Airi and the stranger had been travelling together for a couple of hours already. One thing that she obviously noticed is the bright blue jumpsuit that she wore with the number '111' displayed in a bright yellow and proudly on the back of her jumpsuit. Of course, her first assumption was that she was a cosplayer due to how outlandish her appearance is. She wore a bright blue with yellow highlights jumpsuit and she noticed that her facial features had aesthetic make up.

Of course, that was her first assumption, as the bright morning sky slowly bled into an orange afternoon, she started to realize that the 'aesthetic make up' that the stranger 'wore' wasn't actually make up but actual damages. The large gash on her eye pretty much made her half-blind and it shows because her right iris is actually whited out. Fortunately, her left eye gave her the idea that if the stranger hadn't been wounded, she would've had two beautiful bright blue eyes.

That is not to say that the stranger wasn't beautiful, far from it. Despite the damage on her right eye, she still managed to instill a sense of 'cool' beauty. Her long blonde hair stretched all the way down to the base of her neck, rosey tinted lips that matched her small nose. Her skin was smooth and fair with the only rough spot being the large scar on her eye. All in all, she looked beautiful and surprisingly young. In fact, the scar that she had added more flavour to her look. A kind of 'dangerous but beautiful' feel the more she observed her.

'Dangerous but beautiful' was the right statement that Airi thought initially because as they travelled together, they encountered more of the walking dead. To say that the stranger could handle herself in a fight would be a disservice to her abilities. While she carried a firearm, she would rather handle the fight close up. At first Airi feared for the stranger's safety, even Airi knew that her abilities alone wouldn't be enough to go up against an entire horde of the walking dead. Except, her worries seemed to be for nothing as the stranger pretty much danced around the horde. Her unbelievable strength and nigh quick agility made it terrifyingly easy for the stranger of them to handle the walking dead all alone.

The fight had been over before she could even swing her baseball bat. Five permanent corpses lie still on the ground, each of their heads smashed to a pulp with pieces of blood and grey matter splattered all over the ground. It was a grim sight the sight and stench of blood alone was more than enough for Airi to double over and empty her stomach.

Once she finished throwing up, the pair continued to walk. They had long passed her neighbourhood and they were currently walking on an empty highway with an open field to their right. The highway had plenty of abandoned cars which seemed to have caught the stranger's attention. Both of them stopped and the stranger approached on a red car, its door left open, probably the owner left in a hurry.

It made Airi uncomfortable to watch as the stranger stole the car's contents. Unfortunately, the red car wasn't the only victim. Any vehicles that had an open door is pretty much an invitation for the stranger as she didn't show any form of hesitation entering and stealing all of the contents. A couple of emptied cars later, she returned with a mountain of materials. From food supplies, junk, a tire iron and even some ammunition. How the stranger found a decent amount of ammunition, she would never know.

The next thing that the stranger did baffled Airi. All of the materials that the stranger carried suddenly started to shimmer bright green with gridlines on the surface of each material before suddenly turning into particles, and then the particles were sucked into the device that was wrapped around the stranger's arm.

Satisfied with all of the loot that she plundered, they continued their walk eastwards. The highway was replaced with a lone road winding up a small range of hills. Off to the side, the pair could see the state of the city, pillars of smoke billowing out of multiple tall buildings, looking closely, Airi could also spot some large fires in some of the buildings which made the state of the place much worse.

By this point in time, night had already fallen. And the pair had long past the range of hills. Now they were passing another highway with an open field to their left this time. Fortunately for the both of them, they didn't need to camp out to the side of the road. Off to the distance, they could spot an abandoned gas station. It was decided by the stranger that that is where they will take shelter for tonight. As expected from an abandoned gas station, almost everything was left to rot; The entrance door didn't even have glass, just the frame. Empty shelves left rusting, magazine stands knocked over, a dusty counter with an equally dusty cashier register. While the interior was dusty, it provided shelter.

"Ugh… do we really need to sleep here?" Airi complained.

The stranger was quiet for a moment before she looked at her, Airi's facial expression told everything that the stranger needed to know. "This is the best we have for now. Make do."

