Author's Note:

Chapter 8: In the shadow of the valley

Letting out a sigh Arielle looked down the long worn road through the lenses of her Power Armour, the people of Viviane had set off only a few hours ago, she'd been put at the back of the caravan to watch over the people as they travelled.

Initially she had planned to spend more time looking through the Scroll and the Vytal-Net having spent the past few days doing almost nothing else but asking the search box questions and looking for answers.

The device was a well of information that had started filling her in on what this world was like, a place called Remnant- a name that left a bad taste in her mouth.

Earth might have meant dirt or soil but Remnant implied something worse, the kind of worse that made her wonder if the device she'd fired off had sent her forward in time. She'd already been wondering for some time about the Grimm being some kind of Think Tank experiment gone awry- like every other fucking monstrosity walking the wasteland.

If she didn't know any better she'd have thought they made Deathclaws, but she figured if they had made them they would have tried to give them sentience and human level intelligence- not that the lizards needed anymore help being some of the smartest monsters around.

In any case the hundred forty-odd people walking down the road through the rolling plains were headed by the the guard captain with one of the transport trucks hauling food, in the middle of the formation was the rest truck with Father Bonitas with two other food and supply trucks in the back with the Courier.

Ahead of the entire caravan were Orion's group who were providing recon to and relaying any updates that needed to be made to the route they were taking to get around the base of the mountain.

For nothing nothing was amiss and the other problems had been entertaining the few remaining children in their boredom-

'Whether it's the Wasteland or a world of monsters kids are more interested in playing than acknowledging the situation around them.' Arielle thought feeling a little depressed at the idea.

Walking slowly with the caravan brought back memories of the first campaign she did under Caesar's banner, the marching wasn't particularly fun but walking never was in armour. But that was always going to be the case when she wasn't wearing gear that was tailored to her, it was just awkwardly on her.

It wasn't like she had a choice and the only place she could get her gear refitted was Big MT and convincing them to do anything productive was a herculean task so she'd only ever managed it once and that was with her power armour, the rest of her things barely fit.

'The only damn reason they accepted my request was so they could integrate another SINK personality into it, refurbish the plating and paint it in some kind of blast resistant coat- I'm still glad I convinced them not to put bright neon lighting over different parts.'

That had been a hell of a few hours, she had better and more coherent conversations with Nightkin.

'Then again Lily and Davison seemed to be in the minority'

Taking a deep breath she shifted her thoughts back to the what laid ahead and held the LAER a little tighter as she kept walking.

The first long day of travel eventually came to an end after twelve hours of walking, though at a much slower pace than what she was used to but there wasn't much of a reason to rush the people of Viviane anyway.

[1]

Arielle realised as she walked through the large camp set up by the townsfolk it had been quite a long time since she'd been around this many people, the last months at the Big MT had deprived her of all the interaction with other humans a person could want and driven her a little mad.

But no that she'd been among people who actually had bodies and flesh instead of containers and components it was hard not to understand Dala's infatuation with people- though that wasn't an admission of being like that herself she didn't like people that much, she just liked not being locked in cold metal research facilities with the only person to talk to or hear the stealth suit or the lobotomites trying to kill her.

'It's been a long time since I turned the personality unit off in this' She thought looking down at her arms and the metal suit covering them.

As quickly as the thought arrived she dismissed the idea of turning it back on and went back to patrolling the caravan.

There was something else to distract her at that moment anyway, although it wasn't a good distraction, it was the kind she hated.

"AAHH!" A scream broke out into the night soon followed by ten more as yells and shouts attempting to clarify the situation destroyed any chance of things going right.

"Fuck me" The Courier cursed as she saw a giant snake head peer above the darkness with glowing red eyes and a nearly shining white bone mask with red groves carved into it as the Grimm swiveled its head.

For a moment she locked eyes with it and swore a second time as she quickly drew the LAER and let off two shots into the dark, bright blue streams of light sunk into oily black scales that caught the unnatural light of the energy before it hit.

The melted the monster causing its head to whip back and howl a garish horrid sound, like the noises she'd heard Deathclaws make in the throes of death.

Seeking the reason for its pain the monster lunged across the entire campsite at her, jaw unhinging as it snapped around her metal casket and crunched the armoured and her body-

Screaming pain erupted out of her as she wailed against it with her left arm free to attack, but it was to no avail.

Right as she felt the searing pain of impossibly sharp incisors piercing her chest-

Arielle shot up right blinking her eyes and frantically looking around.

Things were calm, the early morning sun rose and there was a vague breeze brushing against the nearby trees causing her to let out a tense breath realising none of what she had seen was real.

'I must have fallen asleep without realising' She figured, blinking bleary eyes beneath the helmet of her power armour. 'I was more exhausted than I thought'

Breathing a tired sigh she stood up, armour clanking and waking a handful of people nearby.

