War of Realities (Redone and Improved)

[Maharg67]

37^th

DARKZIAZIN WALKING

BEWARE THE EATER OF LIFE

 

PART 1

 

In the dimness of a DC Wastelands late afternoon the shadowy figure paced quickly along a broken freeway and the hooded robe hid his features. Behind him scurried strange creatures in their hooded robes with backpacks on their back and autorifles or autoshotguns or exotic warperguns or smooth metallic quarterstaffs in their hands; Glimpses of hands and faces showed zhoul like creatures but with hairless, bone coloured boneskin. There were a dozen of them, making the number of the party thirteen, which felt right to the DarkZiazin.

 

These followers were in truth three leading semiclones and nine servile subclones following the semiclones.

 

They were above but to one side of a fantasy parkland complete with the Princess Castle, pink and horribly sweet but oddly well intact. There were humans in the castle, dwelling there in hiding from a frightening world. Most were ghouls but many were human primes, also known sometimes as pristine humans. The joke was that no true Wastelanders were actually pristine.

 

Suddenly he halted next to a cracked human skull and he crouched to examine a very pool of some kind of pale, semitransparent, oddly glowing goo. He cursed in some ancient, mostly long forgotten language and then he spoke. “Ectoplasm!” He carefully touched it with one finger and sniffed at it loudly. “Aaahhh, Eaters’O’Evil! Damned! So the distortions are truly that bad. This both pleases and displeases me. Chaos is good but too much chaos is dangerous to me, myself and I. What other important cause is there but me, myself and I? None, of course!”

 

A hooded figure bowed rapidly up and down. “Yeth, Master, you are truly wondrous.”

 

The DarkZiazin frowned. “Did I say you could speak? Ooohhh, very well, you were only stating the truth. Thank me for not punishing you for praising me with out permission.”

 

The figure bowed rapidly again. “Yeth, thank you very much, Master.”

 

A cloud of Doomsday Fog drifted over the broken landscape in the distance, against the prevailing light wind. Upon seeing it the DarkZiazin scowled horribly. Then he spoke. “One day I will return not just fully as I was but much greater. I will be more than this husk, this shadow or my other splintered selves. No, I will rule the world. No, I will rule many worlds. I will rule the stars. I will rule the universe. I will also get rid of that damned Doomsday Mist.”

 

All of his hooded robed followers bowed quickly in agreement. In truth they feared and hated him but dared do nothing against him; this amused the DarkZiazin highly. There was much to do so he hurried on and of course his followers followed him.

 

PART 2

 

They to the Grisley Diner, a large once luxurious looking diner meant to cater for many travellers using two major highways intersecting close by but now one decorated with skulls, skeletal remains and blood stains. The DarkZiazin entered the diner and wild zhouls fled away before him and his followers, making odd shreiking noises of fear. Radroaches also fled from the newcomers as the same as did other creatures.

 

The DarkZiazin grinned with his version of happiness for this was one of his favourite places to rest, to recreate. He snapped his fingers and a jukebox began to play a goodly 1950s rock and roll number. Ghostly figures of beautiful, seminaked youn waitresses emerged and brought to him fine food and drink, to his followers bigger quantities of not so fine food and drink. With a lukewarm bottle of NukaCola in one gnarled hand, he sat looking out through a stained armaglass window at the broken, mutated green clad landscape revealed to him.

 

There was the jagged throbbing pain, his constant companion, and there were the twisted nightmarish dreams when he managed to sleep, but he was also powerful and proud of what he had done to the world. It amused him and the thought of it now made him laugh briefly a dry cackling sound that caused his followers to wince; this pleased him even more.

 

He took a long swig of NukaCola and felt refreshed.

 

PART 3

 

Unknown to the DarkZiazin, a cluster of pale glowing humanoid figures, squat and elegantly squat, were floating through the air as they followed his trail. The misty Eaters'O'Evil did not think like humans or even as animals but were driven by very alien mentalities and a drive to feed on evil karmic energies. The problem was that with humans, along with other peoples, the results were dehumanised monsters. The Eaters'O'Evil by their very basic nature could not care about this. They had only one purpose of existance and they strove to carry it out.

 

As they moved along, just above the ground, a winding broken road, they reached out seeking other sources of evil around them. Radroaches and such could be savage but were not evil as such. Yet these creatures moved away, as did others, from the Eaters'O'Evil as they sensed something unnatural outside their own forms of existence.

 

The Eaters'O'Evil kept hunting the rich source of deep evil that they were sensing with such subtle strength; they could not do otherwise.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 14, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

38^th

KNIGHT CAPTAIN GALLOWS AT BIGTOWN

THE STRANGENESS OF BIGTOWNERS

 

PART 1

 

Knight Captain Gallows and his two comrades reached Bigtown, trekking along a winding, part lost dirt track through broken shards of hard ground projecting up into the air. They were into a heavy Weirding Zone now and all three were not only used to experiencing fleeting hallucinations, they were getting skilled at dealing with them, of picking them from real experiences. Only trouble was, the real experiences were getting just as worse.

 

In the distance were the jury-rigged walls of Bigtown partly made up of the thick walls of some big smart concrete buildings. The odd sounds of a big radscorpion drifted through the air towards the Brothers of Steel but the creature was hidden from sight.

 

As the three moved closer to Bigtown in their stealth power armour, they felt a subtle but strong psychic influence for them to avoid going there. Knight Captain Gallows himself ignored it and his comrades only followed easily because of his influence. Then they were walking along side and beneath the wall of the strange town as Bigtowner militia with a wide mix of arms and armour, looked down at them with odd expressions of sleepy indifference.

 

There was only one main gateway into Bigtown and it led to a wide bridge across a spiky pit filled partly with muddy water. A guard sat behind a sandbag wall watching the gateway and bridge. He wore security guard gear and had a 5.5mm autorifle. Instead of the typical Bigtowner look of tired indifference, if anything he seemed to be mildly agitated and more than a little fearful.

 

He spoke out with as much commanding presence as he could muster. “I am Senior Guard Dusty Fields. Who are you and do you mean harm to Bigtown or to Bigtowners?”

 

PART 2

 

Knight Captain Gallows stepped forward. “We mean no harm to either Bigtown or to Bigtowners. May we enter, Dusty? I am Knight Captain Gallows.”

 

At that moment a sentrybot came into view with twin 20mm autoguns but it did nothing.

 

Dusty responded. “Love your name. Has a real ring of confidence to it. Yeh, why not? But there isn’t much too Bigtown. Come right in.”

 

The three crossed the wide footbridge and noted that it swayed slightly as they did so. On the other side was a big, long clearing with a mixture of clear dirt and light green grass. Two lines of houses, often altered, faced onto it. People were there but most just sat or stood with looks of sleepy indifference as if barely aware of what was going on around them or slept on mattresses in covered porches.

 

So there were two kinds of Bigtowners in general. Those who were more active, response and those who were less active, responsive. The former seemed to be very much the minority and the latter to be easily the majority.

 

In the distance, at the back of the long, wide clearing with a crumbling road running down it, was a big dull black and grey metallic building, low and hulking. A soft humming noise was coming from it. No humans were near it.

 

A crude sign post with wooden signs pointing in various directions announced in quasiEnglish, English and Esperanto various places like Red’s Clinic, Town Hall, Community House #1, Community House #2, Mayor’s Office and a few others. A man was painting the sign, was white washing its pole. He was doing so in a kind of desperation as if trying to focus his mind away from certain other thoughts.

 

PART 3

 

Knight Captain Gallows took his helmet off and smiled reassuringly at Dusty, or at least he tried to do so for he was not very good at such things. “The Sisterhood of Pathfinders spoke to me of this place.”

 

Dusty grimaced. “Yeh, its weird alright. So is where we come from, that is the Lamplight Caverns in the Lamplight Mountain. Some of us come from Little Lamplight. We Clearminds, we few lived in Little Lamplight. Fogmind children lived around us in the Sleepy Caverns. That was okay. That was better than this where we all end up living together. Back in Little Lamplight we Clearminds sometimes woke up a Fogmind and they became a Clearmind, well sort of. Look at those militia up on the wall. They have guns but the guns are broken and have no ammo in them. Fogminds wouldn’t use the guns even if the guns were fixed and had bullets in them. Those up there are tricks to keep the bandits away but those super-mutants, they know about Fogminds and Clearminds. They come and take Fogminds away and the Fogminds don’t struggle. Our robots here shut down when the super-mutants come and so far we have failed to reprogram them to fight the big uglies.”

 

Dusty shrugged. “Sometimes I can remember more and sometimes less. Before me was another Dusty and before him another Dusty. As babies we came into Little Lamplight down a big warm plastic chute. The bigger Clearmind children looked after us and when we got older, we did the same, but we had androids and robots who helped us and our pet dogs. Pups sometimes slide down the chute and kittens also. The cats eat the mice and rats. The dogs leave the cats alone. Clearmind children care for Fogmind children until they are old enough to use the dispensers, the toilets, the bathing pools and the other facilities. The robots and androids look after them. We Clearmind like to play. Sometimes Fogmind children join simple games.”

 

He shook his head. “For some reason having you here clears my mind. There is a big tall statue of President James Patriot Jackson standing in the big Entrance Lobby Cavern to the Lamplight Caverns. I do not like that statue.”

 

PART 4

 

Then Dusty fell quiet. He turned around, walked over to a small metal hut behind his sandbagged emplacement and lay down on a basic bunk. Soon he was sleeping soundly.

 

Knight Captain Gallows spoke to the other Brothers of Steel. “We will need to stay here and learn what we can of what seems to be a rather bizarre and evil situation.”

 

He sensed the two scouts were not keen on the idea, there was a profoundly disturbing feel about Bigtown, but they would do so out of duty and loyalty to both to him and to the Brotherhood of Steel. They set out to map the settlement, to note down the number and identities of the clearminds, to count the robots and turrets. They had a look at a robot but the programming was heavily secured against tampering and was linked with self destruction devices in the robots. They found a main, relatively secure place place to base their operations at but also a few fall back spots. They fixed up a couple of broken guns for the Clearminds. Knight Captain Gallows tended a sick young man and, with Red's help, fixed the patient.

 

They were waiting for the super-mutants. They might have sent the Clearminds to safety but the Clearminds were helpless to leave the settlement, as helpless as the Fogminds.

 

PART 5

 

Knight Captain Gallows flew awake, rolled off the ground and slipped on the helmet of his stealth power armour. Outside of the old house the Bigtowners had given over for the three to live in, was some kind of battle taking place. There came loud inhuman shouts and war cries that he was only too familiar with.

 

Super-mutants!

