Chapter 11: The Gauntlet
The automated pre-war transit car gave a violent, metal-on-metal shudder that sent a delightful jolt right through Lucy’s boots. She didn’t mind the rattling one bit; in fact, she could barely keep her feet planted on the floorboards. She was practically vibrating.
Through the heavily scratched, dust-filmed glass of the monorail window, the wasteland was finally, beautifully vanishing. In its place rose a skyline that looked like something pulled straight from the vintage picture-books in the Vault 33 library.
Huge, looping tracks of a towering roller coaster cut through the hazy blue sky, flanked by the colossal, grinning silhouette of a cartoon bottle masquerading as a mountain. It was magnificent. It was a shining, intact testament to what humanity could achieve when they weren’t busy dropping atomic bombs on each other. A genuine, honest-to-goodness amusement park.
If this place was standing, then the surface wasn’t just a graveyard of rusted cars and desperate Vipers. It was a place where people could actually build something beautiful again.
“You’re crowding my space, Thaddeus,” Maximus’s voice boomed, completely muffled and metallic through the external speakers of his T-60 Power Armor. The heavy pneumatic hiss of his shoulder actuators filled the cramped train car as he shifted a fraction of an inch, his massive steel knee plates clanging directly against Thaddeus’s shins. “Sit on your own bench.”
“There is no bench!” Thaddeus squeaked, his back pressed entirely flat against the reinforced glass of the opposite window. He was practically sitting in the storage rack, his knees pinned against his chest. “Your left pauldron is taking up half the seat! If you would leave the armor in the center—”
“No.” Maximus’s helmet snapped toward him, the black visor utterly unreadable but radiating absolute, stubborn refusal. “The armor stays on. Kenny knows what he did. I’m not leaving it open for anyone to just climb into it again! Besides, we need it on standby! Who knows what could jump out at us the second we get there!”
“Um. I don’t know. Mascots?” Thaddeus threw up his hands. “It’s an amusement park!”
“Well, what if these mascots are armed?” Maximus pointed out. “We need me ready. At all times. In fact! I need a drink! Squire! Fetch me a drink!”
“I’m not a squire, and you’re not a knight.”
“I don’t know. That sounds an awful lot like something a squire would say.”
Lucy didn’t even look back at them, though she did have to lean slightly to the left to avoid Maximus’s massive, rusted elbow joint. Let them bicker. They were Brotherhood first, and the Brotherhood loved their rules and their structure, and their showboating, but Lucy was looking at the future.
She still couldn’t believe what she’s seeing! It was a literal palace of joy.
“I wonder if anyone’s living there?” Lucy mused to herself. A place that size had to have a thriving, wonderful community. Maybe an agricultural cooperative, or a grand trade hub where people exchanged seeds and clean textiles?
Right next to her, Kenny let out a low, ragged breath. He was staring out the window too, but he didn't look enchanted. He looked like a man watching a countdown timer drop into the single digits. He mumbles a word that sounds suspiciously like “raiders.”
Lucy blinked, turning her head from the glorious skyline to frown at him. “What was that?”
“I said traders!” Kenny cleared his throat quickly, his eyes darting toward her before instantly snapping back to the landscape outside. He offered a tight, slightly strained smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes behind his dark aviator sunglasses. “Probably a whole bunch of traders. I mean, you know, it’s an amusement park, right? Probably brings in a lot of travelers. Especially with bottle caps being used as currency, and soda being the theme of the place and all.”
“How astute of you! You are right, of course.” Sierra Petrovita practically leaped across the aisle, her hands clasped tightly under her chin, her eyes wide and glittering with an intensity that was frankly a little intimidating. She had been talking about the corporate distribution logistics of Nuka-Cola since they left the station, and she showed absolutely no signs of running out of oxygen. “This was one of the safest places after the bombs dropped! The parks are, mostly, intact. Barring some of the lingering radiation, of course. But hey, where isn’t there?”
“The Vaults,” Lucy said innocently.
The word just slipped out, entirely factual. Vault 33 didn’t have radiation, or giant mutated roaches, or people who tried to tie you to a chair in a ditch. It had clean linoleum, structured meal plans, and a perfectly regulated filtration system.
Well, at least it did before they left. But it was probably still fine. Probably.
She really wished she knew for sure.
“I’ve never been to a Vault!” Sierra gasped, her voice hitting a pitch that made Thaddeus wince from his corner. She leaned in so close Lucy could smell the faint, sugary scent of stale soda on her breath. “Do they have Nuka-Cola?!”
“Ours does!” Lucy beamed, her chest swelling with a wave of intense, nostalgic pride. It was so nice to talk about home with someone who appreciated the finer things. “Well, some of it. We can’t exactly make it fresh without the formula. Or, you know, the materials. Hey! Maybe we can send a few cases back after we’re settled here.”
She looked at Kenny, expecting him to join in on the civic pride. He was always the one talking about rebuilding and finding resources to make things better. But Kenny just stared at his Pip-Boy, his thumb twitching over the dial as if he were trying to force a glitch in the screen.
“Um… yeah,” Kenny muttered, his shoulders dropping a noticeable inch. “Maybe.”
Lucy’s smile faltered just a bit.
Kenny had been acting so strange ever since they got the train running. He kept checking his Pip-Boy, murmuring about his lack of agility, and looking at the horizon like he expected a nuclear launch. She reached out, intending to pat his arm and tell him that everything was going to be perfectly fine, when the monorail violently lurched.
The cheerful, tinny pre-war jazz music that had been humming softly from the overhead speakers suddenly cut out. It didn't just stop—it exploded into a horrific, ear-splitting screech of static that made everyone in the car jump. Maximus instantly raised his armored fists, his servos whining, while Thaddeus let out a small, terrified yelp.
The static cleared, replaced by the heavy, rhythmic thrum of an electric guitar, followed by a voice that sounded like it had been scraped through a gravel pit and washed with cheap whiskey.
“Alright, alright, gather round, you pathetic little wasteland sheep!” the voice roared through the speakers, dripping with a sickeningly cheerful malice. “This is RedEye, coming to you live from the mountain of soda, and I got a special treat for all you bloodthirsty psychos out there today. We got fresh meat on the transit line! Oh yeah, a whole fresh batch of suckers just rode the train right into the slaughterhouse. Overboss Colter is already waiting at the terminal, and he is starved for a little entertainment. So place your bets, boys and girls, because the Gauntlet is open for business!”
