The Invincibles (Book 1): The Invincibles

by Lee, Tristan

  Eva smiles, “No need to thank me, Dr. Invictus. If you and that young man hadn’t stopped that spaceship, I don’t think I’d be around for you to thank.”

  “All the same, thank you,” he says. “Invincibles, let’s go.”

  When the Invincibles leave the good doctor’s home, they are met with the familiar sight of Sandor Burns in a fresh suit and a pair of aviator sunglasses. How he cleaned himself up, returned the Falcon, and got to Goodwater City in less than an hour is a mystery, but with all the aliens and superheroes milling around, it is hardly the strangest thing that has happened in the past week.

  “To what do we owe this pleasure?” Peter asks.

  “I’m taking you back to the tower,” Sandor answers. “And when everyone is back in fighting shape, I got some bad news to break to you.”

  “What kind of bad news?” Dr. Invictus asks.

  “It’s a pretty long drive to Haven from here. I’ll fill you in on the way.”

  “So what’s going on?” Kaiju asks, admittedly uncomfortable with being squished inside the armored sedan.

  “I’ve been getting a lot of shit about you kids,” Sandor says. “The council is calling for your disbanding.”

  “What council?” Peter asks.

  “After S.P.E.A.R. went rogue and the Superhuman Containment Act was repealed, the United Nations voted to have an international council oversee all of S.A.B.R.E.’s activity,” Sandor explains.

  “Why do they want us disbanded now?” Dr. Invictus asks. “We’ve successfully repelled two Aotiuer attempts to conquer a human city.”

  “If you haven’t noticed, both cities in question blew up a little bit,” Sandor says dryly. “It’s going to cost taxpayers billions, not to mention all the evidence that we’re going to have to cover up.”

  “Evidence?” Dr. Invictus asks.

  “Do the ten thousand or so dead aliens, hundred crashed fighters, and that cruiser you brought down in the middle of a residential street ring a bell?” Sandor asks. “We can’t let civilians go and try to find a souvenir to take home.”

  “So are we disbanded or not?” Peter asks.

  “I’ve managed to delay the vote until the Aotiuer threat has been dealt with,” Sandor says. “Beyond that, they will vote and there’s nothing else I can do to stop them.”

  “How did you stop them this time?” Kaiju asks.

  “I may or may not have shot the U.N. Commandant in the kneecap,” Sandor says. “It was quite clearly an accident; I had just escaped an Aotiuer cruiser and thought he was an alien.”

  “That was ballsy, but when do we tell the others?” Dr. Invictus asks.

  Sandor sighs, “Belle texted me, even though I don’t know how she got my number, she said that she and Chris would be back on Friday. Frank should be back by then and the Barnes twins will be fully recovered by then, so the thirteenth will do.”

  “Friday the thirteenth,” Peter notices. “That should be interesting.”

  “I’m sure it will be,” Sandor agrees. “When we get back to the tower, you three should get some sleep. It’s been a long day.”

  Invincibles Tower is in surprisingly good shape for being in a warzone; not even the paint is scratched and the only broken pane of glass is the one that Demoness and Titan shattered on their way out. The same cannot be said for the rest of the city, however. While they were being held captive, Kaiju, Dr. Invictus, and Peter missed out on the firefights that ravaged the city. More than half of the buildings are either partially or completely destroyed and some are still on fire. The streets are littered with dead Aotiuer and pieces of debris, but there are no visible civilian bodies. The Invincibles can smell the odious stench of the decomposing corpses from inside the sedan up until the twenty-foot sandbag barricades that the S.A.B.R.E. security force stationed at the tower had formed. The S.A.B.R.E. men are wearing their exoskeletons that give them superhuman strength and agility, the same exoskeletons that Samuel Gideon designed to give humans a fighting chance against superhumans.

  “Home sweet home,” Sandor says as they climb out of the car.

  One of the S.A.B.R.E. soldiers walks up to them. He wears no armor, just a black t-shirt, dark grey and black camouflage pants, and black army boots. In addition to being unarmored, he is also unarmed. The only thing aside from his choice in clothing that marks him from the other S.A.B.R.E. soldiers is that he does not appear to have skin. Instead of the organic tissue one would expect, this man has ice in place of it. The ice is like an exceptionally well-crafted sculpture, with every feature of a human being while maintaining the same mobility. The ice reveals the man to be Ethan Rivers, one of S.A.B.R.E.’s most lethal assassins.

