It is the middle of September, year 2285. What passes for winter in the Dixie Wasteland has given its first indications of arrival, a slight nip in the wind and an abundance of overcast. The factions of Memphis are especially active, hoarding provisions in preparation for the changing seasons.

A sparse selection of travelers have made their way into the ruined shell of Memphis. They will be at the mercy of the Wasteland, and all of her horrors.

"10/10 intro" -IGN

I should make one thing clear. Whenever any character interacts with any faction I will be 'playing' as those factions as a GM would. Whether it is a shootout or a simple conversation, only myself and -rarely- the main GM will decide where members of that faction are, what they say, and what they do.

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Andrei walked past countless destroyed buildings. They were covered in all manner of graffiti, some Raider, but most the ravings of passing philosophers. Warnings of a second coming of the apocalypse. An urging to accept Jesus as your savior. Even after the war, the Bible Belt kept true to its name.

Andrei stopped in a large four-way intersection, scanning the structures around him. In one corner was a large billboard, half-covered in dried blood, with a corpse hanging from the catwalk. The body was covered in armor that was hastily spray-painted black, with a crude flag drawn on the right shoulder. Andrei read the words on the billboard, also painted in blood: "AN IMPOSTOR, AND THE CONSEQUENCES."

There were two large bullet holes in the body; one through the center of the chest, defeating the armor without effort, and another through the middle of the face. The only remaining part of the head was a fragile round structure of bone.

Across from the billboard was a large grocery store, the one building that didn't look completely ruined. Andrei shifted across the street, and stacked up on the door. Hearing nothing, he pulled back on the sliding door, and it parted with little resistance. It was dark, but not overly so. He could see that the aisles were devoid of any resources. This place had been looted clean long ago. He rounded a corner, and what he saw caught him by surprise.

There were body parts everywhere, all of them horribly mutilated. A still-helmeted head laying nearby confirmed his suspicions. Raiders. They had been utterly destroyed by something, or someone. Only one body was still relatively intact, and it was flattened in random lines across the torso and head, as if it was ran over.

Before he could complete the thought, Andrei heard a faint banging noise. He concentrated on it, and realized it was repeating. Forgoing any search of the bodies for ammo, he closed in on the source of the sound. At the back of the store he finally came across the source. There was a sentry bot, obviously having been messed with by the now-dead raiders, halfway through the wall. Andrei advanced, then froze as the robot reversed out of the wall- and charged forward into it again. It repeated this once more, then again, and again.

Andrei quickly realized what was going on. The raiders had seriously damaged the navigation software. It's possible that the robot had been here for months, fully aware of what was happening but unable to rectify it on its own.

Andrei put his weapon away, his pistol would be of little use if this turned ugly. He walked towards the robot slowly, being careful to stay out of the potential firing arc of the minigun.

RB slammed into the wall once more, managing to add another crack to the crumbling wall. With an annoyed beep, he backed up again and rammed the wall again. He was still trying repair the error and break himself away from this loop. For days on end he had been driving into the wall of this gore-covered store. Suddenly, his motion sensor gave off the slightest ping. It seemed that something or someone had entered the building.

"Leave this place at once or I will be forced to use deadly...force!" RB declared, knowing that it was merely a bluff, and a poorly phrased one at that. Unfortunately, he could not spare the processing power to come up with a better threat as he was still trying to find the faulty code that was plaguing his pathing programs.

It was cold, but Henry didn't mind much, weather changes from day to day and year to year. Raider habits however seem to be stubbornly conformed to. Every fortnight or so a small group of raiders patrol the road below his home for traders travelling in the early hours of the day, hoping for an easy catch on some valuable goods. For the last month or two Henry has stopped letting the fighting go on unaltered beneath him and has chosen fight on the traders side.

Hidden among the rubble and wreckage, Henry has been waiting for some time now, two hours in fact, for a glimpse of violent intent to cut like a tumor from the world of survivors. Thus far he has seen nothing but billowing dust and rolling grass, but of course he was up much too early as it was barely sun up.

Well you know what they say, 'Early hunter catches the Radroach'.

