Foreword: A huge apology for the overdue chapter. After posting chapter 3, I realized that I was going to be away from my computer for nearly a week for some work and social reasons. The next chapter will not take so long and will be posted in a few days. Next time, I'll be sure to inform you people when the next chapter will be late. Thanks for your patience and reviews!
She grimaced at the mirror. She had no idea who the hell the girl in the mirror was but she was sure she'll be seeing more of her from now on. Megaton's water supply only stretched so far and it certainly didn't cover a full-body bath unless you were willing to pay the obscene price. The surrounding aroma in Megaton only confirmed her theory that almost none of them ever took a regular bath, if at all. Elizabeth sighed and tried to comb out her hair with her fingers. After a few minutes of pulling out tangled knots, she gave up her hair as a lost cause and started scrubbing the dirt off her fingers. Make a mental list: one, get a haircut; two, buy a pair of gloves, clean if possible. She was already missing the vault's pure and clean water.
Thoughts of the vault made her straighten her back and stretch her stiff muscles. Today, she was going to find her father and give him what he deserved for deserting her in the vault. Late last night after a few hours of quiet sobbing, inner ranting and silent threats, she had finally decided to go with a punch to the stomach. She might even resort to using the end of her rifle to knock him down if she was mad enough. You know, just to get the point across.
She halted her train of thought as the water spluttered before drying up to a drip. Rolling her eyes, she flicked her hands up and down to dry them and replaced the tinted glasses on her head before opening the door. Outside, Walter was standing with one hand holding his wrench and the other scratching his head.
'Damn pipes. Nothing's holding itself together anymore.'
Standing beside him, she stared at the pipes for a few minutes before holding out her hand wordlessly to Walter. Taken aback, he handed his wrench over to her and watched as she bent down and tightened, hammered and pounded the pipes together. With a final clunk, she stood up and entered the washrooms. Bemused, he followed and watched as she turned on the taps to demonstrate free-flowing irradiated water again.
'Why, you're a marvel! I've never seen anyone fix a pipe that fast in my life and I've been doing this job for thirty-five years.' He shook his head. 'Guess I'm getting too old for this.'
'You're doing a fine job, Walter. I just have a little knack in repairing broken things.' She replied, smilingly.
'A knack?' He snorted. 'Sure, and that bomb down there's a little landmine. That's a gift you got there.' His face lighted up with a sudden idea. 'How would you like to earn a few more caps with another repair job?'
Two hours later, Elizabeth walked out of Megaton, two hundred caps richer.
The rest of Elizabeth's day was rapidly descending into hell, or as other Wastelanders would call it, just another ordinary day. After the third encounter with rampaging radscorpions, she found herself cursing at James' lack of foresight in training her to survive the god-forsaken wastes. Did he really think she could stay in there forever, especially when he knew the paranoia of Vault 101's Overseer? At least she wasn't alone.
Keeping Dogmeat had been the best decision she had made since leaving Vault 101. The grey dog had saved her life ten minutes after they had left Megaton's gates. Life in the vault had left her unequal to Wasteland life and the previous day's events had been a trial to her body. While the vault provided enough food for its residents, it had not provided much excuse for them to be physically in shape to cope with the horrors of the wastes. Elizabeth had been trudging along, nursing her sore muscles and discovering the joys of blisters. All of a sudden, a radscorpion had charged towards her in an attempt to make her into its lunch. Dogmeat, who had already sensed the danger, leapt in and distracted the creature long enough for his mistress to recover her senses and help him take it down. Since then, she had kept a wary vigil of her surroundings. In each attack, she noticed Dogmeat's ability to sense out danger before she could even see or hear them. The dog's uncanny senses were a great asset as they fought their way past each creature attack.
Another asset was her previous experience with the BB gun. While it was no longer in her possession, the hours spent in hunting radroaches down in Vault 101 for target practice had honed her accuracy skills. Her new hunting rifle was more unwieldy and powerful than the weaker BB gun but she adjusted quickly. While Dogmeat distracted the creatures, she aimed carefully and took her shot at the beasts. However, the recoil of the rifle was something she was still trying to get used to. The BB gun's recoil was significantly lesser. Privately, Elizabeth wondered if perhaps James had given her the gun as an actual present or as a way of teaching her self-defense. Yet another question to the already lengthy list of questions she had for her father.
