Chapter 5: Enemy Action
- Location
- Switzerland
I woke up to reports I would rather not have seen flashing across my heads-up display. Appalachia was the definition of FUBAR. The events of Fallout 76 DID NOT HAPPEN. I was sure of this by virtue of aerial pictures of the door to Vault 76 caved inwards, with claw marks present around the edges of the hole. The scorched were running rampant, and we had a big problem. Oh sure, there was some distance between them and us, but a zombie plague was a zombie plague. And this one even had a hive mind, Joy.
Hordes of the things were wandering around within the territory, aimlessly shambling from one former point of civilisation to the next.
I did not want to have to deal with this, but it seemed like I had to. I ordered any scorch-beast found by my Jets in the region, of which I had lost 9 to surprise attacks, to be immediately shot down with extreme prejudice. Any ground-based nests were to be hit with hellfire missiles until only a red-hot crater was left. The Jets still in the region were designated as lost assets until such a time as when they would be rebuilt in the workshop as a result of the Fiat-backing.
This was because I ordered the total depletion of ammunition into any scorch-beast. If that was not enough to destroy the damn things, then they were to disengage, gain distance and ram them at maximum acceleration. Those things were dying, and they were dying NOW.
I would have to begin with the production of large-scale annihilation weapons. This plague was not something that I was willing to let fester. It had a long time to dig itself in, and it was a wonder that it had yet to spread out of the region.
However, I was confident that the large amount of strangler vines encircling the region like a massive barrier had something to do with this. Something had contained the plague. I was still determining what that something was and whether it was on our side. I was, however, grateful for it. Without the massive organic wall, the wasteland would be overrun by now. Of this, I was sure.
This needed to be dealt with. What was the Brotherhood of Steel doing? This should have been right up their alley. I was going to have to go and find the kleptomaniacs and ask them myself, wasn't I?
Closer to home, I had some good news, at least. The fiends had not yet raided vault 3. However, they were getting dangerously close to the vault. A hellfire missile disabused them of that path or, indeed, any further paths at all. Cook-Cook would never cook again.
I initially didn't plan to hunt him and his pack of hereteks down, but the opportunity was there. And I would be damned if I let that monster hurt another innocent civilian if all it took was a missile that the warehouse could replace. Oh, I was going to be haunted by my actions. Taking a life was not something that would ever be easy on my mind unless the forge granted me something truly horrid. However, the cost of me losing sleep was a toll well worth the reward.
And I was pretty confident that many people would sleep better now that this monster no longer prowled the wastes. Yes, this was a good deed, even if it involved taking a life. Another potential problem for the future was that I could see goddamn Talon Company mercenaries advancing towards New Vegas. What those walking annoyances wanted here was anyone's guess. There was a significant potential that someone paid them to store up trouble here, and knowing them, they would jump on it.
But by far, the most worrying discovery apart from the scorched plague came from Boston. The Dunwich quarry was active. Well, not active, as in they were quarrying stone. That would have been fine. No, it was far worse. The temperature of the site was negative 180c. This was unnaturally cold. And what's worse is that I lost a jet to it. When I ordered a low lazy flyby for better high-resolution pictures and Lidar scans, my bird was shot down by a massive ice growth. Ice that rapidly grew out of the ground like some form of demented air defence system. This was not something that I had been expecting. As a test, I ordered a flyby over the Dunwich building, and the same thing happened.
Yeah, I was not touching that without Blackstone or some other form of warp-killing material or tool. Perhaps a Scranton reality anchor? If I could get my hands on some of the foundation's technology, this whole mess would become much easier to deal with.
Then there was the legion. And oh boy, were they a problem. Those slaving rat bastards were slowly making their way towards New Vegas with a genuinely massive legion of enslaved people following them. The game did not do their size justice. And what was even worse was the fact that they used slave legions. The Jets recorded a large quantity of enslaved people wearing explosive collars and carrying Spears. It made my blood boil to see such a thing. I originally had no plans of hunting the legion down, but seeing such a thing made me furious. Most of the slaves were children, some no older than ten years old. And they had mutilated them. Some were missing eyes or ears, some noses or even limbs. I had to assume that this was done as some sick form of punishment.
Cold fury pumped through my veins and demanded that I kill them all for their crimes. This, however, would not be so easy. Due to the widespread use of explosives, they had a massive amount of hostages they could hide behind. I couldn't simply bombard them like I had the powder hangers. Nor would I be able to overwhelm them with sheer numbers since they could threaten the hostages.
I went outside the workshop and closed the door before yelling obscenities at the sky. Oh, how I wanted to kill them all for this. They dared to enslave and mutilate children. They deserved hell for what they had done, and I could not deliver it. Hereteks such as those deserved to be turned into servitors for their sins. They did not deserve the ability to walk under their own will.
My train of thought rapidly cut off when I realised just what I had been thinking about. Servitors? What had I been thinking? Yes, their crimes were horrific, but nothing justified doing THAT to another sentient being. Those dark thoughts scared me. They scared me a lot. Was I really capable of such anger? Such cruel, disgusting rage?
I had been right. Oh gods, I had been right. This place was eating away at who I was as a person. I was a medic, not a warlord. I was not made for a place like this. I was selling my soul piece by piece, and for what? Territory? Vengeance for victims of atrocities long past? This was not worth it.
I fell to my knees and began to puke. My stomach was no longer capable of holding food. I had just ordered and executed the death warrants of an entire group of people. They were fiends, and they were about to hurt civilians, but was it worth it? I could no longer tell, and that was scaring me. After all, if I was not sure of my own actions, then how was I supposed to be able to protect others? How was I supposed to lead them to a better future? Was I even supposed to get the forge? Were my thoughts my own? Was I just a pawn of the winged bitch?
NO. FUCK THIS. I REFUSE. I was not going to break. My children binged angrily in the background, furious on my behalf as they realised where my mind had gone. They were right. So, what if I was in another dimension? So, what if I had lost everything? So, what if I was surrounded by eldritch gods and super viruses.? I was alive. The forge had chosen ME. Not someone else, not some super soldier, not some professor, not someone rich or powerful but me. Just a random woman dealt a lousy hand. I had been given the single most potent tool in creation, and I was going to use it. I was going to drag this world forward, kicking and screaming, whether they liked it or not. They were going to stop killing and enslaving each other, one way or another.
I growled and burned the puke off the floor with a simple application of my body's heat. I had plans to forge and people to contact. The door to the workshop opened again, and I walked back in my face a mask of stone. I made my way to the doctor's location. I had some questions I needed answered. I found him inspecting some of the welding tools in my family's workshop. Sunny was nowhere to be seen.
"Doctor, do you have a few moments to talk? I have a few questions I need answered and some things to tell you that I am quite certain you would be happy if Sunny wasn't present to overhear them. Speaking of Sunny, might I ask where she is?"
He grumbled something I could not hear even with my vastly enhanced senses and nodded.
"She went back to the living room. The scene of our former home's destruction did a number on her. I gave her a minor dose of sedatives to let her sleep for now. I am thankful that you allowed her to see it. I wish you hadn't, but I know she needed to see it."
I nodded in response to that. I could understand his point. She didn't look well when she left, but both of us knew it would have been worse if she hadn't seen the destruction, so we let her watch.
"I agree with that. I would have preferred it If she would have stayed at base but she needed this. Now then, walk with me, doctor. Oh, do you mind if I smoke my tobacco pipe? I just got some news that I really rather not have gotten, and my nerves are quite on edge?"
I asked out of politeness. After receiving a nod from him, I took out my trusty pipe and added some tobacco before packing it down with my tamper. This act always calmed me down. The tamper was a gift from my grandfather, and it was a beautiful little thing. Made from walnut and silver, it has served me well over the years. After I had made sure that the pipe was packed with the right amount of tobacco and packed to the proper density, I produced a match from the pouch and lit my pipe. Pretty soon, the pleasant aroma of English tobacco filled my mouth, and I could feel my mind calm a little. I knew it wasn't the best way to calm down, but some vices were allowed. And A combat medic's life expectancy was usually so short that I didn't really care about the lung cancer, and now, as a magma slime, I no longer had to worry about such minor things. After all, what kind of magma slime would I be if simple smoke could harm me? Not to mention that the pixie dust perk made me immune to breath-based damages. I could breathe volcanic smoke all day and be perfectly happy. Taking a deep puff of smoke into my lungs and letting it soothe my nerves further, I began walking.
