A/N:

Gore trigger warning, I suppose. I'm not dwelling too much on it, and it's nothing beyond what vanilla NV was capable of doing, though the 15-year-old engine probably dulled a lot of the shock factor.
Also, opinions about unit systems do not necessarily reflect those of the author.

Last time we checked up on Ryuji, he had gotten shot in the face with a shotgun.

"[Gah!]"

Most of the buckshot from the two shells hit him smack dab in the forehead, mercifully missing the squishy orbs below it. The Tesla coils were sturdy enough to survive in good enough shape, and the redundant circuits picked up the slack from the few broken ones almost immediately.

Of course, just because the shot didn't kill Ryuji on the spot, didn't mean it didn't disorient him for a few precious seconds.

His vision was a blur. He had heard the sounds of a break-action mechanism opening and a few laser shots being fired. He stumbled backwards, trying to go up the stairs and get behind the watchtower building for some cover, or at least concealment, to let his sight refocus.

Then, he realized that they didn't have any laser weapons on themselves, and it was like someone switched his optic nerves back on.

He saw his own hand holding the laser pistol and firing it at the attackers. Then, all the moving parts of the world just clicked together and the red laser beam hit the shotgun-wielding lobotomite in the head. His body glowed bright white for a brief moment, and then turned into ash, which then collapsed into a neat little pile.

The two remaining lobotomites stared at what used to be their mate, slightly shocked, before turning back to Ryuji. He couldn't show weakness now. One of the still standing lobotomites, the one with a sledgehammer, tried to pick up the discarded shotgun and Ryuji, without thinking, took aim. "Kutabare!" he shouted, then fired.

He had seen laser pointers before, and his weapon was just like a laser pointer. A laser pointer with a pistol grip and enough power to burn people. He shot the lobotomite in the chest twice, then put a few beams in his legs, and another shot to the chest for a finisher. He then aimed at the hatchet-lobotomite who was charging at him, but the gun just beeped in his hand, out of juice.

He grabbed his sonic emitter with the other hand and pulled the trigger, recoiling away. After a second, right as the lobotomite was about to embed his weapon in his shoulder, the soundwave had gone through his skull and he gripped his head in pain. In one last attempt to deescalate, Ryuji dropped the laser pistol, grabbed the handle of the hatchet, and yanked it out of the lobotomite's grip, then tossed it far away enough for both of them.

The lobotomite then wrapped his hands around Ryuji's throat and squeezed tightly, pushing and holding him down against the staircase.

Gasping for breath, Ryuji tried to get the lobotomite off with his free hand, to no avail; it was as if someone put his neck in a vice. He could feel the lobotomite's breath on his face and gaze into his eyes. There didn't seem to be anything behind them. He pulled the trigger of the sonic emitter, then shoved it under the chin of the lobotomite. The soundwave had gone through his skull, turning it into a cloud of chunks of flesh and bone, some of which sprayed on Ryuji's face.

After the longest second of his life, the lobotomite's body – corpse, more like – went limp enough for Ryuji to pry his… its hands off his throat and take a deep breath. He pushed the corpse off of himself, to the side, but remained lying down on the stairs, staring at the sky above him and taking some more deep breaths.

"[Idiot, they called me…]" he grumbled to himself, in a barely audible voice. "[I'd want to see these 'smart' guys survive things like this…]"

"Sir?" the CIU asked over the headset. "Did sir's combat engagement conclude? And how serious are sir's wounds?"

"I got shot in the head." Ryuji thought about moving his hand across his forehead to assess the damage by touch, but all his limbs felt like jelly.

"Oh my," the CIU gasped.

Ryuji tried to force his arm to move and ended up slapping himself in the face with a limp hand. He felt blood underneath his fingertips, some of it his. "Whatever's in my head is more sturdy than a brain though, so I'm still conscious."

"If I recall, sir has a stimpak on sir's self," the CIU reminded him. "I recommend injecting its contents into the base of sir's neck to heal sir's wounds decently enough for return to home base."