John hadn't stopped or rested fora little over three days now. he'd just been walking along nonstop down a road. He'd seen a few corpses along the side every so often. normally picked clean of anything useful for the most part. John had long since stopped checking himself, no sense in wasting the energy to go over, check, and get disappointed. a quick scan of the corpse was normally all it took for him to see if anything he valued was on it. It was still early in the morning when he came up towards a site that seemed to rub him the wrong way. his eyes scanned the area as various warnings seemed to go off in his cybernetic mind telling him this was an area where things were likely to get ambushed. Wreckage from caravans that had been torn to shreds littered bits of the road and roadside. small mound of earth ran along one side of the road with tall grass covering most of it. taking a few steps closer to the site John's eyes scanned the area more intently, picking out points in the pavement where bullets smashed into the ground, laser fire scorched the earth, and hot plasma showed that nothing could resist the fourth state of matter. Kneeling by a pile of ash John reached his hand into it, sifting around for anything that may have survived. all he managed to pull out was a bottle cap that no longer served it's purpose as currency anymore. this was apparently where the victim had been shot. turning the remains of the cap over his eyes scanned it, he could see the black char of biological materiel that was flash imprinted on the bottle cap as someone was atomized by a well placed shot from an overcharged laser weapon. the shot had impacted the cap which appeared to be apart of a necklace of some sort, burning right through and then ended the existence of it's owner. dropping the mangled remains of the metal John looked up carefully to everything around him as his pipboy's radio flickered to life as it picked up a signal and started playing it.

a few notes strummed from a guitar came out before a voice spoke "It's all over, but the crying. And nobody's crying but me. Friends all over. know I'm trying. To forget about how much I care for you" the radio kept playing the old song from a band known as the ink spots as he stood up and moved his hand down to thumb the third yellow button on his pipboy a few times as he looked around. The feeling was intense as V.A.T.S kicked in and he could feel his remaining power drain quickly in the process. He watched as his power meter went down and down and down. 45% dropped to 40% with the first press as the pipboy's processors scanned the area where he could see, though nothing came up. turning his head he watched again as his power levels took another hit as he scanned again, pressing the third yellow button with a distinctive click as his power plummeted down to 35%. Again nothing. but still the fake hairs on the back of his neck were standing on end as he could feel something or someone watching him. Again he'd turn his head, his thumb pressing the button once more as his power dropped to 30% and all sorts of warnings in red text began running down the side of his vision.

Model J-70 Status update...
Power has dropped out of safe operating levels.
Power now at 30% and dropping.
Decreasing power to lower body actuators to compensate. Movement speed decreased by 35% via locomotion.
Decreasing power to arm actuators to compensate. Overall strength and accuracy decreased by 35%.
Shutting down advanced vision settings...
Flair Compensation: 0
Night Vision: 0
Thermal: 0
Magnetic: 0
IR:0
Optical Zoom: 0
Advanced object scanning and recognition: 0
Power now in critical levels.
New Primary objective...
Find Nourishment.... error
power plant faulty. Nourishment insufficient.
New Secondary objective...
Find Nuka Cola

nothing was there.... with sluggish and tired movements he'd turn his head one more time to scan one last area, his thumb pressing the button once more. his power plant let out a hungry growl as it struggled to keep up with the power demands as his power dropped to 25%. The low power warning kept flashing like mad in the corner of his vision, though this time was different. This time data began feeding into his senses like mad as the pipboy's V.A.T.S system found something.

Target... Human. Alignment Unknown.
Weapon.... Error... insufficient power to complete scan.
Chance to hit...
Head: 0
torso: 0
Left Arm: 0
Right Arm: 0
Left Leg: 0
Right Leg: 0
Target currently in cover. Ambush imminent. Recommend securing cover.

Rather than continue and take ineffective shots at a target he already knew he couldn't hit even if he focused everything he had into a single area, John let his system exit the sensation that was V.A.T.S. and instead chose to try and do something else. Looking up the road John could see an old grocery store just down the way, but as is he wouldn't be able to outrun someone with a long range firearm with the low power he was running on. So he did the only thing he could do right now... Abide by the advice his Pipboy gave him. With that John dove down behind a pile of wreckage that he knew was insufficient. his mind calculating chance to hit him from the ambusher's location. no matter the calculation, from his current point of cover, it didn't look good. For all John knew the man hiding and waiting in ambush could have seen john look straight at him. yeah, this was gonna be one of those days. was probably gonna get shot again.

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Potential encounters
@Pripovednik for his character henry.
@Valais 66 and @Balmung1100 for NPC raiders if there are any left. could all be dead due to their base possibly being the old grocery store.
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After a few more minutes of watching the robot helplessly plow into the wall, Andrei decided to ignore the threatening words. He walked over within touching distance of the sentry bot, examining the crude additions to the armor and finally spotting what appeared to be an official marking. On the 'shoulder' of the bot there was a faint circle of stars, mixed in with a painting of a skull. Above that, two barely-legible letters, "RW".

