Corporal Leonard Bernard Wolf IV, computer genius extraordinaire, furiously typed command prompts, bypassed firewalls, and employed the vast arsenal of hacking tools he had at his disposal against the personal network of one Dr. Death - a stupid name no matter how many times Wildfire kicked him for saying so.

Surprisingly, the system had some of the more advanced security he had seen in quite some time, which meant the average hacker wouldn’t be able to handle this kind of situation.

A smile stole across Leonard’s face. Good thing he wasn’t average.

It had taken him a matter of moments to gain access to the mad scientist’s vast amount of files, which were now his for the taking. The fact that he couldn’t stop Dr. Death’s self-destruct sequence was a minor frustration to be sure, but he consoled himself with the fact that he was moments away from copying the network’s entire library onto his state of the art, titanium encased, external hard drive.

There was little doubt in Loenard’s mind that Dr. Death had somehow created a wormhole. He, like many other true trekkies, had studied the theories of relativistic physics based on time and space. Admittedly, Leonard wasn’t an expert, but he had learned enough to know that the prevailing minds of the modern era universally agreed that the existence of such an anomaly was notionally impossible.

“Shows what they know,” Leonard scoffed under his breath. Thanks to this Dr. Death person’s hard work, the information he was stealing would, quite literally, reshape humanity’s very existence. And it would all be thanks to him.

Maybe after this was all said and done his father would finally acknowledge his worth.

Leonard snorted at the likelihood of that ever occurring, his fingers absently dancing over the keyboard as he continued his work. The day his father recognized him for anything was the day the Earth spun out of its orbit. Still, he couldn’t help smirking at the idea of flaunting this incredible discovery to his old man. Hell, he might even get an award out of this.

As Leonard daydreamed about shoving his super secret medal into his father’s pompous face, Captain Glade came out of nowhere and wrapped one of his ham fisted hands around his arm in a vice-like grip.

Before he could process what was happening, Leonard found himself being dragged unceremoniously away.

“No! Stop! What are you doing?” he screamed, uselessly flailing his one free arm in an effort to break away from the Captain’s iron grip. “This may be our only chance to get the data on the wormhole!”

Something that sounded very much like a grunt came from his commanding officer, but otherwise Leonard’s pleas were completely ignored.

Panicking, Leonard tried again to break free without success. There were only seconds left on the data transfer. Seconds that were critical for humanity’s next evolutionary step! Surely, there was more than enough time to wait for such important information.

A loud crunch and cry of pain broke through Leonard’s thoughts. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Glade dump a girl from his shoulders onto the ground before grabbing his face in pain.

He hadn’t noticed the girl before, but realized she must have broken the Captain’s nose with the back of her heel. How Captain Glade had ever managed to hold onto the thrashing girl was beyond him, but that hardly mattered anymore. The sudden impact must have caused the Captain to let go of his arm, which meant that now was his chance! All he had to do was sprint back to the computer, grab his external drive, then high tail it back to the portal.

As he turned to go, Leonard briefly locked eyes with the mysterious girl and faltered.

All thoughts of recovering his hard drive gone, Leonard stared open mouthed at the most stunningly beautiful woman he had ever seen. Everything from her bronzed skin to her vivid, amber eyes was nothing short of breathtaking. But that wasn’t what caused him to stop in his tracks.

There, poking out of her wavy, sun-bleached hair, were two elegantly pointed ears for the entire world to see.

The computer all but forgotten, Leonard did what his parents had been trying to get him to do ever since he was little. He paid attention..

Bending his considerable intellect toward this new and fascinating mystery, Leonard rapidly cataloged the oddities surrounding her. She wore a deep blue riding dress that looked as if it had walked straight out of a renaissance festival. It was torn and dirty in places, but otherwise looked to be in good shape. She wore a small matching purse tied to a black belt that sat next to an empty sheath that looked like it had once held a knife.

Then there was the fact that she was screaming; not that her cries were anything out of the ordinary. No, from what he could tell Captain Glade had tried to carry her through the portal against her will after surviving an intense firefight. It was obvious for anyone with eyes that she was confused and scared, hence why he thought the screaming was more than understandable. It was that she was screaming in a completely unknown language that intrigued him, and he had been exposed to a lot of languages growing up.

Now that he was paying attention, Leonard noted the other differences as well. Her cheekbones were too high, her hair too fine, and her eyes… he kept coming back to those striking amber eyes. So bright they almost glowed.

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He then glanced at the floating portal several feet away, his mind coming to the only obvious conclusion.

Not only was this unknown girl not human, but she had likely come from the portal. From another world.

“Oh, it is on!” he cried, his heart racing with excitement as he took a step towards the glowing green rift. He felt just like Colonel O’Neil in SG1. How many hours had he spent dreaming of this exact moment? Too many to count if he were being honest, but he did not care. He had literally been preparing for this moment ever since he read his first Isekai manga. Not only was he going to make history, but he was going to live out his wildest dreams!

