New Ream Calendar, Year 142 August 3rd.

“Need backup in sector D15!”

“Roger, squad Raven will arrive in approximately 250 seconds”

A group of 4 people were running from something, a Yaju. This one was a medium large, lizard type with unknown attributes.

2 male and 2 female, it was a well balanced team with 2 close range and 2 long range fighters. It was only a few months since the first invasion, there aren’t proper roles within squads.

Bullets flew, ineffective against a Yaju, but definitely annoying it. Modern day weapons can’t damage a Yaju, only something on the scale of a nuclear weapon might. It was only a few years since the emergence of these ‘Yaju’, and during this small timeframe, humanity displayed its intelligence and invented machines which can harness the power from energy cores that come from the monsters.

It was an entirely new form of energy, one which broke our understanding of the world's laws. It seemingly completely ignored all the laws of science and followed its own rules.

Zen, one of the close combatants, covered in the standard battle suit, gave one last push on the lizard before running away in full speed. While most of its attributes were still unknown, its defences were rock hard.

Their squad has, Zen and Lilia as close combatants, Efri and Silvie as long range support. 135 more seconds until Squad Raven arrives. The air had a few cracks in it, black lightning flashing from the cracks.

“HQ, HQ! Unpredicted Gate is opening! Location D14!”

In a far away area, a tall building with the structure of a square, made completely out of metal with no windows. From satellite photos, it would seem like a giant’s silvery playing cube. Inside were many personnel manipulating screens and panels. One showed the map of Elshire, also known as Sector D. Multiple red dots started to appear, others were moving, following 4 green dots, 5 other green dots were approaching from the side.

A tall, skinny man bit his thumbnail as he watched the screen. He was the Army Commander, the highest military position.

“Sir, Squad Rivervale reported that unexpected Gates are opening! From energy signature, more and more are appearing”

Almost breaking the panel in front of him, the Army Commander replied.

“Yeah and so what?! It is the first time a Gate is opened so fast, normally it would take at least a week for it to manifest after we discovered it’s energy signature!

“What do you want me to do? Jump in and die? I don’t have enough experience with the battle suits! There are only 4 other Squads, 16 on standby on other sectors! It takes too long to train a squad to handle the battle suits!”

On the map, over a hundred red dots were shown, those not moving were newly formed Gates, those moving, Yaju.

The Commander gritted his teeth, he couldn’t risk sending more Squads and losing them, but the amount of Gates and Yaju appearing couldn’t be ignored.

“Order full retreat, we are locking down Sector D. Tell Squad Rivervale… we can not wait for them to enter the other Sectors before lockdown”

One of the staff members stood up. “But Sir!”

“Do you not understand? Sector D is lost! Either we lock it down and lose a few of our fighters, or we let these Yaju rampage and cross into the other Sectors, losing even more of our men!”

The Commander then ignored any further protests.

“Come on, Ent is going to come soon.”

Rivervale Squad was nearing zone 10 of Sector D when Silvie suddenly noticed something strange on her sensors.

“Erm, guys, the gps says the Raven squad is suddenly retreating…”

Zen, being one of the most experienced in combat and strategies instantly thought of the possibility of locking down the entire Sector. For the Raven Squad to retreat, it meant it was an order from a higher rank. Immediately he abandoned this thought. No, it was impossible for HQ to leave them.

Silvie was still confused but kept running, it was only a few seconds after they noticed Raven retreating when they received the information.

“Sector D will be locked down. I repeat, Sector D will be locked down, large amounts of Gates are opening within Sector D, an estimated 10.000 Yaju will come from the Gates. As the emergence of new ‘instant’ Gates is still continuing, the total number will most likely be much higher. We do not have the luxury to wait for all the Squads within Sector D to move out. The most we can hold out is 60 seconds.”

Efri stopped immediately, as the only son of a financial group, he couldn’t understand how they decided to leave him here to die.

“No way right? They will send helicopters to save us right?”

Zen on the other hand was shaken by the fact his fear was spot on.

Lilia grabbed them and ran. “RUN!”

They were still at least 9 zones away from Sector C.

