The outcast kept a very close watch on the road leading to Fort Independence. Though it was dark, her trained eyes took in every detail of the landscape illuminated by the moon. Even those parts that were shrouded in shadow were known to her from many nights on the watch, allowing her to notice even the most miniscule of differences. In a land where any kind of raider or mutant could be sneaking and skulking around in the dark, looking for its next prey, this was an invaluable trait for a guard to have. Through the lens of her power armor's helmet, itself painted red and black like the rest of the suit, she watched for any sign of trouble.
She found it in the form of a group of approaching figures in power armor from the traitorous Lyons' chapter. But not just any power armor, t-51b suits bearing the insignia of the Lyons' Pride, and leading them could be none other than Sarah Lyons herself. Under almost any normal circumstances, the outcast would immediately assume hostilities from any Brotherhood soldiers. But this was the Lyons' Pride, and none of them had their weaponry in their hands. That made the situation just odd enough to give her cause to not sound the alarm. She quickly radioed up to Fort Independence to report their approach, noting that they did not seem to be here for a fight.
Sarah stopped twenty yards short of the sandbag entrenchment the guard sat within. She spoke loudly and clearly in a command voice. "We have come to talk to Casdin." She wasted no time with any kind of formal introduction; this was the Outcasts and they knew exactly who she and her unit were.
The guard looked at her before radioing up to her superiors. After receiving a response, she spoke to them. "He will speak to you, and only you, in the courtyard. You are to leave your weaponry with your companions and enter alone."
Paladin Vargas, her second-in-command, quickly leaned in close to her. "Sarah, you can't accept those terms. They'll just capture you and hold you hostage, giving them a huge bargaining chip with your father and a set of t-51b. We need to negotiate for better terms."
Sarah looked at him and held up a hand. "This isn't going to happen unless we take risks, Vargas. This needs to be handled delicately." She raised her voice to talk to the guard. "Tell him that I would like to speak with him alone as well. Just the two of us; no weapons, no guards, no hassle. Only words."
Vargas muttered, "He won't agree to that, Sarah. You know him."
She was silent. After a few tense moments, the guard called out, "He'll do it. Proceed inside."
Sarah handed her laser rifle to Vargas along with her sidearm and a few grenades. "Be careful," he still warned her. She approached the guard stand to be inspected. Turning around a few times in the light of the guard's helmet, she was cleared and allowed entrance inside.
She approached Fort Independence knowing that she was watched by many eyes from the outcast soldiers. She stopped in the courtyard in front of the old building and waited. The front doors opened and a figure emerged, wearing the same t-45d power armor the other Outcasts wore, painted in the same chaotic pattern of red and black. He approached her and stopped, standing still. Though they couldn't see each other's eyes, they knew that their equally stern and discerning gazes were meeting. 'Here we go,' Sarah thought as she prepared herself for the conversation.
"Lyons," Casdin said, somewhat distastefully. "Couldn't have picked an earlier time of the day?"
"Always a pleasure," she said. "I'm here about the Enclave. We intercepted a radio transmission from the northwestern ruins that they had attacked you."
"Not 'they.' One of them," he corrected her. "We had an operation there, a good find. Something to level the playing field. One of them showed up, tore through our defenses and took it all for himself."
"Only one person?" Sarah asked. "And you're sure it was the Enclave?"
"We had one survivor, one of our specialists. She described him in quite a bit of detail."
Sarah looked down and shook her head. "You might not believe me, Casdin, but I'm sorry for your losses. Your numbers are small enough as it is."
"Our numbers are fine," he replied with an edge to his voice. "We'd have had more if your father hadn't convinced so many of his followers that his way was the right way and that cache of weapons and technology would be ours right now. If we had—"
"We can't stand here drawing a line in the dirt any longer," Sarah cut him off. "We're both facing a serious threat here, and they're not going to discriminate between the Brotherhood and the Outcasts. The Enclave are in a very strong position currently. They've taken the purifier, and if they find a way to make it work, the entire Capital Wasteland will fall in line for them and it'll only be a matter of time before what happened at your find happens to both the Citadel and Fort Independence."
Casdin was silent for a moment. He looked down at the ground, then back to Fort Independence. "So what are you suggesting then, Lyons? That we just forget the bad blood between us and fight together again?"
"Yes. We fought together for years. From the west coast to the east, through the scorched forests, the bombed cities and towns, the Pitt—I'm asking for the Outcasts to stand by us again against this common enemy. We may differ in ideals but we both want to survive, and that's not going to happen so long as the Enclave stands in our way. They've proven that they stand in direct opposition to both of our goals."
"And when do you think this fight will happen?" Casdin asked.
"Soon, is all we can say," Sarah replied.
"My outcasts are scattered. We have scouting parties operating in various parts of the wastes. It will take some time to gather them all back up here."
"Then you're agreed?" Sarah asked.
"I haven't said anything about agreeing, yet," Casdin replied, turning to face her once more. "I'm the Protector of the Outcasts. It's my job to see us survive and accomplish our mission. I'll gather my people and we'll all discuss standing by your side in this fight, but make no mistake Lyons, this doesn't change anything. Your father is still an oath breaker and we'll still see that he faces justice from the Elders in the west."
"I know," Sarah replied. "But if we don't stop the Enclave, neither of us will be alive to see that come to pass."
"Are we done here, then?" Casdin asked.
Sarah nodded and turned around, heading towards the gate. The protector watched her go for a few seconds before reentering Fort Independence. Sarah walked past the guards and up to the rest of the Pride, taking her laser rifle back from Vargas. "So?" Vargas asked. "What happened?"
