Chapter 60: Changing the Rules.
It took a few minutes for Seven to recover enough to get back to his feet but while he was resting both Shauna and Timothy were working on the blast door security controls, between the pair of them they managed to rewire it and popped the locks opening the door and no sooner had the massive block of steel began to lift than the noise of what sounded like alarms began to spill out from under it.
"The hostiles are breaching the bunker, all forces prepare to repel invaders, do not let them reach the labs or the launchers, it's got to be the Brotherhood and we cannot let this technology fall into the Brotherhood's hands!" a voice yelled through an intercom.
"Oh fuck here we go again everyone form up, we got some shit coming our way," Seven said checking his weapon.
Both Visa and Ven got into the front row along with Vess and her two daughters, all of them were dressed in Malakai's armour and it was like a scaled wall of anger, "Let's do this my pack! Let's show these Enclave tail holes who WE ARE!" Vess bellowed and the other claws around her bellowed roars that echoed off the walls of the tunnel and into the facility beyond.
The group began to charge down the fairly narrow concrete line tunnel, above them, red lights were swirling around bathing them all in crimson in time with the alarms that were screaming, as they ran Seven began to feel something was strange almost like a tickle in the back of his mind, it was like a voice reaching out to him in the darkness.
"I see you anomaly," a voice said in a very quiet whisper that cut through the alarms like fucking sword and Seven immediately stopped his group dead with a sharp command.
"There's a fucking empath here!" he exclaimed and Visa, Ven and Gregory went on instant alert, "It's it her again, is it number two?" Visa instantly demanded and Seven shook his head.
"No I don't think so, the voice is different and so is the presence, this is someone else and this one spoke to me," Seven said and the others looked confused.
"Who is this number two?" Vess demanded.
"She's like Seven and Wisp, a member of the project that created them and she's very dangerous, she can read minds and steal thoughts," Ven said and Vess looked both worried and appalled.
"This female can see into a person's private heart!?" she exclaimed and Seven nodded.
"So far she's only targeted me because she's working for Professor Chalmers who before you ask is the cunt responsible for me being the way I am, or at least I think so I have no memories other than waking up in that lab and being tortured by her every single day as she tied to understand the depths of my abilities, put it this way if I ever get my way I will put her so far into the ground fossils will be looking down at her, but that's a conversation for another time, right now we need to focus on the task at hand, unfortunately, Wisp is on a mission so we can't rely on her to keep this new empath out of my head, so if I begin to act strangely take me down by whatever means necessary, I will not let my powers be turned against those I love," Seven said defiantly.
Visa's mouth dropped open, "I-I-I could never hurt you my love!" she protested and Seven held up his hand and shook his head.
"I would rather wake up with the hangover from hell every day for the rest of my life than wake up and realised I'd hurt all of you or worse my love, so if it needs to happen just do it, we have no idea if this empath is simply a ride-along or worse so we need to be prepared, though she did call me something odd, she called me anomaly," Seven said.
With that final word said the group turned to press on but before they could Seven heard running feet coming down the corridor towards them, "Looks like things are about to heat up, Seven break out the big girl!" Gregory yelled and Seven grinned.
"I like the way you think my friend, everyone get behind me!" he yelled reaching back behind him to bring the big gun up, in this narrow corridor this thing was going to be devastating.
The Enclave soldiers were packed tightly together as they ran and surprisingly none of them had power armour on, so either the guys that still had suits were either deeper into the facility or all of them were already dead on the surface, so the laser Gatteling gun his zero resistance other than flesh as Seven opened it up on the running soldiers.
The Enclave were so focused on reaching their targets that they had never for a single second imagined them standing still, so when they ran face-first into a wall of laser fire it stalled them as the front row stopped to try to seek cover in the tight corridor and those behind them simply ploughed right into them full force.
Seven's gun was emitting a super high pitched whine as he fired weaving it back and forth so that his shots reached from one wall to the other as he hosed the Enclave troops who had now formed what was rapidly beginning to look like a human pyramid as they crashed into the pile and fell over each other trying to escape the wall of fire from the juiced-up gattling gun.
