"Get down!" Glade roared as he lifted his rocket launcher and fired a flurry of rockets into the tunnel. James covered his head as rubble rained down from above.
"I thought Charlie said these tunnels were safe!" James shouted over the explosions at Nate who ducked behind a pile of cinderblocks.
"They are!" Nate shouted back. He lifted his head and watched his baseball cap shot off ihs head. "Shit!" Nate muttered as he loaded a 40mm round into his grenade launcher. James raised his carbine up over his head and squeezed off a few rounds. Glade tossed the launcher aside and leapt behind cover next to James.
"I'm all out of rockets, boss!" Glade shouted over the gunfire as he drew his laser rifle. James looked around and watched as the Pride return fire from their pinned positions at an unknown enemy. MacCready ducked as an explosion ripped a column apart and threw rubble and shrapnel all throughout the tunnel.
Suddenly the gunfire stopped as James's attention returned to the firefight. The Pride sat motionless as they scanned for enemies marching through the dust and smoke. MacCready crawled over towards James.
"I guess they stopped shooting." he whispered. James reloaded his carbine with a fresh magazine and aimed it down the tunnel.
"Any ideas as to why?" James whispered back. MacCready shrugged.
"Whitechapel Charlie owns these tunnels, anything that can turn a profit is moved through here. It could be drugs, weapons, ferals,-" James gave MacCready a look.
"Ferals?" James asked, disgusted.
"Hey, man. I don't judge." MacCready replied, holding his hands up. Suddenly the gunfire resumed but was directed at an enemy in a different direction. James stood and watched as dark figures began to rush through the smoke.
"Targets approachin!" Dusk shouted as the Pride and all associated resumed fire as well. The bodies flew down and lay motionless but more continued through the smoke. A man nearly passed James, but was stopped when James stuck his leg out to trip the man. The man turned on the ground and James planted his boot on the man's chest.
He pointed his carbine at the man's neck.
"Name!" James growled. "Who do you work for?" He noticed a familiar white crosshair on the man's uniform.
"Ta- Tal- Talon Company!" The man whimpered. "We need to get out of here! They're coming!" James was confused.
"What? Who's coming?!" James asked. Screams began to echo across the tunnel as the gunfire in the distance began to fade away. Subtle growls replaced them.
"Ferals…." Nate whispered, grabbing a flare from his belt. "In a tunnel."
"Oh shit." James muttered. In the moment that his guard was let down the man reached for James's gun and Kodiak slammed a sledgehammer into the man's face.
"I don't think he'll get up from that one." Kodiak said as he scraped the hammer against the wall. James nodded his thanks and stepped off the man.
Nate tore open the flare and the red flash momentarily blinded James. Nate tossed it forward and the smoke suddenly emitted a dull red glow. James readied his carbine while the rest of the Pride readied their own weapons. Suddenly the first pair of red eyes stared back at the team. Then another. Then two. Then six. Then ten, and then the whole tunnel had eyes.
A man materialized from the smoke and the eyes, crawling. James started forward, but Nate held out an arm, stopping him. The man's legs were missing, they appeared to have been torn or gnawed off.
"Run!" The man howled, sparking a huge resonating roar from the massive amount of ghouls.
"We need to get out of here!" James shouted in hopes of his voice reaching the rest of the Pride. He started backwards. The first ghoul blundered forward, three bullets put it down. Then three materialized from the smoke and another Pride member gunned it down. Then six ran out, quickly joined but another four.
James squeezed a spray off rounds in the ghouls general area as he began to quicken his pace backwards.
"Fucking run!" MacCready yelped as the ghouls whizzing out of the smoke became more and more numerous.
James's quick strides backwards soon evolved into a dead sprint as he attempted to evade the feral horde chasing them. At one point, he matched pace with Nat.e
"I thought you told me that ferals are mostly out of the Commonwealth!" James panted as he ran.
"That's what I thought! But lately Deacon's been forwarding reports about some kind of breach in Tunnel Security somewhere in the Glowing Sea! Guess this is what that meant!" Nate shouted as he sprinted as well. Good thing the tailored clothing was light, this enabled the Pride to outpace the horde and reach a spot where they were far enough to regroup.
