The Good Life: City of the Dead (ch. 53) (Patreon)

The battle began in earnest after her declaration and it was then that something became very apparent. For a month, Taylor had been preparing to conquer the Wasteland. She had her queen ants overworking themselves to create an army large enough to accomplish whatever task she set her mind to. Whatever task that might be, because it felt like it had slowly changed as time went by.

What became apparent was the Mechanist wasn't preparing to fight Law or Cinder. He had been preparing to defeat her. The… Antagonizer.

The clash happened across the Commonwealth in dozens of different places. It was what she imagined the first World War would have looked like with an ocean of creatures slamming into a defensive line, trying to overcome it. The Mechanist was prepared for her. Shockingly so. Taylor wasn't sure when exactly he started preparing to fight her, but it was clearly for some time because her ants were being slaughtered.

In one part of the battle, her ants swarmed over a modified sentry bot -- twin gatling laser arms sending out a continuous stream of blood red beams that struck her insects while four additional arms lashed out at any that came close with chainsaw like appendages. The exoskeletons of her ants were tough, but they practically melted underneath the buzzing saws and intense red lasers.

Taylor took control of the battle, fighting dozens of them all at once while she prepared her next move. Because, with her scouts, she knew that the Mechanist was gearing up for the next phase of their battle. She directed a handful of ants forward, acting as a smoke screen while smaller insects darted down to interfere with sentry bot's sensors, finding it impossible to slip inside to interfere with its vulnerable insides. More and more of the machines she found were sealed, except for ventilation ports, but those burned so intensely the cost was simply too high to be worth attacking from that angle.

The sentry bot reacted with unusual responsiveness, unlike the base machines that she had seen before. Meaning that it was likely controlled. But, given how many instances she was finding, it wasn't likely that the Mechanist was in control of them all. Not unless they had extremely similar powers.

Taylor was prepared for it, accepting the losses of three ants to cover the one that would attack. It crawled over its brothers, jumping forward to crash into the sentry bot, mandible latching onto one of the arms to chew through the weak joints. Half of the arm fell off, useless, even as the ant was bisected through the thorax and tossed aside. The loss meant little as Taylor already had another ant seizing the opportunity, chipping away at the sentry bot. The arms were destroyed, and the gatling guns began to overheat from constant use.

Instead of retreating, the sentry bot rushed forward to a cluster of her insects before self-destructing. From her vantage point miles away, Taylor still saw the mushroom cloud go up as a small plume. It was joined by others across miles of battle.

The battle against that one sentry bot was just one of many similar battles that were all transpiring at the same time. There were dozens, some far more involved as Taylor found herself being pushed back. There were places where she was breaking through. Both she and the Mechanist were reacting to each other's victories and defeats in rapid succession, trying to tilt the odds in their favor.

The issue was that for every machine that Taylor destroyed, she was lucky if she only lost ten soldier ants. She had the numbers for the moment, but if the battle went on long enough…

To combat that, Taylor utilized her blood worms. They tunneled beneath the ground, chewing through stone and concrete to create a tunnel system underneath the Mechanist's defensive line. She siphoned off some ants and other insects, funneling them into the tunnels before having her bloodworms emerge underneath the problem areas. Sentry bots, Assaultrons, Mister Gutsies, and more.

They fell into Taylor's pit traps, unable to react as she swarmed over them before they could properly recover. The problem areas began to clear out. Her bloodworms moved on, heading towards the Castle, and she funneled what insects she could into the tunnels with them to help protect them from the bombardments.

In response, Taylor saw a swarm of something emerge from the Castle. It took her a moment to tell what they were before she realized that it was hundreds of eyebots that were flying straight towards her insects while what was left of the defensive line pulled back to restructure itself. Biting her lip, Taylor unleashed her own swarm of flying insects -- bloatflies and flying ants. It took them a few minutes to meet in the middle, but soon there was a dog fight happening over what was left of Boston.

The very worst part of the battle, however, was that the Mechanist wouldn't shut up.

“Long have I prepared to face you, Antagonizer! I know all your tricks, all of your strengths and all of your weaknesses!” The Mechanist boasted up and down the battlefield. Taylor was forced to lead her insects through a minefield and a subsequent bombardment from the Castle -- the entire area was zoned, Taylor realized. Giving the Minutemen pinpoint accuracy. “There is nothing you can do that I haven't prepared for!” He continued as insects and eyebots fell from the sky, dead or destroyed.

