The horde thinned for the umpteenth time, this time it somehow managed to stick and for the last few minutes, nothing new had appeared to try and end my existence.

I managed to get the attention to the soldiers, but until Zea cracked the encryption their radios were using, I would still need to get up where what seemed like an army squad was nested in. The fact that we hadn't been able to hear their radio chatter was worrying, either their operator was down or something was jamming the signals.

Who was supposed to be attacking now? Which Herrscher was it? Hopefully I could have some additional Progrisekeys ready for the encounter.

And hopefully I could at last properly activate my S2 engine if I wanted to survive their particular brand of bullshit.

Huh, the soldiers are turning on and off their flashlights… huh, Morse code? Zea, what are they saying?

[ZEA Notification: English Morse code. Radio down. EM attack. Monsters follow radio. RV at our position]

Oh, crap. So that's why we've been up to our neck in Honkai, and why we haven't heard anything in the radio waves. Great.

But is this normal for the Honkai or just the ones spawned by this Herrscher?

The suit made the walk easy, checking around if any of the dead tried being a sneaky ninja or something needed a double tap was the most annoying thing about that.

As I got closer, they made more flashes in my direction. Huh, Zea, would you kindly?

[ZEA Notification: All stairs blown, find another route]

Huh, most people forget to do that in a zombie outbreak… smart. Now, how do we get up there?

[ARK Notification: Rocking Hopper's parameters would allow such a jump]

Oh yeah, how did that escape my mind?

I reached the side the building I had seen the soldiers on. So now I should be able to make the leap…

And…

Pvt. Tyler felt weird.

On one hand, he'd finally proven to his squad that yes, there was someone out there who killed monsters like they were proper flesh and blood. On the other, he couldn't shake the feeling that him and his squad would be pulled on some top-secret mission by someone with a few screws loose.

Not that he would say the last part to anyone.

Especially to someone that could one-shot monsters.

They'd finally made contact, and the guy had caught on with the crap they'd been going through since the outbreak started. And since the flares were now worth more than their salaries pooled together, yeah, they had had to go old-school with comms.

Shame they'd been cut off when the team next block got a face full of exploding balls. And the other one got rushed medieval-style by whatever these things used as calvary.

The fact that the dead riding those things looked just like youngsters freshly killed was something the forced himself to ignore. He focused more on the lances that would skewer him if they caught him out of cover.

His musing was cut as something boomed close by. More dust fell on him as the building got hit and everyone braced for the napalm thing the monster used to burn them alive. Only instead something caught the edge of a hole on his floor as it fell down and then landed properly.

He was tall, back undersuit covered in teal colored panels held together by steel bands. He was covered in dissolving viscera and a fair amount of dust. His pink lenses panned over the rattled squad. Somehow, he didn't think the glow was as terrifying as the one the monsters gave off.

Just barely.

"Status report."

And he spoke, wow he sounded young. Like barely above enlistment age.

"Watchpoint-2 A-OK, a few scrapes but nothing broken. Low on AP ammo, Uh, sir?" Even the Lt. was nervous from getting the stare from this guy. Seriously, those lenses felt like they knew the fastest way to kill you. Or your mother when saw if you came back with too many bruises after an outing with 'friends'.

The blue guy's helmet began to open and soon it had folded into the collar thing around his neck. Blue and red eyes below gray hair peered at them. Pale skin, unlike those who don't get too much time under the sun, somehow shone slightly. Young-ish face, someone who would always get asked for ID when ordering at the bar.

He spoke again "You guys have any base to contact? I lost my link to command back at the crash-land and the Honkai haven't left me with enough time to improvise something."

Something stood out to his Lt "The Honkai?"

The man nodded towards the streets below "The thing fueling the dead and monsters down there, those glow-lines aren't just for show, you know?" he said nonchalantly, as if they should already know that.

Ok, definitely a spook or black-ops.

"No, we didn't, only figured that the radio drew those things in when we picked up when nearby teams tried calling for artillery and got monsters on top of them for their trouble. Also radios have been on the fritz since the storm started three days ago" another private of his team answered, frayed nerves demanding to be known now that she wasn't covering from the monsters artillery. "Also who the hell are you?"

