Chapter 12: Look Who's Back

Who was that guy who saved me? He couldn't have been Dad, Dad wasn't as tall as him. Damn. . . Dad? Where are you? Galaxy News Radio. . . My only lead. . . But I can't go there with these wounds! Dammit. . . He better be there, with an extra large jug of purified water! And a fucking teddy bear!

"Ohmygawd! It's you! You're alive! The hero in the Massacre! Come right in!" The new gate-guard, a man with an eye-patch and bandana, yelled down at John. The large doors that kept Megaton safe opened, and John stumbled in, coughing and hacking from the dust disturbed from the doors. His eyes stung, but when he opened them, Megaton was literally a sight for sore eyes. A crowd had formed, thinking that the "Vault Kid", idolized as the savior of Arefu, the guy who stopped the Massacre, and one unkillable mofo, was there. He was, but he didn't exactly look like a living legend. John looked around, and was a bit surprised by all the people, and he lost his footing, but caught himself on his hands.

John got up again, walking down the hill, toward Doc Church's place. He tripped on a rock, and stumbled toward the crowd, but somebody caught him.

"Hey there, you okay?" A girl with a familiar voice said. John looked up, and to his surprise, he saw Rena.

"Holy shit! You're alive!" John exclaimed, thinking everyone but him had perished at the Potomac.

"I can say the same to you, how are you still alive? You must have broken something! Tell me on the way to Church's." Rena said, slinging John's arm over her shoulder.

"I hit a boulder, which must've broken my fall, and I woke up, thinking I was deader than dead gets, but somebody had patched me up!"

"Creepy. . . Me 'n Andy thought we were goners too, and Andy took a nasty shot to the hand, but luckily he kept his fingers," Rena began, "The fuckers were closing in, and we both looked at each other, we couldn't think of last words. One of them fuckers walked between us, and the most remarkable thing happened. The raider turned to face me, smiling with his broken and rotted teeth, and he said 'Dun keel dis one. . . She's a purdy one!'. When he finally shut up, Andy had picked up a large rock, and threw it at the raider. It hit him in the back, not doing much but making him stumble, and it gave me the time to draw my sawed-off and hit him in the face. His corpse moved in the wierdest way, moving forward, stumbling, but thrown back from eating lead, and he slammed into the ground. He didn't get up, and I had blood all over me. The three remaining raiders, the ball-less one had recovered, and was aiming his pistol at the rocks screaming 'I'll fucking kill you!', and the other two were readying their rifles."

"Damn. . . How'd you get out alive?" John asked, curious. They had just gotten past the crowd, and were walking down the "steps" that lead to center of town, where the bomb was. John looked at it nervously.

"Well, I heard one of those raiders prime a grenade, shout something stupid, and throw it into the air. I took a peek out from cover, and while that deadly hot potato was in the air, I heard a loud crack, like a magnum going off. The grenade exploded mid-air, and I just stared at where the grenade was a moment ago. Another loud crack, and the back of the guy who threw the grenade's head exploded. It was creepy, because he stood there for a second, not moving, and then he fell onto his knees. Yet another crack, and the other standing raider flew back, and didn't get up. We saw the mysterious gunman, and he seemed to appear out of thin air, walking up to the downed raider, and well, you know what happens next." Rena said.

"Where'd the mysterious stranger go?" John asked, curious.

"I dunno, I looked at Andy, and that guy was just. . . Gone." Rena said, her voice trailing off.

"Odd. . . I woke up completely bandaged, but why didn't you guys come down and get me? You could have easily slid down the hill and picked me up." John said, his voice a little suspicious.

"It's not that easy, you know, we would've been stuck down there, we couldn't have gone through the river, and we thought you were dead. It was a huge fall, how did you survive anyway?"

"Hit a rock." John said simply, and him and Rena were climbing the steps to Doc Church's "hospittle", as it was called by the common folks of Megaton. Rena helped John up the ramp, which was an old hunk of metal that had "Unit d A r" written on it. Rena pushed open the door, and John limped in.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" The mock angry voice of Church said.

"Just got shot and left to die, nothing serious. Might have a few broken bones, too. Nothin' serious. Go ahead and take your fucking time. I've got all day to bleed out." John replied, matching Church with his own mock agression.