James slowed himself to a stop and then looked around. All members were accounted for.
"Okay, Arcade." James muttered as he patted his pockets for the new gadget. "This better work." Nate saw what James was doing and began searching his as well. James produced it from his pants pocket and lobbed the device in front of him as the ghouls' growls grew closer and closer. A dramatic blue explosion occured as his restored Experimental Command suit materialized in front of him.
The suit teleported in piece by piece, always preluded by an electric ripple. Suddenly the suit clanged into the ground as the device had compelted its work and James watched as the suit graft itself onto him. The suit had slightly changed since James last wore it, it now approached as if it was liquid which forced James to pause as the helmet folded over his head.
James watched darkness as muffle gunshots and screams pounded the outside of the suit. Suddenly a dull green interface materialized before his eyes with the words: Welcome Home, Colonel Autumn.
"Welcome home, Supreme Commander." Eden's voice filled James's head.
"Whoa-ho!" James laughed as the visuals began to dissolve the blackness. "This is cool!" James found himself surrounded by ghouls as they attempted to tear at his suit. Suddenly a blue square appeared in the right hand corner of James's view.
"Ah, James." Arcade said, the screen clearly depicted Arcade in the middle of some kind of research back at the Mobile Crawler.
"Arcade!" James smiled. The blows from the ghouls did not hurt at all as James stood still. He felt the force of the blows slightly graze his skin, but never any pain. "What did you do to my suit?"
"I kind of took the liberty of adding a modifications to it." Arcade smiled as he fixed his glasses. "The list is actually quite extensive. It's more like I created a whole new suit of power armor."
James flexed his fingers as the ghouls continued to attack him.
"I don't feel anything." James said, completely distracted. Outside, the Pride fought close-quarters combat with their own upgraded suits but just a glance at them told James that they were still lightyears behind the technology incorporated into his command suit.
"We had quite a few people upgrade it. Say hello to Jarnbjorn." Arcade said triumphantly. The armor clanked as the ghouls attempted to break through its skin like plating.
"Jarnbjorn? Like the Norse axe?" James asked as he finally decided to move. Just the action of moving his arm resulted in the armor moving with enough strength to fling off three feral ghouls.
"Commander, stay still!" Ash's voice rang from the background as blue and green rounds whizzed past James's standing form. James flexed his fingers.
"We wanted to call it Mjolnir, like Thor's hammer, but it turns out that quite a few mediums use it to depict weapons and armor, so we went with something just as good." Arcade explained as James started punching and kicking ghouls off his body.
"Cool." James mumbled as he began to observe his suit. It oozed around him like some metallic liquid.
"We took inspiration with the first experimental command suit and based this new design off of Hale's own nanosuit." Arcade began. "It wasn't easy getting the plans but after countless suits based on trial and error, we eventually got it just right." James heard the armor clink and glow red and suddenly "sensed" a ghoul about to tackle him from behind. The armor reacted, causing James to duck under it, forcing the ghoul to tackle another.
"It was tough getting it to work like this, we wanted to recreate a symbiote-like armor. One that would essentially graft to you permanently." Arcade said, pushing up his glasses with the last statement like it was something to be proud of.
"Wait, permanently?!" James asked as he choked a feral and headbutted another. His left hand squeezed the trigger and ghoul bodies began to fall.
"They're thinning out!" Nate's voice boomed over all other noises, no doubt the result of some of his synth enhancements. Suddenly a roar echoed throughout the tunnel creating pause amonst the fighters. The armor began clicking and beeping and suddenly James felt like he was seeing further into the tunnel.
"Okay, what's going on with my vision right now?" James asked as he performed what he felt to be his vision zooming into the dark recesses of the tunnel and highlighting a large creature in the smoke.
"Oh the armor, once grafted, connects to your nervous system, in a sense, the armor is you!" Arcade said excited. James blasted the last ghoul off his shoulders.
"Why didn't you ask me before applying this to the suit?!" James asked as suddenly the large figure charged through the horde of ghouls.
"Deathclaw!" Nate shouted. James raised his carbine only to find the deathclaw destroying the feral horde.
"Don't tell me-" James began.
