Hey guys!
So this chapter is dedicated mostly to Jack, and how he would begin to adjust to the new world. Aloy would appear later in the chapter, and if not the next chapter.
Anyway guys enjoy. :)
Jack felt like hell when he woke up the next morning; his head ached like nothing before. Plus the fact he was really dizzy. He transferred all his strength to his legs, and tried to sit upright, and put a hand on his head.
The guard came, and distributed food to each of the prisoners, Jack took his tray, and began to eat.
"You feeling better?" The guard asked him.
"Yeah, a little bit," Jack responded.
"Good, cause after you eat the captain wants to talk to you."
"Sure thing," Jack continued to eat while the guard left him. A few minutes later he finished, and the guard came back. He was led out of his cell, and the guard put shackles on his wrists, and led him outside. Erend waited outside while he sat admiring the view of the valley below. The guard brought Jack, and undid his shackles, and made him sit across from where Erend was sitting. Erend turned his head to face Jack, and he quickly realized who it was.
"You're the guy from last night right?" Jack asked Erend.
"Yep," Erend responded.
"Look if it's about the way I acted in front of you last night, then i'm sorry, I get carried away when I drink too much," Jack apologized.
"Aww no pressure boy, I would've done the same if I drank too much," Erend said, and waved it off. "And that was not why I had you come here."
"Then what is?"
Erend put his hands on the table between them. "My name is Erend, I already know yours," Jack didn't answer back. "Anyway Aloy told me about you, you know her right?"
"Yeah, I saved her from almost being eaten alive."
"She told me that, and she told me that you're capable of a lot of things." Erend told him.
"I guess I am," Jack proudly said.
"Well I've been looking for someone like you for months," Erend pulled out a bunch of wanted posters, and set them down on the table."After the attack of the eclipse, and ancient machines here in meridian the shadow carja, and eclipse were left with no leader, and they broke of, some worked alone while some established little bandit groups, and the people here are the most wanted from all of them," Jack was examine each poster as he listened.
"So what does this have to do with me?"
"I need someone to find these guys, and either throw them in prison or take' em out, and that person is you," Erend said while pointing at Jack.
"So this is basically a job offering?"
"Yep, basically that."
"And you basically need me to be your bounty hunter?"
"Yep"
Jack thought for a second.
"How much will I get paid for this?"
"500 shards per guy you bag," Jack whistled at that remark. "I'll even throw in a free apartment for you here in meridian to get you settled down."
"You sure are real desperate aren't ya?" Jack asked.
"Pretty much," Erend said.
"Okay sure, I'll do it, but I need my stuff back," Jack said.
"Consider it done," Erend raised a hand, and Jack took it, and they both shook hands. At least the Carja knew how to shake hands. After that, Erend told him that a guard would give him his stuff back, and lead him to his apartment, and if he wanted to get started he gave him a location in the city of meridian to meet up with Erend to hook him up on the job, and they part their ways for now.
The guard gave him his things back, and led him to the apartment Erend told him about. The guard handed him the key, and left. Jack entered the apartment, and his first impression was "not bad", there was a living room, a dining room, a bedroom, a small storage room. It sure as hell wasn't five-star living, but he had everything he needed, minus the air-conditioning, electricity, and internet.
He put his things down, and climbed upstairs to the bedroom, and instantly crashed. A few minutes later he decided he should explore the city some more, and stockpile on supplies. He got back up, and got ready to go. He left his rifle, but brought his pistol just in case.
The city was pretty big, but he found his way through anything. There was a market where he bought some food like meat, and vegetables, and started making his way back to the apartment.
On his way back there was an old lady walking across the street of a very populated area, when a bunch of guys came out of the shadows wearing masks, and tried to take the old lady's belongings. Jack dropped, and ran over to help out the old woman.
"HEY!" He yelled, and pulled off one of the attackers. They noticed Jack, and went for him instead, they pulled out sticks or daggers, and surrounded him. Jack got into a fighting defensive position, and got ready. He could just pull out his knife or pistol or both, and end the fight before it even starts, but that might spell a bad ending for him.
