Alex – Heart Of The Vanguard

The sound of a claxon slowly filled my ears, gradually getting louder... Though it was different to the slow paced drawn out normal-... I wanna call it 'Red Alert' claxon, for the sake of argument... This was a panicked alarm. It's higher pitch and increased pace telling me something was very wrong indeed... More like a 'Get the hell outta here' alarm. Yeah, the fact that there was a water level starting to rise quite quickly around my helmet was also quite alarming. I watched it rise above my vision line on my HUD as my eyes slowly opened and jumped up in a gasp at the sight.

Eishin: "GRAB THE WOUNDED AND GET THE OUT OF HERE! NOW! EVACUATE!" I heard him yell in the room somewhere, there was a scurry of movement in dimming and flickering emergency lights as the Vanguard were helping each other towards the doors.

Wrex: "ALEX?!! ALEX?!!..." He caught sight of me as I was pulling myself up from the water and raced over, "...Alex! Are you ok?! Come on girl, we gotta go!" He screamed over the panic in the room and tried to support me on the slanted floor.

Me: "I'm fine, I'm fine!"

Sarah: "Is she alright?!" She said rushing over along with 42, Echo and Jinx.

Wrex: "I think so?!"

Me: "What happening?! Where's the water coming from?!" Wrex tugged me along as the water was already reaching my waist line.

Wrex: "The ship is sinking!"

Me: "I'm detecting salt water... we've crashed into the ocean! Wait!, WAIT! EVERYONE COME BACK! I'LL JUMP US OUT OF HERE!"

A few of the other Strike teams heard, even grabbing a few others and ran back to us. I created a Jump next to me. Eishin ran up to us and stopped,

Eishin: "I'm not leaving!"

Me: "Go go go!" I pushed Strike Team members through one after the other, then thought about it, I knew why Eishin said he was staying.

Me: "Wrex!, How long do their zero atmo tanks last for?!"

Wrex: "Not long, 45 minutes, an hour with calm breathing, tops!"

Me: "Fury, we need to gradually split up!"

Wrex: "No! Not happening!"

Me: "Trust me Wrex! There will be other Vanguard on the ship, stuck! We need to get them out! One of you go through now, radio me when you arrive and I'll close the Jump!"

Eishin: "I'm helping too!"

Wrex: "But Alex-?!"

Me: "That's the plan Wrex, we're getting everybody out! 42, you're up! Radio me when you hit land! Echo, you've got no breathing gear at all, you go with this batch!" I gestured them both to the Jump after the last Strike Team member dove through, they nodded, followed the other Strike Team members through and I closed the Jump behind them.

I started leading us up the room as the water was already rising to my chest height.

Me: "Stick together, find whatever crew you can, assemble them up and we'll send them out in batches, so that's 4 left we can do, one for each of us! Make them count!"

Jinx: "How long do our suits last with air?!"

Sarah: "Hours and hours! I specifically designed them to do things like this! We'll be fine!"

Me: "Fury!, Let's rock!" And with that we ran from the room, trudging through the water.

Room by room, deck by deck we found survivors, some injured, most not thankfully. We found some rooms already under water, crew trapped and relying already on their own air supply. I even used my plasma ignitted arm blades to cut through some floors, doors or ceilings at some points that were either jammed or cut off.

 Gradually, either when we had found a load of crew, or we had some running low on oxygen, I sent them out with one of the team. Next was Jinx, then Sarah, then Eishin actually gave us an opportunity to send another batch, especially as he was running low on air himself, then finally it was down to myself and Wrex. We searched where we could, either finding no one or just bodies and it was get to the point that every room and hall we searched we were actually swimming through more than walking.

There was one room that we hadn't gotten to yet, - engineering. I, once again, used my arm blades slice the door open straight down the middle seam to break the locks and prised it open...

...Now while roaming the ship it was clear why we had gone down so quick. Every deck had damage, the hull had large molten holes right through - plasma scoring. Some holes you could see the sea bed, others you could see the waters beyond the ship. The bridge was non existent, wiped from the top of the ship, explains why Eishin received no contact from them.

