Mutatis Mutandis 39
Jackrum's army entered DC through Anacostia Crossing. The fighting in the subway tunnels was fierce and claustrophobic. The mutants were aware that the shoe was on the other foot, and the made the Wasters pay for every inch of ground they took. The tunnels flickered with muzzle flashes, and echoed with roars, screams, and the steady staccato of gunfire. Mutant bodies began to pile up at chokepoints, and had to be moved to maintain the Wasters' clear fields of fire. More often than not, they were also used as cover by the advancing infantry.
Once again, the humans' superior intellect swayed the battle in their favor, with Jackrum using armoured, shotgun-toting mercenaries to lead the charge, and riflemen to hold the line, whereas the mutants used everything from rifles to wooden clubs, and were apt to charge the human lines instead of taking cover and holding down their position.
Narg and Jason split there, in the tunnels, with Narg taking a large number of armoured personnel and cutting a bloody line straight down the metro tunnel towards central D.C., it being his objective to clear the subway tunnels which wormed their way underneath the city, and keep them clear to allow more wasters to flow in.
Jason and Jackrum led a large contingent of wastelanders up into Seward square, where the street fighting was even more vicious. The mutants were waiting for them at the station exit, and would have blocked the route completely if not for Jason's quicker trigger finger. The Wanderer rushed up the steps at a furious pace, opening up with his borrowed Chinese assault rifle, and taking down 8 mutants in four seconds in a sprint which would have made the grim reaper proud. Behind him came Jackrum, and twenty-five battle-hardened Talon company mercs, with dozens of wastelanders in tow. The area immediately outside the station was ringed by a sturdy brick fence. The wastelanders drove the few remaining mutants out that area and bunkered down, using it as a bridgehead to funnel more troops into the heart of DC.
Brutus' forces countered almost immediately with a powerful but disorganized attack, spattering the captured position with a constant stream of minigun fire, and moving forward in a giant wall of green flesh. Berserkers rushed ahead and were cut down as often by their own allies as by the wastelanders as they charged into the kill zones. The wastelanders hunkered down against their brick ring-wall and returned fire as best they could, taking a fair few mutants with them, yet the mutant lines, which had been routed by Jason's initial ferocity, were pushing back, step by step, over their own dead towards the station.
"Keep fighting!" Jackrum ordered. He grabbed a nearby waster who was blind-firing over his cover, and pulled him up. "Aim, you idiot! Aim!"
Jason was a few feet further along the line, taking mutie after mutie with his signature three-round bursts. Keeping low, Jackrum rushed over and slammed against the wall beside him.
"This remind you of anything?"
"Less talking. More shooting." The Wanderer replied, smoothly cutting down two minigun-toting mutant masters. The action lessened the incoming fire enough that a few mercs were able to leave and bolster a weakened line elsewere.
"Seems like only yesterday we was here tryin' to get into the capitol building..."
Jason grunted as a 5mm round took a chunk out of his shoulder. He ducked back behind cover just long enough to inject a stimpack, then went back to firing. Jackrum joined in, the two of them holding their ragged defense together for a solid thirty seconds as the mutants pressed in.
Out of the blue, battle cries sounded from a cluster of nearby buildings, and a wave of wasters, flooded the plaza, these ones in mohawks, gas masks, and raider gear. Some carried flamers and missile launchers, a few had assault rifles, but most were armed with melee weapons.
"Get dah bastahds!" a wild-eyed raider screeched, leaping clear over a rusted-out car and into a hail of bullets. She died in seconds, but the dozen which followed her actually made it into the mutie lines. One raider, hopped up on jet and psycho, wielding a pair of barbed wire - wrapped rolling pins, engaged a mutant master in a one on one fight. …and won.
"Oh, what the hell?" Jackrum groaned, watching the insanity unfold as the raiders brawled with the mutants, "Where did these guys even come from?"
The Wanderer had already leapt into the fray, with a combat knife in one hand and a sawed-off in the other. The raiders steered well clear of him.
The Talon mercs looked to their leader for instructions.
"What are you waiting for?" Jackrum demanded, jabbing his thumb over the barricade, "Go get'em!"
The Talon company charged in after the Wanderer, fighting side by side with the raiders. The mutants pressed back, and the fighting grew vicious as Jackrum's army spread further into the cramped city streets, taking DC back window by window and building by building. As the allies pushed forward, they began to notice that they were receiving help. Sharpshooters with hunting rifles on city rooftops around them took out the more powerful mutants, or pinned down entire groups, allowing the riders- who favored melee- an easy approach.
