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Assozat: Lore-friendly or not, a hoverboard isn't quite Rain's style.

Houkou: Rain's view was blocked by the outer walls, and he was following Ghost's suggestion about the General Store providing a good viewpoint. After the Legion scout shouted, the other members of the Legion were alerted to his presence. From there, Vulpes lured Rain out into the open and used the psychological trauma to keep him there.

010

"Howdy everyone. It's me, Malcolm Holmes, and this is Sunset Star Radio. Got another interesting rumor for you. A lot of people near Sloan are saying they've seen big, hulking figures along the upper stretch of the I-15. Could be Super Mutants, could be Brotherhood of Steel, or it could just be a case of an overactive imagination. Anyways, got something a little different for you all while we're still figuring out our long-term playlist. It's Donna Burke with Heavens Divide."

I awoke feeling worse than when I went to sleep. My head was still a mess from a series of nightmares about Nipton, and the number of alternate scenarios where Vulpes Inculta had killed me left phantom pains all over my body.

"About time you woke up," A helmet-filtered voice said, coming from the other side of the room. My eyes finally adjusted to the dim, flickering light from the burn barrel. Sitting on the edge of the bed frame was a man some rather intimidating armor and a leather duster, pointing a hefty black revolver in my direction. Even with the size and weight, I could see how comfortable the man was with the weapon. If I tried anything, he'd get a shot off without trouble. His helmet was rather distinctive, too, a combination of an old army helmet and a breath mask, with red eyes and a flashlight built onto the right side. By straining my eyes, I could see the faded white L.A.P.D. painted on the right side of his chestplate, marking the entire set of armor as a pre-war creation.

"And you are?" I asked, leaning forward to rest my hands on my knees. It was about the furthest comfortable position from my guns, since I didn't want to take a large caliber bullet to the face.

"You first," The man commanded after an uncomfortable silence.

"Blue Lion," I said, not the least bit interested in giving the man my real name.

"NCR?" The man asked.

"I do some work for them," I replied honestly, "And you?"

"I'm looking for someone," He said, reaching under his collar and pulling out a plain gold wedding band on a chain. "A ghoul. Has a ring just like this one. He was headed this way last I heard."

"I've been out of town for the last few days," I admitted, shaking my head. I'd read about ghouls on ED-E's files. They were poor souls mutated by radiation, condemned to slowly lose their minds and be reduced to feral monsters as the years went on. "Let me Radio ED-E and see if he spotted the guy you're looking for. Does this ghoul have a name?"

"Benjamin Eldridge."

I nodded and flipped on my Pip-Boy, wincing at the harsh light that flooded the room. I'd have to change it at some point. The blue was starting to get a bit dull. I toggled my headset and tuned in to ED-E's frequency.

"Morning ED-E," I chuckled after the rampage of angry beeps and whistles died down. "I need you to pass me any information you have on Benjamin Eldridge. He's a ghoul who may have passed through town while I was out."

There were a few more angry beeps, and I rolled my eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh.

"Look, I'll talk to Doc Mitchell later. It's barely eight in the morning."

My Pip-Boy soon dinged and I opened the file, reading the contents quickly.

"Eldridge showed up and left town yesterday, heading southwest. Apparently he's got two companions, a redhead with a laser rifle and a chunky kid in a Vault 10 jumpsuit. According to ED-E they ran a courier scam at the General Store," I informed the man. He gave a short nod and holstered his revolver, adjusting a hunting rifle and messenger bag over his shoulders. Without a word more, he pushed open the door and walked out. A bit wary of letting an obviously unstable man just walk off, I followed him out, keeping a safe distance. When the man finally left the town, walking south towards the wells, I stopped tailing him and finally let myself relax again.

I wandered my way back to town with no real goal in mind. It occurred to me that I probably shouldn't have told Ghost I was taking the day off. Without anything that needed to be done, my mind would just keep going back to Nipton.

The images flashed in my mind again, and I barely stopped myself from emptying my stomach beside the road. The bruise from Vulpes' strike started aching again, but I shrugged it all off in a moment. Nipton wasn't my first round of PTSD. I'd dealt with flashbacks to my less-than-stellar childhood before going through the ring. If Vulpes thought he could break me so easily, he was dead wrong. Grumbling and muttering under my breath, I slipped up to the gas station to raid the Sunset Sarsaparilla machine, having learned the restock days from the accounts of others around the town. Thankfully, nobody else had beaten me to the machine, and I grabbed a few extra bottles to store in my fridge before heading back down the hill.

