A:N/ Just wanted to say that I had a little trouble with this chapter, I've had a very unexpected and very sudden bereavement in the family, which has caused a lot of things to be difficult.
It shouldn't have affected things too much, sorry if there are any major mistakes, there shouldn't be as I've given it a quick look over but concentrating on things has gotten difficult over the past few days. I hope to iron out any difficulties when I'm in a better frame of mind.
The powered footsteps of the power armoured guards grew louder and louder as they drew in. Hamilton knew that he had mere seconds before they would be upon him, prompting him to run over to the sewer grate.
"Move back!" He bawled down the grid before stepping back. He quickly raised his gun, seeing the shadow of the power armoured guard as he grew closer, the shadow occupied more floor space as they got further into the tent.
Much to Hamilton's frustration, the guard entered facing him, side stepping like a crab. He quickly fired a round from his assault rifle at the intruder, who quickly threw himself down onto the ground to avoid it.
Hamilton had one advantage as he was a lot more agile than his power armoured foe. Knowing this, he scrambled to his feet, running on. He ran rings around the armoured guard as he pressed the gun against the fusion core and repeatedly pulled the trigger.
After shooting the fusion core to shilo, Hamilton threw himself forward and shoulder barged the guard's back, causing him to stumble forward and fall on the sewer grate. His fusion core began to emit an alarm, a quick beeping, which grew more rapid in succession as he grew closer to exploding, like a frag mine.
The Guard frantically squirmed on the ground, he unfortunately didn't have enough time to rise to his feet, hell, Hamilton barely had enough time to sprint away from his walking bomb before it detonated.
The Tent quickly went up in flames, throwing Hamilton out of it and causing him to land with a thud on the ground. He rolled several feet away from the entrance, stopping on his back as he looked up at the crowd, a crowd of disgusted faces, who were all eager to put an end to him.
A guardsman glared down at him, clearly a veteran, given the heavy damage done to his face. He narrowed his eyes as he raised his pistol, towards Hamilton's head and wrapped his finger around the trigger.
It was instinct on Hamilton's part but he quickly closed his his eyes as the shot rang out, he had few seconds to think about what was important to him.
He struggled to think of a thing worth living for. Well, apart from a will to survive. Everything else was transitory in his eyes, people, things, places... it all turned to ash as it should in due time.
His mind took him back two years, back to New York. He had wandered its streets for days, Garry's blood still stained on his hands.
Garry used to be one of his. A Slaver or at least he wanted to be but he grew soft on one of the slaves, fucking her wasn't enough, oh no, he wanted to marry her and liberate her. Like this was before the bombs fell, before the world plummeted into an endless, chaotic, pointless struggle.
Sans had a bit of a grudge against Hamilton, to put it lightly. Presumably because he needed a boogie man. An untouchable figure, who can have blame placed at his feet.
The US had the Chinese, Commonwealth has the Institute, hell even his people had Denis.
Really though, fault lies with those who screw up. Your job is to protect what's yours, whether it be your land, your stuff, your woman... to blame anyone else is just... irresponsible.
New York's boogie-men had just been terminated, the people's Republic of China. That joke died when that old bitch's head exploded like a water melon that had been hit with a sledgehammer. Christ, that was a good show, shame that he couldn't take the psychograph with him.
Hamilton was grateful that these guards were, for the most part, inexperienced. His people weren't exactly the US army. They were barely better in terms of equipment and most of them were doped up to the eyeballs.
Becky ran over to the nearest power armour and furiously threw herself at it, driving the nails on her pool cue into his exposed head. His comrades began to shoot at the power armoured men. Several shotgun blasts to his chest.
Hamilton quickly sat up and took aim at the guard, putting several .45 rounds into him. The armour took a great deal of physical damage due to the proximity of the short range blasts.
Several small cracks appeared on the chest of the power armour, from where the scattered blast of a shotgun had repeatedly hit it. It wasn't exactly sturdy stuff to begin with, low grade T-45 as commonly found in DC as most of the good stuff had been shipped off to Alaska.
The power armoured guards fought back and raised their rifles, shooting them at the nearest of the three gun men, well, the nearest ones that were right up and already in their line of sight anyway.
The guards comrades quickly raised their rifles and open fired, disintegrating one of the slavers, the biker, who saw fit as to mock Neil's pulse grenades, on impact.
"Neil!" Hamilton yelled, rolling up to his feet and putting several rounds into the nearest power armour.
"Pulse nade, now!"