We couldn't even get to the brig... so in some ways I really hope the Craven made it out. But the brig was on the lower decks, which from experience while exploring, some of the lower decks seem to have collapsed from a combination of the beating that they had taken from the plasma and the impact to the sea floor. But the quick glimpse I had gotten from inside engineering... It was frightening!, like staring into a portal into hell!

One side and the top of the ship was missing, and the plasma core, or rather, what the Draconians call their ship powering versions, a plasma reactor... Was ruptured... Spewing plasma, lightning and radiation from the large oval structure in the middle of room. You couldn't make out any detail of the internal mechanics of the device through the gaping hole in the reactor wall, as it was glowing so bright you could almost mistake it for the sun. The same intense radiated heat that was boiling the surrounding water, I felt it burn me too, like having fire thrown in my face. Even behind my armour. How it hadn't gone critical yet, I don't know.

That was all I needed before slamming the doors back shut.

Me: "FUCK!" I floated back and away from the doors clutching myself as everything stung, burned painfully.

Wrex: "What is it? Are you ok?" He said floating through the water towards me.

Me: "No no! Keep away from me for the minute!" I shouted at him, momentarily blasting my plasma jets to get away from him.

Wrex: "Alex, what's wrong?"

Me: "Ship's reactor is ruptured... Radiation was pouring out... I took a big whack of it... I'm radioactive so don't come near me."

Wrex: "Alex... Noo..." He said solemnly.

Me: "It's fine, it's fine. I'll be fine. The beauty of the Shard is that it's made of the same energy... I can feel it's absorbing it. Just need a minute."

Wrex: "You sure?"

Me: "Positive. I'll be fine."

Wrex: "Ok... Phew... That's good. Soon as you're ready let's leave. We haven't found anyone eles in the last 10 minutes and anyone else was in engineering then they'll be dead soon if not already anyway."

Me: "You're right..." I begrudgingly agreed.

__________

After I had 'cooled off' Wrex and I left the Jump, arriving back on dry land our armours both dripping still. I had routed every Jump back to the same point, the same spot that we departed with Michael earlier, who was actually here along with his team still. The area that was lightly covered in snow had now been trampled into mush by a couple hundred crew and the Strike Teams present. Most were ok, some looked a bit worse for wear... And 6 bodies... And astonishingly, locals! Not many, maybe only half a dozen at most, helping to tend to the injured along with the Draconian medics or bringing out as much food as possible.

Me: "Wow..." I remarked, opening my faceplates, astonished at the scene. Boro-Nar walked quickly in my direction and I didn't need my sixth sense to tell me something bad was about to happen...

Boro-Nar: "YOU!-" He went to swing at me but my reactions were too quick, catching his fist in mid-throw, the look of shock on his face told me that that wasn't what the outcome he was expecting at all. But before I had a chance to do anything else, Wrex was on the case. He full-on booted Boro-Nar in the gut, kicking him from my grasp to the floor.

Wrex: "STAND DOWN VANGUARD!!" He growled at him.

Me: "What the fuck are you playing at?!" I asked the pained, winded, growling mess rolling on the on the floor, clutching his stomach.

Boro-Nar: "You!... all you Ex-SkyTech can't be trusted!" He exclaimed between exaggerated breathes.

Eishin: "Is there a problem?!" He demanded as he strode over, Boro-Nar just pulling himself up from the floor.

Boro-Nar: "Sir, it's clear Alex and the other Ex-SkyTech are treacherous!"

Eishin: "A bold claim. And I presume you have evidence to support such a claim?"

Boro-Nar: "It's clear! The black and gold armoured one with the skull on the helmet! Same armour as the rest of them, and your other Team member, she knew her by name! Clearly she waited for us to all be assembled in one place before alerting whoever it was that shot us down!"

Me: "Oh for fuck sake! Come off it! Something happened in there! I saw her twice, both times she wasn't communicating with anyone! She was looking at the map before talking to me!"

