Its life cycle is more depended upon if it gets eaten. If there aren't enough grazers it can't spread. I think it needs a high fertilizer effect to kick start the germination. If the cattle get out to free-graze then I could see it take off after a few months. Other grazing animals might get drawn in and that will be when it really kicks off.
Which is probably good, since it would be a good first step in repairing the environment. Not to mention that settlements being able to support more Brahmin or other herbivores...
It's life cycle is more depended upon if it gets eaten. If there aren't enough grazers it can't spread. I think it needs a high fertilizer effect to kick start the germination. If the cattle get out to free-graze then I could see it take off after a few months. Other grazing animals might get drawn in and that will be when it really kicks off.
Which is probably good, since it would be a good first step in repairing the environment. Not to mention that settlements being able to support more Brahmin or other herbivores...
Let's hope this doesn't deplete the already bad soil of the wasteland to a completely unusable state in there. Or that it will grow at least for a year, because the land here does not look ready for heavy loads. And they'll also need to think about how to get rid of this grass, if the settlers want to grow something edible for themselves in the future. This thing can be horrible weed.
In general, the state of the soil in the wastelands, apart from radiation, is a very interesting topic. There is probably a lot of crushed organic matter, but there is no one to process it. After all, the plants need inorganic substances soluble in water, and not the remains of plants/animals that have not completely decomposed. If we also factor in climate, erosion and pollution... What a thrill it is to be a farmer in a place like this!
She created a narquah generator for the followers of the apocalypse. But yeah, I need to find an excuse for her to do more with the tinker ability. Just can't think of a way where it could plausibly come up in the story where she'd consider making the technology a priority.
Let's look at all the major tech that she can make from Stargate Tech:
Cloak (This would be basically a very amped up, more powerful Sleathboy technology in Karina's eyes. can't reasonably think of a way to have her feel like she actually needs this.)
Cloning (This is a big MAYBE. could possibly use it to clone animals and the like?)
Hologram (I can actually see a lot of uses for this one, but of course, the problem is having Karina think it couldn't be prioritized over other things that her new home needs more. she's a very pragmatic sort, so she isn't gonna do things just because she thinks it's cool.)
Nanites ( I can actually see Karina doing this one the most out of everything else on the list, as it's got so many good uses and is almost as good as a replicator. the only issue is resources and time to make even a single nano-robot when she's got other pressing issues to focus on right now).
Neural interfacing ( I can definitely see so many uses for this one, but again the problem lies with Karina realistically wanting to do it or not. she might not even see the point of it unless something in the story prompts her to do so?)
Power sources (yup, I can see her making this one again, she's already done once so before. and out of everything on the list she wouldn't even need to be prodded into making it, because it's a practical application that everyone can instantly see a use for.)
Sensors (okay, could definitely use this to beef up Vault 129's security provided that they get some extra resources later on in the future).
Shields ( also something I can see her making, eventually with some prodding)
(Iona would love the shit out of this, but the problem again comes from resources, and lack of reasons for Karina to want to make this yet).
Stasis pods (she might be leerier of this one, considering that everyone just literally got out of being stuck in a crude verison of this for 200 years. they might just skip this one)
Subspace communication (definitely a major use that I could see Karina prioritize over time).
Transporters (again, Karina could see the practical uses of that. Just need to make her realistically think of it and get working on it. also need resources).
Weapons (we already have some fallout versions of those, sorta. those ones would be merely improved versions in everyone's eyes).
Other (stargate network, and other various techs. those are definitely the ones that Karina would prioritize less than others on the list, that's for sure.)
The problem overall is that Karina isn't a player (broadly speaking) with meta-knowledge. She's basically a person who lived in this fallout universe her whole life, and thus her POV is a little bit limited by her own experiences and how she sees the world. So she isn't going to think over things and go, "Hey, I MIGHT need that down the road, so let's make it now!"
She's more the type to go, "That does sound useful, but I need to focus on this thing first as I consider this more important. I'll get around to making that.... eventually. Sure, future me might need the tech pronto but that's a future me problem. I prefer to focus on present problems right now."
Can she create a computer system that specializes in storing data and presenting it in a comprehensible way in the form of images/3D models? Give it a little time each evening, slowly filling the machine with blueprints. Well, or don't bother and immediately write down the blueprints for possible equipment - let smart people figure it out further.
If she can give enough detailed instructions to others, then she will not have to come up with reasons herself and take the time to do it. Delegating so to speak. Maybe this will let her relax a bit and stop being a lab rat for a time, while our scientist does other things )
What does she need to create and operate nanites? I think, this project going to take MONTH, if not YEARS to get started. And she will have to make changes to the plan a lot of times, look for people to help and make sure everything goes according to plan. And of course, to conduct a study of the area with which to work and much more...
And she will have to build all the infrastructure practically from scratch, because it seems to me that in this universe there are no suitable machines for this. Different tech trees: Fallout and Stargate. I don't think it's possible to do it in a short time without any power to distort reality in order to build anomalously fast and while lacking the right tools.
And if starts scaling up, she will need a sustainable economic system, law enforcement officers, operators, researchers and workers on site. And also a very developed infrastructure. And only after all this can the global cleansing of the state begin.
Can she create a computer system that specializes in storing data and presenting it in a comprehensible way in the form of images/3D models? Give it a little time each evening, slowly filling the machine with blueprints. Well, or don't bother and immediately write down the blueprints for possible equipment - let smart people figure it out further.
If she can give enough detailed instructions to others, then she will not have to come up with reasons herself and take the time to do it. Delegating so to speak. Maybe this will let her relax a bit and stop being a lab rat for a time, while our scientist does other things )
well there is the Factorio solution. harvest the excess tube grass and process it for cellulose fiber then turn those into bricks to be turned into charcoal + gasses that can be condensed into pitch - motor oil - diesel - petrol - propane. Further processing could make plastics for insulation of wiring or zip ties for wire management. ect.
Karina felt even worse the next morning, as her thoughts had been full of guilty spiraling thoughts as she pondered the implications that she might be stealing things from people by permanently summoning items, such as that one boat by the St. Alexis hospital in the Bismarck ruins.
And worse, she couldn't send them all back once she was done with it. Only the special ones that seemed to have been summoned when her power was at full strength, could be sent back.
She had tried that with some of her guns which she had summoned when her power was at its halfway peak, and they didn't get sent back at all.
So unless those weapons and other items had been discarded and belonged to nobody any longer, it was clear that she was a thief. And she had gotten so MANY Boy-Chok vegetables that the Buffalo men and the ladies of vault 129 had enjoyed eating! what if she had stolen all of that from a farmer or a grocery store somewhere??
After all, they had to come from somewhere!
She hadn't thought much about this before until now, because on some level she had kinda just assumed that those things were created out of nothing wholesale. But what if they weren't?
Of course, one could try to look at things more pragmatically… as in, those items had been of great use to her and her survival so it wasn't like she had stolen them out of greed, and only gotten them in dire situations. Those things had saved her life on more than one occasion!
So they were mostly emergency items that probably hadn't been needed or wanted as much by their previous owners, and she was putting them to better use than their past owners did?
No, that was just trying to rationalize away her guilt. Stealing was still stealing, even if she did have a very good reason for it.
……. And the worst part was, She didn't want to stop summoning things, not when it was so useful to her. Even with the knowledge that she was most likely stealing from somebody.
She wasn't enough of a good moral person to want to stop summoning altogether, but still enough of a good person to feel guilt over stealing things from random people in other worlds, or from somebody in this world.
…. This would be so much easier to deal with if she was slightly more amoral about this whole thing.
Fuck it. She was just going to have Iona figure out a way to track where all those summoned items came from, and also figure out a way for Karina to send something back there where those items used to be. This way she'd send back the money or something else that the owners might appreciate, to make up for taking all of their random junk.
And the best part was, her power could also reach through time itself so maybe she could even send the original items back (once Iona figured out how it all worked) to the point where they first disappeared so that their owners wouldn't even realize that they had been taken in the first place!
Boom, it'd be like she never stole anything in the first place.
Oddly enough creating a plan like that made her feel better and much less of a thief, even if she knew on some level that she was still rationalizing the hell out of her felonious actions.
Anyways, she also had other things to focus on today. Like getting ready to explore the world out there some more while looking for the things on the vault robot's list of items for the revival fluid.
The question was, should she go traveling through Montana this time? Or look into the rest of North Dakota and eventually look into going to South Dakota? She had only traveled through North Dakota last time because the towns and cities had seemed closer and would take much less time to arrive on foot. But now that she could fly, that wasn't so much of a factor anymore.
