"Look we've been walking around for some time, I doubt they're anyone else here" the nerd whined, with the security man also seemingly agreeing with him Dempsey himself was starting to lose hope, not in the fact that his comrades were nowhere to be seen, but that he would get the chance to tear the ass off that German, however as the three came up to an open area they then came across three other figures, Dempsey immediately recognised one of them being Nikolai, but he was confused to see he had two women by either side, the first one who looked like a farmer then gasped as she saw the nerd, "Marley!" she shrieked in glee who then ran across and gave the nerd a massive hug, "I thought you were dead! I don't know what I would do if I lost you!" she continued, however the nerd was in the middle of a panic attack, "ahh! Ahh! Misty! Personal interaction! PERSONAL INTERACTION!" he yelled, trying to claw her off his body, Dempsey then saw that the security man and the other woman had come together as well, "Lilith, you're alright" he said to the woman with a pleased voice, holding onto her with an arm, Lilith however was slight blushing through her makeup, "erm Decker, when did you become so protective?" she asked, Decker's face then lit up and he whisked his hand away, rubbing the back of his head as he was slightly embarrassed, "err, I was just concerned for you that's all" he managed to come up with, "oh, yeah I was concerned for you too, but not to that point" Lilith also struggled to say, rubbing the side of her left arm in shyness, while that was happening, Dempsey reached Nikolai who was looking at the two sights, "hey Nikolai, where the hell are the other two?" he asked, "no idea comrade, but I don't need them, all I need is vodka!" he replied cheerfully, he took a swig out of his bottle but was surprised when nothing came out, he had the bottle upside down over the ground and still nothing came out, "aww shit, maybe I do need them" he complained, he then chucked the bottle into the trees and a smash was heard among the branches, at the same time, Stuhlinger then came walking in with the Asian and paratrooper in tow, he walked up his group to meet a grimacing Misty, "oh hey Stupinger, see you didn't get lost" she said sarcastically, "I haven't got time for your shit 'Abigail', you doing fine Marlton?" Stuhlinger just responded bluntly, Marlton however had his hands up as he didn't want to be in any ensuing fight, and speaking of fights, another was seemingly brewing between the other group.
"You have ten seconds to explain why we are here Lennox" Lilith sneered with her arms crossed just under her bosom and tapping her booted foot on the ground, Lennox scratched his head while Decker just looked on, "I'm waiting" the woman then added on, "look I don't know why were are here, and don't go blaming me just because I followed Sentinel's orders" he made a response, "oh, so my recovery, my new life at Sentinel and my schedule to repair my broken life and deal with things like once being a test subject and a now probably dead husband can wait for a stupid operation which a Sentinel strike could've done? Don't give me that bullshit" she called out, "jeez are you on your period or something or are you this angry normally?" Lennox just blankly said, also seemingly starting to get annoyed, "what!? N-no!" Lilith then staggered, trying hard to suppress the blush of embarrassment and offence forming on her face once again, "look all I was doing was following orders, if we get out of this I'll let you kick my superior in between the legs, promise, I had fucking nothing to do with this okay?" Lennox then added on, "I'm still not fully convinced Lennox, do I have to knock it out of you with my fist?" Lilith then threatened, "okay you two, let's not go too far down the hole" Decker then stood in between them, gently moving Lilith away, he was wishing that Kahn was here to help break this up.
"Oh great, one of the things I hate most" Nikolai grimaced, the Asian just stood there arms crossed, "oh Niki, will you ever find your honour again in that vodka soaked soul of yours?" he shamed, "funny joke Takeo, but for once the joke is on me, I have no fucking vodka" the Soviet's eyes then widened, "which means I may become ...sober", the last word of Nikolai's sentence sounding very grim, "come on Nikolai it isn't that bad" Dempsey tried to calm his nerves, "does it look like it's that bad Dempsey? Because I think it's very bad!" the Soviet continued to panic, "oh calm down Nikolai" a voice came up behind them, they turned and saw the German, and just behind him was Kahn and the old man, Dempsey immediately came up to him, "you don't know how much I want to punch you in the face Richtofen, you better tell me why the hell we are here in the middle of nowhere" the marine scowled, "I would tell you Dempsey, but the thing is this time, even I don't know" Richtofen replied, scratching the patch of hair under his cap, "oh really?" Dempsey questioned sarcastically, and then proceeded to mimic Richtofen, "hey guys, how about we go to the moon, oh wait, sorry, we have to go back to the giant facility and do something which I'm not going to tell you, oh no, a ton of zombies, how about we stand on the teleporter then?", Richtofen grimaced, "that's not what I sound like!" he shouted, "you find that annoying? Because now you know what I feel like when you open your goddamn mouth every time" Dempsey added on, "American, can you please stop taunting the doctor and can we keep our heads together" Takeo calmed, however the people from the future took their thoughts away, as the three former Atlas employees were now ganging up on Lennox, "how the hell could you screw up this much Lennox?" Kahn was also looking for answers from the Sentinel agent, and had taken sides alongside Lilith and Decker, "I'm being serious guys! I had no idea this was going to happen! Can you just listen to me for once?" Lennox kept repeating his stance, "you promised me a position as a Sentinel soldier, not to be tossed into a new shithole like this" Decker then added on, "also, why did Sentinel specifically ask us to go to that facility?" Lilith budged in, Lennox after a while of almost pulling his hair out just threw his arms up in despair, "okay, I'm a fucking old shithead moron who just threw you three into another world full of shit, and it's all my fault, you happy now?" he caved, the other three just looked at him, still with uneasy looks in their eyes.
