Hello puppers, today we have our update! And because I'm sleepy, we'll have my assistant introduce it. Take it away, buddy!
…..
Bahlgrim: Sigh.
Bahlgrim: You need prefixes before you speak when it's two people wolf.
….
Bahlgrim: And he's asleep. Moving on, hello, I am Bahlgrim beta reader and co-writer of the story. If you haven't noticed by now, there are two distinctly different writing styles. That other style is myself.
This chapter introduces a side Character in hopes to expand upon the plethora of side characters in this story, the number of which is more than you've imagined.
More than what you're thinking of now.
A little more.
Now double it.
Now you're close.
Wolf: We have end chapter notes too bahl :)
Bahlgrim: You're awake. Good. And these are still starter notes.
Wolf: Well I need to post this, and I know I'm just reminding you to say goodbye before I finish my next nap.
Bahlgrim: Hmmh
Enjoy the chapter.
GOW
General Colwell was not a patient man by any stretch of the imagination. If bodies weren't hitting the ground, moves weren't being made, or he simply sat still for too long, something felt wrong. Maybe it had something to do with all the walking. He couldn't remember the restlessness before the fall of Poseidon. Thankfully, DC always gave him something new to do, something he could focus on that wasn't the constant ticking of a clock.
Yet, even with plenty of stuff to do and people to kill. Navarro not being in Raven Rock left him with a feeling of wrongness. A feeling he shook off as he walked into the crew bay. Minotaur was waiting on standby within his vertibird, prepped and ready to go. While Luison was prepping one of the transport birds.
Near his personal veritibird were two privates, their armor scratchless and polished. He didn't know their names, he didn't need to nor did he care to. The moment he closed the distance he ordered them both inside the bird. He walked two steps inside the cabin before the General glanced at them from his spot in the doorway.
The two privates hadn't heard him, completely unnoticed, as they chatted quietly.
Well, they'll hear him now.
"Privates!" Colwell said. He let out a satisfied breath, watching the two jump to attention, but that's not what he was after.
"Sir!" They both shouted in unison, hands at their temple.
"Your rank, soldier!" Colwell growled out.
"Sir, Private Jas-," the young man began.
"Did I ask you for your name!? You, what did I ask for?" Colwell shouted, pointing at the man who didn't speak.
"Y-you asked for our rank, sir!" He responded, fear and panic soaking his voice.
"Then tell me your rank and only your rank!" Colwell demanded, the soldier audibly gulped.
"I am a Private sir!"
"Private sir!"
"Correct, you two lardasses are privates, and who am I! What is my name and rank, soldiers!?" Colwell emphasizes his point by tapping his chest with his thumb.
"Your Brigadier General Dylan Colwell, sir!" They said in perfect unison, music to Colwell's ears.
"That's goddamn right, and when I order you to do something, I expect you to have a fucking sonar in your ears to catch my voice from all the way to Poseidon! Don't just fucking stand there with your thumbs in your ass and each other's tongues in your ears!" Colwell shouted, his voice carrying across the hangar bay. His finger aggressively stabbed into their armored chest.
"Sir, yes, sir!"
"Then let me repeat this one more time and only once more. We're going to rescue Navarro, and you two have just volunteered to be my pups. Now, get your sorry asses into The Great Devourer and report to Minotaur for your stations!" The two ran towards the vertibird causing Colwell to chuckle evilly. He then looked to his wrist and looked at the Pip-Boy menu, reviewing the digitized items he had stored. One final time to make sure he didn't forget the most important thing for this mission. With a satisfied smile, he walked toward his personal bird.
GOW
"I'm assuming all these questions are gonna lead to mentioning whatever you're so afraid of?" Navarro asked with a raised eyebrow. His body was covered in bloody bandages and wet with disinfectant.
Raven sat across from him on her large throne, decorated with animal pelts and expertly carved designs across and placed on the body of her seat, while Navarro sat on a worn-out wooden stool.
At his question, she stared at him for a few moments, her eyes narrowed in contemplation. Navarro assumes she's trying to touch on the topic without mentioning whatever the dark creature's name is.
