When my consciousness returned, the first thing I felt was the ground, it was hard and felt like stone. I opened my eyes as I pushed myself off the ground, at first my vision was blurry, the floor was black and the rest was made up of blotches of grays, yellows, reds, and whites. I tried to move, but felt extreme fatigue all over, like my body was a giant sandbag and my bones were jello. Two minutes later I had the strength to push myself off the ground, and blinked until my vision returned.
Blinking my eyes, I soon got a better look at where I was, a small dark alleyway. Checking my surroundings revealed I dropped nothing, but I couldn't find the plasma pistol I dropped either. However, upon checking my inventory, I found that I still had all of my stuff with me and my health was mostly fine, save for a small bit I lost back when that one soldier shot me.
I materialized a stimpack and jabbed it near the spot I got hit, I soon felt the area cool off and the pain fade to a dull stinging.
When I remembered what happened in the moments before I awoke I felt myself shiver, and my arms went in to hug my torso, gripping it tightly. I silently prayed to whatever god was watching me that I'd never have to go through that ever again. Then I heard a familiar click, signaling that I completed a quest, which was then followed by the sound of a new quest being added. I looked down to my Pipboy to see what it was
-In a Strange Land
-Find out where you are
That's it?
Easy, I can just view my Pipboy's map and work my way from there.
So I turned my Pipboy to it's World Map and-
My mind suddenly focused on the device mounted on my arm, putting in all its effort to read and comprehend the new message before me.
[ERROR! LOCATION NOT FOUND! PLEASE SPEAK TO A VAULT-TEC TECHNICIAN FOR FUTHER HELP! OR SWITCH TO THE AUTO-MAP FUNCTION]
"Huh...?" I muttered.
I read the notification again.
Then I read it again.
I switch to my Quest Tracker to see if it was on. The quest was active, but not shown on a map.
I felt my panic start to rise. This has never happened before, no matter where I went in the Wasteland, be it the Capital Wasteland or somewhere like the Pitt my map always worked, hell, it worked even when I was on Mothership Zeta. Now, here I was stranded in an unknown location without a proper map to rely on.
"No, no calm yourself Al, you're not doomed yet. At least you still have your gear with you." I took a deep breath to push my anxiety down.
With a few knob turns I got my Pipboy's auto map function on, starting with the local map. I lowered the device and stood up, I needed to find out where I was, from the looks of it I was in a city of some kind, looking up I saw a somewhat clear sky, like back home.
"Okay, so I'm still on Earth for starters, so I won't be getting probed again. But where? That teleporter could've taken me anywhere, I might not even be in the Wasteland anymore, or the American one anyway." I started to speculate, scrolling to my Data section, I saw the time was 9:50. "I'm still in the same time zone, so it might not be too far from Home." That calmed me a little bit, but I still didn't have any specific locations. "I should ask around then instead of standing in this alleyway."
I started to walk out of the alley and take a look around, I found that I was in a city like I suspected, however, I quickly noticed that the city was in good condition, and not just good by wasteland standards, but perfect. "Everything looks so clean, the roads are paved, I don't see any debris lying around, and none of the buildings are damaged in the slightest." Once again I felt my panic rise, how the hell was this place so fine?
"There's no way the bombs left this place unscathed, even places that weren't blown to bits eventually fell apart, unless...no, I can't be on another continent, Europe is at at least five hours ahead of D.C..." I mentally argued with myself, after a minute of this I gave up and continued my search, hopping my panic would drop.
Checking the sky, I saw it was mostly clear with a few clouds, some conveniently covering the moon, but enough of it was visible to guide me, not that I needed it much, because in this strange place, the lampposts actually worked, as in they lit the street up, and none of the glass was cracked. I also saw light coming from windows within the other buildings, some shops, others Hotels and apartments, they all had electricity that wasn't coming from batteries.
