This is part twenty one of a series of images followed by stories that follow Warren, a human. and Alice, a Tordenchi. As they both survive during the Rynar's invasion of earth.

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Click here to go to the OMAM folder! And see all parts!

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There is now a dedicated Twitter for Of Mice And Men! I Will post on it each time there is a story update, so you all don't have to miss it!~

https://twitter.com/of_omam  Twitter

Story idea base on a universe created by  Hetzer
His story Integration was our first look into UTO, and I still say it's one of my favorite stories I've ever read! You best read it too~

The artwork was done by the amazing  Jadan
His work has been making OMAM possible!

So, this part is... Long... And a bit on the harder side. But. There is a reason for it. A part of me wanted to go back and utterly rewrite some old OMAM parts. While I still want to refurbish them at one point! I thought that this could be a perfect time to let Warren explain a bit of what he's been through!

Stuck, in the woods, with a borderline civilian engineer giant...

BUT. This will be one of the only parts that will be this long, or this hard! if enough people want, I can write an abridged version for those who don't want much detail!

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I took a deep sigh and glossed over the cabin. The radio set near the bed didn't seem to be damaged, but without fiddling with it, I won't figure out what was wrong...

Then there's the nightmare...

How close that could have been to becoming a reality made me sick. But I wouldn't put it past these aliens. After all, they offered no mercy to my squadron from the beginning.

"Dammit..."

After sitting for what felt like hours, I finally noticed a soft sound. It had been there for a time, though I assumed it was wind shaking its frame. Listening for a moment, I could tell it was coming from outside.

Every few seconds, it was a soft, squeaked 'hic' sound with a stilted breath in between.

I took a huff and slowly forced myself up from the bed with nothing else to do. Looking out, hobbling across the wall, I rested against the window frame.

It was there, just as I suspected.

I felt something nag at me as I watched the giant rodent. It was toying with something in its hands. A communicator? Calling out to tell how it captured a human.

Burned my leg so I couldn't run, was that it?

After a handful of minutes passed, I finally recognized what it was doing. The soft sounds and its shaking frame... Was the damn thing crying?

Five days. It's been five days since these things came from space. All that way to invade us. But for what?

They have laser guns, space ships, and god knows what else...

Was this all for just a resource grab? I guess a large space civilization would use a lot of resources. But what do we have then? Water? Most of Earth's is salt.

There are thousands, millions, of other uninhabited planets they could get that from... So why here...


Despite hating what I was seeing, I still watched the rodent. Its device stuttered out, flicking off. It was only a moment later for it to curl up and sob more for its sorry self.

While it didn't earn any sympathy from me, it did give me a moment to reflect on the last five days. So much has happened to change humanity, probably for the worse.

In some sick way, I'm glad my parents didn't live long enough to see this...

My only family since moving to America was the core, my squadron. And just two days ago... Two days ago it all went down, the last bit of home I had...

I know we weren't the last. We couldn't be the last...

On day one, most military outposts and bases were gone. So we were running off fumes of what we could grab. Though what we could find wasn't always helpful. Already word is going around how most of our light arm guns won't do anything to something that big...

I still remember the grin my Seargent gave me as he rallied us up to a Chinook. He gave each of us a pat on the back as he huddled aboard.

There wasn't much we could do against giant aliens, but by damn, we were going to try.

The Seargent did his best to keep us all in good spirits, and our mission was simple. A quickly growing resistance base was building outside of a town. Staving back the giants while civilian caravans evacuated people.

None of us had seen an alien yet, but we had to go nonetheless if the evacuation was to work. Go in hard and fast to buy time for anybody still out there.

A few in the twelve of us still weren't sure. Said aloud that we'd die before we could even hit the ground. Seargent Rodrick Hudson was quick to shoot these ideas down. Reinforcing that we would win against the overgrown bastards and be back home for supper.

That man was a brother to me, not by blood, but by the core. I was so close to him that I garnered the nickname Uncle around the barracks. As the group would laugh around me, I felt even myself doubt what we were doing.

We were lucky not to be at the main base when this all started... No contact from anywhere... Most of us accepted that we were probably a good chunk of what was left.

We weren't the only ones, though. I was surprised to hear on the radios two helicopters would help us get to the rendezvous point, just outside a city.

I was busying myself listening in on the comms as Seargent Hudson calmed down his rowdy 'kids.' Speaking into the radio with a laugh.

"HQ. This is Apolo Actual."

There was a few seconds of silence before he sighed and spoke again.

"HQ. This is Apolo Actual, interrogative. Do you copy?."

