A/N

Had an idea to install Fallout Shelter on my phone to get inspiration for what it's like living in the Vault, as well as managing it. So far, I think it's been the best idea as a whole. Thank you all for your support of this fic, I hope you enjoy the update :)

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In the months following the success of the away team's expedition into the Wasteland, Colonel Stern ordered the activation of even more hybrids, as he planned to establish a network of task forces above the Vault and build a permanent foothold on the surface. The first of their outposts was founded in the old BIA research facility, after West's team was sent back to clear the ant infestation within.

West's task force, formerly a team of two, grew in number with the addition of three more hybrids. He'd been promoted to squad leader, with Fade as his second-in-command. They were named Task Force Alpha.

He was given the freedom to choose which templates to imprint on his new squadmates, a gesture that further cemented his loyalty to the Vault overseer. And yet he was never briefed on the effects the imprinting process did on the templates. Holiday's team had been tasked with finding a solution to the problem, and had yet to find answers to the mounting questions concerning the detremental effects of the imprinting process. Until he could fix it, Stern withheld the information, as lack of knowledge to their templates' mortality added a false sense of invincibility to the hybrids. This made it easier for them to continue in their tasks on the surface, as they operated on the confidence that upon death they would be resurrected in a new body.

The purge of BIA, having succeeded with little to no casualties on their part, was followed by a complete decontamination and rebuilding of the facilities. The outpost became the away team's headquarters, as well as living district. Holiday believed that extended exposure to the rad-filled elements allowed their hybrid bodies to adapt more quickly, though his opinion remained hotly contested by his peers.

Project Achilles's existence in the Vault, by this time, was well known throughout 115. The revelation of a new generation of genetically-enhanced humans was surprisingly well received in the Vault, as the vault-dwellers, up until then, remained hopeful of a life outside the cold metal walls of 115.

A full nine months had passed, and the birth ward of the Vault hospital was filled with the cries of newborn babies, as well as the elated sounds of eager mothers and fathers.

24/Seven, Vault 115's radio station, broadcasted the live-recording of the newborns irate bawlings through the Vault. In every facility, room and station, there were cheers and thunderous applause all around.

Stern gave them all the day off, marking it as a holiday to be celebrated in the years to come. He named it First Batch Day. To celebrate the new holiday, a cache of Nuka-Colas was broken up and its contents made available on the market with a limited-time offer of low-priced purchases.

Also, a new type of food was introduced to the Vault population that day.

Ant meat, found to be non-hazardous after months of study following the first ant infestation in 115, was served at every food distribution unit in the Vault. The meat was very nutritious and contained little to no amount of radiation. Upon sampling the first servings of the meat, vault-dwellers described the taste as 'something of roasted beef coated with honey, and a little spice'.

Felicia Weiss, still sweaty and pale from the ordeal of childbirth, held her baby girl close to her breast with a look of triumph on her tired face. Her husband stood next to her and put a hand on the child's tiny body, "Hope is a good name for her, don't you think?" Erik smiled at the sentiment in his own words, feeling an indescribable amount of joy that only fatherhood could bring.

Felicia didn't say anything, as she was feeling rather sleepy.

Beside them, holding twins in either arm, was Lane Weiss. Wilhelm had been working in the outfitting center when his wife was rushed to the hospital, word reaching him later that she had beein in labor. He got down just in time to witness his children enter the cold world of the Vault, and he was at a loss for words. It wasn't that he wasn't happy about it, but everything for him felt like it was all going a little too fast.

He struggled with his mixed emotions and chose to be happy. His wife had just given him two sons. It couldn't be any better than that.

Overhearing his friend's choice for his daughter's name, Wil said. "Yeah, I think we can all agree that the name fits. Congratulations, my friend."

"Good luck, looks like you're gonna have your hands full." Erik replied with a hearty laugh.

"Ah, two boys to cause some mischief?"Wil shrugged, "At least it makes life in this place less boring."

Back in his office, Stern received a priority call from Outpost One, where West's team was stationed. He was patched in to the call, in which West reported sightings of a group of what he described as 'humanoid-frog freaks'. Stern was not one to dismiss such claims and picked up the receiver to let the commander walk him through, "West, say that again."

"Affirmative, sir." West looked through his binoculars again and saw the aforementioned group of mutants wandering closer and closer to the outpost's perimeter fence. There was a mild duststorm that day, so it was a little hard to see, but the team spotted them nonetheless. "What's the play here?"

"If they get too close, you're clear to engage. But leave enough for the sampling teams to analyze later, got it?"

"Roger that. West out." The commander said. He turned to one of the new guys, "Kid, you're up. Assist Fade in putting down those freaks."

Harry Kidman, or better known by his nickname Kid, had served in West's squad before he was 'killed' by an enemy IED in the Yangtze Operation. Last West heard of him, all that was left was a human torso with a head partially attached to a mauled neck. Fortunately, the brain arrived in the Vault-Tec extraction facilities intact.

"Sir." The man acknowledged before heading out. He put on a protective mask, that functioned as a rebreather apparatus, and entered the outer perimeter.

