Motley Mutants: Post-Apocalyptia Ch. 10 - Motley Mutants
+ Once he had been molecularly reassembled, the first thing Rocky felt was a stiff wind pressing against his face and chest. As soon as he was able to, he opened his eyes allowing the terrifying reality to sink in that he had been teleported from beneath the earth's surface, to somewhere in its lower atmosphere. He immediately began flapping his arms and legs frantically as if he had expected to sprout wings and fly his way down. He yelled out vainly into the evening sky, hoping for a vertibird or something of the like to spot him as he plummeted toward the earth. After a minute of falling through what felt to him like a mile of white fog, Rocky burst through the clouds only to find he was heading straight for the Steel Chapel's roof. A fraction of a second before he would have surely left a giant green stain on the Chapel's prewar stone, two pairs of taloned feet clamped around his arms lifting him away from the Chapel. Rocky stopped yelling at once and looked up to discover the identity of his saviors. Over one of his shoulders he saw a matriarch Bubo carrying a small redheaded scribe on its back.
"Hey big guy!" Liona called through the wind.
"Liona!" Rocky called back. "How -"
"That was far too close!" Monte yelled. Rocky looked over his opposite shoulder, where he saw the rest of his companions riding enormous, mutated owls of their own. Monte was jockeying the other owl whos talons held onto Rocky's arm. The birds carried him safely down to the catacombs entrance, in the woods behind the Steel Chapel. After everyone had dismounted their mutant birds, Liona unloaded Agrippina's body and whispered softly to the matriarch, seemingly permitting it to leave. The birds hooted in unison, and with a few beats of their massive wings, the Bubos returned to the skies of the wasteland, and to their new home.
"The Bubos… I thought they would have been killed in the vault explosion. It doesn't make any sense." Said Rocky to Liona, while he watched the Bubos fly away.
"Yeah, we did too. When that brain thing, Grey Matter, teleported us to the surface, I think it also sent some of the vaults inhabitants up too." Liona speculated.
"And it's a damn good thing too! When we came to while falling out of the sky, I thought we were goners for sure." Sweetheart said through a wide smile. His positive expression faded quickly when he saw Agrippina's body lying on the floor beside Liona. "What are we going to do about Aggie?" He asked. The group gathered around the dormant synth, and stared at her emotionless face.
"That mutant said something to her, an Institute override code or something, and then she was just…gone." Monte remembered. "Can anyone recollect exactly what he said?"
"Yeah, I think he said…" Liona ran her fingers through her curly, fiery hair as she sifted through her recent memories. "M7-42, initiate prototype standby, authorization code: Theta, 5, 5, Sigma." The scribe remembered perfectly.
"Damn. Are you sure you're not a synth too, Liona?" Sweety asked, in a half-kidding-yet-sort-of-serious kind of way. Liona chuckled softly.
"Mostly sure, yeah. Okay, so we know she can be deactivated by voice commands, so maybe she can be reactivated similarly. We just need to find the right words." Liona proposed.
"Oh! I think I've got it!" Sweety called out obnoxiously. He kneeled down beside the synth, and cleared his throat before speaking. "M7-42, initiate prototype activation, authorization code: Theta, 5, 5, Sigma." Instantly Agrippina's coco-brown eyes were filled with life, as they darted between the faces of her companions. "Aggie? I did it! I saved you!" Said Sweety to the only partially aware synthetic.
"Sweety…you're kneeling on my arm. Get off of me!" - Aggie's first words after waking up, were.
"Oh, right, sorry. My bad." The former raider helped Aggie to her feet.
"What happened? The last thing I remember we were in some serious trouble, and I was holding that crown thingy." Aggie recalled, noticing the crown on Sweethearts head as she spoke. "Wait, why are you wearing it?"
"Oh, this?" Sweety refitted the oversized crown to his head. "That purple mutant said some phrase to you, and you fell as soon as you heard it; it was kind of like you went offline. The crown fell and rolled over to me after you dropped it."
"Really? I don't remember any of that. Dr. Maron knew my activation code? Dammit. He must have discovered it while he was living in the Institute. What happened after that? How in the world did we end up here?" Asked Aggie.
