I know I keep promising to update more regularly, so I've already written the next chapter and a half as well. I will update the first of those on Monday - after I get back from a convention in Paris at which I will be meeting Chyler! I actually met her two weeks ago at an East of Eli concert (it's her husband's band, and the music is great), and meeting her was absolutely incredible :)
Alex runs around the corner, her arm already stretched out, pointing a gun at the room in front of her. She curses silently when she realizes that the room before her is already empty. She's glad that the sparse furnishings at least mean that it's easy to detect her lack of opponent. But she's been chasing the man for almost an hour now, and she's starting to feel out of her depth. Aside from a brief look at the blueprints which Gideon helpfully provided, she has no idea about the layout of the building. Unlike her opponent, who has clearly spent the past few months preparing for this heist.
Although all the rooms she's gone through so far have roughly the same furnishing, namely a wooden desk of some sort, a high tech computer which looks more advanced than even the technology at the DEO, and a cabinet always protected by at least two different security methods, she's fairly certain that the man she's chasing after has already determined which of the near-identical rooms contains valuable information. She's also almost as certain that whatever the specific item is that he's been sent to retrieve, it is already in his possession. She needs to stop him, before he makes it out of the building.
She walks across the room to the door, making sure her footsteps are too quiet to hear. At a first glance, the room has no other door than the one she's just come in from. But by now she's figured out that things in this building are not always what they seem. She notices that the cupboard is slightly askew, from where her enemy has already passed through. She approaches it, prepared to do some heavy lifting in order to be able to move the cabinet. It seems to be made of reinforced steel. But when she puts her hands against it to give it a push, she is surprised to find that it moves underneath her touch quite easily. Apparently this cabinet is only a fake. She would be annoyed at the owner's complicated furnishing, if she didn't know the valuable secrets that the measures had been designed to protect.
After she's pushed the cabinet to the side, she pushes open the door hidden behind it. She shakes her head at the room in front of her. Just when she's come to expect the same, basic room with a table, computer and a file cabinet, protected by a hidden door, she finds herself in a different room. Instead of a hidden door, this room has three doors in plain sight. She sighs, knowing this is her only shot before the criminal slips away. She has to stop him before he can escape, and she can't afford to choose the wrong door. She silently thanks Winn as she pulls the device out of her waistband. She points it at the different doors, glad when the doorknob of the door on the far right lights up red. The device is designed to measure residual heat, and based on the bright shade of red she sees, her opponent can't have come through there more than a minute before her arrival. Finally something is going right.
She opens the door with her left hand, her right hand already pointing her trusty alien gun in front of her. She finds herself peering into a dark corridor. Although she can't see anything, she hears running footsteps in front of her. She doesn't hesitate for even a second before running into the corridor, plunging herself into darkness. Her footsteps sound loud on the linoleum floor, but it doesn't matter anymore. By now the criminal has long ago figured out she's tracking him. All she can do is run full force ahead, hoping that her special agent training and her rigorous working out on the Waverider have allowed her to maintain her good shape. Hopefully, her opponent will tire before she does and she can finally catch him.
Suddenly, she remembers something from Gideon's blueprints. She'd noticed a long tunnel on the South side of the building. She pushes herself to run even faster as she realizes where the tunnel is headed. If she remembers correctly, the tunnel ends straight next to a busy crossroads. If the man makes it out of there, all hope of finding him is lost. She has to outrun him, she just has to. She ignores her calves which are starting to ache and her breath which is starting to hitch despite all her training. She has no idea how long the tunnel is, but she knows she can't keep this up forever.
She hopes fervently that the rest of her team is faring better. She hasn't seen them since the moment they arrived in the building. Once they'd realized what was happening, they'd split up and each one of them had followed a different criminal. Alex finds some consolation in the fact that the pieces of information, invaluable together, are almost useless when separated. She has to give it to the inventor. Even though going for an extended vacation to the Bahamas doesn't seem like the smartest choice to Alex, he had at least taken every possible precaution in order to protect his files. Splitting the information up into different segments and then hiding them all across a building made up of dozens of near-identical rooms should have been enough to protect it. The only thing the inventor hadn't counted on was a time-travelling crime organization with the future experience to break into any building.