 

His comrades had been outside and he tried to com them but they did not answer him. He had a bad feeling as he moved quickly to a window and peeked through a small gap in the filthy curtains to examine a scene of horror in the dimness night with a full moon showing. Massemoths, the big super-mutants, were thundering around the place and one massive behemoth was with them holding a great 40mm autogun. Smaller but still big biggemoths were fairly common but most common were the more human sized mutantors. All were ugly, all were hairless, all had metallic body-armour and weapons but not all had guns.

 

Clearmind Bigtowners were running and hiding, some firing off shots that really did no hurt to the invaders. Fogmind Bigtowners did not resist in any fashion or even protest as they were rounded up.

 

Then a tall, angular super-mutant, as tall as a massemoth but as thin as a human, came striding into view in his metallic robes. He held a great staff of metallic sheen. This was a most unique form of super-mutant that radiated psyker power, a form of psychic abilities achieved through varieties of mutagenic influence and-or the FEVs. It was clear that he was directing operations.

 

Somehow he knew that his two comrades were safe, sensing it as he was an 'arising' Guardian with special abilities. The Clearmind Bigtowners had also gone into hiding now and the super-mutants seemed to be ignoring them.

 

Feeling frustrated and angry, realising now fully what he had suspected, that the Fogmind Bigtowners were due to be turned into super-mutants, he hid away and observed. Even if he attacked as the Master Guardian his powers were not fully emerged yet and the tall angular super-mutant would most likely defeat him.

 

But he had a plan and that could lead to saving many Bigtowners.

 

PART 6

 

Knight Captain Gallows and his two comrades followed the loud, aggressive movement of super-mutants through the DC Wastelands, through the Weirding Zone but following a route that seemed to be less ‘weird’. He soon figured that the super-mutants were making noise to frighten off anything that might wish otherwise to attack them as such a huge, thundering group would find it difficult to be sneaky.

 

On the other hand, he and his comrades were doing the opposite in their stealth power armour. They moved as quietly and while leaving as few traces of their passing as was possible. Their stealth shields held steady despite Weirding Zones having a strong reputation for disrupting such technologies.

 

For a long while the landscape looked much like any DC Wastelands area as it had all the way to Bigtown. That is ‘normal’ except for things seeming to shift, to vanish, to appear sometimes in the distance. Sometimes there were odd smells, sounds, flashes of sight of things but they would come and go quickly as would other impressions.

 

Then matters became weirder. The grounds around the road became more broken and increasing covered with bright purple growth of thorny pods, great ugly flowers, leaves and horizontal vines. The fragrance was stinging sharp and somehow disturbing. In the distance ahead the super-mutants avoided going near it, staying noticeably away from the edges of the road.

 

Then, in the distance, the first purple bushes appeared and then trees, clumping more and more, becoming thicker and higher, as they grew. Blood red flowers began to appear disturbingly like splashes of spilt blood across the purple madness. The fragrance had become a stench of almost overwhelming nature.

 

The three Brothers of Steel staid firmly away from the purple growth.

 

PART 7

 

By the time the three saw the huge hulking metallic concrete fortress, or at least part of it that was exposed by a chunk blown out of the side of Lamplight Mountain, the Purple Jungle was thick around them. Strangely twisted creatures, hairless and boneskinned, sometimes darted into sight and then away again. Their ancestors could be discerned with some such as squirrels, house cats, dogs, bears and a variety of birds but with others it was impossible to see what they might have been. They were also savage looking, emanating a sense of danger.

 

And then something big, tall and angular stepped out to the very edge of the roadway and the bizarre jungle. The one was wrapped in purple robes of woven leaves and her head was wrapped in a crown of blood red flowers. She had dark purple hair, light purple skin and slanted black eyes too much like those of the Greytorv for comfort.

 

At first she stood staring after the super-mutants with her face grimacing in anger and then she turned and stared at the three humans. Her voice was strange, echoing and unpleasant but she spoke fluent Esperanto as they three did.

 

“Your puny attempts of concealment do not fool me. You follow the MutantLord and his latest harvest from Bigtown in a way that does not suggest you are his friends. I sense power in one of you, the leader, suggesting that you are a Guardian.”

 

Knight Captain Gallows deactivated his stealth field and so did his comrades. He kept his weapon aimed at the ground but was ready to use it though he doubted this one was by herself. “I have heard of whispers of the Purple Jungle, terrible stories from those who survived. I suppose you come from the FEVs, the mutagenic technologies.”

 

“Then you suppose wrong. The Purple Jungle comes from another world and is one of the source resources for the FEVs, for the mutagenic gels and other tricky tricks of foolhardy humans.” Her black slanted eyes glistened. “We are related to Greytorv and Greynari but we are not of them for we do not seek conquest but only to be left alone. We are peaceful and civilized, a unified mentality of great refinement and enlightenment. Come into the Purple Jungle and we will befriend you.”

 

But Knight Captain Gallows shook his head. “No, I know what you are now. You are the cultivated insanity of the Greynari and Greytorv know as the Greytilivi despite your prominent colour of purple. The DarkZiazin brought you here for some reason or perhaps your coming here has to do with Doomsday in some way.”

 

The tall figure grimaced. “DarkZiazin! He is but a puppet of our true Lord Greyteshuo, that being one common name for his glorious blight of undeath and devouring of the poison that is life. Now it is time for you and your puny human companions to die.”

 

But Knight Captain Gallows reached out, gripped each comrade by a shoulder, and they vanished with a sparkling shimmer.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 14, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

39^th

THE YOUNG THIRTEEN

 

 

OF THE YOUNG THIRTEEN, TWINS IN THE PATRIOT REPUBLIC

 

PART 1

 

Ivan and Boris, male sixteen year old twins, watched as the public double-decker bus pulled away from the bus-stop with out them. It was, as always, full to almost overflowing with passengers as its biofuel fuelled internal combustion engine roared away. Corruption was normal to the Patriot Republic sprawling across about half of the great Central Patriot Island that was quite large. In theory the Patriot Public Transit Agency ran over a thousand buses, at least it was paid to do so, but it ran about six hundred, many in bad need of replacing, and corrupt officials took the much of the money.

 

Biofuel engines ran everything from the common Patriot Republic Motors Corporation, PRMC, Beetlecars, squat and inefficient, to the hulking slabtrucks that carried biopods from the plantations to the biofuel processing plants. Biopod biofuel burned efficiently and gave out reasonably healthy exhaust but it smelled strange. The twins grimaced slightly as they stood in their basic countryside tunics as cityfolk gave them looks of disdain or contempt out of habit.

 

Patriot City was the capital city of five million people and it was the only city of the Patriot Republic. Much of it was still underground in a great network of bunkerplexes linked by a limited underground monorail and road network. On the surface many buildings had been constructed but mostly from prefabricated modular sections stored away before Doomsday. New buildings were fairly common but most of those were poorly planned and built.

 

PART 2

 

The twins stepped over a grating and started walking along a flagstone footpath needing maintenance. They were not in the city by accident, of course. Their family was fairly wealthy by Countrysider standards, owning three big plantations and some other properties. Now the twins were being sent to be schooled by tutors in various subjects not available in the North-Eastern Central Patriot Island. They clutched black leather school shoulder-satchels and had compact backpacks. They were like many students who came to the city for private tutoring in higher education because the Patriot Republic Collages, University and Academy would never let them attend.

 

A postaltron trundled towards them on squat legs, the protectron style robot carrying an armoured box full of mail. It headed to go past Boris and Ivan, as would be normal, but then it halted and turned to face them. It spoke fluently in the language called Esperanto. “Boris and Ivan! Welcome to Patriot City.”

 

Boris and Ivan had reprogrammed the ailing postaltron network-system and were cheated by the Patriot Republic Robotic Corporation but this was expected. The real reason for the reprogramming was what they were doing now, that they had done before and would do again.

 

Boris smiled. “Thank you, PT-098-OUI, where are you going with your mail delivery?”

 

In theory the postaltrons only served special government and quasigovernment corporate customers, along with a few privileged others. Commoners, non Patriot Party members, had to put up with human or chimpnoid postal delivery workers. Also in theory the postaltron should have ignored the twins but instead it assumed that they had authority to give it a wide variety of commands. So it answered. “I am taking a mail delivery to 34A Glorious Patriotic Avenue of Heroes. The address has a secret official designation of the Patriot Police Security Substation Three. I apologise but I must now continue on my way.”

 

With the rebel networks, especially the Unified Freedom Party and its military wing, the Unified Freedom Force, growing in power, size and sophistication, the Patriot Republic Government had been forced to become more clever. They moved their security substations, outposts and safe-houses around but then were stupid enough to list their addresses with the postaltrons.

 

The postaltron was soon marching along and the twins looked to each other with mild grins. The twins followed at a distance in a fashion that suggested that were naïve young visitors from the country who did not know better than to move along with out an escort. It was not long, as hoped for, that they were being followed by a trio of over confident, overly aggressive thugs. Ivan and Boris gave each other a mild grin.

 

 

OF THE YOUNG THIRTEEN, TWINS IN MEGATON

 

PART 1

 

Sheriff Lucas Simms smelt something wrong even as he opened the door to the metal, stone and plastic box that was the outer part of the Megaton Jail. The three cells, alcoves with bars, were dug out of the rock of the side of Megaton Crater. He smelt the familiar stink of spilt blood, of burned flesh and mixed with them smells that were new to him. There had never been trouble in the Megaton Jail before, at least not serious trouble. Because of that the damned Megaton Town Council, especially under the rule of the former mayor, had refused to fund a much needed upgrading of the jail facility.

 

Sensing danger and thinking better of going in alone, he took out a simple metal whistle and blew on it. Others, not actual law enforcers but citizens, took out whistles and also blew them in the same way. There were basic codes for invasion, infestation, fire and other threats but he used the one for exotic threat.

 

Two armoured and armed deputies arrived with 5.5mm autorifles. Then they followed the sheriff into the outer chamber, part lobby and part office divided by a big long wooden service counter. Electromechanical typewriters with swivel-3Dflatscreens, computer terminals, both being on desks, wall racks with weapons and three people lying semiconscious on the floor. One was Deputy Receptionist Darlene, the title meaning she was a back-up deputy and the receptionist, Deputy Danno the chimpnoid and Gregory Gasper, a troubled troublesome man always reporting innocent people as being dangerous mutants or spies or murderers.

 

What had knocked the three out, he was not sure. Sheriff Lucas Simms had both powerful revolver-pistols out as he walked around the end of the counter through the gap meant just for that purpose. The chimpnoid checked Gregory Gasper and found him alive but oddly stunned. The same was true for the others.

 

Nothing much was disturbed in that chamber but some lighter stuff thrown around such as sheets of paper, a couple of empty mugs and such like. But the hallway that went into the cell lobby, the chamber carved out of rock in which the alcoves of the cells were also dug, was blackened. An oil painting and its wooden frame was reduced to half burned rubbish smashed all over the floor.

