Chapter 16.5 Heartless, Soulless, Auraless
Time since last contact with RobCo GPS services.
17 days, 13 hours, 42 minutes, 18 seconds...
17 days, 13 hours, 42 minutes, 19 seconds…
17 days, 13 hours, 42 minutes, 20 seconds…
After our little run in with the great white bastard a couple of days ago, our journey across the deserts of Vacuo started to get a little more exciting. The Deathjaw apparently had been scaring off all the other Grimm between us and our destination because that damn thing had hardly been dead for an hour before I finally had a chance to kill something that couldn't eat me whole.
Julia told me that the weird wolfman things that kept on attacking us every couple of hours since we left the ruined town were called Beowolves, although I personally can't think of them as anything other than discount Deathclaws. The only real differences between the two, aside from their obvious differences between hairless wolves and giant lizards, was that the Beowolves were far less durable and agile than the apex predators of the Mojave Wasteland. Everything else about them was the same from their tendency to travel in packs, the way they tried to surround their prey on all sides before attacking, and how fucking deadly their claws looked. I wasn't quite sure if those mutant wolves could cleave through a man in power armor as easily as a Deathclaw, but once again, if my hunch was right then I probably wouldn't have been in any condition to tell anyone if I tried finding out for myself.
Overall, the Grimm wolfmen were pretty damn pathetic compared to their betters in the Mojave, but there was one notable exception to the rule. The bone white armor covering their skulls and joints turned out to be bulletproof, or at least, armored up to the point where none of my normal rounds could penetrate them. I had first seen something similar happen with the Deathjaw, but I wrote that off as the big fucker's armor being too thick for even a .50 BMG round to penetrate.
It was only when I tried to cherry tap a downed Beowolf with a normal slug fired from Penetrator, only to have the damn shot ricochet and hit me in the chest, that I learned why the magical bullshit bullets these Europeans used were so popular. Turns out that a couple of 11mm rounds, one to crack a wolfman's armor and the rest to blow a hole through the other side of its skull, are a whole hell of a lot more effective against Grimm armor than a .50 armor piercing round or 12 gauge slug fired at point blank range because why the hell not?!
When I asked Julia why Grimm armor was weak against these magical bullets, instead of giving me a straight answer, she called me fucking crazy for not using Dust rounds against Grimm. Because of course she would. From what I understood about the stuff in between Antler's shitty rants about me, Dust was either some sort of alternative to the gunpowder used in America or a powder that could be applied to bullets to grant them reality defying bullshit powers that would give the Think Tank a SCIENCE! Boner half a mile long, or both. Regardless of which it was, a Dust round was apparently enough to make an 11mm pistol more destructive than an fucking anti-material rifle because of course it fucking can.
Why the fuck does some shitty powder, crystal, or whatever the fuck Dust is make bullets break all common fucking sense? My guess is that the answer is 'fuck me' because that's apparently the goddamn answer to everything these days!
I don't know how or why, but I am damn well certain that the Think Tank are somehow behind this shit. They created Cazadores, every shitty thing in the Sierra Madre that tried to kill me, the immortal brainless bastards that they almost turned me into, and a giant goddamn bloatfly that could shoot plasma out of its ass. If anyone could create fucking rocks that could explode into ice, fire, lightning, and all other kinds of weird shit, it would have to be THEM.
I mean, I did somehow end up going from Mobius' Lab to some radioactive dump in Europe filled with creepy bastards with animal ears, tails, horns, and other weird shit that makes a ghoul look pretty fucking normal. Wouldn't be the first time those brains managed to fuck with me without meaning to.
Wouldn't be the first time someone managed to be one hell of a bitch to deal with even after I filled their ass full of lead either, come to think of it. I wonder…
"Six, we've got Deathstalkers!" Antlers suddenly shouted over the sound of one of the many old news reports Mr. New Vegas used to give.
"Deathstalkers? What the hell's a Deathstalker?" I asked her as I ejected my holotape to hear her better.