Boro-Nar: "So that doesn't make her hostile?!"

Eishin: "He has a point Alex, unless you say she can be trusted?"

Me: "She... Err... No- No I can't say that-"

Boro-Nar: "And she's with her! Alex made no attempt to apprehend her when you gave the order sir!" He pointed a blaming finger at me. Wrex grabbed his outstretched hand and pulled him close to grab him by the throat and put his snout to Boro-Nar's,

Wrex: "If you accuse my partner again I will-" he growled in a low threatening tone, but he wasn't allowed to finish his threat, as Boro-Nar resisted, there was a scuffle and he broke free if Wrex's grip, spinning himself and his extended tail blades at Wrex. The blades caused no damage besides scratching of the paintwork but the attempt to injure was enough to piss Wrex off.

As the tail passed him, Wrex batted it away and raised his arm at Boro-Nar and charged his plasma jet. I acted quickly, I sent a pulse of energy that sent Boro-Nar flying backwards and another that forced Wrex's arm skyward, just as he fired, the ball of plasma just sent harmlessly up into the heavens. It was Eishin's turn to kick Boro-Nar now, booting his stumbling ass away he tried to recover from my pulse.

Eishin: "GET OVER THERE!..." He growled, then turned his attention back to Wrex, "...Wrex..."

Wrex: "Don't you dare! I'm not putting up with that crap!" He said angrily pointing towards Boro-Nar as he stormed away.

Eishin: "You know what I should be saying though... Please... Work with me here!"

Me: "Admiral, I can assure you, I know of this Night Stalker, but I don't know her personally. I didn't even know she was there until the last second before we were attacked."

Eishin: "You said you saw her twice, what did you mean by that?"

Me: "Well, I felt something was wrong, I felt a presence, I felt someone else using Shard power in the room but me. I looked and saw her right there, right next to me, she wasn't there a few seconds before, I'm sure of it. But she repeated herself, she was stood overlooking the map and turned to look at me, first time she tried to attack me when I grabbed her. Second time she-... Actually, you repeated yourself too..." I said deep in thought, "...no, not just you, time repeated itself, time wound back just a few seconds..."

Eishin: "Alex, that's impossible."

Me: "No it's not. Watch..." I projected the scene of the memory around us as I had done before when showing Sora and Sarah what happened at the party.

_

*Me: "Night Stalker?..."*

_

Eishin: "How is this possible?" He asked astonished, as he looked around the ghostly figures of our past selves.

Wrex: "The Shard allows her to do many things. Tust me, this is not the weirdest I've seen."

_

*Night Stalker: "You can see me?"*

*Eishin: "Who are you talking to Alex?"*

_

Eishin: "No, I never said that, I could see her!" I paused the play back,

Me: "No, this is my point! The first time, none of you could see her, only I could. Only the second time she was visible to everyone. Keep watching." I resumed the playback,

_

*Me: "Night Stalker, she's right here next to me. Can't you see her?"* We watched Night Stalker continue to back away some more.

*Sarah: "Did you say Night Stalker?!"*

*Wrex: "There's no one there Alex?"* Night Stalker went to run,

*Me: "Wait!"* We watched my past self lunge and grab Night Stalker's wrist, she twisted our arms with such speed, enough to throw my hold off of her. She then brought her other arm up and charged her plasma jet... Then came the bit where everything went slo mo... I actually perceived this in slow motion, it wasn't adrenaline or anything like that that I thought it might have been. The shot fired ever so slowly at my past self along with the whole scene, then everything stuttered and fuzzy as everything seemed to rewind.

_

Eishin: "Did I miss it? Are you rewinding it?"

Me: "No, this is what I actually saw, hence my question in a moment. Keep watching."

_

*Eishin: "...We're all on the same side! So if any of you have any further disagreement, please!, Do so now!, I'll make a note of it in my log!"* You could now see I was visibly distressed and  confused, looking around at everyone in the room.