Airi watched as the stranger fiddled with the device on her wrist. While she was curious about what that was, she wasn't confident with asking yet. Her eyes widened with surprise as bright green particles flowed out of the the device and on the ground. She was mesmerized by the whole process, 2 3D outlines of bedrolls started to form and after waiting for a few seconds, the outline became solid. In front of the both of them are 2 bedrolls. Where the stranger got this, she assumed that she took it while she was looting those cars.

Airi watched as the stranger continued to fiddle with the device before putting it down. The same process happened again but they're on a smaller scale this time. Bright green outlines appeared on the palm of the stranger's hand and solidified seconds later. On the stranger's palm sat were three onigiris. She reached out and gave two to Airi. She didn't have enough time to be confused because her stomach made its presence known in the audible form of rumbling.

"Someone is hungry," the stranger said.

While Airi struggled with English, it wasn't really one of her best subjects, the amused look and small smirk that showed itself on the stranger's face was more than enough for her to get embarrassed. The stranger split the onigiris. Two for her and one for the stranger. With the remaining dignity that she had left, she gingerly took the two onigiris and started to eat. It took her mere seconds to swallow the first onigiri before noticing how slow the stranger ate her singular onigiri, this made Airi embarrassed and ate her second onigiri at a slower rate.

When their dinner finally finished, there was a moment of silence, both not talking to the other due to the language barrier. It is because of this silence, Airi now had time to think about what is happening around her. So far, they've just been circling around the city which seems to be a good idea for now, outskirts of the city meant that there were less houses which means they don't have to worry about a lot of those… things. The thought of the dead coming back to life certainly felt like it came from a terrible movie, yet here they are.

Her thinking was suddenly interrupted when she jumped at the sound of loud cracking. She looked up to see that the stranger had materialized more junk on the dusty, abandoned gas station floor. She proceeded to break multiple materials that had wood on them and started to pile them up on the ground between them. A ruler, shovel, yardstick, even a newly brought wooden broom. How the device on the stranger's arm carried them is an anomaly to her and she didn't dare question how it worked.

However, looking at the stranger, Airi felt bad for just sitting there and watching. She quickly stood up and ran out of the gas station to look for more wood to help feed their eventual campfire. Fortunately, she didn't need to look long, just across the road was a fallen dead tree. She crossed the road and started a couple of dead branchers. Once she had two handfuls of branches, she ran back in the gas station. She laid the branches down in front of the stranger whom looked at her and gave her a soft smile.

Airi continued to watch as the stranger assembled their campfire. The sticks that she gathered were assembled in a cone while most of the materials that came from the stranger was inside of the cone. After assembling the campfire, the stranger materialized a couple of gas station quality lighters, she disassembled one lighter and poured its flammable contents on the campfire, she then used another light to ignite the gas.

The empty abandoned gas station lit up with a dim orange hue. Airi stared at their campfire, mesmerized by the way how the flames moved and crackled. Her staring was interrupted when she noticed the stranger is already snuggling up in her bedroll. Fatigue finally caught up with Airi and she also did the same. As she slowly drifted off to sleep, a single thought appeared on her head.

"What's a 'Vault-Tec'?"

Mister Sandman arrived and took her off to the world of dreams.

When morning had arrived, the stranger suggested to Airi that they should look around for anything valuable in the abandoned gas station, it took Airi a couple of seconds to understand what she was trying to tell her. English really wasn't her strong suit when it came to languages. Hell, she didn't even think that she would be talking to a foreigner at any point in her life.

She gave the stranger a nod before splitting up, Airi looked around the back while the stranger looked around the front of the gas station. As expected from an abandoned building, Mother Nature's attempt to take over the gas station was visible: overgrown grass littered the back of the gas station, small trees could be seen growing here and there and ivy-covered walls could be seen.

