Juniper weaved through the museum of freedom, dispatching of every hostile she could find. Afterwards she came to a narrow hallway, and heard two people talking.
" We have no reason to stay here, come on let's just go."
" No we stay here and wait for the rest of them to come, we follow our orders."
" I'm not waiting around here to get shot! Don't you hear someone shooting the place up?"
" You make one move towards that exit and I'll gut you myself."
Juniper crouched and moved slowly towards the sounds of the bickering.
Grenades would be perfect right now
She grabbed the only two she had and quickly tossed one towards them.
Why didn't anything happen?
" Forgot to pull the pin moron!"
Fuck
Juniper heard the sound of the grenade hitting the display cabinet she was crouched against, Dogmeat's ears perked up and he bolted in the opposite direction.
Run run run
She made it about 5 feet when the cabinet exploded, hurdling her against the adjacent wall.
Oh god, it feels like something is stabbing me
Rolling over to her side she realized the cabinet was gone, and if the two of them weren't hurt in the explosion, they're going to be coming after her.
She crawled over to the wall closest to them for cover.
"Dogmeat stay over there."
She whispered loud enough for him to hear, he responded with a whimper and sat down.
" Jesus no body, Is she still alive?"
Feeling her hands shaking, Juniper went through her bag and found the other grenade.
"What was that?"
Fuck, come on why won't this pull out
She heard the footsteps drawing closer and closer, then finally the pin clinked and came out.
Juniper threw the grenade at the wall in front of her, it then bounced off and thudded against one of them.
" What the hell is tha-"
He didn't get a chance to finish before he was blown apart. She got herself up and peeked around the corner. There were pieces of what use to be two people spewed all over.
Oh god, should I not have done that? Wouldn't they have killed me?
" Ok boy let's go."
Juniper walked across the mixed body parts and shuddered, as dog meat nudged her back to the task at hand. Picking up the leftover ammo, she walked up the stairs and jerked to the side.
" I'm coming in there and I'm going to fucking skin every last one of you!"
" Come on man, she got other shit to deal with, there not going anywhere."
There was a pause,
"You heard that, I gotta go take a little walk, but when I get back you'll all be dead."
He snickered and moved farther away from where Juniper was.
Juniper looked through the part of the wall that had pieces missing in it, She watched someone walk past the wall on the other side.
Now's my chance
She cycled her laser musket enough for two shots, If she timed this right that would be enough.
Moving quietly forward she saw one man walk through the door and go the other way.
One
She shot him in the head, and waited.
The next man rushed through the door.
Two
After he received the last shot Juniper had loaded, she cycled her musket for two more just in case.
"Come on!"
Juniper recognized the voice, she looked through the door and to the right and saw the next door was open.
Finally
She Slung her musket over her shoulder and sprinted towards the door, with dogmeat on her heel.
" Man I don't know who you are"
Juniper looked up and saw the man up close for the first time.
His face was clean and shaven, and his eyes were a deep dark chocolate and his skin matched them. He wore the type of hat that only cowboys wore in the movies, and had a jacket with multiple layers underneath.
" But, you're timing is impeccable."
Although he looked, friendly he still handled his musket pointing it off to the side.
Can I trust him? Who is he?
Juniper had eyed him up and down, and slightly ignored him when he stated he was with the minutemen. She was going to have to have an edge to her if she was going to find any information on her son.
" You owe me" She said coldly enough that his eyes darkened a little.
Instantly regretting that
" Yeah sure thing, I'll give you my chest full of emeralds once we're done with this mess."
Juniper looked from him and around the room for the first time, she saw other faces who looked equally scared and nervous.
" Who are these people?"
"They're people just looking for a home" He said looking sadly.
" I've been with them since Quincy then, Lexington looked safe, but the ghouls drove us out. A month ago there was over 20 of us, Yesterday there was 8, today there's just 5." He sounded like the guilt was pouring out of him. Juniper loosen her stance a bit, he must feel like this was all his fault.
