With that distinctive pop of displaced air, the four of you reappear near where you last returned, the clothes and miscellaneous equipment you had on you at the time dropping to the floor.

What little of both you had on you at the time anyways, considering you were having a threesome with Kate and Nora at the time.

"Alright, time to get settled in before we go and have fun, everyone. By that i mean someone grab a vault suit for Sarah and then we can, dunno, play cards until the sun goes down."

Alright, first off? Delegation. Wonderful, wonderful delegation.

"Alright Yoshi, I want you to go out there, find the ruined house we use for storage around here and use your powers to build that generator we designed. If you have any difficulties, just look for the black guy with the cowboy hat and tell him Gabriel sent you, he should be able to give you direction."

"And I assume you want me to actually connect that generator to something?"

"Nope, just build it for now. Once you're done, feel free to take a look around, maybe work on something else we could build here. Fuck knows we'll need a better water purifier if we don't want to weld together a dozen of the things I first slapped together here.

For context, this is a parallel earth where nuclear war happened and everything got fucked over forever. make of that what you will."

Tacitly dismissing Yoshi from your attention, you move deeper into the building your building bots assembled before you last returned, just to make sure you won't get a dose of sunlight when he opens the front door. Instead, you move down to the basement, where Kate seems to be giving Sarah a little tour of the place.

"...and these are the first dolls Gabe had put together. Figure we may need a few more at some point, but here's where we store them. Usually got someone come by once a day to feed and wash 'em, too.

This over here, on the other hand, is Slave."

This is where Nora takes over the explanation.

"Gabe and me found her in a raider camp. We still have no idea whether she was one of them or they treated her like a slave in general, first impressions were pretty much just her tied up naked in their leader's room. She seems to be entirely happy with being nothing more than a fuckpet, though, so we just adopted her as such."

"Looks fun. This whole place still seems like pretty much a shithole, but it's got everything that we really need, doesn't it?"

"It does, and feel free to play with Slave, so long as you don't break it."

The three of them turn towards you as you join them.

"Incidentally, I've been meaning to ask, Sarah, did you ever figure out anything interesting about that fox transformation power? It seemed like the most unusual, given it's the one power I don't have."

"Mhm. I didn't really do much with it, mostly, just trying to get a better grip on it every now and then. I can actually make little clones of myself when I'm fully transformed, though."

"Huh. That's... interesting." Also, the potential of several cute little Sarah-foxes is amazing.

"They tend to dissipitate when hurt or stuff in that direction, but until then, I can see things from three different perspectives. It's pretty neat."

"Definitely something to keep track of. If you could train that into letting you have clones while partially transformed or something, I figure it may be really handy down the line."

"I know, but the other stuff I've got is way too useful not to train, either."

"And now you know my pain, Sarah. But before we turn this into a pity party over having just way too many cool reality-bending powers to choose from, I wanted to bring up the idea of turning Kate next. I finally can do so again, you see."

Kate and Nora immediately perk up, having been a little busy patting Slave's head while you and Sarah talked shop.

"Oh? Mind explaining why you're thinking about it?"

"Simply put, the more people I turn, the more extreme amounts of power we have as a group. Thralling is good, lets me hand out a bunch of powers, even, but actually turning others lets them really come into their own. Case in point, you, Sarah, are significantly stronger now compared to when I just thralled you."

"Why go for Kate instead of, say, Nora, or one of the others?"

"Kate's my second-in-command as well as someone I trust with this much power, or to only isuse it in ways I want her to, and while I trust in Nora just as much, she's still looking for her son, and that pesky vulnerability to sunlight would be a larger hindrance to her in that search, contrary to Kate."

"Gotcha, gotcha." Giving both Kate and Nora significant looks, Sarah clears her throat. "Alrighty then, let's all sit down and talk business, mostly about the changes that happen when you're turned and what to pay attention to. Slave, here!"

Seating yourselves up in the living room, now that you don't have anything important to do in the basement, the group begins to talk about the feeling of being immortal and how to deal with it.

The discussion runs for a decent while, addressing things such as what powers to best start out with and Sarah's impressions and thoughts about a variety of things to do with her conversion into her current state of mortality (that is, immortality), but eventually everyone is still left with a lot to think about and personal decisions to be made.

Not to mention the frequent innuendo Sarah added in to, in her words, 'take revenge for her inconsiderate brother behaving like some porn protagonist'.

You beg to differ, of course. No pornstar could ever measure up to you.

"Actually, Kate, Nora, before I forget it. Would the two of you like to go out and terrorize any nearby raider gangs like last time? If we're turning anyone, we'll need a bit of food to start them out with, and even if we don't, we'll likely need a few more bloodpacks, so a few captives would be nice to have on hand."

"Can do, Gabe."

"Sure, the less of them there are, the better for us. Got any backup for us to take?"

Breathing out Mush, a smile flickers across your face at everyone cringing at the look of his face.

"Take Mushy-boy here, he can use his power to take along any raw materials we might want to keep."

"Ugh, I was asking more about that deathclaw zombie to ride on, Gabriel."

"I thought that went without saying. But yes, you can take the thing, that's what it's for."

"Alright, got it. Still, make sure to get your improved stuff running around here, okay? I want to see what those laser rifles of yours can do."

"I'll keep that in mind."

Sending off Kate and Nora, you return to idly talking with Sarah, mostly to compare your experiences with the power to have an inner world populated by your victims.

Interestingly, she seems to have access to a library that contains all the knowledge she and any of her souls have ever had access to, in addition to a bunch of places you already got. Her Maid also seems to look differently to yours, from her description.

While you're doing this, of course, you're also starting to train the power itself together with Sarah, having called up your training souls after ushering Yoshi back inside yourself with orders to look into designing a better water purifier you could assemble with locally available resources.

Of course, you and Sarah couldn't fill in the literal hours of training you did with idle chatter on this one topic. Luckily enough however, you have something to do ready in the house.

That is, you and Sarah eventually begin idly abusing Slave as you maintain your concentration. Sarah seems to be taking great enjoyment from planting her naked foot on the back of Slave's head and forcing her to fellate you, making her choke and black out repeatedly.

Good fun for the whole family, in other words.

Incidentally, you seem to have sprouted a whole bunch of monitors inside your inner palace, and a quick look proves them to show your current vision within physical reality. Pretty trippy, though you can deal with it. Alongside them, you also seem to have unlocked an actual proper lab, with, y'know, lab conditions and all that good stuff.

Plus a neverending supply of chemicals, metals from the workshop, microscopes, mass-spectrometers and all such jazz. Might just come in handy down the line.

A quick fusion whose result requests from you to be called Jackie later (not that you give a fuck what it calls itself, and you tell the guy as much) you proceed to once more resummon Yoshi, striding outside and summoning Phillip to tell Yoshi what to do...

Only to come up short when you see what happened since you last looked at the place.

"Yoshi."

