Blood from Vault 18

Chapter 3

Hollow Victory

"Push them back!" desperate screams echoed all over the vault as Vault Security fought against the invaders. Shots rang across the room as everyone tried to gain territory, from the sidelines Kieron and Jenn observed the situation Kieron looked down at his weapon and frowned "Jenn I need you to hide behind that statute I have to help them"

Jenn nodded and hid herself, Kieron let out a long sigh and prepared himself "Engaging new th…" Kieron shot at the head as he felt his fears and disgust at himself change into something more, anger. It was their fault this had happened, because of them Mandy was dead and he would be damned if he let them win. It scared him a bit how naturally it flowed to him, his arms seemed to snap to the correct spot as he aimed at his opponent's head the bullets all hitting their mark, time seemed to slow down as he watched the bodies fall.

Adrenaline took hold of him and he pressed on "Kid! How the fuck… doesn't matter, thank you. Go hide we got this!"

Kieron nodded as he ran back to Jenn "Come on, we have to get to the upper apartments!" Jenn nodded and looked at him warily "You killed them"

"I did… I try not to think about it, come on we have to keep going" Kieron said as they ran past the fighting, inside the upper apartments things were eerily quiet save for a red dot pointing at his head "Wait Kieron that you? Get over here"

Jenn let out a relieved sigh "Do you know him?" Kieron nodded slowly "His name is Eric he was training to be a Vault Ranger last I heard, maybe Rossman is with him" the old doctor could turn this around, get rid of these people and put the vault back in order. Eric looked at jenn then at him "Are you guys all that survived of the lower apartments?"

"Sadly, Eric what the fuck is going on? is Rossman with you?" the red head shook his head "Negative, he ran to his room and we heard a large explosion" a gas masked man said as he approached a placed a shotgun on Kieron's hands.

He was covered head to toe in blood "Sarge! I…" the sergeant looked at Jenn then at the kid. Shaking his head he motioned Kieron to follow him "That's Yettis kid, where is he?"

Kieron looked to the side sadly as Jenn looked at him with worry "I don't think he made it sarge, I tried to search for anyone else but… only Jenn survived the other bodies had been crushed" the sergeant slammed a fist into a wall "Dammit I knew that joker my whole life and now I don't even have time to fucking mourn, listen they are going to storm this place. They have tried to reach Rossman's room ever since the explosions started and they will try to do it again, so stock up on ammo and use that shotgun wisely"

Kieron looked down at his new weapon, Eric walked up to him "Listen could you check up on Jamie for me? Our house was mostly untouched by the explosion… thanks man, I'll give you a shout if we spot anyone coming in"

If it was mostly untouched it would be a good place for Jenn to rest Kieron thought as he placed a hand on her shoulder and guided her to the room on the upstairs floor, the stench of alcohol hit his nose Jamie seemed to be miserable in the middle of her room "You holding up? Eric sent me"

"Yeah… but I have the worst headache of my life" the girl said massaging her head with her robot arm, Kieron felt like rolling his eyes but he did not have time to discus anyone's private life "Hey can Jenn stay here, I think things are going to get worst"

Jamie looked up and smiled at the blonde girl "Of course, she can take the bed if she wants and I can check on her wounds if needed, I sobered enough after all this bullshit

"Kieron!" a loud yell came from outside as the sound of gunshots made Jenn jump, running outside Kieron spotted a small group of the enclave attacking the sergeant and Eric, but they seemed to be to focused on those two and not paying attention to their surroundings, Kieron unloaded with his shotgun from above their skulls shattering from the direct strikes.

When bullets ran out Kieron jumped down and slammed the stock of the weapon against their head "wait please!" the plea made him hesitate and stop for a second, in that split second a bullet shot him straight in the gut. The Sergeant blasted the last one and approached the downed Kieron, he was bleeding a lot "Here, this stimpack should keep from any internal bleeding and if you're lucky maybe close the wound. Nothing I can do about the bullet at the moment" Kieron nodded as he bit his lip to not scream, the stimpack provided immediate relief as he felt pain dissipate "There you go, oh an here" a slap echoed in the room as Kieron held his cheek in shock.

"Listen here, every single second counts kid. You don't feel for them, you don't hesitate anyone that is not your fucking friend is a threat understood?" Kieron nodded dumbly. "Good, head to the overseers office. We're going to try and find any more survivors. Do not fight if you don't have to but if you do, show those bastards no mercy"

He was handed more ammo for his mission and with that he was moving once again, Kieron preferred the pistol if he was honest with himself but he would not lie that the shotgun packed quite a punch. The fight had seemed to die down as most of the enclave forces where pushed back to the security part of the vault, Kieron spotted out of the corner of his eye two enclave soldiers reloading "Is that a grenade rifle?"

