Yusuke was marching through the desert towards the Western-style dragon, as instructed. To be fair, he thought it looked more like a dinosaur, but he was in no position to argue.

For the most part, he stuck to the road, to the left lane. Not only was it oddly empty, it was damaged beyond reason, like nobody over the past few decades bothered to fix the potholes. He only took a brief detour towards what looked like a small farm, to check if maybe someone there spoke his language, but alas, it was devoid of people. Alive people, at least – there were a few skeletons, picked clean, near a damaged trailer home they were probably living in.

He found himself unnerved by the scene – dead bodies that were lying around long enough for the flesh to be picked clean off the bones were indicative of a lack of social services to pay attention to such things, criminals willing to slaughter everyone to achieve whatever goals they wanted, or a combination of the above. He resolved to try and find his comrades as soon as possible, lest similar fate were to befall them.

He then grabbed a few mostly mature corn ears from the plants, deciding the dead won't have any use for it anymore.

Gnawing on one of the cobs, Yusuke walked past another farm, up to what was probably a highway interchange in a past life. He was about to march under the road bridge when he spotted a few men in the distance, waiting by a roadside billboard. They were wearing some sort of armor cobbled together with leather and sports equipment, and wielding machetes and spears. Yusuke found himself wary of them for some reason – compared to the soldiers he had seen before, they seemed more likely to rob him blind, or worse.

Deciding the bridge above him would make a good vantage point, he went up a ramp, then ducked behind the concrete guard rail and moved to the peak of it. The dilapidated highway stretched into the distance and disappeared surrounded by hills on either side. To his right, on a relatively flat patch of land, there seemed to be a few tents, with more warriors resembling those below them in their vicinity. To his left was a bunch of uneven, jagged hills with sparse vegetation – some dried grass, assorted shrubs, and a few scattered segmented cacti. Enough for someone sneaky enough – say, a Phantom Thief – to bypass the main road.

Yusuke checked his map, just to make sure he was heading in the right direction. Hopefully at least one of his teammates would wander towards Novac; with little in terms of survival skills or knowledge of English all he had to his name was his soul of an artist, and he had a nagging feeling that in this world, it wasn't worth all that much.

The Novac motel room was nothing to write home about – but you'll get a paragraph describing it.

If you judged it by the basic amenities provided, it was more than serviceable. There was a queen-sized bed, a couch, a radio, a working fridge, and other assorted furniture. It even came with its own bathroom, which included a full-sized tub, a sink and a toilet. The only problem was that the room wasn't renovated for the past two hundred years and it showed – the cabinet had most of the glass front damaged, there were nonspecific dark stains on the carpet, the paint was peeling off the walls and the ceiling, the window was boarded up, letting only a small bit of sunlight, and the bathroom… its state will be left to the readers' imagination.

"I admit, it's a bit messier than it could've been," Crawford remarked, watching Ann's unease. "Most clients are rough-and-tumble types that don't mind a little grime."

"It's fine," Ann replied. "I can't complain about a free room, can I? I'll do some cleaning later."

"That'd be awfully kind of you." Crawford reached into her dress' pocket and pulled out a large purse. "I will throw in some extra money for the cleaning products and your work." She reached into it, and pulled out a large handful of silver coins, then handed it to Ann. "I know Legion ain't exactly prim-and-proper, but I have more trust in their coin than in the Republic's paper. If they collapse overnight, at least I have a chunk of silver worth something."

Ann nodded knowingly, pretending she understood the references to local politics.

"That is all, I believe." Crawford turned towards the door and put the key on the armrest of the couch. "You can get food or other supplies in Cliff Briscoe's shop, in the dinosaur. I'll leave you to your devices now. Rest a bit and then ask if someone needs help."

And so she left. Ann spread her winter jacket on the couch, sat down on it, and inspected one of the coins she had gotten from Crawford. One side depicted a profile of a man in his twenties or thirties, labeled "CAESAR DICTATOR". The other depicted said man standing with two others besides him, labeled "MAGNVM CHASMA". "Magnum" meant "big", she thought, so the inscription meant "Big Chasm"?

She pushed the thought away – it was a detail, something she could have pondered after wrapping up all the more important things for the day. Short term, finding a job and dealing with day-to-day survival. Long-term, gathering information about the world she ended up in, especially potential whereabouts of her friends. Cleaning up was somewhere between the two.

She left, locking her room behind herself. The main motel building had twelve rooms, six per floor, and hers was the leftmost one on the upper floor. She decided introducing herself to the others was a good starting point, and walked down the balcony. The second and fifth doors were boarded up, the third and fourth were locked with nobody reacting to her knocking (even though she could've sworn she heard someone on the other end in one case). Only when she rapped on the rightmost door did she get any sort of response.

