Aqua Vitae 25

Sarah was off the ferry before it had docked. She leapt into the shallow water of the bay and waded ashore, collapsing spread-eagled on the sun-bleached sand. Her eyes were shut tightly; she wanted to savor every detail, to remember the moment when she was finally free of the place.

Rothchild couldn't blame her. He watched, bleary-eyed from the deck of the Duchess Gambit as she jumped ship, heading for home. He'd spent the last few weeks cooped up with the woman, waking up every night to hear her screaming, and watching every day as she seemed to shrink form the world. She psent most of her time in the cabin, leaving the deck for Rothchild and the ferry's boisterous captain, Nadine. Though he'd never say it out loud, he was privately glad to finally get some distance from both of them. The captain had been cheerful enough, if unkind.

"What did I tell you?" she had said as they had paddled away from the Point Lookout docks, watching Gallows' tiny figure recede into the distance, "Only two or three in ten ever make it back."

As he turned to his right and stared across the bay at Project Purity, and the distant bulk of Rivet City, Rothchild wished he'd listened. As he had so many times on the trip back, he wondered how they could have done things differently, and decided that gathering more intel before they had set out would have been invaluable.

The boat docked with hardly a whisper, Nadine bringing the gap in the railing even with the wooden quay. Sarah was waiting there for them. Rothchild retrieved the G.E.C.K. from the cabin footlocker, and made to step off the boat. He was very much surprised when the boat captain pulled him back.

"I don't think so." She said, "You aren't going anywhere till I get my money. Neither is your doohickey." She looked at Sarah. "Sorry about this, but business is business…"

"Business…" Sarah murmured, stared at her.

There was a moment of tense silence.

Sarah held out her hand. "Someone will be down here with you money within two hours. Thank you for taking us both ways, Nadine."

Nadine hesitated, uncertain as to what the blond woman's intentions were. Eventually she decided that the Brotherhood were trustworthy enough, and took it. "My pleasure."

Sarah pulled forward, kneeing the redhead in the stomach. She grabbed the woman by the hair and drove her face into the railing, breaking her nose.

"What the hell are you doing?" Rothchild cried in horror, but the blonde young woman wasn't listening. Leaving Nadine lying on the deck, she shouldered open the door to the engine room. She disappeared inside and came out a few seconds later brandishing a tire iron.

"What da fug!" Nadine said, clutching her nose. She reached down to her waist for her pistol. "You bit-"

She was cut off in mid-sentence. With a metallic crunch, Sarah's first swing took out most of the red-head's teeth and sizeable chunks out of both her cheeks. Her second swing shattered the woman's collarbone. The third buried the tire-iron deep into the woman's skull, killing her.

Sarah pulled it out, panting heavily, and wiping her hands off on her tattered recon armour. She turned to Rothchild who backed away, holding up the G.E.C.K. as a shield.

"What the hell did you do?" he demanded wildly. "You killed her!"

Sarah tossed the bloody weapon into the Potomac and leaned against the railing, staring out at Project Purity with her now familiar vacant gaze. She said, "So what? People die all the time. I'll send the Pride down later to burn the boat…"

"Burn… what? Why?"

"No one is going back there, Rothchild!" She yelled in a sudden fit of fury, "Not now! Not ever! No one else is going to go through what I suffered. No one."

"What about Gallows?"

"There will be no rescue mission." Sarah said hollowly. "He made his choice. And if I ever find a way, I will burn that entire stretch of coastline clean off the map!"

Rothchild tried to avoid looking down at Nadine's corpse, but he found it tough.

"let's get back to the Citadel" Sarah said. "I have a few choice words for Jason. And my father."

Paladins Tristan, Glade, and Gunney were gathered at the Brotherhood's shooting range, accompanied by several senior knights as well as Dusk and Kodiak. Vargas, still recovering from his grievous injuries received during the Pride's stay in the Library, was seated in a chair nearby, watching the proceedings. Elder Owyn Lyons was beside him. Aside from them, the courtyard had been emptied at the Wanderer's instructions; he didn't want any accidents.

