The next morning after stopping into Moira's and the clinic to trade for more supplies, Cort and Dogmeat headed out towards downtown DC. Wadsworth had their armour clean by the time they got back from Moriarty's, so Cort had spent the time before bed rigging up a set of pouches for the dog to carry ammunition in, along with a spare 10mm pistol. Her original one sat on her hip, a combat knife in one boot, and an assault rifle strapped down next to her baseball bat.
"We're loaded for bear, Dogmeat! Who's Momma's little soldier?" Dogmeat barked and lifted his head higher, panting as he walked. "That's right! Now, let's see...my Pip-Boy's plotting us to a Metro station in the East, somewhere past the Super-Duper Mart. I'll have to explore that on the way back, I'll be gone too long to carry around stuff for Moira." She hummed and tapped her tongue on the front of her teeth. "It's on the caravan route the entire way, so it shouldn't be too dicey until we get to the Underground. Crow said the northern roads were more dangerous than usual, so down here should be easier on us."
Dicey was an understatement. Cort was practically playing Yahtzee, but with more gore. While in the dark. Getting in to the Metro hadn't been a problem, there was nothing big until right after crossing the river. There she had seen her first Super Mutants tearing it up with a group of raiders; the raiders had been obliterated, and she was able to finish off the remaining mutant by flinging grenades from behind a retaining wall. She crept over after it had stopped twitching to examine the pieces.
"Christ, these things are like Mary Shelley's wet dream." After Cort had gathered up anything useful, she spent some time slicing into different chunks, poking at things with the end of her knife. "These things are all sorts of messed up inside, Dogmeat. It's like someone took a person and put them through an irradiated blender. I'm not even sure what this is doing over here." Pointing to a mass of nerve clusters, Dogmeat trotted over to look. She then poked a purple oblong inside the torso. "I'm not even sure what that is! I mean it's not like anything out here is normal anymore, but everything else we've killed has had vaguely the right things in approximately the right spots." She wiped the goo off her knife on one of the raider's shirts and headed for the Metro entrance, a worried look on her face.
Once inside, things rapidly and spectacularly went to hell. For one thing, the screeching was freaking her the living daylights out of her. Stupidly, she had flicked on her Pip-Boy light when it started to get dim and three feral ghouls had zoned in on her immediately.
"Aww, crap." Cort ripped her assault rifle free and started firing at the one in the middle while Dogmeat knocked over the closest and latched onto its face. She blew hers apart in time for the last one to slam her to the floor, snapping teeth towards her head. "Crap! Crap crap CRAP! DOGMEAT!" Grabbing onto the feral's neck with one hand and a flailing arm with the other, Cort squeezed as hard as she could and tried to get her legs up and under its torso. "Oh God you stink!" This was way worse than Gob had smelled. That had been almost comforting, in a weird way; it reminded her of specimen dissections with her father. This, this was just pure rotten. Suddenly Dogmeat darted in, sinking his teeth into her assailant's skull, killing it. She had a moment of euphoria before rancid blood started dribbling over her neck. "Oh God now I stink."
Staggering up and slatting the ooze off herself with the edge of her hand, Cort looked down at her dog. "Thank you. Now let's clear the rest of these bastards out as fast as humanly possible." She flicked out her light and peered forward into the decrepit labyrinth. "Stealth. Stealth is good, let's practice that."
The rest of the day was spent glued to the walls from the Farragut West Metro to Chevy Chase North, backtracking every few hundred feet to scavenge the areas they had already cleared of hostile creatures. Cort had found some choice supplies and was particularly pleased by nearly half a dozen magazines on different topics, and made a note to come back and examine the deactivated Protectron she found. She had also noticed graffiti including GNR and arrows when she was thrown against a train car, and started following the directional markers after killing the feral who put her there. That slip up had cost her a nasty bite on the wrist before Dogmeat had latched onto the thing's ass and distracted it. It ached like a bastard, but she didn't want to waste a Stimpak on such a superficial wound. At least it's not my dominant hand. I am so ready to get out of here.
After making it to the entrance gate and pausing to eat part of a mole rat Dogmeat had flushed from a side office, they emerged back to the surface. Cort quietly whistled after they had topped the stairs and ventured into the wreckage.
"Cripes Dogmeat, look at this place. It's shattered. How are we supposed to-"
"I FOUND YOU!"
Yipping, Cort hit the dirt, pistol in hand. Where ever that bellow came from it was close, and what it came out of was another Super Mutant who was bearing down on Cort. Wonderfully, he had brought a friend. The next voice was even closer.
"Get UP, you idiot!" Looking up, she spotted a blonde woman around her own age wearing heavy armour. "Move! NOW!" Grabbing hold of Dogmeat, Cort skittered over a mound of debris and landed next to her. "Now stay the hell out of my way."
Gaping, Cort watched several other figures pop out of the landscape and start firing on the mutants, obliterating them within less than a minute. Jesus Christ, is that a mini-gun over there? It pulped that thing. The blonde turned to her when both were down.
"Now what the hell do you think you're doing out here? It's bad enough trying to keep the new recruits alive, we don't need strays running around where they don't belong. Seriously, how did you make it this far inside if you fucking duck when a Super Mutant yells at you?"
Cort blushed hard and snarked at her. "The horseshoe up my ass. Who the hell are you people?"
"Christ, where did you come from, under a rock?"
"Out of a Vault, actually, so pardon me if I'm not one hundred percent up to speed."
"Oh that's just perfect. Short version: I'm Sarah Lyons, this is Lyon's Pride, we're the Brotherhood of Steel. We're the ones that keep scrubs like you from decorating the landscape with your guts. Right now we're heading in to reinforce our garrison at the GNR building, which is being run over by more of those over-sized green assholes. You can either come along or crawl back into your hidey hole, either way. Just don't do anything else stupid to get yourself killed." With that, she turned and started stalking off into the ruins with the others. Cort looked down at her dog.