"Yeah?"

"Why has the storehouse been replaced by what I find myself hesitantly calling a bunker made of a mix of steel and concrete?"

"I refused to have that highly unstable fusion reactor stand out in the open, so when I was done with it, I just enlisted the help of a bunch of robots and replaced everything. The reactor's buried next to the manufactory I also put inside after updating it to the newest model.

And by 'update it' I mean 'razing that abomination from the face of the world with lasers' and using what was left to make an entirely new one."

You cannot help but facepalm.

"Just... just go see about churning out a bunch of the laser turrets and ask Phillip where to best put 'em, alright? I cannot possibly be arsed to deal with this."

Just leaving behind that whole... that, you go grab Preston, who is finishing up his evening rounds around Sanctuary, and that one marginally impressive raider you 'hired on' during your visit to Thicket Excavations.

Come to think of it, may want to get an update on how that mirelurk farm experiment is going one of these days. For now, though, you just sit these two down and explain to them you're going to give them some cool powers that also make them harder to kill and there you go.

Conversation is sparse, between raider chick apparently preferring to communicate in grunts and rude gestures and Preston being... Preston, but you keep yourself enterteined by telepathically chatting with Sarah, Nora and Kate.

Sarah, by the way, is busy using her subtle mindfuckery powers to twist a few of the settlers around and 'round. At least she's having fun, you suppose.

You perk up happily when Kate tells you they have arrived, bidding your current 'company' farewell, what with having finished the process a while ago already.

Studiously ignoring Yoshi cackling as he commands a score of your BOBs carrying a bunch of stuff for him as he plasters laser turrets all over the place, of course.

What does bring you up short, though, are the two rows of prisoners Nora and Kate are leading back with long ropes from atop their undead deathclaw steed, Mush a small tower of various kinds of junk stomping after them.

Kate. What. Did. You. Do.

I swear, it totally makes sense in context, Gabe!


Ushering the newly arrived caravan inside the settlement of Sanctuary, you listen to Kate and Nora's explanation of how they came to have... this.

"Okay, so you and Nora once did that whole thing over in Concord, right?"

"I remember."

"And well, when we were hashing out where to search the areas 'round Sanctuary for raiders, Nora remembered Concord had a whole bunch of old houses the kind raiders would happily use for just about anything.

So the first thing we did was take an excursion towards there, check things out before we go patrollin'. 'Cept when we arrived, we found these dickbags were apparently settling into what's left of the Museum of Freedom, so we just stormed the place right through one of the walls, shot a few of 'em in the dicks and told the others to either do as they're told or bleed all over the floor and well, here we are."

"You know what, I won't even go into how ridiculous it is you basically stumbled right into what we wanted five figurative steps out of town."

"Probably for the best, really."

Nora, meanwhile, seems to be having fun moving their captives, steering the deathclaw she's still riding with one hand while the other is holding a 10mm and occasionally shooting the ground near the raiders' legs.

"Hurry you pigs, before I decide to roast you!"

Leaving the raiders to Nora for a moment, you first navigate Mush over to your brand-new storage bunker, stuffing him inside and dismissing him inside one of the empty rooms.

Note to self, make someone sort through this stuff later. For now, though, time to have a little 'talk' with the (currently) living parts of the loot.

It takes a little digging (literally, your claws dung into and removed a few ribs) and a little help from Sarah (who once more returned to her old standby of mindfucking the captives into raping each other), but in short order, you have access to what little these guys knew.

And it really isn't much; apparently, this band of raiders coalesced from a few members of other groups and migrated towards the north when rumours of Jared's demise over in Lexington and the consequently wide areas of free 'turf' got around.

They chose Concord to set up shop without any idea you were occupying said territory. All in all, always hilarious when the food literally walks into your (metaphorical, this time) mouth, though perhaps somewhat worrying the raiders spread all over Massachusetts seem to actually have ways to share information like this.

A problem for another time. These guys, though, won't be much of a threat to anyone for a long, long time once you're done with them.

First off, though, you show 'em to Kate, let her pick out five as her first meals once she's transformed. It's easily apparent to you she's not sure how to feel about this situation exactly, having gotten used to you doing this kind of thing all the time but never having really envisioned eating people herself, though you're confident she'll get over that as soon as you actually turn her.

Once she's through, however...

"Hey Nolan, time to prep a few bloodbags again."

Ignoring what little screams and protestations the nine raiders get out before Nolan blocks their vocal cords and cuts out their tongues, you drag the five Kate chose out by the rope you tied them together with.

"Alright, you ready?"

"Mhm. I'm... a little nervous, but yeah, I'm ready. We doing it right here in the open?"

"Don't see why not, really. Before we start, though, you been thinking 'bout getting any powers changed after our talk on the topic? I think I can swing one last change before we 'lock it in', so to speak."

"Yeah, 'bout that. I really like bulletproof, being able to just stand there and ignore it when the lead goes flying is awesome. For the other one, though, I'm not sure which way to go with it. Seeing blood is cool and all, but some of the other stuff we talked about would also be really nice to have straight off the bat."

"Actually, how about I give you a small measure of sun resistance? I don't think it's anywhere near complete resistance, but the power in combination with a good set of power armor should be enough to let you stay active during the day."

"If you think it's for the best." Kate says with a noncommittal shrug. "Just so long as we can get this over with sometime soon. The waiting's almost the worst of it."

You can't help but chuckle at that. "Just like tearing off a bandaid, then? Here."

Cutting open your wrist with a quick application of claws, you offer it to her.

"You'll need to drink a decent bit, I'll be taking care of the rest. Just trust your instincts for everything that comes next."

The process is almost natural to you after only doing it once before this, though maybe you shouldn't be too surprised. This is basically how you reproduce now, after all, and few creatures don't get that right.

Such it is that you gently feed Kate, the five raiders tied up nearby your only audience, and, once you decide she has drunk enough for this phase, brush back her hair as you gently bite into her throat.

You've done this many times by now, but doing it to someone you're not trying to eat, someone that you, you can admit it, care for?

That makes it an... interestingly intimate experience.

Kate keeps on drinking for a few moments longer, as though not realizing you've just killed, but eventually she stills... though your blood continues to flow, to drip into her mouth in small amounts... and only moments later, she stirs once more, risen to new unlife by your hand.

Weaning her off your blood, it is most entertaining to see her tear through the captives, the poor suckers that have just realized exactly what they were brought here for.

Kate, being Kate, naturally begins to make out with you once she's done with them, soaked in blood and the taste of the same pervading her mouth.

You respond just as enthusiastically, of course.

"You sure you're ready to be active already? It wouldn't be an issue at all to let you acclimate for a day or two."

"I'm not made of glass, Gabe, and the faster I eat some more suckers the faster I get more powers to work with."

"Alright, alright. I'll believe you. Be back right after I've had a chat with Ada to clear up exactly what we're doing again."

