"The beginning of a new era is the start of a new end"

Chapter 1: Wasteland Life

From the age of the day i was born I've been trapped in this vault... I'm 18 now and... I've never been outside... mainly because the overseer keep's us away from the door. All there is for us to do here is work, eat, sleep, play a little baseball, sleep and then work again... the boring lifestyle of the vault is starting to get to my head... I need to get out more... how ironic.

Shortly after I woke up that day I decided to get slowly dressed into my blue vault suit, slipping my legs in, getting my tail through the hole made just under the belt and finally my arms before taking a glance in the mirror. I brushed my cobalt hair and around my bright orange ears just to look good, then I headed to work in the regular fashion, a new day, a new start. If it had been any other day I would have been up and out the door in no less than 5 minutes but today took around 15, usually that's a sign of a bad day to me, but as I strolled out the door to the reactor level to see what was going on there wasn't a single problem I could possibly think of in the world. On the reactor level I usually work with my dad who tells me the gossip around the vault as there's no one to hear us. But that one day, that's when all this started. What he told me that day will never leave my memory.

"Ferox... I have to leave the vault."

"Dad, why? Is it something about how we live? You've heard the stories about the war, going out there would be suicide, that's if you make it out before being murdered by the overseer."

"Ferox, you don't see... I've been here all my life and if there's anything that could possibly be better than here it is out there."

"Dad... you're starting to scare me..."

"Ha, ha... Only joking kiddo..."

There was an awkward silence after that, then a report that the jukebox in the canteen had broken. After I had gone and fixed it, it was like nothing had been said. I don't think he ever understood what he had done, saying that to me, it was like he just shared every secret that he ever had even though I knew he hadn't. He broke every rule of the vault. I would ignore him but that night I couldn't sleep properly, it haunted my dreams.

The morning came again... another new day... the alarms were ringing... that very second I knew what had happened... I could see the security coming for me through the shutters on my bedroom window... I hid under the bed in an attempt for them to not find me. I heard the door open and my fear jumped throughout my body. I curled up and heard the head guard.

"He's not here; he must have gone with him."

After they had gone I made my way to the dresser and got into my vault suit as quickly as possible, grabbed my baseball bat and the BB gun my dad had given me for my 6th birthday and quickly but scarcely made my way to the door. I used every route I could to make my way to the vault door as quickly as possible avoiding all the guards in the way buy traveling through toilets and rooms. The fear was still rushing through my body as I reached it and there it was; open, like an artifact that had been disturbed from a sleep. All I could do now was to follow my dad... and leave...

Since that day, the brotherhood of steel has taken care of me... Paladin Zimmer found me on the way back from a mission, I was crying on the edge of trade route not too far from my vault hugging my knees. I remember, he held my shoulder and stroked my tail comforting me all the way back to the hidden valley bunker. Zimmer was yelled at after that, he broke conduct by bringing me here and I had to prove myself worthy of being a Paladin myself. After that news Zimmer trained me, he taught me to shoot, hide and survive in the wasteland until I was ready.

He was like my father... but he didn't leave me...

The day I went on the task to become a paladin, I knew I was ready. Zimmer showed me how ready I was. Holding the laser rifle in my hands I approached the first super mutant, my task; to stop transmissions from Black Mountain. I opened fire, missing 2 times but hitting in the head 4 other times. I searched his body for more ammo and continued on. At the top of the mountain was an antenna and a super mutant with a missile launcher and a, strange wig. This... thing must be the leader I thought to myself ducking behind a large boulder as it opens fire, a massive explosion lit the area where I had once stood, and the super mutant was persistent. I decided to stop following the road that it was shooting at and flank round the side, with the laser rifle in hand I hid behind the building right behind the super mutant and blasted a shot at the large head, if it were in slow motion it would have been gruesome, the laser entered the back of its head burning a hole through one side and out the other, blood sprayed over the white wig which now was a crimson red and the beast fell to its knees, then onto its chest dropping the missile launcher onto the ground I wandered to the body and the smell of burning flesh engulfed my nose as I bent to pick up the decorated launcher which I had thought was just a regular wasteland weapon but the sights, reloading mechanism and all other parts were all custom made and unique, for obvious reasons I kept it as a souvenir of my venture to Black Mountain, But that was that. I turned to my right and flipped the switch that powered the aerial, checked my pip-boy to find that all transitions had ceased before heading back home to Hidden Valley.

