ways_infirmary | (no subject)

(no subject)

Dr. McCoy checked her in yesterday, so Ellen's in one of the beds towards the back, Dogmeat curled up at her feet. At least somebody in this scenario currently has hair.

The personal dosimeter she's wearing would appear to indicate that it's safe to approach.

[OOC: visiting post. Have at!]

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Ellen blinks a few times. "The skin color's weird," she says, "but... sounds like a supermutant. Eight feet of muscle in seven feet of skin, kind of look? They're like that."

She starts to reach up to scratch her nose, then drops her hand; Dr. McCoy warned her against that.

"Never seen one use a Stealth Boy... Star Paladin Cross said the ones on our coast're different from West Coast mutants, though. Yours... they might be smarter."

"Star Paladin Cross - sounds like Brotherhood to me. And he's right, the Super Mutants in the Master's Army were as smart as humans. But they're gone now. Well, mostly."

"She is," says Ellen. "Protected my dad when I was just a baby... she's third highest rank in the Capital area now. Came east from California with Elder Lyons, she said."

"Might be a leftover. You never know. One that survived..." A thought strikes her, and she winces. "Might be another FEV source, somewhere. Like Vault 87."

"What's FEV?" Corazon asks. "I mean, I get that it's probably what makes people into Super Mutants, but what is it specifically?"

"Forced Evolutionary Virus," says Ellen, reaching down to run a hand over Dogmeat's head. "Rewrites your genome, mutates you... not just humans, either. There was a man in Grayditch. Lesko was... he tried it on giant ants. Trying to shrink 'em down to little size. He got it wrong and the infected brood... they breathed fire after that."

"Didn't ask where he got it from. I know Vault-Tec was testing it in Vault 87."

"So it's an Enclave thing. Corazon makes a face. "Figures. No offense, ED-E," she hastens to add.

"I... sort of," Ellen says. "The Enclave at Raven Rock? They were... they had a strain. It was going to wipe out anyone infected with regular FEV. Or any other FEV. I get the feeling they changed their minds about it, somewhere along the way."

"Doesn't matter now."

"Yeah. I guess not," Corazon says. "I did tell you, I think, that there are still mutants in the Southwest - or at least people say there are - living way out where people won't bother them. I guess that's true." That crazy blue guy she ran into had to come from somewhere.

"You said. I remember," says Ellen. "I wish ours would do that. Except Fawkes and Uncle Leo. I think Fawkes saved my life at the purifier. What was the blue one like?"

Corazon throws up her hands. "Fuckin' crazy, man. He was going up to this guys Brahmin pen every night and shooting the cattle with a minigun. I found this...journal, I guess, on his body, and apparently he was shooting the Brahmin because they were screaming in his head or something and distracting him."

"... that's different," Ellen admits. "Wow. Guess he put up a fight, huh?"

"Eh..." Corazon rubs the back of her head. "He didn't notice me. Or maybe he did, but he was really focused on the Brahmin. So I just shot his head off while his minigun was spinning up."

In other words, he never had a chance to put up a fight.

"Sensible," Ellen says. "You don't... you don't wanna take chances. Not with that many bullets."

"Or in general with something that could snap you in half like a twig," Corazon says. "Man, if I'm gonna be running into any more of those things, I'll need a better rifle. The one I have would probably just piss 'em off."

"Use enough gun," Ellen says firmly. "The first... the first time I saw a Deathclaw? People'd emptied assault rifles into it. It was still moving. I got- I got really lucky with a sniper shot. You're gonna want a lot of gun."

~~Moar DPS!~~

"Well, I got myself an SMG. It's a surprising amount of gun in a small package. But the range is too short. I'd rather not have to let something get that close."

"I miss my Gauss rifle," Ellen murmurs. "Long range. Nice scope. Took out a Behemoth's knees. Stupid aliens."

"Little green men abducted your Gauss rifle?"

(Corazon doesn't realize that that's seriously not funny.)

"Me," Ellen says. "Happened to be carrying the Gauss rifle at the time."

This is her dead bloody serious face.

"Whoa. Geez. In that case, I hope you shot them. Or blew them up. A lot."

"Oh, they're dead now," Ellen says. "All of them. Except the ones I think were slaves, I couldn't tell... killed the ones on the ship with me. Blew their other ship up. A lot."

"That's all right, then," Corazon says. "Maybe the rest of 'em will wise up and decide Earth is too dangerous to visit."

"Sure hope so," Ellen says. "I don't want to do that again. Ever."

Even if alien guns are amazing.

"So how's... how's the robot? Performing, you know, in- in fights, or whatever?"

"Pretty good. He's cooked some banditos and some of our exotic Mojave wildlife with that laser. I also figured out that he can feed stuff he sees - well, you know, detects, whatever - to my Pip-Boy. Which is neat."

"Nice," Ellen says approvingly. "I have power armor with sensors, but it doesn't- there's no interface. It just yells when there's stuff."