"We spoke," Sarah said plainly. "And if we're lucky, something may come of it."
As they began walking down the dusty road leading away from the fort, Vargas asked, "And do you think that it will?"
Sarah sighed. "I can hope."
Three vertibirds simultaneously landed in a practiced wedge formation, allowing the soldiers in power armor to disembark and begin moving out. The Enclave aerial vehicles had already given away their position to the super mutants, but they had anticipated that. The large, green brutes came over the hilltops, howling and laughing, but they were quickly silenced as the soldiers began firing their beam and plasmic weaponry at them, forcing them into cover.
The third squad of Enclave soldiers was known as Sigma Squad, and it consisted entirely of soldiers wearing newly-developed power armor, Hellfire armor, who were armed with heavy incinerators, weapons capable of lobbing explosive fireballs up to fifty meters. The Hellfire armor was designed to be more durable than the standard variety of Enclave advanced power armor, and sported advanced fire resistance. It was the result of recent research, and this deployment was to be one of their first field tests.
The Enclave soldiers moved with professional training and discipline, keeping the super mutants pinned down with suppressive fire while half of their number moved into a flanking position. After their maneuver had been complete, the soldiers swept through the super mutant ranks, decimating them and leaving burnt bodies behind, some reduced entirely to ash.
From the nearby crater and the entrance to Vault 87, the super mutants rallied and made a second charge. A low-flying vertibird appeared over the hill to the north, firing two missiles from pods located on either side of its body. The missiles soared through the air towards their target, striking the ground around the charging super mutants. The resulting explosions knocked most of them down and killed two of them. Laser and plasma fire from the soldiers coming over the hill took care of the rest.
With the super mutants outside Vault 87 neutralized, the soldiers immediately began setting up a defensive perimeter around the intended area of operation; namely, the entrance to the vault. Crates were opened and communications and radiation-detection equipment were set up. A circular formation around the crater with roving patrols was quickly established, with all of the soldiers on high alert for any sign of trouble coming from any direction.
After ten minutes, another vertibird landed, this time staying put. From within emerged Colonel Autumn and Agent DeLoria, the latter cracking his fingers and readying his weaponry. The leader of Sigma Squad approached the colonel and rendered a salute. "Sir! We've got the perimeter completely locked down and cleared of all hostiles. As initial reports suggested, the area surrounding the vault entrance is highly irradiated."
Autumn visibly twitched at the mention of high levels of radiation, remembering what James had done to him in the chamber at Project Purity. "Very well. I want the science team here, along with the anti-radiation suits and medication at the ready. I want a team ready to breach the door within the hour."
"Yes, sir." The soldier moved away to carry out his orders and Autumn turned to Butch.
"You've been briefed on what—and who—will be inside. The president wants you to lead the breach team within the vault. Remember, we need them alive."
"Too easy," Butch said cockily, striding out into the open to stretch his legs a bit after the long ride.
Autumn watched him with seething contempt. He secretly almost hoped that the drug-addled brat would kill both of their targets and ruin their operation, just so that punishment could be brought down upon his smug little head. The colonel sighed. But they needed Lloyd and Amata alive, at least for the moment. 'Only until we have what we need,' he reminded himself. He turned away from Butch and reentered the vertibird to wait for the science team.
He felt a familiar burning pain inside of his chest and he quickly took out one of his syringes, injecting himself. He breathed heavily as the dull burn slowly went way, leaving him sweating and panting. He wiped his brow as the door to the vertibird opened. An Enclave soldier was there. "Sir!" he saluted.
Autumn returned the salute. "Soldier?"
"Our scouting eyebots may have found an alternate route inside of Vault 87, sir. Our initial report indicates that the targets did not enter the vault through the main entrance, due to the high levels of radiation and super mutant presence. There is a series of caves to the south that we believe may contain a backdoor to the vault; it seems most likely that they would have entered the vault through there."
"Interesting…" Autumn said. "Prepare a team."
The super mutant roared in blind, mad rage as Lloyd shot out its kneecap, forcing it down onto one leg. As it looked up, it saw Fawkes raising a sledgehammer high over his head before bringing it down upon his fellow meta-human's skull, cracking it in half and sending small bits of gray brain matter flying in various directions. The dead body fell to the rusty, dirty steel floor, another victim in their path eradicated.
Fawkes stepped back, taking a moment to wipe his face clean of blood with his large hands. His tattered Vault 87 suit was a little stained, but he didn't mind that so much. He looked back at his newfound compatriots and leaned against his hammer. "As I was saying, before being so… rudely interrupted!" he said with an added kick to the dead super mutant, "My favorite president of the United States, that would be Theodore Roosevelt. I find him to be an inspiring figure…"
As they had navigated the tunnels of Vault 87 towards their prize, they had inquired about Fawkes' past. He couldn't remember much before being confined to the cell they had freed him from, but was more than happy to discuss his wealth of knowledge about pre-war history and a variety of topics. They found it quite refreshing from the usual conversations they had with the people of the Capital Wasteland. Though Fawkes spoke in a strained and somewhat painful manner due to his severe mutation into his current condition, he managed to maintain a powerful dignity and spoke with great respect and care, choosing his words carefully, much like Uncle Leo had.
Though in battle, he was just as fierce as any super mutant they had met, fighting with all the rage and power one of his species was expected to possess. His dual nature was intimidating in a way; his intelligent side seemed only to heighten the shocking surprise of his brutality in battle.
"We read about him in our history classes," Amata continued the conversation as she moved up next to him. "What did you like best about him?"
Fawkes reflected for a moment, closing his eyes. "It was said that he read a book… every day… He must have had a sharp mind."