Annoyingly, he was proving himself right. The eyebots were disposable, meant only to burn through her reserves of flying insects. But she had to do it, otherwise her ants would be picked off from above. It also stole some of her attention away from the ground war, letting the Mechanist fall back and dig in.

He was right on the mark, Taylor thought with some frustration. He knew exactly how to fight her. But, as it would so happen, she turned out to have a rather unexpected ally.

“Ah, your faithful sidekick. I can only imagine the horrors you inflicted upon her to twist her into this wretched figure that she has become,” The Mechanist continued as Taylor's attention shifted to Cinder as she reached the second line of machines.

If you didn't know anything about her, you could be drawn in by how mesmerizing it was to watch her fight. How she conjured shards of glass that managed to punch through metal armor, or outright melt entire machines. She fought with two swords in hand, moving at incredible speeds, and simply carved through any opposition that got in her way.

“Shut up,” Taylor hissed under her breath, watching as Cinder used the forcefield around her to accept the shots from a autocannon turret, casually summoning a glass shard that flung itself into the barrel, causing the entire thing to explode while she pounced on a assaultron. The laser beam that erupted from the Assaultron's head narrowly missed Cinder as she flipped out of the way, her twin swords becoming a bow and arrow that she fired off into the eye of the assaultron. It exploded and before it had even finished, Cinder was already moving on.

Alone. Cinder was attacking the army alone. She didn't bring anyone with her. No supporting army. No, that wasn't entirely true. She was using her army as a distraction so she could slip through the cracks in the Mechanist's defenses.

What Robin said echoed in Taylor's ears. As much as she hated to admit it, Cinder was capable of forcing the Castle to surrender on her own. It would be bloody, and Cinder didn't care a thing about collateral. If she got to the Castle before her, Taylor knew in her gut that it would be a slaughter. Worse, Cinder would win this race and she could become the ruler of Nuka-World.

Something had to change.

The Mechanist had been preparing for this fight since the start. He would know what insects could be found in the Wasteland. He would know how she used her powers. What she needed… was for him to make a mistake.

“Your grandstanding is irritating and undeserved,” Taylor spoke through her swarm. “You act like you've already won,” she said, trying to see if she could rile the Mechanist up. As she did so, she took out her phone and sent a message to Gauge.

‘Find his signal.’

She didn't need to destroy all of his machines. She just needed to get to the Castle. She needed to get to the Mechanist.

It only took a second for Gauge to reply. ‘Already on it. He's in the area. Not the Castle, but within two miles of you.’

That was close. That was extremely close. Taylor looked out at what was left of Boston, seeing the slow trickle of her army still marching forward in a wide arc. That was a lot of space for someone to hide, but there were only so many places that could send out a signal that could control an army of machines.

“I shall win! Justice shall always prevail!” The Mechanist replied while Taylor considered her options. If she concentrated her forces, then she would just make them targets for the Castle's mortars. Tunneling miles underground would take too long. Cinder would beat her to the Castle. She-

Taylor's hands curled into fists, her lips thinning before she squared her shoulders. She already said it. She acknowledged what she had to be for the first time since she arrived in this wretched world. It was time to follow through on it.

“No, it doesn't,” Taylor refuted through her swarm. “Supernova, my minion… breach the Castle and slaughter everyone you find within. We have tolerated this resistance for too long and the people of the Commonwealth will be punished for their impudence!” Taylor proclaimed and through her insects she saw the effect had on Cinder.

Cinder nearly faltered the moment she heard the order. Almost tripping over a machine as she fought and an attack that she would have easily dodged struck her, doing little damage because of her barrier, but it was enough to jolt her out of her momentary stupefied shock. Then her expression twisted into what Taylor could only describe as apocalyptic rage with her lips pulled back into a snarl.

As good as it felt to get one over Cinder, Taylor had to admit that she was glad that there were miles of distance between them at the moment.

It was something of a gamble, but Cinder's reaction was in line with what Taylor expected. She caught a glimpse of it when they were racing towards Diamond City -- how Cinder's powers increased when she was angry. Or desperate. The effect was that Cinder surged forward, devastating everything around and in front of her as she raced to reach the Castle.

The reason why was that Cinder wanted to become the ruler of Nuka-World so she could make Taylor suffer for calling her a minion.

What the Mechanist saw was Cinder racing to obey the order.

