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Chapter 25
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In the bright, early morning, a military helicopter flew across Paragon, heading for City Hall from the camp in Faultline. Walter and War Lagoon were both aboard. This brought back many memories for both of them.

Only, this time, it was in response to one of the alien invasions that seemed to hit Paragon more than any other place in the world. Some had wondered and debated about this on the so-called news stations, never bothering to ask the aliens who would arrive peacefully from time to time. One station did, however, ask a unique gentleman with the most frazzled hair.

War Lagoon said, “It looks like the restriction on lethal force is going to be lifted for the fight against these invaders.”

“So I’ve noticed,” said Walter. “That’s not the sort of thing to be taken lightly.”

An officer aboard the craft passed through the hold, and said, “The ride is almost over, gentlemen. Hopefully, in the next few hours, the Commander in Chief will give the go-ahead to aid you all directly in this fight. The new one won’t be sworn in until tomorrow, or we’d be by your side the whole way. Those aliens picked a hell of a time to arrive. Until either man takes action, we’ll be set up at key locations, just like we’ve discussed.”

“Thank you for the reminder, Lieutenant Bates. I’m sure you’ll be recognized for your limited efforts when this is all over.”

The officer just smiled and pressed the button for the door to open. Walter adjusted his parachute, and opened his mouth to ask War Lagoon where his was. Then he shut it when he remembered his friend could fly.

“Off we go,” said Walter. And he jumped.

***

Throughout much of her first period class—an elective, Drama now instead of Art like it had been at the start of the school year—Judy kept looking at the clock and the sky outside.

The invasion hadn’t yet begun.

Her glances were starting to grate the teacher's nerves too.

"Ms. Tanimoto! Do you see something more important than class out there, or do I need to assign you detention?"

Someone walked into the classroom and whispered into the teacher’s ear then. It was almost funny how many times teachers were interrupted by something big, just in this school year alone. In moments, the Drama teacher became one of many organizing their students to go to a last-minute assembly.

“Excuse me,” said a student aloud before they began filing out the door, “may I be excused from the assembly? I’m really a superhero and need to go to stuff.”

There goes my excuse, thought Judy.

As the students went on their way to be crammed somewhere in the school without their belongings, Judy fell back and sneaked through the crowds until she found a room with an internet connection.

“You should be following the other students,” said a passing teacher who had spotted her entering the room. “I know the assemblies aren’t always a lot of fun, but everyone needs to attend this one. Why don’t you come with me?”

Judy said, “I have to help everyone, sorry.”

She pulled herself into the computer system and headed home. Her mom, who thought she was trying to talk her way out of going to school today, only locked the computer instead of turning it off.

Passwords, how did they work?

Her costume was in her closet, her earpiece was inside the drawer of her nightstand, and her more casual things, Judy realized, were still at school. That included her own copy of the house key, so she had to use the computer again to leave the house locked.

Pixeletta located Mortar Mage’s phone, and used it as a point for emergence. She only hoped that he was somewhere that had enough room for her to land on the floor.

In a flash she was greeted by the sound of guns being aimed surrounded her.

“Hold your fire! Again!” called a voice.

“This could be an enemy agent, sir.”

“No, she’s one of the good guys if you remember her performance on the TV, weeks ago. Stand down.” The burly, suited man appeared amidst the crowd of soldiers and agents who were putting their guns down. “I’m certainly glad you’re not a villain . . . Pixeletta, was it?”

“Yes, sir,” she cheered. “Where’s Mortar?”

Mortar Mage called from another room, “I’m back here, Pixeletta. If my phone’s done charging, could you bring it please?”

“Note that that’s one of the heroes, not an errand girl.”

She went to grab the phone, and the massive tent shook. No, the ground was rumbling, and a shadow was cast over the little outside light she saw.

“They’re here.”

***

Princess Undercut threw the cup of coffee into the first alien’s face she saw. With a short flurry of grapples, punches, and kicks, a pair of heavily armed invaders went down without a second shot being fired.

A third one—a different alien race from the other two in the room—flew into the room and crashed against the floor.

Wyatt, still dressed up in his doctor scrubs, walked in and said, “Nice of him . . . her? . . . to lend me this thing.”

He hefted the gun in his arms that was about a third of his size.

“You didn’t even ask for its gender? Sloppy,” Princess Undercut said.

“I was a little preoccupied learning how to shoot to stun. I might have given it a little more juice than intended.”

“Great. Are you ready to change yet, or are you going to spend the whole morning cheating on me with that thing? Look out!”

Another invader entered the evacuated hospital wing through a form of teleportation that technology types tended to use when they had the know-how. It looked like a hole being punched through the air, with the other side never once becoming visible before the air bounced back into position.

This time, Princess Undercut swept its legs and dealt the next few blows as soon as the alien hit the ground.

Wyatt said, “Let’s go. And what’s with this ‘cheating’ thing?”

***

“Ah, Mayor Oldman,” said Walter, removing his parachute, “come to join us? It’s raining alien invaders, I’m afraid. So it’s not very safe.”