  “Sir? What do you want us to do about the prisoners?” Rivers asks as his icy covering turns back into regular flesh.

  “What prisoners?” Sandor asks.

  “Some of them surrendered,” Rivers explains. “They dropped their weapons and put their hands on their heads, so we put them in cuffs.”

  “Where are they?” Dr. Invictus asks.

  “The only place that was secure enough is the holding cells inside the tower,” Rivers says. “They’re chilling down there.”

  “How many of them are there?” Sandor asks.

  “Three.”

  “What about the rest of them?” Sandor asks. “There were thousands of Aotiuer when we boarded the cruiser.”

  Rivers smiles, “Me and the boys figured that Mr. Gideon put a lot of work into these suits and how much of a shame it would be to see them go to waste. So I thought it would be a good idea to have a little S.W.O.R.D. get-together.”

  Shortly after S.P.E.A.R. went rogue, Sandor Burns secretly established a new, personal black ops team. Sandor hand-picked Ethan Rivers, Jackson Payne, Romeo del Toro, and Slade Stetson. Frostbite, Punch Drunk, Blackstar, and Headhunter in their respective order. The unit was christened as the Superhuman Weaponry, Overseeing, and Retaliation Division, or their better known acronym, S.W.O.R.D., and officially never existed, but still undertakes the darkest operations and eliminates the most high-value targets.

  “So are these the guys that are going to make me and my boys obsolete?” Rivers asks, nodding to the Invincibles.

  “No,” Sandor says, “the Invincibles are a global peacekeeping initiative. You know exactly what your unit is.”

  The man called Frostbite snorts and spits on the ground, “I bet you’re going to want to see the prisoners.”

  “Most definitely.”

  Rivers leads the Invincibles down to the basement dungeon of the tower. The cells are state-of-the-art, each one is self-cleaning and has everything its occupant would need, shower, toilet, sink, bed, etc. so the guards need to make little to no contact with the prisoners. With a structure made from concrete and steel, the interior of the cell is plated with sheets of impervium while the outside has five, three-inch layers of impervium in addition to the concrete and steel. There is a vent that keeps breathable air pumping into the cell, but other than that and the heavily armored door, there are no openings. The interior of the cell can be viewed via a holographic image on that door that shows the interior from constant non-radioactive x-ray scans of each cell. The prison island of Isla de Muerte has the same kind of cell in addition to cells that are custom-tailored to their prisoner’s weaknesses. The serial killer Retseyekh, for example, is immune to the effects of a negative field, but cannot harness his powerful telekinetic abilities when in the presence of gold, so his cell is lined with gold in addition to all the other materials.

  Outside one of the cells, two men stand guard. The one on the left is wearing the navy blue and white camouflage fatigues of a S.A.B.R.E. soldier. The man has a sniper rifle in his hands and a beret on his head. The man on the right has an easy smile on his handsome face in addition to a pair of aviator sunglasses; no fatigues, instead he wears dark jeans, a grey t-shirt with a smiley face on it and a black motorcycle jacket. He does not have a gun, but he lightly tosses a huge sheath knife from hand to
hand. Neither of them have an exoskeleton, but the sniper has a red visor covering his eyes. The other man has dull grey metal armor on his calves and his chrome hands reveal that both of his arms have been replaced by prosthesis that provide superhuman strength.

  “May I introduce our resident sniper, Slade Stetson,” Rivers says. “And our muscle, Jack Payne.”

  Payne gives them a lazy, two-fingered salute and a grin, but Stetson does not move a muscle. Rivers nods to them and Stetson types something into the keypad on the door, opening it. When the door opens, an electroshock force field takes its place, preventing any kind of escape. The Aotiuer are all drones, still hissing and spitting.

  “Hey there, little guy,” Peter says, waving at them. “They’re actually sort of cute.”

  “What have you been smoking lately?” Payne asks.

  “Little bit of everything,” Peter answers. He experimentally taps the force field, yanking his finger back quickly after the current hits him.

