Waka-Waka
Audrey remembered the first time she knew for a certain she'd leave the brotherhood.
It has been many long and hard years ago, one night when she slept in the initiate quarters in a high cot dreaming of nothing but the new cream dispenser in the crèche kitchens. Annie in private; Knight Anne-Marie Morgan in public, had entered with a whisper, not known to anyone but her when those well lacerated hands wrapped themselves around her then frail form.
She'd not cried out then, never had; because brotherhood don't cry out in the crib or the cauldron, but she stifled a wail and wiped away a tear when her sister spoke in that soft-reserved only for her little cub voice.
"I'm sorry baby, but I'm going on a mission for awhile. It's so important that you wouldn't believe!" She'd enthused even behind her sad smile, and Audley had believed her; entirely and completely, to the day today when she knew her time was up to leave the brotherhood. "I can't take you with me; little soldier. But one day you'll come and join me and we'll be standing together scourging the wastes-just like mama and papa." Audrey still remembered how proud she felt, not sobbing or betraying her broken heart.
It was her resolve that held her in place today, listening to the same foolishness that had driven her sisters back onto the path behind Casdin, nonsense and futile ideas of the messianic 'brotherhood of the wastelanders' spouted from the mouth of a Lyon apologist.
Here they were; the cream of the warriors available to the brotherhood on the entire eastern coast, and they were talking about fighting an option against the mutant menace, 'To limit their threat against the mall, the wastelanders and scavengers', even the ghouls!
"So we're fighting over one hundred heavily armed and armoured mutants, on the basis of protecting some blown out buildings, and for what, scavengers who wouldn't give us a bullet except to the faceplate?" she asked in the reserved tone she'd learn to adapt when dealing with Carron, one of Lyon's sycophants, a good soldier who'd spent years trawling the D.C area to play knight in shining power armour to ungrateful assholes, who for his trouble had been sent to die a futile death in Georgetown.
"We're following orders Knight Morgan, I expect nothing but that from you" Carron tersely replied, and Audrey knew exactly what he meant, all I expect from you, not that you'd ever get on board with our ritual suicide to these rot gut bastards who hate us as much as the greens.
Ghouls! Lyon had even mentioned the ghouls, it made her stomach fail as much as their filthy irradiated skin had. She was going to die without meeting her sister again in this life, would be remembered on a wall in the Citadel that would likely be overrun in another ten years time.
The wastelander who had delivered the news and falsely claimed he was a former vault dweller stood to the left of the wreckage that was once Georgetown's premier penthouse; an eyesore slightly more up risen that the other myriad of skeletal wrecks that made up the urban district and well beyond.
He was wiry; broad shouldered if only that the rest of him was so reedlike, with a face of a relatively pale complexion compared to most leather faced rock bangers, unattractive as all wastelanders were to her, bruised and scrapes covering all of the exposed skin from his face to his fingers.
An obvious by-product; if he could even relate to what that meant, of Lyon's doctrine, the man-or rather boy was not an outright coward, something she'd seen in anyone not in a suit of power armour facing down the scourge. It didn't make her feel the least bit better about what had been said here today however, one wastelander with a rifle didn't make the slightest bit of different considering it was just her; Carron, Anthony, Mannone and initiate Evans.
They had the firepower to arm seven fully armoured paladins to be effective for perhaps twenty to twenty five minutes if they really wished to put the fist to the mutants, the worn but still reliable fat man alone meant that they could annihilate both behemoths provided they walked into a suitable trap.
They didn't have seven paladins however; they had herself, a sniper and that just, Carron and Anthony who were men to revel in the grinder, but beyond that a paladin in Mannone who couldn't do much but swing his super sledge around like a mutant, and Evans…well the less said or thought about him the better.
"We'll set the fat boy up facing the main approach to the hole, wait for the ulgies to show us the bigger; prettier faces" Carron told them in his usual authoritarian voice, unaware that he sounded like a Lyonian lickspittle even when he was going about what everybody's business in the waste should have been on their off time.
"Morgan will set up high and pick off anything that looks like it can do anymore damage to this wreck, Mannone will watch the two access points we've found and keep this from being a grinder" Much hope of that with five men and a wastelander, fool. "Evans will support him, meanwhile I'll take one of the Llight machine guns and Anthony will be on the other. Alex was it? I'll need you to use one of the few explosive rifles we still have working around here, something like that can make a mess of super mutants by the pair if you get a good hit" Launcher work was usually resolved for Evans when he wasn't zipping rifle fire off the ruined concrete debris that all the Talon company scum hid behind in their attempts to 'yard by yard' their chokepoint to the mall.
Carron didn't trust the wastelander by his soiled and ragged rather than hardened look, the boys non-accented; even polite tones did nothing to convince him either of his use she could guess. Perhaps he'd manage some luck with the grunt work while she kept them from the missiles and flamers that always managed to work their way into those big grimy green paws.
It didn't really matter as long as she was there to save them from a cleared section across the back, or being roasted like a duck in the oven.
With whatever feeling of brotherhood she had remaining in her Audrey emplaced the gauntlets and helmet of her run down T-45d armour, not bothering to reflexively poke her heat skin protected finger through the torn slip in her armour that went third set of her ribcage to her fifth, it didn't bear thinking that only splintered steel protected her there from what would be a debilitating gut wound.
She hated the feeling of the suit after a long engagement, when the body layer under failed to stem the tingle that turned to heat rash given enough free reign. She doubted any of the members of 'Lyon's Pride' ever even had their suits on long enough to receive the red fleshy hue she saw every time she glanced in a grimy wasteland mirror, those glory hunters only managed to show up and be 'the hammer' when the real veterans like herself had been thoroughly gutted.
She'd managed to break apart; clean, reassemble and stockpile ammunition beside a corner side viewing window which she'd fortified with thick stone and mortar on the underside before she was bothered, just as a light pulse of rain began to add more misery to the smoke locked skyline.
