Chapter 34 - Raven Rock


"I still can't believe a friendly Frankenstein saved us..." A shell-shocked Paladin Reddin muttered, limping along as she was supported by Paladin Kodiak and Knight Captain Colvin.

The stimpak had barely stabilized her, boosted her natural regenerative abilities enough to stop her from bleeding out after that Enclave soldier had carved through her power armor and hamstring with the rotating chain-teeth of his ripper, but most of the drugs and cocktails had expired in the two centuries since it'd been manufactured. If she wanted to keep her leg, she had to stop putting her weight on it and seek professional medical attention as soon as she could.

She didn't have that luxury, though.

None of the Lyons' Pride did, battered and wounded as they were, reeling from their first loss as they were.

They never abandoned a member of the Pride.

"I still can't believe friendly Frankensteins even exist!" Kodiak replied. "No offense, Fawkes."

"None taken, friends." Fawkes, the friendly Super Mutant they'd found in Vault 87, answered as easily as he kept up with them, finding the weight of the Gatling Laser he'd liberated from the Enclave soldier to be negligible at best. "I'm honestly surprised by the fact that you actually gave me a chance."

"I'm surprised it paid off." Vargas replied from his position in front of them. "Honestly, I thought Sarah was crazy, when she suggested it..."

It had been six hours since the Pride had ventured into the depths of Vault 87, fighting their way through the hordes of Super Mutants infesting Murder Pass.

Six hours since the Pride had discovered the truth behind the Super Mutant threat, and the vats where humans were tossed into, and Super Mutants emerged out of. They'd sworn to return with more explosives soon.

Six hours since the Pride had discovered Fawkes, locked in a cell in the Vault, for the crime of not being a violent homicidal brute.

Six hours since Sarah Lyons had made the fateful decision to communicate with him, to release him from his prison, in exchange for his help in securing the GECK.

Six hours since the Enclave had ambushed them, as they'd been leaving the Vault.

The details of their recent and bitter defeat were still clear in their minds.

Flashbang grenades had been tossed into the Vault's atrium, just as their rearguard, Vargas, had entered the room.

Glade had had just enough time to shout a warning, before they had gone off, temporarily blinding and deafening the Pride.

Before a stunned Sarah (or anybody else, for that matter) could recover, a cryo grenade had been thrown at her, encasing her in a block of ice.

Enclave soldiers had subsequently flooded the room, firing at the disoriented Pride members from above, forcing them to retreat back into the relative safety of the Vault's interior.

The Enclave had followed them, and they'd been relentlessly pursued through the labyrinthian corridors of Vault 87, only surviving by the skin of their teeth thanks to their superior training and experience.

Paladin Reddin, carrying their communications equipment, had desperately tried to radio back to the Citadel to explain their situation, to call for reinforcements, but a plasma bolt missed her head and fried the bulky unit's antenna just as she'd mentioned that the Enclave had ambushed them.

Knight Captain Dusk had spun around and put two .308 rounds through the offending Enclave soldier's right eye before he could adjust his aim.

Knight Captain Colvin unwittingly one-upped Dusk at the next corner (much to her displeasure), as he put a round into a grenade before an Enclave soldier could throw it, engulfing his entire squad in a burst of plasma.

Knight Captain Gallows, split off from the rest of the Pride, set traps behind him as he'd been chased, and with each passing minute the number of Enclave soldiers following him dropped steadily.

When they'd reached a dead end, Paladins Glade and Vargas had promptly turned around and hosed their pursuers with laser beams, most of which merely scored the Enclave soldiers' advanced power armor mark II, designed to be superior to even T-51b power armor. The soldiers had still instinctively broken for cover, though, as their survival instincts and training kicked in, allowing Paladin Kodiak to close the distance with his super sledge, and even the odds.

And when more Enclave soldiers had arrived, and it looked like all that was left was one glorious last stand, Fawkes had burst through a nearby door, tossing the Enclave soldiers around like ragdolls with his bare hands, their light-weight power armor simply allowing them to fly further and faster, while Gallows came up behind him, a looted plasma rifle in hand.

In the end, the entire Pride had survived the ambush, albeit heavily wounded and low on ammunition and supplies. But when they'd regrouped, and done a headcount, they'd discovered they were one man short.