The broadcast cut to a horrific, chaotic chorus of roaring crowds, maniacal laughter, and the distinct, unmistakable sound of automatic gunfire echoing in the background before the speakers finally went dead.
The silence inside the monorail car was absolute.
Lucy stood frozen, her hand still hovering in the air. The beautiful, sparkling fantasy of the amusement park didn’t break—not entirely—but the warmth in her chest instantly hardened into something heavy, cold, and fiercely determined.
Raiders.
It was always raiders. They were a disease on this world, a violent, cruel blight that kept humanity from ever picking up the pieces. They had taken her mother, they had kidnapped Lucy herself merely hours after she left her home, and now they were squatting in what should have been a monument to human happiness.
She wasn’t going to let them keep it.
…
My Pip-Boy buzzed against my wrist with a heavy, rhythmic vibration that made my stomach instantly drop into my shoes. I didn't even have to look down at the screen to know what it was saying, but I did anyway, hoping against hope that I was hallucinating.
[New Mission Unlocked: All Aboard! ...Wait, No, It's The Gauntlet]
Congratulations! You successfully ignored every warning sign, ran out of gas, and took a scenic monorail ride straight into a raider death trap. Survival Mode doesn't care about your feelings. Please prepare to be thoroughly shot, blown up, or otherwise disassembled for the amusement of heavily armed sociopaths. Recommended Level: 30+. Your Level: 13. Good luck!
So, in hindsight, maybe going to an area the game doesn’t even want you to think about until it’s almost over, without so much as a single Missile Launcher to my name, was a bad idea. A really, really bad idea. But in my defense, I was like eighty-percent sure that the place was still run by traders! The lore was supposed to be flexible! Why couldn't it have flexed toward the peaceful, non-homicidal timeline just this once?
Whatever.
Worst-case scenario, I die, the universe resets, and I auto-load back to the last time I slept.
I paused, my hand freezing an inch away from my 10mm pistol holster as a horrible, icy realization washed over me.
How long has it been since the last time I actually slept in a bed?
I racked my brain, counting back through the chaos of the last few days. The trek across the Commonwealth, the vertibird crash, the planning phase... Oh, no. It must have been all the way back before I stole the vertibird. At the Brotherhood of Steel base. No! No, no, no!
Was it really long?! Did I actually go three days without sleep!?!
How is that even physically possible?! If I died right now, I was going to lose like seventy-two hours of progress! Ugh. Fuck it. Let’s give this everything we’ve got. We are not going back. Never going back.
The monorail doors finally slid open with a rusty screech, revealing a wide, concrete maintenance room. The air smelled like ozone and old gunpowder. I stepped out first, my eyes immediately tracking the ceiling, and my heart stopped. The place was lined to the gills with automated laser turrets, their red targeting eyes slowly sweeping the floor, just waiting for a footstep to lock onto.
My gamer brain kicked into absolute overdrive. I didn't have the health pool to tank a single volley from these things, and neither did anyone else.
“Take cover! Behind the wall, right now!” I shouted, throwing my shoulder against a heavily rusted iron plate near the door. I pulled my 10mm, checking the sight, my mind frantically mapping out a long, grueling shootout.
“Oh, my goodness!” Sierra squeaked from behind me. She didn’t even step off the train, immediately diving beneath one of the passenger benches and wrapping her arms over her head. “The historical tour didn't mention live guns! I'm staying right here until the safety inspection is cleared!”
“Get behind me!” Maximus bellowed. His heavy metal boots slammed against the concrete as he stepped into the room, raising his armored arms to shield his face. “I’m a walking wall! I’ll take the hits!”
“Way ahead of you!” Thaddeus yelled back. He had grabbed Maximus by the heavy metal utility belt on his waist, keeping his entire body tucked perfectly behind the massive frame. Every time Maximus shifted an inch to the left, Thaddeus scrambled right along with him, using him like a human cover. “Do not move! If a single laser grazes my uniform, I am going to lose it!”
Above us, the intercom speaker crackled fiercely as RedEye’s voice boomed over the noise. “That's it, you little rats! Squeeze into the corner! Let’s see how long that tin can holds up when all these guns lock onto you at once! You think you can just ride into Nuka-World without paying the toll? We’re gonna turn you into— Wait, what is she doing?”
Before I could even yell at her to stay down, a blue-and-yellow blur flashed right past my face.
It was Lucy.
Obviously.
Who were you expecting? Sierra?
“Hey! You can’t treat paying customers like this!” Lucy yelled, her voice dripping with pure, unadulterated Vault-dweller fury.
I watched in absolute, paralyzed horror as she charged straight into the middle of the room. The turrets whined, their red lights flashing a warning as they locked onto her jumpsuit, seconds away from blowing her to bits. But this is Lucy we’re talking about, not a rational human being.
She’s like a bull. She sees a red flag, and she charges right in.
And, naturally, she moved like a gymnast on an obstacle course, weaving right through the sweeping laser lines with an athletic grace that honestly didn't make any sense given how heavy those vault boots were.
She reached the center pillar, leaped directly off a rusted crate, and launched herself into the air. Her fingers clamped onto a ceiling-mounted turret with both hands. With a sharp, fierce grunt, she threw all her body weight downward, ripping the metal housing completely out of the wall in a shower of sparks and plaster dust. Without missing a beat, she swung the heavy, broken turret like a baseball bat, smashing it directly into the lens of the turret right next to it with a sickening metal crunch.
The remaining turrets sparked out, their wiring shorting in a chain reaction that left the room suddenly, jarringly quiet except for the hum of the monorail engine.
I don’t even know how that happened.
RedEye’s voice cracked over the intercom again, the scripted villain monologue completely dead. “What the hell is wrong with that girl?” he muttered, sounding entirely thrown off his game. “Who even are you people? You’re wearing matching pajamas!”
Lucy adjusted her jumpsuit collar, completely unfazed, and looked directly up at the speaker horn on the wall with a bright, cheerful expression. “My name is Lucy MacLean!” she announced proudly, resting her hands on her hips. “And this is my best friend, and the man who will one day be my husband, Kenny!”
