It's been more than month since I last updated, wow I suck. I apologize but Schools been eating me from the inside out. Also using third person for the first time in this fic, why? Because I felt like it would fit this chapter better also I littered three pop culture references throughout the chapter, one is completely obvious but the other two require some looking. First guy who can name them all gets a shout out. Enjoy.

Garry wasn't a cold hearted man. He had good friends, a lovely wife, and a beautiful little girl for his daughter, and even though he had personally, in the last twenty years, witnessed the downfall of mankind, he still found things to smile and laugh about.

So when he reported to guard tower D that morning for sniper duty, with a cup of coffee in his hand and a smile on his face, looked through his scope and saw two teenagers following around what seemed to be their father, or perhaps their guardian. He didn't shoot them right away; Garry learned firsthand to not judge a book by its cover, no matter how bad it may seem, and besides the guy had kids with him.

So instead of lining up his sights and gently squeezing the trigger; he instead hesitantly dug out his Walkie Talkie from his lucky leather belt, barely containing his huge gut and called up the big boss.

"Boss?" He hesitantly said into the device, unsure of what to refer to her as.

"Garry? What's up?" A voice responded, Garry could tell by the harsh tone of her voice that he had just woke her up at six in the morning

"Well we got stragglers visible here on D tower, three tourists, middle of town, one guy, who looks old enough to be my dad and the other two, are teenagers."

"They look like family?" she asked.

"Maybe, the two teenagers share this kind orange-brownish hair, though the boys is a tad darker and-."

"Garry, you're not writing a fucking book, do they look like family or not?" She barked, she was a girl who needed her average eight hours of sleep.

Garry tensed up. "I honestly couldn't tell you."

The woman on the Walkie Talkie sighed, "Alright, call Scav Team C and have them escort them back to base. Tell the team to try persuading this time." The woman responded.

"We recruiting them?" Garry asked.

"No, when have we ever recruited any Stragglers? I've got a task for them. Once they're here, put the kids in C and have the older guy escorted to my office."

"And you, boss?"

"Look Garry just please call me by my real name, okay? And I'm going back to bed. Wake me up when they're all settled down."

"Roger that Trace." But she had already thrown the Walkie Talkie across the room and laid her head down on the hard as a brick pillow, all the way in cell block A, behind bars and with a small, black automatic hidden under the covers.

…

Joel was not in a good mood. They were running low on everything, food, water, morale. A fucking bear broke into his backpack in the night, which Jake stupidly left open after retrieving some cans for dinner. He sighed, recalling Jakes dumbfounded expression after walking in on the gargantuan black creature, its snout filled with at least half a dozen cans.

Joel liked the kid fine, but when he fucked up, he fucked up bad. Recalling the event, Joel had wished he had made a move towards his shotgun, which was leaning on the wall to his left at the time, sure they wouldn't be able to carry a quarter of the behemoth but they would still have some food. But he just stood there still, as Ellie and Jake mimicked him.

After that Joel yelled at him a bit, this in his opinion was being soft on the kid, but in Jakes, scaring the living shit out of him. Ellie had just stood there and said nothing, silently agreeing that what he did was fucking stupid. Now, he hung back a bit, staring at the ground, still ashamed over the 'incident' as Ellie dubbed it. Now Joel was still sore over it but was feeling a bit more optimistic as they approached a small outlet of rest stops, alongside the road.

Ellie motioned to one of the buildings ahead, "That's probably a good place to look." she suggested as they looked over, the ruined super market. Joel grunted in response as they all unconsciously started towards the entrance.

Joel stopped a few feet in the door and looked around at the offsetting scenery, it wasn't that there were bodies littered everywhere or a horde of infected near the door; it's just that everything was gone. Clothes, food, guns, shopping carts, brooms, rakes, everything was fucking gone.

Joel stood there for a second, Ellie and Jake stopped, recognizing this as one of the times Joel was listening for any threats. He came up again with a look of confusion on his face. "There's gotta be something…" Joel thought aloud as he began to sweep the racks where food was once kept.

Ellie absentmindedly began to follow Joel as they all wandered about the surprisingly vacant supermarket. Jake wandered over to the book section of the market and began to look for anything that could fill his time; Joel was too preoccupied with searching the place for anything actually useful to notice.

"What do you think happened?" Ellie asked.

"I honestly don't know, I ain't ever seen a place picked this clean." Joel replied, putting emphasis on this.