The man only smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. "Yinsen, 1[sup]st[/sup] Lieutenant Edward Yinsen. Taskforce Steel Locust. Now, lets find a way to get out of here."

That, Pvt. Tyler couldn't find himself to disagree.

The soldiers somehow bought my bluff, and hopefully it would hold until they got comms that could disprove me. Ark and Zea could make this all true by then. And perhaps land me on a world of trouble.

Oh wait, I already am. Tehe.

"Sir, is anyone from your team coming? We getting reinforcements?" a corporal asked me. This was a curious group, seven in total, four guys and three women, the team lead was a lieutenant with curiously shiny honey colored eyes. All of them looked younger than me in my previous life, and I hadn't lived THAT long.

[ZEA Notification: Stress levels rising]

Thanks. I breathed in and tried my best not to give away that I didn't know shit about the while where and when I was. Also that if Schicksal hadn't sent anyone to help yet, then Otto hadn't seen something of value here or maybe he was letting this city die for some shady objective elsewhere.

Need to get the S2 engine going so I can take out that fucker.

Oh, yeah, I got asked a question. "No, just me, brought what I could from the crash site but had to burn everything else." Hopefully that's vague enough they wont pry.

And now one of them is looking at me with pity, great.

"Don't worry, I hid a weapons cache a few blocks that way, if you have a map I could point you there." My power reserves had taken a serious hit from making the Typhoon Magnum, but I think I could give at least one fully charged MP Shotriser with an additional charge ready to everyone in this squad. Probably Progrisekey-shaped. Theme conservation is a thing, you know?

"You know your way around here, sir?" The Lt. asked me, and I shook my head. With these clouds nearby nothing could get out, but nothing could get in. No maps for me yet. "Ok, then" she took out a piece of paper from a pocket on her belt. Did I mention her BDUs looked like they came straight out of Starship Troopers? She unfolded the map and began pointing at places "We are here, Sunrise Housing, current HQ is here, at Sekirei Stadium. Watchpoint teams 1 and 3 got ambushed by artillery bombardment and a calvary rush. Here and here. Where did you land, sir?" Ark and Zea calculated the position and our wandering route. I pointed to another piece of the map "huh, you landed at the Nagazora Garrison base? That place got hit the hardest when this all began, last transmissions before the storm cut us off was that they were being overrun. Any survivors?"

"None, the place was a crater when I woke up" Nagazora… shit, am I at the beginning of Mei's first awakening? No, Himeko and Kiana stopped her before she could fully convert. So why is a thunderstorm creating a powerful EMC and attacking tactically important places? Fuck. I'm somewhere else. "I had to destroy what I couldn't carry from my bird, but there was only a flatland when I left."

"Fucking hell, the base was on the hillside. It all got blown up then. Guess that was the boom we heard hours ago was them denying the enemy assets? But why? They're only monsters and corpses, not nuclear engineers" she looked at me, but my mind was racing. I am at Nagazora, the 3rd Honkai Eruption is going on, the Hyperion is nowhere in sight, no Valkyries deploying, the soldiers have no idea of what the Honkai are. Oh, fuck. "Do you know something, sir?"

…Shit "There are reports of some people exposed to infected tissue gaining something akin to dementia, retaining all their skills and knowledge. They can hold for a while before becoming one of the dead. But that time varies from weeks to hours, and there's nothing containment procedures ca do to stop this. The damage they can cause in their demented state cannot be understimated. It has been ordered that infected tissue be incinerated on sight." More memories of my previous life, panels loading on the screen, a story never completed because there were no translations available or I couldn't locate them. I had to make sure. "Is Senba Academy secured? Another team was dispatched for some priority over there, but we lost contact on the storm."

"The school was one of the first places evacuated, from what I heard last, sir. Was anything important to your mission there, sir?" another private asked.

I couldn't help it. "The one thing to finally allow us to put the hurt properly on these things."

The wonder couple of a brainy gal and a lovesick boi.