Jason's lesson for the raiders did not work out quite how he had hoped. The second he stepped inside, he came face-to-face with a raider. Thankfully, his reflexes were better than his stealthiness. He whipped out the bat and scored a direct hit on the raider's neck, crushing his windpipe. URK! As the raider fell to the ground, he involuntarily squeezed the trigger. BANG!

"So much for stealth," Jason grumbled.

Jason quickly felt for a pulse to make sure the raider was dead. Having confirmed that, he stood up. CRACK! Jason just barely managed to block a surprise tire iron with his bat. The raider swung the tire iron again. He dropped the bat when the metal tool smacked into his hand. Not wasting any time, the raider swung again, catching the top of Jason's helmet as he tried to duck. Jason hit the ground with a thud. He groaned as she jumped on top of him, bringing the tire iron down again. Jason blocked the attack by crossing his arms in front of his face. Ouch. That was going to bruise.

Desperate, Jason brought his leg up between the raider's legs. The raider grunted. Jason grabbed the raider's hand and forced her to whack herself in the face with the tire iron. She bit his wrist, forcing him to let go. Jason brought his head forward, smacking their foreheads together, causing her to drop the tire iron. He followed that up with a punch to the face. Still a tad dazed, Jason grabbed the raider's head and smashed it down on the floor. He scrambled away from her before realizing that he had brought her head down on the tire iron. A pool of blood was rapidly forming around her skull.

Jason sagged against a wall. He used another stimpak as he tried to catch his breath. What an overconfident idiot he was. Why did he think he could take on who knows how many raiders? Just that one had nearly killed him. Plus, his left hand was drenched in blood, cut open, and now bitten. He would not have been surprised if she were rabid. At least the stimpaks had stopped the bleeding. Now, all that red was just for show.

Jason opened one of the bottles of nuka-cola. It was delicious, but it had quite the bite. Approximately 200 years old, and it was still fizzy. There was no way this stuff was healthy. Jason placed the bottle cap in his pouch with the others. He hurriedly drank the rest of the bottle, not wanting to get caught unawares again. Just as he finished the last swig, Jason heard a voice.

"Felicia?" the man called out. "Ed? Are the two of you alright? I heard a brawl. Wait… were you two fighting? You'd both better still be alive. We can't afford to lose anybody else after those things got all those guys last week."

Jason drew his pistol and took aim. A raider holding a knife rounded a corner. BLAM! A bullet hole now dwelt right in between the raider's eyes. The corpse fell back against the wall and slid to the floor. Jason got up and searched the raiders. He found some 10mm ammo and two frag grenades. Jason searched the rest of the basement. He found no more raiders, though he did find a decent amount of medical supplies. Behind a locked door, Jason could hear a disturbing crawling sound that sent shivers up and down his spine. It was similar to radroaches, but somehow bigger. There was also a weird clicking noise.

Unable to get through the door, Jason soon found a new door. As he opened the door, a bullet whizzed past his head. He ducked back in surprise. The door led to a flight of stairs. Jason opened the door, firing his pistol several times as he charged up the stairs. When he got to the top of the flight, he found the raider dead.

Yet again, as he began to step through the doorway, Jason had to jump back as bullets made holes in the wall. He holstered his pistol. Then, he pulled out one of the grenades he had found, pulled the pin, and threw it in the direction of the gunfire. BOOM! Shrapnel and smoke were everywhere when he turned the corner again. The raider had been reduced to a bloodied pulp. Jason gagged and turned away.

After the explosion, it was clear that all the raiders were moving around. Jason turned a corner and found three large cages with skeletons and mutilated bodies both inside and outside of them. Again, Jason gagged. These raiders were a blight, staining the world by their very existence. He would not stand for it. Jason vowed that he was going to kill every raider that he found.

He hated killing the security guards in Vault 101, but that was self-defense. This was something different. It was a seething, burning hatred of the evil devils. Jason had always longed to fight evil, just like his hero Grognak. Here was his chance. The more raiders that died, the fewer atrocities they could commit.

As if in answer to his decision, a raider appeared, looking for the source of all the disturbances. Jason fired a couple shots, slaying him instantly. Something shiny caught Jason's eye as he took a few steps forward. On the top of one of the cages was a bottle of nuka-cola, only this one was not brown. It was blue… and… glowing? Jason shook the cage. The bottle rolled off the cage. Jason caught it and put it in his backpack. There was no way he was going to drink that without finding out what it was first.