"Now then, the questions first. Would you know how to go about getting into contact with Robert House? Someone like you who has explored quite far and wide would perhaps hold such knowledge."
I took another drag from my pipe as I waited for the doctor's answer.
"The old bastard? Hmm, I suppose you could either try to contact him via a Securitron or by going to New Vegas, but the Securitrons are a good way to get hold of him. However, he does pay attention to certain radio frequencies for some reason. So, you could try to get a hold of him that way. But why would you want to do that? He's nothing but bad news."
Mr Mitchell was quite perturbed with me asking him for this, which was understandable considering his history with the man. Nevertheless, I had to do this no matter how distasteful I found it personally. After all, the fucker had a hand in helping with the design of the slave collars now holding children as prisoners. If I had to grin and bear with him to get those poor souls saved, then I would right up to the point where I could put a bullet in his head.
"He helped in the creation of the explosive collars. The base model, at least. It was developed in collaboration with the monsters in the big empty. I need that knowledge to see how things operate because Caesar's legion uses a large army of mutilated children as slave soldiers. I need to know if I can shut the things down from a distance or not. Don't worry, I have no love for that man. In my eyes, he's a war criminal, and where I come from, we execute those. The things he helped develop and helped do for people before the Great War are beyond the pale. If he weren't needed, then I would not even entertain the idea of talking to him. But sadly, I have an army of slaves that needs to be saved and to do that. I need to talk to the cunt who helped build their collars."
At the end of my explanation, I growled with cold rage. The good doctor put his hand on my shoulder in support and nodded in grim understanding.
"I can see why you didn't want Sunny to hear about things like this. It would not be good for her mental state to hear such things right now, and I thank you for keeping it from her for now. You said you had other things to talk about?"
I nodded and continued.
"Indeed. Next, I have some rather bad news. We have a hivemind zombie plague ruling an entire region of the American continent. The entire region of Appalachia is one big colony of zombies and their scorched beat masters. I have begun to kill them by utilising my jets, but it's slow going, and I will need to build heavy ordnance. I will also need to contact the Brotherhood of Steel because, in the timeline, I was aware that they were supposed to be integral to the containment of this mess. Luckily for us something, Eldritch has decided that they are not allowed to leave the region and encircled the entire area in massive walls of wood. How long those things will hold, I do not know. That virus is adaptive, and the scorch beasts are capable of flight. They spread the plague via a form of dust dropped from their wings. As such, they are now priority targets for annihilation. They cannot be allowed to leave the region and must be killed no matter the cost. To that end, I have begun the construction of a proper weapon of war. I am hesitant to use high explosives because that could damage the walls holding the things in. I am, however, not opposed to burning them with fire as hot as the sun. The production of white phosphorus has begun, and I will deploy it as soon as I have sufficient amounts to kill large swaths of the infected. They do not deserve the fate they are cursed to suffer right now."
I finished my explanation with a heavy heart. I knew this would happen, but I had to choose what was more important. My morals of being a good person and helping others or my will to hold to the rules of engagement, the Geneva Convention and an oath I had already broken. In the end, there was only one choice. Lofty morals were for people in ivory towers looking down upon the unwashed masses and sneering at them for their plights. I refused to become such a person. I would dirty my hands. If needed, I would do what needed to be done to keep myself and mine safe. And I would improve this world slowly but surely. Piece by piece.
As we were walking, I could feel the forge activate. A massive node had unlodged itself from the quality domain and was hurtling towards me. I fell to my knees as it hit me, the power of the perk damn near breaking my body. I could hear myself scream as I felt tremendous waves of energy pass through me and into all that had been built so far at my command. The power of caged stars and consumed souls flowed through me and into my creations. I was imbuing them with eternal, cruel, cold might. They would not break. They would not fall. My Dynasty would never bow. We had slain the star gods, the betrayers and the old ones. We had broken and caged our gods as mere tools of war and ruled the universe for millennia, and though I was no longer a Necron, I was still ageless, and I was still the ruler of my tomb, though I called it a forge now. Memories of battles long forgotten, of betrayal, love, and war came back to me. It came all back to me, and I screamed.
Mental overload detected. Emergency protocols activated. Memory influence blunted. The forge wishes you a nice day, Miss Alice
W-What the fuck was that? Emergency protocols? Mental overload? I didn't particularly appreciate where this was going.
"So, you got your first big perk, Mistress? Well, not to worry. After all, I was built with contingencies in place for such a thing. One of them being this message. Due to the early deployment of the forge because of the winged cunt I was not able to explain a few things to you, nor will I be able to explain things to you after this, so remember this. First, should a perk overload your currently feeble mind, its memories will be blunted until such a time as when you are ready to handle it. Your memories that the Simurgh affected were removed by quite literally cutting out that part of your life. So, you are truly your age body's age now. The missing parts are gone for good because they were largely trauma and misery. It would have done you no good. She does not control you. Your mind is your own. And one last thing you will get a certain amount of reach within the forge based on your greater accomplishments. This was the only communication you are getting from the forge itself, and I am aware that this is confusing, but you would not grow as you would normally if I held your hand the whole time, mistress."
I could hear the message repeat twice more in my head before I was free to order my thoughts in my own head, now blissfully silent, thankfully. Alright, this was a lot to take in. I kept dry, heaving and breathing heavily as I tried to get my body under control. My memories were apparently my own and not tampered with by the flying bin chicken of despair. That was good. I hadn't been so much De-aged as reality had been rewritten, so I was just 15. Fuck that was a startling revelation. So what? I had been a combat medic at fucking 12? Dear god, my home world was a mess.
Or it was now that the forge had begun to play around with it. I had a feeling that this action would have far-reaching consequences for that world, and I felt rather sorry for them. I didn't want this for anyone, and I didn't choose this. They shouldn't suffer because I was given the Celestial Forge. It wasn't right. I just hoped that I was wrong and me being a medic at 12 was an outlier and not the norm. I didn't want to be indirectly responsible for a new trend of child soldiers.
That was not something I would want to be responsible for. I felt an old, calloused hand on my shoulder trying to get my attention and realised that I was not alone.
"Little lady? Alice? Are you alright? Are you in there?"
The old doctor asked, worry evident in his voice.
"Y-yeah. I- I'm here. J- Just give me a minute. I got a big power-up, which had some drastic consequences for my mind."
I rubbed my eyes, trying to get the spots out of my vision and perhaps even gain some reduction in my pounding headache.
"Ungh. That hurt like hell. Alright, yeah, I'm fine. Can you help me up? I'm not sure if I can find my footing on my own right now."
I felt a strong pair of hands grab me under the shoulders and pull me to my feet. I wobbled a bit but ultimately managed to stand under my own efforts. I took some unsteady steps and managed to walk despite the pounding headache in my skull.
"Where was I? Oh, right, hivemind zombies. Well, that will be substantially easier now. The power-up I just received was truly a blessing, but the consequences damn near burned out my mind. I won't go into details because it's inconsequential for now, but everything I or my children build can no longer be destroyed by time or mortal men. Only gods and their servants have even a chance of damaging my creations. But time will find no purchase upon my creations. I paid far too high a price for something so weak as the mere passage of time or the effects of the elements to be able to destroy my work."
I picked up my pipe from where it had fallen and gently brushed off the dirt from the mouthpiece before taking another puff of smoke. The good doctor, meanwhile, looked at me with concern on his face. It was clear that he didn't believe that I was fine at all. I knew that I wouldn't be able to change his mind easily, so I would just roll with it for now.
My heads-up display informed me that the surviving jets that I sent on suicide runs against the scorch beasts were no longer breaking down as a result of the perk I had gotten from the forge. Instead, they had turned into high-velocity battering rams. The death toll of the scorch beasts was steadily rising, and I liked this a lot. I changed the flight paths of the jets still in the air so that they could do some bombing runs in the region and inspected the progress of the fortress creation. It was going swimmingly. The walls and the foundation had already been built. So had the gun nests and mortar platforms.
