Dion

One Big Jace's Family

@GreenGrenade as expected, I am the superior writer here after all.

One Big Jace's Family

Alternative image

Name:

His true name is unknown to everyone due to being an undercover superhero but he goes by codename Odin

Age:

23 in human years, 2 in Xorplak years (his homeplanet) where he has only just entered infancy stage

Powers:

Latent IBS powered prolapse gun mounted on his backside, depressive aura that can infect anyone with toxic bitterness, anger and depression

Bio:

He was born on Xorplak but had to leave during his first year on that planet (aprox. 10-12 human years) after a coup killed his father (Xorplak ruler) and decimated his family either by execution or imprisonment in forced labor camps. Codename Odin was one of the few to escape and his crash pod ended up on Earth where he was rescued by a loving farmer and his wife. Unfortunately they were killed in a freak car accident. Or was it...

He has roamed earth ever since and decided to make his home in Melbourne, Australia because it reminds him of the eternal suffering his life is, since nobody has a more tragic backstory than him. When looking for likeminded characters, think of Nagato Uzumaki (Pain) from Naruto, whose life is possibly just as tragic as his -- of course, he is a fictional character and Codename Odin is not, so his suffering is still greater.

Add ignore/block functionality.

Let it be noted that mods literally can't even do it. Aside from not being selected for programming competence, they aren't given the power, period.

@Spambot

There is still this which used to be accessible through the site but I can no longer find it so Mahz might have removed it. Not that it got any use. It was dead space.

Seriously, this is a basic forum feature and the fact that this site didn't have it from the very begining is beyond mind boggling. A user should be able to block another user so that they don't see their posts, messages or status updates, and make it so that anyone on their block list cannot contact them.

@Zenra

For a long time the guild did not have a 'delete PM' functionality and we had to beg on our knees to get it. Unfortunately this was the last time I remember there being a feature update, unless we count perhaps the removal of the old (dead) persistent world that somehow took up the spotlight of the forum and the creation of the new (slightly less dead) persistent world forum.

The trade-off we have for awesome features like topics with 3 tabs and a rad PM system is that literally everything else is fucking broken or missing. Did you know you can search for roleplays by tags? I didn't until Mahz himself pointed it out.

The fact of the matter is that RPG is low on the priority list for Mahz because, well, life. The alternative is going to a more active forum and missing out on a lot of the features that make RPG so appealing. I really believe that the only reason RPG can stay afloat at this point is the superior UI, the 3-tab topic system and just the ease at which everything works here. If it weren't for those things, RPG would be like any other forum.

Discord and role-playing, a good idea or a no-no?

1: What is your opinion on using discord alongside the site?

@KiwiTime

It's a pretty epic win tool for communication. I could never write posts in Discord because 2000 character limits are wack but to each their own innit laddie?

2: If a group based in a discord server was looking for people, would it be against site rules to post a lfg for it here? I cant seem to find the site rules page.

@KiwiTime

Absolutely not.

Looking for Recommendations for Other RP Sites

Roleplayerguild, Iwakuroleplay and RPN are the mainstay 3 roleplaying PBP forums. There are also 'mature' forums such as Bluemoonroleplay or Elliquiy (the latter of which requires an application process), but I'm not sure that that is what you're looking for.

....

@Suzumiyo welcome to the guild, hope you find what you're looking for!

Which setting would you like to see more of in Roleplays?

Highschool settings.

/s

Story Wonders and Fandoms Galore ---- Come Dive In and Let's Make the Text come to life!!!

i agree

Fallout: Rust and Steel

He remembered being dragged down, his eyes opening and closing while he passed in and out of consciousness. He remembered strange unknown voices, voices he’d never heard before, voices that seemed rough and coarse against the background of the scraping of his body against the hard soil beneath him. “Yes captain, right away,” one of the voices responded to a jumbled mess of orders. Slowly he closed his eyes again, fading out of consciousness again.

Minutes later he came to again, his eyes fluttering open. He tried to move, to push the creatures in front of him away from him, but his hands and legs were restrained, his arms tied behind his back rather tightly. The creatures paid no mind, and instead were focused on trying to take the heavy metal off of him. They tugged and pulled on him but couldn’t get it to come loose. It did not take long for more brute methods to be used as they began prying metal sheets off of him where they could. “Hey,” he groaned, “stop that,” but it fell on deaf ears and the only one that seemed to hear raised his hand quickly and brought it down on his face. Asleep, again.

