by Lee, Tristan
Demoness stops rolling and looks up suddenly, “Hear that?”
“Hear what?”
“Listen.”
In the distance, there is the faint sound of the train chugging its way down the tracks. Judging by the sound and Demoness’s admittedly poor calculations, the train is about six minutes away. It is imperative that they stop it before it gets even close to Soloksev.
“What a cowinky-dink,” Demoness says. “Look, Titan, a boulder.”
She indicates a large boulder that would, in theory, be able to block the pass to the oncoming steel juggernaut.
“So you’ve got superstrength and there’s a boulder that can block the pass,” Demoness says. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“What?” he asks.
She rolls her eyes and repeats herself, “You have superstrength and there’s a boulder that could block the pass. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“I doubt it,” Titan says honestly.
Demoness rolls her eyes again, “You can be a real dummy sometimes, you know that?”
“Yeah, sort of. So what’s the plan?”
“You shove the boulder into the pass, the train crashes, we get the generator thingy, and everyone’s happy.”
“Cool.”
“Well then?”
“Well what?”
“Aren’t you going to push the dang rock?”
“Right,” Titan says, approaching the rock. He gives it a quick once-over and places both of his hands on it. He grits his teeth and grunts as he strains against the boulder.
Demoness is unimpressed, “Oh my God, you are sooo immature. Just shove the damn boulder already.”
Titan laughs and stops posturing, instead he pushes the boulder with his index finger. That outputs more than enough force to send the boulder tumbling into the pass. When it impacts with an Earth-shaking crash, the duo laugh and engage in their signature celebratory handshake.
“Titan, one,” Demoness says.
“Boulder, zero,” Titan finishes.
Back in Soloksev, Fastball is being beaten to death by the Rykov twins. His nose has been broken and is bleeding profusely, he has several internal hemorrhages, and his brain has been in better condition, even though it was not working too well to start with. One of his eyes his glued shut by congealed blood and the other one is so swollen Fastball only has a slight sliver to see out of. He is completely limp and Natalia Rykov does not even have to bind him with her spells to prevent him from moving. Dmitri lifts him by his collar again and pulls back for one final blow when he pauses upon hearing a loud crash in the hills. He looks questioningly to his sister, whose eyes widen in shock. Dmitri drops Fastball to the ground and his sister puts a hand on his metal shoulder before both of them disappear.
“That’s right,” Fastball mutters groggily as his limited field of vision begins to go black. “You better run. Cheeky cunts.”
The strike team is also in dire straits. Nightshade is effectively out of the fight, still hanging on for dear life on the side of the train. Ronin has lost his purchase on the side of the train because, for once, the sharpness of his sword is a disadvantage. The sword kept its spot in the side of the train for about two minutes before it sliced through the steel plating of the train. Once his “bite” in the side of the train was lost, Ronin was thrown rather roughly onto the icy tracks. He lies on the tracks, in extreme pain and losing consciousness alarmingly fast.
That leaves Defender, trying to make his way across the train from car to car without falling off or getting shot by the turrets. Luckily, the turrets cannot turn, so once he passes them once, he no longer has to worry about them. Passing them is not that difficult either, all he needs to do is keep his shield up and brace himself for the impact from the heavier shells. Defender passes the battery car and lowers his shield to get a better look around when the Rykov siblings appear in front of him.
“Oh, hell,” Defender says.
“You’d be right,” Natalia says. “Tell me, dear brother, shall we kill him now, or should we take him back to Herr Schiesse?”
“We should kill him,” Dmitri says. “We can take his body back to Herr Schiesse.”
“If you would be so kind, then,” Natalia says.
Dmitri strides up to Defender and swings a punch. Defender blocks it on his shield, but the impact rattles him and knocks the shield aside. The next punch crashes into Defender’s stomach, knocking the wind out of him. Defender is getting destroyed like Fastball was; Dmitri beats him to soften him up and to metaphorically play with his food. When the metal giant is about to deliver the final strike to smash Defender’s head like an egg, his fist is stopped by something. Just like how Fastball could not move, Dmitri’s arm is now paralyzed. He looks questioningly at his sister, whose eyes roll back into her head again.
