Fallout: Part 5: Interesting happenings
Chapter 5, much further than I originally thought I would go. However I intend to carry on. This chapter should contain more fighting and battles so that will be fun(actually, on revision, not really). Yet more random cryptic messages to start with. Still thinking of a series title, tundra sounds good, hmmm... Endless tundra
ENDLESS TUNDRA:5... dunno. How about A GOD REBORN:5? WASTELAND REBORN, CHAPTER:5. I like it. Still on the lookout for suggestions though, but that'll be the title if nothing comes up. Come to think of it, why am I trying to come up with a name now? By the time you read this I will have already named the series and you don't want to read my random notes when you already know the title. Anyway...
...You disssmiss it at first glance, a ssshadow you thinKssss, but no! You must look clossser and sssee the IllusssioN, anD ssssee yourssself... David strode across the dark wastes as he inhaled the fresh air. He could almost hear his footsteps echo across the sand. He looked up at the moon. He squinted as he thought he saw something. A shadow crossed the bottom right of the moon, the same colour as the black night sky. David watched, intrigued by the eclipse. 'That's a little odd.' He said to himself.
David jerked up out of bed as an alarm went off beside him. He slapped the top as he rubbed his eyes. He looked across at Shawna, who was lying on the other side of the bed facing away. He moved in closer and stroked his hand up her leg and tossed her tail about a little before giving her a quick kiss on the cheek and getting up. He got dressed and buckled his sword to his belt and holstered his magnums.
It was cold outside. Snow gently fell to the ground around him, but never managed to settle somehow. David approached the Ralts street monument from the south. A large group of people (People doesn't mean just humans) and Sergeant smith were gathered around the north end. Most of them were of course wulfs, there were a couple of humans and a few forx's. David gave a little salute as he approached them.
"You're late." Smith said without looking at him. Smith just stared at the two dozen lined up soldiers in front of him.
"Sorry about that sir, was a little busy last night." He said with just enough tone in his voice that some of the more creative members of the group gave short wolf whistles. Wulf whistles. David lined up next to a small forx. He was a bit more animal like than Shawna since he had a muzzle.
"All right!" Smith shouted. "As I point at each of you, you tell me your name, job, and skills." Smith went through the front line first, starting with A wulf and ending with David. There were a couple of mechanics, a police officer, some scavengers and even a baker. Half of them claimed to have good aim. Smith pointed at the forx next to him. He saluted and spoke:
"Arnold Harris sir! Messenger sir! I deliver important documents all across the wasteland sir! I also have experience with sniper rifles and have worked as a medic. Sir!" Smith nodded. It was obvious to David that the forx beside him would be placed in a pathfinder unit. "You!" Smith called, pointing at David. David saluted and said:
"David sir! No last name sir! I am a freelance mercenary sir! I am well trained in the use of sniper rifles and various forms of martial arts sir! I also have extensive training in the use of stealth and-"
"Yeah, ok I get it. You're perfect" Smith cut in sarcastically before pointing at the next person.
After getting the profiles of all the men before him, Smith placed them into groups. The mechanics were obviously mechanics, almost a dozen were classified as assault soldiers and a couple of other positions.
"You two!" Yelled smith pointing at David and Arnold. "Recon and pathfinder." The two exchanged quick smiles before facing the front. David was happy with his position. He felt sorry for the assault soldiers. They got to bear the full brunt of the enemy force. David was good, but in a direct firefight without cover even the toughest S.O.B's got killed. Smith assigned the men to their role-specific weapons and armour. David and Arnold had standard sniper rifles and camouflage white suits with a pair of wicked looking white shades.
"Don't break those!" Yelled smith as David picked them up. "Thermal sensor goggles or something, and they are DAMN expensive, so don't lose them." He said.
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All the men stood at the shooting range. Targets popped up occasionally and David would take them out with lethal precision. Half of the men around him had stopped firing and were watching him impressed. David enjoyed being the centre of attention. A target popped on the right, the rifle casually swung quickly and he pulled the trigger again. A surge of pain shot through his hand as he dropped the rifle with a yell. It felt like he had been cut with a knife. The bullet impacted with the wall to the left of the target. The men around him watched in shock as blood started seeping quickly out of the back of his hand as he clenched it tightly with the other, then to even further add to the shock, the other hand started bleeding in the same spot.
