Welcome to Remnant 0.6
Hearth
Dinner was at a house belonging to one of the bigger farm families, the Hasenkamps, who lived in one of the bigger houses. Two brothers and a sister, all grown up, all but the one brother married, and their parents were living there too, along with their kids, five between the two couples. Also one of their distant cousins, and they usually had some guests from town, an old couple tonight in addition to us. Lots of names, most of which were basically missed by Rachel. She didn't mind too much. What kind of idiot would expect them to remember a dozen new names for people they'd just met?
It was a foreign environment, but it didn't bother Rachel as much. Dealing with people was always like that, for her. These people looked a little different, smelled a little different, acted a little different, but they sounded the same. And Rachel hadn't known what to do with people, not really, not even before she triggered. After…everything was off, even worse. Maybe it should have bugged her, how the others got along pretty well and she usually didn't get along with them, but it worked well enough and she had her dogs. The Undersiders were probably the best friends she'd ever had, regardless. Maybe that should have bothered her, but it didn't.
Now they were here. Rachel was angry about losing her dogs, but aside from that, she didn't care. There were a lot of people in Brockton Bay who listened to her, which she liked, but she could do without it. There were a lot of people she didn't like there, too. Most of the people she actually liked were brought here with her. So were Aisha and Alec, and the two new people, but Rachel could live with that, too.
The food was good, and everyone was hungry. They hadn't eaten much since they left Brockton Bay, just some berries and a couple grubs. The food wasn't exactly like food from home tasted, but it was close enough. Steak, potatoes, some salad made of some kind of green leaves. Lettuce or cabbage or something. It was really filling; even though she felt like she was starving, she felt full after just a second helping.
Rachel knew the best way to not give things away was to not say anything. She was good at that. The family and the old people talked a lot. So did Lisa, but she was smart enough to not give anything away. Alec and Aisha were talking a lot too. Rachel hoped they didn't give anything away. The Hasenkamps talked a lot about farming. Rachel knew farming was important, otherwise no one would have food, but she didn't care about it. It was important to them, though, and besides, she didn't have anything she wanted to talk about. Rachel just stayed quiet.
She wondered if this world had dogs. It had people, but that might not mean much. Earth Aleph had dogs and people, but it also had America and Europe and stuff, not Vytal and Vale and stuff. And neither had Grim. And these people didn't seem exactly like Earth humans; their eyes were kinda big, their noses and mouths were kinda small, their hair and eyes were sometimes weird colors, so maybe they were different. If they were dinosaur people or something weird like that, there probably wouldn't be dogs. But then there wouldn't be cows or horses or sheep either, and they saw all those in the pastures. At least, they were things that looked like sheep and cows, and they hadn't gotten too close to the walls. Anyways, weird faces weren't scales. So they probably had dogs, too.
Eventually, dinner was done and the Undersiders got to leave. Aisha ate too much. She, Brian, and Lisa were going to go back to the doctor's house to rest, just in case. The rest found arrangements with other people. Taylor would be in the general store owner's house, Sabah and Lily would be sleeping in the Haskenkamps' spare room, Alec went with the older couple, and Rachel was going to sleep at the rancher's house.
The rancher's name was Ovid Oak. His names started with the same letter, which was a little weird, but probably less weird here. His house was right by the wall, full of books, and he had dogs, three sheepdogs. They weren't much like any breed that Rachel knew, but they reminded her of sheepdogs and Oak was a rancher, so he probably ranched sheep. Makes him a shepherd, but that's not really a common word anymore. At least, not on Earth. Oak also had a chicken coop, and some other birds, and a rabbit, and a couple cats and a few kittens he wanted to give away. He offered one to Rachel, but she didn't want one. She said she was a dog person. Oak understood. He said he'd offer a puppy, but he didn't have any and if he did he'd probably try to raise them to be more sheepdogs.
Rachel remembered that they were going to be doing a little work, for room and board and healing, and a bit of money if they did well. Rachel was going to be helping Oak with ranching, but she didn't know what anyone else was doing. Didn't pay attention. Aisha and Brian probably wouldn't do much, they were still recovering. Maybe Lisa wouldn't, either, they thought she hit her head. She got Sabah to show off her power, so maybe she'd end up weaving or something.
Rachel went to sleep on a couch-like thing. Basically a couch. She didn't have much else to do, so she basically went to bed after making it. Good to get sleep, and she didn't get enough last night.
~0~
Rachel woke up. It took her a moment to remember everything. Forest. Monsters. Remnant. Dogs. Oak. Right.
Oak got up, too, and prepared breakfast for them. Toast, ham, milk. Pretty good. They went to work. Boring, exhausting, but a lot better than the exciting exhausting things Rachel was used to. Oak mentioned that she was really good with the dogs, and she thanked him. He tried talking a few other times, but Rachel ignored him or gave short answers, and he stopped. He didn't seem to mind too much. Probably. She hoped.
After several hours, it was time for lunch, so they went back and ate. The food was still good. Rachel was starting to realize that she didn't need to eat quite as much as she did back home. She decided to ask Lisa about that. Then they went back to work, then dinner. Dinner was pretty early, so that she would have a chance to meet with her friends. Oak said she worked really hard, and that he appreciated the help, so he paid her with a few cards that looked kinda like credit cards but probably weren't.