It was the waster, looking worse than stupid approaching her through the sheared husk of the room that she took her advantage in, four floors above where Mannone and Evans would be, one above and to the right turn where Carron and Anthony were setting up.
"Carron thought you might want one of these" the waster offered in his hand an apple; probably grown and cured in the Citadel where he'd came from through Georgetown to them. Audrey immediately refused what he had to offer with a brisk 'no', she feel queasy at the thought of anything that touched a waste born entering her mouth.
He didn't immediately turn away at her underlying reluctance to talk with him, probably thought she cared more about what she saw outside her dusk stricken opening. It would have been fine for her if he hadn't closed the distance between them, peering down into the wreckage of Georgetown.
She was almost about to admonish him before she realised it didn't matter if one of the Talon company caught sight of his waiting; un-armoured head, they'd be only be slightly worse off if his inner cranial matter got all over her armour.
"Shouldn't you be down learning how to load the launcher?" she asked tersely after he hovered over the edge a second too long, "I know how to load and fire a sling style weapon. I learned tossing grenades from the same weapon near the Jefferson at the ulgies" If that was meant to impress her then he was wrong, dead wrong soon enough. Standing she pulled him away from the window and back enough steps to cause him momentary alarm.
"Stay away from the window! You'll get those Talon company scum onto my position" berating him felt good she admitted, there was nothing worse than someone who puffed themselves up and talked about gutting mutants. "You want to gloat about killing a few mutants do it with Evans, I've been out in this shit too long far too deal with assholes like you." She picked up her rifle; cleared and inspected it before slotting her almost meticulous 7.62 magazine into the receiver.
He didn't leave however, instead fixing her with a pathetic accusatory glare "Hey I'm just trying to be nice, if it wasn't for me you'd not have known anything about the mutants" Audrey set her weapon down and focused her optics on him, "You don't have to be such an asshole-
He really didn't expect her to cross the short distance between them and drive him onto his back painfully; kicking out his legs from under him knocking him sprawling over.
"Fuck you" she breathed in a real effort not to raise her power boot and cave his chest in, "I'm the only thing that kept you safe all those times you ran through this wrecked hellhole of a city-stealing whatever you could through in your sack, like the pathetic cockroaches you wastelanders are." He raised himself up and briefly his hand itched towards the piss poor pistol he had slung under his arm like some pre-war Canadian militant, "Get down stairs and do some good for once"
"You're losing it-already lost it" he told her definitely, not backing down or squaring his shoulders, "I lost my best friend; father, people I cared about just to help save this city, fought against the mutants and the god damn enclave if you can even consider that-" His face for a moment lost its scornful look and she realised he just caught his own slip.
What did he mean by the enclave? Those stupid broadcasts that looped seemingly anywhere across the wasteland, how the hell did he fight them? "What do you mean the enclave?" she asked suspiciously.
Looking unnerved she thought he wasn't going to let her in on what he knew of whatever happened outside the pit she'd been infesting with the monsters, until he told her point of fact "The enclave is more than just those awful prompts you hear on the radio, they've finally came to D.C."
Audrey was shocked enough that she barely heard Carron downstairs shouting up to check the sector, the enclave here in D.C? After all those years of babbling about restoring America and remaking the wasteland, they'd finally come and put their bodies where their mouths had been.
It didn't even bear asking what sort of force the former government of the commonwealths had at their disposal, but she still could have squealed when she heard him talk lamely of 'airborne vehicles' and 'post-war fabricated power armour'.
Something about his tone of put her however, enough that she actually cared to ask why he was suddenly to pensive, "Has there been any contact with them, has the Elder sent out an emissary team?" His eyes shot a definitive cut of hate at that suggestion.
"Elder Lyon's doesn't want anything to do with the enclave, considering the bastards have already murdered as many people as they've met" His tone was bitter enough to suggest personal animosity, but she'd be damned if she gave one care to this fool and his petty squabbles over a dead junkie girlfriend or whatever his problem was.
She approached him and quickly had him reaching for space behind; finding that he was quickly being corned under the near shattered doorvein that led to the only escape route save for going over the side into the protruding girders.
"You're telling me that Lyon's has met the most technologically advanced force we've ever encountered, and he's going to try and ignore them-over what? A few dead wasters?" He nipped under her outstretched gauntlet and got around her, without her caring that the air had turned as foul as the night appeared.
"Their murderer's" he accused, attempting to keep a distance as she tried to keep her head, did that bastard Carron tell him to keep quiet? "They butchered good people for no apparent reason other than they could, are they the sort of allies you want?"
He didn't know that she really didn't care as long as she was the one who could help-or manage to drive the final nail into the mutant coffin, she'd have told him as much and that she didn't give a single atoms worth of care about his sort, if a rifle shot hadn't cracked so close by to alert her to danger.
She usually didn't notice the faraway bang or even the occasional misplaced shot on the skeleton of the building itself, but the fact that she could make out the sort of calibre fired and the short distance was something.
It was the sort of rifle Evan's had been embarrassing himself with, and to confirm the fact Anthony came up to her in a quick hustle even wearing his own potch marked power armour, "Surf's up grouch, mutants sighted and the kid gave off a shot. Hit the bastard as well, so first time for everything" Anthony was one of the men she liked best, even if she preferred that he used those steely hands to beat some sense into that idiot Evan's.
"Downstairs waster, it's time to put these bastards to rights" he ordered in his usual gruff but near always playful tone, "You; make sure you knock the head of any of those bastards carrying anything big enough to make me have to jump out the window again."
Audrey agreed and set her helmet up for its full power capability, at a switch able to produce both thermal and low visibility counteracting optics that helped in the always dark and sometimes stormy Georgetown nights.
Situated atop the best vantage point across the south-eastern reaches Audrey could make out everything depending at which outlook she settled herself at, where she tilted herself over into the easiest 'prone' position-in reality half crouching half lying in her sometimes awkward armour. Settled directly in front of her was the approach to the absolutely ravaged Georgetown metro entrance; crisscrossed on both flank by buildings that had been shot up and shattered so many times with high explosives and rapid fire weapons to look like popinjays, the approach to her position and the wide entry to the mall some six hundred yards away was levelled almost completely.
