The situation was not exactly tipped in favor of the Cowboys.
More than a dozen Talon Mercenaries were firing at the Cowboys and any other Wastelander in the town with gusto, and the make things worse they were all in disguise.
Vincent had rolled behind the counter of the Brass Lantern along with Haskel who was tending to Jenny Stahl, who had been shot in the arm in the initial firefight. Ginny was ducking behind the bomb, while Jaxon had dived underneath the Catwalk ramp, leaning out between the Talon Mercenaries reloads to pepper their cover with fire.
"Ginny, give me the story!" Vincent yelled at his beleaguered comrade.
Ginny broke cover to fire at the cluster of four Mercenaries on the catwalk before ducking back and yelling at Vincent. "I caught Rafael doing something with the bomb this morning, and then these fuckers showed up. They didn't start shooting until Jaxon walked in! Seriously, can we just shoot his ass as well?"
"Hey! Screw you too sweetheart! You just can't keep that pistol of yours in your pants!" Jaxon rebounded from the ramp.
"Like you have any room to talk!" Ginny shouted back as a hail of 5.56's smashed into the side of Atom.
"OY! Both of you shut it and start shooting!" Vincent barked before unholstering his sidearm and firing at the balcony.
The four mercenaries continued to rain fire on the Cowboys, occasionally stopping to reload. There were no sight of the villagers now, but gunfire could be heard in different parts of Megaton, suggesting a full scale invasion of the town. Vincent knew they needed to start dropping foes and fast unless they wanted to be boxed in.
Two talons on your four Vincent!" Ginny yelled from her cover. Vincent murmured a curse and switched to his combat shotgun. Haskel had switched to his Magnum and had already picked off one of the four Talons firing from above.
"I'll draw their fire; you go around by the gate and take them from the catwalk's entrance. If we split their attention we can take them." Haskel suggested. Vincent nodded and dove into the entrance between Doc Church's and The Brass Lantern. Two Talons creeping along the edge were momentarily startled by Vincent's dramatics and hesitated.
Vincent unloaded a round of his shotgun into the upper body of one of the Talons, sending the man flying backwards limply. Vincent bounded towards the other Talon as the man raised his SMG at Vincent. Vincent smashed in the man's face with the butt of his gun. With a sickening crack the man tumbled backwards giving Vincent precious seconds to destroy what was left of the man's face via buckshot.
Vincent was about to move forward when he noticed the frag grenade clipped to the Talon's belt. Grabbing the grenade, Vincent quickly and quietly raced up the stairs past the house where they had first met Haskel and crouched to avoid being seen by the remaining three- two Talons as the aforementioned third crumpled to the ground from a burst of Jaxon's SMG fire.
Vincent ripped the pin off of the grenade and hurled it in the direction of the last two Talons. The look on the Talon's face as he saw the grenade helped mitigate the atrocious morning Vincent was experiencing. The grenade exploded outwards, and when the dust had cleared all that remained was a pulpy mess of limbs and viscera.
"Nice baby, now if you could go get that business man and Rafael that would be great!" Ginny shouted from behind her cover.
"What businessman? The only person I saw was Rafael creeping away during the shooting."
"Wait, was he in a beige suit and did he wear a brown fedora?!" Haskel asked hurriedly from his cover. Ginny replied in the affirmative.
"Vincent! You have to find that man and end him!" Haskel shouted from below, emerging from cover briefly.
"I don't follow, but consider it done." Vincent hoped Haskel wouldn't take a shining to giving him orders after this was over.
"No, this is far larger than I first thought. This reeks of Alistair Tenpenny, and if he brought Burke out of retirement then our time is finite!" A round of gunfire erupted from the opposite catwalk as a group of Talons emerged from the Water Treatment facility and rained fire on the Cowboys.
"Right, on it!" Vincent shouted as he barreled in the direction of Moriarty's Saloon.
Ginny ducked just in time to avoid a .308 round from taking her head off.
"You aint very good at ducking, are you?" Jaxon chuckled as he lobbed a grenade over his head at the five strong group of Talons gathered by the Water Treatment facility.
"Drop it and focus!" Ginny growled at Jaxon as Atom took yet another hit.
"If these fuckers keep shooting a live atomic bomb then we won't have to worry about anything else!" Jaxon sneered as his grenade went off. The screams confirmed that it had at least hit one of the Talons.
"We should try pushing up the catwalk, They won't hold their cover if we get close enough."
"They don't have any armor on, but they may not back off as easily as you think. All right girlie, let's do something wild!" Jaxon cackled as he jumped up from behind the bomb, firing his entire clip at the cover of the Talons. Ginny took a slightly more reserved approach and aimed for Talons that popped their heads up; their combined fire was enough to keep the Talons at bay if not wound any of them. As they ascended the ramp the Talons grew bolder. One Talon whipped his head out and fired a shot at the pair, hitting Jaxon's plating. Jaxon fired a volley at him, catching the man in the face and (Ginny at least hoped) killing him.
"You okay?!" Ginny asked as she kept her gun trained on the area above them. Jaxon grunted noncommittally and pushed onwards. The two rounded the corner to find four Talons, one heavily wounded from the earlier grenade, aiming their weapons at them.
The man with the Sniper Rifle raised said weapon to fire at Ginny when a long knife protruded from his throat. Gagging on his own blood, the man slumped to the ground to reveal a feral looking Felix. Leon stepped out from behind his own cover and proceeded to put down one of the other Talons with three short bursts of gunfire. Caught in the crossfire, Jaxon killed the last standing Talon while Ginny executed the wounded man with a bullet to the head.
Ginny nodded to Leon and Felix. "Thanks guys. Any more of these dicks lying about?"
Eon shook his head. "Not from what we can tell. We just saw Rafael slip out the front gate. Stockholm's been shot, and I have no idea if he's okay and-"
Leon was cut off when he caught sight of Vincent hauling ass towards the group. "Burke is at the front, he's outside and we need to get him, NOW!" Vincent shouted, with the group scrambling to follow Vincent's sprint to the main gate.
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