As Carter walked through the gates to Osceola alongside Conrad, he realized just why the guard that had let them in had such a hard voice. He was a super mutant. In fact, everyone in the street looked to be a super mutant.
"Uh, Conrad. Why are there so many greenskins here?" Carter asked.
"Osceola is the super mutant capital here in Brotherhood territory. They used the place when they first arrived here, and most of them decided to stay around after they joined us. Plus, who better to watch one of our borders with the Legion than a group of giant muties? Legionnaires usually think twice about strikes in this area." Conrad replied matter-of-factly.
"Suppose that makes sense." Carter said, nervously.
Down a perpendicular street he could see two mutants ruffing up a human man in handcuffs, laughing. "Alright, that has got to be an issue" he said, pointing to the scene.
Conrad stopped and looked at them. "Come on Knights. Escort that prisoner to lockup, and quit beating him for god's sake" Conrad said. The two mutants sighed and one picked up the man over his shoulder and started carrying him towards the same building Carter and Conrad were heading for. "Yeah, the muties can get carried away."
"How could you tell they were Knights?" Carter asked.
"Shoulders. They scar themselves up with a sigil to show rank. Their regeneration fixes that up after awhile though, so they keep doing it til they get promoted. Like I said before, the soldiers here at Osceola can get carried away" Conrad said.
Carter looked ahead and saw the building they were about to enter was a square facility, a military bunker by the looks of it, and just about one of only a few buildings he could see in the city not cobbled from metal and wood scraps. As they were within a few feet of it the door burst open and a super mutant walked out. He was dressed in old rags and wore torn apart pieces of power armor held together by chains.
"No humans welcome in!" he yelled.
"Relax pal. We're here to speak with Elder Hyde. We have information on the EC chapter he needs to hear right now" Conrad said, staring the mutant down.
"No. Hyde busy. You come later." he said.
At that moment static came from the speaker positioned above the door as it turned on.
"Donna, please be nice to this Paladin and his friend. Escort them down to my lab at once. I must hear what they have to say. Thank you" a grizzled voice from the speaker said.
"Errrgh. Follow" this 'Donna' said, walking back into the bunker and motioning Carter and Conrad to follow.
It took a few minutes, but they had finally reached Elder Hyde's lab. The room was large and dotted with examination tables, topped with humans, ghouls, super mutants, and creatures Carter'd never seen before let alone imagined. A super mutant in hastily stitched robes turned away from a terminal and towards them.
"Thank you Donna, you may go now" he said.
Donna grumbled and walked out, closing the door behind her. "I'm sorry" he continued, "My sister has always been such a grump even before she was dipped into FEV. I am Elder Hyde, governor and head medical expert of Osceola"
"Doctor... and Hyde?" Carter asked.
"Oh yes, a cultured one. I so love that story. My birth name was Thomas but I figured new body, new name after we were taken from Vault 17" Hyde responded joyously. "Now, Paladin Conrad, you have news for me?"
"Yes sir. This man and I were on a shuttle heading here when we were attacked by a group of Maxson's soldiers. We were taken to and then escaped from an outpost about three hours southwest of here" Conrad replied.
"Hmm, that close? It seems they moved quite faster than any of us anticipated" Hyde said, stroking his chin.
"There's more sir. They have an armory, stocked full of weapons, ammunition, explosives, and power armor. I think they're planning to take the city" Conrad said. "We caused a bit of trouble on our way out, but that would just give them more reason to come attack".
"Yes, yes it would. And with all my research incomplete." Hyde sighed. "What is your recommendation Paladin Lord?"
"Recommendation, sir? With all due respect, you can't possibly expect any option other than to hold them off. This location is too important to lose." Conrad stated, in disbelief at the Elder.
"I have civilians to protect. With vertibird fire and power armor clad soldiers duking it out in the streets they won't stand a chance, even my mutant civilians." Hyde said. "No, not unless we evacuate them to here. Inside the base, but then there's the risk of them being captured if our defenses fail"
"Sir, your defenses will not fail." Conrad said.
All of a sudden alarms started blaring from the walls.
"Can you promise that?" Hyde asked hurriedly.
Conrad looked to the ground, "No, I suppose I can't".