Neil quickly fumbled around his back pocket, he drew one of his home made electo magnetic bombs and threw it, straight at the feet of the armour.
Hamilton made a dash to the left as the suits went haywire and their joints locked up. Taking advantage of their misfortune, Hamilton ran around the back of the nearest Power Armour and emptied his gun into their back.
This sent the fusion core pulsing and ready to blow.
Hamilton turned back and threw himself down to the ground. He slid across the gravel as the rest of the Paradise Guard jumped up from behind cover and began to shoot. Hamilton, desperate to escape the line of fire, dragged himself to his feet and began to limp over to, what used to be, Eulogy's pad.
"C'mon!" He screamed, practically straining his vocal chords to be heard over the gunfire. Neil, Becky and the other remaining slaver ran after him, doing their best to duck and dodge the bullets.
The remaining slaver received dozens of shots to the head, some were targeted, others were stray rounds. Either way, their head was practically liquefied.
Nobody turned back as the contents of their head decorated the floor, spilling out as the Slaver's torso landed in a heap on the ground, like a pan full of grits.
Hamilton shoulder barged the front door open and stumbled inside, he drew his gun. He extended his arm and pointed it at the first person he saw, however, to his surprise they weren't even armed. In fact, the familiar looking doctor threw her hands in the air.
"Stop!" Doctor Cushing screamed as she slowly knelt down in front of him, hands slowly lowering onto her head.
"We surrender! W-We're unarmed, many of us are too sick or injured to fight!"
"Good, that should save us some bullets..." Hamilton decided as he ran on, making his way over to the nearest stairwell, drawing his assault rifle as he made his way up.
"Becky, barricade the front door!
Neil, take care of the hostages, shoot any that try talking to you!" Hamilton ordered as he pulled the latch back on his rifle and kicked the balcony door open.
He stepped out, rifle propped up, stock buried in his shoulder as he took aim on the camp. He quickly wrapped his finger around the trigger, identifying his targets, who were stumbling back, away from the pad, looking up in awe or fear as he took aim.
Before they could react, he open fired on the guardsmen.
Harden sat on a chair, high upon the balcony, above Megaton's front gate. He sort of liked being on watch as it meant actually doing something useful in the never ending fight to protect this community.
It was during this time that he couldn't let his mind wander. Dad wouldn't let him... For all the good that it did him. He wondered often, about becoming Sheriff one day. Jericho said that Harden would likely get the job, when the old Raider retired. The guy was nearly 70, after-all, much to Harden's shock and amazement.
He was destined to take up a star one day. He's something like three years from taking up that role and becoming the first proper sheriff since his Dad was gunned down in that shit hole saloon.
He would ask if he was ready but he already knew, he couldn't be, not really, nobody was, not him, not Denis, not anyone.
You do what you think is right and try not to get too many people killed in the process. Denis did that and sure, he got the Sheriff, Hardin's Father, killed but he learned and used those lessons to become a true hero.
That brought Hardin comfort... as in non at all.
How do people, who's carelessness cost people their lives, how do these people walk free?
How are they not the ones who suffer? Why was it the ones, like him, who had to clean up the mess, pick up the pieces and carry on, whilst people like Denis just swan about, acting like they own the place with a smile.
The world was an unfair, unbalanced and uncaring place.
Denis sprinted across the landscape, he was somewhat desperate to reach it in time, although he didn't want to abandon Jynx.
This was why he worked alone, others just got in his way, slowed him down or worse, died in his care.
He looked up, seeing that the city of Megaton drew in closer with every step.
"Hardin!" Denis called out.
By now the sweat had caused his shirt to stick to him, like a second, less comfortable skin.
"Open the gate!"
Harden quickly glanced over to the direction of the yelling, he saw both Denis and Jynx sprinting towards the city.
The Deputy looked over his shoulder, glancing down to the gate keeper.
"Open the gate!" He yelled, frantically, prompting the others to start pulling the gates open.
With a loud creek, the gates slowly opened, though their incoming guests were a long way off and only just made it as they did. Without a further word, Denis sprinted inside the city, heading straight up to the Saloon, just hoping that that drunken asshole wasn't too wasted to do his job...
Denis burst into Gob's saloon, seeing the familiar sight of an old, washed up Raider in green combat armour, cowboy hat perched on his head. It really didn't suit him, especially not on his own but it was the only part of Simm's uniform that he was willing to wear, along with the badge.
"Jericho!" he snapped, trying to get his attention. In spite of his urgent tone, the former Raider just knocked back his whiskey before looking over his shoulder.