Every folksy store front that hadn't been emplaced under a store was entirely gutted and almost all of them were certainly collapsed upon themselves save for a few around their position. The high rises intertwining were those that looked like the gutted skeletal remains of a city pushed through a nuclear enhanced avatar.
It was all so horrific and soul wearing that Audrey found herself remembering just how apathetic she'd become to 'the good fight' and the lives of the ordinary wastelanders, because she didn't find herself at one point caring at how much destruction had been wrought anymore.
She just wanted to find a weapon large enough to send every mutant from here to Lost Hills straight to the incinerator, but she'd settle for the hideous miscreations she saw spilling from the torn up metro tunnel and the sundered buildings around.
They had to entice the mutants in so she started with a clear shot on one dumb green lout that lumbered forward in an almost daze with a heavy steel girder in hand, not meeting resistance from his thick skull as she placed a shot down wind that caught him beautifully.
She had six rounds available and managed four mutants in succession, impressive she thought levelling five of those six into the waiting heads of the now swarming creatures. She reloaded her weapon with ingrained precision, a light drizzle threatened outside to turn the ground acidic and slippery if she only provided enough mutant blood to mix with it.
Another magazine yielded four mutants, three of the usual mindless dross and one sheet armoured chief that had to have his helmet blown off before his head, it didn't take them long to find the source of their enemy, the rush came on in the usual thicket of pounding feet and mis-placed shots.
Audrey activated her night-vision to better locate the cream from the dross, aware that behind five charging bodies of fodder was a smarter mutant with some inconceivably well maintained and supplied weapon.
Carron and Anthony's support weapons went loud and punishing just as she searched out those more dangerous, bullets through her optics riddled the rushing mutants across their numbers; a dozen maybe more but she saw three on the slow approach, ranged her weapon and caught one, two and finally three with two shots a piece, dropping the central mutant while the leftmost creature howled and raged as it's face was sheared off.
The grenade launcher fired and caught two mutants across their passage; Carron hefted a weapon he'd loaded prior and began shredding more flesh as the mutant remnant raged for battle, Audrey pushed down concern as her two surviving 'charges' levelled their high fire rifles at Carron's position and made quick work off the injured mutant before ending his friend with no less than four rounds to his head.
The older and larger these bastards got the thicker their skulls did, but her 7.62 delivery service matched up against most if not all what came to bear.
How would they manage against power armour post-fabricated she thought in a distraction that was thrown off by the arrival of more mutants through their entryway, she was disgusted that they'd been pinned by those Talon scumbags long enough not to be able to lay down anti-mutant mines farther from where they held the line.
Audrey snapped a dry magazine free and reached for a new one easily accessible but found herself grasping as she felt the unmistakeable pound of a far too heavy foot, something so unmistakeable and inescapable that she felt the tremor in her chest.
Behemoth on the move, pulling and grasping; roaring and raging, the towering malformation of the old world virus pulled its way through a slight crack of some five meters between two four story ruins.
At its heel was a further massing of armour and heavy weaponry that had been devoid in those mutants heaped across the approach to their position, the strength of which was not lost on Carron below.
"Load up the fat boy Anthony, get ready boys!" he howled atop the menace that the behemoth promised. Audrey knew the skirmish was over; the battle came at the rushing clank and whirl off the mutant advance.
Audrey focused on the thicker throats and bulbous heads; her rifle scoring hits and levelling hundreds of pounds of mutated flesh and supplementing armour bullet by bullet, Carron and Anthony below took so much precautions and spewed their bullets into the ranks-scoring armour and piercing body flesh as well as brains and vitals.
The wastelander's grenades done enough to separate swathes of flesh from mutants massed together in what was risible skill if any, but there was no one side to this fight.
Bullets slapped and hissed around her; cracked against her faceplate, off her armour, wilting away at her nerves as she began to need a second too long to grab a magazine, While the behemoth began to take up its momentum in a rush she'd seen once crush two paladins under a dislodged train in a long since abandoned northern campaign.
A spate of bullets knocked her optics useless for a moment and she rolled off her position as much as she was able, a moment later and all she could see was the dust and shards associated with incoming minigun fire.
Downstairs sounded horrible with shouts for ammo; a reload or the fatboy, getting up she saw the menace two hundred yards at best; at its side she noted with horror a pair of lumbering mutants loading a missile launcher that was surely within a dead cert distance.
She noted her weapon was the slightest fraction lighter than what she noted as full magazine, pushing forward to a more precious position she looked out-took aim and fired on the mutant just as it depressed the mechanism on the launcher.
Taking it's foot at a stroke of luck the mutant jerked and launched the weapon further up and high; to the leftmost and most advantageous room for vantage-hers. A thick old world football shaped object was pumped from the floor ajar to her own as the missile careened for her.
She was on the floor a moment not soon enough as the remnant of the building above her exploded in a rain of metal and imported kauri wood, her suit squealed through her skull as the anti-compression alarm blazed in a piercing arc, while outside the rain trodden battleground lit up in a blaze of hellstorm fire.
Protected from the worst after effects by her suits protective measures Audrey could find her feet after only a few moments; a minute or two at most, shrugging off broken earth and rock, rooting through a half torn down suite to find she still had a weapon, no ammo, no back up.
Bullets didn't bang against her position but the building was a pin cushion, so many weapons pounding outside that she couldn't decipher one hundred range bearing mutants from one thousand.
These mutants were far too well equipped she knew for them to hold her off, not one of them seemed to have anything below a paladin killing weapon even if they were only those light skinned monster sorts.
She peered over the blown out parapet and saw the rain drenched super mutants had entirely bogged down the approach with their sheer numbers, and Audrey realised she'd never saw so many mutants massed before.
It had been to their cost this battle; seen at the heart of their swarm even through their thick bodies was the behemoth which had only opted into the flight, eviscerated and mutated again by the fatboys power into a disembowelled caricature of its previous malice.
