Mutatis Mutandis 8

Sarah sat on a cot in the Citadel's med-bay, kicking her feet gently. She was acutely aware of Vargas' inert form lying on a cot in the corner of the room. The sight made her think of that day so long ago. The Pride had been patrolling the ruins for mutants. Turned out the beasts had set an ambush for them. The rest of the Pride had been driven back into the Arlington Library, where the Paladin had been horrifically injured. Sarah herself had been captured and taken north, setting off a long string of events which had resulted in her meeting and actually getting to know Jason. So something good had come of it, though the whole thing had also resulted in her demotion to Star-paladin. She turned to watch Phantom, the Citadel's resident doctor.

"So, what are you going to do?" she asked as the medic set about preparing a clipboard. Phantom turned a couple of sheets over the top and licked the tip of his pen. If he'd had glasses, he would have peered at her over the top of them.

"Dis here's a Psych Eval, yeah?" the former raider asked.

"Yes."

"Hmm…" He scribbled a few notes down on his paper. "And how are you feeling today, Sarah?"

"Mildly annoyed." She answered. "How long is this going to take?"

"Not long." Phantom said. "So… you were up north with the Wanderer, eh?"

"I was."

"Came straight back here?"

"Megaton first." She answered, turning to Glade. "Speaking of which, Jason showed me a tunnel which goes right underneath Western D.C.. There's a sewer entrance on the north side of the bridge. The other end is in the sewer waystation near the Super-Duper mart."

"That'd put us right beside Megaton." The Star-Paladin mused. "Useful."

"Getting back to your relationship with the Lone Wanderer…" Phantom interrupted smoothly, "Do you still feel the urge to shoot him?"

"No." Sarah gave him a sour look.

"I see." Phantom. "And do you still believe that …uhh… what was it now?" he flipped a few more pages. "Ah, yes. Life as a human being is a meaningless coincidence?"

"No." She answered.

"Really? We don't live on a calm, naive little island of stupidity and ignorance, floatin' through the blackest depths of space?"

Sarah scowled. The former raider looked as though he was enjoying himself a little too much. "Aren't things out there that could destroy our entire world by snortin' in dey'ah sleep? Won't we one day open up the blinds of reality and find out where we really stand; how much we really mean?"

"Shut up." She snapped, her cheeks growing red. It really did sound crazy, now that she'd gotten some distance.

"Do you believe that our lives, and what matters down here in the Capital Wasteland is pointless in the grand scheme'o things? Completely irrelevant? Just like you and me?" Phantom asked.

"You know what," Sarah growled, "I'm not cured yet. I'm having a few homicidal urges. And a headache. Big headache. Mark that part down. It's important."

Phantom stared at her for a moment, then looked down at his clipboard and made a note or two. "Let's try somethin' different." Once again, the medic licked the tip of his pen and held it poised over his clipboard. "Tell me about your childhood, Sarah."

He received nothing more than a cold glare..

"…Alright then." Working quickly, Phantom took the end off his pen and dribbled a fair amount of ink onto the paper. He folded the newly desecrated sheet in half and pressed the two sides together. Then opened it up and showed her the resulting mess. "What do you see?"

"A waste of a perfectly good pen." She replied severely. "We don't have that many left, you know."

"Okay." Phantom dipped back end of the pen into the fresh ink and made a rough check mark on his clipboard. "And do you feel like killing everyone you see? Gutting them like molerats?"

"…No?" Sarah hazarded.

"Good enough." Phantom made another check mark and turned to Glade. "She's good to go."

"That's… that's it?" The Star-Paladin crossed his arms. "That's your idea of a psych evaluation?"

"Last time I asked one of my patients that question, he answered 'Yes' and tried to steal one of my kidneys. Ashur still found him sane enough to forage for us." Phantom shrugged lightly. "Take what you can get. She's perfectly good cannon fodder. I mean… cleared for active duty."

"Now wait a sec-" Glade began. He was interrupted by shouts of alarm. Feet pounded along the corridor outside.

"Sorry, Glade." Sarah said, hopping off of her cot. "Duty calls."

"Well…" Three Dog eyed Jason curiously, humming in his golden baritone voice. "My my my… the Lone Wanderer, right here. in my studio. And what can we here at GNR do for the Savior of Humanity today?"

