{ "submission_id": "1646239", "keywords": [ { "keyword_id": "1007", "keyword_name": "blood", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "21697" }, { "keyword_id": "5214", "keyword_name": "combat", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1272" }, { "keyword_id": "932", "keyword_name": "death", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "12708" }, { "keyword_id": "21", "keyword_name": "dragon", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "152187" }, { "keyword_id": "10891", "keyword_name": "fallout", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "2150" }, { "keyword_id": "123", "keyword_name": "female", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1107944" }, { "keyword_id": "3149", "keyword_name": "guns", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1760" }, { "keyword_id": "1440", "keyword_name": "human", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "110211" }, { "keyword_id": "1406", "keyword_name": "injury", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "898" }, { "keyword_id": "165", "keyword_name": "male", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "1218886" }, { "keyword_id": "4303", "keyword_name": "mutant", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "3777" }, { "keyword_id": "27121", "keyword_name": "nightstalker", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "154" }, { "keyword_id": "1656", "keyword_name": "pain", "contributed": "f", "submissions_count": "6262" } ], "hidden": "f", "scraps": "f", "favorite": "f", "favorites_count": "0", "create_datetime": "2018-07-01 02:08:11.763563+00", "create_datetime_usertime": "01 Jul 2018 04:08 CEST", "last_file_update_datetime": "2018-07-01 01:23:31.790337+00", "last_file_update_datetime_usertime": "01 Jul 2018 03:23 CEST", "username": "Apachy", "user_id": "440715", "user_icon_file_name": "129951_Apachy_wisp.jpg", "user_icon_url_large": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/large/129/129951_Apachy_wisp.jpg", "user_icon_url_medium": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/medium/129/129951_Apachy_wisp.jpg", "user_icon_url_small": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/usericons/small/129/129951_Apachy_wisp.jpg", "file_name": "2349653_Apachy_life_in_a_nuclear_apocalypse_2.doc", "file_url_full": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/full/2349/2349653_Apachy_life_in_a_nuclear_apocalypse_2.doc", "file_url_screen": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/2349/2349653_Apachy_life_in_a_nuclear_apocalypse_2.doc", "file_url_preview": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/2349/2349653_Apachy_life_in_a_nuclear_apocalypse_2.doc", "files": [ { "file_id": "2349653", "file_name": "2349653_Apachy_life_in_a_nuclear_apocalypse_2.doc", "file_url_full": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/full/2349/2349653_Apachy_life_in_a_nuclear_apocalypse_2.doc", "file_url_screen": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/screen/2349/2349653_Apachy_life_in_a_nuclear_apocalypse_2.doc", "file_url_preview": "https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/files/preview/2349/2349653_Apachy_life_in_a_nuclear_apocalypse_2.doc", "mimetype": "application/msword", "submission_id": "1646239", "user_id": "440715", "submission_file_order": "0", "full_size_x": null, "full_size_y": null, "screen_size_x": null, "screen_size_y": null, "preview_size_x": null, "preview_size_y": null, "initial_file_md5": "00432163ddc11005e36bf7abf5c283fd", "full_file_md5": "00432163ddc11005e36bf7abf5c283fd", "large_file_md5": "", "small_file_md5": "", "thumbnail_md5": "", "deleted": "f", "create_datetime": "2018-07-01 01:23:31.790337+00", "create_datetime_usertime": "01 Jul 2018 03:23 CEST" } ], "pools": [ { "pool_id": "49500", "name": "Misc Stories", "description": "Stories that are single chapter stories or one to three chapters at most.", "count": "13", "submission_left_submission_id": "1642753", "submission_left_file_name": "2344337_Apachy_life_in_the_nuclear_apocalypse_1.doc", "submission_right_submission_id": "1661358", "submission_right_file_name": "2372924_Apachy_life_in_a_nuclear_apocalypse_3.doc" } ], "description": "WARNING: this story contains a fair amount of blood and some gore, and does not include any sexual content.", "description_bbcode_parsed": "WARNING: this story contains a fair amount of blood and some gore, and does not include any sexual content.", "writing": "To say the city of Boston was somewhat unfriendly was a complete understatement, given how nearly every building that wasn't Goodneighbor or Diamond City was a lawless battlefield where every faction or threat lurked around every dark, crumbling corner. But apparently today was a rather special day.\n\nRose sighed, gauging the city across the bridge she'd cleared out of raiders a day prior. There was almost nothing left of the checkpoint they had set up, what was salvageable pilfered or dragged off long ago, leaving only the bodies to rot in the glaring hot sun. Several of them had been stripped clean, making Rose cringe as she kept her eyes well away from their gross remains. Her greatest concern was the smattering of corpses that strewn the bridge, nearby buildings, cars, and on the street across the way. An unending exchange of gunfire echoed throughout the battle scarred ruins, some ending as so as another firefight broke out.\n\nParts of the road and nearby scenery were scarred with burns and bullet holes, potholes big enough for Rose to lay in breaking up the ground into massive chunks. Most of the corpses looked to be raiders, but a few bodies were dressed in drab green and sporting finer, more clean looking metal plates lining their bloody corpses and putting Rose extremely on edge. Gunner's stuck mostly to downtown Boston, but if they were moving further north, towards Diamond City, things could get messy for the Commonwealth as a whole.\n\nThe gunfire was seemingly beginning to fade into the distance, yet it was still as prominent as the sun was bright. Rose levelled her pipe rifle, Magellan stalking low to the ground beside her and kept his movements unnoticeable to even her. Gunner's were scarily well trained and more strongly equipped than two-bit raiders, directly in the two's way of their celebration and the bag of caps waiting for them. Normally the smattering of unlooted dead meant a field day of doing just that for the dragon, but today was clearly one she was going to have to travel light just to stay safe.\n\nAll that being said, Rose and Magellan trekked across the bridge as stealthily as able in broad daylight, hugging the array of debris that covered the decrepit road as they moved. Magellan rattled his tail, getting Rose to stop completely just before an overturned raider corpse. Giving it a wide berth, Rose peeked over the body and caught the faint red light of an active landmine she had almost walked over. Whoever was winning the fight, which so far was most definitely the Gunners, they were leaving surprises for anyone who might show up late to the party.\n\nLucky Rose had just the perfect solution to disarming any obvious mines along the way. She and the nightstalker took several steps back as she scooped up a hefty chunk of concrete and hurled it at the booby-trapped raider. It bounced off the dead man's face right onto the mine, tripping the mine to detonate. A loud explosion blew the air past Rose and her companion, the mine detonating with an astonishing amount of force that took a chunk of the bridge down with it, the raider it had been set beside nothing more than a fine red mist that rained down onto the dark, sludgy water below the bridge alongside a hail of rubble.\n\nRose whistled in surprise at the massive explosion, her eyes keeping themselves glued to the damaged buildings for anyone she might have woken up with the intricate and extremely skilled diffusing of their trap she had committed. Magellan's tail rattled again as his keen vision spotted movement in a half-destroyed section of a building. Rose saw what he had not a second later, her rifle coming up as a she saw a glimpse of something glinting in the shadows on the third floor.\n\nShe fired five times, the kick of the rifle barely felt by her as she brought the riffle back to its original position and fired again, making sure each shot was as close as possible at that distance. A hollow scream came free as a Gunner with two holes in his neck stumbled forward into the light, a sniper rifle limply clutched in his right hand as he brought his left his neck and fell forward, tumbling down the rubble onto the street with a sickening splat.\n\nRose waited for a second target or another warning from Magellan, yet neither occured after a minute of waiting with her rifle raised. Yea, if they had enough manpower to leave a sniper behind to cover their tracks, the Gunners were most definitely whatever shit show was going on in the city. She and Magellan crossed the bridge without anymore mines to stop them, pocketing a few nicer looking rounds as well as a grenade or two that might come in handy later.\n\nOnce they were off the bridge, Rose and Magellan made their way to the dead sniper, partially to see if he had anything on him to tell them the reason for the all out skirmish going on and to nab anything of value of the human. She slung her rifle as they approached the face-down corpse, scooping up his sniper from his dead hands and \n\nOnce they were off the bridge, Rose and Magellan sneaked up to the dead sniper she killed, the former slinging her rifle as she scooped up his sniper and pulled back the bolt. Inside was a bronze-colored bullet inside a bright yellow FMJ, the round bigger than her middle finger and seemingly in pristine condition. The rifle itself was scratched a bit, likely from the fall, but was also in just as good of a condition, complete with its own sling and, after a quick examination, a six round clip.\n\nConsidering the dead man a winning lottery ticket, Rose scavenged the rest of his for all he had, shucking her less sturdy shoulder guards and chest plate for his finer looking gear. He had a few stimpacks and even a plasma grenade, an absurdly rare find these days that she carefully set into a pouch on her pack. The chest piece didn't breath as easy on her as her former armor, but the added protection would make sure she wasn't going to be breathing through bullet holes.\n\nAs she was beginning to leave, a crackle of static got her to whip around, revolver raised in a swift, fluid motion. Seeing no target for her to blow away, she stepped back to the corpse, grabbing him by the shoulder and flipped him over. Under his shirt she found a walkie talkie, the source of the noise no doubt, and brought it up to her ear.\n\nA gruff voice came into focus after she turned a knob on the side: ``Gamma squad, push towards Diamond City and provide support to Beta and Charlie! Theta squad, where the hell is Baker and Tessa?'' The male voice barked, laser fire in the background echoing behind him.\n\nA second voice, this one disheveled and clearly much younger than the first, frantically answered the question: ``They got hit by sniper fire a minute ago, Tessa's fusion core malfunctioned and trapped her on the street!'' He shouted, Rose's eyes going wide at the mention of a fusion core. If they're talking about power armor, she could maybe steal a whole new suit in the chaos without that much trouble!\n\n``Seven of us tried to defend her while Baker tried to fix it, but something came out of Swan Lake, something big!'' The man continued, a sudden crash in the background overpowering his voice. ``Oh god, it's coming agai-'' The Gunner began to shout, screams filling the channel until an explosion dissolved the transmission into static.\n\n``All squads, avoid Swan Lake and all neighboring sectors as of now and keep pushing through anyone who gets in our way. Lieutenant Clint, over and out.'' the gruff voice stated, his voice clicking off. Rose tossed the radio onto its dead owner, pulling out the clip of the sniper rifle to see how many rounds it still had. Seeing it was short a few she took a moment to fill it, not leaving anything to chance should she need every bullet inside. The magazine slid back in place almost seamlessly, an immensely satisfying feeling for the dragon as she swapped the sniper for her pipe rifle.\n\nMagellan stood atop an overturned trailer, still attached to its truck, and watched the street while his master was busy with the sniper's corpse. The stench of fire, death, and smoke masked any chance of catching a scent in the battlefield. Rose stood up, catching his attention as she looked down the road for a moment.\n\n``We're going to Swan Lake for that power armor, but if things go even a bit south we ditch it, bolt home, and stay out of town for a couple days, maybe even a week. Got it?'' Rose stated seriously, not a hint of the usual smugness she usually had. Magellan nodded, staying invisible as the dragon began to tread down the ruined street and further into the war-scarred city. She took the lead as they stalked down a back alley along a wall, the nightstalker close behind. The alley wasn't occupied by any bodies, but that made it all the more dangerous considering the booby trap they'd found on the bridge alone.\n\nSure enough, Rose stopped short a few feet from a particularly high wall of rubble, noticing a thin black wire stemming the width of the alley above a thin layer of black trash bags, so poorly hidden she didn't even have to try to see it. She was about to bend down and cut the cord with her claw when she realised what ploy the maker had intended. It was meant to be obvoius.\n\nShe smirked, pushing Magellan back as she backpedalled, grabbing a brick to employ her flawless defusing skills yet again. This time she side armed the brick at the wall of rubble she had stopped by initially, the old lock shattering on the rickety pile of bricks. It didn't knock over the pile itself, but did shake it enough to let a few more bricks tumble down and snowball a decent amount onto the wire.\n\nA muffled click sounded as Rose ducked over Magellan, shielding both him and the back of her head with her hands as whatever trap beneath the bricks detonated, showering her in a hail of brick shards. She whipped around as the last of the heavy chunks bounced off her armored shoulders, waiting for someone to come looking to see if their trap was effective. But nobody came, and the two moved forward to the next street, yet again without any further disturbances or sightings. The gunfire was getting louder as they sneaked through a building, heading slightly off from the stadium-turned-city that by what the ``Clint'' fellow had stated, seemed to be under attack. More and more bodies littered the buildings and roads, a few more gunner corpses accompanying the droves of raiders and the occasional super mutant Rose was beginning to see.\n\nTurn a corner, the dragoness almost bumped into the back of a Gunner, hunched over a large crate with his rifle pointed squarely down the street. He began to whip around to face her when she slammed him in the side of the helmet with her rifle, stunning him momentarily as it bounced off the concrete wall next to him. He was open long enough for the dragon to let go of her rifle and wrench her claws into his neck violently, yanking forward and tearing through his flesh like paper, filling his throat with his own blood before he could even scream. The man fell forward onto his crate, spilling blood from the wide trench she had dug into the side of his neck, yet Rose made sure to twist his neck to ensure he wouldn't get any dying shots off to repay her.\n\nShe grabbed the assault rifle from his tightly-gripped hands, the metal matted with blood along with the wooden stock, splintered and seemingly poised to snap in half at any moment. She looked down the road, scared of what had the man so tunnel visioned down the road that he was completely alone and so easy to kill. As if to answer her fear, a guttural scream resonated through the smoke-laden air, shaking Rose to her core as the demonic noise froze her blood ice cold. The scream clearly wasn't out of pain or anguish, but rather that of a war cry, one from something inhuman and almost definitely feral in nature. Those characteristics checked off every one that belonged to a super mutant, making her even more uneasy about her original plan.\n\nSeveral loud explosions and burst of loud gunfire resounded at most a couple blocks away, followed by the screams of humans as both noises prior ceased entirely. Rose took out the assault rifle's magazine to check how many rounds the man was sporting, and was taken aback when she saw it was completely empty. She unchambered the gun to see it too was lacking in firepower, eroding her confidence even more that the man may have been shell shocked as well. She tossed the rifle onto its owner angrily and grabbed her own weapon, motioning for Magellan to follow as she and him continued to tread towards an unknown danger that struck fear into even battle-hardened soldiers like the Gunners. The nightstalker was having trouble even following her however, shivering at the screams that were far too familiar to him as fear started to root in his mind. Rose noticed his invisibility begin to flicker, a sight she knew only happened when he began to have one of his panic attacks, and ducked behind a wall of sandbags.\n\nMagellan moved to her, confused as his eyes darted around frightfully, his breathing funny and uneven. She grabbed his shimmering head gently, eyes locking with his as she felt the tremors rolling throughout his body.\n\n``It's okay, I'm here buddy.'' She whispered, soothing him as best she could with her voice.''Need a shot to calm down?'' she asked, letting go of his head for him to answer with a weak nod. She whispered ``Okay'' as she took off her pack and dug her hand inside, fingers sliding across the inner lining until she found where a few metal syringes were hidden in every one of her packs at all times. Inside was a serum she got made back when she first found the nightstalker that calmed him down during scenarios exactly like this one.\n\n``Relax bud, I've got you.'' She soothed, pulling out the syringe and pulling off the protective cap. Magellan swallowed and did as he was told, feeling the pointed tip gently poke at a specific spot near the base of his neck. He shut his eyes, breathing still shaky as he did his best to ignore the needle as it slowly slid into him. The dragon pushed down on the plunger slowly, rubbing his head as the liquid disappeared into him. His tremors slowed down along with his breathing, letting Rose pull the needle out gently out and slide the cap back on and put it back where she found it.