Rifts.

Not a lot was known about rifts. What people did know was that they were formed when space became unstable. Organism alien to the Earth’s environment would often emerge from these cracks in space. Not only would unfamiliar monsters invade, energy in which scientist simply named as dimensional energy would also flow through. This energy could cause a major changes in the environment, forcing organisms to evolve into dangerous threats.

The largest danger about rifts were that they were unpredictable. No one could predict the size or when a rift would appear. The stability of a rift was also a major concern. Rifts could last for a single second of it’s creation to indefinitely.

There were two types of rifts. Stable rifts and unstable rifts. Stable rifts would remain permanently open and constantly release dimensional energy and foreign monsters. Unstable rifts is when the rift is in constant flux. The size could constantly change and it would eventually collapse on itself. No matter what kind of rift appeared, both types were considered extremely dangerous and it became the priority of every organization to shut them down.

The method to shut down rifts was developed long ago, but it was only recently that the technology to detect rifts was developed. In the past, rifts were shut down only when people happened upon them. That or when a horrendous unfamiliar monster wrecks damage and the only possibility was that it came out of a rift. By that time rifts were closed , it was often too late as the environment was irreversibly changed by the overflowing dimensional energy. Fortunately most of the rifts were the unstable type. The Federation had gone on a campaign to close every stable rift known to man once the detection technology was developed. The only stable rifts that were left are the ones located in utterly unique environments and could not be reached or detected by any Federation machine.

And now a rift was appearing, right above the Fortress Tortoise.

Just as Seth was about warm the others about the rift, Echor’s detection instruments began to blare.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

“Echor! Where is it?” Dan immediately shouted as the rest of his squad snapped to attention. Bertha had whipped out a gatling gun from out of nowhere while Hunter had already begun to ready the turret. Kong stood there blinking as he was clueless as to what the alarm was for.

“Over there! Above the-” just as Echor was about to point out where the rift was, something broke out. It happened faster than Seth could even blink. All he saw was a blur that forcibly enlarged the rift and

-pierced right through the Fortress Tortoise, shell and all.

Everyone could only stare in shock.

Just as Seth was trying to comprehend what kind of creature to penetrate through a creature that was known for having the world’s toughest natural defenses, that was when he felt it.

A gaze from beyond the rift.

A stare that instantly sent cold shivers down Seth’s back. His whole body froze from just the attention of being looked at. And then that momentary look moved on, deeming that it’s attention was best elsewhere.

That was when Seth realized.

Whatever killed the Fortress Tortoise didn’t consider it a threat. It considered it food.

Seth didn’t want to know what this monster thought about humans.

It was then as if the Fortress Tortoise realized it had just been stabbed. A rumbling roar reverberated out of the beast. Seth hadn’t known that tortoises could make noises, but the sound he was hearing for the first time was etched into the deepest part of his soul. He could only watch as the Tortoise gave out an agonizing scream of pain in helplessness as it discovered it could not withdraw into its shell. Whatever had pierced it was slowly dragging it into the rift.

Before he knew it, Seth had already unsheathed his knife. Just as he was about take a step forward-

“What are you doing?! Get to the Humvee!” Bertha shouted shaking Seth out of his stupor. Everyone else had already made their way to the vehicle and was piling in as fast as possible.

The second Seth was on the vehicle, Dan had the Humvee blasting off at full speed. He was yelling orders to the rest of the squad members as they rapidly made their retreat.

“Echor! Give me an energy reading level of that rift! Send any information you deem relevant to the Federation right away. Send them our location immediately and have our location repeatedly sent out every 5 minutes until we get to the city. Bertha! All weapons ready lock and loaded. Focus on delay and obscure tactics. Hunter! Keep an eye on monster, but focus on our path. Anything that can slow us down, I want to know right away. I want a clear road back and no obstructions. Seth! Kong! Keep an eye outside. If you see anything funny, notify me right away.”

“ “Yes Sir!” “

Everyone yelled in response. Seth thought he even heard an unrecognizable deep voice that he never heard before coming from the rooftop.

Seth watched through the window at the rift as the Fortress Tortoise struggled in vain to escape from whatever punched through its shell. It became smaller as the Humvee was driven further from it. Whatever had strike through the tortoise was black in color and it seem to a claw due to it curved shape. Seth had not gotten a good look at the creature due to his panic at the sudden emergence of the situation.

Even when he lost sight of the rift, Seth still didn’t feel safe.

The following drive was uncomfortable as everyone remained in high alert.

It was only after an hour drive when Dan spoke up again. “ Alright, we’re a good distance away and should be safe for now.”

The tension in the vehicle immediately dropped and everyone shoulders relaxed at Dan’s words as they seem to have avoided the sudden danger.

“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?” Kong yelled out.

“That was a rift break. The monster behind that rift was a Class 5 threat. Echor can you confirm that?” Dan said as he focused on driving. Even though he said it was safe, Dan still continued to drive at maximum speed.

“Yes. The dimensional energy level that rift gave out was definitely a Class 5 level threat.” Echor answered.

“I haven’t felt like that in ages. Good thing we hightailed it out of there,” said Bertha.

“ I thought you guys were supposed to be an elite squad. Couldn’t you guys have handled it?" Seth asks curiously.

The older squad members looked sheepishly at Seth’s comment.

“Only a Class 5 Awaken can handle a Class 5 threat. We can handle threats up to Class 4, but that’s our limit,” Dan answered.

“Yeah! We're good, but not that good. Killing a Class 4 is not an easy job. Class 5 is beyond our paygrade,” Bertha said. Then she stopped and thought about it. “Wellll....if you give us time to prepare and unlimited ammunition and weapons, then it mmiiiiggghhhtttt be doable. Now that I think of it, killing a Class 5 threat might be a challenge worth doing. ”

“That is a task that the Federation does not have the budget nor resources for. They’ll never give permission for our squad unless it is in the most desperate of times. It is far cheaper and less time consuming to deploy Class 5 Awaken than to deploy our squad. Besides I estimate the probability of us winning was less then 3%.” Echor said, splashing cold water on Bertha’s imagination.

“Why so low?” Kong inquired.

“What we saw was only a small part of the monster. The part we witness could be a tongue, claw, tentacle or any other type of appendage that one could think of. It is very hard to verify what exactly strike the Fortress Tortoise unless you witness the dimensional entity in its entirety. And that is something we do not want to see.” Echor replied.

It was then Dan decided to comment. “You boys could be considered lucky that it was stuck behind the rift. It is not everyday that you get to witness a Class 5 threat and live to tell the tale. If it had broke out, the entire region would be in danger. We were fortunate that it seemed more focus on eating the tortoise than anything else. If you don’t intend to stick with the Federation in the future, remember this one lesson. If you ever see even a remote sign of a Class 5 threat, retreat as far as possible immediately. Otherwise, you wouldn’t even know how you died.”