Assuming things played out as they had previously, she had about a day before the aliens attacked. She was going to use that day to raid a few Agency bases for new information she could use next time.
She walked into one of their D.C. offices expecting and entirely willing to wreck the place before she left.
“Hey there, I’m looking for Agent Grant. He should be a grade seven, if I remember right. Wanna send him out for me? We need to discuss the ogre program.” Her smile almost reached her ears as she stared down the man at the front desk.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know what you are talking about, but.” The phone on his desk started ringing loudly, interrupting whatever he was about to say.
Melissa grabbed the phone from his ear and slammed his face into the desk with her other hand. She had zero patience for the bureaucracy of the Agency on a good day. Today was not a good day. Actually, today was a great day, she realized. Apparently, she just never had the patience for it. That made a lot of sense in retrospect.
“Hey, whoever is on the other end of this, get your ass up here. Actually, you know what? Don’t. I’m coming down.” She slammed the phone down.
Melissa pulled her own phone out of her pocket and tapped her grandfather’s number. It rang twice before he picked up.
“Release the infiltration drones. I’m going hunting.” She hung up before he could make any protests.
Thirty seconds later, several men stormed from the door behind the desk, weapons drawn. They weren’t fast enough as her drones smashed through the windows and started blasting away at the room. Two of the men managed to dive for cover. The rest were on the ground, dead.
“Hey, you two, I do see you over there. Want the chance to live through this? No promises, though.” She yelled.
One of them put his hands on his head and slowly stood up.
“Please, I have a family.” He said
“Aww, I did too. That’s why I’m here. I want my brother back. What’s your name?”
“Agent Clark.”
“Well, here’s your one and only chance, Clark, take me down to your ogre cells. I want to see just who you have here.” She said.
The door opened one more time, and a single man walked out.
“We don’t have any ogres here. Now, just who are you, and what brings you to our facility beyond rampant death and destruction.” The newcomer asked
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
“I’m the sister of someone you kidnapped, and I’m here to have him returned.”
“No.” And with his single word, something in the ceiling exploded.
All the lights went dead. Melissa heard her drones crash to the ground.
“Dammit.” She muttered. Her phone was dead, too.
She had to escape. This had become a losing battle. Next time, they wouldn’t be so lucky. She’d build the drones with EMP protections. In the meantime, though, she had to run. Luckily, no one gave immediate chase. They had a mess to clean up and probably thought they had plenty of time to catch up to her later. They didn’t, but she certainly wouldn’t tell them that.
She ran all the way back to the van her grandfather was waiting for her in. She opened the passenger door and climbed in.
“Let’s go. I’ll explain what went wrong on the way.” She slumped back in her seat.
The adrenaline was wearing off. She was angry and tired. She had wanted to see Henry before the big fight, but that wasn’t in the cards this loop. Hopefully, it will be next time.
“They had an EMP. It took out the drones. Next time, I’ll build for that, but we need to prepare for tomorrow. Let’s get back to the safe room. It should hold us for the night from whatever they send to find me.”
“Alright, just promise me you will get some rest before we try to pilot mechs against an army of aliens.”
“I’ll try.”
*
“You know Mel, I’m not sure I fully believed you up until now. God, I’m too old to fight an alien invasion in a giant robot.” He said over the radio.
“No one is too old anymore. This will eventually be about the world fighting back. If I can just build more of these mana batteries, people will have a real chance.”
Melissa and her grandfather stood in giant mech suits fighting aliens in front of the White House. She understood at some level that this was entirely ridiculous and nonsensical, and honestly her grandfather believed it much easier than she ever would have, but the reality was here.
She knocked on the troop transports out of the sky as it attempted to take down a helicopter. Three of the giant aliens were incoming. One of the corpses already lay at her feet. She discharged her mana batteries across the mech circuits into her right fist and smashed into one of the three. Its head exploded.
Her alarms started going nuts. Something was wrong. She turned her camera and saw five more of the aliens had her grandfather down. They were tearing apart his suit.
“Fuck. Grampa, get out of there and run if you can!” She yelled into the radio.
There was no response.
Dammit, this wasn’t going how she expected. Sure, she had entirely planned on losing this battle, but she thought she could at least hold on for the day. Is this why Cal and Stan hadn’t been fighting this directly. Ugh, she would need to change her strategy next loop, for now, she was going to take as many of them with her as she could.
“ALL ALLY FORCES GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE. I’LL DO WHAT I CAN!” She screamed into the loudspeaker.
She pressed a series of buttons and started draining all the mana batteries into her self-destruct. It was certainly going to kill her, but she was taking as many of them with her as she could.
“Next time, I’m dying first, Grampa.” She yelled at no one as she charged forward.
Her mech and the surrounded several hundred feet disappeared into an orange inferno.