"We defeated that purple mutant - well, sort of. We destroyed all of the F.E.V. before he was able to transport it to the surface, at least. And then this weird giant brain thing named Grey Matter appeared from the Elder's body and teleported us into the sky. We would have died then, but the Bubos saved us." Sweety explained as best he could.
"Wait, what? Liona, is any of that even partly true?" Aggie asked incredulously.
"Believe it or not Agrippina, its all true." Liona reluctantly concurred with the raider.
"If it weren't for Liona, I we all certainly would have died." Montecrief added.
"'If it weren't for Liona': what does that mean?" Rocky squinted confusedly.
"It happened when I used the Puppeteer sleeve on Boston, or, The Voice…whatever his name is. When I did it the first time on you Rocky, it didn't feel at all like it did with him. I don't know what that S.P.V. did to him, but I think it may have had a minor effect on me also when I linked my consciousness with his. When we were falling, I saw a flock of Bubos flying near us. I imagined them flying over to us and carrying us to safety; in my mind, I was begging them to help. Something I thought must have compelled them, because the next thing I knew I was climbing onto the Matriarch's back." Liona recalled.
"You compelled them to help you, using your brain… What does that mean? Are you…a mutant?" Rocky asked.
"In a manner of speaking, yes." Everyone looked at the brown skinned synth, who had chimed in unexpectedly. "She won't be growing any extra limbs or antennas, but she won't be exactly the same as she was before either. It sounds to me like she's become a Psyker."
"A 'Psyker'?" Liona repeated.
"Care to elaborate, Aggie?" Monte asked.
"It's a kind of person, I suppose you could say. A person with rare psionic abilities. We studied them some at the Institute, whenever we could find one that is. It normally occurs as a mutation given at birth, but there have been select cases where it's come from being exposed to another Psyker's abilities. If I remember correctly, the commonly held belief amongst the Institute's scientists was that it had something to do with the human brain's latent potential being amplified through contact with foreign psionics. Their powers range from the ability to bend spoons without touching them, all the way to controlling the way someone thinks or acts; Liona seems to belong to the latter category, I'd say."
"That's crazy. Do you feel any different? Like do you see super far away now, or can you hear my heart beat or something?" Sweetheart asked excitedly.
"No. I'm not a super hero, Sweetheart. I don't even feel any different, to be honest." Liona admitted.
"What a load of brahmin crap." Spoke a prepubescent voice suddenly. The group's attention shifted to the catacombs entrance where Ramsey Fink was leaning against his floating, one-of-a-kind robot, Edgar.
"Ramsey? What are you doing here?" Liona asked.
"I was about to ask you the same thing, before I overheard everything. Edgar and I were waiting for you guys by the vault door, when it began to shut. Then we heard the explosions, and assumed the worst. For the first time that I can remember, I'm glad I was wrong." The squire explained.
"I'm glad you were too." Liona agreed with a half-smile.
"Did you guys say that Boston got away?" Asked Ramsey.
"Yeah, he did. We tried to stop him, but whatever was in that virus he took made him too powerful… We didn't stand a chance." Liona admitted regretfully.
"What about the Elder?"
"What about the F.E.V.?" Ramsey and Edgar asked respectively.
"The Elder took a dose of the same syringe Boston did. He…transformed, into something like a floating brain with tentacles. It didn't seem like him anymore, though. It was like he had…evolved, I guess." Liona explained as best she could.
"And what about the F.E.V.?" Edgar asked again.
"We destroyed it - all of it. That's what the explosions you heard were for." Rocky replied.
"You really did? Wow! That's…" Ramsey removed his squire's cap and rubbed his scalp nervously. "Listen Rocky, I know I've been kinda mean to you in the past but… I just wanted to say, I'm sorry for shooting you with my sling shot." Rocky and Ramsey shared a brief laugh over the reference. Rocky offered his hand to Ramsey who then shook it as best he could with his own much smaller hand. "So anyway… What's next?" Ramsey asked.
"Now we go to the chapel." Liona answered. "And we hope there's still people there waiting for us."