It is with a motley crew of horribly powerful beings that you begin your trek towards the location Ada told you about and marked on the map in Nora's pip-boy. Yourself, Sarah (because she wanted to do something fun), Kate (because she wants to shoot AND eat something) and Nora (who wants this done with already so your group can establish a monopoly on robot technology as soon as possible), setting off with your little horde of undead in tow.

Nora, notably, is riding the deathclaw, being tragically limited in terms of stamina compared to the undead vigor the rest of the party can boast, using which you rush off towards the south in a neverending sprint.

You see a few things moving on the way, a few feral ghouls, maybe a small group of raiders in the distance, a bunch of oversized insects, the usual around these parts. None of them can hope to catch up with you at the speeds you're moving.


It takes but an hour or two to arrive in the general area of your target, though you note you may have to camp out nearby, possibly inside the place you're about to 'clean up' if this takes too long to make the return trip before sunrise.

That said, you have the group slow down as you approach, getting everyone ready for action instead of sprinting. Kate makes a pleased face at the moment, though.

"Pretty great to just keep on going forever. Not needing rest means so much more time for the important things in life." Saying so, she cradles the laser rifle after your latest design, freshly printed from the manufactory Yoshi built in that bunker of his.

"It has its upsides. Just make sure you don't end up doing paperwork 24/7 because you completely forgot about the passage of time."

True words, Sarah. True words. there's a reason you yourself make sure to delegate all paperwork-related duties, after all.

"Everyone ready? Time to decide how we're doing this."


Having the others scatter and prepare for fighting at any moment for now, you go shadow and slink right into the Rust devils' Camp, staying undetected entirely through a mix of staying in the dark and abusing the fact that they're using robots as sentries, in combination with their men.

Robots that ignore you entirely in your current form.

Yeah, you honestly weren't expecting any of these idiots to actually spot you, but this just shifted things from easy to pathetically easy. In short order you have a decent idea of the layout, numbers and patrol routes of this encampment.

Easy-peasy.

Somewhat more concerning, though, are the robots that stay plugged into what you can only guess are recharging stations (or otherwise just storage, these things are cobbled together worse than any of your work ever, and that's saying something). Undoubtedly to be activated the moment any actual fighting happens, bolstering the defenders' numbers by nearly double.

Also, you can see several traps. Everything from simple triplines with empty cans attached to warn of impending danger to what you think are reused robot weapons and parts rigged up to fire at careless intruders, no doubt making use of their VI to determine friend from foe.

Besides that, you have a pertty precise idea of the entrance to the deeper parts of this satellite array, no doubt containing far more dangers to be dealt with.

The robots, on a side note, are almost comically refurbished from what you can estimate their previous state to be. Skulls, spikes, various miscellaneous bits made of bone, exposed wiring to showcase 'dangerous' electrical discharges... You'd be questioning how the things keep on functioning at all, except this gang obviously has at least one member that actually knows what they're doing, likely more.

Otherwise they wouldn't ever have been able to accomplish even this much.


It takes a good bit of maneuvering and nudging, but fairly soon, you're tucked away clinging to the ceiling, right above these weird charging station thingies the robots are standing inside.

Make the world a colder place!

Just moments after you finish casting (fairly quietly so, as far as these things go), the effects are immediately apparent.

The temperature plummets all around the area, the electric lights the raiders are using begin to flicker, the robots patrolling all around begin to stutter in their movements or changing directions randomly as though confused, and the robots in the charging stations...

Well, when you first heard "Intruder detected!" from below, you were preparing to shadow again and get out for now, but then they begin walking out (rather slow and ponderously, due to what you recognize to the protectron model legs), opening fire with their little laser zaphands.

At everything.

The raiders, the other bots, each other. Looks like those weren't so much charging stations as they were some kind of programming tools, and you casting at them simply set their foe parameters to 'everything'.

And yes, that's actually how their targeting works. You've seen the programming.

So, uh, yeah, looks like all hell is breaking loose here, the raiders cursing their lungs out as they jump into cover, robots from both sides not as interested and self-preservation and simply charging (or 'charging', seriously, those legs) at whatever they see moving, and you just hang on the ceiling, watching it all happen.

I successfully sabotaged them; they're trying to fight a bunch of their own robots. Am in the middle fo their camp, where they're concentrating on. Time to attack, try to take prisoners.

The thought, sent to all members of your assault group capable of thinking, is being responded to from several heads, though you don't pay that much attention to them.

Instead, you're keeping track of the battlefield, the robots clanking and clacking on both sides even as their outsides are scoured by lasers.

A few of the Rust Devils are armed with laser weaponry of their own, though you'd estimate about half have good ol' bullet shooters on hand. You hear what you're pretty sure is an assault rifle, at least, along with a shotgun and several pistols of some kind.

You're actually kinda interested in those laser weapons. May have a few tricks in their construction you could copy at some point.

Either way, your backup is fast approaching, right into the backs of these fucks. The robots will likely be less affected, not bothering with cover to start with, but the humans will be caught with their pants down.

The choice on whether to act or wait is up to you, now.

Well, no time like the present to murder a few of the fucks with laser weapons. Swiftly repositioning yourself into some actual cover for yourself, you take a quick look around before ducking down again.

With a good idea of where to shoot, nothing stops you from chanting down here and popping out towards the end. Just like shooting a gun, you suppose.

Freeze and shoot!

Not that the chant is all that long, meaning you can continue shooting with relative ease.

Your first target goes down with an ice shard to the gut, the next one earning himself a shard to the face when he peeks out of cover, one is nailed in the thigh when the idiot tries to change positions...

Man, your ability to just never miss is great! Only way for these guys to not get sharded is to stay in cover, which the survivors do in short order. You, meanwhile, have to stay in cover yourself, several robots deciding to concentrate fire on your position.

Too bad for them your muscle is about to arrive.

When your reinforcements arrive, they do so in a half-encirclement hitting over half the assembled opposition at once. The raiders drop like flies, hit from behind as they are, a good few of them captured by your supermutant-mirelurk hybrid zombies- those claws work pretty well for the occasion, actually.

Kate, of course, is having a blast blasting the robots with her new laser rifle, though you note it to be somewhat strange how the shots tend to angle from the muzzle sometimes. Nora is keeping to the back and opening fire at anyone trying to run, while Sarah is using her domination power to make the raiders throw away their weapons... and sometimes their lifes.

Though the cacophony of the battlefield is making it a little harder for her to do so- it's just so loud they can't hear her sometimes. Might also explain why she eventually gets frustrated, just sprints at one especially deaf raider and uses her electric hands on his face.

You, meanwhile, have a little air to breathe, so you begin casting Freeze this thing so it may not move! on the 'bots one by one, shutting them down decisively, where your deathclaw zombie dismantles the rest.

All in all, all it really cost you to clean up this whole encampment was a bit of time and a few zombie bits.Time to tally the survivors and see about what to do next, then.