……. She would need to consult with the others about this one. Better to use her trips out there more productively, until all the women were restored and revived from their tubes.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Surprisingly enough Iona didn't protest too much against the idea of Karina going out there for any extended time and provided a very helpful tip.
"From what I hear, many vaults got equipped with maps that had emergency services such as hospitals and police stations marked on them. Just in case." Iona commented, "I believe I saw it in the old overseer's science office the other day when I was helping Lauren look through some things?"
"You don't want me to stay down here with you and keep on pulling things out of other worlds for you?" Karina asked curiously because this seemed almost out of character for Iona from what she knew of her so far.
Iona smiled faintly. "I'd be lying if I said no. But, I have to admit there are just so many things that need to be done around here, and quite frankly it's too much for the five of us to handle. We got to set up an indoor farm, we got to work on the revival fluids for which we're running low on resources, and we've got to monitor all the sleeping women to make sure they don't die on us. And also restore this vault to its former glory, because to be honest, it's getting on its years now. It's a miracle that Mr. Handy was able to keep everything running for so long."
Iona then sighed with an annoyed expression on her face. "I was really looking forward to studying that grass you summoned the other day, it's nothing like I've ever seen on this Earth before. But instead, I got roped into doing all those stupid but necessary chores! So yeah, the more women we have around here the more I'll be able to focus on my scientific studies instead."
Karina snorted in amusement at that. Well, now that sounded more like Iona. She thanked Iona for the information and went to find which one of the science office rooms belonged to the Overseer.
She found it eventually, along with Lauren Campbell, who seemed to be in the process of cleaning out the office and looking over any important-looking documents she found in there.
'As the new leader of Vault 129, it makes sense that Lauren would want the previous overseer's files?' Karina thought to herself.
Out loud, she asked, "Did you find some maps? More specifically, the ones with hospital and police locations on them? Thinking of going out there for a long run, thought I might go rummaging in other hospitals out there and bring back more stuff to make the revival fluid."
Freya was walking by at that moment and overheard that. "Oh, you're going out? Um. Can I go too? I could use the fresh air."
Internally Karina groaned to herself at that. If she had somebody following her, she wouldn't be able to fly.
Outwardly she said, "It depends on what the maps show me. I'm trying to go to the closest hospital, but if it's going to take weeks out on foot, then it might be better for me to fly alone instead of going with you on foot?"
Freya frowned slightly. "Wait, you can fly now? Ah, alright. That makes sense, I suppose."
Lauren was meanwhile rummaging through the office while this conversation was going on and managed to find the map that Karina was looking for.
The three of them looked at it as Lauren held one end while Karina held the other end, and it turned out that there was a Sheridan Memorial Hospital located in Plentywood, 28 minutes from Westby, in Montana. But that was by car, not on foot. If she did her math right, that would take 8 hours to walk to on foot, at least. All the other nearby hospitals would take longer on foot, the shortest route in North Dakota taking 11 hours on foot.
But if she flew there, then it'd only take her 34 minutes to get there. The other direction would take her an hour, maybe.
Seems like she was going to Montana this time.
Freya seemed to brighten up at this. "That doesn't look so far on foot."
Karina grimaced slightly. It seemed that Freya truly wanted to get out of here for a while, huh? And here Karina was hoping that she'd fly over there, explore Plentywood and then bring back whatever loot she found, all in the same span of a single day.
If they went on foot, then they'd have to stay overnight? And then she'd have to pack extra, bringing the camping gear with her. Just in case.
Ugh. only if there was some fast way to travel now that all the cars were completely busted….
That thought seemed to trigger something in her unbidden, she suddenly "remembered" some piece of technology she could build. A transporter? It instantaneously transported people from one location to another, even crossing entire state lines. She even knew of different types of transporters, inducing a ring-shaped one?
Wow, that definitely sounded so useful. The only problem was, with the limited resources they had they'd take half a year to build just ONE transporter, which would be useless since there was no other transporter pad to connect it with.
Oh well, that was a nice thought regardless. Maybe later on?
She shook her thoughts free of the intrusive thoughts that seemed to want her to tinker with things so badly, and told Freya, "Well to be honest I was hoping to fly today instead of going on foot. It'd probably only take me 30 minutes or so to arrive in Plentywood if I was to fly."
Freya pondered this. She then asked curiously, "You shapeshift into different sizes right? Maybe you could carry me?"
Karina chuckled at that. "Let me show you why that probably wouldn't work."
With that, she started transforming into her tall, muscular Oni form and willed her magic wings to appear. She then hunched over while holding both arms behind her as she called out, "Try riding on me."
Freya blinked. This was definitely an odd request, but she complied all the same.
Freya was a pretty tall muscular amazon, so she felt pretty heavy even with Karina's Oni superstrength helping her out here, as she tried to ride Karina piggyback.
They adjusted things around so that Karina could try to use her wings here, which now looked ridiculously tiny thanks to her large Oni form. That only helped in making Karina almost hover off the ground by a few inches, but it wasn't enough for true flight.
This resulted in Freya's head constantly bumping against the ceiling of the vault hallways, causing her to cry out "ow" a few times.
The two of them looked and felt pretty friggin' ridiculous right now.
Gods, Freya was so friggin' HEAVY that Karina desperately wished there was a way to change that!
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!" Lauren burst out laughing, causing the two to jump because they had honestly forgotten about her for a minute there.
>Ring<
https://magical-girl-mahou-shoujo.fandom.com/wiki/Oyayubi_Hime_Monogatari:_Episode_List roll 19
Oyayubi Hime Monogatari, also known as Thumbelina: A Magical Story, this is a Japanese TV series. A bratty girl named Mia is given a book, Thumbelina, which upon reading she is shrunk and transported into the world of the book. She embarks on a journey to return home, and to normal size making friends and learning lessons on the way, but that's only the beginning of her adventures.
Effect: Normally, only Karina would get the ability to shrink but since Karina was desperately wishing that Freya would be smaller and lighter at the time she pulled this, not to mention Freya being ridiculously close to Karina at the time, this means Freya is also awarded this new power to scale down or scale up at will. Which makes them both size-scaling buddies. Woot.
"Haha…. I'm sorry….. But you two look so ridiculous! I'm just imagining the two of you wobbling in the air outside like that! Hahahaha!" Lauren tried to explain the best she could as she started laughing helplessly again.
The two ladies separated from each other, looking somewhat sheepish as they did so, while Lauren managed to calm herself down.
Lauren then fanned herself as she caught her breath after laughing so hard. "Whew. Thanks for that, I really needed that laugh."
Shaking her head in amusement, she went back into the offices to sort through things again.
Karina turned around to face Freya just as she said, "So anyways, you can see why that wouldn't work?"
Freya didn't answer right away, however, as she had a very odd expression on her face. She then mumbled, "I feel weird. Like something inside me changed….? Like there's something new inside me."
She seemed to focus on herself, and just like that she started to steadily get smaller, even arriving at the height she used to be before she became a tall amazon, but then rapidly shrunk down to 19mm size, which was the average size of a woman's thumb.
Karina quickly realized what had happened, and said out loud, "Huh. So I can give powers to others if I focus on that? …… huh, neat. Can you change back too?"
Freya didn't seem to like being the size of a thumb, because she suddenly shot up back to her full height with a strongly freaked-out expression on her face.
Karina grinned brightly. "You know, this solves our problem nicely. This way you'd be able to ride me all the way to Plentywood and we won't spend 8 hours on foot!"
Ah, her power was really so helpful. She had been fretting over not wanting to reject the other woman too harshly because it was obvious that Freya was getting really sick and tired of this place and needed to be elsewhere to clear her head. And there it went, solving this problem quite neatly.
But for some reason, Freya didn't seem too terribly pleased. In fact, she still looked freaked out and there was an intense aura of fear and a strong sense of violation wafting off her.
"Ah… yeah…." She mumbled, looking a little pale.
"What's wrong, Freya?" Karina asked, but Freya just simply shook her head and rushed out towards the Vault entrance.
Karina merely tilted her head as she watched Freya leave, wondering if it was something she said or did. She then shrugged and went to grab her backpack.
~~~
She ran into Freya on the way out, and Freya started following her away from Vault 129 in total silence despite not having much on her other than her vault suit and her Pipboy. Karina thought that was sloppy of her to not even bring a bag with her but decided not to comment on it.
As they got onto the road that was full of dead wood on both sides, Freya finally spoke up.
"Why are you so okay with… all of this?" Freya demanded to know with a slightly upset expression on her face.
"Uh, what? Sorry, you'll have to be more specific. There are some things I'm okay with and things I ain't okay with." Karina responded turning around to look at Freya with a puzzled expression on her face.
Freya took a few shuddering breaths, as she tried to compose herself fully and get her thoughts in order. She then tried to explain the best she could how she saw things here.
