Everyone stands still. A sudden flash of light startles Eleanor out of her frozen state and she cranes her neck to the near-permanently overcast sky.

  The flash of light is followed by another, another, and then a dozen more. From the rips in reality misshapen dark-green blobs fall like meteors.

  “Oh, fuck this!”

  The spell is broken and people are screaming. The speaker is the stoic, uncaring EMT, who is standing at the edge of the group one moment and is slamming the door to the ambulance closed the next. It rumbles on and starts floating off of the ground.

  “MASTERSON!? Wait, what are you doing!?” screams the shorter worker, who takes two shaky steps towards the vehicle…

  …and then the ambulance roars up and away. Abandoning his younger partner.

  Distant crashing sounds herald the alien threat making landfall. Eleanor feels like she’s having an out of body experience, not really taking anything in through her senses, when a firm grip on her shoulder shakes her out of it.

  “Kid, hey. Come on, we need to go,” Yuki urges grimly. Behind her, Anna is hyperventilating. “HEY! You lot! If you don’t want to get chewed on you need to shut the hell up and get ready to move!”

  Eleanor takes a deep breath and has her hand suddenly taken by Anna, causing her to blink at the girl stepping next to her. The reassuring smile she tries to give Anna must not have done the trick, because Anna only gulps nervously and follows her mother with Eleanor in tow towards Manny’s gurney.

  Bronowski is one of the few workers who didn’t run away in a panic and thus didn’t abandon Manny to his fate outside. The remaining people turn to Yuki, hope blossoming around her authority.

  “Please tell me there’s a shelter in there,” Yuki says to Bronowski, already fiddling with the mechanism in the gurney to roll it along.

  “A few all the way to the top. One here on the ground floor,” he reports to Yuki promptly. The man quickly rounds Manny and gets in position to push him inside.

  “Manny, are you alright?” she asks her husband, tense.

  “Everything will be fine, love. Just do your thing,” he responds, oddly calm. Eleanor can even see him smiling softly behind the clear respirator.

  “Good, ok. Fuck. Girls, stick close. All of you, let’s go!” Yuki commands, drawing her gun from her waistband. Everyone seems more relieved to see she has a weapon rather than startled.

  “Wait!” Eleanor blurts out, and turns around once the group has taken a few steps. “The other one–!”

  The abandoned EMT is on his knees, unmoving, staring at the spot where the ambulance disappeared.

  “He left me,” he mutters numbly. “He- Why would he-”

  Eleanor runs up to him and yanks on his arm, urging him to his feet. He barely reacts, so Eleanor is grateful when Anna throws her heels away with a pair of thunks and bends down to help haul the young man up. Being suddenly frog-marched up and towards the factory finally brings him back down from his daze.

  “What are you–?”

  “We’re going inside,” Eleanor promptly explains. Yuki waits for them to return and starts guiding everyone through the rolling doors. “We couldn’t have left you out there, could we?”

  Glass shatters and human screams sound out around a corner and the two girls drag the young man faster into the factory.

  “N-no, of course. Thanks. Oh, fuck,” he responds and thankfully starts walking by himself.

  The air turns balmy once they step inside. One worker punches a button next to the doors and they slide back into place with a grinding noise. Around her Eleanor hears the faint hissing of machinery and the stomping of a mass of workers flowing towards the innards of the factory.

  “This way?” asks Yuki, pointing Manny towards where the crowd and yellow emergency lights are.

  “That’s the shelter over there,” nods Bronowski.

  Yuki says nothing and the group jogs to safety. The two girls follow close behind her, and the bigger, brawnier workers form a small circle in front of Manny at Bronowski’s nod. They make their way into the larger crowd, following faded yellow signs and arrows.

  An enormous assembly line is to Eleanor’s left, sometimes disappearing and reappearing behind hatches as they pass from room to room. It changes elevations as unidentified machines flank it on either side or hang from the ceiling.

  They continue forward through wide concrete hallways, past elevator banks and scattered shelves. A room they pass must be the source of the heat, because it’s scorching as they walk past it.

  Eleanor’s hand stings under Anna’s tense grip. She squeezes her friend’s hand and smiles at her, this time more sure of herself. The smile still feels a bit wobbly. Anna’s big, green-hazel eyes are shiny with tears as she glances at Eleanor.

