Chapter 292 Poppy Dome
The temptation to peek at the colour of the portal was killing Quinn. However, he decided to keep the black sack covering his face, after all, it wasn't worth it. There was no need for him to worry about where the 1st military base was. Actually, he didn't really know why he was getting a little obsessed over it.
It wasn't like he was working for Pure or the Dalki, they would've done anything just to obtain this type of information. Even if Quinn did know, it wouldn't have helped him with anything. Unless he was planning to take on the military, but he could never imagine doing such a thing in his entire life.
The second his body passed through the portal, he could feel the strange sensation that would usually occur. It felt like your mind was melting. The experience wasn't all that bad, but the imagery was certainly strange.
He was actually surprised that when passing through the portal, this strange sensation didn't wake up the other students. This also meant that the gas, or whatever was used to knock them out was strong enough to disable them. As he thought into it a bit more, he was kind of surprised that it was able to place Fex asleep.
Having decided to not take off the black bag, once through to the other end of the portal, Quinn continued to pretend to be knocked out. His body was chucked and moved, gently sometimes by some, and quite rough by others.
As they continued moving about, he consistently heard strange mechanical sounds around him. It was driving him a little crazy since he was trying to picture what was outside by only using his ears.
'I wonder how Leo does it... I would hate it if I became blind.' Quinn couldn't help but think this.
Eventually, after a couple of hours of being chucked around from place to place, his body wasn't moved for the last fifteen minutes. And then, the first student other than him woke up.
"What the—! What the hell is on my head?!" The student shouted out. Despite opening his eyes, the only thing he could see was the color black. The thought of the world being taken over entered his mind, this caused him to start screaming.
"Ahh! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Please don't kill me!" The student continued yelling before feeling a bump on the back of his head.
"Calm down, will you? You just arrived at your destination," the soldier explained as he took the bag off the student.
Because of his screaming, it managed to wake up quite a few students. Very slowly, every one of them started waking up.
"Please remove the bags from your heads and stay where you are until further instructions have been made." The voice was recognizable and it seemed to come from Old General Mike.
All of the students did as instructed and removed their bags, and for the first time in a while, they could finally see. The students were slightly confused as to where they currently were.
There was no clear sky, and all that could be seen around them was metal. A thousand students all stood on a clear open space with the generals at the front of the large room.
"Are we still in the hangar?" A student asked. Quinn couldn't blame the student for thinking that because it really did look like they had never left the hangar in the first place. However, only he knew that they had gone through a portal.
All of a sudden, the sound of something coming from behind them could be heard. The pressure head was released and the light started shining through. When the students turned around, they could see the sides of whatever they were in opening up, and a metallic platform stretching out. It eventually hit the floor, there was a good ten meters from the opening before the platform had touched the ground.
"Please make your way down the vehicle." Mike continued his instructions while the soldiers at the front led the way.
When stepping outside, they finally noticed that they were in the 1st military base. However, it didn't look all that different from theirs. It was more like a city with certain buildings surrounded by construction. There were mechs out and about, transporting cargo.
The main difference was the size of the base itself. It was nearly two times more than theirs. However, the most shocking thing they saw so far was the sky. Although it could be seen, it looked slightly different from what they were used to. This vague feeling continued bugging Quinn, however, he couldn't figure out why.
What he did notice though, was the shine going all across them. The entire city seemed to be encased in a large glass-like dome. And around the edges was a high rise wall, making it impossible to see what was outside of the city unless one was in an airship.
Once the students looked behind them, only did they realize what type of vehicle they were in. It looked like a submarine on wheels. The thing was extremely huge and it had sixteen wheels the size of houses on its side.
Quinn was starting to realise what was making all that noise from before. The teleportation device must have transferred them somewhere, and later, they needed to be moved via the vehicle in front of them.
Once all of the students were accounted for, the vehicle started retracting its platform, once it was finished, it immediately headed off in a different direction.
Mike, Nathan, and Duke went out to greet another soldier. They later followed him until they reached a train stop. Since the base was large, getting to their destination by foot would probably take them a few hours.
While riding the train, the students were able to see more of the city. It seemed like the city itself was split up into different sections. And between each section was a small barrier. Each of these sections had soldiers focus and prioritise on different things.
At one of the sections in the city, they witnessed mechs being built and tested. In the next one, it looked like they had beasts in captivity and were doing some type of experiments. And next, it seemed as if it had combat focused classes, and so on and so forth.
They then went and passed the city centre. It was a large dome-like building which looked like a miniature version of the base itself, it firmly stood at the centre. The top of the dome had a flower-like design that looked similar to a poppy.
The army decided to use this symbol after the first war. Most of the battles between the Dalki took place on earth. There was a lot of blood spilled on the battlefield. Once the war was declared over, something strange seemed to happen.
On the fields all across the world where most deaths had occurred. Fields of poppies grew. In the past, it was said that something like this happened once before, however, it had been long forgotten. Despite that, they still chose to use it as their symbol
This building was the world government's headquarters. It was where the Eight Head Generals, the leader, and the four big family leaders would meet to make their decisions. It was like they were in control of the world.
The train continued moving past the city centre and eventually went towards the back of the city where it seemed a little less busy. They passed another small barrier of some type, and many mechs and soldiers seemed to be standing guard.
They entered another part of the city which was separated from the others. Once the train finally stopped, the students got off and continued to follow Mike.
After they exited the trains, they could finally see where the event was going to take place. It was an arena that was large enough to host Olympic games right in front of their eyes.
It was quite round in shape, almost looking like a wheel on its side. And became it was made of glatherium, it had a slight tint of blue in its color. What surprised them the most, however, was on top of the arena stands, seven large buildings looked to have been built into the thing, making it look like a crown.
The seven buildings had a clear open glass that was tinted black. All of them faced inwards towards the arena. On the front, there were large numbers starting from one and ending at seven.
"Okay, since you guys are from military base two, please make your way to the second building," the guide who had been leading the generals spoke to them. "Because you're the first ones here, when you finish unpacking your things in your rooms, you are free to explore the area. The buildings here are like hotels, you are allowed to check in and out whenever you want for now. Outside the top of the arena, there are many shops and markets stationed for use.
"Since you guys won't be participating in the event itself, we wanted to make you all feel welcome. Shop around and have fun, see if there is something you want to do and treat your stay here like a holiday. Just remember to support your teammates when you can."
Quinn was wondering where the others were since he hadn't seen them... Although he saw them in the hangar, but as they were the first ones to enter, they were shortly separated once again when they moved in the large vehicle.
The participants were most likely already in the field, or were staying at a separate location altogether.
The students followed their teachers to the arena, while the generals had split off into a separate direction.
With the large building having plenty of space to accommodate everyone, each student was allowed a room completely to themselves. The atmosphere was quite relaxed.
After unpacking his things in the hotel room, someone knocked at Quinn's door, when he opened it, both Vorden and Fex greeted him.
"Come on! Let's go and explore this place. It's so cool! I've never been in such a nice area before!" Fex said excitedly.
After shutting the door behind him, the trio went and explored the arena's shops. Meanwhile, at the train station, another train just arrived, bringing in another set of students from another military base.
One of the first people to get off the train... was Teacher Silver.