Adjusting your soul loadout a little once the fighting dies down, you (along with everyone else) have a look at the four survivors of your little assault.

Not willing to spend time on interrogating nor using them now, you simply have your deathclaw zombie bend a few steel pipes around their limbs, securely tying them to the adjacent structures with the same.

"Hey Sarah, could you theoretically use Coil's power to interrogate these guys in one timeline while we get deeper inside?"

"I don't see why not. Just keep in mind I may take a bit to switch souls out again."

That taken care of, you move to open the door leading to the hatch leading to teh underground areas of the satellite array... Only to be brought up short when it won't open.

It takes a few moments of searching around before Sarah just makes Coil spit out what happened in his torture/interrogation timeline, leading you to jump upwards into a rickety construction the Rust Devils sat up above the underground bunker's outside, fiddling with a (crappy) terminal for a moment before the door swings open as though by itself once you disable the magnetic lock keeping it in place.

Now the only challenge will be actually getting your bigger zombies inside.

Leaving behind your deathclaw zombie (it isn't fat, it just got large bones) on the surface, to guard your captives and uncollected loot and all that, the party makes its way underground, descending into the old, old satellite array.

"Alright, everyone, time to do this. Our goal is to eradicate the Rust Devils down here, hopefully take a bunch of them as captives and find whatever was sending out the signal Ada mentioned."

What follows is a quick discussion with everyone present on how to proceed.

It takes you a bit, even with your immense speed as a shadow, but soon enough you have a reasonably complete map of the Rust Devils' base.

It certainly does help the few 'traps' they placed consist of brightly glowing laser tripwires and plainly placed robot parts.

On totems.

Why did they make it robot totems? That's just plain weird. And stupid. Why-

You know what, you'll just... ignore this. Just notify the others to be careful about the things and move on.

The real danger, of course, very much consists of the denizens of this place, as well as their pet robots. Mostly their pet robots, really.

Those will be a tougher not to crack, but then again, it's not like you're lacking in terms of nutcrackers, either.


It is a grind that follows, by any definition of the word. You don't really need to risk anything, not with full knowledge of what lies ahead and an answer to all of it prepared.

A few of the raiders and robots in your way manage to get off shots at your zombies, scoring hits that go from minor scratches in the paint to disastrous for any actually living beings, though still incapable of permanently stopping any of them permanently- you may need to replace a few parts with fresh raider parts and reanimate them, but they're quick fixes for neglible issues.

In turn, you mow your way through dozens of the little shits, as well as twice that in robots. They really were gathering a lot of them down here. A few of the designs are somewhat interesting, at least- you'll need to disassemble them to be sure of anything, though.

Also, seriously, human bones aren't good materials for robots, so why do these idiots insist on using them everywhere? Sure, there's the intimidation factor, but they just worsened overall performance for no further discernible reason.

Interestingly enough, they replaced all the voice modules of the Mr. Handys they refurbished with clicking. You theorize that they may be incapable of properly restoring the modules for some reason, or maybe one of them just really hated the default voices and decided to shut them up.

Anyways, of particular interest are the many, many mechanical parts you can see all around, in the form of old machines, rusted vehicles, all that good stuff you already saw on your first pass through the area. This place will be a goldmine once you've cleared it out.

The prisoners you've taken so far are silent on the matter, anyways, not that you asked with any real intensity. You don't care that much about it.

Side note, they have explosive chemicals stored all over the place for some reason. You didn't really question it at the time, but when Kate's immediate reaction to seeing red is shooting a laser at it to make it explode and severely maim anyone nearby, you seriously wonder why they did it.

It's almsot like they were asking to be blown up.

Still, it isn't until you come upon the big room filled with what looks like a disembodied brain inside a small fluid tank that things get really interesting.

...Actually, wait a sec.

"Hey Yoshi, could you analyze this thing? It looks suspiciously like a disembodied human brain, but if so, I want to know how it's possible."

"Can do, boss," Yoshi sighs in response. Stepping closer, he is mildly surprised when a voice comes from a speaker integrated with the enclosure (presumably) keeping the brain alive.

"And who might you be?"

It's a clearly feminine voice, somewhat metallic-sounding. It has to be on purpose.

Stepping forth yourself, you motion Yoshi to just go on ahead while you do the talking.

"Don't mind my compatriot here, he's none too interesting to talk to, anyways. Now, if you're out for introductions, my name would be Gabriel. And you are...?

"Jezebel. A pleasure I'm sure. And what might a bunch of mutated supermutants be doing down here?"

"Why, me and my crew of motley companions has come here to have a little 'talk' with the Rust Devils, of course. And with 'talk', I naturally mean eliminate them as competition in terms of robot usage. On that topic, you wouldn't happen to have any idea about the individual calling themself the Mechanist, would you? We were thinking about having a, perhaps similar, talk with them."

"As you would, no doubt, be able to tell if you were capable of simple logic, I am one of the robobrains the Mechanist tasked with overseeing efforts to fulfill their orders by the countless lesser robots they have produced."

Ah, you think you're getting a grip on her personality already. Not that she's got much of one in the first place.

You'd bet whoever this brain comes from, they were a total karen.

"It would seem you are our target, then. Say, you wouldn't happen to be able to, for example, tell us where to find the Mechanist?"

"Of course I am able to do so. Not that I'd believe you capable of following simple directions in the first place. In order to actually enter the location the Mechanist is operating from, however, you will need a particular device."

"What kind of device are you talking about, then?"

"An advanced key meant to be integrated into a robot. I will freely tell you about the location , but in order to make use of this knowledge, you will need the schematics for the M-SAT I will only share if my conditions are met."

And there we are, she's trying to leverage something she has and believes you to need into power to make you do what she wants. You saw it coming miles away.

"What is it you want, then? I can be quite accommodating in several ways if that's what it takes."

"For starters, you may have noticed I am currently lacking a body, you buffoon, and the reason for this should be readily apparent for anyone with a functioning brain. My conditions are twofold, I want you to murder the Rust Devil that ripped my head off and build me a new body. Do this and I will give you what you need."

"I will need a little more information before I can promise to fulfill those conditions of yours. First off, you mentioned something about the Mechanist's orders earlier. What orders did the Mechanist give all those robots?"

"The Mechanist ordered all their robots to help people all over the wasteland."

"Why are they killing people all over the place, then?"

"It is simple and straightforward logic. Given all available parameters, whenever I encounter a human being, attempting to help them survive has a success chance of 25% or, in other words, a 75% chance that the human dies anyways no matter what I do.

Therefore, simply killing them straight away is the most efficient solution, as doing so merely hastens the human's inevitable demise and spares them the suffering of their existence. You would be capable of grasping such simple concepts yourself if you weren't so busy being... yourself."

... Well, you can't say she's wrong, but at the same time, she's very much missing the point, you suspect. Not that you actually care as such, though.

