Gate (roughdraft) (W.i.p)

  I groan as I hear the loud monotonous beeping of my alarm clock, it forces me up and out of my bed before I walk across the room and smash down the snooze button.

"Another day, another dollar..." I mumble as I head into my bathroom. Relieving myself as I wait for my shower water to get to the correct temperature before I step in and wash myself off. Getting all the previous day's dirt and grime off of my skin. After I finish my bathroom routines I head to my closet, pulling out a black business suit and then a small white plastic tag with my name on it. "Matthew Scott." It read.

I get into my silver Chevrolet Malibu and start to drive off. Out of sheer boredom, I turn on the radio, tuning into the local talk show station.

"And in other news today, the odd weather occurrences have only been growing worse. Both scientists and meteorologists are attributing it to global warming." I turn it off there. Not wanting to listen to conspiracies made up by self proclaimed "Scientists." I pull up to my place of work and step out, gathering my suitcase out of my passenger's seat before walking up to the glass door with our name printed on it. "U.S. Department of Quantum Physics and Engineering."

"Hello, how are you doing today Mrs. Celt?" I ask our secretary.

"Oh Matthew quit being such a gentlemen, I told you to just call me Beth! Oh! And I'm doing just fine."  She says back to me, her admittingly cute California girl accent making me smile.

"Treat others as you want to be treated, as my mom always said. Did any mail come by for me today?" I ask.

"No, nothing worth noting, but the boss-man did ask that you head down and get to work right away. He says they're really close this time." She says while simultaneously typing away on her computer, doing whatever it is that secretaries do.

"He's been saying that for the past three years Mrs. Celt, have a nice day." I say with a gentle wave goodbye, I begin to pick up my pace. Walking straight past the worker's area and reaching the entrance to my real job: A janitor's closet. Moving a mop aside, I press a button that matched the color of the beige walls. Within a minute the hidden elevator door opens up with a small ding.

 I walk inside of it and press the button labeled "D.R." I quickly slid my business suit off and pop open my briefcase, revealing a bright yellow hazmat suit. I strip my normal clothes off as quickly as I can while in the elevator, slipping on the loose and baggy outfit before attaching the tinted mask. It was there to protect against the bright lights the "Gate" produced. We had one employee go blind, was not a fun time trying to make an excuse for that to his family. With a quick *Ding* the elevator doors open slowly, revealing the smooth dull gray room that I've become accustomed to over the years. But I quit looking around as I spot a familiar face walking up to me.

"Matthew! Good! We've made some real progress!" My partner Randy says excitedly. "I think we may have just finally figured out why the gate fails just before a successful launch!" He excitedly. I noticed he was not wearing his mask. He must have been genuinely excited if he forgot to put it on.

"Oh? Do tell." I ask.

"Well, we believe it might have something to do with th-"

"Hey! Hey! Don't cut my pay, boss-man, I'm still on time technically!" An all too familiar voice says. "I have 30 seconds left!" The voice belonging to our, as we dub "Resource gatherer and researcher" Brandon.

"Brandon, how many times do we have to tell you, wear your hazmat uniform while you're here! You don't know what you'll catch from the gate! You could get a virus that causes your skin to boil from the inside out or something!" Randy says with an annoyed sigh.

"Randy, what are you, my dad? Gonna tell me to go clean my room next?" He replies in his usual smart-aleck tone.

"Brandon I swear to god I will... Just go clock in and slip your suit on. We need you to observe more raw materials." He says, pinching the bridge of his nose while shaking his head. I watch as Brandon rolls his eyes and slips his black and white headphones on, walking away towards his office.

"So, anyways. Matthew. Go and store your clothes away and meet me near the gate. I'll discuss my little theory with you there." He says with a quick eye roll before taking his tinted mask that was hanging around his neck and strapping it to his face.

I head into the empty locker room, as I enter the room the only audible sound was of me opening the door. I quickly walk over to my locker, my name printed onto it. I quickly enter my combination as I slip my suitcase inside, the contents of my suitcase being a bit literal.

After I walk back out I take a look at the massive "Gate." It was, at least when put simply. Was a giant obsidian structure with some sort of dark yellow text scribbled into the inside of the oval ring that made up the main entrance to the gate. The gate was surrounded by various experts in the theoretical sciences from dimensional travel to the more questionable kinds such as human experimentation. Each of them wearing the hazmat suit with the tinted mask.

"So, about that theory, Matthew. While I was, reluctantly, working late with Brandon last night. I noticed something while he was testing the gates power source, ya know, those purple sphere looking things." "What about them?" I ask. "Well, we noticed that they lit up and stayed lit when they were activated at the same exact time!" He says with a hint of excitement in his voice.

"So what does that mean?" I ask.

"Well, sadly, it means, that if any other worlds or dimensions do exist, they will need to activate their gate at the exact moment we do. And I know you're asking." 'Well, why didn't they just open the first time if there are theoretically infinite worlds?' Well, according to Brandon, it works somewhat like a mix of an FM radio and a color based password system."

"They would have to be on our same 'frequency.' And have the same colored 'Runes' as us. As Brandon is calling them" Randy says. I assume he was talking about the markings on the inside of the gate. "Now our only challenge is finding out what our 'frequency' is." He says.

"So we can help narrow it down," I say, finishing his sentence for him. "I'd hate to admit it, but he can work things like that out astoundingly fast," I say. "I know, I can only imagine how far along in the project we'd be if he actually put as much effort into everything else he's in charge of instead of just goofing off and leaving us to pick up." He says while giving his eyes a heavy roll.

"Well hey, you think it was easy to find that ENTIRE gate, figure out how it's supposed to be put together, figure out a theory on who made it, and translate that old ancient language into English, which by the way, I have barely any point of reference on what possible ancient civilization it could be! But in case you're interested. I've managed narrow it down to three, from last to first on the possibility of being the creators." Brandon suddenly interjects.

"Well go on, tell us you, madman!" Randy says.

"Well we got the Neanderthals, again, they weren't known for their intelligence, but I'm ruling out aliens since this gate here is made of materials found on earth. Then second we got the Troodons, you know, those theoretical dinosaur people and finally, and my best guess, the boskop men." Brandon explains.

"Those weird super intelligent cave people?" I ask.

"The same, we know they went extinct, or at the very least, most of them. Considering that we have evidence that some of them went and started to live underground like mole people. Then they got smarter, made a society and then made this thing somehow." Brandon explains. "How they made it? That's what I'm figuring out." He says.

"And how would figuring out how they made this help us at all?" Randy asks.

