Chapter 40 - Surprise From The Heavens


Thirty six red streaks bore down, growing increasingly louder and larger with each passing second.

Jaune tried his best to ignore them, as he desperately continued to do what he'd been doing since he'd spotted them, after the Brotherhood's Bullhead had disappeared over the horizon.

The smell and the reality of his task made him want to throw up, made him want to ask just what in Oum's name had happened.

What kind of hero uses a pile of corpses (that he'd made) as a shield from an orbital missile strike?!

He forced himself to continue on.

The dead Enclave and their advanced power armor was his best bet for survival.

Admittedly, it wasn't a good bet, but he didn't really have an alternative here, seeing as how he was surrounded by the rest of the Enclave on the base, all out for his blood, and his Aura was getting very low.

Before he could toss the last of the Enclave Hellfire troopers on top of the pile, before he could complete his shelter, a sudden feeling of weightlessness overtook him.

The next thing he knew, he was falling upwards, clinging desperately to the Hellfire armor he'd been holding on to as he tried to gather his bearings.

The Enclave around the crawler, watching the Yellow Death suddenly begin levitating, floating up into the sky, ascending to the heavens, lowered their weapons in shock.

Then they furiously redoubled their efforts to kill him, refusing to let him get away that easily.

Jaune yelped and clung to the Hellfire armor more tightly, unable to dodge or find cover as he found himself continuing to be helplessly dragged upwards uncontrollably.

He watched as the warhead salvos shrieked past him, before hitting the crawler below him.

He saw fires blossom from the impact, that all fused together to form one massive explosion.

Then he saw the cloud approaching him.

Rapidly.

He closed his eyes and grit his teeth as he covered himself with the Enclave soldier he'd grabbed, as the wave of heat and pressure engulfed him.

And then, all of a sudden, it was all over.

He was in total darkness.

The next thing he knew, a sudden chill overtook him, his abused Aura no longer protecting him, and suddenly he couldn't move at all.

And then, he knew nothing more.

-? ? ?, ? ? ?-

There was a loud hiss.

Jaune's eyes opened blearily, blinking into the harsh white light.

He groaned and winced, as his stiff body made itself known to him.

What had happened?

Memories of piles of bodies, of fires blooming across the ground, and an expanding cloud, came to mind.

Ah, right.

He'd died again, hadn't he?

This was, what, his third death?

He'd really gotten cocky with his Aura in the Capital Wasteland, hadn't he?

Jaune sighed.

That hadn't been it at all.

He hadn't had a choice.

It had been the only way he could think of, to get his friends out of there before the bombs fell.

Well, all he could do now was once again focus on the present.

He heard a sliding sound, and suddenly the world seemed even brighter.

He instinctively raised his hand to cover his eyes, and felt a familiar weight on it.

Good.

He still had his sword.

Just to be sure, he tested his other hand.

Yup. His sheath was still there.

Jaune tentatively opened his eyes, and looked around himself.

His power armor had broken off, melted in the previous battle, but he was still in its naked frame.

A familiar sound came to mind, and he immediately tensed up.

Belatedly realizing he was on a podium in an empty room, he spotted little grey colored aliens with oversized heads and hilarious-looking toy-like guns firing not-so-hilarious blue beams as they fled, being chased by soldiers with assault rifles, a man in an impressive duster hat firing a pistol at them, and a guy with an impressive and fancy helmet and armor of overlapping scales wielding a sword with two hands.

Jaune groaned into his hand.

Of course this was his life now.

He then moved gingerly, feeling his body and its reactions.

He was still sore.

But the power armor's frame could do most of the work for his arms and legs.

Sighing, he jumped off the platform, and rushed to join the battle.

-GOODSPRINGS CEMETERY, 11 OCTOBER 2281-

As Pyrrha Nikos knelt helplessly in front of her assailants, she found herself full of regrets.

She didn't give away anything on her face, of course, fixing them with a defiant glare, and refusing to suffer the indignity of begging for her life, but the Courier was full of regrets.

The Divide was chief amongst them, of course; Pyrrha still didn't know what had happened, why the ground had suddenly rumbled, before nuclear fire spewed from beneath as the earthquakes violently tore the land apart. But it's destruction still haunted her, more than four years later. Even now, she still didn't dare to revisit the settlement she'd help Found... the settlement she'd ultimately Failed, by not being there when they'd needed her.

