CHAPTER 4
Storm's Coming.
He didn't quite know what it was, but, for whatever reason, Sanford Tobs had woken up that day and he had felt that something, really, really, really bad, was about to happen. Again, he didn't quite know why, but, he had a bad feeling about today, call him crazy if you will.
The morning was routine, in fact, the whole damned day, was routine, the same thing they had been doing for almost a year. Sanford would wake up, Nyx would sleep in, Hancock would be ranting and getting loud for hours on end and somehow she slept through it all.
Then Sanford would suit up, Hancock would reload his prized weapons, and Nyx would either go out and hunt something for meat, or would watch idly without much to do for herself in such arming ways. Then they would trek out into the Commonwealth, and Sanford would try and direct them to a place where maybe something, anything, was worth salvaging.
As the situation had been a year ago, those kinds of places were thinning more and more, Boston was becoming stripped, like layers of steel, and it was getting more and more brittle for scavengers and even traders to continue to make a profit around the area.
People had been talking about moving west or north, chancing the mostly unknown expanses of land there to try and find work with settlements in Vermont and the northwestern and northern swathes of New Hampshire, supposedly, there were still people around upstate New York, near Lake Ontario and the like.
Of course this was attempting to describe all of this with the interest of- 'Economics' -of the Commonwealth, and at the end of the day it was still a blasted ruin, but the discussion of economic footholds could be made for the populations of people within it.
Businesses in trade and scavenging were gradually leaving the Commonwealth, but, things like farming, or- 'Domestic Occupations' -as a lot of people liked to coin them, within growing communities like Diamond City or Bulwark were flourishing.
This presented a problem for Sanford, obviously, because if he ran out of things to salvage, he ran out of things to trade, and that meant that money would become scarcer. This didn't exactly mean that he was doomed or anything serious like that, but, it would certainly be harder to deal with other people if he didn't have money or things worth anything to anyone else.
Hancock didn't seem too worried about it as they walked.
"-Financial stability is for grandpa-swindling telemarketers!" Hancock dismissed it with a wave of his claw, his levitation arcing a bit from his movements. "Who in the shit needs traders when we can just fuck people up and loot the corpses?! Ah-ha! LIBERTY SPOILS!"
"Is there a day that goes by where you don't, like, even TALK about killing something?" Sanford grinned by the Mr. Gutsy's flank, cradling his Laser rifle in his grip.
"It is indeed an unhealthy affliction, your barbaric tendencies, that is." Nyx humored from behind them. "Though, it could prove to my benefit if the usiner' goes apeshit, and attempts to duel with something beyond his capabilities."
"-HEY!" Hancock snapped, spinning around, jabbing his saw, flying backwards now. "Keep flappin' your gator' lips if ya' want a one way ticket to ass-kick-ville'! WITH EXPRESS REAL-ESTATE OPTIONS!"
"How do you say it? Laisse-moi penser'... Mm, yes, 'Eat me'- right?"
"WHATDID-?! I'LL SHIT IN YOUR PROVERBIAL SOUP, YOU BITCH!"
"Jesus Christ, shut up!" Sanford snapped. "I swear, if you spent HALF as much effort looking for scrap as you did screaming at Nyx, we'd be flowing in caps!"
"Whose bright idea was it for the currency of this dump to BE bottle caps anyway?! It's COMMUNIST INDUCED! Damned Commies' and their creative abilities of ruining outstanding independent markets!" Hancock ranted. "Sir! I know what to do! We'll buy a full deluxe range of designers' underwear! LIBERTY-WEAR! With stars all over 'em!"
"If I had something so glorious as to give you in the interest of you shutting up, I'd give it to you, right here and now, I would..." Sanford lazed his helm back at the clear sky above. "...We can't reach this place soon enough..."
"I still think you've lied to me all this time, monsieur'," Nyx sighed. "I find it impossible to believe that you have lived with this... THING... for all this time."
"My badassness FAR surpasses YOU! I mean, LOOKATCHYA'!" Hancock jabbed his saw at her again. "-A smelly newt from the drainage pipes of Quebec with a bad case of constipation and self-fucking-loathing! I SPIT UPON YOU! AND EVERYTHING YOU STAND FORRRR-!"
CLAK!
-Nyx's hand dismissively swatted out, and Hancock was an olive drab blur through the air as he tumbled into the dirt on the side of the road, with the distinct and familiar sound of a bag of tin cans.
"Thank God." Sanford said. "I think he gave me a headache."
"Me too." Nyx huffed. "Trop' mauvais analgesiques ne sont plus disponibles..."
Sanford had a foggy look about himself after that sentence, he opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again and faltered.
"...No, wait... You lost me, what was that?"
