A loud boom was heard, followed by a few more that continuously shook the ground. The sounds were coming from a battle hall where the floor, walls and ceiling were made of steel. Cleavon and an office lady were watching as Natalia and Marcus traded blows with each other, each strike fierce enough to kill anyone hit by it.

Marcus jumped back a few meters from where Natalia was standing, and held a couple of daggers with a reverse grip in his hands while keeping an offensive stance, ready to jump back at it again.

The daggers on his hands were long, jet black, straight, with very sharp edges that ended in a nearly perfect pointed tip.

A laugh came out of Marcus after which he said. “Man these weapons are amazing! Just let me have a bit of a cut on you, Natty.”

Natalia on the other hand was standing with her arms raised in a similar way to a Muay Thai combat stance, however, not quite the same, she was a bit lower. Her hands were covered by huge gauntlets that extended all the way to her elbows while also extending beyond her hands. The gauntlets had pointed tips on the knuckles, they also covered her fingers in a way that made it seem as if they were claws, and the back part of it, starting at the elbows, sharp bits in the shape of feathers extended almost covering her whole arm up to the shoulders. Overall they looked more like two long shields on her arms

Marcus chuckled. “Do you honestly think that you—”

Natalia interrupted him by closing the gap extremely fast in his direction, followed by the huge fist in her hand exploding on the flat side of Marcus’ daggers. She followed up with several blows being thrown in a row that Marcus kept blocking. However, suddenly one of her blows sent Marcus flying.

The direction in which he flew was exactly the same spot where Cleavon and the office lady were standing. Cleavon raised his eyebrows seeing the man flying his way, the office lady jumped back in shock and covered her face with her arms, while Natalia looked on without moving from where she was.

Marcus swiftly turned midair and kicked hard in the direction where the people were standing and as soon as he did that, something that looked like a blue energy force field blocked the kick in its path, sending another exploding sound and shaking the ground again.

The field had a shield shape and it was coming out of the ground. It covered the space in front of Cleavon and the office lady, making it hard for anything to come closer to them. Marcus simply pushed himself backwards from it, sending himself away again in the same direction where Natalia was standing, ready to welcome him.

As she was getting ready to throw a blow at him, Marcus suddenly turned again and swiped at her with a dagger from the top, in a vertical motion. The strike was somewhat unexpected for her, but she quickly changed position with one of her arms raised in defense, instead of attacking.

The swipe sent Marcus flying over Natalia and made him land a few meters away from her, leaving her between Cleavon and himself.

“How about you— whoa!” a long spear was suddenly thrown out by Natalia when she did a quick full rotation, interrupting Marcus in the middle of his taunt.

He quickly blocked the fast moving spear, which made him open his defense a bit due to the force it carried and sent the spear up in the air. The short opening was swiftly followed by Natalia, who closed the gap instantly and threw a punch towards Marcus’ head.

Marcus dodged it by forcefully bending his body backwards, following his movement with a kick to Natalia’s stomach, which she managed to block with her other free arm, seemingly expecting such a move from Marcus. From that kick, Marcus managed to distance himself from Natalia, while also stopping any other movement from her.

The spear landed on the side of the hall, making a loud sound as it fell, far away from everyone.

“Did you really think you could do a surprise attack on me? Those are my specialty baby!” Marcus laughed out, then pointed one dagger towards Natalia. “I noticed that you were shifting your way over to one of the weapons when we were fighting. You’re going to have to try harder than that to get me!”

Cleavon stopped them before they went back into another fighting stance. “Alright, that’s enough for now. You’ve been going at it for a few hours now, and we have to get moving,” he turned to look at the lady in office formal wear standing next to him. “Still, those weapons are quite impressive. I was worried for a while that they would kill each other, or destroy this place.”

“Yes, those were designed mostly by Doctor Hobbs after all, so they carry the top of the best technology the Global Alliance Corporation can make, from their sturdy material, to their shape and even the distance recovery system on them to bring them back to their hands with just a thought; everything in them had no expense spared,” she answered with some pride on her voice, while looking at the weapons.

“What if someone were to grab them after they are thrown?” asked Natalia while looking at the daggers in Marcus’ hands.

“Well, the weapons themselves were designed to work in tandem with the armors, so the recovery system, as well as the carry system wouldn’t work for anyone else otherwise, and most importantly, they would lose their edges and swap over their balance as soon as someone that isn’t the owner holds them,” answered the lady keeping a professional tone, as if selling a product.

“Ohoho, so they would turn into a crappy bludgeoning stick,” said Marcus while continuously flipping one of the daggers in the air. “Not that that would stop me from having fun with someone either.”

Cleavon turned to the Imperators. “Come on, we have to move to the portal area now.”

“Wait,” said Natalia as the gauntlets removed themselves and slid to her back, settling in a way that made it seem as if she had small wings. “Are these the only weapons we’re getting?”