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind that he realized one very important fact. They were nowhere near ready. They had weapons, which was good, but they needed so much more than mere weapons if they were going to survive! What about food and water? Tools? Items they could use to barter and trade with?

There was maybe 30 seconds left on the countdown, which meant he needed to prioritize whatever he was going to do next quickly. Naturally, he needed to grab the hard drive so they could figure out how to come back, as well as one of the many laptops laying around so they could read the data. After that, he would snag whatever tools were close at hand and then help Captain Glade and girl through the portal.

It wasn’t perfect, but at least he would be as prepared as he could be given the circumstances.

His plan in place, Leonard turned once more toward the computer. Naturally, that was when Captain Glade recovered enough to once again grab him with those ham hock sized hands a second time.

“No!” Leonard screamed, struggling in vain to find something, anything, to take with him. “We’re not ready…”

The words had barely left his lips when the Captain plunged both him and the girl through the rippling surface into a sea of green. Cold, as indescribable as it was excruciating, scoured him like he’d been caught on the Hudson during a Nor Easter.

An endless void opened before them and they… stretched. There was no other way to describe it. His body, along with the girl next to him, were both locked in place while simultaneously pulled to some other point across an unfathomable distance. Like a rubber band, they stretched across time and space to the point where Leonard’s overtaxed mind began to fray. Just when he thought he couldn’t take the sensation any more, the invisible anchor holding him back released - and like a rubber band, his mind and body launched forward and out the portal’s exit.

Arms and legs flailing, Leonard tumbled head over feet onto soft ground. When he finally stopped rolling, he lay still on his back, his eyes wide from the heart pounding thrill of it all.

Relief warred with amazement as blessed warmth flooded through him, filling him with excitement the likes he had never felt before. He, Leonard Bernard Wolf IV, had just traveled through an honest-to-god wormhole. And lived!

Leaping to his feet, Leonard ripped his helmet free and took in his first glimpse of whatever strange new world was before him. In his heart, he believed that the countless hours of devouring fantasy novels, conquering video games, or outright daydreaming had prepared him for this momentous occasion.

He couldn’t have been more wrong.

Leonard stood transfixed as he took in his surroundings. Giant islands atop billowing clouds of gold floated amidst a sky so pale that he could see the faint pinpricks of stars. Atop each island rose majestic mountains, vast forests, and plush meadows that teamed with life. Great waterfalls spilled from every floating paradise, some feeding lakes or rivers of other islands, while others simply spilled into the void and turned into mist which masked everything below in a mysterious shroud of white and gold.

Vivid colors of light reflected off of the various surfaces, each creating a majestic site that, for the first time in his life, rendered Leonard speechless.

What lay before him was a perfection he never knew could exist, let alone be in front of him.

When he didn’t think anything could possibly be even more perfect, a swirling storm of birds exploded into view from below. It was at the moment Leonard realized he was standing on the edge of a very real, very dense, cloud.

Falling back in shock, Leonard watched as the crane-like birds flew by in a tight flock. They had long, almost elegant beaks, their double wings of sunset gold pumping in time with one another, their near synchronous movements drawing his eye like a magnet. They swirled, dove, and rose on unseen currents of air, each leading the others in an eternal dance that had neither beginning or end. It was beauty and life all wrapped into one eternal moment.

Leonard’s stupid grin grew wider as he felt the true call of adventure in his soul roar to life. This was so much better than he could ever imagine!

Turning, he found the unknown elf girl on the ground, prostrated beside him. Knowing that now was likely the best time to introduce himself and find out where they were, Leonard took a knee beside her and said hello.

At least, he tried to say hello. When he opened his mouth to speak no sound came out.

His brow furrowing in confusion, Leonard tried again.

Again, nothing happened.

Thoroughly confused, Leonard reached out and gently touched the girl’s arm. He needed answers, and right now she was the only one who could provide them.

The moment he touched her arm, the girl flinched. Not the flinch of surprise, but one of absolute terror. It was in that moment he noticed the poor girl was trembling uncontrollably. Whether or not she was reacting to him or something else, the fact that she was scared woke Leonard up to the reality of his situation.

He was in a foreign world and the native was so scared she couldn’t even look up.

Cursing himself for acting like an awestruck noob, Leonard forcibly set his feelings of awe aside and began scanning the area for danger.

Bringing his rifle into the ready position like he’d been taught, Leonard decided to do a quick sweep of the immediate area. Not that he knew what a sweep should look like exactly, but he had a general idea how it was supposed to work.

Crouching into a stealth-like pose, Leonard began turning on the spot, taking in the area immediately around him.

He had barely started to turn when a prone figure lying on the ground behind him came into view. All thoughts of further exploration fled as Leonard froze, his heart dropping as he took in the horrific scene.

There, lying face down at the base of the portal in a pool of his own blood was Captain Glade, his back torn and bleeding.