Nuka-Girl: The Lone Teleporter (Or: "That time Taylor found herself in the Fallout Universe").

[Jonn Wolfe]

So what should she call this universe's Earth? Earth N? N, as in Nuclear fallout.

Click to shrink...

Going by that description, it would be Earth Nun - with Nun being the Hebrew letter for N.

Interesting story! Teleporter!Taylor isn't seen that much. Watched!

 

[Aurora Moon]

It was very dark at night, so Taylor was grateful for the large campfire that the others had made while she set up the tents.

They were halfway to Boston now, so Taylor was quite worn out as well. She wasn't used to so much walking! It just reminded her how much of a pudgy teenage girl she really was… she'd have to take up running once she got back home. How could she kick-start her heroic career if she couldn't even walk ten miles without wanting to give up? The others seemed to handle walking ten miles in one day just fine! And somehow Taylor just knew that they had another 12 miles to go tomorrow before they finally reached Boston. Just great.

Granted, one of them seemed to be a literal android dressed up like a stereotypical noir detective, while the other one was a burn victim cosplaying as a historical character from George Washington's time. Hancock definitely had to be some kind of parahuman himself too, right? He wouldn't be in that historical outfit for no good reason… although it did make her wonder what kind of powers Hancock had that he'd dress as he belonged in the colonial times. Piper… Taylor wasn't sure if she was a cape too or not, but she had to be one if she could keep up with Nora and the others without too much effort on her part.

That, or Taylor just really sucked at walking long distances like the others. She was most likely just that out of shape. It made her wish that she could just teleport the entire group there. And she had actually tried that when her feet gave up the ghost five miles into the journey. But she was already learning a few things about her power.

She had learned three things about her power:
1)She couldn't teleport somewhere that she hadn't been to before, due to not knowing the lay of the land there. Her power probably designed it that way so that she wouldn't accidentally teleport herself into somewhere dangerous, or find herself stuck inside a wall somewhere. It was the reason why she couldn't teleport to concord the other day because she hadn't been there before yet. Now that she had visited Concord, she could teleport there if she wanted to. Because for some reason she now had the entire layout of the city memorized, as a side effect of her power.

2) she could teleport to a specific spot as long as she had a good line of sight towards that particular spot. She had tested this out by teleporting ahead of the group a mile down the street. She had thought of moving the group this way, just to save them some time on walking. All she needed was a high vantage point, and some binoculars so that she'd see the place where they wanted to go to.
The others thought this was pretty neat and had agreed to test it out.

3) Unfortunately, this also led her to discover that she could only teleport one person at a time. She'd grab one person, teleport them there, and then go back to do it all over again. It did save them some time on their journey, but when she finally brought over the last person she had been panting so hard because it felt like she had actually carried the person for miles. All while jogging at the same time! Considering that the last person was Nick and that he weighted way more than a normal person did…? Yeah. Maybe she could carry more than one person when she became better at it, but she kind of doubted that.

At this point, Nora just told her that maybe they should just walk the rest of the way tomorrow. For now, they'd set camp and sleep here tonight.

Taylor sighed, as she trudged back to the campfire and sat down next to Nora. She noted that Nick had gotten up to roll out the sleeping bags inside the tents, which was actually very thoughtful for somebody who didn't need to sleep. Or so she assumed.

"The pork'n'beans is almost done. Nothing like a hot meal on a chilly night, eh?" Piper said as she stirred the large pot that was situated over the campfire.

"I almost feel like we should sing campfire songs…it has that vibe going on, ya know?" Hancock joked slightly as he moved to sit down as well.

"Um… well, how about we exchange stories about each other? I'd like to get to know you all." Taylor replied. "I already know about Nora's backstory, but I haven't heard much about the rest of you."

There. Maybe she'd finally get to know the story behind Hancock's full-body burns… she had been rather curious about that but hadn't asked because she didn't want to seem rude. Sometimes people could be a little sensitive about that sort of thing. Although, Hancock seemed strangely fine with the fact that he had lost his nose and ears.

Piper smiled, almost a little too eagerly. "Sounds good. Fine with me."

Hancock and Nick both just simply nodded at this.
"So, what do you want to know about?" Nora wondered.

Taylor smiled shyly. "Um… well, I was hoping to learn more about Hancock, Nick, and Piper here. I mean, I already know that you're an Architect-based Parahuman, Nora. So I'm more curious about what the others here can do."

"Ah, that's sweet. You want to know all about me. But, what's a Parahuman?" Hancock wondered.

"Oh yeah. That's the official term we use for capes back in my world. They're humans with paranormal abilities, hence the name. Although, most people also just call them capes… mainly due to the fact that the majority of them become heroes and villains, who often run around in spandex outfits and actual capes like the ones in comic books." Taylor explained.

"What, like the people on the Silver Shroud Radio plays?" Piper couldn't help but smirk at that.

Nora then explained to Taylor: "It's a popular radio show here that sometimes features people with powers working together towards the greater good."

Taylor just simply nodded at that. "Yeah. Believe it or not, that sort of thing became a reality in our universe when Scion first showed up like 29 years ago. He was the very first superhero, and he's the most powerful of them all. You might have remembered me mention him before…. He was the one who disarmed all of the nuclear warheads and any nuclear bombs. He seems to have a real hate-on for them. But thanks to him, we never had a nuclear war, much less any nuclear fallout from it. At any rate, people started to gain superpowers not too long after he showed up."

Piper grinned. "So basically, you come from a comic book universe… interesting."

Taylor grimaced at this. "Umm… I wouldn't describe my world that way. We still have our real-life problems, just like any other place. I mean, I've mentioned things like the Endbringers to you, right? So I don't really like the comparison to some comic book where everything's perfectly resolved by the end of the story."

Hancock looked thoughtful at this. "Yeah, I'd be suspicious if you said that place of yours had no problems at all. It seems that no matter where you go, people always have their own problems. Just a fact of life, ya know?"

Taylor nodded. "Exactly."

The three of them sat in companionable silence for a few minutes as Nick returned and sat down next to Nora.

"So, I believe it's my turn to ask the questions." Taylor finally said, "Hancock… You seem the most interesting one out of the entire group. I'd like it if you'd tell me about yourself."

Hancock smirked slightly. "Is it because I'm a ghoul, or am I just that awesome?"

"Umm… both? What's a ghoul? I mean, I've heard of ghouls in stories back home, but they might mean something different here." Taylor replied.

"A lot of people here in this world are ghouls. Basically, they're people who get blessed with a type of immortality and immunity to most kinds of radiation. In fact, the radiation can heal or resurrect us if we get injured. A lot of ghouls were people who were born long before the nuclear war. So they're basically immortal Pre-war folks if you will. But at the same time, not all ghouls are from before the war, there's plenty of post-war ones too. However... it came at a cost, you see. Most of us end up looking like…. Well, like this." Hancock gestured at his face at the end of his explanation.
He then added, "Also, the other downside is that there's a tiny chance that one might go feral if the radiation fries our brain instead of healing it like it was supposed to. Oh yeah… you might have to watch for those feral ghouls. They're like the zombies from ancient pre-war stories…. mindlessly attacking anything that moves. But never call a sentient ghoul like myself zombie to their face… that's a racist slur around here, you hear?"

"Okay, I won't. So… how old are you, if you're immortal?" Taylor wondered.

