Author Notes:
First of all, salutation to Private DigitalGrimm, who is the newest patron to join us on this doozy, wordly journey, haha~! As per usual, don't forget to enjoy and command whenever able, good sir!
Now, by this point, you must have come to know well that OBOM is a fic full of RNGesus takes the wheel moments. This particular OBOM chapter, however, is a bit more curated than the rest. And since it's more curated, I am looking forward to the time when you all point out references and Easter Eggs that may or may not be hidden in the chapter.
Have fun~! But don't forget to check out the special Monthly Recruitment Drive that will be ending soon! Private DigitalGrimm has been enjoying the benefits brought over by the shocking 40% discount for his first subscription. Will you be one to grab that special birthday discount as well before it goes away in the foreseeable future?
I look forward to seeing you all later, peace!
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P.S: Since someone has been asking for Aurea in particular...
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The stasis pod drains its last drop of power to emit a series of warning beeps before performing the final procedure to revive its occupant. After a while, the metal and glass door of the stasis pod opens upward with a soft hiss. All the dimmed lights that once signified the operating status of the pod finally go dark after countless years. And the pod's occupant, a young girl, with a height matching that of Umbra and Aurea, starts waking up from the longest slumber of her life.
For all intents and purposes, her waking is met with little fanfare. Her awakening causes no commotion, nor is there anyone to meet her. In fact, the girl is quite possibly alone, and she confirms that fact when she opens her pale blue eyes and sees nothing but herself in this confined space. Her mind, still disjointed by events before being put under, is still reeling from the sudden changes in her surroundings. After all, to the girl, she was only hugging her mother for one moment before suddenly finding herself waking up in what seems like a container... Or the back of a stationary vehicle? Either way, it's a box-like environment, made cramped by the sheer heft of the girl's now inactive stasis pod.
As her brain stabilizes and reconciles the moments she remembers before waking up in this odd, if rustic box, the girl suddenly smiles, before she goes into a moment of full-blown laughter. The girl leans her head back into the cushioning that layers the inner part of the stasis pod, her short, pale blue hair parts carelessly on the soft foam as she brings a hand to cover her eyes. The girl's shoulders shake, her chest heaving from her laugh, as her mind realizes the scale of the paths taken, not by her, and the new reality she woke up to. She laughs, not because she is happy or excited. The girl laughs out of sheer incredulousness and bitterness, and because she has never been familiar with the feeling of impotent rage.
She laughs because it's the only thing she can do quickly to vent her heart, which is boiling alive. The other alternatives, which may or may not involve smashing the stuff around her up, are ill-advised by the more logical part of her brain. The last thing she needs right now is to piss off the very people who seem to have fish her stasis pod out of whatever state it was in. Although the girl has taken only a few glances before falling into her brief bout of uncontrollable hysteria, her analytical mind does suggest that she seems to have slept for a very, very long time. The stasis pod's battered state, with a bent metal frame, faded coating, and a cracked control pad, supported the hypothesis.
It takes the girl a full ten minutes to stop laughing out of exhaustion, both physically and mentally. When she pulls her hand away from her eyes, it's slickened with tears. Eventually, the girl does nothing but breathe and lies in the stasis pod for the next ten minutes. In those ten minutes, the girl consciously brings herself under control, falling back onto the ingrained habits that make her her mother's pride. And while the more idealistic part of the girl will no doubt keep the ember of hope burning for a reunion with her mother and friends, the dominant, realistic part of herself understands reality well. But there will be time for prayer and mourning later; now is not yet the time to show weakness.
Sliding out of the stasis pod, the girl takes her careful first steps in the waking world. She has good reasons to be all measured in whatever act she performs after emerging from stasis: dizziness and a messed-up sense of balance are but a couple of them. However, her worries ended up moot as the stasis pod she came out of worked in a temporal manner, not cryogenic. Her health is perfectly preserved and undisturbed, as time is paused inside the stasis pod, unlike a cryogenic chamber, where the body will slowly deteriorate over time.
It takes no time at all for the girl to resume her normal walking posture. Now that she has the proper point of view, the girl takes stock of her surroundings, only to realize that she has emerged into a home of sorts, kitted out with all recognizable appliances that bear the aesthetic of a more classical era of mankind.
The girl dares a stray thought that perhaps someone had mistakenly recovered her stasis pod and put it on display in their home. Nonetheless, she quickly scraps that line of thinking when she sees that this place doesn't have much of a display space for something as hefty as her stasis pod. And when the girl turns to one end of the room, the presence of a loading ramp makes her think that, in fact, she is standing in a mobile facility of sorts, a motorhome, and that whoever the owner is has probably recovered her stasis pod on their travel. Not knowing what to do about it, they store it in the loading bay of this motorhome and head out to do something on their itinerary, leading to her waking up alone. Having come to this realization, the girl moves to the wall, seemingly made out of a lightweight composite material, and peers through the half-oval vision slit. There, she comes to see nothing but an expanse of nature, and a campsite by the... Wait, is that?
Heart pounding, the girl fully intends to kick the bulkhead door separating her from the outside wide open before jumping out. She does not immediately do this when she realizes her lack of a proper self-defense option. She wakes up with nothing but her two-tone bodysuit and footwear, after all. Taking a good look around, the girl spots a kitchen cabinet, and on it is a knife holder. Stepping closer, the girl opts to take a small, pointy, and sharp fruit knife. It's just enough to get herself out of any potential harm, hopefully.