  “Kaiju, can you communicate with them?” Dr. Invictus asks.

  “I can try,” he says. “I learned quite a bit of the Aotiuer language from my time on the ship. I’m not fluent, but I’m conversational.”

  “Do your best,” Dr. Invictus says. “Try to find out who hired them and what their next move is.”

  Kaiju nods, “You might want to get some rest, though. This might take a while.”

  The Invasion Force

  August 17th

  “How’s it going with the drones?” Anna asks Kaiju as she brings him a cup of coffee. In the Invincibles’ longer-than-expected recovery period, Kaiju developed quite an affinity for the drink.

  “Very poorly,” Kaiju says, taking a sip. “They don’t want to talk and something tells me that even if they wanted to talk they wouldn’t know anything.”

  She frowns, “Should I tell the boss that we’re wasting our time?”

  “No, I might be able to crack them,” Kaiju says. “Thank you for the coffee.”

  “No problem,” Anna says. She takes the lift back to the top floor where the rest of the team is. In one hour, at nine o’clock in the morning, the Invincibles will be able to say that it has been a week without an Aotiuer attack.

  “Sweetie-Pie, you just took your own piece,” Belle says.

  She is playing chess with Chris in the recently installed recreational area. Dr. Pryce is running tests on Peter in the lab to try and find an answer to his brain trauma as Dick hammers a punching bag and Frank meditates.

  “Oops,” Chris says, correcting his move.

  Anna walks over to her brother, when she is three steps away from him he slams a punch into the bag that bursts it, spilling sand onto the floor.

  “You’re cleaning that up,” Dr. Pryce says without looking up from attaching electrodes to Peter’s forehead.

  “Yeah, I know,” Dick says, turning away from the punching bag to her, breathing hard. Anna is still getting used to seeing her twin with black eyepatch that covers his missing eye and loses her train of thought momentarily from surprise.

  “What’s going on?” Dick asks, bringing her back to reality.

  “Nothing. Just wanted to see how you’re doing,” she answers. “Getting used to the eye thing?”

  He shrugs, “I can still fight and I can still shoot. That’s all I really need.”

  “Ah, Dick,” Dr. Pryce says as he exits the lab with Peter. “You just reminded me; I’ve been working on something for you.”

  “What is it?” Dick asks.

  Dr. Pryce tosses a new, shinier forearm plate to him. Dick catches it and looks it over, “A new grappling hook? Thanks, doc.”

  “It’s not just a grappling hook,” Dr. Pryce says. “Put it on.”

  Dick complies, sliding it on. The new grappling hook has the addition of what seems to be a fingerless glove on the end, but it is far more than just a glove. There are contact points on the palm of the glove that will only respond to Dick’s touch, each one modifying the grappling hook.

  “It works just like your old one when it comes to firing and retracting,” Dr. Pryce explains. “The new toys are pretty cool, though.”

  “What else can it do?” Dick asks.

  “Chris, I need you to throw something at Dick,” Dr. Pryce says.

  “What?” Chris asks.

  “Throw something at Dick,” Dr. Pryce repeats. “It can be anything, just throw it as hard as you can.”

  Chris shrugs and picks up a pawn from the chessboard. Dick’s eyes widen as Chris winds up, “Wait! What the hell!”

  Too late. Chris hurls the pawn across the room at Dick; the supersoldier instinctively throws his arms up to protect his head from the speeding pawn. A half second later, with impact and horrible injury certain, Dick hears a clang and the sound of the pawn falling to the floor.

  “Whoa,” Peter says.

  The pawn was repelled by the rectangular, impervium shield that expanded out of Dick’s grappling hook. The shield is the same shiny silver as the rest of the grappling hook and is a five-foot-tall rectangle, completely devoid of any sign that the chess piece even impacted.

  “That is sick,” Chris says.

  “The shield deploys automatically when its proximity module detects something coming at you at a high enough speed, like a bullet,” Dr. Pryce explains. “It won’t deploy to block a punch, however, unless it’s a really fast punch. If it’s not a fast punch, touch your fourth finger to your palm to manually deploy it. Touch your palm again with the same finger to retract it.”

