Good job Piper for making sure the enemy is dead and stays that way too but mostly for following horror movies rules.
Nuka-Girl: The Lone Teleporter (Or: "That time Taylor found herself in the Fallout Universe").
- Thread starter Aurora Moon
- Start date
- Crossover
TriviaFreak
Time of reluctance.
It's funny to me, so don't worry.
EDIT: Oh, and, of course, can't forget Piper's double-tap at the end. Thanks for reminding me, CrimsonFate.
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- Location
- Philippines
Yep, I love it when the protagonists do that to ensure their enemy dies permanently.
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
To be fair, if the raiders didn't kidnap people and kept them as hostages and slaves, Nora and the others would've been in and out much quicker. The moment they found all the star cores they needed, they would've just sneaked out the same way they came in.
But of course, the raiders had to be stupid, greedy assholes who wanted to become the next big boogeyman of the commonwealth.
hence all the complicated plans and steps to cleanse all of Nuka-world of the scum living there. We, of course, can also blame Nora for having such a strong heroic streak in her that just demands that every single human being be rescued from a life of slavery, etc. Taylor too, because she was the girl who took on lung in canon because she honestly thought he was about to kill a bunch of innocent little kids.
- Location
- England
And they are not only merely dead, they're really most sincerely dead.
- Location
- Deep in the Badlands of Equestria
Awww, no saucer ride for the Hubologists?
To be honest, with the Power you assigned to Nisha there wasn't a whole lot that Nora and company really could have done for effective attacks, especially as long as she had Savoy to ride shotgun for her. The laser guns might've been a viable alternative, but with Taylor's novice level knowledge of weaponry I'm not that surprised she didn't think to try that option. And the "hoist by her own petard" ending does have a proper level of karmic irony for an encounter with a boss-level Raider from the game.
Nuka-Girl Chapter Twenty-One--The quiet ride back to the commonwealth
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Author notes: Not much really happens in this chapter, just really wrapping up the Nuka-world story Arc before we move on to other things. But hey, I also wrote an omake too to make up for the filler chapter. The omake comes after this chapter. 
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--A day later, after Taylor and the others got back from Grandchester Mystery Mansion--
John-Celeb Bradberton hadn't been pleased at first to see that the main park zone had been badly damaged in the battle. He was completely aghast at the fact that Fizztop Grille was a smoking crater now, and that some of the other buildings were destroyed as well.
However, once he calmed down he seemed to realize that this was merely an opportunity. An opportunity to rebuild the park into something better, and more profitable for everyone. After all, Post-apocalyptic Americans had no use for amusement parks anymore, but they did need a nice and safe place to live. He had been shocked somewhat to learn that people had been squatting in his park this whole time while he had been trapped in his mini-vault and that the rest of the Commonwealth was in even worse condition than his park was.
He was already talking about turning the entire park into the biggest and grandest city in the Commonwealth, one that would surpass Diamond city completely. He had heard about how the old ballpark stadium had been converted into a walled city from Nora, and he hadn't been exactly impressed by that. 200 years later after the bombs dropped, and the best humanity could do was turn the ballpark stadium into a slum city? Clearly, It was up to John-Celeb Bradberton to bring real civilization back!
The fact that he honestly thought he could single-handedly bring back pre-war civilization so easily, showed that he hadn't quite lost all of the arrogance he used to have before he lost his body and were trapped in his mini-vault for decades. Taylor had thought that maybe he'd be more humbled by his time in the mini-vault, but apparently not. She could only hope that John-Celeb Bradberton wasn't the type to repeat the same mistakes from his old life.
To that end, he was commanding the minutemen to take the bodies of the raiders to Safari Zone, so that Dr. Hein and Dr. McDermott would be able to preserve their bodies for future use in case they needed to repopulate the future "Nuka-tropolis" he was already planning to build on the ruins of his old amusement park. Surprisingly enough the Minutemen seemed to oblige. They didn't know what to do with the bodies otherwise, other than to dig out a large ditch and throw the bodies in. And there was just so many bodies to start with that they would've had to dig out more than a dozen ditches. It was just so much easier to just hand the bodies off to the bio-tinkering ghouls than it was to give more than three hundred raiders a proper burial.
Taylor wasn't sure if it was ethical… after all, hadn't the Institute gotten in trouble for that? But she supposed that it wasn't the cloning itself that was bad, it was what you intended to do with it that mattered. The Institute had gotten in trouble because they had killed off human beings and then replaced them with synthetic clones who would do their bidding. And from the sounds of it, John-Celeb didn't intend for them to clone fully-grown adults anyways. Instead, he intended for the clones to start as babies so that the robots would be able to rear and brainwash them into respectable citizens of the new Nuka-tropolis city.
That already sounded kind of crazy to Taylor… she was pretty sure that babies need human contact to survive, so being raised by robots wouldn't work all that well. But hey, she had no say in how this new visionary city was going to be run from now on so it wasn't her problem. It was more surprising to hear that the others around didn't seem to object to John-Celeb's plans when he was muttering them out loud.
Taylor also wondered what the ghouls thought of this, so she teleported over to the Safari zone to see how they were reacting to everything so far.
When she got down to the cloning facility, she found an extremely animated Dr. Hein rushing about as he cleaned up things and was putting random things into jars. It was like he was trying to make the place look nice for somebody. Presumably, his boss, should John-Celeb ever stop by.
"I've never seen Dr.Hein so happy and so excited." Mr. Darren McDermott said with an affectionate look on his face. Oswald the Outrageous was standing next to him with a slightly puzzled expression on his face.
"I still can't believe it. Our boss was alive this entire time and we didn't even know it? And now he has a robot body…? Just when I thought life couldn't get any weirder." Oswald said.
Darren was about to say something when he spotted Taylor coming down the stairs.
"Ah! Taylor… right?"
Taylor simply nodded. "I just wanted to see how you guys were adjusting to the changes around here. Did you hear about John-Celeb Bradberton's new plans for Nuka-World?"
Darren nodded. "Oh yes. Although I must admit that I'd rather work on repopulating the world with plants and animals first. If we repopulate the new city with humans first then there wouldn't be anything for them to eat. Hopefully, I can talk our leader into holding off on that until we have enough animals and edible plants to go around."
Taylor frowned, as something just occurred to her. "By the way, why was there a cloning facility at an amusement park like this anyway?? Just seems odd to me that they'd have this here long before the bombs fell…"
Darren just smirked at this. "Think about it. With a world war going on for decades, importing live animals across the borders safely would've been tricky and almost downright impossible. So there would've been no way for visitors to see live exotic animals from other nations…unless we cloned them. Back then, John-Celeb thought that it was simply less expensive to clone animals from blood samples than it was to import live animals across enemy borders. Who've predicted that we'd use this to supply our settlers with food now, huh?"
Dr. Hein came over to stand in front of Taylor. "No offense, but we're really busy here getting everything ready. Do you have any important business here?"
"Err… I'll escort her out. I needed to talk to her and her group anyway." Oswald replied before Taylor could become offended at Dr. Hein's rudeness.
Taylor merely raised one eyebrow at this as Oswald walked her out.
"So, what did you want to talk about?" Taylor wondered.
"Well… I've been thinking. That is, I realized I've trapped myself. I was too complacent to the point of not improving myself or my magic at all. I was still thinking of myself Oswald the Magician this whole time. See, you were right, Taylor. You told me to think outside the box, to think more like a parahuman. Or in my case, a para-ghoul." Oswald spoke.
"You want to get stronger, to get better at teleportation?" Taylor looked up at him. She could understand that. She had managed to get better at this thing over time, the more she traveled and saw more of this earth. She also wanted to improve her skills with the gun if possible while she was at it.
"Indeed. There's this small part of me that tells me that I can do more than just teleportation… but I don't know what it is. And I think I can snap myself out of this funk if I go out and see the world, and understand more about what I can or can't do." Oswald said as he looked down at the teenage girl meaningfully.
Taylor got the hint. "You want to leave with us."
Oswald nodded. "Indeed. I also need to find a cure for the feral ghoul disease, but I have no idea where to start. I suspect Nora and the others might be able to point me in the right direction."
Taylor looked thoughtful, "It seems to have something to do with the brain. So you might need a neurologist."
Oswald looked at her oddly. "You said that before too. You know a lot about brains, do you?"
Taylor smiled wryly at this. She then explained, "Not really. I mean, back home there's this Endbringer, by the name of Behemoth. A large creature that gives off massive radiation and the like. Um… it attacked a city once, and the effects were long-lasting once it left. There was radiation everywhere... the news did a segment on it… on the effects of radiation, and how it could affect the brain. There was a lot of people who suffered brain damage thanks to that Endbringer."
She paused, and then quoted the following the best she could do according to her memory: "Let's see… Radiation causes headaches, hair loss, nausea, vomiting, extreme fatigue, hearing loss, skin and scalp changes, trouble with memory and speech, and seizures. And a lot of those side effects come about because part of the brain gets damaged by radiation. It can even cause people to see things that aren't there. Mass hallucinations happened as a result of the aftermath. That's what the newscaster said at the time."
Oswald pondered this. It was true that feral ghouls' brains seemed to be severely damaged compared to a normal ghoul. they had done scans with the medical X-rays they had on hand in the old veterinarian office near the cloning facilities… and had compared head x-rays side-by-side, and they had come to that inescapable conclusion.
But, it made no sense that some ghouls like Oswald could easily have his brain regenerate from being exposed to radiation, while other ghouls had their brains get damaged instead of being healed by it. So naturally, they had thought it was a genetic thing… otherwise, they couldn't explain why some ghouls went feral while others didn't.
But maybe if they had a neurologist on hand to assist with the cure, they could find out why that was the case? If they found out what was the factor here… they'd be able to finally find a cure.
"You could be right, Taylor," Oswald said.
They found themselves outside of the visitors' center, and that was when Taylor's pip-boy beeped, indicating that somebody was trying to radio her.
Taylor switched on the two-way radio, and said, "Taylor here."
"Taylor, where are you?" Nora's voice asked, and she sounded somewhat worried.
"I'm with Oswald in the Safari Zone. I wanted to ask Dr. Hein and McDermott some questions, but they were busy. Oswald also has something he'd like to ask you, so we'll be over." Taylor answered.
"Alright. We're in front of the mountain, where Fizztop Grille used to be."
"We'll meet you there," Taylor said, and she nodded at Oswald as she held out her hand.
Oswald looked mildly curious as he took her hand, and with that, she teleported the two of them away.
Oswald blinked as he found himself standing next to Nora and the others after feeling the dimensions around himself fold and move. It was a different feeling than what he usually got when he teleported himself elsewhere.
"Well, that's different," he mumbled to himself.
"Honestly, Taylor. I wish you wouldn't run out on your own." Nora couldn't help but scold her slightly.
Taylor rolled her eyes. "I was fine, okay? It's not like there were any raiders in Safari zone. Or any other raiders around here for that matter."
Nora sighed slightly, and just shook her head. "Whatever. At any rate, the Minutemen have things here well in hand now, so we're gonna get ready to leave."
That got Taylor's attention. "Are we going back to the commonwealth on the train, or leaving on foot?"
Nora nodded. "We do need to escort a large number of the raiders' trafficking victims back home and make sure that they're united with their families safely. So going back home via the train just seems the easiest route… it'd be too difficult to keep that many people safe if we walked back on foot."
Taylor nodded at this. "Makes sense."
"Taylor said you wanted to ask us something?" Nora asked once she noticed Oswald waiting patiently at Taylor's side.
"Oh! Well, I was wondering if I could accompany you on your travels when you leave Nuka-world. I don't know my way around the commonwealth all that well, and I plan to leave Nuka-world to look for a cure. I figured you guys could be my guide, or at the very least give me advice." Oswald seemed to founder slightly as he explained to them what he wanted.
"Okay. That's alright with me if that's fine with the others too." Nora replied. She then looked at the others, who simply just shrugged. They honestly didn't seem to mind adding a sixth member to their group.
Oswald just nodded. "Sure. Give me some time to break the news to Sam and the others. I'll meet you in front of Nuka-world's entrance in an hour?"
Nora nodded. "Fine with me. That'll give us time to pack up things also."
Once Oswald left to pack for his future travels outside of Nuka-world, Nora turned to face the group and explained to everyone what was expected of them on the train back home.
"We have around 1,910 survivors to deal with on the train back home, most of them children and women. Surprisingly enough, many of the male survivors seem to want to stay here even though they were forcibly taken here against their will. Now that the raiders are gone, they seem to see the potential in John-Celeb's vision for his old amusement park. They want to help bring his dream into reality," Nora said, "Most of the women and children doesn't seem to feel the same way, though, and they just want to be back home with their families."
"So… I guess we're to keep watch over the kids and keep them calm until we get them all back to Diamond City?" Taylor replied.
Nora nodded. "Indeed. The Minutemen will take it from there once we get everyone back there. and then we'll finally return to Tinker Tom and give him the star cores."
