by Lee, Tristan
“Yes.”
“Also, tell Sandor that Kronos has two superhumans with them; the Rykovs.”
“I will. Go, now. The others need you.”
As Dr. Invictus returns to the train wreck, Titan radios him.
“Doc, it’s Titan. We found Nightshade.”
“How is she?”
“She’s . . . Doc, I don’t think she’s going to make it.”
“I’m on my way.”
Dr. Invictus finds the remaining Invincibles without too much trouble. He lands and finds them crouched around Nightshade’s unmoving body. It is unclear as to whether or not she is alive.
“Where did you find her?” Dr. Invictus asks.
“Under a train car,” Demoness explains. “Her crossbow had a grapnel hooked onto the car, so we’re guessing that she was hanging onto the side when the train crashed.”
“But on the bright side, we found the generator,” Titan says. “It’s undamaged.”
“Where’s Defender?” Dr. Invictus asks as he continues to work on getting Nightshade’s vital signs stable. He keeps working at it, even though he knows that whatever he can do will not be enough.
“In the forest, somewhere,” Demoness says. “He saw her and sort of lost it.”
Nightshade is a sight that would make anyone “lose it”. Her Black Dragon armor, even though it seems little more than fabric, is made of biometal and was able to stay together. It did not protect her from the weight of the train, however. Most of her bones have been crushed by the weight of the train car and she’s lost quite a great deal of blood. Her face is soaked in so much blood that it is difficult to tell if she still has a face. The most horrible part, however, is that a jagged plate of metal has planted itself in between her belly button and her hips, severing her nearly in half.
“I’m losing her,” Dr. Invictus says. “Stand clear.”
Demoness and Titan move away so Dr. Invictus can charge his hands like a defibrillator and attempt to shock Nightshade’s heart into starting again. He tries it five times before dispelling the charge from his hands and stepping back.
“She’s . . . she’s gone,” he says dully.
Titan bows his head and Demoness begins to cry; Dr. Invictus does not know where Defender is, but evidently he is in earshot because the supersoldier unleashes a scream that is loud enough to echo off of the nearby mountains.
“I’m calling for evac,” Dr. Invictus says to no one in particular. “Let’s get out of here.”
Assault on Invincibles Tower
September 1st
The Invincibles are sitting around the common area in the tower, no one speaking. Joining them are Simon Lukaterro, Eva St. Clair, and Anna’s childhood friend Lester Hancock, the latest person to take up the mantle of the vigilante Owlman. They have just returned from Nightshade’s funeral and are still soaked with the rain that poured down on them during the service.
“I wanted to ask all of you something,” Sandor says, breaking the silence. “It may seem uncouth, but we need to make a decision soon. The U.N. is running out of patience and I don’t know how much longer I can bullshit Kronos.”
“What is it?” Dick asks lifelessly.
“Do you still want to go through with the assault on the Aotiuer fleet?” he asks.
“We can’t,” Dr. Pryce says softly. “Even if we had it in us to fight, we’re down two Invincibles.”
“No, you’re not,” Lester says. “I’ll help you.”
Lester is tall, a little more than six feet and has muscles like sculpted steel. He has approximately less than two-percent body fat, with the rest being muscle. Other than that, his intelligence, extensive training, and Owl suit that provides superior strength and agility, Lester has no powers, but he has proved his ability to hold his own against superhuman threats as Owlman time and time again.
“Lester, you’re my best mate, but you can’t,” Chris says. “You don’t kill and up there, there’s going to be a lot of killing.”
“I don’t like to kill,” Lester clarifies. “I’ve got nothing against breaking some necks if that’s what it takes.”
“Simon, when is Peter going to be up and about?” Dr. Invictus asks.
“I don’t know,” Simon says with a shrug. “His injuries should kill a normal guy, but his bones have been mending really fast. None of them are broken anymore, but he still has some internal damage.”
Chris approaches Frank, who stares out the window lifelessly with his sightless eyes. He puts a hand on his shoulder, but the Blind Swordsman does not even look up at his friend.
