No.

No.

It couldn't be happening.

They couldn't be here.

Not them.

It had to be the ventilation. There's no way they were here.

There's no way they would be all the way out here.

Carter sprinted through the twists and turns of the Vault, his hunting shotgun bouncing across his back uncomfortably as he ran toward the distant gunshots echoing from deeper within. Thousands of things ran through his mind at a mile a second, corrupting his mind with images he certainly didn't want to find in his entire lifetime. Pushing them back as much as he could, he held his right hand out and grasped at a wall, turning a right and continuing to sprint along the corridor with renewed vigor.

Reaching yet another T-shaped intersection, he looked to the left and found the quickly disappearing foot of a human. A red dot was pointing in its direction on Carter's HUD. Slinging his hunting shotgun out, he rushed toward the hostile, taking the same left it did. As he turned the corner, he held his shotgun up and placed his finger on the trigger, watching in anger as he saw the familiar sight of a Western soldier walking away from him. Gritting his teeth, he darted toward him, held the butt of his shotgun in the air, and slammed polished wood into loose leather and bone, watching as his foe fell limply to the ground.

Blowing air out of the side of his mouth, Carter launched his foot into the stomach of the downed soldier, causing him to roll over in pain and look up at the man currently standing over him. As he began to raise his hand, the old man above him slammed his foot onto the appendage, cocked his shotgun, and fired a single shot into the soldier's brain.

The Wanderer knew that armor from anywhere.

Caesar's Legion was here.

His assumption had been confirmed.

Suddenly, the telltale sound of a synchronized group met his ears, coming from around the corner he had just rounded. Realization dawning on him in the blink of an eye after four decades of "service", he turned tail and sprinted around the corner.

A large group of red and green dots were fixated on his right side, leading back up the staircase. Rounding the corner, he looked up toward the staircase and found the swift, unexpected closing of a Vault door, the hissing sound going unnoticed by the Wanderer as he rushed the exit, beginning to bang on it with his shotgun, knowing full well from nineteen years inside one that nothing could stop those doors.

Breathing heavily, he gave one final kick, before placing his hand on the nearby wall, keeling over, and coughing loudly onto the ground below. This time, he knew his hacking wasn't of old age. Looking up toward a ventilation shaft above his head, he grit his teeth tightly, slamming a hand onto it in anger. He had forgotten to put on his gas mask before entering the Vault, and was ultimately succumbing to the drugs being fed through the ventilation system.

Shaking his head in an attempt to ward off the effects, he turned his attention to the area behind him.

A large door, the sign above it reading,

"Atrium," Carter read, pumping his shotgun and descending the steps in a hurry. Reaching the foot of the stair, a large, metallic object shone brightly into the corner of his eye, bringing his attention toward the limp body of a large, seemingly steroid-induced raider, a welding mask strapped so tightly to his face that dry blood marks marred the areas around the mask's suction cup-esque compression. A trail of crimson led to his body from the Atrium door.

Raising an alarmed brow, he looked to his left again and rushed toward the bloodied door, placing his finger on the top button and watching as the door hissed open in response. Walking into the Atrium, he was met with a sight that caused him to drop his gun in horror.

There, standing in the middle of the Atrium, was a cyan pegasus.

Blood covered her entire figure, small drops falling silently to the floor and creating a giant pool by her hooves, soaking into her fur and leaving behind a disgusting crimson stain.

Across her left foreleg was a long, jagged red trail.

Next to her, lying forgotten on the floor, was a bloodied, Legion machete.

And in front of her, stained in red, was the disfigured body of a Legion soldier.

Walking up slowly toward the mare, Carter spoke, "Rainbow?"

The mare turned her head, showing her bloodshot, squinted eyes and gritted teeth.

Carter's breath caught in his throat.

Rainbow's head turned back toward the body still lying on the floor, before she slowly trotted up to the corpse and placed both forelegs atop it. Placing her mouth down, Carter heard the familiar sound of a knife being retracted from meat, before the mare turned back around, sheathed her knife, and promptly fell to the floor in a heap.

Rushing over, Carter quickly held her in his arms, falling to the floor and cradling the mare like a child as she wept. As she did so, Carter took the time to look around the room.

The Overseer's office window was completely shattered, the glass fragments scattered all over the Atrium floor, which was covered in both blood and spent bullets. The body on the floor was that of a Legion soldier, barely recognizable beyond the leather cap and goggles still clasped tightly on his head. Various cuts, gashes, and holes marred his body, courtesy of the bloody mare the Wanderer currently held in his hands.

The smell was enough to kill a man, were it not for Carter's familiarity with the stench he had become so accustomed to.

"I'm s-s-so sorry Carter.."

"No no no, don't be Rainbow-"

"They killed Cross, and they took this girl and her family outside. I couldn't s-stop them Carter..."

"Cross...?"

Rainbow took a second to wipe her eyes, straightening herself in Carter's arms and pointing toward a second body laying on the floor, "Paladin Cross, over there, the-the one in the gray..."

Carter looked over to the body she was looking at, finding the dead body of a man crumpled on the floor, a dirtied white shirt being the only noticeable feature of him.

Certainly not the Paladin Cross he knew.

Looking back down at the mare in worry, she did the same, staring up at him in unstoppable tears.

"They took her. They took Melody."

The Vertibird. The Vertibird outside.

"They're taking her back to Arizona."

"Who's Melody?"

"This-this little girl. They just up and t-t-took her away.."

Carter got up from the floor, the cyan mare still clinging tightly to his arms, "Why did they take her, Rainbow?"

The pegasus looked back up at him.

"They...they said she knew the c-c-code..." the mare could barely finish her sentence, her eyes shut tightly in an attempt to stop weeping.

Looking around in a panic, Carter shifted his shotgun over his shoulder, picked up the nearby hunting rifle off the floor and sprinted out the door, turning a left and rushing toward the maintenance elevator. Slamming a balled fist into the Up button, he sat in silence for a heartbeat before the doors hissed open, suddenly making a break for the Vault gate in the next room over. Emerging into the room in a flash, he noticed that the door was wide open.

Not the condition he had left it in.

Escaping outside through the long cave, he kicked open the wooden door separating the Vault from the Wasteland, racing into the open air and being met with the sound of blades whirring loudly. Grabbing his revolver from his holster, he fired three shots into the Vertibird's hull, before it ascended into the night sky, unaffected, and zoomed off.

The whole ordeal seemed to last only seconds for Carter as he lowered his revolver and breathed heavily, his chest rising and falling in sync with the mare still held in his left arm. As the Vertibird grew smaller and smaller into the night sky, Carter looked toward the cyan mare, who waited to respond to his next question she knew would come.

"Code for what, Rainbow?"

The mare struggled to regain her composure, stammering out, in a quiet voice,

"They called it a nuke."

Author's Note

I'm not entirely sure what to think of the quality of this chapter. Deadly didn't deliver, huh?