She burst out, "That's just… I never signed up for any of this shit out of my own free will. They forced this choice on me. It was jail time or this. When they said they were going to do an experimental supersoldier trial, I just thought they were going to slip me a few placebo drugs and that'd be it. Or, if they did intend to dose me with something unhealthy then I was planning to fully document the whole thing and sue everyone for all they were worth after I was done with it all."
She paused, before yelling, "I didn't expect to wake up with my body completely transformed and changed against my will. Or for it to be 200 fucking years later!!"
Freya was practically out of breath after all of that, but she looked relieved to have that finally off her chest.
Ah. so that's why Freya acted so weird earlier on? Because to the blonde woman, it felt like Freya was still trapped in an experiment she had never willingly signed up for in the first place? It must've felt like Karina was transforming Freya against her will just like those scientists 200 years ago did. Shit.
"Oh. That." Karina mumbled. She then sighed loudly, shaking her head before looking at Freya sympathetically. "I'll be perfectly straight with you. Regardless of how calm I seem on the outside, I'm not okay with that, either. If I had my way, I'd rather be without a superpower and still living with my parents in Westby. Also, the bombs would've never dropped and there'd be no war to start with."
Freya visibly calmed down at this. She then chuckled weakly. "I would've never known. There's that history you have of being an elite military sniper, which made me wonder about you a little. plus, you seem to just take everything in stride. Like you just accept whatever's happening to you and all that junk. Like you're just a good little soldier following orders, even if it means being doped up on supersoldier juice."
Karina scoffed loudly. "You must've skimmed over my file, otherwise you'd know I was drafted against my will, I didn't sign up for any of that shit. I hated that job but it paid well and so I decided to keep on doing it to support my parents. That's all. Just because a person's good at something doesn't mean they enjoy it. If anything I disliked how it was almost too easy to kill somebody like that."
Karina paused, before adding, "People keep on talking all the time about how human life's precious. So I've always thought if that was the case then it shouldn't be so easy to snuff out. It's all so unfair, isn't it."
Freya nodded, agreeing with that completely. She seemed relieved that she had something in common with Karina. "Yeah. I just wish more people understood that and saw that. Otherwise, we wouldn't have been in this mess to start with."
The two of them started walking together again in silence for a few moments there before Karina spoke up again.
"For what it's worth, I'm sorry for using my power on you without your consent. It was an accident, I had no idea I could award other people with skills and abilities…. I honestly thought I could only do that to myself."
Freya smiled. "Apology accepted. But if you do it to me again, I'll kick your ass."
Karina held her hands up in a surrendering gesture. "Noted."
They walked on towards Westby, in order to take the road straight to Plentywood.
A/N: was going to do more rolls this chapter, but couldn't figure a way to write around them and still have them fit thematically.
Also, something feels off about this chapter. I dunno why but I kinda don't like this chapter. Might eventually rewrite it one day once I figure out how to fix what's wrong with it.
Trying to have her build up more of a relationship with the rest of the women in Vault 129.
And I also figured that not all of them would be 100% okay with being turned into tall Amazon women, especially if they didn't consent to it.
Sure, being a tall Amazon woman isn't such a bad thing to be but it's still the principle of things. Plus, what if they loved the body shape they were in before?
So I tried to throw some character development into there somewhere.
Also, about shrinking... I was thinking about exactly that few hours ago. And it gave me some weird ideas. Maybe it can be made by local distortion of the geometry and distribution of mass into a pocket dimension, into a bubble the entrance to which is a reduced body. In this case, the reduced person becomes smaller, lighter, but more durable. Because any influence is redistributed on the body in such a way as if it had not decreased. Like, you cannot crush such a person in the hand, because for this you have to apply the force necessary to crush an unreduced person - because the amount of energy from the nuclear and electromagnetic forces that hold them together hasn't changed. The same thing should happen with bullets in theory. Because when hit, the energy of the bullet will eventually be distributed over a larger area on the other side of curved geometry. So instead of a hole, it will be a big bruise. True, a reduced person still needs to eat and breathe the same amount... In theory, each inhalation/exhalation will have more pressure if we measure them from the outside. And also a voice. Will it become squeaky? Probably, but at the same time it will be louder because the amount of energy invested in it has not changed, but the output conditions have changed. And a smaller person should also be able to jump very high and move incredibly fast. Therefore, the weight is less, and the applied force is the same. And she may also break glass (for example), because here the curved geometry acts as a multiplier, but in a different direction (unlike the bullet example)! And she also have to get out of this state to eat or relieve herself more normally. However, it will be harder to find the right place to apply her power and leverage it. Because trying to break the glass with a fist, while just standing on the ground, will not work - instead, a small person will fly off in the other direction, because reducing the weight and area of footprint reduces the friction force.
I think this idea captured my attention a lot more than I expected. )
Honestly, I think the reason you had trouble fitting the rolls in is because you're trying so hard to make everything less random as possible. Which is the exact opposite of what a RNG based power is supposed to be actually.
So maybe try being more random with the rolls and see what happens? Couldn't hurt really, and may help in the long run...
actually, everything is still randomized. That's just I write around the rolls to make it seem like Karina's power is reacting to her wishes, etc.
My writing process is like this:
In a separate document, I roll up to like 20 rolls, each with their assigned numbers to tell me whenever it's a weak or a strong one.
Then I look at the wikis they hit up to learn more about the rolls.
Then I think of how to write around this so that it fits into the story thematically. using it as a writing prompt for what might happen next.
then in the first blank document, I have open, I start typing up the story that leads up to the roll itself so that the roll itself makes narrative sense.
Spoiler.... the reason why I didn't use the next roll is because
the next one would've summoned over 2000 species of mice.
and that would've been jarring to put into a scene where Karina and Freya were having a heart-to-heart moment.
Why thing should be this? Maybe you could distort meaning of roll in some way. You just have to interpret the thing in an unusual way. At least I think so - for me Wiki-power is not a clear order every time, but a blurry opportunity. Something free to interpret in weird ways sometimes.
Maybe you can start adding 3 re-rolls for every five chapters that give you a chance to re-roll one roll each chapter if they are too nonsensical to fit the story, the flow of the chapter, or doesn't fit into the rolls before or after.
Maybe you could on the rolls like the 2000 species of mice, bring up the other wiki's and list the results from the other ones that can be an alternative to that roll, and then roll to choose what one is used?
Now if that roll had been Pym Particles, they could have had Freya go Giant Woman...
Well, gigantification is something I'm not sure about how it should work yet. Same approach just will make very fragile giant. And also there is problems like: "Become big -> drink a barrel of water -> shrink -> splatter guts everywhere, because water didn't change".
P.S. Never liked size-changing powers. They annoyed me with the amount of problems they create. And even now it leaves a nasty feeling when I start thinking about it.
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Chapter 43-- Great, Supermutants took over Plentywood??
The trip through Westby was a quiet affair, considering that Karina had already killed off all the feral ghouls here.
The highlight was showing Freya where she used to live before they left the town. Freya had merely commented, "It looks like it used to be a nice house."
Karina then brought up the size change power, as she asked, "Now that you've got the ability to shrink yourself down, it's now more feasible for you to ride me as you suggested before. I can fly us all the way there and it'll only take us 20 to 30 minutes as opposed to the eight hours on foot. What do you think?"
Freya frowned, and then slowly nodded. She mumbled, "Now that I've got a new superpower, I might as well as use it, right?"
Besides like Karina she wasn't exactly looking forward to 8 hours' worth of walking. She had been athletic in her past life, but she hadn't been super invested in sports the same way she had been with her anti-war activism. So she hadn't really understood the appeal of things like marathons.
So she focused on her inner core, and slowly shrunk herself down to the size of a baby. She wasn't comfortable going any smaller, she already felt vulnerable and felt like easy prey as it were.
Meanwhile, Karina was shifting her backpack lower on her back to make room for her wings and then got down on all fours so that Freya could climb into her back and then secure herself to both Karina and the backpack itself.
Once they were sure that Freya wouldn't fall off so easily, Karina slowly got up and willed her wings to appear. With that, she slowly started to jog, her wings building up speed as they flapped. Once she got enough air and heat thermal under the wings, she jumped and lifted off into the air.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thinking privately to herself, Freya had to admit that riding a flying Karina was a lot of fun, although she couldn't help but wonder if it'd be more fun if she was able to fly on her own.
Could Karina give her other superpowers too? Because the ability to scale herself up and down wasn't that great a superpower. That was just her opinion anyways.
They stopped for a break just outside of Plentywood, at a bar called Blue Moon. Freya urged Karina to stop there, soon as they saw the building from above.
The power was still on there somehow, as the old neon blue sign which read "Blue Moon" in a cursive script flickered on and off.