As they'd rushed back to the Atrium, adrenaline pumping and allowing them to ignore their injuries, they'd heard the whine of rotors, and found no trace of their leader or the GECK.

Sentinel Sarah Lyons and the objective had been lost.

"I guess there might be some truth to those rumors about a super mutant pacifist..." Glade murmured, as he tinkered with Reddin's damaged portable radio.

"You mean, there might be others like me?" Fawkes asked hopefully, his guttural voice grating on their ears. "I thought I was the only one who was different! The only one!"

"Easy there, Fawkes. It's just an old Wasteland tale." Kodiak told him, not wanting to get the super mutant's hopes up, just to disappoint him.

Ahead of them, Colvin and Dusk shifted slightly, reconsidering their policy of "shoot on sight". Then again, two Super Mutants out of two hundred thousand in two decades didn't prove anything; the Brotherhood had been fighting a war for its own survival against the Frankensteins. Not having had such a policy would have led to even more casualties.

"Gallows, Colvin, Dusk. Still got eyes on the Vertibirds?" Vargas asked the Pride's best eyes, ignoring the conversation behind him.

"Negative." Colvin shook his head, disappointment tinging his voice.

"They were still heading due North, though." Dusk added.

"Gallows, you still got maps from the Citadel?" Vargas asked.

Gallows just nodded, and pulled out a piece of paper.

Vargas studied it, and frowned. The maps from the ruins of the Pentagon held many secrets that even the Brotherhood hadn't initially known about, like secret government blacksites and fallback shelters.

They also knew the Enclave fancied themselves the legitimate successors of the Pre-War government.

And, according to the map, there was a military base and fallout shelter that just happened to be north of Vault 87, known only as Site R.

Vargas frowned, as he studied the map. It certainly was the most likely destination for the Vertibirds...

Which meant they were still a few hours away from what was, very possibly, the heart of Enclave operations in the Capital Wasteland (and, thus, a well-defended stronghold; the Enclave were genocidal fanatics, not stupid).

Vargas quietly weighed his options.

He could try to assault Site R with his currently-available troops - a friendly Super Mutant with a Gatling Laser, and seven Paladins and Knight Captains of the Brotherhood of Steel, most of whom were either injured, had suffered damage to their armor, were running low on ammunition, or any combination of the above.

Plan B was to return to the Citadel, gather reinforcements, and launch a rescue missions against Site R. Besides the obvious danger of returning to the Citadel without the Elder's only daughter, and the obvious problems with a direct assault against a fortified position manned by a technologically-superior foe, the Citadel was at least eight hours away by foot, and that was assuming they could just walk the entire distance without tiring, encountering any Raiders, wildlife, or Enclave patrols. If they took the safer routes, it would be days before they returned to the Citadel. By then, who knew what would happen to Sarah?!

Vargas chose Plan C, all of the above. Go on ahead, and try to get a message back to the Citadel while en route, informing them of Sarah's status and location. While waiting for reinforcements, they would scout out Site R, looking for any flaws, any weaknesses, anything they could use to gain an advantage.

"Glade, what's the status on the radio?" Vargas barked, turning to the oldest member of the Pride, and their technician and smith.

"I'm not a miracle worker, Vargas." Glade replied drily, even as he fiddled with the antenna. "There's only so much I can do with duct tape, you know-"

"- come in. Lyons' Pride, come in, over." The radio squawked as it suddenly came to life.

Glade stared wordlessly at the damaged unit. "There's no way we should be getting a signal all the way from the Citadel!"

"This is Lyons' Pride, send, over." Vargas quickly responded to the radio.

"Vargas? Is that you?" The voice on the other end of the radio came in quickly, rather than in the clear and concise tones they'd all been taught to use. "What happened at Vault 87? Where's Sarah?"

"Enclave took Sarah at Vault 87. We've been following their Vertibirds since then. What's your location, over?"

"We're about five miles south-east of Vault 87."

"Define "we", over." Vargas said, staring skeptically at the radio. How were reinforcements already almost here? They'd only gotten that message out hours ago!

"It had better be two full platoons of Paladins..." Kodiak murmured, to a round of general agreement.

