CHAPTER 18
I fell out of one barrel, into another.
Sanford had taken to napping inside the X-01 suit.
Without his friends to take shifts with, without Hancock who didn't even need sleep at all- he didn't want to lie down and close his eyes in the middle of the open in broad daylight.
Sanford's reasoning to not put himself out like that was the same reasoning for the Wasteland's barren clutter- why there was so many ruins, rocks, forests and brambles- and how all that existed while the dead were gone in mere days.
Sanford and Hancock had killed a lot of things- people, monsters alike... And when they revisited the places of those foes' met demise- all kinds of things would be there as sight to greet them.
Sometimes some of the bodies were gone- sometimes they were ALL gone- sometimes, there were scavengers picking at them, or there was a large carnivore mauling one of them that then turned its attention unto them.
-That last one had happened a few times- Sanford and Hancock had gone into one of the old subway tunnels they had shot up a group of highwaymen in weeks ago, and one of the rotting corpses was being torn in half by the biggest Radscorpion Sanford had ever seen.
Thus, if just existing there, sprawled on the ground- was so impossible for dead things, imagine the horrors awaiting him if he tried to nap on the ground, completely exposed.
The X-01 was on its back against the dusty ground- the metals shifted in little moans whenever he shifted, or moved- he was so tired, that the padded interior was comfortable enough for him to just lay back and pass out.
Maybe he'd been sleeping for an hour- an hour or two- he woke with a roused suspicion of something moving- something moving outside the suit with shuffles of steel, the snuffling of raggedy nostrils.
His eyes zipped open- he half expected Hancock to be hanging over him, mocking him with the recording of a Molerat from his amplifier box- but instead, Sanford was granted sight of the real thing, not a sound file.
With curiosity- he refrained from reacting immediately- he watched a wrinkled, rolling, thin little body scuffle by the side of his armored hip- a thin, hairy tail whipping and curling through the air behind it.
A pug, ugly, and narrow rodent's head lifted from behind the plates of his lowered gauntlet- the Molerat sniffed up at his helmet, chittered with a pair of cracked, yellow teeth- and ducked back towards the X-01's rib section, where it dragged its claws down the metal in a repeating swipe.
chshchshcsh-chsh-chsh-... chsh chsh chsh ... chch chsh
-It was like watching the world's most hideous cat video.
Sanford sighed inside the suit- lifting his helmed head to observe the following action. The creak of steel and his breath alerted the mutated rodent to him being alive under all the plates- it growled, hissed, and there was a sharp clanking noise when it opened its jaws and bit into the side of the breastplate.
Gnawing on the indestructible metal- the Molerat reached up with two paws and started pushing against the suit while pulling its embedded teeth.
Sanford mumbled a curse- reached up with his gauntlet- and clasped his fist over the Molerat's cranium from behind.
The rodent screeched- twisted and turned in his grasp- its rear feet scrabbling up and kicking and clawing into his suit.
Sanford got annoyed, and gave his fingers a good twist.
CLK!
-The Molerat shuddered, jerked straight- like a fox pointing at a flock of birds while hunting- it flopped over his side limply, with its nasty jaws still ajar and gaping.
Sanford underhand tossed the body away- where it flopped onto the earth with a plume of dust.
He wiped his gauntlet's palm over the series of white-knicked scratches the little turd had made all over his armor- and made to stand with a creak of metal and whir of servo gears- he wanted to get up, look around.
Sanford took to walking about for a good while- making up weird little excuses in his head for securing some kind of 'Perimeter', and 'Making Sure'- of things he didn't even have concern over.
After the third circled walk around in the clearing- he stepped on top of a taller stone, going up two chins of curving, flat surfaced rock to stand at its top crag.
A few distances away- maybe a mile, he could see the outline of some structures, wooden houses and what looked like a steeple of some kind. He rolled his shoulders and decided at that point that if the Deathclaw ever did come back- that was where they were going.
He spun around and went to leap down from the rock- he stopped when he saw a hunched, gray-colored mass gather from over a raise in the land, straight ahead.
"Oh." Was all he muttered after a brief moment of chilled blood.
There she was.
The Deathclaw had her head raised up- she saw him, and slid down the incline that lead to the center of the clearing from over the hill she'd surmounted. Leaving a curving buttress of kicked dust in her wake, she finished dragging down the hill's side with stilled feet, claws outstretched for balance.
