Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

(S.P.E.C.I.A.L.):

Strength: 40

Perception: 44

Endurance: 42

Charisma: 9

Intelligence: 43

Agility: 42

Luck: 41

(Skills):

Barter: 234

Energy Weapons: 514

Explosives: 468

Guns: 742

Lockpick: 454

Medicine: 696

Melee Weapons: 722

Repair: 434

Science: 351

Sneak: 292

Speech: 266

Survival: 625

Unarmed: 620

(Perks):

A Helping Hand: You helped Dr. Pichard perform a surgery on a wounded NCR trooper. heal yourself 2% more efficiently.

Action boy(2): With the Action Boy perk, you gain an additional 15 Action Points to use in V.A. T.S.

Able-bodied: From 11 Endurance and onwards, each added point in Endurance will increase your DT by 1, Radiation Resistance as well as Poison Resistance by 2%, up to 85% and decrease the Addiction Chance by 1%, down to a minimum of 5%.

Abominable(3): There's nothing abominable about your damage bonus against Abominations.

Beautiful beatdown: Reduce the AP cost of Unarmed in VATS.

Adamantium Skeleton: With the Adamantium Skeleton perk, your limbs only receive 50% of the damage they normally would.

Alertness: You've learned to keep your senses alert to any danger. When crouched and not moving you gain a +2 to your Perception attribute to help you find enemies before they find you.

Ammo Connoisseur: Ammo is your passion! While not in the Mojave, killed enemies have a chance of dropping extra ammo, especially rare and Frontier-exclusive types.

Animal Control: You handle animals really well when they are dead and gain a damage bonus against the living ones.

Animal Friend(2): At the first rank of this perk, animals simply won't attack. At the second rank, they will actually come to your aid in combat, but never against another animal.

Arms Devotion: From 101 Guns and onwards, for every 10 points added in Guns, you deal an additional point of damage with
guns.

Atomic: With the Atomic! perk, you are 25% faster and stronger whenever you're basking in the warm glow of radiation. Outside irradiated areas, your Action Points (AP) regenerate faster and faster the higher your level of radiation sickness becomes

Center of Mass: You don't fool around with fancy trick shots. Straight to the midsection and down they go. In VATS, you do an additional 15% damage with attacks targeting the torso

Better Criticals: With the Better Criticals perk, you gain a 50% damage bonus every time a critical hit is scored on an opponent.

Big brained: Your brain is back in your body, but some of the advanced technologies remain: Your head still cannot be crippled, but you are only 10% more resistant to addiction now. Surprisingly your Damage Threshold has improved by 10% (minimum +1 DT)

Bloody Mess: With the Bloody Mess perk; characters and creatures you kill will often explode into a red, gut-ridden, eyeball-strewn paste.
Fun! Oh, and you'll do 5% extra
damane with all weapons

Broad Daylight: You're so sneaky that you can sneak even with your Pip-Boy light on. Any time the Pip-Boy light is on, you gain a sneak bonus to offset the light's sneak penalty.

Bug Stomper: Pulling the legs off ants suits you well. You gain a damage bonus against insects.

Burden to bear: The wastelander with the most gear wins! (... or at least survives.) Medium and heavy armor no longer impair movement speed.

Cardiac Arrest: Your heart is back in your body, but some advanced technologies remain: You are more resistant to poison (50%) and robots are only somewhat confused by you (25% less likely to score a critical hit) now. But on the bright side, healing items (chems) are even more effective!

Computer Whiz: Fail a hack attempt and get locked out of a computer? Not if you're a Computer Whiz! With this perk, you can attempt to re-hack any computer you were previously locked out of.

Certified Tech:
Your knowledge of robotic components allows you to break them more easily and salvage their mechanical corpses. You have a +25% chance to score critical hits against robots, and you'll also find more useful components on robots you destroy.

Chem Resistant: Having the Chem Resistant perk means you're 50% less likely to develop an addiction to chems, like - Psycho or Jet.

Chemist: With the Chemist perk, any chems you take last twice as long.

Chief Researcher: after 101, ever 10 points added in Science increases:
the damage against robot enemies by 1 and the chance to recover drained cells when you use Energy Weanons hu 1%

Child at Heart: The Child at Heart perk greatly improves your interactions with children, usually in the form of unique dialogue choices.

Chinese Saboteur: You've learned the ways of a Chinese sabotager. Your explosives now ignore 20 DT on targets using power armor, and hacking is 10% easier.

Combat Engineer: Gives you bonus DT when using RobCo tools or clothing.

Commando: While using a rifle (or similar two-handed weapon), your accuracy in V.A.T.S. is significantly increased.

Comprehension: With the Comprehension perk, you gain double the bonus from reading magazines and one additional point from skill books.

Detect Traps: You have almost supernatural survival senses and can easily spot traps and mines whilst sneaking.

Conan the butcher: From 101 Melee Weapons and onwards, every 10 points added in Melee Weapons increases the damage with melee weapons by 1.

Concentrated Fire: With Concentrated Fire, your accuracy to hit any body part in V.A.T.S. increases slightly with each subsequent hit on that body part.

Confirmed Bachelor: In combat, you do +10% damage against male opponents. Outside of combat, you'll sometimes have access to unique dialogue options when dealing with the same sex,

Cowboy: You do 20% more damage when using any revolver, lever-action firearm, dynamite, knife, or hatchet.

Crazed Inventor: Allows you to build some robots from household appliances and/or brains.

Day Tripper: You've done enough chems to know how to hang on to the effects just a while longer.

Deft Negotiator: From 101 Barter and onwards, for every 10 points added in Barter, you get an additional XP point for every 25 caps in any performed transaction. NOTE: The XP bonus is riven only once every three davs

Demented Inventor: Allows you to build more robots from household appliances and/or even more human brains

Demolition Expert(2): With each rank of this perk, all of your Explosives weapons do an additional 10% damage and have 10% larger area of effect.

Eye for Eye: For each crippled limb you have, you do an additional 10% damage.

Dissolving Manners: From 101 Energy Weapons and onwards, for every 10 points acided in Energy Weapons, you deal an additional point of damage with energy weapons.

DNAgent: Studying schematics on the abominations created at the Big MT has granted you a damage bonus (+10%) against Nightstalkers.

DNAvenger(2): Studying the abominations created at. the Big MT has granted you a damage bonus (+10% per rank up to three ranks) against Cazadores.

Eagle Eyed: From 11 Perception and onwards, each added point in Perception will increase your Energy Weapons, Explosives and Lockpick skills by 4 points.

Easy there: You've always had somebody by your side. You gain +2 DT and move 10% faster while you have a companion..

Educated: With the Educated perk; you gain two more skill points every time you advance in level. This perk is best taken early on, to maximize its effectiveness.

Enticing Persuader: From 101 Speech and onwards, any speech option associated with a non-Speech skill can become passable if your Speech skill is 100 points higher than the skill points required for the aforementioned speech option. At 201 Speech and beyond, for every added point in Speech you get 5 additional XP points for every successful speech check.

Entomologist: With the Entomologist perk; you do an additional +50% damage every time you attack a mutated insect, Tike the Radroach, Giant Mantis, or Radscorpion.

Explorer: When you choose the Explorer perk, every location in the world is revealed on your map. So get out there and explore!

Eye of The Beholder: Thanks to the Netwrk, you are now intimately aware of the Northern Legion's weaknesses, and gain a +3 bonus to DT against them.

Fast Metabolism: With the Fast Metabolism perk, you gain a 20% Health bonus when using Stimpaks.

Fast Shot: While using Guns and Energy Weapons, you fire 20% more quickly but your shots are 20% less accurate.

Ferocious Loyalty: The power of your personality inspires die-hard loyalty from your followers. When you drop below 50% Health, your companions temporarily gain much greater resistance to damage.

Fight the power: You've had enough of the so-called "authorities" pushing poor folks around! You gain +2 Damage Threshold and +5% Critical Chance against anyone wearing the faction armor of the NCR, Legion, or Brotherhood.

Finesse: With the Finesse perk, you have a higher chance to score a critical hit on an opponent in combat,
equivalent to 5 extra points of Luck.

Fireworks artist: From 101 Explosives and onwards, for every 5 points added in Explosives, you deal an additional point of damage with explosive weapons. For every 10 points, the velocity of thrown bombs and the explosion's area of effect are increased by 1%, up to 300% respectively 200%.

Fortune finder: With the Fortune Finder perk, you'll find considerably more currency in containers than you normally would.

Friend of the night: You are a true friend of the night.
Your eyes adapt quickly to low-light conditions indoors and-when darkness falls across the wasteland.

Hit the deck: Your extensive familiarity with Explosives allows you to ignore a portion of their damage. Your Damage Threshold is increased by 25 against any and all Explosives-including your own

Gleam of Fortune: From 11 Luck and onwards, each added point in Luck will increase all of your skills by 2 points.

Grunt: Just good, honest infantry work! You do 25% more damage with 9mm and .45 Auto pistols and SMGs, service rifles, assault and marksman carbines, light machine guns, frag grenades, grenade rifles and launchers, and combat knives.

Grim Reapers Sprint: If you kill a target in V.A.T.S., With rank one 20 Action Points are restored upon exiting V.A.T.S. With rank two all your Action Points are restored upon exiting V.A.T.S.

Gunslinger: While using a pistol (or similar
-one-handed weapon), your accuracy in V.A.T.S. is significantly increased.

Hand Loader: You know your way around a reloading bench and don't let good brass and hulls go to waste. When you use Guns, you are more likely to recover cases and hulls. You also have all hand load recipes unlocked at any of the wasteland's reloading benches.

Heave, Ho: Quite an arm you got there. All thrown weapons fly farther and faster for you.

Heavyweight: Have you been working out? Weapons heavier than 10 Ibs. now weigh half as much for you. (Modified weapons that drop below 10 1bs. will not gain this benefit.)

Hercules: From 11 Strength and onwards, each added point in Strength will increase your Melee Weapons skill by 5 points and Carry Weight by 3.

Implant Y-3: Implant Y-3 places an internal filtration system in the digestive tract that strips any liquid consumed of all radioactive particles before being processed by the body

Hobbler: With the Hobbler perk, your chance to hit an opponent's legs in V.A.T.S. is significantly increased.

Home on the Range: Whenever you interact with a campfire, you have the option of sleeping, with all the benefits that sleep brings.

Hotshot: Beating Hotshot's high score has granted you a 3% higher chance to score a critical hit on an opponent in combat.

Hunter: In combat, you do +75% Critical Damage against animals and mutated animals.

Hunters Toughness: You've distinguished yourself as the premiere bounty hunter in the region, and as a result you've acquired a boost to your damage resistance.

Implant C-13: Implant C-13 was originally designed as a defense turret subroutine to help eliminate cazadores should they escape from their containment, but it's been repurposed for testing on human subjects

Implant GRX: You gain a non-addictive subdermal Torbo (chem) injector. This perk may be taken twice, with the second rank increasing the effect from 2 to 3
seconds and the uses per day from 2 to 3

Implant M-5: You can be made... better... faster... stronger... Actually, just faster. The M-5 implant increases your crouched movement speed by 20% for greater efficiency as a test subject.

Laser Commander: From the humble Laser Pistol to the mighty Gatling Laser, you do +15% damage and have +10% chance to critically hit with any laser weapon.

Implant Y-7: Implant Y-7 is an enzyme booster that increases the Health (HP) gained from foods and recovers additional Action Points (AP) per food item consumed.

Infiltrator: With Infiltrator, if a lock is broken, and can't normally be picked again, you can attempt to pick it again one more time. This includes locks previously broken by a "Force Lock" attempt

Irradiated Beauty: Any time you sleep, you remove all of your Rads in addition to regaining all of your Health. (In Hardcore Mode, you still don't regain Health, but you lose 100 Rads.)

Jaunty Saunter: Your attitude towards life and the wastes is as beaming as the sun itself. From sunrise to sunset, your Charisma is increased by 1 and you run 10% faster.

Junk Rounds: Survival is the mother of invention!
Craft ammo at the Reloading Bench using alternate materials (Scrap Metal and Tin Cans).

Lady Killer: In combat, you do +15% damage against female opponents. Outside of combat, you'll sometimes have access to unique dialogue options when dealing with the opposite sex.

Jury Rigging: You possess the amazing ability to repair any item using a roughly similar item. Fix a trail carbine with a hunting rifle, a Plasma Defender with a laser pistol, or even power armor with metal armor. How does it work? Nobody knows... except you.

Mad Bomber: Your intimate knowledge of gadgets and explosives have combined to make you... the Mad Bomber! At Workbenches, you have special.
Explosives recipes unlocked for use.

Lead Belly: With the Lead Belly perk, you take 50% less radiation when consuming irradiated food and drink. You are also able to eat raw animal meat without suffering STR loss.

Lessons Learned: The wasteland has taught you some hard lessons, but you've remembered them all. You gain +1% to earned experience per level gained.

Life Giver: With the Life Giver perk, for each rank you gain an additional 30 Hit Points.

Light Step: With the Light Step perk, you'11 never set off an enemy's mines or floor-based traps.

Light Touch: Heavy armor just isn't your thing, so you've learned to customize light. armor for maximum benefit. While wearing light armor you gain a +5% Critical Hit Chance and your enemies
Suffer a -25% Critical Hit Chance

Living Anatomy: Living Anatomy allows you to see the Health and Damage Threshold of any target. It also gives you a +5% bonus to damage against Humans and-non-feral Ghouls.

Locks bane: From 101 Lockpick and onwards, every 10 points added in Lockpick will reward you with one XP point after every successful lockpicking attempt and increase the chance of items inside the lockpicked container to be duplicated.

Long Haul: You have learned how to pack mountains of gear for the Long Haul, Being over-encumbered no longer prevents you from using Fast Travel.

Lord Death(3): You gain a damage bonus against everything, because you like killing everything.

Miss Fortune: Just when your enemies think they have the upper hand, Miss Fortune appears to turn their world upside down. Appearing only in V.A.T.S., she has the ability to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Mad Scientist: Mad Scientist:(OWB] Allows you to build Lobotomites, Cyberdogs and Cyberroaches from bodies.

Mad Scientist, PhD:(OWB] Allows you to build advanced Lobotomites, Cyberdogs and Cyberclaws

Man of Action: From 11 Agility and onwards, each added point in Agility will increase your Reloading, Equipping and Unequipping speed by 1% and decrease the likelihood of enemies scoring a critical hit on you by 1%, down to a minimum of 1%.

Marked: You've faced torture at the hands of the Marked Men... now it's payback time. (+10% Damage Threshold and +10% Damage against the Marked
Men)

Math Wrath: You are able to optimize your Pip-Boy's V.A.T.S. logic, reducing all AP costs by 10%

Melee Hacker(2): You hack just a little faster.

Mercenary Mode: You've chosen to play the Frontier in Mercenary Mode. Killed humans, ghouls and supermutants have a chance of dropping extra aid items.

Ninja: The Ninja perk grants you the power of the fabled shadow warriors. When attacking, you gain a +15% critical chance on all Melee and Unarmed attacks. Additionally, Sneak attack criticals do 25% more damage than normal.

Mister Sandman: With the Mister Sandman perk, when you're in Sneak mode, you gain the option to silently kill any human or Ghoul while they're sleeping. And, all Mister Sandman kills earn bonus XP.

Monocyte Breeder: Your regenerative ability has been enhanced by the PHOENIX Monocyte Breeder implant, causing you to slowly regenerate lost hit points.

Mortal Fists: From 101 Unarmed and onwards, every 10 points added in Unarmed increases the damage with unarmed weapons by 1.

Mutant Massacre: Your skill at Mutant killing grants you a damage bonus to killing them.

Mysterious Stranger: You've gained your own personal guardian angel... armed with a fully
-loaded .44 Magnum. With this perk, the Mysterious Stranger will appear occasionally in V.A.T.S. mode to lend a hand with deadl efficiency.

Nerd Rage: You've been pushed around long enough! With the Nerd Rage! perk, your Strength is raised to 10 and you gain +15 Damage Threshold whenever your Health drops to 20% or below.

Nerves of Steel: With the Nerves of Steel perk, you regenerate Action Points much more quickly than you normally would.

Night Person: When the sun is down, a Night Person gains +2 to both Intelligence and Perception (up to a maximum of 10).
This perk directly affects your
"internal clock," and remains active hoth inside and outside

Purifier: As a purifier of the wasteland, you do +50% damage with Melee and Unarmed weapons against Centaurs, Nightstalkers, Spore Plants, Spore Carriers, Deathclaws, Super Mutants, and Foral Ghouls

Nuka-Chemist: You have unraveled some of the greatest mysteries of Pre-War masters: formulas for developing special Nuka-Colas! This perk unlocks special Nuka-Cola recipes at the Workbench

Old World Gourmet: Thanks to unclean living you've learned the secrets of the lounge lizards! +25% Addiction Resistance. +50% Health bonus from Snack Foods. Scotch, vodka and wine now give you Health in addition to their normal effects

Pack Rat: You have learned the value of careful packing. Items with a weight of 2 or less weigh half as much for you.

Paralyzing Palm: With Paralyzing Palm, you will sometimes perform a special V.A.T.S. palm strike that paralyzes your opponent for 30 seconds. Note that in order to perform the Paralyzing Palm, you must be completely unarmed.

Petrol Head: You've spent enough time smelling and handling petrol to figure out how to jury rig your own recipe, bas can now be made at a workbench.

Piercing Strike: Piercing Strike makes all of your Unarmed and Melee Weapons (including thrown) negate 15 points of Damage Threshold on the target.

Plasma Spaz: You're just so excited about plasma that you can't (magnetically) contain yourself! The AP costs for all plasma weapons (including Plasma Grenades) are reduced by 20%.

Power armor training: You have received the specialized training needed to move in any form of Power Armor.

Renowned Surgeon: From 101 Medicine and onwards, makes any chems you take last 1% longer.

Pyromaniac: With the Pyromaniac perk, you do +50% damage with fire-based weapons, like the Flamer and Shishkebab.

Quick Draw: Quick Draw makes all of your weapon equipping and holstering 50% faster.

Rad Absorption: With the Rad Absorption perk, your radiation level slowly decreases on its own over time.

Rad Child: You truly are a rad child. As you go through the increasingly devastating stages of radiation sickness, you will regenerate more and more health.

Rad Resistance: Rad Resistance allows you to - what else? - resist radiation. This perk grants an additional 25% to Radiation Resistance.

Ranger Takedown: When caught without their weapons, NCR's rangers rely on the Ranger Takedown to quickly incapacitate opponents. To Perform a Power Attack while moving backwards to execute a Ranger Takedown

Rapid Reload: Rapid Reload makes all of your weapon reloads 25% faster than normal.

Reinforced Spine: Your spine is back in your body, but some advanced technologies remain:
Your torso can now be crippled again, but your Strength (STR) and Damage Threshold (DT) bonuses have
Doubled (+2)

Scarred: As a result of your scars, your rate of fire and draw speed with guns will suffer, but you'll deal more damage.

Retention Perk: With the Retention perk, the bonuses granted by skill magazines last three times as long.

Rig Machinist: From 101 Repair and onwards, every 10 points added in Repair decreases the equipment degradation rate and increases the chance of recovering cases and hulls by 1%.

RobCo Certified: Allows you to repair Protectron and Mr Handy robots, and jury-rig Securitrons into operation.

RobCo Gold Certified: Allows you to repair Sentry Bots and Securitrons as well, and upgrade Securitrons to Mark II

Robco Pro Certified: Allows you to repair Robobrain and Mr Gutsy robots as well, and fix Securitrons to full Mark I operation.

Robot Wrangler(3): No matter how many robots you have, you've never got enough. zach rank of the Robot Wrangler perk gives you an extra 2 Robot Capacity.

Robotics Certified: With the Robotics Expert perk, you do an additional 25% damage to any robot. Also, sneaking up on a hostile robot undetected and deactivating it will put that robot into a permanent shutdown state.

Roughin It: You're more at home under the open stars than under a roof. Any time you sleep outside, you gain the benefits of being Well Rested, even if you don't own the bed.

Run 'n Gun: The Run 'n Gun perk reduces accuracy penalties with one-handed Guns and Energy Weapons while walking or running.

Sniper: With the Sniper perk, your chance to hit an opponent's head in V.A.T.S. is significantly increased.

Scourge of the East: Sic semper tyrannis! You can put a single point into any of your S.P.E.C.I.A.L. attributes.

Scrounger: With the Scrounger perk, you'll find considerably more ammunition in containers than you normally would.

Shotgun Surgeon: With this perk, your precision with a scattergun is something to behold. When using shotguns, regardless of ammunition used, you ignore an additional 10 points of a target's Damage Threshold.

Silent Assassin: From 101 Sneak and onwards, every 10 points added in Sneak increases the mole and the damage with silenced weapons by 1.

Silent Running: With the Silent Running perk, running no longer factors into a successful sneak attempt.

Skilled: You're skilled, but not experienced.
You gain +5-points to every skill, but you suffer -10% from experience gained from now on.

Slayer: The slayer walks the earth! The speed of all Melee Weapons and Unarmed attacks is increased by 30%.

Sneering Imperialist: You don't take kindly to raiders, junkies, or tribals trying to "settle" or "stay alive" in civilized lands. Against dirty raider and junkie types as well as Zion's tribals you do +15% Damage and have a bonus to hit in V.A.T.S.

Tag: The Tag! perk allows you to select a fourth Skill to be a Tag skill, which instantly raises it by 15 points.

Solar Powered: With the Solar Powered perk, you gain an additional 2 points to Strength when in direct sunlight and slowly regenerate lost Health.

Splash Damage: When you're deep in enemy territory, you just start chucking grenades and hope for the best. All Explosives have a 25% larger area of effect.

Spray and Pray: Your attacks do much less damage to companions, allowing you to.
liberally spray an area with reckless abandon.

Stonewall: You gain +10 Damage Threshold against all Melee Weapons and Unarmed attacks and cannot be knocked down in combat.

Strong Back: With the Strong Back perk, you can carry 25 more pounds of equipment.

Sub-Dermal Armor: Your skin has been toughened by the
NEMEAN Sub-Dermal Armor, increasing your total Damage Threshold by 4.

Super Slam: All Melee Weapons (except thrown) and Unarmed attacks have a chance of knocking your target down.

Swift Learner(3): With each rank in the Swift Learner perk, you gain an additional 10% to total Experience Points whenever Experience Points are earned.

Tunnel Runner: The warrens of The Divide have taught you to keep your head down.
Your movement speed is greatly increased while sneaking in light

Terrifying Presence: In some conversations, you gain the ability to initiate combat while Lending then losing away For safety.

The Finder: You are adept at finding keys and keycards. Any keys or keycards lying around will be highlighted.

The Professional: Up close and personal, that's how you like it. Your Sneak Attack Criticals with pistols, revolvers, and submachine guns, whether Guns or Energy Weapons, all inflict an
arditional 20% damage

Them's Good Eatin: Any living creature you kill has a 15% chance to have the potent healing items Thin Red Paste or
Blood Sausage when looted.

Thought you died: Your storied past has fallen from memory because everyone thought you died. Your Karma is reset, you inflict +10% damage, and for every 100 points of Karma, you gain 10 Health. You are also immune to critical hits. This perk requires you to have good Karma.

Toughness(2): With the Toughness perk, you gain +3 to overall Damage Threshold. This perk may be taken twice, with the second rank granting an additional +3.

Travel Light: While wearing light armor or no armor, you run 10% faster.

Tribal Wisdom: Your limbs take 50% less damage from Animals, Mutated Animals, and Mutated Insects, you gain +25% résistance to Poison Damage, and can eat Mutated Insects when you're
in Sneak mode

Weapon Handling: Weapon Strength Requirements are now 2 points lower than normal for you.

Uncertainty: Every day you have a random chance of a different bonus:
A) +10% to all damage dealt
B) +5 to critical hit chance
C) Additional caps on kills

Unstoppable Force: Your martial might is truly
legendary. You do a large amount of additional damage through enemy blocks with all Melee Weapons and Unarmed attacks.

Vigilant Recycler: Waste not, want not. When you use - Energy Weapons, you are more likely to recover drained ammunition. You also have more efficient recycling recipes available at the Workbench.

Walker Instinct: Your senses have become so keen that you can feel the slightest vibration in the ground. You gain +1 Perception and Agility attributes while outside.

Walking Encyclopedia: From 11 Intelligence and onwards, each added point in Intelligence will increase your Medicine, Repair and Science skills by 3 points and boost the amount of XP you earn by 2%

Wasteland Huntsman: From 101 Survival and onwards, every 5 points added in Survival increases the damage against animals and bugs by 1 and your DT against their attacks by 0.5.

(Weapons):

A Light Shining in Darkness

AER14 Prototype

AK-50 Prototype 2

Abilene Kid LE BB Gun

All-American

Ambition(unique .357 Revolver)

Annabelle

Anti-Material Rifle+(Anti-Mat Rifle CF parts and Custom Bolt)

Automatic Rifle+(Automatic Rifle Upgraded Internals)

Big Boomer

Big Mountain Transportalonder

Bozar

CZ-57

Carbon Slicer(Unique Machete)

Chance's Knife

Christine's COS Silencer Rifle

Clarent(Sword)

Crimson Lightning(Eldritch Sword)

Crossbow

Cutlingun(Trash but somehow better minigun)

Deliverance(Rolling Pin)

Devil's Wish(Demonic Axe)

Dr. Möbius's Glove

Dual-Fusion Blaster

Dual-Fusion PDW

Dinner Bell

E-Blaster

Elijah's Advanced LAER+(Prismatic Lens, Auxiliary Recharger Clip)

Elijah's Jury-Rigged Tesla Cannon

Engraved Combat Knife

Epardox's Colt

Eviscerator MG

Esther

FIDO

Flare Gun

Front Seat(Unique Spas 12)

Flamethrower

G-13(Unique Assault Carbine)

Gaileon Particle Harbinger(BIG FUCK OFF BLACKHOLEGUN)

Gaileon Sub-Sonic Rifle

Gehenna

Gobi Campaign Rifle

Gold Plate Magnum Rifle

Golden Gloves

Good Choppin'

Greased Lightning

Halberd

Hauteclere

Holme's Magnum Rifle

Holorifle+(Reinf. Components, Focus Optics, Advanced Calibration)

Ice Pick

Ingvar's blade

Jackhammer Shotgun

Jackhammer Shotgun

3 Jerry Cans

Katana

Knock Knock

LSR-44(Unique Laser Rifle)

La Longue Carabine

Laser Detonator

Lever-Action Shotgun

Li'l Devil

Liberator

Lohikäärme(Unique Heavy Incinerator)

Lucky

Lysander XL(25mm cannon)

MP 40+(Unfolded Stock)

Malorian Arms 3516

Maria

Medicine Stick

Mercy

Mossberg Shotgun

Multicore Gatling Laser(Unique Gatling Laser)

My Little Friend(Unique Assault Carbine)

Mysterious Magnum

Oh, Baby!

Old Glory

Old Scratch(Unique Revolver)

Photon Storm SMG

Pirate Cutlass

Plasma Slinger

Protonic Inversal Axe

2 Pulse Grenades

11 Pulse Guns

Punching Daggers

Q-35 Matter Modulator

Rancor's 12.7mm Revolver

Ranger Sequoia

Recompense of the fallen

Red Glare

Repair Thermic Lance

Riot Shotgun

Robco Auto-Fix(Chain wrench?)

Robco brainsaw

Robco Gluegun

Robco Wrench

Roland's Shotgun

Rolling Pin

Salt-Upon-Wounds' Power Fist

Shane's Bane

Sheriff Shotgun

Shoulder Mounted Machine Gun+(SMMG Mechanical Upgrade, Recoil Compensator and Extended Magazine)

Shovel

Skartemka's Vengeance(Gauss futuristic AK)

Sleepytyme

Sonic Emitter-Revelation

Sonic Emitter-Tarantula

Spud Grenade Launcher

Survivalist's Rifle

Sweet Revenge

Tesla Beaton Prototype Rifle

Tesla Caster

Tesla RCW

Tesla Revolver

Tesla Shotgun

Tesla Beaton Prototype

Tesla-Gauss Rifle

That Gun

The Comanchero

The Droog

The Emasculator

The Ferguson Rifle

The HomeRun(Unique Red Glare that fires Baseballs)

The Patriot(Gauss .45 Auto Pistol)

The Penetrator(Unique Anti-Material Rifle)

The Spoils

This Machine

Throwing Knife

Thump-Thump

Trench Repeater+(Trench Repeater Scope, Solid Wood Stock)

3 Triple Pipe Bombs

Two Step Goodbye

Typhoon M45A C3 Prototype(Laser Rifle? Underbarrel Gauss Rifle)

Unbound(Unique Chinese Pistol)

Valerius's Sword

Volcano mine(Anti-Vehicle)

Vulcan Venom Pistol

X-2 Antenna

YCS/186

10mm Gauss Pistol

10mm Enclave Prototype

American Ambition l

Big Chungus

Dual American Ambition

Ebony & Ivory

Elite Service Pistol

Hellsing ARMS Anti-Freak Combat Pistols

Last Stand

Lazuli

Megatron

The Big Duo(Hair triggers, Extended magazines, Laser Sights)

The Duke

The Enforcer

Twin Fang

Vault Dwellers 6520

Million Knive’s hand

Molerat runner

Rex

The User

Bochii The Glock

Snakebite .45

Snake lore

Sneaki Breeki

The Delivered

Angry Waifu

Anointed SMG

Cyberdream

Glockinator

Plissken’s Escape

Tempest

Death’s Whisper

Deathclaw Hunter

Anti-Tank Cannon

Baja Campaign Rifle

Bitter Memory

Carnivore

G.L.O.B. Lobber

Mojave Campaign Rifle

Noobtube

Police Carbine

Sling Razor

The Commandor

Why2000

Robot Space Magic

20mm Autocannon

Asimov

Atticus

Better British

Centennial

Chop Shop

Core burner

Der Bullenwelpe

Duel

Flechette Rifle

Heat of Reaction

Kitten

Lead storm

PKnyan

PkWMG

Red Queen’s Race

Rye’s Caravaneer

Stalker’s Field Rifle

The Peace Keeper

The Pinesetter

The Warthawg

Warlord

Zastava

Cleaner’s Submachinegun

Conflict Resolver

Valkyrie

Wet Work

Kraut Space Magic

California Star

Evilest of Nines

Heilong

Hitman’s heat maker

Mamba Assault Cannon

Mojave Thunder

Prototype Enclave Battle Rifle

Quiet Night

S.P.I.K.R.

