So this is the first fic I am posting on this site. Been reading and writing for a short while now and I'd like to give a shot towards writing and finishing a fic. Quick thing to know the story begins 10 years before the events of Akame Ga Kill, though all the characters you know and love will be brought in later chapters. Lets get this started...

Hard to Kill

Chapter 1: Young Guns

"You got lives in you, hard to kill. Storm, bullets, sand and wind, yet you still walk…"

-Ulysses

xxxxXXxxxx

"Daddy, where is mommy?" …. "Busy? What does mommy do to be so busy?"….. "Ranger? What's that?" ….. "So she's a hero?" … "Cool! I wanna be like mommy! I wanna save people too!" … "No! Daddy's job is boring and two heads are smelly!" ….. "AHH, no daddy, hahahaha! Ahh that tickles" ... "I love you too daddy!"

xxxxxx

"Hnnnurrgh, *Gasp* Huuaaaa! Ahhhh! Ughhhh! *Huff*Huff*"

The sound of ragged breaths roughly frayed against the quiet and calm of the serene morning background. An armored humanoid figure sat up from its prone position on a splotch of scorched earth; an unnatural ashen scar in the otherwise unmarred green forest. The figure wore a thick steel chest plate chemically infused with a smorgasbord of several other of lightweight nano-composite metals and materials (yes, including titanium and aluminum). The rapid respiration of the figure identified it as male and showcased that the armor of the torso was in fact separated into several segments across the figures sternum and diaphragm. This was all connected by a skin tight body glove making the hardened chest armor not only durable, but flexible. Across the sleek gunmetal gray chest armor and around the man's waist were multiple leather bandoliers and belts holding all sorts of conventional munitions.

The figure, still hacking, rolled over from their rear and onto their knees to pull the helmeted gas mask from their head, revealing a head of shaggy black hair. Bloodshot brown eyes frantically searched their immediate surroundings taking in the thick trunks of the trees surrounding the clearing and the lush green leaves decorating their branches.

The persons thin brow furrowed and calloused fingers felt at the downy cushion of grass, wet with dew from the morning mist. A sturdy roman nose flared slightly, taking in the smell of the crisp untainted air. A strong masculine jaw, narrow with youth, worked itself shut as its owner finally evened out his breathing.

"What …the… What… is…!?" *huff* He glanced around. "What is this? Where am I?" The gruff voice did not match the face of the young man. His features set his age physically between the years of 14 and 16. But the touch of grey to sections of his unruly mop and the grim look in his eye spoke of a person who had seen too much too soon.

They spoke of a person who had done too much, too soon.

Someone who had been pushed to the brink, but come back stronger than before. A survivor. His name was Guerra Lincoln Pratt. The Black Walker of the Wastes, Best and Last Hope for Humanity. The Messenger of Death. Bringer of Life.

He was also a legitimate mailman.

'How did… I end up in Zion? Whatever, first things…first, I gotta get… a hold of myself. Where are my guns?'

The young man staggered to his feet and slowly looked around the clearing taking in the sight of all the life around him, while searching for anything he may have dropped. About one foot to his left and resting quietly outside of its sleeve was his custom riot shotgun, "Charger". The boom stick was a monster of a CQC weapon. It fired 8 gauge instead of 12 gauge; It had an additional barrel, and an extra drum magazine to match, along with a vertical grip to compensate for recoil, and a full choke to tighten the spread and increase the effective range of the buckshot.

Giving it a quick once over, he turned the two barreled shotgun on a nearby tree and pulled the trigger six times in rapid succession, the echoing booms of the weapon awoke the whole forest as the giant plant became yet another one of the Courier many victims.

The tree was absolutely ravaged.

The focused wave of lead had torn a massive gouge the size of a child's torso out of the side of its trunk. It groaned under the stress of attempting to keep upright, before a series of snaps and cracks signified the end of its very short battle with gravity as it toppled over crashing to the forest floor. It was safe to say the weapon was fully functional.

