Chapter Two
Ian Fletcher stood completely still, staring up at the night sky. The rain had slackened off and some of the cloud was starting to clear away, so he had a good view of the moon.
And how a significant chunk of it looked like it had been blown apart. Hence his stunned condition.
One could almost imagine the words 'SEARCHING...SEARCHING...SIGNAL NOT FOUND' scrolling across the lenses of his mask.
He stayed like this for a while. Then he jerked away from the wall and sung his head left and right.
Not seeing what he was looking for he hurried off down the alley. But while his earlier actions were fast but careful, his movements now had a more frantic edge.
Along the way he saw a car. This wouldn't be unusual except it had wheels, which implied it rolled rather than hovered.
He moved faster.
After running along a few streets and alleys he found what he was looking for.
A tall building with a fire escape.
A short while later he was on the roof and staring.
After he'd climbed out of the wreckage he hadn't thought much about his surroundings. He'd expected major damage, and even if he hadn't seen it near him he'd expected damage elsewhere in the city. Combining that with the rain could've explained the lack of people, and damage to infrastructure could have meant power outages which could've explained the lack of neon and various other lights perpetually on in the city.
But from his new vantage point he couldn't see any signs of damage. There were no smoke clouds, no signs emergency services, no signs of damage anywhere.
And that wasn't all.
He could see a few tall buildings, but nothing like the skyscrapers in his city. There was no signs of the neon light which never went off. There wasn't even any sign of the smog from the Industrial District, and it wouldn't surprise him if that could be seen from space.
But most of all, he didn't see Dracogenics Tower. Granted he didn't expect it to be intact. But he'd been on it when everything went wrong. 'So I should at least be able to see its smoking ruin.' He thought.
But he couldn't.
What he did see was an unfamiliar city, dotted here and there with buildings that had pointed roofs, and a broken moon.
'The important thing...' He thought. 'Is to not panic.'
There were probably several explanations for this.
...Granted he couldn't think of many right now...
'I could be in the future?...Maybe?...The lack of hover cars doesn't mean anything. They might be in a...less rich part of the world. It could happen.' He tried rationalizing. 'And as for the moon...there might have been a lunar colony...that went rouge. So this is just a future where humans have weapons capable of blowing up a good chunk of the moon.'
His brow furrowed as he turned this thought over in his mind for a moment.
'On second thought...If people had access to weapons that powerful it most likely end with us blowing ourselves to extinction.' He thought. 'There has to be a less scary option.'
He sighed. 'I really don't have enough information.'
He turned back to the fire escape and started to head back to ground level. 'Okay. Change of plans. Long terms goals have pretty much ceased to exist until I know what's what. Short term goals go thusly, find a place to curl up for the night and figure out what the fuck is going on in the morning.'
Then he could panic as necessary.
######
Dawn broke over Vale.
The clouds had cleared up completely by this time, so it was looking like this would be a beautiful morning.
This, however, was of no comfort to some.
Professor Ozpin, headmaster of Beacon Academy, had been up for hours by now and it was looking like it would be a long day.
Some might question just why he was here. They might wonder what his purpose was since there weren't any Grimm involved. But Huntsmen and Huntresses were meant to protect the Kingdoms from any threat. Regardless of what it may be.
Although right now Ozpin wasn't completely sure if there even was a threat.
It had all started in the middle of the night. To the sound of an explosion an otherwise normal street had been filled with wreckage. No one could figure out where it came from or how it got there.
This raised several question. What if it happened again? If so, where? Would people be hurt next time? How did it even happen to begin with?
Would it even happen again?
The answer to the last turned out to be both yes and no.
It had happened twice. But since it seemed the second event had taken place at the same time as the first the term 'again' didn't seem right.
Of course none of this really answered any of the important questions.
To be honest, Ozpin suspected he was called in mostly because it was so unusual that no one else could make heads or tails of it. So why not pass it off to someone used to the stranger sides of life and just move on.
There were no clear answers, and that made those involved nervous. The fear of the unknown is powerful after all.
At least only a few people knew about the body.
When the wreckage was being cleared up a body was found among the metal. It wore armor, and had an unusual helmet that, rather than a visor to look out of, instead had two cameras on either side of the widened head.
Although with the removal of the helmet it was discovered to be a human corpse.
And it was obvious that parts of it, mostly the torso, had been subjected to extreme heat. But only on the front, which suggested some form of projectile.
None of this, however, came close to the...oddities found during the autopsy.