Before I could get my answer, I felt an all too familiar stabbing pain in my thigh which instantly drew my attention to the little bastard that made the last mistake of its life. I jerked my leg up, only to see a small black radscorpion looking thing with a glowing yellow tail stinger dangling from where it stabbed me. That must have been the Deathstalker Antlers was talking about.
The sight of its glowing yellow tail didn't exactly fill me with confidence, even with the creature's name sounding somewhat familiar, but thankfully for me it wasn't anything I really had to be concerned with. The thing was obviously poisonous, and since I didn't have much shit left to poison, there probably wasn't much the tiny fucker could do.
The poor thing seemed to have realized it too as we stared each other down for a moment, before it realized I wasn't dying and it started flailing like mad to free itself. Unfortunately for the little bugger, its stinger was buried so damn deep in my leg that it couldn't pull its stinger free, leaving it completely at my mercy.
Since the radscorpion lookalike had a fair bit of Grimm armor on top of it, and I really didn't want to waste ammo on something I knew my fists could easily crush, I helped the tiny thing out and freed it from my leg. That didn't mean I let the bastard run away to tell its friends how stupid of an idea it was to fuck with me. Oh no, I don't give anyone that luxury after they try fucking with me.
There's a saying I've heard a couple of times about this kind of thing, something about how things start looking like nails whenever you're hammered or some shit, and after feeling a bit pissed off after thinking about the Deathjaw and those bandits Julia and I missed, I needed a little something to vent some of my frustration on. So, with the Deathstalker still making one hell of a racket as I held onto it by the tail, I raised the little prick over my head and brought it down onto the ground as hard as I could. The scorpion turned into a Bloody Mess the instant it touched the sand, bursting like a piñata and showering my legs and the sand beneath my feet black with thick black blood and chunks of blood sausage.
"Let's see you try and stab me again, you little bastard!" I shouted at the mangled bits of mutant scorpion at my feet.
Apparently the small fucker's friends must have heard me because before I knew it, there were about six other Deathstalkers swarming around me. Two months ago I would have been a little worried about being surrounded by a couple of poisonous creatures that made a swarm of Cazadores look friendly, but thanks to having a body that couldn't be poisoned anymore, a couple of black bark scorpions with stingers that screamed 'slow and painful death' were about as threatening to me as a bunch of bloatflies. Normal bloatflies. Oh the joys of being Heartless…
Antlers was screaming something at me, probably warning me to be careful or begging me not to start playing another song once I cleaned up the varmints surrounding me, but I was too busy imagining all the things I could do to the poisonous little fellas that made the horrible mistake of making me their intended victim to hear anything she said. Rather than let myself get shanked in the leg by another one of the abominations, I started the fight by stomping the first Deathstalker in front of me. The plate of bone armor covering its head did nothing to protect the mutant scorpion's skull as my boot shot right through it, once again proving that brute strength was somehow better than a bullet to the head against stuff from Europe.
One of the little bugs to my left tried lunging at me after I turned its buddy into a sock, and I rewarded it's effort by grabbing hold of it's tail and tearing the damn thing off. The injured Deathstalker squealed like a wounded mole rat and started flailing around on the sand in agony, causing the rest of the tiny abominations to back away from me as they thought twice about their decision to avenge their friend. That gave me more than enough time to pull Penetrator off of my hip with my free hand and plant a fire Dust round in the other scorpion's skulls. All it took was one second to fire off four shots and turn each scorpion into a crispy corpse that would be some good eatin's to whatever scavenger found them. With those four taken care of, that left nothing between me and the tailless Deathstalker as it continued to flail around on the ground in agony.
Now, I could have just fired off the last shot I had loaded in the magazine and put the damn thing out of its misery, but I wasn't about to waste ammo just because I felt like saving a couple of seconds. Besides, I was still holding onto the bastard's tail and still felt a lil' pissed after getting stabbed by one of its buddies. There was no way in hell I wasn't going to make an example out of that bastard for picking a fight with me, even if it was just a stupid animal.
