“What is her ultimate goal?” Colonel Stark asked Bradley Peterson.

            The group was sitting in Kevin Ward’s attic, where his living area was located. Bradley was seated on the couch, with the rest of them standing around him. Stark was straight ahead of him, making the whole thing seem like an interrogation. It had only been an hour since they had had their scuffle with Arell back near the Catskill Mountains, and now Todd, Sarah, Randy, and Alfred seemed on edge, Kevin was excited, and Colonel Stark was ready to go to war. Somehow, in the middle of it all, Bradley thought that they must have forgotten that Arell was looking for him and that their lives were now in danger because of what they had done, because they never got around discussing leaving him, Bradley, somewhere safe from their location.

            “I told you everything I know,” Bradley replied. “She was never good at being completely clear. All I know is that she’s taking over the planet. She started capturing a town for some sort of ‘zoo’ or something for her people, though that she was even more vague about, and now I don’t know what she’s doing. More importantly, I don’t know why.”

            “Why is she after you?” Stark asked. “No offense, but you’re not a high up in the Government or anybody of any significance on the political workings of the world. Why would she take you of all people?”

            “Bad luck…” Peterson shrugged. “I guess I was just unlucky enough for her to pick me. Wrong place at the wrong time.”

            “What did she want you for?” Sarah asked.

            “I’m not entirely sure,” Bradley said. “She said that I was for personal research purposes or something like that, but I…I just understand her. Everything she says makes sense, except when you look at the context of what she’s doing.”

            “What do you mean?” Stark inquired.

            “If she’s taking over the planet…” Bradley said. “Why does she need me? She could take anyone and have them for awhile and then replace them when they got too old or she accidentally killed them. Oh…that’s another thing…Arell…she’s been around for awhile.”

            “Well, that’s not surprising,” Randy said.

            “No, I mean a LONG time,” Bradley replied. “Like, before the United States even existed.”

            “You’re kidding…’ Sarah said. “But…that means she’s over two hundred years old!”

            “She’s even older than that,” Peterson went on. “She told me she saw Rome rise and fall. Saw Columbus discover America. She has a fucking Spartan warrior frozen up on her ship. I saw it! She’s over two thousand years old!”

            “And she looks like that!?” Kevin asked. “Holy fuck! That means she’s the sexiest cougar alive!”

            “I have no idea how long she’s been alive…” Bradley said. “But I can tell you she’ll outlive all of us by centuries. Her race has been alive for probably longer than our planet has been here.”

            “Exactly how large do you think the population of her race is?” Stark asked.

            “No idea,” Bradley said. “I don’t know anything about her home planet. Except that it’s called ‘Avakon’ and the ‘people’ there are huge and that they’re apparently very interested in us.”

            “Interested?” Alfred asked.

            “Yeah, Arell is apparently a researcher,” Bradley explained. “They found our planet and they sent her to investigate. They were apparently very much surprised to find that we looked a lot like them, they thought that maybe we were some sort of lost branch of their kind or whatever. So Arell’s been watching our planet for them.”

            “And that’s why they want to make a zoo,” Stark growled.

            “Allegedly,” Bradley said. “…but there’s something about that that doesn’t quite add up for me.”

            “When you say ‘zoo’,” Alfred asked. “Do you mean like our kind of zoo, where animals are locked up and people pay to go pet them or something?”

            “Well…”

            “That’d be cool!” Kevin exclaimed. “Can I be the exhibit for all their hot females? Come one, come all if you’re a hot space girl, the greatest thing from Planet Earth is here for a limited time and…”

            “Shut up, boy!” Stark snapped.

            “But guys, here’s the thing…” Bradley tried to continue.

            “Come on,” Kevin said, grinning. “Who knows? It may not be so bad being at a zoo. You know how girls are with really cute little animals. They all want to hold it, and pet it, and kiss it……oh god, this sounds awesome. When are we going!?”

            “Listen…”

            “YOU can go!” Stark snapped. “I am not going to be eye candy for a bunch of nut cases!”

            “I’d rather not too…” Randy said. He paused. “Unless…do you think they’d like the violin? I can take mine and…well, if they’re a good audience…that wouldn’t be so bad…”

            “Oh, don’t start thinking like him!” Stark cried, pointing at Kevin.

            “That’s the spirit, Randy!” Ward smiled. “Think of all the curvy ladies that will smile and applaud you when you play the works of our classical giants! I remember one of Beethoven’s pieces from class…uh…oh! The Hess 48: Allegretto in E-flat major! They’ll love that!”

