The only one watching them on their way was a woman in a room deep underground. She stood stark naked in the middle of the round chamber, with her eyes wide and staring at nothing. Instead, she was watching closely as Rosh, Elijah, Lena, and Eric neared their destination and the large bubble that contained them began to sink from the sky. With a single thought, she lit up thousands of chambers nearby, much like hers but smaller. Inside, creatures stirred and writhed, twisted and inhuman forms cracking and popping as they were compressed and stretched into human shapes. Slowly, the chambers began to rise, heading toward the surface. The first one to hit sunlight ruptured, spilling its inhabitant out onto the terrain. A naked man stood in the sunlight. He looked around and found a small box that had been spat out with him. Inside were some clothes, a briefcase with some documents in it, and a pistol. A few seconds later, looking fairly normal, the man took to the sky on unseen wings, headed for the Washington, D.C. area.
In the bunker, the four found the accommodations unexpectedly comfortable. There was a cool fountain at the center of the bunker providing fresh water, a fridge against a far wall with a stove and microwave next to it, and four beds on another wall with laptops on nightstands next to them. The place was dripping art deco, all curving architecture and minimalist decor. The four weary travelers settled into the beds and wished each other a quick goodnight. Just as they had all closed their eyes, the ground shook and an explosion rang out nearby. “Not it.”, Rosh said lazily. All four rose in unison and walked to the door, weapons and powers at the ready. At the top of the staircase, they were greeted by empty air. Elijah looked about for a bit, and pointed at the horizon. “There’s something that way.” As if on cue, a powerful wind rocked the four fighters on their feet. A fairly normal-looking man stood before them, wearing a T-shirt and jeans to go with his unremarkable brown hair. Elijah stepped forward. “Can we help you, stranger?”, he called across the distance. “Yeah, I was here walking in the woods, and this huge explosion came through!”, the mysterious man cried, and began walking toward the bunch. Lena scanned his mind the best she could, and found nothing amiss. She stepped toward him. “Are you okay?”, she said softly to him, “Do you need anything?” He nodded. “Actually, I’m lost. Could you folks point me to a phone or computer I could use to contact my buddies back in Seattle for pickup? I’ve been out here for days with a dead phone.” Elijah shot her a look, and she nodded in return. Eric and Rosh saw this exchange, and decided that the outsider was safe.
Back inside the shelter, the outsider was sworn to secrecy, then signed into one of the four laptops to contact his friends for pickup. Within a few hours, a pickup truck arrived in front of the shelter. A rotund young woman bound from the back of the truck with surprising agility, her shimmering blond hair trailing behind her, and ran toward the building. Before she could bang urgently on the door, Lena flung it open, and she ran toward the man who had showed up. Both of their faces lit up and they fell into each other’s arms. “Jodi, you wouldn’t believe the time I’ve had out here. Big thanks to these kind strangers.” The girl nodded to them. “Thank you so much for helping Mark.” With a pair of smiles, the two left arm in arm, sharing a quick kiss on the way out. Lena approached the door to shut it, only to feel her heart drop into her stomach as she watched the two lovers dive and hit the ground. The people in the pickup truck panicked for a second, then started the truck up and flung mud as they peeled out and sped away. A beam of red light made another pass by the couple on the ground, missing them by inches. It changed direction and came whizzing at Lena’s head with incredible speed, giving her barely enough time to jump out of the way. The beam crashed into the back wall of the shelter, but left no pockmarks. Rosh and Elijah appeared at her side, while Eric seized a nearby pistol and stood at the back of the house, guarding the door. Rosh remained inside with his lover, while Lena and Elijah stepped out to see where the powerful lasers had come from.
