“This is Travis Lonely Miles...And this is DIAMOND city radio! We’ve got..t’a...Barbara Lynn coming up next. It’s been a long day...I’ve got a message here. Fallons Department Store. Come on down."

“That’s not right -Kef-" He coughed into the microphone.

"Fall down for Fallon’s savings on clothes.” He said with enthusiam

“Barbara Lynn everybody.”

Leaning back, his eyes were locked on the Triangle shaped play button, and the two parallel bars next to it, and how the play button was much more worn and so used, there was a grimy oil coating it. It was from all the extended use over the decades.

[A/N: I changed around the structure and flow of this chapter. I realized after reading a few comments that there were some time skips and location jumps that weren't made clear enough, which was leading to some confusion. Since then, I've addressed them, and condensed a few other paragraphs to make for an easier read.]

October 23rd, 2287
Two hours till sundown,
Concord, Boston.

\111/

The crash landed vertibird on the roof of the Museum of Freedom looked like it was the object of interest for many people over the years. Piles of tools, piles of rusted and replaced plates all sitting around, someone spent the time to fix and repair parts of the vertibird, the suit of power armor, and maintain the minigun still attached to its holder, but those people were long gone. In their place, they left tools behind, ammo, and a Ripper, a small handheld chainsaw he could affix to his thigh. Nate held the power core in his left hand, it was like a lightbulb, but as heavy as a brick.

He slid it into place and screwed it to his right. The power armor hissed and the hydraulic catch mechanism released. The T-45 model was the Iron Maiden of protective suits. To get in, a rear entry design allowed for the seams along the spine, back of the legs and arms to part. Rather than the T-51s and higher were the entire backside swung upwards, this secured you snugly within the suit.

There was more strain on the user to physically move, but the features were it could stop sniper rifle rounds from almost point blank range. All his guns were laid out, the ten millimeter, laser musket, double barrel shotgun, twin pipe pistols, and one grenade. Leaning against sunlights or on the ground.

Nate put his helmet on and immediately felt his ears start to itch. Flexing his hands, the suit followed his body, and he wrapped one hand around the grip of the mounted minigun and pulled it out of the holder. Setting the weapon onto the ground he looked over the ammo count which was well into the thousands, and fed the bullet chain into the barrel and spun the eight cyclinders for a minute, counting the rotation off in his head and listening for any signs of distress. Leaning back, Nate passed Meathead sitting by the door of the vertibird,

"Stay here, Meathead...be a good boy." Meathead wagged his tail once, looking from Nate to the Minigun then northeast towards main street. His exhale was small, pressing all the air out, then even more until his lungs felt crushed like soda cans.

The smoldering buildings, the dead bodies lying in the street, craters pocketing the ground, the crippled protectrons and smoldering eyebots, and then the raiders crouched over those dead bodies, scavenging whatever they could find from their fallen.

"The people change, the guns get a little dirt in them, knives got a tinge of rust to them, tactics and weapons, Meathead. How we kill them... War never changes Meathead. Sometimes you forget the reason for why you fight, but you always seem to remember that." Swinging the minigun around there was moderate weight to it when it was fully loaded, capable of firing 400,000 rounds per minute.

He inhaled and his breath staggered slowly outwards, like a sob. Walking to the edge of the roof, they were unaware of death about to rain down. "Somebody stop me." He said, revving up the barrel, he stepped onto the ledge and the bricks cracked under his weight. Walking off, gravity pulled him down and then he landed on his feet, slamming into the ground, shock absorbers distributed the force to make him not even feel the impact.

Nate couldn't focus on the noise of the bullet cases clanging onto the ground like thousands of tiny hammers, banging against the ground. He couldn't see himself as the type of person to stand infront of another man and shoot at him, watching his arm get chewed up and being splattered several miles behind him, then his head and face were gone. The Chest was there, then bored into by hundreds of high speeding drills. Blood was a constant, and as men and women shot back at him, the bullets pinged off the shell, or made decent dents in the outer layers, but Nate could only really hear one thing in his mind right now. He couldn't think of the name, so much as the importance of the song was a distraction from the war he waged on the Concord raiders.

From behind, Preston rested the front of his laser musket's barrel on the white bannister railing of the third floor balcony, stock resting against his right shoulder, he looked down the barrel through the scope and scowled as he saw the Vault Dweller obliterate an entire car in ten seconds, the entire thing exploded, and two raiders using for cover were flayed with shrapnel and fire as their bodies were blown back and their limbs parted. Priming the electric cell with a crank, he inhaled, then exhaled and pulled the trigger. A woman spun on her heels and fell over, clutching her head and screaming.

Preston pulled down on the crank and fired again. Energy shell spent, he scoped out the street with his eyes as his hands replaced the cell as the empty one clattered to the ground, and rolled off the roof.

