Death had been sudden and unexpected but was thankfully quick. Birth however had been long, painful, and something I'd like to forget. I had been living in this world for almost five years when my mind finally gained awareness. I'd been reborn as Kane Harpe in the fallout world to a widowed scribe. We were in th Appalachian Chapter and my mother held a decently high position as she was one of the best when it came to programming and hacking.
My mother took good care of me but was limited by time as her higher position came with more responsibility. Despite that I still got teaching in hacking or whatever she could find whenever I asked. She was an overworked angel and anyone that worked with her knew it. However her skill was simply to important to those above her so she didn't get much leeway.
By the time I turned seven I had become skilled at hacking and could keep up with adults. After learning hacking I quickly started outpacing my peers in other areas as my adult mind beat them in most aspects of education and training. Fort Atlas had grown massively from what it was ingame and its numbers had followed. My generation had at least fifty children my age with many more around the base.
As I grew I continued to surpass my peers till I was put in a group of advanced learners for special training. Turns out the special training was simply extreme and conditioning alongside indoctrination into a branch of the Circle of Steel called
Roger's Rangers.
At nine years old I attempted to lessen the load on my mothers work by making multiple different programs with a few of them actually working and giving her some real time to relax. After helping my mom I began working on something I'd thought about making when I first started learning how to program. My first attempt at recreating DOOM. The computers of this world were plenty good enough to run the game and I simply had to structure the game and its story to fit the brotherhood.
The game found massive success and I was able to get things for myself. In 2261 I began external train as an initiate. I started a a squire due to my advanced training and quickly excelled at target elimination. My first outing had been janky and dangerous as out training group were ambushed by Blood Eagles remnants. The knights and paladins training us slaughtered most of the idiots but I got some hits on a man with my tri-beam laser rifle.
The lasers that hit didn't do much damage themselves but the explosive expansion of vaporized material and flesh shredded him. However my kill was nothing compared to what a paladin did with his Gatling plasma. His targets body was unlootable as he'd been reduced to green goo. Our instructors then taught us how to efficiently loot a body for valuables while remaining alert and combat able.
The looting of my kill didn't get me much but my new favorite candy. My mother and instructors were fine with me using them a lot as my mind was still young and they'd help my 'intelligence' level grow. With my DOOM copy being popular I was easily able to control the supply of mentats in the fort. I even ran a drug ring specifically for mentats and its types till the head paladin took me u see his wing after catching me with the paperwork I'd made for the chem.
The day after found me running laps around the walls and the medical staff expanding my drug ring into proper supply.
With me now learning under th head paladin I was mostly cut off from anyone my age. It was pretty boring but I got through it with the occasional access I got to the VR training pods. When I finally hit fifteen years old I got an actual mission. So far I'd only followed the head paladin around or been in Rodger's rangers expeditions.
An Ex Brotherhood member had popped up in Union, Pennsylvania. The small town was a trade route between West Virginia and the Pitt. The Pitt got fuel from WV straight from the massive bagger mining mountains and the Pitt obviously traded steel. Union had been taken over by the target with some goons and lots of robots. My job was to eliminate him and break the idiots who'd taken over.
My mission was basic cleanup of BOS mistakes but it got me out of the fort and into the world. I was to be dropped off via vertibird to the road right outside Union. My equipment was easy to decide on. A Gauss rifle with scope and silencer. A custom automatic laser pistol with a molded grip, reflex sight, and a beam splitter. Last I carried a beautiful long barrel, silenced crusader pistol firing cryo rounds. I did carry a revolutionary war sword but I definitely didn't intend on using it.
My clothes were a BOS knight uniform with shielded lining, Brotherhood recon armor, and an armor plated backpack. My mother with her heart of gold worried about me massively an nearly made me late for the flight. She shouldn't even worry so much as I was riding alongside three paladins on a mission to retrieve whatever technology was allowing my target to effectively produce and control over forty bots.
We were a decently sized force consisting of two pilots and the vb, two field scribes, three squires, three paladins, and myself.
A few hours passed in the cramped vertibird till we finally left WV and got into PA. As we crossed the border something shot by the vb and shook it. A second later alarms started blaring and the pilots launched into evasive maneuvers. Pinging noises sounded and the pilots increased the movements of the aircraft making me a bit queasy. Ten minutes of this passed by before I got a look at the attackers.