So that's where the Legends come in. And as she pushes and pushes herself to run harder, Alex keeps reminding herself of the importance of the information in question. Without this design, she can't even imagine what the twenty-first century would look like. The reminder of the importance helps Alex to run faster, but it also distracts her. So it is too late when she realizes that the footsteps in front of her have stopped. The wind is pushed out of her lungs when she her chest impacts something hard, like a bar of steel, at full speed. She can't stop herself from doubling over, gasping in pain. Briefly, the blueprint flashes in front of her eyes. She only sees a small alcove next to the tunnel as she is knocked to the ground by another blow to the shoulders.
The pain out of the second blow pushes her out of her thoughts and focuses her. As she falls to the ground, she quickly rolls over to the side. So when the third blow strikes, it only hits the ground. She fights through the pain in order to stand up. She knows she is weakened, so she has to finish this as quickly as possible. She considers just shooting her alien gun, but the blast could ricochet, or worse, destroy the tunnel. And she doesn't want to risk damaging the files of information. So she shuffles around quietly, feeling her skin being coated in a layer of dirt. They must be close to the exit, if dirt has made its way into this part of the corridor.
She can hear her opponent shuffling around as well, not as skilled in masking the sound of his footsteps. She follows the sound of his movements, glad that the darkness has sharpened her hearing. She knows that she has to get in a good punch before he is able to hit her again with the steel bar. So she pushes herself close to the wall, so close that her opponent hopefully won't notice her presence. She knows that he will keep his back to the wall as he moves around, since his front side is already protected by the steel. She waits until she can hear him shuffling to the spot in front of her, making absolutely certain that that is where he is standing. Then, she brings up her arm with the alien gun in her hand, and brings it down in front of her with as much force as she can manage. She feels it connect with something hard, and seconds later she hears the sound of the body in front of her falling to the ground. She sighs in relief, glad her opponent is down but hoping that the injury is not fatal.
She brings out the flashlight in her pack, now that she is in no danger of revealing her position to the enemy. As she turns it on, she is momentarily blinded by the harsh light. The first thing she sees after her eyes have adjusted is the man in front of her. He is big and burly, and she is immensely glad that she's been able to take him out on the first blow. As the pain in her chest reappears full force, no longer blunted by adrenaline, she realizes that she might not have been able to last much longer in the fight against him.
The man is crumpled up on the floor, his bald head now sporting a large bruise around the top of his head, which is also covered in blood from where the skin has split. Alex crouches down to check his pulse, then sighs in relief when she realizes that he is only knocked out. She ties his wrists together quickly in case he manages to wake up despite the head injury. When she's done, she quickly starts to pat him down to find the file. She doesn't have to search long. He might've been able to plan this heist so well that she has almost not managed to stop him, but he hasn't been very careful in concealing the information. She zips open his jacket, and finds the file there. She grabs it quickly, dusting it off before zipping it up into her own jacket. Then, she gets back up again and makes her way to the exit of the tunnel.
When she gets outside, she is slightly disappointed to find that none of her teammates have arrived. But she's not really surprised; their rendezvous point is at the other side of the building. So she grabs the communication device out of her back pocket and radios in to the Waverider. She's happy when Sara answers immediately, the relief in her voice clear. There was no signal inside the building, so she hasn't been able to communicate with the rest of the team. Alex heads over to their rendezvous point, relieved to hear that the rest of the team has already returned safely with the information.
Sara gives her a quick hug as she walks over to the team, and it's all they need to express their relief at the other's safety. Alex smiles at the rest of the team, and they smile back at her. "We just saved America!" Ray says excitedly. Sara rolls her eyes. "Definitely not the first time. Besides, some might say that America would actually be better off without smartphones." Alex laughs at that. She knows the blonde doesn't really mean it: she's just as excited as the rest of the team at having been able to save the design for the very first smartphone. And they all realize the importance of this information for the design of future technology. "Agree to disagree." Nate says. "After all, without smartphones, we wouldn't have Candy Crush." Sara mock-punches him, and then she turns around to walk towards the Waverider, the rest of the team following her.
I hope you enjoyed the chapter! A lot of you have been asking for more badass Alex so here is my attempt at that. I'm never quite sure when writing action scenes though, so please do let me know what you think :)