Dealing with Slavers

“I don't want to set the world, on, fire... I just want to start, a flame in your heart~”

Eight, eight radscorpions. That was how many Hunter counted through his scope. He could easily identify the two biggest ones as the parents of the nest, with the rest in varying sizes of development. Three of which were fairly small, they’d be easily taken out in a shot or two.

This nest in particular had found itself located awfully close to Canterlot Wasteland News's main trading route, meaning that for the past few days the merchants had been being harassed by ambush attacks from the oversized bastards. However, a nest of radscorpions wasn't a job worth sending a large number of people or even CWN's best. As a result, the job had been posted up as a freelance mission. Anyone who was willing to take the job would get a nice cap reward and a personal thank you from the head honcho of the station themselves.

Hunter didn’t care too much about the thank you, after all it’d probably just amount to nothing more than a quick thank you over the radio between the songs and never be mentioned again. A small token of gratitude sure, but it didn’t really spread one’s reputation or put caps in his pocket. The pay though was absolutely worth it. The bar had hit a bit of a slow season and he was starting to run low on funds to maintain it, so accepting the bounty board mission was a good way to make some quick pocket change.

Hunter cocked the lever of his sniper rifle and focused his sights on the largest of the buggers. Radscorpions had notoriously small and hard to hit brains, but if you hit just the right spot, all you'd need is one shot to take them down.

With careful aim, he pointed his sights in the exact middle of the creature's multiple eyes, breathed out slowly, then pulled the trigger.

The loud bang echoed through the air as his bullet flew true, easily piercing the radscorpion's shell and sending a spray of scorpion goo into the air as the largest of the bastards hit the ground with a hard thud.

The death of their comrade did not go unnoticed as the other scorpions let out a scree of shock, before turning to where the sound of the gun had been fired.

“Was expecting that.” Hunter chuckled as he rotated the scope towards his next target. Moving targets were much harder to take down in one shot, so once the next bug was in his sights, he pulled the trigger three times. Each bullet struck the creature's back, a loud wailing erupting from the creature as it stumbled around near death. With a more carefully aimed shot, the fourth bullet struck the dying creature's head and put it down for good.

It was one against six now, but that wasn't anything new in the wastelands. He turned to another scorpion, one of the small ones this time, and fired two bullets into it's back. Another turn, he emptied the last three shots of his clip into the back of one of the bigger remaining ones. His volley had killed the first one, but the second was still kicking.

He reached down to his hip and unclipped a frag grenade, pulling the pin and tossing it out in front of him. As the explosive went off to the sound of shrilling screeches, he retreated a short distance as he stored his sniper rifle against his back and exchanged it for his hunting rifle. Sniper rifle ammo wasn't exactly common or cheap, so one clip was all he was willing to spare on a road-side annoyance.

Turning back to face his pursuers, he now only counted three chasers, the frag grenade apparently having taken out two of them. With a cocky smirk, he aimed his rifle and quickly began firing off rounds into their backs. One fell to his first volley, and with a quick reload the second fell to the next volley. The third however, was getting too close for comfort. Hunter backpedaled quickly, trying to reload as he ran.

“GAH!” He cried out, a rock hitting the back of his foot causing him to lose his balance and falling flat on his back. His eyes opened wide as he lifted himself up onto his elbows, seeing the scorpion fast approaching. He rushed to aim his gun, taking what ammo he could and jamming it hastily into the barrel. He cocked the lever, hearing the click of ammo sliding into place just as the radscorpion reached him. It's large pincer snapped forward and latched onto his ankle, eliciting a hiss of pain from Hunter.

As the tail pulled back to snap down onto him, his rifle aimed straight for where he knew it's brains to be and fired his entire clip straight into it's head. The scorpion let out a loud wailing hiss before it's body slumped to the ground the poison filled tail landing dangerously close to his sides. Hunter let out a grateful sigh as he reached over and ripped the pincers off his leg, gently rubbing the sore spot.

He pulled his pants leg up to check the damage. While there was some bruised and bleeding skin, he managed to avoid twisting his ankle and he could walk on it. It wasn't even worth a bandage, let alone a regen-stim. He stood up and dusted himself off, letting out a sigh of relief before flicking the tip of his hat as he looked down at his work with a smile. It wasn't much, but the caps for a job that simple would easily keep his bar afloat during the down season.

He wasn't quite don't just yet though, he still needed to sweep their nest and destroy any eggs they might have laid to ensure no more popped up in the future. Not to mention he fully intended to harvest what poison sacks he could from their corpses, as he could sell them to the merchants for a bit of extra cash as well.

Hunter leaned over to the corpse while pulling out his knife, and stabbed into it's thick shell, prying it open to get at the glands he was seeking. As he ripped open the shell, he heard the snap of a twig nearby and paused, turning his head to look behind him. There were a few rocks around him, but none of them had really been big enough to hide a human if they were sneaking up on him, and another animal would just charge at him.

He scanned the arid wasteland around him one last time, cautious at the sound, but when nothing appeared he turned back to his work. It wouldn't take that long for him to get the gland, he just needed to be careful with how he cut the organ out or else it'd become worthless to the merchants.

A loud metallic clang echoed out into the air as pain seared through Hunter's head, his body collapsing and his head bouncing against the ground. His ears rang loudly as stars exploded in his eyes from the impact. He was barely able to realize that he had been struck, as his arms pushed against the ground to try and right himself. His head lifted just fast enough to look up, seeing a shadowed out figure against the sun raising it's hand as it brought a melee weapon back down against his skull.

The world went black as his consciousness left him.

☼☼☼☼☼

A groan escaped Hunter's lips as consciousness came back to him, a head-splitting pain making itself known immediately. That wasn't good, waking up in pain was never a good thing in the wastelands. He quickly tried to recall what had happened in his last waking moments to figure out where he was. He'd been doing a small job hunting Radscorpions for CWN when something hard hit his head.

He tried to move his arms, but found them locked in place. When he tried to move his legs, they had the same struggle. His head was still swimming in pain and he wasn't able to think clearly yet, but could still realize he was in serious trouble.

“Wake up Hunter.” A familiar voice snapped in anger at him, a fist slamming itself hard into his gut. All of the air left Hunter's lungs as his head fell forward, his eyes shooting open. He was definitely awake now. “Good, now that you're awake, I can gloat.”

Hunter lifted his head, wincing as his eyes adjusted to the room. There was just enough sunlight coming in through a broken window for him to make out a familiar figure before him. He would recognize the pasty-skinned portly man with a unique pre-war era hat anywhere.

“Fathat?” Hunter hissed through the pain, growling fiercely. “What in the name of Tartarus is this about?”

“Don't give me that shit Hunter, you know EXACTLY what this is about.” Fathat spat, Hunter turning his head and frowning in displeasure at having the unwanted liquid on his face. “I've had enough of your shit and it's about time you faced some damn comeuppance for it.” Fathat stood up straight, putting his hands against his sizable waist before giving a mocking grin. “Not looking so high-and-mighty when you don't have a gang of pathetic sluts backing you up now, huh?”

“Last I recall, those lovely women sent you running with your tail between your legs.” Hunter smirked at the repulsive fellow. Fathat fumed at the insult, raising his foot and kicking Hunter hard in the chest. The wooden chair he was tied to fell backwards with him in it, his head and arms hitting the ground with a hard thud. He let out a loud groan of pain as his ears began to ring from his head being struck so suddenly again.

“Be smug all you want Hunter, I'm the one coming out of this with the last laugh.” Fathat growled, stomping his foot down onto his captive's chest. Hunter grunted at the force, already feeling the bruises forming on his chest. Fathat was putting his weight down on him and making it hard to breathe. “You can take some solace in knowing I don't plan to kill you though. No, that'd be too easy.” Fathat removed his foot and stepped to the other side of the abandoned house they were in. “I have better plans for a worthless sack of shit like you.”

“Good merciful afterlife Fathat, are you really so pathetic that you can't get over a few insults?” Hunter grunted, trying to wrestle a little with his bindings. “You were the one always forgetting your bar tab, you were the one always harassing others at the bar, ESPECIALLY the women, and you were the one who always thought you should get more for doing next to nothing. And you want to blame me for your shortcomings?”

“YOU HUMILIATED ME HUNTER!” Fathat roared, glaring down at the struggling man. “Not just once, but several times! I risked my life for the station, I was a frequent customer, and I brought in extra help from around the wastelands! And all you could do is harass me for caps, insult me for speaking, and making me out to be the bad guy! And whenever I even tried to help you, you threw it in my face and made me a laughing stock! You're a despicable man Hunter!”

“You sure sell yourself better than you're actually worth, I'll give you that.” Hunter rolled his eyes, realizing his bindings weren't giving any time soon and stopped struggling. “What must it be like to live in a twisted world where you're always right and never in the wrong.”

“Ask yourself that while you're paying your penance.” Fathat spat again. “After today I won't have to deal with your shit ever again.”

As if on queue, a knock sounded from the front door of the broken house, causing a wicked grin to appear on Fathat's face. “Ah good, they're here!” He almost pranced as he moved to the door with a joyful gait. Hunter grit his teeth in dread as the portly man opened the door, unsure of what awaited him on the other side.

The bright sun filtered into the dilapidated house, causing Hunter to wince at the burning light. He couldn't accurately make out who was outside the door, but Fathat seemed to be pleased with his guests.

“We're here for the merchandise.” A gruff male voice spoke up, filling Hunter's heart with dread.

“Of course, right over here.” Fathat said smugly, moving out of the doorway to let his guests inside. Three figures stepped into the house, and Hunter could recognize them instantly.

Slavers. The one group of people that if he could, he'd eradicate from the face of the Wastelands.

“Fathat you fucker!” Hunter spat, gritting his teeth furiously. Fathat just looked down at the bartender with the smuggest grin Hunter had ever seen in his life. One of the slavers stepped in the way of Hunter's sight, looking over him. It was a bald male with goggles and a cloth covering his mouth. He was clearly checking out Hunter's condition, before standing up and turning to the backstabbing fatty.

“He's in good condition too. Alright, as agreed, you'll get your payment.” A female slaver pulled out a bag of caps and handed it to Fathat, who quickly inspected the contents and grinned broadly.

“Good doing business with you then.” Fathat tipped his hat at the slavers with a smile. “And you Hunter... Well, I doubt I'll ever be seeing you again. So have a miserable life.” The portly man let out a cackle as he exited the house, leaving Hunter to the mercy of the slavers.

“Oh if we ever meet again...” Hunter spat, before the barrel of an assault rifle was aimed at his head.

“Don't make any sudden movements or we'll blow your brains out.” The bald slaver explained. “I'm going to untie you from the chair and then you'll be coming with us.”

Hunter glared death at the slaver, but he couldn't argue back. He had no intention of dying here if he could help it. He'd just have to wait for an opportunity to escape, but right now he was outnumbered and outgunned.

☼☼☼☼☼

The slavers were not gentle or patient when it came to transporting their prisoners, as Hunter found out the hard way. They moved at a certain pace and if you didn't follow in line they would let you know their displeasure with the butt of their gun. One lead the group while two stood behind him, ensuring that even if he tried to turn and deck one of them, the other would riddle his back with bullets where he stood. The slavers had also frisked him for any hidden weapons, but Fathat had stripped him clean of anything worth a cap or useful in self defense, so he was utterly defenseless.

No matter how long they walked, he couldn't find a single opening to attack from, and so he just followed along to wherever they were taking him. At one point they had moved to an underground series of tunnels, which made it easier to hide their movements and keep Hunter confused as to where they were.

To make matters worse, they met up with another group of slavers who had captured their own quarry on their trip as well, which only increased the number of slavers and left him feeling even more helpless. It had been at least seven years since he'd felt so utterly and pathetically helpless, and he didn't like the feeling in the least.

He kept imagining around the next tunnel turn or traveling through the doors that the slavers would run into a rescue party, a team from CWN who found out about the kidnapping and would rain down bullets on the slavers. It was entirely possible that CWN’s Commissariat bots would have caught Fathat’s kidnapping plan, though he knew the station didn’t have that many to spare. Plus if something else was going on in the world, there’d be even less to keep an eye out around the facility.

And with the Daring Duo on the loose, that was always a possibility. While they were the heroes of the wasteland, he couldn't expect them to solve every problem that popped up.

By the time their group had resurfaced from the underground tunnels, night had fallen. They had been traveling for at least half a day, meaning they had made it a good ways away from CWN. Hunter had never been this far south of CWN, and while he had traveled the wastelands for a short while to find a safe settlement, his fortune had prevented him from running directly into villains like the slavers.

Outside the tunnels they could make out a large fenced off series of buildings. Even from that distance Hunter could spot the lone tall guard tower near the main gate with at least two spotlights keeping an eye on the compound and surrounding area. The slavers pushed them straight towards the building, leading them down a long fenced off path to the front gate.

One guard stood outside the main gate, nodding his head at the sight of the returning slavers. He moved to quickly unlock the heavy metal doors that acted as the front gate, the gate opening wide for them to enter. Another shove from the butt of a gun and Hunter was ushered into the camp. They were directed towards a building near the front gate as the gate closed noisily behind them.

The inside of the building had several rows of shelves and work benches lining the walls, leading into a backroom where more intricate work was taking place. From the back, a slaver carrying three thick black collars walked out.

“Alright shitstains, here's how things work around here.” The bald slaver from earlier spoke up, standing before the three new captures. He lowered his bandana mask to speak clearly, “Each of you are getting a slave collar.” The first collar was placed around the neck of the first slave in their row. “It's got enough explosive force to blow your head off in an instant. So if you try to run, if you try to leave, if you piss us off, if you do anything we don't like, pop goes your head. Just like opening a champagne bottle.” He chuckled darkly.