With some difficulty, Ryuji fished the stimpak out of his pocket and jammed it in the ordered spot. Not pleasant, but still more fun than getting shot in the face. He then, again, with difficulty, sat up and scanned his surroundings, the concentration camp on the side, the dead body right next to him and another a fair distance away, next to a pile of dust that used to be a third human being before his body was flash-burned to ash.

The only thing stopping him from vomiting on the spot was the fact he had done so a few moments prior, at the sight of another corpse in the watchtower.

"If I am allowed to ask," CIU spoke up again, "how is sir's current mental state?"

"I just killed three people," Ryuji grumbled. "How do you think I feel?"

"Suboptimally, that much is certain. I wish to reiterate that with the lobotomites being unable to be reasoned with, sir had no other choice in sir's current circumstances."

Ryuji didn't think that made any difference to him, as far as he cared. After a moment, he picked up the discarded laser pistol, removed the spent energy cell, and put in a new one. The gun buzzed in his hand to indicate being ready to fire. It filled him with discomfort.

"Once upon a time…" he muttered under his breath, just loudly enough for the microphone to pick him up, "there was a teacher."

"Um, yes?" the CIU replied, confused.

"The teacher was a bastard that abused everyone and molested the girls on top of that," Ryuji continued. "And he could get away with this, because he was special enough to make the school prestigious." He paused for a moment, inspecting the laser gun in his hand. He even stared down the barrel, too disinterested to care. "The piece of shitwanted to ruin my life. Heck, he already ruined most of it. And so I wanted him dead."

"And, uh…" The CIU found himself concerned about his master's mental state. This was beyond his programming routines; the Auto-Doc had a psychology subroutine but he'd need time to get him on the line. "What did sir do in that unenviable situation?"

"I blundered into… magic, let's call it magic," Ryuji continued. "I could've made him just drop dead, in a way nobody would have connected back to me… okay, not really, but I thoughtthat back then. But my friends and I couldn't go through with it. We just got him to confess everything with that magic. We thought it's more cruel than killing him. And after we did all that, we thought about doing this to other bad guys, and that got out of hand, and a god banished me here, and that's how I ended up killing three people after all."

There was silence on the line. "If sir pardons my impoliteness," the CIU finally said, "was there really a point to sir's tale?"

"Nope," Ryuji admitted, bluntly. "I just felt like rambling."

"I understand." After a moment, the idea function outputted something. "Are those friends sir had mentioned the same friends that sir now wishes to seek after departing the facility?"

Ryuji's grip on the laser pistol tightened. "Yes. They are still out there."

"If sir is still capable of locomotion, I would recommend withdrawing back to the Sink, so that I can process the documentation sir has acquired, and sir can patch up his wounds."

Ryuji inhaled the air through his teeth, gathering the remaining shreds of his resolve. He got up from the stairs and picked up the loose sheets of paper he dropped after headbutting a shotgun shell.

Last time we checked up on Ann, she was standing in the Dino Dee-lite Motel yard, and had just picked up a phone call. "[Hello? Futaba?]"

"[Yep]" Futaba replied on the other end. "[How it's hanging?]"

"[Alright, I guess]" Ann replied. "[I'm in a safe town, waiting for… something like you calling me, basically. Did you hijack some cell phone network?]"

Futaba scoffed. "[More like set it up from scratch!]" she proclaimed, proudly. "[Okay, there was a radio station here but converting that to enable two-way comms wasn't a walk in the park.]"

"[I can only guess]" Ann commented. "[So, can we now call everyone else with our phones?]"

"[Not everyone.]" Futaba wondered for a moment if she should mention the sixth phone, but decided against it. She wanted to confirm things before bumping others' stress levels. "[I have five phones on my radar. Yours, mine, Haru's, Makoto's and Akira's.]"

"[Um…]" Ann glanced to the side, at Yusuke patiently waiting for her to finish the call. "[For the record, Yusuke is standing right next to me.]"

"[Pass the phone to him.]"

Ann did as ordered and Yusuke put her phone to his ear. "[Kitagawa speaking.]"

"[WHY THE FUCK IS YOUR CELL PHONE OFF, INARI?!]"