"So, I'm stranded in some Pre-War society? Did I time-travel?" I pondered it for a moment as I walked, as I did I noticed some cars in conditions just as good as the rest of the city. Though, these looked different than the ruined cars I'd seen back home. "These cars don't look like the ones from before the war, and I've seen lots of pictures from Pre-War America and ruined cars to know that.." I mentally crossed out time travel for now, though this left me no closer to finding out where I was, nor did it help that I hardly saw anyone else out either. If I didn't find anyone soon...
"Stop it, everything's fine, just calm down me." Despite my efforts my scolding had little effect on my rising anxiety, or the thoughts hat accompanied it.
"What if I really am dead..?" A shiver ran down my spine as I remembered the otherworldly experience I had in that void, "Maybe this is supposed to be some kind of Purgatory, a limbo for lost souls like me, but why would I be here? After all I've done why would I be stranded here instead of being let in whatever counts as heaven then? Where's the other souls then? Where's my parents and the Lyons?" My mind raced as I stopped to pinch myself, I felt a bit of pain.
"Can you feel pain in the when your dead? I don't think you can, at the very least I can confirm this isn't a dream." I stopped and found myself outside a store, looking up I saw a sign that read "From Dust Until Dawn" written in bold red letters.
"What kind of name is that?" I thought out loud, looking around I found the street was still as empty as before, though I swore down the road I saw some movement coming in my direction. However, my attention was soon caught by a few potted plants outside the other buildings, living plants. The only places I'd seen shrubbery like that was in pictures from history books, and in Oasis.
"All this tells me is I'm outside of D.C., not every part of the wasteland is a barren desert.Yet I didn't think plants like this could still grow in the wasteland." I thought to myself.
After this recent observation my attention went back to the store, it's entrance consisted of a single glass door, revealing an elderly man working the cash register, other than that I couldn't see anyone else in the store, neither customers or other employees. As I reached over to the handle I saw my hand tremble slightly. "Why am I still so nervous? I haven't been this nervous since I left the Vault..." I bit my lip and exhaled a breath I didn't know I was holding. "No reminiscing yet, no more stalling either, I just have to go in and as the old man a few questions." I thought to myself, trying to push down the fear I felt. Without wasting anymore time I gripped the handle and opened the door.
It was then that I almost jumped out of my skin when I heard a bell ring, my head spun to the door and there I saw a bell hanging above the door. I felt my heart race as I put a hand to my chest, then I realized the old man was now staring at me. Having a better look at him, I saw that he was bald, with a pair of bushy eye brows that were grey. His uniform consisted of a grey under shirt covered by a red apron. I let go of the handle and let the door close and tried to look as calm as I could, despite having just made a fool of myself the moment I entered. "G-Good evening sir." I said with what I hopped to be a genuine-looking smile.
"Are you okay kid? You look pale? That bell didn't scare you that bad did it?" The shopkeeper asked in a raspy voice, I felt some sweat start to run down my cheek, trying to keep my composure and whatever remained of my dignity, I replied, "No, I-I-I'm fine, thank you." I partially stuttered. "I was, l-l-lost, and-" I cleared my throat as the stuttering continued, "Could tell me, where...where I am?" I asked.
"You don't know where you are?" The shopkeeper inquired. "Don't you have anyone to call? Should I call the police?"
"No-no no no." I almost shouted, I paused to recollect myself. "I'm-uh...I'm a traveler-no tourist." I snapped my finger, "Yes, I'm a tourist, and I wanted to know what town this was. I lost my map...and I just got here..." I gave a nervous chuckle.
The Shopkeeper stared at me for a few more moments before he sighed, "Well, you're in Vale son, Capital of our kingdom-"
"Kingdom?" I muttered, earning an odd look from the Shopkeeper, "Sorry-could you repeat that?" I asked. The Shopkeeper complied, "As I said, you're in the town of Vale." He repeated.
"Alright...uh..." I hesitated, "You were saying we were...in a kingdom?" I asked, needing to make sure I wasn't going crazy, "Yes, Vale is a part of the kingdom of Vale. You know that right?" The Shopkeeper asked curiously. "Oh-yeah-yeah, of course, how couldn't I right?" I said jokingly, "No offense kid, but you seem pretty clueless to me. I wouldn't of been shocked if you didn't."
