Chapter 27: Mystery Unraveled

Everyone including Liberty Prime broke in to a sprint to make one last mad dash for the purifier. Prime destroyed everything in his path as he ran down the road leading up to the memorial building.

"Main shielding up ahead. Activating shoulder mounted air to ground missiles." Liberty Prime yelled as he approached the shields around the Jefferson Memorial. Two hidden compartments on his back opened up and four large missiles shot forth from each of them. They whistled through the air and went over the top of the shield and made contact with the generators powering them. The blue shields flickered for a moment, and then vanished altogether.

More tanks rolled out and fired on Liberty Prime, who held his left arm up to reflect the shells. However, when they made contact, electricity coursed through his system and sent him to his knees.

"EMP….shells…..power…..35%...." he barely managed to get out as he convulsed in place.

The tanks then aimed at us and fired off. One of the shells landed in the middle of our group and blew us in all directions. I slid across the ground as I landed and slammed against a wrecked car. I placed my hand over my mouth as I coughed from all the dust in the air and looked around for the others. Most had been knocked unconscious by the blast and lie motionless on the ground. I spotted Sarah writhing on the ground and moaning in pain, and Kirk had his hands placed over his face.

The tanks rolled closer and aimed their barrels right at us. Without warning, Fawkes came from within a cloud of dust and ran towards the tanks as fast as he could. They fired off, but he rolled forward and avoided the blast. They took aim again, but he was too close now to get a good shot off. He jumped up on one of them and bent the barrel backwards so it could no longer fire off. Another tank turned towards him and fired off, but Fawkes jumped away and the tank he had been standing on erupted in to a ball of flames.

He ran at the other one and placed his hands beneath the treads and used all of his strength to turn it on its side. A shell went off a few feet away from him and sent him to the ground.

"Fawkes!" I yelled out as the yellow giant attempted to get himself to his feet.

He managed to finally get himself up, but he looked like he could collapse at any moment. The last of the tanks advanced on us, and Fawkes looked over at all of the unconscious and worn out Brotherhood soldiers.

"You must get to the Purifier Jason!" he shouted back at me. He then turned to face the tank and looked back at me with a soft smile on his face.

I'll never forget the determined look he had in his eyes as he made up his mind and knew what he needed to do in order to give us a chance. With his last ounce of energy, he ran towards the tank and slammed his fist in to the tank's barrel just as it fired off.

"Fawkes! No!" I shouted as he was engulfed in a shroud of smoke and flames.

A piece of tattered clothing drifted down from the sky and landed a few feet in front of me. I used what little strength I had and crawled over to it. I took it in to my hand and read the number "87" sewn in to the fabric. I clenched it until my fingernails dug in to my palm as tears formed in my eyes.

"FAAAWWKKKEEESSS!!!" I screamed to the heavens with all of my spirit and anger.

I placed my hands over my eyes and cried aloud. Everything had gone so wrong since we started this attack. Vargas had been put out of commission, Liberty Prime had nearly been destroyed, nearly all of my comrades had been knocked out, and now the one who I was sure would make it through this alive had sacrificed himself so we could fulfill our mission.

I felt someone's hand grasp my wrist, and I looked up to see Sarah holding on to me with a look of sadness on her face. "Jason….I'm so sorry about Fawkes." she tried to console me, but it didn't help.

I placed the tattered piece of clothing in my bag and got myself to my feet. I helped Sarah up and let her lean against me for support. Someone placed a hand on my shoulder, and I looked back to see Kirk standing there.

I looked up at the memorial building and sighed, "The mission hasn't failed yet. As long as I'm still breathing I'm going to see it completed. Fawkes gave his life so we could go through with this. I won't ask you to come with me."

"We're sticking with you Jason, until the very end." Sarah replied with a worried look on her face.

"I've still got a little bit of strength left in these old bones." Kirk added through ragged breaths.

"Let's go." I said under my breath, and we all limped off towards our destination.

Enclave soldiers' bodies littered the ground past the outer edge of where the shield once stood. Liberty Prime's missile strike had done more damage than we initially thought. We made our way over to the entrance to the gift shop and headed in.

