Fallout: Caravan Journey

[Bouldernozzle]

It was hot, bizarrely hot in the Mojave Wasteland that day as Isaac ejected the magazine of this Assault Carbine before cycling it to eject the round in the chamber as he began his weekly field strip and cleaning of the weapon. His caravan group had stopped in this small town to stock up on food and supplies for the long journey ahead. As Isaac began the cleaning process for the barrel he noticed a shadow above him.


Looking up he saw his boss Marie smirking down at him "Shouldn't you be talking to the locals?" he asked her before she sat down next to him. "Just wanted to see how you're doing.I mean you have to be bored doing this kind of work for as long as you have." She asked looking at him "I'm fine and no it's not boring it's relaxing I got tired of watching friends die pointlessly a long time ago. And I don't intend to go back." Isaac said returning his focus to his carbine. "Same answer as last year I see. Well let me know if you need anything." Marie said before standing back up and walking toward the bar. Once she was inside she found Lance. "Hey, Songbird it's time for my yearly check up on your psychology, you gonna be a hard ass like Isaac and give the same answer as always to really avoid the question?"

 

[Syrrus]

Sitting at a lonely table in the corner Lance had been using a small bottle of water to wash his face, it was rather wasteful but seeing how the bottle had been on a bandit which he had blown the brains out of, he decided that he might as well wash those brains away from his left eye, the gasmask only needed a gentle stroke of a filthy old dishcloth.


When Marie walked up to him, in a question he rather did not comment on he glared over his shoulder at her. Lance was a quite man, who often said nothing and if he did say something it was either a not too thought out insult or something terribly necessary. "Neither." said Lance, with a growly old voice, as response to her question before wiping his face dry and taking a swing of a old Sunset Sarsparilla bottle, downing the liquid inside as he circled two caps between his fingers of his free hand.

 

[Bouldernozzle]

Marie sighed gently looking at him before walking over to the bartender and asking for a very stiff drink. Once it came she began to sip as she sat at Lance's table putting her feet up on the other chair next to hers. "I'm only asking cause I get concerned about you and sense we have some off time I thought maybe you could tell me what's going on." Marie explained trying to get him to open up to her.


Meanwhile Isaac had finished his cleaning and after putting the carbine back together before seating the magazine in the well and chambering a round and finally setting the carbine on safe. Getting up he began to walk to the bar that Marie had went to. As he walked something felt off like something was wrong or that something was about to become wrong, but Isaac ignored it he'd had that feeling before and it had been nothing.

 

[Syrrus]

Lance swung the bottle again, while his fingers continued to play with the caps, his fingers were to rough that not even the hard edge of a caps could cut through the skin. He watched Marie with his green eyes, a rather bored and uninterested expression upon his face. She wanted to have a deep and inviting conversation about a life which was not her own, with a man who either couldn't even talk or simply didn't want to. "No." He said, as simply as that, and he placed the cap next to her, in perhaps a attempt to pay for her drink, in some way or other.


There was nothing wrong with Lance, perhaps the radiation had fried a part of his brain or maybe someone had cut his tongue and it hurt to talk but Lance never spoke unless he really had to. He preferred listening, though mostly not even paying attention to that. He was enjoying the heat, like few others did, this time of year.

 

[Bouldernozzle]

Marie sighed again "Alright, well I tried." She said as she got up and went to her own table sitting down feeling a little defeated. As Isaac got closer he heard a whistling noise, at first he thought it was some kind a bird, but after a moment the sound became clear it was a mortar shell coming down on the town. Isaac began to run as fast as he could smashing the door off the hinges with his shoulder "This town is being atta-" he was cut off with an explosion as the small townhall was blown to pieces throwing shrapnel and heat all over the town. The sound was deafening all Marie and Isaac could hear was ringing. Isaac only slightly disoriented ran to Marie and grabbed her by the arm he tried yelling something to Lance unsure if he could hear him or not.

