Ash pushed open the door to his shack. The morning light spilled in, cutting across his frame in a golden blaze. Dogmeat padded out first, nose twitching, her coat glossy and her stride confident. Then Ash followed.
He wore the black coat stitched from Deathclaw hide, its edges swaying with the motion of his steps, the riot gear armor fitted beneath like a second skin. At his sides, the twin revolvers gleamed with a quiet menace, polished so clean the steel caught the rising sun. His hat tilted low, the brim casting his face in shadow, eyes burning sharp beneath.
The town paused. A trader froze in the act of hitching a brahmin. A scavver stopped mid-hammer strike. A settler on the catwalk above leaned against the rail, mouth slightly open.
It wasn't just the guns, or the armor, or the long black coat. It was the truth that clung to him: this was a man who had killed a Deathclaw and walked away wearing its skin.
A whisper rolled through the air like a breeze through dead grass. "Drifter…"
Ash ignored it. He walked slow and steady through the main strip, Dogmeat at his heel, his boots striking the metal with a rhythm that sounded heavier than it should have. He wasn't a boy anymore. The Wastes had forged him, beaten him, scarred him, and sharpened him into something that couldn't be mistaken for anything else.
Some stared in awe. Some in fear. A few turned away, as though afraid to meet his eye.
Ash didn't break stride. Didn't look left or right. He wasn't here for them. He was here to live, to fight, to keep moving forward.
Still, the truth settled deep in the marrow of everyone who saw him that morning: a man wearing the hide of a Deathclaw, armed with weapons no one else could build, walking with the calm of someone who'd survived what should have killed him.
That was no ordinary drifter.
That was a warning.