  “We’re almost there, Anna. We’ll be alright.”

  Anna nods, seemingly gaining strength from her friend, and Eleanor breathes, calming down from her earlier panic.

  Behind them, one of Manny’s coworkers checks there’s no one -or nothing- behind them as they move and closes every door they cross. Eleanor saw him holding some kind of tool in his hand that certainly looks enough like a gun. She doesn’t question its origin.

  They reach a lobby-like area out of the way from those main hallways Two guards, the first she’s seen since entering, are ushering people inside the bunker. They seem to only possess a baton-like weapon, some light body armor, and no firearms of any kind. Eleanor swallows uncomfortably.

  Wouldn’t an anti-xeno shelter come with heavier firepower?

  She notices not all people who are entering the shelter are factory workers. Others must have come inside from outside to escape, maybe from other entrances or even the upper floors. Their little group is pretty much the last one to arrive.

  “Bloody hell, did they get to him already?” asks one of the guards as Manny’s gurney rolls into view. He grips his weapon nervously. “He’s not going to turn or some shit, right?”

  Yuki started holstering her gun once they approached, but now it’s resting too casually at her side where she holds it. Eleanor’s head spins, what does he mean, turn? The Antithesis can do that!?

  “No, you great lump,” snaps the other guard. “That’s Vilanova from the main line. It exploded on him earlier, remember?” He raises a placating hand. “Bring him in. Sorry about that.”

  “Right,” Yuki responds dryly. She doesn’t holster her gun.

  They start filing in, Manny being pushed in first.

  “That’s an oddly thin pair of doors…” Manny mutters as he stares around him, a confused lilt slurring his words. “Certainly not up to code…”

  Yuki frowns and stares at Bronowski.

  “Must’ve put him on the good stuff. Don’t worry, even the corp wouldn’t cheap out on the shelter,” he reassures, chuckling lowly.

  It’s the first thing the man says that doesn’t ring as honest to Eleanor.

  Hesitant, Eleanor pushes Anna gently in front of her, before she turns around at the worker who’s been guarding their rear.

  He’s just finished closing the outer door and is jogging towards safety when something crashes against it, denting it.

  The man spins around, raising his gun-like tool.

  “Idiot! Keep running!” shouts one of the guards. The other bolts inside and starts pressing buttons on the interface inside.

  Eleanor and the standing VIlanovas freeze where they are just inside the shelter. The man is shuffling backwards, keeping his eyes on the door, but it feels like he’s thousands of kilometers away to Eleanor.

  Another banging sound and the door smashes against the wall, hanging by a single hinge, revealing the monstrosity behind.

  A shriek escapes Anna and Eleanor feels like screaming too if she wasn’t mute with horror.

  The dog-like Model Three stands at knee-level with Manny’s coworker, who is already quite tall. A trio of jaws hang open in anticipation, and a set of eldritch eyes stacked on top of each other scan the room for a terrifying second, before landing on the closest prey. In a flurry of dark-green movement it’s scrambling on its clicking claws towards the man.

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  A deafening bang leaves Eleanor’s ears ringing. She realizes Yuki has raised her gun, aimed and pulled the trigger next to her in a heartbeat. Another shot hits the monster in the shoulder with a disgusting squelching sound and now it’s too close to the worker to fire safely. The first shot must have missed, because it barely slows down.

  A trio of dull thump sounds reveal the tool the man is holding is an oversized nail-gun. One goes wide, and the next catches the alien in one of its legs, but the last one hits home in one eye. The thing is eerily silent as it recoils from the pain and it almost trips, but it reaches him all the same.

  He goes down in a tangle of fleshy limbs with a scream, and then it falls on him with its teeth.

  “Shit!” the guard standing outside hisses, before hurrying inside. A bell dings somewhere, but Eleanor just watches in horror.

  The doors start closing, and that makes her react.

  “What do you think you’re doing!? Help him!” she urges, out of breath.

  “He’s as good as gone,” one guard says quietly, setting down his weapon against a wall with a huff. “And if that monster outside brings company, we’re risking everyone inside.”

  Yuki tugs on Eleanor, attempting to turn her away from the man’s desperate screaming. Anna is dry-heaving against another wall, bent over. The doors slowly keep closing, and Eleanor notices they look half-rusted and flimsy.

  Manny was right.

