Tonight was more fun than a clown on fire in a fireworks factory.

There are so few perfect moments in life, and part of me wished I had brought Xao and Heather, but I knew it would be best to leave them behind on this one. Glory is already somewhat invisible and has established her life as eternal fugitive from the Institute. Xao and Heather were travelling companions and I am pretty damn sure that with three of us, something would be recognized at some point in the future and cause all kinds of mayhem. It took some doing, but I managed to convince them that Glory was the right choice for what I wanted to do. Surprisingly, Xao made a bigger deal of it than Heather, so I just dealt with it.

I damn near laughed my ass off when I found out that name of the bar was "The Combat Zone." I couldn't think of anything more appropriate. I got word out to Glory the night before and didn't even need to wait til sunrise for an answer. She showed up in the skin tight leathers, white hair spiked up, her mini-gun in a duffle and a smile at about 3am. I gave her a quick overview of what I had in mind and was glad to see that she was all in and quite enthusiastic. Apparently she had a run in or two with the Gunners and was not a big fan. Once she was up to speed, I headed to bed for some sleep time and watched as my three friends walked out the door to eat noodles and talk shit. Taking a deep breath upon the realization that I was completely alone for the first time in days and could actually sleep without feeling another person nearby, I could feel the sleep come rushing at me from behind whatever it was hiding behind... then Dog jumped on the bed, licked my face twice, circled around twice for his own reasons, laid down, and rested his head on my chest, staring at me with those big brown eyes...

"What?"

Whimper.

"Oh for fuck sake..." I don't know how long I was scratching him behind his ears before I fell asleep, but it was apparently long enough.

I was woke up around 7p by having a bowl of to-go noodles shoved unceremoniously under my nose. I grabbed them and downed them with mild irritation, but that was due to my being a real dickhead when I can't just sleep until my body wakes me. Apparently Glory and Heather took an "extended walk" and not only located "The Combat Zone" and even went in and had a drink. Before I could voice any protests, Glory started to explain the layout of the bar, including the location of high ground and where the cage was. Her description was so detailed I could have walked through the place with the lights out and not trip over a single table. I started to open my mouth, and it was Heather's turn to shut me down by telling me that she wasn't going with us, and just wanted to check out the cage fighting.

The main attraction was apparently a woman about the same size as Heather that she described as an "Irish dyke" that had 100+ victories in the cage. From her description, I had the feeling that the fighter was a wildcat, but wouldn't pose any additional threat. What was it with this place? The most competent killers I have come across so far have all been woman...

We were all set to go by 9p. I had my usual barny badass rig on, but in addition to the Rsh, I brought along a knife, a sawed off semiautomatic shotgun, a fully automatic pre-war Galil 7.62mm full auto assault rifle, and a few flash bangs. Glory looked insanely dangerous... Even though her minigun was packed away in the duffle, she was carrying her Magnum strapped to her right thigh, and a fucking sword dangled from the left side of her belt... What made her scary was the makeup job that Heather gave her... Shock white hair spiked to the limit, a intense white face, blood red lips, and a streak of what looked like black spray paint from ear to ear and across her eyes.

"Looking for attention much?" I smirked.

"Fuck you." She gave an evil smile. "I want to be part of the legend..."

"Fair enough.."

We headed out for "The Combat Zone" right around 9:30. It was a surprisingly easy and brisk walk until we got to within two blocks of our destination. As we turned down the last intersecting street, we were met by a brute of a fellow, easily 6'4" and weighing in around 270.

"Where you kids heading?" The dead man asked.

"Combat Zone." The flat response came out of Glory before I could respond.

"Good.. Good... That'll be a 50 cap entry fee."

"Got it right here for you..." Glory said this a split second before the sword flicked up and opened the guy from nuts to neck. Not even a gurgle.

"Jesus fuck, woman!" I chuckled.

"Jealous I gt the first kill?" She responded with a wink.

"You, shush..."

We walked until we turned onto the street leading to "The Combat Zone" without incident. There were two "Gunners" at the doors.

"Fuck off, mask boy." The bigger of the two said gruffly to me.

"Aw, c'mon sexy..." Glory got close to the smaller of the two... "We just wanted a couple of drinks.."

"Private party... What part of fuck off don't you understand, bitch?"

Oh no, he didn't...

"What was that?" Glory responded with a twinkle in her eye.

"I said.." That was all he managed to get out before she punched him square in the balls.

The big guy turned to respond to her, but failed to notice the Rsh move up to his head until about a tenth of a second before I pulled the trigger. His facial expression was priceless, even as half of it was ripped off as his head exploded onto his friend.

Glory shoved a stiletto heel into the little guys stomach and leaned into him, piercing into his abdominal cavity, an grinned again...