"That's the deathclaw we found wandering the Boston Commons. We figured it could be of some use to the Lyons Pride and fitted it with some ballistic gear and a headset to recieve orders." Arcade announced.
"Spot can receive orders?" James asked.
"Actually yes, it turns out he was one of the released Enclave batch of Deathclaws from a long time ago. Descendent of the intelligent ones it seems so he understands human speech, even if he can't speak it." Arcade said. James nodded as the Deathclaw tore a ghoul in half with its claws while using its tail to slam a line of them into the tunnel wall.
The Pride approached James from the rear and formed a firing line.
"Looks like Spot's arrived!" Kodiak said, relieved. James looked at the others. "Nice suit, boss." he added before walking forward and engaging the remaining ghouls.
"Arcade, I can take this off, right?" James asked. Suddenly the armor shrank and retracted, almost like a turtle retracting itself into its shell. The helmet peeled away and pulled under James's clothes. The entire armor followed suit until it manifested itself into James's right hand gauntlet, weaving itself into it as if alive.
"Theoretically, yes." Arcade answered, his disembodied voice responding from his gauntlet which somehow now transformed itself into a watch. "This armor is an intelligent suit, run by an A.I. much more intelligent than even Eden."
"You're kidding."
"Not about this I'm afraid." Eden cut into the conversation as James approached Spot. The destruction the Deathclaw caused was enormous. The tunnel was in ruins, any tracks that used to be operational were now town up with feral ghoul parts dotting the floor as if they too were dirt. Spot scratched his claws before eyeing James carefully with its one eye. James nodded his thanks and watched as the deathclaw slowly slink away back into the smoke.
"He's not gonna stay with us?" Glade asked aloud.
"No." Arcade answered. "He's a deathclaw, he'll do whatever he wants. But when you need help, he will know."
James nodded and turned back to the Pride, who were all now donning the Mk 4 Experimental suits that were a generation behind James's new command suit.
"I guess we have a deathclaw now." James joked as the soldiers began to advance down the tunnel they just retreated from.
"You're joking!" the bartender scoffed. "No way you guys escaped a horde. There have to be hundreds of those thigns romaing the tunnels these days. No way you escaped unscathed!" James smiled and gulped down his beer. He slammed the bottle down and sighed. Wiping his mouth with his right hand he felt his new watch twitch slightly and thought back to its abilities.
"You have no idea." James muttered as he dropped a few caps before turning away from the bar.
"Welcome to Track City!" an announcer shouted from the intercom. James approached a wooden railing and leaned on it only to see a huge cavern, most likely an old army underground storage facility now filled with wooden and crude metal structures. James recognized quite a few armaments in the houses below to recognize that a lot of raider gangs simply moved underground. James kept one hand near his sidearm. No one was going to get the drop on him.
"Scanning" a voice suddenly filled his head.
"What was that?" James asked.
"It's the armor." Arcade's disembodied voice answered. "It's learning and is now manifesting a personality."
"Okay, no, that's just creepy!" James protested.
"Located target. Butch, local gang leader, apprehended by local authorities." the voice said again. James was taken aback.
"Huh, would you look at that." James muttered. "Thanks, voice in my, uh, head?"
"You're welcome." the voice responded. "And call me Emily."
"Ok, cool…. Emily?" James responded but received nothing in return. James sighed and stepped away from the railing. He raised his watch to his his mouth. "All units in position?"
"In position." Ash responded. Good man, the rookie had definitely learned to fit in with the crew while James was out.
"Established crow's nest. I see the target. Locals are really roughin' him up." Dusk whispered, no doubt from the smuggled radio tower in the center of Track city. Colvin was supposed to be there with her, watching her back.
"Glade here. Kodiak and I have broken into the armory and acquired some explosives. Moving to target location."
"Remember, that is only for our worst-case scenario." James cautioned.
"This is Gallows, I'm in the building."
"Nate, you get the locals to support us?"
"Oh yeah, man. And you wouldn't believe who else decided to join the party!" Nate responded sounding very excited. James walked through a narrow road surrounded by street vendors.
"Charon Zero Risk Security is also backing me, I guess this Butch guy is a big deal."
