A/N: Heyo sorry it took me so long to churn this one out life went crazy (car accidents are fun!). I've been really wanting to try my hand at properly writing a scene with a bit of action in it, this is honestly my first proper try in doing so. So if you guys could give me any feedback on how well I'm writing these that would be wonderful good or bad I'd love to hear any helpful feedback!
I hope you guys enjoy this one and stay safe out there.
Give someone a mask and they will show you who they really are.
She couldn't recall where she'd heard that before; maybe it was her father, maybe she read it in a magazine somewhere, or maybe it just came up in one of the overseers' daily grand speeches.
It didn't really matter. All that mattered was the mask she held in her hands, which made her realize whoever had said it was one hundred percent right.
The mask felt leathery and a bit coarse to the touch; it was loosely stitched together on the sides with what looked to be shoestring. The leather itself was a sickly beige with a snarling false mouth and dead grey eyes built into it.
It was fairly easy to slip over one's face if a bit tight, and once worn it made them nearly indistinguishable from your average feral ghoul even to the ferals themselves.
At least Roy said that anyway, and she didn't think he had much reason to deceive her. The prospect made her shake in anticipation; she'd always had a fascination with ghouls ever since she met her first in the form of poor old Gob.
Of course she had a fascination with just about everything in the wastes; mirelurks, yao guai, mole rats, and especially the giant ants that just loved to spit fire.
Out of all of them though Ghouls were the most fascinating… and attractive, it's not like she could help it after all girls had their needs and she had her tastes.
Most people didn't share her fervor for them; however, the pricks hiding in their golden tower, Tenpenny Tower didn't like ghouls very much, especially Roy.
She'd worked for one of the men in charge; Mr. Burke to blow up that little eyesore Megaton. The explosion was payment enough, but the man fancied her and offered her more than a few caps to make it happen.
One explosion later, and all of a sudden, the big man himself, Mr. Tenpenny, offered her a room in the tower. It was tempting indeed. It was a nice room, the perfect place to store all of her goodies, well, besides the robot, but she already disposed of that.
What made it less tempting? It was a tower full of bigots, nearly everyone in it hated ghouls, and she really didn't like wrong opinions. Roy was outside the gate earlier kicking up a fuss, and they paid her to seek him out.
They had intended for her to kill him… instead they worked out a little agreement of their own. He'd help her clear out her living space of pests and he and his little family of ghouls would move in in their stead.
She had intended to just walk in with her shotgun and call it a day. Roy was more devious than that. He wanted to sic a horde of ferals on the tower; she practically jumped with joy at the prospect.
Now she stood in front of the doors to the tower; the ghouls had already breached, and shots and screams could be heard, though a bit muffled by the doors.
She slipped the mask over her head and face; it was a tight fit. Her face felt compressed, like someone had stuck her head in a vice. It held nicely, though, and not even one stray hair on her red head slipped out of it.
It smelled funny, like a dirty old boot left out in the sun, but it didn't bother her much, as she knew the smell of blood would soon drown out all others.
She kicked through the doors with wild ferocity, they shot open, and as they did, the light of the sun outside lit up the dark lightless tower lobby.
Inside was a scene of carnage, multiple ghouls scrambled around the room, each charging at a survivor. Two of the ghouls were currently beating a now long dead corpse, their hands smashed into the now unrecognizable mush of flesh and bone that was once a person's face.
She pulled the axe strapped to her back into her hands before letting out a sadistic, gleeful laugh that echoed throughout the whole room. Nearly everyone, even the ferals, stopped to gaze upon her. She could only imagine how she looked to them: a dark, crooked figure with an axe in hand and the face of a ghoul, laughing as a young child would.
One of the old tenants, one she didn't recognize, wasn't frozen in place like the others. However, he made a mad dash, scrambling to get past her through the open doors to the sunlight outside.
The sunlight was the last thing he saw as her axe cut his head clean off his body, spraying red vicious blood all over both her and the floor beneath them as his body collapsed into a heap.
The screams began again, even louder this time, as the survivors scrambled to get away from her and the ghouls alike. She charged forward much quicker than she imagined anyone expected before planting her axe into another bigot's back.
