Chapter 23

The room was packed with people from many services, some were belonging to the Navy and Coast Guard we managed to rescue from Tampa and Jacksonville and a Marine Captain that had managed to keep his people alive neck deep in Honkai Beasts until we fished them out of their base. Air force Colonel looked at everyone a bit surly to everyone. An Army Lt Colonel kept looking at the clock with impatience. And perhaps a few feds from what I could see. The feds stood out as while most of the militaries were wearing their fatigues, they wore pristine suits instead. Not to mention the Marine Captain that still had stains on his helmet and had his hand hovering over where his sidearm would usually be.

I stood at attention. "Greetings everyone. So far, I am the second person you can call an expert on the new shitstorm parked on your backyard." Mei was in the back, oddly short in a sea of big military men, even if the feds had sent a woman that still managed to look hardcore in a suit. "My friend from fellow task force, Dr. Mei must have introduced to the basics of our newest enemy."

"She did, but she referred us to your expertise, which she claims, is greater than her own." Ah, snubbing the new blood aren't you, sir? Well. Let me help.

"Indeed. Lieutenant Ark, take over the screen." My aide stole the gazed of everyone, everything from her saying that she was both a foreigner to military and that she belonged here at the same time. She walked toward the soldier manning the laptop, saluted and then inserted an USB stick. It was for the sake of appearances, because all the data needed was in her platform. The image of a pink photon took the screen. "This little fucker is called a Honkai Particle. Similar to photons, it exists as both a particle and a wave. Unlike light, this bastard can and will bypass any object given enough time." A diagram of the thing going through the molecular structure of lead was in the next picture. "So far, nothing existing has been able to block it completely. Next Image." An image of the photon going through a person was next, along with a list of symptoms. "Observed effect on biological substances: it will reactivate necrotic tissues, human or animal, so far no effect on plants but expect that to change."

I took a breath. "The reanimated corpses will have a basic need to hunt living organisms and kill them in manners most gruesome. No undead so far has attempted to consume what victims they kill; however, they do use their mouths to attack and tear their prey to pieces. They can get killed by a shot to the head only. Some have reinforced bone structure, so be careful when aiming. Anywhere else and will still come at you with the intent to kill. Next."

An image of Cavalier took over the screen. "Knights, Undead linked to a horse-shaped Honkai Beast called Cavalier. Twice as fast at their older human counterparts. They will try to rush you and make you move in ways that their fellows will try to exploit. You need to kill but the undead and the horse at the same time of they can just swap either. Next."

An image of a gorilla with floating limbs. "Chariots. Varying sizes can go from 3 to 15 meters in height. Immune to small arms fire, use 90mm or above or you won't dent their armor. Can replace lost limbs from recently killed Chariots nearby and has a max speed of 30 to 50 kph and can jump at least thrice their height to slam on anything they want to. Next."

The image of a Templar displayed along with its shield and lance. "Templars, nasty motherfuckers, 5 to 9 meters in height and hover to get to their destination. Leave them alone and they can reach about 60kph in a straight line. Those spears are thought enough to penetrate 30cm of depleted uranium with ease. The shields need at least 4 120mm shells to break and then you have to deal with the fucker behind it. Armor piercing or bunker busters work best on them. Next."

An image of the Ballistae, although thinking about the name… "Catapults, those balls they carry can be thrown at 100 mts easily, often carry High explosive with some Napalm-like contents that keep burning once it blows up. They can keep throwing their shit as long as there is enough energy nearby. We cannot rule out that they can deploy ordnance with other exotic effects like flash freezing or high voltage disablers…"

I motioned to the following photos. "Crusaders, the Templars nastier superior. Their whole body is as though as half a meter of depleted uranium. Not quite as immune to HEAT shells, but still, nothing less than the 120mm is good enough to kill them, those floaty bits? They spin around like a lawnmower and can cut through concrete with easy, at that's not talking about that they can also produce laser beams from their tips. You see those things spinning? Run for cover and pray they won't cut though in the first hit."

I made a face at the next two images, one that i thought I wouldn't see in thie world, and another that annoyed the crap out of me. " Xenomorphs, until whoever owns the films now tries some legal shit, thats what we're calling them. No acid blood thank the heavens but they are fast, nimble and their claws are no joke. 5.5mm or 6.8mm can kill them but it takes at least half a mag to pierce that shell."