"Oh you wouldn't believe it…" James growled as he approached the local "police station".
"Hey, boss." Dusk asked as James neared the police station. "This isn't the same Butch that we saved-" before Dusk could finish talking a man was suddenly through through the wooden doors of the station and a man in a trench coat and cowboy hat walked out.
"That's the second time I had to bail your stupid ass out!" the man in the coat, which James now realized was really a duster as he approached the scene. Onlookers began to join the crowd, surrounding the two men.
"Don't move." James whispered. "Too many people. Wait for my signa,." The man in the duster fixed his coat and pulled his sleeves up before approaching the man still on the floor. James recognized what looked to be a tunnel snakes jacket and suddenly he became even more disappointed than before.
"When are you going to learn, Butch?" the man asked, grabbing Butch from the floor and pulling him to his feet. Judging by Butch's grogginess and stumbling, he was drunk. "You don't mess with people just 'cause you have a merc team behind your back!"
Nate arrived with the so-called merc team and began to divert the crowd's attention.
"Start playing security, get these people out of here." James ordered into his watch as he approached Butch and his friend. James had his hand on his sidearm the entire time as the watch began to shift and suddenly disappeared under his clothes. "There a problem here?" James asked assertively, as if he were some kind of law enforcement. At least, whatever they had in raider central.
"Sorry sir." The duster man said without looking up at James. "My friend here is still sobering up." The man looked up and suddenly James recognized him as Harden Simms, Megaton Regulator.
"Harden?" James mumbled, overtaken by surprise. Harden's face lit up as if he had just received a brand-new plasma rifle.
"James Hwang!" Harden roared as if some kind of frat boy. He took off his hat to reveal his face and James immediately noticed how aged Harden had appeared. Last time they had met, Harden was nineteen, but now almost four years later, Harden was only 22 but even James could see that one of his eyes were going blind. Scars dotted Harden's face with a huge line starting from his upper right cheek ran down his face stopping at Harden's upper lip.
Harden clapped his hands together, threw off his leather gloves and shook James's hand violently. James smiled as he nodded at Nate to call off the strike.
"Harden, what are you doing here?" James almost gasped. Harden continued smiling and threw his hat back on.
"Oh man, it's good to see you." Harden said, ignoring James's question. "Here, why don't go over to the bar here. Sit down, we have a lot to talk about." James gave Harden a look as he was led by Harden to a seat.
"We do?" James asked cautiously, remembering the new scars that lined the young man's face. Harden sat next to James as Nate took up a position at the front of the bar. The Pride began circling in, surrounding the bar and the police station.
"How have you been, James?" Harden asked throwing up two fingers at the bartender as if that would signal the waiter to bring some drinks.
"I'll have a whiskey, thanks." James advised before turning back to Harden. "I've been good, I guess, Harden. What are you doing here?" James repeated, giving Harden a serious look. Finally Harden took the hint and nodded slowly.
"Well, it's a really long story." Harden said shyly. James nodded and gestured at Harden to continue as the waitor plopped a beer and a shot of whiskey between them. James nodded his thanks as Harden took off his hat once and began to play with it.
"I'm here with Butch acting as his personal bodyguard for Charon Zero Risk Secutity." Harden explained. "But that's a mouthful so most of us really call it Charon Securities."
"And what is that?" James asked thinking of his ghoul friend that went feral not too long ago.
"Well, after you left the Capital, things were going along okay, but then some of the larger settlements began to see Megaton and Rivet City as threats. Merc business went up as people began feuding against one another just based on the city they were from." Harden began, taking a sip of his beer. "And so crime went back up in the Wasteland, especially since the Brotherhood was making any patrols any more. So that's when Butch got to idea to start funding the Regulators."
"The law enforcement brigade?" James asked, thinking back to Lucas Simms public refusal to host the regulators in Megaton when James first moved there. "I thought only one branch was left active by 2277." James frowned.
"And there was still only one when you left against in '86" Harden confirmed. "But things were so bad that one branch wasn't enough. Soon, Talon Company got a hit order on the Regulator HQ and lobbed a mini-nuke into the building. Lot of good people died that day."