The man next to Hunter began crying as the slave collar was placed around his neck. Hunter couldn't blame him, if he wasn't boiling over with seething rage he'd likely have broken down himself. As it was though, he was doing everything in his power to not lash out and get himself immediately killed.

“It's not all that hard being a slave though. Most days you'll just be sitting in your cells, looking all pretty, waiting for one of you to get sold. However, if there's any stupid jobs that need to be done around this shithole, or we just feel like telling you to do something, you're going to do it. We can't be bothered to maintain most of this place on our own, so it's handy having slaves for the menial tasks.”

Hunter felt the cold metal of the black collar wrap around his neck as it was secured in place. A small key fit into a hole on the collar, locking the device around his neck. Not only was it humiliating and dangerous, it was heavy too. Most of the weight landed on his shoulders, but he already hated the feeling of it on his body. Once all the collars had been securely placed, the bindings on their hands were freed.

“Also, if you're getting any hopes for a rescue party, let me dash those hopes right now. We've been running this place for two years now, and all attempts to get in or out of this place without us wanting you to has been met with failure. And don't think we won't kill you just because we need to sell you to earn our pay. We only need to sell one of you to make back the caps spent on either buying you or getting you here, so you are very expendable.” The slaver placed a hand against his hip, frowning. “I hope you got all of that, I won't be repeating myself. You'll be escorted to your cells now, so just keep this easy on everyone and get the fuck to sleep.”

“Get moving.” One of the slavers from behind Hunter ordered, slamming the butt of his gun into his back. Hunter winced, but grit his teeth, just keeping his mouth shut for now. The three of them filed out from the building and were led to the opposite side of the compound from the main entrance. Hunter took a look at the sizable guard tower near the front gate, trying to gauge the level of defenses the place had.

There was currently only one guard stationed at the tower, watching them as they were marched towards their cells before losing interest and looking back out at the wasteland. He made a mental note about the lax behavior, before they came to a stop in front of what was easily the most run down building in the entire compound.

The metal door was pushed open, revealing a small room filled with split off jail cells of varying condition. Hunter could tell that a few of them already had people in them as they were pushed inside. One by one the three new captures were led into different cells, Hunter's cell being close to the back of the building. He stepped inside and turned around, glaring at his captor as the door was sealed shut.

Without a word the slavers turned and left, leaving the now imprisoned slaves behind in the dark room. Once the door to the building was closed, the only light that filtered in was through the broken glass windows next it, leaving the area nearly pitch black. The jail cells were deathly quiet save for the sobbing of a broken man in the cell over. Hunter sucked his teeth before walking deeper into his cell, sitting down with his back to the wall. He let his eyes adjust to the darkness before he could even see any details about the place.

The cell was minimally accommodating. There was an open toilet, though if it was even useable was up for debate as it was giving off an awful stench from previous usage. The floor was covered in blood, dirt, and grime, obviously not cleaned up or taken care of despite having been used to house slaves for years. There was a single mattress in the cell, but it was currently occupied by the only other person in his cell. In the darkness he couldn't discern any real details about them, only that him getting tossed into the cell hadn't disturbed their sleep.

He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, pressing his hands against his forehead and letting his fingers run through his hair.

“This is really happening...” Hunter whispered under his breath, the reality of everything finally starting to sink in. The entire trip had felt like some awful dream that he was going to wake up from at any moment, and then his vision had been blood red as that bald slaver was speaking. But now that he was here...

His breath hitched in his throat as he suppressed his own urge to break into sobs. The sound of the other slave crying only made it all that more difficult to not break down himself. He knew the Wastelands were a ruthless place, he'd known that ever since the day he'd lost his wife. He wanted to be better than the Wastelands though, to not let the harshness of the world around them turn him into an animal like it had so many others. He had treated those who deserved it with kindness and that kindness had given him a safe place to work and call home. And those that didn't deserve kindness he had either given the swift boot or a few bullets to call their own.

This was the first time any of it had come back to bite him like this. Fathat was a coward and a pathetic human being, but he had never pegged the portly man for actually being a scumbag. Keeping the peace in the bar was part of his job, and Fathat always threw that back in his face, so of course when he went too far he had been kicked out for good.

Apparently that was motive enough for Fathat to try and ruin his entire life in return.

“I should try and get some sleep...” He muttered under his breath, exhaustion finally starting to wash over him. He wanted nothing more than to try and think his way out of the situation, but his mind was too filled with grief and anger. Thinking about Fathat made his vision turn red, and the feeling of the heavy collar on his neck made his heart fall.

He adjusted where he sat, gently leaning his head against the corner of his cell and closed his eyes. He already knew this was going to be the most uncomfortable sleep he was ever going to have, if he even managed to fall asleep, but he had to try anyway.

☼☼☼☼☼

The morning sun was filtering through the broken windows when the door to the cells was opened, a slaver wheeling in a cart that was loaded with trays of food and water. Hunter had been awake for a few hours, but had been trying to fall back asleep or at least close his eyes to try and rest as best he could. The thick collar made it harder to sleep than he had realized it would, especially with it digging into his skin anytime his throat even dared to expand.

He cracked his eyes open and looked through the bars, he watched the bored slaver stop in front of each cell before pushing a tray into them, one per slave. It wasn't long before he stopped in front of his cell and pushed two trays in through the small hole at the bottom of the cell, before turning and leaving.

For the first time since he'd gotten there, his roommate got up from the mattress. With how fluidly they had just gotten up, he was wondering if they'd even slept at all as they walked over to the tray, before sitting down and starting to dig into the contents.

He let out a short sigh and a groan himself as he stood up, feeling the strain on his muscles from the uncomfortable sleep. He walked over to the trays and sat down in front his own. There was a bowl of mushy goop that could hardly be described as food with chunky bits floating around in the slop and a bottle of dirty water.

If Hunter had to guess, the slavers had just grabbed whatever meat and gone-bad prewar food that they didn't care about anymore and just tossed it into a pot and let it cook as 'food' for their 'guests'. It didn't look appetizing in the least, nor did it smell all that appealing, but he had the feeling it was the only thing he was going to be eating for a while. His roommate didn't seem to mind the taste at least, judging from how quietly they ate.

“So... What's your name?” Hunter asked, turning to look at his roommate, taking a moment to actually distinguish what the human next to him looked like. However, the moment he did, his eyes opened wide in shock.

A pristine head of fuchsia hair perfectly framing a gorgeous face of pale pink, the most beautiful emerald eyes looking deeply into his own, an elegant dark fuchsia dress that matched her hair, and a smile that would melt his heart if he saw it anywhere.

“Good morning Hunter.” Her perfectly blissful voice spoke to him, a happy smile appearing on her face like it had once done so many years ago.

“R-Rose?” Hunter's voice quivered as he lifted a hand up towards the radiant woman that had been the light of his life before everything went to hell. Just as his hand was about to touch her, he froze, realization sweeping over him that this couldn't be real. He remembered, he remembered that day all too clearly.

A groan of pain and agony, his consciousness coming back to him. He couldn't have been out long, he was still in the car. The bridge had collapsed and he realized he was lucky to even be alive. He could hear explosions still going off in the distance, the attack hadn't stopped yet. He pulled back from the steering wheel, realizing the car wasn't right-side up anymore.

He turned his head to the passenger seat, trying to gauge the situation, when his eyes opened in shock. Rose was covered in blood, the car on that side mostly crumpled in and half of her body trapped. A piece of rebar from the road had broken through the car door and pierced her chest as well.

“Rose!” He cried, reaching out and grabbing her shoulder. Her eyes opened slightly, as she weakly turned her head to look at her husband. A smile appeared on her lips as she saw him.

“Hey...” She weakly muttered.

“D-Don't worry! I'll get you out of here and to a medic! You're going to be fine!” Hunter panicked as he looked down at the crumpled car crushing her lower half. There was no way he could free her with his bare hands, and he knew that finding a doctor right now would be near impossible. His face softened as he felt his wife's hand touch his face, him turning to look at her. Even near death she had the serene smile of an angel.

“I'm sorry Hunter...” Her words were weak, “I can't go with you...” He gripped her hand on his cheek as he grit his teeth. “Just... Please... Go and be happy somewhere... Do that... For me...”

Those were the last words his wife ever spoke to him, as her eyes closed and her head rested against the remains of the car.

Hunter squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, the horrific vision of that day fading from his mind. The person in front of him couldn’t be his wife, he knew that all too well. So when he opened his eyes again, the love of his life was gone, and the real person he was sharing the cell with became clear as day.

It was a woman, of that he was certain, though the shape of her face was nearly identical to his wife's. She even had the same light pink skin tone as her. The resemblance was so uncanny that even without the radiant vision, Hunter was having difficulty processing that it was a different person. However, there were plenty of things that separated this girl from his wife.

Unlike his wife, her hair was a dark purple with aquamarine streaks going through it that framed her face and went just past her shoulders. The ends of her hair looked like someone had taken a sheer to them, as it was incredibly uneven and had a massive amount of split ends curling around the tips. She was wearing a grimy gray shirt with matching pants that looked like they had once been clean, but those days were long gone. And of course, she also had an exploding collar strapped to her neck.

What struck him most about the girl though, was the look in her eyes. Her eyes were a beautiful purple that matched her hair, but even though he was looking directly into them, he couldn't sense a hint of life in the girl. She stared at him with a dull, emotionless stare that only seemed to acknowledge that he had spoken to her, rather than have any opinion about what he said.

“Ah... Sorry, I mistook you for someone else.” Hunter gave an apologetic smile to the girl. “Still, I'd love to hear the name of a beautiful young woman such as yourself. My name's Hunter, by the way.”

The girl didn't say anything, just staring at him as if waiting for him to say something more than just a question. Hunter's smile slowly fell as he realized he wasn't getting a response. He rubbed the back of his head a little confused, trying to think of something else to say.

“So uh... Where are you from? They took me from Canterlot Wastelands News.” He tried offering small talk instead. The girl just continued to stare, not even a flicker of emotion registering on her face. Hunter opened his mouth to try and say something else, but when the words failed to come he just closed his mouth and frowned. Something was wrong, probably something deeper than he could possibly ever understand.

“Sorry... I'll just let you eat.” He quietly sighed as he turned to his food. Seemingly satisfied with that, the girl turned back to her food and continued to eat, showing no signs of if she enjoyed or hated her meal. She just seemed complacent with having sustenance.

'Can't be all that bad if she doesn't mind it.' Hunter convinced himself in his mind as he picked up the bowl. The spoon in the bowl was pretty shoddy, but it held the food just fine so it would have to do. With a chunk of slimy gray gruel in the spoon, he pushed it into his mouth and chewed. He instantly grimaced at the taste, his initial assumptions about the meal having proven correct. It was just a bowl of old meat and gravy.

Hunter struggled to swallow the first bite, grabbing the bottle of water and taking a swig from it. The water wasn't much better, but he'd stomached lousy water before and he gently swished the taste out of his mouth before swallowing. Gauging by how much water was in it, he wouldn't be able to do that with every bite. He was just going to have to stomach eating the bowl first if he wanted any food that day.

While he was contemplating all of this, the woman had finished her meal without a word and had moved back to the mattress. She sat down on the worn out mattress, lifting her knees close to her chest and resting her arms against them. Her eyes just stared off into space as she sat there, as if her mind was gone.

Hunter watched her for a moment before turning back to his look at his food. If she could eat the food just fine, then he could too, that was what his mind was telling him. He scooped up another spoonful and ate it, shuddering at the flavor as it slid down his throat. Steeling his resolve, he brought the bowl closer to his mouth and quickly started shoveling big portions of it in, swallowing as much as he could as quickly as possible.

He only stopped once or twice to deal with having too much at once, before he finished the wretched bowl. With everything swallowed he took the bottle of water and rinsed his mouth with the first swig, before drinking half of it in the next.

“Can you believe what they pass off as food around here?” Hunter joked as he walked over to the back of the cell and sat down next to the mattress. There was no response from the girl as she just continued staring at nothingness.

There was something about the distant look in her eyes that didn't sit right with him. He'd seen broken people in the wasteland before, but this felt completely different. Even those that were broken showed some hint of emotion, some hint of life, a desire to either keep going or for it all to end. There was none of that in her though. It was as if she was empty and hollow, devoid of anything that a normal human should be feeling. As if her body was merely working on auto-pilot to survive.

It was probably his chivalrous nature speaking, or the fact that she had such a striking resemblance to Rose, but he didn't want to leave her like this. If he could give her back some of that life in her eyes, he'd be happy to do it. And if nothing else, bringing her some cheer would do his own emotional state some good. If he was going to be trapped here, he needed something to focus on.

“You know, I bet even I could make a better meal than these guys out of the same materials. Back in Baltimare, before the burning, I was learning how to cook. I'd always wanted to learn, and having something to focus on that wasn't the war was a good way to keep your sanity back then.” Hunter chuckled to himself as he started to ramble with his story. The girl slowly turned her head to look at him, seeming to have taken notice that he was talking to her.

“I've still got a lot of the recipes from back then stored in my mind too.” He gently tapped against his forehead with a smile. “If I get the chance I'll absolutely cook something for you besides this awful gruel. I bet with enough practice I could start recreating a lot of dishes from before the war. Though they won't taste quite the same since radiation and rampant mutagen has changed plants and animals into twisted versions of their former selves, I bet I could still make it half as good as it used to be.”

