Chapter 128: On Earth: A Fated Meeting
🕑 Added 2024-11-26 20:43:00 +0000 UTCAuthor's note: Next chapter is the third battle. We only have a few more times we get to check in on Nobody/Elsie/Alexander before the end.
Alexander, Lex to his friends, walked back to the Last Refuge after his daily clash with the shadow creatures. Since he first started to kill the creatures at the furthest reach of the settlement, the numbers had increased progressively as time moved forward. This most recent evening, he’d had to stop counting after the first hundred were banished back to where they’d come from.
The end result being two things.
One, he was very tired. The kind of tired that a night of sleep simply doesn’t fix.
And two, he was getting better and better at his one-liners. It was a habit he’d picked up from his wasted early teen years playing video games. As if training to be the best in gaming would ever have real-life ramifications.
The line he’d ended the evening on was still his favorite. He said it again to himself with a weary chuckle.
“You! Shall! Be! Gasss!”
It wasn’t the best, but he was getting better.
Coming down the dirt hill in a hop-skip manner, Last Refuge came into his sights. As always happened, he felt his social anxiety creeping in. He knew it was illogical. His mind held every name and every story of every person in the small settlement. He’d lived here for over a year now, working with the others to eke out a survival during the apocalypse. But still, as he grew closer, that familiar feeling came on. A light burning in his chest, a heavy weight on the back of his shoulders.
Not that the feeling would slow him down.
As he approached the village, his enhanced eyes picked up some strange occurrences. Far too many people were grouped near the gates for this early in the morning. He wasn’t sure why until he spotted the reason near the entryway, where a very large woman stood, two children beside her.
People didn’t often arrive at the gates of the Last Refuge, and usually when they did, it took several days to weeks for them to adjust. Normally that wasn’t a problem for him in particular, except this time, he thought he knew the woman standing there.
The last time he’d seen her, she’d been shaved bald and sitting on top of a tree on the outskirts of London. Admittedly, it was not the most unusual thing he’d seen since the start of the apocalypse, but still strange. She’d also had a very large weapon sitting on her broad back, something he noticed was now missing.
Not knowing what to make of it, Lex followed along his usual path, the weighty wooden club resting comfortably on his shoulder. After using the large weapon for so long, he’d grown accustomed to always having it nearby, something the Last Refuge wasn’t a fan of. But when you spent every night killing shadow monsters to protect an entire settlement unknowingly, certain accommodations needed to be respected.
As he grew closer, he began to pick up what was being said.
“Again, my name is Elsie, and this is John and Jenny. We’ve been traveling for months to get here with a warning.”
“Take your warnings and shove it where the sun don’t shine!” One of the villagers yelled out, a voice Lex knew well. Alec never could stay out of the Guinness.
“Pipe down, Alec. I’m just getting here.” Their pseudo-mayor whispered quietly. A large man picked not because of his intelligence or social understandings, but because size was now an important factor post-apocalypse. “What’s the warning Elsie.”
“Finally,” The large woman said as Lex grew ever closer, “A man is coming, the one who started everything.”
“What do you mean everything?”
“I mean, everything. All of this. The end of the world. And when he gets here, we’re all going to die. You’re the last living residents of what used to be called the United Kingdom.”
“That’s not possible.” The mayor replied, “There were millions of people living on the isles and-”
“I mean what I say.” Elsie interrupted, Lex stopping just a few meters away, “Haven’t you noticed all the animals are gone? The birds? He’s wiping out everything on the island. Soon, you’ll be the last ones left, and he’ll come for you.”
As she finished the last line, she turned around fully. As Lex’s eyes fell on her, a strange outline seemed to cover her body in pink. Lex’s overlay updated.
...
...Scanning...
Enemy champion located.
Hidden bloodline located.
Enemy champions overlay activated.
Destruction of enemy champion will bring rewards.
“What?”
“Hey, you’re that kid.” Elsie said, “Looks like you made it after all. Where’s your dad and grandma?”
“Miss Elsie, do you know him?” The little boy said by her hip.
“It’s okay, John.” She said, patting his head the way another person might pet a dog. She looked back at Lex, particularly at the club on his shoulder, “Hang on a second.”
Lex was barely paying attention. Was she the reason he was like this? The last time he’d seen his overlay update this way was around the time most of his family had been killed. That couldn’t be a coincidence.
A pulse emitted from the odd outline covering her body, his overlay updating in sync with it.
The enemy champion has chosen not to fight at this time.