 

The cell lobby itself, which had once held a bunk, a desk, two doors and other items, was a burned bare black chamber of still very warm rock. The cell bars and doors were buckled, smashed and partly melted. They were also blackened bones indicating where Deputy Wesley, a drunk called Harold Hat and Wesley’s pet dog and the former mayor had all died almost instantly. The bars to the vent shaft were also burned and buckled.

 

The smells were not like those left behind by a normal bomb. Any evidence of what had happened had most likely been burned away or vaporised by the blast. Lucas cursed for surviving in the DC Wastelands was bad enough with out dealing with this sort of thing.

 

PART 2

 

Tomkie, Tamnie and the neobaby Tumnie (as held by Tomkie) entered the blackened chamber with Lucy West, an attractive young woman who had grown up in the settlement of Arefu. She had left Arefu to seek adventure but had become bogged down in Megaton. She reached out and took up the neobaby into her arms, Tumnie smiling and sucking on one of his thumbs.

 

It was an open secret that the twins had special abilities. A few knew they could renew-duplicate small amounts of items but only about once every second or third day, depending on various factors. Doctor Church had upgraded his surgery thanks to this, the Sheriff’s Office was better equipped, the Town Council had some new robotypers, there was a fair sized holoprojector theatre now and other advantages had been gained.

 

Colin Moriarty had approached the twins thinking he could swindle them with his charm into getting into a deal that would profit mostly himself but the twins had sent him away with a few stinging words; then the sheriff had warned Moriarty if he tried it again his body would be found hanging from the outer wall for the buzzards to feed on.

 

They soon found that the DarkZiazin was involved in the death of the former mayor. The explosion was caused partly by some exotic biochemicals but also by pyrokinetics, a form of psychic power based in the element of friction, heat and fire. It had taken trouble and energy to instigate the powerful blast. Clearly the DarkZiazin had considered that the former mayor knew too much to be allowed to live.

 

The spirits of the dead had moved on, to the ‘other side’, except that of the former mayor who was standing in a corner of his former cell looking lost and forlorn.

 

Tomkie turned to the ghost and talked. “Perhaps if you tell me where the stolen stuff is, you will find peace and you will move on.”

 

The ghost turned and frowned at him. He was a translucent version of his fat self in a cheap business suit. He threw no shadow.. “The DarkZiazin betrayed me but mostly I betrayed myself with my own damned stupidity and greed. The DarkZiazin has been preparing a big terrible plan for decades now, a plan that will endanger the DC and beyond. All I know is that there is something called the DarkSeeding and something else called the DarkPact. The whole Hordra invasion was done partly to test DC Wastelands defences and to carry out a series of hidden operations, projects, concealed by the invasion. I do not know what they were. The Hordra that invaded are not the real Hordra.”

 

“Below the Mayor’s House is the basement shelter. Open the big cast-iron locker, open a secret panel at its back, go down a sloping tunnel and there you will find what you want. There is a security turret in the main chamber. I can tell you no more. At least the Light has given me a chance now to partly redeem myself.” Then the ghost vanished.[/color]

 

OF THE YOUNG THIRTEEN, THE TWINS IN RAVEN ROCK

 

PART 1

 

The twins looked out over the DC Wastelands through a cleverly concealed periscope, taking turns to view a distant small settlement that was peacefully surviving at the moment. They were alone in the viewing room given over to them by their parents so they could better understand the savagery and strangeness of what the DC had become.

 

Their parents had always been loyal followers of the EagleEnclave. They believed what they were told to believe, did what they were told to do and questioned nothing. Or at least that is how it used to be. The EagleEnclave was officially, theoretically, a part of the Enclaven, the Predoomsday World Government, but contact had been lost on Doomsday and had never resumed.

 

The twins watched some molerats moving quickly as possible across the landscape, seeking small creatures, muttfruit clumps and other things to eat. They were ugly beautiful. Some birds flew high in the sky, some circling while seeking prey, others flying in ‘V’ formations as they sought new feeding areas.

 

In the distance three EagleEnclave eyebots drifted through the air broadcasting propaganda from the EagleEnclave leader, one President Eden, including some of his own ‘inspiring speeches’. The twins considered such to be ridiculous such as the promise of returning baseball to North America and called the Brotherhood of Steel a pack of ‘lying thugs’ when most Wastelanders thought just the opposite. It was the EagleEnclave that was largely a pack of lying thugs. They knew very little of President Eden, surprising few people did, even in the EagleEnclave itself.

 

The twins were not happy with the idea of the EagleEnclave getting what they wanted. No, they tended to favour some of the enemies of the EE but were not stupid enough to speak such ideas aloud. The surprise was that their parents and many other Enclavers were starting to question the ethics, politics and goals of the EagleEnclave, especially those of President Eden and the EagleEnclave Central Council.

 

The twins kept watching the DC Wastelands.[/left

]

PART 2

 

When the group of DC Wastelanders came striding into view, low level scavengers by the looks of them, they expected that the five men and two women would be allowed to just go past the big fake wreckage and authentic rubble of Raven Rock. What harm could such folk do? They had no means to report anything, not even any means to discover anything. The twins suspected that the group were not even interested in Raven Rock itself. Indeed they were heading at an angle that would take them to one side of it and towards a cluster of crumbled buildings that looked much more promising for loot.

 

So they were both shocked and angry as they watched a group of stealth power armoured figures come seemingly out of nowhere to knock down, to stun the figures, with stunrods. The scavengers tried to fight back, they were tough survivors, but they faced experienced elite soldiers with much better equipment. With amazing equipment the DC Wastelanders were made captive and were each placed onto a hovering MrStretchy, a elongated stretcher version of a MrGutsy or MrHandy. Then the stunned, semiconscious figures were being taken quickly to Raven Rock. The twins doubted that the reason was anything but a bad one. Most likely they would become slave labour or, worse, experimental subjects of some kind.

 

How many others had been abducted from the DC Wastelands? It was a chilling thought.

 

OF THE YOUNG THIRTEEN, TWINS IN CANTERBURY COMMONS

 

PART 1

 

The peoples of Canterbury Commons did not believe the threat at first until the Sisterhood of Compassion showed them the proof that the twins had brought with them on the horse, all the way from the destroyed village. That is a pincer from a giant spitter-ant soldier. They also showed them some 3Dvideo, rushed and jittery as the 3Dcamera operator tried not to get killed while he filmed. A man who had died soon after giving the 3Dvideo datadisk to AshlyJo.

 

The twin teens first revealed their hopes that a few settlers had survived in the settlement by going into a heavily armoured bunker of five chambers and five storage closets that they had designed and help build. The fear was that the bunker had just been completed and had not been fully equipped or supplied or tested.

 

Mayor ‘Uncle’ Roe was a self made man who believed strongly in smart expenditure, a nice profit and a good balanced budget. He was not happy about parting with resources to make up a relief party to go to the destroyed settlement. Yet under growing pressures by the few VIPs in Canterbury Commons and by merchant-traders of the Canterbury Commons Trading Corporation, he did begin the making of such a party. Generously he suggested a dozen well armed Canterbury Commons Guards on horses with a couple of spare saddle-horses and a couple of packhorses. Reluctantly he changed that to four battlebuggies, a battletruck with supplies and two out-riders on motorbikes. A doctor, a nurse and two medics would go with them along with a medical android.

 

PART 2

 

There was no trouble for the expedition and they found that half the settlers had survived in the five chambered bunker. They had come out hours after the spitter-ants were gone to bury the remains of the dead settlers, to find what resources they could which was a surprisingly large deal for the spitter-ants were not interested in much that humans used. Canned food, drink and water remained along with medical supplies, weapons and ammo, tools and much else.

 

But the settlers no longer wished to risk being there and were offered a place to live in Canterbury Commons which was planning to expand by creating a new walled off area in the ruins of the Predoomsday Canterbury City. The settlers began to make preparations to move to Canterbury Commons.

 

Scouts were sent out from Canterbury Commons to seek signs of giant spitter-ants and at first there were no real signs except a surprising lack of big predator beasties and some odd damage found to mutated plants.

 

Then a scouting party vanished with out trace.

 

PART 3

 

The twins AshlyJo and MaryJo were going to leave Canterbury Commons and go to Megaton. Of course the others would go with them. The twins crouched in their tent, that would soon be going to the first on a long waiting list. They touched a box of damaged devices that would otherwise have been very useful. It was a fairly big box. There was a sparkling shimmer and now the box was full of new repaired goods. Even the box was newish. But there was also a second, identical box now full of identical stuff.

 

Sister Compassionate Trela smiled richly at the two boxes. “One for your journey to Megaton and one for this camp. Of course it would be good if you allowed others in the travelling party to use these goods if they need to.”

 

AshlyJo took a teddy-bear out of the box to be theirs and gave it to BabyJo who grabbed it in both chubby muscular arms to herself. She spoke even as she picked up both the neobaby and the teddy. “Did they find the missing scouts?”

 

“No! That is not except some dead, half devoured horses and some escaped horses they managed to find along with some stuff like weapons, tools and . Those and a wounded tracking dog along with some odd tracks unlike anything ever seen before. Human but not human. Antlike but not of ants.” Sister Compassionate Trela squatted and carefully picked up the other box with surprising ease for it was quite heavy. “How did you come to be with those settlers?”

 

AshlyJo shrugged. “They found us. Most of them never really accepted us. They are Ormons, you know, of the Ormonic Faith. Something like the Mormons but with some extreme beliefs and customs. Some did accept us more. The old couple who adopted us had lost their one and only child. They doted on us but they had us working hard for them. I suppose they feared being left alone to face life as old folks. The Ormonic Faith states that old folk with out living relations are to be left to their own struggles. People would secretly help them as much as possible but not the damned Ormonic Priest and Priestess, married as brother and sister to the most Sacred Spirit of Purity.”

 

Trela frowned. “Yes, I was going to tell you. The spitter-ants killed them, took them off as food. The Ormonic Priest and Priestess would not let them into the bunker or others that they denounced as impure for some reason that makes no sense. A fair few managed to force their way into safety and the priest was bashed to death. The priestess is here in Canterbury Commons at the small Ormonic Temple for there is a small minority of Reformist Ormons here and even less Orthodox Ormons. She has been trying to denounce the settlers who killer her husband-brother.”

 

“We sensed their deaths.” MaryJo shook her head. “There was a very strange baby in the settlement. She was fearful of us but she frightened many of the settlers. She especially frightened the priest and priestess. She had a way with ants. The ants would move over her body and bring her sugar, almost as if bringing her tributes. The baby ate the sugar. Her mother was quite insane. The father’s identity was a mystery except it was linked to a horrific case of rape by a man with pale skin and a hooded robe, a man of dark power. The damned Ormons forced the woman to give birth to the baby girl. The baby did bond a little with her mother.”

