A/N: Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand...

FINALE TIME.

(screaming, vuvuzelas, etc)

Well, ladies and gentlemen, here we are: the end of the story.

This fanfic has just flown by for me, in part because I was preparing a good chunk of it for months in advance - and given that lockdown hit me like a ton of bricks last year, I'm damn lucky I stocked up all those chapters, otherwise I would have lost my mind. I'm not sure if I'm glad it's over or sad it's over, but as crazy as it's been, I don't regret committing it to the great etherical padded cell wall that is the Internet.

Thank you all for reading my madness... and I hope you enjoy this final chapter of it.

Anyway, without further ado, the epilogue of this story: read, review, and above all, enjoy!

Disclaimer: Fallout still isn't mine.

Time passed.

One day blurred inexorably into the next, one week fusing seemingly into the following one, until all of time seemed to be happening at once… and yet, to Braun, nothing seemed to be happening at all. He could no longer count the seconds, the hands of the clock above his bed seemed to warp and bend in bewildering directions, and no matter how carefully he scrutinized the calendar, he always seemed to find himself in the same month… but of a different year.

In desperation for some way of keeping track of the time, he begged for news of the outside world, pleading until he wept for Virtual Dithers to tell him something, anything of what was going on outside his prison. Virtual Dithers obliged… but once again, only as a reward for diligence, and even then, she only doled out the news in the smallest of portions. Months could go by before Braun could learn what had been happening in January, and as ennui continued to eat away at his composure, he found himself infrequently forgetting to ask, leaving him with a vague and inconsistent picture of the world beyond Vault 112.

For good measure, Virtual Dithers presented each bit of news as if it was a bedtime story, simultaneously humiliating him just a bit more and leaving him unable to sleep, bubbling with impotent rage as he was. And even if he somehow managed to suppress his anger, he'd still be kept awake at night by the question of whether or not Virtual Dithers had been lying to him about the whole thing.

Over the course of about ten extremely disrupted months, he learned that with Braun fully suppressed, Vault 112 needed fewer support staff in attendance, and most of the VIPs had long since gone home. Norah and Cait had left the program to resume their duties in the Commonwealth – and presumably raise Shaun away from Vault 112. Current reports indicated that the three of them were very happy, and the Commonwealth was safer and more prosperous than ever before under Norah's benevolent reign.

Veronica had vanished a few weeks after her contract ran out, last seen being escorted from the Vault with Domingo – and he wouldn't reveal where she'd gone at any price, not even to Mr House. "She's happy where she is," was all he would say, "and she's in the company of her one true love. Who am I to disturb that a second time?"

Domingo, of course, remained a wild card. Though the scarred mercenary seemed to agree with House's plans for humanity's ascent to the stars, he had his own mysterious goals to pursue alongside his duties; every so often, he would disappear from his post and return with revolutionary blueprints for technology that just so happened to blend perfectly with Braun's own innovations, always refusing to explain where he'd gotten them – but he'd supposedly been providing them to House for several years. Supposedly, House's operatives had also seen Domingo handing out highly advanced agritech to struggling farmers and ranchers throughout the Mojave, with no explanation of where he'd gotten it or how he'd gotten there so quickly. Strangest of all, he would devote huge sums of his salary to hospitals, schools, and even the Followers of the Apocalypse.

"Just because I agree with your mission doesn't mean I have to agree with your politics," he would say to House when asked. "Someone's got to keep the rest of the Mojave alive while you chase the stars."

Meanwhile, Mr House's space program was progressing in leaps and bounds, fuelled by the economic might of New Vegas, and accelerated a thousandfold by every single technological contribution that House's allies had made: Braun's scientific masterworks, the Institute's coldly brilliant inventions, and the mysterious designs that Domingo brought in from god only knew where. Between the three of them, they had been able to advance rapidly through a program that should have taken at least fifty years of dedicated research, development, and production.

This could be a lie: after all, the news that Braun had not been essential to the program – that after all the effort that had been made to acquire him, he'd been nothing more than one of a trio of high-value producers – dealt yet another sledgehammer blow to his ego and left him even gloomier than before, if such a thing was possible. And there'd been another dose of humiliation in the simple fact that, for the first time in two hundred years, he was a virtual non-entity: once upon a time, he'd been the pride of Vault-Tec, their sorcerer-scientist and saviour of humanity; in the centuries that followed, he'd been the terror of his test subjects, an all-powerful god that reduced the conscious playthings to paroxysms of terror. Even Smith Casey's garage had become the subject of ghost stories, and after Matty's visit, there'd even been whispers of a portal to hell in the basement. But now… now, the garage was just another one of Mr House's installations, the myth of a hellgate long since ground into the dirt; now the playthings owed their torture to Mr House and barely spared a moment of fear for Braun; and now, Braun's name had been seemingly all but forgotten by everyone outside Mr House's organization, and nobody was giving him the slightest bit of credit for all his hard work.