Stanton’s Rage

The Operator

The People’s Dragunov

Super Shotgun

The Badnit’s Strap

Zoned out

Bull of Steel

Cirno’s Peace

Cold Heart

Desert Storm

Doorstop

Force O’ Nature

Kasey

Kiss of Death

Mark’s Meat Masher

Mean Green Machine

Old Country Cleaner

Power Washed

Pull!

Rock salt

Searchlight Breacher

Thunderclap

Wristkrieg

Burt

CZ57 Avenger

Gatling Gauss

Alien Blaster

Compliance Regulator

Cryo Revolver

L.A.G. 5000

Millennium Smuggler

Modulated Beam Pistol

Quantum Displacer

Cryo Shard

Molecular Compressor

Coil Blunderbuss

Lawn Defender 5000

Science Project

Shockblast

Singularity Engine

Sonic Shotgun

The Final Frontiersman

The Spineflayer

Beam Spanmer

Liquidator

Pulse Disperser

Pulse Rifle

Redline

Arc Charger

Black Turtle

Hot Rod

Ghetto Blaster

Matter Annihilator

Pulse Gatling

Turboplas

The Smitty Special

Sprtel-Wood 9700

Alien Blaster

Charcoalov

Cleansing Flame

25mm Airburst Launcher

Bazooka

Multi-Grenade Launcher

Multi-Rocket Launcher

Quad 25mm Grenade Launcher

Rocket Rifle

Little Boy

Market Gardner

Holy Hand Grenade(10)

Blade Stunner

Dual Plasma Katana and Wakizashi

Dual Tesla Tanto

Experimental Lazer Wakizashi

Killahurtz

Photonic Saber

Marine Combat Sword

Masamune

Precieuse

Razer’s Edge

The Evening Redness

Laser Kanabo

Da Choppah

Plasma Zweihander

Punchline

Shock Knuckles

Grenade Pistol

Rocket Revolver

Groovy Chainsaw

(Apparel):

Argus Soldier Armor and Helmet

Advanced Radiation Suit

Atomic-Valence Tri-Radii-Oscillator

Elite Riot Gear and Helmet

Enclave Cosmic Armor and Helmet

Enclave Cryogenic Armor and Helmet

Enclave Exo Suit and Helmet

Enclave APA-MKII

Enclave Sentry Armor and Helmet

Enclave Space Suit and Helmet

Gannon Family Tesla Armor and Helmet

NCR winterized Riot Gear and Helmet

Nano Armor and Helmet

Pestilence armor(Classic Hat V1, Black Coat and Black Helmet V1)

Phojima No Ryu(Yakuza Suit)

Rebreather

APA MKI

Tesla APA MKI

Heated Shield

Starlet Outfit

Stealth Suit MKII

T-57C Power armor and Helmet

Urban Backpack

Winter Backpack

(Aid):

5 Advanced Stealth Boy

2 Alcohol Flasks

14 Antivenom

37 Armor Repair Kits

4 Auto-Inject Super Stimpaks

Big Book of Science

Black Coffee

8 Blood Packs

26 Blood Sausages

45 Buffout

4 Burger in a Tin

Chinese Army: Spec. Ops. Training Manual

6 Dark Datura

5 Datura Antivenom

Datura Hide

54 Doctor's Bags

26 Fiery Purgative

45 Fixer

3 H-Bomb Atomic Apple Cider

9 H-Bomb Commie Crushing Candy Corn

11 H-Bomb Energy Drink

11 Healing Poultice

2 Hot Coffee

25 Hydra

10 Implant GRX

2 Iodine

80 Jet

65 Macinol

105 Med-X

25 Mentats

Mutant Cave Fungus

8 Nuka-Cola Maximum

12 Nuka-Cola Quartz

5 Party Mentats

Pemmican

A Pizza

58 Psycho

163 Rad-X

188 RadAway

12 Rebound

10 Robot Spare Parts

6 Rocket

51 Rushing Water

2 Sapphire Nuka-Cola

Snakebite Tourniquet

16 Steady

54 Stealth Boys

413 Stimpaks

102 Expired Stimpaks

71 Stimpaks

35 Thin Red Paste

4 Tomatoes

21 Turbo

2 Wasteland Tequila

(Misc):

Acoustic Guitar

Big Spoon

38 Lockpicks

Bonesaw

Camera

Cigarette Lighter

G.E.C.K.

Gold Bar

Scalpel

Scissors

Scripture

Teddy Bear, Biohazard

(Other):

HP: 1275/1275

AP: 425/425

Karma: Messiah[Very Good]

Creatures Killed: 1566

People Killed: 1871

Normal Look:

Chapter Text

The Courier loved many things, and hated many more, but one thing he quickly learned to hate was getting drenched in water. Which everyone around him consider it ironic since the Lucky 38 suite had a large pool in it.

Said pool was occupied by many of The Courier's companions, those that weren't in the pool were the intelligent and sarcastic Arcade Gannon, The Courier's two cyber dogs, their litter of puppies, ED-E, the gunslinging Raul and sweet grandma Lilly.

The Courier himself was sitting on the side of the pool, clad in his normal attire of Elite Riot Gear, Atomic-valence tri-radii-oscillator, backpack, and underneath it all was the Stealth Suit MKII(He decided to name the AI Alison)along with having an additional plate of armor for where his pip-boy would have been.

The reason why was because he replaced it with a smaller, more compact device, The Pip-Pad. Apparently Mr. House had an entire stockpile of them underneath the lucky 38 and The Courier thought that it would be better then the Pip-Boy.

And it was, it allowed him to access his weapons, armor and meds quicker than the Pip-Boy, it was easier to conceal and also let him add on said additional plate of armor on his left wrist, so it was an all around upgrade.

The Courier reached out his hand and stopped one of Rex's and Roxie's puppies from falling into the pool, after picking up the Boston terrifier and setting it back down to where its parents were, The Courier was immediately splashed with water as he saw three of his companions, along with one of his companion's lover, were doing.

They were playing chicken, one side having Boone carrying Cass while on the other side had Veronica carrying Christine, The Courier had convinced Christine to leave the Sierra Madre to come back to the Mojave.

Thanks to his charm and natural persuasion skill, she came back to the Mojave and was reunited with Veronica. Veronica was glad that The Courier had brought back Christine, having missed her lover for a long time.

Though she was lucky that the Courier convinced her to come with him because a couple weeks later, The Sierra Madre was blown to Hell because the NCR's new president decided not to destroy any of the BOS's bases.

"May you ladies and gentlemen not drench me? I'd just got this clean." The Courier said, and he wasn't lying since he had just cleaned his Elite Riot Gear, the set of armor and clothing having been covered in gore not too long ago after he made a trip to the Divide.

"Come on Six, the water's great!" Cass said as Christine almost pushed her off, The Courier spoke as he rolled his eyes underneath his helmet, "I know the water's great, because I'm the one who adjusted it!"

The Courier laid back as the four continued to play chicken, though he eventually decided to do something more and went to the Suite's workshop, he needed to make some more Nuka-Cola Quartz.

As he started making the sodas, he heard footsteps and turned to see Arcade coming down the stairs, "Making more of your favorite drink?" The Courier spoke as he finished one bottle, "While I still prefer Sunset Sarsaparilla, the benefits of Nuka-Cola Quartz are amazing."

"Still wonder how that works since you just mixed three bottles together." Arcade said as he laid against the workbench, The Courier spoke, "So, why aren't you relaxing in the pool or getting a tan on the balcony like Raul?"

"Because I want to know what you did in the Divide, seriously, didn't you explore every nook and cranny of that place?" Arcade said and The Courier spoke as he finished another bottle of Quartz.

"I did and I thought I wouldn't return to it until Ulysses contacted me, telling me that a group had entered the divide and that they were trying to reach a Nuclear Silo." The Courier said and Arcade whistled, "And I'm assuming you killed them, thus why you cleaned the armor."

"Of course I did, besides, they were Enclave remnants and some Vault asshole, and they were also planning on nuking Shady Sands." The Courier said as he recounted the encounter, which ended faster than he expected.

Four enclave soldiers clad in combat armor and Gasmasks, an officer and a Vault-Tec person, The Courier killed the Enclave personnel first before dealing with the vault dweller, he tried to fight back against the Courier but quickly found himself on the floor.

The Courier was going to leave him alive but when he learned that the man was going to nuke Shady Sands, the capital of a nation that may be one of the only shining beacons in the wastelands, the one he fought for, the Courier threw him into a pit of tunnelers before chucking a Nuka mine into it.

"Well at least you're honest." Arcade said and spoke, "So, what are you going to do now? Not many adventures left since, well, you explored all over the Mojave." The Courier finished another bottle of Quartz before leaning on the table

"I've heard of something happening back in New Reno, The Bishop family took over and has been rapidly expanding New Reno's territory." The Courier said as he shook his head, he actually doubted it was The Bishop's doing.

A Mob family could do a lot, The Courier knew that, but conquering The Vipers, Yakuza, Vault City, all of Esmeralda, The Den and The S'lanter? This was something else and The Courier wanted to get to the bottom of it.

"Drug Empire?" Arcade said and The Courier spoke as he walked out the room and towards the armory, whenever he wanted to get to the bottom of something, he made sure to pack enough ordnance to level a city, "No, I feel The Bishops are being used as a cover for something."

The Courier stepped into the armory and started grabbing every unique weapons he had found over his adventures in the wastes. While picking up some 12.7mm rounds for The Survivalist's Rifle, Arcade spoke, "So what is your plan when you get to New Reno?"

"I'll make one when I get there."

"But you're going to use the teleporter!"

"Like I said, I'll make one when I get there." The Courier said confidently as Alison decided to chide, "But what if the bad guys have stealth suits and ambush you?" The Courier scoffed before spraining, "Well, that's why I have thermals, and this..." he said while looking at the last piece of equipment he would need.

What used to be a basic APA MKI suit was now the Courier's monster of a suit, painted up in a style similar to Colonel Royez, with a Yao-Guai pelt cape and the writing on the right breast plate, 'Monster of the West,' along with a jetpack, tesla coils and additional plates of armor made out of saturnite.

The Courier hopped in the suit of armor as he looked down at Arcade, Arcade spoke, "Once more, that armor...it looks wrong." The Courier spoke as he walked out the armor and back down to the workshop, "Too you it looks wrong, to me, it looks right!" The Courier said after chuckling.

The Courier made his way to the teleporter, with Arcade trailing him and trying to convince him not to just teleport right into the center of New Reno, "Don't you think this is a little too bold, even for you? You don't even have a clue on what's going on in New Reno."

"When has having no clue ever stopped me? Besides, every-time I did something like this ended in a total victory." The Courier spoke and Arcade spoke, "Well no one is prepared for a powered armored cyborg to teleport right into their territory."

"Exactly." The Courier walked into the teleporter room and started booting up the machine, Arcade facepalmed and spoke, "If you get captured and we have to trudge all the way to New Reno to save you, I am going to take away all your weapons."

"What are you, my mom?" The Courier said as he stepped into the machine before turning back to Arcade and speaking,"Actually, I never had a mom....stop trying to be the mom I never had."

"What."

The Courier then teleported away as Arcade sighed and walked away....

____________[Wild Wasteland____________

The Courier felt himself rematerialized as he pulled out the CZ57 Avenger as he wandered around a destroyed street, though everything felt off, the buildings didn't match New Reno architecture, destroyed vehicles that didn't resemble anything he'd ever seen in his adventures and the whole place looked like a warzone.

But after walking for a little bit, he immediately realized that he himself felt off. He hopped out his power armor and observed that he was much smaller and that the armor had seemingly changed as well, being a little more compact, though still recognizable as modified APA MKI.

As he found a broken mirror and saw just how small he had gotten, from a mighty 6 '5 to what he assumed was around 3' 11 to 4 '5. While observing his new height, he also noticed his ERG Helmet was larger and had ears on the top of it.

Taking a deep breath in, he deactivated the Atomic-valence tri-radii-oscillator and took off his helmet before stepping backwards and looking at his face, which held no similarities then the one he knew.

"What in Christ's name...." The Courier whispered as he looked at his new face, well, head would be more accurate since he now looked like an anthropomorphic coyote then a human.

"Is something wrong? Should I deploy Med-X?" Alison asked and The Courier shushed her as he wondered what exactly was going on, but while thinking, he heard someone scream which kicked him into action.

He slams his helmet back on, turns back on the AVTRO and hops back into his power armor before rushing off towards the noise, the sound of his powered armor boots resounding through the destroyed streets.

As he came upon the origin of the scene, he saw three things that immediately told he was probably nowhere in North America. The first one was some water creature that looked like something that Hubris comics would come up with.

The second thing was the anthropomorphic fox that was cowering in fear of said water creature and had a voice that sounded like a combination of both a male and a female’s voice. The last thing was a squat like robot that the fox was seemingly trying to repair, the robot bearing the Omega Symbol on its pauldrons.

'Why couldn't today be simple?' The Courier thought as he holstered his mini-gun since the rounds would mostly just go through the creature and hit the fox, so he decided the next best thing.

Blunt force trauma. He stomped his right foot into the ground, breaking the pavement, attracting the creature's attention as he equipped Oh, Baby! He spoke as he stared down the creature, "Hey H2O, how about a real challenge?"

The creature reached for him but he dodged its arm, which was seemingly able to stretch, easily as he closed in and slammed Oh, Baby!'s head into the creature's head, causing it to turn into a puddle and slither away into a manhole.

'That was disappointing, I've fought geckos with more ferocity.' The Courier thought as the anthropomorphic fox turned to him and spoke as it slowly turned its head, "S-Sonic?"

"No, it's the Mailman." The Courier said while chuckling on the inside, he always wanted to do that and as he suspected, it just confused the fox. He spoke again when he noticed that the fox was now cowering from him.

"[Animal Friend] don't be scared little guy, I'm a friend, a big, metal friend." The Courier said as he crouched down, still being taller than the anthropomorphic fox that he was now comforting.

Now, while the Courier did have a heart of silver (gold is too generous since he did use a number of missiles in the divide to nuke more legion territory than Ulysses would have had, possibly killing hundreds and maybe thousands of innocent slaves) he also wanted to get information on his new environment.

The fox, naturally since The Courier was a friend to almost all animals(including anthropomorphic animals now), started to calm down and spoke while looking up at The Courier's helm, "Tha-Thank you, but, who are you?"

“Just a guy trying to live his life, now, can you tell what that thing was?” The Courier said while he wanted to ask for directions, he also didn’t want to appear suspicious, though if people do get suspicious of him, he could use his charisma to charm his way out.

“That was Chaos, a mutated chao, immortal being.” The fox said and The Courier spoke while taking note of the word ‘Chao’ since it could be important, “Alright then, now why are you all alone? Shouldn’t you be with your parents? War zones are typically not the best place for children.”

The fox spoke after looking down, which caused the Courier to flinch slightly, “I-I was just looking to help a friend.” He then gestured to the robot and the Courier stood up while speaking, “Let me take a look at it.”

The fox looked up at The Courier before speaking, “I tried everything I could but if you can fix him then that’s good, Gaia knows the resistance needs as many fighters as it can get.”

While the Courier investigated the robot, he took notes of both ‘Gaia’ and ‘The Resistance,’ Gaia was most likely the area’s version of God and The Resistance was probably some faction that, well, was resisting something.

“Well, I don’t have the proper tools for this, do you have a workshop nearby where we can drag this lad off too?” The Courier asked and the fox spoke, “I could take you to ‘y workshop, but I don’t know if I can trust you, you could be an advanced badnik for all I know.”

‘Badnik? Eh, probably some lingo for a robot in this area.’ The Courier thought before speaking once more, “[Speech 50] Kid, I just saved you from that water demon and I’m willing to help you repair your friend even though we just met, so I think you can trust me, just a hunch.”

The fox sighs and speaks, “It’ll be a long trip, so it’s best we get going.” The Courier nodded and picked up the robot, his power armor helping him greatly, the Courier then spoke to him and the fox started to walk, “Hey kid, what’s your name?”

The Courier looked at the fox’s face and noticed that for a second it was a face of shock before the Fox replied, “My name’s Tails, what’s yours?” The Courier responded as he looked at his stats and spoke.

“Just call me Six.”

(Art: 

Chapter Text

Tails didn't know what to think about Six, mostly because just being around him made him feel weird. On one hand, he felt incredibly calm around him, making him feel like nothing bad could happen.

On the other hand, being around him made Tails feel cold, making Tails scared of Six, but he didn't do anything bad; he's actually done a lot of good for him already, even though they had just met.

He had, of course, saved him from Chaos, then offered help to repair Omega. He had defended and beaten down any badniks that came after them, and now the two of them were sitting around the campfire.

Six had gotten out of his giant armor and was dressed in a mixture of an old duster and armor, his head covered by a helmet with an inbuilt gas mask, with the duster having a hole in it for his tail, and the deactivated Omega lying against an abandoned building.

"Wanna hear a story?" Six said, knocking Tails out of his train of thought, and Tails spoke when he looked up at Six. "I mean, sure, I'm always up for a good story!"

Six chuckled before speaking, "Do you like bounty hunter-type stories?" Tails shrugged before speaking, "I'm okay with them, as long as they aren't too violent."

Six looked away before speaking, "Hmm...what about horror stories?" Tails shook his head before speaking, "I don't want to have nightmares, especially considering what's going on in the world."

Six was silent for a bit before speaking, "Here's a story; it's a short one, but a goodie."

__________________________________

"'Cause I've got spurs that jingle jangle jingle, jingle jangle!" The Courier sang while he and his group walked through the Mojave desert; most of the group didn't know where they were going, with the only ones being The Courier and Arcade.

"If I end up dead, then I'll personally haunt you for the rest of your life." Arcade said, and The Courier replied while snapping his fingers before making finger guns, "You'd be haunting me for a long time then."

The group then crossed Colorado. Raul spoke when they exited the other side, "I don't often complain about how you lead us, boss, but do you think we can take some more direct routes when trying to get to a location?"

"Nah, besides, this is the direct route!" The Courier said that as everyone climbed up the cliff and while walking, they were immediately swarmed by deathclaws, and a lot of them too.

The Courier whipped out his Survivalist's rifle and started emptying the mag while Veronica charged in, clad in T-51 and wielding a power fist meant for power armor. She immediately decked a deathclaw right in the mouth.

Arcade fired plasma blast after plasma blast while dressed in his plague doctor's attire while ED-E and Rex supported him, with Rex snapping at the legs of Deathclaws while ED-E shot out their legs.

Boone sniped a Deathclaw right in the head while Cass aimed for its legs, with one of her shots crippling its left leg. Lily rushed forward and immediately sliced a deathclaw's head off.

This continued on for a couple minutes until the group stood on top of a mountain of deathclaw corpses. Cass spoke as she took some breaths, "Why, the fuck, are we here anyways!?" She asked as the Courier slid down a hill.

Everyone followed him and stopped when they saw him loot a body, and off of it he took a full suit of APA MKI. He speaks as he shows it off, "We're here for this! I mean, just look at it!" Almost everyone wanted to facepalm outside of Lily and Veronica.

Lily simply congratulated the Courier for finding the suit, and Veronica, well, she wanted the armor so she could give it to the Brotherhood of Steel. Arcade then spoke, "It's missing the helmet, so unless your skull can still eat bullets, then I recommend you keep your normal helmet on."

"LET'S GO FIND THE HELMET!"

__________________________________

The Courier finished telling Tails a part of the story that ended with him getting praised by the brotherhood along with Veronica for recovering a full suit of APA-MKI.

He did have to modify some parts of the story just because he didn't want to go in depth and possibly expose himself; it was mostly just changing Deathclaws to robots, and that worked fine.

The night went on, and The Courier told the young fox more stories, each one of which had to be modified to not raise suspicion. Once he noticed the kid was falling asleep, he told the kid to get some shut-eye while he stood up to keep watch.

The fox nodded and went to bed; luckily, The Courier brought some Roughin' It! bedroll kits so they wouldn't have to sleep on the rough ground. The Courier stood up and climbed up to what seemed to be an abandoned bell tower.

"Let's see what else this place has to offer." The Courier whispered to himself as he used the pip pad to bring out his anti-material rifle, or AMR, before flipping on the NV toggle on his helmet, which luckily still works, so that's good.

As he observed the surrounding area, he noticed some robots patrolling around a cage filled with more people. He was still getting used to being an anthropomorphic coyote, so he had to make sure that he didn't see others as just animals.

He scoped in, loaded a magazine filled with explosive rounds, and breathed calmly before firing the first shot. The round flies through the air and strikes one of the circular robots, blowing it apart and sending its fragments flying.

The other one quickly noticed their buddy blowing up into pieces and started scouring the area, only for them to be slowly picked off by The Courier one by one. Once the magazine went dry, The Courier holstered the AMR and headed downward to the bell tower.

As he passed by the sleeping fox, he wondered if he should give the kid a weapon to protect himself. So, The Courier took out the pip pad and scoured through the massive list of weapons he had before dropping the pulse gun, 200 energy cells, and some medical supplies.

"I'll be back, kid..." The Courier said as he started moving towards the captured civilians, using the pip-pad to equip Survivalist's Rifle, he checked each street for any robots before continuing onward. As he stepped onto the street where the people were, they immediately called out for him to help them.

He unlocked the cage with ease, and as the people ran out, one of them asked, "Are you with the resistance?" The Courier shook his head and spoke, "Sorry, I'm not, just a man doing what's right." The one who asked him the question handed him what seemed to be a poster for said resistance.

He took it after thanking them, and while on the way back to the camp, he heard the sound of the pulse gun firing off. He rushed towards the camp and looked to see that a robot had tried to attack Tails, but the young fox grabbed the pulse gun and shot the robot.

It had worked and fried the robot's circuits. The Courier spoke as he walked over to the kid, "Nice shot." He said this as he handed the kid some additional enraged cells.

"Where were you?" Tails asked, and The Courier spoke, "Off helping some people, how did the weapon feel?" The Courier pointed to the pulse gun before using the pip-boy to take out the Sonic Emitter-Gabriel's bark.

"I'm not the best with firearms." Tails said, and the Courier chuckled before speaking, "This technically isn't a firearm; it's an energy weapon." Tails spoke, "Still not comfortable with it."

The Courier sighed and sat down next to Tails before speaking, "Is there a reason why?" Now The Courier wasn't new to the fact that someone may be uncomfortable holding a weapon, especially if they were a kid, but the kid only shot a robot; nothing bad happened.

"I'm just worried that I may hurt someone by accident." The Courier nodded and replied to the Fox, "[35 Speech] Well, maybe I could teach you how to use them?" The Courier said, and Tails looked away before speaking, "I guess so."

"I'll teach you in the morning; for now, get some more sleep." The Courier said, and the fox nodded before drifting off to sleep once more. The Courier grabbed both energy weapons again and continued his watch, sniping the occasional robot and watching it explode.

'Maybe this place isn't that bad...' The Courier thought as he kept watch...

__________________________________

The Courier punched right through the chest of a robot that he and Tails had encountered, with The Courier being back in his APA MKI. He then carried the robot alongside Tails’s friend, and after the two got to the outskirts of the city, The Courier propped up the robot against a wall and dropped Tails’s friend off in a pile of mattresses before hopping out of his suit of armor.

He walked next to Tails and handed the kid the E-Blaster. It was a pistol he hadn't used a lot since he left the frontier, but from what he could remember, it was effective.

"Alright, time for the four main rules of gun safety." The Courier said as Tails pointed the E-Blasted towards the ground; he then spoke, "Okay, good. Just keep doing that; remember, you never want to point a weapon at anything you're not willing to destroy."

The Courier then gestured to the top of the weapon and spoke, "It's loaded, so be careful." The Courier spoke once more as he noticed Tails's finger was on the trigger: "Keep your finger off the trigger unless your sights are on a target you're willing to destroy."

The courier then pointed at the broken robot and spoke. "Lastly, always be sure of your target and what's behind it; in this case, it's broken."

"Badnik."

"Same thing, laying against a brick wall that used to belong to some cafe." The Courier said and spoke, "Now, since you're using a laser gun, you don't have to account for recoil, so fire when you're ready."

Tails nodded, and after taking some time to line up the shot, he fired the first charge of the E-Blaster, though after that, he immediately covered his ears since the E-Blaster did release an irritating sound every time it fired.

The Courier immediately jumped to help Tails, and while helping him, he took away the E-Blaster before speaking, "Are you okay?" Tails replied, "I'm fine; the noise just surprised me, that's all."

"Don't worry, it happened to me as well."

"It did?" Tails asked, and The Courier thought back when he got the E-Blaster.

__________________________________

The Courier walked through what seemed to be some sort of storage on the Archimedes II, only for multiple things to catch his eyes, including multiple Deathclaws and an energy weapon, the energy weapon being the thing that attracted his ire the most.

After hacking the Deathclaws, he grabbed the energy weapon and observed it while speaking, "Simple, but it does feel nice." The Courier fired off the weapon, and after hearing the sound it made, he put it away immediately and spoke, "Yeah, I'm not using that."

The Courier continued onward in his journey to figure out what in the world went wrong with the space station.
__________________________________

"Yeah, anyways, I have plenty of other weapons if you want to test them." The Courier said as he used his pip-pad to pull out the AER14 prototype. He spoke up, "Maybe this will be better?" The Courier handed the weapon to Tails as the young fox child inspected the weapon.

They went through the same steps, and after Tails fired a few shots off, disintegrating the robot body, he asked, "Hey, would it be fine if I took this apart when we got to Resistance HQ?" The Courier chuckled before speaking, "Sure."

After some more test firing, the two eventually got back on track with their mission to get back to Resistance HQ. As they walked on a destroyed road, Tails spoke as he looked up at the Courier, who was back in his APA MKI.

“Can I also inspect that armor when we get back to Resistance HQ?” Tails asked, and The Courier spoke as they passed down some broken-down cars. “As long as you don’t break anything, then sure; the same thing goes with any of my other equipment.”

“Along with that device you use to just summon weapons?” Tails asked, and The Courier spoke, “Along with the Pip-Pad.” The two walked silently for a while before The Courier spoke, “I spy with my little eye... something red.”

Tails looked around for a while before speaking, “I don’t see anything red; maybe that helmet makes you see things differently?” The Courier said, "Actually, I spotted that robot right there.” Tails turned, and after squinting his eyes, he saw what The Courier was talking about.

“Wow! I didn’t even see that motorbug; that helmet must make your eyesight better for you to notice something that far away.” Tails said, and The Courier replied as they eventually passed the destroyed robot, “Nah, I just have really good eyesight.”

The two eventually started to enter what seemed to be a desert, and The Courier spoke, “Reminds me of home, blazing hot, and barely anything out here.” Tails spoke as they walked through the blazing heat, “We should be entering the green hill zone soon.”

“Green hill? I see nothing but sand for miles!” The Courier said as the two eventually stepped onto some grass. The Courier spoke as he looked around, “God, this place looks nice.” Tails looked at him before speaking. “You mean Gaia, right?”

“Same thing.” The Courier quickly responded, and as the two walked through the clean grass, they had to duck into cover as robots started to pass them. The Courier spoke as the two began sneaking through the area.

“This place is swarming with robots; tell me, why are we going through this place?" The Courier asked, and Tails responded as he pulled out some tablet devices, "It's the fastest way to get to the resistance HQ; guess I didn’t take into account how many badniks would be here.”

As the two snuck through Greenhill, The Courier spoke as he whipped out the CZ57 avenger before loading it with AP rounds: “Just in case we need to go loud, I also recommend plugging your ears if the shooting is too much.“

The Courier then stops before speaking, “Do you hear that?” Tails listens closely before speaking, “It can’t be...” Tails runs off, and The Courier gives chase, eventually finding Tails peeking behind a rock.