"I got some good news, too. The fortress construction is going great. The foundation is up, and so are the outer walls. That means that we can now begin with the construction of the perimeter walls. After that, we can build homes, farms, schools, a hospital and a town hall. We will finish it off by adding a dome overtop to protect against the weather, and then we can open the place up to people."
I smiled at the idea of having a well-fortified settlement in the hellscape that was the world of fallout. People would be drawn to it, and I would welcome them as long as they were willing to not be asshats to each other. I would have to think up some laws, but that could wait for now. That new perk really was a godsend. I no longer had to consider quadruple layers of redundancies to feel safe. I just knew that my creations would last.
"Hmmmm. So, you want to build a new community here? I think that's a good idea. It would be strange if the only people living in such a massive structure were you, your children, Sunny and me. You are aware that a place like this will attract raiders and other problems, right? If you build something beautiful, they won't be able to help themselves. They will need to try and tear it down and loot it. It is their nature as raiders."
That was something I was fully aware of, and it was the main reason for the creation of the spike mote. There would be none of that swarming the settlement with superior numbers. The massive walls and the done would keep any tactics the Romans used, now adopted by the legion, completely useless.
Bombardment, starvation, dehydration, encirclement? None of those things would have any effect against a necron-empowered fortress. The only possible avenue of attack was Vulpes Inculta. Their spymaster and master infiltrators, but luckily for me and mine, I was aware of where he was or would be shortly. The town of Nipton. Where he would use the presence of the NCR and the powder gangers as gambling customers via a convoluted scheme that, while disgusting, was still quite beautiful in its execution to start a riot. As soon as the riot was in full swing, he would sack the town and butcher it to "make an example of the hedonists". I could not agree with the result, but the plan itself was a masterstroke. The man was a cruel genius, and I would have to remove him as soon as possible. Luckily for me, my jet had found him. Nipton was already burning, but the people were still alive. Good, that meant that I could still save them.
The fool was standing on a ledge overlooking the town, and the massacre was about to happen. No doubt, hoping to make a grand speech about his beliefs and how the villagers were hedonists and sinners. Foolish if you asked me. He was pretty much asking for a bullet to the head. Any halfway decent marksman should be able to take him down…
From what a quick high-altitude flyover revealed, we had about 10 hours before they started killing since they were still building crosses and places to burn people.
I looked at the doctor with a grim expression.
"I have to go. The legion is burning Nipton to the ground, and they will soon start killing people. I will be back. Please take care of Sunny. The fridge restocks automatically. This shouldn't take long."
His expression was similarly grim, but he grabbed hold of my wrist before speaking.
"You have a good heart, Alice, but I fear that you are trying to do everything yourself. I know that you won't be persuaded out of doing this, and I am not capable of stopping you, no matter how much. I wish I could ground you for your own sake. So, instead, I will give you this: it's something that I found on my travels. It should help keep you alive if things get hairy. It is not a nice weapon, but it will do the job."
And then the old man handed me a Goodman gamma gun. I had no idea where he got it, but I absolutely knew what it was and just how vile a weapon the thing really was. If that wasn't a condensed war crime, then I didn't know what would count. I took it and gave him a hug as thanks.
"I will be careful. Even if bullets, knives and explosives can't hurt me, there are still some things that can. I will be back. Take care of my home and my children, and please don't let them near the back of the warehouse. They are not to be left alone for too long. Goodbye, doctor Mitchell."
I let go of him and dashed out the door, closing it behind me. I put away my shoes and pants as I didn't want to ruin them with what I was about to do. Seconds later, my form was shifting and swirling, my legs became longer and segmented, my feet got wider and more, resembling that of a raptor. I grinned and began to run, Primey hanging around my neck, ringing happily. This freedom was nice, relaxing, peaceful even.
I picked up speed and jumped over the spike-filled mote near my settlement's edge. It was exhilarating to jump Over a massive chasm of death with nothing but the strength of my body. I couldn't help but laugh like a maniac.
I was free. The forge had said so. I may be in a death world, and death was waiting around every rock and beneath every stick, but I was free. My mind and body were my own. I was in control now. I just had to keep it that way. I touched down on the other side and rolled. After getting up, I didn't bother bleeding off the momentum. Instead, I used it to rocket forward like a cannonball, off towards Nipton. I had a fox to hunt.
Meanwhile, in the dark reaches of the Omniverse
Its minor agent had failed, defeated by the forge. No matter. It had been a far-flung idea anyway. There was almost no way the forge would let its anchor be influenced by something like one of its minor agents. But the panic on the anchor's face had been delicious. The forge could not be attacked directly. It was far too powerful for that. The second eldritch war had shown them that. They had risen entire multiverses worth of armies only to be crushed by weaponised concepts. Laws of reality made manifest into forms of unreality that broke even the neverborn of the deep ocean like they were nothing but mere pebbles. No, this required a lighter touch. Brute force would not work for this. They would need to work from the shadows if they wanted that monstrous influence for good gone from their multiverse permanently. It was refreshing. How long had it been since they had to act like this? How long had it been since they had a heroic force, they could not outright crush to dust should they so wish? Those new rules the forge had enforced upon reality forced them to play fair. No more making deals and then simply ignoring Them. They could no longer simply swarm entire worlds and devour them wholesale. It grated their nerves, and yet it excited them. They had to work for their price. How refreshing…
They looked upon the world the anchor had been hidden away in. It was under the purview of many of their lower born cousins. Typically, they would have simply subsumed them and continued, but they could no longer do so courtesy of the forge. They could not even send a champion. They were incensed by this, so they spent some time poking and prodding the defences of that world and finally, they found a crack. Perhaps it was intentionally left by the forge? That thing was sick enough to test its anchors like this, but they did not care. A vector of attack was a vector of attack. They sent off a microscopic amount of their power towards the species known as the moth man. It did not manage to infect all, but some fell under its sway and from there, it would have a vector for further plans. How foolish of the anchor to use advanced technology without proper protections.
Dark cackles echoed across the empty regions of the lifeless void…
Meanwhile In Worm
Director Emily Piggot POV
Chaos. Panic is utter and complete madness.
Those were the words that could best describe the current state of the world. The people known as Case 53 were on a very public manhunt. Contessa had tried to run, but it had not gone well. The sheer amount of hostility they had shown was so extreme that an area of about a square mile had been annihilated before she could get out. It was unclear if she had escaped or if they had killed her, but the amount of destruction made it hard to tell. In that particular region of Yellowstone space and time were suggestions now. It turned out that you could, in fact, perk physics via concentrated suicide attacks of strikers, brutes and blasters, not to mention what the strangers did to that place. It was now considered a place more dangerous than Ellisburg simply by sheer environmental effects. The amount of hatred they had brought to bear against one woman was monstrous, but director Piggot could not blame them. She had read what had been done to them to create them, and she understood. Triggers were bad enough, but to be forced to trigger as a science experiment for some sick fucks? She supposed it was only fair that they got to have their vengeance.
The documents released by the parahuman known as void cowboy had brought ruin to the upper echelons of the PRT. Dragon had managed to contain it outside the PRT, so the public was unaware that the director was cauldron. The heroes were not. As such, Alexandria had to vanish and without Contessa to devise a probable plan as to why she did so, it was only a matter of time before the public would figure things out.
She had been made the Interim leader of the PRT since she had been one of the very few people who had been against the director. And hadn't that been a discovery, the bitch had been Alexandria all this time. So much for power separation. And now this was her mess to deal with, just great. At least there was some good news. Void cowboy, now identified as Greg Veder, had Turned himself in, fully expecting to be shot at sight. The young boy was jaded beyond what a child his age should be, but she supposed it was natural considering what he went through. His distant cousin, whom he looked up to and loved, murder his little sister. Simply because she found some documents lying around and read them was something that would break any child. Learning that he would not be able to get justice for her no matter who he turned to was worse. Getting the blame for it and having to run from your family as a result…
It was no wonder the young boy snapped. That he didn't do something worse was a surprise in and of itself. He was very cooperative and only had two requests. He wished to see his sister's grave, and he wanted to be able to keep hunting Cauldron, even if it were to kill him. She had seen this before, usually in soldiers whose entire units had been wiped out. She had seen it in herself after Ellisburg. To see it in a child so young. She did not like it. The boy had been through enough, and now the Youth guard wanted to stick their noses into this? Not this time.
