And because someone suggested in the comments that I do this... And because it's a great idea... I'm gonna do this!
Chapter 3
(On the other side of the Gate, JSDF Base, Special Region.)
After assuring the Japanese government that opening the gate again was possible, and necessary, steps were taken to ensure the JSDF who would be staying in the Special Region would be safe, comfortable, and equipped to hold the fort until the Gate could be opened again. They had enough supplies to last a full year under standard rationing, more if they traded with the locals. And since the town that had grown up around the Alnus Hill Base was full of locals who were quite happy with how the JSDF ran things, it was possible that the JSDF could have stayed there indefinitely.
Giselle, the gluttonous, dangerous, but overall good natured Dragon-folk Apostle of Hardy (Goddess of the underworld), had worked with the scientists who had stayed behind to study 'the nothingness'. It was clear that this odd shadowy 'nothingness' was caused by the Gate being open, and as the name suggested, it was not something you wanted in your dimension. This was the sole cause for the Gate being closed in the first place.
But, Giselle and the scientists, after several months of the gate being closed, had returned to Alnus hill with the good news. The Nothingness was shrinking, and had shrunk a reasonable amount as well. Enough that the Eggheads were 'reasonably sure with a good margin of error' that the world wouldn't end if they re-opened the Gate for a short time, to assure the Japanese Government that it was not only possible to re-open the Gate, but do so safely.
Reports were filed, orders were sent, and the Commanding Officer told Itami to 'get the blue haired one ready'.
Lelei La Lelena, the blue haired one in question, understood that the Commanding Officer wasn't mean by nature and under a lot of stress for being put in charge of what was literally a world changing event, so she didn't take offence. She may have neglected to put sugar in his coffee once or twice, but she wasn't offended.
So, with many of the soldiers, a handful of local Militia (natives to the Special Region who policed the surrounding town that had grown up around the base) standing a safe distance away, the one responsible for closing the Gate in the first place, began to undo the locks she had placed on it to shut the two worlds off from each other, while still being connected to each other by what was literally a hair thin strand of magic (that was actual hair from the Goddess Hardy).
Except, just like real hair, it had gotten tangled. And Lelei La Lalena couldn't have know what it was, or that it had happened at all until it was too late.
It had been a few months since the failed reconnection to Earth.
And the Military Base on Alnus Hill was in ruins.
Many dead, many many more wounded. Equipment and buildings had been shattered and broken. Trampled by huge feet, cut apart by massive jaws, or eaten by thousands of tiny teeth.
The spell to unbind and unlock the Gate had succeeded, but the actual reconnection had failed. Lelei had stood in front of the Gate, her magic staff glowing, magic circles surrounding her, words pouring from her lips... And with a sudden flicker, the slowly spinning barrier that had surrounded the Greek/Roman styled building, the Gate, vanished. Like a neon sign that had been turned off, all that was left was a dim afterimage in the eyes.
As per protocol, a small squad of a half dozen JDSF scouts went through the gate. Guns at the ready, equipment on, even with the assumption that they would be appearing in the middle of the Ginza intersection of another secured base, they went in expecting trouble.
It was because of this, and -only- this, that the base on Alnus Hill had any warning at all that something had gone wrong.
Two minutes and thirty eight seconds later, a little less than double the time it took to traverse the gap between the two worlds, five of the six scouts returned. One, the fastest runner, appeared with a panicked expression, yelling to shut the Gate, to ready weapons, to take cover. Two more appeared behind him, pausing as soon as they got their feet on Alnus soil, to turn and unload half of their rifle's clip back into the Gate. They weren't firing at anything their size either. No, their rifles were aimed at something close to 45 degrees upwards.
Panic. Organized, well disciplined, but panic all the same, hit the base. Five seconds after the second and third soldier had turned and fired, they turned again and started running. When the forth soldier returned, he was hanging from the jaws of what looked to be an three story tall alligator with reptilian legs that would have been better proportioned for a horse, except angled and bending like a those of a hunting cat. One of the scientists would later say it looked like a Kaprosuchus, the 'galloping crocodile'.
(AN: Yes, look up Kaprosuchus, omg nightmare fuel)
This prehistoric throwback wasn't alone, and by the time some kind of organized defence had formed, a dozen more had come through. But that wasn't all. Mosquitoes the size of a person's head. Birds with razor claws and beaks that were a match for any raptor of Earth. Smaller dinosaur-like beasts that may have been the first creature's brood, or something that ate its eggs.