            “That was written for the piano, Kevin,” Randy said.

            “Guys…” Bradley tried again.

            “Well have them get a piano!” Ward said. “I’m sure they can find one for you. They can lift one with two fingers, I’m sure it won’t be…”

            “Stop!” Stark cried. “This kind of talk is like considering surrender to the enemy, and I won’t stand for it! We’re not going to sit around and think about this as if we’ve already given up!”

            “Seriously, listen, this is…” Bradley continued to try.

            “Well, that’s not entirely a bad idea, Colonel,” Sarah spoke up. “We should consider it in the even that it does come to that. After all, we all know that she’s a very powerful individual, with a lot of science behind her. What was her name again, Mr. Peterson?”

            “Her name’s Arell, but…”

            “What kind of a goofy name is that?” Colonel Stark grunted.

            “Hey, she’s from space,” Kevin said. “Just be glad it’s easy to say. Ah-rell. Rhymes with ‘bell’. Easy. It could have been something completely impossible like…Quiggixigin, or Artelliqiuan, or…”

            “Boy, those comics of yours have seriously damaged your brain…” Stark shook his head.

             “But, guys…”

            “Is everyone on her planet as big as she is?” Todd asked. “Or is she just a special case? Was she the result of some experiment or something? Cause if that’s her natural height, we’re in trouble, cause, on average, men are usually taller than women, so the men on the planet will be even BIGGER!”

            “Yeah, that’s the downside,” Kevin nodded. “There are giant men on her planet. I would have much rather had a planet of alien women who ran out of men in some disaster and were collecting the men on Earth so that they could continue to produce offspring and…”

            “Seriously,” Stark said. “Stop talking.”

            “Nah, I’m good,” Kevin grinned.

            “Guys!” Bradley yelled. “Listen, there’s something very important here! Something very odd about the whole thing with Arell. I met one of her kind over some space communication thing and he…”

            A tingling down his leg interrupted him. He looked down, confused for a second, when he realized it was his cellphone. At that moment, he realized that he had completely forgotten it. His family may have been trying to get ahold of him for the past two days, but since there were no bars in outer space, he had not received any of their messages. Quickly, he dug the device out of his pocket and looked at the front.

            “Who is it?” Sarah asked. “Is it your family? Anyone you know?”

            “No,” Bradley said disappointed. “It’s a fucking unknown number. Cripes.’

            “Have you had any contact with your folks?” LaFluer asked.

            “No,” Peterson said again, putting his phone back in his pocket. “I’ve been off the planet for the past two days. They might think I’m either dead, or lost my phone by now. Haven’t got a call from them since I escaped Arell.”

            “I…have a question…” Todd said. “About…your escape. You said it happened while the military was fighting her, right?”

            “That’s right.”

            “…were they able to do anything?” Todd asked.

            “Sorry?”

            “You know…” McFinnley said. “Were they…able to hurt her?”

            Bradley paused for a moment. Oh, he knew what the guy was really asking. Peterson himself had thought it in some vague ways when he had first  And most likely several other people, probably high ups in the military or some survivalists to name a few, had begun the same line of thought. With a threat as big as Arell (both metaphorically and literally) the fear of the situation was griping the nation. It was why the traffic was so bad around the country. It was why military patrols had been parading around earlier, only for one to happen across Arell herself. With all of that terror, the question would be asked, and in many ways.

            Was there any hope? That was the question. Was this going to end? Would things go back to some semblance of sanity that had been the world had been invaded. Humans are creatures of routine, fans of stability. They create stability and routine, and through those they can accomplish a great deal, but it causes them to grow feeble minded, upset at the slightest imbalance of their routine, teetering on the edge of sanity. They forget that chaos, whatever form it may come in, always lurks nearby, ready to stir turmoil at any moment and without warning.

            “No,” Bradley shook his head. “I’m sorry, Todd, but no. She…”

            “Oh, that’s bullshit.” Stark interrupted rather suddenly. “You’re telling me a squad of our men in uniform couldn’t even scratch her?”

            “Yes,” Bradley said, now nodding. “I was there, and I saw her…”

            “Well, you were at the tunnel,” Edgar said, snorting. “Did I, or did I not hurt that oversized cunt?”

            “I doubt it,” Peterson said. “You probably just poked her in the eye.”               

            “She gasped.”

            “Probably just in surprise.”

