Prologue (CONTAINS SPOILERS. SKIP AS NECESSARY)

With Jormungand operational, the world's skyways came crashing down. The two quantum computers did their job in keeping the skies off limits to the people of earth. But this gift that Koko Hekmatyar had given to the world made a lot of people very angry, and was widely considered a bad move. A move so bad, in fact, that over the next couple of months after its activation, any armed forces with knowledge of project Jormungand had made their way to the factory in South Africa, intent on capturing or destroying the computer, and killing the mass murderer Koko and her mercenary band. Of course, said mercenary band wasn't just going to give the toy factory up without a fight, and had survived every siege so far. In the meantime, the scientists within had spent countless hours brainstorming a permanent solution to this little problem. Cutting off other modes of travel was discovered to be useless, as too many armed groups had already made their way to the African continent, and the amount of people that would die due to food shortages if the system was put online was deemed too extreme. In the end, the scientists found a new solution: an inter-dimensional portal. It could be designed and built with the help of the quantum computer, and besides, the computer in space was already operational, and Koko's team's services were technically no longer needed to maintain the air lockout. Within a year, the designs for the portal were complete, and the device needed was constructed. But just as the first tests were starting, the compound was assaulted by a massive American force. Koko's team tried their best, but in the end, they were forced to retreat into their complex, and to hope their hard work would pay off.

Chapter 1

"Jonah…JONAH!"
Jonathan Mar sprinted down the corridor into the complex. As he rounded a corner, bullets whizzed past his head, impacting in the wall in front of him. Now fully behind cover, Jonah answered into his radio.

"I hear you Koko. I'm a little busy at the moment," Jonah said into the earpiece as he reloaded his ACR. Quickly glancing around the corner, he counted 4 hostile soldiers before a hail of bullets forced him back into cover.

"Jonah, their forces are moving around to the F wing! You need to take them out before they get to the device!"

"On my way," Jonah replied calmly, pulling out a grenade from his vest as he spoke. With deft movements, he pulled the pin, waited a second, and then lobbed the grenade around the corner into the advancing troops, before setting off down the corridor. He was a quarter of the way down the hall before he heard the deafening boom of the explosion behind him, sending the oncoming soldiers flying. As he ran, he heard Koko issuing orders to the rest of the team. "Mao, deal with the enemies in C block. Lutz, Valmet, back up Jonah at F wing. Whatever happens, we can't let these bastards take the control room!"

"Roger!" they all shouted in unison, before making their way to the designated locations. As he arrived at F wing, he saw Valmet and Lutz had already arrived, dashing to cover as Valmet provided covering fire from her LMG, while Lutz tried in vain to take potshots using his SP 2022 pistol.

"Lutz, where the hell is your AR?" Valmet yelled angrily at him over the din of gunfire.

"Hey, it's not my fault! I came straight from the roof, so I didn't have time to rearm, and the R93 is useless in close quarters!" He shouted back, ducking behind cover to reload. "Oh good, you're here!" he added as Jonah slid behind the wall next to him. "Help Valmet with covering fire, I'm pretty much useless here."

"Roger. If you get shot in the butt again, it's not my fault though."

"Hey, that only happened, like, three times! And don't worry about me, I can hold my own."

"Whatever you say." Jonah replied emotionlessly.

"Hate to break up your reunion," Valmet shouted, "But I'm almost out of ammo, and these guys just keep coming! We need to retreat before they overrun us!" Jonah peaked around the corner. Bodies were strewn across the floor, but he could sense more ducked behind cover, and more were approaching. "We can't," he yelled back. "X room is right behind us, and that's where the device is!"

Koko's voice crackled over the radio. "Do what you have to to survive. Lives are harder to replace than machines. Retreat if necessary."

"Roger that, Koko", Valmet said into hear earpiece. "Alright, retreat to X room," she shouted as she unloaded the last of her rounds down the corridor. She reloaded as she ran while Jonah and Lutz fired behind them, keeping the enemy at bay.

Soon, they arrived at X room, ducking behind the walls by the door, and saw that the portal device, a Circular metal ring hooked up to various computer systems and supported by metal beams attached to the walls, was active, a blue film glowing and swirling in its center.

"Uh Koko, is that thing supposed to be on?" Lutz asked apprehensively.

"Minami said they couldn't find a way to turn it off, but that doesn't matter right now, more troops are on their way!" Koko shouted into her earpiece.

As she said this, a grenade sailed into the room, bounced, and rolled right next to the device. On reflex, Jonathan sprinted over, grabbed the grenade, and hurled it back into the group of soldiers.

Pain blossomed in his chest, and as he looked down, he saw three bloodstained holes in the center of his black jacket. Time seemed to slow down as the pain spread like agonizing wildfire. He saw the shocked look on Lutz's face as he tipped back.

"JONAH!"

