» Sat May 28, 2011 3:53 am My final challenge was upon me, i was blindfolded and was walked a long time until i had no idea where i was. The cloth was ripped off my eyes, and the setting sun overloaded my eyes, i kept blinking until my eyes adjusted to the setting sun. I had no idea where i was, even though tenpenny tower was clearly visible behind me. in front of me was a sight, a flat piece of land about 100 feet long, on once side was myself, on the other was a full squad of Outcasts in full armor, about 5 of them. my squad if i passed the final test, if i failed, three more months of training. i couldn't give up now. on the other side of the field, one of the soldiers walked 10 feet forward and took off his helmet, it was Paladin Matthews, head of gamma squad.
Screaming at the top of his lungs, he explained "alright dirt-eater, your task is simple, pass or fail. Your objective is to cross this field and pick up this flag next to me, your time starts now"
So my trial began, i knew something must of been waiting for me, so i took it easy, one step at a time, the problem was one step was all it took. three Mr. gutsy's came flying out of nowhere, all painted with the usual outcast black and reds. i was relieved to see that their plasma weapons replaced, but only with BB guns, they were still going to hurt, their flamethrowers were still on, but it looked like they were disabled. they still looked dangerous. i started walking forward, breathing slowly and following my training, assess and act, and that is just what i did, running as fast i could, i headed for the gutsy's at full speed, the three stood motionless until i was 20 feet away, two of them started to volley a round of BB's at me, stinging my skin, but i tried to ignore them, still running. the other gutsy came straight at me, faster then I've ever seen a gutsy move. i barely had time to change course right as the gutsy passed me, but i didn't see one of the arms near the ground trailing the chassis, and lifting up right as i passed. the arm hit my leg and i lost control, falling forward and landing in one of the conveniently placed dead bushes of the wastes. all while the BB's were still firing at me. I slowly got to my feet and looked for the three gutsy's. all of them were at the far end of the field, BB guns aimed straight for me. As i got to my feet, a low rumble started to sound, something was wrong because the squad was looking around and from what i could tell, had worried faces behind the Power armor helmets. under the setting sun, a shape was coming fast from the north, it was a vertibird, and enclave vertibird, and i was in the middle of a field with my shirt and boxers on.
"GET DOWN, Get the hell down" Matthews screamed. the whole squad fell on their stomachs, in their black armor they looked like rocks in the setting sun, but i was a bright pink spot in the middle of nowhere, so i started to throw dirt on my self, trying anything to hide myself, the sweat of my body clinging to the dirt on my skin made it sticky to more dirt, but i had no idea if it was enough i just dug my head in the dirt and hoped to atom that i would not die. But the vertibird passed right over us, just making a lot of dust as it made for its destination. we were safe.
As i began to dust my self off, i was looking at Matthews to see if the test was still on. but he was not looking at me, he was looking at the gutsy's, who's eyes turned the emergency red as the vertibird passed. they didn't switch off as the vertibird left though, they just turned and look at me, with that read gleam in the 9 eyes staring at me, their flamethrowers turned toward my un-armored body. They spread out covering the field perfectly, turned on their flamethrowers, and rushed toward me, a wall of death was coming at me. This was no joke anymore, they wanted to kill me, my training kicked in instantly. and i laid down on the ground belly up, ready to see if this would work. They were almost on me, ten feet, five feet, one foot, BAM, I forgot about their thruster jets, one happened to cross my chest, leaving a red mark that would start to sear in a few seconds, but there was no time to cry out, for as soon as they passed over me, i jumped out, and grabbed one of the trailing arms, i was instantly tugged along with the gutsy, and i began to slow down the metal beast, it was like trying to move power armor, so instead i began to rotate the gutsy, turning the deadly fire towards the other robots, the flame made contact another gutsy with a hiss of steam, the paint of the now burning robot began to bubble and soon melt, both robots stopped instantly and turned toward each other, i ran as fast as i possibly could away from the burning hunks of metal. as i ran away from the death machines, the voice of Paladin Matthews was heard over the hiss of the flamethrower, he was yelling at me to get down, so i dropped as fast i could. It was a good choice too, because a missile came flying over my head, destroying the robots completely and throwing shrapnel all over the field. i slowly got up and fire raced across my back , looking around, a large piece of metal was in my back, right under the arm, and it was burning, burning fast. my vision was getting darker and darker as i saw my fellow Outcasts rush to my aid, putting out the fire, giving me a few stimpacks. but the darkness kept coming, just before i was about to pass out completly, i felt somthing in my hand, it was the flagpole, standing over it was Matthews. "Hell of a job soldier" he said as i blacked out completely.
) from this I'm assuming they're all from the Outcasts in which case they don't use the same ranks as the BoS, so a Paladin is in fact a Protector. Just a small thing. 