"Good to see you again, squire!" the Mr Handy called Whitechapel Charlie said as Nate walked up to the bar in the Third Rail, Goodneighbor's dingy and proudly-disreputable social hub. "What can I get you tonight?"

"You tell me, Charlie – you got any 'exterminating' you need doing?"

Charlie's frontmost eye tilted quizzically a little on its mounting as he pondered the question. "Well, I don't know if there's any clean-up jobs going right now, sunshine," he said, gesturing at Nate with a single pincer, "but I do know we're having ourselves a little bare-knuckle party here later if you're interested in a bit of a wager. Tommy Lonegan down at the Combat Zone is a mate of mine and he agreed to loan me one of his fighters for a couple of nights to drum up some business for both of us. 'Cross-promotional deal', he called it – get some of my own patrons to fight one of his best talents and let them know where to find more, that kind of thing. From what Tommy tells me she ain't for the faint of heart when it comes to her fights. Lots of blood and teeth, if you get my meaning."

"I always get your meaning, Charlie. You're not exactly subtle," Nate replied, rolling his eyes. "Get me a bottle of Gwinnett stout, will you, please?"

"Coming right up, squire," Charlie said cheerfully. "Fight night starts in about half an hour, by the way. You might want to get yourself set up with a good ringside seat before it really gets going. Either that or you could just listen to Magnolia for a bit if you want. Your choice, of course."

"Of course," Nate said, picking up his bottle when it arrived in front of him. "Think I'll hang out here. Maybe I could enter that fight later? I could use the caps."

"Fair enough – you can go on first," Charlie said, swirling a cloth around a fresh glass. "Better be warned, though… Cait ain't gonna go easy on you just 'cause you're a vault-dweller. That poxy blue jumpsuit won't protect you for long."

"Good," Nate replied. "Wouldn't have it any other way, buddy. Cheers." He took a long swig of his beer and sat back on his stool to enjoy Magnolia's singing, deciding that it wouldn't hurt to listen to a few songs before he got his brains beaten in for a handful of caps. After all, if this Cait woman really was as lethal as Charlie was making her out to be, he guessed he might well be getting the loser's end of the purse anyway, so he might as well try to enjoy his evening while he could.

Half an hour later, the bar had had its furniture shifted to its outer edges, and against Charlie's very vocal wishes sawdust had been poured across the floor in a wide circular pattern in the centre of the room, presumably in order to soak up as much blood as possible. With that amount of pre-fight preparation, Nate had to think that the clean-up operation after the evening's entertainment was over and done with was not going to be pleasant or brief. And yet here he was, getting ready to enter into the evening's festivities, flexing his muscles in order to loosen them up as much as possible. He was laying his weapons and armour down in a corner when he heard a commotion at the top of the bar's stairs, a drunken hollering echoing through the air as a flame-haired woman swaggered down into the makeshift arena, holding her bandaged fists aloft as if she was a conquering hero come to collect tribute. Nate guessed that she had to be the Cait he was supposed to be fighting, and though she looked to be significantly smaller than he was, she was still apparently composed mostly of whipcord muscle, with scars streaking up and down the length of her bared, toned biceps and a nose that looked to have been broken and clumsily reset a number of times. She had clearly been through more than her fair share of wars, so even if he hadn't been forewarned about her capabilities he would have been at least a little wary of facing her in a one-on-one fistfight.

Still, he supposed it was too late to be having second thoughts now – he had already signed the paperwork and put a few caps on himself to win, after all.

Time to put up or shut up…

He shook his limbs out in the last few moments before the flame-haired woman reached the sawdust circle and stood in front of him. She looked him up and down and snorted in contempt. "You the new meat? Don't look like much," she said derisively. "Fought bigger'n you before breakfast, love. Best back down before I put you down." Once again Nate was confronted by an inexplicably strong foreign accent which defied all logic, this time a broad Irish brogue, and once again he was forced to wonder what kind of world was so simultaneously blasted apart and fused together that it could allow for such bizarre situations.