"Jameson! Harris! Get this guy outta here!" Smith yelled. The forx and wulf approached David to help, but all of a sudden, a great burning pain coursed through his entire body.
"AAAAAAAARGH!" David screamed at the top of his voice as his body convulsed in pain. As the constant burning agony continued, David's eyes slowly began to close as his senses became overwhelmed, and he slowly passed out...
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David's eyes burst open to see a white room above him. He felt a little weak. There was a steady beeping coming from his right. He managed to turn his head to the side where he could he the forx standing up and approach him.
"Hey, you okay?" He asked softly. David raised his hand to give him a thumbs up, but he couldn't. He looked down t see his whole arm covered in bandages.
"What the hell happened?" He asked weakly. The forx turned to an x-ray screen beside him and studied a small clipboard for a moment thoughtfully before answering.
"In general terms..., the first stages of mutation." He said with and unsure look on his face.
"Well don't you know how to deal with these things? I mean, you must get these sorts of thing quite often right?" David asked uncertain of what would happen to him.
"Yes, normally we have drugs that can be used to reduce the pain and speed up the mutation process." Arnold told him. "However, the drugs are racially specific depending on what kind of mutation is occurring, Forx, wulf, even Crant, but this," Arnold looked at the x-ray screen again. "This is completely knew to us." He said apologetically.
"So what is going on then?" He asked completely helpless.
"Well, from the looks of things, there seems to be a sudden muscle development occurring rapidly, about an estimated 100% increase actually-"
"So is that the cause of all this pain then?" David cut in looking at his still aching hands.
"Ah, well, no actually..." The forx moved the x-ray screen to where David could see it. "There seems to be small incredibly dense bones... growing alongside your hand bones, your carpals." He said pointing at the diagram. The four bones that made up his hand (not fingers) glowed white on the screen, but inside the white there was a lighter shade beside each bone.
"two millimetres thick, one centimetre wide and approximately eight centimetres long, curving downwards at the end. Also it seems some bones that form your knuckles have moved slightly." He said pointing at the screen.
'Could it be?' David thought back to the day before he woke up in this new place. What Arnold said next only confirmed his suspicions.
"There was also an 80% drop in blood temperature, and your skin has begun excreting an odd resine that we cannot identify."
"So that's it is it?" He asked himself.
"I'm sorry?" Arnold asked.
"Arnold, do you know what a deathclaw is?" He asked staring hard at the x-ray screen.
"Um, no I don't, what is a deathclaw?" He asked suddenly fascinated.
"It's like a bipedal lizard-crocodile thing." He said.
"A lizard? You've seen a lizard?" Arnold asked confused. "I thought all the lizards were dead, died from the cold."
'Died from the cold.' David thought. 'That's encouraging." He gulped a little at the prospect.
Arnold looked down at a clipboard he was holding.
"At this rate we don't know when you'll be out unfortunately, but for now you will be kept here."
"And where is here?" David asked.
"About three kilometres east of Megatown, outpost Charlie Sigma medical bay. A forward base and defensive stronghold. Established in the ruins of an old fort, so we are quite safe." Without another word Arnold strolled out the door and left David alone. David looked at his bandaged arms with a mix of curiosity, excitement and impatience. Once again the sane part of him that should be concerned was absent from this meeting.
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David awoke in a fit of coughing and spluttering. He jerked up from his bed, ripping out some tubes feeding various liquids into him. He pried open his eyes expecting to be blinded by rays of white, but all lights were dimmed. A distant siren sounded and there were occasional red lights glowing, the universal signs of an emergency. He ripped the remaining tubes out and flicked off the sheets. His entire body was wrapped in strained bandages, some were ripped. He was shocked at how much he had grown. His muscles had grown significantly. Thankfully he had still (somehow) managed to keep his medium frame, so his flips and fancy shit shouldn't be affected to much. With great risk he swung his legs onto the ground and stood up. His legs held. He did a few stretches to loosen up. He was amazed at how good he felt, he couldn't feel any pain at all. Arnold shot past his door quickly, a sniper bounced against his back as he ran. He quickly zipped back and looked back at David.
