8 Chapter 7: Pest Extermination

For a few hours Jayson slept as his body rested from being irradiated and from the extensive tests from Moira. After he woke up, Jayson met up with Moira near the front of the store as they went over a few more things. In their discussion, while getting paid in a lot of Rad-Away/Rad-X, she also revealed about the fact that she accidentally caused a minor mutation due to her experimental treatment. She profusely apologized for, in her own words, "twisting his DNA like a kitten with a ball of yarn".

Jayson wasn't really fazed by the news since he already knew about the mutation from the perk he acquired a bit ago and from the knowledge he has from the game. So, after accepting the payment and saying that everything's alright, Jayson bid farewell and left the store. Before he did, he also told Moira that he'll be taking a bit off from researching and that he'll come back and continue a few days from now.

After that whole debacle, he leaned against the railing of the platform outside of Craterside Supply and looked across the bustle of Megaton once again; closing his eyes and enjoying the ambience for a bit.

The rest of the day had Jayson traveling around town, talking to the locals, getting to know the layout better, selling off some of the meat and materials he got from his butchering of the Radroach and Molerats he did yesterday to some traders, stocked up on a few extra materials/resources, and overall just spent a relaxing and slow day after becoming irradiated and his body mutating.

With the sun barely rising over the horizon on the day after, Jayson could be seen in his house in Megaton eating a quick breakfast and double-checking through his Pip-boy's inventory and himself to see if he has everything. Today's finally the time to go back out in the wastes after arriving in Megaton. Specifically, the nearby ruins of Springvale as he decided to deal with the band of Raiders holed up there.

Springvale was a small town back before the war but is now just a collection of cleaned out skeletons of houses and other buildings. Since it's so close to Megaton, and since a group of Raiders use the ruins of an elementary school nearby as a base, most of the valuable stuff have been looted and scavenged a while ago by the two groups; also from wandering travelers, scavengers and traders as they passed by.

After socializing a bit with the residents of Megaton yesterday, Jayson was able to piece together the situation with the Raiders. They use the previously mentioned school as a base and have a few rare patrols wandering through the ruins of Springvale and the surrounding wastes for any wastelander, trader, caravan or anyone/anything else to pillage and steal from. The Raiders do try to attack Megaton every once in a while but they never really pose much of a threat. After talking to the sheriff and some of the guards, Jayson finds out that they are really more of a pest than any real threat. They can deal with the occasional attacks every so often but that's just because of Megaton's walls. They themselves don't really have the manpower to go and exterminate the Raiders from Springvale. Well, they actually do but they would loose a lot of people doing so. That's why they haven't gotten rid of them yet; too big of a price to pay.

Before Jayson went out, he organized up his inventory, took out anything he won't be needing since it'll literally weigh him down, and also organized the stuff out of his inventory as well. Specifically, he hung up his pristine Vault 101 suit, the Vault 101 Mechanics suit, Butch's Tunnel Snake Jacket, and the Armoured Vault 101 suit he got from Moira up on the walls inside of his house.

He's still wearing the leather armour he found when he left the vault since out of all his outfits, it's the one with the best protection. He also personally doesn't see himself wearing the other outfits at all, since they're not really his style, but he can't bring himself to getting rid of them. He, just like in his past life, is a collector. He personally wants to collect as much unique weapons and outfits/armours throughout the wastes as possible. He only got rid of the other two vault 101 suits because he already has one (One that's in a much better condition as well).

Outside of Megaton, in the light of the rising sun, the outer gates grinded open upwards at an angle with a loud screeching. Walking into the brown wastes out of Megaton is a young man with brown slightly long hair pushed behind his ears that's wearing scuffed leather armour, a Pipboy on his left arm, a sniper rifle hanging from his back and a 10mm pistol holstered on his waist. The young man, Jayson, breathed in the dusty air as he headed back off into the the rolling fields of brown dirt, grey rocks and blackened husks of trees known as the Capital Wasteland.

A few hours later, in the sprawling ruins of what used to be the town of Springvale, Jayson could be seen crouched slightly low and quickly travelling from place to place while constantly checking his surroundings. Eventually he heard a few faint sounds in the distance and started to, as quietly as he could, head off into that direction.

After crouching low behind a small boulder on a little overlook, he spotted the source of the sounds; that being a small group of three Raiders walking in the distance between skeletons of old pre-war houses. Quickly checking over his sniper rifle, he gently places it on-top of the rock and peered through the scope. The Elementary School the raiders are holed up in is his goal, but before he can clear that out, he's going to need to eliminate all of the patrols and any other raiders from the surroundings first.