He didn't have long to ponder the point, though, because the woman's taped-up right fist slammed into his jaw, almost completely dislocating it. He swore he felt two or three teeth jostling against each other in their sockets as the coppery taste of blood splashed against his tongue and stars filled his vision. He was barely able to catch his breath before her other hand planted itself firmly in his gut, doubling him over so she could follow it up with a strike from her knee and then finish with an uppercut which sent him toppling backwards to the ground. The woman guffawed with laughter as he lay flat on his back trying to work out how to get his legs working again, before she turned towards the bar and jerked a thumb at him as she said "You taking the goddamn piss here, Charlie? This the best you got tonight?"

"Just a warm-up, sweetheart," Charlie told her, not even bothering to look up from the glass he was cleaning. "Got some real competition for you later."

"I should bloody well hope so," Cait said, glancing back at Nate as he finally began to sit up, rubbing his eyes and trying to push himself to a kneeling position. "Oh, fuck me," she sighed, exasperated. "Don't you stupid bastards ever know when you're beaten?"

"No," Nate said defiantly as he rose unsteadily to his feet, wiping away the blood dripping from his nose with his knuckles before he balled his fists. "I can do this all day."

Cait rolled her eyes. "For God's sake," she exclaimed, cracking her knuckles. "Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you…"

Piper made her way up to Ham at the entrance to the third rail, and as she did so he touched a gnarled hand to the brim of his hat. "Always nice to see you, Miss Wright," he said. "Come for fight-night?"

Piper looked at him as if he had just told her he had eaten her pet cat. "Fight-night? What's that?"

"Exactly what it sounds like, toots," Ham replied with a shrug. "You want to see guys beating the crap out of each other and enjoy some of Charlie's bathtub moonshine while you do it, you've come to the right place." He fiddled with his cufflinks for a moment before he continued "I hear they got some vault-dweller fighting first tonight. Says he's ex-military, but I ain't convinced, 'cause that gal Charlie brought here from the Combat Zone's busy wiping the floor with his face. You ask me, guy's a no-talent punk."

A vault-dweller? It couldn't be him… could it?

"What girl are you talking about, Ham? Give me a name here."

"Charlie said her name was Cait," Ham replied, casually picking his teeth with a fingertip. "I ain't never seen her fight until today, but damn does she do good work. Wouldn't want to be in the ring with her, I can tell you that."

Goddammit.

Piper had interacted with Cait once or twice on her occasional visits to the Combat Zone to chase up a lead, and had regretted it every single time. The woman had been high or drunk every time they had crossed paths, her eyes always bloodshot and clouded by alcohol or Psycho as she sat at the amphitheatre's bar, silently smoking and slugging back seemingly endless glasses of whiskey while she scanned the room for her next conquest, whether that be in terms of fighting or sex. Sometimes both. More than once Piper had found her mouth full of the coppery taste of Cait's blood as the Irish brawler forced her tongue down her throat and then licked her cheek as if she was etching a fresh tally mark into Piper's skin. "Good to see you again, darlin'," Cait would always say as she sauntered off through the sweaty throng of raiders, wiping her battered face with the back of her hand and then blowing Piper a kiss through her cracked lips. "Don't be a stranger now."

Piper shuddered. Cait being friendly was bad enough, but from what she had seen of the redhead's skill inside the cage, Cait being aggressive was even worse. Her suspicions were confirmed when she made her way down to the main body of the bar and saw Cait standing in the centre of a ring of sawdust, fists raised in triumph as she strode away from her defeated enemy –

Nate?

It really was him, and he was barely moving. Piper's first instinct was to run into the sawdust circle to check on him, but she hesitated, chiefly because she didn't know how high Cait was and consequently whether or not she'd become her next target. Her mind was made up when Cait kicked Nate in the face to finally put him down and then stalked away towards the bar, demanding a bottle of whiskey to quench her post-match thirst. Behind her she heard Ham approaching to scrape Nate off the floor, so she held out her arm to stop him. "It's okay, Ham," she said, not taking her eyes off Nate. "I got this one."