            “Are you sure about that?”

            “Yes,” Bradley replied. “Look, I saw her take a tank shell to the hip. She stumbled a little. Just a little bit. Like some ignorant kid who didn’t know that women don’t have balls and punched her in the groin to get her rolling on the ground. She just took it, and she was fine. No blood, no damage to her suit. Right as rain.”

            “Well, you did escape soon after,” Stark shrugged.

            “So?” Bradley said. “What does that have to…”

            “In all the excitement,” Edgar replied. “You just may not have noticed any injury.”

            “She fucking JUMPED into the air after being hit!” Peterson protested. “She was FINE!”

            “She IS fine!” Kevin interjected, grinning.

            “Shut up!” Stark and Peterson both yelled at Ward, who laughed.

            It was then when the telephone rang. The old landline phone that Kevin kept around just to say that he was old school rang its nasal, electric ring, slicing through the conversation, and silencing Kevin’s laughter. His eyes widened.

            “Holy shit,” He said. Some crazed hope came to his eyes. “Someone answer it! It might be my folks! I’ve been trying to call but their line’s been down!”

            Three people went for the phone. Randy, Edgar, and Sarah. Randy almost got there, when Stark, who appeared to want to take control of the situation shoved him aside. Fredrickson, trying to steady himself, grabbed the old man, and tried to take him down with him, but Edgar brushed his hands off. By the time that little scuffle had resolved itself, Sarah was already taking the phone off the hook, and the Colonel, perhaps not wanting to shove a girl, just mumbled bitterly.

            “Hello!” Sarah answered, eagerly. “Hello? Mr. or Mrs. Ward? Your son is here if it’s you, my name is Sarah and…”

            She stopped.

            She listened.

            “Well,” Kevin asked, excited. “Is it my mom? MOM!? MOM! I’m alive mom! I told you so! I told you aliens existed! Tell dad to eat it!”

            Her eyes widened.

            “Sarah?” Todd asked. “Who is it.”

            She didn’t reply. She lowered the phone, and for a second, it looked like she was going to hang up.

            But she didn’t.

            Instead, she walked over to Bradley.

            She held out the phone.

            “It’s for you…” She whispered.

            Bradley Peterson stared at her, his mouth dropped open a little. He looked at the phone, and all those phrases that he had read in horror stories came true. A chill ran up his spine, his hair stood up, he turned white, his blood ran cold, a shiver coursed through him…all the good stuff.

            He suddenly wished someone would just shoot him right now.

            With a trembling hand, he took the phone.

            “Hello…” He croaked in a soft, dusty voice that was nothing like his own.

            “Hello, my little Earthy.”

            The next thing he knew, the phone was flying from his hand and thumping against the wall. Todd and Sarah both jumped. Kevin looked both shocked and confused, turning his eyes to Bradley and his landline, which wasn’t broken, but had dented the wall pretty good. Nobody moved.

            “So…who was it?” Kevin finally asked again.

            “Who do you think it was, dumbass!?” Stark snapped at him.

            Before Ward could respond, the phone rang again. This time nobody made a move to it. Everyone just stared at it as the nasal ring blared and then fell silent…blared….silence…blare….silence….blare….

            “What’s up! This is Kevin, I’m not in right now. Leave a message, bro!”

            Beep.

            “Now…this is no way to behave to your mistress, Bradleeeeey.” Arell’s voice teased through the answering machine. Peterson and McFinnley both moaned. Randy, who was closest to the machine, leaped away from it as if it was possessed, almost knocking over Alfred as he did. “Did you honestly think, for even a moment, that I wasn’t going to find you? That you could hide among the billions of your kind? Did you hope that I wouldn’t find the proverbial needle in the proverbial haystack?”

            “Holy shit she’s calling…” Kevin said aloud. “Wow…how did she know how to reach me…?”

            “A good question…” Arell’s voice said, and now Sarah actually screamed a little. “I would have found you earlier, Bradley, if I hadn’t been over thinking. Here I was, fiddling with my scanners, trying to make it pinpoint you amongst the ‘haystack’, when I realized that there was a much simpler way. You Earthies and your little cellphones…I simply found your cell number and called you, traced the signal, and I found your location in mere seconds. When you didn’t answer…I just called the building. I see you’ve made some new friends ever since you snuck off…how cute.” It was like he was on her ship all over again. That damn smile…it was coming in loud in clear in the form of her voice.

