Emerging from your lair, you're waylaid by a nervous Preston Garvey, asking you to help him rebuild the Minutemen.

... That apparently got completely broken apart when a settlement in Quincy got betrayed and most, if not all of them except Preston's group, got killed or became raiders or gunners themselves.

This sounds like a lot of work for little gain, honestly, but Nora is looking pensive. Hey, maybe it's something to do? You're not sure you want to spend your time and energy on it, though, especially with the fate of Nora's son still completely unknown.

After a quick talk with Nora, the two of you decide you may as well take a look at that settlement nearby Preston talked about. Securing the whole area as a decent place to live seems to be her highest priority right now.

... You're not sure whether that's because she wants a good place for her son to grow up or her fear of what you'll find (or not find) eventually. This whole social awareness thing is pretty cool sometimes.

On the way, you strike up a conversation about how your dimension hopping works.

"Basically, what I'm doing is I determine a space and time I want to be, even if it's just 'not here and now', and then poke reality until it lets me go there. Technically, I travel through time and space, which is also why I arrive at the same time and space i leave at if i ever return."

"So wait, you stop time until you get back?"

"No, no, that's the cool part; I just get back right in the moment I leave. Time runs normally in any worlds I visit, I just travel through time as well as dimensions to come back to the moment I left."

"Temporal mechanics are confusing as fuck, Gabriel."

You just let that stand. No point to making this a big argument.

Eventually, you make the trip to the place called Tenpines Bluff. It's... really not much.

It's basically a ramshackle hut next to a few plants. That's it.

You're greeted by a scowling wastelander holding a shitty pistol made of a pipe in your face. You're honestly not sure whether to laugh in his face or murder him where he stands, but Nora talks him down and gets him to tell you about why Preston sent you here.

Apparently a bunch of raiders regularly come by and demand food from them. Recalling your finds back at the satellite station, and realizing these guys are talking about ANOTHER gang of raiders, you just...

Okay, first of all? A bunch of fucking hicks in the middle of nowhere insist on living in bumfuck nowhere, growing their dirt crops in their dirt farms. Then, raiders come to the area, press them for their dirt crops, and use that food to feed themselves as they rob merchants and bigger settlements.

If fucking retards like these guys didn't exist, raiders simply couldn't feed themselves. Killing these guys, just straight up offing them, would be an actual good thing for the people living in these wastes, overall.

It is half an hour later, on the way to Lexington where the raider band you're supposed to kill so these retards can feed smaller gangs just that much longer, that you've calmed down enough to tell Nora about your estimation of how the economy of raiding works here without screaming your lungs out.

She gets a pensive look, but the two of you keep on going, regardless. You started up a thing, you'll end it, too. Preston can worry about how this is enabling raiders to continue existing, later.

On the way to Lexington, you're attacked by what looks like a bunch of zombies... except that, while they behave like brainless idiots and literally throw themselves at anything that moves, they're apparently called feral ghouls, going by what nora says before they're upon you.

It's, uh, it's really not all that much of a fight. The ghouls rush at your group, but you and Nora gun them down before soul number 7 even has the opportunity to smash their heads in.

The end result are a bunch of shrivelled corpses, pierced by bullets and shards of ice. It seems Nora's consistent training really paid off, after all.

You take a moment afterwards, having breathed in the front fodder soul, to ask what the fuck is up with these guys and why Nora knew what they're called.

"Well, I actually took a bit of time every now and then to talk with the settlers. Apparently, they also passed through Lexington, but the feral ghouls in the area cost them a few people before they managed to get out again. So I asked what a feral ghoul was, of course, and these things fit the description.

Apparently, if extensive radiation doesn't kill you, it has a chance to turn you into a ghoul instead. These guys are really long-lived, some of them actually lived before the war and are still around. Most, though, also get fucked in the head by the rads, which is why they try to kill and eat anyone they see."

Well, that... not how radiation is supposed to work, you want to say, but you hold your tongue. There's a lot of weird shit around in this dimension, you won't rule out some of the people here adapted to be able to become ghouls instead of getting radiation sickness over a few centuries of exposure to radioactive technology or something.

In the end, you just nod and continue on. Shit happens, time to move on.

Following the streets, you soon arrive in what's left of Lexington. It's very much in ruins, though a little less so compared to Concord.

Or at least, you spy more than one or two intact buildings.

Taking a look around, you still... and signal Nora to follow you to cover.

You saw movement inside a few windows.

After a few moments of careful observation, you turn towards Nora, whispering: "Okay, I saw what I'm pretty sure are a bunch of ghouls in the surrounding areas, just waiting for someone to come by. Probably how Preston's group got overwhelmed.

A few of them are completely still, but I have no idea whether they're just sleeping and waiting for prey to come or dead, so we'll have to be careful of unmoving bodies in the area. I saw a lot of movement inside this place," as you point out the super duper mart you're hinding next to.

