A Rose Through Concrete

Calming the Beast

"Hey there buddy." I kneeled down in front of a beautiful German Shepard. "What are you doing here?"

"Bark Bark!" The dog wagged its tail as I checked it's tag. 'Dogmeat'.

'Weird name...' With one last pet, I stood. My current destination was Concord.

Coddsworth explained to me what had happened. 210 years ago, there was a war. This war brought about the creation of Vaults by a company called Vault Tech. I was visiting my parents when the bombs fell. My mother never made it in. She didn't survive the blast. I don't know what happened to my father or to this person named 'Shaun'. Codds says he's my baby brother.

With a sigh, my eyes scanned the town. The sound of shooting reached my ears as I immediately ducked behind a building. The panting in my ear made me realize that Dogmeat had followed me.

In front of me was a group of people shooting at someone on a balcony.

Using the 10mm I had, I took a few shots. Landed a few headshots and clipped another in the shoulder, causing their attention turned to me. With the help from the person on the balcony as well as Dogmeat, we were able to take the out quickly.

I jumped back as brain matter and blood splattered everywhere from the head of a man whom I shot. Some of it got on me causing me to take a step back and hunched over, bracing myself on my knees. It took a few seconds of gagging before I actually emptied what little I had in my stomach. Dogmeat nuzzled my leg whimpering.

"HEY! I have settlers inside and raiders almost through the door, if you can, pick up the laser musket and helps us PLEASE!" Yelled the man on the balcony. He dashed inside.

I glanced to the musket and walked over to pick it up. For some reason, everything seemed normal, the shooting people, the guns, it came naturally to me. My attention turned to Dogmeat after a moment.

"You ready bud?" He barked in repsonse. With a crank of the gun, I ran up and kicked the doors open.

Surprisingly it didnt take me long to get up to the second level. Probably because of Dogmeat, he was a pretty vicious dog in all honesty. I was glad he was on my side.

As I neared the door where the man and settlers where, a final few raiders forced me to duck behind a pillar. Resorting to popping out and firing, I had to hope for the best. Got one in the gut while Dogmeat took the other down.

This time I had to move from cover as the final man began to open fire. He clipped me in the leg before he was turned to ash by the musket.

The vault suit I had on was getting stained from the bullet wound, luckily it didnt hit anything important. The bullet went straight through my leg as evident by the entry and exit holes in my calf. It hurt like hell as I sat there trying to tie a ripped cloth around it. Dogmeat whined and began looking around. He ran over to a piece of wood and wrestled it free from its pile before bringing it over to me.

"Thanks boy." He nuzzled me as I kissed his head. Using the piece of wood as a crutch and Dogmeat as some support, I was able to hobble over to the door.

The man pushed the door open, looking as if he was about to say something before he set his musket aside and ran up to me to help.

"Thank you. You alright?"

"Uh, yeah. This is the worst of it." I smiled lightly as he set me on a couch next to an older woman. After a few introductions, he explained to me about the minute men.

"So you guys are looking for a place to stay?"

"Well we can't stay here. Problem right now is we can't get past the raiders around. Up above is a suit of military grade power armor and a downed virtabird."

Sturges spoke up this time. "If we can get a fusion cell from down stairs. Problem is it locked up tight."

"Uh...you mean this thing?" I pulled out a cylinder from my bag.

"Yeah! Thats it. The armor should help you out with walking. Think you can head up?"

"Yeah I got it. Dogmeat, help out Preston."

He barked and wagged his tail. Preston and Sturges headed down while I headed up.

Wearing power armor was weird. Bullets just kind of ricochet off of you. I almost felt bad when their faces turned to horror as they saw the full metal suit and Minigun. With help from Preston and Sturges, we got the raiders down quickly. But a banging against a metal sheet caught my attention.

Before I could even ask, a huge...reptile thing with horns burst through the ground and began rampaging, killing a few stray raiders in a single hit. A few just dropped their guns and ran. I heard Sturges and Preston curse and begin to fire. The creature roared and began to charge them. With a yell I ran up and grabbed it by the horns, trying to keep it from getting to them.

Somehow, likely this giant suit I was in, I was able to match its strength though, I knew I couldn't hold it long.

It was now, with its horns in my hands, that I noticed something. Everytime a gun was fired, it would rear back and almost...shake. Was it afraid?

An idea popped into my head. Likely a very stupid one.

"Preston, Sturges, stop firing! Dogmeat, down!"

"What?! You know what that thing is right?" Sturges cried.

"Actually, no, not really! I can't hold it forever and I wanna try something. Please, just trust me!"

"You'll get us killed woman!" Preston took another shot.

"If this doesn't work we're all dead anyway! Give me one chance."

It took them a moment, but the two slowly lowered their weapons. Dogmeat whined, lowering his head.

With a nod I gathered all my strength and shoved the creature back, quickly jumping out of the suit and puting my hands up.

"Hey. It's ok, see, no gun. No one's shooting, everythings alright."

This creature growled, charging at me. It stopped inches from me, looming over my head.

There I stood, frozen in place with an absolutely huge lizard like creature with sharp tallons and teeth staring me down.

"Hi there, see I'm not gonna hurt you and neither are they." Slowly I moved my hand out, palm facing this creature.

It circled me, growling. Razor sharp claws comming dangerously close to me. Finally, it stopped, letting out a snort. Slowly but surely, it lowered its muzzle to my hand and nuzzled it.