Background
Camilla vs Charity is a Fallout fanfiction written on July 6th 2024. It takes place 3 years before Camilla on Ice, and 13 years after Camilla at Sea.
Chapter 1 - Earnings
Camilla sat at her desk, pouring over the business records she kept, Appalachia Radio drowning out the noise of her furious scribbles as she wrote down assorted calculations and budgets. Something didn't quite add up. The Water Concern had been raiding and trading, the same as it always had, but profits were down. She didn't understand it, profits should be steady.... She exhaled in annoyance and leant back in her chair, rubbing the bridge of her nose out of tiredness.
"Uuugh.... I wasn't made for this corporate bullshit...." grumbled Camilla tiredly. She sighed and stood up, stretching her legs. She walked over to a nearby countertop and produced a bottle of gin from it, which she took a quick swig from. "There must be something different.... Maybe it fuckin.... rained alot the past month...? Or.... I dunno, did alot of people die? No, I would have noticed that much...." she thought aloud to herself, leaning against the counter and pouring herself a shot properly. "Okay... Options are either that people need less water, or there are less people to need water..." she reasoned to herself. "So... Something should... be noticable...? Hrmmm..." She knocked back the shot with a slight shiver as she grabbed her gun and proceeded downstairs to the employee barracks. Time to make a show....
".....And thats when they said, the Aristocrats! HAWHAWHAWHAWHAW!" said one large and burly chap, clearly too drunk to recognise he was saying his crass joke a little too loud. Three other grunts sat at the table with him laughed equally as loud, knocking over some of their empty bottles of beer in their fit of hysterics. The laughter continued for a short while, until....
The large gentleman fell to the floor with a massive thud, knocking over what few bottles remained upstanding on the table, blood oozed from a gunshot in his shoulder. The loud joking and idle chattering of the barracks went instantly quiet and the three men he was infront of noticed just a beat afterwards that their faces were smattered with his blood, their joking smiles fallen slightly, but glued to their faces in shock and fear. "...So." said Camilla, all eyes whipping around to meet hers, still wide with shock at what they just witnessed. "I have a problem." continued Camilla, holstering her gun and walking slowly into the room "And you know how much I hate problems." Camilla stopped beside the motionless body of the large thug, nudging it slightly with her boot "Something has happened that's making business fall off. I want you lot to find out what it is." she continued. "Look for reports of rainfall or new water sources. Or, failing that, mass slaughter." She looked around the room, faces still frozen. She raised her foot and slammed it down on top of the large gentleman, using him as a step, and digging her heel into his new open wound, rousing him from unconsciousness and causing him to scream in pain. "WELL?" Everyone in the barracks immediately stood up and grabbed their supplies, heading out to scout for the information they'd been ordered to find. Before they all left, she collared the last person running out "You." she uttered coldly, the grunt gulped nervously. Camilla handed him a bottle of purified water and some gauze "On the house. Treat the fucking loud mouth over there before you go..." the uttered, before turning immediately around and returning to her office for a celebratory gin.
It took exactly 16 hours, 46 minutes, and 57 seconds for the first reports to arrive back to her....
Chapter 2 - Tracking
All reports from all her grunts fed back the same. People had been fleeing the settlements they were familiar with en-masse to new settlements founded by some do-gooder, ones that the Water Concern did not know the location of. Yet. How they were keeping their settlements well-supplied though was a mystery, enough water to sustain a settlement was hard to come by, their business was founded on that fact, let alone the amount needed to sustain several settlements... Their next course of action was clear to Camilla; comb the entire fucking wasteland for these new targets, find every single one and not raze it, but mark down it's location as to plot a map, and track the extent of this development....
Thirty-Two. The number was thirty-fucking-two.... Not all built up to the extent of their usual targets, but enough for cowards all over Appalachia to flee to and hide form her wrath. Well, not anymore. Camilla laid in a course on her Pip-boy, she had to tackle this mystery settlement creator herself, she wanted information, and an entourage of lackeys would likely scare people away, or atleast cause them to clam up.... Her route would take her in a loop, starting and finishing at the water concern, but hitting each and every one of the thirty-two settlements in as quick a manner as possible. Her first mission would be to ask if the settlement's builder was there, however knowing the chances of the task being that easy were slim, she would jot down how long ago the settlement was created, and work to find which was the oldest one...
