1235 June 18th, 2020 CE

Washington Blvd, Irvington, California

The emergency exit door at the back of the bus was opened. A policewoman peeked in “Everybody! Get off the bus! The monsters are attacking!”

Without thinking, Luke grabbed Hayden and slung Hayden’s arm over his shoulder. Luke’s mind was still taking in what had happened. Around him, people stood up to get off the bus and some, like him, carried and helped others.

Since the door was sideways, everyone had to climb to get out. Luke gave Hayden to a person outside and Hayden was pulled out of the bus. When Luke himself got out, he was met with utter carnage. Police officers were trying to get the rest of the students off the bus. Whilst another waved and shouted at them to go somewhere. “Go! Go! Go! Come on! Off the street and into that building!”

A couple people pushed past him to get to wherever the officer was telling them to go to. The background noises were deafening. Around the street, multiple police officers had assault rifles in their hands firing towards something. There was a metallic smell in the air that Luke had never smelled before. None of the other buses that their bus was following were there, most likely having already fled.

A person patted him on the back. Luke turned to see Mr.Johnson looking at him with concern. Luke barely made out what he said. “Luke, we have to go. Come on.”

Mr. Johnson had rarely addressed him before so it came as a shock that he remembered his name. Luke replied with only a nod and started walking towards where everybody else was going. Behind him, Mr. Johnson's voice vibrated in the air amidst the gunshots. “Stay together!”

A blast of cool air hit him as Luke entered the Wells Fargo bank. Students crowded the place. The amount wasn’t surprising as three classes had been jammed onto that one bus.

Two police officers and the teachers of the two other classes were also there. They had their attention on the students lying on the ground. Close by, a police officer was shouting into their radio. “We have people bleeding here. I need medical here.”

Luke quickly looked away when he saw that the girl that the policeman was tending to had an arm covered in blood.

A shout came from the door behind him. “Is everybody here alright? This position is collapsing. We have to move.”

The police officer tending to the wounded girl shouted back. “We have people who are injured. They need medical assistance.”

Luke looked at the door that he had entered from. The voice that had told them that they had to move came from another policeman. “No time. Just carry them. I’m not sure how much longer we can stay here. We are going on foot.”

Mr. Johnson, who Luke had not noticed coming into the bank, walked up to the officer shouting from the door. Luke heard Mr. Johnson raised voice but he didn’t make out what he said. Luke noticed that Mr. Johnson looked unhappily at the police officer. Luke could hear the policeman’s reply. “Sorry, I can’t do that. I promise you that we are gonna find some way to transport you guys there. But we have to get away from this area first and the best way is by foot.”

One of the teachers shouted. “We need some people to help carry the injured.”

Amidst the commotion of people carrying the wounded. Luke soon found Hayden sitting down, leaned against the wall. “Hey, Hayden.”

Hayden had his eyes open and seemed to be less dazed. “Hey, Luke.”

“You alright?”

“Thanks for saving me.”

Luke nodded. “Come on let's go, we have to leave.”

Hayden nodded.

Washington D.C.

On the screen, the beach was populated by large humanoid creatures with leathery jet black skin. Some of them had horns on them while others did not. They were all holding chunks of rock that somewhat resembled a spear. A few were grabbing crates and moving them onto the beach from their ships. Their ships looked very unnerving. It resembled a cargo ship without a bridge. It was the same skin texture as the humanoids and multiple eyes dotted the ship at random locations. While most of their ships had eyes moving around and looking in all directions, the eyes of one of the ships seemed to be focused on the drone.

A giant red toad with a giant box-shaped growth on its back jumped into the camera view of the beach. It turned towards the drone.

In the Situation Room, a voice pierced the quietness and shock. “I think they noticed the drone.”

A blast of objects came out of the box on the back of the toad. The screen suddenly became black.

Ronell immediately spoke up. “What happened? What was that?”

“It seems that the drone was shot down by that giant toad thing.”

Stephen spoke up. “Their munitions are not guided at all. It's more akin to a canister shot.”

Ronell turned his attention to him. “Canister shot?”

“When you fire a canister shot out of a cannon, the shell turns into multiple pieces in order to damage a large group of something. That's what's happening here. They don’t have the accuracy so they just blanket the sky with shrapnel or objects.”

Ronell shook his head. “What are we even facing and where did these things come from?”

“I have to say they look like things from the depth of damned hell”

“Those anti-air weapons do seem alive. Maybe we can’t get that scientist back in here to give us an explanation.”

Dr. Munoz tapped his chin.

“This could possibly be an artificial modification of the creature. On the other hand, it could be naturally occurring. If the species ate flying animals and those animals flew at heights similar to fighter jets, it is possible... albeit you would only expect something like this from a fantasy world created by an insane maniac. But I can’t tell you where it came from. This new world has quite a different biological makeup than our world and we haven’t cataloged all of it .”

Cralson interrupted Dr.Munoz’s musings. “Mr. President. We are setting up a task team to scour through satellite images in order to locate their origins. We are hoping for results soon.”

San Francisco

Andrew walked back towards the firing line, having just finished his phone calls.

A shout caught his attention. “One of our jets are going down!”

He looked to the sky. A fighter jet was spinning out of control in the sky. Both of its wings were missing.

20 minutes later

“They are breaking through!”

Andrew kept firing his AR but it seemed as if every monster he downed, another came to replace it. The entire firing line had started backing up once again. A voice came through his radio.

>>

“Retreat!”

Andrew turned his patrol vehicle around and followed the other police vehicles. After driving down the road for a few minutes, they saw two Humvees rushing towards them from the opposite direction. The .50 cal from an California National Guard Humvees started laying down lead on the monsters behind the fleeing police vehicles

A few minutes later

Andrew and the others had gotten to 7th Avenue safely thanks to their retreat being covered by the two Humvees. A couple soldiers rushed around setting up sandbags at the intersection. Andrew noticed a police lieutenant was talking with a soldier, “We are with the California National Guard and will be providing assistance to these creatures known as Lancefishes.”

“That's the dumbest name I have ever heard."

“Not my choice. A couple scientists have decided to name them that and the government ran with it. There are only 10 of us here but these monsters seem to be slow mindless meatbags so it shouldn't be that hard to deal with. Our mission is to help you hold this perimeter until the Marines, Army, and additional National Guard units get here to push them back."

"We could definitely use the additional firepower." The police lieutenants looked at the Humvees. "I think we can hold them back with these. You say these are .50 cal machine guns?"

"Yep."

".50 cal snipers seem to kill these monsters in an instant so that's good."

Andrew rested his hands on his AR. Two Humvees with .50 cals sat in the middle of the intersection, their machine guns aimed down the road.

Camp Pendleton, California

V-22 Ospreys lifted off from the airfield. Following them were AH-1Z Vipers.