James frowned and shook his head as he thought of all his old friends in the building. The conversations they used to have late into the night talking about a peaceful Capital Wasteland. And then this is the end that they got.
"And what else?" James asked.
"So after the Regulators really went out of business, people started getting really nervous. Megaton, Rivet City, Arefu and Canterbury Commons publicly began to pool resources into developing a well-armed militia to defend the four settlements. A lot of smaller settlements really didn't like that idea and began to form their own." Harden took another sip of his beer while James took the whole shot of whiskey and waved for another. "So Butch figured the only way to calm things down a little was to have a third party force to take some of the hit. Based in Underworld, Jericho and Butch laid the foundation for a highly trained Security Force and named it after Charon. The rest is history."
James nodded as he watched a Charon Securities Officer walk in. He was a ghoul all right. The ghoul walked to back of the bar, sat in a couch, kicked his feet up and went straight to sleep.
"I take it that it's a very serious organization now." James nodded over at the officer in the couch.
"Oh you wouldn't believe, Butch and Jericho did a great job and even established few smaller securities companies dedicated to other tasks. Like safekeeping, protection, and more. They're really rolling in caps with their organization."
"Where did they get the caps to start this?" James asked. Harden thought long and hard about this before answering.
"I was always under the impression that you were funding the whole thing." Harden said simply. James frowned again and drank the shot and sighed.
"I wish I knew I was paying for something before the payment was made."
"Well, even so, you're making quite a bit of money now."
"I haven't seen a single cap come my way." James responded, slightly annoyed that his wealth was now being used to fund Butch's private army. Knowing Butch, the man was probably taking a large cut of the profits for himself. Butch suddenly walked into the bar and took a seat next to James, holding his head. James gave him a sly smile. "Rough day, huh?"
"Man, you would not believe it." Butch replied, not looking and apparently not recognizing James's voice. Luckily for Butch, James was in a good mood so he played along.
"I don't know, I think I've my fair share of bad days." James commented before looking back at Harden.
"So what's the situation in the Capital then?" James asked seriously as he waited for Butch to sober up. Harden scratched his head as he thought of his answer.
"I guess I'll have to start from the beginning then." Harden began. "When you first left, things were going great. People mostly kept to themselves, but we got along quite nicely. Then this new settlement at the Mall was established after routing the Super Mutants there. They called themselves the Great Empire."
"The Great Empire?" James asked. "What's that supposed to mean?" Harden shrugged.
"Never met any alive to tell you." Harden replied simply as he sipped his beer again. "Really they supposed to be this great fighting force because they began to claim more and more territory before they suddenly disappeared off the map."
"How was that possible?" James asked.
"Not sure, but I was one the Regulators present in the investigation. Dead ghouls in red coats with weird rifles all over the settlement, looked like a military camp had been established at the Mall and then there was the whole arms race between settlement alliances that I talked about."
"Right."
"But that's not the end of it. While everyone was getting ready for war, the Vault 101 Federation suddenly began to claim that Springvale belonged to the Vault Dwellers."
"I imagine Megaton residents took that kindly."
"As kindly as we could, really. Wasn't long before we started shooting at each other."
"Was there any kind of resolution?"
"Sort of, Megaton kind of lost the war." Harden replied. "Well, if you could call it a war."
"What do you mean?"
"The Vault Dwellers surrounded Megaton and besieged the city, we ran out of food after three months. The city had grown so big that we were housing over a thousand people, you see." Harden then gulped down the rest of his beer. "Lot of good people died from starvation that year. Then we gave up. Well, Megaton did, I never surrendered."
"What happened?" James asked, observing an extremely dark look on Harden's face. Harden stared straight forward as he continued his story.
"My dad was kind of the city's last hope." Harden began. "He delivered letters, food, ammunition. Everything he could do to help, he did it. Some dweller at the Fed's leadership caught on and posted a bounty on my dad. And one day, while I was fighting off the next wave of invaders, someone or some group of people beat my dad, tortured him and then hung him right by the city square. They used the tail of the bomb to hang him."
"My God," James gasped. "Harden, I'm so sorry."
"Don't be." Harden muttered. "That night, Stockholm, Walter, Billy, and a few other good guys went over to the Fed's Command tents and then crucified their entire leadership."
