Now this is embarrassing...

Had a "great" plan, ready to use. But turns out, I was already on the chopping block, to be gotten rid off...

What does that mean? Simple, really. I am forced to survive in the wilderness by doing contract, looting, raiding, pillaging, helping, and all that shit...

Problem is, I'm just one man. I gotta get out of this region and into another. Hopefully news of my deeds didn't go far...

Who am I kidding? This place has TVs for god sake. Sure, it could be cable, but the thing is that this shit is too futuristic for that. Satellites HAS to be a thing, right?...

Right?...


"Fuck me..." Thomas mutters, seeing the wreckage of his vehicle, as he slowly floats down onto the ground with his parachute.

As soon as he landed, he makes a run toward it. Hoping to salvage anything he can... But there was nothing that was deemed salvageable, one quick look at the PDA says so.

With a sigh, he decides to head in a direction, that would lead further away from the city, and thus from prying eyes.

Suddenly, there is a growl, causing him to turn around. He spots the growler and comments "Seems people aren't the only one I have to worry about..."

Standing there is a large wolf-like creature, adorned with bone like armour plating and has black skin underneath. Red eyes that glow and a few veins as well, which glow.

Thomas quickly checks the pistol that he stole from the cops, checks the ammo, nods in satisfaction and then states, "Come at me then. I've got several bones to pick out of you, you rejected edgy hound."

The thing glared at Thomas, before charging at him with full force, opening up it's maw to take a bite out of Thomas. The man reacts by aiming the pistol at it's open mouth and fire...

The bullet did kill the wolf... But the pistol also flew out of Thomas's hand from recoil.

The man looks at the pistol, picks it up, disarms it and checks the magazine again. "Hang on. These are basically rifle rounds! The fuck? Who makes a pistol like that?!" He asks, flabbergasted, then pales when he realized the implication behind it... "Oh, fuck me. That police officer would've killed me with a single shot to the arm." He mutters out.

He shakes his head, "Right..." and was about to continue walking in a random direction, before suddenly stopping. And idea came to mind, as he says "Hold on."

"Can't I use the scrap metal as armour?" He asks himself, then grabs the PDA. A quick search later, he found custom armour, scrap armour. Then selected that and used said information to build himself some heavy armour to protect his body.

Afterwards, he set off away from the city, taking a quick look at the map, he's heading southwards. Thinking that he could arrive at a nearby town and hitch a ride towards the west of anywhere here.

As he walked southwards, for a few minutes, he suddenly heard something from the sky. Looking up, he spots the flying machine that chased him just fly past him and towards the crash location.

He lets out a grunt, "Yeah, no surprise. I'm a really wanted man here now." As he begins trekking what he believes to be southward...


Helping hand?


~Night Time~...

Thomas is seen limping down a dirt road, clutching his stomach. His hunger taking over so much, it becomes hard to even walk properly. His feet shuffling, but never raising enough. His face dreary and tired.

At any rate, he would die from either starvation or from the hostile wildlife.

The broken moon was hidden behind the clouds, making it so that the already dark environment be even darker. Almost pitch black even.

As Thomas takes another step, he suddenly fell over from exhaustion. His hunger getting to him... He never experienced being so hungry before, he always ate at least once... Yet now he lays on the dirt road, as the clouds threaten to rain...

But things were brightening up for him suddenly. As a vehicle is driving down the dirt path, heading towards his direction.

All Thomas could see were lights, the vehicle itself couldn't be seen.

The vehicle drove close to Thomas, to reveal it being a beefy looking truck, made for off-roading... But Thomas couldn't stay awake anymore, his eyes closing. All he heard was the owner of the said truck being male and "Ho-ly shit... W'ere's t'e first ai'd kit? We got sum'ne passed out on t'e road!"...


- Unknown amount of time... -


Thomas wakes up after a long sleep on a bed. He is still tired, but now also confused... Mainly on the fact why someone saved him.