A table had been set up beside him with a set of strange looking weapons lying on it and several small glowing cylinders. He picked up the first weapon: a short stick with a heavy and elegant lattice globe at one end. He flicked a switch at the bottom and a bright light ignited at the center of the globe, sending beams of blue light through the cracks, and lances of electrical energy arcing around the lattice.

"This is a Shock Baton." He announced, waving it from side to side. It sizzled through the air, leaving the smell of ozone behind. "Not very stealthy, but it does a lot of damage, and I can tell you from personal experience that it causes a lot of pain. Not deadly, but debilitating."

He switched it off and passed it to the nearest Brotherhood knight. It was handed through the crowd, a few members giving it an experimental swing. After they'd had their time, he laid it back on the table carefully and picked up the next object: a vaguely pistol-shaped device, with the grip connecting two complicated cylindrical metal prongs together, mounted one below the other on a strange metallic assembly which glowed in certain places. The entire apparatus had a bulky, unwieldy feel to it, and it resembled nothing the soldiers had ever seen before.

"An Atomizer." The Wanderer told them. He took careful aim downrange at the straw dummy and fired. A small pulsating green orb zipped down the range at high speed, leaving a white blur behind it, and burning a hole through the dummy's head, scorching the concrete brick wall beyond. "Twenty shots until you have to reload." He said, tilting it on its side. He pulled a small glowing cylinder from it., identical to the ones on the table. "These are your clips. Batteries. Energy cells. Power modules…whatever you want to call them. Twenty shots per cylinder."

He motion Glade forward and handed it to him. "Try it."

The Paladin grasped the weapon carefully, testing its weight. The spectators waited with baited breath. He took careful aim and hit the target dead center, right between its eyes. The crowd broke into applause.

"It's a bit like firing a laser pistol." He said thoughtfully, "A little heavier, but not enough to make a huge difference. Where did you get this stuff?"

"First things first." Jason replied firmly. He took back the Atomizer and laid it on the table, picking up the next item: a strange-looking rifle with a compressed stock and ridiculously thin barrel ending in a miniature satellite dish. The mid-section was comprised of an awkwardly-shaped assembly, the top of which glowed bright blue.

"This is the Disintegrator" Jason told them, hefting the weapon. "It's horribly balanced, hard to grip, and has no real sight arrangement at all."

"Well… I'm sold." Kodiak said. The spectators sniggered.

"The advantage," Jason continued, ignoring them, "Is that you have one hundred shots before you reload."

Their smiles disappeared.

"It appears to draw on the power modules remotely." Jason said, holding it up for examination. "There is no magazine to be loaded. No battery to replace. No power cell to recharge. You prompt it to recharge by firmly smacking the glowing bit on the top." He did so, and the weapon hummed in response. He said, "Furthermore, once you get a feel for it, it is one of the most accurate things in your arsenal." He pulled Dusk forward and had her fire a few shots at the already damaged dummy. It took her about six to gain a feel for the weapon, but afterwards she was able to hit the dummy's pulverized head nine times out of ten. The small group cycled through the weapon, trying it on their own time, and looking considerably more impressed than they had started out.

"I've seen a lot of energy weapons during my time." Glade told him, pulling him aside, "But I've never seen anything like these. Where did you get them?"

"You'll find out yourself soon enough." Jason replied grimly. "You guys are going with me up north to collect hundreds of them."

"North?"

The Wanderer nodded. The crowd fell silent as he once again approached the table. The final weapon was enormous, looking more like a minigun than anything else, except that in place of the cluster of barrels, the device had a series of concentric plates growing smaller in size until they ended in a conical nozzle. A few knights backed away slightly.

"This… is the Drone Cannon." He hefted the weapon and took fifteen paces backwards, judging the distance. The crowd backed away as well, not wanting to be caught in whatever hell he was about to unleash. He widened his stance, steadying himself, and set the weapon off. Static crackled along the length of the conical front end, and a strange green light flashed between the cylinders. With a strangely static noise, the weapon emitted an orb of glowing green energy about the size of a basketball. It flew in a neat arc, bounced once off the sandy ground, and slammed into the dummy's chest. Then it exploded, filling the courtyard with bright green light. Everyone except Jason shielded their eyes. When they looked again, the dummy was gone. Vaporized, as was the barrier behind it, both dummies on either side, and much of the ground under it. A few plumes of smoke rose from the crater.