Then there was her past; having been raised in a tribe that believed it was her destiny to be a messiah akin to the Chosen One, she'd been denied a childhood playing with the other children in favor of learning the art of survival and war, of training with every weapon in their vast armory till her hands bled from ruptured blisters, before being kicked out when she'd turned 17, left to her fate in the Wasteland. Becoming a courier, a blessing for her lonesome wandering soul, had been the only choice she'd made on her own.

Of course, there was also the lack of a love life. Sure, between her skills and her looks she'd easily wrapped men around her finger time and time again, but she'd never found anyone she'd trusted enough to let her guard down around, always instead finding comfort in maintaining her stoic professional persona, rather than risking letting anyone see the bumbling awkward girl that had never truly socialized or bonded with anybody before.

But the most pressing regret on her mind, the one most recent, was that she'd been captured, tied up, and was about to be executed by some random schmuck in a horrible checkered suit and tie and his Great Khan yahoos in the middle of nowhere.

Not the whole getting captured, tied up, and having a gun pointed to her head deal; that was kind of par for the course of being a Courier in the Wasteland (especially when running a delivery in the Mojave for Mr. House. She really should have just rejected the job like the previous Courier Six...), after all, and it was honestly her fault more than anything else for getting distracted by the sudden appearance of a second sun in the sky.

If it hadn't been for that, there was no way the random shmuck with the horrible checkered suit and tie and his Great Khan yahoos would have been able to get the drop on her.

No, her problem was just how... anti-climactic, all this felt.

She'd known her life wouldn't exactly be a long and peaceful one (well, at least long and peaceful by Wasteland standards); even if she hadn't been "destined" to be some pivotal figure in some prophesied conflict, wandering the wastes alone, traversing radioactive wastes, raider territories, and rogue robot-controlled scrapyards, was not a job with a high life expectancy.

But after everything she'd done, after all of her successes, her failures, and her regrets... was this really it?

Her destiny?

The final goal she'd been working towards all her life?

If so, it was bullshit.

She subtly tried her bindings once more.

Damn.

She had to at least admit the Khans were good when it came to rope bindings. Probably because of all their weird BDSM tribal rituals and sexual tensions.

Idly, she wondered if she should ask them that, just to piss them off. Sure, they'd make her pay for the insult, but it wasn't like she had anything else to lose.

Then the stupid-haired schmuck started dramatically talking about how he wasn't a fig who didn't not look people in the face when he killed them.

She shared a look with the Great Khans, noting the expression of resigned suffering on their faces, and felt an odd sense of camaraderie. At least she wasn't the only one finding him insufferable.

That happy thought lasted until he'd started talking in gambling metaphors.

Then her polite facade had finally snapped, and she'd spat at him and told him to shut the fuck up and get it over with.

She took no small amount of petty satisfaction at seeing the murder in his eyes as he pulled his pistol out, but couldn't help but clench her fists as she saw his finger tighten around the trigger.

A bright flash and the sound of a pistol firing was the last thing she knew, before she knew no more.

...

Okay, that was a fucking lie.

There was still lots of pain.

And no bright light, either.

Clearly, Pyrrha hadn't been sent to the Good Place, after she'd died.

Then again, if there was a God, Pyrrha felt it was more than possible that he'd turned his backs on humanity, after they'd nuked themselves back to the Stone Age...

Pyrrha mentally blinked as the sound of footsteps rang out, echoing throughout the darkness, and she couldn't escape the sudden feeling of extreme sheepishness.

Huh. Looked like the Big G had been listening, after all, and clearly decided to personally intervene, just to prove her wrong.

Spiteful old bastard.

Pyrrha found herself torn between bitterness and amusement, before quickly pushing those thoughts out of her mind. Insulting the Big G when they were meeting in her afterlife wasn't exactly the smartest of ideas.

And she had something more important to know, anyway.

"Did... did I fulfil my destiny? Was this really the final goal I've worked towards for my entire life?" Pyrrha tried to ask.

Instead of some deep philosophical answer, though, she heard a surprisingly warm and surprisingly human voice swear: "What the... holy shit! You're still alive!"

What?

But that was impossible.

She'd been shot.

In the head.

The man muttered: "Oh, Oum, I hope this works..."

Before she could ask what he meant, a comforting warmth engulfed her, and a white light filled her vision.

The pain slowly disappeared, her addled mind only able to focus on the new sensations, and for the first time since the Divide, Pyrrha completely relaxed, basking in the glory of the light.

Somehow, she could feel a tinge of emotions as she did so.

Hurt.

Anger.

Confusion.

Pain.

Despair.

Frustration.

Kindness.

Affection.

Selflessness.

Protectiveness.

Determination.

Strength slowly returned to Pyrrha's somehow-not-dead body, and her survival instincts immediately kicked in as her eyelids were willed open.