"It is a pity pain relievers are no longer made." Nyx translated. "I could use a handful."
"...Han'! Where are you? Keep up!" Sanford called over his shoulder.
"...IT'S OBVIOUS, that I'm no longer respected in this army! FUCK YOURSELF, I'll stay in the DIRT! At least it's democratic!..."
"Yeah well, stuff some of it in a can or something and let's go!" Sanford answered loudly. "I don't have all day, man!"
"...I request a document firmly stating- SUCK MY SPROCKET!..."
"...I request a document to get a robot that isn't obsolete..." The man muttered over to Nyx, whose shoulders hopped in musing.
CLINK...clkclk...
-Sanford smiled when a bent aluminum can rebounded off the rear of his shoulderpauldron. He had to admit, Hancock had good aim, that can sailed right past Nyx's arm and hit him square.
"-I HEARD THAT!" The robot was flying alongside him once more, like nothing had happened. "Take it back you arm-pit scratching, flea-pickin' whore-bag!"
"Be a good coffee-machine and make me a cup, would you? Usiner?" Nyx smiled.
Their trek down the pavement was suddenly halted, and, both at the same time, and slowly, like a pair of tortoises- Hancock and Sanford looped around, Sanford's head angled in shock, and Hancock silenced in the awe of what had been said.
The Deathclaw almost walked into them from the abrupt stoppage, she took a step back, her tail swaying behind her in curiosity.
"...What?" She shrugged her big shoulders, yellow eyes wide. "...W-What? What did I say?"
"...That was... That was AWESOME!" Sanford belted out. "-Oh man, someone call the paramedics we got a burn victim in here!"
"-BAHH! Shut yer' mouth!" Hancock snapped. "-I'LL SHOW YOU! YOU-! YOU-!"
WHmmmmmmm...
-A loud noise, distant, it was distant enough that it had a ghostly echo across the hills and trees of the wastes, it sounded like if someone took a big iron door with un-oiled hinges, and slowly eased it open, it was a grinding and unpleasant noise.
All three of them stopped in their two tracks and one hover path, Sanford looked up at the sky as his first reaction, and Nyx looked ahead down the road they were walking on, her eyes narrowed, nostrils flaring as she tested the air.
Hancock, who, up until this second hadn't moved- jerked his ocu-lenses back and forth, looked between the two of them, and countered the previous insult with-
"-A bit of an unorthodox improvisation, but WHO CARES?! Unorthodox is my middle name! THAT WAS YOUR MOTHER'S WHALE-CALL, PYTHON-GIRL! HA! TAKE THAT!"
"...All that, and all he can come up with is a your-mother joke..." Sanford shook his head. "...What the hell was that?"
"It sounded mechanical." Nyx pointed out. "Militiamen artillery? Something towed?"
"...No, I don't think so..." Sanford waved them forwards. "I say we find out."
"Moving towards potential dangers once again, mon cher'?" She rolled her eyes.
"You have a more exciting idea?"
"Mm."
"Alright then, let's go."
"POTENTIAL VICTIMS AT TWELVE-O-CLOCK! ONWARDS!" Hancock cried, following closely.
That sound had been peculiar enough, that, actually, Sanford was willing to diverge from their usual wandering just to investigate it. As such the most empty road was left as they parted from it into open, woodland terrain beside its eastern flank.
The land rose into a hill, the party of three looped around the southern fringe of a great pile of jagged boulders, Sanford and Nyx parting brittle and flattening any blades from all the dead ferns that got in their way, and Hancock just flew over all of it.
They weaved between a cluster of trees and reached the top of the hill, where Sanford fell to a crouch, and Nyx hunkered down just behind a rather large pile of stones, Hancock floated behind Sanford.
Down the opposite slope of the hill, another road was present, it diverged for several houses along its length on either side, though more thickly in a row of ten on the upper horizontal side, and only two on the side they were closer to.
A small, but still considerable, pillar of blackness rose from behind the girth of one of the homes, in the center of the street, the ruined house was placed so that they couldn't see directly behind it. Besides the prior noise, they couldn't hear anything else besides the wind now, and as far as they were concerned, they didn't see anyone-
"-NOPE! Scratch that description!" Hancock suddenly barked. "-Unknown target in the street! Holy cows playing in traffic! My scanners are going BONKERS!"
"Who the hell IS that?" Sanford flicked up his rifle's scope and checked through it with an aiming raise, there had been a shadowy outline of someone down there, the arms were moving, so the person was probably running, just a quick zip of motion, between two of the houses on the street.
Sanford creased his lips, checked his own scanning software in the helm's HUD, and he indeed saw life signatures of several people blooming to reality on the map, they were colored red, which meant they physically resembled something Sanford had coded in as hostile.