"Aside from that, I'm pretty sure I saw humans moving around inside that building over there," you point out what you think is an apartment building across the plaza you and Nora are hiding in, "so those might be the raiders we're here for.

Lastly, I saw a few lights coming from that direction," as you point towards deeper inside the city, "and from what I know from the souls I caught back in Concord, the local raiders are lead by a guy named Jared and based in some old Corvega factory."

Nora blinks, "And you got all that... from looking around once?" she doesn't give you time to answer, "You are still completely absurd, you know that?"

Waving her off, you start up the core of the matter.

"More importantly, we'll have to somehow take care of the raiders without getting overwhelmed by ghouls, all the while keeping in mind I can't move around in the sunlight. We'll need to secure a place to spend the day safely, and we have only about half the night left..."

Come to think of it, Nora's right. You are pretty absurd when you go and instantly find out this much just by taking a look around.

Making a note to keep on doing this in the future, you consider where to go first to fulfill your objectives in this place...

"Okay, so I'd say we deal with those apartments first. It's the best lead we have on a safe place for the day and we don't want a bunch of raiders moving around. The ghouls here, while dangerous, are mostly stationary until they see a target, so we can leave them for later."

"Agreed. Let's take these guys out first, then we can see what to do next."

"Alright, Nora, are you okay with waiting here for a bit? I want to scout the apartments as a shadow."

"Is this another of your magic tricks?" Nora asks with a raisedd eyebrow.

"Sure, you can call it that."

"So, no ghouls from this direction," she asks, indicating the direction you came from.

"Not that I saw, at least. Keep an eye out towards the plaza and stay hidden, you should be alright."

As you speak, you start transforming. Nora looks on as you meld into your shadow, becoming two-dimensional against the wall you're on.

"I hope you know this is creepy as fuck, Gabe," she mutters, watching you slither off across the walls and the floor.

Arriving at a door leading inside the building without incident, you slip under it and wiggle your way inside. Where you soon find out the lights still work.

What the fuck, seriously. Why do these fuckwits have functioning electricity to power lights when I don't?

Easily slipping by the sights of everyone inside, you proceed to hop up the stairs. Which is harder than it sounds when you're a shadow, actually.

Only to be brought up short when you see a device of some kind up the first flight of stairs.

Spending a few moments looking at it from several angles, you think you know what this is. A mine of some sort. Nasty business, and none you're all too keen to tangle with. Making note of the location, you proceed further upwards, wanting to see how many floors you're looking at, before you are, once again, confronted with a trap.

It's a tripwire this time, and from what you can see, it's supposed to trigger a grenade bouquet hanging right next to it.

Exiting the stairs here, as they end at this point, you look around the area. Several rooms, with lots of small holes in the floor all over the hallway that might very well allow raiders downstairs to hear any mischief you get up to up here, but only one raider. Odd.

Then again, this guy may be their leader or something. Would make sense, what with him taking the highest floor for himself.

Hushing back the way you came, you ascertain there's a total of eight raiders in the building, four of them in the first floor and three in the second floor, with their tentative leader in the third floor.

Most of them seem to be doing drugs or sleeping, but at least one on every floor is awake and aware enough to rile up the rest, so you'll have to be careful if you want to take them out individually.

Having seen enough for now, you start to make your way back to Nora. Luckily enough, you're extremely fast as a shadow, so it doesn't take long.

"Okay, so," you begin, only to narrowly dodge a swing weapon as Nora points her gun at you. Seeing who it is, she swears: "Jesus Christ, Gabriel, don't surprise me like that!"

"Oh, sorry. I just scouted the building out a decent bit, want to hear what I found?"

At her wordless nod, still trying to get her breathing back under control after the fright you gave her, you continue: "So, the entrance opens up right into the stairs. Three floors, with eight raiders total. Only one on the highest floor, I suspect he leads these guys. The stairs themselves are trapped, with what I think is a mine and a tripwire that triggers a greande bouquet."

"That's, uh, pretty comprehensive. So, what are you planning?"

"Right now, I'm gonna go and eat the leader, hopefully without alarming the rest. Then, well, we'll have to see."

Having informed Nora, you turn back into a shadow and return inside, already anticipating your next meal.

Unfortunately, once you're inside, the light causes you to twitch and lose your form, rematerializing against your will.

Guess you'll have to do this the hard way.

Carefully avoiding the traps, you sneak upstairs without making a sound. Peering around the doorframe, you find your meal is currently entering another room... perfect.

Slowly walking towards him, you suddenly lash out once he's in range, one hand digging into his shoulder, the other one clamping shut around his mouth, your claws digging into him for stability as you unhinge your jaw and tear into his neck.

Woodrow was always a dumb motherfucker, but hey, at least he knew when to shut up and do as he's told.

