The fire ants poured out of what remained of the small house, climbing over the broken walls to meet the intruder. The sound was intimidating alone, as dozens of limbs knocked over planks of wood and shattered glass. Their chitinous bodies rubbed against each other in their haste, producing sounds that would unnerve the most hardened veterans. Gireesh ran into the thickest procession of the mutated ants. Thoraxes and heads were crushed under thousands of pounds of bone and muscle. Pale yellow blood splattered the ground as thin limbs were torn out of their sockets by his claws. He made sure none of them were given a chance to click their iron-hard mandibles, preventing even a single spark to ignite the gases they produced in sacks in their throats. The fight, if you could even call it that, was over in a few seconds.

Gireesh wiped his claws clean on the remains of an old couch. Turning around, he admired his handiwork. Only a few crippled ants made feeble movements, their antenna and limbs twitching in an alien fashion. The croaks of the dying ants soon faded, and were replaced by the sound of the old farm house protesting as a gust buffeted through it. A loud guttural hissing sound penetrated the wind, giving him a start. He scanned the carnage, searching for the source of the piercing unearthly sound. Further inside the house, the door to the basement was torn apart, with the entryway coated with dirt held together by ant saliva. The screams of the ant queen down below in the den, wailing for her lost children, put a sliver of anxiety into his heart. He put a leg in the hole, and quickly realized he was several times too large to ever fit inside.

Deciding it wasn't worth the effort to tear apart the door frame to get at the grief stricken mother, he rummaged through the remains of the kitchen. His stomach grumbled as he skewered a box of Sugar Pops on a claw, only to find it to be empty. A can of Cram on the ground snagged his attention as it touched his foot, but he found it to be cut in half by the ant's sharp pincers.

Damn.

The ants would have eaten every scrap of food within a mile, nonetheless this old house. He picked up the remains of one of the ants, and peered over what little meat was on it. The abdomen of the ant split open between his molars, its vital nutrition reinvigorating him. He picked up another, and another, until his stomach was gorged. It could easily be weeks before he ate again, and he needed to pack on some calories.

Better than nothing.

An old broken clock caught his attention with glare from the low sun. Its hands pointed up, indicating it had stopped working around twelve o'clock. He huffed in dismissal. The floor boards cried angrily underneath him as he shifted his weight around, deciding there was nothing left of value to keep him here longer. An odd odor stopped him from traversing further. It smelled of smoke, but something was foreign about it. Caustic vapors began to fill the room, and by the time he realized his error it was already too late to move.

The floor beneath him gave out, and Gireesh fell into the dark basement. Oblong eggs popped as he crushed an ant clutch, cushioning his fall. Dust and particles of wood filled the air, being cast upon by a lone ray of sunlight. The furious hiss stabbed the air once again, this time right in front of him. Gireesh looked up to see his large assailant. Acidic fluids dripped from the ant queen's mandibles, and the ancient wood of the floorboards had quickly melted underneath royal fury. She hurled another ball of acid in his direction, barely missing his thigh. He lunged forward, hitting his head on a low beam. Dazed and unable to see in the dim light, he grabbed at where he thought the queen's head would be. Some of her corrosive mucus dribbled into his palm as he found her. Tightening his grip, she screeched one final call of defiance as her skull split apart in a satisfyingly crisp snap.

The acid caused mild discomfort as it burned away his thick skin. He scraped the remains of the fluid onto a nearby wooden support pillar, and began to search the room. It was difficult to see anything of value in the waning light. Some tools on a shelf. A humming computer on a desk. Three empty barrels. Pushing past the queen was difficult, as she took up most of the room. He spun the computer around to face him. Its fission battery still chugging along, perpetually projecting faint green text across its small screen. He bent down to get a better view. Despite his poor vision, he was able to pick out the few words.

TERMINAL LOCKED

PLEASE CONTACT AN ADMINISTRATOR

No surprises here.

Some pieces of likely inconsequential information lost to the wasteland, unless some computer genius manages to find their way here. He set the computer on the shelf, next to a wrench and another fission battery. The basement's natural light was nearly gone, the sun too low to enter through the broken floor anymore. Concerned that it would soon be too dark to escape, he grabbed the desk, lifted it over the corpse of the queen and set it down next to the wall. He gingerly climbed on top of it, and hoisted himself into the ruined kitchen above. The desk broke in two as his legs pushed off of it, its purpose served.

The surrounding sheds and barns provided a similar lack of fruitful exploit. The sun was below the horizon now, and civil twilight had begun. It was too dark to find his way back to the road. Gireesh had consented to the idea of resting until morning when he smelled something burning again. This time it didn't carry the scent of acidic reactions. A very faint glow indicated something large was on fire a couple miles to the east. Something that big burning meant a settlement, and that also means the road was in that direction. The only problem is, that also meant the settlement was occupied. And humans are rarely friendly to a deathclaw.

Really not in the mood to get shot tonight.

Flexing his shoulder blades, he began walking in the light's direction. It didn't take long for the dirt under his feet to turn into the asphalt of the highway, and it lead him to the fire's source. The town was surrounded by a twelve foot deep natural ditch, tall hills and makeshift sheet metal walls. The only easy access into the settlement was from the highway, a bridge covered in fresh-corpses that crossed the ditch. Most of the buildings were burning, providing enough illumination to see the amateur sign in front of the bridge. It listed the town's name, its population, and a warning. The population had been revised over time, with white paint crudely painted over the old numbers.

Kenton

Population: 57 49 35 28 15

Trespassers will be shot on sight. Survivors will be shot again.

