The sun had barely begun to perch itself in the sky by the time Avery located the Nuka-Cola transit center. It was just like he remembered: the giant bottles, the now rusty red sign with the signature writing of Nuka-Cola, and the monstrosity they called mascots, Cappy and Bottle. Avery snorted at the originality of the names and wondered how many marketing agents it took to come up with them. As Avery walked farther into the station, partially occupied debating if it was one or thirty-one agents, the sounds of voices began to fill the morning air. Dropping to a crouch, Avery moved towards the sounds, catching only some of the words of what sounded like orders.

"No one… until this place is secure! ...pick up the pace."

"Is someone else investigating the sudden signal?" Avery thought. Peeking around the corner, Avery confirmed his suspicions, counting several Gunners around the entrance of the Nuka-Express station. Although he couldn't see an assaultron, the familiar sound of its movement was present somewhere nearby. Avery dug into his messenger bag, grabbing a prototype pulse grenade he had grabbed long ago from the Institute. Sneaking closer, sticking to the destroyed buses littered across the lot, Avery spotted the assaultron stalking about. Popping the pin of the grenade, he rolled it towards the robot before breaking into a crouched sprint to get some distance between the explosion and him.

The sound of his hurried footsteps alerted the assaultron, turning to locate the noise shortly before the grenade exploded. From his spot, Avery watched as the machine loudly fell to the ground, its circuits fried from the electrical pulse. Soon after, the confused shouts of the Gunners rang out as the gunfight began. Between moving around the area, Avery took trained shots, taking down the Gunners one by one as they frantically tried to locate their opponent.

After about 15 minutes of combat, Avery stepped out from his spot and began to move towards the station entrance, picking up whatever loot he could from the Gunners' bodies along the way. As he did, he counted the bodies, ending on one less than he had originally when he discovered them. "That's… not good, right?" Avery asked himself, looking around the lot before he caught the slight movement of a stealth boy cloak.

The stealthed Gunner's rifle butt connected with Avery's jaw as he tried to raise his own, his gun falling to the ground as he was knocked down as well. Avery caught himself, however, and sprung in the general direction of the Gunner, barely catching their legs and toppling them to the ground with him. When the two hit the ground, the Gunner's rifle bounced off the pavement, unstealthing, and the Gunner grabbed at Avery. Quickly grabbing the combat knife from the sheath on the outside of his bag, Avery stabbed forward, hoping to connect with flesh. The sick sound of skin being pierced and blood spurting outwards signaled the blade had hit its mark, the stealth boy starting to fizzle out. A woman with a military-style cut came into focus, the blade submerged in her jugular, blood seeping out of the wound. She gritted her teeth and tried to raise her hand to wrap around Avery's, trying to pull the knife from her throat. In one motion, Avery twisted and yanked the knife to the left, forcefully cutting through muscle until it exited the side of the Gunner's throat, her eyes widening before rolling back as she collapsed to the ground.

Avery dropped the knife, hand reaching up to feel his jaw, noticing it had already begun to swell. He checked his teeth with his tongue, noticing the taste of iron and some loose teeth. Nothing felt broken, however, which was a relief. Picking the knife back up, he wiped it on the dead Gunner's shirt before sheathing it. Avery noticed a slip of paper peeking out between the Gunner's shirt and armor. He pulled it out and opened it, glossing over the words.

Standing up, Avery looked towards the Nuka-Express station entrance. Apparently, the group was sent to investigate whether this is where some other group had disappeared. "What lies beyond that station?" Avery said to himself questioningly. Nuka-World was definitely not just an amusement park anymore, he gathered. There had to be something more to it than that if Gunners were going missing there.

But despite his instincts blaring their alarms, Avery picked up his rifle and walked towards the entrance of the station. Inside, the station had not escaped the destruction and chaos of the bombs; trash and ruin littered the ground. Against a pile of rubble was a man holding his side, a barrel fire illuminating the room and the train's worn but decorative plating.

"Hey, what's your problem? Have you been hurt?" Avery asked, moving towards the man. The man looked up, his eyes strained but still giving Avery the look over. The man identified himself as Harvey and explained that he had escaped a group of raiders located up in Nuka-World. His family, however, had not been as lucky as he was, and he begged Avery to go and help them before they got hurt.

