Stop! Got your attention? Okay, good. First of all, this is the third in what has officially becomes a series. If you attempt to read this without first reading Time For Miracles and This Is War, you're probably going to wind up really confused. Just sayin'.

Fallout/Wrestling Xover. If you have no clue what Fallout is, that's sort of okay because I generally *try* to give out descriptions or provide enough info to cover the lack of knowledge. If I don't, just speak up.

Cast: The Undertaker and… the Undertaker (two of them, twice the yum!), Shawn Michaels, Randy Orton, Kane, Chris Jericho, Jeff Hardy, Batista, Melina, John Cena, Ted DiBiase Jr, and others I have either forgotten or yet to insert.

Summary: When East meets West, everything changes. From the east comes the Lone Wanderer, a young woman who is already considered to be a living legend and egghead extraordinaire. In the west is the Courier, who is by some, considered a myth and others a deadly enemy. The Courier and the Lone Wanderer are two very different people but also very much alike. Surprising histories that are intertwined by mere chance come to light that only make the meeting of the two that much more explosive.

Disclaimer: I don't own a thing, with maybe the exception of Faith and River.

1: First Impressions

Freeside, January 2282

"What the hell is that?"

"It's a man… in a skirt…"

"Wow… local fashion, I kind of like it."

"You will never see me in a skirt, kid. So get it out of your head right now, got me?"

"But… honey…"

"I said no."

"I hate to interrupt your little fashion debate, but the idiot in the skirt is raising a spear at us."

Faith and Mark Calaway looked back towards the man in question, both arching eyebrows when he hurled the spear in their direction. They each stepped aside, their heads turning to watch as it flew by them.

Rolling his eyes behind his mask, Kane raised his shotgun and blew the idiot in the skirt away. "Smoothskins…" He muttered, sometimes wondering why he was still with them. Well, not Mark, but Faith. Mark had bought out his contract and given it to her just over four years ago. Faith had torn it up and made him a free Ghoul right before their battle at the Jefferson Memorial. Ever since then, he had stuck to her side.

Which was probably a good thing. Faith had been accident prone back in the day before she had become known as the 'Lone Wanderer' and the 'Savior of the Wasteland', not to mention she had the worst fucking luck out of anyone he had ever known and in his hundred plus years walking the earth, he had known a lot of people with bad luck.

When she and Mark had decided to take a honeymoon up river, she had run into some kind of whacked out cult and returned home with a bald head and a piece of her brain missing. Surprisingly enough, she was just the same as ever. Now that he knew she was alright, Mark liked to joke that he always knew she was just a brain dead Vault kid.

"Well…" Faith was now squatting over the still warm corpse, poking at his armor with the tip of her hunting dagger. "I'm betting this is one of those Legion guys that scavenger warned us about."

Mark watched in amusement as she raised the kilt up. "Faith, what the hell are you doing?"

"I wanted to know what he was wearing beneath it." She said, throwing him a 'duh' look. "Some kind of cloth thing…. Freaks."

Kane stood there watching, his arms folded over his massive chest. "Shall we continue?"

"Yeah…" Mark kicked her gently in the backside with the point of his boot. "Come on, I want to make New Vegas by nightfall."

Sighing, she pushed herself up; slipping the golden coins she had retrieved into the faded brown satchel on her back. "Souvenirs." She said when both men just stared at her. "For the kids."

Mark and Kane just nodded.

"Holy hell…" Faith murmured, staring at the city they were approaching out of wide mud brown eyes, her head tilting back with each step forward they took. "It's a city… and it's intact…"

"According to what Sarah's sources had to say, it is one of the few cities to mostly survive the Great War." Kane repeated from memory, idly picking at the back of his neck where what skin was left was peeling off. "Robert House is the man in charge of the place."

"So he's who we need to see."

Mark was eyeballing the two men standing by the gates, a sign overhead reading something he couldn't make out. Faith had offered to teach him to read more than a hundred times and each and every time, he always turned her down. He figured she was enough of an egghead for the both of them. That and if she had her way, all their kids were going to turn out to be eggheads as well. No thanks. "What's that say?"