And so Hunter began to just tell stories from his life to the beautiful girl he found himself stuck in a cell with. She never spoke a single word the entire time, but she watched him as he spoke, and that was enough for Hunter to feel satisfied.

☼☼☼☼☼

Hunter found himself a little surprised by the first twenty-four hours at the compound. When he had first been brought in he had been terrified but keeping his cool over what was going to happen. After he had been collared and warned, they had just stuck him in a cell and left him there. Sure, he had been fed, but the majority of his time had simply been spent telling stories to the beautiful woman he found himself trapped with. And while he wasn't sure if she understood anything he was saying, he got the feeling that somewhere deep inside of her she was reacting to his words.

He had complaints about living accommodations, especially the quality and portion size of his meals, but he was well aware that there was no use in complaining about any of it. So in the end, the thing he found himself combating the most was the boredom of being stuck in one place for hours on end. Having someone to listen to his stories had been a blessing for his sanity. While he was still afraid of what was going to happen next, so long as he was in his cell he'd manage his anxieties well enough.

So it wasn't a surprise to him when that peace in the cell was interrupted by the slavers the next morning.

“Alright slaves, we got a job for you.” The male slaver spoke loudly, “I'm opening your cells and you're going to follow me. You know how this works, follow directions and no funny business and you get to live to see another day.” With the instructions clear, he unlatched each of the cells and one by one the slaves followed him outside without any resistance.

The slaver didn't take them very far from their cells, just a few yards to the side and to the edge of another building and they saw the issue. Part of the building had collapsed, most likely during the night, and a huge pile of concrete and debris was now strewn about the yard.

“This pile of rubble is a giant hassle right now and we don't feel like cleaning it up, so that's what you're going to do. Start moving the debris from here to over in the corner there.” He pointed off to a corner of the wall. “There really isn't anywhere to throw it out, so just put it in the least inconvenient spot we have. Also try to get it done today, I've got better things to do than stand around and watch you move trash all day.”

“What if a piece is too heavy for us to lift, even together?” One of the slaves asked.

“Then you can borrow a sledgehammer.” The slaver responded annoyed. “Though if you come within ten feet of me with it I'll riddle you full of so many bullets that you'll be dead before the collar goes off. Now get to work.” With a shake of his head he walked off to a chair away from where the grunt work would take place and sat down, his assault rifle laid on his lap ready for use as he watched the slaves with a bored look.

Without much left to do, they began to work on clearing the debris from the collapsed part of the building. There was a considerable pile of it, as it seemed to have been the whole corner of the building. Hunter picked up the first piece he could see, realizing just how heavy each piece was going to be and moved over to the corner. He tossed it down, hearing it land with a soft crunch as he examined the corner curiously.

The fence was made of metal poles, a chain link fence, and covered with corrugated metal sheets for protection. The fence stood about ten feet tall, the top out of reach even from jumping distance, but here or there he could see holes in the fence that showed the wastelands beyond.

If he could coordinate the pile in just the right way, he could probably make a stepping stool tall enough that he could jump up and grab the top of the fence. From there he'd be one pull-up away from freedom. If he didn't have an exploding collar attached to his neck, of course, but it was the start of an escape plan.

There were six slaves at the compound in total at the moment; three from before Hunter had arrived, and three, including him, that had been brought in as new captures. Though it was slow, between the six of them they were making a dent in the pile of debris and were starting to have a new pile in the corner of the compound. Hunter was making sure to add to the top of the pile when he felt he could get away with it, already noticing that it was a pile two feet tall. Two feet less that he had to climb when he escaped.

His female roommate had difficulty picking up larger or heavier pieces and he would always stop what he was doing to help her lift those pieces, though she never spoke up or complained about any of the work. Her body was obviously weakened from lack of use and even if she was running on auto-pilot, there were just some things she wasn't able to do without issues.

“Alright you, the boss wants to see you.” After two hours of working on the pile, a different slaver had walked up and grabbed the girl’s arm. She simply stopped what she was doing and let him start dragging her away without protest.

“Wha- Hey!” Hunter called out, his blood starting to boil at watching the slaver handling her that way. He stormed towards the slaver, but stopped when he turned and pointed a .32 pistol his way.

“Back off asshat.” The slaver snarled. “The boss wants to see her, so you need to get back to work.”

Hunter clenched his fists and grit his teeth as his anger reach a peak. He wanted nothing more in that moment than to deck the man hard across the jaw for the way he was treating her, but he also knew it wasn't worth getting killed over.

The purple haired girl slowly turned her head and looked at him, something that came as a surprise to Hunter. It was the first time she had looked at him without him initiating a direct conversation with her. He wasn't entirely sure what the look meant or what she was trying to communicate, but he got the feeling it was her way of trying to tell him she'd be alright.

The slaver, satisfied that Hunter hadn't moved closer, turned back to the direction he was going and yanked on her arm, drawing her attention back to them moving. Hunter turned his head and spat at the ground, disgusted with how they were treating her, but also with himself that he wasn't able to do more for her right now.

Deciding it was better not to push his luck further and have another slaver yell at him, he turned back towards the pile and picked up the nearest piece of rubble to him. His goal was to get the pile to be at least four feet tall before the day ended. If he could do that, there would be absolutely no issues in climbing the wall once he was ready to plan the escape.

“You probably shouldn't be getting that close to her.” One of the other male slaves whispered to Hunter when he came back.

“What?” Hunter asked, uncertain if he had heard the man right. He was certainly in no mood to hear anyone bad mouth that girl right now, not after being forced to watch her be dragged off like that.

“I'm just saying, she was here before any of us. Apparently they're having trouble selling her and she gets dragged off to the boss's room a lot.” He grimaced. “I'm pretty sure they're playing favorites with her because she's doing them favors. And I don't think it's good for any of us.”

“You don't know what you're talking about.” Hunter snarled as he picked up a particularly heavy chunk of debris.

“And you've only known her a day.” The other man snapped back. “For all we know she's just helping them keep us enslaved. I don't trust her.”

“Well, I have to tell you, some of us are better judges of character than others.” He rolled his eyes at the man. He understood having some paranoia in the Wastelands, but he was reaching conspiracy levels with thinking that girl was up to anything. Hunter spent an entire day looking into her eyes and getting to know her through them, if she was up to anything he would've seen it.

“Come on, you don't think it's strange that she hasn't said a single word since she's been here? Not even so much as a grunt?” The man was convinced that his paranoia was right.

“Ever considered the possibility that she's a mute?” Hunter snarked back, tossing the debris he'd been carrying onto the pile. The other slave went silent, unable to argue against that before tossing his own rock against the pile. “Look, I'm going to trust my own judgment on this one, okay? I appreciate the concern, but if this bites me in the ass, then that's something I'll deal with.”

“Fine, don't say I didn't warn you though.” The other slave growled as he walked off to get back to work. Hunter admitted to himself that it was entirely possible that he was misjudging the situation he was in, and that he was looking more for what he wanted to see than what was actually happening.

But even in a situation like this, he was first and foremost a gentleman. His roommate had not given him any reason to doubt her yet, and that would not change until she gave him a reason. He was willing to believe that she didn't need him around, but without even realizing it she had helped him overcome a lot of his fear and anxieties about being enslaved in a single night.

So until things changed, he was just going to trust her.

☼☼☼☼☼

Even without his roommate's help, they were able to finish moving the pile before the sun had set for the day. The slaver compound now had a building with a rather large hole in it, and a pile of rubble and debris that stood about three feet tall against the fence. It wasn't as tall as Hunter had wanted it, but it was the best he could do without making it look like he was purposefully stacking them to make a way out.

With the job done, they were escorted back to their cells and dinner was served shortly after. After having lifted heavy debris for hours on end, Hunter had to admit that even the gross slop they called food was rather appetizing. What it lacked in taste it made up for in being surprisingly filling and his body appreciated the nutrients.

Halfway through his meal the door to the cells opened once more, a slaver walking in with his roommate. He quickly brought her to their cell and pushed her inside, before closing it shut. Hunter blinked as he watched the guard walking off.

“Hey, where's her dinner?” Hunter's brow furrowed as he asked, having expected her to be getting her rations when she got back.

“Oh don't worry, she's been fed.” The slaver seemed to find his remark funny, giving Hunter a knowing look before closing the door on his way out.

They really loved making his blood boil, that much Hunter knew. What he wouldn't give to have his sniper rifle back and the ability to just take out everyone inside this wretched compound.

He turned to look back at the woman he shared a cell with, finding her sitting back down on the mattress, legs pulled up and arms wrapped around her legs. This time though, her face was buried, hidden from his view. Usually she was just staring out into space, but she seemed to be wanting to hide now. Her body language had visibly changed and he didn't like that all. Picking up his food and water he walked over to the back of the cell and sat down next to her.

“If you're hungry or thirsty, you can have what's left of mine.” Hunter placed the items next to the mattress between them in case she wanted them. She didn't move from her spot or even turn to acknowledge him, just sitting there silently.

Hunter rested his head against the wall of their cell, looking up at the ceiling as he thought about what to do. She was obviously in a state of distress, even he could tell that, but she wasn't able to properly express those emotions in her condition. If there was anything he could do, it was likely just to get her mind off of what was going on. And what helped him was telling her a story, so maybe that would help her too.

He needed a happy one, one that he could tell with a smile and help her calm down.

“About nine years ago, I had come home from my tour of the war. I was so grateful to have survived it that I wanted to travel the country, just take a chance to see everything that my home had to offer that I had taken for granted before the war. It was on that tour that I met someone... Someone who literally changed my life.” Just even thinking about her put a somber smile on his face. He lifted his right hand and looked at his ring finger, the ring he had taken such precious care of all these years no longer there. Just one of the many things Fathat had taken from him for his petty revenge. He gently stroked the spot where his ring used to sit with his left hand as he continued.

“Her name was Rose. Rose Essence, and she was the most beautiful woman I had ever met. Not just in looks, but in the way she smiled, the way she laughed, the way she talked, the way she carried herself... I'd never been so enraptured in my life. Meeting her felt like it was fate.” He lightly chuckled at the notion. “She was at a bar with her friends on the first night, and being the gentleman I was, I offered them all a drink if I could spend some time with them. They readily agreed, and I sat next to her. We hit it off so perfectly, I still have dreams about that night.

“When the night came to an end I was expecting her to go with her friends, but she decided to stay with me. I was just going to give her my number and go from there, but she seemed to have other plans in mind. We ended up going back to my place and well... That was the first of many magical nights with her.” He shook his head lightly, the memories making him brighten. “We immediately started dating the next morning, the both of us wanting to know so much more about the other. I was originally going to put my plans of touring the rest of the country off to date her, but she insisted I go back on my tour. Under the condition, of course, that she was going with me.

“Her friends protested a little, noting that she'd only just met me, but her faith in me was strong enough that she wanted to go. And so for the next several months the two of us traveled the country, seeing the sites, enjoying what made this country our home. We took so many photos, made so many memories, and we shared them all with the world online. Every time she called her friends she had so many wonderful stories to tell, and my own friends were happy I'd found someone who fit with me so well. We really were a match made in heaven.

“After about seven or eight months of touring and dating, we made it back to my home town. And it was there on my favorite hill, that I proposed to her.” He leaned his head back, closing his eyes. “Without hesitation she said yes and threw her arms around me. The only complaints we got from our friends was them asking us what took so long, but we didn't regret a moment of it.

“What followed was easily the happiest year of my life. I had a home with a perfect wife, I had a pension from the government for my time in the war, I never could have asked for anything more.” He let out a quiet sigh. “But sadly, the story doesn't have a happy ending. On the day of burning, we were escaping the city, trying to get somewhere safe when the bridge we were driving on collapsed. I survived... She didn't.

“I spent a long time after the bombs had dropped just finding shelter and safety from the radiation and disasters befalling everyone. Those years were absolute hell on everyone, but it all sort of went by in a blur for me. I could only think about how things would be different if Rose was still here, or if she had survived instead of me.

“All these years later I've at least come to terms with her passing. Not a day goes by that I don't still miss her, but she wouldn't have wanted me to be stuck in the past living for someone who wasn't here anymore. She'd want me to find a way to be happy, or even someone to be happy with.” He smiled at that. “I'd probably have told her the same too. Nothing made me happier than to see her smile. So at the very least, I've found a place here in the Wastelands I could call home. I just need to get back there now.”

Hunter felt a weight on his shoulder that had been there for a little while, though he had been so enraptured in telling his story he hadn't realized it. He turned his head and saw the woman now leaning against him, her head resting against his shoulder with her eyes closed.

He couldn't help but smile at that. She looked so peaceful, resting against him like that, as if some of the worries she had been carrying around inside her had been lifted from her shoulders and she could get some modicum of rest now. At first he couldn't help but see his wife in her face and body with how similar the two were, but now that he was looking at her this closely, he could see a different beauty that she radiated on her own. It was different from Rose's, but no less beautiful.

“I'm going to get you out of here somehow.” Hunter spoke quietly to her, leaning against her in turn. “I have a way out... If I can just somehow do something about these collars, we could escape.” He let out a soft sigh as he closed his eyes. “There's too many of them to fight, but if we could escape in the middle of the night, we could probably get away before they knew what happened...”

He felt his exhaustion from the day catching up to him, combined with the comfort he felt resting next to this beautiful woman whose name he didn't even know, he felt himself falling asleep.

“I promise you... We'll be free again.” He murmured quietly, before he finally began to rest.

