A maelstrom of wind whipped around me as I surveyed the scene. Trees were shaking, their branches swaying to and fro, shedding themselves of twigs and leaves. The helicopter overhead was sending a powerful downwash of turbulent air, making it difficult for me to concentrate.

Casey and Sebastian dropped down behind me, though they staggered when they tried to land on their feet – amateurs.

The moment we’d all landed, the wind around us picked up and the chopper ascended away from us. When I glanced upwards, I could see it twisting and lifting higher into the dark grey sky.

We’d landed in an open space, surrounded by tall apartment complexes, trees and well-maintained gardens. A road bisected the clustered buildings, and we’d landed right in the middle of it. There was parking space just beyond the trees on both sides.

The gunfire that we’d seen from above had been coming from an extensive, four-storey complex that was just one continuous, curved line of windows and red bricks. On the other side of the road were clusters of colourful, balconied apartments set amidst bushes that hid the well-kept public gardens. It was all in twilight now, owing to the thick cloud cover and how late in the evening it was.

I wasn’t certain what they’d been shooting at.

The peace and quiet evaporated in an instant, the crackle of firearms being discharged erupted from the structure behind us while shadows danced and flickered in the gardens opposite. My music was pounding in my ears, completely eclipsing all other sounds around us.

Curiosity got the better of me as I began to wander in that direction, ignoring the hail of bullets that was sparking as each round ricocheted around me. The effect was giving me the illusion of monsters behind every tree and crouched assailants behind every bush.

Drawing closer, I could make out shapes moving in the foliage, and I grumbled loudly about aliens who loved to hide in bushes.

The instant I began to channel energy in readiness for protecting myself, a spindly metallic object lunged out of the greenery to my right – and time shuddered to a halt.

It took what felt like a second or two to realise what was happening, but which in reality I judged had only been a fraction of a millisecond.

Initially, it looked like several sharp-edged and pointed claws of metal, held together by bundles of translucent cabling. But as my brain was given a little more time to process what it was seeing, I noticed that the claws were actually small, articulated legs that attached to a central body in the form of a flattened egg.

Altogether, it was about the size of a large cat and I realised that this must be one of the drones that the pilot had mentioned, in the flesh. Or whatever it had instead of flesh. Circuitry?

“Are you ready for this, Erin?” Athena asked, moving to stand alongside me.

Even though my brain was processing everything absurdly quickly, my body was still a physical entity that had to obey the laws of physics. The only way I could reply was to think of the words.

She nodded, counted down from three, and then we were back in real-time again.

I raised my left hand, my fingers curled halfway to a fist and focused on bringing the murder machine to a mid-air halt. Another came at me, leaping from the other direction with the keen edges of its limbs pointed unnervingly at my face.

A shimmering blue barrier flickered to life and I became aware of a tugging sensation in my extended forearm. Its collision with the forcefield repelled the second drone, and a minuscule sphere of incandescent plasma nailed it straight through the torso.

It kicked and wriggled as it clanged to the ground, but another bolt from Casey brought it to stillness.

My attention returned to the one I held in the air before me. It, too, kicked and wriggled, trying to bring its weapons to bear on my most vulnerable areas.

“It is watching us, and relaying everything that it learns back to our adversaries,” Athena told me, stepping to my side and kneeling down to inspect the husk of its former comrade. “You must destroy it immediately.”

I nodded but considered the small robot a little longer. It looked like a tiny replica of the much bigger object that I’d seen in the photographs from space, with its six limbs all attached to a central frame.

Somehow I felt like I could sense it watching me back, studying me just as I was doing the same to it. Anger bubbled within me as I remembered its purpose on our planet. With a piercing scream, I wrenched my right arm to the side, tearing it in two.

Sparks cascaded as one half was sheered away from the other, and every one of its legs went limp all in the same moment.

But my fury wasn’t done. I dislocated each leg in turn with a satisfying pop.

The cloud of mangled parts hung in the air, clattering to the paved floor once I released my hold on it. I allowed myself a moment or two to breathe and try to regain my composure before I turned around to gauge reactions.

When I glance over my shoulder, I noticed at least ten pairs of bewildered eyes staring out at me from the redbrick building on the opposite side of the road. The occupants had ceased their frenetic shooting, replacing it with a stunned stillness.

One of the windows even had a camera lens pushed firmly against the glass and it was pointed in my direction. Casey and Sebastian were watching me too, smirking and breaking out into amused smiles.

My heart tightened in embarrassment, and I could feel my cheeks warming – I wanted to pout. Instead, I pulled out an earphone and paused my music to hear what was happening.

The first thing I heard was strings of incessant Swedish profanity, emanating from our onlookers – Sebastian had been a great language teacher.

There was the occasional rumble in the distance, a constant reminder that there was still a battle to be fought.

