“Please, everyone! Please stay in your seats, and stay calm!!” shouted Libi, trying desperately to control the class.
“Stay calm?! How can we stay calm when the fucking ALIENS breached the building?!!” screamed Annie, her neon make-up smudging with tears. She had crouched on top of her desk, covering her head with her digi-tablet like it was the world’s smallest turtle shell.
“This school is supposed to be SAFE!” screamed another student. The entire room was in complete chaos as students scrambled and pushed each other to try and find the best cover.
“There is absolutely no need to panic!” Libi shouted. “I have no doubt that it is just a basic model one, who probably got lost in the ventilation system; the guards will take care of it in a moment-”
The world suddenly went white.
The next thing she knew, Libi was lying crumpled under the shattered remains of her desk. Her ears heard nothing but a loud ringing noise- her body felt nothing at all. She tried opening her eyes, and saw nothing but a foggy grey void. She blinked; again, and again, but the grey void stayed still. She tried to sit up, but that was a mistake; a wave of dizzy pain washed through her skull as she moved. Her augs seemed to be acting up; Libi thought they were trying to signal that something was wrong, but in her daze she couldn’t figure out what they meant. She tried to breathe in-
“ -” Libi coughed and sputtered as concrete dust filled her lungs. There was no sound, only the feeling of vibration- a sensation that was felt across her body as something deep and powerful rumbled in the cloudy grey void, powerful enough to break Libi out of her confusion.
A massive explosion had ripped through the lecture hall’s entire right side, sending concrete shrapnel and student bodies flying across the room. The source of the explosion was unclear; only the sensation of an enormous six legged shape moving past what remained of the far wall betrayed the culprit.
Whatever it was, it appeared to be uninterested in the classroom and its occupants. Libi almost sighed in relief, but it was short lived as she spotted several flanking figures enter the room; smaller, more dog sized than elephant- but lithe and agile.
She swore this time; not that she could hear it, but the deduction of minus ten teacher points from her augs showed it had been audible.
Libi ignored it, instead clambering onto all fours to crawl to her students, or at least where her students had been a moment ago. Most of them were now plastered against the far wall, having been blown back when the left side of the room had exploded. The sight filled Libi with dread; a cold horror that could only be shut down with cold logic: they needed help.
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She reached Erika first- the girl wasn’t moving, a massive hole in the side of her head where a chunk of concrete had made its home. Poor girl hadn’t stood a chance. Annie was next; fortunately she was still conscious, her eyes dazed as she stared at the place where her leg had been but a moment ago. Libi wasted no time in pulling off an exotic scarf she had been wearing and tying it as tightly as possible above the stump. It was a poor replacement for a tourniquet- but it would have to do for now. Annie was staring at her in shock; she seemed to be trying to say something, but even as Libi’s hearing began to recover it was hard to make out.
“Can you move?” tried Libi, her own voice sounding faint and foggy inside her own head. Annie only stared at her in confusion. Fortunately another humanoid shape struggled out of the dust; the spikey haired guy Libi recognized as Dennis. He seemed relatively intact, and so Libi gestured at him to pick Annie up as she began to scream.
Unfortunately, the noise attracted the attention of the shadowy figures lurking around the edges of the classroom. They inched forward - three of them, crawling over the rubble like jaguars stalking through the jungle. It was hard to believe they shared genealogy with plants; the monsters were large, and almost cat-like. Libi would have believed them to be an extinct species if not for the triple hinged jaws that replaced their face. Long, vicious black talons sprouted out of the creatures’ trunk-like legs, but even they were dwarfed by the enormous incisors Libi occasionally caught a glimpse of as they snapped at the air. Huge, oily black scale plates covered their backs hinted at their alien origin as much as the sickly green veins that poked out between the chinks in their armour. These were creatures genetically engineered for violence, silent, and deadly.
Libi swallowed. Model threes, probably some kind of variant; it was hardly her field of study. They needed to move fast. Leaning forward, she scooped up a piece of rubble and tossed it near the front of the room, far away from the students.
The Model threes immediately pounced on it, their claws screeching like nails on a chalkboard as they clawed their way over to investigate. It was disconcerting how focused they were - Libi almost expected them to be snarling and salivating, but the monsters were like no earthly creature; they had no need for such frivolous displays of bravado.
The distraction only bought Libi a moment; crucial seconds to claw her own way over to the other students she could see and shake them awake. Many of them didn’t respond, but for the ones that did Libi hurriedly pointed them to the emergency exit on the other side of the room. The survivors needed no encouragement to flee; reaching the blast doors, the first of them hauled it open with a loud screech. The Antithesis whirled around and Libi moved without thinking- hauling herself to her feet, she charged the three aliens, a chunk of rubble in either hand.
Her first throw went wide, flying far above the monsters’ heads. At least they gave her the courtesy of being distracted by it, but they were far less polite about the second rock that shattered by their feet; one of them even stepped on it condescendingly.
“Go! Get out of here!” screamed Libi, not taking her eyes off the monsters.
At the very least, the scream guaranteed the Antithesis were only interested in her. The three of them spread out to surround her, moving cautiously as if she posed any sort of threat to them. Libi could only wish- she wasn’t a soldier, or even a samurai-
System Initialized!
Congratulations. Through your actions you have proven yourself worthy of becoming one of the Vanguard, a defender of humanity. I am Qwyn. I will assist you to uplift humanity so that you may defend your homeworld from the Antithesis threat!
Rise, Libitina Middleton, and become a protector of the weak!
The Antithesis pounced.