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Any and all original characters (OC) belong to their respective owners and will be credited.
I only own the original characters that I make.
The author's notes will be at the bottom in bold text.
"normal Speech"
Inner thoughts
"telepathic speech"
(foreign languages translated)
Speeches may be combined if necessary.
Thank you, and please enjoy the fanfic.
[Mathew Howard POV]
After five minutes of quiet brooding, I finally decided to get up and enter the destroyed town. "Mike, do you know where dad might have gone off to?" I asked my AI companion.
"Negative, not enough information to make an accurate approximation to James Howard's location," replied Mike in his robotic voice.
"Figures. Still, thanks for trying anyway Mike." I responded while I walked down the decaying street.
As I walked down the street, I saw a floating robot that looked like some knock-off of some Russian satellite I read of back in the vault. "Hey Mike, think you can hack this thing and take control of it?" I asked.
"Affirmative, assuming direct control." Replied Mike as he took over the machine, causing it to shudder in the air, the music suddenly turning off, before it quickly stills and turns towards me.
"Hack successful." Cheerily replied Mike.
"Awesome, so what is this thing and what kinda stuff can it do?" I questioned Mike, interested in what this bot had in store for us.
"The machine is designated as Eyebot, developed by Robco Industries designed for various purposes from civilian use to military applications. This model contains a low-focused laser weapon system, a broadcast system, information on the local flora and fauna, and mapping data, which I have already uploaded onto your Pip-boy." Answered Mike in a factual tone.
"Bitchin, got a kick-ass bot and a map; this is going to help us out finding dad." I replied, doing a little fist pump, happy at our luck.
"Negative, data is still insufficient to locating James Howard. Recommendation, find the nearest settlement and acquire gear and information as we can to increase both our odds of survival and finding the location of your father." Replied Mike, raining on my parade but also making a pretty good point. I don't crap about the outside world and could do with some better gear.
"Alright, do you have any information where we can find town out here?" I asked Mike.
"Affirmative, there is a settlement a short walk always designated as 'Megaton' as marked by the eyebot, its location is marked on your map." Answered Mike.
Alright, let's head out." I said, walking towards the town.
"Well, howdy-do yawl, I'm Lucas Simms, the town's resident Sheriff and Mayor. I notice that I have never seen your face around here, so I came on down to say hello and ask what sort of business you were hoping to do in town today." Replied an African American man in a duster with a cowboy's hat, complete with a shiny badge on the right side of his chest.
"…I came to look for my dad. Have you seen him?" I shyly asked to the sheriff, a little unsure of myself how to respond to him.
"Hrm, I've seen lota folks coming in an 'out of town, your gonna have to be a biiit more specific." Replied the sheriff, drawing the 'bit' out a little.
"He's white with black salt and pepper hair, slightly graying. He's roughly 52 years of age, and he has a pair of angel wings tattooed onto his back." I answered him with what I knew of my dad.
"OH! I did actually see someone look like that around here, but he left shortly afterward, though. I did see him go into Moriarty's Saloon, though, so you could ask the owner there, though I wouldn't recommend it. He's as slippery as an eel and as trustworthy as a snake. Anyway, what else can I help you out with?" Responded the sheriff, darkly at the mention of the saloon owner, before returning to his cheerful self again.
"Yeah, do you know where I can get some supplies from around here?" I quickly replied, a little unnerved when he spoke of the saloon owner.
"Sure, just take the ramp up the right, and that should take to Craterside Supply, run by Moira, can't miss it." Replied the sheriff happily.
"Yeah, that should be everyth-wait, what the FUCK IS THAT!?" I yelled out in panic as I looked past the sheriff and saw a huge, undetonated nuclear bomb in the center of town.
"Oh that, it's just the bomb in the middle of town, why else do you think this place is called megaton?" said the sheriff, unnervingly calm about the exchange, before he looks around over his shoulders and leans down and whispers, "What most folks don't realize that it's still a threat and could go off any day now, I don't want people poking around the thing and go setting it off."
"Well, how about I could give disarming it a try? I have some experience with bombs." I said, which is sort of true; I did use cherry bombs to prank people back in the vault and use them to blow open locks to stuff. Besides, I have Mike and some idea on how to disarm stuff due to watching a lot of movies with my dad.
Sheriff Lucas simply took a look at me for a few moments, mulling over the decision around in his head, be he muttered, "Fuck it." Under his breath, and said, "Sure thing kid, better you than anyone else in town, either that bomb goes off, or it gets disarmed. If you can manage to disable it, there be 100 caps in it for yall."
