The revelation about what the Brotherhood did to children was a scary one... How had he not noticed sooner? It should have been obvious now that he was thinking about it, not ever seeing someone with a birth defect shoulda clued him in...
Miles and Melissa lead Afton to a private room where he tells them about his travels... Though, he wasn't all that committed to the conversation right now. Not to mention the rest of the group aside from Veronica looked like they wanted to leave. Probably not wishing to see what Hardin's reaction would be once he wakes up.
Fortunately for them, Afton didn't intend to stay long, instead he just wanted to catch up with those he was close with. Apparently, Miles and Mellisa were dating now, yeah Afton say that one coming... Melissa wore the trousers in the relationship while Miles just nods and smiles like an obedient 'boyfriend'.
That was another reason Afton had no wish to chase Melissa, aside from her generally annoying personality, trying to mould her into something appreciatable would be too much trouble in the long run.
Regardless, catching up with the duo was more look going through a soldier's file... Other than training and getting together, literally nothing of interest had happened... Another reason Afton left. The only real thing of interest was the fact Miles had to beat the shit out of Lars Taggart for trying to molest Mellisa while she was apprenticing under him, man, Afton would've loved to see that.
Soon enough they were visited by some familiar faces who wanted to see him before he left again. Knight Torres enters the room and grins at him, "I know you'd be fine... I am wondering where that Gauss rifle I lent you was though..."
Afton gives a sheepish chuckle and scratches the back of his head, "Er, well... As soon as I left I ran into a Deathclaw and had to throw the thing at it..."
...
Torres just sighs, "Only you Afton.
Next who comes to visit is a certain elderly woman who practically raised Afton... Adah Lindgren. She slowly walks inside and smiles at him, "It's good to see that you're still alive, Afton... You're parents would never forgive me if you'd gotten yourself killed prematurely."
He gives the woman a light hug, memories of his antics as a child springing to mind as he does so, "Yeah? Well, I'm surprised you're still alive, you must be, what, one-hundred-years old now?" he jokes and receives a light slap on his shoulder.
"What happened to respecting your Elders?" she jovially asks.
Afton shrugs, "That died when I started getting punished for asking women's ages. You can't be eternally young and an Elder at the same time, you gotta choose one... Like Karl over there." Afton thumbs at him, "He's older than dirt, uh, never mind... He acts like an elderly woman when you ask about his age anyway..."
"I will shoot you brat." Karl comments from the side with arms crossed, but the grin on his face shows he isn't taking things seriously in the least.
After some more small talk, the last, unexpected visitors arrive... Both Afton and Veronica scowl as they enter, and both are weighing whether or not shooting them would be acceptable... Christine's parents, Darian Royce and Susan Royce.
"What're you doing here?" Afton almost spits, drawing curious gazes from the rest of the room.
"We just wanted to see you before you left again..." Susan mutters
"Why? You do know that I despise you right? I thought the feeling would be mutual." he states, and the duo looks down at their feet guiltily.
"Af-Parker... While you were outside, did you find Christine? That's why you left isn't it?" Darian asks while tentatively holding his wife's shoulder.
Afton scoffs, "Even if I did find her, why would I tell you? Bigoted ass holes like you don't deserve to know about her, let alone be involved in her life."
"I doubt she'd even want to speak to them, especially with how they acted when she left." Veronica adds, causing Susan's eyes to water, as if she were about to break down int otears.
Afton shakes his head at them, "You made your choice when you alienated your daughter, it isn't my role to bring her back kicking and screaming. You want to see her? Find her yourself and prove your determination, otherwise, fuck off." he states, pointing towards the door.
Susan bursts into tears at this points and Darian glares at Afton as he pulls her away, out of the room and hopefully, out of Afton, Veronica, and Christine's life forever. "Pieces of shit." Afton mutters.
The group continue making small talk, Afton doesn't explain any of his plans for the future for fear of the Brotherhood finding out, but he does let the group know he'd probably be setting up in Novac for a long while if they ever wanted to contact him.
He did try to get Torres to sell him some weapons and armour, but as he'd left the Brotherhood he was restricted from their armoury... Though, that didn't preclude Veronica... As a result, they purchased a few Thermic Lances, Gatling Lasers, Plasma Rifles, and Gauss Rifles. They tried to buy some extra Power armour, but that was restricted to even Veronica for one reason or another...
Pressing Torres on it, apparently, the Chapter was actually running out of armour to use... The losses at Helios One and the lost scouts had made Power armour a rare resource to keep protected.
With everything said and done, the group exited the Brotherhood of Steel, carrying their 'spoils or war' after collecting their weaponry from the guards. They stash all of it in Dirt-Hod with Afton and Veronica giving some parting words to their friends in the Chapter...
With that, they drive off, but not before looting the Legionary corpses for loot... First come first serve when it comes to looting after all.
Hope you bois liked the chap, if I missed anything please let me know. Thanks!
Also, thanks to my patrons for their support :
Joseph Suh
Chris Lindsey
Kingsprovince
It's been a couple weeks since they'd left the Brotherhood, and the events following were exactly as Afton had expected... Once Vulpes Inculta was aware of Afton's loyalties and his inability to control the merc, he used every form of communication available to him to air all the dirty laundry he'd found.
Afton's affiliation with the Brotherhood and the Legion, his assassination targets, even his status as a mutant was all aired. Afton heard it all over his NCR radio, each post confirming the news as well as their new orders to capture Afton or shoot him on sight if that was not possible.