+ As the group neared the Steel Chapel and its surrounding buildings, they quickly noticed that the fighting between the super mutants and the Brotherhood had long since ended. They walked through the piles of rubble and debris that covered the courtyard, and witnessed the remains of the many dozens of slayed mutants. For every one dead mutant however, there was at least one fallen Knight or Scribe or Lancer to match. Even Liona, who had lived in Fort Duke for most of her life, had trouble recognizing much of anything besides the Steel Chapel itself, which stood as the only completely intact building amongst the carnage. All of the trees in the courtyard had either fallen or were burning as they came across them, and the pavement had cracked and crumbled throughout. To make things worse, the botany scribes' laboriously maintained gardens had been trampled by the storming mutant army, rendering their produce useless. The closer they got to the Steel Chapel, the more soldiers and medical personnel they spotted. It was beginning to become clear to the group who had survived the battle, and perhaps less clear who had actually won it. Several helmetless Knights were seen grasping the hands and caressing the faces of their fallen brethren. The Field Scribes had run out of stimpacks and could only apply med-x to the wounded in order to quell their suffering as they passed. As soon as they arrived at the chapel's portcullis gate, Rocky and Liona spotted a familiar soldier, speaking in broken sentences to Star-Paladin James Reese.
"Did we…did we win, Paladin?" Spoke the soldier, whose left arm had been torn from his shoulder, and whose left eye looked to have been bludgeoned free from its socket. The sightless, marble-like organ dangled loosely over his cheek, causing even the tempered stomach of the Paladin to waver and to turn slightly.
"Yes, boy… Yes Brother. We won. We won, Doyle." Paladin Reese replied in an unnaturally subdued tone.
"I…I did my best…Paladin. I wanted -" Knight Doyle Samson paused to cough up a bloody loogie. "I wanted to…to guard the gate…so badly. I really did." The dying Knight promised.
"Silence, Knight. You did hold the gate…you senseless dope. You saved the lives of all of the civilians in this fort. Doyle you -" Reese and the group behind him watched as Doyle's remaining eye ceased to relay any sign of life. Doyle Samson had died. "Damn you, Doyle." Reese laid Samson's mangled head to rest, softly on the dirt. He then looked over his shoulder, and saw the group led by Rocky and Liona standing behind him. "Sentinel... You're back." Reese stood up slowly, pushing off of his knees for support.
"Reese. I'm so sorry. We should have gotten here earlier. Maybe -"
"It wouldn't have meant a damn thing. With all due respect Sentinel, it wouldn't have changed anything. Cyrus, damn his name…" The Paladin's face hardened and creased. His nostrils flared like he had smelt something foul and repugnant. The whites of his eyes were striped with red lines, his cheeks were smeared with black dirt, and his short, golden-brown mane fell over one side of his face. "The Elder sabotaged our defenses. He sent you and me all the way over to Montecrief house with our best Vertibird, and he moved all of our border patrols to the south. We never saw them coming. Not to mention, he also disabled our emergency defense laser turrets to boot. When I got here, Dorsey told me that the battle was just about won. He said Liona had helped him split their forces, and that the Big-Bird mini nukes had crippled the mutants' lines. What he didn't know, and what I didn't know, was we had only been fighting the super mutants' first wave of attackers - we had only defeated the vanguard. As we chased after what we thought were the final mutants, an entire new tide came crashing down on us from the hills… They kicked our asses." Reese's voice narrowed to a whisper.
"How did you manage to win, Paladin?" Liona asked.
"'Win'? Never mind what I told the boy just now, Liona. We most certainly did not win. We survived. And we only managed that because that purple bastard showed up out of nowhere and opened up some kind of…portal. He ordered the remaining mutants through it, and that was that." Reese recalled.
"That was their leader. The mutant named Boston, or…The Voice, I suppose. We kept him from taking any of the vault's F.E.V., but he still got his hands on another virus: the S.P.V. Whatever was in that second virus, I don't know, but it clearly unlocked some supernatural abilities within him." Rocky explained.
"Well, I guess I'll take any win I can get at this point. At least he won't be creating any more mutants for a little while. For the sake of the people still alive, we call today a victory, pyric as it may be." Reese peered passed Liona, spotting Squire Fink standing behind her. I'm glad to see you got the boy back as well; that makes two wins by my count. Squire Fink, come with me. Your mother will want to see you, I'm sure. The rest of you, follow too. You're all friends to the Brotherhood of Steel as far as I'm concerned." Reese ordered through his radio that the gate be opened finally, and soon it was. The Paladin held onto Ramsey's shoulder as he led the group of six plus Edgar into the Steel Chapel.
