Ustaad Ishmaart Shankar was a legend in the gullies of Karol Bagh. Not for his job (unemployed). Not for his physique (skinny but resilient). But for his ustaadi—his mastery—in exactly two things: finding the most mind-blowing street food in a five-kilometer radius, and holding forth with shocking confidence on topics he'd only half-watched on TV. "Arre yaar, Marvel ka entire timeline main samjha sakta hoon!" he'd declare, mouth full of aloo tikki. "DC? Bas, kuch complicated hai. Anime? Oye, don't even get me started on the power levels!"
His tiny, humid room was a monument to this chaotic knowledge. Faded posters of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Hulk side-by-side. A stack of pirated DVDs for everything from Sholay to Death Note. His most prized possession? A second-hand laptop that wheezed like an asthmatic uncle, its browser a fractal of open tabs for recipes, movie trivia, and conspiracy theories.
Tonight's achievement was historic. He'd successfully argued with the chaiwala for twenty minutes that Rajinikanth could beat Goku in a fight, using "logic" and sheer volume. Victorious, he'd returned to his room with his trophy: a paper plate piled with his ultimate weakness—jalebi from the legendary 'Guruji Mithaiwala'.
"Life ka simple formula," he announced to the gecko on his wall. "Khaana khayo, gyaan pel do, so jao." Eat food, spout wisdom, sleep.
He demolished the jalebis, the syrup coating his fingers. As he licked the last of the sticky sweetness, a wave of intense, post-sugar drowsiness hit him. His head swam. The gecko seemed to blur.
"Arey… yeh jalebi mein daaru thodi daali hai…" he mumbled, slumping back on his thin mattress. Did they put booze in this?
The room spun. The last thing he saw was the gecko, its eyes seeming to glow with an impossible blue light.
Then, a sensation of being yanked through a cosmic drainpipe made of neon syrup and static.
He woke up with a gasp, but not in his bed.
He was on his back, staring up at a shattered, grey concrete ceiling. The air was cold, clean, and dead silent in a way Delhi never was. The smell was of dust, ozone, and something faintly metallic.
"Kya bakchodi hai yeh…" he groaned, sitting up. What nonsense is this?
He was in the ruins of a massive, futuristic building. Broken pillars, twisted rebar, vines crawling over sleek, decayed surfaces. Sunlight streamed through colossal holes in the roof. Everything was grey, white, and overgrown.
"Koi set toh nahi lag raha…" he muttered, stumbling to his feet. This doesn't look like a film set. The scale was too immense, the silence too complete. A profound, eerie loneliness pressed down on him. Then, he saw the bodies.
Not human bodies. Mechanical ones. Twisted, shattered, rusting. Some looked like bipedal tanks, others like elegant, broken dolls. They were scattered everywhere, half-buried in rubble and moss.
Ishmaart's street-smart bravado evaporated, replaced by a cold, creeping dread. "Yeh toh bilkul… video game ki duniya lag rahi hai." This looks like a video game world.
A soft, feminine chime echoed through the ruins.
[Cross-Universal Transit System: Online.]
[User: Ustaad Ishmaart Shankar. Designation: Pioneer.]
[System Function: Establish Presence. Create Anchor. Enable Transfer.]
[Current World: Nier: Automata (YoRHa Era). Threat Level: Extreme.]
[Primary Objective: Survive. Establish First Anchor.]
Blue, holographic text hovered in the corner of his vision. Ishmaart stared, his mind trying to process this through the lens of a hundred half-remembered plots.
"System? Anchor?" he whispered. "Arey bhai, main toh soch raha tha ki koi Isekai hoga, lekin yeh… yeh direct cheat code wala scene hai!" I thought it would be a simple isekai, but this is the direct cheat code scene!
A deep, rhythmic THUMP shook the ground. Then another. Something big was coming.
Panic, pure and simple, seized him. He ducked behind a crumbling wall, peeking out. From the far end of the ruined hall, a machine stalked into view. It was massive, a bipedal monstrosity of black metal and glowing red eyes, its arms ending in massive, crude fists. It scanned the area with a slow, predatory grace.
