Elsie:

Elsie cleaned the last of the blood off of the floor of Buckingham Palace. Nobody said for his work to continue, he needed the area clean of any contaminants. Elsie knew that was a lie, because her parents had taught her about DNA and what dust was made of when she was just a little girl, but she still did it to make him happy. She thought he just didn't like the sight of blood. To some, her being a little girl was only a few weeks ago, while to her, it was more than a decade. She removed the cleaning gloves she'd found on a cart, and rubbed her head which was still shaved down to the skin. Nobody said it was important that she removed any ideas of the old world from herself, so shaving her head had been the first step. To save this world, she would do what she needed to do.

"What a farce." Nobody said near a painting not too far away, "They think this creates majesty. But it is just empty opulence for the self-indulged." He spread his arms out to encompass all around them. To Elsie, who had lived within the underwater ruins for eleven years, she could see his point. The ruins were grander than the palace they found themselves in, with incredible technology and advanced designs of comfort everywhere she went. But here, with it's yellow walls and constant pillars, it just felt like it was trying too hard. Elsie held the opinion that simple was always better. That's why her weapon of choice was a Morningstar. A thick haft for easy gripping, a spiked ball tip. Hit things until they stopped moving. Simple.

"Elsie." Nobody said, pulling her from her internal thoughts, "There are still Earthlings to the north, be a dear and go take care of them. We are almost ready."

She nodded without saying anything and picked up Chuck on her way out of the palace. She had named it when she was only about eight-years-old, deciding on her weapon of choice and fighting style in the training simulator. When they had first entered the ruins, she had been asleep for some reason. Nobody had told her that her parents had been taken by the monsters, and he was going to raise her from now on. But, he needed help with something. He had looked so sad about her parents that she'd instantly formed a bond with him, implicitly trusting him. I mean, he had saved her. Later on, after they had spoken about what she'd liked to do for fun, he said that he needed a fighter, and that he was too old to do so himself. He was hoping to train her. She had agreed, as she didn't want to die to the monsters like her mother and father had. She also wanted to protect him.

She cared a great deal for Nobody. While he said she should never call him father, as she had already had a great one who had loved her dearly, he did say she didn't have to call him Mr. Nobody all the time. Nobody was just fine. She turned a corner to get out of the main wing she'd been cleaning the blood in, and entered the main pathway out.

She still remembered waking up in the ruins and being shocked by what she saw. Trees with perfect ripe fruit growing on every corner, water fountains that activated when you drew near and formed the shape of different animals in movement, and a huge amount of open space for just about anything you could want to do....but no people. The first day that they'd decided it was safe to travel around the place, Nobody had looked around for a moment, before taking her on a path that directly sent them to the training room. It had been a large open area, which Nobody called an Arena, that would create images of people and creatures to fight and train against. The difficulty could be adjusted, and she'd worked her way from tier point one all the way up to tier six by the time she was just twelve-years old. When they left, she had been close to defeating the 10th tier Arena Champions, but Nobody said they were running out of time. He said your mind and body got weird if you spent too much time in a displacement field, but even after she asked what he was talking about, he never explained it.

Elsie hefted Chuck onto her shoulder as she exited the palace doors. When Nobody asked why she'd named it that, she said it was because if she was ever in trouble, she could just Chuck it at them and watch them go splat. She fondly remembered Nobody laughing, and kept the name even after all of this time. It was an eight-foot long weapon, with a smooth dark brown haft and an extra thick tip finishing in a pointed end. Many people when seeing it would think that Chuck weighed a ton, but because it had been left in the ruins by her very technologically advanced ancestors, she could barely feel the weight of it in the slightest. Not that the weight would bother her anymore nowadays regardless.

Standing just in front of the exit, Elsie bunched up her legs and pushed with the second evolution she'd ever received, Leap. It still amazed her to this very moment how much speed she could get by leaping from rooftop to rooftop as she went. Each leap soared the Champion several hundred feet in the air, the view below showing no monsters, or people for that matter. Nobody had said that the multiverse was trying to destroy the Earth, and had done so with spies. Traitors. Pieces of shit. Each time she killed one, he said that the odds of some Earthlings surviving grew. He told her a lot of things.