"Ghouls!" the Wanderer exclaimed, watching the silhouettes as they moved about three-to four stories above the heads of Jackrum's army. "They're ghouls!"
"I thought Underworld was destroyed…" Jackrum replied.
At the end of the street ahead of them, a door burst open, and an overlord stepped out, brandishing a tri-beam laser rifle. Jason pulled Jackrum down behind a piece of fallen rubber just as the mutant bathed the street in red beams.
Immediately, three snipers in the buildings around them targeted the monster and pinned it down, pummeling it with well-aimed headshots. A few seconds later, raiders swarmed it and brought it to the ground squealing as they hacked it to pieces. The Talon company pushed further down the street and out of sight.
"Wanderer!" shouted a gravelly voice above their heads. A figure in a brown overcoat with far too many pockets scrambled out a window and down a rubble pile to the street beside them.
"Quinn!" the Lone Wanderer sprang to his feet, grinning from ear to ear as the two of them shared a hearty handshake.
The ghoul eyes him up, taking in the bald head and the green, sallow skin. "You turnin' into one of us, now?"
"Long story. Where have you guys been?"
"We could have used you earlier…" Jackrum said, coming up to stand beside the Wanderer.
The ghoul named Quinn hefted a sniper rifle. "Gorilla warfare. A lot of us escaped when the muties took Underworld. We've been hiding in D.C. ever since. Hurtin' em when we can."
"Every bit helps." The Wanderer told him grimly.
"And the Raiders?" Jackrum asked.
"We met up with them early on. Thought we was gonna fight, but then this ghoul named Murphy showed'em some new drug called Ultrajet. We got'em hooked. They do what we want'em to." Quinn looked Jackrum up and down. "Do I know you from somewhere?"
"Evergreen Mills." Jackrum told him, "I was with the Mercs who helped rescue the Wanderer."
"That's getting to be a long time ago…"
"Catch up later. Where's Brutus?" Jason asked.
Quinn gazed quizzically at him. "Who?"
"The head mutant. Dark skin. Smarter than the others…"
"They've set up camp in the Mall." The ghoul hazarded. "If there's a leader he's likely there."
"In the Capitol building." Jackrum guessed.
"No." Jason shook his head, "Brutus wants to conquer the wasteland. He's not going to do it from inside a building. He'll want to see his new mutant utopia. To be out in the open air."
"…Lincoln's memorial."
The Lone Wanderer nodded grimly, and his expression hardened into the familiar steel-eyed scowl. He turned away and stalked towards the nearest subway station.
"Jason!" Jackrum barked, striding after him, "Where the hell do you think you're going?"
"To cut the head off the snake." Jason snarled, checking his assault rifle as he strode forward.
All around them, raider, merc and waster alike rushed past, flooding the city with reinforcements. The steady staccato of gunfire could be heard across the city, punctuated by explosion after explosion as the two sides exchanged rockets, and detonated the occasional mininuke.
Jackrum rushed after him and grabbed his arm, spinning him around. "The hell you are!"
"I work best alone."
"It's not about you, Jason. Every time you've left us all, we were worse for it."
The Wanderer stared. "You've managed."
"Your girlfriend in the vault didn't."
Jason shoved Jackrum to the ground in a sudden fury, but the old merc rose just as quickly, his defiance only growing. "We were all worse off without you, Jason. We kept fighting each other instead of building. We kept blowing up and shooting and stealing and murdering when we could have been putting the wasteland together!"
He gestured around at the crowd which had gathered. Jackrum's speeches were become something of a wasteland legend in their own right. Even mid-battle there were those who wanted to listen. The crowd was diverse: combat-hardened Mercs, wearing their white claw colors with pride; tattered Wasters with whatever weapons they could carry, holding on with the same steadfast defiance they had always held against the world; wild-eyed Raiders, with all of their bloodthirsty fury finally put to use, ancient Ghouls with the eyes of the old world, sharp as ever. All of them were watching.
"We're all here, Jason! This war changed us, but you changed us too. I'm better for knowing you. Everyone is."
Heads across the crowd were nodding in assent. None of them had heard his name before, and many were gaping in astonishment; Jason?
"You might be the best of us, but you aren't above us! You might know this wasteland better than anyone, but you aren't its king! And you might be the Wanderer, but you aren't alone! This is the Capital Wasteland, Jason, and if we're going to kick this asshole out, we need to do it together. As one people. One Nation!"
Cheers went up across the crowd.