So when boss Jared had Gristle take the best men and chase down some random bunch of fuckers passing through town, he kept his mouth shut and kept on doing business as usual. That's why Jared liked him- he may not be good at anything, but hey, at least you could rely on him.

Thing is, business as usual was setting up those old apartments for more people, as the factory was getting a bit cramped and they needed more space for all these new recruits, what with Jared's free chem policy.

So he did what was wanted from him, only realizing far too late that the feral ghouls all over the place were far from the worst things out there...

Silently moving the body into the room he was going into before you arrived, you pause and listen out. No movement- good. They're unaware anything happened.

Now, you still have the other seven raiders to deal with, and you doubt they'll be this easy to ambush without getting the whole rest on your case. On the other hand, anyone with a gun is going to try to shoot you first and foremost, which should give you ample time to murder them...

Deciding to first see if you can finagle any more information from your recently finished meal, you breathe out and immediately tell him to shut up when he seems like he's about to scream.

"Tell me everything there is to know about this place," you order.

"Uh, it's just a place for a few of us to live now that the factory's getting cramped."

"Any weapon stashes or explosives?" you inquire, hoping to get something useful out of him.

"Yeah, there's a wooden crate downstairs with a few grenades in case the ferals get uppity."

Well, well, well, that's good to know, at least. Something to watch out for.

Throwing together a plan, you breathe your meal in again and start instructing him inside your soul.

With his orders clear, you step towards a window facing the direction you want and breathe him out again, following him into the alleyway Nora's hiding in with your eyes for a moment.

First step complete.

Transforming into your shadow, you make your way downstairs, still annoyed at the light but at least you can stand it this time.

Arriving on the lowest floor, you see two male raiders standing outside the room with the grenades.

"Man, this shit is fucking bullshit. Why can't we have fun, too?"

"You know why, Beth is a fucking bitch that hates guys."

"Yeah, but that's no reason we can't fuck the others!"

With that bit of delightful conversation, you slip inside the room, the sight something you'd already expected.

Lots of women having sex.

Looks like everyone inside this place came together here, actually; five female raiders are having a lesbian orgy far as you can see. You can also see what you hope is the wooden crate with the explosives these guys kept lying around as insurance against swarming ghouls.

However, just as you're about to deliberate on how to do this, one of the raiders still, pulls her hand out of a pussy and asks "Hey, girls? Did that shadow just move?"

Shit.

Luckily enough, it seems like this isn't the prelude to you having to deal with this the hard way.

"Shaddup and keep licking, Nab," the raider she was busy with replies, pulling her head against her pussy.

"She really took too much of the jet we had," another one adds as she proceeds to finger 'Nab's' asshole.

Well, alright then.

Looking around, you can't really see any convenient cover for the coming explosion... except for a bunch of horny lesbians.

They'll have to do.

Positioning yourself so that you can duck behind them once you've gotten your spell off, you rematerialize and, before anyone can really react, begin casting.

A quick chant later, you turn your head to shadow, having no time for more, as your shard penetrates the crate, hitting something and causing a BOOOOOOOM that shakes the room and throws a bunch of naked raiders at you.

With a great crunch, you impact the wall, getting what you're pretty sure is a skull right to the face, not to mention the general kinetic impact affecting you.

It's not too bad, but still, you're taking some actual damage here. As do the lesbians whose orgy you just interrupted, but hey, at least they died doing what they loved.

Except the two who survived, with broken limbs and fragments embedded into their flesh. Whoopsie!

Anyway, it's not all bad. At least you'll make their pain stop shortly.

Your second target manages to wiggle her way away from your line of fire in the last moment, only getting speared through the arm rather than through the chest, as you'd planned.

Unfortunately, you don't have time to pay attention to her, as the door bursts into the room, the two guys entering and torn between goggling at the general destruction and focusing on you, even as you hear the door being opened downstairs and steps echoing upwards.

Looks like Nora is about to arrive. Now you just gotta hold the fort until she's there to shoot these guys in the back. If only one of them didn't have a fucking sledgehammer...

It is in this moment that pandemonium breaks loose. You summon soul number 7, your favorite meatshield, even as you start to chant your ice shard spell while your enemy charges you with his fucking sledgehammer, merely clipping your arm and incapable of disrupting your concentration, allowing you to nail his leading weapon hand even as Charles slams a fist into his side, allowing the shockwaves to ravage his insides even as the other idiot lets out a surprised yelp and starts firing at him.

One enemy down, heh.

Around this time, Nora bursts into the hallway and gets into position to shoot everyone that isn't you.

"Ghouls incoming!" she shouts at you over the general noise that is people shooting and fighting for their lives. Good to know.

Deciding to just get on with it, you and Nora start executing the raiders. It's just a few moments of work at this point, with you casting ice shards and Nora shooting with wild abandon.

