Steel Rose

Tick. Wait... let the burning sensation fill your chest as your lungs ache for air. Tick. Steady, bring the lines of the crosshair down across thier chest. Tick. Hold perfectly still, and fire.

For that moment, the chatter of automatic weaponry, the crack of hunting rifles was silent, the thunderous report of a sniper rifle ringing in her ears, even as she brought her scope back down to see the raider raise his hands to the gaping wound in his ribs, dark arteriel blood bubbling onto his rough leather clothes. His knees gave out a moment later, leaving the mohawked bandit face down in his own blood. Another raider, running backwards and firing a ten millimeter pistol indescriminately tripped over the new cadaver, and Shadow promptly took his head off.

The heavy chop of blades echoed in the small valley as the first of three vertibirds came over the edge of the rocky cliffs. The whirr of it's gatling laser spurring up wasn't audible over the gunfire, but when the stiches of burning light etched the ground, the raiders scattered, a good few of them getting cut down, limbs tumbling into the dark recesses of the afternoon light. That left Shadow, and a few wasteland hunters, to face the Enclave soldiers that began to crop up over the enbankments.

The wastelanders scattered into the rocks, while Shadow who already had a vantage point that was quite like her namesake, only twisted around and fired a shot at the power-armoured soldiers who were skirmishing with the hunters, and winning. The Enclave troops were organized, trained, and armed with quality laser rifles, and they were trying to fight against them with hunting rifles, and a sniper. It really wasn't going to work out.

::Double, admittedly, but I decided that for an opening that was far too short. So! On to the development!

...

The hunters were dead. Shadow was hiding between two of the boulders, trying to edge away from the soldiers who were sliding down the hillside, combing the area, trying to find her. Two of them were armed with plasma rifles that gave off a sickly green glow, lighting up the face of thier helmets eerily, like a pair of hideous demons from some twisted fairy tale, and they were advancing straight twoard her, as she scrabbled at the rocks, trying to stay off the gravel that would make that fatal rattle. Even as quiet and invisible as she was, they seemed drawn to her like a lodestone to iron, when she slipped, her foot touching the dirt for a moment, and setting off a tiny avalanche of pebbles.

They drew nearer, more of the dark armoured figures drawing in close with them, the steady Thock-thock-thock of the vertibirds keeping pace with the beat of her heart, that was hammering furiously in her chest. The soft crunch of thier boots stopped, and one cried out in alarm, just before she was struck blind and deaf, tumbling down the hill to lie like a rag doll in a tiny polluted stream, floating along on her back with a feeling like her skin was being torn apart by thousands of little needles. A green glow lit the back of her eyelids, and she squinted, trying to see through the blurring that was burned to her retina. The world slowly regained focus, and the fuzzy grey blob resolved into one of the most symbolic shapes in the wasteland ; a Brotherhood of Steel helmet.

She looked at him for a moment in disbelief, as the Knight pushed her sniper to her chest, her arms moved up instictively to cradle it close, and he calmly slid another mininuke into the Fatman, and turned away. That's when she noticed the Pip Boy strapped to his forearm. "Your the Wanderer!" The heavy shoulders shrugged, and another miniature nuclear weapon went jetting up the side of the valley, and torn the end of a vertibird off as it tried to get away. The wanderer reloaded and fired again, and again, faster than what seemed humanly possible, and soon the clifftop was a smouldering edge, with the broken bodies of the helicopters lying like the ectoskeletons of insects in the radioactive fires. By the time her blindness was gone again from the immaculately bright blasts, he was gone.

::Triiiiple.

I hope everyone who thought this was going to be an all-serious story won't be too disappointed, but I always find it in me to poke fun at my subjects. (And how all the ammo stays together perfectly, instead of spilling all over the floor.)

In His Footsteps

Bleary-eyed she awoke, jumping up with a start looking about wildly. It seems she had fallen asleep behind the grey-twisted trunk of what must have been a grand oak tree in the past, and now as she ran her hand over it's weathered bark, it seemed like nothing more than a mournful giant, bent in the sorrow for it's dead kindred. She shook her head, clearing it of the fantasies that she had indulged in. There was no time for a dream when you were fighting to survive in the wasteland. Looking up the hill at the new white sand desert, it would be a good chance to get some valueable salvage. She headed first toward to where the group of enclave soldiers were killed, and even with years of experince in the debauchery that occured in this apocolyptic world, it was a disturbing sight.

One of the bodies, it had managed to stay mostly intact somehow only having it's limbs loosed from thier sockets, but in a morbid display they had been rearranged in thier proper places, and the first satchel that would have contained the microfusion cells was full, but the second batch of them were carefully piled into a little pyramid, convieniently placed on a cutting board. It was a strange display, to say the least, but she didn't fail to take advantage of the organized mess, quickly scooping the cells into her sack and pulling the scrap metal that was the leftovers of thier armour from the gristle of the corpses. It was a heavy load to drag, and faced with the choice of being slowed by her valueable loot, or making it back to a settlement before nightfall, the latter seemed much more appealing, and so she dumped the slagged remains of the chest pieces, and hurried toward Tenpenny Tower.

