Chapter 1: Helgen

The sky was covered in scattered, grey and gloomy clouds. It was upheld by the vast mountains, towering over the army of pine trees and the people crawling at their feet. The air was permeated by a mist which dampened both it and the mood. Among the trees, on a cobbled road, a group of carriages, escorted by Imperial soldiers, was transporting prisoners; some dressed in Stormcloak uniform, others in rags. This story focuses on the trio in the last cart...

Merinda's POV

Her head hurt. She opened her eyes but her eyesight was blurry and everything was spinning. Her head was pounding and all sounds were muffled. After a few moments of breathing and trying to stay conscious, she was able to lift her head up and look around her.

It took only a few seconds for the stranger in front of her to say "Hey, you're finally awake. Tried to cross the border and walked right into that Imperial ambush, eh?" and her attention snapped up to him. Her eyes bulged out of their sockets. This was none other than Ralof, the Nord Stormcloak soldier! And she was in the same cart as him. She noticed they were in the forests of Falkreath Hold and she knew where she was. The question now was how did she get here?

She glanced around and realised that on top of the usual entourage consisting of Ralof, Lokir and Ulfric, she was also accompanied by two other individuals. One who sat next to her and she had to look far up to see him in full. His skin was sickly green, though his arms were darkened by black hairs, and he towered over her like a bear over a fox. He had black dreadlocks that flowed down behind his back and a short but thick beard on his strong jaw. Two tusks protruded from his mouth but he did not wear the angry frown that his race were known for. Also, he was built like a brickhouse; his shoulders were almost as wide as those of two men, with a barrel chest that was barely contained by his rags and his arms looked made him look strong enough to arm wrestle all the other guys on the cart simultaneously and not break a sweat. However, he was still unconscious.

So her attention shifted to the other individual who ought not to be here (as much as she wasn't). He was an Argonian, well built though nowhere near the dimensions of the giant beside her. His scales were murky green and the ones on his face had a royal azure tint, complimented by faint warpaint stripes that went from him jaw down his neck. He had a plumage of royal sapphire feathers jutting out the back of his head with a set of straight horns. of which two were pretty large and jutted out slightly to the side but backwards nonetheless. One horn even had a bronze ring on it. And his slitted amber eyes were piercing into her right now.

Russel's POV

'Ah, she's awake,' he thought to himself, 'then maybe we can figure out how to get out of this trouble.'

Russel has been awake for a solid twenty minutes now and that had given him time to absorb their current predicament and let the shock pass out of his system. Now that it wore off, he was able to be uncomfortable from the journey and even had the opportunity to sit himself so that it allowed for more blood to flow to his TAIL. He's still trying to comprehend the sensation of an additional appendage but with time should be able to somewhat control it.

Since then, he had ample time to analyse the other people on the cart. Most importantly, the girl in the player's seat. She was a petite thing, probably a Breton, with curly and bushy hair of a fiery orange colour. Her face was angled (and quite pretty he had to admit to himself) with a little runic tattoo on her neck under her right ear. She looked around, first at their environment, then to the massive brute and finally turned her gaze to him and her sweet green eyes met his own. They stared at each other for some time before Russel decided to begin a conversation to gauge if his gut feeling was right.

"You're not from here, are you?" he inquired.

At first she didn't answer; if she had the same suspicions as him then he knew she too was from the real world and was trying to interpret his meaning to guess if he too is like her. So he Russel made it easier for her, though without giving anything away to the natives, and followed up with a "Do you come from a land that your leader promised to make great again? Or any other such regions?"

That got her to nod her head. So Russel turned his head to the orc. "Wake him up would you?". Might as well try to get as much info out of everyone as possible.

She looked at him as if he'd grown a second head and replied, "Hell no, you do it" She looked at the mountain of a man next to her and tried to shuffle away from him just in case.

'He's probably from our world, not a local barbarian,' Russ thought dryly, 'Though to be fair, he is about five times her size so I guess it must be pretty intimidating, especially up close.'

So he reachedout with his foot, a thing covered in scales with long claws on his toes that he was still getting accustomed to, and prodded the Orsimer's tree-trunk thick legs. The giant awoke groggily, fatigue written all over his brown eyes. His first words were "What? Where..?". He looked around, swaying from side to side a little and finally asked, with the gruffest baritone voice imaginable "What kind of fucking shit am I on?". Oddly enough, he seemed surprised with his own voice, though not everyone seemed to pick up on that.

Before Russel could graciously inform him that he was not on any drugs, his new friend decided to lecture the hulking guy with a one word phrase "Language!".

