“There will be serious repercussions for your unacceptable behavior!” Mr. Canard shoved Martin and Alexa into a small room.
“Take a bath, you savage!” The girl growled.
“No backpacks.” The gym teacher declared, roughly pulling the pink backpack off Alexa.
“Hey! Give that back, my supplies are...!” She yelped, as a metal door slammed into her face.
“Wait here, while I get the Vice principal.” The gym teacher turned a key, locking the annoyed girl villain and the incredibly distraught boy hero in the waiting room. The room featured a single metal bench that faced the Vice principal’s office, separated from it by another door and a large glass panel reinforced with a thin metal mesh.
“Welp. I’m extra boned now.” Alexa rubbed her face where it had been impacted by the metal door. “This is fine… I just need to.. Uhhh…”
"I don't understand." Martin spoke up. "How did you take me to 2424? You have a power that throws you randomly into the future?!"
Alexa lifted her weird bracelet to Martin's eyes. "It's part of a time machine system. Built by my father."
“What!? Why would anyone in their right mind repeatedly send their daughter into the future? Why not send a drone or something?!” Martin gasped at Alexa. "Does he not know what's out there?!"
"I think that when I was young and foolish… I must have acted out, disobeyed him and so he erased my memory, strapped this bracelet to my wrist and sent me 400 years forward, into that city of death. He cast me there… all alone, to grow up, to learn how to fight. He likely wanted to teach me how to be a cunning, fearless, perfect villain. That was his education, see?"
"You think? What? I don't..."
"I woke up with this damn bracelet on me in this damn town outside of Saint Mary's cathedral when I was eleven, okay? Okay!" Alexa hissed. "I don't remember much from before then."
Martin raised his eyes at the girl, feeling beyond sorry for her, beginning to understand her with dawning horror. He looked at the scratches all over her bracelet. Alexa followed his gaze.
"I can't get the bracelet off me. Believe me, I tried - it's made of some sort of indestructible bullshit. I don't know how to make it stop. I was only able to add a 25 second warning timer to it. See?” She tapped at the flimsy-looking, duct taped extra bits sitting atop the shiny, slightly transparent, black hexagons. Blue lights twinkled within the dark depths of the bracelet.
“But that's so…” Martin whispered.
“Evil? Nefarious? He’s a supervillain. Were you expecting butterflies and sunshine? Father says - hard times create strong men. He says experiencing the year 2424 in person... builds character." Alexa muttered, shuddering ever so slightly.
"...mad," Martin finished. "No sane person would do something so cruel and pointless!"
"No. When I was ready, I understood that I was entrusted to change the future. Father can't rely on anyone else for this monumental task. Nobody else is worthy. He told me - Alexa, you need to help me figure out how to prevent the end of everything.” She sighed. “I think... I kind of suck at it though. I haven’t gotten very far and now I’m set way back due to the lack of the raygun and backpack.”
“Your raygun gives me a mild migraine! What use is it in there?!” Martin started to pace back and forth in worry and frustration.
“Well… what’s a mild migraine for you, is actually quite painful for skinwalkers.” Alexa explained. “Sometimes tech doesn’t work the same out there as it does here. Some stuff is kinda really whack in 2424. That’s why I suspect a wizard. Magical apocalypse, sounds cool right?”
“I see.” Martin sighed, feeling quite distraught.
“Yeppers, you screwed me big time. No raygun for Alex! No nail gun, no sonic screwdriver or anything! Like, gee thanks a whole bunch.” She glared at him.
“Look, I said I’m sorry.”
“Apologies ain’t gonna stop skinwalkers, pal.”
“Look, I’ll figure something out.” Martin wrung his hands.
“Yep. I’m locked in a very small room with none of my equipment, depending upon an idiot with no plan. Fantastic.” Her wrist beeped.
“Here we go again,” She sighed. “Welp, toodles.”
Martin grabbed her hand.
“What are you doing, you infernal moron?”
“I’m holding your hand.”
“I can see that. Why?”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Look, I took you there the first time because I wanted to teach you a lesson. You were way obsessed with the whole town signs thing. I showed you that you were wrong. Now we are done." She tried to push his hand away. Martin refused to budge. He would not abandon a girl to be slaughtered by monsters.