            “Now…” She went on. “This next part isn’t for you, Bradley. I have something I want to say to your friends. Something for Todd McFinnley and his pretty Sarah LaFluer.” Sarah burst into tears, and embraced Todd, who looked ready to puke his guts out. “Randy Fredrickson…” Randy didn’t look at the machine. Just stared at the floor with wide, terrified eyes. “Alfred Bowden…” Fred stared at the machine, also appearing to be frozen in place. “The man who shot me in the eye…retired Colonel Edgar Stark.” The man in question snorted in response. “…and then, Kevin Ward…”

            “Hello!” Kevin called. “Uh…nice to speak to you! Welcome to Earth!”

            He would have gone on…but everyone in the room was glaring at him.

            “Aw, thank you,” Arell said, actually sounding pleased. Kevin smiled. “I want Bradley back. You have him. At the end of this situation…Bradley will be back in my possession. That much I know. What I don’t know…is how he is going to come to me. There are two ways this can happen. One…you give him up to me. Simply take him outside, and I’ll beam him right up, and everyone…well….almost everyone wins. The other route…I come down and take him from you, and add six more Earthies to my collection…provided that they don’t have the misfortune to wind up under my feet…”

            Sarah gasped in her sobs at that.

            “I know how all of this may sound,” Arell continued. “So, let me assure you that I don’t want to harm any of you…clarifying that to mean the six of you…not necessarily you, Bradley.” Peterson moaned. “Oh, come on…don’t sound surprised. You chose to run. Now you pay the consequence. If you had stayed….well, I’ll be honest, I wouldn’t be so interested in you. You cry and whine like an infant everytime I pick you up, I honestly didn’t expect you to run even with the doors wide open. Perhaps there is some fight in you…but I suspect whatever gave you that courage is long gone by now. There’s nowhere else to run.”

            Bradley stared at the floor.

            “I’ll give you an hour,” Arell said. “When that’s over…I’m coming down. I have Bradley marked on my scanner and there’s nowhere he can go without me seeing…but in case I happen to turn my head from the screen, I have the military out down the road, ready to restrain him if he tries to leave. Should I need to attend to other matters, they’ll keep an eye on you all.” She laughed gently. “I hope you’ll think carefully about this…”

            A noise sounded from the machine, and the line went dead.

            Arell was gone.

…

            Less than five minutes later, Todd, Sarah, Fred, Kevin, Randy, and Colonel Stark were in the next room, having something like a ‘team meeting’. They sat around in the kitchen table, discussing the fate of Bradley Peterson, whom they had left in the living room. He made no attempt to plead with them, sway their feelings, or even follow them. He sulked into the armchair that Stark had been sitting in and stared at the floor, almost looking comatose as he stared at the floor.

            “I vote we give him up,” Todd said immediately.

            “What?” Sarah asked, surprised.

            “Just like that?” Randy also looked taken aback.

            “Yep.” Todd nodded. “What choice do we have? Either we do and we live, or we don’t and we die. We have to give him up.”

            “We don’t have to do anything,” Colonel Stark reprimanded. “Even if it means death. Only cowards would give the man up right now.”

            “Cowards!?” Todd cried.

            “Todd, we can’t just give Bradley up,” Sarah said. “It isn’t right!”

            “Sarah, I’m trying to keep us safe,” McFinnley answered her. “There’s nothing we can do to stop her. Nothing. Bradley said it himself…a patrol from the military couldn’t stop her. The entire army probably couldn’t stop her. What chance do we have?”

            “I hear what you’re saying,” Sarah said. “But it’s just not moral. Logically, you’re right, but morally…”

            “Actually, morally, I’m right too,” Todd interrupted. “I’m a utilitarian.”

            “Well, actually, you’re a fucking pansy,” Stark growled. “Willing to give up an ally to the enemy just to save your own sorry ass.”

            “Why are YOU defending him?” Todd shot. “Less than two hours ago, you were opting to leave Bradley on the side of the fucking street!”

            “Oh, spare me,” The Colonel returned. “I was willing to ignore a desperate hitchhiker. You’re giving up a man to a space woman who will keep him prisoner and torture him. Don’t talk to me like I’m the bad guy here, jackass.”  Todd merely grumbled in response. There was a moment of silence after that. Stark looked out the window for a moment. “But you know what…do what you want.”

            “Wait, what?” Randy asked.

            “I’m not taking a part in this decision,” Stark said, abruptly turning to leave. “There are more important things.”

