Chapter 18: I Need a Drink
With only a wooden door standing between me and a pissed off radstag lady that probably wouldn't think much if she ended up killing, I looked over my gear one last time. If our little 'chat' went about as well as I expected and somebody ended up getting stabbed, then it sure as hell wasn't going to let it be me. A quick pat down never hurt anyone… actually, a quick pat down never hurt me, so of course I had to do one now just to make sure I came at Antlers fully prepared.
Let's see here… bowie knife? Safely strapped to my belt, away from my crotch because fuck trying to sew myself up if I somehow manage to stab myself that way again. I'd rather bleed out than go through that shit again. Bowie knife is as good as it's going to get.
Desert Ranger Combat Armor? Had to replace whatever armor plating it used in my first week exploring the Big Empty. The scrap metal I've used in place of the proper ceramic, plastic, or whatever the hell it used wasn't the best, but it at least was better than roaming around shirtless. Duster looks like shit on account of all the patches it has but, thanks to weaving in a few saturnite plates inside of it, that hardly mattered. Sure, I might look like a fucking clown while I'm getting shot at, but if Antlers thought about shooting me with that submachine gun I gave her at least I'd have the last laugh once I strangled her. Guess that means my body armor is ready too. Not like I'm going to come across a spare set of combat armor stored away somewhere in… whoever's bar this is anyways.
Huh, I never did ask for that guy's name. I'm usually better about that kind of stuff. I'll have to remember to ask him later.
Anyways, what's next? Oh, my helmet and gas mask, of course. My helmet's still holding up surprisingly well after Ironcock blasted a fist sized hole in it when he tried blowing my brains out. I still haven't been able to flatten out the sheet metal I used to patch it up all the yet, but I know damn well that it is sturdy enough to deflect those man-wolf-mutant...thing's claws.
My gas mask won't protect me from much since it was meant to shield against radiation rather than bullets. Considering its built-in air filters wore out sometime between the Great War and the two hundred years it took me to get my hands on it, they wouldn't have done me much good anyways. That was the entire reason why I swapped them out with the rebreather the Boomers made for me, and damn was that one of the best decisions I ever made. Really saved my ass when I found out a body full of metal doesn't float worth a damn. Yep, my gas mask and helmet are good to go… not that I ever plan on getting shot in the head again.
Double barrel shotgun? I could use it, but I'm not sure if the guards in this town would believe any stories about self-defense if I end up turning Antlers into a bunch of bite sized chunks with it. Hell, the last time one of my talks did end up with someone dying without me killing them, the fuckers in charge still tried to pin their suicide on me anyways! There's no way in hell I'm going through that shit again! Looks like the shotgun will have to stay in my Pipboy then.
Same goes for the MAMR, four 11mm pistols, and my other submachine gun too. With how sluggish I am thanks to the chems in me, I doubt I could line up a shot on Antlers before the gal could rip the former out of my hands. As for the 11mm weapons, I'd have better luck using them to pistol whip her into submission than actually filling her full of lead, Dust, or whatever the fuck the people here use. Sure, the files I pulled off of Ironcock's scroll said that the local rounds should be effective against aura, but until I see exactly how useful they are for myself, I'm saving them for the next bunch of Grimm I come across. Those are all staying stored away too.
Toasty? That cry baby still hasn't said anything after we got hit by that one bitch's car a couple weeks ago. I should probably pry his chrome open and check to make sure he really is being a drama queen on the off chance he did break something. Then again, maybe it would be better for me if he is broken. I'm not sure if I trust him with a death ray cause he sure as hell didn't trust me enough to tell me he even had one after I saved him from getting a well deserved bath. Toasty's staying in my Pipboy a little longer, I guess.
That leaves the best for last, Penetrator. I haven't exactly had the chance to see if Major Dick's hilariously named gun is any good at living up to its title when it comes to aura, but it does a damn good job against Grimm and buildings. Not the best when it comes to punching through armor, thank fuck for that, but then again, Dust rounds aren't fired with as much *oomph* as regular bullets. I've already proved that enough power from a regular bullet can tear through aura as easily as flesh with my MAMR and I'd be willing to bet that Penetrator isn't any worse at close range. That thing's fully loaded too, so-
Wait, wait a moment. No it's not. All I need to do is take one good look down the stairs at that hole I blew through the wall for proof of that. I'm just going to swap out *that* magazine with *this* one and hope I get lucky and then…
...remember exactly how lucky I really am, and swap out this magazine with one of my spares since I'm pretty sure I know exactly what's going to happen as soon as I walk through those doors. If I'm right, then I'm the smartest courier that's ever lived. If not… well, at least no one will be able to rub my failure in my face because I'll be the only person who'll know I fucked up.
Alright, so that's my gun, knife, armor, and more or less everything I need for a little bit of one on one with yet another asshole that's too high on themselves and in desperate need of a bitch slap.
With my gear check finally over, the whole process taking no more than a minute but still feeling like it took an eternity to get it done and over with, I fumbled around in my pockets for the key to my room. I barely stopped myself from throwing the key in the lock and kicking the door when I realized that barging through the door unannounced was probably not the smartest thing I could do considering how stab happy Antlers was acting before she went upstairs. While I did want to knock some sense into her if I had to, I was also fed up with the misunderstanding I had with the fucking know-nothing bartender downstairs. Last thing I needed was another misunderstanding that ended up with me killing someone that might not deserve it, as unlikely as it seems right now.
