Corruption

Death and Destruction

He explained to everyone exactly what happened. They decided they needed to practice as much as they could in preparation for the next eventful night. It was eventually decided that they would practice all that following night, honing their skills, sparring, and rest the following day until the time came to meet Miranda and hopefully Nelson. If nothing else, if it was a trap, they hoped they get a shot at killing Miranda.
          Samuel barely spoke. However uncharacteristically, he was overwhelmed with hatred. He admittedly didn't like feeling this negative an emotion - especially so strongly. He preferred avoiding violence whenever he could. But Miranda had taken him past his breaking point. The way he saw it, she'd destroyed his marriage, (though Kelly did do her part, he blamed it on Miranda practically killing him). Knowing that Kelly had a thing for Anora made it impossible for him to trust her. And the fact that she'd so ignorantly trusted their children to that alien.. it disgusted him to no end. She had betrayed their trust, likely killed or at least scared off Cherry, and humiliated him. And she seemed to treat it like a joke. She was pure evil to him, and he didn't feel he could forgive her. He just wanted her dead.
       He stayed up later than any of the others, who tired more quickly than he did, focusing on utilizing his robotic abilities. They'd rented the closest hotel to the airport, and he'd found a secluded park to practice not terribly far from it. His hands could turn both into poisonous blades, or into guns that could shot one rocket each. It was the strangest sensation, his hand transforming and becoming something else. But he had to practice coping with it. He wanted no excuses. He also had to cope with the fact that Nelson was brainwashed, most likely. Another reason he hated her. They hadn't been all that close back in Knoxville, just decent acquaintances and team members on their high school wrestling team. But after having lived together all that time, helping him and giving him advice with Anora, they had become the best of friends. He prayed he could speak some sense into him. He didn't know what he would do if push came to shove and Nelson couldn't be brought to his senses.
        "Hey..?"
He heard a voice call his name from behind. It was Jasmine. "What is it?" His voice was a bit harsher than he liked - or meant it to be - he was just having a hard time coping with everything. "Sorry to bother you," she said quietly. "It was just getting late and I noticed you weren't in your room so I wondered if you were okay." "You were looking for me?" He asked. "Yeah," She said, "I mean.. ya know you seemed kinda really upset and nobody had tried checking on you.. so.." Samuel sighed. Kelly had tried talking to him but he ignored her and walked out to train alone. He understood her belief that he was dead, but it's like she didn't even mourn.. she just immediately...
      "I'm sorry I interrupted you," Jasmine's voice interrupted his thoughts. "I'll leave you be." Samuel sighed a heavy sigh once more. "Jasmine. Hey," he called as she left. "Look I'm sorry I came across as rude. I just don't know how.. I'm supposed to handle all this.." Jasmine sat down on a bench not too far away from him, and offered him a seat beside her. "This is all too much.." he finally admitted. Jasmine stared at him, a compassionate gleam in her blue eyes. He noticed that even though the night sky was clear, the wind had started to pick up, and the leaves on the trees in the park began to rustle. Jasmine moved her hair out of the way before responding. "You don't know until you try." "She's beaten us at every turn," Samuel said sadly, defeat ringing in his voice. "I don't know if we can beat her. I don't even know if we can save Nelson, or if this is all just a trap..." "No matter what," Jasmine told him, "There will certainly be aliens there that need killing, trap or not. It's our job to take care of them anyway. Sure, everyone knows about aliens now, and they're freaking out. But it's not as bad as we thought it would be. They're thinking I can beat her alone, but we're gonna have the whole team, the whole squad, ya know? We can beat whatever is waiting for us there and it'll prove to the people that yeah, aliens are here, but we can protect the people too. That's bound to ease the panic, don't ya think?" Samuel thought on it before nodding slowly. "But do you think we can win?" "Come on Sam!" Jasmine said, playfully pushing his shoulder. "You weren't even ready last time. I bet you had a glitch in your system or something. Now you've practiced and gotten better and they're not gonna know what you're capable of! Plus we also got everybody else helping too." She grinned a silly grin. "You're the only one who doesn't believe in yourself. I know that sounds corny as hell, right? But think about it. What if you just really let lose?" Samuel shrugged. "I mean I guess," he admitted, not having thought of it with that mindset before. He felt himself smile a little bit. "A glitch in my system? Really?" Jasmine giggled a bit to herself. "I've heard way too many stories about your missions to really believe that's the best you can do," she told him. He was about to reply when he noticed the wind began blowing with increasing intensity. You would think it was about to storm, but the night sky was perfectly clear. It troubled him. "I guess this is kind weird," Jasmine agreed. They decided to get back to the hotel.