"Hold on a second!" After a moment, an old woman with a rattan hat and a rifle on her back opened the door. "Yes?"

"Greetings, I'm Ann," she smiled. "I'm your new neighbor and I thought it'd be nice to introduce myself."

"Pleased to meet you," she replied. "Outta curiosity: A-n-n or A-n-n-e?" she asked.

Technically it was spelled 杏, with maybe a little あん written on top as a pronunciation guide – but she was worried that answer would make her stick out too much. "A-n-n, but either works, really."

"Daisy Whitman," the old lady returned the favor. "What brings you to Novac?"

"Well…" Ann came up with a few details on the spot to reinforce her cover story, "I was traveling to Vegas with my friends. We stumbled upon another traveler and he offered to share some snacks with us. The next few hours are a blur, but I woke up near that destroyed gas station, with just the clothes on my back."

"You've got lucky," Daisy shook her head. "Plenty of folks out there would've gone further than that."

"I know, I know," Ann briefly glanced down. Crawford's words about how she wouldn't survive away from civilization came back to her like an acid reflux. "I'd rather not think about… what could've possibly happened. I hope my friends were as lucky as I am."

"So you don't know what happened to them?" Daisy asked, concerned.

"I don't." Ann pushed away the worst case scenarios her mind had graciously provided. "And I can't really go and search for them; I don't know the area that well. I'll wait for them to retrace their steps and come back to pick me up."

"Do you have a place to stay in the meantime?"

"Well, Mrs. Crawford gave me a room for free, but told me I have to get a job," Ann explained. "You… wouldn't happen to have an opening, would you?"

"No, not really," she sighed. "I mostly dismantle old engines people scavenge, and it's a one-woman job. That's the thing about Novac, we're mostly living off prospectin'." She thought for a moment. "How good are you in a fight?"

Even if waving a whip around and wildly firing an airsoft SMG translated well into non-Metaverse combat, she didn't have any weapons on herself, probably couldn't afford any with her food money, and had no clue about what dangers she should expect on the road. "N-not that good. My friends would defend me if things turned that sour."

Daisy clicked with her tongue. "Then I fear it might be hard for you to find honest work here." She reached into the pocket of her worn-out dress and pulled out a handful of bottle caps. "Here, this should keep you alive for a day or two more."

Ann stared at the caps in confusion. "Uh…"

"Oh," Daisy realized, "of course you're NCR, they have their own money now. Over here folks still use bottle caps as currency." She put them in Ann's hands. "I promise, everyone will accept these, just like your dollars."

"I see." Ann pocketed the caps. "Thank you, ma'am."

"Don't mention it." Daisy smiled at her. "Good luck with your search anyway. I'll talk to Crawford if she gives you grief."

Somewhere roughly northwest of Novac, three inconspicuously dressed young women in their early twenties marched past a destroyed home.

"So, where are we going?" asked the blue-haired one.

"Not telling you," said the red-headed ringleader. "You should've listened when Diane was briefing us."

"Aw come on!" she protested, then turned to the blonde. "You'll tell me, won't you?"

The three turned a corner. "Nope, she told me to not tell you we're going to-"

"Halt," the ringleader outstretched her arms to the side, stopping the other two.

A bit ahead, on the side of the road, was a map of the Mojave, carved on the ground by one of the recently-passed members of their tribe. Near that map was a rock with assorted scribbles on it – symbols of the tribe in question, anti-NCR slogans, crude crosses commemorating the victims of a massacre from a few years back. Someone the women didn't recognize was sitting by that rock.

She was a girl, slightly younger than them, overdressed for the Mojave weather. The almost immaculate auburn hair, the pale skin tone, and the high-quality garments on her definitely pinned her as a fish out of water. Not even the visible amounts of blood covering her, the damage done to the clothes, and the large axe she was gripping in her hands could hide that fact. As she noticed the trio approach, she slowly got herself up and held her weapon at the ready.

"We're not foes, traveler," the ringleader said, displaying her empty hands.

"[What?]" the axe girl replied, keeping her weapon at the ready. "[I don't speak English.]"

"She doesn't speak English," the blue-haired girl commented. "We could take her on," she muttered.

"Do you want your head chopped off, dumbass?" the blonde protested in hushed tones.

"She's by her lonesome and I don't see a gun on her."

"Alright, pop quiz:" the ringleader butted in, "she had to come here from somewhere, and she had won a fight not that long ago. Where do you think she got that battle damage?"

"I'unno," the blue-haired girl shrugged. "Fiend territory's the closest."

"So you've got someone that survived in Fiend territory with nothing but an axe and you're so confident that you can take her on and not lose a limb?"

The blue-haired girl glanced at the axe girl again. There were a few flesh wounds on her, but none too severe, and none large enough to spill as much blood as she had on herself. The head of the axe reflected the sunlight; the blade was far from sharp, but it was large and heavy enough that it didn't have to be.

