My dear readers,

I am VERY sorry I've been neglecting to update my story, but the past couple months haven't been very good to me. This isn't much of an excuse but here it goes: I based the character "Gaz" off the girl I was dating at the time. She actually convinced me to set up my current fanfiction account, came up with my username "ChopChop" and even inspired me to write my first Old World Soldier story. When she broke up with me two months ago I found it very difficult to write about a character that was based off her. She ruined a lot of things for me, but by god she isn't going to ruin my passion for Fallout. Sorry I kept you all waiting, and as always, if you have any story suggestions, please let me know; I'm always down to talk to my audience.

~ChopChop

The chattering sound of automatic weapons and the high pitched zapping noise of a laser rifle was what woke Gaz from her blackout. Her eyes snapped open, she was still in the crashed Vertibird. In front of her was the dead and mangled body of one of the Paladins. His helmet was off and his eyes were still wide open, the intensely bright flash had blinded him and seared milky white cataracts over his pupils. Cold, congealed blood was dripping out the corners of his eyes, making it look as if he was crying blood. Every so often she heard the loud "ping!" of a bullet ricocheting off the armored hull of the wrecked aircraft. The other Paladin was sitting at the open door of the aircraft, occasionally peeking out and firing his tri-beam laser rifle at a distant enemy. Even through his power armor had softened the impact, his right leg was twisted and contorted in such a grizzly manner that it would probably have to be amputated. He glanced over at her.

"Lt. Patterson! Are you ok?!" He shouted, she could hear the pain in his voice

She was shocked that such a wounded man would be concerned about someone other than himself. She gave herself the once over, aside from the swollen bump on her head she was ok.

"I'm alright! What's our situation?!"

"The pilot and my comrade are dead. Those things…. The skin stripped ghouls… They got us surrounded. I don't know how many there are."

Gaz put her helmet on and searched around the wreck for her equipment. Her weapons seemed ok, but a fair amount of her medical supplies had been destroyed. A dark mixture of stimpack serum and RadAway fluid dripped out of her first aid kit. She had five stimpacks still intact and only two bags of RadAway that hadn't broken open. The rest of the medicine had been ruined. She drew the M1 Grand rifle Floyd had left her and cocked a .308 armor piercing round into the chamber. She used the stock of the rifle to bash out a porthole to use as a shooting position. She peered out the window and took in her situation; the Vertibird had crashed just to the south of the Hopeville barracks, she could see the silhouettes of Marked Men moving about in the distance and could feel them watching her. She knew Ulysses had said to find him at the end of the Divide so her next move was to head north up the canyon. However, before she could attempt this, she had to figure out what to do with the injured Paladin and after that devise a way to get past the Marked Men lurking around the wreck. The Paladin sighed and looked at his horrifically twisted leg, then he looked at Gaz.

"We both know I'm not going any farther…" He said

"Your friends back at the base can airlift you right?" Gaz said

"No… McNamara told us we'd have no support or extraction team. We're on our own here." He said, he seemed to have a tone of regret in his voice

"What are you suggesting?"

"I obviously can't come with you… But I can cover you…" He said

"What are you saying?"

The Paladin pointed to an closed gate to the north, it was just past the barracks and armory "I'm saying if you make a run for that gate, then I can cover you."

"What about you?"

"Look, your life is far more important than mine. If you waste time getting me to safety then you'll jeopardize the future of the whole damn wasteland. If you're anything like your brother Grant I'm sure you'll do just fine on your own."

The idea of leaving an injured man behind went against everything Gaz believed in, leaving someone behind in a dreadful place like the Divide made this feel even worse. But he was right. Gaz took a breath to speak; she was trying to think of something to say. She wanted to thank him and take off after Floyd but at the same time she wanted to move him to a safer place where the deranged ghouls couldn't fine him. Her train of thought was interrupted by a group of five Marked Men, all converging on the crashed Vertibird. Even through their faces had been stripped of skin, they still all had a look of loathing and hatred that was visible even without expression defining facial features. They carried weapons of various types; one carried a heavy shoulder-mounted-machinegun, two of them had plasma weapons one had a service rifle and one even had an industrial backpack-mounted arc welder. The distinctive chugging sound of the shoulder-mounted MG came to life coupled with the shrieking whine of plasma rifles firing. The whole wreck of the aircraft shook as the small arms fire and plasma bolts impacted.

