Disclaimer: Bethesda owns Fallout!

Damn this took forever to finish- sorry for taking months to update.

Anyway, enjoy!

Chapter 3 – Mall Muties

Chink! Crash! Clink!

Chrys huffed with all the might her lungs and heart would allow, the air burned her throat but tasted fresh in comparison to the still metro tunnel air. Falling to her knees, she rested her head against the chain link fence she had just shoved closed in the attempt to flee the feral creatures living, if one could call it that, in the metros. After a moment she turned herself over and rested her back against the fence and fixed her glasses, making sure they were neatly placed back on her nose. Her gun, a newly acquired assault rifle, lay not too far from her feet and she was too exhausted to make a reach for it, so she resorted to lame kicks and shuffles from her feet to try and get it into arms reach. Suffice to say, no fruits bore for her efforts and she gave up and leaned her sweat-covered head back against the fence.

Sunlight beamed down from above, it had seemed like forever since she had actually seen it. Ambience from the metro lights reminded her of the Vault, and for a while she felt a nostalgic feeling wash over her as well as a calming feeling. Of course that was quickly shattered by her stumbling upon the residence of the tunnels. She thought they looked odd, but she thought they were regular ghouls, but no, they were feral. And her gun decided to jam at that moment, so that just made it all the better. Soon, she would need to find some parts to repair it and maintain it, but she had gotten the gun off of a downed Super Mutant that the Brotherhood of Steel had killed so how she would get another one was beyond her.

Those mutants though… they were gigantic. She never would have thought something like those existed, especially that one that the Brotherhood knights called a "behemoth". That one, that one took the snack-cake. It had to be around twelve feet tall or somewhere along those lines, she honestly thought it would kill them all. Lyons, the commanding officer, had instructed Chrys to use a Fat Man to take out the behemoth. Luckily it worked, but now Chrys knew there was a weapon that could shoot miniature nuclear bombs, and that left a queasy feeling in her gut. The patrol had lost one man, but they honored his commitment and courage to the Brotherhood.

Through that patrol she was able to reach GNR, however, Three Dog, the disc jockey, had decided to play an eye-for-an-eye game with her. If she could fix the satellite dish on top of the Washington Monument, then he would tell her where her dad went. At least he knew her dad and knew where he went. Thank God.

Sadly, his warning that there were a lot of mutants in the Mall, this place she was now, was not given for the metro tunnels as well. 'Thanks a lot Three Dog.' She thought as she took a drink of water from one of the few purified waters she had left.

BAM!

"AH SHIT!" Chrys cursed and scrabbled away from the fence. Quickly, she grabbed her broken gun and aimed it towards the fence. One of the feral creatures had become aware of her presence and had managed to drag itself toward the fence, apparently it was not as afraid of the light compared to the other ones. It stood there hissing and flailing at her and the fence that kept it from its meal. Chrys sighed and lowered her gun. Shooting it would be pointless with the fence in the way and there was no way the zombie creature was intelligent enough to find a way to open the gate.

"You scared me." Chrys huffed as she brought herself to her feet and stood eye-level to the zombie creature. It stared at her and made more hissing and grunting noises. Chrys hung her head, "I'm so lonely I'm talking to a zombie who wants to kill me. God, how can this get any worse?"

After collecting all her materials she hoisted her backpack back onto her shoulders and did her best to see if she could get her rifle back into working condition- no luck. With a damaged rifle and less-than-hopeful mentality, she trudged up the steps from the metro entrance and out to the main area of the Mall. It was vast and open despite being littered with rubble and the occasional corpse or two. Its perimeter buildings showed signs of major withering and decay, but despite that they looked in decent shape compared to most other buildings inside the DC ruins. Their architecture was probably built to last many years… or the buildings were just lucky (if it is possible to say a building is lucky). With another once over, she noticed the indents in the central field. From what she remembered of history class, the indents were trenches- commonly used in war. However, these trenches looked a little too big for human use, which made the possibility of their builder very disheartening.