'SRWG,' Andrei thought.
"You're a unit from Special Robotics." He said, the words slipping from his mouth. Hopefully nobody else was around, or that loose tongue might have cost him more than his life. Andrei removed his holotags and propped them in a position where the robot would be able to scan them. "Take a good look, I know you're a bit smarter than the average robot. You and I are from the same group, that service number will confirm it once you run it through your database."
Without hesitation, Andrei threw a large piece of rubble in front of the bot's wheels to act as a chock. He then pulled the back panel from the robot's 'torso' and saw more than a few immediate problems. The phrase "Cable Management" had obviously never entered the Raiders' heads. It only took him a few seconds to find the navigation problem; a few mismatched wires and a repeater that kept feeding information back into itself. A simple fix.

Some time later, Andrei spoke again, "I'm trusting you to not add me to that pile of Raider corpses, but I guess I wouldn't blame you."
Andrei pushed the panel closed, and put a few feet of distance between him and the robot.

RB scanned the tags and searched through his database. Noticing a few errors in his system, he decided it'd be more convenient to simply take this man at his word.

"Friendly acknowledged, this unit is identified as -error designation modified by unauthorized source, please seek administrator assistance or ignore this message-" After finishing the statement, he chose to ignore the error and state the new designation instead. "Raid-bot."

"Thank you for the assistance, these raiders tampered with my internal systems." He gestured to the corpses, if it weren't for his lack of a mouth there would likely be a large smile plastered across his faceplate. "Threat detected...terminating."

As he finished his statement, the minigun on his arm began to whirr as he fired a small burst into a twitching raider. "Threat terminated."

Andrei draped the holotags back around his neck. This particular AI had evidently fashioned itself as a proud sort. "You didn't even read them. I'll have to do some more work on your software later. Assuming you plan on joining me," Andrei said, " 'Raid-Bot' ."
He swept his eyes around the room before returning to the front of the store. He picked a few worn-down 9mm bullets off of the Raider bodies as he passed.

Exiting on to the street, Andrei watched for even the slightest movement, his gaze moving across every small detail of the surrounding buildings. Satisfied that this wasn't some Raider trap, he sat down on a bench just to the side of the door. Andrei drew his Browning- and deftly removed the magazine, then ejected the chambered round. He caught the loose bullet, and returned it to its place in the mag. Next, he stripped the gun, inspecting every part of the slide and frame.

Andrei took a small bottle of gun oil and a rag from a pouch on his right hip, and went to work giving the pistol a good cleaning.

France sighed, running her hands through her hair in frustration. She knew it was bad out here in the wastes, but what the girl didn’t expect was the overwhelming solitude that had taken these lands. As far as the eye could see there was some revenant of the old world, leaving behind a mere shadow of what it used to be. The carcasses of cars, the ruinous buildings… it must have looked fantastic in its prime. Damn those Kollier bastards! Why’d they have to burn the world?!

Looking up, France struggled to look past the overcast to try and view the suns location, mostly because that’s what she’s been following for days now. How long has it been… maybe a little over a week. Yep, west was a long road to follow, and it was unknown how much farther she’d be able to travel. All in all, things have been tolerable; there’s always a settlement every once in a while, and they might even be nice enough to let you in for the night. They may change their tune if the townsmen ever found out that their cities were being marked down on a large piece of paper, but if France was dumb enough to allow that, then her body just might be in a ditch right now. Thankfully, all the inns so far have been generous enough to provide their guests with privacy; after all, France has been a busy girl indeed.

Across one big piece of parchment a path westward has been drawn, starting at Vault 117, New Kannon City. Charlotte was the first stop, those towering ruins beckoned like land to a drowner. Unfortunately, it wasn’t very fruitful. The settlement there had formed a cult who worshiped the woman it was named after, who they claimed was the queen of some place called Great Britain. France could only raise a brow at this, they were surely crazy. Charlotte was the warrior queen of Gailing who led her armies to ultimately conquer all 15 of the Barbaros Islands, as well as the most ruthless dictator the archipelago had ever seen. The cultists had failed to see reason though, and promptly chased the young woman from their walls.

Thinking back to that, it was probably a bad idea to lecture individuals who worship mass murderers. Never the less, The Cult of Charlotte was added to the map. It was good to find friendly places like Ash Town after such a bad experience, and it will be mentioned in the notes that they’d make good trading partners in the future. They had the most delightful rodent medley there, the mole rat was so juicy and tender…

Feeling her stomach growl, France stops, removing her backpack and rummaging through it for a moment before pulling out a simple can. Resuming the forward march, she pops the top and brings the Pork n’ Beans to her mouth, taking a swig every once in a while to satiate her needs. While it wasn’t bad, the ancient foodstuffs could never compare to fresh eats, and it was a deep hope that there was a settlement nearby serving up a good Brahmin steak.

