A field west of Stevenson, Illinois, mid-spring, noon...
By the time Steven Chen had completed the production of the compounds needed to defeat the aliens, the battle had already begun. The aliens were desperately seeking him in an attempt to destroy all information humanity had on how they could be defeated. Then, Steven reasoned, the invasion would start.
But they were too late. Chen had equipped each of the members of the Infinite Seven with several chemical “bombs” in the form of easily burstable balloons. Each of these bombs contained a very small concentration of a compound that was toxic to both the aliens and their biosuits. As a result, however, Palisade could not participate in the battle; his suit was the exact same makeup as theirs, and he had no desire to lose it.
Dragonfly waited until the Air National Guard’s helicopters had completed a strafing run against the mothership which now hovered over the CIU quad. The bullets did little except to keep the heroes from approaching the battle. Outside, the mothership was flanked by over two dozen of the aliens in biosuits.
“Approaching first target,” Dragonfly said into his blue-tooth. Swooping in close with his sword held out as if he planned to attack with it, he quickly pulled his other hand from his side and launched one of the chemical bombs. The effect was instantaneous and exactly as expected: the chemical burned away the biosuit like acid, leaving the alien gagging from the toxin and falling without a means of flight.
“Test flight is a success! Repeat, all units go!” Dragonfly shouted, moving on to the next alien. The biosuited alien fired several spikes defensively, almost turning Dragonfly into a pin cushion. He had no doubt that almost any one of them would have been fatal.
The Gray Robe used fists of earth to throw several of the bombs at once, bombarding two of the aliens so that no direction was safe. One managed to land safely before his biosuit disintegrated; The American Attitude was prepared, and quickly beat it down with his staff.
Cazmonster had a special weapon prepared. He’d put all of the toxin from his balloons into a large basin. When three of the aliens approached him, he simply lifted the basin and threw it directly into them. Then, as the confused and now suit-less aliens crashed to the ground, he used his tremendous strength sharp claws to rend them.
The Adept preferred to use his mystic blasts, firing them from the roof of one of the campus buildings bordering the quad. The blasts had proven an effective weapon in their previous encounter. However, one of the aliens slipped past unnoticed. Firing a spike from an unexpected direction, it pierced the hero through the leg. He screamed in pain before convulsing on the ground.
“Rick!” the Gray Robe shouted in shock. The Druidic hero swooped down onto the roof next to her close friend, the first member of the Infinite Seven she’d met. Reaching out, she removed the spike from his broken lower leg. It was now a compound, complex fracture; he was losing blood fast, and the blood he had left was poisoned.
Grabbing his unconscious form, she flew to the ground below and placed him on the grass. Touching the earth with her other hand, she began to draw life energy into her friend to counter-act the poison.
The heroes scattered to avoid a second strafing attempt by the Air Guard. This one managed to kill off all of the aliens who’d had their biosuits destroyed by the heroes. The mothership was not without it’s own defenses, however. Several missiles fired from various locations on the outside of the ship. Two of the helicopters were immediately destroyed; a third was crashing to the ground.
Dragonfly swooped into the chopper and grabbed the pilot and gunner. “Hang on tight, guys, these wings aren’t meant for this much weight!” Jumping from the ill-fated helicopter, Dragonfly did his best to slow their descent. All he really managed was a controlled fall, but it was enough. One of the men suffered a sprained ankle, the other two broken ribs. Dragonfly himself tumbled out of the crash, but in doing so broke a wing, grounding him for the rest of the battle.
Fortunately, the battle was short. It soon became obvious to the aliens that this toxin was far too dangerous for them up close, and they could detect further military vehicles approaching via the air. With regret, the aliens of an unknown species, bipedal and vaguely insectoid in appearance, abandoned Earth as a target, for the time being.
Epilogue
End of Spring semester, CIU, roof of Schuster Hall
Dragonfly and The Adept stood and waited for the others. It was a hot, sunny day, and sweat dripped from their foreheads.