Emily Piggot did not like Parahumans, nor did she like children, but she would be damned if she would allow a child to suffer any more after he did so much for humanity. He went about it in a pig-headed way, he set ablaze an entire organisation, but he did what needed to be done, and he stuck to his guns to the end and took accountability. She would not allow some idiotic soccer mom to ruin his life further. She doubted she was the best choice but would make the offer anyway. With her mind made up, she sent off the appropriate email to delay the youth guard for two days so she could make the offer. It was the least she could do. The boy deserved that much.
Onto the next problem then. They had had a first contact situation induced by an endbringer, and the result was a VERY hostile one towards the endbringer. What had been done to the Simurgh could only be described as biblical retribution. In her private moments, she took great pleasure in rewatching the videos of the monstrous cunt, writing in pain as her flesh was gnawed away from the inside out. No one knew what she had been trying to do precisely beyond summoning the entity now known as the mistress of the forge. Someone classified as an extinction class entity, and wasn't that fun. She now had access to all of Cauldron's little secrets. She really needed to thank the boy.
Scion was an alien apparently. One member of a pair that was the source of all powers, and they were not on the side of humanity. The Forge, by all known metrics, an eldritch god had called them parasites, and it fit. They seemed to need a host species to refine their abilities, and they were more than willing to incite conflict between hosts to get that refinement. This was a shitshow. She had thought Brockton Bay was bad, but this? It was sheer luck that one of the aliens was already dead. And even more lucky that the eldritch star god or whatever the forge was had terrified Scion into hiding in the far reaches of the upper atmosphere over Lower Hutt, New Zealand. It was gratifying seeing the entity that had brought such horrors to humanity fleeing as far as it could from the point of entry the forge had used. The fucker was even cradling an Infinite tub of ice cream and stress eating it like its life depended on it. Notably, Behemoth and Leviathan had fled there too. The people of New Zealand had luckily gotten out due to Leviathan getting there first and not attacking beyond trying to HIDE ON LAND. Behemoth, then bursting through the ground two days later, had thus done no damage to anyone but some unfortunate kiwis. Shame, really. She liked those silly birds. They were harmless and cute.
Back to the Forge. It scared her. It really did. She was glad for the People of Switzerland's resurrection and their country's restoration. They did not deserve what the Endbringers had done to them. But the ease with which it had rewritten reality, the sheer cruelty and the casual use of the powers at its disposal. Then there was the reaction of the Simurgh when she saw it. She was not aware that the Endbringers were capable of fear. And the sheer amount of new thinker triggers from people just looking at the sky scar.
Before this clusters were rare…
Now? They had villages full of them. All of them had triggered as precogs or post cogs. Bringing dire warnings of just what lay beyond that scar.
Apparently, the theory that each book, each film, and each story told was a world out there was true. The warnings they spoke of made Endbringers look like little insects. They spoke of swarms of aliens devouring galaxies, concepts of reality made manifest as weapons of war in conflicts that spanned entire realities.
Destruction so great that everything ended and began anew with the clashing of swords wielded by dark gods and demented madmen.
All to fell the Forge if the thinkers were to believe entire universes had thrown themselves at the thing and broke like wheat before the harvester consumed and added to its might. And now? The Simurgh had brushed with something it called its mistress. Angered it enough to lash out. It had promised that its mistress would come. And that thought terrified her. What entity could leash a benign so great, terrible, and horrible that entire universes fell to it like crops to a farmer? What cruel and uncaring god would such an entity be?
The World of Fallout
Alice POV
It was so much fun to run around at the speed of a race car. I felt like I had all the speed. Was this what squirrels felt like? They were small and fast as all heck, so probably. I rushed across the wasteland, passing by some rad scorpions. I wondered how they would taste if I cooked them properly. There were recipes for them, but they were full of radiation, which was terrible for you, but if I could get the radiation out of the rad-scorpion, they could be tasty. I pondered the proper process of de-radiating a rad scorpion as I neared Nipton.
I had made good time, and they hadn't killed anyone yet. That was good, but I was cutting it close. The major was up on a pyre, and Vulpes Inculta was standing before the pyre, yapping on about something. His Legionnaires were looking at him and smiling, not really paying attention to the surroundings. Perfect, this was just perfect. I shifted my legs back to normal and crept onto a small nearby hill. Well, nearby for me, so about a kilometre away.
I took out my now-named weapon. After all, the first weapon I truly crafted with nought but my own ideas and no inspiration from existing weapons would need a name, and I knew just what to call it. The Kiss of Steam. It didn't fit, but I already had ideas on how to rework her now that material breakdown was no longer a problem. No more ugly battery backs. No no, the glorious age of steam and brass would soon begin. Same with my tanks and jets. They worked, but I did not like them that much. They missed a certain Panache.
I aimed at his head and fired. The Kiss of Steam howled like a demon from the deep reaches of the endless ocean. The round tore through the air, creating a bubble of super cavitation. Pico-seconds later, Vulpes Inculta was turned from a man into a loose collection of atoms, and so was the wreck of the house behind him and a large part of the house behind that. As he fell, I could feel my reach in the forge expand by quite a bit.
Mary Stetson, Nipton citizen POV
They came with the light of dawn after the NCR rangers and the powder gangers had fought each other and killed each other in the street. They came when we were vulnerable, dragged us out of our homes and burned them.
They were the legion, the scourge of the wastes, worse than raiders, so so much worse. Raiders just killed you or raped you. Those bastards? They killed your husband, enslaved your sons as soldiers, and forced us women to be breeders for their army. They were the scourge of the waste.
They were the Legion, and they were many.
I sobbed as they dragged us to the crosses. I knew what was about to happen to us. I just hoped I would die quickly. It was preferable to the alternative. Even the pyres were better than getting dragged off. Their leader had begun to speak about how we were heathens.
We were just trying to survive. Was that so bad? We hurt nobody. Yes, we sold our bodies, but it was our choice. We did so willingly. It was not a nice job, but my daughter had food, water and shelter. Was that not enough?
"And for your sin, you shall burn by the decree of Caesar, for his word is law. There is no higher Authority than him, and he will bring order to the wastes. If there was, I would be struck down where I stand. Now bear witness as I burn the first of you sinners."
The one with the fox skin on his head, their leader no doubt said as he held up a torch. I began to pray to all the gods above that he would get struck down for this. Then came a sound like the roar of an angry god, and he was gone. The ground where he had stood turned an angry red, and a long scar of fire was carved into the hill behind town.
There was a god, and they were angry.
The legionnaires put down their guns and ran, unwilling to be next. It did not help. Again and again, the god roared, and they fell. There was a god, and they had chosen to help us.
I fell to my knees, hugging my daughter. Our home was gone, but we were alive.
Alice POV
I shot them all down, each and every one of the fucks. Served them right for trying to crucify people. Anyone who tried that deserved to be exploded by super cavitation shots. I was happy with the knowledge that my troop transporters were nearing Nipton. Getting my children to construct some fast troop carriers had been a hasty thing. At first, I had obviously wanted an airship, but I didn't have the time, so some Apache helicopters had been made and were about 10 minutes out. I would not expose my doors to people I knew nothing about now that I had other options. Sunny and the Good Doctor were emergencies, and I knew a bit about them. Those people? I had no idea who they were, but I would not leave them to the wastes. They would get the offer to move to Goodsprings for now. I could always kick them out if it came to that. I hoped I wouldn't have to do something like that, but I would do it if it came down to it.
My heads-up display blared multiple warnings at me, and I froze stock still as I read it.
All jets in Appalachia lost. Eldritch possession suspected.
Oh, for fucks sake…
-400 cp Banked
Perks this chapter
-A Monument to Time Itself (Warhammer Fantasy - Tomb Kings) (400CP)
You built things to last. A monument to death that itself dies may have a certain appeal to more philosophical sorts but you wanted your monuments to last for eternity, so that everyone would look upon them and know the glories that your mind had wrought. What objects or structures you create, by your own hand or by your direction, will last forever. The passage of time and the environment around it will not degrade it or damage it or destroy it. Even blows against it, attempts to demolish what you have made, will see their blades break long before the stone you laid down does. Your creations are imbued with supernatural durability, though they will not last forever or be protected against anything, they will be proof against mere mortals trying to defile your art.