"Yeah, I know fuckhead... We are the goddamn entertainment." She said sweetly, right before she pulled out her hog iron, smiled and blew half of his foot off. "Now, crawl along and get that looked at before it gets infected.." Then she kicked the door in, catching even me by surprise. Even more shocking was that the entrance was empty with the sounds of a fight echoing from the other side of the door. I noticed the little guy crawling off down the street.

"Were you going to finish him?"

"Naw... We are going to need a survivor to spread the word... We will be done before he even reaches help..."

"Nice." Ruthless and effective... I liked it.

Glory looked around the deserted lobby.

"Well, fuck... This is anti-climactic..."

We moved to the door and I cracked it open to get a head count.

"20 or 30... hard to tell.." I whispered. I heard rustling behind me. Turning to look, I watched as she pulled her minigun from the duffle. I couldn't help smiling.

"Just remember..." she huffed as she put the harness on, "We are even at one to one... try to keep count."

"Sure thing..." We locked eyes... "I'll go left, you go right?" She nodded.

"Right after I gave my little speech..." Before I could say a damn thing, she kicked the door of the fucking hinges. I watched as it tumbled down the center aisle and every head in the place turned to look at us. She stepped in front and yelled at the top of her lungs...

"Come get your 5,000 caps, you fucking bitches!" and then she opened up with the minigun.

It looked like every chair in the place exploded in pink splinters. She started to make her way to the balcony as I started to make my way to the bar.

"5!" she shouted as she continued to remodel the place.

"Not fair!" I shouted back as I dropped my first with a three round burst to the head. "You didn't say go!" I dropped 2 more. "3!"

"I thought it was pretty fucking obvious!" She shouted back. "Bar!"

I turned and dropped the bartender who wad just popped up with a sawed off shotgun with a full auto burst to the face. Bitch, please.

"5!"

"Good boy! Can I start killing motherfuckers again?"

"Be my guest!" I shouted back.

I dropped the assault rifle - it was cramping my style. I could here the minigun spewing death across the room. As I turned to check Glory, I saw motion to my left, whirled and found the barrel of my gun pressed against a surprised Gunner's chest.

"Sucks to be you." Trigger pull... next!

I felt the impact of a round hit my left shoulder with a hard enough force that it made me drop the shotgun. I spun pulling the Rsh out at the same time to face my attacker, who happened to have a look of complete surprise on his face. He fired again, hitting me square in the chest, knocking me backwards over a table. I heard him yell.

"Yeah! You ain't so bad asshole!" He didn't know I was wearing 3 fucking layers of armor...

I slowly got to my feet and faced him.

"What the fuck!?" He screamed so loud as he started to raise him weapon, I heard his voice go hoarse.

"Motherfucker!" I screamed it at the top of my lungs and time stopped. Full on adrenaline rush.

Round one - left shoulder. Spun him around.

Round two - back of left knee. Spun him to the ground.

Round three - Gut shot. He looked like a fish out of water, bleeding from its mouth.

I couldn't hear anything... the world had gone silent. This was my zen... This was my Satori. Flashes of light in my peripheral vision reminded me that Glory was there. The count no longer mattered to me... I removed my mask and looked into this asshole's eyes and watched him die, staring at me with incomprehensible terror. He was going to be my message... and I had a wire cage as a canvas.

Movement to my right broke my reverie.

Round four - head shot.

Round five - head shot.

I became aware of someone behind me, and gripped the handle of my knife.

"Easy there big boy..." It was Glory. She let out another burst from her minigun. "Where did you go big fella?"

"Remember Vault 111?" I asked as I reloaded the Rsh.

"Yeah.." Another burst.

"Same house..." I shot a gunner in the head. "Different room."

"You'll have to tell me about that some time..."

"Later..." Another shot, another dead gunner.

"I think that was the last one..." We looked around and saw zero movement... It was completely quiet... For about 2 seconds.

"Oh what the fuck!? Are you two done killing my customers?!" A voice echoed from a dark corner of the cage.

"Shut up you old bastard!" A female voice with a thick Irish accent sounded off. "That was fucking magic!"

We slowly walked towards the cage weapons pointed down, but ready.

"Is there going to be trouble?" I asked.

"Hell no, not from me, for fuck sake..." the voice came from a fairly well dressed ghoul. "The gunners may be a different story.."

I took the mask off again. "Well, they started it..."

"Oh shit..." I am not sure if ghouls can turn pale, but I am pretty sure he did. "Your HIM."

"Yeah..." I shrugged.

"Hey..." He suddenly said, slyly. "I have a proposition for you..."

I will have to finish this in the morning... The adrenaline is wearing off and I am crashing, hardcore... I am sore... and I have to figure out where the hell I am going to put another fucking person in my "refuge".

Fuck...