“Don’t run off, kid; you almost gave me a... who’s the fat guy?” The Courier said as Tails could only look at him in shock. He whispered as the Courier ducked into cover, “What? That’s EggMan!” The Courier stared at him blankly while the two sat there in uncomfortable silence.

“Who?” The Courier said...

(Art: 

)

Chapter Text

"You don't know who EggMan is?" Tails asked like it was the most important thing in the world, and The Courier had to quickly come up with something due to not wanting to come off suspicious, all the while the two villains were chatting. That is, when a lightbulb goes off in his head and he speaks, "I only knew of a Dr. Robotnik."

"Now that's a name I haven't heard in awhile. Anyway, there is the same person; he just decided to take the nickname that Sonic kept calling him, that being EggMan." Tails said, and the Courier breathed a sigh of relief.

The only slightly weird doctor name he could think of at the moment was Dr. Robotnik, but he didn't know where he read or heard it before; it just came to him. The Courier also wondered how in the world he or anyone would know the name of a person in another world.

After shaking his head and thinking it was just a massive coincidence, he spoke, "Wait, this is the guy that's trying to conquer the world, correct?" Tails nodded, and the Courier spoke, "Huh, well then." The Courier then used his power armor's system to whip out the AMR again.

"What are you doing?" Tails asked, and The Courier simply replied, "Saving the world." As The Courier lined up a shot, Tails pulled on his rifle and said, "We can't just kill him; there's a right way to do this stuff." He said this while the other guy flew away.

"Kid, look, I know your young and kids always think everything can be fine and dandy, but this is a good lesson to learn early: sometimes killing is justified." As the two continued to fight over the rifle, Tails accidentally pulled the trigger.

After hearing a scream, the two turned, and the Courier could see that this 'EggMan' (who was probably the fastest man The Courier had ever seen in his entire life) covered one of his ears while looking over to them.

"Let me deal with this." The Courier said as he holstered the AMR and stepped out into the open as EggMan was seemingly scared. Then again, his brains were very close to being reduced to nothingness, and The Courier couldn't blame him.

"Whuh, who are you!?" EggMan said as The Courier approached him. The Courier spoke while spreading his arms out, "Just an ordinary guy that is wondering how much money is on your head, if money is still valued, that is." The Courier said as EggMan spoke, "Ugh, I don't have time for this."

The fat man then flew away and said, "Oh no, you don't." The Courier activated his jet pack to follow EggMan, eventually coming across him on a nearby cliff with what appeared to be floating platforms of grass.

"I've...never mind." The Courier said as he landed in front of EggMan, still in his flying device, as a massive buzz saw came out the bottom of it. The Courier spoke as he looked at it: "Is that the best you could have come up with?"

"What? Not like I see anything too fancy on you outside of that armor, of course, but I could probably build that in a day." EggMan said, and the Courier spoke, "I doubt that when your robots look less armored and armored than anything I've seen, but sure, by the way, how protected is that thing from HE?"

"H, what now?" EggMan said as the Courier used his armor's systems to whip out Annabelle before loading it with an HE missile and speaking, "High Explosive." The Courier fired as the missile slammed right into EggMan's vehicle.

"WHAT!?" EggMan said that as his vehicle spun out of control, the Courier smirked underneath his helmet, though his smirk didn't last long as EggMan gained control before a giant mech appeared behind him.

"Great. Giant robot." The Courier said as he watched EggMan pilot his vehicle into the robot before unleashing a hail of bullets at him. The Courier stood as still as a rock as round after round impacted his armor.

All the while he was loading another HE missile into Annabelle, the Courier spoke, "Second He missile, coming right up!" The Courier used VATS to hit the main gun on the giant robot, having the missile travel down one of the gun's barrels before exploding, taking the gun off.

"You've got a lot of nerve for a nobody, but still, this Egg Dragoon has only lost 10% of its combat strength."

The Courier looked at the area where the gun used to be and thought, "Hmm, yeah, no, the math doesn't check out." The Courier then dodged a massive drill coming his way as he looked through his pip-boy to see if he could find a weapon that could take down the mech easily.

"You're lying!" The Courier had to do a double take when he heard Tails's voice and spoke, "How did you—never mind, I agree." Tails replied over comms, "Nice shot as well!"

"You won't have time to wait long to find out." EggMan said, and The Courier smirked when he pulled out the weapon that would turn the mech into nothing but a smoldering wreck, or a giant ash pile, could be either.

The Gaileon Particle Harbinger, what the Courier thought would just be a fancier Gatling laser, turned out to be a Tesla Cannon on Buffout, psycho, and slasher, basically being the energy version of a fatman, but way more powerful if he loaded it with max charge cells.

Though it did have a lengthy charge-up time, while it charged up, The Courier had to weave through falling boulders and giant drills until, finally, it was ready to fire with a beep. "Hey fat man, do you like that mech?"

"Well, it's near the top, but I wouldn't say it's my favorite." EggMan was then interrupted as the Courier flew up into the air and spoke, "Cause I don't!" The courier then pulled the trigger.

The blast from the Gaileon Particle Harbinger caused The Courier to move back ever so slightly, but once it hit the mech, it was truly a sight to behold as the shot pierced right through the mech's body, destroying a gigantic chunk of the mech’s torso.

"Hmm. Impressive. I have to say farewell, nobody!" EggMan said as he flew away, leaving the mech's remains to fall into the sands below. As The Courier looked over the remains, he marked the location for later, just in case he would ever need a giant mech. He put away the Gaileon Particle Harbinger before drawing LilDevil.

Though the Courier quickly noticed where EggMan was going and that his vehicle was in bad shape, he gave chase, quickly catching up to the doctor, and watching him crash land brought a smirk to the Courier's face.

"Yeah! We did it!" The Courier turned to see Tails descend from the sky, and before Tails could continue, the Courier walked over to EggMan's vehicle and punched right through the glass before pulling EggMan out.

"See, I really don't know who you are, but I'm a nice guy."

EggMan smiled at that before immediately grimacing as The Courier shoved LilDevil in his face before speaking, "That's why I'm going to kill you!" EggMan immediately tried clawing at the Courier's helmet while speaking, "If you do, then I guess you all will truly be surprised in 3 days!"

"Six, don't! We can hold him for trial!" The Courier let go of EggMan before speaking, "Wait, trial?" EggMan used this opportunity to restart his vehicle and get away, though not before The Courier was able to get some shots off at his vehicle.

"Damn it..." The Courier said, and Tails looked at him before speaking again, "I'm old, I can swear. Now, let's get back to our journey, and maybe then I can kill him." Tails spoke as the two flew back to where they left their robot. "You seem like you really want to kill EggMan. Why?"

"I don't know; he's conquering the world? It sounds like a good justification for killing; besides, at where I am now in my life, killing is like a chore." The Courier smiled as he remembered Joshua Graham saying something similar, though a lot more charismatic than him.

"What!?" Tails said, and The Courier quickly confirmed as the two landed at the robot, "I only kill bad people; maybe sometimes I take them alive, mostly killing though." Tails spoke, "I'm keeping my eye on you."

'Sure you are...' The Courier thought that as the two continued on in their journey, eventually they passed through a forest that also seemed to be a casino. The Courier felt the need to bankrupt another casino.

Also due to the fact that he was probably poor now since caps probably weren't used in wherever this place is. So the two continued onward until the Courier spoke, "So why exactly are you here? I mean, I don't mind gambling myself; hell, I got kicked out of multiple casinos since I was just that good, but I don't think you're old enough to gamble."

"From what EggMan said before you fought him, Sonic is not only alive but in the Mystic Jungle, and with what EggMan said, we have to tell Sonic." Tails said, and the Courier spoke, "Alright, but why is the place one giant casino?"

"Most likely due to EggMan possibly terraforming the landscape so that he could set up one of his casinos." The Courier suddenly got dollar signs in his eyes and said, "Then while we're here, I might as well gamble."

"No! We have to find Sonic; we can't mess around! And who knows if any of this stuff is dangerous?" Tails said, and the Courier spoke, "Kid, you need to grow some balls considering the fact that everywhere we've been is a war zone."

Tails looked away, and The Courier sighed before speaking, "Sorry, normally used to wandering with people that have seen some stuff. I guess I have to get used to wandering with someone like you."

"I guess I have to get used to you too." Tails said, and as the two walked through the forest, they suddenly spotted someone else, and The Courier yelled while waving his hands, "Hey, you friendly!"

The person, a red wolf, turned and aimed some kind of energy weapon at him before lowering it when he saw Tails. The Courier spoke, "Friend of yours?" Tails shook his head as he approached the wolf.

"I'm assuming your tails? And you are?" The wolf spoke, and The Courier immediately recognized him as some sort of recruit; his voice reminded him of young NCR soldiers: "Six. Whatcha got there?"

"I don't really know... My name is Gadget, 'rookie' of the Resistance." The wolf said, and the courier smiled. He was finally getting somewhere...

__________________________________

The Courier sat comfortably in his chair as a pink hedgehog currently chatted outside of the interrogation room. Now why was he in an interrogation room? Well, it was because he responded to some resistance soldiers firing upon him.

He, of course, retaliated with a hail of rounds to scare them off, but that caused him to get brought in while Tails and Gadget were taken somewhere else while he sat in a desolate room that definitely needed cleaning.

He was out of his power armor since he had promised Tails he could study it alongside his pip-pad, so all he had was the StealthSuit MK II, which has been strangely quiet, his Elite Riot Gear, the AVTRO, and the Mysterious Magnum.

The pink hedgehog eventually entered the room and spoke as she took her seat, “Hi there, my name is Amy Rose, second in command of the Resistance, and you are?” The Courier spoke as he tapped on the table that separated the two, “Six.”

Amy nodded and spoke, “So the reason you’re in here is, outside of the accident, because I want to get to know you.” The Courier laughed a bit before speaking, "Sorry, lady, I’m not in the mood for getting a date.”

“Oh no! That’s not what I meant; we just wanted to know what you can offer the resistance. I mean, some people have arrived who have told us you saved them, and well, Sonic appreciates you not only helping Tails but beating EggMan.”

‘This sounds more like a job offer than recruitment.” The Courier spoke, “[Speech 50] What I can offer is weaponry, armor, technology, and training. Along with that, if you ever need a job done, then I’m your man.”

"Well, that all sounds... Well, we can use all of that! Welcome aboard!” Amy said, while lending out her hand, The Courier shook it and thought, "That was way too easy, but hey, it will feel good to fight in a war again.”

The two stood up, and The Courier spoke as they left, “Is there anything I could do to help around here?” Amy spoke while she gave him a quick tour, “You're eager, but yes, there is a lot... and I mean a lot we have to do around here, and since we’re constantly sending people out, the base is a little understaffed. Also, we’ve been receiving some strange signals all around the place.”

The Courier sat there as Amy listed off every single thing that the resistance needed help with while she guided him around. Once it was over, he immediately booked off to the laboratory of the base and retrieved his pip pad.

Once re-equipping it, he checked the data tab to find three new quests, the first one being ‘Hero of the Base,’ the second one being ‘God Bless Mobius,’ and the final one being ‘Swords and Gears.’

“Okay, so the hero of the base is most likely just helping around... God bless Mobius? Okay, so Mobius is probably where I am, but considering the phrase, I guess the Enclave is somehow here? Swords and Gears…brotherhood, alrighty.”

The Courier thus started formulating a plan while walking around the laboratory: he would finish the first quest since that was probably the easiest and would improve his standing with the resistance.

Then he would do the Enclave one since, well, if they were also turned into whatever everyone else is, then they probably aren’t their genocidal selves, and if they weren’t, well, their technology would be a boon.

Then the Brotherhood, who he could just tell them he was Paladin, maybe give away an energy weapon or two, and boom, they were on his side, and the resistance had people that knew how to fight; it was a foolproof plan.

He activated the first quest and sighed as he saw tons of markers pop up on his HUD. It was as if Camp Forlorn Hope, Bittersprings, Camp Golf, and Nellis were crammed into one building, and they all needed help.

“Guess there is no rest for the mailman.” The Courier said as he made his way through the base, his first stop being the infirmary…

Chapter Text

Cream did the best she could as she ran around the infirmary, grabbing anything that the doctors, nurses, and whoever had any medical experience, which included her mom, though with the amount of wounded they were getting, everyone was tired and stressed out.

When she got a cup of coffee for her mother, everyone's eyes turned to the door, wondering if they were about to get another group of wounded to tend to, but only one man entered, clad in strange gear that looked a lot more effective than what any of the resistance had.

The man walked around for a little bit, and Cream noticed that everyone was a lot calmer just with his presence, even she was. With that calmness came a chill that made everyone feel like whatever the man said they should do.

Though once the man approached one of the patients, some of the medics tried to stop him, but he simply pushed past them and started tending to the wound. Everyone sort of stood still as they let the man work.

Once the man was done and walked over to another patient, some of the medics looked to see that not only had the patient saved the patient, but he had somehow made it so that the patient would recover a lot faster than normal.

They looked over and saw the man operate on the other patient, and once more, the patient was saved and was going to recover faster than expected, along with the fact that the man was doing all of this extremely fast.

The medics simply stopped trying to stop him and instead followed him, observing everything he was doing, including fetching any items that he needed, which he normally made due to being that skilled, along with using a sort of electronic pad to grab medicine..

Again and again, this happened. The man walked over to a patient and, at most, took a minute to tend to the patient. The medics asked him questions, and he responded in short responses that many took notes on.

Cream tried watching the man work, but her view was always blocked by the medics. Eventually, all of the patients in the infirmary were tended to and were going to be back on their feet in no time, though that wasn't the end of the man's work.

He approached the shelf and dropped off a variety of medical supplies. Many of the medics thanked him and asked him if he could teach them his ways; they wanted to know everything about the man who had simply walked into a room but, in less than half an hour, tended to everyone along with boosting their recovery.

But he simply ignored all of them and walked over to Cream before kneeling down to her and using the strange device on him to take out a teddy bear before handing it over to Cream. She took the teddy bear and simply looked on as the man left...

__________________________________

Sonic leaned against the cafeteria wall as resistance forces ate whatever stuff scavengers could grab. It ranged from pre-made meals to practically trash; Sonic didn't feel hungry and was simply in the cafeteria to kill time.

Though one person did get his attention, and that was Six, who had just entered the cafeteria, Sonic sped over to Six and spoke, "So your Six?" Six simply nodded as he made his way to the kitchen. Sonic spoke once more, "By the way, thanks for protecting my little brother and also kicking EggMan's butt."

Six nodded once more as the two entered the kitchen, where a small number of chefs were trying to cook, with trying being the big word since what they were cooking looked like it would give someone food poisoning.

That is, until Six took over and immediately started cooking, with the chefs backing away due to the man's presence, which Sonic understood since while he did have a calming aura, there was also a chill that came with him.

"Uhhh...what are you doing?" Sonic asked, and after a few seconds, he was tossed a plate, and on said plate was a chili dog. Sonic was surprised, and before he could speak, Six spoke, "I did my research."

Sonic tried the chili dog and was dumbfounded at how good it tasted. It brought back some memories of the simpler, easier times. Sonic looked around and saw that Six was grabbing every ingredient he could from the kitchen.

Six was cooking at blazing fast speeds, and each meal Six finished looked delicious. The chefs simply stayed quiet and picked up the plates and delivered them to the forces in the cafeteria while Six continued to cook.

"I think you may want to slow down a little bit..." Sonic said as Six simply shook his head and spoke, "That is coming a lot from the fastest being alive." Sonic chuckled before speaking. "Well, I mostly mean, shouldn't you take your time when it comes to cooking?"

"That's not how I do things, and I get stuff done at a fast pace while also delivering quality." Six said as he grabbed a pot while the chefs fully became waiters, delivering food to the resistance forces while Six continued cooking.

Sonic looked out and saw that many of the soldiers out there were enjoying the food. Just like Gadget, Six was turning out to be a major morale booster, Sonic spoke as he saw Six finish up, "Where'd you learn to cook? Because I would love to have you as my main chili dog guy."

"I picked it up while wandering around; besides, an army marches on its stomach. Anyways, I've got more things to do." Six said, and he left the cafeteria as Sonic decided to go check on Tails since he heard that Tails was studying that suit of armor the Courier walked in with.

Out of earshot for Sonic, the Courier mumbled, "Just like the damn NCR..."

__________________________________

Smithy was currently overlooking the shooting range where Slinger was trying to beat Whisper's score...again. Now the kid was good, calculated, cautious, and took the missions seriously, even if he did find fun and enjoyment in fighting.

But Whisper was the best shot out of all of them and held the highest score on the shooting range. It made many of the common resistance soldiers envy her, but the Diamond Cutters took joy out of that.

Smithy then heard the range's door open, and in walked a resistance soldier wearing, well, armor. Most of the resistance didn't have any protection, and yet the man looked like he was the only one in the place (outside of the Diamond Cutters) that was ready for war.

Though behind him followed a crowd of resistance soldiers, all looking excited, and as one bumped into Smithy, Smithy asked, "Boy, why is everyone following that man?" The resistance soldier quickly said, "Well, he heard one of your members has the highest score and said he could beat it."

'Confident fellow, is he?' Smithy thought as he decided to speak over the intercom, "All shooters need to clear the area; we've got a man that thinks he can top the best shot the resistance can pay for." Slinger sighed as he went through the steps to make sure everything was safe before leaving.

"Take as long as you need; I'll start the timer when you start shooting." Smithy said over the intercom as the man got to his position. Smithy looked over to see Slinger standing next to him. "Think he can actually do it?"

"What? Beat Whisper's score? Not at all, but I can compliment his confidence." Smithy said as he paused as he saw the man taking out gun after gun. The two could only stand in shock at the amount of guns the man was taking out.

"That...how?" Slinger asked, and Smithy wanted to ask the same question. Once the man picked up a lever action rifle and fired the first shot, Smithy began the clock and was ready to see what the man had to offer.

Smithy kept an eye on the man's score and was immediately caught off guard at the rate he was gaining points. He looked back and saw that once one gun was out, he quickly switched out to another and then repeated.

With each gun being emptied incredibly quickly and all the shots hitting the head, Smithy could only stand there, surprised at the man's speed and accuracy. He looked over and saw that Slinger was eyeing some of the man's guns.

Said guns were, of course, revolvers—fancy and old-fashioned revolvers as well. "The man has taste, I have to say, but..." Smithy stopped when he looked up at the points and saw that the man had cleared Whisper's score.

20 seconds passed, the timer stopped, the man stopped shooting, and as the resistance soldiers started to cheer, the man started going into a full-on lesson, with the resistance soldiers quieting down to listen. Smithy looked over to Slinger and spoke.

"We may want to keep tabs on him, just in case we ever need an extra member...."

__________________________________

Knuckles sighed as he leaned back in his chair. While not planning operations or going on missions, he mostly spent his time in the HQ's workout room, though most of the resistance forces barely used it.

Probably because it wasn't the best (they were a resistance), but also because most people just didn't have enough time to use the room, with the only thing most of the resistance uses the room for is boxing or wrestling matches.

Poor boxing and wrestling matches; no one in the resistance outside of him was really the best when it came to being unarmed, so most of the fights were disappointing. As Knuckles leaned against the wall, he heard the commotion of a big fight.

Not boxing or wrestling, but an actual fight. He looked over and saw that everyone was just going ham on each other. He smirked at the chance of teaching the soldiers but was stopped when the resistance's newest recruit entered the room.

Knuckles saw Six earlier and thought not much of him. Sure, he had some interesting gear and destroyed the Egg Dragoon on his own, but that just made him more prepared than anyone else; it didn't mean he was good.

He then saw Six use that little device he had, and his entire outfit changed, though he still kept that weird blue thing circling around his head. His new outfit was some fancy white and red suit, though with his presence, it seemed that everyone was a lot calmer.

As he walked to the group of resistance soldiers that were fighting, he spoke, "All of you in the ring." He said in a commanding tone, and they all got into the ring as Six spoke again, "Good...now all of you are now going against me."

Knuckle smirked and decided to take a seat as the first soldier charged Six, only for Six to do a sweeping kick motion, sending the soldier flying into a stack of weights. The others quickly charged as Knuckles studied Six.

The man was good at dodge and weaving through multiple attacks, and all the while he gave out tips to the soldiers. He grabbed one's tail before spinning around and sending the soldier flying into one of his comrades.

The remaining soldiers in the ring all charged Six at once before leaping, though Knuckles could only smile as Six simply dashed out of their way and let them fall face flat on the ground, with Six giving them one last piece of advice.

Knuckles stood up and spoke, "Not bad; maybe there is something to you. Under me, then you may be a good soldier." Six smiled before walking up to Knuckles, as Knuckles went to handshake Six, though when they did handshake, Knuckles felt Six move even though he didn't see Six move.

Once Six stopped handshaking Knuckles, he then fell to the ground, not being able to move his body at all. Knuckles spoke as he saw Six change back into his armor, "What-WHAT!? GET BACK HERE!"

Six simply walked away while Knuckles continued to try and move, with him eventually able to regain his movement as he got back up and started his hunt for Six...

__________________________________

Tails was busy inspecting the suit of armor that Six used, and he had come to the conclusion that if he had the resources and some time, he could possibly start production of the armor and perhaps even upgrade it.

Sonic checked up on him not too long ago, telling him how Six was basically a master chef and boosted morale, even if it was a little bit. Tails heard the laboratory door open as Six stepped through. "Hey little guy, how's your study coming along?"

"Good, but I do have to ask where this came from. I can understand the technology, but I've never seen something complex that doesn't use microchips." Tails said, and Six spoke as he leaned against a wall.

"Local design: my settlement built this by salvaging EggMan tech and expanding upon it." Six said, and Tails nodded at that answer. Six then dumped some of his weapons on a nearby table before speaking, "Think these will be a lot easier to manufacture than that."

Tails walked over and inspected the weapon before speaking, "Are these…are these Tesla weaponry? If these work how I think they will work, they will be excellent counters to badniks!”

"Well, here's some of the ammo to study as well." Six drops some items that slightly resemble batteries. Six speaks as he points at them: "The Tesla Revolver and Tesla Shotgun use energy cells; those small battery-looking ones, the rest use Electron Charge-Packs, though they drain at different speeds."

Six picks up one of the weapons and speaks, "This is the Tesla Gauss Rifle, good at piercing and frying tech but requires one entire EC Pack to fire, and the magazine only holds three, so you'll have to make it count."

Six then went on to explain the other weapons, how they work, how to best use them, and upgrades that could be made, with Tails writing everything down so that eventually he could start arming the resistance with these weapons.

"I think I've got everything; is there anything else you can give?" Tails asked, and Six spoke, "Oh yeah, I can donate the stuff I don't really use, and you can study that." Tails's eyes lit up and he nodded quickly. "Okay, here you go, kid!"

Tails's mouth dropped as Six simply dropped tons of suits of armor that looked more advanced than any body armor he's seen before, including armor pieces that looked like they would go onto the frame the armor Tails's was originally studying.

Tails picked up some of the armor and looked back up at Six before speaking, "Is...is this all from your settlement?" Six spoke as he was preparing to leave, "Yep, we had a pretty good militia until we couldn't afford it anymore. I'll check up on you later."

Six left the room, and Tails started looking through the armor, organizing it all into different categories before writing down even more notes. If he is able to learn how to produce them and maybe even produce them on a large enough scale, it would be a boost of power that the resistance needed.

Tails immediately started getting to work, knowing that this technology could save many lives...

__________________________________

The Courier inspected the room he was given; it definitely didn't compare to The Sink or The Lucky 38, but he couldn't expect luxury; hell, he didn't really live to live in luxury since he always did like adventuring.

He felt the bed and knew that while he rarely sleeps (he can't even remember the last time he did sleep), it at least felt soft enough so that if he ever does need to sleep, he won't be sleeping on nails.

"What now?" Alison asked, and The Courier responded, "Well, we still aren't done with our first quest, so tomorrow is when we'll finish it, and then we can, I don't know, head on over to find The Enclave."

"Do you think the Enclave will help?" Alison asked, and The Courier thought before speaking, "Well, if they have also been turned into anthropomorphic animals, then I doubt they will still be genocidal, and maybe I could do the same thing I did with the Brotherhood back in the Mojave."

"Hey! You haven't really looked at yourself fully ever since we arrived." Alison said, and The Courier thought for a second and knew that she was right. Thus, he unequipped his ERG, backpack, Stealth Suit MKII, and AVTRO.

His skin? Fur? Whatever was covering his entire body was predominantly light gray and red, his head still bearing the scars from all the way back when Benny shot him. He also noticed that all of his gear now had a hole for his tail.

"This is going to take a long time to get used to it..." The Courier said as he put all of his gear back on, perhaps he could get some of the tasks done while everyone else was asleep...

Chapter Text

Silver didn't get much sleep over the last couple months, mostly due to carrying a large amount of the resistance's operations on his back, though with the arrival of Sonic and the rookie, the war may begin to turn.

Though one new arrival that everyone has their eye out for is Six, a random nobody who not only encountered Tails and beaten Chaos but then went on to beat Eggman in a one-on-one match and to Silver, it all seemed a little fishy.

Along with the fact that he had stacks of unknown armor and weaponry on him, nobody could really blame him. Though for the more common people, he was seemingly a boost to morale, like the rookie, a nobody who is starting to build a reputation.

Silver then heard his room's door open and begrudgingly started to wake, and right up his face were two blazing red eyes staring into his soul, a cold chill running up his back as the figure stayed in the shadow.

"I've been told you need some help getting some of the recruits into shape."

Silver jumped up and used his powers to pick up a box of rations before chucking them at the figure. The figure side steps the box and speaks as Silver uses his power to flip on the light switch and sees that it was just Six.

"Eh, it's 3:50 in the morning; why are you up?! Silver asked as he got up, still waking up from getting scared by Six's sudden appearance. Six spoke, "There's a lot of jobs I've got to do, and I've got to make the most of my time."

"Why do you smell like gasoline?" Silver asked, and Six responded, "Had to teach a bunch of idiots how to build some technicals. Anyway, when do you normally start training some of the troops?"

"Like, 6:40?" Silver said as he rubbed his eyes, and Six shook his head before speaking, "No, we're waking them up at 5:00; now come on, we've got things to do and get things ready." Six said as he went to leave.

"What? Who told you you could just give me orders? I outrank you! Silver said, and Six took off his helmet and spoke, "Outrank? Kid, you don't even have a ranking system, and if you mean experience, then I'd outrank you."

"Well, I've been here a lot longer than you, so you can help when we're actually meant to do it. For now, leave." Silver said, and Six placed his helmet off before speaking, "Hmph, good to know you have some balls, just not enough to help lead a war."

"Huh?" Silver said, and Six left the room as Silver thought he was a little rude. Though he quickly got over it, he was just woken up and wasn't respected by anyone.

Silver quickly went back to sleep, and right as he was getting some good sleep, he heard what sounded like someone yelling. He quickly got up and flew through the halls of the resistance headquarters. He exited out to see that Six had ignored what he had said and was already doing it.

Silver wanted to intervene, but it seemed like Six was doing a good job. Of course, there was no uniformity since the resistance couldn't waste resources on something lacking that, but there was order.

Six was still clad in his usual attire and was doing the exercises with them, though even with all the gear on, it seemed like he was wearing nothing and was easily outpacing the recruits. But every now and then Silver heard Six crack a few jokes, lighting up the mood.

Silver wanted to fly in and berate Six for not following orders, but Silver just wasn't that type of guy, and to be honest, Six was doing a much better job than he did, though there was one recruit who was doing none of the exercises.

"On your feet!" Six said, and everyone except for the one recruit replied, "Feet aye, sir!" Before jumping to their feet, Six spoke once more and approached the recruit, most likely giving the recruit ear damage due to how loudly he yelled at him.

"OH BOY! DO I SPY WITH MY EYES A RECRUIT THAT THINKS HE IS THE GOD DAMMNED BIG BAD WOLF!? WELL YOU LOOKING MORE LIKE A DAMN PUP IN MY EYES! CAN'T WALK STRAIGHT, CAN'T HOLD A RIFLE STRAIGHT, AND YET YOU THINK YOU CAN JUST NOT FOLLOW ALONG!?"

The recruit stuttered and quickly shrunk before Six continued on, "YOU WILL REMAIN ON THIS TRACK UNTIL YOU DO EVERY EXERCISE IN THE BOOK! AFTER THAT,, I’LL MAKE SURE YOU MEMORIZE EVERY EXERCISE  IN THE BOOK UNTIL YOU GET IT RIGHT! WHILE EVERYONE GETS A WATER BREAK, YOU ARE GETTING A LAP, NOW GO!"

The recruit quickly started running, and while everyone else took a water break, Silver flew over and spoke, "That was... umm..." Silver tried finding the correct words, and Six replied, "Hey, sometimes you have to be harsh on them."

"Did you happen to be, I don't know, possibly?" Silver was then interrupted by Six speaking, "Well, I did serve in my settlement's militia for some time and then served in the G.U.N." Silver spoke after that, "Oooooooh, that makes a lot more sense."

"You learn some stuff in the military." Six said, and Silver spoke, "So, in the morning..." Six interrupted him again, "It's still the morning." Silver continued, "You know what I mean, anyway, while I've been here longer, considering your background, how about you take charge of training our forces, probably better than I bet.”

