Ruby knelt and disassembled her combat shotgun. Then carefully laid out all the components on her outstretched jacket on the ground. The exploded formation made for faster reassembly during the nightly ritual. The last time she handled a firearm was back in her long forgotten teens, but waking up alone in a tin can with giant cockroaches brought it all back in an instant. Now a week later, each day of shooting tightened her grip and sharpened her eye. And each night of maintenance brought her closer to mastery. Assessing all the moving parts of her firearms brought a strange catharsis along with assuring that come morning, no grit or rust would cause a malfunction and a subsequent risk of death or maiming.
She got out the vodka, poured some into it's lid and set it down gently next to the unrolled bundle of small tools. She removed and unfolded her bandana. There was plenty of coagulating blood to wipe away from the otherwise flat black barrel and properly oiled cartridge assembly. She was proud of the addition of that six inch bayonet – it kept her alive when the shotguns' rate of fire couldn't keep up with a mob of radioactive zombies throwing themselves at her. Though today she had been thrusting it into the necks of hulking mutants. The barrel had run so hot that the spattered red had baked on, just like that runny canned marinara sauce on that stainless steel tray back when she used to do lasagna night. She found herself missing lasagna night and tried not to betray any tremble in her chin to the super mutant. Thank god for the brim on her army cap. She only had to scratch her nose in order to hide her effort in keeping her face straight.

"What is human doing?" Said super mutant eyed her work while chomping and slurping away at a mangled carcass in the firelight.
"What's that?" Ruby looked up, still wearing her mirrored aviators even though it was pitch black just outside their campsite. She couldn't see too far, but they helped to mask her deep discomfort with his size, his ugly habits, his godawful smell, his very presence in her space.
He was humanoid, in almost every way looking like a muscular man, but grotesquely proportioned. His broad and knobby jointed frame was so massive that he wore the rusted panels of long dead automobiles for armor. His oily green skin was thick like an elephant's, and from head to toe pockmarked with old scars and embedded bits of shrapnel. He must have been eight feet tall, nine if he stood up straight. Squatting on the ground as he was, he still dwarfed her kneeling figure by almost three times. Some of the others in this old skyscraper had more complete armor and adorned themselves with human trophies. This one's minimal dressing was presumably the result of his position at the bottom of their totem pole.
"Gun broken. Why human do that?" He disapprovingly gestured at her work with one of those lanky thick as tree trunk arms. In contrast to the ear splitting shouts and booming hollers that his kind was capable of, this calmer almost sleepy voice merely had a penetrating bass that she could feel in her chest. The rest still carried the distinct tone of a snarl. Same as the permanent scowl on his face.

"It's not broken, Strong." Ruby didn't yell even though she wanted to. "I just took it apart to fix it."

"Waste of time. Now time for resting." Strong scoffed and went back to tearing off mouthfuls of dripping flesh and sucking them down in large gulps. "Just take new one from enemies later."

"What if there isn't another one?" Ruby went back to her work, resigned to him already having an answer for that too.

"Strong use hands to kill enemies. Sometimes teeth. Stupid human." He paused to swallow, but there it was.

"That's fine for a big guy like you, but I'm barely average strength for a human. If I make one mistake out here, I DIE." Ruby smirked facetiously, having been called a giraffe many times in her youth. Then one last time when she got her first job as a prosecutor. She took a little snippet off a wire coat hanger and used it to pick bits of grit out of the cartridge chamber.

"Eat more, make human stronger." Strong lazily tore a kidney from the corpse in his hands and offered it too her, his sullen gaze and perma-scowl unchanged. It was hard for her to imagine any kind of thought process behind that face. It looked as though someone had started out a clay sculpture of a normal human head, but then slapped a couple extra handfuls clay about the face and neck and then rendered it with their knuckles.