They died, monsters and people both. The smaller creatures, for the most part, took only a single bullet or arrow to drop, and with Lelei's magic, they died by the score. The larger beasts took concentrated fire, but died all the same. But the massive beasts that had followed the scouts? Only three things could reliably take one down. Concentrated fire from the .50 cal guns mounted on the back of the assault jeeps or APC. Tank shells from the outdated (but who needed high tech when you were occupying a pre-industrial age place) heavy armour vehicles. And Rory Mercury.
The Apostle of Emroy, with her huge halberd, took on the giant monsters along side the tanks, doing her best to defend the buildings and other such places the civilians had taken shelter in. Her fellow Apostle joined in as well, though she was mostly occupied with airborne threats that had flown through the Gate.
But the monsters would not stop. Nothing but death slowed them down. They knew no fear, only hate for something other than themselves.
But, the initial brunt of the invasion slowed, and Lelei, now in an APC and bearing several wounds, made the call to shut the Gate again. It took the combined effort of Rory, Itami's squad of 'natives' and his former squad of '3RD Recon' to protect her as the monsters seemed to be drawn to her efforts.
But, the JSDF fought, they held, and after two hours of fighting prehistoric horrors right out of a movie, the Gate was closed again.
There were many strange things about these monsters. The size, the savagery, the utter lack of fear or self preservation instinct... But these were things that were 'known' to both the residents and visitors of the Special Region. Animals could become sick and feral. Mating season for some animals could make them hyper aggressive. Some would run mindlessly from a disaster such as fire or flood.
No, the really strange thing, was that some of the monsters didn't leave behind bodies. Several soldiers could attest to there being a monster there one moment, and a black puff of ash the next. The Press, not just the news reporters from Japan, but a documentary maker as well, had managed to get some evidence on film. And yes, some monsters would simply vanish into dust after taking damage.
For example, one of the medical tents was filled with victims of a tank shell going off over their heads. It had been aimed at one of the galloping crocodiles, but after taking the hit it had vanished into ash, leaving the shell to explode with no body around it to slow down the fragments.
But that wasn't all...
Rory was sitting on top of a ruined 'pill box' that was at the 'point' of one Alnus Hill's JSDF fortification wall. The fading sunlight of the evening cast her and her dark gothic dress into an even deeper shadowy form than usual. She might seem impulsive, but she knew the best lighting to make her look 'brooding'.
Having lived for nearly a thousand years, Rory had learned an awful lot of things. She wasn't much for reading, and didn't have the talent for magic, but she had picked up a lot of knowledge nonetheless. But, held between her thumb and index finger was a shard of dark crystal. It wasn't quite as long as her thumb, and might have been as thick around. But inside that crystal was a slow, almost hypnotic swirl of light and energy.
And this puzzled her. She could feel that there was energy in this little crystal. But it was the 'type' of energy that puzzled her. This stone contained... soul. It was hardly more than the ember of a burnt out candle compared to a normal person's soul, and if she hadn't been who she was, an Apostle of Emroy, Goddess of Death, she wouldn't have noticed it at all.
But she was, and she did. And it puzzled her. Who, or what, could encase that vital spark of existence inside anything but a living vessel? Another god? Unknown magic? Or as Itami might suggest, 'sunspots'?
"Rory." Lelei said from the ground next to the little bunker, "Are you still trying to understand that crystal?"
Rory pulled her eyes from the swirling traces inside the stone and put it into a hidden pocket in her dress, "Have you made any progress?" She was smiling, but it was an obvious challenge.
"I was able to draw power from the stone I had, to empower some magic. But otherwise, no." She shook her head, immune to such taunting.
"Dangerous." Rory said, eyes squinting, "Considering that these hold a spark of soul energy, that's technically blasphemy against Emroy and Hardy."
Lelei shrugged, "Itami asked me to help the digging teams." She knew, and acknowledged that the Gods existed, but she didn't care overmuch what they thought. "I used the power inside the stone to push an earth spell past the limits of a single circle spell."
It was a generally accepted fact, that the more 'circles' a spell had, the stronger it was. Lelei was considered a true genius, and her magic circles would sometimes be layered with other spells, or have a circle large enough to contain multiple smaller circles. She'd also added knowledge of Earth, applying the science of 'physics' to her spells.
"How is that silly building project of theirs going?" Rory asked, knowing that Lelei didn't care about 'forbidden knowledge' and would learn about it anyhow if she were curious enough.
"I came to get the remains of this 'pill box'." She used the Japanese words for it instead of the local language. "They are ready to put it in place near the Gate."
"Do they not think your binding will hold?"