"There is this….woman. If you can call her that. She looks like a woman, sounds like a woman, and even speaks like a woman, but you notice very quickly how unhuman she is." Raven began, dancing around this 'woman's' name and description carefully.
"Stop. Before you continue, Vernal, step outside and away from the tent. Far enough to where you can't hear us." Navarro commanded. He feared what could be accidentally said during this talk.
"What! Why?" Vernal, predictably, protested.
"Because your mind is still young and underdeveloped. Any wayward name or title could summon this creature, and even a speck of their presence can shatter one's mind. Especially young children." Navarro explained, emphasizing the dangers that she could face. However, in the short time, he's known her.
"I ain't no weak bitch!"
Navarro has learned that things don't frighten her easily.
"Vernal, you will listen to my orders. I just gained parental rights over you, so whatever I say, you do. Understand?"
But he also knew that her fearlessness was born from ignorance instead of courage.
Vernal stared at Navarro for a few moments, silent but pissed off. Her hands were tightened in fists as she bit her cheek.
"Fine, I'll leave." She stomped her feet in a fit of protest towards the exit, but not before giving Navarro the middle finger on the way out.
He chuckled at her insult.
"Kids still got spunk. Wonder when the death of her parents will settle her in her mind. Even if they were abusive fucks they were her mom and dad. I guess I'll see it by the time we're back in Raven Rock. Hopefully." Navarro contemplated, keeping up his faith in his distress signal being discovered in the next few days.
"Are our minds really that fragile against them?" Raven asked as she stared towards the exit.
"Yes. Yes we are." Navarro paused as memories filled with horror stormed through his mind before he grunted them away.
"How…How does it feel? Your mind, that is, being so close to one?" Raven asked, her voice carrying a softness to it. Navarro assumed that softness wasn't out of care but fear, born out of hesitation to ask and learning its harsh realities.
"Mind rape," Navarro bluntly stated, catching Raven by surprise.
"A friend of mine described it perfectly before his brain oozed out of his ears." Navarro squeezed his eyes shut to crush the images away, but his ears could still hear the screams.
"Then it's painful," Raven stated, reaffirming her own thoughts.
"Very," Navarro agreed.
"...I haven't personally met her yet. The woman, I mean, but I've seen images of her. I've also met her followers. Every single one of them were batshit insane." Raven got a chuckle out of Navarro.
"They tend to be, yes. If they were in her presence, then they would slowly lose their minds and become puppets of her will. Their enemies usually get killed with their heads or brains exploding. Willing servants are the most dangerous, having been offered promises of some sort or gained some form of favor and power as a reward for their loyalty. There are many ways for someone like her to gain a following. How did you happen upon her?" He was curious. Though Old gods have been having a growing presence since the Great War they are still rare to happen upon directly. Most of the time, cultists and zealots are the most you interact with. Dying easily enough that their masters don't end up getting a chance to be involved.
At the question, Raven turned thoughtful again, hesitant instead of contemplative. This caught Navarro's attention. There were only a few reasons why someone would hesitate but they all revolve around the same thing. Withholding information, to hide it from the conversation.
"What are you hiding, I wonder?"
"These Old gods, do you know of any that don't give you a brain aneurysm while near them?"
Now that is an interesting question, and very telling on what she was hiding.
"You don't happen to-" Navarro began.
"Uhh Chieftain Branwen, Da-pa-err asshole! Can you guys come out here! There are weird ass-looking bullheads or something heading our way." Vernal yelled from outside, catching the two's attention.
Shortly after, Navarro could hear the recognizable sounds of rotor blades cutting through the air.
He smiled.
GOW
Sir Kay liked to think of himself as an easygoing man. A gentle giant, many called him, being the tallest of the Knights and also taller than most within Raven Rock. Yet, gentle he may be, even giants can still get angry. With the fall of Poseidon, he answered the call of his nation, and the anger that followed thereafter helped him crush all those who opposed them. As years pass, times change, people change, and that rage that once heralded his mind becomes a small ember, alive but weak. With Navarro presumably held captive or, at the very least, detained from leaving whatever camp he found himself in. That ember sparked new life.
