I remained lying in the alley for two days, deactivated. Amazingly, there weren't any attempts to kidnap or steal me during this time, so I was able to recover a bit of my fucked up body, not much, but I can talk normally now. Communication is important, sometimes.
I stood up, starting to walk out of the alley. "Darwin, send me the Rift's location." I said out loud for the first time after leaving that hole. He promptly directed me to where I should go and I started to follow the way. My trip aroumd the city to find the Rift didn't take long, but I was able to find out new places, nothing really relevant, yet it is good to know where things are. Being honest, I paid more attention to the equipaments of the people walking in the streets.
I left surprised after my small research. Just by looking, I noticed that it was rare to see people using prostheses like mine, that replaces whole body members, they actually looked normal, but I knew that wasn't correct. Using my scanner and Darwin's database, I saw that their prostheses were actually inside them, replacing or overlaying their bones, muscles, improving the overall efficiency. Expensive lens for the eyes, almost no cables or physical connections, and yet were better than mine. If you compare them with me, I'm basically garbage. I need urgent upgrades, in the state I am now, I would win against one with them for a narrow margin, because I have Darwin.
I came across the Rift, an enormous being, swallowing the sky and everything behind it, static right in the middle of the street and emiting no sounds, like if it wasn't there. In front of it, I could see around fifty people, including some police officers designated to take care of the place and give the command to enter it when it's time and a small scientific team that studies and analyzes the portal. The others? Hunters, and some mercenaries blended among them, all of them specialized in the art of killing. Initially, a lot of thr hunter went there to study monsters attack patterns and fight using mostly techiniques, but now, in modern times, they simply use brute strength, obviously, they trained and upgraded themselves, and the martial arts are much better and adapted for monsters than they used to be. Brute strength is used, but within it, you can notice the grace of the master of the blade, or an artist using his fists.
Now that I'm destroyed, I'll have to use every technique I've ever learned and absorved throughout my life. With my Skills being debilitated, the access to my arsenal reduced to only a pistol and a knife and the Rifts now being stronger and with different beings from the ones of my time. The portals tend to become tougher over the time and the living and non living thinga inside it naturally changes too. Technology is obligated to improve more and more, because, without it, we'll inevitably destroyed.
The participants had the most varied Skills and appearances, incluiding those who were animals and walked only on two feet... Confusing. Darwin told me they were called demi-humans, because of their compatibility with human languages, being able to walk like us, and also being able to reproduce... Well, I'm not going to talk about it. I looked over the participants, that were either in groups chatting, or preparing themselves alone, counting their ammo, checking their weapons, training or warming up. I think they were just showing themselves for other, they didn't need to warm up.
My eyes fixed on a tomboyish looking woman, around 20 years old, dark skin, looking like milk chocolate, around 1,75m tall, short hair, barely reaching het meck, using both a boxing top and shorts, with bands around her fists and an abs that even I envied. She was alone, training her enfused with powers, martial arts moves, by herself. "Darwin, are you there?" I said while stealing a coffee cup from the hands of a scientist and then starting to drink it, walking in the direction of the girl. "Yes, sir." He will know something, she looks like a good new member to the team. "Who is she?" I said after I stopped walking, standing still from her considerably good distance while observing her movements. "Good eyes as always, sir. Her name is Amy Beaufort. Daughter of a millionaire, owner of a renown gunmanship industry. She left the heritage line to receive the father's company because of familiar problemas and ran away from home to become a hunter.
Makes sense. Her blows' precision and the perfection while syncronizing her Skills and techniques, not forgetting to mention the expensive prostheses she had. She gotta be destructive. "Darwin, pay more attention to her while we're in there, she seems like good company." I threw away the empty cup and got closer to he Rift with crossed arms. It was just like staring at an endless abyss, but, at the same time, it looked just like a enormous wall touching the point of my nose. This feeling brought me a huge nostagia.
"But, sir, why did you, out of all people, including the demi-humans, chose her?" I stared at portal for a few seconds. "Why? I need to have children, and she technically has the same age as I do." I said in a serious tone and stood in silence for a while until bursting out laughing. "I'm just kidding, she seems strong, and she has access to a fairly good gunmanship industry." Darwin steadily replied. "Your sense of humor is as bad as always." I ignored his opinion about me and waited to be given permission to enter the Rift.
It took some minutes until they gave us the command to enter, and I used my position to be the first one to enter the portal, and when I did it, my vision was upside down, my feet didnt touch anything, but I could feel the ground touching the top of my head, but only for a moment, because I started to fall. I looked down in a brief feeling of despair, where I could see the vastness of the purple sky underneath me. "Darwin! Invert my gravitational pull." I said it out loud, feeling my body decelarating in the middle of the fall and starting to fall in the opposite direction, quickly reaxhing the ground and hitting my head.
I stood up, shaking my head with my hand on it and then I looked around. It was a forest, with trees that had their leaves pointed up, some even flew to the sky, at least in my point of view. "Darwin, all the beings here fly? Or are they addapted to walk like this?" I asked, making my pistol appear in my hand while scanning the sky and forest itself. "Some species actually do fly, but most of them are beneath the ground." Beneath me? I quickly turned my head down, seeing all the being moving around. Many of them were big mole-like beings, but some of them were being I couldn't recognize.
I looked back, seeing others leaving from the portal, without falling in the sky, ready to dig their way in and wack some moles. I started with some disadvantage, but I will leave this place with more natural mana core than any of them. It is hunting time.