The Wanderer looked across the determined faces, taking them all in. He softened and sighed, lowering his assault rifle to his side. "Alright, fine. Together. One last push."
Hours of fighting passed. Grim and pock-marked with craters as the building was, the Capitol's proud columns and sweeping double-staircase still presided tall and dignified over the scarred, ruined mall. The ground below was awash with super mutants pushed to desperation by the battles which were just streets away and growing closer by the minute. they rushed to and fro in a frantic confused mess, gathering weapons and building what fortifications they could under the dim management of the supermutant Masters. They snaked back and forth through the trenches, piling concrete slabs and twisted rebar to slow their advancing enemy which was due to arrive at any second, and building fortifications for their miniguns. As they worked, they heard the sounds of battle growing closer. The city south and the east of the mall had grown quitter, with longer and longer pauses between exchanges of gunfire.
None of them had watches or time-pieces of any kind, but if they had, they would have noted the precise time when the wasteland army reached its border: High noon, when the sun was at its very peak, bathing every inch of the wasteland in its glorious light.
The army of the New Nation of the Capital Wasteland announced its arrival not with gunfire, but with a splash of color. One which had not been seen for over two-hundred years.
At the very top of the Capitol dome, a flag ascended, flapping steadily and defiantly in the brisk afternoon breeze. It was a tattered thing, slapped together at the last minute, but carrying an unmistakable message. Its striking and brilliant red and white stripes were offset by the blazing blue at its upper left corner, with a ring of shining white stars. In the center of the ring was a white bird claw. The insignia of the Talon Company, and a new symbol of hope and defiance for every man, woman and child in the wasteland.
It went unnoticed for the first few minutes, but the mutants were simple-minded, and the motion and color inevitably drew their eyes. Work halted as more and more of them stopped to watch the flag as the wind caught it and let go, only to inevitably pick it up again.
Across the Mall, seated on his new throne: the desecrated statue of Abraham Lincoln, Brutus noticed the distant color and for a moment, felt uncertainty pierce his heart.
Even as the masters yelled at the mutants to work faster, the small western doors opened, and a lone figure stepped out onto the terrace, his brown leather duster flapping with the breeze in tandem with the flag flying far above his head.
His left arm was covered by a green, worn Pip-boy 3000, and in his right hand, set easily in the crook of his elbow, was a Chinese assault rifle. His red bandana was tied across his forehead, and every mutant recognized death in his sharp blues eyes.
Silence fell across the mall as he stood alone on the terrace, facing the entire mutant horde.
"Your time's up." He called out. A few smarter mutants began to back away.
Even then, many more responded with laughter and jeers. "Just you alone? Against all of us!" they cried.
Jason smirked. "No… not just me."
Behind him, more figures emerged. They poured onto the steps of the Capitol building from every busted doorway and broken window, crawling over rubble and ducking under ruins, wastelanders of every strip and color came forward to stand behind the Wanderer, every face among them wearing the same shared anger.
"Now," said the Wanderer, "…get the hell out of our country."
He shouldered his assault rifle and opened up in three round bursts, downing six mutants and wounding two more. All around him, wasters opened up with every weapon they had, drowning the mutant lines in lead.
Caught in the open, dozens of mutants fell in the first few seconds. Those which didn't dove for cover and fired back as best they could. Yet the wastelanders on the terrace held the high ground, and they poured down the stairways to either side, flooding into the field even as those up top maintained their barrage.
Jason leapt down the terrace to join the fighting on the ground as snipers and riflemen spread through the capital building, firing from every window to add to the wall of bullets battering the mutant lines. With the Wanderer leading the way, the wasters swept across the open ground, driving the mutants from their concrete defenses and back into the maze of trenches scored across the center of the mall.
They passed through the junk heaps beyond the concrete barricades, taking cover behind old tires, withered trees and the Mutant's own new defenses, yet they never stopped pressing their momentum. Those who halted did so either to suppress a mutant position or to help a fallen comrade. It was only at the trenches, were they slowed. Their fire had pushed the mutants back, but the horde was hardly thinned out, and more mutants were heading east from the Lincoln Memorial to halt the sudden push.
Jason was first into the trenches, sinking his combat knife through the skull of a waiting overlord as he landed. He shouldered his assault rifle as several more mutants turned the corner ahead of him, and gunned them down, pressing them back long enough for a sizeable number of wasters to establish a presence in the maze.
Wasters descended the ramps to either side, and he pushed forward with them, deeper into the twisting passages. Bullets whizzed meters above their heads as Wastelanders up above traded fire with the mutant horde, and tried to keep pace with the Wanderer.