“What?” I blurted out, my gun lowering by an inch as my brain completely stalled out.
“And we are proud former residents of Vault thirty-three!” Lucy continued, entirely ignoring my minor life crisis as she pointed a strict finger at the ceiling. “We came all the way across the wasteland to find a bright new future, and we are absolutely not going to let a bunch of rude, misbehaved raider scum ruin a perfectly perfect amusement park! You should be ashamed of yourselves!”
A long, heavy pause stretched over the intercom line. I could hear someone in the background of the broadcast dropping a bottle, as it shattered into pieces.
“Vault dwellers?” RedEye finally sputtered, his voice cracking with a mix of deep offense and sheer disbelief. “Are you kidding me right now? A bunch of shiny, underground soft-heads just broke my automated welcome traps?! Oh, you think you're tough because you can swing a pipe? You just walked into the slaughterhouse, sweetheart! Overboss! Get the boys ready, these lunatics are going down!”
The Hell I am!
Trust me, I’ve died a lot back in my time.
I know what to look out for. Mostly, it’s things trying to kill you.
…
The dark concrete tunnel swallowed them whole, smelling of wet rust, rotten trash, and old, dead air. Thaddeus kept his hands tight on the strap of his pack, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped bird. He hated this place already. The walls were a messy web of leaking pipes that dripped foul, warm water onto the floor, and the shadows were way too deep.
Worse than the dark was the guilt eating at him. He wasn't Brotherhood anymore. He didn't have a squires uniform, let alone the power armor he’d always dreamed of. He was just a guy in a mismatched jacket following a kid from a Vault.
But Kenny had saved them.
Kenny had stolen a whole flying machine. Kenny was the leader now, the smartest guy/wizard in the room, and Thaddeus needed to show he was worth keeping around. He couldn't just be the dead weight holding everyone back. He had to prove he was a real partner. A loyal brother in arms.
Up ahead, Kenny was moving at a snail's pace, practically crawling on his hands and knees. He was sweating through his blue jumpsuit, his eyes wide behind those dark sunglasses as he stared at the floorboards.
“Watch your left,” Kenny whispered, his voice shaking just a bit. “Nobody step on that pale piece of wood. It’s a pressure plate. It’ll trigger a bunch of spikes from the wall.”
“Spikes?” Sierra whimpered from the back of the line. “In an amusement park? That violates so many pre-war safety codes!”
“Keep moving, Sierra,” Maximus grunted. He was clanging along behind Kenny, his massive steel suit scraping against the low ceiling, leaving a long line of bright silver scratches in the rust. “If anything flies out, it’ll hit my armor anyway.”
“Just don’t step on the wire!” Kenny hissed, pointing a trembling finger at a thin, dirty string stretched across the path. “See that? It’s tied to three frag grenades hanging from the pipes right above your head. You pull that, and we all turn into paste.”
“I see it, Kenny,” Lucy said, her voice completely calm and steady as she carefully stepped over the string. “You’re doing great. Just keep guiding us.”
Thaddeus watched Kenny wipe a streak of sweat from his forehead. Kenny looked exhausted, carries the weight of all their lives on his shoulders. It wasn't fair. Kenny shouldn't have to look out for every single little thing by himself. Thaddeus narrowed his eyes, squinting into the dim light, determined to find a danger before Kenny did. He wanted to be the hero for once.
Right there, just two inches past the wire, he saw it. A rusty metal plate sticking up from the cracked concrete, half-hidden by a pile of old paper cups.
Kenny was already looking up at the ceiling, trying to spot the next trap in the dark. He was about to step right onto it.
“I got this one!” Thaddeus yelled, a surge of proud energy hitting his chest.
“Wait, Thaddeus, don’t—” Kenny started, his head snapping down.
But Thaddeus was already moving. He wasn't going to let his leader down. He lifted his heavy boot and stomped his heel directly onto the metal plate with everything he had, intending to crush the mechanism and save the day.
The plate clicked down easily. Way too easily.
A sharp, hissing sound echoed through the pipe grid, followed by a bright, blinding flash of orange light. Thaddeus didn't even have time to blink before a roaring wall of fire erupted from a hidden vent in the wall, hitting him dead in the face.
The heat was absolute madness. It felt like sticking his head directly into a blasting forge. A loud POP echoed from his backpack as a tin can of pork and beans exploded from the sheer heat, showering the back of his jacket in hot, sweet grease.
“Thaddeus!” Lucy screamed.
Maximus lunged forward, grabbed Thaddeus by the collar of his jacket with one giant metal hand, and yanked him backward into the dirt before the fire could melt his boots.
The flamethrower hissed one last time and then sputtered out, leaving a thick, black cloud of smoke rolling through the tunnel.
Thaddeus lay flat on his back, staring up at the ceiling with wide, unblinking eyes. His skin felt incredibly hot, and when he blinked, his forehead felt weirdly light. He reached up with a trembling hand, rubbing his brow. His eyebrows were completely gone, burned away into little bits of black ash that smeared across his fingers.
“Are you alive?” Maximus asked, his metallic visor staring down at him.
“My beans,” Thaddeus whispered, his voice a tiny squeak. “They blew up.”
“Forget the beans!” Kenny yelled, scrambling over to him and pulling out a stimpak from his pocket. “What were you thinking?! Why would you stomp on a pressure plate?!”
“I was disarming it!” Thaddeus defended himself, scrambling to his feet and wiping the soot off his nose. He felt a burning wave of shame that was hotter than the fire trap. He had ruined it. He had tried to look tough and just blew his own face up. “I was taking the initiative! A good partner takes the initiative!”
“That’s not how you disarm a trap!” Kenny groaned, rubbing his temples. “You don't stomp on the trigger! That just triggers the trigger! Ugh! This is all so triggering for me!”
“Well, it stopped shooting fire, didn't it?” Thaddeus muttered, crossing his arms and looking away.
“Because it ran out of fuel!” Kenny said.
“Hey, guys?” Lucy called out from a few feet ahead.