"Very well. Assuming you are not going to turn around and try killing off people once I've rebuilt you, there's still another concern to consider.

Simply out, I don't really need an M-SAT to find the Mechanist. Tracking them down and forcing entry is merely a matter of time. What more can you offer me to get what you want?"

And there you go. All of a sudden, she has to acknowledge she isn't capable of ordering you around. You turned things from her setting conditions into making a deal where both sides get what they want, and you've stated that what she offers isn't as valuable to you as she thinks.

Cue panicked attempts to regain 'control' of the situation in 3... 2... 1...

"Are you deaf as well as stupid? I already said, you need an M-SAT to get into the facility the Mechanist has appropriated. Any attempts to get inside without one would alert them to a prospective intruder, not to mention being entirely fruitless as they would require one to penetrate several dozen layers of state-of-the-art bunker walls. Accept it, you have no choice but to follow my directions in order to find the Mechanist."

"Ah, but what if I had ways to do just that? What if I could simply bore my way through whatever was in the way, methodically destroy any and all robots the Mechanist sent my way and still arrive at my objective?"

"Very well then, what do you want? As you may have noted, I am currently without a body, so there is little I can give you in exchange. And don't go pretending the M-SAT schematics were useless to you; infiltrating in such a manner would inherently require less effort."

Of course she can't possibly accede that you have 'won' this, but she is forced to admit that you have a point. Good enough for your purposes.

So then, what do you want from her? What do you demand in exchange for what she wants?

"What I want, Jezebel, is you. In exchange for avenging your old body and giving you a new body of my choosing, you are to follow my commands and do as I wish for however long it takes for me to die."

"Are you insane? Why would I ever accept subservience to a lesser creature such as yourself?"

"Because that is the only way to get out of this place, the only way to get your own body again, the only way not to simply rot in a dark, unhygienic place for however long it takes for whatever is keeping you alive to run out. I am your only chance here, Jezebel, and I both see it and am perfectly willing to take advantage of it."

"...Very well. If your primitive brain requires you to attempt dominating anything it sees, I shall accept your 'offer'."

"Oh, and please, don't think of trying to renege on our deal. I can and will hunt you down, modify you to be capable of pain, and then let you stew in it for a few years. Don't say that's impossible, the human brain has a great capacity for pain and by extension so do you."

And, of course, you'll need to make sure her body has an override code just to make sure any attempted treachery will be going nowhere. Taking hold of the brain container (braintainer?), you're a little startled when the until then inactive modified sentry bot in the back rattles to life, but a quick spell shuts that down easily enough.


Jezebel's commentary during the rest of the trek through the raider-infested bunker is at least mildly amusing when she isn't too annoying to pay attention to.

Sadly, she is the most mentally stimulating thing down here, too. The traps are easily worked around, the robots demolished and left behind to be taken apart for scrap later and the raiders are either captured or killed if keeping them alive is just too much of a hassle.

Though it's getting kind of awkward to just keep them trailing after the group, tied up, but alas, some sacrifices just have to be made.

And you'll gladly sacrifice these guys, that's for sure. Like, you're not one to talk, given the various atrocities you yourself committed so far and are hoping to continue committing in the future, but the sheer pointlessness of actually dragging people into their base only to ritualistically take them apart as they build their robots to add their parts to them strikes you as... impressive.

And not in a good way.

You found out about that when you took a look at their torture/human recycling chamber. Looked like they were specifically using only life prisoners for the process. The sheer waste of human sacrifices/food makes you unreasonably angry, in fact.

Wasting food just kind of strikes a nerve with you. Who'd have thought?

Maybe that's why when you enter an area filled with metal walkways and Rust Devils in power armors, you decide to have a little fun.

Doubly so when Jezebel has a brain aneurysm as she spies one of them.

"That's her! That's the bitch that tore off my head!"

Well isn't that convenient.

"Wait, did she tear off your head or only your body? That's an important distinction here."

"I believe you are now officially shitting me. Congratulations, your intellect rivals that on an ape."

"Glad to hear that. Freeze this thing so it may not move!"

"That is still disturbing."

"I mean, less to you that the cunt whose power armor I just froze badly enough she'll be getting frostbite in a minute or two along with freezing it shut. Freeze this thing so it may not move!"

This is honestly hilarious. To any conventional group, these guys would be immensely dangerous, walking tanks armed with a wide variety of weapons. With you using magic on them one after another?

They're nothing more than canned food at this point.

Of course, their screams alert the others, but... they have no idea you're the one crippling their ability to fight, and the small horde of modified supermutants charging at them draws their attention quite nicely. It helps that your first targets are the ones less easily reached by them as well as anyone with direct line of sight to you.

In the end, all that remains are slowly freezing popsicles caught inside their armors. Good times.

"Alrighty then, time to deal with all the loot we just made our way through. First off, Sarah, would you mind using Coil to allow us to interrogate all the prisoners just that much faster?"

"Can do. You may want to send someone up and bring the four nerds inside just to make organizing all of this easier."

"An excellent suggestion, though I was already planning to do so. Beyond that..."

You take a moment to adjust your soul loadout, summoning both Yoshi and Nolan. Handing Jezebel to the former, you instruct them on what you wanted them for.

"Yoshi, take Jezebel here and anyone that wants to go along with a few of the zombies to take a look through this place. It's-"

"I know, I saw from inside." You raise an eyebrow at being interrupted like this, though you let it go for the time being. Sending him off, you turn towards Nolan.

"And you I want to have on interrogating these guys with me. You know the drill, find out who they are, what they can do, all that jazz."

Gripping a newly manifested scalpel, Nolan grins. "On it, boss."

"Everyone else just settle in for a bit, take a rest. We did good work tonight."

"Not too sure about that, i hardly did anything."

"Hey, I got to shoot a few of them, at least. I'm counting that as a win."

"Okay, so I want to eat Ivey here. I like collecting fucked up and notable souls."

"Sure, I don't particularly mind and it's not like Kate could actually keep it either way."

"Good, good. The two of you good to share the rest between each other?"

"You sure you don't want any more than the one?"

"Nah, I'm good, and we don't want to drag these guys all the way back to Sanctuary, so may as well feed them to you. Growing stronger takes a lot of food, y'know?"

"Oh? Was that what pissed you off earlier, them wasting what could have been food instead?"

"So what if it was? Now help me peel the rest of them out of their cans before we eat."


Ivey was... well, there was no nice way to say it.

Ivey was nuts, and she loved it.

Always inclined towards both mechanic work and hurting people, it didn't take her long to combine both with each other, drafting up and building designs to inflict torturous deaths upon all she could force into them.

Of course, the other settlers didn't take kindly to her 'going nuts' and killing half of them in one night, but that was alright.

Ivey had plans, you see.

