Chapter Four - Pole Dancing

I blinked away the warning. I had bigger shit to worry about. One of the aliens was right on me, triple-hinged jaws opened wide.

I shoved the extinguisher into its mouth.

Jaw muscles as big around as my bicep squeezed the bright-red container with enough force that the metal squealed.

I shielded my eyes with my arm a moment before the extinguisher exploded.

The alien made a deep, rasping noise as expanding white foam filled its mouth. It twisted this way and that, finally bumping into the other alien with a wild swing of its head. Foam continued to pour out of the extinguisher, hardening as it puddled around.

I didn’t have time to watch, not when there was a second monster just there.

Spinning around, I started to run again, eyes scanning everything for any sort of weapon. The guns and swords in display cases along the far wall teased me, but I knew they had to be replicas. Then I saw a rope barrier, a dozen gleaming chrome poles holding up a thick velvet rope.

My eyes locked on the pole. It wasn’t one of those plain ones, with a ball atop it. No, this was some sort of artsy thing, more a stainless-steel toothpick than a pole.

Feet skidding across the floor, I came to a spinning stop next to the barrier, tore the rope off the top and, with a foot on the base to keep it in place, yanked it out of its slot.

I turned with the pole held out before me just as the second alien jumped at me.

I screamed, part fright, part anger, and held the pole out before me.

The metal tip poked into the beast’s eyes. It was too late for it to stop.

That didn’t mean that its hundreds of kilos of weight just stopped either.

The pole slid back along my hand until it punched me in the gut. Then the alien’s weight came down on top of me, sending us both the ground.

Something had to give. The pole punched into my lower ribs with enough force that I lost what little air was left in my lungs.

In that moment, before the pain hit, I got to watch the pole sink a foot into the alien’s head.

Then my world focused, every ounce of my body’s attention concentrated on the side where I felt metal parting skin and sliding into me. The pole scraped against the bones in my ribcage, the muscles there screamed in protest.

I gasped, my breathing choppy and uneven as every intake of air sent a wave of nausea up my side.

No pain. Nothing but the weird feeling in my gut.

Confusion sank away as an ache, then a roaring fire of agony spread out from the hole in my chest. It wasn’t the worst pain I had ever felt, but it was certainly up there.

I looked up to the alien impaled on the same pole I was, almost hoping that it was alive so that it could put me out of my misery.

The pole poked into its large lower eye and was left jammed somewhere in its scaly skull. It was very dead.

“Well, fuck you too,” I said.

I pressed my hand down, tears stinging my eye and a fuzzy burning filling the socket where my right eye had been. It was nothing compared to the weird sensation of the pole moving in my chest.

Shifting to the side, I pushed the monster off of me and whimpered as it made the pole twist in my gut. There was a lot of blood.

“Oh, shit,” I said. I had to get up, to go see the kitten to... I coughed. I was done for, but I didn’t want to be, not yet.

The world went dark. My head pounded.

Then, light, and a searing that I felt pushing into the back of my head as if someone were prodding me with a hot-poker. My legs kicked out and the pole shifted again. The only reason I didn’t scream was the pain in my ribs.

The pain stopped.

System Initialized!

Congratulations. Through your actions you have proven yourself worthy of becoming one of the Vanguard, a defender of humanity. I am Myalis. I will assist you to uplift humanity so that you may defend your homeworld from the Antithesis threat!

Rise, Catherine Leblanc, and become a protector of the weak!

“What?” I asked. The voice had come from... nowhere.

Oh you poor thing. You seem to be suffering from a whole host of medical issues. It seems as though you still have some minutes left to live. Let’s make the best out of them, shall we?