AN: So this is an idea I've had for a while, probably ever since I read LoftiestMilk0's When Earth Meets Dust. If you haven't yet read that story, do yourself a favor and go read it, as it is glorious.

I hope you enjoy the story.

-September 20, 2281

There is a phrase that I have come across in my short yet vast journeys through the beige wasteland that I have come to know as home; a philosophy and mindset I find prevalent among those whom I would call peers. This philosophy, espoused within a single laconic phrase, has been written in blood among the concrete remains of the wasted world that I wander:

War...War never changes.

The proclivity for violence that man possesses is only rivaled by man's ability to survive, recover, and rebuild after said violence ends. I have witnessed in my travels the never ending animosity that has so plagued mankind since its inception as a species. Once enacted in the names of varying deities, the perverse desire for power or simple greed, after the Great War, which started over the last few drops of black gold, consumed this once verdant realm, violence began over the far more base needs of mankind: water, food, and livable conditions. Now in this wasted world, man has carved its way back into what could be considered civilization, and thus finds itself thrust once again into the hellscape of war.

Chapter 1: Right Man, Wrong World

-DATA UNAVAILABLE-

The Courier had never in his entire life been as confused as he was currently. He knew that it had failed, the moonlit forest and temperate air gave away the fact he did not teleport to Big Mountain. The melted semblance of the once proudly "Scienterrific" device just compounded the issue. In addition, not one of Vault-Tec's myriad Government funded satellites could be reached via the Pip-Boy, which while not an uncommon event- many of the satellites have long since died to age and disrepair-was nonetheless an unwelcome one. However the Courier felt as though disrepair was currently not the reason for failure of the Pip-Boy's GPS function, what with the shattered remnants of the moon taking up space in the sky like a fat Politician making a speech at a Followers run soup kitchen.

No, the remains of the moon only allowed the Courier to come to the conclusion that any sane wastelander who encountered the Think Tank would come to. The "genius" design of the Transportalponder combined with the dust and grime of the wastes lead to a slight alteration in the fifth stage of teleportation, altering the rematerialization coordinates into the negative positions due to the program having absolutely zero safety budget and a drunk debugger. Because of these things, the device brought its poor owner to a completely new reality before melting into an irreparable pile of circuit board green goop.

This conclusion did not make the poor boy feel any better, instead opening up further questions such as: What reality is this? How did they shatter the moon? Did they have good food? And lastly, was there a way back? The man stared at the sky, and felt as though the longer he stared the more likely the answer to that last question would be: no.

Sighing to himself, the Courier decided to head south, the weight of his confusion being only overshadowed by the weight of his possessions. Normally the Courier would carry less, but he had been partaking in the process of moving away from New Vegas and thus carried much of what he owned with him in the safety of two duffel bags duct-taped together and a third hanging over his shoulder. Flipping a switch on the right side of his helmet, the Couriers vision turned green as his helmets night vision activated. The Courier did not feel well walking through the woods. Forests that thick no longer existed on earth, Zion's sparse woodlands were miniscule in comparison.

The forest expanded infinitely in every direction, as if covered the whole world. Judging by the underbrush, there were many different species, as the rotting leaves had varying appearances. Saplings could be glimpsed sprouting out of the compost like floor, reaching upwards towards its older brethren. Of course, the Courier was too busy tripping over the gnarled roots of the forest floor to notice any of this, being used to flat deserts rather than rugged forests.

After travelling for an hour the Courier came to a river, which relieved him to no end. After testing the water with his Pip-Boy's probe he filled up his canteen before following the river downstream. In the distance he could hear coyotes howl and felt slightly relieved knowing that at least one piece of wildlife was similar to his own. The Courier followed the river for about two hours, only resting once or twice to fill up his canteen and sit down for a moment before continuing.

During the last rest he heard some short faint cry of pain in the distance, as if someone had been attacked and wasn't lucky enough to fight back successfully. Getting up, the Courier ran in the direction of the cry. After two minutes of running, he came across some large steel wall. Looking down he could see that he was at the edge of the large forest, and that the wall expanded in both directions for a bit, before making a solid turn at a right angle. He followed along the steel wall, his left hand feeling it to keep himself steady.

Turning left the Courier saw a ripped hole in the bottom of the wall, seemingly caused by a bomb, judging by the barely visible scorch marks on the jagged edges. However the scratch marks and blood that splattered the wall surrounding the hole gave the Courier pause.