“Y- you monster! I won't allow it!” The Mechanist exclaimed, sounding genuinely shocked by what he heard. Taylor couldn't blame him for that. Honestly, as annoying as she found him, Taylor could accept that he was a hero. A real one. The kind that stood for truth, justice, and the betterment of others. But if he was playing the role of the hero, then Taylor would accept her role as the villain. Just as Law did before her.

“Then stop me,” Taylor goaded, readying herself for whatever response the Mechanist had prepared. The battle still raged as Taylor changed her approach, using Cinder as a knife to cut through their defenses. She held the insects in the tunnels in reserve, waiting to send them one way or another.

She had her answer a second later when a building less than a mile away suddenly exploded with activity. Sentry bots, Securitrons, Eyebots, and more began to pour out of the building through every exit it had. All of them racing towards her army to attack it from the rear. There were around a hundred robots that joined the fight, but given the circumstances…

If it became a drawn out fight, The Mechanist would have won.

Instead, Taylor had the insects in the tunnels turn around to join her as she had the ant she rode on start to climb down the building. Her bloodworms started to carve a path towards the building that the Mechanist was in while the battlefield started to shift in her favor. Taylor was losing the battle of the skies, and the moment that the machines started to attack her rear, Taylor knew that she would lose the ground battle as well. She and the Mechanist would destroy each other's armies, which would leave Cinder the winner.

And to the victor, the spoils.

Taylor reached the ground, and despite herself, she found herself supporting Cinder to keep up the pressure when Cinder started facing increased resistance. They were working together and in a competition at the same time.

She waited until the robot reinforcements reached her back line before Taylor made her move. The bloodworms pressed onward, creating tunnels towards the building and through their senses, Taylor discovered the underground complex beneath the building. Mostly by accident when her bloodworms exploded through concrete in the middle of an assembly area.

Where the machines were created, Taylor realized. It had to be Pre-War, but it was in full production mode with an assembly line of robots being put together. Her ants followed the worms into the compound, disrupting production as they searched for the Mechanist. An alarm blared that slowly got louder as Taylor went down into the sewers before climbing through the makeshift tunnel the bloodworms made.

The Mechanist's control slipped, Taylor noticed as they delved deeper into a massive underground compound. The eyebots in the sky were nowhere near as coordinated. Neither were the machines on the ground. They still fought, but without the coordination between them, they were a far more manageable foe. Enough so that Taylor could push past Cinder towards the Castle.

At the very bottom was the heart of the compound and it was there that Taylor found the Mechanist.

He was a lot shorter than Taylor expected. He wore an almost comical costume giving him the appearance of a cartoon robot as he stood inside what Taylor could only describe as a command center. There was a gun in his hand pointed to the door as Taylor opened it with the help of her insects. “A clever ruse,” the Mechanist acknowledged. “You found me after I left myself defenseless. But you have another thing coming if you think I'll surrender so easily! The Commonwealth needs a hero! Someone to stand up to people like you! To give people hope that things can be better!”

Taylor slid off the soldier ant that she had been riding, realizing that she was the same height as the Mechanist. The words washed over her and Taylor found herself… sad.

“No,” Taylor refuted, her insects trickling in behind her. They spread out, and the Mechanist jerked his gun back and forth at the insects, but didn't shoot. “What the Commonwealth needs is a villain.”

Heroes couldn't accomplish anything in this world. There was no justice to be found. It was all grays and necessary evils.

“Someone so powerful and terrifying that it keeps the monsters in line.” Exactly like she did with the Disciples. “Someone who can regulate the necessary evils that have to be committed for survival.” As Taylor spoke, she strode forward, unafraid as a terrible resolve solidified in her chest. “The Wasteland needs someone like me.”

She came to a stop in front of the Mechanist, holding out a hand to her.

Then she spoke, accepting her role. “Surrender to me here and now and the slaughter at the Castle can be stopped. Save them,” Taylor instructed, her voice cold to her own ears. She would be the villain that the Wasteland needed. She would be the villain until it didn't need her anymore.

She had to pretend to be the very worst person she knew.

The Mechanist looked down at her hand, the gun trembling. He didn't hand her the gun. Instead, he dropped it before he reached up to his helmet and took it off. Taylor kept her face neutral but she was surprised to learn that the Mechanist wasn't a he. He was a she. A woman in her late teens to early twenties, dark hair and eyes that were narrowed into a hateful and resentful glare.