Nate spread his legs wide to keep from falling over as a round of buckshot slammed into his chest cavity, then turned with the minigun still spinning and unloaded ninety-seven rounds in that general direction. He aiming down the street, he walked forward and mouthed the words 'Die, motherfucker, die.' Whoever told him the time it took to say those words was the length of time a person wielding a fully automatic weapon should spend shooting was right, it helped control bursts while firing and conserve ammo.

Each person meeting their end by minigun, filled the air around them like a messy pencil eraser smudge that only became worse the more he tried to erase it for a few seconds before the rest of their body and entrails rained down.

The ten thousand tiny hammers banging against the ground in rapid succession, the warmth of the suit and the coldness in his limbs, he marched forward into battle. Nate was yelling, shouting, fucking cursing the skies and the gods above for what happened. He was enraged, beyond rage, unholy rage. The more he moved, the less heavy the weapon in his hands felt, the more his head pounded from carnal yelling, the less his power armor felt ensnaring around him. He cursed uncle Sam and uncle Tom, he rebelled against the bombs, he cast off Vault Tec., and screamed inside his metal iron maiden. He refused to accept this is what the United States of America came to be, this was not America, so why believe anything from the old life was left?

Snow fell from the clear, sunny sky and turned to steam once it came in contact with the metal plates, wind rushing through the town battered and the two American flags were straight out, fibers freezing over and stiffening up from ice. Still moving in the gale, the ropes holding the flags banged against the poles as his footsteps crunched down into the freshly fallen snow.

Metal grates on the ground buckled and warped, punched upwards and a hand with five foot long claws, a six foot arm, and then the devil's face filled with spike horns crawled out of the sewers and twenty feet tall. Spikes stronger than bone jutted from his spine. Black, all encompassing eyes with the weight of annoyance someone would have for a single ant crawling across their pillow gnashed its jaws, showing the row of teeth like knives, it howled and charged.

It's first victim was a raider caught between bullets and the Deathclaw as it swiped one arm down and cleaved the body in two from neck to stomach. Then, it gripped the other half and flung it at another human, killing him as the projectile crushed his ribs inward and broke his shoulders. This thing roared and Nate wanted to kill it more than anything else he'd felt anger for in a long time. He wanted it badly.

Focusing directly on the monster, time slowed down to a crawl and he lined up his hail of bullets to tear apart the leg, and he fired, and saw the same destructive power of a minigun against a human on this new monster, but it didn't slow down. The body torn apart, the muscles pounded into a bloody paste and this thing sprinted across the ground and was on him and ripped the mini gun from his hands and rammed him down onto the ground. Picking Nate up, he was slammed onto the ground and then the Deathclaw worked a single claw between his helmet and suit, and pried like a crowbar. Nate wrestled an arm free and the ripper from his arm and stabbed the massive sinewy wrist over and over and over again. THe hand held chainsaw revved and roared. His helmet popped off like a champagne cork and the snow was gone. He was burning up from the inside as he met the inferno gaze. Sawing at the wrist with the ripper, the hand was shorn free, but this creature didn't even acknowledge the pain when Nate dropped to the ground. His one weapon he could carry with him while both hands carried the mini-gun was the shotgun and ducktape brandolier still around his neck. Pulling the shotgun to his front, he pinned by his stomach to the ground and he pressed the shotgun barrel right against the Deathclaw's left black moist eye and fired.

This only made the Deathclaw madder as it roared and flailed its bleeding stump at Nate as he jumped to his feet and was knocked in the side by the bloodied limb. Fear in his chest, he ran for the closest building window and threw his body through it. Glass shards rained down over him and he crawled up to his feet and then ran to the back as the Deathclaw thrust its hand in and flailed, reaching for him, trying to ensare his legs. Back against the wall, he was in a small convenience store with three aisles and a cash register in the back. The two rows were knocked over and shoved to the side as he reached for Nate, smashing anything in its way with it's massive claw. Raking against the tile, long gashes torn out of the wall and floor, his back was against the wall, far enough to reload his gun, but too close to see how much the Deathclaw wanted him as well.

The snow came back full force and swept through the streets, an instant white out that landed and made their breath's turn to steam. Colder and colder, the temperature gauges dropped and the snow was white and heavy. Two shotguns shells were replaced with fresh ones and he fired at the kneecaps. The Deathclaw shrieked and withdrew its hand. Smashing it's shoulder into the right corner of the building, the entire structure shook. One more hard blow, and the corner of the building collapsed, forcing Nate to move as the store front was brought down in an attempt to drive him out. Firing both barrels at once, a finger flew off from the claw. Concussive force and deafening blast carried noise in the small shop. Distracted with pain and acid in its limbs, Nate ran to the window and saw the minigun sitting on the sidewalk across the road.