"Alright, tough guy, where were you hit?" Church asked, not amused at John.

"In the shoulder blade, and I think in the heel."

"Alright, lemme take a look," Church said, moving John to an operation chair, and removing his bandages, "What the hell? The bullets are removed! Did you do this yourself, with your bare hands?"

"No, I woke up that way. Somebody took out the bullets, and injected a half empty stim into my shoulder and heel, now fucking patch me up." John said, intimidating Church into getting out 2 doctor's needles.

"I hope this stings, you little asshole," Church muttered under his breath, jamming one stim into John's heel, and hitting the plunger, injecting the miracle syrum into John's heel, causing it to close instantly and leaving only a tiny white scar. Church stood up, and practically stabbed John's shoulder with the other stim, and injected the magical brew into John's shoulder wound. A flicker of pain erupted across John's face for a second, but disappeared as fast as it came.

"Now, that'll be 100 caps, for a waste of my time." Church said with a snarl. John patted his pockets, but then realized he didn't have any money.

"Hey dickhead, here's the caps," Rena said, tossing Church a jingling bag of caps, "C'mon dude, let's get out of here and surprise the rest before they hear about you being alive."

"I can't wait to see the look on Andy's face." said John, who had a mischevious grin plastered on his face.

"He's gonna flip."

ONE ANNOYING TRANSITION LATER

Rena and John had arrived at Moriarty's, where the rest of the mercs were hanging out, morning their losses and drowning their sorrows.

"You ready?" Rena asked John, a silly grin on her face

"Ready to make somebody piss their pants." John replied, an eager look in his eyes.

They pushed open the door, and as soon as Andy looked up at the two figures who had entered, he spat his drink out, and proceeded to scream like a little girl

Oh, what a fuckin' baby.

Andy fell backwards in his chair screaming,

"Am I the only one seeing this! Am I fucking dreaming!" while he was pushing himself backwards, and he bumped into the wall.

"I'm really here. You're just being a baby." said John, who walked over to Andy, and held his hand out.

"How are you alive?" Andy asked, bewildered.

"I'm a force of nature. You can't stop me, now get up." John answered. Every surviving merc was staring at John, who was standing there, the superhuman who took on the Behemoth, who united them, who just couldn't die, proving himself again. Josh walked down the stairs, and stared in disbelief at John, helping Andy up, and all eyes were on John. The Wanderer was home.

MANY TEARFUL REUNIONS LATER

"You. . . Were saved!" Josh exclaimed, not believing that his friend was there.

"In a way. Whoever patched me up didn't get me to shelter, just dragged me away from the water, but, yeah, in a way." John said, finally back among his friends, who were calling themselves The Wanderer's Army in his honor, just because he shot a few scumbags and stabbed a giant scumbag.

"Hey John, we got some presents for you!" Andy called out.

"What are they?" John replied, walking over.

"You know how you lost some precious items? We just happened to find them, and we decided to clean them, to put on your marker. Now, we can give'em back to you," Said Andy, who was holding out John's rifle and his magnums. John's eyes grew tenfold.

"You. . . Found them! This is fucking awesome!" John exclaimed, taking his rifle and his pistols and putting them into their holsters, but he noticed something missing. "Where're the silencers for the Deagles?"

"Well, they broke. Whenever they hit the ground, one of them landed on the silencer, which snapped, and the other one broke in a close encouter with a Yao Guai." Cade said, stepping out of the crowd.

"What's a Yao Guai? Nevermind, so, how was your healing process?" John asked.

"Felt like shit. The trip back was no fun either. We got stopped by some Outcast assholes." Cade answered. The Outcasts were a highly advanced faction in the Wastes, it was rumored that they had broken off of the fabled Brotherhood of Steel.

"What'd they do?"

"Demanded we show them where we got all of this "interesting weaponry". I told them to go lick the side of a Deathclaw's face." Cade said, John visualized licking a Deathclaw's face, and it seemed like the stupidest thing somebody could do.

"How'd they respond?"

"Turned their guns on us, calling us "barbarians". A few grenades softened them up, and the rest ran for the hills. Which apparently housed a camp of angry raiders, and both factions tore each other to shreds."

