~2 Years Ago~
General Hampshire Smith had been planning attacks on several raider gangs on the fringe when Elder Hyde strode through the door to the Council's meeting chambers.
"He's here" the mutant doctor stated.
Smith looked to the other Council members sitting at the table. Head Inquisitor Evitt, Elder Defcon, Head Scribe Lola, Head Knight Marcus, Elder Nike, Elder Praxus. They had decided unanimously for Head Paladin Shepherd to skip this meeting, it didn't have to be any harder than it already was.
"Sit then, be ready" Evitt said to the doctor.
"What are we to expect from this man?" Marcus asked, angrily.
"With the blessings of Plutonius we may only hope the blood Elder wishes for safe passage across our lands" the ghoul Elder Defcon said.
"Me thinksss you not do talking Elder" Nike said.
Hyde looked to Defcon, "The deathclaw matriarch is right. The Council must choose it's words carefully, lest we end in any trouble"
"Agreed" Smith said. "Hyde, Evitt, and I will speak with the Elder. Everyone else, please just speak when spoken to. I mean no disrespect, and we're all equals here, but we can't me-"
The doors to the Council's meeting chambers opened, and three men walked in. A skinny, shaved man in orange combat armor, a dark-skinned man in a bomber jacket, and a third dressed in a long coat and boasting a full beard. His features portrayed him older than he should've looked. Smith stifled a chuckle, he'd assumed Arthur Maxson would be taller. The Elder walked over to an empty seat at the table and sat.
"Greetings ladies, gentlemen. I hope we can get to the bottom of this matter shortly"
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~Present Day~
"Alpha Four, what've you got?" Carter asked through his radio to Knight Mendez, Alpha Squad's designated marksman.
"Nothing here Sigma Five, you?" Mendez asked back.
Carter took another look through his gauss rifle's scope. The early morning sunlight made it difficult to make out some shapes, but with the night vision scope the Bunker Alpha quartermaster had lent him Carter could see just about everything.
"Nothing. Sigma One, is there a chance they've got stealthboys?" he asked. He turned to look at Conrad and the bulk of Alpha and Sigma Squads making their way up a hill towards the ECs' outpost.
"Possible" Conrad replied.
All of a sudden a muffled cry came over the radio and then a thunk.
"No stealthboy on this one" Aisha said "Looks like Carter and Mendez missed one"
"Guns can't see through a mound of dirt" Mendez said.
"Codes, people" Paladin Lord Victoria said.
"Sigma Three, Alpha Two. Anything by you?" Conrad asked.
"Zero" Mara replied.
Carter noticed a flash at the top of the hill. A soldier in power armor had begun patrolling the makeshift catwalk surrounding the base. Another in a bomber jacket had exited a building and began walking towards a vertibird.
"Got an issue" Carter said. "Pilot may be prepping a vertibird"
"If he goes up our surprise may get blown. It's now or never" Victoria said. "Alpha Four, we reach the perimeter you take out that pilot. Sigma Five, cover"
"You heard the lady, move it lads" Gregor said, chuckling. The frontline soldiers from both squads ran up the hill. On the far side Carter could see Mara scaling up one of the buildings. The patrolling soldier glanced at Mara and yelled, but was cut off by Aisha's knife slipping behind his helmet. Too late. A group of soldiers ran out of a building and began shouting orders to one another. The pilot ran for his aircraft but was shot in the leg by Mendez, downing him. Gunfire soon erupted from all around the base. A soldier attempted to man a defensive turret but was grabbed and thrown a few yards by Alpha Two, a super mutant named Harris. Carter saw another come out of what was presumably an armory with a missile launcher, and shot him in the thigh. "Incapacitate" was Danse's order, no killing if they didn't have to. Conrad, who'd just reached the top of the hill, barreled through some men and women in combat armor and tackled someone in T-60, bringing both men to the ground.
Victoria used her railway rifle to bring down a few of the soldiers Conrad had ran through. Carter could hear their screams all the way across the divide between the two hills as railway spikes were driven through their arms and legs. Within five minutes the outpost had fallen.
"Where are the rest of you?" Victoria questioned the captured ECs. "This can't be all Maxson sent up"
Leon made his way around, patching up some of the soldiers on both sides. Alpha Three had taken some shrapnel from a grenade blast and was laying down in the vertibirds bed next to the fragments, which he'd placed in a jar after Leon had fixed him up. Conrad walked over to Alpha One.
"Alright Vic. Arnold's fine, bits were pulled out of him. Mara and Harris are searching to see if anyone's hiding around" Conrad said.
"Codes. It's not that hard" Victoria replied. She looked back to the prisoners, "Where are they?"
One shuffled a bit and looked to the others.
"You know something pal you may wanna say it. Don't want to get her angry" Conrad said.
"We're all that's left" the man said.
"Shut up" another yelled.
"No no, left from what?" Victoria asked.
"The attack? A few nights ago some mutants attacked. We have their bodies in the base, most of em" a third soldier said.
"Show us" Conrad said, picking up one of the prisoners, who walked him, Victoria, and Gregor over to one of the buildings.
"So, "Icicle" they call you?" Aisha said to Carter, circling around the prisoners.
"Yeah, slept through the Great War in a cryopod. Never going to live that down" Carter replied.
"Bah, you had it easy" Leon said. He was wrapping up one of the prisoners legs. "I had my face burnt off in nuclear fire"
"And now you'll live forever" Mendez snickered.
"Watch it. People think being a ghoul is so easy. Well I'll tell y-" Leon was cut off by the slamming of a door and Conrad, Vic, Gregor, and the prisoner walking back.
"We're going" Victoria said sternly. She turned to Gregor, "Go get the transports with Sigma Five. We'll bring the prisoners down the hill"
Conrad turned on his radio. "Mara, Harris. Get back here now"
"What did it look like?" Carter asked Conrad, who sat across from him in the back of the APC.
"It was... you remember those weird bodies in Hyde's lab? It looked like those. Ain't ever seen mutants like that before. Tortured-looking, not even centaurs are that bad" Conrad replied.
"Look like old friends. Old mutants. Master failures" Harris said.
"How would you know? You didn't go down there" Aisha said.
"Weird mutants come to Shishago. Shepherd. He send us to kill" Harris replied. He looked to the floor. "One tell us, say nothing"
"Why some big secret?" Carter asked. Before he could get an answer the vehicle jumped, it had hit something.
Conrad spoke into his radio, "Vic, we gotta stop. Something happened". The Paladin grabbed his laser rifle and opened the door to get out of the APC, Aisha and Carter followed behind. Vic was getting out of her vehicle, which held the prisoners.
"If this is some trap, I'm blaming you" she said.
Carter noticed a foul smell permeating the air.
"Oh God, what is that?" he asked. They looked a distance away from the APC and noticed Gregor had exited the driver's compartment, and was poking something with a stick.
"You guys may wanna take a look at this" he yelled.
As they got closer the smell only got worse.
"Conrad, ain't that the thing?" Gregor asked when they got to him. Carter looked down and couldn't believe what he was seeing. It was a mutant, dull yellow and with various limbs and half limbs growing from it's back. It's face was frozen in a permanent screaming position and it's eyes were sunken into it's head. No, faces. It had faces all around it's head, on every side. Conrad rubbed his jaw and put his hand on Carter's shoulder.
"Looked like that Lakeman. Looked like that"