The injured Deathstalker didn't even try to put up a fight when I stepped down on it's back to stop its squirming, and once I rammed its own stinger through its head, it wasn't in any condition to do much of anything aside from stain my gloves black with its blood. Honestly speaking, I was expecting that last kill to make me feel badass, but the lack of any challenge made the whole thing feel a bit lackluster. I mean, the damn scorpion didn't even try to take off a couple of my toes with those sharp pincers it could have used on me! I can understand not being able to put up a good fight when you have most of your ass ripped off, but come on!
"Well, that was fucking anti-climatic." I grumbled as I tried to shake off the scorpion corpse that was still stuck around my boot.
I turned to Antlers, fully expecting her to have yet another comment about me acting like an idiot or making fun of me for letting one of the bugs get a hit on me, but much to my surprise she actually looked a little concerned.
That… was not at all what I was expecting from the gal. In fact, it was downright terrifying coming from someone who wouldn't bat an eye when facing down a pack of Deathclaw sized wolves.
"The fuck are you lookin' at, Antlers?" I shouted at the girl, a small part of me hoping she was waiting for the right moment to try making fun of me.
"Y-you were stung by a Deathstalker." She stammered.
"Yeah, I did. Hurt like a bitch, but definitely not the worst thing I've gone through this week." I said.
"Are you… are you feeling okay?" She asked me.
As touched as I was by the feisty faunus' sudden concern, despite knowing how fake it probably was, there was something in the way she asked me that question that sent alarm bells ringing in my head. Probably because she used the same tone people did when they asked me 'How the hell did you walk five miles on two broken legs?' and other stuff I used to hear all the time back in the Mojave.
"Yeah, I'm doing just fine, Antlers." I told her. "There a reason why I shouldn't be?"
The look she gave me for that answer bordered somewhere between amazement and terror. "You were stung by a Deathstalker." She droned on again.
"Can you just get to the fucking point already?" I growled at her. "If I wasn't immune to animal poison, I'd be in a whole hell of a lot of pain with you pussyfooting around with whatever the hell you are trying to say."
And with that, the deer woman's face lit up with understanding. "So that's what your semblance is…" She mumbled to herself. I didn't know what the hell she was on about, but since that seemed to make her happy, I wasn't about to tell her anything she didn't want to know. Unfortunately for me, she seemed to have found something else to complain about.
"Wait, if that's your semblance, then how are you able to use it without any aura?" Julia asked me, as if I should have known what the hell she was going on about.
"Probably because I don't have a damn clue about what any of this aura and semblance shit you keep on rambling about is, if I were to take a guess." I answered.
"You what?!"
I could already tell from the way she froze up when I finished talking that I had fucked up. Apparently those two things were common knowledge around these parts, and of course I just had to expose my own ignorance on the local bullshit that goes on around here. Thankfully I still had my little get outta jail free card that had been saving me a whole lot of trouble since first meeting up with the Spirit of Vacuo.
"Oh, I'm so sorry Antlers. I should know better to know about something like aura and semblances and whatever else I don't have a damn clue about when I can't even remember my fucking name anymore!" I roared, letting my growing annoyance with Julia make my performance a little more believable.
"O-oh, right…"
Now, as much as I would have liked to have the girl shut the fuck up for five goddamn minutes and think about how much of an asshole she had been, I really didn't want to go through this whole 'aura' song and dance again with someone that was far less gullible than she was. The ol' amnesia excuse wouldn't be able to get me out of trouble forever, and knowing what the hell was going on in Vacuo definitely couldn't hurt, especially since these Europeans' powers were probably based on this stuff Antlers was talking about. That's the way she made it sound, and knowing a bit more about the weird shit going on here definitely wouldn't hurt.
