"It's the way Nature planned it, Radscorpions, Deathclaws, and acid raid included. Oh wait, Human's might of had something to do with the last two.

It's the Four Tops, only here on Diamond City Radio."

\111/

Thunderstruck feigned being asleep as Meathead woke up that morning. Leaving within minutes of getting up, he left the ship's cabin, and went to go find Donny to return him home.

Finally alone, there were candles on the writing desk which Thunderstruck quickly lit with matches, and then took the candle to a mirror.

Examining her hooves and forelegs, feeling her sides and barrel, running a hoof over her mane and stretching out her wings, all she could do was shudder at the alien sight of herself.

Her mind was telling her that she didn't deserve to feel this good, that she's never looked this pretty, or even has any right to feeling safe.

Even though it was only a week, and the changeling pod was still there in the bed quarter, she looked at it and felt as if a whole chunk of her life was missing.

The Nuka-World Dog collar was still in the room, but when she craned her neck up to look at the rub marks, but they were completely gone. That realization made her swallow, phantom paid made it feel tight and itchy, hard to breathe, but the more she rubbed her neck while looking in the mirror, the harder it was to finally accept she was free, let alone look and feel so drastically different.

Nate and Meathead left dozens of weapons about, picked up and gathered in their travels, amassing a small armory, with separate crates of ammo placed around the galley.

Moving topside, the sky was still dark blue-green but the sun was definitely rising quickly far to the east over the water's horizon. The securitrons and robots made Thunderstruck hesitate for a moment until she remembered that they were there for her protection.

\111/

Armed with enough ammunition and explosive ordinance to take out a 'monster the size of a house', Meathead was ready to fight a Mirelurk Queen, but the Gunners distracted him inside the Harbormaster Hotel.

Meathead exited through the hallway leading to the rooftop pool, where he sensed the last two Gunners were. One standing lookout over the street was unaware of the deaths of their comrads, while the other was behind the bar preparing food for breakfast.

The Gunner behind the bar looked up, expecting anyone else besides Meathead, and was shot with a look of confusion still on his face. The blast echoed off the seaside buildings, stirring any close enough from their slumber.

The lookout swung around, startled by the gunshot and was then shot four times in the chest by Meathead. His body fell over the edge, six stories down onto the street. There was the sound his body colliding with the concrete, followed by the clatter of the gun he held bouncing off the ground.

With an sigh of relief, Meathead was now alone. Finally feeling room to breathe, his mind was able to start processing Donny's death. It was a shame, but the kid pulled a gun on him. Recoil is what did Donny in, and that was why he didn't give a gun to the kid in the first place. He considered it, but knowing what he does now, it might've gotten him shot sooner.

Facing the south-east, the Charles Bay extended up to the north where Donny and the Buttercups claimed the sea-monster attacked them. The damage done to the docks was visible, and below the calm waves of the bay, a visible life force could be felt by Meathead.

It was large, for sure, but seeing a new creature always gave Meathead a pause, appreciating the life force, but also knowing he would need to snuff it out.

His focus went to the rest of the bay, and like the stars above, he noticed a cluster of ghouls, all trapped in a state of boredom or fear out on the water. He thought to himself that the only reason these ghouls were still alive, was because of an overturned ship, still bobbing just below the surface of the water.

Either way, they were of no importance to Meathead as he readied the weapons to fire down on the sleeping Mirelurk Queen.

Meathead had never seen a Mirelurk Queen, and his experience with the Mirelurks was limited.

Laying out grenades, clips of ammo to quickly reload his rifles, and a mini-nuke, he thought he was prepared to deal with the Queen, and then picked up a grenade.

He was about to throw it, his hand ready to pull the pin, when he thought about the Super Mutants next door in the Shamrock Taphouse, and left the balcony to draw them out.

\111/

The Shamrock Taphouse was a brewery, over twenty beers on tap. Ten beers brewed in house, and seven were all from around Boston, the last three were owned by AB. The last three were the standard cheap beers that could be found in any bar at any time, mass produced and made for $.02 per beer, then sold at a 30,000% markup for $6.00 each on draft.

Not a single beer had been served at the Shamrock Taphouse in over 150 years. A few years after the fallout settled, and people migrated through Boston, there was a time when someone took up the responsibility of making it an establishment again. There was always an edge in the air, since paper money was now worthless, and bartering was in full effect, it lasted only a year before being vacated when raiders became too much of an issue. Because of its position by the sea, people would wake up with Mirelurks outside the backdoor. As the centuries rolled by, the Shamrock Taphouse was host to many parties and groups over the years, but the most recent and destructive were the Super Mutants.

They lacked many cognitive abilities and abstract thought, like making rope or twine, instead using chain or lines that were leftover from before the war. This lead to them repurposing shopping carts as cages that they could shove humans into, or would take large stretches of chain-link fence and wrap them around with chain to make baskets or sacks.