 

Our Swedish acquaintance became our unofficial spokesperson, engaging the soldiers in lighthearted conversation. At first, they slipped easily between English and Swedish, but I was able to pick up that they were grateful for our timely rescue.

The mood promptly changed when the conversation descended into an all-out interrogation. An older blonde woman stepped forwards, taking charge and issuing orders to her subordinates. Once she was satisfied, she turned to us and demanded to know who we were, where we’d come from, and what I had done to the spider drone.

We knew most of the answers by rote now, having refined them over the course of the last week or so. Our concise explanation of the alien invasion and meteor impacts didn’t prevent her unmistakable expression of disbelief, however.

In return, they told us about how they’d been separated from the rest of their unit when a swarm of alien machines overran their original positions. They’d originally been deployed here to help with the evacuation but had been on the run ever since, chased by the two machines that we’d just destroyed. They had a couple of injured squadmates in need of urgent medical attention which was the only reason they’d had to stay put.

I asked why they hadn’t called for reinforcements yet, or for someone to come help them and in answer, they told me that something’s jamming their local radio frequencies. They’d been incommunicado for a couple of hours now.

Sebastian offered his assistance, which they begrudgingly accepted, and he nipped inside to get their casualties back on their feet.

Another of the soldiers – a pretty woman with sweat-matted, short blonde hair – kept watching me. She was making me a touch nervous, but whenever I looked in her direction she’d flash a shy smile back.

“So you’re what? Superheroes?” one of the men asked, laughing. That earned a small round of chuckles, though they quickly died out. Every single one of them must have at least heard of what we did, even if they didn’t see it first hand.

“Oh, we’re something like that,” Casey replied. She made a deliberate show of slipping her arm around my waist and planting a kiss on the top of my head.

For just a moment I was confused until I understood the context behind what she was doing. Oh, Casey. You don’t need to worry about some random Swedish soldier girl stealing my heart. It is already yours.

The satisfied giggle that escaped me was far too girly and feminine, the brief swell of euphoria catching me off-guard.

I was just about to lean into Casey’s shoulder but Athena’s reappearance grabbed my attention, her gaze drawn to something further up the road.

“Muse sees something,” I muttered, giving Casey a quick peck on the cheek and reluctantly pulling myself away from her.

“Hunter does too,” she answered back and turned to look at the gathered huddle of soldiers. “Something’s coming. Y’all best get inside.”

Shit. Now that I was paying attention, I’d realised that the distant thudding had stopped. Silence didn’t indicate good things.

I shook my head to Casey, gesturing for her to follow, “We’re going to need them to get out of here. We’ll provide them with the opportunity, but they really need to go.”

My loose headphone was hanging down past my chest. I pushed it back in and resumed my playlist from where I’d left off.

---

Athena led the way but I stayed as alert as I could, checking around us for signs of movement.

Eventually, she led us to an intersection, taking the lefthand fork. The road here ran downhill slightly and at the bottom, I could see a patch of shadowy trees that lined a gentle turn in the road.

We carried on a little further, then she called us to a halt with one of those army-style hand gestures – a raised fist.

I mimicked her, knowing that Casey and Sebastian wouldn’t be able to see her.

When I glanced behind me, I was relieved to see that they were still following. Sebastian was distracted by something else though, and he dashed to the side of the road to kneel next to a mass of discarded fabric.

At least that’s what it looked like at first, but the longer I stared the more it started to morph into the shape of a human body. His expression was grim as he searched for a pulse. It was only a few seconds later that he sighed visibly and stood back up to rejoin us.

“Something is coming,” Athena called to me. She crouched down, placing a hand to the ground, so I did the same.

With my fingers pressed to the asphalt beneath me, I couldn’t really feel anything except my own heart in my veins. Although there was a phantom of something else that I may have been imagining. A deep vibration every ten seconds or so, like a distant drumbeat.

I didn’t get time to consider it any further. I saw one or two little drones emerge around the corner ahead, skittering in the dim light.

Anticipating what was to come, I lifted myself back up to my full height and prepared myself. I directed the energy internally, giving myself the ability to shift dodge with ease. The little shits were fast and I’d need to be able to move with them.

Just as I was setting myself into a fighting stance, a glistening carpet of machines appeared. There were hundreds of them – a single huge, living sea of claws all heading in our direction.

I felt my pulse quicken as a surge of adrenaline hit. This would be unlike anything we’d faced before.

Casey moved alongside me, but Sebastian held back. I doubted if he’d done as much training with his abilities as we had, so that was understandable.

They scampered closer and closer, spreading out into a pincer shape, looking to envelope us from all sides. A drone lunged at me, and I channelled an arc of lightning to destroy it. It kept coming for me though, my attack having no effect, and I was forced to position the Aegis between us to block it.

