Six Alien Ships: First Timers

Having survived the explosion of his ship, Tom managed to convince the Vinto on the ship that he had newly arrived on that he was one of them, after subtly knocking Marcus out so that he couldn’t reveal the truth. As they were marching through the enemy ship, Tom noticed that a couple of the Vinto trailed off with Amanda’s and Marcus’ unconscious bodies, presumably taking them to a more appropriate medical facility.

Very quickly, it became apparent that the mothership that they were on was one of the other targets for one of the other teams. Although this didn’t become completely clear until they passed by a lookout ridge, out of which he could see the town of Newton Abbot. From the lookout, Tom and his adopted squad of Vintos were given disintegrating rifles and tasked with heading off the current attack by the “Natives” that were heading towards the engine room.

‘Alright,’ the soldier in charge of the lookout begun. ‘There are two of those Protector freaks that Josh explained to us about.  We’ve gotten reports that the London and Moscow motherships have been destroyed, and the Washington ship seems to be blowing up and then coming back. All three of these attacks have been orchestrated by the Protectors. Because of this the engine room has been sealed tight, but your job is to make sure that these two protectors can’t cause any more harm. Understood?’

‘Sir yes sir,’ Tom and the other soldiers responded calmly.

‘Now move out!’ he ordered before Tom and the others began making their way towards the last known location of the two protectors.

Tom quickly realised that they would come up on his friends’ flank, as such once he felt like he was close enough to his friends that he could find them and help them destroy the ship, he began picking off his fellow squadmates.

To begin with he swung left, forming a knife in the process, and struck the Vinto there in the throat before tearing it up and into his skull before allowing him to drop silently to the floor. However he was already dust before he landed, allowing his death to go unnoticed until Tom wanted the others to know. Grabbing the dead Vinto’s weapon, Tom caught up to his teammates and began following the remaining Vinto as they closed in on the protectors’ location.

As the enclosed to within one turn of protectors, Tom leant forwards and asked the Vinto in front of him whose flank was currently uncovered. To which he replied that it was the protectors. Tom then pointed at one of the doors to a small storage cupboard and points out that he may have heard something come from the other side of the door. Having no reason to doubt Tom’s loyalty after watching him rescue Marcus and Amanda, the soldier slowly crept towards the cupboard door and swung the door open.

            ‘Well no one in here,’ the soldier whispered as Tom quickly did another check of the rest of the squad.

Once he was sure that the coast was clear, he pushed the Vinto into the cupboard, covering his mouth while also stabbing him with a small temporal knife that caused the Vinto to begin aging out from the point where he was stabbed. As the final portion of him turned to dust Tom turned back and shut the cupboard and sneaking back to the rest of the squad who had begun constructing a plan that Tom believed would never work, even if he weren’t in the group.

Once they were ready they turned around the corner and began slowly advancing along the right wall. Tom remained around the corner when one of the Vintos noticed the absence of the other two.

            ‘Hey, weren’t we two stronger when we started?’ he asked.

            ‘No,’ Tom smiled. ‘You weren’t ever anything strong.’

            ‘What?’

            ‘I saved Amanda to prevent her from forming a time loop over London,’ Tom chuckled. ‘Now, you think too much. So your turn,’ Tom face turned from happy and joking to dead serious as he formed a sword in his right hand and decapitated the Vinto in one fluent move. ‘As we split the power between us, the erasing is becoming much less thorough. He shouldn’t have remembered them enough to stop and question it.’

Shaking it off for a thought later on down the line, Tom moved on with the two rifles and then steadied them at the remaining members of the squad as they moved into position along the corridor. ‘Check your flank arseholes!’ Tom yelled as he used his superspeed and ability to slow down time to ensure that he wasn’t hit by any of the bullets while all of his met their targets.

Up at the other end of the corridor, Felix poked his head around the corner after hearing all of the gunfire. ‘Tom?’ he questioned when his eyes focused on the only biological form in the corridor. ‘What are you doing?’