Tenpenny Tower. For those in the D.C. area it was a symbol of two things ; paradise, and bigotry. With clean running water, dozens of armed guards, and it's fortified walls made from slabs of highway ashfault, it was a haven from the threat of Raiders, Slavers, and even smaller groups of Super Mutants. Unfortunatly, you needed to have hundreds of caps to live there, and it was general knowledge that Alistar Tenpenny was a... speciesist, against Ghouls, and most of the prim and proper residents were in complete agreeance. But, it was still the closest place for Shadow, and Gustov seemed to have a soft spot for her, and she used that to her benefit, cutting deals on the value of scrap that she brought in. It was a anemable arrangement, she would flirt and play coy with him, and he would 'reluctantly' agree to pay a few extra caps. It worked, and if that's the advantage she could get, that's what she would take.

Still, there was no point in waiting around for things to work out for her, and not everything would be that easy on the journey there. Nothing would be that easy... at all.

::...Quad.

...

Forced to abandon a few more of the heavier pieces as she was clambering up and onto the solid ground above, it was still a struggle. Her fingertips were strained as she pulled herself up along the rock face, putting her feet whereever there was a groove deep enough, it was real trouble to get up some parts, having to lift her foot up almost level to her head, to share a spot on where her hand was, in order to grab the next hold up and cling for dear life as she swung wildly from a twisted root that she managed to grasp. Swinging wildly dozens of feet above the valley floor, she was more terrified than when she was being shot at. At least when someone shot at you, it was about the skill of yourself against them, who could get the fatal hit in first, this? This was pure chance, could she manage to find a hold before the previous crumbled away? She murmured to herself quietly, pessimism was equally bad for your survival as daydreaming.

Still, she did get onto the ledge safely, though with a wince as she heard the tinkle of bottlecaps rolling away. Looking out across the blasted expanse of the wasteland, the shattered buildings, the smoke trailers in the sky marking where raiders made camp, the pervasive soft glow of the white sands. Some may fidn this to the a dreary apocolyptic world, but she knew that it was her world, a world to realize dreams. The deep bass of an explosion knocked her out of that fantasy, and from her feet. She ended up clinging to the edge of the cliff, grasping at a low branch with one hand, as someone approached, a silhouette against the bright sun.

****
A really short update this time, feeling a bit discouraged, so I'm off to play a bit of Fallout for insperation.

::Quintapentle? No idea. Fifth, anyway. Please note, that from here on out it will be following the storyline to a greater extent, and spoilers are likely.

The Beginning

He could feel it. Somewhere above him there was another beating heart, somewhere else didn't matter. He was warm and safe, there was a change, though. It wasn't still anymore, he was moving. The sides of his erstwhile home pressed against him, forcing him out. He struggled to stay, even now he could feel the icy cold on his tiny feet, but he had no chance. The comforting heartbeat was gone. The warmth replaced by a chill breeze and dull lighting. There was a babble of voices. They were talking about something... "You look just like your father..." He caught that line, and stared blearily at the fuzzy figure standing above him. "What do you think, of Sirus? It's a good name. Right, dear?" Something was wrong. The voices changed, urgent, worried. The trolley cart began to be rolled away by a different person...

One Year Later...

He did it, a moment of accomplistment. Standing. It was an amazing feeling, balancing on his feet, the little adjustments of his feet as they strained to keep up with him, to help him stay upright. This was a moment of greatness for him, he knew that the adults could stand, and dogs couldn't. It was important. He could too, now. Tottering forward, falling, then moving a foot ahead of him to catch the floor. He made a stumbling pace to his father, who called to him. He had his hair ruffled, "I'm going to be leaving you alone for a minute. Don't get into any trouble." His father left through the sliding door, that hissed int the cieling before closing back to the floor with another soft whish.

He looked about, this little room, and the hallways outside. That was the whole world, and he knew one day that it could be his. Tottering forward, he tumbled into the playpen gate, holding fiercely onto it, in order to keep his footing. Standing was all that mattered right now, he couldn't fall. The little gate swung open unexpectedly, and he fell over. Lying there, he struggled both mentally and physically. He couldn't have fallen, his dad never did. None of the adults did. He got onto his feet, an act of sheer will, and walked unsteadily to his toy box and sat down beside it. Sitting, that's what adults do. He hummed to himself, after a fashion, and picked up his SPECIAL book.

There were big block letters on every page, it was talking about the mind and bodies of people, and the categories that they fell into. He kept flipping the pages, giggling at the Vault Boy pictures. He reached the back of the book, and found a little abdicus, which he slid the beads about on, in a random manner, stopping when they looked nice. He threw the book down, and was trying to climb into the bin when his father returned.

"You are quite the little explorer, aren't you? Serves me right for trying to pen you in." His father picked up the discarded book, and placed it into the box, before closing the lid. "Come on over here, I want to show you something." He joined his father next to a little box, and a bright, reflective frame that was sealed over a little piece of paper. It had writing, but it was far less interesting than his colourful book. "See that? It was your mother's favorite passage. It's from the Bible, Revelations, 21:6. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give onto him that is athrist of the fountain of life freely."

He paused a moment. "She always loved that..." Sirus stared up at his father, who's face was silohetted by the bright lights that shone down from the ceiling. "Well, come on now. Let's go see your little friend." His father opened the door, and Sirus followed him out...