Note from the Author: That's right. This will be an extension of the ninth chapter, with Kim as the main protagonist. Hopefully, this will let you see our mercenary friend from the vision of our Lone Wanderer, though I suspect Kim's character will get some revelation as well, since you'll get to look inside her head in the process. Also, I'm using Wordpad from now on because fuck Microsoft Office and it's slow-loading soddery.

Also, I forgot something in my hiatusfag chapter.

POKEMON: THROUGH THE GENERATIONS - Now, this series began as a comic strip for a Nuzlocke run of a Pokemon Yellow ROM. However, the run met a bad end when my only Cutter died at Lt. Surge's hands, and MS Paint changed significantly since then, so the strip was canceled. But before that, the difficulty of making a higher-quality strip had me feeling like I should stick to what I know with the series - writing. So, from the Nuzlocke community to you, MasterChu and his best friends are getting a debut under the full glory of the English language!

But enough of that. On with the story at hand!

*Chapter Ten: Through the Eyes of the Wanderer*

I was having that dream again. The one where a walking dead Jonas was leading my father out of our old home in Vault 101 and into the fires of hell itself. I called out to him again, but the stil couldn't hear me. But this time, I saw the gate to my play area in front of me and remembered opening it as a toddler. With a push, it opened in the dream, allowing me to walk out into the room and towards the fire.

It was the oddest sensation. My skin was boiling but I was shivering from some unseen cold, and I could hear splatters of gunfire. I wasn't in the fire for long, though, as I saw Dad being carried by some big, bulky metal construct. It walked like a human, and it was walking toward me. I walked backwards, back into the room, and it followed me. The door closed behind him, and the fires from the nearby window died, revealing the rest of Vault 101.

Dad's savior placed him carefully on the floor, and I ran toward him to make sure he wasn't dead. But as I made sure he was just unconscious, I realized I wasn't a toddler anymore. I was back to normal. I heard a sharp hiss and looked up at the construct to see it pulling its head off. It had skin underneath. The head was just a helmet, the metal body was armor. But the more I struggled to see who was behind the metal helmet, the more I felt myself waking up, until all I could see was the face of my savior.

The lights of our makeshift hiding spot were on all this time, so I had no idea how long i'd slept. I didn't feel like checking my Pip-Boy either. My body was feeling a bit stiff, though, so I sat up. That's when I found out the sensation of freezing inside during my dream came from sleeping on a matress with no covers deep in the belly of a sewer wearing nothing but lace and decided to change back into my leathers before Matt woke up. I couldn't help but feel nervous every time he looked at me, but that feeling was better than the one I got from Jaden, so I tried not to let it bother me.

Once I was up and dressed, I figured there was no point in not checking the time. 7:15 am Close enough to morning, I decided. I checked the terminal for weapons discharge data and, like I thought, the turret had went off about two hours ago, explaining the shots I 'd heard in my dream. I slept through it, but I wondered if it woke Matt up. If it did, he didn't show any signs of it, as he was still dead to the world. I made a mental note to ask him before we left, since once we did, there wouldn't be time for talking.

I walked over to my pack and took out an old package of Salisbury Steak. It was my favorite evening meal back in the vault, but pickings were slim out here in the Wastes, so I didn't think Matt would object to breakfast steak. There wasn't a microwave nearby, either, though, so I had to cook it the hard way. Fortunately, there were some wooden planks nearby with which to feed the fire without attracting any new Raiders. I wasn't about to try fighting anybody on my own any time soon.

About twenty minutes of listening to a roaring fire later, and either the sound or the smell got to Matt, and he finally rustled awake. "Good morning," I told him

He didn't respond to that, unsurprisingly, but once he sat up and rubbed his eyes, he managed to find his voice. "What time is it?"

Now, when I had said twenty minutes earlier, it was a bit of an exaggeration. I wasn't exactly measuring time. Besides, I prefer to cook with my senses rather than with a watch. "7:27 in the morning. Breakfast is almost ready, by the way."

I caught him pulling some Brahamin Steak out of his pack and I frowned. "H-hey! This is for both of us," I said, lifting the frozen meal up a bit for him to see.

"That's not enough for both of us," he retorted without even turning to look. "Hell, that's not even enough for me. I feel like a Radroach carved it's way into my belly and started su..."

He looked at me for a minute, then shook his head. "I feel like I haven't eaten in a month, let's just leave it at that."

I felt a giggle bubbling in the pit of my stomach, but it died when he shook his head. I enjoyed the way he embellished on his way of talking, but it was annoying to see him catch himself in the act and crawl back into his shell. I've been planning to break him of his shell for a while, though. I scooted away from the fire a bit to give him room to cook his steaks and we shared what felt to me like an awkward silence for a bit. Then my meal almost caught on fire and I decided to go ahead and eat it before it got burnt.

"Did the turret wake you?" I finally asked as I was tearing into my Salisbury Steak.

"Yeah. Didn't wake you, though." he said, looking at me quizically.

"Ah, the terminal kept a log of every time the turret was discharged," I said, feeling a bit flushed under his gaze.

"Hm." he grunted, looking back down at his meal.

"We should head back and see what it killed before we go, see if we can sal..."

I trailed off when I saw his head shaking. "Already taken care of."

"Oh," I said, feeling a bit disappointed. Eventually, I decided it was better off being out of the way.

Most of breakfast was spent in silence. I wanted to stay in that little room for a while after that, but Matt had other plans.

"What are you doing?" I asked as he started putting things away.

He didn't respond at first. "Getting ready to leave."

"You're not worried?" I asked.

Again, he hesitates. "You know I am. I just want to get this over with so we can go back to hunting down your father."

I remembered what he said the night before and I knew his reasons, so I didn't pester him any more. After a few mintues, I caved and started getting my things together.

Things were a little blurry after that, like they always are once adrenaline starts pumping through my veins. There was a large contingent of Super Mutants in the streets connecting the Mall to the Washington Monument and Capitol Hill. I wanted to believe they were waiting for us, but Matt said he knew better, that the Muties were fighting a war against the Brotherhood on one side, and Talon Company on the other. Not that we got much time to talk with all the bullets zinging all around us.

Matt lead us into a derelict building near to the entrance to the Mall Station. I was a bit surprised that we didn't find any Muties inside, but Matt said not to press our luck. We cleared out that first room of salvage and found a way up.

The Vault-Tec museum was depressing, though.

Note from the Author: And that's all for this chapter. I'll go into detail of the Mall raid in the next chapter, and I'll switch POV back to Matt. If you pay attention to the way my writing style changes in this chapter, you can see that Matt's mind is hard-wired for processing action - doing the most damage to the enemy while preventing as much damage as possible from being dealt to him and his allies. Kim's mine is more proficient at processing data, however - collecting details from her surroundings and judging people's reactions. Sorry for the short chapter, and I'll see you in ch11, folks!