He let out a low growl of pain, as he forces himself up to stand, but he was interrupted by a voice, "Well, look at that. He's finally awake!" A southern voice, to be exact, "Now I know that our local courier brought you back here into town, but I should ask: why were you moving about in the first place?" They say, as they finally come into view.

They are a quite tall and relatively wide. They've got a pointy beard on the chin, a long thin and curled moustache- 'More like spirals', and their scalp and top of their head are completely bald. Instead- 'His hair looks like someone added horns to the side, pointing back'.

The man was wearing a clean white and simple long-coat. And blue pants with black boots can be seen as well.

Thomas finally decides to answer the doctor's question, "Running away. Bad folk set me up, made me wanted in the city. Had to run away." as he looks down at the ground.

The man cups his chin, "I see..." He mutters, "So you're considered a criminal in Vale, but may I ask something?" He says, looking at the man with a raised eyebrow, causing Thomas to go stiff.

"Go ahead," Thomas forces himself to say, afraid that he will be prosecuted.

The large man chuckles, "Oh, don't worry about me having you be sent to jail." He states, "Instead, I want to analyze you." The man pauses, "I'm the medical doctor of this village, performing almost everything say short from body part replacements, eye surgery and the likes." He introduces himself, "My name is Harold Greenstone. My profession? Medical doctor." As he puts out his hand.

Thomas nods and grabs his hand, "Name's Thomas. Just Thomas, no surname." The somehow-finely-groomed-moustachioed man answers, "And if it helps me get out of here faster, then sure. I'll speak up."

"Splendid!" The doctor says with a smile, "I just have a few physical- and psychological exams to be done on you!" With a tone of voice that made Thomas feel unsafe

'I'm in danger, aren't I?'


- 1 hour later -


Thomas walks out of the clinic with his stuff in hand, utterly white-faced. "My god..." He mutters, "I need to get out of here."

He quickly ran up to a group of people and asked, "Excuse me, who's heading south west?"

"Ey! You're a'ight!" One of them says, a lanky man with a cowboy's hat, "I rescued ya of the side o' t'e ro'd, where ye's was pass'd out!"

Thomas lets out an "Oh," with relative surprise, "Well, I have to say thank you then," He says, putting a hand out and the man shook it, "I appreciate you saving my skin back there. But tell me, are you heading west? As in, as west as possible?"

"Huh? You's wanna head to Vacuo?" The man asks, before chuckling, "Nah, I'm not headin' that far. But I could drop ye off at the place where I'm headin'." He explains with a friendly smile, "It'd be like dropping ya off a step closer, You gotta find yer own way though..." He pauses, frowning for a moment, before a smile comes back on his face, "Oh! T'ere's also a sea port w'ere ya could get t'ere by ship!" He adds.

Thomas nods, "Alright. When will you be heading out?" he asks, wanting to leave as soon as possible.

The question causes the cowboy-hat-wearing man to stop completely, processing the question in his head. Then with a forced smile, he states, "It appears I forgot about the time! I should've 'eaded out 10 minutes ago now!" Then quickly leaves, "Come on! Got to get to town!" He quickly says, as Thomas began following the man with a quick jog."

They ran up to a large, heavily armoured truck and get in, the cowboy-hatted man sitting on the left-side, Thomas on the right.

They began to drive away, down a dirt road, onto the forest. The man turns on the radio, and it begins to play country music, "Now then." He starts, as they drive out of town, "Name's Phil! Finally nice to meet ya!"

Thomas nods, waiting to get far enough from town, "Indeed. It truly is wonderful to meet the person who saved me." As soon as they left the town, he pulled out the large pistol, and shooting Phil's head clean off, then taking the wheel.

Thomas stops the car and says, "But I am a desperate man, and I'm taking over your truck now and head westwards. Hopefully far away from here." as he opens the driver-side door and pushes the corpse off the seat. Noticing the hat falling slowly down, he grabs it and starts wearing it for himself, "Thank you for the hat." then drives off.

