Finally, Chapter 4 is here! A short A/N is below. Enjoy!

Chapter 4

"All aircraft, approaching target. ETA, ten minutes"

The radio of the lead Vertibird echoed through its interior as the flight of four craft flew past what was once Tenpenny Tower, now converted into yet another fortress after the Lone Wanderer's conquest. Due to the proximity of the Tower to the main line of conflict against the resistance, its fortifications was on par with the Capitol Building itself. It also had enough men and material that it could easily provide back-up if necessary.

Not like we'll need it, the Wanderer scoffed internally. The so-called 'resistance' against him was largely a joke, made up of nothing more than the few Brotherhood members left and a motley assortment of Wastelanders. Meanwhile, the men with him were some of the best the Brotherhood had had to offer (courtesy of that fool Elder Lyons) and the Enclave he'd picked weren't too shabby either. All in all, he had more than enough to deal with the resistance once and for all.

"Sir, we're coming up on Rockland now. No sign of hostiles" said the pilot through the Wanderer's ear mike. The man stretched, lifted himself out of the Vertibird's bucket seat, and tapped his Pip-boy; both his swords materialized on his hips while the Perforator took form in his hands.

"Alright, kids! We're almost at the car tunnel. So far we haven't been shot at yet but don't let your guard down. It's about time we kill these bastards and get on with our lives!" The Wanderer's little speech was greeted by an assortment of whoops and hollers both from the men in front of him and from the occupants of the other three Vertibirds; the man couldn't help but chuckle a bit as he made out Jericho's scoff in all the background noise.


The Wanderer and Jericho lead the group of twenty-two men through Rockland, having found no signs of enemy forces after touchdown. The former had instructed one of the VTOL craft to re-fuel at Tenpenny Tower then fly back to support. While the Wanderer doubted they'd need such heavy firepower, it never hurt to be prepared; years in the Wasteland had taught him that after one too many close calls.

"Boss, I'm not seeing anything. You got something?" Jericho reported, scanning the dim tunnel for any signs of enemy activity, the rest of the men doing the same.

"Nothing. Where the hell are those cowards?! You'd think they'd actually come out and face me. We weren't exactly subtle on the way here" answered the Wanderer, kicking a stray tin can. He'd made sure to make it as clear as possible what his plans were, making sure to broadcast his little field trip on all known radio channels used by the resistance, even adding relatively unused ones just in case. After the interrogation of Wilks, he was more pissed off than he'd been in a while. He'd solved that in the past by just going out and killing things. Even though he ran a pseudo-nation now, he saw no reason why his little coping tactic wouldn't work just as good now as it had worked in the past. Besides, what better thing to shoot up than the group that's at least partially responsible for your anger in the first place? The least they could do was make it easy for him.

"Come on. It's clear they're not here. The satellite array isn't far. Let's move!" the Wanderer said, rushing down the side passage leading to their destination. While the rest of the Wanderer's men loyally followed, Jericho was hesitant. He couldn't get the sense of foreboding that lurked in the back of his mind out of his head. While at one point he would have ignored it, decades in the wasteland both on his own and with the Wanderer (especially with the Wanderer) had taught him to listen to that little feeling every chance he got. And right now it was blaring uncontrollably.

Today is not gonna end well, Jericho thought as he trudged off to join his friend and boss.

"Spread out! I don't want to be caught in a potential cross fire!" the Wanderer ordered as he entered the rocky, cliff-lined valley leading up to the array's imposing facade. He remembered well what assaulting this place was like the first time (and couldn't help but laugh internally at the irony of Brotherhood members using an old Enclave base as a hideout); Enclave troops had torn the first wave of assaulters apart with nothing more than a few men and some well-placed mines. There was no doubt in the Wanderer's mind that the Brotherhood wouldn't hesitate to use the same tactics of the Enclave if it meant they could get the drop on the Wanderer.

As they advanced through the valley, both Jericho and the Wanderer began to notice what seemed like signs of fighting. These signs looked much newer than some of the still-remaining remnants of the previous fight between the Brotherhood and the Enclave, a fight that seemed like a lifetime ago to the Wanderer and Jericho.

"Boss, you seeing the same things I'm seeing?" came the synthesized voice of Jericho through the former vault dweller's headset.

"Yeah, empty MF canisters and shell casings, scratch marks, blood. Something definitely went down here" answered the Wanderer, stopping to examine the claw marks. He cocked his eyebrow as he inspected the markings. They were set at around the same height as that of a Deathclaw, although instead of three claws like the latter, whatever had made these marks instead had a total of five. The depth was also much shallower than what he'd seen a Deathclaw make, although both the intensity of them and the fact that many more markings lined the cliff wall meant that the unknown creature had actually been more vicious than the everyday Deathclaw, something that made even the Wanderer stop and pray he wouldn't run into the mystery creature.

