The lecture hall's flickering fluorescents cast a pallid glow over rows of bored students.
Alex Mercer slumped in the back, his hoodie pulled low over his unkempt hair, doodling a tank tread in the corner of his notebook.
Professor Thorn's monotone voice droned on about medieval trade tariffs. "The Hanseatic League's dominance was not merely economic, but-"
A crumpled ball of paper hit Alex's desk. He glanced up.
Two rows ahead, Jake Wu smirked, gesturing to his own notebook filled with schematics for a plasma-powered drone.
Beside him, Lena Sato frowned, her fingers drumming a nervous rhythm on her color-coded binder. At the front of the class, Riya Patel stabbed a finger at the projection screen.
"This is reductive," she snapped. "The League's collapse wasn't just about piracy- it was systemic exploitation!"
Professor Thorn sighed. "Miss Patel, this is a survey course. Save the polemics for your thesis."
He turned to a tarnished brass orb on the lectern. "Now, this replica of a magitek artifact was recovered from a 12th-century dig site in…"
Alex's phone buzzed.
Another text from his mom: "Alex, we need to talk. Call me."
He swiped it away, his jaw tightening.
The orb's surface flickered faintly, etched runes glowing like dying embers.
His headache spiked, a needle behind his eyes.
The hum started low, vibrating in Alex's molars.
The orb's runes pulsed gold-and-black, casting jagged shadows across the room.
"Uh, Professor?" Jake raised a hand, his drone buzzing uneasily. "Is that thing supposed to-?"
Lightning crackled.
The orb erupted.
Students screamed as desks splintered into ash.
Lena grabbed Alex's arm, her nails digging into his skin.
Jake lunged for his drone.
Riya stumbled toward the lectern, eyes wild. "This isn't a replica, it's active!"
Host identified
The voice was ice and static, feminine and alien.
Neural compatibility: 87%.
Initiating translocation.
Alex's vision fractured, a kaleidoscope of screaming faces, the walls peeling away like burnt film.
He glimpsed Lena's terrified face, Jake's drone sparking as it disintegrated, Riya's hand reaching for the orb-
Then, nothing.
Alex hit the ground hard, bile rising in his throat.
The air reeked of ozone and scorched metal.
Above him, a sickly green sky throbbed like a dying heartbeat.
"What the hell-?" Jake groaned, clutching his drone. Its LEDs flickered weakly.
Riya staggered to her feet, blood trickling from a gash on her temple. "Look."
The landscape was a junkyard nightmare.
Shattered tanks rusted mid-crawl, their hulls etched with glowing runes.
Crumbling trenches snaked through the dirt, littered with bones and spent brass.
In the distance, something screeched, a guttural, mechanical sound.
Goblin raiders emerged from the wreckage.
Twisted creatures with patchwork cybernetics: glowing red eyes grafted into puckered flesh, rifles welded from scrap metal, jagged bayonets fused to clawed hands.
One grinned, needle teeth glinting.
"Move!" Alex yanked Lena behind a collapsed turret.
A bullet sparked off the rusted metal.
Summon protocol available, the voice intoned.
Focus on infantry.
"Focus on what?!"
Do it.
Alex clenched his fists.
Light flashed.
Five WWII GIs materialized in a burst of static, M1 Garands crackling.
The soldiers froze, wide-eyed at the alien sky.
Sergeant Malone recovered first.
A bulldog of a man with a cigar stub clamped between his teeth, his olive drab uniform frayed at the elbows. "Fan out! Covering fire on my mark!"
Private "Kid" Callahan, baby-faced and trembling, dove behind a tank tread, hefting a Browning Automatic Rifle. "What the hell are these things?!"
A goblin lunged, bayonet glinting.
Kid squeezed the trigger.
The BAR roared, tearing the creature's head into sparks and black ichor. "Freakin Robot zombies?!"
Corporal Vega, a wiry Texan with a handlebar mustache, fired twice.
"Ain't no zombies in the manual, kid! But they die just fine!"
The goblins adapted.
One scaled a magitek husk, hurling a grenade cobbled from rusted pipes.
"Grenade! Toss it!" Malone barked.
Private Delaney, a broad-shouldered Minnesotan with a sniper's calm, snatched the grenade mid-air and lobbed it back.
The explosion tore through the pack. "Play catch, you ugly sons o-"
A goblin's blade slashed Delaney's thigh. He crumpled, cursing.
Lena dragged him behind cover, her scarf tightening into a tourniquet. "Stay still!"
A goblin chieftain clambered onto a tank turret, its body grafted into a clanking exoskeleton.
A rotary cannon fused with glowing runes whirred to life, chewing the ground into geysers of dirt.
"Suppressing fire!" Malone roared. Kid's BAR clattered, forcing the chieftain to duck.
Vega flanked left, peppering the exoskeleton's joints.
Alex stood frozen. 'These men weren't NPCs. They joked. Bled. Died...'
Malone's glare snapped him back. "You gonna gawk, Lieutenant, or lead?!"
Direct them.
Valkyrie hissed.
They are your will.
Alex's hands trembled. "Vega! Left flank! Kid, keep that thing busy!"
Delaney, pale and bleeding, propped his Springfield against rubble.
A single shot cracked.
The chieftain's cybernetic eye shattered.
"Now!" Alex screamed.
Malone hurled a grenade into the cannon's barrel.
The explosion ripped the chieftain apart.
Silence fell.
Kid slumped against the tank, laughing hysterically. "Robot zombies. Robot zombies."
Malone lit his cigar. "Welcome to the war, kid."
Afterwards.
The surviving GIs secured the perimeter.
Lena's hands shook as she bandaged Delaney.
Riya traced a rune on a tank's hull. "These markings… Nazi engineering. But fused with magic."
Jake pried a glowing battery from a wreck. "This could power a city. Or a weapon."
Primary threat identified: Oberführer Klaus Vogt, designation 'Dark King.'
Alex spun.
A holographic woman flickered above his palm, armor shattered, eyes cold blue stars.
Termination objective: critical.
He stared at the dog tag in his hand, scorched and nameless.
Somewhere, a creature howled.
"Not Kansas," he muttered. "Definitely not Kansas."
Suddenly.
The ground trembled.
Beyond the ruins, shadows loomed, ghostly tanks with skeletal crews, their cannons humming.
Alert: Panzergeist battalion detected.
Alex's palms itched.
Somewhere in his skull, gears turned.
Summon protocol upgraded: M4 Sherman available.
"Bring it on," he growled.