The laser's burnt right through the unarmored men and women like they were made of paper, the constant red flashes issuing from the gun lit Seven up in a crimson flashing wash that made him look rather demonic in his repurposed Enclave power armour as he began to advance with the claws at his sides providing a bulwark against any potential return fire which their armour easily absorbed, not that there was much as rather rapidly the floor was becoming a carpet of fallen bodies that were full of smoking holes.
Seven was watching the charge from the fusion core that the gun was using and he could see it rapidly falling, the six laser rifles had been turned up for maximum damage so they were pulling an incredible amount of charge from it and nuclear or not it's capacity was still finite, so he braced himself for the dropout.
"Get ready!" Seven yelled and both Visa and Ven dropped into a crouch and no sooner had the gun run dry than the five claws charged past him and into the corridor beyond.
If the remaining Enclave soldiers thought a power armoured man with a laser minigun in the tight corridor was bad then the sight of five very angry armoured claws charging right at them clambering over the bodies of their fallen comrades was worse and the screams began no sooner then the five of them set off on their charge.
"No quarter for murderers!" Lia bellowed and the other claws roared their agreement as they began to cut through the remaining soldiers like hot knives through butter clearing the guards in a matter of seconds.
The five claws were stood in the middle of a huge pile of bodies that were packed tightly into the corridor, all of them were splattered and soaked with blood, the group moved to rejoin them being careful not to tread on the bodies when they could avoid it and that's when Seven heard a soft noise and he turned his head to the right to look down.
There among the pile of the dead a single body moved and Vess also noticed and moved towards it, before Seven could intervene Vess reached down and plucked the body from the pile, it turned out that the survivor was a young male who to Seven's eye could not have been any older than twenty if he was a day.
He was white-skinned with blonde hair and bright blue eyes and from what Seven could see he'd taken a few hits from the Gattling gun by the holes that had been burned through his left shoulder and both of his legs, other than the one arm that he had moved while he had been laid in the pile the young soldier was completely helpless and defenceless.
Vess hoisted the young man up so that she could look right into his eyes and a look of pure fear in his bright blue eyes was obvious for all to see as he came face to face with the massive Alpha Matriarch claw.
He tried to move his body but other than a few spasms he couldn't do anything to free himself, the look of fear on his face turned to pure terror mixed with a kind of forlorn hopelessness, he knew he was going to die here and that there was nothing he could do about it.
"Now you shall taste the righteousness of claw justice for what you and your kind have done to innocent claws and others alike!" Vess snarled right in the face of the young helpless man.
"P-P-Please don't eat me! I-I-I don't want to die! Not for them! I don't even want to be here, I just want to go home!" the man wailed in a very weak and soft voice.
Vess leaned right into his face so that Seven could see her breath washing over his face and blowing his clipped back blonde hair about, "You should have thought about that before you kidnapped and enslaved not to mention tortured and killed innocent claws!" Vess snarled lifting her free left hand so that he got a good look at her long blood-soaked claws, he actually looked like he was about to cry.
"I-I-I don't know anything about any of that I swear! I'm just a soldier, I mean sure I saw the deathclaws in the strange helmets but I had nothing to do with that, I've only just got out of their basic training after they kidnapped me and twenty others from my settlement!" the man yelled and that seemed to stop Vess in her tracks and Seven moved forwards and placed a hand on her arm making her glance at him.
"What do you mean kidnapped?" Vess snarled.
"T-T-They showed up in my settlement about four months ago about twenty of them in that power armour all armed with big flame throwers and gattling guns like that one there, they said they were annexing our settlement in the name of the United States government and that we had a patriotic duty to help them retake our country and that anyone who resisted would be an unpatriotic treasonous traitor and to make a point they killed five people who dared to argue with them, then they said from that point on they would not only execute traitors but their families as well, so I had no choice, I couldn't let them kill my mother and my sister, so I joined them but I never wanted this, any of this, I'm just a farmer, I just want to go home, I never wanted to hurt anyone but I didn't want the people I love to be hurt because of me either, so please please, believe me, I didn't want to kill deathclaws infact I respect them," the man said and Vess cocked her large head.
Seven could see her mulling his words over in her head, "What did you mean by that? Why would you respect claws?" she demanded finally.
