Fallout - Chapter 132: The Tides Turn (Patreon)

With every step Colter took, the entire arena floor trembled slightly.

It wasn't an illusion. It was the sheer weight bearing down on the ground. The power armor he wore was far heavier than any model Jace had ever seen.

Its basic frame had been modified from Raider power armor, but the entire suit was broader and bulkier. The welds were rough and ugly, rivets were left exposed, and countless sharp burrs hadn't even been ground down, gleaming coldly beneath the arena lights.

The helmet had a bizarre silhouette, resembling the head of some metallic insect. Just looking at it was enough to send a chill down one's spine.

The chest plate had been reinforced with layer after layer of armor, bulging outward at the center. Its edges were covered in welded spikes and coils of barbed wire, making it look like a moving wall of steel, or perhaps a raging bull bound tightly in scrap metal and chains.

It was the perfect embodiment of wasteland brutality. Crude, savage, and overwhelmingly oppressive.

The pale blue glow surrounding Colter was a full-body plasma energy shield.

Anything approaching at high speed, bullets, shrapnel, flying debris, even high-velocity droplets of water, would trigger it.

Solid, liquid, or gas, it made no difference. The moment something moving fast enough approached the barrier, the electromagnetic field would forcibly slow it, deflect it, and throw it aside. Like water rolling off a lotus leaf, it couldn't even touch the person inside.

Even the shockwave from a Fat Man's mini nuke would be absorbed and redirected when it struck the barrier.

Energy weapons and plasma weapons would simply be canceled out.

This was the secret behind Colter's undefeated record in the arena, and why he had walked away from every battle without a scratch.

But this seemingly invincible shield had two fatal weaknesses.

The first was its absurd power consumption.

Maintaining a full-coverage plasma force field required an enormous and continuous supply of electricity, far beyond what a single power armor fusion core could provide. That was why Colter needed the arena's external power cable to keep the system running.

The second weakness came from the way the shield worked. It stopped fast objects, but not slow ones.

The barrier only reacted to objects moving above a certain speed.

Strictly speaking, that wasn't really a design flaw. The technology had originally been developed for spacecraft.

There was no atmosphere on a space battlefield, so shockwaves from explosive weapons were almost useless. The real threats were high-speed projectiles, lasers, and particle beams.

The scientists who designed the system had never even considered low-speed threats. What danger could something moving that slowly possibly pose? Was someone going to ride it over and board the ship?

That was why this supposedly invincible shield could be short-circuited and disabled by something as simple as splashing a bottle of water onto it.

Colter didn't give Jace much time to think.

"Ready to die, challenger?"

Electromagnetic interference distorted his voice through the helmet, making it sound muffled and resonant, with a metallic vibration beneath every word.

The moment he finished speaking, he charged.

Every hydraulic line in the power armor surged to full output. His metal boots slammed into the dirt, leaving footprints three centimeters deep with every step.

He came straight at Jace like a high-speed cannonball, arms spread wide, aiming directly for his head.

Colter had killed countless opponents in this arena with the same move. With the overwhelming strength of his power armor and the absolute defense of his plasma shield, no one had ever managed to stop his charge.

Once, he had grabbed a warrior wearing T-45 power armor and twisted his entire head off, helmet and all, as easily as unscrewing the lid from a can.

Jace didn't retreat.

He raised both guns at once, aimed the two heavy Magnums at Colter's chest, and pulled the triggers in rapid succession.

Bang! Bang!

Two armor-piercing rounds tore through the air at five hundred meters per second, only to veer sharply off course half a meter before reaching Colter.

It was as though they had struck an invisible sphere. Their trajectories visibly curved around his body before slamming into the arena wall and blasting loose chunks of stone.

Completely ineffective.

Jace immediately leaped into the air, landing steadily atop a three-meter-tall Nuka-Cola bottle sculpture at the edge of the arena.

Colter's lunge missed completely. His hands slammed together with a dull metallic clang.

He looked up at Jace without the slightest trace of irritation in his voice.

"Fast on your feet. But people who are afraid to die don't live very long."

Standing on the bottle cap, Jace quietly looked down at him.

"I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of losing. What about you?"

Colter stared at him, then suddenly laughed.

This time, the admiration was genuine.

"You're getting more interesting by the minute."

He deliberately raised his voice so every Raider in the arena could hear him.

"Compared to you, Gage is nothing but a coward hiding in the shadows. He doesn't even have the guts to step out in the open and take my place."

