A/N: The second Flaxan Invasion.
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"Shit, fuck, shit, shit!"
Maya squirms against the gunk that the aliens have blasted her with, trying to find a way to leverage her super strength to break free but not finding much luck.
This was not going the same way it had last time, but then from what she'd been told, that made unfortunate sense. The aliens, who had only first invaded three days ago, were called Flaxans according to what the GDA had been able to learn from prisoners before they'd expired.
Their dimension existed in a completely different state of time than Earth did, meaning that when they originally came through the portal to Earth, they all began to rapidly age and die within minutes of their arrival. This had been what forced their retreat the first time around and thanks to the timely intervention of the Guardians along with the Teen Team and Maya herself, there were minimal casualties.
However, this also meant that what had been three days for Earth had been decades for the Flaxans, or so Robot had said. Decades that the Flaxans had used wisely to not only advance their technology but also prepare countermeasures for their opponents. It wasn't just laser rifles and laser tanks anymore. No, instead they had a different tool for everyone they were fighting.
Maya wasn't the only one currently pinned down by this grey oozy gunk for instance. The Immortal was trying to fight his way free of the same stuff. Meanwhile, War Woman was still ambulatory but had lost her signature mace to some kind of magnetic device that had yanked it from her grasp entirely. Frankly, Maya hadn't even known what metal the mace was made of, so she was shocked the Flaxans were able to identify it after one encounter.
And that wasn't even mentioning the deaths. Rex Splode had had his signature power thrown back in his face and been so distracted by it that one of the laser tanks had hit him and bisected him, cutting him in half down the middle in a single second.
Darkwing, meanwhile, had suffered a similar fate, taking multiple laser rifles to the chest when he'd been caught out of position. And Red Rush had been taken out by a well-timed blast of the same grey gunk that got Maya and the Immortal, before being perforated by Flaxan lasers.
Atom Eve, when she'd registered Rex's death, had gone into a rage that the Flaxans had been quick to take advantage of, and now rolled around on the ground with some device attached to her face, cutting off her line of sight and steadily suffocating her.
From what Maya knew, Eve needed absolute concentration to use her powers… kind of hard to do so when you're being asphyxiated and can't even see.
Things were looking dire. People were still fighting, but Maya couldn't break free. The aliens nearby were laughing at her, though they'd already tried to kill her with their laser rifles to no effect. Not that that meant much. She might still be fine, but other people were still dying.
Even the Guardians weren't going to last much longer at this rate.
It's when one of the Flaxans moves to put down Eve that Maya truly sees red though. The other woman had all but taken Maya under her wing in the past three days, especially after they figured out they'd gone to school together just last year. They'd graduated with Maya never even knowing she had a bonafide heroine at her school despite Eve not even wearing a mask.
The conversations they'd had, the dual flights… they'd been really nice. And now she was going to watch Eve die right in front of her because she was too… damn… weak!
"NOOOOOOOOO!"
With a roar of rage, Maya suddenly finds herself on her feet. The grey gunk and the laser tank she was stuck to are blasted away, leaving her in the clear. The Flaxan standing menacingly over Eve whips around just in time to take Maya's fist to his stupid green face, sending him flying back away and his gun scattering across the pavement.
Maya doesn't follow up though, she immediately kneels over Eve and rips the device off of her face, freeing the other woman. Eve sits up with a gasp, finally able to breathe again.
"T-Thank you."
Maya smiles as much as she can in these circumstances and nods.
"Of course, I've got you!"
She's able to prove it a moment later too, as a laser blast arrives from another nearby soldier and she deflects it with her forearm to keep it from reaching Eve.
Unfortunately, they're far from out of the woods. Maya might have managed to escape the Flaxans' countermeasure for her, but they were still surrounded on all sides and more alien invaders were swarming through the damn portal by the second. Visit novelping.com for the full chapter.
… Should she run? She'd promised her mom she would after last time. To say Debbie Grayson had been upset when she saw Maya fighting aliens on the news three days ago would be an understatement. She'd been apoplectic.
They'd had a huge row over it, one that had almost ended with Maya leaving and trying to find a friend to stay with for the night. Because ultimately, that was what it came down to at the end of the day. Maya wasn't a kid anymore. She was eighteen years old and she could make her own choices.
So no, her mother couldn't ground her no matter how much she might have wanted to. And while Debbie could threaten to tell her father when he got back all she wanted, Maya was confident that her dad would understand that she'd done what she had to, in order to keep Earth safe and hold down the fort while he was gone.
When it became clear to her mom that she was ready to walk out the door on her, Debbie had backed down and they'd reconciled, after a fashion. The one promise that her mother had extracted from her was to 'not die' though. That if the situation was ever so bad that it looked untenable, Maya would retreat to fight another day.
Obviously Maya had never intended to actually follow that promise. Not really. But as she's looking out at the battle, at the Guardians, half dead and half pinned, and at the advancing Flaxan forces, she wonders if she might just scoop up Eve and fly away as fast as possible. Even if the other woman hated her for it for the rest of time, at least she would be alive to do so.
"The wristbands! They're wearing wristbands that protect them from our universe's timestream. Destroy the wristbands!"
