Ch.26: Taking a Piss

[A/N: Here you go. I know I slacked off on getting these done but just remember I write and edit everything with my human hands and eyeballs instead of AI. Much love to everyone still reading. Hope you enjoy this story as much as I am enjoying writing it.

PS I'm sorry for all the pov changes. Please forgive me.]

[3rd POV]

Twenty-five years ago, Joshua's grandfather returned to the surface after living underground for many years.

After struggling to survive the harsh new world, he eventually founded his own settlement in what remained of a small town west of Boston, a place called Action.

[A/N: this is a real place but I don't actually know what it is like so I'm gonna make stuff up.]

Action was a small town that had a huge logging operation before the war. The lumber that remained after the bombs dropped was used to make the walls surrounding the settlement giving the residents a sense of safety and hope.

Years later things would take a dark turn for the settlement when the mayor's son joined a raider gang and betrayed the town by killing the mayor and enslaving the settlers.

The mayor was none other than Joshua's grandfather.

And the mayor's son was obviously Joshua's father.

Joshua felt bad for lying to Frankie or at least framing the truth in a way to garner sympathy.

The walk back with his father's old associates felt like a death march and he could only use this time to think.

Once he gave them his father's stash, they would probably kill him.

His father had been the Overboss for the Action Gang until his timely demise at the hands of his second in command, Axel.

After Joshua's father was killed, his mother also committed suicide so she didn't have to end up being Axel's woman.

That left Joshua alone and the only person who knew where his father's stash was that held the items passed down from his grandfather.

Joshua didn't know much else about it but he knew that Axel and his regime wanted it for some reason.

Joshua was currently silently watching a campfire as the raiders drank, smoked and took chems. Other than Mace the leader of this this little group, who watched Joshua with amusement in his gaze.

"Must suck now that your Daddy bit it. And that whore of a mother of yours decided to check out, leaving the little prince all alone." Mace taunted him.

Joshua remained quiet. By tomorrow afternoon his nightmare will end.

"Hmph. Stupid brat." Seeing that his taunt didn't get a reaction from the boy, he started ignoring him and lit up a cigarette.

Joshua just stared into the campfire with a blank expression while the raiders laughed and chortled at jokes only they would find funny.

*snap* the sound of a branch breaking echoed over the camp.

"What was that?" One of the raiders jumped up in paranoia due to the chems. He snapped his head looking for the source of the noise.

"Relax idiot. It was just me. I was taking a piss." Another raider said as he stumbled back into the camp, his steps clumsy due to the alchohol he had been drinking.

The raiders took turns sleeping until the sun came up and they continued moving east. They were now about twenty miles from Boston when they arrived to the outskirts of Action.

Mace looked down on Joshua with a threatening look. "Okay brat end of the line. Where is the stash?"

Joshua hesitated but then pointed toward Action. "It's in there, buried behind the Overboss's place."

"Inside?! Shit! I thought your pops would have buried it outside..." Mace was pissed. He wanted to avoid letting Axel know about the stash at all costs so he could take his position from him. But now he will have to risk exposing his plans.

He grabbed Joshua's arm roughly while the rest followed as they entered the town together.

"Uh Boss, how are we gonna get the stash without Axel knowing about it?" Of the raiders asked.

"Hmph, a couple of you idiots will need to distract him while the boy shows me the spot to dig. Once we have the stash we will hightail it out of here over to the vault. And then? We form our own gang."

The raiders nodded.

As they entered the town, there were buildings lined up in a row on both sides of the main street.

At the end of the street was a fenced off property that looked in much better shape than the rest of the barely standing structures.

Raiders and slaves could be seen moving around the town up to various things.

One of the slaves, a young girl saw the party arrive from her bedroom window and her eyes widened.

"Joshua..?" A tear slid down her cheek. "So you ended up getting caught after all..." she said to herself.

Joshua, continued walking behind Mace with his head lowered.

He didn't want to die, but it was already set in stone. No use crying over it.

He originally had escaped this place even though he wore an explosive collar. His reasoning was that he thought if he got far enough away, a signal couldnt reach the collar and make it explode.

Which was incorrect but he also knew that Axel wanted his father's stash so he probably wouldn't kill him and would only send some men to find him. He didn't think they actually would find him though...

"Okay, you three go distract Axel and also make sure that crazy bitch Lady doesn't get suspicious or we're all dead."

Lady was Axel's right hand. She was a vicious woman who delighted in violence and used knives while doing acrobatics to kill.

Like some kind of freakish circus performer, each one of her "tricks" was deadly.

Mace pulled Joshua around the back of the property avoiding the line of sight of Axel's most loyal men.

"Where is it? I swear if you lied... you will wish that you died..."

Joshua simply pointed to a old shed that was falling apart. "In there. Pops had a hidden hatch to an underground cellar. You won't even need to dig it up."

Mace entered the shed and kicked the dirt around until he found the hatch. A creepy smile formed on his face before he turned toward Joshua.

"Good. Very good. I don't need you anymore now, do I?" He pulled a knife from his waist and approached Joshua.

In response, Joshua closed his eyes, hoping internally it wouldn't hurt and would happen quickly.

Mace pulled his arm back and thrust the knife towards the kid's abdomen.

*squelch... thud*

There was the sound of flesh tearing but Joshua didn't feel anything. 'It... doesn't hurt?' He thought and opened his eyes which widened in surprise.

The body of Mace laid on the ground, his eyes wide open in shock and surprise but the issue was... his head wasn't attached.

"Stupid bastard... Next time don't make me your enemy."

Joshua's eyes snapped over to his side where something black shimmered into existence.

He stumbled back in fear as the figure removed his helmet from his stealth suit.

"F-Frankie?" The boy nearly stuttered in surprise.

<><><><><><><>

[1st POV]

It didn't take me long to catch up to the raiders that pissed me off.

When I finally caught up to them, I followed them silently as they marched until the sun got low and they made camp.

I quietly climbed a nearby tree that was within line of sight of them. And with the stealth suit on, there was no way that some raiders would be able to detect me.

As I watched them, I also listened to thier conversations and discovered something.

The kid hadn't told me the complete truth. His parents were raiders and his town wasn't burned to the ground as he had previously claimed.

'Annoying to be lied to but what can I expect from a child...' was what I thought.

I didn't care much about it to begin with. And my reason for saving him isn't out of some kind of hero fetish.

I was going to be rewarded with something great for completing this quest. So I planned to complete it in the most professional way possible.

After all the quest is pretty much paying me to save some slaves and in exchange I would have a contruction module added to the system.

'Workshop mode' will help me to develop my bases, outposts and settlements in the future so it is totally worth it to save some slaves and kill some scum.

As I watched the raiders chem themselves into a stupor, one of them walked away from camp to 'commune with nature'.

I smirked as a rather interesting idea popped into my head. 'Why not?' I thought.

The raider wore rags and such, and had a leather face mask covering his scarred up face.

I quietly crept behind him and then snapped his neck. Unfortunately, the sound of his spinal cord breaking caused a pretty loud sound as if a branch had been snapped.

I could hear someone got alerted so I quickly undressed the dead raider and put the clothes into my inventory.

I then used the inventory function of swapping outfits instantly to don the raiders rags and mask, before entering the camp in his place.

"Relax Idiot. It was just me. I was taking a piss." I said while smirking under the leather mask.

*ding*

[Speech check passed!]