My PoV
As I made my way through the darkened streets of what was once Vale, the weight of the situation pressed down on me. Forty-eight years. It was still hard to wrap my head around. The city I once knew was now a hollow shell, a playground for Grimm and a graveyard for humanity's hopes.
I stuck to the shadows, my enhanced senses on high alert for any sign of danger. The crunch of debris under my boots seemed deafening in the eerie silence. Occasionally, a distant roar or screech would echo through the empty streets, reminding me that I was far from alone in this wasteland.
As I rounded a corner, a flicker of movement caught my eye. I pressed myself against a crumbling wall, my hand instinctively moving to my holstered M1911. Voices drifted towards me on the night air.
"Did you hear that?" a hushed female voice asked.
"Yeah," a male voice responded. "Sounded like footsteps. Big ones."
I weighed my options. I could try to slip away unnoticed, but something told me these people might have information I needed. Taking a deep breath, I stepped out of the shadows, my hands raised in a non-threatening gesture.
"Easy there, folks," I said, keeping my voice calm and steady. "I'm not looking for trouble."
The reaction was immediate. Four figures emerged from the ruins, weapons trained on me. They were a ragtag bunch, clothed in mismatched armor and carrying an assortment of weaponry that looked like it had seen better days.
"Who are you?" the apparent leader, a grizzled man with a cybernetic eye, demanded. "How did you get past the perimeter?"
I slowly lowered my hands, maintaining eye contact with the leader. "My name is Alex Orr. As for how I got here... well, that's a long story."
The group exchanged glances, a mix of confusion and suspicion on their faces.
"Alex Orr?" a younger woman with vibrant green hair asked, her voice tinged with disbelief. "That's impossible. Alex Orr disappeared almost fifty years ago."
I couldn't help but chuckle, though there was no humor in it. "Yeah, about that. Seems I took a bit of an unexpected detour."
The leader's cybernetic eye whirred as it focused on me, scanning me up and down. "You expect us to believe you're the same Alex Orr from the old stories? The one who vanished right before the Fall?"
I shrugged. "Believe what you want. I'm just trying to figure out what the hell happened while I was... away."
There was a tense moment of silence as they seemed to debate what to do with me. Finally, the leader lowered his weapon, though he didn't holster it.
"Alright," he said gruffly. "Let's say for a moment we believe you. What do you want?"
I took a step forward, ignoring the way the others tensed at my movement. "Information. I need to know what happened, how things got this bad. And more importantly, I need to find my friends."
The green-haired woman tilted her head, curiosity overtaking her suspicion. "Your friends?"
I nodded. "Emily Halsey, Emma Frost, and Yui Kyle. Do those names mean anything to you?"
The reaction was immediate. The group's eyes widened, and they exchanged meaningful glances.
"You really don't know, do you?" the leader asked, his tone softening slightly.
"Know what?" I pressed, a knot forming in my stomach.
The green-haired woman stepped forward. "Emily Halsey, Emma Frost, and Yui Kyle... they're legends. Along with Ruby Rose, they're the ones keeping what's left of humanity alive."