Hordes of the things were wandering around within the territory, aimlessly shambling from one former point of civilisation to the next.
I did not want to have to deal with this, but it seemed like I had to. I ordered any scorch-beast found by my Jets in the region, of which I had lost 9 to surprise attacks, to be immediately shot down with extreme prejudice. Any ground-based nests were to be hit with hellfire missiles until only a red-hot crater was left. The Jets still in the region were designated as lost assets until such a time as when they would be rebuilt in the workshop as a result of the Fiat-backing.
This was because I ordered the total depletion of ammunition into any scorch-beast. If that was not enough to destroy the damn things, then they were to disengage, gain distance and ram them at maximum acceleration. Those things were dying, and they were dying NOW.
I would have to begin with the production of large-scale annihilation weapons. This plague was not something that I was willing to let fester. It had a long time to dig itself in, and it was a wonder that it had yet to spread out of the region.
However, I was confident that the large amount of strangler vines encircling the region like a massive barrier had something to do with this. Something had contained the plague. I was still determining what that something was and whether it was on our side. I was, however, grateful for it. Without the massive organic wall, the wasteland would be overrun by now. Of this, I was sure.
This needed to be dealt with. What was the Brotherhood of Steel doing? This should have been right up their alley. I was going to have to go and find the kleptomaniacs and ask them myself, wasn't I?
Closer to home, I had some good news, at least. The fiends had not yet raided vault 3. However, they were getting dangerously close to the vault. A hellfire missile disabused them of that path or, indeed, any further paths at all. Cook-Cook would never cook again.
I initially didn't plan to hunt him and his pack of hereteks down, but the opportunity was there. And I would be damned if I let that monster hurt another innocent civilian if all it took was a missile that the warehouse could replace. Oh, I was going to be haunted by my actions. Taking a life was not something that would ever be easy on my mind unless the forge granted me something truly horrid. However, the cost of me losing sleep was a toll well worth the reward.
And I was pretty confident that many people would sleep better now that this monster no longer prowled the wastes. Yes, this was a good deed, even if it involved taking a life. Another potential problem for the future was that I could see goddamn Talon Company mercenaries advancing towards New Vegas. What those walking annoyances wanted here was anyone's guess. There was a significant potential that someone paid them to store up trouble here, and knowing them, they would jump on it.
But by far, the most worrying discovery apart from the scorched plague came from Boston. The Dunwich quarry was active. Well, not active, as in they were quarrying stone. That would have been fine. No, it was far worse. The temperature of the site was negative 180c. This was unnaturally cold. And what's worse is that I lost a jet to it. When I ordered a low lazy flyby for better high-resolution pictures and Lidar scans, my bird was shot down by a massive ice growth. Ice that rapidly grew out of the ground like some form of demented air defence system. This was not something that I had been expecting. As a test, I ordered a flyby over the Dunwich building, and the same thing happened.
Yeah, I was not touching that without Blackstone or some other form of warp-killing material or tool. Perhaps a Scranton reality anchor? If I could get my hands on some of the foundation's technology, this whole mess would become much easier to deal with.
Then there was the legion. And oh boy, were they a problem. Those slaving rat bastards were slowly making their way towards New Vegas with a genuinely massive legion of enslaved people following them. The game did not do their size justice. And what was even worse was the fact that they used slave legions. The Jets recorded a large quantity of enslaved people wearing explosive collars and carrying Spears. It made my blood boil to see such a thing. I originally had no plans of hunting the legion down, but seeing such a thing made me furious. Most of the slaves were children, some no older than ten years old. And they had mutilated them. Some were missing eyes or ears, some noses or even limbs. I had to assume that this was done as some sick form of punishment.
Cold fury pumped through my veins and demanded that I kill them all for their crimes. This, however, would not be so easy. Due to the widespread use of explosives, they had a massive amount of hostages they could hide behind. I couldn't simply bombard them like I had the powder hangers. Nor would I be able to overwhelm them with sheer numbers since they could threaten the hostages.
I went outside the workshop and closed the door before yelling obscenities at the sky. Oh, how I wanted to kill them all for this. They dared to enslave and mutilate children. They deserved hell for what they had done, and I could not deliver it. Hereteks such as those deserved to be turned into servitors for their sins. They did not deserve the ability to walk under their own will.
My train of thought rapidly cut off when I realised just what I had been thinking about. Servitors? What had I been thinking? Yes, their crimes were horrific, but nothing justified doing THAT to another sentient being. Those dark thoughts scared me. They scared me a lot. Was I really capable of such anger? Such cruel, disgusting rage?
I had been right. Oh gods, I had been right. This place was eating away at who I was as a person. I was a medic, not a warlord. I was not made for a place like this. I was selling my soul piece by piece, and for what? Territory? Vengeance for victims of atrocities long past? This was not worth it.
I fell to my knees and began to puke. My stomach was no longer capable of holding food. I had just ordered and executed the death warrants of an entire group of people. They were fiends, and they were about to hurt civilians, but was it worth it? I could no longer tell, and that was scaring me. After all, if I was not sure of my own actions, then how was I supposed to be able to protect others? How was I supposed to lead them to a better future? Was I even supposed to get the forge? Were my thoughts my own? Was I just a pawn of the winged bitch?
NO. FUCK THIS. I REFUSE. I was not going to break. My children binged angrily in the background, furious on my behalf as they realised where my mind had gone. They were right. So, what if I was in another dimension? So, what if I had lost everything? So, what if I was surrounded by eldritch gods and super viruses.? I was alive. The forge had chosen ME. Not someone else, not some super soldier, not some professor, not someone rich or powerful but me. Just a random woman dealt a lousy hand. I had been given the single most potent tool in creation, and I was going to use it. I was going to drag this world forward, kicking and screaming, whether they liked it or not. They were going to stop killing and enslaving each other, one way or another.
I growled and burned the puke off the floor with a simple application of my body's heat. I had plans to forge and people to contact. The door to the workshop opened again, and I walked back in my face a mask of stone. I made my way to the doctor's location. I had some questions I needed answered. I found him inspecting some of the welding tools in my family's workshop. Sunny was nowhere to be seen.
"Doctor, do you have a few moments to talk? I have a few questions I need answered and some things to tell you that I am quite certain you would be happy if Sunny wasn't present to overhear them. Speaking of Sunny, might I ask where she is?"
He grumbled something I could not hear even with my vastly enhanced senses and nodded.
"She went back to the living room. The scene of our former home's destruction did a number on her. I gave her a minor dose of sedatives to let her sleep for now. I am thankful that you allowed her to see it. I wish you hadn't, but I know she needed to see it."
I nodded in response to that. I could understand his point. She didn't look well when she left, but both of us knew it would have been worse if she hadn't seen the destruction, so we let her watch.
"I agree with that. I would have preferred it If she would have stayed at base but she needed this. Now then, walk with me, doctor. Oh, do you mind if I smoke my tobacco pipe? I just got some news that I really rather not have gotten, and my nerves are quite on edge?"
I asked out of politeness. After receiving a nod from him, I took out my trusty pipe and added some tobacco before packing it down with my tamper. This act always calmed me down. The tamper was a gift from my grandfather, and it was a beautiful little thing. Made from walnut and silver, it has served me well over the years. After I had made sure that the pipe was packed with the right amount of tobacco and packed to the proper density, I produced a match from the pouch and lit my pipe. Pretty soon, the pleasant aroma of English tobacco filled my mouth, and I could feel my mind calm a little. I knew it wasn't the best way to calm down, but some vices were allowed. And A combat medic's life expectancy was usually so short that I didn't really care about the lung cancer, and now, as a magma slime, I no longer had to worry about such minor things. After all, what kind of magma slime would I be if simple smoke could harm me? Not to mention that the pixie dust perk made me immune to breath-based damages. I could breathe volcanic smoke all day and be perfectly happy. Taking a deep puff of smoke into my lungs and letting it soothe my nerves further, I began walking.
