Chapter 12: A Short Visit

Maxim and the rest of the group rapidly approached the nearing base, the Humvee going at a high speed towards the main road. As they started to approach Maxim noticed that right outside the base, the rough dirt road was replaced with asphalt.

The car shook a bit as it was bumped up onto the asphalt, before travelling smoothly along. Maxim turned around to see the dust cloud that was trailing them dissipate once they got onto the black, rubberlike surface.

As they went further inwards, Maxim saw concrete and wooden houses with even some taller apartment and office buildings that were made completely of steel and glass. Glimpsing closer, small figures of people could be seen in those buildings moving around passing what still looked an awful lot like paperwork.

"Well, life doesn't stop for anybody I suppose"

They sped past the curious citizens who were pointing out the military cars driving on their roads that had the U.S flag flowing in the wind behind them. Maxim hadn't bothered to tell anyone to take the flags off since the other countries seemed to have at least one flag bearer wherever they went so they were recognized. Even on tour, the flags were never taken down.

This may have been to announce their arrival, which seems counterproductive at times but is considerably better than the U.N helmet announcement.

Though they watched them as they passed, they soon went back to doing whatever they were doing before. Despite the normal caution and hesitation that would be brought forwards as foreign military convoys went through a city, it seemed that being brought into another world had changed most peoples perception of "danger".

Though thanks to this, they didn't have any problems going through the streets and past the sign that said "Zhurihe Military Base". There was an especially long stretch of road leading to the base, just like Fort Bragg from Fayetteville. This was probably done to prevent any "accidents" from happening to civilians because of military testing.The base itself was actually quite huge and desolate so it didn't to be surrounded by walls at all. The natural defenses came in the form of the inhospitable

Maxim focused on driving forwards while Simon and James were listening to the chatter on the radio. Ever since the attack from the wasps occurred Maxim had increased the amount of patrols near the forest and plains, naturally causing a larger number of reports to flood in.

"Report, we've got at least fifty people coming in on wagons. They're saying they're from the merchant and adventurer's guild, how should we proceed? Over."

Simon glanced at Maxim, looking for confirmation. Maxim gave a nod before putting his eyes back on the road.

"Let them through. We'll be back in roughly an hour if all goes to plan so just give them somewhere to rest in the meantime"

"Understood"

Maxim had warned his men earlier of the possibility of visitors so they had removed all sensitive equipment and information. They weren't taking any risks on their information getting leaked, even if they used different languages and didn't have any advanced "technology", it was much too risky.

Flander and Sylvia were still gazing out of the windows of the Humvee, intrigued by the different designs of architecture in the new city that they had entered. Unlike Fayetteville, there were a larger number of tall building complex's.

Zhurihe was originally located in the center of the inner Mongolia autonomous region, which by default was quite deserted with grassland and desert surrounding the area. Because of this, there wasn't much of a reason to have taller skyscrapers in the cities. Despite this, many apartment buildings were present that spanned tens of stories high.

"Wow! Flander, look at those houses! I thought it was impossible to build that high since the risk of collapse was always there even with wind magic!?"

Flander tilted his head while looking at the buildings. Unlike some of the larger buildings that he has seen, these one's strangely didn't have any large supports under them, despite being so tall. They were made out of material that he hadn't seen before, but then again, none of the things these people had were common anyways.

"I think we're approaching. Everyone get ready, they'll probably be expecting us."

Despite all the chatter from the teenagers (yes they still count as teenagers) Maxim knew the importance of this whole visit. To connect themselves with a force that was also originally from earth would be an incredible advantage, in a place where threats were imminent that would be the best course of action for mutual security.

Maxim could see the large military structures erected up on the flat land, something that was presumably the barracks, a TOC, armories, and other facilities that were common in military bases .The base itself was actually quite huge and desolate so it didn't to be surrounded by walls at all. The natural defenses came in the form of the inhospitable

However that wasn't what caught his attention. What did was the advancing lines of soldiers coming down the road, around 5 group with 20 personnel in each group. They were all armed with a rifle strapped to the front and pistol to the side, with helmets and body armor completing the set.

"Uh, sir... are they coming for us?"

Flander glanced at the advancing soldiers, possibly because he knew how deadly firearms were was the reason why he was so nervous. Each gun had the capacity to mow down dozens, if not hundreds of people in the blink of an eye. Now there were a hundred soldiers carrying the same weapons, to him it was a similar feeling to the Royal guards and Kings guards back in the Lunama kingdom.

Maxim stared intently at the men marching, though they were coming towards them it would make no sense for them to be sent out to intercept them.

"No, probably not. Looks like a normal march to me, I'll make way for them"

Maxim had been driving on the middle of the road for the entire journey but moved to the right of the road as the soldiers started to near. As he did that, the soldiers filed down the middle and they started to drive past them. As they passed each other, the soldier leading each of the groups saluted towards the Humvee before facing forwards and resuming the march.

"see, it's fine. Now, let's see-"

"holy shit!"

This was, of course, James who exclaimed his surprise as they neared the center of the base. Giant gun barrels made of steel started to come into view, rows of them lined a side of the base. These were artillery guns, one of the worst weapons to go against on a large and open battlefield with large numbers. These were specifically the AH4 155mm field gun and the Type 66 howitzer, capable of launching rocket propelled and guided artillery shells.

"well, I think we know what they'll have in store now"

in addition to that, they had a ton of humvee equivalents and infantry mortars. They, however, didn't have any heavy hitting mobile units such as tanks and they had a smaller number of infantry fighting vehicles.

