@Kinetic Kitty



Hannibal didn't know what this building had been before the bombs fell, coulda just been some burger joint for all he knew, or it might have been run down and useless even back then. What he did know was that he saw way too much of the present in that old, tattered poster clingin' to the wall long past it's time. Courage today. Victory tomorrow.

And now? The nation that that poster had sought to rally to victory, had sought to inspire to rise against the Red Threat, had sought to lead to victory was just...

The power armored soldier looked at his surroundings.



Just ruins and dust mostly. The more things changed...well, the more they stayed the same seemed like. He could still remember the end...the garbled transmission, the reports pouring into the airbase about Brotherhood troop movements, the arrival of the Demon of DC in the midst of an entire flock of Brotherhood Vertibirds...

They'd fought for their lives, he and his boys. The Enclave. They fought like cornered animals. And....well, seemed like most of them died. The fallback from the airbase hadn't been a retreat, it was a rout. The last thing command had managed to get out on the radio was just a simple order...retreat. Fall back to outposts outside of DC. Any route you could. Anyway you could.

Fuckin' hell.

'Welcome to Vault 136! This will be your new home. Protection from the outside force, and any nuclear fallout that may come in the near future! You are safe, and will live and long and happy life with us!

The words her great ancestors was told when they entered into the vault. As growing up as a young child, Arwen knew something wasn't right. The teachings was wrong. They would only teach her what they wanted. Numbing the mind, the young child would follow the orders of the vault tech teachings. Arlen only followed along with the teachings, not wanting to point any attention to her.

It wasn't into her pre-teens is when she started to rebel. She would fail her tests to only define her teachers. She would point out the wrong in her tests, the wrong-doings of her teachings, and the point out the common sense. Finally, when she was sixteen, the Overseer had a stern talk with her. He had stated to her that she was different, and that was not accepted. She had to change her ways.. or else.

Taking this as threat, she kept quite. She warned her parents that something was not right. Her parents agreed, but years of brainwashing took over. They plead with her to just follow the rules and simply go with the vault rules. What could simply happen? Nothing could go wrong, the Vault and the Overseer knew right... not matter what.

By the age of 20, she grew tired. She couldn't hold out any longer. The Overseer had killed her father for unknown reasons, and he mother was up for murder. Something she knew her mother would never do. Her mother was the sick-bay nurse. How could her mother kill anyone, she she cared for anyone. Arlen knew this was the Overseers way of control her. She couldn't handle the thought of being control by the Vaults way.

On her 21st birthday, the Overseer murdered her mother in front of every vault tech person. Out of spike and anger, Arwen overruled the command centered and opened the vault. Killing nearly everyone in the vault due to the radiation, she and a few were able to live. Due to the experiments on the newer generations, she could step out into the new wasteland and discover the new lands. She had no clue what to except nor what to experience since all she knew what the vault. The vault warned her that there was nothing to search in the wasteland. Everyone and everything had been killed and if they were to leave, they would soon die.

"Ah. There ya are." Hannibal muttered as his only companion of late, an eyebot that'd taken just a bit of beating during that clusterfuck at AFB, floated into view. "I don't suppose ya found anything out there?" Something like another squad he could fall into. Something like a Vertibird wing. Something like...well, while he was dreaming, a shiny new base crawler equipped with a good old fashioned army of american laser-spewin' deathbots.

The tiny robot beeped out a quick negative. "Of course." Hannibal muttered darkly. "Well." He sighed. "Best to get a move on then. Don't want the goddamn Brotherhood catchin' us out here. Still got that strange addiction to breathin'."

The robot beeped once. Twice.

"Yes. I know it's a biologically' required function. That was the joke ya..." He shook his head. "Never you mind. Let's just...go." With that, the odd duo turned from the ruined building Hannibal had spent the last fifteen minutes staring at, and turned back to the broken, shattered road that lay before them.

Hannibal was sure there was a metaphor in that, somewhere.

But he didn't feel like depressing himself even further by searching it out just yet.

