Welcome to Gaia! ::

It was night in the wasteland as a Brotherhood of Steel soldier went down under the ground for her final bout of training. A bunker was set aside for this one last obstacle course before the plunge, when this fine soldier was to be sent out to earn her name in the field. She was issued down a long corridor into the dim illumination, ending up in a small room with a metal door. In front of that door was her tester.

A small framed man of five foot six stood in a full suit of green painted metal armor from his shoulders to his feet. A bandana wrapped around his mouth and nose and a set of fogged googles covered his eyes. His head was completely uncovered, exposing a short full head of dark brown hair that still had dirt caked to it. Once the initiate was close to him he spoke up in a definitive manner.

"I am Squire Rahm. I will not be your squad leader, though it appears that the others are too busy to bother with you recruits. However that will not affect the grading criteria or absoluteness of my assessment."

The young man held up a clipboard and thumbed over a couple of pages.

"Since I was called here on short notice I did not have a chance to go over your files. Why don't you start off by introducing yourself."

"You had better have some skills, mutant. The Brotherhood doesn't pride itself on mediocre soldiers. Now follow me and we'll begin the evaluation. Oh and don't salute me again, I'm not your squad leader and I'm not in your chain of command."

The instructor stated as he turned and went up to the door. It opened and he ushered the Brotherhood soldier down a short corridor and into another room. Some straw-stuffed, burlap sack dummies stood around on metal poles. One such dummy stood off to the right, three more stood across the room, where a white firing-line was drawn on the ground several meters from them. Weapon lockers and ammo boxes lined the sides of the room where the dummies weren't.

"We will start off with the basics so I may evaluate your skills as you have them now."

The instructor said as he pointed to the lone dummy nearby.

"Strike the dummy."

"About as easy as a 7.62 round pounces through a mutants eye."

Rahm stated before he motioned with his hand to bring the recruit over to the firing line. A table sat off to the side with an assortment of smallarms. Pistols to hunting rifles adorned the surface of the table.

"Now you will show me your capabilities with a firearm."

"Well weapons of that caliber aren't exactly common, so we'll just move along."

The Squire stepped up and pointed the recruit in the direction of a small crate under the tables. The light brown box held an assortment of handheld explosive devices ranging from frag grenades to smoke grenades. Though most were US military standard, there were few clearly foriegn weapons in the crate as well.

"Finish of the dummies with a grenade."

"That won't be necessary. Might as well save the munitions for future recuits."

Rahm stated before he motioned the soldier towards the door into the next room.

"Now for the next test."

He led them into an even larger warehouse than the first room. This one was dotted with obstacles. Small hills, waist-high walls, oil drums... it looked like a miniature reenactment of the wasteland surrounding the Brotherhood compound. No object in the room stood over four and a half feet off the ground, which oddly enough was covered in grass.

"On the other side of this world is the exit. If you can reach it undetected, we'll know whether your sneaking skills are top notch. If you can't... well, you can't.

You have already passed most of the parts that matter, so this is more of a test to see if you can sneak. This is to notify us of another ability at our disposal. If you want to give up, or don't care to go through this last part, you can say so now, or later on. I myself never cared to much about stealth.

You can't see him from where we are, but there is another initiate on the other side of the room, his job is to find you when this starts.

Any questions?"

"Then let's move on, mutant."

The instructor stated flatly as he turned and led the recruit down a short corridor to a single tall metal doorway with no door on the hinges. He stepped inside of the small room which had two standard plastic rectangular folding tables set up. Upon the tables were all manner of medical supplies. Items ranging from thermometers, to gauzes, to clear plastic bags with assorted pills.

As the instructor came into the room and stepped to the right of the doorway he waited for the recruit to follow. Once the mutant was inside the doorway he dropped his pen from his right hand. Before the pen hand hit the ground the squire had a gas mask pulled over his face that had been hanging on the wall behind him. As the small ball point pen made contact with the ground the instructor spun about towards the doorway and depressed a small white circular button. With a loud thud the doorway was filled with a solid two foot steel door while a foggy gas rolled in from the ducts above.

With a tone equally as flat as his previous statement from behind the gas mask, "Last test. Fix yourself recruit."



((The gas is a blood agent.))

The soldier took up his clipboard and pen to scribble down a few notes as he observed the mutant panicing amidst the gas. Between words that he wrote he kept a close eye on her lips waiting for them to become discolored. The fact that she spoke in the cloudy room assured him that she had indeed consumed a lethal amount of the agent. He was certain at least that it was lethal to a small deathclaw brood, however his knowledge of mutant anatomy wasn't anything to boast about. As he sighted what he believed to be the faintest amount of blue-ing to the recruits lips, Joe made quick steps to her while producing two auto injectors from the small of his back. He jabbed them solidly into the beast praying that it wouldn't strike him in fear while speaking through the gas mask,

"That's enough mutant. These shots will put the agent dormant for a short while. However you'll need to get over to Medical as soon as the door opens to get detoxed. You're not contagious but you are highly poisoned and will die if you don't obey myself and the medical staff."

The gas began to dissipate while he spoke as fans kicked on to syphon the gas from the room. Within a couple of minutes from the end of his talking the door hissed as the seal broke and it swung open revealing a tall blond initiate in leather armor. The soldier had a 9mm strapped to his leg and the insignia of the BoS military police on his left forearm. He gave the instructor a look of slight disgust before turning to the recruit.

"Follow this man to Medical now. Welcome to the Brotherhood."

With that Joe sighed and went back to finishing his report.