Arthur Morgan thought of himself as a rather simple man. He had simple emotions, wanted only for simple things, tried to take care of his problems in the simplest of manners. Right now, his problem was that John Marston was simply a goddamn smart-mouthed idiot. So his simple solution had been to ride well away from his gang's camp in order to blow off steam before John caught Arthur's fist with his nose.

So there he stood, perched on the sand at the edge of the Dakota River, slowly reeling in his fishing line; he wasn't much good at it, but fishing always gave him the solitude he needed to think. The steadily flowing water glinted in the sunlight of the mid-afternoon. The fish were there, he could see one jumping out of the water every now and then, but his luck had been shit so far. Story of my life, he thought a little bitterly.

Arthur stopped reeling and hooked the pole under his arm so that he could rummage in his satchel for a pack of cigarettes. He plucked one out, stuck it between his lips and then proceeded to search his pockets for his matchbook.

A sudden feeling overtook him. His fingers stopped searching just as he found the little book. He stilled, angled his head up, squinting his eyes off into the distance. He felt an odd pressure building up between his ears, almost like the way you could feel the pressure in the air drop in the split-second before dynamite exploded. Like all the oxygen was being sucked right out of the air.

This feeling only lasted for a second or two before a bang like a thunderclap erupted in the sky somewhere above him and off to his right. A gaping hole opened up in the sky, a dark void ringed with bright fire, almost blinding in its sudden and apocalyptic appearance.

"Jesus Christ!" Arthur sputtered and the pole fell from his grasp, clattering into the sand at his feet. He lifted his arm to shield his eyes, the other hand instinctively reaching for the butt of the revolver holstered at his hip.

That thunder-sound continued, loud and steady, and that dark void pulsed with light. There was something high-pitched hidden in it, but it could have just been his poor ears ringing. All the hairs on his body felt like they were standing up, like he was being jolted with a weak surge of electricity.

Suddenly, a body fell from the hole in the sky. It was small and lanky, had almost a skeletal appearance. It screamed and screeched when it hit the ground, rolling awkwardly as it attempted to get to its spindly feet. And then, another one fell. And then a third. Arthur took a few lurching steps backwards, almost tripped over his fishing pole.

Finally, a fourth body fell through. This one was most definitely man-shaped. He hit the ground and rolled, coming up on one knee. He wavered for a second, almost looked like he was going to be sick, and then his gaze narrowed on the screeching things, and a mask of intense focus smothered his ashen-pale features.

He clutched a gleaming sword in one hand, and a second later that sword was slicing through the air, taking off a creature's head in one smooth arc as the thing lunged at him head-on. The head flew from the body, oily black blood splattering as the man fixed his focus on the next monster.

The other two were on their feet now, growling and screeching and making furious clicks with their horrifically sharp teeth. As Arthur took all this in, he began to really see how truly monstrous they were; they had globs of fatty flesh hanging from their jowls and sagging from the joints at their elbows and knees. Freakishly elongated skulls housed beady, glowing eyes. And the smell. The odor that suddenly assaulted Arthur's senses was reminiscent of certain mutilated animal carcasses he sometimes came across, half-eaten and left to soak in the rain and bake in the sun until they finally decomposed completely.

A blast of heat blew Arthur's hat right off his head as a gout of fire erupted from the man's free hand, seemingly from out of nowhere, setting the creatures aflame. They hissed and clicked, writhed and screamed and tried to swat the fire from their hideous skin.

By now Arthur had his gun drawn, though it shook something awful in his trembling hand. His mind was a blank; normally he'd have emptied the chambers and already reloaded by this point, but this was some shit the likes of which he had never seen. All he could do was watch, mouth agape, that cigarette dangling precariously, long forgotten.

The pale man let out a low grunt and charged at the creatures, bringing the sword up to take the head off another and, all in the same swing, spinning to come around again and cut the body of the third clean in half.

Arthur finally found the wherewithal to spit the cigarette to the ground, trained his revolver on the crazed-looking white-haired man, threw back the hammer and pulled the trigger.

The man's head immediately whipped up and he raised his free hand again just as the gun went off. A blinding flash erupted that sent Arthur stumbling back another step. He heard a sound almost of glass shattering, and then the man was stalking towards him, furious and overwhelmingly unhurt.