"Well you're an engineer or some shit, Randy you should know what reverse engineering is, the only thing is that reverse engineering something you can't take apart without breaking it is a bit hard. So you gotta do some studying up on theoretical history and find out they hypothetically slapped this together so we can figure out the things like our frequency" Brandon says.

"You know, you could have just said so we can figure out how it connects to other worlds." I say, wanting to stop them from getting into another fight.

"Yeah, but then Randy wouldn't be all pissed off for the rest of the day," Brandon says with a small snicker.

"And how long will that take you to do, Brandon?" Randy asks, tapping his foot quickly. Doing his best to not start yelling.

"Well, I'm gonna need about six months to a year. Searching up on the boskop men's society and technological advancements is a bit tough when only a handful of people even know what the hell they are." He says with a small sigh.

"You know we don't have that kind of time, Brandon!” Randy days with an odd mixture of surprise and annoyance. “You know the higher ups want results in the next three months otherwise they're going to cancel the project!"

Brandon stays silent for a moment before speaking up.

"Well, look. Let's try this, because either you wait for me to finish my research, which we know we can't do or we do this. Let's try turning it on every hour or so. That'll at least give us what? A 1 out of 90 fuck-trillion chance?" Brandon says with a heavy sigh.

"You know we can't do that, the gate already causes the weather to go nuts! We've had three horrible tornados that have taken out nine neighborhoods!" Randy says loudly, almost yelling.

"Well look, we'll go with Brandon's idea. We'll turn it on every hour for three days, if that does nothing, we'll just figure something out" I say, quickly interrupting the both of them. Not wanting to give them a chance to start yelling at each other.

"Fine, but only three days, no more no less," I don't even want to think about what will happen if one of those storms happens on my house..." Randy says, obviously worried about his kid.

"Alright, I'll tell the others to start up the gate in an hour, you two, I don't know, go relax and take a lunch break," I say to them. They both nod, heading to the locker room to get their lunch. I head up to a catwalk that overlooks the entire gate. About half as high as the thirty-foot gate. "Alright! Listen up!” I shout out commandingly. “We're starting the gate up and were doing exactly every hour starting at 9:30! So at 10:30 I expect to see that thing running again! Any questions?” i ask, not a single fellow scientist speaking up.”No? Alright then, start it up!” I shout down to them. They all start scrambling like ants in the rain to their positions. Not wanting to risk screwing anything up.

I watch as they all start putting the gates power sources into place. The slots for them on the sides of the gate stacked vertically above each other. The purple spherical objects fitting into their slots like a key into a keyhole. The spheres cause the yellow lines leading to the gate to light up brightly, like water moving through a straw, each of the runes patterns light up on each side, meeting in the middle. And when they do a bright purple light shoots down from the center rune. Causing a ball of bright white light to appear in the center.

The ball of light widens and widens until it reaches the ends of the gate. It then starts to ripple as the ground starts to shake, slowly at first but it picks up. Then a buzzing sound is heard. Like a swarm of mosquitoes in your ears. But just as the gate looks like it's about to summon something. It stops, all the activity ceasing instantly, so fast that if you blinked you wondered if you imagined it all.

"Same thing, damn it!" I swear to myself silently. "Why won't you just work like you're supposed to?" I say to the giant hunk of ancient obsidian. But I cut my thoughts short as I hear a female voice screaming in absolute agony.

"MY EYES, WHAT HAPPENED TO MY EYES?! I CAN'T SEE!" One of the scientists yells out.

I sigh heavily. "Okay who forgot to put on their mask this time?" I ask loudly as I start to make my way down onto the main floor to where a scientist was rolling on the floor in pain.

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The lich quickly leans forward and checks the castle's prison hallways. Sighing in relief at the empty prison. She quickly undoes her broken restraint with ease, quickly climbing out of the prison window, the bars cut after a week long effort with a file, it only takes a mere push to knock them out. She climbs out as fast as her undead body will allow her. She scrambles over to a small cave area a few dozen yards away. She quickly pulls a leather tarp back, revealing a six-foot high dimensional warping gate. A magical item banned centuries ago.

"Okay, good. The girls will be happy." She says without any sense of worry or fear. Her undead brain forgot those petty "Emotions" long ago. The gate was thrown together quite fast, in only three months, they normally took decades to make, thus it was crooked, a few of the cut out squares forming the gate weren't cut out properly and cracked as a result, and the magic infused slime was etched in fairly poorly, some of it dripping out. She pulls out a small paper note from in between her breasts. Going over the instructions one last time. Given to her by her aunt, who was the court lich.

"Find any form of magically infused obsidian. And at a minimum, it must be at least nine foot tall, ovular in shape and must have magic infused slime etched into the stone. And you must find a power source, a legend stone will suffice for a single use, but for multiple uses, you will need a stronger source. "

The lich sighs as she reads the instructions. Given her situation, she only had enough time to find six foot worth of obsidian, she could only hope that it still worked when she attempted to use it and not fail and have a magical meltdown.

"ALRIGHT SCUM! DINNER TIME!" A guard shouts out angrily, his loud shouting echoing throughout the halls. The lich hears this and instantly begins to dart back to her cell, not wanting the guards to find her missing from her cell and make her month-long effort all for naught. She quickly slides back in and puts her broken ball and chain restraint on her ankle before the guard makes it to her cell. If heart could still beat, it would be beating at a kilometer a minute. "Here’s your dinner you traitor!" The heavily armed guard says angrily, spitting into her food before throwing it onto the floor in front of her.

The gunky gray gruel spills out in front of her. She sighs and begins to scoop up as much as she can in her hands, the sulphur like scent of the “food” wafting into her nose, she takes a small lick, but has to start repressing her body’s natural urge to vomit it back up, she did vomit a little in her mouth, but she swallowed it anyways. After her less than edible dinner, she watches the full moon rise as she drifts off to sleep. Dreaming of a world where she didn't get herself and her friends imprisoned and sentenced to death.

A few hours later she wakes up when she hears her rusty cell door open, loudly slamming against the wall. Her ankle restraint is quickly and harshly undone before her hands and feet are bound together with a rope and a bag is quickly tied over her head. She feels herself get dragged like a sack full of potatoes down the hall and up some steps as the chanting of a crowd grows louder and louder.

“BEHEAD! THE! TRAITORS! BEHEAD! THE! TRAITORS!” The crowd yells in near perfect unison. She hears a small click as a collar that is chained to a post is attached to her neck. The bag being yanked off of her head suddenly. The bright sun making her wince and shut her eyes, opening them slowly to adjust her eyes to the brightness. She found herself in a small clearing in the garden, a small wooden platform built to suffice for a stage.