I adjusted a few of my dials, figuring I had a shotty signal. After a few seconds, I tried again.

"HQ. This is Apolo Actual. We are currently en route to the destination, ETA 10 minutes. Interrogative, do you copy? Over."

Glancing back to the crew, I grunted before changing my approach.

"Apolo 2, this is Apolo Actual. No reply from HQ; we are blind."

There was confirmation from another chinook a few meters behind us. They didn't hear from HQ either...

"This is Apolo Actual. No contact with HQ, all copy?"

One of the helicopters tailing us spoke up, the man laughing.

"This is Puma 2; we are flying right into a hornet nest, over."

Smirking, I turned my attention back to the Seargent. Listening to the last half of his speech to the squadron.

The speech he gave left even me wanting to follow the man to hell and back.

When he finished, he came back up towards the front of the craft with me. Looked over the pilots before asking me if I heard a word from any major militant bases.

Though he didn't seem bothered when I said no, but I knew what he was worried about.

He kept a tight lip around most about his life. Though I knew his family was in the military just like him. Washington D.C. was the last place they were sent to before all this happened.

Rumor and thoughts spread that it had been glassed entirely on day one, but I don't buy it. I knew he held out hope too. I still remember the smile that broke his face as I joked with him. Talked about how I heard his family bagged forty-three of the bastards and were safe and sound at home.

Everything was jokes and games on the long ride. Occasionally I'd hear the two helicopters call out, keeping lookouts for even just one of the aliens. I had finally let myself relax, loosening my grip on the radio as I accepted the moment's calm.

Until I heard a call out on the radio...

"Puma 2 to Apollo Actual! We have four contacts on the ground! Pull up! How the hell did they get under us?!"

I barely caught eye of the escort helicopter beside us before it erupted in a bright plasma burst.

Everyone in the Chinook lurched as the pilot tried steering us clear of the now smoldering remains of Puma 2.

The next thing I knew, our front blades were hit...

The pilot did his best, but we were going down...

I was the luckiest, only getting thrown into the parachute bags as we landed. Within seconds Seargent Hudson called out through the lung-burning smoke. I was dangling from my seat, looking to a five-foot drop out of the blown open cargo hold.

I called out in response while unlatching my belt. Hitting the ground a moment later.

Hudson didn't skip a beat, and despite a cut across his arm, he was busying himself, pulling whoever he could from the wreckage.

I quickly hopped to it and joined him. Matty, Rick, Sanches... Almost everyone I pulled out was already gone...

Hudson was able to find two alive, though both were unconscious.

I pulled what little gear wasn't already burned by the flames and quickly brought it to the Seargent. Slinging a radio backpack on, I worked to fasten it to me. Hudson spoke out loud with authority, taking hold of the situation.

"We need a medic over here! Matty!"

I bit my lip and looked down, shaking my head.

"Matty's dead, sir. We're all that survived."

At the time, I didn't know what he was thinking. Hudson always had a sense of calmness when the going got tough. But he looked utterly defeated at that moment.

He pulled up the private before him and slung the unconscious man around his shoulder with a grunt.

"Radio whoever is still in the sky. Tell them we have wounded and are heading East for shelter. I'm deploying smoke. Then grab Private Dan and follow me."

I didn't bother nodding and quickly felt the radio at my shoulder. Smacking the box on my back, I called out.

"This is Apolo Actual; we are grounded. Repeat. We are grounded. Any air support, look for the green smoke; we are heading eastbound for cover."

I picked up Private Dan and soon was carrying him away from the wreckage...

Just as the green smoke rose, the ground shook below us. My radio flicked on with static, only to blurt out.

"Roger, this is Cheetah 3. Smoke spotted, but take cover, alien bastard inbou-"

My jaw rattled as the ground shook again. Far up to the treeline, the treetops began to give way to something big...

A moment later, a titanic armored reptilian hissed as it raised a rifle at us. Its orange visor flickered as its mouth twitched into a heart-stopping grin...

Just as I braced myself for whatever was to come... The familiar sound of helicopter blades filled the air... Flying down for an overpass, an AH-60 reared back to level itself.

"This is Cheetah 3; take cover! This fucker's about to learn the American welcome!"

Its front guns spun up to pump lead at the lizard. Its off arm raised, but the guns did nothing but pepper the alien after a few moments. The helicopter sidelined and fired two missiles into the giant. The ground shook with victory as the alien toppled over.

"This is Cheetah 3; get to the rendezvous point."