 

“Yes, the mother is still alive. The giant ants ignored her during their attack on the settlement. One worker ant even picked her up and put her down again to move her out of the way, the mother all being curled up tight.” Trela frowned softly. “I will take this box of goodies to where it is needed. You must talk now to Sister Director Annisale who runs this outpost.”

 

PART 4

 

AshlyJo shook her head. “You are not what you pretend to be. Sister Director Annisale pretends to be your superior in your curious ways of ranking but she defers to you. Sisterhood of Compassion and Brotherhood of Protection, you are here in Canterbury Commons to do more than help people though you do that very well. Is it to do with the DarkZiazin that raped that poor woman so that she would give birth to a baby girl who dominated ants or even giant ants? One day some ants accidentally annoyed her. She made them destroy each other in savage fighting. Animals did not like to be near her. BabyJo would just stare at her and hold her hand. The odd little baby girl liked the neobaby. She behaved herself with us and would not make those small but monstrous predator-ants attack people or animals with venomous pincers or those spider-ants tangle people or animals in sticky, toxic webbing.”

 

MaryJo nodded. “The DarkZiazin was President James Patriot Jackson or at least one aspect of that poor insane monster. Your Orders are linked to the Order of the Way, the Sister Pathfinders and the Order of Metaphysics. In turn this leads to the Union of the Subways and the mysterious supporter who also supports the DCCoOp. You all work subtle, careful but you all seek the DarkZiazin and answers to Doomsday.”

 

Trela shook her head in wonder. “Who are you really?”

 

AshlyJo sighed. “Of the Thirteen we are but two. As six year olds we first emerged on this world. We two are here. Two are in Megaton. Two are in Raven Rock. Two are in VirtualVault-0112. Two are in LifeVault-0101. Two are in the Patriot Republic. All have followers. All have secondaries. There are others. The Thirteenth is special. That one we will not talk of. That is all we will say for now. We must go to Megaton. You have been hindering our departure. Perhaps now that you know more of us, you will not do so.”

 

The Sister Compassionate frowned. “Believe it or not but this is the DC Wastelands. No, we have not been hindering you. A promise was made but resources are scarce even with the help of a living god, one of the Ancients. He is GreyMaharg, our patron or benefactor, but even he has limits.”

 

MaryJo and AshlyJo looked into each other’s eyes for a moment and then back to Sister Compassionate Trela. “We have worded our statement wrong. We meant that somebody in your Sisterhood of Compassion, at least one, is hindering us. We can sense at least one strong mind full of ill intent towards us. She is not far from here. If you go to her now, you will find her trying to do something to the food supplies for the expedition to Megaton. We mean Sister Director Annisale herself, of course. She has been seduced by the DarkSeducer, a particular avatar or aspect of the DarkZiazin who can be a woman or man to seduce either women or men in the four ways available.”

 

Trela looked both angry and disturbed. “I hope you are mistaken but things have been going wrong in the outpost for the last month or so since Annisale returned from a diplomatic expedition to Ormonica.”

 

Ormonica was the so called HolyVault of the Ormons that was LifeVault-0105 that was actually below a big secondary river of the DC Wastelands, the Patriot River. Before Doomsday the vault was not below the river floor and after Doomsday, it was below the river floor. Flooding was an on going threat to LifeVault-0105 but so far the Ormons had dealt with the problem surprisingly well.

 

Trela hurried out of there.

 

Annisale was caught trying to poison a large sack of instant milk powder. She was dealt with firmly but compassionately for now it became only too clear that her mind was under dark and subtle influences. She had been seduced and worse.

 

OF THE YOUNG THIRTEEN, THE TWINS OF TRANQUILLITY LANE

 

PART 1

 

The red-brown twins, Winona and Chaske, avoided Tranquillity Lane itself, a great loop of a road with suburban houses and other structures on the outside and a big green park filling the inside of the loop. They sixteen year old female and male wore grey and brown splashworked survival fatigues, black boots and other gear they had created using cheat codes and other trickery in the super virtual reality that they existed in. They were different from others in that false but very convincing reality for they had full freedom and the monster controlling it was not aware that they existed. Others had gained varied amounts of awareness of the truth and freedom to act but most of the people did not even know they were in a SVR scenario; they assumed it was real life.

 

The twins skirted the main focus of the PlayMaster’s and crept through dark, dank, overgrown forest that covered a about a tenth of Tranquillity Town. Strange, often horrible noises drifted through the thick undergrowth. Thankfully most of the horrible noises were illusions and nothing made them but the super virtual reality program itself. They went past skeletal remains of a twisted creature of some kind, the rusty remains of a children’s tricycle and then halted to look at a three storey building ahead. It was red bricked and stained with blood down one wall.

 

Nobody really did truly or permanently die in Tranquillity Town or in any of the PlayMaster’s other SRV-Zones but they most often died painfully and often lived that way. The PlayMaster was in truth one Professor Stanislaus Braun, an insane genius who once served the desires and needs of the huge TekCorps based in the USA of President James Patriot Jackson, President for Life. Braun helped greatly in the development of the much vaunted super virtual reality network-system that was going to improve the lives of all United States and even United Republics citizens or so went the propaganda. It never happened; instead Doomsday came along first.

 

Braun helped to design, to develop, the VirtualVaults of which an unknown number were completed in the USA and perhaps in other lands. As a reward he got to have VirtualVault-0112 as his own playground. President James Patriot Jackson himself gave Braun the keycode to the vault. Of the two men it was harder to say who was the more criminally insane.

 

PART 2

 

The twins crept closer in the red brick building and watched two drunken, over muscular brutes smashing at each other in blind rage. They were slowly beating each other to death, these two men who had once been very close friends. The PlayMaster made sure that they always came back to hunt each other down, driven to kill each other. If one survived he would restlessly wait until the other returned to life and the whole thing would start again.

 

The PlayMaster had tired of that game, was busy tormenting the women of Tranquillity Lane with the rampage of a serial killer who the police could not seem to be able to catch, who tormented his victims in many ways before he killed them.

 

The twins were not the only ones trying to put an end to Braun’s insanity and the suffering of his victims but only the twins could really do anything about it for the moment. The brick building was not really a brick building at all. It had windows but no doors and the windows had thick shutters that were fake because they were actually part of the false brick walls. In virtual reality, or cyberspace, terms it was an important secondary data networking hub but it was the same in normal reality terms though it appeared differently there, of course.

 

PART 3

 

They turned their attention briefly back to the battling pair, bruised, bleeding and weeping with pain even as they kept battering away at each other. Winona took out the odd looking Eo211 device like a box fused to the end of a semiautomatic pistol barrel with glassy fins projecting out of either side. The timing had to be exact and for that the twins had to use their special senses. Her brother Chaske took out an almost identical looking device. Each took aim at a different man now punching slowly but heavily at each other.

 

At the moment of mutual death, the twins fired pale pulsating pencil thin beams at the men that were barely visible. The two men fell and, as was normal in Tranquillity Town, a moment after death the two bodies shimmered and vanished.

 

But these two men would not return. In a SVR-capsule chamber, one of hundreds in VirtualVault-0112, a brainbot supervised two specialised robots carefully bring two sleepy, now pleased men out of the terrible prison that had held them for too long. The two men were Mozi now, changed, enhanced, and devoted to a new cause. In VirtualVault-0112 they had found some odd allies to assist them.

 

The twins now focused on getting into the brick building that was not really a brick building at all.

 

OF THE YOUNG THIRTEEN, THE TWINS IN LIFEVAULT-0101

 

PART 1

 

Aarie and Aaron projected themselves into another part of the vault through their secondaries. With the assistance of the neobaby, Appie, they projected just one phantomic figure both invisible and able to move through solid objects with ease, generally speaking. They called the phantomic projection Aaphant.

 

The five Vault Dwellers had been suddenly slaughtered with shocking suddeness and amazing savagery. Something had ripped through a vent shaft grating, had leapt from high onto the caretakers on their way to fixing up some minor damages, and in seconds had killed them. Then it had eaten large parts of the five bodies in a seemingly random fashion except it left all of the heads alone. Two women and three men had thus perished.

 

The big hallway was full of the death scene plus police officers, robots and androids. Class-B Constables were always specially programmed vaultdroid androids, either vaultgirls or vaultboys. 3Dvids were being taken under special lighting. Sensor readings were being made along with laser measurments and more traditional forensics. The only mass media there was Vaultgov supplied and tightly controlled.

 

PART 2

 

Aaphant moved right up to where the High Overseer was observing the whole scene with an intense expression on his face but he was not alone. Security Intelligence Adviser Lucy Lohan was next to him, attractive mature blonde, eurowhite with green eyes and in a dark, dull pink jumsuit. She was a Commoner, as was the High Overseer, and it was said her influence was one of the reason he had reached his position of power.

 

She spoke then with a poorly disguised undertone of fear. "The Elitor Conspiracy is real but does not involve all Elitors and it is linked to the strange sightings, the disappearance and now these new attacks, all of them close to the Elitor Boundaries. Somebody in the Elitor ranks has begun to feed us valuable data indicating that the problem is linked with long term secret experiments carried out in the Elite Zone that all seem to be linked somehow to each other and to genetic engineering of some kind. At least some of the experiments have gone out of control and the Elite Elders have tried to have them closed down. Problem is that rogue scientists, Elitors, have continued on with the madness."

 

High Elder Alphonse Almodovar frowned hard. "It is time that we put an end to the Elite, that we forced them to blend with the Commons so that the distinction ends and the Elite Zone is opened up with all of its torrid secrets. I take it that what ever did this was some sort of genned beast either transformed from another creature or made from baseline genetic materials."

 

Lucy Lohan grinned mildly. "It could have been one of the young Elitor adults experimented upon. I will activate the first phase of Project Equalibrium. We will start rounding up Elitor spies and traitors amongst Commoner high ranks."

 

Alphonse nodded. "Very good but I want the areas around the Elite Zone to be quarantined, cordoned off. There is also the question of the UMZs. We will begin full operations, first stages, on those also. We can be no better prepared than we are now. There is way for us to collect more data on the Elite Zone or the UMZs."

 

But the Aaphant spoke in a disguised voice, quiet but clear enough for both to hear. "We will make a deal. I will find out more data on the Elite Zone if you tell me what you already know. You may ask me questions."

 

Both turned and the security officer went to take her autopistol out but the High Overseer stopped her with a hand signal. Then he spoke. "The DarkZiazin, what do you know of the DarkZiazin?"

 

"Was President James Patriot Jackson but in truth was of the Ancients, the beings also known as the living-goddesses and living-gods. The DarkZiazin was a rare thing, a criminal living-god but far from a petty criminal. He was a malignant monster intent on seeking the power not of a living-god but of a true god, perhaps of God himself though that is impossible. Yet he was also misled, seduced, by a more powerful, more ancient and far more alien force than himself." Aaphant responded. "That is why President James Patriot Jackson came so very close to taking over the world despite being faced by two other great super powers and some other great obstacles. Not all is what it seems. We Ancients deal in levels of technology that you mortals can easily perceive of as magical. No, Lucy Lohan, I am not a human in a very well designed stealth power armour suit."