"Oh, sorry. It's just Jaune and me, Ruby."

There was a stunned silence, as the Pride stared incredulously at the radio, and Vargas belatedly realized he'd been speaking to Ironwood's kid.

"Two Wastelanders? That's not a rescue team, that's a funeral detail!" Glade muttered incredulously.

Reddin, however, pointed out something. "Hey, Vargas, ain't those two the Wastelanders that helped us at GNR?"

Vargas nodded, remembering the pair. "Maybe we're not so screwed after all..."

"Vargas, with all due respect, what can two Wastelanders do?" Dusk asked in disbelief.

"You'll see." Vargas reassured him, not knowing how to properly explain it himself. Lifting the radio's receiver once more, he told Ruby: "Meet us at these coordinates; we'll brief you on the situation when you get here."

Then he remembered Fawkes, and added: "Oh, and, uh... we have a friendly Frankenstein with us, so don't shoot on sight."

-RAVEN ROCK, FOUR HOURS LATER-

"Ugh..." Sarah groaned as she began to stir, wondering why she felt like Super Mutants were shoving apikes behind her eyeballs.

"Good. You're awake." An unfamiliar voice calmly noted, somewhere in front of her.

Adrenaline spiked through her systems, and she instinctively opened her eyes and tried to get up, to prepare to defend herself.

"Hmmm, alert and responsive." A grey-haired man in a tan-colored trenchcoat continued to observe in an almost-clinical tone, as Sarah belatedly realized she was trapped in a cylinder of hard light. "The technicians told me a common side effect of cryo sickness was disorientation, but it looks like that won't be an issue for you."

"Who are you?" Sarah snarled, still pounding against her restraints. "What do you want? Where am I?"

"Madam, I am Colonel Autumn, and I will be the one asking questions here." Colonel Autumn introduced himself.

"I don't give a fuck who you are, Enclave scum." Sarah spat. "I'm not telling you a damn thing about the purifier or the Brotherhood. We know about the FEV."

"The FEV?" Colonel Autumn sounded confused, before he realized what she meant. "You must be referring to Control Station ENCLAVE. Rest assured, madam, our plans have changed."

"Why the hell should I believe you?"

"Madam, we are the United States government. Everything we do is in service to the nation. We're the good guys." Colonel Autumn rebutted, still maintaining his civil tone. "With the purifier, we'd have half the Wasteland signing up to fight for our cause, just for a cup of water. Why would we use the FEV and decimate the population of potential recruits?"

"Didn't stop you from trying 35 years ago, did it?"

"Madam, I've read your file. Please don't insult my intelligence." Colonel Autumn pulled out a dossier. "I'm sure you're more than aware of how our situation has changed since Control Station ENCLAVE fell. It is in our best interest to be pragmatic."

Sarah just rolled her eyes.

Colonel Autumn fought down the urge to grit his teeth, and instead forcefully continued: "Irregardless, neither the purifier nor your quaint organization are of interest to us at the moment. I would not insult your loyalty by asking you to sell them out."

"Then what the fuck do you want? To waste my time?"

As a response, Autumn wordlessly turned on the monitor in the room.

An image of a familiar blonde man appeared on the screen.

The screen flashed, showing an image of the same man, in the same pose, now glowing a faint light yellow as a laser beam struck him.

The screen changed, and it now displayed a video of the same figure with his sword driven through a soldier's helmet, before he noticed the cameraman. As plasma bolts and laser beams flashed towards him, he raised his shield, blocking the projectiles, before leaping forward like a Deathclaw, faster than the soldiers in front of the cameraman could react.

The screen changed once more, revealing a familiar sight. A blur leaping from body to body, using each fresh corpse as a springboard to jump towards his next victim, wielding a sword that defied any known laws of physics, before he plunged it into the ground, and a wall of ice erupted from the floor. As the figure began sprinting up the wall of ice, the feed zoomed out, revealing a mosaic of similar images and videos, all centered around one man.

"Madam, I would like to know about this... entity." Colonel Autumn searched for the right word.

"Jaune?" Sarah was shocked, too shocked to try deflecting or stonewalling. "What the hell do you want with him?"

