Chapter XII: Rat hunt in Red Forest and a trial by fire

 After his quick but action-packed excursion into Agroprom Underground, Boris decided to rest for the night in the train hangar of Garbage. There, he bought himself a pristine MP-153 shotgun. The TOZ had been useful and reliable partner but all good things came to an end. Butcher bought all the mutant parts Boris had harvested so far and that roughly covered the price of the shotgun and ammunition. Boris was bit better equipped, yet still as poor as a loner rookie buying exclusively from Sidorovich. Running the exo was proving to be a costly decision.

Taking his mind off the financial troubles, Boris slept for some time. A morning dawned over the Zone, bathing even the bleak landscape of Garbage in warmth. Boris woke up to the brightness, and begun copying the documents he had found in the underground into his personal notebook. He'd hand them to Dushman for sure, but this was far too important information for his plan to slip out of his fingers. Once he had finished this, he begun his journey to Dead City to report of what he had found. Boris resupplied at Dark Valley, traveled to Truck Cemetery outpost with Pugs help and then crossed to Army Warehouses. Boris decided to stop by at the Freedom base and visited Lukash, who asked him to hunt down a Monolith convert. The convert was in Red Forest currently, and thus Boris decided to make a little detour on his journey for easy cash.

Boris had visited Red Forest earlier in his life, but there was no getting used to the eerie place. Sudden bursts of automatic rifle fire could be heard from time to time in the darkness of the fire, which was followed by screams both human and inhuman. Boris gulped. Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea. But Boris needed the money and besides, Monolith were an easy foe to fight while regaining somewhat clean concience. He ventured deeper into the forest, sunlight fading beneath the large and twisted trees. Boris checked his map. The convert had been seen in the Devilfish encampment. He would most likely not be alone. Boris moved quickly through the forest, paranoid of every sound and slight movement. It was almost as if something whispered to him constantly, being too quiet to properly hear.

He entered the tunnel leading to the Devilfish encampment, but a massive sized mutant blocked his way. A pseudogiant came lumbering at him, filling the entire tunnel. Boris begun running back to the entrance as fast as he could, and in desperation tossed a grenade at the monstrous thing. The mountain of meat and bones smashed its giant fist into the ground, and Boris saw the grenade fly by his face. He quickly jumped to cover and survived the explosion unscathed, but the pseudogiant had gotten dangerously close. It tried to smash Boris with its giant fist, and he managed to barely dogde it. Firing wildly at the beast, the MP-153 pumped shot after shot into the monster. The gun clicked after eight shot, and Boris began to retreat into a sidetunnel while the pseudogiant was staggered.

A burst of assault rifle fire came from Boris' left, the Monolith patrol finally joining the fight. They had not yet spotted Boris, and begun fighting the giant at close range. The beast swinged one of them aside, killing him instantly. Another one fell back a few steps, and the third one retreated towards Boris. Boris opened fire at point-blank range and the fanatic was obliterated by 12-gauge shells. The third Monolith worshipper had managed to finish the wounded giant, but seemingly exhausted had not noticed Boris who jumped at him and blasted him away with the shotgun. The action dying done, Boris begun searching for anything of use. The pseudogiant netted him some valuable parts, and the fanatics even had an artefact on them, which Boris was more than happy to take as a souvenier. The converted Freedomer had been finished, and Boris could finally leave this godforsaken hellhole.

Rest of the day went by quickly. Boris returned to Lukash and reported his success. He then offloaded all excess gear at Skinflint, and returned to his journey to Dead City. There, Dushman rewarded him well once again for a job well done. The information Boris had provided had shown that he had some potential as a mercenary. Dushman still reminded him that he would have to do far more to be completely accepted into the ranks of the mercenaries, since a renegade must be tough to teach new ways to. He had a new mission planned up for Boris, big one this time. His operation this time would involve taking down the Brain Scorcher. He could sneak up north through the Red Forest according to Dushman too, but taking out the Scorcher could benefit the mercenaries greatly. It could even potentially repair some of the relations between mercenaries and their enemies.

Boris asked why exactly he was chosen for this mission. Surely there were other, better mercenaries who had far more experience than Boris. Yes there is, plenty of them, Dushman said, but you're expendable and they're not. If you somehow manage do this, you'll probably end up being not expendable. I'd suggest visiting Sakharov down in Yantar, he might have some tinfoil hat capable of withstanding the emitters. Wouldn't want you turning into Zombified, would we now, Dushman said with a grin. Boris used some of the cash he had collected and gotten from Lukash to upgrade his AKS fully, it would need to be in top condition if he was to raid the Brain Scorcher. While everything up to this point had been a hard fought uphill battle, this was the watershed moment for Boris. He could finally strike big inside the mercs if he succeeded. And he would. Not for himself, but for the renegades. The Zone would change after this mission.