The hiss of soil stopped with a kick of dirt- she stepped across the space they'd rested in, and was at the foot of his boulder, silent.
She blinked her yellow eyes, and stepped back when he hopped off the top crag and landed with a thud of metallic rustling- the dry earth cracked from epicenters under his heels, and the ground rumbled.
He straightened out- and nodded at her.
"Yo."
"Mm." She hummed.
"You alright?"
"Mm."
"Good. I napped. I looked that way," He jabbed a thumb over his pauldron. "There's some buildings, we should head for them."
"Mm."
"I get the silent treatment now?"
"Mm."
"Alright, I'll live with that, let's go, yes?"
"...Mm."
"Mm. Yes. Mm."
Sanford blinked at her- and she raised a brow at him.
They stood there before the other- looking at each other as if they expected the other to do something, or say something.
When neither party rid themselves of their 'Statue-Disease' infection, she held an open claw and nodded at the direction he'd indicated.
"Lead the way, monsieur'- you saw it, I haven't yet."
"-OH, yeah... Yes... You're right."
Sanford wheeled around and started trotting around the boulder's flank- the Deathclaw was a few feet behind with solemn trots through the dusty, fern laden ground.
The two of them were upright, tall, contrasting abnormalities against the miles and miles of clear terrain that rolled and was pocked with formations of forest strewn stones. The sky was a dull gray- not really light, but not really dark either- darker clouds wisped to and fro in finger-like extensions.
Sanford felt weird wielding his little silenced pistol in his bulky suit of X-01 armor- it looked like a peashooter in his gauntlet's grip.
Minutes passed of them just going ahead- the terrain rose a little farther up, and they strained slightly more to trudge up the ascending chin of the dirt hill.
Sanford sighed in relief when he eventually stepped over the top precipice of the hill's ridge- he stood at its top, and waited patiently for the Deathclaw to gather towards his right side. She sat up, taller than him by a head- and huffed with a glance in the opposite direction.
He rolled his eyes at her- and turned to observe straight ahead.
This hill gave them a good vantage point over the next mile or so of bramble tangled, clear swathes that had patches of dark green and black growing across it- like matted fur on a partially shaven beast. Dead, leafless trees sprouted from these clumps- and they grew around the lower lips of boulders and rock piles.
The array of buildings up ahead made pylons in the sunlight that shown in a dazzling sheet of illumination- squat wooden houses, some concrete commercial plazas, and a steeple after what looked to be a stone statue of some kind centered in a garden square.
Sanford scanned the brief amounts of pavement that made uneven and sparse lines between the structures- he looked across large planters that ringed the destroyed statue's pedestal- dead, and filled with nothing but black dirt.
There was no movement, or any kinds of sounds to indicate activity of other people or creatures- it was the beginnings of an urban development- which one, Sanford didn't know- but it looked barren.
He knew that was hogwash, though- there was no such thing as 'Barren' urbanscapes in the Wasteland- someone or something always took up residence.
Biting his lip- Sanford still felt the weight that his only gun was having on him.
This thing wouldn't save him against a big foe- or if they got jumped by a group, and if anything- Sanford and Hancock rarely had a trip out into the wastes where they DIDN'T get jumped at least twice.
He looked over at the Deathclaw over his pauldron- she moped along, arms dragging by her hips- she noticed him observing, and met his gaze quickly.
"...What?" She asked.
"Nothing."
"...Mmm..."
Sanford could see the buildings getting more detailed- dark windows, stained and cracked walls, broken stoops and shredded pavement of the street being swallowed by dirt and strands of grass.
Rusted out autos were strewn on some of the crosswalks and in driveways- Sanford saw the statue in the center of the square in the distance was so mottled and corroded, that you could no longer tell who or what it was supposed to be.
He ground his teeth, and fiddled his fingers over the handle of his gun.
The earlier little scuffle he had with the Deathclaw was bugging him.
"-I'm sorry I said what I said, if that's any consolation." He put out, not looking at her- he could feel her eyes on his back. "I'm still not sorry that I saved you, though."
"...I shouldn't have yelled..." She sighed. "...I'm a very angry creature, monsieur'."
"...I'd say I understand, but... I'm still not sure I do."
