Chaos Rules in the Wasteland

"John," said Twilight cautiously.

John did not stop walking, only answering with "Hmm?"

Twilight hesitated. "Have you thought about what you're going to do if we... you know."

John inhaled deeply and slowly let the air back out.

"Never mind," said Twilight quickly. "It won't come to that."

"No," insisted John. "It very easily could. I've been thinking about it for a while now actually. If we don't get a hold of a water chip in Necropolis, I think I'll have to return to the vault... empty handed."

"Is there nothing that you could do?"

"Well, I don't like it, but I think we would have to evacuate the vault and try to make a settlement in the wastes. That's what Vault 15 did. They made Shady Sands. But a lot of people will die in the process. I will ensure that we keep our old home, if I can."

Twilight said nothing for a very long time. Eventually, when the sun was setting, she asked, "How far to Necropolis?"

John looked at the Pip-boy. "Not far at all now. We will be there tomorrow.

"When we were told that some of the ghouls had lost their minds," shouted Twilight to John, "I didn't realize that they would be like this!"

John swung his sledgehammer and caved in the skull of the last of the insane ghouls.

"I see what Harold was talking about," said John, huffing. "He looked like he had... mutated. These guys are just falling apart."

"John, look, there's more over there," said Twilight.

John looked and saw a group of about eight more ghouls.

"We can try talking, but if they start snarling at me, they're going to end up like these guys."

As John and Twilight approached, one of the ghouls noticed them and threw back his head and let out a strained howl.

"Here we go again," said John, readying his sledgehammer. The other ghouls were apparently oblivious to their presence, and only the ghoul that had seen them came running at them with a surprisingly fast hobble.

As soon as it was in range, John smashed the sledgehammer into its chest, throwing the ghoul through the air. It landed about eight feet back and tried to get to its feet. The other ghouls had finally taken notice of the commotion.

BANG

Now that the ghouls had seen them, Twilight fired a shot into one of their head's which exploded from the single shot, causing Twilight to scream in surprise and disgust.

Two ghouls reached John at the same time and tried to grab him, but the sledgehammer smashed into one ghoul and swiftly carried the creature through the air as it bore down upon the second.

"This is sad," said John. "Damn sacks of meat."

After all of the insane ghouls had been killed, John rested his head on his sledgehammer's handle.

"This is getting us nowhere, Twilight. I thought there was supposed to be ghouls in this place that will actualy speak to us!"

John looked up when he realized that Twilight was walking toward one of the ruined buildings. Standing in the doorway was another ghoul, which had apparently been watching the action.

"Heh," it said in a strained and raspy voice. "The ferals really don't like you."

"Thank goodness you're not one of them," said Twilight. "Wait, ferals?"

"That's what you call them when they lose their damn minds. Now, good day." The ghoul walked into the building.

"Wait!" said Twilight after recovering from surprise. The ghoul reappeared in the doorway.

"Look, I don't want to talk to you," snapped the ghoul. "Was just seeing what all the noise was. Just keep away from me."

"But, I was hoping you could help us?"

"You don't need help," said the ghoul. "I'm done talking to you." The ghoul disappeared into the building again.

"It's okay, Twilight," shouted John from behind her. "We don't need anybody's help. Look, there's all kinds of foot traffic here. That's gotta lead to the vault!"

Twilight put aside her thoughts and came to John's side to see what he was talking about. There were indeed countless footprints all around a manhole.

John pried the manhole off and climbed onto the ladder. Suddenly a smell hit his nose.

"Oh, hang on..." he said doubtfully, ignoring the disgusting stench as best as he could. He climbed down the ladder and disappeared.

With some difficulty, Twilight crawled down the ladder too and met John at the bottom. Her mouth opened when she saw where they were.

"This is a sewer," said John.

"UGH! said Twilight as she took in the surroundings. Her horn lit up for a moment.

"What did you just do?" asked John curiously.

"I'm keeping that stench out of my nose!"

"What?" said John, surprised. "You can do that?"

"Magic can do anything if you know how," said Twilight, trying to use a matter of fact tone and not come of as boasting. "And you have enough strength to cast the spell..."

"That is it," announced John. "I can officially no longer be surprised about anything."

A giant rat sprang from a dark corner.

It almost immediately met the head of a sledgehammer, traveling at high speed. The dead rat flew into the air from the momentum and back into the dark corner that it had come from.

"Wait don't shoot!" said a ghoul in a raspy voice.

John hesitated, then approached them. "Don't worry, I'm not going to attack you if you're not one of those insane ferals. Are you..." John trailed off as he eyed the group of ghouls behind the one who had spoken, as well as various chairs, tables, and bedding made from various materials.