"If you say so, doll," Ham replied, and she felt him step backwards a step or two. She approached Nate gingerly, looking at him lying on his back, his eyes glazed and his face a mass of bruises.

She knelt down beside him and said "You know, Nate, we gotta stop meeting like this."

"Piper?" Nate slurred, still not completely focused. "What're you doing here?"

"I was coming to chase up a story," she said, helping him into a sitting position. "Looks like I found one, huh?"

"Hey!" Charlie yelled. "Go chat your boyfriend up somewhere else, Piper – we ain't got all night, you know!"

"Right," Piper said, rolling her eyes at the misconception. "Sorry for caring, Charlie." She grasped Nate's hand and pulled him into a sitting position before she knelt down, draped one of his arms over her shoulder and heaved as hard as she could to try to get him up onto his feet. "Come on, big guy, we managed this once." She pushed upwards as hard as she could, almost crumpling under his weight, but just as it seemed like they were about to fall in a heap together Nate found his footing and balanced himself, if only to move to the closest chair and sit down bonelessly. He still looked a little spaced out, so Piper allowed him time to come to his senses while the debris from his bout was cleared away and a fresh dusting of sawdust was applied to the floor to soak up the scattered puddles of blood. As the betting pool at the bar began taking wagers again, Piper turned back to Nate and said "So tell me, how does a big tough grunt like you get beaten by a girl half his size?"

"No idea," Nate said, in a daze. "Think she might have been on something. She was crazy-strong."

Piper laughed despite herself. "Trust me, Cait is always on something," she replied. "Everyone who gets in the ring with her knows that. They just try to make the best of it." She paused. "Well, everyone but you, clearly."

"Are you enjoying this?"

"Who, me?" Piper placed a hand on her chest, doing her best to look aggrieved. "How could you possibly think that? Why would I enjoy watching the jerk who made me look like a fool getting beaten up?"

Nate sighed. "I guess I deserved that."

"Yeah, you did," Piper retorted. "I don't like being made a fool of by anyone except me and my own stupid decisions. Now," and she pulled a notepad from inside her coat, "I have some questions to ask Charlie, so you sit tight here and maybe I'll come talk to you in a little while, okay? Don't do anything I wouldn't do."

"Don't worry, I won't," Nate said wryly. "I'm not that drunk yet."

Piper gave him an only half-joking dirty look. "I told you before, Nate – you're still not completely off my shit list, buddy. Don't push your luck."

With that, she left him to his own devices and stepped up to the bar. "Hey, Charlie," she said. "Anything new on the grapevine you can tell me about?"

"Just one juicy rumour, sweetheart," Charlie replied. "I heard some noise about that silly tart Bobbi No-Nose trying to round up a bunch of mugs to help her pull a job raiding the Diamond City strong room, but I ain't sure even she's daft enough to risk something that big. You can look into it if you want, but don't say I didn't warn you, love."

"She wants to break into the Diamond City strong room?" Piper said, tapping her lip with her pen. "Sounds pretty unbelievable… which these days means it's probably worth investigating, don't you think?"

Charlie paused, pondering the point. "S'pose you're right," he said. "Good luck, love – probably going to need it."

"I need a Nuka-Cola, too, please," Piper replied, before she glanced back to where Nate was sitting, just to check if he was looking better. Her eyes flared wide as she saw Cait moving towards the Vault-dweller, a predatory smile on her bloodied face as she prowled closer. Piper recognised that look all too well, and she knew that nothing good ever came after it. "On second thoughts, keep that bottle cold for me. I'll be back in a minute."