'It's okay. There aren't any mutants nearby, and maybe they didn't dig those trenches or they're abandoned. Yeah that's a good possibility!' She thought as she sporadically scanned the area for the yellow-skinned mutants. Nothing: which frightened her even more. Steeling herself, Chrys kept to the perimeter of the Mall and hugged the buildings in order to avoid the center as little as possible and hopefully any unseen mutants. The rubble of automobiles and various building structures made it hard to navigate in a straight line, but after a few moments she realized she wasn't actually sure where she trying to actually go.

Bringing up her Pipboy, she saw that the Museum of Technology was on the parallel opposite side of the Mall that she was currently on… which meant she would have to cross the trenches to get to her destination faster. She looked on ahead and found that the trench field ended before the grand spire that stood in the center of the Mall. That had to be the Washington Monument that Three Dog told her about. If she could manage it, she could get to there on this side and cut across, avoiding the trenches. Nevertheless, she still was severely under-armed to combat anything she might find on the other side. From the looks of it, there was an encampment of Brotherhood knights (Three Dog said there would be a group outside the tower), but the likelihood that they would have supplies to offer her was not in her favor.

Clink!

With a gasp, Chrys turned and aimed her gun in the direction of the sound. Up ahead on her right was a pile of three cars and at the top sat a zombie creature… but one that wore clothes. From the looks of it, it was female. She sat staring at Chrys and held her hands up out of surrender.

"Don't… don't shoot." The creature's raspy voice pleaded. It took a moment but Chrys came to realize that this was a female ghoul.

"You… you aren't like those things in the metros… Are you?" Chrys inquired, gun still raised. The ghoul sighed and dropped her hands.

"You kidding me? Do I look like one of those feral ghouls? I realize I have no skin, but really there are differences between us and ferals!" the girl ghoul ranted as she made her way off the car pile.

Chrys lowered her gun, "Ferals?"

"Yeah, those 'things in the metros.'" The girl said with air quotes, "They're ghouls, but their brains have degraded so much that they mindlessly kill anything… I think. Well they don't attack normal ghouls, but I'm sure they'll kill you."

Chrys stared at the girl blinking a few times in shock- those things weren't aggressive towards normal ghouls? What about other mutants?

The girl ghoul nervously wrung her hands and started to back away. "Look, nice chatting with you, but I need to get back home… before I'm missed."

"Wait. Do you know a place I could go to for supplies?" Chrys asked, but her voice sounded as if it was begging.

The ghoul rubbed her wrists, "Well… I do run a shop at Underworld, so I have supplies there."

"… then why are you out here?" Chrys asked.

"Uh… well… I snuck out to do some… scavenging." The girl said, flashing an innocent smile. She then sighed and hung her head, "I'm pretty young, and the older ghoulettes don't like it when I go out on my own, so I thought I'd give going out on my own for once a go. I also was hoping to meet up with Quinn… he's a trader that comes to Underworld every other week. I thought I'd meet up with him in advance and discuss… trade and… deals… and stuff."

It was pretty obvious there was more to the young ghoulette's motives than that, but Chrys did not delve further. "So can I trade supplies with you back at your place?"

"Uhhh… well… I'd like to, but… Do you really want to go in a city of ghouls? You are a smoothskin." The ghoulette asked.

"A friend of mine told me about this… uh… city… he said as long as I'm courteous and don't act like a 'pompous ass', I'd be fine. I hope that's true… Is it?" Chrys asked.

"I suppose. We just don't get many smoothskin visitors. Most of the time they turn and leave once they take a step through the doors. So… I guess just don't be a bigot and you'll be fine." The ghoulette shrugged.

Chrys felt herself beam a bit, "Great! You'll have no problem from me!"

"For your sake, I hope you are right. Now come on, I haven't had a customer in ages!" The ghoulette beamed with happiness and started to walk on ahead. Chrys smiled and followed her rough-skinned guide down the Mall perimeter. After a couple minutes Chrys's Pipboy beeped and she checked the map to see a marker labeled "Museum of History" had appeared. She remembered Gob saying that's where Underworld was located. At that instant, she heard some strange noises.