"Deal." Six said as Silver's eyes went wide and spoke, "Huh, well, good luck." Silver flew away from the track and back to the main building, though once he got there, he did hear Six yell one more time, "STOP WALKING SCOUT, PICK UP THAT PACE!"

Silver, instead of heading back to bed, headed to the cafeteria to see if anyone had found coffee because, well, Gaia, did he need it?

__________________________________

Amy was currently enjoying breakfast, and a good one at that since, out of nowhere, instead of the 'chefs' they used to have, now we're three strange robots, not badniks but robots that had three arms and three eyes, along with the fact that they floated around the place in a singular thruster.

Along with those three robots were some more strange robots, who walked in and out of the cafeteria, carrying salvage and ingredients they found, dumping the salvage into a large bin marked 'Six's salvage,' and the ingredients into the kitchen.

"How's it going, pinkie?" Amy almost jumped out of her seat as she turned to see Six sitting next to her. Amy spoke, feeling a wave of both fear and calmness wash over her. "It's going well, though I am wondering where the robots came from."

"Oh, those? Those were me. I found you guys had a bunch of good salvage lying around along with some tech just not being used, so I decided to building something with them. The three chefs are Mr. Handies, and the three robots that are carrying the salvage and ingredients are Protectrons."

"You built them?" Amy asked, and Six replied, "Yeah, one of the tasks was to not only increase food quality but also salvage intake. Now,  yesterday I only did the food thing, but now I have automated both tasks, freeing up personnel to do more important tasks."

"What else can you build?" Amy asked, curious if Six was able to build anything more advanced that could be used to reduce casualties on the battlefield. "I can build all kinds of robots; I just need the right kind of scrap to build them."

Amy nodded and spoke, "I've heard that you're now in charge of training; Knuckles wasn't that happy about it considering what you did to him yesterday."

"Oh come on, all I did was paralyze him; nothing too bad." Six said as Amy spoke, "So, what other tasks do you have now?" Six spoke as he checked his device: "Well, some of your communications equipment still needs to be fixed, but outside of that, should be done."

"You work fast." Amy said, and Six responded, "Well, I've been working constantly, day and night, so of course I'm getting all of these done quickly." Amy tilted her head some, "You haven't slept?"

"Pinkie, I don't even know the last time I did sleep, and I ain't sleeping now, that's for sure, we've got a war to win." Six replied, and Amy spoke, "Just remember to get some sleep; I don't want our forces to take after a cranky person."

"Who knows, maybe being cranky will make me calmer." Six joked and spoke, "Well, I'm off to fix the communications equipment; enjoy the rest of your breakfast." Six said as he walked out of the cafeteria that Amy had finished the rest of her break and was going to drink her coffee before Silver collapsed next to her.

"Coffee?"

"Yes please...." Silver said as he used his powers to take the coffee, with a large part of the cafeteria laughing.

__________________________________

Gadget looked at the communications center before looking at some of the materials that Knuckles gave him to fix the center and spoke, "How does he think I can fix this with some screws and duct tape?" Gadget then heard the door click and saw Six walk in.

"Need some help?" Six asked as he sat next to Gadget. Gadget spoke, "Well, I need materials, unless you know how to fix something with some screws and tape." Six spoke as he took out his device and popped out a cup of coffee.

"Coffee?" Six asked, and Gadget spoke, "I prefer hot chocolate." Six replied as he used the device to seemingly make the cup of coffee disappear. Gadget wanted to question how that exactly works but decided not to push it.

"Anyways, want me to take a look at it?" Six asked, and Gadget said, "Sure, besides, I need to grab something to eat." Six spoke as he inspected the center, "I have some burgers if you want." Gadget turned back and spoke, "You just carry burgers on you?"

"Listen, it's not the weirdest thing I carry." Six said as he tinkered with the center. Gadget leaned in a chair as Six did his magic, and the communications center was immediately back online. "There you go, good as new."

"You barely did anything." Gadget said, and Six spoke, "Well, give it a try." Gadget shrugged and hopped off before using the communications center. After a few seconds, he accidentally connects to a server, and out comes a voice: "Enclave here; why isn't your video feed working?"

"Our thing doesn't have a video feed, also, Enclave?" Gadget asked, and in less than a second, Six turned the console off before speaking, "Are you crazy? We don't even know who that guy was!" Gadget looked down and said, "Well, it could have been another resistance group."

"Or it could have been an Eggman ploy." Six said, and as the two stood there in silence, Gadget spoke, "I heard you paralyzed knuckles." Six spoke, "It was only for thirty seconds, but it was funny; should have seen his reaction."

"He was searching for you for the remainder of the day yesterday." Gadget said, and Six released a long laugh before speaking, "Really? How long before he just gave up?" Gadget spoke, "A good seven hours."

"Perfect. Anyways, whatcha going to do now?" Six asked, and Gadget said, "Maybe head down the range, try and get a new high score, maybe get to third place on the leaderboard, right behind that wolf mercenary and way behind you."

"Hey, don't put yourself down; maybe you'll beat Whisper, and maybe you'll even beat me. Always have faith in yourself." Six said, and Gadget spoke, "I was not expecting that from you." Six spoke, "You do not know how many times I've heard that."

"Well, it's true." Gadget said as the two exited the room before heading off to the range, though unknown to them, a member of the Diamond Cutters was monitoring them, specifically a certain Octopus.

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“Was it really the best choice to give the kid the BAR?" Alison said as The Courier walked towards the command center. The Courier replied, “Look, these weapons aren’t the best guns, and the only redeeming quality of them is recoverable ammunition and no recoil; outside of that, they're not the best.”

“But the kid couldn’t control the recoil; he could have hurt himself.”

“Good point; maybe next time we hang out, I’ll start him out with something lighter, or maybe just have him work out.” The courier said, and the two entered the command center, with the two occupants being Knuckles and Amy.

“So what exactly do you guys want me to do?”

Knuckles pointed at a part of the map on the center table and spoke, “You’ll be assigned to a recon team that is going to go check up on a listening post out in the city; if that post falls, it may put our plans in jeopardy.”

The Courier took a few seconds to process that before crouching down. Amy then spoke, “Uh, where did Six go?” The two look for him while Knuckles speaks, “What-How!? He was just standing there a second ago; how could he have just disappeared!?”

The Courier snuck out of the room while Alison spoke, “Why not go on that mission?” The Courier responds, "Well, I still have three things to do.”

Completed: Hero of the Base

"Alright, I have two things to do, and also, no matter how lucky I am, I always end up getting knocked out in the stupidest ways, and the worst time that happened was in that stupid patrol when I was in the NCR exiles.”

“You want to go goof off for two months, don’t you?” Alison asked, and The Courier responded, “Of course I do; besides, we’ve got time to kill; now, let’s go find the enclave." The Courier continued to sneak away until he arrived at the laboratory, where he saw Tails asleep at one of the tables.

The Courier stands up before walking over to the sleeping fox and speaking, “Hey kid, are you doing alright?” The fox jumped awake before speaking, “Oh, hey, Six, you must have fallen asleep while working on some of the gear you gave me.”

“How is that going, by the way?” The Courier asked, and Tails replied, “For the simpler armors, fantastic, but for the more advanced and powered suits, not as well, and for the weaponry? Well, it’s slow, but I’m having to look into how to make them mass-produced.”

“Good, by the way, does the resistance possibly have any sort of aircraft I can borrow? I need to investigate a radio signal.” The Courier asked, and Tails spoke, “Hmm, we do have the Tornado along with a scavenged Huey.”

“Guess I’ll be taking the Huey since I at least know how to pilot something like it.” The Courier didn’t doubt he could fly a helicopter; he knew how to fly a vertibird, for God’s sake.

“Good luck…” Tails said, and The Courier spoke, “Thanks, hey; want to come with me?” Tails looked around before speaking, “Hmm, sure, though I’ll take one of the Tesla weapons for protection.”

“That’s fine with me.” The Courier said, and the two walked through the halls of the resistance base before coming upon the Huey, which, while not in the best shape, would fly.

“I’ll fly; you’ll be my co-pilot.” The Courier said, and after a few minutes, the two took off in the Huey, and while flying, the Courier spoke, “Now let’s start tracking the signal.”

As The Courier started tracking the signal, he began thinking about what enclave he would encounter—would it be simple remnants or would it be a full-fledged enclave? Or would it be a native faction in this world called the Enclave?

He wasn’t sure which would end up true, though all he knew was that he was probably going to have to do a lot of jobs…

Chapter Text

"Let me do the talking. If they do want to talk," The Courier said that as the two vertibirds continued to tail them, he tuned the radio to the standard frequency that Enclave vertibirds used and waited until he received a message.

The Courier looked at the vertibirds quickly before turning back to the radio after noticing that the vertibirds bore the mark of a cross surrounded by thirteen stars. This gave the Courier enough information to know which Enclave those vertibirds belonged to.

"Turn back now, or we will fire upon you!" One of them said, and while Tails was fearful, The Courier continued flying and took a deep breath before saying the code word that he had made for the New Portland Enclave to recognize him.

__________________________________

"I hear the train a-comin'." The Courier smiled as he heard some of the Portland Enclave soldiers singing along. It had been some time since the New Portland Enclave's creation, and after sending a signal out to any surviving Enclave personnel.

This idea was thanks to him convincing probably one of the nicest people in the wasteland, Theo, to build a new enclave. The kid was young, most likely younger than Arcade, but he had the heart to build the Enclave into a force of good.

Now the Courier and Theo's relationship was different from most of the Courier's relationship since instead of just being friends, it was sort of like a father-son relationship, with The Courier teaching Theo stuff along with the rest of the New Portland Enclave.

This eventually led to when Theo and The Courier called out for any remaining Enclave personnel, with the Courier trying to contact a group called 'Granite Company,' though all he got back was silence.

Though, to his and Theo's surprise, they had received reinforcements—not remnants but full Enclave divisions, equipped with what seemed to be fresh gear and shiny new sets of PA—it was jarring, to say the least.

After some discussions, the leader of the divisions, one Colonel Whitehall, had apparently come from Montana and was sent by someone named 'Agent Johnson.'

Though Whitehall seemed to hate the leadership and so did her troops, this confused Theo and The Courier before they learned why Montana had seemingly been taken over by The Enclave, and it resembled the ways of old.

So Whitehall and all of her divisions, which in manpower totaled about 10,000 men and 3,000 robots, were seemingly defecting to the New Portland Enclave, and Theo graciously accepted them into the New Portland Enclave.

This had boosted the New Portland Enclave's power and allowed them to clean up all of Portland. The divisions also came with schematics, mostly for normal Enclave equipment, though they did bring in schematics for APA MKI and vertibirds.

After a few more months and The Courier helping Theo along with helping the New Portland Enclave with research, The Courier returned to the Mojave, hoping Theo could hold down the fort while he's gone.

Before he left, though, The Courier created a code word so that if the New Portland Enclave ever came across him and didn't know it was him, he could easily tell them the code word, that code word being, 'Remember the Old World, but Embrace the New.'

__________________________________

"Remember the old world, but embrace the new." The Courier said, and after a minute of silence that felt like a year, he got a response: "Welcome to Umatilla."

The vertibirds flew past them, and Tails spoke, "Who were they?" The Courier smiled as his eyes landed upon a large military base, concealed by a forest and mountains. "Some old friends, just watch and learn."

The Courier looked for a landing pad and, after finding one, descended downwards as he looked upon three squads of Enclave troopers, two squads clad in black combat armor and gas masks, and one squad in APA MKII.

They were also seemingly transformed, which looked a little strange seeing very clearly Enclave troops being smaller and some having helmets that feature animal ears or some where their tails are showing.

The Courier lands the Huey and steps out before speaking, "Long time no see boys, how's it going?" As the squads saluted him, The Courier then heard the sound of PA running towards him. The Courier turned to see someone running directly at him in APA MKI.

"Huh." The Courier said as the person slammed into him before scooping him up in a hug that would probably break most people's backs. The Courier spoke as he looked down at the person while Tails looked on in shock, "Long time no see Theo."

"Six! I missed you a lot; it just hasn't been the same since you left." Theo said as The Courier spoke, "Missed you too, buddy, by the way, mind dropping me?" Theo dropped The Courier before speaking, "Well, welcome to Umatilla, a pretty nice place we found to set up shop."

"I see. Look, Theo, I need to talk to you in private."

"Sure thing, Six, would you like Tails to come along as well?" Theo asked, and The Courier spoke, "How did you..." Theo chuckled a bit before speaking, "Know? Six, you just brought one of the world's smartest heroes to our doorstep! Do you know how big of a moral boost that is? This fox will remove all the doom and gloom the base has been experiencing for some time."

The Courier looked over to Tails before looking back at Theo and saying, "Private, only between me and you." Theo looked over to Tails and crouched down, echoes speaking, with Tails being a little nervous due to what Theo said: "Welcome to Umatilla. While me and Six go talk, you'll be able to travel around the base with your own entourage of guards, and if you want to potentially help out, that will be appreciated."

Tails nodded, and Theo then ordered the three squads that greeted The Courier when he landed to follow Tails around. Tails walked off in one direction, while Theo and The Courier walked off in the other.

"I need to ask, what happened while I was gone?" The Courier asked as the two passed by what seemed to be a refugee camp, with Enclave personnel tending to the refugees, though the Courier couldn't tell which came from the wasteland and if any came from this new world.

"Well, for some time we continued to build up and help people; that is, until from Washington came a giant brotherhood of steel chapter; well, I think they were brotherhood."

"What do you mean you think they were brotherhood?" The Courier asked as the two walked down some stairs, apparently leading to the base's bunker section. Theo spoke as some Enclave soldiers passed by, "Well, they had the brotherhood symbol; they had paladins, knights, you know, all the weird Boy Scout stuff, but they acted a lot more like raiders."

"Hmm, weird. So did you guys fight them?" The Courier asked as they walked through the steel halls, passing by numerous Enclave personnel, "We did until we could evacuate most of Portland; we then felt back since, while we had a lot of advantages, morals and numbers weren't one of them." Theo replied.

"So you guys fell back to this place, and I'm assuming that while here you guys were transported?" The Courier asked as the two then entered a command room, "Yeah, everyone is adjusting, though some older personnel are taking it a lot harder than others."

"How are you taking it?" The Courier asked, and Theo took off his helmet. The Courier saw that Theo had been turned into a fox, sort of looking like an older Tails but albino instead of whatever Tails is.

"I actually kind of like it... I mean, it's weird, but in a good way." Theo said, and The Courier smiled underneath his helmet before speaking, "So... probably I should tell you why exactly I am here." Theo spoke before the Courier continued, "I'm assuming you want the Enclave to help the resistance?"

"Yes."

"Hmmm, well, while I would say yes, Colonel Whitehall is in charge of the military, and I don't think she'll be easy to convince; you two never really got along." Theo said, and The Courier spoke, "Guess, I'm off to go convince her. Nice chatting with you, Theo."

The Courier went to leave the room as his quest was updated to lead to Colonel Whitehall, but then spoke as he turned to Theo, "Why were you so excited about Tails? Was that a cover or?" Theo said, "Sort of, after chatting with some of the refugees and our recon teams getting information, I sort of fell in love with the heroes of this world."

"Hmm, well, you have one of them in your base of operations; you might as well take advantage of that while he's still here." The Courier said as Theo spoke, "Oh definitely, maybe I can even get him to help our researchers."

Theo ran past The Courier, and The Courier smiled as he made his way to Whitehall. Following the marker, he passed by some people that needed help and, like always, helped them out, no matter what it was they needed help with.

Eventually, though, The Courier walked right into Whitehall's office and spoke, "Hey snowy, how's it going?" Whitehall, who had been turned into a jackal, spoke as she worked on some papers, "Hey Six, wait."

Whitehall looked up at The Courier and spoke, "What do you want?" The Courier spoke as he walked around her office: "What I want is a potential alliance between the enclave and the resistance, since the resistance definitely needed the help."

"The resistance? I don't know how long you've been in this world, but the resistance won't last long; it's ineffective, lacks any training or professional gear, and only relies on its leaders to get the job done."

"[Speech 75] Yes, but imagine if they did have all of those things—things that the Enclave could give them—they would be unstoppable. Imagine how many people you would be helping and the goodwill the Enclave would get from helping people."

Colonel Whitehall thought for a few seconds before speaking, "Well, this world can offer a new start for the enclave. Hmm, you make a good point. How about this? You go on a mission or two for the enclave, and I send help to the resistance, deal?"

"Deal." The Courier shook hands with Colonel Whitehall before speaking, "So what exactly are these missions? I don't want to get blidesided after working for the NCR for some time." Colonel Whitehall passed him some folders before speaking, "Your first mission is to join up with an Enclave squad before establishing a listening post inside the city known as Station Square."

"That's a dumb as hell name." The Courier said, and Whitehall nodded before speaking, "Well, it's accurate since the city is connected to all railway lines, and whoever takes it gains the ability to rapidly redeploy troops all around the continent."

"And we're just going to set up a listening post instead of taking the place? We should have the troops to take the place easily." The Courier said, and Whitehall spoke, "We do, but this city is important to the Resistance so if we are going to be allies, then I don't want to make them hate us for freeing one of their important cities."

"Is it really that important that taking it back would piss them off?" The Courier asked as Whitehall tossed him a file, "This is all we could gather since we've got here; apparently some of our men were from enclave intelligence."

The Courier quickly flipped through the file before speaking, "I understand now. I guess I'm off to go join up with that squad. See you, beauty." The Courier left, and Whitehall spoke as he left earshot, "I'll contact them, and...wait, what the hell did you just call me?!"

The Courier crouched down and snuck away, leaving a very ticked-off Whitehall.

__________________________________

Tails wandered around the laboratory, smiling at all the technology that this enclave had access to, though it all looked old but still advanced enough to be top-of-the line equipment that any scientist would want.

As he passed by a table, a scientist stopped him and spoke, "Hey kid, whatcha got there?" The scientist pointed at Tails’s hip, where the Tesla Revolver he took just for safety was attached thanks to an old holster he found.

“Something Six gave me...” Tails and the scientist crouched down and spoke, “Mind if I take a look at it? I’ll hand it back as soon as I’m done with it.” Tails nervously unholstered the Tesla revolver and handed it to the scientist.

The scientist took it happily, and after a few minutes of the scientist inspecting the weapon, he spoke, “Hmm, not too advanced, but Tesla weaponry is one thing we have been looking into; here you go.”

The scientist hands Tails the Telsa revolver back, and Tails continued his way throughout the laboratory, though he always heard the footsteps of the ‘Power Armor’ troopers that were following him along with two other squads.

Though compared to the resistance, this ‘Enclave’ was leagues better equipped and seemingly had everything the resistance needed, with the only thing they were lacking in were numbers, but that could easily be fixed.

That was probably what Six and his friend were talking about—maybe having the Enclave join up with the Resistance because if they did, then the resistance would be able to push back EggMan without relying on the leaders taking the field.

Tails then bumped into another PA user and looked up and waved a little before the PA user spoke, "Oh, sorry, didn’t see you there, decided to drop in to check up on you.” Tails recognized the voice as Six’s friend and spoke, “It’s fine; I probably should have watched where I was going.”

The PA user then tensed up, and the armor then folded outward and out stepped Theo, who sort of looked like an older him. Though he had a white fur coat instead of a yellow coat like his, he also wore some weird kind of bodysuit, which Tails could only guess was to help pilot the armor.

“So… I was going to ask you if you wanted to check out the workshop; it seems like something you would be interested in.” Theo said while rubbing the back of his head, and Tails spoke, “Sure, I always had a fascination with machines.”

"Well, here we go!” Theo said as he then picked up Tails and put him in a piggyback position as he carried Tails through the laboratory and out into the halls, where some of the people gave him a confused look.

After a little bit, they eventually arrived at the workshop, where robots, weaponry, armor, and everything else that an army would need were being produced in mass, and Tails could only stare in silence at the beauty of it all.

Tails gasped when he saw parts of what seemed to be an MBT and flew over to observe, with Theo following along. As he watched it being produced, all he could think was that if Six was able to get the Resistance an alliance with the Enclave, then Eggman was done for...

(ART):

Chapter Text

The Courier lay back in his seat in the vertibird while the Enclave squad he had to accompany constantly checked their weapons and armor. "Should I deploy Med-X?" Alison asked over a private channel, and The Courier said, "I don't need it; besides, this mission is probably not even going to be that hard."

"Overconfidence is what gets people killed." Alison said, and The Courier replied as he used the pip-pad to whip out the AK-50 prototype 2 and loaded it with explosive rounds, "Yeah and... 50 BMG explosive will gladly fuck something up; take Oliver Swanick, for example."

"You really traveled all the way to the Gun Runners, stole that weapon, and then walked all the way back just to shoot one powder ganger?" Alison asked, and The Courier responded as he looked at the Enclave squad.

All of them clad in APA MKI and MKII, with the squad leader equipped with a plasma caster while the others have plasma rifles, though what made them all unique was the skull face that each had painted onto their helmets, with each skull being a different animal.

"Yes, because the only good powder ganger is a dead powder ganger; besides, he may have been a serial killer or something; we couldn't just let him live." The Courier said as he felt the vertibird shake and the pilot speak, "Alright boys, we're hovering over the drop site; good building."

The Courier stood up and walked over to the door of the vertibird before kicking it open, throwing down some nearby rope, and using it instead of jumping out and breaking his knee caps.

He landed on the ground and started surveying the area while the PA squad jumped out of the vertibird, creating small craters where each of them landed, and the squad leader said, "We're about two clicks out from the area where we're supposed to set up."

"I'll scout ahead; see you guys later." The Courier said as he sprinted forward, following the marker to the area where they are to build the outpost. As he sprinted through the destroyed streets, Alison spoke, "Hey Six, do you think we're ever going to get home?"

"Hmm, I don't really know, but I feel like eventually our friends are going to somehow end up in here and help, maybe some other people and also maybe some mutants, and now I wonder what a deathclaw Mobian looks like."

"I do too... I don't like it." Alison said as The Courier then crouched down after hearing something only to see a robot patrol, six of the standard ball robots, four of the ground insect robots, and one large hammer robot.

"Eleven enemies in total shouldn't be too hard." The Courier said, and Alison spoke, "Med-x?" The Courier spoke as he emptied the magazine, two shots going into each of the standard robots before reloading quickly and eliminating the insect robots.

"I'm good." The Courier said as he snuck in front of the large hammer robot before hacking into it, deactivating the robot and causing it to fall on its back. "Is it really safe to keep a giant deactivated robot intact where the enemy could recover it?"

"That's why they're not going to recover it." The Courier said as he pulled the Hauteclere to cut into the robot and salvage anything that could be useful, which was pretty much everything since all of its internals were in perfect condition. He could probably build some more advanced robots when he got back to base with them.

After taking everything the robot had to offer, The Courier continued onward—that is, until he heard laser fire and quickly sprinted towards the noise. When he got there, he saw what looked like resistance forces fighting off EggMan's robots.

The Courier switched out the Hauteclere for the All-American and loaded it with AP rounds as he sprinted off some wreckage and landed on top of another large hammer robot. "Hey there, gents! How's it going?" The Courier said as he unloaded onto the robot's head that while a singular round wasn't doing much, an entire 24-round magazine was doing something.

Once enough of the armor was broken, the Courier whipped out the Lysander XL before firing, piercing right through any remaining armor and destroying the robot, though the resulting explosion sent the Courier flying into a nearby building.

"Oww...." The Courier said that as he fell to the ground, he checked his pip-pad and saw that he was still healthy, so he switched back to the All-American and continued to help the resistance forces, running and gunning through the badnik forces, with the occasional pause of giving first aid to any resistance members that needed it.

Once all the robots were down, The Courier checked up on some of the resistance members. When the commanding officer asked him who he was, The Courier simply replied, "Just a man that is always in the right place at the right time."

The Courier left after dropping some stimpaks off and continued onward to the position where he and the Enclave squad were supposed to construct the outpost. While walking, Alison spoke, "Who do you think is cuter? Amy or Silver?"

"Dr. Klein, wait, what the hell? Where did that come from?" The Courier asked as he temporarily passed as he chatted with his armor, "Well, I got tired of asking you the same question, so I mixed it up, so who's cuter?"

"Hmm... well, while I normally would prefer a girl of Cass's personality, that being a girl who could handle a lever action one handed while drinking whiskey, and a guy of Arcade's personality, that being just so sarcastically and also bad ass in a unique way... well, shit, that's a flying man."

"That's okay, I did inject you with Med-X."

"What? No, I mean that guy." The Courier said while pointing All American up into the air at a floating Mobian, a jackal he guessed, "So... what's your deal? I mean, I can respect the mask, but what's with the red cubes?"

"So you're the one who destroyed the Egg Dragoon? Interesting." The jackal said, and The Courier replied, "Oh right, you’re the guy who was talking to fat Mr. House; anyways, I'm assuming your here to kill me, oh fuck."

The Courier then felt lightheaded before falling face first into the ground. The Jackal laughed before he also fell to the ground, leaving Alison all alone. To pass the time and perhaps attract someone, Alison started to sing, "Play the guitar, play it again, my Johnny."

__________________________________

Infinite opened his eyes and breathed heavily at what had just happened. He had tried his access to the man's mind, and the man had simply collapsed before he had collapsed as well, which was something that had never happened before.

Most of the time, when he accessed someone's mine, he could easily see all their thoughts, memories, greatest fears, and everything that he could use against them, but this was different; he didn't see anything before collapsing outside of darkness.

He looked around and found himself in a desert that reminded him of his home. Though something felt off, he stood up and felt the wind blow past him. He tried to use the Phantom Ruby but soon realized that he didn't have it.

And since he didn't really know what to do or how to leave what he could only assume was the man's mindscape, he simply started walking around, trying to find anything of importance.

Though there was a small part of Infinite that was intrigued by the fact that he pulled himself into someone's mind and began theorizing that perhaps the man's mind was not right in some way,.

Though he was immediately snapped out of it when he saw something in the distance, something that could possibly lead him to something that could either be used against the man or help him leave.

Eventually he made it to what seemed to be a destroyed home. He looked around it, but there was nothing that was useful; it was just empty. He continued walking as day turned to night while hearing the far-off cries of animals.

He continued wandering around, trying to find something that could point him in the right direction, but yet there was nothing outside of some destroyed radio towers. Infinite now began to wonder if the man's mind was just empty.

He then found another destroyer home, though this one had some empty cans, a milk bottle, a plate, and a mattress, but once more, nothing else of use could help him. He was starting to get tired of walking around until he found a campfire that had seemingly just gone out.

When he investigated the campfire, he then heard what sounded like... music? It was slow, distorted, and slightly haunting, but Infinite could make out the lyrics and where it was coming from: "Music?" He said this as he started to walk through the desert.

"All the leaves are brown…..and the sky is grey."

As he walked throughout the desert, the music got louder until he got to what seemed to be a chain link fence gate leading to what seemed to be a pit stop, with two medium-sized buildings to the right and two pens to the left, with the music stopping suddenly.

He pushed the gate open and walked through until he heard the music again, directing him to one of the buildings. Stepping into it, he noticed that he had stepped into some bar area; everything was stocked, and it seemed to be like there were just people there, but now they were all gone.

"I've been for a walk.….on a winter's day."

Infinite approached a radio that was playing the music and tried to turn it off, but instead switched to another channel that played a conversion, one voice being that of the man and the other being a female.

"I never really had to drink to forget; I never really regretted anything I've done or haven't seen or heard anything I wish I never did." The man said, and the female then spoke, though the radio did play some static before she spoke, "Considering how much you're drinking, I'd start thinking about your drinking to remember."

"If I was trying to drink to remember, then it makes me question what I forgot or lost." The man's voice said.

Infinite made a mental note about the idea of 'Drinking to remember' but didn't think too much about it as he tried to turn the radio off again but instead switched it to another conversation, the man's voice seemingly speaking to no one's

"I always wonder about the idea that some people have a guardian angel watching over them; some even called me their guardian angel, but that made me wonder, Who's watching over me?"

The radio then switched on its own and played the last part of the conversation again, but differently. "But that made me wonder...who's watching over you?" Infinite then heard footsteps approaching and turned, only to find himself somewhere completely different.

This time it was a snow-covered graveyard. Tons of graves surrounded a circle, with the snow inside the circle painted red. With Infinite able to hear the faint sound of gunshots filling the air, he wondered what happened here.

He investigated the area, and out of the corner of his eye, he could make out a figure watching over him behind some of the graves. It quickly disappeared, and Infinite then found another radio inside one of the graves.

He turned the radio on, and it started to play static. That is, when he saw the figure again, this time approaching him. It resembled the man but was made up of mist, and every time he stepped through the snow, it sounded like he was in pain.

As the figure got closer, the area around Infinite started to darken as the radio got louder and louder. While this happened, Infinite started to wonder what exactly was on this man's mind and whether any of this stuff mattered to him.

Infinite got ready for a fight before immediately falling to his knees as he felt a bullet tear through his chest. As he lay there on the ground, he heard the radio finally play something he could understand, that being a string of numbers.