"Running low on food, too," I muttered once I'd arrived at my shack and put the drinks away. Shaking my head, I rinsed out one of my frying pans and put it on the stove, grabbing a few Gecko eggs from the fridge. They didn't make the tastiest of meals, but Gecko hunting had been outlawed by my own words, so that was as much as I could get from the adorable lizards. According to Sunny, a few of the townsfolk had even taken in Geckos to breed and raise like chickens, due to how frequently they laid eggs. Any food source is better than nothing, I suppose. Hope it works out for them.

Once my lackluster breakfast was finished, I settled down and started working on more of the guns in my pile, noting that ED-E had already sold the repaired ones for me. It occurred to me that I needed to take another shower after rolling through the dirt and sand last night, but I was feeling too lazy to get up or stop my work.

When the pile of sidearms ran out, I started cleaning the guns I'd taken on my trip down the valley. The AR15 had taken the worst beating of the set, especially with how many rounds I'd fired from it. Another sigh worked its way from my throat when I realized that I'd left both my brass and the empty magazine back in the valley. There was no way in hell I was going back down there. Not until I had a flamethrower at the very least. Or, I could send ED-E down, since he was immune to the radscorpion stings, and his armor would be strong enough to protect him.

"ED-E," I radio'd my robot buddy again. "I left some 5.56 cases and a magazine down in the valley past the cemetery. Think you could grab them for me? I'd go myself, but it's radscorpion territory, and I've already had my share of them for the week."

I heard a few thuds that sounded suspiciously like ED-E was ramming his chassis into a wall, followed shortly by the boom of him taking off in travel mode. Three minutes later, ED-E slammed open the door, showing off a collection of scorpion stingers caught in the tiny gaps in his grill. I could tell the robot was deadpanning at me, despite the entire lack of a face.

"Err..." I opened my mouth, but ED-E turned and dumped the sack of brass casings over my head, cutting my half-formed thought short. The robot slowly floated backwards out of the shack, then strafed out of sight. When the schoolhouse's door slammed, I winced and got out of my chair to gather up the casings.

"I can't stay here," I sighed, shaking my head. I didn't want to leave ED-E behind, but we needed the R&D lab built so we could start improving on pre-war technology and kick-start the world's drive for innovation again. Shutting my door, I quickly took another bath, likely to be my final one for a while, and started to pack. My medical bag was mostly emptied, save for the critical supplies in it like bandages and stimpaks (I'd made sure to sterilize the needles after taking them from my kills). The remaining space was quickly taken up by clothes, boxes of bullets, and my sewing kit for both clothing repairs and... wound repairs. I didn't grab anything in the way of food, since I was out of the canned stuff, but I did bring along three bottles of Goodsprings' pure water. I'd have to ration the water at least until I could find another pure source or have a filtration system built. With that in mind, I sat down at the terminal and left a letter for ED-E, including instructions for after the lab was up and running.

I also made it clear that unless if I called for him, I didn't want ED-E coming after me. Maybe after he'd built some additional helpers to get the R&D lab mostly automated I'd call on him again.

The thought of an army of ED-Es made me shudder, and I made sure to add an extra line to my letter.

With that finished, I took a deep breath and rose from my chair. I passed through the door to my shack, closing it behind me. I paused next to my motorcycle, considering the faded green machine for a moment. At last, I shook my head and walked on. I'd be going into unfamiliar territory with this trip. The motorcycle would speed up the journey, but it would also make me a target. A shame too, for all the trouble I had to go through to keep ownership of it.

As much as I wanted to say goodbye to Sunny, too, I couldn't risk her trying to stop me. It would burn too much time, or she'd try to stop me. I left her a holotape, to be delivered by ED-E if she didn't break into my home in a few days on her own. Not my home anymore. Sure, the shack's a good place to lay my head, and the R&D lab's being set up there... but Goodsprings. I've done too much wrong to stay there long-term.

Shaking my head to clear it of those thoughts, I continued walking, focusing on the road ahead. I had some unfinished business in Nipton, and after that, time would tell.

The town had finally stopped burning, no longer casting smoke into the sky. I slowly walked through the dead streets, feeling the air of depression that hung over the buildings like a thick fog. Nipton would become a ghost town, both figuratively and literally, soon enough. The massacre of civilians and soldiers alike would mark the land as unlivable. I mapped out the town, and after some consideration, found the trailer park the best place to start digging. There was plenty of open space, and with some effort I was able to move the trailers further out of the way.