Large flags spanned around the base with the People's Republic Of China's flag, though Fort Bragg had a few of their own flags as well this base had HUGE ones that were fitted on flagpoles (I have no idea if this is accurate, google doesn't have any pictures). Just like Fort Bragg, there were people running around the area doing various tasks.

At the center of the chaos was a building full of people running in and out of the front doors, constantly carrying armful of papers in and out. Many of them looked like satellite images and lists of things that could be materials. Putting that aside, Maxim pulled around to the side of the building as someone stood on the stairs of the building while waving them over.

Looking closely, Maxim vaguely remembered that he was the man that talked frequently with Captain Zhang, possibly a co-captain or something similar. Maxim put the Humvee into park before getting out of the vehicle, followed by the rest of the people in the car. Simon and James followed him immediately but Flander and Sylvia took a bit longer to follow them since they were still too amazed at the change in environment and new things to see.

"Wow! Look over there, they're carrying so much paper! It must be so expensive!"

"What are those big contraptions!? They're much bigger than what we're riding in, do you think it's dangerous?"

Maxim shook his head but smiled a bit

Kids will be kids I guess, though I'm not even that much older than them...

They approached the person who was waving at them before he opened the door into the facility.

Good timing! Captain Zhang is waiting for you, this way."

He led the group down the main hall, with other's rushing past the group. Some of the people hurrying past them glanced at them for a moment and nodded their heads before heading for the doors, presumably to get more work done.

"Damn, this makes me feel like my boys are slacking right now.."

James looked at Maxim, whose eyes had turned a bit glassy, into a calculating phase that they had all seen too often ever since they arrived at this place. Easily putting two and two together, he knew what Maxim was thinking.

"Sarge, I'm sure different militaries work in different ways, we can just continue doing what we've been doing right?" Even as James said this, he was completely sure what was going to happen.

"Looks like I've been to lenient these days... get to guys at control to expand our satellite image collection, also we're putting double the amount of patrols out."

Neither James nor Simon could convince him to change his mind as they continued on. With James working human resources and Simon in the information department, these commands directly affected them. In simpler terms, more work.

"God fucking-"

"Shut up, looks like we're there"

Maxim's group reached the end of the corridor. The flurry of people leaving the doors on the side were gone, replaced by a single door at the end of the hallway. They could hear faint conversation from behind the door.

"Captain, we're having some trouble with the bugs towards the south near the forest. They're attempting to break through the defensive line, how should we proceed?"

The conversation paused, before someone else answered.

"We've done fine so far so I'll send two more squads to relieve the one's defending. No deaths yet, but we've had some nasty blows with them. Bring a flamethrower unit if you must but don't use it in the forest, gunshots usually scare the smaller ones off anyways."

"understood captain, I'll go prepare."

The sounds of footsteps approached the door before the doorknob turned, revealing a soldier who was also in full military gear. On his shoulder there was an insignia with two diagonal arrows, in short, a corporal.

The corporal noticed them and saluted quickly before heading towards the main door, presumably to deal with the monsters that had threatened to leave the forest.

"Captain, they're here"

Without delay, the man who was leading them guided them inside. The room inside was quite spacious but was minimalistic as well, furnished with a wooden table, computer and a cabinet. There were other chairs in the room as well, presumably for visitors if need be.

Captain Zhang himself was sifting through pages of what looked like reports, titled with things such as [Effects of the Monster Wasp Sting] and [Casualty rate]. It looked like they had chosen the short end of the stick and were attacked much more frequently than the U.S troops in Fort Bragg were.

Setting the papers aside, he looked up towards the group that had just entered.

"Sorry about the mess, but welcome to our base. How have you been Sergeant?"

Maxim took a seat in one of the chairs while the other's remained standing. Even Flander and Sylvia felt the pressure the two leaders exerted, they both had hundreds upon thousands of extremely deadly soldiers at their disposal.

Maxim smiled,

"No need to delay Captain Zhang, let's get down to business"

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Ben P.O.V

"Ah shit!"

Ben jolted up as soon as his eyes opened. He felt a numbing sensation from his left arm, before glancing at it and noticed the loop of cloth bandages wrapped around his arm.

"Ah you're awake! Good, thought you'd be gone for a while in that case."

Ben looked up to find the resident doctor organizing some other medications in a cabinet. He closed the cabinet before coming back to Ben and lifting his arm up and down.

"Should be fine for now, you got hit in the arm pretty badly by a paralyzing agent but luckily it wasn't toxic. Though, we've got a bigger problem now. Just so you know, you're the one in command right now since Maxim and the other's are gone, good luck with this."

What?

That's when Ben heard the loud noises of wheels, and not the ones on cars. He took a peek outside of his window to see masses of carts and carriages flooding through the main gate. That wasn't the worst part however.

Thump!

Thump!

Thump! Thump! Thump!

The slow thumping of hooves started to get faster and Ben could clearly see the outlines of silver bucks and deer's approaching the gates as well. Each one had a green cloaked figure with distinguishable pointed ears.

"Well, get to it boss! I'll see you around"

"Oh you mother fu-

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And that's the chapter!

Sorry I haven't been uploading for a long time, midterms hit hard and it is my twelfth year.

Want to know something good though?

I've been accepted into Uni! Moving to Ontario in a few months to attend either UOttawa or UOFT, we'll see what happens.

Anyways see you guys in a bit, I swear I'll upload more!

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