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Worth It

It was dark, it was always dark. Every time I was ready to do anything important, the sun was down and there was never any sign of light. I would have to wait for sunrise or risk stepping on a landmine. I knew that no matter what I did, that madman in the old ruined building would begin to fire. He fired at me the last two times I attempted to rush him, forcing me to retreat back to Megaton to get healed up. I had stimpacks, but it was cheaper to just go back and rest up. The snipe wasn't going anywhere and I was in no rush. I would wait until sunrise, I don't need a crippled leg because I was too blind to see the small metal disks that littered the entire area.

I checked all of my equipment again. I had some combat armor I looted off of a few dead corpses, it wasn't much but it was the best I had. At least I had enough bottle caps to repair my assault rifle enough so I wouldn't waste hundreds of precious rounds on a rad roach. Repaired or not, I would need to close the distance between myself and the sniper. This gave him the advantage and he knew it. Luckily for me, he couldn't blow the cars I had mistaken for cover anymore, they were all burning wrecks that gave off a slight amount of radiation. Not a problem, Moira still had a radiation quest for me later so a bit of poisoning now wouldn't do any harm.

I peeked around the old burned out house I had been hiding in. The town looked peaceful, there were no annoying radscorpions. I was unfortunate enough to run into an albino one over by the main D.C metropolitan area and let me tell you, 5.56 rounds do nothing. I barely got away with my life. A soon as I got my hands on some mini nukes or a gatling gun, I would show it. Not now though, I needed to clear out the town.

I actually didn't need to clear it out. Moira just wanted me to get to the center and report back on how I did it. Her and her survival book were going to get me killed. The supermarket wasn't a pleasant experience. I had just escaped Vault 101 and was eager to go out into the world, Moira was kind enough to give me my first quest. Seemed easy enough, get some food and if I could, medicine from the supermarket nearby. How hard could it have been?

It turned into a nightmare quite fast. All I had at the time was some vault security armor, a half broken 10mm pistol and a baseball bat. Sure, this equipment did wonders against radroaches and the previous owners of the armor, but not much against hordes of scantily dressed raiders. For some reason, even though we were indoors, they had this obsession with throwing grenades over aisle after aisle of overturned shelves to get to me. I ended up stalking around the ruined store, hunting them down one by one. Being as inexperienced as I was, even this tactic was barely effective. The movies lied, one swift hit to the back of the head doesn't knock people out, it just pisses them off. By the time I had found the food and medicine, I was nearly dead and a shotgun blast at point blank range managed to cripple my left arm.

Now here I was, at the whim of some overly joyous merchant, I was going to try to get into Minefield a third time. The sun was finally up and I could see the building the sniper was hiding in. As soon as I stepped out from the house, he would begin to throw out insults and the lead would be coming my way. There was no point in sneaking, it didn't work last time, it wouldn't work now. I was planning on just bum rushing him, taking the path I took previously, straight and true. There weren't as many mines this way, I had managed to step on quite a few. I had my stimpacks ready as well, no going back this time. I was committed to finishing everything today.

"Now or never." I told myself. I rushed out of the house and made a beeline for the old concrete building on the far side of the town. I made sure to keep an eye out for any mines. Just one or two blasts would cripple me and leave me limping for the sniper to blow my head off.

I was surprised when I made it half way with no incident. I saw a few mines and jogged around them. I was delighted to reach the playground as per the instructions for my quest. If I wanted to, I could go back. Yeah right. This man was going to die for all of the suffering he caused me.

BOOM

Turns out I was next to a mine. Within the blast radius, but far enough away for it to not start beeping. The madman shot it, I didn't know he could do that. Now I was paying for it. I ran out of the explosion with a bit of damage, not as much as if I had stepped on it, but enough to scare the shit out of me. I heard a few rounds zip past me and I began to bob and weave, making myself a difficult target for him.

