So starting this chapter I'm trying something new. Instead of mentioning what they get pretty well every time they loot I'm simply going to mention if they loot or not and things that are immediately important for you to know they obtained.
Disclaimer: I do not own fallout 3 or anything else I reference or use concepts from, the only exception being Mordecai.
Museums and Mutants
"So how did I do, Vargas? Did I pass? Come on we both know the Pride needs me. Citadel guard duty is such shit."
"Take it easy Initiate, the job isn't done yet."
"What do you mean? We kicked their asses!"
Suddenly a large echoing roar was let out as the ground shook slightly. Mordecai turned to Amata, "Take Frisket and get back into the ruins." He didn't wait for a reply before bolting up a rubble pile and crouching with the Sniper Rifle. Amata and Frisket ran back into building as the Brotherhood members got into position. As soon as everyone was in position the bus exploded as the Behemoth came crashing into the clearing.
The Brotherhood began shooting as one of them went for the Fat-man held by the dead one in the fountain. The Behemoth's first swing sent someone flying before it turned it's attention to the one now armed with the Fat-man. The knight fired as the Behemoth started to swing and the attacks collided near the Behemoth's face. It did a good amount of damage and destroyed the Behemoth's weapon but it wasn't done yet. It swung it's fist and sent Redding flying while stomping forward and crushing the knight that had shot it. Mordecai reloaded his rifle then ducked just barely avoiding the car the Behemoth chucked at him. Aiming carefully as it stomped forward he fired his last five .308 rounds into the Behemoth's eye before it finally dropped.
Amata followed by Frisket checked on the downed Brotherhood members carefully unlatching the helmets and checking for a pulse. When she finally got to Redding she found a pulse and some movement. "Hey this one's still alive!" (AN: Yea Redding survives, no I don't have any excuse for it) Getting Redding off the ground and inside they were eventually able to head up stairs.
As soon as they get up the stairs they are approached by a man of very obvious African descent with a sort of swagger to his walk."The look on your face, it says your wondering who the hell is this guy and why should you care?" He pauses here to let out a short laugh, "Well, your about to be enlightened. I am Three Dog, jockey of disks and teller of truths. Lord and master over the finest radio station to grace the Wastes, Galaxy News Radio. And you, well... I know who you two are, leaving that vault and looking for dear old dad. Met him already."
"Quite the flashy introduction, now let's cut the crap you know where my dad went. What do I have to do to get that information."
"Straight to business then, some would request payment, others some selfish task. I however know just what to get you to do... your going to help with the good fight. Galaxy News is my baby. I love it, feed it, keep it changed. But there's a problem, no one outside the ruins can hear her cry. You see, some brainless green bastard thought it would be funny to shoot the shiny round thing on the Washington Monument."
"I see where this is going."
"Yep. That shiny thing was our broadcast relay. Now it's got more holes than that 'Swiss Cheese' stuff I read about. Without it, our broadcast range is shit. Of course the factory that made the relay dishes is long gone. Levelled... flatter than a pancake. So we aren't gonna get a new one from there. Fortunately one of the Brotherhood guys mentioned seeing a dish in one of D.C.'s old museums. It's the dish off of the old Virgo 2 Lunar Lander in the Museum of Technology. As long as nothing happened to it connecting that to the monument should make the signal reach at least as far as the old one did if not further."
Heading out the back way they quickly found themselves in Dupont Circle. Heading down to the Metro Junction they ran across some ghouls and the bodies of some raiders (one of which had a Combat Shotgun which he replaced the sawn-off with). Entering the metro tunnels they spent the next two hours or so killing raiders, ghouls, and looting. Approaching the next area of L'Enfant they found four shops and several townhouses that appeared to be enter-able and went about looting them. It was another two hours before they had anything of use bagged or boxed and sitting in a pile in the street. They were about to move everything into a townhouse on the far side of the area (the last place to loot in this part of L'Enfant), where Amata could wait while Mordecai found a way to get the truck here, when they heard three sets of footsteps approaching them.
"Good evening sir, ma'am and uh... dog. We are from Talon Company and you have a bounty on your heads." Spoke the obvious leader of the trio, all three wearing black combat armor.
