The group moved cautiously into the dim, eerie glow of the Sierra Madre Villa’s central courtyard. The fountain, once a grand feature of the villa, now stood eerily still, its water long since drained.
The bodies of the Brotherhood of Steel team lay scattered around the fountain, their faces grotesquely disfigured, heads blown apart as if a powerful burst of pressure had exploded from within.
Six halted, his breath coming in short, controlled bursts, scanning the area for any sign of danger. The air felt thick, unnatural. Even Rex whined, his tail between his legs as he nervously paced in circles. ED-E’s mechanical chirp echoed faintly, its radar sensors rotating as it scanned the surroundings.
Veronica, her face hard with grim determination, crouched down to examine one of the bodies.
"Explosions in their heads... no signs of radiation or external wounds."
she muttered under her breath.
"This isn’t the work of any wastelanders we’ve come across."
Raul adjusted his helmet and raised his rifle, scanning the horizon.
"Trap’s too clean. Someone’s still watching."
A flicker of light flashed from the center of the courtyard. The hologram materialized with a sudden, ethereal hum, the image of an old man in Brotherhood of Steel robes, his face stern and calculating. His eyes glowed faintly beneath his helmet’s visor. His voice, cold and commanding, echoing in the familiar raspy, almost manic tone, rang out.
"More of those who won’t obey. You wear the same steel, the same arrogance... What are my former colleagues doing here? The Brotherhood shouldn’t know of this place... But, you are not one of my knights? You—you come here defying purpose, bringing chaos to order. I gave them salvation, and they spat on it."
Six took a step forward, eyes scanning the headless corpses of the missing Brotherhood team. The collars still blinked dimly, long since detonated.
"Salvation doesn’t involve remote-detonated neckwear, old man."
Six called out.
"You must be Elijah. I’ve read about you. What are you doing here, old timer?"
The hologram flickered for a moment as if processing his words before the voice continued, slightly amused but still carrying a weight of authority.
"Ah, a boy, a fledgling group that’s completely out of their depths... Fitting, I suppose. The past is full of those who did not understand. I’ll give you this one opportunity to leave as an older, wiser person. If you ignore my warning, then I apologise for the fate that awaits you."
He says solemnly.
"The Brotherhood—an organization dedicated to preserving the past while strangling the future. The same mistake was repeated by so many who followed. And you, all of you, intruders into my domain, will be nothing more than failures. A lesson in obedience."
Six’s eyes narrowed, his hand inching closer to the grip of his Varis rifle.
"You killed them. Why?"
Elijah’s hologram seemed to smile, an unsettlingly cold gesture.
"Their weakness. I gave them a chance to comply—to follow the purpose I’ve set. But like all the rest, they couldn’t bear the weight of true power. The Sierra Madre is not for the weak. You—"
He paused, his gaze fixing on Six.
"You’re different. But you are no less bound by the same principles of failure that all those before you have faced."
Cassidy spat onto the ground, her hand resting on her hip, her tone sarcastic.
"You sure know how to make a grand introduction. How many more of your minions are waiting to get their heads blown off by your ’lessons in obedience’?"
"Elijah."
Veronica stepped forward, her voice steely.
"You didn’t just kill them. You manipulated them, just like you’ve been doing with the BOS in the Mohave. What do you want?"
She spat while taking her helmet off, revealing her face to Elijah, causing him to go silent.
"Veronica."
The hologram’s eyes seemed to pierce through them, an unnatural coldness in his gaze.
"The same thing I’ve always wanted. Perfection. The Sierra Madre treasures of the Old World within will be mine to plunder. They’ll be my creation—a beacon to those who understand true power. These fools sought to weaken it with their incompetence. I’ve given them a chance to join me in taking the Sierra Madre, but they were failures who refused to join me."
Six clenched his fists, a flash of anger crossing his features.
"And you’re going to use us all to prove your point?"
Elijah’s form flickered again.
"I won’t have to. You will fail on your own. You will walk into the Sierra Madre traps willingly. You will break, just like the others."
The hologram’s voice turned more sinister, laced with the bitterness of years of madness.
"You will learn, just as they did. The Sierra Madre is not a place of refuge. It is a test. And you... all of you... will become part of it."
"THEN YOU WILL DIE!"
With one last chilling laugh, the hologram flickered and then vanished, leaving the group standing in the middle of the silent courtyard. Soon, a strange sound began to emit from a nearby siren, accompanied by the sounds of scrambling and staggered movement around them.
Six gritted his teeth, the weight of Elijah’s words pressing down on him.
"This ends now."
Veronica stepped forward, eyes blazing with determination.
"He wants us to fail. But we don’t play by his rules. We’ll show him what happens when you mess with Goodsprings."
"Alright, team. Time to work."
Six said, his voice firm and commanding.
"Move out. We’ve got a lot to undo. Let’s bring down this madman’s little schemes."
The group rallied, stepping carefully around the bodies, eyes sharp and focused as they prepared to face the twisted creations and traps set by Elijah. The Sierra Madre’s secrets—and its horrors—were just beginning to unfold.
As they made their way deeper into the villa, one thing was clear: this mission was no longer just about surviving. It was about destroying Elijah’s reign once and for all.
Taking samples of the toxic cloud that saturated the area, showed that subjects introduced to it without proper air filtration would begin to fall ill from it. Weakening, becoming unwell, or in some cases, dead. But the worst threat was not the gas.
Boone immediately dropped to one knee behind a shattered bench, lining up shots.
"Contact—rooftops, four targets!"
In the depths of the toxic cloud, something emerged—a nightmare given form. Deformed humanoids wearing strange black hazmat suits with glowing green eyes that moved weightlessly, creepily crawling towards them with cleavers and knives in hand.
Boone takes no chances, shoots the four targets in their chests with his Varis rifle, putting them down.
The force of his shot should have completely finished the creature by the huge hole blown into it, destroying its heart, lungs, ribs, and spine... But they still continued to move. They stood back up like zombies, the hole that was created even started to be filled with a strange substance similar in colour to the red toxic fog.
Boone fired a shot into its head and splattered its brain matter across the ground... Only for its head to start slowly regenerating.
"Why won’t they die!"
Boone and crew learned the hard way that killing them required more than brute force. You could sever their arms, split their chests open, even tear off their limbs—and they would still rise.
Only by completely crushing their skulls could they be truly stopped for a time, seeing as it still seems to be trying to heal, though its flesh is spread too far apart to properly regain its mass. And this was only the beginning, as they spotted more ghosts stumbling towards them
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