Shandon fell to his knees and puked. How long had he been running? Months, it had felt like. But his body could no longer take the combination of desert heat and strenuous exercise and was protesting in the most violent manner possible. The young man heaved as another explosion of half-digested mole rat meat spewed from his mouth.

"At least I lost them," he muttered to his puke, marveling at how it seemed to coalesce into the shape of his third cousin, Frank, right down to the flecks of food that always seemed to be attached to the corner of his lips. "Right, Frank?"

"Have I got something on my face?" Frank answered back.

Shandon sneered for a moment, deep in thought, and then brushed his shoulder in disgust. "How pathetic is this? I mean, just look who I'm talking to. Frank never listens to a damn thing I tell him, anyway. I'm going to bury you now, Frank, before you cause me to become delirious and hallucinate." Frank gurgled protests as Shandon rubbed dirt over the putrid mess's face with his boot.

Judging from the position of the sun in the sky, Shandon was able to use his outdoorsman skills to tell that it the time of day was sometime between dawn and dusk, meaning that he had been on the run now for anywhere from a day to several days. The outdoors were never his strong suit, but then again, the closest Shandon had ever come to having a strong suit was the old combat armor he had filched from his Talon buddies back east.

Actually, that armor was the reason he was on the run in the first place. He could not understand why it was such a big deal, anyway. He and the Commander were great friends---so great of friends, in fact, that most nights Commander Radlow insisted he be chained up in the officer's room. Nobody else had been given that sort of access. Radlow didn't make a special case of picking anyone else up they found in the wastes, or recognizing his strength and skill so early that he insist on not giving him a weapon nor armor. Radlow would have wanted Shandon to have his special armor from when he single-handedly cleared their headquarters of Supermutants. If the other guys would just stop firing on him for five minutes, Shandon was sure he could let them know this. He would have to, somehow, since the Commander had let it slip his mind to inform them, the same he way he had let it slip his mind to inform Shandon of his desire for the young mercenary to have it.

"I'm sure I could explain it, Fra---" Shandon looked down to where he had smeared dirt over what used to be Frank. "Oh, that's right."

He reached into an insulated satchel attached to the armor's belt and pulled a bottle of water from it. He took a swig and gave himself a quick once over; only his .32 with three rounds left in the chambers. He had started the journey with a kalishnikov, but due to the weapons poor performance he had long ago discarded the extra weight to fit more food on his person.

In his younger days, he was often mocked for his physique. "The biggest waist in the wasteland," the other kids used to call him. Or perhaps it was "the biggest waste in the wasteland," as in a somewhat bittersweet twist, Shandon had never had the opportunity to see it written. It was all horribly unfair. It wasn't his fault that his body had its largest muscle mass in his stomach and hips.

He had noticed that, unfortunately, he was beginning to lose quite a bit of 'muscle' mass since his extended absence. He was going to need to find a source of food, and fast.

"I'm going to need to find a source of food, and fast," he echoed, blithely ignoring the narration. His shadow was beginning to shift, signaling the end of the day, and once night fall came hunting would be out of the question. Civilization wold be wonderful, if it still existed, but the next best option of a quivering shanty town populated by neighbors who were only vaguely hostile to each other, would provide a welcome alternative to the bleak nothingness of the seemingly endless rubble around him.

Shandon brooded upon what to do. There were radscorpions in abundance, but even with his special armor and trusty sidearm they would most likely prove to be too much of a challenge for very little reward. The meat was known for its unfortunate side-effect of paralyzing the consumer. If he had the inclination he could perhaps hunt Yao Guai, but it would require a small armory to fell one. And even if not an armory, at least more than three bullets from a formerly-six-shooter.

The familiar crack of gunfire in the distance roused Shandon from his concentration. Hoops and hollers could soon be heard in addition to the gunshots, as a cloud of dust worked its way over the horizon. Luckily for Shandon, it did not require a genius to know what sort of entity would cause that commotion. A raiding party was on its way, and the unfortunate sort-of-mercenary with his formerly-six-shooter and ill-fitted armor was right in their path.

(Continued later)

NOt bad at all, and are you going to continue the other fanfic you have out

Actually, the other one wasn't meant to be continued. I was hoping to get other people to join in to see how they perceived their in-game characters. Alas, no takers.

not bad i like the element of comedy.

Looking good, and the humorous side makes a change from the often depressing side of some of these fan fics , oh and i also like the idea that your character isnt this amazing warrior, equiped with a small armory, but a urm. Large? Kinda guy xP 5/5.

(cont. from above)

Shandon began to quiver in a decidedly unmercenary sort of way. With that much dirt being kicked up the raiders would have to be on a war path. Most likely, he was between them and a trade caravan, but no raider worth his salt would pass up an opportunity to take out an adrift Wastelander. And with nothing but empty sky and plain dirt around him, there were no good hiding spots to wait out the coming storm.

"I'm going to have to fight?" Shandon asked aloud, eyes darting frantically. He reached down to his holster and pulled out his revolver, trying unsuccessfully to steady his shaking hands. He lifted the barrel and, between twitchy jerks, aimed at what he imagined to the be the center of the dust cloud. Somebody had once told him you never fire until you see the whites of their eyes, but Shandon had always rejected that advice as ridiculous. If you can see the whites of their eyes, then provided they don't wear glasses, obviously they can see the whites of your eyes as well. Shandon practiced a much stealthier method of burying his eyes into his sleeve, which also provided a convenient rag for his tears.