He came to in a cell, still restrained, surrounded by dead bodies. The restraints were still there, so he could do very little other than look around. He glanced down and noted that, for the most part, they had been unsuccessful in their attempts to undress him. Bits were missing here and there, but for the most part it was intact. Why was he still here? “Hello!?” he called out, his voice coarse and incapable of reaching much further than the door. His throat felt like it had been destroyed, sandblasted to death. No answer came -- he was alone. He struggled briefly against the restraints, to no avail, and ultimately resigned to resting his head against the metal walls. Being in prison had never felt so calming, he had to admit. A far cry from what he’d expected jail to be. He closed his eyes, and let his body take control.

Suddenly, after what felt like a few seconds, but was more than likely a few hours, his eyes shot open again. He was choking! No, he wasn’t choking, he was drowning! He flailed wildly, his eyes moving around looking to see what was going on, his arms reaching around for any kind of steady object to grab onto. This body, it wasn’t his. It moved so differently, it felt bigger, unnatural, like it didn’t belong in this world at all. Was he dreaming? Hallucinating? What had they done to him? Was this… the Brotherhood? All he could see was darkness, the surroundings blinded by a glaring white light above him. He was holding his breath, but there wasn’t much time left, his lights would go out soon if he didn’t find a way to get out of there.

With a heavy thud his fist landed against something, the blow cushioned by the fact that he was under water. Glass? He pulled his fist back again and tried to hit it again, but had no luck. He was sinking now, and felt his feet touch the bottom of the pool, even though he was nowhere near tall enough for that to have happened. Not caring to pay mind to that now, he pushed off, and tried to launch himself up to the top of the pool. Perhaps he could get out that way.

When he came up, he opened his mouth to gasp for air, but all that came out was a loud roar. “RAAAR!” His arm wrapped around the edge of the pool, and he climbed out, throwing his leg over the edge as well before rolling out of it, throwing himself over the edge and landing on the metal grating of the observation deck. His voice was not his own, either. Everything had changed, up was down, down was up, and nothing was as it should be. Coughing out the water that he had taken in during his forceful awakening, he noticed that the water wasn’t blue, but green.

In the distance, sounds of gunfire alerted him. As he rose to his feet, he noticed that someone or something had been watching him. A giant hulking figure clad in metal armor, though ‘giant’ was now a lot more relative than it had previously been, because when he rose to his feet, he was even larger than the figure that had been watching.

“Nice to see you survived. I suppose the captain was right, after all,” the figure remarked, his voice coarse, rough, not the sound of a human but of something else, different. The flow of the sentence was too intelligent to be a mutant, so perhaps this was something new, something unfound and unexplored, a new breed of… something. “Only the strongest make it through,” he followed up, as if that was meant to be some sort of consolation. The figure finished penning something down on a paper in his clipboard, before turning away and heading to a door. Before he disappeared from sight, he gave a singular order, “follow me.”

He had little choice but to do as he was told, and so he stepped forwards towards the door. His footsteps were heavier, shaking the metal observation deck. Bits of metal clung to his skin, but he did not feel ready to look down yet, not ready to quite see what he had become. Perhaps he didn’t want to know the answer.

When he turned the corner into the corridor, it turned out to be roughly what he had expected. The hallway seemed to resemble some sort of pre-war facility, built with great care and in a much more efficient way than they could manage nowadays. It was empty, though. The figure continued moving ahead, moving with great purpose and dedication, knowing exactly where he wanted to go. In the light of the hallway, it became more clear what he was, the green skin betraying his identity.

“You’re a mutant,” he slowly said, stopping dead in his tracks in the hallway. It didn’t make sense. Why wasn’t he dead? “You’re a mutant. And so am I.”

The mutant stopped as well, and turned around, and unlike a human who could just turn their head slightly, he was forced to pivot his entire upper body just to look at the man speaking to him. Well, man, just like height, that term had now become relative too.

“Yes, we are. You seem surprised,” the mutant commentated. “Which is normal. I remember my turning. You should consider yourself lucky -- not all strains are as forgiving as ours.”

“Strains...? What do you mean?”

The mutant laughed that characteristic super mutant laughter. “You’re from the Capital Wasteland, aren’t you? You’ve seen our ‘brothers,’ you’ve seen what they are, or more specifically, what they are not. They have no retention of their memories and their brains seem to shrivel up as a result of their turning.”

“I… don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to. Follow me.”

The supermutant turned again and walked away, and he followed him, because there was no alternative. It felt too much like a fever dream to be real. Was this what death was like?

