The Surface

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## 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 flew down from beyond the clouds, stopped and immediately began slaughtering. By the first week five million people bit the dust. But then people got smart. They combined Magic and Science to protect again the threat, though this forced them to live underground.

My 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've learn to not to mourn or care. One reason would be the conditions we're kept in, but the surface is teeming with Sancts - 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 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?
“When will you give up? Nothing's there for us.” I tell her.

“But what could be up there *besides* the Sancts?”

“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 west wing of base. The Crusaders (the people who fend the Ectonurites off lest the shield fails) 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 **psychopathic ghosts**. “Hannah…”

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

The first thing that I notice about the surface is that the air smells of many different things. Grass, and other frangrences that I can't describe. 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. I try to reassure myself, but I grow more fearful with every minute that passes.

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, in case her teleportation was off. 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 hourglass 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. “Well isn't this lovely; 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. Great. 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. My hands move up, and 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 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?!” 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, revealing an ugly, contorted skull with claws to follow. The sun finishes the job, and it's dead by the time I realise what I did. “Ok Sancts, get ready to...” I pause to think of a witty line, before giving up and instead shooting jets of acid water, making hundreds of them start burning up. Hundreds isn't enough, however, and many more keep coming, unfazed by their comrades’ death. I try to think of something, anything. Then I remember something from a science lesson. “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. I watch as the previously fatal Sancts fall under 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, burning my clothes. I'm helpless.

The remaining Sancts are still advancing; only a few hundred of them, but that's still enough to kill me. But they don't, instead grabbing me and only leaving me conscious to wonder why I'm not dead.

## Major Events

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

## Characters

* Sydney Armidale
* Hannah Pryde
* Van Buyer

## Aliens Used

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

## Trivia

* Sanct is a slur meaning Ectonurite in this series.