She wasn't exactly a stranger to weird fucking bullshit. Since Courier was someone talked with her own brain that kinda made that trait a necessity to retain a semblance of sanity. But at this moment, she was fairly certain the world had reached the thin line separating sanity from madness, took a few steps back, and charged headlong across that line, presumably yelling something insane.
Ever since she read reports of the think tank from her pip-boy, her pale face was in disbelief. This was not a new continent. Oh no it was an entire new world, Straight from a grognak comic book, Elves, Magic, Gods, she was pretty sure the last one was just superstition. But she couldn't deny the others as she sent a few corpses of them to Think Tank. But that raised some questions like how these primitive people had access to this gate technology? according to information gathered from the minds of prisoners, the Gate was a gift from this so-called god ''Hardy''
Few days passed since the ''Battle Of Alnus Hill'' if one can call this a battle, in mojave she couldn't tell how much time has passed if it wasn't for her pip-boy since cloud affected both day and night. Natives called this land, Alnus Hill and invaders called themselves Saderans. Right now things were quiet, Yes Man suggested that they should build something like barracks and buildings around the gate to protect it. And She accepted it. Robots and and holograms were busy with labor as they quickly constucted buildings and forcefield generators like a... well a machine. They worked day and night without tiring, they did not need food,water and they simply worked. These were the reasons why she prefered to work with machines instead of people, they did what they told, never complained or asked for anything.
Humans could learn a thing or two from them.
''I have say we are one hell of team you and I! I admit I'm glad that I have to obey you instead of Benny! You are far more interesting, resourceful and smarter than him'' Yes Man announced from a securitron, She, ED-E and Rex were sitting under a tree and simply waited for the completion of buildings.
''Well I'm glad, we ended up being together too'' She admitted to him, She wouldn't deny that she grew up an attachment to Yes Man, ED-E and Rex.
''Why thank you! you are my favorite person in the entire world! no in the galaxy! nay in the universe! Anway let's get to the business'' Yes man extended his arm revealing a chip. ''This Chip has the knowledge important things about this world, information gathered right from the brains of saderans'' Courier took the chip and implanted it in the slot behind her head, it was not the first time she gathered information like that with her synhetic brain and it would not be last.
Her head spasmed in pain as she hold her head. After what felt like eternity pain stopped, and she now knew the language of the saderans and many other things, and she definitely would use this to her advantage.
''Oh! and it seems your mentor has arrived as well and wants to talk with you! Now if you excuse me! I have to keep watch for sneaky saderans!'' said Yes Man as he rolled away.
Ah yes her ''Mentor'' Elijah, she definitely learned many things from him, like modifying energy weapons, hacking pip-boys and robots, man was genius without a doubt, and she respected him. But she was also smart enough to keep her distance from him, as he was not very good with face-to-face as Veronica said, Elijah preffered to talk remotely with devices. That was fine she preferred to talk like that too.
Courier saw him near the gate, he was changed a lot.
well ''changed'' would be grave understatement, After he managed to access to Big Mountain thanks to her, he gladly accepted any and all cybernetics it offered, but it was not enough oh no. Elijah wanted to be one with technology, he worked with Think Tank, eventually Think Tank was impressed with his knowledge and intelligence so they offered him to join them and become a Think Tank too.
But Elijah refused the offer, that puzzled her, and the Think Tank as well, He believed that mankind could only be ''fixed'' with technology and cybernetics, so refusing their offer was surprising for her. Then She understood the reason: He wanted to become something different.
He moved his organic brain to a tank, but did not give up his body, instead he connected his consciousness with a synthetic brain from his tank, remotely controlling it like a puppet. He melted all the flesh of his body and replaced them with cybernetics, he implanted blue glowing mechanical eyes, audio receptors and more in his skull, Only organic thing left in Elijah's new body was his bones, but even his skeleton was modified with saturnıte just like her bones. Making his skeleton almost indestructible while giving it a silver-like appearance.
Needless to say, he looked very amazing, Courier couln't help but to admire what he has done to himself. He even replaced his legs as he approached her with four spider-like legs and a modified proton axe in his hands and a Atomic-valence tri-radii-oscillator floated around his skull giving his body extra regeneration and protection.
''You know, when Mobius called me and told me how you demanded see me near a ''Gate'', I did not know what to think, either Mobius was high on mentats again, or you were pulling pranks on me, I must say, My expectations are subverted, this whole situtation is bizarre, even by Wasteland standarts'' Elijah said, his synthetic voice was similiar to a robobrain.
''Still it happened, as all of us can see living proof, so we must focus on the task at hand, I already gained the drained information from prisoners. Needless to say I'm intrigued'' Elijah then looked at the forest '' I never thought I would see something like this in my life'' for a brief sentence, he sounded almost soft ''To see an actual clean land, undisturbed my man... and yet, they stupidly decide to invade us'' then his mechanical eyes on his silver skull glowed brighter, his voice was familiar again, filled with disgust.
