Any World that I'm Welcome To

by ZeroInfinity

Chapter 1

~Any World that I’m Welcome To~

I suppose, to begin, I should explain my homeworld. Imagine your time. Not too hard, is it? Now fast forward one hundred years, giving humanity nanomachines, railguns, readily available nuclear fusion, what you might call ‘shields,’ hydrogen bombs in every country, and, most importantly, a large amount of superbacteria to contend with. Superbacteria is the faux-scientific term for bacteria that are resistant to antibacterial products because of overuse of said products.

Why, you might ask, is that the most important detail? Well, the answer is because it shaped our very world as we knew it. When the bombs inevitably dropped, some of the large population of superbacteria were mutated. It seems quite farfetched, but one of the mutated superbacteria was quite similar to your ‘rabies.’ It eroded away the sanity and humanity of a large chunk of the population.

Thankfully, some foresaw the danger inherent in hydrogen bombs for everyone. They made hazard suits a mandatory fixture in houses and public areas. They looked about like you took a spacesuit, shrunk the helmet to just what was necessary, reinforced it with some chrome and ran neon lights over it for good measure. Needless to say, it is very hard to move unnoticed in one. They ran off of batteries, and generators were also mandatory in every place a hazard suit lived. Shelters with airlocks and sterilization equipment were also mandatory, though only in public places.

Humanity survived thanks to these preventive measures, and, with time, began to regrow. Eventually we began to pick up the pieces, and one of the places needing a lot of picking up was Crater Canyon.

Crater Canyon the site of the government’s headquarters in our country, but when the bombs dropped it vanished in a flash of light, in a perfect sphere. I was tasked with exploring it, and trying to determine what happened.

I am an engineer, you see. I was quite prominent in the rebuilding. With pre-Bomb schematics and scavenged materials, I built power for our settlement, heating, cooling and eventually a geopurifier using nanobots. So, it was only natural that a bright mind and none-too-bad a combat specialist was to explore Crater Canyon when the time came.

My equipment consisted of three day’s rations, a spare suit battery, a lighter, my composite sledgehammer modified with pistons and my custom hazard suit equipped with pistons for high-danger areas. I camped outside Crater Canyon, and headed into it in the morning.

That was the worst mistake of my life.

It started off simply. I walked in and examined the area using my suit’s scanners, watching for hostiles and unusual readings or sights. Almost before I knew it, it was dark. I instinctively checked my system clock. It said it was noon, but that couldn’t be right. Maybe there’s some electrical interference, I thought. That was about when I heard a combination of a slight humming and whooshing sound as my arm vanished. I ran from the sound, but it overtook me. I found myself flung through the air into something soft and cushy, but cold. I looked around and saw a gloomy forest, no end in sight.

Wait, what was that? It seemed almost like... Quantum entanglement, but that wouldn’t be so gradual and I would be in Crater Canyon and here... For those of you not in the know, quantum entanglement is essentially teleportation. I had mucked about with it for a while, but there was no practical use with no great distances to traverse. It seemed the mystery of the pre-Bomb world would live another day. Curses. First matter was survival, next was finding out how grass existed in my blasted-out homeland.

The air was even more toxic than it was before, if that was even possible. Suit appeared undamaged, thank whatever Gods may be. There was, however, the matter of some suspicious black cloud floating just out of the corner of my eye. It seemed almost to have eyes. I sat up, dusted myself off and readied my sledge, then walked towards it.

“You dare threaten the might of Nightmare Moon!?” it called at me. I stopped, then thought about it for a second.

“Who’s that?” I replied, but this only seemed to make the voice more angry.

“Such impudence! I shall have to punish you for-- wait, you can talk?”

I stared at it, but the effect was lost on my visor, so I clarified, “I can talk, alright. What were you expecting?” It stared at me dumbly in response, and, seeing no threat, I continued on.

“Perhaps I can make a deal with you?” it asked. I nodded for it to continue, and, somehow recognizing that, it continued. “I noticed you teleport into the Everfree, and you seem quite lost. I can help you get out, and maybe not kill you in my reign, should you help me against my foes. A being of sufficient power to teleport should be good in a fight,” it said. I noticed now that its voice had several traits suggesting a female source, but that was mostly irrelevant.

“Well, you guessed correct. Despite the teleportation not originating from myself, I am a capable fighter. However, I have two questions. The first would be why you need me to fight, when you appear to be or have at your disposal a cloud of nanobots, which could rip apart your enemies, and the latter would be who said enemies are,” I replied.

“Nanobots? I am no such thing. This is a cloud of magic, not... Nanowhatevers. And ripping them apart would be sick! That’s below even me! As for who my enemies are, they are a sort of strike force sent by my sister to banish me once more, but are untrained in combat, and should be no match for you.”

“Okay, magic. Sure. Though, if they're untrained, then why are they a threat?” I had assumptions on who my mystery benefactor was, but I did my best to set them aside, as she seemed to be staving off several shadows with glowing eyes around. I knew of no creatures with bioluminescence at all on the surface, so I was likely far from comfortable territory. There was no way this much life could go unnoticed by our network of detection, including GPS, radar, thermal scans and sensitive noise-detection equipment.

“They have a special weapon designed to defeat me or others like me. The details are not important, other than the fact it should not affect you. Now, do you accept, or should I sic my manticores on you?”

I switched to thermal vision and peered at the shadows. Sure enough, they appeared to have a lion’s form, but with bat wings and a scorpion tail. I had no wish to test the prowess of the manticores, though I wondered why she didn’t just sic them on the group approaching her. “I don’t have much of a choice, so I’ll help you then.”

“Let me lead you to my lair then, friend!” The cloud darted ahead, leaving me behind, I increased my pace to a run, keeping my battery power saved for whatever may lie ahead.

Comments

[totallynotabrony]

An interesting perspective. I hope for plenty of badass engineering in future chapters.

[Tonto the Trotter]

Nice you posted your story

[Thorax]

I'm slightly confused is the air actually toxic to him? or is it Nightmare Moon that's toxic?

Also everything seems really great so far :D

[ZeroInfinity]

255900
All will be answered in due time, Tictac. I'm done mucking about with UT2K4 and Ballistic Weapons, so I'll go write another chapter. But please, if you downvote the story, I'd like to know why. That's how writers get better =P

[Thorax]

255920

I can only up-vote as it is my opinion if I dislike a story I have no right to give it a bad rating I would just stay quiet and move on to another

[Meta Knight]

♫♥I look forward to reading what happens next in your story♥♪