breaking the atmosphere.”
“We’re approaching the atmosphere,” Fastball says. “I can sort of see it.”
“Get away from the viewport,” Kaiju warns. “If the viewport shatters, the bridge’s homeostasis system should keep you from suffocating or getting sucked out, but if that viewport does shatter you two might get eviscerated.”
Fastball dashes to the wall, as far from the viewport as possible and Demoness hides behind Titan. Dr. Invictus throws down another bubble shield, this one around Defender, after that he stands up and strides to Titan at the control pedestal.
“You’ve got this, Titan,” he encourages. “Just a bit more.”
When the cruiser hits the atmosphere, there is a deafen
ing explosion as all external armor is instantly destroyed and most of the nonessential systems, like lighting, go offline. Another loud ripping sound is emitted as the weakened cruiser loses its entire back half.
Titan steps away from the controls, “No more thrusters, no more controls,” he says. “We’re going to land where we land however hard we do.”
“I’m scared,” Demoness says.
“I know, Sweetheart,” Titan says, hugging her. “It’ll be alright.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Fastball says. “Look at all the fire around the nose; we’ve hit the atmosphere too hard. We’re burning up.”
“This is not the way I wanted to die,” Demoness complains.
“You won’t die,” Titan reassures her. “I’m here, remember? Nothing can hurt you while I’m here.”
“You’re a good man,” Kaiju says.
“I try,” Titan responds.
“Impact in three minutes by my calculations,” Dr. Invictus says.
“Where are we going to hit?” Fastball asks.
“From our current course, we will impact directly in front of Dr. St. Clair’s house,” Dr. Invictus says.
“That’ll wipe out the entire block,” Fastball says. “Hell, in a cruiser this big from this altitude it might take out the whole state. Someone needs to slow this thing down.”
“I’ll go,” Titan says, pulling away from his tiny significant other and striding to the viewport.
“No, don’t,” Dr. Invictus says. “We don’t even know if you can. This thing must be over eight hundred tons and there’s the downward force of gravity.”
“I won’t be able to stop it, but I can slow us down enough that we won’t destroy a city when we impact,” Titan argues. “I’m the only one who can, doc. I can fly and I’m the strongest one here.”
“This matter is not up for discussion,” Dr. Invictus yells.
“You say that like you could stop me,” Titan says with a confident smirk. He slams a fist into the viewport, shattering the glass. Like Kaiju said, the bridge still maintains itself by forming a force field, but not before Titan can fly out into space.
He flies down to the nose of the cruiser and places both of his hands about two feet apart on it, pushing up with all his might. The cruiser slows down, but it is still falling alarmingly fast. Even when Titan uses his own flight powers to aid in his pushing against the cruiser, it is still falling fast enough to devastate the city.
“He can’t do it,” Kaiju realizes. “He’s not strong enough.”
“Then I’ll take some of the weight off,” Dr. Invictus says, punching a temporary hole into the force field so he can fly around the cruiser and begin to dislodge large portions at a time to lighten the load.
“Titan, I don’t mean to be pushy or anything,” Fastball says. “But it’s not really comforting how well I can see the city.”
“Working on it,” Titan grunts.
There are several more tearing sounds, after each one, Titan manages to slow the cruiser down a little bit more. Dr. Invictus is frantically burning through the cruiser, removing huge sections of it at a time.
“That’s all I can do,” Dr. Invictus tells them. “It’s just the nose and the bridge now.”
“C’mon, Sweetie-Pie,” Demoness encourages. “Push!”
“I’m not giving birth,” Titan says through gritted teeth.
“Yeah, well, if you frackity-whack this up a lot of people aren’t going to have babies.”
“I can see that guy’s pool and it’s really throwing me off,” Fastball says. “Cool, now I can see the pool toys. That’s a duck, and that’s a frog . . .”
Titan roars with one final, Herculean effort as the cruiser is a mere five hundred feet above the street.
R&R
August 10th
Dr. Eva St. Clair is about to get into her 2005 Honda Pilot and drive to the Goodwater General Hospital where she works when a man holding the nose of an immense space ship smashes down into the street in front of her driveway; the shockwave he makes blows out all the windows for about a block and sets off dozens of car alarms, prompting other people to come out of their houses to see what all the racket is about. He skids backwards about thirty feet, digging up a trench in the asphalt before coming to a halt. For a single moment, the man holds the hundred-foot long space ship in his grip before dropping it with a loud boom. Although it destroys several front yards and topples three streetlights, the ship does not hurt anyone.
Once on the ground, the same people that the news reported about in San Francisco and Haven City begin to file out of the shattered viewport, two of them, a male and a female, are being carried by a short man in a red costume and telekinetically by her nurse, Belle Drake.