☼☼☼☼☼

And so three days passed of little to nothing happening. In the morning and before nightfall the slavers would come around with food and water for all of them but would otherwise leave them alone the rest of the day. One of the days the slavers came and took two of the slaves away and they never came back. Hunter assumed they were sold off, hopefully to good owners at least, but he knew that the kind of person willing to buy slaves was not the kind of person he could have high hopes for.

So without any interruptions he told more stories to his roommate, recalling as many small details about each one as he could to help them stretch out across the days. He did have a lot of stories, stories about his childhood, stories about his service in the war, stories about traveling the country, stories about Rose, stories about surviving after the bombs had dropped, and even stories about his time at CWN. However, even he was aware that at the rate he was burning through his stories that he was either going to start repeating himself or scraping the bottom of the barrel for them.

He got the feeling his roommate wouldn't mind much if he repeated stories, but for his sake he wanted to have something new for her each time he spoke to her. He didn't know how long he was going to be there or how long they would be together, so he wanted to be sure that if worst came to worst, he'd at least have good memories of her.

At the very least, he was happy with the progress he was seeing over the few days. While it wasn't much, her body language was starting to relax around him and she even started doing a few actions on her own. She would perk up a little at interesting parts of the story, rest her head against her legs and look at him during the slow parts, rest her head against his shoulder for the sad parts, and she'd even sit with her legs on the ground instead of curled up close to her chest. It was the subtle details of her expression that were drawing him closer to the girl each day, and while she never cracked a smile or changed her expression, he saw the smallest hint of life returning to her eyes.

It was on the fourth day however, that one of the slavers arrived mid-day, saying their boss wanted to see her again. It was then that Hunter saw his roommate slightly hesitate for the first time, as if she was uncertain about following the order. When he saw that, he gently placed his hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze, looking into her eyes and giving her an encouraging smile. He wanted to communicate that he'd be there for her when she got back, though how well that translated he wasn't sure.

It seemed to have done the trick however, as after that her hesitation faded and she got up and followed the slaver out of the jail cell. With his roommate gone, there wasn't much left for him to do so he laid down on the rough mattress and decided to get some rest. The mattress wasn't even that much more comfortable than the ground due to it's age and lousiness of the springs, but it was better than nothing. He'd at least try to get some catch-up sleep while she was away.

☼☼☼☼☼

Hunter awoke to the sound of his cell door being opened as his roommate was returned. As he sat up on the mattress, he noticed that the slaver seemed unnecessarily rough with her, shoving her into the cell causing her to lightly stumble. Frowning at the show of force, he stood up and moved off the bed as the cell was sealed shut once more. He waited for the slaver to leave the building before saying anything.

“You alright?” Hunter asked, walking up to his roommate and gently placing his hands on her shoulders. Hunter was surprised when she looked up to meet his eyes, noticing that they had a bare hint of emotion to them. She looked like she was determined to do something, though it was hard to pinpoint what through her dulled emotions.

She turned her head towards the door to the building, as if listening or waiting to see if the slaver returned for any reason. He watched her in silence for a moment, before she turned back to him and reached into her shirt. He watched her rummage around for a moment, before pulling something out that had been hidden inside. She presented clenched fists to Hunter, before opening them to reveal a lock pick and the small key to the detonating collars.

Hunter's head snapped towards the front of the building to make sure that no slaver was coming, then turning back to his roommate and picking up the key and lock pick. “I don't know how you managed to get these, but you just guaranteed us a way out!” A bright grin appeared on his face as he leaned in and kissed her forehead, before squeezing her into a tight hug against his chest.

The girl closed her eyes as she rested against his chest. With the key and lockpick in hand, the two of them need only wait till it was dark out and most of the guards were asleep. If they were careful, they'd be gone long before the slavers found out in the morning.

☼☼☼☼☼

Waiting for the sun to go down felt like the longest time Hunter had ever waited before in his life. It wasn't just enough for the sun to go down either, he needed to be sure it was the dead of night. He had no way of telling how late it was except for how dark the cell had become, but he had a plan to get a better gauge on it.

With the key his roommate had provided, their necks were finally free of the infernal contraptions. They were able to track the collars if they moved too far away from the compound, so leaving them in the cell was the best way to avoid suspicion. With lock-pick in hand he carefully began to pick at the cell door, fully aware he only had one chance to get this right.

It was fortunate then that the tumblers on the cell were aged and decrepit, so the lock wasn't that hard to pick. Hell, he figured that even if his pick broke while he was unlocking it that he could kick it open if he applied enough force. That would generate a lot of noise though and dramatically raise the chances of them being caught fleeing. Even without the collars preventing them from running, they had no weapons or armor to defend themselves with. If they got caught, it was going to be a life or death race to get away as fast as they could.

The door to his jail cell opened with a resounding click, causing him to let out the air he didn't realize he'd been holding in. The door opened with a faint creak, but nothing loud enough for him to worry about. He turned to his roommate, who was watching his movements carefully.

“I'm going to go gauge the situation through the windows up front. Once I'm certain of our route and how to get there, we'll let the other two out and they can follow us to escape, alright?” He made sure to whisper so his voice didn't carry far. His roommate stared at him for a few seconds, before for the very first time she directly answered his statement by slowly nodding at him. The simple visual made his heart jump in his chest, he was so elated he could jump for joy.

Now wasn't the time though. Right now they needed to escape.

Hunter stayed crouched low to the ground as he moved to the front door of the building. He pushed his back against the wall near one of the broken windows, and carefully leaned his head out to gauge the activity outside. The first thing his eyes went to was the guard tower, spotting it sitting pretty in the middle of the compound. One of the spot lights was aimed out into the wastelands, looking to spot any movement heading towards their front doors. The other was sitting in the middle of the compound, unmoving and waiting to find something of interest.

There was one guard on the tower, his back currently turned away from the jail house as he watched the wastelands. His gun wasn't even drawn and even from the back view, Hunter could tell the guy found the job boring. He moved his eyes away from the guard tower towards the other buildings within line of sight. A random slaver was walking across the compound away from an outhouse they had set up and went inside one of the buildings near the opposite end of the compound. If Hunter had to guess, that was where the barracks were.

That meant that at the moment in time, there were no guards out in the compound except for the one at the watch tower, and he was distracted. If they were quiet, they could easily sneak around the jail house to the pile he made, climb the fence, and make a run for it.

With scouting complete, he moved over to the cell where the other slaves were currently sound asleep and began picking at the lock. The lock was as equally weak as the door on his had been, so within a few seconds it was clicking open as well. As the door opened, the two slaves inside began to stir from their sleep as he approached them.

“Stay quiet.” Hunter whispered as he kneeled down next to them, gently grabbing hold of one of their collars and unlocking it with the key, “We're getting out of here.”

“What the?” The freed slave groggily spoke up as he rubbed his free neck. “How in the name of Tartarus did you do that?”

“We got a lucky break and snagged the key to the collars and a lockpick to open the cells.” He explained as he unlocked the other slave's collar as well. “The pile of debris by the fence is stacked just high enough for us to use it to climb out of here, so that's what we're doing. It didn't feel right leaving you two here, so let's get going.”

“How did you...” The first slave spoke up, before his brow furrowed. “Wait. You got them from her, didn't you?”

“Yeah, she's responsible for getting us out of here, so you should thank her later.” Hunter said, turning to exit the cell.

“And that doesn't strike you as convenient?” The man growled angrily. “I don't trust her, this feels like a trap.”

Hunter let out an aggravated sigh as he glared back at the man. “She risked her life so we could have this chance to escape, and you're still going to find her suspicious?”

“And how do you know that she didn't get the key and lock pick from her precious boss so they could catch us escaping? I don't like this one bit.” He growled angrily.

“Look, we don't have time for me to argue with you.” Hunter rubbed the bridge of his nose in annoyance. “They want to sell us for profit, what's the point in giving her the key to our escape? You're free to stay here and be sold off if you want, I don't give a damn. But even if this is a trap, I'm getting out of here. I'd rather die trying to escape then eventually die to whatever asshole ends up 'purchasing' me.”

The grouchy slave grumbled to himself before letting out an angry sigh of his own. “Fine, you at least make a good point there. If there is a chance that this is legit, then I would rather die having had a chance of freedom than spend one more night in this shit-hole. Lead the way.”

With that argument settled, the four of them made their way to the front of the building. Hunter leaned against the window once more, confirming that things hadn't changed since he last looked.

“Alright, here's the plan.” He whispered to them. “I'll keep an eye on the watch tower. One by one go out the front door and around to the side of the building where the debris pile is. If you think you can make it, go ahead and climb the fence over. Try to be as quiet as possible when you do so, so as not to attract attention.” There was a short round of heads nodding and the plan was set into motion.

The grumpy slave ended up going first, waiting for Hunter's all clear queue before heading out. Hunter waited at least thirty seconds after the first slave left, making sure nothing changed, before telling the quiet one to go as well. With just him and his roommate left, he watched the guard carefully for any hint of changes. Once satisfied that they weren't going to turn this way, he gently grabbed her hand.

“Let's go.” He nodded his head towards her, getting a nod in return. The two slipped out the front door and around to the side of the building. It seemed the first slave had already made it over the wall and the second one was just finishing climbing as they made it. They could hear him land with a heavy thud on the other side of the wall as they approached.

“Here, I'll help you up.” He offered climbing on top of the rubble quickly. He cupped his hands together for her to step on and climb to the top. She was the shortest of them and even with the added feet of the debris she might not have made it on her own.

When she stepped on his hand, he was somewhat surprised by how light she actually was. Lifting her up was a breeze, and he wasn't sure if it was simply because she was malnourished or if she really was that light.

Her hands grabbed the top of the fence and she pulled herself up, with a small push from him she was up and over the fence, landing on the other side with ease. With everyone over, it was his turn, and he just had to hope he could jump high enough for it. Stabilizing himself on the debris, he bent his knees and jumped as high as he could. His fingers just slipped past the top bar, making him curse under his breath as he landed. He had been worried about this.

He looked the fence over quickly and found a small hole he could grab on to for leverage. It wasn't much, and he could tell it was going to cut his hand up something fierce, but it was better than nothing. Reaching up to it, he slipped his fingers through the hole and grabbed hold of the corrugated metal and chain link fence, placing one foot against the wall, and forced himself up into the air.

The metal bit into this hand with a sharp pain, but his free hand made it to the top of the fence with a solid grip. Letting go of the hole he grabbed both hands on top of the fence, pulled himself up, swung each leg over, and then dropped to the ground with a thud.

“We did it, we're really free!” The grumpy slave said in shock as Hunter landed.

“We're not out of the woods yet, we've got to get somewhere safe and out of their reach.” Hunter panted as he looked at his bleeding hand. It was damaged, but nothing severe, he could handle the cut easily. “You're free to come with us if you don't have a place to go.”

“No thanks, I appreciate helping us escape, but I've still got a bad feeling about that one.” He looked over at the girl from the corner of his eye. “The two of us will head one way and you two should head the other. We'll also increase our odds of surviving and escaping that way. So, this is where we part ways.”

“Well, I think there's more safety in numbers, but if you're mind is set I hope you find a safe place to call home.” Hunter nodded his head. “You two stay safe now.”

“You as well. If we ever meet up again after this, I'll owe you a drink at the very least.” And with those words, the two slaves began to run off into the dark wastelands. Hunter wasn't sure if he'd ever meet them again, in all likelihood unless they had business in CWN he likely wasn't going to, but he felt good knowing he'd helped fellow survivors in this hell hole.

And of course, he'd helped the most beautiful woman he'd seen in a long time escape those bastards hands as well.

“Come on, let's get going.” Hunter nodded his head in a direction away from where those two were running. His roommate gave a nod of her head and the two of them took off into the Wasteland night.

☼☼☼☼☼

Hunter knew from first hand experience that traveling the Wastelands at night was dangerous, too many people had died trying to travel through the wastelands under the cover of dark. While animals did tend to sleep through the night, one wrong step into their territory and they would be awake and alert, ready to defend themselves or get a quick midnight snack. You might be able to get away from a pack of mole rats or bloatflies, but if you wandered into a nest of radscorpions or Yaoi Gui, it was likely the end of your traveling days.

And that only covered the non-sentient animals. Raiders and Super Mutants were even less forgiving.

This was how the safe to travel roads came to be widely known amongst the merchants, and Hunter had spoken to many of them at great lengths over the years. While he wasn't an expert on the wastelands locations and hotspots, his days in the army had given him a good general sense of direction, and all those stories from traveling merchants was going to pay off.

“While I'm not certain where I was when they took me from CWN, on account of nursing a mighty painful concussion, I can say that they made me walk south for several hours.” Hunter explained, looking up at the stars to guide his way. “So long as we follow these roads north, we should start to come upon familiar territory for me. Once I see familiar landmarks, getting back to CWN will be a breeze. If nothing else, following this road we should come upon either merchants willing to give directions, or hopefully a friendly settlement.”

He wanted to add 'We've just got to hope for the best' to the end of his speech, but it felt too pessimistic for the situation they were in, so he kept it to himself.

The road they had managed to run across was much like any other road in the wastelands, nearly destroyed beyond recognition and covered in dust and debris. However, Hunter could see in several places lines where feet and hooves had walked several times, meaning it was a frequently traveled road. With any luck, they'd be in a safe zone by morning.

While he was on the lookout for signs of danger, he kept passing glances to his traveling partner to make sure she was alright. Her expression rarely changed, but she walked diligently behind him, her purple and aquamarine hair gently reflecting the moon's light in a dull halo around her head. Her light pink skin seemed more radiant under the direct moonlight than he'd ever seen it before. And he even had to admit, her eyes didn't look nearly as lifeless as when he had first seen her.