The white light was real, and oh-so-blinding, but more than that there really was a man standing over here, glowing brightly like the Sun, his hand comfortingly over her head.

It was the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen, and if she hadn't already been gasping for breath she'd have lost it.

Then the light and warmth slowly shimmered away, letting her make out his features, his sapphire eyes peering through golden locks down at her as he smiled and said: "You're awake, how about that."

Was he an angel? Had the Big G really heard her and brought her back to fulfil her destiny?

Ignoring her existential dilemma, the angelic man calmed her down: "Woah, easy there, easy. You almost died. Don't worry, I'll get you to a doctor, you're going to be fine, I promise. And an Arc never goes back on his word."

Giggling lightly, she found that she implicitly believed him. An Arch, huh? She'd heard of the great Archangels, but meeting one in person was definitely a humbling and sobering experience, tempered by the fact he'd personally saved her. As she felt herself be lifted into the air by him, Pyrrha relaxed once more, melting into the comfort of her embrace. She felt no trepidation in giving in to the weakness and exhaustion that racked her body.

After all, he'd promised that she would be fine.

-FIFTEEN MINUTES EARLIER-

Cheers resounded from the bridge, as a second sun briefly appeared in front of their viewing port.

The bridge crew, made up of humans who'd been abducted and experimented on over the centuries by the aliens, had no reason not to cheer.

Their lives may have been ruined, the world below them unrecognizable, but they'd at least avenged themselves, and prevented any further victims.

Jaune, however, from his position in the Captain's Chair, just sighed and wondered why the world he was in was so weird.

How in Oum's name had half a dozen people managed to take over an alien spaceship and pilot it well enough to defeat the undoubtedly-better-trained crew of the second alien mothership?!

Especially when half of them probably didn't even know what outer space even was?

What, just because the little girl who'd escaped and spent months hiding in the vents before freeing them all had just so happened to watch show about an astronaut called Captain Cosmos, and had begun assigning them to different stations on the bridge? That none of them had ever used before? In a language none of them knew?

He honestly felt bad for the aliens, as he watched the flaming husk of the other alien mothership slowly fall apart, disintegrating and drifting away.

That... had to be embarrassing.

Also, he should have probably felt sorry about the aliens for dying (as well as floored by the revelations that, hey, aliens existed), but he'd seen the aftermath of some of their experiments.

They'd come to this planet and begun messing with the locals first, after all.

And so he put his mind to other things, like wondering how Ruby (both of them) or Pyrrha or Nora would react to finding out that he'd been abducted by aliens, gotten loose, taken over their bridge, and destroyed a second alien mothership in a spaceship battle.

He purposely left Yang out, though; he doubted the Dragonborn even knew what space was.

"That was cooler than Captain Cosmos!" Sally, the first escapee, the one who'd begun freeing the others, exclaimed gleefully. "And good work protecting the bridge, Mr. Samurai, Jangles the Moon Monkey!"

"I told you, I ain't no goddamned space monkey!" Paulson just groaned in exasperation, holstering his revolver. Honestly. He didn't know why he put up with the energetic kid. Certainly wasn't because she reminded him of his dead son. He doubted his son would have been anywhere near as outspoken or crazy as that little girl.

The samurai, meanwhile, just shook his head, having given up on understanding a word the gaijin were saying. Frankly, he didn't understand anything about them, from their armor, to their weapons, to even their thoughts, nor did he need to. They were human, and on this ship, that was enough.

"Uh, hey, got a second?" Private Elliott Tercorien of the 108th Infantry Battalion waved Jaune over, breaking him out of his nostalgia, and he made his way over to the former combat medic. "Hey, I just thought you should know... someone must've hit a button during the fight just now. If I understood the display correctly, I think we just launched a homing beacon of some kind down to the surface. I, uh... I normally wouldn't mention it, but I think... I can't be sure but I think... I think it may be a way back down to Earth. I think the teleporter in the Captain's Quarters could probably take you to it."

Jaune thought about it for a moment. The idea of exploring thr cosmos in an alien spaceship was a tempting one... but he'd seen what the ship had done. More importantly, though, they didn't know if there were other ships out there, with similarly hostile intentions. They'd barely taken out the second ship (against all odds); he didn't want to consider their chances against a fully-armed fleet.

Also, he was getting sick and tired of weird alien paste and alien squid tentacles as meals. He'd take his chances below.