"Seriously! Let go! I don’t think you're gonna survive another trip, especially when I ain't got my backpack full of things to keep the skinwalkers away!”
Martin persistently clung to her hand. Alexa closed her eyes in resignation. The world rapidly darkened. Martin blinked. He couldn't see anything. The room was pitch black.
“Friggin idiot boy.” Alexa clicked something on her helmet. A flickering light appeared atop her hardhat, cutting through the darkness. Disturbed ashes floated in the beam. Martin gulped.
“You can let go of my hand now.”
“Oh… right.” Martin awkwardly released Alexa’s hand.
“Righty-o. Please, aid me,” the villain jumped off the metal bench, grabbing and shaking it back and forth.
“What are you doing?”
“Breaking this bench, obviously.”
“Why?”
“So we can break that reinforced window. Are you always this slow?”
“Can’t we just quietly hide in this room?”
“No. They can smell humans and doors don’t hold them back for very long. Conclusion - hiding is bad. Running is good. Running really fast is better. Jumping in irregular patterns in a wide, open space is optimal. Why do you think I wear jump shoes all the time? You think they’re a fashion statement? Lift the damn bench, minion!”
Martin grabbed at the bench and the ancient, long rusted metal groaned under their combined pull.
“I’m a hero, not a minion.” He said, bending the bench back and forth with her.
“Really? You… a hero? Pfff ha ha ha ha. Yeah, right. What’s your power?”
“Some heroes don’t manifest their power till they’re ...twenty.” Martin muttered. It was when his dad got his power. He was a late bloomer and Martin expected the same.
“Right then. Come back in six years. Now wiggle this bench! Wiggle it like your life depends on it, which it freaking does!” Alexa hissed.
A horrid noise came from the hallway, sounding like a hundred violins scraping against each other.
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“Crap! One of them is onto us! Wiggle that bench, M! Put your whole back into it!” Alexa hissed louder. Martin pushed and pulled. A boom resounded outside of the metal door as something large smashed into it, the metal bending inward with a screech, drywall and tiles raining from the ceiling.
“Freaking hell! Hurry!” The villainess yelped.
Martin was sweating bullets. He shoved the bench with his entire being, putting all of himself into it and it finally snapped off from its base, nearly dropping on their feet. Martin heaved the bench upwards aiming for the glass window. A dark claw came through the metal door, long fingers rapidly growing in length, striking through open air with a sound akin to that of rapid gunfire. One of the claws shot across Alexa’s thigh, slicing deep into it.
“Arsshhhiittt!” She hissed.
Martin slammed the bench into the window and its frame cracked, the reinforced glass crashing into the darkness of the vice principal’s office, ancient dust billowing everywhere. The fingers of the skinwalker began to retreat back into themselves, readying for another shot. Martin noticed them and froze like a deer in the headlights, unable to move.
Alexa's fight or flight reaction was far better, she jumped forward, then back again with an impressive twist, bounced off the wall and grabbed Martin by his shirt as she flew upward. The shoes flung both of them through the broken window and into the Vice Principal’s office beyond it.
Alexa rolled out of her landing, having let go of Martin and limped towards the outside leading window, looking out at the decrepit ruins of Saint Mary. It was a long way down. At least 3 floors.
“What now?” Martin groaned, getting off the dust-covered floor.
Alexa grabbed at a very raggedy curtain, ripping it from the pole. “Synthetic cloth. Takes hundreds of years to decompose. Even longer without microorganisms.”
“Why is this relevant?” Martin whimpered, twitching every time the skinwalker slammed itself against the door. He heard fingers punching through metal like it was made of paper.
“I chatter when I’m stressed, okay? Get off my back!” Alexa hissed, her leg bleeding heavily. Martin watched her rapidly tie two curtains to each other, attaching the end to a metal shelf next to the window.
“You’re pretty good with knots, huh?” He said, walking towards the window and looking down.
“I’ve done this before.” She flung the curtain out of the window. “Shoot. It’s a few meters short. Whate...”
