Another Unoriginal Oneshot Book

Guide Her Through the Night

AN: Fallout 3 storyline spoilers. Wrote this one very quickly, so it's not quite as developed as my others.

Capital Wasteland, June 2278.

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Sergeant Jim Monroe, frantically reloading, watched the Hellfire trooper on his 10 line up a shot. Before he could fire more than once, the helmet disconnected from the rest of the trooper's body, taking his head with it. Monroe moved automatically to get him to cover, but his brain caught up with him. No medic could fix that.

"Delaney..." he muttered senselessly.

A dog came flying at him, all snarls and wild eyes. He batted it off with the butt of his plasma rifle, but it was barely deterred. The enemy was shouting to one another, and suddenly a harsh whistle rose into the midnight air signaling the dog to scamper back to its master.

The Captain shouted "Monroe, cover me!" as she prepared to dart over to see if battlefield repairs could get the sentry bot functioning again. A last-ditch effort, but their only hope.

Monroe had set his stance to cover fire when a frag grenade flew in an arc above his head. Right to the Captain. Shrapnel peppered her officer's uniform, but Jim breathed a sigh of relief to see that she was alive. That was, until...

A man appeared, as if he'd been there all along. He wore a fedora and trench coat, and held some sort of high-caliber handgun. Monroe was frozen, as if in a dream, or else he would've moved quickly to take the man down. The stranger fired five consecutive shots into the Captain, disappearing in another blink of the eye. Jim didn't make a sound. Suddenly, he was alone on the battlefield. He aimed at the hostiles. And then didn't.

Jim was confused. And terrified. And exhausted. He was a loyal soldier of the Enclave. And yet somehow, he hesitated. The barrel of his rifle tipped toward the ground.

The leader — the Lone Wanderer — threw her arm up to signal to her follower to pause. The guy behind her stopped too. Both took quick glances at the Pip-Boys fit snugly around their combat armor.

"Your indicator is green," the woman remarked. "That means you're not actively about to kill me." Her voice was an odd mix of stern and friendly. Monroe figured he should choose his next actions very carefully.

He shrugged slowly. "I don't see how I could if I tried."

"Aniss, did you forget two seconds ago when he was tryin' to shoot our brains out?" snapped the man behind her. The dog, no longer looking like a beast from the underworld, panted contentedly next to his leg.

She waved flippantly without looking at her friend. "Well," she said to Monroe, "you made a good decision. We don't go down easily."

"I'm not a coward," Monroe spat, face reddening under the helmet.

"Then why'd you lower your weapon?" Aniss interrogated him. The demand in her voice reminded him of his kid sister. She frowned petulantly at him through the murky Wasteland moonlight. The guy at her side rolled his eyes, and Jim saw that he was just as much of a child as she was.

"You're... a girl," he said slowly.

"So was your officer over there," Aniss snapped.

Thinking of the Captain's sudden and mystifying death clenched his gut. "I mean a kid."

"I'm nineteen."

"What's a teenager doing making herself an enemy of the state?"

"I DIDN— ugh." She took an angry breath. The dog cocked his head at her raised voice. "I didn't - do - anything. Your people attacked me. You attacked Project Purity. Your colonel killed my dad!"