Kid, like West, was an infantryman. Thankfully, he retained much of his memories from his past life and his eclectic skills on combined arms blended in seamlessly with his new body.

His weapon of choice was an RKN-R 22, which stood for Ronald Kohl Newman's Rifle Model 22, later dubbed as the Reckoner. The rifle became the standard infantryman's weapon in the US army just shy of ten years before the Great War ended, and was extensively used through every operation due to its cheap composition, ease in usage and reliability in close quarters operations.

Kid's Reckoner was modified to use 7.62x51 rounds instead of the standard 5.56, also a recoil-compensating stock and a calibrated receiver to compensate for the higher caliber rounds.

Outpost One had a ring of mesh-wire fences to act as a temporary barrier until a more permanent solution to their defenses could be built, and a single guard tower had been hastily constructed to allow a single operator to act as a watchman. Fade was on watch that day, and she was the first to spot the group of mutants before relaying what she saw to the commander.

"Foxtrots fifty metres and closing in. They see us." She declared in the comms, letting off a shot that cut down the largest of them. The crack of her gauss rifle was enough to spur the monsters forward, and without any regard for personal safety, they stormed the fence.

There were about 28 mutants in that group, all ranging from five to seven feet tall. They walked on all fours, on long and gangly limbs with hands and feet that took on a more primate form. Fade could see through her scope how their skin had grown wrinkled and loose, possibly from the effects of the radstorms further out in the Wasteland. Their faces were twisted into permanent scowls, their teeth bared perpetually. But what was most interesting to note about them were the sooty blue rags that still clung to their naked and misformed bodies.

"What the hell…these freaks are vault-dwellers!"

"Were vault-dwellers." Kid corrected her, letting the sniper bait them into getting close to the fence before he started shooting. "Now, they gotta go." With exceptional accuracy, he shoot through the loops in the mesh-wire, mowing down the mutants into twitching sacks of meat and guts.

His gun shook with violent shudders as he squeezed the trigger, barking out round after round that tore with ease through soft mutated flesh.

It was over in seconds.

Kid lowered his weapon and surveyed the results of his work. Some of the mutants still had life in them, and clutched tightly to the fence wherever they lay. They all bled from dozens of grievous wounds, and moaned piteously as they died.

He would've felt pity, if he were any less of a man. All Kid could feel at that moment was disgust. He didn't care if there was any amount of sentience in those things. Abominations, the unwanted children of the atom. As far as he was concerned, he was doing them a favor by killing them.

The hybrid approached one of the larger mutants. Even without power-armor, Kid struck an imposing figure, and the mutant trembled as he stared down at it. He put the thing out of its misery and headed off to make his rounds.

Fade resumed her watch, disturbed by the ordeal but chose to keep her thoughts to herself.

They weren't human anymore, she would tell herself, and that was that. "Foxtrots neutralized, commander."

West's voice acknowledged, "Good work, Fade. Eyes out, there may be more."

"Yes sir."

Later on, a sample team had been sent to the surface to pick up the remains of the mutants. A truck, controlled remotely from their headquarters back at 115, carried a dozen Mister Handys to Outpost One. These were all modified versions of the Mister Handy, the combined works of Wilhelm and his wife Lane. A cross between the previous iterations of the Mister Handy, with some of the properties that could be seen in Mister Orderlys, these special drones were specifically created to substitute and perform various tasks in the Wasteland that normally a vault-dweller would be doing.

Lane, having analyzed the results of their first attempt to scout out the surface, used the information garnered from the first flight and implemented the changes required in improving their robots for durability and increased efficiency.

The truck, guarded by a mounted .50 cal sentry turret, rumbled out of the Vault gate and into the cracked main road. The engineers operating the remote guided the truck through the haze of the sandstorm and into the safety of Outpost One.

The robots, having arrived at their destination, hovered out of the truck and began collecting the mess of blood and gore on the fences. Their saws cut through flesh and bone, and their claw-like hands loaded up the samples to be stored in their coolers, which were attached to their smooth, bulbous torsos. They worked quickly and embarked once more on the truck, folding back to their dormant forms as the truck roared to life.

Then, it returned to the Vault, where the research team assigned to perform an autopsy on the corpses took the samples back to their lab.

Colonel Stern was overseeing the outfitting of the two other new hybrids when he was notified of the results of the autopsy. After a few hours, the preliminary findings were uploaded to his computer, which then relayed the information to his pip-boy.

"Interesting." The colonel remarked.

113. Their Vault number.

The colonel paused to look up at the two hybrids, Lucas Riker and Morgan Hayes. Both were soldiers in Stern's regiment, both had suffered fatal injuries prior to their extraction procedures, and both ended up as personality templates in Project Achilles. When giving West the dossiers for selection of the candidates, Stern had Holiday carefully assess each template for any and all discrepancies with their profiles, and avoided handing out dossiers pertaining to former intelligence operatives like the OSS or the CIA.

He wanted soldiers to have the privelege of becoming transhuman hybrids, not spies.

