Marathon Re-Imagined

Spark immediately turned towards the terminal, planning to send a sit-rep down to Leela. Leela didn’t have any camera’s down here, as Durandal was the one that ran Marathon’s “downstairs”.

“Oh, shit.”

The only terminal in the room, which appeared to be a small armoury, was riddled with bullet holes. Useless to her. A quick glance at a corner in her HUD confirmed her other worry. She had just used up almost all of her bullets for her pistol. Five shots left, and a ship full of aliens to shoot.

“Why the hell did we decide to give the AIs control of the entire ship? Especially if they can go down just like that!” She yelled to the air, smacking her gloved hand against the crate that stocked the M75b clips. “Hey! Durandal, if you can hear me, and you’re still online can you open these weapons crates?”

Nothing. Not that Spark had expected anything else, but still, she hoped. She only had one choice.

Activating her radio, she sighed. She was going to get in trouble for this.  Taking a breath, she mentally composed herself for what she was going to have to say to her commanding officer. “...-”

click

Immediately the pistol was drawn and she ducked down slightly. Spark’s eyes searched over the small room. Nothing. Something had changed though. Something subtle, something that even the most astute person could miss. Spark barely saw it before dismissing it as nothing.

The weapons crate was open.

<<000>>

“Spark! We gotta talk about this! I am not your enemy!” Blast shouted through the door. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was going to tell her, but he’d BS’d his way through worse situations than this one. He just wasn’t sure where this situation ranked on the panic scale.

Noticing that he hadn’t gotten an answer from the trapped human, he tried again. “Spark, please just listen to me. I know you don’t trust me, but you need to, just for a little bit.”

Nothing.

“Come on Spark! I don’t have time to explain, but we need to hurry! We’re going to have those aliens on our asses if we don’t leave, like right now!” Glancing at his motion tracker showed that there indeed was a patrol of pfhor on their way. If he remembered correctly, at this point it shouldn’t be too hard. The hunters weren’t sent in until later in the invasion

Nothing.

“Dammit Spark! I will explain everything to you later!” Blast yelled, smacking the door with a resounding metallic sound resonating throughout the empty hallways

A click.

“Damn right you will.” Blast cursed under his breath as he felt a very familiar cold tube against the side of head.

“How’d you get out?”

Spark sighed. Of course the strange creature would wonder about that instead of his predicament.

<<000>>

“Durandal, if that was you, I’m sorry for all the crappy things I said about the AI systems.” Spark said, sighing in relief. She walked over to the ammo crates, checking the containers that were open. Out of the ten crates in the room, three of them were open. One held a second pistol and about ten clips. She grabbed the pistol and slid it into a holster that was built into her security suit. She did the same with her other pistol.

Spark laughed at what was in the next crate. Is was an old M-75b assault rifle. These things hadn’t been used in about twenty years. It’s amazing that this one was in perfect order. Picking it up, she juggled it around in her hands, testing its weight. She gave it look over. The seemingly perfect gun had only one flaw. It was stuck on full auto, meaning that instead of a mid-range gun like she had hoped for, she had only a full auto gun. Good for crowd control, of not much else. An interesting feature this one is that it seemed to have a grenade launcher built into it. Well, welded onto it. Shrugging, Spark slipped as many clips as she could carry into her ammo belt. Throwing the gun’s carrying strap over her head, she slid it out of her way. Stepping lightly towards the third and final crate, she opened it and sighed. It wasn’t more ammo, like she had hoped, but it was something. A helmet that would automatically seal in the event of a decompression. It was something, at least. It wouldn’t stop a bullet, but it might protect her from a blow to the head.

*bing*

Sparks head whipped around again, this time her hands finding the stock and the trigger of the assault rifle automatically.

A door was open. A door where there clearly hadn’t been one earlier. According to her automap it was the room directly next to the one she was in now. One that should have an open door.

“Thank you mysterious benefactor! Next time we meet, remind me to do something nice for you. If, you know, we aren’t in the middle of a life-or-death situation.”

<<000>>

Spark shook her head slightly to clear it. “It doesn’t matter how the hell I got out. What I am more concerned with is why the hell a damn... unicorn know who the hell I am!”

