Friday.
"So, let me get this straight," Eve said, taking a sip of her iced coffee. "You nearly gave Cecil a heart attack, you bought out the entire independent superhero economy, and you adopted a baby. All in under 24 hours?"
"It was a very productive weekend," I shrugged.
We were sitting on the outdoor patio of a high-end café in downtown Chicago, enjoying a rare, quiet afternoon. A few days had passed since the Powerplex incident and the signing of the GDA treaty, and for once, the world was actually a bit peaceful.
"Rex gave me a reality check," I admitted, slicing into my steak. "He was right. I was moving too fast, completely ignoring the heroes who weren't as strong as me. They were terrified of me. But now that Invincible Inc. is offering full medical coverage and pensions? It should mellow things out."
Eve laughed, shaking her head as the sunlight caught her pink hair. "You're completely insane, Mark. But... you're doing good. Real good."
I smiled, taking a bite of my food. Things were going pretty well, especially with Eve. Since our night together in Italy, we had fallen into a perfect, unspoken rhythm. We fought crime, we handled business, and we spent the nights tangled in the sheets at whatever five-star hotel I felt like flying us to.
Best of all? We hadn't had "The Talk".
There was no defining the relationship, no heavy emotional baggage, and no world-distracting drama. It was just easy, intimate, and highly efficient.
Just what I wanted at the moment.
I told ya, didn't I? my Libido purred smugly in the back of my mind, sipping a mental piña colada. We got the cheeks, and we got to keep our freedom. We're operating at peak efficiency, my boi.
Get The Fuck Outta Here, I thought, pushing it back, although I couldn't deny it being right.
"So," Eve said, reaching across the table to steal a fry off my plate. "What's on the agenda for the great CEO today? Finally going to take a day off?"
Before I could answer, a deafening explosion shattered the peaceful afternoon.
A massive plume of smoke and fire erupted from the financial district, two blocks away. The ground beneath our cafe table trembled violently, rattling the silverware. Screams immediately filled the street as pedestrians began sprinting away from the epicenter.
Eve and I didn't even exchange a word. We just moved.
Within a second, my suit materialized over my clothes, and Eve's pink energy wrapped around her as she launched into the sky beside me.
We touched down in the middle of a warzone. The asphalt had literally been blown open from below. Crawling out of the massive sinkhole were dozens of horrific, subterranean, demon-like creatures. They had jagged, obsidian-like skin, glowing red eyes, and claws that were currently tearing through parked cars like tissue paper.
"What the hell are those things?!" Eve yelled, projecting a massive forcefield to shield a group of fleeing civilians from a barrage of magma-spit.
"Probably just leftovers from Doc Seismic!" I shouted back, hovering above the crater. "The old man must have left his pets off their leashes when I put him away! Let's wrap this up before they damage the infrastructure!"
I dropped out of the sky like a meteor, landing a devastating double-axe handle right onto the skull of the largest demon. The sheer kinetic force shattered the creature into a dozen molten pieces.
"Too easy," I scoffed.
But a second later, the molten pieces bubbled, hissed, and violently reformed. The demon roared, fully intact, and lunged at my chest.
Ain't no way, I thought as my eyeballs nearly popped out of their sockets.
"They regenerate!" Eve called out, blasting three of them back into the sinkhole with a concussive beam. "You can't kill them permanently!"
"Then we break them," I grunted, catching the demon by the throat. I didn't try to obliterate it this time. I cleanly snapped all four of its limbs at the joints, tossing the incapacitated, thrashing torso back into the pit. "Dismantle them! Don't vaporize!"
For the next ten minutes, we engaged in a brutal game of subterranean crowd control. We couldn't kill them, but we could definitely break their legs, shatter their jaws, and physically incapacitate them until they were nothing more than angry, squirming paperweights.
Just as I tossed the last writhing demon into a neat pile on the street, the signature blue flash of a GDA teleporter lit up the intersection.
Cecil stepped out, flanked by a hazard containment team.
"Invincible," he acknowledged, looking at the pile of demons. "My sensors picked up an anomalous geothermal breach. Are these things secure?"
"Yeah, they're handled," I said, dusting my armored hands off. "Just some underground pests that needed to be packed up and—"
Before I could finish my sentence, the ground beneath my boots violently cracked open.
A blinding, unholy mixture of red and white light erupted from the pavement. I didn't even have time to activate my bio-kinetic aura before massive, glowing, ethereal chains shot out of the light, wrapping tightly around my wrists, waist, and throat.
"Mark!" Eve screamed, lunging forward.
Cecil recognized the chains immediately. He threw a hand out to stop his men. "Stand down! Don't get near the light!"