Satisfied Guerra put the safety on, returned the weapon to its sleeve and strapped the sleeve to one of the bandoliers around his waist, letting it rest against the small of his back. Resting snug in its holster on his left thigh was "Maria" the exotically engraved 9mm once owned by man named Benny. The man who had shot him twice in the head and left him for dead, buried alive in a shallow grave. In hindsight he probably enjoyed crushing the man's skull against the Presidential suite floor a bit too much. The stains never came out.

On his right thigh was an old N99 officer's personal defense weapon, widely known across the wasteland as the venerable 10mm pistol. It was an inherited gift, and one of his many belongings that he cherished the most. Unlike its other brethren, it was still a viable option in a gunfight, being reliable, powerful and surprisingly accurate for such a worn weapon. Etched along the receiver was the name "Whiskey Rose".

Tucked away within one of the many folds of his trenchcoat was a special revolver gifted to him by one of the larger factions of the Mojave wasteland. The "Big Iron", was a modified .45-75 govt hunting revolver made especially for him the New California Republic. It was somewhat of a thank you to the sixth courier for not wiping them of the map with the stash of nuclear warheads hidden within the bowels of the Divide. Unlike the rare and renowned "Ranger Sequoia" hunting revolver that veteran rangers carried. It had a short slide rail allowing him to put a scope on weapon if he so wished. It also sported a six-shot cylinder, a smooth oak wood grip engraved with a black spade and calibrated to be set on a hair trigger.

He absolutely adored the weapon. It was beautiful, deadly and had just enough weight to it to let him know that it wasn't taking shit from anyone. He included.

'Just like mother', Guerra mused.

Hidden somewhat uncomfortably in his right boot was one of his few holdout weapons, a reliable ivory-handled .357 magnum. The jet black barrel frame and cylinder were decorated with gold etchings and designs so ornate even his vocabulary was at a loss of how to describe such a visual masterwork of a firearm. Along the ejector tube and engraved on a silver plate was the unique firearms name; "Lucky". The irony was not lost on him.

Sitting snug in a sheath high on one of his bandoliers and concealed by his black trench coat was a large foot long bowie knife. It honestly seemed rather underwhelming for a guy who carries enough munitions and small arms to supply a small army. Then Guerra removed the weapon from its sheath, revealing its thick, permanently tawny red blade to the eyes of its holder. This was "Blood Nap", a very big knife that had earned its name through bathing in the blood of VERY big number of people, creatures and abominations alike. It was a strong and extremely sharp tool that had earned itself a permanent spot in his inventory.

Scanning the bloodstained blade once more, he returned the knife to its sheath. Having fully regained his wits and his senses by this time, Guerra gave himself a much more thorough check over, testing joints, flexing and tensing tender muscle and looking for any especially dark bruising hinting at a broken bone.

"Everything's seems to be all right, but when I have the chance I need to make a much more detailed diagnostic of myself."

'Do you have any idea whatcha wanna be when you grow up?'

"Onto the next problem, where are my other guns?" He was equipped enough to defend himself, but simply being able to defend himself was not satisfactory, not at all. He considered his holdout weapons and sidearms to be his personal defense weapons. His other, bigger, guns were his much more preferable options.

*Hmmmmzzzzzzzzttttttt*

A peculiar noise that seemed like a cross between a hum and a low buzz reached his ears, coming from behind the tree he shredded into two moments earlier. It was noise that had become very familiar during his travels in the wastes and at the moment was a pleasant sound to the ears. From behind the tree near the edge of the clearing, an orb of metal levitated towards him. Multiple antenna and small arrays dotted the top and bottom of the small robots battered metal hull and along its sides were numerous bumper stickers, license plates and tags, telling of the many locations it had visited during its journey.

This was ED-E or Eddie, the Eyebot Duraframe Model-E, the first, but as of recent, no longer the last of the enclave's most advance ED frame. The militarized version of the commercial eyebot, sporting a titanium outer casing, hardened E.M.P resistant operating systems and a focused plasma array with a particle exciter. He (Guerra identified Eddie as a male) was also one of the few beings who Guerra could call his best friends.

As ED-E stopped face to grill with Guerra and rubbed himself on his cheek, giving off high-pitched chirps all the while. Guerra rested a hand on ED-E and gave him a couple light pats of affection.

