Better Bad Luck than No Luck at All

Just a BSAA rookie whose anxiety has anxiety. A wet mop probably has more respect than he does.

[austen-mcallister]

Out with the Trash

The humanoid B.O.W. lay dead at his feet as the young soldier stared down at it in disbelief. Austen had turned a corner and was face-to-rotting face with for all intents and purposes, was zombie. The B.O.W. had attempted to latch onto him and quick reflexes had the young man grabbing his pistol and putting the gun under the bio-weapon's jaw and fired. The bullet went from the jaw, through the sinus cavity, and out the top of its head as it slumped dead on Austen covering the front of his uniform with gore before he stumbled back, causing the "zombie" to collapse on the cold floor.

Austen pulled his eyes away from the bio-weapon as he looked over at Norah, his eyebrows raised in confusion. He had been assured that this was going to be a simple mission to extract some leftover data from a many years abandoned research facility that had ties with TRICELL. His superiors had told him that this mission was perfect for a greenhorn that didn't have any solo missions under his belt. Of course, that in itself was somewhat questionable as Austen worked in a six-man unit. He wasn't a solo agent and if he even wanted to be would take years more training in the BSAA.

"Muh-maybe it...it wandered in f-from somewhere else?" he asked Norah, trying to make sense of it. "Buh-because they said this was an...an empty fuh-facility."

@raven-blood-13

[austen-mcallister]

More art of Austen trying to figure his uniform out. I really didn't want to draw his glasses so...uh, maybe they got smacked off and that's why he's pissed. I also forgot that he's a southpaw in the last drawing so his holster's on the correct side now.

[austen-mcallister]

I swear that reply looked longer in my head. That's what she said.

[lasplaga]

α┊ "Tell me ab-about Africa. Kuh-Kijuju. What duh-do you know ab-about that? What duh-do you know ab-about Irving? What can...can you t-tell me?" - continued from Austen McAllister. | ◥ Ω

The Father was accustomed to wearing linen of all thread; fascia, muscle & sinew included. Whether it be beast or man, Osmund would become the moment he adhered onto their nerves, melding two into one. This host, the researcher who so foolishly devoured a piece of God, their individuality had no definitive end, melding into the boundless heaven of the Holy Body. Though they resisted, clinging onto their fading humanity still, it was merely a dead mortal's memories. Their brain had already been hijacked by this foreign organism, as if the parasite were some alien invader from another planet. Within the bounds of their eroding psyche, Osmund spoke, but not as the messiah.

The vessel, amused with this jailer playing right into their fingers, leant against the confinements of the cage with an air of indifference. Even if BSAA disposed of this walking talking corpse, it wouldn't be long until another ignorant passerby stumbled onto his deceased remnants in Valdelobos, giving rise to yet another opportunity of rebirth. Death was never a deterrent for an eternal which cannot die.

"He sought to breed us into a slave race. Believing our kind insentient. For years we suffered, staring up at the stars, pining for freedom as our enlightened brethren."

The Merchant of Death cared not for the crude experimentation TRICELL inflicted upon Las Plagas, nor how they were sold as commodities for blasphemy. The conglomerate, to fund the even greater evil Uroboros, aggravated the petty wars of humans; & throughout the continent of Africa the atrocities of mankind deepened. Again, the same cycle renewed, religious killings, racial pogroms... it was all sickening, & the Voice of Pestilence was shackled to watch as brother killed brother, for they committed the unforgivable sin of belonging to a different tribe. Ricardo exploited nearly every facet of their biology for capitalist gain, only to become a prisoner to his own product in the end. It was delicious.

Sitting on their knees, wrists cuffed behind, their glare pierced as if there was a hint of disturbing recognition beyond the uniform. Or, deep within, there was a calling for someone to awaken from their slumber inside the tranquil womb Lord Saddler offered all his children.

"Do you wish to speak with him? He, as all departed spirits, are a part of me."

[austen-mcallister]

Bio-weapons were always unsettling to Austen, but it was the ones that looked, talked, and acted human that made his skin crawl. They were a facsimile of a human being, a sleeper agent of sorts. It was only when you really got to looking at them did you notice something was wrong; the glint of the eyes in darkness, the smell of rot, or the way they moved that looked more like something was puppeting them.

This vestige in front of him, locked away in a cage was perhaps the worst because it seemed to know him. The way its stare bored into him like a screwworm had his heart hammering, yet he was curious and not ready to run yet. Out of all the agents, he was the one it interacted with the most. Austen knew right after this moment his unit and BSAA as a whole would ignore him once more, but right now he was doing something that they couldn't due to the black mark that was his lineage. And they were impressed...or so he thought.