Passing the Super-Duper Mart, she barely suppressed a shudder. The entrance of the building was empty and the mart itself surprisingly quiet. Unsurprisingly, she and Dogmeat gave the building a wide berth. East of Super-Duper Mart, she spotted towering buildings and the Potomac river. Drawing nearer to the city, she gazed upon the city of Washington, DC for the first time in her life. The crumbling buildings, the scattered debris, the collapsed walls, the eerie silence; Washington was a ruined husk, a shadow of its former glory. Comparing the pre-war pictures of Washington with the bombed-out ruins of the city, Elizabeth felt a small measure of regret for past glories.
Shaking herself out of her reverie, she scanned her surroundings for immediate threats before heading for the bridge in the distance. As she crossed over the river, she stared at the towering buildings above her. Nothing in the books on Washington had prepared her for the immense height or the collapsing debris of the buildings.
Abruptly, Dogmeat began to growl and she dived to the floor, swinging her head wildly around for the danger he had spotted. The growls deepened to snarling as her ears caught the sounds of exchanging gunfire. A bestial roar caught her attention and turning to the noise, Elizabeth spotted a massive green-skinned monster standing on the side of the river behind her. Her blood froze as the word 'super mutant' echoed in her mind. Snippets of information the trader Frank had given her the day before flooded her mind, none of it reassuring or good. Briefly, she wondered if Dogmeat had fought super mutants before today.
A shout from the opposite river bank caught her attention and peeking out, she saw three raiders firing on the super mutant. Another super mutant appeared from behind the first mutant and opened fire on the opposing raiders. Realizing that none of them had spotted her yet, her thoughts shifted into rapid gear. Ordering Dogmeat to be silent, she crawled across the bridge, dragging herself nearer to the position of the raiders. Progress was slow as she carefully avoided debris and rubble by crawling around them. Overhead, she heard the raiders scream in hysterical laughter while the super mutants roared back in violent anger. Ignoring her body's reaction to flee, she steeled herself to move slowly and stealthily. Running away would only attract their attention and she had no desire to be caught in between the raiders and the super mutants.
When she had dragged herself to where the raiders were stationed, she warned Dogmeat again to keep quiet. Peeking out, she discovered that only one super mutant and one raider were left standing. Both were clearly injured; the super mutant was firing with only one hand as its other arm hung uselessly by its side while the raider was limping as he tried to dodge the incoming bullets. Quietly, she readied her rifle and waited patiently. Dogmeat, seeming to understand the situation, lay flat on the ground with every muscle ready to spring.
A final shot, a last roar, and the raider emerged victorious. As the man shouted in ecstasy across the river, Elizabeth whispered to Dogmeat who immediately leapt with a snarl from his hiding place. The ambush was successful and the raider lay dead on the floor. Rifling quickly through his and his dead comrades pockets, she grabbed everything useful including the chems. Hearing a faint thud from the opposite bank and the familiar low snarl from Dogmeat, she shoved everything that could fit into her pack and grabbed the guns before fleeing into the nearby Metro Station.
The feral ghouls in the underground were a nasty surprise. While Gob's face hadn't been pretty, he had at least been sane. The feral ghouls rushed at her with no attempt at strategy but were fueled by pure fury. After overcoming her initial shock, taking them down was no difficult chore.
When she spotted the iron grill to the exit of the underground, Elizabeth was elated. She was tired of the endless dark and there was only so much light her Pip-Boy could give. Turning the light off her Pip-Boy, she noted the time and finally realized the gnawing feeling in her stomach was hunger. Deciding that the area was safe from threats, she leaned against the wall and began rummaging through her pack.
Elizabeth tossed some Cram to Dogmeat who happily chowed down on it. She opened a can of Pork N' Beans and munched on its contents while examining her new loot. As she sorted through her loot, she laid aside the guns and examined the chems. Apparently, the dead raiders preferred Psycho, judging from the abundance of that particular chem she found on their corpses. Digging through her backpack, Elizabeth removed the chems she had picked off the raiders from yesterday. Those raiders had preferred Jet and Buffout instead. Chewing on her food thoughtfully, she considered the chems in her hands.
From the information Frank had given her about raiders, it was clear that the chems were part of the reason why their minds were often addled and their bodies abnormally fast or tough depending on what they had consumed. The chems offered great benefits but exacted a high toll on the user's health. Elizabeth had no desire to experiment with the chems, having witnessed first-hand how they could possibly mess up a person. She pondered selling them for caps but was sure her father would disapprove of that as it would only mean that desperate addicts will waste precious caps to buy their fix.
She frowned in frustration. Damn her father and his Hippocratic Oath! She was sure dad couldn't and wouldn't understand why she needed the caps. Chems meant caps, and caps meant better guns and better armor, not to mention bribes for assholes like Moriarty. Elizabeth paused in her train of thought and reminded herself that James wasn't born in the Vault. In fact, if the Irish bastard was to be believed, neither was she.