"Finish up here." Stern said to the outfitting crew, then headed back to his office. He called up Lt. Col. Howard Keene and Major Reese Hannigan, both of whom were busy celebrating the new holiday in their own offices, for a meeting.

Ten minutes later, the two officers were standing in front of his desk.

"Welcome back, gentlemen. It's been a while since we last met in this office." Stern greeted, glancing at Hannigan. "Major, I heard you've just become a father. Congratulations."

Hannigan let a smile creep into his usually passive face, "Thank you sir."

Stern went straight to the issue at hand, "In less than six hours ago, Outpost One was attacked by a group of mutants that wandered out of a sandstorm in the local area. Task Force Alpha successfully repelled the attack, and a sampling team was sent to gather samples of the remains." He pushed his chair away to let them see the uploaded photo on his multi-monitors. A picture of various pieces of the mutant rags displayed on an observation table, all similarly bearing the yellow numbers of Vault 113.

"Vault 113. What do we know about it?" Hannigan asked.

Stern's fingers rapped against the desk, "I haven't a clue, major. There are no records of other vaults here. I know, because I checked them myself. But the fact remains, these poor bastards found their way outside their shelter and ended up monstrously twisted by the radstorms. I find myself concerned about the vault they came from, if their population is in danger of ending up like these abominations."

"Well, we already have a team up in the surface, and more on the way." Keene pointed out, "An expedition would be beneficial to us."

"Maybe, but I plan to play it safe." Stern replied, "Contact between our Vault and theirs should be established, by radio if possible. I'm not going to risk our only task force blindly out into the desert until we know for sure there's anything worth finding out there."

"I guess I'll go see if the engineers can come up with something." Keene said.

"Very good, gentlemen." Stern dismissed them as the fairly short meeting ended, "Enjoy the holiday."

"Good day, colonel." The two saluted and walked out the door.

Hannigan stared at the poster stuck to the metal bulkhead as he rode down the elevator, as he had done a thousand times. Every elevator car had a different poster, and a different playlist playing on the radio speakers. This one had the breeding program promotion ad on it.

It read; You women are the future of this Vault! Take part in the Vault Breeding Program, contribute to our population!

A picture showing a smiling woman holding her squealing and joyful baby in her arms dominated the majority of the poster. At the bottom it read in short italic letters; Mandatory contribution of 2 infants per 3 year-term.

"That's one for me." Hannigan sighed. "Or rather, for her."

The major stepped out of the elevator once the doors slid open, then headed for the Vault hospital birth ward. He found his partner there, with a Mister Orderly hovering close as it scanned their baby for any abnormalities or complications. The baby was already at her breast, feeding off her delicious milk.

Hannigan couldn't blame the kid, he knew from personal experience how good that milk tasted.

"Sergeant."

The woman smiled but didn't look up to meet his eye. She was enjoying her moment with their son too much. "Major."

There was always an awkward air between them since day one. Sgt. Raegan Brogdon had served with Hannigan in the final days of the Canadian Annexation, and had patched him up many a time when an insurrectionist got lucky. As a result, the major developed a sort of schoolboy-ish crush on the medic, but never got the chance to get anywhere.

Even here, in the Vault where of all places they'd end up together, his progress with their relationship was slow.

To Hannigan, it seemed like she understood what he was struggling with, so he never pushed further. Burdened by his desire to maintain professionalism, and weighed down by the opinions of his superiors, Hannigan got only as far as asking her to date him even as she literally carried his child inside her for all of those nine months. Most breeding partners got married off, to help reduce the complications of raising the next generation of vault-dwellers, but not them.

He had yet to ask her that same question. A veteran of a dozen or so battles, he'd always gone out into the field ready both in mind and body for the upcoming battle. Unfortunately, in this particular battle, he was unprepared.

But if there was one thing he got right, it was assuming she understood what was going through his mind.

They both waited for the Mister Orderly to hover to another couple before speaking again.

"I'll name him after his father."

Hannigan nodded, "Reese the Second? Or is it Reese Junior?"

"Yeah, that's nice." The sergeant sighed, slowly losing hope of him noticing the very apparent signal she'd been throwing his way.

He noticed it, but again, he couldn't say anything. He cursed himself for his cowardice.

As he stood there, in that military at-ease stance, the woman swallowed the pain down to make room for what happiness she could get from that day. She decided she didn't care if he was late in realizing it, only that she would have enough patience to wait.

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So, dear readers, I have a request to make. Hope nobody minds, hehe :)

I'd like to know some suggestions for side-quests. You know, those little missions you pick up from the game as you talk to npc's, travel to different locations, etc.? By private message, or through the review tab, take your pick.

So long as they fall under these categories: ITEM OR TECHNOLOGY RETRIEVAL ( name speaks for itself ), INFESTATION PURGE ( ratatatat! yeah, hooah! ), EXPEDITIONS, VAULT HUNTING ( yeah, my name for vault scouting ), FACTION OUTREACH ( by which I mean, meeting new minor factions like tribes, gangs or the like )

If I see something I like, I'll add it to the story ( with a little changes to better fit the story ) and of course, the contributor would get due acknowledgements.

Thanks, have a nice day!