Other Worlds: V 2.0

[initiates]

Date & Time: May 21st, beginning at 0900.
Location: The Initiative Hold and all throughout Elmer's world
Characters: Anyone participating in the fighting, anyone staying behind.
Summary: Elmer's world is fought for and lost.
Warnings: Violence, death.

They reopen the portal at 0900, May 21st. The first scientist who stepped through was killed within thirty seconds; the rest who followed made it back through to Exsilium, albeit not unscathed. The portal was shut again by a panicked operator, although a second operator knew to keep the coordinates locked.

Within ten minutes, the alert had been sent out. There's no time to wait for the Transports to gather en masse; as soon as they have a sizable enough force to stand a chance at fighting through and clearing their gateway's location, the door is opened again.

Immediately inside the door is a desolate, grim scene. What had previously been the coast of Japan is now scorched earth, blasted sand, and little else. As the first point of contact for this world, it has undoubtedly suffered the worst. Here, the UE didn't stop at governments, financial centers, and capitols — the UE destroyed everything in sight. There are enough UE soldiers remaining in the broken country to give the Transports a difficult battle, although by now the bulk of their forces have moved on.

The Initiative will soon realize the necessity of opening more gateways, just as the UE had done. Transports will be deployed to London, Berlin, Paris, DC Washington, Moscow, Beijing, New York City, Hong Kong, Madrid. Through each of these windows, the destruction is staggering. Buildings are more husks than structures, everything that can burn is alight, and the death toll is off the charts. Blackened bodies seem to line every street, while pieces litter the ground among the rubble. There's no doubt that the UE has no need of the people of this world. They're after resources only, and anything and anyone already here is to be removed.

You can find UE soldiers everywhere. They move in coordinated squadrons of 20, and each of them carries a small arsenal. Even without their incredibly advanced and destructive weaponry, they're fearfully formidable. Each soldier, while still only human, is a genetically perfect clone, further enhanced by technological implants. They're all highly trained in physical combat. Even if you can disarm one of them, don't count on close-range attacks being any easier to handle. They've brought along cannons, small flying craft, and lightweight tanks. Each of these is the top of the line in terms of technology, geared toward destroying as much as it can, as quickly as it can. The United Earth is here to destroy, and they won't stop to wonder why their targets go from being civilians and scrambling, off-guard, comparatively primitive militaries, to trained and powered Transports.

For anyone staying at home, they'll find that any Initiative presence has withdrawn fully to the Hold. All Initiative employees are needed, and most of them in the med bays. The majority of the Initiative focus is on recalling and resurrecting fallen Transports, but attention is still needed for the living-but-wounded. Any Transports who stay in Exsilium and offer their help will have it immediately accepted; they'll be put to work in the medical wings, runnings supplies, or simply set at a machine and told to keep an eye on the numbers: Transport vitals, UE movements, and maps upon maps of changing statistics and colors.

At 1500, the Initiative will recall all Transport soldiers back to Exsilium and seal shut the gateway. The UE numbers are too great, their soldiers too powerful, and Elmer's world is lost.

Comments

[debtor]

[Allen rams into one of them, knocking the man down, forcing the air out of the soldier as Allen tears the gun from his hands with his claws. The man's comrade fires at Allen's back— he can feel the heat of it, as his Innocence absorbs the shots, just as the man he's pinning slams his fist into Allen's face.

He staggers back, vision flashing, whirling around to find another target even as the world lurches under him. It's fine, it's fine, so long as the man's weapon is destroyed, they can escape. --It's at that point that he catches sight of a shoe whizzing through the air, knocking another soldier's helmet. He acts before he thinks, throws himself between Cat and the man she'd hit, throwing both hands up in the air. Green light flashes, lingers in the air, almost solid. A shield, but it only takes a single shot before shattering. Still, it buys him enough time to charge at this soldier like he had the other, to disarm him.

He has to be quick. Cat has no cover, and he can only take on one at a time.

It's at this point that there's the whir of engines, distant but growing closer. From above. Something that looks remarkably like some species of unmanned drone, if either of them had any idea what one was.]

[wolfchild]

[ She seizes the moment to jump behind a block. Nymeria drops beside her, snarling when she mistakenly lands on her bad leg. The girl orders her to stay down and tries to sneak around her cover to peek at the battle.

Allen's doing better than she would have expected—but not good enough. If just one of the soldiers get lucky, Allen will be dead and so will she and Nymeria. She wishes she still had her gun. A quick survey of the ground and she spots it just as a new sound reaches her. ]

Gods be good.

[ A deep breath and she dives for her gun. She doesn't notice her cut foot; adrenaline has her hyperfocused on the fight itself. The thing above—a ship? was that one of the ships?—is not her biggest concern right now. Gun in hand, she aims for the closest man. She remembers where the heart should be. She can only hope these man have one she can bleed.

She fires off twice. When he starts to fall, the direwolf jumps him. The beast tosses him like a rag doll. His arm is wrenched off and his gun falls. The girl rushes to pick it up. ]

[debtor]

[Allen disposes of another man's weapon, as he had the first, whacking the man in the head with the butt of his gun. A moment later, one that he'd disarmed rushes at him and Allen sends him stumbling back with a kick that probably won't leave a mark.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees the wolf tear apart another— but he barely has time to protest (it's a gut reaction, that soldier's a person)— before laser fire from above begins tearing up the ground below. The ship's still a ways off, as it flattens the remains of a hotel building in a matter of seconds.]

