Condor sits with her back against the cold rough stone on the roof letting Jules take watch for the moment. Jules was always a little mysterious, she always has that damn hood, I wonder what her hair looks like she thought to herself just as the dawn’s early indirect light started dancing over the Ash heap. It will be any moment now better get back at it. Grabbing up her binoculars she peered over the roof’s ledge. Just then she saw the armored figure come into sight.
She sat up and grabbed the radio* “Magpie their scout is on approach, get everyone quiet and ready ” Condor barked into the radio she hadn’t been this full of adrenaline since the nuking of Bandit Town.
//// BEGIN ENCRYPTED MESSAGE ////
From: Magpie
To: ALL_VULTURES
Scouts incoming. Shut the fuck up. DON’T BLOW THIS
//// END MESSAGE ////
“Should’ve popped a Calmex before climbing up here”, Jules thought to herself as The Condor took the binoculars back. She was used to long stretches of surveillance but the underboss was radiating a contagious energy that had her nearly vibrating. As long as everyone stayed in their places, as long as the raiders could just be still for a little bit longer, they would have their moment and the tides would turn. She slid back over the crest of the roof and dug into her pack pulling out a syringe. Rolling over onto her back she jabbed it into her thigh and watched the soot swirl above her.
The incoming message from Magpie lit the train car up in a sickly green glow. Ash looked around her at the faces peering at their screens. Sweat was dripping down their faces and leaving streaks in their grease paint. She had never been more thankful that she wore a gas mask. As the grunts finished reading and looked up, she raised her hands to still them. Not a sound, she thought, not a sound. She was not going to die cooped up in a train car with a bunch of smelly kids because they failed, this was not how she was going to go out.
Johnny played Nuka-Tapper on his PA hud, the Coyotes’ mothman next to him causing a gasp of smoke to escape with every flex of his hands. He stifled a groan when the game exited due to the incoming message, he had almost beat his high score. Scouts incoming, excellent, the caravan wouldn’t be that far behind. He ran a systems and inventory check, the mods Wire had installed were all reporting green, he was going to need them if the intel was true and they had robots with them. He booted back into his game and waited to be called to the carnage.
Prince reads the incoming message from Magpie. “Finally” he thinks to himself. Using his keen eyes the Prince peers off into the distance – his vantage point on the hill providing a clear view of the incoming caravan. He smiles menacingly, “Things are about to get real interesting.”
There is a comfort in madness. Somewhere deep inside the shell of mechanical menace the Coyotes called the Mothman, a human mind floated in a haze of chems and insanity. He didn’t know he was human, not when locked in the embrace of smoke and steel that was his armour. No, in here, he was nothing but a piece of floating consciousness, free from the consequences of decision and action, relieved of stress and sin. Here, only the Mothman was real… and the Mothman did not care about sin, guilt, suffering. It cared only about faith, power, and the Divine Light, whose totem was held by the one it knew as Ash.
APPROPRIATE, the Mothman thought, FOR ASH IS WHAT REMAINS WHEN THE DIVINE LIGHT HAS TRULY SHONE.
Snapping from its contemplations, the Mothman turned its head slightly towards this one called “Johnny.” The being was absorbed in some sort of digital amusement on the device on his wrist. The Mothman did not understand. It summoned the Mind.
WHAT IS THIS ONE DOING?
The Mind trembled. Much as he might worship the Mothman, he feared it all the same.
“Biding time, Great One,” he responded in the silence of the void.
WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF BIDING TIME?
“There are many purposes, Light Bringer. Perhaps to soothe his nerves?”
HE SHOULD FIND SOOTHING IN THE LIGHT.
“Not all can do so, Divine One. Too many are ensnared in shadow.”
THEN WE SHOULD CLEANSE THEM.
“No! N..No…remember, this man is allied to the Lady of Ash and Flame. We must trust her judgment.”
I TRUST THE LIGHT ALONE.
“Has she not been a faithful servant of the light? Have we not seen her unleash its burning truth?”
The chaos of madness was silent a moment longer.
YES.
The Mind relaxed slightly.
VERY WELL. WE WILL NOT BRING HIM TO THE LIGHT. THIS TIME.
The Mind, relieved, sunk back into the smoke and nothingness of madness.
The Mothman readied his weapons.
Magpie watches the scouts come and go. She has never needed to sneeze so badly in her entire life. She signals the Vultures to be on alert. The caravan will be here soon. She remains prone, her heart thumping behind her ribs.
