Not So Lonesome Road 12 Queen Slayer

The Ivanpath Race Trace was basically just a large open area with a few cracked roads everywhere and the occasional bleacher. Even from a distance I could see dozens of ants roaming around. There were two kinds of ants dog sized like the ones I killed earlier that I a.s.sume were the worker ants. And giant tiger sized ants that were definitely the soldiers.

It would be suicide for me to try and kill all of them myself. There were already too many of them and that was ignoring the ones still in the nest.

"ED-D" I asked "How many times can you fire your laser without affecting your battery?"

"Master, if I am flying at max alt.i.tude then I can fire my laser once approximately every 5 seconds without overtaxing my fusion core."

"That will have to do" I nodded "ED-D I want you to go over there and kill as many of those ants as you can."

"Yes, Master" he chirped before flying off.

"And remember to try and keep your distance from the larger ones. We don't know how high they can jump."

I didn't want to put him in unnecessary danger but, it really didn't seem like the ants could do anything to hurt him. He really was like their natural predator.

ED-D went in guns blazing, he cleverly decided to focus on the larger ones first. His laser wasn't that strong and couldn't pierce their exoskeletons in a single hit. So he had to spend almost thirty seconds to kill a single ant.

Not long after he started the ants in the nest apparently noticed what was happening and started to pour out of the nest. I realized how lucky I was to not have joined in the fight. There were too many ants around for me to even begin to start counting them but, I estimated that there were around 100 of them that came streaming out of the ground.

What happened next was an hour long game of tag. ED-D would be slowly sniping the enemies at his leisure while the ant would madly chase him do trying to kill him. Even though they were far bigger than they're pre war counterparts the ants didn't seem like they were that much smarter. They just relentlessly chased him until their deaths.

That tactic would work for pretty much any other creature in the wastes so they never really had to deal with flying opponents before. Even things like Cazadores which could also fly still had to get in close to string you.

It didn't take long for ED-D to ma.s.sacre the entire group of them. Once he was done he flew back to me and danced around like he always did as if he was asking for praise.

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"Good job ED-D" I grabbed him and pulled him in for a hug "there was no way I could ever have done that by myself!"

I wasn't just excited because he killed all the ants. That was awesome and I could probably sell all that ant meat to the Mojave Outpost or to Primm but, what I was most excited about was that I got Exp for all the kills ED-D made.

I actually Leveled Up four times! I didn't do anything thing about it earlier because I was I was too busy watching ED-D slowly picking off the ants like a kid with a magnifying gla.s.s. But, now that it was over it was a good idea to give myself a power up before going to fighting the queen. Because the nest wasn't truly dead and the ants would just come back later as long as she was alive.

I dump a whopping 55 of my 60 Skill points into guns maxing it out all the way to 100 and put the remaining 5 into Science bringing it up to 35.

As soon as that was done I took out my Varmint Rifle to see if I could see a different. It was incredible as soon as it touched my hand it felt like a part of my body. I could look at objects in the distance and instinctively know if they were in my guns range or not. I had the feeling that as long as it wasn't too far away I could hit any target with barely any aim. I couldn't stop ma.s.sive grin from forming on my face.

For the first time since I came here I truly felt like I had the power to protect my own life. It was liberating and I let out a deep breath I didn't even know I was holding. From now on it was the Mojave that was going to have to worry about me.

Aside from the Skill points I also had two Perk points to spend. I immediately bought the Friend Of The Night perk giving me night vision. I had been planning on getting this perk since I was in Goodsprings. It required you to have at least 6 Perception but, was one of the most useful abilities in the game.

It would make ambushing people and sneaking around infinity easier, not to mention that I was literally about to dive into a pitch black cave to fight a giant mutated ant. So it would probably be a good idea to be able to see what I was doing.

And for my second perk I got Commando which gives a 25% accuracy boost to two handed weapons in VATS.

When everything was said and done my Stats window looked like this.