“There’s another one,” she tells her brother. “On the tracks. I’ll deal with him.”
She is, of course, referring to Ronin. Able to sense his friend being beaten and broken, Ronin pushes the limits of his telekinesis to hold Dmitri. He is too weak to stand, so instead he lies on his belly, sword in one hand and the other hand outstretched. He’s sweating, breathing hard, and gritting his teeth from the effort, but soon the train will pass beyond his reach and even he will not be able to save Defender.
Defender plants his feet against the metal man’s chest and pushes off, freeing himself from Dmitri’s grip. He rolls to his feet and massages his throat before firing his grappling hook at the still-frozen Dmitri. The grappling hook cannot pierce his skin, but the force of the impact knocks the wind out of him. However, the attack unfreezes Dmitri, allowing him to tackle Defender and resume punching him in the face.
“Your friend can’t help you now,” Dmitri says, pulling his fist back once more. “Any last words?”
Defender spits a tooth and a glob of blood into Dmitri’s face, “Go to hell, you shiny son of a bitch.”
“Hey!” a familiar voice yells.
Dmitri turns around to see Demoness, trying to maintain her balance on the train, “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” she asks.
The metal man laughs, “You? My size? I’ve seen children taller than you!”
“Not me,” Demoness says with a smirk. “The big guy.”
Dmitri opens his mouth to ask a question when a sonic boom deafens him and Titan rams into his side while flying at twice the speed of sound. Both of them are sent crashing into the forest bordering the tracks. With the immediate threat gone, Demoness rushes towards Defender.
“Are you alright?” she asks.
“Probably not,” Defender responds, sitting up and rubbing his head. “Can Titan take that bastard?”
The farthest train car to the back is ripped off of the track as Titan throws Dmitri through it.
“Yeah, I guess so,” Demoness says. “We put a boulder in the bottleneck, so the train should stop there. Actually, now that I think about it, we should be coming up on the boulder right about now . . . “
Search and Rescue
August 19th
Nightshade is hanging off of the side of the train when she gets a sinking feeling in her gut, the same sinking feeling she got just before the Aotiuer attacked Haven. She somehow knows that something terrible is going to happen, and she knows that whatever it is, it is going to be the end of her. The train hits an object, but Nightshade manages to keep her grip on her crossbow. Although an impressive feat, Nightshade’s exceptional grip is rendered obsolete when the train derails. Suddenly it is as if she is not in her own body; she is watching it from far away, like on a television. Yes, that is what this is. Television. All of a sudden Nightshade, no, not Nightshade, not yet.
All of a sudden Anna is back at home with her family and they are all watching a movie together. She is sitting in between her mother and father, whereas her six-year-old twin is sitting on the floor. Here it comes, the lady in the movie is about to get crushed against the rocks by the train car. Anna is sca
red, but she knows that if she closes her eyes, her parents will think that she is going to have nightmares and she will not be able to watch movies with them anymore. Dick is pretending not to be scared, but Anna knows that her brother is just as apprehensive as she is. The only people in that room who are truly unafraid are her parents. Something weird happens when one becomes an adult, all the childish fears somehow just disappear. Anna is quite anxious for the day that she becomes and adult and all of her fears are gone.
Anna’s mother takes her hand and squeezes it, “Are you scared, pumpkin?” her mother asks kindly.
“No, I’m not,” Anna protests.
“Yes you are,” Dick says snidely.
“No, I’m not!” Anna yells at him.
“If you two can’t get along, I’m going to send both of you to bed,” her father warns sternly.
“I’ll be nice,” Dick says, turning back to the TV.
“Will you be nice?” Anna’s mother asks her.
“Yes, Mom,” Anna says. “I love you, Mom.”
