Same as all the people before them, the process of going into the portal and out on another place was no different than just walking into a room, in this case a building, that while not as big or full of equipment as the one they were before, it was still cluttered with equipment, a steel door at the front, with a couple of machines at the side of the portal emitting a gentle blue glow. However, for the Imperators something completely unexpected happened. Their helmets were released at the same time as soon as they stepped into Porta Paradisi.

Marcus shouted. “What the fuck!?”

Natalia didn’t say anything; however, she had a surprised face, the same as the other one, both reacting at the same speed as the helmets were removed, by pulling out their weapons and readying themselves for combat.

The helmets didn’t stay off for more than two seconds before they covered their heads again automatically, still they didn’t drop their fighting stances. The people near the portal on the other hand were scared at how the new Knights coming in would instantly take out their weapons and stand ready to strike at them or anything near them right after coming in.

General Hull was taken aback by their actions. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” he shouted as he warily walked over to the Imperators, who weren’t moving yet while keeping their weapons out. “Now, I understand you have to be ready for combat, but this is a bit of an overreaction. Don’t you see that everyone else is also getting ready to attack? Please put down your weapons.”

The soldiers and Knights keeping watch over the portal all had their weapons ready and aimed at them, so Natalia slowly put her weapons away. Marcus decided to keep his fighting stance.

“That was weird…” said Natalia with some doubt in her voice. “All system checks indicate that there is nothing wrong, and it doesn’t even say that there was an event or an unwanted action from our part, it’s like nothing happened, but—”

“This was that fucker Jerry’s doing!” interrupted Marcus. “I knew this shit was too good to be true! I better go back and give him a piece of my mind!”

Everyone inside the building was confused at the seemingly out of nowhere reaction of the new people coming, same as the General, who had an eyebrow raised.

Before Marcus could turn around and go back into the portal, Natalia stopped him. “Wait. I don’t think this was Doctor Hobbs’ fault. Don’t you feel it too? There’s something strange, it’s like there’s something in the air,” said Natalia while looking at her clenching and opening hands.

Seeing that the Imperators had calmed down, General Hull walked over to them and asked them, “Mind giving an explanation of what is going on with you?”

“As soon as we walked out of the portal our helmets got removed without our intention to do so. Imagine you walked here and your arms suddenly went up for no reason, it was something like that,” answered Natalia, to the doubtful look on General Hull’s face.

“Then was it a system malfunction of sorts with your shiny armors? Should we send you back?” the General asked.

Before the Imperators could answer, a door at the front of the building next to the steel gate was strongly pushed open, it’s door instead of sliding like the ones back in Central Park, moved on hinges, so the force from the person walking in made the door slam against a wall and make a loud noise.

“What kind of Knights think that they can walk into my base, pull out weapons and make a ruckus the second they set foot in here and think that they’re getting away without punishment!?” shouted a woman walking in.

She was shorter than Natalia but not by a lot, her body was lean with a small frame that was covered by the normal Knight armor of gray metal plates connected with a black membrane. Her skin was pale like milk, she had black hair and dark brown eyes, and her facial features were like those you’d see on an Asian pop idol. However, those features were overshadowed by the dangerous look in her eyes and the deep frown on her eyebrows that seemed as if she was ready to kill someone.

“Well, General Hull? Tell me, who is going to be cleaning toilets with their bare hands for the next few weeks?” asked the woman as she was angrily walking over.

Once she stood in front of the Imperators, General Hull turned to look at her as she stopped next to him. “Ah, Commander Han. These are the new special Knights sent over by The Corporation’s headquarters.”

“Only these two? I expected something more, something that we could actually use in the field in case of a second contact,” she said with annoyance in her voice, pointing at their armor, “and what’s with those shiny armors? Must be something that their parents in some executive position gave. Well too bad, cus you’re on toilet duty now.”

Marcus laughed at her. “I like the idea that some weakling can give orders to me!” He looked back at the portal. “Besides, I have to go back to kill Jerry.”

Commander Han scoffed at Marcus’ dismissive attitude. “Fine then, go back to daddy and tell him about how the scary commander out in the field told you to clean toilets, coward.”