            “Where the fuck are you going!?” Todd asked.

            “Out for a moment.” Stark replied. “I’ll be back.”

            And a moment later, he was out the door and gone.

            “What the fuck…?” Kevin asked.

            “Nevermind,” Sarah said. “It’s not important right now. We need to focus on Bradley. We’ve only got an hour to make a decision before something happens. We need to make a plan or something.”

            “How?” Todd asked, staring at her. “She could hear us even when she was on the answering machine. She could be listening right now. Unless any of you have mastered the art of telepathy, we’re not coming up with any good plans with her watching us.”

            “So we’re screwed?” Alfred asked.

            “Unless we give up Bradley.” Todd replied.

            “What if that doesn’t work out?” Sarah asked.

            “Why wouldn’t it?”

            “What if she doesn’t keep her word?” Sarah pressed

            “Bradley said she never lies,” Todd answered

            “Who told him that she never lies…?” Randy asked.

            “Well…” Todd said. “Probably…she did.”

            “Right,” Sarah nodded. “So how do we know she won’t keep her word?”

            “I guess we just have to trust her,” McFinnley sighed.

            “I don’t trust her,” Randy said.

            “Look, I don’t…” Todd began.

            “Trust her?” Sarah said.

            “Of course not.” Todd agreed. “But, again, it’s not like we even have a choice but to trust her. If we give Bradley up, either she’ll keep her promise or she won’t. If she does, then we go free. If she doesn’t…”

            “We’re fucked.” Alfred said.

            “Basically.”

            “Well, that’s a gamble I really don’t want to be a part of,” Randy said.

            “Who does want to be a part of it?” Todd replied.

…

            “Halt!” The soldier barked. “Do not move or we will open fire!”

            “Don’t point that thing at me, dumbass.” Colonel Stark shot at the boy. “Who’s in charge of this little brigade?”

            “That’s none of your concern.” An older soldier called. “Go back to the apartment. We’re under orders to keep the seven of you inside.”

            Stark scoffed. “Under orders…” He echoed. “Who’s orders? Hers? The space bitch? Ha! Is she your mommy now? Does she change all of your diapers and tuck you in at night, and turn the nightlight on after kissing your little cheeks?”

            “No, sir,” The older soldier replied. By his rank emblem, Stark saw he was a Sergeant. “Our orders come directly from the President himself. So, you return to the apartment, or we…”

            “Don’t make me laugh!” The Colonel shot. “That man has officially lost my vote, though he barely had it in the first place. Never served once in the armed forces, that one. Wouldn’t know what to do in a situation like this. Presidents should have to have served in the military. They’d have more balls. I can’t believe you ladies are listening to these ‘orders’ instead of kicking that oversized cunt back to her own planet.”

            “Very inspiring, sir,” The Sergeant said. “But we all have families to look after. This whole thing is bigger than pride and vanity. It’s about protecting the ones we love and…”

            “I ain’t talking about pride and vanity!” Stark barked. “I’m talking about honor and courage! Do you really want to stand here, knowing that your Commander in Chief is a puppet to a giant bitch who is killing your fellow country men and your fucking country!? You’re not protecting your families…you’re surrendering. You’re bowing down. Do you want your kids to see you do what the giant lady wants because she’s big and scary. Do you want to sit around waiting to see if that cunt will up and vanish one day, making everything go back to the way that they were? Or do you want to fight? Show her that you’re not afraid and that this is our planet and we’ll die fighting for it! Otherwise, you’re kids will die anyway…just later. You’ll just be prolonging the inevitable.”

            “We fight, she kills us all,” The Sergeant replied, though he seemed less resolved now to his current course. “We do what she wants, we get more time. Maybe later we’ll be able to take back our planet. But not today. Not now. It’s too dangerous.”

            “She abducted an entire town,” Stark told the man, who raised his eyebrows. “Didn’t know that? Yes, I have it on good authority, from the man she’s after in fact, that she beamed up an entire town of innocent civilians to transport back to her home planet for her people. A zoo, I was told. Is that what you want?” The Sergeant was silent. “I fought the woman alone. At the Catskill mountains outside New York City. Got her in the eye. Probably drew blood. She’s got weak spots. Everything has a weak spot.”