Hoping to spot some semblance of humanity, she takes a moment to survey the landscape. Wrecked buildings, scrap, what looks like a supermarket, and… was that a man? It was brief, but for a moment France could have sworn she saw a figure before it dived behind a pile of refuse. Maybe he knows the way to civilization? With no regard to safety, she starts stupidly waving her hands in the direction of the hidden figure, walking in his direction and shouting. “Hey there friend! You wouldn’t happen to know how far off the next town is, would you?”

From the East on highway 64 came Sophie Quilla to Memphis, though she had already departed the highway and made it onto the more conventional streets stitched amongs the buildings in the main city. Somerville wasn't too far as cities went, in a car it would be less than an hour away. However, on foot, Sophie had spent the entire day before trekking under the hot sun, from dusk to dawn, walking down nearly 50 miles of road. Only the threat of raiders and other thieves made the night a less desirable setting for the journey. Though she was still tired and sore from the previous day of walking, but her rations wouldn't last forever, and Sophie felt like she had a mission to complete. It was a bit chilly, which Sophie's safari explorer get-up wasn't the best suited for, but she hoped at least that she wouldn't seem too ridiculous.

The UAF soldiers that had interrupted her secluded existence mentioned their outpost in Memphis, and described a building reminding her of the Memphis Pyramid. Unfortunately she had never visited the building in person, having no need to visit a sporting goods center before the war. Neither from the highway nor right now could Sophie see the outpost on the horizon, and she didn't think she'd ever be able to recognize the building from afar. Considering that the city looked like it had taken a direct hit during the Great War, Sophie assumed that the glass pyramid had most likely been shattered or completely destroyed.

Now in the midst of a ruined city, Sophie had resorted to wandering blindly in search of human life that didn't shoot her on sight. After rounding a corner a few blocks away from a major intersection, out of the corner of her eye Sophie could see a person-shaped blot slumped up against the buildings. Sophie left her beat-up shopping cart full of old books in the middle of the street while she approached the person to get a closer look, without her glasses she couldn't tell much about them. "Pssst, hey there!" Sophie said, not too loudly, as she jogged up to the person, "Hey, do you know where-" Sophie clamped her hand over her mouth to hold in a scream as the body came into focus. It was just a corpse, burned to death with lasers. Sophie could distinguish the wounds from those caused by plasma. Still covering her own mouth, Sophie walked backwards slowly until she reached the cart, and then looked around frantically. As soon as she did so, she heard a voice shouting from down the street. A woman who had entered the area from another street.

“Hey there friend! You wouldn’t happen to know how far off the next town is, would you?”

'You dope! Don't you know there's some kind of killer on the loose around here!?' Sophie thought. She decided she would have to watch this person from a safe distance. There was no way she could help this person if she drew out an attacker, but if that happened Sophie could at least see who was nearby.

The plan was to quickly run until she could get a good view of France, then hide in the closest building, and to do it all silently. Though she took the sidewalk rather than run through the middle of the street, Sophie's approach was anything but silent. Her heavy feet stomped loudly as she run, the shopping cart squeaked like mad, and just as soon as France became a visible though indistinguishable blob in her vision, Sophie dove through an already shattered bistro window with the cart, knocking it over and dumping out all the books on the floor. Then she poked her head out to see if any other blobs approached the one shouting and waving her arms about. Oblivious to her own lack of ability in stealth, Sophie readied her empty 9mm pistol in preparation.

Sarah gave out a quiet sigh of relief as she heard the stranger's footsteps continue on, having paused as she followed him. Her skills of stealth and small frame had allowed her to remain undetected in her stalking, behind the obliterated shell of an old pick-up. She had no ill-intent, merely tailing him in hopes that he would stumble upon some form of supplies he didn't need, or those which he'd discard in order to make room for new things. As he began his stride again, she rounded the vehicle's flatbed, crouched and silent Sarah moved from cover to cover behind the man and into the supermarket.

Hearing the sound of steel on brick as he began to scan the aisles one by one, Sarah decided it would be best to take cover in the first aisle he'd checked, and wait until he had left. Soon after he left the room however, the young woman could hear him begin to converse with what sounded like some form of Protectron, but different in some way that she couldn't quite place.

"Threat detected...terminating." She heard the robot's mechanical voice croak out, in a panic she lay her body completely flat on the ground - and if the bot's fire came her way she'd lay down as many shots as possible, then get the hell out of dodge. Though when the small burst of automatic fire sounded out throughout the building, the slushing of coagulated blood was the only noise that followed the gunshots, except the autonomous "Threat terminated."

