A/N: Okay, SO BEFORE READING THIS CHAPTER, I suggest you read the last part of the previous one. I wasn't too happy with how it ended and decided to change it a little bit. I feel that it suites the story's flow better. I know, the whole damsel in distress concept has been played thousands of times before, but I'm using it as an opportunity to help shed some light on Logan. Hopefully it works out. As always, please read and review.

Fallout: Crusaders of the Brotherhood

Part I: Chapter 8

The boots of his armor made a distinct clunking noise as he ran. This was only the third time he had worn power armor in combat. The suite was heavy. Even though its hydraulics system did most of the work, it still felt like you were carrying a large table on your back.

Despite his inexperience with power armor, he was glad to have it on. The trip to the Purifier would be much more painful if it weren't for the suite. Small bits of rock and debris from nearby explosions ricochet off his armor as he made his way across the bridge.

"Communist threat detected!" announced Liberty Prime in his deep robotic voice before letting out another burst of blue lasers from his eyes, "For America!"

As the fight drew on, Logan grew a little too comfortable with the situation. All Enclave fire was directed at Prime. Even though he and the rest of the Lyon's Pride were out in the open, there was virtually no incoming enemy fire. They were basically playing clean up crew, killing the few soldiers that managed to escape Prime's sensors. As Logan's attention focused more on the robot than himself, a mortar round landed a little too close to him.

Logan was knocked off his feet. Thankfully, the power armor shielded him from most of the blast; he was just a little dazed from the explosion.

"Get up soldier!" shouted a familiar voice, "this is no time for you be lying around!"

It was Sarah. She ran into Logan's field of vision, the morning sun reflecting off her golden blonde hair and blue eyes. She looked just as beautiful as he remembered her. He never understood why she didn't wear her helmet in combat, but it never seemed be much of an issue for her.

"Get up, Kane!" ordered Sarah again, offering her hand. Logan tried to take it, but he couldn't. His entire body felt pinned to the ground, paralyzed.

Sarah knelt down beside Logan and pulled off his helmet, holding him in her arms just as the way he did with her nearly three years ago. She was still shouting over the battle raging over the Purifier, "Wake up, dammit! She needs your help!"

"She what?" asked Logan, breathing heavily and a little confused. As far as he knew, there was no "she," that needed his help.

Suddenly, the entire battle around them halted in time. Prime was completely still in mid step as he let another blue stream of light from his eyes. An Enclave soldier's body, which had been thrown up by a nearby exploding car, was completely stationary in mid-air. Logan spotted Glade in the corner of his eye who was firing off his mini-gun, the bullets frozen in their path. It was just him and Sarah now. Her voice grew soft to a near whisper as she spoke.

"She needs you, Logan. Wake up,"

Logan's eyes shot open. At first, he saw and felt nothing. For a minute, he thought he was dead.

'It's about damn time,' he thought, but no, he wasn't dead. Crusaders have been known to be hard to kill; he was no exception. In fact, he was the prime example.

Much to his dismay, his vision slowly formed back as the feeling in his body returned. He was alive as he ever was.

Oh well, it's just the way things go; disappointments: life is full of them.

There was about a six-inch gash recently carved into the Sentinel's chest, but it was nothing a stimpak and a few stitches couldn't fix. He was feeling a slight stabbing sensation in his knee, but he could walk and probably run on it just fine. For the most part, against all odds, Logan was okay.

He started the process of digging his way out, but stopped when he heard a pair of voices coming his way.

"Why da fuck do we have to sort through all dis shit now?" complained Tick, still pissed about their assignment.

"Hell if I know," replied Pounder, "probably cuz Ripper-Jack wants ta be da first one to play wit dat new friend of his,"

"Well screw him! I say we ditch dis job and go steal dat bitch for ourselves. Da only reason why he's band chief is cuz he used to hang wit Cook-cook,"

"Well yous can go ahead and do dat but I ain't helpin. Bitch or no bitch, I don't wanna be on the wrong side to Jack's rippa or Cook-cook's flamthrowa."

