HEYO! Sorry about the really late update guys, and I also apologize for the rather short chapter. I really just haven't gotten around to posting this one. When I do tend to remember to post on my account, I almost always go for the newest story. But changing that up, I've decided that I've left you suspense long enough. By the way, FALLOUT 4 is confirmed! Woot! I know I am pre-ordering it the first moment I can...namely when I actually get money. In any case, you didn't come here to hear about my poverty stricken state and my delusions of envy. Read, Enjoy, Review.
"HEY! Barkeep, let me see the manager!" Valentina roared as she entered Moriarty's. Gob jumped at her sudden entrance, taking a quick moment to ensure that she wasn't waving around a weapon. Thankfully, all her weapons were sheathed, which allowed the ghoul behind the counter to calm down. Then, with a quick sigh, he turned and shouted:
"Moriarty! Customer wants to see you!" A couple of angry responses in a thick irish accent was his response about this, mostly about how the ghoul should learn to deal with customers himself. Despite this, around the corner came Moriarty, with a fake smile plastered on his face, leaving Gob to simply shake his head and lean against the counter at a fair distance from Valentin, making sure to keep an eye on the situation despite having his head down.
"What ya' need Lass?" he said in his thick, irish accent. Valentina pulled out a beer from her pack and set it on the counter with enough force to shake the makeshift bar, though making sure to hold back enough to keep the bottle from shattering.
"What the hell is this?" Valentina growled at him, growling in anger as he kept his fake smile on his face. It wasn't hard to get angry when she say that cocksure grin on the bastard's face. Moriarty gave an exaggerated sigh and looked down at the bottle, studying it for what seemed like a good number of seconds before shrugging his shoulders and waving his hand as if he had put a lot of effort into it.
"Looks like a normal bottle of beer lass. Something special about it?" He asked, his tone clearly mocking her. Val gripped the bottle much tighter, causing the glass to begin to creak underneath the strength of the grip. Gob began to inch away from the bar, being acute enough to notice the death grip she had on it.
"This is fucking water, you goddamn swindler!" Val angrily shouted, making sure her voice was loud enough to be heard. A few of the customers who had been paying apt attention now rolled their eyes, realizing it was just another traveler than was angry at Moriarty's schemes. However, the continued to watch nevertheless, happy for entertainment for the evening, with even some of the patrons from the far back now taking interest. Moriarty himself didn't even act surprised and the look in his eye said this had happened far more often than most other bartenders would have liked.
"Lookie here, lass. I won't have ya' slandering me good name here. You've been here before and ya know my beer is as good as any other wasteland saloon owner here. If not better. Now, please either order something or get out of me bar. You're upsetting the customers." Moriarty calmly told her, laying on his irish charm in an attempt to calm her down and motioning to his customers as he attempted to use them as an excuse. Val looked around in an exaggerated manner, trying to get the owner of the bar to realize his customers were rather happy with this turn in events. When her angered expression remained, Moriarty simply shrugged and made a move to turn around. Val gritted her teeth and quickly grabbed her bottle, throwing it at the wall across the bar in an attempt to regain his attention. The bottle whizzed past his ear, only a few inches from hitting the man before flying past harmless and shattering against the metal wall of the saloon.
"I'm not done talking here, Moriarty!" Val said through gritted teeth as Moriarty looked back towards her. She just had to keep him out here as long as she could. A few more minutes ought to be enough time if she believed them. Moriarty looked her over once more, as if checking to make sure she had no more to lob at him, taking careful note of the grenades at her belt. However, a few customers in the bar currently had their hands on their own weapons, worried that this simple argument could go south rather quickly. Enough that she would be dead long before she could get the grenade off her belt, though probably not before she pulled a pin. But he could easily dive back into his own office and avoid most of the blast in this case. Satisfied with his own safety, Moriarty laughed at her, as if unfazed by her attempt to intimidate him.
"But I am, lass. I got nothing more to say to ya." Moriarty made sure to tell her. "You'll be lucky if I don't make ya pay for the damages you've done to my bar. I suggest ya leave before I change my mind." Valentina made a deep throated growl, reaching suddenly for her belt. Everyone in the bar jumped, gripping their weapons and getting ready to pull the trigger on the woman to preserve their own safety. However, a collective sigh went around the room when the hand went past the grenade belt and into a pouch at her hip. Then, without further explanation, she grabbed a handful of caps and tossed it in the face of the owner Moriarty, who flinched as the caps struck him in the face.