He turned back to the road, feeling a slight twinge of heat on his cheeks. This really wasn't the time or place to be admiring her beauty, but he couldn't help it. He'd always been a flirt, but when a girl truly captivated him it was easy to leave him stunned or silenced. True beauty was rare these days, and while the Daring Duo and their companions had it in spades, he knew that he was only going to get a passing glance at them before they were off to save the world or something. 'If such a thing was possible, those girls might be able to pull it off,' he mused to himself.

The girl behind him though, she was different. He wished he knew her name, but she radiated with a beauty the wasteland hadn't seen in a long time. She also wasn't someone who was going to go off on an adventure suddenly, or even seemed to know what to do for herself. 'Does she have a home?' He wondered to himself. 'Does she have family looking for her? Are they worried about her? Did she have a home before she found herself there? Did those bastards hurt her to make her this way?'

He wasn't sure how he was going to answer any of those questions. He'd known the girl about a week now and in all that time she'd never said a word. Hell, it took that long of just being with her and talking to her to get enough life out of her to nod for him. He was proud of that, but there was definitely more going on than he was aware of and he'd need to figure it all out once they were somewhere safe. Of course, needing to wait till they were somewhere safe didn't stop the thoughts from running through his head.

'She probably does have a home to go back to,' he decided on that point to at least calm his head so he could could focus on keeping them safe. 'Once we're back to safety I'll have to find out how to know for certain. And if she wants to go back to where she came from, I'll take her there.' It was the plan that weighted the least guiltily on his conscious, because he had to be honest with himself.

He didn't want the girl to leave his side if he had a choice in the matter. He wanted her to stay with him. Maybe get to know her better, maybe to let himself feel genuine love again after all this time.

But that wasn't something he could decide on his own. He knew that all too well, that if she didn't have feelings for him, he wasn't going to force her to feel something she didn't, and that would be where they’d part ways. As friends, of course. It was a sobering thought, but a realistic one. All of that would be decided once they got back.

A gentle thud hit his ears from behind him and caused him to whirl around quickly. His traveling companion had collapsed to her knees and hands, holding her body up while she panted heavily. He quickly rushed over to her side, putting a hand on her back to check her condition. Her heart was racing, she was fairly heavily sweating, her breathing was ragged, and her body was slightly shaking.

It'd been hard to notice in the dark, but her stamina had run out. She was too fatigued to walk anymore. He let out a sigh of relief that it wasn't anything more serious.

“Come on, I'll find us a safe place to rest for the night.” Hunter spoke comfortingly, wrapping his arm under hers to help her stand up for a moment. She didn't fight his touch and followed his lead, before he kneeled down in front of her and wrapped her arms around his neck. With a quick lift, he was now carrying her on his back like a backpack, and though at a slower pace than before, he continued down the road. The girl buried her head against his neck and shoulder, a comforting feeling to him.

“You probably haven't been able to exercise in a while huh?” Hunter smiled as he made light conversation while he walked. “I've been keeping up with my basic training regiment from back in the army days while at CWN. Keeps you in shape and gets you ready for battle, which is far more common than it should be these days.” He chuckled at that, trying to keep the mood light.

“If you want I'll gladly help you get back into shape once we're safe, I'm sure it'll come in handy for days where things just keep going from bad to worse.” He smiled as he looked up at the moon for a moment to enjoy it's beauty. A lot of things had changed in that world, but the bright moon's radiance wasn't one of them. He just walked quietly for a few minutes, listening to her quiet breathing, feeling her chest gently rise and lower against his back, feeling the weight of the beautiful girl against him.

He wondered if the world around them had been different, if he would've considered this all just a dream.

He looked back down the length of the road and was happy with what he saw. Just a couple hundred feet down the road was an old abandoned gas station, run down and derelict, but a roof and shelter all the same. Making sure he had a good grip on the girl, he picked up the pace and made his way towards the building.

He could tell it had clearly been looted before, but it seemed things were quiet for the moment. Letting her down he checked through the front door to see if anyone was home. The door gave a slight jingle as it opened, the bell on the door still working. Inside the shop were derelict shelves that had scant supplies left, a broken register, and trash scattered across the floor. However, it was perfectly quiet and not a soul was around.

“Perfect.” Hunter smiled as he stepped in further, letting his companion follow in behind. He quickly scanned around for food and water, finding plenty of prewar boxed goods that had been left behind, and a few bottles of dirty water. Supplies were supplies though, so he quickly took them as an extra dinner for the both of them that night.

Among the food supplies he also found several caps that he quickly pocketed, a bottle of buffout, a bottle of Rad-X, some spare 10mm ammunition, and a baseball bat. It wasn't much, but he was grateful to have something as a weapon, and while he hated the hard drugs he couldn't deny that he might need them before they had made it back to CWN. If things got too dicey, he wouldn't hesitate to gulp down a few of the performance enhancers.

With the sweep for supplies finished, he walked into the backroom where a couple of long since abandoned mattresses were laying on the floor, next to signs of a camp having been made there. Hunter was all too keenly aware of how places like this had been 'safe houses' for survivors of the wastelands during the first few years after the war, surviving in small pockets where the radiation was survivable or where small post-apocalypse towns had started to spring up from.

His companion had already found the mattresses and was sitting on one of them, quietly recovering from her exhaustion. He passed her one of the water bottles he found and she gratefully took it, quickly swallowing down half of it in one big gulp.

“If you're hungry, got some food here too. It's a bit old, but somehow I bet it'll taste better than the slop they were serving.” Hunter chuckled a bit at the quip as he placed a few boxes of food down. She stared at one of the boxes for a moment before picking it up and examining it. Hunter assumed it must've been a while since she last opened a box because it took her longer than he expected to get the box open, but once she did she was grabbing handfuls of prewar cereal and chewing it hungrily.

He grabbed a box of junk food for himself and the two shared a quiet meal with food that wasn't gruel for once. It'd only been about a week since he last had a proper meal, but after several days of old meat and gravy in a row, the stale prewar junk food managed to hit the spot. Once the meal was finished he followed it with a good drink of water before letting out a yawn.

“Alright, we're going to get a few hours of sleep here and then when the sun starts coming up we're going to do our best to get to CWN in one shot, alright?” He explained the plan to his companion. “If we're lucky they won't find out we've gone missing till then anyway, so we should be safe to be spending the night here.” He laid back on his mattress with the explanation finished. She just washed down her food with her own water before laying down as well.

“It'll be nice to see home again. It's been one week too long.” He yawned one more time, turning over to get comfortable, and let himself get to sleep.

☼☼☼☼☼

Hunter was abruptly woken up by the sound of a jingle, the jingle of the run down gas station's front door being opened. During both his army days and his survival days he had trained himself to sleep on alert in dangerous areas, and this situation had called for it. He could tell by the amount of light the shop had at the moment that the sun was only just barely starting to rise over the horizon, and his companion was still sound asleep.

He grabbed hold of the baseball bat he had found and sprung up, pressing his back to the wall. He leaned over and looked out the door of the backroom into the storeroom and cautiously looked for who had entered.

There were two people that had entered, one an older male with a spiked Mohawk wielding an assault rifle and the other a woman with a bowl cut holding an SMG. What he noticed the most though, was the clothes they were wearing. He'd spent the last week growing incredibly familiar with the outfits, to the point he could spot them from a mile away.

They were unmistakably slavers.

He silently cursed in his head, putting his back to the wall. How had they found them so quickly? In his week at the jail cell the slavers never once visited during the night to check up on them for any reason, so they should have only just noticed they were missing now. He looked down at his sleeping companion, seeing she was deep in sleep. The words of the other slaver came to his mind, about how he didn't trust her in the slightest.

Had she really somehow led them here? Surely if she was leaving a trail or something for them to follow he would have noticed, right? Or maybe she somehow informed them that they were escaping?

'No, that doesn't make sense. If she had told them, they wouldn't have let us go.' Hunter reasoned with himself. He trusted her, he absolutely did, he was going to give her the benefit of the doubt here. It was entirely possible that these slavers were just out looking for people to sell and that them coming here was entirely a coincidence.

A huge coincidence, but he had to let himself believe that for now.

He looked around the edge of the door again, watching their movements carefully. The woman seemed to be near the back of the store, checking around for supplies to scavenge. The man had his back turned for the moment, but it looked like he was heading towards the backroom.

'Can't hesitate, have to do this quick.' He told himself. The moment he attacked one, the other would fire at him. He had to at least steal one of their weapons in his first strike before they could retaliate, or else he was dead. Taking in a deep breath and slowly letting it out, he crouched down and moved into the store.

He ducked behind a shelf and listened to them shuffling against the items on the shelves. A thin shelf was the only thing standing between him and the man with the assault rifle. He clenched the baseball bat tight, gritting his teeth as he felt his heart pounding in his chest. The man snorted at an item before tossing it to the ground, turning and stepping towards the door to the back. Hunter pulled back on his baseball bat, winding up for the swing.

The man stepped out from between the shelves and took a step towards the backroom, his body now in line of sight for Hunter. He took the chance, stepping forward and swinging the bat upwards, putting the force of his entire body into this one blow.

A loud crack echoed through the store as the bat successfully struck against the side of the slaver's head, blood and even a tooth flying through the air as his body crashed backwards into the shelves.

“What the!?” The female cried as she turned around at the sound. Hunter wasted no time taking advantage of the situation. He ducked back below the shelves as the sound of the female slaver's SMG opened fire at where he'd been standing. He quickly rushed up to the male slaver's body and wrenched the assault rifle from his grip. He then aimed the gun at the slaver's forehead and fired once, a bullet cleanly piercing his skull and brain.

'One down, one to go.' He thought to himself as he quickly grabbed a spare clip of ammo hanging from the slaver's jacket before crouch running down the aisle, hearing the female slaver's footsteps rushing to get into a firing position. At the other end of the aisle he turned and aimed down the iron sights of the assault rifle in waiting. The female slavers popped out from the cover of the shelves and aimed her gun down at him, but was instantly met with a hail of fire from the assault rifle.

“Shit!” She cried out as she ducked back behind covers, one of the shots grazing her arm. Hunter put his back to the shelves, cursing at the weapons inaccuracy. It was clearly poorly maintained and he might have difficulty penetrating the enemy's armor with it. If he could get a clean headshot it would be no issue, but he had no armor himself and couldn't spare taking extra damage.

“Show yourself you coward!” The slaver yelled, aiming her SMG down the aisle and firing haphazardly at where she thought Hunter was positioned.

'Good, waste your ammo.' He thought as he quickly ejected the assault rifle's clip to see how many shots he had left in it. Not enough to ensure a clean kill. He dropped it and replaced it with the fresh clip. As he finished loading the new clip, the SMG's firing came to a stop and he heard the female loudly swear. He took a gamble on her needing to reload and raced out from his cover, running down the long aisle to get her within sight.

“SHIT! SHIT SHIT!” The female cursed as he heard the sound of an ammo clip dropping and her quickly reloading it. He booked it down the aisle, hearing the pounding of his heart in his ears as his adrenaline raced. The SMG's clip loaded into place and the gun clicked in ready. Hunter turned the corner and aimed his gun as the female slaver raised her SMG to aim at him.

The SMG's trigger got pulled first, the gun giving a loud jammed 'click', the bullet not firing and the ammo clip needed to be reset. The chance to do so never came as Hunter pulled the trigger of his assault rifle, a spray of bullet raining down into the slavers chest, neck, and head. Her body fell back, hitting the ground hard as life escaped it, blood now pooling underneath the bodies of two slavers.

He let out a sigh of relief as combat ended, thankful he managed to pull through with a lousy uncared for assault rifle without a scratch. The SMG jamming had been pure luck, if not for that he would have at least a few extra bullet holes in him before she died.

A glimpse of purple and pink crossed the edge of his vision as he looked up to see his companion leaning her head out of the backroom door at what had happened. He gave her a relieved smile as he slung the assault rifle onto his back.

“Sorry I couldn't get you breakfast in bed, kind of had some unexpected visitors.” He chuckled a little nervously, unsure if humor was the best thing for the moment but the words had slipped out before he could stop them. The girl merely stared at him for a moment before slowly stepping out from the backroom and looking down at the dead slavers. Hunter let out a short sigh as he began searching their belongings.

“I'm not sure how they found us, or if they were even looking for us, but we can't stay here any longer now. I'm taking their things and we're getting back on the road.” He explained as he finished looting the female slaver and moved on to the male.

From the two he managed to get a 10mm SMG, an assault rifle, two extra clips for the assault rifle, three for the SMG, a combat knife, twenty-five caps, and two regen-stims. He instantly dropped the baseball bat in favor of the combat knife and loaded the 10mm ammo he had found earlier into spare space on the SMG clips.

“Here, put this on.” Hunter explained as he passed the female slaver's armor to his companion. “It's not much, but it's better than nothing. And 'better than nothing' can mean the difference between life and death here.” He explained as he put on the male slaver's armor over his shirt and jeans. She nodded in understanding and quickly put the armor on over her own clothes.

“If we can find something better to put on we should, people tend to dislike slavers for a good reason. But they also don't tend to shoot at them on sight either. We'll just have to be careful and show we're not hostile to anyone that doesn't shoot us first. Then once we reach CWN, they'll see it's me and let us in.” Hunter explained as he examined the SMG one last time. It was in a little better condition than the assault rifle, though even then it likely wouldn't output as much damage. Still, it was the better weapon for someone who might be unfamiliar with guns.

