Iacon Wasteland

Ratchet placed a hand in front of his optics as his HUD adjusted to the bright sun. Rushing right into the light was probably not the best idea. He waited for it to recalibrate and the bright lights to fade into a much more tolerable sunlight, allowing him to view the wasteland. The first thing he noticed was how brown the whole place was. The landscape was in this dusty brown color, a far cry from the luminous silver it once was. Even the sky appeared browner, like dust was in the air and stuck in the air. Even though the sun was in the middle of the sky indicating about noon, it was slightly darker than usual, probably having to do with all the dust in the sky. The ground Ratchet was on appear to be so dirty and ugly, he would probably need disinfectant shots when he was done up here. The whole area looked dead and absolutely barren, which was a very accurate idea of what he expected.

Of course, it wasn't exactly completely barren. There were recently killed corpses in the area, more than likely caused by Treads as he made his way out. Looking at them, Ratchet felt some sympathy. Treads wasn't easy on them, the quickest death probably being one who appeared to be a top-half of a corpse, covered in scorch marks. He must've been blown up by a tank shell upon his entrance. The two bodies closest to them were killed In hand-to-hand, one having his entire head crush and the other having a large hole in his chest and what appeared to be his spinal strut next to him. The last body appeared to be riddled with bullets, which Treads must've done by stealing a gun from a corpse. Good for him.

"Wow… I envision it looking like this, but it hurts to actually see it," he heard Swindle said behind him and he silently agreed. In front of him, Siren was looking at the area with a sense of melancholy before bowing his head. Obviously, he wasn't taking it very well. Ratchet turned over to Swindle, who had his arms cross and was biting the bottom of the mouth with his denta. Unlike Siren, he was more nervous than sorrowful about their current situation. Ratchet himself was unnerved and he felt this strange thing creeping up his spinal strut. He really wish that he wasn't forced to go out here now. He might take the soldiers with guns rather than the emptiness.

"So… what should we do?" Ratchet asked the two. Siren snapped out of his melancholy and looked back at Ratchet and Swindle. He gazed at them before looking up. Ratchet raised an eyebrow before turning around and looking up to the top of the hill. On the hill, a vehicles was up there, ready to fall down, but haven't quite just yet. It was very rusted and parts of it had already fallen off to the entrance.

"Huh, wonder why that's up there," Swindle said. "Let's take a look up there and we can get a good look around the area." Ratchet thought it was a good idea and turned around to Siren for his response. He kept staring up at it before looking back at them and nodded his head. That worried Ratchet. Siren was never this reserved.

"Right… I'll lead the way. On me," he told them, moving ahead of the two to make it around the hill. Ratchet stared at Siren, who gave a glance at him, before following behind Swindle. Ratchet quickly got behind him and followed them around the mountain to where Siren was giving his loud spiel before entering the vault. Around them, they could see a trail heading up the hill just big enough to let vehicles up it. "You guys want to see if our T-cogs are still working?" Swindle asked them.

"Worth a try, although it's been so long," Ratchet muttered before giving a try. To his disappointment, he didn't feel anything shift, so his T-cog wasn't working. If he was correct, he was suffering from inert organ rejection. "Not working," Ratchet muttered.

"You not the only one," Swindle said as Siren nodded along. "Wonder why is that?"

"It's inert organ rejection. Basically, when you haven't used any of your organs in a long time, the CPU considers it vestigial and cut off all ties with it, leaving it to rust. It's generally only a problem for coma patients who don't use their organs for a long time while recovering. However, sense we've haven't had a reason to use our T-cogs for over 300 years, the CPU consider it wasteful and sever all connections to it. If we're going to be able to switch forms, we're going to have to replace them," Ratchet told them.

"Well, that's certainly a pain in the aft," Swindle muttered, rubbing his chin in thought before turning has attention back to the trail. "So, I guess we should start climbing this thing," he said as he started walking up the trail with Ratchet and Siren following him up. The ground was an uneven mess, leaving many opportunities to trip to the unaware, meaning that they had to keep aware on the trip up. About halfway up, Swindle spoke again. "I was not expecting the ground to be this hard to walk on."

"I admit, when it comes to problems in a post-nuclear annihilation world, the quality of the ground was the not the first thing I thought of," Ratchet muttered in assent.

"Gah!" Swindle yelled in frustration as they continued up. They kept going up in frustration of the bad ground. "Hey, Ratch, got some personal questions."

"Alright, but nothing too personal," he told him.

"Nothing of the sort, just questions about that clinic of yours. Did you own it?" he questioned.

"I did. Saved up enough money to buy one. It's a small one, but that didn't matter much to me. I had enough money to bleed through. I was just there to bring my many years of experience to help the people of Eastside. Lot of good that is now," he muttered.

