Invasion

Back at the base, they’re both still tiredly standing near the entrance, waiting for Sergey as he checks on his men. Takashi continues to levitate several rocks from the floor around his right hand, staring at them. She looks at him, smiles, and asks again, “What are you doing?” “What? This is taking too long,” he answers. Turning to her as she looks away, he sees her face: her beautiful, clean, and smooth face—even after what they’ve been through; her hair long and silky, extending beyond her shoulders, touching her back. The rocks slowly float back down to the floor as he loses focus on it; he smiles. Her nose is of average size, wide with a slight bump, and she has an ocean blue eye color. She starts waving her body back and forth with her hands behind, bored. He begins to wonder how a girl like her ever fell for a guy like him. I guess there is someone out there for everyone. Sergey finally finishes and calls to them. Olivia raises her hand to signal and they both run towards the tent. “How are they?” she asks. “Well, I gave them the supplies and they are doing the best they can,” he answers. “Maybe there’s something we can do to help,” Takashi says. “You mean with our powers? Like heal them or something?” she asks. He turns to her and nods, unsure himself. “Can we even do that?” “I don’t know, but we can try.” “If you could, we would be very grateful. But prepare yourselves, it is not a pleasant sight,” he warns them. They look at each other and nod to agree. As they enter, they can see the wounded lying in the beds, blood and dirt covering parts of their body and face. Big scratches run across their arms and legs with bandages wrapped around some, covering them, and also on their heads. Some of them groan and rough about their beds. Olivia puts her hand over her mouth and closes her eyes for a second. As he said, it’s a very unpleasant sight to see. She takes her hand off and asks, “Can we really help them??” “We should be able to... Use our energy to help the body’s natural healing process,” he explains. He walks up to one of them and puts his hand on top of his chest, his eyes closed to focus. The man raised his chest slightly and starts to struggle—it has begun. The lights flicker slightly and Takashi is noticeably beginning to strain. He turns his head, trying to resist and maintain focus. Some of the wounds begin to heal, but it begins to take its toll on him. He opens his eyes to look at the man, breathing rapidly and getting weaker. Finally he stops, looking pale and panting as he drops to the floor, sweating. “Takashi!” she screams. They both quickly grab him and pick him up. His eyes wide, staring at them, and his nose bleeding. “Baby, look at me. Hey! Hey! It’s okay. It’s okay,” she says, holding his cheeks, and then hugs him. His breathing starts to slow, “It worked,” he says closing his eyes, “hahaha. It works.” “Yes, but it nearly killed you,” Sergey says, “let us not try that again.” “But we can... help your men.” “No! You’re not doing that again,” she says sternly. “They will be fine. They are soldiers. But we need you too,” Sergey tells him. He chuckles, “It seems I was wrong. We don’t use our energy to heal them. It’s like we transfer it,” he explains as he gets up. “No, don’t get up. You should rest,” she says. “I’m fine.”

The man he healed then suddenly sits up, looking very surprised, and turns to them. “What happened?” he asks. “Me,” Takashi answers. “Well, at least you got one up,” she says. All of a sudden, the entire base shakes as if an earthquake had just hit them. “What was that?!” he asks. Sergey looks around and tells them that he will be right back “Wait, Sergey! Dammit!” He heads for the command center. “What do we do now?” she asks. “We follow him, I guess,” he replies, “umm, get well soon. Let’s go.” At the command center, Sergey views the camera feeds from outside. “Sergey, what the hell happened?” Takashi asks. “They’re back.” “Oh my God. Is that a building? They took down a building??” asks Olivia. Destroyed and broken in half, it lies on the river, stretching from the city; rubble and debris float on the water while the rest sinks down to the bottom. “Okay, we need to get ready. Come on,” he says. “Takashi, are you okay?” He smiles and caresses her right cheek, “I’m fine.” She grabs his hand and they share a quick kiss. “Come on, let’s go.” A speech for his men: “Alright, men. Those alien bastards are back. It is time to show them what the people of Mother Russia can do!” Cheering and screaming fills the room. He turns to Takashi and Olivia, “You guys ready?” They look at each other—they don’t really have a choice. “Let’s do it.” He nods to them.

