Welcome to Chapter 5! Skipping ahead a little here, some things just don't need explaining. There will be some pretty graphic shit being described in this chapter, so fair warning. Going to be arriving at a major plot point for this story, hope you enjoy!

Chapter 5

"So we provide them with donations of fresh blood packs, and in exchange they not only stop harassing us, but offer protection for the town? Sounds like a bargain to me!" Luther grimaces as Nick and Evan King shake hands over the deal. After Vance revealed why the Family had taken Ian, and what they were, Nick had jumped in and negotiated a deal that would benefit everyone with them. A deal he had just pitched and soled to Evan. They even managed to Talk a traumatized Ian into leaving the Family and returning to Arefu. While the kid still aims to keep his cannibalism a secret, at least he is back where he belongs.

The whole fiasco has Luther seething though. The second he saw the bodies of the West family he knew what had happened to them. When they went down into that metro, he was dead set on killing all of the bastards responsible. However, after Nick and Tyler calmed him down, he learned that despite what they are, the Family is at least trying to make themselves better. Even if they do so in a creepy way. Every second spent in that hole still made him want to kill. The way Vance spoke to him, knew about him, only served to make it worse. Only Vance does not know, at least not everything.

"Hey," Nick says with a smile as he walks up, "Evan liked the idea. He was completely for it once I explained everything. "Also," he reaches into a pocket and takes out two stimpacks, "he followed through with his deal to supply us. Here, this is your half." Luther silently takes the stims and pockets them. He and Nick proceed down the highway to where Tyler is waiting for them with Alan, a member of the Family who has been sent to act as a guard for the town.

"He in?" Alan asks as they approach.

Luther ignores the question and brushes past the young cannibal wordlessly. "Yeah he did," Nick replies, "I already told him you were coming. Head on up whenever you are ready." Alan shakes his hand and the proceeds up to the small town. Nick and Tyler then turn to Luther, as if waiting for him to say something. He stares back at them with a blank look in his eyes. "Should we, maybe, head back to Megaton?" Nick asks cautiously.

He shrugs and starts walking. He hears Nick ask Tyler what is up and Tyler brush him off. He sighs inwardly. You are being an ass, he thinks to himself. The kid did good back there, he negotiated a deal and prevented a lot of bloodshed. Still, cannibals are scum, degenerates. In the wasteland, there are all sorts of foul creatures, raiders, mutants, and even crazed robots left over from before the bombs, but those who partake of human flesh are among the worst sort as far as Luther is concerned. He grimaces, sickened by the memory of the people who saved his life. Who took him in after finding him half dead in the wastes. Who gave him the slightest glimmer of hope that maybe not everyone in the wasteland is a degenerate, only to discover what they really were, and what they had made him into.

The memory of a taste enter his mouth. The scent seems to fill the air. The crunch of roasted and perfectly seasoned flesh in his mouth. The worst part? Even now he savors it. The feel of the juices from the tender meat. The taste unlike any other, yet somehow familiar the first time you try it. The same taste you experience when blood is in your mouth. When your mouth is split, or an organ inside of you is gushing and they only way to remove the blood is to spit it out. You know the taste, somewhere in the back of you mind you know, but you still eat the flesh, and savor it. Somehow you just know, he knew, yet he ate it anyways.

The smile on that bastard Jack Smith's face as he finally, after three whole weeks of keeping it secret, finally told Luther where the town's food came from. The horror he felt, the revulsion. Not with Smith or any of Andale's other inhabitants, but with himself. Then there was the blood haze. The pure fury that consumed him and made him into an instrument of death's sardonic will. He would kill the people who save him because of what they were, but he was now one of them. The town that once prided itself as America's finest little establishment, soon was empty, and quiet. Devoid of life, save for the crows that feasted on the bodies he left piled in the middle of the town's square.

Tyler is in a foul mood. Hell, it seems that all three of them are. First Luther goes and gets all dark while they deal with the vampire knockoffs, then the kid gets all crestfallen that he isn't getting praised for striking a deal with the devils. Seriously kid, whoopty fucking do da! Now their moods have rubbed off on him, and his being pissed only serves to make the kid even more down, while Luther is walking up ahead lost in his own fucking thick ass skull, which ticks him off all the more! To top it all off, he used the last of his jet yesterday and now has a splitting headache, blurry vision, and his hands are starting to get the jitters. All in all this is just a depressing situation.

He catches himself checking their surroundings again for what feels like the millionth time in the last hour. Still no sign of the landmarks he uses to orient himself and keep track of where they are. DAMN! The quicker the get back to Megaton, the quicker the three of them can separate and deal with their issues. He already knows what will happen. He will track down a dealer and buy all the chems he can, Luther will eventually end up staring angrily at a glass of booze but not drinking, and the kid will wander around aimlessly until he gets himself into trouble. Tyler looks around again and growls in frustration. Seriously, it did not take them half this time to get to Arefu, so why is it taking so long for them to get back?