Hundreds of eyes immediately turned toward Gage in the upper stands.

Gage's expression darkened instantly. His lips pressed into a thin line, the muscles along his jaw tightening and twitching, but he didn't dare say a word.

He knew perfectly well that under these circumstances, any attempt to defend himself would be pointless.

Colter gave him a dismissive glance, then ignored him and turned his attention back to Jace.

Without another word, he charged straight at the Nuka-Cola sculpture.

He seized the middle of the bottle with both hands. His metal fingers dug directly into the fiberglass shell as he shoved with all his strength.

The heavy sculpture began to tilt violently. Its concrete base scraped across the ground with a piercing screech, carving a deep trench through the dirt.

The instant the sculpture lost its balance, Jace moved.

Instead of jumping backward, he launched himself toward Colter, using the falling sculpture's momentum to propel himself forward. His boot landed precisely on Colter's shoulder plate.

The moment his foot touched down, he felt a faint elastic resistance beneath it, like stepping onto a tightly stretched membrane.

Jace pushed off, flipped once through the air, and landed steadily five meters away.

After regaining his footing, he looked at Colter.

"Your power armor's shield stops fast attacks, but not slow ones?"

Colter paused and turned toward him, even more admiration creeping into his voice.

"Not bad for the Minutemen's General. You've got sharp eyes."

He reached over to the tilted sculpture and tore off a one-and-a-half-meter section of the Nuka-Cola bottle decoration with brute force, gripping it like a baseball bat.

The next second, he charged again, raised the makeshift club overhead, and brought it crashing down.

Jace slipped aside.

The club slammed into the ground with a deafening impact, blasting out a shallow crater. Dirt and gravel flew in every direction as the force of the strike kicked up a cloud of dust.

Using his sidestep to carry himself closer, Jace rushed inside Colter's reach and drew the short sword at his waist with his right hand.

Forged from saturnite alloy, the Cosmic Knife was sharp enough to cut through alloy armor.

Jace's wrist moved in a blur as he stabbed repeatedly at every vulnerable point he could find on Colter's power armor. The armpits, joints, waist seams, anywhere the armor should have been weaker.

Every strike was stopped cold by the thick plating.

Even without the plasma shield, the physical protection offered by Colter's modified power armor was absurd. The blade could only leave shallow white marks across its surface. It couldn't penetrate at all.

Jace immediately pulled back.

Colter's metal club swept after him.

Jace ducked at the last possible moment. The weapon passed just above his visor, and the pressure from the swing made the faceplate vibrate with a low hum.

Realizing he simply couldn't land a hit, Colter threw the club aside, pulled out a combat rifle, and opened fire.

A dense stream of bullets hammered against the armor of the Type 92 Powered Suit, throwing off a shower of tiny sparks as every round ricocheted away.

The black armor remained perfectly smooth. Not even the paint had been chipped.

Colter studied the untouched Type 92 and gave a serious assessment.

"I take back what I said earlier. That armor of yours isn't just for show."

"Glad you approve."

Jace raised his Magnum again and activated the Pip-Boy's V.A.T.S. targeting system.

Time seemed to slow instantly.

Dust suspended in the air drifted almost motionlessly, while Colter's movements became little more than slow motion.

Under the precise targeting view, flaws appeared in the otherwise uniform plasma barrier. The diamond-shaped openings in the wire mesh around Colter's helmet disrupted the field's distribution.

Three weak points became clearly visible.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Three armor-piercing rounds struck the weakest parts of the barrier with pinpoint accuracy.

Although the shield slowed and deflected them enough to bleed away some of their kinetic energy, they still struck the helmet squarely.

Sparks flew.

Three distinct white marks appeared across the metal.

But Colter's helmet was simply too thick. The rounds still couldn't penetrate.

At that moment, the same thought crossed both their minds.

Guns alone weren't going to settle this. It was time to get serious.

Colter casually tossed away his rifle and tore an even larger section from the Nuka-Cola sculpture. Nearly two meters long, he hoisted it with both hands.

Jace holstered his pistols and tightened his grip on the short sword. Its cold edge flashed beneath the arena lights.

The Raiders in the stands stared in stunned silence.

The contrast between the two fighters couldn't have been more extreme.

On one side stood a battlefield giant wrapped in massive heavy armor, wielding an enormous club.

On the other was a slender figure in close-fitting black armor, armed with nothing but a short blade.

