Jake looked to his group,"That was a good choice, just Ed and Rice going would've proven futile." Jake said looking off into the distance watching Sam and Taylor run towards Ed and Rice. "Alright, if your guys are ready we'll head out." Jake attempted to move in his power armor. It was stiff, and hard to move. "Damn, my armors getting rusted! I can barely move." Jake said with agitation in his voice." He hit his armor with the butt of his rifle. "This isn't gonna last.."

Rice moved at his normal pace. He had his saber at his side. "Ed, I have an idea." He looked back and noticed two figures running towards them. He had to make it fast. "It's not the particularly nice idea but it will work. Once we get to the base we don't go after Alfons. Instead we sneak in, take as much tech, weapons, and caps we can find and then scram." Rice now started to whisper as the two figures became closer. "I didn't come on this trip to rescue somebody. I came for caps and tech. I know you did to. We ditch the other two and then make a break for it with as much goodies as possible. I know it's not honorable but It'll work." Rice gave Ed a friendly smile. "We aren't turning on them, just making some money. If we come across Alfons on the way we can take him with us. Your decision, but if you don't want to do it please don't mention it to the others." Rice was devious. Persuasive. Dangerous...

OOC: going to baseball game. consider me on cruise control

Edward said, "That wouldn't be a good idea to just take the tech and run. You'll have to go to some major Wasteland center of commerce, and if we or you meet the others, it may not end well, not to mention the fact that it's dishonorable. Besides, Jake or Alfons may know of other tech caches that we have no idea about. I won't mention this to the others, but I've made my choice, and you have to make yours. I just hope you choose the honorable one." Edward looked behind him and saw the rapidly approaching figures of Sam and Taylor. He then said, "Remember, it's your choice, caps or honor."

Nememiah looked over at Jake's armour. He had seen his fair share of rust in Rivet City, he was starting to regret never really learning how to treat if effectively.

He jumped as something nudged his leg, but looking down he realized it was just Sergeant. He absent-mindedly stroked the animal, producing a small portion of meat he had picked up at some point or other during his travels. He handed it to Sergeant, who ate it up ravenously. He watched the hound, tearing through the flesh with razor-sharp canines. It had regained it's strength quickly, that was good. Still far from healthy though.

Looking back at Jake and Andy, he remembered the question the outcast had asked. "I'm ready when you are."

As Taylor drew closer to the pair, he realized they had just finished a conversation, but didn't ask about it. He panted slightly before he flicker his fingers torward his forehead in greeting "Guess we're with you" he said, glancing at Sam and adding "For now anyway." Taylor frowned as he once again delved into thought. He hadn't exactly expected a rescue operation on this little expedition. He didn't mind though. Taylor, at heart, was a man who lived to help people. That was why he was a doctor, and why he learned how to shoot as well, to protect people in ways beside medically treating them. Taylor pulled a map from his bag, marking the coordinates on his map. He whistled as he looked at the surrounding areas "We got a raider base on one side, and a Talon Compant outpost on the other" he said, laying the map out on a flat rock he pulled over from nearby, showing to the rest of the group. "What's our plan?"

Sam nodded, pushing some hair that fell infront of her face as she was running. "Yeah. For now." She tightened her belt around her and pulled an old flashlight out. She pressed the button with no response. Hitting it with her hand, it flickered into life. She pointed it at the map Taylor had pulled out. She held the flashlight in the side of her teeth as she helped flatten out the map. She looked at the coordinates and at the two points of interest Taylor pointed out. "'Ell, 'eh rai'ers..." She rolled her eyes and took the flashlight out from between her teeth. "Well, the Raiders won't be as armoured and I doubt they'll be as heavily equipped either. Though I think they'd be more of them than the Talon Company. Anyway..." She looked at Rice. "What do you think? You're the leader of our small gathering." Sam smiled a bit.

Rice didn't say anything back to Ed. This was the wasteland, and he had to do what he had to do to survive. The others caught up and started talking about the two different routes they could take. "I agree with Sam. Raiders will be tough but not quite well armed. They won't have any good armor either. I say we go in silent. Take out the guards then go in for the major groups." At that he flipped the safety on his assault rifle off. "Good luck and stay together. Raiders have bad shots but are fierce at close range." Then Rice started heading towards the Raider Base. Sneaking along the whole time.

Edward pulled out his Infiltrator and followed close behind Rice, deciding that Ol' Painless would be too loud of a weapon to use unless the Raiders started shooting. He then said to Rice, "You're still hellbent on getting that tech, aren't you?"

Meanwhile...

