*crawls out of Endgame*

*is swallowed by Radiate*

Oh dear heavens. Another universe?

This is an old, dark, gritty, grungy, violent, blackly humorous AU OP fic I started writing ages ago. It's based off of OP and loosely off of the games Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics. Mutants, tribes, thugs, oversized bugs, undead ghouls, sexual deviance, abuse - all here, baby. The storyline has bitten me on the ass again, but be forewarned - this currently ranks lower than both Endgame stories. Even if it may be linked...

Children - leave now. I won't be held responsible for ripping your mind a new one.

Thanks, MadRabbit, for helping me remember this.

The hair on the back of Zoro's neck rose up in a wave, causing the tribal's mind to jump straight from sleep to wakefulness. He couldn't sense an enemy, but there was a serious sense of all is FUBAR in the atmosphere. He slowly adjusted his head, eyes only slightly ajar, and scanned the container.

Luffy's half-booted foot was hanging down from the bunk above, but he could tell a lot from the way it dangled. Its swing was regular, almost like a heartbeat, which meant two things: the crew's captain was awake, and he was thinking. Given the captain's infrequent forays into intellectual arts, Zoro took that dangling foot as further confirmation that he should pull his 3 nanoblades closer.

The smell of nicotine increased slightly, which was not good. The horny cook loved to smoke, but he hadn't been an ass about it. He never lit his cigs in the bed area, and he made sure his last cig of the day was never less than 10 minutes before he turned in. Judging from the mild increase in tobacco dust, Sanji had only taken out a cig to calm himself. Zoro could barely see the white paper across the room, dangling precariously from the blonde thug's lips.

'4 of 9 accounted for,' the green-haired man noted to himself as a small furry body twitched next to him. He changed position very slightly to allow Doc Chopper up. The mutated reindeer was whimpering subsonically; not audible to most people, but a tribal who talked to inanimate objects was definitely going to notice. That noise was probably what woke him up.

The mother truck was still rolling along the broken highway as smoothly as could be expected, which meant that Franky was still driving. The android mechanic did not need as much downtime as the rest of the crew, so he was always driving. And judging from the faint sounds of laughter, the bitch-thief and past-reconstructor were in the cab as well. Music from a ukelele was also audible, which meant that Brooke Bones the ghoul was riding shotgun.

'That makes 8, including me. So that means...'

Towards the far end of the men's sleeping area, where a bunk had been riveted high above the door to the women's quarters, the gang's sniper and priest, Sogeking, was talking to himself.

Or rather, to the damaged rad-mask in his hands.

[~~~]

Watching the scene was disturbing. While Zoro was not one to judge anyone who talked to inanimate objects - that would be a pot calling a kettle black - he was unnerved. The mask was reminder of the Far Past - hustory as Robin repeated many times when they annoyed her while she was busy. The rad-mask was supposed to be a salvation device for the humans who wore it during whatever calamity had tortured the world into its current, miserable shape.

Some good it did the skeleton it came off of.

The moonlight was streaming through the window in the clear wall of the container. The light played off of Sogeking's inky black ringlets, which were free for the first time in... It was not like Zoro to remember minor things like crew hairstyles, but he was disturbed to realize that it had been over a month since he'd seen those tangled dread-locs. Considering that long-nose's hair was his pride, Zoro knew something was seriously wrong for him to actually hide his mane.

One month.

One month since they'd saved Robin from the Brotherhood of Steel. One month since Sogeking had left the crew, after their small-line container, 'Going Merry', had hit rock bottom, busting her entire suspension. One month after they'd gutted her and buried her in a flooded ravine. One month since they'd had to acknowledge Sogeking's rantings about the small-line's soul. One month since Franky joined. One month since the damned fool idiot sniper ate one of his own bullets in an attempt to apologize for leaving them, even though he'd been there for Robin, for Franky, for all of them, in the clutch.

When Chop gave the word that the gunner'd survive, Luffy proceeded to go in and beat the shit out of him, then gave him Merry's horn and steering wheel.