"You first you fucking traitor!" A guard says angrily to a manticore lying on the cold stone ground. She is lifted up and onto a stage and forced onto her knees before having her head violently smashed onto the metal chopping block. In all honesty, death would be a divine gift for this manticore. She was knocking at heaven's door as it was. Blood dripped from her wounds that she received after her traitorous act, never given time to properly close and heal. A manticores pride and joy, her tail, was literally ripped off, and her ribs broken, making two rows of bumps protrude from the center of her chest. And not to mention, any love and respect the kingdom had for her was lost after word got out of her attempt on having the hated resistance movement take the king's life.

"Marigold F. Ulysses.”  a deep, almost gravelly voice says. “You lay here accused of treason and over one hundred and fifty accounts of murder. How do you plead?"
Asks Vahndeer, the king of the land of Terra. He was an absolute mountain of a man. He had what the lich dubbed "colossalism" he stood at a mountainous eight foot nine, his skin was covered by a gray royal garb with a matching helmet, hiding his face from view. A shining scythe held in one of his hands.

"I-i demand a-a recollection of my accused." Marigold stops speaking to cough up a small puddle of blood. "R-recollection of my accused crimes!" She says in a vain attempt to delay the inevitable.

"You stand accused of giving away confidential information to the leader of the A.M. resistance movement, thus allowing them to set up an ambush that led to the deaths of over one hundred and fifty of our finest soldiers," Vahndeer says while pacing back and forth across the execution stage. The crowd letting out a massive boo as he mentions her crimes. "And you stand accused of purposely allowing them to force their way into my throne room by ordering my court lich to give them a form altering disguise, thus allowing them to sneak into my throne room and make an attempt on my life. It would have worked if it were not for my loyal bodyguards." He says in a calm yet loud manner. The crowd booing yet again at hearing about her indirect attempt on the king's life.

"So I ask again, how do you plead?" He asks while staring directly at Marigold. "N-not gui-" she begins to stammer out, but she never gets to finish her sentence. "GUILTY!" Vahndeer shouts out, his deep, mountainous voice interrupting her as he swings the scythe down, cleanly slicing through her neck, her head rolling off the execution platform with a surprised look on her now removed face. The blood shooting out of her neck in quick, steadily spurts. The crowd cheers loudly, happy at the death of a traitor. Some of the crowd members pick up Marigolds head and start kicking it around. Making an impromptu game out of it. "Next up, the ex-royal court lich!" Vahndeer says loudly.

The lich winces again as she feels her collar get removed, dragged up the splintery wooden steps and her head forced onto the metal chopping block. She looks up at the king she once served, that she once saw as nothing more than a shamed, orphaned peasant on the street, the same king she helped to overthrow Seshua and make Terra’s one divine ruler, was now about to behead her and take her un-life. Vahndeer sighs heavily, shaking his head slowly. "A former friend of yours requested to be your executioner. You've harmed her far more than you have me" He says in an unusually calming tone.

 "SILENCE! ALL OF YOU!" Vahndeer shouts out towards the crowd, the crowd nearly instantly goes silent at the command of their king. The only sounds that were audible were the wind, the sounds of the chains of the "to-be-executed" line being rattled and tugged on in vain attempts of escape. And the sound of a woman angrily sobbing. "Come, Joan, my faithful, heartbroken bodyguard" Vahndeer says quietly.

Joan, one of two personal bodyguards of vahndeer, she was a Dullahan with short snow white hair, ice blue eyes, and olive-tinted skin. Tears were streaming down her face. The lich knew exactly why she was crying, and if at all possible, the lich would be crying just as hard as her friend, if not harder. Joan stands there crying for a few more seconds before finally speaking up.

"WHY?! WHY DID YOU DO ANY OF THIS?!" Joan yells out, still sobbing and sniffling. "WHY DID YOU HAVE TO MAKE ME DO THIS?!" She yells out, doing her best to keep her voice from cracking. She sits down as she wipes her tears away. Sitting face to face with her former friend. "What happened to a prospering kingdom leads to a prosperous life? Whatever happened to Joan and Eusa, pillars of the new free world?" She asks, her anger turning to sorrow. "You've not only gotten all of our friends killed, but also yourself AND nearly destroyed all that we worked to build!" Joan says, on the verge of crying again.

Eusa stays silent for a moment before answering. "The kingdom did not turn out as intended. I wanted a land free from Seshua's repressive rule. Not a dictator that would abuse his power and turn the entire country into a collective hive-mind that would not only ignore the abuses he was committing, but embrace them..." Eusa says emotionlessly, her gray undead eyes staring into her friend's red and puffy ones.

"Vahndeer has made the land nearly perfect! Why would you ever accuse him of that?" Joan asks in a mix of surprise and anger. "He made this kingdom the world's number one ruling power! There is almost no poverty! Every child has access to the finest education! Crime is at an all-time low!" She says angrily, but after she wipes away a few more tears  from her face, she speaks. "Enough of this! Time for your punishment!" Joan says, unsheathing an eastern styled blade. She lets the blade gleam in the light for a second before aiming directly for her friend's neck. "It's a shame, Eusa, I really don't want this, but I will do what I have to do to ensure the life of this kingdom!" Joan says. Just as she comes to bring the blade down and through her former friend's neck Eusa speaks up.

"I know you're pregnant" she says quickly and loudly. The blade stops, only mere centimeters from her neck now. The silence of the crowd turned into light murmuring. "I know about that one night you had with the garden slave,” she says while looking up at her friend, the cold iron blade pressing into her flesh.

Joan's frown turns from one of sadness and into one of anger. “You know nothing!” She says before she growls loudly as she raises her blade into the air like a lumberjack would to cut a small log in half. Her teeth bared as she begins to bring the blade down. But instead of cutting through her neck and ending her un-life. The blade instead shatters mid-swing, the pieces of the blade falling to the ground. Joan looks down at them, a puzzled expression on her face.

"My oh my, I thought you did things properly Vahn, this is quite the sloppy execution. A crowd, using one of your own bodyguards as executioners? And you let your people disrespect the dead! I don't believe that's up to the United kingdom's code!” A deep voice says, breaking the deafening silence. Then the kings rival steps into the clearing, hiding himself among the crowd with minor illusion magic, changing his height and facial appearance.

"Lorde, you have quite the pair to show up like this" Vahndeer replies to the intruder. He bends down and picks up the iron arrow, the tip had a faint green radiant glow to it.

 "I guess I just like making sure my invasions are proper, ya know? Well, now I believe this is the part where your prisoners run off while I distract you and your army." Lorde says with a confident laugh.