"Hey ED-E I'm happy to see you too. How are ya doin'?" 'Why does my voice sound different?'

ED-E chirped again and nudged Guerra's hand.

"What? You got something for me buddy?"

Instead of responding ED-E lowered himself to the ground and with a low buzz several various weapons atomitized into existence, constructing themselves out of millions of small white pixels/atoms. Goddamn, pre-war tech truly was amazing. This was one of the reasons he absolutely loved having ED-E around so much.

The first weapon was the "All-American" marksman carbine, a beast of a weapon that held a special place in his heart. The strength of the weapon wasn't what made it special; he had quite a few weapons with a much stronger punch. It was not its rate of fire, nor its substantial magazine size. It the carbine's amazing amount of versatility the weapon was capable. It could put down everything short of a Deathclaw, Radscorpion, or Yao Guai with a single well placed shot to the head. It had enough ammo to put down anything else with the remaining 24 or 23 rounds in the magazine. There was little recoil, and with a steady hand all 25/24 rounds would end up somewhere vital.

After looking over the carbine and making sure the weapon was in working order, Guerra flicked the safety on and strapped the carbine to one of the belts across the front of his chest. He turned to his next and at the moment his heaviest weapon and most deadly weapon. It was a two-barreled light machine gun, that he had appropriately named "The Spray". The unique LMG had been his on and off pet project for a whole three months shortly after he had finished making the "Charger"; the idea of two barreled weapons had been quite a hot topic on his mind. After piecing together to automatic receivers, modifying one of the actions and creating a custom grip connected to the top of the two receivers. Since he was pretty much firing two machine guns at once, the weapon had an abominable combined fire rate of 1800 rounds a minute and weighed much less than a mini-gun. Another interesting fact was that it utilized .308 rounds instead of the more manageable, easy to find and produce 5.56mm rounds. It gave the weapon just a bit more kick. He slung "The Spray" over his shoulder letting it hang against his back by its sling.

The next two weapons strengthened him in one of the areas he felt strongest in...

Hand-to-Hand.

In reality there had been very few people who had survived an encounter with Courier Six. But when it did happen, it was usually due to either something much more threatening taking hold of his attention, or when he used his fists. Now to be fair, Guerra could and did, beat a lot of people to death. It just always seemed that the ones who managed to get away (and eventually get claimed by the wasteland), were the ones he ended up 'killing' via his fists. That's why he enjoyed these two little trinkets so much; they gave his fists just a bit more… power.

On his right was the displacer glove "Pushy" a modified 'energy' version of the power fist. Instead of driving a pneumatically powered knuckle into the face of an unlucky shmuck, it instead collected and stored energy into a microfusion breeder into an energy cell that converted all stored energy into an electromagnetic charge.

Complicated indeed.

Then when needed, the energy is discharged to the front of the glove through an array creating a warp. The concussive force of such a weapon usually killed armored and unarmored targets in a single blow displacing their remains throughout the area. A regular displacer glove's warp had the kinetic energy necessary to kill or maim all targets within an 8-foot radius. "Pushy" was much different from other displacer gloves in that it had an excited energy cell and a microfusion hyperbreeder, producing a faster charge and much stronger warp capable of killing and mauling all within a 20-foot radius.

On his left was a very heavily modified and compact power fist, the "Greased Lightning". The weapon prior to modification had been a big, bulky, forearm length gauntlet with pneumatic jets built in along its length, allowing the user to punch with the force of a truck, with the speed of professional boxer. The issue with using power fists and displacer gloves is that they are so cumbersome and one-dimensional, that you can only punch something when you have one on. Can't shoot a gun, can't operate any machinery, even hurling grenades was difficult enough.

Nonetheless, it was effective before and more so after a few other modifications he made during a short pit stop at the Big Mountain. He modified the power fist to operate on his left hand and made both the "Greased Lightning" and the "Pushy", slimmer, more dexterous and by rewiring some of the systems the weapon allowed him to still use firearms while he had them on.

