Fallout does not belong to me, though I really wish it did! Only Elise, my personal version of the female Courier is my property, along with her father, Ranger Danley. This prologue chapter has no description of Elise due to the simple fact that, honestly, it was the last thing on my mind when I wrote this up on paper, and since she's only a child right now, it doesn't matter much since that isn't what you will read about. There will naturally be constant revision as the readers review. Anyways, I hope all you good people enjoy my story, and I plan to transcribe the second chapter soon!

January 10, 2274
Outside Legion Exploratory Camp, East of Novac
0800 Hours, Pacific Standard Time

"Alright Elise, you've shot this thing before, so you know it kicks like a mule. Now then, make sure the bi-pod's set securely. Atta girl... Now then, today, we're going to take down a whole troop of Caesar's Legionnaires. Are you ready dear?" The voice of an older man, who one could assume was well into his forties, spoke. His face was masked by a dark, thick beard, and his dark eyes were hidden behind the bangs of ragged long hair. As he continued instructing his daughter, his voice remained hushed as he peered through a spotter's scope at a camp full of Caesar's men.

"Daddy, are you sure I can do this?" The young girl lying on her belly asked, looking over the ridge where they held a position, her gaze through the scope of an Anti-Materiel Rifle settled upon the same camp her father was spotting.

"I'm sure Elise. Now, before we get started and the others get in position, where do you aim in this situation?"The man asked, his voice remaining as quiet as possible.

"When shooting at extreme distances, aim for the center of mass, because, while a head-shot is preferred due to more certain results, if it is beyond the capability of the shooter, a shot through the chest with most sniper rounds will cause a kill. Almost as certainly as a head-shot would." Elise answered.

"Perfect response, baby." Her father replied, marking a few notes down on a pad as he took more measurements. "Alright, now that we're set up, if everything's as we scouted out, they should be coming out right about... Now." He said, passing the note off to his daughter. "Adjust to those variables and your shots should be good. The team should be in place now, so whenever you're ready, take a shot, and the attack will begin."

The man couldn't contain his prideful grin as his daughter twisted the dials of her scope, then shouldered her rifle and aimed again. "Got one sighted?" He asked, to which she responded with a quick nod. "Alright, remember, bottom of the exhale, squeeze, don't pull." He reminded her.

Elise could feel the adrenaline surging in her body, steadying her hands, but rattling her nerves. As she let loose one long breath, her eyes widened as her finger closed firmly around the trigger, causing the large rifle to roar, kicking back hard into her shoulder despite however prepared she might be. Her father gave a congratulatory remark as he watched the body of a Legionnaire collapse, a sizable portion of his chest missing, along with an arm.

Soon after her first shot, the other members of their team, a sniper who was about to join the NCR Military by the name of Boone, along with his friend, Manny, joined in with shots of their own. Soon, between the two sniper teams, the whole camp was dead, seven bodies littering the ground.

"Wait... Seven? Weren't their eight?" Elise's father asked. As if on cue, a cry sounded from behind them, and as Elise and her father turned, a machete went clean through her left eye, splitting it down the middle and leaving a grievous wound that leaked blood, fluid, and chips of bone, showing white beneath her skin.

Shrieking in pain, Elise brought her hands up to her now useless eye and began backing away as the Legionnaire advanced on her, swinging his machete diagonally, leaving a bloody swatch across her body before the lone Explorer tackled her, causing them both to go tumbling over the ridge where Elise had killed his comrades. Rolling downhill towards the camp, leaving sand trailing in clouds behind them, they struggled against each other, the Legionnaire at an obvious advantage.

Eventually, the Legionnaire, now without his machete, got a good hold of Elise's neck, and was so focused on the single-minded task of strangling the life out of this little murderer that he was unaware of the angry father sliding down the ridge behind him. As he closed the distance between them, Elise's father raised his Sequoia, took aim, and pulled the trigger, the loud revolver kicking up high, but the bullet flying true, exploding the Legionnaire's head into pieces, and the body falling onto his daughter, bathing her in blood from the now headless body.

As he walked over and turned the body over and off of his daughter, he caught site of a combat knife sticking out of the Explorer's chest. As he holstered his revolver, Elise's father couldn't help but give a grin of pride in his daughter, who returned his smile with her own, severely weakened grin. She had helped eliminate a threat to their pleasant home of Novac, and she couldn't have been prouder than she was now. However, as she struggled to her feet, she realized exactly what eliminating a threat meant as she saw the disgusting aftermath of the battle in front of her and lost what little she'd eaten for breakfast.

Despite pride, Elise had every right to get sick over such a deed. Especially when she wound up covered in the blood of the last target.