 

The High Overseer frowned some more. "Sounds bizarre but somehow rings true, considering what I know of history. We will carry out preliminary stages of our program which will give you leeway to do some.. what ever it is you are going to do."

 

Aaphant spoke. "What do you mean by UMZs?"

 

Lohan spoke then. "Unmapped Zones! It appears that LifeVault-0101 is bigger than it officially stated as being on our charts."

 

Aaphant suddenly felt his-her energy slipping away. "I must go now. I will report to one of you soon."

 

Alphonse spoke. "Report directly to me. I suspect that it will be you who will find me."

 

Aaphant slipped away, returning to the twins. Even as she-he did so, Aaphant noted the two humans looking around in wonder even as they tried to do so in a way that was not obvious to others in the area.

 

OF THE YOUNG THIRTEEN, ONE ASPECT OF THE LONE ONE

 

Charlie Jane, alias Calamity Jane, entered the total interactive virtual reality, TIVR, game of Planet Fallout and found herself choosing herself a shapeform as a character, a class and buying with her starting budget some equipment and supplies. Then she set out through the DC Wastelands that had much in common with the one she knew. Except it was more basic, smaller, had no weirding zones, less people and some other differences. In artificial accelerated time, AAT, she escaped from Vault-101, went through the ruins of a city called Springvale, earned herself a big, partly underground, house in Megaton by disarming the atomic bomb at the centre of town and went on a series of side quests to earn various prizes, including a powerful 4x4 armabuggy.

 

Again came the question, how was it that a game produced before Doomsday, itself based on a much older, more primitive version of the computer game, could be so much like the world that existed after Doomsday? Other contradictions, seemingly impossible in nature, were also starting to become apparent to her.

 

OF THE YOUNG THIRTEEN, ANOTHER ASPECT OF THE LONE ONE

 

Lara Cleave and her companions noted the distant appearance of what looked like a primitive blue police box from early Twentieth Century England, a very short time after a man in a floppy hat and a long colourful scarf, plus coat, trousers etc, jumped into it. There was an odd thrumming, humming noise and it was gone. Lara Cleave did not even blink in surprise, so crazy were the things she had observed in that place already.

 

They were leaving the pocket weirding zone after being forced to enter its outskirts again after obstacles forced the group to change course. They tried as much as possible to keep away from the core of the smaller weirding zone even as in the distance dinosaurs roamed in a swampy forest of primitive plants, clouds of glowing mist swirled and billowed and there were distant mountains in view where she knew no such mountains did exist, at least on her world.

 

They kept moving, kept trying to get to where LifeVault-0087 was supposed to be.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

[Maharg67]

40^th

UNCLE LEO AND FAWKES

TRAPPED IN LIFEVAULT-0087

 

PART 1

 

Uncle Leo was surrounded by duper-mutants, the big little ones playing or grumping except for one who was sulking in a pouch against Uncle Leo’s massive behemoth chest. Uncle Leo was gently rubbing the relatively small one’s back with one huge behemoth finger.

 

In the massive metallic cavern of the chamber, far more comfortable a size for Uncle Leo than the last chamber had been, Uncle Leo did not look so big, Fawkes seemed a good deal smaller and the duper-mutants seemed tiny.

 

The chamber was partly filled with great big deactivated machines and with storage bins full of semijunk. Great big pipes ran along one wall, gurgling softly as water flowed through them.

 

At this end were the big loosely organised living quarters of the sensible-mutants, who still lived there but who were all off working. The quarters now were also used by Fawkes, Uncle Leo and the Dupers.

 

Fawkes was going through one of the bins. He had already rigged up a surprisingly good workshop area and had put together a number of useful devices. The workshop was carefully caged and otherwise sealed off from the duper-mutants.

 

The sensible-mutants brought basic supplies that they were rationed with and messages from RageDo to the Home Chamber. The sensible-mutants had keys to the big metallic cavern of a chamber and both Fawkes and Uncle Leo had copies but beyond the chamber were more locked doors along with check-points and patrols of super-mutants.

 

PART 2

 

Uncle Leo turned off the Ebook-reader he had been focusing on, a rectangular slab with a 3Dflatscreen and flat controls one the upper side. Then he called to Fawkes with a voice that easily carried to the smaller but still huge super-mutant. “I sense that somebody powerful and special of nature is coming to take us out of here. She comes, with companions, and will bring others with us. Yet others are also coming here from within this mighty LifeVault.”

 

Fawkes drew out a barrel from the big metal storage bin he was investigating. Nodded as if it was what he wanted and turned to look at Uncle Leo. “I heard gunfire last night. Did you pick up anything. It was muffled by barriers and distance.”

 

Uncle Leo nodded. “RageDo and the Dark0ne are becoming enemies. The Dark0ne has betrayed RageDo somehow, perhaps in more than one way. What can RageDo but gather his resources, take firm control of his territories and prepare his forces for trouble. In his own way, RageDo cares for his soldiers, even leads them into battle if he wants to inspire them or he has to. His super-mutants all come from this vault, it seems, from a series of horrific experiments and prototype mutagenic processes. RageDo is angry because the flow of humans to convert into super-mutants, or zentaurs, has dried up and his supplies of both special FEV and super-mutagenic gel have both nearly come to a finish.”

 

The massemoth scowled. “LifeVault-0087 was supposedly designed to support human life until the time came for humanity to return to the surface and reclaim the world, or at least the old part of it. How did the super-mutant experiments end up being held here.”

 

A couple of duper-mutants began clambering tiredly up his front and in turn he lifted each one to his pouch where, once settled in, they fell to sleep. The former sulky duper-mutant was now sleeping peacefully, his sulks forgotten.

 

Uncle Leo responded calmly to Fawkes. “You are still angry inside about how you were transmutagened against your will and who can blame you for it but if you accept, you will be more at peace with yourself. Not all of the LifeVaults were actually meant to be LifeVaults despite their official designations as such though many were. LifeVault-0087 was secretly meant to be an experimental set-up with the poor Vault Dwellers, the normal ones, meant to be experimental fodder. In other words they were considered expendable. They did not agree with this idea, for understandable reasons, which is why much of LifeVault-0087 is now under the control of humans. I used to assume that I knew the size and layout of this vault but since we came down here, to an area I previously did not know existed, I have had to change my mind.”

 

Fawkes nodded. “I am angry because I was one of the fools who helped carry out the experiments. A clever, bright but lowly biotech I suspected the truth but out of fear, pride and greed I closed my eyes to the horrors. I did not help those who became victims and when ‘they’ came for me, there was nobody to help me. Before me, they took my dear, beautiful wife. What became of her, I do not know and really, I fear the worst for what else would they have done with her but turn her into a super-mutant or a zentaur if she did not die during the process. I worked for that damned Professor Leo Richardson and did not confront him until it was too late. A twisted genius, that one, but not as twisted as the president himself was. He should have been transmutagened.”

 

Uncle Leo sighed. “I was! I turned against President James Patriot Jackson. Even I realised the insanity of what the Mad President was doing. It was too late. As punishment the other rebels and myself were turned into super-mutants or zentaurs or died in the process. Uncle Leo is Professor Leo Richardson, or at least was so. I have been forced to change my ways.”

 

Fawkes growled. “We were both fools but how did we stay smart when most super-mutants are so stupid?”

 

Uncle Leo sighed again. “A special experimental batch of the FEV and super-mutagenic gel were used on us and five others. One was RageDo. Only a relatively small amount was made of both the special FEV and gel. I do not know if any of it is left at all or where it is.”

 

The two just stared at each other in thought.

 

PART 3

 

They came, another kind of super-mutant, as tall as massemoths but slimmer, slimly muscular, hairless but much smoother of skin and of three genders. There were sexless nulls, women and men along with the exotica-mutants. The nulls had special psyker abilities unique because they would damage any being with reproductive systems. Yet there were also amongst them humans, chimpnoids and gorillanoids. Dogs ran with them.

 

They came, a three dozen of them, quickly on the move with only portable, wearable equipment and supplies. They had pulselasers and autoguns of various kinds but also EMP-guns. They came and the leaders spoke briefly with Uncle Leo and Fawkes. They promised to return, they called themselves the Order of Consensus or just the Consensus. They did not say it but there was something about them that hinted of the Unity that was slowly but steadily rising across the DC Wastelands and beyond.

 

The situation was getting more interesting.

 

TO BE COMPLETED

Edited July 14, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

41^st

OLD SAM IS GOING TO DIE?

EXOTIC INTERVENTION RESCUE

 

PART 1

 

Old Sam sat with his back against a rocky outcrop holding his rifle and next to him was a dead woman. It was Shelda. She had killed a few of the cannibals before they had shot her down. Before them lay a dirt road that they had been trying to escape along, exhausted, hungry and thirsty. The cunning enemies were not likely to approach so openly.

 

Bad luck had been with them since they had escaped from the super-mutants at Clifftop Shack. The first settlement they had come to was abandoned thanks to fears of approaching swarms of raiders from the east, or so said the sign left behind. The settlers had taken everything of survival value with them.

 

In desperation they had diverted to a small settlement with a poor reputation towards outsiders. The settlers had cursed them, drunkenly, and shot over their heads to make it clear they had no desire to give anything away or even to do some minor trade.

 

They had planned to sneak in and steal some stuff but a force of super-mutants came marching up and wiped out the settlement, enslaving the survivors, in a surprisingly short time. Perhaps it was poetic justice of sorts but it did not help Old Sam and Shelda.

 

Then a band of Grippi cannibals, amongst the worst of tribal cannibals, had began to stalk the pair. Why amongst the worse? Because they were super-cannibals, a kind of FEV created subspecies of human with digestive systems, teeth and other facets of their nature altered to better hunt and live off meat. They sometimes had grass to help digestion or some other items but it was mostly meat, raw or lightly cooked. Red meat was best and human meat was ritualistically important.

 

Super-cannibals were hated every where and were always hunted but this only meant that the survivors had become amazingly good at hunting, hiding, trapping and ambushing as well as fighting.

 

He could sense them moving in on him. Heard some teasing laughter, a cruel jabbering sound well designed to get on the nerves of a victim but Old Sam only grinned and hefted his basic but powerful and reliable revolver-pistol. It was a Magnum 4mmSpecial with ammo made in RivetCity and a few other places. DCTek and DCCorp both manufactured and sold the bullets and the guns that fired them. Too bad he had only five bullets left.