Now that the scouts have passed, Teekhup and the heavy gunners behind the hill move into position. They remain out of sight of the approaching caravan, but they stand ready.
Her scope remains trained in the direction of the caravan’s approach. A bead of sweat trickles down her temple. She watches carefully. It seems like hours, but probably less than an hour later every muscle in her body tenses as The front of the caravan appears. She can see the humans, and the robot guards that they were expecting. Good. No… wait… what the fuck??
//// BEGIN ENCRYPTED MESSAGE ////
From: Magpie
To: Condor
Condor, I’m seeing 2 Assaultrons. They were NOT part of the intel we were given! The plan was tight enough as it was. Can we handle them? Do we need to abort?
//// END MESSAGE ////
Condor reads the message just as she she heard Jules let out a quiet “fuck” under her breath. She knew if the Vultures had any chance for a future they needed this
//// BEGIN ENCRYPTED MESSAGE ////
From: Condor
To: Magpie
We don’t have a choice, we need this supply, send whoever you think will be best to handle this new situation, personally I’d use the heavy gunners after Prince hits them with some cryo arrows…
//// END MESSAGE ////
Magpie reads the message from Condor. She understands. The Coyotes need the Vultures, and the Vultures need these weapons. If they let the caravan go through, they’ll all be dead anyway, it’ll just take a bit longer. She shakes her head to clear it. No time to think now, the sentry bot will be triggered soon
//// BEGIN ENCRYPTED MESSAGE ////
From Magpie:
To: ALL_VULTURES
Couple of extra bots in this endeavour, but nothing we can’t handle. Keep yer mouths shut and WAIT FOR THE SIGNAL. You know the plan.
//// END MESSAGE ////
Teek knows that the extra bots will be mainly the responsibility of the heavy gunners, and she relishes the challenge. Hopefully she’ll get to mow down a few organic units too.
The Vultures are getting restless. Menace sweats in his train car. His adrenaline flows, making him jittery, but he is determined to do a good job. He strains his ears, but mostly all he can hear is his own heart thumping in his chest, and the incessant sniffing of one of their crew. It’s getting on his last frayed nerve.
“Dude, shut up sniffing, blow yer nose or something.” he whispers. The offender gives him a shove before dragging a sleeve across his face
“You ain’t my mom, dickhead, mind yer own nose.”
Ash hisses “Shut the fuck up, both of you, pay attention to this fucking raid.”
The caravan begins to draw level with the train cars, and suddenly they are rocked by a series of explosions. The sentry bot has begun firing on them. Magpie can see them momentarily confused, before they begin firing at the bot.
//// BROADCAST MESSAGE ////
//// SNIPERS GO GO GO GO!!! ////
“Show time” Jules nodded at The Condor then braced her rifle on the peak of the roof, and took aim. She exhales and pulls the trigger, sending a rapid fire of railway spikes into the torso of a Mr. Handy. It spins out of control.
The antenna of an eyebot popped into her view and she dumped the rest of her magazine into it, watching the ball of sparks drop to the ground. “It’s a good thing Wire’s not here” she thought to herself. Keeping track of where he is in a mob versus actual hostiles can be a real pain.
The caravan was so heavily focused on the sentry bot that the snipers still had the luxury of being overlooked, but it wouldn’t be long before their positions were discovered.
Jules reloads, listening to the comforting steam whistle of her rifle as the ammo settles, and looks for her next target.
On the hilltop, Magpie takes careful aim at a human guard. She releases her breath, and holds it out. She pulls the trigger. She hits him squarely in the back of his neck. Not quite where she was aiming, but it will do the job. She watches him fall limply to the ground. She smiles to herself, happy with her performance. She shifts slightly and brings her sights around, trying to find another target. It’s difficult to see with the smoke from the sentry bot missiles, but she has seen a few of the guards drop. Time to send in the heavies.
//// BROADCAST MESSAGE ////
//// HEAVIES GO GO GO GO!!! ////
As she watches the Vulture heavies flood onto the field of battle, Magpie notices a weird shimmer. What the fuck? What is that? She looks through her sights. She still can’t really tell. She raises her head to see the battle with her own eyes. Her stomach drops. She knows now what the shimmer was. She scans the crowd and sees that four more Assaultrons have dropped out of stealth. That makes six total. They don’t have the kind of fire power needed. They can’t possibly win. She watches in horror as one of them burns a hole straight through one of the Vulture heavies. The power armour stays standing for a moment, before bending backwards at the waist, and falling into a smouldering heap. Jesus, this is going to be a bloodbath, and not in a fun way.