It wasn't until they got back to his room that he got a call from a number he didn't recognize. "Hello?" "Keith?" "Who is this?" "Secret services. I understand you just got promoted with Dylan's death, but we have a problem." Dylan's death?? Did Miranda..
"We have an asteroid incoming. It'll be here by tomorrow night, and its trajectory is roughly your exact location. There is also increased extraterrestrial activity directly above you, as I'm certain you're aware. You should leave IMMEDIATELY." "Is there anyway you can divert the asteroid?" Samuel asked, "I'm going to kill one of the extraterrestrial leaders tomorrow. And it's supposed to take place right here." "Best we can do is break it into pieces and hope you don't get hit sir. It's not apocalyptic in size, but there will still be heavy casualties. I still suggest you leave now sir." "Thank you, but I need to finish this. Do what you can, but I might not have another opportunity like this. I appreciate it though." "Sir." And the phone call ended. Samuel cursed to himself. Had Miranda killed Dylan? Why? He literally quit?!
********
They all met outside and discussed strategies at the airport, scoping it out a few hours early. "There's gonna be asteroid debris raining down on us?" Anora asked as Samuel told them at the airport about the call he'd gotten. "The government's gonna try to organize it, and unfortunately, I'd wanted to get some help from the EED here but they're going to be getting citizens out of the way. "This shit is crazy," Estavon muttered, loading his shotgun and looking around. "That's fucked up what she did to Dylan though," Paul commented sadly. "It's a bit of a coincidence," Anora said, "That the asteroid is coming at the exact same time as that bitch Miranda mentioned. I bet they're connected." She loaded her brand new sniper rifle she'd bought during the weeks they'd waited. She uncharacteristically tired today for some reason, and her back seemed to be bothering her, but she trained nonetheless. Kelly and Tyler would wait in the car with the children for everything to be over and have it ready to drive away when they returned in case they had to run away. They spent an hour surveying Hidden Lake Airport. The people in the houses nearby had obviously been evacuated, and Anora would be hiding in one of the houses Sniping from afar. Samuel and the others would face Miranda, or whatever head on. They couldn't be sure until the aliens arrived, how they could tackle the situation. They were sort of blind but they prepared as best they could on a whim. "Okay, good," Samuel said. "That's what we're gonna do. But we still have one problem." There were people gathered around who wanted to watch and record the fight. Samuel sighed irritably. They didn't have the man power to try to move this many people away. They tried warning them that they would likely die, but no one listened. "People are so stupid man," Paul muttered under his breath. "I don't want these people to get hurt," Samuel said, "There's got to be a way..."
           But he never got to finish his thought.
An incomprehensibly loud BOOM interrupted him. The sky turned blood red. The asteroid had been struck by the missiles the government had sent to intercept it. People were already frantically screaming. Before anyone had a chance to react to that, however, the sun, which had been nice and bright outside, was instantly covered up, like a solar eclipse. Red debris from the asteroid rained down in the area, though none was too threateningly close. As for the rest of the city though.. their screams could be heard from where they stood.
