Chapters The Power Armor Series: Tin Soldier
I walked through the doors of a convention for the first time in my life, only to get assaulted by people asking for photos or autographs. Of course I let them have their fun. I did poses with them for photos and I signed little books with a #2 pencil. After the crowd around me dispersed looking quite happy, I continued on my path deeper into the massive convention.
*****
Oh, sorry. You don't know me. I'm Maxwell Greyson, but my friends just call me Max. I'm a 21 year old male that's 6 feet and 3 inches tall with light skin, light brown hair and green eyes. I also have a brother, John Greyson. I bought a pass to this gaming convention a few months back for time to make my costume. I was going to go as a Brotherhood of Steel paladin in T-60 power armor from Fallout 4. I had a pretty big amount of money to spend on this costume for it to look nice.
The costume itself was bigger than me, just like in the game. The frame was just pieces of wood attached with hinges. The 'feet' were actually just wood because to reach a more realistic height for the T-60 power armor I had to stand on the ankles. The outer shell was just 3D printed pieces that I colored with red and grey metallic paint. The joints were pieces of grey cloth with woven lines. The helmet was the hardest thing to do. I got the frame printed, colored and fitted with shaded plastic for the eyes. After it all, I spray painted the BoS logo onto the chestpiece and the paladin ranking in the wrist of the left arm. Overall, it looked exactly like a suit of T-60 BoS paladin power armor.
By the time I was finished with the suit, it was almost time for the convention to open. The convention was happening in my city so it didn't take to long to drive there. When I got there and parked, I entered the costume and headed towards the entrance.
*****
I continued to walk further into the convention, seeing a lot of other cosplayers. I constantly gave and received compliments. The part they liked the best about my suit was how I got every piece in correct proportion. As I got further into the convention, I kept seeing more and more stalls that sold items from cosplay items to little gaming trinkets.
But one stall caught my eye. It was in the back, away from the other stalls. I couldn't see the items, but I could see the merchant. He looked like the merchant from resident evil. I knew this could only mean one thing. Or maybe iv'e read to many my little pony fanfics. Either way, it seemed exciting to me. I approached the outlying stall. The merchant noticed me getting closer.
"Ahh, a paladin of the brotherhood. I notice your missing your gun though." The merchant said. He moved to grab something, but I cut him off with my words.
"Which Equestria has the universe picked for me?" I said nonchalantly. He looked at me in surprise. Then he caught on to what I was saying.
"How did you know?" He asked confused.
"I read too many fan fictions for my own good." I said with a chuckle. He then smiled and brought up what he was grabbing before. It was a Fallout 4 minigun. "How much for the minigun?"
"Well, for being the first to discover who I am and for being pretty damn good at making power armor..." The merchant then gestured to me and my suit. "...you get the minigun free!" He said. I then dropped all the cash I had in my wallet onto the counter in front of him. A total of 2,600 dollars.
"Other weapons and a storage device?" I asked. He then smiled and we began the trading.
After the exchange, I had multiple weapons from fallout 4, all the attachments and a 4D storage chip. The 4D storage chip is supposed to fuse with my body during the displacement. The weapons I bought were the minigun, a missile launcher, a 10mm pistol and a laser pistol.
"So, what Equestria am I going to?" I asked the merchant. He put his hand under his chin and thought about it. After a second, he put his hand down and spoke.
"Well, you'll be going to an anthro Equestria at the time when Celestia and Luna are at war with the griffons. Oh, I almost forgot!" He then reached under the table and grabbed something. He came back up and placed a fusion core with a glowing red infinity sign on the side onto the table in front of him. "Your going to need this. A recharging fusion core. It recharges when your not moving."
"Do you have another non-recharging one that I can use for a token?" I asked him.
"Sure." He reached down and placed another in front of him, except this one didn't have the infinity sign. I reached with my armored hand and picked up both fusion cores. "Have fun."
"It's been nice meeting you." I said as I slipped into the darkness of unconsciousness.
