CHAPTER 1.

Don't touch the unknown artifacts.

It was an early morning on a territories of a Cordon, a place from where the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone starts to shot it's colors, militaries making their outposts with minefileds from the Zone's side and where a rookie stalkers start their career and learn about the local threats and businesses, with their "classes" starting from a so called Rookie Village where a 40 years old and a bit scared person, known by most as Wolf trains stalkers and makes sure that they might be able to survive another day, at some point being a bit sick of doing that job for almost 2 years or even more, what isn't such a big surprise due to some restrictions in places where you can go in that case and need to constantly make sure that everything will be fine in here.

And at some point one young stalker in a light brown leather jacket with a hood was considering himself to be lucky enough to make sure that he won't go to do the Wolf's job after staying in Cordon for quite a long time even for a rookie, though that doesn't mean that he had no reasons for doing so as he went to a back entrance of the village and went to an entrance to a small bunker inside a hill, soon getting inside of one room where he quickly noticed no one else, but a 60 years old fat and a bold white male with a clear Slavic facial features and some Jewish as an old man said to him -Hello there "Grandson", brought any oranges ?

-Not really, but I guess those will suit too, by the way, Sidorovich, will you keep joking about that accident still? I mean, yeah, I was kinda knocked by an explosion and that did a number on my head at that moment, not to mention that I was the first to call you at that moment a "grandfather", but yesterday joke isn't that funny anymore...By the way, I guess those artifacts and money that I've earned thanks to you can give me a chance to get everything that I asked you to keep for me ...-answered young man, taking his hood and balaclava off , demonstrating that this was probably a 17 years old teenager with a deep brown eyes, black hair, an oval face and some typical Slavic facial features as also a few quite big and deep claws-made scars that are going in a bit diagonal way from his forhead to his neck ,as a young man took out all the money that he had and passed to Sidorovich , awaiting for his answer.

After taking a few seconds of looking at the money and the containers that a young man took from his belt and backpack , Sidorovich chuckled and said -Well, I guess that's why I'm helping you that much , you know, young kids like you rarely show up in here and even way more rarely acting like a truly good stalkers and assistants for business, not to mention that our first meeting did lighten my mood quite well.-after that an old trader opened a few containers , looking at the things that were inside, keeping some distance from what was inside those though and then started to push with his fat fingers on the upper parts of the containers to close them, then activating a hermetical lock , looking at brunette and added- Well, Mechnik, for the rookie you've brought some quite rare artifacts and for your own sake let me stay sure that you haven't killed anybody , otherwise you know the laws and what some stalkers might do, especially those from Duty.

Mechnik noded to the Sidorovich and answered quite calmly -You know me well enough,I do know the rules and won't go into such things, not to mention that keeping a good business will be my biggest priority in that case, so let's just go to the business...Will all that stuff be enough for you?

Sidorovich gave a look at a stalker's eyes and chuckled , noticing a familiar spark in the eyes of Mechnik, the sand that an old trader saw in those ,who he saw as a great workers for his business and might deserve some motivation by getting some discounts on some things in the Zone , after all, he is the one in charge of the black market lines across the Chernobyl and it's up for him and his colleagues to control the local economy to their benefit.

-I guess that will do, you 80000 rubles and those artifacts that I guess could worth over 70 more ...yeah, even get 20000 extra , so let me take all the stuff that you've ordered .-answered Sidorovich and pressed on the button that opened a door behind an old trader , through which he entered and got back in a next 20 minutes bringing a big metal case and the money that he gave to a young stalker with all the stuff that was ordered .

Mechnik, after receiving everything, checked the money and the whole equipment in the case, nosing to the old trader before leaving, heading to the entrance of the Rookie Village and taking a stop in a closest house with a free room and walls being fine, closing the door to the room and proceeded with changing his equipment , starting with taking off his clothes, and changing them for his camouflaged uniform with some kevlar armor-plates and then took on the body armor and additional armor parts, using them to cover the most important parts that should be protected and made sure that that will not ruin his mobility, after what he put the most important things in pockets of his vest and some other pockets on his uniform, leaving the rest in his backpack , after what he took on the belt with integrated holster and put his PM with silencer in there and his knife in sheath for it and also his Kozack saber that kinda looked at some point like a katana with a short hilt ,that at some point kinda looks like an eagle head and used for one hand only without any guard between the hilt and the blade , which kinda makes it at some point a bit worse in protecting the hand of the wielder, but at some point allows to use that weapon for doing a bit bigger variety of attacks .