"And a hell of a lot of free time," Lloyd said with a little sarcasm.
"Indeed…" Fawkes said with a nod. "But… I don't mean to prattle. The G.E.C.K. isn't too far ahead." As they continued on, he questioned them about the condition of the upper world. They didn't have too many pleasant things to tell him, but when they mentioned the Enclave and President Eden, he was very interested in what they had to say.
"You mean that this new president means to control the people of the world through fear?" he inquired.
"A bit like that," Lloyd said. "We need the G.E.C.K. to get the purifier my father designed running. It's the last piece of the puzzle, according to him before he…"
"He what?" Fawkes asked.
"He was killed by the Enclave," Lloyd said grimly.
"I am… I am sorry for your loss…" Fawkes said in as somber a tone as he could manage. "I can see why they and their president are unworthy of the adoration of the people. Murder and fear cannot be used by the powerful to forces the masses in line… Only the will to do good for the sake of being good, is a worthy endeavor."
"Well put," Cross said. "Were you not a super mutant, you would make a fine member for the Brotherhood of Steel."
Fawkes seemed honored by her compliment. "If this Brotherhood stands against this Enclave, then count me among the people to rise against this false president, once we are out of this place" Fawkes replied. "Perhaps it was fate that I was freed by you… You are as revolutionaries, fighting against the will of a tyrant. It is a noble cause, and in talking with you, I have learned that you are noble people… But freeing me alone had shown me that."
Lloyd smiled underneath his helmet. "We're glad to have done so, Fawkes. We'd be happy to have you help us."
Amata paused, turning slightly to look back at the direction they had come from. "Did anyone else hear anything just now?"
They all stopped to turn back. The hallway they had come from was dark, and even with the lights from their helmets, all they could see was the rusted steel that made up the corridor. Further down was only shadows.
"I guess it was nothing," Amata admitted as she rejoined them. They continued further into the bowels of Vault 87, growing nearer and nearer to their goal, occasionally encountering more super mutants that needed to be dealt with. After passing through a large chamber housing gigantic, but empty, vats of FEV, they came to a large door. Windows on either side of it allowed them to see inside and also allowed a distinct green glow to come through. Various chemicals, long since knocked over and abandoned, sat bubbling and boiling on the steel floor.
Lloyd held his Pip-Boy up to the glass and picked up faint traces of radiation. "Is this the chamber you mentioned?" he asked Fawkes.
The super mutant nodded. "Yes, I will be unharmed by the contents within… I shall retrieve the G.E.C.K. and then… then we shall be on our way."
The large green man approached the doors, pulling them open and quickly sealing them behind himself. They watched him through the windows and the green glow until he vanished around a corner.
They waited in silence. Lloyd paced around the room, perhaps a little nervously, as Cross stood near the hallway they had come from. Amata was using the moment to double-check the condition of her weapons. After a few moments, the door reopened and Fawkes strode out, wiping his boots clean of some of the hazardous material he had walked through.
He held up his left hand, and in it was a steel briefcase.
Lloyd approached it and reached for it, taking it and setting it down on the ground. They gathered around as he opened it. Its contents were varied and numerous; vials, computer chips, manuals, small tools, a tiny television screen, advanced yet compact machinery and even a pen flashlight.
"What does this machine do?" Cross asked.
"I'm not completely certain, but I believe that some of the components are the missing pieces of the puzzle for the purifier, things my father's team couldn't develop on their own with their limited tools and facilities. He said that this was meant to be used for terraforming; making an inhabitable part of the land habitable again. Since these were issued to vaults, I can only assume that must mean there are components in this case that deals with radiation in some way."
"But the vaults were never meant to save anyone," Amata reminded him of what they had learned from the Masterbrain at Vault-Tec's headquarters.
"That's true… Still, once we get this into the hands of the Brotherhood scribes, they'll be able to tell us exactly what it is and what we'll need to do with it." He closed it and handed it to Amata, who then put it into his backpack. Once it was zipped up and safely secured, they all stood up and prepared to leave.
As before, Amata heard a noise echo from the location they had originally come from, only this time, she wasn't alone. All three of them heard a long, wet-sounding moan, along with a strange scraping noise, like claws on metal. They readied their weaponry and looked back at the dark hallway, turning their helmet lights back on.
They waited in tense silence as the noise grew louder, accompanied by a strange shuffling sound. When the source revealed itself by moving around the corner, they were no longer curious as to what it was, only disgusted at what they now saw. The creature looked like two super mutants fused together at the middle, with one serving as locomotion with all four of its limbs and the other sticking out of its back. The lower super mutant featured a caved-in skull, which Lloyd and Fawkes recognized as the super mutant they had previously killed with his hammer. Its jaw hung low, much lower than normal, with a lengthy tongue hanging limply from it, leaving a trail of saliva as it dragged along the ground.
The other half of the mass featured limbs that ended in strange, twisting and bleeding claws that looked like the flesh of the hands and feet had split apart, the fingers and toes elongated and sharpened into dangerous appendages. Their spines were fused together in a monstrously mish-mashed way, and the head, though upside down, looked at them with beady eyes. Both mouths opened and roared before the long tongue from the lower corpse shot out at Lloyd's foot, wrapping around his ankle and pulling him down.
Fawkes quickly grabbed Lloyd by the shoulders and pulled back while Cross took out her laser pistol and fired at the thing, her scorching red beams leaving quite the painful impression on it. Amata pulled out her sword and moved to a position to raise it up and bring it down on the tongue, severing it. The two groups fell back from each other, the monster raising the tongue up. From the severed hole dripped a bright yellow pus-like substance before the tongue pulsed and small tentacles emerged. The thing, moving on all four limbs, began approaching them. Lloyd, pulled back by Fawkes, pulled out his laser rifle and fired at it, the modified lens causing eight beams to strike the creature, which roared in pain from both of its mouths.