The scans usually weren't wrong, of course, there had been some hiccups over the months, every now and again his suit would process Nyx as a hostile blurb and Sanford would have to kink it out, but when it came to situations like this, he wasn't chancing anything.
"...Yeah, the scans are saying they're baddies." He muttered. "Anyone up for a good ole' fashioned ass kicking?"
"I suppose if I MUST..." Nyx grumbled.
"-TIME TO DIE, MEAT-SACKS! AH-HAHAHAHAAA! Let's rip out their livers and eat 'em!"
Sanford looped around a tree and Nyx hopped over the rocks, the three of them kept themselves as low as possible as they went down the slope on the other side of the hill, they aimed for the backyard of a house, lacking a fence, littered with trash about the dead grass.
Hauntingly, a children's sandbox, or, the wooden structure of one, was still taking its time rotting away over the years, most of the sand within it was thinly dispersed in and around it, giving the grassy earth there a tan hue, the square of wood was cracked and becoming buried in the center of the yard.
Sanford glanced at it a few times as he pressed the shoulder of his suit into the leftwards rear corner of the square home's structure, it reminded him of when he had been a kid a little bit, a haunting tidbit, at most.
He clicked off his gun's safety and aimed it round down the side of the house while Nyx peeked in through the ajar and long shattered back glass patio door, and the windows of the rear of the home.
"No one inside, monsieur'." She hissed.
"-My SCANS already did that for us!" Hancock snapped at her. "What in the actual crap is it with you people and DEFYING MY TECHNOLOGICAL CAPABILITIES?!"
"Be QUIET." The Deathclaw's nails slid out of their sheathes on her fingers. "If you get us shot I'll hunt you down in the afterlife and rip you in half!"
"I'd even be a cooler GHOST than you, you diseased frog-fucker!"
"THAT'S IT-!"
"-Both of you! Sssssh!" Sanford held a finger up at them. "Playtime's over kiddies, if you keep it up, one of us could get killed!"
"...Don't think this lets you OFF the hook, usiner." She jabbed a clawed digit at Hancock.
"I'm countin' on it, big, ugly and bulbous! WE'LL DUEL WHEN THE TIME COMES!"
"SSSHHH!" Sanford rasped. "-Shut the hell up! God damn it, Han', go play in the sandbox over there or something!"
"But what if the kid shit in it?!"
"...I wasn't being... serious-youknowhatjustdropit..." Sanford waved a hand. "-Enough already, let's go out there, I don't see anybody."
"Scanners are going down, sir!" The robot reported. "Targets getting farther away!"
"Maybe they were other scavengers?" Nyx tested, following Sanford down the side of the house, her tail swaying anxiously.
"That might not be a good thing," Sanford reminded. "-Remember a few weeks ago?"
"They deserved what they got."
"Not the point, point is, people will kill you for anything, don't trust anyone you don't know."
"I understand this." She raised a brow. "Healthy speculation was all."
"...Do you hear that?"
"Monsieur'?"
"...Listen..."
-Tiny mewls, from something living, this wasn't yet another alien sound of distant machinery, it was relatively close, it sounded, like...
...It kind of sounded like a wounded animal, like something small, like, a deer, or...
"...Hancock?" Sanford looked over Nyx's flank at his friend. "Does that sound like a... a baby to you?"
"A BABY?! Holy crap! WE'VE COME ACROSS A BRAZILIAN CHILD-SLAVERY SHIPMENT RING! Let's get wads of incense and shove it down their dick-holes for good measure! SAVE THE CHILDREN!"
"Jesus, Nyx-?"
"-Do you mean an infant? A youngling human?" Nyx almost gasped. "...I-I didn't think those existed out here."
"I didn't think so either, but... listen to that," It was clearly a baby crying. "...You think someone just left it out here?"
"Let me through-" The Deathclaw suddenly had a wild look in her eyes, angling to move past Sanford to head for the street. "-It sounds like they're hurting it."
"-Waitwaitwait-! Hold on-! Nyx-!" Sanford was pried aside quickly, he stumbled back and watched the biogenetically engineered reptile vanish alongside the house next door at the front in a blur of four-legged movement.
"Huh, maybe she's a jiggilo and that's her long lost kid she never told us about, sir!" Hancock commented.
"...Just," Sanford raised his arms in an appalled manner. "-What the heck is wrong with you?"
"I could try to install a printer and give ya' the full comprehensive list! Ha-ha!"
They hurried up to the sidewalk, bypassed a flipped over and ancient mailbox with rusting blue paint, and saw that at the stoop of the house next door, the one now on their left, the corroded corpse of a pickup truck was slammed into the steps and had long been there to rot away.