"Do you need medical attention before I go? You're holding your side like you're hurt, Harvey," Avery asked, beginning to grab his medkit from his bag. Harvey proclaimed his disagreement, saying that Avery shouldn't waste his time on him but to save it for his family. Avery looked in confusion before asking what was really happening. Harvey said it was the truth and Avery harshly connected his foot with Harvey's jaw.

"Tell me the truth, Harvey. You don't look or seem harmed for someone who escaped raiders, and I saw the lookover you gave me when I came in. What is going on here?" Avery questioned, his hand now grabbing Harvey's chin tightly so they were staring into each other's eyes. Harvey nervously told Avery that he was bait to get people to go to Nuka-World for some sick torture game called "The Gauntlet" the raiders had set up for entertainment. He said that even if somehow someone survived the Gauntlet, they would die because it was all rigged for them to lose.

"We'll see about that Harvey. Now get out of here. Head up north to Concord and take the road northwest until you see a settlement with a bridge leading to it. Say you were sent there by Avery and show them the rifle. They'll protect you if anyone comes looking for you." Avery said, his instructions listed off as he handed Harvey a stimpack and his rifle. Harvey looked at him in awe, before nodding his head, giving Avery the Nuka-Express terminal password, and heading out the station with one last thank you.

For a short moment, Avery hoped Harvey would make it to Sanctuary. "I really don't want to lose that rifle…" Avery said to himself as he located the control terminal, logging on and activating the power. The whirring of various machinery coming to life filled the stale air, the monorail beginning to announce its destination and to please board now.

"Let's see what you have in store for me, Nuka-World."

The Gauntlet was definitely a raider's fucked-up wet dream. The first room was a gorefest of various unsuspecting victims having been torn apart by the many turrets strategically thrown about the room. With a bit of agility and quick, and possibly lucky, decision making, Avery cleared the room with nothing more than a scratch from landing wrong. There had been a raider analyzing Avery's progress since the beginning, and he wasn't too thrilled. But, this first room's failure wasn't enough to dissuade the insults and taunts that came from over the speakers.

Then came the countless traps. Tripwires, pressure plates, grenades on the ceiling, those weird monkey robots that clang cymbals together, anything that was possible to be made into a trap was made into one. It was slow working through all the traps, but as Avery made his way through the rooms, he began to taunt back at the announcer. "Is this really all you guys could come up with? Some tripwires and grenades?"

"Don't think you're hot shit just because you can survive for now. We'll see how long that shit talking lasts when you get to the end."

"I'll hold you to that! Don't disappoint me, babe!" Avery said, his tone chastising the raider. He made his way through the traps before the Geiger counter on the Pip-Pad began to count off.

"Hope you've got some Rad-X on you! Let's see if our contestant can survive being cooked alive," the raider chirped as Avery noticed the nuclear waste barrels at the end of the hall. Digging into his medkit, Avery pulled out a bottle labeled Rad-X, unscrewed the cap and popped three pills into his mouth.

"These taste like shit, but it beats dying, I guess."

Running through the hallway into the room, Avery could feel the radiation creeping into his skin. On one side of the room was a door and on the other what looked like a turn into an alcove. Avery took to the door, realizing it was locked but there was a keyhole. Pulling a bobby pin and screwdriver from his bag, Avery unlocked the door by force, pushing it open and sprinting through. The raider said some shitty taunt while Avery stood in the adjacent room, letting a RadAway drip into his system before continuing.

"I'm getting a little bored here, ya know. When is this supposed to be fun?" Avery called out, opening the door to the next room. The announcer didn't say anything as Avery continued down some stairs, noticing right away another one of those monkey noisemakers at the far edge of the room filled with turrets. "Can you guys get any more obvious with your traps?" Avery said as he began to steady his combat knife to throw across the room. The knife hit the animatronic right in the head, dislocating it completely with a clatter. The turrets stayed idle as Avery made his way across the room, grabbing his knife and finding a key behind where the monkey sat.

