Later that day, Lorne was sitting at his desk reading over some papers when he heard a high-frequency message from Colonel Porter of the Earth Protection Division (E.P.D.) "Invincible Hero, we've discovered a potential threat to Earth. Please come to the Arctic Headquarters of E.P.D."
Sigh...it was such a nice day. Now it looked like he would be fighting aliens or something. Hopefully, it wouldn't interfere with his date with Mary. Lorne immediately left making a vague comment about authenticating some piece. Once no one was looking, Lorne went around the corner of the building and dumped his work clothes into a hidden spot in the wall of the building. Immediately after he flew off to the Arctic headquarters of EPD.
The Arctic Headquarters of the EPD might as well have been next door as it took less than a second for Lorne to get there. He never bothered with checking in he just flew directly to the meeting room. There were two guards outside the doors who were surprised when Lorne seemed to appear out of nowhere. He seemed to appear out of nowhere, but he just traveled so fast no one was capable of seeing him move. When he stopped, he was suddenly in front of the door as if hiding in plain sight. Many people had the misconception that one of the Invincible Heroes many powers was invisibility.
Lorne pushed open the meeting room door. Other superheroes were already there. Entering the meeting room, Lorne's eyes immediately rested on Brighton Meadows a.k.a. Cosmic Monkey. This guy, every time Lorne saw him he could only roll his eyes and shake his head.
Brighton Meadows had amazing superpowers but never used them openly for years. The reason? He couldn't decide on an alter ego he liked. Eventually, Brighton became the main CGI actor on a movie about outer space monkeys coming to our world to conquer it. These monkeys were called "The Cosmic Monkeys." Brighton loved the part so much and he begged the studio to sell the rights to use the alter ego "The Cosmic Monkey." After Brighton bribed them with more money than they could make in ten years they agreed. This guy was so weird, too weird.
Lorne just couldn't take him seriously at times and often wondered if he was crazy. He probably was crazy. He found most people in the movie business were so self-absorbed it twisted their view of reality. It was best to have as little to do with them as possible. The one thing that Lorne could say, though, is that Brighton was really good in a fight for some strange reason.
Off in the corner, Lorne saw his good friend "Big Time." Big Time was about Lorne's age. As his name suggested he was a very big man. Lorne met Big Time during the Invincible Hero's debut adventure against the alien race known as the Sanchez. The Sanchez had almost killed Big Time when Lorne suddenly showed up to stop them.
The Sanchez was an alien race who chose their space-name based on their understanding of earth languages. They understood San meant ‘without’ and thought Chez was shorthand for ‘cheese.’ This was a perfect description of their planet which was a planet with no cows and therefore no domestic cheeses.
This was the main reason they wanted to conquer Earth. They needed their own cheese source for their planet as the Sanchez were big fans of cheese. They planned to change their space-name from Sanchez to Conchez after they took over the planet. Mainly because they once again misunderstood Earth language. They believed Con meant ‘with’ and Chez meant ‘cheese.’ It seemed to make sense to them. Thus, once they conquered Earth's milk and cheese production they would now be "with cheese."
Invincible Hero learned the only reason they wanted to take over the planet was they wanted cows. The Invincible Hero helped negotiate a deal between the Sanchez and Earth's government to provide dairy cows and farmers to train them in how to care for the cows and get the milk in exchange for advanced technology. The Sanchez was excited and immediately changed their name to the Conchez. No one bothered to correct their misunderstanding of Earth language or point out that they were a bunch of silly aliens.
This was also when Lorne got his alter ego name. Lorne had always been pretty care-free. Once he decided to go adventuring as a superhero he made a suit but never bothered to choose a name for himself. He figured things would progress naturally, and that's exactly what happened. When Lorne showed up Big Time was almost dead from all of the deadly attacks launched at him. Lorne stepped in front of all of the attacks and took them head-on without much effort. The papers the next day read, "Who is this Invincible Hero?" The name stuck.
Sitting at the big table in the center of the room he noticed "The Pretty Pugilist." Darwina Wright. Darwina was a natural fighter. She had the ability to copy, analyze, and improve fighting abilities. She could even imitate superpowers to a certain extent. It was an amazing ability. Lorne went on a few dates with her in the past, but he enjoyed history and she enjoyed punching things. They could never find anything they both liked. They parted on good terms and were still friends. Darwina waved at Lorne who made his way over to sit next to her. Big Time came over and sat on Lorne's other side.
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Here they were what the press dubbed "The Three Amigos." It was an odd name for their group as none of them were Hispanic or even spoke Spanish. The name stuck and whenever the three of them appeared together in public they were called the Three Amigos. There was even a licensed cartoon based on their adventures and went by this name.
At the head of the table sat a grizzled old man named General Brady. General Brady was the main liaison with the Earth's heroes. Some pressmen tried to make "The Brady Bunch" stick, but those reporters soon after found themselves without jobs and no one was brave enough to suggest the nickname again.
