Chapter 2: “First to step foot on the field, last to step off”

The wind blew through the chopper as we had left the side doors open. My eyes watched the silhouettes of the shadows of trees passing by as we traveled through the darkness of night. It's been 1 hour since we had left and now were about 10 minutes away from the drop zone. I thought to myself how serious this all was.

An unknown invasion force has attacked a county that not many people know about, and our superiors told us that this invasion force consisted of animated characters from Japanese animes that have killed thousands of people. I'm no expert but I've watched my fair share of animes to know how dangerous these things might be.

Not to mention that it's confirmed that the things we're facing possess powers, unlike anything we've seen in real life. If that's the case, then no wonder the National Guard and the Police suffered heavy casualties. The green light at the corner of the helicopter changed to red, thus the Crew chief in the Blackhawk began attaching the rope to the hook to the outside of the black hawk, and kicked the rope down towards the ground. The pilot began to descend, but stopped because of the trees, allowing the six-man team to rappel downwards. The crew chief then tapped the heads of the SF members prompting them to grab the rope and rappel to the ground at a rapid pace.

I was the third person to rappel down the rope, once I did I rushed towards a position near the rope and took position between a bush and a tree and I waited until the entire squad had rappeled down. Once they did the pilot's voice radioed down to the ground.

"Stalker 1 and 2 are away, Good luck."

"Solid Copy, thanks for the ride." The squad leader replied back. After the exchange, the helicopter ascended back into the sky before disappearing beyond the trees, the sound of its engine getting more distant as I watched the forest for any movement.

"Alpha Team, let's move target objective is 12 miles from here."

"Copy" the radio died out in an instant as I stood up from my kneeling position. I flipped over my NVGs to my eyes so I could see where my comrades are at. The squad leader motioned his hand with 2 fingers pointing northwest, to which we all moved forwards.

We tread carefully and slowly throughout the forest, looking for any signs of movement, a snap of a twig, or a rustle of a bush, however, it was quiet, too quiet for the likes of us. However, despite my uneasiness with the tension I continued forward, my focus on my surroundings. All of a sudden the squad leader raised his fist causing us all to stop, and then motioned for us to get down, In an instant, we all disappeared into the bushes waiting for whatever was coming.

"Road at our front." My squadmate said before the squad leader interrupted him.

"Foot mobiles 10 o'clock. Survivors, hold your positions and let them pass." I looked down the left side of the road to see about 10 people with firearms moving down the road, followed by a truck filled with boxes and containers. Immediately I assumed this was a salvage team made up of the survivors from the city. I watched them escorting their vehicle slowly and patiently waiting until they passed without seeing us.

"Hold on, movement at the front, 2 yards, 4 o'clock."

The silence was interrupted by shouting from the convoy then the survivors began to open fire down the road. I followed their tracers down to the position they were firing at to see 2 hostiles rushing towards the convoy. One of them was wearing some sort of tight black dress, whilst the other one was wearing a maid uniform and wielding a flail mace.

The one with the black dress pulled out 2 daggers whilst dodging the gunfire at a rapid pace. In a flash, she sliced the necks of 2 of the men, whilst the one with the flail mace extended the size of her weapon to hit 2 other survivors, killing them instantly upon impact. To say the least, I was surprised by how inhumanely maneuverable they were, and how they danced around the survivors like they were cannon fodder.

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The rest of the group tried desperately to shoot accurately at the incoming hostiles however, in only a span of 20 seconds, the entire convoy was killed. I grimaced at the brutality and how strong these things were. The one with knives stabbed enemies like it was easy for her to dodge while being shot at, and the other was just pure brutal in the way she fought with that mace.

I started to understand why and how these things managed to take over a county in the span of a few weeks. Regardless of how strong our military was, this foe was not just any standard guerilla or grunt.

"Jesus." I heard one of my comrades say over the radio.

For but a few short moments those things stood there, motionless and then they began to walk back into the woods slowly. we waited in the bushes watching their movements before they fully disappeared into the forest. However, we couldn't be sure if they fully left, to which our squad leader switched on the radio.

"Move up, watch for any movement. Koppelson, James take position at the front of the truck, everyone else fan out and secure a perimeter."

All of us stood up slowly whilst also keeping our rifles pointed toward the woods. We approached the convoy slowly and once we got to the road, our machine gunners took a prone position and set up at the front of the truck before placing the bipod down. I went to the right side and knelt down next to one of the bodies.

I lifted the body by the collar and looked at the cleanly cut wound on the victim's neck. I grimaced at it but I didn't continue further so I placed him back down. I watched the forest in front of us keeping an eye on our surroundings, the sounds of crickets chirping and the owls hooting gave the area we were in an uneasy tension.

We just witnessed an entire convoy of armed people get single-handedly taken out by two of those anime characters, and not a single person was phased by the massacre.

"Were taking the road from here on foot, watch the sides when we're walking, copy?"

"Solid Copy."

"Copy," I said through the radio as we stood up from our positions after we had double-checked for any alive survivors. We continued our hike down the trail and into the night, while also watching our side of the road. It was only after 10 minutes had gone by did we hear something not human.