She did her best to remain utterly silent, it seemed that the robot's targeting systems were malfunctioning and would likely fire upon anything that moved. Except the man, for whatever possible reason that was. Sarah needed to get out of there and she knew it. But there was one problem with that; he was now sat outside cleaning his weapon with the bot likely patrolling the area. She took this as an opportunity to flee, but was mortified as she turned and slipped on a pool of blood which she had somehow failed to notice. With a thunderous crash the few heavy items that remained upon the shelves came tumbling down to the floor.

"Fuck." She said aloud to herself, laying flat on her back. She gripped the handles of each of her pistols respectively, pulling them from their leather holsters and remaining locked in place, waiting for the man to come and investigate.

With the sound of something heavy colliding with the floor, Raid-Bot instantly turned his attention (and his weapon of course) to the source of the noise. He put a bit more power into his motion sensors in order to find the new threat, only to find that nothing was moving.

"Potential threat detected. Captain Andrei, did you come alone?" Raid-bot asked instead of opening fire. It would have been easy to just shred everything in the general direction the noise had come from, but Raid-bot preferred to conserve some ammunition if possible. If possible, he would attempt to deal with this new threat without tearing through his ammo. A quick scan of the 'technician' that he had run over before was enough evidence that he could still do so capably.

Henry's darkened scars felt the comfort of a light breeze as it whipped up the grit and sand that lay on the long abandoned road, leaving them trapped in the obsidian hair of his, a few strays clinging his thin eyelashes. It had been a while since he had strolled over to the ancient bus, perhaps a week or two he couldn't recall, the door had rusted closed again.

"Well shoot, don't lock me out baby!" Direson spoke as he always did, mono tone and slow - but at the same time, somehow, with emotion. He spoke to himself quiet a bit, sometimes under his breath without even noticing or shouting so loud it hurt his lungs when another damn molerat came blindly charging his way. Henry's dirty black hands wrapped around the small ridge between the door and the frame of the bus and pulled, one boot slammed steadfast flat against the faded orange metal. After a few heavy groans and exclamations of less than clean language when the metal cut deeper than it should, the door broke free at the top and Henry picked up the tire iron that was stuck onto the rear wheel.

Walking back Henry thought he heard something hit the bus and ducked quickly to the floor, after a few moments he peered in through the window to see it empty, the source of the noise laying still on the floor. Taking the Tire Iron in both hands the cold metal pressed up against his palm and sent aches through his fingers, he wedged it in the gap and pulled with all his strength.

Rubbing the dust from his ass, Henry stood and swore some more at his own stupidity and at the damn door for making him fall back like that. Stepping into the vehicle, the breeze still followed him as the right side of it had been tore way, he couldn't risk climbing over though. The toy doll lay next to the front seat beside the skeleton of the child, dust has found its way onto the bone so Henry took a rag from the floor and spat into it. Rubbing away the thick dust and replacing the toy between the child's legs, Henry smiled to himself - the dead should be respected and burying the kid would only be giving some rad creature a nice bone to chew.

Henry did this any time the toy was out of place or the bones dusty, the clothing and flesh had long since disappeared and so he called the kid Alex cos' it was neither male nor female. Turning away from the remains Henry walked back outside and took his rifle from where it stood up against the adjacent car, brushed away a small string of plastic from the scope, and walked on back to the bus. All the other chairs were empty but Henry preferred the back because he could lay down and relax instead of crouch - which did his knees no favors. So he stepped up to the back with three steps and a small hop over the steps and set up camp.

Hauling his bag over his shoulder he took out a book 'Elvis was here' which he enjoyed, it was about some old singer and the places they went - boring really but the pictures were great. Henry also took out a Nuka Cola bottle he had been saving and a packet of God knows what that a trader had given him for free - he trusted Old Mike Sapper, but he wasn't sure whether or not his mouth was the best place to put this stuff. Along with the Nuka bottle Henry retrieved a small length of old wire he had hollowed out and cleaned, it made for a good straw. Once his feet were snug against the back of the seats and his rifle was between the ridges of the window, Direson pushed his head up against the butt - and as he always seemed to be doing, looked through the scope.

The magnification wasn't the best he'd had, the retrofit last week had set him back a bit, once again a dumb mole rat jumped up onto his gun, practically threw its face into his muzzle, fucker scratched the x12, the x8 would have to do for now. As he peered threw the lense Henry saw nothing but dust, the usual trashed cars and toppled house, the shopping cart that made him giggle , a dead raider sat limply in it that he had shot months back, and a man?

