A/N: Again, tried to get this up as soon as possible. Having way too much fun with mods at the moment to get a consistent writing, plus I've been trying to refresh my mind on early game plot details. Still, I've managed to get myself to write a couple sentences to a paragraph a day on average. I'm hoping to keep that momentum going.
A/N 2: Updated names, and once more looking into some narrative flow errors.
Thena's eyes stung as the hatch at the top opened, letting in daylight as the lift reached the top. The climate felt temperate, like she last remembered, but when her eyes finally adjusted to the light, everything looked different. The skies were still blue, if a bit cloudy, but everything else on the horizon was shades of brown. Dead trees, dead grass, just soil being shown.
It was like those Old West silent films where all that existed were brush and the occasional tumbleweed that drifted across the screen. Looking down over the rise, Thena could see a part of what remained of Sanctuary Hills off in the distance. Several of the houses had collapsed outright, but others still looked solid enough to be used as shelter. She thought she could see her old home from here, still standing. If Codsworth was still functioning, he might still be there – it was sort of shameful that they left him behind, but he would never have been allowed in. Given what she now knew about Vault 111's purpose, he may well would have tried to intervene.
Her makeshift footwraps did a good job in guarding her feet as she ran down the trail, the soil parting under her weight. She felt nary a pebble dig into her heels as she descended into the blasted town. When she arrived, she saw the extent of the damage. Several of the houses had completely collapsed. Others had stood sturdy, like those of the next-door neighbors' and even her own.
Trimming the bushes in front of her home had been none other than Codsworth. His chrome finish was gone, and he was scuffed badly with more than a few dents in his dust cover, but he was as fully functional as he was that day. Thena was not good at reading any robot's expression, much less one with just a trio of optical sensors that passed for eyes, but he seemed shocked to see her.
And not in any good way. The circular saw on one of his arms began spinning as Thena approached.
"Oh, no you don't. No entry – not with the mister and missus gone!" he exclaimed. He got too close, and the saw grazed her forearm. Unlike the giant roaches, this actually broke skin and left her bleeding. The cut was long, though shallow, and it definitely hurt.
"Ow, shit! Codsworth! Calm down, please! It's me! Thena!" she entreated.
Codsworth's optical receptors seemed to rapidly change focus before settling on her face, whereupon something akin to recognition seemed to spark within. If Mr. Handy models could emote, Thena imagined Codsworth would have looked panicked.
"Missus Athena, is that…you? I'd recognize that facial pattern anywhere!" he exclaimed. "But everything else about you is…how do I know my sensors are not faulty?"
"Listen. Do you remember what you quoted when Nate first activated you?" Thena asked.
"Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics, of course," Codsworth stated proudly.
"I remember you left out half of the First Law by mistake – the part mentioning allowing harm to come to a human through inaction," Thena said. "You were not amused when I corrected you. I almost imagined your finish going red with embarrassment."
Thena tucked the lacerated forearm under the other and used one of the stimpacks she found in the Vault. Given the lack of more sterile alternatives, she used whatever leftover cloth she was carrying to bandage the cut.
"It's…it's really you!" Codsworth said happily, before his optical sensors caught the gash on Thena's arm. "Good heavens, you're bleeding! You startled me, and I-"
"I'll live. I'm lucky enough that you didn't use your flamer," she joked as the pain started to subside.
"Goodness gracious…what happened to you, mum?"
"Your guess is as good as mine. Vault-Tec had us…frozen? In some type of cryogenic freeze," Thena explained in a terse fashion. "And as for…well, what I look like, I don't know if it was them, as well."
"My, but you are looking in fine shape after 200 years," Codsworth said.
"Two hundred years? It's been that long?"
"A bit over 210, actually, factoring in changes to the Earth's orbit and an impact or two to the chronometer," Codsworth clarified. "Which means you and the mister and the little one are, uh…about 210 years late for dinner. You must be famished. Where are the sir and little Shaun?"
"Codsworth, listen: there was a point where I woke up and saw some people. They killed Nate and took Shaun," Thena explained slowly, so that Codsworth processor could read every word. "They had to have come by; did you see anyone?"
"The sir is…?"
"Yes…" Thena said, choking back a sob.
"I'm sorry, mum," Codsworth said, his voice wavering. "I don't know anything. All I've seen is the occasional pest around these houses, but no Shaun, and no men carrying a baby. I did safeguard this holotape that the sir made, though; I'm sure he wanted you to have it."
One of Codsworth's arms held out the holotape in question. Thena took the Pip-Boy out of her pack and placed it in. Her eyes teared up as she heard Nate's voice, and Shaun's giggles. It felt like such a short time ago, but the knowledge that over two centuries have passed pained her. And she could not help but wonder what Nate would think if he saw this…thing she had become.
"Gone…" she whispered, a quivering hitting her voice.