General Brady looked over at Lorne and gave him a friendly smile. He looked over at Cosmic Monkey and sighed as he rubbed his temples. Cosmic Monkey was practicing his "emotional faces" in a mirror. It looked really awkward sometimes as the makeup and prosthetics didn't always work the way he wanted. Most of the time it looked like he smelled something foul. Typically, Cosmic Monkey's makeup and prosthetics would get messed up within the first five minutes of the fight. This really irritated him. His goal in the fights had become "End the fight ASAP and protect the wardrobe." "Hollywood people," the general thought.
"We'll wait a few more minutes for the remaining main strike force members to arrive. I'll handle the grunts later." General Brady said.
Everyone looked over to the general. Cosmic Monkey stopped messing with his face. Just then a young girl appeared out of nowhere. "Phantom Cat" Dorothy Starles, was only around seventeen. She was the youngest member of the Supreme Heroes League. Dorothy was not to be underestimated. Although she was young she could even give the Invincible Hero a headache. Her abilities included invisibility, phasing, heightened reflexes, speed, and what she called a tiger punch which packed as much a wallop as a uranium hardened drop missile.
Two more people walked through the door after Phantom Cat. They were Mechaton and his friend and comrade Major Muscle. Mechaton was the cybernetic genius capable of creating, enhancing, and syncing technologies. Usually, he used his abilities to create new mech bodies that he drove into battle. Being a cybernetic being he constantly updated his cyber organic body by incorporating new and enhanced technologies. Major Muscle was as his name suggests very strong, quick, invulnerable and was a Green Beret before he retired from the military.
"Everyone, take your seats, please. Cosmic Monkey, I've prepared some banana gems for you to munch on," said General Brady.
Long ago, General Brady accepted the fact in the mind of the Cosmic Monkey all the world was a stage and the Cosmic Monkey was obviously a method actor. General Brady created things Cosmic Monkeys, according to the movies, enjoyed making dealing with the temperamental actor easier. One of these were banana gems, which were crystalized banana essence, sugar crystals, food coloring, and some unknown substance that made you feel wiggly inside. He also created a mobile chair branch which was a chair in the shape of a tree for Cosmic Monkey to sit on.
The group of elite heroes gathered around the table and took their places.
"Gentlemen, we detected an extra-system group of objects maintaining a steady course towards earth. The objects are approximately two light years away." General Brady began.
"Two light years away, isn't it a little soon to call us up?" asked Cosmic Monkey.
"Their speed suggests they'll be here in a little over a year; if they don't stop again," said General Brady.
"Again?" Major Muscle asked.
"Yes, we don't know why but it seems they are making stops along the way," said General Brady. He quickly continued to prevent another interruption. "The objects were verified to be warships with ill intentions. We received confirmation video this morning from Mr. Gates who teleported himself to observe the hostiles."
A video of several large spaceships began playing on the screen.
"Why do you think they are hostile..." Mechaton began to ask when a man flew out of one of the ships. A laser beam shot the man and the camera went dead.
"On analysis, the focused beam was directed at Mr. Gates’ location. Mr. Gates had the video on auto-streaming otherwise we wouldn’t have received this before he was vaporized," said General Brady.
"Poor Mr. Gates," Big Time said.
"It gets worse. After reading the light beam frequency, heat index, and heat force output, it was determined the beam which disintegrated Mr. Gates is ninety percent similar to The Invincible Hero's laser vision. In all likelihood, the beings aboard those warships share an origin with the Invincible Hero." General Brady concluded.
All eyes turned to the Invincible Hero. Looking into the eyes of his friends, he understood why they showed terror. To date, no one on the planet was as powerful as the Invincible Hero. In fact, if he ever wanted to, he could take out every hero on the planet by himself. Now, it looked like large warships were filled with such beings. Lorne thought for a few moments before speaking.
"I've never said, but I'm sure everyone has more or less guessed I'm not from around here," said Lorne while looking around the room at those gathered. No one seemed surprised Lorne was an alien.
"Those warships belong to my people. As to why they're coming to Earth, I have no idea. However, in all likelihood, it probably has something to do with me. I'll need to talk with my parents to tell you more," said Lorne.
"Your parents live on this planet as well. Are they as powerful as you?" asked General Brady.
"My parents should be significantly stronger than me. I have no idea by how much as they won't tell me." Lorne responded.
"Why haven't they ever made an appearance?" asked General Brady.
"They say they're on holiday and can't be bothered with such insignificant matters. Besides, they seem to think I'm more than enough to handle Earth's problems even though I'm so weak," said Lorne.
"You're weak?" Major Muscle said in disbelief.
"According to Dad, I'm a runt who hasn't discovered a millionth of my power," Lorne responded.
"Oh, my," said Phantom Cat before fainting.
Everyone sucked in a breath of cold air. The Earth's mightiest hero, according to his parents was a weakling. And according to the video they just watched, several warships full of strong people from his race were hostile and heading to Earth.
"Do you think I could get a copy of the video to show my parents? I'll report back to you as soon as I hear their thoughts on this." Lorne asked awkwardly.
General Brady signaled an officer behind him who came forward with a thumb drive which he gave to Lorne. Sensing the mood in the room and knowing everyone needed to talk without him being present about the bomb he just dropped on them, Lorne quietly left the room to fly to his parents' home.