Invictus

Invictus Plot Summary

Introduction

# The Boy Who Should Not Have Been: A Multiverse Paradox In the sterile examination room of the Academy, the med-droid's voice cut through silence like a blade: "State your date of birth." Farway Gaius McCarthy knew what came next. The machine would search its databases, find nothing, and declare his existence invalid. He was the boy born in the timeless void between worlds, aboard his mother's vanished time machine. Seventeen years of questions, seventeen years of dreams about following her footsteps through history's shadows. The universe has rules. Time has structure. But some births break those rules, and some children carry the weight of infinite destruction in their very existence. Far was about to discover that being born outside of time made him a beacon for forces that could unravel reality itself. His story begins with failure at the Academy and ends with a choice that would echo across dying worlds—the decision to sacrifice everything he was for everything he could become.

Chapter 1: Outcasts Across Time: The Formation of Unlikely Thieves

The Versailles simulation crumbled around Far like a house of cards. Marie Antoinette turned in the Hall of Mirrors, her dark eyes meeting his with impossible recognition. "I know an outlier when I see one," she whispered, and winked. The exam was over. His future, destroyed. Instructor Marin's words fell like hammer blows: "You are not a good fit for the Corps. You're hereby expelled from the Academy and banned from ever applying for a license." Far stumbled through the ruins of Old Rome that night, his dreams bleeding out onto ancient stones. But fate wore a different face than he expected. The mysterious letter appeared at his door like salvation wrapped in real paper. It led him to an underground warehouse where four gleaming time machines waited in the shadows. Lux Julio, pale as death and twice as dangerous, offered what the Corps had denied—a ship, a crew, and access to all of time itself. The price was simple: steal history's lost treasures for wealthy collectors. Far signed his name in blood-red ink and christened his ship the Invictus. His cousin Imogen became their Historian, brilliant and fierce with knowledge that could unlock any era. Gram Wright, the Engineer whose mathematical mind could navigate the spaces between seconds. Priya, the Medic who had always believed in him, whose steady hands could heal wounds that time itself had carved. They were outcasts all, bound together by dreams too large for the world that had rejected them. The crew of thieves was born in that moment, forged from failure and tempered by hope. They would steal fire from the gods and call it justice.

Chapter 2: Shadows of the Impossible: When Reality Begins to Unravel

The Titanic's elegant corridors stretched before Far like a maze of mahogany and brass. He moved through the doomed liner's shadows, searching for the jewel-encrusted Rubaiyat in the cargo hold. But when he found the precious book, a familiar figure stood waiting in the doorway—the same girl who had destroyed his Academy exam, now dressed in yellow silk instead of Marie Antoinette's finery. "Looking for this?" Eliot asked, holding the oak case containing their prize. What followed was a breathless chase through the ship's halls, Far pursuing the mysterious thief as the iceberg loomed ever closer in the North Atlantic darkness. She moved with impossible grace, always one step ahead, until she simply vanished into the night like smoke. The Invictus crew barely escaped as the great ship began its final descent into icy waters. But their troubles had only begun. When they returned to their ship, Eliot was already there, waiting in the shadows with an ultimatum. She wanted to join their crew, and she held their prize hostage until they agreed. Something was wrong with time itself. Gram's navigation systems had malfunctioned in ways that defied physics—the mathematical constants of the universe simply changing before his eyes. Far discovered gaps in his memory, entire sections of the mission erased as if they had never happened. The crew should have been dead from Nepenthe poisoning, yet here they stood, confused and frightened. Eliot spoke of something called the Fade, a force that could unravel moments from existence itself. Her fear was palpable, though she tried to hide it behind smirks and riddles. Reality was becoming unstable, and she was running from something that could not be outpaced.

