Chapter 1
Port Angeles, Washington State, 1400 hours.
'It was a pretty average day for me, any day that I'm not on leave. I was hanging out with Azura at my apartment. I'd already done everything I needed to for the day, and we were just having some down-time.'
'What were you doing there?'
'Being completely honest? We were playing videogames.'
"Aaand, that concludes the ending of Gears 1." I said with a grin as the credits began rolling before me. Azura was right beside me, amused.
"I like how Dom just casually asked what they were doing tomorrow." she said, and we both laughed. Then she sobered. "That creepy lady is creepy though. Who do you think that is?" she suddenly asked. I shrugged.
"We probably won't find out until Gears 2 comes out next month." I answered. I tried to hide the excitement in my voice. The first game had been explosive, and I'd already beaten it multiple times in the past two years, but a second game? It seemed just too perfect.
Azura, having known me for twelve years, knew exactly what was going through my head. She smirked at me.
"Go ahead, I'll tolerate your fangirling." she said with a mock-exasperated sigh. I laughed, but shook my head.
"I can control myself. Now, how about some lunch?" I asked, standing up from the couch. She nodded her head, already re-opening her last page in Brisingr, the third book in the Eragon series. It had just come out last month, and she'd read through it twice. It really made me wonder what she even did when I was at the base.
I'd just pulled out the ingredients for some sandwiches, when everything went wrong. It was like fog had seeped into the house, or like the fog that surrounded my memory palace* that represented where my world ended and the real world started. I couldn't feel or smell it, and I wondered if I was just hallucinating.
"Uh, Tegan?" Azura called to me from my room, where my game system was. Her pitch was a bit higher than normal, indicating panic. The fog closed around me making me unable to see, but following my memory I ran to my room, trying to outrun the fog. I froze in the doorway, just as Azura bumped into me. The fog was closing underneath our feet, and I hugged her to me, even as it began to block her from my view.
Then the fog began to darken, until I could see nothing but myself. My center of gravity shifted, so it seemed like my back was being pulled towards the ground, wherever it was, and suddenly the world was substantial again.
I was falling.
I let out a shocked cry as I impacted on the hard pavement, and Azura landed on top of me. The combined collisions knocked the air from my chest, and stars flooded my vision from the impact on the back of my head.
"Ow..." I groaned quietly. I was briefly reminded of a misadventure in Basic Army training, but I shook it off. I needed to clear my head, and figure out what the hell just happened.
"Tegan, are you okay?" Azura asked as she rolled off me and onto her feet. She helped me up, and I put a hand to the back of my head. There was warm liquid there, and when I pulled my hand back to my vision to look at it, my fingertips were covered in blood.
"Yeah, I'm fine. It's probably just a minor concussion." I said quietly, still a bit disoriented. The ground was shaking beneath us, and I could smell ashes and smoke in the air. It suddenly occurred to me to look around us, and I gasped.
There was no way we were in Port Angeles anymore.
"I'm sorry to interrupt, but I need to address something. Do you mean to tell me that you're from another planet?" Loomis asked disbelievingly. I gave him a stony expression, nodding my head. I heard some of the Onyx guards snort. They didn't believe me either. It wasn't like I gave a damn anyways, though.
"Believe me or don't, can I continue?" I shot back, an almost-petulant tone entering my voice. He gestured with a hand for me to continue. "Thank you. As I was saying, there was no way we were in our hometown anymore..."
"U-Uh, Tegan? Where are we?" Azura asked fearfully. I looked to her, and saw she had terror written all over her face as her eyes flitted from one thing to another. I looked around us, trying to find anything that could be of help; a newspaper, some sort of street sign, or a person. The first thing I found was actually a newspaper. I didn't look at anything but the first few sentences, and I confirmed my thoughts; we weren't even on Earth anymore. One of the names that I'd picked up from the newspaper article was Halvo Bay, I figured that was where we were right then. There were mentions of things I recognized from the Gears of War game; The Hammer of Dawn, and the Locust, specifically.
"We're on Sera. That planet Gears of War takes place on? We're there. And from the look of this, it hasn't been that long since the COG roasted the planet." I answered her when I came back, handing her the newspaper. She read through it, and came to the same conclusion as I did. But, instead of believing the evidence around me, she said;
"That's impossible."
The ground continued to shake beneath us, I actually wondered how long it had been doing that. I also wondered if there were any Locust nearby. God, I hoped not. A nearby, non-human growl alerted me to the fact that God currently didn't care about what I hoped for.
"Run!" I hissed, grabbing her wrist and breaking out into a sprint until we were hidden by the frame of an old, demolished car. I heard voices not that far away, and a sudden eruption of gunfire.
"Tegan, what the hell is going on?" Azura demanded in a panicky tone. I almost frowned, usually Azura was the one to chastise me if I swore, but now she was the one swearing. Or, at least what she would consider swearing.
"We're on another planet, specifically the Gears of War planet." I repeated simply, hugging her to me again. Ever since I'd met Azura, I'd taken on the role of 'Big sister', as well as her protector. I'd chase off boys when I needed to, and talk to other ones who decided to pick on her for no reason. I had almost maternal instincts when it came to her, and that flared up right now. I couldn't let anything happen to her.
I held my breath when the gunfire stopped. What if the Locust had been the ones to win? I didn't want to move, because of that fear. I scanned the ground, for any type of weapon I could use against the Locust. There was nothing. I internally sighed, even as my heart raced. I looked to Azura severely. "Stay down." I mouthed to her, and I crept slowly to the edge of the car to look out. I almost collapsed in relief when I saw that the Gears were alive.
I allowed myself a quiet sigh of relief, but it seemed that would be my undoing; damn, these guys had good hearing.
I yelped when someone fired a shot inches away from my head, actually feeling the heat of the bullets blurring past me.
"Check fire, dickhead!" I yelled, appalled, as I stood up, glaring at the one that had fired the shot. I didn't recognize him from the game, but I did recognize the face next to his; Damon Baird. Holy shit.
"This city was supposed to be evacuated of all civillians. Identify yourself." The woman behind them both said. I frowned at her.
"I'm not a Civvy. I'm a soldier. Not COG, not UIR, but I am a soldier. Private Tegan Riley, at your service." I said, casually saluting. I could tell, just from the looks on their faces - was that Cole in the background too? - that this was gonna be a long night.
"I'm sure Lieutenant Baird can inform you of what happened after that." I said in a flippant tone. Loomis glared at me, before looking to Baird.
"Continue with what happened after that, Lieutenant." he finally said.
A/N: So, official chapter one. I made a few minor edits to the first one, so you may wanna check those out. I don't own Gears of War, of the Inheritance Cycle that was mentioned. As much as I wish I did.
* The timeline of Tegans -technically ours as well- universe is set one month before Gears of War 2 came out in 2008, making it October there.
** The memory palace is a real method for memorizing information. Look it up if you're interested. I don't have a palace myself: I don't have Tegan's patience.