"Okay, fine, nevermind," she said, just a touch intimidated.

"You fear me," the axe girl replied, in English. "Good."

After a bit of tense silence, the ringleader asked "…okay, what kind of accent is that?"

"I-I'm going for Received Pronunciation," she replied. "Now, I… I know what this looks like," she said, pointing at all the blood on her, "but I swear, it was all in self-defense. They just… they just wouldn't back off…"

"Chill, silver spoon," the ringleader reassured her. "Nobody'll mind that you cut down a few Fiends. 'Cause they were Fiends, weren't they?"

"They were…" She took a breath to calm down. "They were feral. Their eyes were bloodshot, and they had armors cobbled together with scrap. I-I think I saw some… mutilated corpses…"

She closed her eyes and started taking deep breaths to calm herself down. The ringleader thought distracting her from the hell she just clawed out of would be a good idea. "I didn't catch your name, stranger."

"Oh." She glanced at her. "I'm Okumura Haru. From these Okumuras, if that tells you anything."

"Nope, never cared about rich Cali clans." The ringleader pointed at herself. "I'm Lilith, the blonde's April, the blue one's Phoenix. Now, I'm curious… how does a rich city slicker end up unarmored and barely armed in one of the most lawless parts of the Mojave?"

"Ooh, ooh, I know!" April piped up. "You've been traveling to Vegas and got very very lost!"

After a pause, Haru went "…yes, that is what happened."

Lilith raised an eyebrow. "You don't sound convincing'."

"Well, it's more believable than what actually happened, so I'm sticking to that version."

"Sure," Lilith stretched the first letter. "So, Okumura… how about we all go our separate ways now? Me and my sisters have errands to run."

"Hm." Haru dared to lower her weapon a bit. "Truth be told, I hoped you would direct me towards a safer place. I know nothing about the surrounding area, and I'd rather not…" She winced. "…wander somewhere I shouldn't be."

"Is there anyone looking for you right now?" Lilith asked.

After a moment, Haru replied: "Probably."

"Probably?"

"Well, apparently there's a bunch of murderous roaming junkies in the area, so who the fuck knows at this point?!"

She raised the axe back up, and Lilith raised her hands in response. "Alright, alright, chill. Jeez."

Phoenix snapped her fingers, realizing something. "Do we stop by Freeside today?"

"I'm not telling you," Lilith replied.

"If we're leaving some chems for 2D, we could leave her with him and he could take care of her," she explained.

"Huh." Realization flashed on her face. "Yeah, we do. And that's a good idea. You get one a year, I suppose."

"Oh, bite me," Phoenix huffed.

"Who's 2D?" Haru asked.

"He's a technician-scavenger type," Phoenix elaborated. "We had a fling some time ago, and now he buys medical supplies from us. He's now working in the Followers outpost in Freeside. They take care of folks chewed out by the Mojave – it's no high livin', but right now it's the best place for a lost little doll like you."

"And it's on the path to the Strip, so people looking for you will naturally come there," April added.

"So, how does that sound?" Lilith glanced at Haru.

She considered her options, and came to a conclusion that she had no options. Not to mention, any other place would be better than the purgatory she had escaped from a moment ago. "Very well, lead the way. I'm keeping the axe though."

"Good idea," Lilith nodded. "Freeside has some thugs running around, but they've got no cojones in comparison to what you've survived. Just bash 'em with the handle and they'll fold like jack high."

"[Gah, my friggin'... everything…]"

Ryuji got up from the ground and dusted himself off.

He was in the middle of something that might have been a drive-in theater at some point. Now, it was a bunch of thoroughly rusted car carcasses, a bunch of poles with some old speakers on them, and a ruin of what must've been the projection booth and or concession stand. In the distance, there were multiple plumes of black smoke.

But what was sticking out the most was a crashed satellite embedded into the ground. The topmost sonar panel was twitching ever so slightly, and there was something in the front, a lens maybe, that shined brilliant blue.

Ryuji cautiously approached it and touched it with an index finger.

"MIDNIGHT SCREENING WILL BEGIN AT MIDNIGHT," a booming voice came from somewhere.

"[Sounds like English,]" he remarked to himself. "[Man, I wish Ann was here. Or anyone else – I think most of them know enough to understand this.]"

He gave the satellite a kick with his undamaged leg, just to see what would happen. The voice came out again. "POTENTIAL TEST SUBJECT DETECTED. TRANSPORTING TO BIG MOUNTAIN FACILITY."

The blue lens lit up. Crackles of electricity started emitting from the satellite.

"[Oh boy,]" Ryuji commented.

A flash of light blinded him, and a moment later, the Mojave Drive-In was empty again.