            ‘Taking out your ambush,’ Tom smiled as he supersped up to Felix. ‘You’re welcome.’

            ‘How were you even in a position to know of the ambush?’

            ‘The Vinto who they’ve induced with our powers…’ Tom started. ‘They’ve only had our powers for a couple of days. Which was what that stab of pain was. When Emma’s ship blew up, the Vinto on that ship accidently formed a time loop to protect herself. I had to get the other Vinto off of my ship since they weren’t moving. So I grabbed them and went through the teleporter with them in order to ensure the destruction of the ship.’

            ‘And they didn’t kill you?’

            ‘They thought I was on their side, I’d just saved one of their Queen’s daughters and her second in command,’ Tom elaborated. ‘They were both unconscious and so couldn’t protest.’

            ‘And now you’re here,’ Felix noted. ‘Come on, engine room this way.’

            ‘Don’t bother,’ Tom explained. ‘Gravity Core is the same distance that way.’

            ‘Why not just blow it out of the sky?’ Felix questioned as a wave of fire blew past them.

            ‘Because they’ve barricaded it,’ Tom explained. ‘We won’t get through it before they are on top of us with reinforcements.’

            ‘Okay,’ Felix nodded. ‘Emily! Gravity Core!’

            ‘Got it,’ she responded simply as the wave of fire came to a halt next to them. ‘Hey. This ain’t your ship,’ she chuckled before turning and running for the new target.

The trio thus rushed towards the gravity core room, encountering very little resistance. After Tom disabled the gravity core and sent the ship into free fall, he turned to realised that they had been entirely surrounded by Vinto soldiers.

            ‘Too many,’ Emily stated as she formed a small ball of fire in each hand. ‘Plan?’

            ‘You each have my powers right?’ Tom questioned. ‘I gave you each my powers. So you two superspeed out of here and I’ll make sure that they can’t reactivate the gravity core.’

            ‘What if you can’t get out?’ Emily questioned.

            ‘I’ll get out,’ Tom winked. ‘Go.’

They obliged and sped from the room faster than the Vinto could react while Tom slowly inserted his knife into the console and tore it downwards, destroying it before it could be used to reactivate the core.

            ‘I’m looking for the one named Josh!’ Tom called into the masses. When Josh appeared Tom froze time for the entire planet, leaving only him, Josh and Lisa’s time loop in movement. ‘You created two monsters. Undo it.’

            ‘What makes them any different to what you are?’ Josh challenged.

            ‘They would’ve left me on that ship, regardless of the consequences!’ Tom retorted back. ‘We feel, that is our advantage and weakness. They don’t feel so they won’t reflect on the impact of their actions.’

            ‘Okay, so your better. What was the thing that seemed to attack their minds?’ Josh quizzed.

            ‘Some weird fourth dimensional being that is using out ability to control time as an entrance point into this reality,’ Tom explained. ‘We receive our powers at birth and so we have a natural instinct to resist it. They don’t.’

            ‘That girl did, and the black haired boy who made off with the air controlling protector who laid waste to Moscow along with our forces,’ Josh explained.

            ‘Sorry. Made of with?’ Tom questioned.

            ‘Yeah, it did not look like it was with the consent of the girl though,’ Josh shrugged. ‘Now, why were the humans able to resist it and not the Vinto?’

            ‘Because Jamie was already insane and only wanted to kill me, and he was already fighting his own internal demons…he’s not completely there,’ Tom chuckled. ‘Faye only wanted to survive, and would keep running forever, she would be completely useless to the deity.’

Without saying another word, Tom used his superspeed to transfer the conversation to a teleporter. ‘Go. Fix what you have broken,’ Tom ordered before disappearing in a blur. Slowly time began to return to everyone. Josh quickly escaped through the teleporter while Tom, Emily and Felix attempted to outrun the ship that was slowly collapsing above them.

When the ship collided with the ground, it let our a shockwave that sent Tom, Emily and Felix flying across the car park that they had come to and into an empty school bus, knocking it onto its side.