It took me hours to sweep the houses for bodies. Some took longer than others, especially that of Harry Collins, a man that had rigged traps all over his home. I was amazed that the bark scorpions he'd left in that cage were still alive and kicking. I was also proud to see that Harry's shotgun rigs had sucessfully taken down one of the Legion. As I methodically disarmed the remaining traps, I could feel the determination the Collins had felt as he settled in to defend his home, and the despair at being stabbed through the chest by a machete while he attempted to reach the M79 Grenade Launcher stashed in his safe.

Another interesting home belonged to a man known as Tony the Tinker. He'd been working on fixing up a pair of Mister Gutsy robots, in the hopes of wooing a girl from out of town. The first Gutsy was still active, and only a hastily spoken override code kept me from getting into a firefight with the hovering robot. After consulting Tony's spirit, I sent my new three-armed war machine back to Goodsprings to report to ED-E and help him however possible. Hopefully the Mister Gutsy would survive the trip, but it wasn't really any big loss if he didn't.

I had to choke back tears when I reached another home that had been home to a large family with four children. The fact that the Legion just slaughtered the kids without a second thought showed just what kind of monsters they were. It lit a vengeful fire in my heart, and convinced me to leave the corpses of the fallen Legion members in Nipton to rot. The bastards were lucky their spirits didn't stay chained to the Earth, or I would have found a way to make them suffer for eternity.

Even without the Town Hall, I had managed to recover over thirty civilian bodies from Nipton... and four NCR Soldiers that had been thrown in the town's only hotel. Among them, much to my shock, was Private McMahon. Why he was there eluded me, and despite his betrayal at Primm, I was sad to see the man dead. Sure, he'd been a bit of a self-serving prick at times, but others he'd shown potential that was now wasted in a pool of blood. As much as I wanted to just bury the bodies as well, I knew that wasn't fair to the soldiers. They deserved a proper burial, not some half-assed job by a young man with too much on his mind.

A quick radio message to Hayes provided a rather irritating insight to the NCR's burial policies. They only cared about recovering the dog tags. Anything else was at the discretion of the person who found the body. As a result, I made a separate line of graves from the civilians, and carved the names of the fallen into wide boards recovered from the wreckage. Sergeant Kent Patchett, Major Tom Holden, Specialist James Spinks, and Private Cade McMahon. With only the town hall left to search, I turned my eyes to the building and steadied myself for what unknown horrors could lie within. I nearly jumped out of my skin when the radio crackled and Hayes came on.

"Rain, if you're searching Nipton, watch out for any traps left behind by the Legion. They have a sick habit of leaving land mines under corpses."

"I'm hating these bastards more and more by the minute," I growled, silently opening the double doors and focusing my hearing to try and get an idea if anyone or anything was still alive inside. Soon enough, I heard soft scratching of claws on wood, and a few soft whines. Dogs? There was something else, close too. A soft, almost inaudible beeping. If the dogs were any louder, I probably would have missed it. It was originating from the right side of the room, past a pair of bodies and behind the front desk. I'd heard the beeping earlier, when I'd hastily disarmed the land mine in Harry Collins' house. Slowly, I peeked over the front desk, hoping to avoid triggering the mine's motion and proximity sensors.

Once I had the mine's location, I retreated back outside for a stick or board that I could use to safely disarm the mine from a distance. Freshly armed with a 2x4, I returned and leaned over the front desk, quickly tapping the mine's button with the wood before it could even give off one of its louder warning beeps. Crisis averted, I thought as I walked around the desk to retrieve my prize. While there, I also found a well-worn key that would likely prove useful somewhere in the town hall.

The key turned out to be useful much sooner than expected, as the first door I came across was locked... and then unlocked using the key I'd picked up. There weren't any bodies in the small basement/break room I found, but the drugs displayed openly on one of the tables proved a part of the town's reputation. I also found a crate with the Powder Gangers' marks while I was down there, proving that the town had been involved with them in some shape or form. Even more worrying were the pair of frag grenades inside the crate. I'd need to be careful if I encountered the Powder Gangers again if they were gaining more and more military-grade gear.

