CHAPTER 28
Fire, Bullets, and Green People.
Most of the time when there was a situation that called for armed force- it was quick and chaotic, and it wasn't so drawn out for hours on end. Usually he and his friend would go against their foes of that day, and they would emerge alone with expended mags' and dead bodies choking the place of said duel.
Very rarely had Sanford and Hancock run across a fight where their enemies surrendered- it was just unheard of. It was unheard of because the great majority of people that he and Hancock were against were the loons of the Commonwealth, and surrendering just wasn't on the list of choices.
But, every now and again, they'd find the one random fight where their targets all stood up, threw their weapons down and started calling out for them to stop shooting.
"Why should we?!" Sanford called over a brick corner of the building he and Hancock had taken cover behind- the robot himself was hovering behind him, peaking an ocu-lense over his shoulder.
"Please, man! I put my gun down! ...I'm coming out!" -The echoing, distant voice of another man rebounded from down the street they faced- and Sanford peered at the opposite side of the pavement that divided his alley from another alley.
There was a team of other people- the police forces for Diamond City in the heart of Boston city- they wore gear that was an assortment of ceramic-armored equipment taken from pre-War baseball stock in use for umpires and catchers- and they gripped rifles tensely.
The guy in front of the five/six man group looked at Sanford, and then peaked over the rim of the building corner he was pressed to- he saw a single Raider walking out from cover with his arms up, and he instinctively ducked backwards.
"No way, I don't trust this!" He called over, voice muffled by the old SWAT helm and visor over his face.
"Give it a chance," Sanford replied, looking back down the street they had advanced from- and littering the sidewalk and behind the rusty remains of cars were tens of corpses that had once been the friends of this man trying to surrender in the road ahead. "I'll go."
"It's your funeral." The Diamond officer grunted.
"Sir, with all due respect, perhaps we should, oh, maybe... FUCK THEM ALL UP AND FORGET LOGIC?!" Hancock screamed from behind him.
"I'm not going to shoot someone who's surrendering!" Sanford peered over the brickwork- and now standing in the middle of the street were three men in rags and mish-mashed leather armor, they were quivering hard enough that he could see it from the distance.
Sanford broke cover and started advancing down the empty, building-flanked road with a bolt-action rifle raised for the three Raiders.
"Don't move!" He called to them. "Move and I'll blow your fucking brains out!"
As if to make the point, one of the Raiders yelled at the other two, something incoherent- and the three raised their hands higher above their heads.
"God damn it, sir!" Hancock called from his rear. "You're absolutely insane! I always knew you monkeys were never as smart as the frikkin' National Geographic Channel pawned you off as!"
"Oh shut up, Han'." Sanford rolled his eyes as the dirtied Raiders became close enough for detail. "-I warned you freaks, you move, you die."
"I'm not moving! Don't shoot!" One of them sputtered.
They were all pretty young- the oldest two were probably in their twenties, and, what disturbed Sanford even more was that the youngest of them, the one shaking the most, was a damn kid. He couldn't have been older than eighteen, nineteen?
"On your knees, do as I say and the Diamond cops might throw you in a cell instead of a pit."
"-Bless you, man! Bless you!"
"Shut the fuck up and kneel."
"Take THAT, hooligans!" Hancock zipped right past him in a whoosh of his central thruster- and he jabbed the blackened, small barrel of his Plasma gun in one of the Raiders' faces- the guy edged his head back in panic, and Sanford saw a trail of moisture cascading down from the man's calf just above the boot.
"Give it a rest, Han', c'mon."
"We kicked your wrinkly, feces-encrusted asses back to the stone age! HA! Slut-holes!"
"Beautiful."
The Diamond guys took some persuading, but, they did indeed throw the Raiders in the prison complex in the city's lower levels- and to this day all three of them were still there, apparently, and Sanford had even heard that one had been released and he now was a guard for Diamond's main square.
It was... Interesting, when there was another solution to dealing with other people who were hostile, than just killing them and being done with it.