The black painted vehicle partially covered a view of down the street, which was mostly open, pointing towards the southern expanses of the Commonwealth, a few larger shop buildings capped a three way intersection a half mile away, and the only other wrecked vehicle on the road was a yellow school bus, down by the shops, flipped on its side and quiet.
The black smoke they had seen earlier was just ahead, and obviously, Nyx could see whatever was causing it and it was transfixing her interest thoroughly, she wasn't brash enough that she had ran out into the middle of the road there, but she was crouched behind the side bed of the pickup corpse, and she was gazing over it.
"...Mon Dieu'..." She mumbled, her tail curling, fingers clenching the rim of the bed top. "-Monsieur', look."
"-What IS that?" Sanford joined by her side and the two were looking a few feet away, at a pile of what looked like wood and plaster, ripped from a nearby house, lain in a heap a foot tall in the middle of the two lanes, with a baby stroller placed it atop it.
The stroller was an older looking one, it had a white bonnet covering the rear half of the carriage, which was cream colored and had a brown handle on the back, with silvery suspension and a quad of thin, bicycle-like black wheels.
The tiny crying sounds that they were hearing, were coming from within the stroller, and whoever had left it there, had also set some of the wood in the pile below it on fire.
"...Who the hell...?" Sanford shook his head, watching a thin net of flames broil up around the stroller's wheels, the smoke was becoming thicker and was starting to rise higher. "-Someone's trying to burn a damn baby?!"
"We have to save it," Nyx frantically stated, rising from behind the pickup, her knee bumped into the hull and it made a shrill jolt against the pavement metallically. "-We have to save it!"
"-Alright-alright!" Sanford pointed at Hancock. "-Stay here and cover us in case it's a trap!"
"But I'm good with kids, sir! I can teach it the art of warfare! RING AROUND THE GRENADE BOX! Row-row-row your battlecruiser roughly down the Nile! Shelling and shelling and shelling, BOMB EGYPT OUT OF EXISTENCE! Ha-ha-HAAAA!"
"HAN'!"
"-DON'T YELL AT ME, YOU SLUT-CAKE!"
"C'mon, Nyx-!"
Man and Deathclaw bolted around the pickup's rear, she reached the pile first, and Sanford came up behind her quickly, his gun one handed, he watched as Nyx reached a single hand into the smog, keeping her head angled away.
Squeaking of loose wheels, a snap of wood and a rush of crackling flames, she tugged away from the mound and held the stroller off the street lightly, two handed, being careful with her claws.
"-Is it alright?" Sanford hurried over and gestured for her to put it down. "Can you see, is the thing alright?"
"-S-Sanford?" She dropped it on the street, her eyes wide.
"What are ya'-?" Sanford leant over the top rim, and then, at that second, he realized something.
It was indeed, a trap.
There was a tiny black box, a walkie-talkie' of some kind, and the sounds of a distressed human infant were mewling out from its speakers, and it was taped by lines of tan to a stack of four coppery, reflective disks of metal, that each were topped with three tiny crimson bulbs of light.
Something plastic in the stroller's underside clicked, all the red lights on the disks started blinking rapidly. BEEP-BEEP
"-GETOUTOFTHEWAY-!" Sanford moved so fast, it was as if he had frozen time itself- his arms jerked out and grabbed up the bundle, he hugged it to his cuirass and spiraled to face away from her.
BMMMKK!
-A terrible, sharp, metallic pop, it looked like a balloon of sorts had imploded in Sanford's gauntlets, shrapnel flecked out around him, a cloud of gray smoke kicked out from under his limbs, and a lick of fire graced his breast.
Systems in the suit whined haphazardly, Sanford stumbled back, his arms parting and flailing on either side of himself, he back-tracked into the stroller and knocked it over on its side.
"-GaaAAHh-! F-FUCK-!" He grunted, his ears ringing, the suit's systems at least diminishing the shell shock. "-DAMN IT-!"
Nyx made a panicked noise, Sanford was abruptly weightless, his world shifted, and the Deathclaw wrapped her arms over him and carried him off to the other side of the street- as, in addition to the first racket, there was now gunfire.
Somewhere from down the street ahead a rapid fire weapon, probably a light machine gun, echoed all the way down to them a moment before the rounds started clattering. The pavement erupted in tens of tiny dusty geysers, bullets flattening and punching everywhere.
"-SIR! SOMEONE MADE THEIR FINAL MISTAKE AGAIN!" Hancock cried over, lowering his engine's power, going lower behind the truck as the righthand door shrieked and twelve holes punched up and down its rusty girth with kicks of sparks.
"-Why-CAN'T-we-go- a DAY-?!"