Thaddeus turned his head, expecting to see another wall of guns or a pack of monsters. Instead, the smoke was clearing, revealing a massive, heavy iron door with a rusted wheel lock on the front. The explosion from his can of food, combined with the blast of the flamethrower, had warped the hinges completely, blowing the door wide open.
Beyond the broken door, a long, clean hallway stretched out, completely free of wires, pipes, or traps. It looked like an old employee exit that bypassed the next three sections of the tunnels entirely.
“Wow,” Sierra said, stepping out from behind Maximus’s leg. “That actually worked out beautifully.”
“See?” Thaddeus said, a sudden grin breaking through the black soot on his face. He puffed out his chest, looking right at Kenny. “I cleared the path! Just like I planned!”
“You didn't plan that,” Maximus pointed out.
“Shut up, Maximus,” Thaddeus snapped. “Kenny, tell him I cleared the path.”
Kenny looked at the open door, then at Thaddeus’s completely bald forehead, and let out a long, slow sigh. “You know what? Sure. You cleared the path, Thaddeus. Let’s just get out of these tunnels before you find any more traps to fight with your feet.”
…
The low, rusted ceiling of the employee tunnel scraped against the very top of Maximus’s helmet, sending a dull, metallic screech echoing right through his skull. He absolutely hated tight spaces.
Power armor was built for the open wasteland. It was meant for marching across wide hills, standing tall on a ridge against the sunset, and crushing bad guys in big, glorious fields where everyone could see you. Inside this damp, narrow concrete hallway, he didn't feel like a mighty warrior. He felt like a turtle crammed into a cheap soup can.
Worse than the tight ceiling was the total uselessness of his weapon. Every time he tried to raise the heavy barrels of his minigun, the front end smacked into the concrete wall with a loud clack or caught on a dangling copper wire. He couldn't spin the barrels. He couldn't aim. He was carrying a seventy-pound lump of iron that was doing nothing but making him wider and slower.
Then came the scratching.
It started as a faint, dry rattle somewhere in the dark ahead, but within seconds, it turned into a loud, wet, clicking sound that bubbled up from a broken drainage pipe directly in front of them. It sounded like thousands of fingernails tapping against hollow plastic.
“Movement,” Maximus grunted. His voice buzzed loudly through his helmet speaker, sounding deep and robotic in the cramped space. “Lots of it. Small.”
“Oh, gross!” Lucy yelled.
A heavy wave of giant, glittering brown rad-roaches flooded out of the broken pipe. Each one was the size of a small dog, their long, greasy antennae whipping through the air as they scrambled over one another in a frantic, desperate heap. Their spiked legs clicked loudly against the floor as the swarm rushed straight toward the group.
A sharp bang shattered the air in the tunnel. Kenny had pulled his pistol, firing a single, clean shot that blew the head completely off the leading roach.
“Pick your targets!” Kenny shouted, his voice echoing off the concrete walls. “Don’t waste ammo! We don't know how big this place is!”
Lucy fired next. Her shot caught a massive roach right in the center of its thick shell, cracking it wide open and spilling green fluid onto the floor. “Got one!” she cheered, her voice full of that bright, aggressive energy as she quickly lined up her sights on another. “They’re really fast, Kenny!”
Suddenly, a wild, deafening crack shattered the air right next to Maximus's head. Thaddeus had fired his rifle, but the bullet missed every single bug in the room. Instead, the round hit the solid concrete wall, ricocheting wildly and sending a bright shower of hot sparks directly over Maximus’s left shoulder.
“Hey!” Maximus yelled, snapping his heavy visor around toward Thaddeus so fast his neck servos whined. “You almost hit my power pack! Do you know what happens if you shoot the core? We’ll all blow up!”
“Give me that,” Kenny said, stepping right into Thaddeus's space and yanking the rifle straight out of his hands. “This is the Red Rocket all over again. We really need to teach you how to aim before you kill one of us.”
“Hey!” Thaddeus defended himself, throwing his hands up in the air and looking deeply offended. “I know how to aim! I can shoot with my feet if I wanted to! Better, even!”
“There are radioactive bugs everywhere,” Kenny deadpanned, his voice completely flat as he raised the rifle and took a quick shot, dropping a roach instantly. “Please keep your shoes on. And stop ‘solving’ problems with your feet!”
“I’m just saying, I can shoot.” Thaddeus muttered, crossing his arms and pouting against the wall. “It’s not my fault I can’t hit anything. Maybe if everything wasn’t all echo-y, I would know where my targets are.”
“You aim with your eyes, not your ears,” Kenny muttered, chambering another round.
Maximus didn't have time for their arguing. The swarm was getting closer, and a particularly large roach, its shell covered in slimy green moss, leaped straight toward his chestplate. Since his minigun was totally useless, he resorted to pure brute force. He pulled his right arm back, his hydraulic joints giving a loud whine, and punched the giant bug right out of the air.
His heavy steel gauntlet hit the roach with a wet, heavy thud, smashing it flat against the concrete wall. Bug juice splattered across his arm, but he didn't have time to feel disgusted yet.
“Oh, look at them!” Sierra squealed. She was completely detached from the danger, treating the whole thing like a museum tour as she scrambled right up behind Maximus's left leg. She leaned out from behind his massive armored thigh, her eyes wide with total wonder. “This is fascinating! I wonder if these specific roaches are descendants of cockroaches that were initially in Nuka-World before the blast, or if the Raiders brought them in with them from the Commonwealth?”
“Sierra, get back!” Lucy warned, firing another shot into the oncoming swarm.
“No, really, think about it!” Sierra continued, completely ignoring her. She pointed a sugary-smelling finger over Maximus’s armored hip, right at Thaddeus. “This is exactly why they shouldn’t bring outside food or drink, Thaddeus! It brings in pests! Pre-war Nuka-World had very strict rules about outside snacks to keep the cleanliness scores up!”
“My food exploded, Sierra!” Thaddeus yelled back, stamping his foot in frustration. “It wasn’t my fault! The trap broke my pork and beans!”
“It was a little your fault,” Maximus admitted through his speakers. But like he said, he didn’t really have time to argue. Something his opponents were all too eager to remind him.