"For damages." She said mockingly, before pushing angrily off the counter. She made sure to knock over one of the barstools on her way up, if nothing else to cause more of a commotion. "You should be glad I'm level-headed Moriarty. Else I would have blown the whole place!" She practically shouted the last part, as if she wanted everyone in the bar to hear it. To her success, it put everyone on edge, with them looking around cautiously as if they expected her to, at any moment, start lugging grenades around. Then, without much further complaints, she turned and walked out of the saloon, making sure to slam the door to the bar so hard that it shook the entire front wall. Moriarty chuckled at her actions, taking her leaving as a victory to him.
"Gob! Pick up the caps and add them to the register. And watch where your hands go. If one cap ends up in your pocket, you'll find your debt double what it is now." Moriarty told his ghoul bartender before turning to address the crowd before him. "Why is it always the pretty ones that are so crazy?" He announced aloud, chuckling as he did so. A few patrons of the bar chuckled with him but still appeared to be unsettled about the prospect of blowing up. Moriarty bit his lip and realized that unsettled customers were likely to buy less from him. "Well, first round of drinks is one the House!" He announced, much to his chagrin. This caused a good majority of the bar to smile and begin to loosen up. If Moriarty was giving away free beer, then now was not the time to worry about possible death. Moriarty turned towards his office, grabbing Gob by the arm and pulling him close as he whispered into his ear.
"Only the cheapest thing we have in stock. Nothing else!" He hissed into the ghoul's ear, making it seem like a threat to the bartender himself. He didn't inform the ghoul that the free drinks were coming out of his and Nova's salaries but they would find out soon enough. Then without another word, he entered his office and closed the door behind him. He approached his computer, wondering who he could blackmail in order to make up for the losses he would suffer today, sitting down in his chair and getting ready to punch in the password. Pausing when he realized that the computer was already open, he gave the computer a suspicious look as he knew he always locked the thing before leaving the room. Shaking his head, Moriarty reasoned that the crazy woman in the bar must have made him forget to lock the damn computer. Luckily no one can get back here without him noticing.
"Well, I hope you got what you needed. I sure as hell ain't getting a drink in this town anymore." Val bitterly greeted the three teens as she met them in front of the water treatment plant. Amata and Douglas were panting, no doubt from the quick sprint they had just made from the Saloon, taking deep breaths to regain themselves, while Butch merely shrugged. Butch, having no skills that would have been helpful in this current endeavor, had remained behind at their meeting spot, amusing himself by playing with his knife until they returned. They didn't wait in suspense for long before Douglas confirmed Val's hope and nodded his head with a large smile on his face, holding up his pip-boy.
"I managed to download the file I needed before I took off. Moriarty apparently has one on everyone in town, mostly blackmail material." He sighed, shaking his head as he finally caught his breath. Val shrugged at the news, hardly finding the news that the Irish bar owner would have that. "But he did keep a note on Dad. Apparently my old man is heading to Galaxy News Radio, trying to meet some guy named Three Dog." Amata and Butch both looked relieved they now finally had a destination, blissfully unaware of Val's silent curse as she heard the destination.
"Where's Galaxy News?" Amata wondered, bringing up her own pip-boy as she did so. Their pip-boys only had a few locations programmed into them at the moment, so the trio from Vault 101 could always find their way back. They had downloaded a mapping program from one of the derelict satellites that floated up above, giving them an overview of the world below them for a low pixelated eagle eye view. It wasn't extremely descriptive nor very helpful in navigating terrain but it served as a decent map marker. Val sighed and walked over to the railing of the catwalk, leaning against it and folding her arms.
"Galaxy News Radio is in the middle of D.C. ruins. Which is overrun with Mierda que te hará llorar. Super Mutants, Centaurs, Talon Company and who knows what else." Val told them, waving her arm in annoyance. She shook her head as she said this, her heart beating as she thought about D.C. and its inhabitants. In all terms and respect, she was a veteran to the wasteland, having killed her fair share of Super Mutants and Centaurs to survive as would anyone who had lived this long. But going to D.C. was something she never thought she could survive, let alone never wanting to do it either. The place was crawling with Super Mutants that made the ones she'd killed look like children, and she had even heard tales that huge behemoths, roam the ruins, with one foot bigger than a car. She wasn't one who was prone to pay much mind to rumors, but the man who had told had a look in his eyes that told her it wasn't a lie. Not to mention it added a little more sense as to why the Brotherhood, despite their gear and training, could not maintain a firm grasp over the area.