"There was a nest of them near my settlement, they lived in an old sawmill and they kept all the Yao guai and other predators away from the area as they were scared shitless of them, we used to leave spare meat we had from hunts and from the cattle farm for them so they would leave us alone and it worked, we had a kind of mutual respect thing, once or twice I think they even left plants for us at that farm, I mean we could never prove it was them but twice we found odd bales of random wild mutfruits and other things had just been piled up and left for us and they never touched our animals so maybe it was like they understood that we would hurt them so they didn't need to hurt us and we always warned travellers who passed through our town where they were so they didn't bother them," the man said.
The man's words seemed to stall Vess's rage in her tracks because he'd just proved that he understood claw respect and this marked him as different in her eyes and Seven could see it, but before she could decide what to do the man continued to speak and he offered her a compromise.
"I-I-i've never met a talking deathclaw before but I'd heard stories about them from other soldiers in the barracks but I always thought that they were just joking trying to make a f-f-fool out of me, p-p-please miss deathclaw d-d-don't k-k-kill me, I-I-I'll do anything you ask just please let me live, I didn't want any of t-t-this, I-I-I just didn't want my family to die," he said and Vess's brow went up and Seven saw her pupils narrow into vertical slit lines.
"Anything you say?" she asked and he nodded weakly.
"A-A-Anything I swear, just please don't kill me," he said.
"Very well then as I am an honourable Alpha matriarch Claw I will offer you one single chance to live human, it is your only option but I will understand if it is intolerable to you, so if you do not take it I promise I will end your life quickly and painlessly as you have already displayed far more honour than I ever would have ever expected from one wearing that uniform and for the honour in both your words and your actions towards my feral brothers and sisters of the pack near your home you have earned that mercy at least, but I need you to understand I cannot simply release you that uniform and all who wear it have committed crimes intolerable to all free sentient beings everywhere, so think carefully young one because the choice I offer you will only come once understand?" she said and she tried to nod but was obviously in a lot of pain from his wounds.
"Y-Y-Yes I understand and I swear I will do anything you ask, I just want to live," he said weakly.
"Very well then, pledge yourself to me as my attendant, you will leave the Enclave and come with us and you will assist us in our noble quest to not only free innocent claws everywhere but also further human and non-human understanding, you will assist us now, you will prove to me and to this group that you do not embody the bigotry and vile ideals that uniform represents, you will serve me and only me and while Seven here is the Alpha of this group along with my beloved niece Visa and I answer to them you will answer to and attend to me and only to me, but in return, you will be well looked after, you will be brought back to health and your every need will be met, you will be protected and cared for on this you have my word because no attendant of mine will ever fear for his life, so what you say you human can you swallow your pride and serve a claw?" she said and Seven's eyes brows very nearly popped off his head as he realised what she'd just done and what she'd just offered him.
"Bear in mind if you take this oath it is for life, claw oaths end in only one of three ways, you get killed, they release you or you die at their side, claws take oaths incredibly seriously if you betray your word to her she will hunt you to the ends of the earth and will not stop until your heart is speared on the tip of her claw so think carefully here because if you take this oath you will be held to it," Seven said.
Vess nodded in agreement, "Quite so, we claws take honour very very seriously a sentient should always be as good as their word" she said.
"I-I-I accept," he said and Vess leaned in close.
"Then swear it on your life because it will be the payment I will take if you betray me," she said.
"I-I-I C-C-Chris Sheridan d-d-do hereby swear with my life as payment to serve as the personal attendant of...err I don't know your name," he said.
"It's Vess," she said and he nodded.
"I swear on my life to serve as the personal attendant of Vess the claw, I will leave the Enclave and I will go with her and I will serve her from this day till the day she releases me or I die, this is my oath and I will be held to it," he said and Vess growled softly.
"Then human called Chris Sheridan I accept your word and your oath and I make one of my own, from this day forward I Vess Alpha Matriarch of the proud Northen pack swear to you that you will be protected under my care, you will learn the ways of claw honour and justice and you will be care for and protected, your every need will be met, this is my oath," she said and with that, she lowered her hand before turning to Malakai.
"Please patch his wounds and strap him to my back so that I may carry him out of here, I need my hands to fight but please make him as comfortable as we can," she said and Malakai glanced at Seven who nodded his consent but before the young Arachnakai body scuttled forwards and began to help he stepped forwards and looked right into the young man's face.