"Thanks, I'll eat once I'm finished here." Ruby forced a smile and put a hand up, but didn't want to even touch that days old human kidney. It wasn't that she wasn't hungry – she was starving in fact. The sloppy, steaming blood on his greasy maw and blackened teeth didn't bother her too much either. It was that permeating stench that came off of Strong that got her gag reflex all a flutter. It had been getting her since she arrived that afternoon; a foul musk layered with caked and rotting filth. Moreover, whenever he opened his mouth she always got a whiff of his rancid breath. The campfire made out of burning trash somehow was making it bearable. Following Rex's distress call, she could smell this place long before she saw those twisted metal girders and the human remains on spikes rotting in the open air. It was like something out of Gragnok the Barbarian or some shit. At least with feral ghouls, her nose and mouth were too distracted by that gritty, metallic cloud of radioactive dust that always came off of them. It wouldn't have surprised her one bit if she found out later on that a bite from a super mutant would cause some kind of horrendous flesh rotting infection. However, just being too close to feral ghouls was guaranteed to melt her cells whether they were attacking or not.

Strong obliviously shrugged, plopped the kidney on the ground between them and went back to his meal; an unwashed young woman, stripped of the flesh from her neck down to her hips. Arms and head dangling with gaping mouth and sunken glassy eyes. He had taken her down from a hook hanging from the lobby's ceiling and it looked like she'd been there for a day or two. This place was heavily littered with human and animal corpses in various states of dismemberment and decay; an indication to most sane people that entering the tower was a terrible mistake. They all probably responded to Rex's inexplicably compelling call and were ambushed, butchered and left hanging for future consumption. Perhaps making humans give into blind terror was their best hope of slowing them down, though today's experiences indicated that they never thought that far in advance.

Strong's careless rending of his victim's leg from its socket reminded Ruby that he merely tolerated her as a means to an end. If she hadn't survived the others; if she hadn't been so lucky after huffing all that jet and successfully picked them off one by one, he and his brothers would be eating her right now instead.

She took a glance to her side just to make sure Dogmeat was still there and he was; curled up on the ground, his head shooting up and his ears pointing to her like a pair of satellite dishes. His ability to rest around this prehistoric carnivore was either admirably brave or woefully naive. If Strong tried to eat this precious animal even once Ruby wouldn't hesitate to blow his fucking hands off.

"Sometimes Strong use club too." Strong broke the silence and startled her but she didn't look up, certain that any indication of fear would be met with immediate predation. Dog meat looked and wagged his tail timidly.

"Kay..." Ruby finally looked up at him and saw that he wasn't looking at her at all, but rather off in the distance somewhere as though he were immersed in thought.

"Thanks for sharing?"

"Welcome."


Rex Goodman, that damned radio personality that got her into this was a real piece of work. He braved this monster infested town, completely unarmed, on a foolhardy quest to civilize fucking carnivorous mutants by reading to them from Shakespeare. It made her think of the infinite monkeys on typewriters theorem. But she had to admit that even changing the outlook of one super mutant was a certain measure of success, the profoundness of which could not be denied. He struck her as the kind of guy that would talk his way into Fort Knox, have all the gold handed to him, and then get robbed at gunpoint on the way to the hospital where he was going to pay for a stranger's operation. She wasn't quite sure how she felt about that guy, but she couldn't deny feeling akin to him. She, after all, had gone out of her way from the frantic search for her newborn son and embarked on a suicidal rescue just because of the sound of his voice on the goddamned radio. And survived. Upon realizing the hair's breadth by which he had been saved, and trying to preserve his own dignity, he regally presented her with an elegant sequin dress and a super mutant barking at her about finding the 'milk of human kindness' like he couldn't tell two people apart. The dress was nice, but frankly useless to her, and Strong's companionship felt more like Rex had tricked her into signing up for full custody of his illegitimate special needs son.

Within moments of stepping out into the street from that tower, the early light of dawn lit up the big green ape's back and a caravan was shooting at them.

"Gaaah! Gonna spatter your brains!" Strong took a couple bullets in his back, responding sluggishly to the pain as though he only got stung by bees. He spun around and ran at them head on, popping that cruddy old hunting rifle as awkwardly as one would expect with his oversized fingers. He first gunned down the guy that shot him and in the process hit their pack brahmin in the neck. The animal spooked and started to run, only to have it's huge ungainly load tip over and bring it down onto it's side. Dogmeat rocketed out with Strong and tore into a woman's arm as she fired a sawed-off at the green monstrosity overtaking her group.