"Hey, good to see a fellow owner of a business, even if yours was a lot less successful," Swindle cheered. "I'm a lot lie you. I a lot of money to burn through, so I decided to live the dream. Opened up a store in Eastside and sold a nice variety of products to customers. Called it Myriad and soon enough made enough money to open up more stores around Cybertron such as Ibex, Telos, and Helex. Not very good now that they're destroyed, but it was a good business."

"Myriad… I know that. I go there for some of the medical supplies that I couldn't get. It had surprisingly high-quality items for use," Ratchet muttered.

"Yeah, I had contacts in the military deliver things like those medical supplies to me. Eastside had the highest quality items for offer to any customers," he told him.

"I wonder how you got those connections," Ratchet muttered.

"Does it matter? World's gone to scrap anyway."

"Point taken." They continued climbing the trail until they reached the top of the trail. Up there was what appeared to be a small park. Picnic tables were in the center with two corpses clutching each other on the center bleachers. On the edges of the hill were telescopes for people to examine the landscape and the sky. Clearly a product of their time. On the other side was the van, ready to tip over of the mountain to crash to the ground. "Alright, we're finally- what the?" he muttered as he felt his Pipbot vibrate. He looked at it to see it say 'World Map' activated. Intrigued, he checked that out to see a square view of the topography of Iacon and its outskirts. On the right side of it, a bit away from the border, were two squares, one labeled 'Vault 78' and the other labeled 'Atacoma Hill.' "It's a map of Iacon," Ratchet muttered.

"Not just a map. It shows what the landscape is like, whether it's mountains, flatlands, or cities. That's really cool," Swindle said excitedly before turning to Siren. "Did you know about it?" A shake of the head no. "Interesting. Now why didn't they mention that?" Siren gave a shrug of his shoulder. "Come on, you're the overseer. You should know." Siren flared at him.

"Why would he? He told us numerous times before that they always kept secrets from him. Why isn't this so unbelievable?" Ratchet asked and Siren nodded his head in agreement.

"Hmph, right," Swindle said as he looked towards Iacon. "Well, at least Iacon looks okay, more or less." Ratchet turned over to see that indeed it was okay, for the most part. Yeah, most of the buildings looked damaged in some way, lots of large holes in them and probably close to destroying the foundation. Some of them were even had their top half destroyed.

"It does look alright, considering nuclear annihilation happened," Ratchet agreed. "Still wouldn't enter any of those."

"Agreed, now-" he turned back to the park, "-shall we take a look around the place before we hit the van?"

"That's fine. I'll take the long deceased couple," Ratchet said as he walked on over to the picnic bench while Siren and Swindle took the telescopes and trash cans. He arrived at the body and looked at them. They were heavily rusted, exposing much of their skeletal frame. Judging by their frame, they were both probably femmes. The two were clutching each other, probably knowing that their death was coming. Kind of romantic, in a disturbing way. He took a look around and found datapad on the ground next to them, heavily rusted and cracked, but still working. He took a hold of it and took a gander at it, focuses his optics to understand the words through the cracks.

Well, this kind of sucks. We just wanted a nighttime picnic and look up at the star. There's even an astronomer here with his van to make it more fun. Perfect timing. Then when we heard on the radio that nukes were being launched. Pretty sure it's going to land soon enough. Just great. Violet switching the channels to find them all saying the same thing. We both know it isn't a joke, but she certainly wants it to be. Listen, probable mutant that's going to find our corpses, want to make use of out supplies we won't use anymore? Violet owns a shack not far from here up north. Feel free to make use of it. Coordinates at the bottom and the key should be on her corpse. Hopes it isn't too damage. Well, going to die soon. Might as well make sure it's in each other's arms.

Ratchet felt a bit weirded out by the blasé tone of the final will of the dead femme. Someone accepting death that willingly was highly disturbing. Still, at least she gave him something with the shack, wherever it was. It wasn't like he could understand these coordinates.

Bzzt!

He felt his Pipbot vibrate and looked at it to see the map updated with another square due slightly north and slightly east with 'Violet's' Shack used to describe it. This raised an eyebrow from him, but he liked the Pipbot abilities and he wasn't going to question it as long as it advantaged him. He searched the body and found a rusted iron key on them. The shack must use old-school locks. Not entirely strange, even in the city. Scanners for keycards or cyber-biometrics were expensive to make. He looked around to see that Swindle was picking up change from the telescopes. Makes sense. He was always the one who wanted money.

"JAAM!" Siren yelled, making Ratchet flinched at that. He has a tendency to surprise him. He turned to see him holding a green bottle over the trash can with JaAm on it written on bold, red letters with a white outline.

"What the frag did you say? It was so sudden and unexpected, my CPU momentarily stalled out," Ratchet asked.