 He pulls out two twin hook blades from behind his leather cape. They gleam in the sunlight as he pulls down a metal mask over his face, obscuring it. "Well, enguard!" Lorde says with a final hearty laugh before charging Vahndeer. The crowd of civilians runs away screaming as Lorde's army comes in, various soldiers hopping over the walls of the castle, everything from foot soldiers to bowmen scaling the walls with hooks. Then Eusa feels herself being helped up by one of Lorde's soldiers.

"I haven't the faintest clue why, but my liege told me to free you and the other prisoners, something about just annoying Vahndeer." A soldier says. Eusa looks back and sees Joan in the middle of fighting two soldiers. Using only a spiked caestus as her backup weapon. Eusa wastes no time in undoing her fellow prisoner's restraints. A few fleeing off to the prison cells to free their friends and family.

Eusa quickly runs over to her gate, trying to use the distraction to her advantage. She quickly starts moving some rocks that were stacked in the corner away. Revealing bright purple legend stones. Purple spheres that held just enough magical energy in them to use the dimensional gate. She quickly starts sliding the first legend stone into its slot. Waiting for the others to arrive before she started the gate.

She looks out the entrance to the small cave, seeing the other prisoners, about a hundred mamono with a few humans scattered in. Hopefully, they would all be able to make it into the portal. She gets their attention as they bolt towards the cave. As soon as they make it all inside she begins to slide the second legend stone into place. But she instantly freezes as she sees a black mist slowly creeping along the floor of the cave.

"Oh no, by the gods why now?!" A human prisoner says. And he had every reason to be so frightened. They all turn towards the entrance to the cave. They see the worst possible person, and she went by one title. The black huntress. She stood at the entrance to the cave. Holding a black handled claymore in her right hand, an onyx shield with a cracked skull painted on it in the other. She wore her trademark garb. An obsidian colored breastplate, leggings, and gauntlets. The second bodyguard of Vahndeer.

She was adorned with various thin silver streaks that wrapped around her armor. Her helmet was jet-black, having two tiny gray slash marks right near where a person's mouth would be.  She simply stands there, but every single prisoner in the cave was too scared to move, shivering with intense fear. The black huntress calmly and slowly pulls out her staff of entwined serpents, wrapping them around her iron-fang: a black acrid cloud of erosion hissing from the blade. But a gray-haired werewolf steps up to the front of the crowd holding up her broken and bloodied claws in a fighting stance.

"C-c'mon! I ain't scared of you! I bet you only look tough!" She says. "I bet I could take you on with one hand ti-" She gets cut off by the dark warrior's blade slicing through the top of her head, stopping right at the base of her neck. The werewolf then starts to glow with a dark aura as her body begins rapidly decompose. Within seconds her body was a rotted skeleton. It slumps down to the floor quickly. Decomposed at such a rate that one would assume it was there for years, and not just a being that was alive only a few seconds ago. The prisoners in the cave begin slowly backing up towards the unactivated gate. But they stop as they hit nothing but air. A werecat in the group starts to cry.

"I don't wanna die! I just wanna see my sister again!" She says while heavily sobbing. But the black huntress just starts slowly walking forward.
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I give out an angry sigh as I walk into Brandon's office. Instead of a researcher doing what I was expecting him to be doing. He instead was sitting in his chair with his feet on his table. Slowly nodding his head along with the music playing from his headphones. I quickly yank the headphones off of his head.
"Come on! I thought you said you were doing research!" I say irately. "I was man! Haven't you heard of a break? Jesus you and randy are worse than my fucking dad when I didn't take the trash out." He mutters as rolls his eyes. "Well, you're supposed to be working! I don't take breaks, neither does Randy!" I reply angrily. "Well you just tell people what to do and fill out paperwork, Randy just drives a forklift all day transporting heavy parts now that the gate is put together. I was up for seventy-two hours a few nights ago doing research on the boskop men. I can't keep working late like I do every friggin day! Geez, this job is why I don't have a girlfriend!" He says with an annoyed tone. I go to reply, but a worker barges in and interrupts me.

"SIR! We got something! The gate isn't closing for once!" He says quickly before running off. Brandon and I immediately start dashing towards the gate. "If something is going to appear, get the security squad in here now! We could be summoning magic heart eating demons for all we know!" I yell loudly. We had plans in case we summoned something dangerous. A firing squad one hundred men strong all armed with explosive ammunition and automated rocket turrets. "Okay boys, get to cover and let's hope we haven't destroyed the world!" I say as we all begin taking cover inside various titanium rooms Randy joining us and closing and locking the door behind us. "Ya know, in hindsight, we should've planned something better than this, it’s less secure than we think," Brandon says. Randy and I sigh in response
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As the black huntress walked slowly closer to them. Eusa was quickly running out of ideas on what to do. The only idea on what she could think of was frankly, dangerous, dumb and would more than likely cause more harm than good. But it was the only idea she could think of while she was trying to protect herself and the group. She quickly slides the second orb into its power slot. The gate quickly fills in and opens up unusually fast. She pushes herself up to the front of the group. Standing only a few steps away from the black huntress.

"Go, everyone, I know they're more interested in me than in any of you." She says. Doing her best to sound genuinely worried. Eusa blinks, but her previous experience with the black huntress’s tactics allowed her to catch her blade in a small magic bind, stopping it while it was moving. The blade was positioned to impale and kill three different people in one swift stab. "Go!" Eusa says a bit louder, the rest of the group wasting no time to run through the portal.

With the rest of them gone the black huntress turns her attention to Eusa, she quickly hits the lich in the chest with her armored elbow, successfully breaking her concentration on her spell and letting her blade free. Eusa stood no chance against the black huntress’s strength and god-like speed. Within seconds her claymore was swinging down to split her head in half, and to make matters worse. The gate was closing, the legend stones only able to open it for a few moments. Eusa watches the blade, watching the black huntress raise it in the air. Then watching it swing down. Eusa closes her eyes, but opens them back up as she hears metal collide with metal.

She sees a boy standing above her. Wearing a gray hooded jacket.. The hood itself pulled over his head, hiding his face, green leggings and wearing a broken wooden cross hung on a silver chain that was around his neck. The huntress’s blade was stopped by an obsidian battle ax that the boy was wielding. The huntress turns her head slightly at the sudden intruder.

"Come on, I've heard good rumors about you. Don't let me down!" He says with a large amount of pride and excitement. Within a blink of an eye, the huntress swings the blade down onto the boys head. But instead of repeating the process of what happened to the werewolf. It instead just made a loud clanging sound as it collided with the top of his hood. "Like it? Titanium thread mixed with magic infused dwarf fabric!" He says with pride. "I can see why people talk about how fast and hard you can swing. I felt the hell out of that! But I think I can do better!’’ he says.