John Hancock smirked slightly, as he glanced Piper's way. He had been playing a practical joke on Piper for a while now… making her believe that he was, in fact, a pre-war Ghoul. And he had hung around enough pre-war ghouls to be able to fake it. Plus, unlike Nick and Nora, Piper hadn't really hung around good neighbor long enough to get to know him that well.

Thankfully his old friend Nick had gone along with it, citing the fact that Piper needed to learn a lesson about never assuming anything about somebody at first sight. As a reporter, she should know better than to judge people based on her own assumptions instead of digging for the facts first. Apparently, that happened way too often for Nick's liking. Hancock hoped this meant that Nick was finally loosening up if he was willing to go along with a practical joke.

But truth be told, Hancock was getting tired of stringing Piper along… it was time to let her on in the joke.

"Oh, not that old. But I don't really keep track of years like that, not in the way others do. I do remember the last time I had smooth human skin, though. I used to be the Mayor of Diamond city, believe it or not. But I had this secret that the public didn't know about. I loved drugs just a little too much than were healthy for a human being. And there was this experimental radioactive drug that was supposed to give you the greatest high ever…It was what turned me into what I am now." John Hancock said as he tried to recall the last time he had been human.

"Wait, what?" Piper blinked.

Nick chuckled as he lit up one of his cigarettes, "I remember when you turned into a ghoul. It was quite the scandal back then… the mayor of a diamond city not only doing drugs but turning onto a ghoul on top of it to boot? Although it might have scandalized the citizens even more that you honestly didn't mind turning into a ghoul and acted like the whole thing was no big deal. I've never seen anybody booted out of the mayor's office so fast. I don't think they even had a replacement for you yet when they did that."

Hancock sighed dreamily at the memory. "In my defense, that high was really the greatest high of them all. Even years later, I can say it was totally worth it. Plus, I gained immortality out of it. So what's not to like? The only thing I regret was not being able to find out what that experimental drug was made out of, so I'd make some more of it."

Taylor was staring at him like he just grew a second head. She kinda wanted to point out the whole "looking like an undead burn victim" bit but decided against it. Again, didn't want to be rude. Not to mention that she didn't have a good impression of drug users in general, thanks to the gang known as the merchants back home. And here Hancock was, acting like what he did was no big deal.

"So… you're not a pre-war ghoul?" Piper blinked, trying to wrap her mind around this. She had always assumed he was…

Nick chuckled. "Nah. If anything I'm so much older than Hancock is. As a matter of fact, I actually saved his grandfather's young daughter from a kidnapping attempt, which is the only reason why I was even allowed to become a resident of Diamond City at the time. His grandfather was also the Mayor if Diamond City, by the way. His daughter would go on to become John Hancock's mother, of course…."

"Yeah? How old are you, then?" Taylor asked.

Nick shrugged. "Depends on if you want to go by my human memories or my life as a synth. Before the war, I was an old gumshoe who had seen too much in my line of work… and were seeking treatment for dealing with all of my traumatic memories. There was a bunch of scientists who wanted to test out an experimental brain scan thing on me. Like a fool, I agreed. But how was I to know that after the war they'd use those brain scans to upload my human memories into a synth body?"

Taylor blinked at this. Did Nick use to be human…? Here she thought he was just some robot who had been created by some random Tinker out there. But by the sounds of it, Nick led quite the complicated life.

Nick looked thoughtful. "Let's see… it was the year 2187 when I first found myself as a newly minted prototype synth wandering the commonwealth. So in this body, I'd be around 100 years old now. And I can tell you that Hancock isn't quite that old… yet."

"You asshole! You were pulling a fast one on me, weren't you? Pretending to be a pre-war ghoul and all that!" Piper was nearly yelling once she realized that John Hancock had pretty much trolled the hell out of her. She glared at Hancock.

Hancock snickered. "Sorry, but you had it coming. You took one look at my revolutionary war costume, and just assumed things. I just went along with it... I was waiting to see how long it'd take you to notice that the costume was just that, a costume."

Nick smirked slightly. "He's got you there. No offense, but for a reporter, you seem to fail the most basic rules of reporting. Always get the facts first, never go with your assumptions, etc. Remember all the trouble you stirred up when you wrote that sensational article accusing Mayor McDonough of being a synth without backing it up with facts?"

Nora snorted. "I remember that. It was my first day in Diamond city, and he actually had to stand up there on this platform and give a speech about how he wasn't a synth. Made a big deal about how he grew up here in Diamond city, and that many people should remember that fact. His face was rather red when he gave that impassioned speech."

Hancock smirked. "I would've liked to see that. I grew up with the guy, and he was always something of an asshole. I'm just picturing his face when you accused him of being a synth… heh. I don't believe he's one, but the ass deserves it for kicking out all of the ghouls out of Diamond city. And for killing the ones who didn't cooperate."

Taylor looked at Piper. "You're a reporter? I didn't know that they still had newspapers in a postwar world like this."

Nora answered, "Well… Piper is literally the only reporter in the entire commonwealth. And she's also both the editor and publisher of her own newspaper, even though her little sister also helps with that. She found some old-timey printing press that she managed to get running, and that's how she's been spreading around her articles. No offense to Piper here, but her newspaper doesn't quite come close to the newspapers that we used to have before the great war. Hold on, I think I still have the article she did when she interviewed me."

As Nora dug around in her bag, Piper stood up and told Taylor: "I may be the only reporter around, but I'm darn good at my job. Just so you know. Even if some people complain that my articles are a little bit too sensational at times…" She paused to glare at both Nick and Hancock, "But I always focus on the truth above all else. And I believe that's the important part of being a newspaper reporter."

Taylor simply nodded at this, as if to agree with Piper. Which helped calm her down somewhat.

"Found it," Nora said as she pulled out some paper, and handed Taylor it.

Taylor looked over the article, and she couldn't help but agree with Nora that the newspaper didn't even come close to any large-scale newspapers before the war or even the ones from her hometown. Piper's newspaper looked more like a homemade magazine that one printed out on a printer using very cheap paper. Piper's goal of bringing back the printed press and keeping everyone informed was a noble one, but her efforts seemed to pale in comparison when you knew what really went into a professionally done newspaper. Piper didn't have the manpower nor the resources to be able to bring back a real newspaper.

Knowing this made Taylor feel kind of bad for Piper. Her dream of bringing back the printed press business to the commonwealth for good wouldn't probably last long, especially if something was to happen to Piper. Who else would take up her dream? Her little sister?

The food was done cooking, so everyone agreed to stop talking for a while so that they could eat. Well, Save for Nick anyway.

Taylor's curiosity about her fellow travellers were satisfied for now, so she had silently agreed to this as well.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Taylor woke up to a loud unearthly roar, and she quickly put on her glasses.

"What's going on?" Taylor whispered as Piper woke up next to her in her sleeping bag.

"Oh shit, that's a deathclaw. From the sounds of it, it's close by!" Piper whispered loudly, as she unzipped her own bag and grabbed her pistol.

The two of them slowly crept out of their tent and noted that everyone else was awake as well.

"The Deathclaw hasn't noticed us yet" Nick whispered, as he pointed down the road. Their tents just happened to be hidden by a bunch of bushes, from the vantage point where the deathclaw was standing… which seemed to be pretty lucky for them so far.
"Want to see if we can sneak past it? We'd have to leave all our camping equipment behind though."

Taylor gulped as she took in the huge size of that…. THING. And the big claws on it! No wonder why it was called a deathclaw... If a demon from hell had mated with a dinosaur, a Deathclaw would definitely be the result.

"Please tell me that's the result of a biotinker's work and not a naturally occurring species." She whispered.