That had been what caught Freya's attention otherwise the two of them would've missed the building entirely because it was a very small business building far as places went. It used to be a blue and white building judging by the remaining peeling paint, but the metal sheeting on the outside was now mostly rust brown with blue-white splotches all over it, making it too easy for the building to blend into the bleak brown and gray landscape otherwise.
Freya jumped off Karina soon as the two of them landed, and scaled herself up to the normal size that she used to be before she became an Amazoness as she talked to Karina.
"Come on. I'm in serious need of some alcohol!" Freya said as she quickly walked towards the door.
Karina quietly raised one eyebrow at this but followed anyways.
Freya let out a loud shriek as the two of them were immediately besieged by giant bugs the moment she opened the door. Karina acted on pure instinct as she immediately got to work on disposing of all giant bugs in sight without even thinking about it.
Once she was sure all the cockroach bugs, at least four of them, were dead, she then turned to face Freya. "You alright? I suppose I should've warned you about this. Those bugs mutated and now they're everywhere."
Freya was still pale in the face as she swallowed. "Right. God, I hate this new reality so much."
Karina smiled at her sympathetically then held out a weapon for Freya to take, and with that, the two of them were far more cautious going into the building.
There were no more giant bugs around but there were definitely a few skeletons sitting around, which seemed to drive the reality of things home for Freya.
Freya swallowed again as she stared at the skeletons, before asking, "It's like this for the rest of the world now, huh? A chunk of the human population is dead now… because of this stupid war."
The two of them moved through the building in somber silence after that, as they searched the place for anything that they could bring back to the Vault.
Freya was highly disappointed that the bars there were already picked clean, with the two of them only managing to find a single bottle of Olde Royale Whiskey and even then there still weren't that much inside the bottle, it was enough only for two shots.
But in a way, she wasn't that surprised.
The North Commonwealth's states were all highly alcoholic states to start with because in farming states like those ones there wasn't that much to do if you were an adult other than going to bars and socializing. In fact, New Hampshire and Alabama were probably the only states that beat the entire North Commonwealth out in terms of alcoholics per capita. This was so weird because the fact was that North Dakota had the highest number of bars per capita. She had looked that up in a book once and found it to be an interesting factoid.
When the literal end of the world happened, bars here would definitely be the first to be raided. It probably didn't help that in some towns within the North Commonwealth the bar and church were right next to each other. That way when the bombs dropped, they could raid the bars and then go to church right away completely plastered praying for god to save their ass.
Karina found some relatively clean shot glasses, and the two of them poured the whiskey out into the glasses.
"Cheers." Freya toasted Karina before swallowing the shot of whiskey.
Karina followed suit, before speaking up. "So, is this the reason why you wanted to come with me? So that you could find somewhere to get drunk?"
Freya shrugged. "Eh, more like I was hoping to find something to vent my feelings on? I honestly have no idea how to deal with the fact that the world ended 200 years ago…. Or even that it's 200 years later now. I think I need to be properly drunk to wrap my mind around it and accept it."
Karina nodded. That was a pretty understandable reaction, actually. She then recalled something she had read in Freya's files.
"I suppose you must feel vindicated as hell on some level, right? I mean, you and your anti-war activist group kept on warning everyone this sort of thing was going to happen. And you were just proven right." Karina commented as she tossed the now empty bottle of Whiskey aside.
Freya just looked sad at that. "Honestly? I wish I had been wrong all along."
The blonde woman then threw the shot glass down to the floor, shattering it. "I don't want to be in here anymore. This got too depressing for me."
Karina had no reason to argue against that, so they left the building and headed back to the main road leading into Plentywood.
~~~~~~
It only just occurred to Karina that she had been here a few times before the bombs dropped, and she distinctly remembered the fact that the town had not only one but TWO veterinary hospitals in addition to this one lone hospital for human beings.
This was because Plentywood acted as a social hub for the nearest farms, of which there were a great number of in the past.
Karina remembered that just now because they were walking towards an old faded wooden sign that read in the far distance, "Plentywood Veterinary Clinic". This one was located on the outskirts of the town and had a large stretch of land around it with barns and other buildings designed to hold and treat large animals.
Freya perked up at that when Karina said that out loud. "Huh, yeah. Animal medication isn't usually compatible with human beings, but with some tweaking that could work in a pinch. Or, maybe they have stimpacks here too? I heard a while ago that it works on both humans and animals. That's a good idea."
Since the two of them agreed that it might be worthwhile to look through the animal clinic, they moved off the road towards the buildings.
………… the more they explored the buildings as well as the main office of the animal clinic, the more they noticed that this place seemed even more depressing than Blue Moon or any other place they had seen so far.
For one thing, there were animal bones of all kinds inside crates and the fences here, indicating that nobody had come by to free them when the bombs dropped, and thus they had died inside those cages.
Both Karina and Freya liked animals, so that thought was very distressing to them. They both silently agreed to do their best to avoid looking at the animal corpses again and instead focused on looking through the medical cabinets for anything useful.
Turns out that stimpacks could easily be used for animals just as well as humans, just like Freya said earlier, because they found plenty of that alongside some medication that the two of them couldn't recognize at all.
The rest seemed to be steroids, anti-tick, anti-flea medication and a few mystery pills that they weren't sure were going to be of any use. But, they took those anyhow.
Karina was about to call this location thoroughly explored and cleared when Freya quickly came back into the room. "Karina! There are people out there!"
"How many?" Karina whispered back.
"Ten. and there's something weird about them. They're all big and green," Freya replied, looking worried.
"Shit. Super Mutants." Karina couldn't help but curse their luck. If it was a group of regular human beings, then they could've been reasoned with. But the Super Mutants she had seen so far didn't seem like the type to be easily reasoned with.
She thought quickly and then told Freya that they'd try to sneak out the back without attracting the Supermutants' attention.
Freya merely nodded at that, and with that they slowly moved towards the back of the clinic building, trying not to make any noise inside the building that would cause the mutants to investigate the sound.
Unfortunately, it seemed like the back of the building had boarded up the back door, and they couldn't pry away the boards without making some noise. Ugh.
But, if they were to create some distraction that the mutants would fixate on while they pried away the boards and legged the hell out of there??
"Alright, I'm going to use my power to try to create a distraction for those green monsters," Karina whispered, as she pulled on her power.
Effect: as we rolled a 15, we aren't going to release so many mice. Instead, we will only release the ones that have a high chance of surviving in the wasteland, such as the mice sub-species that are said to live on dead rotting trees and other things. The state we're in right now is just crock full of dead forests, meaning they might just fit right in.
Suddenly, it was raining mice everywhere, both inside and outside. Or at least Karina assumed they were mice because a few of those looked mutated to the point that they were more like an insect or a rabbit?
And the distraction was working far as Karina could tell from one of the windows because the mutants weren't even looking in the direction of the building anymore, they were just alternately looking at the scurrying mice and looking up at the sky in confusion.
Freya let out a loud shriek when she realized what was falling all over her, and Karina had to clamp her hand over Frey's mouth, quietly shushing her.
But, it was too late now. One of the nearby mutants was looking toward the building. Shit.
"Why did you have to yell??" Karina hissed angrily as she did her best to pry the boards off the door fast as she could.
Freya was alongside her helping pry the boards off. "I'm sorry, okay? You didn't tell me you were going to summon mice! I hate mice!"
The mutant was now charging through the front door of the clinic, just as Karina and Freya pried loose the last board and kicked the back door open.
The mutant knew he heard that for sure, and rushed through the four connecting rooms to get to the back room, and saw the door which was now wide open.
Naturally, his first instinct was to rush out and chase after anything that was fleeing on foot. And so he did….. Only to blink in confusion when he saw nothing but thousands of mice running away.
Meanwhile, both Karina and Freya were now the size of an average woman's thumb and hiding behind a nearby fence post.
The two of them were clutching at their bags which had shrunk down along with them, as they held their breath hoping that they wouldn't be noticed. The two of them were still wearing their bright blue vault jumpsuits, after all.
"Can't your power do something to get rid of them? Or maybe summon something else besides mice?" Freya whispered.
'I'll try.' Karina silently mouthed back, and she pulled on her power again.
Effect: for the next three hours, a series of images printed on paper will rain all over Plentywood, before disappearing.
Freya sighed when all that did was make it rain paper instead of mice this time around.
Karina frowned. She then said, "Definitely a dud. But… maybe we could use one of the papers to hide when we're sneaking out of here? Like, hide under it? There's so many of them around here now."
Freya blinked. Far as ideas went, that wasn't too bad.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The two of them were now a mile away from both the road and the town of Plentywood, and they were also back to their normal sizes.