 

[Syrrus]

By the look on Isaac's face Lance knew that something was up, unfortunately he did not have enough time to finish his drink before the explosion caused his inner ear to almost pop. He grabbed his gasmask and planted it upon his face, jolted his rifle up from where it had been standing against the wall and grabbed it tightly in his hand. He gave Isaac and Marie a long and thoughtful glance before stepping out on the street - though not through the front door. Songbird jumped up upon the windowsill and took another leap out on the streets of the once rather pleasant little town, though not it looked as if it was going to become nothing but ash. He walked, proudly across the street while the screaming of women and children rung around him like static and he hoisted the sniper rifle up and aimed towards some ill looking men in an attempt to snipe them down, he aimed and pulled the trigger - hoping for the best.

 

[Bouldernozzle]

One of the men's headed popped the expanding .308 round leaving not much in the way of head left. The two standing beside their comrade charged Lance machetes in hand.


Isaac followed Lance pulling Marie with him who was horribly disoriented. In the doorway Isaac saw the men charging Lance. They were legionnaires low rank but with that explosion it meant soon there would be far more than three. Flicking his carbine off of safe and into auto he shouldered it, lined the sights, and let three bullets fly all with one hand. Although Isaac had aimed for the head his bullets hit slightly low nearly severing the legionaries' head completely.

 

[Syrrus]

Lance perked up as he noticed the other two legionaries fall to the ground like slaughtered cattle he pulled himself up from his very obvious hideout and ran towards his two companions. He was going to give Isaac a comment or two, though instead of doing that he simply walked in silence next to them and following their lead. It wasn't until he heard the loud screaming of a young female that he decided to look around, just in time to catch a small girl who leaped into his arms and causing him not only to wobble backwards but to drop his riffle.


"Help! Mum is over there!" The girl shouted and Songbird peered towards the general direction of where the girl was pointing, there was rubble of the town hall and little else, dead bodies spread around it like a bad omen and Songbird simply turned and continued to walk, after getting his rifle of the ground.

 

[Bouldernozzle]

Isaac looked at Lance and the girl before looking over seeing that the bramhin they had been using was staked through the head with a piece of shrapnel. "This isn't our battle let's try to stay out of it." Isaac said leading the three to a sewer manhole he noticed, before finally releasing Marie who appeared to have regained her ability to move on her own. Marie looked at Lance and the girl in his arms then looked at the destruction around them. "Good god." she whispered to herself as Isaac lifted the manhole before tossing it aside "Lance, hand Marie the girl they'll go first, then you then me. It's a far drop so don't just jump down." Isaac said taking a kneeling position while Marie extended her hands to take the girl from Lance.

 

[Syrrus]

Lance did as he was told and gave Marie the little girl who struggled worse than an angry cat, for she wanted them to turn around and help her - probably - dead parents. Songbird always did as he was told, as long as it made sense. Though killing someone often made little sense to someone who believed in 'justice' he had already decided, from early age, to take on the ability and the task to kill them who did not oblige to the laws of... whatever he believed in.


Songbird turned to Isaac, before propping himself down and using his sniper rifle to aim and keep an lockout for strays.

 

[Bouldernozzle]

Marie helped the girl down the ladder holding gently with each step slowly descending until they reached the bottom "Guys it's clear, come on down!" Marie shouted at the same moment it seven more legionnaires appeared around the corner luckily they were still low rank and we're only armed with machetes, before they even had a chance to look at the two Isaac opened fire killing one with two bullets through the heart and another with a couple to the neck. Marie could hear the gun fire from above her when she heard some sort of hiss from deep within the sewers. "Uh guys don't know if you can hear me but we're not alone down here!" Marie said. Remembering that she had a pistol Marie drew it from her holster and flicked the safety off.before pointing it where the sound came from with a shaky right hand. "Cover your ears honey." she said to the girl trying to act calm.

 

[Syrrus]

Aiming and attempting to snipe more of they who came running he could hear the noise of Maria saying that she had climbed all the way down.


Songbird made sure that Isaac had everything under control before climbing down the ladder to the sewers, he climbed as fast as he could and as he heard Maria tell the young girl to cover her ears he could not help to get stressed and when he got stressed he slipped and fell down the last few steps, though with a limp more than before. Meanwhile the little girl Alice covered her ears and turned around with a shout, for she was indeed scared, her blond hair messy around her head.