         That was when they realized what had blocked out the sun. A flying saucer, a UFO. A circular light suddenly began emanating from the middle of the bottom of the saucer, followed by an uncomfortably deep humming sound that vibrated the ground. "What the fuck!" Jasmine exclaimed. "They're four hours early!!" "Get ready!!!" Samuel yelled angrily. A beam emerged from the UFO and slammed into the ground, causing it shake like an earthquake ten feet in front of them. When it finally stopped, Miranda stood alone in its place, her arms folded. "You bitch!!" Paul exclaimed. "Wait," Samuel ordered, "The plan, remember?" Paul scoffed but listened. "Where's Nelson?" Samuel asked her. "He's on his way," she said. "But since you guys are so early, why don't I keep you company? Surely you must be bored waiting around like this? You had four more hours to wait." "Tsk," Samuel scowled. "Well, since it's come to this." "Are you gonna waste all your energy on me?" She asked them. "You might wanna save it." "For what??" Paul exclaimed. "You're a murderer who deserves every bullet we're about to shoot into you." By this time everyone had surrounded her and had their guns aimed at her head. Miranda sighed, her eyes switching to a bright green. "And you even brought a crowd." The people, although clearly frightened, were too curious to run away now that the battle was about to start. "Let's do this." Samuel growled, turning his right hand into a missile. "Go to hell." Time for the plan. He fired his missile at her, and she of course jumped supernaturally high into the air to dodge it, like they'd expected her to. They all opened fire on her while she was mid air. The bullets all bounced off of the air around her, like she had an invisible force field protecting her. When she landed, to hard sniper bullets smacked the back of her force field with enough force to make her stumble. Samuel grimaced. If she didn't have the extraterrestrial force field protecting her, Anora would have sniped her twice through the back of the head. Miranda gave an annoyed glance at the house where Anora had sniped her from, but Samuel and Jasmine were already surrounding her. Time for part two of the plan. They both attacked her at the same time, Samuel turning his hands into poisoned blades as he'd practiced and Jasmine with a military knife. Miranda evaded the both of them as they both swung on her, careful not to stab each other in the process. Samuel yelled at the top of his voice as sliced at her neck. She dodged it limbo style, perfectly according to plan. His yell was the signal for Anora, who moved to her second position at the top of a tree, to snipe her from above. A powerful barrage of four perfectly aimed sniper rifle bullets smashed into her force field back to back before she could stand back up straight again, forcing her into the concrete on her back. With out the force field, each of the four bullets would have struck her directly in the heart. Samuel and Jasmine stabbed at her relentlessly on the ground, trying to break through the force field. He noticed one crack begin to form, and the invisible force field became visible as a small protective bubble around Miranda. Perfect. Estavon and Javen were coming in with their shotguns to hopefully break through the shield. She clearly annoyed. She kicked up at them, kicking them both square in the chest with each of her feet, sending them flying into Estavon and Javen, causing all of them to fall and tumble on the ground. It knocked the breath out of all of them. "We almost got her ass..!!!" Jasmine exclaimed, trying to catch her breath as she and Samuel both got up. Paul, Henry, and Anora were providing then cover fire. We just gotta keep this up. Once that shield is gone she's as good as dead! Samuel smiled. They were interrupted by another beam of light from the UFO. Already disoriented from Miranda's kick, they fell back to the ground when this beam smashed into the runway. When it stopped, two more figures were left standing there. One was the four armed, four eyed gray monstrous beast of an alien that had been following them around back in the day trying to capture Nelson. The other one was a human sized figure; in a strange unnaturally black hooded robe, with the hood over its head far enough to where the face wasn't visible. Green static electricity seemed to cackle around the figure. It had its hand on something behind its back.
     Before anything else could happen, Anora fired another four shots at Miranda. Samuel couldn't believe what he saw next. He had enhanced vision, so he wasn't sure if anyone else saw it, but the hooded figure quickly took out a black and green blade and deflected all four bullets from the sniper rifle with it without even looking. "What the hell just happened?" Paul asked, clearly confused. "How typically rude of you humans," the hooded figure said. It twirled the blade unnecessarily before putting it back somewhere behind his back. Anora broke her cover and came running out. Damnit... Samuel thought uneasily. "There's no fucking way..." he muttered. The hooded figure pulled back the hood. Of course it was.
"NELSON..!" Anora shouted.
          He had changed. His voice was a little bit deeper than before, and it also had an unnatural sort of.. edge to it. His dreads had grown out, and he had it tied neatly in a ponytail, with a few dreads dangling carefree in his face. He only had a goatee now, instead of the beard he had last time he saw him, as a human. Curiously, he was wearing a blindfold. What the hell is going on? Samuel thought worriedly. "What the hell!?" Samuel outburst, losing his composure, "What the hell are you going on about Nelson!? What have they done to you!" Nelson smirked. "Excuse me, kind lady?" They were are all surprised to see him addressing Miranda in that matter. She turned to him, a small smile growing on her face. "Are these humans bothering you?" "As a matter of fact they are," She said, "They're ganging up on me." The bulky four armed alien in the back seemed to chuckle. Which was extremely odd, Samuel couldn't imagine such a beastly creature laughing. Anora was fuming. This is a joke to them...? Samuel thought. This is worse than I could have ever imagined...
      Nelson seemed to sniff the air, a bit like a dog when it's looking for something. He pointed directly at Samuel. "You afraid?" He asked him directly. "H-huh..?" Samuel back tracked, taking a Step back. Could he smell his fear?? "Sam.." Jasmine muttered, "Come on Sam.. we gotta stay strong. We can capture him now." "Good luck with that," Nelson said, even though she shouldn't have been anywhere near loud enough for him to hear. "Shit..." Paul muttered. "How about we make this fair," Nelson said, pulling out a strange obsidian black box thing. He held it like it was a gun even though it didn't seem to have anywhere to shoot bullets, and aimed it at the crowd cowering in behind them, which was also where Kelly, Tyler and his Kids were. "Wouldn't want them getting in the way now would we?" Nelson said. He had troubling edge to his voice. It was cold, unforgiving..