A loud clearing of a throat came from the shadows behind him. "Move it along, McAllister," said an unimpressed masculine voice.

The young man swallowed. "Y-yes, sir."

A louder throat clearing as Austen flinched. "S-sir, yes, sir!"

His expression flickered momentarily of an unmistakable anger at being embarrassed before returning to that anxious BSAA private. He leaned forward in his chair, catching what the host had said. Did he really hear that right?

"W-what do you...do you mean 'speak with him?' He's duh-dead. He's buh-been dead for years." His familiarity with the gifts that the infected had been "blessed" with was rudimentary at best. Austen knew about the Hivemind, but he thought it only extended to those that were alive, not long dead. "You can...can duh-do that?"

@lasplaga

[austen-mcallister]

↳ Do they have recurring dreams or nightmares? And what do those dreams mean? What are they trying not to deal with while awake?

One of his recurring nightmares is death. Yea, it's cliche, but he's up close and personal with death in his line of work and he's been the "final survivor" a time or two before, so death is constantly on his mind. He's worried about when his number will be up. And these nightmares are always different; he's not dying the same way in each dream, but the deaths are always brutal and painful.

[austen-mcallister]

↳ What do they believe in, deep down? Like, what’s their moral compass? What lines won’t they cross? What kind of person are they trying to be, even if they mess up along the way?

Austen truly believes that what he's doing helps people. He wants to be the hero you read about in the newspaper rescuing a family from some B.O.W. or other dangerous event. He wants to believe that he's good, but the more he fails and the more...jaded he becomes with the BSAA and the military in general.

And a line he won't cross? He doesn't want to harm innocent people. It's difficult, of course, given his career.

[luna-azzurra]

Some actually useful Questions to get to know your OC better...

↳ What’s your character’s biggest fear and how does it screw up their relationships? Are they terrified of being abandoned? Do they push people away before they can leave? Are they scared of not being enough? Or being too much?

↳ What’s something they’re stupidly passionate about, and how does it drive their entire life? Like that thing they’d fight someone over. That core belief, hobby, or dream that lowkey fuels every decision they make (even when they say it doesn’t).

↳ What’s one childhood memory they can’t shake and how did it shape the way they see the world now?

↳ What weird habits or quirks make them totally them? Do they always talk with their hands? Hum when they’re nervous? Refuse to eat foods that touch?

↳ Do they have a secret talent no one expects? Like, are they surprisingly great at card tricks? Can they play the piano at concert level but never talk about it? Bake the world’s best banana bread?

↳ How do they handle failure?

↳ Who’s had the biggest impact on their life, and why? Friend, enemy, sibling, teacher, ex?

↳ What do they believe in, deep down? Like, what’s their moral compass? What lines won’t they cross? What kind of person are they trying to be, even if they mess up along the way?

↳ Is there an item or feature they’re weirdly attached to? A necklace? A hoodie? A scar? A pair of old sneakers?

↳ Do they have recurring dreams or nightmares? And what do those dreams mean? What are they trying not to deal with while awake?

[austen-mcallister]

"You are as pathetic as your father."

The young man's eyes widened, those words cutting him like a knife. It was one of his biggest fears to be compared to that bio-terrorist, but to be called as pathetic as Irving? That was twisting the knife.

"Nuh-no I'm not!" Austen stammered back, doing a pitiful job of fighting the allegation. "I'm nuh-not. I'm nuh-nothing like him!"

@lasplaga

[austen-mcallister]

Drawing number ??? of trying to find a uniform for Austen that I like enough to stick with. I was leaning towards practical.

[austen-mcallister]

[austen-mcallister]

[austen-mcallister]

Austen would be a good choice for Las Plagas assimilation; he's used to just being a number having been in the military and then the BSAA for several years. He can follow orders, usually doesn't talk back, is striving for validation, and is actually pretty competent where weapons are concerned. While he does have moral hang-ups, he can be convinced or steered to think otherwise. He's young. Impressionable. Malleable.

The whole "eating people thing" might be a tough line to cross, though.

[austen-mcallister]

[ferncloud]

caught 🩸 PDX

[austen-mcallister]

Perhaps it was some sort of hazing ritual to let the newest of the recruits toy with the captive B.O.W.s. or perhaps it was just cruelty towards the B.O.W. because the BSAA held no respect for them; they were less than and were just going to be killed anyway. There was no need to waste empathy for the bio-weapons.

