Crypto's Anagramatic Odyssey

Crypto sat in the waiting room, watching the door with anticipation. The mission was finally upon them. After three weeks of training, they were ready to begin their epic journey across the stars. There was a brief moment in time when Crypto questioned if this would be worth it, if he would see his home again. Of course, that doubt had been erased during the first battle simulation.

Crypto and his fellow Apex Legends had successfully simulated a battle against the Outlaws and won. It had been quite easy, actually. Slogging through the mud at the bottom of the valley, avoiding enemy patrols and carefully placing traps, it all came back to him. And as he watched his colleagues fall one by one as they attempted to traverse a ravine, he knew he was still *the one*. He could do this; he could save them all from certain death.

He looked up at the massive window that was showing a view of space: an endless ocean of stars twinkling silently away into infinity, each one another life-giving sun for some distant world. Crypto felt his heart swell with pride as he thought about what lay between those pinpoints of light: his home world - planet Earth. After so many years away among these aliens, he still missed his homeworld deeply; but there was no place like home and he would do whatever it took to return there safely.

The door opened and Crypto snapped out of his stupor. A large man clad in blue entered the room with a tablet in hand. As he approached Crypto's chair, he made eye contact with him and said "I'm Doctor Gromit". Crypto stood up and shook his hand firmly before sitting down again. Doctor Gromit sat down across from him and began to speak. "We've spoken before about your mission." Crypto nodded in agreement but didn't interrupt as Gromit continued speaking: "You will be dropped off on this planet here", he pointed to a bright green dot on the screen behind him that resembled Earth more than any other planet they'd passed on their way here, "and you are to collect samples from around the planet for further analysis."

"That's it?" asked Crypto incredulously, "We're just going to land on this planet and walk around? No enemy resistance or anything?" Doctor Gromit chuckled before answering him: "Yes...well...this is just the beginning of your mission." He took out a tablet similar to his own from within his lab coat pocket and set it on top of another device covering most of his desk surface nearby: "This is an electromagnetic field simulator that we have created specifically for your mission." Doctor Gromit pressed a button on its side and suddenly, one whole wall behind him turned into an enormous display showing a map of their destination planet. It zoomed in on one small area in particular before zooming back out again to show a much larger area where they would be landing: right in front of an enormous mountain range covered in deep purple fog surrounding its highest point (a peak shrouded in clouds).

Doctor Gromit continued: "It's important to know that we are sending you somewhere that isn't safe for us to be ourselves." He paused for a second before continuing: "There's some kind of magnetic anomaly protecting that part of the planet from our scanners." He placed both hands on top of his desk and leaned forward with determination written clearly on his face: "We need you to send us data about this anomaly so we can find out exactly what it is."

"Why don't we just send someone else?" asked Crypto curiously as he looked back up at the screen behind Doctor Gromit. The image showed a map displaying all of their previous visits to alien planets over the past 20 years or so; almost none were green like this one was indicating their current destination was, meaning that almost all alien planets visited had no magnetic anomalies protecting them whatsoever. This meant that almost every alien planet was safe enough for humans to visit without any protective gear whatsoever! Of course, those previous missions had been aimed towards scientific research rather than collecting samples (like their current mission) so maybe those facts weren't directly related after all... But still, why couldn't they send someone else? They definitely had better odds at surviving than he did since they wouldn't have all these extra precautions to deal with such as...