Invincible: Escape from Viltrum

Flashback:

"You're falling asleep, Korr-add," Vexa said from somewhere above him.

Korr, for his part, let out a broken curse, managing to bite his tongue in time to keep it from biting him in the ass. He didn't want his punishment to increase in the slightest.

Korr was at three hundred and forty-two sit-ups, or three hundred and forty-three, more or less. Having to converse, overthink his words, and avoid enraging this woman had pushed that super prodigious Viltrumite memory he bragged so much about when he was alone to its limit.

He had already lost count twice, and the third time had been because of a cramp in his oblique that had made him curse in all seventy-four winds of Viltrum, which had increased his "training" time.

The salty taste of his sweat filled his mouth, mixed with the bile from the Dorymathos' awful cuisine, numbing his discomfort as much as possible. It rose through his throat every time he lowered his back against the floor, slippery from his own fluids.

His arms, crossed over his chest, seemed to weigh more than all the magnetic weights put together inside the physical training room.

Preferably, Korr would have wished not to have to see his instructor's annoying face, but there was nothing he could do about it.

This sadist seemed to enjoy the disturbing sight of child exploitation far more than Nouwl-an himself, which was why she was still responsible for his punishments even now.

Being on this lunatic's good side did not mean he would be exempt from everything he earned through his supposed "rebellions." Well, they were rebellions within imperial logic, but Korr would not allow himself to admit it out of conviction.

Despite wanting to simply focus on the heavy pounding of his own heart, on the burning in his abdominals, on anything that was not the inescapable accounting that he still had forty-seven fractions of punishment left.

Almost eight Earth hours, eight hours of pure continuous punishment with barely any moments of rest.

Nouwl-an was a creative son of a bitch, that much he could not deny. But Korr was determined to fulfill his objective and prove to him that he was nothing more than a brat in his eyes.

However... as he was growing desperate, he squeezed his eyes shut, only to later open one in stealth. Sure enough, Vexa was no longer looking at anything.

"Seventy-three," Korr lied through gritted teeth, trying to slip in one imaginary number or another.

"Liar," Vexa replied in the same tone, without letting the slightest detail escape her, as she always did.

"Shit," Korr spat.

"Your time has been increased by 5 more fractions."

"What? But..."

"A Viltrumite does not lie, much less an elite soldier. That goes against the very authority of the Empire, against the great authority we embody," she said, almost amusingly, though there was a trace of seriousness in this matter of Viltrumite credibility.

Korr heard her land softly a couple of meters away from him.

"Except for you, of course, who does it without the slightest shame, born liar. It's impressive the things you're capable of doing just to gain an advantage that benefits your own person."

Korr glanced up from the corner of his eye, showing his annoyance without the slightest filter.

"I'm being subjected to torture. How do you expect me to feel?"

"If I wanted to torture you, there would be better ways to break your—"

"Damn it, I know that already, woman. I was only saying it in a figurative sense."

Vexa raised an eyebrow at the interruption, ignoring the informality between them.

"...What is a 'figurative sense'?"

At Vexa's question, Korr thought for a moment before answering.

"It's... a stupid word I made up. It means that... it's like a way of talking about something that shouldn't be taken as real, literal, I mean."

Instructor Vexa decided to sit on the floor, crossing her legs, and nodded.

"I understand. That term could also be used for lying, correct?"

Korr thought for a moment before nodding uncertainly.

"I suppose so? By the way, why so much interest in the subject of lying? Can't Viltrumites lie?"

"We can, but we do not. I repeat, it goes against the very authority of the Empire," Vexa reminded him.

"I understand... and it's strange. Can we drop the subject? You make me look like a freak."

Vexa chuckled under her breath and nodded.

"But you are a freak, Korr-add."

Her gray eyes looked at him with that mixture of curiosity and affectionate contempt, which also made her seem disturbingly strange.

"Two hundred and forty, Korr-add," she said with a crooked smile. "You're at two hundred and forty. I've counted every one. Do you want to know why?"

Korr did not answer. He lowered his back, rose, lowered, rose, waiting for the response.

"It's hyper-concentration... and I'm bored as well. But it's more or less the equivalent of carrying out multiple reasoning tasks at the same time. You'll develop it too, eventually," Vexa continued, stretching her legs. "And I enjoy the fact that I get to watch you suffer while trying to deceive me all the time. Witnessing how you devise so many mental stratagems so that I'll 'fall' for your unproductive trivialities, only to then watch you complain about your own shortcomings, has been one of my favorite hobbies ever since I met you."

Korr frowned, but he could not say anything about it. He had tried to create a pocket universe. Yes, it sounded crazy, it was stupidly impossible, but he believed the proper technology and ingredients existed to make it happen. If Earth's crazy theorists could find the key, why not Viltrum?

So he encouraged Vexa to fall into one of his insane clandestine projects. They gathered everything necessary, assembled a super machine that would contain the "infinite," and absolutely nothing happened.

He discovered that his acquired super-intelligence had limits, and not all the mundane theory in existence would be enough to achieve a feat like that.

In any case, Vexa had loved witnessing Korr's attempt to create what he called "pocket imperial territories."

"Wooooooow," Korr exclaimed sarcastically. "I feel flattered." He growled the last part.