"Yes, I was told to use it on the cafeteria but something attacked the team there, it seems like someone flanked them from the lower apartments" the one holding the dangerous weapon commented. If he was hit by that thing he was dead, he needed to strike first.

He crouched to steady his aim and pressed his finger against the trigger *BANG*

"Holy fuck James no!" blood covered the other man as he tried to pinpoint from where the hell he was being attacked Kieron unloaded his entire magazine into him his nerves getting the worst of him. Once he knew that they were both dead he ran towards the place and grabbed the grenade rifle, two shots and he needed to make them count, the path to the overseer's office was deserted but he they had been here, they had left quite the trail. He spotted the secretary dead along with Shaun's friend, the son of the overseer.

Kieron forgot his name.

Another thing lost he mused, if the overseer was not here then he supposed that he should go ahead and inform the sarge about that, his soft steps echoed in the empty halls it seemed that the vault was so alive and now distant echoes of gunfire were the only sound that could be heard across his beloved home. He stopped walking, the emotions still too strong for him to process.

It was a strange thing how fate worked, if he had not stopped he would not have heard it. Yelling coming from Vault Security, ducking behind a desked he saw the woman that was supposed to be his boss, Chevy and she looked beyond angry "We have lost too many, John is going to get the overseer. He has escaped to the hydroponics lab but we will flush him, you two I want you on…" Kieron had stopped listening, they were going to back the coach. And he was one of them! Kieron reached for the grenade rifle and took aim, he fired and the eyes of Chevy snapped towards his direction.

A hateful green eye glared at him making Kieron freeze with fear, but the explosion took care of the monster. A single grenade had taken care of most of them, the unfortunate ones screamed in pain, Kieron felt like throwing up but with trembling hands he grabbed his Colt N99 and put them out of their misery. His last 10mm bullet was fired as he stood tall amongst the dead, he looked around for anything else but nothing seemed to have survived Chevy's body was mostly destroyed but he managed to pull out a key from her body along with what seemed to be a small holotape. The key was his priority if they had something that could help him turn the tides of the battle he would take it, so with key in hand Kieron ran towards the closed door and began to search for anything that might help him.

A light-machinegun along with plenty of ammo for it was on the desk. He spotted cages with dead vault personnel, he recognized one of the bodies "Johnny" the man he had tackled the night before was face down on one of the cells. While he did not like the guy he did not hate him either "Goodbye Johnny" he said and it seemed to make the body stir.

"Wait… holy shit he's alive" Kieron reached for the master key that Chevy had and opened the cell, Johnny smelt like shit a mix of alcohol and some drug that Kieron was glad that he could not identify by smell. Flipping to his side Kieron yelled at him "Oi, you big piece of shit get up" he slapped him for emphasis and for catharsis he managed to get the big guy to sit up slowly "Wha- oh fuck my head" Kieron would have laughed if not for the large bruise on Johnny's head.

His vault-ball rival glared at him once he could focus "Oh it's you"

"Nice to see you too Johnny, seeing that you got the shit kicked out of you I assume you know what's going on" Kieron said as the taller man pushed him away and glared down "I do and that pirate bitch is going to pay" Kieron would have said that she was already dead but before he could comment on it, Johnny grabbed the shotgun and ran outside.

Kieron let out a sigh "That was mine" he muttered as he left after him, to his surprise he found Johnny unloading on the corpse "What couldn't finish the job wimp? But better this way, what the fuuuck man how did they get the jump on us this easily?"

"We will have to find out later, the last of them are trying to storm the hydroponics lab and we can stop them. You up for it?" Kieron watched as Johnny narrowed his eyes at him "You know… if you hadn't been so nice to me yesterday-bah doesn't matter I guess that makes you the boss now huh? Fine lead the way Star Player but leave the killing to me"

Kieron nodded and threw him some ammo, as they left he could not help but to turn back and stare at Chevy. He hoped it was the adrenaline and the stress messing with his head because he swore that he saw the torn cadaver twitch a little, the destroyed body parts trying to get together once more.

"Hey why the fuck are we going to the upper apartments, I thought you needed to get to the hydroponics lab" Johnny said snapping him out of his small trance "Yeah, but I need to inform sergeant"-"Look out!" Johnny pulled him to the side as gunfire was launched towards them.