"Be very careful with this one." Jason told the silent watchers. "The balls bounce and explode after about three seconds. You have about four hundred shots before you run out. There is no way to reload or recharge it." He slid the atomizer into a pocket, slung the disintegrator over his shoulder and picked up the drone cannon. "I'm not going to let you play with it out here. There's too much risk of something going wrong."

"I'm glad to hear you have so much faith in us." Glade said.

The Wanderer turned to him and regarded him with a dry look. "Get everyone into the briefing room and I'll meet you there. This stuff is going into your armory and staying there until we're back from our trip." He headed for the nearest doorway.

Glade sidled up to Elder Lyons. "Looks impressive, Sir."

"Yes it does." Lyons replied.

"Where did he get it? I've never seen anything like it."

"Your guess is as good as mine, Paladin."

Jason stood in the center of the briefing room. At the far end was a map of the capital wasteland, with several locations marked on it. All of the knights who had attended his morning demonstration were gathered there as well as several scouts, and a few scribes, headed by Bigsley.

"Our target location is in the north." Jason told them, "Near the Greener Pastures disposal site." He checked his pipboy and pointed at the map. "right about here."

"That's hostile territory." Bigsley said.

"You'll be traveling with me, and the spoils will be worth it." The Wanderer replied. "You'll all be carrying sandbags, supplies, and some captured Enclave fortifications. What I'm giving you is valuable enough that as soon as you start using it, that location is going to be raided by everyone from simple wasters to supermutants to enclave personnel. We need to hold them off long enough to get what we want. Hopefully we can make it in two or three trips."

"Even if we manage to hold off any raiders," Glade said, "We'll still be vulnerable while traveling."

"Wrong." The Wanderer replied. "You'll be traveling with me. I'll be escorting all caravans to and from the retrieval site."

This prompted a look of relief from the scribes. Indeed the only one who seemed at all unhappy with it was Dusk, who did her best to keep her opinions quiet.

"We'll also need to send scouts to pick up Enclave armour from my Megaton and Rivet City stashes. I have plenty of armour, both regular and Hellfire. More than enough to outfit most of your knights."

"We'll be wearing Enclave power armour?" Dusk asked.

"They'd need a paint job." Glade added thoughtfully.

"All that crap is up to you." Jason said. "I'm just giving you the equipment." He walked up to an empty desk and pulled out a stack of paper. "I've written the stash locations on here along with relevant information." He shrugged. "Passwords and trap locations and such. The one in the bow of Rivet City is guarded by Mirelurks, so bring the necessary weapons." He handed the papers around the room. "I don't much care who retrieves it, so long as it gets back to the citadel intact."

He stood back and gave them all a moment to look over the papers. After he judged that they had had their fill, he cleared his throat to get their attention. He began to pace around the room., looking each man in the eye. "I want something understood: If I find out that this equipment is being sold, traded, or given to anyone who isn't a member of the Brotherhood of Steel, I will find you and crucify you." His steel-eyed gaze lingered on the suddenly frightened scribes. Bigsley, in particular. "If any of you tell our enemies, be they raiders, Enclave, Supermutants, or anyone else, I will find you, and I will skin you. Slowly. With a notched, rusty, and flaming lawnmower blade."

"I would appreciate it if you did not threaten my people, Mister Howlett." Lyons intervened. "Every man here is honorable."

"You do have a leak, Sir." Jason replied. "My cover got blown while I was investigating the purifier, and my 'employer' mentioned a member of the Brotherhood as being the Culprit. Until I know who, I will threaten, and I will carry through on any threats I make."

"It's in our best interests to make sure this stuff gets back to us intact." Glade said helpfully, diffusing things before they went any further. "I don't think anyone here can deny that. And we appreciate that you're sharing your resources with us."

The Wanderer nodded.

A scribe knocked at the door. "Sir, I have a message for Elder Lyons."

Jason glared at the scribe as he hurried across the floor and whispered in Lyon's ear. The Elder's eyes widened as he heard the message, and he stood. "Ladies and Gentlemen, This briefing will resume later. My daughter has returned from her errand."

