5/5 for sure

Pulse & No Pulse

Burke: the man that has more deaths on his name then the entire Deathclaw population.
He doesn’t care for lives, never had.
And he’s right here, right in our hands. He’s mine and I am going to kill him all sorts of deaths.
“I don’t hold myself responsible for all those deaths at Megaton anymore Burke.
I know now that if it wasn’t for you, they would all be still alive.”

Burke’s face suddenly freezes.
“You! You’re Barren aren’t you?
What do I have to do to get you killed?
I’ve sent the entire Regulator and Enclave community after you,
But here you are, still breathing.”

“How you like my new camouflage Burke?”
I try not to let my anger get a hold over me.
His eyes scan my appearance, arrogantly.
“I only see the face of a man whose life is ending.”
Our eyes get caught in a staring contest.

“What’s your motive Burke?”
I decide to cut to the chase.
“Why do you join the enclave, what is in it for you?”
Burke raises his eyebrows.
“You haven’t figured out yet? I took you for a smart one, but I guess I mistook.”

“Power boy, just raw unrestrained power.
I couldn’t return to Tenpenny, after your little massacre.
The enclave gave me whatever I needed, as long as I pretended to follow orders.
And when that Colonel what’s-his-name didn’t,
I took my chance and disposed of him in order to get in his position.
So you are looking at Colonel Burke now. Enjoy while you can.”
And with that sentence, Burke’s eyes widen quickly.
He grabs two armed grenades from his back and throws them in front of him.

I grab Roo by the arm and jump for cover, pulling him with me.
Fincher does the same, but Kemar missteps and rolls down the stairs from the platform.
A Pair of pulse grenades go off right in front us.
The electro magnetic pulse tickles my body, but doesn’t hurt.
The high pitched sound echoes in my head as I see Burke running for the exit.

I have to take priorities, so I run towards Kemar as quickly as I can.
Fincher’s gotten to him before me, and luckily Kemar stands up without too many injuries.
“That’s a close one.” Kemar states.
“Well, it wasn’t.” I reply. “He threw pulse grenades. He just wanted to escape from us.”
“That bastard.” Fincher mumbled while climbing back up the stairs.

Back on the platform, I notice Roo pinning a note on one of the dead bodyguards.
Fear The Defenders
I don’t know if it’s a good idea, claiming the deaths of our enemies.
But it'll sure as hell upset them, so I’m not arguing.

Everyone knows it’s foolish to go after ‘Colonel’ Burke now.
Everyone except for Roo, who is giving it a thought, but I shake my head.
“He’s probably set up a ton of traps by now.
If we’d go in, it would be suicide. Apart from that, we’ve got more important things to attend to.”
I’m proud of myself, letting him go, after months of pursuit.
I’ll get him eventually though.

Back on the road to the Statesman, I can’t help thinking about Burkes motives.
A man of his calibre can prove to be quite a threat.
First things first, we need to get to the statesman Hotel quickly,
because I don’t know how much time we have left.
For all we know, Donovan could be dead by now.

Our journey through the tunnels goes extremely well.
Every now and then we find a Super mutant or Mirelurk lying dead on the floor.
Most of the time they’ve got only one well placed shot between their eyes.
It keeps me wondering how many of us Burke would have killed, before we could get him down.

There’s light at the end of the tunnel, and within a few more minutes, we find ourselves back outside.
The light is bright and blinds me momentarily, but the letters in front of me are very distinct:
Statesman Hotel
A twelve story high building right in the ruins of the D.C.
There’s a big tear right in the middle, as if a giant struck it with his enormous axe.

The place is abandoned for one Super Mutant guarding the front entrance.
He spots us quickly and decides that he’s outnumbered.
He turns around, but before he reaches the doorknob, his head explodes by the blast of Fincher’s Sniper rifle.
As we step over the blood gusting mutant, we open the door and find ourselves directly in a fight.

The first thing I notice is a woman with a short sergeant haircut emptying her Minigun on a pack of oversized Super Mutants.
She screams whilst shooting, not because she’s getting hit, but because she apparently loves it.
I get my hunting rifle from my belt as fast as I can and join the fight.
Fincher and Kemar already have their weapons in position and soon the place is filled with bullets.

The super sized Super Mutants appear to be bulletproof.
But as soon as Roo throws a grenade towards him,
Fincher puts a well placed bullet in it the moment it reaches the mutant’s face.
He goes down and leaves the floor trembling under his weight.
There are three more of these monsters, which seem to have developed a bloodlust for human.