Arwen felt the blast push past her face. Fresh air made her gasp for a moment. She never realize how stale the air was in the vault. In that moment, the thought made her want to gag. After getting her breath, she looked around as she began to hear blood curling screaming. At that moment, she realized that she was killing more than half of the vault people inside. However, why wasn't she effect?

Between the screams, she could hear people running towards the entrance. Heavy foot steps. "Shit!" she said softly to herself. She knew that it was the Overseer sending people to get her and not let her escape. She quickly pushed herself away from the control panel and took off towards the open vault. All she could see is rock and a small tunnel, that seemed like it lead no where. However, it was her bed shot. She couldn't just stand there while the Overseer killed her in front of her people. After all, her parents kept saying they wanted to see the best for her, and not here of all place.

Once she reached the opening, she heard one of the men yell after her: "Halt! Stay where you are and dropped to the group Arwen!", she knew it was a simple but stupid command. "Can and get me if you want me on the ground!" She yelled back as she took off into the tunnel. She was grabbing onto the rock to help her up into the tunnel. There voices were being drowned out by the thick rock. Finally, she bumped into a wooden door, seeing a unnatural light. She quickly pull against and tried to open it. Finally giving up on that effort, she slammed her shoulder against it a few times before it broke free.

She hit the ground, growing in pain from not only from slamming against the door, but from the light the sun was producing. She covered her eyes and laid on the ground for a moment. She could hear stomping from the vault warriors in there metal armor. "Fuck me!" she said. She removed her hands from her face, trying to focus on the wasteland, pushing herself up from the ground and took off running. Once her eyes finally got adjusted, she noticed a.. building? She didn't know, but all she knew is that could hide it in from the vault.

"Now what in the sam-hell is tha-?" Hannibal's hands snapped up, his laser rifle resting easy in them. The motion was smooth, practiced, a stark contrast to the cacophony of sounds that had just blown his way on the wind. Shooting. Alarms. Screaming. Like someone had just opened some sorta damn war-in-a-box and added some psycho to the whole thing for flavor.

The sorta thing the phrase 'murder orgy' was invented for.

"Right." He growled. Someone had just opened *something* that sorta skirmish didn't just...start...at that kind tempo. Slowly, the soldier edged forwards, towards the source of that brief bout of violent noise. "Execute protocol 2542." He muttered to his mechanical companion, who beeped in response and then zoomed forwards.

Recon was the key to warfare, after all. And he didn't fancy going in blind.

Arwen was running out of breath. She hadn't ran this far before, but she knew she had to make it to the building. Not noticing the ground and assuming it was smooth like the vault, she tripped on a simple rock. Flying first and smashing her face into the ground, she could feel something warm coming from her face. She was seeing stars. She reached up to her head and touched the spot. "OUCH!" She said kinda loud. She pulled her hand away and saw that there was blood on her hand. She groan and pushed herself up and began to run, with more caution this time.

By the time she reached the building, the men in armor were no where to be seen. 'Shit.. shit.. shit.. this isn't good!!' she thought to herself. She couldn't believe that she lost the men in armor. Where could they have gone? There was no where for them to go.. unless she had knocked herself out pretty good and they were hiding from her too. She pressed herself against the walk and looked around. With what she thought was the clear, she went around the corner and looked. She noticed that no one was around, and she took off towards the trash can, ducking herself to it. She peered over it and noticed another man with a weapon. She instantly dropped and rolled under the trash can. She looked to her left and let out a scream. Radroach was by her shoulder. She pushed herself from out from underneath the trash can and took off towards the building, knowing that anyone around would hear her scream, and her running to the building.

What happened next happened damn fast. Thankfully, Hannibal's training had already kicked in and he was able to respond efficiently to....in order...what initially appeared to be a shrieking creature emerging from behind a trashcan. His rifle went up-and then went down when said creature turned out to be....well, a vault dweller from looks of it. Guess he knew where that bloody noise came from. Violence seemed to follow anyone wearing a vault suit around like a dog pawing after it's master.

He sighed. And now he had a panicky vault dweller on his hands. Liable to get him a bullet in the back if he left it unattended.

"M'am." He called out, slowly, calmly. "I ain't fixin' to hurt ya. You're from one of the vaults, right?"