Nora shrugged. "Nobody knows for sure though. A lot of rumors about the Deathclaw's origins though. Some people say it used to be a chameleon lizard species before it got horribly mutated, and others say it was the work of mad scientists. Either way it's, unfortunately, a flourishing breeding species across the American Wasteland nowadays."

"Shit." Taylor cursed at the thought that they might run into MORE creatures like that one.

"I hate to say it… but with a group like this, I don't think we can sneak past it. And it's going to find us by smell eventually. We might have to fight it…" Hancock muttered.
There was quiet cursing at this all around.

"Wait," Taylor said as an idea came to her. "Nora… what if you walled the deathclaw in? I mean, I've seen you float walls around a good two feet away from yourself when you're building things. You could create a trap for it, and then we can make a run for it while the Deathclaw's busy trying to claw it's way out?"

Nora blinked. She had never thought of using her building ability to create a trap for any living creatures like the deathclaw, but now that the idea was presented to her…? She realized it was doable. Ideas were firing off in her head now, as she realized that she could create mechanical traps that lured in all kinds of animals… from cats to deathclaws. The only problem was, creating such a thing required time that they didn't have right now.
A simple, large building would have to do for now.

She focused, willing all the dead fallen wood, metals and the like in the area to become scrapped so that they'd become one large building…

And now she had a large, prefab green cabin not too dissimilar to the ones she had seen at some settlement with a hippie-sounding name… what was the name? Ah yes, Sunshine tidings.
It was slowly floating higher and higher into the air, as Nora tried to place it directly over the deathclaw walking down the road.

The Deathclaw had noticed the floating house that mysteriously appeared out of nowhere, and now it was standing there, tilting its head like a puzzled dog as it tried to figure out what that thing was. However, it grew alarmed when it noticed that the house in the air was moving towards him.
He let out a loud roar, hoping to scare the thing into fleeing like so many other creatures did whenever they heard him. But the house kept on coming towards him in an unrelentless manner as if it wasn't scared. It growled loudly, as it looked up at the house, which was hovering directly over him now.
It was just hovering there as if mocking him. This frustrated the Deathclaw, as it was unused to seeing creatures that would act in such a way around him. It jumped up into the air and clawed at the air in a futile attempt to grab the floating green creature… but it remained out of his reach.

Nora chooses this moment to let go of the house just then, and the house crashed down on the Deathclaw.

A simple wooden cabin by itself weights around 20,000 pounds… However, Nora had added in not only the housing itself but the entire solid foundation underneath which was 40,000 pounds in itself. All that weight combined served as a very, very heavy object that quickly crushed the Deathclaw into oblivion.

Every one of them could swear that they heard the audible sounds of animal bones being shattered into a thousand pieces over the loud crash.

For a moment there, the entire group crouched together in silence… waiting for the Deathclaw to claw his way out of the rubble and roar angrily. But it never came up. In fact, they could see his clawed feet and tail sticking out of the half-demolished cabin, and it was perfectly motionless.

Which meant that it was dead.

Hancock couldn't help himself… he burst out laughing as he stood up. "My god. This is why I love traveling with you, Nora. I get to see weird crap like this… never thought I'd see the day that a Deathclaw would lose a fight against a house. Instant K.O too, to boot! This is way better than the time when you made that feral ghoul's head explode with a single bullet."

Nora stood up too as well, and the others followed suit.

"I meant to trap it. Didn't think that it would die from that... but eh, I'm not complaining at all." Nora replied. Especially now that she just discovered that she could actually weaponize her supernatural building ability. She grinned to herself, as she knew of a few people that she'd like to drop a house on…

A pity that heavy prefab houses like that one took up so much wood and concrete though.

Nick looked up at the sky, which was still somewhat dark despite his internal clock telling him that it was the crack of dawn. The sun was still in the process of coming up.
"It's pretty early. Should we rest some more, or pack up?"

Taylor scoffed. "I don't know about you, but I don't think I can go back to sleep. Especially now that I know there's more of those…. Things…. Out there."

Piper smirked slightly. "Yeah, same here. Honestly, I thought we had to fight that thing! Man, what a rush."

Nora simply nodded in agreement. With that, everyone else started packing up the campsite as Nora scrapped the collapsed house and the body of the deathclaw.

Once she was done cleaning up, it was like nothing happened here in the first place, save for a large crater in the road. And Nora got back most of her resources and some, which she liked. It meant that she could make as many as houses as she liked, and not have to worry about losing resources if she scrapped or destroyed them down the road.

She returned to the campsite and saw that everyone else had done their share of cleaning up too. Nick handed Nora her backpack, and with that everyone was off to Boston once again.

______________________________________________________________
Author note:
A hint of what's in the next chapter--Tinker Tom.

 

[Rini]

I'm surprised that they don't have a bounty on deathclaw's as that would help keep down the population.

 

[Jonn Wolfe]

Took the Wizard of Oz method of villain killin.

I approve!

 

[Aurora Moon]

I'm surprised that they don't have a bounty on deathclaw's as that would help keep down the population.

Click to shrink...

Deathclaws are notoriously hard to kill when you're low level, even when you're wearing power armor. The first time I killed a deathclaw in Fallout 4, it was after six tries... the other times I kept on dying. I finally had to stand on top of the minutemen museum's roof directly above Preston's balcony and let it come to me. this way it wouldn't claw me to death, and I could just shoot down at it with my mini-gun. I figured out that it would come out on its own after I had killed a certain number of raiders, and that I didn't need to go to that spot where it came out to trigger the deathclaw event.

I'm writing Fallout 4 as if it would be a real world and not a game with leveling mechanics and workshops. So I honestly can't see the majority of humans being brave enough to go deathclaw hunting all the time unless they were cornered with their backs against the wall. A few might do that though if they wanted to gain notoriety and fame as a hunter though.

 

[dredsand]

Hmm, if Nora can just spit out a house and scrap it later, why put down camp at all in the future, just have Nora drop another house and scrap it in the morning.

 

[Aurora Moon]

Hmm, if Nora can just spit out a house and scrap it later, why put down camp at all in the future, just have Nora drop another house and scrap it in the morning.

Click to shrink...

To be fair, Nora is pretty new to this thing herself. She didn't realize she could do that until now.
That's part of the superhero journey... to discover what you can and can't do in new, creative ways and become stronger because of it.

 

[Adrasteia]

If she can make a house on the spot, why are they camping in a tent rather than a secure building with beds? D: Then it wouldn't have mattered if ANYTHING showed up.

 

[Wizzrobe]

Deathclaws are notoriously hard to kill when you're low level, even when you're wearing power armor. The first time I killed a deathclaw in Fallout 4, it was after six tries... the other times I kept on dying. I finally had to stand on top of the minutemen museum's roof directly above Preston's balcony and let it come to me. this way it wouldn't claw me to death, and I could just shoot down at it with my mini-gun. I figured out that it would come out on its own after I had killed a certain number of raiders, and that I didn't need to go to that spot where it came out to trigger the deathclaw event.

I'm writing Fallout 4 as if it would be a real world and not a game with leveling mechanics and workshops. So I honestly can't see the majority of humans being brave enough to go deathclaw hunting all the time unless they were cornered with their backs against the wall. A few might do that though if they wanted to gain notoriety and fame as a hunter though.

Click to shrink...