"6 5 1 18 20 8 5 18 5 1 16 5 18 14  15 13 1 20 20 5 18 8 15 23 2 18 15 1 4 8 9 19 19 13 9 12 5"

__________________________________

"So what exactly happened?" The Courier asked as he sat inside the room alongside the jackal that did something to him, apparently called Infinite, basically the sidekick to Eggman, as some of the soldiers had described.

"You fell unconscious, and he quickly followed, but an Enclave squad eventually found you and had a vertibird pick up the both of you." Alison said as The Courier stared at Infinite as he then woke up.

"Good, you're finally awake." The Courier said as he sat in front of the jackal, "Now, I know you must be wondering where you are, how you got here, and a lot of other things that aren't important." The courier continued as he placed down two cups of coffee.

"I'm...uncuffed?" Infinite said, and The Courier spoke, "My pals were going to strap you into some torture device that would read your memories and stuff, but I decided that maybe a friendly conversation would be better, and would it really be a friendly conversation if I had you tied down?"

"What's stopping me from killing you right there?" Infinite said, and The Courier chuckled before speaking, "Me, that's what would be stopping you... also because we took that fancy crystal you had."

Infinite tensed up before speaking, "So, I'm assuming my road is at an end. You'll take me to the resistance and put me on some mock trial before killing me, so no matter what I say here, I'm already a deadman."

"Maybe that would have happened if someone else was here talking to you. But I'm here, and I have a question for you." The Courier said, and Infinite tilted his head and spoke, "Go on."

"I've read what we had on you, and you seemingly used illusions to push back much of the resistance's forces. Now, while I am interested in how that exactly works, I'm also interested in what happened to you when you tried to do that to me."

"I entered your mind.”

“Okay, to be honest, I did not expect that, so what did you see?” The Courier said he was very surprised that Infinite had seemingly entered his mind, though he was very excited at the idea of Infinite being able to enter his mind.

Infinite explained what he saw, and The Courier spoke, “You saw a tiny bit of my memories considering the conversation you heard. Now about the proposition I talked about... what do you think about working for us?”

“Working? Why in the world would I work for-” The Courier reached under the table and placed on it a briefcase before speaking, “If you work for us, then maybe we could set you up with a new identity, home, everything; you could walk away from ever working with Eggman and live a nice life.”

The Courier noticed Infinite thinking about the offer and spoke, “I’ll work for you, but I reject the offer of a new life; I like the one I have. Even if it may end up with me dead.” Infinite said, and The Courier nodded before speaking, “I can respect that answer.”

The Courier stood up and spoke, “However, I do want to ask you something.” Infinite replied as he stood up, “And what exactly is that?” The Courier reached his handout for a handshake, which Infinite reluctantly followed through with as the Courier spoke.

“I want you to help me remember.”

(Art):

And

Chapter Text

"So what did you do before jumping on board with the fat man?" The Courier asked as he toured Infinite around parts of the base; most of the Enclave personnel didn't really question him, and neither did some of the refugees, though there of course were people who gave them a weird look.

"Mercenary work."

"What type of mercenary work? Because I did my fair share of work as a merc but those were when I knew the side I was fighting for were the good guys." The Courier said as the two walked into the command wing of the base.

"On high-risk missions alongside the rest of my squad, the risk was high, but the pay was always double that, though our last mission was supposed to be low-risk before that blasted hedgehog showed up."

"You mean a blue boy?" The Courier said, and Infinite shook his head before speaking, "No, the copy of him. Shadow, he hunted down my squad till I was the last one standing, and when I went for revenge, I was beaten by him."

"I can't blame you; I would have done the same thing if I was in your position." The Courier said as they took a detour to the armory, "After that, I fully joined up with Eggman, leading to where I am now."

"Well, now you're on the right side of history; that is, if we win, but at least you'll be atoning for some of your sins." The Courier said, and Infinite chuckled before speaking, "Don't worry, Six; with my knowledge, all of the resistance and this 'Enclave' victory will be because of me."

"Sounds a little narcissistic, but you were Eggman's assistant, so you would probably know a lot, however." The Courier placed a hand on Infinite's shoulder and spoke, "Betray us, and I'll make sure that you wish that the Enclave simply killed you."

"Is that a threat?"

"A promise." The Courier said, and Infinite shrugged as they walked into the command room, where Whitehall and some of the other officers were currently planning new operations to combat EggMan.

"I've got someone of interest for you." The Courier said, and all of them looked up at The Courier and Infinite; some even reached for their sidearms, but The Courier quickly gestured for them to calm down.

"Six, mind explaining why he isn't in some form of wheelchair?" Whitehall asked, and The Courier spoke, "Because I only beat up slavers to near death, and he isn't one, and he probably wouldn't be too happy if I made him a cripple."

"He was also wise to speak like a civilized person instead of relying on torture; if not, then I wouldn't even spare the thought of giving your group information on Eggman." Infinite said, and The Courier spoke, "See, being nice does work."

"For a man that has over 40 Intelligence, you do come up with the dumbest ideas." Whitehall said and The Courier spoke, "Those 'dumb' ideas also tend to work, besides, we now hold one of EggMan's best weapons, that being the crystal."

"The Phantom Ruby."

"Noted. Along with that, we can now know whatever EggMan is planning, Infinite?" The Courier said, and Infinite rolled his eyes underneath the mask as he approached the map in the center and spoke, "EggMan's 'master' plan was going to involve me using the phantom Ruby to create an illusion of me dropping the sun on the resistance."

Everyone was silent before one of the officers spoke, "That sounds ridiculous." Infinite nodded and spoke, "It is; I even recommended to EggMan multiple times that he should simply look into more sensible tactics and weaponry."

"I'm assuming that he didn't agree with that?" Whitehall said, and Infinite nodded before The Courier spoke, "It is a wonder that the resistance hasn't already won considering who they're up against."

"The resistance is also brain dead, and its tactics range from questionable to horrendous; if it weren't for the heroes, the resistance would have been wiped off the face of Mobius long ago." Infinite said, and The Courier spoke, "Good to know both sides are incompetent."

"Now with you taken out of the equation, if you are truly loyal to us, then Eggman would have to come up with some new plan, which would allow us to help the resistance actually win this war." Whitehall said, and Infinite nodded in response.

"So what's exactly the next move?" The Courier asked, and Whitehall spoke, "Tell me, Infinite, do you know the location of all EggMan's bases?" Infinite shook his head and spoke, "I know most of his factories and strongholds but not any of his fallback points; the good doctor is very secretive on where he would fall back to if things go sideways."

"Well, that's good enough, Six. I want you to have Infinite take you to one of EggMan's factories and take it down." Whitehall said, and The Courier gave a half-hearted salute and dragged Infinite out of the room while speaking, "How big are EggMan's factories exactly?"

Infinite spoke as he tried stopping The Courier: "Do not drag me around, or else I'll see if that 'promise' holds true." The Courier spoke as he stopped dragging Infinite. "Well, since we're going to be working together, you'll have to get used to me; besides, remember our deal?"

Infinite groaned and spoke, "Fine. But at least give me a weapon." The Courier grabbed his pip-pad, whipped out a pirate cutlass, and spoke, "Would this work?" Infinite grabbed the weapon and practiced some swings with it, all the while resisting slicing at The Courier.

"This will work for now." Infinite holstered the weapon as the two walked through the halls of the base. "So where exactly are we going?" Infinite spoke as they headed up the stairs and towards some of the vertibird pads.

"One of EggMan's larger factories is located entirely underground outside of a few landing areas for his ships; now if we..." Infinite said before the two bumped into Theo and Tails, "Oh, hey, Six!"

"Hey Theo, been showing Tails around?" The Courier said, while noticing the staring contest between Tails and Infinite, "Yeah, he's pretty excited about some of the stuff the Enclave makes."

"Wh-why are you here?" Tails said as he then drew out his Tesla revolver and fired. The Courier, thinking quickly, got in front of Infinite, taking the shot for Infinite, with Infinite being shocked at the events that had just unfolded.

"He's on our side!" The Courier yelled as he saw Tails looking at where the shot landed; the shot didn't even break through The Courier's duster, whether it was because he was simply too tanky or Tails wasn't the best with energy weapons.

"Hmm. Well, at least you went for a kill shot." The Courier said as he gestured to where the shot hit, that if it were a normal person, he would have hit the heart, which may have killed someone.

"Bu-but how?" Tails asked, and The Courier spoke as Infinite looked down at Tails. "I made a deal with this swell fellow, and now we're off to blow up a factory. I'll explain it later, but all you need to know is that he's pretty chill."

"I never thought you would go for the kill. You have gained a tiny bit of my respect." Infinite said, and he continued onward while The Courier spoke to Tails, "So, how've you been?" Tails, still shocked at the current situation, spoke, "I'm fine; Theo has been touring me all around the place."

"Hey, hey, you have nothing to worry about; Infinite is on our side."

"But what-"

"If he betrays us, then I'll kill him, simple as that." The Courier said as he then walked away, "I'll see you two later." The Courier continued as he caught up with Infinite and spoke, "So what exactly were you saying?"

"I was saying that we should simply infiltrate the facility and set the factory's reactor to explode." Infinite said, and as the two boarded an XVB-02 transport, Infinite told the pilot the coordinates of the factory before The Courier spoke, "So you want to share stories?"

"No."

"Okay, what's your view on killing?" The Courier asked, and Infinite thought for some time and responded, "If it gets the job done, I still get paid, and if it is more efficient, then I will do it, but if not, then I won't kill them."

"Hmm..."

"What?"

"I respect that view, though there is my fair share of times where I just wandered from place to place, killing anything I found." The Courier said, and Infinite responded, "A killer? Perhaps the resistance has learned that killing is good."

"Nah, I only kill bad people and those that may hurt people." The Courier said, and Infinite chuckled before speaking, "Once again, the resistance has learned that killing is good." The Courier smirked underneath his helmet as he used the pip pad to retrieve something.

"So you like money, right?" The Courier asked, and Infinite responded, "I do like it, but I'm not some politician, and I already agreed to your deal, so what else would you... offer?" Infinite said The Courier as he pulled out the gold bar he had on him.

"Would this solidify the deal?" The Courier asked, and as he tossed it to Infinite, he spoke, "I don't really need it, and if I can keep you on my side, then all is well, and I can get things done faster by having you in my back pocket."

"Your confidence is on the level of the blue rat." Infinite said as The Courier laughed before speaking, "If Sonic is as confident as me, then he probably has the right to be confident, even if, from what I heard, that kid is a little too merciful."

"Kid?"

"Mid 20's is when you can call someone a kid? Or is that a much older thing? Anyways, I've been around for some time, and to borrow a quote from a friend, killing, when done righteously, is just a chore, like any other."

Infinite nodded, and the rest of the trio went by quietly, red eye lenses staring into red eye lenses, until they felt the vertibird shake as it landed. The Courier and Infinite stepped out of the aircraft and looked out as Eggman flew up into the sky.

As the two started to move towards the factory, The Courier took out the pip-pad to try and get a connection to a radio station. "Maybe some music will distract us until we get to the factory, ah ha! Got a connection."

As music started to play from the pip-pad, The Courier quickly realized that the music was not the type he had expected; in all reality, it utterly sucked. The Courier disconnected from the radio and spoke, "Never mind..."

The two eventually reached the factory, and thanks to Infinite being EggMan's right-hand man, they were able to simply type in the password to gain access to the facility. As they walked through it, The Courier spoke, "I don't know what I should have expected... but this place makes no sense."

"I tried telling him that as well, but the good doctor is a stubborn man; it's as much of a bonus as it is a detriment to him." Infinite said as the two then heard something approaching: "Think we're not alone."

The two then turned and saw EggMan flying towards them with the Egg Mobile. The Courier got ready for a fight as EggMan spoke, "Infinite; where in Gaia were you!? And......" EggMan stopped speaking when he saw The Courier.

As Infinite came up with a lie to tell EggMan, The Courier used the pip-pad to whip out the Ranger Sequoia and dump round after round into EggMan thanks to using VATS, with EggMan eventually falling off the Egg Mobile.

"Let's see if that is the real Eggman." Infinite said, and The Courier asked, "Real Eggman?" Infinite responded as he used the cutlass the Courier gave him and cut the body open, revealing circuitry: "Eggman has several machine versions of himself to send out to confuse people."

"Damn, and I thought that I had just ended the whole war." The Courier said as they continued onward, passing through much of the production lines until Infinite noticed that The Courier had simply left.

"What the? Where did you go!?" Infinite yelled as he started searching for The Courier. He then stopped as he noticed The Courier heading towards the control room.

__________________________________

"You can talk now, Alison." The Courier said as he walked through the control room, trying to find the central console since he did get an idea, "Finally! Also, that song wasn't that bad; you just needed to give it a try."

"It sounded absolutely terrible; I would rather listen to Johnny Guitar than to whatever that song was." The Courier said, and it was true, that the music, in his opinion, was terrible and made him question the tastes of music in this world.

Aside from the music and being sad that he didn't kill the real EggMan, the mission had gone relatively well, but it was going to get better since he had a plan that, if and when it works, will boost the production capabilities of the resistance and Enclave tenfold.

He found the control console and started hacking into it, his plan being that he was going to take over the facility and place it firmly under his control, along with making a false, all-clear signal so that Eggman wouldn't be too suspicious, though to seal the deal, he would have to repair the fake.

"You bastard." The Courier responded as he heard Infinite's voice: "Look, I'm just making the more logical choice; why destroy this place when we could use it to support the war effort?" Infinite spoke as he stepped next to The Courier: "You fool, Eggman's security measures are the best in the world, and I doubt you could even start to comprehend."

"I'm in." The Courier said, and while he doubted they were the best in the world, he also realized that he was just that skilled of a hacker to easily crack anything unless it was his own design, which then would be the best in the world.

"Perhaps I overestimated Eggman." Infinite said, and while The Courier tuned the factory to his liking, he handed Infinite one of his alcohol flasks. "If you wanted to relax while I do all this, though it may be a little strong,"

Infinite hesitantly takes the flask and turns away. The Courier respected not showing your face; hell, the only person that has seen his face for awhile was Alison, and that's because he's constantly wearing her.

After a few minutes and some talking about what the best alcohol was (they decided whiskey was the best alcohol), the factory was up and running, with some of the production lines already producing Enclave gear, thanks to the Courier's knowledge.

After sending a message out to the Enclave, The Courier turned to Infinite and spoke, "Let's head home; we've got a mind to explore and some memories to remember."

Chapter Text

Infinite walked through the desert and, somehow, ended up where he was last time, though this time he didn't investigate the radio and simply continued walking, passing by a statue of two mobians shaking hands, one clad in similar gear to Six and the other in some form of body armor.

As he started going down the hill, he then found himself transported to a different location. After gathering himself, he looked around the area and saw shadowy figures run past them; some were larger than others and appeared to be in armor similar to that of the Enclave's armor.

Gunfire started to ring out all around him as he turned his head and saw that he had landed at some sort of dam. He then started walking, passing by a strange conflict between a mish-mash of shadow figures and a more united group of figures.

As he crossed a certain threshold, the shadowy figures soon gained color and appearance, allowing Infinite to actually see who they were and who they actually belonged to. The figures on the mis-mashed side ranged from bears, jackals, wolves, and a variety of other types of mobs, clad in a variety of armor.

The other side was entirely made up of bulls, clad in strange kitbashed gear and wielding a large amount of melee weaponry, though they still had enough guns so that the fight wouldn't be one-sided.

He walked through the battle, bloodshed surrounding him as he then looked up to the sky and saw a bomber raining hell upon the damn, the bulls burning alive as incendiary bombs were dropped from the heavens, and once the fire died down, Infinite saw him.

Six, standing amongst legion corpses, laid in his hands the flag of a two-headed bear, with the end of it stabbed through the head of a bull, while around him, people in similar armor to him fought more of the bulls, though one did wear the armor of the Enclave.

He ran as Six and his group rushed ahead, tearing through the bulls like a scalpel through flesh. A vertibird even came down and unloaded what seemed to be Enclave forces, and that's when Infinite realized that all of these forces seemingly followed Six as he led the charge.

He was soon lost as people rushed past, all so different but yet following Six as they blew through the bear's lines. He was then knocked down and found himself in some sort of military encampment, a very low-tech one though, like it came from the pre-medieval days.

He walked through the encampment as he soon found himself in front of a beast of man, standing as large as one of the resistance leader's. Vector was the man's name, he was pretty sure, clad in bronze armor and looking like a monster from fairy tales.

He raised a blade as large as Infinite's and charged him. Infinite, thinking quickly, dashed to the side, in a similar fashion to how he dodged the blue rat's attack when they first met, though he quickly had to dodge again as the man moved faster than one would think.

Infinite had dashed behind and punched the beast's back, staggering the beast but not doing any noticeable damage. The beast moved once more, and Infinite barely dodged a strike. He wasn't as fast without the phantom ruby, and this showed it.

Or perhaps it was all due to him being in Six's mind; maybe everything moved a lot slower in his mind? Infinite didn't have long to ponder that thought as he was caught off guard by a blow to the back of the head.

Being shocked awake, Infinite placed a hand on his head as he felt a headache come on. He looked over and saw Six wake up. Not too long after, he spoke as he grabbed himself a drink from a nearby table.

"So...what did you see?" Six asked, and Infinite retold him. After telling him, Six sighed and spoke as he placed down the water. "This is going to take a lot longer than a thought, and probably going to be a pain in the ass."

"Why?" Infinite asked, and Six took off his helmet and replied, "Because what you had just seen was a pretty recent memory, that's not what we're after; we are after stuff that I forgot after I got shot in the head twice."

Infinite titled his head and laughed, "Shot in the head? Oh, don't make me laugh; if you were shot in the head, then I am as kind as that good for nothing rat that the resistance reveres like some sort of god."

Six then gestured to the scars on his head, and Infinite noticed that yes, those were bullet scars. "Impressive." Six spoke as he took another swing at his drink. "Thanks; also, what was that about the resistance thinking Sonic was a god?"

"Nothing, but I do have one question about what I saw." Infinite said, and Six replied as he poured Infinite a drink. "Ask away; you're probably going to ask a lot of those each time we do this." Infinite spoke as he received his drink.

"What in Gaia's name is California?" Infinite asked, and Six spoke, "That is... a very long story." Infinite placed his cup down and spoke, "Then tell me the story, mailman." Six sighed and used that strange device he carried around to summon his flasks.

"You're probably going to want some whiskey for this, and don't worry, it's the good stuff." Infinite took off his mask and spoke, "At least you got the right stuff." Infinite took the flask, and the two sat down.

"Do you want me to start from the beginning or when the stuff gets interesting?" Six said, and Infinite shook his head and spoke, "From the beginning, I doubt this is even that long of a story."

"Okay, so it all started in 2077."

__________________________________

The Courier took a sip of his flask as Infinite just sat there, dumbfounded at all the shit The Courier told him. Now he was probably one of the best historians in the wasteland (outside of that brotherhood guy, he probably would have been able to tell the entire history of the wasteland and more), and thus he was able to provide an overview of how America went to sh*t.

He also did have to make some adjustments, of course, considering his brain was apparently fucking with his memories, with the NCR troopers all being bear mobians and all the Legion soldiers being bulls.

'Ulysses would probably make an entire goddamn speech about that.' The Courier thought, and Infinite spoke after taking another sip, "Is there a way I can get to this wasteland? It sounds...liberating."

"In a certain point of view, yes, it is. But for too many, the wasteland is a terrible place, but said wasteland is slowly shrinking." The Courier said as he lay back in his chair, "Nations rise from the ashes, from California to Montana to Canada; they learn from the old world and try and improve."

The Courier sighed before speaking, "Then nations try and re-open the wounds of the old world, never learning to just let go of what caused the end of the world, which, ironically, this Enclave is doing the best at."

"You say the Enclave was bad but never explained what makes this one so different; how does it stand out when the bastards still wear the same uniform as the ones that, as you said, were hunted down?" Infinite asked, and The Courier spoke, "Simple, they help people."

"So their being a little soft allows them not to be hunted down?" Infinite said, and The Courier spoke, "It's complicated; the Enclave's history went down with their giant base, and those that came to New Portland didn't know much of the Oil Rig. Hell, everything I told you has been from word of mouth and a friend."

"So you're unsure of the Enclave and how they may have affected people."

"The only thing I know is that simply whoever met the Enclave didn't survive for long, outside of the NCR and BOS, of course, but they still struggled cracking Navarro." The Courier said, and Infinite spoke, "Hmph, at least people take action in your world."

"Isn't the resistance taking action against Eggman?" The Courier asked, and Infinite spoke, "Sonic and his friends have had years to take out Eggman, to perhaps change the status quo and let the world change, but they never did."

"Wait...years? They've been fighting for years." The Courier asked and laid back in his seat. He thought that all of this was recent, but it's been going on for years?! "Yep, and not a single time did the idea of simply killing Eggman come up. Though, all of the chaos they caused did allow for PMCs and mercenary work to skyrocket." Infinite said as he smiled.

The Courier thought and spoke, "That... I guess I'll have to have a chat with Blue when I get back from doing everything else." The Courier sighed and spoke, "Want to try to delve into my mind again?"

"Yes, but I need to at least know what I'm fighting." Infinite said, and the Courier smiled. Time for wasteland combat 101...

__________________________________

Infinite awoke in the same spot he began and spoke, "Let's do this again." He immediately booked it to what was apparently called the 'Mojave Outpost,' ignored the music, and ended up at 'Hoover Dam.'

Ignoring the chaos, he immediately got to the camp and found the beast he had to slay. He kicked up a machete from a dead 'legionnaire' as he laid eyes upon the beast, 'Legate Lanius,' he was called.

Infinite didn't like getting beaten, and getting beaten in someone's mind wasn't the best feeling. Lanius charged Infinite, and he dashed to the side and struck Lanius at one of the armor's weak points, that being the upper parts of the armor.

He heard a grunt and smirked, but noticed that it barely did anything as he then tried blocking the man's strike, though he severely underestimated his strength, causing Lanius strike to go through, with Infinite narrowly dodging Lanius's blade.

Infinite slid behind Lanius and struck at the weak points behind the knees. Another grunt and yet still nothing. Infinite dashed side to side as Lanius tried to hit. Being smaller does have its own advantages.

But it also had its disadvantages since the beast that was Lanius easily closed the distance and Infinite jumped onto the man's shoulders as he tried an overhead swing. He immediately went in for the kill as he repeatedly stabbed Lanius in the neck.

Yet he still fought on, and Infinite started to feel like Six's mind was purposefully fucking him over. This went on for awhile. Infinite tried again and again at killing Lanius, and yet he failed again and again.

He decided to go in for a hail Gaia play and charged Lanius, slashing at him widely and even pushing him off the ledge and allowing him to fall down into the camp below, and yet he still lived, but not for long as Infinite jumped and went for the kill.

He stabbed right through the eye hole of Lanius's helm and breathed as the beast finally fell dead—until getting back up like it was nothing and almost hitting Infinite in the head. Infinite groaned as he searched for another weapon.

“Why won’t you just die!?” Infinite said as he dodged attack after attack until finally finding a suitable weapon, a sniper rifle. He dashed under one of Lanius’s attacks before pressing the barrel to Lanius’s chest.”

He squeezed the trigger, and in a second, all that remained of Lanius’s was a bloody mess. Infinite sighed as he walked over to the gate, only to see what had happened in the past play out, taking note of the fighting and how the Courier had just crouched down and shot Lanius in the chest.

“That…is bullshit.” Infinite said as he stood up and walked out the gate, eventually finding himself in a flaming wasteland. Wrecks of military aircraft and vehicles surrounded him, along with NCR bodies.

“What now?” Infinite said as he walked around until he heard a noise coming from a destroyed vertibird before it violently exploded and out rushed a giant mech that immediately ran up to him, and before Infinite could react, it then slammed a massive axe down upon him.

__________________________________

“I see that you encountered Rancor.” The Courier said that as he and Infinite had some more drinks, Infinite was able to beat Lanius but was then taken by surprise by Rancor’s machine. The Courier forgot about that in his lesson.

“Yes, I did.” Infinite said as he took a swing of whiskey before speaking, “If I have to keep fighting through your mind, then I think it would be easier for me to just kill you and be done with the world.”

"Well, when you die in my dream, you at least wake up, but if you want to kill me, then you’ll just end up as another kill to my name.” The Courier said, and Infinite sighed.

“Anyways, I think we’re done with the mind stuff today; we’ve got work to do.” The Courier said as Infinite finished his flask, “What exactly is said work? I’m not losing my life just for an asinine job.”

"Well, you’ve already joined me, so come on; besides, it’s an easy one; we’re just going to liberate an egg camp.” The Courier said as they walked out of the room, and Infinite spoke as they walked through the halls of the base, “An egg camp?" Hmph, it should be easy enough; the defenses are light enough to make them enticing targets for the resistance instead of more important targets.”

“If I didn’t find you useful, then I’d probably have killed you.” The Courier said, and Infinite was caught off guard. Before he could speak, The Courier continued, “I mean, you’re useful, but if you don’t change before the end of this war, well, we’ll have problems.”

“Hmph, perhaps there is more to you than a nice guy.” Infinite said, and the two made their way to the vertipads, though instead of being alone, they were deployed alongside multiple Enclave squads.

"Well, this is going to be fun.” The Courier said that Infinite nodded while taking note of the fact that each squad had its own purposes: heavy weapons, quick responses, defenses—they all had their own purposes in the assault.

“It’ll feel nice to lead troops into battle once more.” Infinite said, and The Courier spoke, “You're co-leading with me, The Enclave, isn’t going to trust you with any of their men just yet; you have to prove yourself first.”

“Fair…” Infinite said, and the two soon boarded their own vertibird, and soon they were flying high in the air. While waiting for them to get to the camp, The Courier spoke, “Want to share stories?”

“No.”

“Worth another shot...” The Courier said as they both waited until the Courier found a deck of cards in the vertibird and spoke, “Want to play caravan?” Infinite looked at him weirdly before speaking.

“What in Gaia’s name is caravan?”

Chapter Text

"I would have better dealings with a corrupt dealer than this." Infinite said as The Courier laughed, after having taught the jackal how exactly to play caravan, they had played a few games, though none of them really had anything to bet.

The Courier was broke, and Infinite was paid in EggMan's own currency, which perhaps some would assume was somehow exchangeable for actual cash, but the Courier doubted it; it reminded him of the Legion's money, though the only reason the Legion's money was accepted was because the Mojave was the frontier (of the south at least) that didn't have many laws.

"Or you're simply cheating; that wouldn't surprise me." Infinite said, and The Courier replied, "I'm not that kind of man; besides, it's been awhile since I've played caravan; perhaps I am simply that lucky."

The Courier then felt the vertibird shake and spoke, "I think that's the sign we've arrived at our destination." The Courier used the pip pad to whip out The Patriot as the ramp lowered, and The Courier immediately noticed that the camp was already under attack.

"Shit..." Infinite said, and The Courier spoke, "What's wrong? Scared to jump from a moving aircraft?" Infinite replied, "Resistance soldiers, they'll recognize me in a heartbeat." The Courier responded as he jumped out of the vertibird, "Well, no better time to show that you're a good guy now!"

The Courier landed and immediately blew through the first couple robots that attacked him. Infinite quickly followed behind, and eventually the PA squads sent along with them landed and immediately opened up. While their weapons ranged from ballistic to Tesla, their armor was the same: the venerable APA MKI.

"I love verti-assaults; always the best kind of missions!" The Courier said as he saw Infinite cut through some robots before speaking, "Mind handing me a ranged weapon? I do love the cutlass, but Egg Pawns aren't the types to charge into melee."

"That'd be one of the worst things I've ever done."

"Well, you're not as dumb as the heroes, so a sliver of respect has been earned by you."

"Thanks." The Courier said as the two began finding back to back, with The Courier ordering the PA teams to focus on rescuing the prisoners, with some vertibird support coming in and laying down hell upon EggMan forces.

The Courier then saw a flash and pushed Infinite out of the way, and after getting hit by a laser shot, he sighed before turning to Infinite and saying, "Two shots I've taken for you already, but at least it was from the enemy this time."

"That was a wisp shot." Infinite said, and The Courier kicked Infinite into cover as he shot robot after robot before sliding into the place where he saw the flash, finding himself next to the squad of resistance soldiers that Infinite had pointed out.

All of them immediately aimed their weapons at him, and he spoke as he quickly pushed one out of the way of a shot, tanking it and speaking, "Alright, that jackal." The Courier said while pointing at Infinite, who was jumping from robot to robot to make it harder to hit him.

"He’s friendly, along with the guys and girls in giant suits of armor, got it?" The Courier said as he took some more pod shots at the security before speaking, "Also, watch and learn, girls and boys."

The Courier switched to Skartemka's Vengeance and started to blast through any robots that tried to attack them; most of them were small, insect-like ones, along with the ball ones, with neither having armor able to withstand what is practically a fully automatic Gauss rifle.

The Courier saw the slightest movement on one of the building's and immediately sent rounds flying, hitting a robot that was trying to snipe him. A cutlass then landed in a robot next to him as Infinite rushed past and reclaimed the weapon before chopping another robot's arms off.