Their weapons are something I haven’t seen before.
The lasers go in all directions and it’s hard not to get hit by them.
We take cover behind some broken walls and old wooden tables.
As I’m hiding in an old elevator, I hear a deep low breathing voice besides me.
I look next to me and see a man in his last moments of life.
Blood seeps from under his combat helmet and his eyes’ got the fear in them of a lost child.

“Donovan!” I yell.”
“I recognise you, Barren.
I’m glad that there’s still a friendly face at the end of the line.”
“No, Donovan, stay with me man. We’re here to save you.”
“It’s too late Barren. They’ve out-tricked us.”
Donovan closes his eyes and leaves this world behind with a faded smile on his face.

I look around me disorientated. There must be something I can do.
“MEDIC!” I yell. Something they always yelled in those old radio plays.
To my biggest surprise, suddenly there’s a medic with the same sergeant haircut standing in front of me.
He directly grabs Donovan by his arm and checks his pulse, but his look tells me enough.
I notice a plasma grenade rolling out of Donovan’s hand and decide to use it for the best purpose.

Cool! Great story, as always!

One thing, though, I'm sure that "A twelve stories high building right in the ruins of the D.C." Should be "A twelve story high building right in the ruins of the D.C."

Pretty good. Too bad about Donavon though.

Thx Mikeh, I've changed it as you can see.
Thx again for the positive reactions!

Too bad about Donovan indeed Wasteland Scholar, it seems that the gang had come to the D.C. in vain.
You don't always get what you want as a famous Rolling Stone once said. (That goes double for wastelanders)
But I'm sure that they'll get over it.

Why did you name your most recent chapter Pulse & No Pulse? I'm curious.

Must have more.

This post has inspired me to try and write a fanfic. We'll see how it goes.

very good to hear ford racer.
I hope you can come up with something brilliant!
let me know when you finished something!

Ive been reading this since you posted that first chapter, and im still in love with it. The mixture of humour, intensity, suspense, and the ability to make you want to read on and on. Makes this the best fan fic i've ever read. 5/5.

Just wanted to let you know, I've got my eyes on your story here, and I like it.

Thanks TheRancher and thanks Dracth.
It's good to hear that people are interested in my story.
It helps wanting to write more.

In this rate, I guess I'm at about 2/3 of the whole story.
I'll try to write the next chapter on tuesday / wednesday.
very busy this weekend, but it gives me more time to shape the details.

This is cool. I wanna hear more

Can we expect a new chapter any time soon?

I know I haven't been keeping up with the story
and that is because of some priorities.
I will add a chapter before the end of the weekend!

I'll try to come up with something really original, to make up for the delays

Rampages & Reinforcements

This is a disaster; Donovan lies dead on the floor.
If we gotten there just a few minutes sooner, we could probably prevent this from happening.
But there are still three of those huge monsters to defeat, and I don’t think they’ll fall dead on the ground if we ask them nicely.

I signal Fincher and Kemar to cover me. They understand within a moment.
As they do their best to keep the giants occupied, Roo empties his 10mm’s on one of the mutant’s arms.
Unnoticed, I’m halfway past the shot mutant when he drops his laser gun out of the pain,
but suddenly decides that it’s time to immerge into a suicide action.
He runs towards Roo in a rampage, feet stomping on the floor and screams of agony as he goes.

Roo’s eyes widen but he does not move an inch.
His body is frozen; the giant almost reached him now.
The laser rifle lays just a few metres in front of me, so I dive towards it.
As I get a hold of the cold metal grip, the mutant has almost reached Roo who still stands there unmoved.
Kemar and Fincher already fire at the beast non stop, but it won’t budge.
It’s only until I shoot him in the back that he decides he’s been beaten.

Just like the first one, the giant mutant falls down on the floor, leaving it yet again, trembling under its weight.
Two down, two to go.
Roo looks me in the eyes, still as widened, trying to say “thank you.”
I turn around to face our last enemies.

With the laser gun in my hands, it seems to go a lot smoother than with the first two.
Although the weapon weighs more than I thought it would be, it still handles very easily.
The woman with the sergeants cut finally manages to get one down after emptying her minigun twice on him.
After a few shots in his head (and some help of the twins), the other goes down without too much trouble.
The danger has passed but I still have that plasma grenade in my pocket.
I look at it for a bit. Donovan must've had it ready to throw before he was defeated.
I put it back into my pocket and look around me, a bit disorientated.

I turn to Roo to see if he’s all right.
He still doesn’t seem to have moved yet, looking blank before him.
“He’s in a shock.” the medic states. “The event must have triggered something in his mind to go in this state.”
He slaps Roo a few times in his face and after a few seconds Roo looks around him confused, but back on earth.
“You all right there? “ He nods and a red blush appears on his face.