Navarro was with him since Sir Kay's childhood, along with the rest of Knight Squadron. They all grew up together, trained together, argued amongst one another, and even fought against each other. He was not their leader from the start, only a friend and classmate, but when they answered the call to war, Navarro was given his place of leadership, and he earned their respect and loyalty through their years of service together. He had already earned their friendship during their schooling years, but he then had gained their love in his struggles to better themselves. To atone for what he and everyone had done.
Navarro was the voice and symbol for the Reformists; without him, their dream would be consumed by Colwell's dogmatic rage, and Autumn's neutrality alone couldn't hold back that beast. Without him, the Knights would lose a leader. Without him, Craig Bright, the man behind the helmet and name of Kay, would lose a friend, a brother, and a part of his family.
Sir Kay's eyes shifted to his left, watching his fellow knight, though calm-looking, be beyond agitated with the entrapment of Navarro.
Lady Percival, her Advanced Power Armor sparking bolts of electricity from the Tesla coils littered across her body, sat in one of the two Power Armor designated docking ports within the Vertibird. Her hand holding her deactivated Tesla Sword let her use the smoothed stone across its edge, sharpening it to its point.
The subtle twitch in her left leg, how she swayed herself from left to right, and the tight gripping of her blade's handle were all subtle but noticeable to Sir Kay. She was getting increasingly impatient as the Vertibird grew closer and closer to Navarro's location.
"Listen up, pups. The map says we're ten miles out from the objective. You better have ammo, or else you'll become my decoy dummy." Colwell's voice crackling out his inner radio speakers caused him to look out the portside window of the bird looking toward their wingman.
The forward-facing Gatling Lasers were encased by a custom paint job that resembled wolf fangs. The wing mounted with grenade turrets, but personal experience let Sir Kay know they were easily detachable and switched out to anything Colwell demanded, carrying the image of a wolf's claws across the wings. Then, the painting of a half-eaten sun at its rear directly on the ammunition box for the cabin side turrets. The words The Great Devourer just under it being clearly visible. This is Colwell's personal Vertibird in all its glory.
Sir Kay chuckled at a fond memory from, well, not a better time, but a simpler one. When he was first given the aircraft, he had gone through half a dozen names over a period of a week. All named after the women he slept with on that particular day. It took Navarro, Autumn, and even Lucy to argue with him for two whole days to stop wasting resources on name changes and just stick to one. Finally, he agreed and ended up choosing, permanently this time, The Great Devourer.
"What's so funny?" Lady Percival asked, having stopped sharpening her sword, staring at him. Her voice was distorted by her helmet speakers.
"Just a memory." He told her, pausing for a moment, voice also distorted.
"Of when Colwell first got his glorified flying dog." He finished, walking away from the window and towards her.
"Compared to our glorified flying horse? The Llamrei isn't that different in the grand scheme of things." Her words carried some humor in them.
"No, no, ours is much more tasteful in design. His looks like it was designed by an edgy teen." Merlin chimed in, responding from the cockpit, his distorted voice booming across the cabin. He stood at the door, dividing the two pieces of the vertibird.
"Says the person who painted it himself. Not trying to stroke your own ego again, are you, Merlin?" Lady Percival called out. Sir Kay could clearly imagine the raised eyebrow under her helmet.
"Of course I am. If I painted his bird, it wouldn't look like shit." Merlin said, the smug grin obvious, as he pointed towards The Great Devourer.
Sir Kay and Lady Percival laughed at his blunt honesty. Merlin may be a smug asshole, but he's also a protective and caring man. It wasn't just his intelligence or experience that got him his place as second in command, with the rank of Colonel to match. He has enough insight on the rest of Knight Squadron, mostly due to his constant needling and just being his general assholish self, to know many tiny details of their personality and interests. As a result, he can manage the squad well when Navarro isn't around, and he's tactically minded as well, being the ideal second in command.
"All hands be advised, we are a mile out. Be on Standby. Better have listened up in the debrief, and if you didn't, just don't fuck up too much." Colwell's voice commanded over the radio, which caused the Knight's to stand by the closed cabin doors.
"This is Merlin, a reminder. This is an NCA situation, Non-Combat Approach, only fire if fired upon. We have no idea what type of situation General Pendragon has been put into that would require this approach, but we are gonna respect his request." Merlin stated across the radio frequency while checking his plasma rifle, which was customized into a sniper rifle with concentrated plasma that shot out like a spear for any malfunction in its system.
