Author's Note: Just a short one for you guys to kind of tie off the last chapter and this one. Also, I've been feeling like crap lately, and my writing has been suffering because of it. So here's this for now, and I also redid the previous chapters final confrontation on the roof. I like it better now, so check it out before reading this. Otherwise, enjoy. The next chapter will be coming when I stop feeling like crap.
OoO( 22 )OoO
"You can't be serious…" said Reilly as she sat at a small table in the GNR building. She stared at Butcher, who was now sitting across from her helmetless and relaxing for the first time in what seemed like an eternity.
"As a heart attack ma'am. It really happened." he said as he took a sip from a bottle of water that one of the paladins had given him from the GNR store.
"Sir?" said one of the paladins as they tapped Butcher on the shoulder. "Three Dog has a message for you. He said to 'Hold the hell on, because I gotta hear this.'" said the armored figure, slight amusement in his voice as he reiterated the message. Butcher nodded and just looked at his fiery haired captain, who still gave him a look of shock.
"At least tell me if he's going to be alright." she said worriedly. When they had entered the building, her excitement at seeing them quickly vanished when she saw the state that the gunman was in. Cid, the large mercenary that had gone with him, had had the wanderer slung over one shoulder. He was unconscious, and was rushed into one of the back rooms that was used as a medical wing by the Brotherhood of Steel.
"He should be fine with some rest. He had a broken arm and had fallen unconscious after…" began the medic, but the doors at the top of the nearby stairs flew open, interrupting him.
"Wait! Wait for me!" said the radio jockey excitedly as he trotted down the stairs with a large smile on his face. Pulling a chair from another nearby table, he spun it and sat in it backwards, resting his arms on the back of the seat. "Okay, ready. Tell me the whole thing." he said in his soothingly deep voice.
Butcher then nodded. "Well, we were trapped on the roof of the Statesman Hotel. We made our way to the up there thinking we could use the elevator to sneak past the mutants and get back to the bottom floor, but the damn thing didn't have any power. So we were stuck up there." he said.
Donovan decided to cut in this time. "After Reilly had been gone for some time, we were low on ammo and desperate. Butcher was trying to reach anybody he could on the radio while the rest of us fought off the big greens. We hadn't gotten through to anyone until he strolled up and knocked on our frequencies door, then strolled right in. He told us it was just him and another coming up to help us."
"I didn't believe it could be done for a second...but then I didn't have much choice. About another hour goes by and we get another call from him, saying something about how he's a genius. Then every mutie in the damn building lets out this ear splitting roar. Then there's an explosion, then a loud crashing from below, and then like a damn gumball machine of old, they pop through the door."
Three Dog nodded, taking notes with a pen and paper. "Uh huh. Says he's coming up, then pisses them off. Sounds like him so far." he said as he looked over his scribblings through the cloudy glasses that he wore.
Brick just nodded, continuing the story. "He handed over the ammo that we had to leave behind in the hotel, and gave us the battery needed to power the elevator. Problem was, he had brought the goddamn party with him. The greens had followed him up the stairs and were attacking us in full force this time. We used all the heavy crap we had to try and push them back, but it was like they were endless. Finally Donovan got the lift working and we all got on." she said, leaning back and kicking her feet up now that she had a chance to relax.
Butcher cut back in this time. "Apparently, John there had told the big guy to take us and go. So that's what he did. He got in the elevator and made us go without him…" he said, nodding towards the medical wing. "The entire time, he's fighting the greens off with one of their own goddamn hammers. It would take every ounce of strength I have just to swing one of those damn things once, how he did it I'll never know. So, we're heading down in the lift, leaving him up on the roof. And when we get out on the bottom floor, he comes crashing through the ceiling." said the medic as he put a cigarette he had been puffing on out into an ashtray.
Donovan then leaned forward. "When I looked up, there was a hole going up through all of the floors, straight up to the sky. He had fallen through twenty floors and hit the ground. When we grabbed him, he told us we needed to run, and fast. So the big guy tossed him over his shoulder and we book it out of there, only to turn around and watch the entire damn building collapse on the green bastards heads." he said with a smirk on his face.
Three Dog looked at him with a mask of disbelief. "He collapsed the building?" he asked. All of them nodded.
"Wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. After we left, it was like the hands of God tearing down the entire thing. It started splitting apart and collapsing until the entire thing was nothing but dust." said the medic.
Three Dog's smile grew as he scribbled furiously. "And then you brought him here?" he asked.
Brick nodded. "He said he brought Reilly here, so here we came." she said with a cheeky grin.
Reilly just had a look of shock on her face. "How did he…?" she asked, but couldn't finished the question.
"They call him the Reaper for a reason my friends. This is gonna go great on tomorrow's show!" said Three Dog as he finally stood and walked up the stairs again. "And now that we have the new relay set up, the whole wasteland can hear about it. Aoooooooowwww!" he shouted, giving his signature howl excitedly before disappearing upstairs.
