Throughout this story there are Music tracks, real world characters/organizations that are mentioned. I do not own the rights to ANY of them.

I do own my OCs though, so don't steal em. That 'll just be a shit day for both of us.

Mostly you though.

Cover art was done for me by Crowbar. You can find her at paintingsfromouterspace. She does great work and is awesome to work with, will be linking the imgur album with the rest of her works she's done for me.

PROLOGUE

If you had told me a while ago that I'd be deploying to a different world and completely changing an entire way of life? I would have looked at you and laughed, I might've even told you to piss off.

"That'll never happen, I get out in a month."

Of course, I should've known better. Hell, any self respecting Marine or soldier should. Just when you think you're done, the military grabs you and throws you at something else. Of course, what can you do? What can we do? USMC, "You Signed the Motherfucking Contract."

But that's our lot in life and we own it.

The shit that happened to us over there, the experiences we shared, the things we saw...that sort of thing never leaves you. Can you blame us though? Magic? Fantasy creatures? Thousands dead by our hands? Everyone that went over there is being called the "Gate Generation". Funny right? And here I was thinking being part of the Afghan generation was something special. Then again, I suppose there's a tagline for every generation of troops.

Maybe we just lucked out, not often you get to go off to a different world huh? Lucked out...maybe that's not the best way to describe it, but if the shoe fits wear it right?

We didn't think about all that out there though, at least, we tried not to. That's a lot to cram into a young man's head you know? So we laughed, we smoked, winked at the "Locals" and hoped our superiors didn't catch wind of it (Which of course, they did regardless). We learned, we taught, broke out of comfort zones.

And we killed...a lot. More than any man should ever have to.

Was the campaign a success? Hard to say, I mean we've made a lot of progress, but there are still guys over there and more coming and going daily. After all, it is an entire world.

Either way, that "Gate" completely flipped the script on everything we thought was logical in our world. Nothing was ever the same after it opened, and nothing still hasn't been the same since.

Someone had to write about it you know? Put our feelings down on paper, funny right? You'd think being a tank crewman is all explosions and saving the day. Fist bumping and blasting rock music as the enemy runs away from you.

You couldn't be any further from the truth...

So here it is, all of it, everything from beginning to end. Whether you want to judge us for who we are or what we did is up to you, I couldn't care less to be honest. I did my part, I protected my brothers and we laid down the armies of tyrants.

And you know what?...Part of me would gladly do it all over again.

Excerpt taken from Jasper Kincaid's(Corporal, USMC, 2D Tank Battalion, Charlie Company) autobiography,

"The Gate Generation"