What? Maya's head whips around to see Robot, who had been taken out by a specialized EMP early in the fighting, has recovered enough to lift himself halfway off the ground. He's pointing and when she follows his finger, its to see him pointing at a particular device on one of the Flaxans' wrists.
Its shorting out… and Maya watches as the Flaxan in question begins to panic and age in real time as a direct consequence.
"He's right! Guardians, on me! Form up and focus on the wristbands!"
War Woman's strong, stalwart voice carries on the wind as she too hears Robot's words. Aquarus has just finished freeing The Immortal from the grey gunk with high-pressure water blasts, and they along with the other living Guardians quickly form up on War Woman. Even without her mace, the female Guardian exudes strength as she lunges forward along with the Immortal and the two begin to take out wristbands with nothing but speed and their bare-hands.
Feeling no small amount of shame over the fact that she'd been about to run away, Maya shares a look and a nod with Eve before both of them burst into action.
The next few minutes are filled with them disabling as many wristbands as they can get their hands or powers on, until finally Robot lets out a specific screech on a certain frequency that makes Maya's head swim for a moment before every single wristband in the city center shatters and the Flaxans are forced into total retreat.
War Woman, The Immortal, and the rest of the Guardians once again make sure many of the Flaxans don't actually escape, until finally the portal is shut from the other side and the second invasion is over at long last, same as the first.
Except unlike the first, things really hadn't gone well this time. Maya looks around and all she can see is blood and gore in every direction. Way more civilians had died this time… and heroes too. The Teen Team had lost Rex Splode and the Guardians had lost Darkwing, Red Rush, and Martian Man to boot, the latter of whom has Aquarus crying over his body.
Maya, quite frankly, couldn't remember the last time that the Guardians had lost anyone on a mission. This was a disaster.
"Hey… you okay?"
Maya looks to Eve and swallows thickly. She might have tried to laughed it off three days, but all things considered, she just shakes her head.
"Shouldn't I be asking you that? I… you and Rex Splode had something special, r-right?"
Eve had mentioned it once or twice in their chats. The two heroes had been dating. And now Rex… Rex was dead. Eve's face falls at the reminder and her eyes begin to slowly trace over to where his body lies in two pieces, seemingly of their own accord.
Before they can land on his corpse, Maya moves without thinking, imposing herself between Eve and the body and startling the other heroine.
"Hey… you don't need to see that."
Eve looks like she might argue for a moment but ultimately swallows and nods.
"Shit, what a fucking mess… how did we even survive that? They were totally ready for us this time…"
Maya and Eve both look over as Dupli-Kate walks up, grimacing and rubbing her arm. She looks untouched but that's ignoring the hundreds of her copies who were killed in the battle they'd all just survived. Before either of them can reply, Robot walks up as well.
"They used their time wisely, it would seem. Analyzing our attack patterns, turning our strengths against us. Atom Eve, I am sorry for your loss. Rex… will be missed."
"Yeah… yeah, he will be."
Maya doesn't know what to say. She likes to think her and Eve are friends now, but that doesn't stop her from feeling like a bit of an outsider. She's not a member of the Teen Team, after all. Should she just… leave?
"All of you fought well again today. That said, I would ask that you stick around despite your loss. Given the severity of this second attack, the Director of the GDA would like us all to debrief together."
Maya blinks as War Woman once again walks up to them in the battle's aftermath. It's like a dark, twisted mirror of three days ago. This time around, War Woman isn't nearly as celebratory and her mood is black. Sure, she acknowledges their efforts, but… well, the Guardians had lost three members. Maya doesn't know what else she's really expecting.
That said, she also doesn't know if she should be going to this debrief. None of the Teen Team seems all that put out by the idea, but one of the other things that her mom had tried to convince her to agree to was avoiding Cecil Stedman, the Global Defense Agency's Director, at all costs.
According to Debbie, Cecil was bad news and not someone that Maya's father would want her associating with. Even though Maya knew full well that her dad and Cecil went way back and had been working together for longer than she'd been alive.
Still, it had been easy enough to follow her mom's decree… until today. Because just as Maya is opening her mouth to take a rain check on the debriefing, a bunch of black vans pull up to the scene and begin to disgorge men in suits, both hazmat and otherwise.
And one of those men is exactly who she's supposed to be avoiding. As Cecil steps free of the car, his eyes lock on Maya almost instantly and he makes a beeline for her, ignoring everything else.
"Invincible, right?"
Swallowing, Maya nods. She knows from her mother's overheard phone call with the man that Cecil already knows who she is… but he seems to be maintaining the façade for now at least.
Sweeping his gaze across the battlefield, Cecil sighs and runs a hand down his face after a moment.
"What a damn mess…"
Then, he looks to them.
"Get in a van, all of you. Let's get back to base and discuss what the fuck happened today so we can make sure it never happened again."
War Woman scowls a bit at that.
"Cecil…"
But the GDA Director is already turning away.
"Get in the damn van."
When even War Woman wordlessly obeys that second order, Maya isn't sure if she's allowed to say no or not… so she goes along with the others. At least she gets to sit next to Eve. Though her bisexual disaster of a crush on the other young woman is probably something she should shelve for the time being until there's a little bit of distance from the bloody and violent death of her boyfriend…
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A/N: Maya is a mess, but tbf, so is the situation!
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