"This is my group, my pack and I care for every single person you see here and I swear this to you if you jeopardise their safety in any way you will answer to me first and trust me when I say this you think she's scary then you haven't seen anything yet" he snarled and the young man nodded in understanding.
Then seven stepped back and let Malakai do his thing as he began to stitch the young man's wounds before he bandaged them in sterile silk wraps before injected him with a couple of stimpacks that the group had brought with them, though these were no ordinary garden variety stimpacks that you could find in pretty much any bathroom cabinet, the were Shauna's own special blend, she'd been making them in her spare time while waiting for work to complete that didn't require her direct attention and they had a fair bit more kick than normal.
"This is the best I can do here but he will need a more specialized hand and bed rest to heal these" Malakai said glancing at Shauna who nodded.
"I will take care of him when we return to the safehouse unless they have better medical tools here," Shauna said.
"W-W-We only just got in this place a day ago but there is a medical bay," Chris said.
"What is this place, Chris?" Seven asked and Chris did a sort of one-shoulder shrug.
"Not sure exactly but I know the creepy fuckers of the science division are properly excited, I overheard one of those creepy fuckers talking and they were saying this place has the potential to change not only the balance of power in the region but the entire country so whatever it is it must be bad," Chris said.
"How many more troops are further inside?' Seven asked and Chris looked around at all the dead bodies of his former comrades.
"Not many all the guards came running when the alarms went off myself included, pretty much all of our power armoured troops were assigned to guard the entrance so if you guys are here you must have cut right through them, so there should be only one squad of elite power armoured rangers left other than the science division who are all down in the labs and the launch bay," Chris said and that really caught their attention.
"What do you mean launch facilities?" Visa asked.
"Well there are two facilities here, one is a silo that I'm guessing has a missile like the nuclear ones they blew up the world with during the war and the other is kinda like a mini hanger with like miniature vertibirds in it but I really didn't get a good look at either, the science division doesn't want the unwashed grunts like me near anything dangerous or sensitive, so as soon as they realised what the rooms were they locked us out, we were just to patrol the corridors and guard the place and prevent the Brotherhood getting inside, then to do any heavy lifting but honestly the scariest part is the chemical lab they got downstairs," Chris said and the group all looked at one another in concern.
"A chemical or bio lab and a launch system, no wonder the Enclave wanted this place so fucking badly, with the facilities to manufacture chemical or bioweapons plus the bases to do it then add on top of that the facilities to possibly move what the make anywhere in the country at a moments notice, yeah this cannot be left in the Enclaves hands they could not just hole little farming settlements like Chris's home to ransom but maybe even the entire country, they could drop all kinds of hell on their enemies like the Brotherhood or even Ghoul settlements" Faith said with a very hard note of both concern and anger in her voice.
"Agreed we need at the very least to remove this place from Enclave's hands but honestly I don't think this place should be in the Brotherhood's hands either and we simply don't have the manpower to hold it indefinitely," Seven said and Faith nodded.
"I agree and while my first instinct would be to suggest that maybe we turn it over to Underworld but I don't want it to be used to enhance the political ambitions of certain power hungry Ghouls we both know as well as it only takes one bad apple and everything we have fought for is back to square one and the last thing we need is to give anyone any more reasons to hate Ghouls" Faith said earnestly.
Seven nodded in full agreement, honestly, he was impressed with the new enlightened attitude she seemed to be displayed since the whole incident with Timothy, she really did seem to be trying to earn not only her place in the group but their trust back as well.
"Alright I think we need to split up here, we cannot risk them using any part of this place plus we still need to find that empath, infact Chris tell me this when your team came in did you see anyone you didn't recognise, maybe a civilian who doesn't look like a soldier?" Seven asked and Kris shook his head.
"No but I think there might be something in the labs, some of the guys who have been near it have reported hearing strange voices but there's never anybody there," Chris said and both Seven and Visa looked at one another.
"The empath?" Visa asked and Seven nodded.
"The empath, she must be in the labs or at least I think it's a she, the voice sounded feminine anyway," Seven said.
"So what's the plan?' Ven asked.
"Alright I'll take Visa, Timothy and Shauna with me and we'll take the labs, Vess, Lia and Lemet you take the medical facilities, Ven you take the rest and take the hangers and watch out for those power armoured tossers" Seven said and everyone nodded.