"Do we have to give him all the star cores though? He said he needed one, not 25. If those star cores are this powerful as he says, we could use them in other things…" Hancock wondered.
"What other things can we use it for though? And it's not like there's anybody else in the commonwealth who knows how to use it for things other than scrapping them." Nick pointed out.
Hancock grumbled slightly at this. "We better be getting a lot of bottle caps for those then. We went to a lot of trouble for those star cores."
"I can't wait to get home and write about this latest adventure. I imagine my newspaper will get sold out pretty quickly…" Piper couldn't help but look eager at this.
Nora looked over at Taylor, who was just listening to her companions interact and smiled. "Right. Let's pack everything we want to take with us, then."
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The rest of the day was uneventful, as everyone had a mostly quiet train ride back into the commonwealth.
Taylor would've thought that the rescued kids would kick up more of a fuss, crying and things like that. But instead, they seemed very well-behaved and were content to watch the scenery go by while they rode the train back home. She supposed that it helped that they had been told that they were going to be reunited with their families.
So instead Taylor wound up chatting with Oswald and Nick inside their train cabin. Nick was telling Oswald the story about the Grandchester Mystery Mansion, with Taylor injecting her input now and then.
"She just ran through the closed door? Seriously? That's so creepy," Oswald remarked, "Kinda makes me glad I never visited that place even before the bombs fell."
"I still can't believe that all of us were completely fooled by what amounted to a mirage." Nick couldn't help but grumble loudly.
After they had made sure that Nisha was dead, Taylor had told everyone about the girl in the attic. So naturally they went back up to the attic to check it out, and there the girl appeared once more.
However, something was different this time… namely, the giant hole in the attic floor. Everyone could see directly into Zachriach's bedroom from there. And, the girl was hovering over the hole, giggling like a young madwoman. The hole in the floor just somehow made the situation ten times more creepy.
Nick had been the first one to step forward as he wanted to figure out how this was possible, which triggered the girl into running through the closed door with a loud maniacal giggle.
Naturally, Nick had then opened up the door to see if there was a trick to it, only to see the same brick wall that Taylor saw before. They had checked everything, to make sure that there wasn't a secret passage or anything like that.
That was when Taylor had figured out that "the girl" was most likely an automatic projection. She then explained to everyone that other "haunted" places back in her homeworld had done something similar, with mirrors, projectors, and speakers. The girl they all saw was probably a recording of some pre-war young actress playing the role of Lucy Grandchester.
The alternative theory was too disturbing for Taylor, so she very much preferred the more rational explanation over it being an actual ghost.
Taylor explained this to Oswald after Nick was done with his story, and the glowing ghoul nodded.
"Yeah, that makes sense," the Oswald said, before chuckling. "I would've liked to see the look on your face when you realized that you had been tricked into thinking she was a real girl."
Nick just grumbled again at this, which made the ghoul laugh again.
Hancock chose this moment to step into the cabin and sat down next to Taylor. He told everyone, "Nora told me to tell you that we'll be at the train station in 10 more minutes. So, what were you guys talking about?"
"We were telling Oswald here how we dealt with the raiders, and how we tracked Nisha to that old mansion," Taylor replied.
Oswald nodded and then sighed. "I'm so glad I didn't deal with those raiders on my own. I can't fathom what I'd do if I had to use my magic against their magic. I hate to say it, but from the sound of it, the raiders' magics were far more powerful than mine. I suppose I was lucky that the leaders were lazy enough to not bother with me at all, and only ever sent their followers after me."
Everyone just nodded and murmured their general agreements with that statement. It was the robots and some of the minutemen that had done most of the work taking out the leaders, after all.
Hancock then glanced over at Taylor and noted that while everyone else had changed back into their familiar old clothes, Taylor hadn't done that. "Still wearing that Nuka-girl costume?"
Taylor just shrugged. "It's growing on me. Besides, there's no way I'm going back to that blue jumpsuit due to how impractical it is. I don't want to have to strip myself naked just so I can go to the bathroom. Ya know? Not to mention I've gotten very attached to the red jetpack that comes with the costume."
Hancock smirked slightly. "Fair enough."
Everyone then stood up to collect their bags and everything else they wanted to carry off the train since they'd be at the train station very soon.
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--Hours later, in Diamond city--
"Wow, this is pretty good," Oswald said, as he dug into his bowl of noodles.
"What'd I tell you?" Taylor replied. This time around she was able to pay for her noodles, and also for Oswald's.
Hancock, on the other hand, paid for his bowl. He had a slightly fond expression on his face as he stared down at his bowl. "This takes me back to my childhood. I'd sit right here with my brother, and we shared a large bowl every time..."
His expression then grew sad at the memory.
Taylor patted him on the back sympathetically, which made the ghoul smile back. "I'm fine, Taylor. After all, my brother died a long time ago. The one who died recently wasn't my brother. I just have to remind myself of that."
Piper Wright was sitting with her younger sister Natalie on the other side of the round noodle stand, as they shared a large noodle bowl between the two of them. That was probably what triggered Hancock's memories in the first place.
Taylor saw Both Nick and Nora walk over to them, and they took up a seat between the ghouls and the Wright siblings.
"We talked to the Mayor," Nick said, "And she's agreed to temporarily house all of the freed slaves until they're reunited with their families."
"It also helped that I offered up the home plate residence here as one of the temporary shelters, which took off some of the pressure for her," Nora added.
"Oh, that's great." Piper nodded approvingly.
"I radioed Desdemona to let them know that we were back in the commonwealth with the star cores that Tinker Tom needed," Nora told everyone, "And now Deacon and Tinker Tim is on their way here. We didn't need to go back to the church after all."
"Cool. I guess we can take a break from all the traveling now, huh?" Taylor replied with a slightly hopeful tone.
Most of the people at the noodle stand chuckled at this. They did do a lot of walking around in the past two weeks, which somehow felt much longer than it had been.
"We do kinda deserve a break, considering that we pretty much saved the entire commonwealth from the raider menace. I'm all for it." Hancock smirked slightly.
"I wouldn't go that far, but yes." Nick chuckled a little bit. "I do want to see what Elle's up to, and what's been happening while I was away."
"And I need to write a new article for the newspaper… three guesses what it's going to be about." Piper said with a slight smile on her face.
"Ooh, I know! Is it going to feature fifty ways to win a man over? Or various household tips on how to get blood out of the carpet?" Nora couldn't help but joke.
She got a well-deserved punch in the arm from Piper for that joke.
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--A day later, after Taylor and the others got back from Grandchester Mystery Mansion--
John-Celeb Bradberton hadn't been pleased at first to see that the main park zone had been badly damaged in the battle. He was completely aghast at the fact that Fizztop Grille was a smoking crater now, and that some of the other buildings were destroyed as well.
However, once he calmed down he seemed to realize that this was merely an opportunity. An opportunity to rebuild the park into something better, and more profitable for everyone. After all, Post-apocalyptic Americans had no use for amusement parks anymore, but they did need a nice and safe place to live. He had been shocked somewhat to learn that people had been squatting in his park this whole time while he had been trapped in his mini-vault and that the rest of the Commonwealth was in even worse condition than his park was.
He was already talking about turning the entire park into the biggest and grandest city in the Commonwealth, one that would surpass Diamond city completely. He had heard about how the old ballpark stadium had been converted into a walled city from Nora, and he hadn't been exactly impressed by that. 200 years later after the bombs dropped, and the best humanity could do was turn the ballpark stadium into a slum city? Clearly, It was up to John-Celeb Bradberton to bring real civilization back!
The fact that he honestly thought he could single-handedly bring back pre-war civilization so easily, showed that he hadn't quite lost all of the arrogance he used to have before he lost his body and were trapped in his mini-vault for decades. Taylor had thought that maybe he'd be more humbled by his time in the mini-vault, but apparently not. She could only hope that John-Celeb Bradberton wasn't the type to repeat the same mistakes from his old life.
To that end, he was commanding the minutemen to take the bodies of the raiders to Safari Zone, so that Dr. Hein and Dr. McDermott would be able to preserve their bodies for future use in case they needed to repopulate the future "Nuka-tropolis" he was already planning to build on the ruins of his old amusement park. Surprisingly enough the Minutemen seemed to oblige. They didn't know what to do with the bodies otherwise, other than to dig out a large ditch and throw the bodies in. And there was just so many bodies to start with that they would've had to dig out more than a dozen ditches. It was just so much easier to just hand the bodies off to the bio-tinkering ghouls than it was to give more than three hundred raiders a proper burial.
Taylor wasn't sure if it was ethical… after all, hadn't the Institute gotten in trouble for that? But she supposed that it wasn't the cloning itself that was bad, it was what you intended to do with it that mattered. The Institute had gotten in trouble because they had killed off human beings and then replaced them with synthetic clones who would do their bidding. And from the sounds of it, John-Celeb didn't intend for them to clone fully-grown adults anyways. Instead, he intended for the clones to start as babies so that the robots would be able to rear and brainwash them into respectable citizens of the new Nuka-tropolis city.
That already sounded kind of crazy to Taylor… she was pretty sure that babies need human contact to survive, so being raised by robots wouldn't work all that well. But hey, she had no say in how this new visionary city was going to be run from now on so it wasn't her problem. It was more surprising to hear that the others around didn't seem to object to John-Celeb's plans when he was muttering them out loud.
Taylor also wondered what the ghouls thought of this, so she teleported over to the Safari zone to see how they were reacting to everything so far.
When she got down to the cloning facility, she found an extremely animated Dr. Hein rushing about as he cleaned up things and was putting random things into jars. It was like he was trying to make the place look nice for somebody. Presumably, his boss, should John-Celeb ever stop by.
"I've never seen Dr.Hein so happy and so excited." Mr. Darren McDermott said with an affectionate look on his face. Oswald the Outrageous was standing next to him with a slightly puzzled expression on his face.
"I still can't believe it. Our boss was alive this entire time and we didn't even know it? And now he has a robot body…? Just when I thought life couldn't get any weirder." Oswald said.
Darren was about to say something when he spotted Taylor coming down the stairs.
"Ah! Taylor… right?"
Taylor simply nodded. "I just wanted to see how you guys were adjusting to the changes around here. Did you hear about John-Celeb Bradberton's new plans for Nuka-World?"
Darren nodded. "Oh yes. Although I must admit that I'd rather work on repopulating the world with plants and animals first. If we repopulate the new city with humans first then there wouldn't be anything for them to eat. Hopefully, I can talk our leader into holding off on that until we have enough animals and edible plants to go around."
Taylor frowned, as something just occurred to her. "By the way, why was there a cloning facility at an amusement park like this anyway?? Just seems odd to me that they'd have this here long before the bombs fell…"
Darren just smirked at this. "Think about it. With a world war going on for decades, importing live animals across the borders safely would've been tricky and almost downright impossible. So there would've been no way for visitors to see live exotic animals from other nations…unless we cloned them. Back then, John-Celeb thought that it was simply less expensive to clone animals from blood samples than it was to import live animals across enemy borders. Who've predicted that we'd use this to supply our settlers with food now, huh?"
Dr. Hein came over to stand in front of Taylor. "No offense, but we're really busy here getting everything ready. Do you have any important business here?"
"Err… I'll escort her out. I needed to talk to her and her group anyway." Oswald replied before Taylor could become offended at Dr. Hein's rudeness.
Taylor merely raised one eyebrow at this as Oswald walked her out.
"So, what did you want to talk about?" Taylor wondered.
"Well… I've been thinking. That is, I realized I've trapped myself. I was too complacent to the point of not improving myself or my magic at all. I was still thinking of myself Oswald the Magician this whole time. See, you were right, Taylor. You told me to think outside the box, to think more like a parahuman. Or in my case, a para-ghoul." Oswald spoke.
"You want to get stronger, to get better at teleportation?" Taylor looked up at him. She could understand that. She had managed to get better at this thing over time, the more she traveled and saw more of this earth. She also wanted to improve her skills with the gun if possible while she was at it.
"Indeed. There's this small part of me that tells me that I can do more than just teleportation… but I don't know what it is. And I think I can snap myself out of this funk if I go out and see the world, and understand more about what I can or can't do." Oswald said as he looked down at the teenage girl meaningfully.
Taylor got the hint. "You want to leave with us."
Oswald nodded. "Indeed. I also need to find a cure for the feral ghoul disease, but I have no idea where to start. I suspect Nora and the others might be able to point me in the right direction."
Taylor looked thoughtful, "It seems to have something to do with the brain. So you might need a neurologist."
Oswald looked at her oddly. "You said that before too. You know a lot about brains, do you?"
Taylor smiled wryly at this. She then explained, "Not really. I mean, back home there's this Endbringer, by the name of Behemoth. A large creature that gives off massive radiation and the like. Um… it attacked a city once, and the effects were long-lasting once it left. There was radiation everywhere... the news did a segment on it… on the effects of radiation, and how it could affect the brain. There was a lot of people who suffered brain damage thanks to that Endbringer."