"I need to broadcast a message." Jason fought back a smile. He always enjoyed talking to Three Dog. The DJ had such… flamboyance. He was a cornerstone of the capital wasteland's civilization. Through his broadcasts, he had brought hope to the wasteland's battered residents. Almost every action Jason had ever performed had made it to the DJ's ear. And it was Three Dog's influence which had turned Jason Howlett into the Lone Wanderer. The paragon of hope and moral righteousness. It wasn't the truth. Not quite. But it was a useful enough lie that Jason allowed it to continue.

"A message, huh?" Three Dog grinned at him. "I think we can manage that."

He led Jason into his studio. A rather nostalgic song was echoing through the DJ's abode. Jason recognized it. It had been one of his personal favorites during his first few weeks out of the vault; Way Back home, by Bob Cosby.

The two of them sat in silence, letting the song play through. After it had finished, the DJ switched off the player and leaned into the microphone.

"My friends…" he said with quiet energy. "We're interrupting this with a live broadcast to give you a message from a very special guest. Someone y'all should recognize, and thank, for our deliverance-"

"Stop." Jason ordered, pulling the DJ away from his microphone. "This isn't a courtesy call." He picked the microphone up and held it to his lips. "This is the Lone Wanderer speaking. This is an emergency message. The Mutants are coming. Arm yourselves. Barricade your settlements. Get underground if you can. Evan King, Uncle Roe, Red, Lucas Simms, we've talked about this. Get your people to safety." He set the microphone down and turned to Three Dog. "Did you record that?"

The DJ nodded silently, staring wide-eyed at Jason.

"Good. Set it to repeat on an infinite loop."

"Can do." The man immediately set about, flicking switches and swapping tapes out. He turned back to Jason. "Soo. A mutant invasion, huh? Somethin' you want to share with ol' Three Dog?"

"No." Jason said. "But you should get out of here. GNR is vulnerable. You're too close to the ruins."

"What, leave my baby?" Three-Dog gestured at the studio. "Not even in your dreams, my friend. Besides, we got the best of the Brotherhood waiting right outsi-"

An explosion shook the building. The muffled staccato of distant gunfire echoed through the studio, along with alarmed yells. Both men stopped, heads turned reflexively in the direction of the explosion.

"So… not next week, then?" The DJ asked.

"No." Jason said, shaking his head frantically. "Not now! Not yet!" he broke into a run. "We're not ready!"

Jason barreled down the stairs and through the hallway. He leapt over the sandbag-reinforced railing to land in the center of the radio station's atrium. The first thing he saw through the open doors was a cowering Brotherhood soldier, with a supermutant overlord looming over him, brandishing a supersledge. Jason let out a primal bellow of rage and charged at the mutant, pulling out his combat knife.

He planted it in the mutant's throat as he impacted. His momentum carried both combatants down the front steps of GNR studios. Jason rolled off the dead overlord, his momentum carrying him even further. He came up with his chinese assault rifle shouldered, emptying all thirty-six rounds into the loose clusters of encroaching supermutants, sending them scrambling for cover, and killing a few.

The pinned brotherhood soldiers added their fire to his own, momentarily driving back the enemy and giving him a chance to take cover behind the sandbag barricade at the bottom of the steps. Bullets began to flood towards the brotherhood soldiers, pinging off their armour, taking chunks out of the concrete walls, and draining the sandbags. The sheer amount of debris flying around the battlefield forced Jason to squint. He leaned out from behind his cover and opened fire on an overlord who had taken refuge behind the plaza's central fountain. The creature's tri-beam rifle dropped to the ground as Jason's well-aimed bursts severed the beast's radial nerve, rendering its arm useless.

A barrage of assault rifle fire forced him back behind cover. Jason kept his head down, crawling on his stomach until the angles of the barricade gave him enough shelter for a mad dash back up the stairs.

Bolstered by their minor victory, more overlords poured into the plaza. The only thing which save the Brotherhood from being immediately overwhelmed was the sheer lack of cover. The plaza was a wide open area. A shooting gallery for those knights lucky enough to be on the station's second floor balconies. The trouble was that every mutant they dropped acted as cover for the ones to follow, and so the mutant lines began to slowly inch their way across the plaza towards GNR.

Jason did what he could to slow them down, but it became apparent after a few minutes that slowing them down was all he was doing. A Brotherhood knight ahd realized it too, and pulled him back into the building. The soldier turned out to be Knight Dillon, the commander of the GNR outpost.

"This is just the first wave. They're testing us." he reported, "My scouts said there's overlords backed up all the way to Chevy Chase. The hell's going on?"

"The muties are making a push." Jason replied. "We need to hold here."