"You can't seriously be living in this nasty sewer?"

"Thanks for not shooting first, or bashing our skulls in in your case." said the ghoul. "We don't think it's so bad. Can't smell a thing, see. Can I help you with anything?"

"Are you the leader here?" asked Twilight.

"I am the leader of a simple people who have left the surface because of others."

"Who, exactly?" asked John. "Give me names and I'll-"

"The surface of Necropolis," said the ghoul, cutting John off, "is controlled by Set and his ghouls. We are a more peaceable group than Set and his lackeys. I don't want you to hurt him."

"Hang on," said John excitedly. "You said that he controls the water? Maybe we should speak with him."

"No," said the ghoul firmly. "Set is a ghoul like us, but he has acquired a certain amount of power. He is an oaf."

"Would you care to elaborate?" asked John suspiciously.

"No."

"Well, okay," said John slowly. "But if this Set is so bad, why does he let you're group stay down here? You clearly oppose him."

"Set is afraid that he won't have enough people to defend Necropolis if ever we need to."

If you fight like the ferals, then you need all the people you can get, thought John, but he did not say this aloud.

"I know that you have a vault here. I need the water chip to save my people." John stopped and tried to gauge the ghoul's reaction, but the expression on his decayed face was nearly impossible to read. "Will you help me?"

"Hmm," said the ghoul. "Ever since the water pump stopped working, we've been getting our water from that place. I heard that it was a water computer that was purifying all of the water."

"Where is it?" asked John urgently.

"It's in the water shed up north of here," said the ghoul simply.

"Thanks," said John, who turned away.

"Hey!" said the ghoul, drawing John's attention again.

"You aren't thinking of taking the water chip away from us, are you?"

John hesitated and his expression turned hard. "My people," he said slowly, "Need that water chip to survive."

"With the water pump broken, that water chip is the only thing that lets us survive too," said the ghoul.

"I see," said John darkly. "It would appear that we are at an impasse."

"Wait!" said Twilight, acting before the situation escalated. She turned to the ghoul. "Is it possible that the water pump can be fixed?"

"That might be difficult," replied the ghoul. "The parts needed to fix the pump are lost in the sewers beneath the water shed."

"What?" asked John incredulously. "Why the hell would- never mind. But why is that so difficult, just go and get them!"

"The sewers are filled with monsters, and none of my people that I have sent to retrieve the parts have come back."

"Ah," said John. "Makes sense I guess. Okay, I'll do it. I'm more than capable of dealing with some overgrown vermin."

"Thank you," said the ghoul in relief. "When you get the parts, come back here. I can probably help you further with repairing the pump."

"Alright then. I will see you soon."

John turned to the tunnel that would take them north and started walking. Twilight watched him for a moment. She turned to the ghoul.

"Thanks," she said, and then quickly dashed off to catch up with John.

"More giant rats, who would have guessed?" shouted John.

He waited for the creatures to come to him. Twilight fired a couple of shots into a rat which fell dead before it could reach John. The other two giant rats came near and John swiftly bashed them both with the sledgehammer. He turned around and ran.

Twilight fired twice more and the rats fell dead.

"Not a problem," said John. "I think we made a wrong turn somewhere though, this is a dead end."

"It look's like those things have had other victims recently," said Twilight sadly, looking at the dead bodies of two ghouls. "I guess we should check them for anything useful."

"Oh, right!" said John, who thumped his head with his palm. "I didn't kill them myself, so I completely forgot about searching them!"

Twilight ignored this and started to search the dead ghoul in the back of the room. She lifted a strange pistol into the air.

"Argh, this guy didn't have anything," said John. He turned and saw what Twilight was holding. "Whoa, what's that?"

"I think I read about these," said Twilight. "I'm pretty sure it's an energy weapon of some sort. They are military grade and supposedly really hard to get."

"Energy weapon?" said John, confused.

"It mean's that it doesn't fire physical bullets. I think this one shoots beams of focused light."

"Huh?" said John. "That doesn't sound like it would hurt. Maybe if you aim for the eyes..."

"These beams of light are so concentrated that it would burn a hole through your skin," explained Twilight. "It could very well be effective when my other guns prove to be ineffective."

"Well, I do like the sound of that." Twilight didn't answer. John waited for a moment.

"Anyway," he continued, "we need to find the correct way out of this hell hole."

A manhole slid aside and John climbed out of the hole, followed closely by Twilight. He stood up and looked around.

"I don't see anything that looks like a water shed yet. Let's keep going north," he said.

Suddenly Twilight harshly whispered "Stop!"