She paused, and then quoted the following the best she could do according to her memory: "Let's see… Radiation causes headaches, hair loss, nausea, vomiting, extreme fatigue, hearing loss, skin and scalp changes, trouble with memory and speech, and seizures. And a lot of those side effects come about because part of the brain gets damaged by radiation. It can even cause people to see things that aren't there. Mass hallucinations happened as a result of the aftermath. That's what the newscaster said at the time."
Oswald pondered this. It was true that feral ghouls' brains seemed to be severely damaged compared to a normal ghoul. they had done scans with the medical X-rays they had on hand in the old veterinarian office near the cloning facilities… and had compared head x-rays side-by-side, and they had come to that inescapable conclusion.
But, it made no sense that some ghouls like Oswald could easily have his brain regenerate from being exposed to radiation, while other ghouls had their brains get damaged instead of being healed by it. So naturally, they had thought it was a genetic thing… otherwise, they couldn't explain why some ghouls went feral while others didn't.
But maybe if they had a neurologist on hand to assist with the cure, they could find out why that was the case? If they found out what was the factor here… they'd be able to finally find a cure.
"You could be right, Taylor," Oswald said.
They found themselves outside of the visitors' center, and that was when Taylor's pip-boy beeped, indicating that somebody was trying to radio her.
Taylor switched on the two-way radio, and said, "Taylor here."
"Taylor, where are you?" Nora's voice asked, and she sounded somewhat worried.
"I'm with Oswald in the Safari Zone. I wanted to ask Dr. Hein and McDermott some questions, but they were busy. Oswald also has something he'd like to ask you, so we'll be over." Taylor answered.
"Alright. We're in front of the mountain, where Fizztop Grille used to be."
"We'll meet you there," Taylor said, and she nodded at Oswald as she held out her hand.
Oswald looked mildly curious as he took her hand, and with that, she teleported the two of them away.
Oswald blinked as he found himself standing next to Nora and the others after feeling the dimensions around himself fold and move. It was a different feeling than what he usually got when he teleported himself elsewhere.
"Well, that's different," he mumbled to himself.
"Honestly, Taylor. I wish you wouldn't run out on your own." Nora couldn't help but scold her slightly.
Taylor rolled her eyes. "I was fine, okay? It's not like there were any raiders in Safari zone. Or any other raiders around here for that matter."
Nora sighed slightly, and just shook her head. "Whatever. At any rate, the Minutemen have things here well in hand now, so we're gonna get ready to leave."
That got Taylor's attention. "Are we going back to the commonwealth on the train, or leaving on foot?"
Nora nodded. "We do need to escort a large number of the raiders' trafficking victims back home and make sure that they're united with their families safely. So going back home via the train just seems the easiest route… it'd be too difficult to keep that many people safe if we walked back on foot."
Taylor nodded at this. "Makes sense."
"Taylor said you wanted to ask us something?" Nora asked once she noticed Oswald waiting patiently at Taylor's side.
"Oh! Well, I was wondering if I could accompany you on your travels when you leave Nuka-world. I don't know my way around the commonwealth all that well, and I plan to leave Nuka-world to look for a cure. I figured you guys could be my guide, or at the very least give me advice." Oswald seemed to founder slightly as he explained to them what he wanted.
"Okay. That's alright with me if that's fine with the others too." Nora replied. She then looked at the others, who simply just shrugged. They honestly didn't seem to mind adding a sixth member to their group.
Oswald just nodded. "Sure. Give me some time to break the news to Sam and the others. I'll meet you in front of Nuka-world's entrance in an hour?"
Nora nodded. "Fine with me. That'll give us time to pack up things also."
Once Oswald left to pack for his future travels outside of Nuka-world, Nora turned to face the group and explained to everyone what was expected of them on the train back home.
"We have around 1,910 survivors to deal with on the train back home, most of them children and women. Surprisingly enough, many of the male survivors seem to want to stay here even though they were forcibly taken here against their will. Now that the raiders are gone, they seem to see the potential in John-Celeb's vision for his old amusement park. They want to help bring his dream into reality," Nora said, "Most of the women and children doesn't seem to feel the same way, though, and they just want to be back home with their families."
"So… I guess we're to keep watch over the kids and keep them calm until we get them all back to Diamond City?" Taylor replied.
Nora nodded. "Indeed. The Minutemen will take it from there once we get everyone back there. and then we'll finally return to Tinker Tom and give him the star cores."
"Do we have to give him all the star cores though? He said he needed one, not 25. If those star cores are this powerful as he says, we could use them in other things…" Hancock wondered.
"What other things can we use it for though? And it's not like there's anybody else in the commonwealth who knows how to use it for things other than scrapping them." Nick pointed out.
Hancock grumbled slightly at this. "We better be getting a lot of bottle caps for those then. We went to a lot of trouble for those star cores."
"I can't wait to get home and write about this latest adventure. I imagine my newspaper will get sold out pretty quickly…" Piper couldn't help but look eager at this.
Nora looked over at Taylor, who was just listening to her companions interact and smiled. "Right. Let's pack everything we want to take with us, then."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The rest of the day was uneventful, as everyone had a mostly quiet train ride back into the commonwealth.
Taylor would've thought that the rescued kids would kick up more of a fuss, crying and things like that. But instead, they seemed very well-behaved and were content to watch the scenery go by while they rode the train back home. She supposed that it helped that they had been told that they were going to be reunited with their families.
So instead Taylor wound up chatting with Oswald and Nick inside their train cabin. Nick was telling Oswald the story about the Grandchester Mystery Mansion, with Taylor injecting her input now and then.
"She just ran through the closed door? Seriously? That's so creepy," Oswald remarked, "Kinda makes me glad I never visited that place even before the bombs fell."
"I still can't believe that all of us were completely fooled by what amounted to a mirage." Nick couldn't help but grumble loudly.
After they had made sure that Nisha was dead, Taylor had told everyone about the girl in the attic. So naturally they went back up to the attic to check it out, and there the girl appeared once more.
However, something was different this time… namely, the giant hole in the attic floor. Everyone could see directly into Zachriach's bedroom from there. And, the girl was hovering over the hole, giggling like a young madwoman. The hole in the floor just somehow made the situation ten times more creepy.
Nick had been the first one to step forward as he wanted to figure out how this was possible, which triggered the girl into running through the closed door with a loud maniacal giggle.
Naturally, Nick had then opened up the door to see if there was a trick to it, only to see the same brick wall that Taylor saw before. They had checked everything, to make sure that there wasn't a secret passage or anything like that.
That was when Taylor had figured out that "the girl" was most likely an automatic projection. She then explained to everyone that other "haunted" places back in her homeworld had done something similar, with mirrors, projectors, and speakers. The girl they all saw was probably a recording of some pre-war young actress playing the role of Lucy Grandchester.
The alternative theory was too disturbing for Taylor, so she very much preferred the more rational explanation over it being an actual ghost.
Taylor explained this to Oswald after Nick was done with his story, and the glowing ghoul nodded.
"Yeah, that makes sense," the Oswald said, before chuckling. "I would've liked to see the look on your face when you realized that you had been tricked into thinking she was a real girl."
Nick just grumbled again at this, which made the ghoul laugh again.
Hancock chose this moment to step into the cabin and sat down next to Taylor. He told everyone, "Nora told me to tell you that we'll be at the train station in 10 more minutes. So, what were you guys talking about?"
"We were telling Oswald here how we dealt with the raiders, and how we tracked Nisha to that old mansion," Taylor replied.
Oswald nodded and then sighed. "I'm so glad I didn't deal with those raiders on my own. I can't fathom what I'd do if I had to use my magic against their magic. I hate to say it, but from the sound of it, the raiders' magics were far more powerful than mine. I suppose I was lucky that the leaders were lazy enough to not bother with me at all, and only ever sent their followers after me."
Everyone just nodded and murmured their general agreements with that statement. It was the robots and some of the minutemen that had done most of the work taking out the leaders, after all.
Hancock then glanced over at Taylor and noted that while everyone else had changed back into their familiar old clothes, Taylor hadn't done that. "Still wearing that Nuka-girl costume?"
Taylor just shrugged. "It's growing on me. Besides, there's no way I'm going back to that blue jumpsuit due to how impractical it is. I don't want to have to strip myself naked just so I can go to the bathroom. Ya know? Not to mention I've gotten very attached to the red jetpack that comes with the costume."
Hancock smirked slightly. "Fair enough."
Everyone then stood up to collect their bags and everything else they wanted to carry off the train since they'd be at the train station very soon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--Hours later, in Diamond city--
"Wow, this is pretty good," Oswald said, as he dug into his bowl of noodles.
"What'd I tell you?" Taylor replied. This time around she was able to pay for her noodles, and also for Oswald's.
Hancock, on the other hand, paid for his bowl. He had a slightly fond expression on his face as he stared down at his bowl. "This takes me back to my childhood. I'd sit right here with my brother, and we shared a large bowl every time..."
His expression then grew sad at the memory.
Taylor patted him on the back sympathetically, which made the ghoul smile back. "I'm fine, Taylor. After all, my brother died a long time ago. The one who died recently wasn't my brother. I just have to remind myself of that."
Piper Wright was sitting with her younger sister Natalie on the other side of the round noodle stand, as they shared a large noodle bowl between the two of them. That was probably what triggered Hancock's memories in the first place.
Taylor saw Both Nick and Nora walk over to them, and they took up a seat between the ghouls and the Wright siblings.
"We talked to the Mayor," Nick said, "And she's agreed to temporarily house all of the freed slaves until they're reunited with their families."
"It also helped that I offered up the home plate residence here as one of the temporary shelters, which took off some of the pressure for her," Nora added.
"Oh, that's great." Piper nodded approvingly.
"I radioed Desdemona to let them know that we were back in the commonwealth with the star cores that Tinker Tom needed," Nora told everyone, "And now Deacon and Tinker Tim is on their way here. We didn't need to go back to the church after all."
"Cool. I guess we can take a break from all the traveling now, huh?" Taylor replied with a slightly hopeful tone.
Most of the people at the noodle stand chuckled at this. They did do a lot of walking around in the past two weeks, which somehow felt much longer than it had been.
"We do kinda deserve a break, considering that we pretty much saved the entire commonwealth from the raider menace. I'm all for it." Hancock smirked slightly.
"I wouldn't go that far, but yes." Nick chuckled a little bit. "I do want to see what Elle's up to, and what's been happening while I was away."
"And I need to write a new article for the newspaper… three guesses what it's going to be about." Piper said with a slight smile on her face.
"Ooh, I know! Is it going to feature fifty ways to win a man over? Or various household tips on how to get blood out of the carpet?" Nora couldn't help but joke.
She got a well-deserved punch in the arm from Piper for that joke.
Last edited:
Alternative paths
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Alternate Scenes Omake
One of the great things about writing fanfic for a video game and worm crossover? You get to come up with all those different ideas for how it might turn out. And let me tell you, I often came up with alternate scenes that one might've gotten had you played my version of the Nuka-world DLC, had it been an actual game.
The only reason why I didn't go with those endings and scenes were due to logistical complications. Such as, how do I give the group the flying red rocket ride while keeping it plausible? How can I bluff Mags and William black into believing me when their power masters others into telling the truth? That sort of thing.
Sometimes the solution to the questions I had ended up being too weird and out there that it broke any suspension of disbelief one might've had, heh. Granted, in an actual video game without the worm crossover aspect, it would've made perfect sense. Sadly though, those didn't work for my fanfic. Which was a shame, because those scenes were just so friggin' cool in my head when I first envisioned them.
Without much ados, here's the alternate scenes to the personal version of my "Nuka-world DLC" arc.
=============================================
--" The one where Oswald takes out a good chunk of the raider group using magic tricks"--
Oswald couldn't help but feel nervous. He didn't know how Nora did it, but somehow the woman had talked most of the leaders into letting their factions attend a magic show. Something about uniting all the factions together, and bonding time.
Although to be fair, she had framed it as more of a party. He wasn't even the main attraction, they were saving the best part for last.
Piper was done singing "Living on a prayer" on the stage, and all the raiders cheered and hooted.
Oswald had to give Taylor credit… the young girl was one hell of a song-writer. She had taught Piper all the songs, and she claimed that she hadn't written the songs. That those songs were just eighties' classic hits that her dad used to listen to all the time on the radio. But Oswald knew better… he had heard all the songs across the commonwealth and from other states before, and he had never heard songs like that before in his life. So surely she was just being modest.
Sure, Taylor claimed to be from an alternate earth but Oswald wasn't sure he believed that.
Finally, Nora walked across the stage and said: "Let's hear it for our resident songbird, everyone!"
The raiders let out loud, drunken cheers at this. Everyone was in a good mood now… Nora had somehow managed to collect a shitload of alcohol from all over the park and had been passing them off as free party favors for the event. Naturally, most of the raiders showed up… because how could anybody pass up free alcohol?
"Now next up… have I got a real treat for every one of you! Tell me, have any of you ever seen a real magic show?"
There were some confused murmurs at this.