"Please God. Please let there not be deathclaws in there." The Courier muttered. Weighing his options, let whoever's in there die, or go in and fight what was more than likely an entire pack of deathclaws, the Courier swiftly ducked under the hole and entered the wall. Looking around there were a bunch of houses, but what surprised him were that almost all of them were intact, rather than breaking apart. The Courier was impressed with the effort put back into the rebuilding of the town. He then heard a quiet snarling in a couple of directions. They sounded like Yao Guai. Looking around the Courier found a large steel crate. Knowing it probably wouldn't hold out whatever was on the other side, he nonetheless pushed the crate with all his might and covered up the hole, knowing that while it wouldn't hold out any creatures for long, it would nonetheless hold them off long enough for him to find someone… hopefully.

The Courier snuck down the small alleyway between two buildings, the space between them only big enough for a single human. He took out the Ranger Sequoia he kept on his leg and held it tightly in his right hand. Every time one of the buildings would end he would look both ways out to the two wider roads that ran in front of the buildings. After passing the third set of buildings the Courier once again checked through the side alleys before ducking his head back behind the building. In the middle of the street on the opposite side of the building to his right prowled three yao guai, but they looked different. Instead of balding tumorous arms and legs, the yao guai were covered in fur as black as the night itself. Though they looked to be the same size, the Courier could tell they had a bit more muscle on their bones, probably due to not having a sparse diet of gecko meat and fruit. However what surprised the Courier the most were the masks they had on their heads. The Courier began to worry.

What the hell's up with the face masks? Did someone here train Yao Guai? Is that even possible?

The Courier holstered his sequoia and pulled out the silenced COS sniper rifle he found near camp Yangtze. Crouching down the Courier once again lightly stepped out, this time taking a look down the scope, aiming the reticule at the nearest hairy yao guai's right eye, the Courier pulled the trigger, causing the yao guai to briefly cry in pain before falling down dead, the other three looking around, not even hearing the silenced shot. Quickly moving the sniper rifle the Courier shot a second round into the neck of the other one, severing it due to a lucky shot. By this time the last yao guai had noticed the Couriers shots and charged the Courier, getting stuck in between the buildings. The Courier pointed the muzzle of the sniper rifle into the mouth of the Yao Guai like creature before pulling the trigger, causing the creature to flinch, but not die. The Courier shot twice more before it stopped moving. The Courier loaded in another clip of armor piercing rounds, knowing that the skulls looked too thick for anything else to work, before noticing the creatures he just killed dissolving into the ground. Staring at the sight the Courier looked around like someone was messing with him.

Stepping out into the street tentatively, the Courier sighed at the sight in front of him. A human was lying in a pool of blood face down and unmoving. More than likely the poor guy was ambushed by the yao guai like creatures before meeting his demise. The Courier looked around, not finding any creatures still there. The Courier began to silently stalk down the street, his sniper held tightly against his shoulder. Looking up the lights of the town were out but looked like they had at one point been lit, the corpses of flies drawn in by the light giving away that fact.

"Hey."

The Courier turned around trying to find the faint voice he heard.

"Over here in the building."

The Courier looked to his right. From inside a light shone, providing little illumination in the middle of the dark road.

"The front doors blocked and I can't really move, head around to the back, the door may be unlocked, I don't know."

Not having much time the Courier ran into the alleyway and around the building, coming across the door he tried opening it only to find it was locked.

The Courier pulled out a bobby pin, a notch made into one of the ends, and a screwdriver. Feeling around for the first tumbler the Courier launched it up before knocking the lock to the side, catching the returning driver pin. Doing the same for the other pins, the Courier quickly unlocked the door, opening it to find himself in a well-furnished kitchen. The Courier closed the door and locked it from the inside, also locking it with the deadbolt. Walking through the kitchen the man entered what could only be assumed to have once been a restaurant. Turning his head he found an injured and bloody man, face lit by the lantern he had next to his side.

"...Stop! D-don't come any closer!"

Guess my armor is intimidating to him, the Courier thought. Turning off the night vision the Courier slowly walked over to the obviously scared man holding his hands out in front of him.

"Please relax, I'm not going to hurt you." Kneeling down next to the man, the Courier noticed that the man was bleeding from a large gash in his chest and his arm had a compound fracture. The Courier brought out some old looking doctor's bag and started checking the man's arm, and the man gulped. "Hold still, please."

