"Mister? Where is my Mommy?" A young girl half-sobbed to the man next to her, among the sobbing of various children. Their little hideout inside a sideways APC trembled as it got pierced by another large stake from the monsters buzzing around them. Their group had separated after their truck got rammed from above and they'd only managed to stay alive by sheer luck. The other adults had been killed getting them to the safety of the downed vehicle, which thankfully (or maybe not) its occupants were nowhere to be seen.
"Shhh… Don't worry, your mommy will be back any minute, just keep quiet, ok?" he didn't have the heart to tell her that her mother had been the first to be killed by the monsters when their truck first got struck.
He could hear the sounds of gunfire picking up, a bit closer than before. He'd held hope someone might find them but that last three times the sounds just stopped right before he could see the ones responsible. There hadn't been screams, thankfully.
In a moment something pulled him out of his thinking. Something massive had just come closer, so he motioned to the kids to keep quiet. A small scream and the sound of something being crushed was all they heard before a pink glow shone near their vehicle's door.
A massive eye looked at them from a small window in the vehicle's side, where it shone like a lamp signaling their doom. The APC shook as it was rocked by the monster trying to flip it again. The screams of children and a single adult was echoed among the buzzes of the monsters flying overhead. Suddenly, as the monster had begun to squeeze in its enormous arms in an attempt to split open the downed vehicle, a loud voice made itself heard. "WING!"
"FLYING BLAST! FEVER!"
"INVADING BOLIDE!"
Something caved in the monster's head along with its upper torso. Whoever it was, took off once more as several lances of plasma pierced the monster's remains. The screaming stopped at the sudden death of the cause their terror.
A pink armored figure stepped into the APC, hand extended towards the paralyzed occupants. "Are you all ok? Nothing broken?" At their silence she kept going. "Seems so. Tyler! Get them out and see they're good to walk! Asahi! get our next LZ from the doctor! Everyone let's move!"
Similar scenes occurred around the battlefield, conducted by Fire Moth's Recon-1, Watchpoint and various YoRHa infantry teams. Thanks to the systems used, this was all visible to the people in HQ.
The reactions there were a bit varied.
Doctor Mei Tachibana once more looked astonished at the images on the screens she'd been provided. The quality was not the best but going by what she'd been told, the gear her troops were using was close to tow decades old. In the terminal next over a redhead looked at her own screens while the bluenette took long sips from a cup of… something in her hand.
"That… those… how?!" the redhead simply threw up her arms and let her head fall to her desk. The bluenette kept drinking with a neutral expression but had her hand operating something in the terminal.
"G3-X SL-Custom… the original… project G3… created to combat… unidentified lifeforms…" The bluenette trailed off as the hand holding her cup threatened to let it go.
The redhead recovered. "You've gotta be kidding me, these people knew about the monsters so far back then! Why didn't they say something!"
"Reports say there was a mild attempt to mass produce the suits that didn't meet specifications and the G3-X had an AI failed spectacularly during a test deployment… enough stuff to can any project with ardent enough opponents…" The stoic one kept reading. "Issues with outer chassis fragility and internals' vulnerability to impacts… batteries were too small to hold enough charge for prolonged operations… huh, 30 minutes, not too bad… co-developed by Lockheed-Martin Skunk Works and… Mitsubishi Heavy Industries and Electrics?" The sight of the unusual alliance was jarring, but she now had Mei's attention.
"That sounds unlikely… the American Government usually likes its best projects kept secret and done in-house, not exported…" Mei had learned that after asking for more resources for her research. So many parts for testing facilities had been denied because their HQ wasn't American mainland soil, so they counted those as export banned.
"Something must have caught their attention… weren't those the times when the american exo-suits got a ton of funding?" The red head asked her blue haired partner.
"I remember something from my research for my thesis, the materials section made a lot of breakthroughs, but the power supplies remained an issue across the board…" The bluenette looked at the dumbfounded scientist a few terminals over. "Sorry, Dr. Lizelle Maja Einstein, PhD in Physics and Material Science. A pleasure."
"Dr. Frederika Milka Tesla, PhD in Electric, Electronics Engineering and Embedded Systems, don't sweat the formalities. These suits, I can actually see the development paths, the guns… if I can get a sample, I can track down whoever made them originally…"
"Uh… Mei Tachibana, haven't finished college yet but I specialize in Advanced Solid-State Physics and Quantum Mechanics…" Her voice crept with known anxiety. She was smart, smarter than a lot of people, but she still hadn't proved that to the world. And now she was with people she could maybe consider peers, and then maybe…
"You haven't? How come you're in charge of leading the fight against Para-Dimensional Homicidal beings?"
"Milka, let the girl breathe. Dr. Mei? Can I call you that?" Mei nodded, while witling at the side glance the redhead gave her from her screen. "Don't worry about Milka, it took us great pains to earn those titles and we've not had an easy time despite having them. Also, there is an alert in your screen."
"Ah, thank you!" turning back to her own terminal. "This is control, what is it Gimmel-1?"
"We are at the LZ with survivors, but we need medevacs! These things are coming in force and we don't have enough guns keeping them at bay for the birds to get away!"
"Understood. Fireteam Aleph is inbound with army survivors, coordinate with them until reinforcements arrive… YoRHa Flight Wasp is offering covering fire for your evac. Hold positions until they arrive."
"Understood, Gimmel-1 out! All right people, let them have it!"
"For a civilian, you keep your cool very well, Doctor Mei." A soft voice muttered from behind Mei. She squeaked as she turned around and saw the beautiful face of Steel Locust's Commander White. Her smile was encouraging but there was something in her eyes that unnerved Mei. "Don't worry. Not everyone takes to tactical control like you do. Do you have any experience?"