This… this is why giving a shit about other people fucking sucks. Always a goddamn chance that in your attempts to not screw over other people that you might get screwed over yourself. Actually, forget might, you will get screwed over at some point for showing some human fucking decency at some point. Whether or not you're ready for when everything goes to shit, that's the real question.
I couldn't help but to sigh at the thought as I knocked on the door to me and Antler's room. "Heads up. I'm coming in." I warned her, putting a hand on my knife in case that had been a mistake.
A waited a few seconds with my hand on the door knob as I listened to the light shuffling I heard from behind the door. Only once I heard Antlers stop moving did I feel confident enough to push the door open, giving it a light enough shove to give me a clear line of sight inside our room before it came to a stop.
For a moment, I was impressed with what I saw. Smack dab in the middle of the room was a pristine looking carpet that wouldn't have looked out of place in the Xiong Clan hideout's gold-lined hallways, and the two person bed pressed against the wall could have been made of clouds from how light and fluffy it looked. There were a few other fancy things in the room, like the clean walls, floors, a window that you could actually see through, and some nightstands that weren't about to fall apart after seeing a couple centuries of use. There wasn't even a pile of trash swept up in any of the corners too, much to my shock.
I didn't have much time to think about how strange it was to see a room that even Mr House would have approved of in such a remote town though. That was because Antlers was, as disappointing but not at all surprising to see, aiming the submachine gun I gave her straight at my chest.
"Really?" I asked her, unable to find the effort to sound betrayed. "You really want to do it this way?"
"Shut up, human." Antlers growled at me. "Now drop your weapons or else I'll shoot you."
Honestly speaking, there was nothing stopping me from running right up to her and punching her out right then and there. Sure, she probably could've emptied half a magazine into me before I got close enough to wring her neck, but unless she managed to bring along a few magazines for a weapon she didn't have before leaving Vacuo (the city, not the kingdom) and somehow managed to refill one of them with the perfect mix of Dust rounds to eat a hole through my armor, there wasn't a damn thing she could do by shooting me. Well, aside from pissing me off more than she already had, that is.
That was the entire reason I decided to let her keep the submachine gun after our run in with the Deathjaw, after all. Testing out the penetration power of that sucker hurt like a mother fucker because I didn't think to check to see what ammo I had loaded and ended up tasing myself with some Electricity Dust, but it didn't so much as leave a dent in my Pipboy's health tracker after a couple of shots. I never would have given Antlers a weapon that could possibly kill me, or anyone else for that matter, and why that thought never crossed her mind was beyond me.
With that said, if pretending to be afraid of a weapon I knew couldn't kill me was all it took to get her to start talking, then I was happy to go along with whatever game Antlers felt like playing for a little while. I made sure to put on a bit of show for her as I disarmed myself, groaning and complaining as I threw the bowie knife and Penetrator to the ground just outside of my reach.
Now, Antlers never did specify where I needed to throw my weapons, but to make her feel all the more in control and that much more likely to tell me exactly what I wanted to know, I acted like most people did when I scared them shitless. Or, well, I almost acted like it. There were a lot of things I was willing to do to catch someone off guard, and pissing myself on purpose wasn't anywhere close to the top of that list.
"There. You happy, Antlers?" I sighed once the deed was done.
Apparently she was not, because I had barely had time to finish shutting my mouth before the damn woman fired off a burst aimed straight at my chest. The five Dust rounds she fired at me didn't do any damage according to the information my Pipboy, but that didn't mean taking a few icicles straight to the nipples felt fucking pleasant!
"WHAT THE FUCK!?" I shouted, recoiling from the unexpected wave of cold that poured into my chest.
"I told you to shut up." Antlers demanded, oblivious to how she was doing little more than rising up on the list of people I wanted to kill real fucking fast. "The only time you will speak is if I ask you a question. Do you understand, human?"
Of course, being the vindictive bastard that I was, I didn't say a goddamn thing. That quickly earned me another couple of rounds to the chest. Three to be exact, eight shots in total after the first few she shot me with. Sixteen left in the magazine, if I remember correctly. I don't know whether or not she remembered how many she had, but I damn well wasn't planning on telling her if she didn't.
The last few Ice Dust rounds didn't have as much of an effect on me as the first few since I was expecting them, but I feigned a cry of pain and flinched from them all the same to keep up the illusion that Antlers was actually doing something to me aside from being a goddamn annoyance.
"I hear you crystal fucking clear, toots." I rasped, feeling a bit chilled from being shot by a couple of bullet sized icicles and playing it up for all it was worth.
"Don't call me that." She demanded.
"Whatever you say, Antlers." I snarked back, bracing just in time to receive four rounds to the gut, 12 left.
"Fucking human. My name is Julia Summers. Do not call me one of the little pet names your kind give my people!" She roared.
Antlers kept her weapon trained on me after making that declaration, not making a single sound as if she was waiting for something. Thankfully it only took her a couple of seconds to realize that I wasn't going to say jack shit, just like she demanded from me earlier, until she realized her mistake and asked me a question.