"Sir, over here! We've got something!" The Wanderer was snapped out of his inspection by the call of one of his men. Following the voices, he found the man and Jericho inspecting some sort of debris from the battle here.

"The hell is this?" said Jericho, lifting up the object into full view for the other two men. In his hand was a standard-issue Brotherhood power helmet, or what was left of one. The headgear was battered and scratched, with what seemed like bite marks covering a few areas. One of the breathing tubes was completely destroyed, what little remained hanging off of the front of the helmet. Both eye pieces were shattered, no small feat considering they were supposed to be shatter-proof (at least, the Wanderer THOUGHT they were shatterproof; he never really bothered to check). Most disturbing of all, the entire inside of the helmet was drenched in blood.

"That, Jericho my friend, is evidence that the Brotherhood remnants here are no longer our main problem" the Wanderer stated matter-of-factly as he withdrew a radio from one of the pockets of the old prewar general's uniform he currently wore.

"All troops, listen up. There's something, or somethings, here that MAY have already slaughtered our original objective. Keep your heads up and eyes sharp. This valley is the perfect place for an ambush. Don't let yourselves get caught in one" the Wanderer ordered, receiving an assortment of affirmatives in response. The men he'd brought were all experienced veterans of the Wasteland and had faced whatever DC had thrown at them. Yet he didn't want them to get too cocky. The Lone Wanderer had seen too many fools die because they were overconfident and thought nothing could touch them (hell, he'd been one of those fools when he'd first left the vault; he knew firsthand how dangerous such feelings could be).

"Come on, the main building shouldn't be much farther. All the others know what to do and where to go, no sense in staying out here any longer than necessary. Plus, we might find answers inside the relay station" As the three men left, the Wanderer couldn't help but look back at the destroyed helmet. Something unbelievably bad had happened here, he felt, something that had ripped through the resistance based here. He sighed as he finished his thoughts. Like always, I have to clean up the mess.

The Wanderer and Jericho had found the the old station in much the same state they'd last seen it in, complete with craters from the Hercules IX missiles and bits of leftovers from Liberty Prime. What was new, however, was yet more evidence of some sort of recent fight. The strike team actually had bodies to go on now, although the state of of said bodies was questionable at best. Very few were completely intact, with most missing limbs or chunks from their bodies.

"Well, this explains where all the resistance members went" said the Wanderer nonchalantly, stepping over numerous corpses in his path and fleecing the few that still looked like they had something to give up. On closer inspection, most of the bodies looked like they'd been crushed inside their armor or ripped apart. Connecting the state of the bodies, the destroyed Brotherhood helmet, and the claw marks on the rocks back in the valley, it was clear that the Wanderer and his men weren't dealing with a human.

No shit, genius! Should've clued into that with the claws and helmet! Sure as hell ain't no Deathclaw though. One, the tower would've notified me immediately of this and two, the Brotherhood are MORE than capable of dealing with Deathclaws. So what the hell caused this?

As he continued to sift through some of the bodies, the ex-vault dweller realized that some of these men and women were familiar, people he'd met during his past travels. He recognized Stockholm, the former gate guard of Megaton, lying by a rock, his head and one of his arms close by. Paladin Tristan sat upright near the valley wall, a laser pistol in his hands and the front of his armour crushed. The Wanderer even saw Paladin Jensen, who'd apparently escaped from Fort Bannister when the resistance had launched an assault on the fort. He'd always wondered where he ended up.

"Boss, we found a radio! Still active!" yelled Jericho, who was crouched next to the mangled body of what likely was once a comms officer, judging by the remains of his uniform and the aforementioned radio set on his back. Sure enough, the Wanderer could what sounded like garbled speech coming from the headset in Jericho's hands.

"Thi...Opera...cer Edwards. To any resist...requesting immediate as...errun by Proj...shadow subjects. M...dead, only Cross, me, and...please hel...s!" The message continued, suggesting to both Jericho and the Wanderer that it wasn't so much an attempt to contact the deceased comms soldier but more likely the equipment picking up an emergency transmission. Both men looked at each other, their faces displaying no emotion but their eyes telling plenty.

"Alright, I want four men out here in concealed positions, in case any more resistance shows up! I want ten of you call the Vertibird and get to the tower, clearly whatever did this ended up doing most of the work so it's better to operate in small teams. The other ten are split between Jericho and I, five with me and five with him! Got it?" the Wanderer ordered, getting everyone's attention. Although there were some murmurs of irritation about being told to go back, the ordered ten did as they were told. As the others began organizing themselves and checking their equipment, the Wanderer pulled Jericho aside.