"Do NOT speak of such, monsieur'!" Nyx shoved the two of them behind a house on the opposite end of the street, crouching, she carefully deposited Sanford next to her and flinched when a few bullets pierced the plaster right over their heads and ahead of them on the house's corner. "- It's been awhile, it was bound to happen!"
"...We don't-!" He coughed, and shook his head, sitting up on his armored knees. "-We don't even know who the fuck is SHOOTING at us!"
"Are you hurt?"
"Nono, I'm fine! Really!" He angled his head back when she leant closer to examine his helmet, scorched across its front, just like his cuirass and gut. "-Really, I'm okay, the armor saved me!"
"You saved me."
"It's my job." Sanford chuckled.
"-SIR, SIR-OH-SIR! YES YOU! OVER HERE!" Hancock called from across the street, he leaned out of cover once- CLAK CLAK -managed two shots in the general direction of the fire before more rounds clapped about the truck and forced him down again. "-I appreciate ya' saving the damsel in distress, BUT WHO IN THE FLYING ARAB-MAN'S SHOES FOR BUSH'S HEAD IS GONNA' SAVE ME?! HEEEEEELLLLPPP!"
"Hold on, Han'! Me and Nyx are gonna' move up-!"
"-Sounds SPLENDID, sir! An absolute original plan! NOW UNPIN ME! So I can find these goat-testicle fondlers and RIP OUT THEIR EYES!"
"...It's like talking to a brick, c'mon, we'll flank east." Sanford stood up, he looked about his person for his gun, and saw, that in the panic of rush, it was magnetically adhered to his right shin. Huh, funny.
He tore the weapon free and checked it over, Nyx stood and gestured for deeper into the alley.
"This way, I presume?"
"Did you see where that fire was coming from?"
"Non', down the street obviously, probably on the second floor of one of the structures down there."
"-Han', you have a beat on these people?"
"-Second window! I SEE YA', you rank Hitler-worshipping used dildos! I'LL SWAB THE FLOOR WITH YOUR INTENSTINES!" -The robot couldn't keep his composure enough to radio anything else over, the two heard his rants all the way from where they were, with or without the com link.
"Let's go." Sanford grunted.
The two rounded the backyard property of the house, around the corner of a small and collapsed wooden patio, the rusted remains of an old swingset were in the center of the grass-lacking yard, besides the skinny and burnt corpse of an ancient oak tree with no limbs from its ruined trunk.
The fence that divided this property from the one ahead was completely gone, an old storage shed was ahead in the neighboring yard, Sanford quickly motioned for Nyx to head for the shed while he advanced in the open.
The Deathclaw vanished in an all-four sprint, she almost slithered across the ground with how fast she moved, Sanford was just behind, jogging, with his gun raised for the other yard. If his assumption was correct, whoever had lain that trap wasn't an idiot, and they probably had people flanking the street on either end or both of the house rows while the weapon in the shops down there pinned them.
Sanford swallowed in brief worry, he heard Hancock's gun discharge a few times, and then the distant pitter-patter of the machine gun wound up again.
"-...Contacts-! Dead ahead!"
"...It's the Scavenger! Aim for him!"
-Well SOMEBODY knew who he was.
Sanford cursed through his teeth when five or six individuals burst out of cover from the neighboring house's side and then scrambled back when they saw him. He noticed Nyx tense behind the mass of the shed nearby, she looked at him and he nodded for her to stay down.
Bk! Bk! -A carbine flared twice, bullets flew past his flank, Sanford kept his gun at hip level and sprayed the whole rear corner portion of the house.
CLKCLCKCLKCLCKCLKCLKCLK
-Dust obscured everything and wood snapped off the structure in a few places, he heard more shouting and moved quickly before return fire could amp up.
He advanced swiftly to where the old fence used to be, his boots clomping hollowly against the dirt, he saw a flicker of movement and gave the corner of the house another quick spray.
CLKCLKCLKCLKCLKCLK
-Someone screamed, and through all the dust over there, he saw a body fling and curl on the ground.
CHKCHCHKCK-! -Sounded like an assault rifle, the barrel peaked round the corner and sprayed everything around him, Sanford was already behind the opposite rear corner of the house, the bullets kicked into the paneling on the other side and flew across the yards.
He checked the two small windows on his side of the house, saw the shattered glass and immediately considered what would happen if they got inside and used them as firing positions, he checked his view to the street now behind him down the home's flank, it was obscured in a thin veil of dust.
"-Han'? You alright?" He whispered.
"-I'm advancing on this son of a bitch! Getting closer, sir!"
-The machine gun started firing again as Hancock switched positions down there.
bm...bmcm...
Sanford heard something from the very wall he was pressed to, he checked over the lawn and saw that Nyx had vanished from her position behind the shed, he smirked in knowing, and then frowned again, looking at the wall of the house.
