Meeting Evelynn
Alexander shimmied and slithered his way through the vent pipe, his elbows ached from banging against the metal walls.
"Dammit," He cursed in his head, "This tunnel'd better end soon. I won't be able to swing my sword if I keep hitting my elbows like this."
At last, he saw the tunnel get brighter,
'Finally!' He thought to himself.
He braced himself for the outward burst into the sunlight, but he was stopped by a . . . something.
A pair of somethings. His stop was accompanied by a sheepish yelp.
"Unf!" He exclaimed.
Whatever they were, they were soft, and decidedly cushion-y – they were even covered by something pillow-worthy, but they were too thick to be made out of cotton only. In fact, they had almost cut off the air from his nose.
'Are these . . . cargo-pants?' He quizzed himself. Then he realized what he had pressed his face into.
"Well, this is interesting . . ." Alexander drawled sarcastically. His voice was muffled from behind the pair.
Suddenly, the 'cushions' moved, and Alexander's eyes were assaulted by the sun' rays.
"Whu- ?"
Before he could say anything else, a pair of hands grabbed onto the back of his sweater hood, and forcefully hauled him out of the shaft. He sailed a few yards before landing face-first into the ground, and skidded along, a few more there-after.
"Waah! Ooff! Aaooww . . ."
His attacker seemed pleased with themselves.
"And ye'not scaly enough t'be an alien, so whaddiya here for?" She asked curtly.
Alexander perked up; his attacker was a woman.
'Not a very nice one.' He idly mused, 'and she's too strong.' But he couldn't dwell on this for too long.
"I'ya don't talk soon, A'm'onna start puttin' more holes on yer face. Who'dya werk for?" She asked.
Alexander put his hands on the ground and carefully pushed himself back onto his feet, grunting and groaning all the way. When he reached his full height, he turned around, and observed his new acquaintance.
Indeed, this attacker was a woman, and she was wearing cargo-pants.
Her red Tank-top was cut off at her hips, and was covered by an unzipped black leather biker's jacket; her cargo-pants were mottled with holes along their legs and thighs, and held up with a brown leather utility belt. Her black hair was tied up in simple ponytail, and fell to her waist; her eyes were a piercing greenish-blue, amplified by the anger in her glare.
Alexander halted his checkout, when he realized how angry she was. He cleared his throat, and made a face.
"Y'know, that temper of yours could use some work. And now thanks to you, my face hurts." He prodded verbally.
"My name is Alexander . . ." He continued, not giving her the chance to cut-in.
"Mapleshield, some call me. I'm a freelancer of the Resistor Alliance, at your service." He bowed, and waited for her reply.
"Well . . . Nice t'meet you . . ." She said, carefully re-holstering her twin pistols.
"My name's Evelynn Gadwalle. I work for the D-T-H. Wait, Resistor Alliance? You're with the Gorilla-man? Mm, I guess yer hairy enough." Evelynn said off-handedly. This made Alexander cross.
"Excuse me? I think he prefers 'The Hulk', or 'Ape-leader', aaannnddd, what's wrong with my hair?"
Alexander had been made fun of for having too much hair on his body before, and he wasn't going to take this kind of talk from anyone ever again.
"Oh nothin', I just think that you look very well suited for working with giant, flyin'-ass monkeys." Evelynn felt pleased with herself. But Alexander was ready for her.
"I guess you'd know about that. I've seen some of 'your guys', they're fuckin' animals." He retorted.
"Meh, can't argue there." Evelynn shrugged.
Then, Alexander started raising and lowering his eyebrows, and she realized what he meant.
"Oh, you cock-suckin' blow-jobber!" She shrieked.
Alexander threw his head back burst out laughing, it was fun when he got to mess with people's words. Evelynn recovered,
"Whatever, what're y'even doin' here? An' more importantly, why the fuckin' sword? Izzat yer main weapon? You must be outta yer tiny mind i'yer goin' up against the aliens with a friggin' katana!? Who the hell'd even do that anyway?"
Alexander simply grimaced. He wasn't going to admit it, but this woman had somehow managed to get his fire going – if only not as fast as she would probably want.
'Thank god for slow starts.' He thought to himself.
"I don't know, maybe, someone who actually knows how to use it?" He offered innocently,
"Ye can't say much about sword-fighting, you're covered in guns." Evelynn snarled crossly,
"Hey, shut up man. I, at least, know how to use them." Then, she had an idea,
"Wanna see how good I am?"
And without giving him a chance to reply, she hastily yanked the pistol from her right holster, and fired two shots. She felt great satisfaction from the feared look that crossed Alexander's face, and she waited to see as the bullets penetrated his chest before he slumped down onto the ground.
