Charon had no idea how their plans always managed to go so wrong. This was the fucking super mutants all over again. A deathclaw. A deathclaw! They had been sent to clear out a group of Raiders that kept harming the Brahmin of a nearby settlement, how the fuck had they even managed to stumble into its nest?
They aren't exactly creatures known for tidy dens!
Spoon stood beside him, just as motionless as he was. The deathclaw (Charon would take a stab in the dark and say that it was probably the mother deathclaw) stood horns, head, and shoulders over Charon, its nostrils flared as it sampled the air suspiciously.
Don't move smoothskin, for the love of God please don't move. Charon silently begged, praying that the creature's poor eyesight would let them escape unscathed. Most of his other employers had hardly ventured outside once they'd acquired him, never mind actively seeking out trouble. Charon had never faced a deathclaw and he wasn't sure if he was up to the task.
After several overly-tense moments, it seemed they would be alright. But then, the deathclaw gave a heavy snort as it turned to retreat back into its den and Spoon flinched at the noise.
All hell broke loose.
That cold, calculating chunk of Charon's brain took over as the deathclaw sank its massive talons into Spoon's leg. The ghoul felt a panicked shout bubble in his throat when Spoon screamed in pain; horror and the sick, tearing noise momentarily freezing his limbs before he wrestled himself back under control.
Spoon!
Protect contract holder.
The combat shotgun thundered deafeningly loud in his grip, pellets spraying point-blank into the deathclaw's side and making it roar angrily. Charon snarled in reply, pressing his advantage while Spoon crumpled to the ground. Blood had never interrupted his killing phase, but seeing Spoon covered in it made him abruptly nauseous and furious at the same time.
"I'll fucking skin you!" Charon seethed, practically nose-to-chest with the deathclaw as he pumped a round into its thick hide and dodged the swipe of razor-sharp claws. The creature latched its jaws onto Charon's armored shoulder, making the ghoul grunt in pain and fire another shot into its stomach.
He curled his free hand into a fist and slammed it into the deathclaw's jaw over and over, hearing a snap and wondering faintly whether it was his hand or the jaw. His brain screamed an endless cycle of contract holder contract holder contract holder-!
Charon felt something in him shatter like glass under the stress and pain, a mental explosion. His hip ached from where he'd braced his shotgun and his fingers cramped in his fist from constant hammering and...his brain went quiet for a moment in the midst of the chaos.
Protect Spoon.
It wasn't a command. It didn't scrape at the insides of his skull, or turn his stomach like an Institute order.
Was that...is this me?
The deathclaw's teeth dug and tore at his shoulder and Charon couldn't choke back the shout that ripped out of him when he finally disengaged from the hulking beast. He jabbed his shotgun upwards into the deathclaw's neck and just fired in a frenzy until he shot the magazine dry.
Charon swayed on his feet as the creature slumped to the ground, its head reduced to a bloody pulp. He was dimly aware that this was the most frothing rage he'd ever been in and now he had no way to expel it. Everything in him was white-hot and he'd lost too much blood to just sit down and deep-breathe his way through it safely. He ripped the empty drum out of his gun with one savage motion and slapped a fresh one in, cocking the still-smoking gun in the next breath. Then he kicked the deathclaw's corpse to one side, stepped into the cave and swung the barrel of the shotgun into the first egg he saw.
Pulling the trigger as an afterthought, the ghoul blindly stormed his way through the numerous clutches of eggs. Crushing them with his punches and kicks as much as his gun, he finally reached the end of the cave and stood there for a moment, chest heaving and throat sore from screams that he didn't recall making. His knuckles trailed blood from the sharp edges of egg and impacts with the deathclaw's hide mere seconds earlier.
Charon ground his teeth and began to wipe some of the egg sac off his hands, forcing himself to think about where they were and where they might be secure enough to take care of Sp-
Oh God, Spoon. The fury petered out of the overlarge ghoul as he staggered back out of the den and knelt in the bloody dirt surrounding his partner. He had to swallow two or three times before he could speak. "Spoon?" he managed, rolling her onto her back.
The scream that came out of her wasn't expected and Charon jolted at the volume of it.