Disclaimer: I do NOT own Fallout 4 or it's characters. The Fallout series belongs to Bethesda. This is a nonprofit fanfiction written purely for enjoyment. Enjoy.

Act I - All-American Nightmare

Chapter III

It was fight night in the Combat Zone and every man, woman and raider in the area knew about it. Incoherent and slurred shouts filled the room as the two fighters went to their respective corners of the cage.

"To our left is the lovely Cait," Tommy played at referee in the middle of the cage. "Twenty-six, hundred-twenty pounds of pure Irish anger. Not to mention our current resident-champion!" The ghoul's voice carried throughout the room, evident to newcomers that he had been doing this for a while. "Rocking the buzz cut to our right is our mysterious newcomer, Abel Cohan!"

Ignoring the jeers and boos that his name generated in the crowd, Abel continued to wrap his knuckles. By now it had just become muscle memory. He had lost count of how many fights he had been in, it was something that other people used to document for him. On top of clocking in an absurd amount of time into the Great War, Abel was also an accomplished fighter. Fighting was in his genes.

Tommy continued on, unphased by their negativity to the new fighter. He had been doing it long enough to know to work a crowd. "Twenty-four, and a hundred-and-seventy pounds, but will the weight advantage be enough to take down the house champion?"

Cait spit on the ground, showcasing her displeasure. She had taken down bigger men, and she was ready to do it again. "As they say in New Vegas, the house always wins!" The crowd loved confident Cait.

"Betting time is almost over, the fight will be begin shortly," Tommy reminded the crowd to actually place bets. It was the Combat Zones main source of revenue.

The bets were placed, and the fighters were ready. Most played it safe and put their caps on the house champion. What Cait lacked physically she made up for with chems. A cocktail of different chems allowed her access more of her latent muscles, and increased her pain tolerance for a short amount of time.

Tommy pulled the two fighters to the middle of the cage. "This is the Combat Zone, do I need to remind you of our reputation is here?" It was a rhetorical question, he didn't wait for their replies. "This is a no holds barred match, the dirtier the better. I don't care if you guys kill each other in there, just make it look good for the crowd." The ghoul announcer looked between the two Irish fighters. The tension in the air was so thick someone could have cut it with their combat knife. "Alright," said Tommy as he stepped back out of their way. "Fight!"

The crowd of intoxicated raiders blew up into a roar as Cait came out of the gate strong. She started with quick jabs, testing the waters with her new opponent.

As a result Abel found these easy to evade. To Abel, a trained fighter, her form looked weak and sloppy. It appeared as if Cait was emulating a home brewed version of boxing. He saw the chinks in her armor, the sides she left exposed, how she left her chin exposed to a good uppercut. Her face was only partially protected by her bandage clad hands. He was genuinely unsure if this was a direct result from a lack of any kind of formal training, or if she was trying to lull him into a false sense of security. She was the house champion for a reason though, Abel could only assume she relied on power hits.

Cait kept up on her flurry of punches. They were easily dodged, deflected or Abel willingly took the shots to the less important areas to compensate for more protection in the face and chest. Her punches seemed pulled, like she was holding back still. When Abel's heels touched the back wall he figured out why. Cait wasn't trying to hurt him, not really. She was pushing him back, cornering him in the cage. There two things Cait learned growing up a post-nuclear wasteland; Men will always think she wants to sleep with them, and that they will always believe themselves to be stronger. Cait found a way to use this to her advantage.

Weak flurry shots turned into powerful rib shots as soon as Abel had his back against the corner. In an attempt to get away Abel used his weight to push her back, but she expected that. Both of her hands pushed Abel back so that he was against the wall again, and used the opportunity to connect a hook with his temple. The affects were immediate.

His legs buckled under his weight briefly. This might have been enough to put down the other men in the Combat Zone, but Abel Cohan wasn't a normal man. His legs sprang up as if he had springs where his bones should be. A well placed uppercut sent the combatant stumbling back. Surprise over took Cait's face briefly, but it was immediately replaced by excitement. They were only dipping their toes in the water, seeing what the other one was capable of, and now that they knew the real fight could begin. And did Cait love a real fight.

Abel made the motion with his hands that said "come at me," she happily obliged. With her right fist ready, her power hand, she aimed directly at his chest. This would have been a guard break if he had blocked, and it may even stopped his heart if he didn't. Neither happened. In a lightning fast movement Abel ducked under the punch, and to the right. The vigilante didn't come back up, instead giving a solid one-two to her abdomen and connecting a third hook to her ribs. Her leather bodice did little against the onslaught of attacks.