"How does it feel, human?" She said, starting what was undoubtedly going to be an unbearably long monologue and yada yada yada…
Not wanting to listen to another crackpot ramble on again for an hour I followed Antlers' exact words and interrupted her to give her my answer. "Cold. It feels fucking cold."
Whatever backstory or other boring shit Antlers was going to go on and on about, I really didn't care what she had to say, must not have been too important because she stopped mid thought to give me one of the most confused looks I have received from someone I had traveled with.
"Because you shot me. In the chest. With fucking icicles." I explained with the biggest shit-eating grin from underneath my mask. "What the fuck did you think I would feel after that?"
The one bullet that smacked into my face afterwards was well worth it, especially since it didn't do any damage to my gas mask. 11 left.
"Is this all a joke to you?" Antlers asked me incredulously.
"Do you really need me to answer that?" I taunted on the off chance it wasn't obvious enough already.
Amazingly, I wasn't shot for saying that. "Of course it is. Why did I expect anything different?" She muttered to herself.
"Because I'm not the one who's going to end up with a boot up the ass by the time you run out of ammo." I thought to myself.
I damn near blurted it out too, but thankfully Antlers was still high on her little power trip and started talking again before I could fill the silence in the room for her.
"So, how long did you plan on deceiving us, human?" She questioned me, falling back onto the good ol' reliable interrogation technique of 'talk or get shot' that even the incompetents of the NCR didn't bother using.
"Like I said before, I didn't know not being a faunus was going to be a problem." I told her. "If I did, then you can sure as hell bet I wouldn't have wanted anything to do with you or the rest of the Spirit of Vacuo after killing The Major."
"Bullshit. Why did you really try to infiltrate us?" She continued to question me, still not getting that I didn't have anything to hide from her. "Was it the Xiongs, or some other humans from Mistral that put you up to this?"
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me." I sighed, earning yet another three rounds of Ice Dust to the chest for my troubles, 8 left.
"Will you fucking stop that already?!" I shouted at her as I brushed off some ice shards that were still clinging to the scrap metal wrapped around my chest. "If you want some damn answers, then I'll fucking give them to you. Just stop shooting me already!"
You only have half of your magazine left after all, Antlers. Better be careful with how you use the last dozen.
"Then tell me why you were in Vacuo and why Mantle wanted you dead, human." She demanded.
"Fine. If you really want to know how the hell I ended up in Vacuo, it's because I took a fuckton of chems after getting drunk with a dog and a toaster after murdering a bunch of floating brains in jars who scooped out my brain, spine, heart, and a whole lot of other bits because they didn't have a reason not to fuck with me." I angrily told her before instantly realizing how badly I fucked up.
Thankfully she was too stunned by what I told her, or maybe it was because she hadn't seen half the crazy shit I did, to believe a single word of it. Hell, she was so surprised that she didn't even shoot me once she came to her senses.
"This is why we never should have trusted a drug addict." She grumbled, much to my annoyance.
"Hey, don't knock 'em 'till you try 'em, Antlers." I said, ignoring the follow up shot that pinged off my shoulder in response. "You'd be surprised by what a couple of chems could do to a person."
"I already am." Antlers sighed. "I don't know what I was expecting since you're too burnt out to remember your own name anymore."
As much as I wanted to clear up the obvious misunderstanding I couldn't because it more or less gave me the perfect alibi for not knowing what the fuck was going on or where the hell I was. Not without sounding like I was crazier than No-bark that is, and I'm sure even he would have called my stories about the Big Empty insane if he ever heard about them.
"That still doesn't explain why Mantle was hunting you down, human." Antlers continued once she got over the misunderstanding she made about me. "There has to be a reason why Ironwood sent a team of Hunters after you even though you're not a faunus."
"Hunters?" I inquired, the term not ringing any bells.
"The assassins that tried to kill you when you hid in that old hardware store." She explained. "Mantle never sends them against humans, so tell me, what did you do that made those bastards hunt down one of their own like a faunus?"
"Oh, those shitheads." I mumbled as I remembered the first few people to actually give me a fight...
...aside from that fucking firing line that chased me in there in the first place, but that didn't count.
"Hell if I know." I told her honestly. "I have a certain talent for pissing people off, as you have obviously already figured out, so my guess is that I probably pissed off the people in charge of sending assassination squads to people Mantle doesn't like."
"You're lying." Antlers accused. "They would never send Hunters after someone who isn't a faunus. It doesn't make sense."
"Are you sure about that?" I asked her, ignoring the 'risk' of getting shot for speaking out of line. "Because I don't know about you, but I don't really think those Mantlesian fuckers need a reason to kill someone they don't like. Any ol' excuse is probably good enough for them."
"What?" The faunus girl gasped in shock.
"Oh, don't tell me you're that fucking naïve, Antlers." I said, bracing myself for a couple icicles that never came before carrying on with what I was saying.