"If it doesn't, they wish to be ready." Again that tiny shrug, "And if I am allowed to try again, there is no guarantee I will get it correct. I think... I may be close to figuring out exactly what happened, but I won't be able to find out for sure unless I step through the Gate myself to see." She waited until Rory jumped off the top of the bunker, and with a wave of her hand and staff expanded a circle around the fortification.
"Don't tire yourself out too much." Rory teased, "Aren't you going on patrol tomorrow morning?"
"Yes." Lelei nodded, moving her hand and staff upwards, the entire thing coming free from the ground after a grunt of effort. "We are going to make sure no more of those monsters ran away into the fields. The farmers have already found several nests near the river."
Somewhere else in the Special Region, far north of the Capitol City of Sadera, lay a mountain range. Between this range and the Capitol, were many vassal states of the Empire. However, a great many of those states were 'pro war'. They still opposed the JDSF's 'occupation' of Alnus, despite many terrible losses to the superior weapons of the otherworlders.
In a fortified mountain castle, lived Zorzal. Former crown prince of the Empire, and head of the War faction, he was continuously coming up with plans, constantly hatching schemes, and generally being a huge pain in the ass for the JSDF.
So far, he was really just a pain. Not a serious threat. But even then, what little successes he did have, were due to the people under his command.
Tyuule. Of the race of Warrior Bunnies. Once she was a Queen of her people. Strong, cunning, vicious, she, like many of the other races the Humans had conquered over the years, couldn't stand up to the Empire when it came for her people. But, one does not become Queen of a warrior race simply by force of arms. No. She was a crafty strategist, a clever spy, and had a knack for seeing through people. While she was, on paper at least, a slave to Zorzal, she had used her mind, body and voice to turn him into his own worst enemy.
When the JSDF appeared, she saw her chance. After every loss, she was there in his bed to comfort and encourage him. To tell him that there must be another way to defeat the overwhelmingly powerful 'green men'. Minor gains seemed so much bigger than the tragic losses when she whispered in his ear.
In truth, a great deal of those 'minor gains' were due to her skill at manipulation, and the few contacts she still had as former royalty.
Bouro. Not of any race specifically, but rather a 'mutt' of the many races and interbreedings of the diverse peoples of the Special Zone. Humanoid, but with the face of a pig and a robust body, he was Tyuule's greatest subordinate. It was through him, that she gave orders to her network of spies. And it was through him, that great opportunity was brought from the failed reconnection to Earth.
As 'favourite slave' to Zorzal, Tyuule was given free run of the castle they had secured for themselves. Aside from running to the prince's side when he called, she was essentially allowed to do as she pleased.
Like sneak into the pantry in the middle of the night, after everyone but the night watch had gone to sleep. She had to work a little harder in Zorzal's chambers, so he wouldn't notice her leaving his side after he'd fallen asleep, but she would do anything to destroy the Empire.
However, a late night snack after such activity wasn't what she was after. She had a figure to maintain after all.
"Bouro." She called out quietly as she used a knife to shave a little dried meat from a carcass hanging in the pantry.
There was an almost imagined sound of a stone brick moving, and Bouro's rough voice mumbled from under one of the shelves, "I am here My Lady."
"News?"
A quiet, wet chuckle from under the cheese shelf. "Yesssss. Great news indeed. I think My Lady will be-"
"Get on with it Bouro." He was useful, but hopelessly sycophantic.
There was a small sound of cloth, and a sac that went 'clink', like a bag of coins, was set down just outside the shadow of the shelf, "Alnus was attacked by something from the other side of the Gate." Another object, a thick roll of tied and sealed paper, "The report itself, to be read when it pleases you My-"
"Short version now." She set the shredded meat on a plate, putting the heel of a day old bit of bread on the plate as well.
"Monsters My Lady. Monsters came through the Gate. They were not ready. They were not destroyed, but they suffered many losses, and their buildings took great damage as well."
She nearly cut her finger on the knife as she went to put it away, "Something stronger than the Green Men?"
"Surprise likely counted for a lot in that encounter." Bouro said, "It took many of their soldiers and iron carriages to suppress the incursion."
"Interesting." Tyyule mused, adding a little cheese to the plate, "Your thoughts?"
"If I were allowed to guess, I would suspect that the Gate no longer connects to their home 'Japan'. I do know, that the blue haired one, Lelei, sealed the Gate again, adding credence to that guess." A proper informant did not 'guess', and Bouro was a professional.
"And this?" She walked over to the shelf the voice was coming from, and nudged the thick sack with her nicely manicured big toe. "I've no need for coin here." She commented at the gentle metallic noise from within.