"Run out the other side of the wreck and loop around the pillar we crashed into! I'll keep them busy!" The Paladin shouted

She bolted out the ripped open hull of the Veribird. Her brother's cavalry power armor allowed her to run as fast as she could unhindered. She ran to the pillar of cement the aircraft had crashed into and peeked around the other side. The marked men were getting closer, the one armed with the service rifle ran forward in an attempt to bum-rush the Paladin but was vaporized in a bright red flash from a tri-laser bolt. The others then rushed forward as well, sporadically firing into the hull where the injured Paladin was hiding. The Marked Man with the arc-welder fired at nearly point blank range , the arc of electricity and searing heat instantly burned through the steel of his power armor. Waves of electrical energy cascaded through the armor and his body and he let out a final scream of pain as he was electrocuted. Gaz felt like someone had tapped a pin into her heart, the guilt that swept through her was then replaced with thoughts of revenge as the Marked Men laughed at their latest kill. She drew her minigun and crept up behind them. They whipped around when they heard the sound of the minigun spin to life but it was too late. The loud "BRRRT" noise of the minigun drowned out the sound of their screams.

The six minigun's barrels glowed red hot as oily smoke drifted off them. Gaz checked to see if the Paladin was still alive. There was a hole the size of her fist where the arc-welder had melted through his armor, smoke and the stink of burnt flesh wafted out of the hole. She didn't know this man, he didn't deserve to die like this, no one deserved to die like that. She needed a minute; the past few days had been more stressful than the entire battle of the Grand Canyon. She took a deep breath through the filter on her helmet, the breathing apparatus made the air taste like plastic. She exhaled and continued on her way, past the rubble of destroyed cars and the ancient barracks of the Hopeville military base. She had holstered the minigun on her back and had drawn "This Machine", her M1 Grand. Heading north was the only thing left to do at this point. As she speedily paced through the ruins of Hopeville she couldn't help but develop a strange and eerie feeling of nostalgia. She knew this place back when it was in its former glory; everything seemed so familiar but at the same time so different. The green grass that surrounded the barracks in her time was replaced with reddish brown metallic sand. There was a massive amount of wreckage thrown into the area to; smashed cars, twisted steel girders and rebar, there was even a massive 120mm howitzer cannon that the blast had picked up and thrown into the area. As she walked she began to notice the shot-up bodies of marked men lying in the road, they had all been stripped of any usable supplies weapons and ammunition. There was clearly a fight here between the Marked Men and an opposing force. She stopped walking and analyzed the scene; the bodies were lying on one side of the road, the other side of the crumbling street was a drainage ditch. The Marked Men's attacker must have used the ditch as a trench for cover; there were hundreds of spent brass bullet casings lining the ditch. She picked up a handful and examined the different calibers of the cases. She found a lot of the common .308 round, a few big .50 caliber cases were also scattered about.