They went back to searching; Jake was looking at the empty bookshelves when he noticed something hidden under the shelf. It was a book, caked in dust and pages' starting to turn yellow it was obviously stuck under there for some time. He wiped the thick layer of dust off the cover off the book, coughing a bit as it flew up into his face. The cover showed a lone ship, flying towards some planet with hundreds of white orbs surrounding it. In some kind of weird font the book was labeled Andrew's Game. Jake turned over the title in his head. 'Andrew's Game. What game is someone playing if their flying a starship in space towards Saturn? What are those white things? Who the hell's Andrew?'

Joel called out. "Jake! Don't wander off, we're leaving. "

"Coming!" Jake called out before proceeding to shove the book in his bag.

Jake ran up to Joel was standing, as they were all walking Joel asked. "What'd you pick up?" For the meantime forgetting about the supermarket but was still on alert.

Jake mentally sighed, seeing how he could barely hide a thing to Joel's watchful eye. "Nothing, just a book."

Ellie piped in. "What book?"

"Just some sci-fi book ca-"The clomping of hooves and the sound of tire breaching gravel cut through their conversation.

"Get down!" Joel whispered forcefully, motioning to a car in the middle of the parking lot they were walking in.

Three horses followed closely by a black Hummer rolled onto the lot. On top of each horse rode men, covered from head to toe, in what Joel could only faintly remember as Riot Gear. Black Assault rifles hung across their backs as two similarly dressed Men stepped from the Hummer. One man stepped on top of the hummer as the rest started to gather; Joel assumed that he was their leader.

"Alright! We got Intel saying that the stragglers we're looking for we're walking around here. Split up in to teams of two, if you find them approach peacefully. No drawn rifles or knives. Now move out!" He yelled as the group started to disperse.

Joel grunted in frustration, he didn't have the firepower or the ammo to deal with guys of this caliber. Joel thought carefully of different approaches they could take as Jake and Ellie both looked at him, starting to panic.

Joel suddenly awoke from his deep slumber of thoughts and motioned them too follow him. They slowly made their way about the parking lot. Their pursuers had set up a station using their hummer in the middle of the road. Two of the men we're sitting on top of the hummer, legs dangling off the side. Nothing came in or out without passing through their watchful eyes.

Joel led the two teens toward the farthest patrol from the others, in the same motion he stood up, grabbed the nearest pursuer, and put all his weight into smashing the hunter's head on the side of one of the cars, it didn't kill him though, the Riot Gear had been made to last Joel knew this though. The other one quickly turned around before being punched in the face, turned around, and pressed into a hostage stance. Even through his helmet he could feel the nine millimeter pressing against his skull.

"Stay quiet. " Joel whispered harshly. The surprisingly calm man just nodded, his mouth was covered by some orange bandanna.

"Found 'em!" He yelled slightly muffled. Joel cursed; he couldn't crack the guy's skull through the helmet, it was too thick.

The other hunters ran over, some started to pull out their rifles but the leader whispered harshly to them.

"Calm down their pal, don't want to make any mistakes now huh?" Their leader called out. He looked down at the unconscious body of one of their own lying in the ground. "What the fuck happened to Leopold?" He asked rhetorically.

Joel backed himself up into a position where he was neither facing the road nor facing the pursuers. "We just want out of here." Joel said calmly.

"We have a settlement not far from here, the safest place in the damn state if you ask me. Chainlink fences, barbed wire, guard towers, you know what I'm talking about." He said, trying to diffuse the situation before it could blow.

"What the fuck are we doing!? Just shoot the bitches and go home." One of the more obese men suggested.

"Shut up fatass!" He turned back to us. "Sorry Eric's a little assucker , I'm gonna cut to the chase. You need supplies, we need a job done, you scratch our back, we scratch yours, comprendre?"

"How do you know we were down here?" Joel asked, feeling a bit more inclined to speak.

"Our sniper saw you a few clicks down here, here I'm Stan." He said with open arms before frowning than turning into a smile. "Holy shit! That gun isn't even loaded, Dude! You just pulled a Mel Gibson on us!" He burst out laughing, Joel grinded his teeth in frustration.

Ellie and Jake were confused. "Who the hell is Mel Gibson?" Ellie asked.

"Tell you about it later." Joel focused back on this 'Stan' guy.

"Look how about you let go of Kenny, we all head back home, we discuss the deal, and we'll go from there." Stan offered. Joel was still unsure about trusting total strangers.

