"Sometimes they make sense and sometimes its utter nonsense in the damn rifts. What I wouldn't give for some regular monsters like what we have back home on Sha Nocta." - Dark elf field agent complaining after drinks in the order entertainment area.

"Alright, Penny, what do we know?" Kurt asked while buckling on his belt then shoving mags and a pistol in it. While he had his storage ring, he wasn't comfortable enough with it to completely abandon his other gear just yet.

"It's a big one. By that I mean it has a lot of power. We don't know its size quite yet." She said from the corner of the workshop as they geared up.

It had been two days since the incident with Kurt and a latent power that existed metaphysically in his blood. While he was functioning the day prior, he was really glad that they hadn't had any serious business to deal with or he would have been miserable. That extra day had given him the time he needed to fully recover his strength.

"Compared to the last ones it's…." Val led her on to answer the unspoken question.

Penny sighed. "About three times the power of the one with the caves." She clicked her tongue at having to make that comparison and returned to her tablet. "I can give you a better guess in… twelve minutes."

"Oh, hey, this reminds me." Kristi said while hefting her machinegun. Kurt just began thinking of it as hers since she never wanted to give it up. "Did we ever source more ammunition?"

"Renee says it's on its way, whatever that means." Penny said.

"Great, we haven't really used any yet, but it will be good to have a stockpile." Kristi slung the weapon over her shoulder and tested the sling length before storing the entire thing in her ring. "Hmm, this one." She said and reached into the locker, grabbing the TP9 that Kurt had recently put the auto sear and 6.5 CBJ barrel in.

"Oh, that's a cool one." Kurt said while stuffing extra mags and other essentials in his ring. "Let me know how you like it."

They trooped up the stairs and into the hub where the portal was slowly forming. Penny went over to the desk she had placed on that side of the order portal and pulled up the monitoring program. "Hmm, looks like its going to be a medium size so expect some either strong enemies or a lot of them."

With nothing else to do they waited for the portal to form and stabilize for them to enter. When it finally did fully form, they saw what looked like a woodland, but the trees were all dead looking. The greyscale of the portal made it seem like it was out of a horror movie, with even the ground looking ghostly.

"You are good to enter." Penny said after a few minutes. "Good luck in there." She called and watched as they all stepped through the portal then stepped right back out.

"Hooooohhho. Yeah, fuck that." Kurt said. "It's freezing in there."

One more trip to the basement and various boxes later, they were all in some form of thermal underwear. They also grabbed some of the combination face mask and neck gators that Kurt had too many of. Before putting her outer shell on, Val had paraded around in the black base layer like a ninja, making fake kung fu moves and noises as she did.

After stepping back through the portal, this time dressed for the climate, Kurt activated his thermal glasses. His hope was that whatever creature type was in this rift had a body temperature higher than the surrounding area. So far, the birds and elves had both displayed that particular trait, so his hopes were high.

"Val, push right. Kristi, push left." Kurt said and began pressing ahead into the rift. He had his waypoint talisman placed on a tree, so he was fairly confident in finding the portal.

As they moved deeper, they noticed that this rift was also a mimicry of the natural world. The ambient light was moderately bright, like that of a heavily overcast day but there was no angle to the shadows, just an overhead light. The other off-putting thing was the ground.

In a normal forest, there was debris from trees, grasses, leaves, dirt and so on. In this one, the ground was bare, scraped clean to a slightly dusty hard packed dirt. There was some terrain, but there were consistent patterns of rolling hills, little rises and bumps in the forest every hundred yards.

This forest did have one thing that the first rift didn't, wind. There was a slight breeze that wafted over them. It was just strong enough to steal away body heat but not so much that it created noise.

"This is fucking creepy." Val said as they had a quick huddle after probing for a few hundred yards. "Like the wind is just a constant, no ebb or flow just a steady like two miles per hour."

Kurt fully agreed with that assessment. His enhanced senses were constantly picking up things that were just at the edge of his mind. A general wafting of something that he should be warry of. "Agreed. Think we should push farther?"