The Power Armor Series: Tin Soldier
Chapter 2: Onward [Edited {word fixes}]
Me, the princesses and what what remained of their army (it can barely be called an army anymore) walked towards the dark trees of the Everfree forest. I heard a small *ping* and saw a small indication in the upper left of my vision:
[Gryphonia reputation: Hated]
[Equestria reputation: Accepted]
[New perk added: 100 meter (rainbow) dash]
[Nobody can catch you! Your the gingerbread man! You now sprint 200% faster.] 'Wait, perks? * Ohoho, you amazing merchant!*'
The sun was getting lower in the sky as we walked onward across the tall grass and the princesses were asking me questions. I was more than happy to tell them what we did, well, what Elder Lyons' chapter did. I associated my alignment with The Citadel from Fallout 3.
"So in the wasteland you hail from, you are part of an advanced organization that does it's best to help restore the wasteland to peace whilst also fighting another, even more advanced, organization called the 'Enclave' to prevent the death of hundreds?" Luna asked, skimming through everything I have told them about my 'duties' in the Capital Wasteland. But when I told them what me and the brotherhood did, it felt almost... natural.
I responded while nodding. "Yep. That's what the Brotherhood of Steel does on a regular basis." She was impressed, even though she tried her best to hide it.
"That is a most noble cause. But what did this 'Enclave' do exactly? If you don't mind me asking that is." Celestia said. It was easy to make a response to that.
"The Enclave were the remnants of the original american government. Many patriots trusted them, only to be proven that their trust was misplaced. They thought that anything mutated or irradiated was 'impure' and needed to exterminated from the wasteland. So they genetically engineered a water-born virus strain that kills anything that is irradiated or mutated. It's called the MFEV, or 'Modified Forced Evolutionary Virus'. They took the original FEV strain from a long abandoned underground blast shelter called a 'vault'. The original strain was meant to be a horrible experiment to make an advanced race of humans. But that ended up making the 'super mutants', but that's besides the point. When they got their hands on the FEV, they modified it into the water-born, mutant killing and extremely potent virus it was. But thanks to the lone wanderer, a powerful ally of the brotherhood who President Eden thought he could manipulate into releasing the virus [pfft, as if. They were responsible for the death of his dad!], we got the last remaining Enclave FEV strain and disposed of it properly. And when I say 'disposed', I mean we incinerated it so there was only ashes left." I replied. This whole explanation earned looks of shock from the sisters.
"Who would trust an organization like that!?" Luna half yelled. This was perfectly understandable.
"They didn't know about the Enclave's true goals. They just thought that the Enclave was the good ol' american government coming to save the day." I told them.
I could see Celestia looking at the minigun that I was carrying in my steel hands. I also found out how to reload it too. I just need to take the ammo cartridge out of the gun, the empty ammo cartridge disappears in a sort of digital effect and gets replaced the same way with a full ammo cartridge. Infinite ammo is awesome.
"What is that weapon your carrying? Some kind of cannon I presume?" Celestia asked.
"You aren't far off. It's like a rapid fire cannon and the cannon balls are about the size of your pinkie finger's nail. It's called a gun. This one is called a minigun, due to it being the smallest of the rotary cannons. This large cylinder on the bottom of it is called the 'magazine'. It's where all the ammo is stored. That's why it's so armored; if another bullet, which is what the ammo is called, were to pierce the magazine, it would set off the other bullets and possibly cause the gun to blow up." I explained. The sisters were still shocked.
"Wait, that thing can explode!?" Luna yelled, but not in the royal canterlot voice.
"ONLY if the magazine is pierced, and that is highly unlikely." I said. This seemed to calm Luna down.
"Also, what is that armor made of? Nothing except mythril can completely deflect an arrow." Celestia questioned. I was happy they asked.
"Two inch thick double reinforced steel." I answered. This left both of the princesses with gaping mouths.
"How are you still standing with that much weight on you!? At that weight, the armor would crush you!" Half-yelled Celestia. I found this amusing.