"Hold?" Dillon asked incredulously, even as the overlords began another push forward. "Against that? How the hell do you figure-"

"With guns and ammo." Jason said. He took cover in the doorway and spotted one overlord, trying to crawl its way over another's body. He let out nine rounds in three strict bursts, watching chunks of skull fly from the mutant's contorted face.

More fire of a different kind drove the Wanderer back into the shadowy lobby. The Brotherhood's enemy had lined up several mutants on the upper stories of the bombed out building. The beasts were armed with hunting rifles, far more powerful and accurate than the assault rifles and tri-beam laser rifles. Jason had no doubt that some missile launchers were very going to appear very quickly.

"We don't have that many guns! Or troops! This isn't the citadel, this is an outpost!" Dillon called out, reloading his minigun. "We don't even have the new tech yet."

"Well then we need to get Three Dog out of here!" Jason yelled over the sound of assault rifle fire.

"Yeah." Dillon laughed. "You go do that."

"You guys are coming with."

Dillon surveyed the lines of overlords, creeping closer. He growled in frustration. "Don't be stupid, Wanderer! We all run, we all die. My boys stay, you and Three Dog get the hell out."

"Unacceptable." Jason said.

The knight flinched as a few well-aimed rounds pinged off his armour and buried themselves in the door frame. "Wasn't asking. Know my job. Get the crazy bastard out, Wanderer!" the knight gave him a rough push, his power-armour's strength making the Wanderer stumble towards the stairs.

Jason looked back, but the Knight had already rejoined the battle.

A part of Jason fought to stay, to fight. But the knight's point was driven home by the sudden wave of missiles which came flying across the plaza and lit up GNR's entrance.

Jason gave the busy soldiers a final respectful nod, and set off up the stairs. He burst through the door of Three Dog's studio. The man was already on his feet, pistol in hand. Jason's recorded message was still playing, set on repeat.

"The hell's going on out there?" Three Dog demanded.

Jason glared at the DJ. "We're going."

"I'm not leaving my-" the man's breath left his lungs as Jason's fist pounded into his abdomen, throwing him to his knees.

"What makes you think you have a choice?" The Wanderer demanded. He grabbed the DJ by the scruff off his neck and marched him out the door.

"What about the Brotherhood?"

"They'll buy us time." The Wanderer said. "They're expendable. You're not!"

"You're just gonna let'em die?"

"Sacrificed for the Good Fight, Three Dog. Apparently I'm out of time."

Sarah burst out the door into the courtyard. It was in chaos. Paladins were shouting confused orders. Knights were running back and forth, some of them actually assembling their power armour as they went. Glade, who had followed her out, grabbed a passing knight. "What's going on?"

"We're under attack!" the man said breathlessly, and pulled away, hurrying to join Paladin Gunny. A familiar and dreaded roar sounded from beyond the walls of the citadel, turning Sarah's heart to ice. Her condition wasn't helped by the fact that it was answered in kind. Several different times.

The top of the citadel was ringed with lookouts and a catwalk. Sarah found the nearest ladder and rushed to the top as fast as she could, with Glade at her heels. She could hear more shouts of alarm, even more roars and …splashing water? The Brotherhood guards at the top had already started firing at their unseen adversaries, and the courtyard below was buzzing with activity as knights and scribes rushed to and fro, organizing fire teams and battle plans.

She reached the top of the ladder and stood on the lookout, staring across the river in horror. Glade joined her and followed her gaze.

"Oh…fuck." He said in quiet fear.

Behemoths were pouring out of the DC ruins across the river, fording it easily. A dozen at least, standing up to seven or eight meters in height. They had been covered in thick armour plating from head to toe, bent by hand and stripped from the carcasses of moving vans, box trucks, and freight trailers. The front ranks of the giant monsters were armed with their signature enormous fire hydrant clubs. The back ranks were carrying boulders and small cars.

Bouncing green orbs began to arc over the river, raining down on the giants. The new alien weaponry was being handed along the upper catwalk as the Brotherhood resistance began to take shape. Most of the orbs missed their targets completely, being extinguished by the water. Some of them hit odd angles of the Behemoth's armour and bounced away uselessly. Occasionally one would hit at just the right angle, or make contact with a patch of the orange flesh. At that point a blinding green supernova would occur, and the mutant's torso and upper body would vanish, its remains falling into the river. But for every behemoth which was taken down, one or two new ones would emerge from the ruins across the river.