If you walk over to the burnt out truck not too far from the Museum's entrance, you can literally walk from one side of the narrow part between the truck and the brick wall to the other and the 'Pathing Intelligence' makes the Deathclaw go all the way around the truck. Failing that, there are some open buildings that you can move into that the Deathclaw cannot enter.

Though one time a glitch caused the Deathclaw to rise into the air like it was on an elevator. I stopped there and watched until I couldn't see it anymore, which was when I resumed killing the Raiders. Twenty seconds later, I heard the Deathclaw die and turned around to see the beast's corpse laying right where it rose into the sky. Wish I recorded that moment.

 

[Jonn Wolfe]

Though one time a glitch caused the Deathclaw to rise into the air like it was on an elevator. I stopped there and watched until I couldn't see it anymore, which was when I resumed killing the Raiders. Twenty seconds later, I heard the Deathclaw die and turned around to see the beast's corpse laying right where it rose into the sky. Wish I recorded that moment.

Click to shrink...

Wish you did too. That sounds hilarious!
Did it at least scream on the way down?

 

[Aurora Moon]

Never ran into that glitch. I did run into a funny one once though... where there was this raider litterally just standing there in a corner. acted like he was stuck in the wall, but the way I saw it he could've turned around any time he wanted. But he just kept on staring into the corner.

Meanwhile, he was saying things like: "hiding, eh? come out!" "you can't hide forever!", etc. saying all those aggressive things like he was looking for me but he didn't even have his gun out, he was just standing motionless facing the corner he was standing in. Hancock was with me at the time, so I couldn't help but imagine my character looking at him and saying "look, somebody who's even more stoned than you are on a good day. haha."

At least that raider made it easy to line up a one-kill headshot. heh.

 

[KongouBongo]

Whelp this is a fun one, different and interesting. Looking forward to more

 

[Lokimotion]

It's quite rare to see Worm characters dropped into another universe instead of the other way around. I remember a series of one-shots where U&L teleported a bunch of people away, and when the PRT undid it Taylor had been sent to the Fallout 4 verse before the Great War and became the Sole Survivor, reappearing in BB with Shaun after the completion of the main quest. This is looking good, and I'm interested in seeing where you go with it.

 

[Brainarius]

A Survivor who has destroyed the institute should be used to and good at fighting deathclaws, especially if she has 4 companions with her. Target-seeking Missile launchers can do it, fully upgraded automatic legendary assault rifles as well. The minigun is useless. Personally, I find Radscorpions to be the most dangerous animal in the Commonwealth. Still, the premise is interesting and novel.

 

[Aurora Moon]

A Survivor who has destroyed the institute should be used to and good at fighting deathclaws, especially if she has 4 companions with her. Target-seeking Missile launchers can do it, fully upgraded automatic legendary assault rifles as well. The minigun is useless. Personally, I find Radscorpions to be the most dangerous animal in the Commonwealth. Still, the premise is interesting and novel.

Click to shrink...

I'm trying to go for a "realistic" approach where there's no leveling. if it was an actual game world Taylor was stuck in, then yeah Nora would easily be able to defeat a deathclaw without batting an eye.

However, in this story, some real-life rules apply because I'm treating the Fallout universe as if it was actually a real world, just not a game world where everyone levels up and whatnot. Such as the fact that there's no dimensional inventory space where you store your weapons and can pull a large missile launcher out of nowhere.

In real life, would you be able to carry around a weapon like the Fatman and dozens of other weapons without getting overcumbered, even if it was in a backpack? If a man can't even do it in real life, then I doubt that Nora would be able to carry those things around constantly. even with the help of four companions... which by the way, is also impossible in the game without a mod.
so everyone in this fallout story is set and stuck at normal human levels instead of the fallout leveling where you become a ridiculously overpowered brute the more experience you gain.
However, they lose those human limits should they trigger and become a parahuman. And Nora only recently became a Parahuman, just like Taylor. That's the rules that I'm going by for this fanfic... everyone is stuck at human levels unless they trigger.

 

[Orez Lanrete]

Deathclaws are notoriously hard to kill when you're low level, even when you're wearing power armor. The first time I killed a deathclaw in Fallout 4, it was after six tries... the other times I kept on dying. I finally had to stand on top of the minutemen museum's roof directly above Preston's balcony and let it come to me. this way it wouldn't claw me to death, and I could just shoot down at it with my mini-gun. I figured out that it would come out on its own after I had killed a certain number of raiders, and that I didn't need to go to that spot where it came out to trigger the deathclaw event.

Click to shrink...

If I remember correctly, been quite a while since I last played Fallout 4, you can simply just go in the building to the sides and shoot from there. Apparently, the doorway is too small for the deathclaw to fit through.

I also remember another story with the Courier from FNV ending up in Mass Effect 2 and the way he explained his inventory is that his pipboy can somehow atomise the objects he touches and added them to his mass. And adding more mass slows his movement down, so being overencumbered is literally him having so much mass that he moves extremely slow. This effectively made him the pack mule for heavy weapon ammo and heavy weapon usage throughout the story.

 

[Aurora Moon]

Tinker Tom could tell there was something different about today, that something special was gonna happen.

But that made him nervous because he couldn't tell if it was a good or a bad thing. There were a few times in his life when he got a similar feeling, and… well.

The first time, he had been barely a young man when the institute synths attacked his biological family and killed them all. He had escaped with his life but desperately wished that some of his family members had made it out alive too. He was now alone. And at that moment he found himself in outer space with a pair of aliens that didn't have solid bodies the way humans did. They looked like shifting gas formations that he had once seen in pre-war pictures of the stars, but somehow he just knew that they were alive.
Their voices echoed in his head, talking about things like heading to a location and trajectories and acceptance. That was when they downloaded all this information into his brain… on things like how to build certain things and stuff like that.

That had been a VERY bad day for him...seeing his entire family get killed in front of him like that, and then finding out that aliens existed but that they may not even care about humanity, and were just fucking around with humans by putting things into their heads? What was their goal with that? That was the only thing he didn't know, and he didn't like that.

But at least he knew how to build amazing things now, which was a consolation prize in itself.

The second time, something wonderful happened. The Railroad found him two years later and told him that he wasn't alone in wanting the Institute to pay for their crimes on the commonwealth. They told him so many things, about the origin of the Institute. They confirmed some things he already had suspected, and it had been so nice to feel validated at last. His fellow humans had laughed at him and told him to lay off the chems whenever he tried to tell anybody about his theories and the aliens.
But, the Railroad? They actually listened to him, even if they didn't believe him when it came to the aliens. Most of them were escaped Synths who wanted to free their people from slavery and the tyranny of the Institute, but they still treated him like he was one of them, despite just being a human himself.
In the Railroad, he found family again. And for them, he could tinker and invent all sorts of things to help them take down the institute.

The third time, something both wonderful and terrible happened. The Institute finally fell, for good this time. They had bombed the hell out of the place and freed all the synths. They had killed the leader, so there was no chance that the evil organization would ever resurrect itself again. They had finally paid for their crimes against not only the commonwealth but against the entire world.
However, some bad came out of that as well. There were synths who did not see things the way the Railroad did and grieved the loss of the Institute. To them, the institute was all they knew, and now that was gone. Some even committed suicide in front of him. Man, that had been gory. At least for each synth that died, there had been ten more who had wanted to live. Those ones, they had saved and gave them a new life outside of the institute.

His train of thought was derailed when a runner ran down and yelled: "Codename Agent Blue coming this way… with a group of four unconfirmed units."

That meant that Nora was coming this way, with a group of her friends. Unconfirmed meant that the friends Nora was bringing with her weren't part of the railroad, but were newcomers.