That whole business done, Nora takes a look around the room, raising an eyebrow. "Why are all of these corpses naked?" she asks in a tone of voice that seems to be unsure if it should be amused, exasperated or casual.

"Oh, all the girl raiders were having a big lesbian orgy here until I blew them up," you explain, making her blink before you continue on "Now, what was that about ghouls?"

"A few ghouls in the neighboring buildings must've heard the explosions; I saw movement in this general direction when I came over."

"Well, that means they should trigger those traps when they try to come in the-" you say, stopping when you hear a beeping noise from the stairs.

BOOOOM

"That must've been them," you nod appreciatively.

You hear movement now; the ghouls must be coming up. Good thing there's another trap just waiting to be sprung.

You listen out for the telltale snap of the tripwire, followed by the chachack of several grenade pins being pulled at once.

The explosion is not quite as loud as the one you caused earlier, though still pleasant enough, as is the sound of bodies being thrown against walls that aren't you.

Ultimately, when something shambles up to your little group, it is a single ghoul, dressed in tatters and missing both legs.

... You're pretty sure this thing should have bled out by now, but whatever. You finish it off with a last ice shard, then turn to Nora.

"So, that went well." you state, earning a doubtful look.

"I don't know, Gabe. That's an awful lot of blood all over you."

"Oh, that. No worries, it isn't mine. Got a bit banged up in the explosion, but I'm pretty fine overall."

"If you say so..." she trails off. "So, what shall we do next?"

"Well first off, I don't fancy getting a new penchant for sunbathing, so let's get a room secured from the sun first."

Nora, having no particular objections, just nods and helps you go through the rooms to see which one works best for you.

Unfortunately, most of these rooms have windows too high up to conveniently block, or otherwise don't have doors and a window in the hallway lets light in. You have to bar the door of one of the latter ones with furniture you drag there from across the area, but eventually you have a relatively safe room to spend the day in.

Lucky that you did this now, considering the sun's about to go up.

Taking a moment to conduct your daily ritual, you concentrate on your insides and discover that time seems to be going just a little slower in there compared to reality. What's more, another fruit ripened on the tree, so you get inside, have the maid port you over and eat your damn fruit.

... Huh. Technically, everything inside here is part of your soul, so is your soul creating soulstuff in the form of your fruits to add to your soul? Man, your powers continue to be confusing bullshit, no matter which dimension you're in.

Exiting your soul once again, you consider what to train now that the abominable sun has come around...

And come to the conclusion that Kate is going to kill you (or at least be mighty miffed with you, same difference) if you tell her you went to an apocalyptic wasteland and murdered lots of people and she can't come with you next time.

The fact that you couldn't bring her to this trip is bad enough.

So you sit down and feel for what you've decided to call your anchor. The mark on the time and place you left, that can and will bring you right back.

And try to tangle Nora with it.

This will take some time and guts, considering she is now naked and obviously trying to get you to cuddle her to sleep.

Spending the rest of the daylight hours left trying to press out another soul while you've already got one out, you can't say you've made progress, but you hope you're getting there.

Regardless, the sun is down, Nora is awake and a bunch of raiders are just waiting to be wiped out. Time to hit Lexington, hard.

"Alright, Nora," you begin as you push away the furniture you used to bar the door, "I'll go look at that factory, see what I can learn. In the meantime, would you mind seeing about the raider bodies in here and anything valuable they had? Weapons, ammo, explosives, the usual."

"Ugh... And here I thought you were going to wade around the mess you made. You do realize dead bodies stink, yeah? I'll do it, but I want to file an official complaint about my working conditions here."

"Complaint noted," you drawl amused.

Approaching the place you'd identified as the raiders' base, you take a moment to do your usual routine of circling the target all 'round and keeping your eyes and ears open.

From what you can see, the main entrance is your best bet to actually get in, though it is guarded by two raiders and a turret. Yes, these fuckers actually have someone building the things, it seems. Not that you're too worried, they still shoot bullets, after all, but still.

From movement on the roof, you can guess there are a whole load of raiders up there, with a whole bunch of metal walkways and scaffolding giving them a lot of room to move about.

Of further interest are a whole bunch of pipes on the back side of the building that... oh, well hello there!

Looks like a few ghouls are amblimg into one of the oversized pipes, getting inside through a destroyed piece of it. Following them inside, you see another turret, first of all, that immediately opens fire on them, along with a raider that turns towards them and similarly shoots. Looks like these guys are aware of regular ghoul incursions if they actually placed a guard and a turret down here.

"FUCKIN' SHITFUCK!" the raider exclaims as he and the turret gun down anything moving... except you, being a shadow that's hiding underneath the small layer of water covering the immediate entrance.