Behind the others, Sentinel Lyons had been leaning against the wall, listening the whole time. Her work had been finished for the day, her only reason for still being in armor was that the threat of attack was always present. On seeing the party enter with the wanderer over their shoulder in such a rush, she started preparing her men for another assault. But, it turns out the rush was for medical reasons, and not defensive ones. When she learned of the condition he was in, she immediately asked, "What the hell could have done that to him?" But it turns out, he was alive, and he'd continue to be so as long as the medics attended him and got him fixed up.
After hearing the story however, even she was in awe at the claim. She knew first hand that he was powerful, in not only physical strength, but in his attitude as well. The way he carried himself made anyone around him want to follow him, to walk the same path. He had a way about him that made him alluring, and not just in the typical way. She rolled her eyes as the thought passed through her mind. Both men and women were inspired to defend themselves and others around him. She could see it on the faces of the people closest to him.
The Sentinel looked over at Cid, who was currently snoring loudly on the couch in front of Three Dogs doorway. A former Talon Company merc, who from her file, had worked for them for a good few years, making a reputation as being an almost mountain slide in human form, taking out foes with unmatched ferocity. After a single day in the wanderers presence, the Talon emblem had been removed, and he was now sleeping soundly in a room with a group of people nearby that he had helped save from imminent doom.
Then her eyes looked over at Reilly, who a few hours prior had been doped up in a hospital bed in Underworld. Her men trapped on the roof of the Statesman, and her trapped in Limbo. No hope, no way to help, no nothing. Yet now, she was sitting happily with her crew, chatting about the districts of DC that need to be avoided. Short of John actually resurrecting her fallen member, she probably couldn't have hoped for a better outcome to her pleas.
Then she reflected on herself. When the behemoth had smashed through her squads defenses, killing Recruit Reddin and throwing them all off their feet, she had scrambled to action. Despite her long years in the Brotherhood, she had only been in the field for two years. And that inexperience had almost gotten her killed that day. She had been too close to the damn thing, and was about to pay the price when it hurled her off into the distance. If he hadn't caught her, and likely injured his back in the process, she would probably have a broken spine right now. Either dead, or living, never to walk or wear power armor again.
Then his warning about the building. Power armor or not, if she had caught the full force of the concrete wall on her, it could have crushed her. She grimaced as she recalled the small slab that had busted off the top of the wall slamming down onto her legs. Lucky, is what she called it before. Not so much anymore. Then she recalled as he slammed the nuke down the behemoths throat and shot it. In his last moments before the explosion, he hadn't taken cover. He slid in front of her and covered her from the devastation that followed. And judging from the painful look on his face afterward, she was lucky that whatever had hit him in the back wasn't now lodged in her forehead.
She just chuckled to herself at how far she was putting this newcomer onto a pedestal. She really didn't know him yet, or really anything about him aside from Three Dog's psychotic stories. If they were true, then she had met someone unlike anyone else in the wasteland. Finally, she sighed and pushed away from the wall. Whether or not they were true, she'd definitely be keeping an eye on this wasteland cowboy.
OoOoO
The dark figure stood in the doorway, staring at the small group of men and women. Their eyes were wide with horror as they looked over the heavily armored figure. He stood tall, his armor. The armor was black, and scored on the chest was the Talon Company logo, but unlike the rest of Talon Company, this armor was power armor. The suit was interlinked all the way up to the neck, where it was topped with a helmet that had green glowing eyes. Unlike the other Brotherhood and Outcast armor, this helmet had a more insect look to it.
The leader of the group of men and women stood up from his large chair and walked over to the towering armored figure, eyeing his armor, and especially his weapon, which was a larger than average shotgun. He even wore a belt of grenades lashed across his waist. Whoever the hell this was, he was prepared for combat. Stepping up to the armored figure, the bandit leader looked up into the green glowing eyes. "Can I help you with something?"
The helmeted figure nodded. "I need your assistance with a thorn in my side." said the armored figure, its voice cloaked with distortion from the mechanical helmet.
"How do you mean help?" he asked, his raider group now relaxing slightly as the situation went from alert to cautious communication.
"There's been someone taking out raider bands in the wasteland. They've also been taking out groups of our mercenaries. He needs to be stopped, and we're asking your assistance to take care of him."
The man chuckled. "Why you need our help?" he asked, pointing out the man's armor.
"We don't. We could take him out by ourselves if we so chose. But we thought you'd like the glory of the kill." said the figure, the glowing eyes locked onto the raider leader.
The man laughed, his eyepatch turning towards the darkness as he narrowed his eye at the armored figure. "What you mean to say, is you don't want to lose men, so you need us for cannon fodder." he said gruffly. The armored figure said nothing. "'At's what I thought." he said as he walked over and sat back in his large chair. "What do we get out of it?" he asked simply.