She shrugged.
"Bad things have happened to me."
"Bad things happen to everybody."
"Not these bad things."
"I think you'd be surprised."
"...Monsieur'..."
"-Sanford, remember?"
"...Sanford..."
"Uh-huh?"
"...I barely know you, you're the first human I've interacted with for longer than five minutes,"
"Yep."
"I just don't feel comfort in talking about these things."
"Well, you already asked me, to stop asking YOU- so, I'll stick to minding my own business."
"...Do you know this place up there?"
"Maybe once two-hundred years ago, but my memories of that time are foggy... I don't know which development this is."
"Mm."
"...Let me ask you this at least,"
"Mm?"
"Are you gonna' stick around?"
"...I feel like I must, if not just for myself," She said quietly. "Would you find it strange that I found some kind of... Purpose?"
"In a day?"
"In a day."
"That's not unbelievable at all- in our world, shit happens."
"...Yes. It does."
"I'm glad you're still here, Ms. Deathclaw, you'll be joking with me and Han' before you know it."
"That puts horrible images in my head." She mused.
Her chops had curled upwards.
She said that with a smile. She hadn't smiled in years.
The Deathclaw sighed at herself as Sanford raised the chin of his helm back to the upcoming development.
To emphasize the 'Barren' description from before- a wad of some bunched up plant matter- a tumbleweed, bounced down the pavement by the beginning of the statue-centered park. Sanford looked up and saw a shutter tapping against the wall of a house it was ajar from.
Oh. This place had a spooky vibe to it, huh?
Sanford swallowed nervously, he checked his pistol to make sure the safety was off.
"We should look for guns." He said over his shoulder pauldron- glancing back and cringing at her claws. "Can you wield a gun?"
"Never tried." She stated. "I can't imagine I could, monsieur'."
"...Alright, well- I kind of rely on those, and... All I have is this thing," He held the pistol up for her. "It's better than nothing, but, not enough."
"Seeing as this is the Commonwealth in question, there HAS to be a gun in this place lying around somewhere."
"My thoughts precisely. Uhm..." Sanford wheeled around while he walked- a 360' turn to start stepping backwards and then forwards again, his head angling about.
There was something about this place that just put him off.
Even Boston City wasn't this quiet, and the only things there were Mutants, Raiders, and Diamond City- and the only two of those factions that ran around and shot each other were easy to guess.
But the fighting in Boston was always sporadic at best- that lead to days of disturbingly silent cityscape where every loud noise echoed for miles on end. Here, Sanford was almost afraid his breathing would attract attention.
They started to walk onto pavement- the Deathclaw's movements still silent, his boots now clunking against the material.
The first pair of houses gathered by their flanks on either side- their interiors dark, lifeless.
"We should get off the street." He said. "Start checking buildings."
"I can't fit through the doors, remember?"
"Then check AROUND the buildings I go in, how about that?"
"Fine."
"-That one," He pointed at the house to their left. "Let's go."
-0-0-0-0-0-
Before he attempted to move around the great, metal, ridged hulk of the barrier- he tested the air with a pause to simply listen, let his scanners run a full 360' degree around him to test for heat signatures, or motion recognitions.
His systems came dry, and he could not process any sound, or voices or footsteps- so a single ocu-lense unfolded from around the rusty corner of a flipped tractor-trailer truck, and swiveled about to view a road devoid of anything but arrays of dead vehicles.
The truck's two rear trailers were lodged across the ground, half buried from where they had ploughed indents in the soil- they draped over the edge of the road, and a corroded street lamp was bent and folded under the first trailer like a bent bobby pin under a brick.
There were cars flipped on their roofs, on their sides- bent in half, or blackened pancakes that had been created from the autos self imploding.
Hancock materialized from behind the last trailer of the vehicle- he levitated in the middle of the lane, and grunted in nervousness.
Sanford was usually here to augment his scans- tell him if he missed something, watching his back- on his own right now, he had become a bit paranoid, and little things were drawing his attention more than they normally would.
He'd detect small motions- like a tumbleweed going down a hill, or a vehicle making a groan as it settled for the millionth time in its eternal rotting for the last two-hundred years- he'd jump and have his saw and gun pointed at it in an instant.
"I wish the cap'n was here."
"Where's that runt when ya' need him..."