The Raiders after that firefight were a perfect example- they didn't need to die for the fight to be resolved.
Neat thought to consider- diplomacy, in this kind of a world? Almost unheard of.
Sanford longed for more engagements like that- where people just put the damned guns down and just talked.
It was too bad, that Super Mutants didn't work like that.
Sometimes in the apocalyptic landscape of the world, there was literally no other possible choice to be made than to fight and defend yourself. The Super Mutants, were a big cause of that endless violence.
They were gridded throughout Boston and the East Coast in general from what Sanford had heard- and they were even in the West, but the rumors of 'Friendly'- examples of their kind in San Francisco and Nevada just seemed... Not really believable.
Sanford was always under the safe impression that the Mutants in Boston were all collectively messed up- it couldn't have been that far from the truth, as, every single Super Mutant that he and Hancock had ever come up against had been shot to death by either or both members.
The Mutants were bad news- they killed people, they pillaged settlements, they freaking ATE people... Sanford was content to shoot them like dogs and move on.
So that was where the forced violence came in.
The Mutants weren't going to just SURRENDER, that was ludicrous to assume they would. So, Sanford would shoot them- and he would shoot ALL of them.
The dark did actually make it harder for the Mutants to see him- as such he went unnoticed when he gave the Deathclaw a thumbs up, and stood from behind the bramble.
"I'm gonna' go in right through the front of the camp," He nodded, unpinning the safety on his SMG. "You want to flank?"
"I can do that." She blinked. "I'll go right."
"Don't start slashing guys until they focus fire on my position, got it?" He said. "You're tough, but if one of them has a heavy weapon, you won't be a French Deathclaw, you'll be Swiss-cheese."
"FUNNY." She snorted. "...I don't like this."
"You didn't like it before, and now that we've improvised, you STILL don't like it... You're hopeless." He chuckled.
"Mm."
"I'm going, wish me luck."
"Luck."
"You too, Ms. Angry."
"..."
"Right, Mutants, shooting, fire, yeah..."
Sanford rounded the bramble with as light of footsteps as he could manage with the suit.
The small whirring noises and shifts would be a problem if he tried to move around too much- and while, he could certainly still fight if the Mutants shot first, he would've preferred to try and take them by surprise.
So he hunkered down, and slowly footworked down the hill that lead to the fringes of the camp's exterior.
The remains of a wire-link fence were barely seeable in a rounded barricade on this side of the camp- it extended down from one end of the rounded property to the other, and all that was left were the cylindrical bases of the fence's main pegs, nothing else.
He hummed at it, hummed at the metal work buildings in the backdrop- he looked around cautiously, and he saw a cone of illumination spark from somewhere behind a few steel girders sticking from the ground up ahead- it made his heart drop.
A Super Mutant holding an industrial grade lantern- it was BRIGHT, like, if you shined it in someone's face it would temporarily blind them- with a rifle in the other hand trudged out from the camp's depths and looked around glumly.
Sanford squinted and hurried over to a raise in the land- there were some rocks piled around the exterior of the camp- and some of them were pretty bulky- so he found a small cluster of them and crouched as best he could.
As if to make the point- the beam of the lantern actually swung right over his position as the Mutant scanned about- Sanford hissed in nervousness until the cone settled next to the rocks he hid behind.
He peaked over the stones- and the Mutant was facing more a leftwards angle to him than directly at him- he stood there with the lantern raised, weapon draped lazily- shoulders hunched and head bowed- Sanford gawked and saw that one of the Mutant's boots was raised and flipped in an upwards angle.
The boy was checking to see if he had stepped on something or some shit.
...What an asshole, this was too easy.
Sanford mentally cheered- he slowly worked around the boulders- the armor creaking and making tiny shifts as he slunk through the shadows of the relatively open terrain.
It was the pounding in his chest that made the most noise and paranoia for him- all the Mutant had to do was stop being preoccupied, and look up for the attempt to be a bust.