It did not take her especially long, she'd become adept at navigating Appalachia by this point, and her whisper-quiet sidearm from her old piratical days helped her get the drop on any Blood Eagles or temerous beasties.... One by one, she visited the settlements, cloaking herself in the first set of rags she spotted nearby and acting like an innocent little settler, inquiring as to who built the place and how long ago, just to be sure it was safe and sturdy, of course........ Her ruse succeeded in each location, and each time getting another piece of the puzzle that would lead her closer to her goal of her unknown adversary, and business rival.... After walking the entire route over the course of 3 days, Camilla returned to her office in the Water Concern and began charting out the dates she'd ascertained.... A week ago, 17 days ago, a month ago.... She ordered all thirty-two settlements by their founding date until she found one. The settlements were all so new, and so informally led that most did not have proper names, and this was one of them. Their mysterious constructor didn't seem to deign them with a name when they finished building the homes and services... She just elected to call this location "Sixteen" as it was the 16th townlet she had visited in her circuit. Sixteen was approximately 5 months old, the later settlements cropping up at increasingly rapider paces, hence only having recent problems...
Sixteen was just off Sutton, and so Camilla set out there; her trigger-finger itching, ready to level the place....
Chapter 3 - Assessing
Ramshackle. That was the word to describe Sixteen. The buildings made out of wild and wacky hodge-podges of wood and brick and metal, looking half-built and half-patched up... She spoke to the townspeople more, continuing her act of "innocent and scared settler" in order to mine them for the information she needed, which unfortunately for her, was everything. She wasn't sure exactly how much she could ask before the townsfolk wised up to the fact that she was a little too inquisitive for your average person looking for shelter, she'd have to pick her words carefully...
The townsfolk explained, after some careful prodding, that none of them worked a day on anything other than patrolling their parameter for threats, as their supply and construction needs were always fulfilled without fail by their mysterious benefactor. They would wake up only to find enough food and water to feed and hydrate every single one of them, just laying on the ground right in the middle of town. Many of them considered it highly odd, however they all eventually (Foolishly, in Camilla's opinion) put their thoughts aside on account that they did not wish "to look a gift horse in the mouth". Camilla wondered for a moment how dumb these people are, how easy they would be to poison en masse, and how much said idiom really applied these days with the Horse being, so far as she knew, extinct.
With a bit of tact, employing a silver tongue and no small amount of exploitable pity from the townsfolk, Camilla was permitted to bunk on the couch of one of the townsfolk, fortunately for her, closeby to the town centre. It nausiated her to keep up the goody-two-shoes act for so long, however she reminded herself it was for the good of her profits to keep herself sane. The sun eventually set, and Camilla laid on the couch. She laid on her side facing away from her host and looking out of the window, feigning sleep. She stayed in this pose for what seemed like hours on end, she wasnt able to check her pip-boy lest she break the illusion of her being asleep. Eventually though, it happened. A sillhouette in the night, cloaked so heavily that she could barely make them out as more than a random lump, approached the town centre before producing a frankly disbelievable amount of food and water from it's cloak, before beginning to leave.
Taking action, Camilla quietly rose from the couch, and began following the figure. While Camilla's own trek across Appalachia had been fairly expediant, the fact this person was walking slowly and taking sub-optimal routes meant the route took alot longer... Camilla followed from a great distance, though keeping the figure firmly in-view through her binoculars, not risking getting caught at this crucial stage. Eventually, after the figure went to all Thirty-Two locations, it veered off. Camilla followed, eager to see where the mystery home of her mystery enemy was, progressing south-easternly, towards the Cranberry Bog...
Chapter 4 - Him
Camilla arrived at the steel doors to her mysterious opponent's base, just off of Watoga. There was a humming that emitted from the walls that was just audible, but definitely able to be felt Camilla noted, as she put her palm to the wall.... She prised open the doors with some difficulty, a soft suction noise sounded as the edges of the door moved away from it's frame, the edges were noticably rubber and prior to her opening it, formed a tight seal. "Whoever owns this place doesnt want anything getting out...." she muttered as she progressed, her weapon drawn and aimed dead forward as she progressed down the industrial hallway, her finger floating atop the delectably tempting trigger, discipline be damned.
The hallway was dim, pipes lining the wall groaning and hissing repeatedly, the only thing other than the clicking of Camilla's own footsteps on the aluminium floor breaking the silence. After what was probably only 20 minutes, but in Camilla's alerted state felt like hours, She reached the end of the hall. Distinctive signs of life were heard from the opposite side of the doors that she now stood infront of. A crackling radio could be heard, tuned to Pirate Radio if Camilla was right, and the sound of.... laughter? The sound of a nefarious giggle richoceted off the walls, just barely reaching Camilla's ears. Behind this door was the mastermind of all this, behind this door was the person with the ability to found and develop thirty-six brand new settlements practically overnight, out of nothing, and make them fully self-sufficient too....