It was the last thing he heard before falling back through the portal.

(…)

It was getting into the later hours of the day as Dalia Orsello strolled merrily through the darkening forest. Many people would have been nervous to walk around such a dense forest this late in the day, but Dalia had lived there in a little cabin for over ten years, and no overly dangerous animals came near it. The day had been a good day, as she had found more than enough of the various naturally occurring components needed to further her magical research. Not that she really needed the components to cast her spells anymore, but over her many years of isolated 'research', she had found that having components greatly increased the rapidity at which she could develop and learn new spells. That, and her cat Malia found the various small rodents she found along the way delicious.

"You eat your fill, you little glutton?" she cooed to the small feline, who at first looked a little miffed about the weight comment, but got over it pretty quickly and started rubbing up against Dalia's legs. "What, you want more?" The cat looked up in excitement with the prospect of more on the table. "Later." The cat looked back down, slightly dejected. "Oh don't be that way. If you eat anymore, I might have to start calling you lard-butt." Malia glared up offended for a second, before something caught her attention. Her eyes scanned forward, ears twitching in every direction.

"What is it? What do you see?" Dalia whispered to her feline companion, setting her stance slightly lower to the ground. Presently, she heard a deep rumble emanating from the west. "Oh, come on Malia. If you're going to get spooked by a little thunder, then I don't-"she was cut off as the small cat dashed off towards the disturbance. "Hey, come back here!" she hissed, hiking up her tattered robes to pursue the animal.

Several minutes later, Dalia found Malia stopped in the center of a clearing, gingerly pawing and sniffing the ground. She tromped over to the feline. "Look, if this is about that lard comment, I'm sorry, but-"She was interrupted as her foot stepped into something wet, splashing the underside of her robes. "Oh great," she moaned, "You found a mud puddle. Now my clothes are soaked!" she complained, before catching a whiff of something off. Gently, she took her robes in one hand, brought the splattered rags closer to her face, and gingerly sniffed it.

"Blood."

She stared down to the ground below her, noticing now that she was standing in a puddle of blood. She quickly hopped out of the pool, before pondering. A large pool meant at least one thing, possibly two: there was probably a body somewhere, and possibly something dangerous had made its way into the woods. She couldn't see a body anywhere, which meant it had either been eaten, or had somehow wandered off somewhere.

"Malia, can you see if this leads anywhere?" If something dangerous had moved in, she needed to know about it, and if there was a corpse, it would be best to remove it as quickly as possible: a body would just attract predators. Her companion looked up at her, before bolting off into the tree line. "Hey, wait up!" she called out, quickly dashing off to follow her companion.

After a short while, Malia finally came to a stop in front of a large tree, glancing back to Dalia.

"This is where it ends?" she asked apprehensively. She looked around, but couldn't immediately see a body. "Oh well, maybe they were carried off by whatever attacked them. In any case, we should probably head back before-"for the third time that day she was cut off, this time by a faint wheezing sound coming from the tree. "What in…?" she whispered to herself, before making her way around the tree, and gasped.

Slumped against the tree, head resting on its bark, was the strangest boy she had ever seen. He had light brown skin, white hair, his upper body was covered in a black shirt or jacket with red splotches, with another tan vest-like piece on top of that, which was covered in pouches. A pair of pants that only reached down to his knees covered his legs, and black, thick soled shoes covered his feet. In his lap, there sat a strange, tan object of some kind, like a crossbow but without the actual bow part. This all registered to her in the second before she saw the holes in the center of the red stains on his jacket.

'How is he even still alive with those holes?' she thought to herself astonished. As she did, Malia slowly padded over to the strange boy, and nuzzled his hand. The kid seemed to rouse a bit, slowly looking down at the small feline, and gently scratching its head. This snapped her out of her reverie, and she approached the wounded boy. "Hey, are you alright? What hap-".

Quick as lightning, the boy's piercing red eyes latched on to her, and before she could move another muscle, his arm snapped up. In his hand he held what, again, looked like a small crossbow without the bow. She may not have known exactly what it was, but she could surmise it was dangerous.

She froze. He glared and wheezed. Malia mewed.

It didn't last for long. The boy's arm began to tremble, slightly at first, then enough that Dalia could hear the contraption in his rattle. She could see he was fighting to stay conscious, and loosing badly: his eyes drooped, his breathing became more labored, and his arm drooped. Suddenly, he was overcome by a terrific coughing fit, and after three seconds, blood spewed from his mouth onto his chest and lap.

He lay back, arm dropped on the ground. Blood seeped from his lips. He breathed heavier, until Dalia realized he was speaking. In a pained, gasping whisper, he spoke two words.

