Reality twisted and died around him, it was always such an indescribable experience to travel through a rift. Nothing did it justice, even the emotions and thoughts he felt were too insignificant for him to be able to properly understand what he was going through.
It was like he was an ant struggling to comprehend the simple fact that he was an insect. Or a flower with no eyes, yet with a desire to see.
An eternity, or perhaps it was an instant, passed and then his feet were on solid ground and he’d re-entered reality, it just wasn’t his original one.
Rapidly looking around he saw the other members of his unit scanning the area, beamers raised high and legs spread apart in various aiming stances.
Since the ground was being covered, he looked up to the sky. an unending grey cloud greeted him.
What looked like dirty snowflakes fell from it, drifting down to the world below gracefully.
It was a surprisingly beautiful sight but in a sad way. Like he was watching the final moments of his favourite TV show and everything was crafted perfectly but that knowledge that this was the end spoiled it.
Nothing seemed to be flying around up there, so he carefully held onto his beamer and looked around, trying to see if any of his allies had spotted anything.
It looked like they’d had no luck on that front, which he felt was quite fortunate. Hopefully, there wouldn’t be any firefights and this mission would be over soon.
All they were surrounded by was blackened and drooping trees, as well as a few dead bushes.
Still, everyone looked very serious and alert so Thomel made sure he had his gun raised and was staring intensely at a cluster of dead trees that’d all melted onto each other.
“Clear, form up!” The corporate leader shouted out.
Following the other's lead, Thomel took his place in a quickly forming square formation.
“Some of you may be veterans, others may be newbies but I want all of you to keep in mind that this pays well for a reason. Right now we’re about a mile away from the monitoring station, getting over there’s fairly easy but I want you all to remain alert. I don’t think I need to say why. Now move out!”
Thomel would have preferred if their leader's briefing was a bit more thorough but he fell in behind the others the moment everyone started moving.
Despite what he’d been told, he was rather lacking in terms of alertness compared to the others.
It was a security risk and he wasn’t just putting himself at risk because of this negligence but all his focus had already been spent, he was having a hard enough time keeping his eyes open let alone actually using them to look out for hidden dangers.
“You okay?” A voice sounded out beside him.
Looking over, he saw Volly striding alongside him.
“No, I’m very, very, very, tired.”
“Oh well don’t worry about it, this’ll take maybe three hours, then we’ll all be done.”
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“I still don’t know what any of this is, Volly.” Thomel replied, incredibly annoyed.
“I mean what even is this planet, why’s everything so dead and lifeless?”
“Because of us.” She answered cheerfully.
“What do you mean?” Thomel asked, heartbeat increasing with trepidation.
“This is where the weapons of man tore down the gods from their thrones and ruined their perfect world.”
“I’m getting so tired of having to ask what over and over again but what do you mean? What happened here?”
“We invaded it, or at least I think we did. I’m not too sure since it all happened before I joined the company. Tens of thousands of hunters and their equivalent from other corporations got hurled onto this planet and told to occupy it. To be fair we did pretty well, dragons are powerful but when you don’t care about persevering the body you can just use a couple of missiles to blow it up. I think we encountered a couple of humanoid kingdoms but they were comparable to our medieval age, just with magic, so they died fairly easily. Even with the system boosting them they never stood a chance once PMC’s got involved. In turn though, we never stood a chance once the gods got involved. We lost, simple as that but one of these corporations managed to get their hands on a couple of warheads and we showed them what scorched earth really means.”
Thomel didn’t know how to react to that, the words he had got caught in his throat.
After a few seconds spent reeling from this information, he managed to open his mouth and ask the truly important question.
“Then why are we still here?”
And in typical Volly fashion, she responded with. “I don’t know.”
She couldn’t see his face but she probably figured out he was feeling shocked and aggrieved when he animatedly gestured wildly with his hands clumsily. He almost dropped his gun from the sheer headache she was causing him.
“Metals or something I guess. I mean what else could it be? Perhaps we’re trying to steal the fallen god's divinity or something like that but it’s probably just all about mining rights and we’re just waiting for the radiation to dissipate before setting up some sites.”
“Yeah okay, that makes sense. Why couldn’t you just tell me this before?”
“It’s sort of a rite of passage to come here. We’re used to being on the bottom, knowing that we’re capable of bringing an entire world and the gods themselves to heel is pretty inspiring.”
“Right.” He said with a sigh.
“Oh, whatever. You! Back me up on this, it’s a rite of passage right?” Volly said, grabbing a random fellow hunter and pulling him over towards them.
“What?” The hunter asked, baffled.
“It’s a rite of passage to come here without any knowledge right?”
“No, not at all?” The hunter replied, sounding even more confused.
“Oh, I might have been hazed then. Uh, sorry Thomel.” Volly meekly apologised, letting go of the random hunter and turning to him.
“It’s fine.” He said, hesitantly patting her on the shoulder with his spare hand.
“Like the lieutenant said, we get paid well for a reason. The people in that monitoring station are probably dead, you two should focus a bit more.”
“Oh lay off it, when was the last time anything went critically wrong on one of these missions? All the big guys stay away because they know if they get close we purge them easily.” Volly retorted, meekness gone and replaced with irritated anger.
“Do you really think we would be told if something went wrong? Look, thepay’s good and it tends to just consist of us standing around while some repair work is done but people still die.”
“Look around, everyone's talking pal!”
“Yeah but no one’s talking like this, you two are way too relaxed!”
Thomel zoned out of their argument around that point and became preoccupied with plopping one foot in front of the other.
Just a few more steps and he’d be at the monitoring station, another few more and he’d be in a standard, sterile bed.