"Crucified? How?"
"I've heard stories of some guy out West nailing people to old telephone poles, figured I'd give the bastards the same privilege. Sorry, James, but I had to borrow your old Railway Rifle to do it. There were just so many people that needed punishing…"
"Harden, I know it must have been hard for you." James said. He put his hand on Harden's shoulder in an attempt to show sympathy. "You don't have to continue if you don't want to."
"Nah, man. It's better if I shared. After that, the Feds just swept across the Capital, there was just no stopping them. Even the merc companies started taking sides as selling contracts exclusively to one side. Butch made the call to side with Rivet City, figuring the largest gun in the Capital would bring the most caps. He was right, but he didn't know the Feds would take everything else."
"So what happened?"
"The guys and I who wiped out the leadership were offered spots in the Fed military order. The Overseer herself invited us to Vault 101 for residency, but we refused. We were Regulators, man. We don't switch sides like that."
"So then we met up with another detachment of Regulators at Arefu and began to hunt down Fed patrols, trade caravans, settlers, anyone and anything that would've made a dent towards stopping the Fed advance. We weren't enough. Our little band became known across the Capital Wasteland as the Punishers. Then we lost Stockholm, Billy became blind when a mini-nuke went off in a spy's house in Arefu. He was captured and I never saw him again. Same blast nearly took my vision too, but luckily, I wasn't facing the damn thing." Harden sighed.
"Things weren't easy. But they sure did get a lot harder. Rivet City had the Jefferson Memorial and news was that the Enclave was returning. People sure were scared but that didn't stop the Feds. They kept charging the memorial but kept getting cut down by the security there. Then the Enclave retook the Mall and the Washington monument. We were kinda rooting for you guys at that point. Figured that Enclave would be better than some Vault Dwelling asshole ruling over us, I guess. No offense." James waved the comment aside as Harden continued.
"Eventually, Talon Company purchased exclusive rights to hunt down the Punishers, then we started losing more people. Soon, it was down to five. Then we made an envoy to the Republic of Dave, to get some caps going our way for defending the remaining free sites in the Capital Wasteland. Sure did get blindsided when Dave decided to rat us out to the Feds. Then I got taken, split apart from my men. While we were on our way back to Vault 101, some Charon Security guys sprang me and my men. Then Butch here turned us into operators to get some diplomatic immunity."
"It wasn't long after we recovered and started getting more men when Reilly's Rangers was overrun by mutants. I went to exfil them but only a handful of the Rangers made it out. I never knew what happened to Reilly or her Rangers but I heard they moved up north, somewhere around here actually."
"Anyways, soon after Ranger's HQ went under, so did Canterbury Commons and then like dominoes the rest fell until Rivet City was left. We were evacuating settlers from defeated settlements when the feds came. Luckily, Butch and the Enclave personnel on boards repurposed many of the jets onboard to act as turrets. We held off the feds long enough to evacuate most of the settlers. But we sure didn't get everyone." Harden grimaced as if the memory alone pained him. Then he turned to James.
"Then we hauled ass up here to find you. Just docked a little ways south just to be sure that we could come in safely." Harden said, smiling as he remembered that James was the man he was talking to now. "We need you back, James. The Lone Wanderer is the only one that can save us."
James was speechless. He had left the Capital Wasteland in what he thought to be good hands only to find that they were ready to destroy themselves all along. All his hard work and resources spent in protecting the people only made them vulnerable to corruption which led to settlement after settlement being conquered. Was there any point in the violence? Was this really the actions supported and pushed forward by Amata, his childhood friend? James stared at Harden and mentally memorized the battle-hardened young man that sat in front of him. The life this kid must have known…. James felt terrible and then thought back to the Commonwealth.
Was the Commonwealth fated to run the same course? Would factions tear the city back into destruction and wasteland? Does war really never change?
"James Hwang!" Butch said suddenly, falling off his stool. James glared at the man, on his back on the floor, seemingly trying to crawl away from James.
"Butch." James said carefully and nodded.
"Boss, the locals are getting restless." Nate's voice filled James's ears.
"Alright, Butch." James said as he stood from his barstool. "Time to go."