A/N: Hi, everyone. I wanted to write this story for two reasons: there isn't enough Strong fanfiction, and I don't feel like the game developed Strong's character enough. Personally, he's my favorite companion to travel with and I wondered how he'd react if the tables were flipped and he was the one being preyed upon and helpless.

Stop Hurting Strong
Chapter 1: Captured

"Human horrible leader! Human do all things wrong! Human take from other humans! Not give! Not share! Human always talk, when should fight! Human always look weak to other humans!" And it was with that, Strong turned his back to the human he'd spent so much of his time traveling with. He should've known better. Humans were hard to understand, and much too different from super mutants; too weak, and too selfish. No matter. Strong was rid of the human nuisance, and henceforth would fully commit himself to searching for the Milk of Human Kindness, even if were a venture to be undertaken solo. The first he'd heard of it, his fellow mutants laughed and thought him weak for listening to the words of a human, but Strong knew it to be real. Humans may have been small and weak, but their dominance of the Commonwealth was undeniable. Strong needed that power, not only for himself, but to share with his brothers so that they can run the Commonwealth and kill everything.

Night had come, and it'd brought with it an arid wind than danced through the dilapidated streets of Boston. Clouds hid the stars and debarred the moon, and the buildings stood in eldritch silence, lamenting the loss of the fluorescence that'd abandoned them. Debris of every imagining was strewn haphazardly about the streets, negligence allowing trash to skip freely the roads and surf the air, no human caring enough to tend to its removal. For Strong this was a good thing, for it allowed him to scavenge to satisfaction, and that's exactly the predicament he found himself in. He'd been scrounging through a dumpster. He'd not found much, just bits of material that may or may not have been edible, but seemed decent enough. The remnants he could find were far from filling and he'd need something larger soon, preferably a brahmin.

Since leaving the blue human he searched everywhere for the milk, or so it felt like to him. The streets confused him. They all looked the same. Many places he'd search repeatedly, and it appeared as if he'd been wandering for days. But the search for the milk would have to wait, for it was his stomach's demands that required his attention. Luckily for him, that was a problem soon to be solved.

"AHH!"

"Strong hear something," said the mutant, his movements stilling.

"My leg… it hurts!"

"Human!" excitedly whispered Strong, "Sound like hurt human. Easy kill." Without hesitation, large rough green fingers curled around the metal shaft of his supersledge. "Not worry, human! Strong make pain go away. Not hurt after Strong eat you." Strong pursued the pained mewls, and it wasn't long before he spotted the form of an adolescent male, glasses hanging loosely from his nose. He clutched tightly to his leg, the denim he wore soaked in blood. Both the scent and sight were enough to instigate the rumbling of Strong's stomach, his grip upon his weapon tightening.

The human spotted Strong and immediately panic painted the injured male's face a ghastly white. "No! No! Please don't kill me!" begged the boy.

This was Strong's favorite part. He loved to hear his victim's beg for their lives. It was funny the faces they'd made and the cries they released at the sight of him. "Human is Strong's now," he hoisted his maul high prepared for the fatal blow. What happened next Strong's brain could have possibly computed.

"You fucking morons are all the same."

Strong spun around, "Who there!?" his answer came in the form of a sharp neck pain, and a human clothed entirely of black pointing a rifle at him. One massive hand lowered as stodgy fingers examined his neck, and with a wince, he extricated a dark dart. Strong's vision began to blur, "Stupid, human!" grumbled the green brute. "Str-Strong make… you dead!"

Thud!
The cloaked figure lowered their weapon and kicked the downed mutant's head for reassurance. It was the injured teen who spoke next, "Shit, Marlena! I thought you were going to let him get me!" With ease, he stood to his feet with the assistance of the shrouded woman.

"Stop complaining. The tranquilizer isn't going to last forever." The boy quickly, though with much difficulty, began moving the hulking mass before them. When the mutant awoke, it would wish it were dead.

XXX

A groan signaled Strong's return to consciousness, "Argh…" slowly his eyes opened and he found himself in a dim room with metallic walls. Various beams and bars stretched across the ceiling, rust having slowly encroached upon their surface, given the place a dull-reddish hue. Between them were myriad pipes of varying sizes. Chains lay festooned over many of the bars and hooks dangled freely. The red tint of the room wasn't only attributed to rust, but also that of blood, and a lot of it. Thick coagulant lay disseminated in massive clumps and caked to the walls. Smears and splatters accented every perceivable inch of the premises. The floors consisted of grime covered concrete, and there, seemingly thrown haphazardly, were large bones sprinkled about. A trained eye could surmise the bones to be human in origin, but their robust shape and the varying deformities were riddled with peculiarities. Strong of course hadn't the intellect to discern their oddities from that of any other bones he may have come across. To a human, this place would appear to be the gruesome backdrop of an eery nightmare, appealing only to the skewed sense of aesthetic only a super mutant could possess. Strong liked the place, but the sight and smell only served to remind him how famished he'd been. "Strong… not feel good. Head hurt." He didn't know where he was or how he got there. He just remembered the weak human crying and then all went blank. Nausea overwhelmed him and his throat was uncomfortably dry. His body felt heavy and when he'd made a move to rise, he found the task impossible. "Huh?" He tried to lift an arm, but found a thick band of metal across his wrist. Rage immediately inundated him and the remaining cognition availed to him. He bucked and attempted to overpower his restraint but it was to no avail. Not only had his arms been bound, but his neck and ankles too were held fast by the thick shining metal. He roared.

"There's no point in doing that," it was the unmistakable voice of a human, a female human. Strong heard it before, before everything went blank. There was only but one place it could have come from and that was behind him. Unfortunately, his predicament prevented him from facing his captor.