" All that's left is me, Marcy and Jun Long, old mama Murphy, and this here's Sturges."
"Hey" Sturges said with a raspy voice.
" Sorry, It sounds rough" Juniper said quietly. Still a little embarrassed she was rude earlier.
The man's eyes shimmered,
"Thanks, It's good to meet someone who really cares." He smiled, and continued
"Anyway we figured Concord would be a safe place to settle, those raiders proved us wrong. But we do have one idea" The look he gave her made her a little nervous.
" Well let's hear it"
Preston turned to Sturges, and Juniper saw two scars. One across his eye, and one down his hairline, ending by his ear.
"Well tell her"
Sturges, stood up from the computer he had been messing with.
"There's a crashed vertibird, on the roof. Old school, pre war, you might have seen it."
You have no idea
" Well one of the passenger's left behind a goody" He smiled
"A full suit of T-45 power Armour, military issued."
I don't want to look stupid, but I have no idea why this is so special
" What makes this power armor so special?"
Strugres' eyes lite up,
"A West Trek Servo-system, That's what. Inside that baby is the new normal. You'll be stronger, tougher and more resistant to rads." He caught his breath, and continued
" Plus once you're in that suit, you can rip the mini gun right off the damn bird and use it to send those raiders right back to hell!"
" A mini gun? That'll do it" Juniper had a brief idea of what that was, but the way he talked about it, it must be something that would really help them.
" Only there's one problem, the suit needs power, it's probably been dry for hundred some years."
" So what's the solution?" Juniper reached down and started to run her fingers through Dog meat's fur. He'd been so quiet, and she was getting the feeling they're day had just started.
" We need a military grade fusion core, it's like a giant battery for these things and other generators." Preston chimed in, Struges started to shake his head and continued.
" Only problem is, the one we found is locked up tight on the first level of this building."
He sighed
"Look I fix things and tinker, but getting through security gates is not my Forte, you could always give it a try"
Juniper felt the heat of having so many eyes on her,
" Yeah, I'll give it a go" With that she turned and started to make her way down stairs,
Ugh Shaun, please hold on
After fiddling with the lock for a few minutes, It finally gave way and opened up.
" Alright boy, let's get this core and get this over with."
Dogmeat barked and followed her up to the roof access point. Juniper listened to the holo tape of the power armour's last owner. Up until then she hadn't really realized how many people may have survived and continued on with their new post-apocalyptic life. Frowning she rubbed her temple, ever since she had woken up, she'd had problems remembering things from her past life. Simple things, and something very important kept escaping her everytime she tried to remember it.
Dammit, what was it
" Hey boss I think there's somebody up on the roof."
Juniper quickly went through her bag and grabbed the fusion core. After twisting the valve and inserting the fusion core into the slot, she punched the core the rest of the way in.
Come on come on come on,
The suit hissed and opened up,
" Ok just stay cool and we got this" Preston announced from somewhere on the balcony,
" Wait what? " Juniper looked inside the suit and bit the corner of her lip.
" You want me to get inside this thing? I Don't know how!" Juniper felt her palms sweating,
" Nobody knows how to do something until they just do it, You're our only hope."
If I don't these people will die, but if I do I might not be able to find Shaun
The sounds of multiple raiders closing in on the museum drew her away from her thoughts,
Dog meat ran up besides Juniper and nudged her to the suit,
" Alright, alright I get it"
After taking a deep breath, Juniper grab ahold of the inside of the suit and pulled herself in.
It was small, and made her feel a little claustrophobic, but she didn't have time to think before she heard Preston scream in pain.
What started out as a run towards what only could be the Mini gun, turned into a full blown sprint. She grabbed the sides of the gun and pulled as hard as she could, until the gun finally away from the vertibird.
Yes
Juniper made her way to the edge of the building, and saw multiple raiders taking cover by cars, and destroyed buildings.
" Why don't you get down here and show me that big gun up close" A larger raider taunted her,
" That's just what I was about to do!"