"Freeside." Faith was already heading for the gates, throwing her long black hair back over her shoulder carelessly.

Automatically the two men blocked her path. "Have to pay the tax."

"What tax?"

"The Freeside tax."

"I don't have any caps."

One of them, a man wearing black jeans and a black denim coat with a slicked back, greasy pompadour was staring at her with a gleam in his eye that put both Mark and Kane on edge. "Well now, aren't you a pretty little thing?"

"Pacer…" The other guy said hesitantly, apparently knowing where this was going. "You know what the King'll say…"

"Why don't you just let me worry about that, hm?" Pacer shot back, beginning to circle Faith, completely unaware that she was finding this all rather amusing. He was also unaware that he now had an assault rifle following him as well. "I think we could work out the tax… another way…"

"Sounds good to me, what'd you have in mind?" Faith asked cheerfully, turning in a circle just to keep him in her line of sight. She fought back a shudder when he stopped directly in front of her, fisting her hand in the hem of her shirt to keep from punching him when he reached out to push a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

"Why don't you come around the side of the wall and-" Pacer froze, swallowing hard when he felt something pressing against the back of his head, suddenly remembering she hadn't come alone. His eyes darted sideways for help but his own companion had slipped back through the gates.

"Let me tell you what I'm going to do," Mark began in a deadly whisper, his hazel green eyes spitting venom. "I'm going to cut your fingers off, one by one first, for touching my wife."

"W-wife?" Pacer echoed, staring at Faith who simply continued to smile sweetly at him.

"Then, your tongue, for even daring to try to take advantage of her."

Faith stuck out her tongue.

"And then finally your eyes, she's going to be the last thing you ever fuckin' see."

Faith skipped away when Pacer actually wet his pants from fear. "Alright honey, he pissed himself he's so scared, you can stop now."

Mark slapped the man upside his greasy head. "Maybe next time you'll think twice about chargin' a tax, eh, son?"

Pacer just nodded.

"Didn't they say the King?" Faith asked curiously as they walked down the road of Freeside, ignoring the curious looks they were receiving from the locals on the streets. She knew Kane drew attention; he was a Ghoul who stood over six feet and wore a mask. Mark was also over six foot and wearing leather pants and a black muscle shirt, having stowed his duster in the satchel he was carrying once they began hitting higher temperatures the farther west they came.

While her husband had disbanded his armor once they were within Freeside, she had not; she had done it outside the city. She wore a blue-gray top with the sleeves torn off, made of treated leather and a matching skirt with torn fishnet stockings. To prevent total exposure of her legs, she also wore treated black leather boots that came up over her knees. She knew she was exposed but to be honest, Faith had never gotten past the heat of the outside world, the Vault had had air conditioning. And the further west they came, the worse the heat had gotten.

She had her suit of armor Sarah Lyons had given her and thankfully it dispersed heat rather well but she wasn't wearing it unless she had too and as far as she was concerned, inside the walls, she didn't have too.

What she hadn't given up were her guns. A .44 magnum on each hip in the custom holsters she had gotten Knight Gallows to make for her and her Chinese assault rifle in a sling on her back. Her knife was sheathed at her ankle and she carried a few grenades in her satchel. She didn't go anywhere without weapons or Stimpaks, the laws of the Universe pretty much stipulated she was getting shot at in every two out of three places.

"Yeah, why?" Mark was busy giving 'hands off' looks to the men who were eyeballing his wife. She was still too damn pale but he was more than used to it after four years of knowing the crazy broad. She had grown her hair out again –being bald hadn't suited her at all- so now it fell down to just past her shoulders, which as attractive as he found it, it wasn't practical, but try telling her that.

"Cause, that says The King's School of Impersonation and I want to meet this guy."

"What for?" Kane demanded, staring down at her. Even with the mask, both Mark and Faith were used to him enough to know that he was frowning.

