This dune seems endless, stretching out in every direction like a sea of shifting sand. The wind is stronger than even the heat.
The only sound in this place is the wind — and it's loud. Very loud. Annoying and terrifyingly eerie, like a whispering ghost stalking the desert.
Thanks to this heavy wind and the fact that D-45 is stranded in the middle of nowhere, his radar is glitching. He doesn't even know where he is currently.
But then, far off in the heat haze, he starts picking up something — finally, a village. He calculates it to be approximately 4.6 kilometers away.
"I still have to walk for a couple of minutes before I can reach it," he says.
After walking for so long in this desert, time itself starts acting strange — even for his metal body.
The time around this area seems to be acting differently. He can't put his metal finger on it, but something feels off. He shrugs it off. The sand is probably messing with his system, D-45 thinks and keeps walking. Eventually, he makes it to the village entrance.
A guard steps forward as he approaches and says, "Hey! Identify yourself at once!"
He hands the guard his ID without hesitation.
Every decade or so, D-45 has to create a new identity and a new ID to keep himself hidden and avoid being hunted down.
Thanks to the mask he's wearing, along with rugged clothes and a dark cloak, he looks just like another homeless drifter — no one special, no one worth noticing.
After looking at the ID and then at him, the guard hands it back and steps aside, letting him pass.
The first place he heads to inside the small desert village is the pub.
The moment he enters the pub, the noise hits him: drunks shouting with laughter, heated arguments breaking out into fights, and somewhere in the background, a small band of four musicians plays a nice melody, one of those songs that you hum to yourself not knowing what it is.
He finds an empty seat and orders a drink — though he has no intention of drinking it.
He has to blend in. The atmosphere is lively, the villagers spend their last pennies to drown their sorrows in alcohol and music, trying to forget the harshness of the world outside.
And then — BOOOOOOOM!!! — a loud noise comes from outside. Strong wind attacks the pub, sending everything flying.
A window breaks, and with it, a broken piece of glass flies past him and stabs the waitress behind him.
The waitress seemed to be a kid no older than 9. The glass stabbed her in the stomach. The bleeding is heavy as her heart rate spikes up.
"AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!" she screams.
"TIM GET THE FIRST AID KIT!" yells the bartender.
"ON IT!" says Tim, who is in the kitchen. "Most likely the chef," D-45 says to himself.
"O MY GOD IT HURTS!" says the waitress. The bartender removes the glass and tries his best to stop the bleeding.
"HERE!" screams the chef, coming out of the kitchen. He throws the first aid kit to the bartender.
"Everything is going to be fine," says the bartender. "It only reached the muscles. It's not that bad. You will be fine."
Seeing as things are being handled in the pub, D-45 steps outside to see what the commotion is.
"THE VILLAGE IS UNDER ATTACK!" says a guard running past him.
He follows them to see who is attacking a village in the middle of nowhere — most likely bandits.
After getting closer to the small clay walls that are supposed to protect this village, he sees what most likely are bandits.
Humans armed with dell weapons.
Dell weapons look similar to a handheld cannon that fires beams, and on those weapons was an insignia that he knew very well.
"Magus." They were the reason the nukes were launched during the war. He thought he erased them, but apparently, they managed to survive somehow.
"Maybe I'm overthinking it, those bandits most likely found some workshops for them and stumbled upon some dell weapons."
The village guards seem to be losing, and D-45 still hasn't gotten his map.
If he gets figured out now, they will most likely attack him as well.
But then one of the bandits attempts to shoot a kid attempting to run away from the chaos.
D-45 instantly shields the boy from the beam.
The beam melts off all of his clothes, and even a little steam comes out of his body.
He gets up, and before the bandit even realizes what happened, he launches a beam of his own from his right hand.
The beam instantly kills the bandit.
"IT'S A REPLICON, SHOOT AT IT!" screams another bandit.
Without hesitation, the rest of the bandits lift up their dell weapons and start blasting in his direction.
He transforms his left hand into a shield and squats down. He can't move. He won't move. If he does, the boy behind him will die.
Eventually, smoke starts to build up from all the beams, and some dust starts to pick up as well.
After a while, the bandits stop shooting.
Using the smoke as cover, D-45 instantly bursts out of it and fires a shotgun beam, instantly killing three bandits.
The bandits try to fire at him again, but he doesn't give them a chance.
He uses his right hand to fire off a blast, shooting off one of the bandits' heads.
Afterwards, he bursts into the sky and fires a missile down to the ground, killing the remaining bandits.
After falling down to the small crater his missile created, a guard he didn't see ends up scanning him.
"IT'S D-45!" says the guard.
"CRAP!" D-45 yells out, and instantly dashes away to try and get away from the village.
"CLOSE THE GATES, DON'T LET D-45 ESCAPE!" says one of the guards. He seems to be in charge somewhat.
As he keeps dashing, he sees the fragile-looking metal gate closing.
Not even an automated gate — they are closing it by hand.
But they aren't fast enough. He manages to get out at the last second.
He doesn't stop running.
He heads west, just like he was before arriving in this village.
"I didn't even get the map," D-45 says to himself.
"I have to hope that the old dusty map I found is telling me the truth," says D-45.
Afterwards, he keeps walking west to Reuy City.