Max looked deep into the marksman's eyes and put her weapon down.
"What are you doing!" whispered Jessica.
Then Max raided her hands in the air. She gripped her helmet and removed it slowly and put it under her arm. Then waved at the marksman.
The marksman or rather markswoman then shouted
"Everybody weapons down! It's Max. She's come back."
At least 15 people came bolting down the hill in front of Max and jess. All dressed in a combination of vault security uniforms and vault jumpsuits. They were the survivors of vault 25.
"Max! We thought you were dead. When we couldn't find you we thought the enclave must have incinerated you with their dreadful laser rifles. But here you are Max. What happened and who is this?" said the red haired girl whose name was Crystal.
"It's really a long story" Max replied.
As the group made its way back to the makeshift camp the vault-dwellers had setup as Max retold the events of previous days right up to when she first hacked the terminal to leave the room the enclave had held her in.
"Well Max that was quite the tale Max. What are you going to do now?" Crystal enquired.
"I'm not sure. I haven't really thought what a was going to do one I got here" Max replied.
"You could stay here and train us how to some of the weapons we scavenged of the dead enclave. We don't know what we are suppose do now" Crystal continued.
"I suppose I could stay and train you. I noticed you guys picked up some of the enclave's power armor, so I guess I'll start their, train all you guys to use power armor." Max said pondering the idea.
With that Max, with the help of jess, spent the rest of the day training Crystal and the others on the use of power armor. It took two and a half days for them to really understand how to use the power armor but most of them had the basics by the end of the day.
That night that was most terrible for Max when she found her dads Vault-Tech power armor helmet with a huge hole in burned into the front.
"Your dad fought hard against those enclave bastards. He is without a doubt the only reason that we survived. When the overwhelmed enclave forces were retreating to their helicopter thing after he had wiped the floor with the ones that wielded mini-guns, one with a weird looking laser cannon got him right in the head." said Crystal as she tried to comfort the sniffling heap of hellfire armor that was Maxis.
Max spent the night crying her to sleep within the confines of the hellfire armor. She refused to take the helmet or any other parts of the armor off.
They say time heals all wounds, but for Maxis it was the idea of vengeance that brought her out of the self-seclusion that occurred over the next two days.
Max ordered everyone who had power armor to get suited up. That they were heading back to the vault to scavenge the place for anything they had missed. Once they had arrived Max used the password her dad wasn't supposed to tell her to unseal the heavy security armory and anyone who hadn't already been assigned power armor was equipped with the vault-tec power armor. And the remainder of the contents of the armory was stripped out and bundled up for transport. The group then left the vault declaring that it was no longer their home but a relic of the old world.
"You found the survivors from your vault and armed them with some of the most powerful weapons in the wasteland. What now?" jess asked Max.
"I suppose after I return you back to the brotherhood we'll travel further east. Uphold justice, help the weak. You know all the cliché things that good guys do" Max replied with a slight giggle.
"I remember dad used to talk of a huge city of lights to the south. Called it Vegas or something. Might head that way. See if it's still there." Max continued.
"Vegas 'ay. Well if you ever find it. Be sure to come back and tell me. I'm sure the brotherhood would be more than interested if something like that still existed." Jess responded.
Max and her crew began the journey to the brotherhood stronghold it had made from enclave facility epsilon