With what could best be described as a roar, Vivian brought down the hammer down upon the Great Girros' skull, which audibly cracked on impact. Letting out a final howl, the creature fell to the ground, the life rapidly draining from its eyes. All around it, the corpses of its pack littered the ground. Above us, turkey vultures had begun to circle, though a couple pieces of raw meat kept them away from our kills.

With time of the essence, I joined Viv in preparing the carcasses - flesh and hide were quickly harvested and placed into storage, as were several organs. The bones soon followed, and it was not long before the giant fanged wyvern's corpse had been completely prepared. It took even less time to prepare the small corpses, leaving us with a large supply of skins, hides, teeth, bones, and meat. A portion of this was handed over to a skink that had traveled with us - best to send the excess to Meridina for sale rather thanlet it remain in some freezer for who-knows-what.

In the aftermath of defeating Dervahl, our fellowship had broken, as we all had other goals to attend to. Geralt, Theseus, and Zoe had gone off to hunt the wild beasts from their worlds that had ended up here, whilst Aloy had continued her search for her origins. Thus, only Vivian had joined me in investigating the secrets of the magnetic anomaly - something I knew, no doubt, would inevitably end up as a problem in the future if not handled soon enough. With only Zora to aid us, we'd been traveling to the South-East of Meridian, where one of these anomalies had recently opened up. So far, we'd encountered a horde of girros, but they were hardly the toughest of monsters - they were basically the genprey of the New World, and barely made the two of us break a sweat.

"So, any bets on what we'll find at this magnetic anomaly?"

I could only shrug in response. "Not really - with all the universe jumping going on, I'm at a loss for what could happen here. We could end up meeting monkeys being chased by centipedes the size of pythons, for all honesty."

"True enough. So, anymore monsters on the way?"

"According to my sensors, no - there's a Glavenus fighting a Rathalos to the west, and a group of Jaggi trying to tear apart some Shamos, but that's about it. Also, I've been getting more reports about our adorable monsties that live on our hubs now."

That piqued Viv's interest again. "Oh, really? What did they find?"

"One of the monsters we got, the one with the icy egg? It's an Elder Dragon called Velkhana. As for the one with the fish-like egg, its an Elder Dragon called Namielle. Additionally, my hitchhikers from the Repository are...well, making waves on my hub."

"Did they blow up one of the planets?"

"No, but the Dwarfs and Solaris carved out a new Karak below my Ice World, the Jungle Planet is seeing the creation of temple cities and used some Darkspore they found as sacrifices to Sotek, a gas giant I created last year is seeing Ropalolyst activity as well as additional facilites for Alad to work with being constructed, and XCOM just started builidng another tunnel network, with Dwarfen assistance. Also, the Tenno are saying they are hearing things about some group called the Duviri."

"Great, more problems to sort out later. Anything from the glorious Imperium of Man?"

"On, those aren't problems, two, don't taunt the Imperium, they've lasted ten thousand years for a reason, and three, nothing major to report, though it looks like the Space Marines found their first recruit."

"Ooh, sound interesting. Who was it, which chapter is inducting him, and what was his trial?"

"His name is Aranis Viminal, he is to become a neophyte for the Blood Ravens, and as for his trial...apparently he got into a fight with a Saurus over a golden idol that was to be delivered as a gift to the Blood Ravens out of respect for their valor when they fought in the Origin System. He lasted long enough that the acting Chapter Master decided to indut him into the Chapter as a Neophyte. If he survives the implants and further trials, well, you know hte rest."

"Why'd he want a lizard idol?"

"His family got kicked out of some hive before ending up in the Repository and were still rather poor after they immigrated into my forces. HE wanted to feed them. If memory serves, they're supposed to be inducted as Chapter Serfs for the Blood Ravens now."

"How kind. Now, can we get back to examining the magnetic anomaly?"

"Alright, alright, don't get your frilly panties in a bunch. And you were the one who asked about the Imperium stuff, so don't changed the topic!"

"Fine. But I don't where frilly panties-"

"Yes she does," replied the voice of Leal...wait what?

"LEAL! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING GETTING INVOLVED HERE?!"

"I know when I am needed, my lady, and while I will serve you to the ends of existence, I am not above some snark at your expense. As for you, Young Commander, my mistress does own and wear frilly smallclothes. She just isn't wearing any now."

"When I get back, you are going to regret that snark."

"I eagerly await my punishment."

When I was absolutely sure Leal had left the chat, I gestured toward the anomaly location. "Let's roll!"

XXXXXXXXXX

Slowly, we advanced upon the oddity, carefully meandering through the forests, hoping to not encouter any additional surprises. As we neared the target, new sighting appeared, and odd ones at that - amongst the forests were the carcasses of various monsters, some ones I knew, others I did not. Oddly, one of the most common creatures looked like a cross between and Walrus and a Wyvern. A 'wingrus', if you will...oh.

"Know something about these weird creatures?"

"They're called Wingrus, and they come from a game called Dragomon Hunter, which was shut down a few years ago. Kind of surprised to see them - never really spent as much time as I wanted playing that game."

Any further thoughts, however, were left unspoken when my anomaly detector suddenly spiked. Within moments, a nearby hole in the ground lit up, before going dark again. Yet it was apparent something had happened there, even as the anomaly faded away.

After all, centipedes the size of pythons don't happen to live on a normal Earth.

I couldn't help but shudder - regardles of how I felt toward creepy crawlies, I HATED centipedes, and this one made me want to vomit.

Before that could happen, though, a spiked limb fell out of the sky, impaling the centipede through the head, killing it instantly. As the leg was retracted, I followed its length up to its base...and froze.

There, standing before the two of us, was a combine strider. Somehow, one had ended up here. I sincerely hoped it wasn't aware that we were present.

Fortunately, it appeared we were unnoticed, as the machine began to stomp away from out location, for reasons I could not described. One null lance blast later, and it was reduced to pieces, never to trouble us again, especially since I made sure its head ended up in many pieces.

After takinga moment to pull out and squish the synth's brain, I turned my attention back to Viv. "You got any idea why this thing is here?"

"Nope."

Figures. This just got a lot more complicated.

XXXXXXX

AN: Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!