Rijohe
“It’s something to do with his myelin sheath,” his AI Bot spoke to him with irritation in their tone. “It’s giving him some extra, resistance, or something. It’s not just him. Some of these apes are hard to control.”
“What’s some? How many?” Rijohe asked. The invasion had to go off perfectly. If it didn’t the consequences would be devastating for their people. His symbiote stirred but didn’t flare out thankfully.
“Less than 1% for now. Check on the rest of your-,” the AI replied.
“Oh wait. I’m getting a lot of messages. Oh no.”
****
I woke up with the worst headache of my life.
“Mr. Beasley we’re absolutely not cool anymore man,” I grunted. I opened my eyes to the roach infested storm shelter on 8th street. And to 10 other faces looking at me not saying a word. Or blinking. None of them seemed to be Mr. Beasley, or anyone I recognized for that matter. I looked down and I didn’t seem to be bound, I was laying on a small shelter bed with a thin sheet over me. I tried to stand but it turns out I couldn’t move my legs. That didn’t seem right. I told my legs to move again. Still nothing.
“Seems like an awkward time to bring this up but my legs don’t seem to be working well gang,” I said. “Dirty Larry you in here? Can you give me a hand maybe?”
No one answered. The faces kept staring at me. One finally blinked. I strained against my foot and got nothing. It felt like I had a mental block telling me to leave my foot alone. Instead, with as much will as possible, I pushed. Finally after what seemed to be ten minutes I was able to shift my right toe a little. One of the faces gave a squirm. I felt an intense pain like a nail going through my temple, but I kept pushing against the little bit of my toe until I was able to push my whole foot off the side of the bed. I heard a distant sound like an envelope opening. Two of the weird people's faces twisted in agony.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Yeah are y’all ok? Did you eat some of Dirty Larry’s chili maybe? Larry? You feeding these folks your nasty chili?” I yelled in a panic. Whatever was going on I needed to get out of here as fast as possible. I was able to move my right leg but my left was having a lot more trouble. Every inch of movement was a wave of mental agony. What the fuck is this I thought.
“Well it’s been great getting to know y’all and please thank Mr. Beasley for getting me here but I have to go see my folks. Whelp.” I slapped my knees which gave me the last jolt needed to move both legs free of…whatever it was and I got up and ran. The face people were on the floor writhing by that point and I heard a lot of envelopes opening.
“Do uh, you have a lot of mail services going on during the apocalypse?” I asked out loud to whoever seemed to be opening the mail. No one answered me as I ran out of the shelter.
“I can’t believe you’re an actual Legion Challenger” someone said as I looked for the way home. My parents house wasn’t too far from the shelter thankfully I could make it before nightfall.
“Ooookay that was creepy. Hello? Mr. Mailman?” I asked looking around. There were a few panicked looking people in the streets and of course the constant shimmering in the skies.
“Hello Jon. You passed the control test. This is a shock to us as well. One in ten thousand invasions. And of course it had to happen right when we couldn’t afford it to happen. You're to be a legion challenger” The disembodied voice went on and on.
I was extremely confused. No one was near me besides the creepy faced people writhing behind me at the shelter.
“I thought the schizophrenia started with inside voices?” I asked sadly.
A small metal sphere appeared a foot from my head. It had some etched blue runes on it or something I couldn’t really understand. The runes seemed to “shift” back and forth as it spoke to me.
“Is this better you random backwards imbecilic monkey?” It asked me slowly. I was a bit appalled. The magic ball was a little rude if were being honest.
“Um I’m sorry. I quit the bean challenge or whatever Mister Ball. I just want to check on my parents and friends. Some aliens are maybe coming,” I told him, trying to not offend the magic floating ball. The ball seemed like it was going to explode. It turned a shade of red for a minute and started to glow fiercely if that was possible.
“Yes. Challenger Jon. That is correct. We, the Kwitle, have come to invade your planet. Unfortunately, our normal traditional way of invasion has run into a "snag" as you say. Every 10,000 invasions we run into a species that can “challenge” the current invader’s invasion scheme of choice. We chose to utilize Legion. It seems that some of you are able to resist. So according to intergalactic law we must offer the challenge. As I said, welcome challenger, to the Legion’s Challenge."