Yet more and more mutants were bolstering their ragged lines. Miniguns and tri-beam rifles had been added to the mutant's fire, increasing it exponentially, and pinning several groups of wastelanders behind cover. More than once, the Wanderer scrambled up out of the pit, or took a mutant strongpoint from behind to relieve the wastelanders behind him.
For every mutant Jason killed in the trenches, three more were there to take their places. They began to pour in from over the top. Berserker mutants with sledgehammers leapt into the trenches behind Jason, battering the wastelanders in close-quarters brawls where their superior size and strength lent them great advantage. The battle was slowing to a stalemate, with each side trying to outgun and out-slaughter the other. Jason was in the trench at the tip of the spear, yet he couldn't drive it closer to Brutus without losing his fire support up at ground level- the only thing keeping the mutant berserkers from diving into the trench en mass and overwhelming his soldiers. And they were only one-third the way across the mall.
All the while the mutants were tightening up their defenses Hundreds of them were huddled up, grouped in a tightly packed throng at the front lines, gathering for the inevitable counterattack which would no-doubt sweep back across the mall and drive the wastelanders out of the trenches and back into the Capitol building where they'd be hunted like rats through the tight hallways and offices. On his throne, directing the battle, Brutus smiled at his impending victory.
However, the wastelanders had planned for this. Expected it. Jason was the tip of the spear, but he was also the distraction. All of the supermutant attention was directed towards the Capitol building, and the invading wastelander army. Unbeknownst to them Jackrum, with a group of dozens of the most experienced Talon Company mercs, the core of the company, had quietly traveled through the subways and utility tunnels, circling underneath the battlefield to the northern side, entering the mall through Pennsylvania Avenue Station, behind the archives.
Armed with assault rifles and mininuke launchers, they rushed the mutant army's northern flank, bathing the core of Brutus' counter-attack in mininukes, wiping out dozens of mutants with every shot in the most devastating nuclear bloodbath since the Chinese bombs had first fallen on America's capital.
Mutant body parts rained down upon the battlefield. Blood poured into the trenches in rivers and grisly waterfalls. All the while the Wanderer's Geiger counter ticked away, and the wounds he had sustained during the rush began to close. The wastelanders close to the front lines ducked behind their cover and waited for the explosions to fade. Those further back at the Capitol cheered at the display as dozens of miniature mushroom clouds rose into the wind and were spread west across the battlefield, obscuring the mutant lines from view.
On his throne, Brutus' smile faded into shocked silence. His generals at his sides stared slack-jawed at the battle's sudden turn. His mouth twisted into a snarl of rage, and he leapt off his throne, slamming his closest general into the ground.
"You didn't tell me they were in the subway tunnels!"
"Dey not tell me. Not my fault, King." The mutant Master groveled.
Brutus growled in frustration. The tragic loss of the elderly Casey Jones and the enormous Tanka, his intelligent generals, had resulted in a lack of communication in the supermutant hordes. Now it could very well have cost him an easy victory. "Get every supermutant from the north of the city."
The mutant gave him a confused look. "But dere are bugs an' robots we be fightin'dere."
Brutus gritted his teeth. "I am not losing the Mall! These fleshbags are not going to take our dream from us."
"Yes my king." The mutant rushed off to spread the word and retrieve reinforcements from the north. It was true that the mutant horde had been fighting a battle on two fronts. In the south Jackrum and his accursed waster army had taken back Rivet City and driven deep into Washington. Brutus had sent a force two-hundred strong to circle around and take the humans from behind, yet they had found their progress impeded by hordes of giant fire-breathing ants and an army of heavily armoured robots which managed to keep the mutant forces contained in a deadlocked war of attrition. It was rapidly becoming clear what a tactical error splitting his forces had been.
"And I want overlords in the tunnels! No more of them sneaking around!" he roared at his remaining generals. He settled back in his throne, hand on his chin, handing out orders as he could to slow the human's advance and turn the battle back in his favor.
In a way he felt relief: this was what he had wanted all along. Supermutant meeting the fleshbags in open battle to wipe the wastelanders off the face of the earth and claim the Capital Wasteland once and for all as a haven for mutantkind. Mutant strength superiority proven once and for all. They would not lose. They could not lose.
Deep beneath the Mall, A third battle was taking place. Narg, commanding Star-Paladin Glade and the last of the Brotherhood of Steel, had been given a very simple task: keep Brutus' reinforcements at bay. The old Tribal had lead his ragtag group deep into the metro tunnels, overcoming resistance every step of the way until at last they reached Metro Central. The same place where, weeks beforehand, he had rescued them from supermutant captivity.