“Damn you for this. But fine. I surrender so long as you don't hurt anyone else.” She spat, looking away in defeat.

“You have my word,” Taylor said, though she knew deep in her gut that she was lying.

…

Six months was a decent chunk of time. A lot could happen within half a year. By this time last year, I had already killed a member of the Seven, even if it was totally by accident, and was well on my way to terrorizing America. In comparison, my stay in the New World had been positively mundane. There was a great deal of sitting around, looking menacing while making sure things went as smoothly as they could have.

That left me with an excessive amount of free time. Despite what Rumi and others might like to think, I did other things than sit around my room in the dark, practicing my evil laugh while concocting sinister plots.

“You get an A for creativity!” I praised as I leaned out of the way of a blood red laser beam that would have punched a hole through my face. That feeling that I felt back when I was fighting Homelander and the gatorclaw warned me of where the attacks would come from. Enough so that as I drew my diamond blade, I deflected another laser before smoothly following it up with deflecting a bullet. “Big fan of the suped up pirate ship. That's style.”

Haki. That's what Robin told me it was called. It was a thing she had read about in her world, and as far as she could tell, I tapped into it. Neither of us were really sure why, and Robin didn't exactly know much about it. What she did tell me was that there were three types -- Observation Haki, Armament Haki, and Conqueror's Haki. She couldn't even tell me what Haki was, let alone how to use or train it.

Which left me with about six months of feeling it out.

“But… did you really think this would be enough to get through me?” I asked, swapping places with one of the guys in power armor. The only two I recognized were Nora and Preston, who were doing their best to salvage their operation. To prove my point, I punched the nearest grunt in power armor in the chest and the steel plate crumpled along with the guy's ribcage.

Physically speaking, I wasn't any stronger than I had been. I was generally pretty fit, but I wasn't going to be winning any strength competitions. That's where Haki helped meet me halfway. It was… belief, if I had to call it something. Maybe willpower?

While Observation Haki let me foresee attacks, Armament bent the rules a bit. Attacks that should hurt me didn't hurt as much because I thought they shouldn't. Likewise, attacks I knew shouldn't do as much damage as they did would because I wanted them to. Willed them to.

“I get that this is your last shot. A suicide mission to destroy the Dias, but…” I trailed off, swapping myself around to avoid attacks. Preston made a mad dash to the portal, only to find himself swapped with one of his buddies, and before he could correct he slammed into another, knocking them both off their feet. “I was expecting more.”

I directed the words to Nora, who had formed up with a small squad. I couldn't see her, but my Room felt her inside. Honestly, if I wanted to, I could just take them out of the power armor. But I wouldn't. I wanted to see what they had up their sleeves. What she would do under pressure. So, lazily, I swung my sword.

“Dodge!” Nora commanded, shoving my target out of the way. At least until I swapped him with a sand bag that was directly behind where he stood. The slash caught him right down the middle, effortlessly cutting through the power armor and the man within it. He wasn't dead, of course, just understandably freaking out about getting bisected.

As my focus was on Nora, another one of her guys leveled a rocket launcher at the portal, trying to blow it up. I let the rocket fire off, streaming forward, before I swapped the rocket with the guy who fired it. It slammed into his back, but the moment it exploded, I siphoned off the actual explosion so he just got pinged in the back. Compressing the explosion, I planted my sword in the ground and grabbed it like a baseball. With a pitchers throw, I robbed it at Preston and the guy he was extracting himself from. The explosion caught him in the side, knocking them both flying.

Preston was alive. The other guy took the brunt of the blast, and he wasn't doing so hot. The armor had taken a beating but it did its job for both of them.

“Come on. Show me what I've been waiting for,” I said, picking up my sword once more. Within two minutes, I had taken four of their fifteen down and I was hardly trying. I hadn't even teleported them away from the portal, giving them hope that they could destroy it.

Training was fine. I spent six months mastering some stuff. Exploring others. But, I always expressed explosive growth when it came to fighting when I was in the middle of one. When the pressure was on, when the margin of error was hair thin… that's when I was in my element. That's what I wanted from Nora.

I'm just not sure she could give it.

I could feel her intensity through my Room. Her laser focus on the mission and on me. I could practically hear her mind churning away, considering her options and how she could beat me. She had the will. I'm just not sure she had the power.

