Chapter 1: Reborn & Initial Planning

"Fuck man, another shit day at work." I thought aloud grumpily as I came through the front door of my home.

Haaa, I hope they lessen my increased workload sometime soon otherwise I'm gonna have to find another job in a moment here...

No point thinking about it anymore. I'll just see how things go the next two weeks before I make my decision. At least it's Friday, so I have the rest of the night to do as I please, not to mention the weekend I have to look forward to.

Throwing thoughts of work to the back of my mind, I headed off down to my basement to workout. For the next hour and a half, I went through my routine starting off with quite a few sets with my curl bar loaded with 182 pounds on it followed by some weighted dips, bent over rows, shrugs with a couple of 50-pound dumbbells. And finished it off with 3 plates on the bench before I decided to call it quits for the day.

Damn, I've been making gains lately. That dbol sure is making a difference. I've added around 2 inches to my arms and increased my weight by 25 pounds since I started it. But I am getting a bit bloated, so I probably won't run this drug for too much longer since it is liver toxic as well.

I thought to myself after feeling the great pump I got in a large portion of my upper body.

*Growl*

It do be about that time. Guess I'll go whip up some dinner to fuel my gains. Burgers sound pretty appetizing right about now, so it looks like I'll be firing up the grill. Gotta feed the muscles if I want to continue making gains.

Returning upstairs, I gathered the ingredients I needed and spent the following 20 minutes preparing my meal. When I eventually had it all ready, I went and sat down at my PC to watch some YouTube while I hoovered up the dinner I had made for myself in half the time I took to prepare it.

Damn, those were a good couple of burgers. I didn't even get to finish watching my video.

Well, whatever I'll finish later, it's time I got a bit gaming since it's been quite a while since I've last booted a game up. Mostly due to me being on a reading binge as of late and increased work hours, so it's time I got into a game once again. As for what sort of game, I'll see once I open Steam.

Starting steam up, I waited the couple of seconds it required before exploring my library of games in search of tonight's entertainment.

Hmm, I haven't played Fallout in a while and I kinda want to roam around the wastes in power armor while gunning down super mutants with a minigun. I've also yet to play that mod A Tale of Two Wastelands and this is as good a time as any to do so.

So that's what I proceeded to do.

...

It took a bit, but I eventually set up the mod A Tale of Two Wastelands. With the main mod installed, I went on to install a long mod list before I felt I could finally begin my wasteland adventure.

There shall be no sleep, only fallout. 

I thought to myself as I started the mod up and watched the intro to Fallout 3. 

"Ahh, the intro gets me every time."

I thought aloud while the music was playing and I started reminiscing about all the hours I dumped into this game as a kid back when all I had was a Xbox 360 along with no worries and responsibilities. 

Those were the days.

Quickly leaving the main menu behind after some nostalgia, I went through the whole character creation process and made a white male character similar to myself with very dark brown short hair, nearly black in color and blue eyes. My character made in my own image or as close as I could get it, I blew through the whole baby phase, distributed my special points, and whatnot. From there, I speedily ran the vault 101 section of the game and made my way out into the capital wasteland in record time.

...

Many hours of Fallout gameplay later, I'm level 25, have a full suit of power armor, and got my unique minigun Eugene. Shit, I got a lot done over this all-nighter gaming session I pulled.

As I was beginning to save my game and call things a night because of the sun peaking through my blinds, my head began to throb. Thinking nothing of it initially, I saved my game and got up from my desk. The moment I had done that, the throbbing ramped up, almost causing me to stumble.

Beginning to feel an onset of pain on top of the rapidly increasing throbbing that felt as if it could make me pass out any moment now, I tried rushing for my phone to dial 911. However, before I could near my cellphone on my night stand the lights shut off and my vision went black, as did my consciousness.

God knows when I started to wake after an indeterminate amount of time. As soon as I had gotten through my groggy state and regained full awareness, I instantly felt odd.

My head is kinda fuzzy, I wonder why.

I thought as I quickly began remembering the events that had occurred prior to me blacking out. Aware of what had happened previously and lucky to not be dead, I looked around my surroundings to see where I was. Unfortunately for me, everything appeared to be as black as ink.

I'm not dead luckily, but this might not be so good either. I can't make out a single thing in this pitch black. It's also hard to move any of my limbs and my neck for some reason. 

Well, this can't possibly be good. I might end up being a vegetable for the rest of my life at this rate.

With nothing to do, I sat... laid... or whatever position I was currently in, waiting for something to happen. As more and more time passed, I eventually took notice of a weird pulsing sound that I never recall hearing in my entire stint here. Later, I also started to feel something tugging on my legs.