Running for it, he knocked out more glass and charged. Diving for the mini-gun, he was already revving the barrel as his body hit the ground and he rolled over, unleashing an endless stream of 'Diemotherfuckerdie...diee...die

This thing raised it's arms, swinging and batting Nate into the side of a building, slamming through the brickwork and through the wooden support beams. He couldn't breathe and wood chips and brick dust rained down when a bloody massive claw reached in and wrapped around the suit of power armor. A bolt of laser fire blasted into the Deathclaw's hide, but the massive beast shrugged it off like a minor burn. The beast tried to do something with it's other hand, but only then did it seem to realize it was missing.

A loud feral roar silenced the air and a second Deathclaw appeared. This one didn't have a scratch on it.

The Deathclaw roared, throwing Nate down onto the ground and jamming one claw into the frame, it punctured a hole and rended the claw down and cut through the power armor suit and frame like a jagged can opener knife. He could feel air on his skin, and the claw shore down his legs, getting deeper and slashing the entire length of his right leg. Shouting in pain, another laser blast struck the Deathclaw, and then the claw worked under his body and ripped him free of the suit.

He was exposed. The second Deathclaw sprinted and cleared the distance from Main street to seventh street in ten seconds with both arms up, it jumped and bore its claws out.

Nate was dropped and he pushed himself backwards to the wall of the building, looking for someplace to hide or something to use as the second and first Deathclaw wrested. The first biting and thrashing its head on the shoulder of the second as it pressed a claw to its chest and thrust a pointed claw into its chest then ripped out an entire rib bone with a horrifying snap and screech.

The second Deathclaw thrust one of its massive dagger claws into the mouth of the first and pressed it to the side and cut the jaw line back to the jaw bone and wrapped its hand around and ripped at the lower jaw as it bit down and crushed the claws bit the fingers off. The second Deathclaw screeched and pushed the first back then dove on it. Tackling it to the ground the first struggled but the second bit down onto the face and jerked its head back, rending muscle and bone and blood rupturing as its teeth ground and sawed through flesh and clenching its trophy in its jaws was the first Deathclaw's jawbone.

It spat the jawbone and ran its thick grey tongue over its teeth and turned its head and roared.

A laser blast hit the arm and it roared again, casting a glance up at Preston in the third floor balcony, but it inhaled and smelled fresher human blood and a bloody trail leading directly to Nate.

The adrenalin and fear of death made him run, hobble, down an alley and he made it to a chain link fence at the end and threw himself up over the edge as the Deathclaw barreled down the alley and knocked down the entire fence as Nate fell down onto the other side.

\111/

Preston peered through his scope and watched as the twenty foot tall Deathclaw carried away Nate. Leaping over cars, moving as faster than a human ever could. Long gnarled tight and dense leg muscles, spikes jutting from the spine, a crown of demonic horns, black crow eyes the size of your fist, a gaping jagged teeth maw lined lined with piercing canines meant to rend and rip apart. As the Deathclaw carrying Nate grew smaller and smaller in his crosshairs, Preston felt a breath of cold air chill his lungs. Cranking the laser musket, he fired at the Deathclaw, missing by a meter. He cycled it laser musket twice and fired again. The rifle hummed and glowed bright red as a bolt of energy burnt a black mark into the pavement behind the Deathclaw's heels.

The Deathclaw ran with Nate wrapped in his claw, after the first one nearly killed him, the second pick him up and run from the battlefield like a morsel dropped on the ground, Nate coughed, he struggled against the grip and his legs bled long tears on scarlet red. His chest hurt and shoulders were sore from being tossed around and now crushed.

Cracking it twice again, Preston's fingers shook. The Deathclaw was far away, seventeen blocks. He fired again and missed. He knew he missed because the Deathclaw didn't slow its pace for even a second. Ejecting the spent cartridge, Preston replaced the battery cells and pulled the locking spring into place, cranked the musket and brought it up to his shoulder again, peering down the scope, he exhaled and his chest jerked forward.

They were gone.

"Hey...! Hey! Hey! It's gone!"

The voice echoed down the street, through the blown out storefronts, across the ruined cars and into borded up houses and businesses.

"The DEATHCLAW is GONE!"

"No, no no no no no..."

Underneath a car with very low clearance to the ground, a hand emerged, then the arms as a woman threw out her rifle into the street infront of her as she crawled on her stomach. "It's gone! It's GONE! Let's move! TO THE MUSEUM!"

A faded white and peeling door opened up, a man poked his head out from behind a brick storefront window. Two more women emerged from a side alley, a second man raised a pipe rifle screwed together with steel bolts towards Preston's perch and fired. A twenty gauge rifle round hole was blown into the Museum of Freedom window, forcing Preston to duck and relocate. Popping his head up, they stuck to the sides of the road where there was the most cover and peppered the sharpshooter nest. He fired once and a man choked on his burnt lungs and blood and fell to the ground.