John stopped and looked around, alarmed. He looked to Twilight in confusion. She indicated a nearby building and started moving toward it, moving as quickly as she could without making a noise.

John followed her. When they reached the building, Twilight pressed herself against the wall and leaned around the corner. She quickly drew her head away.

"Look!" she whispered. "There is a super mutant standing in front of the water shed!"

"No..." whispered John. He indicated for Twilight to move aside. When she had done so, he took her place and leaned around the corner. He saw the mutant. It had a long gun in its hands that John could not identify from this distance. The building behind it was rather larger than he had been expecting.

"That's a water shed?" he asked.

John carefully slid along the outer wall of the building toward the super mutant, hoping that it would not look his way. This was a feeling of discomfort that he was not very familiar with. The slowness of his progress left his mind focused on the fact that he was edging his way toward a giant who would probably kill him on sight. He much preferred the action of battle where his mind focused entirely on the fight and everything happens in a blur. There was no time for worrying involved.

Suddenly the super mutant shifted his head and looked straight at John. "Hey, you!" it said in a sharp voice.

John froze. His mind was screaming for him to run, but his body would not oblige.

"You not ghoul!"

Some of John's panic disappeared, replaced by confusion.

"Come here!"

Already John's racing mind was working toward turning this setback to his advantage. In the meantime, he did as the mutant requested and approached it, although he didn't get too close.

"You not ghoul!" repeated the mutant.

"Of course I'm not a ghoul," said John, who had somehow managed to calm himself. "Do I look like a ghoul to you?"

"Ha! You not fool Harry! You not ghoul!" said the mutant happily.

"Why would you care if I'm a ghoul?" asked John.

The mutant hesitated before answering. "Master wants us find humans. We take you back to Lou."

"Why would you be looking for humans here? This is a town of ghouls."

The mutant thought about it for a bit. "Loutenant send us everywhere. Not know where the humans are. We find them, and we tell him where. Master send army to bring all back to base."

"Army?" said John in shock. He quickly tried to return to his calm demeanor.

"But what if we don't want to go with you?"

"We hurt you," answered the mutant simply.

"Oh," said John, who was unsurprised. "Okay, but before we go, I just wanted to give you this."

The mutant didn't hesitate to take the object from John's outstretched hand. It brought it up close to its eyes to examine it, but then noticed that John had taking off running as far away as possible. The mutant let out a loud snarl.

BLAM

The mutant's head and hand exploded as the grenade that it had unknowingly accepted went off in its hand and the remainder of its corpse fell to the ground unceremoniously.

"What was noise?" came a super mutant's shout from within the building. "Harry?"

Another grenade arced through the air and landed inside the entry to the building. A mutant appeared in front of the door frame just as it exploded.

Much to John's astonishment, the a huge portion of the building itself immediately collapsed on itself.

Nobody moved until there was no more noise except for the sound of rubble settling. Twilight rounded the corner of the building that she had been hiding behind.

"Don't scare me like that!" she said in a shout-whisper.

"Holy hell!" whispered John to Twilight, as it was all he could think to say. They approached the collapsed building. Fortunately, the far end of it was still left standing.

"Are they all dead?" whispered Twilight.

A tremendous roar split the air, and within moments a super mutant threw climbed out from under a rubble pile and was on his feet. It was slightly bigger than a normal super mutant, but for some reason its fists were engorged to the size of its own head.

John started to run, but to his despair the mutant was more than able to keep up with him. He barely dodged a fist from the giant creature. While it wasn't particularly agile with it's swings, it was difficult to avoid a fist so big.

John quickly realized that he would not be able to get even one solid hit in on the mutant without practically guaranteeing getting clobbered. His mind was frantically trying to work out a way to lose the monster.

BANG

Twilight's hunting rifle's shot pierced the back of the thing's back, but did little to damage it. The mutant bellowed at John and continued to chase him.

BANG

The second shot proved as ineffective as the first. John started to fall into despair.

With sudden determination, he readied himself to give the mutant his strongest blow. He did a U-turn, throwing the mutant off.

PEW

John stumbled in astonishment when he saw a red beam appear from Twilight and hit the super mutant in the head, who bellowed in pain, louder than anything John had heard in his life. He fell to the floor in shock, sealing his doom. He did not attempt to get to his feet. Instead John merely lifted his head.

He gaped in astonishment. The mutant had given up on him and was charging at Twilight, whom John knew had no hope of outmaneuvering the mutant. Another laser shot from the pistol in Twilight's grasp and into the mutant's head, causing it to scream again. Its face had turned a sickly black. John scrambled to his feet.