Almost there, almost there. The thought raced through my mind. Another blast rocked me from the left. It was something out of World War 2, rushing through and open field under fire, only if I had a battalion of Russians behind me. A bullet hit me square in the chest and some blood spattered in my eyes from it, quickly bringing me back into the real world. I took a stimpack to keep me going and even a med-x. Should have done that earlier, but oh well.

I could see him now prancing around his little platform among the rubble, taking pot shots. Who did he think he was? I was just some normal guy who just needed to get to the playground. It wasn't like there were any children around for me to kidnap or anything like that. There was no reason to shoot me and yet nearly everyone I did meet up with did shoot me.

I pulled out the assault rifle that was strapped across my back and fired a few rounds at him. They missed, either out of range or just the result of my bad aim. Probably the latter. He kept shooting at me, hitting me a few more times and forcing me to take even more stimpacks. The med-x was doing wonders and I was still in one piece. Snipers were good at long range, but under close fire, they would crumple. I would get in his face and blow it off.

I dashed into the rubble of the building and hid under the platform he had roosted on. I couldn't see him anymore, but I knew he was still up there. His ramblings about how he was going to shoot and kill me filtered down to me. Heh, we'll see about who does the shooting and dying.

I checked my pipboy 3000. I was down to 3 stimpacks and my left leg was not doing well. As long as he didn't one shot me, me and 245 rounds of ammunition should kill him before he kills me.

Crouching down brought up the [DANGER] indicator. "Damn." I muttered. There was no chance of getting the drop on him. Of course he saw me, I just spent the last thirty seconds running and shooting at him. Then I remembered, I had some grenades from the supermarket. They would do just nicely.

I put away my gun and pulled out the frag grenades and began to cook them. Stepping back into his sight, I lobbed the first one and was blessed with the sight of it smacking him right in the face. He instinctively began o run, but it was too late. It went off, but I didn't see what happened as I switched back to my gun and ran back into the rubble, determined to kill him with a hail of bullets. I ran up the ramp and quickly turned to face where I knew he was.

We stared at each other for a second like two western gunmen at noon. That didn't last long, soon we were running in circles around each other, bullets flying everywhere. He managed to him me once, until he succumbed to my higher rate of fire. His body went limp and crumpled into a heap on the ground. I walked over to him and immediately felt a bit guilty.

He wasn't some armored super sniper clad in armor like I had expected. He was an old man in nothing but simple dirty garbs with a sniper rifle that was leaning against his head.

Not wanting to stick around and contemplate what I had done, I looted his rifle, some ammunition and a key that I didn't really care for at the moment. Hardly a great haul since I had spent approximately 400 caps in supplies and preparation. The sniper rifle might as well have been held together with duct tape, a few shots and it would break.

I decided that I might go to the scrapyard I had passed while getting here. I hadn't investigated before, not being interested in it, but now would be a good time since it was fairly close. I didn't expect any trouble getting there since I had killed all of the bloatflies and molerats along the way. Being a scrapyard, there was sure to be some kind of loot to help compensate me for my hard work.

I arrived at the scrapyard around noon and immediately began to scour it for all of its treasures. I quickly found some stimpacks in the dumpster near a shack that required a key to get into. Who would throw those away? There were various miscellaneous items scattered about that I would sell the Moira later and the day was beginning to look better. That thought was crushed at the sound of fighting nearby. Of course, there was always people around who wanted someone else dead.

Curiosity got the better of me and I navigated the maze of junk, heading towards the sound of conflict which had died out only seconds after I heard it. I pulled out my 'new' sniper rifle and rounded a corner, only to see a dog surrounded by several dead raiders.

The dog spotted me and I was ready for a fight, but it didn't go hostile like anything else in the Wasteland would. Instead it walked up to me and whimpered.

"What's the matter boy? Lose your master?" I asked him.

He seemed to understand and barked twice in reply.

"You're pretty friendly, aren't you, boy?"

Some more barks in reply got my spirits up.

"Want to come with me? It's dangerous out here all alone."

A few more barks and all of the sudden, I was convinced. This little trip was worth it.