Lloyd and Cross both continued firing with their laser weaponry until the monster was covered in black marks and charred flesh. It fell backwards, landing on its side, all of its limbs twitching until it finally seemed dead.
Lloyd panted as Fawkes helped him up. He approached the misshapen mutant, reloading his rifle's microfusion cell. "What… the hell… is this… thing?" he asked, at a loss for a better descriptive term, but nobody had any answers.
"Oh god, I think I'm going to be sick…" Amata said as she looked at it. Lloyd shared her sentiment and turned away from it. At that moment, Amata noticed something moving on Lloyd. The tongue that she had cut had grown small insect-like limbs, looking very much like a fleshy pink centipede with a bulbous mouth of its own, and was now proceeding up his backside. She nearly screamed as she reached out and took hold of it, throwing it to the ground. Cross looked and saw it, blasting it a few times with her laser pistol until flames took over its body, causing it to shrivel up and die.
As Lloyd looked at the centipede-tongue burning, the stomach area of one of the burnt halves of the combined super mutant burst open, the flesh rupturing from within as the living organs and bones of the creature spilled out and began taking new form. They watched in gross horror as what looked like vaguely-human-super mutant fetal hybrid began forming amidst the wet, shiny organs, with gnashing teeth and twisting hair and two sets of eyes, with pores that sweated blood. The combined intestines of both super mutants spilled out and split apart into reaching tentacles that aimed in their direction and began moving.
Lloyd, Amata and Cross wasted no time and began firing at the new horror, not stopping until it too burst into flames from their laser assault. They watched as it screamed in pain, recoiling from the flames and trying to escape, desperately pulling itself along the ground with tentacles and half-formed limbs. It shriveled up and died after a moment, and didn't get back up.
From further back in the vault, they heard more howls and moans from countless mouths. "It wasn't alone," Cross said. She checked her ammo. "I don't have many energy cells left."
"Me neither," Lloyd breathlessly replied. He looked back at the burnt centipede-tongue that had been crawling up him, wild theories forming in his mind.
"Don't let it touch you," Fawkes said to them. "It seems to play with flesh…"
Lloyd nodded. "And it doesn't seem to like fire. Keep your shots sparing, and maybe we can make it back to Little Lamplight and seal off the exit."
Amata agreed. "Whatever the case, we need to get out of here—now!"
They took off running, hopping over the burnt corpses of the super mutants and their "offspring." As they ran through the vault, numerous terrifying things cried out after them. The bags of gore the super mutants of this place had collected now wriggled with newfound life as unknowable fleshy creations grew inside of them, consuming the rotten flesh and adding to their own mass. Small slugs and maggots lined the floors, sucking on spilt blood like leeches, gorging themselves.
Corpses they had left in their wake were getting up and moving on their own, in ways impossible to normal physiology, with limbs twisting behind themselves and bending in directions the bones would normally never allow—sometimes the bones themselves tearing out of the flesh entirely and merging with others in new ways. They passed a human corpse whose face was ripping itself apart, with crab-like legs clawing out of the skull as the eyes rolled up into the backs of their sockets. The walls seemed to quiver as fleshy masses crawled up parts of them, with eyes and mouths and nostrils and other human-like shapes that should not exist in such a way.
But the piles of flesh that were the combinations of multiple corpses were by far the most grueling to behold. There was no beauty to them, no symmetry or reason behind the shapes they took, only madness and the endless hunger for more to add to itself. It was as if a pile of bodies was simply merging together, limbs and heads and tentacles reaching out, splitting open, spewing blood and bile around the walls, tracking their movement with numerous eyes as they ran past and chasing after them by crawling on multiple arms and legs.
For the sake of their own sanity, they kept their eyes focused solely on the direction they were running and paid little attention to the abominations that were crying at them in hunger and taking up pursuit. Discharges from their laser weaponry were few, used only to discourage any of the things that got too close to them. Fawkes smashed one to the ground with his hammer, but it only got back up and continued chasing them after they had passed it, changing its head around to make a new mouth where his hammer had impacted the flesh.
They made it back to the atrium near where they had first entered. "Where do we go from here?" Amata asked, shooting at what appeared to be a crawling head with spider-like legs that was scurrying along the walls nearby.
Lloyd checked his Pip-Boy's local map, trying to discern their next path. Cross looked and saw one of the things shamble around the corner. A few shots from her laser pistol and it fell back, but upon pulling the trigger back, she found her pistol's energy cells to be depleted. She checked her belt and confirmed, "I'm out of rounds!"
"This way!" Lloyd said, leading them down another hallway. The rusted steel of Vault 87 gave way to the unworked stone of Murder Pass as they left through the doorway they had originally come through, running back towards Little Lamplight.
Behind them, the masses of flesh continued their pursuit, merging together into one horrifying new form, a single entity bound by its insatiable lust for more flesh to consume and add to itself. The train of corpses and flesh bound together by a single will rushed after them, propelled by scores of limbs working in tandem, pulling and dragging at the same time like a horrifying engine of skin, blood and bone.
Fawkes, with his large and unwieldy form, found himself unable to maneuver as well as his human counterparts and tripped over a rock, tumbling into the darkness of the chasm below. Amata watched him fall and shouted back to the others to get them to stop. They did, but when they looked up and saw the head of the collective that was now close behind, a massive maw of teeth surrounded by grasping hands, darting eyes and biting mouths, they knew they could not help him.
