Boston Quest: Making a Fox Cry

Fallout is one of my favorite franchises. Like the edition wars of D&D, I couldn’t care less for people who suck off New Vegas on a daily basis, nor those who smear any other game except for NV. Though the original Fallout may be my favorite of the series, I’ve loved all of the main series games… and I’d love Fallout 2 more if I didn’t suck at it.

It’d been a while since I’ve done much with Dana. I’ve developed her setting, “Moon Fall”, over this past year. But like my other OCs, she has a special place in my heart. Recently I’ve begun to use her in this superhero play-by-post, but I still want to work with her normal canon. I say all of this to present a very non-canon project of mine that I’d worked on since last December.

Welcome to an in-character journal for my current Fallout 4 file. Welcome to the Boston Commonwealth. Prepare to watch me make a fox cry.

At the point where I’m sharing these, I’ve gotten thirteen chapters under my belt, including a pre-game prologue. I’m using a couple mods, including but not limited to the Vulpine Race mod. Not too many of them, but some fun ones that aren't too lore-breaking. Mostly. My chapters shall be shared from my hobbyist writing blog below. Will include some excerpts for each specific chapter under the links, to hopefully provoke interest. To not have a super-long single thread, had split each of the links into their own replies, save for the last two entries being on the same post.

Chapters 0~2
CHAPTER ZERO: AN APOCALYPTIC PROLOGUE
Life has funny ways of making you take unexpected twists and turns. Instead of munching the occasional box, a gear in the works of a RobCo think-tank, I’m instead the wife of mister Nate Howard… and the mother of our son. Shaun sure wasn’t the name I picked for him, but I compromised. Besides, I got his middle name, after the grandfather he’d never know in this life. Shaun Horatio Howard. Not a bad ring to it.

CHAPTER ONE: GOOD MORNING AMERICA, AND GOODBYE
Now I say whiff ’cause well, I’m a fox. Eggheads in the European Commonwealth called my kind a “Vulpine”. Some real eugenics shit, and of course the good old US of A had to get on that to fight the commies. Why they decided to make a generic chimera instead of super-soldiers is beyond me, but here I am. Never got the full story, but daddy dearest probably knew more than he let on in his lifetime. I guess a lot of my kind are meant for military service.

CHAPTER TWO: DON’T THEY KNOW, IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD
…and I was out again. Next thing I know, I fall out of whatever cryogenic ice-cube tray they shoved us all into. The people who made it to the vault? Fucking popsicles. The quacks from Vault-Tec who kept us there? Scattered skeletons, long-since eaten by roaches the size of bobcats. Records on the computer said there was a mutiny. Good. Fuck them.

Chapters 3~5
CHAPTER THREE: A FATEFUL AFTERNOON
I always thought ending someone else’s life would’ve, you know, had more weight to it. But… well, I’m still awake, aren’t I? Old mattress, old bedroom, broken bedframe. The innocent people that Preston was guarding are alive thanks to me. But those guys trying to shoot them? Dead. All dead. Bodies to rot in the Museum of Freedom, where I’d once had a field trip as a kid. Some are torn up by minigun fire outside.

CHAPTER FOUR: A BRUSH WITH DEATH BY DINNERTIME
It’s weirdly peaceful on this rooftop. I retreated after a big battle on this maze of scaffolding. Never occurred to me how big the old Corvega plant was, even as a kid. If I get to choose how I die? Not going down in a hail of gunfire? I wanna limp, or drag my bloodied body, or whatever. I want to see the sky one last time. The nature growing all around. Not the broken bits of what used to be. Much as I love technology, I adore nature too.

CHAPTER FIVE: SYMPATHY FOR A DEVIL
It wasn’t just anyone who killed the motherfuckers and their gang. It was me. It was someone who was meant to die multiple times, and probably should have, but one whom fate seems to root for. I punched their ticket straight to hell, and protected someone who sees more than the linear string of apparent cosmic RNG. Hell, I’m someone who wants to believe this wasn’t just the gods playing dice.

Chapters 6~8
CHAPTER SIX: ONE REASON TO FIGHT TO-GO, PLEASE
So here’s where he dropped this crazy idea. He doesn’t feel right to lead a return of the Minutemen. I can’t blame him. But because of my altruism to help him and the settlers? He thinks I can be some new General for his troops. Sounded as stupid to me as it does when I say it out loud, so I can’t be the only one who thinks he’s crazy. *Dana pauses for a few*…and you know what? I’ve got the sneaking suspicion I’m already crazy. Crazy like a fox.

CHAPTER SEVEN: SUPER-DUPER MARCH
Right. My fox head is doing that defense mechanism it does. Getting all egghead to cope with shit. I mean, it works. Downed some liquid courage I found among the remaining groceries — a Gwinnett lager — shortly after I swung doors and stepped inside. First off, kind of a shame the meals in the Eat-O-Tronic were all moldy. Second off, seems some old-school blasters did survive. What I know as a Glock 86 plasma pistol was in the store. In a girl’s toy box. In the shell of a kid’s toy. Labeled as the “Magic Gun of Friendship”, with a fusion cell included.

CHAPTER EIGHT: MISCHIEF DAY SPOOKS
I thought spinning the cylinder would calm me down. Make me feel badass. It did the opposite. A stray mannequin near me fell over the moment I spun it. I yelped, nearly had a heart attack, and put a slug into the dummy’s head. It didn’t budge. I bet you’re thinking “it’s a dummy, dumbass, of course it didn’t”. You weren’t there. Like every other bit of paranormal shit I’d encountered, you had to be there.

Last entries for now!

Chapters 9~11
CHAPTER NINE: FARMSTEADS AND FAREWELLS
Grief does funny things to you, is what I’m trying to say. When I staggered my way off of that vault’s elevator, I was as heartbroken as Jun. When my killer instinct overtook me in the museum against those raiders, rage drove me like Marcy. In the face of something we can’t change, something that haunts us to our very core, we either crumple in despair or burn up with wrath.

CHAPTER TEN: ROBOTS AND RANGERS
Luckily what those machines had in numbers, they lacked in firepower. Somehow my leathers managed to be ablative against them, but not before burning off some layers. Oops. Along with others who swarmed with shock batons, both Danse and I scrapped them all. Also, I nearly incinerated Danse with a shuttle ignition. In my defense, we were getting swarmed at the ArcJet facility where he thought the transmitter was. Not my fault he didn’t back off when I hollered “FALL THE FUCK BACK, SPACE RANGER” at him. Thank the gods for his walking tank armor.

CHAPTER ELEVEN: THAT WAS THEN, THIS IS NOW
…I didn’t think I’d be strong enough to survive this world turned upside-down. I didn’t think I’d have the strength to carry on after Nate was murdered and Shaun was taken. I’d have thought I’d die numerous times. And I never thought I’d become as reckless — some might say ruthless — in avenging and protecting folk who didn’t serve any of the shit they’ve suffered. That was then. This is now.

Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE: THEREBY, BECOME A MONSTER
I don’t think I’d told you that I modified Danse’s gifted laser before. I managed to find a working pistol grip, even a comfy one. I held that thing white-knuckle as he told me he’d given Shaun to the Institute. I snarled at him as he told me I was dead for meeting him. But you know something? I remember exactly the last words I said to him. The last coherent ones before I shot up this mixture of Psycho and Buffout I brewed up. The last threat before I burned his androids to ashes with Righteous Authority, and the last threat he’d ever receive from the only one who could take him down.