No rewards can be granted without victory.
Do you accept this condition?
Warning: Selecting no can have ramifications for the opposing champion.
Yes/No
If Lex chose yes, he might get answers about everything happening here. Just by what she’d said to the mayor thus far, he understood that she had far more information than she was saying out loud. But if he chose no, there would be a fight, with the possibility that she would receive some kind of penalty for choosing not to fight in the first place.
But those kids…he called her Miss Elsie. Has she been taking care of them all along?
It raised further questions for him, pushing Lex into a form of decision paralysis. If she was dangerous, and everything within him said that she was, then this was his one chance to take her off the board. But if there was a chance that she held answers which could save the settlement and himself, then he had a responsibility to not fight.
In grey moments like this, Lex fell back on what his father would do. Not the goofy dancing, or even the self-sacrifice, something he was still conflicted over-but the testing of character.
“If you know so much, then why are you running? Aren’t you in league with the man?” Lex asked, the crowd on the other side going quiet to hear her response.
“I…” She paused, looking down at the two kids before looking back up. Lex watched as her face shifted from nervousness to resolution, “I was. He raised me, stole me, away from my parents a long time ago. I…I didn’t know that what I was doing was wrong. That he was one who started the end of the world.”
“You didn’t know?” Lex felt that warmth fade from his chest as his anxiety was long forgotten, “You didn’t know that you were killing innocent people? That my family was innocent?”
“Lex,” He heard Maria mutter on the other side of the gate.
Elsie looked back towards the gate as well, taking her eyes off of a dangerously unwinding situation before looking back at him. “So, the champion's name is Lex. Is that short for Alexander?”
“That’s short for fuck you!”
“Good one,” She said with a smirk, “I have no interest in fighting you, Lex. We need all the help we can get if we’re going to survive what’s coming.”
“Oh? And what’s coming asshole?”
“The furthering of the end of the world. From what I remember, Nobody said that shadows were only part of the initial creatures we would see. There are a few places that are holding. Places with people like you and me…Champions.”
“Champions?” He heard the mayor say, “What do you mean by champions?”
“Ask Lex over here,” she said with a nod toward the heavily breathing figure. “He knows all about it.”
“I know barely anything about it, you evil bitch.”
“Oh?” She laughed, “You haven’t unlocked any of your abilities? How are you even surviving out here?”
“Like this!” Lex pulled his club off his shoulder and covered it in his soul. Lex bunched the muscles in his legs and leaped; as he grew closer, his overlay activated.
Notice: Attacking a Champion will activate the Duel system within the Omega Protocol
There can be only one winner.
“You’ve got some spunk,” Lex heard as the speeding air blurred his vision. When his feet touched down, he looked left and right, spotting no one at all.
“How’d she do that?”
“We may want to stay on this side of the gate.”
“Like the gate would protect us from those two.”
Lex spun around at the sound of laughter, an oddly jovial sound coming from such a dark-historied woman, “You’ve got a lot to learn. Guessing most of your training up until now has been against the shadows. You won’t get far that way with the second phase.”
Elsie stood there, still at ease, both kids held on her shoulders as she laughed. The twinkle in her eye only further pissed him off.
“Fuck you!”
“Good one.” She gently deposited the kids on the ground. Although she was whispering, he clearly heard everything she said.
“I’m going to go and speak with Lex for a few minutes, kids. Don’t worry; the people at the gate won’t let any harm come to you.”
“You’re not gonna leave us, are you Miss Elsie?” The little girl said.
“No, honey. I’ll be right back.” She ruffled both kids hair then took a few quick steps away before looking back at Lex, “Follow if you can.” She said with a grin.
A pulse of pink swallowed the sight of her legs as she squatted down before leaping far into the distance. Lex tried to do the same, but his results by comparison left a lot to be admired. It took him six hops for every one of hers.
When he finally caught up to her, she stood precisely beside the fire pit where he spent every evening fighting the shadows.
“Man, there’s a lot of essence in this place.”
“Come on! Let's fight!” Lex said, far beyond words at this point. This was the woman who’d killed his mother, his aunt and uncle, and, just as surely, killed his grandmother and father. If they’d been in London all this time, they’d likely have survived. She was at fault. It was her fault!
“Hold your tits, guy,” She said, squatting to smear some of the shadow remains across the floor, “Haven’t you been absorbing this? What are you doing every night, just killing them and letting them fade away?” She shook her head with a tsk’ing sound, “So much wasted potential. No wonder they keep coming back to you. You’re like a beacon for the damned things.”
