Endless War, Chapter One-

The Introduction

Wyatt looked towards the sky, as if the destroyed atmosphere would answer him. He had been waiting in this valley, ready to make the slave deal, for almost three hours. He wiped his forehead with his sleeve, and sat on a nearby rock in the shade. His blonde hair stuck to his head with sweat, he hated waiting.

"Maybe they aren't coming, you can't trust raiders after all." Commented a fellow slaver, who was leaning against the cliff wall.

He brushed the slavers' comment off; he was determined to make this deal. At least fifty children and sixty adults. If he could score this deal with the client then he would be able to buy Galaxy News Radio if he wanted it.

"Well hello down there!" was yelled from high above their heads. Several men, numbering around fifteen, stood above them on the cliff side. They began to file down the path of the valley until they all stood at the bottom, opposite of Wyatt's men.

"I assume you are Bloody Steve?" Wyatt asked when a large fellow stepped from the crowd to meet him. The man was larger than most wastelanders, and wore a sheriff's duster. His brown eyes were light and happy, something not seen around the wastes very often.

Wyatt pushed himself off the rock and approached him. A savage wind blew, throwing dust into the two men's eyes, blinding them. They met halfway between the two groups.

"How much for the whole lot?" Steve asked when they reached the middle of the valley. Wyatt stood for a moment and reached into the pocket of his black trench coat, retrieved a silver Nuka-Cola flask, and brought it to his lips. Steve watched as the other man took a drink and stood for a moment, gazing off into the direction of Megaton, and then replaced it back into his pocket.

"Five hundred caps for each child, three hundred for each adult." Wyatt said, turning his head to look back at Steve. Some of the raiders exchanged looks at each other; Steve scratched his chin with his thumb and index finger, humming, as if he was thinking.

Wyatt watched him with clever, blue eyes. The man wasn't taking this seriously; Wyatt had to show him that the deal wasn't going to last forever.

"The offer ends in seven days; you know where to send the letter of payment." Wyatt said, nodding to the other slavers.

They turned and started to follow him out of the valley.

"I wouldn't go that way, if I were you." Steve casually commented, he pulled a cigarette from his duster pocket and brought it to rest between his lips. He then clicked a lighter open and lit it using the orange flame.

Wyatt stopped and turned his head to look at him. Steve calmly took a couple of puffs on the cigarette, blowing smoke from his mouth like a dragon.

The ground beneath their feet suddenly began to shake violently, and many of the slavers and raiders swayed back and forth as they struggled to keep their balance. Wyatt and Steve stayed balanced, and didn't move at all. Then all that could be heard was a deafening explosion, and a force of wind knocked them all to the ground.

Black. All Wyatt could see was black; his eyes were squeezed shut because light hurt them when he tried to look around. He rolled onto his stomach and began to push himself off the ground. His sharp face was covered in dirt and dust. As he pushed himself into a kneeling position, every muscle in his body screamed for him to stop.

"Consider that a declaration of war." Steve was standing over Wyatt, his cigarette was almost gone.

He put his index finger and thumb into his mouth and whistled. The whistle brought the fifteen raiders into action. Fourteen hammers were clicked back, and the guns were aimed at Wyatt and his slavers. The fifteenth raider walked away from the crowd and stood next to Steve.

"Jericho, wouldn't you say that explosion was in the direction of Paradise Falls?" Steve asked the raider-captain.

"I believe it was. You don't think that there was an accident, do you? That would mean that these men are homeless." Responded the raider named Jericho.

Wyatt glanced back at his slavers while the two men talked. He slightly nodded at them and they brought their guns up as well, everyone starred at each other. Steve had stopped talking, and was glancing over at Wyatt.

"What did you do?" Wyatt screamed at them. He was tightly gripping a razor sharp Chinese officer's sword in his right hand, and his face was twisted with rage.

Steve calmly looked at them with no evident sign of concern. He walked over and sat down on the same rock that Wyatt had sat on earlier.

"Did you think that a package of large explosives was just a gift from the raiders to the slavers? We're raiders, we don't give, we take!" Steve yelled with excitement. Wyatt could see that he enjoyed this.

Steve shook his head as he looked upon Wyatt and his company of ten slavers. He then wiggled his arms free of his sheriff duster and shrugged it off his shoulders.

"The temperature out here gets dreadfully high; I wonder what snow would feel like, I imagine myself walking through a giant bowl of ice-cream when I think of snow." Steve muttered to himself as he gazed up at the sky.

Wyatt was about to lose his patience. He put his sword back into its shoulder sheath and looked directly at Steve.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn't just kill you all right now." He warned, which sounded more like a growl, angrily towards Steve and his raiders. Steve pushed himself from the rock and looked Wyatt in his eyes; he no longer had the hint of happiness. Wyatt suppressed a shiver from shaking his body.

Steve then reached behind him to his back, and curled his fingers around the grips of two guns. His hands reappeared holding two 45. 1911 handguns. One had thorns carved into its whole body, the other had leaves, and they both now shown silver in the sunlight.

"You see, the young adults from little lamplight hired me to pop a hole in that pathetic camp you call Paradise Falls." Steve explained, he charged his guns and kept them aimed, not on Wyatt, but on the slavers around him.

"Execute them." Steve commanded in an icy tone. The raiders, including Jericho, opened fire on the slavers. The slavers threw stun grenades at them, which provided enough time to take cover and return fire on the raiders. Soon, a fire fight began, the slavers wounded several raiders, and the raiders wounded several slavers.

Wyatt crouched behind one of the many rocks that the slavers were using for cover, several bullets struck it, whizzing away and throwing dirt into the air. He shook the arm of the slaver next to him.

"Cover me, I'm going to call for reinforcements!" He yelled over the gun fire. The slaver nodded and popped out to draw their fire from Wyatt.

He closed his eyes and focused deeply. He heard the ping inside his head that he always heard when using his power. The slaver that was providing Wyatt with cover ran out of ammo in his rifle. He crouched down and replaced the empty magazine with a full one, while he did this he glanced over and looked at Wyatt. He opened his mouth to say something, but never got any words out.

Steve stood behind the slaver as he was reloading, and when the slaver was distracted by Wyatt, he blew his head off with the 1911.

"Remember, take him alive." Steve reminded the raiders. They moved in on Wyatt's crouching form.

Wyatt's eyes shot open, surprising the raiders, and making them stumble back several feet. His eyes were solid white, and Steve looked at them with a curious interest. Steve suddenly remembered what that meant.

"Everyone get ready, this is the fun part." He announced, reloading his 1911's. He put a cigarette between his lips and lit it.

He took several drags on it, blowing smoke from his nose instead of his mouth. There was a faint scratching sound that made the raiders hesitate and look around the valley. One of the raiders suddenly gasped and pointed at the top of the cliff.

Above them on the lip of the valley stood a deathclaw, it glanced down at them and jumped. Landing between Wyatt and the raiders, it threw its arms back and roared at them, as it did so, three more deathclaws landed behind them.

"I knew that this would turn out to be a fun contract!" Steve yelled. He spun around and unloaded both pistols into the first deathclaw. It shrugged the bullets off, and charged the small raider group.