Things happened quickly for everyone then. Charon dropped his chair back down so fast he nearly fell off of it entirely, and he stood up like a shot, elated. Gallows tilted forward in his own to get a better view and folded his gloved hands on the table, not wanting to miss anything. Durga snapped her head around to look at where Cort had been, an incredulous grin starting to break out on her face before she noticed she wasn't there anymore. And Jeffries-Jeffries was suddenly flat on his back, having his own helmet beaten about his head by Cort, who had gone completely berserk.
"YOU FUCKING POMPOUS, SHIT-EATING BASTARD! DON'T YOU DARE TALK ABOUT HIM THAT WAY!"
Charon practically flew over the table, trying to grab Cort's arms when he got to the other side and yelling at Durga while he smiled crazily. "Drag him away, she'll fucking kill him if we don't get her off!"
"Are you kidding? He's in full armour!" Watching Jeffries land solid punches into both her jaw and side, Durga waited for the kid to go down, boggling when all she did was screech even louder and redouble her assault.
"OH IT'S ON, MOTHERFUCKER!" Transferring the helmet to her right hand and using it as a block for his swings, Cort started darting her left one in and viciously raking all the exposed skin she could get at, spitting out blood from where she had bitten her tongue after the blow to her face. "TRY SHOOTING ME NOW, YOU DICKLESS LITTLE BITCH!"
"Not full enough, she's off her Goddamned nut! Now fucking pull!" Charon wrapped both arms around Cort's midsection and yanked just as she started to go for the Paladin's eyes, the ghoul laughing like a loon as he got her loose, her legs windmilling in the air. Durga had time to lay her hands on Jeffries' pauldrons before he pushed her away and stood up, his face a network of clawmarks and swollen tissue.
"You damned crazy Vault rat, I'll have you shot for this! I don't give a shit who you are, your ass is mi-" He hit the floor again as Cort screamed and whipped his helmet across the room, smartly nailing him in the forehead and knocking him out cold. Grunting contentedly as she watched him hit the floor with a dull clang, she swung her legs and smiled, still dangling from Charon's arms.
"Yeah, well, your ass is grass and I'm the fucking lawnmower." She started squirming, ignoring the blossoming ache in her side, wanting to get down as her mind continued clicking through the strange sort of auto-pilot she had fallen into. I need to get down, let me go, I'm not done, I need to finish killing Jeffries, I'm going to kill and COOK that sonofabi-
"Cort?"
Charon spoke up behind her, directly behind her, and she felt herself snap out of it, followed up quickly by a pure streak of fear. Oh. Right. Oh, shit, shit, God help me. Less than a second later she was being spun around and placed back on her feet, two large hands cradling the sides of her face as the ghoul peered into her eyes intently, searching for something. Cort quailed, not ready or willing for anything to come back yet, wanting to hide in herself again but fully unable to hide from him anymore. "W-wuh-what."
"Oh thank fuck, you're there, I see you."
"You see me? I'm here?"
"Well fuck yes, you jackass, of course I do. You're back." Charon was leaning in, his heart practically soaring out of his chest as he bent his face down to hers. She was there, she could give him purpose again, orders, and he wouldn't have to worry about being directionless again. His relief lasted for about as long as it took Cort to slide out of his hands and hit the floor at his feet, bawling. "Cort?"
Sarah Lyons was pelting down the hall, Vargas and Kodiak close behind her. They had been in the far end of A-Ring, getting ready to move down to the Great Hall for an early planning meeting when they heard a distant, thumping clang and the Vault kid screaming. All three of them had spun around, Vargas swearing.
"Aww shit, Sarah. She woke up crazy."
Looking at him grimly, Sarah started to dog-trot down the hallway, picking up speed when she heard Charon yell about her killing someone. "I think that particular state is standard operating procedure for her." They rounded a corner, and she yelled out herself as armoured and robed bodies started piling out of doorways, rapidly jerking back into them as her voice rang out, overlapped by another scaling, wild scream. "Make a hole!" Getting closer, she could hear more muffled yelling, punctuated by a strange bonging noise as they came in sight of the Great Hall. Tearing into the room the Sentinel and both Paladins skidded to a halt, Sarah only avoiding stomping all over the armoured figure falling to the floor by a set of graceful maneuvers that looked like some kind of strange ballet, Kodiak and Vargas clinging to each other to keep from going down. Getting over the prone man with a queer and nearly uncontrolled little deer hop, she fetched up next to Durga, who was moving her head back from the unconscious lump to the wailing one, gaping like a goldfish watching a tennis match.