"How about you just give me a little refresher about this shit to see if that might jog my memory? God knows I could use all the help I could get." I pleaded in an attempt to take advantage of her pride as a self-made 'vigilante' or whatever the hell she was pretending to be.
It took a whole lot more effort than it should've to not wipe that smug look off of her face when she realized she knew something I didn't. The only thing that saved her from getting her ass laid out right then and there was that she didn't waste time laughing at me like most of my companions… the people I used to call companions, would have done in her shoes.
Never did wallop any of 'em when I had the chance, no matter how much they deserved it, but I suppose that's my fault for not getting my hits in when I had the chance. Ungrateful bastards never knew the shit I went through for them, let alone even ask how I was doing every now and then...
Goddamnit, you're doing it again. Focus Six, focus. Wait until you're back in the Lucky 38 to start feeling sentimental. Then you can play Johnny Guitar and drink all the liquor you want to where no one can see you at your lowest. Just listen to what Antlers has to say and try not to fuck up any more about where you came from than you already have.
"I suppose there isn't any harm in helping you out." Antlers said, trying to make it sound like she wasn't gloating about my ignorance and failing miserably at it. "What do you not know about aura and semblances?"
"I don't know a damn thing about either of them." I admitted. "The best I can do is make a wild guess and say that this 'aura' stuff is what makes everyone survive shit that would have killed anyone else without that magical bullshit. As for semblances… yeah, I've got nothin'."
"That's… actually not the worst I've heard someone describe aura." The faunus gal told me, although whether she was lying through her teeth after seeing how pissed I was getting with her or if she really did explain this shit to someone dumber than me, I couldn't tell. "You see, there are many different ways to describe what aura is, and-"
"How about you just give me the shortest, simplest version that you can then?" I interrupted the moment I noticed her getting ready to make some sort of long winded speech. I've already heard enough of those in the Big Empty, thank you very much.
"Fine." Julia sighed. "Like you said earlier, aura protects people who have theirs unlocked from any harm, so long as they have enough of it to spare and it is strong enough to protect them."
"Sort of like armor then?" I inquired. It certainly sounded like armor with the way she was describing it, and it sure as hell broke like armor when I punched through it with a couple of Piercing Strikes.
"Not quite. Aura is supposed to be summoned by its user at will, and not only can it be used to protect them, but also used to help them heal from their wounds and make them far stronger than someone without aura." She continued to explain.
Oh, so it's more like a shield then? Well, at least that explains why every one of Ironcock's punches felt like they were thrown by a Super Mutant on Psycho.
"Is uhh… this aura shit something that everyone can use?" I asked Julia.
Now, I'm not saying that I thought I wasn't tough, strong, or badass enough in general to make it through Europe without that kind of unfair bullshit. No, not at all. But… if this shit is something that anyone can use then I'd be one hell of a dumbass for not getting some of it for myself!
"Yes, so long as somebody without aura can find someone else to unlock theirs or manage to do it themselves by accident, then everyone can have an aura they can use. Even animals can have their aura unlocked, although I don't know what anyone would think their pet dog would do with it." She continued.
Now that raised a whole other question I needed to have answered, just in case we ever came across a pack of Beowolves or another one of those boney black mutants. "How about Grimm? Is there any way they can have their aura unlocked? Imagine if one of those things were tamed and had all that fancy stuff making it even more of a bastard to kill."
The look she shot me after idly making plans for the future chilled the air around me, despite us standing around in an open desert in the middle of the day. "Don't even joke about that Six, Grimm with aura would be the last thing anyone would want." She said. "Besides, only creatures with a soul can have their aura unlocked, and Grimm are soulless creatures."
"When you say 'soulless', are you saying that only good people and animals get to have an aura or that those abominations are missing something that everything else has?"
Knowing which one was important, because that would more or less determine whether or not I had a chance of getting some aura for myself.
"I don't know. It's just what people say." Julia shrugged.