Narg entered first, his bulky power-armour providing plenty of protection from the barrage of supermutant fire. The monsters had set up a command post on the mezzanine, with miniguns and rocket launchers pointed at every entrance and exit. It was a difficult nut to crack, would have been impossible for regular wastelanders, and Narg wondered if the fighters accompanying him realized how fortunate they were he was there to assist.
He led with his BOZAR, tearing up the rocket launchers before they could do his power armour any real damage. His hollow-point ammunition tore up the beasts, rending giant chunks of flesh from their bones and tearing them to pieces.
Unlike the Wanderer, he did not bother with staying out of direct fire, or being faster on the trigger. Instead he stood in the center of the mutant spotlights, trusting his armour to keep him safe, and picking off the mutants one by one. He heard the signature whoosh of a rocket firing, and dove to the side. The pad of concrete he had been standing on exploded into flecks of rock, but Narg was already moving up the escalator, throwing the first mutant he met clear off the top of the mezzanine, and the heavy beast landed on the station floor below with a wet splat. A dozen yards away, the rocket-wielding mutant had reloaded, and was aiming another shot. Narg grabbed the nearest beast by the throat, and held him out in front to take the hit. The explosion knocked him back, but the old tribal recovered, and fell upon the mutant outpost with his power fists, roaring in pleasure as he pounded every mutant he could find into paste.
Behind him, the Brotherhood moved in. Numbering in the thirties, with support from a few dozen more wastelanders, they had a simple objective: keep the station. On the lower levels they added their own firepower to the newly liberated defenses, pointing their weapons down the northern and western tunnels. On the upper levels, they took the entrances and held them against a supermutant retreat. The slaughter above had to be absolute.
When the overlords came to relieve Brutus, Narg and the Brotherhood were ready for them.
With Jackrum's counter-attack, the heavy fire holding back Wasteland forces ceased, and they charged forward, driving the mutants further back to the ruins of the Washington Monument, where they hunkered down in their concrete fortress.
While the Washington monument had fallen, the mutants had taken and expanded upon the Brotherhood defenses surrounding it. What before had been merely a ring of concrete had been expanded to a full mutant fortress in the center of the Mall, ringed by three layers of sharp, twisted rebar, and a trench with a shallow slope leading up to the fortresses steel I-beam palisades. The field surrounding it was clear of all debris, giving the mutants a clear view of any approaching army While it did not approach the intricate defenses of Project Purity, it was still a formidable construct in its own right, perfectly capable of holding off a force many times the strength required to man it.
The Wastelanders found themselves once again at a standstill. They could not move forward without being cut to pieces by the many minigun-wielding mutants who were manning parapets at strategic locations across the fortress. A destroyed bus had been pulled across the only entrance, blocking access. Plenty of tiny vertical slits and breaks in the concrete allowed the mutants within the fort to fire at the attackers with almost complete impunity.
Jackrum ordered the push forward to cease. Hunting rifles and sniper rifles were brought to the front lines to assist Jason in picking away at the fort's defenses.
Heavy artillery was brought up as well. Rockets zipped back and forth across the battlefield, pock-marking the earth, throwing clouds of dirt into the air, and taking chunks of concrete off the mutant ramparts.
Within the tranches, teams set about dropping Fat Man nuke launchers in the more open spaces, tilting them like mortars, and zeroing in on the fort itself. Each weapon only had one or two nukes left, but punching a hole in the fortress defenses was vital.
The first shot arced high over the heads of the attacking forces and slammed down into the bare ground between the opposing forces. The second hit a parapet, turning it to rubble, and vaporizing the supermutant master inside.
The mutants responded by doubling their fire, throwing more and more rounds down the field to no effect whatsoever. The only wasters not waiting patiently in cover were the snipers and the Wanderer, all of them using well-placed headshots to kill as many mutants as they could.
More mininukes arced overhead, pummeling the fortress with nuclear fire. Explosions thundered. A cloud of grey dust rose high into the air, visible as far away as Megaton.
Jason leapt out of his trench and rushed the mutant fortress, as did Quinn and his ghoul column. The rest of the wasters waiting a little longer, fully aware that they had just doused the area in an incredible amount of radiation. It faded quickly, but in that moment, all they could do was watch the smoke, and listen to the sharp, triple-report of the Wanderer's assault rifle and the screams of their dying enemies.
