Pain was all that was. It's all that was there for him. With each punch, Valentine chipped away. He was being broken, physically and mentally. With each punch, more of his synthetic body flew away to different places in the room. With each punch, he grew tired. It was not that the pain was intolerable - it wasn't so bad actually - it was the two weeks of endless torture and turmoil that made him desperate. He was sure his secretary, Ellie, suspected he was gone, but she couldn't get to him. Not unless she too wanted to be captured. Nick knew worse would come to her if she had been.
All he wanted to do was help someone, help a family. He dug into a missing girl's history, tracing her steps, to bring her home. Turns out some people don't want to be found. Darla hadn't been kidnapped, she left on her own. His time, he felt, was up. Skinny Malone may not have wanted him dead outright, but he was certainly getting there. Nick mused on the years he had spent as detective. His only thought at the moment: I wish I found out who that mysterious stranger is.
Hours passed and the beatings finally came to an end. The Triggermen beating him left the room he was in, the vault's overseer's office, and locked it behind them. He was free to roam around, but there was nothing he could do. The men had stripped the entire room of anything not bolted down, leaving Nick a single chair, of which he was strapped to whenever they came to hurt him more. He sat at the Overseer's desk, looking at the walls of the dilapidated Vault, and waited for them to come back. One, alone, eventually came. He looked through the window of the office, from the side of the vault's atrium, and mocked Nick. Threatening him. "Wait, 'till we all come back. Your head is gonna be my new toaster!"
Nick pleaded with him to be set free. "Malone will snub you out when you're no use for him! Let me free!" The man sneered and continued to taunt him, ignoring his plea. Nick turned around to walk away and noticed the room was slightly darker than before. He heard what sounded like a nail hitting the floor, and the metal walkway outside the door shake. He turned back around to the window and saw it caked with thick, red blood. He tried to look through the clean gaps in the window to see what had happened but couldn't see a thing.
The door began to open and he prepared himself for his confrontation. A woman carrying a scoped hunting rifle entered the room, analyzing the room for hidden enemies through her aviators.
"I like the irony in this reversed damsel-in-distress situation," he told her.
"The dragon is still guarding his prize," she quipped. "We're not out of the castle yet."
Nick volunteered to lead her out of the Vault, picking up the submachine gun of his fallen captor. Along the way, he filled her in on what had happened that lead to his capture. She didn't seem to react to his synth status, maybe out of trust, indifference, or naivety. He couldn't tell. He analyzed her. How could a lone woman infiltrate a Vault full of Triggermen, get him out, and live? She wore only her sunglasses, some shoes, shorts, and a harness, with a backpack on her back. She hadn't even worn a shirt or armor under the harness either. Instead, she used it to cover and hold up her breasts! She was not bleeding, cut, or injured in any way. There was no dirt, grime, not even a drop of blood on her fair skin. A single bullet could kill her. Radiation would pass through unrestricted. Poison could enter her bloodstream without resistance. She was fragile, vulnerable. Yet here she was, living. What got his attention was a tan, wrist-mounted electronic. A Pip-Boy. Nick was impressed and intrigued. A Vault dweller?
They descended the stairs to the lower level of the atrium and were met by three Triggermen. Nick wanted to see what the woman was capable of. "I'll follow your lead," he told her. She nodded and crouched down, readying her rifle. Nick watched as she sneakily wormed her way around the atrium and silently picked off a Triggerman. Unfortunately, the man she shot died loudly, gagging and groaning as he fell with a hole in his chest. The other two were alerted and found their attacker quickly. They shot at her but she took cover behind a stack of boxes. Nick quickly intervened and shot the other man, garnering the attention of the last.
Nick took cover around one of the vault's many sliding doors, peeking out to shoot when given the chance. When he peered around, he saw the final man fall sideways, a bullet through his neck. The girl raised her glasses and rested them on her pony-tailed hair. She gave a small smirk and they continued. "You're not too bad," he told her.
"I'm still new at the whole rifle thing."
The two continued onwards. Nick started to pick up the pace, jogging through the vault's corridors. "Let's go," he told her. "Skinny Malone is waiting for us somewhere and I'd rather not stay long enough for his goons to catch us instead." They ran back where the girl came in from. Nick saw her handiwork. Neat. Calculated. Messy. They turned the corner from a door and Nick met a baseball bat. The Triggerman clobbered Nick in the head, knocking him dead in his tracks. The woman had her rifle knocked out from her hands before she could line her sighs on the man and was almost clubbed herself, but she quickly took out a pistol and shot the man thrice in the chest.