A porcupine-like sphere made entirely from oily, black hands rolled into the room. Alexa shoved Martin out of the window just as the hand-sphere detonated with finger-spikes expanding all over the office, cutting through everything in sight. Martin grabbed at the curtain, sliding down.
He watched in horror as the obsidian finger-spikes retreated through Alexa’s body. The bleeding girl pitched forward and fell from the window. There was a smile on her face as she passed over him, smashing into the ground below, the light of her helmet flickering and winking out.
“No!” Martin slid down the curtain, dropping a few meters down to the ground. His feet gave out as he landed. He didn’t care for the pain in his joints, adrenaline pumping through his body. He crawled towards the bleeding girl.
“Alex… Alex… I’m sorry. Please, be alive,” he whispered, grabbing at her. His hands came back covered in blood. She didn’t answer.
“No no no!” Martin shook the girl. “Wake up, you have to wake up! Please! WAKE UP!”
An impossible, dark monstrosity emerged from the window above him, a hundred hands gripping the window frame. It wailed ominously, its cry piercing the omnipresent twilight. Hundreds of other skinwalkers across the city responded, joining, adding to the abominable song of inhuman shrieking and howling.
Alexa's bracelet beeped.
Martin desperately tried to feel for a heartbeat. She didn’t have one. She wasn’t breathing. Her eyes were open, unblinking, transfixed into the murky sky, staring past him, cracks of burst capillaries sinking into the lifeless void of her pupil. Something snapped inside Martin as he finally realized that the girl in his arms was dead. He knew then that he would never hear her voice again, never be told another dumb joke, never be called Mittens again. He clung to her rapidly cooling body, weeping as thousands of abominations all around him sung an alien symphony of despair.
. . .
He was suddenly bathed in blinding, brilliant light. He was on the ground outside, lying on unbelievably green grass and holding Alexa. Her heart was beating. She was alive! It was a miracle!
“Well, that freaking hurt something awful,” she groaned.
“But… you… died. I watched you die!” Martin sputtered. He hugged her, crying. “You’re alive! I can’t believe it! YOU’RE OKAY!”
“Yeah, no thanks to you,” she groaned beneath him. “I got you out of the building, but totes got porcupined. A little slow, Alex. Should have been faster. Getting old. Getting sloppy. Okay, you can get off me now, Mittens.”
“How? How are you alive?!” Martin cried, feeling that his throat was starting to get sore from constant shouting.
“Even if I get grievously injured or die out there... here I am fine. Daddums wouldn't want me dead, you see. I'm his biggest project. Sadly, I only partially understand how his tech works. The whole setup is really high-end villain stuff, built by a whole consortium of brainy supers and run by a very smart computer system. Time travel is mostly whack non-euclidian math. I’m no good at that transtemporal algebra biz.” The girl shrugged it all off, as if constant time traveling and dying horribly wasn’t a big deal.
“Huh?” Martin wiped his eyes.
“The temporal-jump bracelet is likely tied to the reactor beneath the cathedral and the triangulation antennas that father buried in this city.” She spoke “As long as they remain intact, I won’t get flung into empty space or become smeared across infinity, what with all this silly flapping back and forth between the future and the present.”
Martin wasn’t listening. He stared at her silver hair up close in the sunlight. It was silver all the way down to her roots. He remembered hearing it in a song once - a car accident made a kid’s hair turn white due to stress.
"Your hair… it's not bleached at all, is it?" He whispered.
“Yeah.” Alexa smiled sadly. “Got blessed with Marie Antoinette syndrome, courtesy of Skinwalker Inc. hair parlor.”
Another realization struck a blow into his conscience, cracking it wide open. Humanity was dust and bones. There was only one living person in the future - Alexa.
“I saw no survivors in 2424, only bones,” he muttered. “The giant skinwalker. It was wearing loads of fresh skins. How?”
“Yeah. Those used to belong to me,” she confessed with a sigh. “Mr. Noodles is quite the collector.”
As Martin gazed into her tired, pale, silver eyes, he understood something rather dreadful. Those silver eyes of hers looked much older than she initially seemed. Hers were the eyes of someone endlessly killed for god knows how many extra years, forced to grow up alone in that distant future.