"Stupid, human! Think this stop Strong!" the super mutant continued to yell, muscles tensing and vein striations looking to rip from green skin as he exerted himself in an attempt at freedom. Strong let loose a loud roar, chest muscles flexing greatly, but ultimately still getting him nowhere.

"Yes, actually I do, idiot."

"Not idiot!"

"Idiot," Strong could hear the slight indication of laughter in her tone. The fact she repeated it made him all the angrier. She stepped into view, the same outfit she'd captured him in still worn, but the mask this time absconded. Her face was as pale as a winter's moon, her clear flawless skin unusual to residents of the commonwealth. Her eyes shown in the light like blue jewels glistening in the sun, and curly black hair partially obscured her further. She was what humans called pretty, but Strong cared not about the looks of humans, all he wanted to do was snap the neck of the woman teasing him.

"STRONG CRUSH YOU!" he shrieked. Again, he went into a fit of hysterics, and again the woman watched him, a smirk visible on her face. It was another ten minutes before the mutant panted from exhaustion. "Strong get free, then Strong eat stupid human!"

The woman laughed, "Strong has to get free first," she teased. "Too bad Strong isn't strong, but weak." She knew those words were going to get a rise out of him again. She knew the psychology of super mutants very well, they valued strength above anything else, and being called weak was a deep insult.

"STRONG NOT WEAK! STRONG IS STRONG AND GREAT WARRIOR! NOT WEAK! RIP YOUR GUTS OUT AND CRUSH YOUR BONES!"

The woman calmly turned her back to the mutant and walked over to a wall. On it, was a metal cabinet and she slowly opened it. Within hung a myriad of instruments, some of which were familiar to Strong, others he'd never seen before. There was a saw, a hammer, tongs, stakes, knives, among others. A super mutant he may have been; he wasn't completely oblivious. He knew those tools were meant to inflict pain and a lot of it. He snorted as if daring the woman to do her worst. "Hah! Not scare Strong." Life as a super mutant traversing the Commonwealth wasn't easy; he'd the scar above his eye and other places to prove it. It wasn't the first time Strong had encountered hostile humans, but this was the first to ever capture him. Humans were smart, but he knew they had a tendency to overestimate just how much smarter they were than super mutants. This human would be like the rest: become overconfident and make a mistake for Strong to exploit. Unfortunately, for all the humans Strong made suffer in the past, he'd never once been on the receiving end of the same treatment, and humans were far more inventive in their methods than super mutants could ever hope to be.

A hammer was removed from the wall, but not just any hammer, one that Strong immediately recognized. "IS STRONG'S! GIVE TO ME!" it was his super sledge. The woman took note of the weapon's weight by shifting it from hand to hand. Satisfied, she ambled her way over to the bound mutant. Without a word, she swung, striking Strong pang the kneecap. "ARGH!" he howled, pain coursing through his entire leg. His body jerked and his toes curled. Again she swung, and again he yelled. This pain he hadn't expected. Humans may have been smaller and weaker, but a well delivered attack at the right location with the right weapon would hurt any creature, especially so fragile a point as the knee. He gritted together his stained teeth, blackened by potentially decades of neglect and consuming unsanitary raw flesh from animal and human alike. The third strike came and he yelled again, and then another strike, and another. Tears were never a thing a super mutant shed, but Strong couldn't help the watering of his eyes.

"Weak," said the human, coaxing him to roar in defiance. She slammed the hammer down on his knee once more. "Weak." Again the mutant fought his restraints, the urge to break free and kill his tormentor returning. "Weak." Each time the word floated from her pink lips, the hammer would slam into Strong's knee.

"STOP HURTING STRONG!" he'd been the angriest he'd ever been. Angrier than when his brothers locked him away atop Trinity Tower. He'd been angrier than feeling the sting of bullets fired from the guns of humans. He'd been angrier than watching the blue human talk nice and not share with other humans. The pain was unlike anything he'd ever felt or could remember feeling. Over and over again, the same spot was assaulted and all he could do was pathetically thrash about as the human kept striking him. "GAH! NO!" The green skin covering his knee was a deep purple where the blood beneath coagulated into an unsettling bruise. Again and again, the hammer struck, the human's face void all emotion as she listened to his groans of pain. "KILL YOU! KILL! KILL!" He could articulate no other word. He wanted to pull this human's spinal cord from her living flesh and suck the meat from it, he wanted to squeeze her head between both his gargantuan green hands and watch her face turn blue and the vessels of her eyes swell and burst until finally her skull gave way and fragmented beneath the power of his palms. But alas that wasn't to be for he couldn't move. His attempted to lift his hips from the stone slab he laid upon, but the action only intensified the pain in his knee. Whenever he'd move his leg, the human's hammer would simply find it again. Pain then began to suffuse his anger, and all Strong could think about was getting it to stop. "ENOUGH, HUMAN! NO MORE!" But she hadn't listened. "HUMAAAN!" Tears slid down the super mutant's cheeks.

POP!
A scream loud enough to shake the entire Commonwealth tore from Strong, pain written over his green face. "ARGH! ARGH! PAAAAIN! HUURT!" And for the first time, Strong found himself screaming, tears pouring down his face. His massive body was wracked by sobs, snot spilling from his nose, his throat undoubtedly raw from the wailing he was engaged in. Watching him cry was almost like watching a massively intellectually inept child.

The woman lowered the hammer, "Like I said. Weak." With that, she exited the room through a door closest the right most corner visible to Strong. The door slammed shut behind her as Strong continued to loudly sob. Suddenly the lights went out and Strong found himself plunged into darkness.