Isaac glowered at the back of the big Russian as they made their way towards Springvale, a black and grey silhouette in the dim starlight. Night had fallen over the Capital Wasteland, plunging the land into a gloom that Isaac struggled to see through. Visibility was reduced to only a few dozen meters in any direction, save where the amber light of fires could be seen glimmering in the far distance. As such, the still-fuming Vault Dweller was stuck keeping close to his much more experienced companion, for fear of some unseen horror snatching him from the shadows.
The young man's glare at Mikhail's back only intensified as he thought back on the fight they'd had earlier today. How could Mikhail be so callous? Simms had come to ask them for help, and his first thought is how much money he can make off of it?! Who think's like that? They were the one's who lured the Deathclaw to Megaton in the first place, even if it was on Simms orders. As far as Isaac was concerned, taking out the remainder of the raiders in Springvale was the least they could do. He was snapped out of his angered musings as he noticed Mikhail's fist snap up next to his head, a silent signal for them to stop.
They were just outside the edges of Springvale, hidden behind a large crag of rock that jutted from the earth. Isaac could see the cracked remnants of the road not twenty feet away, and felt a pang in his chest as he noticed two large, dried bloodstains soaked into the ancient concrete. Those two stains were all that was left of the two raiders he'd killed his first day out of the Vault. In a few weeks, even the bloodstains would probably be gone.
His anger temporarily dissipated, Isaac turned to his large companion and spoke to him for the first time since leaving Megaton, "Why did we stop all the way out here?"
"Raiders will be watching de streets," Mikhail said shortly, the undertone in his voice suggesting he wasn't entirely over their earlier fight either. "I t'ink we should go around de back."
Isaac's eyebrow raised as he peeked around their improvised cover, glancing up and down the seemingly abandoned avenues of Springvale, "I don't see any raiders. And what do you mean around back?"
An irritated sigh rasped passed Mikhail's lips as he moved to join Isaac at the edge of their cover, "D'at's because you don't know how to look." He extended his hand into Isaac's field of vision and indicated one of the skeletal piles of charred wood and metal that was once a house. "Look close at bottom left corner. Watch when moonlight hits."
The young Vault Dweller's eyes squinted as he forced himself to try and see what Mikhail was trying to point out. The cloud cover overhead conveniently separated as he leaned slightly forward, and his features went hard as the moonlight bounced off a rifle barrel angled up from the ground, and the dirty face of a raider came into sight.
"There wasn't anyone sitting out here the last time I came through in the evening," Isaac frowned as he and Mikhail fully retreated back behind the crag of stone.
"You also killed big number of d'em last time you were here. D'ey are probably pissed and want you dead," Mikhail's words came quietly as he crept around to the opposite side of the crag of stone and checked their surroundings. "It looks like d'ey only have one person watching de road from Megaton."
"Alright," Isaac sighed as he peeked out to see the raider again. With the cloud cover steadily dissipating, the night grew marginally brighter and Isaac found his eyes quickly adjusting. There was a sudden spark from the raider's position, giving way to light from a miniscule fire as the raider lit a cigarette with an ancient lighter.
"They aren't really that smart, are they?" he asked aloud to Mikhail, the Russian shaking his head as he tightened the straps on his traveling pack.
"D'ey have de brains of radroaches. De are also just as numerous," the bigger man informed Isaac as he checked the magazine on his shotgun. "It looks like d'at is only sentry. Can you take care of d'em?"
Isaac's cerulean eyes lowered to the knife sheathed on his chest, and his mouth once again curled down into a frown, "More knife work, huh?" A shrug of reluctant acceptance rocked his shoulders. "Yeah, I can do that. Cover me?" he said with far less emotion in his voice, holding out his hunting rifle and a spare clip.
Mikhail noticed the changes in Isaac's demeanor, but did not call the young man on it, instead he simply took the rifle and gave a silent nod. He set his Saiga down upon the ground gently, well within arm's reach. Shouldering the rifle, he gave Isaac another nod, silently relaying he was ready. Isaac nodded back, and gazed up at the sky expectantly.
Isaac saw his opportunity as a particularly large cloud slid languidly across the moon. In the increased darkness, the young man quickly crouch-ran across the dirt and cracked pavement. He ducked behind the shadow of another house's remains, his right hand silently unsheathing his combat knife.
Mikhail smirked to himself as he watched his younger friend work, "Didn't even have to tell him to wait for de clouds, figured it out all on his own," he murmured.
Isaac continued on in the shadows of the decrepit pre-War home, doing his best to stay absolutely quiet. His eyes would glance down every few seconds at the ground beneath him, his frown deepening as his boots made the slightest crunch despite his best efforts. As he came upon a gap between the house he was currently hiding behind and the next one down, he carefully glanced out at where he'd last seen the raider.
He spotted the raider easily, the glowing ember the cigarette strikingly visible in the darkness. The ember turned to look away from his direction, and Isaac saw his opportunity. He crossed the gap in two quick steps and tucked himself against the debris of the house. A sigh of relief escaped him as the raider failed to notice him. He carefully walked the length of the house and rounded the corner with his combat knife still clutched securely in his right hand.
He was behind the raider's hiding spot now, the bulk of the house the raider hid in blocking him from view. He moved into the shadows of the bombed-out framework with only a brief stint in the open space of the avenue. The sound of a lighter being struck reached his ears, and he instinctively dropped prone on the ground. Ahead of him he could hear the raider grumbling in irritation as he lit another cigarette.
