Connor really hoped the cameras got everything.

  That was his first coherent thought as they hurriedly pushed their way through the undergrowth, trying to get back to the main trail—boots slipping on damp loam and leaves the size of dinner plates, breath uneven, hearts pounding.

  The ambush-clearing had disappeared behind them, swallowed by shadow and foliage, as though the forest itself were just as eager to forget what had happened there.

  Connor never would.

  The image was going to haunt him for a long time: vines snapping forward with terrifying speed, slime coated thorns that numbed skin and muscles on contact, dragging his team towards that obscene nest of layered mouths.

  He could still feel the phantom pull at his arm, the way the plant had known to grab his sword arm so he couldn’t swing at it…

  It was a plant. But here that apparently meant it was also an apex ambush predator.

  They had cut it apart. Burned it. Blasted it until the earth itself cracked.

  Until there was nothing left but a hole in the ground and twitching roots.

  Connor rolled his shoulder, trying to work out the numb ache in his arm. He glanced back once more, shield half-raised, before forcing himself to face forward again and take a deep breath.

  You’re clear, he told himself. Act like it.

  “Next time,” Maddie muttered, scraping sappy goo off her sleeve with the blade of a dagger, “I’m filing a formal complaint against vegetables.” The humour of her words didn’t come across in her tone and the haunted look in her eyes and the fact that she wouldn’t make eye contact with anyone, flat out pointed to the lie.

  Brandon walked with his sword clenched too tightly, eyes flicking from shadow to shadow beneath the canopy. He flexed and unflexed his left hand over and over again, clearly trying to get some feeling back. Red welts ran up the length of his sleeveless arm, still weeping and raw. Once the vine had his hands he had been useless for the rest of the fight.

  Victor, infuriatingly calm, stepped around a coiled vine that had made Maddie flinch and said, “That was a lesson. I think it’s been easy to forget we’re in a new world and don’t really know the rules here yet. Training in the village has kept us in a bit of a bubble.”

  Ethan snorted. “Yeah, well, I’ve been here for almost two years and I have never heard of sentient plants.”

  Connor looked over at Ethan as he spoke. He knew Ethan had lived in the village with his father—some scientist or engineer working in the Undercity—before moving into the training hut with them, but didn’t realize how long he had been here. His dad must have been one of the original scientists on the project.

  Ethan was tapping his fists together as they walked, bursting with excess energy as always. Even the attack hadn’t stopped that. “It waited until we were all well within its range. Did you notice that? It didn’t just grab the first thing that came along, it tried to get all of us.”

  Nobody answered him.

  After a few minutes, Emily, silently walking ahead of the group, raised a hand. The team slowed automatically and bunched up behind her as she stopped beside a massive tree with bark that looked like layered stone.

  Connor noticed how everyone instantly responded to her and filed it away.

  Light filtered down in green-gold shafts through the canopy above, illuminating the faint glow of Emily’s halo rig.

  Emily Vargas—Seraphina Dawn, for the show. Connor wondered who came up with that dumb name. She leaned against the tree, wincing despite herself, trying to look less upset than she clearly was and failing.

  “I think we’re clear,” she said. “For now. Does anyone need any medical attention,” she asked, looking around at the team, pointedly looking at Brandon who just shook his head.

  Connor watched her say it. Watched the way her gaze moved, not just over the terrain but over them. Counting injuries. Reading posture. Assessing.

  She wasn’t posing now. For a change.

  “We should keep moving,” Connor said before she could continue. He immediately hated how desperate that had sounded.

  Emily turned toward him.

  Connor braced for resistance.

  Instead, she just nodded and said, “Agreed. But not too fast. Brandon’s hands are still shaking, Maddie’s limping, and Ethan—”

  “I’m fine,” Ethan said immediately, bouncing on his heels. One of his crossbows looked worse for wear and had been smoking after they left the plant clearing. Connor wondered what they were exactly—apparently Ethan had built them himself and they weren’t ordinary crossbows by any means. Whatever they were though, those crossbows had been the deciding factor in the fight, having detonated a bolt somewhere inside the plant’s root mass, finally finishing it off.