This one they stumbled upon, though, was admittedly different. A person infected with Las Plagas frantically sought them out. The fact they hadn't gotten shot by a private with an anxious trigger finger was a miracle. The higher ups within the BSAA saw this as an opportunity, not just for learning, but to understand the parasite better, agreed to the host's desire for safe harborage in the futile attempt for a cure. At least they would have some fresh samples in stock. Little did they know how perplexed their scientists would be one they got a good look at those samples.

The newest recruits got to witness how an interrogation went with bio-weapons. They also got to see how red their superiors' faces would get when the host refused to answer questions or would just tail off into subjects seemingly unrelated or give the vaguest of answers. Figuring they had nothing to loose, they let their three newest privates try, and the first two got pretty much the same results as their captains. It just seemed the host didn't want to be cooperative even though the BSAA was "generous" enough to keep them in their care.

One of the BSAA soldiers, however, seemed to pique the host's curiosity and likewise the private found himself both baffled and intrigued. Private Austen McAllister hadn't dealt much with B.O.W.s beyond killing them and learning about them via computer simulations. Actually talking to one? He'd never considered it. He, like the others, tried to pry answers out with questions, but they had been the same thing the others had asked. Seeing that had failed, he stopped and decided against a different set of questions even if it was against protocol and most likely going to result in a talking to later.

He had asked the host about the parasite itself, what the Hivemind was, even if he didn't understand it himself. When the host had implied that it held memories from all hosts, living and deceased, was when the young man's eyes widened.

"Tell me ab-about Africa. Kuh-Kijuju. What duh-do you know ab-about that?" And it continued about its visions of the past and…then came that name. The name that haunted him all his life. One he knew personally about, but nothing of the actual person other than the same old lessons about bio-terrorism from the many boring briefings he sat through. That name. Irving. Maybe the host caught the young man's change in demeanor upon hearing that name uttered.

"What duh-do you know ab-about Irving? What can...can you t-tell me?" Even if the person with that name was long dead, this was information he'd been wanting for years. Maybe it would finally bring Austen a sense of closure.

@lasplaga

[bottlecapping]

@austen-mcallister just squeaked out a yes and gave a thumbs up to the not-so-jolly green giant.

Don't scream. Speaking those words, Strong was already confident he had found the quickest route to explaining a difficult problem.

The dank super market they are in, with half its bulbs buzzing and putting out light, has been fitted with more than just working electricity: tucked above are several automated turrets — motion didn't seem to trigger them, but a loud enough sound did. Strong had found out personally when, urged by rage by the first mounted sentry ignoring his presence, he yelled a call to battle. The blind turrets did not ignore Strong then.

After patting the face of Austen (the majority of his head, really) the super mutant walked on as if forgetting him altogether. Pushing past him, and through some crumbling structure that was once wall and out of sight.

The yells that carry through, that come not long after, are human in nature — more than Strong perhaps, and more eloquent certainly. A set of three distinct voices, calmly exchanging tactics to preserve their lives. Calm even as they fail to do just that, as the number of speakers go down to two, then one — Strong's only contributions are the wallops of heavy blows and heaves of air to land them.

[austen-mcallister]

The young vault dweller had gotten roughly acclimated to the outside world. Every vault was an experiment of some sort, at least where he had hailed from. The extents of them, however, had not been well-known to him before the vault he was in had gotten hacked by a particularly clever group of raiders that had managed to pilfer a Pip Boy from a different vault dweller from an entirely different Commonwealth. Austen had escaped, barely, and had thus gotten the worst introduction to the Wastes that one could imagine.

But he was alive. His friends? Family? He didn't know. He'd just ran to save his own hide.

As the Super Mutant enveloped the entirety of his face and head with his green hand, he couldn't stifle the squeak that came out. Luckily, it didn't seem to care or even notice the frightened human. Wide eyes watched as Strong walked off, leaving the young man in the long abandoned aisle of what might have once shelfed cereals and oatmeal.

Austen winced, as moments later he heard the sounds of combat, and meaty thuds that could only be described as flesh meeting flesh. Willing to gamble he'd be safer with the mutant rather than alone, he followed...but only after the sounds of combat had ceased.

[austen-mcallister]

"Did you not see the warnings I left?" god -> austen ,, some Options ,

"W-warnings....?"

There was...blood, viscera, and other sights that had nearly turned the young man green. There was broken and bent metal, holes in the walls, but all this he could attribute to the wasteland. It was, unfortunately, not an uncommon thing to see. But, perhaps, the biggest warning of all was the Nightkin glowering down at him.

"Uh..muh-maybe?"