Desdemona, our current leader of the Railroad, frowned slightly at this. "Thank you. I think I'll meet them above ground… vet those newcomers first before I let them into here. Glory, with me."

The gray-haired woman with the huge minigun followed after Desdemona upstairs, and Tinker Tom was left down here wondering what was going to happen this time.

Tinker Tom didn't know Nora all that well, but he could tell that she was a force to be reckoned with… she brought about change in her wake without even trying to, and she had been the one who finally helped the railroad kill off the Institute for good.

This might explain the weird feeling he had today. It was telling him that Nora was coming by to bring about great change once again. Time would only tell if it was a good or a bad thing.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Honestly, I'm starting to wonder why the hell you wear this jumpsuit every day. How the hell do you pee in this thing?" Taylor grumbled as they walked towards an abandoned looking church in what used to be Boston.

Taylor had gotten the call of nature, and to her horror, the blue jumpsuit she was wearing had no way to let her go to the bathroom without having to take it off. It had been rather awkward as she had to hide inside one of the run-down buildings with a bucket while the others waited outside. She had been somewhat paranoid that some random stranger would waltz in and find her naked and squatting over a bucket.
She finally understood why jumpsuits, catsuits, and rompers weren't that popular in fashion back home despite the fact that it made both women and men look good. Heck, it even made her look like she actually had a figure, rather than the scrawny and pudgy teenage body she had in reality. But it was hard to deal with the fact that one couldn't go to the bathroom in those outfits, despite how good she looked in the jumpsuit.

"I tend to time and ration my meals and drinks accordingly so that I don't get those calls of nature randomly when it's inconvenient to do so. I've actually got a pattern set up, you see. Like when it's time to wash my dirty suits and change into a clean suit, which I do every two days." Nora replied.

Taylor looked disturbed at this. "That…. Doesn't sound healthy at all. You.. don't get… backed up at all?"

Piper made a face at this. "Seriously, guys. Could you stop it with the toilet talk? This is way too much information, even for me. Nick, back me up on this."

Nick very pointedly didn't say anything and seemed to be pretending like this entire conversation wasn't happening at all. He was staring off into the distance like the rest of them weren't even here with him.

Hancock just simply shrugged when Piper's eyes moved from Nick to him.

"Sorry, Piper." Taylor apologized since she was the one who brought up the topic to start with.

She then looked at Nora as she said, "No offense, Nora… but I think I want to find something else to wear soon. Jumpsuits might make me look good, but they're not very terribly practical in the long run. Besides, if I want to be a superhero I need my own costume, not a hand-me-down. I look like I'm your sidekick or something."

Their conversation got cut off, as they noted that there were a redheaded woman and another woman carrying a large mini-gun waiting for them at the entrance of the church.

"Hello, Desdemona." Nora greeted the redheaded woman warmly, "I've come to ask you a favor."

"I see. Would this favor have to do with the reason why you're coming here with a group like this?" The woman asked, raising an eyebrow as she took in the odd-looking group.

It wasn't every day that you saw a ghoul, an old synth, and a bunch of humans walking together like that, after all.

She recognized some of them, they had been waiting for Nora at a secret railroad hideout where they built the teleporter. This was back then when Nora had gone into the Institute for the first time. She recalled how upset and worried some of them had been for Nora when it looked like she wasn't coming back. And how relieved they were when she finally came back up, despite the fact that Nora was an emotional wreck after finding out what had happened to her son.

But the young teenage girl was a face that she hadn't seen before so that one was new to her.

"This is Taylor Hebert, and she needs your help getting back home," Nora answered her unspoken question as she gently guided Taylor towards Desdemona.

Taylor gave her a nervous smile and just said, "Hey."

"I take it that there's more to this story. Normally you wouldn't need anybody's help if this was just a simple escort mission." Desdemona replied as she stared the teenage girl down.

Nora smirked. "You're right. You see, she's a very, very, long way from home. And we need your teleporter machine to get her home. It'd be impossible to get to her home just by walking."

