First encounter

The flight there wasn't as long as I thought it would be, and during the flight I had some nice conversation with the armed guards, I found out the guy who sat next to me was named Martin. Had a wife and two kids at home, his wifes name was Arienne, they got married five years ago when they were both twenty-five. They have two beautiful daughters, their oldest Julianna, and their youngest Itzayana 6 and 2 respectively. He had pictures of them, a very happy family, he was living the life I had wished to have for many years, a steady job, house, beautiful wife and kids, a prefect life in my eyes. Talking with him and the others made the trip feel shorter than it really was, reminded me of the goods days before my life fell to ruin, 'maybe this wasn't such a bad thing to experience' I began thinking that as we arrived at the location. The site was on the edge of a large city near an even larger forest, the area had been cut off for at least a mile around the perimeter armed guards littered every inch of the location, directly outside of the center was a tent with several scientists coming in and doing various tasks. The helicopter landed near by in a clearing, a group of people were waiting, one of the people in the front a woman who was almost taller than the helicopter started speaking "welcome Slayer and protectorate, as you saw on your way in the fracture has caused the entire area to be cut off from the outside world, luckily it was outside of city limits so not much attention has been brought to it yet. However, if we dilly dally it won't be that way for long, I'll be heading this mission you can call me sigma. You have roughly 15 minutes to get ready, stele yourself for what's to come cause on the other side you can only help yourself, then if there's no questions I'll see you all in front of the fracture in 15." The troop follow her away, "this is your first mission right Slayer?" Martin asks "yes. I was just brought on yesterday" "don't worry they may have a bit of strength and resistance to bullets, but they still go down just like any other living thing." I can feel it from his voice he's trying to get me adjusted to the situation, I'm grateful but I don't know how much it can help when I could lose my life at any second. Before heading I check to make sure I have everything, they gave me a backpack full of supplies; food, water, camping equipment, and other useful tools. When I arrive at the fracture almost everyone else has already arrived, I take a second to get a good look at it, its large maybe 20 feet tall, and 8 feet wide, the space around it distorts with every whip of energy from the hole. Inside looks like a barren wasteland no vegetation in sight. The ground is a dark brownish red in what looks to be a mountainous region, not far off is a cave with a stream trickling out and flowing down a hill. "Now that everyone is here, I'll explain the specifics to the fresh meat, inside the fracture is a crystal, it can be many different colors, but it will be about the size of your head suspended in air above an alter like stone mantle. Our job is to find it and destroy it, this will cause the fracture to close, luckily it takes a few minutes for it to do so, during this time you must retreat out of the fracture unless you want left behind. A warning, in previous missions when someone was left behind, we were never able to make contact with them again, so don't get left behind." During the speech Sigma looked very serious meaning she meant every word she said. "Alright now as soon as we cross over, we expect at least several creatures from the other side to be waiting, this is a common occurrence, usually there are about seven to ten of them but groups as large as twenty have been encountered. Luckily, we have the research departments latest development in anti-other world weapon, the Slayer." Everyone turns to face me their stares dig into me I can feel their expectations of me, I hope I can live up to them somehow. "With his help we expect this mission to go at this forty percent faster than the others, bringing the average time down from ten days to just six, if not then we can assume their latest experiment wasn't worth it after all. Ready your weapons and be prepared for a fight were heading in." The times finally come, I am sudden over come with a massive amount of anxiety, their expecting me to do well and in an emergency save people, I can't do that I've never done anything like that. However as the feeling rushes over me it quickly dispels as I touch the bladed tanfa, it they make me feel like I was born ready, like holding them brings me total peace of mind in the most strange feeling I've ever had, unlike anything I've felt before. As I twirl one of them, I feel ready, this was something my body knew I could do, more so than my feelings ever could. It almost seemed like my body took control of itself as we headed in, as Sigma said several of the creatures were waiting and before I even had time to hesitate my body moved. The beasts feel before me one after the other, the others hardly shot a bullet not out of fear or anything else, but because they knew it was unneeded, I slew everything that wasn't human within sight so quick effortlessly that the others stood in awe. Before