Well, normal for Karina anyhow as Freya had reverted back to her usual Amazoness form. She was so keyed up that she didn't feel like she wanted to stay at normal human size, she wanted to be big as possible to fight off the super mutants if needed.
"Shit. I didn't know that Plentywood had a super mutant colony in it." Karina grumbled. "So much for finding what we needed there."
"I guess we go back to the vault, then?" Freya asked as the two of them sat on a fallen dead tree, using it as a log seat.
Karina thought about that some more, and then said, "Actually, I'll scout out the town from above. See how many of them there actually are. If they're fewer in numbers than expected, then we see if we can't talk the Buffalo army into helping us take out those super mutants. From what I've heard about them on my travels, they're often viewed as a deadly and dangerous pest so wiping them out should make it safer for everyone else out there. Then we could claim all of Plentywood's loot in the name of vault 129."
Freya mulled this over and then nodded. "That makes sense I suppose."
She then commented, "It's so weird though! I get that radiation would mutate people over time…. But they all look way too alike and uniform. Do you think they were like us? Some vault's experiment, only in their case it got out of control?"
Karina nodded grimly. "I wouldn't be surprised at all. And that's not even the worst part. I've heard rumors too, about how new super mutants forget who they used to be before. That's why they see no problem with attacking normal humans, they have a hard time imaging themselves as anything but super mutants."
Freya shivered slightly. "Gee, and here I am, complaining about how Vault-tec made me a tall amazon woman against my will. I could've had it much worse, huh?"
"It does put things in perspective, doesn't it? But, I still think you're right to feel the way you do. People still did things to your body without your permission, after all." Karina replied.
Freya smiled softly at that. "Yeah."
Karina then cleared her throat while she got up. "Right. You hide here, while I do a flyover of the town. After I've found out everything about the town, I'll get back to you and we can discuss what to do."
Freya nodded while she started shrinking to get out of sight of any possible enemies out there. "Alright."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The flyover didn't take very long, because the entire town itself was 2 and a half miles across and most of the town's services and the like were clustered in the middle of town, save for the hospital which was surrounded by neighborhoods full of decayed houses north of that.
There was both good and bad news on the super mutant front. The good news, super mutants had split up into different groups and were located far away from each other making them easier to manage if Karina and the others wanted to kill them off. One group was occupying a car auto place and the red rocket gas station next to that one, and the second group was at an old dilapidated inn.
The bad news was, that the last and third of the super mutant groups were also occupying the Plentywood hospital, which had a sign out front that read, "Sheridan Memorial Hospital", and this group seemed the biggest one out of them all.
Of course, the one single place Karina had really wanted to check out was occupied by enemy forces. Because why not?
So she couldn't even sneak through the backdoor of the hospital and grab everything she needed before flying off like she had hoped to do. Great.
She went to rejoin Freya on the ground and then had her climb back on her back again before flying off back to Vault 129.
=====================================
A/N: was trying to think of a way to give the ladies a reason to go out there to see the world for themselves and hit on this.
Love this story and the interesting twists it takes, kind of want to see what could happen if Karina rolls Hyrule Kingdom...
Would we see Link and them showing up somewhere in the world? Maybe see the Great Deku tree purifying a forest and as time passes grows a new and great forest and its needed wildlife.
found fallout fanfic that's set in Montana. and I'm most surprised to find out that there was somebody else who also thought about a vault that was designed to have perfect supersoldiers.
In case you don't want to read the whole Regan chapter, here it is in a nutshell-- Regan and Kevin set up an ambush for who they think is the mysterious superbeing who's messing around with their heads and tracking them around somehow. instead, they kill a bunch of monsters that are based on the sins they committed over time. Kevin gets an emotional revelation, while Regan merely realizes that his actions were unnecessary and mildly regrets it.
They get spooked when even more monsters come for them, and they end up driving outside of the city away from Silent hill's effects, and that's when Regan finally uses one of his abilities, the status reading window, to realize that the city is truly doomed and that he cannot have the city back to the way it was before.
they finally leave for good, with Regan vowing to come back and defeat this silent hill thing when he's much, much stronger.
=================================
After the run-in with the giant ants, Regan and Kevin decided to set their trap for the mysterious super-person who was after them elsewhere.
They had thought a parking garage was ideal since it had wide open spaces but also plenty of places to hide, or plenty of covers to fire from, such as the dozens of support pillars to duck behind. And most importantly had they put the trap underground the parking lot since a lot of parking lots had sub-floors, they could've set up homemade bombs to collapse the whole thing. While leaving room to make an escape of course, and then they'd run towards their car which was parked nearby outside the parking lot.
That way whoever was after them could die in the bombing and if that didn't kill them right away then the collapse of the building could've done the trick. But that's if their guns couldn't do the job first. They weren't crazy enough to resort to bombs as their first tactic.
Unfortunately, they were forced to pick their second choice instead thanks to the friggin' giant ants.
Which was one of the local malls, as stereotypical as that might be. For some reason, half the disaster movies always seemed to take place at a mall because that's where people typically took refuge. It made sense though, as a mall typically had everything human beings needed to survive in times of crisis.
But, they were counting on their mysterious enemy to be aware of that trope and become complacent as they'd think that Regan and Kevin were freaked out enough to take refuge in a place they might consider to be safe.
Sadly, that wasn't too far from the truth but the main thing is that Regan and Kevin both knew their enemy was coming and were ready for them! So there.
Amazingly enough, this mall even had a wing section which was a large grocery store… and that just happened to be the wing that both Regan and Kevin parked outside of.
So they had the idea that they might as well raid the grocery store at the same time they were setting up their trap.
And right next to the grocery store was an electronics hobbyist shop, which had rental go-carts and RC cars, and the one next to that store was a fashion store that seemed to be selling headgear and parkas of all sizes.
That seemed perfect for Regan's needs, so while Kevin was looting the grocery store of food, Regan was now modifying and dressing a weird-looking mannequin.
For some reason, all the stores seemed to have strange beast-looking and turtle-like mannequins in all sizes and shapes and so it had been a real bitch to find a humanoid mannequin that looked human enough to fool somebody. Regan supposed that was because this city had used to belong to a race of non-humanoids, and as such didn't typically cater to humans.
Anyways, it seemed that the mannequins they used were the lightweight plastic type, which was hollow on the inside. That again was perfect for Regan's needs, as all he had to do was cut out the back of its head, and drill holes in the eyes so that he could install cameras and batteries that he had found in the electric hobbyist shop. And then he synced that with an electronic tablet he had found, which was amazingly flat yet somehow usable. He smiled in satisfaction when he got a clear picture on his tablet thanks to Mannequin's new eyes.
To Regan's prewar sensibilities, some of the technology he found here was amazingly advanced, even though he somehow understood how to use them, thanks to the star trek knowledge he got.
Regan then dressed the mannequin in his old vault suit outfit and put the pip-boy on it, and was also gluing both Regan's tooth with the suspicious filling and Kevin's tracking implant into the back of the hollowed mannequin's head for extra measure.
That way whoever was after them would think this dummy was Regan or Kevin, and maybe attack it.
Regan then put on a ski mask, (which seemed very weirdly shaped, like it was meant for a non-human), over the mannequin's head and then a parka draped over the vault suit… so this way they couldn't tell this was a dummy from a distance.
Then lastly, he put wheels on the foot of the mannequin. The "roller stakes" were actually modded RC cars modified to hold up a mannequin, complete with a metal pole that would keep the mannequin up when it was moving. It was kinda lucky that this one was a lightweight plastic Mannequin, otherwise, Regan wasn't sure it would've worked. He wired it all up so that the RC cars would be able to move quickly despite being heavily glued to each other.
As he was testing having the mannequin move around, Kevin came back with a cart full of food.
Kevin grinned when he saw what Regan had been up to. "A moving decoy? Nice!"
Regan then showed him the tablet showing the video feeds and explained that there were also video cameras acting as Mannequin's new eyes.
"Badass." Kevin grinned, and he then asked, "Mind if I try it out?"
Regan then handed the control remote and the tablet over and then went to check on the food that Kevin had packed while Kevin himself was now making the mannequin's wheels slowly rotate around so that the mannequin was now spinning in place.
Regan noted that Kevin had packed plenty of food that wouldn't go bad on a long trip, which showed some great forethought on Kevin's part.
Some of the food seemed a little weird to take on a long road trip though. A dozen cheese logs, jars of jam, Jars of syrup, and three large jars of pickled hard-boiled eggs? And were it just Regan or did those jar eggs look too big to be chicken eggs? They looked big as an ostrich egg!
And, did Kevin seriously pack those weird spotted mushrooms with the eyes on them despite the fact that neither one of them had been quite brave to try eating them yet? There were a ton of packets full of mystery seeds too. Those might be good in times of crisis, but Regan wasn't sure if he wanted to become a farmer. Meh.
