A young student walked through campus, a heavy looking backpack hanging from his shoulder and a wide smile protrayed on his face. Besides that, there wasn't much to mention about his appearance, he had a lean build and was a bit taller than the average, but everything else about him screamed he was just one in the crowd.
It was the morning of the set day for the freshmen incursion and students from all over the college gathered around the army representatives. Intuitively, they all got together with the people they knew, dividing the crowd into those who studied science and those who studied humanities, and then those who were aligned with the different career paths.
Near the front row, Tina Celes was surrounded by her female friends. She was really popular and everyone wanted to remain as close to her as possible, but a young man made way pushing past people until he was right besides her.
"Tina! Fancy meeting you here." Mark said as if they had just bumped into each other. One of her friends, particularly the one that was pushed to the side by the brutish man, wanted to scoff at him but when she noticed it was none other than Mark Jacobs she timely stopped herself from doing so. Instead, a cute smile appeared on her face pretending not to be upset.
"Mark, it's so nice to see you. Have you seen Uri?" Tina asked with a concerned look. She knew how much he struggled and, even though they weren't boyfriend and girlfriend anymore, she still cared about him. The ticket fee was nothing but a small sum for her and she always intended to pay for his', he had helped her on her studies so many times and she thought that maybe, if she helped him this time, she could still count on him for that.
"Don't worry, he's nowhere to be seen. I bet he's too ashamed and won't be coming in today." Mark replied with an amiable smile.
A young man with a buzz cut wearing a neat uniform stood next to captain Silvermane, he looked at the students with a warm smile on his face, squinting his eyes.
"This year student's are shit." The young man said in a low tone of voice, without even shifting his face. "Sir, yes sir!" Captain Silvermane replied hastily. It was odd looking at a much older man being so respectful towards someone so young, but in the army that didn't matter at all and a captain was nothing against a colonel.
It could seem like a hypocrite thing to do, to say something like that while smiling, but smiling was actually required of him. Although society counted on many of those students to get their traits, some of them wouldn't be able to acquire one and some of them may not even return.
Incursions were actually a lot riskier than they let people know. Humanity fought against the unknown creatures called cryptids for years and so far they weren't even close to winning.
Those creatures possessed strange abilities that messed with human technology, gave them unnatural strength or uncanny powers.
All humans could do was wage war and take shelter within their cities.
Citizens didn't know about this and the government intended for it to stay that way. How could they say they actually lost more than half of their territory? how could they say that they were actually scared to be facing extinction? that humanity was on its last feet?
No, they couldn't let the public now about the harsh truth. The propaganda machine fed them with lies to protect them, to keep things running.
That's why smiling was so important.
"Brother!" Mark's face showed a genuine smile when he realized that the colonel in front of him was his own brother, Ethan Jacobs.
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"Ah, little brother, I was just talking about you." Ethan winked at captain Silvermane, hinting that he thought his own young brother was included in his remark. Captain Silvermane laughed heartily at the colonel's joke, not because he wanted to ingratiate with his superior, but because he too thought Mark was a shitty aspirant.
"Wow, you never mentioned your brother was a colonel in the army!" Tina was flabbergasted. Mark bragged about the smallest things and couldn't believe he wouldn't brag about the one impressive thing about him.
What she didn't know, though, was that Mark didn't brag about his brother not because he was humble, but because his brother's achievements were much greater than his own and he was jealous of him. This wasn't a big deal for him because his brother had a couple years of advantage, all he had to do was acquire a better trait than his brother and he'll be able to quickly outshadow him.
Meanwhile Uriel was at the last row having a hard time trying to see what was going on in the podium in front of everyone. It didn't come as a surprise though, he was so used to sleeping late that he had a hard time waking up early in the mornings.
It was then, that the colonel's voice came out of the drones that were hovering around the crowd.
"Good morning students, I am colonel Windfire and I'll be in charge of today's incursion." His words caused everyone to start murmuring. "I know, I know you're excited but keep in mind that this isn't a game. You could end up getting seriously injured, but I've been informed by captain Silvermane here that I'll be dealing with the cream of the crop."
Captain Silvermane stared at colonel Ethan with a blank face, thinking that maybe he was a hypocrite after all. He couldn't believe how easy it was for him to lie so blatantly to the students in front of him.
"Now don't be scared, if you're not careless and follow my instructions nothing will happen." The group of about five hundred students in front of the colonel seemed to heave a sigh of relief at the same moment. They all felt reassured by his words that he accompanied with a confident smile.
After that, colonel Ethan started his propaganda speech which lasted for about half an hour in which Uriel's thoughts drifted away. Instead of watching the man speaking in front of everyone, he looked at the people around them. They all held their sight at the colonel in admiration, their look was that of people filled with dreams and wishful thinking and Uriel couldn't help but get engulfed in the joyful atmosphere.
Unfortunately for Uriel, he also missed important parts of the colonel's speech, such as the instructions he needed to follow or the safety measures he had to take.
Students were supposed to form groups of ten people and remain close with them at all times for safety reasons and every group will be under the protection of a small group of soldiers. It was a well coordinated effort by the army meant to keep casualties at a minimum.
Most deaths or injuries that happen during the freshman incursion could be avoided if only students followed that simple rule and stuck together, but every year without exception one or two hot headed students would get impatient and start using their traits as soon as they get them. The worst part was that most of those students were the ones with the strongest traits, overconfidence was the most dangerous peril for the young.
When colonel Ethan fell silent after finishing his speech several soldiers aligned with the students and started rounding them up in groups of ten. Uriel took notice of this only a second too late as he grouped along with nine other people he didn't know. Each group was comprised of ten students, two heavily armed corporals and a lieutenant and Uriel's group wasn't an exception.
Before he could react he was already outside of the campus and into a strange armored vehicle with the engine already going. None of the students had the time to ponder about their situation or talk excitedly about their dreams and hopes of the future as the vehicle quickly set off at an incredible speed.
The road ahead of them had been previously cleared by the army leaving the streets completely at their disposal. It was both an incredible feat and the simplest trick, all they had to do was take control of the traffic lights.
"We are currently heading out of the city, as soon as we reach the POI you'll be required to step out of the vehicle carrying all your belongings, if you leave anything behind it stays behind."
The lieutenant, a woman in her thirties commanded. Her cute face and gentle voice was heavily contrasted by her flashy uniform, her voice carried the authority that only a person accustomed to giving orders could possess.
"Uhm, excuse me miss." One of the students, a young man with brown hair and a worried expression on his face lifted his hand. "What's a POI?"
"It's short for point of interest, it's the way we refer to the places where the cryptids are located. But don't worry too much, this is a huge operation, with this amount of soldiers you have nothing to fear." The lieutenant replied in a chuckle.