"Sir, if you're dead, and you can hear me up there- go screw yourself!"
-Things like were muttered from his vox amplifiers again and again.
Hancock flew between two sedans, and kept muttering as he did so.
"This would figure, we're on the verge of supremacy! -And then THIS happens... What the BALLS man?!" His buzzsaw lashed out and the passenger side mirror on a rusty SUV carcass flew off with a flick of sparks, and pattered across the street in a hundred pieces.
A slight breeze was being kicked up that whistled through the open windows and ajar doors of the river of dead cars- it was like some haunting array of wind chimes, except there was nothing calming about it, and it didn't sound nice.
Hancock was just bringing into concern- with all the paranoia at that, through the disgruntlement he vented on the cars- that cluttered places like these were always prone to being homes of less than friendly things.
As he flew between the husks of vehicles- a crosshair set in his navigation system pointing to the exact geographic location of the gas station he was moving for- he never took off the safety from his Plasma gun, and he had his buzzsaw active.
The melee weapon hummed in its bionic housing on his arm- the Plasma batteries in the gun's feed glowed a tiny pulsating neon green, he was on a bit of an edge.
So far there was nothing- but that always changed in an instant when it happened.
"This sucks, no Sanford, no chances to break down the roots of democracy to anyone... And nothing to KILL! This is the worst day, EVER!" Hancock waved his gun in the air. "-C'MON! SOMEONE! TRY TO SHOOT ME! I NEED ACTION!"
...His cries echoed across the lane of cars and trucks.
Nothing.
No sounds, no charging beasts.
Hancock draped his robotic limbs in depression.
"I hate this dump!" He proclaimed. "Atomic warfare my plated ass! This place is more barren than my spare underwear drawer! And that says a lot! I don't even WEAR UNDERWEAR!"
BMM
lcklcklcklkclkkclkclkl
BM-BM
Clak clak
lklcklkclkclkcl
BMMMM
"-W-What...? Whosee-? Whats-?!" Hancock jabbed to the east- all three ocu-lenses zipping to focus on the noise emanating from not even a single hill away.
Gunfire, tiny bursts of weapons discharge and small, controlled explosions- the sounds of a firefight, echoed to his location in rebounding, low reports across the car-filled highway.
Hancock's thruster flared excitedly- he revved his buzzsaw with a scream of the mechanical blade.
"-A chance to kick ass! That'll clear my addled mind, yes sir!" He zoomed over a few car roofs, and was trailing an arm of dust as he sailed over the dirt adjacent to the road. "Here I come, MAGGOTS!"
He flew over the ridge in the hill- lowered his thruster's power to get closer to the ground and not put himself high profile- as, even though he was itching to kill some Raiders or mutant animals- he didn't want to be deactivated while he did it.
Plus, if there was one thing Sanford had taught him- it was that there were other good people in the Wastes, innocent ones too even- it wouldn't be so good to shoot someone like that by accidental reaction fire.
Hancock tried to stay low in an upcrop of dead ferns wrapping around the cragged stump of a long fallen tree- the trunk and canopy having rotted away as nothing more than a half-buried cylindrical bump in the hill's side.
He peaked over the ferns with his ocu-lense- and was astounded to see that there was a series of small structures here- right off the side of the highway. They were stout enough that the hill raise had obscured them from his sight.
He blinked his lenses, and made an intrigued hum.
"Ooo... Good finds in there I'd reckon! -And, HEY-! Someone stole my paintjob!"
They were human, that much was obvious- they were a group of bulky, chiseled appearing humans running about in drab-colored scavenged body armor pieces over dress of fatigues and military grade jumpsuits.
Some of them had bandanas over their foreheads, or old Great War U.S. Army helmets- and they were firing all manner of rifles and SMGs at a collection of people in rags, meshed cage armor and welding masks- Raiders.
There was a trio of dead bodies out in the open by a aluminum shed structure- an elongated warehouse laden with piled junk at its feet, a blown open garage door with a wrecked car sticking halfway out of it.
The corpses were so mangled by bullet fire that it made it impossible to identify their origin from the distance- the army-dressed folk were hiding behind raises in the terrain, a limb of sprawling rubble that drew from the warehouse's indented flank he faced.