Kieron looked inside the upper apartments and spotted the resistance "Kid! They are trying to enter the hydroponics lab through Rossman's room! Go!" he heard someone shout, Johnny did not wait for him as he began to fire at the patriots. Kieron jumped from behind cover and helped "They opened the door stop them!" that was Eric, entering the room and clearing it of hostiles they took some time to gather their breath "I suppose that the big hole in the wall is not supposed to be there" Kieron said as Johnny looked at him like he was a dumbass. "I think I spot a way, whenever you're ready lanky"

"Fuck you Johnny"

The walk through the caverns was a quick ordeal what was not expected was the amount of dead bodies that littered the place "Seems like this dumb-fucks caused a cave in on themselves. Think we can still reach the hydroponics lab in time Kieron?"

"Worth a shot, think you can help me move the giant rock there?" he said moving his head towards the large boulder that blocked the door. Johnny injected himself with Psycho and nodded "Hell yeah I can"

Once inside the hydroponics lab the foliage greeted them, Kieron allowed himself to just enjoy the fresh air for a moment a welcome change from the metallic smell of blood and the moist of the caves. What he did not enjoy was the gun aimed at his ehad by the chief of security "Kid? How did you get here?"

"Sarge sent me, something about Doctor Rossman being here to help us fight off the invaders" the man with the mustache that seemed in charge of the group here seemed to be surprised by this.

He turned to one of his teammates and then back to Kieron "Rossman left approximately twenty minutes, the only one here is the Overseer and if you are up for defending then we will welcome the help. They have almost managed to cut through our last line of defense"

"So this is a last stand?" a slow nod was his only answer. Johnny did not seem all that bothered by this, the brute downed down what looked like to be Buff-out and grinned at the door, Kieron reloaded his weapon and walked towards then entrance, they would storm the place but if he timed it right he could mow them down in an instant, the light machine was his only chance.

He could hear how one of the doors fell and that chance of winning began to grow ever smaller, he could see the fire from the blowtorch they were using to cut down the last defense, time seemed to crawl as slowly the flame reached the last lock. A soft click echoed in the hydroponics lab and all hell broke loose.

About a dozen men stormed inside the laboratory on the first wave, the outnumbered resistance fired with everything they had. Kieron felt his muscles cry in pain under the recoil of his weapon. It was almost deafening how loud the symphony of destruction was, in just a short minute the assault was over and they stood victorious "RELOAD" someone yelled as Kieron cursed as he looked down at his weapon, empty.

Reaching for the grenade rifle he slowly reloaded as he waited for his moment, the next wave of soldiers began to pour inside this time they were more switching briefly to his pistol Kieron helped with those that got close enough for his weapon to be effective but the resistance was being pushed back. Not yet he could not pull the trigger just yet. "Hand over the Overseer!" a familiar voice yelled as Bragg walked into the hydroponics lab confident in his victory, Kieron aimed and with the same type of round that killed the coach's sister he fired. Bragg's body was torn to shreds by the impact of the explosion along with those that Kieron assumed where his inner circle.

To the Enclave recruits this was something they had not anticipated, not trained in what to do in this situation instead of seizing the opportunity now that the way was open for them the enclave recruits turned tail and ran, because no matter how much Bragg said the young kids where not true Enclave.

Kieron watched as the resistance gave pursuit to the retreating forces, he felt tired and sad but the day had been won at the cost of everything he had ever known and loved.

Johnny for his part looked pleased "Fuck yeah! That was awesome, man I dint know you had it in you to be so cool man" he slapped Kieron in the back making the other teen grumble in pain "Ow"

"You two! I need you to check on the overseer I have to round up what remains of those bastards, tell him that we won"

Won, he didn't feel like a winner but sure he would go see the big man. He was handed a key to the lower part of the hydroponics lab and with that the man left. Letting out a sigh he walked towards the door and unlocked, rust fell to the ground as the door whined at being opened for the second time that day, from the looks of it the place they were in was a secret room. "I… never knew this place existed" Kieron muttered as he stared at the dark cavern that was the secret room. The stairs made out of concrete had faded and eroded thanks to the passage of time, he felt more like if he was walking into an ancient tomb rather than a part of the Vault and there at the bottom was the overseer.

Crying softly Albert Christianson seemed to be muttering to himself about his son, his wife and his friends "…gone, but I will show them they have not won!" Kieron felt sympathy for the man, everyone had lost something today "Overseer Christianson? They sent me to tell you that we have won, the vault is under our control again" it was an exaggeration, they had killed the commanding officers but Kieron was sure that there was still some fighting on the Vault, his words did not comfort the overseer he turned to glare at him.