"Do you really think those white suited pieces of shit really care about whether or not you're a human or a faunus? Here's a little newsflash for you girl. People like them? They don't really give a shit about what other people think, so long as everyone else does what they're told. People like them will say anything to get what they want, so long as it gets them what they want or just a little bit closer towards whatever it is they are working for. I've met, spoke with, and killed dozens of people that have talked a whole lot of big shit, Antlers. Each one of them turned out to be the same exact fucking thing; petty little tyrants trying to control everything they can and fooling anyone that will listen to them into making their dreams of world domination, wealth, or of killing everything they don't like into doing whatever they want." I ranted.
"Of course they are. They're humans." Antlers retorted, although clearly lacking the confidence she had from when I first walked in the room. "That's what they do. They lie to get what they want."
"Really? Cause that's exactly what it looked like Bunny Boy was doing to you every time he talked to you." I said.
Unsurprisingly, that little comment ended up with Antlers trying to empty the rest of her magazine straight into my chest. Girl missed more shots than she hit and she definitely wasn't counting her shots like I was. The momentary look of fear when her gun stopped firing was more than enough to tell me that.
Now, what did surprise me when she threw the fucking submachine gun I gave her at my face the second she realized she was out of ammo. I never saw it coming, not even as it cracked one of the lenses of my gas mask and dropped my sorry ass to the floor.
By the time I was done muttering a string of curses underneath my breath, I was still wondering why anyone would throw away a perfectly good weapon like that and staring at Antlers who was standing over top of me, pointing her short sword at me just far away enough that I couldn't grab it. Worse of all, she was standing right where I threw my weapons earlier too.
From where I was sitting, I had the perfect view of her as she bent down to pick up Penetrator off the ground and aimed my hand cannon straight at my face. Between the short sword that was pointed at my face and my own gun aimed straight at my heart, I still wasn't any more intimidated now than I was any earlier. If anything, I had to keep myself from bursting out in laughter after Antlers came a couple steps closer to my strangling range.
"Oh, and you're threatening me with my own gun now. Great. That's just fan-fucking-tastic." I grumbled as I tapped on my cracked lens to make sure it wouldn't break on me any time soon.
"Yes, I am." She gloated with a smirk that made my blood boil. "How does it feel now that you're not the one in charge anymore, human?"
She still thinks she is in control here? How cute.
"I couldn't give a shit about what you think, Antlers. I'm more pissed that you cracked one of my fucking lenses more than anything." I fired back at her. "Do you know how much these fucking things cost?"
Rather than answering me, she looked at me dumbfounded, so I took that as my sign to keep on complaining. "Well… I don't know either, but since it took me months to find a couple of spares the last time I needed them, I damn well know for sure they're expensive."
At any other time, the sight of Antlers face palming would have been something I would have loved to rub into her face. Considering how she was poised to stab me at any moment, I decided not to press my luck any further than I had already.
"You really are a pathetic excuse for a human being, do you know that?" Antlers said once she finally managed to get ahold of herself.
Worst part was that she didn't sound like she was trying to be a dick when she said. Not entirely, at the very least. That didn't mean it hurt any less to hear.
"Fuck you very much!" I shouted back at her. "I'm pretty sure a lot of faunus would say the same about you."
I half expected the girl to pull the trigger on my hand cannon right then and there, but for the first time today, Antlers showed some self-restraint. I wasn't anywhere close to hearing everything I wanted her to tell me, and I would have hated to rain on her parade before I learned more about her too. She'd already proven she was no better than the folks from Novac when it came to humans rather than ghouls, but that wasn't exactly a reason to try and choke her out. It was certainly tempting and I have killed people for less in the past. That bitch had no idea how lucky she was that I needed answers and she was the only one who could give them to me.
"There you go again, sounding like a human again." She chided me, like I was the damn kid between us.
"The fuck is that supposed to mean, Antlers?" I asked her.
Once again, she let out another sigh as if I was somehow in the wrong for not knowing what the fuck she was talking about. "You humans always say the same thing about faunus who don't do exactly what you want them to do. Whenever we fight back against your kind we're always made out to be the criminals, not you savages who treat us like animals in the first place." She lectured me.
Savage? She is calling me a filthy fucking SAVAGE now?
"I'm a savage?" I asked her, giving her one last chance to backtrack.
Considering that she did technically save my ass once or twice, I did owe her that for the animal, she nodded her empty head in agreement.
"That's fucking rich coming from the likes of you, Antlers." I laughed.
"Stop calling me that, human." The bitch demanded again, her aim starting to waver ever so slightly now that I wasn't treating her like a bad joke.
"Oh shut the hell up already. You don't know a goddamn thing about me or anyone else that isn't a part of your little 'revolution', or whatever you wanna call Bunny Boy's bunch of thugs." I growled back.
The brat actually had the gall to look offended at me after that, making it that much more obvious that she really was in over her head in case it wasn't obvious enough already.
"Don't you dare say that about us, we're-"
"A bunch of fucking idiots doing whatever the hell you want because some shitstains from another country, kingdom, or whatever Mantle is, decided to set the faunus and humans of Vacuo against each other so you both would be easier to conquer." I said, making a wild guess at the condition of this shithole of a kingdom first hand. "And, surprise, surprise, you dumb fucks actually fell for it!"
I didn't really know or give a damn whether or not my guess was right, but after seeing a flicker of worry in Antler's eyes, I couldn't care less.