Audrey could laugh if her head didn't go thump with the crack of the bullets, would have clenched a fist and struck something in victory if the mutants simply couldn't walk over their destroyed brothers.
It didn't matter if she lifted her rifle again and shot that mutant which stalked forward howling and laughing; with such a big missile launcher in hand, but she tried anyway, limp as she realised her weapon was dry.
The mutant hefted the weapon and took aim at the lower base of their structure where she knew Evans and Mannone had been fighting the creatures off, and she could hear the monsters glee almost as it engulfed the entire floor.
She was downstairs as quickly as she could throw obstructions out of her way, abandoning her weapon in an almost daze. Carron and Audrey remained for the moment, the paladin in command using what weapon he could switch and lead with his ammunition handler, she watched mutely as the wastelander rushed to the room with an egg shaped mini nuke in hand.
Her resolve shrunk as quickly as it recovered, Anthony a second too late recoiled; the narrow protection afforded to him by the thin steel evaporated in an explosive burst of who-knows-what, crippling his protection and venting him over into the slick ground.
Carron cried out; struggled harder to fit his weapon with long spent magazines, the waster fell back as if struck, bullets clipped the inside of their refuge and bounced this way and that, driving him back into a storeroom where they'd piled their stores.
Audrey got inside past Carron without him noticing her prescience, past their breathless 'saviour' to find a well worn but functional ripper; an urban suppression riot shotgun fully loaded but unnoticed, a 10mm pistol with three magazines, some pre-packed foodstuffs and enough water to sate her thirst at least until she reached the relative civilisation of Megaton.
The wastelander didn't like it, saw her push through whatever outcropping of an exit they could make in an adjacent building that filled out under the stripped down ground floor through the utility, "Help me find the fatman!" he screamed at her, but instead she gripped him in one hand and the thick sack she'd deposited her survival goods into the other.
She didn't snap his neck but instead threw him face forward onto the unadorned floor of the room they entered, tossing her back to the side she grappled him high and strong against the wall behind.
"Tell me about the enclave; about what they did, what Lyon's said, what they want" she ordered with a hand firmly prepped against his windpipe, "and if I hear one word apart from any of that, I'll throttle you until you're as green as those bastards outside."
It was madness what she'd done; utter madness, abandoning her post and her brothers, the cause and the brotherhood-no actually, she was wrong on that last accusation. Lyon's had perverted them into some self sacrificing martyr army so that bastards like this one could scratch out a pathetic existence.
What would Mannone say about that; probably in pieces, being treated like canned goods in some disgusting conflict that they could have avoided if they'd just kept to the doctrine.
Audrey gleamed the information between heaving breaths and sputters of spit from the little shit, holding his throat just long enough to leave an impression.
Dropping him gasping for air, Audrey turned herself away, grabbed her bag and disappeared away from the battle just as another thundering eruption cast its glint on the outer rim of D.C.
Alex gasped as he saw the second eruption, realised Carron had got to the fat man and fired off a precious round, but getting up was harder than before, his legs were jelly and his throat burned. Perhaps it was for the best, because only a few moments later the room that held Carron was finally demolished by an explosive that crept through the gaping hole and into the floor supports above.
Four dead; one fled, his task to help save Carron's team had been as much as a failure as his attempt to save his father had been, and he could have been cracking the butt of his rifle against the control hubs window all over again for what it mattered.
Rooted for minutes Alex realised just how thick a mess he was in; unarmed, alone, tired and battered physically, he had his trusty but almost useless browning pistol and nothing else, save the remnant of a stocked room appearing in front of him like a cruel taunt.
How many mutants could they have killed in actuality? Thirty; forty? A behemoth which left another to shatter what resistance remained in the mall. The Sentinel had told him that twelve brotherhood members guarded the place in an enveloping position to help each other as they were set on by the entrenched mutants, but what happened when the still mobile majority of their charge burst through Georgetown and overwhelmed their triple point defence squad by squad?
A massacre just like this one he predicted, a proportion of the brotherhoods strength that would cripple them across D.C and leave purity in the hands of the men that killed James, a fitting way to end a terrible week.
He wondered how much distance Audrey had made between here and her objective, where he did not know. He realised it would be better to escape now in her wake and try to warn the Pride or the command if he ended up outside D.C and anywhere near the Citadel.
Anything inside the city and he'd be monster meat, there were so many dangers that a rifle and then some was the absolute minimum requirement.
Even a useless gesture as it was Alex pulled his pistol free and checked it for its viability, clean and loaded, and he realised that maybe he could shoot out a mutants eyes with his pip-boy's targeting system before the rest tore him up like all those gruesome remains he'd seen in the Jefferson.
It seemed like Morgan had picked her retreat carefully however, because from the first narrow leaky corridor he had to light with his pip-boy until the two bends he turned; he couldn't hear a snort or a roar from above.
Finding his way to an exit that was not so far but still unknown Alex switched off his pip-boy and kept his weapon ready, pushing at a wooden flap that lifted with a damnable creek into a building unlit and ominous; deathly silent inside with all the terror remaining at the non mentionable boundary of shuttered windows and barricaded doors.
Alex was careful at every step he took; cursing the creeks and whines as he ascended into the ground floor, hulking down as a nearby horde of super mutants discharged more of their rifles, which could have been anything from a new attack, defence or yulp of victory.
If even one of those mutants wandered by and caught a second glance he'd be dead, so he resolved not to take the chance by reversing his plan and ascending the stairs, creek-crack-creek-crack, his feet masked by the discharging outside.
Getting to the relative safety he checked one barely touched but dilapidated room before stalking across the hall and finding another.
Inside he found two black clad men peering out at the shadowy night that intertwined with the lighting of a muzzle flash, "Those mutants are really happy to have killed some tin men" one of the men said, where Alex could guess he'd saw the fight from the house that could have only been a few hundred yards down the street.
