There was chaos erupting at VGT Tyr's garrison.

"I understand. I will notify my members immediately."

Only just a few moments ago, the rift alerts had sounded not once, not even twice, but thrice. It was an event of unprecedented scale and now everybody from the mechanics to the logistical officers were rushing through the halls and doors in various states of panic.

VGT Tyr had just received the order to be on standby and shortly after, a ghastly white figure was seen walking down the busy garrison. At that moment, he was connected to the command center through the earpiece inserted into his ear. He told them, "I am afraid if we deploy now, we will be without our exo-gears, and for us to do that would be for us to fight at a heavily diminished capacity, and for us to fight without our shields. Unless hell has already broken loose and every second wasted could mean an extra life extinguished, immediate deployment will not be possible."

This man was Nemeadas, leader of VGT Tyr, and he was a figure that stuck out like a sore thumb. If Director Oryza was a human with a lion's face, then towering over two meters tall and with a body built like a tank, Nemeadas was an actual lion. He was a martial brawler by skill and a descendant of the Aslans, the once noble fierce beast clan of the Felid people.

"Our engineers have been caught at an unfortunate time. They were right in the midst of running the routine maintenance checks on our exo-gears before the alerts sounded. No, that will not be possible as our exo-gears are currently nothing more than a pile of loose parts. Is that so? I understand, but based on prior experience, an hour. That is the soonest we will be able to get ourselves out the door. I will urge the engineers to make haste with the utmost urgency."

After finishing his conversation with the operator on the other side, Nemeadas did just as he had promised. He took out VGT Tyr's pager and alerted everyone with a short message to gather immediately. When he put the device back into his shirt's pocket, a quick and small figure rushed past his legs.

"I'm here!" The blur shouted at him. "Leader, down here!"

"Jackie." Nemeadas acknowledged the presence of the little Lagos fighter by his legs. Small antlers ornamented her head and her free spirited nature embellished her smile

"You rang? I heard the alerts! I was just at VGT Ares' garrison drinking this delicious mug of hot chocolate with marshmallows, and whipped cream, and caramel sauce that Rendy made for me when everything flashed red! Rifts! And three of them too! I finished my mug right away and ran all the way here! I've never seen that many rifts open before in one go, have you?"

"I am afraid not. I have never experienced this before either, not in my twenty years here."

"So what are we going to do? Are we heading out? I'm ready to head out any time— Oh hey look, it's Krakjen, you're here!"

"I have heard your call, and I come to heed it."

Even though she had been in the middle of speaking with her leader, Jackie was someone who was easily distracted by her surroundings. In this case, it was by the appearance of another key member of VGT Tyr, Krakjen, the Arunian who dabbled at the engineering department during his free time. As a matter of fact, the mechanical exoskeleton and the six mechanical hands he wore on his body at all times was a fruit of that collaboration. They had taken the basic design of his exo-gear and modified it to a point where it was cleared for everyday street use. It was even compatible with his existing exo-gear and did not need to be taken off to put it on.

As Jackie ran up to Krakjen and climbed up to perch at her usual spot atop his shoulders, Nemeadas shook his head apologetically and said, "I am sorry you have to deal with jackie like this all the time."

"This is not a problem," Krakjen spoke, his voice clacking and rumbling with a guttural source, "I had daughter before. She was just about this size. Before she was eaten."

"But it is good that the both of you are here now. We have orders to dispatch," Nemeadas informed the two of their orders.

"Very well. I shall prepare my rites. A sacrifice to Great N'gothla shall be offered this wonderful night." Krakjen raised his arms into the air and rejoiced.

"Really?" Jackie exclaimed before jumping back to the ground as spontaneously as she had gotten up. "I will go get my stuff right now, then we can go right away!"

"It is good to have haste, but it is not good to rush. It is unfortunate, but our exo-gears will take some time to prepare. Our engineers are doing their best, but they were caught at an inopportune time. Instead, we shall be making use of this opportunity to brief with Sheng to learn more about our enemy and then make our plans accordingly."

"Aye, aye!" Jackie saluted.

…

"Yajinn!"

Stopping in front of their ADVs, armored dispatch vehicles, Nemeadas called out with a strong roar that drowned out even the loud noises at the garrison. Although he had already paged the members of VGT Tyr to gather, he also knew his members well, and had a feeling he should go around and look for some of them just to be sure.

When he asked, he had been assured by some of the engineers that they had last seen Yajinn here right before the alerts went off. So when nobody responded, Nemeadas knew it could have only been due to one reason, therefore he walked around to the back where he saw them. Yajinn, their support caster, had been immersed in their own world with a pair of heavy duty headphones with a pair of horn attachments clamped over their ears. They were bobbing their head up and down to the music and he was able to hear the loud metal music blasting even from far away.

"Yajinn!" Nemeadas called out once again. This time, the tiny Yajinn must have noticed, because right after this, Nemeadas heard the volume of the music increase by double. Seeing this happen, he walked up to Yajinn and picked up the entire chair they were sitting on and turned it around to face him.

"Oh hey, Nemeadas, what's up?" Yajinn asked innocently as they quickly turned down the dial on the side of their headphones. As part of a race of elemental spirits, Yajinn had no fixed form or gender but had taken a liking to the petit form of a Durinn girl. There was a story behind it, Yajinn had alluded, but it was not one that they had told just yet.