She didn't think she had it either, “The operation was a failure the moment you arrived,” Nora acknowledged, her voice filtering through the helmet. I frowned, bouncing my sword on my shoulder. “Beyond everything you've just shown us, we don't have anything that can counter your ability to move us around.”

That was the crux of the issue for them. It didn't matter how close the finish line might seem, they would forever be one step away.

“You knew about that power of mine since the start. Are you really going to tell me you don't have any contingencies?” I prodded, looking for something. This was their desperate gamble. Their last stand. A suicide mission to defeat us.

Yet, beyond the power armor, they weren't any different than regular humans.

And I was beyond them the moment I received my power.

“I didn't say that,” Nora said, hitting something on her Pip Boy. In response, I glanced up at the old wooden ship with rocket thrusters strapped to it just in time to see that missiles were firing down from it. In that same moment, Nora's team made a break for it -- half of them gunning for me while the rest fired at the portal.

They were trying to overwhelm me, I acknowledged with a lazy smile. It was their only real shot at beating my power. Give me too many things to deal with or process at once and maybe something would slip through. After all, they only needed to get lucky once.

“B minus,” I decided, using the soldiers to block the ensuing explosions with Shambles. None of them came close to the portal. The missiles that rained down from above were diverted, exploding behind me as I casually walked forward towards Nora. The explosions ruffled my jacket, but I contained them enough so they didn't do any actual damage. Just enough to make me look cool.

Nora started to get up, part of her armor scorched from where she took the hit. Rising to her feet, she held her ground.

“What else?” I prompted, coming to a stop. She had to have something. Anything. Something that would challenge me in any meaningful way. Hell, I'd settle for it forcing me to reveal the other techniques I've been working on for the past six months.

Nora answered with a compressed hiss as her armor opened up. My heart squeezed when Nora stepped out of it, seeming disheveled with a bloody nose but overall calm. Accepting. “That was it,” she told me and my heart fell. “I'm offering to surrender on the condition that you don't kill anyone else. You've beaten us.”

That was… “Why would I agree to something like that? Some of these guys look like they have a little more fight in them,” I noted, glancing at Preston, who was trying to get his armor to function when half of it was scrap. He was the only one, I realized, feeling out the others. I felt plenty of resentment coming from them, but most of them radiated a bitter acceptance. Not totally different from Nora as she slowly approached me with her hands in the air.

I didn't even sense hostility from her. She wasn't even planning to get in close to try to stab me or something.

Nora met my look and her jaw tightened. “If you guarantee the lives of my men, and the people at the Castle… You can have me.” She said, catching my attention and I cocked an eyebrow. “When you weren't checking out my tits, you were checking out my ass. I noticed. I'm used to it.” She offered a small shrug as she came to a stop just outside of reaching distance.

Well, she wasn't wrong there. “Pretty high opinion of yourself you have there. And I'm not sure you're really in a position to negotiate anything,” I pointed out. I did rather like the fact that she knew she was a bombshell and owned it. The audacity of it earned her some points in my book. I knew there was a reason why I liked her, and it wasn't just her massive boobs.

“You beat us. We took a shot and we missed. I never wanted to be the General of the Minutemen. I just wanted to find my son in this hell hole, and I did. Everything that came after…” she trailed off, her lips thinning and I understood what she was trying to say. “I had responsibilities to keep going. I did what I could and it wasn't enough. We lost. Now my job is to mitigate the damages.”

I pursed my lips, mulling it over for a moment. “I respect that,” I decided. I'm not sure Nora had ever been particularly invested in the whole conflict in the first place. It was just something to grab onto after meeting Shaun. To her, some months ago the world had ended in nuclear hellfire, her child was kidnapped, her husband was murdered, and at the end of a long quest to find him, she found her son had gone native and led the people who murdered her husband. She had nothing left but her title.

Now? Now, even as she waited for my answer, there was a lethargic acceptance about her. It probably wouldn't last, but…

“I accept on the condition you be good,” I decided and Nora nodded, accepting that. “You'll help arrange the surrender for the Castle and the resettlement. After that… we'll see,” I told her and Nora nodded once more.

“Then, as the General of the Minutemen, I offer our formal surrender to the terms,” she said and I could feel Preston's despair. Even as he slowly lost consciousness because of his injuries.

I ignored him in favor of drinking in the situation. It was our victory. Taylor was probably going to capture the Castle anyway. There would be problems, but the resistance had been crushed.

We had won.

We'd conquered the Commonwealth.

So why did this victory feel so unfulfilling?