"He said JaAm," Swindle specified from behind him as he was almost finished with the telescope. "It's an anagram for Jamtacular Ambrosia, a popular soda."

"Oh, I know what it. I remember complaining to every person with bad denta that it's bad for them, but they never listen. Idiots," Ratchet complained.

"Well, at least it gives us something to drink. It may not be healthy for our denta, but we can't exactly be picky about it," he pointed out.

"True. If it is as popular as you say it is, then it'll probably be out lifeblood out here," Ratchet agreed.

"SO, WE'LL SURVIVE BY DRINKING THE ENTIRELY BAD FOR YOU, BUT COMPLETELY TASTY JAAM!" Siren specified.

"Yes, now quit talking and breaking our audials!" Ratchet yelled at him, which caused him to jump back and nod his head. "Great, so, shall we hit the van?" he asked.

"Sure thing. Let's look inside," Swindle agreed as he walked on over to it. Siren and Ratchet followed him over their as he opened up the rusty doors on the back. Inside, they could see various consoles on the left side and cabinets on the front left, with a table on the back left. "Wow, nice stuff. Must be for some kind of occupation involving traveling."

"According to a note I found, an astrologist was here. Maybe this is his van," he told him.

"Makes sense. Sometimes, freelance astrologist travel around for the best locations," Swindle commented as he took a seat inside the van. "Hey, Ratchet, wanna take a look while me and Siren keep this can from tipping over?"

"I guess I can, just make sure you keep it still," Ratchet ordered them as he got up on it. Siren did his part and lean against the van. Ratchet looked at the computers first, but that was pointless. All except one of the computer screens were broken and the one that wasn't had its battery die out a long time ago. Frustrated, he went to the cabinets and looked inside. All he found in it were telescope equipment and it looked pretty good too, something called the Teleview 1060X. Might've useful a long time ago, but now it was pointless. Even more annoyed, he went over to the table to look at mostly star charts. This was cool, but once again, completely useless right now as he had no idea how to read them. The only thing worth looking at was a map a lot like what his Pipbot was, but without any physical marks for it. It was probably made to overlap the star charts over it. However, there was a mark on it at the bottom left corner with Verole Astrolabe written for it. He felt his Pipbot shake and knew that it added it to the map. Well, at least he got a location to check out.

With that done, he started walking carefully to the front of the van, feeling it slightly creak as he walked. "Scrap," Ratchet quietly muttered. He kept going, moving very slowly to the front with Siren and Swindle did their best to keep the van from tipping over. He reached the front to see a corpse in the driver's seat, a rusting mech leaning forward against the wheel. He searched the corpse and found a keycard on his corpse. He looked at it, being an orange one with Verole Observatory on it. After that, he searched the dashboard and found a bottle of JaAm and a datapad amongst miscellaneous objects. He took a quick look at it.

I swear, I'm through looking for Sunspot. That neurotic, pain-in-the-aft can go screw off in whatever safe spot he's in. I'm going to rebuild the relevant information that he stole and head to Atacoma Hill to get started. I wonder what he saw there a month ago and I'm going to see if I can make something of it. He looked pretty startled. Frankly, his disappearance was for the best. When he left, he took those gangbangers with him. I had no idea why they were attacking us, but it obviously has something to do with Sunspot. Shifty slagger. Knew we couldn't trust him, especially sense he caused Talover and Brahmin's death by attacking those gangbangers. At least we finally have peace and I hope those gangbangers put a bullet through Sunspot's head.

The note was surprising to Ratchet. Apparently, Sunspot was leaving some details about his story. They were after him, not the observatory itself. Which was very odd. Sunspot was an overly-paranoiac individual, but he was on the up-and-up. Maybe there were some things about Sunspot he didn't quite know, but that would had to wait. He had to find reinforcement first so he took the JaAm as his Pipbot buzz from the note. He quickly walked back out of the van and jumped out, with the other two letting, leaving it to tee-tooter for a little bit before going back to balancing perfectly on the edge.

"Alright, so what did you find?" Swindle asked.

"Nothing much. Just the location of the observatory Sunspot headed too when he left and a note about him from the driver," Ratchet told him.

"Well, it's better than nothing," Swindle muttered. "Can you show us this information? Like, can we synch out Pipbot's to each other to share information?" he turned to Siren for any possible answers. He gave an apathetic shrug. "Of course you wouldn't know. Let me see if I can find something," he grumbled as he looked at his Pipbot and began surfing around. Ratchet and Siren shared an odd look with each other as Swindle looked around. "Okay, I may found something on the side of the damn thing. There's a button labeled sync. Let me see if that does anything," he said as he pressed it. Ratchet looked for it before pressing it. Before long, Swindle's Pipbot buzzed and he looked at it. "Alright, it says sharing complete. I got all your notes and locations," he told him.