Chapter 3: The Girl Who Steals Moments: Eliot's Desperate Mission

In the neon-soaked chaos of Las Vegas, the crew tried to find normalcy amid madness. Eliot proved herself capable of impossible feats, counting cards with mathematical precision and producing vintage wine from thin air. But beneath her confident facade, cracks were beginning to show. Her baldness, revealed when Saffron the red panda stole her wig, was just the beginning of her mysteries. Priya worked tirelessly to uncover Eliot's identity, running DNA samples through black market databases. The results were chilling—no match found anywhere in Central's records. The girl was a ghost in their system, erased or never written. Meanwhile, Eliot's behavior grew more erratic, speaking of forgotten names and pushing them toward their next mission with increasing desperation. The crew's relationships strained under pressure. Imogen struggled with her feelings for Gram, while Far found himself both attracted to and terrified of Eliot's influence over their lives. The girl seemed to drain something vital from him, leaving him questioning his own memories and motivations. Eliot revealed fragments of truth like breadcrumbs leading into darkness. She had been jumping from timeline to timeline, watching alternate versions of herself and Far die as something called the Fade consumed their realities. She was not their enemy, but a fellow victim of forces beyond comprehension. The universe was unraveling, and they were among the few who even knew it was happening. Each jump through time risked encountering another pocket of decay, another moment where existence itself had been erased. The girl in the yellow dress was fighting a war across infinite worlds, and she was losing.

Chapter 4: Catalyst of Destruction: The Truth About Far's Existence

The holographic footage spilled from Eliot's memory chip like blood from a wound, painting a picture of reality so vast and terrible that Far's mind recoiled. Infinite universes stretched out like pearls on an endless string, each containing a version of himself, his crew, the life he thought he knew. But in universe after universe, something was going catastrophically wrong. The Fade appeared first as a shimmer on the horizon, like heat waves rising from summer pavement. Then it grew, devouring everything in its path—not destroying, but unmaking, reducing matter and memory to absolute nothingness. Eliot's recordings showed her jumping from world to world, watching realities collapse into void. "You're the catalyst," she explained, her voice hollow with exhaustion. "Your birth outside of time created a signal that calls the Fade like blood calls sharks. It's been hunting you across the multiverse, destroying every world that contains your echo." Far stared at the holographic display showing universe after universe collapsing into nothingness. Billions of lives snuffed out because he had the audacity to exist. "How many?" he whispered. "Seven so far. This one makes eight." Eliot's eyes met his, and he saw his own guilt reflected there. "The Multiverse Bureau sent me to stop you. To kill you before the Fade reaches this reality and devours everything you've ever loved." The weight of infinite genocide settled on Far's shoulders like a shroud. He was the monster in this story, the virus that needed to be eliminated. The boy born outside of time had become a beacon for universal destruction, his very existence a death sentence for countless worlds.

Chapter 5: Across Dying Worlds: Racing Against Universal Collapse

The Library of Alexandria burned around them as Far and Eliot raced through smoke-filled corridors, searching for ancient scrolls. But this was no ordinary fire—the Fade had come to Alexandria, and with it, the complete erasure of existence itself. The void consumed matter, light, and time with perfect silence, leaving nothing in its wake. In the chaos, Far encountered the impossible—his mother, Empra McCarthy, alive and unchanged after eleven years. She had been stranded in the past when the Ab Aeterno's navigation systems failed, desperately trying to send word back to Central time. The reunion Far had dreamed of his entire life was finally within reach, but the Fade was closing in. The nothingness approached like a wave of un-being, devouring the great library's treasures and the knowledge of ages. Far watched in horror as it reached for his mother's heels, claiming the courtyard stones beneath her feet. She was lunging toward the Invictus's open hatch, braids flying as she reached for safety, when the void took her. Empra McCarthy was staring straight at her son when the Fade claimed her, her body unraveling as she fell into ground that no longer existed. Far's screams echoed through the Grid as the last trace of his mother disappeared into nothingness. This was how the Ab Aeterno had been lost—not in battle or accident, but consumed by a force that erased its very existence from the timeline. The truth hit him like a physical blow. His birth had created this horror, and now it had taken the one person he'd spent his life trying to find. The universe was collapsing because he existed, and every moment of delay meant more worlds dying in the void.