"Give a warm welcome to… Oswald The Outrageous!" Nora yelled as she gestured at Oswald offstage.
He took in a deep breath. This was his cue, and he smiled as he walked onstage. Behind her, Taylor was pushing all of his stage props along on a trolley.
"The hell? Is that a glowing zombie?" He heard one of the raiders ask, and there were some murmurings at his unusual appearance.
"Hello, ladies and gentlemen!" He greeted the crowd with a grin on his face. "As you can tell by my outfit, I'm a performer above all else. I could do just any plain old magic trick for you, but I want to make it a little more interesting. Tell me, how would you feel if I were to make a bet with y'all?"
He had everyone's attention now, and he continued, "I want to set up some prize money for y'all at the end of my performance. If any of you can figure out how my magic tricks work, you win the money. But if any of you can't figure it out… well, I get paid my dues as a performer. Sound fair doesn't it?"
"How much?" one of the raiders yelled.
"Well, I have 2,000 caps on me to start with!" He yelled back.
There were some interested murmurs at this.
"Now, I'll show you all my tricks. Pay attention, see if you can figure them out!"
Oswald relaxed as he started to get into the zone. It had been a while since he performed in such a large crowd, but it was like riding a bicycle. You just never forgot how to do it.
The raiders were completely suckered into his performance, making awed noises at the appropriate times.
They couldn't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that Oswald was able to cut Taylor, his assistant, in half without maiming or harming her in any way at all.
Or when he made her levitate, etc.
He went through all the standard magician tricks, which seemed to please the crowd greatly. And now, it was finally time for the finale.
"Now for the final trick. Watch very closely!" He called out, as he had his assistant Taylor, who was wearing a sparkly red dress, walk into the blue box. There was a red box across the opposite side of the stage.
"I'm gonna teleport my lovely assistant in this box… over to that red box over there!" Oswald said, as he tapped on the box with his magic wand once he closed it, which was the signal for Taylor to teleport out of there. He then opened up the blue box to show everyone that it was empty, which had some raiders calling bullshit.
His heart couldn't help but pound slightly as he walked over to the red box. He was about to unleash something very, very, dangerous on the raiders and they didn't even know it.
You see, Oswald recently discovered that he could store a lot of things in his atomic pocket dimension, although it had a very strange effect on living creatures. His power couldn't seem to tell the difference between normal and ghoulified things, so any living creatures he stored there ended up being ghoulified when he resembled their atoms back together into the real world. Taylor had been the exception though because her power seemed to protect her from his power.
So he couldn't carry human beings with him, or any animals that he wanted to stay normal.
However, Nora had pointed out a very excellent use for his particular brand of magic. One that he could get behind.
He opened up the large red box, showing everyone that it was empty. He then spun it around, moving it over to the center stage. He then pulled on his power, willing the creatures to be reassembled inside the closed red box as he tapped it with his magic wand.
"And… voila!" He cried out, as he pulled open the box, which revealed five ghoulified and glowing Gatorclaws.
"Hey, you're not Taylor!" Oswald pretended to be both shocked and scared as he slowly stepped off stage, "If you're here then where did I send Taylor? Oh no, this is a disaster!"
The drunk raiders all stared in confusion and shock as if they weren't sure if this was a part of the show or not.
But they quickly moved for their weapons when the gatorclaws let out a roar, and had killed off a bunch of unlucky raiders who had taken the front row seats.
Oswald teleported out of there soon as he could, and he burst out laughing once he was back home in kiddie kingdom.
Oh god… the looks on their faces… HAHAHA! He was going to be telling that story for a very long, long time.
It was difficult to kill just one Gatorclaw…. The raiders would surely have a really difficult time with five of them. They'd certainly lose a lot of raiders before they finally put the final one down.
Come to think of it, Mags and William Black had been in the front row, hadn't they?
So that meant that they had been one of the first raiders to get mauled by the Gatorclaw. Oswald couldn't help but smirk slightly at that thought.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--(Nuka-Girl takes out Nuka-world)--
"I can't believe this is happening" Porter Gage muttered as he stared outside to see some chick dressed like Nuka-girl riding atop some flying red rocket, shooting at the raiders below.
She was almost exactly like the woman from the posters and billboards he had seen around the commonwealth and in Nuka-world, save for her black hair.
If it was just her, it wouldn't have been so bad. But she was soon joined by two other women, who were dressed in the same costume, and they were riding their flying rockets too as well.
Where the hell did they find rockets like that? It almost looked like they had been made from the ancient amusement park rides…?
He just shook his head. Strange things had been happening around the park lately. The disciples' leaders all had vanished without a trace, and rumors were that they had been murdered. But there was no evidence of that at all, even though everyone seemed to suspect the Pack. God knew that Manson hadn't liked or trusted the disciples at all.
"Move aside, I'm gonna take those bitches out!" The Over-boss screeched, as he pulled out his huge minigun.
Gage didn't need to be told twice, and he dived out of the way.
YATATATATA!
The mini-gun made that loud sound as it spun around, which seemed to attract the attention of the black-haired girl in the Nuka-girl costume. Oh shit, was she coming this way now?
The other two women had split up with the black-haired one and were flying towards the directions of the operators' and the Pack's headquarters.
"There you are, I was looking for you!" The black-haired Nuka-girl said cheerfully towards the Overboss. "Here, have a nuke!"
At this, she let go of the red rocket she was riding atop and flew upwards into the air on her red jetpack. She then blinked out of existence.
The rocket itself didn't vanish however and were on a rapid descent towards the Overboss.
Gage suddenly had a very, very bad feeling as to what that red rocket was. He was so fucked… there was no way to hide or take cover from a bomb that size.
All the rescued hostages and citizens of Nuka-world stood by from a far distance as they watched Nuka-World get bombed into oblivion by women in Nuka-girl costumes.
Hancock and Nick had taken up the role of rescuing all the innocents and leading them out of the park itself before they got caught up in the blast.
Taylor reappeared with Nora and Piper at her sides, and they turned around to admire their handwork. The mushroom clouds were still going off over Nuka-world itself, and all the buildings seemed to crumble into nothingness once they got caught up in the blast.
Cito sighed sadly as he watched his home get destroyed, but at least he had the remaining ghoullias to keep him company.
"Cito sad to see Nuka-world go, but Cito makes a new home with family elsewhere." He said.
"I liked those old cloning machines. Sure, we can make new ones but it's not the same…" Dr.Hein sighed.
"Where are we going to live?" Dermott couldn't help but wonder.
Oswald just sighed and shook his head. He hadn't approved of their plan to just bomb the entire place and be done with it, nor of when they had decided to just let John-Celeb die down in his mini-vault.
Oswald had wanted those raiders gone, but not at such a cost. He couldn't help but think that in this instance the cure was far worse than the illness… so to speak. To destroy Nuka-world like this…..?
At least he had Rachel with him. That was something at least.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--(The one where you manage to talk Porter Gage into betraying all the leaders)--
The deed was done. He walked around the table as he looked at each dead leader with an impassioned expression on his face.
It had been their weekly meeting, and they hadn't seen it coming when Gage brought in the poisoned food and drink. The isopropyl chemical, which was a slow-acting poison, made you act like you were drunk. When paired with the right food and drink, it wouldn't even raise alarm bells. Just to make sure, Gage had brought in some hard vodka and passed them around much to the Overboss's appreciation.
Nobody batted an eye when the Overboss was the first to slump over, because everyone always knew that the Overboss was something of a lush and a drug user.
The rest of them had gotten looser with their tongue, telling each other just exactly what they thought of each other. They had some heated words, but everyone was too drunk to get up from their seat to do something about it.
Instead, they had an improvised drinking contest to see which loser would pass out first and that the one last standing would have their measures for the park passed.
Unknown to them, this only sped up the poison's effects.
Nora walked into the room along with Taylor and the others. She noticed the look on Gage's face, and asked: "Having second thoughts? It's too late, you know."
Porter Gage shook his head. "No. Just very disappointed in them. We could've had something great here, you know. I… I had this vision of how great this park could be if we just all worked together and brought it back to pre-war standards. This could've been a place where people from all over came to be scammed and embezzled out of their money and walk away happy as they did in the old days. Where raiders could be themselves, without all the hassle of having to travel all over the commonwealth to hunt down victims."
Hancock simply nodded. "Yeah, I don't think that was ever going to happen with all three factions. The operators were the only ones who wanted the same thing you did, but the rest of them…"
Porter Gage nodded. "The rest of the raiders doesn't have any powers, far as I know. So they'll be easy to deal with now for the likes of you."
"What are you going to do now?" Taylor wondered.
Gage smirked slightly. "I think I might head for a place called New Vegas. I've heard a lot of things about that place… and it might be more my speed than this crazy place ever was."
"Wait, isn't that in the state of Nevada?" The girl blinked at Gage's unexpected answer.
"Yeah, it used to be called that. And yes, I know it's a long way… which is why I'd like to get started on traveling there now if you guys don't mind." The raider replied.
"Good luck," Nora said in response as the man left.
Nora then turned around to face her companions, and share her next idea on how they'd deal with the remaining raiders now that they were without their leaders….
=================================
And there it is. Some of my ideas for how it could've gone down instead. But as you can see, you can probably spot all the obvious reasons why I didn't go with those routes instead.
One of the great things about writing fanfic for a video game and worm crossover? You get to come up with all those different ideas for how it might turn out. And let me tell you, I often came up with alternate scenes that one might've gotten had you played my version of the Nuka-world DLC, had it been an actual game.
The only reason why I didn't go with those endings and scenes were due to logistical complications. Such as, how do I give the group the flying red rocket ride while keeping it plausible? How can I bluff Mags and William black into believing me when their power masters others into telling the truth? That sort of thing.
Sometimes the solution to the questions I had ended up being too weird and out there that it broke any suspension of disbelief one might've had, heh. Granted, in an actual video game without the worm crossover aspect, it would've made perfect sense. Sadly though, those didn't work for my fanfic. Which was a shame, because those scenes were just so friggin' cool in my head when I first envisioned them.
Without much ados, here's the alternate scenes to the personal version of my "Nuka-world DLC" arc.
=============================================
--" The one where Oswald takes out a good chunk of the raider group using magic tricks"--
Oswald couldn't help but feel nervous. He didn't know how Nora did it, but somehow the woman had talked most of the leaders into letting their factions attend a magic show. Something about uniting all the factions together, and bonding time.
Although to be fair, she had framed it as more of a party. He wasn't even the main attraction, they were saving the best part for last.
Piper was done singing "Living on a prayer" on the stage, and all the raiders cheered and hooted.
Oswald had to give Taylor credit… the young girl was one hell of a song-writer. She had taught Piper all the songs, and she claimed that she hadn't written the songs. That those songs were just eighties' classic hits that her dad used to listen to all the time on the radio. But Oswald knew better… he had heard all the songs across the commonwealth and from other states before, and he had never heard songs like that before in his life. So surely she was just being modest.
Sure, Taylor claimed to be from an alternate earth but Oswald wasn't sure he believed that.
Finally, Nora walked across the stage and said: "Let's hear it for our resident songbird, everyone!"
The raiders let out loud, drunken cheers at this. Everyone was in a good mood now… Nora had somehow managed to collect a shitload of alcohol from all over the park and had been passing them off as free party favors for the event. Naturally, most of the raiders showed up… because how could anybody pass up free alcohol?
"Now next up… have I got a real treat for every one of you! Tell me, have any of you ever seen a real magic show?"
There were some confused murmurs at this.
"Give a warm welcome to… Oswald The Outrageous!" Nora yelled as she gestured at Oswald offstage.
He took in a deep breath. This was his cue, and he smiled as he walked onstage. Behind her, Taylor was pushing all of his stage props along on a trolley.
"The hell? Is that a glowing zombie?" He heard one of the raiders ask, and there were some murmurings at his unusual appearance.
"Hello, ladies and gentlemen!" He greeted the crowd with a grin on his face. "As you can tell by my outfit, I'm a performer above all else. I could do just any plain old magic trick for you, but I want to make it a little more interesting. Tell me, how would you feel if I were to make a bet with y'all?"
He had everyone's attention now, and he continued, "I want to set up some prize money for y'all at the end of my performance. If any of you can figure out how my magic tricks work, you win the money. But if any of you can't figure it out… well, I get paid my dues as a performer. Sound fair doesn't it?"
"How much?" one of the raiders yelled.
"Well, I have 2,000 caps on me to start with!" He yelled back.
There were some interested murmurs at this.
"Now, I'll show you all my tricks. Pay attention, see if you can figure them out!"
Oswald relaxed as he started to get into the zone. It had been a while since he performed in such a large crowd, but it was like riding a bicycle. You just never forgot how to do it.
The raiders were completely suckered into his performance, making awed noises at the appropriate times.
They couldn't seem to wrap their heads around the fact that Oswald was able to cut Taylor, his assistant, in half without maiming or harming her in any way at all.
Or when he made her levitate, etc.
He went through all the standard magician tricks, which seemed to please the crowd greatly. And now, it was finally time for the finale.