Alfons looked at all the gladiators while he was walking through the corridors. They all started screaming at him, calling him curse words and all kinds of stuff. They pushed Alfons into his cell, he had it all to himself. He looked out the barred window, noticing he could see the Washington Monument from there. As you could from anywhere else. "What is taking them so long, they probably forgot about me." He pulled out his picture, but it was windy and it pulled the picture out of his hands. It flew away into the horizon, Alfons thought to himself about the picture, "Sid you better go find my friends for me..."

I looked at Nememiah and Jake, wondering if I could trust Jake. I decided I could, but I'd keep my eye on him. I looked at Nememiah, "Well kid, let's see what Jake thinks we should do, well Jake? What's the plan?" I said to Nememiah and asked Jake. I quickly pulled out my rifle and checked it over, thanking god that I'd protected it from the rain. The radiation would probably make things rust much quicker, I quickly looked at Jake, "Oh and you might want to keep an eye on that armor, if you can't move you might want to get it off."

Rice looked back at Ed. "That's my business now." The raider base was up ahead. A bunch of shacks and trailers and a fence that had been through better. Rice could start to make out the first figure. He stood 100 yards from them. Rice ran to the nearest rock and unsheathed his sword. When Rice could hear the footsteps of the man he sprang out. Before the raider could pull out his pistol Rice had sliced his arm of and finished him with a quick stab. Rice spat on the carcass and continued towards the base.

Nememiah sat down next to Sergeant. "I suppose we ought to give them a head start, so to speak. Otherwise we'll end up following each other." He looked up at Jake, to see if he agreed. "Besides, we haven't developed a plan yet. No point moving off aimlessly."

He rested a hand on the dogs back. It was warm, the stiff hairs managing to trap the heat of the wastes. It was an unusual sight to see a dog with most of it's fur intact out in the capital wasteland, but not uncommon. Nememiah recalled meeting a scavenger in the Rivet City market, come to pedal his wares, who had a dog very similar to this one. He had called it an alsatian - Nememiah guessed Sergeant was of the same breed, be it slightly darker in colour. The bandage was still wrapped around the dogs middle; he would leave it there for another day or so, give the cuts time to heal.

And then, Sergeant started growling, showing his stained teeth and dark gums. Nememiah stood, cautiously unshouldering his rifle. He looked nervously across at Andy, and then at Jake. Both had taken the dogs warning, taking out their weapons. Nememiah met each of their eyes, they looked back with silent mutual understanding. The dog continued to growl, peering into the darkness, just beyond Nememiah's vision. He squinted at the shadows, fear gripping his body with an ice cold glove.

Something was out there.

Jake peered through the scope of his rifle, searching the horizon for anything that sergeant could be barking at. "[censored]! Mutants!" Jake whispered to Nememiah and Andy,"Holy [censored] theres 14 of em'!" Jake said still looking through his scope. He lowered his rifle and slid behind a large rock motioning for his group to do the same. "Damn, I gotta take this stuff off," Jake said as he started taking off his power armour, and putting on some leather armor that he had next to the campfire. Andy, and Nememiah slid behind the rock. Jake moved his hair out of his eyes and looked at his group, "Alright were gonna need to set these without them seeing us." Jake whispered as he pulled some landmines out of his pack." Jake looked to his right and saw sergeant still standing out in the open barking. "[censored]! Nememiah get your dog!" Jake half-yelled.

"Sergeant!" hissed Nememiah, but the dog remained where it was, it's spine arched, the hairs on it's back upright. "Come here! Sergeant!" said Nememiah again, more urgently this time. Sergeant turned his head, looking at Nememiah with something which could only be described as sorrow in his eyes, before rushing off in the opposite direction. Not towards the mutants, but away from the group, still barking wildly.

Nememiah swore loudly. He heard the mutants shouts of glee as they opened fire on the moving target. They were too far away to hit the skinny animal right now, but if they got closer... Nememiah shuddered. He had developed strong affections for that animal.

"Well, we might as well make the most of this," he said, grabbing a couple of land-mines and motioning for Andy to do the same. "Jake, give us some cover with that sniper!" Moving cautiously, he started setting the mines down, one by one, on the flat land between himself and the loud green blob in the distance. Let's hope this works.

Edward said, "Ok then." He then saw two Raiders doing Jet nearby. He aimed through his Infiltrator's scope and killed them both with well-aimed headshots. Edward then continued onwards to the base, being careful to hide the bodies behind some rocks before going onwards.

I cursed, I'd gone along with everything before this but now I'd do something that I'd decide to do. "Jake, cover me for a sec okay?" I said to him, not waiting for an answer. I crawled up to the top of the rock and reached inside my pack. I found one of my many emergency items, I pulled it out. I heard someone whistle behind me, but I'd just about blanked out, ready for the noise that this would make. I aimed the fat man, but at the exact wrong time, a mutie shot me directly between the eyes. My one weak spot. I couldn't see so I slid back down, bleeding terribly, someone tried to heal me but I pushed them away. "Just use the fat man! Quickly we don't have ANY time!" I yelled out, hoping that they'd listen to me.