Like before, Casey picked it off with a couple of plasma marbles, leaving the spider robot a smoking heap of debris.

The others swelled forwards, and this time I tried levitating some of them to halt their progress. I was able to collect a handful of the drones this way, then formed the plasma beam I’d tried briefly that one time in the woods. The blazing edge sliced easily through their armoured shells and the molten innards sprayed down over their companions.

But they still kept coming, and I had to resort to using the Aegis to protect myself again, pushing them back.

Casey was flinging plasma with reckless abandon, the streaks that were being left on my retina were testament to that.

A couple more drones skirted around to my side, and those received more attention from me, slicing them in half, but I missed the one that hurtled towards me from the other direction.

Athena must have pushed it away in mid-air as I saw its trajectory shift, one of its razor legs narrowly missing my exposed neck. It didn’t miss my headphone cable, though, and sliced straight through on its way past me.

My world of music dissolved instantly into the cacophony of clanking metallic limbs as they tapped against the tarmac. I began to panic, pulling back and blocking with my shield while Casey continued to whittle away at the horde.

“Everything is fine, Erin. You’re doing well,” Athena coached, strolling into my field of vision. “Just try to remember how it felt. Feel that way again.”

There just wasn’t enough opportunity for me to figure it out, so instead, I edged my way to Casey. If I couldn’t use anything but the Aegis then I’d use it to protect her.

Sebastian was keeping his distance, though he seemed to be picking up some of the basics of lightning throwing. It wasn’t helpful right now, but the poor guy clearly hadn’t practised with anything besides healing.

Casey took only a second or two to realise what I was doing, and she took a position behind me. As soon as we adopted this approach, the remaining drones faltered.

We danced around each other like we were playing a game of badminton doubles, but they were holding back more than they had been before. Each advance they made was something slightly new, and I realised immediately that they were learning and trying to adapt to our new tactic.

We’d effectively destroyed about half of the drones by the time they started to skitter away, attempting to withdraw from the fight. Casey wasn’t happy with that, though, and she sprinted after them. I cursed, following along behind while I fumbled for my phone in my pocket.

I heard several explosions while I was busy ripping out the sliced-in-half headphone cable from the socket. Casey was really letting them know how pissed off she was. Glancing up, I saw her dodge a couple of close calls, dread singing in my chest. To hell with being discreet – I turned the volume up to max and ran to join her.

 

We returned back to the same tactic from earlier, except this time I was also slicing and dicing alongside my girlfriend. I’d managed to get back in emotional sync with Athena as the music played again, and Casey was moving with me, keeping time with the beat. The fight was effectively over at this point and the alien machine intelligence knew it.

Only about twenty of them remained intact, but I pulled Casey to a halt.

“You don’t want them to lead us into a trap,” I shouted to her over the music.

She looked at me, then threw one last plasma ball at the retreating arachnoids, scoring a direct hit. Smug satisfaction graced her lips as she turned back again, “Fine. But babe, please take those things out. You look hella goofy.”

I failed at suppressing a grin as I did as she asked, glancing back to see how Sebastian was getting on. He was halfway further up the road and walking towards us, his progress was slow since he insisted on kicking the shattered and burned out remains aside as he went.

“Hey,” I began, turning back to Casey while I paused the music. “I don’t suppose you have some spare headphones, do you?”

She rolled her eyes, taking off her backpack and rummaging around inside until she produced a set of braided cables attached to little earbuds.

“We’re gonna have to get you a wireless pair, sometime,” she grumbled, offering them to me.

“Don’t those run on batteries? Won’t they run out like my phone?” I asked, accepting and showing her that I was down to the last twenty percent.

She swore as she looked closer, her expression bleak. “Alright, also a charging pack. I’m gonna guess Muse can’t charge it for you?”

‘Given time I would likely be able to learn how to do so, however, I am not certain that it would be prudent for me to try now.’

I shook my head and bit my lower lip.

“Alright, well, we’ll see after all this is over,” she replied, her eyes narrowing as she licked her lips.

I smiled back, fumbling to plug everything in, “Thanks.”

She growled softly, stepping closer to pull me into a deep kiss all while my fingers were still busy adjusting the fit in my ears.

My eyes closed, falling completely under her thrall, my arms wrapping themselves around her neck. She wrapped herself around my waist, pulling me to her with hungry urgency.

‘Erin,’ Muse cautioned.

My eyes fluttered back open, but Casey had slowed too.

A ripple of thunder echoed around the buildings nearby, though it sounded more artificial than natural.

Athena appeared again and motioned for me to follow. She moved in a quick jog, cutting across the road and down an adjoining track. I felt Casey pull back from me and she smiled an apology. One quick peck on her cheek later, I dashed off to follow the spectre of the ancient Greek war goddess.