I decide to let him recover on his own and start asking questions from the medic.
“After we got stuck on the roof of this cursed building for days, things seemed to quiet down.
The mutants stopped appearing and we had access to the elevator that Donovan fixed.
But as soon as we reached the ground floor, Donovan run to the front door, being that relieved that we’ve made it.

At that moment, those giant mutants came in through that same front door.
They were probably sent here as reinforcements to finish the job.
They saw Donovan coming stopping in fear right in front of them and one of the giants swung his arm at him, casting him back at the elevator he just came from.
At that moment I already hid for cover, so as Brick did.

Oh, I’m sorry. This here is brick”
The medic points towards the woman with the sergeants cut, who gives a forced smile.
“My name is Butcher. You guys came in here right after we opened fire on those monsters.
If it wasn’t for you, we’d probably be dead by now. Thanks for that”
“Donovan was a good guy and it’s a terrible loss, but he would be proud to die in combat.”
Brick quickly adds when she notices that we're all looking at Donovan’s lifeless body.

After some explaining from our side we bury Donovan’s body in front of the hotel.
Roo sticks a piece of wood in the ground with the text "Here lies Donovan, member of Reilly's Rangers." written on it.
Brick and Butcher lay down their other lost companion in a grave next to Donovan.
“Thanks again for saving our lives” Butcher says. “But we have to go to Reilly now.
You guys can have all the weapons and ammo those mutants left behind.”
We say our goodbyes and Butcher and Brick disappear into the metro tunnels we came from.
These laser shotguns are a good haul, but I would trade them back for Donovan in a heartbeat.

It seems that we’ve lost more allies than that we gained these days in the DC.
Every trip to this place seems to claim at least one life. Lifes that I'd rather not see losing.
This place is cursed, and if it’s up to me, I won’t ever be coming back here again.
Roo seems to have gained his strength back, although he still looks pretty pale.

After our saluaging we get back on the road silently.
We’ve found all the people that we were looking for, most of them unfortunately dead.
The group hasn’t grown as much as I hoped it would.
I hope it's enough to stand a chance against the Talon Company.

“We’re heading back for Rockopolis now. In one straight line and without too much distraction if it’s up to me.”
I look to the guys, all of them looking a bit lost, but they seem to agree silently
We’ve been through hell and back, although I still have an eerie feeling that the worst is yet to come…

Lives & Lasers for the title.


You never fail me, Lavanoth! 10/10 :tops:

Thanks yet again for your support skippy,
I've updated the new chapter, edited a bit etc.

Keep the comments coming!
I've chosen for Rampages & Reinforcements for now.
Because Lives & Lasers looks a bit like a few names of the previous chapters.

But I'm always in for suggestions

Any chance that they may encounter a Behemoth soon?

They do seem to get larger enemies everytime, don't they?
Well, maybe. You'll just have to read and see it for yourself.

I guess that the story will last for about another 3 or 4 chapters, so the end is in sight!

Hope the end turns out as good as all the other chapters
Looking forward to seeing more fan fics from you 5/5

Ending? Thats the worst new ever!

Suggestions- Get the Quantam Pistol back, and put GNR back on!

it was a bit repetitive, but it kept my morale up!

Thanks TheRancher!


I might just surprise you with the ending Skippy, don't worry!
I've got it all planned out.

Oh, and I edited the last chapter a bit more.
It's all a bit better written now, with some addings.

When I finished the whole story, I'll polish it up for as much as I can, and then post it on that fanfic site.

Okey,

just edited the first chapter, and transformed into a prologue.

Or better said: An Intro Chapter.


I've edited some chapters allready a bit, but I'll write a new chapter this weekend, and further edit the previous ones.



Keep those comments and suggestions coming!!

Deserts & Drinks

It’s been four days since we left the DC.
Fincher or Kemar haven’t spoken in hours.
They don’t even communicate with each other, which is strange to say the least.
Normally they don’t shut up unless I tell them to.
Even Roo seems more distracted than usual.

It’s gotten all our hopes down by a huge amount.
Argyle lying dead under a pile of rubble, Shorty left (which I don’t really consider a problem) with his quest to stardom
and Donovan struck deadly by an oversized hulk.
Who wouldn’t feel bad after those events?

The horizon shows us nothing more than usual; dead planes of sand and stone.
Our water ration slinks by the minute. Today is one of the warmest days since months.
I don’t know if anyone kept counting the seasons, but I bet it’s somewhere round summer.
“Let’s take a break guys” Fincher says without taking the trouble to turn his head to us.