Douglas was silent as he was aware of what she was telling him, thinking it over. His mind would not let him think of any other possibility that denied him his hunt for his father, even at the warning of monsters roaming the location he needed to arrive at. But the thought of putting Amata in danger or dying before he had a chance to even see his father both caused him pause. From the stories that Val had told them, things belonged to this wasteland that only existed in bedtime stories meant to scare children. Things such as Super Mutants, or Ghouls, or the monster known only as Deathclaws. However, he eventually shook his head, coming to a conclusion on the matter.
"Even if it is overrun with Super Mutants, I have to go. I have to know what my dad is doing. Why he left the vault." Douglas finally said, nodding his head. "But….I won't ask you to come with me. I won't….." Douglas began the second part, looking at Amata as he spoke, only to be silenced by her look.
"Douglas, I'll stand by you. No matter what." Amata told him, reaching down and taking his hand as she spoke. Douglas smiled warmly at this, glad she was coming even if he was worried about her safety. Butch rolled his eyes at the scene before him, throwing his hands up as if fed up with the situation.
"Jesus, it's like you two are always about to bang but never get to it." He griped at their current positon, causing a blush to form on both of their faces and to quickly let go of one another's hand. "Besides, don't forget I'm coming. I sure as hell ain't staying in a town with an active atomic bomb and with a nut who worships the damn thing." Douglas grimaced at this announcement, but he said nothing to dissuade the former bully. If Valentina was right, then just having anyone there with an additional gun would greatly benefit his survivability. As much as he hated it. "Not to mention that damn common house smells like the latrine after someone forgot to flush and I sure as hell can't sleep with that smell." Butch added as an after remark, acting as though it was something he had just remembered.
Douglas shook his head, unsure whether to remind Butch that the common house that they had been staying in was the only free things in town or to just ignore the comment altogether. Choosing the path less taken, Douglas opted for the second option, turning towards his mentor for the past two days. "Thanks, for distracting Moriarty for us. I'm sure getting the information would have been much harder without you." Douglas thanked her as he talked. Val shrugged, but her face was still a mix of emotions that kept her from responding fully to the thanks. Amata walked up beside him, looking at Valentina with a similar look of gratitude.
"Yes, if it wasn't for you, I don't think any of us would even be able to survive a day. I hope we meet again once this is all over." Amata told her. Val suddenly snapped her head in their direction, causing both Douglas and Amata to almost jump in surprise at the quickness of the action.
"Fuck no. I sure as hell am not allowing you guys to go into D.C. Ruins by yourself." Valentina told them, waving her hand in annoyance, her face finally becoming readable once more. Douglas and Amata looked at her with a mixture of confusion and hope, while Butch simply smirked at what she said. She took a deep breath and rubbed her head in annoyance. "Hijo de puto. Going into D.C. was not on my bucket list."
"You don't have to come Val. You've already done more than enough for us." Amata spoke on behalf of her and Douglas.
"Suficiente no va a salvarte. Look kid, I did not just spend two days of my life teaching someone to survive just so they could go get themselves killed the moment I look away. No otra vez." She shook her head and took a deep breath, as if she couldn't believe the situation that they were currently in. "If I had my way, I wouldn't let you go to the D.C. ruins until you had years worth of experience surviving out here. And even then, I would highly advise against it. But both you and I know you're going to be stubborn about this, so I won't waste my breath." She finished her small tirade with another shake of the head before placing a gaze of them that seemed to be studying them, intently looking over what was soon to be her three travelling companions, before sighing and shaking her head.
"Those jumpsuits ain't going to stop a blunt blade. We need to get you something to wear that will actually help you." Val told them. She shook her head and looked towards the only supply store in town, already feeling her bundle of caps getting lighter as she walked, her mind drifting to how she was going to make these kids pay her back for this.
Well, I was going to include a snippet where Frank and James arrived at Galaxy News, but after three attempts, I really could not get the portion out so I had to scrap it. That being said, I do have a plan for them and the next chapter will probably be Frank and James-centric. Again, I do apologize for my late and rather random updates, as opposed to my other stories where I can do it at a rather determinable interval. In any case, I don't have much to discuss with this chapter.
Note: I don't give translations to the story because I think its better if i don't. That's literally the only reason. I don't have a particularly grand excuse. So...there.