A guy rushed him, and tried to stab him, but Jack turned him around, and threw him back at the attackers. Another guy tried to stab him, but Jack grabbed his forearm, and punched the guy's gut, and jaw, same went for another guy who tried to punch him back; Jack tried to punch a guy, but the guy deflected it, and Jack followed up by kicking him in chest which sent the guy back, another guy tried to stab him, but Jack deflected the incoming blade, and grabbed the guy's head, and gave him a knee to the face. The fight lasted another minute, but Jack was able to deliver a lot of pain towards the attackers. There was one last guy was left, and he tried to rush-stab Jack, but jack grabbed the guy's forearm, twisted it, brought it to the guys back, and put him down on ground. Jack applied more pressure to the guy's arm, and the guy wailed in pain, Jack kept the pressure on the guy's arm, and brought him up to whispering range.
"Listen," Jack whispered to him.
"What do you want?" The guy said, trying to swallow the pain on his arm.
"I'll let you go, IF, you agree to no longer go around the streets stealing peoples stuff," Jack told him.
"Alright, fine, just let me go!" The guy said.
"Okay then, but if I do see you do it again, I'll make sure that you, and your buddies don't get away easy next time," Jack warned him. He eventually let him go, and the guy including his buddies picked themselves up, and ran away.
Jack saw that the old lady was laid down next to a wall, he saw the stuff the guys tried to take from her, and he walked over to it, and picked it up, and walked over to the lady, helped her up, and gave her, her things back. The old lady beamed a smile of thanks to Jack.
"Thank you very much!" The Old Lady said, Jack smiled.
"Its no problem," He replied, a second later group of armed soldiers followed by a crowd of city folks showed up. A young man-probably in his twenties-ran over to the old lady's side.
"Mother what happened?" He asked her. He noticed Jack, and pointed at him. "ARREST HIM!" He ordered. The group of guards approached Jack with weapons drawn, and Jack was getting to surrender, again.
"STOP!" The old lady cut them off. "Do not arrest that man!"
"Why mother?" Her son asked.
"I was coming back from the market when a group of men assaulted me, and tried to take my things, but this man showed up, and fought off," The old lady explained.
"Which way did they go?" The man asked.
"Down the road."
The man signaled a few of his soldiers to track down the culprits. The old lady pointed at Jack.
"If it wasn't for him, I would've been doomed," The old lady said. The man turned around, and faced Jack.
"What is your name?" He asked.
"Jack, Jack Smith," Jack replied.
"Well Jack smith thank you very much for helping my mother, is there anything I can do to repay you?" He asked.
"You don't have to repay me," Jack said.
"There has to be something," The man pleaded.
"I didn't do it for a reward, I only did it because I thought it was right," Jack said trying to close it.
"C'mon, at least let me buy you a drink," The man offered.
"Well...a drink would nice."
"There you go," The man said, and offered Jack his hand. Jack took it, and the man pulled him in for a hug.
"LET'S HEAR IT FOR THE STRANGER," one of the bystanders yelled. The crowd cheered for Jack while repeating his name over, and over. The crowd made way for Jack up until the tavern. The man bought him a huge mug of ale. They sat at a table occupied by what looks like the man's friends.
"To the sun," The man raised raised his mug, and the group men-including Jack-did the same.
"To the sun!" They toasted their mugs, and drank. A moment later Jack spoke up.
"I didn't get your name back there," Jack told the man.
"Oh, yeah, my name is Atlas, i'm the captain of the special forces unit of the carja," He said.
"Damn."
"Mhmm, how about you?" Atlas asked.
"You already know my name, i'm just a guy who lost everything back where from where he came from, and came here to find a new start," Jack lied, well technically he "bended" the truth.
"Why what happened?" Atlas asked with a curious tone.
"It's too hard for me to talk about," Jack faked his expressions, and his tone to make it more convincing.
"Oh okay, I won't push you any further," Atlas ended it.
"So what do the special forces unit do?" Jack said changing the topic.
"Well it's self explanatory I guess. We do the stuff the regular units can't do, we sometimes like to call ourselves the 'elite ghosts'," Atlas explained.