She moved quickly, knowing they were on a strict timeline and left the palace, heading north. She watched as fallen buildings and haphazard green fields passed below her. Cars were overturned in some spots, blocking roads, and a few places had burned down. She was surprised, with how closely packed everything was, that more hadn't burned up. She saw an old church below, and landed near it, creating a small crater where he feet touched the ground. Naturally she was completely unharmed. Evolutions were amazing that way.

She read the street sign, naming this area Pond street. The British had a weird way with naming things. Was it a pond, or a street? Then again, San Francisco had Lois Lane street. Who was she to judge. Looking around, she saw an old flooring store and felt her fourth evolution, lifesense, kick up. It wasn't an advanced evolution, gained only recently when she defeated the fourth champion she'd run into, and she hadn't had time to train it correctly like she had the others. But still, it could give a general direction towards where the living were, and a hazy idea as to how many there were once she closed some distance.

Elsie hustled over quietly, moving from cover to cover so she was harder to see, like Nobody had taught her. She hid behind a large and smashed up truck with a picture of a loaf of bread on it, and pushed her enhanced senses to the limit, straining to listen in on what they were saying.

Becoming a champion had automatically given her a few boosts that the standard human just wouldn't have. Nobody said that when he identified her, he found enhanced endurance, strength, speed, and senses. The moment her Champion title had been bestowed, was the most painful time in her life. Until she had learned how to dial her senses up and down, everything was horrifying to experience. It took weeks of excruciating pain to overcome her limits and grasp the hidden ways to control her new gifts. Nobody helped a little, but he said he'd never experienced it before himself and could only give advice. Still, she'd done it, and at moments like this it was incredibly useful.

She heard a woman speaking, and counted six heartbeats no more than three hundred yards away. Elsie moved closer now that she knew where they were positioned, and shifted to an alley that came around a corner no-one was watching. The woman's words cleared up in her hearing and she listened in.

"James, I know this is hard on you, but you must understand, it's not safe here." Her voice was cracking and she sounded exhausted, her words slurring a little. Based on her limited understanding of British accents, she thought they had a Yorkshire lilt to their words. "We can't stay. I know your mother is in bad shape, but those...creatures...are gone. We need to leave, it's dangerous."

"No." A deep-voice said, likely James. "We don't abandon our people. Think about how Alexander feels right now, hearing his mother speaking about abandoning his grandmother. It's reprehensible. We are a family!" He said, raising his voice.

"Shhh, keep your voice down." A third voice piped in, a higher-pitched male by her guess, "There may still be looters and killers. You don't know"

"You're right, I'm sorry." James replied more quietly, "But, what I said stands. We're all connected by blood. You don't abandon or give up on blood, not ever."

"But what if..."

He interrupted her, "Hey, Helen, it will be alright. No what ifs." She heard a smacking sound, like two lips connecting quickly before breaking away.

"Okay James. If you think so."

She'd heard enough and understood what had to happen. She'd done it plenty of times before.

Elsie's parents would likely think her heartless, but they were dead, and these people were traitors. The whole damn country was. When Nobody said they were going to the heart of the problem, right in enemy territory, they'd teleported straight to London, right in the middle of downtown. She'd fought four enemy champions already here, with each dying and screaming terrible things at her as Chuck crushed their bodies. For all she knew, this group of people were aware she was here and were trying to feed her bad information. Who knows if they even have a sick mother. She couldn't trust them.

No, she had a task to fulfill for her master. That was the end of it. If she grew soft now, it could have large implications later on in her fight to save humanity. Kill all of the traitors he'd said, and that's what she would do. They had it coming.

Elsie leaped forward, passing over a fallen school bus and a pothole leaking water into the street, and smashed through a window just above where the traitors were congregating. Now that she was close, she could feel where each was positioned to within a few inches. The people below screamed as they heard the thud of her landing and the shattering of glass, but Elsie ignored it. It was easy to scream now that you'd been caught.

She pulled Chuck off her back and threw it through the floor, collapsing part of the roof down and blocking several avenues of escape with one move. Elsie dropped down after and used her first evolution, recalling her weapon to her hand. She passingly hit a salt and pepper haired man on her way to the floor. His body collapsed like jelly, as if his spine had no bones to hold it up. She ignored him, then swung Chuck around and smashed a younger woman with brown hair, eyes wide as Chuck completed his devastating work. The woman's mangled body flew through a wall, taking it down with her and further destroying the already shaky foundation of the place. She heard groaning timbers, but ignored it as the collapse of the building would just be a good test of her enhanced endurance, plus it might make her job a little easier.