*Me: "What the fuck was that?!"*

*Night Stalker: "Back here? No, this is too late, why? why now?"*

*"Who the hell are you?!"* The random Strike Team member demanded once more, clearly all eyes in the hazily projected room were now resting on Night Stalker now.

*Sarah: "Ember?!"*

The Night Stalker suddenly looked up as she realised herself that all eyes were on her.

*Night Stalker: "Wait, this is back on that ship before it- *Gasp* there's still a chance to save her!"*

A nearby Vanguard tried restraining her by grabbing her wrist. She retaliated by throwing the Vanguard off using a way wave of blue energy before leaping back and using plasma jets to get a further distance away, hovering through the room.

*Night Stalker: "You don't know me Alex, not yet! But trust me! Don't try to stop me this time! I need to save her, she's the key to all this!"*

*Me: "Wait, what do you mean? Come back!"* She sped towards the doorway to escape.

_

I stopped the playback and removed the scene from around us.

Eishin: "I only remember that second playback."

Wrex: "Same here."

Me: "I think only me and Night Stalker know what happened the first time."

Eishin: "Did she reverse time?"

Wrex: "That's not possible."

Me: "It could be, you remember?, I visited the future before returning to this body. I wouldn't be so dismissive about time travel in some form."

Wrex: "You glimpsed into a future that doesn't actually exist yet. You're talking about rewinding time."

Me: "Anything could be possible with the Shard. I could probably do it, given time to learn, practice and if I had enough power at my disposal, maybe."

Eishin: "A scary thought indeed, one that I reckon shouldn't be studied. But what did she mean that she had to save 'her'? Who's she refering to?"

Me: "I don't know. Did no one see where she went after that?"

Eishin: "Not that I have been made aware of. We were attacked moments later of course."

Wrex: "And we never found any sight of her while searching the ship."

Me: "Just how many were on that ship?"

Eishin: "Including Fury? And Craven? 425."

Me: "And has anyone seen Craven?" Eishin shook his head.

Wrex: "Probably took the opportunity to escape."

Me: "Or she could have been killed when we were shot at? The brig was on the lower decks. Or maybe even crushed to death when it made contact with the sea bed, we couldn't get down there could we."

Wrex: "Well, good riddance."

Me: "Wrex... You need to give her a chance."

Wrex: "No. No I don't, she had plenty those before she allowed Arisu to be killed."

Me: "I thought you didn't like Arisu?"

Wrex: "I didn't. But that's not the point, she sided with Reikon."

Me: " *Sigh* Well, either way, at some point we need to find her Shard at least..." I ran a headcount of all those that were present, my HUD rapidly tallying them all up, "...I'm counting 232... We've lost half of the crew!"

Wrex: "We did what we could Alex."

Me: "I could have done more. I felt something was wrong moments before!"

Wrex: "We're talking seconds my love, there's no way you could've known exactly what was going to happen. Please, we've done well- YOU'VE done well, to save what we have here."

Eishin: "You did all you could Alex, I'm sure, which is more than enough. Thank you."

Me: "Too many died-"

Eishin: "But many more lived than they would have done without your help."

Wrex: "Who do we have left?"

Eishin: "A right mixture. Some of the crew, none of the Bridge crew or Engineering teams. The Strike Teams?, We've lost a few whole teams, others have only lost a couple of members..." He shook his head in disbelief. It was now that Michael walked over

Michael: "You ok?"

Me: "Yeah, fine, thank you. You?"

Michael: "Yeah. Pretty cool though right?..." he commented looking back on the scene of the Humans helping the Vanguard, even if it was cautiously from a distance, "...they saw what happened, we all did and they all just wanted to help."

Me: "You said you saw what happened Michael, what exactly happened?"

Michael: "Your ship, it was flanking around those coordinates you gave me, right?, that way..." He pointed off towards the coast, "...over the ocean, right? And all of a sudden these, great big glowing balls of light shot up from the ocean, like, literally a hundred of them. They launched up and hit your ship, whatever it was called."

Wrex: "Thunder Child."