Gireesh looked between the burning town and the sign. With one of his long claws, he scraped off most recently added number, leaving the single digit 1 behind. He stepped over piles of sandbags and onto the bridge. Glancing at each of the bodies, he noted six in total. Four of them wore a random assortment of homemade leather and metal armor. The remaining two however, wore very distinctive red and black armor, made of repurposed football and baseball equipment. Caesar's Legion. A small ball of fear was dropped inside the stomach of the fourteen-foot tall beast. With no stopping in sight, the Legion brutally push ever outward in all directions from the Four States Commonwealth.

No matter how far I run, they're always in front of me.

With the mystery of who set the town on fire solved, Gireesh crossed the bridge. After passing several burning houses and more dead Kenton militia, the legionnaires came into view in the center of town. An old motor home provided cover to block their line of sight. There were five of them that he could see. While most of them carried machetes or spears, he could see a handgun at the side of the veteran legionary. They had two Kenton survivors on their knees, and several more had been crucified nearby. Hanging from their wrists, each of them was bound to a telephone pole. Their bodies had been severely beaten, and none of them looked conscious.

From behind, there was a loud crack that echoed against the walls of the houses, immediately followed by an intense hot pain in Gireesh's left shoulder. Thick blood splattered onto the metal casing of the motor home. He spun around, and a legionnaire was working the bolt of his hunting rifle. As the .308 cartridge slid into its chamber, the young legionary lost his arm with a shout. The remaining troops ran to aid their fallen comrade. A machete embedded itself in his thick hide. Its owner was unable to pull it free and he lost his grip on the weapon. A spear was lodged in Gireesh's spine.

Using his tail he knocked two of them onto their back, and he crushed their skulls under his feet. Two more charged, desperately hacking at his ankles with their machetes to little effect. With five-thousand pounds of force he slammed his right fist down on the tops of their heads, causing severe trauma and rendering them immobile. His left arm was struggling to follow any commands, but that ultimately didn't matter for the legion.

The final legionary was nowhere to be seen. Gireesh held his breath and listened to his surroundings. He heard his heart thundering in his chest, the wind blowing against a window shutter, a chorus of summer insects, and labored breathing from on the other side of a house. The adrenaline was already wearing off, pain becoming defined and focused. Hurrying to end the conflict, he ran to the location of the panicked mouth breather.

The veteran legionary had his back to the wall, looking around the corner. He didn't see Gireesh until he was already beside him. Using his good arm, he stabbed through the pathetic armor and impaled his gut with his long claws. Gireesh lifted him off the ground until their heads were at a level height. His shiny metal helmet fell off, showing the defiance that burned in his eyes. He brought the barrel of his .44 Magnum level with the deathclaw's tennis-ball sized eye. As his blood steadily poured onto the dirt, the legionnaire's arm shook. His shot hit the bony ridge above Gireesh's eye, deflecting off. Working his throat for the first time in a decade, he produced slow, deep, guttural words. His enunciation was crude, but it got the point across.

"You missed."

The legionnaire's pupils dilated as Gireesh opened his mouth wide. His teeth dug deep into the neck of the man, and he pulled the head free from its body. Blood poured into his mouth, filling it with that familiar metallic flavor. It had been ages since he tasted human. He was still gorged on ants, and so dropped the head. He shook his hand until the body was wrenched free from his claws. The headless corpse slammed into the wall of the house, staining it red.

A gust of wind agitated his open wounds. With a groan he walked into the town square. One of the two survivors was dead, his throat cut by legion when Gireesh wasn't looking. The remaining man was sobbing as the deathclaw approached him. Gireesh lowered himself to be less intimidating, and spoke in his primitive way.

"Fear not. I'm not hungry."

Using his index claw, he cut the binds on the man's legs. Immediately the man scrambled to his feet and ran off towards the horizon. To Gireesh, this was no concern of his. He already had done the man more than enough of a favor. He didn't need or want appreciation, he told himself. It was then he noticed two eyes staring at him from under the porch of a house. Sniffing the air, he could tell it was a human girl. She had hidden under the house when the legion came.

"I'm not going to harm you right now. You can come out."

The low rumble of his voice carried itself with more confidence and clarity this time. The fire's reflection in her eyes vanished as she blinked and crawled out from under the house. She attempted to stand, but stumbled face first into Gireesh. Eyes closed, she grasped for a hold to pick herself up by, finding his dry nose. Pushing off his face, she found footing and opened her eyes. The close proximity to him startled her, and she took several steps back. She stood around three and a half feet tall, but she was no younger than seven. She brushed the dirt off her dress, and looked in the direction the man ran in. Opening and closing her mouth indecisively, she looked like a fish gasping for air. Something in her mind won the argument, and she barely uttered four words that were nearly drowned out by a breeze.

"He is too big."

Her choice words surprised Gireesh, and he looked in the direction she pointed. A few moments passed before a flash lit the horizon, and a second later the sound of a frag mine detonating reached their ears. He looked back at her, and grumbled.

"Was."

Gireesh stood up to his full height and looked at the small child. He towered over her by a factor of four. Yet there she was, undeterred by his scale. The wind blew through the houses, whining about the state of affairs. Things were becoming increasingly dark, and the pain in his shoulder grew more focused. Down to one knee, he saw a pool of blood forming under him.

Guess that was more serious than I thought.

He could hear a gasp as his head hit the ground. His eyelids slammed closed as he saw the diminutive girl fell to her knees, reaching for his face.