"Caps, everything he has, which we've calculated to be in the thousands. You get the glory of killing the Reaper, Wolf of the Wasteland, Archangel, whatever title you choose to call him. The name you will make for yourself will make your group here one of the most prestigious raider band of them all. And last off…" he said, stepping closer and looking down at the figure. "And...you get Megaton."
The man's one good eye widened as a grin crossed his face. "And what do you get out of all this?" he asked curiously.
The armored figure turned towards the door, looking back only to answer. "We just want him dead." he said as he walked out of the door.
OoOoO
John woke with a start as his arm vibrated painfully. He went to sit up, but found himself, once more, strapped to a table. This time however, he wasn't being restrained like before. It seemed more of a method of keeping him on the table than anything else. The wanderer reached up and held his head painfully.
"What the fuck happened?" he asked.
"You headbutted your way out of the hotel. Was actually pretty flashy if you asked me." said the computerized, but still girly voice from his pipboy. He groaned. "Is that any way to treat your loving friend when she answers you?" she asked dramatically.
He just chuckled. "Did I really fall through the entire building?" he asked.
"Sure did. Head first for most of it too. I'd commend you for using your head, but…" she said shrugging.
"That explains the splitting migraine I have." he said as he began massaging his temple with his free arm. "What's wrong with my arm? Why is it in a sling?" he asked, cringing painfully as he tried to move the limb, only getting back spikes of enormous pain.
"Broken. When you impacted the bottom floor, apparently your arm was in the way because you ended up headbutted through that too." she said, less joking now and more worried. "The enhancements did make you more durable, so you survived. Otherwise you'd probably just be a stain on the carpet with the speed you were falling at. Unfortunately, it doesn't bring with it any kind of healing or immuno boost. So you're going to have to lay back for a few days while they apply stims to the bone." she remarked. He groaned. "Hey, remember when I asked if anyone told you that you were too nice a guy?" she asked, crossing her virtual arms.
"Shut up." he just said, holding back his chuckle, but unable to hide his smile.
"I'm serious. I understand you wanting to help the wasteland, clean it up for the better of everyone as a whole. But seriously John, one of these days you're going to get yourself into a situation you aren't going to be able to get out of because you wanted to help someone out. If you're going to survive out here, you're going to have to start being selective about the situations you put yourself in. Otherwise, you're going to wind up just like the others out there. Unmarked graves under the radioactive desert sand." she said, her voice practically pleading.
He lifted the pipboy on his good arm and looked at her, stunned. He'd never heard her talk like this before. She had always, even in dangerous situations, been cheerful and bubbly. Never had he seen worry come from her, aside from maybe back in the simulator. He just stared at her, unsure of what to say. Sitting in momentary silence, he constructed his words carefully before speaking. "Elsa...I'm sorry for making you worry so much. In the short time you've been out here, I've been nearly killed several times. I didn't really think of what that would mean for you." he said.
"Yeah, no shit Sherlock. Your pipboy is biometrically sealed to you, meaning if your lights goes out, so do mine." she said angrily. But he just smiled. She tried to sound like there was some selfish reasoning, but her previous tirade made it clear that she was extremely concerned for him.
He just smiled. "Alright alright. I'll try to be more careful." he said as he chuckled. Suddenly, her customized Vault-Girl icon vanished, replaced by the regular Vault-Boy. He eyed the screen curiously. "Elsa?" he asked, but the cheery young AI was nowhere to be seen.
"Who are you talking to?" asked a voice from the next room. John's head snapped over as he spied Sentinel Lyons in the door. She strolled in, the power armor she was wearing creating mechanical noises that bounced off the walls of the empty room.
"I….in case you didn't hear, I did just smashed my way head first through a twenty story building. I'm prone to talking to myself now and then." he said jokingly. But she eyed him suspiciously.
"Right….in any case, how are you doing? Feeling better since your nose dive?" she asked as she stood over him. He immediately noticed that her hair wasn't currently up in its normal ponytail. She had it loose, and hanging around her head in a shining golden curtain. With the light currently behind her, she looked like a gigantic angel.
"Better since they pulled me out of the crater. Not so much since I woke up though. My head is killing me." he said, covering his eyes from the light above him.
Sarah nodded. "Glad to hear it. At least the feeling better part." she said with a smile. "I'll go ahead and get the medics in here so you can complain about how they're fixing you wrong." she said, then turned from the room, leaving him chuckling. When the Sentinel finally left, he looked back down at his pipboy to see Elsa's Vault-Girl icon with its arms crossed, and a sly, amused look on her face.
He immediately went on the defense. "What?" he asked.
"John and Sarah, sitting in a tree…"
"Medic!" he shouted, trying to drown out her song.
"K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" she giggled.