"[Because I forgot to charge it]" he replied, calmly, moving the speaker a bit away from his ear. "[Had I known I will end up displaced in time and space I wouldn't have neglected it.]"

"[We're gonna stick together, so you can reach us both on my phone]" Ann said, taking said phone from Yusuke's hand, scanning her surroundings. "[Give us a moment to get somewhere private enough for loudspeaker."]

Ann and Yusuke retreated to their motel room and sat on the couch. Ann placed her phone between them and tapped the icon of a speaker on the screen. "[Okay, we're back.]"

"[WB]" Futaba replied.

"[So, what's the plan?]" Yusuke asked.

"[For now, I gather data]" Futaba explained. "[Where everyone I can reach is and in what state they are. Then we can think about where to regroup.]"

"[Yusuke and I are in a small town of Novac, wherever that is]" Ann explained.

"[North of Searchlight!]" Yusuke chimed.

"[We got a motel room and can survive a few days on the townsfolk's pity]" Ann continued, "[so we can safely stay put and wait for further instructions.]"

"[Got it]" Futaba said. "[For the record, I'm on Black Mountain, and mostly safe as far as I can tell. I'll reach out to everyone and get back to you after, kay?]"

"[Just keep us informed about the fates of the others]" Yusuke requested.

"[I will, I promise. Oracle, out.]"

Futaba hung up. Ann and Yusuke sat in silence for a moment before Ann went: "[You gonna say something?]"

"[I fear to express optimism lest I get blamed for things going wrong in some form.]"

"[Yeah, let's not get excited for now]" Ann nodded, then stood up and walked to the door. "[I'm gonna go ask Briscoe-san if he has some maps lying around. They might come in handy once we've got the locations of everyone else.]"

"[Failing that, you can always ask the gun merchants]" Yusuke suggested. "[If they travel in pursuit of their wares, they have to be familiar with the area.]"

"[Good idea]" Ann nodded before leaving the room.

As she marched across the yard back to the dinosaur, she noticed No-Bark poking his head from behind a corner and looking at her. Having ran out of patience for creepy old men, she pulled out her pistol and turned to him. "I am armed, No-Bark. Piss off."

"I did not see you load that gun, though," No-Bark replied. "Unless you can fire it with the power of your mind."

"I just might!" she retorted. "And even if it's empty, it's heavy enough to conk you on the head."

"Look, miss, I mean no harm," No-Bark raised his hands slightly. "But you dropped in out of nowhere, you speak in tongues and you carry some weird two-way radio on yourself. You've gotta understand why a man would be suspicious."

Ann got frustrated with herself for picking up the call out in the open. "I come in peace and so do my friends. Give me a few days and we're all gonna disappear back into our dimension or whatever you think we came from."

"Well, good luck with that then," No-Bark said, then withdrew behind the corner. Ann sighed in irritation and carried on.

Haru's phone buzzed with an upcoming call.

Unfortunately, since she had realized she got no reception and had been later told she's two-and-a-half-centuries away from home, she had assumed her phone was useless and left it behind in a folded pile of clothes in the Mormon Fort medical room.

"What's that?" Bill Ronte asked.

Julie carefully picked up the vibrating device and spun it in her hands. "I don't know." To her, it was a thin rectangle in some kind of bright-pink protective case, with a few buttons on the side and a screen covering most of the usable space. The screen was now lit up, displaying a photo of a young girl with long neon-orange hair, alongside some Chinese text and two buttons with symbols resembling a phone receiver – one green, with the receiver lifted, and one red, with the receiver set down.

She tapped the green button, almost by accident, and heard the faint sound of a voice of a young girl, maybe the same as the one in the photo, faintly coming from some small speaker on the device. Unfortunately, not only was she quiet, she was also speaking in a foreign language Julie didn't recognize.

"Uh, English please?" Julie blurted out.

Futaba realized she's speaking to a local. If the technology had plateaued around the mid-to-late 20th century, they were probably very confused by the magic talking box. "Put the device to the side of your face," she said, loudly, slowly and in English. "Screen towards face, top near your ear."

"Pardon me for a moment, Bill," Julie said, then retreated upstairs to her office/bedroom. She then put the phone to her ear as ordered. "Uh, I have done so."