"Now then, the questions first. Would you know how to go about getting into contact with Robert House? Someone like you who has explored quite far and wide would perhaps hold such knowledge."
I took another drag from my pipe as I waited for the doctor's answer.
"The old bastard? Hmm, I suppose you could either try to contact him via a Securitron or by going to New Vegas, but the Securitrons are a good way to get hold of him. However, he does pay attention to certain radio frequencies for some reason. So, you could try to get a hold of him that way. But why would you want to do that? He's nothing but bad news."
Mr Mitchell was quite perturbed with me asking him for this, which was understandable considering his history with the man. Nevertheless, I had to do this no matter how distasteful I found it personally. After all, the fucker had a hand in helping with the design of the slave collars now holding children as prisoners. If I had to grin and bear with him to get those poor souls saved, then I would right up to the point where I could put a bullet in his head.
"He helped in the creation of the explosive collars. The base model, at least. It was developed in collaboration with the monsters in the big empty. I need that knowledge to see how things operate because Caesar's legion uses a large army of mutilated children as slave soldiers. I need to know if I can shut the things down from a distance or not. Don't worry, I have no love for that man. In my eyes, he's a war criminal, and where I come from, we execute those. The things he helped develop and helped do for people before the Great War are beyond the pale. If he weren't needed, then I would not even entertain the idea of talking to him. But sadly, I have an army of slaves that needs to be saved and to do that. I need to talk to the cunt who helped build their collars."
At the end of my explanation, I growled with cold rage. The good doctor put his hand on my shoulder in support and nodded in grim understanding.
"I can see why you didn't want Sunny to hear about things like this. It would not be good for her mental state to hear such things right now, and I thank you for keeping it from her for now. You said you had other things to talk about?"
I nodded and continued.
"Indeed. Next, I have some rather bad news. We have a hivemind zombie plague ruling an entire region of the American continent. The entire region of Appalachia is one big colony of zombies and their scorched beat masters. I have begun to kill them by utilising my jets, but it's slow going, and I will need to build heavy ordnance. I will also need to contact the Brotherhood of Steel because, in the timeline, I was aware that they were supposed to be integral to the containment of this mess. Luckily for us something, Eldritch has decided that they are not allowed to leave the region and encircled the entire area in massive walls of wood. How long those things will hold, I do not know. That virus is adaptive, and the scorch beasts are capable of flight. They spread the plague via a form of dust dropped from their wings. As such, they are now priority targets for annihilation. They cannot be allowed to leave the region and must be killed no matter the cost. To that end, I have begun the construction of a proper weapon of war. I am hesitant to use high explosives because that could damage the walls holding the things in. I am, however, not opposed to burning them with fire as hot as the sun. The production of white phosphorus has begun, and I will deploy it as soon as I have sufficient amounts to kill large swaths of the infected. They do not deserve the fate they are cursed to suffer right now."
I finished my explanation with a heavy heart. I knew this would happen, but I had to choose what was more important. My morals of being a good person and helping others or my will to hold to the rules of engagement, the Geneva Convention and an oath I had already broken. In the end, there was only one choice. Lofty morals were for people in ivory towers looking down upon the unwashed masses and sneering at them for their plights. I refused to become such a person. I would dirty my hands. If needed, I would do what needed to be done to keep myself and mine safe. And I would improve this world slowly but surely. Piece by piece.
As we were walking, I could feel the forge activate. A massive node had unlodged itself from the quality domain and was hurtling towards me. I fell to my knees as it hit me, the power of the perk damn near breaking my body. I could hear myself scream as I felt tremendous waves of energy pass through me and into all that had been built so far at my command. The power of caged stars and consumed souls flowed through me and into my creations. I was imbuing them with eternal, cruel, cold might. They would not break. They would not fall. My Dynasty would never bow. We had slain the star gods, the betrayers and the old ones. We had broken and caged our gods as mere tools of war and ruled the universe for millennia, and though I was no longer a Necron, I was still ageless, and I was still the ruler of my tomb, though I called it a forge now. Memories of battles long forgotten, of betrayal, love, and war came back to me. It came all back to me, and I screamed.
Mental overload detected. Emergency protocols activated. Memory influence blunted. The forge wishes you a nice day, Miss Alice
W-What the fuck was that? Emergency protocols? Mental overload? I didn't particularly appreciate where this was going.
"So, you got your first big perk, Mistress? Well, not to worry. After all, I was built with contingencies in place for such a thing. One of them being this message. Due to the early deployment of the forge because of the winged cunt I was not able to explain a few things to you, nor will I be able to explain things to you after this, so remember this. First, should a perk overload your currently feeble mind, its memories will be blunted until such a time as when you are ready to handle it. Your memories that the Simurgh affected were removed by quite literally cutting out that part of your life. So, you are truly your age body's age now. The missing parts are gone for good because they were largely trauma and misery. It would have done you no good. She does not control you. Your mind is your own. And one last thing you will get a certain amount of reach within the forge based on your greater accomplishments. This was the only communication you are getting from the forge itself, and I am aware that this is confusing, but you would not grow as you would normally if I held your hand the whole time, mistress."
I could hear the message repeat twice more in my head before I was free to order my thoughts in my own head, now blissfully silent, thankfully. Alright, this was a lot to take in. I kept dry, heaving and breathing heavily as I tried to get my body under control. My memories were apparently my own and not tampered with by the flying bin chicken of despair. That was good. I hadn't been so much De-aged as reality had been rewritten, so I was just 15. Fuck that was a startling revelation. So what? I had been a combat medic at fucking 12? Dear god, my home world was a mess.
Or it was now that the forge had begun to play around with it. I had a feeling that this action would have far-reaching consequences for that world, and I felt rather sorry for them. I didn't want this for anyone, and I didn't choose this. They shouldn't suffer because I was given the Celestial Forge. It wasn't right. I just hoped that I was wrong and me being a medic at 12 was an outlier and not the norm. I didn't want to be indirectly responsible for a new trend of child soldiers.
That was not something I would want to be responsible for. I felt an old, calloused hand on my shoulder trying to get my attention and realised that I was not alone.
"Little lady? Alice? Are you alright? Are you in there?"
The old doctor asked, worry evident in his voice.
"Y-yeah. I- I'm here. J- Just give me a minute. I got a big power-up, which had some drastic consequences for my mind."
I rubbed my eyes, trying to get the spots out of my vision and perhaps even gain some reduction in my pounding headache.
"Ungh. That hurt like hell. Alright, yeah, I'm fine. Can you help me up? I'm not sure if I can find my footing on my own right now."
I felt a strong pair of hands grab me under the shoulders and pull me to my feet. I wobbled a bit but ultimately managed to stand under my own efforts. I took some unsteady steps and managed to walk despite the pounding headache in my skull.
"Where was I? Oh, right, hivemind zombies. Well, that will be substantially easier now. The power-up I just received was truly a blessing, but the consequences damn near burned out my mind. I won't go into details because it's inconsequential for now, but everything I or my children build can no longer be destroyed by time or mortal men. Only gods and their servants have even a chance of damaging my creations. But time will find no purchase upon my creations. I paid far too high a price for something so weak as the mere passage of time or the effects of the elements to be able to destroy my work."
I picked up my pipe from where it had fallen and gently brushed off the dirt from the mouthpiece before taking another puff of smoke. The good doctor, meanwhile, looked at me with concern on his face. It was clear that he didn't believe that I was fine at all. I knew that I wouldn't be able to change his mind easily, so I would just roll with it for now.
My heads-up display informed me that the surviving jets that I sent on suicide runs against the scorch beasts were no longer breaking down as a result of the perk I had gotten from the forge. Instead, they had turned into high-velocity battering rams. The death toll of the scorch beasts was steadily rising, and I liked this a lot. I changed the flight paths of the jets still in the air so that they could do some bombing runs in the region and inspected the progress of the fortress creation. It was going swimmingly. The walls and the foundation had already been built. So had the gun nests and mortar platforms.
"I got some good news, too. The fortress construction is going great. The foundation is up, and so are the outer walls. That means that we can now begin with the construction of the perimeter walls. After that, we can build homes, farms, schools, a hospital and a town hall. We will finish it off by adding a dome overtop to protect against the weather, and then we can open the place up to people."
