The Surface

Plot
Even though her mind was riddled with difficulties and errors, my grandmother was always able to recall the story of the Ectonurite Invasion.

She was sitting on a swing when millions of them came out of the sky and began slaughtering. After the first onslaught, people managed to evacuate underground, but most were still caught and killed on the spot. By the first week five billion people bit the dust.

Grandmother was one of the lucky ones - she survived until last week - when death finally caught up to her in the form of cancer rather than murder. You might expect my motivation to be avenging her death or some dumb shit like that, but billions were killed, thousands die every day, and people who survive are forced to live hundreds of kilometers below any kind of happiness, shoved into dirty crapholes which seem more like trenches than homes. Death is more common than birth, and I don't give a damn to who it happens to anymore.

Of course, we can't go to the surface, we would be silenced immediately.

Usually.

Hannah is in the eastern wing’s lounge. “Hey Syd, I have an idea to get to the surface.” She’s fucking obsessed with this surface crap. Sure, all of us would like to breath in fresh air, and not be cramped so much that crouching becomes an involuntary action, but she’s dedicated her whole life to this. Does she not realise that the Sancts are up there, and will tear her limb from limb? “Come on Hannah, do you want to be killed by Sancts?” I tell her. “Have you ever thought about what could be up there?!” “Murderous ghosts, murderous ghosts, oh and murderous ghosts!” “Just for this once?” She looks straight into my eyes. They're the perfect shade of blue.

The next thing I know we're in the teleport hub.

It's a small room, located in the east wing of base. The Crusaders (guys who fights the Sancts, albeit failing every time) use the room to teleport up to the surface to go on missions. It's normally programmed to only be able to be used by the Crusaders, but Hannah has a way with hacking. She has a way with everything - especially getting me to do things I don't want to. Right now, she's phasing her hand through one to get to the main wires. She does this a lot, born with some mutant ability to phase through things or something. “Okay, when I say go, you’ll be teleported to the surface. I’ll set a delay timer so that I can follow, but it’ll take a few minutes, so you’ll be on your own for a bit.”

She can't be serious. Alone. On the surface. With the psycho-FUCKING-pathic ghosts. “Hannah…”

“Don't worry, the anti-ectonurite border goes on for at least half a mile on each side. Go!”

The first thing that I notice about the surface is that the air smells of many different things. I allow myself to fall into the grass and just lay there for a while. Hannah doesn't appear. I wait. Still no sign of her. “Maybe her teleport coordinates are off.” I try to reassure myself. “She’ll be along.”

I pick myself up and start walking, feeling cold for the first time ever. It feels comforting, far from what the Crusaders make it out to be. I continue walking. Still no sign of her. I continue walking. “She’ll… Be… Along…” I continue walking until my body refuses to go any further. My legs stop working and I collapse onto the earth. Was she dead? Had she given up on me? Every thought hurt me. I throw my hands into the ground and they hit something. Something that isn't grass.

“The hell?” I pick the thing up. It's some kind of green wristwatch, with an X symbol on it. “What even, what's a watch doing out here?” I don't know who I’m asking, but hearing a voice - even my own - makes me feel less hopeless. I put the watch on and it immediately turns blue, the color of Hannah’s eyes; my favorite color. “So this is a color-changing watch? What do I have to do now, heat it?” The watch turns red. “Okay…yellow!” It turns yellow. “Orange!” It turns orange. “Holy shit, I have a magic watch.” I tap it to see if it changes color again, but the dial pops up instead. I have a magic watch, and I broke it. I push it down to fix it back in place. It shoots out a plethora of lights, and I start to feel my skin changing.

When the light fades, I’m on the ground. I can't feel my legs. I try to touch my legs to make sure the lights didn't burn them off, but they aren't there. Instead I feel metal. I look at my hands. I am metal. “Oh god.” My voice isn't normal. It's deep and echoing, even though there nothing for it to bounce off of. I look in the reflection of my ‘hands’. I'm a bell. A giant, fucking bell. What did that watch do? I try to scream, but a deafening gong sound comes out instead.

That's when I see the ghosts.

Millions of them patrolling the skies, looking for unlucky humans to kill. I probably couldn't see them on account of the forcefield, protecting us from them. Then I realise something. If I can see them, they can see me. Then I realise something else. Some of them aren't patrolling.

They're coming towards me.

Something inside of me beeps, and I'm a human again. While this is comforting enough not be a bell, it would’ve helped against the millions of Sancts coming to murder me. I tap the watch again. A bell is more useful than a human, in any case. It pops up, and I hit it down again.

But this time, I'm not a bell. I'm some kind of blob of water. “What the hell?!” My voice, again, sounds different, like I’m underwater. I instinctively shoot a stream of purple water at the nearest Sanct, and it burns their second skin off. The sun finishes the job, and it's dead by the time I realise what I did. “Ok Sancts, get ready to get fucked up!” I start shooting jets of acid water, and hundreds of them start burning up. Hundreds isn't enough, however, and many more keep coming, unfazed by their comrades’ death. “Hey guys, ever heard of the water cycle?” I shoot a jet water at the sky, and acid rain starts to come down, burning thousands by the second. “Yeah, touch the Purple Rain!” My victory doesn't last however, as the watch starts beeping and I’m turned back in the midst of the acid rain. My watch doesn't want to cooperate either, as it's turns red and decides not to work.

The remaining Sancts are still advancing; only a few hundred of them, but that's still enough to kill me. But they don't kill me. Instead, they lift me up and swing back their arm.

I don't stay conscious long enough to feel the impact.

Major Events

 * Sydney gets to the surface.
 * Sydney finds the Omntrix.
 * Sydney is captured by the Ectonurites.

Characters

 * Sydney Armidale
 * Hannah Pryde
 * Van Buyer

Villains

 * Ectonurites

Aliens Used

 * Bronzoon (debut; unnamed)
 * Purple Rain (debut)