One body fell and she moved onto the next, a young woman crawling away as a ghoul crawled after her in kind. The ghoul's legs seemed to be disabled and the woman was far too fearful to attempt to use her own for anything besides the paltry defense she made.
She recognized this woman; she was a real stuck-up bitch named Susan, the real high and mighty type who would be more than happy if it was the ghouls being exterminated instead.
The shock on her face brought a smile to Mylie's face though no one could see it beneath the mask; Susan had never expected to be in this situation; to be the one being wiped out, the irony was precious.
Not that she could see it of course. Now all she could see was the axe buried into her face, splitting the pretty little thing apart. She pulled her axe out; the hunk of flesh that used to be Susan. The ghoul crawled on top of her corpse, beating and biting it as though she were still alive.
She charged forward with a scream, some ghouls followed behind her as she began cutting and slashing her way through one person after another, neither man nor woman was spared as nearly every square inch of the lobby was covered in blood.
She didn't know how much time had passed or how many she had cut down before she heard the shots from the floors above. The ghouls responded first, the ones that were still able to sprint scrambled up the stairs in a heated frenzy. She followed closely behind them as they funneled into a small hallway and up some stairs. The ghouls funneled into the hallway like water and she did her best to flow in with them, stepping over the bodies of men, women, and ghouls alike on her way through the ghouls and to the peak of the stairs.
As the crowd eventually came to a standstill, she pushed through the ghouls and saw multiple ferals all piled at the door to the second floor, pounding and slamming their bodies against the door, though it refused to budge.
She could hear panicked voices behind it, some calling for help, others begging for mercy, and some were just the wild frenzied screams of pure and utter panic.
She pushed past the ghouls with force and was even forced to chop through one just to reach the door. Most of the ferals eventually relented, groaning and screaming with their scratchy voices just behind her.
She began to chop at the door with wild abandon, the axe easily began to split apart the old aged wooden door and before long it sported a large hole.
She could see multiple people through the hole inside, some of them screamed in terror when they saw her masked face through the hole while others simply froze in place. All of them except for the old man who rapidly raised his repeater.
She ducked to the left side on pure instinct, pressing her body against the narrow hall wall. A shot rang out and the ghoul that had been just behind her a moment ago sported a new bloody hole in its bony chest and fell backwards into the small horde in the hall.
The ghouls screeched as loudly as their dry raspy throats would allow as they scrambled and clawed their way towards the shooter. The forced their arms, legs, and even their torsos through the small hole she had made, their limbs were crushed and their bones snapped as more and more forced themselves into the hole until finally the door gave in.
She rushed in and merged with the small sea of ghouls as shots and screams rang out throughout the room. She identified the shots in the crowd almost immediately, all coming from the old man who just moments before nearly brought a premature end to her rampage.
She knew this man; she'd heard his annoying rambling on the radio a few times at least when she was able to get a proper signal. He didn't take very well to being called old and threatened that if he were younger he'd 'teach her a thing or two' the first time they'd met.
The way the man shot it was clear he wasn't all clout however, multiple residents stood behind him as though he were a force field and in a way he was. All ghouls that got even remotely close were put out of their misery cleanly with a single shot to the head, sometimes he missed but the man was so lightning fast with that repeater of his that it often hardly mattered.
She sprinted at him along with a small pack of remaining ghouls.
A shot rang out and one of the ghouls to her left went down, but she kept running.
Another shot rang out, this one hit the ghoul to her right, a shot to the neck stopping its sprint in its tracks.
Five feet away, she raised her axe, hoping for metal to meet flesh before another shot rang out.
It didn't happen.
His next shot was rushed; it wasn't a headshot, but the searing pain in her side made it obvious he had hit home. It did nothing to stop her; however, if anything, it just made her angrier. Even with the round in her chest, she closed the distance almost instantly, much to the old man's horror.
Swinging her axe directly at the old man's head, she expected the familiar thunk of flesh, but he was quicker than perhaps even he expected. He narrowly ducked to dodge the blow, scrambling away, trying to line up another shot.
She swung wildly towards the direction he retreated. She knew she had to keep up the pressure; another shot could very well be a death sentence.