Following Merlin's lead, Sir Kay checked his Gatling Lasers fusion cores, seeing full marks on both, releasing a satisfied grunt at the sight of it. Standard issues Gatling Lasers typically held space for only one fusion core but through years of customization and experience in the heat battle. He's modeled his favored weapon to his preferences. He reduced the amount of his heat produced within its coils, which resulted in weaker Laser bolts but allowed for less use of the fusion cores charge. Additionally, to ensure he acted his role longer on the field, he added a second intake port and exhaust port to double his effective ammunition. As a result, the amount of bolts he could use before needing to replace the cores was a total of one thousand, compared to a single cores measly two-hundred and fifty.
Sir Kay Advanced Power Armor was upgraded and designed to walk as a literal moving fortress. Armor plates were doubled and reinforced with titanium, remodeled the motion-assist servos to reduce the power output on the leg joints and transfer to the arms systems, slowing him severely but tripling his strength, and added a fusion battery pack with a miniature fusion reactor at its center protected with Ceramic-Titanium mixture designed to resist laser, plasma, and small arms fire. Its presence creates mobile fusion core charging stations, allowing for the replacement of any fusion cores needed for longer engagement in battle.
He is the Knight's frontline while Navarro, Sir Pendragon, was the right flank and Lady Garient the left flank, both their armors similarly modeled to his. The three of them were the walls that pushed, while the rest were the cavalry and archers that destroyed.
He was ready to become the wall again.
CRACKLE
Sir Kay looked to his left and found Lady Percival's sword activated, the arcs of deadly electricity covering the blade.
She was ready to be the cavalry again.
Merlin's rifle glowed brightly and menacingly, turning the cabin wall a eery green.
He was ready to be the archer again.
"Drop in 10!"
GOW
"Height?" Colwell asked simply.
"Two thousand feet, sir." The pilot, Tempest, responded.
9 seconds.
"What's both of your PA's ratings?" Minotaur asked.
"My what?" one of the privates responded dumbly.
8 seconds
"Don't bother, Minotaur, if they don't know, let them learn about it the hard way,"
Colwell told him, disappointed that the Military was so desperate for soldiers that they would skip crucial information.
7 seconds.
He may hate paper pushing and meetings, but he never skipped weapons training. Everything a soldier carries can be a tool for killing and for survival, and not being taught that pisses him off.
"Maybe I should try my hand at boot camp training? Could be fun."
6 seconds.
"Sir, permission to ask a question, sir!" A private asked, oh so politely.
5 seconds.
"Ask."
"Why is our PA rating important, sir?"
4 seconds
"To see if you survive or not."
"W-what?"
3 seconds.
Colwell opens his comms once more.
"Slow Fall decent. I want those raiders to see angels of death!"
2 seconds.
The vertibird doors slide open, blowing the harsh wind into the cabin, roaring and powerful.
1 second
"Uhh, sir…" the private began as he leaned over the cabin's edge, looking down to the ground.
DROP!
"You'll live. Probably," Colwell stated before kicking him in the back, forcing him to fall through the sky.
He screamed all the way down.
He then looked towards the other private. The man flinched before slowly walking to the edge and jumping.
"Heh." Colwell chuckled before continuing through his comms. "We are Green, drop!"
At his command, Colwell leapt off the vertibird, free-falling. As he did so, he watched the two privates desperately try to adjust their feet first. With practiced ease, Colwell maintained his vertical position. Then, he used his jetpack, freshly attached to his back, to slow his descent.
Enclave standard PA should have the cushion and shock absorption to keep any idiot alive on direct impact from the ground from up to 5k feet, according to his armorer. Tempest, his personal pilot, said she was doing approach at 2k.
A face plant from this speed would hurt like a mother fucker, but it won't kill you, though it's definitely funny as hell to watch.
Colwell watched as Minotaur, Sir Kay, and Lady Percival followed his order and his lead, using their jetpacks to slow their descent. He could clearly imagine the sight from below, watching machines of war floating slowly to the ground. The level of fear they would be feeling would be insane!