But luck held out- right as the Mutant put his foot down with a nonsensical grumble- and started to raise his lantern light, he vanished in a flurry of shadowy motion that resulted in a dampened BMM -to echo from a falling impact.
The Super Mutant was pinned, and while they were strong, they certainly weren't strong enough to lift a full-grown Power Armored man from a sprawl atop them.
Sanford literally draped his entire body over the Mutant's- relying on his suit's weight to keep him still. The lantern and rifle clattered away on either side of the weak tussle.
Sanford had a gauntlet practically shoved into the Mutant's mouth- and the freak was making muffled grunts and barks- Sanford winced at the set of fat, yellow teeth that clattered and chewed on the wrist of his suit's gauntlet.
Sneering in disgust- he tore free his other arm, and grabbed the Mutant's cranium with clenching, armored fingers. Sanford huffed when the Mutant tried to kick him weakly with tiny bouts of steel thudding- he twisted his gauntlets opposite of each other, and the Mutant's eyes bugged before there was a CKL -and he grew silent.
Sanford breathed out in relief- he stayed still atop the corpse- let his scanners run about the area again- and when thirty-five heartbeats came up, all of them still distant- he sighed and started to collect himself off the dead creature.
Standing to full height- Sanford shook his head down at the green, bulging limbs of the dead Mutant- and picked up his SMG off the ground.
"'EY'!"
-Oh no.
"-What-?!" Sanford hissed, spiraling around.
In the dark, lacking details, and appearing like shadows- there were five of the Mutants standing only a few feet away from him- and they all had weapons raised.
Sanford couldn't see their faces in the dark, but he could hear them breathing- deeply, and raggedly- they all had heightened breath for seeing him, and Sanford realized that they actually had not noticed their dead friend just behind him.
Sanford thought for all but two seconds- and suddenly, he remembered something he had said a few days ago.
This Wasteland is fucking insane...
...He was right, this Wasteland, WAS insane.
He'd met a French speaking Deathclaw- he had a robot that was obsessed with the destruction of Communism, and he had been through all kinds of whacked fights for his life.
And Sanford had survived all of it.
It didn't make sense.
It was crazy.
...So... Maybe, just MAYBE, it wasn't such a crazy idea, too... Oh, try something completely ludicrous in its possibility of actually working?
Hell, what other option was there? He had nothing to lose.
"'Ey!" Sanford tried to talk as throaty as possible- and he opened his arms and raised them at the five Mutants. "Wher' lantern guy, go?!"
The five Mutants, even in the dark- looked extremely confused.
Sanford mentally gave himself credit- he didn't sound that far off from what he mimicked.
One of the Super Mutants angled his head.
"Slag'? Iz dat' u?"
"...uhm... Y-Yeah! YEAH! It Slag! Wher' yu guys bin'? Can' fine'd lanturn!"
"Me thought Crusha have it?" Another Mutant mumbled.
Sanford winced- and glanced quickly at the rear of his boots.
That must have been Crusha. Oops.
"Wel'... I dunno' ware Crusha wen'!"
"Maybee' bawss noe'..." The same to first address him growled. "C'mon Slag, yu' can tell us' how u' survive gettin' eatan by bear."
Sanford's jaw dropped.
...So, THAT was where the real Slag was?
This would be interesting.
"Me fine' new armorz!" Sanford shouted- smacking a fist on his Power Armor's shell. "See?"
"Ooo!" One of the Mutants rushed over- and Sanford felt his blood chill when he shifted in stance from the freak poking his breastplate with a fat finger. "New armer!"
"Wher' fine DAT', Slag?"
"...Uhm... Humie' place, kill lots of humies, boom-boom, behind door... ARMER."
"Ooooo."
"Wher' chief?"
"Dis' way, Slag. He gonna' wuv to see yu not ded."
-0-0-0-0-0-
Sanford was in shock.
It worked.
The green morons, thought he was another green moron, under all the suit.
It worked.
