Steve Woke up feeling stiff as a board he opened his eyes to see a woman leaning over him removing a warm cloth from his forehead. Steve opened his mouth and said
"Wait what?"
the woman suddenly jumped back almost screaming her eyes were full of surprise.
"What?"
Steve asked starting to feel his hard landing all over his body
"Hey wow you're awake. Your friend the ranger is downstairs waiting for you."
Steve got up slowly as he was sore all over. His knees buckled and he stumbled to the floor the Woman rushed over to him and helped him up. Steve then realized he wasn't wearing his jumpsuit just a pair of boxers and noticed a series of stitches on his abdomen
" uuuuhh miss can you tell me why I'm all stitched up?". The woman let go of Steve
" After you shot that mini nuke shrapnel was stuck in your liver and intestine and took a lot of radiation but luckily with help from doc Crocker I saved you." She said proudly
Steve saw his gear and said
" um miss can I get some privacy here to change?"
the woman nodded and left the room. Steve carefully walked over to his gear trying as hard as he could not to hurt himself more than he already was. He put on his jumpsuit which was covered in blood stains and torn all over. He put on his trenchcoat strapped his armour on and made his way down the stairs the woman he met prior was standing facing a cabinet writing something on a clipboard frantically while Jason was sitting on a sofa and when he saw Steve coming down the stairs he quickly bolted up "JESUS kid you scared the crap outta us we-we thought you were done for that fatman shell blasted you a good 30 feet and when we got you-you had shrapnel all over you and what the hell were you thinking! shooting the shell that close you were lucky you didn't just end up a pile of ash! Or turn into a ghoul!" Jason yelled looking angrily at him Steve looked at Jason who sat back down
" I guess I just thought it'd be better if I went up in flames rather than all of us." he said.
The door swung open and Danse stepped inside with darcy and a man wearing a faded khaki coat Danse looked at steve his face went into a grin and said
" well when were you going to tell us about your habit shooting nuclear bombs outta the blue."
"like I told Jason I just thought it'd be better if I went rather than all of ust" Steve said shrugging,
Danse looked at him shaking his head
"what Didn't want me looking like a her and stealing your thunder?" steve said
"well if you're done Joking around I'd like to get started on this case" said an unfamiliar voice.
Steve looked see the man in the trench coat strike a match and light the cigarette in his mouth illuminating his face he had yellow eyes, scars all across his face, and what looked like to be a large piece of his face missing on the side to reveal mechanical parts and circuitry.
"the names Nick Valentine Glad to see your awake ." said the man
After breakfast Steve,Jason,Danse and now Nick got details from Darcy and prepped for a long journey ahead
Steve looked around he noticed diamond city was based in fenway park the famous baseball stadium. He wandered about and came across a latino man, he had pompadour-style hair and a goatee
"Don't be caught dead heh-heh buy some protection at Commonwealth Weaponry!" said the man enthusiastically
Steve walked over to his stand to see what he sold
" Hey, you look like you could use some protection." said the man.
" Hey, the name's Steve by the way. So what do you sell?" Steve said looking around his shop
"Well Steve, my names Arturo Rodriguez I sell protection in the form of guns and ammo the best in diamond city, so what do you say? Care to have a look"
"Sure got some time to browse."
"Everything hand tooled, feel free to test the grips." Arturo said
He pressed a button and the wall behind him switched sides revealing his stockpile of ordnance: Pistols, rifles, shotguns you name it Arturo probably had it. Steve bought a few boxes of rounds, a second .357 revolver to help steve practice weapon maintenance. Jason had spent the last day teaching Steve about weapons to help him fight raiders and the like. Steve said goodbye to Arturo and left. He found the others standing in front of a building that read "Publick Occurrences." Nick was talking with a woman that wore a red leather trench coat and a press cap. He walked over and noticed the woman was arguing with Nick.
" Well Nicky I just don't understand why you can't take me with you if I remember correctly I was the one that helped you find the kid, I can handle this."