"At least now I got a radio." He mutters, pleased of his achievement.

With one arm, he grabs his PDA and types in "Song Uploader" and let the PDA do it's thing.

Thomas then focuses on the road, whilst the PDA slowly "hacked" it's way into the radio, until finally it was done doing so. At which point Thomas typed in a command: "Upload album "The War to End All Wars" - Sabaton"

He then focused on driving the truck again, and 5 minutes later, Music started to play from the Radio.

Thomas begins popping his head up and down and began synching his lips to the current song's lyrics...


- 12 hours later... -


Thomas at a certain point decided to change direction to a town more inland. Only to find the entire town abandoned.

He frowns, "Seems like town was attacked and left behind...", Then he spots a disused railroad "Oh? Something interesting... A railway that could be used to head westward." He states, driving closer to it.

As the truck drives closer, more of the railway came into view. It revealing a broken down train engine.

Thomas shuts down the truck and gets out, walking up to the abandoned engine. "This thing saw better days." He says, looking at the large locomotive.

It's an engine meant for heavy hauls, but it's broken down. The large engine bay has a side plate missing, revealing the motor inside is broken and incapable of producing power.

The outer plating on it is scratched and battered. The cockpit of the locomotive, located more at the front, has broken windows and the roof is slightly caved in. All in all, it looks like someone tried doing a last stand on the locomotive and the engine had blown because of it.

Thomas walked up to the locomotive and notices several home-made turrets attached to its sides. Seemingly someone at a certain point attached small cannons, and banged up armour as well to protect the gunners.

Thinking that he could get it up and running, he went ahead and checked the engine bay completely.

Taking one swift look, he confirms his suspicions. "Yep. Engine's busted... But I can jury-rig the truck's engine onto it. Just need the tools." He states, closing the locomotive's engine bay door.

He looks left and right. "Where could I get some tools?" He wonders, before his eyes settles on the nearby train station. The wooden exterior being rustic in nature and worn-down. "If that ain't a station, then I don't know what it is." He says, hopping off the engine.

But then, he pauses, "Hang on. There most likely are tools available in the cab of the locomotive." He reasons, climbing back up, "It would make sense, since an engine could break down and need repairs."

Once back on, he walks up to the cab door, spotting two rotting bodies on the floor. "Seems like I was right. They died fighting." Thomas comments, then tries to open the door.

He jiggles the handle, until letting go and commenting with a frustrated expression, "Locked. Of course it's locked." He walks to one of the locomotive's guns, already thinking up a plan.

He checks the weapon and finds it to be loaded with a few shells still in it. "I could shoot down the door." He comments, turning his head towards said door, before sighing and muttering, "That would cause those black monsters in the area to come after me."

The man jumps off the locomotive, "Seems I'll need to find a toolbox somewhere else. Whilst sneaking past all-sorts of danger." He says to himself, walking towards the station building he saw.

As the moustachioed man gets closer to the wooden building, he spots some more rotting corpses, wearing a certain set of clothing... "Have I seen you lot before?" He asks no one in particular, slowly creeping towards the building, gun in hand.

He stops right before the door, staying as still as possible... The sound of wind and wood creaking answers his unspoken question... "Almost dead silent..." He mutters, finally opening the door and peeking inside.

He sees many more corpses about, most having been slashed, bitten, few crushed and one had their head chopped off. An ugly battle, to say the least.

The room itself was a store, a shopping area with shelves. Albeit, there was almost nothing left. There is a broken desk with a cash register on it, presumably something smashed against it. The windows are covered up by boards, albeit a few which were broken down.

Thomas sneaked by the corpses, taking note of some of the supplies he could take on the way back.

He walks over and checks the desk, his face lights up when he saw a surprisingly pristine tool box.

Going around the desk, he picks up- *Click*... He stops, staying still. He feels something cold press against the back of his head.

"Who sent you, human?" He heard a voice dripping with venom, asking him. Threatening to end his life.