Another roach hissed, its mandibles clicking as it lunged directly toward Sierra’s face. Maximus swung his heavy left arm in a wide arc. His metal fist caught the bug mid-air, slamming it into the floorboards with terrifying force. A nasty burst of yellow fluid sprayed across the wall, missing Sierra’s hair by a fraction of an inch.
“Keep behind me,” Maximus ordered, shifting his massive weight to block her completely from the pipe. He punched another roach into the floor, his steel knuckles leaving a dent in the old concrete. “Oh, this is going to be so annoying to clean later. It gets into the finger joints.”
He really wished he could have used his minigun.
A single three-second burst would have turned this entire hallway into a neat pile of ash, but instead, he was playing a high-stakes game of whack-a-mole with his bare hands. There was no honor in this. There were no songs written about a mighty Knight punching bugs in a basement.
“You’re doing great, Max!” Lucy shouted, stepping up to stomp on a smaller roach that had managed to slip past his legs.
“I could do that,” Thaddeus mumbled from the back, kicking a loose piece of gravel.
“You don’t even have a gun anymore, Thaddeus,” Kenny pointed out, firing the rifle again and popping another shell.
“I have my fists!” Thaddeus insisted, puffing out his chest.
“No, you don’t,” Maximus grunted, his steel gauntlet crushing two roaches against the wall at the same time with a sickening, wet crunch. “You’ll break your knuckles on their shells. Stay back and don't touch anything.”
“Is that the last of them?” Lucy asked. She kept her pistol raised, her chest heaving as she looked around the messy, dim hallway.
The frantic scratching and clicking sound finally stopped, leaving the tunnel completely quiet again. The only noises left were the wet, slow dripping of the overhead pipes and the heavy breathing of the group. The floor was an absolute disaster area of broken brown shells, twitching legs, and thick green goo.
Maximus lifted his right boot, a large piece of a squished roach shell sticking to the sole with a loud, sticky peel. He shook his leg, utterly disgusted by the lack of glory in pest control.
“Looks clear,” Kenny said, letting out a breath. He turned around and handed the rifle back to a very grumpy, pouting Thaddeus. “Let’s keep moving before the smell brings out anything worse. If there are roaches this big, the rats are going to be nightmares.”
“I still think they were local pre-war roaches,” Sierra whispered happily, stepping carefully over a puddle of slime as the group continued down the dark hallway. “Their shells have a very distinct Nuka-Cola shine under the light! You can tell they've been eating the sugar crust for generations!”
“Nobody cares!” shouted literally everyone in the tunnel at the exact same time.
Well, everyone except Lucy.
Lucy stopped, looking back at Sierra with a soft, sympathetic smile. “I care, Sierra. I think the shine is very interesting.”
“Thank you…”
Great.
Now Maximus felt bad for yelling at the soda girl. He let out a low grunt through his helmet, turning his visor back toward the darkness ahead, his heavy boots squishing loudly through the slime as they marched on.
…
The heavy steel door slammed shut behind us with a loud, final boom that rattled the fillings in my teeth. A thick magnetic lock clicked into place, and just like that, the exit was gone. We were standing in a wide, sealed room lined with thick pre-war glass. On the other side of the window was an elevated observation booth where three raiders in rusted metal armor were looking down at us, grinning like kids at a freak show.
Above us, the loudspeaker gave a loud hiss of static. RedEye’s voice started to come through, but he only managed to say, “Alright, you pajama-wearing—” before a loud, wet smack echoed over the broadcast.
“Give me that, you idiot,” a new voice growled, much deeper and heavier than RedEye’s cheap radio act. This voice sounded like it belonged to a guy who chewed on rusted nails for breakfast. “Hey. Fresh meat. This is Overboss Colter. RedEye likes to talk, but I like to watch. You think you’re pretty smart because you can break a couple of old ceiling guns? Let’s see how well you breathe when the air turns to acid. Boys, turn it on.”
The raiders behind the glass started cheering, knocking their beer bottles against the window. Right on cue, a loud hissed wheeze echoed from the ceiling vents. A thick, pea-green gas began pouring into the room, rolling down the walls like heavy smoke.
“Oh, no!” Sierra cried out, coughing before the gas even reached her. “It’s a chemical spill! The tour guide manual said Nuka-World always had world-class ventilation! This is an outrage!”
“It’s not a spill, Sierra!” Thaddeus yelled, his eyes widening in total panic as he looked at his bare forehead. “They’re trying to cook us! Maximus, punch the door! Punch it down!”
“I’m trying!” Maximus bellowed.
“Try harder!”
“That’s not helpful advice!” His heavy power armor boots slammed against the concrete as he threw his full weight into the steel door. The metal groaned, and his hydraulic joints gave a high-pitched whine, but the door didn't budge. “The latch is too thick! I can’t get a grip on the seam!”
“Kenny, what do we do?” Lucy asked. She wasn't crying or screaming, but her lips were pressed into a tight, worried line as she watched the green cloud drop lower and lower. “We need to find a valve or a cutoff switch. There has to be a way to turn it off!”
In the game, this was the exact moment where the player was supposed to run around like a headless chicken, burning through stimpaks while frantically hunting for rusty valves scattered behind old pipes. But I didn't have the health pool for that. My endurance was high, sure, but at my level, I’d give it thirty seconds flat before my lungs melted.
I didn't bother looking for the valves. Instead, I stared right at the big glass window where the raider guards were laughing at us.
My intelligence was sitting at a flat nine. I didn't see a scary raider trap; I saw a poorly built pre-war room that had been sitting in the damp dirt for two hundred years. The raiders had modified the observation booth, welding heavy iron plates to the upper frame, completely ignoring the fact that the old concrete wall beneath the glass was cracked and crumbling from old water damage. They had made the top too heavy for the bottom to support.
“Maximus, stop hitting the door!” I yelled, my voice cutting through the panic. I pointed a finger toward the left side of the room, where a thick, rusted iron structural support pipe ran from the floor straight into the ceiling. “See that pipe? Pull it down!”
“The pipe?” Thaddeus squeaked, his voice cracking as the first wisps of green gas touched his hair. “Kenny, we need air, not plumbing!”
“Just do it!” I roared.