"Yeah, let's go a bit longer." Val said.

Kristi nodded, not turning to face them from the direction she was looking. "I am getting slight vibrations." She could feel it radiating up through her knee that was touching the hard packed earth.

"What?" Kurt asked. "What do you mean vibrations?"

"I am extremely sensitive to vibrations and movement." She said, "I can generally pick out any movement that is around me and pinpoint its source."

"Like ANY vibration?" Val asked, the frown on her face clear despite only her eyes showing.

"Yes, Val. I know what you two do and when." She then paused and Kurt thought he saw a blush around her eyes. "Although, the one in the shower was a surprise, the drumming water masked the…activity."

"Ahem." Kurt cleared his throat. "So, what is it telling you now?" He wanted to move on to another topic, any other topic.

Kristi tilted her head like she was listening before placing a palm on the ground. "There are several somethings in that direction." She pointed just off their line of travel. "I would have picked them up sooner, but we are moving which makes it hard for me to detect at range."

"Any idea what they are?" Kurt asked.

"No idea, don't even know how far since I don't know how big they are." Val answered. "All I know is that there seems to be a few things in that direction."

"Better than nothing. Let's go and take a look."

They began moving in the direction that Kristi had indicated. Every time they came over a hill, they paused at the top and scanned their surroundings. They didn't see anything until the fourth hill they came to.

"Wait, they are very close now." Kristi hissed over the radio. The words caused both Kurt and Val to halt mid step and follow Kirsti's lead as they slowly advanced over the hill.

When Kurt crested the rise, he came up behind the trunk of a tree and looked to his left and right, picking out where Val and Kristi had set up. A second later he poked his head out from behind cover and was not exactly sure what he was looking at.

The five creatures before them were large, standing at least seven feet tall as they were currently walking. If Kurt had to describe them it would be an ant thorax mixed with a gorilla upper body that was made from clay. Each one was light brown, almost tan in color and had black banding around their joints, making them look a little like marionettes. Their faces were flat except for an excessive underbite that made their flat, beak like mouths resemble a bulldog and a trio of small eyes in the front of their faces.

They seemed to be mostly patrolling along a set path around one of the uniform hills. Every minute or so they would complete the circuit and just keep walking. Kurt saw no divergence and no signaling from the group other than they all seemed to walk in the exact same path. They watched this squad of creatures orbit the hill for several minutes before finally having enough.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Kurt looked to Val who shrugged before turning to Kristi. He gave her a raised eyebrow and she just shook her head, not knowing what they were supposed to be either. With that he backed down the hill and signaled for the girls to come closer.

"Any ideas on what they are?" He asked again to confirm. He was also disappointed that they didn't seem to show up in thermals, being the same temperature as the environment.

"Freaky mutant ant apes." Val said.

Kristi shook her head. "Seems like another rift oddity."

"Think we should try and take this group? We could test how effective our guns are and if they have any weak points." He asked and got nods from both the girls before they retook their position at the top of the hill.

Once the group came around to their side again, Kurt initiated the ambush, shooting the middle creature in the side of the head. Green blood splattered against the packed earth hillside, staining it in a light spray of warm fluid that showed brightly in his thermal overlay. This had the unexpected result of the creature pivoting to look at him with what was left of its face. The others also turned to the source of the noise as Val and Kristi opened up.

Kurt fired another probing shot at the central figure as they all surged forward. This second round was placed center mass in its upright chest. A similar result of 'not a whole lot' came from the second round. His third shot was aimed at what would be the pelvic girdle of a humanoid creature but was just the junction of upper and lower bodies on these ant-apes.

The third shot had a tremendous effect and the creature's top half pitched forward and planted firmly in the dirt. The back half of the monster carried on with its momentum and flipped over top of the upper body. Seeing the result, he called his findings to the girls over the radio.

After a split second, he shared his findings is the best way he could think at that moment. "Shoot them in the dick!" He said and moved to engage his second one.