The Tranzit group saw the argument which had happened with the futurists, "Russman, what do we do about them?" Stuhlinger asked the old man, "I don't know why they are here as well, but from what I'm hearing, they're in the same position as us" he voiced his thoughts, "erm, and what about those other guys?" Misty then pointed out the other group of survivors, "them? Shit they must be in the same position that were in too" Russman answered, "but" he said quietly, pulling them in tighter, "that German has the same voice we've been hearing" he explained, "wait, the same voice which was in my fucking head!?" Stuhlinger then hissed, with Marlton and Misty looking at each other unnerved, "yeah, but he seems to be a slightly younger version, I confronted him, and he had no recollection of knowing us" Russman said, "does that mean that some time-travel shit happened as well?" Misty asked confused, "probably, but already a lot of weird shit has happened, so this being honest, doesn't really surprise me" Russman confessed, "but the knowledge, a large new frontier of physics, this is a breakthrough guys! if I could recreate this and get it in a paper, I could become a name forever known in the world of science! The father of time travel!" Marlton was having what could be described as a nerdgasm at this moment as he was thinking of all the possibilities of all that fame, "are you going to continue with your physics doo-hickey crap boy?" Russman shot him down, "but, but" Marlton whimpered, "no but's! And anyways the only people to read your 'super discovery' shit would be a horde of meat-eaters on a broken world" the old man continued, "he's kinda right Marlton, you'll have to wait on that" Stuhlinger added on, the nerd signed in despair, with Misty also putting a hand on his solder to reassure him, despite the entire personal interaction nonsense.
Richtofen then stood to attention and walked in the middle of all the groups, deciding it was time to break the barriers "okay, I don't know where to start, but who are the leaders of your groups?" He asked, Russman stuck his hand up, however in the Atlas group, both Kahn and Lennox had their hands up, this immediately got Lennox some angry looks from the security guard and IT technician, he sighed and took his hand down, both Russman and Kahn walked over to Richtofen, "so I'm can assume you both have no idea on why you are here?" The German asked, the other two men nodded in response, "well let me introduce myself, I am Edward Richtofen, great scientist and pioneer of military technology" Richtofen proceeded to introduce, "by the way he's an asshole as well!" Dempsey loudly chimed in from his group, with Takeo nearby frowning but prompted a chuckle and smile from surprising Decker, "Dempsey! Stop being difficult, or I'll come over there and personally give you a lobotomy!" Richtofen spun around and snapped back, this prompted a cough of attention from Russman, with Richtofen turning back to them, "sorry that is my American 'colleague' being difficult, so what are your names" he asked, "Russman" the old man said, "Mr. Kahn" the executive added on, "well Russman and Kahn as I was pointing out, If you are looking for answers, I am afraid I don't have them, as we got thrown into this world against our wills as well, but I do suggest that there may be a way out, but we all will have to work together to realize that end" Richtofen explained the best he could, "well I don't have an issue with that, you all seem to be just as well equipped as us" Kahn replied, "but the thing I still don't get is, why the hell are we here in the first place? Us and nobody else?" Russman asked.