I dug my heels into the concrete, my strength flaring as I tried to snap the chains, but they weren't physical. They were pure, archaic magic. And they were pulling me down with the force of a black hole.
"Eve, stay back!" I yelled, right before the chains violently yanked me into the light.
I felt a blinding, nauseating warp of space and time that completely scrambled my equilibrium.
The sounds of the Chicago traffic vanished, instantly replaced by a suffocating wave of blistering heat and the overpowering, rotten-egg stench of sulfur.
My boots hit solid ground with a heavy thud.
I instantly dropped into a combat stance, my armor flaring as my eyes adjusted to the dim, red glow. I was standing in a cavernous, terrifyingly massive chamber made of jagged obsidian. Rivers of actual lava flowed like waterfalls in the distance.
I quickly tested my communication devices, and received nothing but static and dead silence.
Seems like I'm too far from the surface.
"Apologies, Invincible," a familiar, raspy voice echoed through the cavern. "Summoning ritual imprecise."
I spun around. Standing a few feet away was Damien Darkblood.
"Damien Darkblood?" I asked, my tension faltering into sheer confusion as I stared at the demon detective. "Didn't Cecil exorcize you back to hell or something months ago?"
"Yes," he responded.
"Where are we?" I questioned.
"Underrealm. Place your kind call Hell," he replied.
Hell?! I thought, looking around. "This is a bit underwhelming. I thought it'd be more… I don't know, grand? Terrifying? This just looks like an underground cave. Why'd you bring me here anyways?"
"Attempted to summon your father," he grunted, stepping closer. "Used a vial of his blood, preserved from Guardians crime scene. Required his strength. But it brought you instead."
"So you used my old man's blood, and the spell just grabbed me by default?" I asked, rubbing my temples as a headache began to form. "Aye man, you can just go ahead and send me back now. I got a company to run."
"I cannot. Need your help," Damien said grimly. "Matters of grave importance. The creatures you were fighting on the surface—the Vile—are escaping. Hierarchy down here has collapsed."
Damien turned, gesturing towards a short, elderly, red-skinned demon behind him.
"Invincible, meet Satan," he introduced. "Satan, meet Invincible."
I blinked, getting a good look at the literal Devil, then back at the demon detective.
"You're fucking with me, aren't you?" I questioned. "This average joe looking demon is the Devil? And you want me to do what exactly? Beat him up?"
"The Dark Lord," Damien corrected. "And we need your help. Allow me to explain."
"Then let's hear it man, this shit's so confusing," I voiced with exasperation in my tone.
"Volcanikka—an ancient and powerful entity, as well as the ruler of the magmanites—has overthrown the throne," Damien explained, his voice low. "She defeated Satan and cast him out. Without his power to keep them in check, the Vile are pouring into your world. Need your help to reclaim Hell."
I floated a few inches off the obsidian floor, gliding over to where the Lord of the Underrealm was sitting.
"So, let me get this straight," I said, crossing my arms and looking down at the short, elderly demon. "You're essentially the franchise manager of Hell. You got overthrown in a hostile takeover, and now your employees are trashing the surface of my planet?"
Satan blinked, then let out a raspy, surprisingly good-natured chuckle. "Franchise manager! I love that. Very modern."
The fuck? His demeanor is shockingly casual for a deposed king.
"You've pretty much hit the nail on the head, kid. I'm the warden down here. The lesser of two evils. I do the dirty, brutal work of keeping the Vile locked up so your lovely surface world doesn't turn into an all-you-can-eat buffet. But Volcanikka ambushed me. Stripped me of my power, which is bound to my Molten Crown."
"A crown," I deadpanned. "Who has it?"
"Her beast," Damien grunted. "Cerberus. Guards the crown in the Bottomless Pit."
"That's greaaat," I stated, staring flatly at the literal Devil.
"Hey, hey, watch it," Satan defended, waving his hands defensively like a guy defending his prized sports car. "He's a three-headed titan of pure hellfire and rage! Very vicious! Extremely unyielding! Don't let the 'dog' label fool you, kid!"
I stared at him for three seconds. I still didn't trust him completely, and his personality was kind of trippy, but his logic was airtight. He clearly didn't want the Vile escaping any more than I did. If I didn't fix his problem, the monsters would keep regenerating on Earth until the entire world became an infested crater of what I see before me.
"Fine," I sighed, cracking my knuckles. "I'll go get your little hat back from the big dog. But once you're back in charge, try to keep your regenerating pests off my lawn permanently. We have a deal?"
Satan grinned, a wide, flamboyant smile spreading across his wrinkled red face. "You get me my crown, and you've got yourself a deal. I'll even owe you a favor." He pointed a finger at me playfully. "Just watch out for the middle head. It's the bitey one."