A slight movement up in the rocks to his left catches his attention. He lowers his head and pretends he didn't notice, but his eyes are moving like crazy, searching for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing, no more movement, but the alarms going off in his head are still screaming at top volume. Maybe it is just the withdraw. Sure nothing like this has ever happened before, but other, weirder things have. For example, the thing that looks like a men in black combat armor emerging from the rocks like a ghost. That cannot be real. But then again, what if it is? He shrugs his shoulders and raises his combat shotgun. He pulls the trigger, and is surprised when the man screams in pain, actual pain, not the shit a drugged mind thinks up, and falls to the ground. He is even more surprised when Luther and Nick react to the dead man by jumping behind cover. When more men in the same black armor as the first show up though, he is not surprised, he is excited. Now they get to fight!

Letting out a bellowing roar he charges the black armored men. He smashes into one, sending the bastard flying back, while shooting a round through the head of the man next to him. A red beam flashes through the air and burns right through the softer armor on his side, leaving a cauterized burn. He growls in pain as the scent of burning skin, leather, and metal reaches his nose. He turns to the man holding the laser rifle and stalks towards him like a deathclaw. He sees panic fill the mans eyes and it invigorates him. The man fires twice more. The first shot misses him by an inch, but the second burns a second hole onto his left shoulder. He lashes out, knocking the rifle from the man's hands. He lands a savage kick on the man's chest, sending him to ground with a pined grunt as some of his ribs shatter. Tyler lowers his shotgun to the man's head and pulls the trigger, leaving nothing but a blood stump where the man's head once was.

He roars in a blood fury, ready for more, but a powerful force slams into his head. He stumbles forward, falling to one knee. A pain far worse than any headache he has ever experienced before fills his head. He tries to stand, but his vision swirls, making everything look like a warped collage. Somehow he climbs to his feet and takes a step forward. He hears panicked shouting and turns towards it just in time to see a glowing blue orb flying towards his head. The orb hits him and again he is sent to his knees in pain. This time his entire body is screaming in agony from the electric pulses spanning from his skull. With his eyes squeezed shut he tries again to get to his feet. Something is pressed against his forehead and he opens his eyes to see an ugly weapon at his head. "Sweet dreams asshole!" someone shouts before a third orb enters his skull and he passes out.

Tyler's eyes snap open and he rolls to the side, raising his gun and firing, at nothing. He curses and whips around, expecting his attacker to be behind him, but still nobody. His eyebrows knit together in confusion as he sits up and swings his gun around, cautions for whatever trick this may be. He stands after a few seconds, keeping a tight grip on his rifle, and looks around. There are five of those guys who attacked them lying dead on the ground. The three he killed, one with a bullet right through his eye suggests Luther got him, and the fifth must have been taken down by the kid. Speaking of them, where are they? His eyes sweep the area, searching for them, and he sees nothing. "Luther, Kid, where are you?" he half whispers. Of course there is no answer.

He lowers his gun as the rush of adrenaline ebbs away. He becomes aware of a pain in his side and looks down to see that a clean section of his armor as been burned away, leaving a dark gash where he assumes he was shot with a laser weapon, but he cannot remember. He gingerly touches the wound to see how bad it is. The wound is shallow, but long. Nothing serious. At least it was a laser. Those weapons always cauterize the wounds they inflict. If a bullet had hit him like that, he would likely be bleeding out. "Fuck," he growls as he realizes there is another wound on his shoulder. He shrugs, testing the limbs movement range, and cringes as pain flares. He will have to be careful with it.

Holding his side, he steps away from the corpses of their attackers and climbs atop a small outcrop of rocks to get a better view. Shading his eyes from the sun, he looks back down at where the fight had taken place. He hopes to see the kid and Luther somewhere finishing off their attackers, but again he sees nothing. He growls in frustration and is about to climb back down when he notices something. There is a set of tracks leading away from the fight. He squints and can see that most of the tracks are from heavily armored boots, but there is another that is different. He scrambles down the rocks to get a better look. Kneeling down, he examines the strange tracks.

While the others are uniform and walking in a straight line, these seem more like someone was being dragged between two other people. He sits back and scratches his beard, trying to make sense of it. The he notices a third set of tracks, these seeming to follow just to the side of the others, only there is a lot of blood and whoever it is is dragging themselves along the ground. He stands and follows the third set of tracks with his eyes until he spots something lying on the ground that causes him to curse when he recognizes it. Running to the spot, he kneels down and picks up Luther's bloodstained rifle. He stands back up with the rifle in his hands and decides that he is going to find his partner. He pulls both his shotgun and Luther's rifle across his back and sets off.

As he follows the trail, he can't help but notice the large amount of blood his partner is loosing. The sand and baked earth is stained, the blood appearing a dark, almost black, crimson color. He isn't a tracker, not like Luther, be even he can see the signs that his partner is in a serious way. He quickens his pace, praying that the asshole isn't dead. If he is, he will find a way to resurrect him and then shoot him himself.