“Oh yeah! I was wondering what kind of ‘bang bang, ouch!” kind of weapons we would be getting after having a taste of these,” followed up Marcus after he placed the daggers on his forearms, leaving the edges poking out beyond the elbows.

The office lady tilted her head and raised an eyebrow with a questioning look on her face as she looked at Marcus, who was looking behind her.

“We’re talking about guns, rifles and the such,” followed up Natalia by pointing at a rack of different weapons, clearing the confused face on the office lady, who turned to look behind.

“Oh, those are still under development. We left them out because we cannot guarantee a proper chain of supply beyond the portal for ammunition, and we wouldn’t want you to lose your ability to fight if you were to run out of ammo. But don’t worry! The range of the recovery systems of your armors is more than two hundred meters, so you’ll still be able to strike anyone from afar,” she said with a bit of an apologetic look.

Marcus withdrew his horned skull helmet throwing a mocking smile at Natalia. “And how are you going to hit someone from far away, Natty? You only did gap closers on me and threw a random stick you found.”

Natalia turned towards one of the steel walls on the hall, she readied a striking stance, and as one of the gauntlets from her back was sliding to her hand, she threw a quick punch forward. The glove flew out of her arm in a fist shape at a very high speed and struck the wall that was then deformed, leaving a big hole after the loud impact. The gauntlet then bounced off and drew an arc midair to finally easily settle itself back on her hand.

She withdrew her Valkyrie helmet and looked coldly at Marcus. “To throw your weapon away in the middle of combat is stupid.”

Marcus laughed and didn’t say anything else.

Cleavon shook his head. “Let’s get going then. There’s a job to be done.”

They started walking out of the hall, with Cleavon and Natalia being the first ones to step outside. Marcus was still inside the hall since he was the one that was further away from the exit. However, as he was walking he suddenly stopped and looked in the direction that the office lady was standing, who was making a report on her tablet. Marcus did a half smile as he was looking in her direction.

Outside the hall, as the ones that were outside were leaving the area, they heard the voice of the office lady. “Um! Excuse me Lord Nossa, I can’t let you—”

“Shuddup, I get to get what I want.”

“But you’re going to get me in trouble…”

Natalia’s face hardened when she heard the conversation, so she started hurriedly walking back into the hall.

A sound was heard from inside, but just before she turned to go into the hall, Marcus came out of the hall with a satisfied smile on his face. He had strapped on his back a huge sniper rifle that almost reached the floor, and on his waist he had a belt full of long bullets.

Natalia raised an eyebrow as she looked at Marcus’ new weapon. “What is this about?”

“Oh, well I figured I wanted to carry with me some ‘bang bang, arrgh’ weapons and this one just seduced me, so I couldn’t stop myself from taking it out with me on a few dates,” answered Marcus while nodding his head.

Inside the hall, the office lady was standing with her hands on top of her head while looking at the weapons rack.

“Are you going to be ok?” asked Natalia while looking at her.

She answered with worry in her voice. “Oh, I don’t know how I’m going to explain this to the higher ups. I wasn’t supposed to give anything else!”

Natalia walked closer after what the office lady said, and gave her some words of comfort. “It’s very simple. Just tell them that a heavily armed and dangerous Imperator went over you and took it. In particular, tell them that it was Marcus that did it and that should clear you of anything,” the office lady composed herself a little, but still held some of the worried face she had before, so Natalia continued, “Also tell them that if they don’t overlook it, I’ll talk to them myself, in my own way. They’ll understand after that.”

The lady calmed down after that, picked up her tablet, and smiled. “Okay, I’ll keep that in mind. I still have to report about the state of the hall, so I’ll stay here. Please go on ahead with your mission.”

Natalia nodded and looked at the state of the half destroyed training hall they were in before, but left soon after while murmuring to herself. “I wonder if she’ll get in trouble for the destruction of the place…”

As she was walking on the hall outside towards an elevator, Marcus was already standing at its doors and shouted to her. “Come on! I got monsters to cut down and evil demons to shoot! Quit wasting my time!”

Natalia shook her head as she walked over with a slightly quicker pace since everyone else was already on the elevator.

Once she was on it, and it started moving Cleavon said, “We’re going to the base via air transport, get off on the portal site, and then I’ll leave you in charge of the General beyond its gates. He’ll tell you what you’re expected to do in that world.”

“And here I thought the great corporate executive Colton was going to come with us to make sure that we did ‘what’s best’,” said Marcus sarcastically.

“I wish I could, but I’m not fit for combat, and there’s still plenty of things to do on this side. The Big Man up there is always on the lookout for trouble after all,” answered Cleavon while pointing one finger up.

Marcus chuckled, but didn’t say anything else. Same as for Natalia, that stayed quiet as the elevator went up the building.

* * *

The engines of a jet powered VTOL were cooling down in front of a big concrete building that was shaped like a cube and had no windows that could be seen anywhere on its exterior, having only one huge steel gate at the front. This building looked somewhat out of place in the middle of the Central Park, however it was built there and like this to completely cover the portal and protect it from any outside interference as well as ensuring that it doesn’t cause any damage, should anything unexpected happen.