“I love you too, pumpkin,” Anna’s mother says, kissing her on the head.
And then the train car lands.
The two Invincibles are sent flying as the train crashes into the boulder. The front two cars are crushed like soda cans. Soda cans that happen to explode into fireballs when they are crushed, but soda cans nonetheless. Defender tucks his legs up to his chest and covers his head with his hand when he flies off of the train so when he rather painfully impacts the unforgiving and icy rocks below, he minimalizes potential damage to his body. Demoness makes a shield around herself to protect against flying shrapnel, but Titan swoops down and catches her before she hits the ground.
Defender rises to his feet, the exposed skin around his mouth and chin is dirty and bleeding from thousands of tiny chunks of shrapnel. He limps out of the forest to the tracks and the crashed train, where an unhurt and completely clean Demoness and Titan are waiting patiently.
“What the hell?” Defender asks as he limps towards them. “What? Why the hell couldn’t you catch me too?”
“You were flying in two opposite directions,” Titan explains nonchalantly. “And, sorry Defender, but at the end of the day, I have to go home with her.”
“Well thank God none of that shrapnel ripped out my other eye or I’d have to get Ronin to teach me his ninja shit,” Defender says. “With that out of the way, where’s the generator?”
“No clue,” Demoness says. “We thought you knew.”
“I didn’t,” Defender says.
“Technically it’s your job to know,” Titan says. “Dr. Invictus said so.”
“Yeah, but I was a little busy getting the shit beaten out of me to be looking for it,” Defender says.
“I’m sure it’s fine,” Demoness assures him. “As long as it wasn’t in the first two or three cars, it should be right as rain.”
“And if it was in the first two or three cars?”
“Then we might need a new plan,” Titan says. “Only one way to check.”
He punches a hole through the steel armor of the train car he is standing next to and rips it open like a paper bag.
Lying in the middle of a train car is Dmitri. He is gaining consciousness back and clambers out of the wreck of the train car, rubbing his pounding head and trying to get a sense of his surroundings. Unfortunately, he was thrown a little too hard and hit the train car with a little too much force to get a bearing of how far he is from the tracks. Fortunately for him, his sister teleports to his side.
“Are you alright?” she asks, laying a hand on her brother’s shoulder.
“I’m fine,” he says. “Just shaken, that’s all. What of the other superhuman?”
“I lost him,” Natalia admits. “He was too strong for me.”
“What should we do now? Do you want to go back home and finish off Fastball?”
“No,” Natalia says, a small smile flickering across her face.
“No? Why not? I thought our goal was to destroy them.”
“It is,” Natalia says. “But we won’t need to destroy them. I looked inside the blind one’s head, you see.”
“They’re going to fight each other for the generator?”
“No, it won’t happen today, or tomorrow, but soon,” she promises. “Soon they will destroy themselves.”
“Have you found the generator?” Dr. Invictus asks as he finally touches down next to Ronin. The swordsman is sitting against a tree, bleeding from thousands of cuts and lacerations, covered in burns, and a chunk of meat has been ripped out of his outer thigh; the wound is so deep that it shows bone.
“I’m not sure if you noticed,” Ronin says. “But I’ve been a little busy bleeding out to search for it.”
Dr. Invictus kneels and opens up his medical kit, “Where are the others?” he asks as he fills up the wound on Ronin’s thigh with a paste that, when solidified, can reconnect severed blood vessels and acts like regular flesh.
“I don’t know,” Ronin says. “I saw Fastball taking people from Soloksev to the mountains by the town and I saw Demoness and Titan flying overhead. I was stopping Defender from being killed when she came.”
“She?”
“A girl. Superhuman.”
“What could she do?”
“She said some words and I got hit by a bolt of lightning. And she’s telepathic; I felt her going through my head,” Ronin explains. “And she can teleport. I was about to run her through with my sword and she just disappeared.”
“Anything else?”
“Her brother; he was the one I had to save Defender from.”
“Is he a superhuman too?”