"I've-I've never traveled before, so yeah..." I lied, the Shopkeeper rubbed his eyes, "Was that all?" He asked. "Actually, you don't mind if I take a look around here for a bit do you?" I asked. "Look around? Like actually look?". "Uhm...yeah, something wrong?" "You do realize what we sell here right?" The Shopkeeper leaned a little closer to me, as if he were trying to see into my soul, "Yes, how wouldn't I know that, you sell..." I trailed off as my mind raced to find something to say, I didn't want this man becoming anymore suspicious of me, remembering the sign outside I blurted out "Dust! You sell dust obviously." I said with a joking smile, hopping he'd laugh along, even with how good I was with my [Speech, I was nervous I made myself look even weirder.
The old man gave a small smile, "Well well, you aren't as clueless as I thought kid. Would've thrown you out if you didn't even know that." The Shopkeeper said, for a few seconds I was silent before I let out a another nervous chuckle "Yeah, how wouldn't I know what Dust is, right?" I replied. "Well, go ahead then, magazines are by the back, bathroom's in the corner. Let me know if you have any questions." The man said before picking up a broom and sweeping behind his counter.
I took the time to take better look around, not believing I guessed that right, not that this would be the first time luck was on my side. On the left side of the room were several dispensers, holding a sandy material in each, my guess what that this was that "Dust" stuff the man sold, but if that were the case then what about the crystals he had in the display case up front? I figured looking around would give me a clue as my eyes continued to scan the room, I then saw the magazines the man mentioned, but standing in front of them was the only other customer I saw in the store currently reading one of the magazines. They were smaller than me by a few inches and wearing some kind of red cloak. They had to have been a kid, at least 12 years old even. When I looked closer, she seemed to be wearing a pair of headphones, something you didn't often see in the wasteland. Looking at the kid reminded me of little red riding hood due to her cloak.
Once I secluded myself behind one of the shelves I sighed, trying to wrap my mind around what was happening. "What I know so far, I'm in a city called Vale, in a country-no-a kingdom that goes by the same name, this 'kingdom' happens to be like Pre-War society in a few ways, yet it has distinct differences. I've never heard of any nation's called Vale from before or after the Great War, let alone any 'kingdoms' existing past the 19th or 20th centuries, Perhaps I'm overthinking this whole thing, maybe I am in another continent, one that wasn't effected as badly as the rest of the world, but then why are our time zone's so similar, and not only that, but how come they also know English here? The best I can think of is that I might not be on another continent, but in Canada, I've never met any caravans that came from Canada, much less any travelers from Canada, perhaps after the War they isolated themselves to rebuild. But why is it Vale all of a sudden? Not to mention they would've still been devastated by the bombs, even if they did manage to rebuild, would they have gotten to the point of building new structures like this? I should've asked that man for a map." I was sort of disappointed in how I talked with the man, normally I had a little more charisma and could pull off a decent lie. Yet back there I was a worried mess, yet I still pulled that off somehow.
I reach up and examined one of the brown bags that was on the shelf, it held more of those crystals I saw from before. It read "Crystalized Dust". "This place also has some material called 'dust' apparently. I've never seen any in the wasteland, so this resource must be native to wherever I am. Maybe a Post-War resource caused by radiation? While radiation has touched most of the world at this point, some places handled it differently, but the closest I've heard of radioactive material creating ores is the stuff from Appalachia, even then it's very rare. I don't even know what Dust can be used for, and after lying to the Shopkeeper about knowing about it I can't exactly go back and ask him about it." I thought as a I checked the back of the bag for any instructions, but found none. "I can't just take any of this with me either, that's stealing, and I'm not sure these people will accept caps either." I let out a small frustrated sigh, some many questions, and absolutely zero answers that don't contradict what I know. It's almost like I've been thrown into a whole other world.
"Heh, like that could ever happen, as advanced as the Enclave are, I doubt they could harness multi-universal travel." I assured myself, but a small part of my mind wasn't so sure. After all, I did hear one of them mention an institute scientists among them.