"Wait" a sweat and dirt covered woman said. She recognized the voice as Helen who had been speaking before, "Please, we have a son and.." Chuck made quick work of her, pulverizing the former person into the ground. The last person in the room, a man, ran towards a room in the back. Elsie brushed some debris off her shoulder and leaped through a wall, coming to stand before a bed with an old woman in it and a young child nearby. The man was standing between her and them.

"You can't have them you demon!" He yelled at her, feet spread and hands up, ready for a fight. She mentally scoffed, as if he'd last more than a few seconds with her.

"Who said I am a demon?" She asked with a cock of her head, "You brought this on yourselves you traitorous bastards."

"What did we do? What have we ever done to deserve this!" He asked, "Please, please, just let my son and mother go. They won't do anything, I promise." He said, waving a palm at the feeble woman on the bed, a purple ankle showing itself as it stuck out of the covers over her body, and a smallish boy with light brown hair. He moved his eyes from his father's extended arm and met her own. Elsie's overlay lit up for the sixth time in her life.

 

...

.....Scanning.....

 

Enemy champion located.

Hidden bloodline located.

Enemy champions overlay activated.

Enemy champions enhancements provided.

Destruction of enemy champion will bring rewards.

 

The boy fell over screaming, grabbing his ears and trying not to move. Elsie knew that pain quite well.

"What are you doing to him you bitch!" The man yelled out, and charged at her. "Leave my son and mother alone!"

Mother....Grandmother....

Elsie's memories did a quick flash back, remembering her grandmother, also named Elsie, speaking to her as she made her pigtails for the first time. She hadn't thought on that or her grandmother in a long time, and touched her bald head, reaching for the double braids she'd once had. It was an old memory, nearly forgotten. The man punched her in the chest, but her body didn't move, too lost in the sensation of her grandmother telling her stories of happier times while braiding her hair. She barely even registered any pain from the action.

She looked over at the boy, still screaming on the ground as the man exhausted himself striking her. She pushed him aside, knocking him into a wall, as he was blocking her vision. Kneeling down, she pushed the boy over onto his back, eliciting another loud scream, and said, "Laying on your back makes it a little better. Less nerves there I think." She wasn't sure if the boy heard her, but she hoped he did.

The man was unconscious, so she went back into the other room, stepping around the bodies, and grabbed a bottle of water. Spilling it on his face, he awakened with a sputtering, water having filtered into his nose.

Elsie lifted him from the ground with one arm and held him up above her so his feet couldn't touch the ground, "Tell me the truth, traitor. How old is your son." She demanded of him harshly.

"What?" The man asked, his eyes rolling as she shook him a little.

"How old is he!" She said, raising Chuck in the air with her other arm.

"Fif-fifteen. He's just small for his age. He hasn't hit his growth spurt yet"

"Fifteen..." She laughed, "I was fighting tier eight's by fifteen. Do you even know what he is?"

"He's...He's my son." The man said, some of that former defiance coming back to his eyes.

"Yes." She said with a sad smile, "I suppose he is." She put him back on the ground. "You have two hours to get out of this city. If you do not leave in that timeframe, I will return, and all three of you will die. You have my word on that."

The man nodded quickly, and she walked through the wall next to him, providing an unsubtle reminder of the kind of power she wielded. The building groaned some more, but it held as she knew it would. Barely. Elsie walked out and leaped on top of a nearby building, watching the three to make sure they did as she told them. Nobody would be able to see if people were still in London, so, she needed them to leave or die. One or the other.

Elsie sat back on her heels and waited.

 

Alexander:

 

He was in a world of fire. His muscles felt like they were tearing and reforming over and over again. His tendons began popping from the stress, detaching themselves from his bones, and then reattaching immediately afterward. Everything was incredibly loud, and bright, and full of pain. Weird screens appeared behind his eyelids and he screamed all the louder, ignoring them and the implications of what they were. Nothing was making sense, and he just wanted to scream and cry.