I returned from the basement and winced as I saw the corpse lying in the bathroom across the hall. Another that I'd have to recover and bury once I'd fully searched the building. I rounded the corner and encountered five shaggy brown wolf-dogs, all sniffing around the hall and looking generally lost. Without fear I stepped up to the nearest one and let him sniff my hand before giving a scratch behind the ears. After a moment, the world seemed to still, and I knew I'd made a successful connection to the dog's mind. I hadn't had much experience actively searching the minds of animals, but I had to try, so I could decide whether I'd have to kill off the abandoned pack or not. I couldn't judge the Legion dogs solely on their masters.

Hurt, betrayal, hope. The pack had entered the town hall at the direction of their master. The people who resisted the 'lottery' were killed quickly, a single bite to the throat was enough for most. The pack was told to stay in the Hall, to wait and attack anyone who came to investigate. Now, a day later, it had hit the pack's Alpha that they were abandoned. I poked through the memories of the last day, and sighed in relief when I saw that they had only eaten the stray radroach or giant mantis over the last few days. Pulling out of the wolf-dog's mind, I gave him a more genuine smile and a scratch behind the ears. The other dogs soon came up to ask for some attention too, and the noise attracted four dogs from the second floor. As I dealt out scratches and belly rubs, I felt the minds of the dogs all around me. They didn't quite have the same spark that the Geckos had, but they were still intelligent animals and knew that things had to change. Master wouldn't be coming back. If they didn't find another way to live, the NCR would kill them on sight. As much as I felt bad for doing so, I slipped the dogs an idea that if they joined the NCR, they could get revenge on the master that betrayed them. If they didn't want revenge, at least they'd be genuinely cared for. Once the pack agreed, I turned on my radio and messaged Hayes.

"Lieutenant, I need you to do me a big favor here," I chuckled, still reaching down with my free hand to pet any puppy in range.

"You only call me by rank when you need something," Hayes chuckled dryly, then paused and asked, "Are those... dogs I'm hearing?"

"Yeah, well... remember how I made the Geckos turn friendly? I... kinda did it again with the dogs the Legion left behind in Nipton."

The Alpha cut in with a happy bark, and I beamed down at the orange-eyed dog, glad for the single point of light to come from the dark destruction witnessed on Nipton.

"Are they... safe to be around NCR?" Hayes asked.

"Yep. They were already pretty torn up about their previous owner leaving them behind, and once I helped them see he was a complete and utter asshole, any and all loyalty to the guy was completely nullified. They're pretty pissed at the rest of the Legion too now. That part was not my doing," I replied, rising to my feet and chuckling as the dogs all stood up with me. "They're excellent trackers and hunters. A lot of the old pre-war wolf blood still flows through their veins. I'm going to mark and send the dogs your way. If anyone in Primm wants a new pet or companion, they get first priority. I am going to give you fair warning. If anything happens to these dogs while they're under the NCR's care, I am going to be pissed. If they're lost in combat, that's an unfortunate but acceptable consequence. But I will not allow any abuse or mistreatment of these dogs. They had enough of that under their last owner. Am I understood?"

"Y-yes," Hayes coughed, and I gave a sharp nod, even though I knew he couldn't see it.

"Alright then. Please pass on the message to the Mojave Outpost for me, in case someone gets trigger happy. I need to finish sweeping the Town Hall."

I knew exactly what I would use to 'mark' the dogs, and whistled for them to follow me as I walked back outside. Within moments, I reached the the west entrance of Nipton. In two quick slashes from my knife, I cut the bindings holding up the Legion's crimson flags, then knelt down and began cutting the fabric into long strips. I tied one around the neck of each dog like a collar, tight enough that they couldn't be taken off by the dogs, but not enough to hurt them. As each dog was given their new neckwear, I hugged each one of them and gave them instructions on where to go. One by one, the dogs took off into the moonlit night, the long ends of their makeshift collars trailing in the wind like crimson scarves.

The pack's Alpha was the last dog remaining, sitting on his haunches a few feet away. Slowly, I reached down and wrapped the crimson band around his neck, fighting with myself over whether I should let him go or not. I'd loved wolves since childhood. Even when I decided the lion represented me better, I kept my fascination with the majestic animals.

The Alpha whined softly and padded forward to nuzzle the bruise on my chest, breaking down the last vestiges of my resistance.