At five hundred feet, Colwell used his Pipboy to un-digitize his favored Grenade Machine Gun, the blocky piece of death loaded for any mutie that decided to commit suicide that afternoon.
The privates, of course, had already touched the ground. One of which had face-planted. Surprisingly, it wasn't the one he kicked.
"Guess one of them is worth something after all." Colwell thought, slightly impressed.
A moment later, the rest of them landed on the ground in unified thunks, shaking the ground near them. In perfect sync with their landing, Colwell PA's speakers blared to life, picking up the radio signal from the Great Devourer's portable transmitter and flooding the area in an instrumental of the "Star Spangled Banner."
He ignored the groans of annoyance from Lady Percival at his perfect use of physiological warfare.
Surrounding them were dozens of raiders wielding a mixture of guns and melee weapons. Some wore armor, others did not as they prepared themselves for battle.
Above them, The Great Devourer primed its weapons while the other two birds stayed at a fixed altitude, allowing Merlin and Luison a clear and steady line of sight for their rifles.
Colwell lowered the music's volume and layered his voice on top of it.
"We are the Enclave! You have taken one our own, and we are here to reclaim him! Return Brigadier General Jose Navarro to us or face extermination!" Colwell said into the crowd of raiders, his voice distorted menacingly due to his helmet. However, before anyone could respond, a distorted groan came from below him as the face-planted Private slowly picked himself up.
"Piss off, this is Branwen territory. You got no say in what we do!" A particular stupid but brave raider helped him.
"Oh good, a volunteer!" Colwell thought with joy, but before he could unleash a volley of napalm grenades, he was stopped.
"Shut your trap, Dray. You have no say in what Tribe Branwen says either." A woman yelled at him. The man flinched at her words.
Black hair, blood-red eyes, pale skin, and a fantastic chest were the first things he noticed as she stepped towards him. Her long-ass sword was the second. The third was Navarro wearing a damn robe of all things behind her.
"Sir!" Lady Percival yelled out, taking a few steps forward when she noticed Navarro, but Colwell stopped her with an open arm to her chest. They were still on assignment, and a heartfelt reunion should happen after everything was said and done.
"What the hell are you wearing, Navarro?" Colwell teased.
"Whatever I could find. My clothing was torn to shreds and covered in blood." Navarro responded, tugging at the hem of his robe.
"Hm. What's the situation? Hostile or not?" Responding in short, crisp statements.
"Complicated. We need to talk in private. With their leader." Navarro answered, using his own crisp statements, lightly pointing at the woman beside him.
"Yes, let's," Raven said, her voice carrying a notable level of annoyance, perhaps even anger to it.
"Roger, stand by all of you, oh, and play nice," Colwell ordered as he digitized his weapon, leaving his trusty revolver side arm as his sole, visible means of defense.
"All of you, stay. Watch them. Observe them." Raven ordered, and Colwell chuckled.
"I can relate to dealing with idiots. I'm surprised that most of them are alive. If I had to repeat myself every time I needed to relay orders, I'd get pissed off."
"Lady Percival, this is Vernal. I want you to watch her while we're in our meeting." Navarro said, gesturing to a rather small child with a deep tan on her.
"Of course, sir."
Navarro, confirming Vernal was with Lady Percival, motioned his arms towards this large tent, the largest tent in the camp looks like, before walking towards it himself. The raider leader beside him. Colwell marched after him, staring at the woman's, surprisingly, nice ass the entire way.
GOW
"Spatial Hyperpolarizing Ionic Explorative Layered Displacement," Autumn clearly announced in the observation room.
"Sounds like word vomit to me," Bruja sparked as she parked her Armored Power Armor near the wall, the latch opening from behind, allowing her to step out. Her skintight plug suit pronouncing her curvy figure.
"It probably is. You know how scientists like to over-complicate their names." Razz remarked, sitting next to Autumn as they stared at the screen.
"And both of you would be wrong. The name itself tells you what it is. This is S.H.I.E.L.D., a large over the top but actually functioning teleporter. The records say that they never actually tested it before the bombs fell, but from all their theorizing, It should have teleported us to a different location within two hundred miles. Anything further should have overloaded the device and destroyed it and the mountain along with it." Autumn explained, catching a confused head tilt by Bruja.