The mayor charged down the stairs of City Hall, wagging a finger.

“This is an outrage!” said the mayor. “We’ve been invaded before. Why are so many of our services shut down? The military can’t just do this to my city.”

Walter said, “It’s always your city, isn’t it? It’s a wonder we don’t have more villains. You will find that it isn’t the military alone in this effort to save everyone’s city from the biggest invasion we’ve ever been a part of; will ever be a part of. Now, would you be so kind as to duck?”

He raised his sidearm and aimed it in the mayor’s direction. The mayor, rather than ducking, jumped to the side before Walter took a few shots. His aim brought down an invader from one of the three races.

There were the tall, lanky ones with pear-shaped heads, like the one Walter had brought down just now. Another race tended to be bulky with four arms and wrinkled faces. Then there were the bipedal blobs. Never before had all three of the alien races attacked Earth like this. Walter would have been impressed by their unity if it wasn’t such a danger to everyone he cared about.

The mayor said, “They’re touching down? But they almost never do that. Look, the one in the sky is breaking up.”

Indeed, the first big ship was dissolving in a manner that made Walter think of a block of cheese being shredded. That was a measure many ships had installed to keep as much of their advanced technology as possible, though salvaged parts occasionally survived, from falling into the wrong hands.

Normally, ships pulled out of the atmosphere to further pry their technology out of the hands of everyone on Earth, but this first ship did not.

It couldn’t. Two more large ships descended in its place.

Walter said, “I think you had best get to safety, Mayor.”

The man finally agreed with him without a sign of anger, and Mayor Oldman fled. He did so not a moment too soon when a car flew and crashed sideways into the steps where the mayor once stood.

In the street before City Hall, an invader arrived from the third alien race. This one was renowned for standing twice as tall as humans and being quite the lumbering blob when they actually moved about on their two legs. Bullets weren’t going to work well against this race. And the invader grew tentacles in a flash, meaning that the blob was going to attack with those instead of its armaments. The tentacles came for Walter.

***

A slew of invaders touched down in the middle of a major road, and they were shooting in all directions. Pixeletta rolled across the pavement to make herself a harder target for the aliens to hit. Then she unleashed a massive current of electricity into the horde of invaders.

All of them collapsed; more than half were knocked out instantly.

She ran at them with her power still ready to go. Pixeletta punched at one invader, and threw an electric blast at another.

Two more heroes jumped in to help her.

In the sky above, a second ship broke apart in a flaming heap. But, there were more beyond it. No one knew exactly how many. Yes, the city had a lot of heroes, but she wasn’t sure they could beat every last one before wearing out.

Pixeletta turned to find the next ground fight she could assist with since Mortar Mage didn’t want her helping him with whatever he was working on. However, suddenly, something massive crashed through a brick building. It had the lanky form of the first alien race that had appeared in the city today, but its height beat the walking blobs from the third.

One hero fell back nervously, and another charged forward. The one hanging back said, “Are these guys going all out or what?”

Smiling, Pixeletta said, “At least it’s not a giant cat.”

The gargantuan alien struck down the hero who had pressed on the attack. The hero’s life was about to end with one more swing of the monstrosity’s arm blade. Pixeletta threw an attack of her own at it. Then a second. The alien must have noticed, because it brought up a shield to block the second bolt.

It was fixed on her now. She dodged as best she could, but one of the arms knocked Pixeletta aside. She wasn’t sure if it was the blade or not that hit her at first, because it hurt enough not to matter for a second.

She got up in time to see the alien come at her with another attack. Then she reached into its mechanical armor with her power, hoping for the best.

Then she was inside the suit’s digital space. The suit of armor was computerized. This race used computerized suits of various sizes, every one of them, and this model was open to her like a shopping mall on a slow business day. She quickly searched the programming to find a weakness. Or, better yet, a way to shut the armor down. In moments, she had it. The suit was powering down, giving Pixeletta mere seconds to get out.

Not that she needed even one.

Pixeletta shot out of the suit’s backside and kicked at it. As a result, the alien struggled in vain, but still fell on its face. Pixeletta stomped a foot down on the toppled giant and let out a cheer over her triumph.

“Wait,” said one of the heroes, “weren’t you hit, like, super hard by that big thing?”

The lack of pain and hurt dawned on Pixeletta. “I guess I healed while I was in there.” Beat. “Woohoo!”

***

The tent dedicated to processing information on the battle out there was buzzing.

Mortar Mage entered through one of his arcane portals in time to catch a woman, the leading officer behind the information processing, say, “Ugh, where is the blasted fool who’s supposed to be helping us? There’s too much going on out there.”

“That fool is right here,” he said. “You’ll be glad to know that I took down another one of those blasted ships.”

“You! You went out to fight instead of gathering or processing information that can be used to actually beat the extraterrestrials?”

“I’m a hero. Helping is sort of what we do. Besides, I was trying to gather information from the ship I boarded. Good thing no one was with me when I was up there.”

The woman looked perplexed. “You destroyed a ship by yourself? You tried gathering intel directly? What?”