Cait stumbled to the side, a mix of adrenaline and chems kept her from really feeling the full affect. A wild look over took Cait's emerald green eyes. It was the look of someone who thoroughly enjoyed a good fight, a look Abel related to. Cait came back twice as hard as before. She started swinging wildly, too fast to predict. Abel's sides got caught in a storm of punches that he couldn't do much about. He saw his opening when she tried to power swing again, ducking under her fist to the left. Though, this was exactly what the femme fatale wanted. She brought her knee up to connect with the other Irish fighter's face, but was stopped short. Abel wrapped his arms around her leg, and pushed forward with all of his weight so that he landed on top of her.

The kick had lifted an imaginary weight off Abel's shoulder that he thought restricted them to boxing, and opened the door to a more mixed martial arts approach. It was now Abel's turn to shower his opponent in a shower of punches. He started low, punching at her ribs to get her to move her hands away from her face. Cait tried her best to block her sides with her arms, but it did little against such a seasoned fighter. The chems and adrenaline burned out of her system at an alarmingly fast rate. All the pain rushed back at once, colliding into her body like a tidal wave.

Cait's arms moved against her will, and her own best interest, and shot down to her sides to protect her potentially cracked ribs. Seeing the opportunity to end the fight Abel's dominant fist shot forward like a rocket aimed directly at Cait's nose, and bounced her head off the hard floor.

The crowd was silent as Abel pulled himself off the beaten fighter. In a normal situation he would have kept swinging in a blind rage until the referee pulled him off, but this didn't look like the kind of place that stopped fighters from putting on a really good show. He didn't come here to kill anyone, and he didn't want to be shot in the cage for breaking their best toy. A couple weeks of rest and Cait could be back on her feet fighting again. Everyone wins.

Loss wasn't something Cait took well. In a blind daze she stumbled to her feet. Every muscle ached, and her body told her stay down. It was two words she couldn't obey, not if she wanted to live to see another day. The Combat Zone wasn't known for it's generosity towards those who lost fights. Her world spun out of control, but she had to this. Once again she found herself in her fighting stance, but this time she had an edge. Brass knuckles that were tucked away in her pocket now covered either of her hands. The crowd began to cheer again, giving away her element of surprise.

"Don't," warned Abel, also getting back into his fighting stance.

"I'm sorry," Cait said weakly as she threw a lazy punch directed at Abel's jaw. Everyone has glass jaw when your fists are covered in brass.

The crowd, Tommy included, didn't believe what they saw. Abel ducked backwards and caught her punch by the wrist. Unwilling to let Cait get any sort of upper hand again, he swept for the legs and held firm to her wrist. Abel waited a solid moment, waiting for someone, anyone to stop him. When they didn't it appeared he did it as dramatic affect. "Me too," mouthed Abel just before he used the weight of his body to bend Cait's arm in a direction it wasn't meant to go. An audible snap hushed the crowd again.

There laid their hero, broken and bloody. Cait could do nothing as she stared at the lights in the ceiling. She figured she would lose one day. Today was that day. The Irish fighter hadn't made it quiet that she would have rather die in the ring, a final blaze of glory, than behind the Combat Zone with a single bullet dug into her skull. Her only hope was that Tommy would tell everyone she died doing what she loved, fighting. A legacy was all she had now.

Abel stepped out of the ring, a look that dared someone to get in his face. Nobody met his challenge.

"There we have it," announced Tommy. "Our new champion, Abel! The All-American Nightmare!" He tried his best to work the crowd before they rioted. A lot of raiders were going to be out a lot of money. They put their caps on good faith on Cait. A mistake they won't make twice. Tommy pulled Abel to the side by his arm so that they were out of view. "You need to get out of here," warned the ghoul announcer in his low raspy voice. "You cost a lot of bad people a lot of caps."

"I don't care about that," said Abel, shrugging off his grip. "Just get my caps, off brand Bruce Buffer."

"As soon as I do you have to get out of here, I don't want a riot in my lobby." Tommy ignored the insult.

The fighter followed the ghoul to the safe that contained all of the bids.

"I have to ask you a favor," Tommy announced now that they were alone. An annoyed sigh was Abel's only response. "Take Cait with you."