As they turned yet another corner and walked in through a door, the area revealed a large open space that was retrofitted into a training grounds, where several groups of supermutants were training together, engaging in hand-to-hand combat, shooting practice, and other forms of combat training. On a viewing deck above, a supermutant stood dressed in slightly different gear. He recognized this supermutant. And it seemed the supermutant recognized him too.

The supermutant that had originally guided him there ushered him up the stairs, only remarking, “the name’s Alistair,” before sending him off and returning to his duties. Compared to the other supermutants, he was dressed inappropriately, only wearing the shredded remains of a white labcoat. Whether it was his or it had been looted from somewhere was a mystery. It was unthinkable that a supermutant would be intelligent enough to retain use out of a labcoat, however.

He climbed the stairs to go meet this supermutant that was different from the rest, and when he stood in front of him, he did not quite know what to do, and instead just waited for some sort of introduction.

This supermutant sized him up, looked him up and down, before raising his hand and placing it onto his shoulder. “What is your name,” the supermutant asked.

He was owed an answer, for he could not conjure the memory of his own name. All he could remember was fighting and death. Blood and guns. Rust and steel.

“I don’t know,” was all he could muster, “I don’t remember, all I can see is...”

The supermutant rudely interrupted him, not wanting to hear the rest of the story it seemed. He took his hand off his shoulder and looked out over the training grounds. “I’ve heard that story often enough to know that you know nothing for now. The turning is still fresh, your memories will return. But you, you are forever changed. Your new name is Ares.”

“Ares?”

“Look at yourself,” the supermutant said, gesturing towards his back where a reflective window sat in the wall.

Ares walked closer to it and inspected himself. It was true, he was forever changed. He was larger, bulkier, stronger than he remembered. His hair was gone, his beard was gone, and his nose was severely bent, and despite that did not hurt, not anymore. “What did you do to me…?” He raised his oversized hands, larger than they had been even before, and touched his face. It was unmistakingly his own, as most of the features that were him before were still there. But it was also not him. Not his body, not his face, not his voice, not his memories.

There came no reply to the question, which was most likely for the best. Instead, an explanation followed. “Overwhelming, insatiable in battle, destructive, and man-slaughtering. That is Ares. That is you. You will fulfill your new purpose not because I ask you to, but because you are this purpose.”

Ares still could not believe what had happened to him. He dropped his hands back down to his side, and slowly sized himself up. The exoframe of the power armour he’d worn still clung to his body like a cage, and on the front of the armour, the plating of the T-51B power armour was still attached, embedded into his skin. Below the insignia of the Brotherhood, the carving “Ad Victoriam” that he’d scratched into it himself remained. A pitiful and distasteful reminder of what once was.

This realization filled Ares with anger, and he turned around, having found new life force. “Yes,” he responded, “I am.”

The supermutant laughed, sounding more human than supermutant. “Good,” he responded, “you can call me captain Elroy. You will join the rest of the mutants downstairs and train with them. Show them what you’re made of. Not all of us are as… let us say, intelligent, as we are, you and I.”

Ares did not wait for the rest of the orders, nodding affirmatively and stepping down the stairs. The captain continued speaking, his voice becoming louder as Ares moved away. “A lot of them are from the Capital Wasteland. Remind them that you are no longer what you once were, or they will put an end to your new existence quickly.”

This comment was soon reinforced by the staring eyes of several super mutants, who had caught wind of the fact that a former knight-sergeant of the Brotherhood, a tin can and their sworn enemy, had joined their ranks.

From above, the voice of the captain rang out, “test his strength if you wish, muties,” he said, copying the term he had heard from Ares before Ares was Ares. “Cull the weak from our fold.”

Several supermutants presented themselves, but only one of them stepped forward to face the challenge. “YOU TIN CAN, ME CAN OPENER,” he proudly proclaimed, and began stepping forwards to fight the newcomer.

There was little else to do but to put an end to this test of strength, to ensure that the muties understood that despite his past, Ares was the new alpha in the pack. Their lacking intellect made them much more predictable, however, and it was clear that it would not take much to impose on them the fact that Ares was a comrade now.

The two of them locked together in a wrestling-like grip, holding on to each others head. They were equally matched, which was surprising. This mutant had been ‘turned’ possibly decades ago, and so he had had all the time needed to hone his superhuman strength and grow into the turning. Ares, however, had turned not much more than an hour ago, and was still getting used to his new physique.

He had always been big, meaty, strong enough to lift a pack brahmin as a figure of speech. But now, perhaps it might have been true.