A house-like shack up ahead, divided from the warehouse by a small dirt lot- was being used as cover by the Raider group- they hid behind piles of metal storage units, barrels, and a gutted pickup in the center of the lot.
There had to be fifteen of the pillaging dirtbags from where he could see- Hancock didn't know what to think of these boys running around with scavenged army gear.
They could've been a cult, or merc' faction of some kind- he didn't know.
"...Huh, now, here's the time where Sanford's nerd-ass knowledge spree would come in handy." He muttered. "Welp', if both of 'em shoot at me- I'll just kill everyone! Ha-!"
"Unit- Maneuver 6, Flanking has been issued- are you damaged?"
"-WHA-?!WHOTHEDUCK?!"
Hancock whirled around, and came face to face with the last thing he expected.
It was a robot- painted army drab, a white, faded army star decaled over its chest plating- it was humanoid, it walked on two robust, servo-supported legs, and had a laser weapon installed as an aesthetically recognizable 'Eye' in the center of its head.
Two arms, each supporting a joint between a powered energy claw and auxiliary laser guns draped at the thing's sides- it had a feminine personality downloaded in its hub, seeing as it sounded like a monotone woman when it addressed him.
What frightened Hancock- was that this robot, a design, that he knew ALL too well, as an Assaultron Mark, was standing there and talking to HIM, as if it knew him.
...This was... Odd.
"What unit is reinforcing? Where are you deployed from?" The Assaultron asked further. "Are you deaf, you tin-can?"
"...Holy skunks fucking under the barbecue... You ain't no duck!" Hancock snapped. "-But... You... Are... SMOKIN'! Hellll-OOOO babe'!"
Hancock zoomed out of the bushes and flew up right in the Assaultron's face- where she reclined with an angled-back head and shifting stance.
"-Name's Han'! That's Han', for Hancock, tootse! I haven't seen a lass' as fine as you since they brought in pinup models to the barracks in Wake Island!"
"...There, is... Something severely malfunctioning in your central processor." She observed in shock. "What the hell is wrong with you, unit?"
"I think I've just been infected!"
"I-Infected...?"
"With a case of LOOOVVVVEE!"
"..."
"Speechless yet? Alright, honey! Howz' about we skip the cup of motor oil and get right to the part where I, take YOU- to the back of the train and you show me your caboose! Eh? Eh?"
"..."
"-...Oh, baby, you WOUND this Commie' killer! What's the matter? I got something in my lens?"
The Assaultron blinked her central ocu-unit, took another step back- drop kicked the Mr. Gutsy with a lash of her tri-cloven metal boot.
PNK!
"-WWWOOUCH!" Hancock cried, catapulting a foot back- he rebounded off the stump he'd been hiding near with a blast of dust and flung chips of bark- there was a sizable heel-shaped indent in the center of his chassis, just below the center ocu-lense base.
"What a WOMAN!" He muffled through the grass, draped on the ground.
The Assaultron stepped up to him and pointed both of her laser attachments in her energized claws down at him- their cores lighting.
"YOU, aren't Gunner detachment."
"-I'm GUNNIN' for you, if that compensates, sweet-cheeks?"
"You are in the wrong place, Rogue."
"Name isn't Rogue, baby! It's Han'! Han', for Hancock! And you are just, SWELL!"
"I don't care what your I.D. code is- either shut down for future repurposing, or I'll destroy you for scrap."
"No need to get violent and such!"
"You have three seconds."
"I love it when the lady's got a dominant personality!"
"Three."
"-If you let me up, I'll take my buzzsaw off and install that Massage-O-Tron claw I've been hiding for the last month! You'll LOVE that! Like I love lookin' at you!"
"..."
"...You look like I said something wrong, dearey?"
"...Two."
"-B-But- what if I help your friends ward off those Raiders?! Huh? They're your pals, right?"
"...-One, time to di-"
CLAKK!
BMMMMMM
-A wave of heat washed over the brush from where Hancock was sprawled- the stump singed, clumps of burnt dirt flew in the air- and the Assaultron was thrown off her feet away, back the way she had come from behind him.
Hancock's central ocu-lense ducked to the ground lower as an explosion tore into the hillside behind where he lay- smoke and soot clouded around him, and he shot off the ground with a lick of his thruster the second it faded a bit.