Level 9

Special

S 5

P 6

E 5

C 5

I 10

A 5

L 5

Skills

Barter 35

Energy Weapons 15

Explosives 15

Guns 100

Lockpick 30

Medicine 30

Melee Weapons 15

Repair 30

Science 35

Sneak 25

Speech 50

Survival 15

Unarmed 15

Perks

Confirmed Bachelor, Intense Training(1), Friend Of The Night, Commando

I was feeling pretty satisfied with my skill set and I wasn't even level 10 yet.

I was finally prepared to decend into the nest. The entrance was easy enough to find, it was a ma.s.sive hole in the ground easily 15 feet across. I wasn't sure why they needed a hole that big. It could have been a natural cave or maybe they were planning to move to another nest and needed a way to get the queen out. Either way I was glad to have a way inside it would have sucked not being able to kill the queen just because I was too big to get into their nest.

As I entered the cave my night vision and everything was cast in an eerie blue glow. I walked with my Rifle at the ready, because I had no way to know how many ants were just inside.

As we got deeper in the tunnels became smaller and I had to crouch slightly to avoid b.u.mping my head on the ceiling. We kept descending deeper and deeper and I realized that the nest was far bigger than I thought it was. I had to start leaving markers at the intersections I pa.s.sed so that I didn't get lost.

We ran into another two dozen ants during our trip but, most of them ended up being worker ants that we easily killed and only a couple of them were soldiers.

After about 10 minutes of wandering through the maze of tunnels I suddenly started having more s.p.a.ce. A couple minutes later I couldn't even touch the ceiling anymore. I took this as a good sign because we were no where near the surface and I could only think of one reason they needed a room this big.

We came around a corner and suddenly there was a ma.s.sive wall of meat in front of me. It was such a shock it took me a moment to actually comprehend what I was seeing. It was the queen's egg sac! It pulsed and rippled in a disgusting way and was a sickly white color. Behind her I could see a pile of dozens of basketball sized eggs.

A high pitched screech echoed through the chamber and I knew I was found and immediately retreated back into the tunnels. And good thing too because four ants bigger than all of the other besides the queen attacked us. I guess they were the queens royal guard.

I immediately activated VATS I was confident in my new shooting skills but, not confident enough to risk the shot I was about to make.

I selected the closest ones antennae and fired blowing them off. The ant freaked out and attacked its nearest ally making them change targets.

That left me and ED-D with only two enemies to deal with. I still had two shots of VATS left and fire both of them into the two ants heads. They stumbled a bit but, didn't go down.

I instructed ED-D to start running again and I threw the two Frag mines behind me to take them out. There was a loud bang and the tunnels shook with piles of dirt falling from the ceiling. Luckily it stayed in tact and we headed back for the remaining ants.

They were still locked in combat and both of them were missing legs and had deep gashes in their sides. We fired easily taking them out.

Once that was done I sat back against the wall to catch my breath. Combat normally didn't take long but, boy was it exhausting. I quickly caught my breath and got back up. We still had a job to do.

I switched to the Grenade Launcher and went back to the egg chamber to finish the queen. Even though it was dangerous to use in these tight underground s.p.a.ces. I didn't think that my Rifle would do much against the queens mountain of meat.

When we returned the queen was ready and started firing globs of acid at us. Some of it splashed on my arm burning through my clothing. I ignored it and fired a Grenade at her chest, she reared back and wailed in pain. I could see her sh.e.l.l was cracked and a green goo was leaking out of her.

I hid back behind a wall were she couldn't get me and wiped the remaining acid off my arm. I was the most intense pain I've ever felt in my life and so much of my skin was burnt off I could actually see my muscles.

There was a bottle of alcohol in my backpack I used it to disinfect the wounds before smearing it with the healing powder Sunny taught me to make over a week ago. It stopped the bleeding and supposedly sped up the healing process and numbed my pain.

I flexed my arm a few times and it did indeed hurt quite a bit less. It still hurt like h.e.l.l but, was bearable enough for me to get back into the fight.

I jump back around the corner and saw ED-D expertly dodging the queens acid and firing lasers at her wounded chest.

While I was fixing my arm I also reloaded the Grenade Launcher. I fired again and this time when it hit her entire chest exploded in a shower of goo. We had done it!