Suddenly a white hot burning made Preston fall backwards away from the window, his temple and cheek were bleeding from rubble shrapnel as the concrete was shot to pieces.

He rolled to his knees and stood up to his feet, a few feet distance away from the window, moving to a second location, there were only two raiders in the street now and they disappeared into the museum behind the other four.

"Oh no."

\111/

Running at full speed, the streets of Concord and failed suburbs passed by, showing how much remained, and how little was actually left. Wooden boards and panels were hanging loosely from the sidings of most buildings. One small feather touch, and whole sections of wall might collapse.

"A day." Nate said, "Not even a day." Reaching for the Pip Boy, the deathclaw grunted, snorting. Running faster, one stride was tall enough to jump over small sedans.

The sky overhead turned grey and clouds built themselves up tall and the deathclaw didn't stop moving until they passed a faded Nuka-World Billboard sign advertising Nuka-Cherry soda and a Nuka-Blaster water gun with Nuka-Girl sitting in a white skin-tight astronaut suit, her helmet in hand and a bottle of soda in the other, blonde hair, a bright white smile attracting people to buy their product.

Then it was gone, the Pipboy landed on the ground and Nate’s hands were white knuckled with the pressure. His eyes closed, he found himself waiting.

Waiting for what? His body was jerked as every step was at the mercy of the Deathclaw's grasp. Legs hanging limply, pain shooting through his brain every jarring step. Nate felt the tips of the claws and the pressure behind them, they were like drill bits digging up through his suit.

Nate was sure that whatever this thing was, it was going to kill him and eat him.

He was going to end it before then.

Nate pulled the pin with his ring finger and let go of the lever. He could hear the tick tick ticking of the firing pin tapping against the detonator.

A moment of hatred, deep welling and endless brought from centuries of living in the darkness, the primal part of the brain conscious through the endless waiting, trapped. Unable to move, frozen. It lashed out like hatred condensed into lightning.

It struck the Deathclaw and the Deathclaw dropped Nate.

The grenade glowed green and flew from Nate’s hands. He landed on the wooden planks suspended over the river to Sanctuary Hills and the grenade exploded.

The Deathclaw roared, screaming, Nate crawled to the edge and flung himself over the edge.

He fell for less than a second, then plunged into the cold black water.

\111/

January 23rd, 2075
Izembek Lagoon, Alaska

Cold Bay to False Pass Alaska was about 30 miles as the eagles fly, but with five feet of snow and a cramped base of operations, their first order after being there for less than an hour was to march 50 miles through snow blinds and no road to secure False Pass. Loaded with one hundred pounds of gear, and fifty additional pounds of building supplies loaded onto the frame of power armor.

All in all, his own weight on top of the suit was seven hundred pounds, and each step was a fight to drudge his legs out of the snow.

The only way to get from Cold Bay to False Pass was to walk along the beach, cut inland, pass by the shadows of mountains and through forests. They were barely more than fifteen miles into the march, everyone's breaths visible and turning to steam.

Nate considered himself lucky enough to be in the suit of power armor, it protected him from the cold. Their guide was the only one not wearing all white snow camo, and he was wearing a green beanie and a parka with a fur hood.

Their pilot and local native, "Ah! Don't you guysh worry! I can already hear wife playing music! We got it turned up nicsh and loud! Helpsh me find my way home!" Chip said, laughing. Everyone strained their ears to hear a noise aside from the soft wind blowing walls of snow at them.

"Got it shuuped like a shnow shack on the mountain! You know on the ski mountain where they got the BoOM BOOM BOOM and the terrain park? Music blashtin all day long? We'll be there in a few hours. Shpeakers, weed, Crown, Goldshlager. Hey! You Guys want an Oil Shlicker when we get there!?" He turned around and kept walking backwards, "Half and half Goldshlager, then take a spoon and pour Jager over the backside and it looks like an oil shpill! It tastes terrible but'll warm you guysh up in no time!" His slow pace was matched by the ten soldiers in cold weather gear, faces turned down and away from the wind pressing into their face.

Their squad leader shook his head and replied no, speaking for the rest of his men and women in the team.

Nate was in the middle, trudging through the snow and sinking a foot down deeper than the rest of the soldiers in front of him.

"Oy. Look there. We got some brothers." Chip pointed out to sea, three massive destroyers cut through the water heading North to Wales, Alaska, the second closest gap between Russia and the United States, not counting the Aleutian Chain.

Two men put their gloves to their ears, "Planes..." after each man stopped, and another moment passed, the sky was looked like a checkerboard of black dots moving in formation. Cupping their ears, "...Not ours."

The destroyers in the water swung massive artillery turrets around, aiming upwards as their sirens wailed across the water.