It actually worked, but Sanford still felt as if a heart attack was imminent, despite the reassurance of success.
Frightening as it was, the astronomical stupidity of the Super Mutants- it was also frightening walking through their ranks under such a guise, even if they suspected nothing.
Sanford's blood was frozen with how many chills and falling feelings he got in his gut- the five Mutants that he had initially encountered led him through a group of at least FIFTEEN, and the whole lot of them had been gathered around a makeshift fire pile.
Two of them parted on either side for the five Mutants in front of him to stalk through, and all the laughing and bantering stopped dead for a period of silence when all their yellow eyes fell on the Power Armored man slinking up behind them.
The Mutants looked extra confused- torn between just going with it, as none of their fellows were saying anything- and grabbing up their weapons and running at the armored- 'Metuul Mahn'.
Sanford smiled sheepishly behind his helm- nodding at a larger Mutant standing close as he passed- the guy was easily seven feet tall, and he was garbed with half a car's engine block strapped over his barrel chest and bulging gut.
There were human skulls hung by his belt, and Sanford gagged a bit when he saw that the brute was holding a red, mauled, and blood-stringing limb of chewed meat.
-The reason why Sanford almost threw up in his helmet, was because the ruined limb had been someone's forearm- a HUMAN, it was pretty disgusting.
"Oh... God..." He muttered- feeling somewhat guilty for walking by the desecrated remains being eaten by the big guy- and then he felt relief when a few of the Mutants just shrugged and resumed what they were doing- yelling, laughing, throwing around pieces of the obvious hapless victim that couldn't even be identified as whole anymore.
Sanford felt his anger flaring as he stepped by the pile of tires and driftwood the Mutants had piled for a bonfire in the center of this little gathering- there was a HUGE puddle of blood that gathered in the dirt, and in the pool was what was left of a human skull, and a few gnawed bones.
These guys were sick.
"Chief' stay in bigga' bulden'," One of the five Mutants ahead of him muttered over his green, muscular shoulder. "Not hang' wit' us anymo'..."
"Why dat'?" Sanford grumbled back.
-It was so alien talking to the Mutants- TALKING, with them, not shooting them.
It was even more alien than talking to the Deathclaw- and that, THAT, was saying a lot.
The Mutants, up close- were just as scary as they were from a distance, or close up while being dead. They had large underbites, sharp and little yellow teeth, or sometimes teeth that looked like two rows of only molars.
They were all bald- and they each sported various healed and scarred over lacerations on their bare arms and legs, and across their faces- there was more than one Mutant that he passed that had nothing but a black trench for one eye, or was missing a nose and all that was left was a flat, triangular pink plane with two tears in it.
Some of them had medical bionics replacing ears, eyes- there was a Mutant that stomped past heading towards the bonfire- that Sanford gawked at for all three seconds it took to pass him- because half of the boy's skull was gone, and his head had a healed over incline that looked like someone severed a chunk of his scalp off and re-grew skin over it.
Swallowing- he glanced over his pauldron as he walked deeper into the camp, and he saw another Mutant run up to mister half-skull, and cuff him in the gut with a resounding WHMP -and then he yelled about some sort of incoherent theft.
The half-skull, the bigger Mutant- grunted, and the slightly shorter offender was on the ground in an instant with blood trailing from his nose.
As the bigger Mutant stalked away, Sanford was shocked to hear the smaller one on the ground LAUGHING at having his face slammed.
"He comin' owt, Slag," Sanford jumped when a fat, green hand slapped onto his armored shoulder plate- he looked over and saw one of the first five Mutants he had run into grinning at him with a set of gums- as all his teeth were gone. "He gonna' be happy tah see yu'."
"I sur' hope so..." Sanford responded- thanking God for the air rebreathers in his helm's grill- he could only imagine how HORRIFIC, this guy's breath must've been.
The Mutant stepped away, and Sanford saw, that, in his daydreaming- he had not noticed that they had reached their destination.
