The commanders lead everyone. Avon began recording what he was seeing by first describing the scenery. He preferred to have audio record rather than writing it down as writing while walking was difficult for him.
"The surface of the planet is all metal. There are no signs of oxidation and corrosion meaning presence of moisture and other corrosive gases is negligible....wonder what the metal this is though....is it an alloy which doesn't react with other elements...then that would cancel out my previous speculation of negligible presence of corrosive gases and etc...
Also no dust can be seen to have settled on the surface. Sunlight's reflecting well off the surface making it look very shiny. Some tall structures can be seen far ahead in ummm...east.
The gravity is almost the same as steela..."
They continued walking for a long time. Avon glanced towards the sun in the north many times. Neither on Steela and on Earth had he seen such clear skies, so the sun rays seemed to be raining down on the planet with no filter in between. This reminded him that he hadn't seen the sun when in outer space. The sky was white with a orangish hue, so there was an atmosphere and it made the sky look beautiful.
Avon was busy making the audio records and didn't notice the time pass by. They had reached their destination.
There was a large circular arena, at the bottom the metal surface and large structures placed randomly like the perimeter of concentric circles on it. This entire arena was at a lower level, everyone was now standing on the edge. The depth seemed to be about 50 meters. At ends of the arena there were some openings, probably leading to underground passages, Avon thought.
Though he noticed one peculiar structure at the eastern end of the the arena, it was a huge circular entrance, almost 50m in diameter. It was surrounded by curved and twisted structures which looked like thick roots of a tree trying to encircle the entrance, except the roots were made of steel.
'Do I have to use the jets to go down?'
Avon was thinking of how to go down. He then turned towards the commanders, one of them jumped down and used the jets to slowly land. After confirming no traps were present using some device, he signalled others to land. Following the other commanders everyone else headed down.
Avon noticed that the commanders' armours were different than everyone else's, they were customized. Two of them had jets at the palm and arch region of their foot whereas the others had it on their backs.
All other basic armours too had jets on the backs including the prototype that Avon was wearing.
The commanders continued walking forward towards the centre of the arena. While walking they started giving out the instructions.
"We, the commanders and our ten elites will head into the heart of this planet through the entrance to your east. Remaining everyone continue recording your observations and collect any strange materials found for research. The final battle had taken place in this very arena and our enemies had used a strange metal capable of transitioning between different states. It was broken and scattered during the battle but we could not collect it as we had to focus on escaping the planet after killing The Protector."
'The Protector?..ah he was the strongest and the last one to be killed'
Avon remembered about the briefing that had taken place.
Avon began looking around for anything on the floor. As they headed towards the centre he could notice the after effects of the battle. The tall structures in the arena had been chipped at the edges and long cracks were visible. At one place a missile could be seen lodged at the side of a wall.
As Avon was continuously looking around, both on ground and above, he was walking at a slower pace than others and ended up being at the last.
"I'VE FOUND A PIECE OF THE STRANGE METAL"
someone shouted from ahead and everyone turned their head towards him.
"ME TOO!"
it seemed like there many pieces up ahead as more and more began finding the pieces.
'Why didn't they tell us about this thing in the briefing?'
Avon realized that it should have been told in advance and not just on arriving at the scene. Thinking and simultaneously looking for the pieces he continued walking ahead.
There were few pieces left for him to pick as most were picked up by the people ahead. He picked up two and just stared at them.
He stared at them for quite a while wondering how they could transition through different states but were no different than any other metal right now.
As stared at the pieces he slowly felt vibrations flowing into his hand. Faint but growing. Instinctively he knew something was wrong. The pieces virbated hard and then just jumped out of his hands. Everyone's pieces did the same.
"What's happening?"
"WHAT IS THIS?"
"BE ALERT!"
Avon could see everyone's pieces flying above them and after reaching the same altitude they all started moving towards the centre. Once they were above the centre they transitioned from solid to liquid and combined. Then poured down over the central region of the arena.
Avon remembered the central region had a circle on the ground with a hole at the centre.
'Did it go in that?'
"EVERYONE BE ALERT", he could hear the commanders through the comms. Prepared for whatever that might happen he bagan observing to find any changes that took place. A dull buzz could be heard approaching and he looked at the ground where a blue energy pulse passed by below him. He looked at others beside him, they were alert and waiting for something to happen too.
All of a sudden the footing began rising and Avon's first thought was,'It's begun'