“Yes. He can turn his skin into metal.”
“What metal?”
“I don’t know, but it’s a strong one.”
“Your leg will be fine,” Dr. Invictus says as he stands. “Don’t work too much and everything should heal quite well.”
“Thank you.”
“No problem. Stay here, I’m going to go find the others.”
It does not take much looking to find the crashed train like an ugly black scar across the pristine tundra. Dr. Invictus lands near the middle of the train and finds Defender and Titan digging through the inside of a train car while Demoness sits on top of a rock and watches.
“Hi, Dr. Invictus!” Demoness says excitedly, waving. “We’re looking for the generator!”
“What did you do to the train?” Dr. Invictus asks.
“Nice to see you came in a hurry,” Defender snorts sarcastically.
“We’re looking for the generator,” Demoness reminds them happily.
“You mean ‘I’m looking for the generator’,” Titan says under his breath as he throws another useless crate aside.
“What was that?” Demoness asks.
“Nothing, Sweetheart,” Titan says.
“Anyway, we crashed the train and now we’re looking for the generator,” Demoness explains. “Did I say that already?”
“You might have mentioned it,” Defender says.
“There’s an easier way to look for it,” Dr. Invictus says, pulling out his drone and throwing it into the air. The drone emits a blue light and sweeps the beam across the train, scanning.
“Doc, did you happen to see Nightshade?” Defender asks.
“No, I assumed that she would be with you,” Dr. Invictus says.
“And for that matter,” Titan says. “Where’s Fastball?”
Dr. Invictus radios the Falcon, “Kaiju? Has Nightshade or Fastball reported in?”
“No, not yet,” Kaiju responds. “Is something wrong?”
“Probably. Stand by.”
“I don’t like this,” Defender says. “I’ll go look for them.”
“No, I’ll go,” Dr. Invictus says. “Stay here and help Titan.”
Dr. Invictus soars above Soloksev, scanning the city for his teammates. As he begins to lose hope, his scanners pick up a bio signal. An augmented male, undoubtedly Fast
ball. Dr. Invictus lands as close to the bio signal as he can and looks over the street for Fastball.
“Is that . . . one of my side hoes or i-i-is it those damned kids again?” a quavering voice slurs. “If it’s the Rykov kids . . . these aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”
“Fastball!” Dr. Invictus exclaims when he sees his injured teammate.
Fastball is in horrible condition, worse than Ronin. His face does not even relatively look like a face anymore, it is far too swollen and bruised for that. Blood runs down the gaps in between the bumps on his face from his shattered nose down his chin and into his mouth, a mouth full of ruined teeth. His skin is all the sickly purple and yellow of bruises and the dark maroon of dried blood.
“What happened to you?” Dr. Invictus asks as he goes to work on Fastball’s face.
“There was this big guy,” Fastball manages to choke out. “Turned his skin into metal.”
“Why didn’t you run away?”
“I’m too stupid to run away from a fight. Normally I’m running towards them. Plus, the metal dude’s sister was holding me down.”
“With what?”
“Magic.”
“The others encountered a pair exactly like the ones you described on the train,” Dr. Invictus says thoughtfully. “About how long ago did they leave?”
“I dunno, I was a little busy dying from my injuries. Shit, I think I just swallowed a tooth.”
“Spitters are quitters.”
Fastball lets out a sound like a small dog being strangled, “Don’t make me laugh, Doc.”
“I’m getting you back to the Falcon,” Dr. Invictus says, hoisting Fastball up over his shoulder. “No complaining.”
“I didn’t intend to.”
Once onboard the Falcon Dr. Invictus gently sets Fastball down into one of the chairs and straps him in. Dr. Invictus strides to the controls and sets the autopilot for Invictus Tower, since Kaiju cannot fly the Falcon.
“What’s happened to him?” Kaiju asks.
“He took a beating,” Dr. Invictus says hurriedly. “Once you’re at the tower, get a medic. Request Simon Lukaterro if you can, got that?”