\n\n``How do you feel?'' She asked softly, getting a gentle, still somewhat wavered hiss in reply from the hybrid. ``Good, cause things aren't gonna get any easier.'' Rose stated extremely quietly, the crunch of boots beyond the sandbag catching both their attention as she slipped on her back and grabbed her rifle. Taking a breath, Rose lifted the rifle over the sandbags and fired wildly, hearing a gruff voice yell loudly as metal clanged and some of the bullets connected.\n\nMagellan bunched his legs as Rose pulled back her rifle, the barrel still smoking when a second voice shouted at her.\n\n``Give up!'' He yelled, but the first voice didn't say even a peep. Magellan leapt over the sandbags as he faded from visibility with his venomous fangs poised to delve into the man's flesh. A terrified Gunner clutching a pistol in one hand and a bullet wound in his left side with the other barely got a shot at pointing his gun at the animal, Magellan's teeth sinking into his face as he was taken down to the ground. Rose took a moment to reload her magazine while Magellan brutally took care of the gunner, having unloaded all she had with the blindfire.\n\nOnce the Gunner stopped making noises she stood up and surveyed the area. The one she had peppered with bullets sat in a quickly growing pool of his own blood, his metal chest piece riddled with holes that ran up to his equally open face. That simple fact was rather important to her because of how tough the Gunners' gear usually was, and shouldn't have buckled so easy to her frankly weaker gun. Another quick look showed the man was sporting a broken arm and numerous bruises, his chest plate cracked and crumpled near the center as if someone had punched it with a sledgehammer for a good hour. They hadn't snuck up on Rose and Magellan at all, they actually looked like they were running from something.\n\nEvery corner kept offering another reason to turn back, to simply play it safe and let everything blow over, yet against every bit of experience Rose had, she held her breath and peaked around the corner of the building to see just what the Gunners were so afraid of. Her eyes went wide as she looked at a a warzone unlike any of the others, nor any she had ever laid her eyes on. The city block was taken up entirely by a uneven park with a sludgy black pond occupying most of the space near the center, the entire grassy land surrounded by a rusty black metal fence.\n\nAt least, it looked like it was surrounded by the fence at one point. Every building facing the park, save the one Rose was peeking behind, were gutted like a fish, their fronts crumbling and falling apart to expose the equally destroyed floors within. Cars and once erected barricades sat crumpled flat on ground like tin cans. Bodies strewn about the ground wildly, indistinguishable from one another as any difference between them seemed had been crushed to a fine paste of flesh and mangled metal however long ago.\n\nBut standing alone amidst the wanton destruction and carnage was a person clad in power armor, which glued Rose's eyes to the ever familiar metal lattice that was exposed on the unarmored right arm, the smooth yet rugged look of the thick armored segments, and the heavy boots that remained sturdily planted on the broken ground from the suit's sheer weight alone. It was a nearly complete suit of power armor, just standing out in the middle of the chaos, a delectable fruit just begging for Rose's hands to pluck.\n\nThe suit was occupied, but given its stillness and somewhat slumped stance that Tessa wasn't going to be even lifting a finger anymore. Several other corpses laid strewn about around the armor, likely Gunners who tried to defend it when the fusion core had doomed its pilot where she stood. No movement caught either Rose's or Magellan's attention, even when they stayed where they were for what felt like an eternity to the former. The screaming and bellowing of the monster was silent now, letting the dragon breath easier knowing it had decimated the Gunners for a good while before finally dying.\n\nShe and Magellan crept along the rubble-coated sidewalk, taking extra care to avoid the long sightlines the other side of the block offered over the wide expanse of coverless ground by ducking under whatever they could reach. Eventually they stopped at the entrance to another alley, the power armor just across from them and well within Rose's reach. But before that, she turned to look Magellan in the eyes sternly.\n\n``Stay back as far as you can and run home at any sign of danger, got it?'' She stated, knowing his answer would argue against the command. Magellan began to do just that with a sharp hiss and a shake of his head while she slung her rifle onto her back and reached into her pack to pull out a power core she was saving for just such an opportunity. She took several fast breaths to get her heart pumping before she turned and bolted into the street, leaping over piles of broken bricks and mangled bodies in a B-line for the power armor. As if to strike fear right back into her heart as she ran, Rose heard the monstrous bellow of the beast that was rampaging somewhere nearby, the ground shaking with what felt and sounded like... stomping.\n\nNo bullets came her way as she rolled the power core onto the ground beside the armor, hands clutching the metal valve on the back and beginning to twist it, grunting as the valve's safety mechanism fought against her brute strength. It eventually gave in with a loud hiss as the suit's pressure was released, dispensing a bullet riddled corpse of a female human onto the ground as the back opened up like a cocoon of metal. Rose made a fist and punched the inner side of the valve, the center occupied by the faulty fusion core she wasn't going to take any chances whatsoever with. It popped out with a hiss as the locking pegs caved with her blow, an arc of sparks streaking from it as it was taken out far too quickly.\n\nThe dragoness shucked her gear quickly, already far too exposed out in the street as she bent down and scooped up the functioning fusion core. She reached up to slide the working core into its slot, twisting the lock at the top once it was snug in place. Before she climbed in, Rose pulled off the helmet and set it in her backpack for the time being, knowing just how little of her head would even fit in the human-shaped hunk of metal. Hoping into the suit, her hands clutched the inner gauntlet that controlled the arms and squeezed it to activate the the powered armor to close around her. A series of pops signalled the sealing the armor, the stomping and bellowing getting louder and louder as Rose did a few quick diagnosis of how well the suit was working with a few exercises of the suit's joints.\n\nThe unarmored arm was of great concern to Rose, but she scooped up her pack and slung it on her back with little time to care, grabbing her sniper and pipe rifle and stowing the former while she aimed the latter down the road. Whatever was coming back to the lake was going to learn just who they were messing with, and just what the armor was capable of in the dragon's hands. A truck, roof crushed flat and missing several chunks of its frame, flew into view from around the far street, bouncing like some sort of toy across the ground until it screeched to a halt beside another equally destroyed vehicle.\n\nTwo Gunners scrambled into view a moment after, firing their rifles behind them frantically when, of all things, an anchor splattered with blood slammed down on one of the fleeing humans, the woman disappearing with a disgusting splat and a spray of her blood in every direction. The anchor was held by a clenched hand the size of a boulder, the skin tinted a mottled green that rippled with darker colored veins and rippling muscles that flexed to lift the gigantic club off the ground. A bellow rang out once again as the owner of the hand stepped forward, the absolute behemoth towering at least two stories high and had the same ugly green skin and inhuman muscles. It was a super mutant behemoth, a mythological horror story feared by anyone and everyone come to life. The behemoth was covered in frayed ropes and nets, tying several broken pieces of a swan boat to the left side of its body like makeshift armor, a tire tied to its back alongside the broken head of the boat. A rusty, bullet riddled metal boat was gripped in its left hand, covering most of its tree trunk thick arm as it gripped the inner bar of the boat.\n\nThe mutant brought the boat to its face as the remaining Gunner turned around completely and began to spray at the monster wildly, letting the makeshift shield take the burnt of the damage as the rounds skipped off the bottom or merely dented the hardened metal. The behemoth screamed loudly as it kicked an overturned car towards the desperate human, giving him enough time to throw up his hands and yell as the car crushed him under its weight. The beast bellowed in victory, slamming its anchor on the ground several times and jarring Rose inside the power armor as the asphalt shattered under his titanic blows.\n\nHer heart froze as she stared at the powerhouse of a being ahead of her, total fear tearing her apart as she failed to move even one of her muscles. Regret rooted alongside her well-justified terror, knowing she shouldn't have been so short sighted to go for the power armor, let alone go in-city with such a hellish shitshow tore it to pieces. Her eyes darted around, trying to find someway she could distract the monster, leaving the chance of killing it outright ranging in the negatives. As if the gods above were daring her to reconsider, the dragon's eyes latched onto a dead Gunner laying face down not even a couple inches from her, one she had completely missed given he was the only one in any monacure of cover in the form of a broken car door.\n\nBut in his hands was the keys to the kingdom, fingers still clutched around the handle of none other than a Fat Man. A mini-nuke was even slotted and primed to fire in the open ended launching mechanism, she needed only to aim it where she wanted and pull the trigger. Rose grimaced as the behemoth turned to looked in her direction, his feet cracking the already destroyed street further as he turned to face her. But more importantly, the dragon's gaze lifted to catch the invisible form of Magellan, standing exactly where she had left him. The sight of him forced her to realise just what was at stake here, which went far beyond her own life. She wasn't allowed to do, she wouldn't leave him alone now, nor ever.\n\nShe gritted her teeth as she wrestled control of herself, the grip on her rifle tightening as she prepared herself for what would no doubt be a hellish battle. The behemoth, seemingly sensing her composure returning, smiled with his peeled back lips as he began to walk towards her, his pace picking up in his massive stride as if looking forward to their exchange.\n\nPower armor provided added strength to the wearer with its powered movements and extremely strong support, that all Rose knew, but she also knew just how agile and mobile she could be with that strength, especially if she leveraged it properly. She snapped up her rifle faster than ever before, firing round after round at the monster's smug looking face, his boat coming up to deflect the rounds as he broke into a charge. Now that he was blocking his vision, Rose dove to the side, tucking and rolling and let go of her rifle to scoop up the Fatman in a fluid motion. She planted her boots down hard when she cleared the behemoth's blind charge, crushing a pile of rubber underneath her boot and magnified weight. Her metal gauntlets held both grips of the weapon tight as the behemoth's spring sent him right past her, wide open as Rose began to backpedal and raise the iron sight of the launcher for her to look through.\n\nThis time it was the dragon's turn to give a loud battle cry, the super mutant to lower his shield and lift his anchor when he realised his opponent wasn't blindly running away it in total fear. The mutant turned in what felt like slow motion to Rose, the view from the sight nothing but the ugly skin of the monster as she pulled the trigger.\n\nA loud whistling echoed out as the Fatman launched the mini-nuke out at a breakneck speed into the air, the recoil alone cracking the broken bricks underneath Rose's armored boots even more as the armor took the brunt of it. The behemoth bellowed with rage, his boat coming up far too slowly as the sailing bomb landed square in his chest and detonated. The armored dragon had enough time to shield her eyes and strengthen her stance as an explosion unlike any other billowed out from the football sized shell, a blinding orange fireball scattering in all directions before mushrooming out.\n\nThe boom coupled with the shockwave from the blast nearly knocked Rose to the ground even with the mighty support of the powered frame, her ears ringing as she dropped the spent Fatman onto the ground and watched the smoke rise into the air, waving heat carrying it up to join the smoke columns already above. The immense relief she felt came short as a roar rang out and an anchor swung out from the smoke cloud at her. She brought her hands up to shield her head from being turned into a pancake as the swing slammed into her side, a searing pain stretching across her as she was sent careening across the street, bouncing over rubble until she was embedded left-side-first into a somewhat intact building's wall, sinking into the shattered concrete and coughing up a handful of blood onto her suit. The armor did its best to take most of the damage, but given it wasn't meant to take hits that hard by anything remotely like a behemoth, Rose could still feel some of her ribs had been broken, the pain manageably only because the armor had already injected a stimpack into her to stave off the agony, but how much it had on reserves wasn't something she could rely on for long.\n\nSomehow the beast had withstood the blast at point blank range, but not without several chunks of flesh missing from his chest and jaw, along with the complete loss of his left hand, his boat shield, and a hefty amount of his forearm, which now ended in a half-charred stump that spewed fresh blood onto the already caked ground. Rose brought her unarmored hand to her face as she coughed heavily again, staining the metal lattice red with her blood as she planted it against the wall and tried to pull herself out, failing handily. The mutant roared triumphantly as he broke into a sprint towards her, flecking his blood everywhere as he didn't seem the least bit phased by the missing parts of itself.\n\nRose pushed against the wall with everything she had, managing to break the wall in half rather than pull herself out as she scrambled to the side with just as much gusto and narrowly dodged a wild swing from her monstrous opponent's anchor as he sprinted head on into the building. Given a chance, rose began to limp back towards the Fatman, hoping beyond all reason that the corpse she had taken it from was holding a spare reload on him. She stumbled as her chest screamed out with the inevitable agony she feared, coughing up more blood from her now rose-red lips, clutching her side as she kept running.\n\nStill and unmoving, Magellan watched his badly wounded master sprint with what strength she could push with, the serum's effects almost non-existent on him as he stood like a statue in his invisible state. And how could it be any bit effective in such a scenario as this one? The nightstalker and his master were fighting a being far beyond anything they had ever handled before, and MAgellan was completely useless in any way.\n\nWhat could he do against a monster of that size? His bite would only end with his brutal death, he couldn't handle any guns, and any attempt to help his master would likely only hinder her. He wasn't nearly as smart as her, he was simply a beast of two creatures with no way of saving the only person he loved. But he had to do something, there had to be some way he could do to aid he-\n\nAn arc of electricity caught his attention, a streak of blue amidst the cascading red and black of fire and death. His eyes darted to look at the fusion core Rose had discarded earlier. Speaking of, the dragon sprinted past Magellan's hiding spot and stumbled down to the body of the Fatman's former owner, bloody hands rummaging through his pockets for another mini-nuke that would save her. A agonizingly loud crash came as the behemoth sprinted out of the building he'd crashed into, gutting it further as the last of the support buckled and snapped, sending a billowing wave of dust outwards as the building crumbled in on itself.\n\nTurning to the rampaging monster heading her way, Rose scrambled to her feet and began to run away, still clutching her side as she also broke into a pained sprint. Magella noticed though that as his master was running that her bag had been badly torn, a dark green cylinder slipping out a ragged hole and bouncing a couple times to land almost next to the fusion core. The oversized super mutant swung his anchor at the fleeing dragon, splitting a crushed car in half with the force of his blow alone as he missed her by little more than an inch. Magellan waited for both of them to pass before he darted towards the plasma grenade, eying both it and sparking fusion core with scrutiny.\n\nHe didn't know a thing about how either of them operated, but based on the caution Rose took in placing the grenade in her bag, he hoped it would at the very least be easy enough for him to trigger, to say nothing about whether it would be strong enough to take down the behemoth. The idea spurred from a memory of him and Rose's first encounter with a power armor wearing bandit, one who had managed to get through his master's turrets back when there were only two around the station. She had ordered him to get the raider's attention and turn him around so she could shoot the fusion core in his back, stating she would explain later.