After walking for what felt like hours, Mariah and D-45 managed to reach the village.
There was an issue however, D-45's mask was broken, the unit could no longer hide as human.
"It doesn't even matter at this point" said the tired Mariah, before walking towards the village gate with the broken unit on her shoulder.
Mariah and D-45 stood in the front gate expecting a lot of things to happen, they wouldn't even bother to fight back, that's how fatigued they were, however the one thing they didn't expect was to be let in with no fighting.
D-45 was shocked, there hasn't been an incident before where a village who knew the units true identity let D-45 walk in.
As they walked into the village a crowd cleared a path for the injured Mariah and D-45, as they walked you could hear a murmurs from the villagers.
"Maybe these humans are different too" thought D-45.
From the crowd a little boy appeared with a rock in his hands, the boy hurled the rock and hit D-45 right on the face.
"THE BANDITS KILLED MY DAD BECAUSE OF YOU" yelled the boy at the top of his lungs, after he said those words, the crowd started murmuring louder and louder "My granny died because of that replicon" "My daughter died because of it too" the crowd started to take the boys side.
The crowd seemed to all be riled up, stones were being thrown towards D-45 and Mariah.
However despite all the nasty words and stones being thrown their way they ignored it and kept walking.
Afterwards D-45 and Mariah went to their inn, Mariah put D-45 down on the sand glider and after preparing they were ready to head out of the village.
Right as they were about to leave the village, a boy stepped In Front of their sand glider.
"WAIT" Screamed the boy, "TAKE ME WITH YOU" he quickly added right after.
D-45 and Mariah were both confused about what this boy was talking about.
The boy opened one of his hands into a palm and from that palm electricity formed.
A unanimous decision was made to head back to the inn and talk to this boy.
"Wait I remember you, you're the boy from a month ago when I shielded you" Said D-45
"Yes and thank you for that by the way" replied back the boy before quickly saying, "But listen my name is Agni, and I'm a mutate" D-45 had never heard about a mutate before, this was the units first time hearing about it, D-45 looked towards Mariah to see if she knew anything but she just gave backa confused face.
"What's a mutate?" Asked Mariah, "A mutate is someone who mutated from the radiation into gaining abilities, at least that's what my granny used to say." Replied back Agni.
"Mutation from radiation, so you guys are basically the second generation of humans" Said the unit.
"What's ya'r ability?" asked Mariah seemingly hesitant to believe the boy, just like before the boy opened his palms and fired electricity from it.
Seeing what the boy did again, Mariah got fed up and said "This is clearly some sort of trick or prank by him, lets leave", However D-45 was more inclined to believe the boy, the unit didn't find any tech on the boy that might have helped him due what he did, on top of that the unit detected that the boy had 5 times the normal radiation in his body, however the radiation was acting strange, it doesn't spread outside the body and it seemed every time the boy used his abilities the radiation would lower.
"Fascinating" Said D-45 while looking at the boy "I have reason to believe the boy isn't lying, on top of that his heart rate is normal, no signs of lying." added the unit.
"Ya can't be serious right?" said Mariah, unlike D-45 Mariah had a hard time believing the boy, she thought of him as another con artist trying to do something shady.
"Tell me boy why do you want to come with us?" Asked D-45.
"The people of this village aren't so welcoming to people who are different from them, you've seen it first hand yourself." Replied the boy
"Don't ya have somewhere to be? where is yar granny that you mentioned?" asked Mariah with a tone that hinted her distrust in the boy.
"Everyone I know is dead, my granny died a while back from the bandits" Said Agni before saying "I have no one and no one wants me, I heard how you beat those bandits, we all did because of the scout that saw it all, and I want to get out of this village and one day make a name for myself just like you."
D-45 and Mariah never thought about why people were acting differently in the village, then seeing the fight would make sense somewhat.
"Listen, we can't just bring a kid with us, there are people hunting us down and we are barely surviving as is, having another useless mouth to feed is just gonna hold us down." said Mariah who seemed to be getting fed up of the boy.
"I can hold my own, my electricity may not be super strong now but in the future it will be more powerful for sure." the boy seemed to be panicking thinking that he might actually be rejected.
"Let's bring him with us" Said D-45, Both Mariah and Agni were surprised about the units decision.
"He is gonna hold us back" Said Mariah.
"He has room to grow, even if he doesn't grow stronger he is still a fascinating test subject" replied back D-45.
Hearing what D-45 said chills went down the spine of both humans.
After a long decision, it was decided that Agni would come with them, there was one odd problem Dogmeat seemed to hate going near Agni for some odd reason.
Ignoring all the small stuff the crew decided to sail off, and head further west.
After 2 days of sailing nothing seemed to have changed, Dogmeat still barked at Agni whenever he got too close, it was odd for Dogmeat to act as he is now he was nice and friendly to everyone else he met as long as they didn't try to or did harm him.
"I see something again" Said Mariah, she seemed to be down lately as well at least a lot more than usual.
Looking into the distance D-45 could see a giant city off in the distance.
D-45 knew what the city was as the unit had been there before.
"San Fran city" Said the D-45, the unit knew that a lot of problems were going to head their way.