"What the fu_" Henry hadn't time to finish his muttered sentence before the figure disappeared behind a pile of junk. Switching his sights to iron, Henry spotted a second figure approaching the first, tell tale helmet of a raider - the sparkle of a blade in the sandy sunlight. Pushing his mag scope back into place he aimed ahead of there path and fired. The bullet ripped through there chest, but the blood fired out from there side, an armor plate or something of the sort had switched the bullets trajectory as it hit - the raider picked up in a run. Pulling back his bolt he aimed again and his finger squeezed the trigger.

Out of nowhere a shot came from behind the raider and pinged of the bus, Henry heard the child remains fall clumsily to the bus floor, a small rib flying from it and off the highway bridge to the road below.

"YOU F U C K E R!" Henry bellowed and fired a covering shot toward the flash that fired another bullet again, a second shot sparking off the window that Henry shot from. looking quickly with his outside eye Henry saw the blade wielder was still a way off the man behind the junk so he emptied his lungs and flicked his mags to full x8.

He saw the bastard hidden behind a rock, a khaki colored rag around him, almost hidden but not from Henry. Two points east and a low wind, Henry adjusted and fired, the butt of his rifle painfully smacking into his shoulder with his position prone compromised and unstable. The bullet hit and he saw the body fall cold. It didn't take him long to do the same for the blade wielder, and just in time to, they were but feet away from the hidden figure, their dead body was likely thrown to their feet. A way up the road another person, female or male was unknown, but definitely stupid - flaying there arms around waving at someone.

Raiders weren't smart but they weren't dumb either, whoever it was wasn't a threat. "It's gonna be one of those days!" Henry said to himself roughly in the empty bus, he then went quickly to the skeleton and put it back where it belonged.

@Dasomen

"Easy," Andrei replied, "I'd hate to have to waste any ammo on our-" He paused for a moment, trying to think of the right word, "guest."
Andrei kept to his cleaning, inspecting the sight line on the slide and the smoothness of the recoil spring. "Just find out what she wants, without hurting her. They're sneaky, I'll give them that, but I've been in this business far too long; I'd hoped that if I ignored them long enough they'd move on," He continued, "But now it's a problem."
Andrei sighed, put his cleaning items away, and reassembled his Browning. He slid the magazine back into place, and racked the slide with a satisfying clack.

Andrei holstered the gun, and ran a hand through his hair. He kicked back a little on the bench, watching for any other curious souls that may be prowling about.

After ducking down behind the debris it wasn't long before things started to go sideways. His energy level was down to critical levels and his luck had decided to roll him a set of snake eyes it seemed. apparently the person out by the buss had friends of some sort, and it wasn't long after he dove into cover that raiders began to rush his position. He saw a man come up towards him, the old bug eyed antenna helmet that some raiders seemed to be fond of caught his attention. Running the numbers in his head John didn't like his odds even if the man was poorly armed and armored. where there was one raider, there was always more lurking just out of sight. John upholstered his weapon and readied it at the man when a bullet whizzed over his head and smashed into the raider's armor. Just as he was about to pull the trigger as the man broke into a run he heard another gunshot. long pipe rifle by the sounds of it. John shook off the secondary processes bogging him down and just focuses on the target in front of him. Pulling the trigger once a flash of solid light erupted from the lens of his Custom WATTZ magneto, lancing straight through the armor the man was wearing and out the other side. he could see dust in the wind behind him coming from the man as bits of him atomized from the laser impacting him and rending his armor. as he pulled the trigger again he heard that janky pinging boing sound come from his pistol. the small energy cells inside the pistol had seared and misfired so to speak. he had the equivalent of a jam for energy weapons. Pulling back a slider and wrenching back an auxiliary casing John worked on "clearing the jam" as quickly as he could. but quickly wasn't fast enough.

Just before the raider could lunge at him with a bat with a cleaver welded onto the side of it, the raider went limp and fell to john's feet. John's sensors registered a logic error in this. he had not killed the man, but yet he was dead. Overriding the error John would rip out the faulty battery and shove it into his pocket quickly before looking to his belt to see if the light was green or red. luckily enough he saw a green light showing him that the battery he had been charging was full. One by one he'd remove the small energy cells with a clicking sound and insert them into his pistol's battery chamber. his middle finger flipping the firing selector from single to charge. he could still hear the sounds of weapons going off, but the time for hiding was over. someone was giving him aid and it was time to return the favor.