"I want you to find the data store in there. I know there is one cause I've seen it myself last time I was here. Find everything you can about this project. These idiots were in way over their heads, and that foolish bitch Cross decided to dabble in something that she clearly shouldn't have. I don't know if the things that did this to these men are dead or if some escaped, but I'll be damned if I let them or whatever data Cross has get out into the Wasteland" the Wanderer ordered angrily. Jericho could see the rage dancing behind the man's eyes. The old raider knew he didn't care what happened to the resistance members, or even his own men if push came to shove, all he wanted was to know what the ex-Star Paladin had done. The one thing that worried Jericho, however, was what would happen once the Wanderer got his hands on whatever they were running in the relay station. If it was as deadly as it seemed, Jericho doubted that the Wanderer could resist the temptation to use it or them, whatever it was that this project had created. As the Wanderer gave out orders to his men, Jericho began debating on a choice he'd dwelled on for a long time.

As the Wanderer, Jericho, and their men entered the station (the Wanderer was surprised that no one even TRIED to patch up the hole made by Liberty Prime during the Brotherhood assault), they found it strange that there weren't as many bodies inside as there were out. It was clear that the men outside had died during a 'last stand' of sorts, yet there was almost no physical evidence of the casualties that would have been inflicted in an evacuation that would have necessitated such an action, aside from a few scorch marks and bullet holes, along with some empty energy weapon cells and bullet casings. Both the Wanderer and Jericho subconsciously noticed the bloody drag marks leading deeper into the facility out of the corner of their eyes.

"Alright, Jericho, you and your men are to proceed to the data bank. I'm sending the data to your Pip-boy now. I have the frequency for that distress signal locked in, so my men and I will follow it and hopefully find both Cross and whatever the hell caused this. Contact me if anything comes up" the Wanderer said, making sure everyone knew what they had to do while he tapped away on his own Pip-boy. Jericho's model beeped, indicating a successful transfer. Due to the old raider's place in the Wanderer's 'government', it was found necessary that the Wanderer would need to easily contact his second-in-command should the need arise. Thanks to the numerous vaults littered throughout the DC area, it wasn't that hard to scrounge up a Pip-boy. A few small adjustments here and there and, voila, Jericho's very own Vault-Tec Pip-boy 3000.

"Boss, you want me to radio you just in case we run into whatever the hell made those resistance guys their scratching post?" Jericho asked, double-checking the map and handing out his personal frequency to his five men (who had standard pre-war radios looted from Adams Air Force Base).

"If it's too much for you guys to handle, fall back to a more defensible position then contact me. Whatever creatures got loose here are strong enough to crush power armor and rip limbs apart. In case any of you are wondering, no, I don't think it's a Deathclaw. I doubt Cross would be stupid enough to repeat the Enclave's little experiments with remote-control ones," That elicited some cringes and sheepish looks from some of the ex-Enclave among them; apparently only the highest echelons of Enclave High Command had thought it was brilliant, much to the detriment of their men on the ground. "Along with the fact that we would have seen Deathclaw bodies. The things are deadly, but with this much heavy ordinance in one place means that at least a few would have been taken down" the Wanderer finished, performing an ammo check on his Perforator as he did so.

That and the fact that those claws and teeth marks were too small for one of those scaly bastards, not to mention they looked way more aggressive.

"Alright, if we're all clear about what we need to do, this is where we part ways" said the Wanderer. As both groups parted ways to their respective objectives, the Wanderer and Jericho both stopped and wished each other luck on last time. As the Lone Wanderer trailed after his men, he couldn't help but think about the sad smile and depressed gleam in Jericho's eyes as they'd parted ways.

Eh, probably just Jericho being a mopey asshole like always, thought the Wanderer as he began his long-awaited hunt.

A/N: Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! To be honest, I didn't really like how this came out as it felt kind of awkward to write but I'll let the readers be the judge of that. Also, I apologize for how long its taking to get to what would actually make this a crossover. I do actually have a chapter plan, but it involves a bit of build-up and backstory (which I know not everyone enjoys) although I hope you guys enjoy reading this as much as I enjoy writing it.

Also wanted to thank everyone whos favorited and followed this fanfic. Tale Of Two Legends has done SO much better than I thought it would when I posted the first chapter. Knowing that people actually enjoy reading my work is a huge plus for me and I'm always happy to provide!

Chapter 5 will be up as soon as possible, even with university papers and all that grabbing my attention. Stay tuned!

Vorandul