A minute passed, and the dust settled, throwing the entire battlefield into a haze. Yet the Wanderer was visible, standing atop the broken bus, waving the army forward. The ghouls were at the far walls of the fortress, exchanging fire with what was left of Brutus' army.
In the Lincoln memorial Brutus, with growing dread, watched the smoke clear. As it parted, the rumors he had feared, were confirmed. A figure stood tall amongst the ruins of the fortress which sat across the lake. His red bandana and brown duster shone brightly, illuminated by the rays of sunlight which pierced and danced through the dusty haze.
"Stand fast, Brothers!" Brutus ordered, watching his own cowardly generals as they began to eye the exits. "Stand fast and fight! Hold the Memorial! Wait for the Overlords! We are superior! Wait for the overlords and we will prevail!" He worked quickly, directing his mutants into squads and positioning them around and within the memorial.
The Washington Monument, when it had fallen, had splashed across the pool of irradiated water which stood between the memorial and the mutant's fallen fortress. It lay in scattered across the brown sludge in brilliant ivory chunks.
Jason ran straight down the centre of the broken column, leaping from block to block. Behind him, the wastelanders moved more carefully, flanking on either side, using the buildings for cover.
Despite the protests of what few remaining intelligent mutants remained, the mutants concentrated most of the fire at the Lone Wanderer himself. He had, over the years, killed so many of their brothers, that the chance to hurt him back, however slim, was one even the most obedient of Brutus' army couldn't resist.
Miniguns, rockets, and machine gun fire which should have been directed at keeping the approaching wasteland army at bay was instead directed at one single target, crouching in the water behind the solid cover of the fallen monument, and the mutant leadership was so fragmented that there was no way Brutus could get his troops effectively reorganized. Instead, he was forced to watch helplessly as the wasteland army crept closer and closer, and his last defenses fragmented and fell mutant by mutant.
"What we do? What we do?" a master beside him demanded, watching the way the battle had turned.
"We regroup!" Brutus said, throwing his sword over his shoulder. "Our reinforcements are still coming from the north."
"Dey should'a got here by now…" one of his smarter new generals observed somberly.
Brutus laid a hand on his shoulder. "We'll meet them, Brother. Come!"
His generals gathered around him and he struck out through the battlefield towards the Georgetown metro station, only a few hundred meters from the Waster lines. Brutus gave what encouragement he could to the remaining supermutants as he went, aware that they were now serving as an unwitting rearguard for his retreat. Seeing his cluster of supermutant masters, an intrepid wasteland launched a rocket. Acting fast, Brutus threw his comrades to the side and dove out of the way, the projectile missing him by a foot and slamming into the building behind him.
Just at that very moment, an enormous, hulking orange figure stumbled up from out of the metro station.
"Brothers," Brutus cried happily, "Our reinforcements! Take heart! The Overlords have arrived!"
The supermutant overlord took three steps into the daylight, coughed up a lungful of blood and fell flat on its face. Behind it stood the Tribal in full power armour, with a super sledgehammer over his shoulder.
"Going somewhere?" the armorued figure glanced backwards down the steps of the metro station and back at Brutus. "Wait… you weren't… you weren't planning on leaving, were you? Bad form, Brutus. Bad form."
"Run, Master!" the generals moved aggressively for the Tribal, buying Brutus time to retreat. The Tribal swung back and forth, taking two of the masters down immediately, but the third, fourth and fifth all tackled him back down the steps. Brutus could hear them dying as he headed back towards the Lincoln memorial. To the south, more wasteland troops emerged from the Hasmat Disposal site. They bore the colours of the Brotherhood of steel.
Brutus gritted his teeth. Taking up an assault rifle from a fallen brother, he joined what was left of his army at the barricades, firing at the approaching human lines. He could see the wanderer, crouched on the Washington monument, letting off three-round bursts. Every time that report echoed, another supermutant died. Brutus roared and let off a volley of his own, straight at the figure in his brown leather duster.
The shots missed by inches, or perhaps some of them hit. It was hard to tell because the wanderer immediately replied with a three-round burst of his own. All three hit Brutus in the head, and the third knocked his helmet off as he fell to the ground, his ears ringing.
"Master!" A worried mutant knelt beside him, crouched as they were behind the sandbags. "Master?"
"I'm alright!" Brutus growled, pushing him away, "I'm fine! Keep fighting! Keep fighting! We shall not lose! We cannot lose! We… cannot…"
Yet the ground was covered in countless green bodies and pools of mutant blood. Hundreds… they had been hundreds and hundreds… and now…
Now Brutus counted fifty able fighters left, and with the Wanderer's sharp reports that number was reduced to four-dozen. He saw a mutant brother fall, screaming in pain, clutching the stump of his arm. Another took half a clip in the chest and slumped over his barricade, wheezing as he stared in shock at his own pooling blood.
