AN: Yes, I'm rewriting the same "Pseudo-Isekai" again, and I am genuinely sorry to anyone who finds them annoying or irritating. The past few years and months have been a growing period of a sort, and this time, finally, I publish this story with a far, far better idea of where I want it to go, and what path to take.
In the middle of a vibrant forest of red and orange leaves, a lonely, grey-clad body stirred awake. "Def… Defend Fanus, air support… unavailable," he muttered unconsciously. With the first audible rustling of a leaf, he snapped awake, turning around to examine his surroundings. As his long slumbering mind caught up to his vision, he knew that he was absolutely nowhere that he was familiar with. He quickly began to take inventory, making sure that everything was in one piece. His armor, rifle, optionally-issued sword, and all the relevant equipment were present, much to his relief.
With one concern eliminated, he slowly rose to his feet and began to move through the woods, searching for landmarks or any indicator of where he was. Tools that would normally be consulted had proven useless. His GPS showed only the default coordinate, much to his annoyance, and his compass was behaving strangely. Based on the light level, he presumed it was early in the morning, but the compass inexplicably pointed west when he looked towards the sun. The local map that he carried offered no hints as well. Based on what little information he could gather, he was well above sea level, in an environment that offered large forest growth, and was apparently in the autumn.
After several hours of wandering, he decided to rest underneath a tree. Once again, he tried his GPS and retraced his map to find any possible reference point. Exhausted, he decided to think back in an attempt to remember how he might have arrived in such an unrecognizable place.
The most recent memory that he could clearly form was unpleasant. He had been injured, was alone, and had embraced certain death, only to see the flashes of gunfire from an unseen aircraft lay waste to the enemy closing in. Nothing was clear beyond that point, and it was infuriating. "Dammit, why can't you remember!?" he thought. With no other satisfactory answer, he concluded that whoever had come to rescue him from that fateful battle had healed him, repaired his damaged equipment, and left him here. "Lotta good you did there. Really appreciate being left in some random forest."
As he got up to continue his trek, he noticed telltale signs of a slope. Curious, he walked towards where he predicted the edge of the plateau would be and was rewarded with the sight of a rail track. "Civilization is in rail distance!" he cheered. Although he still had no idea of where he was, the presence of infrastructure was welcoming. The rail was elevated over the forest floor, and it did not appear worn or damaged. Satisfied, he slowly descended the mountain, looking carefully for any signs of an oncoming train.
As he neared the bottom of the slope, a sharp, whistling sound was heard in the distance. With great hope, he used a pair of binoculars to observe where the noise had come from. Shortly thereafter, a single, large light came into view, illuminating the silhouette of a train. "Perfect," he thought. "I'll just put the old train-hopping lessons to use."
As the train approached, he saw two distinct blurs seemingly fly from the mountainside onto the roof. Curious but unbothered, he climbed onto the elevated rail and stood at a bend in the track, waiting for an opportunity to latch onto the engine car. As he found his footing on the train, he began to look for signs of where it had come from, or at least the markings of a company he could recognize. To his surprise, the door to the engine was unlocked. "That's a big security flaw if I ever saw one."
Silently, he stepped into the carriage to find a set of engines and a very, very asleep engineer. "Now I'm curious. Is this guy a complete dumbass who couldn't be bothered to lock the door, or are they just having a bad week?" he muttered, hiding behind one of the motors.
As he took a moment to relax, alarm noises rattled throughout the entire train, spurring him to action. The now-awake engineer was rapidly looking through what appeared to be security cameras, frantically pressing buttons as they switched between them. "Oh gods, don't tell me we need to deal with hijackers again. Come on tin cans, hurry up and get them!" they shouted. Too occupied to look behind them, the engineer missed the grey-clad figure moving to the console right beside him. "I'm so fired if the boss finds out," they wailed, slapping away at the command console.
"Gods, eh? Can't think of too many polytheistic societies these days," he thought as he stared at the screens from the shadows. From what little could be glimpsed, there were dozens of security personnel facing off against two unarmored but armed individuals. One of them had a dark red outfit and a fancy mask. The other dressed in a manner reminiscent of a maid.
Based on their incredibly unorthodox outfits, he presumed they were fellow train hoppers. "Maybe they've got something to do with the blurs I saw earlier?" The fact that they were armed and facing off against security led him to think. "Probably less innocent in intention, but this shouldn't be a problem. Two stowaways armed with rudimentary…" he stopped and flinched for a moment when they began to cut through the security staff, seemingly dodging, if not outright parrying gunfire. "The fuck!?" he whispered, shocked by the sheer brutality of the melee. As he paid closer attention, he saw that the bisected security personnel weren't bleeding or screaming out in pain. It took very little time to realize that they were robots, and although the lack of human casualties was welcoming, he began to wonder what sort of civilization could afford to deploy such technology on a large scale.
