Chapter 53-- Regan becomes indebted to Warlord Axel Warren
Aurora Moon
Verfied Insomniac with too much time on her hands
- Location
- USA, Earth
- Pronouns
- She/Her
A/N:: Sorry, this is a Regan chapter. I realized that I already had 4 Karina chapters out so that meant it was high time for a Regan chapter. But I think I'll have this one start from the Raiders' POV dealing with the aftermath of the Darth Vader rampage.
For those who are annoyed by this as they wanted to see what happened next with the Russian Spy, I'll do my best to make it up to you, alright?
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Warlord Axel Warren was beyond pissed off.
Some unknown man dressed from head to toe in black wielding some kind of glowing weapon had seemingly appeared out of thin air and then went on to attack every raider in sight before finally becoming overwhelmed by the firepower once all raiders worked together to take him down. And then, his body vanished into thin air the same way he had appeared, causing a big panic all around because they all thought that he might be using a rare Stealth-boy to escape after being so badly injured.
And this had gone on for hours, so there were a lot of dead and badly wounded raiders currently.
Great Falls was the biggest city in comparison to other human settlements that typically only had up to 150 people on a good day. Hell, he had heard that on the east coast most "cities" didn't even have that many, only having like 70 people or so. In comparison to all those other cities out there, Great Falls held up to 1,890 people if you counted all the raiders, which Warlord Warren did.
So the raiders weren't all quite wiped out as there were surviving raiders who had been out of the way, but the loss was still great.
And worse, the mysterious black cloak man had somehow destroyed a good majority of the explosive slave collars that kept a lot of people bound to Great Falls as they would've left the city otherwise. And he did it all at once, without blowing up any of the slaves if the eyewitness accounts were accurate, with a wave of his hands.
There were also accounts of people being lifted into the air by some invisible force that was choking them to death or simply just tossing them across the battlefield.
Piecing the facts together, all of this meant that they most likely had been attacked by a Psyker or some kind. Great.
Psykers were typically found in the Mojave Wasteland (which compassed the whole of southern California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona). Warlord Warren had never been there but had heard of it. But, many of them could be found elsewhere in the old United States too, some humans mutating "naturally" on their own instead of being exposed to things such as a variant of FEV that didn't turn you into a green, 10-feet-tall dumb brute. And then there were the FEV-infected Psykers, who tended to be far more unstable and insane.
Judging by this "Darth Vader" person's actions, he strongly leaned towards being one of those unstable FEV-infected Psykers.
But the question was, how the hell had this Pysker gotten into the city without anybody noticing until it was too late?
He was looking over the written records by the guards, and that's when something caught his eye.
A merchant and his friend driving a PRE-WAR CAR of all things had been stopped at the front gates leading into Great Falls. And this happened minutes before this "Darth Vader" appeared and started wreaking havoc.
The timing was too suspicious there, and he rightfully suspected that this Merchant must've had some connection with Darth Vader.
He then called out to the others for the guards to be brought to him, so that he could question them over their first impressions of the merchant and where the merchant went to.
The guards arrived quickly in almost no time at all, and with that, he wasted no time questioning them.
"So, tell me about this merchant."
"Oh man, he's pretty cool for somebody who isn't one of us. Pretty chill, ya know?" The first guard started up.
The second guard nodded. "Had his whole car filled up to the brim with all sorts of things, like those fruits I've never seen before. And those fruits were so fresh like he had picked them up somewhere locally even though those were obvious foreigner fruits."
With that, the second guard forked over the things they had taken as part of the entry tax. It was obvious the guards had eaten some of it, but they also had been wise to keep a majority of the fruits intact because most of it was supposed to go to the boss himself.
Axel Warren raised his eyebrows as he glanced over the offerings, noting that the majority of those fruits were very unfamiliar to him.
"Is it possible that he could've smuggled somebody else in besides his friend? Because I've been seeing three new entries to the city. This Merchant, his blond friend, and this Psyker dressed in black. The fact that the man in black appeared just right after those two were let into the city seems too entirely coincidental, don't you think?"
"No way!" the first guard protested loudly. "That merchant was pretty cool with us, and he seemed like he'd make it as one of us. No fucking way he would do something like that!"
The second guard nodded. "Isn't it likely that the third man snuck in while we were distracted? The Merchant did have a pretty damn cool purple car. I couldn't help but keep on looking at it."
The first guy nodded at that. "You should meet with him, boss. You'll agree that he's a cool dude once you do. He's just so… likable. You know?"