The mutant jumped at Twilight and a hand closed around her whole midsection.

NO! NOOOOO!" she screamed desperately. Suddenly her senses exploded with pain and her vision went black as the mutant smashed her into the floor. She barely let out a scream of pain, as all of the air in her lungs had been forced out.

Time slowed down for the horrified John. Unfortunately, time slowed down his own movement as well. He watched the giant raise the Twilight's body into the air in preparation for smashing it into the ground again. She was still awake and was gasping desperately to get her breath. John tried as hard as he could to get to her in time to stop it, but, maddeningly, he could not make himself go any faster.

He watched in horror as the mutant pounded her into the ground again.

Only moments too late, the mutant came into reach of John's sledgehammer, which he swung with what he felt was greater than all his might. The blow smashed into the mutant's chest and it fell onto its back.

It roared angrily and threw Twilight aside like a forgotten toy. Before it could even start to get up, John swung the sledgehammer into the mutant's head.

It hit the mutant in the blackened part of its face. Charred pieces of the mutant's face fell out at the impact with no blood to follow suit. John had hit something vital, and he quickly realized the mutant was dead. It did not stop him from bashing it's skull one more time.

He dropped to Twilight's gasping form. "Twilight, Twilight! You're going to be fine!" he cried to her desperately. He frantically pulled Twilight's pack open in search of stimpacks. "Damn, where do you have them?" he asked her, not expecting an answer.

After digging through the pack with no success for a short time, he heard Twilight's hoarse voice. "I... think... I'll... be... fine," she wheezed out without tone.

John stopped digging through the pack and dropped down to look her in the eye. "The leather armor!" he cried. "Killian, you've saved her life!"

Twilight made no response. John continued. "I asked him about it and he said that it used to be an old design by the "Americans" to use in a sport that they used to play where they bashed into each other all the time! Built to protect the wearer from concussions and trauma!"

John suddenly smashed his foot down on top of the charred chunks of the mutant's face that had come out and ground them into the ground. When he lifted his foot, all that was left was ashes. While he had not been expecting this, it hardly mattered at the moment.

John sprang back to the pack. "Twilight, the stimpacks! Where are they?"

"That... pocket..." Twilight tried to indicate with a hoof, but it wouldn't quite listen to her brain's instructions. John picked up on her intent anyway and pulled the correct pocket open.

"Please let her not have broken anything," he muttered to himself.

"Ugh," moaned Twilight, who was now on her feet. "I don't get it. Stimpacks can repair tissue and stop bleeding, but I still have a dreadful headache."

"Can you walk?" asked John. Twilight gave him a look. "Sorry," he continued, "it's just that I don't feel comfortable here with ghouls and super mutants all around. We need to hurry up and find those parts."

"Alright," said Twilight. "I just hope you didn't bury the water pump with that stunt of yours. You realize that these building's are one hundred years old? They're already falling apart."

"Don't worry about it," assured John. "The pump is in the back and I only collapsed the area around the entry."

"You had better be right."

"But first, there's another manhole right here in front of the place. That is where we're supposed to find the parts."

John pulled the manhole off and climbed down the ladder.

"Oh, right," he said, his voice echoing out of the hole. "Uh, I guess you should find a building to hide in or something. Just keep that awesome pistol ready. This won't take long."

Twilight shook her head. She did want to go with John, but he was highly unlikely to run into any trouble that he couldn't handle on his own. But she also knew there was no way that she was going away from this manhole. She wanted to be within earshot just in case.

"Okay John." she answered.

About ten minutes later, she heard John's voice again.

"Twilight, you still up there?"

"Yes, I am."

"I'm coming back up!"

A moment later, John was crawling out of the hole. He pulled the bag off of his shoulder. "Look at all of this crap," he said. He set the bag on the ground and opened it.

"Whoa, what a mess," said Twilight, observing the contents. The entire mouth of the bag was filled with various scrap metal and electronic parts.

"Yeah, how are we supposed to make this work?" asked John.

"I don't know, but that ghoul in the sewer said that he would help us when we retrieved this stuff."

"Oh, that's right," said John, snapping his fingers. He looked at Twilight. "Uh, you stay here. Let me take care of it."

"Welcome back!" said Twilight happily when she saw John making his way out of the manhole that leads to the ghouls.

John gave her no answer. He got completely out of the hole and on his feet.

"Where is the ghoul?" asked Twilight. "Did he refuse to come help us?"

John opened up his pack, his face remaining expressionless. A moment later, he pulled out a book and held it up to Twilight in both hands.

Twilight didn't say a word, instead just looking at the book in surprise.