"Dumb fucks! Can't see through the fog! It stopped the Chinese flyin over Kodiak in '44 and the Alaskan fog will stop them now! We just cut up through that pass right there!" Chip pointed up towards a valley between two snow and tree covered mountains, "And then we'll be in Walrus' town. After that, it's just a skip across the Pass, and we should got boats waiting for you guysh."

They walked on, but when the snow was becoming less compact and they were walking through snowdrifts, Nate's suit sunk more and more into the snow.

Nate crawled out of every hole and kept marching, but the next step he took sunk him down over his head until his feet hit solid ground.

Unable to move, the rest of his team stopped to dig him out. They dug a pit around him, and Chip pulled an entire bottle of Red Devil from his coat pocket and poured half of it over Nate's suit. The snow melted on contact while the sugars froze, but it cleared Nate's helmet away first.

Nate couldn't move his arms, and he felt his toes get a little cold, but then he heard a sound. A whistling sound, something sailing through the air and then an echoing sound, like a golf ball bouncing off concrete, a ponging noise then again, and again, and again until finally it settled.

The Chinese air fleet split into two groups, the thum of their engines growing louder and accelerating as they dove half breaking off for the three US ships in the water. Diving below the clouds, sixty planes were visible and the attack commenced.

The USS Astoria, Homer, and Olympia turned 25 mm cannons and pelted the sky from 1000 meters away, the Chinese airships were flying directly over the soldiers marching along the tidelands, the explosions thundered across the sky. The 75mm cannons clanged out shells, ripping across the sky and tearing holes in fuselages. The shots arced through the snow, blowing flakes out of the way and creating trails a person could follow with their eye.

\111/

The entire sheet of ice they were standing on, digging Nate out broke and collapsed. All eleven of them were dragged into freezing cold water. Nate sunk down into the black water like an anchor. He hit the bottom and could only see hazy blue light coming from the surface in a world of darkness around him.

When a light shines in the darkness, the darkness comprehend it not.

He heard the thrashing, the the gurgling of lungs being filled with water and the gags and coughs and choking on the lagoon salt water. The pounding of fists against the underside of the ice as snow poured down and buried the outer edges of the hole. Muddled thumps of gunfire and some men tried to shoot through the ice upwards and beak through. His feet sunk down, this time into mud. Taking one step, his back leg was stuck and he couldn't move.

Then he started to panic. Shedding off the weight, he managed to lift up one leg, only for his front leg to sink down into the mud. Water in every direction, and he couldn't move. He couldn't walk underwater for long before the air intake became flooded with water and the personal oxygen tanks were emptied. Suddenly, he was faced with having to make a very difficult choice.

Stay here, hope that the rest of his team could climb out, and send down a rope and drag him out? Or leave the suit, swim to the surface, carve a hole through the ice, then climb out without any cold weather gear?

Nate didn't have anyone to talk to, no one to say what was write or what was wrong, no one to tell him he needed to make the choice of running out of oxygen underwater, drown if he couldn't punch through the ice, or if he was lucky, freeze to death after he climbed out.

Never had such a fear been instilled in his heart, multiple phobias and fears suddenly compounded onto each other. Fear of the dark, fear of drowning, fear of death, fear of the cold.

It sent shivers through his heart and he waited for it to pass before making an irrational decision.

The headlamp on the suit of power armor illuminated the darkness one meter in front of him.

He waited fifteen minutes and inhaled. He was going to die.

Accepting that statement was the most difficult. His mind rejected it, his baser instincts told him to ignore it, his memories told him that he had a wife and kid to return to, while his logic told him to calm down and start breathing heavily. Two lines of thought, one was he was going to die here in Alaska, underneath the frozen ice. The other was telling him he's going to make it. That everything will be all right.

In. Out. In. Out. In. Out. IN...OUTI Arms over his head, testosterone levels rising, sweat starting to build, he kept deep breathing and his lungs expanded, growing hotter and more uncomfortable as his ribcage pressed against the padding of the suit.

Ripper chainsaw in hand, he flicked it on and listened to the hand-held buzzsaw roar to life underwater. Gulping down air, and oxygenating his blood so much that he started to feel dizzy.

Then Nate opened his suit and was exposed to the coldest damned water of his life.

The saltiest, nastiest, seaweed strewn muck that sapped his warmth and made Nate cringe as he floated his way up to the surface. His arms were stiff, but he pressed the running Ripper to the sheet of ice above his head and made a small circle, then a large X figure, then punched out the ice.

\111/

As he climbed out of the ice water, the breath was frozen in his throat, he couldn't wheeze or even feel numb as the cold sapped the strength from his legs, but he couldn't believe what he saw.