All of them activated the booster module on the back of the suit, after which they also used the repulsion module on their shoes to hover a few centimeters above ground. While their mobility and speed increased tremendously, it was taxing, it used up the energy cores, which were expensive, and this way of moving was hard to control.

Zones were quite small, each zone around a square kilometer, but to traverse 9 zones in 60 seconds… Around 150m/s was needed.

Thankfully, from the boosters fueled by forgein energy, it can go up to 200 meters per second. A few times slower than the speed of sound, so in short, very damned fast. The problem is the control…

They zoomed through streets, as they went, they could clearly see more and more fissures appearing in the air. Although they couldn’t accept it, they knew deep in their hearts that the decision of the Commander was the right one.

Far ahead they could see a wall rising slowly, the lockdown had already started, it wasn’t full lockdown yet, they could still go on the other side.

Meanwhile right beside the walls, the air hummed.

It was due to Sylvie’s perception that she noticed something was wrong and stopped the others. They had just stopped when a Gate opened instantaneously, no small crack, lightning or any sign whatsoever. A fully opened Gate just appeared.

“What the f*ck?” (Zen)

An audible clank was heard, a barrier utilizing the energy cores was made, it kept everything inside. The final stage of lockdown as completed.

Despair filled their eyes. Their energy in the battlesuit was limited, ammo, plenty, but not many of those are bullets that were refined using the energy cores and can damage the Yaju.

The Gate in front of them flickered, a huge Yaju appeared, it had the shape of a tiger, but much, much bigger.

It had the same feature as all Yaju, a distinct grey and black exoskeleton covering every patch of skin they had, white spots all over them.

The squad quickly went back into formation, but all of them were hopeless.

The tiger type Yaju stared at them, then vanished. Appearing behind Efri, slashing at him.

Efri immediately jumped back, the tiger type were known for their instant movement and ranked as one of the most annoying Yaju to deal with. However what happened next shocked everyone, it was not recorded in the database too.

The claws elongated and reached Efri, his expensive battle suit ripped to shreds as if it was paper. Efri lay motionless, cut in half.

Both Lilia and Sylvie shrieked. The blood of their friend seeped deeply in the ground, the tiger type dragging the lower part of Efri’s body away.

Before they were even able to recover from the shock, Zen stumbled backwards. All around them, Gate’s manifested and were spitting out monsters, from the smallest size to gigant size.

All of them collectively sank to the ground, not wanting to believe any of it, denying it. An ear splitting roar was heard on the walls, it was uncertain whenever it came from a human or beast.

August 5th 142

A meeting was held. Rulers from all countries and militaries gathered. Since the emergence of the Yaju many governments joined hands and created the World Defender Association, one giant organisation that formed the military power to fight against the Invasions. Specially trained teenagers for the battle suits all belonged to WDA.

“2 days ago we locked down Sector D, also known as Elshire. The amount of Yaju that emerged has greatly exceeded our expectations and the energy signatures from our satellite sensor shows that there are over the 200.000 Yaju, both above ground and underground. We also suspect there exists a new Yaju with the ability to fly. We felt many tremors on the energy field, the origin of the tremors are all located high in the air”

“Army Commander Colin Sanders, we have received intel that 7 of our soldiers were unable to get out. Will there be any actions to save them?”

“Doing so means temporarily undoing the energy barrier, if our concerns are correct, it means releasing the flying type Yaju out in the world. Besides… the chances of them being alive are as good as none. It is safe to assume all of them are already dead”

“Colin Sanders! While you may hold the highest authority on the field, this attitude is unacceptable. We lost 7 highly skilled fighters, do you even know the amount of money spent on training one of them?”

The Commander replied calmly. “We either lose an entire Sector and a few of our fighters, or we lose all surrounding Sectors as well as almost our entire task force. It was a necessary sacrifice”

After confirming no one wanted to argue any further against his stubbornness, he continued.

“Moving on, we must immediately find a way to counter these new Instant Gates. The time it takes for it to gather energy and manifest is too short”

…

A few kilometers away, inside the lockdown zone. Zen, Lilia, Sylvie, Antares, Fei gathered, both squads lost a team member. All of them managed to hide and survive for 2 whole days in this hellhole. Food supply was running out, almost all the energy stored in their battle suits were exhausted.