"Hey. May I ask you a question?" Chrys asked.

"Sure, of course." The ghoulette said, looking over her shoulder at Chrys.

"How long have those trenches been abandoned?" Chrys asked.

"Abandoned? Those trenches have never been abandoned."

Chrys gulped, "Then… who uses them?"

The ghoulette froze and her eyes widened. Her fear-filled stare focused on something behind Chrys. Even though she knew it wouldn't be good, Chrys glanced over her shoulder to see charging mutants armed with guns and planks of wood lined with nails. 'It just got worse.'

"RUN!" Chrys shouted and shoved the ghoulette forward. The ghoulette charged off ahead and Chrys followed after her. She didn't even bother to try and shoot at them with her jammed gun, not when it was obvious that theirs were in much better condition.

Exhausted and terrified, the two sprinted for the museum coming into sight ahead, their feet pounding, but any noise their footfalls produced was drowned out by the boom of the mutants' footsteps behind them, and they were getting close.

In a split second, the ghoulette dropped. Chrys skidded and turned to see the ghoulette had gotten her foot caught in a sort of mundane trap. Without thinking Chrys knelt down and quickly made to undo the trap, surprising its ghoul captive. In a quick move, the trap uncoiled, but slashed Chrys' leg, leaving a considerable gash. Once clear, the ghoulette scrabbled up and tried to help Chrys up, shock of Chrys' intervention still lined her face.

"Forget it. Go!" Chrys shouted, unable to move quickly thanks to the gash.

With dread plastered on her skinless face, the ghoulette turned and charged on toward the museum. Slowly and steadily, Chrys followed suit, but knew that since she had lost the considerable lead that they had on the mutants, it was moot to try and run. The ghoulette might make it, but not so much for Chrys herself, especially with the gash inhibiting her run speed.

A quick glance showed a mutant with a nail board was closest to her and had begun to charge even faster towards her.

'I guess this is it… I'm sorry Dad.'

She turned away, still trying her best to run.

In an instant a great force collided with her from behind and she felt weightless as pain surged through her back. She knew she was flying even though her eyes were shut, but it she didn't black out until she fell back to Earth, colliding with something metal on impact.

"HELP! HELP!" Tulip cried as she burst through the doors of Underworld. "PLEASE HELP!"

The ghoul residents in the plaza turned their heads toward her, some stood, most didn't move any more than they already had. Tulip's panic escalated at the lack of reaction.

"Please! They're going to kill her!" Tulip pleaded as Winthrop made his way to her.

"Calm down Tulip. Who's going to kill who?" He asked, placing a hand on each of the younger ghoulette's shoulders.

"The Super mutants! They're going to kill a smoothskin girl I found outside! She helped me out of a trap! We have to help her! Please Winthrop!" Tulip pleaded and grabbed the jumpsuit the ghoul wore and shook him slightly.

"Is Willow out there?" Winthrop asked, already pretty sure that the unofficial guard of the museum would already be assisting (or not) in some way.

"She can't take three mutants on her own!" Tulip cried.

Winthrop looked up at the ceiling with a strained look. 'Three mutants… damn there's only one guy who could handle that… shit.' He turned his attention to the double doors of his least favorite room of the Underworld.

Tulip made a pitiful whine. Sighing, Winthrop forced Tulip off of him and headed for the doors.

What he shouted next garnered him more attention than all of Tulip's pleas and shouts, "Ahzrukhal!"

"… what the?"

Black.

"Fu…"

Black.

"… let you go…"

Black.

"Put… here…"

Black.

"Talk to…"

Black.

It went like that for a long while. She always thought that dying meant there would be a white light and angelic voices beckoning her to heaven. Instead, it sounded like raspy ghoul voices and looked like nothing but pitch black nothing.

And it hurt. It hurt excruciatingly bad.

After some time her eyes felt okay enough to open. Gingerly they lifted and Chrys was met with the sight of an old ceiling.

'Where am I?' she thought as she tried to move her head. Pain shot through her neck and head in response.