"You can't give up, mum!" Codsworth said in an attempt to snap her out of her haze. "If I may suggest, mum, you may be able to find someone in Concord who may have ideas on where to look. Plenty of people there. Last I remembered, they only pummeled me with a few sticks before I had to run back home."
"There's still people alive in Concord?" Thena asked.
"Yes, although they're rather rough. You remember the way, right? Past the old Red Rocket Truck Stop beyond the southern bridge," Codsworth directed.
"It's something to try, I suppose – better than just sitting like this all day," Thena said, not quite reinvigorated, but at least she managed not to sound as disheartened. "Looking at the pests around here, it's going to get dangerous between here and there. It's probably better if you stay here while I check it out."
"Well…if you insist, mum. You're armed…in more ways than one, if you catch my meaning," Codsworth said.
Thena looked at the 10 mm Pistol in her hand, then following the muscular arm that held it to her utterly stacked chest. Beyond that, utterly ripped abs and legs, all concealed by only the bare minimum of modesty.
"Not funny," Thena said, even as a slight chuckle that worked its way out of her throat that devolved into a light laugh.
"I'm pleased to uplift your spirits, mum," Codsworth said.
Trust Codsworth to remark on things with all the dry delivery of British witticisms – which made it even more hilarious. Boys she'd dated way back in the day tended to deliver their pickup lines with a "wink, wink, nudge, nudge" type of tone. Frankly, that had long been a turn-off. Nate had been the opposite – his lines were few, and when they were spoken, they were subtle.
He got the talent from his father, also of British ancestry.
"Well, I hope the water is fairly safe, because I'm going to need a bath when I get back…big time," she remarked with a similarly dry tone as she pushed herself to her feet.
Covering the distance to the Red Rocket Truck Stop had been surprisingly simple – her strides were long, and her endurance was amazing. She wasn't even out of breath by the time she got there. What caused her breath to hitch a bit was a dog – German Shepard, from the distinctive coat – running up to her.
Thena leaned down further than normal due to her colossal height which bordered on seven feet, and she offered her hand. Initially, the dog evaded the hand in favor of sniffing – whether he recognized her as human or simply something that was trustworthy, the dog started licking her hand.
"You're a real sweetheart," Thena said. "You lose your owner?"
The dog looked up at her with a quizzical tilt, as if begging permission.
"You want to come along? Sure. Why not?"
The dog barked happily and leapt up, planting a lick on her cheek before gravity pulled him back to the ground. The creaking of the ground sounded all around them and burrowing out of the ground in a pack of about four were large mole/rat hybrids. Quite large, they rivaled the German Shepherd in height, but were longer and skinnier. Thena didn't need to wait for the bite to know they were aggressive.
Unlike the giant roaches, the bite on these things actually hurt a bit, even though those teeth of theirs didn't really dig far into her toughened skin. They didn't bite particularly hard, but they were just so damn fast. Thena brought her pistol level with one's head, only to miss and hit the leg, instead. It rapidly charged, granting Thena no opportunity to get another bead on it – she did the only thing she could with such a short span of time: shot her fist out at the incoming head. The assailing mole rat took a hard backhand to the skull, with an audible crack reaching Thena's ears.
The thing flew and hit the ground in a slump, but it didn't die immediately. It thrashed around, disoriented, only stopping when Thena shot it in the now-stationary head.
Huh, that was convenient…
Thena knew for a fact that she would not have been able to even phase the thing if she were still…well, normal. Whatever she was now was good for something, it seemed. She used the same tactic to clear two other rats. The dog was holding its own admirably, but simply not up to the task of killing such a rodent of unusual size on his own. He did helpfully manage to pin it down, for Thena to shoot without issue.
Changing magazines, Thena sighted down to see if any more emerged. Seconds turned into minutes, but nothing else emerged from the ground. She flicked the safety on and placed the weapon into a makeshift holster on her hip.
"That's the last of them. Good work, boy," Thena said.
The dog barked happily before sniffing the ground and looking off in the direction of Concord.
"Something wrong, boy?" Thena asked.
The dog continued to look in the direction of Concord. There was something that had his attention, and Thena was going there, anyway, so…
"Lead the way."
The distance the two of them traveled to get there felt shorter than it actually was, even with the stop to fight off…giant…mosquitos. Thena had never been much into creepy crawlies, and the giant roaches and giant mosquitos she came across since waking up were not doing any favors for that sentiment. What next? Giant flies?
Concord seemed to start off empty, save for the occasional sound of gunfire as well the report of what sounded like a beam weapon. She'd only ever heard a beam weapon fired once in her life before the War, but the sound was distinctive enough to where this could be described as similar. The muscles of her back tightened as she squatted low and moved slowly to minimize her large profile.