The warlord raised both eyebrows again. It seemed weird that those two guards, which he had personally selected for the job due to their paranoia and excellent instincts, would immediately like some random stranger so much. Was that a Psyker power at work? Or merely just charisma? He had heard of people with ridiculously high charisma being able to get away with anything.
"And where did you send him to, again? My men couldn't find him amongst all the other merchants at District 10 or District 3," he demanded to know.
"District 11. I didn't wanna have him get enslaved and get a bad impression of us this way, so I figured old man Theo could protect him and then we try to sweet-talk him into joining us. We could use a raider merchant on our side, especially one that can fix machines back to pre-war status." The first guard replied.
Axel Warren cursed loudly at this. That meant he couldn't get to this merchant so easily anymore.
Old man Theo was in charge of District 11, which was just a large airport center that also incidentally had vault 100 under the airport center.
He had heard that most vaults were death traps, mainly being scams that Vault-tec had used to milk money out of gullible people who thought there'd be a safe place to hide from the bombs. But, there had been a few actual respectable ones that did the job splendidly, probably the only reason why Vault-Tec was able to pull off the scam so well. Show everyone a working vault and they wouldn't even question why so many of them didn't work until it was too late. and it just so happened that vault 100 was one of them.
The people who still lived in Vault 100 were odd though, they had seemed to develop a sort of religion centered around airplanes for some reason.
But anyway, District 11 was untouchable to the raiders for a lot of reasons-- such as the fact that it was defended by turrets everywhere, the citizens were fully armed to the teeth, and the fact that they were the only source of fresh water in the entire city.
It had been where most of the citizens who hadn't been captured by the raiders had fallen back to when Warlord Warren and his men successfully took over the whole city, district by district.
Old man Theo's deceased son had been the former mayor of all the districts and had gotten killed in the hostile takeover. Which was something the old man had never quite forgiven Warren for. Warren didn't see what the big deal was, he still could make another one couldn't he? Just find some bitch willing to sleep with him and bear him a bunch more children.
Warren himself couldn't get over that there was still a token resistance in District 11 even though they had both agreed to a 10-years-long ceasefire for the sake of all the enslaved citizens that Warren was using as both hostages and slaves. They even had opened up trade with each other after a few years of this ceasefire, so Warren had thought that they were finally starting to see the light, but no! Theo was still an asshole as ever.
So yeah, dealing with district 11 was going to be a pain in the ass. But he would have to if he wanted to meet with this merchant directly and find out what the fuck was going on.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Regan had wound up far more bruised in that tussle than he thought he would be, as there was now a giant bruise all around his neck and a few cuts on his face thanks to this Darth Vader.
He was now in a clinic center in a section of the large airport center building being tended to by some lady nurse, while he was talking to somebody called Theo.
The old man seemed highly suspicious of outsiders and was intent on grilling them about what they did for a living, even after accepting that Regan wanted to shelter here in return for providing his services.
Finally, even Kevin seemed annoyed by this as he burst out, "Man, what the fuck do you want of us? We've already told you everything you needed to know about us!"
Theo raised one bushy eyebrow as he sniffed. "I can't be too careful, what with that warlord looking to conquer this part of my city. For all I know, you two could be a trojan horse."
Regan chuckled loudly at that. "Mister, if I was one of those raiders I would've told this Warlord of yours that it's better to go legit than to terrorize everyone. In fact, I'd just go ahead and prove my point by finding a factory I could fix up and then outfit it with robots so it could churn out all the profits for me. I'm a businessman first before anything else."
The nurse then put some antiseptic on Regan's injuries, causing him to cry out in pain and stifle back a loud curse.
>BONG<
"Ow." He grumbled as the nurse put some band-aids on him.
Theo then shook his head. "Fine then. I suppose I can put you two up in some temporary housing for now, and you'll have to prove your worth by fixing what I need fixed. I'll have one of my men send over a list of items for you to work on."
Regan simply nodded.
The leader of District 11 then gestured at both Kevin and Regan to follow him, which they did, as they walked through the airport center.
The two men looked around in interest. Although you could tell that this used to be an airport center, it was remodeled thoroughly. Although some of the old still remained, such as the restaurants and the bathrooms, the rest of the space had been turned into living spaces such as apartment homes, a clinic, and that sort of thing and had been turned into a giant fort in which people could seek refugee from the likes of the raiders and slavers.
Finally, they stopped in front of what looked like an "Inn" inside the airport center. The walls were made out of scrap metals and wood fencing, with floor dividers between beds for privacy.
"You'll be staying here a few days on my tab. You can do as you please now, but keep in mind I have eyes and ears everywhere. I'll also stop paying for your rooms if you haven't completed any of the items on my list in a week. Fair, yeah?" Old man Theo spoke up.