But the rest made more sense, such as the dry cereal, bags of popcorn, and a shit ton of beef jerky. There were also bags of nuts and Bowser-brand sourpuss bread. Seriously, what was with this Bowser guy? He had his own castle and city, and he even had his own brand-name foods?
There were bags of chips as well, along with various bottles of water. Kevin also had packed bags full of recognizable fruit such as grapes, bananas, strawberries, and…. Ooh, was that Papaya? His family had managed to eat that exotic fruit only once as it was a bitch to import fruit from overseas during a time of war, so it had been a special treat for them all. And now he had a bag that held dozens of this fruit!
They'd have to eat those ones first as fruits were always the first to expire.
But, there were also crates full of fruit he didn't recognize. They were labeled as such: Chuckola Fruit in three colors red, white, and purple. Bean fruit, which looked like a bright purple round apple.
Regan then looked up at Kevin, who was now making the mannequin 'moonwalk' as it glided backward using the RC car remote.
"You didn't pack any other meat besides beef jerky? What about canned tuna?" Regan wondered as he thought that might be good for a trip out of the city if they couldn't fully defeat their enemy here.
Kevin scoffed loudly. "That's because tuna canneries are inhumane to fish! Do you know how much pain fish can feel? Not to mention I communicate with them on a regular basis, so I make it a point to never eat seafood if I can. Please respect that."
Regan held his hands up to placate him. "Hey, I was just wondering. If you don't want me to eat tuna, then I won't."
Kevin smiled. "I'm not asking you to stop eating fish entirely… just you know, not in front of me. But thank you."
Regan then looked at the time on the Manniequin's pip-boy, noting that it was about to get dark very soon.
"It's almost time. We better put all of this away and then wait for our enemy."
Kevin nodded eagerly. Like Regan, he couldn't wait for this to be finally over. Those monsters that came with the fog were seriously freaking him the hell out.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
They had decided on the mannequin holding a basket full of random canned tuna and having it act as if it was shopping in the grocery store section as if it was raiding the place to take rations with it before it left the city. It would glide through the aisles on wheels, giving the illusion of browsing the items.
Meanwhile, Regan and Kevin were hiding close by, ready to pop out and shoot like crazy at anything else that appeared.
Regan was the one watching the tablet with the video feed carefully, while at the same time controlling the mannequin. Kevin on the other hand was the one with all the guns. And if that failed the two of them also had bombs.
The sun had finally set, and they could hear several somethings starting to stir in the rest of the mall.
The two of them started to sweat nervously, unsure if their plan would even work. They had thought that it made sense that the enemy was tracking them somehow, but what if they were wrong?
Regan scowled slightly at that thought. That would mean he tore out one of his teeth and suffered through a strip search, even having Kevin probe every inch of his body for implants under the skin, for nothing?
No. that couldn't be right.
Kevin then whispered to Regan, "you know, we might need backup on this too. Just a thought."
Regan nodded. Kevin had a point… maybe they needed extras to go out there and act as distractions too? It wouldn't also hurt to have more people covering them while they opened fire on the enemy.
With that, he pulled.
>BONG<
https://guns.fandom.com/wiki/9M14_Malyutka roll 16
The 9M14 Malyutka (Cyrillic: Малютка, lit. "Little One"), NATO designation AT-3 Sagger, was the first Soviet-designed man-portable anti-tank missile system. The initial version was a first-generation system, using MCLOS (manual command line of sight) guidance and a rail launcher. Later variants are second-generation SACLOS (semi-active command line of sight) weapons.
Effect: This gets added to Regan's inventory, appearing beside him. It seems to be in okay condition but looks slightly used somehow.
Kevin's eyes widened. "Is that… a missile and a portable launch system?"
Regan smiled wickedly. "Just what we need to blow the shit out of them, huh?"
Kevin then pointed out, "But do we know how to use it properly? And we still need backup."
Regan sighed. Hooray for logic ruining things.
He then pulled again.
>Bong<
https://whitewolf.fandom.com/wiki/Honey_Badger_(WTA) Roll 8
Most predators are loath to attack a Honey Badger, and they are right to do so. Not only is the Honey Badger a fierce and tenacious predator, but it is a tireless fighter and has a tough defensive hide that allows it to escape most dangers. The Honey Badger is reckless and will enter a fight even if the odds are against it.
Effect: For Eight hours, this perfectly normal honey badger will wander around until it returns to where it came from.
The animal promptly let out a warning-rattling roar the minute it laid eyes on both Regan and Kevin, as all its black and white fur puffed out, its tail pointing up in a threat display.
"Is that... a badger?" Regan was the first one to ask, but it seems that speaking was the wrong thing to do because his voice was enough to trigger the animal into attacking, as it already felt threatened due to being in an unfamiliar place.
Its sharp teeth bit into Regan's legs, and the jeans Regan was wearing were only barely tough enough to prevent the badger from taking a massive bite out of his leg.
Regan yelled out in pain, trying to kick and shake the Badger away--
Effect: Regan gains a new skill in writing, and voice acting is also added to his list of talents now. The voice acting adds an +1 to his charisma.
Kevin shot the badger in the head soon as Regan kicked his leg free of it, killing it instantly.
Regan then clutched at his leg, which was now bleeding badly. "Fuck, that smarts."
"Are you alright?" Kevin asked with a worried expression on his face.
"I'll be fine. Just got to shapeshift the wound away…" Regan said, pulling back his jean leg to show his bloody flesh restoring itself back to normal though there were still a lot of blood stains all around the flesh and on the jeans leg. He then snarled, "And maybe eat this little fucker to make up for the mass I lost healing my injury away!"
With that, a few of his fingers morphed into fleshy tendrils and he threw them towards the direction of the dead badger, and the tendrils dug through the bullet hole that Kevin had made and into the dead body.
And just like that, Regan's tendrils started cannibalizing everything…. Brains, eyes, tongue, and every inch of flesh under the fur. The badger's body started to deflate and flatten, save for a few lumps under the fur where the bones still were. Until all that remained was fur and bones.
Kevin watched all of this with a morbidly fascinated look on his face. He then commented, "That's cool, yet really creepy at the same time."
Regan smiled wanly. "I could easily star in a few horror movies, do you think? They'd really save on special effects with me around."
Kevin chuckled at that. "For sure. And I'd know, having starred in a few movies myself."
Regan looked surprised at this. "You have?"
Kevin was about to say something, but there was a loud noise coming from the tablet's video feeds.
Regan then said, "Tell me about it later. I think our fish took our bait!"
With that, the two of them huddled around the tablet.
Kevin let out a groan. "Them again!"
To Kevin, the camera feed showed a small zombie horde slowly coming towards the mannequin. But the unusual thing about all of them was the fact that there were camera equipment and other things grafted into their bodies, with some of them having video cameras for their heads. And there was that one that had a ridiculously long camera lens situated on his body in such a way that looked very phallic.
To Regan, it was the group of gloopy people made out of meat jello again.
But there was one thing they both noticed, and it was the fact that they were slowly moving towards the mannequin.
To them, this only validated their theory that the enemy must've been tracking them all along through the pip-boy or the implanted trackers!
Regan grinned nastily. "Ready your guns, I'm gonna lure them our way!"
With that, he used the RC car remote to move the mannequin, making it seem like it was running away from the monsters.
Predictably, the monsters started chasing after it.
The mannequin on wheels quickly moved past Regan and Kevin, and soon as the monsters rounded around the corner Kevin popped up out of their hiding spot and started shooting like crazy.
"Take this, you motherfuckers!" Kevin roared over the loud booming-cracking noise of his rifles, as he kept on firing one after the other as he had loaded all of the rifles they had, which were five in total.
Considering that the large caliber rifles were meant to shoot ridiculously large bullets, and the fact that Kevin was shooting at relatively close range, he ended up doing a lot of impressive damage to the monsters.
From Kevin's pov the one with the video camera head had its' head thoroughly destroyed, spending shattered parts of a video camera flying everywhere… and there were large holes in the rest of the monster's bodies, although he had wanted to utterly destroy the one with the ridiculously long and phallic camera lens as that one bothered him the most.
To Regan, the meat gloop was merely flying everywhere but the monster group as a whole didn't seem to be dead yet.
So he put down the tablet and RC car controller and started lobbing some handmade grenades the monsters' way. The handmade grenades had been hastily made and were basically just an upscaled and more technologically advanced molotov cocktail.
The monsters caught on fire very easily the moment the grenades exploded in a large fireball, and Kevin whooped loudly at this while he was now loading one of his rifles with the biggest rounds.