"Can you hear me now?" came the voice on the other end of the line.

"Loud and clear," Julie replied. "Is this some kind of… portable telephone?"

"Yes, and it belongs to a friend of mine. Where is she?"

"Five foot two, curly auburn hair, speaks with the same accent as you?"

Futaba needed a moment to convert the American units to normal ones in her head. "That's her! What did you do to her?"

"Well, I patched up her wounds and offered her a place to stay," Julie replied. "In brief, I run an aid camp in Freeside. Miss Okumura was brought to me by an associate, and reportedly was forced to fend off a bunch of…" If the caller was also 'from another time and space', she wouldn't know what a Fiend is and Julie didn't want to explain that to her. "assailants with a fire axe. I can't speak for her mental state, but physically she's in good shape."

"Sounds like Haru alright," Futaba muttered. "And where is she now?"

"She offered to help me by convincing an addicted chemist to attend rehab. She's in the area and should return shortly."

"Hm." Futaba wasn't really content with that, but at least the woman on the other side seemed reasonable, and Haru was somewhere safe (okay, safe enough, but she didn't know that) for the time being. That was the important part. "The number in the upper right corner. What does it read?"

"Uh, eighty seven percent."

"At least someone charged their freakin' phone…" Futaba muttered under her breath. "The moment Haru comes back, tell her to call me immediately. Tell her to just dial my number, it'll work just fine."

"You, uh, didn't introduce yourself," Julie pointed out.

"Saku- wait, you do it backwards, Futaba Sakura." Futaba said. "And you are?"

"Julie Farkas, regional administrator of the Followers of the Apocalypse."

"Okay then, Mrs Farkas, tell Haru to call me when she's back."

"I promise I will. Now, if you excuse me, I have patients in need of my attention, and I have to go." She moved the phone a bit away from her head to inspect it. "How do I hang up with this thing?"

"Don't worry about that," said Futaba before hanging up on her end.

Julie carefully put down the phone on her desk, with the intent of informing Haru about this call as soon as she returns. She then walked back downstairs to the waiting Bill Ronte.

"What was that about?" he asked.

Julie asked herself how much she actually knows and how much she was able to divulge without breaking the other patient's trust. "I… genuinely don't know. It's all incredibly unusual."

Ryuji stepped out of the Auto-Doc, who had just fixed him up. "Thanks, Doc," he said, without enthusiasm.

"Don't mention it. It's what I'm here for. And if you need a psych evaluation, I'm here for ya."

"Maybe later," he remarked, then turned towards the Central Intelligence Unit. "So, C, are the notes any good?"

"To an extent," the CIU replied. "I might be able to construct a portable transportalponder, which should be able to return sir to the satellite that had abducted sir to the facility."

The frown remained on Ryuji's face. "Where's the catch?"

"It will allow sir to move between two spots only. However, if I combine it with a pair of positioning chips, I might be able to update the stored coordinates, so that the device will remember both sir's position in the Big Mountain and sir's position in the area sir is returning to. Also, constructing it might take a few hours. And I won't be able to just hand it over to sir, but since it's not present on my equipment list I can sell it to sir for a symbolic bottle cap."

"And how long will the battery in this thing last?"

"A few years of intensive use, and a few decades of non-intensive use."

"And you are completely sure it will not break the coils in my brain?" Ryuji pushed, looking for anything that could've gone wrong with the plan. "I've seen these lobotomites. I'm not scared of dying, but I'm scared of ending up like them."

"To reiterate, I can vouch for the quality of all of sir's organ replacements. Sir could live the rest of sir's days outside the facility before encountering any problems."

Ryuji mulled it over. Despite the reassurances – maybe even because of them – this whole affair seemed risky. Like it would end with his actual brain blended into a smoothie. He could've waited for some other opening to manifest.

Maybe someone else would've been stupid enough to kick a satellite in the middle of nowhere.

"C, start assembling the transportalponder," he commanded.

"I started five minutes ago, sir."

"Cool. I'm gonna go take a cold shower. Or try to get the taste of vomit out of my mouth."