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This message Premiere #43: Invulnerable was posted by The greatest science heroes of Technopolis in a fight to the finish, from the Hooded Hood on Wednesday, January 22, 2003 at 15:03.

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Premiere #43: Invulnerable

Premiere and Steel Enforcer met in the Hall of Heroes with an impact that shook the reinforced building to its foundations. Both staggered away from their initial clash and dragged themselves back for more.
“I knew all that stuff with the metahumans from this planet had to be a diversion,” Steel Enforcer boasted. “I knew you’d be coming in by a different route. And then I remembered the old underground zoom tunnel from the early days of the Science Heroes.”
“Very clever,” Premiere admitted. “Maybe you do live up to your rep as the best Science Hero since me.”
“Ever,” Lance Everhart corrected his forerunner, smashing him back through one of the dusty trophy cases and stamping hard on his chest. “I always thought you were overrated. Even before the Watchman implanted a control chip in me.”
Victor Brooke rolled aside to avoid a second bone-shattering impact, blurring so fast that he was able to catch the Enforcer’s leg and hurl him through three reinforced titanium walls. “Maybe,” Premiere admitted. “But one thing’s puzzling me.”
Steel Enforcer dropped the upper floors of the Hall of Heroes on his adversary. “How an old man like you can stop a hero who’s invulnerable, who doesn’t tire, and who’s as strong as you are?”
Premiere shrugged off the debris, sending melted gobbets spraying back at Everhart with a wide thermal spray. “How Assak Malevi managed to implant a control chip into somebody that’s invulnerable.”
The silver-skinned Enforcer ignored the molten metal and broke through Premiere’s guard to plant an unbreakable fist in his gut, and followed with a knee to the head as his enemy doubled over. “Because I turned my invulnerability off, of course,” he hissed. “Malevi can control electrochemical reactions. He can warp people’s minds, alter their personalities. Of course he could convince me to let him implant his devices in my brain.”
“You poor bastard,” gasped Premiere, vaporizing the floor beneath them to get some maneuvering room while he caught his breath. It was hard to catch air in his lungs right now, and it felt like something sharp was sticking into them. “Didn’t you even try to resist?”
“We’re not all immune to the Red Watchman’s powers like you are, Brooke,” the Enforcer snarled, keeping up close and delivering blow after blow on the retreating hero. “Even the best of us had no chance once he began on our synaptic patterns. He can take a good person and make them a killer. He can take love and turn it to hate. He can even kill us and revive us again just to reboot our minds as he wants them.”
“I’m… not… immune…” Premiere wheezed, tasting the blood on his tongue. “Just… determined…”
“Determination isn’t enough,” Steel Enforcer promised. “Your little friend Xanadelle was determined, but that didn’t keep her from joining the Watchman in the end.” He caught Premiere’s next punch and snapped his wrist.
“What?”
“You didn’t realize, did you?” Everhart sneered. “Just because she had no control chip. She didn’t need one, Brooke. The Watchman had already altered her personality, back when he got her body off Zalas, back when he used his powers to revive her brain-patterns. He only brought back the parts of her he could use.”
“No…” gasped Premiere, as the Enforcer’s indestructible fist headed towards his face.

_____________________


“This is the outer perimeter of White Room security,” Xanadelle told Dark Knight and Visionary. “If you can really find a way to override the door control then you actually have a shot at Dr Zalas and the remnants of the Science Council. The whole war upon your little planet is being run from in there. If you capture it, it’s game over.”
“That’s why we left the Lair Legion holding back the enemy,” growled DK. “Let’s do it.”
Xanadelle triggered the neuroshock charges she’d placed on the urban legend as she guided him through the ductwork and dropped him twitching to the floor. Then she cut his throat.
“What?” gulped Visionary as she turned to him.
“Sleep,” she told him, and the possibly fake man keeled over beside the Dark Knight’s corpse.

_____________________


“No,” Premiere repeated. He ignored the pain, caught the Steel Enforcer’s fist in his own broken hand, and held it there. “I don’t believe you.” The good hand closed around the Enforcer’s indestructible throat.
“It’s true,” hissed Everhart. “And you people let her close to that captured regeneration machine you got from our homeworld. So when all your little friends used the machine to heal themselves and refresh themselves for the big battle they all got implanted with a biological shutdown command so that your girlfriend could lead them here to their doom. The Red Watchman wanted them all alive, of course. He has wonderful plans for each one of them.” Steel Enforcer deliberately reached up and squeezed Premiere’s shattered fist, laughing.