Shit!

[Fffffffuck.

His heart's in his throat. He can't die here. He can't let Cat die here. One of the soldiers grabs his shoulder, and Allen spins to throw him off, claws tearing into something, cape whipping behind him.

Desperate, he lashes out at others with his Innocence, with ribbons and blasts of energy, ducking and weaving around any attack he can, yet it hardly seems to put a dent in their forces. Disarming five out of twenty is a meager accomplishment. They're still being fired upon, and the ship's still approaching, his head pounding with the sound of it. In a second, he finds himself flat on his back, a hand on his throat, as he struggles to push the man off with a choked-off shout.]

[wolfchild]

Allen!

[ His name is a gasp. Nymeria veers to help him. The direwolf's powerful jaw closes around the man's leg and tears off a large chunk.

The girl tries to turn her new gun on the injured man. She nearly burns off her toes. Raising it quickly, she manages to shoot one of those moving toward her. As she fumbles, a hand closes over the top. Without thinking, she grabs Needle and sinks it to the hilt inside the man's body.

A gloved fist crashes into the side of her head. Everything blinks black for a moment. When light returns, sounds are a distant buzz. She lies on her back and blinks uncomprehendingly. Then the pain makes itself known. She grimaces, coughs.

Fuzzy, growing clearer, is the muzzle of a gun being pointed down at her. ]

[debtor]

[Allen thinks he hears the man shout through his helmet as the wolf rips into him. Maybe that was Allen. He doesn't have time to think about it; he rolls out of the way as the man's grip weakens on his neck, and leaves him to Nymeria.

Someone fires at him, barely nicks his side. But he ignores it. Cat's on the ground.

He screams her name, upon the man in an instant. The shot is fired but it misses, hits a rock instead. Allen's claws close around the soldier's neck, scraping against the armor, holding him up in front of her, his back to the remaining squadron.]

Why!? Why are you doing this? [He receives no response, but he wasn't expecting to.]

[He can't comprehend it. This isn't human. And yet they are, they are human. Humans, slaughtering others for their own selfish gain, as carelessly as a demon would. This man was going to kill Cat. She's not a soldier, she's just a child, and this man wouldn't have given a damn. A second later, and she could have died.

Allen's arm seems to be glowing, the air around him crackling as he throws the man to the ground. He smashes his helmet in, breaks his gun, eyes flashing with rage. This war isn't his, it's not the path he wants to take, but it's the one he must if he's going to protect anyone. He's not strong enough.]

[wolfchild]

[ Her head throbs and it makes it hard to focus. It's Polliver hitting her, the Hound stopping her. The girl struggles to her knees.

Nymeria returns, blood up to her eyes. It drips off the matted fur. The girl tries to grab her and her hand slips off it. The direwolf moves bodily between her and the rest. Her eyes are bright with bloodlust. She'll die here. Arya lightly touches the wet fur underneath the laser burn. We'll die here.

She recovers Needle. It's nothing but a toy sword. It won't save them. Nymeria's trying, but she's hurt already.

And Allen— ]

Allen. [ She doesn't understand what's happening to him. ] I'm scared.

[debtor]

[The soldier fights back, claws at Allen's face, but his fist smashes back into the fucker's cracked helmet. His face is red, chest heaving, sweat dripping off his brow as he shoves the man aside. The squadron fires at him, but his cape shields him, lifting up to absorb the gunfire, moving like a living thing.

Bristling like a cornered animal, he looks at her over his shoulder.]

You're not going to die!

[Not happening. He just-- he just needs more power, he needs to concentrate. If he can't get them out of here as he is, then he must grow stronger, he and his Innocence together.

Teeth grit, his grips his left arm as his weapon seems to lose shape, to stretch and shrink as the green light spreads over his body, sparking, growing harsher. If Cat's sensitive to such things, she might feel something strangely heavy, ominous in the air, and the feeling is building.

And then suddenly he turns towards the UE men, left arm outstretched. The light that had been gathering explodes, in a blast that scatters debris, throws back any soldiers who might've wandered too close off their feet entirely, and completely obliterates his own shirtsleeve.

That was definitely meant to happen.]

[wolfchild]

[ You can't promise that. She doesn't have the time to say anything. The girl gives a strangled surprised cry at the explosion and falls back. Ears flattening against her head, Nymeria snarls. ]

What is that?!

[debtor]

[He would answer, but he's in the middle of ripping his arm off. His fingers lengthen and twine into something like a hilt, a pommel takes the place of his wrist, his arm into a blade— and he's suddenly holding a ridiculously oversized sword and missing an arm. Nothing about his demeanor gives the impression that he thinks this is the least bit strange at all.

Without wasting a beat, he spins it 'round, digs his heals in, and scatters the UE's forces back with another explosion. And then rushes after them, slashing wildly through the air, screaming nothing quite coherent.

The sword itself can't actually hurt them at all, at least not whatever part of them is still human, but they don't know that and he's not going to announce it. The drone closes in, and he presses forward. If he could back them up towards it...]

[wolfchild]

[ His arm— the sword— Is this magic? Was that meant to happen?

Rather than stay to watch she embraces that oldest and most noble of tactics: running away.

She picks a zig-zagging route that puts as many obstacles between her and the soldiers as possible. Her wolf struggles to keep pace.

She stops herself looking back. ]