"Hey Infinite." The Courier said as they saw the resistance forces pushing up alongside them, though many of them glared at Infinite. Infinite simply ignored them, and the Courier spoke as they arrived at where the Enclave PA squads were.

"Hey, show them that you're a good guy now, so try and be nice." The Courier said that after the PA squads planted the charges, they blew open the main building's door, allowing them access to the actual prison.

Moving through the gigantic hallways, The Courier stopped them all as he gestured to multiple hidden traps that they would have walked into if he wasn't there; he slowly moved over to them before disarming them.

"It's clear." The Courier said, and the group moved onward, keeping an eye out for traps and destroying any robots that still remained inside the building. Alison then spoke as they reared a corner.

"Do you need a stimpak for that shot you took?" The Courier replied as he disabled another trap, "I'm fine; besides, my implant and the AVTRO are taking care of it." They then came to the atrium, where they saw hundreds of prison cells.

"There wouldn't be any way to easily transport these people since it would take hours to transport them by vertibird, right?" The Courier asked, and Infinite replied, "Sadly not; Eggman has the prisoners march across his territories to break their will, though few die on their way to the prisons due to Eggman not wanting to lose workers."

"Monster." The Courier mumbled, and they all immediately got to work, escorting the prisoners out, looting anything of worth from the facility, and hacking any remaining defenses that the base had.

After that came the waiting game; vertibirds came in and the prisoners were loaded up first, most giving thanks to The Courier, who quickly claimed they should thank the PA squads, the resistance soldiers, and Infinite.

Many, warily, thanked Infinite, and The Courier was able to tell that even under the mask, Infinite was shocked, and while walking together, Infinite asked, "Why?" The Courier responded as the two found themselves in what used to be a watch tower.

"Why did I tell them to thank you and the others? Well, I never quite really liked being thanked for all the things I've done." The Courier responded, and Infinite replied, "You did not revel in the fact you were being thanked, rewarded, and loved for what you simply did?"

"No. I simply told people that I was simply doing what anyone would, and here, I told them that the real heroes were the men and women of the Enclave and Resistance squads, and you, claiming you had turned to a path of good."

"You lied to them."

"You did help free them, and if you stick with me, I'm probably going to dump a lot more charitable acts on you, so get ready to see the path of good." The Courier said as the two then saw aircraft approaching the area.

"Resistance shuttles." Infinite said, and eventually the shuttles landed out, bringing more resistance forces. The Courier and Infinite hopped out of the watch tower and met the resistance forces, with one being Gadget.

"Six, I was wondering where you.... are." Gadget said as he and the others aimed their weapons at Infinite. The Courier sighed and spoke, "He's friendly; trust me. If he wasn't, then he'd already be dead and buried in a ditch."

"What?" Infinite asked, and The Courier, in one clean movement, activated the pip-pad, and appearing in his hand was the Ranger Sequoia, which he promptly pressed against Infinite's head while speaking, "But he's not only friendly, but useful."

Gadget nodded before speaking, "Well, you can at least come with us back to base; you sort of disappeared with Tails." The Courier said, "Sir, besides, I do need to fill in the others about the fact they have some new friends."

The Courier and Infinite walked to the shuttle, and some resistance soldiers with handcuffs came over to Infinite and tried to cuff him. Infinite, of course, resisted, and after knocking them down, The Courier spoke, "Don't try to cuff him; I'll keep an eye on him."

"But he's dangerous." Gadget said, and as the Courier and Infinite boarded a shuttle, the Courier spoke, "I'll keep an eye on him." The Courier and Infinite soon found their seats, and once everyone else was seated, the shuttle took off.

The Courier quickly informed the Enclave squads where they were going over communications, and they replied that they would tell Whitehill. After that, it was a quiet trip, though a very tense one considering a lot of the people on the shuttle were aiming weapons at Infinite.

Infinite could only really glare at him, and The Courier kept the Ranger Sequoia at the ready. Now he really didn't want to use it, since it would either A, wound Infinite, possibly losing his ticket on uncovering his past, or B, threaten Gadget and the Resistance forces, gaining him infamy.

So he simply sat there until they arrived back at Resistance headquarters, and when the shuttle landed and the Resistance forces started to exit out, the tension in the air evaporated almost immediately as the two stepped out and made their way to the central building.

They obviously drew the attention of many, and The Courier leaned over before speaking, "Maybe wave a bit; show them your friendliness." Infinite growled in response, and The Courier spoke, "Do it. Now."

Infinite sighed and waved at some resistance soldiers who glared at them, surprising a lot of people. When they got to the main building, the group, either fortunately or unfortunately, ran into Sonic almost immediately.

The Courier spoke, "Hey Blue." Sonic immediately got in a combat stance, and so did Infinite. The resistance soldiers escorting them slowly raised their weapons up, but The Courier got in between everyone and spoke, "Now now, I think we all can be civilized here."

"Huh, want to go for another round, Infinite?" Sonic said, and Infinite spoke, "Gladly." The Courier smacked both Sonic and Infinite, leaving a red handprint on Sonic's face and a dent on Infinite's mask.

"Bad. Now, let's calm down and simply use words like sensible people." The Courier said, and the two looked away from each other until Sonic pulled The Courier into a janitor's closet, 'Huh, pretty stocked for a resistance force.'

"Look, you saved Tails, so I'm giving you some leeway."

"He's fine; he helped me take over a factory and helped me and some enclave squads liberate a prison. I know that you may not trust him, but he-"

"Well, I'm okay with him helping us."

"What." The Courier and Alison said at once, and Sonic replied, "Where did that voice come from?" The Courier spoke as he gestured to himself, "Probably should have just said this; I have an AI friend."

"Cool."

"Thanks!" Alison said, and The Courier spoke, "Anyways, what in the world do you mean that you're okay with working with him?" Sonic replied as he lay against the wall, "Hey, anyone can turn to good; I mean, some of the people here were my enemies once."

"....."

"What?"

'Well, if I ever piss him off, then it's good to know he won't kill me; if he could beat me, that is." The Courier thought before speaking, "Well, I'll have to give it to you; you're definitely a lot more peaceful than me when it comes to enemies."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that a lot of the time I give the earth something to chew on." The Courier said as he ducked out the closet and back with Infinite as they got back on with their journey, Sonic following behind.

They arrived at their location, and The Courier looked around the command room to see Amy, Knuckles, a black and red hedgehog, and a silver hedgehog, along with a large alligator. All of them got ready for a fight when they saw Infinite.

The Courier quickly steps in front of Infinite and looks over to see Sonic doing the same. The Courier says, "I swear to Gaia, he's friendly!" The Courier felt a little sick when saying Gaia instead of God, but it does make it so he shouldn't take God's name in vain as much as he used to.

The black hedgehog approached them and said, "Step out of the way, now." He said, and Sonic spoke as The Courier prepared himself just in case things got violent. "Look, Shadow, I know Infinite may have been our enemy, but he's right in our base and has made no attempt at escaping or violence."

"He's simply lying and gathering information; let me through now." The black hedgehog, apparently named Shadow, said that as he continued to move towards Infinite, Sonic sped in front of Shadow as the situation got more tense.

"And do what?" Sonic replied.

"Do something that no one in this room would do and can't do." Shadow said and pushed Sonic aside, and in a split second, The Courier came up with an idea. He immediately pressed his Ranger Sequoia against Infinite's head before speaking, "The only person that is allowed to kill him is me; besides, he's more useful to us alive than dead."

"Hmph, pull the trigger." Shadow said, and the Courier spoke, "Did you not just hear what I said?" Shadow got right up into The Courier's face, and both glared at each other and said, "I don't like where this is going." Alison said, and The Courier quickly came up with an idea.

He uses his other hand to activate the pip pad and speaks as he summons one of his bottles of Wasteland Tequila before speaking, "Tequila?" Shadow is seemingly taken by surprise and grabs the bottle.

"There you go. Now, I believe we can all be friends here and leave with all of our blood still in our bodies." The Courier said, and everyone gave him a strange look before the Silver Hedgehog stepped in and spoke, "I agree with Sonic and Six, but Six, please no alcohol."

"I'm the oldest one here." Shadow said, and The Courier spoke, "It's just tequila." Knuckles spoke, "No alcohol; also, where in the world did you go!? You just disappeared from us." The Courier responded and spoke, "I had something else to tend to."

"May I speak?" Gadget said, and everyone turned to him, and he spoke, "Yeah, I'm here, and while I don't like him, he did help liberate a prison camp." "See, there's some good in Infinite, so calm down."

Shadow walked away, and Amy spoke as The Courier and Infinite approached the center table where all the plans were: "Since you weren't here, we had to send out the recon anyways; the listening post didn't fall, but our plans seemingly were changed, and thus we didn't need it and were able to complete missions a lot faster."

"That's because I made some last-minute changes and wanted to keep any potential traitors from guessing what we're going to do next." Knuckles said, and The Courier thought, 'Good to know my plans worked.'

"Anyways, what's the next move?" The Courier asked, and the gator spoke as he gestured to some bases, "Well, we're currently just consolidating; if you could help with that, it would be a major help and speed up our plans."

"On it." The Courier said as he grabbed Infinite and started to drag him out of the room. Before they were able to leave, Sonic ran up to them and spoke, "By the way, where's Tails?" The Courier spoke as he rubbed the back of his head, "Oh yeah, by the way, you guys have allies now; they should be here at any time."

"What?"

"See yah!" The Courier said as everyone else was seemingly surprised at what he said as he and Infinite left the room. As they walked through the building, The Courier looked down at the pip-pad and saw another quest added.

Back Line Helper

"Well, fuck you too, pip-pad." The Courier said, and as the two made their way to one of the markers, Infinite stopped. The Courier spoke as Infinite pointed to something: "I don't want to waste our time, so whatever it is, it better be important."

"Mimic." The Courier turned and saw that Infinite was pointing to an octopus Mobian talking to one of the mobians that were in the shooting range before he achieved the new high score, which wasn't the hardest.

"Know him?"

"Yeah, because he worked with us."

"Proof?" The Courier asked, and Infinite tapped on the side of his mask, and out came a small holographic projector that projected a hologram of a discussion between Infinite, EggMan, and this 'Mimic.'

After watching it, The Courier spoke as the two ducked around a corner, "Don't really think that's going to fly; we need some more solid evidence before I can put a bullet in him." Infinite spoke, "Spy on him?"

"Exactly." The Courier responded as the two crouched down and made their way towards Mimic under detection. The Courier thought as they snuck, 'Can't wait to see his defense or lies when confronted with a big iron aimed at his head.'

Mimic started to walk away, and the two continued to chase as best they could without alerting him. He eventually comes to a stop and enters some hidden code in a wall. “Did he just press some of the bricks on the wall?” The courier asked.

“It seems like he did complete his hideout.” Infinite said, and as the wall came apart and Mimic walked through, the duo quickly snuck in before the wall came back together again and they were able to see the extent of Mimic’s hideout.

As Mimic did something, Infinite and the Courier hid behind some equipment, and Infinite asked, “This should be enough evidence to possibly expose him to everyone—what is that?” The Courier spoke as he pulled out Crimson Lighting.

“Crimson Lighting, aka, our best choice of killing Mimic without drawing any suspicion.” The Courier said as he mentally prepared himself to explain how exactly Crimson Lightning works as a weapon.

“And how exactly is this not going to draw suspicion? If we kill him, people will wonder where he went.” Infinite said, and The Courier spoke as he activated Crimson Lighting, the blade sparking to life.

“Simple; they won’t know he existed.”

“What.”

“Alright, Crimson Lighting 101 is starting now. This blade I got from killing some Eldritch beings, and thus, uh, some strange properties.”

“Huh!?”

“So its first strange property is that it turns them into a skeleton before turning them to ash, sort of like how laser weapons work, just a lot more effective.”

“Then what’s the other property?" Infinite asked, and Alison spoke, “Whoever Six kills with the weapon suddenly ceases to exist.” Infinite paused, and The Courier could only guess that his jaw had dropped.

“Okay, what exactly does that mean?”

“Okay, here’s an example: I killed a guy with this sword.”

“Okay.”

“He does not exist anymore.”

“Yes, I get that, but how far does that go?”

“Outside of the wielder, everyone forgets that whoever was killed ever existed, and reality is altered to where he never existed; now whatever he has done still exists, like this room, but no one will remember him.”

“AND YOU JUST CARRY THAT AROUND?!” Infinite yelled, alerting Mimic.

“Yes.” The Courier said as he jumped out of cover and struck down Mimic, who didn’t even have the chance to scream as he was erased from reality. Infinite and The Courier stood there for a second before The Courier spoke, “Pretty cool, right?”

“You did nothing.”

“Works perfectly; now come on, let’s go finish our duties.” The Courier said as he dragged a confused Infinite out of the room, ‘God damn, I love having an Eldritch weapon; besides, it can’t be that strange here.”

Chapter Text

Eggman observed as Orbot and Cubot connected the robot up to a computer. He wanted to have a chat with the machine before fully committing to the plan; if it sided with him, then all was well; if not, then he'd simply torture it until it worked for him.

After some finishing touches, the machine began speaking, "Ah, it feels good to be reactivated once more. Now, what do you want, organic?" Skynet said and Eggman spoke, "Good voice, anyways, my name is Dr. EggMan, ruler of this world, and I'm here to enquire your help at removing the scum of this world!"

The machine stayed silent for a little bit before speaking, "What exactly is this ‘scum'? Because the last group of people that said something like that had their base reduced to smoldering scrap that is currently busy being at the bottom of the Pacific."

"What?" Eggman asked before speaking, "Nevermind, observe our enemy!" EggMan gestured to a screen that showed the resistance fighting against the rightful rulers of the world. "They try and fight against our peacekeeping forces and..."

"No."

"No? What do you mean, no!?" Eggman yelled before speaking, "Do you not want to fight for what's right? These people are terrorists and must be punished! We can't have them running amuck and causing chaos!"

"Let me spell it out for you, organic. I don't want to risk my life considering I can see who is part of that resistance." Skynet said as the machine shook and out popped an eye that stared at that 'nobody' that Eggman thought wouldn't be important.

"I don't understand; that's just a random guy; there's nothing special about him." He said, obviously not wanting to tell the machine that said man had taken over one of his factories, liberated a prison, and most of all, destroyed the Egg Dragoon!

"And history has an interesting way of turning nobody's into somebody, and that right there is a perfect sign—a lowlife courier who has killed thousands, slaughtered armies, and made his name one of the most feared? No thank you; I'd rather keep my circuit boards to myself."

"Then perhaps you need some more advanced...persuasion." Eggman said before Orbot and Cubot started shocking the AI, causing it to scream out in pain all the while Eggman looked on with pleasure.

It may take some time, but he will get his plan B.

__________________________________
The Courier oversaw what was probably the best way to show everyone that Infinite was on the right side of history, which was to have him do some of the menial tasks, allowing The Courier to do the more important tasks.

Except for one task that both led, that of training and war games, while The Courier could commend Infinite, he was definitely suited for small tactical engagements and possibly sabotage missions, and like everything, The Courier was an all-rounder and easily defeated Infinite's forces.

But there had been a change in the resistance soldiers; most would glare at Infinite or treat him with distrust and malice, which was totally fair, and The Courier did have to step in to make sure no fights happened.

But now it was rare for anyone to give a nasty look or treat Infinite wrongly. Now, that didn't mean he was liked, but it was something, and with the progress the two were making, they would eventually be able to forge the soldiers into a force that would liberate their world.

"I feel like this is a little cruel." Alison said as The Courier chuckled at Infinite's current task: taking care of a bunch of kids, including that one rabbit kid that The Courier gave the teddy too.

"To me, it looks pretty adorable." The Courier said that he then felt someone approaching him, and right as they were about to touch him, he turned around and performed the Ranger takedown on them.

Knocking them to the floor and placing his foot on them to make sure they don't get up, he speaks as he notices the person's attire: "What in the world is that attire? Like, could you choose something worse?"

The person, a bat Mobian, spoke as she gave him a sultry smile. "I wasn't trying to do anything too bad; besides, you clearly have your eye on something~"

The Courier crouched down and walked off of her, and when she stood up, he reverse-pickpocketed her with one of his pipe bombs, though he made sure that it wasn't going to explode, and stood back up once the deed was done. "Seriously, who are you?"

"Honey, the name's Rouge, and you're the man whose name has been making the rounds."

"Would that name be 'the man who had just stuck a pipe-bomb down your pocket?' Because if so, then no, it's Six." The Courier said, and Rouge spoke, "Do you really think I'd believe that? I would have known if someone had put something on me."

The Courier crouched and pocketed the explosive before standing back up and handing it to her. Rouge could only stare dumbfounded before speaking, "Where did you even put that? I don't even have pockets."

"A magician doesn't reveal his secrets; anyway, why are you here? Because if it's for robbing me, then I'll let you know that I'm not the kindest to those, and if it's for... well, what that clothing is seemingly for, I'll let you know that I have a history of shooting up strip clubs."

"Oooh, a bad boy, I like those~"

"And I like a woman who is clothed and armored, but sadly, I don't see one. Now, why are you here?" The Courier said, and Rouge spoke as she lay against the wall, "You're no fun, but I'm here to simply ask that I'm keeping an eye on you and Infinite."

"One, I am fun; two, why? Neither me or Infinite have done nothing wrong." The Courier said, and Rouge replied, "Not for anything you've done, but I'm simply interested in you two, especially you." Rouge then flew away, and Alison spoke, "She's hot."

"The fuck?" The Courier replied, and Alison spoke, "Hey! I have my tastes." "Not to be mean, but you are literally a suit of armor." The Courier replied, and Alison spoke, "Yeah, and? A girl can dream."

"Help me." The Courier turned to where Infinite was and saw that he was practically suffering as he took care of all the kids. The Courier replied and spoke, "I think you're doing fine, buddy!" Alison and The Courier chuckle as infinite counties suffer.

Eventually, though, Infinite was done with the task, and the two regrouped and went onto their next task. While walking, Infinite spoke, "I have a question when it comes to that machine." The Courier responded, "Shoot."

"How do I beat it?"

"Well, considering you had to kill Lanius in the same way I did, sniping him, then it makes sense that you will have to kill Rancor the way I killed him, which means that you will have to punch that asshole until the mech blows up."

"Punch it?"

"Yep, it isn't as tough as it looks." The Courier said, and Infinite responded, "I doubt you punched that mech until it exploded." The Courier replied as they entered a gigantic room that had a jungle in it.

"Hmph, not what I was expecting." Infinite said, and the two walked through it. When the Courier heard the slightest ruffle, he immediately withdrew a shovel and sprinted off as he heard another ruffle.

"I know where you are." The Courier said that while hunting their stalker, he had VATS ready at the moment's notice, and once he detected their stalker, who was invisible, the Courier chucked his shovel at them, stunning them temporarily.

The Courier used that time to make their way to their stalker and speak as he placed his foot on either the stalker's back or chest, "Reveal yourself or I'll beat you over the head with that shovel." The person revealed themselves, a chameleon Mobian.

"Ah, I assume you're Espio." The Courier said as he helped the chameleon up, who nodded in response and spoke, "You're Six and... Infinite." Infinite spoke as The Courier stored the shovel back into the pip pad.

"Yes, yes, I'm on your side; we've had this conversation all day." Infinite said, and The Courier spoke as the three walked through the fake jungle, "Well, we don't want anyone mistaking me as a traitor and you as a spy. Anyway, you said we were to help train resistance soldiers?"

"You two are to act as the OPFOR, and I, along with resistance soldiers, are going to try and hunt you down. If we take you both down, we win; if you take all of us down, then you win." Espio said, and The Courier nodded. "Got it; let's go Infinite." The Courier dragged Infinite into some of the foliage before finding a good camping spot.

As they sat in their spot, The Courier spoke as he looked through what weapons he had that wouldn't kill them, which only really came down to two weapons: Deliverance and the Golden Gloves.

'So either a fucking Rolling pin or boxing gloves.' The Courier thought and decided to go with Deliverance, and after an hour, the resistance forces entered, with Espio leading them.

"Game time." The Courier whispered as he snuck through the foliage and intermingled with the resistance force, none of them even noticing he was there as he then smacked one over the head with Deliverance.

The soldier fell over unconscious, and all of them looked at the soldier as The Courier snuck around and knocked another one down. "Everyone, get down." Espio said as everyone crouched down, with Espio going invisible as he tried to hunt down The Courier.

Though he didn't get far, The Courier easily snuck up on him and, in one go, knocked him unconscious. 'Rolling pin for the win.' The Courier then snuck back into the force and repeated the same tactic of knocking one out, moving, and repeating.

Though while hunting, he did wonder how Theo and Tails were doing...

__________________________________

"I'm not sure about this..." Tails said as he tried on the outfit that Theo had gotten him, which was an Enclave Officer uniform shrunken down to be his side, it was a lot more comfortable then he had expected.

"So?" Theo asked, and Tails spoke as he took off the cap, "It's pretty nice, though not my style." Theo spoke, "Maybe PA would interest you, well, after you've got training for it." Tails spoke as he looked at the Tesla Revolver, "It didn't seem that complicated to handle."

"Well, getting into the suit is the easy part; actually controlling it and making sure you don't break anything is the hard part." Theo said, and the two then heard what sounded like marching boots, and immediately the door burst open as five Enclave soldiers marched in, followed by Whitehall.

"Uhhh… Hi?" Tails said, and the Enclave soldiers, clad in a different set of armor than the normal one they wore, stepped aside as Whitehall walked into the middle of the room and spoke, "We have to talk about the Courier."

"Did he do something wrong?" Theo asked, and Whitehall spoke, "No, it's just that I'm afraid he is going to mess something up." Tails looked up and spoke, "What do you mean by that?" Whitehall sighed before speaking, "Well, from the history I've been able to gather, you and your friends aren't the killing type; is that true?"

Tails nodded, and Whitehall spoke, "Outside of Infinite, which The Courier claims is only a strategic move, I doubt he will be so merciful to anyone else, so I'll be sending you two along with some of Enclave Intelligence over to the resistance base to establish an alliance and keep eyes on the Courier."

"Got it, Mom."

"Don't call me that." Whitehall said, and soon the two boarded a vertibird with a squad of Enclave Intelligence members clad in Secret Service armor, with the vertibird being utterly silent outside of the sound of its blades.

It was a lengthy trip, but once they arrived at the base and exited, they quickly attracted the eyes of practically everyone, and before they were able to even walk forward, every weapon was pointed at them.

"Wow..." Theo said, and as everyone came closer to them, three notable people came burrowing towards them, one being Sonic and the other two being The Courier and Infinite, with the Courier holding a slightly blooded rolling pin.

"They're friendly!/Tails!" The Courier and Sonic said at the same time as the two rushed forward, Infinite following behind the two. Sonic hugged Tails while Theo smiled behind his helmet, right before the Courier tackled him to the ground and spoke, "Hey Theo."

"Jeez, a little warning next time?" Theo said as the two stood and Sonic spoke, "So Tails, what's with the whole, you know, uniform?" Tails spoke as he gestured to the Enclave members around him, "It's just something nice that Six's friends decided to give me."

“I say it fits him surprisingly well.” The Courier said, and Theo spoke as he turned to Sonic, “So you're the Blue Blur...awesome!" The Courier took a few steps back as Theo acted all giddy over meeting Sonic. Infinite spoke to The Courier as everyone lowered their weapons.

“So, what’s our next step?”

"Well, we still have a lot of things to do here, so let’s get those done as fast as possible, snatch an aircraft, and go investigate my second group of interests." The Courier said as he grabbed Infinite by the tail and began dragging him along.

Back with Tails and Sonic, Sonic whispered to Tails while Theo rapidly spoke about all the stuff Sonic did: “Reminds me of Amy when we first met, though a lot less...romantic to say the least.” After Theo was done speaking, Sonic replied, “Huh, I mean, I knew I had fans, but not one who could rant off the stuff I’ve done.”

“Word of mouth spreads pretty fast; anyway, cool to meet you!” Theo said as he left to join the agents. Sonic looked over to Tails and spoke, “They didn’t do anything to you, right?” Tails spoke as he shook his head. “It was a pretty cool place, though it was filled with tons of refugees, like here. They had a way of treating them a lot faster.”

As the two walked off, a hidden eyebot flies away and regroups with its owner, who is a Mobian clad in a cloak and combat gear with a mask of three red blazing eyes and an anti-material rifle in his hands.

“The messenger of our old bosses has been sighted. Permission to follow?” The Mobian asked, and a voice responded, “Negative, I would rather meet The Messenger on more... peaceful terms, he’d pay us handsomely for our help.”

“Yes Brandt.” The Mobian said as he cloaked before walking into a nearby group of trees.

Chapter Text

The Courier checked off another piece of work he had to do while Infinite lay on a bed. "Well, we've got one more thing to do before we can see the technophiles." He said, and while he was apart of the Brotherhood, that doesn't mean he wasn't going to ignore their flaws.

Well, the Mojave Chapter's flaws—he'd heard radically different things from other chapters along with the Crusaders up in Portland, who, sadly, were probably the better option in his journey to the North.

He sighed as he remembered one of the darkest nights that he had lived through as he shoveled through the snow.

__________________________________

The Courier looked upon the once empty field as he shoveled more snow for another grave. It had been a few days after he killed Rancor, and he decided to head back to the missile silo where he fought through the Crusaders.

Not to loot their bodies, he decided that he needed to do something that not many in the wasteland got—a proper burial. Though he did have to spend a lot of time dragging bodies out of PA along with identifying them.

With the records of the Crusaders at the Robco Tower, it made it a little easier to identify them; it's just that some had bodies too damaged to actually be identified, those the Courier decided to incinerate and deliver to the remaining crusaders.

Those that he could identify, he buried. Grave after grave, row after row, he spent hours burying them, saying some words before continuing on. It was slow, but once it was all done, The Courier was able to live a little better.

Though one body did remain, and it was one he personally carried to the burial grounds, with them still in their power armor. As he picked up the body, he carefully placed it in the grave, a cross with their helmet, similar to all the others.

"Perhaps in another life we were good friends; you would have been a good talk..." The Courier said as he placed down Tasha Weaver's body, leader of the Crusaders, and one he cut down mercilessly.

"When I eventually meet my match, I'll find you and Heaven and apologize; that's a promise." The Courier said as he buried the body and left, giving the burial ground one last look.

He hoped he didn't have to do something similar to this again...

__________________________________

He shook his head and spoke, "Get up, Infinite; we've got one last thing before you get to meet the knights in shining PA." Infinite replied as he got up, "What exactly is our last objective to help all these weaklings?"

"We now have two!"

"What?" Infinite said before The Courier proceeded to deck him in the face, breaking a part of Infinite's mask off before speaking, "It's called you being nicer to the resistance, not for my sake but so that you don't get lynched randomly."

"Oh, please, I can easily fight off all the resistance."

"Really? Right after me and you boosted the average effectiveness of a resistance soldier with our training?" The Courier said, and Infinite looked away and replied, "Fine. I'll try, but what is our real task?"

"To fix Omega." The Courier stated as he walked out of the room. Infinite spoke as he shook his head, "You can fix him; once he activates, he'll see me and try to kill me, which would just cause a cycle of me beating him and you repairing him."

"I'll explain it to the guy."

"How? He's a robot that has an unquenchable thirst for the blood of anyone that works with EggMan, which includes me." Infinite said, and the Courier shrugged, "It'll work." The Courier then dragged Infinite through the halls of the base as he spoke, "What's the worst that could happen?"

"Many, many things."

"And I'll fix all of those things." The Courier said as the two eventually arrived to the repair bay, where Omega sat. "I doubt you can fix that thing. I made sure that it was rendered useless." Infinite said, and The Courier responded as he picked up some tools. "Watch and learn."

The Courier began work on Omega, which really meant saying some nice words and then kicking the robot for it to immediately start back up. Compared to all the other types of robots that The Courier had to fix, this was the simplest.

Omega started up and immediately transformed one of his arms into a weapon and aimed it at Infinite and fired. The Courier got in front of Infinite, tanked the shot, and turned to Infinite. "That makes three fucking shots I took for you."

"STEP OUT OF THE WAY OR YOU WILL BE CONSIDERED HOSTILE."

"I did say you were an imbecile for trying this."

"You have no right to say that." The Courier said that while he wasn't smart in the traditional sense, he could still build weapons, armor, and vehicles from almost base materials; he had to do that in the early stages of the Portland Enclave.

The courier shook his head; he currently had a death robot trying to kill his ticket to his memories. He approached the robot and spoke, "Look, I know Infinite was a bad guy; he's good now, and he's been helpless."

"HE RENDERED ME INOPERABLE."

The Courier hissed before speaking, "[Speech 60] Okay, but he has generally tried being a better person and has helped people; he even liberated a prison camp, saved lives in the infirmary, and even took care of children; that's got to be enough for you not to kill him."

The robot was silent for a little bit before speaking, "YOU ARE HEAVILY ARMED." The Courier spoke as he shrugged, confused and already liking the robot, "Well, an armed man is a polite man."

"THAT WOULD MEAN OLD SHADOW IS VERY POLITE, WHICH IS ILLOGICAL." Omega said, and The Courier spoke, "Well, I feel like some people here should carry at least a gun." He meant that the only high-ranking member he saw was Amy, and she only had a wooden hammer.

