Stories from the Wasteland
Javin wandered through the wasteland, his dog at his side. He could remember his original objective for leaving The Vault…
But his father could wait.
He had encountered a few raiders on the way to Arefu, and since then, he'd made it his personal mission to utter anhilate any and all raiders he met.
He hated them with a passion, and regarded them with a loathing reserved for stray dogs. The moment he had managed to create a Shiskebab only served to encourage him on his sadistic quest.
So when he met a group of three raiders as he headed east, he thanked his lucky stars, and quietly snuck upon them. He could hear them as they boasted of murdering innocents and accosting weary travelers...
It made him sick.
He traded his Shishkebab for his trusty Sniper Rifle. He had repaired and maintained it religiously, to the point that after he used it, he would use something else till he could find something to fix it with.
Your weapons were everything out here.
He took aim at carefully, steadying his aim as the sights lined up on a raider wearing Painspike armor, the moonlight casting a dull glow in everything. He pulled up the sights up the raider's head, but he would only grant him the sweet release of death only when he was satisfied.
So he aimed for his legs instead.
Sid was proud of today. The last settlement he and his buddies had raided was wiped off the map when they were done. They'd met a wastelander on their way out, and now, Sid and his gang were sifting through his belongings.
There wasn't much on him, save for some stimpaks and a worn-out hunting rifle. Kit, Sid's right hand man, had tested the gun awhile ago on a vicious dog, and it had worked pretty well. Arming themselves was a good idea these days, especially with The Wanderer out there.
They'd seen the bodies of his victims, cut up and burned, as if he set them alight. And they were the lucky ones. The others were left alive, after he had cut off their legs with the flaming sword he always had on him. They moaned in agony, and some of them had their eyes put out.
They had them in their mouth.
Frankly, when they heard the stories, they were scared shitless.
So when they hear the loud bang from somewhere behind Sid, they knew that the shit just got real. Sid was halfway between turning around when his left leg exploded into a cloud of blood and gristle shin down. He collapsed onto the ground, screaming about his leg.
Kit and Trish, the two people who formed Sid's three-man band, pulled out their weapons. Trish pulled out a baseball bat, intent on bludgeoning their assailant, while Kit pulled out the Wastelander's worn-out rifle.
Within seconds of Kit arming himself, he heard two shots, and the rifle violently flew out of his hands. Unarmed, he had to pull out his ace in the hole. Trish had almost reached him when a small line of fire appeared behind a busted car.
Of course, he thought. Who else could shoot a rifle out of your hands?
The Wanderer stood up, and aimed a mighty swing towards Trish. She had managed to block it, and a few others before the bat, already weakened from months of abuse and misuse, was cut in half crosswise. The thicker top half dropped to the ground, leaving Trish open. The Wanderer swung toward her, and instinctively she raised her arms to defend herself. He muttered something that sounded to Kit a lot like, "BRAVE LITTLE WHORE".
The blade chopped clean through her arms and head, setting her arms, her head, and most of her upper body on fire. How it did that was an utter mystery to Kit, who had pulled out several injections of Psycho from his Sadist armor. His terrified gulps of air had fogged over the goggles on his Psycho-tic Helmet, and all he saw was a blurry line of brightness in the dark night. He pumped himself full of Psycho, and felt the drugs course through him like a flood of rage in his blood. He gave a roar of defiance, and rushed toward him. He made a beeline to the blurry line of light.
He pulled his arm back for a punch, and saw the line of light descend. In his run, cold air entered his Helmet, the condensation on his helmet's goggles had cleared, and he got a good look at The Wanderer in the drug-and-adrenaline induced slo-mo.
The Wanderer wore a worn brown duster, like in those Wild West films. He even had the goofy hat those cowboys wore.
He had a handsome face, if only slightly so, while a glimpse of white hair showed under his hat, which in the odd sense of time the mind drunk on adrenaline acquires, The Wanderer looked no older than 19 years old. The shades he wore gave him an odd, inhuman appearance. But what sealed the deal, was the slasher smile. The Wanderer's face was set in the creepiest, widest smile he had ever seen, and Kit had the strange and unsettling feeling that he was smiling at him.
In his right hand was the Burner, as the other Raiders had called it. He had it in an upswing, and in the hypersense that one gets when one is in danger, he noted that the Wanderer's hand, the one holding the burner, had an oven mitten on.
It was hilarious to Kit, but somehow, his mind couldn't process the humor, and kept on grinding out terror.
Javin watched the Raider come to him at full tilt. He swung upwards, and caught the bastard right under his chin. His momentum pushed him further into the blade, and cut his head in half from the chin up. He stood aside as the body collapsed onto the ground, the split head oozing brains and blood in a red pool.
The whole ambush took a minute and a half.
Sid was screaming slightly less now, due to the fact that he was mostly out of blood, and felt rather faint.
He could hear footsteps coming to him, and after he saw Trish and Kit get cut apart like cheese, he had no intention of dying at The Wanderer's hands.
He tried to crawl away, and suddenly felt like someone shoved a stick into his blown up leg. He turned to look, and what do you know, there was a stick shoved up into his leg. And a few inches a away was the Wanderer, squatting down beside his left leg.
"Please man, I don't wanna die…"
The Wanderer's eyes, or rather his shades, gleamed malevolently.
"IF YOU DIDN'T WANT TO DIE THEN YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE BECOME A RAIDER."
And without warning grabbed another stick, and shoved it into the leg again, right next to the other one. Sid screamed in pain. The Wanderer then stood up, walked over to the end of the two stick, which were about as thick as half a man's wrist. He nudged his boot in between them, forcing them apart. Sid screamed till his vision was filled with red. He couldn't feel anything but pain anymore. His mind was filled with nothing but screaming.
"NOW, TELL ME WHERE YOUR BASE IS." said The Wanderer, pulling out his boot. The sticks had separated most of the muscles on Sid's leg from the bone, leaving a red stain on the bone.
Sid, half-mad with pain, managed to gibber incoherently.
"G-Gwuh…E-eve…Evergree…Mill…" drool dripped from his mouth as pain replaced any coherent thought, or verbal skills he had.
"GOOD, THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION." He then aimed a kick in between the sticks, and lodged his boot in between them.
Sid screamed till his voice grew hoarse, till the night was filled with his inhuman screams of pain, till The Wanderer pushed his boot in deeper, pulled out his Scoped .44 Magnum, and shot his head, sending bits of brain and Mohawk flying a few feet in all directions.
And The Wanderer smiled the whole time.
Another evildoer falls under the heel of Justice, Javin thought as a thin sliver of blood dripped from the corner of the raider's mouth. Scum such as him should not be permitted to walk this blighted earth. He had heard of like-minded fellows somewhere in the Wasteland, restoring order into these riotous lands.
He cut off the Raiders' fingers, and deposited them in a bag. The 3 Fingers joined the 16 other Fingers in his bag. Satisfied, The Wanderer shut his bag, and set off for East. He had passed the Potomac River before hand, and he was excited at the prospect of finding new lands to discover, new people to help…
More evildoers to kill.
The Wasteland will be safe for the innocent.