Lex’s club was already inches away from her head when she finished speaking. Infuriatingly, the woman ducked every so slightly, allowing the weapon to pass overhead. “Close one!” She said with a laugh, bounding backward. “You know, I never laughed with Mr. Nobody. It always seemed to get on his nerves.”
“It’s getting on mine right now,” Lex said with another swing, his soul still covering the club. Normally he’d cover and uncover the weapon, as it was exhausting to keep it on at all times. But he couldn’t take that chance right now. She was too fast, too sure in her movements. A mistake could cost him everything.
But on the third dodge with no counterattack, Lex was growing further and further confused. “Do you even know how to absorb all of this? Just breathe it in. Like,” She pointed her head at the soot covered ground, breathing in deeply. A great swathe of the ash flew into her mouth, causing a laughing cough to emit from her, “It’s good stuff man.”
“Stop eating my enemies!” Lex said as he swung with all abandon, putting every ounce of his muscle into it. Elsie dodged a fourth time with a laugh.
“You know if I let that touch me, we have to fight to the death, right? If we try not to fight, the system will end up killing us both. I’ve seen it happen.”
“Bugger you, you need to die! And if it takes me with it, I’d call that worth it!”
“Ah, but I can’t. I’ve got kids to take care of, plus.” She leaped over his fifth swing, easily clearing the area below and landing on the other side of the firepit, “Someone needs to teach you how to do all this shit. Admittedly, I only figured it out a few months ago, but that’s time saved for you.” She picked up a small rock, hefting it and tossing it lightly in the air, “Are you sure I can’t convince you not to fight right now?”
“You deserve to die!”
Elsie nodded with a sad smile, “That I do. But not yet.” Lifting the rock, she side-arc threw it towards another just behind him. The next thing Alexander knew, he was on the ground, the sky growing dark.
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Alexander woke up to a rock digging into his back.
“What?”
“Shhh, calm down,” The familiar voice of Maria said right next to him, “Miss Elsie came dragging you back a few hours ago. We’ve already gathered everyone together.”
Lex sat up, feeling the large bump on the back of his head, “What? Why?”
“We’re leaving. Miss Elsie was very persuasive. Especially when she lifted a car straight over her head and threw it out of the settlement. The Mayor said we’ve got better odds surviving with her than without, so we’re going to tag along. But she gave us a strict condition for her protection.”
Lex tried to still the angry beat of his heart, “What’s the condition?”
“That we protect John and Jenny…and you, Lex.”
“Motherfucker,” He replied. Attempting to stand up was a bad idea, as he instantly felt woozy and had to sit back down. “She’s a killer, Maria. She killed my parents.”
“I know,” Maria said, and Lex wasn’t shocked to see tears in her eyes, “She told us everything. Lex, he kidnapped her when she was a kid. As in, a kid, kid. She didn’t know any better.”
“That doesn’t excuse anything!” Lex mistakenly yelled out, as he had to grab the sides of his head to still its pounding, “She’s a-”
“We know Lex, but it’s our survival. You know?” He felt a small soft hand stroke the side of his head, “You’ve gotta come with us Lex, or she won’t take us with her. Please don’t fight. I don’t know if you’d win, and even if you did, it wouldn’t help us any.”
He sucked in the air past his teeth. Everyone around him was busy, grabbing items and putting them on makeshift carts. They’d never had a lot of food, just enough to get by, but now it was all being loaded up for travel.
Beyond his position on the ground, the Mayor was talking to someone, Elsie judging by the voice responding, about the direction they were going to move in. She was explaining that they had to get to India, with the Mayor calling over Louise, a former travel agent from Cambridge.
They were making plans, while his family was buried in the dead Earth, along with all the others.
Someone stroked his hair again, “Please don’t fight her, Lex. I overheard the Mayor earlier. Things weren’t going well before she arrived. He and a few others were already talking about leaving. You could almost call this fate.”
“Fate is for people who lack imagination,” Lex replied testily, something his grandmother had once said to him.
“Maybe it is,” Maria said, Lex just catching the soft smile on her face, ‘Or maybe it means things have lined up so well that imagination is no longer needed. I don’t know. But I do know we need to leave, and she seems to be the Last Refuge’s only hope.”
The crowd parted long enough for Lex to spot Elsie near the mayor, both kids back on her shoulders. As if sensing him, she turned and looked his way. He tried to bury the anger he felt when she winked.