Abel brushed his bloodied hand through his sweat soaked copper tinted buzz cut. He thought the man before him was joking, but you can't fake that look of desperation in his eyes. "I'm supposed to just take in everyone I beat in a fight now?" He finally managed. He still wasn't completely over the whole brass knuckles ordeal.

"It's not like that. Normally I don't care, but they lost a lot of money." Tommy kept checking the doorway to make sure they were alone. "They're going to want to make their money back a different way, if you catch my drift."

The anger that had only recently subsided in his Irish veins was now bubbling under his skin. He came here undercover to see if the Combat Zone was something that had to be shut down. It was. Little did they know they would be expecting the vigilante soon.

"Look, I'll give you her contract, I'll pay you for it," Tommy pleaded.

Another annoyed grumble. "Fine."

Tommy pushed his winnings with a little extra into Abel's chest. "Just go around back, I'll have her meet you there."

A reluctant Abel pushed his way through the crowd without bringing attention to himself. He grabbed MacCready who was waiting in the lobby for him. At the time he was currently enthralled by the cages with raiders in them. He was wondering what you had to do for your own kind to turn on you and put you on display in such a way when his employer grabbed him by the arm and pulled him outside.

"Is Gas-Mask Man going to be making an appearance here?" Asked MacCready when they were free outside.

"Oh yeah."

Goodneighbor had a very misleading name. It was the kind of settlement that would pick your wallet straight from your pocket when you weren't paying attention and then help you look for it. Goodneighbor was the kind of settlement that would shower you in piss and not even have the courtesy to call it rain. It was a vile, disgusting place and that was on a good day. On a bad day they would just rob you, beat you, and leave you for dead in the gutter like trash. It wasn't the kind of place Nick Valentine and Piper Wright liked to frequent. Beforehand they agreed to only stay long enough to ask Hancock questions and then they would go home.

The mayor of Goodneighbor had actually agreed to meet them, a surprise to the pair of investigators.

"Make it quick," instructed Hancock in a flat tone. "I have town to run."

"Thank you for meeting with us," Piper went first.

Hancock rolled his eyes in response. "Don't try and butter me up. Just get to the point."

Per instructed, Nick cut straight to the point. "The lady and I would like to know if you sold weapons to a man in an assault gas mask?"

Hancock scoffed. He felt like he was being screwed with. "I sell a lot of weapons to a lot of people, what's the point?"

Nick and Piper couldn't tell if that was affirmation. So Nick pressed on. "He's been using the weapons he purchased to hurt people," Nick tried to let that sink in for a moment. The synth didn't get the intended responce from the ghoul mayor.

"Weapons hurt people, that's what they're made for."

Piper's stomach twisted in disgust. Nick conviently left out the part that it was bad people being targeted, but to Nick Valentine, a former cop, a life was still a life. Hancock didn't know that fact, and yet he still seemed like he didn't care. "You don't care that their blood is on your hands?"

Hancock waited a second to reply, hoping that they were going to bust out laughing. When they didn't he realized they weren't messing with him, they were being serious. "Let me answer your question with another question, do you think if I cared I would sell weapons?"

Nick and Piper exchanged glances. It didn't have to be said they thought that this was a waste of a trip, but deep down they probably knew that before coming in.

"Listen up sweetheart," Hancock leaned forward in his chair. "Even if I did do what you think I did I don't kiss and tell, that's just bad business." A smirk graced his radiation chapped lips. "Just in case you were wondering."

Hancock's guards didn't bother hiding their amusement.

A sudden wave of discomfort moved through her body as Piper shifted in her chair.

Hancock continued with his tirade, addressing both of them. "You're referring to the purge, right? From what I hear he's doing God's work. I wish I was apart of that."

Nick shook his head, not attempting to hide his differences with Hancock's statement. "Aren't you worried he'll blown into town?"

"Literally," added Piper. "This place seems like it won't stay under his radar for long."

Casually, Hancock shrugged. "And if he does? I'd welcome it. This place is scum, I wouldn't have to be constantly worried about being stabbed in the back."

Unanimously the two came to the silent agreement that the ghoul mayor must be crazy. They didn't voice their opinions on the matter.

"Hell, he could have my job if he wanted it."

Nick, clearly angered and feeling like he had wasted his time, stood up. "Thank you for your time," said Nick in his cop voice, what he usually said when he wasted his time with a potential lead.

"Girl" Hancock called to Piper as the synth stomped off. Reluctantly, Piper obliged. "He's killing by the hundreds. Don't think there's anything you, that tinker toy, or even me can do about that."

