"We've got some kind of intruder on the second floor," a raider breathed heavily after running down a flight of stairs.
Gravel Nem stared at him for all of three seconds before his fist lashed out, and his fingers found the raider's throat. "Fucking KILL him then you idiot!" he yelled before throwing the man back up onto the stairs. The raider hit the stairs hard, choked out an apology and nodded, and squirmed his way back on his feet and sprinted up the stairs as fast as possible.
"Everything going well then Nem?" a cold voice slithered from behind Gravel. Gravel turned around, his grotesque face flushed in frustration. "They're all idiots, all fucking, goddamn idiots. Can't kill one guy."
Dr. Heders slid out of the shadows, a composed smirk on his features. "Calm, quiet. They are just pawns Gravel. You can't expect them to be perfect all the time."
Gravel growled and rolled his eyes. "We need to find the girl, Doctor. Unless we can just dig into Megaton now."
Heders shook his head, still smiling. "No, no it has to be perfect. How many times should I tell you?" The doctor paused. "Call them back. Set a trap for the intruder."
"What?"
"A thought has just occurred to me," Dr. Heders said, as he watched Derek emerged from the basements below with Neera, cracking his neck and grimacing. "Lay the trap. Call the raiders back. We might be facing something more powerful than you would know."
Gravel was about to say something, but he saw the look of magnitude on Heder's face. The darkness in Heders' eyes could get through even Gravel Nem's thick, stubborn skull. "Get those fuckers out of there! I want all my raiders back here with me," he yelled, making his raiders scurry away to get everyone else.
Gravel turned to see Heders with Derek, sending Neera away. He stalked forward, a little curious as to what they were saying.
"It was him Doctor. He's here, in the building, fighting our host's raiders."
Heders' smile grew. "Good. A little surprising, but a delectable turn of events. You look a little worse for wear Derek. What did he do?"
Derek groaned as he twisted his neck. "We had a bit of a scuffle."
"Powerful?"
"Not even close to his full potential thank God. Still a challenge though."
"I'll believe you. Sorry about that by the way Derek."
Derek shrugged in acceptance. "I understand. I can still take him if he's distracted Doctor."
Gravel didn't know what the hell they were talking about. And when they glanced over at him, he could tell they didn't mind discussing whatever important things they had in front of him because he was so out of the loop. He growled, and turned away. He didn't care. He just wanted this nuisance dead so that he could get to Megaton.
Hits slammed his fist into the second raider's jaw, just as he grabbed the other raider's hammer-wielding-hand and broke his wrist. He twisted, pulling the one he had a grip on toward him, head-butting him gruesomely into a wall and shooting the falling raider at the same time. Two more charged him, one with two metal pipes, the other wielding a nasty- looking nailboard. The one with the nailboard swung at Hits' head, and Hits threw himself back, and sprung forward at the raider's opening. With his open palm, he struck the raider's outstretched elbow, breaking it. The raider cried out as his buddy jumped in, jabbing at Hits with short quick strikes. Hits met each attack with his forearms and fists, blocking the attacks as they came, knocking them out of the air. The man didn't let up, but Hits could feel him tiring.
The man swung one pipe, then the other. Hits countered his left swing, slapping the raiders arm out wide, and quickly backhanded his other attack, leaving the raiders arms spread out for just a moment. And that moment was all Hits needed. Hits curled his fingers out from his fist and jabbed straight into the raider's throat, destroying the man's Adams apple. The raider dropped both of the metal pipes and staggered, gargling. Hits smiled. He moved forward and grabbed the man's jaw, and the back of his head. "By now, you should know you're dead," Hits whispered into the gargling mans ear. Then he cleanly broke the raider's neck.
He dropped the body and faced the doorway, where he could have sworn was a crew of raiders ready to attack. They were gone now, retreating from his awesome killing skills. He smiled and noticed the groaning raider with a broken arm. "Oh, I got a buddy here huh?" Hits asked the man squirming on the floor. "I forgot you were here." Hits walked up and pulled the man to his feet, and pushed him into a wall.
The raider looked like he could wet himself out of fear. He was shivering, the pain from his broken arm apparent from the twitching in his shoulder. "The hell are you man?" the raider asked.
Hits grinned. "I'm your friend for now. You're not dead, and you know shit that I don't. I say that you being here with me is a lot safer than you being with your buddies, wherever they went."
"Why, why is that?" the man stammered.
"Because all of your buddies are going to die. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow. But they will die. It's a simple fact my friend, they really deserve it, don't you think?"
The raider looked into Hits' mad, energy deprived, confident eyes and somehow knew that what Hits said was a truth. "Yeah, they do, we do-I mean, I did and now-"
"Don't worry. As long as you help me you will no longer be affiliated with them. First we're going to find a way out of here, second you're going to tell me everything you know about what is going on with you guys, understand?"
The raider nodded, "Forward, where everyone else left. There are stairs back down to the basement."
Hits abruptly propped him up, supporting him as they moved to the doorway. They moved to the left, down a well lit hallway, and moved past some old barricades and skeletons. "We don't come down here and clean or anything," the raider explained. Hits looked at him. "Why the hell do you think I would care?" The raider shut up for a while after that.
They stopped at the top of a flight of stairs. "The exit is down there," the man explained, pointing. Hits began to walk, but paused. Hits turned to the raider and grabbed his arm, twisting the broken limb more. The raider screamed, asking, begging Hits to stop. Hits did, but only to rip off the leather and canvas sleeve to look at the man's bare arm. Hits sighed.
