Chemicals flooded my veins. A powerful stimulant, picking up my whole body. My eyes turned a sickening green-yellow. The universe leapt around in front of me, figures bouncing and moving around as I stood up. The world swam, and then suddenly sharpened. I saw everything. I took a deep breath, and jumped out of the trench. Corpses flashed by as I charged the dimensional portal. The rip in space pulsated in resemblance of a beating heart ripped out of some demonic beast. I charged at it, the portal being guarded by immense beasts. Enormous beetle like creatures with innumerable vines where their mouth should be, and hundreds of them are guarding the portal. On the run, my Plasma spitter was reloaded. I pointed it at the Beetle Ul and fired. The small needles burned scars into the beasts, who seemed barely bothered by them. The 230 foot beasts swept out their 46 foot tentacles, the closest ones nearly hitting me.

I tried an advanced technique with my Strand abilities, all prior Strand exertion gone, like it was never there. My body was flooded with Strand energy through every orpheus, a little pooling in every cell, and I transferred into the Strand. The home dimension blurred and shimmered beneath a veil of rainbowy energy, largely a neon yellow. Hundreds of bubbles containing colors I could not normally see filled this dimension, beautiful beyond words. If purple was a mix of blue and red, then a color resembled a mix of green and orange, but that is the best I can describe it. It was truly indescribable. I peered into my home dimension seeing myself get to a safer location. In this malleable dimension, I ripped a path from here to the home dimension.

A blurry portal spit me back out onto the battlefield, and closed behind me. I flew under one of the immense beasts powered by my jump jets. I unloaded round after round into the thing. It’s softer underbelly was shredded under the heat of the plasma. I heard it scream and squeal as more of my fellow soldiers followed suit. Suddenly, I was out from underneath it. I landed, sliding into the ground a bit as my feet dug in.

“I need an airstrike, pronto! Fire Heavy shells as close as you can to the portal without destroying it. Beetles are tearing us apart over here!” Just then I saw runners come through the portal, charging at the soldiers underneath the Beetles.

“We cannot provide orbital bombardment, the Avians are ripping apart our ships as well. However we are winning, expect bombardment in about five or ten minutes.”

“We may not be around by then.” I said, blasting away runners attempting to maul me into the stony ground. I froze two in the air, and tossed them into a group of eight more with my Strand tethers. Using the 20 seconds or so I had, I stormed the breach. I launched grenade after grenade into groups of runners. R’Yu took up position behind me as I reloaded, firing a heavy Shredder Gun into the enemy ranks, flak-like miniature shells launched from the three barrels of the gun rapidly. The runners were ripped apart, chunks of flesh ripping off their bodies as the Amilian Alloy shards spread acidic blood, and twitching muscle fibers. Like a billion tiny claws ripping apart a steak. I got back up, R’yu continuing to spray at the runners.

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I launched another grenade, and seeing a streak of green to my right. I activated my personal shield just in time. It immediately overloaded, completely shattering. I took off across the battlefield, skipping like a rock across calm waters over the stony ground. The vine from an enormous beetle had broken all of my ribs and the ground broke my back and neck. I eventually came to a stop, feeling my bones painfully reconnecting, and the bone shards being taken apart from the nanobots in my bloodstream. I lay still as my armor shifted, putting the bones back into place, and sub-foam replacing the shards that were in my body, now released in a powdery form from my waste holes, a horrible sensation. As of the moment, I was completely immobile, from having my spinal cord torn in multiple places, but soon a light appeared, shining in my eyes. Stem cells were injected into my back, replacing the dead nervous system cells.

Suddenly I sat up, a metal hand on my shoulder. “Go get ‘em pal, kill those dirty bastards!” The medic bot chirped. I slowly left the battlefield ambulance. I entered into a slow jog, an hour had passed since I was hit. Thankfully, by then the battle had almost been won. Otherwise, runners would have come for me. I skidded to a stop, my eyes drifting upwards at the portal. The rip in space was surrounded by a tightly fitting metal frame, made of the same stuff as capital ships. I ran through, now with urgency. As I touched the portal, I felt resistance. I pushed through, finding the Strand. This was the in-between dimension, and the tunnel between the two realities was already being built up and reinforced. An orb-like hangar was filled to the brim with Aerial fighters. I floated through the tunnel, guarded by hundreds of turrets and androids, ready to target and kill any hostiles. Androids were never used on the offensive because it was near-impossible for them to make quick decisions in a scenario that wasn’t pre-programmed for. But they were excellent for defense. I emerged onto the other side, seeing the Ul dimension for the first time. It was strange. I learned through my map, that I was on a massive platform of life.

There was an enormous jungle like ball surrounding a ‘sun’ like a dyson sphere. There were multitudes of layers, and the ground was entirely plant life. The plants resembled vines and ivy, not any real trees, just eormous twisting assmeblies of plant matter. And it was hostile. There was a plasma sphere set up, protecting the base sitting upon a strange crystal-like material, made from nanites.

A type of highly controlled Grey Goo had been released, turning the uninhabitable and unstable plant matter into the odd crystal formations. This entire dimension was hostile. The base was like a giant dome anchored into the crystal, and multiple defense turrets had been set up.

The stars in this dimension were entirely a new thing. These were balls of black plasma, made of millions upon millions of strands of magnetically guided pillars of plasma. The cores of the uns from what could be observed and guessed were strange ever shifting balls of intensly heated but solid matter. Highly magnetic, but the magnetic fields were everywere.

Time worked differently in this dimension, seeming to pass slightly slower, roughly every 11.1213 seconds in the home dimension was 10 seconds here.

I was supposed to stay at this base for a little while, until more of a foothold could be established. As it was, turrets were melting away any infantry and ships were tearing apart the avians. But the biodiversity here was as diverse as that of Earth. This was a whole new universe to explore, and I got to be witness to the first part of said exploration.