Looking down to his pipboy he'd arch a brow some before turning up the volume on his radio. Rising up from his place of cover and spinning around John thumbed the third yellow button once more. he could almost hear his body's power plant scream out in pain and protest as his power level plummeted down to 20%. warning lights flashed in his vision like mad as his body moved on it's own as V.A.T.S kicked in. His head turned and his arms raised it's weapon to the woman waving her arms at him. everything just slowed down as V.A.T.S took control.

Target... Human. Alignment Unknown.
Weapon.... Error... insufficient power to complete scan.
Chance to hit...
Head: 45
torso: 70
Left Arm: 55
Right Arm: 55
Left Leg: 55
Right Leg: 55
Target not hostile. movements showing inquisitive nature. Civilian noncombatant identified. Target confirmed, invalid target... switching targets.

His body jerked around as his head seemed to track in on another target, his body bringing his gun to bare on it as he felt V.A.T.S stress his critically under powered system to it's breaking point.

Target... Human. Alignment.... unknow...Rewriting alignment... Friendly...
Weapon.... Error... insufficient power.... Placeholder via observation. Long rifle.
Chance to hit...
Head: 5
torso: 10
Left Arm: 5
Right Arm: 5
Left Leg: 0
Right Leg: 0
Target currently in cover. Providing fire support. Warning! hostile target located that is threatening friendly combatant. Priority target located. Switching target.

John's vision seemed to zoom out a bit as he caught sight of a raider sneaking along the buss just below the windows the sniper was using as cover. He could already feel his body cringe as more power was sent to V.A.T.S.

Target... Human. Alignment Raider.
Weapon.... Error... insuff Error overridden. Devoting emergency power to complete scan. Weapon 10mm SMG... weapon type... error, data deleted. defaulting to club. Weapon Pipebomb.
Chance to hit...
Head: 20
torso: 35
Left Arm: 20
Right Arm: 20
Left Leg: 20
Right Leg: 20
10MM smg: 10
Pipe Bomb: 10...
Insufficient chance to hit... override. Targeting systems online. Warning, Targeting systems will increase power drain, do you wish to continue Y/N: Y .... Confirmed.
Chance to hit...
Head: 45
Torso: 70
Left Arm: 55
Right arm: 55
Left leg: 55
Right leg: 55
10mm SMG: 45
Pipe Bomb... Status unlit. warning raider attempting to light. 30
Power currently at 10%.... Targeting Torso. Firing...

With V.A.T.S taking over John felt his body hone in on the raider that was going to sneak an explosive surprise into the window of the buss. and yet as the gun came to bare on the raider, every crack, crevice, and light on the thing glowing a bright red, John felt his power drop down to just 5% as his finger pulled the trigger and V.A.T.S released him from it's control. A thick bright lance of light erupted from his pistol. The air around the charged blast seemed to ignite in a red haze of feint sparks as the laser burned through the ambient dust in the air. Then before a person's brain could even register the need to tell it's heart to beat again, That lance of light that seemed to rip the air asunder in it's wake impacted the raider's chest causing him to scream out. The blast from the pistol Ripping through the man, leaving a hole in his torso the size of a large apple. The hole itself seemed to ignite as the flesh and meat were burned away as the man screamed in futility and horror as his body turned to dust. The only thing left of the raider now was his skeleton, the armor he was wearing, and the weapons he was using.

John could feel his body shutting down bit by bit as the world seemed to fade. He was sitting at just 5% power and even that was still draining away. As the high intensity lens of his pistol glowed white hot and a reddish smoke fizzled up from around it John turned his head sluggishly to the girl who had tried to get his attention. "n... nearest town?" he'd ask in confusion as he pulled up his pipboy and thumbed the controls to switch to his map. though as he did, he wobbled a little bit, loosing his balance and falling over. He felt drained, and he couldn't put it off anymore. one arm haphazardly reached down towards his pocket to pull out a bottle of Nuka Cola, but his grip wasn't the best with so little power. he'd struggle with it, trying to get the top off but it seemed he couldn't manage it. The power display in his vision read 2.5%

@Pripovednik
@Marik

To the best of her knowledge Sophie had managed to escape detection from anyone in the area, though it did occur to her that she would have no way of telling. From the distance everyone nearby was at, Sophie couldn't tell what direction anyone was facing or where their heads were turned. A few raiders seemed to have appeared after she took cover, Sophie could hear gunshots and laser fire that lit up clearly in her view, one end near the woman waving her arms that Sophie had been moving to. Shortly afterwards the figure fell to the ground, and Sophie could hear a clanking metal sound when it hit the floor.

'A clank?'

