After escaping Vault 18, mutating into a Lucario-woman Poke-person in the New Orange Pass and helping save the wasteland from an incursion from Ultra-Beasts, Dee parted ways with her friends and her mate Helios the Charmeleon-man to take a job with the Kalos Express as a courier. After a short period of registration and training, Dee was ready for her first real delivery job.
Fallout: Sword and Shield Chapter 1
Dee the Lucario-woman finished dressing in her travelling clothes and sat down to eat breakfast with her friend Gertrude Kitun, the Zigzagoon-woman.
“Excited for your first day on the job?” Gertrude smiled before biting into some toast and watching Dee devour her breakfast.
Dee nodded, then swallowed, “Yes! Sorry I won’t stay to meet Alex, or see your egg hatch.” She turned to look at where the brown-spotted egg sat in its incubator. Alex Kitun was Gertrude’s husband, and a Ninetails-man, but he’d been away with his caravan company, Kitun Caravans, since before Gertrude and Dee had met.
“I’ll tell him all about you, don’t worry.” Gertrude ate slower as Dee finished off her breakfast then ran for the door.
The main office for the Kalos Express in Trovitopolis was just a block away from Gertrude’s house and Dee arrived to find the place empty save for the manager, a Gumshoos-man behind a desk named Alan.
“Ready for your first delivery, newbie?” Alan was slumped sideways at his desk and pointed at a bulletin board that hung on the side wall, “Just pick an assignment and I can enter the location into your Rotom-boy.” He nodded to the wrist-mounted computer from Vault 18 that Dee still wore on her left arm.
Dee scanned the delivery notes, “I thought these were assigned.”
“Not anymore,” Alan shook his head, “Maybe when we first started up and had lots of people fighting over jobs, but now it’s just first-come-first-serve except for the big jobs, then we assign them based on experience.”
Dee stopped at one notice, “Delivery to Galar, $500?” She checked the other jobs, most of which were to NKR territory and never more than $200, “why’s this one unclaimed.”
Alan sighed and sat forwards, “You’re from a Vault so I guess you don’t know. The Galar region was hit hard in the war and seriously contracted. Now most people called it ‘The Galarian Divide’ or just ‘The Divide’ and whatever happened made the whole place, except Motostoke city, ravaged by frequent severe dust storms, enough to strip the skin off anyone regardless of type. A lot of people try to take those deliveries for the big payout but most never come back, either they die or stay there after surviving the storms. I know it sounds tempting but-”
“I’ll take it!” Dee grabbed the notice off the board and stuck her Rotom-boy out for Alan to enter the coordinates.
Alan just stared at the busty Lucario-woman in disbelief then entered the location, “Your funeral. Just let me get the package.” He got up and went to the storeroom and shortly returned with a big box that Dee loaded into her backpack and a delivery form Dee would need to get signed at the end. She was about to leave when Alan spoke up again, “Before you go, take these as a complimentary ‘help you survive’ gift.” The Gumshoos-man handed her a pair of goggles, a scarf and a wide brimmed hat, “Don’t want you to lose your face out there.”
Dee smiled and accepted, pulling the goggles and scarf around her neck and putting on the hat, “Thanks, Alan. Hope I see you again,” then she set off and bid farewell to the guards at the gates of Trovitopolis as she left the city behind.
Being alone on the road was a new experience for Dee, and not really a welcome one. She missed being able to share her thoughts with a friend, having someone to help her camp and keep watch at night and especially someone to help her fight. Thankfully, after her experiences against The Aether Enclave, nothing Dee encountered proved to be much of a danger whether they were Raiders or mutant Pokemon.
The one exception were Death-Scythers. The green insect Pokemon had grown massive from the effects of the war: over two meters tall with huge muscles and scythe-arm blades that could cleave through steel in a single swipe, something she witnessed one do to a car the first time she ran into one before she bolted. Thankfully the thing was only interested in chasing her out of its territory and from then on she avoided any place where they were known to nest.
The first of the storms that surrounded Galar hit Dee while she was sleeping. The stinging dust forced her awake in the middle of the night and she struggled to pull her scarf and goggles up before her face got any more scratched up but she was still bleeding. Unable to sleep in such a storm, Dee set off again following her Rotom-Boy’s directions towards Motostoke city.
The storm persisted as she reached the edge of Motostoke City, which was sunk into a canyon which left the storm to blow overhead and a relieved Dee to uncover her face, coughing up sand as she entered the city limits.
Motostoke city was eerily quiet, few people were outdoors and the howling wind overhead echoed off the sunken canyon walls as Dee walked through the street. Most of the buildings made of metal beaten together without any real mind of aesthetics. Some mild shouts drew her attention to look down over a ledge, which lacked a guard rail, to see four long-eared kids playing soccer in a crude field, the two older ones acting as goalies as the two younger ones chased the ball around. It was the only real sign of life in the city, with even the local stores not having open fronts.
The bored-looking brown-furred yellow-eyed Meowth-man at the front desk of the Kalos Express was startled when Dee entered the building with a grin on her face, which was scratched-up and bleeding from the dust storm. “Delivery from Trovitopolis.”
