Edward led his boys and girls into the Nucleus with all haste. He didn’t want to miss the effects of the ritual Sarah and the specialists had wrought. It had been a long, literal roundabout trek the company had taken around the base, allowing the metaphysical experts among them to lay down runes and pour out a circle of blood as part of the rite.
Converted super mutant blood was used, because of the sheer amount of blood required. The same went with the pure hearts required. Thank Sev for that breakthrough, super mutants now had a purpose to the Nexus beyond just being training aides.
Besides, nobody wanted to sully and waste the blood and organs of actual donors for this. Let their names be commemorated and lauded in the archives and records for great deeds like curing genetic disorders or cleansing desolate wastelands. The purging Edward and his troops would do here should not be worth mentioning anywhere save as a minor footnote in the Nexus’ rise to power. The Church of Atom does not deserve being remembered as anything worthwhile, just another group of psychopaths and monsters that needed eradication.
Kyle was standing casually by the entrance, ushering the company inside with a cheery grin on his face. The feral cultists around him were left alone in their comatose state. A shame; the Company could use some targets to vent their pent up fury on. For now, the unlucky sods who drew the short straws had to keep an eye on the unconscious bodies outside while everyone else charged into the submarine pen.
The interior looked even more run down and shoddy than a super mutant camp. Rusted metal sheets, brittle rotting planks and other junk had been piled near the entrance, clearly to be piled together into some sort of fortification. The lighting within was a mix of sickly green from the pool of radiation far below the pen, the eerie flickering orange of torches and campfires, and the dirty white of whatever electronic lights still worked at scattered points throughout the facility.
Radiation levels inside were high, but nothing their armor couldn’t handle. Though after this Edward would have to remind everyone to carry out thorough cleaning and consecration protocols. It didn’t help that there was a strong metaphysical undercurrent swirling within as well.
To their credit, the un-mutated cultists had recovered enough to hide behind lousy barricades with a variety of weapons in their frail hands. “Defilers!” a man wrapped in a lot of wire-frame decorations cried out with surprising vigor as he stood behind a pile of tires and corrugated metal. He waved about a laser rifle with amusing fervor. “Followers of the Abomination! Your foul ploy may have stolen Atom’s gift from us, but we will- GAAAGHK!”
His speech was interrupted rudely by an annoyed Sarah, who had torn out some concrete from a jutting corner with her armored hands and flung it with expert precision to slam into the speaker’s raving mouth.
The Children of Atom began shooting in response, but the shields on 1st Company easily denied any sort of damage. Edward gave a lazy glance back to his troopers. “Occultists, check if they’re safe for handling.”
Scanners were brought up with little urgency, and the all clear was given. Edward met the expectant looks of his comrades with a laconic smirk.
“1st Company. Process these rad-suckers. Make it slow.”
“Yessir,” came their eager reply, and the young soldiers of the Nexus charged into defenders’ positions. With rifles slung away and blades kept sheathed, they slammed into barricades with their shoulders and leapt into emplacements to meet the defenders up close.
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Outnumbered and utterly outmatched, the zealots were quickly overrun and the battle was ended before it could properly begin. Aided by their power armor, the vengeful soldiers easily swatted away the rad worshipers’ weapons before they got down to work.
They were not at all kind to the cultists.
Two or more troopers processed each struggling captive. Hands and feet were crushed with cruel slowness before being twisted and left dangling uselessly. Elbows and knees were snapped in wrong directions before shoulders and hips were popped out of their sockets with not-so precise applications of rifle stocks. The Children of Atom screamed as they were crippled, and they were made to scream some more as shards of green Tiberium crystals were stabbed into their chests.
The Sev-blessed crystals almost immediately gave off bright glows as they greedily drained the eldritch currents in the air, as well as whatever metaphysical weight was left of their hosts. The metanatural willpower that once drove the captured Children to their fervor was siphoned off, leaving the cultists looking pitifully frail. At the same time, the Tiberium shards visibly grew from the abundant diet of eldritch energies, and soft sounds of cracking was soon heard as bone gave way to crystal.
A tattered woman broke and wailed for mercy. The troopers gave her a disgusted look but otherwise ignored her. The man who Sarah had shut up earlier with some rubble somehow had the strength to keep wheezing through his bleeding and slightly deformed mouth. “Curse you! Division is beyond the likes of your forsaken souls!”
Edward gave a sigh and gave a bored look to Rebecca and Amanda who were standing on top of the crippled cultist. “Gag him.” With cruel grins, the girls nodded. Amanda grabbed and pulled apart the raving madman’s loose and broken legs for her partner to reach down and yank off his manhood. His agonized screams turned into a pitiful whimper, then a foot into his guts blasted the air out of him, giving enough space for Rebecca to jam the bloody lump of meat into his mouth.
With peace enforced, a thorough search of the submarine pen was ordered as the helpless bodies, both conscious and unconscious, were evacuated from the facility. More Tiberium crystals were sprinkled around to dampen and eventually nullify the eldritch air, and Edward thought he heard a ghostly, feminine whimper as his helmet’s runes finally stopped glowing and signaled the return to a more natural environment.
Nothing of real interest was found in the end, though Sev might want to keep the submarine for tinkering.
Meanwhile, outside the facility, a beacon was set up and Sentinels flashed in and out of existence to transport the comatose cultists. As they waited, Edward and Sarah went to a quieter corner out of sight of the company to discuss the future of the Nexus’ presence on the island. “We’ll offer the locals an invite back to the Nexus,” he began. “If they refuse, we’ll offer the standard relief supplies and hope they’ll still be around once our borders expand up here.”
Sarah nodded sagely. “That’s the best option for now. We have no real reason to stick around, and the locals aren’t in any real existential crisis. We could offload additional wastelander gear to up their chances of staying alive… Maybe offer to upgrade their defenses as well. Now, regarding the landmarks on the rest of the island, I suggest we start…”
The two of them continued hammering out their plans before they left the island, carefully assigning routes through potential sites of interest. All the while, they ignored the cries of agony several yards away, along with the humming of healing guns in the background and the liberal application of pain by various tools. The choir of agony would continue until the Sentinels ran out of unconscious cultists, which meant…about another thirty minutes or so. An hour, if Edward reduced the assigned Sentinel carriers. But an hour was too long, they still had work to do after all.
As much as he wanted to be with his comrades, Edward kept his focus on the planning, doing his best to stretch out the private meeting to give more precious seconds to his troops. Such was the burden of leadership.