Both Kevin and Regan nodded at that.
The old man left, apparently having other better things to do. And with that Kevin sighed loudly.
"Hate to say this, but this place is a total dump," Kevin whispered.
Regan smiled. "Agreed. But to those people, it's probably the ritz. Remember, this world's been bombed to hell and things have been like this for a while. They probably have no idea what a fully clean and intact building looks like."
Kevin shook his head at that. "It almost makes me rethink staying on this Earth If I'm being honest. At least that city you summoned was nice before all the monsters showed up."
Regan smirked. "You'd give up the chance to be known as the hero who made contact with a parallel Earth and became their hero? If you leave right now, then you'll have no proof and no way back here for the others to verify your claims."
"*Almost*. Notice how I said almost there, huh?" Kevin pointed out.
Regan merely snickered at that, and then replied, "Come on, let's check up on our car and our supplies."
They had left their purple car in the old parking lot which was watched over by guards, and Regan couldn't help but fear that if they left it unattended too long people might start to get ideas. Not to mention, both sides of the car were now riddled with bullet holes due to them trying to escape during the confusion, and bullets had been flying all over the place then.
So naturally, Regan couldn't help but fear that the replicator he had been working on had gotten damaged too, and he wanted to check it over once they were in a safe place to do so.
They headed over, and much to Regan's relief the car was still mostly intact, and the supplies in the back of the car also seemed untouched so far.
However, there was a young-looking adult blond man in dirty overalls who had been slowly circling the car and he was now opening up the hood of the car.
"Ahem. just what do you think you're doing to my car?" Regan called out as they got close enough to talk with the guy.
The man nearly bumped his head against the hood as he jolted upwards in surprise, but he then slowly put the hood down, smiling sheepishly.
"Sorry! That's just when I heard there was somebody who came in with an actual working car I couldn't help myself. I wanted to see how you got it running again. And the paint job! It looks like an actual pre-war car… but I suspect those raiders ruined the paint job, eh?" The man started rambling excitedly.
Regan relaxed slightly at this. Ah, a car fanatic.
He then replied, "That car's pretty old-fashioned. It's one of those gas-powered cars from the 1990s, as opposed to the ones that run on nuclear fusion engines. It was easier to get those running than to try to find one that still had a working nuclear fusion engine."
The mystery man in overalls chuckled. "I see, that makes sense. And it'd be even harder to find one that didn't explode at the slightest provocation nowadays, eh? My granddaddy's scared of old cars because of that, ya see. I bet he wouldn't be so scared of this one if he knew it was an old-fashioned gasoline car instead."
Regan made a mental note of that and then held one hand out as he introduced himself and his friend. "I'm Regan, and this is Kevin. You are…?"
"Huh? Oh right! I'm Keith Anderson. I work in the airport garages, trying to get the old planes back into working shape." The blond man in overalls said, returning the gesture back as they shook hands.
That's when the old airplane intercom system blared to life. A staticky voice blared, "Warlord Warren's looking for the merchant who drives a purple car! If you're the merchant, Please come to the entrance gate!"
>Bong<
Jeez, that startled him.
Keith blinked. He then looked worried. "Gosh, I hope nothing doesn't happen to ya, I'd like to talk to you about your car some more."
Regan nodded. "I better go, then."
He walked through the parking lot towards the gates, which kept the parking lot and most importantly the airport center fenced-in and secure. It was a long distance though, and it took him a good amount of minutes before he finally arrived there.
He could see a large muscular bearded man in spiky armor accompanied by a bunch of raiders through the metal bars of the gate, which worried him a little.
Old man Theo was standing on the side where Regan was coming in, glaring heavily at the man in the spiky armor.
"..... I just want to talk to the merchant, alright? This Psyker's arrival seems to have conceded with his own, I find highly suspicious." The man was saying.
Oh. Regan could easily guess what was going on when he overheard that bit the more he got closer. But he had no idea what a Psyker was.
He finally stood next to Old man Theo, and asked in his most innocent tone possible, "What's this about? Why are you looking for me?"
"I'm seeking information on a tall, cloak-wearing weirdo who wields a glowing sword. Dressed in black from head to toe. Any of this familar to you??" Warlord Warren demanded to know.
On closer inspection, Warlord warren's beard was styled ancient Nord style, with braids in it, and he had tribal paint over half of his face.
Regan blinked. "Oh, you haven't caught him yet? That psycho attacked me and the others out of nowhere! If I hadn't fled in my car right away I'm sure he would've killed me! See this injury I got?"