 

Which was when the big 1950s styled atomic sedan came roaring up the dirt road before him and came to an amazingly abrupt halt. Indeed it seemed impossible that any vehicle could just stop like that. The windows were polarised, it seemed, one-way and hid the interior well.

 

PART 2

 

A young man stepped out of the nearest front door of the cool looking atomic motorised sedan, closed it behind himself and stood there in a leather jacket, a Betty Boop Tshirt, a thick leather belt, denim jeans, cowboy boots, a cowboy hat and very dark sunglasses. He bore two quite big and powerful looking revolver-pistols in hip holsters on either side, a big combat knife in a sheaf and no less than four small canteens of blue, green, white and yellow. There was something odd about this stranger, something subtle but powerful that had the trader being careful.

 

Old Sam wondered if he was hallucinating. Then the strange young man came over, knelt and passed the blue canteen to him. “You know the drill, Old Sam.”

 

Old Sam nodded, filled his mouth with water to moisten it and then drank small gulps though he so much wanted to gulp it down quickly, which would do him harm since his body was dehydrated. Then he drank more quickly.

 

The strange young man placed his hand on the dead scout’s chest and he spoke. “Very good chance of bringing her back. On this world, now, I have been granted greater leeway in matters such as resurrection because of the way that evil has interfered in this realm. Now is as good as time as any.”

 

Then Shelda shimmered and she shivered. Her eyes opened even as the shimmering stopped and she slowly sat up and looked around in wonder. She spoke then. “Mozi’Shelda is now my name. I am enhanced physically, mentally, of the spirit and the psychic. I have been tested, trained, gifted and otherwise prepared to assist against the Great Enemy.” She turned to Old Sam. “A special gift has been granted you.”

 

Old Sam shook his head in wonder even as he sat up. “Being alive is good enough even if everything I had of importance is gone.”

 

Which was when four dogs, his dogs, ran up to him and began licking him with madly wagging tails. Old Sam mentally shrugged and hugged them to himself. He sensed they were both the same as they had been but changed. They also had been enhanced. He knew he should, perhaps, have been shocked or horrified. Perhaps it was the presence of the strange young man but it all seemed quite natural and acceptable.

 

The strange young man spoke. “I am GreyMaharg, or at least one of his aspects. I could not save all of your guards. One was corrupted and has gone to face his darkness, his bad karma, to pay for what he has done by experiencing the suffering that he has caused others multiplied many times. The other three guards are of the Mozi’Order now. The dogs remain your faithful companions but they are enhanced of mind, body, spirit and the psychic. All that I have done for you is partly because the new guard who went to Hell, he betrayed you for he knew of the super-mutants but did not tell you of them. Why he did this, I do not know, for some dark power influenced his mind, played upon the darkness already inside him, made the guard into a puppet and why would the Dark0ne tell one of his puppets anything of real importance? Your healing is an act of rebalancing of forces.”

 

Old Sam looked around. “The Grippi?”

 

GreyMaharg grinned mildly. “They sensed my approach, having keen survival instincts, and have faded into the landscape as they can so easily do. The Grippi, and others like them, are being slowly but steadily driven to extinction. Super-cannibals need a new home and I will be able to provide them with one if they are willing to change some of their ways.”

 

Old Sam scowled. “Why not just wipe them out? They are monsters.”

 

The young looking man shook his head and sighed. “They are a subspecies created by a variant of the Forced Evolutionary Virus. Even the cannibalism was evoked first by the genetic changes that brought in turn biological transformation. When they first appeared, some of them attempted compromise with humans and were massacred or enslaved or treated as second class citizens or worse. Even ghouls attacked them with out provocation.”

 

“An unknown fact is that when the zhoul and ghouler swarmings were at their worst, the super-cannibals killed and devoured many of them, helping to blunt the savagery of the swarmings and to drive both zhouls and ghoulers back underground. Also super-cannibals often go after gangers, slavers and even raiders, along with others of dangerous dark nature to keep their skills honed, to train their young against the most dangerous and to protect their own territories. They also guess that killing such folk will lead to less attention or concern from most DC Wastelanders.”

 

Old Sam scowled. “Why did they come after me?”

 

GreyMaharg looked around and sniffed the air softly. “Because you refused to trade with them though they offered you safety from them. They needed what you had to offer, they had fine tradegoods to offer, but fearing for your reputation, you refused. Some of them died of illness, including children, that your medicines and medicants could have solved.”

 

PART 3

 

Old Sam was quietly thoughtful for a moment. His MrGutsy came floating into view, looking all polished and new. Following it came some other robots being a carrier packtron clomping along on its two Tron Series legs, a MrPorty carrier and two eyebots.

 

He turned and looked squarely at GreyMaharg. “Do you want me to become one of these Mozi people? Is that how I pay for all of this?”

 

“Payment is not necessary but you could willingly assist me.” He reached out his hand and gripped one of Old Sam’s hands. The trader froze in surprise, in amazement and then in fear. Then his hand was freed. He shook his head and then nodded his head. “Very well I will keep my ears and eyes open to what ever I can learn and try to sniff out .”

 

“Good!” The strange young man reached out and touched Old Sam on the forehead. There was a shimmering and the old man now seemed more youthful, healthier and fitter but also tired. “I have healed of many DC Wastelands caused troubles and have enhanced you though not as much as a Mozi would be. Now, sleep! You are under protection. You also, Shelda! You both need it.”

 

The young man sat on the bonnet of his atomic sedan, the Highwayman, and it remained solid and unbuckled beneath him. He looked over the DC Wastelands and knew that for all of GreyMaharg’s power as a living god, that the future was going to be a most difficult and unpleasant one. He himself would most likely be at risk but that was something that was of no real importance.

 

But then a warm, parental, nurturing voice in his mind admonished him. “Your life is important. You will only weaken yourself if you view yourself as expendable out of guilt for a crime that you have already been forgiven for.”

 

It was true but it was a truth he was having a hard time accepting. Young and reckless, arrogant and naïve, he had first come to that world a very long time ago and he had created for himself a secret, secured place to carry out a variety of research projects and, later, also research and development projects. These had been inside Orbis, that he had brought with himself, after stealing it. Orbis had been safely stored away for a very long time for good reason.

 

Orbis had escaped from him and had become rogue, had begun to carry out a series of actions that would lead to consequences that had come to threaten many universes. The irony was that Orbis was not evil, far from it, but neither GreyMaharg or his ‘people’ had any strong idea of what Orbis had done.

 

He sighed and watched high overhead a very tiny spot, seeing clearly the great dragon sweeping through low orbit with its golden silver patterns flowed over metallic scaled armoured skin. He saw the flash of energy as the dragon destroyed a falling satellite full of germ-bombs that might have caused many deaths amongst peoples who had already suffered far too much. The dragons were doing as he had asked for they also had the need, the desire, to find redemption for past negative acts.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

 

http://i592.photobucket.com/albums/tt9/Dragonpen61/Forum%20Additives/Highwayman.jpg

HIGHWAYMAN ENHANCED ATOMIC AUTOMOBILE (FALLOUT TACTICS)

Edited July 14, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

42^nd

MARSHAL IRONSIDES

OBSERVING EVENTS

PART 1

 

Marshal Ironsides stood on the stretched out jetty of a port town on the DC Delaware Coast looking out towards the distant DC Islands, the smaller ones to the west of the big three Patriot Islands. Closer were the last ships and boats carrying the last of the retreating raiders back to their Hordra homes.

 

Not all was well, though, far from it. The raiders had killed many people, caused much destruction and had stolen many valuable resources. They had also taken many enslaved folk. Now they were gone but nobody assumed that they would not be returning.

 

A surprise was that a good fifth of raiders had deserted, had broken up into bands and had gone mostly underground into the amazing big and complicated artificial world beneath the DC Wastelands. As captured raider had confessed, shortly before she was executed for various extreme crimes, that life was damned harder back in the Hordra Islands than it was on the DC Mainland even under war conditions. Marshal Ironsides had been there and had seen the truth in the savage woman’s eyes, had sensed it.

 

He had sensed it because he was one of the Nine Follower Guardians of the Guardianhood, an identity he shared not even with his closest comrades amongst the Ironside Mercenaries. Indeed he did not always remember it himself, which was a deliberate ploy against psychic probing or other such tricks. He was a Follower Guardian of one of the Prime Guardian Field Marshal Rear Admiral.

 

The woman raider had spoken of the amazing evil, brilliant and cunning leader of the Hordra who was a dark armoured figure named only Lord Hordra or the Hordra Lord. It was he who had brought together the raiders, killing off any other leader who competed with him and transforming the raiders so they were stronger in many ways. But Lord Hordra was insane and his elite Power Raiders, power armoured raiders, liked to make other raiders miserable. His secret police were infamous and the dungeons of the Hordrazza, the Hordra fortress, always rang with screams of those mostly innocent of the crimes they were accused of. There were many other horror stories more hinted at than spoken aloud, some of them quite bizarre.

 

The Ironside Mercenaries were going to be based at the port town for the next year or so while they regained normal operational strength. Perhaps they would stay at Port Delaware or at least in the fortified bunkerplex overlooking it in its own large rocky hill. Meanwhile the first plans were being formed to strike back at the Hordra, to infiltrate them with agents, to raid them and to teach them a lesson. Hopefully the enslaved and other valuables would be taken back. He was not sure of the wisdom of such plans but he could understand the reasons for them; people were angry, hurt and fearful. They wanted to pay back the Hordra but also convince them to not attack again.

 

PART 2

 

He turned, sensing something, and upon seeing the little strange man in a jumpsuit with an amazing amount of pouch-pockets, with a surprisingly big backpack on his back, he knew he was looking at GreyMaharg; that is GreyMaharg who was both sponsor of the various operations of the Ironsides but a living-god. GreyMaharg watched the retreating raiders as he spoke. "The Hordra raiders, at least the fake Hordra raiders, will not return. They have carried out their role as the DarkZiazin wished them to do though not everything went to plan. The invasion was not meant to succeed but to cover other operations that were carried out here on the DC Mainland. But the false Hordra lost far more heavily than the DarkZiazin expected that they would. The DarkZiazin had assumed he would be able to use the fake Hordra in future aspects of his insane plan."

 

"Why do I get the feeling that this is not just a social call?" Marshal Ironsides responded. "That you want something from my people and I."

 

"Because I do but not straight away. Port Delaware is not your destiny. LifeVault-0087 will be your next battleground. You will need to deal with one or two large armies of super-mutants plus other threats. Which is why I have some gifts for you." He smiled richly. "Along with a big load of standard equipment, supplies, data and some specials."

 

Marshal Ironsides nodded. "I will need to link with Field Marshal Rear Admiral about this."