\n\nHis part of the job was absurdly easy, the human practically brainless when the nightstalker rattled his tail and hissed loudly, only a few seconds going by where the raider began to turn around when Rose shot him and he exploded into shreds of metal and fleshy bits. After salvaging what she could, Rose explained how volatile fusion cores were if exposed to quote: ``A shit ton of heat too quickly or punctured with a bullet''. The second option wasn't going to be doable for the hybrid, given his inability to properly aim let alone fire a gun, but triggering a grenade on the other hand was something even he could manage.\n\nMagellan uncloaked and jumped up several times, trying to get Rose's attention as she raced down the rubble littered street and over destroyed cars just to stay even slightly ahead of the monster's mad swings behind her. Failing to do so, The nightstalker was frozen for a moment as he choked down his fear before he began to chase after the flailing behemoth with all the strength and speed of his legs he could muster.\n\nRose dove forward to avoid a fatal blow from the super mutant, the agony in her side making it impossible to breath as she tumbled to the ground. Her ears pounded with her heart, the behemoth's screams, and... rattling? She looked back in terror as she saw Magellan dashing towards the mutant from behind, the stabbing pain in her chest barring her from screaming for him to run home, to save himself at the very least. But she could only watch as the hybrid bounced off a ruined car and leapt onto the behemoth's exposed back, teeth and claws digging in as he tore at the tough flesh.\n\nThe super mutant, who was hiking up his anchor to paint Rose across the ground like red paint, howled with anger and reached back with his stump to whack at the scaly dog on him. Magellan released the disgusting chunk of flesh he was tearing up before the blow could hit, hitting the ground and immediately bolting back towards the trap he was going to have to spring on his own. The monster took the bait and seemed to forget about the downed dragon before him, turning about and beginning to chase after the animal.\n\nMagellan dodged each of the mutant's wild swings with ease, bounding over rubble and bouncing off of upturned cars. It had strength and size on its side, but not intelligence nor speed, which gave the utterly terrified nightstalker plenty of avenues of escape from its swings. Knowing he still hadn't figured out how to trigger the grenade and would need time to do so, he darted across the park and leapt over the pond in a single jump, putting a great deal fo distance between him and the pursuing beast. The behemoth followed after him thoughtlessly, perhaps thinking the pond was solid ground as it stepped in and sunk up to his waist and fell forward into the muck, howling angrily as he fell.\n\nHe finished his sprint to the fusion core and the grenade, staring at the latter wildly for a pin, button, or anything at all he need to push or pull to trigger it. Finding none of the above, he bit the grenade angrily to just try everything at once, the three green pags at the top pressing against the roof of his mouth and making a click as they began to glow. Magellan spat out the grande as close to the core as he could, seeing the sludge covered behemoth had already risen from the pond and was hauling ass towards him. He turned the opposite direction and did the same, terror pulling down his mind as his spliced instincts worked his legs for him, getting a good few feet before the behemoth stomped on both the fusion core and the plasma grenade, which apparently was a perfect storm to trigger the latter almost immediately.\n\nRose was injecting herself with a stimpack when an explosion almost identical to the mini-nuked shook her violently, rushing her to squeeze the plunger and numb the agony enough so she could stand. The red fluid poured into her system, dumbing the agony down so she could force herself to her feet. The armor made it a challenge in some ways, but she hardly cared about how hard any of it felt or was right then, her mind locked on the explosion she had both felt and heard a moment ago.\n\nStaggering to her feet, Rose turned towards where she had dropped the Fatman, and saw only a smoking crater where it once sat. The behemoth was on the ground, the front of its body burned black, both of its legs completely missing and pouring blood onto the ruined and uneven ground beneath. But she didn't see Magellan. Distressed, she stumbled towards the massive crater with wide eyes that looked in every direction frantically, her cracked voice taking over the sudden silence as she called out for him.\n\n``Magellan! Where are you buddy?'' She shouted with a choked throat, fearing the worst as she stood at the edge of the smoldering crater. ``Magellan this isn't funny!'' She shouted again, tears beginning to well in her eyes. A gentle rattling came from the alley past the crater, sending Rose frantically dashing towards it without even a glance to see if the behemoth was still alive. She scrambled over the burnt debris of the destroyed buildings into the alley, relief flooding her chest to wash the pain away for at least a few minutes.\n\n``Why the hell were you letting me worry Ma-'' She began to berate, only to stop as the last pile of rubble no longer obstructed her view of the nightstalker. Her companion sat on his side in a growing pool of his own blood, a jagged peg of rebar jutting from his chest, both of his hind legs burnt into blackened stumps that didn't even bleed. Rose's heart caught in her throat as she stared in disbelief, taking another step as the power armor began to resist her movements, the power core inside her back finally dying. She screamed mournfully as she popped the suit open with a button in one of the gauntlets, jumping out of it with no care as she scrambled over to her impaled friend.\n\n``Not like this Magellan!'' She shouted, falling to her knees beside him. ``Why don't you listen to what I tell you?'' She continued to wail, tears leaking down her blood-matted face. Her hands shook violently as they hovered over her dearest friend, her only friend. She began to try and figure out what to do to save him when Magellan hissed weakly, his eyes fluttering open to look at her.\n\n``Y-you'll be alright, I've g-got pl-plenty of supplies to save you!'' She stuttered with a face smile, turning to begin going back for her bag. Magellan rattled his tail again, far weaker this time as his strength faded fast. ``Nonono, save your strength.'' Rose begged, turning back around and stared down at the bloody pool he laid in. She broke down then and there, clutching the poor animal's head and looking into his yellow eyes with sorrow. She knew none of it would work, nothing she had could save him.\n\n``Please stay, I can't do this without you. I- it just isn?t fair.'' She whispered quietly, seeing his eyelids flutter as they struggled to stay open. The agony returned to Rose, yet she didn't feel any of it, only emptiness as she held her cherished companion to his last minutes... or so she thought.\n\nOut of nowhere a bright blue beam of wavy light shot from inside the alley, lighting up both Rose and Magellan in its glow as two figures stepped out from the light, sparks arcing off them as the beam faded. The dragon looked up, her hand going to her revolver as she prepared to defend the nightstalker to her dying breath. Both people were humans, one wearing a lab coat with a greying beard with a pale, almost ghostly complexion. The other was clean shaven and of a fairer tone than his other, dressed in a black overcoat, sunglasses, and held what looked to be a laser rifle painted a bright white.\n\n``Do not move, or you shall be killed.'' The second humans stated loudly in an almost monotone voice, his rifle lifting slightly as if to further threaten her.\n\n``Try it.'' Rose sneered back, voice still cracked and choked as she looked down at Magellan, who's eyes hadn't left her.\n\n``Stand down, both of you! We didn't come here just to have a shootout.'' The first human shouted, putting his arm over the other's chest and pushing his rifle down.\n\n``Very well, sir.'' The second replied, still completely without emotion or any hint of... anything behind his voice. Rose growled as the human stepped forward, his hands coming up in surrender as he stopped.\n\n``I just want to help your friend, Rose.'' He stated, a sucker punch that dropped Rose's guar down completely, tears still running down her face as his words embedded into her. Help him? ``We can save it, but it will not be easy, and it won't be free. In exchange, I ask for your assistance afterwards.'' The human stated, taking a cautious step towards her.\n\n``What are you talking about?'' Rose asked, her thoughts going directly to the boogeymen of the Commonwealth: The Institute.\n\n``Your companion will not last long enough with those wounds for me to explain, you must choose now.'' The man stated, truly giving the dragon no other choice in the matter.\n\n``F-fine... what do I need to do?'' Rose answered in defeat. Magellan hissed at her, his voice almost nonexistent as his vision swayed and blurred.\n\n``I will explain at a later time, first we must get you both back somewhere safe.'' the first human stated, motioning to the other as he walked up to her and the speared hybrid.\n\n``Remain still.'' The second human stated, joining his partner as they walked up to her. Given she had already accepted the terms, Rose complied without question, still holding Magellan's head in her hands as the same beam of light cascaded around them.\n\n``Someone will be around to collect your things as well, rest assured.'' The first man stated before a flash of light enveloped them all, the once occupied alley now empty as the four of them disappeared without a trace. Rose felt she was being disassembled atom by atom, her whole being stretching out until it all came crashing back together, leaving her panting for breath with nausea as her eyes had trouble coming into focus.\n\nShe was staring down at a studded grey floor that shined with white light, her eyes coming up to see she, Magellan, and the two humans were inside what looked to be an infirmary set a couple thousand years in the future. Clean white tables were spaced out evenly in the sleek, futuristic room. Walls, ceiling, and floor alike transitioned from one to the other seamlessly, light pouring in from the first two from slits that casted a pale glow on every glossy smooth surface, leaving only the underside of the tables to be cast in faint shadows.\n\nSeveral humans wearing dust masks and clean white lab coats turned to look at the sudden newcomers in their workspace, some setting their clipboards onto tables set against the white walls and pulled out latex blue gloves to put on. Rose glanced around, noticing behind her a window spanned the length of one wall, two doors on the corner of the walls next to its end leading to balconies. Outside, a helix spun slowly in the center of what looked like an atrium, Rose's eyes gleaming a few others moving about on balconies or beyond windows outside.\n\n``I am Mike Turner, lead doctor of the medical studies and research here.'' the first human stated, his hands in his pocket as he pulled out a gold stopwatch and popped it open.\n\n``Where are w-'' rose began, only to be stopped as she doubled over and coughed heavily, blood spilling from her lips as drawing a breath became overwhelmingly difficult. Several of the glove-wearing scientists hurried over to the four, grabbing Rose gently and pulling her over to the closest table that they lifted and placed her on, doing the same for Magellan.\n\nHe felt a terrible cold and helplessness within him, barely even aware of the pain that had been pouring into him like icy cold fire. He couldn't even cry as the white figures lifted him onto something cold, his vision jarring as he tried to see where his master was. He could hear Rose gasping in pain, the noise far off yet so prominent in his ears, but he couldn't move a single muscle or make any noise to ease her worries.\n\nRose held the edge of the table with a death grip, the strong metal slowly beginning to buckle under her inhuman grip as the doctors removed her suit, revealing her battered and misshapen chest that was coated in a fine layer of half-dried blood and sweat. Her teeth ground together as one of them slid a scalpel across her hide, btu she held it together by glueing her eyes on her companion across the way. The lights beyond the tables dimmed, the ones above brightening in turn as the doctors began their work. One injected Rose with a sedative of some kind, her eyelids heavy as her consciousness faded, offering a sweet reprieve from her pain.\n\nThe amount of effort it took to tend to both of their wounds was an interesting challenge for the doctors, who seldom got a chance to truly flex their skills. Rose was especially difficult given the sheer amount of bones she had pushed well beyond their limits, fracturing or breaking several thanks to the single hit she took from the anchor.\n\nMike refrained from working on either of them himself, instead overseeing the nightstalker the dragon was so fond of. His survival was the hinge to her cooperation, and the human did have a pinch of fondness for animals, although he didn't show or let it affect his work when critical. A doctor applied the same narcotic Rose was given to Magellan, giving him the same reprieve from his torture.\n\nThe human who had accompanied Mike stood a good few feet away in a perfect straight posture, motionless as he awaited any further orders or perhaps even a dismissal.\n\n``Go and retrieve her equipment, as well as the suit of power armor just in case X9-27. She may have an attachment to it all.'' Mike stated to the synth, wanting it out of his ward while his teams were working.\n\n``As you command.'' X9 stated, disappearing in a stream of bluish white light. Having the synth courser in the same room as him was always a creepy feeling, given how real yet inhuman all of them were. Mike looked back at the nightstalker, seeing the team had already begun working on his legs, the hole in his chest stitched up and ready to begin healing on its own...\n\nRose awoke violently, sittin up and gasping for breath, feeling as if she had just taken a lungful of water. She coughed with the sudden movement, pain lashing across her chest and limbs slowly. Rubbing her eyes, she looked to be a bedroom, the walls the same clean and polished white as the infirmary. The dragoness was laying in a bed, one that seemed to adjust to her shifting weight as it kept her sunk about an inch in the reactive foam. Off to her right, a door lead out of the otherwise empty and bland looking room, leaving her to look down at herself.\n\nA thin string tied around her neck loosely held a thin white patient gown over her body, a thin bra underneath keeping her breasts tucked under the paper garb. Lifting her arms was a struggle, which didn't come as a surprise as she saw they were covered in sets of metal braces that kept them from moving even an inch. A soft hiss to her left whipped her head around, where she saw that the wall beside her ebd actually had a decent sized cubby hole laid into it, a soft orange light casting a warm glow on a small bed laid into its center.\n\nLaying curled up in that bed was none other than Magellan himself, his scaly snout formed into a short smile as he looked up at his awake master. Rose didn't know what to say or think for a solid few seconds, her eyes catching the stitches in his side and even more so his bandaged hind legs, which were shorter stumps than before. She began to cry all over again, her braced arms painfully moving over to pull the hybrid into a hug. \n\nMagellan hid the pain she unintentionally gave him as she pulled him against her chest, knowing just how worried he had made her and how tore up it must have made her. He cherished her soft, loving embrace with all he could, the guilt inside him taking hold yet again after having put her through all this in the first place.\n\n``Don't ever do that again. If not for your sake, then for mine.'' she whispered, running a hand over his scaly head down to his softer furred back. Magellan hissed in agreement, licking a salty tear from her face as his pain subsided in the wake of their reunion. He pressed his head into her neck to return the loving affection pouring from her, a small token to begin repaying her for all the pain they had both experienced in such a short time. A knock came at the door, which slid into the wall beside it after a moment of silence, letting none other than Mike walk in.\n\n``Good morning Rose, I presume your feeling better since your sitting up a little early in your recovery?'' Mike asked with a smile, pulling in a wheeled chair behind him as he stepped in.\n\n``I've had worse.'' Rose quipped with a pained wince, petting Magellan's head despite her arms wining for her to stop. His scales felt smooth and cleaner than usual, gliding against hers rather nicely as he continued to rub against her touch.\n\nMike nodded. ``I would expect no less from someone who braves the dangers of the Commonwealth so well.'' He added, pulling the chair in front of him and sitting down, giving the ground a kick as he spun to face them.\n\n``Now, as you probably already guessed, I'm a member of the Institute, a group of scientists who want to make the world a safer place.'' He stated, Rose rolling her eyes at the statement.\n\n``The rest of the Commonwealth have a handful of stories that tell a different story.'' She retorted, once again getting a nod from the human. He was completely calm and collected, and that irritated her to no end, as if he was above such problems.\n\n``You may be right, but the brightest minds will never find a path to rebuilding that isn't bricked in sacrifice, it's just not possible. People fear what they don't understand too, especially in today's world.'' Mike added. This time it was Rose's turn to nod, knowing more than anyone about the second statement than she cared to recall. She sighed, hugging Magellan closer to her chest as she knew all of this had a price, one she was going to pay.\n\n``So, what's the price for saving Magellan's life?'' She finally asked, squeezing his head to her bosom protectively. The question made Mike smile and lean forward, clearly looking forward to the answer.\n\n``Tell me, what do you know about Deathclaws?''\n\nTo Be Continued...\n\n", "writing_bbcode_parsed": "To say the city of Boston was somewhat unfriendly was a complete understatement, given how nearly every building that wasn't Goodneighbor or Diamond City was a lawless battlefield where every faction or threat lurked around every dark, crumbling corner. But apparently today was a rather special day.