Her eye was drawn to the bridge, where a horde of supermutant masters were marching forward in a slow, deliberate military formation. She spotted the distant tiny figure at the tip of their proverbial spear. A Supermutant with dark blue skin, carrying an enormous sword. She turned back into the courtyard and screamed in a high-pitched tone with cut above the din. "SOMEONE GE ME A FATMAN UP HERE!"

There was an explosion of concrete and twisted metal, shaking the entire wall. The debris rained down into the courtyard, disrupting the battle-lines and crushing a few unfortunate knights. Sarah stared at the damage; a lookout post across the courtyard from her had been destroyed, as was a fair chunk of the wall underneath it, cutting the amount of fire being poured on the behemoths in half. She stared down at the projectile which had done the damage: a small car. It hand landed in the shooting range, and was flaming furiously. She could hear the shouts of alarm as the knights were forced to scatter from it. A moment later it exploded, showering the entire courtyard in radioactive debris.

She looked back at the behemoths, most of which were nearly across the river. Another behemoth prepped its own missile: a Nuka-Cola machine. Even as it wound up, one of the green orbs caught the exposed orange flesh of its shoulder. Most of the monster vanished, vaporized by the small green supernova. Its hand, still gripping the Nuka-Cola machine, dropped into the river with a splash.

The Knight who had fired the shot cheered. A moment later he was impaled by the multiple jutting spikes of a well-aimed knot of twisted rebar. The circular projectile was the size of a desk. It swiped the celebrating knight right off the tower, carrying him far into the courtyard, finally rolling to a blood-spattered halt near the sand pit.

"Move!" Glade shouted, grabbing Sarah about the waist. She had a momentary view of an enormous flat chunk of concrete spinning towards their lookout like an enormous Frisbee before the world spun out of control. The sky and the courtyard morphing into one blue-gray blur, and her stomach dropped out as Glade threw both of them over the edge, trying to escape. A moment later found her staring down into the courtyard. The deadly discus had sheared the ladder four rungs for the top. Everything above them, the platform Sarah had been standing on not a moment before, was gone, torn away by the well-aimed chunk of concrete.

With one arm, Glade as holding on for dear life a few rungs form the twisted top of the ladder. His other was around Sarah's waist. She shook her head to clear it, and found some footholds. The man gasped and let her go so he could sort himself out.

Sarah slid down to the bottom of the ladder, gripping it tightly with her elbows and the insteps of her combat boots. She grabbed a few confused knights and began to organize a defense. More Brotherhood soldiers were pouring into the courtyard, and she spotted a few with mininuke launchers. Most of them had stopped dead, staring in shock at the fallen battlements. She pulled them to the middle of the courtyard and ordered them to stay put, and began to order the knights to form a base of fire, using the mininuke launchers as the nucleus. They were split up in groups of three or four, scattered across the courtyard in a ragged line. Snipers at the back, rifles in the middle, assault rifles and miniguns at the front. She tried to look confidant, but didn't hold out much hope; she'd be surprised if even Jason's presence would have helped to stop this.

The barrage of missiles had ceased, thankfully. And she had a few moments of peace she turned to see her father striding calmly through the wreckage. "Sarah, what's going on?"

"Get downstairs!" she ordered, pointing at the laboratory doors. "We're under attack. Behomoths."

As if to accentuate her point, the giants outside began to roar. The Brotherhood knights clutched their weapons uncertainly, glancing backwards at their Elder.

"Steady!" Glade shouted, calming them . "You've trained for this." The other Paladins followed his example, calming their own fire teams.

A sniper brushed by Sarah's shoulder, and she realized it was Dusk. She met the woman's eye with a questioning expression. The sniper met her gaze blankly: it was time to fight. The time for talk would be later.

Sarah turned back to her father. "Where's Rothchild?"

"With the other scribes." Elder Lyons said, watching the flurry of activity. "Trying to get Liberty Prime working again."

"Well let's hope he works well under pressure." She said grimly. "Now get back inside! Get downstairs!" The man obeyed. No sooner had he exited the courtyard, then it was filled with noise as the behemoths began to pound at the front gate. At least the guards had had the sense to lower the portcullis.

"It's alright." Gunny said confidently, striding up to them. "That gate is three feet thick. They're not going to get through it."

And he was right. The Behemoths came tearing straight through the Citadel walls instead, laying the fortress to ruins.

Might change this story's rating to 'M'. Dunno. I'm a little worried I might lose readers. I already know of one or two readers who actually skipped Aqua Vitae because it was rated M.