The doors of the vb slammed open and the paladins opened fire at multiple black vertibirds that were firing their turret guns at us. One enemy dropped as a lucky plasma shot scored an engine but the enemy opened their doors revealing X0-1 power armored enclave wield large plasma casters. They multiple enemy VBs quickly crippled our bird and we started going down. The copilot leapt from his seat and ordered the paladins to jump.
They hit the ground hard and fast with their jetpack systems stopping them from hitting at terminal velocity. Next was the squires. They jumped and landed a close to the paladins. Then the scribes fell with one breaking his leg on landing. Last was the pilots and I. I hit the ground hard and rolled the best I could. I was up and moving for the paladins just like the pilots.
The vertibird slammed down in a small nuclear explosion and I pulled a custom tablet out to a map. I knew we were near the border so I lead the group through the wood and mountains hoping to run into a road or river I can recognize. As we head south and east as best we can we luckily only run into one group of enclave assholes. The group didn't have much but an X0-1 power armor suit survived so one of the scribes put it on with the help of the paladins.
We traveled till nightfall and took rest in a small cave. A vertibird had passed over around midnight so we immediately got moving as the sun rose. Another vertibird passed over a few hours later and we figured we'd been spotted. We set a small ambush on a hill with the power armor wearers taking positions surrounding us unarmored meat sacks. Three hours passed before five groups converged on us. Most were unarmored and fell swiftly to our heavy weapons and the few long range rifles.
We immediately booked it in the direction we'd been going till we got cut off by enclave fortifications. I wanted us to go around but the paladins, thinking with metal instead of meat, led us straight into the enclave.
As we slammed into the gate of the deployed walls we were met with a wave of plasma. We countered with our own laser and bullet flood. At full charge I crippled four power armor troops and smited multiple ordinary soldiers. We quickly lost the unarmored scribe and two of the squires. One of the paladins got crippled but he ended the fight with his minigun going dry as he filled the fort with holes. We rigged his fusion core to detonate with a deadman switch and left him a Gatling laser. We took as many supplies as we could and left soon after.
At nightfall we stayed on an outcrop of stone with some downed trees for cover. The next morning was shrouded by thick fog and we moved slowly as multiple vertibirds passed over. When the fog eventually dissipated I was able to orient us and actually point us I a proper direction. We were heading to Harper's ferry as we'd be able to call in reinforcements in the form of multiple vertibirds.
A few hours later and we were running. Two vertibirds had spotted us and began chasing. An hour into the chase we started hearing dogs and yelling. One of th remaining paladins and the armored scribe pushed us to keep moving as they started laying the few mines we had and preparing for a battle to the death. The last paladin lead me, the squire, and the pilots in our run.
We never heard the last stand of our comrades but we knew they had died as soft thumps echoed and small mushroom clouds popped up from the tree line. They had both used deadman switches to blow their fusion cores. A few hours passed as we travelled as fast as we could till we crested a hill and finally spotted the ruins of Martinsburg. After that I easily found the Potomac river andwe followed it for two more days, losing the copilot a yaoguai.
When we finally got to Harper's Ferry we were exhausted and nearly out of supplies. I'd tossed my laser rifle a day ago as I had dropped my MFCs in the run with only a few left reserved for my Gauss rifle. When we went to enter the small trading town we all felt a bit of hope which got squashed as our paladin was nearly crippled and a vertibird launched into the air. My rifle exploded an enemy on the wall as the paladin limped behind a tree and yanked the molten armor plating off his leg. I led the group into circling to the river and crossing it.
We lost the remaining pilot in the maneuver as the vertibird beared a mounted minigun at us. I quickly put two shots into the tail of the aircraft and it retreated. With a bit of leeway we ran down the other side of the river past the town. As we spotted a boat on our side hidden in the bushes the paladin stopped. Looking back I found his power frame leg had fused as the leg itself blacked from a plasma shot. I ran over to him as the squire was pushing the boat into the water. I yanked his tags and hooked them around my neck like I'd done with all the others and slammed a stimpack and med-x into his leg.