The heavy gunners advance on the caravan. Teekhup sees an assaultron, takes aim, and unloads a full clip. It falls to its knees, then onto the ground. As she reloads Teek begins to move away, but then she sees that the damned abomination is using its hands to crawl along the ground. She can still hear its laser charging. She shudders and unloads another clip. She doesn’t let go of the trigger until she is sure it has stopped moving. Smoke and confusion are everywhere. She is narrowly missed by a massive fiery beam of red which clips another Vulture on the shoulder. The space where his arm used to be attached is a smouldering hole, black smoke rising, his power armor glowing red at the gap. They’re in this now, they can’t afford to retreat, but she doesn’t like their odds.
Johnny hears the snipers open fire just before he gets the signal from The Condor and smacks the mothman in his chest with the back of his arm.
“Let’s rock and roll!” he shouts as he sprints towards the sound of gunfire, spinning up his gatling laser.
The robots, their attention drawn to the booming footsteps of the heavies, open fire as soon as they clear the building. His gatling finishes spinning up as he sidesteps the incoming fire to plant himself and begins spraying the entire yard with sweeping laser fire of his own.
“Jules baby, I would really appreciate spikes in faces right about now” he says almost like a prayer as he drops to a knee under the heavy fire, just before the AED installed in his suit kicks him back into action. He’s not sure what hurts more, the injury or the reboot. Two assaultrons down, two in the center of the yard, and two god knows where. He reloads and moves further into the fray, past the downed raiders, their armor charred and warped like it was made from flimsy foil instead of reinforced welded steel plating.
He opens fire on the back of another assaultron, turning its attention from the melee fighters and takes a direct hit, downing and rebooting once more. He can’t remember how many of these Wire said he could take but he’s sure it can’t be much more as his HUD is flashing red to warn him of a breach of the integrity of his PA.
A cacophony of lasers and bullets spraying the railyard announced the arrival of the heavy gunners. Jules switches to taking surgical headshots at the assaultrons, hoping to disable their lasers before they are fully charged. She manages to distract one and its weapon is discharged wildly in the air.
Her receiver empty, the assaultron returns its attention, and its fire, to the boots on the ground.
“Shit.”
Not waiting for the after party, Jules pops her psycho, grabs a handful of spikes, and starts reloading.
Condor watches in horror as Vultures are being slaughtered by the surprise assaultrons. “Everybody concentrate your God damn bullets on those assaultrons or we’re dead. See if anyone can cryo them long enough for the heavies to get back up” she barks into her pip-boy
Another Assaultron falls, but that still leaves three. Two more heavy gunners are nothing more than melted scrap and meat on the ground of the Ash Heap. The snipers continue picking off human guards, but the bots are barely tickled by the long range fire.
//// BROADCAST MESSAGE ////
//// ALL IN!!! ALL IN!!! ALL IN!!! ////
Menace uses all his strength to pull the door of the train car open as fast as he can. Vultures pour out of both cars, heading straight for the bots and humans still standing. Menace takes a deep breath, grabs his axe and follows in their wake. They make fairly short work of the remaining humans, but one by one the vultures begin to fall to the bots. Menace sees the back of a protectron and launches himself at it, hacking at its waist. He knows that this is their vulnerable part, he’s been studying hard. The bot’s lasers fire wildly, hitting one of the Brahmin, and another protectron before it falls to the ground. The other protectron turns, and slowly advancing, begins firing on Menace.
Through her sights, Magpie sees one of the Vultures get his head pulled off by a protectron who was allowed to get too close. She sucks air through her teeth. “That’s probably beyond the help of a stimpak.” She turns her sights on the remaining protectrons, knowing that her bullets were most likely to help there. It’s not enough. She knows what she has to do. She signals to Prince to stay put, grabs her Handmade, and runs down the hill behind the heavy gunners. Other snipers follow her lead, adding their automatic rifles to the fight. She concentrates her fire on the last Mr Gutsy still floating. It turns to fire at her. She is hit in the arm, just below her shoulder. She can still fire with the other arm, but her aim is off. Even so, she manages to finish the Mr. Gutsy, but it’s hard to hit anything without hitting her own people. She has to carefully aim each time. Some shrapnel cuts a hole in her scalp, and blood runs down her face. Her left arm swings uselessly at her side. She looks around and sees more dead Vultures. One suit of power armour has fallen sideways, offering decent cover. She hides behind the probably dead Vulture, using her knees to hold the gun while she reloads. She wipes the blood from her forehead. Smoke, blood and ash combine, streaking her face. Blood loss from her arm makes her vision go hazy for a moment, but she shakes her head and is about to get back up when she hears something. The strum of a vertibot. “Jesus, have these fuckers got BoS protection too? Oh well, I guess that’s that then. May as well go out with a bang.” She pokes her head over the wall of armour, and can see the vertibot coming from a distance. Nothing she can do about that, so she aims at one of the remaining assaultrons and opens fire. It turns to her, and runs. She screams. The bot waves twin swords, jagged and shiny, but she manages to jump away, still firing. It drops to the ground. She can hear its laser powering up.