Then, after a while, I noticed I was moving and before I knew it; I was popping out of whatever space I was being held in. The very instant I popped out, a blindingly bright white light unceremoniously greeted me.

Ahhhh, my eyes are burning. What the fuck is this.

After a few moments, my eyes adjusted to the brightness of the light. And as soon as they had, the world came into view, displaying a scene in front of me that seemed oddly familiar. Whilst I was taking this all in, my body began to act on its own by crying out.

*Waaaaah-waaaaaahhhhhhh-waaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh* 

"Let's see, are you a boy or a girl? It's a boy, a boy. We've got a son, Catherine, a beautiful, healthy baby boy."

Well, it would appear that I've somehow been reborn as a baby. Goodbye prior life. Hello whatever this is. 

"Huh, oh oh James, oh we did it. Huh, a son, huh, a beautiful son, huh." The woman who was my new mother said laboriously.

"You've got a bright future ahead of you, son. I'm sure of it."

"Look at you, look at you… Hi there. I'm your daddy, little guy daddy. You're gonna need a name, aren't you? Your mother and I have been talking. What do you think about Harold Todd Woods? That's a good name, don't you think? Fits you perfectly."

"Looks like they've finished the gene projection. Let's see what you'll look like when you're all grown up." The man I presumed to be my new father said before a gene projection screen moved towards my face.

When the piece of equipment stopped in front of me, time seemed to freeze. Thus, I took the unlimited amount of time I had at my disposal to gather my thoughts on the situation I found myself in.

Now that I've had a few moments to process what I believe to be going on, it would appear that I'm in the world of fallout. But in a not-so-bad position of my father being James, the doctor/scientist from Fallout 3 and in this case. And seeing how I get to keep my name from my last life, that would make his name James Woods, not sure what his middle name would be, but I bet I'll learn of it, eventually.

Moving on from that thought. I guess I should start to plan out what I'm going to do in the future, because I'm in a world where a good portion of the planet has been reduced to ash and nuclear wastelands with almost everything out to kill you and rip your face off.

Hmm, let me think, there isn't much point thinking super far out right now. That said, I can at the very least plan out my childhood and what I should take advantage of since my childhood will be myself and my new dad living in vault 101 in relative safety.

With that being the case, there are few opportunities I can take advantage of, such as working on my body to increase my physical attributes. And developing my knowledge, which should transfer over to most skills such as bartering, energy weapons, explosives, guns, lockpicking, medicine, repair, science, sneaking, speech, survival, and unarmed. There may be even more skills than that, that currently I'm unaware now that this isn't a game anymore, but those are the ones I'm aware of at this time.

It would also be worthwhile to invest the years ahead into making things I would need for my inevitable venture out into the wasteland. So it would be wise to prepare ranged weapons, ammo, armor, medical supplies, a durable melee weapon, a number of miscellaneous items for many situations, survival gear, and food that lasts for extended periods, to name a few.

I can also try to change the events that happened in vault 101 and use them to my advantage such as stopping/preventing the overseer from going on a murder-happy bender to shaping his daughter Amata and trying to place her in the overseer position to use as a puppet instead of myself. I could take the role myself, but I don't really want all that extra work. Or I can still just leave after I extracted all the benefits I can milk the vault for.

I think that's enough planning for now. Let me take a look at the screen that's been sitting in front of my face this entire time.

Throwing further planning for future me to contemplate about, I checked the gene projection out. Upon doing so I discovered it appeared to have defaulted to the character I made last night. In addition to that, I found this gene projector had several additional options to use from the original.

Ohh, there are even options to change everything from my max height to the length/girth of my dong, sweet.

After a bit more scrolling through the options, I came across something incredibly useful towards the bottom of the selection. 

Oh, and what is this, I even have traits I can pick from as well. Fuck yeah, that is actually huge.

Let's see what options I got.

Traits

2 Points Left

| Bloody Mess | +10% damage and your enemies die more violently.

| Bruiser | Strength is increased by 2 points and 2 agility is lost. The 2 S.P.E.C.I.A.L. points gained by this trait can be used on any S.P.E.C.I.A.L. stat, similar to Small Frame and Gifted.

| Built to Destroy | All weapons have an increased chance to cause a Critical Hit, but at the cost of more frequent maintenance.

| Chem Reliant | This trait will double the character's chances of getting addicted to any chem, but it also gives them faster recovery from the side effects.

| Chem Resistant | The effect duration and addiction chance of chems are halved.

| Claustrophobia | When outside you gain +1 to all S.P.E.C.I.A.L.s but when indoors, you suffer -1 to all S.P.E.C.I.A.L.s.