Maximus didn't ask questions. He stomped over to the wall, his metal hands clamping around the thick iron pipe. With a loud, mechanical growl from his suit, he pulled backward. The old bolts snapped out of the concrete with a series of loud pops, and the heavy metal pipe came free in his hands. It looked like a ten-foot iron club.
“Now what?” Maximus asked, his robotic voice buzzing through his visor.
“Look at the bottom corner of that glass frame!” I shouted, running over and pointing at the seam where the metal met the rotting concrete. “The foundation is totally shot! Hit it right there like a battering ram! Hard as you can!”
“Hey!” one of the raiders behind the glass yelled, his grin suddenly vanishing as he realized Maximus was looking right at him. “What are they doing? Shoot them through the slits!”
“Too late, dirtbag!” Thaddeus yelled, suddenly finding his courage now that Maximus had a giant weapon. “Break it, Max!”
Maximus took a heavy step back, tucked the massive iron pipe under his armored arm, and charged forward. His heavy T-60 boots shattered the floorboards with every stride. He hit the corner seam with the full, crushing weight of the power armor, driving the end of the pipe straight into the weak spot.
The sound was magnificent. It wasn't a clean crack; it was a massive, exploding boom.
The thick pre-war glass didn't just break—the entire lower frame gave way, shattering inward toward the observation room. The heavy iron plates the raiders had welded to the top came crashing down with it, pulling a huge chunk of the crumbling concrete wall with them.
The sudden change in air pressure was like a small hurricane. The thick, green toxic gas didn't stay in our room; it got sucked right through the massive new opening, rolling into the observation booth like a tidal wave.
“Oh, god! It’s coming in!” a raider screamed from the other side.
“Turn it off! Turn it off!” another one choked, his voice turning into a wet, ragged cough as the green cloud hit his face. “The vents are feeding into our room now! Run!”
Through the swirling smoke and falling plaster, I watched the three raider guards drop their guns, clawing at their throats as they stumbled over each other to open their own back exit. They threw the door open and fled into the back hallways, screaming and coughing up a storm.
“Wow,” Lucy said, her mouth dropping open as she watched the entire trap fall apart in a matter of seconds. “Kenny, that was amazing! You completely reversed the flow!”
“I told you he’s a genius!” Thaddeus bragged, stepping over the broken glass as if he had been the one who planned the whole thing. “I knew exactly what he was doing the whole time!”
“No, you didn't,” Maximus said, dropping the heavy iron pipe with a loud clang. “You screamed about plumbing.”
“It was a strategic distraction, Maximus!” Thaddeus snapped, dusting off his mismatched jacket.
“Everyone, keep moving,” I said, coughing slightly from the lingering stink as I climbed through the shattered window frame into the raider booth. The air in here was already clearing out as the gas vented through the open back door. “Colter is going to be pissed, and I don't want to be standing here when he sends the rest of his crew.”
“Look at all this pre-war technology!” Sierra noted proudly, stepping over a piece of broken glass to examine a dead control panel. “They completely ruined the original aesthetic with all this ugly rust. Nuka-World guests would have complained to management immediately.”
“Well, the management is dead, Sierra,” I said, checking the cylinder of my 10mm pistol. “But we’re still moving. Come on, the exit is right through here.”
Lucy walked right beside me, a bright, fierce smile back on her face. “See? I told you we’d find a way through. Together, there’s nothing the wasteland can throw at us that we can’t handle.”
I looked out the back door of the booth, seeing a dark, winding staircase that led deeper into the next stage of the gauntlet. “Let’s hope you’re right, Lucy. Because I think the park is just getting started with us.”
…
The heavy metal door of the arena locker room rattled shut behind them, cutting off the distant, bloodthirsty roars of the stadium crowd. Lucy exhaled a long breath, her heart still pumping fast, but she wasn’t afraid. Not even a little bit. Honestly, after dodging automated lasers and watching Kenny literally blow a trap backward onto the raiders, she was feeling pretty gosh darn invincible. Pardon her French, but they were an incredible team.
Still, looking around the room made a cold knot of sadness tighten in her chest. This place was just awful. It was a filthy concrete bunker lined with dented lockers, broken benches, and horrible, violent graffiti scrawled on the walls in faded red paint. The sheer, deliberate cruelty of it all made her sick. This amusement park was meant to bring families together, to be a place of pure joy, and these awful people had turned it into a slaughterhouse.
“Hold still, Thaddeus,” Lucy said gently, pressing a damp cloth against his red, blistering forehead. She carefully wiped away a fresh layer of black soot. “You’re being very brave. The swelling should go down soon.”
“It smarts,” Thaddeus whined, his eyes watering as he sat stiffly on a rusted bench. Without his eyebrows, his face looked completely round and permanently startled. “It really smarts, Lucy. Do I look disfigured? Be honest. Will people stare at me?”
“You look like a giant, smooth egg,” Maximus said, his heavy power armor suit giving a dull clatter as he leaned back against a concrete pillar. “But at least your head didn't pop like your lunch did.”
“My pork and beans were a casualty of war, Maximus,” Thaddeus muttered, giving a tiny wince as Lucy patted a particularly raw spot near his hairline.
Across the room, Kenny was practically tearing a tall, rusted locker off its hinges. He reached inside, his hands groping around the dark shelves, only to pull his arm back completely empty.
“Dammit!” Kenny cursed, slamming the metal locker door shut with a loud, ringing crash that made Sierra jump. “Empty? Are you kidding me right now? Where is it? It’s always right here!”
Lucy watched him run a frustrated hand through his hair, his thumb twitching over his Pip-Boy dial. She wasn't entirely sure why he was so incredibly upset about an empty locker—it was just old storage, after all—but Kenny always had a specific reason for the things he did. He looked like a man who had arrived at a store only to find out they were completely out of his favorite snack.
“It’s alright, Kenny,” Lucy offered with a reassuring smile. “We don’t need whatever was in there anyway. We’ve made it this far on our own wits!”
“You don't understand, Lucy,” Kenny muttered, staring at the empty metal box with absolute betrayal in his eyes. “The game is changing the rules on me. This is supposed to be the equalizer.”
Before Lucy could ask him what on earth he meant by a game, a sharp, clicking hiss cut through the locker room. A small intercom grid high on the wall buzzed to life, but it wasn't RedEye’s loud, obnoxious voice this time. A new voice came through—low, gravelly, and completely calm.
