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Welcome to the Zone

"Have you even told her what's waiting for her up there?"
"I told her everything. How practically nowhere is ever safe. How all of the mutants that wander around will want to make her into their dinner. How pretty much all of the people she meets will either want to take everything she's got and shoot her dead, or they'll want to do something even worse. You know, the basics."
— How Sidorovich described the Zone to Monty

Stalker Zero is a fanfic by TheannaTheWhite about what would happen if one were to dump Louise de la Vallière of The Familiar of Zero into the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone as seen in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.. The story begins about a week before Call of Pripyat and at the start of The Familiar of Zero light novels.

During the Spring Familiar Summoning Ritual, Louise, who has a history of failing horribly, fails even more horribly than usual and manages to pull herself into a charming region between the Ukraine and Belarus. Fortunately, she is not the first this has happened to, as she finds a friend/mentor in Siesta, a maid from the academy who has suffered a similar mishap and has gotten to know the Zone quite well.

Originally hosted on FanFiction.Net, the author's account was taken over by a hacker and the story deleted. Another writer on the site had a back up and uploaded it. This is not updating, as TheannaTheWhite has started a rewrite and moved to SpaceBattles.com. The tropes here apply to the new story, but still fit the old one for the most part.

As of 16th of December, 2018, the author has effectively abandoned the fic for multiple reasons.


Stalker Zero contains examples of:

  • Action Survivor: All the halkeginians that got transported to the Zone. It doesn't take too too long before they adapt to the stalker lifestyle.
  • Adaptational Badass: Siesta, who as stated was a farmer come maid before she was taken to the Zone.
  • Break the Haughty: Louise's arrogance gets pounded out of her quickly and rightly.
  • Broken Bird:
    • Siesta. She has lived in the Zone for five years, and suffered through every horrible thing it can throw at her. She's lost her home back in Tristain, lost friends she's made in the Zone, and before the story started, she even lost her expensive and well-loved gun.
    • Louise gets hit with it pretty hard too, especially since she considers everything her fault.
  • Brought Down to Normal: When she first wakes up, Louise is missing her wand, and as such, the now very useful if limited ability to cause explosions whenever she wants. She tries to defy it by making a new wand out of a sturdy piece of rebar, with slow progress.
  • Cluster F-Bomb: Siesta pulls one of these after Owl tells her how much some information costs.
  • Curb-Stomp Battle: One pseudogiant against ten bandits. Pseudogiant wins.
  • Dark and Troubled Past: We don't hear much about it, but given what we know of the Zone and how Siesta is one of the people that's been in the Zone the longest, it's no surprise she has a number of skeletons in her closet.
  • Death Glare: Siesta has a pretty mean one, which you don't see much of unless you legitimately cross her.
  • Death World: The Zone is a small and localized one, or at least it was...
  • Dynamic Entry: Transportation between Halkeginia and the Zone is not... gentle.
  • Eldritch Location: The Zone, natch. Still as nasty as ever, and from what Kirche says Tristain is turning into one.
  • Embarrassing Nickname: Montmorency is ether Mon-Mon or Monty, no one calls her by name. It's a bit of a sore spot.
  • Good Scars, Evil Scars: Invoked by Siesta, who thinks that the claw scars left on Louise's face will make her look like a badass.
  • I Need a Freaking Drink: What Louise eventually resorts to after Tremor won't sell her any painkillers, though it was Siesta's idea.
  • It Tastes Like Feet: Louise is not fond of canned food, or most food in the Zone.
  • It Gets Easier: Siesta has long gotten over how horrible the Zone is.
  • Kill It with Fire: Kirche tries this on the first mutant she encounters. And on that day a lesson is learned: the only thing scarier than an angry pseudogiant is an angry pseudogiant that's also on fire.
  • Not What It Looks Like: For some reason, when Siesta is first seen with Louise, and later Kirche, the first thing to come to everyone's mind is human trafficking. It is likely because how they are dressed in their noble schoolgirls' attires when they reach the Zone: such an attire looks very out of place in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.
  • Outside-Context Problem:
    • The Zone is this to Tristain. While mutants or even stalkers aren't something that a mage can't handle, they and the anomalies are disrupting trade and travel, as well as distorting settlements. So far only the capital is still safe, and who knows how long that will last.
    • In Ch. 37 of the rewrite, Louise is beginning to realize that the highly accurate weapons/firearms of our world (in this case a Dragunov sniper rifle) is almost certainly this to the mages of her world where not even her mother, Karin the Heavy Wind, is safe or can defend herself from an incoming bullet that she doesn't know is coming her way.
  • Psychic Dreams for Everyone: More nightmares than dreams, and less a vision of things to come and more what the Zone will do to you if you don't leave. Apparently sleeping with a bucket on your head prevents them.
  • Ruins of the Modern Age: The Zone is littered with disused buildings, vehicles and structures. None of them date from any earlier than the 1970s. Tristain is rapidly heading in this direction as well due to the disruption that the Zone's anomalies cause.
  • She Is Not My Girlfriend: From Louise after Siesta implies she's her girlfriend for a joke.
  • Sink or Swim Mentor: Siesta is this to Louise at first, though it's less that she's trying to test her, and more not being prepared to teach anyone anything. She lead Louise to the edge of an anomaly, stuck a pistol in her hands with a few quick pointers on how to shoot it and tells her to watch for mutants while she hunts for artifacts. To her credit however, when a blinddog attacked Louise she did respond and kill the thing the moment she had a shot.
  • Spared By Adaptation: Grouse
  • Taught by Experience: A good chunk of what Siesta knows, she found out the hard way. It's to be expected, the Zone always seems to find new methods of killing Stalkers, and she's one of the longest lasting Stalkers around.
  • That Girl is Dead: What Siesta tells Kirche, and believes will happen to the rest of them. Though Tabitha, being Tabitha, is probably safe.
  • This Is Gonna Suck: Seista says that she'll explain what has happened to her, trapped in an Eldritch Location with a Death World reputation where you have Everything Trying to Kill You.
    "I'm not going to like what she has to say, am I?"
    "Well I didn't."
  • Trapped in Another World: The basis for the entire story. Later on, it applies in reverse to Earth's stalkers being sent to Halkeginia.
  • Trauma Conga Line: Louise has a Bloodsucker tear half her face off, gets beaten and almost raped by a group of bandits, and then Mind Raped by a Controller into nearly shooting Siesta.
  • War Is Hell: The Zone has serious psychological impacts on Louise. These are explored at great length, especially in regards to her relationship with Siesta.
  • Why Won't You Die?: Louise shouts this during the fight with the pseudogiant.
  • Year Inside, Hour Outside: Of a sort. When people are pulled into the Zone, what time they show up again is somewhat random. Montmorency is taken five days after Louise, but shows up on the same day, if not the same place. Meanwhile, Siesta hasn't been away from Tristain for much more than months, but she's been in the Zone for years.

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