It's not a long fight by any means, leaving behind nothing but chunky pieces of ghoul meat all over the place. Two of them amanged to rush up to the turret and conk against it, but... yeah, it did about as much damage as to be expected.

"I fucking keep telling Jared we need another turret down here, the things just keep on coming inside, but does the high fucker ever listen to me? No, of course not. Who ever cares what the mechanic thinks, for fucks' sake..." he trails off, just muttering to himself at this point.

Looks like he's a lieutenant or something, judging by how he speaks about Jared and didn't get a bullet to the head after telling the apparent boss of this place what to do. Good to know.

Angling yourself behind the guy still muttering vitriously and leaning towards a terminal he's got set up in a little working area, you rematerialize up out of your shadow, grabbing onto him and driving your fangs into his neck.

He has time to struggle a bit, but you keep a secure grasp on him so the turret firing on your back doesn't accidentally shoot him.

Man, aren't you considerate?

Lonnie, raider from birth and just... doing the usual thing, forever. It was both because of seniority and his skill with a wrench that made Jared put him in charge of keeping the turrets running.

When the gang took over Lexington, it was him and Grizzle that lead the groups taking out the ferals. Mostly with lots of molotovs, to be fair, but hey, who cares?

Once they had secure control of the city and the surrounding areas, things were looking up... or they were supposed to, anyway. Turns out that while Jared kept everything on track, he was also obsessed with that 'third eye' bullshit of his, and spent most of his time taking chems and making others take chems to see if he could get it to work.

This lead to lots of new recruits, sure. The rumours of free chems were great to get more warm bodies. But it also meant they needeed to do more raids to keep everyone fed and the ghouls just kept on coming at the big place with lots of people in it, and Jared didn't fucking care.

It fell to them to keep this shit running, and Gristle just wouldn't finally shoot the guy so they could actually make something of their massive territory and gang.

And so Lonnie kept waiting until, one night, a few ghouls once more came into the factory, never knowing they dragged something else entirely in after them...

Letting the corpse fall over its previous workdesk, you turn to the turret. It's still firing at you, but a quick usage of ice shards fixes that.

After a satisfyng little explosion, you consider what to do next...

Alright, time to go get back to Nora and tell her about the convenient entrance you found. May as well interrogate this guy together, while you're at it.

Shadowing yourself again, you hush through the ruined city, the only sounds surrounding you the occasional ghoul moving around. It's not long until you're back at the apartment building, slipping inside and turning back before searching out Nora.

Who, it turns out, is busy sorting the loot into piles. She looks up at your approach, actually smiling happily at the excuse to stop her menial work.

"Hey, Gabe! How's it going out there?"

"Pretty well, actually. I found a secret entrance into the factory the raiders set up shop in. Just gotta walk through a few pipes on the back of the building and we're right in. They knew about it, of course- I think ghouls got in there occasionally, but I took out their guard and the turret they put there already."

"Well, what're we waiting for, then? The sooner we get done murdering these guys, the sooner we're back to Sanctuary with the loot."

Heh. You won't argue with that logic.

Making your way through the dark streets of Lexington, you and Nora stay quiet enough to avoid any scrutiny by the ghouls apparently swarming all over the place.

It doesn't take you long to come around the factory building and slip into the pipe leading further inside. Once there, Nora makes a face at the general messiness of the surroundings, but keeps her peace, instead stepping over to the terminal your latest meal apparently used.

"Huh," she says after a few moments of typing away. "Looks like this guy was pretty high up their chain, actually. He complained about the gang doing nothing of any real value and never getting Jared to put another turret in here. After, from what I'm reading, the other guys got a bunch of ghouls in here when they threw a party down here and they found the pipe access the raiders were using."

"Shitty security, then. Good for us, though. Let's see about cleaning this entire place up, yeah?" you smile at Nora, getting a motivated nod in response. Looks like you're getting a grip on employee management. Must be all that practice with Kate and now Nora.

The hallway leading out of the pipe room leads to an open doorway, beyond which you see bright lights shining. Right, so shadowing is out. Doesn't mean you can't do this the hard way.

Keeping to the sides and always out of the line of sight of the room's current occupants, you can see two raiders milling about over the... you THINK it's a storage room? You're not sure, to be honest. Regardless, two raiders and a turret.

Beyond that, all you can find is a bunch of mechanical eqipment, a few odds and ends you'd imagine were lying around since before everyone died... oh, wait, you hear something.

Keeping completely still, you listen out, and identify the sounds as coming from more feral ghouls... coming from...

THIS little opening over there leading to a shaft deeper below the building, as best you can tell. Looks like the ghouls all around are really trying to get inside this building.

Keeping yourself tucked away in your little corner, you wait until the ghouls clamber up inside the room. Looks like it's just two that tried to get in here this way, or maybe it's just that two of them survived the climb. No matter.