"Items from the JSDF base, taken in the confusion, and from bodies that had washed down stream. I have several more, but they are hidden elsewhere for now."
Tyyule had started to kneel down, so she could place the plate on the floor, but stopped. Standing straight again, she found, then put a fresh bit of fruit on the plate as well. "You've done well." She said, kneeling and placing the plate on the floor, "Take these back with you, and see if our friends can decipher how they work."
A thick hand reached out of the darkness for the bag, then once again for the plate. When Bouro spoke next it was obvious he was drooling, "Thank you My Lady, it will be done My Lady, I-"
"Good night Bouro." Good food was reward enough for his service. And thankfully she didn't have to pay him by letting him lick her feet anymore.
On her way back to Zorzal's bedchamber, her mind raced with the possibilities. If they could unlock the secrets of the weapons the JSDF used, she could make the civil war between the 'Peace' and 'War' factions of the Empire, into something even more destructive. For what the Empire did to her, her Tribe, and her Pride, she would see the Empire burn. And if the few alchemists and artisans she was connected to could puzzle out the items that had been stolen from the confusion of the failed Gate opening...
She slept soundly that night, despite sharing a bed with her most hated enemy.
"Itami." The Base Commander greeted the somewhat ragged looking man who was standing at something close to attention on the other side of his desk. "Report."
Itami was known to be 'the lazy ant'. He did the minimum amount of work to get satisfactory results. That isn't to say he wouldn't try. Quite the contrary. There had been many encounters where he had gone far above and beyond the call of duty. Many times he had to improvise and formulate plans of action on the spot. Or leap into action and risk injury or death to see something through.
But today, after a long day of short range patrol through various waterways and rivers that ran near Alnus Hill, he looked like he'd lost his will to give a damn. But, with a tired motion, he managed to salute.
"Sir. We turned up a few more bodies." He sounded bored, but anyone who knew him would hear an edge of anger in his voice. He hated losing people. "One of the local farmers found a couple more of our own, and Giselle's wyverns found a few more locals."
The Base Commander, an older man who's hair was more grey than black and a face weathered to the point of looking like leather sighed a perfect old man sigh. "How bad, exactly?"
Itami reached into a secured pouch (one that buckled closed instead of buttoned) and took out three pairs of dog tags. One by one, making sure to untangle them as he went, he put them onto the desk. "Rory-chan has overseen their last rights"
Again, the CO sighed, "Once we are all accounted for again, we'll hold a formal ceremony." He opened a drawer in the desk and with the same respect, put each tag away, "Dis..." He reconsidered, "Your thoughts, First Lieutenant?" Lazy ant or not, Itami did have his finger on the pulse of the people here.
Caught off guard by the sudden question, Itami rocked on his heels a moment, "Most of us are unhappy." He said plainly, "Kurokawa is still up to her chin in wounded, and even with the other medics, and the help of the local bonesaws, some of the wounded aren't getting better."
One of the many reports on the injuries suffered mentioned 'poison' and 'infection'. "Our eggheads are still working on some stopgap medication."
"Hope they hurry." Itami said, "The locals are still a bit shocked. But up until now we were 'invincible'."
Victory after victory, success after success, had built up quite the reputation for the JSDF. But they'd had their nose bloodied, and EVERYONE had noticed. "Not much we can do, except get back up and continue what we've been doing." The CO nodded.
"Not much else to report sir." Itami broke form and scratched his chin, "Rory-chan still hasn't figured out those stones. Lelei-chan found a very limited use for one. And one of our Militia captains made one into a necklace."
"Yes, these glowing stones some of them had inside them..." the CO frowned, "Have you found any more?"
"One or two. The local kids helped out, with adult supervision of course." Itami added, since the things these came might not have all died." There was a moment of silence, and Itami asked, "Is that all sir?"
"For you? Yes. Find Lelei for me, send her in."
"Yes sir."
"Dismissed." The CO watched Itami leave, frowning at the utter mess this was. The official count now was about a quarter of their troops on hand, two of their twelve tanks with two more down for repair, a pair of Chinooks, one Apache, four Humvee and a third of their buildings. All lost in the span of about an hour.
The dorms, thankfully, had suffered no more than a single broken window and some teeth marks on the outer wall. The administration building (where he was now) was partially collapsed on one side. The hospital was a total wreck, though most of the patients who were in there at the time had survived. The Communications hub was under the collapsed part of the Admin building but the equipment had been mostly recovered and set back up again.
And the fuel bunker had almost been breached.