"Now for the final trick. Watch very closely!" He called out, as he had his assistant Taylor, who was wearing a sparkly red dress, walk into the blue box. There was a red box across the opposite side of the stage.
"I'm gonna teleport my lovely assistant in this box… over to that red box over there!" Oswald said, as he tapped on the box with his magic wand once he closed it, which was the signal for Taylor to teleport out of there. He then opened up the blue box to show everyone that it was empty, which had some raiders calling bullshit.
His heart couldn't help but pound slightly as he walked over to the red box. He was about to unleash something very, very, dangerous on the raiders and they didn't even know it.
You see, Oswald recently discovered that he could store a lot of things in his atomic pocket dimension, although it had a very strange effect on living creatures. His power couldn't seem to tell the difference between normal and ghoulified things, so any living creatures he stored there ended up being ghoulified when he resembled their atoms back together into the real world. Taylor had been the exception though because her power seemed to protect her from his power.
So he couldn't carry human beings with him, or any animals that he wanted to stay normal.
However, Nora had pointed out a very excellent use for his particular brand of magic. One that he could get behind.
He opened up the large red box, showing everyone that it was empty. He then spun it around, moving it over to the center stage. He then pulled on his power, willing the creatures to be reassembled inside the closed red box as he tapped it with his magic wand.
"And… voila!" He cried out, as he pulled open the box, which revealed five ghoulified and glowing Gatorclaws.
"Hey, you're not Taylor!" Oswald pretended to be both shocked and scared as he slowly stepped off stage, "If you're here then where did I send Taylor? Oh no, this is a disaster!"
The drunk raiders all stared in confusion and shock as if they weren't sure if this was a part of the show or not.
But they quickly moved for their weapons when the gatorclaws let out a roar, and had killed off a bunch of unlucky raiders who had taken the front row seats.
Oswald teleported out of there soon as he could, and he burst out laughing once he was back home in kiddie kingdom.
Oh god… the looks on their faces… HAHAHA! He was going to be telling that story for a very long, long time.
It was difficult to kill just one Gatorclaw…. The raiders would surely have a really difficult time with five of them. They'd certainly lose a lot of raiders before they finally put the final one down.
Come to think of it, Mags and William Black had been in the front row, hadn't they?
So that meant that they had been one of the first raiders to get mauled by the Gatorclaw. Oswald couldn't help but smirk slightly at that thought.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--(Nuka-Girl takes out Nuka-world)--
"I can't believe this is happening" Porter Gage muttered as he stared outside to see some chick dressed like Nuka-girl riding atop some flying red rocket, shooting at the raiders below.
She was almost exactly like the woman from the posters and billboards he had seen around the commonwealth and in Nuka-world, save for her black hair.
If it was just her, it wouldn't have been so bad. But she was soon joined by two other women, who were dressed in the same costume, and they were riding their flying rockets too as well.
Where the hell did they find rockets like that? It almost looked like they had been made from the ancient amusement park rides…?
He just shook his head. Strange things had been happening around the park lately. The disciples' leaders all had vanished without a trace, and rumors were that they had been murdered. But there was no evidence of that at all, even though everyone seemed to suspect the Pack. God knew that Manson hadn't liked or trusted the disciples at all.
"Move aside, I'm gonna take those bitches out!" The Over-boss screeched, as he pulled out his huge minigun.
Gage didn't need to be told twice, and he dived out of the way.
YATATATATA!
The mini-gun made that loud sound as it spun around, which seemed to attract the attention of the black-haired girl in the Nuka-girl costume. Oh shit, was she coming this way now?
The other two women had split up with the black-haired one and were flying towards the directions of the operators' and the Pack's headquarters.
"There you are, I was looking for you!" The black-haired Nuka-girl said cheerfully towards the Overboss. "Here, have a nuke!"
At this, she let go of the red rocket she was riding atop and flew upwards into the air on her red jetpack. She then blinked out of existence.
The rocket itself didn't vanish however and were on a rapid descent towards the Overboss.
Gage suddenly had a very, very bad feeling as to what that red rocket was. He was so fucked… there was no way to hide or take cover from a bomb that size.
All the rescued hostages and citizens of Nuka-world stood by from a far distance as they watched Nuka-World get bombed into oblivion by women in Nuka-girl costumes.
Hancock and Nick had taken up the role of rescuing all the innocents and leading them out of the park itself before they got caught up in the blast.
Taylor reappeared with Nora and Piper at her sides, and they turned around to admire their handwork. The mushroom clouds were still going off over Nuka-world itself, and all the buildings seemed to crumble into nothingness once they got caught up in the blast.
Cito sighed sadly as he watched his home get destroyed, but at least he had the remaining ghoullias to keep him company.
"Cito sad to see Nuka-world go, but Cito makes a new home with family elsewhere." He said.
"I liked those old cloning machines. Sure, we can make new ones but it's not the same…" Dr.Hein sighed.
"Where are we going to live?" Dermott couldn't help but wonder.
Oswald just sighed and shook his head. He hadn't approved of their plan to just bomb the entire place and be done with it, nor of when they had decided to just let John-Celeb die down in his mini-vault.
Oswald had wanted those raiders gone, but not at such a cost. He couldn't help but think that in this instance the cure was far worse than the illness… so to speak. To destroy Nuka-world like this…..?
At least he had Rachel with him. That was something at least.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
--(The one where you manage to talk Porter Gage into betraying all the leaders)--
The deed was done. He walked around the table as he looked at each dead leader with an impassioned expression on his face.
It had been their weekly meeting, and they hadn't seen it coming when Gage brought in the poisoned food and drink. The isopropyl chemical, which was a slow-acting poison, made you act like you were drunk. When paired with the right food and drink, it wouldn't even raise alarm bells. Just to make sure, Gage had brought in some hard vodka and passed them around much to the Overboss's appreciation.
Nobody batted an eye when the Overboss was the first to slump over, because everyone always knew that the Overboss was something of a lush and a drug user.
The rest of them had gotten looser with their tongue, telling each other just exactly what they thought of each other. They had some heated words, but everyone was too drunk to get up from their seat to do something about it.
Instead, they had an improvised drinking contest to see which loser would pass out first and that the one last standing would have their measures for the park passed.
Unknown to them, this only sped up the poison's effects.
Nora walked into the room along with Taylor and the others. She noticed the look on Gage's face, and asked: "Having second thoughts? It's too late, you know."
Porter Gage shook his head. "No. Just very disappointed in them. We could've had something great here, you know. I… I had this vision of how great this park could be if we just all worked together and brought it back to pre-war standards. This could've been a place where people from all over came to be scammed and embezzled out of their money and walk away happy as they did in the old days. Where raiders could be themselves, without all the hassle of having to travel all over the commonwealth to hunt down victims."
Hancock simply nodded. "Yeah, I don't think that was ever going to happen with all three factions. The operators were the only ones who wanted the same thing you did, but the rest of them…"
Porter Gage nodded. "The rest of the raiders doesn't have any powers, far as I know. So they'll be easy to deal with now for the likes of you."
"What are you going to do now?" Taylor wondered.
Gage smirked slightly. "I think I might head for a place called New Vegas. I've heard a lot of things about that place… and it might be more my speed than this crazy place ever was."
"Wait, isn't that in the state of Nevada?" The girl blinked at Gage's unexpected answer.
"Yeah, it used to be called that. And yes, I know it's a long way… which is why I'd like to get started on traveling there now if you guys don't mind." The raider replied.
"Good luck," Nora said in response as the man left.
Nora then turned around to face her companions, and share her next idea on how they'd deal with the remaining raiders now that they were without their leaders….
=================================
And there it is. Some of my ideas for how it could've gone down instead. But as you can see, you can probably spot all the obvious reasons why I didn't go with those routes instead.
- Location
- Deep in the Badlands of Equestria
Well, they can't take all the star cores... not if they want to leave enough to give the park continuing control over the robot force, anyway. Long-term, they would be a big part of the park safety force, as long as John-Celeb can keep control of them. Turning that defense measure off would help a lot... unless his costume-bot has a way to make infinite park costumes for the new inhabitants.
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
They already left behind some star cores. the park actually only needed 10 to 13 to run perfectly... so there were actually roughly 35 Starcores all around. so that left them with 25 Starcores left over.
TheOmnimercurial
Dragon Bard
- Location
- UK
Mirriam Grave
The Bemused. The Amused. The Unstable.
- Location
- The edge of a point.
I really liked the last one. Gage deserved his own kind of win after all he had to do/put up with.
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I think both the park residents and Nora would need to find the factory where the star cores were originally made, and find the blueprints for both the factory and the Starcore itself so that they'd be able to produce those on their own.
Although... with enough star cores to study and take apart, I'm sure they could figure a way to make knock-offs that more or less worked.
- Location
- Deep in the Badlands of Equestria
Nora's Power probably would love it if she could nom down a few reasonably intact production facilities of various types. Too bad that nobody in the group has really twigged just yet how her ability works, or I imagine she'd have been quite happy to collect versions of several of the fabbing plants there at Nuka-World. The cloning facility, the Mini-Vault, the Protectron fabber... Of course, she'd have to puzzle out how the power systems work, though I suspect that in most of them temporary power sources like fusion cores can probably be plugged in to run the machines for short times.
I don't think her power quite runs to complete facilities, otherwise I suspect that Nora plus a copy of the Nuka-World blueprints from the owner's personal files (you can't convince me that he wouldn't have them on file somplace in his digs) would make for some very happy people.
Nuka-Girl Chapter Twenty-Two--Life in the Commonwealth
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Author notes: Don't mind me, just setting up plot points for the next story arc.
===============
Two days passed.
Taylor, Hancock, and Nora were now meeting with the railroad agents in Dugout Inn in a secluded room that Nora had rented for the night.
The railroad agents had insisted on it, otherwise, they wouldn't meet with them in Diamond City.
Nora had commented that she thought that the whole thing was pretty damn stupid, considering that nearly everyone knew by now that she had allied herself with the railroad to take down the institute.
But no, The railroad still insisted on having all those cloak and dagger meetings, since there were still strong prejudices against synths and the like. They cited the fact that the brotherhood was still around, as a reason why they should keep their guard up.
So Nora had no choice but to go along with this.
There was a knock on the door, and Taylor went to open it.
"Pardon me, but do you have a Geiger counter?" Deacon asked.
Nora replied with the countersign, "Mine's in the shop. ... Seriously, do we have to go through with this stupid bullshit?"
"You know how Dez is. She insists that everything be by the book, or else." Deacon said with a wry smile as he led Tinker Tom into the room.
"So, you said you found a Starcore for me?" Tinker Tom wasn't one for pleasantries and liked to get down to business.
"We found more than just one," Taylor replied as she opened up her bag to show all 23 Starcores. There had been 25 before, but Hancock insisted on holding on to a couple of them just in case.
"Oh? OH!" Tinker Tom seemed to be figuratively losing his mind as he counted how many there were. He dropped to his knees and looked like he was about to have an orgasm judging from the ecstatic expression on his face.
Everyone else in the room just stared at him, wondering what was up with him. Tinker Tom was always a little weird, but this behavior was a bit much even for him.
"Uh, you okay?" Deacon wondered as he looked down at his fellow agent.
"Pardon me my outburst… I thought you'd only manage to find one. I never thought you'd find so many, and in such pristine condition too. Don't you realize what this means? With one, I would've been able to build a teleporter that allowed for travel all over the state but not outside of it," Tinker Tom explained as he got back to his feet, "But with this many… I can make it so that we can travel to other states like California. Or to any other places. We could even go to New Vegas for one day and then come back without having to travel on foot for months! Do you realize how much of a boon this is for the Railroad?"
Deacon's eyes widened at this. "Truly? If what you're saying is true… then this is going to blow Desdemona's mind! She's been looking for a way to safely transport all the synths out of the commonwealth for ages now..."
"So you're saying, we get paid in plenty of caps for finding them, right? We did go to a lot of trouble for them after all.." Hancock replied with a cheeky grin.
"Hancock!" Nora said as she shot him a dirty look.
Deacon chuckled. "Nah, it's okay. He's right… you lot ought to be rewarded properly for getting this many for us. Especially now it'll help us spread our influence outside of the commonwealth. I'll be sure to put in a good word with Dez for you."
"The only reward I want," Taylor replied, "Is a way to go back home. Tinker Tom, you can transport me back home right?"
Tinker Tom looked thoughtful, and said, "I can't make any promises, considering that dimensional travel isn't my specialty. but I'll do my best."
Taylor nodded. "Good enough for me."
"How long will it take to build another teleporter?" Nora wondered.
Tom grimaced at this slightly. "Um… well. You have to understand, it's gonna take much longer than it did last time. With yours, it was a small prototype, so it only took a week to build. The teleporter I'm gonna build this time… well, it's far bigger than the one you used to get into the institute."
"So it'll take two weeks, then?"
Tom shook his head. "More like two months. And that's depending on how long we find the perfect spot to build our teleporter machine."