"So that is his name. Jaune." Colonel Autumn noted, writing it down. "It certainly sounds a lot better than what the men have been calling him..."

"What the- ?"

"Where did you find him?" Colonel Autumn ignored her confusion as he began his interrogation. "Do you have the means of manufacturing more of this "Jaune"? What are the full extent of his capabilities-"

"Hold on for just a fucking second!" Sarah snapped, as she realized what he was asking. "What the hell makes you think we have anything to do with him?"

"Don't play games with me, madam. His abilities are clearly beyond normal human levels..."

"The first time I met him was when he showed up at Galaxy News Radio with Ruby!" Sarah shouted, not caring that she was actually telling the Enclave goon the truth. "I didn't know he could do... any of that, until I met him again, in the sewers!"

"Really? So, when you first met, he didn't exhibit any preternatural abilities?"

Before Sarah Lyons could tell Colonel Autumn to fuck off, the room suddenly turned a dull red, and an alarm began blaring.

"Colonel Autumn, sir, we have a situation." The room's PA system crackled to life.

"What is it, soldier?" Colonel Autumn asked into the intercom.

"It's the Yellow Death, sir! He's just tripped our perimeter alarms!"

"Prepare to evacuate all essential personnel and non-combatants!" Colonel Autumn barked into the intercom, his voice finally rising above conversational levels. "And send a squad here to escort our guest to my Vertibird!"

"Colonel, please allow me to send some of my robots to escort our guest." A new voice spoke over the intercom.

"That would be appreciated, Mr. President." Colonel Autumn responded, before opening the cell's doors. As he stepped out, he turned back to Sarah, and said: "We'll continue this conversation at the Jefferson Memorial, madam."

"Wait!" Sarah shouted, wanting some answers, but he simply ignored her as he briskly strode down the corridor. Slumping back against the hard-light cylinder she was trapped in, she murmured: "Just what the hell is going on here..."

"Why, it's quite simple, Ms. Lyons." The new voice answered, having somehow heard her. "Your associate... Jaune, you called him? He's currently leading an attack on the base."

"... Jaune is? But how? What is he even doing here?!" Sarah demanded, as the hard-light barrier around her suddenly deactivated. Then she realized something. "Wait, Jaune is the "Yellow Death"?!"

"He has blonde hair and glows yellow when hit. Not the most inspired choice of names, I must admit, but fitting nonetheless." The new voice replied. "And I was hoping you could answer those questions... perhaps I should update his files to include precognition, instead."

"Who are you, anyway? And what do you want with him?"

"I am John Henry Eden, rightful President of the United States of America." Eden declared. "And what I want with Jaune is his death."

"You... are surprisingly forthcoming with information." Sarah couldn't help but remark, raising an eyebrow. "Also, why would I help you kill him?"

"Because you strike me as a woman with vision, Ms. Lyons, and while we may disagree on the methods, both the Brotherhood and the Enclave are ultimately dedicated to the preservation of humanity." Eden said. "The Colonel wants to learn more about "Jaune" because he thinks he can replicate him, create an army of super soldiers. He is blind to the true threat Jaune poses to humanity as we know it. It is nothing personal, I assure you."

Sarah's eyebrow only went higher. Really? The Enclave was calling Jaune a threat to humanity? "What are you talking about?"

Eden sighed theatrically, and explained: "The Yellow Death is both human, and clearly not human. Our top scientists believe that he might be the product of a perfected form of the Forced Evolutionary Virus, either accidentally or on purpose. However, he is still biologically compatible with humans, and his... abilities, might be hereditary."

Sarah choked on the air as she realized exactly what he was saying.

"If not stopped here, if left unchecked and allowed to breed, my projections predict that he and his descendants would effectively rule the Wasteland within three generations, replacing or enslaving most of humanity."

Sarah found her face heating up, as she considered the implications of his words. Jaune wasn't unattractive by any means, but just how many... mates and offspring, did Eden expect Jaune to have?!

Also, Jaune wasn't like that at all. She knew that.

"You're wrong." Sarah confidently shook her head, remembering how he'd saved her life. "Jaune isn't some mutant planning on replacing humans. He's human. And I won't help you kill him."