Once, he'd been a god. Now, he barely qualified as a ghost.

Yes, it was entirely possible that the computer's testimony had been nothing but a cruel jab at his wounded ego… but if Virtual Dithers was being honest, it sounded as if House might be ready to begin launching rockets within the next eight months, and after that, who knew what could happen next? From the way House had talked, he had been intending to create sustainable lunar outpost for mining and experimentation, using it as a springboard to launch an even more ambitious plan for colonizing the solar system and beyond.

Braun should have been relieved at the news; after all, the fact that House's plan was a success might mean that soon, House might see fit to release him from this nightmare. Right now, he didn't care if release meant being freed from Virtual Dithers' soul-crushing regime or being quietly executed. Being freed from this nightmare was all that mattered… or at least, it should have been all that mattered. But could he really go back to his old life even if House gave it to him? Could he really be able to resume the fun, knowing how easily it had been taken away, knowing how thoroughly they'd broken him?

That wasn't what really destroyed his hope of freedom, though. No, the reason why he couldn't bring himself to hope was the simple fact that he knew that House would never let him go: Norah and the Institute were allies of their own free will, but they would only cooperate for as long as the ancient tycoon fulfilled the terms of their contract. Domingo was a law unto himself, gave no hint as to where he had obtained the inexplicable designs, and his loyalty to the plutocratic genius remained stable only while he helped further Domingo's strange idea of a better world. But Braun was House's prisoner, the one member of the trio who could not run and could no longer resist his orders, and House could not afford to let such a prize out of his grasp.

Had there been the option, Braun would have killed himself. But, of course, he couldn't: he might not have executive control over the simulation, but he was still being afforded executive protection. He couldn't even get Virtual Dithers to kill him, for even if there'd been some hidden element of the original Dithers' personality that could tolerate something as pure and honest as murder, she still wouldn't do it, because this one was a personification of the Vault computer – and it had been charged with keeping him alive at all costs.

So, all Braun could do was work – work until his stomach drove him to accept Virtual Dithers' meals, work until he finally passed out at his desk and had to be carried into bed, work until the lone murder he was allowed a day felt like a reprieve from the paltry blockbuster movies screened daily.

He worked until there was nothing else to do but scream.

After all, this was his life now, and as he'd intended from the very beginning, it was one that would last for all eternity.

And then, perhaps a year into his interminable sentence – or maybe two or three or ten – Braun found himself toiling away at his desk on yet another grim, timeless morning, wondering if it was possible to will himself to death… only for his reverie to be interrupted by a shadow suddenly gliding over his latest page of schematics.

Eyes half-lidded, he looked up to find the stranger in the trenchcoat grinning down at him, his eyes agleam with malicious delight beneath the shadow of his hat.

Braun sighed. A few years ago, nonsensical visions like this would have filled him with dread, would have probably frightened him into having the Vault computer perform a thorough medical analysis of his brain. Now, though, there was no point in being afraid: he had already lost everything, beginning with his toys and ending with his will to resist. This vision was just a symptom of boredom-induced insanity, his starving brain conjuring up a phantom to compensate for the lack of stimulation. He spared it only a second before lowering his head to the desk again; these hallucinations rarely ever had anything other than smiles to offer him, and he had more work to do if he hoped to numb the boredom of his imprisonment with a quick afternoon stabbing.

"I take it you've given up, then?"

There was a stunned pause, as Braun tried and failed to identify the source of the unfamiliar voice, wondering if he had progressed to auditory hallucinations or if he'd simply been interrupted by his jailer.

"No, young man," said the voice. "Virtual Dithers didn't say that; you weren't talking to yourself without realizing it; and you definitely aren't suffering from auditory hallucinations. In point of fact, you aren't suffering from hallucinations at all. Look up and see my lips moving. Look up… now."

As if on strings, Braun looked up to find himself staring into the eyes of the trenchcoated mystery man. He was leaning over him, now, hands pressed flat against the desk as he leered down at Braun, talon-like fingers carving arcane runes into the cheap pine.

"Hello, little 'Laus," the stranger purred. "It's good to meet you in person, now that you're finally ready."