"Lead the way, Darkblood," I said, turning to the detective. "Let's make this quick. I have a day to enjoy."
Damien nodded, leading me down a winding, treacherous path of jagged volcanic rock. The heat was intense enough to melt steel, but my Bio-Reactive Containment Suit easily regulated my internal temperature.
After a few minutes of flying, the cavern opened up into a massive, echoing chamber. In the center of the room was a gaping, perfectly circular chasm.
"Crown is down there," he said. "Pit not really bottomless, just very deep."
I nodded as we jumped into the chasm, letting the gravity carry us down.
Several moments later, we reached the bottom and spotted the glowing crown—made of pure, molten gold—in the middle of the space. In the shadows of the space, chewing on a massive, charred bone, was a creature the size of five dump trucks, stacked on top of each other. It had three massive, wolf-like heads, pitch-black fur that seemed to absorb the light, and glowing, molten-lava eyes.
Pheeeewwww. Now that's a demon-demon, I thought. If Damien introduced him as the Devil, I'd believe him.
"Cerberus," Damien warned, stepping back into the shadows. "Beware the hellfire."
The three heads snapped up. Six glowing eyes locked onto me. The beast let out a deafening, triple-layered roar that shook the cavern walls, revealing rows of razor-sharp, obsidian teeth.
"Stay here, this won't take long," I told him as I strode casually towards the mythological titan.
Cerberus lunged. The center head opened its massive jaws and unleashed a blinding, concentrated torrent of pure hellfire directly at me.
CLANG.
The inferno washed over me, completely engulfing my armored suit. The thermal conductors instantly flared to life. The magical fire didn't burn me; it just aggressively charged my batteries. The glowing veins on my neck pulsed with blinding energy.
I continued to walk right through the column of fire, completely unbothered.
Cerberus snapped its jaws shut, all three heads blinking in sheer canine confusion.
Before the beast could react, I blurred forward with blinding speed. I grabbed the two outer heads by the scruff of their massive necks. With a sharp, brutal pivot, I slammed the two heads together with a sickening CRACK.
The beast yelped, stumbling backward.
The center head lunged to bite me in half. But, I threw a single, perfectly aimed uppercut directly under its chin.
The sheer kinetic force of the blow lifted the multi-ton beast completely off the ground. Cerberus flipped backward through the air, crashing heavily against the cavern wall and sliding down to the obsidian floor in a heap.
All three heads groaned, their eyes rolling back into their skulls. The mighty guardian of the Bottomless Pit was out cold in exactly two moves.
I dusted off my hands, walked over to where the beast had been laying, and picked up the Molten Crown. It was searing hot to the touch, but my suit easily absorbed the thermal bleed-off.
Mighty guard dog, huh?
"Right," I said, tossing the crown lightly in my hand and looking back at a completely stunned Damien Darkblood. "I got the hat. Now take me to Volcanikka so I can pack her up and go home."
We flew back up the massive chasm, the molten gold crown tucked safely under my arm.
When we touched down where we had planned to meet Satan, but things had already gone south. He was pinned to the floor, a massive, glowing foot planted firmly on his chest.
Standing over the deposed Lord of the Underrealm was Volcanikka.
She was a towering, terrifying elemental queen made entirely of shifting magma and dark, volcanic rock. Liquid fire dripped from her fingertips, melting the solid stone floor beneath her. She sneered down at Satan, raising a hand that glowed with enough thermal energy to vaporize a city block.
"Your reign is over, old man," Volcanikka hissed, her voice sounding like grinding tectonic plates. "The Vile will consume the surface, and the magma will rise to—"
"Hey," I called out, casually tossing the Molten Crown from hand to hand. "You're stepping on my ticket home."
Volcanikka's head snapped toward me. Her fiery eyes narrowed in absolute contempt at the sight of a mortal standing in her domain. "A surface dweller? You dare intrude in the Underrealm?"
"No, mortal," Damien corrected gruffly, stepping out from behind me. "Viltrumite."
Volcanikka didn't care. She raised her hand, and a massive wave of superheated magma erupted from the floor, crashing toward me like a tidal wave.
I didn't move. The magma washed over me, instantly cooling into a thick, hardened shell of volcanic rock that completely encased my body.
Volcanikka laughed, a harsh, grinding sound. "Pathetic. You bring a fragile insect to fight a—"
BOOM.
The rock shell violently exploded outward. I hovered in the center of the dust cloud, the glowing veins on my Bio-Reactive suit pulsing with enough stored thermal and kinetic energy to power a small country.
"I guess it's my turn, huh?" I asked rhetorically.