He reaches into his pocket, pulling out four gems each of them a different color. Green, red, brown and blue. He attaches them onto his ax, the small gems that were no bigger than one's pinkie finger stay on his ax as if welded onto it. The green one lights up brightly as a hard wind is felt throughout the cave, he then starts rapidly striking the black huntress with his ax. Swinging so fast that Eusa couldn't keep track of his inhumanly fast movements. Then the green one dims as the red and brown one brighten, producing a bright white flame as he strikes the black huntress’s chest. She looked dead, but no blood came out of the huntress when the boy removed his ax from her armor.

"She'll be like that for a while. I stunned her with a quick paralysis flame. You got plenty of time to run, don't worry." He says with a small smile. "So, I'm guessing you wanted to go into that gate there." He says, referring to the barely powered dimensional warping gate. The bright white dimensional door so small not even a fairy would be able to fit through it. He simply walks over to it and places the part of his ax with the gems on it near the legend stones. All the gems illuminate simultaneously as the door widens and stretches. Allowing her to fit through it. "Go on, I know you want out." The boy says. He pulls his hood down quickly. His face showing he was no older than sixteen. As she steps through, she hears the boy say one last thing. "I gotta go show a certain father of mine that a certain son of his still exists!" Eusa's eyes widen as she realized who it was. But she has no time to contemplate him as she steps behind a giant crowd of the escaped prisoners all of their hands raised in the air. An Oni on the ground, holding her bloody kneecap as she rolled on the ground, groaning in pain.

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Randy, Brandon and I watch as the gate ripples like a calm lake that had a pebble tossed into it. Watching some kind of creature stepped out. I watch the scientists cover their eyes out of both anticipation and fear. When they remove their hands from their masks they look at the creature they have allowed into our dimension. But they all give off a disappointed sigh.

"Oh come on, really? A humanoid? Come on, not even a Dunwich horror or something?" Brandon asks. All the people disappointed at the summoning of just an inter-dimensional human. But that disappointment does not last long as more creatures walk through the gate. A female with a set of cat ears and a cat tail. Another female with monkey ears and tail, and another with the bottom half of a squid. And a giant nearly eight-foot tall red beast steps out. And so on, so many different hybrids of animals and humans stepping out of the gate. All of us silent in shock until one of us breaks the silence.

"My god..." Randy says. "Matthew, we're going down in the history books!" He says, shaking in excitement. "For making a massive scientific discovery or for bringing an end to humanity? That's what I wanna find out." I reply. I look over to Brandon to gauge his reaction. But I only spot him walking out of the room and towards the gate. "Brandon! What on earth are you doing!" I bark out loudly. But it falls on deaf ears as he walks behind the firing squad. All of them pointing their guns at the creatures. The automated turrets shining a bright red laser pointer directly at the front part of the group. I watch as two soldiers stand. One raising his hands, the other pointing to him.

"COPY!" The one that's pointing shouts out loudly. The second one points to them as well before raising his hands again. "COPY!" The first one shouts out again. After a few minutes, a fox-woman-hybrid-thing raises her hands in the air. The first soldier nodding. After that the fox hybrid mutters something to the rest of the beasts behind her, they start to copy her, raising their hands high into the air. But a massive giant red beast starts slowly walking forward while its hands are in the air. Talking in its native tongue, trying to tell us something.

"D-dabka kenka tee rashf," The beast says in its language, it sounded like an odd mix of German, Spanish, and Latin. "Give her a warning shot, private." A soldier says, and just as ordered. Another soldier in the back pulls the trigger on his rifle, and within seconds the beasts kneecap ceases to exist, the bone fragments and blood exploding outward, her leg now only attached by a few muscles and tendons. She cries out in pain as she falls onto the floor. Her hands covering her now missing kneecap. “Hehe, not what I meant, but good shot, private.” The captain of the soldier says.

"Jesus... W-was that at all necessary?" I ask the soldier as I watch the bloody scene. The beast sobbing in pain as the tears fly down its face. "We gotta show them we mean business! That we're the ones in charge!" He barks at me. I watch Brandon run up to the beast, dropping onto his knees, pulling out supplies from a med-kit as he attempts to treat the massive wound. “give it up, son, she's probably gonna bleed out in a few minutes.” a soldier says. Brandon sighs as he unzips his hazmat suit. A quick tearing noise is heard as he ties a piece of his shirt around the beast's leg. “I-i know you can't understand me, but I'm sorry about all of this,” he mutters in a soothing voice the beast. “I'll go get the containment cells ready,” he mutters, quickly jogging into another room as the door shuts behind him.

 The soldiers all point their guns towards the gate as it opens up again on its own. A gray-skinned, haired and eyed zombie thing wearing a purple robe walks out. Looking around her before she gasps at the sight of the red beast on the floor. She looks at the rest of the monsters raising her hands in the air as well. But her eyes never leave the beast's gaping wound. A soldier walks up behind a beast and prods it in it's back.

“MOVE!” He shouts as the beasts start to walk with another soldier that was waving them over. Pointing to the various cells. I watch as different guards start moving different beasts to different cells based on size. The taller ones go into bigger cells, and the smaller ones into smaller cells and so forth. I hear the door open one more time as I see three different people. Two soldiers carrying the “Kneecapped” beast in over their shoulders. And then I see another guard walk in holding their gun to the gray skinned zombie things back. Prodding her whenever she lowered her arms.

“Je quee kee mell.” The zombie thing says in a weirdly monotone voice. Pointing to the injured monster on the that was left on the floor in a cell.

--------------------

If Eusa’s heart could still beat, it would be going at a kilometer a minute. Within minutes of entering a new world, they were already being imprisoned and one of her friends was horribly injured. She does her best to try and communicate to the alien beings. “Look I just want to help her.” She says while pointing to her injured friend, but it was in vain. The creature just poked her back again with the death machine. Barking in its odd sounding language. Like it was holding its tongue while trying to speak in the native orc language.

She sees a chance as they set her friend down on the ground in a cell. She quickly holds out her hand, using what little magical power she had to fix her friend's injury. The oni’s leg starts to glow a faint white. Her kneecap glowing a bright neon white. After a quick flash, her kneecap was restored. If Eusa could see the creatures faces, she would like to say that they were in awe at the magical display. But their faces were obstructed.

She stays in the what she was assuming were containment cells. She was going to need to rest, her magical energy completely drained. She lays down on a bench and sighs. Wondering if it would have just been better to die back in her world. Instead of being imprisoned in another alien one.

------------------------------------------------------

I watch the soldiers put the last of the beasts into the cells. Brandon walks over to a panel on the wall and presses a small button. Thick metal bars move from one side of the cell entrances to the other, locking the beasts in. I wait till the rest of the scientists and soldiers leave the holding area before I lock the main entrance door. Walking into the break room. Normally there would be celebration, champagne, confetti and all the stuff one would expect. But it was just silence, so silent that the only audible thing was the sounds of the A/C system. But after what felt like an hour, I break the silence.

