After confirming with command that their blue force trackers worked, Eric had the soldiers load up. Last minute PCC's and PCI's were conducted, and Eric allowed five minutes for the soldiers to ready any last minute farewells.

The road out of Tuscaloosa was smooth sailing. Along the way, Eric had Justin photgraph anything of note. Since coming to the world two years ago, 6-8 had been documenting different types of animals, plants, and monsters. After the worlds of Brishan and Earth combined, the soldiers were tasked with taking note of any new monsters or plants they may encounter out in the field.

Justin grumbled to himself as he took a picture of a plant he had never seen before. It had a red tip, with a mouth that looked like that of a venus flytrap. It was also the size of a human. Justin regarded it with wide eyes. "What the?" He muttered. He watched as a deer walked up to eat from its petal like structure. As soon as the deer got its tongue on the petal, the plant swallowed the entire deer. It took less than a few seconds for the plant to open up.

Justin had recorded the whole event. "Uh, Master Sergeant?" He called quietly.

Eric looked over his shoulder. "Hey bud, when it is just you, me, Mike, and Jessica, you ain't gotta call me Master Sergeant. Just when we are around others. But, what's up?"

Justin turned to Eric, his eyes still wide in shock. "I just watched a deer get eaten by a plant." 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

Every head snapped to Justin. Jessica shook her head from the gunner's turret. "Great. Another thing to watch out for in this fucking world."

Every day the team had been stuck in the hotel, new discoveries had been made and announced through the news. Insects, monsters, regular plants, and animals were all effected by the merge, and the news would publish each dangerous species as they were discovered.

After the first day, Eric and the team made it to the halfway mark, but something was wrong.

"Why the actual fuck are there mountains here?" Eric growled. He had to crane his neck to look up, and couldn't see the peak of the mountains because the cloud cover was so thick through the treeline.

Eric sighed, and he looked at the soldiers that had hopped out of the vehicles.

"Secure the perimeter. 360 security. Lieutenant Hewitt, you are in charge until Captain Stryer and I get back." Eric said as he and Michael left the soldiers behind to walk to the top of a nearby hill. Eric called Milano on cell. "Sir, we have a problem." He said as he looked up.

"There are mountains where the Mississippi border should be."

Milano looked at the map, and Eric heard what sounded like a chair slam against a table. Their commander was on speaker phone, and neither Michael nor Eric commented on the noise. After a brief pause, Milano took a deep breath to compose himself.

"Do you see any way around it?"

"No sir. It is spanning as far as I can see. We may be able to travel up it, but doing that on unmapped territory would be risky." Eric responded while checking the map app on his phone. The mountains still didn't show up on the app.

"Alright, go ahead and travel around them. I want updates daily around this time."

The line went dead before either of them could respond. Eric sighed and put the phone away. "Man, he always fucking does that. I'm conviced the old man just likes hearing himself talk at this point."

Michael laughed before turning to look at the mountains.

"This is gonna be a long trip, isn't it?"

Eric sat down on a boulder, pulling out a cigarette. "Yep. I'm sure our wives will be super happy with that."

Michael rubbed his face. "Man... Ayeolla wants a baby. I'm sure when I get home she's gonna either pounce or have a collection of knives thrown at me."

Eric laughed and patted the captain on the back. "Good luck, bud."

Michael shook his head and glowered at Eric. "I'm telling Mia you smoke."

Erics' face went pale. "You wouldn't."

"I would."

The two men laughed before Eric looked to the west. "Alright, I say we start North. If we don't reach the end of this mountain range by noon, we turn around and go south. How much fuel do we have?"

Michael checked his notes. "We should have enough fuel for at least a day or so. We can fill up four more times. We also have about twelve hundred rounds of ammunition in reserve for the .556 rounds, and right around eight containers of .762 rounds. I think we have one AT-4 left."

Eric pulled out his phone, doing some calculations on it. "Alright. Hopefully we find a gas station or home before we hit twelve hundred miles. Our ammunition count is pretty small for a convoy of three vehicles. I should have asked Milano for more after the Ark fell."

Michael narrowed his eyes and looked up from his notebook. "You call this a 'small amount'?"

Eric took a draft from his cigarette. "Think about it, Mike. We could see Cartharic forces out here, some new monster or ravenous plant that likes human meat. We can see anything or everything all at the same time."

Michael closed the notebook. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

Eric finished his cigarette and they headed back to the vehicles. Justin was assigning guard shifts, and Michael looked at Eric. "They grow up so fast. I'm so proud." Michael said while fake crying.

Eric smirked. "Yeah, they do, Mr. 'Map upside down'."

Michael shook his head. "Fuck you."

Eric walked up to the formation. "Alright, check it out. Looks like we have to drive around the mountains. There is no telling what might be on the other side, or even how far the mountains extend. For now, stay on guard. Lieutenent Hewitt will assign shifts. Either myself or Captain Stryer will be on shift with you, so if there are any concerns, alert one of us. We are out here by ourselves, so raise the alarm for anything you think is worthy of attention. Any questions, comments, or concerns?"

No one spoke up.

"Good. Go. We will leave in twelve hours."