Nick looked up and sighed.
" I know you can Piper It's not that it's just I don't want you to get hurt, slavers and kidnappers are a nasty bunch but look if you really want I'll talk to the kid and his friends."
Nick turned around and saw Steve approaching them .
" Well speak of the devil. I was just gonna find you to ask if my friend Piper could tag along. She's the local news reporter and she could use a story like this."
Steve looked behind nick, the woman sat arms crossed. Steve thought about it for a minute and finally shrugged.
"sure."
After hearing this Piper smiled
"yes! You won't regret this!" Piper said
"Let's hope not." Steve said under his breath.
After Piper said goodbye to her little sister and everyone purchased supplies they hit the road. Nick explained to them that after slimming it down there were two people that could pull something off like this in the Commonwealth (Post-War Boston): The Institute and the Gunners. The Institute was gone so their prime suspects were the Gunners they were a highly organized mercenary group who were ruthless; no job too brutal for them as long as the caps keep rolling in but he doubted they were the ones pulling the strings in this operation.
Steve and his pack of companions traveled for 3 days until they got their first lead. At a bar while playing caravan Jason had heard that a group of Gunners were traveling through the local settlements to sell off some freshly caught slaves. After telling the others they decided to stay and wait until the slavers came and see if they had their people or if they knew about them. For the next few days they stayed in the village helping out and getting some much needed rest. Steve couldn't sleep though he'd been having vivid nightmares of that day in the vault when jason had found him, how he didn't even bother to check if any of his other vault-mates were still alive, Instead he just left leaving the survivors of the vault to die... or worse. He hated to think that he was probably the reason why a lot of the vault dwellers were gone, all because he didn't think to check if anyone was still alive. Steve usually woke up in the middle of the night sweating and his heart pounding. During this he would play some Red Menace on his pip-boy which was a wrist-mounted computer that kept track of his inventory, had a radio, Etc… he would usually play few games on it to distract himself until everyone else got up. On the morning of the Slavers arrival Steve awoke with a sudden jolt caused by the sound of pounding on his room door.
" I'm comin' I'm comin." Steve said annoyed.
He got up and shuffled; almost waddled over to the door, he opened it just a bit and saw Piper standing outside.
"can i help you?" Steve slurred rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
" um, I'm so sorry for waking you but I just wanted to interview you for my newspaper Publick Occurrences, if you don't mind."
" Yeah sorry piper gimme a minute to get decent."
"no problem I'll just wait out here." she said.
Steve closed the door and slowly got dressed he opened a can of cram and said
"alright piper I got pants on you can come in."
Steve sat down on a large sofa and spooned some cram into his mouth and he had to say it tasted pretty good for 200+ year old canned meat. Piper pulled up a stool and started asking questions
"so how was your time in the vault?" she asked raising one eyebrow.
Steve put another spoonful of cram into his mouth and spoke
"it was normal and happy, until the day Jason found me…"
piper looked at him writing down his words
"what happened?."
Steve took another spoonful and told the story
" we were running low on supplies so the overseer opened the-"
"What?" asked Piper
Steve cut off mid sentence as he heard several pops in the distance and he recognized the sound
"Jason's .44 pistol" he said quietly
"what" piper said confused.
Steve grabbed his coat and ran outside. Jason, Danse, and Nick were ducked behind debris dodging bullets.
"They ain't all gonna miss kid GET DOWN." Nick said
Steve pulled out his pistols and ran up behind Jason.
" what's going on!?" Steve shouted
"The slave caravan arrived and wasn't too happy to see us they opened fire on sight and have us pinned." Jason said Popping out and firing a series short bursts from his SMG.