Hyde looked around the room, at all the strange corpses and notes piled around. "Hmmm" he sounded, "You are right however. We cannot allow this location to be lost. Alright, I will call for all non-combat personnel to retreat to the bunker. You and Donna will head to the wall and direct the defense from there. I will prepare some.... surprises for our eastern brothers. Where would you like your Initiate stationed?" Hyde blurted at once, almost as if his brain was moving faster than his mouth.
"I lied to the guards at the gate to get Lakeman through. He isn't my Initiate" Conrad said.
Hyde looked back and forth between Carter and Conrad, "Hrrrm. Well he is now. Welcome to the Brotherhood Initiate Lakeman"
"I don't get a say in this?" Carter asked as he and Conrad ran to Osceola's gate.
"No, not now at least. Once this is over you can be on your way, I'll release you." Conrad said. They had stopped at the bunker armory before leaving. Conrad had only refilled his laser rifle and grabbed some grenades, but the quartermaster had practically thrown a gauss rifle and a bag of ammo at Carter. And so Carter was now wielding a state of the art rifle rather than the old hunting one he'd picked up in the Springs.
Donna was already at the top of the gate bellowing orders. They could hear the super mutant woman screaming at the guards to pass around rifles and get the mounted guns reloaded. Just as Carter and Conrad had reached the stairs up they heard a buzzing noise coming from not too far away.
"Vertibirds" Conrad muttered, only for one to fly over the wall a few seconds later. The pilot and passengers had started firing on mutants below but one was carrying a missile launcher. The mutant fired it at the aircraft and it blew into a dozen pieces which came clattering to the ground. Two other veribirds had landed on nearby roofs and began unloading soldiers in T-60.
"You stay up there!" Conrad yelled, running into one of the buildings. Carter ran up the stairs and looked out in front of the gate. In the early sunrise he could see shapes moving closer. As the guards managed to get spotlights on the shapes they revealed a host of soldiers, also in power armor, escorting two sentry bots and some gutsies.
"What you waiting?" Donna yelled, "Shoot tinmen!"
Carter kneeled and aimed his rifle. Several targets to choose from, but he decided on a gutsy, which the mutants on the mounted miniguns were avoiding in favor of bigger targets. He brought one into his sights and took a shot, tearing through the robot's metal casing and taking it down. He looked back towards the building Conrad had entered and saw him fighting on the roof. He had pushed one soldier off the roof, who was now being beaten by two mutants with sledgehammers. As the vertibird pilot attempted to take off Conrad smashed his hand through the cockpit and knocked her out. When Carter looked back at the force approaching the wall he was confused. All but one of the units had stopped behind some boulders. The lone one still moving forward was a sentry bot. What were they planning, Carter thought. Just as he thought that he noticed the robot had begun to emit a green light from its back and was starting to smoke. Oh no.
"Get down!" he yelled. Carter jumped from the wall onto the street. Donna and the other mutants followed suit and jumped down. As they did an explosion ripped down the gate and surrounding wall.
Carter could hear battlecries outside and knew the other Brotherhood must be charging.
"Fall back!" Donna yelled. They all ran back to the next street. A mutant tore down some metal advertisement boards and slammed them into the ground, erecting a makeshift barricade. As soon as Carter saw the soldiers rushing in he took a shot and hit someone in power armor, but the shot only slowed the soldier down. The mutant who had destroyed the vertibird earlier aimed his launcher at the opposing force but had his head blown off by a soldier wielding a heavy gauss rifle. Carter felt the ground shake beneath him as Conrad landed from the building next to him.
"What's going on?" he said.
"Rigged bot blew up the gate. Where's Hyde and those surprises he mentioned?" Carter screamed.
"He's working on it I imagine." Conrad said unassuredly.
Just as Conrad finished his sentence Hyde burst through the door of the other building a vertibird had landed at. He was bleeding profusely and held a plasma pistol in one hand and an odd switch in another. He rushed over to Donna and told her something. She nodded. "Run away again!" she yelled. The mutants and humans alike fell back down yet another street, allowing the East Coast soldiers to gain more ground. Hyde ran across the street to where Carter and Conrad were hiding behind a wall.