“Hey, you okay, pal?” Chris asks.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” Frank responds, his voice hoarse. “I just . . . I just . . . uh, I just never told her I liked her shirt.”
“Well I think that-“ Eva begins, but the building is rocked by an explosion.
“That doesn’t sound good,” Belle says uncertainly.
“I’m sure it’s nothing,” Sandor assures them, pulling out his walkie talkie. “Ground squad, report.”
Nothing.
“Ground squad, report!” Sandor barks. “Dammit, Bravo squad, report!”
“Kronos,” a voice wheezes out of the walkie talkie. “They’re here.”
After that there is the sound of screaming and gunfire before the line goes dead.
“They’re here for the generator,” Dr. Pryce says. “Suit up.”
As the Invincibles suit up, Lester Hancock takes off his tie and undoes the buttons of his shirt. Underneath his clothes, he is wearing his black Owlman armor. The suit consists of a black biometal body glove with half-inch, triple-layered armor plates over most of his body, leaving only his joints exposed for mobility.
The layer closest to the biometal suit is ultra-strong carbon fiber, a last line of defense before the biometal itself. Above the carbon fiber is more biometal, but in a gelatinous state; this layer of biometal is not meant to reflect bullets like the bodysuit is, but rather it is made to absorb the impact of punches and stop knives. The outermost layer is Promethium 6, an alloy with all the strength of titanium, but the weight of tin foil. It is not as strong as impervium, but it is much lighter while still providing significant protection.
He pulls up his biometal cowl, which is in the shape of a great-horned owl’s head. The eyeholes have lenses made of bulletproof glass that show him his heads-up-display of data, threat analysis, and more. In addition, the lenses can provide night vision or thermal tracking vision. The mask is completely sealed with a plate of Promethium 6 protecting Lester’s mouth and the areas surrounding it.
His biometal cape that allows him to glide unravels from his epilates until the end of it reaches a little higher than his ankles. The suit provides enhanced strength; not enough to throw a car, but enough to rip off the door. His punches and kicks have more than enough force required to knock a man out cold for a week in one hit.
“You wear that thing under your clothes?” Titan asks incredulously as he puts his helmet on. “Must be damn hot.”
“Sacrifices,” Owlman says, his voice digitally lowered an octave by his mask.
“Sandor, where is the generator being stored?” Dr. Invictus asks.
“The storage bay, but they can’t open it without my fingerprint,” Sandor says.
“Then they will most certainly know that and you are going to be their primary target,” Kaiju says.
“Ronin, get him away from here,” Dr. Invictus orders.
He nods and reaches out for Sandor, but the grizzled S.A.B.R.E. director brushes his hand away, “I can handle myself.”
“This is about a lot more than your pride,” Simon Lukaterro says. “If Kronos gets their hands on you, the game is over.”
“Too late,” Demoness says, pointing to the lift. The digital display next to the doors shows that the elevator has started and is rapidly ascending.
Eva waves her hands and the elevator doors weld themselves together into one solid piece. Ronin uses his telekinesis
to pile up furniture in front of the door and Dr. Invictus sprays a quick-drying cement onto the furniture, binding it to the elevator door.
“That’s not going to hold them for long,” Owlman says. “Sandor, this is your last chance to get out.”
“I’m staying,” Sandor says, striding over to the bar. He jumps over the counter and pulls a shotgun out from underneath it.
The doors explode outwards into the room and the Kronos soldiers throw smoke grenades to cover their entrance. It would be a good strategy if they were attacking agents who were not trained in combat, exactly what the Kronos soldiers thought. Unfortunately for them, they are not dealing with untrained agents. They learn this the hard way when the Invincibles open fire on the inside of the elevator before a single Kronos soldier can even step out. The combination of Dr. Invictus’ high-heat lasers, Demoness’s red bolts of light, Titan’s heat vision, Defender’s sidearm, Eva’s magic, Sandor’s shotgun, and Ronin’s telekinetic blasts subdues the Kronos soldiers in less than a second.
“I guess we got all hot and bothered for no reason,” Demoness says.