"WHAT!" Nora exclaimed loudly at this.
Deacon spoke up. "In his defense, we need a place that generates its' own radio signal, generates a lot of power and so on forth. We cheated last time because we were piggybacking off the Institute, using their radio signal and their power source. So we have to build a radio station, a good power source and all those other things alongside the teleporter to make it work. Surely you can understand how long that'd take?"
Tinker tom nodded. "Plus, our teleporter is gonna be the size of a skyscraper! The scouts are already looking around for old buildings that could be perfect for building our teleporter base inside."
"Oh." Taylor couldn't help but look dejected at this. She had come to see her group of allies here in this world as friends, but she still couldn't help but want to be home as fast as possible. She was starting to feel homesick.
"Well, I don't know if you knew this or not… but I've developed a few new tricks that could help you build it faster…" Nora said. With that, she summoned a wooden half wall out of thin air and had it float around her head.
Deacon looked interested at this. "Ya know, I did hear that you gained some supernatural ability somehow but I wasn't sure if I could believe it. So your ability allows you to…?"
"I build things fast. Where normal humans would spend the whole day brick-laying a wall only two feet long, I could easily create an entire football stadium in just one hour. It seems like my power's meant to build habitats that allow people to survive in hostile conditions."
The sole survivor said all of this very bluntly, and not like she was bragging at all. Although her words could be interpreted as such.
The railroad agent then looked thoughtful at this. "Huh. that would certainly help cut down on building time considerably. Alright then. Once we find a suitable place to build our teleporter, you'll be our main contractor on it. Deal?"
"Deal. This way Taylor won't have to wait too long to get back home." Nora said as she smiled at the teenager by her side.
Taylor smiled back at this.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I'm so sorry. I thought for sure we'd get you home much sooner." Nora sighed as the three of them walked out of Dugout Inn.
"It's okay. It's not like I'm stuck here permanently in this world. I know that I can get back home on my own naturally… I just need to work on building up my strength and my energy in case that the teleporter doesn't do the job," Taylor replied, "After all if I got here on my own without a machine then I can get back home that way too. I just need to figure out that part."
Hancock nodded. "Plus, you've got us backing you up here, so it's not all bad."
Taylor smiled. "I know. It's been nice having you guys as my friends."
Which was pretty damn surreal for Taylor, to be honest. After having to deal with Emma and Sophia for so long, she had honestly thought that she wouldn't be able to trust anybody ever again, much less have friends again. Sure, she had no choice but to depend on Nora and her friends at first considering that she was in an alternate world and were unfamiliar with how things worked here.
But over time, the more she got to know those people, the more she started to trust them. She supposed that it also helped that none of them were teenagers, and weren't prone to teen drama bullshit, so she could trust them to act more mature instead of being backstabbers who wanted to climb their way up the ladder of popularity.
It also helped that none of them weren't in a direct position of authority over her, as well. To say that she had lost her faith in authority figures would be an understatement. Nora had helped restore some of that little by little, considering that she was the general of the Minutemen group.
The three of them moved towards the main marketplace, where Oswald was now standing on some homemade wooden platform performing magic tricks for the children of Diamond City.
The adults here were very leery of ghouls, and most especially of a glowing one, no matter how harmless he acted. The children, on the other hand, was highly fascinated and wasn't as fearful of him. So naturally, he became a magnet for children, especially when he decided to start performing his magic tricks for free. Oswald claimed that it was just to hone his craft so that he'd be able to take it on the road and earn caps, but Taylor got the feeling that wasn't the only reason. The ghoul seemed to like kids and could connect with them on a personal level.
The crowd of kids cheered when he successfully pulled out a ghoulified Macaw-Eagle hybrid bird out of his hat. "Ta-da!"
Oswald grinned as he bowed for his audience. "Thank you, thank you."
Nora sighed as she realized that they still had this side mission to deal with. "We also have the problem of finding that cure for Oswald. I honestly don't know where to start… or even if there can be a cure in the first place."
Hancock smiled at this. "No worries there. I've already talked to him, and he's agreed to come to Goodneighbor with me and meet Dr. Amari. If anything else, he should be making friends with other ghouls there. The more connections he makes the more information he's likely to find."
Nora looked slightly relieved at this as she nodded. "Good idea."
The ghoul then looked at Nora. "So, you two coming with me to Goodneighbor or not? I don't think Taylor here has been there yet, and I wanna show off my digs to her."
Nora briefly considered this, and then nodded again. "It might be good for Taylor to know the location in case she needs to find you and need your help on something."
The two of them looked at Taylor, and the young girl just shrugged. "Sure, sounds good to me as well."
Hancock grinned at this. "Great."
This time around, it was just going to be the four of them heading out. Nick Valentine had gotten involved in tracking down all family members for the trafficking victims so that they could be reunited. That ended up being a far more lengthy process than Nick had realized it would be, so he had regretfully informed everyone that he wouldn't be part of the party until he had resolved this latest case.
It also turned out that Piper wanted to help out with that as well, so she had formed a temporary team with Nick tracking down the kids' missing families. As a result, she wasn't going to join up with Nora either.
Nora honestly didn't mind at all, because this meant that this was one less thing for the Minutemen to do… and her by extension. She honestly didn't envy Piper and Nick for the enormous undertaking they were about to do. She'd help herself, but… well, this was too much of a sore subject for her considering the similar traumatic experiences she went through herself. She wouldn't be able to stay objective and rational when tracking down the missing family members. Nora honestly didn't know how she'd react should she find out that some of the family members had been killed while the kids were being kidnapped, etc. That seemed to be the unfortunate conclusion that Nick had gotten when he interviewed the remaining kids on where their parents were at, but he said he couldn't know for sure until he confirmed the parents' deaths himself.
So yeah, Nora was perfectly happy letting others handle that one for once. No way she was touching that emotional landmine at all.
Oswald saw them approaching and greeted all three of them. "Hey, guys. I hear you guys are ready to leave this place soon?"
Hancock nodded. "Yeah, you know it. We just gonna give those ladies some time to powder their noses and then we'll be ready to leave."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was thankfully an uneventful walk to Goodneighbor, although Nora and Taylor were both surprised at how excited the residents seemed to see their Mayor back.
"Yo, Hancock! Looking good!" one female ghoul called out, which made Hancock wink back and reply with: "Back at ya, babe."
The female ghoul giggled at this.
At Taylor's raised eyebrow, Hancock then said: "What can I say? I'm a very popular mayor. Been in office for a very long time, and every time there's somebody who tries to run for office against me the residents always vote for me every time over the other guy."
Oswald slowly shook his head at this. "No offense… but you don't strike me like the government type. How the hell did you manage this?"
Taylor had to silently agree with that… Hancock kinda came off as more of a party frat boy at times than he did a mayor, in all the time that Taylor had taken to know him.
Hancock smirked slightly and leaned towards the two of them as he was about to share a secret.
"Here's the thing...Both Ghouls and Humans have one thing in common. They like their freedom, but they also like having somebody in charge when something goes wrong. They like a leader that will take care of their problems for them, but at the same time they don't want a leader that controls everything they do."
Hancock then spread his arms wide, gesturing at everything around him. "That's why I'm so popular, you see. I don't give a shit what consenting adults do to each other or themselves, provided that they aren't harming the community through their actions. Almost anything goes here…. Plus, I've been known to throw it down with Supermutants, raiders and other scum of the commonwealth to keep my people safe. They like the fact that a badass ghoul such as myself is keeping them safe while they get to do whatever they want."
"Huh." Oswald found this informational tidbit fascinating, and all four stopped in front of a building. The outer building was decorated with an arch that had lettering on it, which read: "Scollay SQ" and under that was a bunch of gibberish, the words faded out with some letters missing.
And directly over the red door, there was a glowing neon sign which read, "Memory Den".
"This is where Dr.Amari lives, Oswald. If anybody here had any idea on how to fix brains, she's the one." Hancock replied.
Nora nodded, and couldn't help but vouch for her as well. "She's good. Very professional. I was able to get the answers I needed thanks to her."
Oswald took a few deep breaths. "Right. Hopefully, she has the right answers for me too…"
Hancock patted him on the back. "Come on, let's go in. I'll introduce you."
All four of them walked into the building, and Taylor could immediately tell that it used to be some kind of bar and theater, which had been retrofitted to become a Tinker's hideout filled with those pod-like things that had people sleeping in them. They seemed to be having some great dreams though, judging by their expressions.
"So, this doctor…. Her specialty has to do with brains?" Taylor wondered.
"Memories. She can't do much for things like mental issues or brain damage, unfortunately. She does know how the brain works, however… which is why I thought she'd be a good place to start for Oswald." Hancock answered.
At the far end of the room, Taylor could see a half-Japanese woman in a white lab coat working at a computer, and the woman got up as soon as she saw them.
Dr. Amari had a somewhat resigned expression on her face right away as she spotted Nora. "Oh dear. What is it this time? First, it was brain matter from a dead guy, and then a robot wanting to be human. So what do you have for me this time around."
Both Taylor and Oswald turned to look at Nora with eyebrows raised because there was obviously some history between Nora and Dr.Amari.
Nora shrugged this off. "Eh, It's a long story. I'll tell you guys later."
To Dr. Amari, she said: "No, we're not here for me this time. Oswald here has a problem he'd like to talk to you about…"
With that, all three stepped away to let Oswald have a degree of privacy with Dr. Amari as the two of them spoke together.
They could tell that Dr.Amari was already intrigued by Oswald, and his mission to find a cure for feral ghouls.
"I've never worked with feral ghouls before...hmm… It could be interesting. We'd need to find a way to capture and subdue one though." They couldn't help but overhear her say minutes later after Oswald was done talking to her.
"Don't mind that part… I can take care of that." Oswald said.
Nora then turned to face Hancock. "Right. You'll watch over Oswald here, while Taylor and I go back to Sanctuary hills to check on things there?"
Hancock just gave her a thumbs up in response.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After that, four weeks passed.
Taylor had taken the tour around Good Neighbor courtesy of Hancock, and she couldn't help but comment that the whole place looked like it was a mixture of two genres… a 1950's noir story and a post-apocalyptic story.
Hancock had been pleased to hear that Taylor found the Third rail bar to be more impressive than the Dugout inn, at least in terms of entertainment and atmosphere.
After that, it was just Taylor and Nora alone on the road, so she was able to practice teleporting with another person over long distances. For some reason, she could only teleport one person along with herself, but she had the feeling that her powers were like a muscle. That is, the more she exercised it the stronger it'd get. Taylor hoped that this meant that she'd eventually be able to teleport an entire group of people one day.
They got back home to Sanctuary Hills in record time, and after that, it was just weeks of relaxing and learning things.
Taylor had spent that whole time perfecting her gun skills, as well as learning how to build guns from scratch. She was also in the process of learning how to build generators from Sturges, but that was slow-going. Building a functional gun was far easier than building a generator, for some reason.
"Oh man, this sucks," Taylor grumbled as the generator she attempted to build started to fell apart once it was turned on…. Again. That was the tenth time that it did this, and she couldn't understand what she was doing wrong. She had followed all of Sturges' directions perfectly, after all.
Shaun was learning alongside her too, but for some reason, the young boy's homemade generator worked perfectly while hers didn't. Taylor's pride couldn't help but feel hurt at the fact that she was shown up by some 8-year-old boy…. She was so much older than him, she should be better at this than he was.
Nora didn't seem to understand why she was so frustrated about it. Nora just said some platitude about how everyone had their strengths and weaknesses, and that it was perfectly okay if Taylor was better at guns than she was at building generators.
But Taylor couldn't help but feel that learning to make homemade generators were more useful than guns, especially if she was going back home. The Endbringers were constantly leaving cities and towns without power, which often cost a lot of lives in the aftermath after the Endbringers left. So it stood to reason that the demand for generators and the like often went sky high, and Taylor wanted to be able to help out in that respect.
Sturges was looking over Taylor's, and then he grimaced slightly. "I see the problem. You didn't weld those bolts together so that they couldn't unscrew themselves while the engine was running. So this is why the engine kept on coming loose every time you turned it on. Sorry, I forgot to tell you that part… so that one's on me."
Taylor reassembled the small generator again, but this time she made sure to weld the bolts that Sturges pointed out. She turned it on once again, and this time it seemed to work.
Taylor couldn't help but grin as her homemade generator hummed loudly, and more so when Sturges checked how much voltage is created. Shaun's generator was more stable, but only gave out eight volts per second. Taylor's on the other hand, gave out ten volts per second.
Shaun was mystified by the difference in power, as the two of them had been told to make the same generator model. "Hey, how come there are different power levels? Our generators look the same."
"It's all in how you build it. Everyone has their style when it comes to building things," Sturges said with a smile, "So that's typically reflected in the things you made. Yours were more stable and didn't need welding, but that's because you were more methodical about assembling it. Taylor had a different way of building. She wasn't as methodical, but hers ended up being more effective because she had a better understanding of how engines work."
"What does methodical mean?" Shaun wondered.