"Oh don't tell me you're that fucking gullible, Antlers!" I shouted at the stupid cunt for not seeing something so damn obvious, if I wasn't just pulling shit outta my ass.
"It isn't just Mantle attacking us!" The bitch insisted, but I wasn't hearing any of it.
"You mean to tell me there were dead faunus lining the streets of Vacuo before Mantle arrived and started running the place?"
Her silence was all the answer I needed to hear.
"Thats what I fucking thought. No wonder you fucks needed to kill the bastard in charge of things in Vacuo. You're all too busy sucking off Bunny Boy to do anything for yourselves." I goaded.
"What did you just say?" Antlers asked me, trying to sound tough but only managing to look more pathetic than she already was.
"I'm saying that the only shit I've seen anyone from the Spirit of Vacuo do is exactly what Bunny Boy tells 'em to do. And you, Antlers? You're the worst one of them all, although considering how much fun you and him were having after I killed Ironcock instead of making yourself useful, I doubt you really care what happens to anyone outside of the Spirit of Vacuo." I said.
"'Then again, I'm sure Bunny Boy doesn't mind telling you whatever keeps you happy if it means you're wrapped around his fingers and ready to act as his private whore whenever he calls for you." I continued, unable to help myself.
And that last, final comment, just so happened to be the one thing to push the bitch in front of me over the edge. In less than a second, the shock of being talked down to by a simple 'drugged up psychopath' vanished from her and was replaced by a look I had seen too many times to count. One that I knew all too well.
Cold eyes, flat expression, and not even a quiver of fear like she had going on moments earlier. In that very moment, Antlers didn't look any different than any of the other raiders, slavers, and would-be tyrants who thought they were safe from behind the towering walls and army of loyal fuckwits that their boss didn't give a damn about.
It was the same look, the exact same scene I saw in my nightmares every day until I finally took out that rat bastard, Benny, once and for all. Oh yes, I remember the sight of his goddamn peashooter's barrel aimed straight at my eye and how the bastard looked at me like I was nothing more than another random obstacle in his way.
That was the same cold, uncaring look Antlers was giving me right now. That was the same steady aim pointing straight towards my head, no different with Penetrator than it was with Maria. That was the same disregard for anything that wasn't in her interests that Benny had for me.
And that was the same, agonizingly slow way she pulled the trigger on me…
*Click*
Only to discover I loaded an empty magazine.
"What?!" She gasped in shock.
As much as I wanted to say some cocky one liner like every hero from a Pre-War holotape did, I didn't waste time making the most of Antler's confusion. I reared my right arm back and leapt at her to deliver a sucker punch with everything I had in an attempt to drop the bitch before she could defend herself. Instead of collapsing to the floor unconscious or dead like any normal person would have, she stumbled backwards so I could only assume her aura protected her, for the most part at any rate. Judging by how my fist stung like I had just punched a protectron barehanded and from how much the faunus woman was cursing as she backpedaled away from me, I could at least tell she didn't get away from that one unscathed.
That didn't stop her from trying to take my head off with her sword though. I could have just ducked underneath her blade and tried punching her out again, but I was not feeling patient enough to fight fairly after hearing all of her bullshit from earlier. So, instead of trying to evade her attack, I raised my left arm to block her blade and exposed one of the many 'improvements' the Think Tank gave me when I first arrived at big empty.
The edge of her sword cut through my long coat like a cosmic knife through a radroach, probably would have done the same to my arm too if those crazy doctors didn't swap out my left arm for a saturnite prosthetic. The only thing Antlers was able to do with that freakish strength of hers was snap her sword like a twig when it struck the polished chunk of saturnite those crazy doctors molded into my current left arm, leaving her completely at my mercy now that she no longer had any weapon to defend herself with.
I threw a quick gut punch at her long before she had the chance to prove me wrong, not that I intended to find out in the first place. Once again it felt like I was punching a solid chunk of metal instead of a person, so I just kept on throwing quick punches at the girl as she tried her best to fight back. While I might not have been anywhere close to the unmatched master of hand to hand combat that I was without feeling the after effects of a half dozen different chems, I wasn't nearly as bad of a brawler as the rookie in front of me was. She had apparently never considered it would be a wise idea to have a backup weapon of her own if she ever lost her sword, so it was painfully easy to give the brat the beating she deserved.
At first, she tried to fight back. With that said, I'm not sure if the 'wild punches' she threw in between the pounding I gave her much of a fight since none of them even touched me. After it became painfully clear that she wasn't going to regain the upper hand between us, she tried to cover her head with her arms and hoped I got tired, bored, or maybe just gave up and left her alone. I didn't know what she was thinking when she did that, but I was all too happy to reward her attempts to protect her face and neck by grabbing onto her shoulders and driving an armored knee straight into her crotch.
For a moment, I thought I fucked up since I thought that move only worked on men. The feeling of something giving out from underneath my knee just before I felt a secondary impact against Antlers' leather armor told me otherwise, as did the sharp gasp of pain she let out as her psyker brahminshit finally failed her.