''I know, trust me I'm still not sure if all of this real or if I'm high on jet, but like you said we must focus on the task'' She stood up from her sitting position and approached him, then crossed her arms ''What's our objective?'' she asked.
Elijah looked at her again ''There are many objectives, but first I want to learn more about this so-called magic, best way to start is from this ''Coda Village'' according to information we gained, there are two notable residents stays there. Their names are ''Cato El Altestan'' and ''Lelei La Lalena''. They are famous for their power of manipulating this magic. Me and Think Tank are intrigued by them'' Elijah's volume suddenly increased, filled with excitement'' I want you to go there, destroy anything on your path, either go there guns blazing with power armor or infiltrate with stealth suit, I care not, just remember to bring them alive no matter the cost, so we can cut them open for their secrets'' Elijah finished his words.
She nodded, and walked without saying anything, between the masters of the sierra madre, no further words were necessary. She equiped her elite riot gear helmet again, she wasn't sure how to do the mission yet, but she would decide it on the road, right now she had Elijah's LAER, Anti Material Rifle, A light shinning in darkness, holopistol, 12.7 submachine gun and a plasma katana beam sword as weapons. Should be more than enough. Especially combined with forcefield shields, hologram harness/projector/emitters and oscilattor.
Courier activated the atomizer in her pip-boy. Atomizer was another technology invented by her and think tank after she brought them lost sierra madre vending machine schematics. Turns out when you have a literal matter replicator technology, inventing an Atomizer was not that hard. Atomizer allowed to atomize the matter and remake it from atoms installed in her pip-boy. And weapons she wanted to equip assembled in front of her in seconds, now that she thought about it, it was almost like magic really. Sometimes it amazed her how mankind was so close to solve literally every problem with such powerful technology they had before the war.
And yet Earth become a wasteland instead...
She then saw Yes man quickly rolling with his wheel in her direction, she paused and focused on him, it seems Yes Man had something important to say.
''Is something wrong?' She asked to him, Elijah seemed sense something was wrong too, so he walked near her.
''Well! it seems those sneaky Saderans have friends! or Vassals! their armies are slowly approaching, and Saderan camps we have not destroyed slowly trying to organize too!'' Yes Man reported. She and Elijah looked at each other. They knew Saderan Empire had vassals, still they did not expected them so quickly after their slaughter. These Saderans were persistent she had to give them that.
''New Objective'' Elijah said, annoyance clear in his voice'' I think you should hunt down these Saderan pests in camps, kill their leaders and sow chaos, they will be easy pickings for our army'' Courier looked at him, well sowing chaos was her speciality. ''What about those vassal armies?'' she asked.
'Leave that to me'' Elijah simply said, with ominous and malevolent tone.
Saecilius Severus managed sneak out of the camp much easier than he thought, most of the soldiers were in guard-duty, and the ones in part of the battle pretty much had the same restless nights as he did, which made them fearful,tired and stressful. Sacilius sneaked past them and reached to the out outskirts of the camp, just when he was was about release a breath, he saw a guard
Thankfully it was his faithful friend Nomen, who was posted in the outskirts tonight, he released his breath.
He quietly whispered Nomen to catch his attention, Nomen was agitated and unsheathed his sword but relaxed when he saw him. It seems he was stressful and grew paranoid too. Saecilius couldn't blame him of course
''What in the name of the gods are you doing here!?'' Nomen quietly whispered to him, with a clear intensity.
''Isn't it obvious friend? I'm going home'' Saecilius answered to him, Nomen's eyes were widened but he nodded.
''So you are going to desert? You do realize what will happen if you get caught right?'' Nomen asked as he sheated his sword.
''Yes, but at this point, I no longer care, It's worth the risk, you witnessed what happened, you know enemy did, the nightmares plagues my every night and obviosly you having them too'' Saecilius asked, looking Nomen's tired eyes. ''I missed my family, I missed my wife and children, by Emroy I even missed working in the fields''.
Nomen nodded, ''I understand friend, take care of yourself'' he said.
''I suppose you will not be coming?'' Saecilius asked already knowing the answer.
Nomen shook his head ''No, I can't let those abominations beyond the gate run freely in our lands, I have a duty to the Empire, such is my oath.'' He answered as he hugged Saecilius.
''Go with fortune friend, and take care of yourself'' Nomen told him.
''You take care of yourself too, I hope you will get a worthy death'' Saecilius answered, knowing it was the last time he will see him.
Then sounds of screaming reached his ears from the camp.
Courier was on the hunt.
