Invincible Earth! : Volume 1
Chapter 2: Initiation

“Whe-where am I?” This voice was, to this day, the thing that scared the man the most in his thousands of years of lifespan. To this day, he remembers how he was startled out of his skin and had to clutch his heart to keep it from beating out of his chest.

As Lance slowly came back to consciousness, he was shocked to see that he was in a different place yet again. Although this was the second time in a few hours that this happened, the effect this time was far greater. This was mainly because of the fact that as he looked out of a transparent dome that encompassed the room he was in, he saw a starry expanse, stretching out to infinity.

The room he was in had a fresh and modern look. If seen from outside, it was like a large snowball with a single entrance and exit. The dome stood a hundred feet high, and as Lance gazed at the starry sky, he saw a blue ball, so giant that it slowly encompassed the whole of his vision through the dome. The ball had swirling masses of white and in the spots where these masses weren’t there, one could see brown and green landscapes. The blue that dominated this giant looked magnificent, giving one the sense that it was endless and could swallow up the landmasses in the blink of an eye if so it wished.

“Yes, that’s the earth.“, said the man as he overcame his shock and came to stand beside him. As Lance was still staring slack jawed at the magnificent sight in front of him, the man was staring at him with a look of incredulity. It had been centuries since he had even felt this feeling.

The room had glass like tiles which reflected everything perfectly. The only thing present in the huge room was a stone pedestral upon which rotated a ball the size of a man’s head. The ball, seemingly also made of glass, had swirling bits of light inside it. As it rotated slowly in the air, it seemed to give off mysterious rays of light which were being absorbed by the floor and dome alike. The door, which was opposite to the ball on the other end of the room, was huge, standing at at least 15 feet tall and gilded with gold and diamonds.

“Congratulations on passing all conditions. Although your score right now is at the bottom of all the participants this time, it is no small feat to pass the test in the first place. Historically, the highest passing rate has only been 13%, with the rest dying due to running out of air.”

Lance turned to look at the man, tearing his eyes away from the greatest sight he had ever seen in his life. He first sorted everything that had happened so far in his brain. He realized that something incredulous was happening, and for once in his life finally felt interested in something other than the unknown. As an avid UFO researcher and believer, it had always been his dream to be involved in something that spanned farther than the mundane world that he saw. The world as it was was good, but he could just never shake off the feeling that there was something more, something that he was missing and something that might define him if he found it.

As a calm look surfaced on his face, the man who had been looking at him all this time felt impressed and a small smile spread across his face. “Not bad.“, he thought. “Maybe there is hope after all for my line.”

Lance finally asked,“What is going on? And have we met before? You look familiar.” This familiarity was something that Lance had noticed the first time he saw the man, but in the heat of the moment he had to set it aside to handle more pressing matters.

“Welcome, my descendant, to Invincible Earth! From kin to kin, the sacred duty of protecting our homeland has been passed down for many millennia. Now it is your turn to take up this mantle. What shall you become? Shall you become a Godking who can control the very fabric of the universe and hold all in your grasp? Or shall you perish as fodder, forgotten in the eddies of time? Only time and your efforts shall tell.”

Yet again, the only thing Lance could do was stare at the man in incredulity, as he uttered these unforgettable words that seemed as if they echoed through history countless times, finally crashing down like a crescendo unto him. The image of the man, standing with chest bared out and arms spread out, pride radiating in waves and almost physically manifesting around him as flaming lions and dragons, was one that Lance would always remember in the toughest of times.

This image branded itself into his eyes, never to be forgotten.

…

After this impassioned statement from the man, Lance felt his head reeling.

In the span of a few hours, he had first been teleported to an unknown location, almost died due to running out of air to breathe and now found himself seemingly in space with a strange man who looked like him talking about mantles and stuff.

This was just too much to take in for Lance, and his body acted in the only way possible to maintain his sanity: by making him faint.

The man, seeing Lance faint, felt that he should have maybe held off on the speech at least until the young man had regained his bearings.

As Lance slowly woke up, he was almost 100% sure that everything that had happened was just one big elaborate dream. He nervously opened his eyes fully expecting to see the roof of his dingy hostel room again, but what he saw was again the shimmering stars in that infinite void of space. He felt warm and fuzzy, and looking around realized that he was in a pod of sorts.

Egg-shaped and open on one side, the white pod was filled with a fluid which submerged Lance’s body. Even his head was under the gooey transparent matter, but he could breathe as comfortably as if he were on top of a mountain with crisp air around him.