"W-What's with the - AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!" The man screamed as the Courier set the man's arm back in place, the blood starting to flow back out at a faster pace. "Th-the first step is to stop the bl- AAUGH!"

"Sorry, but this isn't first aid, this is treatment." The Courier said as he brought out a bottle of alcohol and poured it all over both of the wounds as they continued to bleed. The man began to panic and hyperventilate. "What the hell are you even doing?" The Courier responded to this by injecting the man with a syringe!

"Stopping the blood loss. I would normally do that first but I needed to set the arm before injecting you or-"

"W-w-what d-did you inject me with?"

"A stimpack." The Courier gave the man a glance, figuring he, like any sane person, would be wary of an unknown injection. "Don't worry it's sterile. I made sure of that." What the Courier didn't tell him was that he had bought over three dozen syringes from the Followers, before going overboard in sterilizing them. He boiled them for over three hours before cooling them in an alcohol bath for the rest of the hour and then proceeded to refit an oven to use flamer fuel and baked the needles for over two hours. When Dr. Usanagi found out about the preparations she told him that not only were they unnecessary, as all needles are produced and sterilized before being distributed, but that the boiling and Alcohol bath would have been enough.

The man began to calm down as he noticed that, while the pain was unbearable, the bleeding began to slow down and the wounds began to heal. The man stared at the arm which began to heal up with what looked to the Courier like awe and surprise.

"Wh-what's in the stimpack?" The man asked as the Courier began to place the arm in what appeared to the man to be some sort of brace. The man tightened the brace and the man winced in further pain, however some of the pain was beginning to dissipate.

"Coagulant, low dose pain killers, antibiotics, and catalysts designed to kick start tissue repair. Second generation stimpacks can even heal broken bones somewhat, but I don't have any of those." The Courier said as he ripped off one of the tablecloths in the restaurant.

"It stops bleeding?" the man asked incredulously watching the strange armored man as he began placing the braced arm in a makeshift sling, having noticed the man's broken collarbone.

"Internal and external. I could go into more detail but I'm only guessing you need me to do something about the problem this town is facing." Finishing the sling the Courier stood up before looking at the ceiling, "Or is it a fortress… a city? Maybe a-"

"You really don't know where we are?" the man asked incredulously. "Roaring-Oaks? One of the biggest colonial efforts the Council of Vale ever financed? Seriously?"

Roaring-Oaks? Wait… like Roanoke? Well, that's a bad omen if I ever heard one, The Courier thought with a grimace hidden by his helmet. "Sorry, I'm new in town."

The injured man laughed with some pain. "Maybe I should give you the tour. Anywa- great Oum, that stimpack really works-anyways, you're right, everyone in this town is going to die if someone doesn't get the generators powered soon- well… I don't exactly have high hopes that we could survive for more than a few hours, let alone three days."

The Courier tilted his head. There were a dozen questions at the forefront of his mind, but the most pressing ones went first. "Three days? What happens in three days?"

"Class S-Distress signals are radioed to the nearest Military base or Hunter School. Unfortunately the closest of either of those would be Rojo at Sanguine Canyon, and they'll only be sending a single Bulkhead with some mechanics and a squad of soldiers. It'll take half a day for them to reach us. They'd see the problem and send the G-Class evacuation order. Bulkheads would have to come from several locations, and they would very likely send an airship. To get all that here and filled with evacuees under the threat of Grimm would take two and half days."

"Sorry for being unfamiliar, but something tells me that a Class S-Distress Signal wasn't enough to cover what's happening here."

"Really now? Some assholes decided to bomb the wall in several places, and such an event is classified as a Class S emergency: terrorist attack. Our hunter and guards would stay near the wall until it could get fixed but then the generator failed, followed soon by the backup generators blowing up, and people began to panic. We couldn't get to the generators in time and fell back to the central hall; that's why you aren't seeing any Grimm prowling the street. Suddenly the situation jumped up to a Class G emergency. Over the past three hours it's gone down the crapper, and now we're dealing with a scenario that isn't getting any better. Our hunter's going to tire out soon, and then we'll probably end up all dying once he and the guards are gone."

The Courier stood there for a minute in silence. "You said the Generators are busted? What does that mean? For the town I mean."

"Wall used to fry terrestrial Grimm. Since the power's gone, the defense system doesn't work. I volunteered with Artemis out there to fix the damn thing."

"Will it come on if I fix the generators?"

The man looked up at the Courier with what looked like hope. "Can you fix them?"