“Good morning, boss,” she says as she walks up to Dr. St. Clair. “Sorry, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to make it to work today.”
“I did it!” the man who was holding up the ship slurs drunkenly.
“I know you did, Sweetie-Pie,” Belle says. “I’m proud of you.”
The man, with smoke smoldering off of him lightly, smiles before his eyes roll into the back of his head and he collapses.
“You’d better come inside,” Dr. St. Clair says.
Once inside, Dr. Invictus and Kaiju explain the culmination of events that have led the Invincibles to Dr. St. Clair’s living room as she works on Dick and Anna. A now unmasked Peter cautiously ties Frank to a chair as they talk and Belle wipes down Chris’s forehead with a damp cloth as he sleeps. Dr. St. Clair is of average height and build for a woman her age and still has an air of confidence and authority even at fifty-eight. Her crime-fighting days are coming to a close, but in the dark period between the fall of the Olympians and S.P.E.A.R. era, she was quite a force to be reckoned with.
“Dr. St. Clair, if you could help our friends we would be forever in your debt,” Kaiju finishes.
“Call me Eva,” she responds as she fills a syringe with a sickly yellow fluid.
She taps out the air bubbles and gives the syringe an experimental squirt before stabbing it into Anna’s carotid artery and pressing the plunger down. The black color in Anna’s skin around the wound instantly clears up, but she stays unconscious.
“She’ll be fine,” Eva says. “But there’s nothing I can do about your friend’s eye. You did right cauterizing it, but there’s nothing else I can do. I’ve cleaned the wound and bandaged up what I could, but I can’t get him a new eye.”
“What about Frank and Chris?” Dr. Invictus asks.
“Chris is just exhausted,” Eva explains. “Belle is seeing to him, give him a day to just sleep and he’ll be fine. When he wakes up he’ll be hungry, though. As in, eat everything in the kitchen hungry.”
“Doc, I’m just going to take him home,” Belle tells Dr. Invictus. “I got your leave to go?”
“Of course,” Dr. Invictus. “I already told Sandor to send a car for you two when he gets his boys to clean up the mess outside.”
“And about your other friend,” Eva continues. “I can probably get Samulhye out; he’s a relatively common parasite and it seems like Frank has been doing an exceptional job of keeping him uncomfortable.”
“So what’s going to happen once Samulhye is out?” Dr. Invictus asks. “Are we going to have to fight him?”
“No, once unseated Samulhye will have to return to his own plane of existence,” Eva says. “But while I’m performing the exorcism, no one can be inside the house other than myself and Frank. If Samulhye gets out and latches on to someone else, then we’ll have a bigger problem since Samulhye probably won’t be fooled by my exorcism twice.”
“What stops him from getting out to the rest of the world?” Kaiju asks.
“There are spells on this house that keep him bound here,” Eva explains. “The only place he can escape to his spectral realm. He won’t be able to return for a very long time.”
There’s a knock on the door and Peter answers it, “It’s the S.A.B.R.E. p
eople! Belle, Chris, your ticket home is here!”
“C’mon, Sweetie-Pie,” Belle says affectionately as she lifts Chris with her mind. “Let’s go home.”
“You really love him,” Kaiju notes as he sees them off. “You care for him as if he were dying when all he does is sleep.”
“Yeah, I sort of have to,” she says. “He’s huge and tough, but he’s just a big baby. Chris has superstrength and can soak up bullets like raindrops, but on the inside he’s a softie. And even though most everyone just thinks of him as just big and dumb, he’s so much more than that. He’s sweet and funny and caring and protective and the best cook-slash-mechanic-slash-handiman-slash-gardener-slash-listener-slash-cuddler-slash-kisser ever and once in a blue moon he’s really wise. And then I’m irresponsible and do stupid things, but no matter how much trouble I get myself into, he’s always there to pull me out of it. I take care of him and he takes care of me. It’s nice.”
“If there is one thing that I profess that I will never understand about humans,” Kaiju says. “It would be the concept of love. My people never had that, you see. All of our relationships were purely out of duty.”
“That’s really sad,” Belle says. “It’s weird and complicated and there’s a lot of different emotions all clashing at the same time, but I wouldn’t give it up for anything.”
“Humans are peculiar creature,” Kaiju says as she gets into the car. “Good-bye, Belle Drake. I hope that we see one another again.”
“Count on it,” she responds as the four-armed alien closes the door.
“So what now?” Peter asks.
“All of you need to leave,” Eva says. “I already told you what I need to do for the exorcism.”
Dr. Invictus nods, “Thank you, for everything.”