The girl picked up her rifle and shot the downed enemy again, once in the head, before holstering her pistol. Now she had blood on her. She helped Nick up and the two continued on their way. They stopped before a closed door.
"I hear heavy footfall behind this door," Nick told her. "That could only mean one thing: Malone is waiting for us." The woman looked confused. Maybe she doesn't know who he is, he thought. They walked through the door and were met by two armed Triggermen, a bigger man wearing a black suit (also armed), and a thin woman beside him wearing a sequin dress.
"Just shoot them, Skinny! Shoot them!" The woman had shouted to the bigger man. She shook an aluminum baseball bat, a dent lied on its shaft. Nick was uneasy at the sight of it.
"Quiet you," the black suited man said. He turned from the woman to the pair in front of him. "You come into my home, kill my men, and make me have to come down myself to see you. You transform this quaint little vault into a blood bath and now you think you can just walk out of here? You crossed a big line, Nick!"
"I wouldn't have come if your girl chose to tell her family where she was. Maybe even write them a letter," Nick replied.
"Sad that you got your ass beat by a girl, Nicky?" The dressed girl rubbed her bat, giving it a small swing as she looked at Nick with anger. "Boo-fucking-hoo!"
Skinny Malone sighed. "It's a shame you had to ruin the good thing we had here, Nick."
Nick was going to speak but the girl interrupted. "I told you! I told you we should have killed him! But no, you had to keep him alive for 'old times' sake'!"
"Darla!" Malone yelled. "I'm handling this my way!"
"Oh yeah?" she asked. "Then why is this little bitch with him? Look at her, the little slut! She comes in wearing practically nothing!" The woman looked at Darla with a snarl formed.
Malone slapped Darla with his backhand. "I'm telling you one last time, quiet!"
"Are you going to let him treat you that way, Darla?" the woman beside Nick asked. "Just listen to yourself. You're stronger than him. He's holding you back." Darla perked up. "You know this won't end peacefully. Make sure you're the one lands on top, and maybe, I'll let you live to see another day."
"You shut it! Nick, tell your broad to shut it," Malone yelled. Darla looked at Malone, contemplating the woman's words.
"Sorry, Skinny," Darla began. "The slut's got a point." Malone barely realized what she was saying before Darla swung the bat into his head. He quickly collapsed and she got another swing into him before she was peppered with bullets from Malone's men. They quickly turned their guns to the escapees but were quickly dispatched by the woman's quick pistol.
Nick looked at the woman beside him. "Why'd you do that? Everyone's dead! Darla's dead too!"
The woman went up to the body of Malone, a body struggling for breath. "I made a connection, Nick. Darla is the one who burned one of my settlements. Oberland Station had caught fire and a few of the stations burned downed because of it. It took weeks for all the rubble to be cleared and reused." Nick crossed his arms in disbelief. "A good handful of my settlers managed to kill a few of the attackers: Triggermen. I read the case you were following. The couple that hired you, Darla's parents, lived in Oberland Station. They were the first to be murdered." Nick's defense lowered. "It is no coincidence."
Nick hadn't been able to know. "At least now we can get out of here," Nick said. He felt a tinge of remorse as he stepped around Darla's bullet-ridden body. Her eyes had stayed open. They looked at him.
The woman waved a finger and held down Malone's head with her shoe. She chambered a bullet into her pistol and shot the dying man in the head, getting blood on her body and the little clothes she wore. "After I change, then we'll be done. I'll meet you outside." She went into a different room and closed the door.
Nick had waited outside of Park Street station, looking at the moon. It was a sight he missed. It illuminated the night, allowing him to see the towering buildings in all their glory. Soon they'd fall. One by one. Old and decrepit. "Ready?" the girl asked. She had come out wearing boots and a dirty white button-up shirt, a black band around the shirt's collar. A plate of combat armor was on top of this, a white single star painted center of the chest. On top of this was a long blue coat with a leather sash across her body. It had a little speaker on it.
"Yes," Nick said. "Before we set out, I wanted to say thank you for saving me."
"Don't. Help me find someone and we'll be even," she said.
"Straight to the point, I like it. Let's go to my office in Diamond City and talk there. I'd rather not be out where any more Triggermen - or worse - can find us."
The woman took out a flare from her pack and lit it, holding it up. Nick was puzzled as to what she was doing and then he heard it. A low buzzing came from the sky, growing louder with each passing moment. Soon, a blue vertibird was overhead. Its passengers let down a long rope ladder and the the woman took hold. "I'll see you there, then." The vertibird flew into the sky as the woman climbed the ladder.
So you're the new general, he thought. Nick began walking, thinking about how interesting this person was becoming with each moment.