Author's Note: Hello there readers! I'm submitting this just to help myself get back in the swing of things; Hope you enjoy!
It was after the incident, after he had watched his father die; he trudged one up after the express lessons by Gunny from the tunnels.
The wanderer remembered those tepid, dank tunnels. The smell and the memories still lingered with him – fear, hopelessness, dispair...
The anger – at himself, at Them, at his father's death – that built in him. He can remember the sick grin he felt himself sport as he slipped on the helmet that matched his newly acquired armor. It had felt as if he was wearing the skull of his enemy.
Enemy; the concept seemed almost foreign to him. Sure, he had managed to fight himself across the Wasteland, but many times more had he befriended his way through his problems. The raiders, the Super Mutants, and even the slavers had seemed too inhumane to consider true enemies rather than hazards to simply avoid when possible. The idea that there was a group of people out there – real people – that could be so vile and corrupt and misleading made something in his heart collapse into a hard lump, and he knew that something real had changed within himself the day his father died.
As he cinched down the final clasps he could feel the righteous fury that surged through him as he put that first suit of Theirs to his use. The wanderer from Vault 101 had a new drive now, the one that began in the memorial as they fled from the overrun Project Purity. It seemed morbidly humorous as he remembered something from all those Grognak comics he read as a kid; warriors who gained strength from eating the hearts of their enemies. Technically, the power armor was an exoskeleton after all...
So when Sarah Lyons came over congratulating him on becoming a part of the Lyons' Pride and offered him a suit of his choosing, he knew just the answer to give:
"No thanks – I like the one I'm wearing."
After all, he was only half done with the Enclave.
Thanks for reading! I know there's probably stuff up there that I could've done better, so constructive critique would be much welcomed.
sos23