"You have got to be…" Kristi began but a long burst from her put down the charging creature and she switched to the next one.

Val was seeming to have the best luck as the monster charging her had just started turning in circles after closing half the distance. It was bleeding from several bullet holes, but nothing had seemed to take it down. Every time it tried to reorient on Kurt or Kristi, another shot would hit it and start the process over. Finally, a round struck it in the joint of its two bodies and it pitched forward, dead.

"Well, that was fucking weird." Val said as she stood from behind her cover and got a quick look in every direction before moving closer to Kurt.

Kristi was sitting still, hand on the ground as she closed her eyes in concentration. "I don't know how far the next group is, but they are in that direction." She said and pointed to their front left as they had been traveling. "I don't know why I couldn't sense these ones as we approached. It wasn't until we were almost on top of them that I knew they were close."

"Probably the earth." Kurt whispered back. "Think about it, this isn't real natural ground, it's a mimicry. I actually wouldn't be surprised if vibrations didn't carry past a certain range within rifts because of how they are only replicas of real places."

Seeming slightly happier, Kristi smiled at him, and he returned it. "Thanks, Kurt."

"Any time. I think the core is actually this way." He pointed off to their right. "I can feel the mana radiating from there."

"Yeah, me too." Kristi said and they began to move in that direction.

"Umm is nobody going to talk about the whole 'shoot them in the dick' comment?" Val asked. "Like seriously where did that come from?"

Kurt snorted. "How else was I supposed to describe where to aim? Everyone knows where the dick is supposed to be and that happened to be the best way to quickly tell you."

"There wasn't any other way?"

"Sure, but saying, 'shoot them in the frontal area where the upper torso meets the lower thorax' seemed to be a little on the wordy side." Kurt said.

Val chuckled. "No but the dick thing was funny."

It was strange to have such a normal exchange at a whisper, but it just made the whole situation funnier, and they took a few moments to calm down before pressing onward. Once more spreading out, they began to move toward where Kurt could feel the core radiating energy.

They had to stop as they approached another patrol of the strange ant-apes. Unlike the last isolated squad, this one wasn't alone and seemed to cover a much more elaborate path than simply orbiting a hill.

"Three squads." Kurt said over the radio after they had sat and watched for a while. "Think we can try to take one then the others when they come running?"

"We have to time it, so we take the group that comes in front in… five more rotations." Kristi said. "That should be when we have one close, one medium and one far." She had her hand pressed firmly to the ground and her eyes flicked back and forth, like they were reading something.

"Got it. Val, let's get in position." Kurt made the call, and they crept back over the hill to sit and wait. "Kristi, you make the call. We shoot when you engage."

They set up and waited. Kurt split his time between counting the patrols and turning to face behind them, making sure nothing crept up while they were distracted. Seeing that everything was clear behind them, he popped his head back up to see the fifth squad rotation beginning.

Snap-snap-snap-snap. The silenced report of Kristi's machinegun and the gentle tinkle of spent casings and links broke the eerie silence. The first and second ant-apes were riddled with bullet impacts and dropped to the ground, thrashing for a moment before going still.

Kurt managed to take one while Kristi opened up but the remaining two had shifted out of his line of sight as they maneuvered on his team. He heard a few shots from his right then nothing until his radio crackled.

"I got my two." Val said.

"Down one." Kurt confirmed and Kristi gave her count a moment later. "Here comes the reinforcements." Kurt said after seeing the flash of tan moving between the trees in the distance.

The ant-apes moved with surprising speed given their size. They swarmed over the hilltop in a wide arc, converging on the fallen squad. Before they could even make the base of the hill, Kurt had a good shot and dropped one of them in its tracks. The other four immediately started to converge on him and he heard Kristi open up before he saw another face plant into the ground.

The last three began to weave in and out of the trees as they closed in, getting closer every second. He saw one of them fall, likely taken down by Val and he shot one of the remaining ones with a quick burst, causing it to also pitch forward and fold in half.