"Because I want to see if he's as sleazy as his little running buddies or not."

"Not even in town for ten fucking minutes, kid, and already you're stirrin' shit up…" Mark groaned, wondering if her crazy weird luck was going to play a factor here. He knew she was enjoying the anonymity she had here in the Mojave. Back east she couldn't go anywhere without people bothering the shit out of her or just trying to get close to the 'Savior of the Waste, the Lone Wanderer', and he was still planning on eventually killing Three Dog for turning her into some sort of demi-God.

Technically, they had come out all this way for several things. First and foremost, to locate the Brotherhood of Steel and deliver a letter from the still kicking Elder Lyons back in D.C. Then they were going to root out any Enclave bastards and dispose of them. Faith had gotten really, really sick of them continually popping up around the Memorial and since they had cleaned out every Enclave base in the Capitol Wasteland and surrounding areas, they had figured the troopers were coming from the west.

Owyn had cemented that when he had had his Scribes sort through the Enclave holodisks she had retrieved and found a few bases remaining in the Nevada area.

Lastly, they had a letter to deliver on behalf of Doc Church back in Megaton. That was probably the simplest job and yet knowing Faith, it would turn out to be some sort of min-war that lasted months.

If he didn't love her so damn much, Mark would have killed her a hundred times over for all the shit she still dragged him into.

If not for the fact that she was most of the time happily married, Faith would have found the King quite attractive. He had jet black hair, beautiful blue eyes and a slow, drawling way of speaking that could melt ice. He was also rather pleasant, which was a perk since she didn't want to have to hurt him. When she had informed him about his buddy –Pacer- he had been quite upset.

"I'll take care of it, sugar." He reassured her, reaching across the table to gently pat the top of her hand before leaning back in his chair again. "We got us enough going on in Freeside without my boys fondlin' up every pretty lady that passes through."

Faith simply nodded, sitting across the table from him while Kane was standing silently against the far wall, watching the room out of guarded eyes. The man was no longer her bodyguard but that rarely stopped him from acting like one and she loved him for it. He had saved her ass so many times she had lost count twice over. Mark was in the entrance room, at the bar, unsurprising.

She was about to ask a question involving finding a place to bed down for the night when they heard someone shout from the front followed by the unmistakable sounds of a gun being fired.

Faith didn't beat Kane through the door but she tied in at a very close second, her eyes widening when she took in the scene.

A woman with a face just only slightly more scarred than hers was standing in the middle of the room, a shotgun in her hands and aimed over the counter of the bar. Flanking her was a large man in a dirty white tee shirt, army fatigues and a beret, a sniper rifle in his hands. Both people looked royally pissed off. There was also a burning hatred in the woman's deep blue eyes; something Faith could easily recall feeling towards Colonel Austin, before she planted one in his forehead.

"I know you're not dead, 'Taker." The woman snarled, shouldering the shotgun. "So come on out and let's finish the dance."

"Courier…" The man behind her said flatly, his eyes locked on Faith.

Without even realizing it, Faith had drawn her magnums and was aiming both of them for this woman –Courier-, more specifically, at her head. When Courier had said 'Taker, Faith's heart had down a jerky rotation, that was the name Mark had gone by back in the Wasteland and somehow, this woman knew who he was. Which technically should have been impossible since Mark swore up and down he had never been this far west before.

The woman, Courier, swung around to aim the barrel of her shotgun at Faith's head. Faith instantly noted the scar on the woman's forehead, like a faded spiderweb and then another that ran through her eye. Faith herself had one scar running horizontally across her cheekbone from nose to ear, courtesy of the Enclave and their lasers. "Kane?"

The Ghoul was already kneeling behind the bar, checking on Mark. "He needs medical attention."

"I don't know or care who you are, but if my husband dies… you're a dead woman." She said coldly.

"Your… husband?" Courier began laughing, though her aim never faltered. "That is… hilarious."

Faith pulled the trigger.