Just Another Wasteland
AN: Welcome to the first chapter of my second fic Just Another Wasteland. This particular type of crossover is still fairly underpopulated so I decided to try my hand at it.
"talking"
'thinking'
"radio or com link"
"Geth or reaper influenced speaking"
Disclaimer: The mass effect and fallout games are the property of Bethesda Game studios and BioWare respectively. I hold no illusions that I am anywhere near important enough to own these games and seeing as I lack any source of income I am also a poor target for lawsuit.
War, war never changes. Since the dawn of man when our ancestors first discovered the killing power of rock and bone, blood has been spilled for everything from god to freedom to simple psychotic rage. Even after plunging the world into a true image of atomic hell man still hasn't given up its violent quest to eradicate itself. All we've managed to do is change the look of the battlefield. In place of feuding governments we have towns fighting over the smallest amount of water, instead of political terrorists we have bands of drug crazed raiders raping, pillaging, and killing everything they can find, and instead of the once great nation that occupied this land all we have is a barren inhospitable wasteland that would gladly force you to watch as everything you loved was ripped for you, the land itself laughing as yo throw yourself at every predator and mad man begging for death to claim you, only for it to once again pass you by. I always believed that man had been doomed form the start, doomed to destroy itself again and again. Damn was I ever wrong, but even when you find yourself in a place you've never seen before where all the rules are different and the universe is suddenly bigger than you ever imagined you can always count on one thing, war never changes.
Trudging the rocky landscape of the infamous Death valley trail Micheal Connors A.K.A The Lone Wanderer found himself wondering for the thousandth time just why the hell he decided to go through the single hottest place in the wasteland. Looking down at his trusty pip-boy he recalled why, each step was slowly bringing him closer to the legendary ruins of Fort Black a prewar military R&D facility rumored to be completely untouched by either time or scavengers. Once again turning up his suits internal cooling Micheal could understand why no one else had ever bothered to come here it was practically a death wish, just what he needed.
The sun was just reaching its apex in the sky and Micheal's visor began to darken again to keep the light taken in by his eyes at the perfect level.
' real glad I kept the visor from the stealth suit when I put this outfit together' he thought the wanderer was wearing a black almost rubber looking suit over what could only be described as the guts of a power armor suit over the rubber looking suit he wore a loose pair of dirty beige pants a pair of worn steel toed combat boots and an old leather duster with thick plates of metal and leather from the vault suit he'd received an overly perky store keeper all those years ago. Turning off to the side he moves over to a shaded area for a rest and eat his midday meal, re atomizing a bottle of ice-cold Nuka-Cola while thanking those brilliant prewar technicians that had first invented it that what ever technology his pip-boy used was able to keep food fresh and unchanged from the minute he atomizes it. He takes out a bowl of what an old friend from the brotherhood had once dubbed Lurk'n Beans, Micheal sits down to enjoy his brief meal.
The visor on his helmet hisses and slowly draws back to reveal a young man in his mid to late twenties his short blond hair messy and darkened a few shades with sweat and dirt. On his face is a scraggly goatee most likely from not having shaved for a few days. Even while resting and enjoying his meal his strange golden eyes continue scour the landscape searching for any potential threat, his ears straining for slightest sign of danger. Finishing up his meal his helmet snaps back into place and picks up his most trusted rifle an old gun named perforater, the old assault rifle makes up for its slower than average rate of fire with is higher stopping power and silencer scope combination not seen to often on guns of its model. Hefting the to his back he pulls up the hood to his duster and makes his way back to the path following it deeper into the ominously named valley.
After several hours more of walking he finally spotted his goal Fort Black sitting at the bottom of the hill it truly had no sign of damage from the war he had come to expect from prewar buildings, the fence was even still standing. Picking up his pace he found himself outside the main gate within the hour. Picking the lock on the chain he pushes the fence open and pulls his rifle from his back preparing for the chance of any robot security guards that had remained active over the centuries be proceeds forward and up to the front entrance. Once again having to pick the lock he slowly and quietly crept inside the building. Flipping a switch on his belt he activates his suits stealth field and slowly makes his way deeper into the facility.
Several floors down and deep underground he finally finds a working terminal, after a successful hacking attempt he manages to get into the restricted data stored within the forts archives. Checking the research notes he begins to scoff at the lunacy he was reading.
' Controlling black holes,' he laughed to himself ' now that's just insane. Black holes are incredibly dense gravity vacuums, theirs no way to control one much less weaponize it.' Digging deeper he found a command that read ' Activate Experiment'. Looking around he noticed an observation platform looking down on a large room with all sorts of machines he couldn't readily identify. " Well lets see what these crazy S.O.B's managed to get running." Micheal says out loud hitting the button and walking onto the platform.