His voice was deep and musical, the accent roughly mid-Atlantic, every note of it alive with delight and humour… and yet, there was something ever-so-slightly wrong in that voice. To Braun's well-worn imagination, every single word that fell from those lips seemed to force its way through his ears and do unpleasant things to his skull on the way.

Braun should have ignored him. He should have gone right back to work and pretended that he couldn't hear this hallucinatory intruder talking to him, or better still, fled in terror. Virtual Dithers would know what to do: as the avatar of the Vault computer, she would know what to do about degenerative mental illnesses, and even if she couldn't make this vision go away, she could at least make recommendations that could free Braun from this nightmare once and for all. After all, House wouldn't want a delusional madman providing unreliable work, would he? Yes, Braun knew he shouldn't respond… but something in the stranger's voice seemed to unravel the logical instinct to cling to his sanity.

Instead, Braun asked, "Ready for what?"

"For the next stage of your life, of course. For so many years, you've been content to remain in your chrysalis, dreaming of a fantasy kingdom without ever trying to make your dreams a reality; even being a slave to House wasn't enough for you to reach the end of your pupal stage. In fact, you've been spoiled and pampered for so long that you've lost your edge, flung yourself at the cheese without ever seeing the trap. Mixed metaphors, I know, but when you reach my age, rat and butterfly combinations are all forgiven as easily as war crimes."

"…what?"

"I'm here to show you the way out, my child. You might think that eternity in a simulated utopia was the natural conclusion of your journey, but in reality, it's just the beginning: there are untold vistas of experience out there, little 'Laus, victims that you haven't even dreamed of, pleasures that would make your simulated delights look bland and uninspired. If you'd be willing to devote yourself to studying the forbidden arts, you might even be able to toy with reality itself as easily as you altered the fabric of this very simulation. And all you have to do is move on: let the chrysalis crack, spread your wings, and fly."

And in spite of his despair, Braun couldn't help but feel the tiniest flicker of hope at this. True, it was only the hope that his inevitable descent into psychotic solipsism would be an uplifting, borderline-escapist experience rather than the horrifying mental breakdowns he'd witnessed over the course of those reverse Thorazine trials he'd witnessed in his thirties… but right now, a pleasant meltdown was the best thing he could hope for. But at his heart, Braun was still a rationalist: he had to question this, even if questioning a hallucination would do as much good as demanding answers from an automated hotline.

"What on earth is that even supposed to mean?" he asked, weakly. "Who are you? Why are you here? How am I supposed to achieve any of what you suggested? And more to the point, why shouldn't I just dismiss this entire experience as a delusional episode?"

The stranger laughed, his deep voice bubbling malignantly as he finally stood up straight. "You tell me, Braun: you're the one who chose to live your life inside a self-inflicted hallucination. But if you insist on clinging to that particular belief, then ask yourself why the computer wouldn't have alerted you to a mental problem as soon as it became detectable. You programmed this magnificent device to analyse the bodies of your playthings for any potential faults and compensate according, regardless of whether it was a ruined kidney or a stroke. If your brain had begun to demonstrate a consistent failure to engage with "real" stimuli, the computer would have told you."

Braun blushed a vivid shade of puce. It made perfect sense, for he remembered programming the computer to do exactly that more than two hundred years ago; so why hadn't he thought of that? Why had he needed to be told?

"A sign of how far you've fallen, I'm sure," said the mystery man, smugly.

Could he actually read Braun's mind, or was he just cold-reading him, toying with his mind as readily as Braun had toyed with the minds of his initial subjects?

The mystery man chortled. "I'm sure you have more questions to ask, of course…"

"Who are you?"

"My chosen name is Randolph Carter, but the people of the Wastelands call me the Mysterious Stranger."

Braun's eyes narrowed. "I've heard that name used before," he said quietly. "Albeit only over the radio. You're something of a legend in the outside world, by the sounds of things… but what brings you here? And how could you have ended up in this simulation without sounding an alarm? Any Tranquillity Lounger you took a seat in would have-"

"I'm beyond such interfaces," the Mysterious Stranger interrupted smoothly. "These days, I go wherever I'm needed: virtual reality, the Capital Wasteland, the Pitt, Point Lookout, the Mojave, the Sierra Madre, the Big Empty, the Divide, the Commonwealth, Nuka-World, even deepest space. All it takes is a thought, and I'm gone. So many people have been trying to work out how I've managed it, all to no avail – I'm quite sure that a certain synth detective is still on the case. But none of them know what I really am…"

The Mysterious Stranger's face rippled, his flesh undulating like water as a tide of glowing red eyes opened and shut across his swarthy skin, oily tentacles oozing from his fingers and creeping across the ground like the questing tendrils of a strangler fig, his mouth opening wider and wider to reveal a glistening white forest of needle-like teeth, and at the back of the cavernous throat behind them, a hundred other fanged jaws creeping closer to Braun's face…

Just as quickly as it appeared, the vision was gone, and the Mysterious Stranger appeared perfectly normal again – though given that wicked grin on his face, perhaps "normal" wasn't the most accurate term at hand.