“Do you know how to use this?” He asked as he handed the weapon to his companion. She stared at the weapon for a moment before taking it in her hands and looking at it. She didn't move for a few seconds before gently nodding her head. “Good, we're probably going to need it.”

With everything settled inside, he quickly moved up to the door of the store, before pressing his back to the wall near the door. If he remembered correctly, slavers tended to move in packs of three or four. He'd killed two of them, but it was entirely possible that a third and fourth were outside either standing guard or waiting to ambush whoever came out. If they hadn't come charging in from the firefight before, then either was a possibility.

Risking a peak, he carefully pulled the door open just enough to crack open, but not enough to settle off the jingle. It was a very small crack, but Hunter did his best to assess the situation through it. His hunch was right, and standing around keeping an eye out on the area was two more slavers, one with their back turned from the store and the other walking back and forth slowly. He closed the door and turned to his companion, contemplating the situation.

“Alright, we've got two enemies out there that seem to think the situation in here is under control.” He whispered to her. “Here's the plan, I'm going to slam the door open and run to the left as quickly as I can. They'll start shooting and give chase. Count to five in your head once you hear the gunshots firing, then jump out and fire at them. Before they realize what's going on, I'll turn around and we'll have them pincered. Got it?” She nodded in understanding. “Alright, then here goes.”

Hunter yanked the door open and ran outside, the jingle and loud crash of the door quickly alerting the two guards.

“HEY!” They shouted after a moment, quickly realizing that the man dressed in their compatriots clothing was not them. They quickly raised their guns, an SMG and a sawed-off shotgun, and began firing as they gave chase.

Bullets whizzed past Hunter's head and body as he narrowly avoided taking direct hits. He grit his teeth and made his way for the corner of the building, intending to take shelter around until his companion opened fire herself.

A 10mm round logged itself into his right leg just as he hit the corner of the building and he loudly cursed as his leg gave out under him and he tumbled around the corner. He winced at the pain but bore it for the moment, quickly readying his assault rifle as the enemy fired stopped as they went to give chase. Just then the sound of an SMG firing filled the air, his queue to look around the corner and fire.

The two remaining slavers were caught completely off guard, turning around to fire at the new person who showed up just as Hunter aimed at their backs. Several rounds of bullets quickly imbedded themselves against the back of their armor, the slavers giving anguished cries as the SMGs bullets then began pelting their chests. Caught in the pincer trap, assaulted by two automatic weapons, the slavers never stood a chance and once both of the current clips were exhausted the enemies fell to the ground dead.

Hunter sighed in relief again, ejecting the empty clip from his rifle and replacing it with his next one. He didn't have the kind of ammo for an extended firefight, especially not with such a shoddy weapon, but it had served him well for this fight.

He slung the gun over his shoulder and then rolled up his jeans leg to take a look at his wound. It was bleeding, but it had missed the major artery so he wasn’t in danger of bleeding out. He cursed as he pulled out a regen-stim and stuck it into his leg, letting the medicinal treatment start to take effect. He didn't like that he had to use one already, but with how much they still had to walk he needed his leg working.

His companion quickly walked over to him, checking to make sure he was okay. “That was some fine shooting you did there, remind me never to cross you on a bad day.” He chuckled as he lowered his jeans and stood up. The pain would be awful for a while, but the regen-stim would take care of the damage for now. So long as he didn't walk too hard, he should be fine. “Let's quickly loot their bodies and get moving.”

From their bodies he managed to get two more clips for the SMG, the worn-out sawed-off shotgun with eight rounds of ammo for it, and thirty more caps. He quickly stripped the SMG for parts and repaired some of the durability on his companion's weapon, then stripped the slaver's of their armor and patched up their own to make it more durable.

“Alright, we shouldn't linger any longer.” Hunter said standing up, already feeling his leg stabilizing now that the medicine was fully kicking in. “We stick with the plan and follow the road north till we either get directions or I start to recognize where we are. Let's get moving.”

With everything decided, the two of them quickly began to move on their way, distancing themselves from the gas station and trying to get to safety as quickly as possible. Hunter still wasn't sure how the slavers had found them, but he prayed that that was the last they'd see of them for now.

☼☼☼☼☼

“Hey! That rock formation! I actually recognize it!” Hunter proclaimed as they approached a pile of rocks on the side of the road. Hope swelled in his heart as he saw the formation, quickly looking it over before looking past it down the road. While his memory was vague and blurry, he did recognize the area as part of the very edge of CWN's territory.

On the way there they had managed to pass by a merchant who was on his way to a settlement on his trade route. His bodyguard had given them the stink eye, but kept his gun at bay while they bartered. All Hunter had wanted was directions to CWN, and the merchant had known the way but was rather tight lipped about it. Groaning in frustration, he ultimately offered the merchant the caps he had stolen from the slavers in exchange for the information. Grateful for the money, the merchant had been more than happy to give them the directions they needed.

“Thank Heavens for merchant honesty.” Hunter smiled as he turned to his companion, “We're almost there, CWN is about an hour's walk from here, this road will lead us right to it. Once we're there, we can put all of this behind us and just take some time to relax.”

His companion gave a nod, though Hunter could tell she was starting to get fatigued again. They had been walking for some time, and the earlier gunfight had been taxing for the both of them, but their goal was within sight now. He wanted nothing more than to go sprinting off in the direction to home, but figured that it'd be alright to keep up a casual pace for his companion.

Even without speeding up their walking, Hunter figured they were making good time. He didn't have a perfect way to keep track of time, but he could easily guess that at least ten to twenty minutes had passed on the road to CWN. He could practically hear the sounds of people elated at his return, wanting to buy extra drinks from the bar and sharing them for a safe return.

However, as they were walking, a sound in the distance struck his ears. A sound he really hadn't heard in a long time. He stopped walking and turned to look behind them, looking off into the distance where the sound was coming from.

It was the sound of an engine. A car engine. Down the length of the road they had come from was a brown truck, barreling its way down the road. Hunter's eyes widened in shock at the vehicle, instantly getting a bad feeling about it.

“We need to hide!” He cried, quickly grabbing hold of her wrist and running off the side of the road. The area next to them was a series of hills and rocks, which would make for good cover if a firefight broke out. He quickly ran up the hill and ducked behind a large rock as his companion ducked behind the large rock next to his.

The truck came to a screeching halt in front of the hill, the sound of boots hitting the road as they jumped out from it's back. Hunter looked over the edge of his rock at the vehicle, his eyes widening in shock. Four slavers had jumped out from the back of the truck and were now standing looking towards the rocks. He spotted them carrying two assaults rifles, a hunting rifle, and an SMG.

From the car itself, the side doors opened and another slaver jumped out from the passenger side carrying a super sledgehammer that he casually slung over his shoulders. From the driver's seat walked out the one slaver that Hunter had engraved into his mind. He'd never forget that bald head, those goggles, or that red bandana around his neck.

“Well, I have to give you two credit for making it this far.” He shouted out towards their hiding place, “But you're backed into a corner now. Why don't you just surrender peacefully and we'll only torture you for a little while.” The slaver laughed mockingly. Hunter sucked his teeth as he pulled out his assault rifle, preparing it for battle. “Ah who am I kidding, chasing you was the fun part, but we don't need you anymore. We're just gonna kill you here and now. Boys? Smoke em out.”

The two slavers carrying assault rifles began to make their way up directly through the rocks, guns at the ready to fire at anyone they saw. The ones with the hunting rifle and SMG split up and began to circle their way around the rocks, intending to keep any road of escape to a minimum. The one carrying the super sledgehammer was cockily following behind the two assault rifle slavers, intending to attacking anything that would attack his buddies.

“Well...” Hunter whispered as he put his back to the rock. “This just might be where we meet our maker...” He cursed as he sucked his teeth. “So close to home too...” He turned to look at his companion, who didn't seem to share his pessimistic sentiment. She was sitting their, gun ready, waiting for the order to attack. “Well, if we’re going to Tartarus anyway, we aren't going there without a fight.” He smirked at her as he lifted his assault rifle.

“Our best bet is to take out the guys on the sides first and then deal with the ones in the middle. There's no safe way out and we're probably gonna get shot, but we'll give em hell, alright?” His companion nodded at his words and he smiled. “Thanks for everything beautiful.”

With his final words spoken, he turned and darted out from behind the rocks, heading straight for the SMG user who split off on his side. Instantly a rain of assault rifle bullets came down his way, but he weaved through the rocks, managing to avoid the brunt of the assault. Near the border of the rock pile, he aimed his gun from around it and opened fire at the SMG user.

The slaver quickly ducked behind a rock, but not before getting his shoulder grazed by a bullet. Hunter knew he needed to fire more tactically with his bullets, he only had two clips to go through. He heard gun fire happening behind him as well, the distinct sound of a hunting rifle going off told him that her battle had begun too. He couldn't think about that for the moment though, he had to trust her to handle it on her own.

Rushing out from behind the rock he rushed closer to the SMG user’s position. The slaver popped out from a rock and began to fire, causing Hunter to dodge roll out of the fire and behind a rock. Assault rifle bullets hit the rock he had just hid behind, realizing that they were getting closer as well. He grit his teeth and moved around the side of the rock and carefully took aim. The SMG came into sight as the slaver took aim, but Hunter shot first.

“AAARGGH!” The slaver cried out as a hail of assault rifle bullets struck his gun and arm. The gun struck the ground as the slaver’s hand started bleeding profusely. This was his chance to take one out. He rushed out from behind the rock, instantly being pelted at by the fire of an assault rifle. One of the bullets struck the shoulder of his arm and dug in deep, but the armor managed to hold, Hunter thanking his luck. He swiftly pulled out the combat knife as the slaver he had shot looked at him in horror. Without mercy he jumped at the slaver, using his entire weight to push the man to the ground, and stabbed him with the knife.

He aimed for the throat as best he could, but the slaver was struggling and it made for a messy hack job. After four stabs, the slavers arms fell to the side and a fifth stab ensured that his jugular was eviscerated. Not waiting to guarantee the slaver was dead, he jumped off of the slaver and tried to run for the fallen SMG, but a round of bullets struck the back of his armor. He let out a cry of pain, but the bullets managed to not pierce his armor before he ran back behind another rock.

He panted heavily, still hearing SMG fire going off in the distance. That was good, that meant she was still alive and they had a fighting chance.

“HRRRAAAGGGHH!” The loud cry of the bulky slaver came out as the super sledgehammer came crashing down against the rock he had been hiding behind. The rock exploded in a hail of shrapnel that struck Hunter in the head, causing him to cry out in pain as he stumbled forward. Sucking on his teeth he turned around and saw the heavy-weapon wielding slaver grinning at him as he pulled up for another swing.

Hunter reached for his assault rifle, but the bulky slaver let out another cry as he rushed forward, swinging the hammer down hard. Hunter barely managed to jump away, feeling the rush of wind pass him as the hammer swung through the air. If he got struck by that he could very well break all the bones in his body, which was likely the intention. He grit his teeth and readied the combat knife, the only weapon he had available to him for this fight.

The slaver pulled his sledgehammer over his head, before slamming it down directly in front of him. Hunter dodged to the side, feeling the weapon impact the ground with a heavy thud that cracked the earth. He rushed up to the side of the slaver and slammed his knife down into his side, feeling it sink in satisfyingly.

The slaver pulled out his arm and backhanded Hunter, sending him flying back. Hunter cursed under his breath as he cupped his cheek, feeling a slight dizziness from the blow. The sound of assault rifle fire hit him next as he rushed away from the brute. A bullet grazed Hunter's arm, causing him to suck his teeth as he put his back to a rock, facing the hammer wielding psycho.

The slaver was rushing him, hammer raised with the full intent to swing it and break his skull. Hunter crouched on his knees, waiting for the right time to jump. The slaver let out another war cry as the hammer came swinging, and Hunter dove underneath the arc of the swing. The rock he had been using for cover smashed into pieces as he rolled behind the slaver. Landing on one hand and knee, he quickly turned around and jumped again, climbing on to the bulky slaver's back.

The slaver let out a cry of frustration at the grapple, but Hunter wasted no time as he clung to the thrashing beast. He raised his combat knife up and slammed it down into the beast's neck, intending to kill him with one blow. Instead of an instant death, the large man fell backwards, Hunter's eyes opening in surprise at the action. His back hit the ground hard, immediately followed by the bulky slaver's entire weight crushing him. All of the air escaped his body as the pain of the slaver’s entire weight hit him.

Then, to his continued surprise, the slaver stood up and turned to stare at Hunter, knife still embedded in his neck. Hunter spat blood, feeling pain in his body as the slaver raised the sledgehammer over his head. Hunter could barely feel his body, but he struggled to move as best he could. The hammer came down hard and fast, and straight down onto Hunter's left arm.

CRACK.

Hunter screamed in horrific pain as his arm snapped in half from the sledgehammer's assault. He rolled onto his front as the most intense feeling of pain he'd ever felt assaulted every nerve ending of his body. He wretched up bile from his stomach as he grit his teeth, forcing himself to remember he was still combat. He snapped his head with bleary vision to the bulky slaver who had just crushed his arm, watching him standing there motionless.

Then, the sledgehammer he'd been carrying fell to the side of his body, his body following next, crashing to the ground as life escaped his body. An immense amount of blood poured out from the brute’s neck, ensuring the fatality of the blow. Hunter had succeed in killing the brute, but it had cost him his arm to do it.

The spray of assault rifle bullets brought him back to the moment as he felt a bullet strike his back hard, though not piercing his armor again. With his one good arm he scrambled back to his feet and ran back to the rock, pressing his back to it as he panted heavily. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out his last remaining regen-stim and slammed it into his broken arm, letting the healing start to take place. He knew full well that a regen-stim wasn't going to be enough to heal his arm, but it was a start.