If the armoured division hadn't been there, that all important, nearly irreplaceable resource, would have been lost. As it was, one of the bunker walls had been cracked from ground to roof by one of those running house sized crocodiles, and the engineer corp was making meaningful gestures on making a new bunker.
But, they were ready for at least some amount of self sufficiency, and while they lacked -some- modern building supplies, they still had a garage of heavy machinery, and only one of their solar panels had been broken beyond fixing. They had their fuel, the electricity was still solid, and the locals in town would be happy to trade with them for more basic building materials.
He tapped a button on the phone on his desk, "Ops? Find me one of the engineers, don't care who, and send him to the office."
A moment later, "Yessir."
There was a polite tap on the door, "It's Lelei."
"Come in." The CO said, sitting up straight in his chair again, "You haven't been resting properly, have you?"
Lelei looked like a cleaner version of Itami's 'out of give a damn'. To be fair, she wasn't one to show much emotion, and this made the dark circles under her eyes looking worse than they really were.
Lelei shrugged slightly, "I have been helping with the new 'pill boxes', among other things."
The CO took on a lighter tone, less authoritative than when he spoke to Itami, "I have to ask, have you figured out what went wrong?"
Lelei considered a moment, and she asked a question of her own, "Do you mind if I guess?"
"You're the expert, your guess will be better than ours."
She looked around a moment, then made to reach for a sheet of paper on the CO's desk. It had some reports printed on one side, but he quickly flipped it over to the blank side and slid it over. She took a pen from her robe and drew three straight lines, each with a little circle someplace in the middle.
"This is our world." She pointed to the lower of the three circles, "This is yours." The upper one, "And this is in between." The middle circle. "When I cast my spell, to temporarily close the gates, I made sure to keep a link between them. So that I could find your world again when I opened the gate next." She drew a line between the top and bottom circles, "But, I think this world here is touching the link I made."
The CO nodded, "Jammed signal..." He mumbled, "Can anything be done?"
Lelei replied with a slow, "If... No. There are a couple of theories, my Master and I have been discussing."
"Go on."
"First, is we wait." She drew another circle on the middle line, far apart from the top and bottom ones, "And this world might move away on its own." She then drew another line, from the bottom, to the middle, to the top, "Second, we could see what is on the other side, and try and make a gate from there, to your world."
"Dangerous, considering what came through."
"Impractical as well. But I am explaining all our current ideas, regardless of practicality." Lelei said, getting a nod of approval from the CO. "And third, go through the gate, and see if there is a way to 'dislodge' our world from theirs, freeing the link I left between our two worlds."
"Hmm. Too soon to try anything right now, but thank you."
There was another tap on the door, "Sir. You wanted to see me?"
"Enter." The man who entered wasn't dressed in green, but grey, the Engineer's uniform, "Ah. I am officially rescinding the order to limit what we teach the locals pertaining to building materials."
"Sir?"
"Work with the locals, find some willing people, and teach them to make concrete. Try and train some more people with our heavy machinery. We need to get our defences back in place, ASAP."
"Yessir." He saluted, got the nod from the CO to leave, and practically ran back the way he had come to get back to work.
"I will-"
"Get some sleep." The CO said to Lelei, "I am going to tell Itami to make sure you get at least a full day of little to no activity. I don't expect my soldiers to work themselves to the ground, and I will not have a civilian do it either."
Lelei couldn't do more than nod, so she made to leave the office as well.
NOTES!
A little shorter than I'd like, but honestly, I ran out of ideas for the short peek into the Special Region.
In the Books (from what I gathered, and sorry, no, I really don't want to read them, I have almost no time to myself these days), the JSDF's first attempt to reconnect did fail. It ended up opening the Gate right into some kind of spider dimension or something. Big mess, but they won through.
But in -this- story, the Gate opened up in the middle of the Amazon wildlands, and suffered what amounted to a small Tyranid (look that up if you don't know it) invasion. Most of the monsters are MANY generations down from the original spawning from the dungeon, but some were NOT, and those were the biggest ones, who dropped the magic stones.
With that in mind, I decided that the JSDF was a little less lucky. So now, there are -other- problems brewing for them.
Anyhow, back to the fluffy tails next chapter, where we get on with the inevitable planning to deal with Telskyura.
Party on.
Speaking of Party, if you haven't yet, please give my little side project a read. The Misfits Mercenary Company. It will be more 'reader driven', so, more interest in it means more updates.
Daeore on Ko-fi (to see cool Kodori Art!)
Daeore on Inkitt (for my book 'Were Too?')