With little regard for the safety of his ‘’fellow’’ mutie, Ares let go of the opponents head with one hand and used it to uppercut him in the stomach several times, though that favour was swiftly returned. The blows felt less like blows now, the added strength of the supermutants dulling the blows as if they were pats. For so long he had considered them ‘subhuman,’ but this strength was incredible, and if it was true that there was an FEV strain that could retain memories and intelligence, then perhaps they were not subhuman but above humans. It certainly felt like it.

It was clear, however, that Ares would not win this fight with sheer force alone. Even in his Brotherhood days, he had often resorted to brute forcing his way through problems, but that did not mean he had forgotten his training. He grabbed a hold of the muties head again, holding it in his armpit, before he bent his knees and allowed himself to roll backwards onto the ground, making a sacrificial throw. Together with the mutie, he rolled over backwards until he was on top of the mutie, a special technique practiced by the knights for CQB. He raised his fists into the air, and began pounding the muties face, who slowly but surely began bleeding. It took a lot more than it would’ve taken for a human -- perhaps the FEV made their skulls thicker, or their bones stronger -- but it wasn’t impossible. Ares began breezing with every punch, until suddenly a hand grabbed Ares’ hand and stopped him.

“You’ve made your point, Ares,” Elroy said.

Alistair re-entered the room, bringing along another fresh recruit, who seemed equally as confused as Ares had been. Captain Elroys voice rang out. “Alistair, take Ares to his quarters, and show him around in the process. You can leave the fresh meat to me. Return to your training, muties.”

Ares, with newfound confidence, walked to Alistair, passing the new recruit. “You seem different,” Alistair remarked.

“You have no idea,” Ares replied.

---

Together they walked through the facility, and Alistair made sure to show off the finest details. There were several barracks, where the less intelligent muties made their home. These barracks were often a gruelling mess, barely clean enough to sleep in, although they did at least lose the itch to store body parts in bags in their common areas. Instead, there were just items strewn about. Most of the ‘better’ mutants had private quarters, and were employed as officers to some degree to lead the dumber muties. There were not many of these more intelligent mutants -- the FEV used was more dangerous than the common strains, Alistair explained, and most subjects did not survive. Adding to that, there were only limited quantities available. Only the best subjects were handpicked by the captain himself.

There were also the deathclaw cages. One of the deathclaws was being operated on by another labcoat wearing supermutant. This was most likely the deathclaw that had its jaw unhinged in the fight earlier, although the angle made it impossible to tell. All in all there were a good amount of deathclaw there, enough to tear apart the Green Emerald if they decided to.

Nothing the Brotherhood couldn’t handle, Ares knew, but enough to make that fight hurt hard enough that the Brotherhood would need to return to the Capital Wasteland to replenish their supplies and numbers.

Then there was a workshop -- a rare thing in the Commonwealth, at least on such a scale -- where weapons were being manufactured. It wasn’t anything particularly high tech, and certainly not pre-war, but it was a step up from pipe rifles that blew apart the moment you loaded them. Whatever organization this was, they had their stuff in order and were ready to make use of it.

When they reached Ares new quarters, he was happy to find that it was a step up from the Prydwen too. First of all, it was private, so no sharing of the bunks. Second of all, it looked a lot less ransacked than the Prydwen, and even came with a shower, though Ares couldn’t help but wonder how many muties even made use of them.

“If there’s anything you need, let me know, and I’ll see what I can scrounge up,” Alistair imparted before taking his leave again.

Fallout: Rust and Steel

A wide, arcing overhead swing put a swift end to the miserable existence of the rotting ghoul, it’s head not making quite the satisfying crack Gregory had hoped for and instead simply splattering like a melon, including the soggy wet noise of bodily fluids splattering all over the place. The roaring noise of the overhead vertibird alerted McDowell to their position, although he was a little busy to acknowledge them right away, having to turn right to smash an approaching ghoul reaver with his arm, smacking it to the side like it was nothing. As if the crew on board the vertibird knew what was occupying him, the sudden whirl of the minigun on board put a swift end to most of the ghouls around him, most of which just splattered into a gooey pool of limbs and radiated green blood.

He saluted them quickly, thanking them for their help, but it most likely went unnoticed in the midst of the battle going on. The vertibird put itself down on the location he’d cleared for them, and while Gregory made sure that a ghoul that he’d put down earlier stayed down, Moss approached the vertibird, getting ready to take off again. Gregory tried to follow suit, moving the power armour at a sluggish pace towards the machine meant to take them out of here, trying to fend off ghouls as they lunged at him from their dark corners between the trucks and cars.