Shit, even Mr New Vegas himself had spoken on the subject, though, he was surprisingly on Afton's side in the whole debacle... Had he met Mr New Vegas before or something? He shakes his head, no, he would've known. Afton was a huge fan of the radio broadcaster, after all, that shit was gold.
Once they got back to Novac Afton had started fortifying the town almost immediately. He was pretty paranoid that the Legion, NCR, or both at the same time would attempt to apprehend him. Novac was basically the only safe zone now, aside from Big Mt and the New Vegas Strip.
Fortunately, whether it was because of the distance between the two factions or Afton's already significant ability, neither had deemed him important enough to attack yet. This allowed his group and the town itself to prepare themselves, Afton had even been delivering food from Big Mt to Novac so they could focus on training instead of feeding themselves... As of right now, he had a pretty 'good' militia at the ready should shit hit the fan.
Of course, people were curious at the 'strange' foods he brought, but he couldn't exactly tell them that they were the original unmutated plants from before the war. If the other factions knew he had this and most likely other prewar materials, they'd invade Novac in a couple hours...
He'd spent quite a bit of time back at Big Mt as well, getting updates by Glados on the various projects they had available while also delivering the various weaponry he'd acquired from the Brotherhood... He imagined the Thermic Lances were somewhat pointless, but the Gatling Lasers could be modified and attached to things should it be needed...
he was also looking forward to the results on the latest project he'd posted on the big whiteboard in the Think Tank... He wanted the scientists to deconstruct the AER14 prototype laser rifle, and use what they find to upgrade the Gatling Lasers they had...
The Prototype of course fires a green laser instead of the typical red, uses more ammunition per shot but does significantly more per laser. Big Mt was slowly gaining ways to create Microfusion cells more efficiently, so the ammo increase wouldn't be all that bad. Plus, it was still a Prototype, meaning that there might be ways the scientists can reduce the ammo efficiency while keeping damage the same.
Afton imagined that they'd be able to use whatever upgrades Elijah had made to the LAER, he'd gotten them to deconstruct it and get a properly functioning blueprint. It was a surprise to find that the LAER itself wasn't actually a laser weapon, but instead used lasers to heat plasma which it shot out in a beam... It was interesting, but not helpful when upgrading their Gatling Lasers.
Though, Afton could see a new age of Plasma Weaponry that weren't annoying to aim and had incredibly slow projectiles but instead unleashed a beam burst... He imagined with enough pressure, even Plasma Weaponry could fire bullet-like projectiles... But that was another project entirely.
Speaking on projects, there had been a few advancements on cloning technology and the scientists were already working on cloning dogs. Afton had seen the... 'Results' of this, and he was pretty horrified by the failed experiments.
One dog was literally inside out, its organs hung limply underneath it by whatever strands of flesh and arteries connected them, it gave horrifying-sounding pained howls, but Afton couldn't blame the thing... He quickly shot it despite the protests of the scientists, he was a dog person at heart, and seeing one like that was distasteful, to say the least.
That wasn't to say cloning didn't work, the scientists were just experimenting with the technology to see what'd happen. They could perfectly clone dogs as it is, and the good ones were sent to the Cyberdog factory where they were upgraded... It might sound cruel, but Cyberdogs lived significantly longer, were significantly stronger, and were much, much smarter.
He imagined that if he wasn't already superhuman and likely immortal, he'd have encouraged the scientists on humanoid cyborg technology. As of right now, the most they were allowed to go down that road were cybernetic implants, one's similar to what Doctor Usanagi sold.
Fortuantely, he'd taken along all the implants that his companion's bodies had rejected. They served no purpose after they were taken out, but Afton was sure the scientist could deconstruct them and upgrade their knowledge on implants with them. Of course, Meddie was very interested in this project so Glados allowed him some access to the Think Tank and the Forbidden Dome so he could discuss things with the scientists.
Now on the most important project he currently had the scientists working on... Power armour... Doctor Zero had taken it apart after 8 and Klein had completely scanned it. Afterwards, they split the components so each scientist could work on their respective fields... Dala working on how the machinery interacted with the human body, Klein and Mobius working on the programming, while Borous, Zero, Mobius, and Glados assisted in investigating the polymer materials that composed the armour.
They were wondering if it was possible to synthesize the material with the technology they currently had. Afton admitted it'd be interesting to find out as Saturnite alloy, while amazing against physical threats, was still weak to Energy and Heat-based attacks. That's not to say it'd break when stuck by them, but that the person wearing the armour would feel the after-effects of being shot. The results obviously depending on the weapon, but it almost always went like this.
Saturnite heating up by Plasma, laser, or simple flamethrower fire and cooking the person inside alive. Regular metals would usually dissipate the heat caused by these attacks relatively quickly, but Saturnite retained it so well that the armour would basically become an oven.
Afton had heard of similar devices, but they were all used for torture... That brazen bull that had a person stuffed inside and a fireplaced under it for example. Not a pleasant way to go he imagined... Huh, maybe he'd use that as an interrogation tool someday?
Hope you bois liked the chap, if I missed anything please let me know. Thanks!
If you like my content or want to read ahead please go to : https://www.p.atreon.com/Nagross, I'd appreciate it.
Also, thanks to my patrons for their support :
Joseph Suh
Chris Lindsey
Kingsprovince
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