Another hail of bullets hit the rock behind him, scattering chunks of it around him. The pain was simply too intense for him to focus, even with the healing effect of the regen-stim going, he needed to clear his head. Deciding he had no choice, he also pulled out the bottle of buffout. He quickly opened the cap with his teeth before tossing the capsules into his mouth.

Almost instantly the capsules melted, him biting down onto what was left and swallowing them quickly. His eyes opened as he felt a flash of strength fill his body. While it didn't numb the pain, he felt stronger despite the pain he was in. Adrenaline was pumped throughout his entire body and he felt like he could fight again. He just needed to pull out a weapon.

His assault rifle was out of the question with a broken arm, but he could still use the shotgun he had stolen earlier. Pulling the weapon out he looked over the edge of the rock at his attacker, who was walking closer with their assault rifle raised.

Suddenly, a hail of SMG bullets rained from behind the attacker, quickly catching his attention and turning to face his attacker. Taking the opportunity presented to Hunter, he rushed straight at the slaver who was unfocused, ready to take him out. Once the SMG fire had stopped, the slaver immediately realized he'd been duped and turned around to try and take care of his original target.

It was far too late though, as the moment he turned both barrels of the sawed-off shotgun fired point blank in his face, sending every piece of his head flying off into different directions.

Hunter flipped open his shotgun with one hand, ejecting the shells from the gun. He whipped his head around, looking for the last slaver with an assault rifle, but he didn't see him anywhere. He did see his companion's head pop out from behind a rock, making him realize that she was still alive and okay. That was good, that gave him the motivation to keep going.

Suddenly, a strong electrical surge pulsed through Hunter's body, causing him to cry out in excruciating pain as his body's functions escaped him. He collapsed to the ground on his back, a shuddering mess of pain and electricity as the bald slaver walked before him, stomping down on his chest. The slaver gave the taser he was carrying another click, electricity sparking from it before he pocketed it away.

“You two actually managed to kill them all, color me impressed.” The bald slaver said with genuine surprise. “You two must think you're hot shit or something, but look at what it cost you to do it.” His foot slammed down on Hunter's broken arm, sending a fresh wave of pain and torture through his body as he screamed in agony. “How pathetic you look right now.”

The click of an empty SMG barrel sounded, causing the bald slaver to turn and looked at the female who had tried to fire on him with a dull look. Realizing she was out of ammo, she dropped her SMG and pulled a combat knife she had looted herself and charged the bald slaver.

Without a care in the world, he raised a sawed-off shotgun he had been holding and fired it off at the girl. The bullets struck her hard, causing her to fall back and hit the ground with a hard thud.

“NO!” Hunter cried out in shock, fear gripping his system as he saw her unmoving body.

“You really thought you were going to escape, didn't you?” The bald slaver rested the shotgun against his shoulder as he looked down at Hunter. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I kind of knew you lot were going to try to escape last night.” Hunter wanted to refute his claim, to snap back, but he was in too much pain.

“You think I didn't notice my doll acting strange? It may have been subtle, but I noticed she was putting up even a mild fight that night.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, don't get me wrong, I had my fun still, but she thought she was crafty with the way she stumbled against my workbench. When she went back to her cell, I did a quick recount and noticed a collar key and lock pick were missing. If she had been more subtle about it, it might have worked.

“Granted, I thought you were going to try and force your way through the front gate. I was going to let you try, and then it was going to be hilarious when you all faced a wall of slavers and got gunned down execution style.” The bald slaver frowned. “Using the debris pile as a boost to get over the fence though? I'll give you points for creativity, you caught me by surprise with that one. But, the moment I realized you weren't storming the front gate, I had my guys check on you all. It was easy enough to trail you once we realized you were gone, though you did stay ahead of us pretty well. But, in the end, no one can outrun a truck.” He chuckled.

Hunter didn't say anything, just growling in frustration, anger, and sorrow as his body fought against the pain assaulting his every nerve. The slaver cracked his neck from side to side before aiming the sawed-off shotgun towards Hunter's head.

“Still, congrats on the first almost successful escape attempt in two years. You even took out a number of my workers with it. It's gonna take a lot of caps to fix this mess.” He then grinned, “But we're in the business of making caps, now aren't we? Thanks for the chase champ, it was the most fun I've had in years. Buh-bye.”

Hunter squeezed his eyes shut as a loud gunshot echoed through the air. He figured death would be a brief moment of pain, if he could even register it, before everything went black and he stopped feeling or sensing anything ever again. However, his ears were ringing and pain was still assaulting every nerve in his body, so apparently he hadn't died with that gunshot. A pain scream echoed from above him, forcing him to open his eyes to see what had happened.

The bald slaver's hand was bleeding profusely, the shotgun he had been holding nowhere in sight now, likely dropped from the fact his hand had been shot. The bald slaver turned and glared with a growl in the direction the shot had come from, before turning and running as another shot rang out.

“STOP RUNNING COWARD! FACE DEATH LIKE A MAN!” A familiar voice cried out, as several more shots rang out. From his back on the ground, Hunter could see the clear smoke trails the bullets left in the air as they fired at the running slaver. Hunter struggled to sit up, the pain assaulting his body making it difficult, but he grit his teeth and forced his good arm to push him up. He turned his head towards where the bald slaver had run off, watching him hop into the truck and start the engine. Another bullet rang out, striking one of the front tires and flattening it instantly, but the driver didn't seem to care.

The truck loudly screeched as the driver floored it, spinning the car in place before driving wildly down the road the way it had come. The flat tired scraped and skidded along the way, tearing at the remains of the concrete road as it went. Soon enough it was out of sight, the scrapping metal echoing into the day.

“Dammit, he got away.” The familiar voice cursed as they rushed over to Hunter. Hunter turned his head, looking in surprise at the the green haired and pink skinned girl running up to him. Hunter would recognize Lemon Zest anywhere, a fairly regular customer at his bar. He knew Lemon as one of the head technicians in charge of maintaining the radio station to keep the broadcast going, and as a personal mouthpiece for the mysterious person running the radio station. As a result, it was an unspoken rule around CWN that what she said was law. “Geeze Hunter, you look like shit.”

“Lemon? What in the name of Tartarus are you doing out here?” Hunter blinked in shock. Lemon Zest was not known for heading out into the wastelands on her own, usually preferring to let others do jobs outside of the facility. The fact she was out there, in her armor and carrying her customized assault rifle, the Infiltrator, was not something he had expected to see.

“One of our Commissariat bots spotted you heading back to CWN and I wanted to personally make sure the best bartender we've ever had made it back safe. Even if he apparently became a slaver scumbag.” Lemon chuckled with a grin at the Hunter, before frowning. “However, I ended up hearing the gun fight taking place. I was already on my way here so I couldn't exactly wait for reinforcements to come, so I just rushed over to help. Lucky I was here though, you really would be dead without me.”

“Well... Thank you Lemon, I owe you one.” Hunter smiled to his friend before, looking over somberly at his female companion still laying on the ground. He placed his good hand against the ground and Lemon wrapped an arm around his shoulder helping him stand up. He grabbed his left arm as he wobbled over to the girl he had spent the last week with.

He knelt down beside her, seeing the holes scattered in her armor from the shotgun blast and likely from the fighting earlier. She had a few bullet wounds in her shoulder and arm, and two in her hip and leg, but none of them seemed fatal. He raised a hand to her neck and quickly checked her pulse, finding it still beating away.

The tears that had been threatening to escape his eyes finally did as a smile spread on his face. He had been so worried that she was dead right then and there, that he had never felt happier to know she was still alive.

“So, who's your friend here?” Lemon asked as she pulled out a pair of regen-stims from her personal pouch and jabbed them into the largest wounds on the unconscious girl.

“I don't know her name... But she's the most important person in my life right now. Without her, I'd be dead.” Hunter shook his head, a soft chuckle escaping his lips as his tears continued to stream.

“What in Tartarus happened to you Hunter? You disappear out of nowhere and then a week later I find you dressed up as a slaver fighting slavers?” Lemon furrowed her brow in confusion, looking at the bartender with a mix of worry and anxiety about the story he was going to tell.

“Here, put her on my back. I'll tell you as we walk back.” Hunter said, lifting up one of his companion's arms and placing it against his shoulder.

“You’re knocking on Tartarus’s door with those injuries man, are you sure you can carry her?” Lemon asked perplexed, helping to lift the unconscious girl up onto the older man's back.

“Home's within reach, I can rest all I want once we're there.” He smiled as he felt the familiar weight pressed against his back. Holding her with his one good arm, he began to walk back towards CWN with his boss at his side acting as his bodyguard. “As for what happened to me...” Hunter's brow furrowed as he realized something. “Is Fathat still there?”

☼☼☼☼☼

“And so I said to the guy, burner? I barely know her!” Fathat cracked up, smacking his hand against the bar top at his own joke.

“Your humor lacks punch, as always Fathat.” The working barman shook his head at the man, currently focusing on cleaning one of the mugs.

“Ah, what do you know.” Fathat rolled his eyes at the man before finishing the mug of alcohol he was currently drinking, “Just keep me filled up will ya?”

“You know you're supposed to be banned from the bar, right?” The barman grumbled as he took the empty mug from the large man.

“Hey, that was Hunter's ruling, and as far as I can tell, he's not around to enforce it anymore.” Fathat smugly reminded the barman. The barman just rolled his eyes as he went to refill the drink.

“FATHAT!” Lemon Zest yelled as she walked into the bar, glaring angrily at the large man who was sitting rather comfortably.

“What do you want?” Fathat grunted turning to look at the woman who was, by comparison, fairly tiny.

“Oh you know EXACTLY what I want Fathat,” Lemon snarled. “You've got some explaining to do bub.”

“Explaining for what?” Fathat glared at the tiny woman, “I'm just sitting here minding my own business. I haven't done anything.”

“Funny, that's not how I remember it.” Hunter spoke up, walking into the bar and standing next to Lemon. His left arm was now braced and wrapped in a sling and he was back to wearing his regular attire, no longer donning the slaver gear. The moment Fathat saw Hunter, the color drained from his face in realization.

“O-Oh, Hunter! It's good to see you man!” Fathat nervously laughed, trying to play it off. “L-Look I know you banned me from the bar, but I really needed a drink and since you weren't around I figured I could just-”

Fathat's words were cut off as Hunter reached behind his back and pulled out a .32 caliber pistol that Lemon had lent to him just for this meeting. Fathat let out a squeal of fear as he was put at gunpoint, realizing that he wasn't getting out of this now.

“Hunter here told me everything Fathat. And all things considered, I'm going to take his word of the events over yours.” Lemon spat as she crossed her arms, glaring at the obese individual. “So, what do you have to say for yourself?”

Fathat jumped from the bar and fell to the ground, proceeding to grovel in front of his two judges. “I'm sorry!” He cried out in his defense, “I was overwhelmed with anger and I wasn't thinking straight! Honest! I didn't mean to hurt anyone.”

“What a crock of shit.” Hunter cursed under his breath as he stepped up to Fathat, aiming the gun down at the large man's head. Fathat let out another squeal of fear as he shuddered on the spot, trembling for his life. “I know why you did it Fathat, you already made that very clear. My first question is how?”

“H-How I did it?” Fathat repeated. He was answered by the click of the gun as Hunter cocked it, causing him to squeal again. “A stealthboy! I bought a stealthboy from a merchant and used it to sneak up on you! I-I also knew that I wouldn't be caught by the Commissariat bots because they were being sent to Trottingham in mass!” Hunter turned his head to look at Lemon for confirmation on that.

“It's true. We got word that something huge was going on in Trottingham and we sent our bots there to investigate.” Lemon glared down at Fathat. “We don’t exactly have a lot to spare as it is, but he chose the best time for this to fly under our radar.”

“Fine, now I know the how.” Hunter said turning back to Fathat. He kneeled down, looking down at Fathat with a look that could kill a man from a distance, Fathat's heart fell as he saw it. “Now, I'll only ask one more thing. I know you took my stuff. My weapons, my armor, anything I had on me.” Hunter pressed the gun barrel against Fathat's head, the large man squeezing his eyes shut in fear. “I couldn't care less about losing all that, it's replaceable in every way. But, you took something from me that isn't. So,” Hunter squeezed the gun a little tighter though careful not to fire, “Where's my ring?”

“I sold it!” Fathat squealed as tears streamed down his face. “I sold everything! I don't know where it is anymore!”

“So...” Hunter let his breath out slowly, sinisterly. “You sold the one thing I held in higher value than my own life to some random merchant who will likely just scrap it or melt it or trade it off again. So it could not only be anywhere in the wastelands, it could be destroyed this very instance.”

“I'm sorry!” Fathat cried, tears visibly streaming down his face now. Hunter felt no sympathy for the man. He just glared down, thinking about what to do. He then raised the pistol, and moved it over to Fathat's hand. Fathat's eyes widened as he watched the gun move, before the barrel was placed over his right ring finger.

BANG

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHH!” Fathat screamed in pain as he withdrew his hand, blood spurting from where his ring finger used to be. He curled up and rolled, squeezing his hand as he cried in pain. Hunter stood up, no longer caring about the waste of human life as he turned and handed the pistol back to Lemon.

“I'm done with him, just make sure he gets the punishment he deserves.” Hunter spoke as he headed out.