"Damn, I wish I would've seen that." said John, marveling at how great it would be for both factions of bottom-feeders to kill each other in one battle royale.

"Yeah, well you got a nice vacation by the beach, so it was easier for you."

"My road trip back from the beach was no fun. Who's dead, who's alive?" John asked.

"Alright, a full casuality report is: Pingel, Policaro, Harley, Maria, Gage, you know Lauren and Lizz, Cory, Michael, and some others who I think you know." Cade replied grimly.

"Damn... Well, we do have quite a few mercs... What should we call ourselves?"

"How about," Cade said with a smirk "Wanderer's Army?"

"In my honor? Why me?"

"You brought us together, and that Behemoth'd of tore us all to pieces."

"You could've brought it down... It really was nothing special, I daydream about fighting dragons all the time."

"Behemoths are real."

"Prove dragons aren't."

"You have to admit Cade, he's got you there." Josh said, pointing at Cade.

"Well, fuck you too." Cade said.

"You pissed your pants when you got shot, should I tell him about that?" Josh replied to Cade, whose face went white, and his eyes got really wide.

"Wait... What?" John said, barely hiding his smile at this little fact.

"Nothing... Burke said he wants to see you!" Cade said, trying desperately to change the subject.

"About money?" John asked.

"Ding, ding, ding." Cade answered.

"Alright, where is he?"

"In the backroom, talking to Moriarty."

"Alright, thanks, pisspants." John said, leaving Cade with an embarassed look on his face. John walked up to the door to Colin Moriarty's office, and knocked twice.

"Go away, drunkard!" Came the response.

"Burke, where's my money?"

"Who is that?" Came another response, this one with an Irish accent, although John didn't know what the Irish sounded like, he barely even knew what Ireland was.

"The man who died, but Jesus came with a defrilibator." John yelled back sarcastically.

"What?"

"Joh-Joseph Whitehouse!"

"Come in!" Burke shouted to John/Joseph.

John walked into the room, turned and saw Burke aiming a silent pistol at him, and Moriarty holding a rifle. John looked surprised at the two men, and they both shot him in the chest, knocking him into the wall, but neither bullet penetrated the chestpiece of John's armor. John was slumped against the wall, but managed to draw a Desert Eagle, and shot three times. Two bullets ended up in Burke's chest, causing him to topped over in his chair, and one managed to hit Moriarty's rifle, snapping it in two.

"You little bastard!" Moriarty shouted at John, and then he managed to leap onto John's chest and punched him in the face three times. John spat out some blood, and managed to throw Moriarty off of him and into the wall. John stood, shrugged to remove some of the pain, and Moriarty jumped to his feet and pushed John into the door, which had closed behind John. It left an impressively sized bump in the wall, and the crowd outside had heard the gunshots, and was staring at the wall. In Moriarty's office, John pushed Moriarty off him again, and drew his left kukri, striking a fighting stance.

"So that's how you wanna do it, eh? Well I got somethin' for ya!" Moriarty yelled to John as he drew a large combat knife, nearly as large as large as the kukri.

"Bring it, you slimy old bastard!" John spat at Moriarty, who was the first to strike. Moriarty lunged at John, who easily deflected the knife blow and threw Moriarty towards the far wall. Moriarty stumbled a few steps, and tried to grab onto his table, but broke his computer terminal and ended up on top of Burke, who was staring at the ceiling, bargaining with God, who wasn't listening. As Burke fell into Limbo, John walked up to Moriarty, pulled him up to his feet, and slammed him through the door into Megaton, on a catwalk high above the bomb's crater. Moriarty hit his stomach off of the railing, but turned to face John, who was walking over the crumpled heap of a door.

Moriarty struck a fighting pose, and leaped into action. John deflected the blow, and countered with a punch to the face. Moriarty stumbled backwards, finding himself bumping against the railing.

"Nighty night, you ugly sonuva bitch." Said John as he drew his magnum and pulled the trigger. Moriarty fell backwards off the railing.

I'M FUCKING BACK! After a long absense due to procrastination, I've finally finished this chapter! It was a great expierience in writing, and a little bit of everything, plus one of the best fights I've ever wriiten!

SPECIAL THANKS

To every one of my readers for not ripping me apart!

To my editor!

To poop!