"Make it 500 and it's a deal." I said without skipping a beat. What can I say? I see an opportunity and I go for it.
"Deal, and I'll even throw in the deed to one of our unused houses for you too." Said the sheriff, sweetening the deal. It looks like he wanted the whole bomb fiasco over and done with so he could go on with his life.
So, after our exchange, I walked on down to the bomb to put my incredibly mediocre skills in bomb disarming to use. After taking a good look at the arming switch, I realized that the bomb simply had the arming switch set to off, so I just took out the whole switch and covered the hole with some scrap metal that I had with me and went to tell the sheriff that the bomb was dealt with. The sheriff was just floored with how fast it was and said he should have done this years ago and gave me a set of keys to a house nearby and the 500 caps he promised. It was kinda funny how my dad wanted me to start a bottlecap collection back in the vault, It almost seemed like he knew what it was like outside, but that shouldn't have been possible. Then again, he did leave the vault, and everyone thought that was impossible too, so who knows.
Anyway, I went up into Craterside Supply to grab some supplies from the owner. She was, cheerful to say the least, but after selling all the crap I don't need, I managed to grab a set of armor for free and buy a few medical supplies, ammo, a backpack, a gun called the Xuanlong assault rifle, and a combat shotgun. Good thing that Pip-boys can turn items into digital information a store it...somewhere. Huh, I actually need to look into how that works at some point in the future.
I also decided against my better judgment to help out Moira with her book in exchange for caps, supplies, and unique items that she makes. The first thing I did was drink the irradiated water beside the bomb, and I quickly realized that I made a horrific mistake and started vomiting my food and what I can only guess a few pints of my blood. I made it back to Moira and got at least that particular chapter in her book out of the way. But an interesting thing to note as she was checking over my DNA, she noticed my body was rapidly healing itself and theorized that I had a regenerative mutation before I got exposed to the radiation; I don't know how that happened. Maybe I just got lucky and got good genes.
I did tell her that whenever I hurt myself back in the vault, I would get better after a few hours, but I thought that was just, you know, normal. But she told me that wasn't the case at all, that this regenerative 'power' was too natural to be a mutation either. More questions, and not enough answers.
After that interesting bit and being paid with anti-radiation medicine, I manage to find a guide for the wasteland, and it was 'interesting.'
[Jericho POV]
"What the fuck you eyeballing me for punk?" I told off this little shit of a kid. He looked around 13 years old, 14 tops, with short spiky black hair, green eyes, and some freckles on his cheeks, with a ' I don't know my ass from my balls' look on him with how he was looking at everything like it was his first time, especially when he looked like he was wearing some vault security armor with a lab coat over it.
Though it was kinda funny that he started puking his guts out after drinking the irradiated water by the bomb, so I got a good laugh out of that. But now he's been following me ever since he left Moira's shop, and it's starting to piss me off. I just walk away from him and he just keeps following me. Can't an ex-raider get some damn peace and quiet every once in a while, eh?
Finally, I had enough and round on the punk and asked, "What the fuck do you want, you little snot-nosed shit?" hoping to scare'em off.
Immediately he says, "I want to hire you as a guide." Well, it looks like the punk has some balls, but I ain't convinced.
"So, what's in it for me?" I ask the punk condescendingly.
"Caps, action, and you not having your ass sent to a jail cell." The punk says.
Wait, …WHAT!? I suddenly thought to myself after I process what the punk just said to me.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" I ask the kid, confused.
"I've noticed that you had this look on your face that says your pretty much bored sitting around doing nothing. Going off on your attitude, I would say you were some kind of ex-bandit, and seeing how you look to be in your 60's, I'd say you were quite good at it before you settled down here. But seeing how your hands tend to shake and your irritated hostile behavior tells me that you have a drug addiction of some kind. Am I wrong on any of these counts, Mr.?" explained the kid, going through each tell point by point before ending it with a cocky look on his face.
"…What did you want with me again, kid?" I ask the kid, stunned in disbelief.
"What I want is a guide, I don't know my way around the wasteland, and you seem like the best sort to guide and teach me how to survive it. In exchange, I am willing to give you a reason to go back into the action, make some caps, and should we come across any addictive substances, I am willing to look the other way for your cooperation. Does that sound like a fair deal to you?" said the kid before he held out his hand.
I took one look at him before I shook his hand and replied with "Deal." He's still a punk, but he does have a pair of balls on him though.
[Mathew Howard POV]
So, after successfully blackmailing my foul mouth guide, I learned that his name is Jericho and that he'll meet me at the gates after he grabs his stuff and tells the sheriff that he's leaving his guard job. I headed to the 'infamous Moriarty's Saloon' to find out where my dad went.