Rose sighed, gauging the city across the bridge she'd cleared out of raiders a day prior. There was almost nothing left of the checkpoint they had set up, what was salvageable pilfered or dragged off long ago, leaving only the bodies to rot in the glaring hot sun. Several of them had been stripped clean, making Rose cringe as she kept her eyes well away from their gross remains. Her greatest concern was the smattering of corpses that strewn the bridge, nearby buildings, cars, and on the street across the way. An unending exchange of gunfire echoed throughout the battle scarred ruins, some ending as so as another firefight broke out.

Parts of the road and nearby scenery were scarred with burns and bullet holes, potholes big enough for Rose to lay in breaking up the ground into massive chunks. Most of the corpses looked to be raiders, but a few bodies were dressed in drab green and sporting finer, more clean looking metal plates lining their bloody corpses and putting Rose extremely on edge. Gunner's stuck mostly to downtown Boston, but if they were moving further north, towards Diamond City, things could get messy for the Commonwealth as a whole.

The gunfire was seemingly beginning to fade into the distance, yet it was still as prominent as the sun was bright. Rose levelled her pipe rifle, Magellan stalking low to the ground beside her and kept his movements unnoticeable to even her. Gunner's were scarily well trained and more strongly equipped than two-bit raiders, directly in the two's way of their celebration and the bag of caps waiting for them. Normally the smattering of unlooted dead meant a field day of doing just that for the dragon, but today was clearly one she was going to have to travel light just to stay safe.