"And last but not least, the Archangels, nothing holy about these fuckers, but they can fly, they fire some sort of darts towards you that can nail you to the wall, they can also make a dive at high spped in any direction, beware if the thing starts spinning. Any questions?" I looked towards the assembled leaders. Most of them had those deer on the headlights look on their faces and the feds were furiously scribbling on their notepads. Some of the aides were giving me looks and Ark was smugly smirking.

Only then I noticed. "Ah crap, this was the grunt version of the debriefing…"

Questions rained at me that moment.

Yua Yaiba, or M1 as she was originally designated, paced after finishing the tuning of a particularly stubborn 36mm chain gun, which for some reason didn't want to feed the chamber properly after the 1600th shot. On the mark. It was making her heatsinks glow orange, so she had stopped to take a walk out the hangar. She could see everyone else out in the fields, tending to their frames, or some were on their groups connected to a comms towers, listening to the chatters around them or some were back in the android maintenance hangar diving into the limited dataspace for simulation entertainment or training. It was… nice, seeing everyone not preoccupying themselves too much on the combat that would come their way. It felt weird thinking of her fellow androids as simply tools to destroy the Honkai… even if their platforms were tools for them. It was a strange contradiction. Her hand wen to the Shotriser in her hip, almost like a background task… Father had given her two of his keys, Rushing Cheetah and Lightning Hornet, once she had them on her hands, she'd felt… complete, for some reason.

Her walk brought her back to her sister's current workshop. Zea had provided Naki with enough tooling that it wouldn't be difficult for her to work on her projects, except those that involved the Superheavy Manufacturing Corridors which had to be done remotely. She had managed to sneak some smaller 3D Printers for her purposes. Naki was currently focused into a familiar Key and Riser. Next to her was a unique hand cannon that any android would recognize. Yua stood still for a few seconds as she processed what she was seeing and then proceeded to Naki's side. "Are those Father's…?"

Naki nodded as she manipulated her tools expertly, currently reassembling the Rocking Hopper Zetsumerisekey, replacing the small, glass-like cover with a recently printed one. As soon as Naki placed the old Key Connector in the padded table next to her, an audible crack was heard, as the little piece now held five large fractures along its surface. It didn't shatter, but it didn't look like its structure could take any stress before completely breaking. Naki's face twisted into a grimace, but she returned to the now finished Rocking Hopper key and switched to the Cycloneriser, which upon opening its casing let out an odor any human would consider foul. The electronics inside the Riser looked as abused as if they had been exposed to environmental damage with no casing at all. It was likely to fail in the worst possible moment if the Hopper Key didn't break first. It was a disaster waiting to happen.

The weapons developer sighed as she worked on replacing the internals, the Cy-Reactor power source was relatively ok, but the conduits were fried from over-voltage. Several pieces were melted, and the safety regulators were destroyed too. It could output a lot more power but the damage on the riser was becoming exponential. There was also some sort of Honkai Energy residue clogging the cooling vents and the Energy/Matter Converter (Cyclone Factory).

Yua went over and printed a secure container for the residue, what while in small quantities, could become a problem if an organic were to come in contact with it. Naki manipulated the spider-like arms of her terminal to put the residue into the container, which Yua took to a secure crate and locked thoroughly. It would be taken back to Arsenal City in the next flight for analysis by the new human researchers Father had brought with him. She let the container be taken by a passing android in a modified Flight Unit working as a power loader. It would be taken to the Condor Bays for securing and later extraction.

Naki finished her task and proceeded to the Typhoon Magnum, for a thing cobbled together in desperation, it was a nice weapon. Truly, the Cores prowess was awe inspiring. The barrel had some minor deformations from excessive use and several dents on the chassis stood out as proof of the hell that became of Nagazora. A simple barrel swamp was all that was needed for it to be once more at 100%, although Naki decided to add a little something, just in case.

A gift towards her Father, in a sense.

Naki wondered if he would like it.

Himeko Aikawa, the rest of Watchpoint and Fire Moth Recon-1 were about to land in Dobbins AFB via C-130J Super Hercules, which the most luxurious thing she'd ever flown in. she'd gone on vacation with her family before to Okinawa but that was via boat, it was her first time flying (not counting her bout with Tango Hotel). The Doctor in charge had been flown first with all haste, but they had been left behind to properly gear up until the Hercules arrived. The eggheads had given back all their gear once the order to deploy came, making Himeko sigh in relief at having back her Gun and Key. And from what she could guess, Yinsen and his people were already at Dobbins.