Seeing Andy collapse, Nememiah had rushed over to the fallen figure in despair. But, not only was the ghoul miraculously alive, he was talking. Apparently ghouls were made of strong stuff. But what did he say?

"The fat man! Use the fat man!" repeated Andy, gesturing towards the weapon. Without another moments hesitation, Nememiah grabbed the heavy instrument and hefted it onto his shoulder. He lined up the shot, and squeezed the trigger.

The recoil knocked him on his back, but he had done his job. The deadly nuclear payload arced through the air, dropping at the furthest land-mine, setting off a chain reaction which doubled the devastation. A beautiful and terrible mushroom of orange and red erupted from the spot where the shell had detonated, a microcosm of the warheads which had created this wasteland. Agonized faces could just about be made out amongst the flames, as Nememiah layed on the ground and watched in awe as the figures became torn apart by the heat and raditaion.

The celebration was short lived, however, as Nememiah looked round. In the distraction, two mutants had out-flanked them and one was advancing on Nememiah, bearing it's teeth. Quickly finding his feet, Nememiah raised his rifle and sunk a bullet into the huge green shoulder, but the mutant continued regardless. In two strides, before Nememiah had a chace to expel the spent shell he was knocked off his feet. He landed hard on the ground, his rifle now beyond his reach. His assailant stood over him, almost grinning. Nememiah shut his eyes and waited for the hammer to fall.

But it didn't. Looking up, he saw a dark shape between him and the mutant. An arched back. Growling. The mutant looked down at Sergeant, confused, but before it could sweep the dog aside a blur of fur and muscle leaped upon it. Teeth sunk into flesh, and the mutant collapsed holding it's neck. It swiped at the dog, but the pain affected it's aim and the blow missed by yards. Sergeant stood over the mutant. The last thing Nememiah saw was the dog finishing the job by tearing at it's throat, and then he slipped into unconciousness.

I gritted my teeth, trying to fight my way through the pain. I didn't notice anyone except Nememiah, he had gone unconcious, I was going to make sure he'd get out of it. I pulled some Med-X out of one of my pouches, as well as a couple of stimpacks. I injected myself with the Med-X and one stimpack. I limped over to Nememiah, trying to get him back to conciousness, I wasn't even noticing my own wounds, just trying to get his under control. He seemed like he was going to die for a second and I just about died myself because of it, I kept up my pathetic medicinal treatment on him and he seemed to be a little bit better. I sighed and realised that I had my own terrible wounds to see to, I bandaged up my head and apparently broken arm, I then sat down, sighing. "Kid, if you don't make it through this, I won't forgive myself," I muttered, I didn't even realise that Jake was nearby, my whole attention was fixed on Nememiah.

The stimulating effect of the stimpack was all that was needed to wake Nememiah. He opened his eyes to see Andy and Sergeant both looking down on him. Evaluating the damage to his own body in a couple of seconds, he decided his ribs were not broken. The unconsciousness had likely been brought on by a mixture of the fall and the over-stimulation of combat. He was aware of Jake battling the remaining mutant somewhere to his left, but was sure the outcast could handle it; he would only get in the way. Besides, he was here as a medic, and Andy needed attention. Time to get to work.

Name: Jordan King
Alias: Behemoth
Age: 27
Race: Caucasian
Gender: Male
Tag Skills: Small Guns, Explosives, Lockpick
Perks: None
Weapons: Laser Rifle, lots of grenades.
Armor/Clothing: Lyons Pride Power Armor
Unique Weapon: SVD Dragunov

Jordan

The mutants I had been tracking where approaching a cluster of rocks when some kind of creature shot out from behind them. Great. Another thing for them to be distracted by. After being expelled from the Lyons Pride in the Brotherhood for insubordination, I had become determined to show my brothers that they made a mistake getting rid of me, and they needed me back. Therefore, the mutant stalking. I was trying to find their HQ so I could blow the crap out of it.

I realised there was people behind the rocks too, svcks to be them. I'd seen the mutants kill lots of people while I was following them, and wasn't going to blow my cover now for them.

I continued to watch the fight until I saw my worst nightmare, they had a fatman. All the mutants were killed, and all my work was gone down the drain.

DAMN!!

I walked over to the survivors and saw a face I thought I'd never see again.

"Jake?"