"The mutants are always happy when guts are on offer" his partner remarked, and Alex was startled that he knew his voice, but from where…
"Too bad Joaquin and Peter aren't here, those guys love to see the brotherhood go down" Alex raised his pistol and clocked back the hammer in a useless gesture save for getting their attention, "Turn around Calvin, and make sure you don't try anything." Time froze for a moment as the men realised they weren't alone, stiffening as their hands itched towards the weapons leaning against a still glassed window out of reflex.
Calvin's partner jerked to the floor body twisting like a snake; his hand turning across his chest to the trigger of a hold out pistol strapped but available.
Alex fired three hammering shots into the man's chest piece; unprotected side gut and face, turning his weapon on Calvin who had stuttered back in surprise, "Don't" he warned while casting a critical eye to the second employee of Talon company he'd now killed.
How many was that, at least four confirmed dead men, no mutant blood or radiation having sent them mad, "You just killed us both buddy, you think those green bastards outside are going to let that go?" Alex gave a step forward pistol primed in hand, it would be easy to make it a third.
"So you're part of the group trying to fight the brotherhood" he observed, noting the quality of the weapons the two men had brought with them for what had to be a scouting expedition, FN FALs with bullets nearby that had the accusatory spiked armour piercing jackets; fragmentation grenades and enough ammo for another pair.
"How the hell did you get in here?" Calvin asked through gritted teeth, annoyed at being jumped more than his companion who spilled out onto the floor without so much as a whimper, Alex had caught him well with that third bullet, Gunney would have been so proud if he wasn't dead.
"That doesn't matter, all that matters is how me and you get out of here alive" Alex replied to the man's suddenly aware eyes, "Yes you heard me right, you get a second-second chance provided you lead me out of Georgetown. There are more mutants on their way, and I need to let the brotherhood know what happened here." Not to mention finding out just what happened to the pride.
Calvin laughed lightly which was brave he thought, despite knowing that he probably wouldn't shoot him in cold blood, he hadn't before even when the mercenary and sometimes hired murderer had shot Gunney in the gut.
Apparently there was little difference to Talon company anyway, "You still don't know what's happening here kid, the mutants aren't the only people out for brotherhood blood" Alex primed him for an answer with a warning shot over his shoulder, startling Calvin and causing him to shoot a look at where the mutants had formed worryingly.
"Those mutants will probably come see what that was, so I'd talk" Calvin looked reticent so Alex emptied another bullet into the floor making the man jump, "Talk!" he ordered, beginning to worry himself that the mutants would cotton on, if they could decipher his bullets under their own.
"Those mutants are fucking idiots" Calvin droned, possibly angry that they hadn't came by to unsettle his vault adversary as much as he felt, "You'll probably be a good soldier and only put on into my leg; I know what you are, some simpering moralist, so I'll tell you what you'll figure out just by looking out a window. Those mutants are just a patsy; a big ugly destructive one at that, but a patsy all the same. Talon Company is preparing to flush those sword and steel fucks straight out of the mall and back across the Potomac, we've been shadowing them for days-first time we actually had men rooting for them" Alex's first thought was why, he never saw the appeal of the mall, after all it just a husk of half memorable relics and throw backs to a pre-war government that meant nothing to anyone.
"Why does Talon Company care about the wreckage of the old world? Surely the ghouls stripped anything of value years ago?" Alex half asked half reasoned, at least the brotherhood professed to fight in the hope of inspiring popular war on the mutants and to keep the D.C ruins relatively free to move in.
Calvin give him a shit eating grin that reminded him so much of Butch De Loria, "Because the biggest contract we've ever had asked for it, that's why" he even had the same stupid haircut, minus the product, "The chief in Tenpenny was offering fifteen hundred caps for your head on a spike as a welcome sight, this deal to oust the Brotherhood makes that look like an insult"
"Who was it?" Alex pried but Calvin only responded with a snort, "I'll really tell you that huh, even if I knew? I'm just grunt shit remember. Whatever happened to that lump of meat you walked with, not around to hold your hand?" Alex somehow resisted the urge to shoot him, instead motioning to the door with his pistol, move" he ordered, arcing himself around the mercenary as he stalked forward.
He picked up one of the rifles and checked it for usage, good condition and well stocked with ammunition, he might have just had some luck.
However, as if on cue, a blaring roar erupted outside in the way of every side of the building it seemed, something louder and heavier dropping nearby that couldn't have been a conventional weapon he'd ever felt.
Calvin jolted forward towards the stairs and Alex snapping his weapon up to catch him did nothing more than pierce the fragile doorframe, "Fuck!" he swore as the man threw himself down the last six stairs and fled as Alex bore his rifle down the flight a moment later.
He couldn't follow him not knowing what he had down stairs; all it took was for Calvin to hide behind a doorway with any weapon they'd kept down there for safety or even out of forgetfulness. Alex remembered enough times in which someone had left a 'present' in the toilet of a remnant home, instead he kept his weapon ready and checked outside for what had occurred.
The entire street; all of Georgetown was filled with flashing weapons and explosions, mutants previously at the ascendency fired wildly around them, even upwards into the air, why he wondered? And for a moment was blank until he realised-no, not here; surely they'd not be found here?
A flash of glinting steel flashed in his vision just above street level, he realised it as quickly as the mutants did, that being when the heavy pound bomb detonated in their midst.
Alex tried to wipe the blood free over his eye; holding his sleeve parallel while he held his rifle numbly against the doorway in case Calvin returned, his ears pounded and flushed with blood as the street outside was littered with mutant flesh, torn steel, shattered chassis's and whatever other remnants of the pre-war world that had remained.
This was worth some med-x and more than a few aspirin he agreed with the mutants wailing outside, hearing them through a tin of saturated vault issue 'party chips' it seemed like. It looked to have gotten more than a dozen at least; injured at least three times that number critically and superficially alike, fat legs and thick arms still clutching handles were so numerous that you could come by quote a collection.
It wasn't over by any estimation; not from the sounds near and echoing in the far landscape, horrible weapons that banged with a tremor even to his reduced hearing capability, the street lit up nearby to both sides as the mutants turned their weapons on two oncoming forces.