Hudson practically ripped the radio off my shoulder, having set the unconscious man beside a tree.

"Negative Cheetah 3. We have wounded. We will hold up and wait for support!"

The helicopter soon began to rise, and Hudson went to pick the private back up again.

"That's an affirmative. God speed!"

Hudson did a mini-wave to the helicopter as it began towards the city. Passing over us as we trekked on foot for any safe place to wait for rescue.

After a few minutes, Hudson cursed out while looking through the trees. I had followed his gaze and watched as our friend in the skies was pelted by two different streams of blue plasma.

There wasn't much we could take refuge in. Though finding a small electrical building, Hudson set his wounded comrade down and kicked in the door.

The minutes became a blur as we tried our best to ensure that our friends were stabilized. Without a proper medic, it wasn't clear how long they would stay that way.

I only snapped out of my automatic movements when Hudson set a rough hand on my shoulder.

Seeing his expression, I laughed, shaking my head. Just as he tossed aside the small firearm he had, I spoke up.

"You're not quitting on me now, sir?"

He cracked a tired smile and leaned his back against the wall. There was no use lugging around heavy rifles, seeing as the alien's armor was impenetrable at such a low caliber.

I sighed and reached into my shirt. Soon pulling out a box of cigarettes, shaking it, I soon popped open the top and handed one to Hudson.

He looked at the offer for a second; there was a pause before he reached out and plucked it from me.

"How many do I owe you now? Five? Six?"

"More like six hundred, sir."

Hudson laughed as I lit his cigarette for him, lighting one for myself; I took a deep draw before glancing at our friends.

"How many do you think made it? If the aliens already hold the town..."

"Enough... Enough made it... We heard word of a camp set up outside the city just yesterday. Heavy ordinance, even got a tank in working order."

Though it was only a few days prior, I thought about that moment for a long time. Trying to remember any details but came up empty-handed.

Hudson eventually had grabbed a radio off one of the privates, and after a quick test to be sure we could talk to one another. He slumped on the wall, for once seeming to be injured.

"You alright, sir?"

"I will be... The bleeding stopped, but god... I don't think these two will make it without a medic soon... I'm in no shape to walk it, and the rendezvous point is six miles..."

I had caught onto what he was saying and realized that he would rather go instead if he could. Nodding, I handed him another cigarette.

"I'll be back then... Keep open on comms, alright? You better act as my damn radio out here."

"Oh fuck off... I haven't sung in years."

"With all due respect, sir. Even when you practiced, you were a bit shit."

That was the last time I saw that man face to face. We talked for what felt like hours on the radio. Laughing and joking while we could.

Though that all came crashing down when he suddenly stopped talking. I called in once, stopping my light jog, wondering if I went out of range.

"Shh... I think one of those fuckers found us... It will pass..."

I could still hear the roar of a titanic weapon, only for the feed to turn to static a moment after...

I tried calling him, again, and again, and again. Each time I found my voice growing more and more concerned. I couldn't accept that somehow one of the aliens had found them...

After a final call, I tore the radio from the side. Ripping it off the wire before undoing my backpack...

As it hit the grass, I shouted out as loud as I could up into the trees. Screaming at whatever god exists, damning them, the aliens, and myself! Why us?! What did we do to deserve this?!

Not too far away, the last of my family is dead or dying. At the hands of these bastards...

My legs were stiff and sore from jogging, but I was too out of it to register the pain.

The woods spanned on forever until I saw smoke over the next hill...

Just as I crested the last ridge, my gut sunk when I looked the torn camp over. Tents burned by plasma. A tank with a gaping hole of melted metal in its center. Spent bullet casings lined the grass...

And in the center of it all, a giant alien footprint embedded in the grass...

Something about the scene still disturbs me now... At first, I couldn't figure out what left a gnawing pit in my gut...

Then it hit me... I've seen fighting before, but...

There were no bodies...

All of what had happened was for nothing? I still don't know what I thought as I scoured through the broken tents. Guns were useless, but explosives... Grenade? Satchel Charge? And a rocket launcher...

I had no plan. Other than to ruin at least one of these bastards' days.

When I picked through the last tent, hoping to find anything else of use. I found a lone knife hidden amongst the burned fabric.

I had turned my eyes to the town after that...

Through the ash and smoke, destruction and death, I found this. A giant rat. Mouse? It doesn't matter.

If it's a giant, kill it.

After a deep breath, I pushed the memories aside, shaking my head while I turned my eyes down to my leg.

Looking back at the sobbing giant, I squinted and grunted.

"What the hell do you have to cry about?"