Sarah shook her head and took stock as Kodiak and Vargas realized what they were doing and jerked upright, then crouched to the man on the floor, the latter giving her a thumbs up to show he was still breathing. It was one of the Paladins -Jeffries, if she recalled right- out cold on the floor, looking like a miniature Yao Guai had had a full round with his face. There were multiple bleeding scrapes all over it and what looked like one hell of a crop of bruises forming. Cort was piled in a heap on the floor at Charon's feet, crying her eyes out while she clung to the dog. Charon had both hands laced behind his neck as he shifted from foot to foot, and if Sarah had ever wondered how a person would look if they were ecstatic and horrified at the same time, she now had one hell of a mental reference picture courtesy of the ghoul. Turning entirely around, she saw Knight Captain Gallows observing everything like a metal golem, hands neatly folded on the table as he serenely examined the tableau before him. Caught halfway between irritation and amusement at the fact that he was just sitting there, she at least felt relieved that there would be an accurate description of whatever the hell had just went on. Gallows was quiet to the point of being mute, but he missed nothing, and she went straight for him.
"Gallows, what the hell happened in here?"
"Cort took umbrage with Jeffries over a personal difference of opinion."
A uniquely accurate description of what the hell had just went on. Sarah leaned her fists on the tables and beat down the urge to pinch her nose. "Over?" She waited as Gallows timed his reply with one of Cort's exhales, avoiding having to raise his own voice.
"Jeffries was of the opinion that Charon was a person of low value and should have been dragged outside and shot in the head, although he expressed it in more colourful terms." He paused, then decided to keep going. "Cort started coming around when he started to communicate his position, and as a rejoinder, she attacked him with his own helmet. Then Charon pulled her off. Then she knocked him out with it." He paused again and continued, which was practically babbling for him at this point. "It was an excellent display of marksmanship for such an oddly shaped projectile and insufficiently stable footing."
"Thank you, Gallows." Feeling like she had been already awake for the entire day, for the week, she turned to Durga after taking another look at Jeffries. Holy shit, Charon wasn't kidding about her breaking someone's face. She really must be doing...doing that. She gave a little shudder, still not comfortable with the concept. "And you? That sound about right?"
Durga abruptly snapped her mouth shut and straightened. "Ma'am, yes Ma'am. He also insulted the girl personally, Ma'am."
"Did anyone inform him of the special orders pertaining to them?"
"I did Ma'am. He, uh...he kept going." Looking at Lyons' face, Durga decided Jeffries was going to regret his actions in numerous, possibly creatively produced ways.
"Right. That's all for now Durga, I'm sure you've got work ahead of you. Gunny's taking more initiates out for target practice in about thirty minutes, and you'll have cleanup to do almost immediately if they're true to form."
Looking grateful, the little Knight Captain crept out of the room, edging daintily around the three Paladins clustered in the doorway(the first still impersonating a bloody paperweight) and beat feet. "Yes Ma'am, thank you Ma'am!"
Feeling like she was running in circles, Sarah turned around again, looking at Cort this time. The kid was still wailing at more or less top volume, and the ghoul was now crouched beside her, trying to peel her off of the dog and pick her up at the same time. I don't need this this early in the morning. Hell, I don't need it period. I'm happy you're awake, kid, but fuck what a mess. "Vargas, Kodiak, why don't you drag Jeffries down to the clinic. I'll have a word with him later." Watching them haul the man off, she looked back to Charon. "Do you have anything to add?"
"I'm a little busy right now." He had succeeded in removing one of Cort's arms from the dog, and now she had both of them in a stranglehold. Giving up, he sat down next to her and wrapped his own arms around the pair, sighing as he looked up at Sarah. "This is going to take a few minutes."
"I'll bet, so you definitely have time to answer. Now what the fuck happened?"
She wasn't prepared for the brilliant smile that broke out on his ruined face. "What the fuck do you mean what happened, she's back! If I'd known putting her next to some asshole that tried to off her would work that fucking well, I would have done it way before now."