The number was three dozen, and they were being pushed back to the memorial steps. The Lone Wanderer stepped out of the pool. No matter how many shots the mutant defenders fired back, it seemed none of the humans would fall.
At two dozen the mutants were forced to seek cover within the columns of the memorial itself. The incoming fire came in waves, in walls of lead, peppering the back of the memorial, and filling the area with so much dust and flying debris the mutants could barely see.
A mere dozen remaine, and the Wanderer was at the memorial steps.
Seven three-round bursts rang out, and then there were five defenders, including Brutus himself. The eighth burst hit him in the side as he took aim at the red bandana, and this time one of the Wanderer's shots found a crack in his armor. Brutus felt the bullet pierce his chest, sneak between his ribs and puncture a hole in his right lung. He stumbled backwards into the memorial, falling at Lincoln's steps, even as silence fell across the battlefield.
Brutus only half heard the deaths of his last four brave brothers. One by one they fell at the Wanderer's feet, and Brutus could see the human standing between the columns, silhouetted against the late afternoon sky. Smoke rose from the barrel of his Chinese assault rifle, and in his other hand, he held a bloody trench knife. The Wanderer was watching him with a look of hatred on his face.
"Wanderer!" Brutus choked out as he rose unsteadily to his feet. He drew his sword, but could barely keep the tip up. Blood seeped down his side, warm and sticky. "How many times must I kill you before you stay dead?"
"Once." The Lone Wanderer shot back, "When is that going to happen, exactly?"
Brutus glared at him.
"Aww, don't give'em that look." Jackrum said, emerging from the columns, but keeping his distance. His voice echoed through the memorial. "It's not his fault you suck at this."
Brutus turned his gaze on the aging mercenary. His mouth twisted in a satisfied smile. "And you… human. You have no idea what you've done, do you? Whom you've angered, or what is coming for you and this miserable patch of dirt you want so hard to keep…"
"Look who's talking."
Brutus drew himself up with the last of his strength. "Today, then, Wanderer. Today I watch you die."
"Hold up, Kid!" Jackrum said as the two combatants shifted in anticipation of the coming duel, "We could just shoot him."
"Not good enough." Jason growled through clenched teeth, glaring at the mutant king. "Not for him."
"I respect you, Wanderer." Brutus replied. "I wanted you to know that. You are truly a Child of the Atom."
"My name is Jason Howlett." The Wanderer relied evenly.
Brutus charged forward and swung his broadsword in a low arc, sweeping at the Wanderer's hips, yet the lithe figure leapt upwards like a high-jumper, rolling over the top of the blade. As he landed, he spun around and swiped at Brutus' neck, the edge of the combat knife falling inches short. All the same, the Mutant King backed up, using short jabs and swipes to keep the Wanderer at bay.
They circled again. Jason charged forward, sliding under Brutus's swing and slicing at exposed flesh behind the mutant king's knee. Brutus managed to stumble out of danger, and even land a hit across Jason's side as he twisted away.
The Wanderer backed up for a moment, clutching the sudden sheet of red which flowed down his shirt, but he shrugged it off and charged, sliding under Brutus' clumsy attempt to fend him off, and plunging his knife into the mutant king's knee, pulling it out just as quickly, and landing a strike on the mutant's gunshot wound with the spiked knuckles of his trench knife.
Brutus cried out and swung with his fist, knocking Jason backwards even as his side lit up with pain. The wanderer charged again, and the mutant king tried to fend him off with his sword, but the blade was too heavy, and he couldn't seem to lift it off the ground.
The tip scraped across in a wide arc, but the Wanderer merely stomped on the flat of the blade, forcing it out of Brutus' weakening hands.
Jason tossed his own knife away, and assaulted the mutant king with his fists, pounding at every gap in the armour he could reach. Brutus held his own arms up in defense, blocking his wounded side and protecting his face, yet his body seemed weaker and weaker, and the Wanderer's blows were born of rage; heavy and falling fast as he battered through the mutant king's defenses.
With a final almighty roar, the wanderer caught Brutus chin with an uppercut which sent the sueprmutant sprawling to the floor, and his helmet flying to oblivion.
His head exposed, and the world spinning around him, Brutus expected the Wanderer to end him there, but he didn't.
