The Curious Case of Benjamin Harrison Jones
Sarah Lyons was a Sentinel within the Brotherhood of Steel, a rank that by itself carried no small amount of responsibility. And on top of that, she was the daughter of the Capital Wasteland chapter's head, Elder Owen Lyons, which also applied a hefty dosage of duty. Then, on top of everything else, she was in charge of her very own special operations force: Lyons' Pride.
So, when a retarded, shit-faced, drooling excuse for a Super Mutant pulled an ambush on her, she took it as a personal insult.
Sarah hit the ground behind a destroyed Corvega, her T-4x Power Armor denting the already cracked pavement. Minigun rounds pounded into the debris-laden street around her, sawing through a postal drop box like tin foil and tearing a street lamp off its mounting. As the lamp hit the ground, so did Paladin Kodiak, smashing to ground right alongside Sarah.
"Contact front!" she heard him shout over the gunfire, "And left, and right, and-"
"I get it! They're everywhere!" she said, cutting him off mid-sentence.
She looked around, trying to get a feel for the ambush. They were deep in the downtown DC ruins, just east of the Mall, in a small shopping district. Or, more accurately, what had been a small shopping district. Now it was more akin to a decrepit, nightmarish skeletal reminder of mankind's follies, an ode to how giving one species too much rope assured them of fucking it all up.
Of course, all that was for a scholar to decide back in a quiet room where they could sit in a plush chair just perfectly tailored to accommodate contemplative cigar puffing action.
Sarah ignored the whole bit and tried to focus. The Pride wasn't at its best right now, admittedly. Not just because of the fact that they were pinned down, but because there simply weren't a lot of them on duty right now. She'd kept this patrol small, not bringing the whole team specifically to avoid walking right into a situation like this.
What she was left with was herself, Paladin Kodiak, Knight Captain Gallows and Paladin Glade. Kodiak was with her behind this Corvega, while Gallows and Glade were keeping themselves out of the maelstrom of 5mm bullets by hunkering down inside a crater that took up the middle of the street. Gallows was crouched perfectly still, surveying the chaos as Sarah was, while Glade kept shaking his head back and forth, no doubt keeping up a strongly worded commentary on the whole affair.
Neither of them was wounded, which was good, considering their opposition.
Eight Super Mutants were involved with the current ambush, and contrary to Kodiak's assessment of them being everywhere, they were actually concentrated into two main areas. One was to the north, further up the street, where three of the uglies stood atop an overturned bus, their miniguns spitting death out toward the pinned Brotherhood soldiers. The other five were positioned to the west, laying down fire from an assortment of assault rifles and hunting rifles.
Thankfully, the Corvega was at an angle that provided Sarah and Kodiak with cover from both groups, while Gallows and Glade were down low enough in that crater to keep from getting hit. However, Sarah knew that it wouldn't be long before her foes relocated to solve those problems. They were stupid, sure, but they weren't that stupid.
"Glade!" she shouted over the battered automobile that shielded her.
"Yeah?" the man replied.
"I've got a plan!"
Glade snorted. "About damn time, ma'am."
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Benjamin Harrison Jones didn't know that his name was Benjamin Harrison Jones. Benjamin Harrison Jones also didn't know what the Forced Evolutionary Virus was, didn't know how he used to be a regular human, didn't know that the world wasn't always as fucked up as it was now, didn't know that his parents once loved him because he was a unique and talented young man, didn't know that this place called DC used to be the head of a powerful government that stood for freedom and justice and he most certainly didn't know that the people he was trying to kill were formulating a plan to kill him this very instant.
What Benjamin Harrison Jones did know, however, was that the big shiny gun in his hands was making things explode. And Benjamin Harrison Jones liked explosions. As he realized that he liked explosions, Benjamin Harrison Jones felt it necessary to announce this to the rest of the world.
"I LIKE EXPLOSIONS!" he yelled, still firing with his minigun, "AAARRARHGHA!"
"HA! YOU SOUND….STUPID!" shouted the Super Mutant next to him, a man who didn't know that his name was George Nelson Scott.
Benjamin Harrison Jones stopped firing; the minigun's barrels spinning down to an eventual stop. "What…did you…CALL ME!?" he shouted.