Behind those mercurial eyes he saw an ocean of pain, purpose and… persistence. She was utterly determined to keep pushing forward to save the world - all by herself. She didn’t care how many times she died, but it did wear her out, carve her from within, breaking her bit by bit. Her wisecracking attitude was just a facade, a wall hiding a deep well of unbearable sorrow, of a girl haunted by responsibility, a mission far too great for someone so young.
Martin hugged her tighter, crying.
“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! I didn’t know! I DIDN’T KNOW!” He wept, unable to imagine the incomprehensible level of torture she’s likely endured.
“Hey. It’s alright, dawg,” Alexa said. “Honestly, it’s no biggie. Mr. Handsphere only made like 20 new holes in my lungs. I bet it just wanted to bless me with some speed holes for improved breathing, see? Plus 10 in air intake,” she inhaled deeply.
“Christ, you’re incorrigible,” Martin smiled. “What are you doing? I was trying to make you feel better, but you’re always somehow one-upping me in the feel better department.”
“And why wouldn't I? Just look at all this beautiful sunshine!” Alexa pointed out, shoving Martin off her. “You learn to appreciate it much more after the spooky rollercoaster of getting stabbed in the heart and falling three floors down.”
For a few minutes Martin quietly sat on the grass, looking at the green trees as they whispered and swayed in the summer breeze, enjoying the warmth of sun rays breaking through occasional white clouds.
He smiled at Alexa and for the first time thought of her not as a villain or a victim, but as a friend. As someone whom he finally understood.
“You! How did you get outside?! Delinquents! Trying to skip school on MY watch?!” Mr. Canard roared. He was holding a sandwich, likely trying to enjoy early lunch or late breakfast in the schoolyard.
“Run?” Alexa inquired.
“Run,” Martin confirmed.
They took off, with Mr. Canard chasing after them, flailing his sandwich like a deadly weapon, lettuce and pepperoni slices flying in the wind behind him.
“Wait up!” Martin panted, watching the girl accelerate away on her jump shoes, leaping over obstructions with trained ease. This skill didn’t come to her naturally, he knew now - she wasn’t a super with incredible agility. She must have had years of practice escaping from monsters in those raggedy-looking shoes of hers.
“Brb!” She shouted, vanishing behind a fence. Mr. Canard reached Martin with the ease of his long, well-trained legs. He opened a hand, ready to grab him, when Alexa came down from the sky like a flying meteor.
“Sheeshah! Pocket sand!” She yelled, swinging a fistful of sand into Mr. Canard’s face. The blinded teacher tried to grab at her, but she was already bouncing away.
“Ha ha! I always wanted to do that! Too bad pocket sand doesn’t work on Skinwalkers.” She laughed rambunctiously. “Come on, landlubber! Use those pasty legs!”
Mr. Canard tried to follow the voice of the rapidly bouncing girl and tripped on a concrete ledge, falling on his face.
“Avast! The muscle-man is down!” She spun in the air, skirt fluttering, her safety vest glittering in the brilliant sunshine like a thousand orange stars. Martin stared at the twirling girl with his mouth open. Where a less persistent person already would break under the strain, she simply bent a bit under pressure, snapping back like a steel spring with great vigor.
She bounced beside him. “Pocket sand ain’t no bear mace. Run, Mittens. We have escaping to do!”
Martin took off running. He knew he was skipping school, avoiding authority and he didn’t give a damn at this point. For the first time in his life he felt free, liberated from responsibilities that his parents, sister and teachers constantly burdened him with. Alexa’s death in the world of tomorrow had broken something within him. He too now had a purpose greater than learning basic facts. He was her minion and he would assist her in any way possible, to prevent the horrific future from coming to pass. He wanted to stand along with Alexa, to face death and to spit in its face.
He ran after the death-defying, leaping girl and he smiled wider than ever before. He breathed, basked in the sunshine, the wind tugging at his clothes. She was right. The world in the now was much more vivid, felt much more awesome, after he survived the horrors of 2424 by the barest of margins. He was finally, truly alive.
The metaphorical bags on his face had been ripped away by a most dastardly supervillain next door.