There were no soldiers patrolling around inside, and we were surprised to find no resistance waiting in the rotunda. I looked up at the purifier and ordered the other to keep watch while I headed up. I activated the terminal outside the air lock. The chamber had been unlocked but was still flooded with lethal levels of radiation.

I slammed my fist against the screen, "Damn it! How am I supposed to get the G.E.C.K. in there and activate it without succumbing to radiation poisoning?"

"Now that's a darn shame." A voice that I hadn't heard in a long time said to me. The voice belonged to someone who I believed to be dead. A voice which sent a shiver through my spine.

"Colonel Autumn…." I said through gritted teeth.

The Colonel stepped in to view from behind a pillar and stopped at the base of the ramp.

"It's nice to see you again son." The Colonel greeted with a malicious grin plastered across his face.

"How is this possible? I watched you die!" I shouted at him.

"I have my ways young man, and I don't need to divulge them to the likes of you." he said simply.

I attempted to reach for the 500 Magnum in my bandolier but the Colonel held up his finger, "Ah, ah, ah, you wouldn't want any harm to come to your friends would you?" the Colonel asked as four enclave soldiers came in to view, two of whom were holding Kirk and Sarah at gunpoint.

"What do you want Autumn." I scowled.

The Colonel laughed and then shook his head, "You know what I want. The G.E.C.K. Hand it over now and I might just let you live" he demanded with an evil grin.

"Don't give it to him Jason!" Sarah shouted, and received a blow to the side of her face.

What choice did I have? I reached in to my pack and held the cube in the palm of my hand.

Colonel Autumn held his hand out, "That's right, hand it over."

I looked up at him and stared blankly at him, "Catch." I said calmly, and then tossed the cube up in to the air.

I pulled the 500 from its holster and shot Colonel Autumn right between the eyes as he caught the cube in his hands. I then took aim at the other soldiers and put a bullet through their visors before they could even react. I felt strange…I had never done anything like that before, and I felt as if I wasn't even the one who had done it. I let the gun fall to my side and then ran over to Kirk and Sarah who were kneeling on the floor.

"Nice shootin'." Kirk commented as I helped him to his feet.

"Where did you learn to do that?" Sarah asked as she helped herself up.

I shook my head in response, but didn't say anything.

The three of us walked over to where Colonel Autumn's corpse lay and looked down on him. I knelt down and picked the G.E.C.K. up off the ground and made sure that it wasn't damaged.

The sound of clapping came from behind us, and I turned to see the Mysterious Stranger standing at the door clapping his hands. He wore a broad smirk on his face, "Well done Jason, you've done it. You've beaten the Enclave, taken the purifier back, and now you have but one more challenge to face…" he then pulled his Magnum from his coat and shot Kirk three times in the chest.

Kirk looked at me in surprise, and blood leaked from his mouth. He fell to the floor and clenched his chest as a pool of blood formed beneath him.

His eyes glazed over as he looked up at me, "Kid…" was all he could say before the life left his body.

I looked on in disbelief at the corpse of the man who had helped me so much in my quest. Then I looked at the stranger who I thought had been helping me this whole time and couldn't help but wonder why he had done this.

"I meant what I said when I told you about the hidden potential I saw in you on that fateful day, and now, it's time to see if you've learned how to harness that power." he said as he spun his magnum on his trigger finger.

"But what about everything you said about saving the wasteland, and how I was the last, best hope of humanity!? What about all the times you saved me from certain death? You mean to tell me it was all a lie?" I asked while still in disbelief.

The stranger laughed deeply, "Not entirely. I told you all of that stuff so you would be motivated to continue on whenever you were feeling down. I saved you only when there would be no hope of survival, to make sure you stayed around so one day I could test how far you've come. And your father's death, well, that's really all the motivation I knew you would need to keep going. Ever notice how as you progressed further along your journey I showed up less and less? That's because you really were getting closer to unlocking that potential." he explained.