Desdemona sighed. "Ah, so it's one of those stories, eh? Very well, you all can come in and tell me what the hell is going on here."

~~~~~~


Taylor hadn't been sure at first when they were led through the insides of a run-down church that had looked like it had seen better days, but then she was pleasantly surprised when she was finally in the railroad headquarters.

She supposed it was a good way to throw off detection from their enemies. The top part of the building was completely run down and there was so much rubble on the inside that anybody would assume that it was an abandoned building that hadn't been used for a very long time. Heck, it was the kind of place not even the homeless squatters would want to hang out in.
But once you got past the catacombs downstairs into the headquarters, you had a proper-looking home for an organization. There was plenty of large rooms down here and it seemed like everyone had their own rooms that they could do their work in when they needed some quiet and privacy from others.

A part of her couldn't help but admire how devious that was.

She was content to let Nora explain the entire story of how Taylor arrived in this world to this Desdemona person so that she could look around the place and at its inhabitants some more.

She had heard the whole story about the Railroad from Piper on her way here, and she couldn't believe how human those synths seemed now that she had a good proper look at them all.

But then again, they could technically be human clones? Nora had said something about the latest generation of synths being more human than machine thanks to the fact that the Institute literally needed human tissue and blood in order to create the more human-looking synths.

Honestly, the more Taylor had learned about this Institute organization the more it sounded like a dystopian nightmare. Like something straight out of that Earth Aleph movie, "Bladerunner", only worse.
How they started with simple humanoid machines at first, which wasn't so bad. But then they moved on to kidnapping the citizens of this world just so that they could have human material to "clone" a synthetic version of their victims and use them as slaves. As if that wasn't enough of a dick move, they automatically put in control implants and sterilized nearly all of their clones so that they weren't able to reproduce and have families.

It'd be one thing if they were only biological robots that were unable to think and feel for themselves, but no. Those were sentient human clones who had thoughts, feelings and everything else that a real human has. So the institute was pretty much violating human rights across the entire board doing everything from slavery, kidnapping, to denying them their reproductive rights.

Honestly, Taylor couldn't help but think that this villain group deserved what happened to them and more. How could they ever be surprised that groups like the Railroad rose up to oppose them after all the crimes they committed?

Taylor was distracted from her mental musings when some black guy wearing overalls and the weirdest hat she had ever seen came into the room. He was holding some device that appeared to be a scanner of sorts, and it was making odd-sounding beeping sounds.

He had an excited yet anxious expression on his face as he was staring at his device, and didn't even seem to notice that he was walking towards her. The beeping sound became louder the more he came closer, and that was when he finally looked up to see where he was going.

Their eyes met, and the black man let out a loud hysterical laugh as he seemed to realize who Taylor was. "Alien! We have an alien here!"

"Excuse me?" Taylor said as the others in the room looked up towards them.

"Don't lie!" the man said, as he gestured wildly at the device in his hands. "A long time ago, I created this so that I'd be able to detect aliens if they came to Earth again. The way this works, it scans for objects or beings that don't belong on Earth. See? It didn't start beeping until you came down here! How do you explain this?"

Taylor blinked. So, this dude had to be Tinker Tom… right?

She thought for a moment and then answered: "Well, technically, you're right. You see, I accidentally crossed over to this alternate earth from my universe. Considering the fact that I wasn't born in this universe, I guess that does make me an alien here…? I'm still human, though."
This seemed to catch Tinker Tom off guard, as he blinked at her unexpected words.

Nora came over. "That's right, Tom. She really is from an alternate universe. That's the reason why we're here. We want to use the teleporter you helped me build to send her home."

Tinker Tom actually seemed to be disappointed at this. "Oh. I see. Oh damn, I thought I finally had evidence of aliens…humans from alternate earths don't count at all."

With that, he glumly pocketed his device.

Taylor raised one eyebrow, as she pushed up her glasses. "You seemed to accept that awfully fast. Even Desdemona seemed to have a hard time believing Nora when she was telling the story about me. I overheard her say a few things about how that was impossible."

Tinker Tom just simply shrugged at this. "Eh, I've seen and heard much stranger things."
He then leaned over and whispered: "Don't tell anybody, but we have a time-traveler in our group down here, but he doesn't want anybody to know. Not even me, though I figured out his secret on my own. Shh."

Nora seemed to be horribly embarrassed on Tom's behalf, as she said to Taylor, "Umm… don't mind Tom. He believes in a lot of….. odd things. And not all of them true. But, he does really good work and most of his stuff actually works the way it's supposed to."

Taylor just smirked slightly. "He can believe in whatever he wants, just as long as he can send me home. Can you?" She said the last part at Tinker Tom.

Tinker Tom pondered this for a few seconds and then nodded. "Yes, I can. As a matter of fact, I've already been working on improving the teleporter for Desdemona. She had this idea where if we could build them all over the place, then we'd be able to teleport people from one location to another safely without having to walk long distances."

Desdemona walked over. "That's true. I thought it'd be an effective way of safely transporting all the synths that we rescued. Imagine it… we could teleport the refugees from here all the way to Far harbor, or even outside of the commonwealth. Somewhere where there's no stigma against synths, and they can start a new life elsewhere."

Nora nodded at this. "Makes sense."

Tinker Tom sighed. "There's just one teeny, tiny problem. Setting up a teleporting system like that is really complex, and it's far too complicated for any of our current working computers. They can't handle the data or manage the energy required to keep the teleporters stable. We need some really special hardware to be able to manage sending people over long distances, even to alternate universes like the one where this girl came from."
Nora didn't like where this was going. "Oh dear. Let me guess, you want us to go find this special hardware of yours? Do you even know where it might be?"

Desdemona smirked slightly. She was going to order her agents to spread out and look for them, but now that Nora and her friends were here… she might just save her agents the trouble. Besides she also desperately needed her agents here to watch after and care for all the recused synths.

"Well, we have a few ideas of where they might be. Tom, tell them all about this device that we're looking for." She said.

Tom nodded, before continuing, "You need to find something called a star core driver. It's like a military grade hard drive, but ten times stronger. The reason why it's called a star core? Systemized Telemetry for Automated Robot Control. You take every first letter of each word, and you get… Star-C. It's a redundant multi-purpose control panel consisting of a black circuit board with glowing red lights. Its purpose was to help administer and manage a complex system so that humans could run multiple machines all at once in a safe manner without worrying about accidents occurring. Which is exactly what we need to run a whole system of teleporters all over the world."

Taylor frowned slightly. "Can't you just build this star core from scratch?"

Tinker Tom scoffed. "I wish. But apparently, that's not my specialty. I can only do certain things… if I try to do other things that aren't my specialty, the devices just blow up in my face."

Taylor suddenly felt stupid for asking, as she remembered why every Tinker out there often had a weirdly specific theme… it's because the themes they had were based around what they could build because every Tinker was curiously limited and very specialized in what they could create. There was even an alcohol-based Tinker back home in New York. Useless power, but his bar was highly popular.

Nora then spoke up, "Besides, computer hardware is very delicate. In order to create something that complex, you'd need a clean working factory and a lot of specific materials…."

Nora blinked as she suddenly had all those ideas on how to build factory machines and buildings… although none of them could produce the star core driver that they so desperately needed right now. A factory that could constantly produce fusion cells sounded interesting though, so she mentally shelved that for later.

She desperately wanted a notepad to write her ideas down now, and so that she could draw blueprints of the machines that she wanted to build. But there was none to be found down here. Sometimes living in a post-war world really sucked.

Desdemona replied, "Speaking of factories. According to the computer logs and the blueprints that we found regarding star cores, apparently, they were often used a lot in large factory buildings. They were also used for large military headquarters, government bunkers for the American president, and for some reason, amusement parks? Just so you have an idea on where to look for them."

Hancock shook his head as he walked over. He couldn't help but overhear this. "Damn. that's a lot of ground to cover. Are you sure you'll be able to make it back to sanctuary in only a few weeks? You did promise that boy."

Nick piped up from behind him, "Sounds like we might have to split up into groups? To cover more ground that way."

Piper frowned slightly. "Who goes with Taylor, then? I doubt she'll be able to know the lay of the land here. Actually, maybe she should stay here with the Railroad while we go look? Might be safer for her."

Nora cursed slightly. She didn't like the idea of splitting up, as that meant less protection for Taylor since she was unused to living in this kind of world. And she didn't really want to leave Taylor here with the Railroad, because she didn't trust Desdemona to not put Taylor to work doing dangerous things.