"Gah!" she groaned. Her noise attracted someone however. A ghoul came into view. He wore a bloody shirt and it looked like he might wear glasses. It was hard to tell since Chrys obviously was not wearing her own glasses.

"So you're finally awake. Took you long enough, but I got to hand it to ya…" there was a small rustling of objects, "… being bitch slapped by a super mutant leaves most people in much worse positions. Most of the time… I don't even waste the supplies."

"Wha?" Chrys sounded, unable to articulate a fool sentence.

"But I guess you were lucky. Tulip made sure you got help. You owe her. Willow too I guess. And… well I don't envy you having to owe him." The ghoul continued as Chrys felt a sharp prick in her arm. She winced.

"Come on smoothskin. You just got backhanded by a super mutant, flew ten feet, and hit a mailbox. A shot cannot be worse than that." The ghoul chuckled halfheartedly.

"Gl… Glasses?" Chrys asked. With all the other things wrong, she was pretty sure being able to see where she was would help in solving most her other questions.

"Oh… yeah. Here." Her glasses were wiggled onto her face by the ghoul and it took a second for the world to come into focus. The ghoul standing above her was the first thing she noticed. He wore a bloodied white shirt and he had glasses that somehow stayed on his head when he lacked a nose. He had a blank look on his face. He moved to help her sit up on the gurney she had been lying on.

"Thank you." Chrys breathed as she swung her aching legs over the side.

"Again, thank Tulip most of all. I'm still gonna charge you." The doctor ghoul said as he examined her.

Chrys' stomach dropped. "I'd love to compensate for your services… but I don't have a lot of caps. It might not be enough, but I'll give you what I have."

The doctor gave her a quick glance and then went back to checking her reflexes. Another ghoul, this one a ghoulette, appeared with a tray of supplies. She didn't look as welcoming as the ghoulette that Chrys had meet outside (apparently named Tulip). She set the tray down on one end of gurney.

"Barrows, we need to purchase some more stimpaks. This smoothskin exhausted half of our supply." She spoke after a minute.

Barrows huffed, "Good thing we can heal from radiation. Otherwise we'd be fucked."

"Still would be best to acquire some more stimpaks." The ghoulette, who Chrys figured to be a nurse, stated.

"Well Winthrop has some don't he?" Barrows said.

The nurse twitched a bit. "I guess, but we have no scrap metal to trade with him."

"I have some in my pack. You can have it… uh scrap metal that is." Chrys piped up. "Well… there are stimpaks too, if you want them."

The nurse looked Chrys up and down, then gave something akin to a chuckle. "I think you need those stimpaks more than we do based on what I've seen of you Vault girl. But, if you're serious about the scrap metal, I'll take it off your hands."

"Guess that covers some payment." Barrows said as he finished his tests. Chrys sighed in relief.

"Thanks Doctor Barrows." Chrys said. She glanced at the nurse, "And thank you too… uhm."

"Graves." The nurse stated as she bent over Chrys' backpack which was settled in the corner of the room.

"Graves, thanks." Chrys finished.

After being given her clothes, and helped into them by Graves, Chrys fetched her now lighter pack and fished the caps out to present them to Barrows. He took them without a word.

"You'll feel sore after the Med-X I hit you with earlier wears off. I suggest by then you check out a room at Carol's where you can sleep. Trade some of your junk at Tulip's store for some caps to afford the room." Barrows nonchalantly explained as he pocketed the caps.

"Thanks again Doc." Chrys said with a smile. She was even more thankful for the advice.

The Vault girl left the room and found herself in a greater room with a second level and a strange statue situated in the middle of the base floor. Ghouls and ghoulettes walked about talking, laughing, or staring at her. Chrys felt like a fish out of water again.

She made her way to the doors at the front where fewer ghouls were congregated. Once there, the large doors opened from the outside and a ghoul wearing an apparently common trader outfit stepped through the doors. He looked at her with a questioning look. He shrugged and walked past her up one of the staircases and entered a pair of double doors on the right side of the room. Chrys found a place to set her bag down and started to sort through her bag to see what there was to trade.