"Alright, Siren, press yours," Ratchet told him as he pressed his button. Siren pressed his button as well and it buzzed with him nodding his head from collecting the information. "Right, so we go."

"Yeah… what the frag is this information about Sunspot being chased by gangster?" Swindle asked Ratchet. "This is prime blackmail material here and I never heard of it."

"He said he was chased by gangsters over the data he had, but the notes paint a different tale. Frankly, both could be true or false," he muttered. "Don't really have enough info for that."

"Understandable, considering what you said and the guy in this note says is pretty ambiguous. Perhaps if we want to settle this, we can head on over to Verole Astrolabe and settle this after we help out the vault," the merchant recommended and Siren nodded his head to that before speaking.

"WE SENT PEOPLE OUT WITH HIM! IT WOULD BE GOOD TO MAKE SURE THEY ARE ALRIGHT!" he said.

"Yeah, that's true too. Can't exactly just forget about them. If we can establish a foothold there, that's good news," Swindle agreed.

"Right, I guess that's something, and if we can't find reinforcement, we could hold up there. That might be the residents of Vault 78 new home," Ratchet added.

"Let's us hope not. I rather not deal with anymore complications," Swindle muttered. "That and I know how to blackmail them."

"Right, let's head on down and make our way to a shack that this note mentioned. It's better than walking aimlessly across the wasteland for something that we have no idea where to search for," Ratchet recommended.

"Yeah, sure thing, Ratch. It isn't too far. Siren, would that be alright?" Swindle asked the overseer who gave a nod of the head. "Great. Since you're the overseer, lead the way. Just follow the Pipbot on over and we'll follow." Siren nodded and started walking to the exit down the trail with Ratchet and Swindle following him. The trio carefully watched their step as they made their way down the mountain. It was a bit quicker than when they ascended up and before long, they reached the bottom and turned right towards the northeast. The trio began their trek across the wasteland.

XXX

After many minutes, the trio saw a shack in the distance. "Oh, finally," Swindle muttered as he saw the shack. "I hope we find something in there."

"Well, I see people," Ratchet muttered as he gazed at it. It was a simple shack made out of unmatched pieces of metal. Around it was a small fence that had a small gate and a few open spots that fallen apart. Resting on it with their back to them was someone of a brown color, with their arms resting on it. To their right was a slight incline with rocks on it.

"Right, maybe he can help us," Swindle said hopefully.

"HEY! WE NEED YOUR HELP!" Siren yelled at the person, making the person jump and look at them.

"I wanted to wait until we get closer," Swindle barked at him.

"SORRY!" he apologized as the person ran into the shack.

"Oh, look at that, he ran away. Good one!" Swindle sarcastically thanked him.

"SORRY AGAIN!" he repeated as they saw the person come back out with someone next to him. "LOOK, THEIR BACK AND… OH FRAG! COVER!" He shouted as he took cover at a nearby rock. Ratchet and Swindle were momentarily confused when they heard gunfire and took cover behind a rock with Siren.

"Okay, not friendly," Swindle growled.

"What do we do?" Ratchet asked.

"'What do we do?' We shoot to kill, of course!" he replied.

"HE'S RIGHT! AS THE ONY ONE WITH A RIFLE, I NEED YOU TWO TO PROVIDE COVER FIRE FOR ME!" Siren told the two of them, referencing his laser rifle.

"I think we can arrange that," Swindle muttered as he readied his pistol and Ratchet followed along.

"Guess if they're shooting at us, talking is no longer an option," Ratchet muttered as he did the same. "Alright, on your go."

"Right, 3, 2, 1, cover fire!" he ordered and the two of them got up to fire at what appeared to be two gunmen the previous one and a grayish one, who both took partial cover behind the fence and were firing with pistols. Due to the limitations of their pistols, they weren't exactly the best shot at range and would go wide. Siren's rifle, on the other hand, didn't have that weakness and was more accurate. The first two shots would've hit, but the fence was in the way, so Siren took a more careful shot and fire again, hitting the brown one in the leg, making him give a slight yell and immediately retreat back to the house. The three of them took more shots at him and he flinched a few times before retreating in the house. The grey one glared at his retreating comrade before taking aim with his assault rifle and shot at them while retreating backward. Siren took careful aim and fired thrice, sending all three into his body and collapse backward. With him down, the area appeared to be cleared and the three of them looked around before they moved towards the cabin.

"It looks clear. The only person we should have to worry about now is the one inside," Ratchet told them.

"Yeah… still got the moron in the shack we got to take care of. Hopefully, he'll be too damaged to actually give a fight and we can take him without a struggle. Maybe get some info off him," Swindle said.