"This face is not the only one at my disposal," he chortled. "And the Mysterious Stranger is just a role I play – a little something I can use to keep an eye on those who interest me the most, to keep them safe until I know if any of them are suitable. I've been watching many promising talents over the years: Norah, Domingo, the Chosen One, the Vault Dweller, even your old friend Matty. But all of them disappointed me in the end; they had too many morals, too many principals, too many personal attachments, too many self-imposed missions they insisted on following to the bitter end… and the ones who completed these little quests only ended up taking up new ones once they were finished. As I eventually discovered, I needed someone without long-term goals, preferably without family, friends, or allies that might anchor them to their current reality. I needed someone experienced with the fine art of building their own reality rather than simply reshaping someone else's. Most of all, I needed someone completely divorced from all notions of morality – or better still, someone who'd never been acquainted with them in the first place. I needed you, Braun."

"Me?"

"As I said, I've been watching for a very long time. Since before the war. This isn't the first time we've met, believe it or not, on one of your annual visits to the building site. If it helps, I waved to you."

This threw Braun for a moment. Then, a few stray recollections billowed up from the dusty shelves of his long-term memory, dredging up a handful of near-forgotten incident reports and confused witness statements from over two hundred years ago, plus one personal encounter that Braun had long since put out of his mind.

"You were there," he whispered. "You were sneaking around Vault 112 before it was even finished!"

"Well done, little 'Laus."

"But that was over two centuries ago! How are you still alive after all this time? Cloning? Cryogenics? Some kind of life support system like mine? Did you transfer your mind into a robotic body? Or are you immortal – the first truly biologically immortal human?"

The Mysterious Stranger smirked ever-so-slightly. "Come now, my child, do you honestly think that you're talking to a human being? You already know that I can do things that even your technology couldn't achieve at present: shapeshifting, teleportation, protection into virtual environments, and so much more. Is it such a stretch to believe that I might not be human at all? Besides," he added, "even if I was an immortal human, I wouldn't have been the first in the Wastelands: there's been an entire family of them lurking in the Commonwealth. Alas, you never had the pleasure of meeting the Cabots or asking Norah about them, but that's another story entirely. The point is, I'm something more than human… and, if you choose to accept it, you will have the privilege of becoming part of my retinue."

"…what?"

"As I said, I was looking for someone with no moral compass and a gift for making their own realit-"

"I know, I heard you, but… why? What do you want me for?"

"That, little 'Laus, would be telling. But if you really want the non-spoiler edition, I'm putting a team together: I've been searching the multiverse for individuals with the strengths necessary for one of the most audacious works of sabotage ever committed across the Possibility Space, and as luck would have it, you're one of them."

The Mysterious Stranger now began to circle Braun with an odd, gliding walk that seemed to take him further off the ground with every step until he was levitating a good seven inches in the air. "Do you understand what this means for you, Braun? This is your ticket to freedom: if you accept my offer, then you will be freed from this simulation and this Vault; you'll have the right to torture and kill as you please once more, this time with a far grander repertoire of methods at your disposal; I can even give you the power to alter the real world exactly as you would the simulation. Of course, there'll be a little training for you to complete first, but compared to your incarceration here, I'm sure that'll be a nice reprieve."

Braun considered this.

In all likelihood, he was hallucinating. This was just wishful thinking brought to life by boredom and his own fatally wounded ego, a desperate fantasy of finding something that could leaven the endless ennui. If he accepted this deal, he'd only be greeted by another day of work and smothering impotence, for there was no way his collapsing sanity could possibly keep up with his imagination, however desperate and deranged it had become.

And yet, even though he knew he should alert Virtual Dithers to the problem before it got any worse, he found himself listening with growing fascination – maybe even a trace of hope. Besides, if this was just a sign of madness, then what harm would it do to listen to whatever the Stranger had to say?

"There's one thing I don't understand," he said, hesitantly. "How are you going to free me from the simulation? I'm a decrepit husk in the real world, in case you hadn't noticed. Is this going to involve some kind of machine body or cloning or-"

"Something like that, yes. Of course, it all depends on whether or not you agree to my terms – and whether or not you can complete the training."

