"Incoming!" a horrible whistle pierced the the night air as Sergeant Dean Forester of the Rangers Special Task Force jumped into a nearby ditch. His equipment clattered as his stomach hit the ground; the recently developed prototype armor taking the brunt of the impact.

Crack-Boom!

The earth shook as superheated energy blasted apart the ground to his left, vaporizing a few unlucky task force operatives moving positions.

Sergeant Dean shouldered his modified SCAR-H tactical assault rifle. It was modified with an AGOG multi-zoom scope, green laser sight. A Surefire suppressor was attached to the end. The gun was painted in a forest camo, much like his current setting and sported an under barrel grip for recoil control.

He quickly shifted his head gear back into place before crawling to the edge of the trench and peering through his sights.

About two hundred meters down range, the enemy launched their hard-light projectiles towards the advancing humans.

These beings, the enemy, were called the Orith: a fanatical group of extraterrestrials who thought that they would invade Earth.

They had come in their spaceships by the millions, broadcasting a signal around the world with one message and one message only:

"Humanity is weak, and it is our duty to rid the galaxy of discrepancy. It is the will of the gods for your destruction, and we are their instrument."

As it turned out, the Orith severely underestimated Humanity. They made the mistake of giving us time to prepare; and prepare we did.

New technology had money literally dumped on it. We made things, things that one could only dream of. A group called Enertech came out with the first energy shield. They were big enough to protect cities but required immense power.

We created new weapons, bombs that could level entire continents, devices that allowed one to manipulate a field around any object and move it. The only problem with these new advances was that we did not know what our enemy was capable of.

That's when they finally showed up.

The Orith took Africa in just under a month, hardly losing any forces in the attack. By this point, the UN had mobilized the armies of Europe and began the march to defend their borders.... but the attack on Europe never came from Africa.

The Orith had taken some of their troop ships and landed them right smack in the center Austria, a lightly defended country at the time.

With chaos issuing around the globe, the only ones who hadn't stepped in yet were the US. The world found out why two days after the Europe invasion.

It happened fast, to fast. Dean himself got to see the launch of the new super weapon: the Hydron Collider.

The missile was launched from an orbiting space station. Faster than light, the missile struck dead center in the continent of Africa. Instead of an explosion outwards, the weapon expanded its energy in a massive dome around the targeted area. Anything from the East cost to the west coast was vaporized instantly.

The Orith lost a massive section of their army, but humanity lost an entire section of their planet.

With the evidence of a superweapon out in the open, the Orith stepped up their game. They bombarded cities from high altitude, they pushed into Europe and Asia, and they finally invaded North America.

That's where Sergeant Dean Forester of the Rangers Special Unit (RSU) currently was: defending his country.

His squads goal was to take back a certain tech facility in an Ohio forest. A task that was proving to be difficult.

"Move up!" The bolts of Hard-light had finally ceased and the team was able to push up. Dean slowly rose from his position and moved forward. His HUD kept him in sync with the rest of the squad.

The group finally reached the compound, huge metal doors blocking their entrance.

"Clarence, bring the rockets over here, everyone else, get clear." Our Captain whispered loudly. Everyone backed away but kept their guns trained on the door.

"Backblast!"

"Clear!"

BOOM!

Blue tracers leaped through the smoke and debris, smashing into the Rangers cover and raining debris everywhere.

Sergeant Dean pulled a Fragmentation grenade from his belt and primed it.

"Grenade!" he yelled as he tossed the small device into the darkness. There was a loud whump and the bolts of energy stopped.

"Move up!" Yelled the Captain. "Exo's! Up top!" That was Deans cue.

As the majority of the group moved through the doorway, Dean and a select few operatives ran towards a nearby wall. One thing about the new armour, it was basically a strength enhancer as well as a protective piece of equipment. The suit itself looked bulky, but was actually very lightweight. The spooks in their labs had tested some stolen hard light weapons on it and it was very resilient. It worked like kevlar in a sense where it spread the energy of the projectile across the armour. It wasn't indestructible however and could only take a few blasts. The major difference between this new suit and Kevlar? Kevlar couldn't stop hardlight.

Sergeant Forester reached 80 Kilometers per hour and did a flying leap. His prototype suit helped him clear the fifteen foot wall and absorb be impact of landing on the roof. Seven operatives landed just after him.

Dean's job along with the other seven was to find the main laboratory and destroy any intel before the Orith could acquire it. He figured that whatever was in the building was very important if high command was willing to send this many troops.

"I've got eyes on the entryway. Over." Dean recognized the voice of private Daniels and quickly moved to him. His HUD highlighted and recognized who spoke making it easier to pinpoint who was talking where.

"Not detecting any hostiles on the other side, its clear." Someone said from behind.

"I'm going in." Dean raised his SCAR and pulled. The door easily swung open, revealing a dimly lit staircase.

"The blueprints tell me the main lab room is just behind the door at the bottom of the stairs. Move quickly and quietly."