"Right, let's go talk to-"

*Crack*

"Gah!" Ratchet yelled as he took a bullet to the left shoulder and hid behind cover, using a smaller rock that could only fit him, leaving Swindle and Siren to go prone as they noticed another femme behind the rock on the incline to the right as she took more shots with her pistol as well. Swindle shot back, trying to keep her at bay, and she hid back behind the boulder. Swindle took more shots as Siren took careful aim at where he expected her to be once Swindle had to reload. Before long, he heard the click of Swindle going through the remaining bullets from his first firefight. Immediately, the raider reappear to take more shots and was greeted by a shot to the head from Siren, making her fall out of cover, unmoving.

"GOT HER!" Siren yelled as he and Swindle got back up and look around for any more enemies. "ALL CLEAR!"

"Great, I'll go check on Ratchet," Swindle said as he head on over to him. He was grasping his shoulders, preventing any more energon lost. "Ratchet, you alright?" he asked.

"Yeah, I'll be fine. I injected it with a direct dose of stimpaks and it should stop bleeding and return to normal working capacity. It takes a few minutes to finish its job," he said as he got up. "I should be fine as long as we don't have any other surprises in store."

"Right, let's head on to the shack and take care of that last guy," Swindle said as he helped him along to the shack where Siren was walking past the fence's gate entrance to the door, standing in front of it. "Hey, Siren! Ratchet's fine!" Swindle yelled. Siren turned over to them to see the two of them fine and gave a smile at them. Swindle gave a smile as well for the two of them before he suddenly looked frighten. "Behind you!" Siren frown and looked back to the entrance to see a large, black figure with orange optics glowering at him and a rusted machete in his hand. Before he could act, he brought his machete up and swiped it at him, causing him to block it with his rifle, causing it to get stuck in it, breaking it.

"FRAG!" Siren yelled as he pulled the machete out and swiped again. This time, Siren actually managed to duck under as he brought it down as he brought the sword down for him, which he rolled out of the way of. The large raider was frustrated as he turned to Siren, who had got out of his roll to glare at him. The raider didn't hesitate and rushed at the overseer and swiping at him, causing him to lunge back with each strike. On the fourth strike, he over swung and got it stuck in the fence. Siren immediately took advantage of this and jumped on him, separating him from the machete and bring both of them to the floor. He quickly brought two punches down on his face quickly, startling him before he realized what was going on before he used his superior size to throw him off into the wall of the shack and he got back up and shoulder rush him, crushing him against the wall. Siren gasped, but quickly recover by wrapping his arms around the raider's chest and kneeing him in the sides, causing him to give grunts in pain. He responding by grabbing a hold of his legs and flipping him over, causing Siren to land painfully on his back and making him groan in pain. The raider got his hands together and brought it down on Siren, who was unable to dodge it and it slammed into his chest, making him yell in pain as he got ready to do it again to his face.

*Crack*

A shot rung out and a bullet hit him in his side, making him recoil and duck, dodging another bullet that hit the wall harmlessly. Siren took advantage of this and grabbed his head before slamming it down on the ground, surprising the raider as he stumbled to the wall before collapsing to the side. With a solid opening, Siren got up and ran to the machete stuck in the fence and pulled to find it stuck real well. Siren let out a growl before pulling it even harder to dislodge it. He turned back to see the raider was up again and glaring at him. Rather than back away from someone with a blade, he rushed on over to get another hit in. Siren was prepare and effortlessly dodge his overhead strike. The raider turn back to strike again only to be met with his own machete lodging itself in his head from Siren's own overhead strike. Siren pulled back, the handle breaking off from the blade, leaving it stuck in the raider's head, who was left stumbling about with it cutting into one of his optics and his mouth making this odd gurgling sound that was like he was trying to scream. Siren looked at the raider in mild confusion before throwing the handle away and moving in to finish his suffering. He gave a kick to his thigh, sending him on his knees before he grabbed a hold of his head and drove him to the ground, sending the blade deeper into his head as well as sending the rest of the blade into his neck and chest, silencing the raider for good.

Siren exhale in relief at having finally finished him off and turned to Swindle aiming his gun at his general direction and Ratchet crouched down, still holding his shoulder. "I'M FINE! HE'S DEAD!"

"Yeah, but there's still the last guy in the shack," Swindle reminded him.

"OH!" Siren said as he looked back at the entrance. "RIGHT! YOU TAKE CARE OF THAT AND I'LL WATCH RATCHET! YOU CAN DO THAT RIGHT!?"