Using the dimly lit parts of the car to hide, he inched closer to the hysterical engineer before pouncing on them. "Listen, I am not working with those two, but I need to know what's happening," he said. "I don't know if you're willing to believe me, but I have no intention to hurt anybody on this train unless I have to. I got lost in the woods and saw the train, so I hopped on board to find a mess that I'm not sure I should take care of. If you need my help, you to explain where we are and who we're dealing with. I want the names of the country, continent, the biggest cities, etc. And then, we'll deal with those two, alright?" He released the engineer from his grip, who promptly nodded in understanding. The engineer quickly spouted off some facts that proved of some use, although the information was still lacking. When they had finished, he quickly recapped what he had heard. "Okay. Based on your observations, we're dealing with two terrorists fighting for a racial supremacy group called the White Fang. We're also currently in the Kingdom of Vale, on the continent of Sanus, which has a population nearing thirty million, and is composed of a single major city and surrounding villages. What about a military, anything like that?"
"Well uh, we have a police department in the city, but we don't have an army or anything like that. If we have any major threats, we call in Huntsmen." the engineer said before looking over his shoulder. "Can we get back to fighting the two psychos now?"
"Sure thing," he said. "Be my eyes, I'm counting on you." As he slipped out of the car, he left his bag of equipment hidden behind a toolbox. "I really hope I don't lose this shit," he muttered. "You're sure this is the 'White Fang'?" he yelled.
"Yup, the mask is a dead giveaway. And you're sure you can handle them? They look pretty tough and, well, would you look at that!" the engineer said, appearing relieved.
"What happened?" he asked.
"Our train has a Spider Droid for dealing with particularly dangerous threats. It's booting up and, well, I mean, I don't think you'll have to do anything special. What's your Semblance, anyway? You seem pretty confident you can take that guy on."
"Semblance?" he asked.
"You… You don't know what a Semblance is? What about Aura?"
"I've never heard of either of those. I'm fairly uneducated about this region, so you're gonna need to explain everything beyond basic sociology and world history.."
"Even then, how could you not know what they are? How were you going to fight without them?" As the engineer looked at him bewilderingly, an eerie silence filled the cabin. From outside, the two could hear faint voices.
"SPIDER DROID OFFLINE," an intercom beeped.
"How… How could they possibly take it down?" the engineer frantically rewinded the footage, and the frightening duel was there for both of them to behold.
"One strike, and that giant robot plus half the foliage in the vicinity just vaporized…"
"If you don't have a Semblance, you're no match for that guy." the engineer whispered.
"It doesn't matter, it's about stopping them from blowing up the train like we heard. The girl sounded hesitant about killing people, maybe she can be reasoned with." As soon as the words flew out of his mouth, he flew out the door and leapt onto the train's roof. Before he could be seen, he took aim at the pair and fired a stream of bullets at the red-clad man.
Adam Taurus saw the grey-clad figure fairly quickly. The first few bullets had caught him by surprise, and he even with his Aura, the impact was painful. The next salvo was parried, along with another, final burst of gunfire.
With his magazine empty and no time to reload, Adam's opponent drew an impressively crafted longsword. "You are not going to hurt these people!" they shouted. Adam was in no mood for a fight, and the duel with the Spider Droid had already left him tired. With a kick off of the train's roof, he speared the foolhardy swordsman through the torso before kicking him onto the roof of the lead car. For a brief moment, Adam saw the panicked engineer leap from the engine car onto the woods below as if they were too afraid to think. Smirking, he stepped away from the edge of the roof back to where he had destroyed the Spider Droid.
"Let's go, Blake," he said, turning to face where she was last standing. He saw her motionless, staring off into the distance. "Blake, let's go, we're detonating the charges." He grabbed her arm only to find it fade away as he touched it. "One of her Shadow Clones!" Shocked, he turned towards the front of the train, where he saw Blake standing on the engine car.
"No, Adam," she said. "This is goodbye." She cut off the connectors between the engine car and began to drift off into the distance. No longer connected to the main engine, the train slowly grinded to a halt.
"Blake!" he shouted, half fearful and half enraged. But his cries were heard only by the wind.
On the now-faraway lead car, Blake Belladonna stood over an injured man. "So, was that a break-up, or a divorce?" he said.
"Humor eases the pain, doesn't it?" Blake said, smiling. He nodded, clutching at his injury. "Why didn't you use your Aura? You must've known he'd be dangerous"
"I don't even know what an Aura is," he chuckled. "But, I'm guessing it has something to do with Mr. Horns back there blasting the robot to nothing. Shit, this looks pretty bad. If you look in the car, you'll find a ba-" He stopped to cough up blood that had started to well into his throat. "F-fuck, I need that damn bag."
Blake looked worriedly at him. "I don't know how much help this will be, but I have an idea." Remembering the words, she quickly whispered them as she placed her hands on his wound. "For it is in passing that we achieve immortality. Through this, we become a paragon of virtue and glory to rise above all. Infinite in distance and unbound by death, I release your soul, and by my shoulder, protect thee."
"Was that some kind of prayer?" he said, irked. "Just please, get me the bag." Suddenly, he felt a heat rising from his body. It was not burning or painful, but gentle. It was the feeling of a mother's embrace, or sitting in front of the fire after a cold winter's day. He looked to see a beautiful blue shine over his body, and the pain instantly felt lighter. "Is this Aura?" he thought as Blake arrived with his equipment bag.
"Aura should help you heal faster, but you should still dress your wounds," she said. "You didn't have one and you tried to take on Adam... What went through your head when you made that decision?"
"I'll explain later," he said, bandaging himself. "Just need a little bit of… rest." He finished dressing the injury and fell asleep as Blake watched on.
"This is really confusing," Blake thought as she moved into the carriage to operate the train.