"I see..." Jaune fought to keep his voice level, even as he wondered just what he'd find on the planet below. Briefly, he wondered if he should ask Elliott about what kind of plants and animals were on the planet, but quickly changed his mind. Elliott had said that he'd been abducted a long time ago, and he'd found out the planet had changed a lot while he'd been frozen. It probably wouldn't be best to remind him of happier times. "So, what will you do now?"

"I... think I'll stick around up here for a while. See if I can't figure out some of this technology." Elliott admitted. "Maybe we can find some other uses for it, or replicate some of the more useful stuff to help others, you know?"

Jaune nodded, the Army Private reminding him of Moira Brown and Dr. James Ironwood (not General Ironwood), before hearing a beeping sound from his power armor frame.

Shit, was that bad?

Oh, no, it was just the fusion core dying.

Well, at least it had served him well.

Jaune hit the release, and as the power armor frame's back opened up, he leapt out of it, before pulling out the spent fusion core and tossing it to the surprised combat medic.

"Hey, mind seeing if you can find any more of these on the ship?" Jaune asked, even as he went to the teleporter. His Aura and his body were mostly back up to their normal capacities, and he was getting hungry. "I'm going to check out the surface of the planet!"

"Hey, wait-" Elliott called out, but Jaune was already gone.

The combat medic looked back at the fusion core. He'd seen T-45s and T-51s in action during Anchorage, sure, but he hadn't been a technician or an engineer, and had never seen a stripped-down suit of power armor before.

But even he could recognize a fusion core when he saw one.

Why had Jaune been in power armor?

Why did Jaune even have power armor?

Why had he used a sword and a shield, when he'd had access to power armor?

What the hell had Jaune been up to, that had melted most of the plates off of him, leaving him in a naked frame?

Just who was Jaune Arc?

Before Private Elliott Tercorien could ponder those questions any further, he spotted the little girl doing something, and immediately ran to stop her, shouting: "Sally, wait, don't touch that!"

Jaune, meanwhile, blinked away the flash of silver light, before finding himself in the middle of a desert, next to a small metallic device (that he assumed was the beacon).

He looked around, and spent a moment sighing.

Of course it wouldn't be that easy.

But at least he had solid ground under his feet now.

Then he let his mind begin racing, analyzing the situation.

He was in a barren desert at night with no food, water, or shelter.

He did, at least, seem to have a fallback option of just going back up to the alien ship. But that was only a temporary solution.

He took a moment to recall the lessons he'd learned when his family had gone camping, from Beacon, and when he'd been doing research for Moira.

There didn't seem to be any buildings around him, so scavenging wasn't an option.

And there wasn't any visible water sources, either.

But there did seem to a road (or a dirt path; it was too dark to really tell) in front of him, winding through a valley.

On one side of the road was a small hill, and on the other was a sheer cliff face of what seemed to be rock.

Jaune decided to slowly trek up the small hill, hoping that the high ground would give him a better vantage point.

Instead, he'd found a tied-up body lying lifelessly in a shallow grave, bleeding from two holes to the head.

He couldn't help but wince, as he approached the body.

He didn't know who the person was.

He didn't know why the person had been tied up, shot twice in the head, and left for dead.

And he needed supplies and information.

It still didn't feel right, though, looting the dead person. He may have killed before (and wasn't that a far cry from the boy who'd run away to join Beacon), but seeing someone who'd clearly been killed in cold blood didn't sit right with him.

He promised to at least give the body a proper burial, though, and make sure nothing he took from them was wasted.

Then the body suddenly murmured something unintelligible.

Jaune's eyes widened.

"What the..." Jaune quickly rushed to the body, and knelt by it, gripping her hand. He couldn't help but exclaim: "Holy shit! You're still alive!"

Because she was.

Miraculously.

Against all odds.

Even though she had two holes in her head (and oh, Oum, was that bits of her brain he could see?), she still had a pulse.

What was he supposed to do?! Nothing he'd learned in Beacon, Skyrim, or the Capital Wasteland had prepared him for trying to heal someone who'd had her Dust-damned brains blown out!

Unless...

Jaune pulled out some of the alien biogel Elliott had found, murmuring: "Oh, Oum, I hope this works..."

He squeezed the gel into her wounds, before calling up his Aura.

He had no idea if it would work (he'd healed Yang's broken spine, when they'd fought that dragon outside of Whiterun, but a broken spine was completely different from bullet holes to the head!), but he was an Arc.

Even after everything he'd been through, everything he'd been forced to do... he still wanted to help others!

If he didn't even try to save the stranger in front of him, how could he dare say he wanted to be a hero, to help others?!

His Aura began glowing around him, a yellow light shimmering to existence, and the woman in his arms began glowing with a white light as he channeled it into her.

