The water sizzled against the molten sand, steam curling into the air as if the bay itself were breathing fire. The horizon shimmered with jagged structures that jutted out of the distant ocean, remnants of an ancient city whose name had been lost to time. Above, a sky of shifting oranges and deep purples roared with the promise of a storm that never seemed to arrive. And there she stood, her silhouette commanding against this alien tableau of chaos and ruin.
She adjusted her yellow visor, its lens humming faintly as it calibrated to keep her optic bursts under strict control. Her outfit—a striking blue bikini lined with golden piping—contrasted sharply with the desolation around her. A yellow belt, clasped by a red and black X-Men insignia, rested at her hips, looking almost too pristine for a battlefield. Yellow gauntlets, scorched at the edges from previous scraps, protected her forearms. Her jet-black hair, tied into a loose braid, swayed gently in the salty breeze as she surveyed the ruins. Muscular yet lean, with a swimmer’s physique, her every motion exuded precision and purpose.
A sudden hiss from behind. Her muscles tensed as she spun around, sand spraying up in a golden arc. She dropped into a defensive crouch, her fingers crackling with kinetic energy. Emerging from the shadows of a derelict dome was a slithering creature, its carapace gleaming black under the darkening sky. It moved on six segmented legs, its head chitinous and grotesque, with two rows of glowing orange eyes. A low purring sound escaped its throat—a predator’s taunt.
“Another one of you, huh?” she muttered, her grip tightening on the sand beneath her gloves. “You things just don’t learn.”
The creature lunged. She sidestepped deftly, her visor flaring red as she unleashed a surgical beam of energy. The blast tore through one of its legs, molten ichor spraying across the cracked ground. The beast shrieked, rearing back before scrambling to circle her. She didn’t wait; she sprinted forward, closing the gap. With a quick jab, one gauntleted hand slammed against its chitin, discharging a kinetic pulse that sent cracks splintering across its armor. Two quick steps, a pivot, and another optic burst reduced the creature to a smoldering heap.
She didn’t celebrate. There wasn’t time.
A voice crackled in her earpiece, raw and staticky, as though struggling to breach some kind of atmospheric interference. “Delta-17, do you copy? The ship’s nearly online. How’s the perimeter?”
She raised a finger to her comm. “Perimeter clear for now, but this place is crawling with drones. We’re not alone out here, Knightly.”
There was a pause, and it carried a weight she didn’t like. Finally, “We’ve got movement on the long-range scanners. Sentinel pattern. You need to fall back now.”
That word hit like a hammer: Sentinels. The nightmarish, AI-driven behemoths that decimated her family’s resistance years ago. And although her memory was fragmented—burned away after years of running and hiding—the sight of their sleek, humanoid forms still haunted her dreams. No one fought a Sentinel; you survived it, if you were lucky.
“Understood,” she said sharply, already running toward the ridge. The ruins stretched ahead, jagged and foreboding, silhouetted against the eerie glow of the crashing waves beyond. As her boots dug into the sand, footsteps pounded behind her. She didn’t need to turn to know it wasn’t Knightly or his team. More of those insect-like drones tore after her, their guttural screeches echoing into the oncoming storm.
“Guess you didn’t get the memo!” she yelled, a wicked grin breaking her otherwise determined expression. Halting mid-stride, she planted a knee in the sand and aimed her visor backward. A ruby-red torrent erupted, searing through the creature closest to her and pinwheeling it into its allies. She didn’t wait to see the aftermath—there were too many, and too little time.
Scaling the ridge was a brutal climb. The rocks were sharp, smoothened by millennia of corrosion. Her gloves helped, but she still felt the scrape of stone against her fingertips. When she finally reached the summit, her breath caught—not from exertion, but from the sight before her. Beyond the ridge was the beach where their ship was docked: a massive silver vessel shaped like an arrowhead, its hull glinting faintly under the storm-tossed light. Around it, the sand writhed with movement as towering mechanoid Sentinels emerged from the wreckage of the ruined city, their purple sensor lights glowing faintly. She counted three, then realized there were more in the shadows.
The earpiece crackled on again. “Delta-17, get aboard! Repeat, get aboard!” Knightly shouted, his voice barely audible over the wailing storm. “They’re deploying plasma mines in the waters—we’re out of options!”
She allowed herself one breath. One moment to gather everything she had. Then, without hesitation, she sprinted downhill. As the droids crested the ridge behind her, she dove, rolling and blasting another gout of energy at her pursuers. Her feet hit the sand near the ship’s ramp just as one of the Sentinels turned its massive frame toward her. A laser cannon on its shoulder lit up, firing a burst that scorched the ground inches from her feet. She scrambled up the ramp as the blasts came faster, an orchestra of destruction closing in around her.
The ramp sealed just as a Sentinel’s fist slammed against the outer hull. Inside, the dimly lit corridors pulsed with a soft blue glow, calming against the chaos outside. Knightly, a scruffy blond in a tattered flight jacket, greeted her at the cockpit door, his green eyes wide with a mixture of relief and alarm. “And you call that ‘perimeter clear’?”
She raised a brow, still catching her breath. “You’re welcome, by the way.”
“For leading them straight to us?” he shot back, gesturing wildly. “Yeah, thanks for that.”
A smirk slid across her face as she slumped into the co-pilot’s chair. “Relax, Captain Drama. You’ve got time. They’re slow underwater.”
Knightly swore under his breath as the ship lifted off, its thrusters roaring to life. Through the viewport, the ruins shrank below them, the Sentinels turning their focus to the sea where plasma mines hissed and detonated in fiery bursts. The storm broke open above, lightning illuminating the alien world below. She sat back, exhausted but not beaten, watching as the once-menacing figures disappeared into the roiling waves.
“Made it,” Knightly muttered, almost to himself.
She glanced at him, her visor perched on her forehead now, revealing dark, piercing eyes. “For now.”
He didn’t have a response. They both knew there was always a next fight.
In the silence that followed, the humming ship gliding through the void, she allowed herself a moment of quiet triumph. Because here, between battles, in the briefest slivers of peace, she remembered why she fought at all: not for vengeance, not for glory, but for the chance to take back what had been stolen—a world not yet lost to the storms.
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action
The Source…check out the article that inspired this amazing short story: Cyclops in a Bikini: A Bold Blue Look for Beachside Cosplay Inspiration
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