Ash launched herself out the door blazing past Menace with her gauntlet raised, releasing a guttural war cry from her throat. Her blades were sharp and sliced cleanly through the leather armor of a guard who was still too startled from her appearance to react. The surprise doesn’t last long and before his body has hit the ground bullets are flying in their direction. She hopes the kids remember to dodge and weave and to keep their heads down as she serpentines through the chaos to lash out at another target. She manages to knock the rifle from his hand and as she readies to take another swing she’s knocked off balance by a round to her shoulder armor giving the man time to reach down for his weapon. Ash lashes out wildly and catches him across the hamstrings, dropping him.
Bouncing back into a crouch to get her bearings, she spots another with a pistol aiming at a group of the boys working to take out a protectron with baseball bats. She springs and sends her razor sharp blades straight into the woman’s thigh. With the woman no longer a threat, she stops to wipe the blood from her goggles with her sleeve and assess the situation. One robot is down, another will be soon, and the only guards still shooting are behind cover.
“Running close quarters subroutine! Engaging!”
“Oh fuck”
Ash drops flat on her stomach as the assaultron unleashes it’s head laser in their direction, screams echoing as it hits a group of the raiders behind her.
From up on the hill the Prince watches in horror as chaos erupts on the battlefield.
He unleashes arrow after arrow, but the enemies keep advancing.
Magpie signals that she is going down to help with the ground assault.
The Prince nods and launches another arrow into the chest of a mercenary.
He turns his focus to the bots massacring the vultures in the ground. He shoots an arrow at a Mr. Handy but it chinks off the metal plating
“These fuckers are tough! Gonna need a lot more firepower to take them down.”
He rummages through his pack taking out a modified crossbow
The Prince yells “FIRE IN THE HOLE!”
He aims his crossbow at the foot of the Mr. Handy and launches.
The crossbow lands at the foot of the bot. The Prince activates his detonator and the bomb attached to his bolt explodes, sending scraps of the Mr.Handy flying in all directions.
A nearby vulture jumps out of the way just in time landing face-first onto the ground behind a nearby boulder. He looks up the hill at The Prince. The Prince waves apologetically
“Sorry!” He yells down to the raider.
The raider flips him the bird and returns to the battle.
The Prince eyes another group of bots down his crossbow sight – this time being more careful to avoid the nearby raiders.
As the battle continues The Prince begins taking inventory. Plenty of casualties on the field. Most of these raiders wouldn’t even be worth their weight in chems – even if he did have enough to go around. The wounded were too many – far more than he had prepared for. It was inevitable – not everyone was going to make it out of here alive.
For those who did, well …. They’re going to wish they hadn’t if The Prince runs out of his chems
Teekhup watches in horror as the vertibot arrives. Most of the Vultures are in piles on the ground now, but a few remain, shooting and swinging and hacking at assaultrons, and the last of the other robots. Three fighters are hacking at an assaultron, but the bot is cutting them down with her swords. This fight is surely lost. Too late now to even retreat. Teek sees the assaultron take aim, but is too exhausted and slow to react. The beam catches the side of her power armor, scalding her. She crumples to the ground. The Vertibot flies overhead, taking aim at the fight. It begins to open fire. As her world fades to black, Teekhup is shocked to see a face through the windscreen of the Bird. What the fuck? Who is that? She thought they were all unmanned. Before she can relay what she has seen her vision blurs, and fades to black. Time for a nap…
The smoke that floated over the yard obscured Jules vision, she watched for the telltale beams of the assaultrons and unloaded in the direction of their source, hoping she wasn’t hitting any of their own. Bodies littered the ground, power armor fused into contorted shapes. Jules spots a cluster of raiders struggling with another damn assaultron before the killing machine turns its attention toward Teekhup. The sound of a vertibot nears and it’s rotors stir the smoke, blocking her view. She screams in frustration and slides down the roof, vaulting over a fire escape, and heads in the direction she last saw Teek.