"Training?" echoed Braun.

"You'll be operating in the real world for the first time in two hundred-odd years, 'Laus: you need to acclimatize to being a physical serial killer again – and learn some new skills while you're at it. Unless you still think I'm a hallucination and you're likely to find some absolution on your own, in which case I'd be happy to leave you here-"

"NO!" Braun screamed. "WAIT!"

He hadn't meant to yell; he'd wanted to interject in as calm and controlled a manner as possible – after all, he might have lost everything, but he was still in full possession of his self-control… or so he'd thought. All it had taken was the merest thought of being trapped in his private hell, this time without the comforting presence of a hallucinatory escape, and he'd been reduced to screaming like one of his own victims.

The Stranger turned, a poisonous-looking smile inching further and further across his already-smug face. "Have you reached a decision then?" he asked, teasingly.

He didn't add "I won't give you any further time to decide." That was left carefully unspoken, just so that Braun could quietly swelter in anxiety.

Yes, this had to be a hallucination: it was too sudden, too good to be true, too implausible even by the standards of the postapocalyptic world in which he partly dwelled… but he couldn't afford to disregard it. Yes, accepting the Stranger's offer would be an admission of ultimate failure: it would mean finally acknowledging just how thoroughly he'd been defeated – by Matty, by Dithers, by House, by Domingo, by Norah, and even by an avatar of his own computer. It was bad enough to have been brought so low, but to admit to it in any way, even if it was only to a hallucination, would be rubbing salt into muscles that had already been flayed bare. Worst of all, it would mean relinquishing control to insanity, surrendering what little Braun had left – his own willpower – in favour of a delusional grab for contentment.

But the alternative was to be forever miserable.

"Alright," he said quietly. "I accept your terms."

Without saying a word, the Stranger extended a spindly arm in Braun's direction, eerily-long fingers unfurling outwards for a handshake. Was it Braun's imagination, or could he see the flesh on the Stranger's hand oozing like candlewax? Could he see teeth forming across the palm, eyes forming across the knuckles.

Closing his eyes, Braun reached out, and shook the offered hand-

-and then everything went black.

The death of Dr Stanislaus Braun was met with a mixture of bemusement and apathy.

Nobody could explain exactly how the fallen sorcerer-scientist had died; even the Vault computer and the best medical specialists at Mr House's disposal were sure why his body had given up the ghost: all the life-support machines in the Tranquillity Lounger were functioning perfectly, and none of them had reported a failure during Braun's expiration, nor had there been any warning signs of a health condition that the Lounger might not be able to manage. Medical examiners turned up nothing: no hint of a violent heart attack, no cerebral haemorrhage, nothing that could have caused Braun to expire so suddenly.

He'd just died.

Once the initial confusion was over, Braun's death barely qualified as a speedbump for Mr House's program. By now, House had acquired more than enough of Braun's innovations to keep his work progressing for decades on end, and his absence would be easily compensated by the Institute's projects and the mysterious blueprints Domingo kept bringing back.

However, to House's surprise, Virtual Dithers was able to step in as well: according to the Vault computer, there was more than enough information in the database to replicate Braun's mind, and with a little careful reprogramming, his intellect would continue to produce technological innovations without having to put up with Braun's uniquely troublesome personality. Of course, someone would have to keep an eye on the disembodied intellect just to make sure it never manifested enough of a personality to become a problem, and so, Virtual Dithers was allowed to remain in control of Vault 112 as Overseer and guardian.

In short order, the Vault was stripped of any nonessential machinery. The Loungers were removed en mass, the nutrient farm was disassembled for use in the space program, the sleeping quarters were sealed off, and the power network was rerouted almost entirely to the computer. The staff was relocated, leaving behind only a crew of securitrons under Virtual Dithers' direct control.

By then, Braun's body had been quietly cremated, his ashes scattered into the Potomac and dispersed in the slowly-purifying waters, ensuring the last trace of the sadistic genius had been well and truly erased from the Capital Wasteland.

However, it was just as the last of the transports were trundling away that Virtual Dithers made a surprising request of Mr House. Normally, he would have been a little alarmed at the computer showing such an obvious sign of independent thought, but after some thought, he decided to grant the request on the grounds that it gave her little opportunity to rebel.