She looked over at Desdemona, and asked: "Any chance that you could send your agents to one of those places, while we take the rest? Actually, do you have a map of all the possible locations so we can determine whenever we can split up or not."

Desdemona simply nodded and went to get the map.

Nora turned to face Taylor and sighed. "Well, doesn't that beat all. I didn't think this would turn into a fetch mission for us. Sorry about that."

Taylor shook her head and smiled at this. "It's okay. I knew it wasn't going to be so easy from the start anyway. I honestly don't mind staying here in this world longer. It's just my dad that I've been worrying about, you know? I…. my mom… his wife died not too long ago. It was two years ago, actually. I don't know what he'd do if he thought he lost me too."

Nora nodded sympathetically at this.

 

[Aurora Moon]

What Taylor didn't know about the universes out there? There tended to be a lot of weird time distortions between all the worlds. And this effect only got stronger and stranger the longer the distance between the worlds.
The Fallout universe and the universe of Earth Bet were considerably far away from each other, which explained why it was the year 2011 in Earth Bet while it was currently the year 2278 in the Fallout universe.

Likewise, there was only a 6-year lapse between Earth Bet and Earth Aleph due to the fact that they were so close to each other. Aleph was set 6 years into the future compared to Bet, so it was actually the year 2017 there right now.

And because of the time distortions between all the worlds and the weird way Taylor's teleportation ability was affected by it? Taylor didn't know that while she had been only in the Fallout universe for a week or so, she had actually been declared missing by her father for longer than a week. In fact, it was now four months ever since she went missing back home.

And little did she know that her accidental teleportation trick hadn't gone unnoticed, and actually had set off a chain reaction that resulted in quite the media shitstorm.

When she had attempted to escape the locker while she triggered, she had accidentally opened up a tiny rip in the fabric of the Earth-bet universe inside the locker. And this tiny rip the size of a pinhole just happened to be leaking a lot of cosmic radiation… making the biohazard waste inside the locker ten times more deadly than it had any right to be.

The toxic fumes from the locker spread outwards, causing all the students and teachers at school to instantly become sick. The stench permeated every inch of the school, causing everyone to vomit uncontrollably and go into a coma for two weeks. Principal Blackwell, Sophia Hess, Madison, and Emma Barnes was amongst the unlucky victims who had gone into a coma.
The students and teachers who had managed to flee before it got too bad, called emergency services. The Federal Emergency Response Agency, (also known as FEMA), was called in to cordon off the whole school… and not ruling out the possibility that it might have been a parahuman attack on the school, the PRT was called in as well.

Naturally, after all the students and school staff was brought out and they noticed that there was one student missing, they had suspected something strange was going on. More so when they noted that Taylor Hebert's locker was the origin of the biohazard waste that had somehow infected the entire school building.

They suspected at first that Taylor Hebert might have intentionally set this up as revenge against the school, as they had discovered the files about her causing trouble at school and the disciplinary actions were taken against her by principal Blackwell. However, it was Armsmaster who noticed that there was a person-shaped gap in the locker's bio-waste as if a person had been shoved into there. And this gap just happened to fit the general shape and height of Taylor Hebert. And there was no way Taylor could've gotten out on her own, despite signs of a struggle. for there was a lock on the outside which had been firmly closed tight by somebody else. Strangely enough, there had been a hasty attempt at cleaning the lock of all fingerprints but he still managed to lift a partial fingerprint…. And it belonged to Sophia Hess.

So the facts and evidence didn't seem to line up here. So they had decided to investigate further by searching Taylor's bedroom and computer for any evidence that she might have been planning to carry out this attack on the school. They didn't find much, but they did find Taylor's diary, which was very detailed and through about all the bullying that she had endured at the hands of Sophia Hess, Madison Clements, and Emma Barnes.

Of course, this didn't quite clear Taylor's name of any wrongdoing as this did give them a plausible reason why Taylor might have committed the bioterrorist attack on the school.
So they confiscated all the girls' phones, and personal computers, then scoured through them all until they discovered something quite startling.

Taylor Hebert wasn't the one who was responsible for the toxic biohazard waste at the school…. Instead, it had been Sophia Hess and the other two girls who had been responsible. Madison Clements was the one who had kept quite detailed records about everything they did… she had even recorded video of themselves laughing as they shoved Taylor into the locker and locked her in.

So they had found the culprits who did it, but that still left the mystery of the missing girl. She couldn't have possibly escaped the locker, and yet she did. And there was also the source of the strange radiation emitting from the locker even after they had cleaned up everything.
Armsmaster thought that Taylor might've triggered and left the locker somehow…. But even that was hard to prove as seeing the girl had to yet turn up at all.

Unfortunately for the PRT, they had been working with both the police and FEMA at the time. When they discovered why Sophia's activities had gone on so long under the PRT's nose, the police and some of the FEMA members had also found out by proxy. So despite the PRT's attempt to cover up some of their indirect involvement with the whole mess, this ended up leaking to the news media.

Naturally, the reporters and news channels pounced on this, and by the next morning, everyone in the whole country knew of the scandal.

Sophia Hess had been outed as Shadow Stalker, so a news TV channel known to be prejudiced against Parahumans played up the angle that somebody with superpowers had been abusing a normal girl and committed the bioterrorism attack at Winslow. And not only that, but that the PRT had been complicit in it all. Other TV channels who were fairer in their viewpoint, instead focused more on the fact that Blackwell had been in cahoots with a PRT agent to get extra funding for the school, and had looked the other way as a result whenever Sophia caused trouble at school. They were questioning whenever Blackwell had done it out of desperation because there was next to no funding for the school, or if she was simply greedy and wanted to dip into the extra funds that she was getting for the school.

Danny Hebert had ended up on TV too, but it was mainly to plead with the public to bring any information about Taylor Hebert to the police so that she could be found and brought home safely. As seeing that it turned out that Taylor was obviously the victim of a long bullying campaign by a parahuman, the public was largely sympathetic towards the man.

The Trio and Blackwell were in for quite a rude awakening when they finally woke up from their two-week-long coma to find out that their names were plastered all over the newspapers and on TV, and not for the reason they'd like. They were stunned too when they discovered that they were being charged with several crimes, one of them being bioterrorism.

And seeing all of this went down while they had been out cold, they discovered that it was just a little too late to try to cover up everything.

And unfortunately for them, the longer Taylor went missing, the more the public had suspected that Sophia and the other girls had killed Taylor and then found a way to dispose of the body. So on top of the bioterrorism charges, they were also being charged for the suspected murder of Taylor Hebert.

After all, according to the experts out there that locker was so toxic and radioactive to such lethal levels that nobody could have survived inside there for any long length of time. So the girls might have as well committed murder when they shoved her into there. And they could have easily covered it up, thanks to Sophia's shadow shifting skill where she could go through things.

The more the girls protested that they didn't murder anybody, the less the public believed them.

Thanks to Sophia, the PRT's reputation was completely trashed. And despite her supposed usefulness, it looked like she was going straight to the birdcage rather than juvie as punishment.
It also didn't help Sophia's case that the other girls' parents had laid the blame directly at her feet in an attempt to get their daughters lesser sentences. Even going far as to say that their daughters had been scared of Sophia and had simply gone with it because they didn't want to be bullied themselves.

Of course, this didn't mean that Emma and Madison escaped the whole incident unscathed. The two of them were going to juvie for two years. And they also had to do mandatory therapy sessions and community service for up to five years, as well. It'd also be on both their permanent records that they had been charged as accomplices of a bioterrorism attack on a school. They'd be on the FBI watch list and no-fly lists for up to 20 years.
And it didn't matter to the courts that the girls had claimed that they didn't mean to target the entire school with their "prank"... The fact that they had intended for it to happen to a single person still counted as a bioterrorism attack.


But at least they got off light compared to the sentencing that Principal Blackwell got. Accepting bribes, aiding and abetting a criminal who was on probation, and being complicit to the point that she might as well been an accomplice to the bioterrorism attack? And on top of it, laundering the school funds and appropriating it for herself? Oh, she was pretty much going to jail for a very, very long time.

The school itself was strangely affected by all of this as well. They had shut it down permanently thanks to the strange radiation, and despite best efforts by the hazmat teams to keep it clean it had somehow became overrun by roaches in record time.
And what's more, the roaches there seemed to be turning into large versions of themselves. There were even a few cat-sized roaches that seemed to be glowing a bright green color. Which shouldn't even be possible…. Unless there was some kind of unknown force at work here.