            “What do you propose?” The Sergeant asked. The news of the town had finished him. He couldn’t go on with what he was doing with that knowledge. He had not wanted to originally, but, like Todd, he had seen no other choice. Every time he felt his dignity die, he thought of his little girl back at home and went on. He was doing it for her. Now, he saw his girl locked in a cage for the giant, alien race to gawk at. And he couldn’t let that happen. Not to his little girl.

            “We’ve got an hour, perhaps less,” Stark explained. “Until that bitch comes down onto the site. What we do is call the other brigades and squadrons and whatever else is available, and bring them together. No sense trying to hide somewhere, she’ll see us from her eyes above. So, we just call her out and then take her down.”

            “Honestly, sir…” The Sergeant said, skeptically. “That sounds like a suicide mission.”

            “I don’t doubt it,” The old Colonel agreed. “I’m not expecting to win. I’m expecting to motivate the rest. If we do some damage, any damage, like what I did at the Mountains, or even better, then there will be other plans. Other attempts. Or, if not…we’ll show her that we’re not afraid. And, by god, that sounds just fine to me. Wouldn’t you like to see the look of fear on that whore’s face, boys?”

            “You know…” The Sergeant smiled. “I would like that very much, sir.”

            “Good.” Stark nodded. “Then let’s get to it.”

            “There is one problem,” The Sergeant said. “We don’t have that many units. We have about three. We got some serious fire power, some tanks, and some spare weapons, but what we don’t have is the manpower.”

            “Well…” Edgar Stark said slowly. “Then I guess we’ll just have to initiate the draft then, won’t we?”

…

            “…and then we fire the laser,” Kevin Ward was saying. “Which will go right into the atmosphere and open a huge worm hole that will…”

            “Kevin…” Todd said, pinching his sinuses. “Shut up.”

            “What?” He said. “I’m trying to help.”

            “Well, you’re not,” Todd replied. “So shut up.”

            “Maybe we could make a dummy,” Randy suggested. “Make a dummy that looks like Bradley. Except we’ll put some explosives in it, let her beam it up when we stand it up outside, and then when it’s on her ship, it blows up and takes her out.”

            “Oh that’s great,” Alfred said, sarcastically. “Except, one, she can hear us. Two, she can see us. Three, where are we gonna get explosives? And four, she’s huge. We’d need like three hydrogen bombs to pull that off!”

            Randy’s shoulders slumped.

            “This is not good,” Sarah said, anxiously looking at the clock. “We only have ten minutes before she comes down here. We’ve got to make a move!”

            “We have to give her Bradley!” Todd cried. “End of discussion! We don’t have a choice, and it’s too late to try and come up with more useless ideas! I know that we don’t like it, I don’t either, but it’s what we have to do.”

            “I…I guess…” Sarah said, tears welling up in her eyes. Her resolve not to give Bradley up was fading. With the knowledge that Arell would come down on top of them, it was hard to keep the will to keep her morals intact.

            “Damn it…” Randy sighed, trembling.

            “Wait!” Kevin said, snapping his fingers. “I’ve got it! I’ll go!”

            “Shut up,” Todd moaned. “We get it, you like her. Stop telling us and focus!”

            “No, for real, listen!” Kevin said excitedly. “What if we offer her a trade? I’ll take Bradley’s place as her little…whatever. Bradley and you guys go free, and I get to stay with the sexiest gal in the galaxy! Everyone wins!”

            “Kevin!” Todd snapped. “She doesn’t want you! She said very clearly that she wants Bradley!”

            “But…” Ward tried.

            “No, Kevin,” Sarah sighed. “He’s right. She sounded very taken with Bradley. She won’t settle for a trade.”

            “Are you sure?” Kevin asked. “Because I…”

            “Yes! We’re sure!” Todd snapped, standing up. “Now, I’m done talking about this. We now only have like seven minutes, and I’m not going to stand here and talk about nothing until she drops down to our planet! Her clock might be faster, so we might have even less time than we think, so we need to….hurry…..”

            He had opened the door back to the living room, and the words died on his lips.

            “Todd?” Sarah asked, standing, immediately concerned.

            “He’s gone!” McFinnley cried. “He’s fucking gone!”

            “WHAT!?” The rest of the group cried in chorus, racing to his side. When they got to the doorway, they saw that he was very right. There was no Bradley Peterson sitting in the armchair where they had left him almost an hour ago. There was nobody. Immediately, they set out to search for him. The bathroom, Kevin’s bedroom, Randy’s room, Alfred’s room, the comic store, everywhere. There was no sign of him. When they finally checked outside…

            “He took the jeep!” Randy shouted, pointing to the empty spot where Colonel Stark had parked it.