 

[Bouldernozzle]

Isaac kept firing killing each the last of the Legionnaires before beginning his way down pulling the sewer grate over himself to try to hide where they had gone. At the same moment when Songbird had fallen a feral ghoul grabbed onto him and centering her sights Marie shot at it's head only skimming the top of it making the ghoul refocus his attention to Marie and girl as it began to run toward them quickly the gun shot rang up to Isaac who fearing the worst climbed down as fast as he could "Marie? Songbird? What the fuck is happening?" he shouted down at them. Marie tried to make a follow up shot but when she pulled the trigger nothing happened it was then she noticed the gun had jammed with a stove pipe.

 

[Syrrus]

Songbird clicked his knee back in shape and seeing how he had little time to do anything else than pull his rifle up and pull the trigger, he did exactly that. Aiming would take to long and he hated mess, specially ghoul mess. He placed himself in front of the small child, to make sure she did not get any splashes - if the bullet would hit its target - or see the disgusting mess of a creature that was trying to claw their faces off. Lance pulled the trigger again and again, his upper body getting thrown backwards with each shot, seeing the great force of the barrel.

 

[Bouldernozzle]

The ghoul was hit by each and every round. It was too close for Lance to miss and by the final bullet ghoul was rendered into pieces splattering the entire area in it's blood nearly to the point where the walls were made red. After the ghoul fell dead Marie's eyes were left wide and she slid down to her knees shaking like crazy. She also released her grip on the girl, at that moment Isaac got down onto the ground with them"You guys okay?" he asked in a concerned voice as he checked on each of them. Before walking up to Marie "Hey wake up focus. It's Isaac." He said taking both of her shoulders gently.

 

[Syrrus]

Lance lowered his sniper riffle, his green eye which showed itself through the broken lens was wide and rather shaky, eye darting from one position to another in search of more freaks whom he had to blow into pieces. Quickly and by ignoring Isaac he reloaded his rifle with loud clicking noise and swung it over his shoulder, not paying any mind to Alice who was staring rather intensely at the red painted walls and the small chunks of flesh drooping off them.


Lance took one quick look down upon Marie just to make sure she had not been touched by the ghoul before he started to walk down the deep and now rather sticky tunnel to check things out, with Alice pottering not far behind - skipping as if she was some kind of demon child who suddenly felt so much better.

 

[Bouldernozzle]

After a few moments Marie finally was shaken out of her shock by Isaac looking up at him "You good?" Isaac asked Marie simply nodded in return. Isaac taking her pistol and giving it a quick cycle fixing the jam. "From here on out it only gets harder you understand?" Isaac said "Yeah, I'm good, let's just get the fuck out of here." Marie said Isaac handing her pistol back. Isaac then helped Marie get up and the two walked quickly to catch up to Lance and Alice.


"This pipe heads east meaning we're going to end up in Legion territory and with no way of knowing how the battle ended up out there I recommend we go north to Idaho then over to Oregon the back home to California to the Crimson Caravan headquarters last thing we want is to get caught up in a war zone. Not that where we're headed is gonna be easy." Isaac said laying out a plan for them "Is that gonna be a good idea? I mean." Marie said looking at Alice.

 

[Syrrus]

Lance did not know if any question or direction was meant for him to answer to, he simply continued walking, looking through every tunnel he came a cross with great suspicion and pushed the little girl back when she got too close for comfort. Alice heard the question coming from Marie and stuck her tongue out, like a spoiled little brat before she continued to skip along, following Songbird, close enough to be able to keep up with him and enough to keep out of his way.


Their footstep echoed through the long sewer system. "Lead the way." said Lance and gave Isaac a nod.

 

[Bouldernozzle]

"Very well. We'll hit 'Tree City' first be warned though where we're going isn't Nevada it's going to get fucking cold the farther north we get especially now." Isaac said checking each corner of the sewers they passed carefully "Tree City? I've only seen trees near Jacobstown how many are there in Idaho?" Marie asked taking the rear watching for anything behind them. "A lot trust me you'll be sick of them by the time we're done." Isaac said before he looked back at Alice and asked "What's your name little girl? We'll need to know if you're gonna come with us."