Looking down at the man the Courier replied tentatively. "I'm fairly decent when it comes to fixing and jury-rigging things. At the least, I could take a look, and if I can't fix them, I'll help this town hold out for as long as you need."

"If you can fix them, it would increase the chances of living through this crapfest. The toolkit's over there," the man said pointing over to the right of the door. "The substation's located in the southeast corner of the colony. Here's the key!" the man said as he tossed the key to the Courier. The Courier, having picked up the toolkit walked back into the kitchen. "Wait. Before you go… What's your name?" The Courier turned towards the man.

"They call me the Courier," he said before leaving the room. Walking out the door in the back the Courier closed the door before sighing and palming the front of his helmet.

"They call me the Courier"? You should have just walked away you idiot! You came across like one of those damn knights from that Tæles of Chivalrie crap. Even I know that's cheesy! The worst part is that if you succeed they have a freaking title to speak of. Now you won't get that peace you desired. Good going! Really.

"Dammit" The Courier cursed himself outwardly yet again. He looked at the Pip-Boy's build in compass and followed it east through the back alleys of the various buildings. He thought to himself that this town is impressive for a simple colony. Must have taken them a while to build this place. Dangerous too what with those… uh… what the hell are these things anyway?

The Courier shook as head as he continued on, having taken out his silenced Sniper Rifle yet again. The Courier came across the large wall and looked to his right. The Courier palmed his helmet. Isn't this where I came in? Looking back up he could see the box he had set in front of the hole had been pushed out of the way. Not the best of signs that. Sighing again, he headed south which was towards the hole. The Courier crouched and began sneaking, hoisting the third duffel bags strap over his head and pulled the strap so that it was held by tensile strass behind the makeshift rucksack on his back. Looking about the Courier continued past the hole and made his way towards a low and wide building in the corner of the city. Inwardly he sighed in content, right as he heard a growl coming from behind him.

Son of a ghoulified New Vegas whore...the Courier thought as he turned around to face his aggressor only to jump back as a claw came at his head. Not even waiting to examine his foe in detail the Courier dropped his sniper rifle as quickly as he could and pulled out his Combat knife, altered with a metal guard giving it the design of a trench knife. Swinging his right arm up, the Courier caught his aggressor in the chin with the knife and pulled his arm out in an arc, somehow managing to cut both the creature's carotid artery and jugular vein in the process. Jumping back, he watched as the foe fell to the ground due to passing out from lack of blood to the brain. However by this time the Courier noticed that the creature had friends-several in fact- as he dodged another swipe at his head.

Backing away, the Courier pulled out his shotgun, relying yet again on his favorite legionnaire killing device. Aiming quickly the Courier let loose a twelve gauge round of pure death into the nearest creature's neck, mauling its front and causing it to fall down like the first creature. Aiming at the next closest one's head he pulled the trigger and watched as the balls of lead pierced it's skull like visage before it began to dissolve, having died instantly from the shot. Three creatures being down, a fourth dashed at the Courier with its claws, looking to the Courier like a hairy deathclaw trying to rip his head off. He shot out the thing's leg and it stumbled before the Courier pumped his gun and shot the things head at point blank range. Barely noticing another coming at him the Courier quickly rolled to the side, coming up with the shotgun at his shoulder and aimed at the black furred monstrosity before pulling the trigger blasting through its skull. Looking over the Courier noticed there were five more monsters looking back at him with hungry red eyes. The Courier fired three shots into the nearest one's chest, killing it on the second shot but the third shot being made as the creature was falling. Out of rounds in the shotgun the Courier pulled out his ranger sequoia firing two shots into the skull of a charging creature before it fell. Managing to dodge the second one to charge, the Courier was slashed on the chest plate by another he didn't see. Feeling lucky that no blood was drawn the Courier slammed the end of the gun under the creature's jaw before firing off two shots, the second managing to kill the creature. Turning around the Courier failed to dodge a strike, his left upper arm receiving a rather nasty gash before slamming the handle of the sequoia into the creature's eye causing it to reel back in pain. Running back the Courier shot out the creatures left hind leg, causing the creature to fall over when it tried to charge him. Cursing to himself as he was overwhelmed the Courier booked it, reloading his sequoia as fast as possible. Upon loading the last bullet he was knocked over by the one unscathed creature left. Hearing the creature charge the Courier rolled swiftly to one side, dodging the creature's attack. Pulling up the sequoia the Courier fired four shots into the creatures opening maw as it turned to face him. The courier yelped as the corpse came crashing on his lying body.

