Captain Alastair Reid stood before his assembled team, the weight of their impending mission settling heavily on his shoulders. The briefing room, hastily converted from a London Underground maintenance tunnel, hummed with nervous energy. Reid cleared his throat, his voice steady despite the absurdity of the words he was about to speak.
"Right, ladies and gentlemen. Our mission is simple: we're to cross through a magical portal into a realm of fantasy and establish a forward operating base. Any questions?"
The room remained silent, save for a few nervous chuckles. Reid allowed himself a wry smile. "I know, I know. If someone had told me a week ago I'd be briefing you on how to fight dragons, I'd have suggested they lay off the hallucinogens."
He gestured to the crude map projected on the wall behind him. "This is Aeltheria, as best we understand it. Think Tolkien meets Arthurian legend, with a dash of cosmic horror thrown in for good measure. Our primary objective is to establish Forward Base Avalon here, near what we believe to be a strategic ley-line convergence point."
Dr. Eleanor Whitaker, their resident historian and ley-line expert, raised her hand. "Captain, given the unpredictable nature of ley-line energy, how can we be certain the location will remain stable?"
Reid sighed. "Short answer? We can't. But it's the best intel we've got, so we'll have to make do. Any other questions? No? Then gear up. We move out in thirty."
As the team dispersed, Lance Corporal Parvati Singh approached Reid. "Sir, permission to speak freely?"
"Granted, Singh. What's on your mind?"
She hesitated. "It's just... are we really prepared for this? Fighting insurgents is one thing, but dragons and magic? It feels like we're walking into a bloody fantasy novel."
Reid placed a hand on her shoulder. "Singh, a week ago, a hole in reality opened up over London and spat out creatures from myth and legend. I'd say we left the realm of reality far behind. All we can do now is adapt and overcome. Besides," he added with a grim smile, "I hear dragon scales make excellent body armor."
Thirty minutes later, Task Force Valkyrie stood before the shimmering portal that had torn their world apart. Reid took a deep breath, steeling himself for what lay ahead. "Remember your training, watch each other's backs, and for God's sake, try not to get eaten by anything with more heads than it has a right to."
With that, they stepped through the Gate and into Aeltheria.
The transition was jarring. One moment, they were in the rubble-strewn streets of London; the next, they found themselves in a lush, alien landscape. The air hummed with an energy that set their teeth on edge, and the sky above shimmered with colors that had no right existing in nature.
"Bloody hell," muttered Williams, Reid's old squadmate. "It's like someone dropped acid and decided to redecorate the universe."
Reid was about to respond when a high-pitched screech split the air. "Contact!" he shouted, dropping into a crouch as a swarm of winged creatures burst from the treeline.
They were like nothing Reid had ever seen – part bat, part lizard, with wicked claws and needle-sharp teeth. And they moved fast, diving and wheeling with unnatural agility.
"Open fire!" Reid ordered, his rifle barking as he took aim at the nearest creature. Around him, Task Force Valkyrie responded with disciplined bursts of gunfire.
The creatures fell from the sky, but more kept coming. Reid watched in horrified fascination as one of the beasts, its wing shredded by bullets, crashed to the ground and began to... change. Its body twisted and warped, taking on a vaguely humanoid shape before lurching to its feet and charging toward them with a feral snarl.
"Well, that's new," Reid muttered, adjusting his aim. "Singh! Any chance your Punjabi folk magic covers shapeshifting abominations?"
Singh, who was busy applying a tourniquet to a wounded soldier, shot him a look that could have curdled milk. "Forgive me, Captain, but I left my monster-slaying mantras in my other uniform."
The battle raged on for what felt like hours but was likely only minutes. When the last of the creatures fell, an eerie silence descended upon the battlefield. Reid surveyed his team, relieved to see that while there were injuries, they had suffered no casualties.
"Right," he said, reloading his weapon. "I think it's safe to say the local wildlife isn't particularly friendly. Let's move out before anything else decides we look like lunch."
They pressed on through the alien landscape, marveling at the strange flora and fauna that surrounded them. Whitaker was in her element, cataloging everything she saw with barely contained excitement. "Captain, do you realize the implications of this ecosystem? It's unlike anything we've ever encountered! The potential for scientific discovery is-"
"Fascinating, I'm sure," Reid interrupted. "But let's focus on not getting killed by said ecosystem, shall we?"
As the sun began to set – or at least, Reid assumed it was setting, given the way the sky had shifted from a disconcerting purple to an equally unsettling orange – they crested a hill and found themselves looking down upon a village.
Or rather, what was left of a village.
The buildings, constructed of some strange, iridescent wood, were charred and broken. Signs of violence were everywhere – scorch marks on the ground, deep gouges in the walls that looked suspiciously like claw marks, and dark stains that Reid strongly suspected were blood.
"Looks like we're not the only ones with problems in paradise," Williams observed grimly.
Reid nodded, his eyes scanning the ruins for any sign of movement. "Alright, people. We'll set up camp here for the night. Double watches, and nobody goes anywhere alone. Whatever did this might still be out there."
As the team began to establish a perimeter, Reid couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched. He gazed out at the alien horizon, where twin moons were rising in a star-filled sky that bore no resemblance to the one he knew.
"Welcome to Aeltheria," he muttered to himself. "God help us all."