"Since your aura still hasn't returned after two weeks, I wouldn't be surprised if psycho-" The gal paused herself from finishing her favorite insult for me, much to my surprise, but didn't hesitate to make her point painfully obvious when she continued. "I mean, if people with your reputation wouldn't be able to unlock their aura after all."
"Well, fuck you too Antlers." I grumble.
The two of us continued marching through the desert in silence after that, and Antlers quickly started shouting at me when I started up my radio and sang along to Jingle Jangle Jingle again. She made sure to shut up once she realized the only thing she was doing was making me sing louder so I could actually hear myself, allowing me to fall back into what had become our usual routine when travelling through the deserts of Vacuo. It was a little while afterwards when I was listening to one of the jazz tracks I spliced in last night when I had a brilliant idea.
"Hey Antlers, you mind me asking you for a little favor?" I asked her, hoping she wasn't too angry at me to disagree on a matter of premise.
"What?" She growled.
"Let's just say, hypothetically speaking of course, I somehow didn't have my aura unlocked or that it was somehow relocked by whatever Mantle did to me." I told her.
Julia seemed to see what I was getting at, because she asked the question I had for her herself. "You want me to try unlocking your aura for you?"
"Only if it wouldn't be too hard or too much of a pain in the ass." I said.
She went silent a moment to give the idea a thought, no doubt imagining the consequences of what would happen if I was made any deadlier than I already was, before giving me an answer. "Fine, I'll do it."
"That's a shame, I'll ask someone el- wait, really?" I was shocked to hear it, and I had to make sure that wasn't my head or something else the Think Tank did to fuck with me making me hear something I didn't. "You'd really do that for me?"
"Yes, I would." Julia said with a bit more hesitation now. "Consider it my way of saying 'thanks' for helping me with that Deathjaw when most people would have just ran away."
As much as I wanted to inform her that if I would never have been able to outrun the big bastard even if I did consider abandoning her for even a moment, I wasn't about to do anything that would ruin my chances of making my life that much easier. "Alright then!" I shouted in triumph. "When can we get started?"
The answer the gal gave me was almost as shocking as when she agreed to help me out. "Right now."
"Okay, is there something I need to do or…"
"No." Julia interrupted me. "Just turn towards me, shut up, and stay still until I'm finished."
I made sure to be as cooperative as possible when following Antler's orders. To her credit, she only grimaced a little bit as she placed her hand against the sharp chunks of scrap metal protecting my chest. I made sure to stifle my laughter as best I could after that and let her start muttering some religious sounding nonsense under her breath and felt a sudden warm feeling start pouring out of her and into my chest. Whatever she was doing, it felt a whole damn lot better than the sun did ever since my little stroll through Vault 22, and not needing to worry about turning into a plant zombie because of what she was doing to me made it a little easier to keep myself calm throughout the whole process. Anything that felt that good definitely couldn't have been bad.
A minute had barely passed before the warm feeling passed and Julia pulled her hand away from me and immediately wiped it off on her pant leg. Sure, I was still covered in all sorts of blood, guts, and other juicy bits from those Grimm scorpions and whale-worm-shark-thing, but she could have at least had the decency to wait to clean off her hand when I wasn't staring straight at her.
"There, you should be able to use aura now." Julia announced.
"Okay, here goes nothing!" I said as I prepared to do something amazing.
"..."
"Six?
"…"
"Six, is something wrong?"
"There uhh… there isn't something special I need to do those fancy jumps of yours or make myself bulletproof, is there? Or am I supposed to feel like an idiot for trying to make something happen now that I have my aura ready to go?" I asked her, wondering what the hell could have gone wrong.
"You should feel stronger, like a muscle you never knew before was suddenly being used." Julia told me.
I was about to ask Julia to try stabbing me to see if that would work, but I thankfully had something else pop up in my head before I willingly let myself get impaled by her sword. It was a stretch, and definitely the biggest 'fuck you' that would have happened to me ever since waking up in Vacuo, but was definitely something that could happen knowing my luck.
"You said that aura comes from the soul, right?" I asked her.