She quickly dispatched the saderan soldiers on the roads before they could even realize what happened, turning them to ash with LAER and meltdown explosion. Stealth Suit combined with stealth boy mark two making her completely invisible in the dark and allowed her to move much more agile.
''You look so marvelous when you kill things'' Stealth suit said to her.
She then found a camp, throwed bunch of plasma bombs, killing dozens of them.
''Did you know human brain can live for a few minutes even after death?''
She quickly ran with her kinetic accelerators to find another camp to exterminate, her bionic eyes allowed to see her in the night, and she could detect the enemies as they glowed red, she found more of them in the road, and killed them all with explosive ammo of Anti-Material Rifle.
"Electrocution, shot, drowned, crushed, burned in goo."
It did not take long for her to find another camp with her bionic eyes, she unsheathed her beam katana activated the plasma around the sword and cut through saderans like ribbons, whanever she cutted someone, their flesh turned to ash. To the Saderans she moved so fast, it was like a blur, some tried to defend themselves with their swords and shields, but her sword just them all like a hot knife through butter.
"Oh. Sorry. I was just thinking of all the ways humans can die."
Some lucky arrow managed to hit her, but her forcefield shields protected her, even then arrow would be useless to penetrate her armor and flesh. She dispatched the offending bowmen with her pistol.
''You don't die in any of those ways."
Courier found another camp, she placed hologram emitters and activated her projector, holograms made short work on them as Saderans prayed to their gods for salvation and mercy that would never come. She finished the nearest camp with cloud cannisters.
"You just keep killing and killing. With unique, most fascinating ways and no consequences."
She did this for three nights, killing hundreds if not thousands of saderans in days, unknowingly building a legend around her.
First phase of buildings around the gate was done, Turrets were built, Hologram Emitters were placed, Protectrons and Sentry bots also placed for extra defense as he expanded the red cloud around the Gate.
Elijah really doubted natives had any means to break their defense, still it's better to be safe than be sorry, over the years he admired all the things he achieved in the Mojave. It was exactly what he wanted as he and Courier rebuilt it in their image, advancement of science and technology at all costs. And prevent insignificant problems and pests that would stop it's advance. Veronica couldn't see the beauty of what he wanted to achieve. Believing him to be mad like the rest of the Brotherhood. So he got rid of the Brotherhood before they could oppose his plans. By ordering the Courier activate their bunker's self-destruct terminal. After this Veronica was completely disheartened and left him. A pity, but his vision was more important.
He would rebuilt this primitive world with his vision too. Natives were zealous and persistent, if he wasn't so annoyed Elijah would respect them for it. To break the morale of primitives, he sent the courier to hunt down camps to cause terror in them, he also ordered some robots to engage with supply convoys and depots, Capture more of the soldiers and put them in the auto-doc to be lobotomized and release them back to Falmart. It was still too early to see the results. Eyebots told him incoming army approximately had at least 120.000 men.
So he waited for the approach of the armies, he had bunch of surprises stored for them.
To say King Duran of Elbe was not really enthusiastic with this expedition would be understatement. From what scouts told him, only things they saw were corpses, corpses and even more corpses. All killed in horrific ways, Empire told him that only monsters arrived from the gate, and they caught them by the surprise hence the casualties. But if they had the support of their vassals, they could stop the monsters before they could become a threat to all of them. Which is why right now Duran rode his horse with his army. Scouts also told him strange things, like huge metal golems on wheels or metal scorpions. Those must be the monsters attacked from Gate. And then there were the rumors of ghosts, monsters capturing soldiers to take away their souls in a heretic ritual then release them back as sleeping agents, and an invisible demon that hunted men in nights which was completely another story.
But their numbers were pitifully low, only in few hundred. Most of them with being near the gate. Even if they are so powerful what can they do against his army with 120.000 men, right? But what if it is not? what if these monsters had so much power they could kill them all despite their few numbers since they already managed to kill some saderans?
Even so he couldn't just retreat his reputation for his domain and his overlord would be tarnished. Not to mention his honor and oath. No he had no choice but to move forward, for his people.
He shaked these thoughts from his head as he tried to focus on his current status.
''How much farther to the alnus hill?'' he asked one of his bodyguards on horseback.
''At this pace only two days left before we reach the Hill my lord'' bodyguard reported back to him.
''I see'' Duran replied, trying to not think about those unnerving thoughts.
''I think this will be easy victory my lord, there are only few hundreds of them, there is simply no way they can defeat us with so little numbers, it's impossible, and those rumors are just that, rumors'' His other bodyguard told him.
''I don't think it will be that simple'' something was not right with this, bu he couldn't tell what it was.
''My lord?'' Bodyguard asked again.
''Never mind'' Dural replied, as they concentrated to their mission.
He shaked his head, he was probably just over thinking this.