Ishmaart's blood turned to ice. This wasn't a TV screen. This was real. The machine's foot came down, crushing a rusted car like a biscuit.
"Bhagwan, Allah, Jesus, waheguru… koi bhi ho sun lo…" he prayed, squeezing his eyes shut. God, anyone, listen…
The machine stopped. Its head, a faceless slab, turned towards his hiding spot. A targeting laser, thin and red, painted the wall beside his head.
I'm dead. I died from jalebi and now I'll die from a robot.
Just as the machine began to raise its fist, a blur of pure white dropped from the heavens.
It was a figure in a flowing, black dress with a pristine white bodice and hair. She landed between Ishmaart and the machine with impossible lightness, not even raising dust. In her hands, she held a long, cruel-looking sword.
"YoRHa unit 2B," she stated, her voice cold and flawless. "Engaging."
What happened next was a ballet of absolute violence. 2B moved with a speed that made Ishmaart's eyes water. She danced around the machine's slow, powerful swings, her blade a silver blur. She didn't block; she flowed. She sliced through metal limbs, severed wiring, parried point-blank energy blasts with a shimmering energy field. It was brutal, efficient, and terrifyingly beautiful.
With a final, leaping spin, she drove her sword through the machine's core. It erupted in a shower of sparks and black oil, then collapsed into a lifeless heap.
Silence returned, heavier than before.
2B turned. Her eyes, hidden behind a blindfold of dark fabric, seemed to look right at him. Her expression was unreadable, a perfect porcelain mask.
Ishmaart, still crouched behind his wall, realized he'd been holding his breath. The sheer, awe-inspiring power he'd just witnessed short-circuited his fear, replacing it with a different kind of terror—the terror of being a cockroach in a world of gods.
2B took a step towards him. "Human life-form detected. Identification: Unknown. Threat assessment: Negligible." She paused, her head tilting slightly. "You are… not from the Bunker. Your biometrics are anomalous. How did you get here?"
Her voice was calm, but the question was a trapdoor. Ishmaart's mind, the one that could argue about fictional power levels, scrambled for a survival script. He couldn't say 'jalebi.' He couldn't say 'system.'
He stood up on shaky legs, trying to summon his inner Ustaad. He puffed out his chest, gesturing vaguely at the vast ruins around them.
"Woh… main… explorer hoon!" he declared, his voice cracking only slightly. "Inter-dimensional… dukaan-wala? No, traveler! Haan! From… very far. Just arrived. Bohot interesting jagah hai." Very interesting place.
2B did not react. The silence stretched.
"Aapka shukriya," Ishmaart added, bowing his head slightly. Thank you. "Woh… robot… bahut gussa dikh raha tha." That robot looked very angry.
A flicker of something—confusion?—seemed to pass over 2B's stoic face. The concept of an inter-dimensional traveler thanking her in broken Hinglish was clearly not in her combat protocols.
[Presence Established: User 'Ishmaart' registered in Local (YoRHa) Awareness.]
[Primary Objective Updated: Create Anchor.]
[Anchor Protocol: User must designate a fixed point of personal significance in this reality.]
The blue text pulsed. An anchor. A fixed point. He looked around the cold, dead ruins. Nothing here was significant. Then he looked at 2B. She was the most significant thing he'd seen in his entire life.
Personal significance. He thought of his room. His ustaadi. His chaotic, messy, alive little corner of the universe. Could he… tie that to here? To her?
He didn't understand the mechanics, but he understood stories. He took a hesitant step forward, ignoring every survival instinct screaming at him to run.
"Ek baat pooch sakta hoon?" he asked. Can I ask something?
2B gave a single, slight nod.
"Yeh… tumhara ghar hai?" He gestured around the majestic, tragic ruins. Is this your home?
2B was still for a long moment. "This is the remains of a city. YoRHa androids operate from the Bunker, a space-borne headquarters. We do not have 'homes' as you define them. We have mission parameters."
The answer was clinical, but Ishmaart heard the hollow core of it. No home. Just war. A strange, sympathetic pang hit him, cutting through his own fear. He, of all people, understood the value of a crappy, sticky, personal space.