Really, for someone carrying all the cool stuff with him, he was as desperate as anyone else in these times. She'd watched the videos again and again and could see he had not deployed in the Cuban or the American attack. She'd been worried that he'd taken off the roster but once rumors of the meetings the higher ups were into came into light, she knew they had indeed punished him in the worst way possible: assigning a field operative to a desk job.

Heh, damn idiot, failing upwards is sometimes a curse…

She looked at the other people filing the plane. The Recon-1 team was still wet behind the ears with anything Honkai related, only having seen Watchpoint's recordings and what came out of Cuba and Florida. Their training was still incomplete, and the recent attacks showed just how current weaponry was left behind by these damn monsters. Damn things could tank their bullets without flinching. But Yinsen's people had figured that out sooner than anyone else and bridged that gap. Her Shotriser was a testament about that.

But even then, as Cuba showed, there were way too many of the damn monsters to kills with a single gun. Even three thousand rounds per minute was not enough to hold back the tide. And she wondered if she and her team would be enough to make a difference.

Fire Moth was less than ready, their research boggled down by so much red tape that she wondered just how the higher ups hadn't choked on it. Some hoped that there would be at least some cooperation with the fellow UN taskforces, but so far, bureaucracy and politics still ruled over Fire Moth.

Hopefully, they wouldn't drag their feet after all this.

…

The plane landed smoothly, and they were greeted by an angry anthill. Several vehicles were unloading gear from other Hercules, more people were loading jeeps and taking off as if their Drill Sergeants were right behind them. There weren't any tanks moving around but plenty of people were running around the tarmac. A single person received them at the runway, his white hair being a sore spot in a sea of helmets. His uniform looked like a pilot's flight jacket only colored gray and the unit patch being…

Oh. Well, that explained several things.

"Welcome to Dobbins! I apologize that there isn't a red carpet waiting for you guys, but it seems people like to get distracted around here!" the young man cheerfully spoke, coming closer to Watchpoint and the rest of the Fire Moth forces. Himeko remembered him well, that waiter that had served them back when Yinsen contacted them.

"Soreo was it? I must say I didn't expect you to be an operative, much less Steel Locust, how are you guys doing? You seem to have taken a pounding in the last few days." Himeko tried to open conversation. The guy was odd, even by spook standards, as Tyler liked to call them, his eyes and hair were close enough to the youngest rookie in Fire Moth's Recon-1 but so far, they hadn't confirmed if there were any familial relations.

The young man smiled widely. "Pretty well all things considered, 1A, sorry, I mean Ana, my partner, might have gotten pissed at me when our Pelican got sliced in half, but it turned out ok! I even managed to land the thing without crushing the cargo bay! Scared the life out of our passengers but we all made it out in one piece! But enough about me, how are you? Father told us that you had to train some soldier up to spec but didn't say more until all this blew up…" the Operative turned out to be quite the chatterbox…

"Well…" Something clicked in her mind after a second. "Wait, who is Father?"

"Ah… that would be Major Yinsen…" the operative scratched the back of his head. "Ahahaha… I'm not supposed to call him that when next to outsiders but…" he looked around and leaned as if he was letting Watchpoint into a big secret. "Heh, almost all of the field operatives call him that, makes him get all flustered, you know? He's the last remaining officer after Commander White, but he always busies himself with procuring our stuff… well, must of us are only copying the Core's choices about that nickname…" Soreo let the last part descend into a mumble before being startled into silence by a voice from behind him.

"…Soreo, you talk too much." Himeko looked at the new speaker. Wow was she beautiful. She was wearing a uniform similar to Soreo's, her appearance was similar to the other operative that they could pass as siblings, but her eyes were more of a silver rather than Soreo's muted gray. Did she mention she was beautiful? Like, damn she could have made a killing as a model. "Hello to all of you. I am Operative 1A, Ana. Soreo was supposed to bring in for debriefing 10 minutes ago…" she looked at the cringing young man, who now wore the face of everyone caught by their parents while doing something they weren't supposed to do. Soreo got lifted by the back of his neck like some stray kitten as Ana dragged him away. "Follow me, your stuff will be sent to the barracks soon…·

"But 1A! I wanted to know more about who Father was so interested in! Come on!" Watchpoint watched as the duo quickly left for parts unknown before realizing that they had to follow them.

The day was already shaping up to be an interesting one.