He had been on patrol all day, and nothing had happened that had caught his attention yet. It was rather unusual, really; the Commonwealth had a host of raiders, Gunners, Super Mutants, and feral ghouls, just to name a few of the many dangers that roamed the wasteland. He would often see a pack of ferals this far North, and he used the opportunity to get in some target practice. It was quiet, and he felt like he was being watched. He pushed the feeling aside, as he would have already detected any observers in the area. Ten minutes later, he decided to head back, when he heard it; the staccato rhythm of gunfire. He determined it was coming from the North, and he rushed in the direction of the possible firefight. He clambered through the ruins of a lone house, and paused at the door, taking in the threats. Several raiders had surrounded a car turned on its side and against a cliff and were firing on it with their assortment of firearms. He did not want to assume they were using such an object for practice, so he waited for a few seconds.
He froze when he saw a hand armed with a 10mm pistol reach over to take a few potshots before returning to cover. What stopped him was not the weapon, but the material around the arm; a Vault-Suit, a piece of apparel worn by dwellers in Vaults, the last bastion against the atomic bombs which fell nearly three hundred years before. He secured his lever-action rifle in the holster strapped between himself and his backpack, and pulled out his .44 revolver, passed down from father-to-son over the last three generations. He saw five raiders, but assumed there were more, so the pistol's larger capacity and better maneuverability would be better suited for this situation. He then readied another cartridge of rounds to reload, just in case. He moved from the cover, and raised the weapon, bracing for the first shot. He pulled the trigger and the first round burst forth from the barrel with thunder, striking the first raider in the back of the head, spewing his brains out through the new hole where his forehead used to be. He turned a few degrees and released the next deadly round, through the base of the skull of the raider. Her body dropped like a sack of rocks, and the rest of the raiders realized what had happened. They turned their fire on him, but he had vanished. The leader barked out, "What? Where'd he go? Find that fucker!" The remaining raiders spread out, searching the bushes and piles of rubble nearby. A whistle sounded from behind them. They whipped around to see a figure appear from thin air, the area surrounding him distorting. He was standing on the cliff, a dark brown duster draped around his form. "See you in hell, bastards," were the last words they heard, as a round from his revolver found a place embedded in each of their heads.
With the immediate threat removed and no more raiders in the area, he slid down the cliff, leaning back and using his arm as support. He quickly reloaded his pistol and called out, "Anyone still alive back there? I'm here to help." He watched as the 10mm pistol armed hand slowly extricated itself from the cover, pointed in his direction. He remained still and waited for them to reveal themselves, as he knew they eventually would. After a few seconds, a head appeared from behind the car. It was a middle-aged man, in his early forties with dark blonde hair loosely falling down halfway to his shoulders. He spoke from his relative shelter, "What's your name, kid?"
"Give me yours first, so that I may know whether to aid or kill you. The wastelands are too dangerous to trust anyone and I don't trust anyone who wears a Vault-Suit. So give me a reply quickly or you will suffer the same fate as these raiders."
"Okay, okay! I've got family here, so please don't shoot!" He lowered his pistol and stood up, hands in the air.
"If you've got family, have them stand, as well."
The man whispered behind the car, "Get up, everyone. We need this guy's trust."
He stood up and said, "My name is Mark, my wife is Rachel. My twin son and daughter are Samuel and Caroline. Please don't hurt them, they're only nineteen."
"The wastes are cruel. It does not care one's age to take the ones you care about from you. However, I am here to help you hold on to them for as long as possible. You may call me Corvus."
"All right, Corvus, you know our names. Now please let us go."
"What Vault are you from?"
"Why should you want to know?"
"Just tell me. What Vault?" His gloved grip tightened around his revolver, awaiting a correct reply.
"Vault 89."
He froze, his grip loosening and nearly dropping his sidearm. "Very well. What are your reasons for leaving the Vault and your intentions upon entering the Commonwealth?"
Mark answered back, "We left the Vault because they were cruel to all visitors, capturing them and taking their possessions, then ransoming them back to their family. We stood up to them, so they gave us a choice: we could either leave and never return, or be murdered. We had heard of Diamond City in the Vault, so we decided to head there to find a settlement to start over."
"Well, with your start, you wouldn't last a day, so I can escort you there and you can decide what to do next."
"Wait, you were just threatening to kill us, now you're offering to help us? What's wrong with you?"
"Out here in the wastes, there's only one rule, and you can follow it any way you see fit. Survive. That's it. Any way you can survive, whether by theft, murder, or farming, it doesn't matter."
"All right. Well, then, Corvus, since you're our guide, could you please teach us to defend ourselves on the road to Diamond City?"
"You have a deal. Welcome to the Commonwealth," he said with a warm smile.