She lazily looked around the back area of the gas station. Sure enough there wasn't anything worth scavenging unless the stranger preferred to have weeds and grass to be scavenged. Her attention was overtaken when her ears heard the sound of hammering metal. Curious, she stopped her looting search and followed the sound. As she entered the abandoned gas station from the back, adjacent to the entrance door was the stranger, hammering away a piece of leather before putting it under a grinder. Airi watched with confusion as to how a workbench suddenly appeared out of thin air but before should could even voice her concern, the stranger had stopped using the workbench and walked towards her.

"Hey" the stranger called out.

"H-Hai?" Airi responded.

There was an awkward silence between the both of them before the stranger spoke. "I know that my next words might sound awkward to you… er… could you please hand over your clothes to me?"

While the sentence that the stranger went over Airi's head, the gestures that she made didn't. The stranger gestured to her clothes and then proceeded to mime the act of taking off the clothes before finally gesturing both of her hands towards her chest repeatedly.

Those gestures made it easier for Airi to understand what the stranger wanted. A look of astonishment overcame her face before she clutched to her clothes tightly.

"NO! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!"

"Please…" the stranger placed both of her hands together in a praying gesture. "… I can make some improvements on your clothes. I want to keep you safe," the stranger then pointed towards the workbench and then she did a hugging gesture before looking back at Airi.

Airi wanted to say 'no', really, but something tells her that the stranger had no ill intentions. Begrudingly, she was convinced into taking off her clothes. With nothing covering her aside from her underwear, she felt extremely self-conscious. She knew that they were in an abandoned place where no one could possibly wander in but she just couldn't help but cover herself in embarrassment. She watched the stranger carefully handle her clothes and she couldn't help but be mesmerized as the stranger expertly weaved multiple kind of materials in between the fabric of her clothes.

The whole process didn't even take 10 minutes and the stranger was already done. At this point, Airi had already forgotten that she wasn't wearing any clothes and more interested in what the stranger did to her clothes. The stranger seemed to notice her intruige and decided to give her a demonstration on the changes she had done. After giving back her clothes, the stranger walked towards the workbench and picked up a rectangular material, the then let it hang on the abandoned counter. She took a few steps away from the counter before drawing out her New Nambu M60.

BANG

BANG

BANG

BANG

BANG

With each crack of the pistol, Airi jumped and yelped. After the second shot, she covered her ears with her hands. When the loud noise finally stopped, she uncovered her ears and looked at the stranger, who was already reloading her pistol one bullet at a time. Airi was so fixiated by the motion of the stranger reloading the gun that she almost missed her 'psst' to her.

Breaking her focus on the act of reloading and meeting the strangers eyes, the stranger gestured her head towards the counter. Airi's head turned to see the piece of material had not shown any kind of damage or holes. Scattered on the ground were five bullets. Her mind was slowly connecting the dots, she looked to the stranger one last time for confirmation. The stranger gave a smirk, she then did some gestures to help Airi understand.

First she pinched and pulled a piece of her blue jumpsuit, she then pointed towards her, telling her that she was referring to Airi's clothes. Second, she walked back to the counter to take the material she shot at and pointed at it. Finally, she did the first gesture again then did mimed the action of knitting before pointing at Airi.

Finally understanding what the stranger wanted, Airi had another question. Why did she give her such protection? It's not like they're looking to get shot. Fortunately, she didn't need to wonder any longer. Confusion was written all over her face and the stranger could tell. She called out to her again and jerked her head to the side, telling Airi to follow her. Airi followed, once they stepped out of the abandoned gas station, the stranger pointed towards the city

Airi's heart sank as she realized what the stranger was trying to tell her.

Well there you have it, chapter 3. I do hope all of you are enjoying the rewrite as much as I do. I'm starting to like this language barrier problem that both Lyra and Airi. Also, it seems like Lyra hasn't properly introduced herself to Airi, that's going to be something that I'll cover on chapter 4. For now, it seems like good things are happening for the duo, Lyra managed to make an Armor Workbench, I'm pretty sure Fallout: 4 players know what that implies.

I'm excited to show you what I have cooked up for the next chapter! Next chapter will be action filled and drama as the duo try their best to navigate through a zombie-infested city!

That's all I have to say, I bid you all adieu

Peace~