Colter charged again.

The two-meter metal club screamed through the air as he brought it down toward Jace's head.

Jace slipped to the side. The club skimmed past his shoulder armor before smashing into the ground and sending dirt flying.

He immediately stepped inside Colter's reach and drove his short sword toward the gap in the power armor's knee joint.

The next several exchanges were relentless.

Colter attacked without pause, sweeping, smashing, and hammering away with blows powerful enough to crack the ground and bend metal railings.

But Jace relied on his extreme speed and footwork to evade every attack by the narrowest possible margin.

He still couldn't break through Colter's armor, but he kept pressing him, refusing to yield even a step.

The Raiders in the arena erupted.

Wine bottles were set aside as everyone focused completely on the fight.

They had watched countless challengers die at Colter's hands. No one had ever survived more than three exchanges.

Yet today, the General Gage had brought into the arena was fighting Colter through dozens of exchanges despite Colter's overwhelming home-field advantage.

He hadn't broken.

He hadn't lost.

And he hadn't backed down.

After such an intense exchange, both men began to reach the limits of their stamina.

Colter's heavy breathing echoed through his helmet, deep and muffled. His movements had clearly slowed, and his strikes no longer carried the same savage force they had at the beginning.

Jace was just as exhausted.

Even with the Type 92's support systems running at full capacity, every muscle in his body was being pushed beyond its limits. The difference in sheer weight between them was simply too great. One clean hit from Colter could end the fight.

Every last-second dodge and precise counterattack burned through his stamina at an alarming rate.

After another clash, the two separated.

They stood five meters apart, staring each other down.

The arena fell completely silent.

Hundreds of Raiders held their breath, waiting for the decisive moment.

The next second, both men pushed themselves to the limit.

The injection system in Colter's power armor activated instantly, pumping Buffout, Psycho, and Jet into his body at the same time.

The drugs hit almost immediately.

His heart rate skyrocketed. His muscles swelled with blood. His senses sharpened to their limits as his entire body entered a frenzied state of combat exhilaration.

Jace activated his own personal enhancement at the same time, the powerful radiation serum Tinker Tom had specially developed for him.

Stimulated by the radiation, his ghoul physiology rapidly awakened.

Damaged cells began repairing themselves at an accelerated rate. His muscle fibers contracted more efficiently. Neural signals traveled faster.

Strength, Endurance, Perception, Agility.

Within seconds, all of them rose to an entirely new level.

The two human war machines exploded into motion at the same time, charging straight at each other at full speed.

This time, Jace did something no one expected.

He vanished from Colter's sight.

His enhanced Agility, combined with his stealth camouflage, made him so fast that only a blurred afterimage remained before even that disappeared.

After another exchange, Colter was repeatedly thrown off balance.

Before he could steady himself, Jace vanished from his sight again.

Colter immediately went on full alert. His helmet snapped from side to side as he scanned the entire arena for his target.

Then years of battle instinct suddenly screamed a warning.

Danger behind him.

Colter spun around and swept his heavy club behind him.

He guessed the direction correctly.

But he still missed.

The instant Colter turned, Jace dropped into an extreme crouch, letting the club sweep just above his head.

Then Jace exploded upward.

The short sword flashed horizontally.

Slice!

A sharp cutting sound rang out.

The heavy cable offered no resistance to the saturnite alloy blade and was severed cleanly.

The power armor's external power supply was cut.

The plasma barrier surrounding Colter faded like a screen losing power, its blue glow disappearing in an instant.

Without the enormous external power supply, the power armor's fusion core couldn't generate nearly enough output to keep the shield active.

Colter's massive suit immediately lost its balance.

He crashed face-first into the dirt, throwing up a cloud of dust.

But his fingers remained locked tightly around the metal club.

He hadn't loosened his grip at all.

Jace stopped three meters away.

Fine copper shavings still clung to the tip of his short sword, but he made no attempt to rush in.

The two remained motionless.

One second.

Two seconds.

Three seconds.

The arena was dead silent.

Everyone thought their boss was finished.

The same thought ran through countless minds.

Was it too late to swear loyalty to the new guy?

On the fourth second, Colter suddenly sprang back to his feet.

The remaining power in the armor drove its hydraulic system at full output, bringing him upright before he spun around to face Jace.

At the same time, the backup power array mounted in the arena ceiling came alive.

Blue Tesla arcs crashed downward, pouring directly into Colter's power armor.