A young man wearing a determined scowl descended from the sky. He looked entirely ordinary, from his boring brown hair in a boring bowl cut to the boring business casual dress that adorned his average physique. He held up one hand, and another laser sprang from it. Before he could process the thoughts behind his actions, Elijah had jumped between Lena and the beam, whipping at it with his sword at such speed that the blade glowed red hot. The laser hit the superheated edge and, much to Elijah’s shock, was sent hurtling back towards its point of origin. The floating young man moved a bit to the left, almost imperceptibly, and the beam whizzed by his head, burning a few strands of his neatly cut hair. “My orders are to take you all alive. Do not make me disobey.”, he said in a loud monotone. He raised a hand skyward, and thousands of bolts of red light appeared above Elijah and Lena. Elijah flipped his sword over backhand, then leapt into the air, spinning as fast as he could. He and his blade became a spinning blur of silver while Lena raised a barrier above his head. The young man’s hand descended, and the lasers crashed down. Some hit the barrier and disintegrated, while others came through with no issue, and many were slowed and weakened, their glow slightly less intense as they made their way toward the ground. Directly over Lena’s head, a great many of the bolts were scattered to the wind by Elijah’s blade, though many bit into his artificial flesh and singed his clothes. He landed next to Lena and barely managed to stand, a good amount of blood and oil falling in a puddle at his feet. Lena had been hit by one of the lasers, right near her heart, and blood was dripping from her left breast and washing down her stomach. The pair stood as steadfast as they could. The young man looked back and forth between them. “Impressive, but not enough.”, he muttered, “Will you come peacefully now?” Elijah swung his sword angrily, dicing the air. “Fuck you!”, he screamed, “We’ll kill every last one of you monsters!” The young man nodded and descended to the ground. “Very well then.”, he said, nodding. Both of his hands went up, and the sky over the encampment was completely covered by bolts of red light. Lena’s eyes glowed as she pulled at each of the bolts with her mind, trying to direct them away from the area before the young man could send them crashing down. Elijah ran toward him, dodging a few bolts that came from his eyes and mouth, then brought his blade down hard. The sword met its target, but the young man’s forehead did not give, did not even bleed. Elijah turned and struck again, but the young man’s arm refused to budge or be severed. Frustrated, he threw his full robotic strength into a frantic and fast flurry of slashes and thrusts. “Insufficient.”, the young man said, and kicked Elijah with a glowing foot. The cyborg spat blood as he flew toward the wall of the shelter, crashing into it hard enough to shake the whole place. He peeled himself from the wall of the shelter as the young couple from before went in and Rosh came out in full armor.
Rosh flew toward the attacker, spinning savagely and moving to and fro fast enough to leave afterimages. With a single thought, he was illuminated from head to toe by his own psychic energies. He shot into the air at blinding speed, and dispatched all of the bolts overhead with his damask greatsword. Lena responded by adding her own energies to his, and he was upon the attacker faster than the naked eye could see. The powerful and mysterious young man raised both arms and struggled against Rosh’s incredible strength. Elijah peeled himself from the wall, then ran to the site of the battle and lent Rosh his strength, putting his hands near the base of Rosh’s sword and pushing with all of his might. The young man’s knee buckled, but he did not quite give in at that point. Eric appeared in the doorway. “Step off my man, freak!”, he screamed, and fired a single bullet. Unable to move to dodge or block the shot, the young man’s forehead absorbed the force. It didn’t shatter his skull, but the temporary shock was enough to make his arms give. With the combined strength of Rosh, Lena, and Elijah behind it, the damask blade seared slowly through the young man’s body. Black and green globs of body fluid ran to the ground as the sword went slowly down from the young man’s forehead to his crotch, finally bisecting him. The halves fell to the ground, unmoving. Lena examined the remains, then sparked up a powerful flame to consume them. “Just to be certain.”, she said to the others. Elijah wanted to protest, to say that they could check out the remains to figure out what this enemy was and where it came from, but he fell silent and simply nodded along with everybody else. The flabbergasted couple of perfectly normal humans stumbled over to their saviors, dumbstruck, and gave them a silent group hug. The six of them headed into the shelter together.
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