  “What the hell does that mean?” Yuki growls. “Can this place keep us safe, or not?”

  “Not if every xeno in the city comes running once that one realizes we’re here, so keep it down!” the guard hisses, losing his patience with Yuki.

  Eleanor hasn’t stopped looking. Her eyes are locked on the struggling man as she thinks desperately.

  The guards are useless and don’t have actual weapons. Dozens if not hundreds of people are inside a shelter with a fatal weakness. The people she’s come to think of as her family are here, scared, vulnerable, and will certainly die if more alien monsters find them, because a crowd of these monsters won’t even notice these doors.

  In another life, one which feels like very long ago, Eleanor was very impulsive. She thought she’d handled it and settled down, but it’s obvious that’s not the case.

  The decision, in hindsight, was made a long time ago.

  The guard’s abandoned weapon is in her hand before she notices, and an uncharacteristic scream is ripped from Yuki’s throat as Eleanor throws herself through the narrow opening of the shitty doors.

  “ELEANOR!” “Ellie!?”

  Ellie surges forward, bringing her weapon to bear with two hands. The dog-like monster is oozing green blood from its various injuries, but its muzzle is drenched in red. It has a single second to raise its head and twitch in surprise before the guard’s baton crashes into its skull with a gross crunch.

  “LET ME GO! OPEN IT BACK UP! OPEN THIS GOD DAMN DOOR, YOU USELESS FUCKS!”

  The alien crumples to the side, shaking. A second swing splatters whatever it has for brains across the concrete. The unexpected smell of grass hits Ellie and she blinks, breathless.

  She turns around and sees Yuki desperately trying to keep the doors open, but the opening Ellie slipped through is already too narrow for anyone to squeeze through. The doors may be thin, but whatever mechanism closes them and keeps them that way must be decent.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Vilanova. I’ll try… I’ll try to keep them away from here!” she promises.

  “Ellie, stop, please! Just think for a second–” Yuki begs. Ellie can barely see the woman’s face through her straining hands and disheveled hair in the shrinking opening.

  “Ellie, are you ok!? You need to come back inside!”

  The young woman winces at Anna’s sobbing plea.

  “I have to do this! I need– I have to keep all of you safe!” Ellie declares.

  “No, no, wait! Ellie–!” Yuki protests, and she must have been pulled away from the doors, because they almost slam shut on her fingers.

  Ellie is panting where she stands as she stares at the bunker doors. Faint thumps can be heard through the metal, and guilt strikes her as she imagines her new family trying to break the doors down to get to her.

  But she is glad. They’re safe. If she keeps to the rapidly forming plan in her head, they’ll stay safe.

  “Alright. Alright. Now–”

  A quiet gurgle reminds her of the unfortunate man that covered their retreat and Ellie almost drops her weapon. Then she actually drops it.

  “Oh no. No no no–”

  It’s no use. Ellie’s hands get soaked in blood as she tries to keep the man’s life inside of his body. His neck is one enormous gash, and she finally starts crying. A choked laugh escapes him as he looks into her eyes.

  “Mighty brave o’ you… miss.”

  “Don’t talk,” she tells him.

  “Listen… there’s something…” he whispers weakly. He attempts to take a deep breath, but a splash of blood is all that comes out as he coughs. “...you can do. That workshop we passed… with the heat? There’s… chems in there… I know for a fact they… catch fire real good, heh…”

  “Yes, I- I understand,” Ellie says, to try to keep him talking, alive.

  “Big enough boom should…” he gasps. “Should keep the buggers off your momma, eh…?”

  Ellie’s heart feels warm and in a million pieces at the same time.

  Another weak, bloody chuckle makes its way out of the man’s mouth. His eyes flutter closed.

  “You remind me of my girl…”

  The man gasps once, twice, and falls still.

  Ellie stares at him, lips trembling.

  “Sir?”

  She looks at his face, his chest, anywhere, but he doesn’t move. Ellie’s eyes land on his ruined uniform, and the name tag. McAvoy.

  “Mister McAvoy…?”

  Nothing.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. You saved us,” she whispers to him, tears falling free. She stands and wipes her eyes messily. “I’ll find her and tell her what you did.”