The blade of her axe narrowly nicked the man's side, drawing blood and leaving a small gash in his side. He gripped at it grimacing in pain, unable to line up a follow-up shot.
Seeing her opening, she rushed the man, tackling him to the ground in his weakened state. The familiar dull ache formed in her knuckles as her fists began striking his face.
His face quickly turned red after the first blow.
Again.
Now it was turning blue.
And again.
This time a tooth came out.
And again.
He won't be seeing out of that eye again.
Strike after strike and the old man's face was barely more than unrecognizable mush, he was still alive however, sputtering out blood and groans of anguish.
She could hear the screams of the other residents as they were mauled by ghouls. Their defense was now completely gone. She looked down at the mess she made of the old man, his broken battered form just made her angrier and angrier.
This was the old geezer who threatened to show her a thing or two?!
She remembered hearing his stories on Galaxy News Radio, always introduced himself as the great Herbert 'Daring' Dashwood.
The maniacal laughter that escaped from her was beyond control; it was quite the raspy unattractive thing but considering her lack of drinks on hand, she couldn't help it.
"You look very daring today, Mr. Dashwood. I'll admit it'll be a shame not hearing more about that ghoul of yours; Argyle was always my favorite character."
He moaned softly again through his broken and battered teeth, she had to wonder if he was even lucid enough to understand what she was saying.
"All those adventurous stories about you were quite the fun listen while I was out there, you know, fighting, murdering giant ants, blowing up towns, that sort of thing…"
She paced back and forth around his battered form like a crow surrounding dead prey, her hands constantly shook as she held her fire axe tighter and tighter.
"So imagine how disappointed I was when I found out you're not out there, but in here" she laughed even harder "hiding in a tower!"
She stopped pacing and stood over him, each of her feet at his sides as she raised her fire axe over her head, eagerly ready for the killing blow.
"You hid in here with all these bigots, you got old, you got slow, you forgot what it's like to really survive out there, and now…"
She swung her axe down with her full strength. It smashed into what was left of his face, chopping through the skin like butter before embedding itself in the hard ground beneath him.
"Now you're dead, sweetie." She pulled her axe out of the ground and out of what was left of his corpse, it made a sickening squelch as she did.
With the 'daring' Dashwood taken care of, she figured her business was concluded, making her way back down the stairs towards the lobby.
The feral ghouls that remained alive milled about around her as she did, though some continued to pound and beat the already dead bodies of the residents.
She eventually found herself in the lobby once again. There was no shortage of blood to be found on nearly every surface. It didn't take long to notice Roy, who was standing in front of the main elevator, inserting another mag into his Chinese assault rifle with a satisfying click.
He saw her just about as quickly as she saw him. "You ready then, kid?"
"Ready for what?"
He motioned towards the elevator, giving one of the buttons a hard pound as he did.
"Mr. Tenpenny himself still sits on the top floor, I figured we'd evict him personally." Roy's eyes were piercing and hard, he had a smirk that made it obvious he was quite looking forward to this 'eviction'.
She'd been here long enough now that she thought they'd already be long dead, apparently he thought differently.
"You mean our new friends didn't already do it for us?" She imagined she looked as confused as she felt.
The elevator opened and Roy quickly stepped in, holding a hand in front of the door to ensure it wouldn't close.
"Feral ghouls don't know how to work an elevator simpleton, now are you getting in or what?"
She tried to ignore the little jab at her intelligence as she got in the elevator with him. Roy was quite lucky indeed that he was a ghoul.
The both of them were utterly soaked in blood and gore as the elevator slowly progressed to the top floor.
As she glanced at Roy, a smug grin on his face as he twitched and quietly hyped himself up for the coming slaughter, she had felt something she hadn't in a long time—not since her father left at least.
A sense of kinship, a sense of understanding and belonging. She put on a mask and showed her true self, and he was standing there with her; he had her back the whole way. Despite his rudeness, he never once tried to stop her, never once said she was going too far, never once called her a monster.
As the familiar ding of the elevator sounded for both of them to hear and they readied their weapons for slaughter, she wondered if this was what it was like to actually have a friend.