Ozpin sighed. He didn't need this. Not on top of what happened to Amber. There was already cause for concern without adding in further unknowns. Hopefully nothing further would come of tonight's events.
If nothing else happened it should be mostly forgotten soon.
######
Ian woke up sore.
This was to be expected though. That's what happens when you sleep on a few cardboard boxes in an alley after all. He was also still damp from the previous nights rain. So all in all a pretty lousy morning.
While stretching in an attempt to work out the soreness in his joints he reviewed his to do list. Step one, find out where he was.
...Admittedly it wasn't a long list.
He didn't want to just go up and ask someone though. That might seem a bit strange, and he didn't want to draw any unnecessary attention. Asking about a library would be much less suspicious. It could also provide extra information he may need.
Although he'd need to check the streets first and make sure he wasn't dressed too outlandishly. He might have to take off the mask.
'I just hope they speak English.' Sure he could work around things if they didn't, but it would be nice to not have the extra hassle.
Well...provided that whatever they spoke it was a known language...
He swiftly pushed that thought aside.
During these thoughts he'd finished stretching and started leaning against a wall in the shadows. After he'd finished thinking he prepared to get moving when...
"Hey!"
Ian froze. He slowly looked to his left. There was a man there.
Average height, brown hair, brown eyes, blue shirt, black trousers. He had a gym bag slung over his left shoulder. Nothing special. Of course there were plenty of other people who might find the man threatening, what with the bandanna across the lower half of his face and the knife in his right hand.
Ian, however, actually relaxed a bit. Firstly because he'd spoken in English. And secondly, after all the stress of not knowing where he was it was almost nice to remember that people were pretty much the same everywhere.
"Come out where I can see you. And keep your hands up."
Ian suppressed a snort of amusement. With all the augmentations he had this guy was hardly a threat.
In fact...He presented a solution.
Ian walked out of the shadows slowly. "Is this a mugging?"
The muggers eyes darted from the mask, to the gun on his back, to the revolver on his hip. Ian couldn't see his full expression thanks to the bandanna but it looked as though the guy was seriously regretting his current life choices.
Although soon that would be irrelevant.
"Uhhh...no?"
Ian wasn't impressed, he would have at least respected the stones it would have taken to just say yes.
There were a few moments of silence.
Ian darted forward. He may not have been the fastest in his team. But with augmented muscles he was still faster and stronger than an un-augmented human.
He closed the distance, knocked the knife away, grabbed the muggers head, and twisted.
######
A short while later Ian exited the alley. His previous clothes absent, he was now wearing black trousers, a blue shirt and carrying a gym bag.
"Now. Library."
AN:
I just thought I'd put some information on Ian here. Mostly the gear and stats, as seen in-game, of the Hacker he's based on.
Ian Stats:
Skills:
Health - 1/4
Weapons Specialist - 1/3
Pack Mule - 2/3 = 4 gear slots total
Hacking - 5/5
Hijack - 5/5
Master Technician - 3/3
Augmentations:
Head - Firewall Protection = Removes effects of Jammers.
Body - BM: Subdermal Fascia Plating V2 = Extra health, Health regeneration, and Armor.
Arms - Nanofiber Muscle V2 = reduces Heavy Weapon accuracy penalty by 100%
Legs - Wetcorp: Support and Stability = Immune to almost all knockback.
Gear:
Body Armor: Medium
Zip Claw
Shielding: AE 100 Heavy Shields
Stealth Generator: Mk II
Weapons:
5X 'Morte' Plasma Revolver + RS7 Super Heater (+20% damage)
RS09 'Chimaera' Laser SMG + Laser Targeting (+6% accuracy)
These are based on the stats of the Hacker I used when I beat the game. In fact, the only change is that my Hacker had the Full Arm Replacement augmentation instead of the Nanofiber Muscle. The reason for this change is that the mechanical arms would be difficult to maintain in Remnant since they don't have the parts (not the right parts anyway). So I went with the Muscle augmentation with the in-story reason that Ian was preparing to use a heavy weapon (specifically a Laser Cannon), but there was a change of plans and the team moved on Dracogenics Tower before the weapon could come out of R'n'D.
As for what Ian looks like, I took some pictures of the in-game Hacker I based him off.
I made an album on imgur. Just picture Ian as looking something like that, but with scruffier hair rather than the shorter, flattened style shown in the image:
/a/QyakD
At the bottom of the album is an image of a Dracogenics Hammerhead, this is what the corpse found in the wreckage looks like.