They get in and promptly get targeted by the turret, leading to the raiders realizing they're here and pulling their guns on them. Once they start shooting, you step into action, bowling over the female one and accidentally groping her breasts a bit. You actually didn't mean to, not like you'd be shy about it.

Regardless, here you are, with you hand on her tit. Of course, you use the opportunity and extend your claws, pushing your hand into her chest in an effort to pull out her heart. She's struggling a bit, but you just completely don't care, not like her bullets can hurt you.

Meanwhile, Nora came into the room at the sound of gunfire, opening fire herself on the turret currently shooting the ghouls, slowly but steady damaging it enough to stop it from firing even as the last raider in the room has to contend with both ghouls coming at him.

It's chaos, and you love it.

As you get up from your victim, having rent her chest open entirely when you couldn't get a proper grip on her heart, you jump onto the turret, starting to tear into itt and freeing Nora to shoot the ghouls, one of which is currently latched onto the raider's crotch via their mouth.

Ouch.

Regardless, you dismantle the turret until it stops moving and join Nora in casting Ice Shards to shoot at the only enemies left in the room. It doesn't take long until they're all dead and you and Nora share a smile over their corpses. Victory!

Now, with the enemies dead, you have to consider on how to approach the rest of this building. You could keep on sneaking in and raising havoc for Nora to come in and take advantage of or you could try to think of another plan.

Moving on into the next room, you see it's basically just the base level of a stairway and an elevator. Not that you mind all that much, though the two raiders just hanging out there are a bit of an issue.

You do the best you can, throwing yourself at one and clawing and biting at them, quickly bringing them down. Unfortunately, that leaves the other one to scream and shoot at you wildly. half the shots miss, of course, but it's not like they actually hurt you. No, the issue is that this is loud, and you can already hear more enemies incoming.

Alright, time to take a step back. Literally, in this case. Turning around, you promptly walk back the way you came, bidding Nora to stop with your eyes as she's coming to follow you.

The two of you take position behind the door, starting to cast and shoot to your hearts' content. And you have ample opportunity to do so, too- an easy dozen of raiders come at you, armed with everything from pipe guns to assault rifles (what the actual fuck). Of course, a few of these drugged out idiots also try to come at you with knives and bats, but you shoot them down just the same.

At some point, you and Nora actually make a game out of it, counting who has the most kills (you're winning, anyone saying otherwise is a filthy liar), when one of these drug-addled monkeys grows a pair of brain cells to rub togther and throws a fucking grenade at you.

Well shit.

It's a close thing, but you manage to catch the grenade before it impacts anywhere and throw it back in a single, fluid motion.

Nora and the two raiders who are there to see it look at you, unbelieving, then at the grenade, flying back to the sender.

Boom. Heh.

It's not much of a fight left afterwards, to be honest, just you and Nora advancing, slowly and steadily wiping out any survivors on the ground floor.

You're somewhat surprised at the one turret in the room most of the raiders came in from, but the bullets it shoots aren't any more damaging than all the other ones you've been ignoring all night.

Though, yeah, your vault suit is getting pretty fucked. Not that you care all that much, to be honest.

"Hey, Nora?" you ask when you're fairly sure everyone except the two of you nearby is dead.

"Yes, Gabe?"

"I think you should just strip off that vault suit, keep it intact for the way back. I mean, I have to go pretty much naked again already," you say as you flex, making most of what's left of your suit fall off, "and it'd be a giant pain for you to have nothing to wear."

Nora gets a slight blush, but responds "You know what, Gabe? It's only fair i get naked too, what with your unfortunate inability to keep your suit up," she jokes as she zips her suit open.

Really, this sight is glorious every time.

At the end of it, you have a naked Nora following you along, her suit slung over her shoulder for easy carrying. As you go up, you come across a small office kitchen built into one floor of the stairway. Pretty nice, actually, you could easily imagine how comfy this would have been back in the day.

Regardless, you move on up, emerging into an enormous factory floor, with loads of conveyor belts and partly assembled cars.

And what you're fairly sure is several raiders moving about in the distance, as well as a spotlight moving around a bit ahead.

Looks like a tough nut to crack, this place.

Taking a quick look around, you spot what seems to be a robot in a pod, but you can deal with that later. It doesn't look like it's going to get out anytime soon.

Aside from that, you have a clear path forwards, so you nod to Nora to get her to take cover, then just run towards where you hear movement from.

Bursting into the better-lit areas of the floor, you're immediately confronted with two raiders you may just be able to overwhelm... as well as a raised area with a big part of the walkway leading up to it missing, creating a little room in itself topped with another two turrets (damn it, how many of those do these guys have?) and another pair of raiders. Hot damn, this looks like an actual fortification.

Time to think fast!

