Author's Note:
I probably should put this on the first chapter as well, but I won't be answering any review questions that come up mostly because I can't trust myself not to over explain and spoil things, I have no filter for those sorts of things.
Chapter 4: Moonlight Sonata
The Courier found the abandoned home to her liking and settled in fairly quickly when she found the largest room with the biggest bed, jumping onto it and laying back as she finally got to making sure she was connected to the RobCo satellites.
"Well shit" She cursed out loud looking down at the device on her wrist as an error code ran across the Map screen for the area.
{ERROR 935: NO ROBCO SATELLITE CONNECTION AVAILABLE - FUNCTIONS LIMITED TO LOCAL MAPPING DATA AND INTERIOR MAPPING DATA - PLEASE CONNECT TO ROBCO SERVICES}
Reading it immediately made her sit up on the bed and begin fiddling with the settings and dial to try reconnecting but nothing she did worked and all she managed to do was shut down the Geo data tab accidentally, locking her out of viewing it for the moment.
"Crap." Rubbing the side of her head in frustration the woman had no clue what to do.
Slowly the feeling that she might not even be on Earth anymore began seeping in, creeping under her consciousness and sowing doubt in her mind about the situation. She knew she wasn't smart enough to fix the problem and she wouldn't even know where to begin with the Transportalpon-
"The Transportalponder!" Arielle just about shouted realisation hitting her and quickly rushing to get the strange device out and standing up from the bed to use it.
Click
An empty clicking came from it and she felt a strange intangible fear before laughing at herself as she remembered the thing only worked outside.
Heading through the home she made her way out to the backyard of the property where she noticed the growing dark as the Sun had already set.
Letting out a stressful sigh she pulled the trigger again, closing her eyes.
Click
Click
Click
The haunting sound of it failing to fire made something cold grip her heart as she tried to push down the terror that she'd been sent some place outside of satellite and the Think Tanks range, which was hard to believe on its own if she didn't have the proof in her hand.
…
Standing in the silence the golden haired woman clenched her eyes shut hoping that when she opened them she'd be back under the protective shield of Dome 1.
She could almost laugh with how scared she was, the feeling almost akin to her first encounter with a Deathclaw or even when she got lost following the Sierra Madre broadcast and ended up on the opposite side of the river fighting a hoard of Deathclaws.
Releasing a breath she opened her eyes and she was still in the backyard.
Arielle grimaced, turning around and walking back inside, just before she closed the door though, she took one last look outside at the stars.
The sight always made her feel better-
Her heart sank, her face dropped and her eyes went wide as she looked up at the shattered remnants of a moon glowing in the night sky.
[1]
Arielle woke with the vestiges of a headache and disgruntling memory of her dream.
Images of her childhood haunting their way back into her mind after so many years of being gone, disgusting acts and vile people enough to make her tense up- fingernails digging into her biceps as she clutched herself tightly.
The pain barely registered as flesh tore and blood started flowing, her eyes clenched shut she tried to block out the images, the sensations- the feelings of utter hopelessness that accompanied it all.
…
"!" A sharp inhale of air shocked her system enough to open her eyes, her body tensing tighter for a moment before letting go as her arms fell to her sides and the crimson matted the sheets she'd slept in.
Gritting her teeth she exhaled and stood from the bed acting as though the outburst hadn't happened and moved on with her morning, finding the bathroom and cleaning herself, putting on her Pip-boy and getting dressed- making sure to ignore the mirrors in the house as she did- lastly going through the kitchen to see if whoever lived here last had any food.
They did not.
Simply because it was easier and she didn't want to burden the already suffering town she dialed through her Pip-Boy and found her Trench Shotgun and loaded it with buck before dressing in the Desert Ranger armour and heading out to find something fresh to eat.
It would help clear her mind to be in the woods as well, she'd noticed it yesterday but she just felt more relaxed amongst the greenery even if she'd never really seen anything as dense as it before. Closest thing of course being the Zion comparison she'd already made.
Leaving the house it was still dark enough in the morning that she didn't see anyone else around, the dim luminescent glow of the green lens on her helmet cast shadows as she walked through the town toward the gate.
She didn't bother speaking to anyone as she reached the gate, her silent footsteps carrying her past any of the guardsmen and over the wall without a trace as she disappeared into the woods.
Words wrung in her mind as she stalked for something to eat, hoping that the lack of animals wouldn't persist now with the Grimm gone- it was more than a little wishful thinking but it helped quiet the voices.
'-Begin Again' The eerie tone of Vera Keyes followed her every step.
The Courier tried to drown out the thoughts, but couldn't, no matter how hard she tried, the confronting scenario of the night before crushing her as she walked.
She had wanted to start over somewhere else of course, that had always been the plan, but was a place like this? Did she actually like the Mojave and the United States as a whole? Why was she so scared?
Did she deserve to be free?
'Am I allowed to be free?' She asked, but the question wasn't aimed at herself.
When she was deep enough in the woods that only wind and the earth had anything to say she turned off the light of the helmet's eyes and began looking for tracks or other signs of game.