"Eh, it means neat and orderly. You did things everything very neatly and in order." Sturges was saying, but Taylor was distracted by the fact that there was a new visitor to Sanctuary Hills.
People had been coming to live at Sanctuary hills lately, especially now that Nora was renovating most of the intact houses back to their prewar glory. The plumbing even worked like new after all those years thanks to her, which was a major draw for most of the new settlers.
But this one…. He didn't act and look like a settler at all. He was heavily armored and armed and were looking everywhere about the place with a shifty expression on his face.
Nora noticed him as well, and with a slightly tense expression on her face she called for Shaun to go inside their house, and to stay with Dogmeat and Codsworth while she met with this latest visitor.
Taylor pulled out her laser pistol, the one she had personally made herself, and walked over to her side. The two of them moved towards the man, showing everyone that they were ready to defend themselves if necessary.
The rest of the settlers noticed this, and they quickly went back into the houses they had claimed for themselves.
"Welcome to Sanctuary Hills. What can we do for you?" Nora greeted the man because it was better sometimes to ask first rather than shoot first.
"Uhh… you got a Geiger counter?" The armored man asked, causing Taylor and Nora to glance at each other. This guy was a railroad agent.
"Mine's in the shop. Anything else we can help you with?" Nora replied.
The agent stood to attention. "Agent Blue, I was sent to tell you that they finally found the perfect location for the new teleporter machine."
Nora smiled slightly at this. "That's great."
He shook his head. "Unfortunately, there are a few complications that the railroad would like you to clear up first. The location's Trinity Tower, which I'll mark on your map, and it comes with a working power source and a radio station, which makes it ideal for the railroad as this means they don't have to build a new radio station. However, it's currently being overrun with super mutants. I'm sure you can see the problem here, Agent Blue."
"Yeah, I do. I'll do it," Nora's smile faded at this as she considered the problem on how to take out a large super mutant group without damaging the building itself.
The railroad agent simply nodded at this. "Good. Now, is there a place to rest here before I take my leave?"
Taylor pointed him towards the local bar that one of the settlers had set up inside his house, and turned to face Nora.
Nora smiled at Taylor wryly. "Seems that we're to hit the road once again, Taylor. But this might be dangerous, so I would understand completely if you wanted to stay here and learn how to build more generator types from Sturges."
Taylor shook her head. "Nah. I want to help out as much as I can… not to mention that teleport machine's my fastest way home. So the sooner it gets built, the better."
===============
Two days passed.
Taylor, Hancock, and Nora were now meeting with the railroad agents in Dugout Inn in a secluded room that Nora had rented for the night.
The railroad agents had insisted on it, otherwise, they wouldn't meet with them in Diamond City.
Nora had commented that she thought that the whole thing was pretty damn stupid, considering that nearly everyone knew by now that she had allied herself with the railroad to take down the institute.
But no, The railroad still insisted on having all those cloak and dagger meetings, since there were still strong prejudices against synths and the like. They cited the fact that the brotherhood was still around, as a reason why they should keep their guard up.
So Nora had no choice but to go along with this.
There was a knock on the door, and Taylor went to open it.
"Pardon me, but do you have a Geiger counter?" Deacon asked.
Nora replied with the countersign, "Mine's in the shop. ... Seriously, do we have to go through with this stupid bullshit?"
"You know how Dez is. She insists that everything be by the book, or else." Deacon said with a wry smile as he led Tinker Tom into the room.
"So, you said you found a Starcore for me?" Tinker Tom wasn't one for pleasantries and liked to get down to business.
"We found more than just one," Taylor replied as she opened up her bag to show all 23 Starcores. There had been 25 before, but Hancock insisted on holding on to a couple of them just in case.
"Oh? OH!" Tinker Tom seemed to be figuratively losing his mind as he counted how many there were. He dropped to his knees and looked like he was about to have an orgasm judging from the ecstatic expression on his face.
Everyone else in the room just stared at him, wondering what was up with him. Tinker Tom was always a little weird, but this behavior was a bit much even for him.
"Uh, you okay?" Deacon wondered as he looked down at his fellow agent.
"Pardon me my outburst… I thought you'd only manage to find one. I never thought you'd find so many, and in such pristine condition too. Don't you realize what this means? With one, I would've been able to build a teleporter that allowed for travel all over the state but not outside of it," Tinker Tom explained as he got back to his feet, "But with this many… I can make it so that we can travel to other states like California. Or to any other places. We could even go to New Vegas for one day and then come back without having to travel on foot for months! Do you realize how much of a boon this is for the Railroad?"
Deacon's eyes widened at this. "Truly? If what you're saying is true… then this is going to blow Desdemona's mind! She's been looking for a way to safely transport all the synths out of the commonwealth for ages now..."
"So you're saying, we get paid in plenty of caps for finding them, right? We did go to a lot of trouble for them after all.." Hancock replied with a cheeky grin.
"Hancock!" Nora said as she shot him a dirty look.
Deacon chuckled. "Nah, it's okay. He's right… you lot ought to be rewarded properly for getting this many for us. Especially now it'll help us spread our influence outside of the commonwealth. I'll be sure to put in a good word with Dez for you."
"The only reward I want," Taylor replied, "Is a way to go back home. Tinker Tom, you can transport me back home right?"
Tinker Tom looked thoughtful, and said, "I can't make any promises, considering that dimensional travel isn't my specialty. but I'll do my best."
Taylor nodded. "Good enough for me."
"How long will it take to build another teleporter?" Nora wondered.
Tom grimaced at this slightly. "Um… well. You have to understand, it's gonna take much longer than it did last time. With yours, it was a small prototype, so it only took a week to build. The teleporter I'm gonna build this time… well, it's far bigger than the one you used to get into the institute."
"So it'll take two weeks, then?"
Tom shook his head. "More like two months. And that's depending on how long we find the perfect spot to build our teleporter machine."
"WHAT!" Nora exclaimed loudly at this.
Deacon spoke up. "In his defense, we need a place that generates its' own radio signal, generates a lot of power and so on forth. We cheated last time because we were piggybacking off the Institute, using their radio signal and their power source. So we have to build a radio station, a good power source and all those other things alongside the teleporter to make it work. Surely you can understand how long that'd take?"
Tinker tom nodded. "Plus, our teleporter is gonna be the size of a skyscraper! The scouts are already looking around for old buildings that could be perfect for building our teleporter base inside."
"Oh." Taylor couldn't help but look dejected at this. She had come to see her group of allies here in this world as friends, but she still couldn't help but want to be home as fast as possible. She was starting to feel homesick.
"Well, I don't know if you knew this or not… but I've developed a few new tricks that could help you build it faster…" Nora said. With that, she summoned a wooden half wall out of thin air and had it float around her head.
Deacon looked interested at this. "Ya know, I did hear that you gained some supernatural ability somehow but I wasn't sure if I could believe it. So your ability allows you to…?"
"I build things fast. Where normal humans would spend the whole day brick-laying a wall only two feet long, I could easily create an entire football stadium in just one hour. It seems like my power's meant to build habitats that allow people to survive in hostile conditions."
The sole survivor said all of this very bluntly, and not like she was bragging at all. Although her words could be interpreted as such.
The railroad agent then looked thoughtful at this. "Huh. that would certainly help cut down on building time considerably. Alright then. Once we find a suitable place to build our teleporter, you'll be our main contractor on it. Deal?"
"Deal. This way Taylor won't have to wait too long to get back home." Nora said as she smiled at the teenager by her side.
Taylor smiled back at this.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I'm so sorry. I thought for sure we'd get you home much sooner." Nora sighed as the three of them walked out of Dugout Inn.
"It's okay. It's not like I'm stuck here permanently in this world. I know that I can get back home on my own naturally… I just need to work on building up my strength and my energy in case that the teleporter doesn't do the job," Taylor replied, "After all if I got here on my own without a machine then I can get back home that way too. I just need to figure out that part."
Hancock nodded. "Plus, you've got us backing you up here, so it's not all bad."
Taylor smiled. "I know. It's been nice having you guys as my friends."
Which was pretty damn surreal for Taylor, to be honest. After having to deal with Emma and Sophia for so long, she had honestly thought that she wouldn't be able to trust anybody ever again, much less have friends again. Sure, she had no choice but to depend on Nora and her friends at first considering that she was in an alternate world and were unfamiliar with how things worked here.
But over time, the more she got to know those people, the more she started to trust them. She supposed that it also helped that none of them were teenagers, and weren't prone to teen drama bullshit, so she could trust them to act more mature instead of being backstabbers who wanted to climb their way up the ladder of popularity.
It also helped that none of them weren't in a direct position of authority over her, as well. To say that she had lost her faith in authority figures would be an understatement. Nora had helped restore some of that little by little, considering that she was the general of the Minutemen group.
The three of them moved towards the main marketplace, where Oswald was now standing on some homemade wooden platform performing magic tricks for the children of Diamond City.
The adults here were very leery of ghouls, and most especially of a glowing one, no matter how harmless he acted. The children, on the other hand, was highly fascinated and wasn't as fearful of him. So naturally, he became a magnet for children, especially when he decided to start performing his magic tricks for free. Oswald claimed that it was just to hone his craft so that he'd be able to take it on the road and earn caps, but Taylor got the feeling that wasn't the only reason. The ghoul seemed to like kids and could connect with them on a personal level.
The crowd of kids cheered when he successfully pulled out a ghoulified Macaw-Eagle hybrid bird out of his hat. "Ta-da!"
Oswald grinned as he bowed for his audience. "Thank you, thank you."
Nora sighed as she realized that they still had this side mission to deal with. "We also have the problem of finding that cure for Oswald. I honestly don't know where to start… or even if there can be a cure in the first place."
Hancock smiled at this. "No worries there. I've already talked to him, and he's agreed to come to Goodneighbor with me and meet Dr. Amari. If anything else, he should be making friends with other ghouls there. The more connections he makes the more information he's likely to find."
Nora looked slightly relieved at this as she nodded. "Good idea."
The ghoul then looked at Nora. "So, you two coming with me to Goodneighbor or not? I don't think Taylor here has been there yet, and I wanna show off my digs to her."
Nora briefly considered this, and then nodded again. "It might be good for Taylor to know the location in case she needs to find you and need your help on something."
The two of them looked at Taylor, and the young girl just shrugged. "Sure, sounds good to me as well."
Hancock grinned at this. "Great."
This time around, it was just going to be the four of them heading out. Nick Valentine had gotten involved in tracking down all family members for the trafficking victims so that they could be reunited. That ended up being a far more lengthy process than Nick had realized it would be, so he had regretfully informed everyone that he wouldn't be part of the party until he had resolved this latest case.
It also turned out that Piper wanted to help out with that as well, so she had formed a temporary team with Nick tracking down the kids' missing families. As a result, she wasn't going to join up with Nora either.
Nora honestly didn't mind at all, because this meant that this was one less thing for the Minutemen to do… and her by extension. She honestly didn't envy Piper and Nick for the enormous undertaking they were about to do. She'd help herself, but… well, this was too much of a sore subject for her considering the similar traumatic experiences she went through herself. She wouldn't be able to stay objective and rational when tracking down the missing family members. Nora honestly didn't know how she'd react should she find out that some of the family members had been killed while the kids were being kidnapped, etc. That seemed to be the unfortunate conclusion that Nick had gotten when he interviewed the remaining kids on where their parents were at, but he said he couldn't know for sure until he confirmed the parents' deaths himself.
So yeah, Nora was perfectly happy letting others handle that one for once. No way she was touching that emotional landmine at all.
Oswald saw them approaching and greeted all three of them. "Hey, guys. I hear you guys are ready to leave this place soon?"
Hancock nodded. "Yeah, you know it. We just gonna give those ladies some time to powder their noses and then we'll be ready to leave."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was thankfully an uneventful walk to Goodneighbor, although Nora and Taylor were both surprised at how excited the residents seemed to see their Mayor back.
"Yo, Hancock! Looking good!" one female ghoul called out, which made Hancock wink back and reply with: "Back at ya, babe."
The female ghoul giggled at this.
At Taylor's raised eyebrow, Hancock then said: "What can I say? I'm a very popular mayor. Been in office for a very long time, and every time there's somebody who tries to run for office against me the residents always vote for me every time over the other guy."
Oswald slowly shook his head at this. "No offense… but you don't strike me like the government type. How the hell did you manage this?"
Taylor had to silently agree with that… Hancock kinda came off as more of a party frat boy at times than he did a mayor, in all the time that Taylor had taken to know him.
Hancock smirked slightly and leaned towards the two of them as he was about to share a secret.
"Here's the thing...Both Ghouls and Humans have one thing in common. They like their freedom, but they also like having somebody in charge when something goes wrong. They like a leader that will take care of their problems for them, but at the same time they don't want a leader that controls everything they do."
Hancock then spread his arms wide, gesturing at everything around him. "That's why I'm so popular, you see. I don't give a shit what consenting adults do to each other or themselves, provided that they aren't harming the community through their actions. Almost anything goes here…. Plus, I've been known to throw it down with Supermutants, raiders and other scum of the commonwealth to keep my people safe. They like the fact that a badass ghoul such as myself is keeping them safe while they get to do whatever they want."