Breaking the cunt's aura also took whatever strength she had left in her too, because she dropped to her knees like a puppet with its strings cut afterwards, exactly like Ironcock did when I beat him into submission. Of course, since I was still holding her by the shoulders, she was left dangling in my arms, giving her the perfect look into my eyes as she stared straight at the man she had tried and failed to kill mere moments ago.
Right then and there, I was her god. Her life was in my hands and I remembered EXACTLY what she would have done if I hadn't thought to unload Penetrator before going to speak with her.
"P-please…" Antlers whimpered, already begging me for mercy before I had even started to have my fun.
"Shut up." I growled at her.
I showed her the exact same treatment she gave me by punching her in the face as hard as I could before throwing her onto the bed so I wouldn't have to hold up her sorry ass any longer than I had to.
"You don't speak until I can say you can speak." I told her, clocking her square in the face, holding back just enough so I wouldn't have to deal with all the blood a broken nose or busted eye would leak out.
"Do you understand?" I asked her.
"Fucking human! You're no different than all the rest of your kind!" She shouted at me in panic, trying her best to cover the eye I ended up punching, a bruise already starting to show from in between her fingers.
This time, I walked up beside her and drove the metal elbow of my left arm into her ribs. I didn't hear anything crack, not that I wanted to. The last thing I wanted was for her to puncture a lung and end up cutting off my fun before I could even start to enjoy myself.
"Looks like you don't understand. Probably never will either." I lectured her, straddling my legs over top of her to prevent her from trying to run away from me like I knew she would at the first chance she could.
"That don't mean I won't let you know how wrong you are now that it's just the two of us." I carried on, laughing as Antlers started to squirm out from underneath me now that I had her pinned to the bed.
"You see, I've been to more places than I can count and met more people than I could ever hope to remember." I reminisced, picking up a piece of the bitch's broken sword that landed beside me and gleefully watching her eyes as she saw me wave it around in her face as I continued. "Killed a whole lot of those people too. Thousands of them. Raiders, slavers, cocky dickheads looking for a tough fight, good people caught in a bad place, and 'revolutionaries' that didn't have a fucking clue what they were fighting for. If anyone gave me an excuse to wipe one more asshole off of the face of the Earth, then I did just that. Sure, there were more than a few people that I wished I didn't end up putting down, but they hardly gave me a choice in the matter so I can't really say I felt sorry for 'em."
"Now, I know what you're thinking, Antlers. Which one of those poor fuckers am I?" I taunted scraping the broken blade in my hands against her sides, occasionally putting enough pressure behind the blade to tear through her leather armor but carefully enough not to draw blood. "Go ahead, ask me."
"M-m-m-monster." She stuttered out like a scared little child, a pathetic contrast to the proud badass she was pretending to be moments ago.
"Monster?!" I fired back at her, laughing at her answer. "You think you're a monster?! You're giving yourself way too much credit if you think you're enough of a threat that anyone would think of you that way, Antlers. I've seen bloatflies much more threatening than you. Killed one too, not that I ever want to do that again…"
"But if you're calling me a monster…" I trailed off, slowly dragging the blade of her broken sword against her chest until I stopped with the tip placed right against her throat.
"Oh sweetheart, I'm not a monster." I paused, gathering up all the anger from all the shit I've had to put up with from the sniveling woman pinned beneath me. "I'M WORSE."
Oh yes, this has been a long time coming.
"You see, monsters are monsters because normal people like the bartender downstairs can't do shit against them. You remember your little buddies from Mantle? Major Dickbag and bitch that kept on going on about animal this and animal that? Those fuckheads were monsters, not to me, but definitely to the common folk of Vacuo. You yourself were calling them something similar when you first tried to recruit me to your little group of fuckbuddies, remember?"
"What little I've heard about those Mantlesian fucks from you and a few other people pretty much goes like this; Mantle's people went in to Vacuo, started killing anyone that had a problem with them running the place, and let everything go to shit while they had their fun doing whatever the hell they wanted until I showed up. Other people had tried and failed to fight back against them in the past, the Spirit of Vacuo and Xiong Clan apparently being lucky enough to somehow survive when everyone else that didn't bow down to them died out. My guess is that you were either too annoying to deal with or not enough of a threat to be worth the effort of snuffing out. I don't know what the fuck the Xiong Clan were doing, but since I was able to do more damage to Mantle in a couple of days than your people were able to do in a few years, Antlers, I'd say Mantle thought you guys were a bigger joke than I did."
"But, thanks to you, Bunny Boy's right hand girl and favorite little plaything, I know a lot more about the Spirit of Vacuo than most people probably do. Your little group of 'rebels' hate anyone that isn't one of 'your kind', apparently had plenty enough people to try and take control of Vacuo once Mantle ditched town after I spanked their asses, and are so fucking high on yourselves that you would kill the guy that gave you an entire kingdom on a silver plater just because you don't fucking like me."
"Now, does that sound like another group of petty shitbricks you know of Antlers?" I asked her, gleefully enjoying the way her eyes opened as wide as saucers when the realization hit her. "Because from where I'm standing, the Spirit of Vacuo and Mantle look like the same fucking thing. The only difference between you two seems to be the kind of people you hate the most. Not a fun thing to think about, is it? I bet it not, especially after seeing how not even an entire fucking army could slow me down."