“Right.” Lemon nodded her head before glaring down at Fathat. “Guards!” She called out, two of CWN's strongest walking in through the bar’s front door and grabbing hold of the screeching man and lifting him up. Lemon drew closer to the man, glaring him in the eyes as she aimed the gun under his chin, causing him to cease his bawling.

“Let me make something very clear to you Fathat. CWN isn't like other places out there in the Wasteland. We take care of each other around here. When we offered you a place here, it was with the intent that you would help defend this place, and as a result we would defend you. But, you've clearly shown that you don't care about CWN at all, you only care about yourself.” Lemon spat at the man.

“There's nothing I hate worse than backstabbing scumbags, who think they can just get away with something like this. You took our kindness and then spat it back at us, so I'm going to return the favor.” Lemon pulled back, holstered the pistol and then looked at the guards. “Strip him of everything he owns, then find a ditch to dump his dead body in. I don't want anymore of his blood on CWN property.”

The last thing Hunter heard was Fathat's wailing cry of anguish. Hunter ignored the pleas for help as he made his way across the station. Punishing Fathat for what he did felt hollow in the end, which was why he couldn't bring himself to just execute the man then and there himself, so if Lemon wanted to execute him then that was fine by him. Doing so wouldn't get him Rose's ring back, and even if he went looking for it the chances of him finding it a week after it had been sold was extremely thin. He was better off letting it go and trying to move on with his life, though he knew full well that he wasn't going to be able to get over it that easily.

It was fortunate then, that he had someone he cared about to help take his mind off of things.

He walked across the length of CWN to get to the medical clinic they had established there. The three of them had stopped there first to take care of his arm and his companion before going to confront Fathat. As he entered, he saw his companion sitting up on one of the care beds that were set up, being checked over by the station's physician.

“How's she looking Doc?” He asked, stepping up to the beautiful girl and giving her a smile. She looked up at him in turn, though her face was still rather expressionless.

“Well, most of her wounds have been tended to and she should make a full recovery after a few nights of rest. What I did just finish doing was going over her physical to see if there was anything else wrong that I could take care of, and I did find a few things.” The Doctor explained, looking over the notes on her chart.

“The most notable thing is her vocal chords. I'm not entirely sure how it happened, but at some point they got completely trashed. She'll be lucky to make wind sounds let alone talk ever again.” The Doc explained, “She also seems to be rather malnourished and her muscles are slightly atrophied, but both of those issues should be fixable with healthy meals and exercise. However, what worries me the most are signs of uterine damage, but I'll need to do some more extensive testing to confirm it. However, I wouldn't be surprised if she couldn't have children because of it.”

“Does she have anything that prevents her from spending the night in a real home rather than in a medical bed? No offense to your place of course.” Hunter wanted to make sure.

“None taken, honestly resting in a real bed would probably do her a lot of mental good.” The Doctor nodded in agreement as they finished looking over their papers and turned to the girl with a smile. “Would you like to spend the night at Hunter's tonight?”

The girl turned to look at the Doctor, before giving a slow nod.

“Then I have no issues with dismissing my patient for now.” The Doctor smiled as she wrote something down on her clipboard. “I'll get things set up for a more thorough check-up tomorrow, so bring her around before dinner and I'll start taking a closer look.”

“Thanks Doc.” Hunter smiled, glad to know his companion was going to be taken care of. He lifted his good hand up to her, “Come on, I'll show you my home and we can have a good dinner together.” The girl looked down at the outstretched hand confused at first, before lifting her own hand up and placing it into his. Hunter gently squeezed her hand, and he felt her squeeze it back.

He couldn't help but realize how warm and gentle it felt. An absolutely perfect hand.

☼☼☼☼☼

Hunter had found it more difficult to cook with one arm than he had realized, but with a bit of care he managed to fry up two Brahmin burgers for them. The trouble of cooking it had turned out to be worth it though, as the first bite into the burger caused his companion's eyes to open wider than usual in surprise, before she began to devour the burger like a rabid beast. He was proud his cooking had elicited such a reaction from her as he managed to finish his own with only a little trouble.

When dinner was over he went to clean up the dishes, but ended up getting some help from his companion who started cleaning things on her own. He was proud of her for showing initiative and thinking on her own without having to be ordered to do so. It was progress and it filled his heart with joy.

His place wasn't big, a small house that had been left-over in the area that probably once served as a work-in home for the radio station. Like many prewar houses, it was relatively small, fitting a small living room, kitchen, a couple of closets, a bathroom, and a bedroom.

With the day growing late he turned on the house lights as he let his companion get settled in. With dinner finished he had an idea to communicate with her and grabbed a few supplies from around the house. With them in hand he walked into the living room where she was sitting on the couch, listening to the radio.

“-a big blow was dealt to the slavers of west Orangewood fields today, as for the first time in the their two year history an escape attempt turned out successful! It just goes to show you that you should never give up hope. The slavers are weakened right now, but they're not out just yet, so you should still be wary of any slaver sightings in your area. And now, this next number is a favorite among requesters in the Wastelands out there, about setting a fire in someone you love's heart-”

Hunter turned the radio off as he sat down next to his companion, the girl looking up at him curiously. He turned and looked in her eyes, for the first time easily able to see some sign of life in them, a sign that she wanted to continue living. He had watched it slowly grow over the last few days, and he felt a great sense of pride seeing it there.

“I had an idea,” Hunter spoke up, showing her a clipboard with several sheets of yellowed paper on it and a pen. “Do you remember how to write?” The girl gave him a slow nod and grabbed hold of the supplies. She picked the pen up and lightly scribbled in a corner to check the ink, before looking back into his eyes. “Let's start of easy. What's your name?”

The girl looked down at the paper, paused for a moment of contemplation, before slowly writing one word on it.

Aria.

“Aria? That's a beautiful name.” Hunter smiled brightly, glad that he finally knew what to call her. “Let's start with the important things though. Do you have a home to go back to? Maybe family or friends that might be looking for you?”

He waited for a moment for her to write something, but to his surprise she simply shook her head no. He was a little surprised at that, but it wasn't his first time hearing that a survivor of the wastes had nothing to go back to.

“Alright, if you say so, I won't pry.” Hunter put a hand to his chin as he thought about what to ask next. “Do you remember what happened to you? What damaged your voice or hurt you enough to dull your emotions?”

Aria was quiet for a moment, before nodding her head and writing something else down.

Essence stolen.

“Your essence was stolen?” He scratched his head at the words. He didn't quite understand what that meant. Perhaps it was code for some experiment that was conducted on her, or it was an event that resulted in her becoming the way she was now. Aria merely nodded her head at his repeat of the question. Hunter scrunched his face as he tried to think about it, but decided to ask a simple question as follow up. “Was having your 'essence' stolen really that bad?”

In response, she wrote down three words this time.

Should be dead.

“That bad huh?” Hunter said with only mild surprise in his voice. Death was a common theme in practically everything that happened these days, so he wasn't surprised at all that whatever happened to Aria should've resulted in her death. And yet there she was, so she must have survived. “How'd you manage to survive it?”

Aria seemed to visibly hesitate, as if she was struggling with how to explain it. Once she decided on how to say it, she wrote down her response.

Magic is wrong here. Doesn't follow the rules.

“Magic?” He scrunched in thought at that. He tried to think about those words from Aria's perspective. He knew that any adequately advanced science was indistinguishable from magic, so perhaps in her current mental state she was confusing whatever happened to her for a magical event, and that the circumstances around it had misshaped in such a way that she had managed to survive.

“Alright, I think I get the picture. You should be dead, but you're alive because things didn't happen the way they should have. I suppose, in the end, what's important is that you're here now.” Hunter smiled at her. “I suppose the big question now is...” His voice stopped as he thought about it. It had been so long since he had asked anyone this that he wasn't sure if she would accept or not. He bit back the nervousness in his throat, manned up, and let his voice come out. “Would you like to stay here with me?”

Aria's face widened with some surprise, as if not expecting the question. She turned her head to look down at the paper, as if wanting to write something. Unable to find the words to write, she turned back to Hunter, and then for the first time gave him a gentle smile with a nod of her head.

Hunter's heart warmed to the sight as he smiled back at her. “That's wonderful! I promise, I'm going to make this a home you're going to be happy to live in.” He reached forward and wrapped his good arm around her, pulling her into a hug. Aria closed her eyes and rested her head against him, lifting her own arms and gently placing them against his sides, showing her affection in return.

“Come on, it's gotten late so let me show you to your bed.” Hunter smiled as he pulled back from the hug, before standing up and holding out his hand for her. She held the clipboard and pen close to her chest in one hand and took his hand with the other, standing up with him. He led her down the hallway to his room, lightly furnished with a bed and blanket, a dresser, and a bedside table.

“Oh, you’re probably going to want to sleep in something more comfortable than those rags right? Well I should have the perfect thing that’ll fit you.” Hunter smiled as he moved over to his dresser. He opened it up and went to the section where he had saved his wife's old clothes, having been holding on to them for sentimental purposes.

From the pile he pulled out a simple pink nighty, one that hung by straps around the shoulders and hung down to just above the knees. “Here, this used to belong to my wife but, well, she hasn't used them in years. It looks like it’ll fit you perfectly though.”

Aria took the outfit, blinking at it, not having expected the gift. Then she began to pull the gray clothes from her enslavement off, right in front of Hunter. Hunter felt his face flush as he quickly noticed that she was getting naked right in front of him. Realizing they weren't quite in an intimate relationship just yet, he turned around to give her some privacy, only just barely seeing a small amount of skin as her shirt had risen up.

'She even looks like Rose under the clothes, holy...' He thought to himself, remembering every inch of his beautiful wife in exact detail. As he remembered her, he felt a gentle tug on the back of his shirt, causing him to turn around.

Aria looked every bit as beautiful in the night gown as his wife had. However, he knew very well that she radiated her own type of beauty that was different from his wife's. He couldn't help but smile and softly blush at the sight of the beautiful girl.

“Well, you can sleep on my bed for the night.” Hunter nodded his head towards his bed, “I'll just crash on the couch, and then tomorrow we'll get things more sorted for the living arrangements, alright?” He smiled at Aria, though his companion just shook her head at his response. He furrowed his brow in confusion before noticing that she was writing something down.

Share.

“...Oh.” Hunter said rather surprised. “Yeah, sure, we can share the bed if you want. I don't mind that at all.” He chuckled with a smile. Aria nodded her head back at him.

With that, he shut the lights off in his house and crawled into his bed first. He lifted the sheets and invited Aria in, who slipped in next to him, resting her head into the nook of his neck as she got ready to sleep. He couldn't help but smile as he tucked them both in, happy to have such wonderful company again after so long.

He wrapped an arm around her, gave her forehead a kiss, and settled in for the night. The two of them rested in the comfort of each other's arms, falling asleep together. Anything could happen the next day or the day after, but for right now, they were going to enjoy the simple comfort of being somewhere safe, and in the arms of someone they loved.

Author's Notes:

Or at least that was 90% of the motivation behind this fic anyway. I had actually been wanting to do a side-fic story about Hunter living in the Wastelands almost since he was introduced in Fallout: Equestria Girls as a cameo character, but I never was able to come up with a decent storyline in my head. If I had started something back then, it would've been a story eligible to be in "Unfinished Story Ideas with Sunset Shimmer" quite frankly lol

However, Extradimensional Alien recently did a story arc involving Adagio that mentioned the fates of Sonata and Aria, and with Aria being my favorite siren, he only mentioned the vagueness of "Aria had her essence absorbed". And here I am in my brain going "Waaaaait. Offscreen death due to Magic? Well that's very exploitable! It's not like he described her having been torn to pieces and her head mounted on a pike or anything!" And then it turned out he did and I just missed it the end.

But yeah, the moment I realized I could have potential free reign to use Aria as I want, my brain made an entire story for the Hunter side story I wanted to do. I always do so much better with fics like this when I can use official characters. So once I had use of Aria, I had a story in my head and it refused to leave until I wrote it! And then I presented it to Extradimensional Alien for his approval.

Of course he hated it

Nah, he actually rather liked it and was very supportive of the story! He allowed it to fall into 'Dubious Canon', meaning that if you want to consider this canon to Fallout: Equestria Girls you can and it'd fit in, but it may not ever get directly talked about in the main canon. And I'm perfectly fine with that! I mean the only thing I could think of for it to be mentioned in canon is for Twilight and Sunset to see Aria, be surprised she's alive, have a short scene involving that, and that'd be it. So literally nothing important enough to derail any storyline Extradimensional has planned or for fans to freak out about. So yeah, I'm free to do a story with Hunter and Aria if I so feel like it! (Doesn't stop it from being a small dream of mine for our stories to sync up with events or for them to be mentioned in either, but I'm not gonna force it or beg hehe)

Extradimensional also wanted me to make sure not to post this until chapter 32 of Fallout: Equestria Girls had been released, so that he could properly announce side-stories could be opened to his fic. But that time has come, so it is now free to the world~

And I admit, the more I sit and think about the end of this story, the more I realize I probably will end up doing more with this story. I've got ideas a rumbling, and there is a high probability one day I'll write more chapters to this. But for right now, this is a one-off, so I hoped you enjoyed it. I had so much fun writing it and it was absolutely a labor of love to Extradimensional's story. I couldn't be prouder of it.

PS. This fic is sort of surreal to me. For the longest time I heard people say "My favorite fics are Silent Ponyville and Fallout Equestria" and now the streams have finally been crossed. The author of Silent Ponyville wrote a crossover with Fallout side fic haha. I mean, sure it's not a side-fic to KKat's Fallout Equestria, but I still think it counts!

Fallout Equestria Girls: Hunter's Story

by SamRose

Dealing with Slavers