Chapter 6: The Gladiator's Final Choice: Death as the Ultimate Gift

The plan was madness disguised as logic. If Far's birth outside of time had created the signal that called the Fade, then they needed to go back and ensure he was born inside time instead. It meant traveling to 95 AD, to the moment his mother went into labor while watching gladiator games in the Colosseum. "We change the circumstances of your birth, we create a pivot point," Gram explained, his fingers dancing over navigation controls. "A new timeline where the catalyst never existed." But changing history required sacrifice. Someone would have to take the place of Gaius, the gladiator who was Far's father, in the arena. Someone would have to die so that Far could be born differently, cleanly, without the cosmic wrongness that made him a beacon for universal destruction. The arena sand was coarser than Far had expected, rough beneath his sandaled feet as fifty thousand Romans screamed for blood. He wore his father's armor—a net and trident against a fully armed gladiator whose scars told stories of a dozen victories. The man's sword caught the afternoon sun like a promise of ending. Through his comm, Priya's voice guided him through the first exchanges, her medical knowledge translating into tactical advantage. But as the fight wore on and Far's blood began to paint the sand crimson, her instructions became prayers. Above them, the sky began to shimmer and tear as the Fade found this moment, drawn by the signal Far's existence created. The gladiator's blade found flesh again and again, each cut a step closer to the grave. But with each wound, Far felt something lifting from his shoulders—the weight of infinite guilt, the burden of being the boy who should never have been. The sword fell like mercy, and Far's last thought was of tea stands and second chances.

Chapter 7: Rebirth in the Arena: Finding Each Other Again

The new world bloomed around Far like a flower opening to sunlight. He woke on his seventeenth birthday to the smell of real cheese and the sound of his cousin Imogen arguing with Gram about rodent digestive habits. His mother, Empra, was alive and whole, unmarked by the tragedy that had defined her in the old timeline. But it was the blue velvet box that changed everything. Inside lay a memory chip containing echoes of a life he'd never lived, a crew he'd never met, adventures that existed only in the space between what was and what could have been. The holographic recordings showed him a different version of himself—older, scarred, carrying the weight of impossible choices. The footage showed him commanding a time machine called the Invictus, surrounded by friends who felt like family even though he'd never met them. There was Priya, brilliant and fierce, her love burning bright enough to guide him through the darkest moments. There was the promise of adventures across history, of a life lived at the speed of light and twice as bright. When Far found Priya at the tea stand on Via Novus, chai in hand and hope in his heart, she looked at him like she was seeing a ghost. "Do I know you?" she asked, and he could hear the echo of recognition in her voice, the same pull he felt whenever he looked at the Colosseum. "In a manner of speaking," he said, offering her the cup. "But I'd like to know you better." The Invictus waited in the shadows of the Forum, sleek and silver under the Roman moon. Eliot stood beside it like a guardian angel with a criminal record, watching Far's crew approach. They came together as if drawn by invisible threads—all of them carrying the weight of memories that weren't quite their own.

Summary

The multiverse stretched out before them like an ocean of possibility, infinite and terrible and beautiful. They were thieves and heroes, time travelers and guardians of history itself. The Fade was gone, unmade by Far's sacrifice and rebirth, but there would be other dangers, other adventures, other chances to prove that some things were worth fighting for across any number of worlds. Far had learned the hardest lesson the universe could teach—sometimes love means letting go of everything you are for everything you could become. He had died to save existence itself, and in return, existence had given him forever. As the Invictus lifted off into the Grid between seconds, he looked back at his crew and smiled. They had found each other again across the vast spaces between worlds, bound by something stronger than memory, deeper than time itself.

About Author

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Ryan Graudin

Graudin interrogates alternate histories and fantastical realms, drawing inspiration from the extremes of human behavior, particularly during World War II. Her work often reflects the complexities of this era, using imaginative scenarios to explore themes of resistance and survival. In the "Wolf By Wolf" duology, she crafts a world where the Nazis triumphed, leveraging an epic Axis Tour motorbike race to examine the global implications of this alternate history. This narrative method not only engages readers with suspenseful plots but also invites them to ponder moral questions rooted in historical events.\n\nWhile Graudin is celebrated for her contributions to young adult literature, as evidenced by a Carnegie Medal nomination for "Wolf By Wolf", her literary scope extends to the whimsical worlds found in the "All That Glows" series. Here, she blends fantasy with themes of unity and romance, creating a vibrant tapestry that features a strong female protagonist. Her narrative style seamlessly combines thorough world-building with fast-paced storytelling, transitioning from organic narrative flows in her earlier works to more structured outlines in later projects.\n\nFor readers who relish exploring rich alternate worlds and themes of human endurance, Graudin's books offer a compelling journey. Her bio reveals an author deeply invested in melding imaginative plots with historical reflection, providing young adults and fantasy enthusiasts alike with stories that are both entertaining and thought-provoking.

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