All that being said, Rose and Magellan trekked across the bridge as stealthily as able in broad daylight, hugging the array of debris that covered the decrepit road as they moved. Magellan rattled his tail, getting Rose to stop completely just before an overturned raider corpse. Giving it a wide berth, Rose peeked over the body and caught the faint red light of an active landmine she had almost walked over. Whoever was winning the fight, which so far was most definitely the Gunners, they were leaving surprises for anyone who might show up late to the party.

Lucky Rose had just the perfect solution to disarming any obvious mines along the way. She and the nightstalker took several steps back as she scooped up a hefty chunk of concrete and hurled it at the booby-trapped raider. It bounced off the dead man's face right onto the mine, tripping the mine to detonate. A loud explosion blew the air past Rose and her companion, the mine detonating with an astonishing amount of force that took a chunk of the bridge down with it, the raider it had been set beside nothing more than a fine red mist that rained down onto the dark, sludgy water below the bridge alongside a hail of rubble.

Rose whistled in surprise at the massive explosion, her eyes keeping themselves glued to the damaged buildings for anyone she might have woken up with the intricate and extremely skilled diffusing of their trap she had committed. Magellan's tail rattled again as his keen vision spotted movement in a half-destroyed section of a building. Rose saw what he had not a second later, her rifle coming up as a she saw a glimpse of something glinting in the shadows on the third floor.

She fired five times, the kick of the rifle barely felt by her as she brought the riffle back to its original position and fired again, making sure each shot was as close as possible at that distance. A hollow scream came free as a Gunner with two holes in his neck stumbled forward into the light, a sniper rifle limply clutched in his right hand as he brought his left his neck and fell forward, tumbling down the rubble onto the street with a sickening splat.

Rose waited for a second target or another warning from Magellan, yet neither occured after a minute of waiting with her rifle raised. Yea, if they had enough manpower to leave a sniper behind to cover their tracks, the Gunners were most definitely whatever shit show was going on in the city. She and Magellan crossed the bridge without anymore mines to stop them, pocketing a few nicer looking rounds as well as a grenade or two that might come in handy later.

Once they were off the bridge, Rose and Magellan made their way to the dead sniper, partially to see if he had anything on him to tell them the reason for the all out skirmish going on and to nab anything of value of the human. She slung her rifle as they approached the face-down corpse, scooping up his sniper from his dead hands and

Once they were off the bridge, Rose and Magellan sneaked up to the dead sniper she killed, the former slinging her rifle as she scooped up his sniper and pulled back the bolt. Inside was a bronze-colored bullet inside a bright yellow FMJ, the round bigger than her middle finger and seemingly in pristine condition. The rifle itself was scratched a bit, likely from the fall, but was also in just as good of a condition, complete with its own sling and, after a quick examination, a six round clip.

Considering the dead man a winning lottery ticket, Rose scavenged the rest of his for all he had, shucking her less sturdy shoulder guards and chest plate for his finer looking gear. He had a few stimpacks and even a plasma grenade, an absurdly rare find these days that she carefully set into a pouch on her pack. The chest piece didn't breath as easy on her as her former armor, but the added protection would make sure she wasn't going to be breathing through bullet holes.

As she was beginning to leave, a crackle of static got her to whip around, revolver raised in a swift, fluid motion. Seeing no target for her to blow away, she stepped back to the corpse, grabbing him by the shoulder and flipped him over. Under his shirt she found a walkie talkie, the source of the noise no doubt, and brought it up to her ear.

A gruff voice came into focus after she turned a knob on the side: ``Gamma squad, push towards Diamond City and provide support to Beta and Charlie! Theta squad, where the hell is Baker and Tessa?'' The male voice barked, laser fire in the background echoing behind him.

A second voice, this one disheveled and clearly much younger than the first, frantically answered the question: ``They got hit by sniper fire a minute ago, Tessa's fusion core malfunctioned and trapped her on the street!'' He shouted, Rose's eyes going wide at the mention of a fusion core. If they're talking about power armor, she could maybe steal a whole new suit in the chaos without that much trouble!

``Seven of us tried to defend her while Baker tried to fix it, but something came out of Swan Lake, something big!'' The man continued, a sudden crash in the background overpowering his voice. ``Oh god, it's coming agai-'' The Gunner began to shout, screams filling the channel until an explosion dissolved the transmission into static.

``All squads, avoid Swan Lake and all neighboring sectors as of now and keep pushing through anyone who gets in our way. Lieutenant Clint, over and out.'' the gruff voice stated, his voice clicking off. Rose tossed the radio onto its dead owner, pulling out the clip of the sniper rifle to see how many rounds it still had. Seeing it was short a few she took a moment to fill it, not leaving anything to chance should she need every bullet inside. The magazine slid back in place almost seamlessly, an immensely satisfying feeling for the dragon as she swapped the sniper for her pipe rifle.

Magellan stood atop an overturned trailer, still attached to its truck, and watched the street while his master was busy with the sniper's corpse. The stench of fire, death, and smoke masked any chance of catching a scent in the battlefield. Rose stood up, catching his attention as she looked down the road for a moment.

``We're going to Swan Lake for that power armor, but if things go even a bit south we ditch it, bolt home, and stay out of town for a couple days, maybe even a week. Got it?'' Rose stated seriously, not a hint of the usual smugness she usually had. Magellan nodded, staying invisible as the dragon began to tread down the ruined street and further into the war-scarred city. She took the lead as they stalked down a back alley along a wall, the nightstalker close behind. The alley wasn't occupied by any bodies, but that made it all the more dangerous considering the booby trap they'd found on the bridge alone.

Sure enough, Rose stopped short a few feet from a particularly high wall of rubble, noticing a thin black wire stemming the width of the alley above a thin layer of black trash bags, so poorly hidden she didn't even have to try to see it. She was about to bend down and cut the cord with her claw when she realised what ploy the maker had intended. It was meant to be obvoius.

She smirked, pushing Magellan back as she backpedalled, grabbing a brick to employ her flawless defusing skills yet again. This time she side armed the brick at the wall of rubble she had stopped by initially, the old lock shattering on the rickety pile of bricks. It didn't knock over the pile itself, but did shake it enough to let a few more bricks tumble down and snowball a decent amount onto the wire.

A muffled click sounded as Rose ducked over Magellan, shielding both him and the back of her head with her hands as whatever trap beneath the bricks detonated, showering her in a hail of brick shards. She whipped around as the last of the heavy chunks bounced off her armored shoulders, waiting for someone to come looking to see if their trap was effective. But nobody came, and the two moved forward to the next street, yet again without any further disturbances or sightings. The gunfire was getting louder as they sneaked through a building, heading slightly off from the stadium-turned-city that by what the ``Clint'' fellow had stated, seemed to be under attack. More and more bodies littered the buildings and roads, a few more gunner corpses accompanying the droves of raiders and the occasional super mutant Rose was beginning to see.