But then she noticed something that gave her a glimmer of hope in the desolate confines of The Divide: lying amongst the other countless bullet casings was the unmistakable case of a .45 automatic. Gaz knew there was only one group of people that exclusively used .45 autos: The New Canaanites. Floyd had been here. He had obviously been in a nasty fight, but the lack of blood and his body made it apparent he had won. She picked up her pace and continued down the road. She passed the lifeless body of a hulking Marked Man with raw biceps the size of tree stumps, he was as big if not bigger than Floyd. He had an unwieldy flamethrower backpack-tank strapped to his back and the nozzle still clutched in his torn-up hands. There was seven large-caliber pistol wounds in his lower abdomen, the wounds looked like they had been inflicted by either a .44 magnum or a .45 auto. Gaz liked to believe it was Floyd and his pistol "Light Shining In Darkness" that had killed the colossal Marked Man. She regarded the body warily as she approached, using the muzzle of her M1 Grand she jabbed the body in the face. It didn't flinch. She kept moving, keeping a close eye on her Pip-Boy's threat scanner as well as any corners or potential hiding places. She abruptly heard a rapid series of high-pitched beeping, she looked at her feet just in time to see a satchel-charge detonate. The explosion picked her up and threw her back, a wave of shrapnel and broken earth plastered the metal plates of her armor. The bright flash from the blast turned her world white and replaced her sense of hearing with a high pitched ringing sound. She landed on her back, aside from white-blurred vision and shell-shocked hearing she was uninjured. She rolled over to her knees; the head injury from the Vertibird crash combined with the concussion wave from the satchel-charge had really rang her bell. She dizzily got to her feet and regained her bearings; her vision was still blurred but her slowly hearing was returning to normal. She took off her helmet and rubbed the blur out of her eyes. She glanced up and saw the hazy outline of a person limping towards her. She tried to focus, it kind of looked like Floyd but she wasn't sure.

"Floyd?! Is that you?!" She shouted but could barely hear her own voice over the ringing in her ears, the figure however didn't answer. He merely kept limping forward

"F-Floyd?" Her voice broke as she called again, her vision was returning to normal and the figure was coming into focus now. The closer the figure got the less it looked like Floyd

Gaz clicked the safety off her rifle and took aim.

"Stay where you are!"

The figure kept walking forward

"I am fucking warning you!"

Her vision had completely returned to normal and for the first time the figure was now distinguishable: It sure as hell wasn't Floyd. It was the Marked Man from before with the flamethrower. He brandished the nozzle and squeezed the release valve and igniter, he roared a savage howl as a torrent of liquid fire was unleashed. Gaz had been standing slightly out of the flamethrower's range so she was able to avoid the stream of napalm and return fire. Gaz rapidly and accurately fired all eight .308 rounds into the Marked Man's chest. He obviously felt the rifle rounds ripping through him but didn't seem to be phased. He was driven by irradiated rage, hatred, anger and torment. Blood seeped out of his mouth of decayed and broken teeth. Gaz moved back as he advanced, wildly spraying jets of flame at her. She hastily reloaded and continued to shoot back. In an adrenaline induced rush, he sprang forward and managed to splatter her with a small plume of burning napalm. She panicked as she tried to get it off, the flaming adhesive petroleum stuck to everything it came in contact with. The gloves on her armor were thick enough to protect her from seriously burning herself but it still hurt. Luckily the Marked Man's flamethrower had a stoppage and the Marked Man tried furiously to get his weapon to work. Gaz saw her opportunity, she stopped trying to put out the fire and drew her 12.7mm pistol and aimed for the fuel tank on his back. One shot was all it took, the tank ruptured in a fire ball consuming the Marked Man in burning petroleum. The oxygen was sucked out of his lungs taking away his ability to scream. Gaz holstered the pistol and patted out the fire. She stood there panting, then went and picked up her helmet and put it on before continuing on her way. She continued north, paying close attention to where she put her feet to avoid stepping on anymore landmines. Every so often she'd see signs of Floyd; .45 auto casings, an empty clip to his automatic rifle and even a few butts to the hand-rolled cigarettes that he smoked. Gaz was worried about him so much it made her nauseas, and after seeing the nuclear missile launch she couldn't help but wonder if Floyd had been involved. Just then she heard a recognizable beeping, it wasn't a landmine, it was the little eyebot ED-E. The Sputnik-like robot was emitting a panicked and rapid series of beeps so fast that Gaz could barely decipher what he was trying to say. The only beep that she recognized immediately was when ED-E beeped something that sounded like "Floyd" and "In serious trouble." Gaz didn't need to know anymore

"Take me to him! Let's go! Let's go!" She said and double timed it down the road