Chaos Rules in the Wasteland

There was a sudden outburst of roaring and horrifying shrieks around John and he jumped to his feet with his super sledgehammer in hand, but he hesitated in confusion at what he saw.

The creatures and mutants alike were attacking each other.

Not every single one though. There were a few were advancing on John, and none of their fellow monsters were in their way.

John smashed his super sledgehammer down upon one of the crawling abominations. The super sledgehammer had been designed to multiply any force sent through it, so it cleaved through the creature's soft head with relative ease.

"One!" roared John triumphantly. That's right! he shouted in his mind, which was already becoming altered by the psycho. I'm going to take as many of you down as I can, and I'm going to remember exactly how many!

A shotgun went off and hit John in the chest. Fortunately for John, shotguns are especially ineffective against heavy armor, and it would leave him with only a large bruise. It did draw his attention to the mutant who fired at him.

Even as John was running at the mutant, two hunting rifles went off and hit him in the back, having considerably more success in piercing the combat armor. John yelped as each shot hit, but he didn't feel the pain for any longer than the initial sting. He closed in on the mutant and swiped at it's jaw with an uppercut, which landed and forced the mutant's head up with sufficient force to snap its neck.

John ignored the gunfire and screams around him and turned his attention to one of the other mutants that had shot him. It was about to fire again.

Suddenly a splatter of blood erupted from its arm, causing the mutant to drop the hunting rifle in surprise and pain. John watched as the mutant turned and leapt on another mutant with a hunting rifle with its bare fists.

Unfortunately, in John's hesitation, several crawling things had surrounded him, cutting off any escape routes he had. The ones with tentacle tongue like appendages were trying to use them to knock him off of the ground.

They succeeded. Within a second John's vision was completely obscured by the fleshy monsters that were crawling on him. A couple of them were trying to bite through his armor, while another pair were trying to constrict his legs to death, which was actually more effective.

John released the sledgehammer and made a desperate attempt to sit up, which he was able to do after throwing one of the creatures aside, but he fell over on his knees awkwardly, as his legs were still being held captive.

He reclaimed his super sledge from the dirt and, knowing that he didn't have room to swing with force, grabbed onto the head of the weapon with both hands and jabbed the handle into one of the creatures constricting his legs. It let out a hair raising scream until the weapon was pierced into the creature, killing it.

With the other abomination gone, John was able to swing the hammer sufficiently to knock the last one away, but he almost lost his grip on it because of a layer of slime and blood that caked the handle.

Three

Now free, he looked around to discover that the other abominations were swarming around the remaining super mutants. None of them were paying him any attention.

This will be easy. John raised the super sledge as he ran toward a mass of the monsters.

Twilight observed with intense relief as the last abomination was brought to its bloody death. At first it had been overwhelming to attempt to influence the minds of so many, as the Master did, and twice she had almost let John die. However, after only a minute of fighting, the attackers had lost sufficient number for her to keep the remaining monsters away from John. Of course, this did not prevent him from speeding up the process of killing each and every one. John had lost count of the number that he had slain, and after they were all dead, recounted. He included every corpse, including the ones that had been killed by its own kind instead of at his own hands. The final count was forty-two.

Part of her mind was troubled that the Master was apparently incapable or unwilling to intervene and stop her attempts to save her friend, but it was overshadowed by another part of her mind that took control of her mouth.

"You don't touch my friends," Twilight hissed venomously. Not you, not your... minions, nobody. If you want to get to him, you're going through me first."

There was no response. Suddenly Twilight's fury gave way to panic as she realized that she had no way of knowing 'where' the Master was or what he was doing.

"DO YOU HEAR ME?" she bellowed into the air in rage.

Suddenly she felt her vision go black. The last thing that she saw before losing consciousness was John standing on a super mutant and screaming into the air in triumph.

Eventually the psycho wore off and John began to feel the intense pain of multiple bullet wounds in various places on his body. Evidently, he had not even felt half of the times he had been shot. Fortunately, he was also thinking more coherently, and remembered not to use a stimpack until the bullets were removed. Thankfully, the entire fight had taken place near the remains of a caravan, and all of the goods had been left behind, which meant that the mutants were almost certainly to blame.

Using a medical kit, John eventually extracted each bullet, and then used a stimpack on each wound. Finally, when he was no longer fighting for his own survival, he turned his thoughts to his mission, but all the while kept removing items and examining them from the truck bed that had served as a cargo hold for the caravan.