Camilla kicked the door open, ready to be face to face with her opponent, ready for anything.
Or atleast, she thought....
She breached the doors just to be met with a vast warehouse, stocked wall-to-wall with boxes of food and water, with a wide empty space in the middle forming a pathway to the centre of the room. "Fuckin.... Jackpot." whispered Camilla, astounded. This had just turned into preventing loss to one of the biggest wins she might ever get... She slowly walked down the makeshift alleyway towards the centre, being careful not to be jumped incase someone was hiding behind or inside any of the boxes of food and water that surrounded her.... Once she got to the centre, she could see that someone had built some kind of... house... A house comprised of boxes of water, empty judging by the fact the boxes were sufficiently dented and crushed to indicate they were at the very least, near to empty...
Inside the house was the radio, and the giggling. Camilla took a deep breath to steel herself and spoke up. "Show yourself, you asshole!!" she shouted, her voice echoing off the corners of the room for a solid few seconds. The voice immediately stopped it's laughing, and shut off the radio. There was a moment of tenseness that causes Camilla to begin to suspect a complicated trap before a head peered around the corner. A man wearing a bucket on his head, and with the lids of coolers tied to his arms with string and zip-ties. "HARK! A NEW CHALLENGER APPROACHES!" rang out the pompous, grandiose voice. "ANOTHER HERO, DESPERATE TO STOP MY SKULLDUGGERY?! NONE HAVE SUCCEEDED AS YET!" continued the strange man, practically skipping around the room, before assuming a mock boxing stance, the bucket clearly masking his view as he wasn't even facing Camilla. ".....are..... Are you really it?" Camilla half-mumbled, lowering her weapon slightly, astounded that she could even consider this man a threat. "Who are you? You one of those... Shakesphere in the Park weirdos I heard about or somethin'?" the man simply laughed, placing his hands on his hips and throwing his head back as he did "HAHAHAHAHAHA NO MY DEAR HERO! I DO NOT MERELY SHAKE SPHERES, I SHAKE THE ENTIRE EARTH WITH MY VILLAINY!" he chants. Camilla decided to ignore the fact that the Earth is infact a sphere (or... it was the last she checked, might be more of a lumpier sphere given all the bombs...) and pressed further. "Just.... Look, are you the guy who's been building all those houses? Or are they somewhere else here?" The man did not falter "NO, MY DEAR HERO! IT IS I WHO HAS COMMITTED SUCH VILE ACTS! IT IS MY LIFE PURPOSE MY REASON DEETER, THE ESTABLISHMENT OF FOUR WALLS AND A ROOF, ACROSS THE WASTELAND! FEAR MY MIGHT, FOR I, ROOM TEMPERATE RONALDO, WILL SUPPLY THE ENTIRE WASTELAND WITH BOUNTIFUL SUPPLIES OF FOOD AND WATER THAT IS NEITHER HOT NOR COLD, BUT MERELY...." the man gestured for Camilla to come closer to him. She refused, so the man instead came closer to her, whispering in her ear in the same tone "ROOM TEMPERATURE!"
Camilla just stood there, dumbfounded. Seriously? But the man continued, clearly monologuing more to himself than her by this point "ALL THE WASTELAND CURSED WITH AN INFINITE SUPPLY OF ROOM TEMPERATURE GOODS, NEVER HOT AND NEVER COLD! AND WITH ROOMS TO MAKE ANYTHING ELSE THEY BRING WITH THEM JUST THE SAME!! AHA AHAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAHA!!!" He tried to throw his head back and laugh again, but his own amusement clearly got the better of him, bucking forwards and clutching his sides as he laughed at his own "evil" plot. Camilla just blinked and smacked her lips "Well." she said. "Alright then."
Camilla quickly, in the blink of an eye, raised her gun and delivered one clean shot through Ronaldo's head, causing him to fall forward, his bucket helmet clanging as it hit the floor. Camilla kicked him slightly, just to be sure he was down, as blood seeped from out of the bucket's rim. "Well. Better call the team to pack this stuff up. If it's room temperature, it probably wont keep for too long." she mused, as she took a swig of gin from a flask in her pocket and began dialing in a shortwave radio message back to the Water Concern.