  “We all took hits,” she continued. “Hits that we should have avoided altogether.” Connor rolled his eyes at the obvious comment.

  She studied Connor for a fraction of a second longer than necessary, then inclined her head. “Let’s move then.”

  They did.

  That familiar pressure started building in his chest again—that tight, burning frustration he felt when he knew he wasn’t living up to expectations. It had been there all weekend and had only become worse since this morning, since Reach’s office and Valentina’s cool, measured disappointment.

  Control yourself, he told himself.

  He forced his tone even. “The flag’s got to be close. We made good time before that plant… thing.” He would not let his voice choke up. “We have to beat A Class,” Connor said.

  Emily didn’t rise to the tone in his voice. That irritated him for some reason.

  “Let’s move then,” she said. “Eyes open everyone. Let’s not stumble into another mess.”

  The forest changed gradually around them as they advanced. The trees spread farther apart, their trunks thicker. Vines hung from every branch, making the group flinch as they walked.

  A lot of the trees in this area were scarred near the ground, layered bark shredded and scored. The undergrowth thinned the further they walked, replaced by churned earth and the sharp, musky stink of animals.

  Connor, who had moved forward to take the lead, caught the scent and raised a fist.

  They stopped immediately and he nodded to himself.

  He pointed ahead at several dark shapes moving through the trees. “Boar.”

  Victor’s lips curved faintly. “A sounder.”

  Ethan, who had been walking further uphill, returned to the group and dropped into a crouch. “A large sounder.”

  Connor looked at them confused, but before he could say anything Maddie asked, “Sounder?”

  “It’s what a group of boar are called. A sounder. I don’t know what a normal size is, but from up there,” he pointed back up the hill where he had been, “you can see a large glade up ahead and there are dozens of pigs there and more moving through the trees in front of us.”

  “Can we go around them?” Victor asked.

  Ethan stared at the dark shapes moving through the deeper shadows of the trees ahead before responding. “Yes… but the flag is in the clearing. So, this is the challenge.”

  There was silence as they all considered what to do next. Connor broke the silence. “We should move closer and get a good look at that clearing. See what we’re up against.”

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Nobody had any objections to that, so, after consulting with Ethan on the best approach, they circled around the boars in front of them and eased forward together, careful now, until the forest finally opened up and they stood near the edge of a large clearing. They hid behind massive tree trunks around the edge. There was very little undergrowth here.

  The clearing itself spread wide before them, a broad basin of long trampled grass and exposed soil ringed by trees. And near the back, sticking out of a massive rotten stump surrounded by piled stone, was the flag, fabric snapping lazily in the light breeze, its beacon now clearly showing on their HUDs, pulsing faintly.

  It was so close Connor could practically hear the praise that would be heaped on the team when they brought it back to basecamp. He looked around the edges of the clearing, but there was no sign of Alex’s team. He smiled.

  All they had to deal with were the pigs.

  Connor’s breath caught despite himself. They were massive. Far larger than anything he’d ever seen before. Bristled hides, scarred and thick, muscles rolling beneath as they rooted and snorted and moved with casual dominance through the clearing.

  Some were easily the size of large ponies.

  The males were unmistakable—tusks yellowed and curved like scimitars and notched from old fights, shoulders hunched with raw power, eyes small and black but alert, watching over the sounder as they fed. The females moved in looser clusters, still enormous, but a little smaller than the males.

  Emily inhaled slowly. “Okay. What do we do about this?” Her voice was calmer now.

  “We have to get that flag.” Connor said, focused on that goal.

  “Obviously,” Emily snapped, then calmed herself. “Maybe we sneak around the clearing and get as close as possible,” she said, pointing to the back side of the clearing.