Marcus stopped on his tracks as he was walking back into the portal. A soft chuckle escaped from him, suddenly turning around and walking in the direction of the commander. However, Natalia got in his way before he could get any closer.

“Get out of my way, Natty. This bitch is deserving of some teaching,” said Marcus with some annoyance in his voice.

The commander heard what he said and laughed out loud. “Oh so the spoiled brat thinks he can walk over me?” she put on a serious expression while pointing back with her thumb to outside the building. “How about we go out into the training field and you show me what you’re going to teach me.”

Everyone on the building put on a pitying face in the direction of Marcus, with some voices saying, “Oh man, I can’t believe that someone already got on the wrong side of Commander Han,” and another one responding to it. “Hey, at least we get to have a little bit of a show.”

The people on the building were sharing the same kind of words among themselves, while General Hull didn’t say anything and just looked with a straight face.

“I’ll take his place for this combat training,” said Natalia before Marcus could respond to the provocation of the commander or the voices in the building.

“What? Are you his girlfriend or something? If you want to get your ass handed to you, I can gladly do it after dealing with him before sending you both to cleaning duty,” responded the commander with contempt on her face.

“Nothing of the sort. I just wish to test the armor’s systems to make sure that everything is working fine, and I’m afraid that Marcus wouldn’t care about that nor about your life,” Natalia calmly said, letting the taunt go by as if it was never said.

The commander turned to look at Marcus. “Are you just going to let her protect you like that?”

“Ha! I would just straight up kill you, lady. Take the lifeline that Natty has thrown at you and talk to me after that.”

“Fine, whatever. Follow me then, princess, I’ll show you what this place is all about,” said the commander with a smirk on her face to Natalia.

Some of the knights and soldiers on the building got excited at the idea that the commander was going to give a beating to some newbies, so they started picking themselves up and quickly going after the people that were leaving.

Seeing this, the commander got infuriated and shouted towards the people getting ready to follow them, “And where do you think you’re going, huh?! You still have a duty to do in your posts! This isn’t some show for you kids, and if you dare take a step forward away, I’ll be sure to give you some pointers later too! Understood!?”

The people froze on their spots for a second before quickly turning back to their posts and shouting at the same time. “Yes Ma’am!”

The commander sighed. “Bringing me so much trouble already,” she said in a low voice, almost to herself as she was walking to the door she had slammed open before, quickly leaving the building.

Natalia, Marcus and General Hull followed after her, leaving all the people inside the building somewhat disappointed that they couldn’t follow them as well.

* * *

When they stepped outside, they could finally see what this world had to show for them on this base. The sun was shining warmly, while the ground was dry and dusty, lacking the colorful blades of grass on it. Such a desolate view covered all of the base and a few kilometers away from it; however, on the near horizon, the colorful trees and mountains behind them were still there, just as the footage from the first expedition showed.

The base of Porta Paradisi wasn’t all that grandiose either, since it was mostly made up of quickly assembled smaller buildings made out of thin metal in an arch shape, with a few smaller vehicles around them. The perimeter of the base was that of a wired fence with observation towers spreading a few dozen meters from each other, each one holding a mounted weapon on it with a couple of common soldiers to man them, and in-between the towers, Knights of lower rank were doing patrols, with the higher ranking Knights keeping watch over the closed gates that lead outside the base.

The commander walked over to an open field where either soldiers or Knights were training, shouting at the people there. “Alright! Clear out the field, I have a lesson to teach here!”

Some of the people were confused by the order but quickly started moving to the edges of the field, while others got excited at the event that was about to take place and almost ran to grab a good spot to watch. Marcus also stood at the edge next to General Hull, leaving Natalia who was calmly walking behind the commander to the middle of the field.

“Do you have any rules about this combat exercise?” asked Natalia to the commander that was already waiting for her to stand in the middle.

“Rules? You only have to hold out as long as you can before I leave your face on the dirt,” scoffed the commander, before pointing at Natalia’s head. “You can leave your helmet on if you're too scared, but it’ll do nothing about the pummeling I’m going to dish out.”

“I will fight with it on and remove it later. I still have to test things out,” responded Natalia, not paying attention to the taunting words of the commander again.