Juniper took a leap of faith and jumped off the roof, while she was falling she saw Preston on the balcony grabbing his shoulder, his fingers stained a deep crimson.
I'm not letting these people loose the only one whose protected them all this time,
With a new determination she braced herself as she crashed into the pavement.
The first raider who sprinted up to her power armor, Juniper grabbed her by the arm and squeezed hard. The raider screamed and drew her knife to where the power armor helmet connected to the suit.
" Fuck you metal bitch!"
The raider's knife didn't even cut through anything before Juniper threw her head back and instinctively threw it back towards the Raider's face. Without looking, she knew she was dead, and moved onto the raider that had been attempting to shoot her behind a car.
Juniper started the mini gun up, and aimed straight for where fuel use to be put inside of the old pre war cars. What was a small fire quickly exploded into a huge one, killing not only the raider that was behind, but also injuring a raider that had started to charge up to her.
There can't be that many more lingering around after that
Within a second a raider had hit her from behind with the stock of their shotgun, making her stumble over to her right knee. Juniper jerked her arm up to shield her from the next blow,
" Thought you could just come down here, kill all my men and fucking live after?" It was the larger raider, who had taunted her to come down from the roof.
" You killed them yourself, by starting this fight" Juniper's voice had a metallic hue to it, but her point still got across. After that the raider started unloading onto her with his shotgun. Juniper's mini gun was still starting up by the time he had pumped, at least two shells into her left leg. The suit started beeping wildly, and on her control panel she saw that her once red lined left leg, was now empty. She had no more armor at all left on her leg.
Fuck, come on just fucking shoot
Her minigun fired straight into his skull, but not in time for a shell to strike the side of her calf.
"God dammit" Juniper fell into the rubble besides her and watched the pavement run wild with her blood.
At least they're all gone
She threw her head back and exhaled, she'd never been shot before, but it could have been so much worse.
" What are you doing?! Get out of there!" Preston screamed,
A low grumble shook the ground around her, looking up she saw scales.
What the hell,
Juniper kept looking up until she locked eyes with the beast responsible for killing the last few raiders that made the mistake of running away. It's horns were stained a deep red, as were all of it's large claws. Juniper just kept eye contact with it, as it started to circle around her. Even though it was 20 feet away, it felt too close. It twisted it's head to the side and inhaled sharply, while licking it's lips. It eyed her leg up, and scratched at the ground with it's long back legs.
It can smell all the blood, there's no way I can run
Juniper still had her finger on the minigun's trigger, and with a sharp breath she pushed the trigger down. The beast howled so loudly, Juniper screamed and the minigun started to fire round after round into the animal's stomach. Almost as if it made no difference it was getting shot at, it ran towards her and jumped on top of her.
" You get the hell off of her!" Preston screamed from the balcony and started to fire laser rounds into the beast's face. It raised it head up enough to howl at him giving, Juniper the moment she needed to grab the dead Raider's knife. The same knife that almost cut her throat, she used to slash as hard as she could into the beast's neck. With a sharp scream of pain, the creature drew it's claws backward and went for the wound she received from the shotgun shells.
Juniper cried out, and jerked upwards and drew the knife into the creature's throat so far she saw the tip of the knife behind it's neck. With it's last attempts of screaming at her, blood spewed out, covering her hands, and splattering onto her helmet.
Oh my god, Oh my god, Oh my god,
With a thud, it landed on top of her. The creature was so heavy she couldn't just push it off of her. Slowly Juniper nudge out from under it, but not before she felt it's blood run into her suit and down her chest and stomach. She detached her helmet just in time to lose everything Codsworth had fed her this morning.
" Ugh, god it's everywhere." Juniper wiped her mouth off and got to her feet. Dogmeat barked and ran towards the museum's door.
"Yeah I guess we better go check on them, huh boy?" Juniper limped over and opened the door,
" That...was a pretty amazing display, I'm just happy you're on our side" Preston stood his gun vertically and smiled
" Is everybody ok?" Juniper tried to conceal her damaged leg, only because she wasn't sure if anybody was more her than she was.