"Won?! Half of the vault is dead! The others are either traitors or wounded! Taking in you tribal fucks was a mistake! But… that doesn't matter now, I just can't believe decades of progress, decades of keeping this vault safe all gone and now we are infested with traitors. Our generators are blown to hell, almost every living area is ruined so no kid we did not WIN anything! But I will show that Bragg, I will show him what happens!"

He slammed his desk making the old wood splinter, Kieron looked at the cables and the machine a big red button had been pressed and a red light illuminated the room "W-what did you do?"

"You know what this Vault is kid? An experiment they wanted to see how long it would take for someone here to break… and that someone is me. The reactor has begun to melt, it will create an explosion comparable to a small nuclear bomb, he won't get what he wants! Those bastards will all go up in flames!"

Kieron looked at him in disbelief "What the fuck? No you can't do that! Stop the explosion you are the Overseer you can…"-"I can't do jack kid, this it. The end of blood Vault Eighteen" Kieron tried to plead "please, this is my home you can't just…"-"You are not from here, you are a tribal and look at where our kindness got us, escape while you can kid. I will go down with the ship hehe I owe it to my son" alarms blared around them as the reactor began to self-destruct. Kieron walked back up before stopping, grabbing the shotgun from Johnny he shot the Overseer in the head.

As the body fell Kieron could not control his emotion and shot him again "Bastard… coward!" Kieron wished he could still hear him but time like always was running out for them, Johnny grabbed the shotgun back and looked at him up and down "You good dude?"- "If there's anyone from your family alive we have to get them to safety, we need to leave the vault now!" Johnny shrugged "My folks are dead, we can leave now if you want. Or is there someone you want to save?"

He wanted to save Mandy, Shaun and Kira but that was not possible now was it? Kira was probably dead somewhere while his family was crushed under piles of rubble. But he could still help some of the people he cared about "Come on, lets run to the upper apartments, Jenn and the others are there" Kieron bolted out of the room, the alarms seemed to be ignored as most of the people were still trying to recuperate from what had happened "THE REACTOR IS GOING TO EXPLODE; WE NEED TO LEAVE THE VAULT!" Kieron yelled at the top of his lungs making some of the residents quickly run towards the exit of the vault, slamming the door open Kieron ran towards Eric's apartment. The red head looked at him in shock "Jesus dude you look"-"No time for that! Grab Jamie and meet me at the Vault door we have to leave the reactor is going to explode!"

"WHAT?!" that was Jenn who walked up to him and grabbed his arm "No no wait you mean we have to leave?!"

Johnny snorted at that "If you don't want to fucking die"

"Yes, come on we have to go" Kieron grabbed her hand but Jenn shook her head and let go of his hand "No… I can't I will die out there… I am not my dad I am not this…" Kieron placed a hand on her shoulder "You're right you are not, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that you have to live, it's what he would have wanted and don't worry about the outside. I will be there for you" Jenn managed to nod numbly "Ok then… I will follow you then"

A large explosion shook the vault "Shit, we need to go anyone know of a shortcut to the vault door"

"We can take the maintenance elevator!" Eric yelled as the small group began to run towards the exit. "There! Just get inside and push the panel, it's going to be a bit cramped" Kieron did as he was told and let out a short sigh of relief as it began to go up.

The entire group seemed to be out of breath except for Kieron who was doing fine, something that did not go unnoticed by his friends "You are fucking weird man, did you inject yourself with Stimpacks when we're not looking" Johnny was the one that spoke first. Kieron gave him a look "What do you mean? I only had one when sarge injected me back at the upper apartments"

"No dude, I saw you get shot twice you barely fucking blinked and now here you are walking like nothing happened. If you have meds hand them over we have to share"

Kieron frowned "I don't have anything on me Johnny for fucks sake you can feel free to search me and I didn't get shot what are you talking about" Jenn looked at his side and the dried blood that drenched his torn vault suit. The blonde shook her head and saved that information for later. The doors opened and the conversation was cut short as Eric looked around with his rifle "No one here, we have to go through the robotics lab" opening the doors and running towards the exit a soft cough reached the ears of Jenn who stopped Kieron "Do you hear that?"

Another short cough followed as the two ran towards the noise, to their surprise Doctor Rossman was bleeding out over a broken machine. "Doc! Are you okay?" Kieron stabilized him as the doctor blinked in surprise "K-kid…" blood poured from his lips, a loud blood stain on his chest. They bullet had torn his chest and Kieron could see bits of what appeared to be the doctors lung dripping from the wound.