"Yeah? What the fuck do you want now?"
His attitude quickly changed as Denis marched over to him, stepping right beside him, towering over him.
"I want the armoury." He said, firmly. Glancing back to the door, looking right past Jynx, who timidly shrank in the corner of the room.
"The... You fuckin' kiddin' me? Don't have... Fuck, your house is better stocked than that place, why do you want that!?"
"There isn't time Jericho, everyone in this town needs to be armed with a gun and I need at least half of them for a militia."
"M-Mili- Have you gone fuck-" He stopped, looking over his shoulder, directly at Jynx, who seemed guilty of something.
"What the hell did you do to him!?"
"I didn't do anything! Just listen to him, we're in danger! Some guy Hamilton is..."
"Hamilton?" Jericho asked, cutting him off as he fell silent, looking down to the ground, taking the atmosphere of the room with him as he processed this.
"Shit..." He uttered, quickly jumping up to his feet and marching over to the front door.
"Zombie, get everyone in town to meet! Don't give a fuck how you do it, everyone, round the bomb, ten minutes!
Anyone who isn't out of their fuckin' house is gonna die in it!"
With that, Jericho stormed out, marching over to the Armoury with Denis following hurriedly behind, not even noticing that Jynx was no longer following.
"Jesus, Denis, do you know what kind of shit storm you've brought to this fuckin' place?" He grumbled, reaching down for his keys.
"I'd hand you over to him, if I thought it would do us any good."
Denis paused as Jericho eventually fumbled for the keys, they clattered in his hands as he tried to find which of the three keys was the one for the armoury. The rest of the key ring was decorations, a fake Nuka Cola cap, a small T-Rex and a small gift shop picture of Elvis Presley.
With a click, Jericho looked back to Denis, though his despair quickly turned to anger as he saw that the Regulator was just grinning at him. Obviously, he didn't appreciate the fact that Denis was getting a kick out of this, when for him and everyone else, everything was going to shit.
"What the fuck are you laughin' at?"
"You..." Denis admitted, without any hesitation.
"You've gone native."
Jericho paused, wondering what that meant for a moment before frowning and giving Denis one of his grubby fingers in response.
"Fuck you..." He uttered, stepping inside the armoury and getting a quickly chuckle out of the Regulator as the two of them stepped inside.
The Dust slowly settled after the skirmish, despite having better numbers, the Guards stood little to no chance against their superior opponent. As the gunshots died down, many of the hostages looked up to the ceiling, waiting for the result of the firefight but somehow, they already knew...
God, Hope... Justice... All of them had left them to whatever fate their captors had in store. Neil remained silent, pulling the slider back on his gun, whilst Becky just hummed to herself, like a manic child. Needless to say, this didn't do the nerves of some of the more fragile hostages any good.
The balcony door suddenly opened as Hamilton returned inside, taking his first step down the long stairway, each step emitted a small thud as his combat boots hit the floor. The weak, the sick, the old and desperate all huddled together in their corner, watching as his boots appeared in sight.
"Becky?" He asked, hopping off of the last step and turning to her. Marcia hung loosely by his side, still smoking from being recently fired...
Becky hopped off of the counter and rushed over to his side, jumping like she was doing hop scotch towards the end and stopping just short of him.
"Yep!?"
Hamilton just stood, staring, this looked good... Having a weak nerd and this crazy bitch by his side, still, his massacre should spread the message that he isn't to be fucked with for the people of Paradise, the people of DC but most importantly, his own people.
"Go back to Tenpenny tower, tell half of our people to get their asses down here. Clover stays put, anyone essential to the tower stays put, the rest I want here."
"Got it!" Becky chirped, doing a mock salute before running off getting the Slaver to roll his eyes and furiously scratch at the back of his head, slowly wandering over to the survivors as he waited for that insane clown bitch to finally fuck off and leave him to it.
The door slammed shut behind her, the rattle was the last noise in the room before they were left with total silence. Everyone looked up, eager to hear what was in store for them. Not out of anything but dread...
"Alright, I'm only going to say this once... From this point on, you have no rights. No freedoms. Nothing that you can call your own. You do what we say, when we say it and if you don't, you'll be joining your friends out there on a large bonfire only you won't be lucky enough to have died before we light it.
Do I make myself abundantly clear?"
Nobody even nodded, they were too afraid to say or do anything, it was obvious that he was just itching to make an example out of someone, the first person to talk out of turn...
"Good..." He concluded, looking to Neil and giving him a nod.