The Prince gazed into the sky hearing the whirr of an incoming vertibot. His stomachs drops
“We’re done for” He mutters to himself.
The red flash of an assaultron catches his eye. He turns towards the battle to see Teekhup falling to the ground after taking a direct hit from the bot.
He yells out, “TEEK!”
A feeling of deja vu overwhelms the Condor as her head replays the screams from Big Bend. Had she made the same mistake as the Warlord and lead another band of Vultures to their slaughter for nothing? She thought to herself being snapped back to reality by the distance Prince yelling out for Teek.
What are we waiting for? The Mind asks. Holy One, our allies await!
Outside, the sounds of screams and battle, the smell of ozone and roasting flesh.
The Mothman stood still as stone.
Divine Presence, the Mind implored, please… we must…
THE LIGHT, spoke the Mothman, interrupting, HOW BEAUTIFUL, THE LIGHT…
The Mind stole a glance through their shared perception, saw the brilliant beams from the robots outside. Somewhere in his memory, he knew these things, but the name slipped away into the haze of fear, loathing, worry. The Mothman had to be persuaded, had to move! If he did not, if Ash fell…would the Mind be lost within the Moth forever?
Worshipful One, forget not that the Lady of Ash herself battles beyond. What are these lights compared to her…power?
He felt the pause in the Mothman’s fascination as if it were his own.
THE LADY OF ASH…
Yes! Yes, oh Lord of Shadow and Light, we cannot fail her!
BUT THE LIGHTS…
They are false beacons! They are flames of deception, not cleansing truth!
YOU DO NOT KNOW THIS.
No…but…
The Mind paused. Fear gripped him, ravaged him. Memories of pain, of torment…but what else could be done.
You are the great and powerful Mothman. You must see for yourself, brilliant one. Embrace their Light, and see that it is truly Darkness.
Something tremored inside their shared consciousness.
YES. THIS IS THE WAY.
Bursting from the door, the power armoured Coyote called the Mothman leaps into the fray, a shrill chittering erupting from his jetpack as he slams into the ground beside an active assaultron. The bot turns its terrible gaze towards him, its eye glowing. For a moment, the Mothman seems stunned into immobility…and then the eye fires. A guttural growl sounds as, catching the blast, the Mothman stumbles backwards, dropping to a knee. The smell of frying circuitry and melting steel wafts into the air, and yet the suit seems to take in as much of the blast as power as it does as damage. The lamps in the eyes and on the head begin to glow red, and the Mothman stands.
LIAR! DEFILER! BEARER OF FALSE LIGHT!
The grinding roar of his speakers echo above the din of battle.
FALL, DEMON OF FUTILE FLAME! FALL INTO SHADOW, WHERE YOU BELONG!
The Mothman launches himself at the Assaultron, tearing into the robot with his armoured hands, as the bot returns the attack in kind. Wrenching, tearing screams of steel and wire sound, as the Mothman’s suit billows out plumes of acrid smoke and jets of flame. Inside, the Mind hopes it is enough to buy the Coyotes and their Vulture allies some cover, a chance to fall back. He hopes to survive this…
An uproarious battlecry echoed across the din of desperate combat. A squad of Power Armored figures stomped into view. They all carried heavy weaponry, their masks fashioned to resemble tusked hogs. They were led by a hulk of a man wearing red robot armor, with a distinctive Sentry Bot helmet, who heaved a menacing 50.cal. It was Ivan the Terrible, leading a Vulture Death Squad of War Pigs. The squad lay down an impressive array of heavy firepower. One began shooting rockets above at the Vertibird, the others targeting the robots. Ivan’s voice crackled over the comms.
“Looks like you could use a hand.”