Unfortunately, it seemed like the fire wasn't stopping the monsters because the monsters were now lunging at them. Kevin managed to kill off one of them at an even closer range, causing the body to explode everywhere from the large bullet round, but they just kept on coming. Even when Regan lobbed another homemade grenade at them.
Regan had no choice but to quickly shapeshift into a taller buff monster himself, as he started swinging giant, gross fleshy arms that grew longer and longer at the monsters in an attempt to shove them away and also do damage.
Meanwhile, Kevin bashed the head of another one with the butt of his rifle and then shot at another one with it after frantically reloading. He kept on shooting and reloading over and over, covering Regan who was just wildly coming at the monsters now.
Regan was no longer behind cover and was just recklessly coming after the monsters in an attempt to kill them or maybe eat them through his fleshy, gruesome-looking long arms. He whipped his arms about like a long whip and then kept on pounding the monsters with his arms and hands over and over, while Kevin shot at them from behind.
After what seemed like forever, every one of them was finally dead. Their ambush was successful!
Regan and Kevin moved to stare at the monster corpses together with thoroughly shellshocked expressions on their faces, and at that moment something strange seemed to happen.
By facing and confronting those monsters, unknown to those men they were actually facing one of their own sins and realizing what it was. And by killing it, they were purging themselves of it by accepting the reality of what they had done.
For Kevin, he had to face the fact that on his climb upwards to fame, he had done a lot of awful and questionable things. He had been so desperate to lower himself in order to please others, just to remain famous and be on TV all the time. To have the paparazzi constantly stalking him and talking about him.
He had been so desperate to be loved by everyone, to remain in the paparazzi eye that, like a masochist with issues, he kept on coming back no matter how many times the media were eager to tear him apart and keep on beating on him before finally loving him again like an abusive lover.
Hell, he even joined a freakin' cult in the hopes that they could help him become beloved and famous again!
And all for what? All because he was still that sad little boy who was constantly bullied in school for being different, and constantly rejected by girls and women because he had gills. The boy whose closest friends were fish because he had a hard time relating with other human beings and because humans, in general, refused to understand him and truly accept him for who he was as a whole. His mother had been the only one who loved him, and even then she hadn't completely understood why he seemed to like aquatic lifeforms more than humans.
Humans were just so… ugh, complicated! In comparison to humans sentient aquatic lifeforms, in general, had a far simpler mindset that was easy to relate to, and easier to understand. Humans tend to attach greater meanings to everything in life, while aquatic lifeforms tended to focus on the basics of life such as food, fucking, having shelter, and being safe from predators. And they were all so content and happier for it.
Even the freaking octopuses didn't seem to mind that they all died after reproducing as that was part of their life cycle. They had high intelligence and were aware of the consequences of everything they did, but still accepted it, because they knew that in the end, everything died eventually. So might as well have fun and enjoy themselves along the way. And if they were going to die from fucking and producing offspring, then might as well as make it the greatest fuck ever. They looked at the world so differently compared to humans, but the way they looked at the world was just so damn beautiful that Kevin couldn't help but love them for that.
Yet… Kevin knew he didn't truly belong to that underwater world that octopuses and other lifeforms lived in. and because of what was done to him, he didn't fit in the human surface world completely either. He was stuck between two worlds, and this whole time he had been so desperate to find a compromise between the two worlds where he would be happy, loved, and accepted by all.
But he felt stuck still, like some kind of imposter that wasn't human but also not quite an aquatic lifeform either. He couldn't really truly accept himself as he was and felt like there was something wrong with himself if he couldn't fit in anywhere properly at all. Yet, being famous and being loved for being famous had been the closest thing he got to what he really wanted the most in life… and so like an addict he just kept on coming back…..willing to lower himself, willing to do anything they asked of him in order to be loved.
It suddenly reminded him of one bible passage that he had heard of when his mom took him to Sunday school as a kid. "For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God." (John 12:42–43.)
Out of all the minor sins, Kevin definitely had that particular sin in spades to the point that it had quite literally taken over his entire life. Fame was everything to him. Being loved by the adoring public was everything to him. And he had thought of that as "True Love", but was it really?
All of this hit him over the head like a very rude and sudden revelation.
Meanwhile, Regan was having a different kind of epiphany.
It finally occurred to him that maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't have killed all those men in that vault.
After all, look at the poor state of the world! It would've been easy to divide up the lands to rule on amongst all the men after they all helped out each other and return everything back to pre-war civilization.
Regan was having a hard time living out here in the wasteland because he didn't have enough resources to build up the kind of civilization he wanted. Not to mention all those new enemies he had never seen before that he had to deal with.
That was one of the reasons why he had kept Kevin around, besides the fact that he was clearly a Manta Man Expy. It was just so hard being alone and doing everything himself.
Humans were social animals for a reason, and not even Regan was exempt from this. Humans survived and shaped the world much easier in a group than alone.
Not to mention, was there even a guarantee that they would have the same power he did or have better powers than he did? After all, just look at the comic books! For every awesome powerset, there always were six lame and forgettable powersets.
Regan recalled how growing up reading all those comic books, they would always be constantly churning out different new characters with all different powersets on a regular basis and having them duke it out with the regulars in an attempt to stir up interest with the readership so that they could do spin-offs and grow the original character into their own thing.
There was this one character in the Mistress of Mystery comics for example, who had the superpower of…. Manipulating doors! In other words, his type of telekinesis was very highly specific in that it could only affect doors. It made it so that he could gain access to anything, even highly secure places, and then lock everything up on his way back out so that it seemed like he was never there. It made him a very effective thief, but that was about it. Guess how many issues he appeared in due to his popularity? Two, because he wasn't that popular.
At least that was better than the one-issue wonder that was Glue Gunner, who wielded adhesive weaponry.
If real life imitates art, then chances are that Regan could've had a ton of B-listers and C-listers working under him while Regan worked hard to prove himself as an A-lister who deserved to be on the very top of the world.
….. Damn. this was the closest he ever felt to true regret. He was sorry not for killing them, but because it turned out that it was quite possible that it had been unnecessary in the first place. There was nothing wrong with killing if you really had to… but if you didn't have to or if there was no reason for it? Then it was just a waste.
He understood that much.
But then he refocused on the dead corpses of the monsters and then chuckled loudly. At least if they really did kill the source of their problem, then they could take back the city, right?
He voiced this out loud to Kevin, who then grinned weakly.
"Ha, yeah. We did it didn't we?" Kevin sounded as if he was still in shock.
Unfortunately, there was a series of very loud noises in the rest of the mall, almost like there were a dozen monsters coming this way having heard the loud noise….!
Kevin seemed to realize that at the same time Regan did when they both heard it, and they met each other's eyes, wide-eyed.
"Shit." The two of them said at the same time, as they rushed to grab everything they had and then run out the door. Meanwhile, Regan set the mannequin on auto-pilot toward the source of the noise but took the tablet with him.
This way the moving mannequin would serve as a distraction while he and Kevin got away. And, Regan would also get to see what was chasing after them on the tablet when they got to the car.
Kevin was so freaked out that he ended up climbing into the passenger seat by accident, even though he had intended to drive. So Regan ended up in the driver's seat, as they quickly started up the car.
It felt like forever for the car to start up and on the tablet's video cam the two of them saw that vain giant with the many heads of its' victims attached to it, or the spider made up of undead women in Kevin's case attack the mannequin before the video feed cut out.
The two of them cursed loudly at this as the car sped out of the Mall's parking lot. Thankfully, their car didn't seem to have been messed with this whole time, even though the two of them had considered this possibility.
Just as they exited the parking lot and headed towards the street, the monster burst through the doors in a loud shattering of glass and started stomping after them.
"Use the missile I summoned back there!" Regan yelled as he pushed on the pedal so hard that it was practically flat on the floor.
"R-right!" Kevin stammered as he fumbled with the 9M14 Malyutka. He managed to pull down his seat reclined flat so that he could then lay on his stomach and rest the portable missile system on top of the replicator which was still strapped down in the backseat.
However, what the two of them didn't know about this missile system and why it hadn't been used in decades in comparison to future portable anti-tank weapons that came after it? It was poor at hitting quick-moving targets and worked best when it wasn't on a fast-moving vehicle. It worked best when secured firmly to the ground, and if its' target was a slow-moving tank.
So its' accuracy was lowered when Kevin attempted to fire it from the backseat of a moving vehicle, and it was less effective when the monster was running quickly behind them, swaying from side to side.
But, Kevin did manage to create a large crater on the ground from the huge explosion, which tripped up the monster and sent it flying when he fired the missile on the portable launching pad.
As the monster sat there dazed the two of them sped away in the purple roofless roadster.
