The Talon Mercenaries trudged through the snow. The man who was leading them, known to his men as Sergeant Davis, held up his hand for them to stop. "This is the meeting place." He said.

One of the mercs behind him said, "Well where are the slavers then? I'm getting twitchy out in the open here."

Davis was just about to reply when a gunshot pierced the air and the IED hidden nearby exploded. Bottlecaps flew in every direction, wrecking absolute havoc on the mercenaries.

Morgan stood up from behind his cover, satisfied with the results of his experiment. Talons were thugs, generally stupid ones at that, but they were well equipped, oftentimes carrying laser and plasma weaponry. As he stepped out onto the street, he heard a groan and saw one of them trying to crawl away. Morgan drew his trench knife and stalked up to the merc. He turned him over and lifted him up.

Davis wasn't seeing very well, the blood in his eyes made his vision blurry and he was still woozy from the blast. "You back-stabbing sons of bitches…" He muttered, too weak to shout.

Morgan replied, "Oh, you mean the slavers you were going to meet? I took care of them already. Nah, it's just you and me now."

Davis's vision was starting to clear up and he saw the patch on Morgan's body armor. '101', it read, and he realized he was in the clutches of a man who had nothing but contempt for Talon. "Well shit… guess I'm a goner then." He said before Morgan slit his throat.

Letting the body drop, Morgan looked up to the sky. A storm is coming… He thought as he looked upon the clouds overhead.

As Morgan departed from the ambush site, Jesse's caravan was just arriving in Springvale. Jesse was taking a moment to write down some comments about the terrain they'd traveled when a gunshot rang out and his notebook was suddenly spattered with blood. He looked to see that the slaver next to him had been shot in the throat. Jesse flared with anger. He didn't like losing men- not because he believed in the sanctity of human life, but because talent was hardto find. Raiders, of course they'd attack us, he thought. That was one flaw with his methods- by playing the hapless caravanner, he made himself appear an easy target for raiders. Moving quickly, Jesse grabbed an M1 Garand rifle off the pack brahmin they had and ran for cover.

"Anyone see them?" He yelled over the gunfire.

"They're shooting from the school!" Yelled one of his men.

Jesse risked a look and was able to confirm that the shooters were in the upstairs windows before he was forced to duck back down again.

"Fuck! I told ya we should've worn heavy armor!" Yelled one of his men.

"Shut the FUCK UP and return fire you worm!" Jesse screamed back.

The raiders really had them pinned.

"What's the plan boss, how we gonna get out of this?"

"Keep shooting! We'll just have to outlast these fucks!" Jesse yelled. This is gonna be a long fight… he thought as the gunfire from both sides intensified.

As Morgan collected the fingers of his fallen foes, it occurred to him that he never did find out who it was that kept putting out hits on him. He had no shortage of enemies; in fact most would say that nobody had pissed as many people off as Morgan Brandt. Wouldn't have been Burke- he'd attempted to kill Simms and was gunned down by Jericho and Morgan for his troubles. The Enclave was decimated and the Brotherhood was rolling into Adam's AFB to finish them off once and for all. Maybe it was some asshole in Tenpenny Tower? Apparently that was where Burke had come from. He could only speculate as he started heading east to Rivet City.

Roughly an hour later, Jesse stood over the body of the last raider. It had been a grueling fight of pure attrition, but he and his men had prevailed. He assigned his men to search the wreckage of Springvale elementary- he wanted to make sure that every last raider was dead.

"Jesse! Jesse you need to see this!" Someone yelled.

Jesse walked in the direction of the other man's voice and found him looking at a terminal.

"What is it?" He inquired.

"There's an underground vault close by- the raiders were trying to tunnel their way in but ran into an ant colony." Replied the other scout, clearly excited.

"A vault? Interesting…" Jesse replied. Sherman will be most interested in this, he thought. "How far did they get?" He asked.

"Not very. They ran into the ants and lost some of the captives they were making dig the tunnel. Boarded it up after that."

"Hm… Not much we can do with what we have now. We'll camp here for the night and return to Sherman tomorrow." Jesse declared. "Keep an eye out, there could be more of these pricks out there and I don't want them to catch us off guard." He instructed.

In Sherman's camp, Fifty was cleaning one of his guns when a slaver he didn't know the name of came running up.

"Fifty! Fifty!" The man shouted.

"What the fuck do you want!" Fifty yelled in response.

"One of the slaves tried to run away! Didn't give two shits about the collar around his neck." The man replied.

Fifty put his gun down. "Bring him here." He said.

From down the hill, two slavers dragged a young man, who was struggling all the way and threw him down in front of Fifty. He was about to get back up when a loud click stopped him.

"Don't bother." Replied one of the slavers as he pointed a pistol at the slave's head.

"What's your name slave?" Fifty asked.

"Heath." The slave replied.

"Heath. Well we got a problem Heath. You went and tried to run off. I don't like that." Fifty said, crouching down. "And in my book, there's only one way to deal with that kind of problem." He growled as he pulled a knife from his belt.

Heath spent his last moments screaming.

It was late evening when Morgan reached Rivet City. Heading to the Weatherly Hotel, he was greeted by Mister Buckingham, a Mr. Handy robot that served as the hotel's bar tender and night clerk.

"Welcome to the Weatherly sir, how may I help you?" The robot asked in a British accent.

"I'd like a room please." Morgan replied.

"Very well sir, 120 caps."

Morgan fished the caps out of his duffle and slid them onto the desk.

"Right Sir, please write your name on our guest book."

Morgan did so and was directed to his room. The Weatherly had nice lodgings. Beds were always comfortable, and the rooms were warm. There was even a shower room. But right now, what Morgan wanted more than anything was a good night's rest in an actual bed. He soon fell asleep.