Something grabbed onto his arms, and a new wave of pain came. He was dragged across the floor for a moment, heavy breathing smashing into his eardrums and vibrating with insanity, then he was lifted and felt someone punch him in the stomach. His body jiggled and his nerves were firing on all cylinders, making even the slightest motion undeniably painful. Blissfully, he passed out.

He wasn't sure how much time went by, but when he opened his eyes, he had to close them again immediately after. He'd looked at the sky, and the bright blue he knew so well was now an overwhelming spotlight. His muscles felt like someone had wrung them in one of those old timey washboards, strung out and stretched in new and painful ways. His hearing was still extraordinarily heightened and painful, but he still needed to strain it so he could figure out what was going on. The scratching and dragging sound grated on his mind, and his hearing picked up the heavy breathing he'd heard before.

Alexander's ears were in extreme pain still, but, he needed to know what was happening. So, despite the enormity of it, he spoke out loud, "What...is....happening." He said through ground teeth.

"Alexander, you're awake! Mom, Alex is awake! Oh thank god. We were so...why are you putting your hands on your ears?"

"Too...loud." He tried to whisper, but even that was painful. His own voice began to bounce and echo in his mind, making him grind his teeth, which he also heard. Like rocks brushing up against each other.

"What?" His father asked. His father surely said so in a normal voice, but it sounded like an explosion to Alexander.

"Too loud!" he made the mistake of yelling, his youth and ignorance, his pain, getting the best of him. His own voice vibrated his eardrums so badly that he promptly passed out from the agony, unaware of the panic he caused his father just now.

When he came to a second time, they weren't moving, and something felt like it was grasping his head. He reached up slowly, feeling many different nerves fire as his muscles and tendons worked to slowly grasp the things hanging on his ears. Such a simple procedure done a million times, now felt like a great labor for little reward. The things on his head felt fuzzy.

Ah, ear muffs.

That's why he wasn't in acoustic pain right now. They certainly muted some of the noise for him. He could still hear, despite the thickness, but it was more manageable now. He tried his voice again.

"Dad....awake."

He could hear, and feel his father quickly approaching. As he grew close enough, Alexander realized he could also smell his father now, and noticed he had quite the odor. "Stay....there.....please." He said while trying not to grit his teeth.

"Of course, of course son. How....how are you feeling." His dad said in his best quiet voice.

"A little...better."

"Good son, good."

"What's....happening....happened....I don't..."

"I'm sorry, son. We" He sighed, "I lost your mother, and your grandmother didn't make it out of London. The infection in her leg spread throughout her veins and she's gone now too. It's just us. Just us."

"What...about....Uncle and Aunt Sofia."

"Gone." Came the deadened voice in return.

"How?"

"It was a demon son. It looked human, but I'd bet anything that was a demon. It forced us out of London, and I didn't have time to properly care for you and your grandma at the same time. Not to mention pulling you both on this cart. She...uh...died in her sleep, which is a better way than many have lately."

"Where"

"Where are we? We're just north of London now, out of the city proper."

"Bright...the sun.."

"Ah, hold on a second, I picked these up recently." He left for a moment, but quickly returned, "Here, I found a service station nearby and grabbed some sunnies. They're heavily tinted."

Alexander felt the sunglasses edge onto and scratch the tips of his ears, his father's hands fumbling about to get them secured. He tried not to make any noises, and only flinched for a moment. The last thing he needed was to make his father feel bad after everything he'd gone through to keep him alive. He opened his eyes quickly, noting the brightness wasn't nearly as pronounced, but also seeing every spec of dust on the edges of the lens. He tried to ignore it, and turned his head to the side.

There was a tall tree in the distance, larger than the rest by a good amount of height. Standing on top of it was a woman covered in metal armor with the shafted end of a long weapon sticking out from her back. Even though she had to be a quarter of a mile away, he saw her put a finger to her lips, before she waved once. Then, as he watched, she leaped a hundred feet in the air and in the direction of London Town.

He couldn't help staring at the tree she'd been standing on for a very long moment.

"What is it son?" His father asked, voice clearly strained as he still attempted to not speak too loudly, "What do you see over there?"

"Nothing dad." Alexander replied in the calmest voice he could make, masking his own fears and insecurities. "Nothing at all."