He looked back towards where the Assaultron had been tossed- he saw her standing herself back up at the foot of the hill- then he spiraled around to see what exactly had blown up like that.
There was a Raider by the shack- now pocked with bullets and wooden tears from the extensive firefight- the boy was shirtless, filthy as all hell- and wore a literal paper-mache clown mask under some looted, iron helmet.
He toted a missile launcher over his shoulder, and he wore slacks that were hung with stained, wrought iron chains, and what looked like a keychain of human fingers or ears by his hip.
He had finished loading another missile into the receiver- saw Hancock atop the hill from the distance- and aimed up at him- ignoring the gun fire going on around him.
"-SWEET JESUS!" Hancock cried- throwing himself back with a flare of his thruster.
He tumbled down the hillside a discombobulated wreck- right as the hill plumed in a breakage of soil, lick of fire- and echoed a deafening clack of impact across the wastes.
He clanked and cluttered down the hillside like a pile of cans- and landed in a heap beside the still recovering Assaultron.
She had just stood up on her right leg to support the other- sparks were kicking from her left knee servo, and she cursed the sight with a few mumbled profanities.
"Fuck me..." She grumbled.
CLLMMCBM
-She jumped as Hancock fluttered to a final heap in the ridge she had landed in right next to her- she blinked in shock as the Mr. Gutsy model sat immobile for a full two seconds, and shot up to a perfect levitation as if nothing had happened.
"-OOH! Baby! You offering?!" He asked, hide burnt across the front from the blast of the missile.
She looked him up and down like someone would another emerging from a pool of sewage and asking to shake hands.
Reaching out to him- she pressed her energized claw onto the top of his cranium, shoved downwards-
SHSM-CM
-And knocked Hancock back into a motionless pile on the ground, before stepping past him, making sure to give the rear of her cloven foot a drag back through the hillside to make a tiny burst of pebbles and dirt rain one the robot's prone form.
She trudged back up the hill with her knee servo still sparking- she covered the rest of the distance with a quick arc or two of her speed-built legs, and stood at the hill's precipice defiantly facing the Raiders her allies were caught with.
Life signatures already shown three of her creators dead- these people, filthy organics- would have to be exterminated to compensate such losses. To make a point- red energy built up in a swelling gather in her central eye-unit- she leaned forwards- and a beam of laser energy cut through the air ahead.
VVVMMMM
-The beam hit the rocket launcher user in the Raider lines- he vanished in a clouding of crimson and descent of ragged, red chunks- the beam kicked a cloud of dust from where it kept traveling and hit the ground.
Stepping forwards towards the hill's edge- she gasped when the same, stupid, insane Mr. Gutsy zipped in front of her again- as if nothing had just happened.
"-Where ya' goin', baby?" He asked. "I can't let you get all shot up! That's my job!"
BNK!
-She swatted him away like a fly, with a backhand of her power claw.
The Mr. Gutsy sailed to her right- but she had already strode out into the firefight ahead before she could see where he had landed.
The gradual travel downwards from the upraise made it twice as fast for her to close distance- she hopped behind the corner of the warehouse- running straight through the field of contested fire before the dirt lot.
A round bounced off her torso plate- she compressed to the metal ridged wall- and aimed her right arm over the edge- the forearm swiveling in the opposite angle from the servo joints that multilayered her body and limbs.
The laser weapon there sprayed the Raider position with beams of crimson that kicked all over the place and forced their heads down.
No sooner had she done that- did the Gunner soldiers she had advanced past move up from their cover- weapons blaring briefly in the rear ranks to cover their shift in addition.
"-How many of these scum are we looking at?" The Assaultron messaged her query through a com link to the rest of the squad.
"Ten or twelve plus change!" Came a man's voice- she knew him to be Sergeant Hoffer.
"Orders, sir?"
"Flank them! We're closer now- providing cover- get to a good angle, go!"
"Affirmative."
She glanced up at the aluminum roof of the warehouse she compressed to- bent her legs, despite the sparks from her knee- and leapt straight upwards.
She covered the single story of height no problem- landed in a spin around on the shanty roof with a hollow thrumming of both cloven heels.
Hunkering lower- she worked closer to the end edge of the angled, slabbed roof- aimed both claws over the metal at the shack and the Raiders around it- and peppered the front of the property with both battery charges.