He had been completely unsuccessful in locating the source of the mutants, but they were without a doubt in high concentration in the area. The only good thing to come out of the trip so far had been claiming the super sledgehammer from an unsuspecting lone mutant. He had no idea why it had been alone, but didn't argue.

But perhaps he could turn this incident to his advantage. He might not be able to locate the mutant base, but he could start warning towns about the immanent invasions. Of course, nobody would believe him without proof. The corpse of an actual super mutant might be sufficient, but he would be incapable of transporting a half ton monster across the wasteland.

But the caravan had given him an idea. If cleared out, there would be sufficient space inside the truck bed to lay a corpse inside.

It was past sundown, but John had finally prepared his presentation for the civilizations of the wasteland. He had found the least damaged super mutant corpse and, with difficulty dragged it up onto the truck bed. He decided against taking the body of the abominations, as they had all been mutilated beyond recognition. Even before I killed them, he thought.

He had also used a length of rope from the caravan to create a way of pulling the rig without getting too uncomfortable. It would still take effort to move, but it allowed him to keep aware of his surroundings and to quickly drop it if trouble arose.

There was only one more thing to do before deciding which town to visit first. The corpse would decay without intervention. He would make an early return to the Brotherhood of Steel.

Twilight suddenly became aware again. Everything was black and she was unable to move. For a moment she wondered if she had been returned to her own body, but she quickly decided that this was not the case, as she could feel nothing.

"What is this?" shouted the Master's voice. "What have you done?" Twilight felt sure that the Master was afraid, which pleased her, but she was still completely confused. "You cannot have done this, I ensured it!" Twilight saw the darkness begin to brighten, slowly.

"Clearly," said the Master, "I have underestimated your power."

Quickly, Twilight's surroundings were brightened so that her surroundings were white. But more importantly, somehow, Twilight sensed that the presence of the Master was gone. It was replaced by a strange feeling of warmth that Twilight experienced around only one being.

"How did you find me here?" Twilight asked in astonishment.

"You are in such distress." replied the rich voice of Twilight's mentor. "I had to find you. Your assailant is powerful indeed. I will help you if I can, but I can only stay for a moment."

Twilight's hopes were crushed into despair. "There are so many relying on me to save them!" she cried. "But without my magic, I feel so... helpless!"

"Indeed? I suppose I should not be surprised at the lack of magic in this dreadful place. But Twilight, remember."

"Remember what?" said Twilight, eager to acknowledge her teacher despite being unable to see her.

"Remember that, no matter where you are, even if all of the magic is gone from the world, you always have the strongest source of magic inside you."

Something in Twilight's head clicked.

"Of course!" she shouted. "How could I possibly have forgotten? I am unworthy to be your student!"

"No Twilight, you are worthy. But you have not been my student for some time. It is you facing these perils, not I."

"I... thank you."

"Twilight, my time here is coming to an end, and you must still escape."

"Oh, of course! What can I do?" asked Twilight urgently.

"You aren't going to like this. Turn this monster's tricks against him. It might be the only way."

Without warning, Twilight's surroundings faded to black, and Twilight knew that she was alone with the Master once more.

She was prepared for the master's mental attack. She resisted it with difficulty, and finally reversed it back the way it had come from.

There was an eerie groan. The Master was stunned by the surprise attack. Twilight knew that it might be her only opportunity. She willed herself to invade the Master's mind.

Humans settled in the town 'Shady Sands' are originally from Vault 15. They are prime targets for FEV infection, and the Town is relatively defenseless. Invasion force will arrive in five days.

Twilight recoiled from shock when she realized that she had stumbled upon the Master's immediate plan. She could feel the Master had recovered however, and was looking for her. The only escape was to tunnel deeper into his mind.

Twilight was suddenly in an unfamiliar, dark room. There were several super mutant corpses on the floor. She felt herself moving and she saw that she had moved to one of the mutants and set a combat armor clad foot on it. A human foot.

For some reason, she was watching the world through the eyes of a human.

The man started to check his gun. Twilight was unable to tell what he was thinking, but after a moment, the man turned his head around and looked back at another man. Twilight did not recognize him.

"Coming, Harold?"