“Well, hopefully, that will be enough to hold them, but seeing what that zombie thing did, I really don’t know…” I mutter to Randy.

 “Yeah, and in the off chance that they were trying to come here in peace, well, that soldier screwed that up.” He says in an almost whisper. He looks around for a few seconds before speaking up. “Wait… Where’s Brandon?” He asks as he looks around. He stands up as he starts walking towards Brandon's office, when he gets to it, he opens the door, not spotting him.

“Okay?” I ask “where did he go? He never leaves his office for anything other than lunch. Go look for him in the snack area. I’ll check the other room.” I say to Randy. I quickly check any other locations he might be. Not in any of his usual places, I decide to check the cell room again, hoping he wasn’t screwing anything up. I open the blast doors again, spotting him trying to feed a potato chip to the beast who was “kneecapped” through the bars of the cell.

“It’s alright, it tastes good. I promise!” He says in a soothing voice to the beast in the cell. Holding the chip into the cell. “What do you think you’re doing?” I ask him, he jumps in surprise as he hears my voice but settles when he sees who was speaking. “What? Just seeing if they want some chips. I mean, most of them are skin and bones! They must have been prisoners or slaves where they came from. I mean, I’m guessing from the rags they’re wearing and horrible smell, shit, they could be royalty for all I know, but I’m taking a guess based off of my observational skills. That and I feel kinda bad that she nearly got her leg blown off, so I'm trying to make it up to her.” He says.

“Whatever, but my question is why are you trying to feed them regular food? It could be poisonous, or could be like giving them heroin for all we know! The last thing we want to do is kill them!” I say angrily. “Anyways, look, you need to go and report to your department back in D.C. that the project was successful. I'll go tell my superiors, and Randy will do the same! Just leave the beasts alone for now!” I say.

“Already did, they said good job and that my paycheck will be deposited soon enough. Then they said to observe the beasts. We can do a proper study when they drop off the supplies here” He replies. “We’ll do non-contact physical appearance observations, see how their bodies react to certain things first before anything, then we’ll do blood work and all that jazz soon after” He explains. I only sigh in response. I hate to admit it, but he could plan ahead really quickly.

“Alright fine, but no feeding them until we got the rest of the men and guards here,” I say as I roll my eyes, walking out of the room. In truth, it was pointless in saying that, I knew damn well he was gonna feed them regardless.
---------------------------------

Eusa stares at her cell door and sighs, it’s been more than a week since she’s been in this cell, staring at a clean white wall instead of the dirty stone gray that she was used too. At least the temperature was always ideal. Neither too hot nor too cold, and they got fed edible food, and they’re no bugs flying around. But still, prison is prison… Eusa watches as the men come inside, carrying long, clear tubes with thin but shiny silver sticks on the end of said tubes. They started going cell to cell, sticking them in the various beasts arms. Some obvious resistance is met, some not coming up to the bars of the cell, some trying to scare them off with teeth, claws and the sort. But anything that harmed the yellow-clothed men caused the green clothed men with their death sticks to come in, so they could do nothing more than thrash and make grabbing their arms difficult. But when they get ahold of their arms and stick the needle in, the crimson red liquid shoots up and into the tubes. After they were done they wiped the beast's arm down with some sort of tiny wet cloth wrapped in paper, and then proceeded to peel some sort of beige band out of some paper and apply it to the spot they pricked with the needle.

 They soon walk up to her, she knew what they wanted so she stuck her arm out through the gaps in the cell. She watches as the men stick the needle into where a vein would be on her wrist. But the man trying to get blood from her only pauses for a moment before he injects again, still getting nothing. He slowly travels up her arm, leaving a small trail of prick holes until finally, they manage to draw an even deeper crimson red from her, but barely enough to make a small piddle. The men scratch their heads, dropping the needle into some sort of clear container and walking on, shaking their heads as they walk off.

Eusa simply sighs, she bled out almost all of her blood in the process of becoming a lich, any teeny tiny amount left in her system was extremely deoxygenated and useless. From her observations, these men were definitely human, they had the same structure, movement and just overall actions that a human would take and do. And she has seen a very distinct lack of mamono around. So this could have been a world populated entirely by humans. A small part of her is annoyed, as the “Purists” back home were right, looks like humanity was better off by themselves, but she didn’t want to draw conclusions, there were still far factors she wasn't taking in. Regardless, she wondered if she was ever going to be let free, or if she would spend the rest of her unlife in a cell. She was mighty curious to learn their history and if the purist theory of absolute peace was true. But the language barrier was far too big, they had no foundation to base the language on, that was the problem, she would need a way to translate their language, but she had no known source of mana, and recovering it with food and rest alone would take months if not years… This was going to require a good amount of thought
------------------

I open the door to Brandon’s, smelling the scent of several markers being used on the whiteboard in his office. A drawing of a tail with rows of spikes on it, similar to one of the beasts currently locked up in the cells. Arrows drawn to different parts of the tail, questioning what they might be used for. I read what the arrows point to, the first one point to the bulbous-like head “Eating? Waste disposal?” It reads, the second arrow pointing to the various spikes on the tail “Self-defence?”

“Well I’m shocked, you’re actually working for once.” I say to Brandon, he groans softly and continues to sketch and point to various points on the tail.

“Yeah, haven’t even gone home yet, thank god for coffee otherwise I’d be passed out right now and don’t know why, but that damn tail has been in my mind all night, I thought maybe it’s used for reproduction, but they have vagina. So that's ruled out, and I can’t think of any other reason. I’d ask the beast myself, but we have a bad case of a language barrier, and they won’t come near me. I think the army guys might have scared the shit outta them.” He says, all in one breath and speaking way faster than usual.
“Well, maybe it is used for reproduction? Like maybe the sperm enters through the tail and into the womb?” I add, wanting to help ease the strain he’s putting on his caffeined up brain, or at least attempt.

“I thought something like that at first as well, but we did a bunch of x-rays and all that good stuff, the tail is not attached to the womb or anything.” He quickly says, his speaking getting faster and faster. “It would help if I was able to examine the tail without them freaking out or trying to run off, then maybe I could get a good look and see what it’s for.” He says, starting to twitch and spasm a bit.

“Alright, Brandon, go sleep in the break room or something, you’re either gonna explode or have a seizure if you take in any more caffeine.” I mutter to him, I put a hand on his shoulder and slowly lead him to the break room, letting him lay down on the leather sofa we have placed in there. As soon as his head makes contact with the arm of the couch he falls asleep, snoring loudly. I then head out and into the gate area, the various scientists working different machines, some simply crunching data, others processing blood and various other liquids extracted from the beast’s bodies.