"W-we're not anything like humans, we're-"
"If you think you're going to try and say you and your little group of glorified raiders are nothing like Mantle after doing the exact same shit they did to me then I will RIP YOUR FUCKING HEAD OF WITH MY BARE HANDS AND BEAT EVERYONE IN THE SPIRIT OF VACUO TO DEATH WITH YOUR ROTTING CORPSE!" I shouted at Antlers, killing whatever courage she had managed to muster quicker than she pulled it out of her ass.
"DO YOU FUCKING HEAR YOURSELF RIGHT NOW?! I KILLED IRONWOOD FOR YOU! I RISKED MY LIFE TO SAVE YOU FROM THAT GIANT FUCKING GRIMM! I'VE DONE NOTHING BUT BEND OVER BACKWARDS FOR THE SPIRIT OF VACUO AND YOU, PERSONALLY! AND WHAT DO I FUCKING GET FOR TRYING TO DO THE RIGHT THING FOR A CHANGE?! I ALMOST GET MY FUCKING BRAINS BLOWN OUT BY THE STUPID CUNT THAT HAS SEEN ME FUCK UP AN ENTIRE ARMY BECAUSE I FORGOT TO MENTION I WASN'T A FUCKING FREAK WITH A GODDAMN PAIR OF ANTLERS GROWING OUT OF MY HEAD OR A TAIL SHOVED UP MY FUCKING ASS!"
"WHY IN THE EVERLOVING FUCK DID YOU PUT ME IN THIS POSITION ANTLERS?!" I roared. "WHY CAN'T ANYONE EVER FUCKING UNDERSTAND THAT I WILL KILL ANY STUPID PIECE OF SHIT THAT THINKS THEY CAN FUCKING TREAT ME LIKE A LIVING NUKE, TRY TO GET RID OF ME AFTERWARDS, AND THAT I SOMEHOW WON'T DRAG MY ASS OUT OF THE FUCKING GRAVE TO PERSONALLY FUCK THEM UP AFTER THEY'VE BETRAYED ME! I'VE KILLED THREE FUCKING TYRANTS, THREE WANNABE TYRANTS, AND A WHOLE FUCK TON OF SHITHEADS LIKE THEM AND NO ONE EVER FUCKING LEARNS THAT ANYONE WHO FUCKS WITH ME IS GOING TO FUCKING DIE!"
"Oh, they don't ever see all the good shit I do for them. People never see how I only turn the slavers, the rapists, the man eating mutants, and the other sick bastards out there into bite sized chunks of meat. NOOOO! They only see a fucking monster." I ranted, unable to stop myself, my voice trembling as bitter memories from the Mojave came flooding back to me.
"Even after all the shit I did to save their asses without them even knowing how close they came to dying a dozen fucking times to sick fucks that only think of people like US as nothing… they still only see a fucking monster." I continued, starting to tear up a bit just remembering why I tried fucking with that satellite that took me to the Big Empty instead of doing what I wanted it to.
My arms were trembling just thinking about how shit everything felt back then. The rest of me wasn't much better, my blood running cold, stomach churning even though I only hate a fucking salad, and my eyes…
No, I wasn't fucking crying. I was not FUCKING crying!
I am GODDAMN LORD DEATH! I do not FUCKING cry!
It… it had Antlers making that noise. Yeah, there's no one else it could be.
I knew it had to be Antlers, and even though my vision was cloudy and checking what I already knew would have been pointless even if I could make out her face, I looked down at her to make sure anyways. Yet, when I looked down at her, I didn't see the fucking thankless bitch that should have been begging for her life.
No, I saw the thing that ruined my fucking life the second time over.
In my arms, pinned to the bed, I saw Veronica, my little V, staring at me with the same mortified expression moments before she died. The color of her hair and skin were wrong, the clothes were just as unnatural too, but that face. That fucking face, looking at me like I was the worst monster of them all…
I leapt off of the bed and screamed as loud as I could when I saw that fucking face again.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" I shouted, scrambling for the hand cannon and bowie knife on the floor beside me.
I scrambled to the feet once I had something I knew I could use to fight back against what should have been a bad dream, only to see Antlers looking at me with a mix of terror and confusion from where I had left her. For a moment, I felt relieved.
Then I noticed the tears I left in her armor, the bruise covering her eye, and that face. That same fucking face!
Oh… oh god. What the fuck was I doing to her that got her that way? WHAT THE FUCK DID I DO? Antlers didn't look like that even when I nearly shot her downstairs! Why the hell is she more scared of me now than she was back then? Think Six, think!
I… I was on top of her… threatening her… tearing off her clothes… pinning her to the bed…
Oh fuck. This makes me look like I was going to rape her, doesn't it?
That's bad, even by my standards, that is really fucking bad.
I've lost my control of myself before, made people think I was going to go on some murder sprees plenty of times. It was for good reason too, because I did go on some murder sprees, but I only killed people who deserved it.
…probably.
But rape? That's… that's not me… right?
I…
I don't THINK…
I don't KNOW if…
I…
I…
"...I need a fucking drink." I hoarsely croaked, dragging my feet over to the door without a care about anything other than getting wasted and forgetting today ever happened.