It took a little time before she came across a handful of hind grazing the woods and in one of the most unnecessary uses of force she lined up the shot with the shotgun-
She probably ought to have been surprised by the fact that they weren't irradiated with two heads and burned all over, but the Moon had completed the picture of what was going on and she was slowly being forced to come to terms with it all.
[2]
The Courier trudged through the mid morning light to the door of the house later than she expected to be back after spending quite a bit convincing the guardsmen that she was the one and same massive armour wearing person even going out of her way to pull out the broken Grimm masks.
When the man finally believed her she was allowed back in the walls, choosing not to explain how she'd gotten out without anyone seeing her leave.
She made fairly short work of skinning, gutting and cutting the animal using some clothes lines to string it up in the backyard while she took some time to make an entry into her Pip-Boy about what had happened since arriving.
If she really was in a new world/on a new planet then she'd want to document just about anything and everything which took up a majority of her time while a small fire she made smoked the carcass until she was ready to make better cuts that legs and ribs from it.
Starting with the names of the places she'd heard and geography mentioned as well as what she'd seen from the overlook before arriving in town she then moved onto Dust and the Grimm leaving the people she'd met to last.
It was when she was most of the way through logging of her experience however that she was forced away from it when a knock on the door across the house and someone calling out go her attention, at the front door of the home she opened it to a golden brown haired woman with a pair of rounded animal ears on her head that took all of her attention away from what the person had said-
"-I'm sorry what did you say?" She shook herself right apologising for the woman to start over.
"Have you not met a Faunus before?" The animal eared woman asked, shifting the topic away from what Arielle assumed was a greeting; she remembered reading about stuff like that in old world literature.
"I haven't no." She replied as neutrally as she could, she didn't want to give an indication that something that was likely normal here was something she'd outright never heard of.
'I get the feeling that the old Gamorrah would have hired mutants like this on the spot' The idea passed through her mind.
"Ah- Well I'm glad to be your first experience with us!" The golden brown haired woman's tone brightened and she offered a warm smile.
"So what was it you needed?" The Courier course corrected the conversation before it veered too far.
"Right! My name is Elaine Shalott, my family and I live across the way. I came over to introduce myself and thank you for what you did, my husband was one of the miners killed when the Grimm took over." The woman bowed her head as she thanked the Courier.
"Don't mention it, it was just work for me." Arielle dismissed, shaking her head with a sigh.
"That might be the case, but you've given my husband peace- Maidens Bless his soul." Her voice turned sombre despite her expression staying in a crinkled smile.
"I guess I should introduce myself then, I'm Rhea the Courier." The taller woman offered.
"It's good to make your acquaintance Rhea, I look forward to getting to know you." Reaffirming her smile Elaine offered a hand to the Courier and they shook hands. "Don't be a stranger either, Vivi might be a lot smaller than it used to be, but we're just as welcoming as ever- I do have to get going though so I'm going to leave now, I'll see you around Miss Courier" The Faunus laughed as she gave a wave walking away.
Watching the animal eared woman leave a frown creased the blonde Courier's face.
'Add another thing to my list… Faunus? So they're named after a God? And what are Maidens? Were those the statues in the church?'
Letting out an exhausted breath she went back into the home, closing the door behind her and going back to the deer as her stomach grumbled loudly, she'd finally cook some up and see what the animals of this world tasted like.
A beast, perhaps even a monster, but most rightfully a creature of utter darkness slithered through shelves and tunnels deep under the soil parsing the abyss with glowing red eyes as it moved.
Without thought, without purpose it sought intense auras and potent emotions of Mankind, it hungered for the power it supplied the monster.
The foundation of weakness that flocked to its home had been cleansed, waking it from the slumber it had taken upon its last meal.
Such cases of slaughter deserved retribution as was the natural order.
And so it would hunt.
Author's Note:
I don't think I mentioned them before but The Church of the Four Maidens is an idea I came up with a long while ago for a different story, the idea is just that the Maidens kind of have too powerful of an identity in world of Remnant and with the fairytale itself not to have spawned a religion in the frontiers- yes this is AU but what is fanfiction if its not AU? alongside it though Ideally the normal religion is the Brothers with the "Ghost of Oum" comment last chapter more or less just a reference to how all the older stories refereed to Monty as god.
I realised I never explained why I changed the mp7 for calico in the second chapter and the short of it was because I like the weird nature and design of it, they're exactly the sort of odd gun I'd expect to see in Fallout- also the hundred round smg mag felt more 'Murican than a forty round german pdw.
Also before I reviewed the chapter to post it I saw that Elaine's surname was Lancaster after I'd said last chapter that the dear Courier she took over their residence which I was glad to catch now otherwise it would have been real confusing.
Also-also the start of the mask slipping, well I mean if her fighting the grimm wasn't an indicator.
Lastly, thank you for reading I really appreciate it, I hope you have a good rest of your day and that things get better if they've not been lately. As well, Happy Holidays- you deserve to get yourself something nice, so be sure to treat yourself.