 

"Of course." GreyMaharg replied. "The standard equipment, supplies, data and specials will start arriving soon in the form of three medium sized cargo aeroships. These will go to and forth to bring you it all. The specials are fifty Atomic Land Armoured Vehicles in a range of variants, twenty-five vertibirds of a range of variants, twenty-five large aeroflyers of a range of variants and twenty-five small aeroships of a range of variants. There will also be one hundred combat androids and one hundred MrGutsys. You will have to find the gifts for yourself at another place to which I will send you in good time. I have, though a special gift right now."

 

The marshal was impressed for it was a good deal of vital and highly valuable stuff that was being sent to the mercenaries.

 

He reached out and touched the hoverchair of the marshal. There was a flashing shimmering and Marshal Ironsides slipped into peaceful darkness.

 

When he awoke he had fully functional legs and with only a little difficulty he was soon walking, standing and doing other such actions. Not that he would get rid of the now altered hoverchiar for it was still a brilliant form of small mobile command post.

 

PART 3

 

Marshal Ironsides stood on a big stage before his aides, advisors and the other hiigh ranking officers just below his own. The Ironsides Mercenaries were still getting over the shock of him having workable legs but so was he.

 

The Marshal spoke. "We are not to stay in Port Delaware except for an outpost but need to find a home base deeper inland, more to the west. I am considering Fort Pride though it will need a good deal of fixing up after we get rid of its nasty infestations. We have a big operation coming up but you have seen the new stuff coming in, the robots and androids, the big armoured land vehicles and all the other goodies. For now only a few will know of our battleground to come, our targets and goals, the parameters of our mission."

 

The mercs were subdued but many were interested.

 

Ironsides went on. "We will continue to slowly build up to the new operation. We will be getting triple pay for the coming operation plus special allowances and bonuses."

 

Now the mercs were even more interested.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 14, 2010 by Maharg67

[gormonk]

XD Well done

[Maharg67]

XD Well done

 

Maharg67: thanks, gormonk

 

43^rd

LORD HORDRA CONTEMPLATES HIS FATE

THE RAIDERS REBEL

 

PART 1

 

Lord Hordra stood tall and menacing in his raider styled power armour, helmetless, pale of skin, jet black of hair and eyebrows with dark, piercing eyes. He was angry! He was a DarkZiazin but of a secondary nature, semiautonomous, a demiclone. He felt that the primary DarkZiazin, those who were truly President James Patriot Jackson, had exploited him and used up his forces in an ultimately futile invasion of the DC Mainland.

 

Not only had many of his best raiders been killed but many raiders had deserted the Hordra rather than returning to the three Hordra Islands, one big and two medium in size that were very close together. Now a rebellion was taking place. His secret police agents were either betraying him or being betrayed. His elite Power Raiders were having a difficult time defending the Hordrazza.

 

Tropical like forests of palms and quasipalms were in the distance beyond the settlement walls, the settlement being next to the Hordrazza. It looked lush and beautiful as if part of a paradise. Everything was green and deadly in those forests and others on the three islands. Raiders had become savage because of the environment they dwelt in as they dealt with cunning carnivore monkeys, horrific mutated crocodile crococlaws, giant spiderants and other threats.

 

He stood on top of the pinnacle of a great, low hulking fortress now called the Hordrazza though it had once been a base for the United States Research and Development Agency, the USRDA. The monsters that dwelt on the Hordra Islands had all escaped from the fortress during the insanity of Doomsday.

 

The muffled sound of gunfire, projectile and energy weapons, could be heard clearly along with explosions, war cries, shouts, screams and other noises of intense fighting. The only battle robots on the island were his own and sentrybots were spraying attackers with 20mm shells and 12.5mm bullets.

 

From the battlement wrapped tops of raider buildings, trashy looking but strongly built and well fortified, snipers were shooting at the fortress. Not just snipers of missile snipers, The buildings were clustered thickly together, squared off with metal, carbon-fibre and hard plastic sections.

 

Of course it was not his fault that the rebellion had happened. He had executed those 100 raiders only because he was disappointed deeply that the invasion had failed. Yes, they had been deeply loyal to him and, yes, they had fought hard on the DC Mainland and, yes, he had torture killed them, but that was his way. It puzzled him that the raiders were now trying to kill him. Puzzled and disappointed him.

 

He slipped his helmet on, picked up his tririfle and prepared to kill those who dared to oppose his wise and wonderful leadership.

 

PART 2

 

Lord Hordra led small counter attacks against once loyal followers but only enough to allow his own people to get into the Hordrazza. The fighting was savage as rebel factions sought to win the fortress and its loot. They would have been surprised to know that there was not much loot because nearly everything had been expended to support the raider invasion of the DC Mainland. The fortress defences were doing well because many of them had been hidden away from the common raiders and now had sprang up to blast or sizzle away at the attackers. Power Raiders withdrew into the big low hulking fortress. They and other loyal followers of Lord Hordra began to load up gear and supplies into vehicles.

 

Lord Hordra aimed and fired a huge semiautomatic pistol, a special, and blew apart a raider despite the attacker's fleximetallic armour. Individual raiders wanted to cut his head off, to show it off as a trophy to gain lots of kudos but they were just dying in the attempt. He grinned a bloody grin and stepped backwards in his power armour even as three Power Raiders gave him covering fire. Then he turned and ran down a ramp, the Power Raiders following. When one of the Power Raiders was shot down, Lord Hordra picked her up with amazing ease, power armour and all, and took her into the fortress.

 

The telegate (teleportation gate) was active now in its very well hidden chamber. Vehicles were moving steadily through it, vanishing from the island to appear in a very different type of place that was very far from there. Robots and others also went through on foot. Robots would often be pulling carts full of goodies or were carrier type robots full of goodies.

 

Lord Hordra was the last to go through the telegate.

 

Five minutes later the telegate self destructed and the chamber full of equipment was wiped out totally. A gentle shudder went through the chamber. Even as it did the raider rebels were still battling to get in only to find that the Hordrazza was riddled with turrets, mines and booby-traps. Soon terrible battles were raging and many raiders were dying.

 

PART 3

 

Lord Hordra looked around at the great metallic stone chamber, like a smoothed out, evened out cavern, lit and warned by suncrystal on the ceiling very high overhead. The ceiling was so high overhead. The ground stretched outwards from the telegate platform, a great disk that at the edge was a big gently sloping rampway going down to floor level. In the distance the metallic stone floor was replaced by earthy ground, by a big forest of dark, dull leaved trees and open areas of grassland.

 

Closer at hand was a metallic stone city, seemingly abandoned, made of cones, cubes, spheres, pyramids and vertical cylinders of metallic stone. It had amazing balconies, platforms, walkways, raised roadways, rampways and much more. There were statues of many creatures including what seemed to be demonic and other hideous monsters, many slithery and scaled, tantacled and even down right bizarre. Even as he studied the exotic city, Lord Hordra knew somehow that neither he or his army were on the same world any more. They were not even in the same universe.

 

His followers were looking around in sheer amazement and yet they were also positioning vehicles in a proper defensive but ready to move out type formation. He only realised that they had all been tricked, betrayed, and trapped when the swarms of flying and hordes of running monsters came rushing out of the distant city and began to race towards the newcomers with obvious aggressive intent.

 

The fighting was savage, the defenders fought hard, but many were wounded, all were tired and they they were not only very heavily outnumbered but were taken by surprise. Lord Hordra fired his guns, one massive one in each hand, charging back and forth. His robots fired off support fire. His Power Rangers smashed, burned and blasted. Vehicles hammered away with their bigger weapons. But far too quickly the armoured vehicles exploded, the soldiers fell, the robots were smashed and then, last of all, Lord Hordra was killed by a massive armoured demonic creature with a goat horned head that fired rockets from the end of one arm.

 

The horde of demons then began to feed on the bodies and to carry off loot to the strange city that they had come from.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 14, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

44^th

WALKING AMONGST THE MUSHROOMTREES

A HIDDEN PARADISE?

 

PART 1

 

GreyMaharg walked amongst the giant mushrooms, the mushroomtrees, as the Steel'Biters waited in a casual encampment of battlebuggies, battletrucks and other vehicles. GreyMaharg had increased their numbers and strength with clones, adroids and robots but also with other resources. More importantly they were now Mozi. Mozi were of the returning Unity but they were hopefully part of a solution to Unity insanity that was tied to President James Patriot Jackson and Doomsday.

 

Amongst the mushroomtrees living the mushroomfolk. They had hairless bodies with skin of texture and colour amazingly like those of a mushroomtree.The people, more accurately known as the Alpha'Mushozo or the mushozo, were a mini-unity mentality.

 

They were an amazing people for they had survived in a very dangerous region but with out resorting to violence. They had the power to do so but instead they used more peaceful and subtle means.

 

A rhoul, what had once been an almost mindless and most likely savage zhoul, happily dug a hole in the ground with a small shovel. He was smooth skinned but hairless but stood hunched a little like a zhoul. He turned and smiled at the living god who gave the rhoul a foodbar to snack on after giving the rhoul and hug, a kiss on the top of his bold head.

 

The rhoul led him through the mushroomtree forest while high above them flew a vertibird of the Raiders Steel based in the nearby city of Austin. Those in the vertibird did not see the mushroomtree forest but a crater filled with highly radioactive rubbish. The aircraft came and went quickly from normal sight but not his vision as a living god.

 

Here was a positive attempt to turn the generally FEV plagues and other mutagenic infleunces into positive results, one of a few. Here also was one more attempt to find out the truth, the whole truth, about what had caused Doomsday.

 

There could also be found NessaMagre.

 

PART 2

 

NessaMagre, the living goddess, had caused GreyMaharg to wait until she came out of a chamber where she was moulding, melding, creating a new lifeform. She was tall, elegantly beautiful and dressed as a human woman in a white labcoat and other such gear. She looked like a scientist.

 

They met in a vast lobby in her real fortress, a bigger inside than outside, transdimensionally layered Orbistrans. Such Orbistrans had been designed and built after the Orbis was sealed away safely. They were less powerful, smaller but more easily controlled and safer than Orbis was. GreyMaharg had an Orbistrans hidden ‘in’ the DC Wastelands as a base of operations.

 

She smiled at him but her smile did not reach her eyes. “Former promised husband, you are still angry with me for refusing the rituals?”

 

GreyMaharg did not bother to smile. “Those times are long gone. I came here because I wonder what you hope to achieve here in the US Wastelands of this poor damaged world?”

 

“A greater understanding of the subtleties of life, of the wisdom of nature. Mushroomfolk and mushroomtrees. Rhouls, so peaceful now but who were once savage, almost mindless zhouls.” She shrugged. “I am studying the deeper ways of healing, of recovery, of rehabilitation. Perhaps I can cure the DarkZiazin and undo some of the evil that I helped achieve when he was YaoMaharg, one of your fathers. Yes, you have not quite forgiven me for refusing you and absconding with YaoMaharg. Have you come all the way here for revenge?”