"Yeah, sure," he agreed and he went over to the door and took cover by the doorframe as Siren went on over to Ratchet. Swindle exhale to calm down before entering the room with his gun. In it was a small hallway with dried energon all over the hallway as well as a small trail of fresh energon leading to a door at the end of the hallway on the right side. There was a shelf on the left that held an odd assortment of items. Swindle felt unnerved at seeing all the dried energon in the room as he continued down the hall to the door, wondering why all of this was here. He reached the door and carefully cracked the door open. When nothing happened, he slowly looked inside and brought the door open all the way and almost immediately, he felt sick to his system. Around the room was dismembered bodies. Two were hung from the ceiling with hooks in various states of dismemberment, a few were pinned to the walls with nails, the most gruesome being one that was split open from the head down to the pelvic plate, showing his empty inside, a few were on the floor, dismembered except for one, and the last one was face down on a table with their back opened up and his spinal column pierced through the back of his head and slanted forward.

"Frag…," Swindle muttered as he walked around the room observing the bodies. He admits that he's some disgusting things in life, but nothing quite this. Evan watching gladiator matches to the death was far more humane than this. This was the work of some deranged serial killer. If this was the norm in what was left of society, he would gladly closed the vault door behind him. First the invaders of his vault and now this. The only hope he had for a sane society is with the people opposing the invaders in vault. So it was pretty slim chance of actually finding sane people. He walked around the room, taking note of the stench of death in the room, bodily energon mixing in with all the rust and grime. He walked past the blue-and-orange non-dismembered femme corpse and to a door at the back where the fresh energon trailed led under. The only place the last enemy could be on was here so he got a deep breath before he entered the room.

*Schtck*

"AH!" Swindle yelled as he felt a blade enter his right arm, making him drop his gun. He instinctively jumped and turned around with a outstretch fist to the face of the raider and startling her, sending her stumbling back to the table and accidently causing him to kick the gun to the wall. Swindle acted quickly, rushing over to the person and delivering two swift punches to her face followed one to her side, making the femme spit energon out of her mouth she duck the next one and quickly moved behind him and jumped on his, shocking her. Pretty soon, she grabbed the knife in his and grabbed it before jamming it in his right shoulder, eliciting a harsh yell. Swindle was moving around as she pulled it back out and ready to stab him in the head when Swindle and feel on his back, using it crush her. She gasped as Swindle rolled off and made a grab for the knife, taking hold of it and not letting go. She responded by wrapping her legs around him and pulling herself behind him as she brought the knife close to his neck. Swindle gasped as he saw the knife extremely close to his neck and he heard the femme chuckled maniacally as she was bringing it closer. Swindle freed one of his head and pushed against the femme's head, trying to find a way to get her off. Swindle looked around for anything that could help him and he noticed his gun by the wall. With his idea in mind, he did a head-butt to her chin using the top of his head, surprising her as he moved her arm away and rolled her off. As she got back up, Swindle lunged for the gun, grabbed it with his left hand, and pointed it at her to fire.

*Crack* *Crack*

Two shots came out and struck her in the chest, both near the spark, and stumble back, shocked at what happened before falling back to the table.

*Schtck*

She landed on the spinal column, piercing the back of her head and exiting through her mouth. She writhed around, gurgling, energon flowing out of her mouth and down her body, for a full minute before it waned and stopped after another minute, the light from her optics gone. Swindle gazed at her corpse in shock, the adrenaline rush going away. He had never been involve in fighting that brutal before and he never had to see the final results up close. He always watched them from the safety of the spectator's stand, never in person. He never quite imagine it being quite brutal.

Having partially process it, the pain in the left side of his bodies was coming out he started screaming in pain at it. He had already experienced a lot of abuse from the raider leader at the jail, but they never stab or shot him. He held a hand on the top of the shoulders to try and stop anymore bleeding as he got up. He still had to worry about the last guy in the last room. He may be injured, but the other guy was worst off. He hurried to the room and took cover by the doorframe. He took hold of the handle and opened the door before letting go, seeing if he was going to fire his gun at him. When nothing happened, he pushed door completely and nothing still happen. Confused, Swindle stuck his head inside to look around. Inside, he could see it was a bathroom with the sink and mirror cabinet in front of him and a bathtub to the left. To the left, he could see the person he was looking for laying in the rub, looking at him with dim green optics, and his arm hanging beside the tub with his gun in hand. Swindle stepped inside and kept the gun pointed at him as he got closer to examine him. The raider merely kept his optics on him and didn't bother to move his optics. When he got close enough, Swindle reached down and wrenched the gun out of his hand and threw it to the corner. With that done, the two looked at each other briefly before the raider. "So, which side?" he asked.

"Side?" Swindle asked, confused.

"Yes, your side, or are you *cough* freelance?" he asked him.

"I… don't quite get it. I'd just got out of the vault," he told him and at that, the raider stared at him with his mouth open before he started giving a hearty laugh at that and that slowly become ragged and he spit blood out of mouth.

"Hey, stay with me here! What's so funny?!" Swindle badgered him. The raider slowly stopped laughing before he gazed at him again with an odd smile.