"Alright let us go! Let's take the fight to these fuckers!" Vess snarled and everyone nodded, Chris quickly gave them all directions and the team split up heading for their designated areas.
Seven and his team quickly found an elevator that took them deeper into the facility, the cab was a bit of a tight fit with both Visa and Shauna not to mention Seven's power armour all crammed inside the elevator cab, but the look on Timothy's face as he was pushed into Shauna's chest he didn't seem to mind too much.
"Be warned anomaly the dark-suited ones are here in their metal suits, they are protecting the scientists and they are expecting you" the strange silky voice said into his mind.
"Sounds like the elites are down in the labs the empath just warned me," Seven said and Visa growled.
I do not like the thought of some unknown woman crawling around in male's head!' she snarled angrily.
Seven reached up and gently stroked his angry claw girl's exposed horns making her look at him, "Well if she is all she's going to see is me trying to peek under your long sexy tail and getting to listen in to all the sneaky little thoughts I have about what I'd do if you lifted and showed me that big sexy bum" he said making Visa growl then purr.
"Wow, you two really don't give a shit do you?" Timothy said and Seven laughed while Visa shot him a scowl for snapping her out of her happy daydream.
"Not even slightly and why the hell should I be, I don't care a single fuck who knows just how much I love my woman and how my desire for her makes me burn up sometimes," he said and Visa growled in response.
"Nor do I, you have no idea how hard it is for me not to simply peel him right out of his tin suit and have my wicked way with him right in front of all of you because this man is mine and I care not who knows how much the merest thought of him makes my loins ache and my heartburn," Visa said proudly with her chest puffed out though it was a little hard to tell under her thick armour.
Shauna looked at Timothy before she hoisted him into the air by the collar and quickly pulled off her helmet and smashed her mouth to his pushing her tongue right into his mouth, "That's more like it sister, let that human know how he makes your heart pound and your loins burn, let him be under no illusions what awaits him after the battle is done that you will celebrate having survived and lived through the battle most naturally and beautifully, that he will be your prize for a job well done and a life well lived" Visa said proudly.
Timothy looked like he was melting as Shauna's tongue explored his mouth and when they parted his whole face was flushed and he was panting hard, "You heard the big claw girl when we beat these fuckers and we have control of this place I am taking you somewhere quiet and I am going to do exactly what I want you so brace yourself my beautiful human because this big green girl is hungry and the only thing that will sate my hunger is the taste of sweet, succulent human flesh a tasty could of inches should do very very nicely" Shauna pured and by the look on Timothy's face he looked like was one single second from steam pouring out of his hears and from down his collar.
"I-I-I well err wow" Timothy stammered and Seven couldn't help but smile under his helmet at the young man as he truly began to realise just how desired he was by his woman.
"Alright, people game faces on it's time to hit these fuckers" Seven said as he glanced up at the progress of the elevator towards the labs.
Shauna placed Timothy back down and Visa glanced at Seven, "Just so you know that when this is over Timothy is not the only human being carried off" she said and Seven chuckled.
"Not if I carry you off first sugar tail and if you're a good girl I might just make your tail tip wind around your horns," he said and by the way she shifted her weight from foot to foot, he'd just sent some rather strong shivers down her spine.
"I really would have thought you'd have learned about taunting claws by now my sexy human" Visa said and Seven laughed out loud.
"It's the highlight of my day," he said and Visa purred.
"Mine too," she said.
"How is your power now Seven is it back yet?" Shauna asked.
"I'll have enough to get us through this, but afterwards I can't say for certain, I'm pretty damn drained," he said.
But before anyone could respond the doors to the elevator opened and the hell-storm came thick and fast, it appeared that the Enclave elites were taking no chances on who was in this elevator, they simply didn't care if they accidentally killed their own people they simply opened fire with four minigun's the second the doors began to open but seven was ready for it.
The bullets that were spraying into the elevator were hitting the invisible wall Seven had thrown up and were stopping dead in the air forming into a large growing ball of metal, that he was holding before them as they moved out into the large open plan laboratory, but Seven knew he couldn't keep this up for long as his skull was already beginning to feel like it was splitting in two.