"Hey, what's going on?" David asked sheepishly. Arnold pressed himself against the wall beside the doorway and gestured for David to lie down. He caught on quickly and jumped back in bed and tried to look ill. Gunfire erupted from the hallway as hails of bullets whizzed in both directions. A wulf tried to run through the doorway into the medical bay. David watched grimly as the deadly projectile made contact with his head and erupted out the other side as a ribbon of crimson that coated the doorframe. The gunfire ceased for e second before the barrel of an assault rifle peeked out from the doorway.
A feline figure, clad in a grey coat with gun ready stepped into the doorframe and scoped the room. His eyes swept across the room while his gun stayed pointed at David. A few more felines ran past behind him. Arnold had taken a pistol from a small table beside him and was holding it ready.
A cruel grin crossed the felines face as he eyed David. The feline grabbed his rifle by the barrel and quickly stepped through the door. As he did so, he swung his rifle hard into Arnold on his left. The blow knocked the weapon from Arnold's hand and the next one caught him in the chin. The feline stood over the downed forx aiming his gun at him, lining up the killshot.
By this time David was already on his feet. The feline noticed him to late. With an unnecessarily loud cry, David swung his fist into the feline with full strength. The blow landed right on the felines back, but David kept pushing it right into the wall. The force of hitting the wall was enough to knock the weapon out of the felines hands, thought he was dead before he even hit the wall. David stood panting with his fist pinning the feline's body against the wall. He pulled his hand away from the feline, and with it came a splash of blood. The body collapsed on the ground as blood seeped out three puncture wounds on its back. David stared at his hand in awe. Three crimson coated blades protruded from in between his knuckles. A patch of pure white was visible amongst the blood. As he loosened his hands and flattened them the claws retracted into his skin.
"Cool..." He observed his other hand. Arnold was now on his feet and picking up his sniper rifle.
"Here." He said handing over David's magnums. "You can admire yourself later, we need to get out of here." David nodded in recognition as the pair dashed out the doorway. Arnold lead the way since he knew where they were going. Just when David thought they would be seen as a group of shadows approached around a corner, Arnold pulled him into a cupboard on the left and closed the door, locking it. He nimbly jumped up the ruined shelf at the back of the small room and unfastened a trap door on the ceiling. He pushed it open and climbed out.
"Hold on a second." David called out. He recognized a couple of objects in the room and knew he could make use of them. He gathered a couple of heavy batteries along with some turpentine, some duct-tape, a screwdriver, some matches and a few boxes of white powder. He was familiar with using these items to maximum effectiveness. Sean had taught him a thing or two about explosives. Passing these objects up to Arnold he followed. He could see the white sky above him as he clambered out the hatch.
"This is no time to be scavenging." Arnold whispered as he watched the battle unfolding on the ground in front of them.
"There is now." David took the lids off the batteries and tipped in some turpentine and various powders.
"Is that safe?" The forx asked, still confused as to David's motives.
"Probably not." He answered with a small grin as he taped up the batteries and made a pair of crude fuses from duct-tape. David and Arnold were on top of a single story building. Below them at ground level felines and canines fired at each other from behind cover. David studied the concentration of enemy soldiers in regard to his expected blast size for his makeshift bombs.
"Twenty caps says that I can hit the far squad?" David asked with a grin picking up one of his bombs.
"Just do it!" Arnold whispered loudly. David measured his projected trajectory one more time, then lit the fuse and threw. It was beautiful. The sizzling box lit on fire in mid air as it arced towards the felines like a flare, landing just behind a group of enemy soldiers. On impact the battery exploded. A dark purple flash engulfed most of the group before dissipating into a firestorm of similar colour. The group was scattered about, dead or injured. The felines ran about in panic and confusion. 'Good' David thought with a smile as he threw the second bomb. This one landed near the rear of the enemy concentration, killing only a couple, but sending the fleeing kitties right into the waiting wulfs. They stepped out from cover and opened fire. Everything seemed to slow down. He could see every shock of recoil pounding at the shoulders of the wulfs. The felines dropped slowly as the hail of bullets thinned their ranks. Patches of red soaked into the snow around their bodies. The more calm felines that had stayed in cover were quickly overrun by the wulfs. A squad was sent inside of flush out any stragglers. And so the battle was won. David and the canines all sat at a large wooden table. They yelled at each other and congratulated each other on a job well done. There were those, however who remained quiet throughout. They had lost comrades today. They had lost friends. But for David, this was a celebration. They all shared old war songs and drank into the early hours of morn...
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...Interesting yes? We shall interfere little, do we agree with us?...