To Professor Hendrick, life was about the things he could enjoy based on his inclinations and aptitudes. From a young age, he loved sci-fi, aliens, and fantasy. His library of novels was immense, and he had tried his hand at writing a few times in the past. But, being too busy with studies, he never got the chance to write his alien stories: tales of two civilizations, alien to each other, finding many similarities, growing and thriving.
One day, those extraterrestrial species found Earth, just like in the movies and books. However, what happened wasn't like the movies and books he preferred; it was the other type he despised the most: stories of war, killing, and destruction.
People were crazy about this sort of hate-fueled fiction. Naturally, such a negative form of art would exist to take the edge off day-to-day life. Yet it unfolded before him, becoming reality.
"XENOS!"
The word echoed throughout the hall of the factory building. The woman leading the militant group had her pistol aimed at the other guests directly before her.
"DROP IT!"
"GET BACK!"
"HOLD ON!"
"I SAID DROP IT!"
"TAKE COVER!"
"BACK OFF!"
"I'LL SHOOT!"
The situation escalated to a heated standoff. Everyone had their guns raised, and the new visitors were fast, glaring with deadly conviction in their eyes. The students were agitated by the military personnel, especially after their previous encounter. If bullets were to fly, many of the people emerging from the camps would get hurt.
"STOP! I SAID STOP IT! ALL OF YOU!"
Professor Hendrick ran down the stairs, dragging his aged body between the firearms and quickly approaching the men-at-arms.
"Step away!"
Sharp immediately poked his Blazer at the professor's chest, but before any further escalation could occur, Adam immediately pushed Sharp's Blazer upwards.
"Stand down, Sharp. You don't aim at that man."
Adam immediately opted for peace and extended his hand to Professor Hendrick, who stopped his march before Sharp's menacing threat. Adam then turned to Elena.
"Sergeant, what's the meaning of this?" Adam rushed to Elena's side, a nervous wreck because of the situation she had started.
"You're asking me that?" Elena retorted sharply. "Ask your people. They are the ones in bed with Xenos."
"What the hell…" Adam wanted to lash back at Elena, but as he looked at the two individuals Elena was still aiming her Blazer at, he then turned to the Professor, asking, "Who are they?"
"They are guests, and you have no right to threaten them," the Professor replied with obvious agitation before turning to Elena, "Aim that thing away. There are children watching!"
Elena only replied with a scoff, which only caused tension to rise. Something triggered her to act this rashly, and Adam had to get her back under control.
But before he could even attempt to do that, one of the two hooded ones reacted. Instead of the one directly aimed at by Elena's Blazer, the other one moved swiftly with alien finesse, crossing the distance between her and Sergeant Elena with strange acrobatics in a blur. She immediately kicked Elena's pistol from her hand with a surprise kick and went for a subduing technique, but Elena had already recovered from the surprise and dodged efficiently.
The two women engaged in another lightning-fast exchange. The hooded stranger started with another kick to Elena's front to make her back off, but that went horribly as Elena had managed to catch the kick with the stopping power of an unshakable wall. With the enemy's leg in her bionic arm, all she needed to do was to violently pull the stranger towards her, then switch her bionic arm to clutch the stranger's neck, push them down, and pin them to the ground.
The hooded stranger was subdued with their back to the ground; however, their fighting spirit had hardly faded. They tried to take action, seemingly using a technology exclusive to their race, so Elena immediately returned the courtesy by activating her bionic arm's Blazer cell.
The arm started glowing with red energy coursing through its exterior, and it made a buzzing hum as it became fully charged in an instant.
"Try anything, I dare you!"
Elena's threat was by no means empty, and the hooded stranger was unmasked by that exchange, revealing the gray-skinned face hidden beneath the hood.
This was the first time Adam had seen an Alfari, and he was utterly shocked and profusely confused, as were the rest of those who saw the alien for the first time. Those first-timers included half of Professor Hendrick's students, who weren't told about the aliens' origins, as well as the whole group of unarmed survivors.
"What is that?"
"Holy crap!"
"Jesus! These aren't humans!"
"Mommy, aliens are real?"
"Sorry, sweetie. Mommy didn't know."
The reactions of shock and confusion filled the scene. Elena grinned, knowing full well to trust her nose when it comes to catching aliens. Venuxian men-at-arms were born and bred to fight xenos; in fact, even the Inquisition would use them as its preferred hunting hounds when chasing Xenos hiding among human populations, a point of pride for the Venuxians.
Still, this situation was far from the ideal first impression Adam was hoping for, forcing him to step forward and tap Elena's shoulder.
"Sergeant, I understand your sentiment, but please, let's be political about those… strangers."
The expression of victory was wiped off Elena's face, replaced by shock.
"But… those are…" Elena retorted without lifting her hand or backing off her Blazer-charged bionic arm.
"Xenos? I know. But what kind? Where do they come from? How many of them are there? Are they hostile? Do we even have the firepower to deal with them? Let's not make unnecessary trouble for the Commander, shall we? We're here for allies."
Adam's words made perfect sense, as always, but the fanatical Venuxians were resisting with every fiber of their being. Their past tragedies throughout the many Serf Worlds from which they repelled alien invaders stood as a testament to the horrific acts perpetrated by alien races against humanity and vice versa. They believed that if not for the genocidal exterminations of species such as the Gor and Korvak, humanity would have never become the greatest race in the galaxy.
"Please, let go of Miss Samara. She is not our enemy." Professor Hendrick pleaded for the alien's life.
"Miss Samara, huh?" Elena grinned viciously. "Treating it like a human, now?"
This mess was no longer within anyone's hands to control. Adam realized the magnitude of the inconvenience they caused for this group of survivors, as it seemed this group was in contact with a sentient alien race but had kept it under wraps, even from their own survivors—a fact that might cause a significant problem in this camp's internal politics.
"Sergeant, we kind of look like the bad guys now." He said, and crouched beside her, taking a closer look at the alien, "She doesn't look like any alien you know, does she? Not like any you've fought before. Think."
Elena thought, and her face twitched, the power of Adam to compel her to act according to his will as the summoner was conflicting with the 35 long years of ceaseless xenophobic indoctrination. However, Adam didn't compel her to act; he compelled her to think, and as a soldier, she was never given that opportunity for High Command ever before.
Once she thought and saw things the same way he did, the pistons of her bionic arm were released, and the clutch holding Samara's neck eased. Elena stood up and extended her bionic arm towards the Blazer pistol, which Samara had kicked away. It then shook as if possessed by a demon and flew back to her hand—a sight that shocked all parties present, human and alien.
The one shocked most of all was BIT's lead scientist in Cybernetics, Professor Anthony Hendrick, who stared with wide eyes at Elena's arm, unable to piece together his thoughts anymore.
He was a man who dedicated most of his life to three things: his studies, his hobbies, and, later in life, his students. He never had a lover or a wife, but he was fulfilled to be an overpaid, full-time nerd. He needed no legacy to leave, since his name had already made it into history with international awards and honor titles.
With all this background, Professor Hendrick's mind was at the forefront of Earth's scientists in the realm of cybernetics and biorobotics. So, when his gaze fell upon Elena's bionic arm, he put two and two together in an instant.
"You… You're an alien too!"
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