The squire hopped into the boat and started the motor that had been rigged up to it. I jumped in and we shot down the river. The paladins mushroom cloud popped up with a bright flash and an river shaking boom. That night was quite. We'd pulled the boat into some brambles hanging into the water and took the night in shifts. At daybreak however I wasn't awakened by the squire. A bright flash of green and a smoking body hit the boat and I immediately reached to turn on the engine.
I slammed the engines gas down an the boat lurched out into the river. Plasma flew overhead as I took what I could from the squires body and dumped him. At midday I cut the engine and allowed the boat to drift quietly down the river as I went over everything. While this was my second life it still hurt to see those men die. I'd tried to stay detached while growing up but I'd grown up with many of them beside me. The paladins had been teachers, the scribes were partners in technology, the squires my peers.
If I ever got back to my chapter I'd have to be the one to deliver the holotags of the deceased. With the members of the mission party dead I was left all alone. Sure I was part of a very secretive group and had been highly trained to work alone, but that didn't change the fact I had never truly been alone. There had always been someone near who I could rely on.
As I floated down the river I kept an eye out for pursuers and vertibirds. The Enclave was ruthless and efficient. They wouldn't stop hunting me and my only chance at escape was to get down the river and find Lyons chapter in the capital. I wasn't 100% sure about where they were right now as I didn't know the timeline very well but it was likely they were already at the pentagon. Around midday the boat's engine cut out and I began rowing with a long stick.
I spent that night in a tree that had fallen down and was hanging into the river. It didn't provide much coverage but it would stop me from sticking out like a sore thumb. The only real worry I had was the vertibirds having thermal detection. If they did I'd be a lighthouse with a rave at the top. The night was long, cold, and uncomfortable but my armor kept me warm and safe from the lesser bugs. The next morning was uneventful as I pushed my boat down the river while chewing on pemmican my mother had stuffed into my bag in her over protective worry.
At lunch while eating the single beef stew MRE I had, I heard something. I stopped eating and listened while trying to ignore the sounds of the river. The second I reached what I was hearing I tossed my food to the mutant fish and started pushing my boat down the river. When the sound increased and I next looked up I slung my Gauss rifle up and charged a shot. My shot slammed into the vertibird that had definitely spotted me and I loaded a new round. Plasma and small arms fire started raining down as my next shot missed from a burst of plasma rocking the boat. A third shot hit the aircraft and shook it and the pilot began lowering the bird closer to the water. A plasma bolt whirred past my ribs and heated my side and arm. My fourth shot exploded on the cockpit glass and the pilot pulled back, nearly putting the tail in th water. He veered off over the trees an into the distance as I heard more vertibirds flying in. I went back to pushing my boat while watching for my hunters.
As the two vertibirds flew over me I fired my rifle four more times, but my shots simply didn't hit anything critical to flight. The five tracking missiles that appeared from nowhere however did. One bird blew up in the air and the other slammed into the river bank. From a nearby hill a beam of lightning slammed into the crash and blew up. I took aim as some enclave soldiers crawled out and blew one up with a shot to the chest. My next shot knocked a man off his feet as it exploded behind him. Two more where dropped by my unknown saviors using laser weapons.
My last Gauss rifle charge removed the last man's legs and I pulled my cryo crusader pistol. The man that had fallen got up and began shooting at me with an automatic plasma rifle. His head froze from a shot of my gun but I took a headshot in return. A flash of green from his gun after I iced him and a second much bigger green flash overtook my vision. I felt my body hit the boat and my head heat up from my melting helmet.
I fumbled as my fingers burned against the strap on my helmet and my head heated up. I could feel hair burning and my consciousness started fading. Finally I yanked my molten helmet off and pulled hair and skin with it. I rolled around while struggling to stay awake. My hands pulled at my backpack for one of my stimpacks right before I puked from the agony going through me. After puking up lunch I locked my hand on the stim and slammed it into my thigh.
I pushed it a bit to get some in my body then pulled it to stick it back into me at my neck. The rest flooded my system an I yanked it out. I tossed the stim away from myself and let my body collapse into the boat. As soon as my neck lost strength and my head hit the floor everything went black.