"help me"

His eyes finally closed, and his head fell down onto his chest as Dalia rushed forward. She had to help him. It had been so long since she had seen someone else, and she couldn't just leave someone to die. Frantically, she lay her hands over the boy's chest, before taking slow, deep breaths. Magic worked best when she was calm, and it would not do for her to get excited at a time like this. With a final deep breath, she intoned

"Shattered bones

Mangled flesh

Incomplete Innards

I would have you mend

And this man healed!"

A warm glow permeated from beneath her hands into the boy's chest, and as she concentrated, she could feel the skin underneath begin to knit itself back together. The blood around him slowly receded back into the orifices from whence they came. After a couple of seconds, she sat back onto the ground in front of the strange boy. He would live for now, but rest was needed for a full recuperation.

'I'm going to have to drag him home, aren't I?"

(…)

Back at her cabin, she had laid down some covers on the floor, placing the boy on top of them. Dalia pondered on what to do with him. She didn't know who this boy was, and from her first impressions, she understood he could be dangerous. But she knew he could be useful to her.

She sighed, as she knew what she had to do. Dalia knelt over the boy. If she wanted to use this boy, she knew she would have to "suggest" it to him. He might be grateful for healing him, but that wouldn't last for long, and she had ideas that stretched out farther into the future than what the boy may have in mind. She felt a bit guilty for using this kind of magic, but she rationalized it as a necessity. So she cupped her hand around the boy's ear, knelt down, and using her magics, whispered into his ear in a voice that seemed to echo with a thousand different voices.

"Help me."

(…)

Awareness came slowly to Jonathan, which was surprising enough in its own right. How am I not dead? At first, he was aware only that he was aware, a consciousness detached from all mortal coils, before said coils began to reappear and tighten around him, binding him to his mortal form. His body seemed to all be there, no missing limbs. What was most troubling was the lack of pain coming from his chest. I took three bullets! How does this not hurt?

Then the rest of his senses began to return, first touch, then sound, then scent. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and was greeted with the sight of wooden planks and hanging plant and animal materials in various stages of dryness. Where the hell am I?

"Mreow"

Jonathan glanced down to his feet. Standing at the base of his bed was a small cat. It had a black and grey striped back, white underbelly, and a crooked tail, like someone had slammed a door on it. It looked at him quizzically with wide, green eyes, hesitating, before it slowly padded up to Jonah's chest, curled into a ball, and promptly fell asleep. He smiled, softly, and reached his arm out to pet it behind its ears. I wasn't captured, that's for sure. Am I still in South Africa?

"It seems like she's taken a liking to you."

Jonah bolted into a sitting position, dislodging the cat with a "MROWL!" Craning his neck to look behind him, his eyes were met with the sight of a girl. She was pale, almost as pale as Koko, with long black hair that reached down to her feet, and was clothed in brown pieces of cloth that walked the line between robes and rags.

Silence reigned for a couple moments, then a couple moments more. Finally, a question was asked.

"Where am I?"

She smiled softly. "You're in the Dark Forrest. Don't worry, nothing comes around my home, so we're safe here."

Jonah looked up at her puzzled. "…The Dark Forrest?"

"Of course," She replied quizzically. "Don't you remember? I found you pretty deep in the undergrowth. You had some neat little holes in your chest."

Jonah felt around his chest. There were three indents where the bullets had hit, but otherwise he was none the worse for wear. It was as if his skin had grown back over the holes.

"What in…?" he murmured under his breath.

"Oh, you don't have to worry about those anymore," she assured with a slight smirk. "I healed you up nice and good, so you should be fine!" She beamed proudly.

He looked up at her bewildered. "…Healed? But…how?"

"Oh, I had to use a little magic, but it was no big deal; I got to practice them on a person this time instead of just animals!"

Jonah stared at the girl dumbfounded. Then, slowly, a low chuckle emanated from his chest. Dalia looked at him, frowning

"What? What is it?"

He looked at her, a faint smile still on his face.

"That's great, now why don't you tell me how long I was really out for."

Now the look of bewilderment adorned the girl's face. "I told you, it's only been a day! You should be grateful I used my magic to heal you! Do you not believe me?"

He stopped smiling. "I haven't believed in magic since a long time ago. Now, tell me where I am and how long I've been out."

"You don't believe me?"
"No."

She stared at him. A worried look crossed her face, before she reached down to her waist and pulled out a knife. Instantly, Jonah was on his feet, backing away from the girl. "What the hell?!" She didn't seem to hear him. As he watched, she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and without warning, drove the knife into her open palm.

"What the hell are you doing?! Are you crazy?!" Jonah exclaimed with alarm. But before he could approach her to assess the damage, she removed the knife, covered her injured hand with her uninjured one, and intoned in a voice laced with meaning and power.

"Mangled flesh

Seeping blood

I would have you mend

I would be healed!"

Jonah watched in awe as her hand began to glow. Slowly, the skin underneath seemed to knit itself back together, and as he gaped, the girl showed him her hand, a smirk on her face.