"Uh… only a few games my cousin played…" And wouldn't stop yapping about.
"Must be some realistic gameplay. Dr Einstein, Dr Tesla, how goes your analysis?" her voice turned full military as she addresses the other two.
"The suits, the guns or the enemy?" Tesla said with close to no deference to her voice, although a trickle of sweat dripped from her forehead.
"According to your specialty, what you can gleam from any of those you mentioned."
"Well, the suits' armor needs improvement badly, the sections look like they will fly off every time the G3s throw a punch, I think the… what did you call them?"
"Fortified Suits"
"Yeah, their reaction time is a tad too much for those kinds of maneuvers. The Guns are beautiful, I'd like to talk to the ones that made the originals, and also a list of what you people know happened to them."
"I'll forward you the files in a few minutes, what else?"
"Whoever made these wasn't playing around in trying to kill stuff. But the Attache function…"
"It was meant to be carried in a specialized motorcycle."
"Ah, that makes sense, kind of… The enemy, on the other hand… looks like someone made a pile of cubes and later sculpted them to their current shape… why do they always evaporate into cubes…?"
"Dr. Einstein?"
"Hm, I'll have a proposal for the new G3 armor alloy tomorrow night. There are some improvements I can see done to the guns' durability is you send me their data… May I have samples of the enemy for direct analysis? They seem to have contradictory traits that I wish to analyze…"
"You'll have them later. Thank you. Dr Mei, you have any thoughts?"
"Eh? Ah… I'm not a biologist, but what powers these things? I cannot distinguish any organs or anything that resembles components that would indicate mechanical drones of some kind…"
The other three looked at the youngest, who began blushing under the attention, then they began looking at the images on both terminals. "True, why didn't I notice? I said they were sculpted, but nothing resembles any electronics I've ever seen or anything remotely biological…"
"No optical, auditory or digestive organs… there are some mimicries but whether those aren't vestigial is something to ponder…"
"Good observations everyone, note down everything you can and save it for AAR, apologies, I have to leave you." Commander White saluted them all.
"What? What's going on?" Tesla asked nervously.
"We're mobilizing the Avenger TSFs, we predict another onslaught of land-based beasts and the QRF might need the heavy firepower."
"One would think that 36mm chainguns would be heavy enough…"
"One would. Good luck ladies."
"Good luck, Commander." And as she left, the other three now gathered in one terminal, which thankfully was big enough to accommodate them all at the same time.
"See, they imitate some animal behavior in how they use their limbs, but with that rudimentary intelligence often gets tactical formations or can resolve some basic problems…"
"Look at the remains of the caravan, they do not aim to destroy the vehicles…"
"They force the survivors out but don't kill them immediately…"
"Active Malice… more than just rudimentary intelligence would suggest…"
"Just what is the Honkai?" The three concluded before updates began coming in again.
"Oh Shit."
"Keep the suppressive fire!"
"Shotguns at the front! Miniguns get behind them!"
"Mine is out! Need some ammo!"
"Here! Make it count!"
"Medic!"
"Here, help me with the tourniquet!"
"Watchpoint! Cover the wounded!"
"Yes Ma'am!"
The chaos of the last LZ was palpable. The sounds of wounded, weapons, and the screams of civilians was deafening. Amid the normal sight of soldiers, the colorful dots among them would send anyone looking from the outside into thinking they were extras for some movie.
Watchpoint, Recon-1 and YoRHa were using their superior weaponry to aid the surviving army units. Some had too many wounded to remain operational, but many could remain sitting and hold a gun. It was cruel but they had to. The huddle of civilians in the middle of the group was the whole reason they were there.
The loud blasts of Attache Shotguns, Tridenta SMGs, Shotrisers, Scorpions, Kerberos Miniguns and the odd Salamander Grenade overwhelmed the noise any of the remaining M4s could make. The aliens buzzing was also picking up as they tried to crush the last resistance point before the ships came back for them. Due to how close the aliens were, the TSFs couldn't help much, but they were killing any horde that tried to flank them. The Flight Units were doing their best to kill any alien going for dive bombs, but the odd one slipped into the group and got blasted from below for its troubles.
"Where are the ships?!" Aleph-1 got over the cacophony of murder around them.
"Too many aliens in the skies! They know not to let them through! We need to clear a path, or we die here!" Watchpoint's Private Sakamoto shouted while reloading her Tridenta, some Templars had begun showing up and they got the burnt of heavy firepower, but that let a squad of damn xenomorphs to slip through their perimeter and almost get to the civvies.
"Sir! Seismic readers are going haywire! Something big's coming!"
"Unkno… uh… 30 meters high, give or take?"
"How would you know?"
"Right in front of us!"
"Yo, what the fuck…"
Massive Chariots had lumbered into sight, and now looked ready to break into a run… into their positions.
"Shit! Fall back!"
"Where to?"
"OH JESUS WHAT THE FUCK!"
"AW COME ON!"
"HEAVIES FIRE AT WILL!"
Bullets began preparing the giant monsters, who ignored their attempts at distraction. Then a different kind of roar sent everyone into silence. Massive engines announced their arrival, and an enormous machine landed in front of them. It looked like someone gave a battleship legs and jet engines. Massive shoulder-mounted cannons shone under the sun; it raised its arms along with pods of unknown contents. "YoRHa Flight Wasp ready to assist, leave these fuckers to us. Pelicans inbound." More sound of engines coming closer were similarly drowned by more of the giant machines landing.
Soon the battle commenced once again.