"Hey you're alive!" a raspy voice called from behind her. Chrys turned to see a ghoul approaching her wearing a faded blue jumpsuit. When he got close he stopped and crossed his arms. "When you were brought in, I was pretty sure you were a goner. I bet there are a bunch of unhappy betters here in Underworld. Way to prove them wrong… just don't go making a habit of being slapped by mutants."

Chrys couldn't help but laugh, "I must have looked pretty God awful."

"For a smoothskin yeah." He said. "I'm Winthrop by the way." He offered his hand.

"Chrys Winchester." She responded and shook his hand. When their gesture finished Chrys looked around to see if Tulip was anywhere.

"She'll be in her shop over there." Winthrop pointed over his shoulder to a door on the base floor on the left. "You'll want to thank her and Willow too."

"Willow?" Chrys asked.

"She's our… watchman I guess you could say. She walks around outside and greets those who come to the museum. She shot at the mutants who tried to get to your unconscious ass." The ghoul explained. "Calls everyone a tourist."

Chrys was shocked. If that was the case then that one ghoulette took on three super mutants by herself. That was definitely no easy feat and worthy of praise and thanks. 'She must be pretty good with combat.'

Winthrop coughed, "Willow didn't exactly kill the mutants though."

Chrys' eyes widened. "Are they still outside fighting!?"

"No. Those bastards are dead as can be. Shotgun shots meeting heads doesn't leave a pretty sight." Winthrop explained.

"Wait… so who killed them?" Chrys asked, "Was it that trader?"

"Quinn? Quinn couldn't kill one of those things to save his own ass. Good thing they leave us alone when we aren't mixed with smoothskins." Winthrop chuckled a bit, but his demeanor soon went somber. "No. Charon killed them."

"Charon?" Chrys asked.

"Listen, he doesn't need your thanks, so don't try and thank him. He does not give a damn. It's best you stay away from him." Winthrop said in a hushed voice.

"How… how did he kill them all?" Chrys asked, slightly amazed still, but Winthrop's warning started to make her feel afraid of her apparent savior.

"Not sure, didn't see. That's just Charon for ya. The son of a bitch can do what he's asked to do, and he delivers without question. Violence just seems to be his forte… in fact I'm pretty sure it is." Winthrop said.

At that moment the doors on the right side of the second level, the ones that Quinn had disappeared into earlier, opened. Chrys glanced up to see Quinn exiting with a bottle of amber liquid in hand. The ghoul that followed after him made Chrys gasp… most likely out of fear.

It was large ghoul. He was tall and muscular, yet he looked stiff in movement. He donned rough leather armor and carried a shotgun on his back. He had to be at least six and a half feet tall. He was definitely the tallest person she had seen… short of the super mutants. He had some tufts of what appeared to be red hair, and he had more hair than most ghouls did. He was intimidating and his demeanor was unreadable… as if there was actually nothing there. He was a blank book in a sense with a horrific cover.

Quinn and the fearsome ghoul walked by Chrys and Winthrop on their way to doors that led out to the rest of the museum. Quinn turned and raised a hand in greeting to Winthrop, "Hey Winthrop. Got to go pick up a heavy load of booze for Ahzrukhal."

Winthrop raised a hand in response, "You mean he's picking up that heavy load for Ahzrukhal." He gestured to the large ghoul.

"You get what I mean." Quinn said as he down a bit of the liquid from the bottle. Quinn passd and the other ghoul followed suit. His movement breaking its rhythm when he passed her and his eyes shot in her direction, looking her dead in the eyes. His pale blue stare made her blood run cold and she felt herself shiver. His eyes were like ice and they betrayed no emotion.

She remained frozen well after they had disappeared past the doors. Winthrop watched her with an amused expression.

"Blood feels like ice?" he asked the petrified girl.

She nodded.

"Feels like you're gonna be sick?" he asked.

She nodded again.

"Feel so damn afraid that you just might shit yourself?" he asked last.

She (reluctantly) nodded.

Winthrop let out a dry chuckle.

"I know the feeling." He said as he scratched the back of his head. "Well congratulations. You've just met Charon."