            The black box he had suddenly started glowing green, and a green ball of energy suddenly flew out of it. It was all they could do to duck as it flew over their heads. The crowd of curious onlookers weren't so fortunate. The green ball of energy smashed into the crowd, and an unbelievable green explosion took them out. The wind from the explosion was such that Jasmine, Estavon, and Javen were all sent flying somewhere into the patch of trees where Anora was supposed to be hiding. It was all Samuel could do to catch Paul and Henry's hand to keep them from flying away, while his enhanced strength allowed him to just barely stand in place. "My KIDS!!!!!" Samuel screamed at the top of his lungs. Of course that included Tyler and Kelly. Once the explosion was over, only a large was crater was in its place, green static electricity flickering everywhere. Samuel fell to his knees, overcome with emotion, mentally defeated. "Come on we have to fight!" Paul yelled, "They can't get away with this!" Samuel struggled to his feet, tears dripping from his eyes. Paul was firing at him with his revolver, but Nelson had disappeared, leaving only Miranda and the other alien standing watching. Samuel was completely lost. Nelson had appeared behind them, moving so fast neither Paul nor Henry could see. Samuel could kind of see, but he couldn't react in time. By the time he turned around, Nelson had kicked Paul so hard his neck snapped and he went flying into one of the houses next to the runway. Henry tried to run in fear but Nelson and taken that extraterrestrial blade out and sliced at him. One of Henry's arms was lopped off, and he fell to the ground. He was about to finish him off. "STOP!" Samuel cried out. "What are you doing...!" Nelson stopped, turned around, his blindfold was still on. "I'm killing him," He told Samuel, his voice nonchalant. "They're using you!!!" Samuel yelled. "You're supposed to be one of us.." "A human?" Nelson asked, his voice calm. How could be so nonchalant about killing literally dozens of people?! "Do I look human to you?" He removed his blindfold, slowly, revealing his two closed eyes. A bullet was fired. It would have shot him in the head had he not casually moved his head out of the way. What had they done to him?? He turned around to see it was Jasmine, limping, shaking trying to hold her pistol steady. Her elbow was sticking out of her arm, and she was bruised all over. Blood was dripping all around her. Anora immediately tried to bandage her up and stop the bleeding as best she could by ripping parts of her shirt off and trying to apply pressure, but she was clearly panicked and unable to think straight. Nelson finally opened his eyes. His expression was blank, as if he were bored. However he had dark bags under his eyes, and he seemed to have undergone a lot of stress. Most disturbingly to Samuel, his eyes were an unnaturally bright green. And both his iris had a crack in it; they looked a bit like pack man with its mouth open. A small drop of blood slid down from one of his eyes, as if his eyes couldn't handle the pressure of whatever they had done to him. He remained expressionless until his eyes wondered over to Anora, at the sight of her his brows furrowed.
         "Nelson I'm sorry..." Samuel muttered, turning his hands into blades. "ANORA I NEED YOUR HELP!!" He yelled, trying to mentally prepare himself. Nelson's expression didn't change, but he didn't comment either. He tried to swing at Nelson, but he was nowhere near fast enough to hit him. It went on futilely like this for a moment, his facial expression remaining expressionless. It was even harder because the green static electricity from the extraterrestrial blade kept shocking Samuel as Nelson dodged. Anora fired her sniper rifle once, and missed. This time it wasn't even close. Samuel wasn't sure if he imagined it or not, but it seemed like Nelson's eyes literally watched the bullet fly past them in real time, though he himself couldn't do it. There's no way Nelson's eyesight could have been mutated to this degree. Samuel took one more futile stab at Nelson, at which he dodged and cut Samuel's hand off. Before Samuel could even wince in pain Nelson back handed him with such force that he went flying and smashed into a tree. Doing his best to stay conscious, he watched as Nelson dashed over to Anora's location. She pleaded with him, crying, before he kneed her in the stomach hard enough to make her throw up. As she did, he put his blindfold back on, and walked back over to Miranda and the other ET. The UFO beamed them back into space. This could not have gone any worse... Samuel thought. What the hell happens now??