A confused Piper furrowed her brow. She felt like she was getting mixed messages. "What're you trying to say?"

"Don't get caught up in something you can't stop. You don't stand in front of a tornado in hopes of stopping it. You get out of the way and rebuild when it's over."

Oddly enough, the words hit home with the reporter. A nod was her only response before running to catch up with her angered partner.

A week had gone by since Abel's upsetting victory over the then-champion, Cait. Tommy has done everything short of shooting at the crowd himself to prevent them from rioting, and looting the place. The Combat Zones' cap revenue took a hit when they lost their prized fighter, and with it their reputation. Tommy managed to wrangle in fresh talent but none of them could replace the legend that was Cait.

Fight night came, and it was more like cock-fighting in the days of old. Various raider groups brought in their pet fighters via slave collars looking for the Combat Zone to buy their contracts. Their dreams of quick caps died when an armored boot kicked in the front door, literally. The old door flew off the hinges, bringing the attention to everyone up front. Out of the light stepped in a man wearing T-fourty-five power armor, a minigun in hand.

"Power armor fights are Tuesday nights, asshole," yelled someone from the back.

"For the crimes of slavery, and human trafficking how do you plead?" The power armored man asked his in the monotone voice.

The raider looked at each other, attempting to confirm if this was some of joke or not. When no one could validate it they reached for their weapons.

"Someone get this Brotherhood wannabe looking motherfucker out of here," said an angry raider leader.

The minigun started to whirl to life. "I find you guilty of these crimes, and the punishment is death." Shell casings rained down on the ground as wasteland justice was being dispensed from the tri-barreled minigun. The .five millimeter rounds easily tore through nearby enemies, shredding their bodies to pieces. The chaos that the minigun created made it easier to pick off targets. Pipe rounds bounced off the operator, doing virtually no damage. Some raiders futility attempted to hide while others made a break for the exit. Several grenades tossed tactically around the room rooted out anyone who thought they could skip their righteous judgement.

Sounds of well-placed gunshots just beyond the broken doorway followed by the sounds of bodies dropping signified that the runners weren't successful either. In the matter of minutes almost everyone was dead in the Combat Zone save for a select few. The slaves huddled into the cage, they remained unscathed. Even though they were in plain view the operator walked by them as if he didn't see them.

"Shit, shit, shit," muttered Tommy under his breath like a mantra. He found it was hard to load his pipe pistol when he was literally shaking with fear. Not that it would do much against T-fourty-five power armor. A locked door was the only thing that separated the operator from Tommy Lonegan. It proved no match against a set of power armor.

"Thomas Lonegan," said the operator as the rest of the door came crumbling down around him.

A reluctant Tommy had come out from his hiding place behind his desk. There was no point in hiding anymore. "Y-yes?" He asked shakily.

"Find a new business venture," the monotone voice commanded. "One that doesn't involve slaves."

A heavy weight had been lifted off Tommy's shoulders when the man in power armor started to turn away from him. Why was spared was unknown, but he didn't want to bring attention to himself from that man ever again.

"Or next time you won't be so lucky."

Tommy collapsed behind his desk with a huge sigh of relief. He was going to need a new business plan, and a change of pants.

Torn between staying and risk being ripped apart by a minigun, or taking their chances with a sniper the slaves were frozen in fear. The operator was almost to the front door when a voice behind him got his attention.

"What are you going to do about the raider's in the cages?" A slave asked. The others pushed him, and silently cursed under their breathes for bringing attention back to them.

He left the raider-slaves alive because they were defenseless, even though they were still scum. "Let them starve," he finally responded. "Your call," he offered just before stepping back into the Commonwealth. Dead bodies littered the outside like twisted raider decorations. Most of them didn't make it five feet away from the door before they meet their end via sniper.

The helmet to the power armor came off, revealing Abel Cohan's face to the world. MacCready took this as a sign to come down from his perch, rifle in hand.

"Where to now, boss?" MacCready slung the rifle over his shoulder.

Author's Note: I know it kind of jumps around there at the end, but that was because this was a way longer scene and I was trying to scale it back so that it didn't drag on. Contrary to what this chapter might seem, I do actually like Cait. I promised longer chapters, and I think I delivered. I know the MacCready thing is kind of sudden. It's meant to be a surprise that he doesn't truly work alone. I hope you were surprised haha. Til next time, Solivore out!