The last one suddenly switched targets and veered to Kurt's left. He heard a muffled roar and a short burst of gun fire as he began to sprint in that direction. He then saw the flash of green before he heard a rattling sound along with the snaping sound of one of his suppressors.

Coming around the hill, Kurt saw that Kristi had jumped backward, abandoning her machinegun as the ape had charged her. After she had landed and rolled, she summoned his TP9 and peppered the monster with bursts of 6.5 to its groin.

The carcass of the ant-ape sliding down the hill was enough to confirm that she killed it and they both sprinted to their original positions just in time to begin engaging the third wave. This time they all clumped up, coming along the path that the first patrol had taken. A decision they no doubt regretted as Kristi was able to line up a great angle with her machine gun and pin the trigger back.

Kurt watched the patrol of five monsters suddenly erupt in sprays of green blood as the rounds impacted all over them. Those that missed the key location still punched right through and seemed to do damage but not the instant off switch that they wanted. Still, after a long burst, they had all collapsed in a heap atop the first squad.

"Think they have anything valuable inside?" Kristi asked after they had stepped up and examined the bodies.

"Do you want to cut one open to find out?" Kurt asked. Judging by the look on her face, he knew the answer. "Honestly I kind of want to just wreck the core and get the hell out of here."

"Agreed." Val said while she rubbed at where her ears normally were but happened to be covered under the hat and facial covering.

"Then let's get a move on and kill the core. Then we can head home." Kurt said and they oriented off of him as they pushed toward the core.

Kristi mumbled under her breath, but Kurt missed it. "What was that?"

"Oh, nothing." She said, eyes darting away.

Val sighed. "She said that she wants dinner then for you to soap her up in the shower."

Kristi's eyes went wide. "No, I didn't say that." She hissed.

"You're right." Val said with a smile hidden by her mask and then turned back to Kurt. "She didn't say anything about dinner. I just made a guess on that one."

The look on Kristi's face was hard to discern since it was mostly covered. Kurt would guess at mortified but couldn't rule out anger as she squinted at Val. Her face covering puffed out slightly as she huffed and turned to walk in the direction they had been going.

"That was mean." Kurt said to Val before turning away to follow after Kristi.

Shrugging, Val went after them. "Ah, mean but true." She said with a little smile.

After another few hours, they had delt with several more patrols and Kurt had ended up getting bitch slapped into a tree by one of them. He was about to get physical in return but was stopped short when a long burst from Kristi almost cut the thing in half.

They shared a look before finishing off the remaining creature that Val was keeping entertained by her illusions. They ended up putting the creatures out of their misery after seeing that they wouldn't bleed out from the dozen holes poked through each of them. For more than the first time, Kurt wondered what it was they were shooting to drop them so quickly.

"I think it might be a core of some sort." Val said when he voiced his question. "Some monsters in some realms have them and its pretty much an instant KO if you hit it."

"Why did they get cores when those don't really exist on this planet?" Kurt wondered.

"Do either of us look like we understand how or why rifts do things?" Val asked, giving him an awful lot of side eye through her mask.

"Just voicing my thoughts." Kurt said and held up his hand. "I do think we are getting close though." He looked in the direction they had been moving.

"There is at least a dozen of the ant-apes up ahead." Kristi said from where she was kneeling. "They seem to be orbiting one location. But it's a pretty big area."

They pushed onward after Kristi was ready to go. It wasn't long before they spotted exactly what Kristi had described. From the side of a hill, they looked at what appeared to be a very strange conga line of the ant-apes walking around a shockingly tall hill. The height wasn't surprising in itself but more in the fact it wasn't identical to the rest of the hills.

After watching for a few moments, Kurt scooted back behind the hillside with the girls right behind him. "So, what, think there are like fifty of them?"

"Yeah, there abouts." Kristi nodded.

"Ok, so here is what I think we should do." Kurt began drawing in the thin dirt and talking through his plan on how to handle the creatures. The diagram he drew was rough, but it was enough for the girls to understand what he was saying and they added their own input before they agreed to a plan and moved off to get started.

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