"Well Dogmeat, at least now we've got an escort." She got up and started following Sarah, still talking to him. "You heel, okay? I don't want you attacking the mutants, unless they're on top of me. You could get hit." Dogmeat whuffed and tucked in beside her.
Sarah had already lost a member of her squad, and didn't seem impressed by the state of affairs. Cort didn't have a high opinion of it either. They spent ages creeping through the destroyed buildings, and the damned Super Mutants were everywhere. Every time Sarah and her men eliminated one, two popped up in their place. Cort kept to the back, listening to them and learning their names and other information while trying to help. She had considered the assault rifle for a second and then dismissed it. The spread was too wide for the close quarters and she wasn't sure she wouldn't hit any of the Brotherhood. Leveling her 10mm with her right palm, she started aiming for heads. Squeeze, move, repeat. Squeeze, move, repeat. Just like in your gun magazines, girl. Cort grinned wider every time she saw a slug impact home. She had gotten very good at hitting what she wanted. It didn't do much, but anything that slowed the bastards down was a plus in her book. She even managed to blow one out of a second story window with a grenade.
Sometime around dusk, the group pushed through into a wide plaza. After mowing down the last of the mutants, Sarah strode towards the sandbagged staircase at the far end, calling up to the other Brotherhood Knights still alive there. The others ranged around the area and took up different cover positions. Cort unobtrusively wandered to and fro, fooling with her Pip-Boy and sorting through bodies. Every so often she would surreptitiously slip different things into her sack or Dogmeat's pouches. She wasn't quite sure how these people divided spoils up, but since nobody was saying anything(or just not noticing), she took or scanned whatever caught her fancy and waited for Sarah to finish whatever she was doing. If there was anyone who knew who she would have to talk to about her father, it was probably Sarah. Cort had made it over to the centerpiece in the middle of the plaza to look at a particularly interesting weapon when Dogmeat started snarling. Dropping the broken rifle she had been dragging, she whipped her head around to look at him, eyes wide.
"Hey kid! What's wrong with the mutt?" One of the Paladins -Cort thought Kodiak, but who could tell for sure with the helmet- called over to her. Vargas shouted out then from the stairs.
"Initiate Reddin, get your ass back in position!" Dogmeat was positively slavering by now, and stalking towards where the Initiate was wandering.
Cort looked around wildly and then at Kodiak. "There's nothing wrong with him, there's something just plain wrong!" the Pride members who heard her jerked their heads up, scanning the ruins.
Sarah started walking towards her with Vargas. "What the hell is it now? Kodiak?"
"Something's spooked the animal. Maybe we should-"
"RUN!"
Afterward, Cort was never sure who had yelled. One second she had been hauling back Dogmeat, and the next she was screeching in pain at a fission sunrise. The cars piled up at the end of the plaza had exploded, and she had collapsed just in time to miss Initiate Reddin's head whizzing past her own.
"What the fuck! I just got over this shit!" It felt like glass had been driven into her eye sockets, and Cort patted around her face to ensure her sunglasses and visor were still on it and not in it when Sarah screamed.
"BEHEMOTH!"
Oh God, why does that not sound good. She watched a burning hulk go sailing overhead. That doesn't look too fucking hot either. Turning back towards the site of the explosion and seeing the cause of it, Cort was pretty sure she had pissed herself this time. The biggest Super Mutant she had ever seen was roaring and pushing through the last of the wrecks, bashing them out of the way like toys. The Brotherhood was piling shots into it, beams and slugs arcing out from everywhere. Laughing maniacally, she waved an arm at it.
"What the hell does it do, shit out the little ones?"
"Shut up and shoot, you idiot! No, not with that!" Sarah screamed over at her when she unslung her assault rifle. "Pick up the Fat Man! You're fucking sitting on it and the ammo!" Cort stupidly looked down and pointed. "Fuck YES you shithead, NOW DO IT!" Sarah unloaded another volley of energy blasts into the Behemoth after ducking away from a thrown boulder, and watched Cort rapidly spin through her Pip-Boy screens.
"What the FUCK ARE YOU DOING? Use it, you're the only one close enough and this bastard is pinning us all down!" Vargas yelled at her.
"I'm reading the FUCKING MANUAL."
"WHAAAT?" Came in tandem out of both.
Cort giggled at that, hauled the weapon out from under her and staggered to her feet, grinning. This thing was heavy. "Well, here goes nothing! Let's see if I can hit the broad side of a Behemoth." She aimed and depressed the trigger, and nearly went off her feet again. Once the smoke had cleared, she could see a very injured and very pissed off mutant. More importantly, it could now definitely see her. It was seeing her a lot.
"Shit! Shit shit shit!" Cort scrambled backwards, clawing the ground for another Mini-Nuke and reloading. This explosion took her to her knees, and the thing was still coming closer. Eyes glued to the monster now most definitely bearing down on her, she flailed her hands around for another round. "Dogmeat, little help here!" Scuffling back as fast as she could, Cort loaded the bomb as soon as it was pressed into her palm and fired, laughing like a loon. She woke up twenty feet away with the dog on her chest and most of the squad and Sarah staring down at her.
"Holy shit kid, you may just be all right. Batshit, but all right. You killed it."
Cort's groan floated up from their feet. "I think I killed me."
The Fallout world deviated from ours after the conclusion of WWII. Yahtzee was first marketed in 1956, and since it's a simple game with older roots, it's plausible that it was invented in Cort's world as well, since the differences occurred exponentially. Plus, it was a really fun line to write.