Successfully fleeing from the settlement, she found herself spoiled for choice on what band of raiders to join, though she didn't do so immediately. Instead, she began tinkering in the ruins of some old city, scavenging what she needed and starving herself to stretch out her supplies, but soon enough, she walked up to a bunch of psychopaths, her glorious tesla rifle (she'd read the word in some magazine a few years prior) in hand.

She killed each of them that either hadn't the first idea how to use a wrench or aimed a weapon at her. Served 'em right, too- if they're too stupid to live, why should she let them live?

So Ivey assembled her own little band of raiders, the Rust Devils, working through smaller gangs one by one, until she eventually came back for the settlement.

There were no survivors. This time, they ALL had a go with her babies.

Over time, they grew into a decently sized band all their own, continually working and tinkering, especially once they got their cool underground base full to the brim with mats, and modding 'bots and power armors became something of a hobby of Ivey's.

She still did her death traps, though, and they became more and more interesting over time. Who ever knew making bets over whether the fire grilling their balls or the sawblade they were lying on would have them scream the hardest?

All good things had to come to an end, though, and one day, a mysterious stranger led a group into their base to have a little 'talk' with Ivey.


It's a happy fun time all around, you, Sarah and Kate munching your way through the raiders you captured as you celebrate the eating spree they provide you.

You, of course, just eat the one, but she's quite tasty as is, and watching the other food struggle makes for great entertainment. Especially when Sarah and Kate put their heads together and organized a 'race to freedom'.

All of them have to run for the exit, and only the fastest two are allowed to escape the fate of being eaten. Of course, what neither of them told the suckers was that they sent Nora outside to ride the deathclaw zombie and throw any that do escape back inside.

Absolutely hilarious, even if a few of them refused to run and tried to ineffectively fight back, but alas, that's just what you have to expect when using raiders. Didn't stop you from breaking their knees before feeding them to your brides, of course.

Glancing at your three new recruits, you smirk.

"Just remember we can always feed you to someone, so behave."

"Alright, Yoshi, before I send you out again to analyze as much technology as you can, we'll be taking advantage of the time dilation in here to design a more efficient water purifier building up from the version I stole from the dimension we're in right now."

"... Does it involve fusion reactors?"

"Why would it involve fusion reactors? That's what the generator is for."

"You mean the one fueled by fusion reactors?"

"That's the one. Anyways, we'll want these things to be as efficient as possible while pumping out as much water as possible. I'm planning to use them for as many settlements as possible and ensure clean drinking water for people across the Commonwealth Of Massachusetts in this dimension."

"That's, uh, strangely altruistic of you."

"Duh, I'm just being realistic. Not much point in being the strongest thing in the wasteland if everyone else is what amounts to a few mud farmers. In order to control civilization in this dimension, I simply need to build it up first."

"..."

Happy with your design for the time being, you once more breath Yoshi out, sending him off with most of the group to categorize and analyze the tech to be found within this bunker.

If nothing else, you suppose you'll at least have a bunch of robot design choices open to you without having to take the time to figure them out yourself.

In the meantime, you resume your stay inside your inner sanctum for just a moment longer, sending the Maid to teleport two more souls for your continued experiementation with the river facilities.

This time they're two relatively charming souls of opposite genders, as you'd specified, wanting to see how the river would deal with this.

What comes out is a woman with somewhat bigger proportions, looking around with a seductive smile.

"Why, hello there! Jannon ready to rumble." Then, with a deep purr, she adds, "All day, every day, forever."

Well, that's... nice, you suppose? You still wave her away, though, your mind already on more important things.

Specifically, your sister. Time to combine training with spending time with her!

"Alright, here are the rules. We both summon one soul each, then we try to summon more while we make the two of them rape each other. Winner is whose soul can keep on going longer, then we both pick a new soul to try again."

"I mean, it's not really much of a game at this point, is it?"

"Point. Rephrasing that, we'ew just making souls rape each other for fun while we try to bring out more. That sound better?"

"Much better, though remember, pretty much all my souls are men right now."

"No worries, I got a few females lying around. Why, I just recently fused two souls, and you wouldn't guess what came out..."

Sarah doesn't guess, though she doesn't need to. Instead, the pair of you looks on with amusement as her soul palace gets ravished one by one by Jennon.

Eventually, she overcomes the threshold, meaning that they're outfucked by the horny nympho in pair, mostly while double penetrating her. Judging from her very vocal moans, she doesn't mind.

It is a long and arduous day of nonstop training, and by that you mean it's mostly just sitting there and watching the show while you try to bring out an additional soul beyond the maximum you already have out.

You and Sarah, naturally, get a little closer once again, and by that you mean she's riding your lap, has been for nine hours, by the time you're done. That endless stamina being undead gives you really comes in handy at times like this- you and Sarah can literally fuck for as long as you want.

Suffice to say, the ground near where you were sitting won't ever be clean again from what it feels like. A few hundred full ejaculations really add up.

Nevertheless, both you and Sarah got something from this, beyond outrageously flirting and making out while you had sex. Sarah managed to summon her second soul, and you (a decent while later, not that she complained) got to your fourth soul.

Sarah mentioned she'd gained access to her own tree earlier, but the change you're faced with now is...

Well, you remember when the Warden showed you around, mentioned the empty area missing something before it can be used. It's filled now, with shackles, to be sure, but also with a wide variety of strangely modern technology, the walls lined with metal rods and tools of all kinds, especially what you see labeled as an 'eye corer', a decent area measured off for a bunch of decidedly less torturously looking equipment, instead looking to belong to an actual craftsman.

... From your experience in the field, you can clearly say you could probably assemble prosthetics of all kinds with what you see here with the correct knowledge and expertise.

You are greeted in short order by what looks like a mix of a cyborg, an old man and a crazed psychopath, several body parts hanging from the machine installed in his hunched back.

"Heeh heeh... Hello master, have you come to take a look 'round my humble place? 'S not much to look at, yet, but yer welcome to what I have so far."


"First off, would you tell me who you are, as well as what this place is and does?"

"Oh? Ohoho, I see, I see. You haven't gotten any of teh others to talk, have you? Well, no worries, no worries, ol' Dollmaker here got ya back. May wannae sit down for a sec, young master."

Not really quite sure about the turn this conversation is taking, you nevertheless sit on the offered chair.

"So, where t' start, where t' start... Well, for starters, ye know that this place, this whole little world in here, is you, right? A spiritual equivalent to who ye are, which is why the people ye eat'r also here. Wit' me so far?"

... Where was this guy up until now and why wasn't that here?

"With you so far. This place is me, I eat them, they're in my figurative stomach, which is figuratively here. I guess the things showing up when I unlock something new sometimes are also a part of myself somehow?"

"Good, good. Yer thinkin' along. Ye, the Guardians of dis place are aspects of yer nature, in one way or 'nother. Me, ah'm the part of ya that wants to take folks an' change 'em, twist 'em, add parts an' jazz. Kinda like dat thrallin' businesss ya got goin', though I also got a 'twin', so ta speak, that takes dis a little more final. The part of ya that want ta completely warp 'em, take what dey are an' remake it entirely.