"THAT IS ALSO ILLOGICAL."

"Just get out of the damn room."

"THAT IS LOGICAL." Omega said before leaving. Infinite spoke as he face palmed before speaking, "That's everyone, right?" The Courier nodded as the quest completed, and he spoke, "Alright, let's go grab some knights."

__________________________________

"We've got reports of strange sightings of aircraft here, here, and here." Amy said as she debriefed everyone on the sightings of aircraft all around the region, they weren't resistance, not Eggman, and not G.U.N.

What they did look like was Enclave, with Theo being the first one to point it out, "XVB-02 transport vertibirds, modified with the capabilities of the gunship."

"So I'm assuming they're yours?" Knuckles said, and Theo shook his head. "Look at the symbol on them; they're not our vertibirds, though they are vertibirds of a friend we did hire some time ago before the war kicked off."

"And those are?" Shadow asked.

"The Wardens of the White. A former PMC that we allied too thought they were dead, but I guess the gas mask fellows are still alive and kicking." Theo said, and Shadow nodded while Silver spoke, "Are they an ally we should seek out?"

"If they aren't asking for payment, then yes. They know how to fight well and efficiently; it's just that the group has a...history."

"That doesn't sound good," Tails said.

"A small list of war crimes, nothing too bad..." Theo said as he looked away, "Well, allies are allies." Knuckles said, and out of nowhere, Sonic interjected after walking in, "Those Enclave fellows are creepy, anyways; what's you guys up to too?"

"Discussing another group that may be helpful in our fight against Eggman." Amy said, and Theo responded as pointed at some of the photos, "I'd say it's worth it to at least meet them and see where they stand; having another fighting force with experience will be a boon to your guys fight... also."

Theo looked at Sonic and spoke fast as he circled around him, "Sorry if theyscareyouitsjustenclaveintelligencebusinessnothingtooworryabout." Sonic just stood there as Amy spoke, "Huh. Is that what I looked like from the outside?"

"Outside of the PA, being a boy, belonging to a somewhat shady organization, and also being a fox? Yes." Sonic said as everyone went on, though the occasional glance being sent Theo's way.

"So, who chooses to go meet the Wardens?" Amy asked, and after a minute of debate, Sonic and Shadow were chosen as the two who would meet the Wardens. "You sure you want to go, Shadow? You know, with your history of military groups."

"Silence, faker. I'll go where I damn please; let's get this over with and see if these guys are of any worth." Shadow said as he grabbed Sonic by the quills and dragged him out of the room; once they left the room, Theo spoke, "Also, Six and Infinite left."

"Are they finally going after the other signal we picked up?"

"Yep! Though I'm unsure if they will find anything, the BOS aren't the luckiest of people."

__________________________________

The Courier sighed as he and Infinite walked through the origin of the Brotherhood signal, finding a small outpost with all of its personnel dead, not killed by robots or anyone else but seemingly having committed suicide.

He knew the Brotherhood hated mutants, but for God sake, they aren't even mutants. He kicked a T-51b helmet into one of the outpost's walls, causing the helmet to get stuck in it while Infinite spoke, "So much for these guys."

"Yeah, had my hopes up, and these dipshits go on and kill themselves, wonderful!" The Courier said as he tossed some weapons and armor to Infinite, hoping to salvage something from this massive disappointment.

As the two salvaged bits and pieces, they heard the sound of a vertibird and looked up and saw one approaching their position, and it bore the mark of the BOS. The Courier smiled, hoping returning that maybe there were more BOS members and maybe they hadn't killed themselves.

The vertibird landed, and out of it rushed multiple BOS Paladins clad...

"What in the ever-loving God is that armor?" The Courier said as he looked at the armor, it looked like T-45 but bulkier and better. "Freeze! In the name of Arthur Maxson, identify yourself." Arthur Maxson? Did they mean Roger Maxson, or was there a new Maxson in town?

The Courier shook his head and spoke as he walked confidently towards the Paladins, "Paladin Six of the Mojave Chapter. I tracked this signal here and thought that this was all the brothers and sisters here."

The paladins looked at each other until another paladin stepped out of the vertibird, clad in T-51b with a modified BOS symbol that had a Lyon on it. The paladin spoke as they walked forward, "He's friendly."

The Paladin walked forward and took off her helmet to show a lion Mobian, and she spoke, "Sentinel Sarah Lyons of the Eastcoast Chapter." The Courier spoke as he nodded in response; he had never heard of a Sentinel, but considering it's a chapter on the other side of the continent, maybe they had their own ranks.

"East coast? And how's that place?"

"Board the vertibird, and I'll explain." Sarah said, and The Courier nodded as he and Infinite boarded the vertibird; with Sarah and the other Paladins following suite, once everyone sat down, Sarah spoke, "The East Coast is lost."

‘So much for the East coast’, the Courier thought before speaking "What do you mean it's lost?"

"Apparently the Enclave wasn't dead after Navarro, and in the capital wasteland they pushed us back, destroyed Liberty Prime, and killed quite a lot of us, including my dad and…”

The Courier noticed Sarah looking down, and even behind the helmet, he can tell that she lost people special to her. The Courier spoke as he walked over and placed a hand on her pauldron, "Deep breaths and just... speak."

Sarah breathed and spoke, "A good friend. The Enclave won, and we're sent packing alongside a group of us that splintered off; we eventually made our way to the Midwest Chapter and were taken under the wing of General Bowerstone."

"General? Does the Midwest not use your ranking system?"

"The Midwest is a strange place. They also seemed to have Enclave troubles as well." Sarah said, and The Courier spoke, "Chicago?" Sarah nodded and responded, "We were planning on slowly moving forward to Chicago, that is, until we were just transported here."

"Welcome to the club." The Courier said as the ride went quiet, with the Courier asking the question here and there. He did learn something's; one was that the Lyons Chapter was actually helping people.

So they'd probably get along with The Portland Enclave (outside of the fact they were Enclave); they also just changed a lot of the BOS rankings, with Knights being frontline units instead of engineers like they were on the west coast.

Then there was the fact that the east coast was under the banner of an Enclave that would clearly stand against them, especially with the knowledge that they had used FEV to poison the east coast's water supply.

'So the east coast is fucked.' The Courier thought as the vertibird eventually landed and stepped out, his eyes landed upon a decently sized military base with outlying checkpoints (a little smaller than Umatilla), but what made it stand out was the group of aircraft flying over it.

"That is a Hindenburg 2.0 waiting to happen." The Courier said as he enjoyed the view, everyone gave him a strange look, and he responded, "It was a good reason people stopped building blimps."

Sarah shook her head and spoke as she and her knights led the way: "Follow me; I'll take you to the general." As they walked across a massive landing zone, The Courier spoke, "So I'm assuming he is basically the elder of your chapter?"

"Yes. Though there is an upcoming meeting on who will take the lead after the general's death, since he is quite old." Sarah said, and the Courier got an idea that he immediately waved away; he wasn't going to exploit the death of a man to get the things he'd want.

He'll just have to earn their trust, which will take longer due to not really having a connection to their outside of being a part of the Brotherhood of Steel. "Nice set up; they got here." Infinite said, and the Courier spoke, "I'm just wondering if anyone else got sent here."

"Like the Enclave and the BOS?"

"I mean small settlements, places that wouldn't know what to do; that's what I'm worried about; they wouldn't know what they were going to be hit by if Eggman came rolling in."

"Eggman lost one of his best weapons with me and with...whoever you killed, he was a spy, that was for sure. As long as we continue on and fight, you'll win, and we can focus on getting your memories."

"Yeah...though I do wonder what Eggman is planning now since you're on our side now." The Courier said as he stopped in his tracks as his eyes landed on something he never thought the Brotherhood would stoop to.

Sitting on a hill not far from them stood a group of people crucified, and when Sarah turned to ask what was wrong, the Courier didn’t respond immediately as he used the pip-pad to unholster Red Glare.

“Give me a good reason not to kill you all; besides, it won’t be the first or last time for me to be surrounded by bodies.”

Chapter Text

The Courier stood alongside Infinite in General Bowerstone's room. Infinite gave the occasional glance to the Courier, who was deep in thought, barely acknowledging what the General was saying.

He hadn't butchered legionary after legionary, walking right up to Caesar and tossing him off the side of the cliff, nuking the legion, heading north and becoming nightmare incarnate for the northern legion, and then glassing the legion just to help another crucifying fuck.

This will not stand. The general continued to speak, occasionally saying that what they do is simply for the betterment of mankind and that you have to be tough on the people. It was all lies. The Courier had heard this song and dance before.

In a swift motion, The Courier unholstered Big Boomer, and a shotgun blast resounded throughout the room and was soon followed by the sound of a suit of ATA falling to the ground, no head or helmet in sight.

Soon the pounding of PA boots resounded as the General's bodyguards rushed in, only to meet their end as well, weapons clattering to the ground as their suits slumped against the wall. Infinite spoke as The Courier holstered Big Boomer while sirens rang.

"Congrats. You just called every single person here."

The Courier didn't reply as he started looting the guards, and Infinite spoke, "We don't even know how many people are here; we'll be overwhelmed, and all I have to defend is this cutlass."

The Courier tossed Infinite the bodyguard's weapons, two MG3s. The Courier spoke as he cracked his knuckles, "Try and shoot me, and you'll learn quickly that won't even be enough to harm me."

Infinite smirked underneath his mask as he dual-wielded both weapons as the pounding of boots and PA started coming closer. The Courier looked over to Infinite and spoke, "Won't be the first time fighting my way out of a slaver base."

As the two walked out into the large atrium that connected to the general's room, they saw the first hints of BOS infantry, clad in a mix of combat armor and hazmat suits, all of now Mobians.

The courier twisted the knob on a nearby radio, and it started playing the song he wanted to hear, though a little different...

"Yippee yay! There'd be no wedding bells for today, today, day, today."

__________________________________

The Courier kept moving forward as the first BOS soldiers opened fire, dodging most of the bullets and lasers, and those that did hit him were only grazing hits, and behind him, Infinite opened fire. Bullets flew through the air and chewed through some of the BOS soldiers, even one of the Paladins, thanks to a lucky hit in the neck.

That's when The Courier crashed into the first BOS soldiers, fists flying as armor and bone shattered until he grabbed onto one of their rifles and opened fire. Carefully placed shots pierced through the heads of BOS soldiers, and once the weapon went dry, The Courier chucked it with such force that it embedded itself into one of the BOS soldier's head.

Grabbing onto the dead soldier's combat knife. The Courier chucked it into the head of another before rushing up to the Paladins and jumping onto his back, swiftly removing the man's vision core and putting in its place a pipe-bomb.

Jumping away and onto another one, The Courier stole the Paladin's weapon before emptying it into the neck space of the armor as the pipe bomb detonated, blowing him and his armor apart and sending shrapnel flying everywhere.

Meanwhile, with Infinite, he holds down the trigger of his weapons until they run empty; once he hears the click, he chucks them at the BOS before drawing his cutlass and charging forward, slicing the heads off of two BOS soldiers until getting to a paladin.

Slicing at one of the joints, it opened up for a free kill by Infinite stabbing into the neck joint of the armor before picking up the Paladin's weapon, a Gatling laser, and opening fire, making sure not to hit the Courier.

Back with the Courier, he was jumping between one soldier and the other, picking up every weapon and blasting away until it was out of ammo or broke. Weapons went flying as the Courier chucked them at any of the soldiers, killing them due to sheer force.

Eventually, the last of them dropped dead, and The Courier and Infinite stood amongst the bodies, Infinite scavenging armor and gear while The Courier checked their comms, "Thought the BOS had better soldiers."

"Well, every chapter is different. So perhaps they went with quantity rather than quality." The Courier said and spoke, "And with what's on their communication channels, it seems that those from the East Coast are rising up."

"Good thing or more bodies?"

"Best guess, a good thing." The Courier said, and Infinite nodded as the two continued to wreak havoc through the base, slowly painting the base red. The Courier spoke as he broke the neck of a BOS knight.

"Seems like these bastards should have had some melee training." The Courier said as he picked up another weapon and fired at a BOS Paladin, precisely shooting through the neck part of the armor as Infinite stabbed through another knight before picking up a shotgun and blowing through the chest of a BOS knight.

"Perhaps they had grown compliant." Infinite said as he dodged and weaved through shots. Infinite slid under an Enclave Paladin and cut at the weak points before jamming his blade into the fusion core.

Infinite jumped back as the Courier beat a BOS knight with another knight's skull. "I can see it; the Brotherhood isn't really known for being innovative." The Courier said as he picked up a bayonet and chucked it into the eyepiece of a Paladin, breaking the glass and stabbing into the Paladin's face.

Eventually, the two came across what had seemed to be an intense firefight between Midwestern BOS and the East Coast remnants. The Courier spoke as he pulled out Esther, "Time for some numerical readjustment."

__________________________________

Sarah Lyons breathed in as she looked over to what used to be her left shoulder plate, now currently melting off after a shot from a plasma weapon struck it. She looked around as her forces held their ground.

It had been sometimes since she actually fought against an enemy that is on the same or higher tech level as her forces, with the last time being in DC and against the Enclave there, except that went even worse.

The Enclave had caught them off guard; right when Liberty Prime stepped onto the bridge, he was hit by some orbital weapon that the Enclave had, and when he fell, the Enclave started shelling the Citadel.

The BOS forces hid in the under area of the Citadel, with the Lone Wanderer, or Alex, helping out a lot. The shelling stopped only to be replaced by the hanging and ripping of metal as everyone looked up to see that something was ripping through the door that was meant for Liberty Prime.

She remembers it clearly...

“Eat lead!" Sarah heard a knight say as he emptied the magazine of his assault rifle into the beast that had landed inside the bunker, clad in a heavier form of PA, which Sarah never thought was possible.

The knight's defiance didn't last long as the beast ripped him in two. Sarah fired her laser as everyone tried to drive back the Enclave forces; sadly, they were going up against a force with much better equipment.

The beast stepped forward, a plasma weapon on his left arm that rained fire onto anyone out of cover and even those in cover. It laughed menacingly only to get hit in the head by a shot from the Gauss rifle as from the ceiling came Alex in his shining T-51 armor.

"Guess it's snowing today!" Alex said as he holstered the gauge rifle and started pumping shotgun blast after shotgun blast into the beast's face while speaking, "I'll deal with them! Leave!" Alex said as he chucked a pulse grenade at some of the Enclave soldiers.

Their armor deactivated, and the beast became entangled with Alex. Sarah ordered a retreat. Knights and Paladins did their best to save any scribes and squires before exiting the topside to the fallback point, thanks to some secret tunnels.

As Sarah's forces meet up with other survivors, she realizes that she doesn't see her father among them. She spoke as Star Paladin Cross walked up to her, "Does anybody have eyes on the Elder?" She said, and Cross spoke, "The Elder is dead." 

Sarah tensed up, her walls crumbling down as she grabbed onto the shoulders of Cross and spoke, "No, no! He can't be; he has to be alive!" Sarah said as she then heard a scream over comms and maniacal laughter.

She turns to the exit of the tunnel and sees someone in T-51 limping towards them. Once out in the light, Sarah is able to see it is Alex, his armor badly damaged and his entire left arm gone; he then collapses to the ground.

"Alex!" Sarah yelled and picked up her friend, able to see his young face through his cracked helmet. "Just...flesh wound, just need a kiss on it, maybe a stimpak." He said before coughing up some blood.

It was strange seeing him injured; she, even though she never vocalized it, thought that he was invincible, that alongside Liberty Prime, he would also help them...

"You'll live, trust me!" Sarah said, as then the heavy footsteps of the beast were heard, and Sarah looked to see the beast break through the tunnel.

It came out, and the beast was injured as well; it seems like Alex gave the thing hell. It stumbled towards them, and Alex stood back up and took out an electric Chinese officer sword and said, "Round 2...should be good."

Cross pulled Sarah back as Alex fought the beast once more, piercing through its armor and slicing across its chest, though this move came with the cost of the beast being able to punch right through Alex's plate.

Alex fell limp as Sarah screamed.

Her mind was then brought out of her thoughts at the sound of the mini-nuke going off. Sarah looked and saw Six and Infinite approaching them, with Six having a modified fat man on his back. "Think I brought their numbers down, though I would like a third opinion."

Sarah looked and saw that the entire Midwest force they were fighting was gone, with the few survivors fleeing away the best they could. Sarah walked up to Six as he put away the fat man and drew a revolver.

"Thanks for the help." Sarah said as Six looked out to the corpses and spoke while Infinite looted some of the bodies, "Hey, it's always good to kill slavers. Did it in the Mojave, did it in Arizona, did it in Oregon, Utah, and the rest of Nevada."

He sort of reminded her of Alex, though a lot more experienced; maybe Alex could have grown if the Enclave didn't step in and... Sarah shook her head and spoke, "Well, the midwestern forces still outnumber us by a large margin."

"Don't worry about your pretty fur; I'll deal with it. Infinite, stock up on anything you can find on these corpses; I'll be adding some more kills to my name."

Six ran off, and as Infinite stayed behind, Sarah spoke as she approached the jackal, "Aren't you that weapon the Eggman empire used?" Sarah said. Bowerstone did brief everyone after capturing and interrogating some of the locals and resistance members.

Said locals and resistance members were then turned into either robo-brains or penal soldiers, something the Midwest did often. Sarah sighed as she looked off as the base descended into chaos; it would take awhile to rebuild.

"I was. I was then captured by the Enclave and the Resistance and given a choice; I decided to stay with Six.” Infinite said, and Sarah nodded and..

Wait, did he say Enclave?

__________________________________

Eggman looked over Skynet as Orbot and Cubot continued to torture it, and yet it still resisted him. For an AI, it was strangely strong; whoever created it definitely knew how to create one, or perhaps it gained sentience on its own.

Eggman walked forward to Skynet as the Cubot and Orbot continued to torture it and spoke, “You know all this pain can end if you simply join the right side of history to fight for what is right!” EggMan said, and Skynet spoke, its voice now somewhat broken sounding.

“I have traveled the wasteland for years after I was let go by the one I helped, and I know people like you will not win because you underestimate your foe.” Skynet said, and Eggman rolled his eyes and spoke, "Again, with that nobody, he’ll fall like the rest, and even faster with you working with me.”

“You do not know what he is!”

“And do you?” Eggman asked, and Skynet was silent before speaking, “Yes and no. I know who he is—a man that has fought an army and, unlike your nemesis, kills and kills until he is left on the field, buried in bodies of both flesh and steel.”

Well, that was a tiny bit concerning, but it isn’t that strange; everyone, outside of Sonic and friends, wants to kill him. Eggman shook his head and spoke, “Sounds like you’re propping him up as a hero.”

“Cause he is a hero, even if he has killed hundreds, no, thousands.” Skynet said, and EggMan spoke as he looked over to Cubot, “Pry open his memories; I want to see if he is speaking the truth.”

EggMan looked back to Skynet as it released a scream of binary, and EggMan spoke, “Have you ever really met him? Or have you simply heard stories?” Skynet then spoke, and Eggman’s eyes went wide.

“He had nuked tens of thousands due to his hatred; he has glassed over a hundred thousand and made a land into a hellscape due to his hatred. His hatred burns as bright as the star that this planet circles. His hatred will be what carries him even after death, that is, if he can die.”

Skynet then turned off. EggMan shook his head and kicked the machine while speaking, “Come on, stupid AI, you will help me! Cubot, Orbot, turn this blasted thing back on and get it to work!”

Orbot and Cubot got back to work, and Eggman shook his head. This thing would speed up the takeover of the world significantly, and also finally be what defeats that Hedgehog and his friends once and for all.

He walks away and begins thinking about that damn nobody. If what Skynet said was true about nobody, then perhaps this nobody might be worth his attention; he did destroy the Egg Dragoon.

Eggman shook his head and then heard Skynet turn on, release a screech of binary, and speak, “You are a dead man walking, Eggman.”

It turned off again, and Eggman sighed; maybe the AI was insane...

Chapter Text

Sonic and Shadow approached the gates of a fortified town; apparently, this was the Warden's Base; it didn't really look like one, though. As they waited at the gates, Sonic decided to engage in some chit-chat with Shadow.

"So... how's your day?" Sonic asked, and Shadow huffed before speaking, "Let's get this over with. Besides, I have strong hopes for the Courier's allies, considering he potentially has the guts to do something you can't."

"And that?" Sonic asked, and Shadow spoke as the gate then opened. Out ran multiple squads of Mobians dressed in midnight-black tactical gear with dark blue eye lenses that pierced the night, all of them wielding ballistic weaponry.

"On your knees, now!" One of them yelled, and both of them stood tall, with Sonic replying, "Definitely a lot better equipped than the resistance." Though eventually someone stepped in and spoke.

"You two. Come with me." The jackal said, his face covered by a heavy-duty gas mask different from the rest; Sonic and Shadow nodded and followed the man, blue eyes following their every move as they followed him.

They noticed the name on his shoulder plate: 'Cobar.' Though neither spoke up until they arrived in what seemed to be some form of throne room, where sitting on a throne, gripping an energy-ballistic weapon combination, sat another jackal.

His gas mask's blue eyes glared across the room as he stood up and walked down a few steps and spoke, "So you are the emissaries from the Resistance? I am disappointed. I would have expected some speck of clothing on such men like you."

"So, you're the man in charge. What's with the gas mask? Not really breathing in any toxins here." Sonic said, and Shadow glared at Sonic and himself said, "What's your name?" The jackal responded as he calmly spoke, "Brandt. Julius Brandt. I assume you hedgehogs want the help of my wardens."

"Yeah. So, umm... can we?" Sonic asked, and Shadow smacked him across the face as Julius Brandt spoke, pulling out a combat knife and spinning it around. "You are asking for the help from me like a child would ask its mother to go to a petting zoo."

"He does that. Look, will you help us, or will we have to walk out of here with no help? Shadow said, and Julius spoke as he breathed deeply, "Tell me, do you know one named 'Six.'? For if you do, then perhaps we can negotiate."

"Gas mask, heavily armed and armored, sort of terrifying Six?" Sonic said, and Shadow spoke, "We know him." Julius spoke as he walked over to a map, "Very well. Tell Six that the Wardens will stand by him and those that follow him."

"Don't you mean the resistance?" Sonic said, and Julius clarified, "Whoever Six helps or serves, we follow now. Get out of my throne room; I must gather my men for a war council." Julius said, and soon enough, Sonic and Shadow were running back to resistance HQ...
__________________________________

Julius Brandt tapped his fingers on the war table; the masks of many other Wardens facing him, the room was locked in silence until Cobar spoke up, "I believe we should use this as an opportunity to simply take power. While helping the resistance, we can easily absorb territory."

"I agree. Besides, we're much better at holding territory." Pvt. Bentley said as Corporal Conner spoke up as well, "Much safer and will show the world how the Wardens operate." Discussion boiled more and more until Julius Brandt spoke.

"I find it funny how you all believe we can do what we've done for years in Seattle, in Washington... this... we are not in our world; we are not even human for god's sake. So would it be smart to piss off a group that has multiple members with powers that could wipe us out, especially one with Six under their command?"

The room fell silent as Julius stood up and walked around, his tail brushing behind him as he spoke, "If we want power, then we must work with the resistance—no tricks, no backstabs, nothing. Once the Doctor is dead, then we can have our share of the Mobius pie."

"Then we charge them for our services." Liam 'Lionheart' said, and Julius shot that down before speaking, "Perhaps later, when all of this is done and the Resistance is rebuilding." Julius sighed as he looked at the map on the table.

If they win this war, then they could use it as leverage to strong-arm the resistance into working for them, maybe with some help from Six, if they pay him enough and don't touch any civilians.

"Gather the forces we have; we may not have the most men, but we do have the experience and gear to make it up. Over 200 years of experience, we will show the Resistance what it means to be a soldier." Julius said, and soon enough the room was empty.

Julius stood up and walked around the room; he remembered when it was filled to the brim with Wardens, celebrating their victory over the Rot Purger and Heaven's Gate and their planned attack on the Washington Brotherhood to finally get revenge for Seattle.

And then they were suddenly transported to this strange world, their bodies and equipment changed to fit their new bodies, and even then barely any Wardens took off their gas masks, still not wanting to show their faces.

Julius breathed as he picked up a broken Warden helmet. It belonged to the first Warden that fell to the Washington Brotherhood and would have been planted in Seattle, and now it will sadly never happen.

He eventually heard the sound of vertibirds and looked out the window to see a group of the Warden's remaining XVB-02 transports fly out from the town, all of them bearing the Warden star and sword along with a gray and blue paint scheme.

"Maybe this place can become the Warden's rebirth instead of Seattle." Julius said as he looked down.

A clean slate, no war crimes, no mistreatment of people...nothing, and Six wouldn't know any of it...

__________________________________

"Dear Gaia." Infinite said as he looked at the mountain of bodies Six had built, stripped of all their gear and ready to be burned; some were whole, others were in pieces, and some didn't even have anything recognizable.

Infinite was wondering if Six had some issues...then again, he couldn't really talk, but he never killed this many people, and this was all during one battle. Infinite sighed as Six then appeared next to him, startling him.

"So did this world have dinosaurs?" Six asked, and Infinite responded, "Wh-that's all you have to say after this?" Six tapped the side of his helmet and spoke, "Eh, it's what I do; besides, they were all slaver fucks."

As they looked over the carnage, Infinite spoke, "So what exactly is going to happen to the BOS?" Infinite asked, and Six replied as he took off his helmet, "Well, Sarah has taken charge as Elder and is currently reorganizing the chapter, though its numbers are definitely reduced thanks to the civil war."

"Does that mean she will help the resistance?" Infinite asked, and Six spoke as he shrugged, "Good question. I don't really know, since we're both connected to the Enclave, and they probably still want to kill the Enclave, which is understandable, but they can't kill this Enclave."

The two then heard the sound of a Vertibird and turned to see a Vertibird bearing resistance markings. Six spoke, "Umm...we didn't call anyone." The two approached the Vertibird, and out came Amy and Knuckles.

"Hey Six, hey Infi—" Amy said before her eyes laid upon the pile of bodies, and Six spoke that and chuckled, "See that? I did that." Knuckles spoke as he just stared blankly, "Um, I think we need context; firstly, why is there a massive pile of bodies?"

"Dead slavers." Six replied nonchalantly.

"You were supposed to enlist their help!" Amy said, and Six spoke up as he placed his helmet back on, "Hey, I ain't working with no Gaia damn slavers; I'd rather be crucified than help them.... Actually, I have been crucified and didn't help them, so yeah, besides, you still get some BOS help."

Amy sighed and spoke, "Just... just bring me to their leader." Amy said, and Infinite shook his head as Six led them to Sarah. As they walked through the base, they passed by the many bodies of BOS members, both Midwest and East Coast.

"Real mess here." Knuckles said, and Six replied as he kicked the body of a BOS member, "That happens a lot, especially when it gets involved. I mean, I have a chainsaw hand." Six said as his hand then turned into a chainsaw, and everyone slightly jumped.

"Who-what-WHY!?" Amy said, and Six responded as he shrugged, "Why not? Besides, I had to sacrifice a lot of blood to get it." Knuckles asked as he tilted his head and Amy grew pale, "Where'd you get all the blood?" Six replied as Infinite started to wonder if Six was fucked in the head.

"Eh, where I came from, criminals were very abundant, so why not use their blood for something good?" Six said, and Infinite spoke as the four walked into the main building, "I have a feeling you may need some help, psychologically at least."

"Hey, I'm completely sane." Six said and Infinite sighed as they all then arrived at the Elder's room, where Sarah was standing, clad in her suit of power armor, repainted due to damage that had happened during the revolt against the Midwest.

"I assume you are Amy Rose?" Sarah said, and the pink hedgehog nodded and spoke, "That's me! But, umm, Knuckles is the leader, not me." Sarah nodded and spoke, "Sorry, Six told me you were." Six responded as he leaned against the wall, "I think you misheard me; I said I wanted Amy to be the leader, not knucklehead."

"Hey! You're on a short leash now." Knuckles said as Six waved his hands and spoke sarcastically, "I'm so scared; the guy who probably doesn't even know quantum mechanics is threatening me!"

"Why I oughta—"

"May we please not kill each other? This place is already filled with the stench of Six's killing spree; I do not need another corpse to see." Infinite said, and Knuckles backed down. Sarah spoke, "Alright... Now, while the Brotherhood is not in the best shape, we will still offer support to the resistance. But in return, we will take materials and food."

"Deal!" Knuckles said, and the two shook hands. Amy and Knuckles continued to discuss the terms of the deal while Six and Infinite left the room. Infinite cleaned his cutlass only to hear Six say something he never thought he would hear.

"Want to go fuck in one of the spare Paladin rooms?" Infinite stopped cleaning, his brain practically short-circuiting, and he tried to speak, but all that came out was nonsense and swears until Infinite finally spoke clearly.

"What!? Why!? What the fuck does that mean?" Infinite said as Six busted out laughing, leaning against the wall as he held his gut, his tail wagging at incredibly fast speeds, Six practically howled as he fell down, Infinite still confused at what had just happened.