Where they being flanked both sides by a singular force he wondered, almost amazed, but afraid that it was the black masks and their deadly plasma weapons making another mark on the wastelands.
He sensed the footfall behind him too late-turned with his weapon locked to deliver a butt strike to the waiting chin behind, had his arm caught in a vice grip and used as leverage to toss him like a ragdoll into the bare wall.
That was the second time he'd been tossed around like a limp pretty me up dolls, but he froze quicker this time around as he found an AEP7 laser pistol levelled squarely at his face. Looking up he saw the impersonal visage that accompanied every power suit; black gazing visor and motionless features.
Thankfully this one was his colour and his kind of run down, "Kodiak?" he asked noticing the snarling and now very much extinct beast across his left pauldron, "You're too easy kid" the man admonished seriously, helping Alex up effortlessly and handing his new found weapon back to him.
Kodiak turned to the window and looked over the carnage raging outside as the mutants fought bitterly and hard against the onslaught, with their miniguns spewing and hard heads rushing into oncoming fire as if it was the acidic rains that had soaked the city at the onset of the night.
"You see that out there?" Kodiak asked as he holstered his pistol and heaved up his super sledge, resting it under his chin. "The pride on one side and Talon Company on the other, fighting just for the ability to fight each other, madness really. But the Sentinel wasn't going to sit and let those two slug it out. Better to put a foot in while they were distracted-gives Talon Company time to fret, and the pride time to get inside their positions and dole out some retribution long coming." Kodiak looked over at the small weapon cache and took note of the ammunition available for the other discarded rifle lying at his feet.
The man barely flinched as a bullet shattered the window and grazed his helmet, "Those mutants always forget to aim" he contemptfully razed a gauntleted finger before snatching up the weapon, going to the floor beside to attach the clips to inbuilt magazine sinks at the waist of his power suit.
"You need a magazine you let me know, now let's get outside and in behind those pricks" Briskly Kodiak moved by the door and Alex followed almost like a subordinate, before he remembered just how they were in this mess in the first place.
"Hey wait! Just what took you guys so song? we were expecting you here before the son went down" he half asked half accused, to which Kodiak stopped; bumped him backwards and turned, "Didn't you hear me? Talon Company; about two platoons worth if you understand the old world military speak, coming down on us and the mutants together" Alex did, it meant that anything between one hundred or half that number of Talon Company were pouring over this area, "That big hole out there was created by a vertibird if you didn't already guess, which means we're in the largest engagement the D.C ruins has seen for years" Kodiak gave him space again and approached a window where he'd slammed his bulk against to enter through, "You haven't got the armour on kid so I'll understand if you want to sit this out. But I'm going to give these Talon scum something to smart over. Follow if you want kid." Kodiak was out the door and rushing off into the dark like a radroach after sugar, and Alex couldn't force himself to stay safe power armour or not.
Outside the entire world was different; every piece of rubble and wreckage became a suspicion and threat, every pounding noise a startling revelation of how venerable he remained rushing across the torn up street to the opposing side.
Tucking in behind Kodiak and wiping down his eye Alex noticed that the man gave an 'ok' sign with his sheathed fingers, causing two masses of dull grey steel to form out of the near darkness and rush to their approach.
"What's the news" Kodiak asked without aid of whatever interior transceiver they had use off, as Alex noted both men held weapons fit to turn the mutants to dust, those laser rifles Alex had heard called 'tri-beam disintegrators'.
"Glades notching so many we might just have to buy him a beer for once" Vargas remarked in his distinct sour tone, "The mutants appear low on ammunition and those Talon Company we ran into fled and left their wares behind. Overlord Artemis is bringing up the supplies and marshalling our support for a flanking assault." Kodiak let a gloriously rugged woof free leaving Alex in wonderment as to where he'd heard the sound, before that clobbering hand was up in the air to motion forward for an advance.
They came across the black garbed Talon Company not more than one hundred yards in front who were advancing on the mutants by now retreating force, leading Kodiak to turn and almost cram him inside a doorway before he took a knee himself.
"Give them enough rope to hang themselves with" the man whispered as loud as he dared as Vargas and the third member of the pride slunk across the road behind a dumpster and overturned bus stop, quiet as a mouse as he moved in his bulky suit compared to Vargas Alex knew it had to be Gallows.
One of the men in front of them motioned for others filing in behind him to turn the street and attempt to outflank the mutants, putting his head up away from the immediate back and forth to catch sight of four figures emplaced and staring down at his comrades in full firing superiority.
Vargas as the lead didn't need to give the order and none of them waited for it; Alex himself shooting smartly beyond the immediate target towards a onrushing man that was caught in a mist of his own blood as he tapped the selective fire trigger three times in succession, Kodiak doing the same as Vargas and Gallows sent the first man billowing away into the night sky in the brutally beautiful way only an energy weapon could achieve.
He didn't have their night vision or thermal but Alex fired as well as able; catching men on their armour and out for all that it mattered against the rounds Calvin had provided. He tucked himself away from the fire; wondered if the man was in their ranks before reloading his weapon and realising it was best if he wasn't by the bodies that began to litter the cracked sideways and blast scored roadways.
It was maybe seven bodies on the ground riddled or drifting away before the company men lost their nerve and retreated to relative safety, but Kodiak fixed that by hammering forward and finding an available doorway to smash through and shout for them to get inside.
"Find a window and let's get these bastards" he ordered even to Vargas who didn't let rank get in his way, taking time to throw three magazines to Alex where he'd slipped them behind his waist.
"One man fires the other reloads his weapon, you're up first kid" Vargas ordered as he burst up the stairs as Gallows cracked away the panes of a sweeping window that looked across the depths of the Talon controlled territory, an area not so badly hit as the Brotherhood and mutants had stood and fought.