"A pity." Eden said, sounding almost regretful, as the cell's doors opened, revealing a sentry bot. "Under the Emergency Powers Act, I am hereby conscripting you, Ms. Lyons, to act as bait. When Jaune comes to save you, I will overload this base's reactors. Overkill, perhaps, but even if he survives an explosion of that magnitude, he would be buried by the mountain collapsing on him."

-ENTRANCE TO SITE R, TEN MINUTES EARLIER-

"Is he crazy?" Glade urgently whispered, peering up from behind the ridge where he, Fawkes, Ruby, and the rest of the Pride were hiding, watching as the blonde Wastelander casually strolled up towards the reinforced steel door they'd spotted, built into the side of the mountain.

""It's Jaune."" Ruby, Reddin, and Vargas all answered at the same time, as if that explained everything. Hidden underneath her T-45d's helmet, Ruby couldn't help but smile softly, as she watched Jaune confidently swagger up to the base. If there was one thing she could rely on, one thing that she could be sure of, it was that Jaune would always come out on top.

Jaune meanwhile, was internally freaking out, as he desperately racked his brains, trying to think of a plan.

Honestly, why hadn't the members of Sarah's "best squad in the Brotherhood" managed to come up with one? They'd had hours since they'd been ambushed, right? What was he supposed to do?! Knock on the door and ask them to politely return Sarah Lyons? Hope that the Lyons' Pride had his back as he walked directly into what they said was the Enclave's base of operations?!

Jaune fought down a sigh. Realistically speaking, the support he could expect from the Lyons' Pride was limited (to put it lightly). They'd clearly been through a rough battle; far from the shining metal armor that Jaune had first seen on the way to the radio station, their armor was scored, charred, and had many pits, dents, and holes. Hell, Jaune could see the skeletal frame underneath some of the metal plates!

Before Jaune could actually come up with a half-decent plan, he'd already reached the door.

Shit. Now what?

Jaune tentatively raised his fist to the door, preparing to knock on it.

"... what is he doing?" Dusk asked, watching the blonde wastelander with a mixture of confusion and apprehension.

""It's Jaune.""

"That's not an answer!" Dusk hissed, turning back to glare at the only three who'd "seen" Jaune fight before.

Which was why she missed the moment when the door swung open, revealing a dozen Enclave soldiers with their guns pointed at Jaune.

Colvin and Gallows didn't miss it, though, nor did they miss the way their guns trembled. They couldn't tell, since the soldiers were all wearing power armor, but they'd have bet a hundred caps that they were sweating.

Jaune simply stared down the barrels, watching as their fingers tightened on their triggers as sirens blared in the back, before sighing and raising his sword. Well, looked like they'd be doing it that way, then.

The first plasma bolt sailed comfortably past Jaune's head as he leapt to the side, before charging forward. As he did so, he looked past the men, towards the base. Narrow corridors, pre-established firing positions... this would have been a nightmare for any conventional assault.

Good thing he was a Huntsman (in training).

He ran his sword through the nearest soldier as he ran into him, and kept going straight on, using the soldier's armor as a shield against their fire.

A kneeling soldier was too slow to get out of the way, as Jaune continued charging at the squad, and the tip of Jaune's blade pierced his helmet.

Jaune halted his charge, now that he was in the middle of the group, and quickly withdrew his blade, before channeling his Aura into his foot as he kicked their power-armored corpses forward, scattering the squad further. He couldn't let them regroup, not unless he wanted to be drowned in glowing green orbs of energy. Pyrrha might have been able to effortlessly dodge all of them even at this range (thanks to cheating with her Semblance), but he had all the grace of a flying brick compared to her.

Instead, he channeled Aura into his sword, and sliced a nearby soldier's rifle in half, before spinning around and bashing another soldier in the chest with his shield, and following it up with a quick thrust of his sword into his body.

Yang could've probably pulled it off with just her bare fists, but she was also the legendary Dragonborn.

Before the body hit the floor, he was in motion once more, planting a foot on the body before kicking off of it and towards another soldier, who'd begun backing up, wildly firing his plasma rifle.

More shouting. More footsteps. More figures approaching from the corridor beyond.