+ Inside, the scribes and civilians had taken it upon themselves to decorate the Steel Chapel with hundreds of burning candles throughout its interior. The two five-thousand pipe organs along with the fifty-bell carillon filled every corner of the chapel with resonant and somber music, which continued playing as they entered. Poking their heads out of every room of the chapel were children, both big and small, with curious eyes and nervous smiles. The peeking adolescents stared mostly at Ramsey - a boy hardly older than themselves - who somehow had been outside during the battle. He smiled cheekily and tilted his chin upwards once he realized they were looking at him. One by one, the scribes in charge of protecting the children were seen emerging from the rooms, attempting to get a look at the first people to enter the chapel since the battle had begun. To their surprise, they witnessed a tattered group of oddities following Squire Fink and Star-Paladin Reese, comprised of a Mutant, a Psyker, a Synth, a Raider, and a Ghoul. Suddenly bursting out of one of the rooms was a woman with a similarly colored head of hair to Ramsey Fink. She called his name out, and the boy followed by his robot hurried to meet her in embrace, prompting the rest of the group to smile brightly. When the group finally made it to the front of the room and to the stage nearest to the Elder's Quarters, Reese signaled that the music cease with a raised hand. Once it did, he waited for all of the people of Fort Duke, both soldiers and civilians alike, to fill its hall right up to the stage. As night began to fall outside, the candles and burning incense of the chapel became the only light by which to see the stage. From the chapel entrance Rocky spotted a familiar tri-headed mutant hound bull its way through the crowd and right up the stage, followed by a group of four Brotherhood Knights, and a raven haired scribe. Despite the sudden scare caused by Cerberus' appearance in the chapel, the crowd's gasps and grimaces soon gave way to smiles and chuckles as Cerberus greeted his master with a flurry of sloppy kisses. With everyone safely inside, Intrepid squad raised the chapel gate, and removed their helmets. Paladin James Reese cleared his throat, and prepared to speak to his people.
"October 25th, 2295. That's today's date, and I don't think I'm ever likely to forget it. We started out today with over 220 people here at Fort Duke; 117 of them were Knights, like me. Our Elder, a man anointed by the Brotherhood's western leadership to be our protector, betrayed those Knights today…and he betrayed all of you too. He sabotaged our defenses, and conspired with the super mutant leader to gain access into a long forgotten vault, located beneath this very fort: Vault 52. Inside, they sought to find more of the F.E.V.: the infamous virus used to create mutants. I don't know why the Elder aided the mutants, but I don't really care either, because he's gone. These soldiers beside me, all of whom have proven themselves loyal to the Brotherhood, went after the Elder and his co-conspirators. They defeated them, safely returned our young, brave Ramsey Fink, and prevented them from returning to the wasteland with even a drop of the F.E.V. When the cowardly leader of the mutants fled with his army, he did so knowing he had been thwarted by the Brotherhood and its allies." Reece took a moment while the crowd cheered and clapped rapturously. His face's stoic expression never once broke as he waited for them to quiet. "October 25th, 2295. Many of my brothers and sisters - many of our brothers and sisters - died today, so that we could continue living. While the menace responsible for their deaths still lives, I for one will rest assured knowing that we have friends like…like… Well, I'm not really sure what to call them." Reese, and the entire audience, turned to face the group of five. The members of the group looked amongst themselves nervously, each expecting the other to speak. As usual, Agrippina was the first to verbalize her thoughts.
"Well, what was it Monte said? 'We're one Motley group of Mutants'?" The Synth spoke, as if to everyone present. "How about that: Motley Mutants?"
"Wait, what? I wasn't saying we should name ourselves that. We're not some prewar alternative rock band. I was just pointing out the obvious." Montecrief protested.
"No, wait… I actually like it! It has a nice alliterative ring to it." Said Liona.
"Yeah, I like it too. Motley Mutants." Sweetheart agreed with a shrug.
"You guys can't be serious." Monte continued resisting.
"Hush, Monte… What do you think, Rocky?" Aggie asked with a squinty smile. The entire crowd watched patiently as Rocky thought for a prolonged moment. As he did, some children in the crowd began chanting the name syllabically, over and over. "Mot-ley Mut-ants, Mot-ley Mut-ants!" Rocky smiled awkwardly, and looked up at the crowd of humans.
"We're the Motley Mutants."