Alex found himself switching his weapon to fully automatic as he noticed the numbers of the mercenaries clogging the street in a single firing lane which could have been turned to them just as easily. The blitz of his weapon combined with that below unsettled the men and down they went; one-two-three before they knew they were set upon again, one-two-three again as Vargas and Kodiak took their turns.
The kid from vault 101 was as up to his ankles in blood as the brotherhood fighters were after he'd emptied his last clip and took a knee away from the panicked return fire from the Talon fighters, blunted for the moment and retreating behind their lines after more bodies littered the floor that he could count without some time and a good source of light.
"They always run from lasers" Vargas mentioned almost wistfully as he watched the rear guard of the company melt away into the night, "Our armour by design reduces the effects but that same armour you're wearing just loves to cook them in their own juice. It'll teach those bastards to try and mess with the Brotherhood."
Downstairs Kodiak seemed to agree as he hollered again in some maddening version of restrained bloodlust.
"We've swept the deck, now it's time to mop the floor" Vargas said in his own brand dry humour, "We've got probably enough to link up ammo wise, so make sure you stay behind us. Though if you're brave enough to root through packs and pockets you could probably find one of the men out there amenable to handing over some ammo" his suggestion was as morbid as it was practical Alex thought, nothing he wasn't too use to.
Maybe the reality of the carnage he just caused would sink in when he saw the men he'd helped kill-if not annihilate up close, but he'd seen bodies before of the bad men of the wastelands and it never did seem to go towards guilt.
Must be the murderer inside every good wastelander he thought as Vargas led them down and out of the long since stripped house, into the street where the firing down the parallel street had lessened to some intermittent burst fire and the tist! sound of what had to be the prides energy weapons.
When they rearmed their weapons and Alex got ready to carry out his gruesome search Vargas stopped them with an upraised hand, holding it firmly in place while his head cocked strangely for a long drawn moment.
"You hear that" Kodiak asked out loud even if he was privy to the personal comms of the pride, "those motherfuckers" he swore another moment later, adding to the strangeness by Gallows seeming bewilderment as he shook his head.
Vargas stepped forward and began turning the corner with his weapon ready, "Forget the mercs kid, just keep behind us" he tightly ordered as Kodiak and Gallows followed without a word, "What's wrong?" Alex found him unable to stop himself asking, and it was Gallows who stopped his cautious movement forward to say "The Enclave have hacked our local communications, they're threatening to send in a vertibird squad to strafe us with a few mini nukes if we enter the mall." Shocked Alex replied dumbly with a nod and went forward behind the trio, who were hasty in their movement as he'd ever seen them.
"Only a few mutants left" Kodiak observed with Vargas and Gallows branching out to take a different position in the street, and Alex could see faintly the outline of so many hulking frames lying riddled and potch marked with gaping wounds overwhelming the number that were doing the last thing he expected to see, super mutants turning their backs on a battle and retreating over the winding slope towards the mall battleground.
"Glade; Colvin, get up there and thin them out" The sentinel, from the number of steel clad warriors ordered it regardless of the fatalities they all began to wade through, Alex having to step through the bodies while the pride crunched their boots over them carelessly.
"This is the biggest pile of dead mutants I've seen since 65" the oldest of the pride mentioned in passing the wallowing crater filled with dark red slush, directly where the behemoth had fell; now only seen in a ten foot long stripped to the bone arm, and two unmistakeably mutated feet.
"I think that's the funniest thing I've ever seen" Alex couldn't help saying suddenly as he looked at the oversized armoured booties, thinking on the mirth as something James would have described as sociopathic.
"Once you've seen a mutant fall off a five story building; flip twice and then be impaled on a garden fence nothing else really lives up" Kodiak mentioned from where he was rooting through the larger and more armoured corpses, heaving up their miniguns and manually operating the rotors, or chuckling as he found a mutant whose flamer had fallen into bad repair and had ignited him to leave a far too well cooked; supersized iguana-on-a-stick.
"I don't even know how I can laugh, Carron and his team are buried in there" Alex motioned to the building that was now a festering mess of snapped supports and ill leaning steel frames.
"You aren't the first man who laughs after a fire fight, or at inappropriate times" the Sentinel approached him, towering at least a head above in her featureless power armour, "Five dead Brotherhood, hardly seems like it was worth even twice this numbers of muties"
"Four" Alex corrected, suddenly feeling pensive at telling them about Morgan, "Knight Morgan didn't stay the entire fight, she fled before the mutants rocketed Carron's position" Kodiak; Vargas, the Sentinel and the other brotherhood members fanning out around the area turned on him immediately, "What? What do you mean" Vargas asked on the approach, "No Brotherhood member flees the battle, how do you know?"
Feeling defensive Alex put his hands up palm out having shouldered his rifle, "She left during the battle; got hit early on by a missile explosion we thought, just as Paladin Anthony slung the mini nuke. Things got heavy and next thing I know Anthony's going over the side and Morgan's behind us, grabbing for some supplies and out the escape" he explained to an increasingly uncomfortable pride, with Kodiak clenching his thick fists and Vargas likewise. "She grabbed me next-the second time she had tried to actually, started to threaten to kill me if I didn't let her know everything I knew about the enclave-
"The enclave, how did she know about them?" the Sentinel asked by what he imagined were narrowed eyes, "I might have let it slip the first time she tried to attack me, she knows that your father was intending to fight them." The Sentinel shook her head still helmeted before reaching up, depressing the locking system and freeing her sweat soaked face, dropping her helmet she ran a hand through her flat blonde locks.
"Morgan's sister is in the outcasts, the bastards who betrayed us and left D.C" she explained to an already knowing Alex, save for the vehement nature of her usual temperate voice. "I never thought she would just turn tail and run out on her brothers…but I suppose she finally snapped" letting out a long draining breath, Alex realised finally that Morgan wouldn't just be turning mercenary on renegade.
"We can't let Casdin get wind of these enclave bastards" Vargas urgently prodded the Sentinel who seemed at a momentary loss, "What do you suggest?" she asked tiredly, but Vargas wasn't having that, "You know exactly what has to be done Sarah" he used her name Alex was sure for the first time that any of them had in his prescience at least.