Most of the crew had boarded by now, and McDowell was busy clearing the way while trying to keep most of the baddies away from the vertibird, drawing their attention so that the last few could board. Paladin Moss was waiting for him, possibly intending to be the first one in, and the last one out. If that were the case, fate was about to play a cruel joke on him and McDowell both.

The earth cracked, and the building sank a good few inches. Gregory paid no mind and soldiered on, not noticing the threat until it was too late. Those in the vertibird would spot it long before he did, so when he finally turned his head slightly to see what the loud thunderclap had been, he was staring right in the eyes of a deathclaw the size of two or three pre-war cars stacked on top of each other.

There were a few seconds between this realization and the first hit, and in those seconds, McDowell turned to face the paladin, who was now missing from his previous spot and had instead launched himself into the vertibird at record speed. McDowell couldn’t blame him for that, he’d want to get out of the way of such a large deathclaw too. He couldn’t quite make out what Moss was saying to the rest of the crew, but the vertibird began to lift, slowly at first, then quickly. There was no way he was making that.

There were at least a hundred things that were racing through McDowell’s head at that time.

Only one of these thoughts was loud enough for McDowell to face it.

The crew might’ve noticed a sudden hesitation and rush in his step when he was still trying to reach the vertibird, slowly as he was moving due to the lack of power in his power armour, but that changed when this one thought won primacy over all the others. He stopped dead in his tracks and instead turned around to face the deathclaw.

“FACE ME!” he yelled spreading his arms wide and taunting the creature, and though the comms were off, some might’ve sworn they could’ve heard him yell it. “FACE ME YOU LIZARD!” he yelled again, readying his sledgehammer. The ghouls were still swarming the place, and the deathclaw lazily smacked a few of them aside to get to the hulking Knight-Sergeant.

In the background, the vertibird was now airborne, and while they might have used the minigun to assist him, it remained eerily quiet. There was no 5mm from the spitfire barrels of the gun, no “ad victoriam” warcry from any of the crew, no sudden thud on the ground from Estevez or Moss launching down in their power armour to assist.

No, besides the deadly roar of the deathclaw and the equally loud warcries of the Knight-Sergeant, it was deadly quiet to McDowell. Was this... betrayal?

Despite the mechanisms of his power armour not being powered, McDowell managed to produce a deadly swing with his sledgehammer, the rockets of the weapon adding whatever force he needed to swing the weapon. One of the deathclaws launched itself at him at the same moment, and managed to hit him square in the neck, dislodging the knight-sergeants helmet and sending it flying off into the dustcloud left behind by the vertibird. The sledgehammer managed to hit the beast straight in the jaw, dislocating it with great ease, though that did not much more than anger it it seemed. And, as luck would have it, there was a second deathclaw not too far off.

They’d sealed the tunnel, and McDowell had assumed the deathclaws couldn’t tunnel fast enough for them to reach them this quickly. He had assumed wrong, perhaps, but there was little time to ponder that mistake now. All there was was blood and steel, and a long fight ahead of him. But there was no escape, only death, because even if he managed to beat two deathclaws in a single fight, the ghouls were still there, patiently waiting, and the raiders were most likely still out there too, licking their wounds and keeping an eye on the lone knight-sergeant while he fought for his life. No, there would be no recovery.

Knight-Sergeant McDowell turned on his feet and, assisted by the rockets of his sledgehammer, swung in a wide arc to cover his back after the second deathclaw had circled him. Once again he hit the creature in the face, not quite how he wanted to, and managed to daze the creature, sending it slinking back into the dust to seek another approach. “FACE ME!” he yelled again, turning around with a certain determination in his movement, yet not being able to shake the fear that a deathclaw could pounce from the smoke at any time.

He glanced into the air briefly, just long enough to see the vertibird disappear over the dust into the distance. So it was betrayal after all. The man whose rank he had idolized for all his years had left him behind like a disposable asset. He had abandoned his own second in command, for fear of two deathclaws. “Fuck you, Moss! FUCK YOU!” he said, out of breath and in a half whisper, once again turning on his feet to face the deathclaw that he had only narrowly seen from the corner of his eyes.

He was too late, the deathclaw crashed into him and grabbed him around the waist with those monstrously large claws, and held him up into the air, raising him just barely over the dustcloud. The only other bodypart of the deathclaw that was not shrouded by the dust was it’s head, and it roared at him viciously with it’s jaw hanging half loose.

