I find it a little weird that Monster reads books. It doesn’t seem to match up with his attitude and style that he shows later. I think Godforce seems most likely to read often, being that she’s the most human one.

“Is invasion by transdimensional demons,” said Nuclear Man. “World is in trouble.”

“And the superheroes?” asked Nanonaut, as he grew back to human size.

Nuclear Man pulled the hood of his radiation suit over his head and clicked his gas mask into position.

“Are assembled and fighting, but I am betting that they will retreat before we are getting there.”

Nanonaut nodded in agreement. He slotted a fuel cell into his jet pack.

“About time,” hissed Monster, morphing painfully into his inhuman form and gnashing his teeth noisily. “I was getting hungry.”

“Well,” declared Nanonaut, “the world isn’t gonna just save itself, now, is it? Let’s roll.”

“Horus,” declared the falcon-headed god in a deep, echoing voice, “concurs.”

My name is Theresa Doumbia. I am known as the Godforce. There are over a million superhuman men and women on Earth, and I am among five of the most powerful. We are the Lords of the Impossible.

We are everywhere. Literally, I mean. Our base of operations is located somewhere in the nanoverse. Imagine something so incalculably small, something that would make atoms seem as large as galaxies, something that’s tinier than the tiniest physically possible thing conceivable. Every such infinitely small thing contains its own universe. At such hyper-microscopic sizes, the laws of physics become obsolete and give way to absurdity. All of these absolutely miniscule universes are interconnected. Collectively, they are the nanoverse.

The Aleph, a marvel of imaginary physics, floats aimlessly around in the spiraling infinity of the nanoverse. Nanonaut discovered it on one of his micro-adventures and reverse engineered it to act as our headquarters. He wanted to call it the Microlair, God forbid, but thankfully Monster found the fancier name in one of his old books. It’s so fantastically minute that it exists everywhere and nowhere at once. We’ve anchored it to the Earth’s gravitational pull, which means we can instantly appear at any location on the planet we want. After all, when there was a catastrophe major enough to warrant our attention, we had to get to ground zero as quickly as possible.

“Bring it on,” I said, an almost childlike grin spreading across my features. I fastened a plain black domino mask onto my face and gave the field leader a thumbs up.

Nuclear Man pulled a lever purposefully. I blinked. When I opened my eyes again, we were in the Sahara Desert. The landscape was dreadfully empty. There was nothing but sand for hundreds of miles in all directions, except, of course, for the jagged rift that had formed about a hundred metres away. It was a portal to another dimension, but you could be forgiven for assuming that it was a door from hell, or perhaps a giant uterus. Seven-foot horned monstrosities were spewing out of the rift by the hundreds, belching fire and acid into the arid desert air. At the risk of overextending a metaphor, I thought it looked rather like childbirth on fast forward. Or menstruation on legs.

The bodies of several costumed heroes were littered somewhere between us and the portal. There were even a few I recognised, like Captain Alpha and the A-Team, as well as a couple of other reckless American heroes, who had been, typically, the first to rush in and the first to die. Nanonaut, the only one of us who was actually involved in the superhero community before he died the first time, noticed the bodies at the same time as I did. His face hardened and he clenched his fists, making impatient cracking motions with his neck. Nuclear Man, meanwhile, was trying the diplomatic option. It seemed like a pointless gesture, judging by the reception Earth’s assembled heroes had previously received, but the diplomatic option had saved us at least a dozen large-scale fights so far.

“Attention, tourists,” said Nuclear Man from inside his red containment suit. “We are the Lords of the Impossible, representing planet Earth. Please state purpose of visit immediately so that we lead you to nearest transdimensional hotel.”

The demons, eyes blazing crimson, howled their disapproval. Nuclear Man, not taking the hint, chose to repeat himself in Russian. One demon, obviously the commander, gave a cry, something that started out a high-pitched, throaty warble and fluctuated in frequency, ending in a low rumble. The hellish creatures plunged their claws into their own chests, pulling out otherworldly firearms. Behind them, the portal expanded, and zombie tanks made of dead flesh rolled out, covering the flanks of the demon army.

“Telepathic link,” said Nuclear Man, “Now.”

Our brains were wired to a neural network that we could switch on at will. I mentally activated mine and suddenly I could feel the thoughts of the other Lords bouncing about in my head. It was different from hearing, because it was coming from inside my head. It was like thoughts colliding with one another, and it seemed both familiar and foreign at the same time. I’d been on the team for at least a month, but I could never get used to the sensation. Our leader’s thoughts sprang up without warning in our minds, and we processed them far faster than we would have been able to comprehend spoken orders.