As I walked down that stairs I began to wonder what my life would be like. A rule of Hidden Valley is that all Brotherhood Paladins and Knights are to stay inside the bunker unless on a mission or patrol, but all I wanted is my own set of power armor even if we were running low on T-51 units, T45 would do. I walked into the Elders room and presented to him that I had completed my task, after a quick check on his terminal he looked at me and stood.

"Well done Paladin." He said.

My heart skipped a beat; I knew what he had just said. He presented a note and told me to take it to the armory and then to see Paladin Sato for training. As I walked out of the room I held the note to my chest and I could swear a tear came from my eye. I headed straight to the armory to pick up a recon suit and T45-B power armor then reported straight to Paladin Sato for training on how to use it. He explained some strange things like;

"Make sure you put the knee plates back on your armor properly after you maintain them. If you do not you willbreak your knees."

Wearing my own armor I felt like a god. Walking through the halls in my own fortress, but all my happiness ended prematurely. A Knight ran through the halls with a distressed look on his face, I took my helmet off and he immediately ran towards me.

"P-Paladin... It's Zimmer..." he said.

My face changed, this knights worry also transmitted onto me.

"What is it Knight Krettin?" I asked.

"He's been wounded..." he explained as his face went blank.

Without hesitation I ran to the medical room to see Zimmer being cut from his armor, blood pouring from where his arm had once been but now it was separated from his body resting upon the floor below him. My face drained and I ran to him and lifted him into my arms.

"Zimmer! Zimmer you fool, what happened?!" I cried as his eyes flickered, he had lost a lot of blood.

He put his hand on my cheek and pulled me towards his chest to a hug as the medical staff stopped cutting his armor. His final words...

"Ferox... 026 568..." after that, he was silent... I held him and shook him

"Zimmer! ZIMMER!?" the medical staff pulled me away from him, I fought back getting to his body.

"ZIMMER!?" I cried as I fell to my knees. He had gone... no longer anything I would do could save him... I put my hand on my shoulder where his head had once been and found there were tears... I raised my finger in front of my face, and there, what's left of him. I picked up his body and placed it back on the medical bed with his single arm crossed on his chest; I ran my hand across his face and closed his eyes before giving him a final salute.

"Goodbye, old friend..." I said before picking up his helmet and crying my way out of the treatment room and to my quarters where I sat and placed his helmet on my desk, I sat and looked into the eyes of his T-51D helmet, I could almost see him still inside. The calm glow of his eyes that had once helped me sleep at night, now gone to be a part of the chain-of-command. My father gone once again...

The Brotherhood of Steel hadn't been all that honest to me, turns out that Zimmer lost his arm fighting an Enclave tesla troop, or so the Knights had told me. I believe the Knights, because of their scouting ability and great eyesight. I had managed to persuade the Elder to let me out of the bunker to search for the guy that had killed him. The evidence was there. 026 568, those were the co-ordinates of where the troop was, and when I did check it out, it was a crashed Enclave vertibird that had attracted a lot of attention from ghouls and robots, there lying by it were two enclave hellfire troops but no sign of the reported tesla soldier that was my target, not so much for anything but vengeance. In my mind, that asshole needed to die. Digging through the wreck I found the navigation computer, the start for finding this guy and pushing the wraith of steel into his petty mind. The navigation computer showed a location called "Raven Rock" so I guessed that this is where they were headed before the crash which means they would have attempted to continue getting there, so far east they would have needed a new vertibird because it showed that this place was near D.C. but currently the Brotherhood didn't have any of them due to their high tech capability and rarity in the Mojave, the only place they would be found would be in the hands of the Enclave or the sand beneath your feet. Either that or some wasteland asshole has used one to build their own "special fortress" of the scrap parts that could have still been used. The wasteland is falling apart and now there's nothing the Brotherhood can do except keep them from killing each other with super weapons of the past. The Enclave are similar to the Brotherhood in a way; collecting high tech pre- war technology and removing it from the wastelander's, except the Enclave use it against them. That's there only problem. Apart from them being sadistic asshole's that is.

Back at the base I looked into the details on Raven Rock. It showed it as some kind of command center for the Enclave. Proving what I had feared, this Enclave base was too crowded, and the D.C. Brotherhood still can't get there super weapon, Liberty Prime working. Invading this place would be like stealing food from a pack of wolves. Thinking about this again I thought where I could find a vertibird and started searching the Brotherhood records for Enclave bases in the Mojave area. The only one I could find was an old remnant bunker from the old days. Since then, we learn't to hack there technology that old and could break anything from a hand scanner to a voice lock. I would travel there soon, and be one step closer to my revenge. Looking to my right, I stared into Zimmer's helmet. "I will have my revenge for you... father..." I had said, before standing and walking through the door of my quarters.