"Do you... want to stay with me?" I asked, feeling a bit timid as I held the red cloth. If he didn't want me, I'd let the dog rejoin his pack, but it would break my heart in the process. He whined and licked away the tears that had begun to leak from my eyes against my command. Acceptance. I didn't waste any time and wrapped my new friend in a tight hug, laughing when he wiggled his way out of my grip. I needed a name for him, and Alpha just felt to generic. The wolf-dog was a natural-born leader, yes, and in that I came up with his new name.

"I think I'll call you... Shepard."

I opened the door to the office of Nipton's former mayor, a man by the name of Joseph B. Steyn. I'd finished burying all of Nipton's residents, and it Shepard was the only reason I hadn't been blown up by a mine on the second floor. I'd been too caught up in my joy of having the dog with me to keep my ears out for the beeping. Just how Shepard knew how to disarm land mines was beyond my understanding, but it made me that much more glad to have him around. The mayor's office was much more richly decorated than the rest of the building, with a large rug that covered most of the floor. The only damage to the room came from the shattered glass on a cabinet behind the mayor's desk, and a section of the wall that had been damaged. From the carbon scoring around the damaged section, it was likely an explosion of some kind.

Shepard barked and immediately ran over to the door at the far side of the room, scratching at it fiercely.

"In a second, I need to check this terminal first," I told him, sitting at the mayor's desk and pushing aside the 'Big Book of Electronics' and 'Programmer's Digest' magazines in the way. I was going to end up lugging a lot of spare gear out of the place, especially since I found all of the weapons the trader down on the second floor had been carrying in his pack.

I powered on the terminal and frowned as I read the three entries. It painted a rather clear image in my mind of who Steyn was. That image was of an egotistical jackass who sold his entire town for eight thousand caps! Snarling in fury, I reached behind me and grabbed the laser pistol I'd seen in the broken cabinet, slotted in the triad of Energy Cells (read: AA Batteries) needed to power the weapon, and fired on the terminal. Much to my immense pleasure, the device atomized into a neat little gray pile. Shepard stared at me oddly, and I rolled my eyes at the wolf.

"You'd do it too if you had thumbs... and could read," I told him, rising from the chair and grabbing the remaining energy cells from the broken cabinet, along with a copy of Future Weapons Today. That magazine would help me fill in a few gaps in my knowledge about Energy Weapons, whenever I had the chance to settle for a bit and read it.

I waved Shepard away from the door he'd been scratching at and listened for a moment, checking for any sign of life on the other side. I couldn't hear anything, so I tried the handle, sighing when I found it was locked. I felt like an idiot for not bringing bobby pins, and the door opened the wrong way for me to pull the trick with my knife that I'd used in the Bison Steve Hotel.

"Do cause property damage, or not to cause property damage? That is the question," I muttered. After a moment, I decided that Steyn was a dick anyways, and there were plenty of other doors that I'd left intact. Shepard, upon seeing the maniacal grin on my face, retreated onto one of the Mayor's couches. I positioned myself in the hall with a straight line of sight to my target and stretched quickly. No point in doing something awesome if I was going to injure myself unnecessarily in the process.

After a calming breath, I took off like a rocket towards the locked door. Once I felt I was close enough, I jumped, shifting my weight and starting a front flip. Once my legs were in the right position, I lashed out with both and shouted the first thing that came to my mind.

"FUS RO DAH!"

I landed on my back, slapped both hands against the ground, and rolled back to my feet. The door, or what was left of it anyhow, was lying across the room against a metal cabinet, stripped of its hinges and handle. The impact had jarred a lot of loose items off of their shelves, but nothing seemed to be broken. I cracked my knuckles and entered Mayor Steyn's private stash, intent on looting for all it was worth. Oh what a round of looting it was. Besides the standard N99 he'd kept on the shelves, Steyn also had a Winchester 1887 lever-action shotgun in his gun cabinet. It was the bootleg model too, meaning the shotgun was nice and compact, perfect for use in tight spaces. It must have been the pride of the mayor's collection, considering the weapon was in perfect condition. I also encountered my first Nuka Cola in the form of the Nuka Cola Victory, which glowed a rather spectacular orange. The bottle thankfully insulated the radiation the drink was known for, otherwise I would have just left it behind.

Since it was approaching the early hours of the morning, Shepard and I settled down to get some rest, taking advantage of the comfortable furniture in the mayor's office. I set my alarm for 7AM and curled up on the couch, while Shepard was content with the large rug. Try as I might, though, I couldn't get to sleep. Shepard didn't have any problem, he was out like a light in minutes.