Jaune slammed his sword into his target, before using it to spin himself around in mid-air, so that he was behind the soldier. He gripped the arm of the soldier and raised it, before firing a plasma bolt point blank into the soldier closest to him.

By sheer luck, his projectile hit the soldier's plasma rifle, causing it to blow up.

Jaune barely had time to duck behind his makeshift human shield as a wave of green light and heat washed over him. His Aura shimmered yellow as it struggled to nullify the burst of energy before it could harm him.

Jaune got up and looked around. The person he'd fired at, and the people around him... half of them were gone, and the other half were melting into a pile of goo. He felt sick; he could understand the need for killing, but melting another person was a whole other story.

There wasn't any time to think about it, though; there were still more soldiers.

He turned to look down the corridor, grip tightening around his sword, and took a step forward.

They were murmuring, saying something.

He didn't pay it much attention; he didn't know what this "yellow death" was, but it wasn't an immediate concern.

Instead, he took a step forward.

They took a step back.

He took another step forward.

They took another step back.

Jaune began charging, sprinting forward, reflecting ruefully that, where Pyrrha would have done some flashy flips and leaps, all he could really do was run.

The Enclave soldiers, seeing the Yellow Death emerging unscathed from the equivalent of a plasma grenade going off (that had melted two men and the advanced power armor mark II they'd been in), and immediately charging at them as he got up, began to panic.

Then he was among them, a blur with a blade, a force of nature overwhelming them before they could react.

Three men were down, bleeding from various wounds through their power armor, before they could even aim their weapons.

Slow-moving plasma bolts were easily dodged or blocked by their squadmates' bodies, and even the few laser beams they managed to fire simply impacted harmlessly against that unholy light glowing around him.

For all their indoctrination, for all their fanaticism, for all their training, the Enclave's rank-and-file were still men.

It started slowly at first, a few slowly trying to disengage from the monster in front of them, as it continue relentlessly cutting a swath through their lines.

The Lyons' Pride finally caught up with Jaune, following his trail into Site R (it wasn't difficult; the path was pretty linear) past corridors and stairwells littered with scorch marks and smoke, bisected weapons and bloody bodies, just in time to see the Enclave break and run for it, fleeing from the now-glowing Wastelander as he continued butchering the few courageous souls who dared stand against him.

A door at the end of the corridor opened, and three sentry bots wheeled out, firing their arm-mounted Gatling Lasers and Miniguns, heedless of the Enclave soldiers in front of them. A not-insignificant number of them were killed by friendly fire, as the sheer volume of fire overwhelmed their armor. The sentry bots didn't care. Eden had designated the Yellow Death as a priority target. Their protocols forced them to comply.

A few bullets and beams bounced off of Jaune's Aura before he could get his shield up in time, cursing all the while. Even Yang wouldn't have been crazy enough to try running that distance through this much fire! And he all he had for ranged options was his 10mm pistol. Against their armor, he may as well have been spitting at them!

As Jaune looked around, trying to see if there were any undamaged weapons near him, he noticed one of the three robots raising its second arm, pointing a tubes at him. He fought down a gulp, seeing a red-tipped cylinder loaded within it aiming at him, and quickly crouched and braced himself, hoping those weren't mini nukes.

A missiles streaked towards him, and detonated against his shield, filling the corridor with smoke and fire.

The robots paused, as their visual sensors lost contact. Had they succeeded in carrying out their task?

The smoke cleared, revealing a brightly-glowing Jaune still crouching, the blast having forced him back by a single step.

The other two sentry bots raised their arms.

Jaune plunged his sword into the corridor.

A wall of ice sprang up in front of the robots, who began firing their main guns, trying to clear the obstacle between them and their target.

Their bullets helped chip away at the wall, while their laser beams melted the ice.

It took them fifteen seconds to have a clear visual on the target once again.

Jaune had managed to close the gap in that fifteen seconds, and he sliced the barrel of the leading robot's gun-arm in half as he slid under it.

As the three robots bulkily turned, he stabbed one, and channeled his Aura into his sword.

The burst of heat, ice, and electricity damaged most of it's processing components, and it ceased to function.