“Will kick tanks’ asses myself. Monster; eat ground troops. Nanonaut; shock tactics. Godforce, Horus; into air. Move!”

Monster, flapping leathery wings, barreled into the front line of demons, licking his lips. He grabbed two of the demons and crushed a spine with each hand. He stuck their heads into his gaping mouth and ripped them off, smiling widely as he chewed. The claws on the ends of his wings disemboweled the demons who tried to flank him and attack from his rear. He pushed forward, crushing demons underfoot with every step, allowing the creatures to attack him en masse.

“God, I love being an eight-foot killing machine.”

He served as more of a distraction, though. Nanonaut blasted around with the jet pack strapped to his back, weaving in and out of the demons. He shrunk to microscopic sizes and grew again several times in quick succession. To the demons he seemed to vanish, only to appear again suddenly to blast them into oblivion with one of his ray guns or a negasonic grenade. He was precise and robotically efficient with his kills, which just went to show how much mental fortitude he had, considering that he was absolutely furious and was screaming at the top of his voice.

“You bastards!” he roared, over the buzzing of his ray guns. “Captain Alpha used to be my teammate and you killed him, you goddamn demons!”

Nuclear Man sprinted towards the nearest zombie tank. He waved a hand at the demons who got in his way, disrupting their brainwaves with lethal radiation. The Frankentank was an actual undead organism which pulsated slowly, like a heartbeat. Before the main gun could swivel around, Nuclear Man blasted into the air, leaving his distinctive green energy trail. He raised a fist and rocketed straight for the tank, headfirst. There was a sonic boom loud enough to give several demons cerebral hemorrhaging. The blast whipped up a cloud of sand, which whirled rapidly around, flaying the skin off the surviving demons.

Invincible or not, I still had to breathe, so I stayed well clear of the pocket sandstorm until it settled onto the desert ground. Where the Frankentank once stood, Nuclear Man crouched, radiating nuclear energy. Horus, behind me, levitated up into the air, arms outstretched, as if he were being crucified.

“I would suggest that everyone cover their eyes.”

Horus started glowing white. I rammed my eyelids firmly shut, knowing what was coming next. We called it the Sunwash. Horus would, for a split second, assume his true godly form and become pure light. The resulting brightness would cause the demons’ retinas to shatter. Most of them would become instantly blind and they would experience whole new worlds of pain.

There was a catch, though. Horus had to shift out of his god-form after every Sunwash and revert to a more human shape. Shifting from near omnipotence and omniscience to a comparatively far weaker state would be no walk in the park for him. It was going to hurt like hell, and our friendly neighbourhood sun god would be vulnerable for at least a few minutes. As soon as it was safe to open our eyes, the rest of the Lords had to cover him.

I felt my skin absorb the energy from the light and I could feel the energy surge through me and spread. As soon as Horus gave the all-clear I propelled myself downwards, pulling up just before I hit the ground and I flew right through the assembled ranks of confused demons. I collided with them, one after another, with such force that they splattered against me, exploding into sticky messes of blood and demon guts. I zigzagged through the stumbling, blind creatures and flew back into the skies when I had had enough.

“That,” I projected, “was very disgusting.”

Monster glanced up at me.

“Yes – puke all over the demons, that’s a good girl.”

“We wrap this up,” cut in Nuclear Man. “Are going to follow these sons of bitches back into home dimension and tell leaders to leave Earth the hell alone.”

We began the final push once Horus was back in the fight. The hellfire bullets of transdimensional demons tickled. We herded the demons, those who were lucky enough to be blinking during the Sunwash, back into the rift to the other dimension. Nuclear Man, pausing only to aim a homemade nuclear blast at the last zombie tank, led us into the portal. Instantly the atmosphere changed. The Saharan air seemed frigid by comparison. We were in a place best described as hell, although Nuclear Man would probably give us a more scientific term during the debriefing.

It stretched on forever, a bleak wasteland that was flecked with deep pits, in which more demons, smaller than the ones we had fought, lived and died. It seemed ridiculous that an entire civilization could survive there. There were fights to the death raging in every pit, with bigger demons killing smaller demons for food. And then the demons noticed us and everyone froze. They saw their horde, reduced to a fraction of what it once was, beaten and broken. They shrank away, retreating to deeper within the pits.

The loud, primary colours of our costumes, standard superhero fare, seemed positively foreign in this dimension. We represented hope for the survival of our planet, but for the demons the colours we wore would forever symbolise death and annihilation. I stopped and lingered at the edge of one of the pits. Scores of demons, frozen with a fear of the unknown, gazed at me in awe. I looked down on them. I could swoop down and kill them all before they even realised what was going on. They seemed so insignificant for such fantastically monstrous creatures. I realised, with a cold shudder, that I couldn’t care less about their worthless existences. I was an omnipotent, alien goddess to them. I glanced at Horus. His posture was aloof, his face unreadable, and I wondered if he felt this way about regular people back on Earth.