Tick grew silent. He knew just as well as Pounder did what would happen if he decided to disobey an order. Pounder, always being the guy to try to see the brighter side of things voiced another one of his optimisms.

"All we have ta do is make sure dat asshole the girl was with is dead; who knows, we probably won't get first dibs, but if we find da guy's body fast enough, we might be able ta get a piece of dat ass ourselves."

"Hmph," grunted Tick. He wasn't happy about it, but his friend was right. They were just a couple of low men on the totem pole. No matter how ballsy Tick could be, he and Pounder were just a couple of pee-ons. They'd be lucky to see any action even if they weren't assigned this crap job.

Tick and Pounder started digging through the scrap pile, searching for any sign of the man that the girl was with. The sun was beating down on the two as they moved the remnants of the catwalk piece by piece. It didn't take long for them to break a sweat.

Tick had witnessed the guy kill one of his friends in an alleyway with a knife. He was pretty pissed about it still, but it wasn't the first time he had lost a friend to some jackass with a knife or gun or whatever.

"Aw shit!" cried Pounder. He jumped back from the pile.

"What?" asked Tick.

"I just fucking saw somethin move man!" Pounder's face looked as if he had just seen a giant spider or something.

"Quit pissin yaself!" complained Tick; it wasn't the first time he'd seen Pounder spooked over nothing, "What did you see?"

"In there!" said Pounder, pointing at the pile of metal, "I just saw some piece of metal move on its own!"

"Seriously? C'mon man," doubted Tick, "It's just in yer head. Let's just find the dead guy's body and get this over with,"

"I wouldn't do dat man!" warned pounder, adamant about what he saw, "What if he's still alive!"

"That's a load'a crap!" snarled Tick, still in disbelief of his friend, "If he was still up and alive and all, he would–,"

Tick's words were cut off as a pair of arms emerged from the pile of scrap, one wielding a combat knife, the other, a pistol. They wrapped around the Fiend and stabbed him in the kidney. Pounder watched the life drain out of Tick's body as the man, who was thought to be dead, emerged out of the pile. He was pointing the pistol right at him.

"Drop your gun, hands where I can see them," commanded the man. His voice had no emotion or excitement to it. Pounder might as well have been talking to a robot.

"And the pipe," added the stranger.

Pounder tossed his pistol and lead pipe in front of him, throwing his hands up in surrender. Though he was a Fiend, he wasn't stupid. His best bet for survival would be to do whatever this guy told him.

"Listen man!" babbled Pounder, "Whateva it was that pissed ya off, it wasn't me. I swea; I was jes–"

"Shut-up," ordered the stranger. His eyes were cold, grey, and downright feral. He reminded Pounder of one of Violet's psycho dogs, "I need you to answer some questions for me,"

"Yea, sure, whateva ya wants me to do man. Jes don't kill me!" pleaded the raider.

"Good, now tell me who this 'piece of ass,' is that you and your friend were talking about."

The door to the recreation house swung open as three raiders made their way inside; one of them was carrying an unconscious woman on his back. The building was small, one story, and a single room. The rec center was dimly lit by two light bulbs that hung from the ceiling by a single wire. There were chairs, tables, and boxes scattered throughout the building as well as a pool table brought in from Vault 3. Several cots were lined up in the back in case anyone got a little too…carried away with their R&R time. No one ever bothered cleaning up the place so there were various empty liquor bottles, jet inhalers, and syringes scattered all over the room.

Ripper-Jack, the Band Chief of the Fiends in the northern camps, tossed the still unconscious girl onto one of the cots in the back. Aside from Jack and the two other Fiends, the recreation building was completely vacant; Jack made sure of that. All men that weren't already on duty were assigned crap jobs to keep them out of the recreation room. Unlike some of his counterparts, if he was gonna fuck someone, he'd rather do it in private.

"Jerry," spoke up Jack, directing his attention towards his second in command, "go get me sumthin to tie dis bitch up with,"

The girl was still unconscious so she wouldn't be able to put up a fight, but if she woke up, it would be more convenient for Ripper-Jack if she were already bounded.

"Right on it," complied Jerry as he placed his newly acquired power-fist and pistol on a nearby table and started rummaging through a few metal boxes.