Cleavon could be seen walking out of the aircraft, followed closely by the armored Imperators that were drawing the looks from the other Knights and common soldiers working on the site. They quietly walked up to the steel gates that slowly opened as if expecting them, revealing a buffer zone inside for inspecting anyone and anything coming in.

Once inside, the steel gates closed and scanners started going around the area. However, an alarm was heard and a voice came out of a speaker. “We’re detecting unknown equipment on site, hold on a moment as we clear it for you Mister Colton.”

“This wasn’t cleared before we came here, Cleavon?” asked Natalia not expecting any issues at the gates.

“Your armors and weapons are brand new technology, created by means only known to Doctor Hobbs, so we couldn’t bring them out here nor register them as safe for passage,” answered Cleavon as he walked over to a camera.

“The system doesn’t seem to allow entry…” said the voice beyond the speaker with slight frustration.

“Alright, how ‘bout I test this new rifle and see how well your steel doors handle it!” shouted Marcus excitedly as he pulled the sniper rifle from his back and started pulling a bullet out of his belt.

Cleavon stuttered when he saw Marcus getting the weapon ready to fire. “H-hold on Lord Nossa! You can’t just tear down the place like that, at least not while I’m standing next to it!”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be careful…” smirked Marcus while slowly moving the bullet to the rifle’s chamber.

“Hold it!” said a different voice out of the speaker, this one being rougher than the younger one from before. “I’ll override the system and open the doors for you right away, so put your weapon down.”

The doors opened before Marcus could refute the voice or arm the weapon, so he just clicked his tongue and put the rifle on his back as well as the bullet back on the belt.

As the doors opened they could clearly see the portal in the middle of the building, with its blue hue and its red glowing edges. All around it there were machines pointing at it to measure things that only the people that placed them there understood. In the ground going into the portal, there were multiple cables, all of them different diameters, but all of them thick with a metallic luster. On the sides of the portal, there were a couple of machines emitting a gentle blue glow, and all around the area there were Knights similarly armed as the ones shown on the first incursion from the footage.

From the side of the opened steel gate that they walked in from, an older man dressed in an elegant military uniform walked out of a door. He was slightly tall, with a lean build, his skin was wrinkly, his eyes were green and his hair was already completely grayed out.

“Colton, a shame that we should meet with such a tense situation just now, but I’m glad that nothing happened,” he shook Cleavon’s hand and then turned to look at the Imperators. “You must be the special Knights I was told about.”

The Imperators withdrew their helmets to show their faces to the man.

“Yes, these are the Global Alliance Corporation’s greatest assets, Imperatrix Natalia Laroy and Imperator Marcus Nossa,” said Cleavon as he presented them with a movement of his hands.

“Imperator and Impertrix, huh. I had heard there were some specially ranked Knights somewhere above the Dukes, but didn’t think anyone could be stronger than what a Duke already is,” the man answered with slight surprise at both the rank and the way that the helmets disappeared. He looked at Natalia, and continued, “I’m amazed at how the technology even lets your hair flow out freely like that. Do you have to pick it up yourself? Wouldn’t it be better to cut your hair short?”

“This is the Global Alliance Corporation technology. If they think about it, they can do it. And no, the armor itself picks up my hair after I bring the helmet back out, so it doesn’t get in the way,” she answered as she flicked her red hair. “We still haven’t heard who you are.”

The man swiftly changed his posture and did a military salute. “I am General David Hull, I’m in charge of both the Central Park base and the Porta Paradisi forward base for the land beyond the portal.”

“Porta Paradisi?” asked Natalia with one eyebrow raised.

The General eased his posture. “Yes, that is the name for the base on the other side of this here portal. It was chosen by The Big Man himself after seeing some images of the place, so we just went with it.”

A chuckle came out of Cleavon as he nodded his head. “As expected of him,” he then looked up to the Imperators and the General. “Well, this is where we part ways. General Hull, you’ll take it from here.”

“That I will Colton, there’s much to be done and I’m in need of these so called ‘greatest assets’,” the general answered before turning to look at the Imperators. “You will follow me now into the portal, and I’ll brief you on what the Corporation wants us to do there.”

The General started walking to the portal, and the Imperators walked behind him as well.

“Good luck out there,” said Cleavon as he looked at their backs.

“Luck is for the weak,” answered Natalia without looking back, with Marcus laughing after hearing that.

When they were standing in front of the portal, the two of them reformed their helmets and waited for the General to walk in.

“There’s no need to be in so much alert, the base is as secure as it can be, especially after dropping that bomb on the first contact,” he said while calmly looking at them.

“We would rather not take our chances. After all, on the first mission the Dukes that went in were told the same thing,” said Natalia while Marcus nodded along.

“Fair enough,” answered the General.

The general then took a step forward and disappeared into the blue light of the portal. The Imperators stood for a moment, before taking their steps into the portal as well.