Sararh blinked as the peculiar statement sunk in. "...What?"
The ghoul continued, happily rambling as Cort started winding down into short snuffles and brays. "Not that there's really that many, she usually gets them immediately, she's fucking brutal once she gets going." He paused and looked thoughtful. "That might have been the only one I could've found, actually."
"Wait, what? What the fuck are you talking about?"
Charon looked at her like she was dense. "Jeffries. Assuming you operate in the field like I've seen you do here in terms of ordering shit, he had an initiate try to kill all three of us going up to repair that asswipe DJ's broadcast signal a few months ago." He changed his expression to a sneer as she continued to look blank. "Oh let me guess, those little details weren't included in any of the incident reports you're all so fond of making."
Sarah stared at him, incredulous. "What the hell were you doing for them to have cause to shoot at you?"
He snorted. "Existing? Fuck, they take pot-shots at the Underworld sentry all the fucking time for shits and giggles. She's so tired of it she doesn't even bother to dodge half the time." Charon had spent more than one shift outside with Willow over the years, whenever raiders or mercs or slavers had decided attacking the ghoul city was a profitable venture, one of the few things that would press Ahzrukhal into letting him out of the bar(and then only after everyone had threatened to never patronize it again). The little woman had had to explain to him in detail why they weren't going to shoot back at the tin cans while they were waiting for another wave of idiot smoothskins to assail the Museum, and he hadn't been in a position to pick them off later. "Cort was filthy, coated in blood and other shit, so they mistook her for a ghoul." He thinned his lips. "Being seen with me probably helped with that. Jeffries told her she had to expect that sort of treatment for travelling in my company."
The Sentinel ran a hand over her hair and then spread her arms apart, frustrated. Every time she talked with the big ghoul something else in her neatly delineated world view had a tendency to shift. While the sentient ghouls had been seen as vermin by many, ammunition wasn't supposed to be wasted on anything non-hostile, and shooting at a non-hostile Wastelander was inexcusable. Owyn Lyons had made it their primary mission to protect them, causing the rift that had formed the Outcasts. Father is going to have an absolute fit when he hears about this. "Didn't she say anything before approaching?"
He gave her the same 'are you slow' look again before replying. "She didn't get a chance. We were a good fifty, sixty yards away, and the shithead initiate, Trouse, opened fire without warning." He looked back down and smiled again as his employer transferred both arms to him and crumpled into his chest, settling down into quiet hitching as he stroked her hair. "I'd warn the little fuck wherever he is, if I personally gave a shit. My girl holds a grudge like nobody else."
"I kinda figured that." Sarah turned as she heard someone sneeze, and noticed the doorway was crowded with people, jostling with each for a better view. Oh great, the lookie-loo brigade. If the kid sees that she's liable to go off all over again. "Don't all of you have something else to do? Or do you want me to find you something to do?" Grinning darkly as they scattered, she crouched down next to Cort. "Kid?"
"Go away."
"I'd like to, but there's an awful lot of stuff that more than a few people are going to need to go over with you."
"I don't care." She burrowed her face against the ghoul's chest, shaking her head back and forth.
"Look, kid-" Cort cut her off.
"Charon." The ghoul picked her up in one fluid motion, wrapping her legs around his sides and then cradling her face against his neck as he quickly moved for the door.
"Later, Sarah, okay? Nobody's scattering her marbles again; they've all waited this damned long, they can wait until she's settled out."
Standing up with him, she frowned. "Elder Lyons is going to need to speak with her, as soon as possible."
"And he can, once she's not liable to fly right back off the handle. Ask yourself how far he'd get with her right now." He paused in the hall and shrugged, looking back. "I'll bring her out again when she's ready." He was gone in an instant, the dog following with a flash of feet and tail, and this time Sarah did pinch her nose as Gallows piped up from behind her.
"I bet she'd be impressive with a sniper rifle. We should give her one and see what happens."
"THANK you, Gallows."
Thanks for the reviews folks! I start work tomorrow(12 hour shift, yeeowch), but don't worry, there's some stuff already written up for the next chapter. I usually have at least half a chapter to three finished before I post a new one, so there's always more coming unless I say otherwise. ;)