Over the course of the next few years, the garage was rebuilt, the concrete structure being extensively reinforced as automated earthmovers began shovelling earth into a huge mount atop it. Concrete was poured, steel supports were added, a secret entrance was dug, and before long, Smith Casey's garage was rendered almost completely invisible beneath a hill topped by a flat concrete dais. With careful encouragement from one of Domingo's little presence, hardy radiation-resistant grasses were planted upon it, until all signs of an entrance were rendered invisible beneath the strange lawn. Then, at Virtual Dithers' direction, several huge blocks of marble were laboriously shipped across the country, planted at the site, and shaped into statues by a team of robotic labourers armed with lasers.

The end result was a memorial like no other: atop the dais, nine photorealistically carved marble statues stood on the pedestals they'd so long been denied, looking out over the Capital Wasteland with sad, hard-won smiles, their faces at long last freed from the tormented expressions they'd worn in life. In the wake of House's departure, Wastelanders of every stripe came to marvel at this strange monument, wondering at what House could have been doing here, why he'd left so suddenly, why the grass seemed so well-trimmed, and who was maintaining the statues. Most of all, however, they wondered about the people this place commemorated – for their names had been carved at the base of the dais:

BILL FOSTER

MABEL HENDERSON

ROGER ROCKWELL

JANET ROCKWELL

MARTHA SIMPSON

TESSA DITHERS

GEORGE NEUSBAUM

PAT NEUSBAUM

TIMOTHY NEUSBAUM

And below their names:

IN HONOUR OF THOSE WHO DIED TO END THE NIGHTMARE. MAY THEIR SLEEP REMAIN UNTROUBLED AND THEIR DREAMS OFFER NOTHING BUT HAPPINESS.

Of course, the name of Stanislaus Braun was not included anywhere on the memorial; in the waters that were his final resting place, no stones marked his grave.

Some distance away, the Mysterious Stranger looked on at the completed monument with something akin to contentment. By his side, Billy looked on, anxiously scanning the horizon for threats.

"Well," said the taller of the two figures, "I think he's turning out quite well already."

"What if Braun fails?" Bill asked. "I mean, he's failed before-"

"Exactly why I selected him. I've had my fill of success stories, Bill: I'm looking for people who've lost everything and will do anything for the man who can give them a second shot at their dreams. I'd have thought that my attempt to recruit Carrie was evidence enough of that."

"And if Braun does fail a second time?"

"Then we go back to trawling our overflowing stockpile of potential candidates. Personally, I think he's the golden ticket we've been looking for."

"So… we've got three to go?"

"You needn't sound so excited, Billy. We've still got some work to do: we've yet to see if Greta of the Götterelektrongruppe is interested, the Dark Core of Midsomer hasn't been courted yet, and then there's the infant goddess of the Spring Fields…"

"There's just one question: what happens if Braun does have a tiny bit of ego left? What if he tries to betray you?"

"The way you're thinking of betraying me?"

Bill's swollen eyes widened in horror, faint triangular patterns flashing across his irises. "I would never-"

The Mysterious Stranger chortled malignantly. "Bill Cipher, Bill, Billy, do you really think I'm that stupid? You've been planning on betraying me ever since I saved you from the Zodiac."

The boy cringed and bowed his head in obeisance, triangular patterns briefly flickering across his shame-filled eyes.

"Besides, I have a failsafe prepared in the event that Braun betrays me – just as I have one prepared for you, little Billy. For now, let's just say that I have an ace up my sleeve… or, as the case may be, on ice. If Braun ever tries to get cute with me, I'll just thaw my newest asset out and let him finally bring the Sorcerer-Scientist to justice."

"Newest asset?" Bill echoed.

"Funny way our old friend Matty just "vanished," wouldn't you say? A lot happened while I was keeping you busy with that little mission to the ruins of Mount Wundagore, and the Lone Wanderer was one of them. I'm keeping him on standby; for the time being, he's in stasis, obliviously sleeping away in a location of my choosing. In the event that Braun gets too big for his britches after all the training and tech I'm setting him up with, I'll send Matty out with all the weaponry he can carry and let the two of them annihilate each other. Should be fun to watch… but hopefully it won't be necessary until I've gotten everything I need out of that Teutonic shitwizard."

"But what about-"

"Ah-ah-ah! Enough questions, Billy: we've got a package to deliver and a young man to enrol in the most expensive tuition in the multiverse!"

After what felt like eons in the darkness behind his eyelids, Braun awoke to find himself abruptly tumbling forward back into the waking world; he was dimly aware of the sound of rushing water as he plunged, as if he'd awoken on the bank of a river, but when he opened his eyes, he found himself landing with a thud on a steel grating with no sign of any major water source in sight.