"Huh." Oswald found this informational tidbit fascinating, and all four stopped in front of a building. The outer building was decorated with an arch that had lettering on it, which read: "Scollay SQ" and under that was a bunch of gibberish, the words faded out with some letters missing.
And directly over the red door, there was a glowing neon sign which read, "Memory Den".
"This is where Dr.Amari lives, Oswald. If anybody here had any idea on how to fix brains, she's the one." Hancock replied.
Nora nodded, and couldn't help but vouch for her as well. "She's good. Very professional. I was able to get the answers I needed thanks to her."
Oswald took a few deep breaths. "Right. Hopefully, she has the right answers for me too…"
Hancock patted him on the back. "Come on, let's go in. I'll introduce you."
All four of them walked into the building, and Taylor could immediately tell that it used to be some kind of bar and theater, which had been retrofitted to become a Tinker's hideout filled with those pod-like things that had people sleeping in them. They seemed to be having some great dreams though, judging by their expressions.
"So, this doctor…. Her specialty has to do with brains?" Taylor wondered.
"Memories. She can't do much for things like mental issues or brain damage, unfortunately. She does know how the brain works, however… which is why I thought she'd be a good place to start for Oswald." Hancock answered.
At the far end of the room, Taylor could see a half-Japanese woman in a white lab coat working at a computer, and the woman got up as soon as she saw them.
Dr. Amari had a somewhat resigned expression on her face right away as she spotted Nora. "Oh dear. What is it this time? First, it was brain matter from a dead guy, and then a robot wanting to be human. So what do you have for me this time around."
Both Taylor and Oswald turned to look at Nora with eyebrows raised because there was obviously some history between Nora and Dr.Amari.
Nora shrugged this off. "Eh, It's a long story. I'll tell you guys later."
To Dr. Amari, she said: "No, we're not here for me this time. Oswald here has a problem he'd like to talk to you about…"
With that, all three stepped away to let Oswald have a degree of privacy with Dr. Amari as the two of them spoke together.
They could tell that Dr.Amari was already intrigued by Oswald, and his mission to find a cure for feral ghouls.
"I've never worked with feral ghouls before...hmm… It could be interesting. We'd need to find a way to capture and subdue one though." They couldn't help but overhear her say minutes later after Oswald was done talking to her.
"Don't mind that part… I can take care of that." Oswald said.
Nora then turned to face Hancock. "Right. You'll watch over Oswald here, while Taylor and I go back to Sanctuary hills to check on things there?"
Hancock just gave her a thumbs up in response.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
After that, four weeks passed.
Taylor had taken the tour around Good Neighbor courtesy of Hancock, and she couldn't help but comment that the whole place looked like it was a mixture of two genres… a 1950's noir story and a post-apocalyptic story.
Hancock had been pleased to hear that Taylor found the Third rail bar to be more impressive than the Dugout inn, at least in terms of entertainment and atmosphere.
After that, it was just Taylor and Nora alone on the road, so she was able to practice teleporting with another person over long distances. For some reason, she could only teleport one person along with herself, but she had the feeling that her powers were like a muscle. That is, the more she exercised it the stronger it'd get. Taylor hoped that this meant that she'd eventually be able to teleport an entire group of people one day.
They got back home to Sanctuary Hills in record time, and after that, it was just weeks of relaxing and learning things.
Taylor had spent that whole time perfecting her gun skills, as well as learning how to build guns from scratch. She was also in the process of learning how to build generators from Sturges, but that was slow-going. Building a functional gun was far easier than building a generator, for some reason.
"Oh man, this sucks," Taylor grumbled as the generator she attempted to build started to fell apart once it was turned on…. Again. That was the tenth time that it did this, and she couldn't understand what she was doing wrong. She had followed all of Sturges' directions perfectly, after all.
Shaun was learning alongside her too, but for some reason, the young boy's homemade generator worked perfectly while hers didn't. Taylor's pride couldn't help but feel hurt at the fact that she was shown up by some 8-year-old boy…. She was so much older than him, she should be better at this than he was.
Nora didn't seem to understand why she was so frustrated about it. Nora just said some platitude about how everyone had their strengths and weaknesses, and that it was perfectly okay if Taylor was better at guns than she was at building generators.
But Taylor couldn't help but feel that learning to make homemade generators were more useful than guns, especially if she was going back home. The Endbringers were constantly leaving cities and towns without power, which often cost a lot of lives in the aftermath after the Endbringers left. So it stood to reason that the demand for generators and the like often went sky high, and Taylor wanted to be able to help out in that respect.
Sturges was looking over Taylor's, and then he grimaced slightly. "I see the problem. You didn't weld those bolts together so that they couldn't unscrew themselves while the engine was running. So this is why the engine kept on coming loose every time you turned it on. Sorry, I forgot to tell you that part… so that one's on me."
Taylor reassembled the small generator again, but this time she made sure to weld the bolts that Sturges pointed out. She turned it on once again, and this time it seemed to work.
Taylor couldn't help but grin as her homemade generator hummed loudly, and more so when Sturges checked how much voltage is created. Shaun's generator was more stable, but only gave out eight volts per second. Taylor's on the other hand, gave out ten volts per second.
Shaun was mystified by the difference in power, as the two of them had been told to make the same generator model. "Hey, how come there are different power levels? Our generators look the same."
"It's all in how you build it. Everyone has their style when it comes to building things," Sturges said with a smile, "So that's typically reflected in the things you made. Yours were more stable and didn't need welding, but that's because you were more methodical about assembling it. Taylor had a different way of building. She wasn't as methodical, but hers ended up being more effective because she had a better understanding of how engines work."
"What does methodical mean?" Shaun wondered.
"Eh, it means neat and orderly. You did things everything very neatly and in order." Sturges was saying, but Taylor was distracted by the fact that there was a new visitor to Sanctuary Hills.
People had been coming to live at Sanctuary hills lately, especially now that Nora was renovating most of the intact houses back to their prewar glory. The plumbing even worked like new after all those years thanks to her, which was a major draw for most of the new settlers.
But this one…. He didn't act and look like a settler at all. He was heavily armored and armed and were looking everywhere about the place with a shifty expression on his face.
Nora noticed him as well, and with a slightly tense expression on her face she called for Shaun to go inside their house, and to stay with Dogmeat and Codsworth while she met with this latest visitor.
Taylor pulled out her laser pistol, the one she had personally made herself, and walked over to her side. The two of them moved towards the man, showing everyone that they were ready to defend themselves if necessary.
The rest of the settlers noticed this, and they quickly went back into the houses they had claimed for themselves.
"Welcome to Sanctuary Hills. What can we do for you?" Nora greeted the man because it was better sometimes to ask first rather than shoot first.
"Uhh… you got a Geiger counter?" The armored man asked, causing Taylor and Nora to glance at each other. This guy was a railroad agent.
"Mine's in the shop. Anything else we can help you with?" Nora replied.
The agent stood to attention. "Agent Blue, I was sent to tell you that they finally found the perfect location for the new teleporter machine."
Nora smiled slightly at this. "That's great."
He shook his head. "Unfortunately, there are a few complications that the railroad would like you to clear up first. The location's Trinity Tower, which I'll mark on your map, and it comes with a working power source and a radio station, which makes it ideal for the railroad as this means they don't have to build a new radio station. However, it's currently being overrun with super mutants. I'm sure you can see the problem here, Agent Blue."
"Yeah, I do. I'll do it," Nora's smile faded at this as she considered the problem on how to take out a large super mutant group without damaging the building itself.
The railroad agent simply nodded at this. "Good. Now, is there a place to rest here before I take my leave?"
Taylor pointed him towards the local bar that one of the settlers had set up inside his house, and turned to face Nora.
Nora smiled at Taylor wryly. "Seems that we're to hit the road once again, Taylor. But this might be dangerous, so I would understand completely if you wanted to stay here and learn how to build more generator types from Sturges."
Taylor shook her head. "Nah. I want to help out as much as I can… not to mention that teleport machine's my fastest way home. So the sooner it gets built, the better."
- Location
- Deep in the Badlands of Equestria
If Dr. Amari and Oswald manage to crack the process for curing feral ghouls, things will take a decided turn in the Fallout world. There's no real breakdown of the population numbers, but there's enough of a population there that if a significant number can be restored to civilized behavior things will shift radically in most areas. Of course, that's definitely going to be yet another long-term exercise, but if the Nuka-World revitalization can stay on track, there should be a good support base to work with.
Meanwhile, Taylor's getting her scrounging constructions skills leveled up, and as she noted, those will be abilities she can take with her and put to good use in her home dimension. Trinity Tower being selected as the site for the Railroad's megateleporter facility makes sense, but that's going to be a serious grind for Nora and the rest of her team, even with special abilities factored in. I'll be looking forward to the next installment to see who else gets tapped for the party this time.
Meanwhile, Taylor's getting her scrounging constructions skills leveled up, and as she noted, those will be abilities she can take with her and put to good use in her home dimension. Trinity Tower being selected as the site for the Railroad's megateleporter facility makes sense, but that's going to be a serious grind for Nora and the rest of her team, even with special abilities factored in. I'll be looking forward to the next installment to see who else gets tapped for the party this time.
- Location
- USA
Would be cool to get Currier Six involved. Throw the problem at Big Empty, how to create a computer small enough and with enough storage to copy a person's mind then have that as a backup brian incase the real one degrades. It'll probably take four vials of nightstalker venom, a ZAX computer and the brain fluid from a Zetan commander. Need to find a way to clone those little alien invaders.
- Location
- California
I'm betting the hardest part of Trinity tower will be the end. Plenty of cover and neat places to toss grenades through for effortless kills on the way up, but the top, the boss, and if they're following the Stong quest script the subsequent counter-assault on the top of the tower by super mutants is literally the hardest part of the dungeon cause no good or no overall cover, level structure that makes grenades less effective, and the boss, boss room enemies, and the counter-assault generally have good guns(aka non-pipe, which for super mutants means assault rifles, miniguns, and rocket launchers[one notable time the boss had a damned Fatman in my game]). Then again that's following the logic of a quest that in the game is to rescue a man at the top of the tower, not as Nora, Taylor, and Co want to do which is clearing the tower of all hostiles.
The ride down is also a horrid place for difficulty if scaled to real life but I kinda doubt their gonna be taking the washing platforms down when they're clearing the building.
The ride down is also a horrid place for difficulty if scaled to real life but I kinda doubt their gonna be taking the washing platforms down when they're clearing the building.
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Another picture of Taylor Hebert as Nuka-Girl.
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Another picture of Taylor Hebert that I did, wearing the Nuka-World's Family-friendly version of the NukaGirl Costume. This time it was more than just a simple photo-mapulation.. I had a fun time coming up with how Nuka-Girl's logo would look like.
www.deviantart.com
Nuka-Girl by Lady-Aurora-Moon on DeviantArt
www.deviantart.com
- Location
- Paradise, Hawaii
I just had a mental image of "Nuka Girl" as the Imaged Icon of Fallout, up there with Fallout Boy.
Seeing this.
And the following.
Can Nora find a Complete Vault and Incomplete Vault and Copy Parts to Refurbish others?
Looking back a few...
John-Celeb Bradberton is turning Nuka-World into Nuka-City, if Nora copied or disassembled a few of the unused but in decent shape pre war Skyscrapers and Rebuilt one in the Park, that should be worth some Sponsorship.
If Nora could get to New Vegas and Copy Parts of Hoover Dam, Niagara Falls could be Restored.
The real Prizes are the Starcores. Can they replace the Computers of a Vault?
If the Machinist is around, what Wonder/ Horror can she do?
Nora would know of the Place?
Seeing this.
And the following.
Can Nora find a Complete Vault and Incomplete Vault and Copy Parts to Refurbish others?
Looking back a few...
John-Celeb Bradberton is turning Nuka-World into Nuka-City, if Nora copied or disassembled a few of the unused but in decent shape pre war Skyscrapers and Rebuilt one in the Park, that should be worth some Sponsorship.
If Nora could get to New Vegas and Copy Parts of Hoover Dam, Niagara Falls could be Restored.
The real Prizes are the Starcores. Can they replace the Computers of a Vault?
If the Machinist is around, what Wonder/ Horror can she do?
Nora would know of the Place?
- Location
- Paradise, Hawaii
True, but Timeline-wise, the Enclave were defeated at the Capital Wastelands and the Brotherhood of Steel Prydwen was or was not sunk for Nora to be able to defeat the Institute?
Heck, what is the condition of Liberty Prime and can a Starcore help with that?
I just had a image of Nora blueprinting Liberty Prime and his Mecha Gantry/ Repair bay and now she can rebuild him, Pristine.
Arthur Hansen
Author of no Authority.
- Location
- Utah, behind the Zion Curtain.
Blowing up the Dirigible is post nuking the institute, iirc.