After dealing with those melee weapons and sidearm he then proceeded to equip his backpack and the main weapons , one of them was TOZ-34 , which was basically a double-barreled hunting rifle working on 12x70 calliber, and his heavily modified AK -74 with silencer , scope with adjustable range sight and detachable grenade launcher, also young stalker checked his new artifact detector , also checking his Geiger meter and anomaly detector, after what he went for the final part of his equipment, which was a dark white gasmask with 2 integrated air filters.

Making sure that every part of his equipment was where it should be and everything in a perfect condition , he left the house, going through the front exit of the rookie village , heading towards the Garbage - an area filled with a "vehicle graves" where a lot of vehicles , that were used during building a Sarcophagus around a 4th reactor of Chernobyl NPP, but were irradiated and considered to be of no further use.

Holding his AK , Mechnik was going thowards one of the bridges, sometimes throwing bolts to check the route for anomalies, when in all of a sudden he noticed a light blue shining under the bridge and went down to check it out , noticing to his surprise a strange sphere that seemed to be made out of something close to glass and be that source of shining.

Considering it as a some sort of an artifact, young stalker checked the place for the anomalies, but bolts and the anomaly detector didn't show even a single sign of any anomalies at all, what kinda surprised him, but at the same time gave a thought that he might need to put that thing in one of his containers for artifacts , so he might be able to sell it to someone , heading close to that thing and stopped in a few steps before it , carefully lifting that sphere in one of his hands and taking a closer look on it when in all of a sudden he saw a strange city in that sphere and that artifact in all of a sudden just started to rip in half , covering young man in a strange field of energy and pulling him closer to it.

"No...No...I don't want to die ...I...haven't did everything that I wanted ..."-thought Mechnik, realizing that he won't be able to do a thing in that case and closed his eyes , awaiting for his life to end...

Meanwhile in Vale

It was an early evening in Vale, one of the Four Kingdoms of Remnant, where most of people and faunus lived and just tried to enjoy their life, relying on a local police forces and Hunters to protect them in case of something bad will happen, though, some bad things were happening still, like in that case, a robbery in one of the dust shops, which was attacked by a group of people in black and red business like suits and sunglasses, lead by a human with golden eyes, short orange hair and dressed in white business like suit with a black hat and armed with a strange cane, as he entered the shop , taking his cigar and asked an old trader -Do you know how hard it is to find an open dust shop at this time ?

-Please, just take my money and let me go...

-Relax,relax. I'm here for the dust only , men , do your job.-ordered a leader of the gang , smiling and kept smoking as one of the robbers noticed that there was a young girl in a black and red dress with a long red cape and red hood , pointing katana with a red dust blade and shouted -Hey you!Hands in the air !

But to his surprise, the girl didn't even reacted on his order, reading a comic book, what kinda annoyed that robber , who came closer to her and grabbed her by the shoulder, what made her turn around , demonstrating that she wore a headset, connected to music player through which she was listening to something rock like and turned that player off , taking her hood of.

She was looking like a teen in her 15s with a short dark hair and had a clear European like facial features , but what was the most interesting is her silver eyes that were now looking at the robber with a confusion as she said-Yeah?Have you said something ?

-Yes!I said hands in the air!Now!

-Are you robbing me?

-Yes!

-Ooooooh...-answered a girl and smiled a bit, before using her scythe to help with punching her opponent to the wall in a few meters away , when in all of a sudden a strange blue portal opened near her, sending an enormous amount of lightning and throwing a man in equipment none of the robbers, nor the girl or trader have ever seen before, as that mysterious newcomer looked a bit confused under his mask, clearly having no understanding of where he is and said -Ебать! Это куда меня счас занесло!(Holly fuck!Where am I right now ?)