Truth

For the last couple of years Aaron has been working with the VDF to protect the Vault. Even though they don't allow him to go to the surface that doesn't mean his job is completely peaceful. Vault 122 was built into a massive natural cavern nearly a mile underground.

The chamber the city is built in is the largest at around 500 feet (150 meters) tall and about 15 miles (24 kilometers) long at its widest point. Other than the main cavern there are still dozens of smaller interconnected caves hidden all over.

Aaron's job is to go around searching all of these caves for any unwanted guests and routes to the surface before destroying them. Being so deep underground you wouldn't think there would be many creatures who could find their way down here but, you would be wrong.

There were actually three types of animals that manage to sneak into the Vault on a regular basis. Namely Molerats, Giant Ants, and Radroaches.

The molerats and radroaches were the most common. They often set up nests beneath the Vault and come up to raid our crops. Common insecticides and poisons don't work well on mutated creatures like them and more drastic measures would be a very bad idea in the confined spaces of the Vault. So the only option left is to hunt them down by hand which is the Vault Defense Force's job.

Those pests aren't the real problem though as anyone with a pistol and decent aim can easily take out a whole pack of either. No the real problem is the Giant Ants. Even though they are no tougher than the average Molerat they are far deadlier.

Where molerat nests at most have a few hundred rats every Giant Ant colony has a minimum of tens of thousands of ants. When the first Ant colony found its way into the Vault they were completely unprepared. After only a couple day the ants had eaten nearly half the crops and killed thousands.

It was the worst disaster in the history of the Vault. It only ended when a group of brave soldiers fought their way into the nest and killed the Queen at the cost of their lives. Since then Vault 122 has significantly increased its military strength and vigilance so that if any Giant Ants appeared again they would not be caught off guard.

Aaron's job was to search through the miles and miles of sub caves to find any nests and to exterminate them. Originally he was assigned to work with Captain Tanner's team to clear the caves. However Aaron's cold and unfeeling face and the fact that he was not completely human things ended up quite tense.

Eventually it was decided that Aaron's strength was enough to clear the caves on his own and he was left to his own devices at the cost of having a tracker placed inside him to monitor his movements. Since then Aaron has killed thousands of Molerats and Radroaches over the years and has gotten the nick name Exterminator for his skill in killing and cold personality.

I wanted to go find Aaron and ask him to take me with him so that I could farm Exp. However after thinking about it more I realized that my Mother and Dante would never let me out of their sight anytime soon let alone for the nearly hours or days that my plan would require.

After seriously thinking about it I felt it was time to tell Dante the truth, or at least part of it. Over the years I had grown really attached to my new family maybe it was because I had the body of a child or maybe I was just too lonely in my past life but, I loved them and I didn't want to lie to them anymore.

I wouldn't tell them completely about my reincarnation, I would only tell them I had a strange power and some weird memories that weren't my own. I was a bit nervous but, I felt it was the right choice to get this out of the way as soon as possible. Unlike all those people in other transmigration stories that never tell anyone about it and end up getting in trouble over it.

That night at dinner after I finished eating I sighed and looked up at my family before I could say anything I was interrupted

"Daniel what's wrong you haven't look right all dinner" my Mom looked at me worriedly?

As expected of her to notice even the slightest thing wrong with me I laughed inside.

Taking a deep breath I replied "Actually I have something I have been meaning to tell you."

"What is it my Mom" asked looking at me worriedly as Dante also stopped chewing his food and also started staring.

Forcing myself to calm down I spoke "I don't know how it happened but, somehow I have these strange powers."

Before I could finish my sentence I was interrupted by the sound of breaking glass as both of them stood up in shock.

"You said that it was impossible" my Mom viciously glared at Dante.

"No I said it was nearly impossible" Dante shot back more than a little nervous as he knew how violent my mother could be while dangerous.

I was about to speak again but, was interrupted once more.

"Hold on Dan don't speak anymore" as he walked over to a painting that was hanging on the wall. Taking it down to reveal a small keypad he quickly typed in commands. Not long after the floor in the nearby living room started to slide apart revealing a dimly lit stairwell.

"What's going on" I ask "since when has that been there?"

"No talking" My Mom snapped "It's not safe to talk here."

She grabbed my arm and led me down the stairs follower by Dante. As they descended the door slowly slid shut behind them. The stairs led down to a small metal door with another keypad next to it. After typing in the code Dante open the door to reveal a massive lab.