Charlie gave her a brief acknowledgement as she walked away, but she was too busy concentrating on Cait to hear it properly. She made it to Nate's side just before Cait could pounce and put her body fully between the two of them, blocking the Irish brawler's path as best she could. "Don't touch him," she said in as firm a tone as she could muster.

"Well, well, well," Cait said, looking Piper up and down as if she was appraising a slab of brahmin meat. "Looks like Vaultie-boy here's got himself a guardian angel. How sweet. Now get out of the way." She stepped forwards but Piper refused to move, making sure to match Cait's piercing glare with one of her own. Or try to match it, at least.

"I mean it, Cait," she said, struggling to keep the fear in her guts from filtering through into her voice. "Turn around and walk away."

"Or what?" Cait asked. "You gonna fight me?" The taller Irish woman stepped forward, fists clenched tightly and a contemptuous smirk plastered across her bloodied face. "You know I can snap you in half without even breaking a sweat, right?" she said coldly, before she grabbed Piper by the lapels and dragged her closer, so they were almost nose-to-nose. "So move, little miss, or I'll make you regret it."

"No," Piper stammered defiantly. "I'm not moving."

"Is that so?" Cait said, before Piper yanked herself backwards and swung a punch directly at the side of Cait's jaw. It impacted harder than she thought it would, making the other woman spit a mouthful of bloody saliva onto the floor before smiling widely, her teeth stained crimson.

"That was a pretty good hit, princess," she said, wiping at the corner of her mouth with the back of one hand before licking her lips. "Seems like you got bigger balls than your boyfriend here. I can respect that. I'll let you have this one." She paused, patting Piper's cheek. "Just make sure you come pay me back next time you're at the Combat Zone, yeah? Buy me a drink or something. I'll be waiting." She kept eye contact with Piper as she walked backwards towards her ring, her almost lustful gaze sending a shudder through Piper's innards.

When she had finally vanished back into the crowd, Piper felt her spine uncoiling itself. She didn't know exactly what had just happened, but she had apparently managed to make a woman who had previously been beating the hell out of a man twice her size back off.

Maybe what her mother had told her about bullies had been true after all. "Hit them harder than they can hit you and they'll back off every time," she would say. Piper pondered that notion for a moment and then dismissed it utterly when she realised that Cait could hit her far harder than she ever could hit Cait, so why would that have made her go away?

She didn't know, and right now she didn't even want to know. All that mattered was that she was going to get out of the Third Rail with all her organs intact, which was always a good thing. Turning back to where Nate was sitting, she found him looking at her almost in awe. "What just happened?" he asked, clearly as confused as she was.

"Honestly, I have no idea," Piper replied, rubbing away the beads of sweat at her hairline. "How about we get out of here before she decides to come back?"

"Good idea," Nate agreed, before he stood a little unsteadily and placed his hand against the wall until he caught his balance.

"You okay?"

"Been better," Nate replied, "but I'll live. Why'd you do that? Get in her face like that, I mean."

"You needed help," Piper said simply. "I help people for a living, so I helped you."

"No," Nate said, "I mean why did you do that for me? I'm a jerk, remember?"

"Yeah, you are," Piper told him bluntly, "but even you don't deserve to be eaten alive by Cait. It wouldn't end well for you, trust me." She tapped him firmly in the centre of his chest. "So that's two you owe me now, buddy. No more free favours, okay?"

"Fair enough," Nate said, his bruised face breaking into a momentary smile. "Let me buy you dinner before I get out of Goodneighbor. Least I can do, right?"

"The absolute least," Piper told him, before a thought struck her, seemingly from out of nowhere. "Hold on, I have an idea. What do you know about Bobbi No-Nose?"

"The gangster? Not much – from what Charlie's told me, the mayor thinks she's a minor problem at best. Why?"

"She's planning on robbing the Diamond City strongroom," Piper said, "and I want to know she's going to do it. I think I can find that out and I think you can help me do it. So what do you say?"

"Sounds like it could be fun," Nate said. "All right, Piper, I'm in. Let's go make some headlines."