"That's what most books about aura say." She said dismissively.
"You ever hear of any books say that the soul can be found somewhere in the heart? I know I've read more that said something similar to that." I started to explain.
"Maybe. What are you trying to say?" Julia asked me.
"What I'm trying to say is that I might be shit outta luck when it comes to aura thanks to having an artificial heart, lungs, liver, kidneys, and a couple of other bits inside of me." I answered her.
Julia gave me a sort of half-hearted nod in understanding. "So you think that Mantle might have taken away your aura?"
"Sure as hell makes more sense than anything else I can think of." I lied.
There was always the chance that any non-European might not be able to have their aura unlocked or just not have any, but I was not about to tell anyone more about myself than I had to until I secured a way back to the Mojave.
"I suppose you're right." She agreed.
"I mean, it's not like I'm some sort of inhuman monster like a Grimm or anything…" I joked.
"You're not, right?" Julia asked me.
I honestly couldn't tell if she was fucking with me or not when she asked me that, so instead of teasing her and risking a pointless fight to make me feel any worse about myself, I decided it would be best to shut the hell up and keep on walking without giving her an answer. I made sure to crank up the volume on my Pipboy and play some smooth jazz to drown out Antler's voice when she kept on asking me if I wasn't a Grimm. After the disappointment of the last couple of minutes, I needed a little something to cheer me up, and making the gal panic would go a long way to making me forget how much of a fucking letdown this had been.
Back in the Wasteland 3: Heart, Soul, Aur-AAHHHHH!
September 20th, 2082
An uneasy silence had lingered amongst the appliances residing within The Sink since The Courier's abrupt departure. All of them were used to how emotional the only human inhabitant of their otherwise perfect little world could be, rage and chem induced outbursts being chief the main feelings he ever let show, but their new user had always come back to them after 'properly' expressing himself to the local wildlife and lobotomites. The sight of Six covered in blood, oil, and other mysterious substances might have been enough reason for anyone back in The Mojave to flee at the very sight of him, but the denizens of The Sink knew that he would never hurt any of them, Toaster excluded.
As the CIU so generously put it, while The Courier might not have been the best, or most refined, or sanest user they have had the pleasure of working with, neither were the personalities he had restored during his two month stay in Big Mountain. If anything, that was what made him the greatest user they had ever had the pleasure of meeting.
Every one of them knew that they were all broken to some extent. When they were reunited thanks to the efforts of a user just as damaged as they were, they somehow managed to get along with him even better than their creators. While it wasn't hard for Muggy to think of Six as a far better user than the man who made him out of spite, the other personalities soon found themselves thinking of The Courier as another regular inhabitant of The Sink no different from them.
That was why they had been so keen on throwing their friend, savior, and prodigal benefactor a party when he returned to them after ending the Think Tank's reign of unintentional terror before it had a chance to spread any more horrors outside of Big Mountain. Six had made it clear that he didn't want to put them down, so it only made sense that they would try to make him feel better about it by throwing him a party for slaughtering a bunch of elderly scientists who didn't know they were doing anything wrong.
It was only when the CIU, once given enough time to entertain the possibility that he might have made a mistake regarding the timing of this celebration, did he and all the other personalities within The Sink realize that they had done more harm than help for Six. While quite a lot of the blame could be put on the Biological Research Station being his usual self, which more than one personality chose to do that day, they knew that there were no innocent members in regards to Six losing control of his temper this time.
And so, believing that it would be best to wait until Six had calmed down after dismantling a few more of the experiments running rampant throughout the crater of Big Mountain's former namesake, they decided to silently wait for his return and apologize the moment he walked back through either of the entrances.
The Courier had departed The Sink at dusk yesterday. It was already noon, and there were still no signs of him returning… or fighting for his life.
"Do uhh… does anyone think anything happened to that groovy Courier?" Blind Diode Jefferson chimed in, finally finding the courage to ask what the others feared.