Rachel decided Oak was nice. He was good to his dogs, and didn't bother her, and didn't just think about himself. That's more than Rachel could say for most people she had met.
~0~
They met up in the middle of town. Brian and Aisha were still on crutches, of course, and they slowed them down some, though not as much as before they got crutches, and they weren't running from anything so it didn't matter much, but it was annoying sometimes. Alec was in a bad mood, his hands were dirty, and he complained about a sore back. He had apparently spent the day doing whatever chores the couple had that needed to be done. Aisha's hands were dirty, too, and she was a bit sore, but she didn't complain. Lily was worried, because she showed the Huntsmen we met her power, but Lisa didn't mind and she calmed down. She was doing stuff with them, and Lisa said they were seeing if she could be a Huntsman. Lisa said she was helping Aster with her healing work, and mentioned that the yellow girl from yesterday fell off a roof into a ditch.
"She probably fell twenty-five or thirty feet. She was barely injured..."
Taylor was working in the general store, mostly selling things to people while the owner organized the stuff in back. Sabah was working with clothes, like Rachel had thought, and said they might get some cloth for her to make clothes for the rest of them. The people she was making clothes for were really impressed.
They were walking while talking, and they were past the walls by the time they finished talking about their days. At the gate, someone asked why they were going outside, and warned them to be careful and not to go into the woods. We didn't need to, Lisa said, we just needed to get somewhere without people around. Taylor confirmed that there wasn't anyone around as far as she could tell, and mentioned that she'd been hiding bugs in the fields. This world didn't have as many, and people noticed when she brought out a lot of bugs like she was used to, so she had to hide them. She expressed concern that she'd be blamed for it, but Lisa reassured her. She said that some people noticed, but didn't think a lot about it yet, and definitely didn't think they were responsible.
The first thing they talked about was something called semblance. Apparently, that's what they call superpowers here, or maybe something else. Lily had asked if they were the same, and Lisa said she wasn't omniscient. The PRT must not give much information to the Wards, or maybe they just don't have an idea what she's doing. Rachel remembered Armsmaster saying she had some kind of weakness-detecting power and figured things out from what that told her, but maybe something happened since then that changed their minds about that. It didn't really matter. Semblance wasn't common, and Lily didn't get much conclusive information about it. Enough to maybe be either way.
Lily learned a bit about Huntsmen and Grim. Huntsmen used something called Ora, which she didn't ask about because she thought it was probably common knowledge. Lisa agreed that it probably was, at least a little.
Rachel decided to mention what she noticed about the food.
"The food's really…filling."
"Yeah," said Lisa, "I noticed. It might be something about the soil. It wouldn't surprise me if humans evolved differently, too, eating more but being stronger, healing faster, that kind of thing. It's probably because of the Grim, which were probably a bigger threat to Remnant's people than wild animals ever were to Earth's people."
Brian asked about the bugs, if the plants were so good, why weren't there many bugs? Lisa admitted she didn't know. Taylor apparently asked someone about the glowing dust, and learned that it was mined from the ground by a group called Shnees or something like that. The stuff in this store, at least, maybe other people mined the dust. Lisa wondered if that could have something to do with the dirt being fertile.
They also talked about plans. Lily mentioned that the Huntsmen thought she might be able to be one, and said she wanted to go to Vale to see if she could learn to do that. Lisa disagreed with becoming a Huntsman, because it would be expensive to get a decent weapon and there was tuition, and anyways the group should stick together.
The then said, "We should probably go to Vale, though. I think we'd do better back in a big city than in the country. Besides, we might be able to do something like what we were doing in Brockton Bay."
Lily said she wasn't interested in being a supervillain. Aisha pointed out that she was willing to do so earlier. Brian glared at her.
"Not really what I meant," Lisa said. "I mean, like when we dealt with the ABB and the Merchants and those other gangs, not like the bank or the warlording. Cleaning up the city, not taking it over."
Alec said he wouldn't mind taking over Vale, so Brian hit him with a crutch.
Rachel liked that idea. It would mean getting back to normal, more or less. Besides, in a city, there were probably stray dogs, and bastards who beat their dogs or made them fight or something and needed to be stopped, their dogs rescued. Dogs would be good.
The others…mixed. Lisa was for it, of course, and so was Brian. Alec was for it, too. Lily and Sabah were skeptical about the what they'd-been-doing part, though they liked the idea of going to Vale. Aisha liked the idea of staying in the country.
And Taylor…she said, "I dunno. I feel like…being in the Undersiders, I think it's taken something from me. Don't get me wrong, it's been good, but…I don't think I really want to be Skitter anymore, if I don't need to be. I don't want to be the Taylor I used to be, either. That Taylor was in a bad place, basically alone, and she hid from all her problems. Skitter was better, she had friends, but her solutions were...brutal, and she was just too intense. They both kept secrets from people who mattered, that they probably shouldn't have. I don't want to do more of that. Just being Taylor, living a normal life, I think I'd like to try that."
"Normal?" said Alec. "Kinda a foreign concept to us."
"Still, I see her point," said Lisa. "How about a compromise. I'm not hearing a lot of objection to just going to Vale, so can we agree on that? We can work on details later."
Basically everyone agreed. Brian pointed out that they didn't even know if there was any organized crime in Vale worth stopping. So, that was the plan. It sounded okay.