Outside, the creatures scour the city, destroying everything in their path searching for an unknown thing. Their roars can be heard throughout. Thunderclouds are still present in the sky due to their influence. It’s unnerving as they exit the base. “We will make it through this,” Sergey reassures everyone. The men follow behind with their weapons cocked and at the ready, steeling their nerves as they walk through the alley. Takashi and Olivia stare into the endless sky and clutch their hands, readying themselves for the battle, and the journey, before them. They step out into the streets and head for the city.

While the creatures continue their search, the military steps up first and attacks them, a preemptive strike. Their attack helicopters appear in numbers and they fire their miniguns and missiles and rockets right away—it’s everything they’ve got. Soldiers pour out with their grenade launchers in hand, screaming their lungs out to the high-heavens. It’s just chaos everywhere. Some of the creatures die in the resulting explosions from the first-wave. They release a loud, terrifying roar before shifting to electric form to evade them. One of them zips down to street level and unleashes an electric wave towards the soldiers, wiping most of them out just like that. The remaining few start unloading their clip into it, severely damaging the creature before a chopper finishes it off. Takashi, Olivia, and the Resistance hear the ensuing chaos and accelerate their approach. The helicopters continue to scour the city shooting every creature that they can find. One of them is travelling through a nearby power line and “zips” from it to one of the choppers, scrambling its system. “Shit! One of them got inside,” the pilot screams, “mayday, mayday. I am going down.” Her final words before crashing to the ground and exploding, taking the creature with her.

Back at the base, Julian scolds Edward for rushing in without thinking. “Sir! We need a plan. We can’t just--“ “I do have a plan, doctor!” Edward stops him, “it’s called: Attack. And shouldn’t you be working?!” “Yes, sir,” he says with a grimace, withholding frustration.

A creature jumps to one of the choppers and impales all its tentacles through the window and into the pilot, electrocuting him before absorbing him. The fighting on the streets continues as the helicopter crashes in the background; the sounds of gunfire and screaming are heard everywhere; bullet shells litter every street and every corner. The creatures are coming from all sides, crawling on the buildings and zipping through the air and electrical lines. They managed to wound and kill some of them, but they keep pouring out endlessly. “Sir, we are getting overrun out here,” Samuel reports to Edward, “they’re coming from all sides. We need reinforcements fast, or at least something that can hurt ’em better.” “Verdammt!” Edward exclaims. He changes the channel on his radio, crackling and whining, and contacts Julian. “Dr. Edwards!” he screams, “we are fighting a losing battle! We need something now!” Julian, still hard at work researching the creatures, panicking and sweating, hears Edward on his radio. “This is ridiculous!” he screams, no idea what to do. He picks up the radio, “Yes, sir. I am working as fast as I can.” “As fast as you can is not good enough doctor!” “Uh--uh... Ummm...” he mumbles, having no idea what to say or do. “Well, these creatures are electrical in nature, right? Perhaps if we release an electromagnetic pulse, it will stop them, or at least neutralize them, their energy. The same way it disables other electrical objects.” “You better be right, doctor. All units, this is General Leichthammer. Find any EMP grenades or weapons you have at your disposal and use them at the creatures. I repeat, find any EMP grenades or weapons and use them at the creatures. It should neutralize them.” The resistance finally arrives at the city to find it in chaos; mangled bodies of both soldiers and aliens lie throughout the streets; blood paints the walls of the buildings, both yellow and red, some mixed together into a dark orange color. Sergey and the men prepare themselves for the battle to come, cocking their guns and taking out their launchers. They hear sounds coming from the rooftop of a building and look up to see creatures jumping and rushing into the fray. One of them spots Olivia and stops and lunges down to her. As it approaches, Takashi quickly stops its advance in mid-air and slams it to the ground, where Olivia then punches it with her telekinetically enhanced strength, sending it flying to a wall. One of the men shoots a round from their launcher and wounds the creature. It lets out a roar resembling no known screams—distorted and terrifying to hear. Some of the others hear this and breaks off from the pack to help. “Oh, shit,” Takashi exclaims, “they’re coming!” “Open fire!” Sergey orders his men. Takashi flies up to the horde and punches one of them, and then grabs and throws it through the wall. It quickly gets up and lunges towards him, sending them both to the opposite building. The rest successfully reach ground level. Olivia rushes to one of them to attack, but the creature counters it before smiling at her—sort of. She stands there bemused before it punches her through the window of a building. Sergey fires a round of grenade at the creature followed by his men. The creatures are forced back by the grenades and the bullets before collapsing, dead. Sergey walks past the bodies, approaching the one they wounded before. He looks at it and pulls out his 9mm, pointing it at its face. But before he could pull the trigger, it screams and was about to grab him with one of its tentacles if not for Olivia who flew and pushed him to safety. The tentacles grab her instead, sending an electrical charge to her body. But this is not the painful or lethal kind; this is something else. She suddenly experiences visions of a massive ship in orbit, a huge spiky creature connected to a series of cables, massive machines hovering above cities firing some sort of beam to the ground, and whole planets being destroyed. She stares into the sky, her mouth wide open and eyes blank white as the creature drops her.