"A tattoo."
The raider gasped in pain. "Yeah, so what?"
"This particular one you're wearing symbolizes complete loyalty to whatever raider clan you belong to. To death, that kind of thing." The raider paled, and began shaking again.
"What's your name buddy? I never bothered to ask," Hits asked, his voice cold.
"P-Pain. My name is Pain."
"Goodbye Pain," Hits whispered, and shoved him down the stairs. Pain screamed all the way down, before he hit the last step. When he did, the doorway and the bottom stairs exploded in a brilliant flash and a deafening crash. Rubble and dust and garbage flew all the way to where Hits was, he had to jump back out of the way of some chunks of wall and chunks of flesh.
Hits laughed. "See that Pain? Yeah, that's what you get when you try to mess with the WARRIORRRR!" Hits cheered, pumping his fist into the air and growling the word warrior. "Nice try, leading me to a trap like that," he said, talking to himself as he walked down the rubble and blood strewn stairs, "but I'm waayy too smart for something like…that..."
He exited the hallway to an enormous room, with an army of raiders in front of him. All grinning and smiling, brandishing their guns and their weapons openly. In the middle stood a very, very large raider with a very large beard, and he didn't look very happy at all. Right behind him was a scraggly looking man in a lab coat wearing thick glasses. Hits got a headache from looking at him, it throbbed ever so slightly in the back of his head all of the sudden. Hits scanned the room slowly, looking all around. He glanced back right at all of them. "Is this one of those awkward surprise birthdays where you guys just stare at me instead of shouting surprise?"
"Hello Sentient Project. Or "Hits" as you like being called," the scraggly man called out, smiling a triumphant victory.
Hits completely ignored him. "I have to confess, Pain already told me there was going to be a surprise, but I'm still surprised everyone, thank you!"
The man in the coat looked like he'd been flicked in the nose. "Hits, you're surrounded. Please take this opportunity to surrender."
Hits eyed him for the briefest moment. "You, in the white coat. Are you trying to say something to me?"
The raiders looked to the big man in the center, and he told them to wait. The man in the coat grimaced. "Yes, I am. I am Doctor Heders Hits, do you remember me at all?"
"See, because if you were trying to say something to me, that would mean you're trying to interrupt my birthday," Hits continued, waving to the room.
"Please stop goofing around. Do you even remember when your birthday is?" Heders spoke, anger slowly rising in his voice. Hits looked thoughtful for a moment. "Nope, I don't. So I consider every day as my birthday, just in case, right?"
Doctor Heders, the calm, completely in control puppet master actually growled in frustration. "Hits. We have much to discuss. You are coming with us."
Hits laughed, a broad, deep guffaw. "You sound like you think you can tell me what I'm going to do."
"That's because I can. Derek, get him." Materializing behind Doctor Heders, the cut lipped man from the basement came forward, cracking his knuckles.
Hits stopped breathing for a moment. He was fairly certain that the man approaching him was dead in the basement, his neck broken and his cold dead fingers still gripping his submachine gun.
"Doctor! Let me just kill him now, you don't need Derek!" the big raider called, confused anger thick in his voice. "I want to test something Gravel, please calm down," Heders snarled. So the raiders watched as Derek approached Hits.
"Before you say anything," Hits began, "I had a feeling you were a zombie when I killed you. I just knew it." Derek chuckled, rolling his neck.
"You pulled a fast one back in the basement. Respect."
Hits jumped back in mock surprise. "Zombies can talk?!"
Derek laughed harder. "I have to say Hits, I would have thought the level of balls you have when facing certain death would be annoying, but it's pretty damn funny."
Hits backed away, and walked around. They were circling each other. "Was that a compliment? Derek honey, if I didn't know any better I'd think you liked me," Hits said, stalling the situation. He didn't know who this Doctor was, who Derek was, but he knew that he had to get away. Stomping on a guys neck usually killed the guy, and if that certain guy didn't die from that then he was something else. Literally.
Derek eyed Hits. "Do you get it yet? Your strength? My sudden return from perceived death?"
"Nope. Honestly, all I can focus on is how the hell I'm going to get out of here."
"You're a part of something Hits. Don't you want to know who you are? Why you can do the things you do? We've got it all, man." Derek smiled. "Join the dark side Luke. We get capes. The ladies dig the capes."
Hits held back a small grin at the joke as he thought it over. There were things he could do that left him confused as fuck, so he usually just denied to himself he ever did them. And yeah, there were a lot of blank spots in what he considered his life that he decided to not worry about it a long time ago.
But he still had a mission here, and he wasn't about to let a lab-coat wearing doctor and a zombie tell him what he's going to do. "Derek, I'm sorry I can't accept the offer right now. I know, I suck, screwing your shit up, throwing a wrench in the machine, the works. But honestly," he said, "I'm interested. I just can't deal with your shit right now, I gotta go."
Derek shrugged, and cracked his knuckles. "I kinda knew this was going to be a fight anyway. I have to at least attempt to take you in by force."
Hits did a quick stretch. "Don't know why all your guys don't just shoot me, but I'm certainly not complaining." He breathed in, moving slowly into a fighting stance…and kicked the nearest raider in the groin. The man yelled in pain as Hits grabbed his shotgun, kicked the man away, and aimed it at Derek.
"Let's fight."