"Same as before, anyone talks out of turn..." He said, slowly raising his pistol up to a random Hostage, locking him in his sites before pulling the trigger. The hammer was pulled back, resulting in a loud 'click,' which caused several people to jump out of their skin, half of them screamed in shock.
"Gotcha..." Neil uttered, nervously, though in truth, he didn't want to shoot anyone. Not anyone innocent at least...
Hamilton slowly walked away from his prisoners, heading straight over to the front door, it was there that he stepped outside, sighing heavily as he holstered his gun and drew his machete, slowly looking up to the sky.
The dust was still high up in the air from all of the gun shots, the skirmish created a nice atmosphere... well, nice to a war-born monster, like Hamilton. He observed the sky above for a few moments, watching as several birds began to circle, scavengers, waiting for an opportunity to swarm in and take what they could from the dead.
Of course, Hamilton wasn't very charitable towards others, least of all birds that feast off of the scraps of others. Being a predator himself, he understood the laws of the wilderness, the most simple laws to ever be established.
Survival of the fittest, to whom the spoils belong...
Hamilton's trail of thought was quickly cut short as he heard groaning, coming from one of the guards. The guard slowly lifted his hand up, slowly waving it around as he struggled to breathe. He was annoying, so Hamilton decided to cut what little life he had left short...
He slowly drew his machete and wandered over to the man's side, standing over him with an irritable sigh.
If only others would get with the program...
With that, he drove the blade down, straight into his enemies head... One less loose end tied up.
One more victory for him...
Paradise was no longer, it had been reclaimed by those who founded it. Those to whom it rightly belonged...
Paradise Falls.
Megaton's citizens gathered around the bomb, arguing among themselves as to why they were even there. They were left in suspense for a good fifteen minutes before they heard the sound of a shopping cart, being rolled along the steel walkway. The sound of it slowly broke through the tensions, surrounding the bomb and the noise only got worse as the town Sheriff and the only Regulator Resident began to drive it over gravel.
Everyone watched, bewildered as the two of them drove the carts over to their side, whilst he had their attention, Denis quickly abandoned his cart and hopped onto the atomic bomb, using it as a platform to elevate himself.
"Everyone? Can I have you attention please!?" He called out, waving his hands across and meeting their gaze.
Silence fell as the crowd waited for him to speak, Jericho used this as an opportunity to light another smoke... This would probably be his eight since he heard Hamilton's name, it wasn't often that he smoked to calm his nerves either.
"Thank you..." He said, rather pleasantly as he did a quick headcount. Everyone seemed to be here, as far as he could see anyway.
Denis stood over the people of Megaton, pausing as he thought of what to say. Naturally, it didn't take him long.
"I apologise for prying you away from your routines and lives, believe me when I say that it wasn't a decision I made lightly." He stopped, pausing just quick enough to jump in before anyone started yelling.
A few people scoffed at that, finding it difficult to believe that he was losing any sleep over interrupting their daily routine.
"But you may be in danger, we may all be in danger."
"What are you talking about!?" A Settler yelled, getting a few people riled up and asking inane questions.
"Something is coming, a movement, aiming to re-establish the slave trade in the Captial Wasteland.
They're lead by a man named 'Hamilton.' He's a ruthless, capable leader, without limits. I'm not sure what he's planning but he has already taken Ten-... Philip's Tower. He killed a lot of it's residents and forced the rest into the wastes, with nothing but the clothes on their backs.
He's on his way to Paradise, now I know that they are pretty well defended but I know that Hamilton has the numbers and the arms necessary to take it.
Assuming that he only has one of these places, I can't take it by myself. I need as many citizens as possible to help me mount an assault."
Everyone quickly stated their opinions in unison, most of them were negative.
"We ain't an army!"
"What are we supposed to fight with!?"
"Get the Brotherhood!"
Denis sighed, heavily. He was done with the Brotherhood, he had no intentions of speaking to them again, never mind setting foot inside the Citadel.
"This is outside of their jurisdiction..."
In truth, it wasn't. The Brotherhood had few limits on what was or wasn't their jurisdiction.
They weren't exactly unwilling to help either, hell, Denis would call turning their help away illogical, if they were anyone else.
The Brotherhood weren't' to be trusted. They had their own agenda, any good that they did was purely for their own, personal gain.
Though, didn't everyone have their own agenda?
"I'll speak to the Brotherhood but I need people that I can count on. Please, lives depend on this."
"They ain't getting' over these walls!" one of the Settlers jeered, getting a glare from Andy Stahl.