Another spoke in a nasally voice, "Yea see, that means we kill ya an' take 'n ear as proof. Den we take dem ears back ta da boss an' he pays us each part of yer bounty."
As the boss turned towards the other two and started explaining about operational security and not telling the victim the plan being in the rule book. Kai motioned Amata and Frisket back before he stepped forward while they were distracted slipping a frag grenade in one's pocket. Pulling out his shotgun he grabbed another to use as a shield. Spinning his shield into the way of the one that was about to become crotch-less he unloaded a round from the shotgun into the third's face. Swapping his shotgun for his 10mm he finished off his shrapnel laden shield before turning to Mr. Crotch-less. It turned out to be the leader whom was rapidly losing blood, his accent getting thicker and his words shorter as he slowly died. "Well shit guv' no wonder they put a price on your head. That was 'pressive, you live long 'nuff an' you'll be a legend. Right up there wit' Vaul' Dweller an' the Ch'sen One. Ya did good kid... an' maybe if'n I'd been half as good back when I had people ta' care 'bout... maybe I would'na gon' Tal'n and I'da seen ya be a lege..."
Reflecting on what he just heard Kai watched the clouds while speaking softly. "What becomes of a man who loses everything that keeps him human? Does he finally reach the point where he can't die a hero? Where he's lived to see himself become the villain? A crazed clown once said all it took was one bad day." (AN: So I don't think they're word for word but if you recognize what is being referenced / quoted then chances are you like comics.)
Realizing it was pretty dark they moved stuff into the townhouse before looting the Talon's of their ammo, guns, and any armor that was usable. Setting it inside near the other stuff they quickly swept the house for enemies before leaving Amata upstairs to loot while Kai went downstairs to play with the Talon armor. He dug around on a shelf finding a paint gun, book, and paint brush. Taking the book he cut out a stencil of a wolf head then took the can off the paint gun. The paint turned out to be a nice shade of red so using the stencil he painted a wolf head over the Talon marks before deciding to add some more color he painted all the ridges on the chestplate and other pieces. Leaving it to dry before he can do anymore he started organizing loot from downstairs. Amata came downstairs as he finished with a dufflebag (AN: civilian/sport style not burlap military), "Hey Kai? Why'd you grab their armor? We can't exactly go around wearing their emblem can we?" Taking the bag from her he motioned towards where he left the pieces laying on the floor. "Oh well I guess that works, are we becoming our own group then?"
"Yea it's best for any future family we might have if we form our own sort of community. The Super Duper Mart is pretty stable and could be fortified, add some gardens and animal pens and it could be sustainable." He said as he thought about different people they could recruit or ally with.
"Well makes sense to me, but... let's hold off on any family making till we have this whole thing set up at least." She smirked after saying that before continuing, "While you finish the armor I'm gonna go see if the stove works and then cook something." He watched her go before turning back to the armor. It was dry so he flipped it over and did the other accents and wrote 'Crimson Wolves' across the back. Leaving that to dry he started crafting the belts into two superior ones, when finished they would have bigger pouches and straps to attach to the bottom of the chestplates. The straps would make the armor help support the weight of anything put in the pouches. "Kai it's ready, bring some nuka cola there's nothing to drink in here."
Grabbing two bottles of cola and opening them on the way he handed one to Amata as they sat at the table. Pausing to examine what she'd managed to cook up he had to admit it looked far more appetizing than 200 year old food had any right to look. On the tin plate before him was a mound of steaming, cheezy Mac & Cheese with a side of fried Cram. (AN: Maybe I shoulda ate before writing?) "200 years old, left abandoned and cooked with radiated water. Yet it looks just as good as what came out of the Vault Cafeteria's machines... some damn strong preservatives. Of course my compliments to you as well Amata. I can cook but I doubt it would look half as good."
After eating Kai went back to finishing the belt pouches, between the three sets of armor there was enough usable pieces for two full sets of armor (minus helmets) and two "utility" belts. Having finished he and Amata made sure all the loot was packed up, including the vault armor vests. Heading upstairs they slept till morning then came down, put on the new armor, and grabbed their loot before heading out. They spent the whole morning taking a load of loot back to the truck and clearing a path to get it back to where they were and then loading up the rest before driving on a winding route towards the museum. The trip to the large open area near the museums took three times as long trying to find a way through with the truck but it would mean being able to gather more loot.