Smashing your fist into one's face, you then use your claws to grab onto and into him real good before heaving and throwing him into the other raider down here, leaving them both in a heap on the groud you jump onto and start slamming your claws into.

They both struggle for a bit, but they can't exactly get up, and a combination of your claws and the focused fire from above that doesn't bounce off of you puts an end to them fairly quickly.

Interestingly enough, you can only hear one of the raiders fire at you together with the turrets. In the meantime, Nora has taken position and started shooting the turrets, likely because they're the easiest targets for her right now.

Setting up in plain view of the raiders, you start to chant repeatedly, shooting one ice shard after the other into the turrets, utterly demolishing them combined with Nora's consistent fire.

It is at this point that the raiders seem to have enough of pointlessly shooting at the naked man that doesn't even notice them, throwing two grenades at you at once.

Well shit.

Deciding you'll at least pay them back for this, you flit onver to the target area for one grenade, catch it and throw it back, just like earlier. You can nearly hear the sheer disbelief of the raiders at your superhuman feats, but hey, not like you give a fuck what they think.

... Of course, the other grenade's explosion is still going to hit you, but fuck it, you're harder to kill than them.

The deafening boom of a grenade going off in your vicinity is unpleasant, though not as unpleasant as the shrapnel now embedded in all over your side, some of it dangerously deep in your face. Ow.

At least the guys up there aren't faring that much better, judging by the incensed swearing after their grenade goes off. Now all you need to do is get up there and fucking eat these little shits.

It's been the first time anything seriously damaged you this badly ever since the traffic accident that killed you, and you don't appreciate the reminder.

Pissed, but still calm, you stomp your way over to the stairs and walkway that lead into the elevated area. Looking around, you see a big red button obviously meant to be pressed, so you do so, causing the walkway to extend towards the raiders, letting you access the little rooms they're in.

It is at this point that you realize there's a bunch of red gas containers scattered around the walkway you're standing on. At the same moment, one of the raiders comes stumbling around the corner, raising what you rapidly realize is a fucking flamethrower at you.

Confronted by what could very well be your fiery death, you do the obvious thing.

And throw yourself off of the walkway post haste.

Seriously, fuck that shit. You're not sticking around for the fireworks. You do happen to land on your face, but thankfully that doesn't really bother you thanks to your badly thought out excuse for biology.

Meanwhile, the gas containers upstairs explode in a fiery fashion, leaving a few flickering flames all over the goddamn metal walkway. Whatever was in there, it wasn't just flammable, it was vicious.

Alright, so now you're down here and the future meals are up there. You could just run up, but there's a very real chance you could catch fire from flamethrower dude. What to do...

Thinking quickly, you contact soul number 15 and tell him to "remove that damn flamethrower" even as you start to run towards the stairs. Explosively breathing out, you summon him next to your target, causing his weakening aura to affect him even as you sprint straight towards them.

With a vicious crunch, your minion smashes his fist into your target's elbow, even as his aura starts to become deeper as it concentrates around him, seeming to flow towards his opponent, leaving him buckling and nearly falling over.

Huh, looks like he's got a new trick. Some kind of concentrated assault? A weakening cone? Either way, it seems to work, the firethrower falling out of your prey's hands as you close up to them.

Taking ahold of your flagging enemy, you tear off his clothes' collar for easier access and tear into him with your teeth, your trusty minion guarding you.

Omnomnom, you think to yourself as the gurgling ceases.

Jay always really liked it when others were in pain. It wasn't anything sexual for him like it was with some of the other raiders, he just couldn't calm down unless he heard someone scream their deathcries recently, so it was never really a question of whether to be a raider or not for him.

Naturally, he got along pretty great with Nolan, like a house on fire, really. Literally in this case, Nolan got him on the idea that he could hear them scream the most when he set them on fire when he was out in the field and couldn't come hang out in his little lab.

Only, it turns out it's actually pretty hard to kill someone with fire when you don't have anything to do it with. You needed actual chemicals that caused fire hot enough to kill, while at the same time being controlled enough to be used reliably and not so hot they killed in seconds. Honestly, without Nolan, Jay would've been lost, but the guy had a real way with chemicals (that were somehow different from chems, apparently) and could hook him up with the right mixture for his needs.

Of course, he needed a delivery mechanism, but he soon managed to bother Lonnie into teaching him how to put a little something together, and well...

After a few accidents giving him some nice scars, it worked out just fine!

Naturally, everyone loved him for his positive attitude. He killed people slowly and painfully and didn't even care about the loot afterwards! So of course they loved him. Why, boss Jared even made it a point to keep him around, and when one of the grunts got too uppity, he even got to make them scream.

Not that all too many did that after the first few, but the fun was good while it lasted.

Unfortunately, Nolan went off with Gristle on some mission and Jared wanted Jay around while he was gone, so he couldn't go and have fun with his best buddy, but hey, it wasn't all that bad. He could wait a few days until they returned to have fun again!