He was dressed in a body hugging yellow jumpsuit, almost like rubber tights. They fully amplified his ample curves, making Lance feel uncomfortable as he was used to wearing baggy jeans and t-shirts. What was amazing was that the pod perfectly fitted Lance’s 5 foot 9 inches tall body, almost as if it were custom made for him.

As if sensing that he was conscious, the jelly drained into unseen crevices. As Lance got up from the pod, he saw that there were many such pods around him. Most were empty, with a few holding people who were still unconscious.

As he was staring at one blond girl with an ample bosom which was magnified due to the rubber suit, he heard the man’s voice again from behind him. “Magnificent view, isn’t it?”

This time, he was more embarrassed than startled. As he turned around thinking for an explanation to salvage his image, he saw that the man was actually staring at the starry expanse above him. Relieved, he replied, “Yes, magnificent indeed.”

“Oh, you mean the sky or that girls assets?“. Lance’s face blushed as the man let out a booming laugh.

“Young man, it has been barely an hour since you have arrived in one of the most sacred frontiers of mankind and you have already ogled at a fellow initiate. What do you have to say for yourself?”

As Lance stuttered an even to him incoherent answer, the man let out that laugh again which reverberated around the huge room.

“I see my unique character hasn’t been lost through the ages. Keep it up, my descendant!”

As the man lay his hand on Lance’s shoulder and showed him a thumbs up, for some reason, Lance felt even more embarrassed than if he had been admonished for his behavior. There was just this weird feeling that this would not be the last of such interactions.

…

Lance hastened to change the topic. “What was it you were talking about before I passed out? Something about Incredible....earth?”

The man knocked Lance on the head immediately and said,“Invincible earth my boy! You better not make that mistake again. Just know that these two will be words that will be associated with you throughout your life. Now that you are done staring, lets get to the orientation. It has already started for the faster candidates who managed to not faint.” He chuckled.

As Lance caressed his head(the man was pretty strong), he asked,“So what do I call you? And what is this stuff about me being your descendant?“.

“My real name is something that doesn’t concern you right now, but you can call me Attok. That’s Mr. Attok to you though. And regarding the matter of you being my descendant, that is true. My genes have been passed down through the centuries to finally give birth to you, Lance.”

Lance looked at Attok with an odd expression.“Centuries? So you are telling me that you are a hundreds of years old? Yeah right.“, he scoffed.

“Out of all the things that happened to you, this is the one that you doubt? Lets just get to the orientation. All will be clear to you.“, Attok chuckled.

As Attok started walking to the doorway between all the pods, Lance hurried to follow him. The room was so vast that he was scared that he would get lost if he didn’t stay one step behind.

As he walked through multiple rooms, he noticed that all of them were so vast that it took 20 minutes each to just cross them with a brisk walk. Unfit as he was, Lance felt himself panting more and more as Attok just marched forward not looking back even once.

Each room seemed to have a specific function, with some like the one he had woken up in, filled with pods and others having strange equipment, either more pedestrals with floating orbs or machinery that seemed fused with the glassy floor and looking futuristic with blinking lights and numerous controls.

What was strange was that there were very few people in such vast areas.The few people he had seen were busy with their work, but each and every one of them were at the peak of fitness with muscles that could be seen even if they were wearing thick coveralls.

Seeing this and looking down to look at his tummy, Lance wondered if it had been the right decision to allow himself to get fat. As his mind drifted with his eyes just seeing Attok’s feet in the corner of his vision, Lance found himself almost losing consciousness again due to over exhaustion.

As Attok finally came to a halt in front of a large doorway almost 50 feet tall, Lance ran into him almost on the verge of collapse. He propped Lance up and pressed his vein to wake him up, and if someone were looking they would see a reddish stream of light enter Lance’s body from Attok’s.

“I have taken back my powers completely. They were never yours to begin with, so you could only use them but not feel yourself losing them. The orientation is ahead. Just remember that everything you see is the real truth. It is what you have been searching for all those hours you were browsing the internet looking for clues about UFOs. Remember: carry yourself with dignity and do not bring shame to my glorious line.”

Saying so, Attok pushed Lance towards the door with enough force to make him collide with it. As Lance realized this and cursed the old man in the split second before the collision, he suddenly felt as if he had plunged into a freezing lake. The next second, he found himself floating in a purple substance that made him feel as light as a feather. As he looked above him, as far the eye could see, he could see people of all races floating upwards in a dream-like state. They were all of a similar age to him, and as he was wondering what the hell was going on, he found himself getting more and more drowsy.

As his feet left the ground and he also started floating up, Lance fell asleep and the jelly surrounding him flashed for a foot around him. The flash was especially bright around his head, and this was the moment Lance’s dream started.