Her father sighed. "Just make sure this is the last time you get so squeamish about killing. The Legion aren't even people. They'd do the same or worse to you." He informed her. "Now come on, let's get back to Novac and clean you up."

"I-I... I did good, right? Daddy?" Elise asked her father, her little voice trembling as her knees wobbled, her weak smile still painting her little face, before she dropped to the ground, losing all consciousness.

"Yeah, you did good babe. Now let's get home." Her dad said, scooping her up as the other sniper pair came down their hillside to meet him. The duo immediately gave him a syringe of Med-X, which he injected into his daughter.

It wasn't a long hike to Novac, but with a little girl who was being regularly pumped with so much Med-X it was dripping from her ears in tow, it took a little longer than usual. It was nightfall before the group could even see Dinky the Dino, but once they did, whoever had been stationed for the night-watch raised some kind of alarm, and soon, the kind people of Novac were about them, Doc Ada, who stopped by often, having one of her guards take Elise so she could patch the little girl up.

Ranger Andy, who had been retired for some time, limped over to his NCR colleagues. "What the hell happened Danley! I thought you said it would be nothing serious!" He shouted angrilly.

"It wasn't." The young sniper, Boone, said, defending the other Ranger who had "brought his daughter to work".

"Yeah, I think she's got what it takes." Danley said happily.

"What the hell did you just say, Ranger?" Andy growled.

"My little Elise just helped Boone and Manny here eliminate a camp of Legionnaires! She even got the last one in hand-to-hand!" Danley exclaimed proudly, almost laughing.

"She does have a hell of a shot, but I doubt the validity of that hand-to-hand kill." Manny said.

These remarks earned Danley a fierce punch to the face, and the whole group an angry lecture. Andy was disgusted by such disregard for a child's life. "She's just a little girl! You're living in a safe community you idiot, let her be a child!" Andy cried in anger and frustration at such stupidity, his teeth bared in an expression of primal anger.

Danley was somewhat sobered by Andy's response, but he still didn't agree with his view. "Look, things may be better here, but it's still a far-cry from the world we've read about. It's still a wasteland, she still needs to know how to survive. And I honestly think she could be First Recon, or a Ranger, maybe better." Danley said, voice more rational, but still full of hidden pride. "Anyways, my daughter's hurt, and if you don't mind, I'd like to get cleaned up so I can visit her." Danley finished, leaving Andy to walk to his own apartment.

Only a few minutes were required for Danley to wash what little grime had accumulated from his body, and after doing so, he was on his way to Doc Straus's tent to see Elise. Immediately, Straus was out to scold Danley for endangering his daughter's life, but she relented after a few minutes, and the klutz of a doctor allowed Danley to see his daughter. When he entered the tent, he immediately found a chair and sat next to his daughter.

Her little body was lying shirtless on a bed, her torso wrapped completely, a red oval staining the white bandages, the only evidence of her chest injury. Her eye was likewise covered, leaving only a portion of her pretty young face visible.

As he looked over her, Danley felt his chest swell up with pride as he took a deep inhale. She had made him so proud today. Manny could doubt her prowess in hand-to-hand, but he knew his little girl had gotten that last kill. As he thought of how proud she made him, other thoughts entered his head. "She's just a girl... Maybe so, but I've seen plenty of tough tricks at the Strip..." Danley muttered out loud. As the lecture Andy gave started to sink deeper in, Danley was suddenly aware of a rasping sound as Elise's body tensed up, soft cries leaving her throat as her current dosage of Med-X wore off. Loud moans of pain turned to shrieks of agony as Elise's body moved, as if trying to find someway to alleviate the pain in her eye and body. Doc Straus rushed over quickly with a new syringe full of the popular painkiller, which was quickly jabbed into Elise's body and emptied there, bringing an almost instant soothing effect to the girl.

As Danley watched his daughter's body go from tensed in pain and agony to lax from a medically induced, nearly comatose state, he felt not pride, but shame. How could he have done this to his little girl, the last thing he had to remember Anya by? Sure, these little tests of skill and her ability to survive were always adding years to her life, but what if she had failed just one of those? He'd never allowed her to have room for failure. If she had failed... If she had failed, she'd be dead. And what would she have then? The life he was trying to give her would've been ultimately taken by his own hands.

That's when he decided to stop shaping his daughter into his successor as an NCR Ranger. She was too young to understand what being a ranger truly meant. He could easilly change her, or at least, influence her to be a courier instead. There couldn't be much danger in package delivery, right?

Oh Daddy, if only you were right...

Were the last thoughts in Elise's head, before they were replaced effectively by a nine-millimeter bullet seven years later.