“Matthew!” I hear Randy call out before he walks up to me, a clipboard in hand. “Well we got the results back, as expected they have mostly different blood, but they did have one similar blood type, weirdly enough it was AB. That’s the one that they have in common with us, other than that, the machine didn’t bring anything up.” He says, obviously excited that we were making progress, or at least something that resembled progress.

 “Yeah, Brandon is trying to figure out what some of the body parts on the beasts are for, but he stayed up all night and ended up passing out in the break room.” I say.

“Like, actually working or googling various things on his computer?” He asks.

“Actually working; I know even I was shocked.”

“Well, there's a first time for everything.” Randy says with a tiny chuckle.
-------------
Eusa watched as the men in white coat outfits looked at the see-through pictures. They made her and the other beasts stand in front of some large, loud machine for a few minutes, and then soon they came back with pictures showing their bones. As part of her was amazed, from what she managed to observe, the humans here seemed to have no magic at all, but what they lacked in magic. They made up in technology, and advance technology at that. Years, centuries, millennia ahead of what even the dwarves could think of making back in their world. It amazed her, a lack of magic was a trade off for great intelligence and technology.

If only she had that same technology in order to make a machine to break the language barrier. But she was forced to listen to what the masked men said, trying her best to remember the individual words they said, remember the gestures they made when using those words. So far she picked up very simple ones, what appeared to be simple attention getting words.

“Hey…” she whispers to herself. Trying to memorize the word, commit it to memory. It's context and the sentence placement of the word was still lost to her, it also didn't help that attempting to speak in this language had her moving her tongue far more than she was used to when speaking her language, her tongue seemed to need to be almost snake-like in its movements in order to speak properly… this was gonna require a lot of thought.

---------------

“Mhmm, correct… yes sir that's it, yup, feeding them a nutritional based liquid diet with appetite suppressants.” I say into my phone, talking with my superiors in Arizona.

“And why are you not feeding them regular solid food?”

“Sir, we have no idea how regular food would affect them, we have no evidence that they even consume solid food, we already took a risk by feeding them appetite suppressant medication, they are already starting to slim down in weight, even the one that's nearly as long as two school busses… we aren’t dealing with aliens here sir, we are dealing with beings from a completely different dimension, from a completely different form and chain of evolution and sir, if I sound a little ridiculous sir, they even appear to have magic.” I say, my voice raising.

“Well, Matthew, frankly i'll believe that when I see it.”

“Sir, not only me, but every other scientist and even the D.R. soldiers saw it! They completely blew the red ones knee into pieces, but the small grey one stuck her hands out, and then her knee glows white, and boom! It was fixed, we can't get her to recreate that event, we tried to see if we could get it to restore Samantha's eyesight, but it just shook its head and walked back into its cell, so it maybe can only do that on a time basis or it needs some sort of resource or may-” I get cut off in the middle of my sentence.

“Matthew, fine, I get it, I just need you to make your way down here as soon as possible and to bring photographic and video evidence, and if possible a live specimen, and record a few eyewitness accounts from your workers and a few of the D.R. personnel.” My boss mumbles, obviously wanting get off the phone.

“Yes sir, but can I ask something real quick?”

“What is it?” He inquires.

“Why did you assign us death row soldiers and not regular ones? They only cause more violence than they quell.” I ask, but I get no answer, he just hangs up, leaving me with the dial tone before I set the phone down, rolling my eyes as I walk out of my office. Within an hour I had a small cage with me, I coaxed a fairy looking one into it. “Alright, i’ll be back in a few days, i’ve got to go to A51 to prove our wo-” but I am cut off by two yelling voices, one of them I recognize as Brandons.

“Oh go right the fuck ahead Johnson, do it! I fucking dare you! Ruin the only chance you have to not be on death row!” Brandon yells loudly.

“You think I give a fuck?! I fought for my fucking country while you sat in those fucking comfy classes learning book-worm shit from some liberal professor and contribu-”

“You killed an entire village of civilians while in Iraq! You didnt fight for your country, you fucking spat in its face to fulfill some dumb fantasy for yourself! That's why you were fucking court-martialed! Your lucky you were chosen for the DRS program in the first place! If it were up to me, you would be in front of a fucking firing squad! Now leave me alone so I can do my fucking job while you try and ruin our fucking research by hitting and scaring the fucking creatures! Or do I need to call up the SMA and let him know you just struck your third offense and need some time behind bars?” He asks angrily, his chest rising and falling quickly.

“Are you both done?! Both of you to your offices now! We’re scientists here, not children!” I yell, my stress building. I watch as they leave to their quarters, Brandon to his office, The soldier to the barracks. The DR personnel have been more angry as of late. Most of them were on death row for severe crimes committed while deployed, but given their tracks of being good at their jobs, they were given the chance to work as security for us during the project in exchange for not being killed. But lately, things have been going really south after the creatures were locked up here.

-----------------

Eusa watches as one of the yellow suited humans  and one of the green suited ones yell at each other, watching as the green suited one flinched when something was mentioned. Then the yellow suit that was incharge yelled at them both, causing them to walk away from the confrontation. Maybe it was something involving race? Religion? Her curiosity was peaked now, wondering if they have had wars over these things. What war technology did they have besides the death sticks? Were they polytheistic or monotheistic? She jots these thoughts down in her head, something to ask while she attempts to self-learn their language. She had a few words committed to memory. Although it would take awhile before she could properly speak. But she turns her attention to the cell across the room when her name is called.

“E-eusa… c-can you please try to get some proper food for us? It's getting really hard to stand…” A prisoner says to her, it was true, the food they were being given had no content in it calorie wise. They were all starting to thin down, and something in the food was knocking out their appetite, some sort of medicine or ingredient. She looks around her cell, picking up a small piece of metal and starts making some noise on the bars, causing one to come to her cell.

“The hell are you doing?” A yellow suited human asks. Eusa musters up a little courage and attempts to communicate. “F-food…” She asks. The human raises one of its eyebrows. “Oh my god.” It says before it walks away. That friendly human comes back. “You sure?” It asks the other human. “Yeah, it just did.” it says to the friendly one.

-----------
“Come on, speak. Make this all worth it.” I say. Wanting the grey zombie to talk.

“Food…” it says again.


“Haha! Oh my god yes!” I say. Yup, Matthew would love this. If this thing can learn to speak english, we could have the discovery of multiple lifetimes here. “Alright, go get it some food, not that soup that matthew gives them, actual food with flavor and calories and all the good stuff!” I say. “Make them a sandwich or something.” I say.