“Spark, there is a perfectly reasonable explanation for this...” Blast started, only to stop as he felt the gun press into his skin harder.

“Skip the bull-shit, and just tell me.” Spark demanded, her head hidden from view by the helmet. It actually made her more intimidating than without it.

“Um... Would you believe that I’m on your side and that I’m from the future? Sent back by a creature that we’re going to defeat?” Blast tried, hoping. He didn’t have much hope though, because he knew Spark.

To his surprise though, Spark started laughing, pulled the gun away from Blast’s head. It was still aimed at him, so it wasn’t much of an improvement.

“Sure. Why the hell not. Stranger things have happened today. But there is still the problem is that the Marathon is currently having an alien attack. And by any days standards, a unicorn is pretty much up there with alien. How do I know that you aren’t part of the alien forces?” Spark said, ending up with a sarcastic spin in her voice as the laughing stopped.

“Because of this!” Blast shouted at her. Using his magic, he pushed her into the ground, grabbing a pistol off of her belt. Spark rolled over, and then felt the heat of a plasma blast go through the space that her body had been moments before.

“Fuck!” Standing and jumping into a different hallway, she pulled the assault rifle up. Blast had already opened fire on the aliens, alternating pistols to reduce time in between shots.

While the ...pfhor’s(?) attention on the strange newcomer, Spark risked a glance at her enemy. Bipedal, they looked insect like. Three eyes, arranged in a triangle with the point on the bottom. What looked like breathing tubes ran from their back to their faces.

Spark watched as they fell, subcumming to the rain of pistol bullets. It eventually stopped as the strange creature dropped both of its clips and slammed two fresh clips in at the same time, the other aliens dead on the ground.

“Believe me now?”

Spark jumped at the unexpected voice. Berating herself mentally, she turned towards the source of it, keeping her fingers on the trigger, but the weapon itself lowered and safety on. Her mind took a moment to process its question.

“I’ll trust you not to shoot me in the back, but as far as that...” She left the statement hanging, letting the strange little unicorn finish it in his head.

Blast sighed. He had known it was going to be hard to get Spark to trust him. Even though she knew that his Spark was in the future, it still hurt to not be known by his friend. He stuck out a hoof to Spark.

“I’m Blast. Heavy hitter, sniper, or infiltration specialist. In other words; Special Ops.”

“Oh yeah? No kidding. So, ‘Blast’, you’ve clearly had training. What army? You another alien, or part of a secret project by the egg-heads down below.”

“Uh, a little bit of both? I... technically shouldn’t be in this universe. The warp engines went off during a cool down period, and I sorta got... sucked into this one. Heard that the guy that started the blast got sucked into mine.”

Spark whistled. “Okay then. Walk and talk.”

Motioning forward with her AR, she swung it off to the side and pulled out her  trusty magnum. Blast got the hint and started walking.

“So, different reality. If it weren’t for some of the fucked up shit I’ve seen today I wouldn’t have believed you.” Spark said without a hint of sarcasm.

“Tell me about it. I thought I had gotten lucky and gotten here after the Marathon invasion. The universe has just told me otherwise.” Blast said, unsure about whether or not  be relieved that she was taking this so well, or to be worried.

“Take the left up here.”

The strange duo walked in silence for a while. Each had a lot to think about, but it was more out of respect for the massacre that they were witness to every time that they turned the corner, took an elevator if it worked, and every time they opened a room.

Blast broke the silence after about fifteen minutes. “Hey, thanks for, you know, not shooting my brains out back there.”

Spark gave a short laugh. “Well, in my defense, I did try. And I still don’t quite trust you. Nice trick with the shield, by the way.”

“Thanks. I was taught it by... a close friend.”

“Think you could modify it and put a form if it on my suit? It’s got a red bar max limiter, to keep people from doing stupid stuff outside of the ship.”

“Actually, I could, but we’d need tools to modify the plug-in from a standard ship-wide plug to accept my magic.”

“Uh, the plug that says do not modify?”

“That’s the one!” Blast said brightly.

Spark sighed and checked the map again. Then looked at the corridor. Then the map.

“Dammit. There should be a door here.”

Blast sighed as deeply as Spark had, if not deeper.

“Not again. I dealt with this shit with Discord.”