"No! Stop!" Ruby tried to pacify the situation, but Strong had already used his weapon to violently whip that woman out of Dogmeat's jaws and into a nearby building. Her body made a sickening crunch upon impact and she fell to the ground in a heap. The others frantically kept shooting, their tragically small caliber bullets getting little more reaction from him than a sharp grunt. Then the white haired old man driving the wounded brahmin wielded a gleaming revolver and hit Strong right in the side of his head, finally knocking him back. But to his shock, Strong shouted in pain and only stumbled. He shook his head and his good eye soon locked onto his attacker, wide as a red marble in his fury. The old timer's thin wispy body probably had no hope of escape, so he quietly aimed that revolver again and was ripped in half at the exact moment of taking another shot.

Ruby stood helplessly and watched, she was not in danger so long as Strong was taking all the fire, but she couldn't move. She watched in horror as Strong, now bleeding profusely from his neck, threw the pieces of the old man aside and turned toward his next target.

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" The muscular middle aged woman in heavy leather armor fired one more slug into Strong's chest before he reached out and grabbed her by the neck. She flailed fervently, kicking hard and still squeezing the trigger. One shot hit Strong in the foot and another in his thigh as he yanked her up and chomped down hard on her screaming face.

"JUST FUCKING DIE!" the last caravaneer, a lanky and hairless young man in leathers came up behind him and slammed a bladed baseball bat into his side. He instantly dropped the dead woman before he could chew with a yell. Dogmeat leaped up and tore into the man's elbow. He shouted in pain and the struggle ripped the jagged weapon from Strong's flesh.

"Stop hurting Strong!" Strong recovered and grabbed an arm, yanked the man up, and twisted him like a rope while he screamed in pain and terror. He shoved two fingers into the man's mouth and tore the lower jaw right off of his face. The man's agonized screams burned into Ruby's ears as he slowly drowned in his own blood. "Look at me as you die!" Strong glared at him until he finally went limp.

Once satisfied, Strong was bored again and noticed that Dogmeat was still dangling from his kill, playfully growling and tugging like the dumb dog he was. He lifted the corpse upward and Dogmeat held fast even as his back legs left the ground far behind.

"Dog good at biting. Strong impressed!" Strong pointed and turned back to Ruby, who stood stiff as a statue with her trembling hands rattling her shotgun. He blinked his good eye at her with confusion. "What is it human?"

"Oh - Nothing." She realized that her weapon was pointed at him and she lowered it.

"Feh." Strong frowned tiredly and dropped the body. Dogmeat landed with a yelp, but got up from the fall unharmed. Meanwhile Strong helped himself to the piled multitude of crates and barrels on the pack brahmin, which was still floundering on the ground in it's final throws. He laughed at it. The hairs on the back of Ruby's neck stood up and her face started to run hot with anger.

"That's enough!" She stomped up and put a slug in the poor beast's forehead. Once the first head was dropped, she realized that she had to double tap because the other head spooked. She turned back to Strong, who was now tossing away clothing, chemicals, a desk fan and a telephone with increasingly angered grumbles. Then he found a big metal box and shook it. Evidently by the sound of clattering metal it was the ammunition stash. Without any hesitation he brought the whole thing over to Ruby.
"Dead not need. We take!"

Ruby barely had enough time to shoulder her shotgun before he dropped it right into her arms. The metal box landed heavily and it's awkward size made for a clumsy catch. Her struggle knocked her shades down and she stood there staring at him in surprise. Strong was already ignoring her and back to digging through the rest of the loot. Ruby one-armed the ammo box and pushed her glasses back up. She watched him carelessly rip containers free and tear them open one by one. Then she put the ammo box down with haste, knowing better than to look a gift horse in the mouth. She knelt to open it. It was locked. No wonder these people put up such a piss poor fight.

