"Sir?"

Sam cringed as the voice spoke. It seemed to emanate right in front of his eardrums.

"Master Samuel?"

There it was again, more clear. It had an artificial ring to it, like a robot. He felt a cold, metal appendage poke his head. His eyes flickered as his mind struggled to figure out who it was.

"Master Samuel, shall I grab Doc Church?!"

It was Wadsworth! But that meant...

His eyes shot open, his mind clear and body full of adrenaline. His eyes were met by a single glowing orange photoreceptor. Sam gasped, shock at both the sudden sight and the fact that it was there in the first place.

"Wadsworth!" He exclaimed. His body caught up with his mind, and he nearly screamed. "Stimpak, now!" The butler immediately pulled out a syringe from his internal storage and injected it into his neck. Sam sighed as the pain he felt vanished went away. It seemed that his wing was healing and reacting well with the stim...pak...

Where were his wings?

He sat up and patted his back with his forelegs. He felt nothing over than the rough fabric of his duster on his fingers. His eyes widened, and he looked back to his forehooves. But instead of forehooves, he saw his hands. He took a look at his surroundings. He was in his Megaton home. He was back in the Capital.

But where had he gone? He wracked his brain, knowing he had been somewhere strange for the past few days. A place where he was a pony, where he was technically killed by some flying person, and a small unicorn he-

The Equestrian Wasteland. He was dead. He was SUPPOSED to be dead! Yet here he was, lying on the dirty metal floor of his house, his Mr. Handy butler hovering beside him alarmed, and...alive, surviving impossible odds once more.

He hated his perfect luck.

He shook his head. He couldn't dwell on the past when he had no idea what the present was.

"What happened?" Sam asked, slowly getting to his feet. It felt weird standing on two legs naturally again, but the feeling quickly went away. He felt the rest of his body, and found that everything he had everything from before. Before he had jumped goddman dimensions...

"I do not know for certain, sir," Wadsworth answered, "You appeared form this strange green...thing that appeared near the ceiling."

"A portal?" Wadsworth's central photoreceptor looked down, as if the robot was pondering.

"That is what it appeared to be sir." Wadsworth hovered to the central table and picked up a piece of paper. A glance at the small Pre-War table led Sam's eyes to the absolute mess that he had created from falling back into his home. Papers, helmets, weapons, and knick-knacks he had collected from his travels that he had put across his home had been knocked to the ground. The helmets of the Enclave's Sigma Squad-collected at the Blitz of Adam's-were knocked down, but luckily his bobblehead collection had stayed.

"But according to Elder Maxson, you have been dead for three days!" He held in his claw the local Wasteland newspaper, in essence the script of Three Dog's main new monologue printed and sent out to the Wastes as 'Galaxy News Paper'.

Sam still couldn't get over it.

He snatched the paper from Wadsworth and looked at the headline. 'Wanderer KIA'. The picture was of him, a lucky moment captured by a teen with a camera who was huddling in a ditch. It was him holding the American flag on top of that firetruck outside of Columbus, the end of the March to the Reich. He read the article.

'August 13, 2283:

Today is to be marked as one of the worst PR moments in human history. Samuel Patrick Ross, the Lone Wanderer, the Crazy Kid From Vault 101, the Great Emancipator, Fallen Steel, THE Sentinel, New Sarah, the Second Coming of Jesus H. Christ, has been killed in the line of duty.

In a Brotherhood black op gone wrong, an entire hill outside of Raven Rock went up in a giant explosion in the dead of night on August 11. High Elder Arthur Maxson was pulled out of the rubble, completely unscathed. When he came to and was asked what was what, he told his men that Sammy and his trusty dog had been trapped by a mad Enclave scientist inside some kind of tube that he had called a 'trans-dimensional portal'. The pup and his master were sent off to God knows where in a flash of blue, and Maxson said that the moment they went poof, everything went boom.

This kid has just made the worst timed ending in Wasteland history. The day after his death came out and was leaked to the undesirables by word of Brotherhood patrols' mouths, remnants of Talon Company and other Raider gangs stepped up activity in the downtown DC area, along with the rolling radioactive, ruin-covered hills around it. An increasing number of coat-wearing vigilantes have been reported, and about half of the numbers have turned up dead.