"Who knows, maybe you are the last hope that humanity has, but hell if I care. All I care about is finding people who might just offer me a real challenge in this boring game of life." he added with a sneer on his face.

I shook my head, "So that's all this has been to you, a game!? You used my father and his death to push myself to the limit all because you wanted to see if I could best you in a gun fight?" I asked, still not sure whether or not this was really happening.

The stranger nodded, "That's right." he replied.

"You sick fuck! Good and innocent people have died over your little game!" I shouted in a fit of rage.

The stranger frowned mockingly, "Oh, boo-hoo. People die everyday out here in the wastes kid, that's just the world we live in." he then holstered his magnum and turned away from me.

"The question is, what are you going to do now? What are you going to now that you know the truth?" he said without looking at me.

His hand loomed over the opening of his trench coat, waiting for something to happen. I still held the 500 in my hand with one bullet locked in the chamber waiting to be fired.

"I'm going to kill you, and then I'm going to activate this purifier and fulfill everything my father wanted for me and for the people of the wastes." I said coldly.

"Good, good." The stranger's hand loomed closer to the opening of his coat.

Bang!

Smoke bellowed from the end of my gun, and the stranger stood completely still with his gun in hand. He looked down and noticed the blood leaking on to his trench coat and smiled, "It seems I was right about you…" he spat, and then fell to his knees.

I suddenly felt a searing pain in my chest and looked down to see blood trickling down my armor. I stared at the stranger who was still smiling, "But maybe you still have a ways to go." he sputtered before falling flat on his face.

I fell on one knee and placed my hand on the ground. Sarah knelt beside and couldn't find anything to say. She helped em to my feet as the blood continued to pour from the gaping bullet wound in my gut.

"To the airlock…" I said through exasperated breaths.

She helped me over and I leaned against the glass door, "I don't have much time…the chamber is flooded with…high levels of radiation. Whoever goes in there…won't be coming out. And I figure…I'm a goner either way…" I said while trying to keep my breathing normal.

A few tears ran down Sarah's pale face and she gave me a quick hug, "I'm so sorry for everything that's happened today Jason." was all she could say before going over to the button that would open the airlock.

She pressed it and then threw me a small smile. I looked in to the chamber, and then back at her, "Tell Madison…I'm sorry I won't be there…to raise our child…" I said before coughing up a bit of blood.

Sarah simply nodded, and I slowly limped towards the main control console. The door slammed shut behind me, and I looked over to see Sarah press her hand against the glass.

I took the G.E.C.K. in hand and hooked it up to the console. I could already feel myself feeling achy all over, and my throat and eyes began to burn. The console powered up, and then the prompt to enter the activation code appeared on the screen. My fingers felt like they would melt off at any moment, so I quickly entered the code and then waited for it to fire up. I backed up against the glass and then slid to the floor as everything around me began to shake.

The water within the center tank of the chamber began to bubble and froth as the G.E.C.K. used its power of creation to purify the water, and then, out of nowhere, a bright white light erupted from the base of the tank and shot upwards. The light filled the chamber and made it impossible to see. I held my hand out in front of me as I began to slip out of consciousness. I began to feel extremely cold, and I could feel death's icy fingers creep over me.

And then suddenly, there they were. A man and a woman standing hand in hand holding their hands out to me with warm smiles on their faces. "Come on son, let's go home." the woman said to me, and I held my hand out and felt one last tear run down my cheek and drip from my chin.

Mom

Dad

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Unfortunately, with all good stories, they must eventually come to an end. I hope i wrote this last chapter right and didn't disappoint any of you. Tell me what you think about it and be as perfectly honest as you can. It was really hard to write this chapter because i really wanted to show the Mysterious Stranger as really being just as fucked up as the rest of the evil doers of the wasteland and having no moral backlashes about doing something like using someone just to please himself and his messed up outlook on life.

Well, i guess i'll just end by saying thanks to all my readers and an even bigger thanks to the people who took the time to review my story! Look forward to more fallout stories from me, i'm working with another idea i have and it will be a completely original plot and story with an original main character.