Turn a corner, the dragoness almost bumped into the back of a Gunner, hunched over a large crate with his rifle pointed squarely down the street. He began to whip around to face her when she slammed him in the side of the helmet with her rifle, stunning him momentarily as it bounced off the concrete wall next to him. He was open long enough for the dragon to let go of her rifle and wrench her claws into his neck violently, yanking forward and tearing through his flesh like paper, filling his throat with his own blood before he could even scream. The man fell forward onto his crate, spilling blood from the wide trench she had dug into the side of his neck, yet Rose made sure to twist his neck to ensure he wouldn't get any dying shots off to repay her.

She grabbed the assault rifle from his tightly-gripped hands, the metal matted with blood along with the wooden stock, splintered and seemingly poised to snap in half at any moment. She looked down the road, scared of what had the man so tunnel visioned down the road that he was completely alone and so easy to kill. As if to answer her fear, a guttural scream resonated through the smoke-laden air, shaking Rose to her core as the demonic noise froze her blood ice cold. The scream clearly wasn't out of pain or anguish, but rather that of a war cry, one from something inhuman and almost definitely feral in nature. Those characteristics checked off every one that belonged to a super mutant, making her even more uneasy about her original plan.

Several loud explosions and burst of loud gunfire resounded at most a couple blocks away, followed by the screams of humans as both noises prior ceased entirely. Rose took out the assault rifle's magazine to check how many rounds the man was sporting, and was taken aback when she saw it was completely empty. She unchambered the gun to see it too was lacking in firepower, eroding her confidence even more that the man may have been shell shocked as well. She tossed the rifle onto its owner angrily and grabbed her own weapon, motioning for Magellan to follow as she and him continued to tread towards an unknown danger that struck fear into even battle-hardened soldiers like the Gunners. The nightstalker was having trouble even following her however, shivering at the screams that were far too familiar to him as fear started to root in his mind. Rose noticed his invisibility begin to flicker, a sight she knew only happened when he began to have one of his panic attacks, and ducked behind a wall of sandbags.

Magellan moved to her, confused as his eyes darted around frightfully, his breathing funny and uneven. She grabbed his shimmering head gently, eyes locking with his as she felt the tremors rolling throughout his body.

``It's okay, I'm here buddy.'' She whispered, soothing him as best she could with her voice.''Need a shot to calm down?'' she asked, letting go of his head for him to answer with a weak nod. She whispered ``Okay'' as she took off her pack and dug her hand inside, fingers sliding across the inner lining until she found where a few metal syringes were hidden in every one of her packs at all times. Inside was a serum she got made back when she first found the nightstalker that calmed him down during scenarios exactly like this one.

``Relax bud, I've got you.'' She soothed, pulling out the syringe and pulling off the protective cap. Magellan swallowed and did as he was told, feeling the pointed tip gently poke at a specific spot near the base of his neck. He shut his eyes, breathing still shaky as he did his best to ignore the needle as it slowly slid into him. The dragon pushed down on the plunger slowly, rubbing his head as the liquid disappeared into him. His tremors slowed down along with his breathing, letting Rose pull the needle out gently out and slide the cap back on and put it back where she found it.

``How do you feel?'' She asked softly, getting a gentle, still somewhat wavered hiss in reply from the hybrid. ``Good, cause things aren't gonna get any easier.'' Rose stated extremely quietly, the crunch of boots beyond the sandbag catching both their attention as she slipped on her back and grabbed her rifle. Taking a breath, Rose lifted the rifle over the sandbags and fired wildly, hearing a gruff voice yell loudly as metal clanged and some of the bullets connected.

Magellan bunched his legs as Rose pulled back her rifle, the barrel still smoking when a second voice shouted at her.

``Give up!'' He yelled, but the first voice didn't say even a peep. Magellan leapt over the sandbags as he faded from visibility with his venomous fangs poised to delve into the man's flesh. A terrified Gunner clutching a pistol in one hand and a bullet wound in his left side with the other barely got a shot at pointing his gun at the animal, Magellan's teeth sinking into his face as he was taken down to the ground. Rose took a moment to reload her magazine while Magellan brutally took care of the gunner, having unloaded all she had with the blindfire.

Once the Gunner stopped making noises she stood up and surveyed the area. The one she had peppered with bullets sat in a quickly growing pool of his own blood, his metal chest piece riddled with holes that ran up to his equally open face. That simple fact was rather important to her because of how tough the Gunners' gear usually was, and shouldn't have buckled so easy to her frankly weaker gun. Another quick look showed the man was sporting a broken arm and numerous bruises, his chest plate cracked and crumpled near the center as if someone had punched it with a sledgehammer for a good hour. They hadn't snuck up on Rose and Magellan at all, they actually looked like they were running from something.

Every corner kept offering another reason to turn back, to simply play it safe and let everything blow over, yet against every bit of experience Rose had, she held her breath and peaked around the corner of the building to see just what the Gunners were so afraid of. Her eyes went wide as she looked at a a warzone unlike any of the others, nor any she had ever laid her eyes on. The city block was taken up entirely by a uneven park with a sludgy black pond occupying most of the space near the center, the entire grassy land surrounded by a rusty black metal fence.

At least, it looked like it was surrounded by the fence at one point. Every building facing the park, save the one Rose was peeking behind, were gutted like a fish, their fronts crumbling and falling apart to expose the equally destroyed floors within. Cars and once erected barricades sat crumpled flat on ground like tin cans. Bodies strewn about the ground wildly, indistinguishable from one another as any difference between them seemed had been crushed to a fine paste of flesh and mangled metal however long ago.

But standing alone amidst the wanton destruction and carnage was a person clad in power armor, which glued Rose's eyes to the ever familiar metal lattice that was exposed on the unarmored right arm, the smooth yet rugged look of the thick armored segments, and the heavy boots that remained sturdily planted on the broken ground from the suit's sheer weight alone. It was a nearly complete suit of power armor, just standing out in the middle of the chaos, a delectable fruit just begging for Rose's hands to pluck.

The suit was occupied, but given its stillness and somewhat slumped stance that Tessa wasn't going to be even lifting a finger anymore. Several other corpses laid strewn about around the armor, likely Gunners who tried to defend it when the fusion core had doomed its pilot where she stood. No movement caught either Rose's or Magellan's attention, even when they stayed where they were for what felt like an eternity to the former. The screaming and bellowing of the monster was silent now, letting the dragon breath easier knowing it had decimated the Gunners for a good while before finally dying.

She and Magellan crept along the rubble-coated sidewalk, taking extra care to avoid the long sightlines the other side of the block offered over the wide expanse of coverless ground by ducking under whatever they could reach. Eventually they stopped at the entrance to another alley, the power armor just across from them and well within Rose's reach. But before that, she turned to look Magellan in the eyes sternly.

``Stay back as far as you can and run home at any sign of danger, got it?'' She stated, knowing his answer would argue against the command. Magellan began to do just that with a sharp hiss and a shake of his head while she slung her rifle onto her back and reached into her pack to pull out a power core she was saving for just such an opportunity. She took several fast breaths to get her heart pumping before she turned and bolted into the street, leaping over piles of broken bricks and mangled bodies in a B-line for the power armor. As if to strike fear right back into her heart as she ran, Rose heard the monstrous bellow of the beast that was rampaging somewhere nearby, the ground shaking with what felt and sounded like... stomping.

No bullets came her way as she rolled the power core onto the ground beside the armor, hands clutching the metal valve on the back and beginning to twist it, grunting as the valve's safety mechanism fought against her brute strength. It eventually gave in with a loud hiss as the suit's pressure was released, dispensing a bullet riddled corpse of a female human onto the ground as the back opened up like a cocoon of metal. Rose made a fist and punched the inner side of the valve, the center occupied by the faulty fusion core she wasn't going to take any chances whatsoever with. It popped out with a hiss as the locking pegs caved with her blow, an arc of sparks streaking from it as it was taken out far too quickly.

The dragoness shucked her gear quickly, already far too exposed out in the street as she bent down and scooped up the functioning fusion core. She reached up to slide the working core into its slot, twisting the lock at the top once it was snug in place. Before she climbed in, Rose pulled off the helmet and set it in her backpack for the time being, knowing just how little of her head would even fit in the human-shaped hunk of metal. Hoping into the suit, her hands clutched the inner gauntlet that controlled the arms and squeezed it to activate the the powered armor to close around her. A series of pops signalled the sealing the armor, the stomping and bellowing getting louder and louder as Rose did a few quick diagnosis of how well the suit was working with a few exercises of the suit's joints.

The unarmored arm was of great concern to Rose, but she scooped up her pack and slung it on her back with little time to care, grabbing her sniper and pipe rifle and stowing the former while she aimed the latter down the road. Whatever was coming back to the lake was going to learn just who they were messing with, and just what the armor was capable of in the dragon's hands. A truck, roof crushed flat and missing several chunks of its frame, flew into view from around the far street, bouncing like some sort of toy across the ground until it screeched to a halt beside another equally destroyed vehicle.

Two Gunners scrambled into view a moment after, firing their rifles behind them frantically when, of all things, an anchor splattered with blood slammed down on one of the fleeing humans, the woman disappearing with a disgusting splat and a spray of her blood in every direction. The anchor was held by a clenched hand the size of a boulder, the skin tinted a mottled green that rippled with darker colored veins and rippling muscles that flexed to lift the gigantic club off the ground. A bellow rang out once again as the owner of the hand stepped forward, the absolute behemoth towering at least two stories high and had the same ugly green skin and inhuman muscles. It was a super mutant behemoth, a mythological horror story feared by anyone and everyone come to life. The behemoth was covered in frayed ropes and nets, tying several broken pieces of a swan boat to the left side of its body like makeshift armor, a tire tied to its back alongside the broken head of the boat. A rusty, bullet riddled metal boat was gripped in its left hand, covering most of its tree trunk thick arm as it gripped the inner bar of the boat.

The mutant brought the boat to its face as the remaining Gunner turned around completely and began to spray at the monster wildly, letting the makeshift shield take the burnt of the damage as the rounds skipped off the bottom or merely dented the hardened metal. The behemoth screamed loudly as it kicked an overturned car towards the desperate human, giving him enough time to throw up his hands and yell as the car crushed him under its weight. The beast bellowed in victory, slamming its anchor on the ground several times and jarring Rose inside the power armor as the asphalt shattered under his titanic blows.

Her heart froze as she stared at the powerhouse of a being ahead of her, total fear tearing her apart as she failed to move even one of her muscles. Regret rooted alongside her well-justified terror, knowing she shouldn't have been so short sighted to go for the power armor, let alone go in-city with such a hellish shitshow tore it to pieces. Her eyes darted around, trying to find someway she could distract the monster, leaving the chance of killing it outright ranging in the negatives. As if the gods above were daring her to reconsider, the dragon's eyes latched onto a dead Gunner laying face down not even a couple inches from her, one she had completely missed given he was the only one in any monacure of cover in the form of a broken car door.