"They got me good… the robots… I tried to" another bloody cough interrupted him as Kieron pulled out a stimpack "No… I don't have time left, give me your… PipBoy" Kieron did as he was told as the doctors hands slowly began to write a coordinate. "Get there… it's a safe place…" Kieron nodded as he smiled at the doctor.

The doctors eyes began to fade "You… need to… know…" the life faded and the words that the doctor wanted to say where left unspoken. Jenn fought back tears as Kieron looked down at the coordinates, it wasn't that far from the vault. At least they had some direction on where to go now. Regrouping with the rest Kieron felt the vault shake as the explosion became more frecuent "What the- dude who the fuck is that!"

Surrounded by corpses a figure stared at them, Kieron blinked in surprise "Ben?"

"Good to see you friend, you missed a great battle. And no that is not my name anymore" Ben commented as he smiled at Kieron, the others all looked at the bloody makeshift spear on his hands.

Kieron on the other hand snapped his fingers as he realized something "Oh wait a minute, it's Kurtz! Like the guy in your comic, talk about repressed memories. Look I would love to hear all about it but now is not the time we have to leave, doctor Rossman gave me coordinates for somewhere safe before he died. Come on!"

As they got to the exit the doors had yet to open, amongst the crowd Kieron spotted sarge and the others that had helped him fend off the enclave, he wanted to go over and tell them about the safe house but the massive mechanism began to open, the noise almost deafening as the people began to push and shove eachother into the unknow. The vault shook as explosions became more and more violent, Kieron grabbed Jenn's hand he nodded at the other "Stick together!" as they ran out into the caverns Kieorn spotted fully armored Enclave soldiers preparing to fight. The ones with guns tried to damage them but unlike the recruits in the vault the fully trained enclave soldiers mowed down the ressitance in a matter of seconds their large gattling guns cutting through everyone in seconds. A lone soldier pointed his weapon at the group.

Kieron thought that it was the end, but the sergeant jumped towards the man wrestling him to the ground. Sacrificing his own life to save theirs, Kieron felt sad because after all this time he did not know his name. He thought he would have time later to ask.

The faint light of the outside reached them as the screams of those behind them grew faint, Kurt opened the wooden doors that served as a disguise for the vault and smiled as the sun began to rise in the horizon. Kieron and the other joined Kurtz by the cliff. VertiBirds and plasma shots seemed to decorate the valley, Eric cursed "Raiders" the skull painted raiders where grabbing everything that was not bolted through the floor the one overseeing everyone turned to grin at them.

"Aw what's the rush vault dweller?" The man twirled a energy weapin the Kieron did not recognize at them, making the group tense up Kieron looked behind them as a large explosion shook the ground "This place is going to explode so unless you want to die you should run!"

The raider simply grinned "Sure you do that, boys pack everything up we are leaving!" the raiders all ran towards the VertiBirds and left into the sky.

"Fuck everyone run!" Kieron yelled as he spotted a small road at his right. Kieron could hear the ground begin to crack beneath them as the air grew hotter, smaller explosion that seemed like small samples of the one that was to come. The ran for what seemed to be hours until they reached a small gas station. Kurtz pointed at the place "In there!"

The group ran inside as the reactor reached its breaking point, the largest explosion that had been seen in centuries destroyed the mountain swallowing the very earth, like a volcano fire rained down on the earth as the large blast destroyed everything on its path. Kieron felt himself being flung back as Jenn held tightly to him, everything seemed to be white as his ears rang Kieron groaned as he tried to look around, Jamie and Eric where together while Kurtz and Johnny seemed to be doing just fine for the moment.

Kurtz waited for everything to calm down before he stood up "The explosion has stopped"

"For now" Kieron muttered as Jenn sobbed into his shoulder, he held her wishing he could break down like her. To grieve all that he had lost but as the eyes of the group turned to him and his PipBoy Kieron pushed the feelings aside. Letting go of Jenn he stood up and looked at Kurtz "We cant stay here"

The man nodded "Agreed, the map that Rossman gave you is our best option. We should follow it for now" Johnny had begun to pale as the effect that the drugs had on him began to fade "Oh shhhhhit, I think we need to… get there soon. I feel like- I feel bad"

"I don't think I can move" Jamie groaned as she tried to sit up, Eric helped her to her feet. Eric looked at Kieron "We should rest here Kieron"

Kieron shook his head "No, it's too close to the vault and our reactor was a basically a nuclear bomb, I might not be a scientist but I don't think it's a good idea to be here. And besides is not that far all we have to do is walk another mile" Eric let out a sigh and nodded.

As the group walked towards the unknown Kieron rested his hand on a sign that was on the road.

Pinehaven.