The larger metal work building was before him- and before that, between him and it- was a cracked, and ruined, rectangular portal that fell into the earth- and the scorches that marked the ground around the opening only further confirmed that THAT, was the drop they had been held prisoner in.
Sanford was amazed the whole ground hadn't caved in. Huh.
He glanced up and could barely see through the night- even with his vision filters- the outline of the black cloud rising into the dark air above from the stairwell exit he and the Deathclaw had escaped from a few feet further away from the camp.
"Wha' thiss I 'ear bout' Slag bein' bakk..."
Sanford bit his lip as the giant Super Mutant that had almost done them in- the same one, that had the big grenade launcher for an arm-stomped out from a door archway from the biggest construction building ahead.
The ground shook when one of his boots hit the concrete- Sanford went pale, and, suddenly- he looked down at himself, and... He remembered something.
...Hadn't this chieftain... SEEN, this suit of armor?
The others kind of did before he escaped, but, they were the average Super Mutant- they probably couldn't count to three least of all remember and identify a past escapee from their prison cells.
-But Super Mutant leaders, the ones that were smart, somewhat- they got places by manipulating their fellows and rising to power.
...Old chieftain here was going to take one look at him, and-
"-EY'!"
...Yeah, this, uh... This facade? Yeah, it was over. Like, capital, OVER.
Shit.
"Oh fuck." Sanford grumbled.
Standing there, in the middle of the concrete court- Sanford saw the gigantic chieftain and all his horrid glory- the big grenade launcher for an arm, with all the ties of skulls wrapped around it clattering about-the mechanics that connected it to his balled, wire-riddled shoulder whining and hissing.
Sanford saw the hideous mug of the chieftain's face scrunch up, and a row of fangs jutted from behind his lower, cracked, green lip- the knuckles in his free hand cracked as it formed into a bulbous, green fist.
"You..." The chieftain growled. "YOU..."
Looking about- the Mutant leader narrowed his eyes at the five Super Mutants that stood on either side of him- he huffed, and he started breathing heavy.
Sanford reclined his head as the Mutant leader raggedly exhaled over and over- he reared back his head, and he SCREAMED, into the night of the camp's surroundings.
"YYYOOOOUUUUU IDDDIIIIOOOOOTTTTSSSS!"
WHMMMM
-The grenade launcher whined, it shifted and clacked and a grenade was loaded into the chamber- the giant arm/weapon creaked and shuffled as it rose, and soon, Sanford was staring right into the blackened barrel.
"...How are ya'?" He asked with a tiny chuckle.
"THIS AIN'T SLAG!" The chief bellowed. "It' Metuul Mahn! METUUL MAHN! Idiots! SIMPLE-TOMS!"
"I believe it's pronounced SIMPLETON." Sanford held a gauntlet up- completely ignoring the fact that the Mutant's voice was still rebounding across the hills.
The chieftain gawked with an ajar mouth- and one of the smaller of his henchmen out of the five nearest bystanders, raised a finger.
"I fink' he actally' right, bawss."
-0-0-0-0-0-
-That didn't sound good.
Since when was it a normal occurrence for Super Mutants to scream out about metal men? Sanford must have been discovered- which meant, she needed to move.
Up until now, she had been as low as possible in the brush-filled shadows of the camp's rightwards flank- she went unnoticed, because, obviously, in addition to her just being good at it, she had been genetically designed to be perfect at it.
But when a bellowing roar from one of the Mutants- and by the volume of it, a really BIG Mutant- echoed out into the night, her yellow eyes went wide, and she started cursing under her breath.
"Merde... MERDE..." She was but a liquidated bulge of darkness that slithered quickly through the grounds- and by the time a Mutant just turning his head to look in the camp epicenter's direction got the hint that something was up- he turned around and died without a noise.
SLLK
-The Mutant flew on either side of her in two halves- legs and hips to the left, head, shoulders and torso to the right.
"-I'll KILL him this time! I MEAN it." She snarled.