Her footfalls were softer than she expected for someone of her frame. She peeked around the corner, seeing a bunch of shabbily dressed punks trading fire with someone on the balcony of the old Museum of Freedom. Sure enough, whatever he was holding were firing beams of energy. The punks at first seemed content to trade fire with the man, and Thena tried to use the distraction to get closer…
The option for stealth was not in her cards, sadly, as one of the punks, complete with a gangster's mohawk looked her way and started shooting at her with what appeared to be a gun cobbled together with wood and brass pipes. The caliber wasn't large, but it hit her shoulder…and it hurt. She ducked behind the next house she could in order to check her injury.
"Hold off on the losers – we got a Greenskin around here!" the guy yelled.
"A Super Mutant? In Concord?" someone else yelled.
"Looked like one. We find it, we kill it, then we kill and rob the guys inside," the man who spotted her said.
They called her a "Super Mutant"…was that another thing that only existed now? If that meant a mutant Super Strength and Super Toughness, she definitely fit the bill. From smashing oversized bugs with a backhand to taking what was apparently a .38 caliber round to the shoulder with only a light penetration to the skin – clearly, she was not a normal human woman anymore.
"Stop firing! We can talk this out and-!" she tried to call.
"Sure, 'talk'. Next, you'll be chowing on my leg. Not a fucking chance, greenskin!" the lead called back. "There's five of us and one of you – I like those odds."
Thena left the bullet in her shoulder and just covered the wound with a makeshift bandage.
"Have it your way!" he called, before following the alleyway in an attempt to get a "flanking position", as Nate would have called it, on them. She was surprisingly silent despite her bulk and managed to get the drop on one of the assailants. A well-timed beam hitting another one that was distracted certainly helped her position.
The resulting pincer attack allowed her to drop a second assailant with near impunity; she suffered a single graze as she ducked back into cover. The report of a beam weapon filled the area, and the pained scream of one of the thugs could be heard. Three thugs down – two left. Her vision filled with stars as the back of her head was struck with something.
Thena wasn't even sure her next move was thought out, as she thrashed around and struck a thug that had snuck up and hit her with a baseball bat. There was a sickening crack as the thug's cheekbones broke under her elbow's strike. The grip on her 10 mm pistol broke as she struck the same thug with it, shattering the top of his skull – fragments of bone must have hit his brain, because he collapsed almost immediately from the strike.
She was definitely going to bruise from that hit to the back of her head. A growl filled the streets, plus a scuffle.
"Get this mutt off me!" the last thug said.
Thena grabbed the baseball bat and spurred into action and ran down the alleyway, seeing the thug fight off the dog, whose fangs were buried deep into the man's forearm. The man eventually managed to shake the dog off and was taking aim to fire, but Thena tackled the man to the ground, thereby throwing off his aim and saving the dog. Pushing herself up to her knees, Thena stuck the man in the head once…twice…three times…four. He went completely limp on the fifth strike, but she struck once more for good measure.
Thena had a soft spot for animals – like cats and, especially, dogs – and she couldn't simply not have acted when one was threatened. Before the bombs fell, no one was ever dumb enough to drag out that violent side of hers. No one tried, so they never saw it. Okay, so she may have scolded Nate once before one of his tours of duty, but she never hit someone over it before.
Now, she had just killed someone over it. But then, they had just said aloud that they were going to rob and kill the people inside, so Thena wasn't sure if she should feel bad for killing them. Her stomach was still a bit queasy; it was the first time she had ended human lives.
She got to her feet and kept clutching her stomach, only to stop doing so to raise her hands in surrender in sight of the man on the balcony. He was black, and he was dressed in some old-style duds reminiscent of 17th or 18th century America. The rifle he carried was clearly an energy weapon, but it otherwise looked the part of old depictions of Washington's Continental Army.
"I don't know who you are, what you are, or why you got involved – but you didn't try killing me. That's a start. I'm taking a risk letting you go, but I have no choice; I got settlers inside with me, and the Raiders are almost through the door," the man said.
"Raiders? These thugs that were shooting at you?" Thena questioned.
"Yeah. Super mutants may be worse, but it's the Raiders that are my bigger problem," the man said. "Still, you already did well by me. Want to keep helping? Grab that Laser Musket on the ground and get inside. They're almost through the door. Hurry!"
The man went back through the door. By the door on the ground floor was a similarly dressed man – or rather, his dead body. Directly next to it was the Laser Musket in question; it had a makeshift trigger mechanism as well as a left-handed crank for charging, but it was otherwise clearly cobbled together from wood and old laser rifle parts. The sights were a front post with a rear adjustable leaf.
Cranking the thing caused concentrated energy to appear in the vacuum tube – like she was literally holding lightning in a bottle. The hum served as an extra indicator of a full charge.
Thena lay her large hand on the doorknob, turned, and barged right in…
A/N: Next time, fights through the Museum of Freedom, awkward meetings, and a sneak-peek into one of the tale's OCs.