...bmbcm... cm...cm...
-Someone was inside.
Sanford licked his lips, stepped away from the wall, lined up his rifle-
CLKCLCKCLKCLCKCLKCLKCLK
-Put a horizontal line of blast holes in the panels from left to right in a quick two sprays.
Bm-BM... Then silence.
Sanford didn't stick around, he peered around the corner of the house again, saw that there was a back wooden door and that it was wide open, the body from before was still lying out on the dirt down there.
PSHK-!
PSHK-PSHSK-PSHK-!
-Four holes bigger than his chest blasted into the wood of the house from within right behind him, he jumped from the noise, backed away, and rumbled the earth as he fell onto his suit's belly- BmmK... -He aimed up from the uncomfortable angle.
PSHK! -The corner he was standing behind split and splintered. Someone inside had a nasty shotgun by the looks of it.
"-AAAAHHHH-!" Horrid screaming, a crack of organic matter, Sanford gazed back by the body of the first man he'd hit to see another corpse flail out from the house's side, blood contrailing from a ragged gash in its chest, it rolled and stilled ahead of the other one.
Nyx obviously was successful in her flanking move.
He aimed for the house from down on the ground and sprayed it back and forth.
CLKCLCKCLKCLCKCLKCLKCLK
-There was a hollow wail from within, more thudding sounds and breaking glass, smoke was clogging up through the back door and one of the rear windows.
"-Nyx! You okay?" Sanford called over, rising to a single knee on the ground.
"-Oui', Sanford!" The Deathclaw's head peered from behind the corner, she had blood stains up one of her wrists. "Is the house clear?"
"I'm checking."
Sanford stormed over to the back door, he shouldered through the frame and revealed the interior of a thoroughly wrecked suburban home, with walls of tan and cream plaster, a kitchen with smashed wooden cabinets and rusty appliances, in the middle of the crimson tiled floor, a pair of corpses were sprawled out, one had its chest burnt and blown open in a black flower.
Two men, young, one was bald and the other had a U.S. Army standard issue drab helmet over his head, they both wore drab fatigues, and one of them had a military vest over his body.
Gunners.
What the hell was all THIS about?
"...Guess they didn't learn the first time around..." Sanford grumbled, he stepped through another frame ahead of the kitchen's frame, found another Gunner, a woman, lying face down, she was wearing a full combat dress, vest, pauldrons and all, and it hadn't saved her from the carbon bolts that blew open her face, she lay in the center of what was once a sitting room.
Sanford cringed and backed out of the house, he came back out the back door and saw Nyx leaning over the two bodies, panting from the effort on her part beforehand.
"...Gunner soldiers, Sanford," She mumbled over her shoulder as he got closer. "-There are two more behind the house."
"Good job." Sanford grinned. "-C'mon we gotta' get rid of that gun down the street."
"...Mm."
"Are you okay?"
"Mmhm."
"Alright, c'mon."
-0-0-0-0-0-
"-This'll show you, ya' Nazi-sympathizing douchebag! YOU AIN'T GOT NO GUTS!"
Bzzzzzzzz-ZZZZZZZMMMMM-SPshkks-PLSK...
"-HA-HA! GET IT?! BAHHH-!"
Hancock finished tearing his buzzsaw from the stomach of a Gunner soldier, the man was keeled over the whole time, his mouth open, his throat clenching as he gagged and choked, his innards spilled out as a crimson and plopping mess on the sidewalk and over his black combat boots.
The deranged robot finished his rant by slapping the corpse down with a dismissive bat of his claw's flat, he aimed over the body as it fell back, he fired twice with his Plasma gun, and twin green bulbs of wanton death flickered down the sidewalk and planted into another Gunner's chest.
The poor slob was knocked right off his heels, he hit the pavement so hard that he bounced back up a bit and sprawled there, dead as a doornail, his carbine rolling away into the street.
"-You all got no game on, THE HAN'! HA-HA! AHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAA-!"
chmchmchmchmchm, chmchm, chmchmchmchm-
-A flickering spark of light from the second story window down the street, bullets whizzed by and chewed up the wall of the house next to him, Hancock ignited his thruster and sped back to cover behind a house.
"-TACTICAL RETREAT! SOUND THE TRUMPETS! SAVE THE WOMEN! LEAVE THE CHILDREN AS A DISTRACTION!" FTTTTttttttt... -The Gunner operator team was unable to focus fire any longer, because a terrible and thick cloud of black belched out from Hancock's thruster and flooded the entire side property of the home in question.
The robot used his effective smoke screen to keep advancing while Nyx and Sanford moved up down the other side.
