Incursion

Uriel couldn't help but notice that things were very different from what he had expected and not in a positive way. Citizens knew more or less the process of acquiring traits, but the specifics were always left out in the news, but it was mostly portrayed as a quick and safe experience.

Uriel always wondered why they never took younger people to acquire traits and now it made sense. It's more dangerous than they let people know.

That was the reason why kids weren't allowed to get a trait, and also the reason why so many soldiers were mobilized in such manner.

Trying to shake off the odd feeling he was getting, he glanced at the people that he was teamed up with. The girl in front of him had droopy eyes and a sleepy expression stuck in her face. Then, there was the guy who asked questions, he seemed to be more calm than before, but fear leaked out of his face. They both seemed to be polar opposites, the girl seemed to be completely unfazed while the guy next to her was on the verge of crying.

Since the vehicle was a bit cramped, he couldn't look directly at the others without being noticed. The situation was already awkward as it was and he didn't want to make it any more awkward, but he took a small peek and noticed a huge brutish looking man who was obviously older than the rest.

For a second he thought that maybe he too was a soldier, but he was wearing casual clothes, making it evident that he was a student too.

The vehicle came to a stop and the door in the back was open. Uriel had never been out of the city before, but it still seemed too short a time to have covered a long distance.

That wasn't the case, though, the reason why the trip seemed to be so short was because of the incredible speed of the armored transport vehicle and also, because he too was excited and time flies when someone is excited.

"Move out, now! now!" One of the corporals said as he pushed the students out of the vehicle like cattle.

"Don't touch me!" A young girl with heavy make up, painted nails and many earrings on her ears yelped as she was being pushed roughly.

"Hurry up kids, this ain't your fancy school." The lieutenant commanded. Her calm and gentle demeanor had shifted into a strict one. She didn't seem evil in the slightest, but now they could see that she was no pushover.

When the last student stepped out of the vehicle, it quickly turned and left them in the open.

"Wait! What!?" The scaredy shouted in fear.

"Calm down, you don't need to worry about that. Before we continue there are a few things you must know. First, cryptids somehow meddle with our electronics making them useless, that's why the ATV had to leave so soon and that's also the very reason why you wimps are allowed to come to incursions."

"You're not making any sense, something like that is not possible!" On e of the students, short in stature and with a geeky look to him said out loud.

"Oh, but it is! Not only they mess with our electronics, we can't even capture their picture on camera. Cameras don't work, well..." She paused for a brief second. "They do work, but they simply don't appear in the pictures. The same happens with thermal screening, movement detectors. Only mechanical traps work on them, but we don't have means to put them to sleep or capture them. Even the weaker ones would commit suicide before getting caught by us."

"What about weapons? do they work on them?"

"That leads me to the second thing I had to tell you, regular guns don't do much damage, even those that can harm them are sort of useless and you'll soon see why. There's a few exceptions though, but there's no need for you guys to worry. This is a safe-ish area and it's all under control, just let us do the fighting and whenever we defeat one of them one of you will be asked to come near, all you have to do is be close enough to the dying beast and you'll get a trait. Understood?"

The students nodded before gulping down their saliva, their throats now dry in worry. They knew little about the creatures, even their appearance was a mystery, the only way for them to know what they looked like was through hand drawn pictures, but none of them knew exactly what to expect.

"Third, and last, all we have to do for the time being is wait until the others arrive to their positions. Once everything is set we'll circle the area and find as many cryptids as we can, but as you all may know this isn't a one day trip, it will last for three days."

"Uh, miss, if those creatures are so dangerous, why didn't we come together?." A girl with a meek appearance that had gone completely unnoticed by Uriel up to that moment spoke in a shy voice. "Isn't it safer to go in a big group?" The girl continued.

"The reason why we all came separated is because big crowds attract the attention of bigger creatures, we can still handle them but it will be easier to do so once you get your traits. Also, smaller creatures are difficult to find and we can cover a lot more ground if we're separated."

When she finished speaking a flare was shot in the distance drawing an arc in the sky, it was soon followed by another, then another and the lieutenant nodded at one of the armed soldiers who quickly took out a flaregun and shot upwards.

About fifty flares covered the sky making an almost perfect circle of immense proportions. "The hunt has begun." The lieutenant started walking towards the center with a smile and everyone followed her.

Every unit knew exactly what they were doing, but Uriel himself didn't know what was going on because he got distracted in the middle of the colonel's speech.

The landscape behind them was dense in vegetation with only a few dirt roads, but in front of them plants became scarcer and scarcer until soon it became a barren land.

"Do you think we'll be ok?" The cowardly student asked without addressing to anyone in particular.

"Of course we'll be ok! They do this every year and no one ever dies." said a feminine voice behind Uriel.

With that, the group advanced for a while, the lieutenant in front of the group peeked at a strange device from time to time and adjusted the course as she walked.

Everyone in the group was more excited than scared, acquiring a trait had become something like a rite of passing, marking the moment in which a boy became a man, or a girl a woman.

Excitement soon became boredom once they noticed that nothing happened. There was nothing in sight, no movement at all.

"I must say, this is nothing like I pictured it." Said the geeky student as he adjusted his glasses.

"Still, I'm really grateful of the physical training course, if it wasn't for all the exercise we've been doing I bet we'd be like that guy." The scared student pointed towards Uriel, who was sweating and panting already.

"Wait, isn't that the Urinal guy!?" one of the students commented.

"He is! This is going to be epic!" The cowardly student said as he snapped a picture of Uriel struggling to keep up the pace.

Cursing his luck, Uriel didn't reply and limited himself to grit his teeth as he usually did whenever he faced situations like that. He couldn't afford to spend what little breath he could muster into something as trivial as fighting back.

Laughter and joy accompanied the group for a while and it helped them to blow off some of their worries, until they were able to hear gun shots in the distance.

"Halt!" The lieutenant commanded as she lifted an arm while looking worriedly at her device. "It's nothing, keep on walking." She then said as she resumed the walk.

"Uh, excuse me, is someone nearby in danger? shouldn't we head over there to help?" The same female student that previously comforted the coward guy asked the lieutenant, of course now that Uriel was tired Uriel could see her.

She was a sight to behold, at least from behind, she wore tight pants more suited for a night out than to walk out in the open.

"Don't worry kids, it's nothing." The lieutenant replied.

"But they might be in trouble, why else would you look at your communicator then?"

"This is not a communicator, this device allows me to measure how close we are to a strong enemy. For a minute I thought we had lost our way because we shouldn't have been able to hear anyone so early today, but it seems like they took a detour because they found someone. It only means that they were lucky enough to find some cryptids to kill on the first day."

"This is bullshit!" The huge student that looked a lot older than the rest said.