Hello anyone who is left! I know it has been a while but I had exams and now they are over so I can start writing again more! anyway I hope you enjoy it and please don't forget to review! any comments are welcome :)

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that that wolfish grin never left her face; not with even after that last batch of ghouls. We stepped out of the shadows and she wandered ahead into the atrium of Metro central. The last batch had been particularly ferocious, even managing to scrape a chunk out of my shoulder plate. In the still light I watched her stop and close her eyes. In such a small time, I was already picking up on some of her habits. She wasn't so much stopping to think as smelling the air, listening to it – learning about her new environments. In a minute she would snap out of it and decide the next action.

For now I was content with watching around us, with one eye on her the whole time. More than once in the sordid tunnels had her white hair caught attention that could be used elsewhere. She seemed to have caught onto this though, for as she opened her eyes once more, she pulled her hood over her head, so her face was in shadow.

She nodded to the escalators leading upwards and we headed for them at a more leisurely pace than I had hoped for. The next exit led up onto Vernon square – she adjusted her weight and crouched as we ascended the stairs until we could both see over the wall. Dark shadows greeted us and it was getting tiresome. The sun was setting giving weight to the shadows – some especially active ones could be seen around the decaying building in front of us. They moved without the need for stealth, their numbers larger than expected. Maybe twenty seemed to be wandering around that main building.

We slipped behind the wreck of a car which lay just across the street from Our Lady of Hope Hospital and she held up a finger.

I kept my gaze guarded against the watchful eyes of my companion, but secretly I was more excited than I had been in a long time. I hadn't done quite a mission like this in a while – not that we actually knew what the mission was as of yet. Maybe this would be an opportunity to find this 101 kid – if I was here then he would be too.

I smelt it before I saw it and we quickly darted to another car before the centaur left its shade and started wandering towards the hospital. About half way there, there was a sudden flash followed by the hollow howl of the Super Mutants in the building facing the Hospital. Pulse mines it seemed – were they set by the rangers? Or someone else maybe?

I raised myself to see behind the car, but the super mutants seemed to have given up for the time being having moved back into the ruins opposite. I motioned for Charon and we moved into the shadows of the ruin and slid into position just to the side of the entrance to the hospital. I leaned round the ruin and didn't flinch as the butt of a machine gun could be seen mere inches above my head. To the left. But I heard the brute move over on its rounds and we took the opportunity to slip inside the entrance.

She closed the door slowly and silently after I slipped through and took an initial search of the entrance room. It wasn't very big, with old toilets to our left, a corridor in front of use past a broken, burnt door. To our right was the real problem, I could hear from here the brutes lumbering about, calling to one another. I didn't move a muscle as one of the brutes came out into the entrance hall, but it didn't seem to notice us as he turned with its hunting rifle to walk into the crumbling bathrooms. Seconds later a shadow appeared from that very bathroom, and winked at me. I quickly looked behind but it was right, she had slipped into the bathroom behind the Super mutant and killed it off without a sound. I never even heard it fall, she must have caught it. Her stealth was uncanny – I didn't even see her move.

I followed the shadow out of sight of the large room into the corridor opposite. She paused at one of the doors on the left, still crouched, ear cocked in interest. She motioned for me to keep guard while she picked the lock. When she had finished, the door opened of its own accord and we were greeted happily by the Mr Handy on the other side. It took off merrily down the corridor and we soon heard lasers and the shouts of 'Found you!' from it as it dispensed with enemies. We moved back the way we came after she was satisfied there was no-one about to creep up on us. I got around the other side and waited next to the doorway to what must have been the reception room at one time.

She stopped at the other side of the doorway to the large room and leaned forward, one hand supporting her on the ground. Then I saw something. She was tapping the floor with her finger and then laying her hand flat. What was she doing?

I tipped my head to the side in question and a moment passed before a small black box slid across the floor to my feet. I picked it up and then looked at her again holding the box up. She opened her hand to show another of the boxes and then repeated the motion. I tried it, and felt a small series of vibrations as I laid my hand on the floor, holding the box. One, two… three. It was counting. Three life signs? Now I got it. I nodded to her slightly and she slipped the crossbow off her shoulder. She motioned for me to take the right and she would take the left, then she tapped her mouth with one finger and pointed to the ceiling. I gave a glance round the doorway and saw the barrel hanging out of a hole in the roof of the large room – the perfect distraction. This had to be done quietly to work. I pulled out one of the combat knives we had picked up and without a second thought, turned and threw it straight at the edge of the barrel, knocking it out of place. It tumbled to the floor with another two barrels and parts of skeletons trailing behind it. This caught the attention of the two nearer to us.

Then she slipped round the doorway. I followed, keeping to my side, head rising in time to see the first bolt take a chunk of the furthest mutants head away, the other two turning to their fallen in confusion. As they lumbered over I raised my own shotgun with its dampener on and took out the next with a swift shot to its chest. The last was quickly despatched with a bolt to the brain. The 'fight' lasted less than 30 seconds and we had three dead mutants.

She stood out of her crouched position and moved forward leisurely to pick out each bolt with a twist, just in case. I stuck my combat knife through mine's skull and pulled the hunting rifle out of its hand. I opened the barrel, only one left, but it would go to use. I slipped it over my shoulder and stood, walking over to the dusty counters against the wall. After raiding the two ammunition boxes of what little ammo remained, I snapped round at the sound of her crossbow twang. Another thud followed as I ran to the corner. A mutant lay on the stairs, having fallen backwards, obviously unaware of the death that came from behind.

She looked back at me with that smirk and pointed with the crossbow at the ceiling. One of the skeletons was hanging by its foot from the floor. No, wait… I moved a little closer and saw it was being held by another skeleton. This almost got a smirk out of me too.

She slung the crossbow with the newly retrieved bolt across her back and pulled the spiked-club from its hands. She weighed it in her hands and shrugged, tossing it back and forth between her hands.

It wasn't heavy, and it wasn't the one I wanted – I really wanted to get one of those super sledges I had heard about. It sounded like I could pound some real damage out with them. But I dumped the club by the collapsed Nuka-cola machine and we proceeded up the stairs to the first floor. We slipped up the stairs, but as we reached the second floor stairwell I halted Charon and pointed up at the well placed grenade bundle and tripwire hanging above the next set of stairs. We stepped easily over the tripwire and left the bundle hanging in the stale air, for its next victim – in case any mutants decided it would be a good idea to come up the stairs after us.

We pushed on to the second floor and dispatched with a centaur shuttling up the corridor. Lying in wait we crossed along the corridor and in through a side door just as a super mutant rounded the corner looking for its pet. We heard it rush forward past our door and roar in anger at the sight. I pushed the door open and gutted the beast from behind, pulling the knife up and out, the mutant collapsing with a thud. We left them in their puddles and found the next exit door.

But what we saw was unexpected. The door led to what should have been the next stairwell but the giant hole and collapsed rubble was a dead giveaway that there was no way through here. Instead an old radio mast had fallen across the gap between us and the Statesman hotel opposite. From the looks of the traps we had seen so far and the mass of bodies crowded the corridors of the hospital, it was clear they had crossed here.

"Shall we?" I gave Charon a grin and stepped out onto the mast.