I moved faster than her elemental brain could process. I broke the sound barrier inside the cavern, tackling Volcanikka directly in the chest. The sheer kinetic impact lifted her massive, molten body off of Satan and sent us both crashing straight through three solid obsidian pillars.
We slammed into the far wall. Before she could retaliate, I grabbed her by the throat with one hand, pinning her against the rock. The heat radiating off her was astronomical, but my suit just drank it in.
Volcanikka roared, raising both her magma-coated fists to crush my skull.
I tightened my grip on her throat, my strength flaring as my fingers dug directly into her molten core.
Her fiery eyes widened in genuine, agonizing shock. She was an ancient elemental queen, but right now, she was being physically overpowered by raw, unadulterated strength. I pulled my other fist back, letting the stored kinetic energy visibly crackle around my Warlord gauntlet.
"Look at me," I commanded, my voice dropping into that terrifying, cold register. "I don't care about your subterranean politics. But if another one of those regenerating roaches damages my world, I'll come back down here, and I don't care how long it takes, I'll tear you apart until there's nothing left of you. Do you understand?"
Volcanikka choked, the magma around her neck sputtering and dimming as my grip threatened to decapitate her. She frantically nodded.
I let go, dropping her to the floor. She didn't try to attack again. She scrambled backward, clutching her throat, and melted back into the porous rock of the cavern wall, completely retreating into the depths of the Underrealm.
I dusted my hands off, walked back over to the center of the room, and tossed the Molten Crown at Satan.
"Here's your hat," I said. "Put it on."
Satan caught the crown and scrambled up, placing it on his head. The transformation was instantaneous. A massive shockwave of hellfire exploded outward. The elderly, short demon vanished, replaced by a towering, muscular, deeply intimidating Lord of the Underrealm, wreathed in dark magic.
He flexed his massive red hands, letting out a booming, genuinely terrifying laugh. Then, he looked down at me and flashed that same goofy, flamboyant smile.
"Viltrumite!" Satan boomed, clapping a massive hand on my shoulder that would have crushed a normal man. "You actually did it! Consider your surface world safe! The Vile will be recalled immediately. We have a deal!"
"Great," I nodded, tapping my dead earpiece. "Now send me back. I was in the middle of a date."
"Of course, of course," Satan grinned, waving a hand. "A debt is owed. Safe travels, kid!"
A blinding flash of red and white light engulfed me. The heat vanished, the smell of sulfur faded, and the equilibrium-scrambling warp of archaic magic pulled me upward.
My boots hit solid pavement. And the cool Chicago wind hit my face. The sunlight I was used to was back.
Alright, I thought, wiping underworld dust from my suit. Back to business. Maybe I can get some ass for all my recent troubles.
But as I looked around, confusion quickly marred my face.
The street was empty and the café was destroyed. Plumes of thick, black smoke were rising from multiple different sectors of the Chicago skyline.
What the fuck?!
Suddenly, my earpiece reconnected to the surface network. It didn't just beep; it practically vibrated out of my ear with a backlog of frantic, overlapping emergency broadcasts and missed distress signals.
"—multiple bogeys, global airspace—!"
"—Guardian base is under heavy fire, we need backup—!"
"—they're leveling Paris—!"
"Mark!" Titan's voice suddenly roared over my private company frequency, the sound of collapsing concrete and Isotope yelling in the background. "If you're alive down there, we need you top-side now! Invincible Inc. is under siege! Isotope has the lower floors locked down, but they're tearing through the vault!"
Before I could even process Titan's panic, the GDA override channel blared to life.
"Mark!" Cecil's voice shrieked, completely devoid of his usual control. He sounded utterly terrified, but mixed with a desperate wave of relief. "Thank God your signal reconnected! Are you out of the Underrealm?! We need you quickly! The entire planet is under attack!"
"Yea, I finished up down there," I said, my instincts instantly taking over as I launched into the sky to get a vantage point. "What's the threat? Is it the Viltrumites?"
Did they come earlier than expected?! I pondered, looking around frantically.
"No!" Cecil yelled, the sound of artillery fire echoing in the background of his comms. "It's... it's you! There are dozens of you! They're destroying everything!"
I froze in mid-air. Me?
My blood ran completely cold. I focused my vision on a massive explosion near the Sears Tower. Floating above the wreckage, laughing maniacally as he ripped a military jet in half, was a figure adorned in a yellow and blue suit, wearing a very familiar gravity collar.
No way, I thought, sheer, unadulterated panic pierced through my mind.
How'd they escape?! I pondered as I flew directly towards the figure. What about Angstrom and the Maulers? What the fuck is going on?!
An impromptu Invincible War had begun. And it was definitely my fault.
.
.
.
It's about to go down.