THIRTY-THREE

The wind blew in her face as Invulnergirl dropped out of the hatch of the Heroic Jet. She plummeted down toward the warehouse that served as the Hoarder’s base of operations. As she saw the pavement come nearer she gulped. She knew she was indestructible. But dropping down from a flying jet really took that to the test.

Her landing wasn’t bad, and she had her cheerleader training to thank for that. She actually managed to land on her feet, bending the knees a bit to lessen the impact, hands on the ground to prevent her from falling down on her face. Perfect ten!

She walked to the warehouse. There was a huge rollup, metal door. She tried to pull it up, but it was closed. Now what? If she had superstrength to go with her invulnerability like some big name superheroes had she would have been able to just tear it off like a sheet of paper.

Then she heard some kind of engine sound. She turned around, looking up and saw a rocket come from the Heroic Jet. Her first instinct was to duck, to run… But then she figured she would be okay. The rocket impacted with the door, a loud explosion shattering the door to pieces. Invulnergirl was blown off her feet and showered with fragments of metal that didn’t even tickle her.

She got back on her feet, brushing off some debris and ran inside the now free doorway. As soon as she put a step inside she was greeted by a hail of bullets. She had to cover her eyes a bit with her arms, not because she was afraid to get hurt, but to see something. She started to slap some bullets away as she moved forward and was able to identify where the bullets were coming from. A robot arm mounted on a slowly moving platform on tank tracks was firing a huge automatic rifle at her. An electronic eye on the arm’s wrist seemed to do the tracking.

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Invulnergirl jumped up, slapping a bullet like she was spiking a volleyball and directed it towards the electronic eye. The bullet smashed it. That didn’t stop the robot from firing the rifle though, only now it was more erratically aimed. The indestructible cheerleader was able to avoid the bullets now however and just ran past the robot.

Without having to concentrate on the robot she was able to get a better look at the warehouse. It was just filled with many metal and wooden crates, two forklifts… Actually it looked pretty much like an average warehouse. There was no human in sight there. She looked up and noticed there was a metal balcony leading to a door. A metal stair led upwards. She ran up the stairs. Halfway there she was starting to wonder if she shouldn’t have waited for the Athlete to join her. The adrenaline had really taken hold of her it seemed. Well, she was almost on the balcony anyway. What could happen to someone who’s invulnerable, right?

She’d just arrived on the balcony when she could her the Athlete yell, “Wait for me!”

She looked down and saw the hero roll, duck and dive past the bullets the robot was still firing. He had no need of invulnerability or superpowers of any form. He was just the most accomplished athlete that had ever lived. Invulnergirl was aware she was a pretty good athlete herself, as her school’s top cheerleader but there was no way she would ever become as agile as the Olympic crusader.

“Don’t worry,” she yelled. “Nothing can hurt me!”

That’s when she smelled something funny. Not the most pleasant odor in fact. She heard a hissing sound, put two and two together and understood she was in trouble.

“Crap, it’s gas!”