I knew it, they were dead. I stand there motionless as I look around, I hadn't even had the time to get a good look at the creatures, these ones were canine like with massive incisors and almost a mane. They had stood amount five feet at the shoulder equal or taller in height than me, their paws had five-inch-long nails with one slightly longer on the back of the leg. Then I see the faces of the guards, most with awe and amazement a couple with concern or fear, but one fully filled with excitement. "When they said you should make the tasks easier, I thought they meant you would be a huge help not be able to take on the whole missions by yourself!" Sigma says walking up to me with a huge smile across her face "six days? Six? Hell, we'll be done by tomorrow maybe even tonight if we're fast enough! Let's get a move on people the faster we go the faster we come back." We traveled for several miles every so often a group would appear and every time it would turn out just like the first encounter, but the creatures weren't all the same. Some were like the first ones, canine like, others were ogre like, giant humanoids with cut off horns on their heads and some sort of natural armor plating on their shoulders. Others were small and monkey like, but their arms were twice the length with daggers for nails, and a tail the had a club on the end. Finally, we arrived at what I could only describe as a monument of stone, like the structures you would see from an ancient civilization dedicated to worship or sacrifice, and at the center was a large stone pillars with the crystal we were looking for. This one was green, in a tear drop shape, and had some sort of sparking energy coming from it. There it was, our goal, however, before completing the mission one thing stood in our way. One final creature, this one stood at least twenty feet high with a combination or human and reptilian features. Its body overall resembled a human, but it had a long tail, and spikes down its spine to the tip, armor like plating covered its hands like gloves with more spikes at each of its knuckles. This creature was built to fight, its barrel like chest looked like just pinching it could make the muscles snap off. I knew at one glance this fight would be unlike all the others so far, it wouldn't go down in one swing, heck I wasn't sure if it would go down at all with any amount of fighting, but I knew what I had to do. I glance at Sigma and nod, she responds in kind, as I rush in to start the attack the rest of the unit finally get to see their chance to shine. They let off a barrage of bullets, with such great a number that it could only be referred to as a maelstrom, as they hit most bounced off but some managed to hurt the beast. I get up to it, but as I do it takes one mighty swing at me, I barely dodged out of the way. I try at its legs, thinking to topple it I could try making it impossible to stand, but after taking one swipe at it I could tell I wasn't getting through on the legs. I decided the next best thing would be the go for its vitals; veins, organs, and head whatever I could actually deal damage to. It took another great swing, this one even closer than the first, either its getting faster or I'm getting slower, either way I need to finish this quickly if I wont to survive. After another swing I jump onto its arm running up towards its face, using its other arm it tries to swipe me off I jump and slash at the chest, this time my blades do significant damage. After trying this method several times, the creature finally starts to go down, as the stone platform we are on is now stained dark red, it falls to the ground, in pure emotion I scream at the top of my lungs at the sight of it. "That was a well-deserved war cry Slayer, now let's break the damn thing and go home." Sigma walks over to the alter takes out a pistol, aims carefully and fires at the crystal, it explodes into pieces while making a machine-like sound, something akin to a machine turning off and giving off a low hum until it finally dissipates. She collects several of the larger pieces of the crystal before finally giving the order to head back. The walk back seemed much shorter than the trip here, maybe it was the fact there was nothing trying to kill us, but it felt different, the world felt empty. I look around and realize now that I have time to think I can't hear anything, no animals singing, no wind through the rocks, an eerie silence to the whole location, only the sounds of our footsteps. This makes me think 'what is this place even?' and 'is this even a real place? Only those creatures were here nothing else that would sustain any sort of ecosystem.' Before I realized it, we had returned back to the fracture, the other side was in an uproar over how short the mission was, some skeptical that we could have finished within a day, others so overjoyed they couldn't help but celebrate. Sarge walks up looking very pleased "so how was your first mission Slayer?" "Exhausting" is the only thing I could think to say, "well I was watching through the body cams we had on the guards, you did almost all the work, so that is to be expected. Now I think you've had a full day why don't you go sleep in the tent assigned to you and we'll head off in the morning for a good break."