Fawkes looked up in fear as the biomass of the monster chased after his friends, leaving him completely behind. It did not see him in the darkness. He watched as the worm-like assemblage of bodies passed over the gap above him, and when the echoes and screams from it were far away, he began to climb.
The three power armored humans squeezed through a small tunnel of stone and made it to the gate. They charged through the gate and into Little Lamplight, quickly sounding the alarm to all of its young populace with their firearms. Lloyd tore off his helmet and shouted at the top of his lungs for them all to run towards the exit and waste no time. The inhuman roars behind him gave the children all the extra incentive they needed as they quickly grabbed anything they thought they would need and ran towards the cavern's entrance.
As the three adults ran into the main complex of Little Lamplight, they heard a loud noise from behind them as the monster smashed through the rock and into the cavern proper, the noises from its many mouths echoing off the walls. Lloyd looked up as it tore through several of the wooden shacks and support beams, tearing down bridges with its many flailing tentacles. Dogs barked at it and ran way as it crashed through the town, destroying everything in its wake.
Amata ran by a small girl in a pair of pink pajamas who stumbled and hit the ground hard, crying. Without missing a beat, she scooped the girl into her arms and kept running. Lloyd ran by what served as the hospital, looking through the open door to see two children struggling to lift the mayor, RJ, still unconscious from when Lloyd stuck him with a needle of Med-X.
Not looking back at the horror he knew was growing near, Lloyd ran inside and told the kids to get back. He lifted MacReady up onto his shoulder and told the other two to run. The four of them made it out of the wooden shack just as a massive, fleshy tentacle came down upon its roof, flattening the building completely.
The children all screamed as they ran away from the thing that rampaged through their home after them. Up ahead, the gate that usually blocked anything from the outside getting in was now keeping everyone inside from getting out, and they didn't have time to open it the usual way. Star Paladin Cross charged in front of the throng of children, lifting her super sledge up high. She brought the ARM down upon the gate, tearing it in half and creating an opening large enough for an adult in power armor to pass through.
The children poured through, running towards the surface. Above, the night sky had begun to give way to the dawn, with the sun's rays beginning to fall upon the Capital Wasteland. Lloyd, Amata and Cross were among the last three to leave the cave, and were thus among the last three to see at least thirty Enclave soldiers pointing their weaponry at the group. Lloyd stopped dead in his tracks as he saw the soldiers in black power armor.
"You gotta be fuckin' kidding…" he muttered.
"Drop the children and get down on the ground! Now!" one of them called out.
Lloyd held up his helmet, still in his right hand. "You don't understand! We need to leave, right now!"
"I said get down!" the soldier said, charging his plasma rifle. "I won't say it again!"
"There's a gigantic thing chasing us!" Lloyd warned them. "We need to—"
The entrance to Lamplight Caverns erupted in a shower of stone and wood as the creature emerged. The soldiers all backed up and the children ran as it reared upwards, its massive circular maw opening to bellow out across the land in a nerve-shattering chorus of a hundred mouths screaming at once. Its body, itself a collection of bodies, rippled and shifted as portions of it tore open, allowing massive new limbs to emerge, looking like a cross between insect and crustacean, covered in spines and small hairs, digging into the earth as it lifted itself up.
Its tail end began to change, splitting into three separate, long prehensile tentacles, each ending in a wide mouth with rows of teeth. The wormlike head of the creature seemed to fold outwards on itself, allowing a flower of fleshy tendrils and eyes from within its mouth to emerge and cover its head. New, boney teeth grew to join the old ones, creating a throat designed to tear apart anything that entered.
The Enclave, though stunned by the appearance of the monster, wasted no time and began attacking it, firing volleys of lasers and plasma into its side. It reacted in pain and rampaged towards the new attackers, slamming its head down on top of one of them and swallowing the soldier whole, power armor and all. Lloyd, Amata and Cross ran as the former inhabitants of Little Lamplight scattered, running in different directions from the battle.
The soldiers continued fighting the thing, one of them evening managing to lob a plasma grenade down its open maw, tearing open a hole in its stomach. Its head scooped down and ate another soldier, swallowing him down into its insides. One of its large legs lifted up and stepped on another soldier, impaling him through his armor. The soldiers were starting to lose morale.
From atop a hill to the north emerged Sigma Squad, carrying their heavy incinerators. Standing next to each other, the six soldiers took up firing positions and began pelting the monster with fireballs. Each heavy incinerator shot a glob of explosive material that had been ignited by the weapon and, upon impact, would explode and shower the area with flames. The thing, though massive, was helpless against this as fire was its only weakness, the only thing that could stop the flesh it had taken over.
It fell back from their assault, stumbling on its massive limbs, dragging its misshapen body through the dirt and the rocks, but their combined weaponry soon had the entirety of its body in flames. Coupled with the regrouped Enclave soldiers who also began firing upon it, soon the monster was laying very still, every inch of it covered in rolling, burning fire. Portions of it popped and tore open as smaller things from within were formed to try to escape, to try to survive, but Sigma Squad quickly surrounded the mass and ensured that nothing from it would live to crawl away.
Though the threat to the wasteland had been stopped, the Wandering Pair had no cause to celebrate. They and a number of the children had unwittingly retreated into a small rocky canyon and could proceed no further. The soldiers of the Enclave quickly had them surrounded. They were called upon to throw down their weaponry, or the Enclave would open fire on the children.
Lloyd's head hung low in defeat as he dropped his helmet and his rifle to the ground. Amata looked at him with uncertain eyes, but a single glance from him and she knew that there was no point in resisting. She too began dropping her weapons, as did Cross.
The soldier who had ordered them lowered his plasma rifle. "Do you have the G.E.C.K.?" he asked.