A buzzing begins as the many machines begin to slowly power up. Electricity begins sparking from four large rods around the room the bolts converging on a small orb made from some strange mineral heed never seen before. As the orb absorbed the electricity it began to emit waves of deep blue energy until it began to float off of its pedestal and was surrounded in a dark blue almost black energy. The Wanderer stood there dumbfounded, astounded by the sight that was playing out in front of him. The orb began to grow larger and larger until it had encompassed nearly half the space in the massive room. Slowly it began pulling in small objects from around the room, cups, clipboards, test tubes all were being pulled in. As time passed larger objects were being drawn in from beakers and hot plates to chairs and tables. Before he knew what was happening Micheal felt himself being pulled into the orb himself, turning towards the terminal he began to fight against the pull trying with all his tech enhanced might to reach the old computer his only hope being to shutdown the experiment. Just when he was almost in reach of the terminal he lost his footing, slipping he begins flying back. Rapidly being drawn to the ever growing orb of energy. As he begins to fly off the platform towards the orb he notices the towering poles that had been powering the experiment bending towards the imitation black hole.
Screaming as he's drawn into the core of the orb Micheal hears a sound of tearing metal before being drawn into a deep black void. Floating in an endless void the wanderer finds himself musing over his life. Growing up in the vault, Amata his first love, chasing his dad into the wasteland, trekking across the whole of D.C. More times than he could count looking for him, finally finding his father only to watch as he sacrifices himself to stop the enclave from claiming the purifier, joining the brotherhood, Sarah Lyons the love of his life and his lover. He grins as he remembers Sarah telling him they were expecting, they were going to get married after they wiped out the enclave. Then he remembered destroying Raven Rock, his heart swelling with pride at this memory only to descend into sorrow as the old wound of the battle for the purifier rips itself open. It was an overwhelming victory the Brotherhood with the aid of Micheal and Liberty Prime crushed the Enclave forces and retook the purifier. Sarah and Micheal were celebrating their victory in the heart of the purifier when Dr. Madison Lee came over the intercom. Informing them about the pressure build up and the need to start the purifier the Wanderer turns to enter the radiation filled chamber only to see Sarah sealing him out from the inside.
" I love you." she says through the blast door and moves to the console Micheal breaking every bone in his hands trying to break open the door, trying to pull Sarah out. Begging her the whole time not to do it, to come out before its to late. Watching her collapse to the floor he rips his helmet off his head, ignoring the pain from his broken hand, and starts bashing the reinforced bulletproof glass harder than his muscles had swung before. When the brotherhood finally found him he was lying in front of the door blood running down his face having resorted to bashing his skull against the door when his arms had stopped moving. The blood mixing with tears he hadn't shed since he was a child. They dragged him out of the room as the scribes went to work opening the door. They carried him outside past the Enclave prisoners the Brotherhood had managed to capture, when he saw them he started screaming like a man possessed.
"You bastards!" he screamed "Its your fault shes gone! You took them all from me!" He managed to break free from the knights who had been holding him back till that point and knocked a captured officer to the ground stomping down on his head over and over again cursing the Enclave's very existence. When they finally managed to restrain him again he'd begun raving about revenge screaming at the top of his lungs. "I'll kill you all! I'll hunt each and every one of you vile insects down and crush you like the vermin you are." The crazed look in his golden eyes causing the captives to break out into a cold sweat.
That declaration was what led him to the Mojave moving out to California looking for any remnants from the original Enclave. He took a job as a courier to help pay for his trip, he'd already had a significant fortune in caps from his time as a professional scavenger, but the work kept him occupied. That's what lead to him being captured by Benny, he'd gotten cocky and let his guard down. Taking his package shooting him in the head, Benny had left Micheal for dead, that was his fatal mistake. Tracking the rat across the Mojave and in to New Vegas the Wanderer forced his way into Benny's casino and beat him to a bloody pulp with his own freshly ripped off arms in front of his guests and body guards.
After finishing with Benny he was approached by an NCR solider and was hired to help them win the war. Wiping out every threat to his new employers while managing to help them ally with the local Brotherhood of Steel chapter he cut a bloody swath through the opposition. He even managed to track down and brutally slaughter a small handful of ex Enclave troops, before continuing his trek to ruins of the old Enclave base know as The Oil Rig.
Finding the facility completely abandoned he moved on searching all of the NCR territory looking for work and rumors of possible Enclave activity. Which led him to his current situation in Fort Black. Micheal was violently ripped from his musings as a massive pain exploded throughout his body, an agonizing feeling like something unnatural was growing beneath his flesh pushing its way clean into his nervous system. The pain continued to grow to near unbearable levels before it finally overwhelmed him and he blacked out.
AN: And so we come to the close the first installment of Just Another Wasteland I hope with how under used this particular genera is I came up with something both interesting and original to explain how my LW managed to get to the mass effect universe. Free E-Cookies for life for anyone who can guess what the orb was made of.