"You're a vault-dweller? A fragging vault dweller! That's *cough* *cough* hilarious! How long?" he asked him.

"At around noon. We were attacked a few days ago and we've been looking for a way out," Swindle told him.

"Wow, you are amazingly out of the loop, here. Alright, since I'm going *cough* to bleed out here, I might as well tell you about it. You see, there are two feuding groups right. You got the locals, the Autobots, trying to prevent the other's group's expansion. The other group, the Decepticons, are from Kaon. They are a group that has *cough* *cough* been stretching itself thin for a while. They lost Kaon very recently and are hoping to make Iacon their new headquarter. Frankly, I hope both of them die. Makes life easier when there's no government around," he chuckled before he started coughing again.

"Yeah. No government makes it easier for you to indiscriminately kill everyone without anyone wanting to get you back for it," Swindle muttered.

"Look, frankly, I don't trust them. The Decepticons are an oppressive government led by Megatron. I wouldn't be able to *cough* get anything done with them at the helm. And the Autobots are composed of nothing but criminals at the higher ups with *cough* Optimus Prime at the lead. They were all vault-dwellers that were there because they were criminals. Murderers, thieves, and all kinds of other people. We don't take orders from vault-dwellers like you," he told him with a harsh smile.

"The person at out vault was named Megatron. They must be the Decepticons. Which means we might be able to get those Autobots to help, but they're all criminals. Way to make things complicated," Swindle muttered, looking aside, annoyed.

"Well, I gave you information. Can you go ahead and end my suffering?" he asked him. Swindle turned back to him, surprised.

"Come again?"

"You're not going to let me live. You've saw what we did. Might as well go ahead and put a bullet in me. Bullets hurt," he said, looking pain and Swindle noticed he was intaking at a faster rate. "Come on, do me a solid. The world sucks. I'm happy to just end it and I recommend you do it too. Nothing good would come from living," he told him with a sour tone. "I don't know how long it's been sense those damn bombs hit, but I'm fine with just ending it."

"If you insist," Swindle muttered as he pointed the gun at his head again. "Any last words?"

"Nah, just end it. It's time for me to go to the pits," he told him, looking away to the wall.

"Right," Swindle muttered as he pointed at his head. He took a deep intake as he prepared to shoot. Executing someone wasn't something he had done first hand and he turned away before he steadied himself, continuing to remind himself what he done in the previous room. The dismembered corpses, hung up the walls and the ceiling, the look of pain on their face as they died….

*Crack*

He fired a shot and he heard energon splattering the wall. He looked back to see the raider limped, his head on the bathtub's rim with a hole in his head and energon splattered behind him on the wall and rim, dripping down to the bottom of the tub and to the drainer. Swindle stared at it momentarily before making his way out, trying his best not to look at the corpses on his way out. He made his way out of the room, through the hallway, and out of the room. Outside, he saw Ratchet resting on the wall next to the door, looking fine, while Siren was walking over from the body at the rocks.

"YOU KILLED HIM!?" Siren asked him.

"Yeah, him and another femme who got the drop on me," he said, indicating his arms.

"RIGHT, RATCHET! FOUND SOME STIMPAKS ON THE BODY FOR US TO USE! HELP SWINDLE!" he told Ratchet.

"On it. Want me to go heal you in the shack?" Ratchet asked him.

"You don't want to go in there. Trust me," Swindle told him.

"Why?"

"These guys were sadists. There's bodies nailed to the walls and hung from the ceiling. It's a fragging slaughterhouse in there," he told them.

"Frag… should we still stay the night here?" Ratchet asked Siren.

OF COURSE! JUST… IS THERE A PLACE WE CAN SLEEP WITHOUT THE BODIES?!" Siren asked Swindle.

"The entrance hallway," Swindle told him as Ratchet used a stimpak to heal swindle's wound, "if you don't mind dried energon."

"Right… do they have a storage room?" Ratchet asked.

"Not that I can see," Swindle told him.

"Right, we'll take the beds in there and placed them in the entrance hallway. It'll help if we can find some things to decontaminate them," Ratchet said as he got done tending to Swindle. "Okay, you should be fine in a few minutes.

"Thanks. Also, the last guy gave me some information about the two groups," Swindle told them.

"YOU DID? WHAT WAS IT!?" Siren questioned him.

"Well, the ones who attack us are Decepticons, an oppressive regime from Kaon who are looking for a new place to settle led by Megatron, who we saw back at the vault, and the others they're feuding with are called the Autobots, locals who are vault-dwellers led by Optimus Prime that were picked because they were all criminals. Seriously, the people who can help us are a society composed of criminals. We're screwed whoever we deal with," Swindle told him.

"DAMMIT!" Siren yelled, pacing back and forth, thinking it through.