And before you get your hopes up, Head Scribe Rothchild has said that there is no way he could've survived an inter-dimensional journey across the atoms. His molecular structure would've been torn apart about fifty times before being spit out, a process he would've be able to survive. And even if he did, what kind of environment would be thrown into? Would he be able to breathe the air? Would he appear in some monster's stomach? These are odds this guy's immense amount of luck wouldn't be able to overcome.

With the death of Sam goes his hopes and dreams. He's confided in me, and many others, about his love of America. Not the jack-booted thugs that killed his dad, not the Enclave, no, the kind WAY before any of the events that tore the world a new one. A land of opportunity. A country of displaced millionaires. The guardians of the Free World. The land of the free, because of the brave. He wanted a New United States, founded on these old values and humbled by our past experiences. And now...now it's as dead as he is.

May God have mercy on us.

And now, please join me in 101 seconds of silence for the man who could have given us a future.'

Sam's tears fell onto the yellow paper. He could taste the sheer amount of emotion that was in these words, something he had never said about Three Dog's work before. He fell back into one of his chairs, and buried a hand into his face. He tried to compose himself, but he broke into full sobs.

"Sir?" Wadsworth asked, "Are you well?" Sam sniffled, most of his composure back.

"No," He answered, looking up with bloodshot eyes, "Because I have to leave this world again." He cleared his throat and wiped his eyes. "I went to a world more desolate and hopeless than this one, with a hero to guide into what I've become." He shook the paper in his hands. "A legend." He tossed the paper back onto the table and walked to a trap door beside one of his lockers. He opened it up and walked down the steel stairs to his basement.

"Whatever does that mean?" Wadsworth asked, following him down. He stood by and watched as his owner stripped out of his clothes, down to the bodysuit he always wore. He was standing in front of his sacred T-51b power armor suit, running his hand across the fifty star American flag he waited on its grey surface. He looked into the visor, realizing what he was about to do probably wouldn't even work. He had no idea if it was about to work-

He turned around and stuck his hand out, the limb being surrounded by a green magical aura. His satchel rose up from the ground. Almost all of the containers in the armory opened and tossed in equipment (and most of his clothes) as some equipment from the bag was given back to the containers. Wadsworth's inner functions stopped for a moment. In a minute, his bag was mostly packed for the trip.

"...sir?" He asked, "If you do not mind me asking, what the bloody hell was that?" Sam chuckled, having never heard any Mr. Handy ever curse before.

"Magic," He answered, bending down to grab the last thing he needed to do, "Literally." He brushed the dust off of the golden 101, a sad smile on his face. This jumpsuit had seen him through many hardships, saved his life many times...but now he had to let to go. He could make something else just as tough, something else being the loose UCP-camo jumpsuit he had already stuffed inside his satchel. But the suit reminded him too much of his first home, his former friends, her...

He bundled the suit up in his arms and crept up the two sets of stairs to his bedroom, making sure to not alert his neighbors. He walked into his room, and felt a wave of emotion. The Tunnel Snakes jacket Butch had given him for saving his mom was sitting on his filing cabinet, and in that were the first hand accounts of his adventures, all typed on the typewriter sitting on his desk. His BB gun was resting on the wall, and the container of its pellets was in his desk. Covering it was drawings, of the Ferris wheel of Point Lookout, the Washington Monument in its broken glory, Hoover Dam, the Wright Brothers' first plane laying decrepit on the floor of the Museum of Technology, and a large cog sitting inside a damp, dark cave, a 101 in its center.

Sam cleared a space on his desk and let the jumpsuit on the desk, the 101 showing clearly. He had heard in stories told by the people of Arroyo that the Vault Dweller had left his jumpsuit at home when he left the town for the final time.

He knew that this wouldn't be the last time coming to Megaton on his own power, but if it came to it, this would be his true final resting place. He took one last look, nodded, and turned his back on his memories.

Wadsworth was picking up everything Sam had knocked over when he came down. Neither paid the other any mind. Sam stopped in front of his armor, and with one more nod, began putting it on.