All three battleships were inside giant bubbles, floating ninety feet up into the air. He could even see the water filling the lower half of the spheres and a green glowing orb around each one. The planes, some burning, some mid-explosion, weren't moving. It's as if someone took a snapshot of war and froze the battlefield in place.

The gravity defying ships suddenly disappeared, the USS Astoria, USS Homer, and USS Olympia all winked out of existence and the water dropped back down into the ocean. One after another, the Chinese air ships moved, some finished exploding, and the sky was filled with chaos as hundreds of small black drones appeared from above the cloud cover and latched onto each plane, ripping out engines like gremlins, and forcing the planes into an uncontrollable descent.

From left to right, Nate watched in abject horror as the planes dove, almost lifeless. This lead to a hailstorm of fighter planes crashing into the ocean, the beach, and the shore. Depending on their angle before Nate saw the rules of reality break around him, some slammed into the ground and exploded immediately, others kept flying, while dozens more skipped off the ground and broke into pieces.

Fireballs consumed some, but Nate ran two hundred meters to a plane strewn across the frozen tundra and looked and scavenged for a blackened locker filled with a Chinese pilot's uniform and black shined boots two sizes too small, but he crammed his feet in and stuffed himself into the uniform, noting that there wasn't a single body on board.

The shores were now a graveyard of downed planes, with the same story replaying each time, no bodies, and plenty of guns and layers of clothes to bundle up and keep warm. Then he heard a buzzing noise, looking up, it sounded like a beetle's wings, not like a mosquito's high pitched annoying zzzeeet.

Then shouting, "Heeyzio! Whoaya! Ish-tumo!" Followed by three blasts from a 9mm QSZ sidearm. Nate sprinted towards the noise, taking a salvaged handgun and watching as one man was being lifted into the air by a giant black Changeling, a second man on the ground fired seven more times, shooting the bug out of the sky, forcing the soldier to be dropped back down onto the snow.

A second one jumped, but the Changeling was frozen in mid-air. A blue glow surrounded the changeling and there was more shouting. Nate saw a four legged pony, it's white coat and yellow mane, and blue glowing unicorn horn on its head. Teeth bared, panting angrily, eyes beating down on the changeling's will. The second Chinese soldier limped over to the man and the pony, and they rose a pistol to the changeling.

Nate fired fifteen times, gunning down the pony and the two soldiers. The spent ammo shells burned and turned the snow to water as they hit the ground. They saw the uniform before his face and then died with looks of confusion on their face as the changeling was freed from the pony's telekinetic grip.

"Whose side are you on?"

The insect pony's wings buzzed once and retracted, its head dipped, wincing. "<Yours.>" Rotating its head up, it took in the fact that Nate was wearing a Chinese soldier's uniform, and chose to meet Nate's eyes.

Nate raised the handgun and the Changeling took a step back, "<Wait! Wait! You're wearing the enemies uniform.>" He stated.

"<You would do anything to survive, right?>" The changeling was wrapped in a dome of green as its horn glowed brightly and a circle of fire rose up around it.

Nate pulled on the trigger and it clicked empty.

Standing in front of him was an exact duplicate of himself. "<Don't you want to see your wife and child again?>"

Nate stepped back, shaking his head in disbelief at what he saw. His voice hitched, "What -Kah!- are you?"

"<A soldier. I know what you want, your chest beats for the love of your wife and child...here we are...deciding who goes home to see their wife and child...war never changes...does it?" The replica gestured down to his right, the three bodies pooling blood and growing cold in the snow. Raising one finger to Nate, he walked to the closest soldier, and couched down.

Searching through the pockets, and feeling his chest, the changeling pulled out a notebook pad of paper. Flipping through it, "Ah-ha" the changeling examined a small photograph of a woman in a two tone pink dress, small pearl necklace, and a small boy in his blue and grey school uniform, and the now deceased soldier in his military uniform standing attentive, upright, a small smile gracing his lips.

He held it out to Nate, and he took it.

"War never changes, does it?"

\111/

October 23rd 2287.
Concord Suburb, Massachusetts.

The Deathclaw broke the surface and thrashed in the water, clawing through the water towards Nate as fast as it could.
Renewed with energy and fear, he broke into a dead run, pain was nothing. There was no more pain. He ran down the hill as the water fell off the deathblow monstrosity and splashed onto the ground.

The splash pushed him closer to shore, where he wheezed and limped forward up the sloping banks to the road. No guns, no ammo, just the indominatable will to live balanced out with the hatred of the enemy.

The Deathclaw broke the surface and thrashed in the water, clawing through the water towards Nate as fast as it could. Renewed with energy and fear, he broke into a dead run, pain was nothing.

He ran down the hill as the water fell off the deathblow monstrosity and splashed onto the ground.

Reaching the Red Rocket filling station parking lot, gave him hope and Nate teared up. Right into the garage, he jumped up with both hands out and sunk all his body weight into closing the door as he looked straight at the Deathclaw, arms out infront.