He stayed still and answered honestly, "No one. Trying to get away." But was quickly interrupted by the threatener, "Bullshit. No one would come here for no reason." The gun-wielder states, pushing on the moustachioed man's head with said gun, "Now tell me."

"Calm the hell down." Thomas says, stressing his tone of voice, "Otherwise we both will end up as chow for the bastards outside."

The threatener seizes up for a moment, before ultimately sighing and muttering, "Screw it. At least someone to talk to." they say, as Thomas feels the gun being pulled away from his head.

Just to be safe, Thomas asks, "Is it okay for me to turn around now?" To which he got a simple scoff and a reply with hints of venom, "Yes. You can."

So, the Thomas turns around and sees a slightly large young adult male with... bear ears. his hair that seems to have been once groomed was now messy. Dark brown eyes he has and a disheveled beard. A survivor, to say the least.

"What? Have you never seen a Faunus before?" The person retorts, upon seeing Thomas staying silent.

Thomas chuckles, deciding to cover it up, "You have no idea... Was born in a human-only settlement. No faunus mentioned or any of that piss. Only humans." He explains, lying about his past to make it more believable. "So essentially I was living in a town that was one massive rock."

The young faunus, upon hearing the explanation, looked wide-eyed at Thomas. "Seriously?" The bear-man asks, before awkwardly saying, "W-well... Sorry for the bad introduction then."

Thomas waves it off, "Don't worry about it. It was only survival instinct you had." He says, then gets up, "In a sense, we both want to survive, damned be our backgrounds." Then he let's a smile appear on his face, placing his hand out for the bear-man to shake.

Said Faunus looks at the hand, seemingly contemplating about... something. before letting out a defeated sigh and stating, "Sure. I knew my gang went to shit to anyway. Might as well be a criminal my own way." They relent, taking up their hand, "I'm Dew. Just call me Dew. No family name, only Dew." Dew says, reluctantly shaking Thomas' hand.

"Name's Thomas." The man greets back in kind, then letting go of the Faunus' hand, "So what got you here anyway? What part went to shit?" He asks bluntly.

Dew glares at Thomas for his wording, but ultimately lets out another sigh and answers, "This was a White Fang outpost." Dew explains, "Before it was a settlement that got overrun by Grimm. Then we took the place and made it our outpost." Then Dew flinches, "As you can see, didn't go well."

The bear faunus walks up to one of the boarded windows in the room, looking out towards the engine, "We found the locomotive here and tried to get it running again." he pauses, letting out a momentary chuckle, "Truth being that none of us are mechanics. We couldn't do jack shit about it. Not with it being out of fuel and having a broken engine."

Thomas smiles at that, walking up to Dew, "Well, I have a solution for our problem, friend!" He says, getting Dew to turn around and look at him, "I can jury-rig the thing to make it possible on getting us out of here!" He pauses, before shrugging, "Well, of course it will be slower than it could be-," Thomas suddenly points a finger at Dew, "But that's where you come in!"

Dew looks weirdly at Thomas and decided to interrupt, "What in gods above do you mean by that?" He asks quizzically, "We got no way to fix the damn thing, idiot."

Thomas continues soon after, "That locomotive is armoured, has guns and we need to find ammo for it." He states, putting his hands on the bear Faunus' shoulders, "We got the tools needed! I have the expertise to use said tools and get it working! I have a solution for the problem!" He exclaims, then turns in a way to lean on Dew's shoulder, facing the same direction, "All we need to do is have the materials to do so!" The man pokes the bear with his finger, "But we need to decide what to do first! Fix up the locomotive right away, or hunker down and inevitably die out here?"

Dew pushes Thomas away, "Will you quit with your sales pitch already?" The bear faunus asks with irritation, before calming down and begins thinking. Thomas all the while smiles more widely, knowing fully well which option is better-, and cooler by his opinion-, to choose.

"It's either staying and rotting, or coming with me, pal." Thomas thinks to himself, "If I leave you here, I may as well be dead soon. And having a locomotive as a vehicle is an excellent place for a mobile base!"