“Well, now,” the man said, sounding thoroughly amused. “Ain’t you a strange bunch of cattle? I’ve been watching you on the monitors since you left the train. Never seen a group handle the Gauntlet like that. Especially not the girl in the pajamas. That was a pretty neat trick with the window.”
Maximus instantly stepped in front of Sierra, his armored fists raising slightly. “Who is that? Show yourself!”
“Name’s Porter Gage,” the voice replied through the speaker. “I’m the guy who coordinates things around here. And if you’re smart, you’ll listen up. I ain’t your friend, and I ain’t helping you. In fact, I’m telling you right now that you’re dead meat.”
Lucy stepped toward the speaker, her brow furrowing with strict determination. “Mr. Gage, we are not cattle! We are travelers, and we demand to speak to whoever is in charge of this facility!”
“You’re talking to him through the walls, sweetheart,” Gage chuckled, a dry, cold sound. “But you won’t be talking to anyone else soon. Overboss Colter is waiting for you out in the arena. He’s wearing a modified suit of power armor that’s hooked directly into the park’s main electrical grid. It pumps thousands of volts straight through the shell. You can’t shoot him, you can’t stab him, and you can’t punch him. The second you step into that ring, he’s going to fry you like bacon.”
“That is highly unfair!” Sierra shouted, waving her hands in the air. “Power armor safety manuals strictly prohibit grid-bleeding modifications! It’s a massive fire hazard for the park!”
“Raiders don’t care about the manual, lady,” Gage said flatly. “Colter’s bored, and he wants a show. So go ahead and say your prayers. You got about two minutes before the arena doors unlock.”
The intercom clicked off, leaving the room in a heavy, suffocating silence.
Thaddeus looked over at Maximus, his voice dropping to a terrified whisper. “Maximus... can your armor take thousands of volts?”
“No,” Maximus said honestly, his robotic voice buzzing with a rare hint of actual worry. “If the frame gets hit with that much juice, the internal systems will cook. I’ll be trapped inside a hot metal coffin.”
“Oh, dear,” Lucy murmured, her invincibility cracking just a tiny bit. She looked over at Kenny, expecting to see the same fear, but Kenny wasn't panicking.
He was thinking.
Lucy watched as his eyes darted rapidly around the room, moving over the benches, the lockers, and finally landing on a rusted plastic trash bin in the corner. He strode over, reached deep into the garbage, and pulled out a bright orange-and-blue plastic toy. It was a souvenir Nuka-Cola squirt gun, shaped like a tiny rocket ship with a little plastic trigger.
Thaddeus blinked, staring at the toy. “Kenny... are we going to squirt the Overboss to death?”
Kenny didn't answer. He walked straight over to a leaking water fountain in the corner of the locker room. The water bubbling out of the rusty pipe was thick, yellowish, and glowing with a faint, mineral-heavy shine. It looked absolutely disgusting and highly radioactive. Kenny unscrewed the tiny cap on the back of the plastic rocket, held it under the stream, and filled the toy gun to the brim with the foul, thick water.
When he turned back around, the frustration was completely gone from his face. His eyes were gleaming behind his dark aviator sunglasses with a total, absolute strategic clarity that made Lucy’s stomach do a wonderful, fluttery little flip. He looked exactly like a seasoned commander preparing his troops for a grand victory. He always had a plan. He was just so incredible.
“Alright, listen up,” Kenny said, his voice sharp and steady. “Colter’s armor is hooked into the power grid, which means he’s basically a giant walking lightbulb. But what happens to a lightbulb when you hit it with a blast of thick, mineral-heavy, highly conductive wastewater?”
Lucy’s eyes went wide as the pieces clicked together. “It shorts out!”
“Exactly,” Kenny said, a confident smile breaking across his face. “The water will bridge the electrical current directly to the ground, blowing his fuses and shutting down his shields. But it’s only going to last for a few seconds before the grid resets itself. We have to be fast, and we have to be perfectly coordinated.”
“I’ll draw his attention,” Maximus said, stepping forward, his armor clanging loudly. “My frame can take a few hits from his physical weapons while you get into position.”
“Good,” Kenny said, pointing at the heavy metal armor. “Max, you keep him looking at you. Lucy, you’re the fastest. The second I hit him with the squirt gun and his lights go out, you charge in. I need you to find the manual release lever on the back of his power pack and yank it. Thaddeus, you and Sierra stay by the door and keep your eyes peeled for any raiders trying to interfere from the sidelines.”
“I can do that,” Thaddeus said proudly, puffing out his un-eyebrowed face. “I am an expert at guarding doors.”
“We do this together, or we don't do it at all,” Kenny said, looking each of them in the eye before his gaze lingered on Lucy. “No mistakes.”
Lucy smiled back, her chest swelling with a wave of intense, fierce pride as she gripped the handle of her pistol. “No mistakes, Kenny. Let’s go show this Overboss how Vault dwellers settle a score.”
…
The heavy iron gate rattled upward with a mechanical groan, and the sheer volume of the arena hit us like a physical blow. We stepped out onto the cracked rubber floor of an old, pre-war bumper car rink. All around us, high up in the rusted metal bleachers, hundreds of raiders were screaming, cheering, and banging metal pipes against the railings. They wanted blood. They wanted a show.
From a high crane platform in the center of the ceiling, a massive, bulky shape began to descend. It was a customized suit of power armor, but it didn't look like any standard model I’d ever seen in the game. It was covered in heavy welded iron plates, thick copper cables, and sparking metal rods. Bright, lethal blue electricity snaked wildly across the entire outer shell, casting long, jittering shadows over the floorboards.
“Well, well, look what crawled out of the drain!” Overboss Colter’s voice boomed through his helmet speakers as his heavy boots slammed onto the rubber floor. The impact shook the rusty bumper cars scattered around him. “A bunch of shiny vault babies! You think you’re tough? You think you can take my crown?”
“We don’t want your crown, sir!” Lucy shouted back, her voice remarkably clear over the roar of the bloodthirsty crowd. “We just want to discuss a peaceful trading agreement for this park!”