"Well, in my professional opinion," The Auto-Doc chimed in, "I'd say my patient doesn't have much of anything to worry about these days. Not much that can kill something like him."
"That sounds like something a communist would say." The Bookshute was quick to retort.
"Oh please. Why don't you just do us all a favor and go choke on another paperclip!" Muggy shouted as started to make yet another lap around the CIU to stave off the urge to process all of the coffee mugs Six had in storage, knowing damn well that if he did so he would soon be joining the Toaster.
"I have an even better idea!" A new voice said from one of the tanks in the far room of The Sink.
"Why don't we all shut the fuck up and let me go back to sleep already you insufferable twits!" They continued, their oddly posh voice reaching the audio sensors of every appliance. "You guys messed up, okay? GET OVER IT ALREADY! Who cares if the meat bag is throwing another temper tantrum? I don't, and that's my body I'm talking about! Maybe it's just because I'm the only one of you here who can actually think for themselves, but I have better things to do than worry about what that brainless moron does with himself."
The Sink fell silent once again after The Brain's outburst, but that silence was soon cut short by the CIU who felt compelled to restore some semblance of order. He most definitely was not having a 'simple spat' with a disembodied brain in order to defend The Courier, because that would of course be completely unprofessional of him.
"What sort of things does a brain stuck floating in a jar of mentats do, if you would be so generous as to enlighten me?" He asked.
"Oh no he didn't!" Light Switch #2 gasped, turning the room a pleasant red as she did so.
"Oh yes he did." Light Switch #1 purred, attempting to override her sister's control of the lights with her more thoughtful blue, creating a lightshow that would have been sure to leave any witness that could have seen them struggling for control blinded by the ensuing lightshow.
"Oh please, the only reason I'm here is because the meat bag needed me here." The Brain fired back. "The moment he turns the bloody pump back on to send me back to Mobius's Lab, I'll finally be free to think in peace."
The Biological Research Station, seeing a prime opportunity to make his presence known, instantly pounced on the first chance he had to gain the room's attention. "Why think in peace when you could be thinking about all the stuff we could do together, baby."
"Oh Sweet Lord, I would rather go back in the meat bag than have anything to do with you! You're even worse than that slutty redhead that my idiotic body used to run around with, and he actually liked having that girl around. No wonder he abandoned you." The Brain said.
"Why that's preposterous! Six would never abandon us!" The Sink's Sink interjected.
"Really? Then what other explanation do you have for that fool for taking the only way out of this hell hole with him when he stormed out of here last night?" The Brain inquired.
He waited for an answer, and neither The Sink's Sink, CIU, nor any of the other appliances had anything to say against him.
"That's exactly what I thought." The Brain oozed smugness as he twirled around in his chem ridden holding tank. "The moron knows a lot about abandoning people, considering how many times it happened to him, so I'm not surprised he decided to leave all of you to rot in here with the other broken garbage lying around Big Empty."
"HAH! What a joke!" Muggy scoffed. "You must have forgotten that you're the only one that's stuck in here. The rest of us can leave whenever we feel like it."
"Oh please. How do any of you expect to leave this building when the mental little securitron with daddy issues is the one of you who can even fit in the elevator?" The Brain asked him.
"Simple, all I need to do is remove everyone's personality disk and find something else to shove them into somewhere." Muggy answered. "What now,you cocky little bitch?Not so tough now, are ya?"
The Brain stammered in incoherent rage before finding something he could defend himself with. Just as he found what he thought would be the perfect response to the deranged little robot's assertions, one of the other holding tanks in his room started to glow a vibrant red.
"Okay, time out for a moment everyone." The Brain said as it tried to focus sensors on the anomaly that had consumed the only other piece of flesh in The Sink. "Did the meat bag manage to add Jet to my chem supply, or is my heart actually glowing?"
"I'm not seein' any rads on my geiger counter." The Auto-Doc drawled.