Four days.

Four days since they finished off Ghoul City, napalm scorching their backs as they hauled ass; Sanji literally on fire and carrying an unconscious Nami in his arms; Doc Chop flat out bolting with his tribal brother on his back, using all six arms to hold on for dear life; Robin wearing Franky like full rad armor in order to get him moving, and Sogeking leading the way, that motherfucking creepy-assed mask cocked to one side of his covered head, Luffy piggy-backing and screaming laughter as their new ghoul friend (say that three times fast) flew above their head in a mess of body parts.

It took less than a day to send a being crazy in the world post-apocalypse. Ask Bellamy's bikers in New Vegas - the few that Don Doflamingo allowed Sarquiss to leave living. Ask the Vault-suit raiders - they were all lunatics passing as normal humans.

Not a soul went to sleep before Sogeking that night.

[~~~]

Luffy was a tribal from way, way, way, way, way, way, north-west. His great, great, great - you get the idea - grandfather, Red Shanks of New World Vault, came from far south, from what used to be Brazil up the coastline to Mexico, crossing east to west then heading up along the Rockies to where British Columbia used to be.

Now, Luffy was heading back.

His tribe - known as the D's to outsiders - had been wiped out by one of their own. Luffy only survived because he'd been on his manhood trials, deep underground in the rotting remains of a Vault sewer.

One day was all it took to lose everything.

An old woman who'd been the tribe's gardener - guess they would have called her a New Age hippie drug-dealer some decades before - died messily outside the sewers, but not before she used her own blood and sand to mark the name of the sinner across the bleached bones of the sewer depot.

MARSHALL D. TEACH

It really didn't hit Luffy until he caught Teach in the act of raping Rouge's dead body.

Rouge was his aunt - his mom was already six feet deep. Dragon was his dad. Dragon was already long gone and presumed roach food. He'd done his trials, bred up Luffy's mother, gone hunting, and never returned. His mother tried to pop him out when he was a bit underdone, but he got stuck, so she was the one who went pop.

Anyway, Rouge was his aunt, but he loved her like a mother because she was the mother of Ace.

Ace was a badass, known down the coastline for fucking up gangs with nothing more than a flaming strip of oiled cloth wrapped around his fist. Flame Fist they called him. See, the radiation made his skin real tough - the man was said to have tattooed himself with the foot-long stinger of a rad scorpion. And break it.

Flame Fist Ace had left the D. tribe three years before they were screwed up the pooch by Teach. Left his adoring kid brother/cousin/incestuous lover (to this day, no-one knew which was true) Luffy behind, told him to watch the tribe, and walked out into the desert with nothing but a loincloth, boots, and a ridiculous orange hat his mother made him wear.

Luffy had obviously screwed up. He certainly tried to fix it though.

One day was all it took to become a crazy sonofabitch capable of releasing latent mutant genes of stretchiness and insanity.

When Luffy had come to, Teach was gone, but the blood was thick enough to leave a trail. Hell, they say the fat fucker lost so much blood, the trail is still there.

Still, he was alive. Luffy buried Rouge and as many others as he could, then gave chase, his white manhood vest stained red over the ancient blue Vault suit from his illustrious ancestor.

[~~~]

Zoro found the man-boy hallucinating in the desert, loony from grief, thirst, and starvation.

The tribal had only been able to solve the thirst part at first - he didn't have much else on him but a nanoblade, a black headband and a kilt, seeing as how his tribe'd just exiled him.

Now, it wasn't the green hair that got him ejected - hell, it was a miracle he had hair at all. Not many in his tribe had that going for them.

Nor was it the six arms, three to each side. His tribe needed all available hands to work the piss-poor soil they were on.

It wasn't even the three heads, given that he could only operate one at a time, leaving the other two perched on his bull-like neck like wilting flowers.

No, Zoro got booted 'cause he told his pa that the hoe wanted to chop off his foot, 'cause it used to be a sword.