"Seconds. I need seconds." Nate shook as he limped to the door marked 'private: employees only' door leading to the shop interior and froze.

He was cold. Colder than cold. Ice water filled his veins and he felt like he would never be warm again. Snow pelted his face and body, fingers turning blue, and purple, then black, he shivered and exhaled and could see his breath in the cool air. The frostbite crawled up his arms all the way to the elbow joint when the Deathblow banged against the garage door.

Pounding it's massive fists, scraping its nails against the garage door, he could see the scratch marks rip through the sheet metal.

"Soo....." Teeth chattering, his legs gave out and he fell backwards, landing with his head in the garage, feet in the store.
"Cold."

He would've done anything to die warm.

Heart slowing down, the banging and pounding continued. He tried flexing, but none of his limbs would respond.

"How long has he been coming?" Nora's words echoed in his head.

"<Vault Tec. Calling!>"

Twisting his head to the garage door, he saw the sign and one massive claw worked under the seem and raise it. Less than five feet away, but the Deathclaw was standing here, head ducked underneath the garage door frame.

Staring at him.

He could hear the monster breathing heavily through its nose. It's fists slowly uncurling, letting the long claws drape down and scratch the concrete pavement.

It's hand's flexed, fingers going straight then relaxed. Nate shivered, trying not to break eye contact. The left claw reached up to the top of the garage door and rested it on the side.

\111/

A ring of green fire rose from the ground around the Deathclaw, rising up fifteen feet like a portal to hell summoned on the spot, burning away the lizard demon and revealing a meter and a half tall quadruped. It's dark black skin shone in the garage's dust covered florescent bulbs like a beetle's shell under an old museum display case.

The insect wide intense luminescent blue eyes looked over every square inch of Nate, without moving from their sockets. A black curved horn and jaw mandibles of a crab were part of its face. It's front leg was bleeding from where the first deathclaw bit down onto the fingers. The legs were sparse with tiny divots and holes like driftwood eaten by seaworms.

Nate's knees knocked together and he called out "So you've been watching us?" The creature moved its first foreleg one step into the garage, its chest visibly expanding and shuddering.

"<When we went deer hunting together, you shot an arrow right at past the deer's eyes, and it just blinked."> Nate still held the torch grip upright, ready to swing it like a club. The muscles in his neck buldged as he waited for the changeling to continue.

The image was very present in his mind, he was hunting two months ago and he missed by almost a third of a meter.

"<Imagine you're the deer... and I'm the little bird in the branches of a tree...chirping it's heart out trying to warn you. I am not become Death, I am not worlds' destroying time. I can't tell you who to mourn, or be happy for. I can't tell you when the end comes, but, I can tell you that you are a soldier, and have a duty to fight.>"

Nate exhaled slowly, his chest was rising as falling as he struggled to contain his breath.

"<I want to help you, yes>." Meathead nodded "<I'm your dog.>"

Nate was rocking forward and backward, the strength sapped from his legs. "Yhewm...my...Yhew my dog?" His head shaking in a fit, blinking the burn from his eyes. The black creature nodded.

"<I'm not going to hurt you. I want you to live.>"

"Why?"

"<You can go through live living, or live life surviving. We live off the excess of humans, the scraps, the goodwill of humans and their emotions...I...There is no excess when we only survive, there is no compassion for others if people can barely sustain themselves.>" The changeling looked up at Nate, really directing attention to his eyes at him. He was vexed, the emotions were rolling off him as his breath reminded him he was still there.

This was the first time Nate and Meathead ever truly looked into each other's eyes. "Its...just...you're my dog..." Nate's legs froze, knees tightening up at the joint.

"Do...I keep treating you like a dog? Or smarter?" Nate asked, looking down at the quadruped.

"<Smarter? What do you mean?>"

"Who am I talking to? Who are you?"

"I am a Changeling. Before the nuclear war, countries on my home planet picked sides to lend their support to during the War for Alaska. Changelings chose America, our enemies, sided with China. One thing all changelings have the capability to do is transform themselves into any creature, or object to blend in with their surroundings, hide in crowds, and take on the form of their prey to integrate themselves within a group, only because when changelings are born, they are born to gather information.>" Nate took a moment to nod, but he didn't interrupt.

"<We are born to serve a queen, and information always flows more freely when people are happy. Therefore, it is always in a changeling's best interest to keep others around them happy either indirectly, or directly." His jaw mandibles parted as he spoke, and Nate watched Meathead's jaw mandibles and how each word was articulated when the changeling spoke.

"So what do you want from me?"

"<I don't know if there is anything or one for me to go back to...>" Meathead's back leg twitched and he was forced to shudder in front of Nate. His wings flared out for a moment before he settled them.