Michael: "That was it. Huh... It's like that old song, 'farewell Thunder Child'..." He badly tried to sing, "...you know, from that old-"

Me: "War Of The Worlds, yes, but come on Michael, please, people have actually lost their lives just now."

Michael: "Right, sorry..." He seemed to genuinely apologise. "...Well your ship never stood a chance, it never had a chance to evade. It got pummeled. Even as it went down it was nasty. I saw some of your guys abandon ship, the ones on black armour, like those guys..." He pointed to a nearby Strike Team, "...they got shot down, right outta the sky, there was nothing left of them."

Me: "Shot down? By what?" He gestured me to follow him up to the crest of the nearby hill, Eishin and Wrex following, and pointed off into the distance.

Michael: "I didn't see what, but streams of gunfire with a hair raising buzzing sound came from an area over that way." My vision zoomed into where he was pointing, about 4 miles south was the Ravine that was mentioned on the map in the briefing room.

Me: "Must be Phalanx cannons, I guess from your description anyway."

Michael: "That's exactly what it sounded and looked like, yeah."

Me: "They're getting defensive... They know they're found."

The rest of Fury walked over now along with Echo. Jinx sped along quicker the closer she got and launched herself into a hug with me.

Jinx: "You're ok! Oh god, I'm so glad you're ok."

Me: "I'm fine, thank you Jinx."

Wrex: "We're too exposed here, we need to move."

Eishin: "Agreed. We need to move further West, inland. I have radioed Relentless, they're inbound, ETA: 1 hour to the rendezvous point we placed 3 miles from here. I have warned them to stay clear of the coast." He started leading us back down the hill to the rest of the survivors.

Michael: "You're leaving?!"

Me: "We're regrouping..." I leapt in with that before anyone else could reply, I was met with a few hurt expressions, "... we're not done yet."

Eishin: "Alex, we have wounded-"

Me: "And? I'm sorry that I probably sound like a dick right now but I've come too far to turn back now. You have a Carrier coming in with 2 battalions on board. That's way more than enough to storm a base."

Eishin: "I will not send troops into hell without full knowing what they're in for."

Me: "Admiral, with all due respect, and you can ask the Queen, I am in charge of all operations regarding the SkyTech, if you're unaware. I'm not stupid to send them in blind, I'm not a monster, but we are not pulling out."

Eishin: "I am aware of that. So what's your plan then?"

I took a moment to think...

Me: "How many whole Strike Teams do we have left?"

Eishin: "Besides yours? Animal, Centurion, Kick Back, Noble and Osiris."

Me: "Ok... The ravine you mentioned earlier? I want that scoped out. I want Centurion on that, keep their distance, keep safe. I want Kick Back to check out these wave generators Echo mentioned earlier. And Animal, get them to look for any other means, ways in, find us any weak points, defences... Anything we should know about and potentially exploit. Get them on it straight away please, we need that info by the time we reach the carrier, so that gives them an hour." He nodded and walked over to the Strike Teams.

Sarah: "What about the rest of us?"

Me: "As I said. We're regrouping. We'll get the Admiral to lead the way to this rendezvous point."

There was a siren nearby... Nope, more than 1, rapidly getting closer... I scurried my way back up the hill, peering over to see police 4x4s, Toyota Landcruisers, pulling up the main road. I quickly shed my armour and reverted to my Human disguise, the one I had on earlier when I met Michael and the others in the nearby hotel.

Me: "Michael, get up here. Everyone else, stay down there..." Michael just scurried up beside me as the 3 cop cars turned off the road, past the hotel and approached the base of the hill. I quickly hooked my arm through Michael's, it wasn't easy as I was actually a fair bit taller than him, "...you're my boyfriend for a minute, play along." I muttered to him.

The police exited their vehicles, brandishing riffles.

"Sir, Madam, I need to ask you to vacate the area." One of the officers ordered as they started to approach us. In his own native Icelandic tongue as well, though my head automatically translated it.

Me: "Sorry officer, my boyfriend, he speak no Icelandic. I speak little. We are tourist, from New York. Is there problem?" I replied back in a deliberately broken Icelandic dialect.