The Galarian Meowth-man shook his head and checked the list on the desk that was gathering dust, “Uhh yeah, here’s the directions.” He scribbled the directions to the house on a piece of paper and handed it to the busty Lucario-woman.
Dee was still grinning as she took it, “Thanks, see you later.” She headed back out the door as the Galarian Meowth-man slumped back over on the desk.
It didn’t take long for Dee to find the house, which was in decent condition for the post-apocalypse, and knocked on the door. A Cinderace-woman in casual clothes answered and was a bit shocked to see Dee there, her face still scratched up and bleeding from the storm, with a package in her arms.
“Delivery from Kalos Express!” Dee handed the package over, “Can you sign here please?” she pulled the thankfully still intact delivery form out of her pocket and got the woman to sign it.
“Thanks, Miss umm…” the Cinderace-woman gave Dee a sideways look.
“Dee, just Dee.” The Lucario-woman stuck the delivery form back in her pocket.
“What’s that? It is from daddy?” the voice made Dee turn to see four younger poke-people arriving, two Skorbunny-boys, a Raboot-boy and a Raboot-girl with a soccer ball under her arm.
“It is. Miss Dee just delivered it,” the Cinderace-woman smiled, “Thank you, I’ve been waiting months for this. Want to come in and join us for supper?” she clapped a hand to her mouth, as if she had just offered on reflex.
Dee shook her head, “No thanks, gotta report to the depot and get paid.”
The Cinderace-woman sighed in relief, “Alright. I hope you can deliver again,” she sounded a bit uncertain as she called, “Alright, kids, come in.” The four younger poke-kids ran past Dee and into the house. Dee just smiled and headed back to the Kalos Express office.
Because their couriers were often on the road, and some like Dee didn’t have any homes of their own, the Kalos Express offices had dormitories where they could rest between jobs. Dee was just thankful the Motostoke office had running water as she desperately needed a shower to clean all the sand and dust off. Now she knew why so few people delivered here, being taken by surprise at night meant she had a lot of skin shredded by the storm she had to get cleaned out. Lesson learned: bundle up tight even at night when sleeping in Galar.
The next morning the Galarian Meowth-man, who’s name was Jake, was surprised to see Dee rested and waiting at the desk when he arrived to work, even more so that she seemed all too eager to take another job and her face was completely healed.
“You sure you want to head out?” Jake dug out the delivery list, he didn’t bother with a bulletin board anymore, “You could get shredded up again.”
“I’ve had worse and I heal fast,” Dee brushed it off, “What else do you have?”
Jake gave a skeptical look, “Well something heading back west but farther in, three going to New Celedon, probably overdue repayments.” He pulled out three sealed metal tubes each with a different address stamped and their delivery forms, “you can just drop it off at the branch office there, no one wants to ask questions in New Celadon. Also a little advice, stop in towns to rest instead of trying to beeline for each destination.”
“Got it!” Dee loaded up the three tubes, “See you in a month or so!”
“Wait… you’re coming back?” Jake was startled enough he almost fell out of his chair.
“If the pay’s this good and no one else wants them, you bet! Bye!” Dee waved then set off. On her way out of town, as she did up her scarf and goggles, Dee was spotted by the Skorbunny and Raboot Poke-kids who just marveled that someone was willing to go out into the storms so soon after arriving. The one girl even voicing hope they’d see their dad again soon.
Being properly prepared took a lot of the sting out of the next storm Dee was forced to trek through, but at least it kept raiders and mutant Pokemon away. Dee wasn’t too worried and she did heal fast, but it was because of the Ultra-Parasite she secretly had inside her body. Part of a Pre-War Aether Enclave Project Alola, the Ultra-parasite in Dee’s body made her heal at an astounding rate to the point that she had once regrown one of her aura-dreads after it was sliced off, but she didn’t want to stress test just how much she could heal. She was the only Poke-person with a parasite in her, the other test subjects having been human, and her hybridization had forced the parasite to devote much of its energy to its own survival meaning she was at no risk of being turned into an Ultra-Beast, of which the Ultra-Parasite was part of the reproduction cycle. Dee pushed the disturbing memories from her mind, confident that her parasite would let her brave these storms.
It was two weeks later that Dee arrived at New Celadon and dropped off the packages, once again to the surprise of the manager, a Dodrio…men? He had three heads so men was probably the right pronoun. Regardless they took the tubes and suggested that Dee shouldn’t stick around the gang-run city too long for her own safety. Dee took his advice and only stayed the night then took another job back to Galar that paid $400.
And so, the routes to and from Galar became Dee’s regular routes. She mostly traveled back to various cities in the NKR and, other than New Celadon, she would stop in most cities for a day to see some of the sights before taking another job. A couple times she traveled to Santalune City, where the Kalos Express branch was in the Kalos Region, but there weren’t a lot of deliveries to there. Mostly she was looking for a place she could eventually settle down, hopefully after she and Helios reunited.
Until then it was just Dee, her deliveries and the road.
D-6alaxy and 