            “Are you fucking kidding!?” Alfred cried.

            “Wait, maybe Colonel Stark took it!” Sarah suggested, looking around nervously.

            “Did anybody hear the car start up while we were up there?” Randy asked.

            “I didn’t!” Sarah cried.

            “No, I was thinking of really cool ideas,” Kevin said. “I wasn’t listening!”

            “Who gives a shit!?” Todd yelled. “Where is Bradley?! We’ve got three minutes until she comes and now we don’t even know where he is!”

            “Well, she said she could track him!” Alfred said. “That means he’s not our problem right? She should know we weren’t helping him escape, so we shouldn’t be in trouble, right!?”

            “I don’t know!” Todd cried, tugging his hair. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! Why did he ditch us like this!? She was already watching us, he could have at least warned us!”

            “Maybe that’s why he didn’t.” Sarah said. “It would have just alerted Arell to his plan faster if she was watching. He wouldn’t want us to……..”

            She stopped. Everyone stopped.

            Coming down the street was Colonel Stark. He was leading a convoy. Soldiers, civilians, tanks, machine gun jeeps, rocket launchers, everything that the military had managed to scrounge up for the old man’s suicide mission. Colonel Stark himself was armed with a sniper rifle. The very same model he had used to shoot Arell in the eye. Perhaps he was thinking that shooting her eyes out would essentially win them the fight. Maybe he just felt braver with the weapon in his hands. The rest of the “convoy” followed with mixed emotions. Some of the “warriors” looked nervous, like the men on the D-Day invasion must have when Normandy was stormed. Some looked ready to kick ass, adrenaline pumping in them. Some had no readable emotion on their face at all.

            “Alright, ladies…and Sarah,” Stark said in a commanding voice. “We have some weapons available for you. You can either run and hide, with your panties up your asses…”

            “Hey!” Sarah said, offended.

            “…or you can fight!” The Colonel finished. “Which is it?”

            “Are you insane!?” Todd cried. “You can’t beat her! She’s too powerful! Did you not hear what Bradley said!”

            “I heard him,” Edgar Stark nodded. “But I also know I won a fight against that giant whore. And, with that in mind, I think I’m gonna take my chances against ‘her majesty’ and see if I can’t send her crying back to her planet. If you guys want to help, then just grab a weapon.”

            “But we don’t know how to fight!” Sarah cried. “And I’m betting a number of your draftees don’t either!”

            “Some do, some don’t,” Stark agreed. “In situations like this, you’ll take whatever you can get, even if it’s only a man with a working trigger finger. Do you think that all the rebels in a revolution have military training? No! But that doesn’t stop them does it?”

            “No, but it sure doesn’t help!” Alfred said.

            “I’m not standing here to argue with you kids,” Stark waved them away. “My mind is made. We’re going to war.”

            “But Colonel Stark…!” Sarah tried one final time.

            “ALRIGHT YOU GIANT CUNT!” Stark roared into the sky. “I’M CALLING YOU OUT! COME DOWN HERE AND FACE US! WE’RE DONE TAKING YOUR BULLSHIT, AND WE WANT YOU DOWN HERE SO WE CAN SHOW YOU WHAT WE’RE MADE OF!”

            Incredibly, some people in the makeshift convoy uttered a battle cry in punctuation to Stark’s cry. After that, there was a moment of silence, with nothing but the wind to cancel it.

            And then…she came.

            With a flash of bright light, and a hearty thump that shook everyone and everything, Arell appeared before them all, towering above the buildings and mostly everything. She had a curious smile on her lips as she took a step forward, the members of the convoy shook, and some of the draftees ran off, literally dropping their weapons to do so. Others figured it was far, far too late for such a thing. All of them took a step back…except for Colonel Edgar Stark, who erected his posture to stand as tall as he could, not seeming to care that he would never be able to match Arell’s height.

            Arell stopped in front of the convoy and bent at the knees, her hands on her hips and smiled wider. She was not armed with her gun, her scanner, or anything.

            “Well, well…” She said, good naturedly. “What do we have going on here? I turn my head for a few moments, and when I look back, my little Earthy has taken off. While I track him down to get a feel where he’s headed, I suddenly notice a lot of Earthies converging. I watch them and then an old man starts daring me to come to him. Well...’Colonel’…I’m here. What do you intend to do?”