John spread out his hands and two more books fanned out from behind the first. They were all issues of "Dean's Electronics". Twilight's mouth hung open.

She took the books from John's hand and stared at them. She looked back up to John.

"Why," she said in a loud voice, "didn't he just give us these in the first place?" she finished happily.

Twilight took off toward the half ruined water shed. John ran after her.

They both started climbing on top of the rubble and carefully making their way toward the back of the building. It wasn't far.

"There's the pump," said Twilight.

"Hmm," said John. "Absolutely no way I can fix the damn thing, but that's why I keep you around!"

Twilight glared at John.

"Oh come on, I was joking! I'll guess I'll have to see what I can do."

"Ugh," grunted Twilight. This is too important, she thought. I'm not going to let a headache stop me now.

Twilight flipped the first electronics book open and said, "This will probably take a while. Take one of these books and help me find anything that will help."

"What?" asked John in surprise.

"Do it!" snapped Twilight.

"Aha!" said Twilight. John looked up from his own book and raised an eyebrow.

"There's a schematic for just this sort of thing right here in this book! We didn't even actually need the others!" she said happily. "Not to say I won't read them later. Now to fix the generator!"

"Good luck with that," said John. "I'm going to take a look around."

John left Twilight to her work and stepped into the back area of the water shed. A ghoul's voice suddenly cried out to him, "Hey you!"

John jumped in the air. He looked around for the source of the voice and, to his astonishment, discovered that there were three iron bar doors in the room and that there was a ghoul behind the one in the middle.

"Are you here to set me free?" asked the ghoul hopefully.

"Uh, I didn't know you were back here, but of course I'll let you go," said John.

"Thank you, thank you" said the ghoul. "What are you waiting for then? Do it do it do it!"

John approached the door and discovered that it was locked with a conventional locking mechanism. He smiled to himself.

Now this, I can do, he thought to himself. He pulled his lock picking kit out of his pack and easily picked the lock open.

"Oh, thank you so much again my friend!" shouted the ghoul.

At that moment, Twilight came through the door. "What's going on back here?" she asked.

John ignored her. The ghoul was in a rush to get as far away from the cell as possible. "Wait," he said to the ghoul. "Where is the water coming from?"

"That cell over there," said the ghoul, pointing to the right. "The old vault is down there. We've been getting our water from there ever since the pump broke. The glowing ones can be overly protective though. They won't let anybody in or out, and we've got to get that pump fixed, and these stupid super mutants don't care!"

"I just finished fixing the pump," Twilight announced.

"You did?" squeaked the ghoul in surprise. "Then we owe you big time! Um, now then, can I please get out of here?"

"Of course," said John, stepping aside to let the ghoul pass. It hurriedly hobbled past him and through the doorway.

"Come on," said John urgently. "We're so close."

He opened the door to the vault and crawled down another ladder in the ground.

When Twilight reached the bottom, she turned around and saw John standing over the dead bodies of two ghouls.

"John!" she exclaimed. "What happened? Ferals?"

"They moaned about how I was an intruder or something," said John quickly. "I was going to explain, but they attacked me!"

"Oh..." said Twilight sadly. "Right, the glowing ones. It had to be done," she said, as much to herself as John.

"Come on!" said John, who turned and jogged off into the vault. Twilight hurried after him.

The trip through the ruined vault was uneventful, but it was undeniably eerie when all of the resident ghouls started thanking them for fixing the water pump. When Twilight asked the ghoul how he knew about that, it explained that they could hear the pump working, even from the vault, and the two newcomers were surely responsible. Twilight and John said nothing more to the ghouls, even when they all gave their thanks.

John knew exactly where to go. He finally stopped in front of a computer, the only device in the entire vault that appeared to still be functional. John approached the controls for the machine and hesitated.

"This is it," he mused. "Everything since I left the vault has been leading up to this."

He punched a few buttons on the control panel. A small square thing extruded from a slot in the computer unceremoniously. John only waited a moment before grabbing it.

"That's it then", he said. "It's over. All we have to do is return to my vault. No more fighting, and no more stinkin' wasteland."

Twilight said nothing, not wanting to interrupt John. They wordlessly made their way out of the vault.

Twilight climbed out of the hole that lead to the vault. She was grateful that, hopefully, it would be the last time she would have to, as it was generally uncomfortable to climb. John was already on the move, but he had opted to walk around the rubble instead of climb it. Twilight followed.

"UGHRAGH!"

Twilight and John looked at the rubble in astonishment and it began to shift, but only barely. A piece fell away and revealed the face of a super mutant, buried deep under the remains of the wrecked building.