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

[scour]

[ ctsv nearly continues arguing, but-- he hears more gunfire. More stamping of feet. He turns and looks; the reinforcements must be coming from around the corner. Not in sight yet, but they sound close.

ctsv's prideful and he's prickly but he's not stupid, and he's not going to press the point when they're about to get mowed down.

He scales the rest of the way up Kate's arm and up onto your shoulder, where his footing is a little more solid. And where he doesn't have to yell quite as loudly to make himself heard. ]

You better move.

[gevurah]

[ He's in for a bumpy ride.

Gunshots whiz past them. One barely misses her head, sniping off a tiny piece of her hair. That's more than enough warning to get her to get sprinting as fast as she can to get out of their line of fire.

As she veers around a corner, there's a small squadron of about five who spot her and rush her. ]

Better hold on tight. [ She says, surprisingly calm to ctsv. She runs toward the soldiers, but her knees buckle and then she's leaping above them, grabbing a hold of one of their heads and pulling him back, effectively creating a domino effect with the others. ]

[scour]

[ ctsv holds on for dear life -- there's not much he can do while she's in motion, because it feels like if he lets go with even one hand, her momentum is going to send him flying through the air. Damn.

He still looks out as best as he can, figuring that if he can't fight he might as well keep an eye out-- so he counts heads. Five? He's seen them move, and they move in bigger groups than that. Unless the rest have been taken out already.

He searches.... his eyes flick up, along the side of a bombed-out building. But there's a flicker in a cracked window.

ctsv yells to get Kate's attention. ]

Left and up-- sniper, I think!

[gevurah]

[ From the corner of her eye she spies the glint. She doesn't hear the gun go off, but she feels the wind pierce right by her. She runs as fast as she can, the bullets only barely missing her.

She grabs a torn off street sign from the ground and uses it as cover just until she can get behind an abandoned car. Bullet fire ceases -- for now. ]

Can't take them alone. [ She pants heavily and applies pressure to her other arm where a bullet slightly grazed her. It's not a bad wound, but too many of those will slow her down.

For every squadron she dispatches, a dozen more spring up. There's no more screaming to be heard from civilians, just the outcry from Transports scattered around the city. ]

... We have to fall back. [ She sounds horrified to admit it. ]

[scour]

[ ctsv looks alarmed to see her grazed, but manages to snap out of that quickly -- no time to gawk. He continues to look alarmed, though. Her admission shakes his own confidence a little. For the first time ever, he's feeling uncertain about his involvement here.

There are a lot of soldiers....

He grips Kate's shoulder and hisses, also sounding horrified. ]

We have to run away?

[gevurah]

This is tens of thousands of them and only a few hundred of us. [ She breathes quietly. ] We don't have a plan. The Initiative doesn't either.