[Bringing Life] 1 – An Oasis in the Mojave Wasteland

[A/N: Decided to do a rewrite of this, enjoy. Don't expect fast updates]

Vault 22, one of six vaults constructed by Vault-Tech in the Mojave Desert in and around the famous city of sin, Las Vegas. Vault 22's was the only vault in the region that would not house a civilian population, instead it was to be inhabitated by scientists and their family, with the Vault's sole purpose to be combating world hunger, as food and plant life would likely be a rarity or so irradiated that it would not be safe for human consumption.

These scientists inside the vault were tasked with researching and finding new ways to grow crops and plant life in the wasteland, so that they could flourish. This was a project that would serve as a 'just in case' for if any seed vaults failed or if the G.E.C.K.s failed to launch after the bombs dropped, acting as a backup of a backup of Earth's flora, as it would house a large majority of known plant life.

If there was one thing that could be said about Vault-Tech, it was that when the situation was critical, Vault-Tech was incredibly thorough when constructing some of its vaults, and to help fund its construction, Vault-Tech accepted several donations from various companions and groups. However, the most notable of groups they received a donation from was the globally famous scientists of Big Moutain, a group of scientists that were the forerunners of advanced technology in the United States of America, developing technologies such as Teleporation, advanced genetic alternation, Holographic Technology, and countless other classified or advanced technologies that would have revolutinzed the world if released from the confines of Big MT.

The item they donated? Beauveria mordicana, a unique fungus designed for pest control. A fungus that would prove to be the end of the Vault after the bombs dropped, turning the Vault into a tomb for most of the previous inhabitants, those that managed to escape not making it far before succumbing to the spores of the Beauveria mordicana.

...

Its first memories were of its spores consuming and assimilating the mind of a man, a Scientist of Vault 22. The first to fall under its spores and the first to help evolve it to be something more. Its primitive mind at the time did what it did best: it propagated, spreading as far as possible, using its new host. Cell by cell, its spores assimilated the body of the man, until nothing was left but spores and fungi. It took control over its host piece by piece, starting with its lungs, to spread more of its spores. Then, it spread up to the brain, taking control of the body piece by piece, until it saw everything through its new host.

It used its new host to break out of the room where the other humans had contained it and soon lost its first host to a spray of gunfire, but not before spreading its spores to six more humans. Those humans did not recognize the signs soon enough, as their spores spread in their lungs, releasing more spores to infect others around them. By the time they realized their mistake, nearly all the humans within the vault were infected.

One by one, the humans of the vault were taken over, a few dozen taking the chance in the chaos to escape the vault, it felt part of itself split off to follow those who left, but the majority of its growing consciousness stayed in the vault, propegating through the humans it infected, till they were all transformed into carriers.

It took decades, but it eventually assimilated all the knowledge from the minds of its hosts, the Spore Carriers. With that knowledge, its mind continued to evolve and improve, till it rivaled that of a human. With time, its spores spread and filled the vault, as the botanical gardens overflowed into the hallways, the walls, the floors, and even the ceiling, turning the once rather sterile-looking vault into one filled with bountiful green life.

With what it managed to save from the minds of those it had assimilated, it knew what its purpose was, and what it was designed to do, as well as what the purpose of this vault was to be. It did not know what the world outside of the vault would be, nor did it know if it would be strong enough to propagate outside of the vault. What it did know was that it had time, so it started to experiment, as its hosts once did.

At first, it tried to propagate its spores to the Flora that had spread through the vault, finding that its spores had difficulty taking hold in the Flora, but as it tried new approaches and vectors, it found a way to...seed itself in the various Flora it had access to. Through this seeding process, it entered a sort of symbiotic and parasitic relationship with the Flora. It took in a part of the Flora's nutrient and energy intake, and in exchange, it offered the Flora protection and more ways to propagate with its help.

With time, it found new ways to exploit this relationship it had with the Flora, to the point that the Flora became an extension of itself. Using what little knowledge it had of its Spore Carriers, it assimilated, it started cross-breeding the Flora, and trying to find new ways to mold and shape its Fungi. 

The result of this added experimentation was the Spore Plants. Towering plants with hardened 'teeth' to bite and an internal organ to produce a caustic bile that it found could burn through most organic material, to protect the Spore Plant from its own bile burning itself out, it had to harden the ogan, making it relatively durable and the most energy intensive part of the Spore Plant, but with the growing network of roots through the vault and the copious amount of plants absorbing nutrients and energy from the soil and the lights of the vault, it was more than worth the added cost for more protection throughout the vault.

Added protection that proved its use soon, as strange flying creatures that moved at blistering speeds with pincers that could punch through its Spore Carriers swarmed the vault, these creatures were vicious, and I had no choice but to attack them wth the near hundred Spore Carriers I had within the vault. These flying creatures proved tougher than the Humans, destroying nearly a dozen of my own Spore Carriers before I managed to infect and trap a few of them on the first floor of the Vault while I w as forced to kill the remaining.

Over the course of day, my Spores assimilated these strange creatures, transforming them into new Spore Carriers under my control. Through them I found they produced a potent venom, one that killed a few of my Spore Carriers with just how potent their venom was. I guided them to the cavern bellow the vault, where they could freely begin to make a new nest.