With that, he pulled his shirt down to reveal the nasty bruise on his neck. He hadn't shifted that away quite yet, as he felt that being injured would gain him some sympathy points.
Kevin, who had followed close behind, nodded and verbally backed up Regan. "It's true! A bunch of guys was just chatting us up about the car Regan owned, and where they could get one like that. Then, this helmeted weirdo in a black cape shows up. Some other random dude seemed to recognize him though and called him Dart Vader. But I think that the two of them were on drugs or something because they both seemed confused as to where they were. Didn't seem to know which city they were in. Then this Vader person freaked the fuck out and just started attacking everyone in sight out of the blue. It was fucking crazy."
Regan nodded. "Yes, that's what happened. It all happened so fast that I still have no idea what the fuck happened there…. And worse, the firefight put bullet holes in the car I spent so much time restoring. I was basking in the compliments over my perfectly restored pre-war car, and then blam, my car's good looks are ruined!"
Warlord Axel Warren glared at both Regan and Kevin in a highly intimidating way. "Oh, it was purely coincidence that this crazy Psyker happened to appear in town the same time you drove into town?"
"Uhh… probably? I didn't see anybody come through the gates I was at. But maybe they could've come in when I was talking with the guards about the lay of the land here and which city would be best to do some trading in. All of us were distracted then, they could've easily snuck in then. The way they popped out of nowhere, they could've had a stealth boy?`` Regan was doing his best to seem utterly innocent here.
"Well, guilty or innocent, I don't care. Somebody's got to pay for all my dead men!" Warlord Warren snarled.
Regan's eyes widened at this, and that was when Old man Theo butted in.
"Now wait a cotton-pickin' minute! I'm not about to let you kill anybody on my land if I can help it! Especially when you've not any proof they even helped this Vader fella into the city." Theo yelled.
Theo and Warren started yelling at each other, bringing up some of their personal histories with each other that they seemed to have beef over.
Finally, Regan butted in. "Whoa, whoa! Let's settle down. Surely we all can come to an agreement that we're happy with? Why do I have to pay with my blood when I could give you something else in repayment?"
Both Theo and Warren actually calmed down at this, and Warren scoffed loudly.
"I've got 74 dead raiders, and 60 badly injured. You better have one hell of a thing that makes up for it," he commented.
Regan thought fast. "You can keep my car as insurance, to make sure that I can't go too far. but I get to keep all of my stuff that's still in there currently. And if your men bring me car parts and car frames here, I can build more working cars for you. Surely your men would love to ride in style instead of always legging it on the road? A ride got far more uses and has far more worth than any human being. Besides I was thinking of trying to live here for a while, see what it was like here anyhow."
"WHAT! But that's our car!" Kevin protested loudly.
"Shhh." Regan grabbed Kevin aside and hiss-whispered, "You wanna be stuck in this world with no way back? Besides, I can always summon another one."
Kevin quieted down at this.
Meanwhile, Warren was mulling over this offer. He then said loudly, "Alright, you've got a deal! Bring the car over."
He then gestured Regan over as if he wanted to say something that Theo shouldn't hear. Regan foolishly walked closer, and with that Warren suddenly grabbed Regan's shirt through the bars and then pulled him so close that Regan's face was now painfully smushed against the iron bars.
>Bong<
"You've got a strange sort of charm about you, something that makes me want to like you. Probably how you got through my guards at the gate. But considering what killed my raiders? It makes me trust you less. You better prove yourself and earn my trust if you want to keep on living a while longer. And, if you're truly innocent then bring me some proof as to where this Vader fella went to. Ya hear me??" Warren was practically spitting in Regan's face as he spoke.
Regan was keeping his eyes closed as he didn't want spit in his eyes, but he nodded.
Warren then let go of Regan and then walked to the side of the gate before leaning on it. He then called out, "Well? I'm waiting for that car you're going to be giving me right now!"
Regan hurried away back in the direction of his car at this.
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A/N: Regan got a lot of lamesauce rolls this time, which I'm not complaining about. I'm highly amused at the swearing one because now I'm picturing Regan being forced to swear like a cartoon pony, although one from a grimdark verison of Fallout (with ponies in it).
Yep, I'm definitely going to milk that one for the comedy value alone.
For those who are annoyed by this as they wanted to see what happened next with the Russian Spy, I'll do my best to make it up to you, alright?
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Warlord Axel Warren was beyond pissed off.