  Dick retracts the shield experimentally, it shrinks down into a one-inch square on the forearm plate and sinks down until it is level with the rest of the plate.

  “It’s strong, but it can’t block everything,” Dr. Pryce warns. “The shield is exceptionally strong in all aspects, but its main function is to resist impact. Chris could probably snap it, but he won’t be able to shatter it. Not yet, at least.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” Dick says. “I appreciate it.”

  “No trouble at all,” Dr. Pryce assures him.

  The lift opens again and Sandor emerges, carrying a box of doughnuts, “I thought I should get my team a present for being clean for a week.”

  There is a collective cheer as Sandor opens the box on the coffee table. The Invincibles gather around on the couches to eat their food in celebration of a week without incident. The conversation, however, eventually turns back to the Aotiuer.

  “Where’s the fleet now?” Sandor asks.

  “No clue,” Chris says. “I flew out to check last night, but they’re not in our orbit. I went as far as Jupiter before coming home, but they’re not around. Not in our solar system, at least.”

  “So have they given up or are they planning something else?” Anna asks.

  “We can’t know for sure,” Dr. Pryce says. “Chris, are you going to go out again?”

  “Sure. But if you want me to check beyond the Kuiper Belt I’m going to have to leave now so I can get back by tonight,” Chris says.

  “What happens tonight?” Dick asks.

  “It’s Belle’s birthday tomorrow,” Chris explains. “I need to get a good night’s rest so I can wake up early and make her pancakes.”

  “Pancakes?” Belle bubbles. “You’re making pancakes?”

  “Blueberry pancakes,” he corrects. “Anyway, do you want me to go check?”

  “If it’s not too much trouble,” Sandor says.

  “Alright. I’ll suit up. Save me a doughnut, will you?”

  Belle bites her lower lip nervously, but says nothing.

  Chris is suited up and flies off as Titan within five minutes of the decision, he pushes his speed as fast as he can so he can get an extra boost of speed from breaking the atmosphere that should propel him at a much higher speed up until Saturn if he is lucky. On Earth, Titan cannot push his full speed because of the obvious problems associated with flying around very fast in densely populated areas with loads of buildings, plus there is the inconvenience of air
resistance. Outside of Earth’s atmosphere, however, and devoid of air resistance, the Prince of Xor can push his speed up to over six million miles per hour, assuming he gets the extra boost of speed from breaking the atmosphere. At that speed, he’ll reach his destination in fourteen hours, give or take an hour.

  There is a deafening explosion as he breaks the atmosphere, shooting him forward to his max speed, just as he predicted. Flying beyond Earth is a bittersweet pleasure for Titan; he loves space and the stars, he has ever since he was a child, but he cannot take Belle with him. Assuming she were able to breathe at such a high altitude, breaking the atmosphere would crush her like an elephant stepping on a grape. Still, even though he cannot share the experience with the one closest to him, Titan soundlessly shouts with joy as he hurtles through space. The view is breathtaking; distant stars whizzing past him in a blur as he flies faster than even Peter can run. Although the sights of space are relatively similar in this solar system, Titan never gets bored of seeing the thousands of stars becoming streaks of light as he flies by the planets. He wishes he could turn around for a moment and look back at Earth, to see how quickly it was turning from this far away, but he knows that if he stops to look he will lose his speed and would not be able to make it to the Kuiper Belt in this month, much less the day. Maybe on the way back.

  There is no sign of the Aotiuer fleet near any of the planets, and as he approaches Neptune, Titan begins to regret not bringing lunch, or at least a snack.

  On Earth, it is three o’clock in the afternoon. The Invincibles are anxious for their teammate’s return, even though they know he will not be back until late into the night.

  “What’s taking so long?” Peter asks.

  “Maybe it’s the fact that he’s going to the other end of the solar system and back,” Anna suggests. “I hear that a round trip takes quite a long time.”

  “Huh. That might be it,” Peter says. “I’ll accept it.”

  He wanders off to explore the rest of the tower, so the rest of the Invincibles try to look busy. Belle, however, is sitting on the couch by herself looking intently at the two doughnuts they are saving for Titan. Frank notices that she is still there and walks over to sit next to her.