As I stood in the aisle, staring blankly at the bag of Dust Crystals in my hands, I barely heard the bell chime again, or the multiple footsteps entering the building. It wasn't until I heard a man say, "Do you have any idea, how hard it is to find a dust shop open this late?" I then heard the all-too familiar sounds of guns being drawn, with a laser of sorts to. "Please, just take my lien and leave." I heard the man beg, though the other man started to shush him, "Calm down, we're not here for your money..." he trailed off, "...Get the dust." He ordered in a firm tone.
I crouched down and hurried behind the shelf as some footsteps approached, I peaked over and saw a handful of oddly dressed men going to the dispensers, holding up some canisters to them, and proceeded to fill them with what I assumed was also Dust, in it's "Dust" form perhaps.
"Finally, something I can recognize, a robbery." I thought, before I heard someone stop behind me, "You, hands in the air." A man ordered behind me, I stood up quickly with my hands up. "Your boss said you weren't after money, didn't he?" I asked calmly, "Not the store owner's, but customers are fair game, fork over your Lein and any dust you got." He ordered. "Sorry, I don't have any 'lein', do you accept bottlecaps?" I materialized my stash of bottlecaps and turned to face the man. "Are you stupid? Why the fuck would I want bottle caps? Stop messing around and hand me your lein." The oddly dressed henchman ordered. He wore a pair of red sunglasses, with a black fedora and a red tie to go with his black suit. He held a red machete in his hand.
"I never thought I'd ever meet someone who'd turn down caps. Albeit, they don't use caps here." I restashed my bag and put a hand behind my back, "How about that device on your wrist? Give me that and we'll be even."
"About that...you'd literally have to take it from my corpse." I then materialized my 10mm pistol and aimed it at his face, "Not like I'm letting you though." I went into V.A.T.S, the Henchman's face froze in fear as time once again froze around me, I fired two shots to his head. The henchman was down, but I saw no blood or brains splatter the ground behind him, in fact, his whole head was perfectly fine, but for a second I swore I saw something covering his body for a few seconds before fading.
"Do these guys have personal forcefields too?" I thought, "You know what, that doesn't matter, he's incapacitated for now." I suddenly heard a high pitched "Hiya!" And the sound of a man go flying, before hitting the ground with a thud. That's when I remembered the girl from earlier.
I quickly stepped out from behind the shelves, some of the henchmen were already looking my way since I fired two shots in the store. The others were looking towards where the girl was, by the front of the store was another henchman lying unconscious. Standing behind them all was a man around my height, with orange hair under a black bowler hat. He had a red cane and a white overcoat. He looked towards me and to where the girl was and sighed, motioning his head to the girl and then to me. The henchman closer to me raised their weapons and charged towards me, while another one went towards the girl.
I went into V.A.T.S and fired two more head shots to two of the henchmen before aiming normally at the third. I placed 6 shots into him before he went down like the other henchman, with the same shield to. As the other two were still stunned I finished them off with three shots each to their torsos and watched them fall to the floor. I then heard another high-pitched shout and saw a small red figure send a henchman out the store's window.
Me, the man in white, and the few remaining henchmen looked out to see that it was the girl who had knocked away the henchman, her headphones were now lowered to her neck.
"Wait, did she take those two down by herself?" I looked back to the first one that was thrown, then back to the girl, which was when I noticed she had a literal scythe hung over her shoulder, which she then effortlessly swung around and planted tip-first into the ground, pointing it at the robbers, in her other hand were her headphones that she then clicked off.
My jaw must have unhinged itself before the ringleader's voice snapped me back to reality. "Okay? Get her!" The ringleader ordered sharply. The goons raced towards the girl. I watched as the girl swung her body around her scythe and planted a kick on the first goon, landing shortly after she then lifted it back up, clicked a small red switch, making a sound similar to a gunshot and spun her self around to hit another goon, sending him into the air. When the last goon started firing a SMG at the girl, she seemingly teleported a few feet away to dodge it, when I looked closely as she did it again, I realized that she was dodging, but incredibly fast. Using her speed and scythe she launched herself into the air and swung her scythe downwards toward the gunner and knocked him to the Ring-leader's feet.