Jason stared at him in shock, and he gave the Wanderer a pleading look. Give me a few minutes first…

Jason nodded and stepped aside to let him leave. The Pride followed, leaving the Lone Wanderer standing in the briefing room exchanging awkward glances with the scribes.

Glade followed just behind Elder Lyons as he walked into the Lyon's Den.

Sarah was sitting on her rickety mattress, staring blankly into space. She was wearing nothing but a shredded set of recon armour. The knees and lower legs were gone completely, as were the sleeves. The chest area had been torn and shredded into irregular strands, and almost every inch of the entire outfit was stained with blood. Her right shoulder had been badly burned, and wounds of all sorts were scattered all across her body, some grievous, some nothing more than scrapes or bruises. Her eyes were sunken and shadowed, creased by stress, and somehow dead. Her cheeks were hollowed and skeletal, as if she'd been starved for weeks. Her skin, which had been pale to begin with, was a ghostly white, and she was far thinner than any of them remembered. She seemed to consist solely of skin and bone. Something else was amiss, though. Something worse. She was diminished somehow. A stranger to them all. Even to her own father, who was fighting to find his voice.

The Pride watched as he crouched beside her and moved in to wrap his comforting arms around her. She recoiled, pushing him away. "Please don't." she said quietly. Using her fingers, she drew a careful circle on the lumpy mattress, creating an artificial barrier between herself and the rest of the world. "This is my space. You're all on the outside, and I'm on the inside, okay? I'm just not... not ready yet."

Glade moved further into the room. The Pride followed him and took seats on the beds around her, keeping a respectful distance. He noticed the small crowd of watching knights clustered by the door, and nodded at Kodiak, who rose and closed it carefully.

They waited for her, watching as she stared into space. There was something sinister in her gaze, as if she were not the only thing using her eyes to see.

Over his years of service, Glade had seen all manner of PTSD, and mental breakdowns. The ones who were scared, the ones who were tired, and the ones who just broke. But he'd never seen a look quite as uniquely haunting as Sarah's.

"Sarah?" Kodiak asked. She didn't respond.

"Where is Colvin?" Dusk said, voicing the question which had been bobbing in the back of Glade's mind. "Where is Gallows?" The Pride always unpacked together. They always decompressed together. Colvin and Gallows should have been at their bunks, stripping out of their stinky armour and prepping for debrief. Yet he saw only Sarah. There was only one conclusion to be drawn, but he had to hear it from her before he could accept it.

She began to speak, her voice raw and lackluster. "Knight-Captain Colvin, Killed in Action. Knight Artemis, Killed in action..." As she sounded out the death toll, a silence settled over the room. All four spectators stared at her in shock, taking in the tattered, blood-stained remains of her uniform.

She continued, ignoring the Pride, staring only at her father. "Knight Taylor, Killed in action through friendly fire. Knight Pek, killed in action. Scribe Vallincourt, killed in action-" she took a breath, "-Knight-Captain Gallows, Missing in Action. Star–Paladin Sarah Lyons, killed in action."

"Wait a sec-" said Kodiak.

"I'm sorry to report that all assigned T45d power-armour, recon armour, plasma rifles, laser rifles, plasma pistols, laser pistols, combat knives, food and medical supplies, and other relevant equipment has been lost save for my recon armour and Scribe Rothchild's robes."

She reached down under her bed and pulled out an exotic suitcase, handing it to the Elder. "Here's your G.E.C.K., Dad. Have a nice day."

This was followed by a deathly still silence. No one even dared blink. They were all too busy trying to absorb her report, and pondering her condition.

"How did they die?" Dusk asked.

"Painfully." Came the hoarse answer.

The suspenseful silence took on a mournful edge. Dusk rose angrily and stormed into a side-room. There was more silence, and then a crash. Glade followed and found her sitting against the wall, her helmet flung far away. A broken chair was lying in the middle of the room. It took Glade a moment to realize that there were tears on the woman's cheeks.

He slid down beside her, his gaze settling on the broken furniture. "It's funny, I always thought you hated Gallows." It was not funny, but she laughed anyway. She wiped her eyes roughly and sniffed.

