Chapter 682 - Requisitioned Prime

Afton continues staring at the broken remnants of Liberty Prime for a few more seconds, and is about to leap out of the way when its eye begins lighting up, as if about to fire yet another laser... It powers back down again though, allowing him to relax somewhat.

Looking around, he quickly notices that the Brotherhood ground army had already begun fleeing in the opposite direction... The destruction of Liberty Prime having dealt a massive blow to their morale.

They probably thought that Liberty Prime would easily breach the fortification's defences and allow a swift and decisive victory... But with it now destroyed, they probably had no real way to gain access to the base...

He glances over at the few Vertibirds left that were fleeing, it seems as if the AA guns and his defenders had easily held them back. To be honest, the Brotherhood didn't really have a hope of breaching the fort without Liberty Prime... There were thousands of Ultimo-Bots waiting inside the base for them, each equipped with Pulse Weaponry that'd easily disable the Brotherhood's power armour.

Add the Pulse Emitters that'd been hidden near the wall, and you had a nearly impervious base against any Brotherhood attack that may come.

He rubs his arms after a moment, giving a sigh of relief at his now healed flesh. A thud sounds out behind him but his Danger Sense warned of no threat...

"Af-ton..." Veronica's voice asks from behind him, Afton's butt cheeks on full display for her to see.

"Vero! Did you find him... Oh..." Christine pauses next to her girlfriend once she spots him.

It doesn't take long for Tamia to arrive either, though, her reaction was far more gratifying than the awkward mumbles of his sisters.

He turns, not minding his junior slapping his thigh from the momentum, "Hey guys, check it out... I killed Optimus-*Ahem*, Liberty Prime!" he says, gesturing at the giant robot's inactive head and torso.

Veronica and Christine's eyes widen as they approach the fallen hero of the Brotherhood, Tamai continues to stand still though, eyes glazed over as she stares at Afton.

...

"Er, something wrong?" Afton suddenly asks her with a crooked brow, "I'm not still injured am I?" he mutters, looking over himself.

"Uh, no. You're fine... Just worried about... Nyx, yeah, is Nyx alright?" she asks after a moment.

"I am still active, thank you for asking." Nyx replies from the Stealthsuits breastplate.

Afton shakes his head and ignores Tamia's fixated look, walking up to Liberty Prime and giving it a kick. "So, think it's possible to build ourselves a giant mecha?" he asks and grins at Veronica's excited expression.

"With the components just sitting here for us? One hundred percent! I wanna see those douchebags faces when we send Liberty Prime two to fight them!"

Afton nods, "Same... Did things on you guy's side go well?"

Veronica and Christine nod, "Yeah... Makes it kinda boring when our armour is so much better than theirs... It's as if they're wearing thin plastic compared to our steel, a single punch is all it took for most of them..." the former admits.

Afton shrugs, "The power of saturnite I suppose..."

...

"Afton, I hate to be 'that' person, but can you put some pants on? I feel as if it's staring at me..." she mutters, forcing herself to focus on anything else but Afton's junk.

He chuckles, "Whatever. Let's arrange transport for Liberty Prime, Im sure Mobius, Klein, and Zero are gonna go ape-shit when they see it..."

The trio leave after Afton makes sure the defences of the base were still full and effective. Better to prepare for a sudden counterattack than be taken off guard by it... Even if it was incredibly unlikely.

A couple days pass after the botched invasion, and already Bulwark were receiving 'requests' by the Brotherhood. What were these requests? Well, most of them went around these lines :

"The Brotherhood of Steel formerly requests the return of Liberty Prime, and any components that may have been scavenged by Bulwark."

"The Brotherhood of Steel requests the return of Liberty Prime, or more drastic measures will need to be taken."

"The Brotherhood of Steel denounces Bulwark for not returning their rightful property."

"The Brotherhood of Steel formerly apologizes, and again requests for Liberty Prime to be returned to its rightful owners."

Indeed, Bulwark was bombarded with many messages from the Brotherhood, some from their HQ, while others were from smaller Chapters that basically begged for it back. Most didn't offer anything, instead choosing to threaten Bulwark's destruction... Afton ignores these for obvious reasons.

Some offered other technology as a trade, some actually interesting Afton at one point or another... At least, until the scientists recreated the tech by extrapolating from the data they'd received from the Chapters.

Thus the integration of Bulwark's new robot!... The Cleanbot 9000... Basically a glorified Roomba, that was more effective than the ones he remembered in his previous world.

Of course, once news broke about the battle, and how badly the Brotherhood had lost, a new, yet old enemy had sprung up to take advantage of it... The Enclave...

The many hidden Enclave bases had abruptly appeared in New California, taking advantage of the many losses the Brotherhood had taken while trying to invade the Mojave... Their numbers were much, much greater than one would initially expect, mostly due to the fact they'd taken in many former-NCR soldiers

It wasn't long before a full-out war between the Enclave and Brotherhood had broken out in New California... The Brotherhood of Steel's requests for Liberty Prime had changed to requests for Bulwark to not ally with the Enclave...

Afton just ignored all of that though, not wanting to get involved with either side of the conflict, and feeling confident enough in Bulwark and its forces to fight whoever turned out to be the victor.