Filling these sacks with hunted animals, prey, and humans, they were like gibbets. Crows and whatever other flying mutated creature would pick and peck at the decomposing proteins inside. Flies would lay eggs, leaving behind hordes of maggots to spawn and flourish in the congestion. In the summer times, maggots would be raining from the rotting meat sacks, but the Super Mutants would empty the entire sack onto a grill or into a giant cooking pot made from empty oil barrels or empty beer kegs to cook, and eat the entire festering gore stew.

\111/

Unable to get the scene that took place in the lobby out of his head.

He wasn't focusing, browning out, not blacking out where entire segments of time were completely forgotten, but so emotionally distressed that he could only remember bits and pieces of the last ten minutes, the same way someone has difficulty in the morning remembering what they did two days before now.

Knock on wood, he thought to himself.

Behind him, about one hundred feet to the waters edge was the sleeping Mirelurk Queen, while in front of him, standing at the backdoor of the Shamrock Taphouse, were Super Mutants on the inside.

Making sure there were no watching crows or hidden Institute cameras, he changed into the form of a Super Mutant.

Lobbing a grenade into the water, the explosive blast blew water sky high, and woke the now angry and confused Mirelurk Queen.

It rose out of the water, but Meathead had to tilt his head back at how tall this massive twenty-five foot tall mutated crustacean was.

"<Hooooo...ly Geeze.>" Being one of the first things seen by the Mirelurk Queen, Meathead immediately started backing up towards the Shamrock Taphouse, but not before firing at the Mirelurk Queen.

The massive Queen shrieked, it's mouth and jaws parting, only to spray a massive greyish-green slime. Meathead counted with a shield formed from magic like an umbrella, but was shocked to watch the slime come into contact with debris, metal, and concrete.

This two-story monster was spraying acid.

It's massive creature had claws the length of its torso, and struck down. Tearing up the concrete and sea wall, Queens eight legs moved consecutively like a spiders. The body was as wide as a small car, and the shell was thick as a 3/4 inch metal plate. Climbing up onto the walkway and coming towards Meathead, he baited the creature towards the Taphouse.

Being a changeling, he was using magic to aid his ascent to the third story roof, and took caution as tiny membranous eggs were dropped by the Mirelurk Queen, and baby mirelurks struggled to life.

If Nate were here, he would say something along the lines of "Where's Attenborough when you need him?" But Nate was ten miles away, and dealing with mutated spawns of nature called molerats.

On the Mirelurk Queen's torso, there were three pairs of smaller claws meant for feeding and moving food towards the mouth, while the larger ones were for fighting and crushing.

Taking cover below the edge of the bricks lining the roof, Meathead held steady with baited breath, counting on the Mirelurk Queen to strike the entire building to get to him.

When she did, the entire Taphouse shook.

Gouging a claw deep through the third and second stories, a large strip of wall was ripped from the side of the building. Sheetrock and insulation was thrown away, scattered onto the street as the Mirelurk Queen spit more acid and cleaved at the backside.

All eight Super Mutants inside the Shamrock Taphouse were aware of the giant monster destroying their base, and charged to the back end of the restaurant and bar. With rifles, sledgehammers, and even a missile launcher, they all attacked at once, but Meathead skirted to the opposite side of the building, then jumped across the alley, through a window back into the Harbormaster Hotel. The room he landed in was rife with debris from the floors above and a collapsed ceiling, making it difficult to reach the hallway, but he went quickly broke through the door to the sea-side facing room to watch and study the super mutants fighting the massive sea monster.

The mutants equipped with sledgehammers bashed at the legs of the Mirelurk Queen, breaking through the shell, but the queen felt the pain, and slammed her claw down, killing one by crushing the mutant with her massive claw. Raking it across the ground, she flung up chunks of concrete, showering the mutants with rubble as bullet after bullet was fired into her.

A missile exploded across her chest, ripping deep cracks and spraying thick globules of bluish-clear gel like blood across the street and splashing bits into the water.

This thing was a killing machine, a war bot set to destroy, even though it was damaged, hurt, and weakened, as long as it could still move it's claws, it bashed against the backside of the brewery, scraping the walls and bending the foundations.

There were only vats and tanks in the back of the Taphouse, connected by rusted out pipes that used to carry beer, and as the Mirelurk Queen forced her frame against the brewery to reach in and jab at anything she could touch, the super mutants jumped on one claw to pin it down, but were bashed against the ceiling, then dragged across the floor over rubble and into the street.

Laying his weapons out in the hotel room, Meathead took one look around, then went to their sink. Underneath the sink compartment was Abraxo cleaning powder, then a bottle of turpentine was sitting in a cupboard above the fridge. Taking an empty Nuka-Cola bottle and a fresh full bottle of soda, Meathead made something Nate and his friends would make for 4th of July.

Nuka-Grenades.

The trick was remembering how much Abraxo to Turpentine mixture, but if Nate's firework filled summers, and killing the Mirelurk Queen was anything to go by, equal parts Abraxo and Turpintine with half Nuka-Cola Quantum.