Through the darkness she persisted- and then, as she rounded a steel girder- she peered around the jutting metal's girth- and blinked as light invaded her vision.
There was a fire, a bonfire of tires and wood- and around it were tens of Mutants- and thankfully -(for her)- they were all turned towards the work buildings in the property's center.
She leaned on her clawed toes, and tried to peer over a few heads to see what the problem was- and if Sanford was really in trouble.
Just like she feared- she went wide eyed, and there he was- her human, standing before the eight-foot tall monster that was the Mutant's chief, and he was surrounded by a small cluster of his fellows.
How had that even HAPPENED?!
"No-NO!" She found herself barking. "SANFORD!"
-In the courtyard, the chieftain narrowed his eyes, and he glanced upwards from where the SECOND shout had come from.
Sanford gasped, and wheeled around to follow the larger Mutant's gaze.
-Standing just in the shadows of the Mutant swarmed bonfire- he saw the outline of his reptilian friend, highlighted amber, standing as tall as she could to stare at him in horror.
...Now, it would've just been, so much more perfect, if she had kept it quiet and just started, you know... Killing some of them.
But now, there were thirty some-odd Mutants looking between their chief and his unexpected guest, and the giant reptilian monster that had randomly come out of the dark and screamed some weird-ass human name.
This was... a distressing night for the Mutants.
They had their heads raised, and they were blinking stupidly- glancing left and right, some of them, mid-bite of their human meal.
"...Wha' we doo, bawss?!" Came distantly from somewhere near the bonfire.
The chieftain snapped his jaws shut, looked down at Sanford, and blinked.
"Yu... Have Deffyclaw back too?"
"Yeah, she's a piece of work." Sanford shrugged with a creak of steel.
"-I HEARD THAT!" She screamed over. "FUCK THIS!"
Surging forwards all at once, the Deathclaw made a terrible noise that was a combination of a massive hiss, and a predatory roar- a Super Mutant screamed, and Sanford nodded at the chieftain.
"You heard the lady, time to die."
The two SMG's on either side of his suit were whipped out, one in each gauntlet- Sanford drained both guns into two of the closest Mutants.
CCLCKLCKLCKLCKLCKLCLKC-
-Bullets ate into twin heads and chests with misting blood and flecks of darker crimson. The two Mutants jerked about and tumbled onto the ground with thudding falls.
The chieftain reached up and dragged his fingers down his face to wipe off a strip of blood that had landed over his chin- and watched in horror as Sanford thundered off to their flank, back into the darkness- and the Deathclaw was slinking in retreat, tossing away the corpse of another Mutant.
"WHA' YOU ALL DOIN'?!" The chieftain screamed. "KILL DEM!""
-0-0-0-0-0-
Sanford was trying to replace both magazines in both SMG's as he ran, and thus, it took him longer as he kept his shoulderline down and sprinted as fast as the armor allowed him into the dark of the night.
"SHIT-SHIT-SHIT-SHIT-SHIT!" He repeated, completing the reloading, he stuck the pin of each bolt into the groove of his lower breastplate and dragged the guns upwards to force it down.
Gunfire erupted behind him- and he slid to a halt, finding another cluster of large rocks, he knelt behind them, and soon bullets were licking past and into the stone with kicks of dust and screeching reports.
He glanced up and saw a handful of the green freaks running in his direction- around the shadow of the larger work building- they had rifles, and one of them was rapid-fire.
"-DAMN!" He ducked when a few rounds slapped about the stone ahead of his helmet.
He huffed, clamped one of his SMG's too his hip, and wielded the one two-handed.
Rising from cover- Sanford drained the clip at them, and from the distance, he heard grunts and barks of pain- he even saw the shiny flecks of blood being catapulted from fresh wounds on one of the Mutants- but none of them went down.
"DAMN!"
Sanford sprinted from his newfound position with thundering footfalls- bullets flew by, and he tossed away his empty mag'.