The noise that John had made when he fell intrigued Sophie. Leaving her cart behind, hopefully safe, Sophie stepped away from the deli window and walked over to a side door that led to the alley between the deli and the next building, bringing her a bit closer to France and John. Desperately hoping no one would see the ghoul woman in the safari costume and assume she was a raider or feral, Sophie now crouched and started quickly walking towards France and John, in front of the storefronts.

From that distance, Sophie could see metal gray in the android's face. She didn't know what was wrong with him, but assumed she had a better chance of figuring it out than anyone born after the bombs dropped. "Hey! Arm waving girl!" Sophie called out, crouching but not really hiding behind anything nearby. "Let me help you with that robot!" She didn't know he was a robot and not a cyborg or anything like that for sure of course, but assumed he was a robot as she lacked any experience with cyborgs or prosthesis.

Blissfully unaware of the danger that lurked ahead, France began to jaunt up to the man that seemed so intent on lying in that pile of debris. “Why would he choose there to rest? I’m sure there’s a comfier spot around here…” Although, around here just so happened to be a decimated hell-scape, so maybe not.

It was the incredibly loud attempt at stealth that pushed the girl into a state of unease, her heart thumping and her eyes roaring open at the unknown sounds of heavy movement and rattling metal. This was the making of horror tales, and so inclined to not end up like all the ill-fated characters of these grim stories, France made it her mission to find out what had spooked her. Frantically looking about, she could only jump at the sight of something leaping through the shattered remains of a storefront and crashing down with a gut-wrenching clatter. The wary woman took a step back, hand hovering unsteadily over her handgun.

“H-hello? Who’s there? Show yourself!” France had expected a vocal response, whether it be a voice or a feral growl of some sort, but the gunshot that rang in her ears proved to be enough to send her over the edge. Without second thought, she bolted to the first sign of cover that she could find, managing to duck behind a ruined town car fairly close to where her weary half man half machine acquaintance rested. The sight of him standing with his weapon combined with the sounds of battle brought memories of sitting in class learning about the Great War, and the massive carnage that ensued on those warfronts. But this couldn’t end so terribly, right? “Drahma help me, I don’t wanna die! Not now!”

Yelping in fear when the android collapsed, France skittered over, kneeling over him in attempt to discover one thing; why? “You… You’re so pale! What’s happened, are you hurt?” Noticing the soda in his grasp, and not finding signs of any apparent wounds, she did the only thing she could. Bringing the cola to his lips, France gently tipped the bottle so he could sip the fizzy elixir. “You’re gonna be alright… Stay with me…”

RB took a moment to turn his safety functions on in the hopes that his systems wouldn't glitch out and automatically obliterate this new 'guest.' He assumed if it came to a firefight, Andrei would probably back him up.

"Affirmative" RB said as he rolled slowly towards the source of the noise from before.

(I know this a really short post, but I really didn't want to do any meta shit.)

Henry let the last shudders of his rifle echo through his body before standing and peering down at the corpses below him, the two limp raiders whose faces lay upon the dusty earth, but there was still life down there yet. Pushing his rifle back and taking his 9mm from his hip, Henry leaned over the open window and sought after a sign of movement behind the rubble. Seeing a faint blur of a female beside a fallen man Direson called down in his deep tones.

"Hello? Y'all ok down there?"

Just as Henry was about to turn and head down there, he felt a sudden lurch beneath his feet and his toes curled down in an attempt to cling on. Turning as he had first intended to, Henry saw a 'Snuffler'.

Snuffler was the biggest, meanest and most ugly Molerat Direson had ever set his burnt-out ember eyes on. A few months back Direson was scouting out a large Molerat cave system and found mound upon mound of dirtied skeletons, some human but most Mole rat. This huge bastard was on top of the largest mound, chewing enthusiastically on an arm - honestly, Henry couldn't tell if it was Human or not. The beast had a big dark scar, much like his own, directly down his already ugly mug.

They had fought together on many occasions recently, in Snufflers cave, the wastelands and on the borders of Henry's home but never, NEVER had the sneaky bitch got into Henry's grounds. Screaming at the beast, Henry fired off as many bullets as he could as the bus shifted ever closer to the edge.

The clip was empty, his pistol clicked, and the bus tipped to the power of gravity.

Henry fell, and for a moment thought he saw the fucker smile as he did so, then his head hit the chair behind him, his right arm cracked against the metal bar, and he saw black.

RB rounded the corner to find a human female on the ground. He quickly leveled his weapon and glared downward towards the woman.

"Intruder detected, please disarm."

(desparately avoiding the metaposting, but it's really hard in this situation.)