It was as he attempted to put his overpowered displacer glove on his right wrist that he recognized yet another issue with his current situation.

'Why does the glove feel so… loose?'

"ED-E…" Guerra's voice cracked ever so slightly.

ED-E chirped gleefully, antennas and arrays bobbing up and down.

"Let me see everything else you've got." ED-E chirped twice before his armored sheet slid up, revealing a screen full of data and information. On the screen were a list of numerous items all organized under one of four categories: Apparel, Aid, Weapons, and Miscellaneous. But that wasn't what he was interested in at the moment.

What held his attention was the reflection of the young man on ED-E's screen. His face was handsome, slender but strong. Though it had a youthful charm to it, it was sculpted and shaped by a sort of… hardness. A plethora of small scars and burns decorated the face of the teen in the reflection; scars no one that young should have had. Those were his scars; the problem, was that it wasn't his face he was looking at.

That should have been his face, the face of a grown, weathered, withered, beaten old man. Guerra had lived for a long time, done many a thing, seen many a places and so he was unashamed of how …ripe he become due to the passage of time. Becoming old in the wasteland was a sign of someone who was clever, tough, or simply stubborn enough to survive its perils and dangers.

So… why, instead of seeing the face of someone who looked more wrinkled than their great-grandfathers ball-sack, was he instead looking at the face of a fucking kid who barely looked half a day out of puberty?!

Dismissing ED-E, Guerra brought up his left arm to look through his bracer-like Personal Information Processor or PIP-Boy. It was in here that he would find out what was going on with him; whether if he had somehow gone back 100+ years in time or if maybe just his body had physically reverted back. Maybe he had finally just gone senile. The Pip-boy would tell.

'All right let's see here… Items are all accounted for; Stats are all the same; Data… local map...'

…

'World Map?'

…

'Where am I?'

…

No seriously where in the actual fuck, was he?

Taking into account the trees, rich soil, grass, and morning dew he obviously wasn't in the Mojave. The sky was never this blue and the air never this crisp. The oxygen was… fresh and earthy as if there had been a recent rain. The only place that came close to having this sort of thriving, untouched nature was Zion National Park in Utah.

'It reminds me of Zion.'

"But this isn't Zion."

It was less of a question and more of a confirmation to himself. He had known in the back of his mind that this wasn't the beautiful home of the Dead Horses and Sorrows. Nowhere in Zion was there this much green on the ground, but only in Zion were there trees this big and this lush. Jacobstown back in the Mojave had many trees, but they were smaller and much more skeletal.

Vault 22 also came to mind, but he had made sure to personally purge every element of Vault 22 spores he had ever come across, whether it be in the Mojave, Zion or the Big Mt. That just brought up another set of questions however. No vegetation that he had ever seen or found, that was caused by Vault 22 influence had ever developed woody stems like the trees surrounding him.

Also, another couple of issues were that over the course of his lifetime, Guerra had mapped all of the Mojave, all of Zion, all of Central North America, all of the Eastern Commonwealths, the Northwest, and a majority of the Southwest including San Francisco. His Pip-boy should have been able to identify his exact location anywhere in the Continental United States and even if he had been transported to another continent RobCo. satellites should have been able give him his location in relation to any of his other mapped locations. More importantly was the absolute 100% fact, that nowhere on the planet Earth was there no background radiation.

'This is why I don't do 'favors' for the brains anymore! They could have tested that retarded ass transportalponder on something, anything else other than me and left me out of it. Hell, I would have gone and subdued a random lobotomite if they so asked. But noooooo, I'm a prime candidate simply because I'm an above average human being capable of higher function than your average lobotomite.'

Guerra kept ranting to himself as he scooped his Elite Riot Helmet off of the ground.

'If I had known they were going to ask me to be a guinea pig for something so radical and insane, I would have just sent Gray by himself. He can survive virtually fucking anything.'

A theory then crept into the back of his mind; one that he had mixed feelings about. What if the Transportalponder had done more than just teleport him a few hundred yards or a few hundred miles? Klein had once said that the T.P.P did everything by the hundreds, and with their latest adjustments, the T.P.P could multiply upon its already improved distances by the hundreds. What if it had gone even further beyond the realms of his initial projections? What if he had been transported to another planet, no another dimension or reality entirely! The brains had theorized once in a blue moon about parallel universes, maybe this planet was a small part of one of them.