Lloyd closed his eyes and nodded. Amata opened up his backpack and lifted it up for their eyes to see.
At the mouth of the canyon, a unique trooper appeared. He wore armor that neither of the three of them had ever seen before. It had a series of bright, glowing bulbs on the pauldrons that generated a field of electricity that ran around the armor, creating a barely-visible forcefield around him. The armor itself was a little brighter than others, more a coppery brown than the black-grey power armor the Enclave usually wore. A strange rifle was magnetically secured to his back and a sword was belted at his hip.
But the most notable distinction this armored individual possessed was that the gauntlet of his armor on his left arm had been removed to allow for a Pip-Boy 3000.
And whoever he was, he was staring Lloyd down through the lens of his helmet.
Lloyd, his helmet still in his hands, stood with his shaggy brown hair and unkempt facial hair and narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "Who are you?" he asked the Pip-Boy wearing soldier.
The figure said nothing as he closed the distance between them, raised a power fist and slammed it into Lloyd's face, the powerful piston-assisted punch knocking him out cold. Amata rushed to his side to help him as the figure turned and walked away. At the top of the slope, Colonel Autumn appeared and looked down at them.
Amata looked up and saw him, freezing in place. "You… You're dead…"
"Not quite," he said, walking down towards them. "We have transport nearby that will take you three to be interrogated. There's no point in any further resistance."
"You killed my father… Both of our fathers…" Amata said, reaching for her gun. Several of the Enclave soldiers raised their weapons in response.
Autumn, with his hands held confidently behind his back, merely smiled. "James killed himself, Miss Almodovar. But there's no point in arguing semantics. You two are traitors to the United States government. You've had a good run, I'll give you that; put a lot of good, honest American soldiers in their graves; soldiers with wives and families. But unless you want to be responsible for many more deaths, starting with your friend and these children, you'll come along quietly."
Amata's hand dropped. "Don't hurt the kids," she said, defeated. "We'll come if you let them go."
Autumn nodded. "You've my word. Come along now, it's a fresh new day and we've got plenty to do."
"Let them go first," Amata insisted.
The colonel sighed. "Children, run along now."
The kids looked between both groups of adults. "Be safe," Amata told them. "I'm sorry." They picked up the unconscious MacReady and ran past the Enclave soldiers, who were held back by Autumn's command. The children quickly vanished amongst the many rocks and cliffs of the area.
Autumn looked back to them. "There, see? A man of my word."
Soldiers moved past him to collect their weaponry and pick up the comatose Lloyd on a stretcher. Amata and Cross were escorted at gunpoint to a vertibird and forced inside. Autumn watched them go, a satisfied smile on his face. He had finally ended their winning streak. Now the Enclave had both the G.E.C.K. and the Wandering Pair, and nothing could stop them.
He looked back to the cliffs where the children had vanished to. He had never intended to actually harm them, but was willing to take advantage of their sentimentality. He closed his eyes and remembered a time, long, long ago, far before he was a colonel, before Raven Rock and President Eden. He had been a soldier in black power armor, like many others. Though the model of armor was different from what it was now, the Enclave was still very much the same, though they were under the leadership of a different president, President Richardson.
He remembered May 16th, 2241, the darkest day of his life. Far away from the ruins of Washington D.C., in the western region of the United States, he and a group of his fellow soldiers in a verti-assault squad were sent to Vault 13 to pacify its residents and round them up for various reasons that didn't become completely known to him until much later in his career. The Enclave had sent a coded transmission to the vault to have its residents open up the door, allowing the Enclave to kidnap the population.
He was nineteen years old. He was nervous. The door to the vault opened, and inside were people, surprised to see the soldiers in advanced power armor. The official report written about the incident that followed the opening was that one of the men was resisting arrest and had to be gunned down. But that's not what happened. The man merely waved, and it was cruel fate that a child, likely his daughter, moved to hug his leg. She was probably afraid of the men in scary black suits.
She had a right to be. Autumn, in a fit of nervous hysteria, had opened fire on the man, killing him.
Along with his daughter.
His superiors had covered it up. The rest of the operation proceeded smoothly; the population of Vault 13 was now subject to Enclave control. But Augustus Autumn had never forgotten the image of that dead girl, her wide eyes staring up at the fluorescent lights of her vault home, forever frozen in fear. He had never truly forgiven himself for what he had done, though everyone else did. 'Just two vault dwellers' they had told him.
Autumn was pulled from active duty and psychologically evaluated. During that period of time, the Enclave's plans on the west coast fell to ruin and the president, along with much of the remaining top brass of the Enclave, had been killed with the destruction of the oil rig they had made their base upon. All thanks to a single lone tribal.
Autumn was among the many remaining Enclave who rallied to the call of a new president, John Henry Eden, across the country in Raven Rock. The journey wasn't easy, but they eventually made it to the Capital Wasteland and hid, preparing for their next move. For more than thirty years, they had waited and planned. Autumn rose through the ranks, becoming one of the few to ever know the truth about John Henry Eden. Under his new president's tutelage, he reached the rank of colonel, ready to lead the Enclave in glorious conquest of the nation's former capital.
Conquest that soon would be complete. The Freeman child was in their possession, as was the Garden of Eden Creation Kit, two invaluable and final pieces of the puzzle. Soon, any resistance to Enclave rule would be stamped out. He felt as though a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders and he could breathe anew. With renewed vigor, he strode towards the vertibird, ready to return to Raven Rock and get this interrogation over with.