"Well," Dew mutters, "I guess I got no choice on the matter, and I'm gonna be haunted by huntsmen and White Fang, so I might as well join you." The bear faunus reasoned, getting Thomas to grin.

"A good choice pal!" He says, before his face turned serious and begins explaining, "The engine can be replaced by another thing." He pauses, then asks "I have to ask, if there is a generator in this town?"

"There was, but it got destroyed." Dew answers, "Presumably whilst the town was being overrun by Grimm."

This causes Thomas to stop in his tracks, before turning around and asking, "Dew? Are there any automated turrets in this town?"

Dew looks weirdly at him, before answering "Yes, but they don't work. Why?" to which Thomas let's out a sigh, "Because this was some sort of a raid. Turrets disabled, let grimm run over, then take the shit and move." The moustached man says, getting a nod of understanding from Dew.

"Makes sense, I suppose." Dew mutters, before looking at Thomas and asking, "What do I need to do? As in, what is needed to be done to get the engine running?"

"I'll worry about getting the locomotive moving, you worry about getting me materials." He states, "Go see if you can find some wires, I'm gonna make a speaker system onto the engine." Thomas says, explaining his idea, "Try to also find a passenger wagon or something, that way I could remove some of the seats, add essential things like beds and food storage," Thomas looks at the broken down locomotive through the window, "Also a workbench to manufacture basic stuff, like ammo and med kits." The moustached man pauses, before going to pace around the room, "We'd also need some guns. Rifles to be mounted onto the wagon and some metal sheets to block windows. Most likely will mount these later though, during the ride. Then we just grab supplies, beds and place them in the passenger wagon-" The moustached man turns to look at Dew with a smile, "-and get the hell out in our new moving fort."

Dew looks at Thomas with a deadpan, before answering, "Look for materials. Got it." before asking, "Anything else?"

"Bring four beds! We'd most likely encounter more of us survivors on the way westward! So beds are a good idea!" Thomas says, already stepping out of the building and heading towards the locomotive. Somehow having grabbed the box of tools during his explanation.

Dew looks at the fleeing Thomas, before sighing and muttering, "This is gonna be shit, ain't it..." before leaving the building as well, but heading towards the center of town...


- Thomas' location -


Thomas is currently on the side railing of the locomotive, the PDA on hand, as he lets it scan the engine and show results.

Loading...

Showing stats:

Cabin health: 600/1000 (Malfunction occurs 200)

Engine health: N/A

Frontal Armour: 300/500

Left Armour: 50/800

Right Armour: 650/800

Back Armour: 400/500

Gunner Left: 500/800 (Malfunction occurs under 400)

Gunner Right: 200/800 (Malfunction occurs under 400) (WARNING: PRONE TO MISFIRE!)

Frontal wheels: 800/800 (Malfunction occurs under 500)

Back wheels 800/800 (Malfunction occurs under 500)

Extra: -

Sand braking: 3/10 L

INFO: Engine destroyed/missing


"Eh, seems okay." Thomas shrugs, looking at his PDA, "Mind you, it could be bet-." He stops and looks around, perplexed "Who on earth am I talking to?"

He shakes it off and says, "Nevermind that. I got to get that engine there-" He point at the destroyed engine, "Out of there, then replace it with that engine-" he points at the truck, "-That is there. Quick, simple and good enough to use." He finishes, opening up the locomotive's engine bay again.

He places the toolbox next to him and begins dismantling the motor, "Yep. Just need to remove this-" He throws away a pipe, "This-," Now a gear, "Certainly don't need this-," Suddenly he threw away rods.

Thomas then climbs into the engine bay, unmounting the motor, "And you are useless." He yells, throwing the engine out.

The man climbs out of the engine bay, tool box in hand. He climbs back down from the locomotive and heads to the truck, where he opens up the engine bay of said vehicle and goes to dismount the motor, along with the essentials to get the motor running.