The Courier was enthralled by the many possibilities of this new world, the hope of another chance for the Mojave, the Capital Wastes and the Commonwealth. This could possibly be another chance for the human race to thrive with knowledge of the Old World, and the awareness to not make the mistakes of the Old World's people.

Thus with 10 minutes of internal discussion and more mumbling than a demented dog whisperer, Guerra satisfied most of his outstanding questions all except for one. It was a question that had hitchhiked along with his theory of interdimensional travel.

'How do I get back?'

"ROOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAGGGHHHH!"

It came like the call of death itself, the ashen scar that marked his arrival shattered along with the surrounding earth as several, two story tall beasts rose from the earth.

The monsters were absolutely gigantic.

He could only compare them in size to a mirelurk queen or behemoth. They almost looked like hunched bipedal armadillos, but had a large reptilian jaw with a beaked maw instead of teeth. Angry red eyes bore a sharp contrast to the dull brown of their carapace, and thick blunt claws glimmered in the few streams of sunlight breaking through the canopy. The creatures all growled, glaring down at the small human who had dared to intrude into their territory. They tossed their narrow heads back in unison and released a series of guttural roars in a show of dominance. The calls echoed all throughout the forest, shaking the very earth and scaring lesser and greater danger beasts alike away from the forest clearing. No sane person or danger beast would willingly engage a whole pack of enraged Earth Dragons.

Guerra stared for a moment.

Then a moment longer.

Blood.

He quivered slightly.

So much blood.

Guerra smirked.

Their blood.

Courier six smiled.

More blood. More blood!

The Black Walker gave a crazed grin.

BLOOOOOD MOOORE BLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD MOOOOORRREEE

The young man slid the skull-like Elite Riot helmet over his head and the red fiber optics of the gas mask lit up. He tightened "pushy" on his right fist, and drew the "Big Iron" from its holster.

ED-E doing the appropriate thing to set the mood played a short sample of patriotic music as he charged his excited plasma arrays.

The Monster of the West charged.

A cacophony of gunshots, explosions and roars of pain occupied the forest for the last hour of the morning. Silence persisted for the rest of the eve.

xxxxx

…Father, wh-….I apologize fa-…Lord Caesar, I just wanted to ask a question if I may Lord Caesar…T-Thank you Lord Caesar. I was finishing my turn in the arena today and ... And I noticed that the defeated boys, my age and older, all went to their birthmothers to have their arms set and their wounds treated… Y-Yes I broke their arms like you taught me to… Y-Yes, th-thank you Lord Caesar…Wh-Where…Where is my birthmother…

Even before Gray fully awoke from his trauma induced slumber he was already inthe motion to pin the other unfamiliar presence in the room. His left hand zoned in on the throat of the person intruding into his personal space. There was a low gurgle as Gray's victim lost their next breath, beneath the force of his vicious one-handed grip. Unthinking he brought his right hand up, thumb rigid and ready to crush the trachea of the struggling person, ignoring the small weak hand tugging at his stiff arm.

'KILL'

And so he moved to do so … before a fist snapped across his cheek and he suddenly got a generous sample of the taste and rather smooth texture of the sandy dirt floor.

Dirt Floor. He could tell by how even the ground felt and the lack of a breeze suggesting that he was indoors, inside some sort of structure; primitive, if the dirt floors told him anything.

'Fuck! That punch hurt!' But it lifted the murderous haze that had smothered his mind, even if it left him with a tender cheek. He had a good idea of who just decked him. His eyes slowly came into focus, losing their empty distant look. His ears twitched taking in the raspy sound of someone struggling for breath and a telling jingle jangle of bottle caps echoing through the hollow structure of the room.

'Six.'

But he wasn't sure. Something just didn't seem right.