"I see you got kids there, we got kids too. All ages, we also got power too. We can pretty much watch movies whenever we want." Stan was sure he got these folks sold.

He was partly right Ellie and Jake were both sold, Jake on the idea of actually watching a movie and Ellie on finally meeting more people her age.

Joel however wasn't done yet. "How do we know that you won't double cross us once we get back to your little setup?"

"Sir, you have my word." That didn't mean much to him. Plenty of people who have given their 'word' to Joel had tried to cheat or betray him. Of course those that tried didn't live for very long.

He was about to refuse when he felt a hand on his shoulder, he looked to the side and saw Ellie and her beautiful emerald green eyes looking at him, at that moment he could decided he could give these people a try. He had always felt bad for her situation being one of the few teenagers left on this damn planet, it got better when they found Jake but Joel knew she was still anxious to meet other kids.

Jake just shrugged meeting other kids would be cool but the thought of seeing a movie excited him even more. His dad, the thought sent a small dosage of sadness throughout his body, always had chores for him to do whenever it was movie night at the zone. He had only read about certain movies in books he had found.

"Fine, we'll go back to your camp but we keep our weapons." Joel offered.

"Sorry, gotta be confiscated, you'll be able to keep your sidearms later but for now? Nada. The big ones'll be given back later, plus some if you agree to our task." Stan once again stated.

Joel sighed, he let go of Kenny.

"Great! Fatass, Kenny, help pick Leopold off the ground, Kyle, help these nice travelers to the truck, you're driving." The man they called 'Kyle' led them to the truck, before he opened the door he turned back towards us, nodding his head at Joel.

Joel had a look of suspicion but understood what he had to do. He slung his trusty backpack down from his shoulder, handling it like someone would a newborn baby or a priceless artifact and handed it too Kyle. He nodded once more and threw the bag into the back. Joel suddenly tapped on Ellie's shoulder, giving her a look to do the same.

"We're not really giving these guys our guns are we?" She asked.

"I thought you wanted to go." He stated.

"I do but-"

"Just so you know, I'm purposely ignoring that Blade in your pocket and I'm pretty sure the old man could throw his weight around, same goes for the little boy too." Kyle interrupted; Jake winced apparently not liking being called little.

Joel gave Kyle a look of mutual understanding and hurried Jake and Ellie to get loaded up in the car. Ellie and Joel sat up on each side of the window, with Jake being sandwiched in the middle. The Kyle guy sat at the driver's seat, drumming his fingers on the driver's wheel. A loud thump sounded out as Eric and Kenny dumped the unconscious Leopold in the back of the truck, with all of their weapons. Stan called shotgun and the rest of the squad got up on the horses stationed throughout the lot.

Soon enough the car started up, slowly rolling out at a comfortable speed with three if the men on horses following close behind. Jake brought out his book and began reading as Ellie watched him with curiosity. Joel was still curious.

"So how many people you got holed up at this settlement of yours?"

"Last time we checked around three hundred, haven't had a casualty in three years." Stan said, looking at the road.

Joel whistled lowly. "Three hundred? That's unbelievable, how'd you keep yourselves sustained?"

"Farming, rationing, training, the works. Save your questions for later it's been a long day." Kyle stated.

The car ride quickly turned to silence, Joel staring out on the overgrown grass, and trees littering the country side.

It was only later when they were nearing their destination Stan began to speak. "We used to call the place the prison right? But that sounded too…..hostile. 'Hey wanna come to the prison with us?' it weirded people off. So we toyed with other names. The citadel, the compound, the big house, but our previous leader came up with a better one."

By now the whole settlement came into view, Three fences of barbed wire surrounded the settlement, agriculture was planted on the inside of the fence as they saw dozens of men and women, all dressed in orange jumpsuits went about their business. Guard towers were set up at the corners. Even from afar Joel could see the serious firepower they were packing.

"Welcome to the Pentagon."

Hopefully it won't take me another month too update.

I can hear this coming from a mile away, 'This was taken from Walking Dead!' and I'd be lying if I say that show didn't help in the creation of the Pentagon. While Ricks Prison is slowly falling apart, these guys had flourished. Trust me, a lot of stuff will be explained next chapter. Also let's hear for 2,730 words of pure exposition!

On a side moment I'd like to thank every single one of you for stick with me through the story, I know it could be a lot better but I appreciate the support, you guys kick ass. As most of the time, R&R.

Until next time.

-Jogman