I smiled at the idea of having a well-fortified settlement in the hellscape that was the world of fallout. People would be drawn to it, and I would welcome them as long as they were willing to not be asshats to each other. I would have to think up some laws, but that could wait for now. That new perk really was a godsend. I no longer had to consider quadruple layers of redundancies to feel safe. I just knew that my creations would last.
"Hmmmm. So, you want to build a new community here? I think that's a good idea. It would be strange if the only people living in such a massive structure were you, your children, Sunny and me. You are aware that a place like this will attract raiders and other problems, right? If you build something beautiful, they won't be able to help themselves. They will need to try and tear it down and loot it. It is their nature as raiders."
That was something I was fully aware of, and it was the main reason for the creation of the spike mote. There would be none of that swarming the settlement with superior numbers. The massive walls and the done would keep any tactics the Romans used, now adopted by the legion, completely useless.
Bombardment, starvation, dehydration, encirclement? None of those things would have any effect against a necron-empowered fortress. The only possible avenue of attack was Vulpes Inculta. Their spymaster and master infiltrators, but luckily for me and mine, I was aware of where he was or would be shortly. The town of Nipton. Where he would use the presence of the NCR and the powder gangers as gambling customers via a convoluted scheme that, while disgusting, was still quite beautiful in its execution to start a riot. As soon as the riot was in full swing, he would sack the town and butcher it to "make an example of the hedonists". I could not agree with the result, but the plan itself was a masterstroke. The man was a cruel genius, and I would have to remove him as soon as possible. Luckily for me, my jet had found him. Nipton was already burning, but the people were still alive. Good, that meant that I could still save them.
The fool was standing on a ledge overlooking the town, and the massacre was about to happen. No doubt, hoping to make a grand speech about his beliefs and how the villagers were hedonists and sinners. Foolish if you asked me. He was pretty much asking for a bullet to the head. Any halfway decent marksman should be able to take him down…
From what a quick high-altitude flyover revealed, we had about 10 hours before they started killing since they were still building crosses and places to burn people.
I looked at the doctor with a grim expression.
"I have to go. The legion is burning Nipton to the ground, and they will soon start killing people. I will be back. Please take care of Sunny. The fridge restocks automatically. This shouldn't take long."
His expression was similarly grim, but he grabbed hold of my wrist before speaking.
"You have a good heart, Alice, but I fear that you are trying to do everything yourself. I know that you won't be persuaded out of doing this, and I am not capable of stopping you, no matter how much. I wish I could ground you for your own sake. So, instead, I will give you this: it's something that I found on my travels. It should help keep you alive if things get hairy. It is not a nice weapon, but it will do the job."
And then the old man handed me a Goodman gamma gun. I had no idea where he got it, but I absolutely knew what it was and just how vile a weapon the thing really was. If that wasn't a condensed war crime, then I didn't know what would count. I took it and gave him a hug as thanks.
"I will be careful. Even if bullets, knives and explosives can't hurt me, there are still some things that can. I will be back. Take care of my home and my children, and please don't let them near the back of the warehouse. They are not to be left alone for too long. Goodbye, doctor Mitchell."
I let go of him and dashed out the door, closing it behind me. I put away my shoes and pants as I didn't want to ruin them with what I was about to do. Seconds later, my form was shifting and swirling, my legs became longer and segmented, my feet got wider and more, resembling that of a raptor. I grinned and began to run, Primey hanging around my neck, ringing happily. This freedom was nice, relaxing, peaceful even.
I picked up speed and jumped over the spike-filled mote near my settlement's edge. It was exhilarating to jump Over a massive chasm of death with nothing but the strength of my body. I couldn't help but laugh like a maniac.
I was free. The forge had said so. I may be in a death world, and death was waiting around every rock and beneath every stick, but I was free. My mind and body were my own. I was in control now. I just had to keep it that way. I touched down on the other side and rolled. After getting up, I didn't bother bleeding off the momentum. Instead, I used it to rocket forward like a cannonball, off towards Nipton. I had a fox to hunt.
Meanwhile, in the dark reaches of the Omniverse
Its minor agent had failed, defeated by the forge. No matter. It had been a far-flung idea anyway. There was almost no way the forge would let its anchor be influenced by something like one of its minor agents. But the panic on the anchor's face had been delicious. The forge could not be attacked directly. It was far too powerful for that. The second eldritch war had shown them that. They had risen entire multiverses worth of armies only to be crushed by weaponised concepts. Laws of reality made manifest into forms of unreality that broke even the neverborn of the deep ocean like they were nothing but mere pebbles. No, this required a lighter touch. Brute force would not work for this. They would need to work from the shadows if they wanted that monstrous influence for good gone from their multiverse permanently. It was refreshing. How long had it been since they had to act like this? How long had it been since they had a heroic force, they could not outright crush to dust should they so wish? Those new rules the forge had enforced upon reality forced them to play fair. No more making deals and then simply ignoring Them. They could no longer simply swarm entire worlds and devour them wholesale. It grated their nerves, and yet it excited them. They had to work for their price. How refreshing…
They looked upon the world the anchor had been hidden away in. It was under the purview of many of their lower born cousins. Typically, they would have simply subsumed them and continued, but they could no longer do so courtesy of the forge. They could not even send a champion. They were incensed by this, so they spent some time poking and prodding the defences of that world and finally, they found a crack. Perhaps it was intentionally left by the forge? That thing was sick enough to test its anchors like this, but they did not care. A vector of attack was a vector of attack. They sent off a microscopic amount of their power towards the species known as the moth man. It did not manage to infect all, but some fell under its sway and from there, it would have a vector for further plans. How foolish of the anchor to use advanced technology without proper protections.
Dark cackles echoed across the empty regions of the lifeless void…
Meanwhile In Worm
Director Emily Piggot POV
Chaos. Panic is utter and complete madness.
Those were the words that could best describe the current state of the world. The people known as Case 53 were on a very public manhunt. Contessa had tried to run, but it had not gone well. The sheer amount of hostility they had shown was so extreme that an area of about a square mile had been annihilated before she could get out. It was unclear if she had escaped or if they had killed her, but the amount of destruction made it hard to tell. In that particular region of Yellowstone space and time were suggestions now. It turned out that you could, in fact, perk physics via concentrated suicide attacks of strikers, brutes and blasters, not to mention what the strangers did to that place. It was now considered a place more dangerous than Ellisburg simply by sheer environmental effects. The amount of hatred they had brought to bear against one woman was monstrous, but director Piggot could not blame them. She had read what had been done to them to create them, and she understood. Triggers were bad enough, but to be forced to trigger as a science experiment for some sick fucks? She supposed it was only fair that they got to have their vengeance.
The documents released by the parahuman known as void cowboy had brought ruin to the upper echelons of the PRT. Dragon had managed to contain it outside the PRT, so the public was unaware that the director was cauldron. The heroes were not. As such, Alexandria had to vanish and without Contessa to devise a probable plan as to why she did so, it was only a matter of time before the public would figure things out.
She had been made the Interim leader of the PRT since she had been one of the very few people who had been against the director. And hadn't that been a discovery, the bitch had been Alexandria all this time. So much for power separation. And now this was her mess to deal with, just great. At least there was some good news. Void cowboy, now identified as Greg Veder, had Turned himself in, fully expecting to be shot at sight. The young boy was jaded beyond what a child his age should be, but she supposed it was natural considering what he went through. His distant cousin, whom he looked up to and loved, murder his little sister. Simply because she found some documents lying around and read them was something that would break any child. Learning that he would not be able to get justice for her no matter who he turned to was worse. Getting the blame for it and having to run from your family as a result…
It was no wonder the young boy snapped. That he didn't do something worse was a surprise in and of itself. He was very cooperative and only had two requests. He wished to see his sister's grave, and he wanted to be able to keep hunting Cauldron, even if it were to kill him. She had seen this before, usually in soldiers whose entire units had been wiped out. She had seen it in herself after Ellisburg. To see it in a child so young. She did not like it. The boy had been through enough, and now the Youth guard wanted to stick their noses into this? Not this time.