"Wow," Jack said, and took another swig.
"Now, are you looking for a job, the SpecOps unit could use someone like you," Atlas offered.
"Hate to break it to you man, but someone already beat you to it," Jack told him.
"Who?"
"A guy named Erend," Jack said.
"Erend captain of the vanguard?Well looks like you got one hell of a job," Atlas said.
"Does being a bounty hunter, going around the land killing a bunch of bad guys on a wanted poster count as 'one hell of a job'?" Jack asked.
"Of course it does, and you get a lot of privileges," Atlas told him.
"What sort of privileges?"
"You'll find out soon enough," Atlas said.
It was starting to get late, and Jack noticed.
"Well guess I have to get home now, thanks for the booze," Jack said, and stood. Atlas did the same.
"No problem Jack. I'll see you around, and may the sun light your way!" Atlas said. Jack nodded, and they both shook hands, and Jack went his way.
When he got home he placed the food he bought on the table, and proceeded upstairs. He removed his jacket, boots, and socks, and laid down on his bed, and drifted of to sleep.
The next morning Jack decided to check out the job Erend told him about. He got into his gear, went downstairs, took an apple for a quick breakfast, and headed over to the location Erend told him about.
A little later he arrived at a building that looks a old abandoned warehouse. He opened the door, and closed it. He walked a little deeper into the warehouse when a group of men surrounded him, but before they attacked Jack they were cut-off.
"Stop!" Erend said."He's clear." The men lowered their weapons, and let Jack pass.
"Jack great to see ya!" Erend greeted the newly employed bounty hunter.
"You to, you said you had a job for me," Jack told him.
"Yes I did, follow me," Jack followed Erend to a small room. "By the way, nice job on what you did last night, the people are starting to like you!"
"Heh, yeah," Jack said.
The two eventually arrived at a room where there was a huge table, and map on that table, with specific points on it.
"What are those points?" Jack asked, while examining the map.
"Those are active bandit camps, and last known locations of some people," Erend explained. "Now here's the job," He pulled out a poster from a crate, and handed it to Jack. "That guy is has a rep for blowing up outposts, and stealing stuff from villages. Your job is to find the guy, and bring him to us," Erend explained.
"Okay, where was he last spotted?"
"We believe he has a camp out here in the desert camping with a bunch of other guys, if not then maybe he moved, but he'd most likely still be around that area," Erend explained.
"Alright, just give me a minute, and I'll get going," Jack said, and left the room. He sorted out his things on a table outside, and took only the things he thought were needed for the job before leaving.
Once he was outside meridian he checked the map, and started heading over to the location the camp was suspected to be. Jack knew it would be a long walk, so he needed a ride, but the problem was that pretty much every automated vehicle ceased to exist. So he had to resort to something else; there was one thing though. The machines used a signal in order to function, but if he hijacked that signal, change a few lines of code, and he might be able to hitch himself a ride.
He headed over to one of the broadhead sites, and tried it out. Unlike Aloy's focus which was the civilian version Jacks focus was the military version which means it can do more, and survive more. Jack hid in the tall grass, and waited for one of them to come closer. A minute passed, and a broadhead came to view, it came close enough for Jack to begin. He started up the signal interceptor, and chose the right signal, once he got the right signal he changed a specific line of code, and...the hack was complete, and the broadhead was his. He stood from the tall grass, approached the broadhead, climbed on it, figured out how to control it, and rode away.
Jack was still getting introduced to the controls so the ride to his destinations was extra bumpy, and he accidentally ran into some things, and even fell off a few time, but he still managed to get there; once he was there he tied the broadhead to a tree to make sure it didn't get away, and walked to the camp site. He climbed a small raised platform overlooking the camp, and surveyed the area. There was a campfire with around four men around with their weapons, a tent, and a cart filled with different goods.
"One of those guys has to be the target," He softly whispered to himself. He needed to identify them first, but he has to live up to the saying "act now ask questions later".