Having picked up a weapon, if she can even call it that, the girl moves to unlock the bulkhead and swing it open. The rush of sunlight causes her to squint on instinct, but the warmth on her skin is quite welcome. Peering over the gap, the girl scans her surroundings and comes to see that she has, indeed, woken up inside a motorhome, and one of beefy size. Around the motorhome, a camp of sorts is erected by a massive object that the girl identifies as a car of the ERS Voyager, the void train she is affiliated with. Looking at how run-down the car is, though... For how long has she been sleeping?
Hopping off the motorhome, now that she has confirmed there isn't another soul around, yet, the girl explores the camp. She comes to see the various pieces of machinery, metals, and instruments from the Voyager, obviously all scavenged, lying on various surfaces and containers that are either handmade or repurposed from the crashed train itself. Whoever has dug her up, the girl thinks they must have had a field day unearthing whatever technological treasure troves are inside the Voyager.
Seeing the manner in which everything is presented to her eyes, though, the girl's forlorn hope that she was rescued by her motherland, the Eternal Reich, is promptly extinguished. That said, it's not like there's much hope for that anyway; the Voyager never could reconnect with the Eternal Reich's network back then, leaving any potential Search and Rescue helpless in trying to find them all in the myriad of worlds and even universes.
It's when the girl shakes her head to purge the negative thoughts from her mind that she discovers, to her shock, a prop-up frame of a severely damaged, if not destroyed, bipedal mech.
"A Light Core? H-How did it?" Although it's reduced to nothing but its badly deteriorating frame, the girl is extremely familiar with the model and making of the mech, capable of recognizing even a single bolt that comes off of it.
Turning, the girl walks closer to the mech. She stops and reaches out her hand to caress one of the few intact armor plates that remain on the Light Core's last leg. Feeling the dust on her fingers and the slightly warm texture of the material, having been baked under the sun for some time, the girl feels herself getting all emotional again.
"Since you look like you have seen it all, then it must mean you were part of Voidling Squadron, weren't you?" The girl mutters to herself with a wry, pained smile. "I wonder, did you and your pilot accompany my Mother in her last moment? Was it a glorious one?"
The girl looks up to where the cockpit of the Light Core is, bearing the marks of being blasted open and half-melted before being eroded by time and nature.
"Thank you for everything." The girl mutters softly. "Whoever you are..."
Unable to identify any sort of identification number or callsign on the ruined exterior, the girl can only hope that her sentiment comes across, eventually, to the machine and its pilot wherever their spirits are now.
Suddenly, the girl pivots on her foot, facing behind her. From behind the train car, something big, easily thrice her size, steps out of the shadow and into the light.
It's indeed one heck of a massive wolf with a menacing horn to boot. The girl, although trusting her combat capabilities, finds herself gulping as she grips the fruit knife in her hand a bit tighter.
"I really should have brought a bigger knife instead of something easily concealed but has no bite, like this one..." The girl feels like smacking her own head.
Obviously, this world has already taught her how dangerous it can be. A fruit knife will never be enough against whatever threat is out there. Yet, her greatest fault is to think that she would first face a human threat instead of something like the wolf in front of her. Maybe being put into stasis has really dampened her intelligence...
Although the massive Horned Wolf has made itself known, it does little else other than growling and staring at the girl warily. The girl herself, while not yet understanding what the Horned Wolf wants, makes no attempt to jump the gun and maybe trigger a deadly provocation from it. At least, she does not want to make a mess of this campsite and risk angering the only clue she has to a potentially friendly civilization. The last time around, well, it didn't pan out well for the Voyager and her, so fingers-crossed this turns out much better.
The girl maintains that thought until she hears the sounds of a safety being flicked by her side, and that's when she knows she's fucked up, big time.
"Drop the knife, dear. You don't want the two of us jumping on you."
Although she hears the words, the girl can't quite understand what they mean. So, for now, she maintains her gaze with the Horned Wolf, knife still in hand, while cold sweats trickle down her temple. That is, until she hears the other party, a female, speak in accented Belkan.
"Pardon my German, but can you please drop the knife, pretty lady? You are standing between an Apex Predator and the receiving end of a God-blessed 12-gauge shotgun. I would hate it if you're made a smear on my camp after all the trouble I went to get you out here."
The girl, now understanding the warning, decisively drops the fruit knife before slowly raising her hands above her head.
"You speak Belkan?" The girl suddenly asks with a bit of hope.
"If by Belkan, you mean German, then yes. I can speak, read, and write Belkan, but probably not in the dialect you're probably used to." The reply, though expected, still causes the girl to be downcast.
"I see... For a second, I thought you were my compatriot from my motherland. My apologies for the assumption... And for taking your things without permission." Maintaining decorum and politeness, the girl expresses her peacefulness. "I was only making sense of my current situation. It's not my intention to offend you, or the wolf over there."
"Don't worry, I get what you mean. If you agree to treat me like a friend, then there ain't gonna be, well, all of this?"
Although the girl hasn't turned to face the speaker, she still understands the meaning and can imagine the speaker's action of pointing to the wolf and her shotgun.
"I understand. I promise to be a friend and bear no ill will to..."
"Umbra. You may call me Umbra, Miss...?"
"Reizen. My name is Reizen, Umbra. Again, I promise to be a friend and bear no ill will to Umbra and her affiliates, as long as their actions do not go against my moral compass." The girl adds seriously.
"Hah, then both of us can rest assured that our friendship will be a lasting one." The speaker, Umbra, says cheerily. "You can rest at ease now, Reizen. And Alpha, she's a friend!"
Dropping her hand with a sigh, the girl, Reizen, turns to face Umbra before being surprised, seeing how young she looks and that she is moving to give the big wolf some treats. Seeing the big and scary wolf accepting jerky while giving her a warning look as if saying "No funny business" has caused Reizen to, for the very first time, question the reality she just woke up to.
"Mom, I hope you can see this right now..."