He focused on the feeling of his own room. The smell of street food and dust. The sound of arguing from the lane. The wheeze of his laptop fan. He willed that feeling—not the place, but the concept of it—into this spot, right here, in the shadow of this incredible, lonely warrior.
He pointed a finger at the ground between them. "Toh… main yahan apna daanv laga deta hoon." Then… I'll place my stake here.
[Anchor Designation Requested. Location: City Ruins (Proximity: YoRHa Unit 2B). Personal Significance: 'First Contact/Place of Salvation'. Confirm?]
Salvation. The word glowed. He mentally confirmed.
A sensation rippled out from him, silent and invisible. The air around them seemed to settle, as if a tuning fork had been struck. A tiny, permanent link was forged between the chaotic energy of Ustaad Ishmaart Shankar and this desolate, beautiful point in 2B's endless war.
[Anchor 'First Refuge' Established!]
[World: Nier: Automata – Now Accessible.]
[Transfer Protocol: Unlocked. User may now transport inanimate matter (<1kg) from Anchor point to Primary World, and vice-versa.]
[Living Transfer: Locked. Requires Greater Anchor Stability.]
2B suddenly stiffened. She looked around, her sensors doubtless picking up the subtle dimensional stitch in reality. "Anomalous space-time reading detected at this location. Origin: You."
Ishmaart shrugged, his bravado returning in a shaky wave. "Wohi na, main kaha. Far se aaya hoon. Ab… thoda connection ban gaya hai." See, I told you. I came from far away. Now… a little connection is made.
He could feel it now—a faint, humming tether in the back of his mind, leading… home.
"My mission is to eliminate machine lifeforms," 2B stated, turning to leave. "This area is not secure. You should not be here."
"Ek second!" Ishmaart called out. One second! He had no idea what he was doing, but the system said he could take things back. He looked at the wreckage of the machine 2B had destroyed. A small, jagged piece of its black metal casing lay at his feet, still warm. A souvenir. Proof.
He bent down and picked it up. As his fingers closed around it, the system chimed.
[Item: Machine Lifeform Casing (Common). Mass: 0.4kg. Transfer to Primary World via Anchor 'First Refuge'?]
He focused. Yes.
The shard of futuristic metal vanished from his hand.
2B, who had begun to walk away, stopped. She turned her head, the blindfold seeming to bore into his now-empty hand. Her perfect composure fractured for a microsecond. "What was that? A spatial manipulation ability?"
Ishmaart grinned, the wild, improbable truth of his situation dawning on him. He was no warrior. He was Ustaad Ishmaart Shankar, inter-dimensional dukaan-wala.
"Dekho," he said, holding up his empty palms. Look. "Main ja raha hoon. Par main wapas aunga. Dukaan ab khul gayi hai." I'm leaving. But I'll be back. The shop is now open.
Before she could respond, he focused on the tether in his mind and the single, powerful urge: Home.
The shattered city, the white-clad android, the silent ruins—they all dissolved into a whirl of blue light and static.
He landed on his backside on the hard floor of his Karol Bagh room with a thud. The heat, the smell, the distant blare of a TV soap opera—it was all overwhelming, beautiful, and filthy.
"Haan!" he yelled, punching the air. "Ustaad Ishmaart Shankar, inter-dimensional businessman!"
And then he saw it. On the floor next to him, where it had materialized, lay the jagged, black-metal shard from another world. It gleamed dully under the single bulb, a piece of a war from the far future, now resting on a dusty floor in 2007 Delhi.
He picked it up. It was cool now, heavier than it looked. Real.
A slow, insane grin spread across his face. The system text glowed softly in his vision.
[Welcome back, Pioneer. Prepare for your next journey.]
Ishmaart looked from the machine part to his empty jalebi plate. The world was suddenly infinitely bigger, and he had just secured the weirdest supplier's agreement in all of existence.
"Chalo," he said to the gecko, which hadn't moved. "Ab business discuss karna hai. Pehle sample, phir… who knows?" Come on, now we have business to discuss. First a sample, then… who knows?