"Let me help you anomaly, I will carry your pain for you so that you might defeat the evil ones" the feminine voice suddenly said in his mind and like someone had flipped a switch in his skull the ain simply vanished.
Seven felt refreshed like he'd spent a day with Visa in a hot spring spa or something, the pain was completely gone, he glanced up at the four armoured soldiers before him, "You dare shoot at my woman!' he bellowed and with a pulse of force, he sent every bullet they had fired at him right back at them with three times the force that their own guns had put into the shots in the first place.
The result was the four suits looked like they had been blasted by a giant shotgun and they began to spasm and spark as both smoke and what looked like blood began to pour from the plethora of holes in the suits before they just collapsed and began to spasm on the floor.
"Holy fucking shit Seven!" Timothy exclaimed as he looked at the four dead troopers sprawled on the floor in their perforated suits.
"The empath gave me a boost, she somehow blocked the pain off though I'm not looking forwards to the point where she lets go," Seven said.
"How do you function this with the level of pain anomaly, you are far tougher than I ever imagined?" the voice said in his mind again.
"Alright let's sweep and clear this..." but before he could finish his sentence three scientists burst out of a side room all armed with what looked to be pistols and SMG's and began firing at them.
"Visa didn't even hesitate for a second, with a bellowing roar she seemed to flash-forwards so fast none of them realised she'd moved until they all glanced up and saw all three of the scientists all standing there wearing the same look of confusion written all over their faces as they looked down and saw the dark red stains spreading across their lab coats at the chest.
"No one shoots at the one I love and lives to tell the tale" Visa snarled flicking her blood-soaked claws as one after the other the three of them just collapsed and revealed the large wounds Visa's claws had caused as she'd run them through.
"Alright people I think we're clear but let's be sure and then we can see exactly all this fucking fuss is about and we can maybe find our mysterious benefactor who's been helping us," Seven said and the four of them regrouped and began to look around themselves at the place they found themselves in.
What they saw made all of their mouths simply fall open, "W-W-What the hell is this Seven?" Shauna stammered.
"You're asking me? You're the scientist, you tell us" he replied as they all spotted the glass vats that contained green liquid and what looked like creatures but these weren't any creatures they had ever seen before, they varied in size but most were about four feet tall and green-skinned.
They had slender bodies with what appeared to be three long fingers on their hands but their most prevalent features were their massive black oval-shaped eyes and lightbulb shaped head, plus the complete lack of a nose other than two tiny nostrils that sat in the centre of its very flat face and its surprisingly smallmouth, to be fair they looked like aliens to Seven's mind.
"I see you have found my kin anomaly," the feminine voice said inside his head and this time Seven kinda felt like he knew where it was coming from and turned his head to the right, at the end of the row of ten vats there was a metal door and Seven felt drawn towards it.
"Seven? What are you doing?' Visa asked and he shrugged but moved over to the door before pressing the button on the wall next to the door.
With a silent hiss, the door slid open and Seven stepped through only to stop dead in his tracks as he saw what was before him, "Holy shit" he breathed as he was presented with another vat only this one was filled with blue fluid that seemed to have a gas being bubbled through it much like an oxygenator does to a fish tank but it wasn't that that grabbed Seven's attention, it was the creature inside the tank.
Inside it was another of the creatures only this one was very much alive, it was hooked up to all sorts of devices like IV lines that were most likely feeding it nutrients and an oxygen pump that was feeding it breathable air, there even seemed to be electrodes inserted into its muscles to stop them from atrophying but it was the fact that the creature was naked as the day it was born and also blatantly female that really caught Seven's eye.
"Greetings anomaly I must say I have waited a very long time to meet you but I guess only time will tell now to see if my wait has been worthwhile or not," the creature said its large jet black eyes blinking as it regarded him curiously.
"W-Who and what are you?" Seven exclaimed.
"All in good time anomaly now if you would be so kind I would very much like to get out of this accursed prison and I swear this to you if you release me not only will I give you the answers you seek but I will assist you in ensuring that the plans that the evil ones have for this place of pain and death have for this place does not come to pass," the creature said still speaking directly into Seven's mind.
Seven nodded and without a word began searching for a way to release the creature, this was going to be an interesting conversation, to say the least.