But in his hands was the keys to the kingdom, fingers still clutched around the handle of none other than a Fat Man. A mini-nuke was even slotted and primed to fire in the open ended launching mechanism, she needed only to aim it where she wanted and pull the trigger. Rose grimaced as the behemoth turned to looked in her direction, his feet cracking the already destroyed street further as he turned to face her. But more importantly, the dragon's gaze lifted to catch the invisible form of Magellan, standing exactly where she had left him. The sight of him forced her to realise just what was at stake here, which went far beyond her own life. She wasn't allowed to do, she wouldn't leave him alone now, nor ever.

She gritted her teeth as she wrestled control of herself, the grip on her rifle tightening as she prepared herself for what would no doubt be a hellish battle. The behemoth, seemingly sensing her composure returning, smiled with his peeled back lips as he began to walk towards her, his pace picking up in his massive stride as if looking forward to their exchange.

Power armor provided added strength to the wearer with its powered movements and extremely strong support, that all Rose knew, but she also knew just how agile and mobile she could be with that strength, especially if she leveraged it properly. She snapped up her rifle faster than ever before, firing round after round at the monster's smug looking face, his boat coming up to deflect the rounds as he broke into a charge. Now that he was blocking his vision, Rose dove to the side, tucking and rolling and let go of her rifle to scoop up the Fatman in a fluid motion. She planted her boots down hard when she cleared the behemoth's blind charge, crushing a pile of rubber underneath her boot and magnified weight. Her metal gauntlets held both grips of the weapon tight as the behemoth's spring sent him right past her, wide open as Rose began to backpedal and raise the iron sight of the launcher for her to look through.

This time it was the dragon's turn to give a loud battle cry, the super mutant to lower his shield and lift his anchor when he realised his opponent wasn't blindly running away it in total fear. The mutant turned in what felt like slow motion to Rose, the view from the sight nothing but the ugly skin of the monster as she pulled the trigger.

A loud whistling echoed out as the Fatman launched the mini-nuke out at a breakneck speed into the air, the recoil alone cracking the broken bricks underneath Rose's armored boots even more as the armor took the brunt of it. The behemoth bellowed with rage, his boat coming up far too slowly as the sailing bomb landed square in his chest and detonated. The armored dragon had enough time to shield her eyes and strengthen her stance as an explosion unlike any other billowed out from the football sized shell, a blinding orange fireball scattering in all directions before mushrooming out.

The boom coupled with the shockwave from the blast nearly knocked Rose to the ground even with the mighty support of the powered frame, her ears ringing as she dropped the spent Fatman onto the ground and watched the smoke rise into the air, waving heat carrying it up to join the smoke columns already above. The immense relief she felt came short as a roar rang out and an anchor swung out from the smoke cloud at her. She brought her hands up to shield her head from being turned into a pancake as the swing slammed into her side, a searing pain stretching across her as she was sent careening across the street, bouncing over rubble until she was embedded left-side-first into a somewhat intact building's wall, sinking into the shattered concrete and coughing up a handful of blood onto her suit. The armor did its best to take most of the damage, but given it wasn't meant to take hits that hard by anything remotely like a behemoth, Rose could still feel some of her ribs had been broken, the pain manageably only because the armor had already injected a stimpack into her to stave off the agony, but how much it had on reserves wasn't something she could rely on for long.

Somehow the beast had withstood the blast at point blank range, but not without several chunks of flesh missing from his chest and jaw, along with the complete loss of his left hand, his boat shield, and a hefty amount of his forearm, which now ended in a half-charred stump that spewed fresh blood onto the already caked ground. Rose brought her unarmored hand to her face as she coughed heavily again, staining the metal lattice red with her blood as she planted it against the wall and tried to pull herself out, failing handily. The mutant roared triumphantly as he broke into a sprint towards her, flecking his blood everywhere as he didn't seem the least bit phased by the missing parts of itself.

Rose pushed against the wall with everything she had, managing to break the wall in half rather than pull herself out as she scrambled to the side with just as much gusto and narrowly dodged a wild swing from her monstrous opponent's anchor as he sprinted head on into the building. Given a chance, rose began to limp back towards the Fatman, hoping beyond all reason that the corpse she had taken it from was holding a spare reload on him. She stumbled as her chest screamed out with the inevitable agony she feared, coughing up more blood from her now rose-red lips, clutching her side as she kept running.

Still and unmoving, Magellan watched his badly wounded master sprint with what strength she could push with, the serum's effects almost non-existent on him as he stood like a statue in his invisible state. And how could it be any bit effective in such a scenario as this one? The nightstalker and his master were fighting a being far beyond anything they had ever handled before, and MAgellan was completely useless in any way.

What could he do against a monster of that size? His bite would only end with his brutal death, he couldn't handle any guns, and any attempt to help his master would likely only hinder her. He wasn't nearly as smart as her, he was simply a beast of two creatures with no way of saving the only person he loved. But he had to do something, there had to be some way he could do to aid he-

An arc of electricity caught his attention, a streak of blue amidst the cascading red and black of fire and death. His eyes darted to look at the fusion core Rose had discarded earlier. Speaking of, the dragon sprinted past Magellan's hiding spot and stumbled down to the body of the Fatman's former owner, bloody hands rummaging through his pockets for another mini-nuke that would save her. A agonizingly loud crash came as the behemoth sprinted out of the building he'd crashed into, gutting it further as the last of the support buckled and snapped, sending a billowing wave of dust outwards as the building crumbled in on itself.

Turning to the rampaging monster heading her way, Rose scrambled to her feet and began to run away, still clutching her side as she also broke into a pained sprint. Magella noticed though that as his master was running that her bag had been badly torn, a dark green cylinder  slipping out a ragged hole and bouncing a couple times to land almost next to the fusion core. The oversized super mutant swung his anchor at the fleeing dragon, splitting a crushed car in half with the force of his blow alone as he missed her by little more than an inch. Magellan waited for both of them to pass before he darted towards the plasma grenade, eying both it and sparking fusion core with scrutiny.

He didn't know a thing about how either of them operated, but based on the caution Rose took in placing the grenade in her bag, he hoped it would at the very least be easy enough for him to trigger, to say nothing about whether it would be strong enough to take down the behemoth. The idea spurred from a memory of him and Rose's first encounter with a power armor wearing bandit, one who had managed to get through his master's turrets back when there were only two around the station. She had ordered him to get the raider's attention and turn him around so she could shoot the fusion core in his back, stating she would explain later.

His part of the job was absurdly easy, the human practically brainless when the nightstalker rattled his tail and hissed loudly, only a few seconds going by where the raider began to turn around when Rose shot him and he exploded into shreds of metal and fleshy bits. After salvaging what she could, Rose explained how volatile fusion cores were if exposed to quote: ``A shit ton of heat too quickly or punctured with a bullet''. The second option wasn't going to be doable for the hybrid, given his inability to properly aim let alone fire a gun, but triggering a grenade on the other hand was something even he could manage.

Magellan uncloaked and jumped up several times, trying to get Rose's attention as she raced down the rubble littered street and over destroyed cars just to stay even slightly ahead of the monster's mad swings behind her. Failing to do so, The nightstalker was frozen for a moment as he choked down his fear before he began to chase after the flailing behemoth with all the strength and speed of his legs he could muster.

Rose dove forward to avoid a fatal blow from the super mutant, the agony in her side making it impossible to breath as she tumbled to the ground. Her ears pounded with her heart, the behemoth's screams, and... rattling? She looked back in terror as she saw Magellan dashing towards the mutant from behind, the stabbing pain in her chest barring her from screaming for him to run home, to save himself at the very least. But she could only watch as the hybrid bounced off a ruined car and leapt onto the behemoth's exposed back, teeth and claws digging in as he tore at the tough flesh.

The super mutant, who was hiking up his anchor to paint Rose across the ground like red paint, howled with anger and reached back with his stump to whack at the scaly dog on him. Magellan released the disgusting chunk of flesh he was tearing up before the blow could hit, hitting the ground and immediately bolting back towards the trap he was going to have to spring on his own. The monster took the bait and seemed to forget about the downed dragon before him, turning about and beginning to chase after the animal.

Magellan dodged each of the mutant's wild swings with ease, bounding over rubble and bouncing off of upturned cars. It had strength and size on its side, but not intelligence nor speed, which gave the utterly terrified nightstalker plenty of avenues of escape from its swings. Knowing he still hadn't figured out how to trigger the grenade and would need time to do so, he darted across the park and leapt over the pond in a single jump, putting a great deal fo distance between him and the pursuing beast. The behemoth followed after him thoughtlessly, perhaps thinking the pond was solid ground as it stepped in and sunk up to his waist and fell forward into the muck, howling angrily as he fell.

He finished his sprint to the fusion core and the grenade, staring at the latter wildly for a pin, button, or anything at all he need to push or pull to trigger it. Finding none of the above, he bit the grenade angrily to just try everything at once, the three green pags at the top pressing against the roof of his mouth and making a click as they began to glow. Magellan spat out the grande as close to the core as he could, seeing the sludge covered behemoth had already risen from the pond and was hauling ass towards him. He turned the opposite direction and did the same, terror pulling down his mind as his spliced instincts worked his legs for him, getting a good few feet before the behemoth stomped on both the fusion core and the plasma grenade, which apparently was a perfect storm to trigger the latter almost immediately.

Rose was injecting herself with a stimpack when an explosion almost identical to the mini-nuked shook her violently, rushing her to squeeze the plunger and numb the agony enough so she could stand. The red fluid poured into her system, dumbing the agony down so she could force herself to her feet. The armor made it a challenge in some ways, but she hardly cared about how hard any of it felt or was right then, her mind locked on the explosion she had both felt and heard a moment ago.

Staggering to her feet, Rose turned towards where she had dropped the Fatman, and saw only a smoking crater where it once sat. The behemoth was on the ground, the front of its body burned black, both of its legs completely missing and pouring blood onto the ruined and uneven ground beneath. But she didn't see Magellan. Distressed, she stumbled towards the massive crater with wide eyes that looked in every direction frantically, her cracked voice taking over the sudden silence as she called out for him.

``Magellan! Where are you buddy?'' She shouted with a choked throat, fearing the worst as she stood at the edge of the smoldering crater. ``Magellan this isn't funny!'' She shouted again, tears beginning to well in her eyes. A gentle rattling came from the alley past the crater, sending Rose frantically dashing towards it without even a glance to see if the behemoth was still alive. She scrambled over the burnt debris of the destroyed buildings into the alley, relief flooding her chest to wash the pain away for at least a few minutes.

``Why the hell were you letting me worry Ma-'' She began to berate, only to stop as the last pile of rubble no longer obstructed her view of the nightstalker. Her companion sat on his side in a  growing pool of his own blood, a jagged peg of rebar jutting from his chest, both of his hind legs burnt into blackened stumps that didn't even bleed. Rose's heart caught in her throat as she stared in disbelief, taking another step as the power armor began to resist her movements, the power core inside her back finally dying. She screamed mournfully as she popped the suit open with a button in one of the gauntlets, jumping out of it with no care as she scrambled over to her impaled friend.