After Rice searched the body he continued on. He heard a bang and a flash of light in the distance. He could hear the raiders up ahead yell out. They were scared. Rice smiled. "Time to kick some butt." He ran at full speed towards the closest raider. He brought out his sword and sliced right threw the raider. Blood spilled everywhere as he screamed and wiggled until finally he died. Rice hid behind a trailer as he heard a man walk up to the body. Just as he was about to run for help Rice sprang out and unloaded 5 well placed rounds in to the mans torso. Now that the raiders were alerted he ran in to the trailer. A raider was sleeping in there, impervious to the commotion outside. Rice quickly slit his throat and took a kitchen knife from the man. Rice sprang out side and slung the knife at the nearest person he saw. The knife lodged in to a females arm and she screamed out. She tried to run but Rice shot her down with a few shots. Bullets were starting to ping of the trailer. Rice headed for the nearest cover, a smashed up building with two brahmin outside. A man with a warhawk walked out. He carried a sawed off shotgun. He fired two quick shots at Rice.

Fortunately only one pellet hit him. The pain throbbed but Rice ignored it. Instead he sprinted towards the man and disarmed him with his hands. Rice unloading his whole magazine on the man, killing him. Then Rice looked up to see more raiders coming. He cursed. "How many more of these people are there?"

Taylor fired a shot from the hunting rifle, which flew through the air and embedded itself in the skull of an oncoming raider. Taylor ejected the empty cartridge and slid the pin forward once again, ready to fire. As the raiders started getting closer, Taylor figured he would have trouble, so he drew his combat knife and tied it to the end of his rifle with part of a nearby brable patch. Another raider ran over and attempted to swing the crowbar and cave in the good doctor's skull, Taylor spun around and jabbed with his new bayonet, which caught the raider in the neck. A thin spray of blood shot out and Taylor got a faceful. He wiped it off with his sleeve and fired another shot into a raider who attempted to fire a missle launcher. "Get some cover!" yelled Taylor as he made for a nearby fence that had fallen over in the fighting.

Edward yellled, "Don't know, let's just kill them all and get to the Enclave base!" Edward opened a shack and tossed in about two Frag Grenades, killing most of the Raiders inside. He then finished off the survivors with his Combat Shotgun. He then ducked under the blow of another Raider and shot him point-blank with his 10 mm pistol. Edward looked and saw several more Raiders coming towards himself and Rice. Edward pulled out Ol' Painless and started picking them off like flies. He paused to reload and was knocked down by a Raider he had missed. Edward smashed Ol' Painless's rifle butt into his face, the Raider's face bones being pushed into his brain, instantly killing him. He looked at Ol' Painless and marveled at the fact that that the rifle butt hadn't broken from smashng it so hard into a Raider's face, a testament to its durability.

Of course, this momentary distraction had caused the Raider's to close the gap, and Edward was forced to take cover behind a destroyed vehicle to avoid the gunfire. Noticing Rice not too far from him, and Taylor making for a nearby fence, he asked, "Need some help with these Raiders?"

I grunted, looking at the man who'd just barged in on us. He seemed to recognise Jake, so I decided he was okay. I ignored him, just keeping my mind off the pain, I scowled, it actually did hurt. Getting shot between the eyes was pretty low on my to-do list. But I bared my teeth and put up with it, hoping that Nememiah would hurry up a bit. "Ahh, Nememiah, unless you noticed, you do have a long gash on your arm, your bleeding all over me," I said to him, genuinely worried.

Taking a second to glance down at his arm, Nememiah saw Andy was right. "That's not important right now."

He had already administered Andy with a good deal of Med-X, but he injected another helping straight into the bloodstream. This was going to hurt.

"There's no sign of an exit wound, so the bullet is still in there." Hopefully it hadn't gone too deep - judging by the size of the wound, the shot was small. Small shot equals less damage. Nememiah retrieved a pair of tweezers and wiped the worst of the dirt off with his hand. That will have to do. He inserted them into the hole, pushing aside damaged tissue before closing the grip onto the small, metal pellet. It hadn't penetrated deep. It was probably a ricochet, and most of it's energy had been lost when pinging off a rock, severely reducing the velocity. Andy was a lucky man. Or ghoul, Nememiah wasn't sure which.

He pulled out the bullet and immediately applied alcohol to the wound. The worst of the bleeding seemed to have stopped, but still Nememiah pulled out a strip of cloth and applied pressure to the affected site. Once satisfied the bleeding was under control, he wrapped a bandage around Andy's head tightly, and administered a few stimpacks to speed the healing process.

"You're going to be fine." said Nememiah, astonished. When he had seen Andy go down, he was sure he had been killed. Before tending to his own wound, he looked over to sergeant. The strenuous activity had reopened the wounds. The dog was licking itself in self pity. A stimpack or two would fix that right up.