The orc didn't seem too impressed, he looked down on the girl sitting next to him before saying "Whatever, sis, its not like Sherylin and David are here."

Both the Breton and newly-made Argonian sat there dumbstruck with what he just said. Russel eyes turned to the girl expectantly. He was clueless as to who Sherylin and David were but she seemed to realise just who she was sitting next to. Immediately, she tried to throw her arms around the man though with their significant size difference and the armwraps binding her wrists it didn't work. Nonetheless, she was ecstatic. "Greg! I can't believe you're here too. Oh my God!" The others on the cart looked at her with a mixture of confusion, disgust and suspicion. Lokir looked away, unable to stand the sight of someone, especially a woman, hugging onto an orc. The Stormcloaks, both the leader and the soldier however, picked up on the fact that the girl first seemed weary of the orc only to now be glad to see him. How come she hasn't recognised him if he is so dear to her?

The orc, (Greg, Russel could now put a name to the face) tried to calm his 'sister' down. Were they sibling back in the real world? "Merinda, what are yo- why are you so little? Why the heck am I so tal- and gree- the fuck!?" Oh, he noticed his new body. Before the fiasco could escalate, Russel decided to intervene. "Hey, so... You guys have any idea how we got here?", he looked at the orc and sternly added, "Were not locals, nor should we really be here." Thankfully, the Greg caught up with what his sister and the strange Argonian, 'Probably another real worlder.' he thought, were inferring here. He played along, choosing his words wisely. "I don't know, all I remember was trying to eh, cross the border until the Imperials showed up and snatched us up."

'Well, at least he's going with the game's story. Good, cause Ralof and Ulfric are already cautious as-'

"General Sir! The headsman is waiting!"

Dang, they skipped through the whole introductory dialogue? Russel's initial belief that everything in this world follows the scripts just went out the window. The door opened and on his high horse sat the commander of the Imperial Legion. Russel uttered "Tulius" and Ralof seemed to pick up on that adding, "Yeah, and it seems that the Thalmor are with him. Damn elves! I bet that had something to do with this."

Greg's POV

Merinda and Greg were still chatting feverishly in hushed tones, unknowingly to Russel discussing whether to trust the Argonian. "I'm telling you, he's in just as much trouble as we are right now so we could at least try and work with him." defended Merinda. But her older brother, ever the over protective older brother, was adamant about not trusting a stranger too soon. After all, he could just use them for his own benefit to increase his own chances of survival. But Merinda just scoffed, just as the carts were stopping, saying, "Oh please, all three of us know off by heart how this thing goes. We'll all make it out of here if just follow the script." They got up and started getting off the cart, and Greg crouched low to quickly whisper in her ear, "We don't even know his name."

They lined up as the Imperial bit- officer- and Hadvar, who was wearing a strange Imperial version of steel plate armour that Merinda has never seen before, approached them and started reading out their names. Lokir tried to run, the Argonian claimed to be called, so that they at least knew his name now) and they lined up to the execution. Two things stuck out to Greg. Firstly that he was the only orc around whilst also towering above all other people present. His sister looked even smaller next to him now that they were standing up. If his estimates were right, no one around was over 6 feet tall, 'Russel' seemed to be just that height, Merinda was a puny 5'5" and he himself looked like he was a jaw-dropping 6'9" if not 6'10". All solid beef, to his great pleasure. Secondly, the trio weren't the only non-Stormcloaks around. These rag-wrapped strangers were scrutinizing them the same way that the trio was scrutinizing them so it would be fair to deduce that they too mysteriously found themselves in the game.

He scoured all that were present and realised that one of his favourite mods, Immersive Armours, has been applied to this world. Odd.

The first Stormcloak soldier brashly walked up to the chopping block and kneeled down and readied himself for the headsman. Greg noticed with satisfaction that the headsman whom he used to think of as really buff, was meek in contrast to him now. He doubted that this little ego would go away, but neither did he want it to.

Once that was dealt with, the officer turned to the rest. She carefully picked out the the finest specimen for show and decided that his little sis would do. As Merinda walked closer to the chopping block, Greg got nervous. He knew how this was going to play out, but seeing that bitch kick his, his! sister down, his blood boiled. And not even the terrifying sight of Alduin landing on the watchtower could chill the rage and protective instinct he was feeling.

So? How was it? How's the chapter length? Tell me people!

I know that I'm supposed to be writing 'The Unorthodox Hero' but writing for the same story all the time is kind of tiring and boring so I decided to mix things up a bit and write two stories at the same time. Both will be updated once a week from now on since I've got myself a new schedule to work with. Expect the next chapter of 'TUH' to be out soon!