  “Fire maybe? They’re animals right? Animals don’t like fire,” Ethan said as he looked through his large pouch of crossbow bolts for something specific.

  “That could work,” Connor answered. “If we just scare them, we can rush in and grab the flag.” He looked around the group, thinking about who could do what. He was probably the fastest, so he should probably run for the flag.

  His thoughts were cut off before he could say anything though. One of the larger males had lifted its head, nostrils flaring. It snorted—a deep, resonant sound that carried across the clearing. All of the animals paused what they were doing and raised their heads in the air.

  Another snort answered the first. Then another.

  Connor’s pulse spiked.

  Ethan said, “I think we lost the element of surprise. Are we going with fire? Or does anyone else have a better idea?”

  Connor didn’t look away from the flag. “This is the challenge.”

  Emily turned to him. “This is wildlife. Not a dungeon. Are you saying we go in there and kill them all?”

  “That just makes it easier to predict,” Connor shot back—then stopped himself.

  He closed his mouth. Counted to three.

  “We don’t have to kill them,” he said. “We just have to break their confidence. We blast them with fire, maybe we take down a dominant male,” Connor said, “the rest scatter. That’s animal behavior.”

  Emily stared at him. “These aren’t deer.”

  “This is the kind of test Reach talked about,” Connor said quietly. “The one where hesitation costs you the story. We move in, we blast up the terrain and scare them. I’ll run for the flag, then we get out. Easy.”

  That landed. At the end of the day, Emily wanted the spotlight as much as he did.

  Emily studied the clearing again, longer this time. Connor watched her consider. Distance. Numbers. Terrain.

  When she looked back at him her eyes were almost as cold as her voice. “I don’t know.”

  Her tone cut into him. In his mind he saw Reach’s disappointed frown. Valentina’s precisely folded hands.

  You lost control, Reach had said. You embarrassed the program.

  You embarrassed yourself, Valentina had added, cool and precise.

  Connor swallowed.

  “This is our chance,” he said, softer now. “We break their line and they’ll scatter.”

  Emily hesitated. For a heartbeat, no one spoke.

  Then Maddie said, quietly, “We better choose fast, some of those pigs are coming this way.”

  Emily’s jaw tightened.

  She glanced at the clearing again. At the distance they were going to have to cover. Then back to Connor.

  “Get to that flag. But we need to keep this a controlled engagement,” she said at last. “If it goes sideways, we pull back immediately.”

  Connor nodded. “Deal.”

  ***

  It was like being hit by a truck. Connor slammed into the ground and slid through the loose litter for metres. He lay there for a moment, looking up at the sky, just trying to breathe.

  The giant male had paced in a large circle after hitting him, but now burst forward with a terrifying speed, earth flying beneath its hooves as it barreled straight for Connor on the ground, tusks lowered, eyes locked. Connor could feel it through the ground beneath him.

  Connor cursed, but before he had a chance to react, an explosion erupted on the ground in front of the charging animal. The boar roared and wheeled off, away from the blast.

  Connor looked up and saw Ethan reloading his crossbow. There was no time for gratitude, that would come later. He rolled over and pushed himself up. Painfully. Everything hurt.

  He had not made it very far into the clearing yet and there was still a wall of bristly flesh between him and the flag.

  The boars had not panicked after all. Instead some of the males had pushed the females together into a tight circle while the rest charged the group of humans. The fire and explosions just seemed to be pissing them off.

  Connor raised his shield. There was no way he could run around the sounder now, unless they could scatter it. He didn’t have anything to do that though. He was relying on Ethan and Brandon for the biggest distraction and they were already raining down fire and explosions.

  It just wasn’t doing anything.

  Connor cursed as two males trotted towards him. Each weighed at least four times what he did. There was no way he could take another hit like the last one. He was pretty sure that getting his shield up was the only thing that had saved him from multiple broken bones.

  Brandon unleashed a volley of purple-black plasma, bolts splashing against bristled hides and scorching the ground in front of Connor. The effect was dramatic—smoke, shadow, a concussive wave—but the boars did not flee.

