[ EU ] The year is 2296 and Vault 9 and 3/4 finally opens it 's blast door . Wizards have returned to the British Wastelands .

Magic could n't stop madness. So for all their might and power they sat ashen faced and helpless as the massive door slid closed burying them alive beneath a mile of rock and earth. Weeping as the world ended above them in a torrent of fire and destruction. The professors stayed close to their students, arms outstretched surrounding them like hens around their chicks. Shielding them in a sense from the horrors which assailed them. Headmaster Brambledom needed them all close together as well. So he only had the cast the spell once. He nodded solemnly to each of them while he stood in the gloom. It was approval. It was farewell. It was a thanks. He commanded the last words the professors would ever hear and the group was encased in a bubble of coalescing energy. Frozen in time until he released them. Provided the damn muggles and their technology did n't manage to somehow kill him despite his planning and precautions. Which it just might. He had only a vague understanding of radiation but he knew enough to fear it. The world belonged to that lethal wraith. For now. 
 
 However he knew it would lose its power over time. So he would pit his patience and sanity against it. He smiled. He knew who would win that fight. He walked down the halls to his modest quarters. There was all the food and entertainment in the world stocked down here. For one man. Because there had n't been much time and he did n't want generations to pass locked below the ground like worms trapped in mud. Dreaming of the sun and moon and stars. He wanted people who remembered the world so that they would have a chance to make it again. Make it right. The muggles had a shot at it. Their attempt raged above as a radiation saturated inferno. The new world would be different. A world of magic and respect for life and a fear of unchecked power. Nuclear weapons. Bioterrorism. They would know enough to know better. He smiled and slumped down exhausted into his ancient red felt chair. Had n't that muggle genius said that world war four would be fought with sticks? He had no idea Brambledom thought and fell asleep without meaning to in the flickering candlelight. 
 
 It would be a lie to say that the time passed easily or quickly for it did neither. But Brambledom was a master and one of the finest wizards who had ever lived. He was patient and he was strong. Every year he sent out an owl with a Geiger counter to see how it was and every year the owl never returned. So he waited. He played games with his golems. He argued with the goblins when they came over for tea. He watched his father's phoenix make and unmake itself over and over again. Decades passed. Generations passed. He grew old but slowly. He looked forward to the owl every year and every year he waited for hours by the chute hoping for something and nothing ever came. Until one day it did. The owl returned and the radiation was minimal. It came back hale and strong. He watched it for a month and when it seemed to fine he knew it was time. He pulled the runes of unmaking he said the words that he had waited his whole life to say. His throat was dry and it took him three tries to finally recite the incantation. He disappeared the skeletons of his dead friends and waited for the kids and teenagers to awaken. They had powered the spell with themselves. He could have never done it without them. 
 
 It was a short speech but he thought it was his best. He had practiced and refined it for decades so it was about as perfect as it could be. It told them they were the future. They had survived the end of the world. But now they needed to go and remake it. He explained the passage of time and how fire had rained from the skies but that they had a chance to go and make it right. They needed to stick together and trust each other and most of all they had a responsibility to use their power for right and not for evil. To show the world that magic could be trusted because they might be the only practitioners left in the entire world. They had a chance to work with and unite with the survivors of Earth. It was his finest lesson and after it was done and all the questions were over with he opened the vault door and guided his crying and bewildered students outside the door. As they left he shook each ones hand. When the last one was through he sealed the door back up behind them. He still heard weak pounding up to two days later but he had expected that. He knew his friends would have expected him to go with them. To guide them and accompany them into the new world but it was n't his world. It was theirs. Besides he thought with a smile he could never leave his friends behind. He would join them in the darkness where they could all finally have peace.