The men quickly pull her away and shoot at the creature, killing it. She passes out, no shit after what just happened. Sergey shakes his head and stand up, holding his head. “Argh!” Olivia suddenly wakes up, like from a bad dream. I guess what she saw can count as a bad dream; more like a nightmare. She holds her head, feeling a slight headache, and asks, “What happened?” Before they can answer, a scream is heard above. “Guys!!!!” Takashi flies out of the hole and slams into the wall opposite before falling to the ground, messed up with blood running down his cheek from his forehead. He murmurs to them, unable to summon the strength to speak. “What?” she asks. He raises his right hand, trembling, and points up. “Lo--look out!” They turn around to see the creature falling towards them. One of them tries to shoot his launcher, but is too late; it slams the ground, creating a small tremor. As they struggle from it, the creature slams them away with its arms like sweeping dust from a table. Olivia gets on its back and wraps her arms around its neck. She pulls hard and they both fall to the ground—“Argh!” she exclaims from the pain—wrapping her legs around its body in the process. “Hurry up!” she screams. The men recover and walk slowly, fumbling, to them. “Come on!” They grab the fore grip attachment on their gun and try to aim, though they seem to be having trouble. As they’re about to shoot, one of the tentacles rises up and sweeps them aside, their shots end up going all over the place, destroying a few windows and a few of them ricochets. She holds on and pulls it back down, but allows the creature to escape her. It gets up, grabs her, and throws her hard to the wall, knocking her unconscious; it then approaches her. Suddenly, the creature is repelled aside from an explosion. One guy managed to shoot his launcher and it found its target. As the creature gets up, he keeps shooting and shooting at it, unloading its entire clip. It dies soon afterwards. He drops the gun before letting out a sigh of relief, giving in to his tiredness and pass out. They all lie there unconscious.

Back in the fray, the soldiers, wasting every bullet and ammo they have, hears the broadcast that Edward transmitted and hastily search for any EMP grenades they can find. “It should neutralize them? That’s very comforting,” says one of the sergeants to his men—the word “should” is never very comforting to hear in these situations. They search all their satchels, carry-ons and persons hastily in a panic. The creatures close in and attack several of them, their screams heard throughout. Sweating profusely, a staff sergeant wipes them off before miraculously finding an EMP grenade at the bottom of his satchel. “Yes!!” he screams in relief. A thin and small tube-shaped device with a hexagonal shape on the top and bottom, colored blue and white; he grabs it, pulls the pin, and throws it. “Fire in the hole!” he screams out. It flies through the air, landing just near a creature’s foot. It looks at it for a second before the grenade explodes in a blinding flash of white light, neutralizing all the creatures in that area. They all fall down and their bodies lay lifeless on the ground. Some of them suddenly jerk as a few sparks appear. The soldiers, stressed and tired, look around hastily while gasping for breath; holding their assault rifles and shotguns and grenade launchers like a security blanket. Radios and other electronic devices, unfortunately, are also dead. But at least the EMP was successful in stopping the creatures. They slowly lower their guns as they slowly relax.