Some unknown man dressed from head to toe in black wielding some kind of glowing weapon had seemingly appeared out of thin air and then went on to attack every raider in sight before finally becoming overwhelmed by the firepower once all raiders worked together to take him down. And then, his body vanished into thin air the same way he had appeared, causing a big panic all around because they all thought that he might be using a rare Stealth-boy to escape after being so badly injured.
And this had gone on for hours, so there were a lot of dead and badly wounded raiders currently.
Great Falls was the biggest city in comparison to other human settlements that typically only had up to 150 people on a good day. Hell, he had heard that on the east coast most "cities" didn't even have that many, only having like 70 people or so. In comparison to all those other cities out there, Great Falls held up to 1,890 people if you counted all the raiders, which Warlord Warren did.
So the raiders weren't all quite wiped out as there were surviving raiders who had been out of the way, but the loss was still great.
And worse, the mysterious black cloak man had somehow destroyed a good majority of the explosive slave collars that kept a lot of people bound to Great Falls as they would've left the city otherwise. And he did it all at once, without blowing up any of the slaves if the eyewitness accounts were accurate, with a wave of his hands.
There were also accounts of people being lifted into the air by some invisible force that was choking them to death or simply just tossing them across the battlefield.
Piecing the facts together, all of this meant that they most likely had been attacked by a Psyker or some kind. Great.
Psykers were typically found in the Mojave Wasteland (which compassed the whole of southern California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona). Warlord Warren had never been there but had heard of it. But, many of them could be found elsewhere in the old United States too, some humans mutating "naturally" on their own instead of being exposed to things such as a variant of FEV that didn't turn you into a green, 10-feet-tall dumb brute. And then there were the FEV-infected Psykers, who tended to be far more unstable and insane.
Judging by this "Darth Vader" person's actions, he strongly leaned towards being one of those unstable FEV-infected Psykers.
But the question was, how the hell had this Pysker gotten into the city without anybody noticing until it was too late?
He was looking over the written records by the guards, and that's when something caught his eye.
A merchant and his friend driving a PRE-WAR CAR of all things had been stopped at the front gates leading into Great Falls. And this happened minutes before this "Darth Vader" appeared and started wreaking havoc.
The timing was too suspicious there, and he rightfully suspected that this Merchant must've had some connection with Darth Vader.
He then called out to the others for the guards to be brought to him, so that he could question them over their first impressions of the merchant and where the merchant went to.
The guards arrived quickly in almost no time at all, and with that, he wasted no time questioning them.
"So, tell me about this merchant."
"Oh man, he's pretty cool for somebody who isn't one of us. Pretty chill, ya know?" The first guard started up.
The second guard nodded. "Had his whole car filled up to the brim with all sorts of things, like those fruits I've never seen before. And those fruits were so fresh like he had picked them up somewhere locally even though those were obvious foreigner fruits."
With that, the second guard forked over the things they had taken as part of the entry tax. It was obvious the guards had eaten some of it, but they also had been wise to keep a majority of the fruits intact because most of it was supposed to go to the boss himself.
Axel Warren raised his eyebrows as he glanced over the offerings, noting that the majority of those fruits were very unfamiliar to him.
"Is it possible that he could've smuggled somebody else in besides his friend? Because I've been seeing three new entries to the city. This Merchant, his blond friend, and this Psyker dressed in black. The fact that the man in black appeared just right after those two were let into the city seems too entirely coincidental, don't you think?"
"No way!" the first guard protested loudly. "That merchant was pretty cool with us, and he seemed like he'd make it as one of us. No fucking way he would do something like that!"
The second guard nodded. "Isn't it likely that the third man snuck in while we were distracted? The Merchant did have a pretty damn cool purple car. I couldn't help but keep on looking at it."
The first guy nodded at that. "You should meet with him, boss. You'll agree that he's a cool dude once you do. He's just so… likable. You know?"
The warlord raised both eyebrows again. It seemed weird that those two guards, which he had personally selected for the job due to their paranoia and excellent instincts, would immediately like some random stranger so much. Was that a Psyker power at work? Or merely just charisma? He had heard of people with ridiculously high charisma being able to get away with anything.
"And where did you send him to, again? My men couldn't find him amongst all the other merchants at District 10 or District 3," he demanded to know.
"District 11. I didn't wanna have him get enslaved and get a bad impression of us this way, so I figured old man Theo could protect him and then we try to sweet-talk him into joining us. We could use a raider merchant on our side, especially one that can fix machines back to pre-war status." The first guard replied.
Axel Warren cursed loudly at this. That meant he couldn't get to this merchant so easily anymore.
Old man Theo was in charge of District 11, which was just a large airport center that also incidentally had vault 100 under the airport center.