 

[Syrrus]

"Alice!" she blurted - rather loudly and the noise echoed down the slithering corridors -, a bit too excited than expected and it caused Lance to leap into the air, startled out of his skin. He turned angrily at the little girl who continued to skip along as if nothing had happened, finding the echo all the more interesting. It seemed as if the day was only going to get longer and Lance could not help but feel slightly frustrated by the notion of having to travel miles together with a carefree child. He took a deep breath, rolled his shoulder and continued to walk behind Isaac.

 

[Bouldernozzle]

Isaac kept his rifle pointed down the tunnel taking each step slowly trying to make sure nothing caught him off guard. "Alice huh? You ever hear of Wondeand then?" Isaac asked jokingly looking back at Alice.


As he joked Isaac turned back to see a skeleton holding a .32 caliber revolver in its grasp and a single bullet through its head. Picking up the revolver Isaac struggled slightly to open it finding 4 live rounds one fired one.

 

[Syrrus]

"What story?" Asked Alice, peering up at Isaac as they walked further down. She had never heard anything about the old world, her parents had been far too busy. Lance said nothing at the matter, seeing how he was not certain himself where the reference came from. He twitched as he heard the noise of the shot and spun around just to see the dead corpse which Isaac instantly started to lot, as Lance pulled Alice along.

 

[Bouldernozzle]

Ejecting the rounds and putting them in his bag to sell later then tossing the revolver aside. "I get tired of finding these skeletons it's always so damn depressing." Isaac said looking at Marie before moving his head telling her to follow him. The two caught up to Lance and Alice before Isaac stepped in front taking point again. "Well as for the story it's about a girl named Alice going to a bizarre world called Wonderland and meeting several even more bizarre characters when we get some time I'll tell you more about maybe we'll pass a library and I can find you a copy." Isaac said as they reached another manhole ladder. "We're probably far enough now." Isaac said looking at the three behind him.


Allowing his sling to catch his carbine Isaac drew his .45 pistol flicking the safety off and pulling the slide back slightly to confirm it was ready to fire. "I'll go first, then Songbird, then Marie and Alice." Isaac said Marie nodding to the affirmative. Isaac grabbed the ladder and began the process of climbing up with only one hand his other keeping his pistol at the ready. Once he reached the top he got himself in a stable position and slowly lifted the lid above him. There was a sudden rush of wind that blew against Isaac along with the strong smell of smoke. Lifting the lid higher Isaac pointed his pistol out seeing it was clear it looked like it was snowing from his point of view but after a few moments he realized it was ash. "Looks clear." Isaac called down stepping outside. "Mother of god." Isaac said as he turned to his left seeing the town they were once at now a massive fire filling the skies with ash.

 

[Syrrus]

Alice bit her finger as she listened to what Isaac had to tell her, her eyes fell upon each and every corner of the tunnel, every detail and crack before it fell upon his face. She had never heard a story her entire life and she could now help but feel rather attached to this one. She placed her hands behind her back and skipped along. "Like you three, right?" She said with gleam in her eyes and a smile on her lips. Songbird was probably the only one who did not seem to care much and yet finding it slightly annoying to be compared to a character in a fairy tale.


Songbird grabbed Alice shoulder, as the small child was about to climb the ladder right behind Isaac, almost as if she hadn't heard a word he had said. With slight force Lance pulled her back against Maria and begun to climb upwards as he heard what he needed to hear. One step after the other and the stench of smoke and death hit him in the face like a plagued cloud. He hit the surface and got up on his feet just as his eyes fell upon the town. "Fantastic."

 

[Bouldernozzle]

Isaac looked at Songbird "I wish I had a gas mask like yours." Isaac said as he pulled out a scarf and used it to cover him mouth and nose to help against the smell. Marie then helped Alice up the ladder placing her outside then stepping outside herself "Holy shit." Marie whispered to herself "We can't stay long we have to keep moving if you have a scarf use it to cover you mouth and nose should help you breath a little." Isaac said looking at Marie who in turn pulled out two scarves and handed one to Alice. "I'll take point again." Isaac said pointing his rifle north before looking back at them "Keep your heads on a swivel that fire may attract raiders or worse yet animals we don't want to deal with." Isaac said as Marie wrapped the scarf around her head and then Alice's. Marie then offered Alice her hand to follow her.