It was different than the lab the Vault had given him to try and rebuild the Institutes Teleporter. Dante had told the Overseer that the Teleporter had been the result of decades of research and hundreds of people. He had told them it would take him at least ten years to be able to build a working prototype.

Even though he had told them that it was clearly a lie since there was a nearly finished one looming above him. It had a large triangle base with three curved spikes jutting up from the corners. They were connected at the top by a round plate that had what looked like a tesla coil sticking out from it.

There were parts and tools laying everywhere and it looked like It wasn't quite complete with pieces missing here and there.

"What's going on" I asked "I thought you said it would take years to rebuild the Teleporter."

"I lied" Dante sighed "The one I'm building for the Vault is the original design this one" he said while motioning to the Teleporter "is an improved version the Institute was working on before its collapse. I had to delay the building of the original because if it was built it would it would interfere with this one causing it to malfunction."

"Why do we need our own Teleporter" I asked?

"To escape" my mother chimed in while looking at me with sad eyes "We needed something from this Vault something we could not get anywhere else."

"What did you need" I asked feeling that everything was spinning out of control.

"Information" Dante replied "As you know me and your Mother weren't born in the Vault we came from somewhere else a place called the Institute."

I nodded in understanding.

"Well while we worked there we were asked by our superiors to start working on a very disgusting project. It was called the Dark Matter Initiative."

"Dark Matter" I questioned isn't that the stuff the Overseer asked you about when we moved into the Vault?"

"You can actually remember that far back" both of them started as Dante exclaimed in surprise. "Well I guess it isn't that surprising considering what you are."

"What I am" I asked starting to feel a bit uneasy.

"Yes Dan what you are" Dante sighed as my Mom burst into tears.

Dante continued as few small tears threatened to streaked down his face as well "The Dark Matter Initiative was a research program aimed at studying a strange form of theoretical energy called Dark Matter.

You see throughout human history there have been stories of people with extraordinary abilities. People like the demigods from Greek mythology or the witches during the middle ages. The Institute believed that these weren't mere works of fiction but, actual people with very real and very dangerous powers.

Why would we believe this you ask? Because there are actually people alive with these abilities right now. Through our monitoring of the country we found dozens of instances of such people. Some examples being the Beastlords of Chicago who have the power to control animals with their minds or the FEV created generals of the Master who had Pyrokinetic as well as Electrokinetic powers.

From documents that we discovered in abandoned military bases we discovered that the prewar government also knew of these peoples existence and was actively researching them. The found that the source of these peoples powers seemed to be a strange new type of energy leaking into our universe from another dimension they named it Dark Matter.

After knowing this the head of the Institute at the time chose to use this information to try and create a group of super soldiers. However to achieve this we needed test subjects, human test subjects. This was the time the Institute decided to kidnapping people and replacing them with synths.

This continued for years as the most secretive project in the Institute that only the most gifted scientists were allowed to know about. With a constant supply of fresh "materials" we made great progress but, soon we ran into a problem.

The Dark Matter is completely intangible to any machinery it passes right through metal and other inorganic substances like they aren't even there. Strangely the only things that can interact with this energy are living creatures. After thousands of trials we finally found a way to temporarily increase a person's absorption of the Dark Matter energy.

However even though after taking the drug test subjects were able to exhibit minimal psycho kinetic powers they all died soon after without any exceptions due to their brains being unable to handle the stress.

So we went in a different direction. If we couldn't make a drug to give people superpowers without side effects, then we would have to make people who could survive.

This is what I consider the darkest moment of the Institute even considering all the terrible things we had done before. We started stealing children and pregnant women to experiment on. As they were so young it was easy to change them as any modifications to their DNA would have time to be applied as they grew.

Sadly most of them did not survive, to my knowledge only a single child managed to survive the experimentation. It was a small embryo that we had taken from a dying woman we found in the wastes. When we found out that the embryo managed to survive the testing all of us were ecstatic however we needed a volunteer to be a surrogate mother so that the child could be born and."

"I volunteered" Maria jumped in as she sprinting up and tackling me in a hug.

I had no idea what to say, I was completely floored by this sudden flood of information my mind had literally short circuited and I couldn't think. The only thing on my mind was my Mother crying with me in her arms. I felt my eyes getting hot I couldn't hold back and squeezed my Mom as I joined her in sobbing.

It was at this moment that a loud boom rocked the lab sending everyone tumbling over and dust raining from the ceiling.

"Damn" Dante cursed they got here sooner than I expected.