Author's Notes: Chapter Two- Derringer's Ballad. Written by Trax. Enjoy.

"You've gotta' be shittin' me!"

I ducked and rolled behind a pillar, well, half a pillar just as the missile went screeching down the hall with its white tail of destruction behind it and blew up…well; stuff that looked like it was already blown up. I looked at the pile of debris where Eddy and I were standing, he hate's it when I call him that but Edward makes it sound too much like I have a stick up my ass, I couldn't see him through the dust and shit that had clogged up the air but I heard the burping noise from his SMG that he had nigger-rigged a 10mil silencer to and I knew he was fine.

Oh sorry, I'm Markus Derringer, mercenary, call me Mark. I'm 22 years old, single, I enjoy long moon lit walks and doing anything for a cap. As it turns out I did a lot of killing and kicking ass when I was a Knight with the Brotherhood of Steel but I don't have any memory of life before the Brotherhood. They say they found me under a freeway overpass with a wicked gash on my forehead and nothing but a revolver, a fedora, and a bottle of Nuka Cola, so they think I was some sort of scavenger before they found me. I left the Brotherhood behind after about 3 years of kicking ass and taking names…then kicking the name's asses and settled down in Megaton looking to start my very own mercenary company, and with everyone and their Grandma being part of a merc group I have a hard time finding recruits. My first and only merc chum so far and bullet catcher is Edward Cross. He's an odd one, makes a hell of a medic and has awesome stealth abilities but he never eats, he loves to drink though and …well, and actually he drinks blood. You see Eddy is, or at least was, a member of the Family but he had a hard time understanding the concept of friendship, he thinks a true friend is a tool to get what he wants. He left the Family after some life altering event he told me he went through and I happened to come across him during my last day with the Brotherhood and now he considers me a "friend" which pretty much means he'll roll with me as long as he gets what he wants.

Back to the action, well, we got this latest job from Lucas Simms, a pack of raiders had been launching mortar attacks into Megaton and Simms couldn't risk sending his guys out to track them down and "deal" with them incase another pack tried attacking while their guard was down. We had chased the mortar team to a small, largely abandoned city near Megaton and took care of them. On our way back we had come across a convoy of raiders that was dragging cages, carts, and doors tied to brahmin with them and tied to one of these doors was this big guy with a Mohawk that looked like he had walked his ass halfway from hell. They started entering some half blown up high school and took the prisoners with them. So I, being the brains of the outfit, decided it would be an absolute gem of an idea to go in there and see if we couldn't figure if there was a connection to these blood thirsty, no offence Eddy, sand monkeys and the ones we capped a few blocks away. Which leads us to where we are now, we had jumped down through a hole in the roof into an abandoned class room that had a few mattresses and desks piled up in one corner but it seemed pretty tame for a raider domain. I drew a practically pristine scoped .44 magnum from my hip holster and my combat knife from my shoulder in the off hand. Eddy cocked his silenced SMG he had carved a bunch of odd symbols into with a knife. We walked into the hall way that was riddled with various scenes of humanity at its worst, corpses of all ages, genders, and builds strung from chains and hooks missing various body parts and organs. I glanced to our left in time to see a half naked spiked figure with a missile launcher come around the corner and fire.

After I made sure that Eddy was still kicking I got low and turned around the corner with my revolver resting on my forearm…then something happened, it always happens. Time seemed to freeze, I was able to take my time and make perfect aim, my trigger squeeze was slow and deliberate, the .44 caliber slug ripped and tarred through the air until it entered the bald waste-junkie's skull just above his left eye and splattered what was once inside of his head allover the wall, he dropped like a bag of mutfruit. Then we dusted ourselves off and I fixed my fedora as we proceeded from where the raider had popped out. They knew we had followed them. This guy wasn't an accident. I checked the body for some caps or supplies, just some 'guana meat and a pack of smokes. I put the pack in my rolled up sleeve and rested one cig on my ear.

The rest of our trek was pretty smooth sailing a few booby traps and couple hounds but nothing we couldn't drop with a few rounds. Once we got to the cafeteria though…things got rough…for them. We peaked through the double doors to the chow hall and saw…oh, I don't know…at least 15 raiders sitting around eating some… sort of meat. I readied my Chink assault rifle that at this point only had about four original parts; the rest was scavenged or was scrap made to work. We checked our ammo, and then I grabbed a frag, pulled the pin, and said,

"On three."

Then we turned towards the doors and yelled,

"Three!"

I got four of them of the bat with my frag and downed another two as I ran towards a pile of old school lunch tables for cover. I guess Eddy had gotten a few for himself since there were more corpses littering the floor, but once again I lost track of his vampire ass. The smoke and noise from our weapons and their screams just added to the confusion of our shock attack. Body count: 11. The last 4 had run into the kitchen part and I could here the burp and click of shotguns as I reloaded. I chucked one more 'nade onto their position which I know wounded them, because I could still hear their screaming as Eddy finished them by slicing their heads clean off with his sword. Then…all I remember is blackness…

Hmm, I don't remember how long I was out but it had to be for awhile because some real nasty raider shitbird had knocked me cold with a bat then took the time to take my gear, strip me from my waist up…including my hat, and hang from some structure in the school's courtyard with some rusty chains; I was baking out their for what seemed like all afternoon, and without a drop of sun block, and by the time they came out I was crispier than squirrel chunks. They must have thought I was a piñata or something because they tried knocking my candy loose with some sticks, poles, rebar, and anything harder than me really. And just when I thought things couldn't get any worse…they didn't…sorta'.

As soon as the dickwad who had knocked me cold in the first place was getting ready to smack me with board with a few nails in it I heard a crack from my left and felt the soft warm goo that used to be his head splattered over my naked body. My head quickly darted up into that white orb of suffering, the sun, which blinded me further. I started hearing frantic shouting and loud thuds and squishes as I hear more and more cracks each one from a slightly different angle. Until I hear a crack and feel the chains give which soon followed with me meeting the ground…hard. This knocked me out cold again…and led to my current predicament.