The rest of the Gauntlet wasn't all that interesting. Some fragment mines here, some weak planks forming a bridge over mirelurk-infested waters, and then radroaches in a room being filled with toxic gas. Avery had to give it to them, the gas chamber was a nice touch, but they should have really thought about the amount of gas they were pumping in beforehand. As Avery had put it, it was "pretty fucking weak and I barely got high."

Past that was the "homestretch" as the announcer described it. "This is just a chain-link fence on a hallway structure and you're shooting at me," Avery shouted as he ran, avoiding bullets from the laughing raiders as best he could. "Did you run out of funds for the last part?"

It wasn't until Avery stepped into the Cola-Cars arena that he understood what Harvey had meant. Most people definitely don't know how to deal with people in power armor, especially ones hooked up to an electric grid that produces an electrostatic field around said power armor. The man in the suit of metal - Colter apparently, and Overboss at that- was hurling insult after insult at Avery from the bumper car arena.

"Here's a quick rundown of how this works. You go stock up, make yourself presentable, and then we're gonna give these folks a show. A show where I decorate these walls here with your lovely brains. Got that?" Colter yelled at Avery, smugness practically dripping from his words.

"Oh, I'll give everyone a show, alright, when we flip the script and it's your brains on the wall. And then, maybe, I'll enjoy some overpriced food and some rides here like a respectable customer of a corporate amusement park!" Avert replied back, the audience roaring with excitement from the exchange. The door next to Avery unlocked, a ramp leading down into a storage room and a connected locker room. Within, a southern-like voice came over an intercom on the wall.

"All right, listen the hell up if you want to make it out of this alive. I've only got a minute."

"Who is this?" Avery asked. The voice described how he needed to listen to them or else they weren't making it out alive.

"You want to win? I stashed a weapon in the lockers. Get it."

"Yeah, that's not vague at all, ya know? 'In the lockers' like there's only one set of lockers in a locker room," Avery grumbled as he began to search the room. There wasn't anything out of the ordinary until he came across…

"A fucking water gun? This is both the dumbest thing I've ever had to think of as a weapon and also the most genius weapon I've had the pleasure of using."

"Yeah, yeah, I know what it looks like. You're just going to have to trust me."

"Oh, I do. The water gun is to short-circuit the electrical grid, causing the power armor to just be regular power armor. Pretty smart shit for a raider." There was silence from the intercom before a slow sigh came through.

"We're not all stupid savages. Now get out there and take him out. I promise you, it'll be worth every minute spent in this Gauntlet," the voice said, " All right, it's time. I'll open the door. See you on the other side."

As Avery stood there, water gun in hand, he considered that this was not at all what he expected when he got here. Here he was, about to literally go fight a raider boss with a water gun. Deacon was going to laugh his goddamn ass off when he heard about this, and honestly, that filled Avery with purpose.

"Time to get this guy wet, and not even inthe good way."

Colter talked a big game, but outside of the elaborate mechanical feat that was hooking up power armor to an electrical grid, he was still just a raider, still human with fleshy bits and chinks in his armor. Avery knew about this one spot between the chest plate and the arm that was just the right size for a grenade. Why did he know that? A Brotherhood Knight he slept with had had a prank played on him by a fellow Knight who shoved a dud into his armor. It led to some pretty good angry, rough sex, but that wasn't the point to be remembering right now.

After raising the water gun at Colter, he just laughed while Avery squirted him with water. The audience laughed alongside him, but it was no longer shits and giggles when the electricity to the power armor went out. Without time to react properly, Avery pushed one grenade in between Colter's plating before running behind a nearby bumper car. The explosion that followed was disgustingly satisfactory as the armor exploded from the inside, blood, metal, and gore flying through the air and landing with sickening splats and clanks. Some of the audience erupted into roars while some yelled in confusion and disbelief. A water gun and a grenade were all it took to fell Colter, the undefeated champion of Cola-Cars Arena.

"Colter's dead, we got a new Overboss," the same voice from the intercom declared over the speaker system.

"A new what now?"

Author's Note: Chapter 2: Abnormal Formalities of Blood will be posted May 17th. Chapter 3: Abnormal Formalities of Robbers and Beasts will be posted May 20th. A double posting!