Jaune quickly moved on, swinging his sword upwards from below the robot's legs, splitting it in half vertically. Not quite as tough as an Atlesian Paladin, but it could probably wipe the floor with a squad of Atlesian Knights.

The door opened once more, as he turned to the third one, but before he could attack it a rocket smashed into it's rear armor, penetrating it. At the same time, a hail of laser beams emerged from the door, pouring into the gap in the robot's armor, hitting multiple critical systems.

Jaune quickly brought his sword and shield to bear on the newcomer, as a fourth robot, smoking and dented, struggled to wheel itself into the room

To his continued surprise, however, it didn't fire on him.

Instead, Sarah's head popped up from over it's shoulder, and she looked at Jaune with naked relief.

"Jaune!" She cried out, releasing her grip on the sentry bot's control panel as she did so, and the hacked robot slumped over as she approached him.

"Sarah? What are you doing here? How did you escape?!"

"We need to get out of here!" Sarah said urgently, ignoring his questions as she remembered what Eden had said. "It's a trap! They've rigged this place to blow! Come on!"

Jaune blinked, but didn't argue, as he and Sarah (and Fawkes and Ruby and the rest of the Pride, who'd apparently been behind him the whole time) ran for the entrance.

The ground started shaking and shuddering just as they cleared the main door.

They made it over the nearby ridge just in time to watch the mountain crumble and collapse into a new sinkhole.

Gallows let out a low whistle as he stared at the aftermath.

Ruby, meanwhile, having caught her breath, rushed to Sarah as fast as her power armor would allow her, and hugged her, almost crushing her unarmored form as she shouted: "Sarah! You're okay!"

"Ruby! Let me go!" Sarah choked out. Not in front of her squad, damn it! She had a reputation to maintain.

"Come on, Ruby, let her breathe." Jaune said, pulling her away.

"It's good to see you're okay, ma'am." Vargas spoke, as the Pride rushed to fuss over their missing leader, now that someone had broken the tension.

Sarah fought down a smile. It was good to see her squad had managed to survive without her leadership.

"Glad to see the Pride's fine, too. But how did you find me?" Sarah waved down their fuss as she asked, looking at them all with a hint of pride.

"We followed the Vertibirds out of Vault 87 and checked a map and a compass, ma'am. It wasn't that hard." Colvin chuckled.

Sarah wanted to raise an eyebrow. The Enclave had been close enough to Vault 87 (and the rest of the Capital Wasteland, by proxy) that they'd been able to track them, on foot, in a few hours? And their base had apparently been on their maps? She would need to discuss this with her father...

"I see what you mean, Vargas." Kodiak spoke up, slapping the blonde Wastelander in the back. Gently, of course. "That was..."

"It's Jaune." Ruby replied with a smirk, glad to see the Invincible Boy getting some recognition from the Brotherhood. She had to fight down a chuckle, though, as Jaune just rubbed the back of his neck bashfully, unsure how to respond to the looks the rest of them were giving him.

"That's not an answer!" Dusk shouted in exasperation. "What the hell was all that?! The jumping and the sword and the ice..."

"Movement." Gallows spoke up, catching their attention as he pointed to a fleet of Vertibirds in the distance.

The group tensed up, raising their weapons, but it didn't seem necessary. It didn't seem like the Vertibirds were approaching. preparing to perform a search and rescue mission in the massive crater that had been Site R. In fact, it seemed like...

"They're fleeing." Sarah spat, watching them fade into the distance as she remembered what she'd overheard. "Probably to the Jefferson Memorial, based on what that Autumn guy said."

"He was here? He's still alive?" Ruby hissed, clenching her fist as she remembered the man who'd caused her dad's death.

"Project Purity? Well, good thing they don't have the GECK, right?" Jaune said, turning his shield back into a scabbard and sheathing his sword.

An awkward silence had him and Ruby looking around the group, a feeling of dread filling them.


Author's Note: And we are back! It's been... what, over half a week since the last chapter? Truly, the end times, compared to my previous schedule...

The Pride loses their initial engagement against the Enclave because... well... look who they've been fighting all this time. Raiders, feral ghouls, super mutants... how often would they have encountered flashbangs, cryo grenades (I'm working off of Three Dog saying the Lone Wanderer was encased in ice by the Enclave), and enemies with power armor and actual intelligence? The Enclave have been monitoring the Capital Wasteland for decades; I doubt the Brotherhood of Steel even remembers about intercepting radio messages.