He could shoot them, but that would most definitely kill them, and he doesn't have non-lethal rounds, so he resorted to a flashbang grenade. He pulled the pin, angled his throw, released the lever, and threw the grenade. The grenade flew, and landed right to one of the men, he noticed it, and clearly he didn't know what it was so he picked it up, and examined it. The grenade detonated releasing a loud bang, and a bright flash, but it didn't hurt any of them, besides the guys hand which was burned a little bit. The men were immobilized, they heard nothing but ringing, and saw nothing but white brightness. They had no idea what was going on. Jack saw this as an opportunity to capture them. He got out of his cover, and approached the group; the effects of the flashbang didn't affect one of them as much of the others because he reached for a knife, and tried to rush Jack, he raised his rifle against the attacker, and yelled "freeze", but the attacker kept coming at him, so he was forced to put him down. Jack pumped a few shots of lead into the guy's gut, and he was killed instantly. Jack decided to clean up the mess later, and keep the remaining guys at bay, he took a line of rope from his bag, and tied up each of the guy arms, and legs, after that he identified one of the men as his target, and loaded him and the other two on the cart. He then buried the dead guy's body, and attached the cart to the broadhead.
An hour later he returned to meridian, Erend, and his men waited at the end of the bridge. They had a look of surprise when they saw Jack with the criminals, and most of the stolen stuff. Jack hopped of the broadhead, and Erend's men secured the three criminals.
"Sorry, there were four of them, but I had to put one of them down," Jack apologized.
"Relax kid, you got the main priority anyway," Erend tilted his head over to the leader of the pack, now being escorted away in chains. Erend reached into his coat, and tossed Jack a small pouch of metal shards. "There's more from where that came from, and that job was only a warm up, the better ones are all posted on a wall at the city center."
Jack smiled, and put the pouch in his jacket."Thanks," Jack said.
"No problem, you earned it," Erend told him."Good luck in your new job!"
"Will be, thanks again, and good luck to you too," Jack told Erend, and they left the area. Jack returned to his apartment, and celebrated his success with dinner, and a nice nap.
3 months later...
It had been almost four months since Jack crawled out from that bunker. His bounty hunter work was very beneficial for him, and for the land since he's wiping out the bad guys, plus the pay is really good; he thinks that in a few weeks he'll be able to get himself a new home. He was also even able to gain the trust of the people of meridian, the king even gave him a medal.
Later on he started to run into some problems, like his ammo. He knew he can't just go to a sporting goods store, and buy extra ammo; he thought he was gonna have to resort to bows, and arrows like everyone else, but then he had his lucky break. He went out once to map out the lands to see the best places to set traps in or where the best resources were when he found ANOTHER abandoned underground military base, and this one contained all the things he needed. He was able to solve his ammo problem, and he was even able to find a bullet press so he could just refill used casings; gunpowder wasn't a problem because he can just buy the components to make make gunpowder. He also found a load of explosives, and a bunch of other goodies which he kept for later.
Another couple of months later…
Jack knew he needed to get out of that cramped up apartment in the city so he moved a mile southeast of the city where he built himself a cabin. It was any typical log cabin, but he could store more things in it, and beside it he made a blacksmith shop which completely solves his ammo problem because he can now make more bullets, and he doesn't have to pick up the used casings; brass and lead was easy to obtain. He also even stripped the solar panels from the back of a snapmaw, and put it on the roof of his house, repaired, and modified an old gasoline generator he found, and now he had electricity.
1 week later…
Jack was tired, he bagged six guys today, traveled the distance it would take to walk from san francisco to sacramento, and made up to 3000 shards; overall it was a long day. Erend sent a guy to tell him that he had a special job for him, but he needed to come in early, really early. So when he called it a day at around 12:00 am in the morning he returned to his starting apartment. Jack opened the door, went upstairs, crashed on the bed, and expected at least five hours of sleep.
Three hours of being asleep later there was a loud bang which made Jack jump out of his sleep, stand up, grab his rifle, and other weapons, and ran outside to check it out.
Again thank you guys for reading, and please leave a review, tell me your feedback, but for now I'll see you all in the next one. :)