A question of why she was even helping the townsfolk rose in her mind again, a wonder of how easy it would be to abandon these people in need.

But the words of that man came back to her.

"Tch" She mentally spat on the words as they reared their head.

'What good is a good neighbour if I don't care? These people don't even have the value of having the answer to my way out of here- I have that map now with the Scroll.'

If this world was a Remnant then why was the Destroyer of the Divide trying to save its people on the precipice of losing their battle to natural selection?

She was only ever Condemned to Repeat herself.

Her right shoulder had a slight itch on it as she saw her armours reflection in the chrome of a truck's exhaust.

"The inevitable huh?" She asked the Lion on her chest plate in the reflection.

"Inevitable what?" A voice asked from her side drawing her attention away from the golden symbol.

Arielle found the ginger haired woman that worked with Orion looking at her with a brow arched.

"Don't worry about it, what did you need?" She asked changing the topic.

"Gaspar and Orion wanted you to come to their meeting, I'm the messenger." With that said the woman left.

With a direction in mind now the Courier headed to see what the depths of the discussion were.

Her armour clinked and clanked as it shifted into the small little set up where the giant man and the old guardsmen stood around a small table with a paper map of the area ahead.

"What did you want?" She asked bluntly and the newly minted Mayor answered immediately.

"Grimm ahead, worse it's an Alpha led pack we won't be able to get through if they aren't dealt with."

"I get the picture, what's this Alpha Grimm like?" She'd seen an article or two about them on the Vytal-Net but beyond being stronger it was hard to tell what was different about it.

"Beowulf, claws as long as your forearms and most their limbs have bone plating-"

"-it's senses are stronger too- fuckers know what side of the bed you woke up on this morning" Orion cut the other man off to add to the descriptions.

'Definitely sounds like Deathclaw territory.'

"And the area where they are? Is it just on the road or are they in a cave near or..?"

"The road crosses a bridge over a river that runs up to a catchment that we want to get water from, the Alpha and its pack are under the bridge and up the stream." Orion answered.

"Okay sounds alright, I can deal with it." Arielle said with a nod.

'At least it gives me another chance to get used to fighting these things.'

"Just like that?" Sebastian asked, the older man looking surprised and thankful. "We really couldn't get this done without you- thank you Rhea."

The man's gratitude didn't get very far as she dismissed it the same way she had before. "You're paying for me to be here, it's a job, don't thank me. Plus I haven't actually done anything yet."

"She's right Gaz this thing could go sideways real easy, 'specially if she don't got an Aura under all that tin." the archer added.

"Do you have one?" Sebastian asked, pointing the question at her.

"I do." She lied, it wasn't really something she'd understood much from her little research into the matters of Huntsmen from having remembered being asked if she was one.

It was some kind of protective shield people could have that also boosted their capabilities a great deal, it sounded like the sort of thing she was better off lying about to make them feel safe about it.

"Won't be getting peeled open if they break that coffin open then?" Orion joked and she shook her head.

"If that's all I'll get ready and head to deal with it now."

Taken a little aback by the readiness to deal with things the guardsmen shook himself before giving a nod, she could overhear him telling the archer to keep an eye on her from afar to help if things got out of hand and she needed to be dragged out, but it wasn't exactly something she was planning on so she didn't care.

[2]

Coming up on the bridge she was directed to Arielle put her holotape-mix in and readied her LAER to put down Grimm.

Instead of a fight however she found a slaughter like Nipton, she moved through to where the Grimm loitered, the monsters howling and rushing her.

The Grimm turned to the slag as bolts of luminescent blue energy struck down five, then eight and twelve of the vulpine monsters. Their masks fell to the ground and she collected them with little effort before heading further up the waterway toward where she assumed the rest of the monsters were.

The disappointment in her heart as the utter weakness of the creatures to her weapon.

Exhaling as she walked, the Courier wondered if the fear the people of Remnant felt toward the Grimm was based in large part due to their weaponry; she'd noticed the guns they fired didn't have the same penetration as her own kinetic weapons. let alone the impact of the Lazer and Plasma weapons she'd used in the past including the one in her hands.

The sound of the song playing faded out as another started when she arrived near a large basin of a waterfall where a giant Beowulf laid up with nearly twenty smaller kin around it. The monster was thrice the size of any other she'd seen up until this point, its body was plated with armour streaked with deep grooves and accents that glowed red.

'What in the Goddamn…?'

A blood red eye snapped open glaring her down.

Arielle felt a fear- an utter terror sunk its teeth into her like a Yaoi Gui mauling a Brahmin, the cold vapidness turned into jittery excitement as a song with a lot more energy started playing.

Author's Note:

Thank you for reading. I really appreciate it, I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and if things haven't been good I hope they get better for you.