“That’s the trouble with languages I don’t know. It’s hard to tell if a button means, ‘Dispense coffee,’ ‘Spill the beans,’ or ‘Fill the reactor with hot fluids that will certainly cause the entire ship to self-destruct.’ But at least I managed to download some information on this old thing.”

He waved an old video cassette in front of his bewildered audience. Lucky that he was able to procure it from a ship that hadn’t even touched the Earth’s atmosphere, and luckier still that the ship’s central console accepted them.

It looked like they accepted Betamax too.

Mortar Mage worked his technological know-how to set up the right player, and his magic on a copy of a codex that was now flipping back and forth through seemingly blank pages while the data displayed on a screen above it. He needed the mystical codex to translate languages he didn’t already know, which were admittedly, and sadly, far too many.

He clapped his hands while everyone else worked furiously.

“Right, so, the data’s being translated. Who needs my help first?”

***

War Lagoon flew under another ship, using his power to scan for anything resembling a power source. Another hero flew behind to attack on his command.

“Here we go,” War said.

The other hero, Blaze, created a dozen thin spears of flame that burned brighter and lighter in color until War Lagoon could feel their heat from a short distance away. Blaze launched them through the underside of the ship.

Seconds later, War Lagoon heard an explosion above them.

“A knife in butter ain’t got shit on me,” said Blaze.

“Yeah, neat,” said War Lagoon. “Let’s get going before this thing decides to take us with it.”

Then the gutted reactor blew a pillar of fire toward him and Blaze, and another blast of greater proportions drew toward them from the opposite direction as the two men did their best to dodge.

***

Princess Undercut took every shot, and it did nothing. Every punch, and the best it could do was knock her around a distance. Every foe tried it, and then they went down. Every one of them except the walking blobs, that was. Psi Wizard had to suppress them long enough for someone with elemental powers to deal with them.

All around, Princess Undercut saw heroes fighting, winning or losing, and property damage beyond anything she had seen since taking up her mantle.

She met with a highly agile alien with an arm blade that was light blue in color. She used her martial arts training to block and dodge, but she couldn’t get a good attack in, not even a counter.

Finally, the alien made a mistake in its footing, going for a swing at Princess Undercut, and she managed to use it to her advantage. The blade touched against her cheek, leaving a cold and stinging sensation on it, but her own assault was greater.

Princess Undercut got the alien on the ground and punched it out. The cold, stinging sensation didn’t let up, she noticed. And a drop of blood fell on the alien she had just taken down.

She wiped her cheek with a pair of fingers. The red fluid stunned her.

Two more aliens got behind her, each carrying blades like the last one had.

***

Adamast Cross and Rampart completed their team with Walter once they had saved him from that blob alien. However, now the three of them were surrounded by a horde of all three alien races that challenged their endurance. Even with their combination of offense and defense, there was no question that they could get tired.

That they could make a mistake, or die.

***

Pixeletta giggled maniacally as she bounced from one computerized suit to the next, deactivating them so that everyone else could bring the aliens down. When a moment passed without a suit to hop into, she calmed down and realized how villainous, how monstrous she might have seemed to those aliens.

Somewhere amidst Steel Canyon’s taller buildings, which paled in comparison to the ones in Talos to the northeast, she heard a man’s voice echo. She couldn’t make out most of the words, but it sounded somehow preachy. She used her power to help her get to the top of the nearest tall building. It was twenty floors high, but she reached the top in seconds. The man was speaking of some great will and judgment when she touched the last door. She opened the roof access, knowing she’d picked the right building.

"Judgment upon all the unworthy!" said the man, sending a chill through Pixeletta’s soul.

Standing on a ledge was a man garbed in the robes of someone of importance. A red spider emblem was visible on the back of his robe. He turned to look at Pixeletta, and she knew his gaunt face.

It was Harvey Stone.

Two Arachne agents were here with him, but they were busy operating a machine. Before Pixeletta could ask any questions or take any action, the machine let out a disruptive bang that knocked her back. The roof access door closed, but not before she saw a red beam shoot from the machine into the ships above, as well as an unknown number of heroes or villains flying around up there.

Then there was static in her ear.

Mortar Mage’s voice came through, “Paragon’s finest, do you read me? I’m broadcasting on all known channels. The invading ships are still coming. I repeat, the ships are still coming.”

She stood up and got to the door. It opened with more force this time than it had before. Then she realized it was jammed by an object dragging on the floor. It was a piece from the cannon that had fired.

Stone and the Arachne agents were gone. There was no sign of them falling or anything.

Mortar said, “They’re still warping in. What we’ve seen is only a fraction of their 937 ships. Their plan is to wear us out in the event they can’t beat us outright. Then they mean to leave us in ruin before taking off with what they came for. They are unwilling to negotiate. We need a way to stop them.”

Pixeletta walked to the edge where Stone had stood mere seconds ago. He got away, and he and those agents took most of that cannon with them.

Something about his voice . . . it was compelling. The mere feeling of it still brushed against the core of her being, the little she’d heard. She stood in stunned silence, vaguely aware of someone or something coming up from behind her.