“That is certainly not their entire force,” Kaiju says. “They must have needed more men to overpower all of S.A.B.R.E.’s security.”
“We need to clear the building and we need to get Sandor to a safe location,” Dr. Invictus says. “Ronin, teleport him out.”
“I can’t,” Ronin says.
“Why not?” Dr. Invictus asks.
“Kronos has probably done their research, they may not have known that we would be in the penthouse, but they most certainly know that we’re on S.A.B.R.E.’s payroll,” Ronin says. “They have to have brought some way to track teleportation.”
“And Fastball is out of commission,” Dr. Invictus acknowledges. “Alright, we’re doing this the old-fashioned way. Demoness, Titan, Defender, Owlman, clear the building. Take them alive if you can, but don’t go out of your way. Go now.”
“Split up,” Defender orders. “We can cover the building faster like that. Demoness, Titan, you two have the lowest sector. Owl, the middle, and I’ll take the top.”
Once the Invincibles have left for their corresponding sectors, Dr. Invictus turns to those remaining in the penthouse with him.
“What do we do now?” Eva asks.
“The building won’t be completely cleared anytime soon, there are just too many Kronos soldiers,” Dr. Invictus says. “We need to lead some of them away. Ronin, teleport away with Mr. Lukaterro. Doesn’t matter where, but you can’t return. Kronos needs to think that you’ve left with Sandor.”
“I’m going to need Simon,” Sandor says. “Eva needs to go instead.”
“Simon is a medic without any powers,” Eva says. “He’s going to get torn to shreds.”
“I’ll try not to die, thank you,” Simon says.
“We don’t have time to argue about this,” Sandor says. “I need Simon.”
Dr. Invictus relents and gives Ronin an affirmative nod, “Go then,” he says. “The rest of you, get ready to go.”
“I’m not going,” Ronin refuses.
“What are you talking about, Franklin?” Dr. Invictus asks.
“I’m not going,” Ronin repeats. “I am not going to run from the people who killed Anna.”
“Then what do you propose?” Sandor asks.
“I’ll kill them all,” Frank promises savagely.
Eva puts a hand on his shoulder, “Frank, if we don’t lead Kronos off, then they’re going to have an edge. They might even get Sandor. If they do that, then they have won. Would Anna want you to give Kronos their victory?”
Ronin says nothing, but teleports away with Dr. St. Clair immediately.
Defender has found a rather convenient grenade launcher in the hands of one of the fallen S.A.B.R.E. soldiers and is using it to keep a Kronos squadron pinned down. The Kronos soldiers are dressed head to toe in black military fatigues without a single inch of skin showing. The only things that designate them as Kronos men and not Special Forces are their red goggles that provide thermal vision and a diagnostic system to identify the powers of superhumans and the red sickle stamped on their helmets.
Currently, Defender has six of them stuck around the corner of a hallway. Although it seems that he has the upper hand, he stays behind cover because the second the Kronos soldiers realize that he has been bluffing and that his weapon is empty, they will tear him to shreds with their automatic assault rifles.
“Come out with your hands raised and I won’t have to use this thing!” Defender yells.
The Kronos soldiers respond with something in German.
He cautiously pokes his head out to see if the Kronos soldiers have changed positions and receives a hail of gunfire in return. Defender drops the empty grenade launcher, useless now that his bluff has been called, and activates his shield.
“To hell with this,” Defender says, stepping out from around the corner in a crouched stance with his shield covering almost all of his body.
The Kronos soldiers continue to fire on him, bullets pinging off of his shield and ricocheting haphazardly around the hallway. The supersoldier presses on at a turtle pace and pulls out his own sidearm. By tapping another contact on his palm, a miniscule camera hidden inside the shield is activated and displays whatever the center of his shield is pointing at on the backside of the shield so he can see. Able to see his targets without endangering himself, Defender opens fire on the Kronos forces; each of his hollow-point rounds impacts a Kronos soldier in their vulnerable faces, shattering bone and ripping through brain tissue as each round penetrates the soldier’s face and comes out the other side.
