A sleek white SUV was speeding down a black asphalt road, surrounded by numerous similar vehicles.
Not only were these SUVs state of the art, but each looked capable enough to survive a bomb at point-blank range.
Inside of one such vehicle, a blue-haired girl sighed.
"Just our luck…"
She and her companions were all dressed in a familiar blue, white, and gold uniform.
Something which harmonized well with the all-white decor of the SUV they were in.
A girl sitting next to her was fiddling with what appeared to be a small tomahawk.
The girl looked up from her axe and eyed the blue-haired girl with slight annoyance.
"Complaining about it just makes it worse, Jenna."
Lifting her axe, she pointed it at a sleepy-looking black-haired man sitting directly behind her.
"Look at James over here. The idiot's still half-asleep. Do you see him complaining?"
Jenna frowned slightly as if being compared to the boy named James was a grave insult.
"You said it yourself, Marilla, the guy's an idiot. Who the h*ll would feel sleepy when their life could very well end in an hour or two."
Feeling wronged for no apparent reason, James looked at the two girls sitting in front of him with a hurt look.
"Ouch. If you're going to argue, do it with each other. Why drag me into it?" James asked in indignation.
"Because looking at you annoys me."
"Me as well."
James's eye twitched in annoyance.
"I'm sitting behind both of you! If looking at me annoys you so much, don't crane your neck to turn around in the first place!"
Just as James yelled in indignation, he suddenly felt his face slam into the seat before him.
Lifting his head, he looked in the driver's direction in confusion.
"Mack, what the h*ll? Why did you slam the breaks?"
Before James could voice his thoughts, Marilla beat him to it.
Mack turned around and sighed.
"Sorry, but it seems there's something wrong. The cars in front of us all stopped as well. It might be better to get out of the car for now."
Jenna narrowed her eyes.
Mack turned to the girl sitting on his right.
"Kaylen, can you try to contact HQ? I'll take James and go ask around."
James looked at Mack with a look of annoyance.
"I'm in the back seat! Why not bring Jenna or Marilla instead? It's much more of a hassle for me to get out than the two stooges sitting in front."
Mack gave him an annoyed look.
"If I leave you here alone, you'll probably fall asleep again. Who told you to stay up all night playing video games instead of sleeping?"
James looked away and chuckled lightly.
"Ah… I'm busted."
Feeling three pairs of eyes silently judge him, James let out a small sigh.
"Fine, fine, I'll come with you."
The two exited the car and made their way to one of the vehicles up front, where they met others who had similarly left their respective SUVs.
A woman holding a sleek black tablet looked up and saw Mack before giving him a nod.
"Hey there, Mack, fine day, isn't it?" The girl joked lightly.
Giving her a small smile, Mack decided to skip the pleasantries and ask her the question he wanted to know.
"Why did we stop? Is there something wrong?"
The girl sighed and nodded her head.
"Well… What is it?" James asked impatiently.
The girl with the tablet tapped the screen a few times and showed the screen to the people standing nearby.
It was a map of their current area, and their current position was also marked on it.
However, there appeared to be a small red 'x' plotted not too far from their current location.
"It seems that a Tear will soon open in our current proximity."
The expressions of the people around her turned instantly grave.
James cursed under his breath before turning to Mack.
"Jenna's gonna lose it now…"
Mack gritted his teeth and shook his head.
"Forget Jenna, even I'm pissed," Mack snarled, "How did we go from suppressing a few Low class, Rank 1 magic beasts to dealing with those abominations?"
Mack turned to the girl holding the tablet.
"Do you at least know what the rating for the Tear is?"
The woman nodded solemnly.
"It's Rank 2."
James cringed.
"While it's not as bad as a Rank 3, many people will die today."
The woman holding the tablet nodded with a grave expression.
"The Captain is currently contacting headquarters, but for now… We're on our own."
Mack sighed with a resignation.
"Well, all we can do now is hope that the ones coming through can't breathe on land… Though I doubt things will be that simple."
A nearby man, who looked to be entering his twilight years, shook his head dejectedly.
"I was going to retire next month. Just my luck."
A young black-haired woman standing next to him let out a soft sigh as she clutched a gold-coloured ring on her finger.
"My boyfriend finally proposed to me last week. Well… If I don't make it, I'll at least know that he was serious about me."
Feeling the solemn air weigh down on them as if turning their bodies to lead, the soldiers began making the necessary preparations.
The SUVs were all taken off-road and surrounded, forming a circular formation around a grassy patch.
Turrets and other military weapons were placed nearby, all aimed at that singular patch of grass, as if wary that the blades of grass concealed some unspeakable horrors that needed to be eradicated on sight.
Outlandish as it may seem, this thought wasn't too far off the mark, but instead of the grass being the threat, the real source of danger was the softly shimmering light distortion above it.
It was as if reality was being bent and twisted by some unknown power, desperately clawing out with a fervent desire to be set free.
James looked at the hastily made barricade of SUVs and then at the distortion of light, which was growing larger by the second.
He gave a weak smile and turned to Jenna, who was manning a turret beside him.
"Hey, on the bright side, we responded on time. Also, we're not in a densely populated area either. No need to worry about civilian casualties at all."
Jenna gave him a deadpan look but didn't refute his words.
For all the idiotic stuff that the boy would say, he would say something meaningful every once in a while.
"If you lock enough monkeys in a room with typewriters. Eventually, one of them will produce Shakespeare," Jenna mumbled.
James raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"Sorry, I didn't quite catch that."
Jenna shook her head and looked away, deciding to ignore her companion.
Before James could say anything else, however, the loud blaring of a siren cut him off.
Knowing that the siren meant the Tear would open any second, the soldiers focused their minds. They steeled their hearts, desperately praying to the gods that they would make it out of this hell and live to see another day.