Beyond dat, ah could tell ya 'bout a buncha stuff, what it means ta be a vampire, but ah guess ya already figured most uh dat out by yerself anyways. Normally, for as normal as anythin' 'bout our situation's can be, 'nyways, ya woulda been giv'n dis spiel by someone alreadeh, by ah guess the Vizier nevah showed up, by your react'n."


"Now as foh what ah act'ally do here, 's nothin' too complicated. Ah jus' take any souls ye want me to an' make ah few changes, take a few parts off, screw a few parts on 'stead. Wan' one to have a grapplin' hook arm, ah can do dat, easy. Blade arms, do'ble. You gat tha' lab an' workshop, from what ah can sense, so ah can really get creat've.

An' yes, l'cations ya get c'n interact like dis. Ya ever wond'red why dis place started out 's a shithole? 's represent'tive of yerself bein' in tatters 'fter bein' raised 's an undead. What'cha were b'fore ended, 'nd while it persisted, it took'a beatin' in the process."

"You know, the more Iisten to you talk, the more I resent the Vizier for never showing up to explain all this stuff from the very start."

"Ah, dun' be lika tha', lad! Ya did well for yerself from what ah see, ya really did. 's a bit of a shame it wasn't easier, but ya managed jus' fine on yer own. An' now ah'm 'round ta show yer the ropes 'nstead, if ya need ta know anythin'. Fuck knows tha others couldn' 'xplain dis if yer life depend' on it!"

"So you wouldn't mind going over what each of the places and potential places inside here do, how they interact, all that stuff?"

"Hah, ah sure could, but ah'm nun too sure yer'd be happy 'bout wastin' su much time. 'sides actual choices're still made by yah subconscious, so 's not like you knowin' bout 'em would make ah diff'rence in effect."

"Alright, I'll keep that in mind. Next off, I got a list of ideas for modifications sorted by souls I'm thinking about, mind talking it out before we commit to anything?"

"Hoho, not at all, young master, not at all."

Thus the two of you go through your little list of ideas you came up with while talking to him. It's not too extensive, but a few of the proposed changes do seem to spike his interest.

"Mhm, replacin' arms an' legs is easy 'nuff, soon as I get the dollhouse here up an' runnin'. May need to fiddle 'round a lil' to fit specifications, but quite do'ble. Should also be able ta get this vats an' fusion stuff runnin', just as soon 's I can fiddle som' more, or else ask one o' yer little helper souls. Or ya get tha library runnin', I s'pose, sh' give me knowledge ah all tha things ye know.

Now, keep'n mind th' more complicat'd somethin' ye want me ta do, th' more time ah'll take ta actually get it done. 's part of how dis place works; even if'n done it b'fore, it'll take me jus' as long. Gotta do every piece by itself, can't hurry it 'r 'nuthin. Perfect'n takes time. So, any uh these you wan' me to start with?"


"That fusion core heart for Ivey sounds the most important to get done. Should turn her power just that much stronger in almost any circumstance."

"Gotcha, ma boy. Ah'll begin measurin' an' talk to tha' Yoshi-boy whenevah ye dun need him no more for tha time bein', get dis stone rollin' an' all. In tha meantime, ye really should get back on the road yeself, even slowed time keeps 'a tickin', after all!"

Doing as the cackling old man says, you exit your inner world, only to find yourself being sucked off by your sister.

"Hey Gabe, with us again?" She smiles up at you, laying your dick against the side of her face.

You just groan at that, "You wouldn't guess the half of it..."


"Alright, we got everything?"

"We got a fraction of the good loot in there, but if you mean everything we really wanted to take with us, then yes. Our junkballs may have a little trouble staying on track, though."

"Must you really call them that, Sarah?"

"Yes, yes I do."

With a sigh, you motion for everyone to mount whatever mount they were assigned so you can get this show on the road already. Your newest recruits, the three former raiders, seem to still be a little doubtful about riding weird mutated supermutants, but they'll get over it soon enough.

... Actually, that's a lie. One of them seems to really be into this, screaming "Yi-Hah!" every opportunity he gets. Weirdo.

Either way, not much longer before you're back at Sanctuary. The immense speed of nonstop sprinting really is an enormous help for situations like this.


As you eventually close in to Sanctuary, however, having simply run by any potential threats on the way, you hear a sound you're entirely displeased to hear.

The sound of laser shots.

Quickly urging the others to hurry up, the group is soon plunged into a scene like out of some crappy sci-fi movie: a bunch of humanoid robots is attacking the settlement, being warded off by the turrets you had Yoshi place all over along with Preston Garvey standing there like a big damn hero with his laser musket. Out in the open, for some reason, too.

On a side note, your farming robots are busy bumping into the invaders, you never gave them any combat instructions, and the HAMMERs currently present are giving as good as they're getting in terms of inaccurate laser shots, though they lack the sheer saturation of firepower they'd normally need to effectively defeat an attacking enemy force.

At least it looks like the attackers are getting whittled down steadily, indicating they must've just arrived, more metallic bodies hitting the ground by the moment on both sides.

You are... not pleased, to say the least.

Not pleased at all.

Perhaps this is why you don't bother playing around first, testing some of your powers adequate for the situation, nor let any of the othres act.

You simply summon four specific souls and give them a fairly simple order, all things told.

"Destroy those humanoid robots, try to keep a few heads intact."

The moment you finish speaking, all four of them explode into a flurry of motion, chanting and gesturing to begin casting, all their magic bolstened by the fused soul you created specifically for this reason.

A few seconds later, it begins.

The air begins to shimmer, the smell of ozone spreads... and before anyone can really realize what's going on, a wave of electricity spreads in the air aboce everyone's heads, parts of it concentrating at one point to strike down upon a robot as it passes over them, only to return back into the clearly unnatural phenomenon a moment later.

Within half a minute, the settlement of Sanctuary is purged of any and all robots you didn't build with pinpoint precision, leaving only piles of parts behind, and an open-mouthed Preston staring in your direction, having tracked where the wave came from.

With a snort, you nod, satisfied at the results of your intervention. "Good work." With that, you desummon the souls you just summoned, except the Imitator, having them and Mush grab the loot you had them carrying before.

Time to figure out just what the fuck happened here.


"I'm so glad you're back. They just came out of nowhere, shooting at everything in sight. We barely had time to evacuate everyone inside the bunker before their main force arrived in the main living areas."

"Alright, Preston, where'd they come from? Also, what the hell were these things exactly?"

"They came from the riverbank, actually, near where the radio beacon is."

"Strange. The radio beacon shouldn't be robot bait, unless I missed something fundamental about its construction... You think the labcoats had anything to do with it?"