She quietly rose and approached the scattered remains of the caravan. She kept her eyes on Strong, only glancing down to check for keys on the bodies. He found a sack full of tatos and greedily stuffed a handful in his mouth before setting the rest down and dumping open a rug filled with unloaded firearms. Ruby finally found a ring of keys on the big woman's belt, but on the way back she saw the multitude of discarded necessities scattered among the corpses. She unconsciously helped herself to the duffle bag filled with medicine, those clean socks, the cast iron frying pan, and the sleeping bag. Then finally, she saw the 44 magnum revolver still clenched in the old man's hand. She pried it free and then stepped over to work the heavy leather gun belt off his lower half. She donned that belt and started taking the mismatched armor off the others, checking each piece for size.

"Leave human junk! Not need!" Strong looked up from the collection of long barreled firearms.

"It's not junk to me, Strong!" Ruby jumped at the sound of his voice and used it to shout back at him. Strong genuinely looked a little suprised at her reaction to him. "Like you'd know the difference anyway!" she blew him off and finished stripping the jaw-less man of his road leathers. Strong found another metal lock box and shook it. It also made that tumbling metal racket, but it was slightly different than the previous. He tried to pry it open with his fingers, which kept slipping off the seam of the lid. After a few tries, Strong spiked the whole thing down hard with an angry grunt, denting a corner and the pavement, but failed to break it open. Huffing furiously he grabbed a chunk of concrete off the ground and started hitting it repeatedly until Ruby slyly spoke up.

"Hold up, I've got an idea." She smirked.

"What is idea, human?" Strong moved aside with frustration as she approached with her head held high.

"I think this thing might work." She showed him the keys around her wrist. "You do remember what keys are, right?"

"Shut up!" Strong snapped at her, but didn't raise a hand. She bent down and coyly let him watch over her shoulder. She tried a few keys on the lock until it clicked and turned. She grinned at the sound and effortlessly opened the case. It was filled with battered old bottle caps.

"BAH! Just more human junk!" Strong moved on. She filled her pockets with the currency, consoling herself with the solemn resolution that if these people really were peaceful traders worthy of survival, they would have avoided the super mutant instead of thoughtlessly shooting him in the back with a fucking pipe pistol. Every native to this world would have known that would just piss him off.

For the rest of that day, Ruby continued to string him along under the pretense of helping him find the the milk of human kindness, shuddering at the thought of bringing him anywhere near a human settlement. He was enthralled by a high powered sniper rifle because it fit in his hands better than his old one. He didn't understand the point of the scope, so Ruby had to stop him from just snapping it off. He listened only because it was a human weapon, and she was now the expert at his beckon call. Otherwise he ignored her and continued on his quest. He also kept ignoring those bleeding wounds, leaving them unwashed and exposed until they gradually closed and scabbed up over the course of just a few hours. She envied him.

"Human sound tired." He noticed her huffing along behind him and paused. He turned his head and gave her a sour once over. "Human not look hurt..."

"I'm fine, Strong." The load on her back probably did weigh at least a hundred pounds, but she had already sorted it all and discarded more than she wanted to.

"Strong not understand why human take garbage." Without a second thought, he took the heavy ruck sack from her and the roped jugs of water along with it. Ruby had no hope of stopping him, so she let it happen and figured she would just pick it back up again after he threw it away. But to her suprise, he slung it over his shoulder along with the bundled weaponry and the choice meat of the caravan like the day's catch. He smoothly turned back around and moved on. After a moment or two of shock, Ruby finally blinked and started jogging after him and Dogmeat.

The problem with stringing him along was that he knew these urban ruins better than she did. She knew her way around Boston back in the time before, but now everything was collapsed and two hundred years of undocumented history had passed her by. Strong had lived here for years at least, and seemed at home as a boar in the woods. He knew where all the ghouls tended to gather, since his kind would leave them be in favor of the much better tasting meat. He also ignored other super mutant camps, having already eliminated them as possible locations of the milk. Though he voiced that he would rather be with his brothers than with her numerous times.

He was also easily distracted by gunfire and explosions. He was never scared, but he would drop everything to follow the sound, expecting that there would be human prey at the source. Hot on the trail of his favorite food, he would obliviously drag her through pockets of intense radiation and monster nests because he was still carrying all of her stuff. He wouldn't go near the Boston Common, however – something about a 'swan smash'. She didn't know what that meant, but he was obviously cowed by whatever hellish monstrosity lurked there, so she took his word for it.