Finally he spots the shape of a man dragging himself along the ground. "Luther!" he shouts as he breaks into a run. If his partner hears him, he does not show it. He barrels down upon the bastard and rolls him over. "Shit!" he curses as he sees the extent of the wounds on Luther's chest. It looks almost as if someone took a hacksaw to him. His armor is rent and there is blood soaked all over the rest of him. One of his eyes is blackened and swollen shut, while the other is unfocused and has a far off look in it.

A long string of continuous curses leave his mouth as he pats down his pockets for a stimpack but finds none. He reaches into Luther's and empties the man's coat. Finding one he immediately stabs it into Luther's chest and injects the healing substance. Pulling out a second he does the same, only pushing this one into his neck. He reaches for a third, but a hand clamps solidly down on his wrist and jerks him down. "They took him," Luther gurgles as blood leaks out of the side of his mouth, "they took him!"

Tyler's eyes widen as he realizes what Luther is saying. "The boy. Nick." It isn't a question, but Luther nods before letting his head fall back against the ground. "Where, who, what happened?" Luther's response is to try and sit up again, but Tyler stops him and forces him to lie back down. "Stay down you fucking idiot, you are going to bleed to death if you try to move anymore!"

Luther's good eye meets Tyler's and there is a focus there. "I overheard them," he manages to say past the blood, "they are taking him to the slavers! To the slavers Tyler!" he grabs the front of Tyler's armor as he speaks. "I heard them. They took him to paradise!"

Nick's eyes open slowly, but the brightness of the sun forces him to squeezes them shut again. He is laying down, and not in a comfortable position either. His head is throbbing and he can feel every beat of his heart like it is a pounding drum in his chest. His legs are stiff when he tries to move them, and he groans in pain as he feels scabs break and start bleeding as he bends his knee. He cracks open one eye and looks down at himself. He instantly wishes he hadn't. Most of his clothes are gone, leaving him in a pair of underwear and a shirt. His legs are covered in bruises and scraps, many of which are now bleeding again.

His whole body is stiff, as though he recently went through an intensive workout session. He reaches up to rub his neck and is surprised to feel something metal. His fingers explore the object, finding that it encircles his neck and has a large box-like section with small dials and buttons on it. He is about to see if he can use his pipboy to access the thing when a small voice squeaks out from beside him. "I wouldn't mess with it if I were you Mungo."

He turns his head to see a small boy wearing a dirty set of overalls that have seen better days. The kid is covered in a thick layer of dirt and grime, even more so than the normal inhabitants of the wasteland. His small hands are hooked through a chain link fence and he can see that they boys hands are calloused. Yet the thing that strikes him the most is the kids eyes. All the kids from the vault that he had ever seen all looked mischievous and curious, this boys eyes are empty of that. Instead they appear hollow, or even hardened. "Screw with the collars too much and boom! Your stupid Mungo head is gone. Get it?"

Nick manages to sit up and lean his back against the wall of a small shack behind him. "What did you call me? Why do I have this on?"

The kid rolls his eyes as if those are the stupidest questions he has ever heard. "All you Mungos are the same. None of you understand anything. You are a Mungo, an adult. That is a slave collar around your neck. It is to keep us inline." He motions to a collar around his own neck as he speaks. "We all have them, so don't think you are special. Though, you are in there by yourself, so maybe you are special, but only to the slavers, which means something bad for you."

Nick is still trying to make sense of what the kid is talking about when the sound of someone opening an under oiled door draws his attention to the front of the cage he is in. Stepping into the cage are three people. One is dressed in spiked metal armor from head to toe. The one in the middle and the one who seems to be in charge is wearing en expensive crimson suit and carrying a cane. The last man is dressed in the same black armor of the people who attacked him, Luther, and Tyler. The others! What happened to them?

"Well, well, well." the man in the suit speaks as he runs a critical eye over Nick. "I dare say, you have indeed brought me something that is well worth the pay you and your company require Captain." The suited man steps forward and reaches for Nick's arm. Nick automatically snatches his arm back, which earns him a hard blow across the face from the man's cane. "Now, now, I can't have you acting like that now can I. That collar around your neck, I hold the item that makes it explode. Cross me, and you will regret it. Now, your arm."

Nick glares at the man defiantly. The man sighs and steps back. "Ymir, please teach our young friend here that to disobey is a severe crime." The man in the spiked armor chuckles darkly and steps forward. He delivers a hard kick to Nick's head, sending him to the ground. He then grabs his wrist and twists it around behind his back. Nick grits his teeth and works not to shout out in pain. "See, that wasn't so hard was it?" The man in the suit again crouches down. He studies the pipboy on Nicks arm for a few minutes, mutter a few things to himself that Nick couldn't make out. "Very good," he finally says as he steps away and motions for his thug to release Nick, "very good indeed. I know of some people who will pay a high amount for you."

Here we are, getting ready for chapter six! Let me know if you guys liked this story. Yes, this chapter means that Tyler's point of view will be joining the fray.