Parking in an alley between two mostly collapsed buildings they headed towards the museums. As they were walking Frisket suddenly stops and starts growling followed shortly by four vicious dogs charging over the hill. Amata dropping to one knee put two short bursts into the first two while two shots from Kai's combat shotgun dropped the other two. Continuing on the museums came into view but the supermutant population was minimal. Checking the time they only had a few hours of sunlight left, so they decided to duck into history museum and clear out some ferals before going to Underworld. For the next we hours they killed ferals and looted whatever looked useful, caps, pre-war books, historic artifacts and Kai's favorites; a damaged naval sabre and Lincoln's Repeater.
Heading into Underworld they were greated by the maintenace man and sold him half the scrap metal they had Kai keeping the rest for using as stock or parts for the forge he would have to set up to properly repair his new sabre. Heading over to the shop they sold more of their scavenged stuff that they don't need making sure to keep any bladed weapons no matter how damaged. Finally they rented a bed from Carol for the night and went to sleep for a few hours.
Getting up the next morning they headed out sneaking around the mutants to save ammo, it took about an hour but they safely reached the museum of technology. Clearing the place was a long task involving covering each other's blind spots and distracting Super Mutants coming too close with cans and bottles laying around. This worked well until they gathered as much loot as they could in the room with the lunar dish. They had just finished piling the loot when a door they had ignored after failing to open it suddenly splintered, charging through the remains was an oversized mutant with a well-worn sledgehammer. Diving in different directions Amata switched to a 10mm pistol to try and have better aim. Mordecai unsheathed his sabre getting ready to use his speed to his advantage, "Well my new friend let's hope you can survive big, green, and ugly."
The mutant apparently heard him loud and clear as it roared before charging at him. Amata started firing high while Kai stayed low and dodged the wide, clumsy swings while slashing at joint tendons and other annoying, debilitating, non-vital areas. It worked for awhile until the mutant started realizing it was having trouble moving and couldn't control one of it's arms. Faster than before it swung it's nearly useless arm and caught Mordecai sending him crashing against a wall losing his grip on his sword at the same time. Amata froze momentarily as the mutant slowly stomped towards her not moving boyfriend. Then she noticed he was still breathing and had his left hand behind his back.
'Come on you giant green rage machine. Come here and pick me up, come check your handiwork.' Kai thought as he waited, watching through half-lidded eyes. That hit against the wall had caused a lot of aches, he'd certainly be bruised, but it didn't seem like anything was broken. 'I need to end this before it gets worse. Closer... closer...' The mutant had reached him and started to lift him, 'Now!' Moving quickly he brought his left arm up holding a combat knife driving it into the underside of the mutants jaw. Turning slightly he let go of the knife, curled into himself, and kicked up at the knife sending it further up into the brain.
Hopping slightly to stay standing Kai glanced around to make sure another one wasnt hiding somewhere. "You alright Amata?"
"Me?! What about you?" Was the quick reply as she moved over to check on him.
"Oh I'll be alright, nothing feels broken and I don't seem to be bleeding out. Looks like the room he opened is the planetarium. Let's go salvage as much electronics and metal as we can from that and this lander. We should be able to salvage more parts from the two than I can use right now, including most of the frame and shell of my forge I want. We probably have just enough time to loot, take everything to the truck and head for Galaxy News. It'll probably be a couple hours after sunset by the time we get there.
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AN: Sorry I went so long without updating this story and put this chapter out later than I said. At the time I had several excuses / reasons but looking back I had plenty of times I could have been working on it and instead was researching stuff for story ideas I may add to this Overlord/Soul concept I'm working on. Also I do now have a job that will likely be fairly mentally draining, and as soon as I can afford a computer to run it I will likely be consumed by Fallout 4. So I doubt I will update more than once a month if even that often, I have no plan of ever abandoning any of my stories but I will make note if that ever is the case.