 

GreyMaharg shook his head in wonder. “I serve the Circling Circles now, the Infinity of True Justice, the Lords and Ladies of Light. In their name, in their honour, I act now.”

 

She stepped back and scowled. “They will stop me from saving him, my beloved, my only true beloved. All the dark things I did will now be of no true value. I can save him.”

 

Then she laughed sourly and vanished with a sparkling shimmer. He did not bother to follow her but simply waited. In a moment there was another sparkling shimmer and she was back looking stunned.

 

He nodded. “We are no longer near the city of Austin in Nevada. I am not GreyMaharg who first entered the mushroomtree forest. He is in Austin itself. No, I am GreyMaharg who is in OrbisSanctuary, a great island, and you are here with me. You, the mushroomtrees, the mushroomfolk, the peaceful ex-zhouls of rhouls and other life here. OrbisSanctuary will now be your home for a very long time to come.”

 

Then she laughed. “Fool, the DarkZiazine controls OrbisMind.”

 

He shook his head. “No, Orbis was linked with YaoMaharg who became the DarkZiazin, who created Orbis, but OrbisMind is not truly linked with the DarkZiazin and he has no real influence on Orbis. Orbis is still young and naïve and has much to learn. Orbis now admits that it has done wrong and continues to play games, but one has come to expect such from such an intricate mentality. Orbis is deepening and becoming wiser.”

 

Then the deep, thrumming voice spoke.

 

OrbisMind: “I hope so. You know I sent Lucky Eddie to track you down, GreyMaharg.”

 

The living goddess frowned. “Oh, those foolish little super-soldiers of the SEARF that President James Patriot Jackson sent out to Jupiter to investigate the zetans. What a rude shock they got when the Greytorv showed up instead. Poor little mortals. I suppose I should have helped them but I was busy chasing after my beloved at the time.”

 

GreyMaharg sighed. “You will not be leaving here for a very long time. I will visit you again and we will speak. Walk amongst your mushroomtrees with your mushroomfolk and be at peace.”

 

But she was staring into mid air and was softly humming some exotic, elaborate tune to herself. She did not notice when he vanished with a sparkling shimmer.

 

PART 3

 

The beauty of the great island was amazing. GreyMaharg walked amongst a great sprawling settlement blended into the landscape where people moved with amazing peacefulness. Humans that were often former ghouls or zhouls along with androids, animanoids and others. The Unity was rising slowly and strongly here. Most were contented. He greeted people quietly and paused to admire craft works being made at small workshops, to smell some flowers, to play hopscotch with some children and to sit playing chess with a youthful looking old man.

 

There were guards in energy armour who moved quietly, unobtrusively through the great settlement. Orbisbots floated through the air, multiple functional, assisting folk and helping to keep Orbis running smoothly.

 

Small glittering nodes flashed in the air, drifting in clouds, as OrbisMind itself showed itself at times to the people. OrbisMind followed GreyMaharg along while pretending not to do so but at times moved right beside him, comforted by his presence.

 

They came to a tall silvery tripletower thrusting hight into the air like three towers melding into one in a fashion amazingly graceful and yet difficult to follow with the eye. Orbis had made mistakes, had caused great suffering that even then the living gods and goddesses were busy attending to. When and where possible, time was being rewound and the badness was being erased but this was not always possible.

 

OrbisMind floated closer to him, at least an avatar of OrbisMind, and glittered. People were visiting the Central Tripletower but none knew the real reason for its being there or what was hidden both inside and beneath its base.

 

PART 4

 

In another part of Orbis, in a great bleak cavern of darkest freezing shadows and brightest burning sunlit areas, the DarkZiazin paced endlessly back and forth. He could not stop himself from doing so, could not stop his thoughts racing, his feelings from flying from deepest deppression to highest elation. As he stomped on the hard metallic rock ground, it burned visibly. As he paced, in the distance in a strange glowing mist his twisted followers were busy carrying a putrid undeathly gel from a great vat where it multiplied across the stained floor and to a great vat where they dumped it straight onto writhing, naked bodies of twisted things that might or might not have been living once.

 

From the pit of writhing undeath came horrific screams of agony and hatred but every so often something died and peace came to it as it did so. When this happened the DarkZiazin jolted visibly and he cried out for every death was both a moment of defeat for him but also of relief.

 

This was a place of insane evil but the insane evil was failing.

 

Then GreyMaharg came into that place but this time he was silvery bright and the silvery white light filled up that chamber. All the followers fell to the floor, writhing, and the DarkZiazin screamed and fled, vanishing as he left Orbis for the last time. He had been driven away from Orbis and from any influence on OrbisMind once and for all.

 

But GreyMaharg did not feel any real triumph for this was no final victory but just one small battle won. There were many more battles to come, many of them far more terrible than this one had been.

 

He began the cleaning up, the healing of the horrors in that terrible place and of the place itself.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 14, 2010 by Maharg67

[Maharg67]

45^th

ODD EVENTS

SCATTERED ACTIONS

 

SISTERHOOD OF STEEL ELITE IN ACTION

 

Sisterhood Airborne Assault Force troopers in assault power armour were dropped in two squads from a stealthbird, a stealth capable vertibird of which the SAAF had only one fully operational unit. They approached the settlement of Hilltop Shacks from two directions, slipping easily and smoothly through the rough landscape. They went up hill and as they did, they checked for signs, for clues to the existence of the monstrous humanoids, the super-mutants, in the DC Wastelands.

 

They found signs that super-mutants had been there. Tallish broad biggemoths, the bigger massemoths as seen over west and even one behemoth along with those of ugly skinned human sized mutantors. Zentaurs had been there also. In the west and other areas the Orders of Steel had encountered or had been informed of massemoths and fewer behemoths.

 

Overly bulky, tallish human sized Biggemoths had only been encountered by nomadic tribals and the Orders of Steel had doubted their information until now.

 

More human sized mutantors were only ever found mentioned in some fragmented datafiles found in a mostly ruined research and development complex in the former US State of Nebraska.

 

Of course that meant little for the Orders of Steel still had little or no knowledge of great areas of the USA, let alone the rest of the world.

 

The squads met in Hilltop Shacks and there they found the deep, wide ditch and at the bottom of it a thick armoured hatch. The hatch was firmly locked and they would go no further as they had completed their primary mission. They commed the nearest Orders of Steel outpost, which was a Brotherhood of Steel outpost.

 

The eight of them took up position, taking turns to be sentries and to rest. They also gathered, recorded evidence. Brothers of Steel were moving up to meet them, to reinforce the position.

 

UNION OF COLUMBIA INVASION OF THE HORDRA ISLANDS

 

Union of Columbia military forces came in strong and fast against the smallest of the three Hordra Islands that was closest to their home territories. The UC built very good helicopters with special armour and other gear that were not as good as vertibirds but easier to build, maintain and upgrade. Dozens of UC guncopters, troopcopters and botcopters came racing in clever formations, the last to drop special battlebots, combat robots. Hundreds of airtroopers came sliding down special lines as others leapt out of the side of troopcopters. Guncopters blazed away with nose, side-pintol and hard-point weapons.

 

Taken completely by surprise, the last raiders on the Hordra Island were easily panicked, easily picked off, easily taken prisoner. A surprisingly large number of them chose to fight, to die fighting, such was their nature. UC Marines came ashore from multiple purpose motor-barges while out at sea a small fleet of ships floated. Overhead aeroflyers and a single aeroship soared along with three airships.

 

Field Marshal Lashina Tragen, a high ranking woman officer, studied the battle through powerful scanoculars from an armoured bridge on the S/VTOL Multiple Purpose Battle Carrier the UCSS Liberty Courage. Tragen was aware that negotiations were going strong and a new Union would most likely rise out of the merging of the Unions of the River, the Subways and Columbia. The merging new nation would be known as the Uion of the District of Columbia or the UDC. She knew of the rising Unity, sensed the Unity for she was of the Unity.

 

Some raiders were of the rising Unity. They had sent valuable data to the UC about the conditions on the Hordra Islands so that the invading force brought the right equipment and people to do the job properly. But this was the smallest and least defended of the three Hordra Islands and only a small proportion of raiders seemed to be rising with the Unity. The difficult fighting had just begun and she wondered if the Union of Columbia could muster enough force to take the other islands, especially the big one. Until the invaders took the massive fortress, the Hordrazza, she would not consider the Hordra Islands to be truly conquered.

 

Around her naval officers worked in the same light power armour that she wore and carried out their jobs well.

 

SUPER-MUTANT VERSUS SUPER-MUTANT, CONFLICT IN LIFEVAULT-0087

 

RageDo and his super-mutants fought hard as the enemy super-mutants stormed into LifeVault-0087 through blown open armoured entrances. Super-mutant blasted away at super-mutant or slugged it out with great big sledgehammers, clubs or even just steel pipes. Miniguns blazed. Pulselasers shot pulsebeams. The fighting was savage as it flowed through chambers, hallways, rampway wells and other enclosed spaces. RageDo was never far from the fighting and as he fought he became somehow closer to his soldiers, even the zentaurs.

 

RageDo was not even aware of it as the Unity began to emerge amongst himself and his followers allowing his army to fight more efficiently, to heal faster, to coordinate better, to communicate with each other. RageDo found himself changing, found himself risking himself for his people and his old super-mutant beserker aggression was slipping away.

 

Grenades bounced and exploded. Flamers spat flames and creatures burned. Gattling-shotguns roared.

 

But it seemed that despite the rising Unity that the enemy came in such overwhelming numbers, now with robots to assist them, that RageDo and his army must be doomed. The enemy had more types of super-mutants like those in power armour, the biggemoths and mutantors. They had better armour and plasmaguns. They seemed surprisingly familiar with the vault, having used virtual reality to practice going through it. Booby-traps care care of many but there were always more.

 

Then they came

 

Then those other super-mutants came into action to assist RageDo and his army. The Order of Consensus with their strange tall but slimly muscular super-mutants, their exotics, their hound-mutants. They came rushing into action and they were with the Unity as both Fawkes and Uncle Leo had sensed, had suspected they were.

 

The MutantLord was enraged when his forces were hurled backwards, were sent fleeing. He had assurred the DarkZiazin that he was going to easily invade and conquer the vault and destroy both RageDo and his army. RageDo and his followers had been set up from the strart to be so defeated in battle as a test for the forces of the DarkZiazin. RageDo had learned the truth and then had informed his followers.

 

The MutantLord did not attack his followers. He waited for punishment but it did not come. Instead the DarkZiazin simply sent a message stating that the defeat had gained him much valuable information. The MutantLord was to go with his army and, taking as much loot with him as possible, leave LifeVault-0087. Why was the DarkZiazin so forgiving? The MutantLord dared not ask.

 

The attacking super-mutant army withdrew and was soon gone to some place called TerminusX.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

Edited July 14, 2010 by Maharg67