Metal and Bone | A Rainbow Quest AU

Chapter 1 - The Impossible Appears

Trigger warning here; blood and description of injury. You've been warned, hope you have fun reading!

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[Red Steve's POV]

It's a quiet day in the woods, no catastrophe has happened today... actually, nothing really dangerous has happened for weeks, surprisingly.

Usually there's some kind of danger lurking about outside, as there will be in the post-apocalypse. However, lately things that have been bothering us since our people's rise have been avoiding any place that has a sign of the Steves being there. I don't know whether it's how we've been re-discovering human technology such as weapons, or something else, I'm just glad I don't have to rush back to my house after I finished collecting resources.

It's calming, getting to take in the scenery around my home. The copper and gold flowers have been blooming nicely, as of late. The soil deeper under the steel grass is probably just now becoming mechanized, and finally giving such plants what they need to thrive.

I arrive at my doorstep and balance the basket full of supplies on my shoulder, carefully opening my front door so I don't accidentally drop what I just went out to get. I then close the door behind me so nothing sneaks into my house while I'm occupied, walk over to my storage room, and set the basket I had been carrying on one of the chests so I can organize it later.

For now, I make my way over to my chair next to a curtained window, and pick up a book I had scavenged from an ancient pile of debris left over from when humans were around. I think the building was some sort of library, as there were torn and broken books everywhere, having had fallen out of shelves that were now knocked over and burned away. I had found this book hidden inside a metal cart that had a locked lid on it, keeping the books inside safe. I took the other perfectly intact books with me, of course. The one I'm holding now is titled 'Narnia'... interesting story, really. Humans may have had strange taste in storytelling, but they were good at it, I must admit.

I sit and read for a while, relaxing after the anxiety-inducing trip outside. You never know what could appear behind you and attack out there, so you must always be on your guard if you're alone. Orange Steve couldn't come with me today, as he had repairs to do on his house after a storm, so I unfortunately had to brave the wilderness of the bronze forest by myself. However, as I mentioned earlier, there was strangely no dangerous creature roaming about... just the occasional bunny or wild bird.

...Hm. I wonder if the creatures' avoidance of our people is because of the recent happenings with the Ye-

*Thunk*

What was that? It actually sounded like it came from the portal room...

I stand up and put my book down on the stand beside me, wondering what had made that noise. I make my way over to my room, which leads to the hidden space the portal is in. There shouldn't be anything in there, unless... no way.

Upon realizing such a thing, I start running to the hidden door. There's- there's no way such a silly-sounding legend could be true, right? While it had existed for years, no one had really believed that before the rise of the third Hero, a human would appear in our Realm through a portal between dimensions. There's just no possible way, all the humans died out during The Fall. That 'thunk' was probably just something falling, that room is very old and admittedly... not very taken care of. Yeah, probably just a piece of wood, right?

I open the hidden door, and... I'm quickly proven wrong.

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