The Courier shoved off the dead creature and got up swiftly only to let out a dark chuckle. The last creature was balancing on three legs, and was advancing weakly towards him, the leg shot he made being far more damaging than he initially thought, as it was currently hanging on by a bit of the skin. Chambering a few rounds, he cocked back the hammer and fired a shot directly into the creature's skull, making a rather large cracked hole in its head. It slumped to the ground and began to dissolve. Injecting a stimpack in his arm to heal it, the man searched the ground for his discarded duffle bag and sniper rifle. Finding both he looked towards the hole before sprinting towards the generator building, not wanting to deal with any more of the strange creatures.

Opening the door, the Courier was happy to find that it was unlocked, and that the room wasn't filled with hostiles. He closed the door, and placed his rather heavy bags down behind it, acting as an impromptu light barricade for the door. Sighing in relief from finally being able to take off the packs the Courier decided to take a look at the generators themselves. There were several of them in the center of the room, and they appeared to be extremely efficient judging by their small size. They were just over half the Courier's height at around three feet and four inches. Taking a look at the missing panels, he noticed that several of the circuit boards controlling the system were smashed to bits. Looking around he found several of the pipes that allowed for coolant to flow were busted as well, and part of the main generator's armature was busted, preventing the current from flowing. In addition to all this, the backup generators' had their armatures in pieces on the floor, as if explosives detonated within the generators themselves.

The Courier quickly walked over to the main generator, looking at the broken bits through the green glow of his visor. While the armature could definitely be fixed, it would be better to simply replace it with one of the backups that still had one mostly intact, same thing for the broken power control panel. Looking back towards the backup generators, the courier found that one still had a mostly intact armature, but the power control panel was completely destroyed. On the opposite side of the room was a power control panel that was more in-tact than the rest. Grunting to himself the Courier started to go to work.

"NACHT! WELD THAT DOOR SHUT NOW!"

"BUT SIR!"

Looking back to his battle the hunter dodged backwards from the ursa major's strike before jumping back into the creatures guard, gouging out the creature's neck with the hook end of his blade. Using the collapsing ursa as a ledge to jump off the hunter jumped a good ten feet in the air. Below his feet was a seething black mass of fur, blood, bones, pure anguish and rage.

The endless army of grimm had been hounding this town for the past three and a half hours, and just under ten minutes ago the small bunker that was the town's community center had just been itself breached, something the hunter and the few uninjured guards were attempting to rectify. The hunter would go out and kill any grimm that came close to the door, the uninjured guards would weld the door shut, and as soon as the steel doors were welded together the hunter would jump to the top of the roof and enter the building through a small hatch. At least that was the initial plan ten minutes ago, when the hunter still had energy to fight, and the guards knew he would be able to get back inside. Now though…

"DO IT NOW!" the hunter shouted as he fell splitting the head of another ursa, spinning as his feet hit the ground clearing a throng of beowulves that he had landed in the middle of. Not even looking back the man blocked an incoming strike with his strange hooked blade, parrying it before turning around and swinging his blade upwards, ripping the jaw off the poor ursa that dared try and take him from behind. The hunter dashed through the throngs of grimm making mad slashes, caring not if they killed or crippled the grim, shouting as he went in a vain attempt to get their attention off of the guards at the door. Jumping into the air again the hunter saw a dot of light travel in between the two large plates of steel, before extinguishing at the bottom. Smiling in dark humor the hunter decided to try and reach the top of the building.

He sprung off the head of the alpha beowulf he landed on and managed to get out of the creatures strike range fast enough. Grabbing one of the downspouts, resulting in several screws coming loose, the hunter began to climb towards the roof. Pulling himself over the ledge the hunter chuckled.

"Great job Frost… really, great job. Maybe if you hadn't tried to weasel your way out of responsibility you wouldn't be caught in this mess. 'Where do you see yourself in ten years?' If I ever see that recruiter again I'm going to shove a boot straight up his a-"

The hunter could only stare slack jawed at the sight before him, the sounds of the grimm below only barely covering the excited murmuring that was taking place under the concrete roof. He could only smile and laugh at the sight that stood before him, its majesty like that of an angel descending upon the battlefield. Of all the things that Frost thought would keep him determined to keep moving forward, an activated streetlight was the last thing he would have expected.

