Arknights: Starsfall I

Chapter 7

"Bug out"

November 1st, 2055

The early morning of November peaks around, most of the regiment and BCTs here are asleep and resting up in anyway they can. Ramirez was on night watch.

As ridiculous as it was to be nightwatch in a somewhat lit American city, they're not sure if all of the dangers had been wiped out yet. And Ramirez just feels... uneasy. So dragging his ass out of Buffalo 1, he brings his M5 Rifle and AT-4 and began to walk the 4 grid that is liberty Hall and it's surrounding area.

It was quiet out, save for the soft hum of every armored vehicle's turret engine. Although the streets may be abandoned and cars and debris line the road, there seems to be this... melancholic, uneasy calm that seems to wash over Ramirez the more he walks away from the sector.

He walks by the building where he shot down an LAY guy and chuckles going to look it up and down, "I bet when I look up there he's going to be nice and..." when he saw the flagpole and looked at the top, the body was gone.

Suddenly the calm dissipated, like a bubble being popped so suddenly and so violently without warning. Shouldering his rifle he began to look around preliminarily, before putting on his goggles, and activating Night Vision. The augmented reality goggles highlighted all silhouettes of the building, while also highlighting anything generating a significant amount of heat.

"Shit shit shit fuck, I forgot that we were dealing with some voodoo level shit here," he muttered as he began to slowly make his way back to Liberty Hall, when he heard it. which caused him to flick his rifle around towards the sound. It was a sewer grate opening, and it was slowly lifting up. Ramirez backed away, he did not want to know what the fuck it was.

But unfortunately, he is going have to shake hands with it.

Or them.

Soon, what looked like a bunch of glowing armored plated blobs began to pop out of the sewer grate, some of them have spikes and others have what looks like a container of glowing green liquid. They didn't look friendly at all, and they looked like they were rushing his way. "Nawh fuck that!" He grumbled as he raised his rifle and began to fire, the suppressor coming in handy as to not alert the rest of the unit. The HEI-T .30-06 smashing and burning the slugs, but there was still a fuck ton of them.

Improvising, he grabs what looks like a bottle of alcohol, some clothing, and hi lighter. Stuffing the clothing into the bottle, he lights it on fire and tosses it in front of her slugs, causing a fire that spread out. it didn't fully stop the slugs, but it was enough for Ramirez to get some distance between himself and the slugs. Just enough distance for him to pull out his AT-4, and quickly run through its SOP. Once the fire subsided, the slugs rushed forward, but Ramirez was ready for them. His AT-4, specialized for the mission, launched a Thermobaric Rocket.

This rocket was now flying towards a bunch of slugs at a very fast rate, before it slamme into the ground near the front-middle grouping of them, and detonated. Fire began to spread rapidly, as a decently sized explosion began to fill the group of slugs. "Whoooo!" Ramirez whooped as he tossed away his AT-4 after breaking the sights and middle body and throwing his arms up, "Eat shit slugfucks!"

Foley was the one who grabbed Ramirez's shoulders, turned him around, and began to shake him, "What the HELL are you doing?!"

Ramirez, quite literally shaken, pointed in the direction of what he did and whooped again.

"I just showed some alien bugs whats fucking UP!" Foley stopped shaking him, as everybody went silent. Foley looked him dead in the eyes and he didn't look happy.

"You what." Foley said, calmly.

'Yeah," Ramirez continued, still proud, as he points at the sewer grate with his rifle, "Some bunch of alien bugs began to pop out of the ground over there so-" Now Dunn was here and he was also shaking Ramirez.

"The fuck you mean there's alien bugs?!"

Before the man in question could elaborate, the chittering of more bugs can be heard, as the Rangers and Marines that were gathered began to back up, seeing the green glowing slugs pop out. "Oh fuck no," Foley muttered, as one of the marines began to dump his UMP-5 into the crowd of slugs that was approach, screaming at the top of his lungs, "CONTACT!"

The angry melody of gunfire began again, as the armored vehicles began to start their engines. Loading MP-R, Buffalo 1 began to do a perimeter run to check for any incoming slugs from any of the streets leading up to Liberty Hall. A M1126 rolled up next to Hunter 2-1 and began to open fire, its .50 caliber rounds tearing the slugs to bits.

"Ramirez! Get another Thermobaric AT-4 and send it into them!" barked Foley as Ramirez quickly ran to comply, going into the back of the Stryker to grab said weapon. Once he unlocks the spring loaded sights and charges the lever he aims it down range, atop of the Stryker as to not risk hitting anybody with back blast.

"So... they're coming from the sewer... so if I were to deduce something.." he adjusts the sight. The sewer entrance was just about 200 meters away from him, so if he hits it, then all of their problems will be gone. He quickly aims, takes a deep breath, and depresses the trigger, sending the rocket over to the sewer hole, and igniting, the subsequent yells and panic from the hole did comfort him in the fact that they managed to take out the source of their problems.

But the slugs stopped, suddenly, as if they just entered a sort of non-agitated state. And they began to just disperse, not interested in the soldiers anymore.

"Sarge, well, can anybody explain what just happened?" Dunn questioned as the marines and rangers shrugged shoulders and began to move over to the sewer hatch, waiting for the fire to subside.

Unbeknownst to them, a lone hooded figure managed to escape the city, wounded. He began to head north, walking north along the I-95.

Up to New York.