“Take us to your leaders, little demons,” said Nuclear Man. “Now.”

The ground shook. Several miles away a massive crack appeared in the barren ground. On either side of the fault, the land itself, hundreds of miles long, moved apart, a vast, hellish mechanism built deep into the ground. It was similar to the other pits that littered the landscape, but it was far larger. Something huge rose gradually out of the chasm. At first all we saw were spikes. From where we stood they were needles, but presently they were revealed to be the tips of buildings of a sort. Eventually an entire citadel, ethereally breathtaking, arose, and continued climbing. Before long the fortress was hovering a full two miles off the ground.

“We fly.”

We took to the air and burst into the largest building on the floating citadel, its spires looming ominously over us. An impressively creaky gate was raised, and we followed the fleeing demons to the throne room. Well, we assumed it was a throne room.

“They’re a republic,” said Monster, coming to a halt in mid-step. “Shit.”

It was chaos. Smaller demons, with more pronounced foreheads, clothed in ceremonial armour, engaged in political discourse. It was almost comical to see the warlike creatures so obviously fighting their baser instincts to rip out the throats of the opposition. I was impressed at their restraint. But the disadvantage of this parliament of hell was that we had no idea who the leader was. Nanonaut fired one of his ray guns into the air and the demonic beaurocracy became aware of our presence. I suddenly realised that Nanonaut had been uncharacteristically silent for a while. His upper lip was still twitching, meaning he’d been drinking recently, which couldn’t have been good for his self-restraint.

It appeared to be a council of war, and there was one demon, with a deformed right arm, who seemed to be doing a lot of talking. He would do. I flew up to him, and he fell silent. I grasped him by the neck and lifted him into the air. He clutched helplessly at my fingers and gave an elongated squeal. I brought him down to the rest of the team. Monster, having gotten over his initial shock, narrowed his eyes at me. He looked positively jealous.

Nuclear Man said what he had to say.

“You came, you saw, you lost. You are trying anything like that again, we come back and kill your world.”

Ripples of murmured conversation broke out here and there, as the demons, not understanding the words, began to comprehend the intent. It was time to hammer the point home. At a nod from Nuclear Man, I plunged my hand into the demon’s trembling body and ripped its heart out.

“We are Lords of the Impossible. Is not wise to screw with our planet.”

————————

I know it’s been pretty quiet in terms of comments recently, but I’m hoping to hear what people think, good or bad.

I’m also less concerned about Nuclear Man’s accent after seeing Chekov in Star Trek. Does anyone think it might be a problem?

I’ve edited the first chapter, and I’ll be posting it in a few. There’s a new character to replace TGK, who’s been relegated to my ideas pile for now. This won’t be the last you see of him, though.

The new character is Nanonaut. As the name implies, he’s a shrinker, with the obligatory strength and durability tacked on as well. He’s a science hero more than a superhero. He was essentially inspired by Adam Strange from DC, as well as the pre-WWII science heroes, with a bit of Silver Age craziness in between. He’s really old in real time, but he died early in the eighties, just before “everybody started cussin’ and wearin’ trenchcoats”.

He’s recently come back to life via a comic book-style ambiguous cosmic retcon. He feels temporally displaced because of that and he currently has two groups of friends: the Lords of the Impossible and strong alcohol.

If I make my story’s central conflict centre around the fact that the magic heroes and their villains are distinct from the scientific heroes and villains, would that make it less weird? I think I could pull that off decently.

My idea is for the Lords to have to go up against an eldritch horror or some elder god like something out of a Lovecraft book, something fundemental that threatens the fabric of reality or something like that. A force of nature, in other words.

I will have to think about how to juggle the science vs magic thing. Thank you for the comment.

The fact that the Lords of the Impossible are mostly heroes created by science (Horus, even though he’s a god, is more of a warrior than a magician) is going to be a larger theme in my story now. I’m going to tweak Monster’s origin to make it a little more scientific and remove the mystical elements, but that shouldn’t be too hard. The main threat in the story will be magical.

I remember that Superman always had a problem with magic. It’s the idea that there are science heroes and there are magic heroes, basically. Their jurisdiction doesn’t tend to overlap, but when it does, you know it’s bad. The Lords of the Impossible have always been science heroes, mostly, but I think there could be interesting implications if they have an epic fail trying to stop a magical threat that they are simply unequipped to deal with.