"She can't have got that far" Kodiak insisted from where he began to pick at ammo packs and explosive slings with a few more Brotherhood members who'd moved into the massing of mutant dead, who had began to release themselves and throw up a terrible stink Alex found disgustingly, but another member turned his head sharply at the exchange.
"You're talking about killing her? A fellow brother" the voice asked harshly, dropping a few rifles he'd been hauling together towards some unrolled packaging sacks the Brotherhood had brought, "A fellow brother gunned down like some rotter or a slaver?" Vargas turned on the man before the Sentinel could react "What do you think we are Artemis, watch how you speak" the man did not.
"I'll speak as I'm able Vargas, maybe you'll remember that next time I have to clean up behind you in one of these dirty battles" Artemis bitterly replied pulling free his own helmet, allowing Alex to realise he was one of the shallow featured men who has stood to Rufio's defence in the Citadel debate.
"Enough; no fighting between brothers" the Sentinel commanded sternly, not half as able to keep her temper as she'd been minutes ago "I don't want Morgan to die; but I can't just let her betray the enclave prescience to the outcasts. If they hear of it they might just think about trying to ally themselves along with the black masks." Artemis gave a curt nod in apology "What do you suggest Sentinel?" he asked while returning half his attention to gathering up weapons, something the remaining pride members save the Sentinel; Kodiak and Vargas had started to do.
Alex sheepishly joined them as he followed the conversation, rooting through some gruesomely ravaged super mutants; finding a well maintained guard shotgun, two R91's, a manically designed spiked long arm, while the Sentinel resumed some sense of control to the deteriorating situation.
"The enclave managed to drop a passing salvo into the mutants that created a bigger hole that our fat boy's could, and my father gave strict orders not to engage them" she informed them without attempting to filter her bitterness, and not one man would have been happy Alex could guess with certainty.
"We've got to haul these supplies back; find our Brothers bodies or at least their tags, send a team out to find Morgan is we can" Not trekking further into the D.C ruins to help their brothers had to be a slap in the face of each of them there until she continued, "Gallows, Vargas, get yourself down to your undersuits; rearm and get ready to move out." Artemis was about to interject when the Sentinel's raised palm stalled him, "You two are moving into the ruins quietly, you're going to find out what's happened at the monument and make sure you square the information to the Citadel that our communications have been compromised, discreetly."
"What about Morgan?" the most errant of them inquired.
"You'll be going after her with me Artemis, along with Dusk; Glade and Kodiak" The Sentinel said calming Artemis but causing Alex to drop what he was doing, "What about me?" She turned her cool olive eyes on him.
"You've done what you said you'd do; and we're all thankful for that" Despite Carron's team getting decimated anyway "But you'd only slow Gallows and Vargas down; most of the brotherhood can't say any better-
"But I was the one who let Morgan know about the enclave" he protested fiercer than he felt, "I should help track her down. Besides I know the area outside the wastelands-
"You've been out here for a few weeks" she cut in and reminded him, gently if it mattered. "This is brotherhood business, and we can only take care of it by our leave" feeling that it was the end of any consideration Alex felt his energy sapped, aware at how utterly meaningless his efforts-all of them from leaving the vault had been.
He could have been overreacting but he didn't care, all he could think was how his father had gotten so far without; came so close to achieving the noblest thing he could have ever conceived, something that changed the fundamental way in which Alex perceived him, what the wasteland could have been, to die at the hands of some butcher in colonel stripes.
Gunney had been killed along with him; Indri too for all he knew, the bastards didn't leave any alive as he'd seen. It left him a shack in Megaton and a sure to be slow death scratching out a wastelander living or whatever pity the Brotherhood felt on him to leave him some inclusion towards project purity.
To break up his pitiful melancholy a brotherhood knight was required, marching up to them as a slight sliver of steel at first, blotted out shoulder to feet by a man he was hauling with him in obvious protest.
"Brother Petrayas you've found us a friend?" Artemis wryly asked as the man was shuffled forward, very much distressed looking under his harsh wounded skin and heavy brow, he'd once heard it described as how a born ghoul would look.
"Talon company eh?" Artemis continued acting supremely disappointed, turning away. "Execute him" he carelessly ordered with a flippant wave of the hand, causing the knight to pull free a laser pistol at his waist causing the man, while Calvin as it happened to wriggle and squirm.
"Wait-wait! No come on, not with one of those fucking pistols, I heard they burn you up for minutes" he pleaded suddenly aware of his sudden oncoming fate, spotting Alex he went into overdrive "Vault kid, come on don't let these bowl heads do this! I've heard about you on the radio, the good fight and all that shit…please!" Forced down on his knees he was practically sobbing while Pepraya's held his pistol ready.
Artemis turned to the Sentinel with the full amount of humour Alex expected him to be able to manage, "What do you think Sentinel? Let him go out of the kindness of our hearts?" Calvin's eyes met the Sentinel's as she signed his fate with a 'slitting' motion across her own neck.
"No no look! I know things you'll want to know" he protested so manically that Alex thought he might cry, tragic in the fact that it brought not one person here close to feeling even a trace of sympathy for him.
"Like?" was the simple question, causing Calvin to fret and blubber again.
"I know that Talon got a contract to go after the brotherhood at the mall, knock you out of the fight and help clear the way towards the capitol building" Immediately interested the Sentinel approached, and Alex couldn't help but dab his eye that ran again while listening in. "Big money; big big money, two thousand caps per man, every gun in the outer wastelands knows about it" That was alarming Alex could tell.
"Who is the contractor" she asked to what Alex thought was immediately a nothing question, who had those sort of resources.
"Look I can tell you details; men and teams who are coming in to take it up" Calvin offered oh so helpfully, before turning to Alex and levelling his pitiful gaze on him.
"I can tell you everything you want to know about how the companies going to try and wipe you out, maybe let you know how for. And I can definitely tell you vault boy, where your little girlfriend-Indri is, all alive and well, for now."