As he peered down his scope and locked onto a target, his hands started to shake a little. Killing the Radroaches and Molerats before didn't bother him, but another human was where he started to hesitate. He took a deep breath and then closed his eyes. 'they're not humans, they're pests and a plague on the wastes'. As Jayson opened his eyes again, they were cold and lifeless as his hands stilled. 'Pests need to be exterminated.'

Jayson peered through the scope once again at the three Raiders that are a bit off into the distance. Aiming at the one on the far left, Jayson briefly felt the air and wind around him and calculated the rough distance in his mind. Adjusting his aim slightly, time almost paused for a second as his finger squeezed down on the trigger.

The bullet propelled through the air, flying straight at his target. Following a very slight arc through the air, it slowly got closer and closer to the raider on the left as he was in mid yawn. Before the raider could even finish his wide yawn though, the bullet found its home right in the side of his head. He crumpled to the floor like a puppet with his strings cut.

The other two Raiders were chatting together until they heard a loud gunshot in the distance and a thump of something hitting the ground behind them. Both of them turned around to see what it was but only one of them saw their dead comrade since the other dropped to the ground just like the first after another gunshot rang out. The last raider opened his eyes wide as he understood what's going on and in a stupid moment of panic just stood there like a dear caught in the headlights. Shortly after, they also crumpled to the ground as a third consecutive shot rang out in the emptiness of the wastes.

After consecutively putting the Raiders down with his sniper rifle, Jayson closed his eyes and took a deep breath. One of his special stats must be affecting his willpower or mental sturdiness, since after collecting his thoughts for a moment, he quickly buried the fact he killed another human deep into his mind.

After a small amount of time, Jayson opened his eyes again like nothing happened and smiled down at his rifle. With his 90 Small Guns skill, and two tag skills being Small Guns and Sneak, made firing the sniper rifle one of the most satisfying things he has ever done. He checked over the rifle a bit and then put it back in his Pip-boy's inventory. He's going to save the rest of the bullets for the main group of Raiders; he wasted three bullets here since he, honestly, just wanted to try out his new toy.

Pulling out his 10mm pistol, Jayson quickly leaves the area on light toes as he knew the sound of the gunshots revealed his location slightly. 'Best to keep moving'.

He also recorded the co-ordinates of the dead Raiders bodies in his pipboy so he can come back and loot them when he finishes up. He doesn't really want to waste time collecting the gear when other Raiders could come in on his location; better to do it when all of them are dead.

As the sun slowly drifted across the sky, gunshots could be heard throughout the ruins of Springvale. Some of the raiders travelling about even saw the dead bodies of their friends but none of them could go back to base and tell the main group, since they found themselves laying on the ground with a bullet in their head shortly after.

Jayson spent most of the daylight of the day traversing all throughout the ruins of the town and backtracking to make complete sure he got all the patrols and other Raiders that could be found throughout the ruins. He also liberally used his 10 Perception to track and locate his targets. His 10 Agility and 48 Stealth were also used as he snuck up behind them and fired continuous shots from his 10mm pistol in the back of their heads. Even though he only had 48 Stealth, it proved enough as these Raiders were barely even paying attention to their surroundings; even though some of them were supposed to be patrols.

As the sun started to slowly lower in the sky and it started to darken, Jayson did his final sweep of the ruins and was positive he cleaned out the town of them, but then looked in the direction where the ruins of the elementary school is located. Jayson double-checked over his inventory and equipment as he steeled himself, 'it's time to clear out the main group'.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Keiran, the leader of the small group of Raiders at the Springvale Elementary School, was in the middle of yelling at a group of other Raiders as they started to make defensive measures inside the school. The first few gunshots coming from the Springvale ruins didn't alert him at all, since they were most likely from some of his friends shooting at something. After a while of the sounds of gunfire shots ringing throughout the ruins for the whole day, and with none of the patrols coming back, alerted Keiran as he knew that either a group or a sniper is slowly clearing them out and is heading for their main base.

This realization greatly angered Keiran, but he knew that the defences of the school is better than running out and being picked off; even though he really wants to go out and slaughter whoever thinks can mess with them.

Keiran and a bunch of the other Raiders started to get ready for the upcoming fight by checking over their weapons and setting up defensive barricades throughout the school. The school only has two entrances being the front double doors and a side door on the left of the school that leads from the basement to the left section where that side is blown off a bit and is exposed. Thinking about that area has him getting angry again as the Raiders lounging out over there brushed his warning aside saying "it's nothing". He would shoot them himself but instead just ignored them to set up the defences and prepare for who ever is eventually going to show.

Keiran smiled viciously. When he gets his hands on the group or sniper involved, he's going to impale them on spikes and display their whole bodies in front of their base for the world to see. Yelling out to the world to not mess with the Raiders of Springvale elementary.