Officer: "We've had reports of suspicious activities in the area. It's not safe here. You need to leave."

Me: "There is no trouble here, sir." I tried waving my hand in an attempt to dissuade him and his colleagues to approach any further.

Officer: "Step aside miss." He ordered, making his way up the hill towards us.

I rolled my eyes, let go of Michael,

Me: "Alright, that does it." I gave up and stated in English, then created a series of Jumps near the police, swiped my hands through the air in front of me which slid the Jumps along the ground to engulf each of the officers and closed them.

Michael: "Whoa, what did you do to them?"

Me: "Sent them about 50 miles South of here. They're fine..."

Michael: "And how long have you spoken Icelandic?"

Me: "Since just now..." I dropped my disguise, armoured back up and turned back to the majority of the keen looking Vanguard looking back at me, "...time to move. It won't be long before they send more, they were well armed for normal police."

_________

After rounding everyone up, even the dead, we started chomping down those miles. Only Michael and his crew stayed behind to set up closer to the ravine. Other news crews had started pouring into the area, but they were heading closer to the coast where the ship went down - The much needed distraction we and Micheal's team required. To aid not being spotted though, I was concealing us under a blanket - no one outside of our group could see us. The same way I use to disguise myself or hide Sarah's tank back at her Spanish villa... Though this was a lot harder, a significantly larger group of a couple hundred moving people to hide, it was certainly draining me.

Wrex: "Are you ok?" He stepped closer to support me, obviously noticing that was just starting to drag my feet a bit.

Me: "Me? Yeah I'm fine, just feeling a lil' bit drained is all, this is a lot of people to hide."

Wrex: "Stop if you need to, they can wait." He gestured to the Vanguard following behind us.

Me: "No. The sooner we get to Relentless the sooner I can rest. I'm sure something's following us."

Wrex: "How do you mean?"

Me: "I can feel Shard energy nearby every so often. The same feeling I got when that Night Stalker was standing next to me on Thunder Child." Wrex looked all around, even walking backwards at one point.

Wrex: "I don't see anyone." I did the same, turning to look around the landscape and the group behind us, switching views to the yellow life readings... for a split second, blink and you'd miss it, I thought I saw a wisp of yellow in the air over us, faint, almost ghost like. I turned back to keep walking forwards and muttered quietly to Wrex,

Me: "Yeah, pretty certain we're being followed." I whispered,

Wrex: "By who? Where?" He asked quietly making it look as casual as possible glancing around again.

Me: "In the sky above us. You won't see them, I barely did."

Wrex: "Friend or foe?"

Me: "Well we haven't been attacked yet."

Wrex: "But that doesn't tell us if either is true."

Me: "I know- *gasp*" I tripped in my haphazard stagger and Wrex just caught my arm and held me up.

Wrex: "Right, we need to stop."

Me: "We're nearly there anyway... Actually..." I stopped, feeling the disturbance, "... she's here." I stopped and stated with a bit of a grateful smile.

Wrex: "Who's here?" No sooner had he asked, that a rumble could be heard and moments later a large ship came into view in the sky a good few miles away, closing in. Nowhere near as large as Thor, but it was long, about 3 and a half miles long. The ship was grey, much the same as Thunder Child was. It looked like a a square box section with armoured plating covering the top and bottom of the ship attached at 45 degree angles to the main hull, leaving a gap between the edges of the plating on the sides of the hull.

I dropped the mirage blanket hiding us from sight as the ship grew closer and within seconds a voice broke through on an open frequency,

"This is the carrier, Relentless. We see you, Vanguard. Do you require assistance?"

Eishin: "This is Admiral Eishin, good to see you Captain Vadaum. We have wounded and dead down here. Requesting Roclaw pick up." He replied from behind us.

"Understood Admiral, deploying Roclaws immediately. I'll see you on board."

Within a minute I could see the Roclaws launching from the sides of Relentless, between that gap in the armor plating on the sides.

Me: "Good, I could use a break." I sighed in relief.

(-Twisted Sister)