"Work, but I suppose that you failed to notice." Nemeadas then explained the situation to Yajinn with a few brief words. "Three rifts have appeared within Singapore's borders and we have been given the order to dispatch."

"Perfect!" they exclaimed before handing two laser etched metal tags to their leader. "I just got the new VAF Variable Array Formation system running as well! I would have never expected to be able to get some field data so soon. Here, this is for you and Garmr. These will act as your personal anchor for the array formation so don't lose it! Alright, I'm going to go and pack all my drones into the truck now!"

"Wait!" Nemeadas hurriedly called out.

"Wazzwut?" Yajinn stopped in the middle of a greatly exaggerated running posture.

"Our exo-gears are still in the middle of maintenance. The engineers are hurrying, but it will take them some time so we will be having a briefing in the meanwhile."

"Is that so? Alright, in that case let me just put these things away real quick and I'll be right there. Ah, by the way, if you're looking for Iteza, you may want to check the unused board rooms on the third floor. I hear that an Oni has been bringing some of their personal belongings there because those rooms haven't been seeing much use lately."

"My gratitude, I will go look there right now."

…

The second to last member of VGT Tyr that Nemeadas had yet to find was Iteza, the Youkai of Oni lineage who was born on Earth. As the youngest member of the team, and also the newest, he still had a lot of room to grow… and to mature as well.

"Iteza," Nemeadas growled deeply as he stepped into the board room. The man— no, he was not a man yet. In Nemeadas's eyes, Iteza was no more than a boy, and after seeking this boy out for the better part of ten minutes during this time of emergency, he was finally found, and what important thing had he been doing—?

"Catch the freeze! What are you doing? Ulti him! Ulti him! Fuck, are you taking a nap? Did you get carried to this rank? We could have killed him!"

—This boy was playing computer games and streaming it to an audience online.

"Iteza." Nemeadas said again, but he would not stand for saying it a third time.

"You moron! All you had to do was aim your mouse and press Q! Even an idiot sandwich can play better than you!" Screaming at his microphone in frustration, Iteza slammed his fists into the keyboard before continuing to flame his teammate on the other side of the screen.

For Nemeadas, this was the last straw of many that had continuously been piling onto his back. His huge frame, even when standing next to someone on the taller end of the spectrum such as Iteza, was still towering— and as an Aslan martial brawler, his strength was nothing to scoff about either. He easily picked the Oni up by the scruff of his neck with but a single hand and simply dragged him off, any unfortunate cables that had gotten in the crossfire be damned.

"Whoah! Nemeadas? What the fuck, man? I'm in the middle of a game— I'm streaming right now!" Iteza cursed at his leader, but his complaints went completely uncared for.

"It is time for work, boy. I have already paged you once. The second time will cost you dearly," the Aslan snarled, revealing all the razor sharp teeth normally hidden behind his gentlemanly demeanor.

If it had not been for the fact that Iteza had already gone to relieve himself at the restroom just recently, then at this moment, he might have experienced quite an unfortunate and embarrassing accident in public for all to see.

…

And then finally, although he was already running later than he would have preferred due to Iteza, Nemeadas still took special consideration as he went to call the very last member of VGT Tyr.

A door was opened and he entered. The room was dark, cool, and quiet. It was like a different world here, separate from the problems and concerns of the outside. There were nine beds here, but only two were being used, and of those, only one was occupied. Carefully, Nemeadas approached the one bed, where a red haired woman clutched onto a sword nearly as tall as herself as she laid deep in slumber.

"Garmr, it is time to wake up," he nudged her with the most delicate touch.

"Neme?" Garmr stirred gently and then asked whilst in a dream-like trance. Her hand then slowly reached for Nemeadas's own and her eyes closed as she brushed it up against her face. Out of everything in this world, it was this familiar scent that calmed her down best. "Why are you still awake? Is it the morning already?"

"No, love," Nemeadas shook his head and responded affectionately, "there is an outbreak event. We have orders to dispatch, but we will be having a briefing before that."

"Alright. I understand." Languidly, Garmr propped herself up where she then sat off to the side of her bed. She was in a severe state of undress, but it did not bother her in front of Nemeadas. "You can go on ahead. I'll be there once I wash my face and change into something."

"No, I will stay and help," saying this, Nemeadas walked over to the sink on the far side of the room and turned on the hot tap. Whenever it was left unused for a while, it always took a few moments before the water would heat up enough. During this time, he took the opportunity to take one of the clean towels off the shelf to use. At the same time, he could hear the sound of clothing rustling and he knew that Garmr had already begun to get dressed.

"You know whether I go to the briefings or not doesn't matter. Whether it's a slime or a wyvern, venomous, burning, or freezing, what I can do remains the same as always. I just have to grip my sword tight enough to never let go and fight."

Nemeadas touched the flowing water with his finger. It was hot enough now.

"One minute, two minutes, it hardly matters. My answer remains the same as well. At the end of the day, the reassurance I would feel if you were properly briefed about what we would be up against far outweighs the loss of those scant couple minutes. Here."

"Thanks, Neme." Garmr accepted the hot towel and, for just a moment, basked her face in the warmth it emanated. "I'm good to go."

"Have you taken your pills today?"

"I did. Before I went to bed."

"Then let us not waste another minute." Nemeadas nodded as Garmr took her sword and the both of them began to head towards the briefing room.

…

…