Jack then turned to the other Fiend; he was just your common grunt, "Patches, go stand guard at da door and don't botha me unless there's a real emergency,"

Patches nodded and headed for the door. Jerry came back with a few feet of rotted rope and tied the girl's arms and legs to the edge of the cot. Jack waited until his second in command was finished.

"Go wait outside wit Patches," ordered Jack as he motioned to the Door, "When I'm done, she's all yours"

Jerry nodded and made his way to the exit. As soon as he left, the Band Chief tossed his assault rifle and ripper carelessly to the side, and practically skipped to the girl whose body had been tied down and spread across the cot. Though he was good about not showing it, he had an itching that hadn't been scratched in quite a while, and he was a little too eager to tend to his…business.

The Fiend Captain jumped on top of and straddled the girl. He pulled her hood over her head, concealing most of her face. It helped prevent any feelings of sympathy for his victims to surface inside Jack if he didn't see their faces. Most people wouldn't think of a Fiend feeling sorry for their victims, but it sometimes happened…sometimes.

He then begun the process of "undressing," the girl. Of course, a Fiend's definition of undressing would be more look more like pulling and tearing to anyone else. To Jack's dismay, her clothing would not rip. Though it looked like a collection of rags sewn together, it was made of some sort of tough fiber that proved to be impossible to tear.

"Argh," grunted Jack in frustration. His ripper would probably do the trick, but it could possibly hurt the girl in the process. Not that he really cared about her safety; he just didn't want to end up killing her. He knew some sickos who were into that kind of shit, but he wasn't one of them. He knew Patches had a knife on him; it could probably get the job done just fine.

"Hey Patches!" yelled Jack, "I need to borrow ya knife."

There was no response.

After a long reticence, Jack hopped off the girl and raised his voice even higher, "Patches, What da fuck?"

The only response the Raider Chief got was a ghostly silence.

"Patches?"

There was no answer.

"Jerry?"

Still nothing.

Sgt. Rich Wilson was the man in charge of the New Vegas East Gate that led into Freeside. Today had been one of those more boring days. He and his squad had only checked one caravan in and another one out. Other then that, nothing else happened.

Though his "specific," orders were to have all men at the ready in case of a potential infiltration or assault, on days such as these, where there were only a handful of people passing through, you really only needed two men to stand watch.

It was Wilson's shift along with one of the privates under his command. The rest of the men were either napping or playing cards with that member of the kings who befriended Wilson's squad few months ago.

The Srgeant let out a sigh as he looked down at his rifle. There was no explicit reason for the sigh, he just felt like sighing. When he looked up again, he noticed a strange sight coming up the road.

As the figure grew closer, Wilson could make out a man carrying another person in his arms. When he was in about fifty yards from the checkpoint, he noticed that the person the man was carrying was a woman dressed in a strange set of robes. The man himself had what looked like a red stripe on his shirt, but as he drew closer, the sergeant realized it was an open wound.

"Halt!" shouted the private, aiming his rifle and sounding a little too enthusiastic; most green horns were, "state your business!"

"Private, stand down! I'll handle this," ordered Wilson, trying to cease any potential hostilities before they started. The private slowly lowered his rifle as Wilson approached the grizzled looking man.

"What's your business here?" asked Wilson, making his voice sound neither threatening nor welcoming.

"I need to get this person to a medical center," stated the man, referring to the unconscious woman in his arms.

"Uh huh," responded Wilson, "and would you mind telling me why this girl seems to be knocked out and why you have that gash on your chest?"

"We were attacked by Fiends," answered the man coolly.

Sgt. Wilson nodded, "I figured as much. Head to the Follower's outpost at the Old Mormon Fort. It should be right there on the left side after you enter through this gate. You can't miss it."

"Thank you," said the stranger.

"You're welcome," retorted the sergeant while turning to one of his men, "Reyes, open the gate,"

As his men opened the gates, Wilson gave the man the same statement he gave everyone else who entered the city, "You are allowed to bring any weapons inside the gate, but be warned; any unprovoked acts violence will get you shot."