"That armature was much lighter than I thought it would be," the Courier muttered to himself, wiping off some sweat on his unhelmed face. Looking around the Courier smiled knowing that his efforts worked, what with the lights brightening up the dark substation tremendously. However what truly gave him joy were the sounds of electrified creatures in the distance and the low hum of the electrified wall sending a million jolts into said creatures. That meant that fewer of the damned creatures would enter through the holes, meaning that the situation itself could be salvaged, unlike the town.

The courier dragged his duffel bags from in front of the door to right next to the door, before removing some spare ammo from the one bag that wasn't taped to another. Reloading his weapons, and donning his helmet, the Courier opened the door and stepped outside into the now slightly lit street. The Courier would admit, not having to use his night vision took a load off his mind, as he hated having to use small energy cells keeping it activated. Taking out his shotgun the Courier walked towards one of the larger streets, throwing all previous subtlety out of the window, instead hoping to goad the strange creatures towards him.

As he turned the corner the Courier couldn't help but utter a small curse as he saw the throbbing black mass of creatures at the end of the street. How in the legionary populated hell did I miss THAT? It's a good thing they didn't see meeee- wait… didn't the injured man say the reason they weren't in the street was...oh.

Holstering his shotgun the Courier once again pulled out the trusty sniper rifle. Crouching down the Courier fired four shots into the writhing mass of creatures, causing three to fall, not that any of the other creatures noticed, due to their preoccupation with trying to get into the sealed building. Aiming the last shot carefully the Courier shot off the top part of the skull of one of the creatures ramming its tusks into the doorway. After reloading the Courier continued until he ran out of .308 rounds, killing a good number of the creatures and making only the slightest of dents in the massive hoard. Some of them began to turn to him, having sensed him at the end of the street, but they seemingly ignored him in favor of the people trapped inside the building. He briefly thought about pulling out his Gauss Rifle, but decided against it when he noticed a man jumping off the building with what appeared to be two hook swords one of which had some sort of large cylinder attached to it. The man started charging through the creatures, and making quick work of them.

Sprinting forward the Courier pulled out the Survivalist's Rifle, and began to fire at the hoard, hoping to thin the numbers before entering close quarters combat. As he got closer he noticed that the two men's' efforts had thinned the horde quite considerably. After emptying the current clip, he once again pulled out his shotgun, the creatures having started to charge him. Not slowing down the Courier fired a shot into each of the charging creature's heads as he and they approached one another, felling several of the creatures. Getting into close range he dodged a strike before shoulder checking one of the standing Yao Guai like creatures and firing a shell into the fallen creatures head. Rolling out of the way of another strike the Courier unleashed the last shot into the creature's chest at point blank range, killing it. As he reloaded his shotgun the Courier backed from the creatures into the wall. One creature slashed downwards only to find its paw blocked by the shotgun's barrel pushing the creature back with great force, finishing the encounter by shooting out the creature's lung with a twelve gauge. The next creature did hit the Courier with his strike but its claws simply scraped the front of the Couriers armor. Hitting the wall and dropping his shotgun he let out a groan before pulling out his sequoia and shooting the creature in its snarling maw, killing it instantly. The Courier finished off the rest of his assailants with other four shots in the cylinder.

Picking up his shotgun the Courier noticed there were only a few creatures left, the ones that looked like hairy deathclaws, but seemed to be much weaker. Two of them were larger than the others, and the man with the hook sword was currently engaging one. The other looked towards the Courier, as if sizing him up. Loading one dragon's breath round in to be fired next after the currently chambered round had been fired, he pulled the shotgun up to his chest and killed one of the smaller ones, once again attempting to goad something bigger than himself into charging at him foolishly. The large creature in front of him, its bone spikes sharp and deadly, surged forward. The Courier let out a small grunt as he fired the dragon's breath round causing the creature to reel back in pain due to its fur being set on fire. The Courier then charged at the creature, and fired several rounds into the creature's torso before entering the creatures striking range. Jamming the barrel right under the creature's jaw, he fired the last round, blasting straight through the creature's head, the pellets falling back down to earth not shortly thereafter.

The Courier pulled out his ranger sequoia only to find the street empty of creatures, the man with the hook sword having cleared the remaining creatures while the courier was busy with the bigger one.

"Alright, drop the gun."