"I need you two to help me with those doors" he said, pointing to two garage-like metal doors on one of the few pre-war buildings in the city. "Initiate Carter, you open the one on the right and I will open the one on the left. You will need this card to open it. Paladin Conrad, you protect Initiate Carter.". Hyde passed an ID card to Carter.
"Sir, you're injured. Let someone else open the door, or let me protect you." Conrad insisted.
"No. Now let us unleash the dogs of war" Hyde said.
Carter and Conrad ran to the vertical door to the right while Hyde ran to the door on the left. Conrad stood in front of Carter providing cover for him from the enemy weapons. Carter slid the card into a slot but nothing happened. He tried again, nothing. He looked over to Hyde.
"The same time" the mutant doctor yelled. He mouthed the numbers, one...two...three. They both slid their cards at the same time, and the vertical doors began to open.
"Perfect!" Hyde yelled excitedly. He looked to the device in his hands and flipped the switch.
Even though the door wasn't fully open Carter could see something big in the dimly lit building, which looked to be a mechanic's shop.
"Move out of the way!" Hyde yelled to Carter and Conrad.
"Hey, Conrad" Carter said patting the Paladin, "We've got to move"
Conrad looked beneath the rising door and froze. Carter could tell all the blood had probably left his face.
"What? What is it?" Carter screamed, terrified at the thought of whatever could make Conrad afraid.
Donna looked back and saw what her brother and the two were doing. "Doggies!" she yelled.
Conrad grabbed Carter and ducked with him to the side of the door. Not a second later a large shape jumped from the building, taking off towards the gate. Carter looked to Hyde's side and saw another, but more clearly. It was a large, six-legged robot, armed with cannons on it's head. Carter had seen one of these before, in a military parade before going off to Vault 0.
"Oh. That" was all Carter could say. The other behemoth robot walked from the building and took off towards the enemy along with its cousin. Carter could hear screaming as the two robots ripped through the ECs' forces. The battle was over in just a few more minutes.
"The other Elders are going to have your head for this sir. You do know that?" Conrad asked.
Hyde was wading through the wreckage of the enemy robots, picking through pieces that looked important. "I'm aware my colleagues are distrustful in the use of the Calculator's former forces, what with the war and that dreaded M3W Incident. However it is my personal belief not to throw out good toys" Hyde said, not caring for the conversation. "They did just save the city, did they not? And they didn't kill everyone, we do have a few survivors"
"Yes sir, they did. But I don't think the council will accept the situation, regardless of the spin you put on it" Conrad said.
"Perhaps they won't, perhaps they will. We won't know until the next meeting. Now, shouldn't you be checking on Initiate Carter?"
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Carter had helped Donna and some others close up the doors to the behemoths' maintenace buildings.
"Is that what happened in the war?" Carter asked, still thinking about the carnage the robots had created.
"Haha, yes. Big damage. Fun fights" Donna bellowed.
"You miss good thing vault dweller"
"Vault dweller?" Carter asked, wondering how she could tell.
"Blue suit. Me had one. Number 1 and 7 on back. Ripped, no good." Donna said.
Conrad walked towards the two.
"Hey, Donna. May wanna go check on your brother. Got shot by some ECs back there. Carter gotta talk to you" he said. He waited for Donna to walk away before continuing. "So?"
"So what?" Carter replied
"Well, are you going to leave or not? You've got Florida waiting for you, don't ya?" Conrad said.
"About that. I was thinking of possibly staying around for a bit, assuming you can let me go whenever. The Brotherhood do pay their soldiers I assume?" Carter responded.
"Yes we do. And no, I can't let you go whenever, there's paperwork. Speaking of which, let's get back to the bunker, we've got some introduction papers to fill out with the Scribes, Knight Carter." Conrad said, walking to the bunker.
"Knight? Thought I was an Initiate, or whatever weird name you guys use" Carter said.
"Yeah, well you just helped to save the city, so I figure a promotion is in order. Just don't let the muties get near you with their knives. And I technically can't bring Initiates on my missions anyway" Conrad stated, stopping and turning to look at Carter.
"We've got a mission?" Carter asked.
"Damn right we do"