            “I’m gonna kick your giant ass back where you come from, or die trying!” Stark roared up to her. There was no battle cry after this. Only a gentle laugh from Arell.

            “Well…at least you realize the danger here,” She said, fairly. “So you’re not THAT stupid….still, I HIGHLY urge you to reconsider. I know what Bradley has told you, and every word of it is true.” She motioned at her eye. “You see this eye? The one you shot? As you can see it’s perfectly fine. Completely functional and everything. Do  you want to hold some fingers up while I close my other eye? I bet even from up here I will be able to count your stubby fingers.”

            “My pleasure,” Edgar Stark replied, bitterly. He raised a hand with the middle finger erect. “Go on and count that.”

            “I know you’re trying to be cute,” Arell said, grinning. “But the answer’s one. The mere fact that I can see you’re little insult is enough to prove that I’m fine. The tech I have isn’t just for fighting. Healing and medicine is just as important on my planet as it is here, you know…”

            “Well, there’s more than just me now,” Stark said, grinning himself. “That was just one bullet, sweetheart. I bet you won’t be ‘fine’ when a tank shell blows through your retina! How about a rocket to the face, or right in your big fat ear? Fire enough and we might just punch right into your brain and turn that into jelly! Just because you’re big doesn’t make you invincible! We’re…”

            And before it could really begin, the war was over. In a less than a second, Arell lifted a boot and brought it down on three of the five tanks. Her foot was so big that it also tore down a few of the buildings around it as it destroyed the instruments of war. The members of the convoy screamed and some of them tried to run, but the tremor was too strong and all of them were sent sprawling. Todd, Sarah and the rest of the gang all fell to the ground as well, all of them positive that they were going to die. The quake of the stomp collapsed, among other buildings, Kevin’s apartment and comic store. When Arell lifted her boot back up, nothing in the remains looked like it could even resemble something that belonged to a tank.

            Colonel Edgar Stark tried to get up and seize his weapon to start shooting. But before he could even hope to find his gun amongst the clutter of madness and debris, he was plucked up by Arell’s giant fingers and lifted into the air.

            “GET YOUR GODDAMN HANDS OFF ME YOU….AAARGH!” Arell squeezed him slightly and he fell silent. She looked down at the Earthies.

            “You know…you Earthies don’t listen.” She was smiling, but her tone suggested she was getting annoyed. “I say it again and again and again, but you don’t listen. You can’t fight me. I will win. I’ve proven this again and again, but yet you still refuse to learn. You Earthies NEVER learn. A simple, curious glance at your history would teach even the most ignorant individuals of this very obvious fact. Your planet is falling apart around you, you continue to fight over the most pithy of things, and yet each time, despite you learning your mistake, you refuse to learn from it, and make it again and again. Hence, why you’re the inferior race, below the humans of Avakon!”

            She reach down and picked up one of the remaining tanks, which had fallen on its side.

            “I told you that fighting me would result in consequences, did I not?” She said, still smiling, but still sounding angry. “Yet despite my warnings, you have now gone against me. You have chosen this path, and now I have to keep my promise. Now, I have to teach you all, again, what happens when you don’t listen to me. Maybe this time I’ll stomp some sense into you!”

            She began to lift her boot. Todd realized now that he was going to die. He grabbed Sarah, who grabbed him and the two of them held each other and closed there eyes. Randy covered his with his arm. Alfred seemed completely lost and just stared at a ruined building. Kevin stared up at Arell in complete awe. None of them were really ready for this, and now it was coming. Sarah was now beginning to wish that she had given up Bradley. The part of her that would have been disappointed with this was too scared to make a comment right now. She was not ready for death. Plans to be a doctor had been made, she still loved her family and Todd, and had wanted marriage and at least one child to raise. But now, all of that was about to disappear in the most minute of seconds.

            WAAARRHH….WAAAAARHHH…

            What the fuck?

            Before people could even begin screaming, before Arell’s boot was lifted that far…a loud noise cut across the scene. All eyes turned towards the sound, which was coming from the down the street. A car was approaching, driving over and around the rubble. It was a large military jeep, with a dented front and a lightly chipped windshield. It rolled to a halt in between Arell and the crowd of Earthies, both of which watched the vehicle with confused and curious eyes. Even Colonel Stark, who was in Arell’s grip, found time to realize that something, though he wasn’t sure what, was happening down below. After the engine cut off, nothing happened for a moment. Then, the driver’s side door opened.

            And Bradley Peterson stepped out.