He had heard that most vaults were death traps, mainly being scams that Vault-tec had used to milk money out of gullible people who thought there'd be a safe place to hide from the bombs. But, there had been a few actual respectable ones that did the job splendidly, probably the only reason why Vault-Tec was able to pull off the scam so well. Show everyone a working vault and they wouldn't even question why so many of them didn't work until it was too late. and it just so happened that vault 100 was one of them.
The people who still lived in Vault 100 were odd though, they had seemed to develop a sort of religion centered around airplanes for some reason.
But anyway, District 11 was untouchable to the raiders for a lot of reasons-- such as the fact that it was defended by turrets everywhere, the citizens were fully armed to the teeth, and the fact that they were the only source of fresh water in the entire city.
It had been where most of the citizens who hadn't been captured by the raiders had fallen back to when Warlord Warren and his men successfully took over the whole city, district by district.
Old man Theo's deceased son had been the former mayor of all the districts and had gotten killed in the hostile takeover. Which was something the old man had never quite forgiven Warren for. Warren didn't see what the big deal was, he still could make another one couldn't he? Just find some bitch willing to sleep with him and bear him a bunch more children.
Warren himself couldn't get over that there was still a token resistance in District 11 even though they had both agreed to a 10-years-long ceasefire for the sake of all the enslaved citizens that Warren was using as both hostages and slaves. They even had opened up trade with each other after a few years of this ceasefire, so Warren had thought that they were finally starting to see the light, but no! Theo was still an asshole as ever.
So yeah, dealing with district 11 was going to be a pain in the ass. But he would have to if he wanted to meet with this merchant directly and find out what the fuck was going on.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Regan had wound up far more bruised in that tussle than he thought he would be, as there was now a giant bruise all around his neck and a few cuts on his face thanks to this Darth Vader.
He was now in a clinic center in a section of the large airport center building being tended to by some lady nurse, while he was talking to somebody called Theo.
The old man seemed highly suspicious of outsiders and was intent on grilling them about what they did for a living, even after accepting that Regan wanted to shelter here in return for providing his services.
Finally, even Kevin seemed annoyed by this as he burst out, "Man, what the fuck do you want of us? We've already told you everything you needed to know about us!"
Theo raised one bushy eyebrow as he sniffed. "I can't be too careful, what with that warlord looking to conquer this part of my city. For all I know, you two could be a trojan horse."
Regan chuckled loudly at that. "Mister, if I was one of those raiders I would've told this Warlord of yours that it's better to go legit than to terrorize everyone. In fact, I'd just go ahead and prove my point by finding a factory I could fix up and then outfit it with robots so it could churn out all the profits for me. I'm a businessman first before anything else."
The nurse then put some antiseptic on Regan's injuries, causing him to cry out in pain and stifle back a loud curse.
>BONG<
| https://falloutequestria.fandom.com/wiki/Swearing Roll 13 Cursing, Fallout Equestria style. Effect: Regan now cannot swear normally at all, instead he will be compelled to swear Equestria style. Instead of saying God-damned, for example, he will say Luna-damned instead. |
"Ow." He grumbled as the nurse put some band-aids on him.
Theo then shook his head. "Fine then. I suppose I can put you two up in some temporary housing for now, and you'll have to prove your worth by fixing what I need fixed. I'll have one of my men send over a list of items for you to work on."
Regan simply nodded.
The leader of District 11 then gestured at both Kevin and Regan to follow him, which they did, as they walked through the airport center.
The two men looked around in interest. Although you could tell that this used to be an airport center, it was remodeled thoroughly. Although some of the old still remained, such as the restaurants and the bathrooms, the rest of the space had been turned into living spaces such as apartment homes, a clinic, and that sort of thing and had been turned into a giant fort in which people could seek refugee from the likes of the raiders and slavers.
Finally, they stopped in front of what looked like an "Inn" inside the airport center. The walls were made out of scrap metals and wood fencing, with floor dividers between beds for privacy.
"You'll be staying here a few days on my tab. You can do as you please now, but keep in mind I have eyes and ears everywhere. I'll also stop paying for your rooms if you haven't completed any of the items on my list in a week. Fair, yeah?" Old man Theo spoke up.
Both Kevin and Regan nodded at that.
The old man left, apparently having other better things to do. And with that Kevin sighed loudly.
"Hate to say this, but this place is a total dump," Kevin whispered.
Regan smiled. "Agreed. But to those people, it's probably the ritz. Remember, this world's been bombed to hell and things have been like this for a while. They probably have no idea what a fully clean and intact building looks like."