Sanford did his best to weave between raises in the land, piles of rocks or by taller tree stumps- and as a result, the already poor accuracy of the Mutants didn't allow many of the rounds to even come close to him.
He felt a punching on his back, and a rifle round bounced off the X-01's spine section, and another few clattered by one of his ankles.
He fell to a crouch behind another rock- stuffing another clip into his submachine gun's receiver.
This was NOT how he had planned this- but, they were in the fight now, and there was no possibility of just backing out.
"God damn it..." He kept cursing, pulling back the gun's bolt. "God FUCKIN' damn it..."
"RRAAGGH!"
"-SHIT!"
CLKMS
-Sanford ducked right as the largest club he had ever seen sailed in an arc from around the boulder's side, and catapulted for his head.
The metal club whacked into the rock with a horrible clinking report, and Sanford wheeled around with the gun at the ready- and he aimed down the sights at a shocked Mutant that couldn't quite understand how it had missed.
Still holding onto the metal debris two-handed- the Mutant started to reorient himself before his head opened in three blackened, red crevices that blew away a chunk of his skull and caved an eye.
Sanford released the trigger after only a quick burst- he watched the body tumble back, and he watched ANOTHER Mutant literally hop over his dead comrade, with a huge, industrial grade sledgehammer clenched in his grimy, green fists.
"DIE METUUL-MAN-!"
CLKCLKCLKCLCLCK
-The Mutant fell back with half his head stringing wetly behind himself into the night- the sledgehammer thudded still on the ground over his green ankles.
Sanford popped out the clip of his gun, squinted, and saw half the rounds left before shoving it back in.
He hoped more of the Mutants had THOSE kinds of weapons... That just made it easy.
But as Sanford stepped out from around the rock- he looked upwards, and, as he would recall later- almost wet himself.
"RRAAAAAGH-HA-HA!" A Super Mutant cackled- he raised his left arm, and supported a vertically raised handle grip that had been welded into the top of a weapon, that rotated, and whined as ammunition was fed from a belt drawing from a square tank strapped over the Mutant's shoulders.
It was a mini-gun.
"-DOH!" Sanford tripped over himself as he backpeddled behind the rock- wincing when the mini-gun pissed a stream of bullets that flew everywhere and clattered off the flank of the stone in tens.
It sounded like hail was falling- that was how many rounds he had dodged.
Sanford aimed the gun round the boulder's flank- not even bothering to stick his helmet out with his arms, and let the rest of the clip go with a random sweep in the foe's general direction.
He must have hit something, because the mini-gun didn't fire again- he popped out the clip and dug in his rucksack for another.
"Stupid mahn!"
-Sanford whirred his helmet over- and saw another Mutant run around the other side of the rock he hid behind, and aim an assault rifle at him.
Sanford stopped thinking- he dropped his SMG and surged forwards- gauntlet catching the barrel of the rifle and shoving it to the side.
The gun discharged repeatedly- and Sanford slid his finger down to grab the Mutant's wrist- wrenching it towards the sky until the rifle ran dry. Sanford grabbed the Mutant's other wrist and jerked that downwards.
"RRAGH!-RAGH!- RRAGAGGHH!" The Mutant screamed and shrieked, and Sanford grunted as the two of them struggled in opposite goals of the arm lock- Sanford trying to keep his grip, and the Mutant trying to break it.
wwwhhhhhHHHHHHHMMMMMM
"-RRAGH!" Sanford cried out, swung his arms, and felt his armor whining to compensate for the Mutant's weight.
Sanford lifted the Mutant an inch off the ground, swung him around, and ducked his helm close to the green monster's chest right as the Mutant with the mini-gun rounded the boulder, aimed at the scuffle, and let hell fly.
Bullets carpeted Sanford's foe's back- the Mutant's struggles stopped and the rifle fell from his grip as the mini-gun chewed away his back and head.