"What was that about not believing in magic?"

(...)

The look of shock on his face was priceless

It was a moment that Dalia would stash away in her memory and look upon fondly whenever she needed a pick-me-up. But, like most things in life, the moment passed, and soon, the two had moved on to other topics, like their location. The boy insisted on seeing a map, and she obliged, handing over to him a yellowed piece of parchment with a map of the kingdom of Alestencia.

"See, right here is the Dark Forest, so we're almost in the very center of the continent."

The boy stared at the map, confusion clearly etched onto his face.

"Where is the rest of the map?"

"Huh?"

"This isn't a world map, right?"

The girl looked down sheepishly

"Well, no. But those are expensive! And often inaccurate!"

Confusion etched further into the boy's features, and Dalia seriously considered that if he kept it up, it would become a permanent look. He peered back at the map.

"Where the hell is Alestencia? I've never heard of it before."

"You've never heard of Alestencia? Where did you come from?"

He seemed to consider this. "Last I remember, I was in Africa." He began to mutter. "We were under attack, and I was defending the…" A revelation seemed to hit him, and he rested his head in his hands with a groan.

"What is it? You remember something?"

(…)

Jonah remembered something. Many people would have been pleased to remember something they had forgotten, but this had the opposite effect on Jonathan. It wasn't that he was displeased by his capacity to remember, more so that the exact events which he remembered displeased him.

The portal. He had fallen through the portal into a possibly (ok, probably) alien world, a world where magic (or something like it) existed. Which meant he was as far away from Africa, and by extension Koko, as he could possibly be.

The team was back on earth, which meant that on this alien world, he was truly alone.

(…)

He looked up at her, a forlorn look in his eye.

"It's complicated, and you probably wouldn't believe me if I told you, but all I know for certain is that this isn't home, and I'm probably stuck here."

"Oh."

It was quiet for a while. Both parties considered their options. Finally, Dalia spoke.

"H-hey, listen," she said somewhat nervously. "I think I have an idea that will benefit us both."

The boy looked up at her, mildly intrigued.

"Well," she continued, "you are new around here, right? And you have nowhere else to go?"

The boy nodded.

"Well then, I have a proposition for you."

He leaned forward from where he sat, his red eyes piercing into hers. "Go on."

"You carry weapons with you. I may not know what they do, but I can tell they are dangerous. And you mentioned you were part of a battle, so you know how to fight, right?"

The boy nodded. "I've worked as a soldier under a number of employers."

Dalia continued, "This land is beautiful, and its king is fair. However, danger is still prevalent in many parts of the continent. I've been alone for many years, so I haven't been able to venture out very far safely..."

"And you want me to protect you," He cut in.

"Yes. In return, I will help you find your way home."

He seemed to consider for a long time. Dalia began to worry, what if he didn't take it? She would be alone again, and she didn't know how many more years of 'research' she could take before she drove herself mad. Finally, after a couple minutes of thought, she fell back on her trump card.

"Listen," she began. "I know this must be a hard decision for you, but this will work out for both of us. So will you please help me?"

The boy snapped out of his reverie of thought almost instantly, gazing back up at her. In his eyes, she could see the faintest tinge of purple, as the magic affected his mind ever so slightly. She hadn't used too much, only enough for him to become slightly more susceptible to her suggestion. She still felt guilty about it though.

"Alright," he replied. "I'll help you.

(…)

The next few days were spent preparing for their departure. Dalia spent most of the time packing all of the necessities she would need: food, water, extra components, and dead rats. Meanwhile, Jonah took inventory of his backpack. Besides all of his extra ammo, his bag held many other items that would be useful. The bag had been given to him upon his return to Koko's unit, and contained a little something from everyone. A full tang knife from Valmet, a silencer for his Hi Power from Lehm, some extra explosives from Wiley, a good pair of binoculars from Mao, a black balaclava from Tojo, and an old Playboy magazine from Lutz. The last one wasn't really part of the original gift though…

()

"Pst, Jonah."

"Huh?"

"Quick, put this in your bag."

"Is it yours?"

"Yeah, but Koko will kill me if she finds it on me, and your bag was already checked."

"Alright."

"Thanks man."

()

"Hey, what's that?" Dalia asked, peering slightly over his shoulder.

"Just my supplies." Jonah replied, deftly covering up and shoving the magazine back into his bag. If nothing else, it would make a good fire starter. Along with the rest of his supplies, which included rations, tape, gun cleaning kit, goggles, bandages, and roughly two hundred extra rounds for his assault rifle, he had everything he would need to survive in this strange world.

"Well then," Malia finally announced. "Are we ready to head off?"

Well, there we have the beginning of a new adventure. I'm trying to balance things out so that guns are sufficiently powerful, but not so powerful that all the natives can do is bend over and ask for it gently. We'll see how things go!