Roo stops walking and falls to the ground voluntarily.
He rolls over and starts looking at the sun, only to come to the conclusion that the clouds must have gotten a day off.
Kemar walks up to me and suggests that we should change the plan.
“…I know you wanted to go to Rockopolis in one straight line, Barren.
But if we don’t make a stop somewhere, the water will run through before we even come close.”

He’s right, as usual. Kemar has always been the smart one.
“…or we could just make a rain dance, I’m very rythmatic you know.”
adds Fincher, who is more the joker type.
I tap a few times on my pip boy and point towards the nearest city: Megaton.
“I don’t think we’ll find anything to drink there anymore.” I tell Kemar sarcastically.
“There isn’t a city in this area for miles.”

“We just have to do with the water that we have.
Maybe it’ll get colder tomorrow.”
I’m already drinking all the radiated water that the guys don’t even dare to touch.
After it’s turned me into a ghoul, I don’t think it’ll do any more harm.
We search for a bit of shade, only to come to the conclusion that there really isn’t any.
We’d best keep walking and let the soft breezes cool us off a bit.

Four more hours of sand, dust and rock.
At least it’s getting a bit cooler, with the sun sinking into the distant hills.
Roo points out the lowering sun and starts to laugh, in his normal weird way of laughing.
“Yes it’s getting cooler Roo,” Fincher replies. “but you don’t need to get that exited about it.
He shakes his head and points out the same spot again, as if to say “look closer!”

As I do look closer, I see the outline of a man and his Brahmin, followed by what seems to be a heavily armed bodyguard.
“A Merchant!” Fincher shouts out excitedly.
“And not a moment to soon.” Kemar adds.
I haven’t seen him before.
His hair reaching his shoulders, wearing shabby clothing and looking experienced.

The merchant comes up to me, as if he knows I’m the guy to talk to.
“Hey there, you look like you could use some of my junk.”
The bodyguard still looks suspicious around her, probably waiting for the moment we draw our weapons.
The merchant continues: “Crazy Wolfgang’s the name. I got just the junk you need.”

“Do you have any water?” I ask the merchant.
“Nope,” He replies which instantly triggers a big sigh from Roo. “but I do have a lot of Nuka Cola.
Salvaged it a few days back. Good haul.”
The guys including myself let out a cheer and we wave our hands in the air.
The Bodyguard immediately draws his weapons as he thought we’d let out our combat shout.

“Relax Terrace; I think that they’re just glad we’ve got something to drink for them.”
He lowers his gun and calms down. “I’m sorry Wolf; I’m just a bit on the edge after those raiders attacked us.”
“You got attacked by raiders?” Fincher asks eagerly. “Did you get them?”
“Get them? They almost got us!” Wolfgang replies irritated.

“We’d just left a small settlement in the hills when they ambushed us.”
“Small settlement?” I ask him “Have you seen two men, one with an arm missing and an older man with white hair?”
Wolfgang looks puzzled. “You mean Crow and that scientist? Yeah, I just got back from there.
I sold half my stock to them.
Should never have promised him those discounts…”
“Then at least we know they’re all right.” Kemar states happily.

We chip in our last bottlecaps and buy all the Nuka Cola’s Wolfgang has to sell.
He gives us the coordinates of the raider attack and leaves us with a big smirk on his face.
Fincher already starts coming up with several ways to take care of those raiders.
His smile fades away when I tell him we’re taking the long way around.
“We’ll deal with those raiders eventually, but we need to get to Rockopolis first.”
Everyone except Fincher agrees and we all take a big draught from our Nuka Colas.

After another few nights of insomnia, we finally get within a mile of Rockopolis.
We walk over the running hills once more when the sight starts to change.
“I can see the rocks from here!” Fincher shouts cheerfully.
Roo starts running ahead and disappears within the Rocky terrain.
After those terrible weeks, the feeling of joy starts to rise up.
I almost began to think that ghouls couldn’t have those feelings.


Roo already went through the stone doors inside, leaving the entrance open for us.
When my eyes have adapted to the darkness of the cave, I open my mouth in awe.
The entire place changed, not one corner the same.
It looks like Warren has moved his whole lab into Rockopolis.
He even added more stuff than he had back in his fort.

“Barren!”
I turn around to see two friendly faces.
Warren looks like he's been busy these days, wearing a scientist robe that isn't really as white as it used to be.
Crow looks much better than the last time I saw him.
He's got his sleeve tied in a knot to hide his severed arm though.

“Warren, Crow! It’s so good to see you guys!
I don’t even know what to talk about first. I’ve got so many things to tell.”
Only now I notice an old radio playing the tunes of GNR.
Still the same songs, but it does bring my morale back up.
I missed that station, no idea how it got back on the air though.