Moving past the cages, Jason found a flight of stairs that led to the second floor of the school. Once upstairs, Jason ran into yet another raider. He made quick work of that one during a short shootout. He moved a little further along before three raiders came upon him, brandishing weapons. Two of them were carrying knives, while the third was wielding a pistol. Jason frantically fired his pistol as he ran backward, trying to avoid the shots from the pistol and the other two raiders with their knives.

One of the two with knives fell, but the other was only nicked on the arm as he slammed into the wall to avoid the gunfire. The raider with the pistol fired a shot that knocked Jason's helmet off his head. Jason rounded a corner, breathing hard. He had just barely avoided several knife slashes and bullets in his mad scramble. The remaining knife-wielding raider charged around the corner. He overshot Jason's location. Realizing there was no one in front of him, the raider turned around. BANG! Jason jumped out from cover and fired a few more shots, nailing the last raider. He walked over to the raider and checked out his equipment.

Jason found a key which was labeled as the "library key." Lo and behold, there was the library across the room. Jason shrugged his shoulders and went over to the door. He unlocked it and moved inside the library. The library was in the same terrible condition as the entire school. Burned and charred books were scattered about. Shelves had been toppled. Dust was everywhere. Jason coughed hard as he walked into a spiderweb and got a bunch of it in his mouth.

Suddenly, a vicious animal appeared out of nowhere, snarling. The dog bit Jason's leg, causing him to scream in pain. He fired a shot into its head. It dropped to the ground. He jumped back behind a shelf because he heard someone moving around.

"Spot," the raider said. "Spot, what is it, boy? Did you find what's causing all this ruckus?"

The raider came out from behind a bookshelf. He saw the dead dog lying on the floor. The raider let out a cry that made Jason feel a little bad for him. Just a little though. Jason jumped out from behind cover and fired off a couple rounds. Unfortunately, this raider had better reflexes than most of his compatriots. He dropped to the ground as soon as Jason appeared. The raider drew a gun and fired off a few shots of his own. The next few minutes were occupied with ducking in and out of cover; being shot at and shooting back.

Jason tried to move around the bookshelf he was on. His bitten leg hurt with every step, but he limped to the edge. The raider charged over to the bookshelf that Jason had been hiding behind. Jason pulled out his bat and hurled it as hard as he could. It struck the raider straight on the forehead. Dazed, the raider fired blindly in Jason's direction as he staggered forward. Then, his gun clicked. The raider started to unload, but Jason rushed him before he could get the clip out of the gun. Jason tackled him, and the two struggled on the ground. Jason got ahold of his bat and brought it down on the raider's face. Pulling a knife out of the raider's pocket, Jason slit his throat.

Exhausted, Jason spotted a mattress lying on the ground in a corner of the room. After using a stimpak on his injured leg, he laid down and went straight to sleep. In the morning he felt much better. He was still wounded, but the stimpaks he had taken seemed to have fixed most of the issues.

Now that he was awake, Jason took a moment to survey the area. He found three ammo boxes. After easily picking the locks on them, he found some 10mm ammo as well as several shotgun shells. He also found a key to the locked door in the basement. So, after making sure there were no more raiders, he went back down to the basement. He unlocked the door and went inside. He found a few more supplies, but the most prominent feature of the room was the tunnel that had been dug through the floor. He started to go down into the tunnel when he discovered what had been making the strange crawling and clicking sounds. Three giant ants appeared a little ways down the tunnel. They crawled over chewed up bodies of several raiders as they advanced toward Jason.

"NOPE!" Jason said as he ran out of the room and shut the door, locking it behind him. "NOPE! NOPE NOPE! I am NOT messing with giant ants today!"

The ants were banging on the door, but they seemed unable to get past it. Jason ran back to the double doors that led outside and exited the school at breakneck speed.

Jason scratched his beard. "What was I thinking, going in there?" he asked himself. "And yet, if there were more raiders in there, I'd go back in there and do it again. Do I have a death wish, an insane need for justice, or both? Let's just hope Megaton isn't as rough as that."

Jason headed off in the direction Silver had directed him. Coming over a hill, Jason saw it. A gigantic wall that looked like a patchwork of airplane pieces surrounded the town. A clunky protectron robot stood guard outside. It blasted a bloatfly before greeting a trader that came to town with a two-headed cow in tow.

"That's either the coolest or scariest place I've ever seen in my life! I mean, I've only been to Vault 101 and Springvale, but still… Wow!"