"What in the…goddamn…?" Arthur heard his own voice, sounding high-pitched and far away. He took another few steps backwards, almost tripped over a rock this time, before he heard scurrying and clicking and growling behind him. He was scared to turn his back on the white-haired man, but whipped around to see another one of those monstrosities coming straight for him from the bushes off to his right. Somehow, another must have fallen from that hole in the sky without his seeing it.

He aimed the gun and fired every single round he had left into the thing. It grunted and screamed and black blood started pouring forth from the holes the bullets had punched into its flesh, but otherwise it seemed horrifyingly unperturbed. It kept coming for him.

"Get back, you idiot!"

Arthur turned his head to glance briefly at the strange man, barely taking in what he was yelling even though he was speaking perfect English. He was about to bend his arm back and just throw the whole damn revolver at the creature coming towards him when a powerful blast of air sent him flying off his feet and crashing on his back into the river.

Arthur yelled and then went under just enough to suck some water into his lungs. He thrashed and managed to half-sit himself up, coughing and trying like hell to clear out his airways. He heard a squeal and a sick thud, and when he finally was able to suck in a big, clean breath and focus on his surroundings once again, he found the tip of that sword poised just an inch or so away from his throat.

He swallowed thickly and his eyes wandered up the length of the blade until they landed on the man it belonged to. White hair pulled back, a short white beard. A huge scar slicing an arc down over his left eye. Speaking of eyes, his were like a goddamn cat's; golden-colored, with long narrow pupils. He was wearing some sort of strange armor; the only thing Arthur could equate it to was that worn by ancient knights, but even then, the resemblance was a mighty stretch at best.

The man was breathing heavily. He eyed Arthur with that intense, unnerving focus, glancing around at their surroundings every so often, checking his perimeters. "Where am I?"

Arthur blinked. He coughed again, and the forward motion moved his windpipe dangerously close to the point of that bloody sword. "New…New Hanover."

The man's eyes narrowed. He frowned and then looked back over his shoulder. The hole in the sky was gone. He let out a raspy sigh and bowed his head, the fingers of his free hand coming up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. "Fucking portals."

Arthur sat there in the shallows of the river, silent and completely flummoxed.

The man sneered and let his hand drop. He looked at Arthur, almost like how an entomologist would examine a particularly interesting cockroach. "Well…you appear to be human, and we appear to speak the same language, so that's a start. I'm looking for someone. A young woman. Ashen hair, green eyes. Scar on her eye just like mine. Seen her?"

Arthur's tongue darted out to wet his lips - just about the only part of him that was dry - and he shook his head. "Ain't ever seen nobody that looks like you, mister. Where, uh…where the hell'd you come from?"

The man straightened, withdrawing the sword a few inches. "Another world. Another dimension, maybe. I'm still not quite sure how it all works." He narrowed his eyes at Arthur once again. "That weapon. You fired it at me. You gonna try that again?"

Arthur shook his head vehemently. He'd only had the revolver on him, and that had flown out of his hand when that blast of air knocked him off his feet. He knew he wouldn't be able to do much with his hunting knife. He was currently licked, and since the man hadn't deigned to kill him yet, he figured his best and simplest option was just to play nice.

"Alright…" The man shifted on his feet and then swung the sword over his shoulder. It went smoothly into the sheath strapped across his back, just beside a second sword. "What's your name?"

"Arthur."

The man nodded once. "Geralt of Rivia," he said as he extended his hand.

Arthur just looked at the man's gloved hand for a moment before gingerly reaching up to take hold of it and letting Geralt help him to his feet.

"What the hell were those things?"

"Nekkers. Necrophages."

Arthur looked at him with a blank expression.

Geralt sighed, waving a hand in the air impatiently. "Carrion-eaters. They prowl around cemeteries and mass graves, war-torn areas…places where they can feed. One minute I was in Velen, culling a nest of them, the next minute…I was here."

"And what the hell are you, some kind of…knight errant or somethin'?" Arthur eyed the man's swords, taking note that he had neither holsters nor guns on his person. Just the two blades and some kind of god-awful power that let him shoot flames and deflect bullets.

Geralt had tilted his head to the side, eyes focused on the sliced up bodies that were currently stinking up the general area around where they stood. His gaze cut back to Arthur, those golden eyes of his twinkling unnervingly bright. "I'm a Witcher."