"They don't have to, they can starve us out. We'd be okay for water but one Brahmin can't produce enough food for all of us.
And no supplies will be coming either..."
"That's why we need to hit them before they hit us. There are dozens of people in that tower, they will be few in number and ill prepared. We can go in and clean them out." Denis assured them, though no one was convinced, not really.
"What happens if we can't get inside?" The first Settler asked, prompting Jericho to pull a brick of C4 from the shopping cart.
"We blow their walls to fuck with this." He shrugged, waving it around. Everyone looked nervously to one another, until a Megaton Settler stepped forward.
"I'm in." She said, firmly, getting a gracious nod and a smile from the Regulator.
"Thank you..." He mouthed before looking to the others. A few more Settlers stepped forward, along with Billy Creel, Andy Stahl and Leo Stahl.
"Alright..." Denis concluded, looking over to the others.
"Everyone not going needs to stay here, they need to stock up on supplies. I also need a runner to go to the Brotherhood of Steel and several other locations.
I'm aware that not all of you are convinced, I just wish that I had the time to convince you but Hamilton is a threat to the Wasteland and it's people, make no mistake.
He might be the biggest threat we've faced since the Enclave, do I even need to remind you of what they wanted to do with you? To wipe you all off of the face of the earth?
We need to be prepared for anything."
Denis slowly slid off of the atomic bomb and walked away from it, leading the volunteers over to it, he took several weapons and handed them out to whoever looked like they could use them.
"Andy, Leo!" Jenny Stahl called, running over to their side and slapping her hands on their shoulders, forcing them to look at her.
"The hell are you two doing!?"
"You heard him, either we got war or war comes to us." Andy explained, pulling the latch back on an assault rifle.
"You can't be serious! Neither of you have fired a gun in your whole lives!" Jenny protested, angrily.
"Well, it's better than waiting for Hamilton to come to us. You heard the stories, you know what he is. You saying that we should just wait for him to come to us?"
"I'm saying that I don't want both of my brothers to be used as cannon fodder in a pointless war against an inhuman psychopath!"
"Fine!" Andy snapped, growing tired of the drama.
"I'll go, leave Leo here!"
"Hell no, I'm coming with you! This was my choice!" Leo protested, seeming just as frustrated as Andy was, only he was annoyed with the both of them.
"Jenny's right, no point in flushing our entire family down the shitter." Andy sighed, glancing over to his younger brother.
"Hamilton's people are going to be spread out anyway, some are going to be at Paradise, the majority, I'm guessing." Denis said, with a shrug.
"I wouldn't be asking for civilian help if I thought that this was going to be a blood bath, we're talking about a small percentage of Hamilton's people being there. We'll be able to take them easily, so long as you keep level heads and do as I say.
We need to take the tower as soon as we can."
"What do we know about them? Armour, guns?" Billy asked, folding his arms and looking intrigued.
"R91 Assault Rifles, light combat armour, maybe a few scavenged weapons, most of which is poor in quality and maintenance." Denis explained as best he could, he never saw their armoury so he had no real idea as to what he should expect.
"You better know what you're doing." One of the settlers grumbled, folding his own arms and narrowing his eyes.
"I do, there's only one way in, using a few grenades and pressure, we can fight our way through.
"What if we run into Hamilton?"
"Fifth Freedom, can't take any chances." Denis answered, sternly.
"Don't take any risks trying to take him though, leave it to me if you can, you people are here as support, heroics could get yourselves and everyone else hurt or worse.
We go in, take out anyone or anything that gets in our way and get back out again."
"What if they see us on the way in?" One of the settlers asked, finding herself to be concerned.
"Then we have to run over to the walls as quickly as possible. It's sort of a double edged sword that they have, other than the balcony, they have no lookout posts and no way of shooting over the walls without opening the gate.
"Denis!" Gareth called, rushing over to his side.
"You said you needed runners? People to go into the city? I have a team going out in a few hours, I can give them some extra instructions."
"Good, if you can tell the Brotherhood, in any shape or form, that would be good." The Regulator said, bringing up his pipboy.
"Here, I'll draw you a rough map as to where you can find them. There's an outpost, just outside of Underworld, at the monument. Get a message to them and they can use their H.A.M radio to contact the citadel or at least contact someone who can."
Gareth nodded, placing his hands in his pockets.
"When're we heading out?" He asked, putting emphasis and the 'we' to make sure that Denis was aware that he was going.
"Now..." Denis replied, firmly as he began to pace on over to the gate, hand hovering over his revolver.