They sped outside of the city limits in an attempt to get away from the fog and managed to be successful at that.
As they stopped at an overlooking cliff that oversaw the entire foggy and glowing neo-futuristic cyberpunk city, they got out of the car to catch their breath.
Their bodies were still pumping adrenaline and their hearts were beating wildly, as the two of them sat down on the hood of the purple roadster. They started taking calming breaths as they tried to calm down.
It was then that Regan remembered that status screen ability he had, and he became curious as to whenever he could read the status of an entire city.
So he tried to OBSERVE the whole city and--
Name: Neo-Bowser City.
Origin: Neo Bowser City, also known as Koopa City, is a neon-lit metropolis ruled by the evil King Bowser and the third course of the Star Cup racing series. This city-themed course is owned by Bowser and his Koopa Troop army. Neon signs are everywhere and Bowser's signature emblem can be seen in various places.
Status of City: Slowly becoming corrupted by Silent Hill's power and the sentient force that controls it. An increasing number of monsters roam the roads and buildings inside the fog the more the days pass by, and there are very few safe places in the city where the monsters cannot reach you. And yes, the monsters are real. Thankfully, the Full Circle Effect hasn't taken hold of this city yet as the infection of the city is not yet complete so all who reside within can still flee to the outside safely. But the time is limited before the full circle takes effect, otherwise, you will be trapped forever unless you reach Catharsis and acknowledge all the sins you have committed before purging yourself of them.
Regan's face paled at this. So… had he stubbornly tried to stay here any longer to try to take the city back from…. Whatever Silent Hill was, he would've been trapped forever?
…. Fuck that. He still wanted his city back, but not if it meant losing his backup plan of escaping. He wasn't that stupid.
Besides, this was a tactical retreat. Once he was powerful enough to conquer whatever silent hill was and this sentient force thingy, then he'd be back for Neo-Bowser city.
Oh well, he still had his plan of going to Helen and taking it over, as well. Heh.
"Come on, Kevin, we're going to Helen and see if there are people there. We can't take on those monsters by our lonesome, after all."
Kevin seemed to have composed himself and were much calmer now. He nodded and got back into the passenger seat while Regan jumped into the driver's seat.
With that, they drove off.
===========================================
A/N: used a lot of dice rolls for those random encounters to see how lucky they would be at the ambush and suchlike. Also, it seems like Regan's future rolls weren't going to turn the city into even more of a dungeon, so I figured it was high time for Regan to finally leave.
But I also had to use dice rolls to see the chances of Regan finally using his status power on the city throughout this whole chapter and making him finally realize that he couldn't control the city as he had hoped. Which took four rolls… by the fourth roll he finally realized he could use the status window on the city, heh.
Also, at this point, I bet Regan's ROB is saying, "FINALLY! I was starting to think Regan would never leave that stupid city."
Well, things could be much worse for them. Maybe Regan will roll some power up for Kevin in the future, if he doesn't like guy's powers as it is now. Also, it's kinda counterintuitive to use observe on something like city, because it is not an object or creature - it's a place. So I wouldn't judge him for this. Maybe next time he will try it on other places before go into them - get some info first via his thinker power. Or how about to try and find limits of what this power could do. I do not remeber it's limits, but maybe Regan can try to observe the whole Earth or just lands he sees, maybe observe himself or something very small... There are some ways Regan may experiment with power to know, what limits it has. He liked comics - I bet he was thinking about some power testing and best usage stuff pretty often.
Darn! I was hoping Karina would have won by default after Regan went whole hog trying to keep that city, it would have fit his personality from what I read of him. Kind of like Captain Ahab or King Midas held onto their obsessions until the very end.
But then it might not have been as entertaining for the writer or readers for Karina to keep going even though Regan destroyed himself, but really I wouldn't of minded... I hate Raiders, drug dealing gangs, and pretty much every evil faction in Fallout. The "You can be Raiders" in Fallout 4 Nuka World made me sick cause lore wise you know what kind of terrible things they have done, the Fallout 76 you can play Raiders also makes me upset. It's the main reason I never really bought Nuka World, if I did I would of found a way to burn everything to the ground outside the slaves...
But then it might not have been as entertaining for the writer or readers for Karina to keep going even though Regan destroyed himself, but really I wouldn't of minded... I hate Raiders, drug dealing gangs, and pretty much every evil faction in Fallout. The "You can be Raiders" in Fallout 4 Nuka World made me sick cause lore wise you know what kind of terrible things they have done, the Fallout 76 you can play Raiders also makes me upset. It's the main reason I never really bought Nuka World, if I did I would of found a way to burn everything to the ground outside the slaves...
I liked how in fallout 1 and 2 you could reason with some of the "bad guys" and they would even turn over a new leaf based on your choices. likewise in the pitt dlc for fallout 3 you could sorta convice them to stop the raider-like behavior and just be a legitimate business sorta. although that one was more morally grey than a good ending.
I remember there being a raider group (I forget the name) who got the ending where they all become legit merchants after you convinced them to traffick drugs and other things that settlements needed instead of attacking them since the settlements were in sore need of that and were willing to trade food. they found that to be such a booming business that they decided to keep that up.
But I do hate how in later games they're just nothing but annoying cannon fodder thats' nothing but pests, etc.
the thing that Nuka world let me down on was that there wasn't that much of raider politics or that there weren't extra endings where you convinced raiders to do this or that instead of raiding people. like, why not turn Nukaworld into a bigger verison of Goodneighor? where it's a somewhat morally grey place because they're more accepting of criminals, but still not okay with certain crimes being commited.
She created a narquah generator for the followers of the apocalypse. But yeah, I need to find an excuse for her to do more with the tinker ability. Just can't think of a way where it could plausibly come up in the story where she'd consider making the technology a priority.
Let's look at all the major tech that she can make from Stargate Tech:
Cloak (This would be basically a very amped up, more powerful Sleathboy technology in Karina's eyes. can't reasonably think of a way to have her feel like she actually needs this.)
Cloning (This is a big MAYBE. could possibly use it to clone animals and the like?)
Hologram (I can actually see a lot of uses for this one, but of course, the problem is having Karina think it couldn't be prioritized over other things that her new home needs more. she's a very pragmatic sort, so she isn't gonna do things just because she thinks it's cool.)
Nanites ( I can actually see Karina doing this one the most out of everything else on the list, as it's got so many good uses and is almost as good as a replicator. the only issue is resources and time to make even a single nano-robot when she's got other pressing issues to focus on right now).
Neural interfacing ( I can definitely see so many uses for this one, but again the problem lies with Karina realistically wanting to do it or not. she might not even see the point of it unless something in the story prompts her to do so?)
Power sources (yup, I can see her making this one again, she's already done once so before. and out of everything on the list she wouldn't even need to be prodded into making it, because it's a practical application that everyone can instantly see a use for.)
Sensors (okay, could definitely use this to beef up Vault 129's security provided that they get some extra resources later on in the future).
Shields ( also something I can see her making, eventually with some prodding)
(Iona would love the shit out of this, but the problem again comes from resources, and lack of reasons for Karina to want to make this yet).
Stasis pods (she might be leerier of this one, considering that everyone just literally got out of being stuck in a crude verison of this for 200 years. they might just skip this one)
Subspace communication (definitely a major use that I could see Karina prioritize over time).
Transporters (again, Karina could see the practical uses of that. Just need to make her realistically think of it and get working on it. also need resources).
Weapons (we already have some fallout versions of those, sorta. those ones would be merely improved versions in everyone's eyes).
Other (stargate network, and other various techs. those are definitely the ones that Karina would prioritize less than others on the list, that's for sure.)
The problem overall is that Karina isn't a player (broadly speaking) with meta-knowledge. She's basically a person who lived in this fallout universe her whole life, and thus her POV is a little bit limited by her own experiences and how she sees the world. So she isn't going to think over things and go, "Hey, I MIGHT need that down the road, so let's make it now!"
She's more the type to go, "That does sound useful, but I need to focus on this thing first as I consider this more important. I'll get around to making that.... eventually. Sure, future me might need the tech pronto but that's a future me problem. I prefer to focus on present problems right now."
I could see her deciding to make a Cloak for the Vault when finding out about roving large bands of enemies that sometimes appear, as something to make for certain less advantageous settlements with not enough defenses. Maybe a transportation system when worrying about if they could evacuate if the worst happened, and also of course sensors to give the people time to get the defenses up.
As for the soil, if she rolls something like terraforming, she will likely get an effect to start restoring the planet or even inventions to start restoring at least the soil. Of course she could just roll the GECK and get the data needed to produce them, then get working on a replicator long term to produce GECK to restore the planet.
That and a replicator or even Nanites would likely be good in nurturing the soil, create better soil, or both.