After a few moments, her eyes opened, and she gasped.

Jaune fought down a gasp of his own.

Somehow, against any odds he would have bet on... it was working! Her bullet wounds weren't healing up, of course; his Aura couldn't heal something this grievous. But it was keeping her alive, and that was honestly better than any chance she'd had earlier.

As her eyes began looking around wildly, he quickly tried to calm her down before he could struggle: ""Woah, easy there, easy. You almost died. Don't worry, I'll get you to a doctor, you're going to be fine, I promise. And an Arc never goes back on his word."

He saw her relax fractionally, before closing her eyes, and he gingerly picked her up.

Wait, weren't people who'd just experienced trauma not supposed to fall unconscious? Was that only for shock? Was that for shock at all? He honestly couldn't remember.

But he did know that the only reason she wasn't already dead was because of her natural strength, her own willpower, and an infusion of his Aura.

But his Aura wasn't infinite. He had to get her to a doctor as soon as possible, someone whose medical experience went beyond "slapping a bandage on a wound, shoving pills into a mouth, and channeling enough Aura to make a glacier", if he wanted to save her.

Time was of the essence.

He briefly considered taking her back to the homing beacon, and wondered if teleportation had any side effects or warning labels, before he noticed faint neon lights at the base of the hill, on the other side of the hill from where he'd started.

Picking up the oddly-familiar redhead in his arms, he decided to take a gamble and headed towards the lights below the hill, hoping to at least find someone who could have pointed him in the right direction.

The fact that the "someone" in question eventually turned out to be a robot cowboy that looked like a television on a wheel barely fazed him anymore.


Author's Note: And we're back, with the first chapter of the third volume, and once again facing a very familiar dilemma; introducing a brand new character! At least we're not introducing a brand new setting this time... okay, we are, but at least its not a brand new world.

We've said goodbye to the Capital Wasteland, sure, but the keyword there is "Capital" Wasteland. Jaune didn't die in the Destruction of Adams AFB, because Mothership Zeta (who really do have an odd fascination for nukes, Earth, and Giddyup Buttercup. No, I don't know why.) detected the signal and abducted him, hidden in the clouds, before the bombs hit. There's a reason I purposely didn't write the impact from Jaune's point-of-view in Chapter 38...

Of course, Jaune doesn't realize that. Again. As usual. Most of the people around him are Pre-War, some don't even speak English, and they're all from different cultures and time periods. He was only freed by coincidence when Private Elliot (from the Liberation of Anchorage) freed his squad from the cryo chamber, and fought the aliens alongside Paulson (a cowboy) and Toshiro Kago (a samurai).

And isn't that just a fun mental image? Waking up from cryo-stasis to find Greys being chased by US Army combat medics, a cowboy, and a samurai?

And I really do have to stress, Mothership Zeta is actually in the game. This isn't something I'm making up. This is an actual DLC for Fallout 3. And they really do have a fascination for Earth and robotic horse toys, as well as an interest in nukes. As well as a cowboy and a samurai. And that is really how the Greys are defeated. The only difference is, where in the game they abduct the Lone Wanderer, who escapes and leads a rebellion, here Sally managed to free enough people herself for the rebellion to occur without the Lone Wanderer. And Jaune just gets caught up in it.

As for why the aliens are Greys... the world of Fallout is, very specifically, not our world. It is, instead, the World of Tomorrow as depicted by the 1950s. Chrome cars are powered by fusion engines and have large fins, computers still use reel tapes for storage, and communism is still the main threat of Pre-War America. Instead of miniaturizing computers and finding alternative sources of energy, this is a world where they just made massive supercomputers (like President Eden) and miniaturized fission batteries. Also, aliens (though namely the Greys, since this was before Star Wars and Star Trek) and the Necronomicon are an actual thing.

As for why I'm once again skimming through most of the Mothership Zeta story... eh, I tried writing it out, I really did, but it didn't really work. It wouldn't have lasted more than a chapter or two, unless I went into excruciatingly boring detail (excruciating for me to write as much as for anyone to read), fleshing out characters of little interest, importance, or impact. And so, instead, I just skip to the part where they destroy the second mothership.

Also, if Jaune had stayed on Mothership Zeta, I'd probably have had them go through a wormhole and end up in Star Wars or Mass Effect. But nope! He chooses good old terra firma.

And I may be back, but please, don't expect anything like my upload schedule from the previous volume. That was just... no. New Vegas is way too open and off-rails for me to keep it as tightly focused, not to mention how much I have to keep track off, as more characters come in that don't go out...