Post #2817903 in The Multiverse, a roleplay on RPG

The truck was on the road and heading to a more secure location, escorted by two tanks which rode alongside it. The cargo had been secured safely in the back of the truck. Everything was going smoothly according to plan as the military and the response teams worked together to clear the area. The authorities had decided to launch the foreign object back out of orbit, rather than investigate.

Without warning, the unidentified egg-shaped object inside the sealed nanosteel box container began to move. Since nobody else was inside the container, they would not notice that the object slowly began to unroll like a blanket, the polished rock suddenly opening up and transforming itself into three different segments. It wasn't a giant meteor after all, but what actually looked like a giant preying mantis. It had just been rolled up into a ball. But this wasn't no ordinary mantis, as it stretched its long legs and stood up in the pitch black empty box, lifting its head.

The insectoid's legs alone were longer than a man, and it stood up over ten foot tall, larger than any mantis or insect most denizens of Niihama had ever seen before in real life. But even its looks were quite deceiving as it peered through the nanosteel container, seeing straight through the pitch black cargo unit to the heat signatures and magnetic wavelengths all around it, detected by its pitch black enormous spherical shrimp-like bulging eyes. Although it resembled an insect, this was no preying mantis. Still unidentified and only known to have come from Matokey air space, the insectoid being was clearly extraterrestrial. It probed the inside of the box with its mandibles, touching and tasting the nanosteel container at the same time while trying to process its location.

The creature looked at the red and yellow human-shaped heat signatures, green magnetic wavelengths and blueish white vibrations emitted by the truck driver, and the tank operators on either side of the truck as it headed down the highway at a safe but considerable speed. None of them were prepared for what they were about to encounter, as the giant insect used its large scaley talons to shred through the thick nanosteel like a knife through aluminum foil, peeling the top of the container open and pushing out the nanosteel folds before climbing on top of the truck with multiple legs moving completely in sync, tiny hook-like barbs clinging to surfaces in place of toes or feet as the mantis-like alien looked around, its large black spherical shrimp-like bulging eyes giving it an immediate view of its entire surroundings. This posed a pretty serious problem for national security, as the military personnel aboard the two state-of-the-art Taiyou tanks were now experiencing a real close encounter.

The insectoid creature would glance side to side, appearing to look at both tanks for a moment as the vehicles continued down the highway. It clicked its mandibles and moved its antennae, before lifting its head up to look at the city. Suddenly, what looked like four armoured wings appeared to spread out from the alien's back around what almost appeared like shoulder plates. It vibrated and fluttered its elongated wings very rapidly for a moment, causing a loud buzzing sound almost like an electric weed eater or helicopter drone. At that moment, like a tacky old school giant grasshopper from a boring 1920s horror film, the mantis-like extraterrestrial being ascended above the transport vehicles and hovered in the air above them with its long spindly legs dangling below it.

It didn't fly away or hover out of range. Rather, it hovered in place and kept the pace with them, flying in plain view as it assessed the situation. Suddenly, the radio inside the truck cab would be distorted by changing channels and frequencies. Any personal radios and telecom systems inside the tanks would experience a similar phenomenon. This was completely untimely and irrational, and without any knowledge of what they were doing, it was uncertain what was suddenly causing these disturbances. Could it be coincidence? Or was the unexplained aerial phenomenon caused by the strange mysterious lifeform hovering along with them? Was it trying to communicate? If so, how? And what was it saying? Was it even saying anything? A million questions rushed through the Taiyou military officer's minds at that instant.

What had started smoothly and uneventfully, pushed off into the back of people's brains, had now taken a three sixty. What had been pawned off by the media as a false alarm, now being ruled as a random meteor strike by the mainstream, was now about to become a press frenzy, and an absolute terror for the top secret government and the powers that be. Despite not detecting any life signals coming from the stony segmented creature, it obviously had life, and therefore the potential to have sentience and intelligence as well. This meant it might be dangerous. The soldiers had to analyze and learn everything they could immediately, and contain the threat before any news of its existence could be leaked.

Snippet #2817903

located in Niihama, a part of The Multiverse, one of the many universes on RPG.

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