By now the reality of the situation must have set in with McDowell, because all he could do was laugh. “You think you scare me, you overgrown piece of shit? RAAAAH!” he screamed back, his face uncovered. He tried to kick at the creature but there was no way he was reaching past the arm length of the deathclaw, who dangled him like a toy. Then, suddenly, McDowell was floating. No, he wasn’t floating, he was falling. With a sudden crash he landed against the wall of the warehouse, going right through it, and only kicking up more dust. The entire was turning into one big dust cloud, made worse when a section of the wall collapsed and the roof came down with it.

Once again, McDowell closed his eyes, and simply laid there like he had when they first crash landed. That time, Moss had gotten the rubble off of him and ‘saved’ him. It would be a little different this time. The same sounds, the same movements, but it wasn’t Moss’ T60 power armour helmet shining a light on him, it was the face of a hideous radiated monster. “You look much better like this, Moss,” Gregory told himself, “without the helmet, you ugly rat.” The deathclaw pulled him out of the rubble and instead threw him the other way, sending Gregory skidding through the dirt, much like the ragdoll raiders and ghouls Gregory himself had been throwing around earlier. He had the benefit of wearing power armour, but that didn’t protect him from hitting his now uncovered face on a rock. A sudden spike of pain burst through his entire head, and his nose now seemed to be bent in a few different places where it really shouldn’t have been bent.

When he finally came to a stop, he slowly tried to get back up, stumbling a bit, but finally managing to do so. He turned to face the deathclaws again, who appeared through the dust like stalkers. The one with it’s jaw loose was much larger, and seemed much more agitated. The smaller one might’ve been a female, or it was a younger one, and seemed to be following the lead of the larger alpha. It was weird. McDowell didn’t remember deathclaws working in pairs unless they were part of the same nest. And even then, finding two deathclaws working together in such an organized way was… weird.

“Haha,” Gregory managed to get out, leaning on his knee with one hand while trying to remain upright. He spat out some blood and wiped his mouth with the cold metal of his armour, which was by now bent and destroyed in a lot of places. “You think I’ll… cough… die that easily, you skinks?” Slowly he straightened his back, and stared the two deathclaws down. He had a deathwish, for sure, and this was a better way to die than most other ways. The broken nose hurt, his entire body hurt, he no longer had his sledgehammer. But what hurt the most was the fact that the man he had sought to take after had left him there. He coughed loudly once or twice, coughing up more blood, before laughing to himself. “Ha, I’ve killed entire groups of muties by myself, put them down like rabid animals, and this is how I die? Shameful, McDowell, shameful,” he told himself.

The deathclaws, on cue, both roared at him, sending bits of spit and saliva his way. Gregory raised his arm to shield his face, as if this was just a heavy wind, and lowered it quickly to fight, expecting the roar to be a prelude to an attack. But the deathclaws just stood there.

A sudden voice came from the dust, a voice that Gregory didn’t recognize. Was he hallucinating? “Is that true?” the voice said, deep and dark and definitely not one of theirs. “Entire groups of ‘muties’? Is that what you call us?” The figure came forward, and took it’s place in between the two deathclaws, putting its hand on their head, calming them down or controlling them somehow. His face was horribly malformed, covered in scars, but it was unmistakingly the face of a supermutant. Just… not one Gregory was used to. This one seemed to be more intelligent than even McDowell himself, speaking as if he was a human, not a mutant.

Slowly the figure stepped forward, and now that McDowell could see more clearly, the black rags and the metal plating revealed that he was one of the figures that he and Laura had seen in the tunnels prior. How was that possible?

“You’re-” McDowell pushed out of his throat before a horrible cough took over.

“Yes, I am. And you...” the figure answered, “will no longer be.”

When the figure approached even closer, Gregory tried to step forward and take a swing at the supermutant, not wishing to go down with his pants down, and instead wanting to go down fighting, perhaps kill the mutie before the deathclaws finished him off. But the mutant was faster, stronger, … better.

The mutant extended his arm rapidly and wrapped those cold, green fingers around McDowell’s neck, pulling him off the ground. Such strength! was all McDowell could think. Even in power armour, he didn’t think he could lift another person in power armour off the ground, and this supermutant did it as if it was nothing. McDowell struggled, fruitlessly, and the supermutant just stared him down. Finally, when McDowell stopped, his face showing how weary he was of the fight, the supermutant spoke again.

“I see,” was all the thing said, before throwing the knight-sergeant down into the ground and stepping on his face with a brute, resolute stomp of his foot. The lights went out, forever.