" Yeah they are, thank you. Hey, at first when you said that we owed you, " Preston reached around in his jacket,
Oh god that's right, I was a total ass
"Listen, I didn-"
" It's not a chest full of emeralds but it's all that we can give you." Preston walked over and handed Juniper a sack full of bottle caps.
Before She could protest, Preston looked down at her leg and looked quickly back up,
" Why didn't you say anything? Here we'll patch you up." Preston pulled out a stimpack and kneeled down to her left leg.
Uhh, this is so awkward,
Juniper wished her helmet was on, and looked anywhere but at Preston.
Preston completely oblivious, applied the stimpack, and med x to her wound. Afterwards he wrapped it up, since all of the amour was gone from her left leg, it was easy to unattach the frame from the main suit.
" That should do it" Preston stood up and scanned Juniper's red face,
" Thank you, I should get along fine now" Preston looked confused
It's like we're from a completely different time, ugh
"" Thanks again for your help" Preston reached out and shook Juniper's hand.
" Anytime Preston" Juniper smiled back at him,
"Well since you say that, " Preston looked at the rest of his group and back at her,
" You could always join us, we were about to head to sanctuary."
Juniper's eyes lite up when he mentioned her housing development,
" Sure, I was about to head back there anyway" Before Preston could say anything, the older woman by the name of Mama Murphy spoke up.
" There's more to your destiny than just this kid." she caught her breath and went on,
" I feel your pain no, I've seen your pain"
What is she talking about?, wait Shaun?
Juniper left her suit and walked over to the older woman,
" Please tell me, don't pull the wool over my eyes." Juniper kneeled down and looked at the woman, searching in her hazy eyes for an answer.
" What wool? She's just as crazy as old Mama Murphy" Marcy long sneered from across the room. Juniper shot her a glare. She looked back quickly when she heard Mama Murphy start to talk again.
" You're a woman out of time, out of hope, but it's not all lost...Your son" Juniper felt her eyes water as Mama murphy took her hands in hers.
" He's still alive I can feel his energy." Mama Murphy shut her eyes and looked like she was focusing.
" Please can you tell me where my son is, where is Shaun." Juniper begged her,
" God I wish I knew kid, All I know is that he's alive. The sight doesn't give me anything else." Mama Murphy shook her head sadly.
" I know where you should start looking though. Diamond city, the jewel of the commonwealth."
" Is shaun there, In Diamond city?" Juniper felt her heart racing,
" Kid I'm tired, Maybe later if you bring me some chems" Mama Murphy's demeanor changed when she mentioned chems,
" The sight will give me more, if you just give me some" Juniper felt her heart sink, even if she was telling the truth, getting an old woman drugged to find her son wouldn't be right.
" What did I tell you before, Those chems will kill you" Preston walked over and Juniper retracted her hands from Mama Murphy's and stood back up.
" The sight will help her, just like it's helped all of us. Besides everybody's gonna die eventually" Mama Murphy rasped, and Juniper noticed how harshly her chem addiction had aged her.
Preston sighed,
" Alright everyone it's time to move out to sanctuary, thanks to our new friend here." Preston announced to everybody,
" Oh sure we're going to go somewhere just because Murphy had one of her visions? When she was higher than Trinity Tower?" Everytime she spoke Marcy spewed venom,
Preston started trying to calm her down, when Struges stepped in.
" Look just calm down, where else are we going to go?" With that Marcy was silent,
" Why don't we just give it a try?" The man next to her said sadly, his face looked it was permanently in a state of depression. Marcy glared at him but, within seconds sighed.
" Fine, come on Jun" Marcy hoisted herself up and started to walk towards the door.
" Oh okay.." Jun got up quickly and tried to keep up with his ill tempered wife.
" Let's just hope it lives up to it's name." Struges smirked and walked away.
Juniper sighed and walked back towards her suit, after rubbing Dogmeat behind the ears she got into her suit and went out the door.
I hope this gets easier