Explosions sounded from somewhere in the complex; they had to hurry. Dean briefly wondered if the rest of the task force was alright but shrugged it off, he had a mission to complete.

Dean crept down the stairs, his fellow operatives quietly following behind. They quickly reached the bottom of the stairs and stacked against the wall.

"I'm counting twelve hostiles." Private Daniels set down his thermal tracker.

"Flash bangs, then breach." Sergeant Dean replied.

Two Operatives moved to the front, each with a Nine-Bang in hand.

"Now." One whispered over the radio.

The one on the left opened the door while the other primed his Flash Bang and threw it in, the second one following quickly thereafter.

The group heard a few shrieks of surprise before the grenades went off. The helmets muffled the noise but the Sergeant could still hear the thump of the explosion's.

"Move!" Dean was the second one through the door and immediately found his first target. An Orithian machine gunner had his eyes covered, a mounted turret sat beside him, unused. Dean raised his rifle, lined up the reticle on his scope, and squeezed the trigger. The silencer muffled the shot slightly as the bullet ejected and the Orithian's head exploded.

Dean's squadmates packed through the door, their muffled gunshots making a deadly whisper throughout the room. Within seconds, all twelve Orithian's were dead.

"Lab clear." Dean called through his helmets radio. "Daniels, prime the C-12 for five minutes."

Dean walked around the lab, examining the various pieces of equipment. He passed what looked like an old stone archway attached to a control panel and stopped to examine it. Dean decided to move on and walked up to a dead Orithian. It's hard-light rifle laying in it's dead hands. The design was sleek, its total length coming to about three feet. The sides of the weapon were traced with glowing orange lines of energy. Some sort of scope was attached to the top.

"Get Down!"

Sergeant Dean had the time to turn his head before the world around him exploded. Hot shrapnel glanced off his armour. One particular piece missed his armour and embedded itself in the fleshy part of his left arm, causing Dean to cry out in pain. His body was thrown back and smashed into the boxy control panel near the arch.

Sergeant Dean's eyesight kept going in and out of focus as his arm screamed at him in pain. He heard gunfire erupt and the trade mark whiz of hard-light projectiles. A face appeared above him.

"Sergeant! Get up! The C-12 is armed and we need to-" Private Daniels was cut off as a hardlight projectile passed through his exposed neck.

Dean started to regain focus. A ringing was overtaking his ears as he searched for his gun. He heard the machinery behind him come to life but decided to ignore it, he had to help out his squadmates.

He finally found his SCAR on the ground and raised it to eye level. The hard-light shots as well as those of his fellow operatives were silent. Suddenly, the ringing stopped and he could hear odd sounds; it sounded like clicking, not a good sign.

Dean got into a low crouch and kept his gun foreword. A toppled desk provided him cover from the entryway. He slowly peered over it and got a good look at what he was up against.

A swarm of Orithian soldiers were making their way towards his position. Among them was a much bigger Orithian, likely a leader or commander. Said leader turned its head and pointed towards him.

"Shit!" Dean shouldered his rifle and fired. One bullet smashed into a nearby soldiers head, alerting the rest of them of his presence. Hard-light energy was launched towards him, but it all seemed to miss.

Dean knew he was going to die. There were to many of them. Even if he did manage to shoot his way out, their were several pounds of C-12 explosive ready to level the complex. He would never make it. A hard light projectile smashed into his torso, pushing him back. Sergeant Dean continued to fire as he stepped back. His left arm was numb, his thigh had been hit, but he could barely feel it. He shot another three Orithians before he noticed something from the corner of his eye. The archway had lit up and seemed to be slowly pulling him towards it. He ducked down and contemplated his options. The archway looked like some sort of portal, but he didn't know if he would be incinerated if he jumped through. He looked down and saw the look of surprise on the dead privates face, his neck blasted apart. Then he noticed the watch, the timer for the C-12. It read ten seconds.

With nothing to lose, Sergeant Dean did a flying leap, his armour boosting him towards his objective. He just fell short.

Hard-light exploded around him, one punched through the back of his already injured leg, another grazed the opposite foot, melting some of the metal plating.. The shooting stopped and he looked back. The leader was walking towards him, to bad it would never make it. Dean reached forward, his arm almost touching the portal. He heard clicking behind him and looked back to see some sort of pistol leveled upon his face.

"F-fuck... y-you." Dean coughed out. He quickly lunged and grazed the portal. He expected to have to be fully submerged inside it for it to work but was taken by surprise. The portal sucked him in and he felt himself falling. He looked back and saw only fire.

Dean felt himself losing consciousness as strange lights appeared around him. He was dying.

"I'm coming Marie, I'm coming..." He mumbled those last words as darkness enveloped him.

As Sergeant Dean Forester fell through the swirling vortex, unconscious, he failed to notice a certain mismatched face appear before him.

"You will do nicely," the being frowned down upon the figure. "It's time for a second chance. I hope this doesn't prove to be a mistake."

The being disappeared, but throughout the multiverse, if one were to listen closely, they would most likely hear the snap of fingers. A snap that would change the fate of a world.