Rubbing her nose, Elizabeth mused morosely and wondered what else her father hadn't told her. Had everything he told her been a lie? Sighing, she dismissed her thoughts. Enough angsty ramblings for the day. She'll get her answers when she found James. Reaching for the rifles, she began to dismantle them to repair her own rifle. An hour later, Elizabeth stood up and stretched herself. It was time to move on.
Elizabeth ducked as the super mutant swung its nailboard at her head. Dogmeat launched himself frantically at the mutant, snapping furiously at the monster. The super mutant shouted in pain as the dog ripped a chunk of green skin from its arm. Another super mutant lumbered out to the plaza and grinned fiendishly at her.
'Found you!'
Stifling a shriek, she scrabbled backwards, trying to reach for her rifle which she had dropped in the initial panic. The second mutant began to run towards her, laughing as it peppered her with shots from its rifle.
'Over there! Shoot it!'
Stunned, she watched as the grinning super mutant's face exploded into green chunks of flesh. Three more shots and the other mutant went down. On the ground, Elizabeth labored to catch her breath, clutching her weapon to her chest.
Footsteps echoed near her and a hand reached out to hoist her up. A blond woman in strange metal armor glared at her and barked harshly.
'Look, I don't know who you are but you don't belong here. The super mutants have overrun our brothers at the Galaxy News Radio building and we're headed there to back them up. You can tag along if you want. But keep your head down and try not to do anything…stupid.'
Without another word, the blond stalked off to the nearby alley. Another one in the same metal armor followed behind the blond after a brief nod of acknowledgement to Elizabeth. She couldn't tell if the person underneath the helmet was male or female. The armor looked practically impregnable and incredibly tough. Shaking herself, she picked up her pace and followed the pair down the same alley
The events that followed could only be described as a blurred nightmare. No matter how much she tried later, she could never remember the entire fight clearly. Vague images of green-skinned brutes and the people in the strange metal armor jumbled together in her memories. Dimly, she recalled ducking behind columns and hiding behind fallen walls from the super mutants.
However, the monster that entered the plaza stood out clearly in her mind. Its roar ripped through the entire plaza and the blonde's shriek was nearly lost in the pandemonium.
'Behemoth!'
The whole area exploded in light and raining debris as the super mutant behemoth crashed through the stacked-up cars to the side. A woman whom Elizabeth vaguely remembered as being referred to as Initiate Reddin was flung aside like a discarded rag doll as the behemoth rampaged through. Elizabeth herself was knocked down to the floor, banging her head on the fountain bowl.
'The Fat Man! Use the Fat Man!'
Clutching her spinning head, Elizabeth barely heard the blond woman's screamed instructions. Dragging herself up, she reached out and grabbed the heavy weapon. Around her, the people in metal armor kept firing on the behemoth who shrugged it off easily. Dogmeat seemed to be everywhere at once, snapping and snarling at the giant but barely making any dents in the beast's tough skin.
Loading a mini-nuke into the Fat Man, Elizabeth tried to croak out a warning but her throat was dry. Forcing herself to swallow, she shouted hoarsely.
'Get back! Dogmeat, get back!'
As she aimed down the sights of the launcher, the world slowed down around her. She watched as the metal suits dove for cover and silently, she prayed that Dogmeat had heard her. She squeezed the trigger and watched as the plaza lit up in flames.
The behemoth roared in pain and turned to find the source of its pain. She fumbled frantically for another mini-nuke, loaded it and fired again. Another holler and the behemoth lifted its club to swing at its tormentor. Out of nowhere, the blonde appeared and shoved a third mini-nuke down the launcher. Then she dragged Elizabeth backwards away from the looming giant.
'Shoot! Shoot that monster down!'
The whole plaza lit up again and the behemoth bellowed in pain. It swayed back and forth before finally collapsing right on top of Elizabeth. Her world went black and the darkness swallowed her up.
Notes: The Hippocratic Oath is an oath taken by doctors who swear to practice medicine ethically. I'm pretty sure that an educated idealist like James would know of it and swear by it.
I refer to the super mutants as 'it' as the game and the Fallout 3 Wiki define them as asexual.
The chapter is mostly setup for events that will be happening next chapter and in the future. I'm still working on writing better fight scenes. They're harder than you think. I'm lucky Liz is such a greenie. I have no intention of making her a super fighter fresh out of the vault. Remember, it's only her second day out of Vault 101. Personally, I think it's a miracle she could survive an encounter with raiders the first day. They grow them strong in the vault, methinks.