  They pranced backwards a little and roared.

  Emily’s halo effect flared as she raised her gauntlets, golden light lancing out in a wide arc, blasting across the ground and hitting one of the males square in the chest, sending it tumbling onto its side with a furious squeal.

  Ethan threw in a couple of small bundles, traps that he had rigged up. The ground erupted in a series of sharp cracks as spring-loaded caltrops deployed, slicing into hooves and legs. One boar went down hard, thrashing, earth churning beneath it.

  Connor felt a surge of grim satisfaction.

  They bleed. We can still do this, he thought.

  Then the largest male charged. Up until now it had been moving around the group of females, protecting, staring at the humans but keeping its distance. Apparently he decided it was time to do something.

  The alpha dwarfed the other boars—easily a thousand pounds of fury and scar tissue, tusks notched and stained. It charged, but not at Connor. It was going straight towards Emily, but she hadn’t seen it yet, focused on keeping the other males back as she was.

  “Shit!” Connor shouted.

  He moved without thinking.

  The world narrowed to motion and sound, geometry and the thud of his own heartbeat. He sprinted, holding his shield in front of him with both hands and slammed into the boar’s shoulder, diverting its charge just enough that it missed Emily by only a foot or two.

  The impact sent Connor spinning and he hit the ground hard, breath exploding from his lungs as pain flared through his ribs. He rolled, barely twisting his shield around in time as a tusk gouged a furrow inches from his head.

  Then Emily was there, golden light flared from her hands directly into the boar’s face. It wheeled away, furious, hurt, but preparing for another charge.

  “Fuck!” she shouted. “Fall back—Fall back now! Everyone.” She reached down and grabbed Connor under one arm.

  He pushed himself up slowly, vision swimming.

  Another boar barreled in from the side.

  Brandon’s Dark Pulse detonated nearby, a wave of force blasting outward, knocking back several boars and finally—finally—breaking their formation as they all spun away from the impact.

  They didn’t flee though. They just trotted in circles. Snorting at the group. A wall of muscle and tusks and rage.

  Emily’s voice cut through the chaos. “We have to go, now!”

  Connor nodded. “Fall back!” he echoed, hoarse.

  They ran.

  ***

  We need to stop using the term apex predator as if we had any idea what qualified on this world.

  Back home, the designation was useful. It described animals that sat at the top of a relatively stable food chain, limited by terrain and local competition. You could model behavior, range, and threat with reasonable accuracy. We could do that because we knew what 99% of the wildlife was in those environments.

  The same cannot be said of Earth-3.

  When boars weigh as much as a hippo and have no meaningful fear response, “large omnivore” stops being a descriptively helpful category. When local bears exceed grizzly benchmarks by fifty percent and exhibit both problem-solving behavior and camouflage abilities, size alone ceases to be a sufficient metric. Add possible sentient plant life capable of entanglement and envenomation and even the lines between flora and fauna start to break down.

  Even before we start including any of the sentient monster populations, the classification of Apex Predator is already a broken concept.

  When it comes to humanoids, we’ve had run-ins with both Goblin groups and Ripari clans, both of which operate as coordinated pack hunters with advanced tool use, terrain shaping, and generational knowledge of local kill zones. They are not predators in the biological sense, they are more like humans, but they fill the same functional niche—and in some many exceed it. They adapt faster, withdraw intelligently, and hold grudges.

  The working conclusion for perimeter planning is this: until we have a comprehensive encyclopedia that includes all forms of local fauna AND flora, assume everything that looks at you is an apex level threat. I’m still not sure about those bloody horned rabbits, but the way they stop and stare at you is completely unnerving.

  Operations Log, SHIELD

  Outer Perimeter & Scout Coordination

  Lt. Pavel

  Epigraph chapter tomorrow

  New story chapters on Wed. & Fri. this week.

  Consider checking out this story as well: (???)つ━━???: *?