Sanford hoisted the body up, and wrapped his armored arms around the dead Mutant's stinking torso- he rushed forwards with the mini-gun still reducing the dead freak's body into mincemeat. Using the literal meat-shield to sprint up to the mini-gun wielder- Sanford hurled the body forwards when he was close enough.
The Mutant cursed and barked as his dead comrade tossed and tumbled over his front- the mini-gun's handle fell from his grip, and the Mutant staggered back, bending down to grab it back up.
Sanford reared back, and kicked the Super Mutant in the face.
CLACK
-The Mutant went silent and blood curled in the air in a red limb from his mouth- Sanford saw teeth dislodged, and the Mutant clambered onto his back, the mini-gun folding under and beside him with rumbling reports of metal.
To make his point- Sanford picked up his submachine gun from the ground, reloaded it, and drained four rounds into the fallen Mutant's head.
CLKCLKCLK
-He slouched over wetly with a quad of red spattered holes in his temple.
"...Bastard." Sanford spat. He glanced about, and went to peak over the boulder again.
"HUMIE'!
-The Mutant rushed forwards with another sledgehammer- and Sanford had just raised his gun to start firing, when the Mutant's head was cleanly, and quickly, removed from his shoulders.
SLK
-Five dark trails sang through the night, and the Mutant clambered onto his knees, dropping the hammer, with a weakly clenching set of fingers rising and falling for his crimson spewing neck.
Blood made a horrible geyser of globular repeating into the air, before the Deathclaw finalized the deadly transaction, and kicked the Mutant's back to heap the corpse to the ground.
Sanford looked down and winced, stepping back as blood pooled close to the toes of his boots.
Looking up, he saw the Deathclaw heaving with effort, standing silently in the dark, claws unsheathed and dripping on either side of her.
"...How... uhm... How are ya'?" Sanford chuckled.
She snorted at him.
"That was SO subtle, monsieur', we REALLY surprised them,"
"Well, we, uh... We did!"
"NOT IN THE WAY THAT WAS BEST, YOU INGRATE!" She snapped. "I hope... You're HAPPY."
"I'll be more happy when they're all dead."
"Mm..."
"Help me out. You can kill me afterwards."
"I plan on it this time."
"So you've been saying."
"I MEAN IT."
"I mean it, Sanford! I mean it! Blah!"- He mocked. Sanford smiled as she ground her fangs, he noticed movement behind her. "-Oh, uhm, left flank."
"I don't understand you, monsieur'," "RRRAAGAGHH-ACK!" -She jolted in her still stance a tad when she stuck her claw out behind her and caught the charging Mutant in the chest- he dropped a wooden 2x4 hammered through with rusty nails onto the ground. "-We try something tactical, something logique', and you mess it up."
She jerked her wrist backwards and the corpse slid off onto the dusty ground with a series of thuds.
"Well I couldn't help it if I had to improvise!" He put a fist on his hip.
"Right shoulder." She sighed.
"RRAGAGHH-!" -CLKCLKCLKCLK, Sanford stuck the submachine gun in an aim under his right arm, fired half the mag', and kept frowning at her despite hearing the body tumble across the dirt, dropping some metallic melee weapon.
"-They saw me! I talked like one of them, it worked, and, hey, look how many we've killed so far!"
"No excuse, monsieur', it was blatantly, and unnecessarily risky!"
"Watch your left, screaming meemie', two-o-clock."
The Deathclaw raised her head, rolled her eyes, and sighed with a hop of her shoulders- she turned around and slashed downwards with one of her claws- and a Super Mutant materialized in greater detail from the dark, falling onto his back with his chest and clavicle torn open in three flaps.
Growling at the corpse, she reclined her head when blood started to form rivers out of the wounds.
"These beasts are sickening..."
"Good! More incentive for you to help me clean the gene-pool so we can leave already."
"...Yes, monsieur'."
"We have this, don't worry."
"I always worry, monsieur'."
"Well cut it out, we only have, like..." Sanford checked his scans with a quick few blinks in his helm. "-Twenty bastards left. No problem."
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