He paused, witnessing several Enclave scientists and assistant researchers examining the corpse of the monstrous thing that had emerged from Lamplight Caverns, which was now being explored by teams of Enclave soldiers to find and destroy any further mutations within. The large beast, charred completely by Sigma Squad, now baked in the morning sun. It was a disgusting sight, with twisted arms and slightly-human faces covering its burnt body. He shook his head and spit on the ground to rid himself of the bad taste in his mouth just from smelling it.
He entered the vertibird and the door sealed shut behind him. Moments later, the turbines flared to life and the aerial vehicle took off, heading north.
Back at the site, one of the Enclave researchers was exploring the body of one of the killed Enclave soldiers, who had been impaled by the creature's leg. Upon inspecting the severed corpse, he found signs of life in the fleshy mass of the stomach and waist area. As he reached out with a pair of tongs to take hold of an organ, it squirmed with animated life, growing small tendrils to try to free itself.
He quickly took out a sample jar and placed the organ within before ordering a squad to burn the remains of the victim, before both halves became completely reanimated. A soldier with a flamethrower torched the corpse, power armor and all, assured that it had been contaminated.
The scientist, Dr. Blair by name, held up the jar and inspected the sample within. It was no longer a recognizable human organ, for it had turned into a small, fleshy mass with finger-like legs and mouth with a thin tongue in the palm of the hand-like shape it now was. It scrambled about the sample jar, trying to find a way out. Blair put it inside a more secure steel case for transport back to Raven Rock for further analysis.
By late afternoon, the Enclave had finished their work at the Vault 87 site. They had swept through what remained of Little Lamplight, burning everything they could, before moving onto Vault 87 itself and doing the same. Any remaining remnant of flesh was eradicated and the vault nearly completely sterilized. Afterwards, explosives were placed in the FEV vat holding room, destroying what little supply the super mutants had remaining. After placing explosives at both entrances to Vault 87, they permanently sealed it away.
The last team to leave Lamplight Caverns was a small scouting party. One of their number lagged behind when he saw something moving amongst the cavern walls. The other members of his unit moved on without him, not noticing that he had fallen behind. The soldier, armed with a gatling laser, was confident that nothing could take him on and live.
He wasn't counting on an intelligent super mutant like Fawkes, however. The meta-human snuck up on the soldier and smashed his head in with his hammer, breaking both the hammer and the man's helmet. The man fell to the ground, dead, atop his gatling laser. Fawkes picked up the body and detached the ammo pack from the man's back before discarding the corpse down a nearby shaft. He then picked up the gatling laser, admiring its smooth build and the power it seemed to contain.
He test-fired it against the cavern wall, creating a stream of red laser beams that left a line of black marks on the stone. Fawkes smiled and turned the weapon off. From the moment he had been separated from his friends, he had hid in the shadows of the cave. He had watched everything unfold; the death of the monster, the capture of his friends, the sterilization of the caves. He had managed to remain hidden from the soldiers. They had taken the G.E.C.K. from his friends, rendering his repayment of their kindness in freeing him null and void, at least in his eyes. Now, they were prisoners as well.
He intended to do something about that.
He heard a noise to his left and turned, expecting to face the rest of the dead soldier's squad, but was instead faced with a little girl.
She looked up at him, dirty and clutching a teddy bear, petrified with fear.
He held up a hand. "Don't worry, little girl… I won't hurt you. I was just leaving…"
Suddenly, several more children appeared, some of them armed with crude weapons and low-quality firearms. They seemed apprehensive about fighting him, likely due to how he seemed large enough to eat them. He was probably a boogey man to them, he thought to himself.
"You must be the children who live up in this cave…" he said to them. "I have heard others talk of you… I mean you no harm. I wish only to leave… to find and to help my friends…"
"The knights?" one of the asked.
"Yes… Amata, and Cross, and Lloyd… They freed me from my prison. Now, they too are prisoners… and I wish to free them."
One of the kids, the biggest among them, held up his hand. "You're free to go. Not like we can stop you or anything."
The super mutant held up his hand as well. "I promise you, you won't have to… But what will you do? Your home is destroyed…"
One of the kids looked around the cave. "They burned everything up. We used to eat the mushrooms and other stuff that grew around here, but it's all burnt up now. I guess… I guess we can't live here no more."
"Maybe we should go live in Big Town," one of them suggested.
"What, and be bossed around by mungos all day?" another shot him down.
"Well, we can't live here no more!" a third piped up. "It's over! Little Lamplight is finished! We need to go live with the mungos if we wanna survive!"
"Please," Fawkes interrupted them, "if you could show me where the ones who took my friends went, I promise you I'll make them pay for destroying your home!"
They looked at each other before telling him to follow them. They reached the entrance of the cave, and after checking to ensure that the Enclave were gone, walked out onto the surface. They all pointed north, and Fawkes put a hand to his eyes to block out the sun above.
North. He'd travel as long and as far as it took to find his friends.
He waved to the children and wished them well, apologizing that he couldn't be of more help to them. They watched him go for a short while before heading east to find a new home for themselves.
Elder Lyons' eyes fell to the floor and closed as he heard the latest report on the Wandering Pair.
Before their capture, Star Paladin Cross had used her helmet to get one last message out to the Citadel, bringing them up to speed on all that had happened. Currently, the signal to her helmet had been lost somewhere in the northwestern regions of the Capital Wasteland, beyond the area of the Brotherhood's operational capability. Similarly, Lloyd and Amata's armors couldn't be tracked either.
"This is truly dire," he said in a soft voice. "Thank you for the report. Please, leave me now…"
The paladin saluted and exited the room, leaving Elder Lyons alone. The man stroked his beard before sitting down on his bed, wondering at the future of his beloved Brotherhood. He had fought long and hard against the many dangers of this land, but for all his efforts, for all of the blood and tears shed by the knights and paladins under his command, he had little to show for it. He had long ago sworn to help defend and protect the people of this land; forsaking vows he had made far west and, in doing so, alienating half of his people into leaving him and forming their own splinter faction.