"I…called you STUPID!" replied George Nelson Scott, "Ha, ha! YOU'RE STUPID!"
Benjamin Harrison Jones roared in anger and shot George Nelson Scott multiple times in the face with his minigun, knocking the other Super Mutant off of the overturned bus and down into the pavement.
"NOW WHO'S STUPID!?" he shouted down, "HA! HA! HA!"
The third Super Mutant on the bus, a man who had for years tried consciously to decipher his name but had up until now only managed to somewhat assure himself that it used to be something starting with a P, started laughing. "YOU SHOT HIM! HA! HA! HA!"
"Yeah," Benjamin Harrison Jones agreed, "I shot him! BECAUSE HE WAS STUPID!"
"Metal men are moving!" announced the Super Mutant who could possibly have at one point been named something with a P in it.
Benjamin Harrison Jones turned back around and saw that P Mutant was right: two of the Brotherhood of steel soldiers were retreating back along the street, drawing the fire of his brothers to the west. Benjamin Harrison Jones really wanted to make them explode into a lot of blood, so he started to spool up the barrels on his minigun.
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Sarah watched Gallows and Glade as they ran, attracting the fire of the western Super Mutants. It wasn't until the two remaining minigun-totting uglies opened fire on them that she and Kodiak put the second phase of the plan in motion, however. As one, they two popped up over the top of the Corvega, running headlong toward the overturned bus, laser rifles coming to bear.
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Benjamin Harrison Jones saw the two metal men coming, and had just begun to bring his minigun around to make them explode when the closer of the two shot him in the arm. The superheated red beam stung like a wasp, making Benjamin Harrison Jones angry. He roared and fired his big gun, trying to hit the two metal men even with his newly wounded arm.
But it was no use: the metal men had already gotten too close. The last thing that went through Benjamin Harrison Jones' head as he fell off of the bus, a fresh new hole through his chest, was how absolutely stupid he had been.
In sharp contrast to this, the last thing that went through his comrade's head was 'my God! What if my name was Penis!'
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Sarah climbed up on top of the bus, a task remarkably easy in power armor, and picked up one of the two fallen Super Mutant's miniguns. She quickly checked the ammo box at her feet and guessed that she had about a full minute of sustained fire left in it. That combined with the fact that the western flank Super Mutants hadn't even figured out that Kodiak and herself had killed their heavy weapons support would make this all too easy.
"Ready," Kodiak reported, hefting the other minigun.
Sarah nodded, her face impassive behind the steel helmet. "Open fire!"
Twin streams of deadly accurate 5mm lead tore into the five remaining Super Mutants. The hail of impacts came so suddenly that the victims weren't even able to discern what was going on before their torsos parted company with their legs, bound for the debatably greener pastures of the debris-strewn street pavement.
Sarah worked her bullets into the last Super Mutant, blasting open his ribcage in a bloody splash of evacuated entrails. The Mutant stumbled backward, his eyes wide with shock, and fell to the ground. His assault rifle clattered to the wayside, forgotten in lieu of its owner's death. Sarah released the trigger and dropped her minigun with a clang to the bus below her feet amid a sizable pile of empty shell casings.
"Form up!" she shouted, hopping down and letting her armor's leg servos absorb the impact, "Let's get back to the Citadel. It'll be dark soon, and while night ops might be Gallows here's forte, I for one would like a full night's sleep."
"I couldn't agree more, ma'am," Kodiak put in from beside her, "Besides, all this killing's made my armor a little bloody."
"Yeah, well at least you didn't have to be the fucking bait," Glade snapped.
Kodiak laughed. "Not my fault that you're faster," he countered.
"Faster? I'm the heavy weapons guy! How the hell am I faster with 60 some-odd pounds of additional minigun ammo on my back?"
As they moved off down the street, Sarah allowed herself a weary smile behind her helmet. It had been a long day, but not surprisingly, the two men were still energetic enough to pick at each other. Sometimes, she really wished she could join in on the fun. But that was a sacrifice that came with authority: people had to respect you, which meant no horsing around. Still, though, she could wish, so long as her head wasn't so far in the clouds that they walked right into another ambush.
With that thought, she made it a point to stop dreaming and get her head back on a swivel. After all, they weren't back in the Citadel just yet.