One lucky Kronos soldier drops his weapon and throws his hands up just before Defender shoots him, screaming in German. Defender deactivates his shield’s camera and puts his sidearm away as he stands up and walks up to the Kronos soldier. Still spluttering away in German, the Kronos soldier does not even have time to compute Defender’s movement before the supersoldier bashes him in the face with his shield. The protective chunk of impervium is able to output an impressive amount of concussive force and knocks the soldier out cold, as wells as knocking out a few teeth.
Defender deactivates his shield and gives the unconscious Kronos henchman an experimental nudge with his foot.
“At least you’re not Nazis,” Defender says with disdain.
Owlman prowls the middle sector in the air vents. He is only a foot or two above the heads of the six-man Kronos squad that he has been tracking. The vigilante can see them via thermal vision from his goggles, he also sees that none of them are equipped with a specialized short-range weapon like a shotgun or submachine gun. Once they turn the corner up ahead and enter the narrow corridor, they’ll be vulnerable to his attacks, unable to effectively use their assault rifles in such a tight space.
Once the Kronos soldiers enter the corridor, Owlman executes his plan. He sets off a sonic grenade that deafens the Kronos soldiers without them noticing. With the squadron now deaf, Owlman punches through the air duct and the ceiling with a few well-placed punches and silently drops behind the Kronos squad. None of them have noticed him, so he wraps his arm around the soldier bringing up the rear and compresses his windpipe until the soldier passes out. The next soldier is brought down in a much less gentle way, Owlman taps on his shoulder, and once the soldier turns around, Owlman punches him in the solar plexus before the poor man can even register that he is about to be attacked by a vigilante attired as a predatory bird. By this time, the effects of the sonic grenade are wearing off, so Owlman quickly grabs the next man’s head and slams it into the wall to his left hard enough to put a hole in the wall.
As he predicted, the Kronos soldiers do not have the space sufficient to use their assault rifles efficiently; bullets fly everywhere and bounce off of the walls or Owlman’s armor. Although his armor is extremely durable, taking sustained fire from too many weapons will prove fatal. Luckily, their fire is not coordinated and thus it is not sustained. H
e moves quickly and jumps so he can kick one of the soldier’s in the chest with both his feet. The kick shatters several of the man’s ribs. He collapses in pain, so Owlman springs back up, using the power from pushing off with his hands and landing on his feet to slam his forehead into the next man’s nose. The biometal hardens upon impact and shatters the soldier’s nose, making blood spurt inside his balaclava and causing him to choke. Another man down, two more. By now, the Kronos soldiers have situated themselves and are able to fire on Owlman with greater effectiveness. Their newfound skill is irrelevant as Owlman pushes through the onslaught of bullets and grabs both of them under the chin at once. With both of them in his grip, Owlman slams their bodies against floor at an angle so their heads impact the linoleum tiles hard enough to crack them.
Owlman checks the clock in the uppermost right-hand corner of his heads-up display, “Twenty seconds,” he muses to himself. “Not bad.”
The Billionaire Vigilante sets off down the hall, hunting for the Kronos soldiers. He comes across a lone soldier standing guard in front of a door. Easy prey. Owlman has him pressed up against the wall by the scruff of his neck in less than a second from the moment he notices the man. The guard is obviously about to shout something, but Owlman covers his mouth with one hand.
“Hush now,” Owlman says in his signature, menacing growl. “Scream and I’ll snap your neck. I’m going to ask you some questions, try to keep it to yes or no. Understand?”
The terrified guard nods frantically and Owlman pulls his hand away, “How many men are inside this room?” he asks.
“Three,” the guard answers with a German accent so thick he is almost unintelligible.
“What are they doing?”
“They have a hostage. An intern, I think. She’s a girl.”
“And they’re going to do things to her?”
“I think so. I tried to stop them, I swear; I told them that we just came for the generator.”
“What did they do after that?”
“They told me to wait outside. I tried to stop them, you have to believe me.”
“I do. But if a single hair on that girl’s head is out of place, I’m blaming you too.”