Kevin shook his head at that. "It almost makes me rethink staying on this Earth If I'm being honest. At least that city you summoned was nice before all the monsters showed up."
Regan smirked. "You'd give up the chance to be known as the hero who made contact with a parallel Earth and became their hero? If you leave right now, then you'll have no proof and no way back here for the others to verify your claims."
"*Almost*. Notice how I said almost there, huh?" Kevin pointed out.
Regan merely snickered at that, and then replied, "Come on, let's check up on our car and our supplies."
They had left their purple car in the old parking lot which was watched over by guards, and Regan couldn't help but fear that if they left it unattended too long people might start to get ideas. Not to mention, both sides of the car were now riddled with bullet holes due to them trying to escape during the confusion, and bullets had been flying all over the place then.
So naturally, Regan couldn't help but fear that the replicator he had been working on had gotten damaged too, and he wanted to check it over once they were in a safe place to do so.
They headed over, and much to Regan's relief the car was still mostly intact, and the supplies in the back of the car also seemed untouched so far.
However, there was a young-looking adult blond man in dirty overalls who had been slowly circling the car and he was now opening up the hood of the car.
"Ahem. just what do you think you're doing to my car?" Regan called out as they got close enough to talk with the guy.
The man nearly bumped his head against the hood as he jolted upwards in surprise, but he then slowly put the hood down, smiling sheepishly.
"Sorry! That's just when I heard there was somebody who came in with an actual working car I couldn't help myself. I wanted to see how you got it running again. And the paint job! It looks like an actual pre-war car… but I suspect those raiders ruined the paint job, eh?" The man started rambling excitedly.
Regan relaxed slightly at this. Ah, a car fanatic.
He then replied, "That car's pretty old-fashioned. It's one of those gas-powered cars from the 1990s, as opposed to the ones that run on nuclear fusion engines. It was easier to get those running than to try to find one that still had a working nuclear fusion engine."
The mystery man in overalls chuckled. "I see, that makes sense. And it'd be even harder to find one that didn't explode at the slightest provocation nowadays, eh? My granddaddy's scared of old cars because of that, ya see. I bet he wouldn't be so scared of this one if he knew it was an old-fashioned gasoline car instead."
Regan made a mental note of that and then held one hand out as he introduced himself and his friend. "I'm Regan, and this is Kevin. You are…?"
"Huh? Oh right! I'm Keith Anderson. I work in the airport garages, trying to get the old planes back into working shape." The blond man in overalls said, returning the gesture back as they shook hands.
That's when the old airplane intercom system blared to life. A staticky voice blared, "Warlord Warren's looking for the merchant who drives a purple car! If you're the merchant, Please come to the entrance gate!"
>Bong<
| https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Keith_(Nuclear_Winter) Roll 17 Keith was a resident of Vault 51. With 5-1 odds, Keith won 60 payouts at the betting machines in the vault's game room. Like every other dweller, he was killed in the fighting that eventually led to Reuben Gill being named overseer in 2078. Effect: Regan's luck goes up whenever he engages in a gambling game. |
Jeez, that startled him.
Keith blinked. He then looked worried. "Gosh, I hope nothing doesn't happen to ya, I'd like to talk to you about your car some more."
Regan nodded. "I better go, then."
He walked through the parking lot towards the gates, which kept the parking lot and most importantly the airport center fenced-in and secure. It was a long distance though, and it took him a good amount of minutes before he finally arrived there.
He could see a large muscular bearded man in spiky armor accompanied by a bunch of raiders through the metal bars of the gate, which worried him a little.
Old man Theo was standing on the side where Regan was coming in, glaring heavily at the man in the spiky armor.
"..... I just want to talk to the merchant, alright? This Psyker's arrival seems to have conceded with his own, I find highly suspicious." The man was saying.
Oh. Regan could easily guess what was going on when he overheard that bit the more he got closer. But he had no idea what a Psyker was.
He finally stood next to Old man Theo, and asked in his most innocent tone possible, "What's this about? Why are you looking for me?"
"I'm seeking information on a tall, cloak-wearing weirdo who wields a glowing sword. Dressed in black from head to toe. Any of this familar to you??" Warlord Warren demanded to know.
On closer inspection, Warlord warren's beard was styled ancient Nord style, with braids in it, and he had tribal paint over half of his face.
Regan blinked. "Oh, you haven't caught him yet? That psycho attacked me and the others out of nowhere! If I hadn't fled in my car right away I'm sure he would've killed me! See this injury I got?"
