Supernova Blitz

Chapter 3: The Stranger

The three adults look up the street where a third alien collapses from an alleyway. A new, comparatively-tiny figure stumbles out into the open. This figure is almost definitely human, but looks like some kind of comic book superhero. His outfit is white and appears to be armored or padded, and it is trimmed with gold. He has a long, flowing cape, tattered, charred, and stained with many colors. A mask obscures his face; virtually featureless save for 5 slits for each eye, and gold patterns are buried under blood and black scoring.

The figure staggers like he's inebriated or dazed. He clutches his head, and Hancock can see the golden gauntlet on his right forearm with strange rings turning around it like clockwork.

The alien soldiers roar in what's pretty easy to guess is rage. They bull-rush towards the dazed man. He barely registers their presence until it's too late. Hancock's heart tightens on the realization that he was just granted only a few seconds' respite, and he can't even look at Kenzie one last time. He simply stares stupidly at the fool about to die instead of the first girl who's ever kissed him.

The slaughter that follows, however, is far from an uneventful killing. In a startled glance, the dazed man looks up. The first alien is already swinging its strange sword like a machete. The human contorts back, narrowly avoiding the vicious swing. His arms, on the other hand, do not miss the alien's bulky tree-trunk of an arm, swooping around the armored limb at the wrist. The wrist is not the intended target, though.

In a move too quick to fully process, the human wrenches as he pivots under the alien's arm. He swoops out on the other side as the alien's momentum carries it a little further in a stumble. In the human's hands is the strange tuning fork device, but the 'blade' has flickered out. The second alien roars as it stops, viciously swinging downwards at the human.

He is too quick, feigning left to telegraph the alien that way, before his body catapults right, avoiding the cleaving slash. This puts the human in front of the alien with its head lowered from the power of its swing. The human swings upwards powerfully with a double-axe-handle. The blow shatters the weapon, but the alien's head flops back, and its whole body lurches back in a topple. The alien crashes calamitously backwards over a car, tumbling out of the fight for at least a moment.

The alien tuning fork glows from its damage, and the first alien dives away. The human tries to throw the damaged weapon, but it explodes in a fiery blue flash, knocking the mask from his face and shredding his cheek with shrapnel.

Once again dazed, the human only barely remembers where he's at, and he dives for cover behind a car. The alien storms up onto the car as the human snatches a human rifle. The mysterious human is fast though, and kicks nimbly into a dive behind the alien as it tries to track. Without even a steady target, the human bursts the rifle, damaging the back of the alien's armor. Sparks fly, and the alien roars in surprise.

The superhero-dressed warrior, definitely human by his freshly injured face and red blood, doesn't revel in the alien's surprise. Surprise is usually quickly replaced by anger.

Several bursts of rifle fire erupt from different spots in the street. The three marines, having come to their senses; Fisher, Dumas, and Fredericks, fire in a steady hammering rhythm of shots.

This time, the alien doesn't just take it. It howls, instinctively trying to shield its face. The cosplayer scrambles up, ignoring the marines shooting as he leaps up to grab the alien's ranged weapon. He acrobatically dangles from its firing end, curving his legs up for leverage to rip the weapon away. The strange warrior tumbles free of the alien, toppling on the car and smacking the ground. The alien falls like a cut tree, slamming backwards onto another abandoned car, crumpling its roof.

The second alien, in the meantime, has recovered to its feet. It does little good, though. The cosplayer manages to fire the alien weapon, belching a scorching firebolt that stumbles the creature. Sergeant Grey, not one to conserve bullets, fires his shotgun as quickly as he can cycle the pump into the alien's back. The alien cries out, surprisingly pathetically given how sadistic and brutal they could be moments prior.