"-Come on out, my fleshy targets! If ya' reveal yourselves, I might make it QUICK! Ha! Ah-haha!"
The robot shot through another backyard, rounded a ruined and partially buried tow-truck on the property's rear, Hancock flew past it, and came face to face with a squad of nine drab dressed Gunners.
The land between this property and the next fell in a dip, this property was on a hill and the neighbors weren't, so the poor Gunners were halfway using their hands and boots on all fours to climb up and get positions in exactly where their enemy held.
They were all clad in pre-War United States Army body armor and fatigues, they wore helmets, drab caps and bandanas, they all carried carbines and assault rifles, one of them had a huge chain-fed gun that took ammo from a metal pack over his back, a shoulder mounted machinegun, he wore sunglasses, and Hancock swore one of the lenses popped out for how wide the boy's eyes got.
A few of them barked, cursed, the heavy weapons guy spit out a cigar from his mouth, almost tumbled down the hill and readied his shoulder-MG with a hand on the side grip.
"-HA-HA! Looks like, THE HAN', caught ya' with your pants down, bitch! TASTE MY-"
CLKCLKCLKCLCKCLKCLCKCLKCLKCLK
-A swathe of flickering crimson shot out from between two houses to the left, the beams clipped into the squad's vulnerable flank, and soon bursts of blood were shooting out, limbs were being blown off, bodies were rolling down the hill and screams were being silenced.
The whole unit was slaughtered, the red beams ceased right as a final corpse plopped on top of the mangled remains of the shoulder-MG guy, steam rose from some of the casualties, and there was nothing but silence.
Hancock examined the butchered squad with his ocu-lenses for a moment, glanced at the two houses, and then back at the corpses, the houses, the corpses, the houses, the corpses.
"...Someone..." Hancock muttered, hovering down the incline, clean over the bodies, he peered between the houses. "...Someone... STOLE MY KILLS! RAAAAGGGHHH! YOU GRANDDAD-MOLESTIN', DAUGHTER-KICKIN' DRUG-ADDICT SACK OF UNGODLY SHIT! NO-ONE AIDS ME IN COMBAT UNLESS I SAY SO, NO ONE-!"
"...Yeah man," Sanford lowered his gun from across the street between two brick shops. "-You're welcome, I think?"
"GASSSSPPP!...S-Sanford!" Hancock shrieked. "-HOW COULD YOU?! I thought we had sealed a brotherhood of understanding to one's right to thou' own kills?!"
"...What did you just say?" Sanford called back. "I didn't hear you?"
"OH! I see! You're MOCKING me! You think it's fuckin' funny dontchya'?!" Hancock bobbed with how loud he shouted. "-Pick on the robot why don't ya'?! Well guess what?! YOU'RE A BIGOT! HA! TAKE THAT!"
"...Hancock, what in... Just... I can't do this- Head over and help us kill that gun crew before they relocate! Get your thumb out of your ass, man!"
"-I don't have thumbs, OR AN ASS! Ha-ha! Mend your pride after THAT burn, monkey-man!"
"...Jesus, if ya' don't have an ass, you also can't wear underwear, simple fact." Sanford raised his gauntlets in the air and turned around. "I'll see ya' at the gun, Han'."
"-Y-You... You... Conniving, MOTHERLESS, whore-callin', BASTARD! I'll-!"
CLMK!
-Something impacted Hancock from behind, put yet ANOTHER dent in his already demolished hide, and sent the rounded robot tumbling across the dirt.
"-MAN DOWN!" He cried. "Someone find me a medic! ALRIGHT! Who's the wise-guy?! I'LL RIP OUT HIS SPLEEN!"
"...It can't be... It IS,"
"-Hmmmm, strangely familiar feminine programmed voice, dramatic pause that can only be inserted for effect upon an unexpected reunion? It must be..." Hancock rolled over, his thruster lit, and he hovered back up to place.
"...YOU."
Standing before him with a humanoid figure colored olive drab with a U.S. Army star emblazoned across its angled chest, it had a slender build, with cloven multi-jointed legs, a pair of arms bristling with combat drills and Laser gun mountings, and it had an oval-shaped head with a single large and crimson carbon projector in its epicenter.
Hancock sized his opponent up with a glance about her.
"...Do I know you? Are you friends with that oil-leakin' dumbass Render back in Goodneighbor? He's always tryin' to hook me up with chicks he finds in the gutter! But YOU, you don't look a day older than the manufacturing label's print date!"
"...I won't miss this time." The Assaultron growled, crimson light building in her center eye. "Make it easy and stand still."
"...Wait a minute, I know that voice! GASSSSP! Baby-cakes! You got your legs back!" Hancock angled forwards in astonishment.