"I did hate Gallows." She mumbled. "But Colvin…"

Glade nodded. Dusk and Colvin had always shared a rather complicated relationship. Two competing snipers, they had teased and harassed each other constantly, always maintaining that it was due to mutual dislike despite the fact that everyone knew better. It had been a matter of pride.

"Vargas is down…" She snarled. "And Sarah's FUBAR. Now Gallows and Colvin… It's just us, you know? You, me, and Kodiak."

"And the Wanderer."

"Yeah," she snapped sarcastically, "Because he's around."

"Do you want the rest of the day?" Glade asked gently. Her expression told him all he needed to know. "Report to Project Purity. You'll be lifting pipes or whatever manual labor they need. Turn your sniper rifle in to them when you get there. I'd rather not have you handling weapons until you're more calm."

Dusk nodded. He followed her back into the main section of the Den where Sarah was still sitting with her father. Kodiak had moved to his own bunk and was staring sullenly at the ceiling. When Dusk opened the door, she found herself face-to-face with the Lone Wanderer. They stared at each other for a moment, and then he moved aside. She kept up a steady, venomous glare until her path forced her to turn her back.

Glade presented him with a rather friendlier greeting in the form of a somber nod, but the surprising reaction was Sarah's. Her eyes had suddenly grown focused and crystal clear. Her voice was strong and measured as she gazed at him.

Glade watched as they stared each other down. The tension in the room was rising fast. Sarah's eyes had narrowed, her mouth drawn into a cold, thin, angry line. Her sudden shift from cluttered confusion to focused anger had the spectators reeling. The Wanderer was watching her with a cautious expression, bordering on hostile.

Sarah slid off the bed and walked over to stand in front of him. She gave him a cursory examination. "You changed your face."

"Long story." He replied. "Probably not as long as yours."

Sarah nodded silently.

He softened. "I'm sorry, Sarah. If I'd known you were going to Point Lookout, I would have-"

"Shut up." Sarah snarled. Glade watched as she drew back her arm and let loose a single, furious punch. The Wanderer saw the vicious right hook coming. He could have blocked it. Dodged it. Simply taken a step back… but instead he stood there and took it, stumbling slightly as he absorbed the blow. Sarah stood back and rubbed her fist.

The Wanderer straightened, still wearing the cautious expression. He reached up and gently massaged the stricken area. He seemed more baffled than hurt.

"Whatever benefits the Capital Wasteland, at any cost to yourself or anyone outside the capital wasteland…" Sarah said, shaking her head, "Do you know how many lives your MO cost us, Jason?"

"You're blaming me?" He asked, his face unreadable. His voice had become monotone; devoid of all emotion.

"Don't you dare go all 'Wanderer' on me, Jason!" She barked. "I'm talking to Jason Howlett! Don't you dare close up!"

Kodiak and Elder Lyons' attention oscillated back and forth between them. Neither of the spectators looked remotely comfortable with the situation. Glade himself was frowning. An argument was clearly going on, but to him it didn't feel like one.

The Wanderer sighed. "Why did you hit me?"

"Because you deserved it!" Sarah snapped as he rubbed his bruised chin, "Does everything have to be… look, maybe the world wouldn't be so horrible to you if you didn't treat everything in it like pieces in a giant game! Why does everything have to be a bargaining chip, Jason? Some things should just be left well enough alone! What else have you done that's waiting to bite us in the ass?"

"Nothing I can think of…"

"Where's the book, Jason?"

The Wanderer's confused expression deepened.

"The Book!" Sarah shouted, "Obadiah Blackhall's Book! Your fucking bargaining chip!"

His face fell. "So he had to-"

"Oh, he did!" Sarah giggled manically, "he really did! And Artemis paid for it! And Gallows paid for it! And Colvin, too. Did you put any thought into what taking that book away would do to that place?"

"Whoa, stop!" Glade interceded. Sarah glared at him, in sharp contrast to the Wanderer's grateful look. "What do you mean by 'paid for it', Sarah?"

She pointed an avenging finger at the Wanderer, "He took Blackhall's book when he visited and it was the only thing keeping Point lookout down. Now that it's gone, the place has gone to pieces and we were left holding the bag!" she turned back to Wanderer. "Gallows is still alive, you know that? We had to leave him behind because of what you did! He's caught playing cat and mouse with a…a ghost…thing… Genius Loci."