``Not like this Magellan!'' She shouted, falling to her knees beside him. ``Why don't you listen to what I tell you?'' She continued to wail, tears leaking down her blood-matted face. Her hands shook violently as they hovered over her dearest friend, her only friend. She began to try and figure out what to do to save him when Magellan hissed weakly, his eyes fluttering open to look at her.

``Y-you'll be alright, I've g-got pl-plenty of supplies to save you!'' She stuttered with a face smile, turning to begin going back for her bag. Magellan rattled his tail again, far weaker this time as his strength faded fast. ``Nonono, save your strength.'' Rose begged, turning back around and stared down at the bloody pool he laid in. She broke down then and there, clutching the poor animal's head and looking into his yellow eyes with sorrow. She knew none of it would work, nothing she had could save him.

``Please stay, I can't do this without you. I- it just isn?t fair.'' She whispered quietly, seeing his eyelids flutter as they struggled to stay open. The agony returned to Rose, yet she didn't feel any of it, only emptiness as she held her cherished companion to his last minutes... or so she thought.

Out of nowhere a bright blue beam of wavy light shot from inside the alley, lighting up both Rose and Magellan in its glow as two figures stepped out from the light, sparks arcing off them as the beam faded. The dragon looked up, her hand going to her revolver as she prepared to defend the nightstalker to her dying breath. Both people were humans, one wearing a lab coat with a greying beard with a pale, almost ghostly complexion. The other was clean shaven and of a fairer tone than his other, dressed in a black overcoat, sunglasses, and held what looked to be a laser rifle painted a bright white.

``Do not move, or you shall be killed.'' The second humans stated loudly in an almost monotone voice, his rifle lifting slightly as if to further threaten her.

``Try it.'' Rose sneered back, voice still cracked and choked as she looked down at Magellan, who's eyes hadn't left her.

``Stand down, both of you! We didn't come here just to have a shootout.'' The first human shouted, putting his arm over the other's chest and pushing his rifle down.

``Very well, sir.'' The second replied, still completely without emotion or any hint of... anything behind his voice. Rose growled as the human stepped forward, his hands coming up in surrender as he stopped.

``I just want to help your friend, Rose.'' He stated, a sucker punch that dropped Rose's guar down completely, tears still running down her face as his words embedded into her. Help him? ``We can save it, but it will not be easy, and it won't be free. In exchange, I ask for your assistance afterwards.'' The human stated, taking a cautious step towards her.

``What are you talking about?'' Rose asked, her thoughts going directly to the boogeymen of the Commonwealth: The Institute.

``Your companion will not last long enough with those wounds for me to explain, you must choose now.'' The man stated, truly giving the dragon no other choice in the matter.

``F-fine... what do I need to do?'' Rose answered in defeat. Magellan hissed at her, his voice almost nonexistent as his vision swayed and blurred.

``I will explain at a later time, first we must get you both back somewhere safe.'' the first human stated, motioning to the other as he walked up to her and the speared hybrid.

``Remain still.'' The second human stated, joining his partner as they walked up to her. Given she had already accepted the terms, Rose complied without question, still holding Magellan's head in her hands as the same beam of light cascaded around them.

``Someone will be around to collect your things as well, rest assured.'' The first man stated before a flash of light enveloped them all, the once occupied alley now empty as the four of them disappeared without a trace. Rose felt she was being disassembled atom by atom, her whole being stretching out until it all came crashing back together, leaving her panting for breath with nausea as her eyes had trouble coming into focus.

She was staring down at a studded grey floor that shined with white light, her eyes coming up to see she, Magellan, and the two humans were inside what looked to be an infirmary set a couple thousand years in the future. Clean white tables were spaced out evenly in the sleek, futuristic room. Walls, ceiling, and floor alike transitioned from one to the other seamlessly, light pouring in from the first two from slits that casted a pale glow on every glossy smooth surface, leaving only the underside of the tables to be cast in faint shadows.

Several humans wearing dust masks and clean white lab coats turned to look at the sudden newcomers in their workspace, some setting their clipboards onto tables set against the white walls and pulled out latex blue gloves to put on. Rose glanced around, noticing behind her a window spanned the length of one wall, two doors on the corner of the walls next to its end leading to balconies. Outside, a helix spun slowly in the center of what looked like an atrium, Rose's eyes gleaming a few others moving about on balconies or beyond windows outside.

``I am Mike Turner, lead doctor of the medical studies and research here.'' the first human stated, his hands in his pocket as he pulled out a gold stopwatch and popped it open.

``Where are w-'' rose began, only to be stopped as she doubled over and coughed heavily, blood spilling from her lips as drawing a breath became overwhelmingly difficult. Several of the glove-wearing scientists hurried over to the four, grabbing Rose gently and pulling her over to the closest table that they lifted and placed her on, doing the same for Magellan.

He felt a terrible cold and helplessness within him, barely even aware of the pain that had been pouring into him like icy cold fire. He couldn't even cry as the white figures lifted him onto something cold, his vision jarring as he tried to see where his master was. He could hear Rose gasping in pain, the noise far off yet so prominent in his ears, but he couldn't move a single muscle or make any noise to ease her worries.

Rose held the edge of the table with a death grip, the strong metal slowly beginning to buckle under her inhuman grip as the doctors removed her suit, revealing her battered and misshapen chest that was coated in a fine layer of half-dried blood and sweat. Her teeth ground together as one of them slid a scalpel across her hide, btu she held it together by glueing her eyes on her companion across the way. The lights beyond the tables dimmed, the ones above brightening in turn as the doctors began their work. One injected Rose with a sedative of some kind, her eyelids heavy as her consciousness faded, offering a sweet reprieve from her pain.

The amount of effort it took to tend to both of their wounds was an interesting challenge for the doctors, who seldom got a chance to truly flex their skills. Rose was especially difficult given the sheer amount of bones she had pushed well beyond their limits, fracturing or breaking several thanks to the single hit she took from the anchor.

Mike refrained from working on either of them himself, instead overseeing the nightstalker the dragon was so fond of. His survival was the hinge to her cooperation, and the human did have a pinch of fondness for animals, although he didn't show or let it affect his work when critical. A doctor applied the same narcotic Rose was given to Magellan, giving him the same reprieve from his torture.

The human who had accompanied Mike stood a good few feet away in a perfect straight posture, motionless as he awaited any further orders or perhaps even a dismissal.

``Go and retrieve her equipment, as well as the suit of power armor just in case X9-27. She may have an attachment to it all.'' Mike stated to the synth, wanting it out of his ward while his teams were working.

``As you command.'' X9 stated, disappearing in a stream of bluish white light. Having the synth courser in the same room as him was always a creepy feeling, given how real yet inhuman all of them were. Mike looked back at the nightstalker, seeing the team had already begun working on his legs, the hole in his chest stitched up and ready to begin healing on its own...

Rose awoke violently, sittin up and gasping for breath, feeling as if she had just taken a lungful of water. She coughed with the sudden movement, pain lashing across her chest and limbs slowly. Rubbing her eyes, she looked to be a bedroom, the walls the same clean and polished white as the infirmary. The dragoness was laying in a bed, one that seemed to adjust to her shifting weight as it kept her sunk about an inch in the reactive foam. Off to her right, a door lead out of the otherwise empty and bland looking room, leaving her to look down at herself.

A thin string tied around her neck loosely held a thin white patient gown over her body, a thin bra underneath keeping her breasts tucked under the paper garb. Lifting her arms was a struggle, which didn't come as a surprise as she saw they were covered in sets of metal braces that kept them from moving even an inch. A soft hiss to her left whipped her head around, where she saw that the wall beside her ebd actually had a decent sized cubby hole laid into it, a soft orange light casting a warm glow on a small bed laid into its center.

Laying curled up in that bed was none other than Magellan himself, his scaly snout formed into a short smile as he looked up at his awake master. Rose didn't know what to say or think for a solid few seconds, her eyes catching the stitches in his side and even more so his bandaged hind legs, which were shorter stumps than before. She began to cry all over again, her braced arms painfully moving over to pull the hybrid into a hug.

Magellan hid the pain she unintentionally gave him as she pulled him against her chest, knowing just how worried he had made her and how tore up it must have made her. He cherished her soft, loving embrace with all he could, the guilt inside him taking hold yet again after having put her through all this in the first place.

``Don't ever do that again. If not for your sake, then for mine.'' she whispered, running a hand over his scaly head down to his softer furred back. Magellan hissed in agreement, licking a salty tear from her face as his pain subsided in the wake of their reunion. He pressed his head into her neck to return the loving affection pouring from her, a small token to begin repaying her for all the pain they had both experienced in such a short time. A knock came at the door, which slid into the wall beside it after a moment of silence, letting none other than Mike walk in.

``Good morning Rose, I presume your feeling better since your sitting up a little early in your recovery?'' Mike asked with a smile, pulling in a wheeled chair behind him as he stepped in.

``I've had worse.'' Rose quipped with a pained wince, petting Magellan's head despite her arms wining for her to stop. His scales felt smooth and cleaner than usual, gliding against hers rather nicely as he continued to rub against her touch.

Mike nodded. ``I would expect no less from someone who braves the dangers of the Commonwealth so well.'' He added, pulling the chair in front of him and sitting down, giving the ground a kick as he spun to face them.

``Now, as you probably already guessed, I'm a member of the Institute, a group of scientists who want to make the world a safer place.'' He stated, Rose rolling her eyes at the statement.

``The rest of the Commonwealth have a handful of stories that tell a different story.'' She retorted, once again getting a nod from the human. He was completely calm and collected, and that irritated her to no end, as if he was above such problems.

``You may be right, but the brightest minds will never find a path to rebuilding that isn't bricked in sacrifice, it's just not possible. People fear what they don't understand too, especially in today's world.'' Mike added. This time it was Rose's turn to nod, knowing more than anyone about the second statement than she cared to recall. She sighed, hugging Magellan closer to her chest as she knew all of this had a price, one she was going to pay.

``So, what's the price for saving Magellan's life?'' She finally asked, squeezing his head to her bosom protectively. The question made Mike smile and lean forward, clearly looking forward to the answer.

``Tell me, what do you know about Deathclaws?''

To Be Continued...

", "pools_count": 1, "title": "Life in a Nuclear Apocalypse (2/4)", "deleted": "f", "public": "t", "mimetype": "application/msword", "pagecount": "1", "rating_id": "2", "rating_name": "Adult", "ratings": [ { "content_tag_id": "5", "name": "Strong Violence", "description": "Strong violence, blood, serious injury or death", "rating_id": "2" } ], "submission_type_id": "12", "type_name": "Writing - Document", "guest_block": "t", "friends_only": "f", "comments_count": "0", "views": "135" }