'Harold' was clearly uncomfortable. "Just the two of us?" he asked. "We came in here with a group of half a dozen, and the mutants have killed half of us already! I still don't like how we let Mark go back all by himself, not after a gun wound like that."

"You know the mission," replied the man that Twilight was seeing through unsympathetically. "Eliminate the source of the mutants. If we turn back now, it's a failure. You and I, we're the best of the best. We can get through this, even where the others failed."

"Maybe you're right Grey," replied Harold. "I still think we're going to die, but we're not going down without a fight, right?"

BLAM

"Maybe you might die," replied Grey, shouldering his sniper rifle as Harold turned around in astonishment at the mutant who had fallen dead in the passage behind him. The mutant's eye socket was torn to a bloody mess.

"You would be dead already if not for me," Grey continued. "But stick close, and you might just get out of here alive."

Harold let out a sigh. "You're right. You're always right."

The two men walked to the next door. Grey walked to a console next to a large metal door. She tried to comprehend as Grey hacked the computer, but she was unable to follow along at his pace. All she was able to tell was that the encryption was probably of the highest quality. The door opened.

"What the hell is all of this?" asked Harold in wonder. He started to step forward, but Grey shot out a hand and stopped him. Harold backed away and let Grey go through first.

Grey moved through the door silently and began scanning the large circular room. Twilight noticed a large area of glowing green substance on the floor, but Grey did not focus on it. He used his scope to efficiently scan the areas far away.

Eventually he said, "All clear."

"What the hell is this room?" Harold burst out. "And what the hell is this over here?"

Harold walked over to the green on the floor, which, now that Twilight had time to study it, it was in fact a circular tank full of an unidentified green liquid inset into the ground, and the top was open.

Grey crouched down and got a good look at the substance.

"If I didn't know better..."

Grey did not continue, and Twilight could sense his uneasiness.

Suddenly something large and metallic hit Grey in the back, and he fell forward into the muck with a scream.

"Richard!" shouted Harold.

Twilight's vision was completely obscured by the green glowing slime.

"This exchange has come to an end," rang the Master's voice through the air, cold rage apparent in its voice.

The world around Twilight began to fade once more. Twilight panicked.

There was a discharge of magic.

Twilight found herself standing in Shady Sands. The master was gone. She was no longer in danger. She could feel herself again. A quick examination confirmed that she was in her own body, and very much awake and in fine condition. She even had her robe on. The only downside was that her backpack of supplies was gone.

Her magic had worked.

Not only had it worked, but the distance between her body and her destination had definitely been a record teleport for Twilight. Unfortunately, she was sure that she would never manage this again, as she had been in special circumstances when selecting her destination.

She couldn't container herself. Twilight let out a squee of joy and bounced on alternating hooves. Suddenly she realized that she was being stared at by quite a number of the townsfolk, who were muttering to themselves.

No time for celebration, she thought, I have to find whoever the leader of this town is right now.

"You have to believe me!" shouted Twilight to the man called Aradesh. "They look like this!"

Twilight's horn lit up and a life size image of a super mutant appeared in the air beside her.

Aradesh did not change his expression. "I'm sorry," he said. "I just cannot bring myself to believe that these... creatures truly exist at all, much less are coming to this town in force."

"How can you say that?" demanded Twilight. "What if you are wrong?"

"I do believe that you believe what you are saying," said Aradesh assuredly. "But... forgive me... Maybe you have spent too much time in the desert sun?

"Maybe I have. Listen, just keep everybody on high alert for a week, and if I am wrong, you can go back to your normal lives!"

"It makes no difference. This town is a peaceful one, and we are not armed for war. What will come, will come."

"Argh!" shouted Twilight. "You don't have weapons? How do you expect to survive out here?"

"We won't," said Aradesh simply. "The Damned Great Khan raiders prey on this town always. As we become weak, they grow strong. It is only because they wish to let us rebuild, only to steal away our hard work again, that has saved the town from being destroyed. If anybody had been willing to help us deal with the problem, we might be in a better state to defend ourselves."

Twilight thought for a minute.

"So," she said finally. The only people in the area who are well armed are these Great Khan raiders?"

"Yes."

"Where are they?"

"Their camp is about a day's travel south," replied Aradesh. "But you must avoid them if you value your life!"

Twilight ignored him. She was already rushing out the door.

"No! Wait!" shouted Aradesh. He pursued her as far as the door, where he stopped. She was heading toward the town entrance.