"Aww here they all are!" a booming feminine voice came down from the heavens, everyone looked upwards to the slightly purple sky in fear, surprise and shock, "what? please tell me I wasn't the only one to hear that" Decker wanted reassurance, with Lilith having a really scared look on her face, however all of the Originals knew immediately whose voice it was "Samantha! What antics are you doing now!" Richtofen yelled, "yeah you little shit! wasn't I supposed to ground you when I got my hands on you!" Dempsey also shot up, "ohh Edward, are you still not taking responsibility for what you did to my father" Samantha continued, "Maxis killed himself in front of you, me, Schuster and Groph! I had absolutely nothing to do with it! You are nothing but delusional Samantha!" Richtofen continued to argue, "you trapped him, me and Fluffy in that teleporter Edward, and you proceeded to trap me in MPD and him in a horrible place somewhere else!" the girl went on, "and what do we have to do with this?" Kahn asked, "because of my new friend" Samantha replied to the executive, Decker, Lilith and Lennox looked at each other in confusion, "hey there amigos" the deep voice of a man came from the sky, "what the fuck? ... OZ!?" Kahn shouted in shock at the voice, "that's me, O-Z, the janitor you fucked with" Oz replied, "that's impossible! We killed you! ... Twice!" Decker shouted up, "yes you did, but what you all didn't realise was that there were lots of clones of me right under your fucking feet, so this little girl got another one of me, lead me to a teleporter and voila! I'm here, but I'm still disappointed that 'one' of you had to burn my corpse like the disrespectful 'bitch' you were" the janitor explained, his disappointment directed straight at Lilith, "hey, you keep her out of this you bastard!" Decker shouted back, "oooh when did you become so defensive to her 'Jim'?, I recall you bragging to her that you were a better shot than her and treating her like the worthless piece of garbage she is" Oz pointed out, "look, were past that Oz, but can you just listen to yourself, you aren't the Oz I remember and was friends with, I even vowed that I would make Atlas pay, on your behalf!" Lilith barged in, "hey bitch, the thing is, you were never going to get revenge on Atlas, pff- hacking a few computers? Big whoop, and even worse, you and the other two were nothing but puppets hanging from Atlas' hands, and you were the biggest one of them all, is that the reason you liked me in the first place?" Oz chanted, Lilith was just in disbelief, "and also Lennox, why did you have to put a bullet in my head? Getting shot hurts you know and I wasn't sick" Oz continued, "because you were a walking infection Oz, everywhere you went, everything you touched, everything you came into contact with, turned into nothing but death, killing you was the only way to save everything" Lennox tried to explain, "just so you could also raise your ego and be seen as the saviour of the zombie apocalypse by Sentinel, don't make me laugh" Oz fired back, "by the way, creepy janitor guy, why the fuck are we here exactly?!" Stuhlinger then barged in the conversation, "oh I was getting side-tracked, Samantha?" the janitor asked for, "We have thought of this amazing game for you all to play" the girl then chimed in, the three groups did not like the sound of that one bit, "yes, it's called be put in an parallel universe and be chased around forever by zombies" Oz continued, "WHAT!?" both Marlton and Richtofen shouted at the same time in shock, "yes you heard right, a parallel universe, simply a sort-of-earth-like place which does have the normal things like run down cities, towns, water, plants, the lot, the difference is, there are no humans, just undead, and you all have to survive it" Oz explained, "and what are the conditions asshole?" Misty grimaced, she was already hating this Oz guy more than Stuhlinger, "If you win and defeat us both, you all get to go back to the real world and continue with your sorry excuses for lives", "and if you are the victors?" Takeo then asked, "simple, you all die, ahahah, isn't that obvious?" Oz let out a laugh, "well all I'm gonna say is, I'm gonna ground that little girl and then kick your ass back to whatever time you come from asswhipe!" Dempsey shouted, "and I'm gonna fuck you up even more than all of my wives combined!" Nikolai continued, "yeah, you know what Oz and Samantha, you can go fuck yourselves, because we are all gonna win this sick game you came up with" Kahn declared, there was a bit of a pause from the two announcers, probably because they were trying to soak in all the determination the three groups had, "very well, we have decided to give you a head start, just for all of you to get to know each other, and then the fun will start!" Samantha set out, "just a bit of a clue, there may be a small compound nearby, you guys should go and find it, even if I don't expect you all to last for the next few days" Oz hinted, "the clock is ticking, tick tock it goes, your time has begun, I will enjoy seeing you all suffer, especially you Edward!" Samantha finished off, then the entire sky went silent, and turned a more blueish colour as the announces went off, the groups looked at each other.
"So, who wants to start?" Richtofen put his hands together, trying to hold onto whatever reassurance they all had left.
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the stage has been set, so it turns out Oz is alive and is out to give the Atlas survivors hell again, and Samantha is also wanting to do the same the Richtofen.
I do try to keep to the canon, but to anyone who may still be confused, this timeline basically combines split-off points from the actual game, for instance, the original characters come from just after Shangri-La but before moon (all of that origins, younger versions stuff hasn't happened, Nikolai's still drunk and Richtofen's still bat-shit crazy), the Tranzit group come from after Die Rise but before Buried, and the Atlas survivors come from just after Decent but before they go to their new lives (they're still in their in-game clothing if that gives a clue), I hope that gives more clarity to the situation and also, they're will be a fourth group which will come into play, entirely new (OC basically) and from a time more closer to home, I'll keep you teased and I'll see you in the next part :-).