Of course, in the narrow corridors of Vault 87, once the initial disorientation wears off, and the situation changes from an ambush to a series of engagements, where the manpower the Enclave can throw at them is limited by space, the superior experience and teamwork of the Pride begins to even the odds, before Fawkes just breaks the scale.

An interesting fact on Vault 87 Super Mutant biology is that, according to the Official Game Guide, they grow stronger, larger, and more brutish as they age. Behemoths, the strongest and largest of the Super Mutants, are probably almost two hundred years old. The only exception to this rule seems to be Fawkes, who was one of the original Vault 87 dwellers, and is thusly among the oldest (and strongest) of Vault 87 Super Mutants.

For some reason, unlike the other Frankensteins (save Uncle Leo), Fawkes didn't lose his mind from the pain of the FEV transformation (although it did warp his pre-existing neural pathways, damaging his long-term memory), and was branded a failure and imprisoned by the others when he spoke. The only reason he managed to maintain his sanity during his isolation was because the room he was imprisoned in contained a terminal linked to the Vault's mainframe, which he used to educate himself.

My theory (not that it matters to the story) is that those are the key factors that set Fawkes and Uncle Leo aside. By some complete accident, some random quirk of genetics or fate, Uncle Leo and Fawkes were able to withstand the pain of the transformation, and maintain their sanity unlike their more aggressive, animalistic, and instinct-driven brethren. And unlike their insane brethren, they used their remaining sanity to continue stimulating their neural pathways (Fawkes reading up on the history of the world and all the literature he could through his terminal, and Uncle Leo being a natural philosopher), which thus took them down a different evolutionary path, preserving their intelligence and preventing them from growing dumber with age. And while Fawkes is easily stronger than most Super Mutants, his size has presumably remained relatively constant (hence why he isn't the size of a behemoth) because of the small room he was confined in, as well as the lack of nutrition (somehow, I doubt the other Super Mutants were feeding him).

As for why he doesn't starve to death during captivity? Eh, I'm leaning towards Vault 87 Super Mutants being photosynthetic (hence the yellowish-green skin), and the lighting in the Vaults also emitting low levels of UV radiation (hence why vitamin D deficiency-associated diseases like rickets don't seem to be a problem for Vault Dwellers).

Regarding the FEV... in the game, this did lead to a schism between John Henry Eden and Colonel Autumn. John Henry Eden stuck to the original goals of the Enclave, and wanted to release the FEV into the water, while Colonel Autumn, being more of a pragmatist, disagreed.

Also, why are the Enclave shown to be more reasonable here? Oh, look, their goals are being explained by the Enclave's Colonel and President! The Brotherhood, being their enemies, would naturally see their FEV project as them genocidal maniacs. The Enclave, being... fanatically dedicated to the preservation of pure humanity, probably see it as more of removing the diseased branches from a tree. They're... technically correct, in that all Wastelanders (i.e. people who weren't in shelters or vaults) are technically mutants, thanks to lingering background radiation and bioweapons released by both the Chinese and the Americans. The mutations seem to be benign and unexpressed, but genetically speaking...

Of course, now that Jaune's in the picture... well, no matter what he is, he's clearly beyond pure humanity. Eden's projections are based on the fact that they know next to nothing about Jaune (hell, they didn't even know his name), and so are assuming the worst. And before anybody even asks for a story about Jaune breeding the entire Wasteland... no. Just no.

It's surprisingly hard to write Jaune's fights in these scenes, because he's just too aggressive and overwhelming. To him, compared to fighting dragons and the numerous types of Grimm. these fights are simple. The process is foolproof - charge forward, blocking or dodging any shots, attacking either the nearest foe or the one with the strongest weapon, moving on to the next target, rinse and repeat. And since the Enclave have armor, he can't use punches, kicks, or his gun. There's only so many ways I can write "he stabbed/sliced/slashed someone". Which is why I tried interspersing it with points of view from the Enclave's side, as well as the Pride's view of the aftermath. I've got no idea if it worked, though.