"Sarah, you aren't making any sense." Her father said gently. "Take a moment and-"

"Shut up, dad!" she turned on him. "How could you send us into that with no intel, huh? What the hell were you thinking? Or did you just want me to get out of the Wasteland before Jason had a chance to bend me over a table? It was hell, dad. You sent me into Hell! Do you have any idea how much I suffered there?"

Kodiak immediately move to support his Elder. The old man looked as though he'd been slapped. "I'm sorry Sarah." He was suddenly mumbling. "I'm sorry."

"Sorry is not good enough!" she began.

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" The Wanderer suddenly burst out, cowing her into silence. He turned to Kodiak first. "Get Elder Lyons out of here." The Paladin obeyed, supporting Sarah's frail father out of the room. He grabbed the G.E.C.K. as he went.

Only Glade, Sarah, and the Wanderer were left. She turned to him furiously. "You get the book, Jason Howlett! You go back to the wasteland and you get the book. You bring it to me, and let me do what I like with it! That was the deal I made with Blackhall." She laughed. "He followed through on his end of the bargain, and now I owe him a debt."

Jason sighed. "Sarah, your father-"

"Get. Out." She hissed, and Glade recognized a rapidly shrinking fuse when he saw it. He backed away a few steps, and hoped that the Wanderer had the same sense.

"But-"

"GET OUT!" She rushed forward and hit him again. "Get out!" she began punching every inch of him she could reach, hitting as hard as she possibly could. "Get out! Get out! Get out! Get out!" The Wanderer backed towards the door, blocking as many as he could, but the thud of her fists' impacts had become an omnipresent drone.

Glade rushed forward and grabbed at her arm as she drew it back. "Sarah, don't" but her hand wasn't where it was supposed to be. Before he realized what was going on, her fingers had closed on his laser pistol. She managed to get three wild shots off before he grappled it away from her. Two of them hit the Wanderer in the chest. In a flash, he had vanished, leaving only the smell of burnt flesh in the air. Glade wasn't entirely sure how, though. He was a little too preoccupied trying to hold down the struggling Star-Paladin, who was kicking at his power armour with unmatched ferocity. She brought her fist around, and his arm instinctively flew up to block. There was a crunch and she cried out as her knuckles broke on the hardened steel shell. Glade took advantage of the split-second the injury bought him. pulling his punch, he hit her in the stomach, making her double over. Then he picked her up by the front of her tattered recon armour and tossed her onto the nearest bed where she lay sobbing, clutching her broken hand.

"You're damned lucky that was the Lone Wanderer." He grunted, retrieving his pistol. "Anyone else'd have you court-martialed."

Sarah began to giggle wildly.

"I'm serious!" he continued. "Imagine if that had been me. Or your father…"

"It wouldn't matter." Sarah murmured, curled up in the fetal position. "None of it does. Not Jason, Not the G.E.C.K.. Not the purifier…All that matters is getting the book back before Ug-Qualtoth notices."

"You're not making any sense right now, Sarah." Glade told her in a softer tone. "I think you need some rest."

"Oh, no," she replied mournfully. "I'm making perfect sense. It's the world that doesn't make sense. There's no sense of scale… what are you supposed to do without a sense of scale, Glade?"

Paladin Glade sat on the bed beside her, keeping his weapons well out of her reach. He had a plan: he was going to wait until Kodiak got back, then they were going to take Sarah to the doctor and let him sort her out.

Dusk's words echoed in his mind: It's just us, you know? You, me, and Kodiak…

Everything was falling to pieces…

Presently, Sarah began humming a mind-bogglingly irritating song about Dear Hearts and Gentle people.

I know what it says about the Disintegrator in the wiki. I changed it up a little bit to fit what was happening in-game.

Nadine's murder was vicious, but I did say that Sarah was going to have problems.

This is the second to last chapter. The next one will probably be the final one, then I'll post the FAQ. I will not be covering the re-arming of the Brotherhood in this fic aside from a detail or two.

As far as the FAQ goes, if you guys have any questions, you'll want to post them now in the reviews and I'll answer them.

But it's nearly over! yay! :D