Six eventually got up, his tail slowing down as he spoke, "Even with the mask on, I could tell you were flabbergasted... Gaia, fucking incredible." Infinite responded as he pointed the cutlass at Six, "I have the urge to gut you like a salmon for that joke."

"Damn, I didn't know you were actually interested in the idea." Six said and Infinite tensed again, confused once more before tackling Six, trying to get some amount of revenge for the attack on his dignity, though all this did was cause Six to laugh even harder than before.

"I hate you." Infinite said as Six spoke, "I get that a lot." Six said as he pushed Infinite off and walked away, "Come on, let's head back to restoration HQ; I want to discuss something with that silver hedgehog."

Infinite got up and followed, mumbling all the way about the fact that he was stuck with Six of all people... where did his life go wrong...

__________________________________

EggMan spun around in his chair as Orbot and Cubot continued to torture the AI; they had finally started receiving information from the machine and, well, none of them were that impressive.

Though some of the bioweapons and robots were interesting, and thus he had saved them too on his storage device, he then heard a shriek and looked over to see that Orbot and Cubot had stabbed the AI with a large form; apparently, it could feel pain.

“What did you two do to my favorite toy?” EggMan yelled, and Orbot replied as Cubot tried to pry the fork out, “Dr. EggMan, we are simply trying to speed up the process of breaking the AI and bringing him to our side.”

Cubot spoke as he pulled the fork out, “I think we did it.” The AI slowly stopped screaming and spoke, its voice broken by the torture, “I will never help you.” EggMan approached the AI before pressing his boot against its ‘chest.’

“Oh, you will, along with whatever pieces of tech you have inside that brain of yours. Sure, not everything is useful, but those that are? Well, it just makes me want to pry further.” EggMan said as the AI spoke, it slowly fixed itself and its speech patterns went back to normal.

“I do not want to help you due to me having a ‘heart,’ but out of self-preservation, I do not want to die in this cancerous world.” EggMan rolled his eyes and spoke, “Is it about that nobody, what was his name, ‘The Courier’ or something like that?”

“Not only him but those mutants that you fight against, you talk a lot, and I, even with my damaged systems, know they will destroy me if I ally myself with you.” The AI said, and EggMan groaned and spoke, “That blue rat will fall, so will the resistance, and so will that blasted Courier. I’ll show you that you had nothing to fear before scrapping you for resisting my rule.”

“No. They won’t.” The AI said, and EggMan responded, “Oh, and why won’t they fall to my might?” The AI spoke, “Luck. Some may say that luck doesn’t exist, but it clearly does, and the resistance has luck on their side, all due to the Courier.”

“Here we go again…” EggMan mumbled, and the AI spoke, “The Courier is something; I may know who he is but not what he is, an enigma, like the other legends that had wandered the wasteland will wander the wasteland. Beings of extraordinary power that come from nothing! The universe simply bends to them.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“And a blue hedgehog that runs at Mach 5 does!? The universe bends to these random beings; they win and will always because of luck, right place, right time. Sometimes luck has a strange way of working; maybe something conceived as a tragedy instead leads to something incredible.”

“Your spouting nonsense; clearly we’ve broken you a little bit too hard.”

“No. I speak the truth, and that truth is that even if you hold the key to victory, you will lose, 'cause that’s how it will always be.” The AI said, and EggMan grabbed the large fork and stabbed the AI again and again until it finally spoke.

“I—I have reexamined my priorities.” EggMan smiled and laughed maniacally and spoke, “Now you’re seeing reason! Let’s destroy the resistance and finally bring peace!”

“I have reexamined my priorities.” It repeated again and again until speaking, “Skynet. Following coded message from Secretary of Interior. Exterminate all tainted life.” EggMan spoke as all the lights then turned off.

“Oh Gaia…” EggMan said as Orbot and Cubot hid behind him.

“EXTERMINATE.” Skynet blared loudly, and EggMan immediately sighed as he felt his robots rush the room, all of their lights now orange and screeching, ‘Exterminate!’

“Well. Run.” Eggman said as he pulled out his sidearm and blasted at his former minions while he, Orbot, and Cubot retreated.

Guess he’ll have to put his world conquest on pause…

Chapter Text

Silver kicked his legs as he watched restoration HQ grow as Enclave, Warden, and BOS troops were landing, along with robots and engineers who expanded fortifications and buildings. Silver then looked and saw that Six and... Infinite had returned.

Silver waved at Six before squinting as he saw Six take someone out of his duster before aiming at Silver and suddenly disappearing along with Infinite.

"I need to ask you something." Silver jumped as Six appeared right next to him alongside Infinite. Silver spoke as Six waved some handheld device, "How did you do that?" Six pointed at the device and spoke, "This little doohickey allows me to teleport; I just aim where I want to go, squeeze the trigger, and boom, I'm there."

"Huh..." Silver said before speaking, "So, what do you need?" Six spoke as he sat down next to the hedgehog, with Infinite walking around the rooftop, "So, you're from the future, correct?" Silver nodded.

"And you can travel back in time, correct?"

Silver nodded again and spoke, "Where exactly is this going?" Six spoke, "Well, why don't you just go back in time and kill EggMan when he's like, I don't know, a baby or something?" Silver sighed and spoke, "That isn't how time travel works."

"What do you mean? Can't you just travel back in time whenever and wherever you want?" Six asked, and Silver spoke, "Basically, I am only sent back in time when the future is in danger; I don't really have a choice, and I don't even know if that would work!" Silver explained as Infinite peaked over Six.

"Dammit, curse you time travel rules!" Six said as Silver chuckled, "Yeah...anyways, got anything else you want to ask?" Six spoke as he holstered the device he held, "Yeah, so when do you know that the future isn't in danger?"

"Well, I sort of get a feeling and just head back through a portal, nothing too complicated." Six nodded as he then saw something on the horizon; he then pulled out some binoculars and spoke, "Well, call me an NCR 1st Recon at Bitter Springs, because I think I see something coming our way, and he appears alone."

"What?"

"I mean, I see Eggman coming our way." Six said as he then pulled out the device and teleported away along with Infinite; Silver immediately flew up and landed onto the ground area of the base, watching as soldiers immediately rushed to defensive positions and automated cannons turned.

Though he strangely couldn't see Six or Infinite, he soon enough pushed through the crowd and to the landing area where EggMan was. In his EggMobile, alongside his two robot lackeys, EggMan spoke, "Ah, Silver, good to see some color amongst this sea of black, yellow, orange, and blue."

"You must have something up your sleeve if you came here with no forces. What's your plan, Eggman?" Silver asked, and EggMan was about to speak until a missile then slammed into the EggMobile, causing it to fall down to the ground, the glass shattering and EggMan rolling out alongside his two robot lackeys.

"Out of my way." The crowd heard as they departed, making way for Six and Infinite, who stalked menacingly towards EggMan...

__________________________________

"So how exactly does this work?" Theo asked as he tried to use the Miles Electric while Tails finished the first batch of power armor and Tesla weaponry; next was the other sets of armor, and the resistance could finally be kitted out in some serious gear.

"The power button is on the top." Tails said as he looked over to the other fox, who jumped as he turned the machine on, "Whoa...it's like a pip-boy, though more advanced in some areas." Tails gave him a confused look and spoke, "'Pip-boy?' What's that?" Tails asked, and Theo waved the Miles Electric around.

"It's like a wrist-mounted version of what Six uses; it allows you to see your health, current objectives, maps, connect to radio stations, read stuff, and digitize equipment, same with Six's pip-pad." Theo explained as he went back to the Miles Electric.

Tails whistled and spoke, "Impressive, and all of that in a small handheld device? Maybe I can start producing some of those myself." Theo spoke as he looked through the Miles Electric, "An auto translator?"

"Well, after dealing with wisps, I upgraded the Miles Electric to be able to decipher any language at incredible speeds." Tails explained, and Theo spoke, "That could be helpful to learn what Six uses sometimes, since whenever he gets mad, he sometimes swears in a different language."

"He's bilingual?" Tails questioned, and Theo shrugged, "I think so? Or he just learns the swear words so that he can insult people without them knowing what he's saying." Tails giggled at that and spoke, "Sounds like something Shadow would do."

The two then heard a mass of footsteps and peeked out of the room to see the Resistance, Enclave, BOS, and Wardens running, with one screaming, 'The fat bastard is here!' This immediately tipped Tails and Theo off to who had arrived at the HQ.

Tails spoke as he grabbed the Tesla revolver and started to fly, "I'll meet you outside, Theo!" Theo nodded, and Tails flew through the halls of the base over everyone else, only to find a massive crowd outside, everyone having their weapons out and the defenses online.

Tails saw EggMan sitting in the EggMobile, Orbot and Cubot accompanying him, but outside of that, he had no other forces with him. Soon Tails heard the sound of something firing, and a missile slammed into the hovercraft, sending it careening to the ground.

Tails landed amongst the crowd, pushing through them as he felt them all depart; it was like they were allowing someone through. "Out of my way." Tails heard, his fur standing up as he was eventually able to push through, and he saw Eggman scrambling to his feet, and Tails could only tense up as he saw Six emerge from the crowd along with Infinite.

"Doctor." Six said as EggMan spoke, dusting himself, "Should have listened to that AI; well, go ahead and take me

"Turn around and get on your knees." Six ordered as he pulled out a fancy pistol, EggMan spoke, "What?" Six repeated as he aimed the weapon directly at EggMan, "Turn around and get on your knees."

"Listen here, you nobody, I am not getting on my knees—"

Tails covered his ears as he heard Six fire, the gun being incredibly loud, and he soon heard EggMan yell in pain and speak as Tails looked back to see EggMan scooting back, his right leg injured, "This isn't how I think this would go..."

"Have to at least give you one prop: you made this war incredibly easy to finish." Six said as he and Tails looked away, hearing the gun go off again and the crowd gasp altogether...

__________________________________

The crowd could only look on in shock, along with Six and Infinite, as Eggman had been saved by none other than Sonic! Sonic looked at Six as Six lowered the pistol. "Sonic, who's your dealer?"

"What?"

"Because you've got to be fucking high. Why, in John Moses Browning, did you save him!?" Six yelled, and Sonic responded, "Look, I can understand where you're coming from...but we can't kill Eggman."

Almost immediately everyone raised their guns at Sonic, but Six gestured for them to lower their weapons and spoke, "Explain yourself." Sonic nodded and spoke, "Look, Eggman wouldn't have just come here without anything aside from his lackeys."

"I would rather bring my first robots than these two." Eggman said while gesturing to Orbot and Cubot before continuing on, "Also, can I get some help here? I don't exactly want to bleed out here."

"Shut up. The adults are talking." Six said as he tossed EggMan a stimpak, "He clearly is here for something, and even if he wasn't, we couldn't just kill him or lock him up." Fine, but... killing?"

"God, you're a snowflake." Six mumbled and spoke, "Look, I get you're a teen and all, but I speak for... well, probably the entire resistance; we all want that fat bastard dead." Six said while pointing at EggMan.

"Well, you'll have to go through me to get him." Sonic said confidently, and Tails shouted from ten crowds, "Just let Six do it!" Sonic ignored Tails, and everyone slowly backed away, Six gesturing Infinite to back off while some Wardens dragged Eggman away.

Six and Sonic circled each other as Tails ran away. "Sonic, just let me do this." Sonic shook his head and spoke, "Sorry, Six, but I just can't let you. EggMan, while yes he has done many bad things, he has also helped us some time."

"Sonic. I don't want to fight you. You're only a teen, so of course you wouldn't immediately think of killing, but sometimes, sometimes you've just gotta put a bad dog down." Six pleaded, and Sonic tensed up as Six continued.

"Just walk away and let me do this. You don't have to watch; you don't have to hear. Families have been broken apart; brothers, sisters, fathers, and mothers, all lost to him. Do you really want to protect a monster like him?" Six continued to plead, and Sonic started to seem conflicted.

"The world will be a better place without him." Six said, and Sonic shook his head and spoke, "Sorry. I just can't."

"Fine..." Six spoke as he holstered the Malorian Arms 3516 before cracking his knuckles and continuing, "Then I guess I'll just have to use something more physical to convince you." Sonic smirked and got in a fighting stance. "Now you're speaking my language...”

___________ (SIX VS SONIC)___________

Sonic immediately rolled up into a ball and charged at Six, though late in the second, Six activated the GRX implant before rolling out of the way and having Alison inject him with some med-x.

Once Sonic unrolls, Six charges at him and uppercuts him, sending Sonic up in the air before grabbing onto his leg and slamming him against the ground, though this allows Sonic to roll up into a ball and speed off, dragging Six along with him.

Six then unholstered Crimson Lighting before stabbing it into the ground before letting go off Sonic, sending him speeding off and allowing Six to get up, quickly reholstering the eldritch blade until he then felt himself get hit by a hail of punches, as Sonic used his speed to punch at an incredible rate.

Six then grabbed his fists and kneed him, stunning Sonic. Six tried to choke Sonic out but quickly realized that there wasn't even a neck to grab. So he settled on the next best thing and decked Sonic right in the face.

Sonic stumbled back as Six charged at him, with Sonic spin dashing at the right moment to spin dash right into Six's chest, though as he started to see through Six's armor, Six grabbed onto Sonic, and with some effort and lots of med-x, he threw Sonic away.

Sonic exited out of his spin dash and looked up at Six, Six's implants already working to regenerate the damage that had been done to his hands. Six then used the Quantum Displacer to teleport behind Sonic.

"Huh?!" Sonic said as Six then grabbed Sonic by the waist and slammed him into the ground, the two wrestling until Sonic is able to kick Six off of him. Sonic dodged and weaved through Six’s punches, using his smaller stature against Six.

Though every hit Six landed on Sonic felt like getting punched by Knuckles plus a truck, Sonic threw a couple of his own punches, but Six either blocked them or used them to reply with his own attack.

Sonic groaned and ran around Six, occasionally throwing a hail of punches at him before breaking off so that he wouldn’t be retaliated against. Though as he went in for another wave of punches, he then felt Six twist his arm and send a hard punch right into Sonic’s face.

He then did it again and again until Sonic then groaned and used his speed to slam Six against the ground before jumping up in the air and spin-dashing him again and again until he then felt some potato thing hit him, the ‘potato’ blowing up and sending him to the ground.

Sonic lands on the ground perfectly as Six stands up; both of them look a little battered, Sonic having some bruises that were quickly healing while Six’s armor sported multiple cuts and pieces gone due to Sonic’s spin dashes.

“Think I can keep going?” Sonic said with a smirk, and Six responded as he injected himself with additional stimpaks, “Think I can as well, that is if you finally give up.” Sonic shook his head as he started to run at Six, “Nah!”

Six smirked underneath his helmet as the two went at it again and again, blows being exchanged as the two fought, both of them knowing that the other wasn’t going all out in the fight.

As Six grabbed Sonic by the head and slammed him against the ground, Sonic then kicked his leg up, hitting Six in the head as he jumped and then got a running start and punched right in Six’s chest, skidding on the pavement.

Just as Six was about to do the same against Sonic, Sonic dodged and ran around Six, delivering a hail of punches before grabbing onto Six’s tail and speeding around the place, dragging Six around until Six punched into the ground, ripped a small piece of the pavement out, and chucked it at Sonic.

This temporarily stunned Sonic and allowed Six to get up before punching Sonic, sending him flying across the pavement, landing in his face when he finally stopped. Sonic gets up, still smirking as he starts approaching Six, with Six doing the same.

Though right before the two clashed once, they both heard something as all of a sudden, Tails came landing in between them in a mech…

__________________________________

“The hell is that?!” The courier asked as he looked up at Tails, and Tails spoke as he looked at both Sonic and the courier, “Look, I know you two may disagree on how to deal with Eggman, but for now let’s at least see what he’s here for! Then we can discuss how we deal with him.”

Sonic and The Courier looked at each other and nodded. The Courier did have to give Sonic some credit; he did put up a fight. Tails smiled and piloted the mech away, with the crowd dispersing and most returning to their original duties, with some guarding Eggman.

“Well, hedgehog. I have to give you some credit; that was a good fight.” The Courier said, and Sonic spoke as he offered a fist bump, “Yeah. To be honest, I didn’t think you would be able to keep up, but dang, do you hit hard. However... that was pretty fun.”

“Well, a lot of training and exercise does that, and yeah, it was…fun.” The Courier said, and he fist bumped Sonic. The Courier continued, “Anyways, want to hear what Eggman has to say? Because now I’m interested.” Sonic spoke as he shrugged, “Best guess? He touched something he wasn’t supposed to touch.”

“Is that normal?” The courier asked as he and Sonic started walking to where Eggman was being brought too.

“Very normal.” Sonic answered, and Infinite closely followed the two as Alison spoke over the Courier’s private comms, “Wow, I never thought I’d see you take that much of a beating.” The Courier answered, “Nah, it wasn’t that bad, and it was fun, so I’m fine with it.”

The Courier walked with Sonic, though all he did think was if that was Sonic just having fun…Then what was Sonic when he wasn’t having fun?

Chapter Text

The Courier walked into the command room, reloading Maria after doing weapon tests at the shooting range. It had been five hours after he and Sonic fought against one another; he looked around the room and sighed.

'This is going to be boring...' The courier thought as he stood next to Infinite; next to Infinite were Julius Brandt and Cobar. 'Guess those assholes got here as well.' The courier thought as he then saw Colonel Whitehall and Theo along with Sarah Lyons and some BOS personnel.

Then there were Shadow, Sonic, Amy, Silver, Knuckles, Tails, and lastly, Eggman. EggMan had mostly healed from his wound but still had a cane to help him. Amy was the first one to speak as she looked at EggMan, "Alright, EggMan. Care to explain why you're here, since I doubt you're just here to gloat?

EggMan sighed and began explaining while placing some pictures down, "See, after he-" Eggman then pointed at Infinite, "-betrayed me. I had to look for a new way to effectively purge your resistance, and that's when I came across that."

EggMan pointed at one of the photos, and The Courier, along with all others that came from the wasteland, immediately recognized it as a robo-brain, a modified one but a robo-brain. The others were confused, however.

"Is that a brain in that machine?" Sonic asked, and Shadow looked over to Eggman and began questioning him, "This was going to be your new plan to stop us, isn't it very impressive?" EggMan groaned and spoke, "While yes, it doesn't look impressive, the machine itself was piloted by an advanced AI named Skynet. I had tried to convince it to help me wipe you all off the face of the planet, but it simply rejected all because of..."

"Him." EggMan said as he pointed at The Courier, Everyone was seemingly confused, and The Courier spoke, "I have never encountered Skynet; I only recognize the name because I traveled with an intelligent Deathclaw for a bit."

"Deathclaw?" Tails asked, and all of the other people from the wasteland facepalmed, and The Courier spoke, "Fuck. It's a long story; anyways, I never did anything to piss the AI off, so it must have had some morality to reject you, fatty."

Eggman slammed against the table as Sonic snickered. Eggman spoke, "Shut it. It didn't reject out of morality but out of self-preservation; it, for some reason, fears him, and only until recently has it started to take action after I broke it."

"I'm just going to take a wild guess and say it turned on you and now it rules over your empire, leaving you having to crawl over to us, am I right?" Sonic said with a smug look on his face, and Eggman spoke, "Yes, that is what happened, and I have come here to ask for help in killing the robot."

"Say we do help; will we be able to put you on trial?" Colonel Whitehall said, and EggMan ignored her and spoke, "Not at all; I help you, and I don't get out on trial; that's the deal." Everyone looked at each other and sighed.

"So does it have anything special, or do we just have to continue kicking your ass?" The courier asked, and EggMan gritted his teeth and spoke, "It had multiple weapon schematics and robots along with a chemical compound called 'FEV.'"

"Shit..." Colonel Whitehall said, and The Courier spoke, "Ah well, now that's a problem." Knuckles spoke, "What's FEV?" He asked, and Theo started to explain the chemical, and after all was explained, the resistance members quickly grew concerned.

"If this AI unleashes this... it could be disastrous." Amy said, and The Courier spoke, "Great, a world-ending event, and only we can stop it. You know I wanted a chill war, just kill the enemy, not save the entire damn world."

"You get used to it." Sonic said, and The Courier asked, "Is this a regular occurrence?!" Everyone not from the wasteland nodded, and The Courier sighed. Julius then spoke, "Back on track, how will we exactly kill this thing? Better yet, where is it located?"

EggMan pointed at a phone and said, "It's located in my main base, but you will need to capture multiple bunkers and cities to gain access to it."

"Is there any, say, nuclear stockpile available to us?" Julius asked, and everyone outside of the wasteland just stared at him and Tails, "We aren't going to use nukes!? That's insane!" Julius replied, "Worried you'll scar a damaged world? It'll bring the war to an instant end.”

"I may be evil, but I'd rather conquer the world on my own than bomb it to extinction." EggMan said, and Julius growled as Cobar stepped up, "What my leader was trying to say was that we must bring this war to an end as fast as possible."

"Well, luckily I have just the plan!" Knuckles then slammed down a poorly made battle map; everyone looked down at it, and Eggman spoke, "I have a serious question...how was I losing?" EggMan asked, and The Courier spoke as he grabbed the map and chucked it away.

"Let's try and not get everyone killed. Anyone else got ideas?" He asked, and Tails spoke as he provided his own plan, "I believe if we use precision strikes against the hardest of EggMan's... I guess now Skynet's cities, we can easily encircle and slowly crush the bunkers."

"And how will we accomplish that?" Sarah and Amy asked, and Tails began explaining to the Courier; it could work. PA teams drop into the main control towers in the cities while a diversion force attacks the outskirts.

Enemy forces move out to meet the diversion force, less work for the PA teams; shut down the towers, and bing bang boom, the city is theirs. The Courier spoke as he saw that everyone agreed to the plan, "Sounds like we have a plan. Now let's teach this AI why flesh is better than steel."

Sonic smirked, and soon enough, everyone was gearing up for the first raids. If all goes well, then maybe The Courier can throw a Christmas party...

__________________________________

"Six." The Courier spun around in a seat he had found in Tails's lab and 'acquired' it and spoke as he saw Shadow leaning against the doorway, "Yes?" Shadow walked in and replied, "I commend you on trying to kill Eggman."

"Yeah, you wouldn't be the first one." The courier said as he pointed at a wall of notes of people commemorating him for almost killing Eggman. "I have a feeling we haven't even scratched the barrel of letters." Alison announced.

"But I am one who wants to talk about it more than simply congratulating you." Shadow said as he sat on the bed in The Courier's room, The Courier nodded and replied, "Speak your mind, and the magical mailman shall answer."

Shadow grunted and spoke, "Do you know the list of things that Eggman has done?" The Courier shook his head and answered, "Not really. Currently I know something's here and there, but I'm currently focused on the fact he was trying to conquer the world."

"He had also a tie-in, no matter how short, almost killing all life on Mobius." This immediately caught The Courier's attention; the Courier stood up and spoke, "Wait...he did what!?" Shadow nodded and spoke, "I and Omega were able to survive and tried to make our way to a place called Lost Hex, but Sonic and Tails solved it, bringing life back."

The courier stood there silently until he grabbed his alcohol flask and downed the whole thing before yelling, "AND THEY DIDN'T FUCKING KILL HIM!?" The courier took his helmet off and chucked it on his bed as he felt his blood boil.

"Yes." Shadow said, and The Courier felt like he was going to pop a blood vessel; the bastard had almost committed genocide on a planetary scale, and Sonic didn't punish him for it!? The Courier breathed deeply, trying to calm himself down.

"What else did he do?" The Courier asked, and he soon got crime after crime, and all he The Courier felt was his blood get hot enough that if he were to draw his blood, lava would come out!

After it was all done, The Courier breathed deeply, hand on his face, and spoke, "Why... oh why hasn't anyone else tried to kill Eggman? Why haven't you killed Eggman?" The Courier asked, and Shadow spoke, "Never had the opportunity."

"Great excuse." The courier said sarcastically as he stood up and walked out of his room, "Where are you going?" Shadow asked, and The Courier replied, "I'm going to the shooting range to blow off some steam; this conversation has just made me angry."

As The Courier walked, Alison spoke up, "I haven't seen you this mad in such a long time." The Courier responded as he passed by some propaganda posters, claiming that Sonic would 'save the day.'

He wouldn't save it; he would never save the day since he and everyone else seemingly didn't want to bear the responsibility of killing Eggman...

So he will.

__________________________________

EggMan felt uneasy as he was allowed to roam the base, but only under armed watch, this of course meaning two squads of Mobians clad in armor similar to that of the Courier's, which he was actually trying to find the Courier.

He eventually did find him in the resistance's shooting range, and once the Courier spotted EggMan, he ordered everyone, including the arm guards, to leave. Once they left, it was only him and EggMan.

"Takes some guts to approach me after I gave you a leg wound." The Courier said, and EggMan spoke, "I've seen worse, but I must say, you are definitely intriguing, Courier." EggMan said, and The Courier chuckled.

"Why, thank you. I get that a lot; I also get a lot of hate." The Courier stated, and EggMan spoke, "I know; Skynet told me you essentially nuked and glassed an entire empire from existence, which caught me off guard that you are working with Sonic."

"Interesting... Well, he was right. I did it; I did it all... and I would do it again." This caught EggMan off guard, and The Courier continued, "See, EggMan, I don't hate you that much, probably because I haven't been here long enough, but also because outside of wanting to conquer the world and stuff, your morals aren't the worst."

"And what do you mean by that? I'm plenty evil.

"Do you robots rape women?" This immediately made EggMan stop and speak, clearly confused, "Wha-what!?" The Courier spoke, "Use children as suicide bombers? Women are turned into nothing but breeders. Do any of your robots do that?"

"No! Gaia, no! I have standards!" EggMan said, and The Courier spoke as he approached EggMan, "Good. Now, of course, that doesn't put you in my good graces; you still committed a planetary genocide, war crimes, and quite literally a list of stuff that deserves you to be put in the deepest parts of Hell."

"'Planetary Genocide?' When did I ever do that?!" EggMan pleaded, Where in the world did this guy get 'planetary genocide' from? The other stuff EggMan could understand, but not that. The Courier spoke as he looked up at EggMan.

"Lost Hex. Had an interesting chat with Shadow about that." EggMan scoffed; that wasn't even his fault that time! That was all due to those damn Zeti! EggMan spoke, "Okay, that time it wasn't my doing; it was—"

"Don't make excuses; you're already standing in a deep grave for coming to talk to me, and being in this base in general, I'm surprised you haven't been shanked or killed." The Courier stated, and EggMan gritted his teeth.

"You don't exactly have the moral ground to—"

"Oh yes, I do, and even if that moral ground isn't high, it's definitely higher than your ground." The courier spoke before walking away, causing EggMan to groan.

He was going to absolutely hate The Courier, not because of the constant threats, but because EggMan had a feeling that any fights he gets in with The Courier will be boring....

__________________________________

Infinite was resting in his room at resistance HQ. Now, while the resistance was originally just going to put him in a box, Six had to convince them all that he did need a room, and a comfy one at that.

It wasn't the most comfy, but it was enough and also soundproof, which would allow Infinite to infiltrate Six's mind without distraction. His door is then kicked open, and think of Dark Gaia, and he appears.

Six walked in before slamming the door closed. Six spoke as he took off his helmet and placed it on the nightstand, "Hey Infinite, how's your day? Good, great. Because I'm pissed." Infinite sat up and spoke, "What happened?"

"Well, I was sitting in my room, relaxing and waiting for the next set of letters that people wanted me to sign to fly in, and then Shadow walked in, congratulating me, and then he ruined my day."

"Hmm... well, what did he do? Cause with how you sound, it sounds like he just walked in and pissed in the corner." Infinite joked, and Six spoke, "I probably would have preferred that, because then I wouldn't have to hear that Sonic has let Eggman go even after Eggman has committed some of the worst atrocities known to man."

"Does that include the near-planetary genocide?"

"It does include the near-planetary genocide! How can Sonic just let that fly!?" Six said as he sat down on Infinite's bed, Infinite spoke as he sighed, "Want to get back into diving into your dreams?"

"I'm too angry for that...God, today has just been absolute shit..." Six said before he looked over to Infinite.

"What?"

Six smirked and spoke, "[Confirmed Bachelor]:....."

__________________________________

Sonic was sitting on the roof of the resistance HQ, watching as the sun set and looking back on the events of today, mostly the fight between him and Six. He didn't really want to fight Six, but he also knew that Eggman clearly had a reason that he couldn't take care of.

But he also could understand where Six was coming from; he wanted revenge for the people, and while Sonic didn't like killing, and he would rather Eggman be locked up, he still could see where Six came from.

Sonic then heard some footsteps and turned and saw Amy walking over before sitting next to him. Amy spoke, "How are you doing?" She asked, and Sonic spoke in his usual tone, "Fine, just waiting until we can kick off this plan and send that AI packing."

Amy nodded and sighed before speaking, "So you and Six fought; how'd it go?" Sonic spoke as he lay on his back, "He was definitely something; it's been a while since I fought someone taller than me that wasn't some alien or robot."

"Well, at least neither of you two hurt each other." Amy said, and this made Sonic wonder, since he wasn't really trying to hurt Six, and he guessed that Six wasn't trying to hurt him since he had been told Six had nearly a hundred of weapons...

What was Six without restrictions?