Instead he knelt on Brutus' chest, taking special care to lean into the bullet wound. From the back of his belt he pulled a syringe full of red liquid. Brutus grabbed the Wanderer's wrist in a final desperate attempt to stop him, but his muscles would barely obey him anymore and he watched in horror as Jason plunged the syringe into his exposed shoulder.
"I saved this for you." Jason snarled at him.
"What is…?" Brutus gazed in shock at the empty syringe. "Wanderer… Wanderer what have you done?"
"That was my blood." The Wanderer answered, grinning down at the mutant king. "It carries the FEV cure. We're brothers now, Brutus."
"…no." the monster whispered fearfully, watching a spidery purple glow trace out his veins, spreading from the injection site.
"…Welcome back to mankind, you son of a bitch."
"NO!" The mutant threw him off and lunged for him, but stumbled to one knee as the cure reached his heart. His skin began to turn blotchy and pale, sagging as the muscles beneath shrank. The bones creaked and crackled as they shrunk, causing the supermutant to shriek in agony.
"I don't know whether you'll live or not. Maybe not. Maybe you can't come back. Maybe it's just me." The Wanderer leaned forward, propping himself up on his weary arms, even as the mutant king collapsed into a twitching heap, gurgling as his green skin flaked away, leaving pale, sallow, human flesh behind.
"Maybe you die here. But if you do, Brutus, you'll spend your last few breaths as one of us. A pathetic human scrambling through the dust for hope or escape or a way to end it quickly." Jason pulled himself to his feet, and staggered over to the twitching figure, standing over him, and smiling. "Just like all those poor people you killed in this war. And like all the muties I killed, you're going to look up at me, and feel fear!"
A pair of wide graying, aged eyes stared up at him from the wrinkled sockets of a skeletal face. Brutus was gone, and in his place was a withered old man, bleeding and out of time.
"Die." Jason snarled, wrapping his fingers around Brutus' throat. He squeezed, even as the former mutant choked and scrabbled against his leather duster. He squeezed, even as the old man gasped and coughed for breath, as his eyes bugged out, and his grasping hands grew weaker. He stared up at Jason with a look of terror.
"Please… please…"
"There you are." The Wanderer said, lifting the man clear off the ground and tightening his grip.
"…please…" the former supermutant managed one last time. His wizened feet kicked in the air, and then went still.
Jason lowered him to his knees and stepped back, whipping out his combat knife in one smooth motion and spattering blood across the wall of the memorial, where it ran in rivulets down through the final words of Abraham Lincoln's greatest speech:
"That these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation under god shall have a new birth of freedom – and that a government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth."
Brutus' corpse fell to the ground, and the great army of the united Capital Wasteland cheered.
I have been silent for too long. I have always felt that the best response to people's worry that a story has died is to simply post a new chapter. No progress updates. No faffing about. No promising. Simply more of the story.
I'm not sure how I feel about using the last few words of Lincoln's speech like that, given what they meant in the real world, and the very real weight and meaning they already bear. It's one of the most beautifully worded turns of phrase in the entire history of the English language, and indeed human communication as a whole. I couldn't pass it up…
I had trouble writing this chapter, continuing this story, because there are a limited number of times you can write "And then the supermutant died" before it gets tiresome. And in case you've forgotten how long this story is, I've written that a LOT. I'm pretty sure I've explored the width and breadth of supermutant death. I'm sick of it. My boredom made every sentence of this last chapter a slog.
In the time that's passed, I got a new job, found and lost love, became a borderline alcoholic (still dealing with that part.) and generally grew the hell up. Along the way I rediscovered my love for Fallout. Those embers never stopped burning, though other fires were brighter.
I have played Fallout 4, but not beaten it. To be honest, though I like it, it left me feeling empty where FO3 and FO:NV set my imagination alight. FO4 is looting and dungeon crawling like Skyrim, but with none of the desperate civilizational struggle for survival of Fallout 3 or the political/moral complexity of New Vegas. It's an entire, beautiful world to explore, but with nothing interesting enough to make me care what happens to it in the end. As wide as an ocean, deep as a pond. Filled with loot, but lacking in choice, plot, character, and practically everything else which actually matters.
Fallout 3 is ten years old this year (Jesus, really?) and that game, with its dated graphics, aging combat, and tiny world map is still for me the properly crowned king of the franchise, towering head and shoulders above the rest of the modern entries.
Though if you pick New Vegas instead, I don't blame you. I can only say you have great taste in video games!
We have an epilogue to go. Then this trilogy will be done, and I can move on to having characters that solve problems by actually talking to one another. God I'm looking forward to it!