Steve scanned the area and saw a flanking route he could take. Steve cocked his pistols and slowly made his way around the gunmen. He counted six and turned the corner pistols drawn shooting the guard in front of him. he grunted in pain and stumbled backwards falling on the ground. Steve had caught the attention of the other gunmen and the leader signalled for two men to engage. Steve kept firing to suppress them until he ran empty. He reloaded his pistols and got surprised when a Gunner turned the corner and tried to shoot him. Steve grabbed the man's gun and struggled for control until the gun was under the man's chin. Steve squeezed the trigger as hard as he could firing the gun and blowing the man's head open covering Steve's face in blood and grey matter . Steve came to his senses and saw the other man rush him steve kicked the man in the stomach. The man yelled and pulled out a combat knife and slashed at Steve slightly cutting his cheek. The man tackled Steve and raised his knife above Steve's chest. Just as he was about to shove the knife inside Steve the man screamed in pain as bullets pierced the man's back. He slumped down and fell to the side. Jason's reached his hand out and helped steve up.
"Thanks man I owe you one."
"Oh you owe me a lot more than one."
Steve saw one of the Slavers trying to flee steve pulled out a pistol and with pinpoint accuracy shot the man in the leg destroying his knee. Steve ran to the slave cart while the others helped out the wounded and took the leader in for questioning. Steve opened the door and a wave of putrid stench hitting his face making him cringe unbelievably. He looked inside and saw the dead bodies of many slaves the have been rotting there for days. Darcy looked inside and saw what she feared the most her family were among those decaying in the cart furious Steve walked over to the leader grabbed him by the neck and threw him on the ground.
" Alright motherfucker! Who do you work for!." he yelled the man just laughed
"I don't have to tell you anything." he said with a bloody smile.
took out his revolver loaded one round and spun the chamber
" let's play a game i'm gonna ask you a question every time i get wrong answer i pull the trigger you can only get so lucky. Who do you work for?"
The man just spat in his face
Steve pulls the trigger *click*
"Again who do you work for."
The man stood silent smiling
Steve pulls the trigger again *BLAM* the gun fires hitting the man in the shoulder
" ahh FUCK!." the man yells
"WHO DO YOU WORK FOR!" Steve shouts as he takes his finger and pushes it deep into the bullet hole
"aaaaaa uuuugh!." the man screams in pain.
"Alright alright i-i work for a man named Caesar. Just warning you though he's doesn't take kindly to those who disrupt his caravans." the man coughed up blood and died.
steve got up and walked over to Jason and Danse
" what the hell was that." Danse said frowning
"hey it wasn't pretty but it worked the man said he worked for a man named 'caesar'."
Steve said wiping his hands of the blood. Jason took of his helmet, he had a thousand yard stare and muttered
" caesar."
Steve looked confused Jason looked up and said
"caesar ? as in caesar's legion."
"oh no." Danse said sitting down
"what's caesar's legion?"
"All you need to know is that they're very bad people." said Danse
"So what now?" said Danse
Jason Stood up and said " Now we head east."
They said goodbye to darcy and promised they'd find justice for her family's death. With that Steve, Danse, Jason, Piper and, Nick went off to see a friend of jason's they traveled back to sanctuary where they met at a small shack in the corner of the town.
"Look you guys are gonna have to stay out here just in case this guy's a little off alright?" Jason said walking into the shack and closing the door.
They all sat down and rested, then after a few minutes Jason came out of the shack behind him was a man with spiky blonde hair, and a burn on his forehead
" guys this is a friend of mine from the NCR his name's lucky."
The man stepped forward and greeted them with a "howdy.'' he had an obvious australian accent and had crazed look in his eye.
" why the name?" said Danse
" 'cuz i've flown so many missions and took so many rockets I'm lucky my poor bird hasn't fallen apart yet." he said with a chuckle
" Lucky's gonna fly us east."
"oh right, i've got some rules though first paladin you might wanna leave your armor here the Brotherhood isn't really a big deal over there plus the NCR doesn't take to kindly to the Brotherhood, other than that don't distract the pilot and just to warn you I fly pretty unorthodox." he said with another chuckle.