This is not, however, what happened. True, Alexander had been shocked by her action, but he had already reacted. He took hold of his katana's hilt, and drew the blade out from its sheath. With one swift stroke, he split the two bullets in mid-air and stopped still. The split halves landed not too far away from where they stood
Evelynn could hardly believe what she had seen. She watched in utter disbelief as Alexander flourished his sword and re-sheathed it, in one definite motion.
'But, how . . . ?' She wondered. Alexander recovered and looked her directly in the eyes.
"As for what I'm doing here, I'm looking for some of that Pre-queue-so-whatever-it-is-fuel. But there wasn't any map or guide that tells you where to go."
Evelynn took a moment to respond. She was still too stunned to believe what she'd seen.
"Uuhh . . . yo, Evie. Y'doin' okay?" Alexander waved his hand in front of her face.
Evelynn shook her head and snapped back into reality.
"Hre-hem . . . You mean the Precursor Monoliths? Those are underneath the main building foundations, and I've just found a way to get through the concrete slabs without breaking them. If you'd want, I can help you get down there." Evelynn offered. Alexander nodded,
"Oh, that'd be great, thank you."
"Why'd your alliance want them? Those things couldn't get a fire goin', even if ya cracked'em open." Alexander shrugged at this.
"Beats the shit outta me. Our chief Scientist says that the towers can be broken down and refined into some coal-like substance for the pumping engines we have in the mines at Snowbourne Mountain, and those things are basically steam engines without wheels." He explained. Evelynn made a face,
"You must be kidding. The Scientist must be butt-fuckin' crazy if he thinks those monoliths'd actually do anything useful." Alexander shrugged again,
"Tell that to the Doctor, the pumping engines were designed by him." Evelynn looked at her new acquaintance.
Since meeting this sword-user, she had been observing his actions and reactions,
'He looks so nerdy right now.' She thought to herself.
She thought back to a few minutes earlier, and another thought floated to the surface of her mind.
'. . . This guy is still a virgin. I can bet money on it. I can see exactly how hard this guy is trying to look cool.' Then she thought of something else,
"Say, how old are you?" Evelynn asked. Alexander looked surprised,
"Wh- me? I'm twenty-one years old, gonna be twenty-two in a few months, I think." Evelynn was shocked,
"Only Twenty-one? Aren'cha kinda young ta be this deep in the field?" She asked,
'Welp, at least I know how much older I am . . .' she thought cheekily. Alexander was, of course, oblivious to her musings, and carried on.
"Normally, I'd agree with you," He started carefully,
"But seriously, we're in the middle of an apocalypse. Who gives a shit?" He raised one eyebrow and both of his hands questioningly, to emphasize his point.
Evelynn couldn't argue with this. Since the first invasion, any and all armies were trying to scrape up as many new recruits and soldiers as possible, and the leader of her army was no real exception.
By now, Alexander was done with playing around, and looked at his potential ally,
"SO," He said sharply,
"How do you suggest we get to the Monoliths?" Evelynn blinked,
'That was quick of him.' She quipped mentally.
"Well," She began,
"There're small holes along the bottom concrete slabs, and it's just big enough for one person to fit through." Alexander was rapt with attention; Evelynn went on with her explanation,
"Now I don't need to bother with the Monoliths, but I do need something else that's underneath them. So, here's what I think we should do," She paused,
"If you can handle shimmying through the holes, I can operate the crane, over there, to get you in and out from the crawl spaces." She pointed to the large scaffolding behind them.
Sure enough, there was a crane at the very top; but it did not look very safe. The scaffolding itself was rusted and worn from disuse, and the control box, at the top with the winch controls, looked as though it had been broken before the invasion had occurred. Alexander felt stifled.
"Are you sure that crane is the only one we can use?" He asked, trying as hard as he could not to sound like he was worried. To his dismay, Evelynn nodded,
"'Fraid so, kid. This crane is the only one here, on the site." Then she realized,
"Why? Ya scared?" She smiled broadly, Alexander took none of it.
"Nmmm-yeah . . . but not for just for myself." He started, but before Evelynn could say anything else, he cut her off,
"Whatever, if this is the only way, we've got no choice. Besides," He trailed off, and put a hand to the gun on his right hip.
"We're not alone out here . . ." With one move, he fired three shots over Evelynn's left shoulder.
Evelynn was too shocked to move, until she heard the sound of a body dropping. She whipped around, to see one of the aliens landing face-first on the ground, oozing its prune-hued blood.
"We don't have much time Evelynn, come on." Alexander re-holstered his gun, and ran towards the crane's neck.
Again, Evelynn meanwhile, was too surprised to do anything just yet.
"Fuck . . ." She mused,
"Maybe startin' younger'd've been the best idea." And with that, she rushed off towards the crane.
Hullo readers.
Thank you for reaching the end of this chapter, and I hope you enjoyed it. The story is all about an Alien Invasion that happens in the future - the idea for this story is not mine.
This one came from a story that I was working on last year with a friend. But after a series of events, my friend and I ended up hating each other, so the idea for the story fell through.