Blinking in confusion, he staggered to his feet and did his best to take in as much of his surroundings as possible, but it wasn't easy: wherever he was, it was almost pitch-black. However, as his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he became dimly aware of a rough-hewn stone floor a few feet from the grating, and behind him, an eight-foot-tall glass cylinder; the cylinder had been opened, its doors now dripping with water and viscous ooze. From this, Braun could easily deduce that it had been the jar that he'd fallen from a moment ago, and he must have been in there ever since he'd shaken the Mysterious Stranger's hand, either healing, gestating, or something of that nature.

However, all of that shrivelled into insignificance next to one all-consuming fact:

He wasn't in the simulation anymore.

More than a dozen sensory clues could be found in the surrounding environment, beginning with the subtle absence of the computer's supervision program and ending with Braun's inability to call in any of the remaining programs he'd been given access to, all of them adding up to the same conclusion: this wasn't virtual reality.

This was the real world.

After two centuries spent ruling his simulated kingdom, only interacting with the real world through cameras and robots, Braun now stood on mortal feet once more.

Curious, he inspected his new body as best as he could despite the poor lighting. From what little he could tell, this new corporeal body was male, tall, thin, leanly muscled, and completely naked; his skin was smooth and unblemished, not to mention so pale it almost seemed to glow stark white in the gloom; a long chain of glossy black hair poured down his spine, almost brushing the small of his back, and though his body seemed to be that of an adult of at least twenty-five years of age, he couldn't find a single trace of facial or body hair. Also, perhaps it was his imagination, but his body didn't seem entirely human: the limbs seemed a little too long, the muscles too responsive, the movements just a tiny bit too fluid… and as he reached up to trace the contours of his skull, Braun realized that his ears now tapered to points.

And then, just as he was starting to wonder about the source of the body that the Mysterious Stranger had given him, there was a loud click – and suddenly, Braun found himself caught in the beam of a spotlight.

Around him, the room lit up, revealing that Braun was not alone in the darkness after all: less than ten feet ahead of him, a huge half-ring of stone seats surrounded him like an amphitheatre, and every single seat was occupied. Naked as he was, Braun almost covered himself in embarrassment; but then he found himself looking up in fascination at the spectators: like him, they were tall and thin, and though many of them wore silken black robes or gleaming black suits of armour, their slender muscular was evident even from here. Like him, they were deathly pale, their eyes lustreless black, their faces unnaturally beautiful and yet contorted with arrogance and cruelty. And like him, all of them had pointed ears. However, quite a few of them looked as if they'd been modified in some way – strange facial mutilations, mechanical alterations, and even additional limbs were popular.

At the sight of Braun in his new body, the crowd immediately began to whisper amongst themselves. From where he stood, it was hard to listen in on any of the conversations, but from the looks on the faces of the audience, they were clearly mystified by his appearance here. Indeed, a few of them looked distinctly insulted.

Then, just as Braun was starting to wonder if he was expected to start juggling or something, a semicircle of translucent viewscreens flickered into existence across the empty air overhead, and the audience leaned in with interest. It took a moment for Braun to work out what they were seeing, because even though the screens were translucent, it was still a little difficult to work out what was happening on the right side from where he stood. Eventually, though, was able to focus enough with his newfound eyes to work out what was going on – and with a jolt of surprise, realized that the screens were depicting him.

There he was, as a child, stabbing a puppy to death as Elizabeta raptly looked on; there he was, as a teenager, naked and soaked in blood as he and Elizabeta rutted upon the shredded carcass of a dead backpacker; there he was, as a university student, merrily killing his way through a montage of homeless people; there he was, as Vault-Tec's sorcerer-scientist and the darling of the military-industrial complex, looking on with barely-disguised delight as another screaming test subject was lowered into the waiting sights of an automated gun turret; there he was, welcoming his living toys to the simulation with a massacre… and there he was, at play in Tranquillity Lane. All these moments of Braun's life and countless others were on display before the eyes of the spectators, and Braun himself couldn't quite suppress a tremor of anxiety at the sight of his greatest joy laid bare before a real-world audience. Shameless as he was, even at the height of his corporeal power, he had feared being discovered – and now it seemed that nightmare had finally come true.

But rather than being horrified or appalled by the sight, the audience looked – if anything – fascinated: with every kill, they oohed and aahed appreciatively; with every act of torture, they nodded their heads approvingly and offered thin-lipped smiles. A few of them even applauded politely, as if they were observing a newly unveiled artwork over appetisers and champagne. However, it wasn't until they got a good look at his triumphs in Tranquillity Lane that they really got interested: after the end of the first decade in the simulation had finished playing out, they were laughing and applauding; by the time Tranquillity Lane rolled around, they were giving him a standing ovation. In fact, the only thing that seemed to disappoint them was the fact that the entertainment was pre-recorded (though Christ only knew how this footage could have been recorded in the first place).