The Courier turned around to find the sharp edge of the hook blade aimed at his cowboy scarf covered neck. Underneath the helmet the courier had a look of bewilderment, as most people he helped didn't subsequently threaten his wellbeing. Not wanting to cause violence and assuming there was a logical explanation for the event the Courier holstered the gun and raised his hands.

"I didn't accidently hit you with a stray shot did I?" the Courier asked, thinking that he might have messed up during the fight.

"No. You didn't and thanks for helping me… but I need you to remove your helmet."

Uh oh.

"Any particular reason why I need to?" the courier asked, hoping that it came out as even toned.

"Well, only one of the terrorists survived, and someone managed to take a picture of him with their scroll. I want to know if you're him." The dark skinned man in front of him stated bluntly.

The Courier sighed and resigned himself to his fate of having his face known by the people he helped, knowing it would mean he could no longer avoid attention, the courier pulled off his helmet.

"Holy dust…" the hunter exclaimed as his eyes went wide.

"Please don't tell people about what I look like." The Courier begged. He knew his face was rather...unique compared to others.

The man lowered the hook sword and guffawed. "I don't know why you don't want people seeing them, those scars are pretty damn cool in my opinion. How'd you get them?"

"All of those stories are too long to tell right now. I hope you're satisfied that I'm not the terrorist you're looking for."

"Yeah, you two look completely different. He's also older than you… I think." The man said as he and the Courier began to walk towards a side ladder next to the building. "Hey, you came from the direction of the substation right? Did you see anyone? "

"Actually there's an injured man down that road over there" the Courier said as he pointed towards one of the streets in front of them, "he was the one who sent me to fix the generator an-"

"THAT WAS YOU?" The man shouted, a look of joy on his face. "HA! Holy crap! Really?"

"I'm decent at repairs."

"Decent my ass! You are one impressive guy you know that? Where'd you graduate from?"

"Graduate? I had little formal education actually, I mostly taught myself over the years."

The man turned and gave him a strange look. "You never went to a combat school?"

"I'm… not from around here, so no, I never went to a 'combat school'. I once had to fight through a 'high school' infested with robot scorpions though if that counts." The courier responded.

"I'm sorry... Robot scorpions?" The man asked bewildered as they approached the ladder next to the building.

"Eh...forget it. It's a long story and you honestly wouldn't believe a word of it."

"Alrighty then … err… What's your name?"

"...Caleb… JUST... Caleb… but most people call me the Courier."

"Courier huh… you deliver packages?"

"Yeah, though my career was… how to say it... interrupted some months ago."

The two had by now reached the top of the building, despite the Courier's reluctance to climb the ladder, and entered through a hatch on the ceiling. The two returning heroes walked not two seconds before being swarmed by happy civilians. The Courier tried his best to keep his helmet from being taken off. A good portion of the civilians were staring at him, or more specifically the desert colored armor and dusting that protected him, innumerable scratches and bullet marks scarring the chest piece. He could see the hope in their eyes even from here. He looked back to the man in front of him who was being saluted by several armored guards.

"Oi! Nacht, grab a squad and head down Peach Street! According to our glorious repairman here," the man spoke before gesturing to the Courier, "there's an injured civilian in one of the buildings."

"Yes sir!" one of the guards said, lowering his salute before leaving and distributing what must have been the last few clips of ammo for their strange looking assault rifles. The man called Nacht grouped up with several other guards and disappeared up the ladder.

The man, who still had yet to give his name to the Courier, turned back to him and spoke up with a curious look on his face.

"Hey… you said you never went to a combat school right? And that you're out of a job?"

"Well, I can always find another job, but yeah. Why?" the Courier asked.

"You're pretty good at fighting, judging by how you took down that Alpha beowulf. How old are you? You look pretty young, despite the scars on your face."

"I'm not exactly sure, but by my estimate I'm a couple months short of turning eighteen… why do you ask?"

The hunter gave the courier a rather sly and foxish looking grin, one that spoke of plans in the making and people to persuade. The Courier, having seen such grins on the faces of people who subsequently took advantage of him in multiple different ways, backed up slightly, moving towards the ladder which would take him to the roof.

Oh son of a nightstalker… I dug too deep!

"Maybe I should go help … Nacht! I should go help Nacht with carrying the injured -"

"I know someone that would definitely want to speak with you," Frost interrupted, still sporting that foxish grin.

"That grin is very disarming."

AN: I'll reveal things as the story goes along and I'm happy to say I'm working on the second chapter.

If you have any thoughts, comments, or constructive criticism please leave them in the comment section.