The advances in technology between the T-45d and T-51b had made making the latter much quicker for a single person to put on than the former. He could feel the servos let out quick puffs of air before they snapped in place, and the unique feeling of power armor take place in the area. The feeling of weightlessness, and pure strength. Before he had modified this suit of power armor, he had to take a piece off for his PIP-Boy. Tinkering with the supercomputer gave it a holographic projector, able to project on the new, custom-made vambrace and still be able to function properly. The glove was tossed aside, in favor of the reinforced steel gauntlet that allowed to punch through concrete.

He slipped the helmet on last, and saw as green code appeared on the visor. Within a few seconds, all systems were operational, and he was free to fight. He took a few steps off of the pedestal that he changed in, and gave a few test punches. He marveled over how much power was in the felt while he was barely trying.

He walked to his gun rack, where he selected the weapons to supplement his Deagle in battle. He took his M1 Garand, a rifle he found in New Vegas while snooping around Camp McCarran. He put the rifle in its leather scabbard and slung it over his back, hooking it to loops he installed on his front and back. he slipped a tactical vest, laced with Kevlar and great for carrying ammo efficiently. He put a stockless R91 into his satchel, and put two holsters on his hips. He stuck his Deagle on the right, and his M1911 on the left. Despite the pistol being outmatched by most of the Wasteland's weaponry, and the weakest on Sam's person, it was the most American gun ever made. He picked up the 10mm pistol he carried and slipped it into a holster built into his vest. He slipped his trench knife into his vest, and turned to his heavy gun rack.

He glanced at the selection of heavy weapons-even passing by the Big Boy-before settling on one. He placed both parts of it onto his back, the magnetic plates keeping them together. He slung his satchel over his shoulder, complete with his task. He was ready.

"Well Wadsworth," Sam said, walking up to the Mr. Handy, "It was ice seeing you again."

"I agree wholly, Master Samuel!" The robot replied, "It is nice seeing you after proclaimed de-"

"But I have to wipe your memory of the past half hour." he robot stopped, but Sam didn't give him a chance to reply. He pressed a few buttons on his PIP-Boy, aimed it at him, and the robot's thruster stopped. Sam caught him before he could fall with a clang, and put him on his charging station. He gave a small nod to the robot, and moved back to the pedestal, away from stuff that would leave a bigger mess after he left.

Sam felt like he was betraying his people by doing this, abandoning them in an hour of need, but relaxed. They would have to learn to get by without him.; He had solved a lot of the Wasteland's problems within seven months of him crawling out of Vault 101. And besides-

"I'm dead, aren't I?"

---

Pip threw another piece of wood, this one as big as her torso, over her shoulder with her small mount of magic as she tore apart the crash site of the train.

"Sam!" She shouted, wrapping her TK around a twisted piece of metal and pulled upwards. That was when her magic gave out, and it imploded. She collapsed, but slowly got up and wrapped her forelegs around. "Sam! I know you're here!" She pulled upwards, lacking to strength to make it budge.

"Lil'pip!" Calamity yelled, flying down and grabbing her. He flew her out of the wreckage, much to her vocal opposition.

"No, Calamity, stop!" She tried to kick him in the face, but was dropped back down to the ground as she reared her hooves. "He was right there!"

"Pip, he is dead!" She recoiled at the volume, as did Velvet. "He is Goddess-damned carbon righ' abou' now!" Pip growled.

"He's alive! He's hurting under all of that junk, and I won't stop until he out of th-" Velvet grabbed her and slapped her in the face. It wasn't enough to seriously hurt her, but enough to knock her about of her desperate state of mind.

"Pip, get a hold of yourself!" She shouted, shaking her, "He is gone! We can't do anything about it!" Calamity put a hoof on her shoulder, and she backed down. She left Pip a quivering, shaking mess barely standing on her legs.

"Ah didn't know him long, but long enough to know wha makes him tick. He's ah fighter, and he woulda wanted us tah move on. A least until we were safe and sound." Pip tried to hold back a tear, but broke down. She lunged into Calamity and hugged his neck. Calamity hugged her back, a single tear sliding down his face.

They rested by the wreckage for about an hour, his impromptu grave. When Pip had finally recovered, they began the long walk back to civilization. Within another hour, a few birds were circling the pile of broken wood and twisted steel.

A hand shot out of the wreckage.

---

Footnote-Level up.

New perk added: Clear Headed-You have come to terms with your inner demons. 35% less scoped weapons sway, and 5% VATS hit chance.