If Julia wanted to kill me after what I did to her, then she could. Wouldn't even fight back if she tried. Hell, I'm half tempted to do the job myself right about now. Third time's the charm, right?
Wait, wouldn't this be the second?
…
Fuck it. I'm not drunk enough for this shit.
That fucking bartender better have my fucking absinthe ready by now or half-way across the continent because I need something, anything, to stop thinking about stuff anymore.
BONUS!
Quests:
************************************************************************************************************************************
* Tastes Like Chicken
* _ Investigate the potential of different types of Dust
* _X_ Check the data stolen from Ironcock's Scroll for information
* _X_ (Optional) See if dust is Consumable
* _ (Optional) Test out each type of Dust in combat
* _ (Optional) Try making new weapons out of Dust
* _ (Optional) Investigate other means of consuming Dust
* _ Finish adding my notes to Ironcock's
************************************************************************************************************************************
Types of Dust:
************************************************************************************************************************************
Name: Low Grade Fire Dust (LGFD) Rounds
My Name for this Shit: Fire Dust
Round Types: Powder, Infused, Payload
Color: Red, Translucent
Combat Uses: Can be used to set fire to flammable targets, deny ground to enemies by setting large swaths of land on fire, and melt certain Dust based alloys and barriers created by Ice Dust.
Non-combat Uses: Can be dismantled and used in place of a traditional fire starter or kindling.
Additional Notes: Hot to the touch. Tastes like a mix between jalapenos, crunchy mutfruit, and an Atomic Cocktail. Would make a great seasoning. Felt warm for several minutes during a cold night after eating one bullet's worth.
************************************************************************************************************************************
Name: High Grade Fire Dust (HGFD) Rounds
My Name for this Shit: Hellfire Dust
Round Types: Powder, Payload
Color: Dark Red (Blood Red), Opaque
Combat Uses: Capable of melting through barricades and defenses when used sparingly. Capable of destroying entire buildings. Prone to leaving behind puddles of molten debris and toxic fumes for several hours.
Non-combat Uses: None.
NOTICE: ALL ACQUISITION REQUESTS FOR HGFD ARE DENIED BY ORDER OF MAJOR IRONWOOD. ANYONE CAUGHT USING OR DISTRIBUTING THIS TYPE OF DUST WILL BE IMMEDIATELY EXECUTED.
REASON FOR EXECUTION: THE POTENTIAL RISK THIS DUST POSES TO THE POPULACE OF VACUO IS TOO GREAT TO ALLOW ITS USE IN URBAN ENVIRONMENTS.
Additional Notes: Surprising to see Ironwood take such a strong stance on this. I thought the Spirit of Vacuo said this guy was evil? Maybe all those dead bodies in the streets weren't his fault after all. Might need to ask Antlers about what the hell happened before I arrived.
This was the Extra Strength Incendiary Ammo I used during my escape from The Camp. Highly explosive, probably as volatile as a faulty Fat Mine. Could be useful for replenishing my .50 MG explosive rounds. Hot to the touch. Tastes like gasoline and PAIN. Felt like licking a hot plate. Set my gloves on fire shortly after consuming one bullet's worth. Slightly radioactive.
TO DO: Need to investigate potential side-effects from ingesting large amounts of Dust. If I can do more than just set my fists on fire...
************************************************************************************************************************************
Author's Corner:
Things finally reached a boiling point between Julia and Six here. Their 'talk' did not go how either one of them wanted it to. Six, acting like the typical video game protagonist, takes the betrayal about as well as anyone in his position would. The same could not be said after his trip down memory lane…
I'd also like to take this time to thank most good ones were taken for beta reading for this story once again.
Comments:
Rusdov: Nice to have you back.
Thanks. You have no idea how nice it feels to finally be back.
Astevalus: I wouldn't say that an intelligence requirement 6 is a sign that people in the world of Fallout are stupider than our world…
Ah yes, the Intelligence vs intelligence debate. I agree with you and personally believe that 'smartness' is relative term, and as such, what would pass for as genius a few centuries ago can easily be considered stupid or simplistic by today's standards. I'd also assume something would similar would happen two hundred years after a global nuclear holocaust. That's what I was trying to say last time in the comments and apparently failed to convey. I've always felt that Fallout's Intelligence score was a measure of 'book smarts', trivial facts, and critical thinking; or in other words, two types of mostly useless information in day to day life and the always useful ability to quickly analyze and make use of any knowledge you come across.
What would I consider real intelligence, at least in the context of this story? Practical knowledge that would help you in everyday life and skills that take lots of time and effort to acquire, something I think Stats such as Survival and Science perfectly reflect. This is what I meant earlier when I asserted how 'street smarts' and 'book smarts' are not equivalent. I'd also give you an example of these in action, but I think we all know a few people in our own lives that perfectly reflect this.
Command8: The absinthe quote is from somewhere yet I can place from where. No wait, Parks and Rec.
Shit, that was a reference? Should have been obvious in retrospect, but I didn't know that. I've never watched Parks and Rec. I've only seen a few meme comics based on that scene and figured it was something Six would do.
Thank you all for supporting the story. I hope to see you all again real soon!