She saw vital signs of one of the Raiders cease and two of them flared- she ducked back down and gave her guns a moment to vent steam when return fire whistled over her position and clattered about the warehouse wall underneath.
"-Take this, FUCKERS!"
"-Oh no." She peered over the roof's edge, and what she saw made her ocular scans go fuzzy.
The malfunctioning Mr. Gutsy- the THING calling himself 'Hancock'- had floated up nearby to the left of the shack- flanking the Raiders from behind.
They noticed him shouting- one of them pointed and raised a gun, screaming for her comrades to do similar- however, it was too late by far.
She hadn't even SEEN a missile launcher on the robot- it was probably custom installed.
Whatever the case- the warhead screamed from a small, portable unit on Hancock's third arm end- it looped in the air, corkscrewing- and whizzed over the Raiders in a steamy contrail of black smoke. Before the finality- she got a quick scan of the warhead- and almost gasped for a second time today upon seeing WHY it spun around like that.
It had been modified- expertly so, but with a inordinate risk in material and welding with what its purpose should've been- in other words, if the robot had been the one to make this makeshift deathtrap, he knew his explosives- he was just reckless with them.
She never knew how close she was to that truth- but at the end of the day, it still stood as fact.
Hancock had stuffed that warhead so full of petrolium jelly and pure sulfur extract- that the head itself probably had leakage lines from the sickly mixture on its weld bolts.
It didn't matter though- the missile vanished with a breakage of glass, through one of the shack's side windows- and the whole building lit up like a firecracker.
-BBBMMMMMMMMM
SSSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHMMMMMMMMM-BMMMMMMMMMMM
-The whistle of what sounded like pre-War fireworks screeched into the air- drowning out the anguished cries of Raider thugs as the shack practically liquefied in a geyser-like eruption of molten wood and melted materials.
If it were possible for a fire titan from Greek Mythology to have a zit- this shack popped like one of those zits.
Fire and debris rained EVERYWHERE- the sky was darkened with the sheer bright light the missile made from the house's obliteration- a mushroom cloud three stories high sprouted up into the air, and only dissipated when soot plumed downwards in a great belch from its receding power.
The fiery deathtrap blinded every single Gunner that had been advancing towards the structure- the Assaultron heard some of her allies screaming in pain from either being blinded by the flash, or catching fire from the napalm-acute mixture that flew everywhere down below.
There were some Gunners still rolling around on the dusty earth- screaming, and hollering in high pitched throes of men begging for death to leave them be.
It was the most gruesome thing some of the members of the Gunner squad here had ever seen in their times as mercenaries across the Commonwealth- and throughout the whole instance- they heard static-tinged, robotic laughter echoing in the backdrop.
As the smoke cleared, and the crispy stains that drug across the crater of debris became visible as the only remnants of the Raider group that hadn't been totally incinerated- the surviving Gunners peered through the smog.
Rolling on the ground where he had been tossed a foot away- Hancock bucked back and forth on the dirt, arms flailing- laughing hysterically, even as the last burning Gunner twitched still and grew silent.
"-AAAAAHHHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAAAAAA! THAT! WAS FUCKING AWEEESSSOOOMMMMEEEE! AHHHHHHH!"
The Assaultron stood bolt upright from her place on the roof- and looked down at all her dead creators about the grounds- all of them, except three- were now the cause of that deranged Mr. Gutsy down there.
"-S-Sergeant? Sergeant Hoff?" She tried the communication uplink. "Status?"
"...chk... HK-Chk..."
She looked down and saw Hoff lying on the ground with two of his soldiers failing to revive him with a stimpack injection- there was a chunk of ragged wood sticking out of his throat, and blood was bubbling from his mouth as he choked to death.
The Assaultron looked back towards the still receding explosion, the flat crater that was the shack- and parting through the smog, was Hancock, the deranged robot of the Wasteland's farthest nightmares.
"-So! You boys are with the GUNNERS, huh?!" He called out. "You tried to kill me and my friend a good number of times! Ya' know, I DON'T feel sorry about your crispy friends there!"
Hancock jabbed his buzzsaw at the burning Gunner corpses strewn on the closest premises to the shack's flat.
"I was gonna' apologize, but, fuck you guys!" He aimed his Plasma gun. "No survivors, boys! You know the drill!"
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