With that, he pulled his shirt down to reveal the nasty bruise on his neck. He hadn't shifted that away quite yet, as he felt that being injured would gain him some sympathy points.
Kevin, who had followed close behind, nodded and verbally backed up Regan. "It's true! A bunch of guys was just chatting us up about the car Regan owned, and where they could get one like that. Then, this helmeted weirdo in a black cape shows up. Some other random dude seemed to recognize him though and called him Dart Vader. But I think that the two of them were on drugs or something because they both seemed confused as to where they were. Didn't seem to know which city they were in. Then this Vader person freaked the fuck out and just started attacking everyone in sight out of the blue. It was fucking crazy."
Regan nodded. "Yes, that's what happened. It all happened so fast that I still have no idea what the fuck happened there…. And worse, the firefight put bullet holes in the car I spent so much time restoring. I was basking in the compliments over my perfectly restored pre-war car, and then blam, my car's good looks are ruined!"
Warlord Axel Warren glared at both Regan and Kevin in a highly intimidating way. "Oh, it was purely coincidence that this crazy Psyker happened to appear in town the same time you drove into town?"
"Uhh… probably? I didn't see anybody come through the gates I was at. But maybe they could've come in when I was talking with the guards about the lay of the land here and which city would be best to do some trading in. All of us were distracted then, they could've easily snuck in then. The way they popped out of nowhere, they could've had a stealth boy?`` Regan was doing his best to seem utterly innocent here.
"Well, guilty or innocent, I don't care. Somebody's got to pay for all my dead men!" Warlord Warren snarled.
Regan's eyes widened at this, and that was when Old man Theo butted in.
"Now wait a cotton-pickin' minute! I'm not about to let you kill anybody on my land if I can help it! Especially when you've not any proof they even helped this Vader fella into the city." Theo yelled.
Theo and Warren started yelling at each other, bringing up some of their personal histories with each other that they seemed to have beef over.
Finally, Regan butted in. "Whoa, whoa! Let's settle down. Surely we all can come to an agreement that we're happy with? Why do I have to pay with my blood when I could give you something else in repayment?"
Both Theo and Warren actually calmed down at this, and Warren scoffed loudly.
"I've got 74 dead raiders, and 60 badly injured. You better have one hell of a thing that makes up for it," he commented.
Regan thought fast. "You can keep my car as insurance, to make sure that I can't go too far. but I get to keep all of my stuff that's still in there currently. And if your men bring me car parts and car frames here, I can build more working cars for you. Surely your men would love to ride in style instead of always legging it on the road? A ride got far more uses and has far more worth than any human being. Besides I was thinking of trying to live here for a while, see what it was like here anyhow."
"WHAT! But that's our car!" Kevin protested loudly.
"Shhh." Regan grabbed Kevin aside and hiss-whispered, "You wanna be stuck in this world with no way back? Besides, I can always summon another one."
Kevin quieted down at this.
Meanwhile, Warren was mulling over this offer. He then said loudly, "Alright, you've got a deal! Bring the car over."
He then gestured Regan over as if he wanted to say something that Theo shouldn't hear. Regan foolishly walked closer, and with that Warren suddenly grabbed Regan's shirt through the bars and then pulled him so close that Regan's face was now painfully smushed against the iron bars.
>Bong<
| https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/lake-ontario-array Roll 4 Portals from elsewhere seem to use Lake Ontario as a dumping ground. Effect: For the next four hours, a portal will open up a mile away from Great Fall's airport and the spot around the portal will be treated as a dumping ground for everyone in the multiverse. The portal will disappear after four hours but all of the dumped content will be left behind. Who knows what kind of items people might find should they stumble across this spot? |
"You've got a strange sort of charm about you, something that makes me want to like you. Probably how you got through my guards at the gate. But considering what killed my raiders? It makes me trust you less. You better prove yourself and earn my trust if you want to keep on living a while longer. And, if you're truly innocent then bring me some proof as to where this Vader fella went to. Ya hear me??" Warren was practically spitting in Regan's face as he spoke.
Regan was keeping his eyes closed as he didn't want spit in his eyes, but he nodded.
Warren then let go of Regan and then walked to the side of the gate before leaning on it. He then called out, "Well? I'm waiting for that car you're going to be giving me right now!"
Regan hurried away back in the direction of his car at this.
==========================================
A/N: Regan got a lot of lamesauce rolls this time, which I'm not complaining about. I'm highly amused at the swearing one because now I'm picturing Regan being forced to swear like a cartoon pony, although one from a grimdark verison of Fallout (with ponies in it).
Yep, I'm definitely going to milk that one for the comedy value alone.