_____________________



“Very good, Xanadelle,” said Assak Malevi, the Red Watchman. He surveyed the ruins of the battle where the indigenous heroes of this Parodyverse had somehow defeated the nastiest collection of science villains ever culled from the rehabilitation pits. Those same heroes now lay strewn over the bodies of those they had defeated, each of them overcome by the sleeper commands implanted by Xanadelle via the regeneration machine. The Watchman stroked the former Sov-Blok spy lustfully and grinned his wide, manic smile. “Very good indeed.”

“I’m the best,” Xanadelle answered simply. “And Victor was always very easy to fool.”

“Yes,” agreed the Watchman. “Have these prisoners fitted with power dampners and brought into the White Room. I want to have them suitably bloodied up before our hero defeats Steel Enforcer and comes for me.” He looked down at the nearest of the fallen heroes – it happened to be Exile – and amused himself by casually directing his power to shatter each bone upwards from Rick Foreman’s little toe. “Flexor longus, flexor brevis, internal cuneform, scaphoid, astragalus…”

“You expect Victor to beat the indestructible Enforcer?”

“Cuboid, calcanaeum, middle cuneform, external cuneform… Oh yes. He’s a very determined fellow. I’ve learned not to underestimate him. I’d be most disappointed if he didn’t make it to our final appointment. Now the metatarsal bones…”

_____________________


None of the charts and files in the Hall of Heroes had an accurate measure of Premiere’s strength. That was because the first of the Science Heroes was as strong, as fast, and as powerful as he thought he was. It was all a matter of determination.
Victor Brooke’s hand tightened around Steel Enforcer’s throat, fingers of flesh focussing millions of pounds per square inch of pressure onto silver-steel epidermis. “I will say this once, Everhart, and then if you don’t listen I will have to kill you,” Premiere explained. “Drop your invulnerability, and I will render you unconscious. Later I will have our people seek a way or returning your brain chemistry to normal. Please don’t force me to extreme measures.”
And Steel Enforcer laughed. “As if you could harm me anyway! Not only does my power prevent me from all physical harm but you haven’t the will to kill a brother science hero; the greatest science hero our city has ever seen.” He used his free hand to grasp Premiere’s face, pressing his fingers into Brooke’s eye-sockets. “I don’t have any such qualms or limitations.”
Premiere rose into the air dragging the Enforcer with him. “I’m sorry,” he said, and channeled his thermal spray through his broken hand down into Everhart’s caught clenched fist.
It was simple physics. The heat easily conducted through Steel Enforcer’s metallic body, but couldn’t dissipate through air fast enough. And Premiere kept pouring it in, raising the flare until the walls around them began to melt and the heroes were lost inside a blinding red glow.
“What are you trying to do?” the Enforcer mocked. “I can’t melt. I’m indestructible.”
But all that energy had to go somewhere. It agitated the molecules of Lance Everhart’s body, drawing more and more upon his reserves of power to prevent him liquefying. And still Premiere pumped out more.
The last science hero’s black and white tunic was smoldering now as he reached the limits of his own resistance, but he didn’t stop. Wave after wave of heat pushed through the literally white-hot Steel Enforcer.
“Nice… try… old man,” Stuart admitted as he sensed that Premiere had no more to give. “Best attempt ever. You failed.”
But Victor Brooke wasn’t finished yet. While Steel Enforcer’s powers were focussed on controlling the sun-hot conflagration, Premiere released his adversary’s throat and plunged his hand into his molten chest. Level eight senses guided him to grasp a beating metallic heart. Muscles that could crumble a mountain flexed as Premiere squeezed and pulled.
The bloom of heat dimmed as the thermal spray ceased. Steel Enforcer looked disbelievingly at the seared, bloody science hero who stood before him holding a silver shining heart. “You can’t…” he mouthed before falling down dead.
As his powers failed, the heat inside him rendered him to ashes.
Premiere stumbled to the floor and coughed more blood, but painfully rose and forced himself into the air again. Unsteadily he wove his way towards the White Room and the final battle.
Premiere was out of time.

_____________________


“He’s coming,” Security Chief Vaagen reported. “Twenty-five seconds and counting.”
The Red Watchman smiled happily as he looked at the captured heroes bound as spectators for the final conflict. “Splendid,” he answered, “but I think we’re missing a certain something. A dramatic statement. A moment. Something to pierce that invulnerable exterior.”
“Fifteen seconds,” Vaagen warned.
Assak Malevi looked back at Dr Zalas manning the main science console, at the cowering remnants of the Science Council, at the burning city he had conquered and the dying army that assaulted it. “I know,” he realized. “Just the thing.”
“Five seconds.”
The Red Watchman turned round and snapped Xanadelle’s neck. “That should do it,” he decided.
“He’s here!”

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