Come to think of it, you haven't seen the three musketeers ever since you returned this time around... though maybe that has more to do with you just letting them do their thing than anything else.

And speak of the devil, is that a nerd in a labcoat running out of the bunker you spy?

"I believe I know what happened!" He wheezes out, taking a moment to catch his breath once he's arrived at the entrance to the bunker.

Surprising just how badly he's out of shape after living in these conditions for this long. The other two are following after him at a more sedate pace, closing up the the group at their own pace.

"We've been trying to find the right frequency to finally get to talk to the others back home, but the thing is, those frequencies are also what we use to determine-" "Teleportation coordinates. Meaning, most likely our beacon sent the signal, was picked up, but we accidentally hit the frequency used to send a squad of old synths out." "I blame you, by the way, I told you we might be interfering with the systems at this rate." "Oh can it, we all agreed we had to work our way through all possible frequencies."

"So... Am I to assume, then, that incidents like this won't repeat themselves?"

"Shouldn't, nope." "No repeats here, chief." "If anything, this should get them to look into where their synths went and speed up our own timeplan."

At the looks the other two give him, labcoat #3 throws his hands up exasperatedly. "What? Gotta take the good with the bad wherever you can. This was a fuckup, yes, but at least it has its upsides. Not to mention a bunch of junk we can recycle from what's left of the synths."

You know what, you'll just... you'll just ignore this. Pretend this incident never happened. Somehow this has drained your will to do anything about this.

Alright. May as well... move things along, then.

"Okay, you three, you're going to clean this mess up. By hand. Take all the synth parts into storage before you catch a nap or something."

Your tone brooks no argument, and luckily (for them) they're not trying to argue. You, meanwhile, turn your attention towards what you were originally planning all along.

"Okay then, Preston, now that you're up already anyways, you may as well come watch as we work. The rest of you," you speak up, addessing your group, get to stowing away everything and catch some rest or whatever else you want for a bit."

"What will you be doing exactly, Gabriel?"

"Why, Preston, I am going to take civilization and shove it down this world's throat."

All you really need to do now is to wait for your souls to finish depositing their trash inside the bunker.

"Thanks again for helping out, you know you didn't have to, Kate."

"Nah, s'fine. Wanted to try doing something like this, anyways."

"What, dig sewers?"

"Hah, nope, see how fast I can work when I can do every swing with full strength."

"Alright, how are things coming along?"

"Pretty well. The BOBs can work on this surprisingly fast, though for the love of all that is holy, please, please just let me work on the next iteration of the things right now. They could be so much more with just a little work."

"Maybe later. For now just keep the things on track. Don't want them to try and dig sewers miles in all directions, we only have so much pipe to work with."

"Aaand done, one fully functional toilet. Gotta admit, I never expexted I'd end up doing this kind of work, but at least this way the whole place will stink significantly less."

"And you're really sure we can't just install warm water in every house? Figure that'd be the hallmark of actual civilization."

"Yoshi, that'd easily triple the amount of work I'd have to put into this. The sheep will just have to use a jury-rigged shower with the clean water we're also issuing them. Speaking of which, how about that better water purifier?"

"Already constructed and cables laid, was filling up last I saw it."

"Good. All according to plan."

"..."

"Ough... My baaack..." "Stop complaining, if you have the air for that, use it for picking up the trash instead." "He only said we had to do it by hand, but does it count if we use synth hands to grab this stuff?" ""Genius!"" "I know, I know, no need to thank me." "Okay, how do we make a proper grabby arm out of these?"

"Finally got everything. How does a civilization without LEDs even manage to come this far? 'Tis boggles the mind."

"Less whining, more making sure this shit doesn't crash as soon as it's turned on. Was hard enough to find enough material for this many actual computers."

"No worries, no worries, I got this. This may not be my specialty, but in Academy city you just tend to pick up on some of this as a matter of course."

"... Aren't you the Imitator? Pretty sure you weren't ever there."

"Who knows, who knows?"

"That settles it, the real Yoshi wouldn't have the balls to talk to me like that."

"Tch."


Sitting in your own little house (somewhat inexpertedly) built by your BOBs, you idly send a message at Preston's computer, knowing he should be about to wake up anyways.

Yes, you now can pester your minions even during the day. There shall be no escape from the Gabe.

In other news, you've started bombarding everyone with reminders to fucking shower twice a day for the next week at least. You will get these fuckers to stop stinking yet!

"So, think you can do it?"

"Dunno, bossman, jus' tellin' me regen don't tell me much. How's it work, what ta watch out for, 's all important. Can't really do much 'til you either get me a sample or a buncha pictures."

Annoying, but you'll just have to work around it.

"Alright, everyone, let's see about improving on our robot designs."

"Why am I even here? I am not giving you a damn thing until you get me a body."

"You are here because you, presumably, want a body capable of more sophisticated motions than bumping against a wall a dozen times every time you want to do anything."

"Finally, the outer casings of our robots won't look like we assembled them out of literal trash. Which, granted, we did, but now it won't be as visible anymore."

"I honestly think you should have other prioritehs, boss."

"And now I'm taking advice from raiders. My dignity immediately fails."

"Technically, we ain't raiders no more, so dunno if that count."

"Anyways, I properly got us all to concentrate on the BOBs, didn't I?"

"I am sure the monkey will appreciate getting structures constructed for them beyond how many they can realistically use anyways."

"Shut up Jez."

With everyone aware you're about to play caterpillar to butterfly again and prepared to continue operations without you around, all that's left is to find the one last meal you know you need.

Good thing you have your humanoid compass on call, huh?

"Okay, show me towards the most heinous evil raider I can reach within a few hours while riding this deathclaw."

...

"Okay, let me repeat that." You break the finger he was pointing at you, sending him into a mix of screaming, cursing and laughing while grunting it was totally worth it.

"The most heinous evil raider I can reach riding this thing not currently inside this settlement. That clear enough for you?"

Note to self, see about having the Dollmaker replace this fucker's voicebox with a mechanical one that just lets him beep and boop. That oughta show him...

A quick encounter with a small roving band of raiders on the outskirts of Lexington later, during which you just had your compass point the right one out again before having your mount rush in, grab the fucker and turn right around again, beginning your trek back to Sanctuary.

It's a fairly straightforward run, all things considered. And at least his screams are amusing company on your trek through the dark of night.


Presley, just one of the many raiders roaming the Commonwealth, was quite confused, given he had just been grabbed and carried off by a fuckin' deathclaw.

Now, granted, he'd seen some shit, done some shit, too, settlers with families were his favorite target for a reason, but this was a new level of insane.

And, well, once it let go of him, he got a brief glimpe of the guy he'd only later learn did all this. Not that it'd help him at that point...


Throwing the body aside with perhaps more gusto than strictly necessary, you move over to a corner of your place's upstairs room, making sure you won't get in the way too much while you're doing this.

"See you in a few days, everyone."