“Seems like back at the beginning,” Dragonfly said to The Adept. The group had very briefly met here to discuss plans after their original HQ, a sealed off room in the basement of a campus building, had been discovered. Back then it was just the five of them: Dragonfly, Cazmonster, Wrecking Ball, White Diamond and The Adept. No team name, no direction, just a warning that a storm was coming, and they’d best be prepared.
“Except that we never expected anyone to die,” Rick reflected. Triumph was in fact, dead, crushed to death by the remnants of the headquarters they’d lost in a single alien blast. Cazmonster and Palisade had excavated him after the invasion was over. The funeral had almost crushed The American Attitude as well as the rocks crushed Triumph. The two had been close friends, as close as he and Aaron were.
“Maybe not, but we should have seen it coming. Come on, we’re out here fighting things we’ve never seen before! Aliens, vampires, mad scientists with death machines. It doesn’t even take that much. A few guys with guns almost killed me in Tibet.”
“Are you quitting?” The Adept asked. It was a question they’d all gone over in their minds after recent events.
Aaron shook his head no. “Nah. It’s the right thing to do. We lost one of our own. But we can’t even count the number of lives we’ve saved. Steel knew the risks as well as any of us.”
A warm wind blew by as The Gray Robe landed atop the building. “How’s the leg, Rick?” she asked.
Rick stood with a crutch, which doctors said he’d need for at least three more months, even after all of Syd’s nature healing.
“Sore. It keeps me up at night. But I’d rather be up at night than six feet under.”
“We’ve been over this, Rick. Saving each other, it’s part of our jobs,” she said.
“Wish I’d been able to do my job that day,” Palisade said, flying up behind. “Triumph would still be alive.”
“Steven, there’s no way you could have stopped that ship, or even known it was coming. Sometimes we just can’t be on time.” Aaron put his hand on his friend’s back, carefully avoiding the spines growing off of it. Just then, the door burst open, and The American Attitude and Caz walked onto the roof.
“Hey, guys,” Caz said, unusually sedate. “Let’s get this started, huh? I’ve got a plane to catch.”
“Where you headed?” Aaron asked the large, curly-haired young man.
“I have a summer internship, working on a reservation in New Mexico. Figured it was time Caz did some good in the world. Give the “Monster” a break for a while.
“That sounds like a good plan,” Aaron nodded. “I think I’m going back to making subs at my uncle’s deli for the summer. I kind of miss Chicago, and an old friend is coming to visit.”
“Emily?” Rick asked.
“No, a friend I met in Tibet. A doctor named Nirmala.” Aaron had never mentioned her before, so the rest of the group let it slide.
“Okay, well, we’re here to determine what’s next,” Rick announced, though it wasn’t a surprise for any of them.
“We’re down a teammate and a headquarters, and most of us have expressed some doubt about how, or even whether, to rebuild after those losses.”
“I don’t think we CAN rebuild,” The Attitude said. “I think the Infinite Seven is over; it died with Triumph. We managed to get revenge, but it’s never going to be the same.”
“So you’re out?” Dragonfly asked.
“I’ve asked myself that question a hundred times in the last few days. I don’t feel like things should go back to what they were, not exactly. But I know that Steel, my friend, wouldn’t want me, or any of us, to just give up. And I know that together, we’re so much more effective than we would be by ourselves.”
“So where does that leave us?” Caz pondered.
“I say,” The Adept began, “Barry’s right. The Infinite Seven is dead. Let’s leave it that way. But we’re all friends, and teammates. And as last month proved, we do work well together. I suggest we get back together after the summer, find a new HQ, and keep doing what we do best.”
“But if we’re not the Infinite Seven, what do we call ourselves? The media’s going to keep calling us that unless we come up with a different name,” Syd pointed out.
The Adept continued. “There’s a perfectly good name, a name that would honor our friend, and a name that describes the team as well as it did him. I vote we call ourselves...
Triumph!”
“Damn straight,” The Attitude said, a grin on his face for the first time in weeks.
“I’m in,” Aaron said.
“Me too. I owe him a legacy,” Palisade added.
“For Triumph,” The Gray Robe said.
Caz just nodded, his face resolute, and put his hand on Rick’s back.
“So it’s official,” Aaron said at least. “In three months, Triumph returns!”
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