"Hmph, you were worth every cent, truly." He said in a disappointed tone. By then I finally snapped out of it and began raising my 10 mm back up. In distance I could hear sirens approaching, must have been this place's security force. "Well little red, it's been an eventful evening, and as much as I would love to stick around..." I started towards the robber, who swung his red cane to smack me in the face, I barely dodged his blow as he leapt back, aiming at the space between me and the girl. "...I'm afraid this is where we part ways." The man finished, it was then that I realized the cane was a barrel, I heard a whine similar to a firework as a red projectile was fired from the cane, as it landed between us I heard a sizzling and realized it was a bomb.
"MOVE!" I screamed to the girl as I dove away from the flare-like object. No sooner did it then explode.
"Was that a CANE GUN?!"I mentally screamed as I coughed. To my relief the girl seemed okay, albeit she was also in the middle of a coughing fit from the smoke. I moved out of the smoke and saw the man climbing up a ladder to a building close by. I received a new notification and checked it.
-In a Strange Land
-Follow the Ringleader.
Lowering my Pipboy and holstering my pistol, I sprinted to the ladder and started climbing as fast as I could after him. I was right behind him most of the climb up, by the time we reached the roof I lunged off and landed with a roll as the man ran to the other end of the building, I unholstered my pistol and ran after him.
"STOP!" I called out, the man paused and turned back to me. "Drop the cane-gun-whatever it is! You've got no where to go." I yelled, the man was trapped at this point, unless he was willing to leap off a 2-3 story building he couldn't go anywhere.
"Darn, aren't you a tough one...Blue." The man said mockingly. "That's not my name, you ca-" I started before he cut me off "I don't care who you are, Blue. You're all named after colors any who right?"
Then from behind me, I heard another gunshot and turned to see the girl from earlier in the air for a few moments before she landed on the building a little behind me.
"Seriously? How-"
"Hey!" She called after the man, holding her big scythe and ready to fight. "Persistent..." I heard the man mumble as he saw the girl.
And if this encounter couldn't have gone weirder, I heard jets from the side of the building the man was on, and the next thing I know, a vertibird flew up from the side of the building, it's lights almost blinding me.
"Are you kidding me?!" I screamed as the man climbed into its open side, looking back to the vertibird, I saw that despite its looks it wasn't really a vertibird, because in place of propellers, it had two massive jets.
Now standing within the safety of his "Not-a-Vertibird", the man reached into his coat pocket and revealed another red crystal, "End of the line you two!" He declared as he went to toss the crystal. The girl, "Little Red" as he called her, froze up as the crystal came our way. Without missing a beat I went into V.A.T.S, ready to shoot the crystal before it landed. However, I only had a 34% chance to hit it, shouldn't have taken out my 10mm.
Yet I still took my shots, and all of them missed, a few pelted the "Not-a-vertibird" before the crystal landed at my feet. A moment too late I saw the robber fire another shot from his cane towards the crystal.
"SHIT!"
I turned and immediately lunged for the girl, tackling her to the ground. I heard the bullet fire, but didn't feel the explosion hit us, carefully moving off the girl, I turned to see what happened. In front of us stood a woman with blonde hair and glasses, wearing a white-button up shirt and black pants. A ripped purple cape flew in the wind behind her. But what caught most of my attention was the fact that she was holding a wand, and was using it to make a purple shield, in the shape of a magic pentagram of some kind.
Predictably I was shocked, very shocked. Meanwhile, the girl stood back up and looked to the woman with a look of pure awe. The pentagram faded and the woman took a second to push her glasses up to her emerald green eyes. With a soft "Hmph" she sent a few purple lasers towards the vertibird and, each hit the vehicle, rocking it in mid air. We saw the man stumble his way to the cockpit of the vehicle. The "witch" then cast another "spell" above it, creating a storm cloud. With the wave of her wand the cloud rained down hundreds of ice shards onto the vehicle, one of them smashed through the window of the cockpit.