CRACK!

The arena lights dimmed sharply.

Ionized air erupted with a piercing electrical snap.

The vanished plasma barrier instantly restarted. Pale blue light wrapped around Colter once more, brighter and denser than before.

Colter looked at Jace with genuine curiosity in his voice.

"How'd you see through it? That trick's fooled plenty of people."

Jace answered calmly.

"You never let go of the weapon."

Colter looked down at the hand still gripping the club.

He fell silent for two seconds, then gave a quiet, self-mocking laugh.

"So that's what gave it away. These drugs really do make you stupid."

He looked back up at Jace.

Every trace of mockery was gone now. What remained was genuine sincerity and respect.

"Now you can't even get close to me. Surrender. I'll let you take Gage's place as my second-in-command."

"Not interested."

Jace reached behind his back and pulled out a fist-sized sphere.

He casually tossed it toward Colter.

The sphere wasn't moving especially fast or especially slow. Its speed was just low enough to pass through the shield.

Colter instinctively raised the metal club to knock it aside.

Just before the sphere struck the weapon, Jace raised his gun.

Bang!

A single precise shot shattered the transparent shell.

The impact blasted the liquid inside into a fine mist, spraying it across Colter's plasma barrier.

The next instant, electrical arcs erupted across his entire body.

The slow-moving mist passed through the gaps in the shield and formed a complete conductive path between the armor and the plasma force field.

The previously stable field overloaded instantly.

Then it collapsed.

The pale blue barrier flickered violently several times before going completely dark.

This time, it didn't come back.

Colter looked down at the water clinging to his armor.

He understood everything now.

There was a hint of bitterness in his voice.

"My mistake. I thought Gage still had at least some kind of line he wouldn't cross. Looks like he sold me out completely."

Up in the stands, Gage's face had gone dark.

He knew his reputation was finished.

No one would ever trust him as a middleman again.

But even with the shield completely disabled, Colter's oppressive presence hadn't diminished.

Even without the electromagnetic barrier, the heavy power armor still possessed terrifying physical protection and hydraulic strength. The residual power alone was more than enough to crush an ordinary person to death.

Colter threw away the heavy metal club.

He gave up on ranged attacks and charged barehanded at full speed.

He threw a punch with everything he had, aiming straight at Jace's face.

It carried enough force to smash through a concrete wall.

Jace didn't dodge.

He simply raised his left hand and met the punch head-on.

BOOM!

The collision thundered through the arena.

A shockwave spread outward from the two fighters, whipping the dust around them into expanding rings.

Jace's boots slid two centimeters through the dirt.

Then they stopped.

Completely.

His fingers tightened around Colter's metal fist, digging into the gaps in the armor.

Colter froze.

For a moment, the black figure standing in front of him felt even more terrifying than the Deathclaw that had trampled his family's farm when he was a child.

It was a fear carved into his bones.

The fear of facing something he couldn't resist.

The fear of being completely overpowered.

Jace stepped forward.

Driven by the radiation serum, his muscle fibers unleashed a level of strength that seemed almost impossible.

The dirt beneath his foot cracked apart.

Colter, power armor and all, was forcibly pushed half a step backward.

An overwhelming force bore down on him.

It didn't feel like a man was pushing him.

It felt like a runaway truck.

The ground beneath his feet collapsed into a shallow depression.

A piercing metallic groan came from the armor's joints.

Hydraulic fluid began seeping through the gaps in the leg plating, dripping onto the ground like blood from the power armor itself.

Jace looked at the motionless Colter and smiled faintly.

"Looks like... the tables have turned."

...

In a corner of the very back row of the stands, a Raider clutched a half-empty bottle of Nuka-Cola and stared wide-eyed at the arena.

Every muscle in his body was tense, and he was practically trembling with excitement.

"This is insane... If I get to see a fight like this once in my life, I can die happy..."

He was completely absorbed in the battle below and never noticed the movement behind him.

A blade plunged into the back of his neck, precisely severing his spinal cord and carotid artery.

The bloodthirsty spectator didn't even manage a groan before his body went limp.

The Nuka-Cola slipped from his fingers.

"Funny. Turns out the price of admission to this show is your lives."

Josie partially emerged from her invisibility.

She caught the falling Nuka-Cola first, then gently supported the Raider's corpse, keeping it upright in its seat so no one nearby would notice anything unusual.

Then she faded back into the shadows and silently moved toward her next target.