"My sensors are not detecting any contaminants in your biogel." The Sink's Sink said. "Well, aside from the incredibly high concentration of ground Mentats, but I doubt you want me to start filtering them out for you."
"I can assure you that I would have detected any radioactivity long before the three of you would have been able to detect it." The CIU added.
"Well, that's just fan-FUCKING-tastic!" The Brain lamented. "What the hell is going on with my heart?"
"I'm not sure honey, but I think our competition is dying down, sis." One of the Light Switches announced. No appliance was daring enough to guess which one of them said it out loud.
Sure enough, just as abruptly as it had started glowing, The Courier's heart returned to normal as if nothing had ever happened to it. While one could say that it returned to normal, calling the cancerous lump that somehow hadn't killed Six long before arriving in the Big Empty 'normal' wasn't something anyone could do after taking a single glance at it.
It was round and heavily bloated due to the numerous tumors that covered it. Only a few parts of it were still colored red and pumped blood of the same color, the vast majority of it either a pale white that no sane person would call healthy, a sickly green covered in fuzz, and one patch too densely covered with hair to see the flesh underneath it. There were other abnormalities that had formed on and within the heart, but aside from the toothy grin and lone eye residing on one side of The Courier's heart, the appliances tried their best not to notice anything else growing on the heart. Having the heart stare back at them with its unblinking eye did a lot to discourage a thorough inspection of the tumorous growths.
"Is… is anyone going to take a look and see if anything is different with it?" The Brain asked.
"Hewwo!"
"Great!" The Brain exclaimed after hearing a volunteer answer his call to action. "Which one of you is going to take a look?"
It was only after giving a bit of thought to the speaker, a voice none of The Sink's inhabitants had heard before, did he start to worry about who, or rather, what and just spoken.
"Uhh… CIU?"
"Yes, sir? Is there anything you need that requires my assistance?" The ever helpful custodian of The Sink spoke up.
"Please tell me another robot… lobotomite… ANYTHING THAT CAN TALK WALKED INTO THE ROOM AND NOT WHAT I THINK I'M SPEAKING TO LEARNED HOW TO TALK!" The Brain desperately pleaded.
"Nope. That was definitely your next door neighbor talking to you." Muggy said as he wandered into the room holding Courier Six's spare organs and artificial spine.
"Oh, and just so you know… it's smiling straight at you." He continued, bursting into a fit of maniacal laughter.
"Wanna be fwiends?" The Heart said, looking straight into the ocular sensor attached to The Brain's holding tank.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
Author's Corner:
Consider this as my answer to the question of if and when Six is getting an aura and semblance.
One more thing, the next few chapters will likely be delayed thanks to a wonderful little thing called 'indefinite overtime'.
"Guest": I am liking the story, yet the last chapter is weird to me, the blind Grimm should be able to sense Courier six and (Julia)'s negative emotions. If the Courier's negative emotions can be spotted in a city full of it would it be the same for glutton to pick that up? The chapter is good regardless but it was something that was picking away at me.
If you have ever lived near a place that reeks of something awful, such as fresh manure, smoke, sulfur, and other strong scents then you know damn well everything for almost a mile will smell exactly like it FOR DAYS. Trying to pick out a small object based on smell alone in a place that smells just as awful as it is incredibly difficult, and I felt that something similar would happen for creatures searching for fresh negative emotions in a recently ravaged town.
maskedkeeper: so is it a Grimm wander.
im guessing, by it mentioning someone using his title
All the clues are there, so I'll let you come to your own conclusions until the reveal finally happens.
Shawn Laurghren: "Major Ironwood's hat" Of course he stole his hat. It's what I would have done too.
I mean… I can't be the only other person that tries to collect one of every item in every RPG they play, right? Besides, one of a kind stuff usually sells and even if it doesn't, the hats of your enemies make for some nice trophies.
Alright, there you have it. Once again, I'd like to thank you all for reading this story for as long as you have, give a special thanks to most good ones were taken, and I hope to see you all again in the future.