“Suit yourself princess,” shrugged the commander. “Literally.”

The commander did a couple of hops, took a fighting stance, and waited for Natalia to get ready. However, Natalia didn’t change her posture from just standing straight while looking back.

“Aren’t you going to get ready?”

“It’s ok, begin whenever you want,” answered Natalia with a calm tone.

“Cocky kid,” said the commander with a low voice.

The commander looked at Natalia for a few moments, either thinking about where to begin or to let Natalia worry about what she was going to do. However, she didn’t let her wait for too long as she suddenly sprung forward with incredible speed in the direction Natalia was standing, with so much speed that most people would only see a blur of the person moving.

Natalia on the other hand didn’t have an issue seeing what the commander was doing. She could see that the commander was going to throw a punch at her stomach, but as soon as the commander was in front of her, what came instead was a swift kick to the legs. Natalia wasn’t surprised, responding to the attack with a small movement of her leg, letting the swipe pass by without making contact.

Some of the stronger people in the base saw that and were surprised, at both the viciousness of the kick thrown by the commander and at the fact that the other party was able to easily dodge it.

The commander was slightly surprised at missing her hit, but that didn’t stop her from pressing the attack, quickly shifting her stance and throwing punches. Each punch was fast and carried enough strength to lift up even the dust from the ground with the gusts of wind they were producing. What’s more, she was unrelenting, not stopping to let Natalia have a break.

Natalia, however, was easily avoiding all her attacks, it looked like for her each punch was nothing more than child’s play, since no sound was coming out of her and her movements seemed to be very intentional, not at all out of instinct.

Noticing that none of her attacks were connecting, the commander got slightly frustrated, taking a step back, only to take a deep breath and throw an extremely fast punch to Natalia’s head.

This one connected, leaving a loud boom on the field and raising dust from the ground. Some people were amazed, while others were worried that the commander might have gone too far with the newbie, killing her instead. However, once people looked again at what happened, they saw that Natalia had blocked the attack with the palm of her hand.

They weren’t moving, and the commander was grunting while her fist shook in Natalia’s closed hand. She struggled a bit to get free; however, Natalia threw her away instead, sending her back a few steps from where she was.

“Systems seem to be working perfectly fine,” said Natalia with not a shred of worry or exhaustion in her voice.

The commander, while not heaving heavily, was still panting a little, with a bit of a surprised face. “Not bad, I guess I shouldn’t underestimate you.”

Saying that, she dropped her stance and stood straight, pulling her hands up to her front with her palms facing herself. She quickly closed her hands and a sound came out of her armors with a few lights on the plated parts illuminating.

“I’ll get serious with you now! So don’t disappoint me!” shouted the commander as she took her combat stance again, a slight smile floating on her face.

Natalia withdrew her helmet, showing her face and flowing hair. Some people were amazed by her attractive looks, while others were regretting that the commander was going to beat her up now that she went into full gear. Natalia ignored the people around the field but she did notice that the commander had activated the common Peace Knight armor systems and was impressed by the raw strength that she had displayed so far. Under normal circumstances, the commander would probably be a few steps behind where she was.

This time, the commander flew forward much faster than before, and in the same way, her attacks were faster and stronger, forcing Natalia to dodge closer to where the hit was going to connect, even blocking some of the attacks.

A laugh came out of the commander. “Come on! Show me what you’ve got!”

It seemed as if she was enjoying the ‘combat training’ now, so Natalia raised an eyebrow, but still kept up with the other party’s relentless attacks. However, Natalia felt that the combat training had already gone for too long, she had already checked the armor’s systems, and that while the commander was very strong, she wasn’t going to be able to break her defenses, so Natalia finally attacked.

While blocking one of the commander’s attacks with one arm, Natalia took that opportunity to parry it by taking a swift step forward, which shook the commander’s stance, following that up with a punch of her own. The strike wasn’t any slower than any of the commander’s, the commander was clearly able to see it coming, so she blocked it, or at least tried to. What the commander didn’t expect from this strike was the amount of power that it contained, creating a loud boom when it hit her that not only shattered her form completely but also sent flying away a few meters.

The commander landed hard on the ground like a rag doll, and didn’t make a sound.