After what felt like an hour, I slipped off of my makeshift bed and sat cross-legged on the floor, within arm's reach of my weapons belt and rifles in case something decided to be sneaky. I began to regulate my breathing. In through the nose, hold for one second, out through the mouth. It was the start of a form of meditation, to hopefully re-order my thoughts and gain insight into what I'd been doing wrong over the course of my time in the Wasteland. I'd been running on auto-pilot for too long, and now that the business with Nipton was effectively wrapped up, it was time to get a sense of direction. My first, and perhaps biggest, mistake was following the robed man through the ring in the first place. Sure, I had government agents on my tail to drive me on, but following him through a clear case of alien tech or flat out magic was completely idiotic. I couldn't deny it had some clear results on my capabilities, though. I was tougher, faster, and smarter than I had been before I went through. Years of abuse and decay had been undone in an instant, but they hadn't been without cost. Parts of my memory were missing. I could get parts back by 'reflex' in certain conversations and trains of thought, but a lot was still out of reach.

The restoration of my supernatural abilities was a double-edged sword, depending on the ghosts present in any given area. What worried me more was the development of psychic abilities. Maybe I'd had them before going through the ring, but they were never so... pronounced. First the Geckos, then Snuffles the Mole Rat, and now the pack. I had fully invaded their minds and effectively rewritten instincts and ingrained habits. Every animal I interacted with in that manner seemed more awake afterwards too. It would be interesting to study the full effects of my psychic abilities on various creatures, but it could also be deemed morally wrong, and I was on a tipping point in that regard already.

Yes, another worrying point. I could handle killing without issue. So long as I could bring myself to justify the deaths of those I pulled the trigger on, the only side effect was the climbing number in my head. There was something I couldn't explain. Maybe it was some part of my subconscious raging against all the lives I'd taken, but if that was the case, why had the number been written in blood on the elevator doors of the Bison Steve Hotel? I resisted the urge to sigh and kept my breathing at the same pace it had been.

Now that I had spouted exposition into my own brain like a non-player character from an RPG, it was time to figure out where I wanted to go with my life. For long-term goals, I wanted to kill Vulpes Inculta. He was a plague upon the Mojave that needed to be taken down before he caused any more permanent damage. He'd also taken a direct shot at my pride, which I couldn't let stand. To do that, I needed to find an advantage over Vulpes. To do that, I needed to actually get intel on the man, aside from his little introduction. In the mean time, working with the NCR would let me train my skills further, gain an income and new gear. If other people needed help, so long as their interests coincided with my own, I'd assist. Maybe if my path lead me further north I'd go help the Happy Trails Caravan. With Malcolm's rumor about caravans being burned to the ground in the New Vegas area, they'd probably need the help.

Still, New Vegas was a long ways away. I had plenty of road to cover before then, and only time would tell what I'd encounter on that journey. With rough plans laid, I let my thoughts drift away into nothingness, still maintaining my breathing pattern.

I opened my eyes again feeling rested and ready to face what lay the future. Shepard was already awake and barking at my Pip-Boy, but his wagging tail and bouncy energy showed he was just as ready to get going as I was. After a quick breakfast of Cram (for Shepard) and other assorted pre-war goodies, we left the town hall to an absolutely glorious sunrise. There was an urge to just sit and watch it for a while, but I quickly decided against it. Every second I wasted in Nipton was a second that could be used walking. With that in mind, Shepard and I left the dead town through the east road, never looking back.

Author Notes: And with that, Entry 010 is down. I honestly had no idea what I was doing with this chapter. It all just sort of... flowed again. Since we finally hit a double-digit chapter number and left the last arc, I figured a recap was in order, to remind some of the long-time readers of things they may have forgotten from previous chapters. In other news, new companion! Shepard is the rough equivalent of Dogmeat from FO3. If you don't know where his name comes from... shame on you. Also, the name is completely intentional. If you can figure out why I chose Shepard... I'll give you a cookie. It's not something immediately obvious either.

In other news, I figured with the Animal Friend perk Rain would try to find some way to save the Legion Dogs in the Nipton Town Hall, and it sort of evolved from there. Anyways, next chapter should introduce a character you're all familiar with and some of you have requested I skip over chapters' worth of content to get to. Learn to Story Arc, people!

Additional notes during editing: In case any of you haven't seen Fallout: Nuka Break... go watch it. I may very well end up making more references to it in the story.

Until Next Time, Everyone!