He cocked the hammer, placed his finger on the trigger, and proceeded to immediately drop the gun to the ground. Curse his sweaty palms! The firearm bounced a couple of times on its downward trajectory before letting off a mighty "POP!" in the direction of the coming horde. Shandon's breath caught in his throat as the normal raider sounds ceased. The dust settled a bit, and only silence lingered in the air for what seemed an eternity.

Then a small noise began to pierce the silence, growing ladder, and closer. Shandon strained to hear it at first, but when the words became clear, he fell to the ground and blacked out. The last words he heard before the void closed in around him were, "Blood! Blood! Blood!"



Shandon awoke to the ugliest beast he had ever seen up close. Its face was etched into a permanent snarl, revealing rows of sharp fangs littered with decaying meat and blood. A few scrags of hair, a holdover from before its species had been horribly malformed by radiation, peeked out from between deformed holes that perhaps were once ears. Scars criss-crossed its entire body, the most prominent one being across what may have once been its right eye. And it was holding the second ugliest thing he had ever seen in his life in its arms.

"You killed my pet!" the beast snarled.

"You have a pet mole rat?"

"It's a dog!" the beast snapped.

"Oh... it's a beautiful animal," he muttered, pulling himself upright, a bit groggy from his unexpected nap.

"We would've killed you in your sleep and looted your corpse, you unlucky maggot. But now, I want you to be awake for this because I'm going to rip off every one of your limbs."

"In my sleep?" Shandon asked, before remembering what had happened before he blacked out. Fear gripped his chest as he got his bearings and recognized that he was not face to face with a beast at all, but a raider. Many raiders in fact, in numbers far greater than he had ever seen before. At his first count, there must have been at least thirty of them, and at second and third count there were far more.

The best pulled out a shotgun and placed it under his chin, pushing Shandon to his feet. "Where should I start?" it hissed. "With the legs, so you can't run away? Or the arms so you can't pick yourself back up?"

The beast grinned, its putrid breath making Shandon grateful he had thrown up already. It lowered the shotgun down to his crotch. "Or maybe, just maybe, I'll neuter you first. That's how I handled my dog when it gave me this scar."

"Come on!" Shandon protested, his voice cracking at a most inopportune moment. "Have a little decency. You just can't do that to another guy!"

"I'm a woman!" the beast barked, spewing pieces of fetid meat all over Shandon's armor.

"Oh... well, then did I mention that you could be quite beautiful," Shandon pleaded. It was not entirely a lie. She could very well be quite beautiful if only she weren't so hideous.

"Shoot it off!" some impatient onlooker cried from the back. Nearly before his sentence was completed the beast had pulled the shotgun from Shandon's groin, much to his relief, placed over her shoulder and shot behind her. The only sound afterward was the thud of a body hitting the ground.

"Oh my God! You shot him without even looking?" Shandon cried.

"I don't know which one I shot. These pigs all look the same to me! Right, pigs!?"

Without missing a beat the several men behind the beast all started grunting, making noises that they believed would come from a pig. "They're animals. That's how you keep animals in line."

Shandon was remiss. Even if he could outrun the beast "herself", which was highly improbable as the lack of ears made her much more aerodynamic than he was, surely the volley of bullets from the group behind her would put more holes in him than a turret repairman. Seeing no escape, he grimaced in preparation to become less of a man than the woman holding the shotgun to his sensitive bits.

"Wait!" another voice cried, prompting yet another shotgun blast into the crowd from the beast.

"Wrong guy," it answered, to another shotgun blast.

"Just listen!" it said, this time speaking over a third blast. "Look at his armor! I know that mark!"

A short raider stepped beside the beast and Shandon, sporting a beard nearly as long as he was. The raider strapped his pistol to his side and placed a grubby finger against the symbol painted onto Shandon's chest, "See this, Beast?"

"They call you Beast?" asked Shandon.

"Yeah, why?!" Beast snarled back.

"Oh, nothing, it's just funny because in my head. . . you know what, never mind."

The small raider chuckled. "This guy! He's Talon Company!"

Beast gave Shandon another look over, then turned toward the small raider, then back to Shandon. "This guy's Talon?"

"He must be. There's only two ways to get that armor, and since he ain't dead yet, there's only one."

Shandon saw his opportunity. "Oh, uh, yeah..." he stuttered, "I'm Lieutenant Corporal Shandon Blight of the 22nd division, headquartered back in The Republic."

"Lieutenant Corporal sounds made up," said somebody in the crowd.

"You mean from the Republic out west," somebody else asked a question Shandon had an answer for.

"Oh, uh, no, The Republic of... uh... Dave?"

"I never heard of it," Beast hissed, digging the barrel of the gun into Shandon.

"It's a small Republic. But growing fast! Anyway, I'm providing recon for the rest of my unit, so you can imagine what's going to happen if they come this way and find me dead."

"Oh, I know what's going to happen," said Beast.

"You do?"

"Oh yeah. We're going to get us some sweet Talon gear, and YOU'RE going to help, or else," Beast took her free hand and took a hold of Shandon's neck with the torque of a vice grip, cutting off his oxygen, "I'm going to blow your head off. And then I'm going to take my other round and blow your brains out. Understand?"

Shandon gurgled. He was going to help these raiders get their gear.

(cont. later)

good stuff :jammasterjay:

Again, 5/5

WHOAAA! thats a long post.

Hah, you think that's long, take a look at some of the fics in TES fanfiction. It's only long because it's mostly dialogue.

On the topic of the story, not bad at all. Please do continue.

I need more dialogue. I tried to go into detail with the 'fight' scenes though

Very good!
Great plot and the length of it is fine.
Look forward to later installments. 5/5

Really good! Update soon!