The remnant bunker was dark, it started as a corridor with a voice lock, and as I had said we learn't to hack these now. Playing with the wires underneath, memories came back. The times with me and Zimmer were haunting and painful but breaking through the thoughts I got through the lock. Travelling down the steps, it was almost like echoes of the past filled the place, voices of the old Enclave could be heard like whispers in the wind. The blue lights still worked. As I opened the final door, there it was; large, still in its perfect condition on the outside and as I worked my way it, the same could be said for the inside, this beautiful vertibird. Searching around I had found some of the old tech that once belonged to the old enclave members that were once here. Once i had finished searching around i began loading the vertibird full of containers and lockers full of tech that the brotherhood could experiment on, my intention was to bring it back and let the brotherhood experiment on it, see how it works. Stepping into the cockpit there was the sudden realization that one, I'm in a Enclave vertibird so that means getting to the brotherhood without being shot might be hard and that I've only done VR training in vertibird's; It all looks the same though.

"come in, come in. Brotherhood outpost 24, this is vertibird tail number 34RT9 requesting landing."

"are you crazy? That's Enclave tech! What is your reason for flying in our airspace?!"

"to return tech you can experiment on. I request you let me talk to Knight Krettin."

"arg! Damn it!" the controller had said.

"Uh.. Hello?.. I heard I was requested.."

"Yes Krettin, its Paladin Ferox. I need you to get me onto the landing pad. Can you do that Knight?"

"Y-yes Paladin."

Soon after that brief convocation, the landing pad had emerged from the sand and I set the vertibird down onto it nicely. it decended into the bunker below and the doors above closed. Stepping out, there was the Elder.

"What do you think you're doing?! Bringing enclave tech here, I should have you killed by firing squad!"

"Elder, please let me apologize, but I do request that the scribes salvage the cargo I have also brought. The experiments on these items could bring the brotherhood here to power again, and could very well increase the defence we have."

As I opened the cargo hold the tech, armour, weapons, trunks and lockers fell out as the scribes ran to it like ants taking each something they could work on.

"Ferox, next time, please let me know more of what you're doing! We don't let random people come in here for no reason and we don't put our family in jepordy!"

The Elder let out a sigh, closed his eyes then turned his back and walked away.

"Knight Krettin, can I get you to do something for me?"

"yes Paladin, what is it?"

"I would like you to customize this vertibird. Make it Brotherhood. Make it mine."

"Yes Paladin."

He ran off, I can suspect it was to get paint.

After the scribes had dug through all the storage on the vertibird and mercilessly picked out the tech that they had wanted leaving nothing but a bare carcass of a vertibird, still airworthy, but almost empty compared to what it was I decided to make it my new home. I mean, I'm out a lot, I love flying, there's a lot of storage space, so what would a bed, desk and weapon cupboard bolted to the fuselage do, right?

The vertibird was customised to my expectations, similar to my armour. It looked just like the outcast's, except they were red. i replaced that red and used a deep blue. Soon after examining the exterior I began to dig through the rest of the bird's interior looking for trackers, flight data, hidden locations or anything that could be helpful or as it would seem, unhelpful. so far, a squad of Paladin's had already been sent to the location I had retrieved the bird from to try and locate any data I had left behind. I found one thing on the flight data of the crashed vertibird, there seemed to be a place that was programmed in that the western brotherhood had never heard of. "Raven Rock" in the Washington D.C. area. there were a group of brotherhood there commanded by Elder Lyons that we had lost contact with earlier in the year but never had the man power or supplies to send re-enforcements or scouts, I guess now was the time.

As the paint carelessly dried over the bird, I sat aside thinking of Zimmer in the medical bay.

"Zimmer... so careless..."

looking up, there was Krettin. his face and his scout armour covered in blue paint, with the brush in one hand and the pot in the other. we both laughed and continued what we were doing.

as the night drew near I began to think of what i would do the next day. as I laid on the bed inside my bird, I planed what my next step would be. first I would make my way to the citadel where Lyons Brotherhood once were then to raven rock.

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So! that was the next part. possibly not too exiting, but we have a way to go! give me ideas!

"hey, why are you interrupting my story?.."

stop breaking the forth wall Ferox, shut up.

"-_-*"

.-. we love you really. don't aim that gauss rifle at my face.

"hey, the paint is finished drying Ferox!"

"shut up Krettin"

Shut up Krettin!

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