Armsmaster and Dragon thought that maybe Taylor had something to do with that, but the others were unconvinced. Unless they found the girl and asked her directly, they couldn't know for sure. For now, they had to consider the possibility that Sophia Hess or one of the girls might have killed her, like the public suspected.

But at least the radioactive roaches seemed to be content to stay in the school building, close to where the radiation was. They seemed strangely hesitant to leave, so, for now, they didn't seem to need to worry about locking down the school as they had done for Ellisburg.

Of course, none of this mattered to Danny Hebert. All he wanted to do was find his daughter, and make everyone involved pay for what they did to her.

Strangely enough, Danny Hebert could've triggered during this. And he very nearly did. However, the entire public, as well as his friends at the dockworkers union was just so damn supportive of his cause that it was difficult for him to completely fall into despair. Much to the chagrin of his shard, who was still waiting for him to trigger.

Every time he stepped out, he'd have well-wishing strangers approach him and tell him that they were praying for him, that he'd find Taylor. Oh, and to give the PRT hell for everything they ever did. It was as if the entire world knew how he was feeling, and stood behind him 100% in everything he wanted to do to the PRT.

As much as not knowing what the hell happened to Taylor pained him, he was also very horribly touched that everyone he knew and even the total strangers, cared enough that they wanted to help him find his daughter. Because of this, he didn't feel quite so alone… for he practically had an entire army of people backing him up.

As for the ENE PRT organization itself… let's just say Emily Piggot was having a very bad day. In fact, the last months had been very unkind to her, to put it mildly.

She was in the process of resigning publically and allowing Thomas Calvert to take over for her because, to be honest having to put up with this shit wasn't just worth it anymore. Emily couldn't help but wonder how the heck a missing girl had caused things to escalate so much. It was like by the simple act of disappearing, she had inadvertently set off a chain reaction.
Emily knew Taylor was a victim in all of this, but a part of her couldn't help but resent the young girl for disappearing when everyone needed answers from her.

 

[dredsand]

So what you're saying is that even when Taylor leaves the universe and does nothing, she's still Brockston's very own queen of escalation.

 

[Jonn Wolfe]

Looks like Taylor might come back just in time for Leviathan.

 

[Phant0m5]

She didn't really speak to anybody after that and seemed to throw herself into rebuilding Sanctuary. That, and doing the endless jobs that the Minutemen had given to her. It seemed like they were just dumping everything on her instead of just doing the jobs themselves, but for some reason, Nora didn't seem to mind. Which was a big sign that something was wrong?

Because normally Nora wouldn't have put up with that crap AT ALL. She often was very sarcastic with Preston Garvey and the other Minutemen, calling them a bunch of little boys who didn't seem capable of doing anything themselves without their mommy helping them along.

Click to shrink...

Bluh. I see you don't use mods.

It's one thing for this type of shit to happen in-game, since it gives the player stuff to do. But a real, living world is an entirely different beast. Unless you're trying to do the whole "game mechanics as story features" thing, which for the record I have never seen done well without a damn good explanation, this quoted section makes no sense at all.

I can't help your story portrayal, except to point out this problem. But to make your in-game Minutemen a bit less lacklustre, try these:

We Are The Minutemen

Far West Minutemen

And, to make the prior two work together,
We Are The Far West Minutemen

OR, because I'm not positive this one is compatible with the above, and they do a lot of similar things:

Minutemen Overhaul 2.0

Personaly I prefer the We Are the Far West Minutemen combo.

Similarly, try out Sim Settlements to make the settlement building stuff a bit more intuitive. Instead of manually building every single wall and door yourself, you set down zones for settlers to put their own shit together. Like the minutemen overhauls, this makes it a bit closer to life, since no realistic settlement is seriously going to sit and suffer while they wait for their founder to do everything for them.

Sim Settlements also has an expansion, Rise of the Commonwealth, which allows you to designate certain characters to be leaders of a given settlement. Once that's done, the settlement will actually self-build based on a template, and upgrade itself over time as you and your settlers bring in more material to work with and get new recruits.

Finally, for even more intuitive settlements, Annex The Commonwealth allows settlements to expand naturally as they grow more densely populated, and Sim Settlements - IDEK's Logistics Station is an addon for Sim Settlements (one of many) that adds... a logistics depot. Basically, just a trade station that each settlement can use to easily connect with each other.

From an in-game perspective the IDEK station is just a reworking and automation of the vanilla settlement caravans, but it's still useful for that overhaul. But from a story and roleplay perspective? It just makes the caravan system look and feel a lot more organized. More like an actual settlement might set up for themselves..

 

[Jannika]

Bluh. I see you don't use mods.

It's one thing for this type of shit to happen in-game, since it gives the player stuff to do. But a real, living world is an entirely different beast. Unless you're trying to do the whole "game mechanics as story features" thing, which for the record I have never seen done well without a damn good explanation, this quoted section makes no sense...

Click to shrink...

The floating buildings didn't clue you in on how the story handles game mechanics?

 

[Aurora Moon]

@Phant0m5
actually I tend to mod the shit out of my game, and I friggin' love sim settlements. =D
And I also use this one mod where Garvey Preston doesn't constantly give you missions the mintue you step one foot near him, and is more of a rugged, slient veteran who's seen a lot of shit. even has a cool scar across his face.

But, I thought that for this story I'd stick to the vanilla fallout 4 game otherwise some people might claim that Preston was way too out of character for them to really get into the story or something. I'll still throw in some bit of sim-settlement building though. after all it makes no sense to have Nora do all the building in this story, if I'm going for a "Fallout 4 is a real world" thing.

Besides, who hasn't wanted to tell Vanilla Preston off? Call him a pathetic twit who can't do anything by himself to his face?

it also doesn't help that the game doesn't really flesh him out as a person more, not even when you take on him as your companion. at least the other people had some personality in the game. heck, the former mintuemen gerenal was far more bad-ass than he is, when you first meet her after taking the castle. So I'm not quite sure how to portray him in a vanilla fallout 4 setting.

Edit:
The mods I use for preston:
Preston Garvey No Radiant Settlement Quests
Preston Garvey Overhaul (P.G.O.)

 

[Phant0m5]

it also doesn't help that the game doesn't really flesh him out as a person more, not even when you take on him as your companion. at least the other people had some personality in the game. heck, the former mintuemen gerenal was far more bad-ass than he is, when you first meet her after taking the castle. So I'm not quite sure how to portray him in a vanilla fallout 4 setting.

Click to shrink...

Actually, I think Preston's complete dedication to the Minutemen - since that's all he ever talks about as a companion - is his characterization.

Preston has been through a lot. The fall of the minutemen, which happened an undetermined amount of time ago; likely years. The gradual shift in the Commonwealth as isolated groups of Minutemen either died or hung up their laser muskets. Preston was still trying to help people even when everyone around him was just giving up. And then, at the end, the last of the minutemen tried to help this one band of refugees. As if just doing one more good thing for someone would have made all the difference... made it all worth it.

And then, in Concord, Preston was the last. Literally the last minuteman.

And he kept going.

Honestly, Preston might have had a real characterization before everything. Before the fall, before he saw everyone around him just give up, I think he could have imagined a different way to do some good in the Commonwealth. But by the end of the line, being a minuteman was all he had left.



I mean, it's either that or he's a delusional idiot who does a General's job - information, coordination, orders, etcetera - even as he says he can't be General for whatever reason and hands you the title. And then continues to give you "orders". This is also a valid interpretation.

 

[Aurora Moon]

I mean, it's either that or he's a delusional idiot who does a General's job - information, coordination, orders, etcetera - even as he says he can't be General for whatever reason and hands you the title. And then continues to give you "orders". This is also a valid interpretation.

Click to shrink...

Well....... There were moments in the game where I was like: "If I'm the general here, aren't I supposed to be the one giving orders, not you?? *raises eyebrow*". I mean, yeah, game mechanics and all that... but from a narrative viewpoint, he really makes no sense as a character. hahaha.

I do agree that he seems to be clinging on to the Minutemen thing because he literally has nothing else.

Honestly, It would've made more sense if instead of ordering you around.... if you took him on as a companion he'd periodically get distress signals over the portable radio he has strapped to his jacket. like for example if you're close to a settlement, he'd say: "Oh, I'm getting a distress signal from that settlement over there! check it out?" and then you'd have the option of selecting yes or no.
If you said yes, you'd raise his approval while saying no would do nothing.

And if you didn't have him as a companion, he wouldn't give you those quests unless you set up a radio desk for him to use... otherwise, it makes no sense how he's learning about all those settlements across the entire Commonwealth with only that cheap portable radio he has strapped to his jacket.

And then we retake the castle, he'd stop doing that and instead let the castle's radio do all the work and just be a chill dude.

*sighs* honestly, I kinda wish there was a mod like that. would make him a more immersive character while making him less annoying at the same time.