"Guess we'll have to hope the Autobots are a bunch of sensible criminals," Ratchet muttered.

"I guess so. They're out only hope," Swindle muttered. Siren kept pacing around as he thought it through before he stopped.

"YOU'RE RIGHT! FRAG!" Siren yelled.

"Well… want to head on inside?" Swindle asked them.

"Yeah, sure. Probably be best to get out and into cover," he told them.

"I don't mind. Let's go," he said, getting up and heading inside. Ratchet looked at Siren, who was watching the afternoon sun before turning to the door and heading inside, Ratchet following along. The two of them looked at the dirty hallway with the dried energon around the room.

"Geez. I already fell like I need a tetanus shot," Ratchet muttered as they walked around.

"Yeah, the other room is worse," he told them. "Do you really want to look inside?"

"Might as well get used to it. I imagine we'll be finding many violent places in the new world," Ratchet replied.

"Right," Swindle muttered as they reached the room and opened it, letting them look inside the room. Immediately, Ratchet and Siren's face scrunched up in disgust at looking at all the corpses around the room.

"Frag! You were severely understating how bad the room looks," Ratchet said, wrapping his arm around himself. "These people are psychopaths."

"THIS IS BAD! NOT THE MOST DISGUSTING THING, BUT IT'S UP THERE!" Siren said.

"I wonder what you've seen," Swindle muttered as he walked around to the front of the table with the femme he killed was at. "This was the raider that assaulted me when I was checking the room. She was playing dead," he told them, tapping her on the shoulder.

"So you impaled her through the mouth with a… spinal column?" Ratchet asked in disbelief.

"It was an accident. I shot her and she fell back on it. Trust me, I didn't expect that outcome either," he defended himself.

"Right. Accident. Of course," he muttered, walking around the room and noticed no beds in sight. "Seriously, no beds at all?" Ratchet asked.

"Doesn't look like it," Swindle acknowledged. "Guess we'll be sleeping on the floor. How grand."

"Great… might as well look around for anything we can use," he said, heading towards a dresser and looking inside the top drawer. "Aw, frag! What is this? Are they organs!?" he yelled, looking at what appeared to be various organs of a Cybertronian body before shutting it. "Frag!" he yelled, biting his hand.

"Right…," Swindle mumbled, looking around and finding a cabinet. He went on over and open it, revealing a torso of a corpse. "Slag!" Swindle yelled, holding a hand to his mouth as he looked more closely around the cabinet. He noticed a rifle with a strap behind the body and moved the torso around to get it and look at it. It was a long-barrel riffle composed of black metal and clear plastic to let him look inside, particularly at the clip, and had a stand to help it keep still at long range.

"WHAT IS IT!?" Siren asked.

"Amerlax-103. Hunting rifle. 9 chamber magazine holding .397 rounds. Prone to jamming in bad conditions. Can make reliable shots up to a thousand meters," Swindle answered for them as he took the clip out and looked at it. "Looks okay. A bit weathered, but it looks like it works fine. Got five bullets in it."

"Good to see you're well-versed in the instruments of war," Ratchet said. "I would be saying that sarcastically in other circumstances, but that's wonderful to know right now."

"Thanks," he muttered as he hoisted it on his back. "Tell me if you find any ammo."

"Will do," he said as he looked at the next drawer. "More organs and… here's a box of .397s," Ratchet said, picking up a stained box of them and throwing them to Swindle, who grabbed it and took a look at it.

"17 rounds. Good," Swindle said as he put it in subspace. The group continued to look around and after an hour, they found 28 more bullets for Swindle's rifle, 30 more bullets for the pistols, various drugs that Ratchet took with him as he thought he could do something with, and a few additional stimpaks. "Right, good haul," Swindle said as he looked at his Pipbot. "It'll be dusk soon. Shall we get ready to turn in for the night?" he told them.

"Probably a good idea," Ratchet agreed as they walked into the hallway and Ratchet and Siren took a seat next to each other while Swindle went to look outside. The place was getting dark, just as he thought, and he closed the door. Swindle walked on over to them and looked at the shelf. He looked in side of it and found a datapad hiding behind a bottle of turpentine.

"Well, now, what is this?" he asked as he took it and took a seat next to them. The three of them looked at it with each other.

We took another person from Swerve City (more like Swerve Warehouse) from up north past the mountain and we had fun with him on the table. Tiquera ripped out his spinal column and impaled him through the head with it. She's very brutal. I like it. I like her. I think she likes me too. Kind of makes me nervous. I didn't know I can feel this way considering how terrible the world is. I guess love will find a way.

"Swerve City?" Ratchet muttered. "Should we head on over there?"

"Might not be a bad idea," Swindle agreed. "Finding a civilize place would be wonderful." Siren nodded along with them.

"So, Swerve City. This will be fun."