"Damn it, why'd I haveta sit out here in the damn dark," the raider's voice was raspy and arid, though if it was from an attempt at being quiet or too many years smoking Isaac couldn't tell. "It's not like the fucking kid is gonna come through at night, anyway," he complained a bit more loudly. Isaac used the loudness of the raider's complaining to mask his footsteps as he closed in on his target, flipping the knife around in his hand to hold it in a reverse grip.
"I bet the fuckin' kid's in Megaton all safe and sound drinking his ass off. Crew's been shit since Simms shot Boppo," more whining came from the raider as he angrily threw down the filter of his latest cigarette.
"Chain smoking is bad for you." The words sent the raider's eyes wide, hand flying to a snubnose pistol tucked into his pocket before a hand clapped over his mouth and a knife buried itself in his chest. He tried to scream against the hand covering his mouth, but all he managed was a weak wheeze.
"I punctured your left lung," Isaac's voice breathed in the dying raider's ear. A sudden jerk of the knife to the right and a twisting push, and the pain in the raider's chest multiplied tenfold. "And that was your heart. May you find peace in the arms of our loving savior, the Lord Almighty."
Isaac twisted the knife in the man's chest and then ripped it free, dropping the soon-to-be corpse to the ground with a frown. Bending down, he cleaned his knife on the dead man's pant-leg and then sheathed it, kicking away the snubnose pistol when he saw it was on the verge of falling apart. The former Vault Dweller's grabbed the hunting rifle from its place atop a pile of broken wood. A quick examination revealed it to poorly-maintained, but it was still serviceable for the near future.
The snap of some meager piece of wood sounded behind Isaac, sending him whipping around aiming the rifle at the source of the noise. Mikhail stood there with his hands holding Isaac's own hunting rifle pointed down. Mikhail looked down at the dead raider with a small nod as Isaac breathed an audible sigh of relief.
"You scared the shit out of me," Isaac told his larger companion, moving closer and gesturing for his rifle back.
"Better to scare you d'en shoot you, ya?" Mikhail retorted, giving Isaac his hunting rifle back and taking the newly acquired one from him. "D'is d'ing work?" he asked with a raised brow.
"It looks like it still does, though I'd have to shoot it to be sure and we don't wanna draw any attention yet," answered Isaac.
The big Russian checked the smoothness of the bolt-action himself and looked the rifle over carefully, humming to himself, "It looks decent enough. Not good as yours, but decent. D'ink I'll keep d'is if you don't care?"
"Feel free," Isaac shrugged. He crouched and patted down the stilled form of the raider, finding a handful of loose bullets in the dead man's pocket, ten in total. Wordlessly, they were passed to Mikhail, who tucked them away in a pouch affixed to his combat armor.
The two checked the remains of the home for any more loot, finding none other than a cracked coffee mug that Isaac tossed away without a second thought. Moving on, they skirted the outsides of the town as they crested a hill. The elementary school loomed in the distance, a dark shape against the grey expanse of the Wastes beyond. There was movement in the empty windows of the ceilingless upper floors.
"Someone's up there," Isaac pointed out, watching a shadow move from one window to the next.
"De back of building is blown open. Most likely bomb hit a corner of building during de War," Mikhail explained, motioning for Isaac to follow him. They hurried between spots of cover along the outer perimeter of the school, before taking refuge behind a stretch of boulders that seemed to have fallen down the hillside northwest of them. Mikhail waved his hand for them to keep going, and they closed the distance until they were pressed right up against the northern wall of the school.
"So they have guys wandering around the bombed out exterior, and probably more of them inside, right?" Isaac spoke in a hushed whisper.
"Yep," Mikhail nodded, strapping the hunting rifle to his pack and taking his Saiga. "Might want to double check mags."
Isaac did as Mikhail advised, making sure his pistol and hunting rifle were both fully loaded. Once he was sure both were locked and loaded, he holstered his 10mm pistol and cradled his hunting rifle in his arms, "Alright. What's the plan then, big guy?"
"We give d'em nice, loud 'Hello'," Mikhail answered with a feral grin as he held up a fragmentation grenade for Isaac to see.
Isaac grinned back, chambering a round into his rifle, "I like this plan."
Heeellllooo, Fallout Fandom! I've got great news: I'M NOT FUCKING DEAD! It's been about a year and a half since this bad boy was updated, and I apologize deeply for that. Back in January 2014, I stumbled into the issue of not knowing how to proceed after Chapter 8 (which I'm sure you guys could tell was more than a little forced out). Stuck in a block as far as it came to this story, I started RPing in a RWBY forum and then was irreparably sucked into the RWBY fandom. Started a co-op fic on that with a friend of mine, and then that fell short as he came to a block of his own. Then there was a Destiny thing (with Fallout References!), and yeah.
Point is I've been distracted and away from this project for awhile now, and I apologize for that. BUT, fear not. With the looming approach of Fallout 4, my brain is in an increasingly erratic and fanatical whirlwind of obsession with Fallout, leading me back to this project. Needless to say I found a way around my block and figured out a decent amount of what I'm wanting to do as far as plot and everything else here, and more will be coming in the near future.
That being said, I have no clear update schedule for this fic. I'm going to be doing little bits of work on it here and there when I can get the time, as in the past two years I've moved out and share a house with my girlfriend and a friend. So, yeah, they can be distracting from the keyboard. But I WILL keep this thing going, and Isaac will continue on his adventures through the majestic shithole that is Post-Apocolyptica.
Thanks for reading, chiiiildren! This had been Relks The Disturbed and you're reading Fallout: The Journey Forward, a smart-assed and sarcasm-fueled Capital Wasteland, and we're here, for YOU!