“Brandon, ya sure that's a good idea?” The other scientist asks me.

“I don't care, matthews already halfway to arizona by now if he took the connection train.” I say.
“Alright, don't blame me if you get fired.”

“Oh boy oh man, this is gonna be good. Point one for me!” I say as I go to my office, calling Matthew up on the secure phone line.


“Hello?”

“Yeah, Matthew, one of those creatures just spoke!” I say excitedly.

“Like… In its native language or wh-”

“In english, Matthew! I told you it could learn!” I say while holding back a laugh.

“Okay, so what are you suggesting?” He asks.

“Well we could try teaching it, it seemed to learn the few words just by listening verbally. So we could try talking to the thing, teach it how to write those words.”

“Well it could simply be parroting what it heard, Brandon”

“Parroting would imply it was repeating something the way it was heard, it said it in its own unique way, with its own accent. So no, it's not just control c control v’ing me.” I say.

“Well, interesting way to put it, but until I get back tomorrow, just keep recording and marking down what its doing, i'll handle the rest when I return.” He says

“Alright, noted.” I say as I roll my eyes, when he hangs up the phone I leave my office. “Hey randy!” I yell across the room. “You said you taught english to people that only spoke spanish at one point right?” I yell to him, watching him sigh as I approached him.

-------------
Eusa watches the reaction of the human change into one of excitement, a smile appearing on his face, it says something to the other human, it shakes it head and sighs as the other walks towards another location. Eusa listens as it talks to another human standing nearby.

“You believe him? ‘Make a sandwich or something!’ I swear the guy doesn't think before he speaks!”

“Well say what you want, but don't let him catch you saying that out loud. He has the authority to get you fired and recommend you for termination.” The other replies, Eusa taking in the words, memorizing them to the best of her ability.

“Bullcrap, how?”

“He’s from the containment program, you know the one where the human genetics guys hide all their fuck ups from the surface?” The other explains.

“Oh shit. What, is he a level three or something? And wait, aren't they supposed to be hiding that super old AI there that nearly nuked the middle east?” The yellow suited human asks the green suited one.

“No, level six, he’s literally the highest level you can go before straight up running the program. They’re just borrowing him for this project. And um, I think so, they don't exactly talk about what they keep down there, super dangerous stuff is all I know.”

“How? How did he of all people get that type of access?” The other asks in disbelief

“I don't know, but you better get to making those sandwiches, bro.”

With those words, the yellow suited human stops just short of fully sprinting out of the cell room. Some time passed as a few more came into the room, various foods, each and every mamono reaching out desperately for the new food. Even Eusa would admit that the food was really drawing her toward it, making her crave it. When a small tray was handed to her, she started wolfing the various filled breads down quickly, feeling the familiar rush of magical energy flowing through her soul again, her body warming up, her eyes going from a hard grey to a soft violet. It was no mana potion, but she would not complain. The other mamono were pleased as well, something other than lukewarm soup in their bellies. She lets out a pleased sigh, wiping the white sauce off from her cheeks, it tasted odd… but in a good way, she would have to inquire what it was when she learned the language, and that would be much easier now that she had some magic. Now to draw one of them over to her…

--------------------------

“Brandon, uhh… you should look at this.” A fellow scientist says to me. I nod my head and tell Randy I would be back. “That grey zombie thing? It’s hands are glowing blue!”

“Alright, let's see what's going on.” I say as I walk to the containment area, I walk down to the last cell, and just as he said, its hands were glowing a bright blue, but just the dorsal side. I give a quick hand signal to one of the soldiers to raise his gun. I start to slowly approach the grey zombie, an eyebrow raised as I ready myself to flee if necessary. “This could be an escape attempt, ready yourself for code red, we wanna prevent a code black at all costs.” I say loudly and clearly, the scientists backing up behind the soldiers that were coming in. “Aim for the head and make sure you have it on single fire.” I instruct. Then I come within grabbing distance of the zombie, waiting for its next move, or waiting to see if this was a normal reaction to food.

--------------
The last time Eusa was this nervous, Vahndeer had just driven his scythe through Seshua’s neck after defeating her in battle. This would be the fastest way to try and learn the language, hopefully this human could stand a small burning, but judging from the green suited humans raising their death sticks to her as he slowly approached her. The human then comes within grabbing distance to her, she sighs and then slams her hand against his temple, she expected the resistance, what she didn’t expect, was for her arm to be broken by being slammed against the cell bar, and then the scientist to slam his fist against her nose, knocking her back as the human fell onto his behind. A bright blue handprint glowing on the left cheek of his face.

The guns fire a few shots, they miss her but before more can be fired the one named Brandon raises his hand in the air. “HOLD YOUR FIRE!” He yells as he stands up. “God this is EX0675 all over again…” He mumbles to himself as he stands, his legs shaking softly. She didn’t get nearly as much of the language as she had wanted, mostly pulling out his personal memories, she was not expecting that lightning fast reaction.

“Sorry about that…” Eusa says, causing Brandon to look directly at her in surprise.

--------------

I sat on the high-speed transport train, a cat transportation crate sitting on my lap, Inside it was one of the smaller creatures that came through the portal. There was no other way to describe it as anything but a fairy, it was almost what you would imagine one to look like. Pastel hair, weirdly glowy and sparkling wings, and about the size of a Barbie doll. When I peeked into the cage I saw it was shaking, tears welling up in its eyes. I would have brought more than one, but then I would run the risk of them trying to group up and escape. Or at least I tell myself that, truth be told after the portal opened and every one of those creatures came out, I have had no idea what I'm doing, just a long series of guesses and lucky results.

“you will be arriving at The United States Air Force Facility in 30 minutes, please make sure you have all your personal belongings and have a wonderful and productive day!” The automated voice for the train says as we reach the halfway point to area 51. The train was built sometime around the sixties using the best bullet train tech, acting as a quick way to get between major military and government hubs, well, quick-ish, it still took a couple of hours even with the fastest train tech possible, and it was underground for secrecy reasons, but still. I grab the cat cage with the fairy in it and begin walking towards the front to get ready to get off the train, sighing as I was not looking forward to meeting my boss. To be frank, he was a huge dickhead, only really got hired because he was related to some high ranking government officials, that and for someone who was supposed to be smart and remember a lot of things, hold secrets and be logical in his thinking, he was none of those.

But enough about my problems, I have a job to do. I take a quick look at the fairy again, it seemed to have stopped crying and has puffed its cheeks out, holding its fists to its chest, maybe trying to not freak itself out, or praying to some god it worshipped, who knew, I sure didn't.
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