Until, that is, one night, when something came into the factory nobody expected...

Dropping the corpse, you turn around... and are confronted by with the sight of the last raider around, wrestling with your weakening minion and winning, despite said weakening affecting him.

Concentrating, you intone Feel the bite of winter in your bones! at him, immediately making his body temperature plummet...

...and causing him to jump up, scream wordlessly with spittle coming out his mouth and charge at you, wildly flailing!

Jumping to the side, he crashes into the wall besides where you stood with a loud clonch, but just bounces off and reorients himself towards you.

Holy fuck, what did this guy take?

With a snarl, you rush to meet his charge, slapping one arm away while your other hand cleaves into the other arm, cutting through the tendons and leaving great, gaping wounds behind.

Your foe, on the other hand, seems to completely ignore this in his mad rush to beat you to death, making a grab for you.

Wrapping his functioning arm around you, the mad fucker throws the both of you against the closest wall and begins to smash his useless arm into you.

Ignoring him beating on you, you wiggle around in his grip, smashing your face into his neck and biting in, hard. He tries to tear you off, but now that you've latched on, you're sure not letting go.

It takes distressingly longer than usual, during which time he else keep on slamming his useless arm into you, but eventually, he just. Finally. Dies.

And you, once again, rise from a meal's corpse.

Except this time, you're feeling rather... full again. This same feeling of fullness you experienced previously before apparently making a cocoon around yourself and staying inside it for a day.

... Well, this may be awkward. Though if you get more powers again afterwards, you're not going to complain.

Aaaaand there is Nora, looking somewhat frazzled. Looks like she was trying to shoot your enemy, but with the sheer speed and ferocity of the fight, she never got a shot off before you managed to bite him.

"Gabe, are you alright? You look like hell."

"Oh, I'm alright. Or I will be soon enough, anyway," you say as you tenderly touch the parts where the explsions and shrapnel outright tore holes into you.

Jared used to be just another kid in the settlement... until the raiders came, killed nearly everyone and took a few kids as recruits.

The old seer, the woman that just huffed a bit of jet and popped a few pills and rolled out the future like an easy kill rolled out the caps. "You're gonna be a monster, kid." she'd told him, looking in his eyes... and, well, she was right, wasn't she?

She was always right.

So yeah, there he was. Raised by raiders and ascending the ranks the usual way, killing anyone telling him he wasn't the boss. It took half his life, but he did it, and conquered Lexington and a sizeable part of the trade routes along with it.

Now, if only he could recreate that 'sight' thing the old woman had... the other gangs, the Commonwealth, none could stop him... but it turned out, it wasn't the chems. No, the chems were just the trigger, her way to activate it.

Would've been nice to know before his arms turned into pincushions, but hey, who gives a fuck. Jared just kept on experimenting on the others with the help of that psycho, Nolan, and once rumours of him giving out free chems made the rounds, recruits flocked to them, which was another nice thing while he was working.

And shooting himself up, but hey, he was the boss. Nobody was gonna tell him no.

One day, though, one of his men told him something interesting. Apparently, a group of idiots passed by right under their nose, including some clown with a cowboy hat... and an old woman dressed like a fortune teller.

It was her. It had to be.

After he sent Gristle off with his group, he wondered... would she see him coming? Of course she would.

So he was waiting for his men to come back, with the seer in tow... never realizing the fate that would come for them would follow their trail all the way back to Lexington.

"Okay, Nora, I think I'm about to do a thing."

"A thing?" she asks, raising an eyebrow.

"Yeah, once I've eaten enough people, I start to kinda feel really full, then I spin a cocoon made of blood and come out at some point afterwards. No idea how long it'll take, last time it was about a day."

"Seriously? Since when do vampires molt?"

"Ever since I became a thing," you grin at her. "So anyway, let's get back to the apartments for now, secure a room again, the whole thing."

"What'll I do while you're... cocooning yourself, then? Got any plans?"

"Well, you're still bulletproof and I should be just fine in the apartment building, so maybe do that thing in Diamond City and we'll meet up again in Sanctuary?"

"Sounds good," Nora nods, but looks hesitant. Aww, she's latched onto you and the thought of you not being nearby is making her uneasy.

It's just too cute.

Regardless, it's time to make your way over to where you'll spend some time.

Sneaking your way over without issues, you and Nora soon stand back in your little saferoom.

"So... how does this work, exactly?" Nora asks, clearly somewhat fascinated at the idea of molting vampires.

"Well, I just stop holding it in, and..." you say as blood starts to first trickle, then pour out of all orifices, flooding around you and rapidly ignoring all laws of physics, locking you into your trusty cocoon.

Nora knows to shut the room in securely as she leaves, so you're not too worried. Slowly, you close your eyes.

It is time to change.