"The reason I'm not being crushed by this armor is because the armor isn't actually on ME." This just confused the princesses. "The armor is actually on a steel frame that surrounds me. The armor is attached to the frame so it doesn't crush me. I just need to step into the armor's frame and then bam, instant protection. The frame also increases my strength. But even though it doubles my strength, it halfs my speed. Even with that, the pros far outweigh the cons." I explained. The princesses let out an 'ohhhh' at my explanation of how power armor worked.
"But wait, wouldn't it still be really hard to move in the frame even without the armor on it?" Luna asked. Time to explain the fusion core.
"This armor is called 'power armor' for a reason. It has an energy source that's in the middle of the valve on my back." The princesses looked at my back to see the little grey top of the fusion core in the valve. "It's called a fusion core. It supplies power to the armor so I can move easier." I said intelligently, thanks to all that Fallout knowledge I picked up while playing.
"..."
"..."
"..."
"Don't even think about touching the fusion core, Luna."
"Dang it."
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The Power Armor Series: Tin Soldier
Chapter 1: Helping the Gods [Edited again{Word fixes}]
I awoke to the sound of birds chirping above me and the feeling of being surrounded by metal. That isn't an unpleasant thing to wake up to, but the headache is. I groaned and tried lifting my hand, but when I did it seized up and my eyes shot open.
"Ah!" I yelped in surprise at the unexpected pain. It hurt terribly, but I soon regained control of the muscles and they went back to normal. I flexed it a couple times to test it. It felt fine now.
But only now did I notice the what I was looking at. I could barely see the outlines of the visor because my eyes were so close to it. I could see the HUD at the bottom of my vision with its yellow color scheme. I looked at the multiple dials and indicators with intrigue, only to notice some were missing. I was about to scan each one and read out my stats, but before I could I saw a little indication at the top left of my vision and focused on it.
[Pip-boy 3000 Model A connected. 4D Storage Chip implanted. Transferring items...]
[10mm pistol added]
[Minigun added]
[Laser pistol added]
[Missile launcher added]
[Transfer complete]
'Wait, a Pip-boy? I don't remember making one of those for my cosplay.' I thought. Must be because of the merchant. What a nice guy! Going all out in the experience! I should repay him somehow. But right now, I'm still lying on my back looking up at the light blue sky that's dotted with clouds.
I sat up and turned my head to look around at my surroundings. I was in large field of tall golden grass with a forest off in the distance to the front-left of me and the minigun that I bought was beside be. The landscape was... amazing to say the least. I sat there for a minute to admire it and to contemplate what I was going to do now that I was in Equestria. Almost as if the universe heard my thoughts and decided to give me an objective, I heard the sound of fighting in the distance to the right of me.
Excited and nearly having a fan-gasm from actually being in Equestia, I stood up and grabbed the minigun with renewed vigor at my task. The suit was extremely bulky but didn't seem that heavy, like it was moving with me and the minigun felt like it was weightless. I looked towards the sound of fighting and I quickly looked at my HUD in excitement and read out the present dials and counters as such:
__---__
[Health dial: 100]
[Rads Dial: 0]
[Compass: Facing W]
[Core Charge: 92%]
[Ammo: 500/---]'Infinite ammo!? NICE! But I still have to reload. Huh. Well, better than nothing.'
[Armor Pieces*]
*Yellow = No need for repair.
*Red = Needs repair.
*Clear = Piece broken or not present on power armor frame.
__---__
After that quick check, I started running towards the fighting. Every step I made caused the ground to shake. I was gaining momentum while I ran and after a minute of running, I stopped at the bottom of a hill and I could hear the battle much more clearly. It sounded like it was on the other side of the hill. I made my way up the hill and peaked my head over the crest of the hill to see the battle.
What I saw was what looked like a one sided battle. There were anthropomorphic griffons in steel armor easily over taking the slightly less equipped anthropomorphic ponies in gold armor. I saw their height ratio with the tall grass, compared it to my height ratio with the tall grass and quickly deduced that I was fairly taller than them.