Owyn had fought what felt like a losing battle for years. Years of grim battle reports, of lost soldiers and overrun supply posts. Years of trying desperately to contain the super mutants who seemed to always replenish their numbers with reinforcements. Years of fighting the bleak, consuming depression that life in the wasteland brought to all within it, years of holding onto the slimmest threads of hope that could be found out there in the bombed-out ruins of civilization.
But now, it was all poised to slip through his fingers. The Enclave held the purifier, the G.E.C.K. and the Brotherhood's newest recruits, along with one of his dearest friends and the only Star Paladin in the chapter. Soon, the Enclave would be ready to turn the purifier on, and once they did, how long could the Brotherhood's resistance to their regime last?
A knock at his door brought him out of his painful thoughts. "Come on," he said, clearing his throat.
Sarah entered with her helmet underneath her arm. "Father?"
He looked his daughter in the eyes. "They've taken them, Sarah. Freeman, Almodovar and Cross, along with the only thing that can get the purifier working. The Enclave has them all."
Her blue eyes blinked a few times and her brow furrowed. "Is there nothing we can do?"
He shook his head. "I think not. The Enclave is utterly fortified around the purifier and we know nothing about their base of operations; its location, its defenses… No, Sarah. I'm afraid… I'm afraid we need to consider what will happen when the Enclave activates the purifier."
"That won't happen," she insisted. "We can stop them. If we just give up now, what kind of message does it send to the people? To Lloyd, Amata and Cross?"
He turned away from her, as if to hide his shame. "I'm sorry, Sarah. But I just don't see what we can do any more." He let out a long, sad sigh. "It's been so long, Sarah, since I've had a chance to breathe easily… It's been so long since I haven't had to worry about my people dying. And now… now, the death of this entire chapter stares me in the face, and I question the point of standing in the way of… inevitability."
Sarah quickly moved alongside her father, placing a hand on his shoulder. "Dad! Stop talking like this! You're the Elder of the Brotherhood of Steel, damnit, and we do not quit. We're going to fight to the very end, no matter what. Even if we have to take the Enclave and the purifier down with us, then by god, we'll do it."
"And forever be known as those who denied the wasteland free, clean water the Enclave would have given it," he replied, almost jokingly.
Sarah, however, was dead serious. "In a thousand years, people might not remember who fought over what, or why. They might not even know that it was a few who stood against many. But that's not what matters, father. What matters is that we know it, and that we make a stand, right now, in this life. Not in the next one, and not in the one after that, but here and now. You taught me to fight for what I believed in, to fight for the goodness that all people are capable of. What does it say about us if, in our darkest hour, we forsake everything we have stood for up until now?"
Owyn looked at his daughter, seeing the fierce determination in her eyes. He saw so much of her mother in them.
Reaching up to take ahold of her hand, he spoke to her, "Sarah… I know you're right. I'm just a foolish old man who's grown tired and weary of the world, who can barely stand under the weight he's carried on his shoulders for so long. I'm afraid that this latest report was more weight, and that I've finally done what I have fought so long against doing. I've buckled under the weight, Sarah. I've let it finally catch up to me."
"Don't say that. You've always been a good, noble leader. You still are. Every man and woman in this building would fight and die for you."
"And they have, for many years," he said. "And after a while, you grow tired of it all. Constant fighting, scrounging to survive, little improvement… For so long, it's been like this. I'm tired of it all, Sarah. I can no longer deny it. And now, this new group of people… The Enclave… They come along with superior equipment and accomplish more in just a few days than we have in years…"
"We can stop them, father," she insisted. "Theirs is the wrong path. You know this. We're not going to let them win and cause us to wither and die. We're going to beat them."
He looked at her, managing a weak smile. "My daughter, the warrior. You've grown so much, Sarah. You're the greatest soldier I have ever known, and I couldn't possibly be prouder or ask for more in a daughter." She looked away, smiling a bit from the compliments. "And soon… Soon, you too shall be ready for the title of Elder."
She looked at him in surprise. "Father, I—"
He interrupted her. "You are staying strong while I am faltering. The soldiers of the Brotherhood look up to you as much as they do to me. You will be a wise and strong Elder, Sarah. I have spent my entire life preparing you for this, and I know you will continue to make me proud."
She was speechless. Looking away, she took a deep breath, managing to find the words to reply. "Father, it's still too early to step down. I… I don't think I'm ready yet."
"You will be, in time," he told her, rubbing her cheek. "And I will not live forever, Sarah. Age has turned me into an old man, and made my judgment weak. You have youth, and the strength of spirit I no longer have. When the time comes, you will take my place and lead the Brotherhood, and none will argue with the decision. Everyone knows you are ready, Sarah. And soon, you shall too."
He took her chin into her hands to look her in the eyes before pulling her into a hug. "I love you, Sarah."
"I love you too, Father…" she said. "And I feel the same way… I couldn't be more proud of you, nor could I ever ask for a better father."
They held onto each other for some time, enjoying the moment they got to share not as Elder and Sentinel, but as father and daughter.
Sarah looked up to the ceiling, keeping herself from shaking. Though she had remained strong in front of her father, the truth was that on the inside she felt just as uncertain as he. Wherever they were, it was up to Lloyd, Amata and Star Paladin Cross to save themselves and retrieve the G.E.C.K. before it was too late.
If they didn't, she feared it truly would mean the end of them all.