Colter threw his head back, his robotic laughter echoing through the rafters. “Peaceful? Sweetheart, the only agreement you’re getting is a one-way trip to the graveyard! Look at this juice! You can’t even touch me!”
So much for diplomacy.
The crowd went absolutely wild, chanting his name. Colter raised a massive, electrified fist, completely soaked in smug confidence. In the game, this was where the scripted dialogue was supposed to end, giving way to a long, tedious boss fight where you hid behind columns and prayed your stimpaks didn't run out.
But I didn't wait for him to finish his victory lap. I raised the plastic Nuka-Cola squirt gun, took careful aim at the heavy seam right in the middle of his chestplate, and squeezed the plastic trigger.
A steady, thick stream of yellowish, mineral-heavy wasteland water shot through the air, hitting the main wire harness dead center.
The reaction was instantaneous. The dirty water bridged the massive electrical current directly to the damp rubber floor, and the entire suit violently shorted out. A massive, blinding explosion of blue sparks and black smoke erupted from Colter’s shoulders, accompanied by a deafening CRACK that sounded like a lightning strike inside a tin can. The glowing blue field around his armor vanished instantly, leaving the metal dull, smoking, and completely vulnerable.
“What the— what did you do to my rig?!” Colter yelled, his armor sputtering and wheezing as the internal systems stalled out.
“Maximus, now! Tank him!” I roared.
“For the Brotherhood!” Maximus bellowed. He didn't hesitate for a single second. His massive T-60 chassis surged forward, his heavy steel boots tearing up chunks of the old rubber floor as he went into a full sprint. He slammed his armored shoulder directly into Colter’s chest with a tremendous metal crunch, using his sheer weight to pin the confused Overboss hard against a rusted red bumper car.
Colter gasped, his hydraulic joints whining under the strain. “Get off me, you tin can!”
“Lucy, go!” I yelled, pulling my 10mm pistol.
Lucy was already moving. She used Maximus’s wide, armored shoulder as a literal launching pad, planting her heavy vault boot on his back and vaulting high into the air. With her perfect agility, she flew through the smoking air, pulling both knees to her chest before extending her legs to deliver a spectacular, Vault-certified double-dropkick straight into the center of Colter’s helmet.
The impact was brutal. The thick glass of Colter’s visor cracked into a spiderweb of white lines, and his head snapped back hard against the headrest. Lucy flipped backward, landing lightly on her feet like a gymnast, completely clearing the line of fire.
“Thaddeus, keep those guards back!” Lucy shouted as she scrambled away.
“I’m on it! Nobody moves!” Thaddeus yelled from the entryway, holding his empty hands up as if he were holding a massive gun, while Sierra cheered loudly beside him.
Colter was slumped against the steering wheel of the bumper car, completely dazed, his armor sparking weakly as the grid tried to reset itself. I didn't give it the chance. I stepped right up into his blind spot, raised my 10mm pistol, and lined up the sights with the exposed, smoking seam right over his fusion core compartment.
BANG. BANG. BANG.
I unloaded three rapid-fire shots directly into the core housing. The small brass casings bounced loudly off the rubber floor. For a fraction of a second, the core glowed a bright, angry green, before a muffled pop echoed inside the frame.
Colter’s armor went completely limp. The heavy metal joints locked up, and the massive suit dropped like a stone, collapsing face-first into the dirt with a heavy, final thud. He didn't move.
Total, absolute silence fell over the arena. The chanting stopped instantly. High up in the bleachers, hundreds of raiders just stared down at the floor, their mouths open, completely flabbergasted by what they had just witnessed. A boss fight that was supposed to take twenty minutes of blood and screaming had been completely dismantled in less than thirty seconds. It was a total speedrun.
The heavy iron door to the elevated observation booth clicked open, and Porter Gage stepped out onto the wooden catwalk. He looked down at the dead Overboss, then looked over at me, his jaw practically hanging off his face. He rubbed his one good eye, completely unable to process the plastic toy rocket ship still dripping yellowish water in my left hand.
“Are you... are you kidding me right now?” Gage finally sputtered, his voice echoing loudly in the dead silent arena. “He had a whole generator hooked up to his ass! You hit him with a toy?”
“It was a highly strategic use of local conductive elements!” Sierra called out proudly, waving her arms from the gate. “The Nuka-World souvenir department always promised hours of fun!”
Gage ignored her, slowly walking down the wooden steps until he was standing just a few feet away from me. He looked at Colter’s lifeless armor, then looked back up at me, his gaze lingering on my dark aviator sunglasses. He let out a long, slow whistle, shaking his head.
“Well,” Gage said, a slow, wry grin creeping onto his face as he crossed his arms. “Rules of the pack are rules of the pack. You kill the big dog, you get the collar. Looks like we got ourselves a new boss.”
“What?” I blurted out, my gun lowering by an inch as my brain completely stalled out for the second time today.
“He’s right, Kenny!” Lucy cheered, clapping her hands together with a bright, glowing smile. “You won the match! That means they have to listen to you now! We can fix this whole park!”
“Wait, no, hold on,” I said, a cold sweat breaking out on the back of my neck.
My Pip-Boy flashed with a bright, heavy vibration, and I reluctantly looked down at the screen.
[Mission Completed: The Gauntlet]
[XP+5000]
New Title Unlocked: Overboss of Nuka-World
Current Status: Congratulations, King of the Raiders! You came here to avoid walking, and now you run three separate factions of heavily armed, drug-fueled sociopaths. Good luck explaining this to your mother.
I stared at the screen in absolute horror.
Talk about failing upwards. I had spent the last three days trying to safely meta-game the system, using my past-life knowledge to skip the dangers, cheat the traps, and keep my friends alive. And my reward for being a tactical genius? The universe had just gone ahead and made me the literal king of the raiders.
“So, Overboss,” Gage said, leaning in with a sharp, calculating glint in his eye. “The disciples, the operators, and the pack are waiting outside. What’s your first order?”
I looked at Lucy’s proud, beaming face, then at Thaddeus who was trying to look tough without any eyebrows, and let out the longest, heaviest sigh of my entire life.
“First order,” I muttered, adjusting my sunglasses as my stomach took another deep dive into my shoes. “Nobody mention the squirt gun. Ever.”