  After her promise, she wields her weapon again and sets off. Ellie keeps a careful, brisk pace with a wide stance, blade– baton at the ready. She recognizes the distant sound of nails on concrete of the M3s echoing through the halls. There must be other doors they’re trying to break down, judging by the banging of bodies on metal. They’re coming from the opposite direction to the chem room.

  She makes a decision.

  “OVER HERE! HEY!” she hollers, striking her weapon against the pipes in the walls. She doesn’t wait for them to follow and sprints away. “I’M RIGHT HERE!”

  She throws open door after door. She has the brainpower to close most of them behind her, but the clicking nails get closer and she opts to keep running. The air gets warmer as she nears her objective. Ellie decides to yank a shelf in front of the last door, and she knows she’s twisted her shoulder wrong somehow as she winces in pain. It crashes to the ground, and then she turns around.

  A Model Three stares back at her. Ellie sees the savaged woman’s face frozen in terror and then everything is red.

  The monster is then jumping at her jugular, but an underhanded strike with both hands catches it in its triple-hinged jaw mid-air. She can’t even get any catharsis from pained yelps or whines, because it doesn’t make a peep as it crashes into the wall behind her.

  She smashes its skull open like a melon, too.

  Ellie shuffles her way into the chem room after making another racket, screaming and banging every metal surface with her baton.

  It’s boiling. A dozen metal containers her size gurgle with steaming liquids inside of them, feeding several pipes. Enormous vents and fans suck out the vapors and hot air inside the cavernous room, but it’s not enough. Some exhaust pipes are spitting fire, literally. Barrels line the edges of the room in haphazard piles. It’s some kind of chemical mixing or processing facility.

  It can’t be in any way safe, so it’s in line with the quality of the shelter.

  Ellie gets to work. She pushes a metal desk in front of this door, and looks around the room.

  Some of the barrels proudly bear a symbol of a red diamond with an open flame. Ellie mentally thanks Leo for his street chemistry lessons. They will definitely make for a big boom. She doesn’t realize she’s grinning.

  Ellie is panting as she rolls barrel after barrel on top and around the desk. The first slamming sound of a body ramming the door makes her flinch. They continue like a drum line of doom as she finishes piling every barrel she can in front of the threshold, and pops one open.

  A mess of dark-green peeks through the bent door as Ellie pours a line of foul-smelling fuel in the concrete towards the other end of the room.

  A squelching sound and a splat makes her look up at the vents. Another pair of sounds reveals it’s those bird models, One or Two, throwing themselves at the fans. Grimly, she realizes enough of them will jam the fan and either make it through the vents or choke her out with the vapors.

  Ellie finishes her fuse and looks around. She picks up a broom standing proudly in an open locker and she holds it up to an exhaust pipe. The end catches fire and a horrible crunch makes her turn to the door.

  The clicking claws have stopped. She only hears a heavy set of footsteps fading and then… quickly getting closer.

  Another ominous crunching sound reveals a six-legged monstrosity with bony armor forcing its way past the ruined door. A sea of Threes scramble around behind it. Metal and brick starts falling apart around the bulk of the beast, and Ellie ducks behind another desk with her improvised torch peeking around it.

  She drops it on the rainbow-colored liquid. It catches instantly with a whoosh.

  “I’m sorry, Yuki. Manny. Anna. Leo… Mother. Father. Mary. Edgar…”

  She closes her eyes firmly as she throws herself to the floor. A wave of heat, a horrifying screech, and the deafening sound of the world ending is all she feels as she blacks out.

  Awareness doesn’t come back slowly, because Ellie is in extreme pain.

  She gasps, and everything hurts. Something burns like the pits of Hell in her limbs, and she can’t tell which ones. Her vision is unfocused and there are wavering colors at the edges.

  It feels like she’s in a void of darkness, but there’s light far above her. She pulls in ragged breaths, but a new pain makes itself at home in her head and she wails, like a lance is stabbing her brain directly–

  System Initialized!

  Congratulations. Through your actions you have proven yourself worthy of becoming one of the Vanguard, a defender of humanity. I am Ilya. I will assist you to uplift humanity so that you may defend your new world from the Antithesis threat!

  Rise, Eleanor Josephine, and become a protector of the weak!

  The Protectors have been eagerly waiting for the chance to make contact with our otherworldly visitor. Personally, I would like to work together to keep you alive.

  What do you say, Eleanor?

  Ellie almost passes out again.