"No thanks to YOU." The Assaultron leant forwards, the drills on her claws screaming and casting sparks.
"And I see ya' got a few upgrades! Might I say, as the Nam' veteran I am, that YOU, look absolutely BONER INDUCING!"
There wasn't a response.
VMMMMMM!
-A concentrated stream of red light shot out and collided with Hancock's chassis dead-center, there was a blast of luminescent crimson dust, the robot hurled back, and plowed straight through the plaster wall of a house behind him.
BMMkkkCSshhhh!... -He left a Hancock-shaped hole in the paneling, smoke plumed from within.
"...What a WOMAN!" -Came from inside after a brief pause.
-0-0-0-0-0-
Bshk! -Sanford shouldered the wooden door down, it fell inwards in three pieces and scattered on the floor within, the Power Armored man, thoroughly exhausted with the antics of this so called- 'Ambush' -stormed inside the brick storefront.
Nyx, who was too big to go in after him, leapt up, and used her clawed hands to grip onto the uneven and cracked surface of the building's wall, she resembled a primate as she leapt up and climbed to the second story, her tail lashing underneath her for the street below.
CLKCLKCLKCLKCLK
Lots of screaming, the Gunners inside, numbering five, were trapped as Laser gunfire rattled inside, Sanford having found the steps- Nyx reached in and tugged out the flailing body of one of the Gunner soldiers, she gripped the man's head in her palms and overhand tossed him away.
The body flailed through the air, flipped head over heels once, twice, then smacked into the pavement below and produced a fleck of crimson that stained the pavement in a wet shoot from his head.
"Monsieur'?" Nyx called into the dusty interior of the building, bobbing her knees in her grip of the structure's exterior front. "Monsieur', are they all dead?"
"-Yeah, scanners are quiet in here." Sanford called back, inside there was the clacking of boots against wood steps, a moment later the Power Armored man emerged from the ruined doorway and looked up at where she was with a startled grunt. "Look at you go."
"It worked, did it not?" Nyx chuckled, she leapt away from the wall- Bmk -and landed on both kneels and a single set of knuckles right before him on the sidewalk.
"I'm still picking up another Gunner or two just west, it looks like Hancock found them."
"Then they should not last long."
"We should just check still."
"...Si vous' insistez'."
"Thanks for, uhm, you know, carrying me before," Sanford smiled, changing sides of his rifle's battery. "-That was my fault, I should've seen it was a trap."
"Neither of us could have known." She smiled. "You saved me."
"-Wha'? Oh, naaahhh, I didn't, I didn't save you, it was," Sanford angled his head and crossed his arms. "-You know, it's not about ME, it's about you, I'm just doing my job and all, you know..."
"Oh bother," Nyx rolled her eyes. "Get over yourself and let's find your rambling metal demon, mon cher'."
"When am I gonna' get a- 'My hero' -huh?"
"I told you, it's NOT happening."
"Well when it does happen-"
"-Which it won't."
"-Say it all girly and stuff, like- 'Oh, Sanford! My HERO!' it'll be cool."
"It isn't going to happen."
"How many times do I have to save your tail FOR it to?"
"I thought it was your job?" She smugly chuckled.
"Well, YEAH, but, a little payment wouldn't hurt every now and again."
"I'll think about it."
"I can live with that answer, now we just need- HOLYSHIT, LOOKOUT-!" He reached over, hooked his gauntlet over her left forearm and shoved her aside, earning a surprised hiss from the Deathclaw.
VMMM!
-A beam of pure and shining crimson scythed through the air from down the sidewalk behind Nyx, it flew between them and traveled to oblivion in the distance, it came close enough that she felt heat over her shoulder and neck.
Sanford brought his gun up one handed and fired a single burst.
CLKCLKCLKCLKCLKCLK
-The beams chopped into the breast and shoulder of a humanoid creature standing in the middle of the sidewalk down ahead, sparks and black smog vomited from the wounds, mechanics whined and something metal snapped off and bounced away on the street.
The creature fell to a single knee, with soot rising from its head, a center and crimson eye flickered brightly and darkly over and over, it raised an arm capped with a claw that was seemingly over-loaded with buzzsaws and Laser mounting packs.
Sanford switched to two hands and shot the robot again.
CLKCLKCLK
-The head burst in a flash of shrapnel licked orange, the body convulsed and rattled metallically on the pavement, a small fire building in its stumpy neck remains.
"...Well," Sanford sighed after a moment. "-Now I saved you TWICE, is that enough?"
"...Not really..." She muttered, stepping closer to the remains. "-What IS it, monsieur'?"
"Assaultron, Gunners' love 'em." Sanford said. "Let's find Han', quickly."
-0-0-0-0-0-