It was a passing thought that kept him preoccupied while making the hand-grenade that before the war, Nuka-Cola was premiering the new Nuka-Cola Quantums for months in advertisements, billboards, and radio broadcasts. It was going to be the next big soda, if not the only one left.

The contents of the bottle quickly expanded and made the bottle warm, but that would settle. Recapping the grenade, and going to the balcony window, the fight was mostly over, with the battered queen wanting to retreat, and the three remaining super mutants of the original eight either in cover, or taking pot shots when the queen wasn't facing them.

Wanting to genuinely know how much it would take to kill a Mirelurk Queen, Meathead threw the Nuka-Grenade, using his magic to make it perfectly sail and strike the Queen, not in the head, but the face. Much like Meathead, the mirelurk had a faceplate with two sets of jaws, one for ripping and tearing, the other for chewing, but the idea that he went straight for the unprotected teeth and muscle closest to the Mirelurk Queen's brain meant that it had all of one second to realize that it was about to bite into a glass bottle when the entire grenade exploded.

The mouth and face were obliterated, but the Mirelurk Queen was too big to die slowly, it thrashed and went into death throws, like when you cut a live lobster in half with a knife head-to-tail, the body and nerves keep twitching and activating, but isn't getting any response back. Shooting at it now would be redundant, a waste of food and ammo.

The monster collpased on itself as the echo from the explosion died away.

The Mirelurk Queen was still moving, it's claws and legs stretching out, reaching for something, but not seeing. It rolled the joints around managing to crawl up, then fall over to the otherside, but all and all, this thing was nearly dead.

Dropping down into the brewery, the three remaining super mutants were part of the reason Meathead didn't need to over expend any of his resources or fight much, so he was quick to kill them while they were still recovering.

The back of the brewery was easy to walk into, a blown out hole in the wall that went up three stories. There was a super mutant there, sitting with a sledgehammer propped up against his legs, and a rifle across his arms. The mutant was breathing heavily, exhausted and still coming down from the adrenalin of fighting a monster. Something caught the mutant's attention, and was suddenly up on his feet, aiming the rifle at Meathead, but in a flash, Meathead reappeared right behind the mutant with a shotgun of his own. Blowing the backside of the mutant's head off, the other two came out of their recovery to fight.

The one was armed with a missile launcher, and didn't want to blow more holes in the building they were inside, so he didn't fire, leaving himself open to be taken out with a fury of buckshot that scattered the muscles and bone in his arms, rending them away and burning hot lead pellets scalding their way deeper into his skin.

Forced to drop the missile launcher, it was like shooting a carnival dummy, knocked down with three more shells to the body, then falling down with eyes still open, still looking even unto death.

The last super mutant, Meathead didn't use any tactical planning, or diversions to deal with the last mutant, he readied a small machine gun, one he could hold with one hand and held thirty rounds of ammo, and then sensed where the last one was hiding. Catching the mutant off guard, and then firing all thirty rounds into the backside, the mutant was dead half-way through the burst of gunfire.

Laying the gun on the counter, there was no one else in the Taphouse, and the Harbormaster Hotel was completely empty. He'd cleared two giant buildings and in less than twenty minutes.

Like a mosquito on the back of his neck, Meathead's hand went to his neck as he spun around, sensing a bit of Intrigue.

Far across the radiated bay, Meathead sensed the emotion for a moment. For the first time in a long while, Meathead felt as if he were being watched. His focus went out into Charles Bay again, but whoever he sensed was dampening his emotions. All that remained in Meathead's vast plain of view of the water was lingering boredom and fear again.

\111/

Wandering through the taphouse, stashing a few beers away for later, the brewery was mostly destroyed, but the restaurant, kitchen, and bar attached to the front of the building were still standing.

Confident that the building was safe, or that he could burrow himself out of a cave-in, Meathead went through the restaurant, ignoring the bodies hanging upside down from chains, bleeding out, with piles of organs on metal prep tables nearby festering with flies.

Away from the kitchen, down a hallway decorated with faded beer advertisements, and cracks running up and down the walls, with sections of sheetrock missing and ceiling hanging down, was a back office that was untouched by mutants.

It was locked, but even a wedge and a credit card could pop the door open.

Two steps into the room, there was a desk with a computer on it, and then to the right was a tall silhouette standing perfectly still in the darkness.

For not being able to sense the robot, Meathead jumped at the sight it, back towards the door.

"<Ya-!>" He said in surprise, cutting himself off.

The protectron-sized robot didn't activate or move until Meathead came around to inspect the front side of the robot.

A panel with two switches and a dial was open, one label clearly identifying the on-off switch. The main logo and brand across the front side read "Drinking Buddy," in metallic red.

There were four taps and dispensers out of a large keg-sized body, with a speaker built into the frame above the taps.

"<What the heck are you?>" Meathead asked, reaching out to flip Drinking Buddy on.

\111/