Chapter Ten: Nostalgia ain't what it used to be
The Wanderer awoke suddenly in a daze, his vision blurry, and a dull whine invaded his hearing. Above that dull whine were the sounds of labored breathing and the tearing of flesh. The Wanderer felt something other than the interior of power armor, so he knew that his had been taken from him. He didn't have any weapons on him at the moment. His Pip-Boy was declaring the word "CONCUSSION!" every other second.
The Wanderer sat up to try and get his bearings, his vision began clearing up, but that was the only good thing at the moment. His legs weren't tied, but his arms were tied behind his back. After his vision cleared up entirely, he got a good look of his surroundings.
He was still outside, but it was now high noon. He was lying next to a dilapidated building, but as far as he could tell there were no other buildings anywhere close by. There were four collared troggs within 10 yards of him, one of them, a brute, was giving him a death stare. The other three were busy eating the corpses of a few raiders.
The Wanderer began feeling the ground behind him, hoping to God there was a sharp rock or a nail.
There was not.
This would take some more effort.
The Wanderer began to put his eight Agility to the test, he bent his legs to where his knees were underneath his head, keeping his eyes on the brute that was watching him. The Wanderer then pulled his arms to where he was sitting on his hands, the brute twitched and looked the Wanderer up and down, but then went back to staring at the Wanderer normally.
Now came the hard part, the Wanderer pulled his tied hands all the way over his legs. The plan succeeded and he stretched his legs back out, his hands now laying in front of him, resting on his legs.
The problem now was getting a weapon, the Wanderer immediately noticed a nailboard, right in between him and the brute, the Wanderer eyed it for a few seconds.
The brute did too.
The Wanderer went for it.
The brute leapt like a frog.
The Wanderer's hand touched the handle.
The brute's paw touched the nails.
The Wanderer pulled with all his might, ripping off the brute's paw with a thunderous tearing.
The brute reeled in pain, blood spurting forth from the ragged stump of its arm. The smaller troggs leapt for the Wanderer, one on his left, another coming from his right, and one headed towards the middle path.
He hit the one coming from his right in the side with a quick swing, stunning it. He then performed a wide swing at the one coming from his front, causing its head to pop into a gooey mess. A quick overhead swing killed the left one. The one that was on the right was busy reeling from the blow to its side.
Like an executioner's axe, the nailboard swung down almost soundlessly and ended the small trogg's pain.
The Wanderer then turned to the brute, which was now on its hind legs, standing a good seven-foot tall.
It jumped for the Wanderer, and the Wanderer responded by side stepping, and then swinging the nail board with all his might, knocking the brute's skull-cap off, sending it flying into the dilapidated building.
"Home run..." the Wanderer said.
The Wanderer then began to wonder where his equipment was, and then remembered that the Brotherhood had updated the Pip-Boy's marker function, and gave it a tracking function so if he ever lost it he could find it pretty easily. He took a look at his pip-boy and saw where the marker was...the steel yard.
The Pitt, he was back in the Pitt.
The Wanderer looked up at the sky, it was still daytime, although the sun was blocked out by smog
"Gotta get a plan first, gotta get a plan. There might be a weapon or something in that building." Said the wanderer as he went into the building. He started rummaging around a few desks in the front, not much was left. A couple of bottle caps, clipboards, a pencil. "Dang it, I never find anything good at the start of these things."
The Wanderer climbed up a pile of rubble and started searching more offices, and eventually freed his hands by cutting their bindings on a broken piece of glass on a door window. He found more bottlecaps but still nothing useful. Above him he heard what sounded like gunshots going off, and snarling from a trogg as well. He had found himself a gun.
The Wanderer went back to the staircase, but found that it had collapsed from the second to the third floor. Naturally. The fighting was still going as the Wanderer could still hear gunshots, cursing, and trogg-speak.
He found a piece of fallen wood to use as a ramp up to the third floor. The Wanderer raced to where the sound of the fighting originated from and flung open the door to find a trogg tearing at a poor raider. Chunks of flesh flew away with each swing at the raider, who was screaming in pain. The Wanderer ran up to the trogg and swung at it as hard as he could with his nailboard, knocking it off of the raider and onto the ground. Before the beast could get back up, the Wanderer smashed its head in.
The raider moaned and tried to reach for his pistol to shoot the wanderer, but the pain stopped him from moving too far. The wanderer walked back over and picked up the raider's pistol, a 10mm.
"H-hey! Give that back!" Screamed the raider, some of his right lung was showing. "Gi-give m-me all your meds!" The Wanderer just shook his head in pity.
"You guys are all the same, you know that?" Said the Wanderer as he checked and loaded the pistol's magazine. His voice softened. "I don't have any meds, but I won't leave you like that." the Wanderer said as he took aim at the raider's head. "Mind tellin' me why you came here?"
"I had heard the workers had survived..." the raider said, accepting his fate, "was gonna retire from raiding..." he laughed.
"Sorry dude, all that's left here is blood."
"I guess that's all people like you and me ever find in our lives is blood." the raider said, still laughing.
The Wanderer was puzzled, "What?"
"I know who you are, Wanderer, I remember you from that raid you made on Evergreen Mills..." he wheezed, "and people thank you for all your killings."
The Wanderer gritted his teeth and pulled the trigger, the raider's head dropped to the side.
The Wanderer looted the raider for his clothes, about 4 magazines worth of bullets, enough to last him until he found his equipment. He knew though he was in no shape to take on an army of troggs so he'd need to play it stealthy, and as much as he hated to...wait until nightfall to go to the Pitt.
Author's note: regular updating? what's that? Sorry, but between marching band, work, and huge amounts of calculus and history homework, I can barely write at all. I plan to have time to write, but then life throws a curveball, then a fast ball and slider, and then a ball with a string attached to it. Sorry if I whine about not having time to work on this.