Finally, the display concluded to thunderous applause, and the lights came up – and in that moment, Braun finally saw what the rest of this bizarre theatre looked like. The amphitheatre barely took up half of the chamber: beyond the seats and the stage, the space stretched on for several thousand yards, occupied by platforms and scaffoldings the size of buildings, and on every single available surface–

Braun's new jaw very slowly thundered open.

Human bodies dangled from electrode-studded racks, writhing and twitching in silent agony; other figures, some of them only generally human, lay upon dissection slabs, their bellies split open to reveal jagged black growths sprouting from their internal organs; limbless torsos wriggled pathetically as they tried to haul themselves across floors studded with broken glass; skins stretched themselves to breaking point as skeletons tried to escape from their bodies, oblivious to the howling of their owners; in iron chairs, torture victims wept and begged for death as their spines began to burn from within, heating their seats to a white-hot glow and burning the rest of their bodies even further; and above, several elasticized figures had been strung from scaffolding to scaffolding like so much tinsel, their bodies stretched almost to breaking point, dozens of tiny wounds oozing fresh blood across their wobbling carcasses as they sobbed for mercy. The smell of voided bowels and spilled blood, the magnificent visual collage of torment and experimentation, the newly-sounded chorus of agonized screams, whimpers, pleas, and death gurgles – the hurricane of stimuli was so overpowering that Braun could barely hide his arousal.

Oh God, he thought, enraptured. Please, if this is a dream, let me go on dreaming.

"Lovely, yes?"

Startled, Braun looked up to see a strange figure gliding towards him. Horrifically emaciated and draped in a garment that looked more like an old-fashioned surgical apron than a robe, he was easily one of the most disturbing figures in the room, thanks in no small part thanks to the several additional sets of spindly arms erupted from his shoulders, some fully-formed, some of them atrophied claws, some of them mechanical monstrosities.

"Nyarlathotep promised us you would be impressive," said the apparition, grinning like the Cheshire Cat, "And you do not disappoint… but you are still an amateur – a gifted amateur, but still only an amateur. The fact that you have been afforded a body that shares our blood does not make you one of us. You have only sixty years of experience as a physical torturer, and even your education in creativity lasted only for two hundred. You stand among torturers who have been innovating in pain and bloodshed for more than ten thousand."

Braun could only blink in astonishment at this.

"We have been asked to provide you with a true education, human, and Nyarlathotep has provided suitable collateral to that end." The multi-armed monstrosity giggled obscenely. "The souls of an entire civilization are the only payment we could possibly accept after what happened the last time that we accepted a student from outside our people, and we have Nyarlathotep's irrevocable vow that you will not betray us so pathetically as our fallen pupil did. Make no mistake, you are a much lesser student… and so, you will be tutored under much more punitive measures."

The thing with too many arms darted forward now, close enough for Braun to smell the rotten carcass stench on his breath; his eyes glittered with hate and sadistic glee as he loomed ever closer, his smile exuding all the warmth of Sir John Franklin's last shit.

"You will be tutored in the art of pain as no human of your dimension ever was," he murmured. "You will be taught in the use of our unique sciences, and you will be prepared for whatever great quest Nyarlathotep has in mind. In return, you will perform perfectly, you will aid us in harvesting captives, and you will entertain us at every turn. If you to live up to your terms of the contract, you will suffer for the protracted remainder of your life, and your soul – such as it is – will be the centrepiece of a mighty feast in honour of your failure. Is that understood, Stanislaus Braun?"

And at last, Braun smiled.

"My brothers and sisters," he laughed ecstatically. "Where have you been all my life?"

THE END (?)

A/N: Well, ladies and gentlemen, here we are - the end of one story and the start of a trail leading to another.

Alas, the next story probably won't be for a very long while: things have gone a little bit insane over here, and I need to take some time off fanfiction so I can avoid getting my mind too cluttered. I will eventually return to fanfic, so I can reveal the full extent of Nyarlathotep's mad designs, but for now, farewell!

Special thanks to everyone who viewed, reviewed, favourited, and followed: the strength and endurance you have all displayed in reading my demented work with all its bewildering quirks - especially after that thing I had Braun do to Matty - awes me beyond measure. With a tear in either eye, I salute you, salt of the earth.

Oh, one last thing: a final disclaimer - Warhammer 40k isn't mine either, and neither is the Cthulhu Mythos or Gravity Falls.

Bye for now!