Emily Piggot did not like Parahumans, nor did she like children, but she would be damned if she would allow a child to suffer any more after he did so much for humanity. He went about it in a pig-headed way, he set ablaze an entire organisation, but he did what needed to be done, and he stuck to his guns to the end and took accountability. She would not allow some idiotic soccer mom to ruin his life further. She doubted she was the best choice but would make the offer anyway. With her mind made up, she sent off the appropriate email to delay the youth guard for two days so she could make the offer. It was the least she could do. The boy deserved that much.
Onto the next problem then. They had had a first contact situation induced by an endbringer, and the result was a VERY hostile one towards the endbringer. What had been done to the Simurgh could only be described as biblical retribution. In her private moments, she took great pleasure in rewatching the videos of the monstrous cunt, writing in pain as her flesh was gnawed away from the inside out. No one knew what she had been trying to do precisely beyond summoning the entity now known as the mistress of the forge. Someone classified as an extinction class entity, and wasn't that fun. She now had access to all of Cauldron's little secrets. She really needed to thank the boy.
Scion was an alien apparently. One member of a pair that was the source of all powers, and they were not on the side of humanity. The Forge, by all known metrics, an eldritch god had called them parasites, and it fit. They seemed to need a host species to refine their abilities, and they were more than willing to incite conflict between hosts to get that refinement. This was a shitshow. She had thought Brockton Bay was bad, but this? It was sheer luck that one of the aliens was already dead. And even more lucky that the eldritch star god or whatever the forge was had terrified Scion into hiding in the far reaches of the upper atmosphere over Lower Hutt, New Zealand. It was gratifying seeing the entity that had brought such horrors to humanity fleeing as far as it could from the point of entry the forge had used. The fucker was even cradling an Infinite tub of ice cream and stress eating it like its life depended on it. Notably, Behemoth and Leviathan had fled there too. The people of New Zealand had luckily gotten out due to Leviathan getting there first and not attacking beyond trying to HIDE ON LAND. Behemoth, then bursting through the ground two days later, had thus done no damage to anyone but some unfortunate kiwis. Shame, really. She liked those silly birds. They were harmless and cute.
Back to the Forge. It scared her. It really did. She was glad for the People of Switzerland's resurrection and their country's restoration. They did not deserve what the Endbringers had done to them. But the ease with which it had rewritten reality, the sheer cruelty and the casual use of the powers at its disposal. Then there was the reaction of the Simurgh when she saw it. She was not aware that the Endbringers were capable of fear. And the sheer amount of new thinker triggers from people just looking at the sky scar.
Before this clusters were rare…
Now? They had villages full of them. All of them had triggered as precogs or post cogs. Bringing dire warnings of just what lay beyond that scar.
Apparently, the theory that each book, each film, and each story told was a world out there was true. The warnings they spoke of made Endbringers look like little insects. They spoke of swarms of aliens devouring galaxies, concepts of reality made manifest as weapons of war in conflicts that spanned entire realities.
Destruction so great that everything ended and began anew with the clashing of swords wielded by dark gods and demented madmen.
All to fell the Forge if the thinkers were to believe entire universes had thrown themselves at the thing and broke like wheat before the harvester consumed and added to its might. And now? The Simurgh had brushed with something it called its mistress. Angered it enough to lash out. It had promised that its mistress would come. And that thought terrified her. What entity could leash a benign so great, terrible, and horrible that entire universes fell to it like crops to a farmer? What cruel and uncaring god would such an entity be?
The World of Fallout
Alice POV
It was so much fun to run around at the speed of a race car. I felt like I had all the speed. Was this what squirrels felt like? They were small and fast as all heck, so probably. I rushed across the wasteland, passing by some rad scorpions. I wondered how they would taste if I cooked them properly. There were recipes for them, but they were full of radiation, which was terrible for you, but if I could get the radiation out of the rad-scorpion, they could be tasty. I pondered the proper process of de-radiating a rad scorpion as I neared Nipton.
I had made good time, and they hadn't killed anyone yet. That was good, but I was cutting it close. The major was up on a pyre, and Vulpes Inculta was standing before the pyre, yapping on about something. His Legionnaires were looking at him and smiling, not really paying attention to the surroundings. Perfect, this was just perfect. I shifted my legs back to normal and crept onto a small nearby hill. Well, nearby for me, so about a kilometre away.
I took out my now-named weapon. After all, the first weapon I truly crafted with nought but my own ideas and no inspiration from existing weapons would need a name, and I knew just what to call it. The Kiss of Steam. It didn't fit, but I already had ideas on how to rework her now that material breakdown was no longer a problem. No more ugly battery backs. No no, the glorious age of steam and brass would soon begin. Same with my tanks and jets. They worked, but I did not like them that much. They missed a certain Panache.
I aimed at his head and fired. The Kiss of Steam howled like a demon from the deep reaches of the endless ocean. The round tore through the air, creating a bubble of super cavitation. Pico-seconds later, Vulpes Inculta was turned from a man into a loose collection of atoms, and so was the wreck of the house behind him and a large part of the house behind that. As he fell, I could feel my reach in the forge expand by quite a bit.
Mary Stetson, Nipton citizen POV
They came with the light of dawn after the NCR rangers and the powder gangers had fought each other and killed each other in the street. They came when we were vulnerable, dragged us out of our homes and burned them.
They were the legion, the scourge of the wastes, worse than raiders, so so much worse. Raiders just killed you or raped you. Those bastards? They killed your husband, enslaved your sons as soldiers, and forced us women to be breeders for their army. They were the scourge of the waste.
They were the Legion, and they were many.
I sobbed as they dragged us to the crosses. I knew what was about to happen to us. I just hoped I would die quickly. It was preferable to the alternative. Even the pyres were better than getting dragged off. Their leader had begun to speak about how we were heathens.
We were just trying to survive. Was that so bad? We hurt nobody. Yes, we sold our bodies, but it was our choice. We did so willingly. It was not a nice job, but my daughter had food, water and shelter. Was that not enough?
"And for your sin, you shall burn by the decree of Caesar, for his word is law. There is no higher Authority than him, and he will bring order to the wastes. If there was, I would be struck down where I stand. Now bear witness as I burn the first of you sinners."
The one with the fox skin on his head, their leader no doubt said as he held up a torch. I began to pray to all the gods above that he would get struck down for this. Then came a sound like the roar of an angry god, and he was gone. The ground where he had stood turned an angry red, and a long scar of fire was carved into the hill behind town.
There was a god, and they were angry.
The legionnaires put down their guns and ran, unwilling to be next. It did not help. Again and again, the god roared, and they fell. There was a god, and they had chosen to help us.
I fell to my knees, hugging my daughter. Our home was gone, but we were alive.
Alice POV
I shot them all down, each and every one of the fucks. Served them right for trying to crucify people. Anyone who tried that deserved to be exploded by super cavitation shots. I was happy with the knowledge that my troop transporters were nearing Nipton. Getting my children to construct some fast troop carriers had been a hasty thing. At first, I had obviously wanted an airship, but I didn't have the time, so some Apache helicopters had been made and were about 10 minutes out. I would not expose my doors to people I knew nothing about now that I had other options. Sunny and the Good Doctor were emergencies, and I knew a bit about them. Those people? I had no idea who they were, but I would not leave them to the wastes. They would get the offer to move to Goodsprings for now. I could always kick them out if it came to that. I hoped I wouldn't have to do something like that, but I would do it if it came down to it.
My heads-up display blared multiple warnings at me, and I froze stock still as I read it.
All jets in Appalachia lost. Eldritch possession suspected.
Oh, for fucks sake…
-400 cp Banked
Perks this chapter
-A Monument to Time Itself (Warhammer Fantasy - Tomb Kings) (400CP)
You built things to last. A monument to death that itself dies may have a certain appeal to more philosophical sorts but you wanted your monuments to last for eternity, so that everyone would look upon them and know the glories that your mind had wrought. What objects or structures you create, by your own hand or by your direction, will last forever. The passage of time and the environment around it will not degrade it or damage it or destroy it. Even blows against it, attempts to demolish what you have made, will see their blades break long before the stone you laid down does. Your creations are imbued with supernatural durability, though they will not last forever or be protected against anything, they will be proof against mere mortals trying to defile your art.
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