Chapter One.

Robert Joseph MacCready opened his eyes and sat up in his bed. Groaning, he reached for his helmet but felt only the splintery wood of the makeshift pile he used for a nightstand.

"Happy birthday, jerk," said a familiar, annoying voice as his helmet was shoved into his chest. He looked up into the face of a smiling, pale girl with a dirty face. "Ready for your party?"

MacCready's fist clenched and he considered punching the girl in the nose. He had done it once already, years ago when the girl thought she was going to be the Princess of Little Lamplight. The punch had earned the girl her name, Princess.

"After it's over, I won't have to see your ugly god damned face for at least a year. Maybe longer if your dumb ass gets killed on the way to Big Town," he said.

Princess smiled, showing her teeth. MacCready thought he might knock one out as a going away present, but held himself in check. Thinking he was getting soft in his old age, and stood up, shouldered his gun, and walked past Princess who followed him closely as he headed out of the wooden shack and around a rickety boardwalk that was built over a pool of cave water.

The board led to a tunnel lit by decaying bulbs and lamps. MacCready could imagine Princess behind him, grinning with her hands clasped. No one would challenge her leadership once he was gone, and MacCready had the sinking feeling she would run Little Lamplight into the ground after his exile.

A crowd had gathered by the front gate. Seeing the faces of a few Lamplighters he respected made him feel better about Princess being left in charge. Lucy and Éclair weren't total fools and might keep Princess in line. He admitted to himself that the one task Princess had to not fuck up was shooting any mungo that came to the gate. Organizing the scavenging runs could be left to someone less crazy.

A child with snot on his sleeves presented MacCready with a blue birthday hat. He took the hat and brought it down on the kid's head, flattening the hat and sending the kind to his knees, crying. "Happy birthday to you," the crowd began to sing. "Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday dear, mungo. Happy birthday to you!"

Mungo. He was now a mungo. MacCready hated mungos and took pride in the ill-will he was able to muster when they came around. One of his fondest memories was the day Princess herself thought he had gone too far when he began shooting at a group of starved mungos who had come to the cave begging for food and water.

After the song ended, the Lamplighters filed back inside, leaving MacCready on the other side of the gate as it began to closed. He nodded to Lucy and Éclair, who nodded back with sad eyes. Princess grinned at him, waving. "Bye, mungo!" she called.

When the gate was shut, MacCready headed up towards the cave's entrance and went through the wooden door to the outside. The entrance to Lamplight Caverns was snuggled under a mountain of rock. The shone into MacCready's eyes, and he squinted while walking to the top of the hill where an old school bus sat, rusting. He remembered Joseph saying something once about the bus being the same one that brought the first Lamplighters to the caverns, but MacCready had never cared too much about history as it was mostly about mungos.

Taking a deep breath, he decided to look on the bright side of things. He would see Éclair and Lucy again in a few short years and there was of course the prospect of Big Town. No more cave fungus, no more fighting off raiders and muties. It was time to live the good life.

Heading east along a ruined, cracked road, the dark side of the equation arose in his mind. He would likely be seeing Princess in another year, and there was still the matter of getting to Big Town. He knew roughly where it was, but he also knew from scavenging that the wasteland was not a place to be if you didn't know where you were headed. He patted his rifle and made sure he had access to his knife and kept walking down the road, hoping Big Town wasn't too far off.

After an hour of not being the mayor of Little Lamplight, of not having to solve the problems of half a dozen retarded brats, of not having to listen to Princess's mouth, of not having to make sure the guards at the front gate didn't fall asleep, he began to realize that just how much there was for him not to do.

The realization made him feel light, free, and empty.

"Fuck," he said. "I'm a fucking mungo."

No sooner had he verbalized his new station in life did he notice three figures walking towards him down the road next to a pile of ruined cars. He squinted and saw that they were decked head to toe in metal power armor, the color of which blended them in with the rusted piles they stepped past.

They were also being followed by a spherical , hovering robot, a Mr. Gutsy. MacCready had always wanted one for the front gate, but they had never been able to salvage one they could make work.

He kept walking and stopped in front of the three armored figures. "Move along, local," one said. Two were carrying laser rifles while one had a mini gun slung low by his hips. The color of their armor meant they would have little to say to him, and wouldn't deviate so much as a step from their path to help or harm him.

He knew two things about people with power armor. Firstly, they were not to be fucked with. Secondly, they either called themselves the Brotherhood of Steel, or the Outcasts. By the color of their armor, MacCready could tell he was dealing with Outcasts.

"You assholes come by Big Town?" he asked. It wouldn't hurt to at least attempt to get intelligence about the terrain ahead.

"There are no big towns back there," one said. It was hard to tell which one, as they didn't turn to face him and were wearing helmets. "Just waste."

"Any raiders or muties?"

"Not anymore," one said; MacCready suspected the one with the mini gun.

MacCready thought it best he keep walking The power armored men weren't looking to talk and he was burning daylight.

To be continued…