Green-freak could talk to inanimate objects - knives, scissors, guns, nanoblades; weapons, basically. It's pretty hard for a tribal to stay calm when his son is talking to the meager, blood-flecked weapon collection instead of people.

So out Zoro went, the first Roronoa - outcast - ever. Not like he cared; he already had enough company with his other two heads.

Yeah, apparently they weren't always asleep and he could use them all at the same time.

Anyway, Zoro found Luffy, Rozo (head number 2) located a watering cactus, and Orzo (the last head...ain't ya counting?) pointed out shelter. When the rad scorpions came out that night, he solved the hunger problem with his bare hands. He didn't even use all six.

Makes you wonder if it was the talking to knives that got him kicked out or the mutant strength.

Well, he wasn't actually kicked out. What happened was that the tribal leader sent the green-haired freak to look for his daughter - Kuina was her name - and her new husband; a snot-nosed brat named Helmeppo. Seems like no one had heard from the couple for nigh on a month since the wedding.

Except Zoro was hopelessly lost. Seems like it's real real hard to navigate with three heads.

Zoro eventually found out what happened. Found Kuina's corpse under a dune in a long stretch of radiation-eaten desert near her new tribe. Helmeppo wasn't anywhere to be found. The dowry money, fancy leather clothes, even the diamond splinter between the back teeth in her jaw were missing too. Only thing Kuina had on her, or rather, in her, was a white nanoblade, the tribe's treasure.

Remember how I said he could talk to weapons? Yep. He talked to the blade, then took it back to his tribal leader.

Two weeks later, he was exiled - with a different mission.

One month later, Helmeppo's tribe joined Kuina under the dune. Zoro kept the nanoblade.

[~~~]

Zoro and Luffy trudged through a dessicated basin to an island named Syrop - a blot of land surrounded by a marsh. They met Sogeking there, all alone, singing to the blonde corpse of a young woman.

Sogeking's tribe - the Long-Noses - had been riddled by some jacked-up plague. It was long on killing and short on hope. The only good thing about the disease? You could live with it for more than a year before it drowned you.

Sogeking's mother had the plague while pregnant. The tribal doctor said she'd been blessed by the ancestral spirit, Yasopp, who'd deigned to lay with her in her sleep and beget himself a son. He was born in the height of his mother's symptoms - the tribe even dug her grave when she went into labor. Some sort of fool luck made her plague dormant for four years while the witch-doctor and half the tribe died. Sogeking never got it, which made him an fringe member until his mother coughed up blood.

He was welcomed into the main tribe as one of many orphans.

He was a scrawny boy-man, fearless and sly with wicked aim. He led the orphans on daily scavenging forays, learning how to fix some of the broken machines they'd find along the way. He married a blonde girl named Kaya - her parents were the leaders of the tribe before they got stewed during a bad famine.

She had to admit, they were pretty tasty.

They watched over the numerous orphans as the adults dropped like flies. The brats believed that they were immune and lived life thusly - doing anything they pleased as their parents slipped from memory almost as quickly as they'd slipped from life.

Orphans aren't immune to bullets, though.

One night when Sogeking was out looking for mushrooms (Kaya's favorite), he slipped into a trance. He watched, helpless, as the Black Cat raiders attacked the tribe, Kaya leading the orphans with her butchering knives.

As soon as he awoke, he used his own latent mutation to speed back into town, but it was already too late. All he managed to do was kill the lesser riders before they could have their way with Kaya, then hold her in his lap as she bled out into the marsh.

He buried the others, but something kept him rooted to the area. He washed her corpse everyday and sang to it at night until Luffy and Zoro stumbled onto him. Luffy's hail was the first thing to move him from his spot next to Kaya. He cut off a lock of her golden tresses, braided it around a black loc, and fell in with the other men to reveal a rare treasure - a small-line container that he'd got working not long before the raiders came. It was full of food - they were supposed to leave with all the orphans that night.

Sogeking honked as Kaya waved goodbye.

[~~~]

Author says:

Next favorite genre: apocalypse survival films. Be very afraid...this is not the OP you knew.