"Then shouldn't we be dead? Cause if our scientist's theory of a different world is right, then we should be molecules right now." Bruja reasoned, dragging a chair beside them as she glanced at the screen.
"Yes, we should have, but there was a dissenting opinion among the scientists. Luckily, it wasn't removed from the files, whether because of a clinical error or someone actually wanted to read what he had to say."Autumn tapped away on the computer, changed the screen, and opened a different document. Razz and Bruja leaned forward and read to research.
"...overload would not destroy the machine but instead supercharge it, causing a rift in space-time towards an unknown location. You're shitting me?" Bruja recited out loud, louder with each word.
"That would explain everything so far and prove our running theory. Don't know why you would be so surprised." Razz commented towards Bruja. She shook her head at his words.
"No, not that. I'm confused on how we could have this but not have access to it in the rest of the bunker. Eden would have been able to read this in seconds and warn us of the potential dangers. Hell, he wouldn't have even suggested it if he did read it since the damn thing wouldn't have gotten us out of the storm… Wait, why couldn't Eden access it in the first place?" Bruja crossed her arms in confusion, looking towards Autumn for an answer.
"From what I've found, the uplinks towards Eden's central processor and manual control over the bunker were soft wired not to allow access to ninety percent of the bunker and erased all existence from it in his data banks."
"Why?" Bruja asked, further confused. Razz also leaned forward in interest.
"I have zero clue. I haven't gotten down that far into those records yet; I was more focused on the SHIELD records, but I know one thing. This disconnection between the bunker and Eden was doen on purpose, and there must be a very important reason for it." Autumn finished with his face in a slight frown.
"Agreed," Razz said with a nod.
"Well, I'll let you two worry about that. I'm heading back to my quarters." Bruja said before stretching, arching her back backwards. Autumn flicked Razz in the forehead for staring at Bruja's breasts.
"You're gonna get your eye plucked, you idiot." Autumn plainly stated within his mind. A moment later Bruja began walking to her APA.
"Might I ask, why you're not gonna head back with your squad?" Autumn questioned, Bruja ignored him until her APA was fully sealed around her.
"Valais has command and knows not to mess up, especially when I'm not around. Giving me time to prep for his arrival, Navarro is coming home after all." She answered cryptically as she walked off.
"Pretty sure he won't be happy to see you," Razz whispered, but still loud enough for Autumn to hear.
"You got no idea". Autumn thought, his mind blaring with old memories.
GOW
Wolf: Well I think Raven's missing the mark a wee bit, but we finally know what the deal with S.H.I.E.L.D. is! And the enclave has finally found their lost general. Anything to add bahl?
Bahlgrim: This Enclave will be more extensive than most Enclaves out there. Be prepared for large exposition dumps on the Enclave Military, Scientific, and Civilian sectors.
Wolf: yea, we kind of gave them history, members, plots, and why aren't we doing a story just on the enclave marching east again?
Bahlgrim: A story must begin as close to ending as possible without ruining the core plot points it wants to tell.
Wolf: yes, but a separate prequal story might be in order let me jus- never mind I looked at the back log of my projects. Not even just the stories I'm working on now but the ideas I've begun plotting out and have in the stories folder.
Bahlgrim: The Walk East is a story we should never tell. For the mystery of it will always have it be more interesting than the actual story itself.
Wolf: maybe, but laziness and back logs will keep it in the told about not shown for a long while if nothing else.
Bahlgrim: Perhaps
Wolf: oh, and this might be a good time to mention the first drafts of these characters. The Fifth element, Atom, on Bahl's FFN account, Dark bladikus has the OG interpretation of this enclave in another world. It's years old and the rework is somewhere on the back cagalouge but it's got more of a General Navarro focus for any fans of him.
as always if you enjoyed give me a fave/kudos if you want to keep reading a bookmark/follow would be nice, and if you want to comment, we both love reading those, as mentioned I have a discord which I love seeing people in to talk about this story or any of my other ones or just talking in general. See you all next time or on the server: 5B4kC2qSG3