Then from the cockpit came the pilot, wearing a red dress, and her face concealed by shadow, while her eyes glowed fiery orange. The patterns on her dress suddenly lit up as her hands caught fire, and she then cast a fireball toward the blonde, who put up a shield around herself to block it. After that the brunette swiped her arm up and below the blonde came a vortex of fire that she back flipped away from as a geyser of fire spewed from it into the air. She then waved her wand, collecting all the burning debris from the attack and coalesced them into a giant spear, and launched it toward the aircraft, the brunette fired more fireballs at the spear, which took off only a part of it. Before it could hit her, the man turned the ship so that the spear would harmlessly fly off it. The blonde disassembled it above the aircraft, turning it into three strands of magical rope that began to surround the aircraft before the brunette sent a shockwave out, destroying them.
And when I thought this couldn't get any weirder, I heard the girl's scythe begin to fold up, and saw that it become a gun, a rifle to be specific. The girl was now firing her scythe-rifle at the woman in the aircraft, who proceeded to block the shots with her bare hands. "The scythe's a gun? Of course the scythe is a gun, why wouldn't it be?"
Within moments, my pistol de-materialized as I brought out my Sniper Rifle, and began firing at the woman as well. Upon seeing me join the fray, she quickly tried blocking my shots too, but one hit her shoulder. Though from my scope, it looked like it didn't do much to her. I turned back to see the two females besides my look at my rifle with confusion. As if I was the weird one for casually de-atomizing a gun from my Pipboy.
The girl looked like she wanted to ask me something before we saw several more fiery vortexes form beneath us. The blonde waved her wand at the girl and flung her away as I dove for a clear spot. The blonde did a front flip as the vortexes erupted.
As the three of us recovered I saw the aircraft's door close, the woman in it glared at us with her blazing eyes before it shut on her. And like that, the aircraft took off into the night.
For a few seconds I sat there panting, then my mind started to work again. And what did I decide to do?
"Screw this!" Yup, I was leaving, where would I go? I didn't know, I didn't need to spend money to get a good night's sleep, I've slept on plenty of tarps before with the occasional creak in my neck. But should I have stayed to check up on everyone? No, I wasn't even supposed to be getting involved in any more troubles, I was supposed to be on my break.
"This is it, this is where I draw the line, I've fought raiders, slavers, mercenaries, mutants, deathclaws, possible eldritch-beings, ALIENS! But no, I'm not going to be fighting wizards and witches, all with their own personal shields and-" I stopped when I looked up at the moon, I almost screamed.
The clouds had cleared, and I saw the moon, which had a fraction of it BLOWN OFF. Clear as day, I saw the moon was missing a few pieces, with debris floating above it.
"What?" Is whispered, my voice sound hoarse.
"You're a huntress." I heard the girl say behind me, "CanIhaveyourautograph?" She asked the "huntress".
I had no clue what a huntress was to these people, nor did I care. At this moment, I felt my sanity start to crumble. Finally the pieces started to come together.
"I never heard of Vale because it doesn't exist, I don't know what dust is because it doesn't exist. But here, it all exists along with magic and half-guns-weapons." My skin was drained of color as the realization came to me. "It's so obvious, so clear."
I wasn't on Earth anymore
I was in another world.
My hands were gripping the ladder, ready to slide down the ladder and run in a random direction when a purple light enveloped me, and lifted me into the air. I saw the girl in a similar situation, we both turned to see the Huntress floating along side us.
"You weren't planning to run from a crime scene were you boy?" The woman scolded as she faced me.
"Wait a minute-" I struggled, "Put me down, I didn't-"
"Quiet you!" She snapped, "You two will be coming with me to the police station." She barked.
"But, we-" the girl tried to speak up before the Huntress barked, "Silence!"
At this point all my weapons were atomized once again, it wasn't like I had a plan in mind though, all I could think of was the fact that I was a whole universe away from home.
"Fuck me..."