The fist that hit him seemed too… small to be Guerra's. It also didn't have the amount of strength that one would normally associate with Courier Six. Guerra rarely held back and a punch filled with intent would have done a whole lot more than bruise his cheek. Then Gray became paranoid and a slew of possibilities filled his mind.

'A woman could have hands that size, but still be more than capable of doing damage; He himself had met (read: fought) plenty of raiders, Great Khans and even a few Fiends hopped up on psycho and buffout who sported tits and lacked balls, but had still hit him hard enough to leave some dark bruises and in some cases break bones. But not even the strongest of the men in the Mojave who took buffout like daily supplement pills, had the strength to knock him down, nevertheless the most dike'ish of the Wasteland's women.

'So it could have been Guerra. But that still doesn't make sense; Guerra's a grown ass man.' And Gray was right, Courier Six was by all means and more, a fully grown man, an old man at that.

'Maybe it had something to do with the Brains and their retarded teleportation machine. Oh, speaking of which, I have to get Guerra to disable that pacification field bullshit, if we ever get back so I can butcher those levitating organs and feed them to a cyber dog or a nightstalker. Maybe even a lobotomite if I can't find one of the two.' He was off topic.

"Get up Gray. I know at least one thing that you are thinking so stop thinking it."

…

'His voice sounds different.'

…

"Gray."

…

"Graaaay."

…

"You could be using a voice modifier..." Gray answered, his eyes still closed and sprawled along the floor.

'Why does my voice sound different?'

"No one else knows who you are, not your face and especially not your name."

Conceding to logic Gray sat up, looking in the general direction of Guerra's voice. Sure enough there he was, leaning against a nearby wall. He was still fully garbed in his Elite Riot Gear, though his helmet was off and clipped at his waist. He limply shook his right hand as he pushed off the wall and walked towards his companion.

The cold brown of Six's eyes made contact with the dull grey of Five's. That was familiar to Gray. Everything else however was not… or was it.

Last time he had checked Courier 6 was a bitter 140-something year old man who had more wrinkles than a mole rat. The ice-cold glare that could freeze over hell, was still there, but everything else just left him doubtful and very confused. The person walking towards him was young, very young compared to the person he remembered. Though the L.A.P.D Pre-war riot chest armor was still fitting due to the body glove beneath it, the armored trenchcoat that Guerra wore over the armor was down to his ankles instead of his knees and was bunched up along the length of his arms. The armored cargo pants and the underlying lightweight plate armor that completed the Elite Riot Gear were very baggy and bunched up at his ankles.

Another glaring difference was that he had hair, a lot of hair in fact. The 145 year-old cyborg he had known for more than a century had lost most of his hair after he turned 113, he shaved what was left off shortly after and had embraced the chrome dome ever since. This child version of the Courier had an unruly mop of dull black, lacking any sort of gloss or luster. The neck length hair partially covered two small scars and one long scar ran horizontally along the length of his forehead.

He knew then that the adolescent in front of him was in fact Guerra, it was no coincidence that even though this person who was so young and who looked so… different than the person he knew, only that person could have markings so unique, so familiar and so …detailed as the scars of his friend. Those scars were the identifying markings of Courier six something that no one could replicate. But why was he so young?!

It was only then that he recognized the tense silence between the two. Guerra just stared at him as if he was trying to decipher a password hidden in the coding of a wasteland computer's fragmented data banks. He reached out his right hand and braced his left leg and after a quick look of doubt, but without a word, Gray took the hand and was hauled to his feet.

Odd. A young teenager shouldn't have been strong enough to a pull a person of his size and weight to a standing position. Albeit this teenager was at one point strong enough to carry the at least 3% of the dead world's arsenal on his back. He looked Guerra in the eye. The tense atmosphere was still present. Something needed to be said.

"So have your balls dropped yet?"

Ok so I am excited to officially start my first fic, even though it is hidden away in kind of a dark corner. I am going to try and be relatively consistent with the fic and try to give updates at least once every three months. Life still exists and I don't want to hold myself to too stiff a standard and lie to those who ma come across this fic.

If you liked the story please leave a review and tell me what I could do to keep on making it better. I am open to criticism as long as it is constructive. Thanks for your time.