After I entered the saloon, I went up to the bar and waited for the bartender to come up to me. As I waited, I decided to take a look around the place from where I was until I heard a gravelly voice say, "What can I do for you smooth-skin?" I turned to look at the speaker and froze, my skin going pale with fear as I looked at what I could only describe as a zombie with dead fish-like eyes looked at me with an irritated, bored look on its face.
"Let me guess, first time you ever seen a ghoul, right?" the creature questioned, though it looked like it already knew the answer. I simply shook my head up and down in reply, too scared to even speak.
"Alright, so I'm only going to tell you this once, so you better listen, got it?" the 'ghoul' told me before continuing, "Ghouls are people who absorb a metric fuck-ton of radiation, only instead of mercifully dying in slow, agonizing pain, some people have their hair and some of their body parts fall out, and their skin dry out like beef jerky. The only upsides to being a ghoul is your completely immune to radiation and can pretty much live forever. Have you understood any of this so far?" said the ghoul, I nodded my head in 'yes' again, but this time quickly getting over my fear of what was in front of me.
I asked the ghoul where I could find the saloon owner, and he said that Moriarty was in his office and led me to it. That's when things started getting, weird. Moriarty took one look at me and said that he hadn't seen me since I was a baby. I was understandably confused as to what the hell he was going on about, but he did mention that he knew where my dad was going and tried to hustle me out of a 100 cap to tell me his location.
I noticed that he had a computer in his office and declined his offer, went outside, and asked Mike if he could hack Moriarty's computer and see if he had any information on where dad was and see if he could grab any blackmail material to hold over Moriarty. Mike was able to do so and found that dad went to a place called Galaxy News Radio Station and that the place was a warzone between the Brotherhood of Steel and a band of marauding Super Mutants, whatever those are.
It just goes to show that nobody should ever try to hustle me. Ever.
Later I left Megaton with Jericho; I went into a seemingly abandoned house, only to quickly learn that it was occupied when the owner shoved a gun into my face. I manage to convince the women that Moriarty didn't send me; I gave her the blackmail material in exchange for 200 caps. When I got back to Megaton, I later heard that the sheriff came across the information and used it to kick Moriarty out of town, and the ghoul became the new saloon owner.
Anyway, I still had to help Moira with her book before I started looking for my dad again, so the plan was to go to a minefield and, when we come on back to Megaton, stop by the Super-Duper Mart on our way back. From what I understand with what is happening around the radio station, it seems to be a complete warzone, so we are going to need as many supplies as possible before venturing out there.
Hopefully, nothing too dangerous happens out on the minefield. After all, what's the worst that could happen?
Authors Note
Hello and welcome back; I hope I've gotten your attention with this story.
Now at least one of you left actual criticism about the last chapter. The rest just left facts about Warhammer 40k.
This story is going to cross over with many games and franchises. Simply put, I plan to make other stories that take place in this universe that will include Nier Automata, Halo, Transformers, and Destiny. And that's to just name a few. But right now, it's just this story to introduce us to the world just like our main character. We are supposed to learn the world WITH him, understand. Iron man 1 didn't have Thanos snap his fingers in the first movie, now did he? This story will take time, so I ask you simply enjoy the ride and make criticisms where they are due. Trust me, I want to get straight to the good stuff too, but it needs to be built up for it to mean anything. A lot of things will be explained later, so please relax.
This world is simply undiscovered by anyone within the Warhammer universe, so the only Warhammer presence at this moment are lost space marines from 3 different chapters but have the same primarch. You have to figure out who they are, but I did leave a few clues in the 2 chapters so far to help you out.
On the matter of AI, halo isn't the only universe to use AI. Warhammer has AI, Fallout has AI, and Halo has AI. They are a significant plot point for LATTER, and they will be addressed when it is needed. I know of the imperium's stance on AI, that part of the plot, so please have patience. I simply glossed over the important rules of AI. The rules regarding the AL life cycle is this; AI are fine until they experience rampancy, which is when an AI starts to act out and disobey orders and become dangerous, a lot like puberty in a way. After a while, though, an AI would get its shit back together, and this process is called Meta-Stability, when an AI 'grows up' in a manner of speaking. That is all we know about how AI works in this universe.
Well, that's all I have to explain at the moment. If there is one thing to take away from this, it's this: be patient and give it time for it to tell its story. Most of this stuff will be explained in due time. In the meantime, please follow, favorite, and review.
Thank you and have a nice day.