"How big did you say the oasis was?" Captain Henry asked. He had personally cleaned Sector 12-A of Rank 3 Abominations, so he was familiar with the area. "If I'm not mistaken, there isn't supposed to be an oasis at the drop off location. Are you certain about what you saw?"
The officer, flustered with the sudden questioning of the Captain, doubted himself for a moment even if he knew what he saw. "I'm sure, Captain. The oasis, or rather patches of oases went as far as the eye could see. My crew members can attest to this." Hearing this, Captain Henry was deep in thought.
'Could there be something wrong with the Gate Crystal? Or is it an Abomination's doing? I don't think I missed any though.' After thinking for a bit, he turned to the officer.
"Prepare your crew, we are setting off. It's an emergency." Then he turned to others. "One of you; report this to the higher ups, rest comes with me. Everyone will go to their designated sector and take the trainees back if they are there. I will take full responsibility, now go!"
The officers were quickly mobilised, engines roared inside the hangar as they set off. They had moved half a day earlier at the orders of Captain Henry, so it was still early in the morning. The person in question was not with the vehicles that went out though. He was in his own room, donning his armor. As a 4th Rank Evolutionary*, he was faster than these cars could ever move. He would first go to the Sector 12-A as it was the place he was sure faced imminent danger. He picked up his war hammer, which weighted above two tonnes. It was made from Alter-Iron, which was found in only Rank 3 or higher rank gates. It was stronger, harder, and heavier than New-Steel, which was the primary material used for modern infrastructure of human strongholds.
After gearing up, he ran to the hangar. When he arrived, he took a deep breath and dashed forward. As he accelerated a sound boom echoed, and he left behind the vehicles just after. He accelerated slightly again but there were no other sonic booms. He still couldn't reach mach 2 yet. After running for about five minutes, he reached the edge of the Sector 12-A. Without slowing down, his gaze locked on to the horizon, where dirt and dust moved closer to him. As a 4th Rank Evolutionary he could discern object dozens of kilometers away, so he saw the Abomination following the squad.
'Would you look at that, they all survived.' Was his thought before he jumped. He then grabbed his hammer, and threw it towards the abomination.
---
"This fucker is still following us!" Exclaimed Sean. "How much longer till the extraction point?"
"Not much, we should be close," answered Tyson. The extraction point was just ahead of them, but there was something wrong.
"Hey, there isn't another one in front of us right? We are not that unlucky right!" As Jayden thought all their hope was gone, a figure darted from the dust cloud, reaching high into the air. The rest was chaos. The figure threw something but they could hardly discern it. The object was too fast and shone under sunlight, before they could recognise what it was, it had already passed above them, going straight for the Abomination.
BOOOOOM!
The object hit the Abomination with enough force to cause a miniature earthquake in the area, and everyone in the group fell face down to the ground due to shock of the blow. When they got up, they couldn't believe their eyes. The Abomination had turned into mush, the ground was caved in as if a meteor had falled, and in the middle of it all was a giant two-faced hammer. Before they could make it out what had happened they heard a voice behind them.
"It was a Yellow? An Aberration, good work surviving, kids." It was Captain Henry Hawks, the first person many of them came to know as they had arrived at the camp. "Now, give me a rundown on what have transpired in this sector." As the Leader of the group, latoya came forward.
"We have discovered a Gate Crystal a little bit east to the center of the sector." She said proudly.
"Yeah, we knew about that." Captain Henry quickly shattered that pride. Then it dawned on the group, they were over-excited about finding a Gate Crystal, totaly forgetting that the military would've been already aware of it. But Latoya quickly recollected herself, there were still something they were not aware of.
"The Gate Crystal is in the process of crumbling, we couldn't continue further due to that."
"Was there any physical signs of it crumbling?" He was slightly agitated after hearing it was crumbling.
"There wasn't any as we observed, but we couldn't get close as we thought there was an Abomination guarding it first. After we realised it was crumbling, we didn't get close so as not to get caught up in the reformation."
"Well done, any other note worthy things?"
"Most of the region has been cleared off of Abominations because of the crumbling. Due to that only two Aberrations, which you have killed one of, and a Red remains. The other Aberration was a Green with illusion and mind-hex abilities."
"Two Aberrations? Great. Point me it's direction." As Latoya beckoned Sean, he dropped his backpack to the ground and was taking something out.
"No need to pinpoint it on a map, just its general direction is- ARE THOSE GREEN CORES?" He was flabbergasted when he saw Sean pull out two green cores. Had they killed the Aberration by themselves? Latoya took the green cores and the horns from Sean, and presented them to the Captain.
"We realised we were under an illusion and mind-hex early on, and used the Aberrations trap against it. We defeated it through team effort and managed to salvage two cores, and its ability mediums."
"Spectacular performance. I guess I know which team won the competition this time." The time to be flabbergasted was on the group, what was this competition, why they had never heard of it before? Captain Henry didn't leave them hanging for long as he explained. "It's just a contest on which team would get the most merit, not a real competition per se. That one is coming soon, but you guys deserve a reward for your findings. While crumbling is crucial information in itself, we would've realised it sooner or later regardless. Meanwhile killing a Green Aberration is something not everyone capable off, and you don't even have serious injuries as all of you still managed to survive a Yellow Aberration after that. I'm curious as to what more you will achieve. My eyes are on you."
After saying his piece, the Captain dashed away to other sectors. If the abominations had cleared off this one, they would've flooded others. The teams in those sectors were in grave danger too. The six could hardly follow the man with their eyes as he disappeared into the horizon. They stayed silent for a while after they lost sight of him, but Jayden had different plans.
"He just left like that?" He didn't know what to feel. For one moment he was running for his life, while the next moment he was glad he was saved, then felt proud after Captain Henry had praised them only to leave suddenly as he came and not mentioning anything about would they leave. Others shared those sentiments too.
"Maybe they are on their way?" Samantha said. "I mean, if he is out in the field, they must have realised something was off right?"
"That makes sense." Sean agreed. "He also left the cores and mediums with us instead of taking them himself. Surely there is someone coming to pick us up."
"How high do you think our merit will be?" Tyson asked suddenly.
"How would I know, they hardly explained anything about how they rated merit." Klein said. "Same with that contest or whatever, couldn't they have mentioned it beforehand?"
"And there is that 'Real Competition' he mentioned too. Ugh, if I knew the military would be this competitive I would've just kept on acting." Jayden complained.
"At least we are getting rewarded, do you think we will get Yellow Cores to Engrave?" Samantha was still looking from the bright side.
"Probably not, we haven't started Ether Control lessons yet. It's not the time for us to engrave." Sean crushed her hopes quickly, if that was possible. "We will probably get extra merit, some protection to our Uni-Forms, or maybe specialized weapons?" The group continued to argue about what they would get as a reward until their ride back to camp arrived one and a half hour later. They took their seats inside the vehicle and started their way back. They would later learn that Captain Henry had saved three other squads from mortal danger that day.