| Early Bird | +2 to all S.P.E.C.I.A.L.s from 6 am to 12 pm but -1 to them from 6 pm to 6 am

| Fast Metabolism | +2 Healing Rate.

| Fast Shot | Fire rate +20%, stamina cost +20%, gun and energy weapon accuracy -20%.

| Finesse | Critical Chance is increased by 10%.

| Four Eyes | +2 Perception when wearing glasses.

| Gifted | +1 to all S.P.E.C.I.A.L.s however, all skills are reduced by 10%.

| Good Natured | Gain a 15% boost to all social skills and a 10% reduction to all combat skills.

| Heavy Handed | Melee and unarmed attacks deal 20% more damage.

| Hoarder | +25 carry weight but if the load you are carrying drops below 160 pounds, receive -1 to all S.P.E.C.I.A.L.s until you're back above 160 pounds.

| Hot Blooded | When your health drops below 50% you deal 15% more damage, but you also suffer a -2 perception and agility penalty.

| Jinxed | Higher chances that failures are critical for everyone around you.

| Kamikaze | Deal 25% more damage at the cost of having no natural damage threshold or damage resistance.

| Logan's Loophole | Chems last twice as long and remove the possibility of becoming addicted, but you can't pass level 30.

| Loose Cannon | This trait increases your throwing speed of weapons by 30% and reduces your stamina costs by 30% as well. However, you lose 25% thrown weapon velocity, shortening the distance from which you can hit a target.

| Night Person | Receive a -1 modifier to both intelligence and perception between the hours of 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM. But get a +1 modifier to those same S.P.E.C.I.A.L.s from the hours of 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM.

| One Hander | -40% Accuracy penalty with two-handed weapons and a +20% accuracy bonus with one handed weapons.

| Sex Appeal | This trait improves reaction towards you by members of the fairer sex as well as increases sexual prowess. Also upgrades your trading skills when bartering with female merchants.

| Skilled | You gain +10% to all skills, but you gain 10% fewer experience points.

| Small Frame | +1 Agility but reduces carry weight by 25 and increases limb damage received by 25%.

| Take Another | Let's you take another trait at the cost of 1 special point. Doesn't cost a trait point.

| Trigger Discipline | Guns and energy weapons have reduced sway, increased accuracy, reduced rate of fire, and increased stamina cost by 20%.

| Wild Wasteland | You will encounter oddities and strange events frequently.

I have quite a few options to choose from. However, there are some obvious traits that provide significantly more benefits compared to others, such as Gifted, for instance. That sole trait awards a +7 to special points for a miniscule -10% to skills which can be converted to a -10% experience points gained instead with Skilled. Something I'd rather deal with comparatively, and that negative 10% effect can be negated with 2 points of intelligence.

Going with those traits, they would come out to 2 points so far, meaning I'm left with zero trait points remaining. Though if I forgo a S.P.E.C.I.A.L. point, I can claim another trait with Take Another's help, but what would I use that point on... I can see sex appeal coming in handy quite often and because I'll be going to Megaton, the minute I leave the vault to stock up on supplies from Moira Brown and to get that free house I can probably get a decent discount out of her.

Not too bad of an idea. I'll go with those traits.

Okay, with traits out of the way, let's go back to customizing what I'll look like in the future. I'm pretty satisfied with my appearance, so I'll leave my main features mostly unchanged and will set my max height at 6 foot 6 inches. As for my dong, I never had complaints in that department, thus I'll leave that alone too.

I gave everything a once over and selected complete resuming time.

"You're going to look a lot like your dad."

Nope.

"See that Catherine?"

"Ohhh…. Very strapping… Ha Ha Ha…"

"It's a big world out there, son, full of all sorts of people. What about you? What kind of person are you going to be?"

"James?"

"Catherine!"

"James…"

"Catherine!"

"Something's… *Hah* Something's not…"

"She's in cardiac arrest. Start compressions! Get the baby out of here! Move, move!"

No change there, it seems, not like there is really anything I can do to help since I'm a baby. I also have no medical knowledge or any experience in that particular field to speak of, so there's that as well. But it would have been nice to have both of them together as my parents.

"One, one thousand. Two, one thousand… Come on!"

Feeling kinda tired right about now, I began dozing off into the land of dreams as I was being brought away by one of the scientists working on project purity with my parents. A few seconds later, my vision darkened from not being able to keep my eyes open any longer.

Well, off I go to who knows where, hopefully Rivet City and then to vault 101 later on.

------

The writing is kind of a mess, so it's going to take some time to clean it all up and get back to where we were.

Also, if you guys encounter any issues or have a suggestion that will improve my writing, let me know so I can fix them and improve the fic. Thanks.