The griffons were slowly gaining ground on the ponies. Due to height difference among the ponies, I quickly spotted the two most iconic princesses in Equestria. Celestia and Luna, both anthropomorphic of course. Their height ratio seemed more similar to mine, but I was still bigger than them thanks to the power armor.
Celestia was decked in ornate golden armor and was fighting with a gold halberd as a weapon. When will she ever learn that gold is weak? Luna was fighting beside her in pale blue armor and was using a blue sword with a black blade. They were cutting down any griffons that charged them, but had to back up due to the tide of the battle.
"Looks like they need help from me and my little friend here." I said to myself with a hidden smirk as I adjusted my hands on the minigun. As if reading my mind, the minigun barrel started spinning on it's own, ready to gun down waves of enemies with it's lead rounds of bloody death. "Lets do this."
I finished my assent of the hill by standing on the crest of it and pointed my minigun towards the steel armored griffon soldiers. I positioned my finger on the trigger and braced myself for the recoil. A griffon seemed to notice me and pointed at me, just as I pulled the trigger and filled him with lead and reduced him to a hole fill corpse with that single burst of minigun firepower.
At this point, both sides looked at me in shock of what just happened. I pulled the trigger again, but I held it down this time. As I watched the counter on the ammo go down, the fire and lead spewed from my minigun and into the army of griffon soldiers, filling dozens of them with holes and making them into limp and lifeless bodies. Eventually, after way too long, they snapped out of their trance and began charging me while their archers shot arrows at me. I ignored the arrows because I know the armor would protect me and I focused on mowing down the charging griffons.
Their torn bodies fell into piles like rocks and the arrows being shot by the griffon archers just bounced off of my armor like they were pebbles. Just as the last charging griffon was gunned down by me, the minigun clicked empty so I checked my ammo counter.
[000/---]
The barrel of the minigun stopped spinning and I lowered the minigun so it was pointing downwards, smoke still coming from the barrel. The griffons archers and the the few griffons who didn't charge just stared at shock at the piles of bodies that used to be their comrades.
"Retreat!" Yell a large griffon in gold lined steel armor. The griffon archers and the remaining footmen took to the air and flew away. I breathed a sigh of relief that the battle was over. I stared at the piles of griffons trying to look at them with no emotion, because if my mind starts working on it I start to feel bad. I heard calm footsteps coming from my right, so I turned to see what it was. To my surprise, it was Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. When they got within 5 feet of me, they stopped. After a second, they spoke.
"Greetings. I am Princess Celestia and this is Princess Luna. We thank you for the help, but who are you?" She asked. I REALLY wanted to fan-girl right now, but I couldn't afford to do that. So, for a title, I decided to use the BoS ranking I had on my arm. I set the minigun down beside me to the left, reached up to my head with both hands and removed my T-60 helmet. They seemed shocked by my appearance.
"Greetings Princess Celestia and Princess Luna. I am Paladin Maxwell Greyson of the Brotherhood of Steel and no thanks is needed. I am always willing to help those who need it." I said to the wide eyed princesses. They looked at each other and then back at me. Luna spoke first.
"What... are you? You don't look like anything we've ever seen, besides a near hairless primate." She asked with confusion in her voice. It looked like Celestia was about to shun her for being so inadvertently rude, but I beat her to it with my response.
"I'm a human. If you want to be scientific about it, homo-sapiens. We are basically evolved apes, so you aren't far off with that comparison." I replied. They just looked at me in surprise, probably from my self-comparison with a hairless ape. They looked like they had more questions on their mind and what they said next confirmed that.
"Could you please come with us back to our capital to answer more questions?" She asked with a slight hint of hopefulness.
"Sure, I would be happy to." I said. I put my helmet back on, picked up my minigun and we set off on a path straight towards the capital city in the Everfree forest.
The Power Armor Series: Tin Soldier
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I sat down on a rock and looked into the fire.
The vertibird's propeller exploded into flames.
I took cover from the rain of plasma shots in a dilapidated store.
"Stay with me damn it!"
I twisted the neck of the enclave soldier and heard a sickening crack.
"For the enclave!"
"Ad victoriam!"
War. War never changes.