"<I'm aware as you are, that we are the only smart things from the past...>" He swallowed, "<That don't want to kill each other.>"

"So what are you proposing?" Nate asked, discarding the torch head on the workbench with a bang.

"<You keep me...As your dog...yes...and I...want to pretend to keep being your dog.>"

"Why?"

"<I don't want humans to know about changelings. I trust you. Not them. There's too many people not to trust, this world is too violent, and I don't want to think about what life I could be living if I weren't here in America when the bombs fell.>

"No one would ever think twice to suspect a dog as an alien?"

"<That was the plan, and it worked for years, I'm quite content and can change quickly and keep up America's innovations.>"

"Is that why Changelings chose America to support?"

"<Humans were always innovating, constantly changing, Americans were really good with change, but still slow. Not as slow as China, they were setting the pace for changeling ruin by creating a consumer driven society. The most internally destructive society, it is one that takes resources for the bottom and funnels them up instead of dispersing it out.>"

"Bottom of what?"

"<An ecosystem. Humans eat cows, cows eat grass, humans put up concrete walls and pave roads, there's less grass. Put them in feed lots. The cows ate less grass, so the cows changed. Even though they're still cows, they've changed.>"

"So where are you on that pyramid?"

"<We were beneath the dirt.>" Meathead looks down and away, a worn out expression on his face. "<And the Chinese were digging up a lot of dirt. Figuratively. But, on a literal note, they built a 20-story tall earth mover. That thing will mine a mountain into a deep pit in less than a week.."

Nate's chest was rising and falling as he tried to process all his former dog pet was telling him.

Nuclear warfare, aliens, fifteen foot monsters, everybody he's known frozen or dead, and his dog isn't a dog. it's a shape shifting Changeling. His feet shifted out beneath him, his legs tensed and buzzed with pent up energy.

" <There's a power that wouldn't allow us on the surface. Our enemies and in-fighting, the worst enemy of all.>"

"<There are creatures what you humans held in ancient myths and legends, they are unicorns, pegasus, gryphons and minotaurs. The rulers of Equestria conduct the path of the sun and moon, while their most adept practice magic, and use it to achieve feats of science fiction.>" The horn on Meathead's forhead glowed in a layer of green light, and on the weapon's workbench, a dusty stimpak was illuminated, floating up in the same green glow, and moved closer to them.

The stimpak floated towards Nate, and he reached out and grabbed the offered stimpak.

Pressing the tip to his needle insert implanted in his chest, he pressed the stimpak plunger down and planted the drugs directly into his bloodstream.

"Does your enemy believe their leaders Gods for saying that they control the sun and moon?" Nate asked. "And is that how you've been able to look like a dog for so long? Because of magic?" Nate was incredulous to believe things, but he listened to a creature that has never shown any desire to hurt him or Nora, or Shaun. Not once ever, he was an amazing dog, and now.

He was having to disavow every thing he ever preconceived against an actual sentient being outside of Earth.

"<All races on my planet know of the Alicorn's power. My power is that of a lowly grub, they do feats that are beyond your wildest dreams. They control the path of the sun and moon with the same energy it takes to wave your arm dismissively.>"

"But what about the changelings? Why were you fighting?"

"<The fighting started after our people ran out of resources a long time ago, we subsist on the positive energy that other creatures conduct towards others. That is why we impersonate others, or animals. I knew as a dog, I would be an attention for empathy and good positive emotions.>"

Nate's head rolled back around to Meathead. "You want to be a dog, because of the little pets we give you?"

Meathead's head nodded, closing his eyes and crossing his legs in front of him, he kneeled down. Then dropped his head.

"<My culture probably wont be passed on, so I want to share some of it with you. I want to be more than a dog, let me be a friend you can trust.>"

The circlet of green fire briefly flashed and he was back to his German Shepard form. He was looking up at Nate with big puppy dog eyes. "<I can stay like Meathead.>" He pleaded.

Nate looked his dog in the eyes, his own eyes trailing down to the cracked concrete pavement beneath their feet. Meathead's paws, his own boots. Everything laid at his feet. His head swam, and the vault-suit felt incredibly warm all the way to the tips of his toes.

"Meathead. I was never going to send you away as a dog...I love you too much. You...are...still that....and if you don't want that to change...I don't want to lose someone I can talk to."

Meathead's head rose up, tail wagging.

"Come here."

He opened his arms, down on one knee ready to take Meathead up in his arms and they shook.

"As you are."

Meathead slowly crossed the garage, limping one step at a time. He let the disguise slip away, a bloody hoofprint trailing behind him, once he was close enough, Nate snatched him, feeling the rough hide and hugged him to his chest. Leaning over him, Nate shook and cried.

It wasn't the room Nora and himself wished to decompress in, but at least he had his dog.