Once done, he lifts the engine out of the truck and slowly shuffles his way to the locomotive. Placing the motor down onto the side, then with an audible grunt, he lifts the engine up and places it into the train engine bay, then begins mounting it...


- Dews' location -


Dew is out scavenging about, finding unspent ammo, guns, food, supplies and scrap for Thomas.

He managed to find himself in the town's armoury, collecting as much ammo as he can. Finding some crates that have out-of-date equipment in them meant for a soldier, he picked it up and placed it on his back like a pack mule.

He walks out of the armoury, until he suddenly heard growling, making him pale.

He looks behind and sees Grimm... Lots and lots of Grimm.

Dew begins running back towards the engine with everything on his back. As he was getting closer, he yelled to Thomas, "START UP THE ENGINE! WE NEED TO LEAVE!"

Thomas turns around, just as he was finished with the last piece, spotting the hoard, his eyes widened and quickly got on the the mounted cannon.

He blows a hole into the window of the locked door, then quickly climbs in through said window. He starts up the engine, hearing the small motor come to live.

Dew saw it start up, but he didn't have the time to gawk at it. He continued running towards the train, the large pile of loot still being on his back.

Whilst Dew was getting onto the locomotive, Thomas pushed the engine to begin moving forward. The motor hums, as Dew grabs onto the railings and hoists himself up.

"Man the turret, Dew!" Thomas yells, "The train speeds up incredibly slowly! The motor can't provide anymore power! So keep them at bay!" whilst he continues monitoring the locomotive's condition.

Dew nods and quickly grabs hold of the cannon's handles. He quickly checks if there was any ammo inside, the began firing at the approaching grimm.

A few seconds later, Thomas came out from the cabin to the other side of Dew, and began firing as well. With him experiencing many close calls, some of which he was forced to use his fist to knock the creatures off the train.

Eventually, the train sped up enough that it was getting difficult for the Grimm to board, and ultimately run after.

Dew and Thomas both sat down on in the cab, exhausted from the ordeal.

"Man... That was horrible..." Thomas mutters getting a grunt of agreement from Dew. "We got a map?" The man then asks.

With a nod, Dew pulls out a map of the area they are in. It's a bit out of date, but still good to use. He hands it to Thomas, who takes a look at it.

"Whisperton? Funny name for the town. It's only whispers of it's former self." Thomas jokes, then looks where the railroad leads, "Next stop is... Nova Ferra... 'New Iron'." He pauses, then looks at Dew, who is sitting beside him, "Seems we have a potential mining town ahead. Maybe we can even trade with the locals or deliver packages for them." He says, "We could then get thus rust bucket repaired."

"Sounds good." Dew replies, then asks, "Do we have a radio?" "Nah." "Oh..." Dew pauses, looking at the ground, before reaching his hand behind his back and pulling out a guitar. "At least we have a guitar." He states, as he places it infront of him and begins playing.

The sounds of the guitar fill the air... Thomas decides to add his two cents, "Y'know? I thought we were goners there." He says, looking outside.

Dew continues to play the guitar in silence for a while, before answering "Me too... Me too..."


It seems that things have gone for the better.

I found a journal and decided to start writing here instead, writing down my stories and possibly my travelling companion's stories.

The engine is in a bad shape, no doubt about it. But to see it managing to flee from those things, it gave me hope. Hope to perhaps live a life.

Maybe not a safe one, but most certainly an influencial life, full of stories and helping of others!

Our next stop is Nova Ferra. From what Dew told me, it used to be only a mine owned by a small company. Then it expanded to a small town.

Only reason they weren't wiped off the map or taken over, was because there was not an ounce of this 'dust' to be found in the mine. Only iron.

Dew said that the Schnee Dust Company don't care much about iron mining towns. They care about their monopoly on dust... So they just ignore it...

Here's hope to me finding something interesting there...


A/N: Hello again!

Sorry for long pause, was busy doing other stuff. Hope you folks like the chapter!