Magpie catches her breath, and then feels the ground shake. “Holy fuck, what now???” She peeks her head over her cover and sees Ivan in his very recognisable set of armour. Reinforcements! “Halle-fuckin-lujah” She watches as one of the War Pigs takes aim at the vertibot. Her gaze shifts to the Bird, and she notices something really peculiar. There are people in there. What the hell? Then she realises that the vertibot is not firing at Vultures, it’s firing at the Assaultrons! All of a sudden her head clears, and she understands that there are vultures in the bird. She shrieks into her comms “CEASE FIRE ON THE VERTIBOT. REPEAT, CEASE FIRE ON THE VERTIBOT. THE VERTIBOT IS A FRIENDLY” She watches in horror as a rocket streaks through the sky, directly at the Bird
Inside the Bird, Wire and Kestrel knew that the fight in the Ash Heap was going south fast, and had decided to speed their way there. When they arrived it was difficult to see what was going on, but they could tell that things had gone very wrong. “Shit, Wire, we gotta help out! Have you got those guns running?” Wire nods, his fingers working furiously at his pip-boy. He knew what was at stake. Kestrel lines up the Vertibot “OPEN FIRE!”
Suddenly the screen of Kestrel’s pip-boy turns red. She looks up in horror at Wire. There is an incoming missile. Her comms crackle to life, and she hears Magpie’s panicked shriek. Too late for that one rocket. She begins trying to take evasive action, but there’s no time. She feels the jolt as the rocket hits the floor of the bird. The craft shakes as if it might come apart. She closes her eyes and waits for the fire to consume her
But it doesn’t. She opens one eye. Something went wrong with the missile. It almost knocked them out of the sky, but it didn’t detonate. Jesus, she is one lucky Vulture. The Bird is falling though, and there’s a hole in the floor. She frantically fiddles with the controls, steadying the craft. She glances over at Wire. He shakes his head. He can’t believe his luck either. “I don’t know why we’re alive, but we need to finish off these assaultrons.” Wire nods. Kestrel brings the bird around again. “Do your thing, Wire!”
Ivan cursed in Ukrainian as he heard the panicked cry to cease fire on the Vertibot. Luckily the War Pig firing had only launched two rockets, one going wide and the other miraculously turning out to be a dud. Thank God for ancient surplus munitions, he thought. He led the War Pigs forward and roared his commands.
“Death Squad, focus fire on those Assaultrons. Push through to the Condor and retrieve the Underboss. Get the Condor behind our lines, I’ll skull-fuck every last one of you if she’s harmed!”
Thankful to not have to tuck and roll out of a falling Vertibot, Wire tries to take control of the ‘Bird’s guns again but there is no response from the controls.
“Fuuuuuck, the missile must have damaged the weapon control system, I’m going to have to do a manual override, can you buy me like, 30 seconds?”
He’s pretty sure Kestrel can’t hear him so he doesn’t wait for an answer before prying the access panel off the dash and chucking it out the door. These birds were made for autonomous flight but lucky for them they didn’t remove any of the equipment found on a normal vertibird, they just covered it all up to save money.
“Ha!” He shouts as the control column is exposed. “Which wire, which wire… ah fuckit.” He grabs the handful that look to be running away from the cockpit and yanks them all out. “Can’t be any different than the Armor Ace shooting gallery, right?” Wire grabs ahold of the control stick and pulls the trigger sending a spray of bullets into the ground around the assaultrons, miraculously also missing the raiders mixed in with them.
“Ha ha muthafuckers.”
Wire compensates for the kick of the manual controls, takes aim, and delivers bullets to their targets.
Ivan the Terrible and the War Pigs marched forward, shell casings flinging from their heavy machine guns as they pushed into the fray, slowly moving towards the Condor’s position. One of the Assaultrons slowed, and the air crackled with power as its head began to glow. Ivan screamed
“Take cover, evasive action!”
But it was too late. A beam of pure energy poured from the robot’s face and slammed into one of the War Pigs, whose Power Armor glowed orange before he slumped to his knees, his armor dripping away in globs of white-hot molten metal. A scream emerged from a flaming skull that burst from the melted helmet and the heavy Raider collapsed
The Prince, seeing the reinforcements, lets out a sigh of relief as Ivan and the War Pigs arrive to provide much needed backup
“Finally, something to finally turn the tides of this battle.”
The Prince hears the alert that the vertibot is on their side just as the dud missile is launched. With the new reinforcements the Prince begins to shift his priority to saving the fallen raiders. He leaps off of the hill and sprints into the battle towards Teekhup’s fallen body.
A wounded mercenary on the ground grabs The Prince’s ankle in an effort to slow him down. The Prince kicks him aside and leaps on top of him. He uses his sharp beak to slit open the throat of the man, and he begins ripping chunks from the body, swallowing them whole as the man screams out while coughing up his own blood.
He wipes the blood off his face letting out a large belch before continuing over to Teekhup. Her power armor is badly damaged, but it seems to have taken the brunt of the assault saving her life. He hears labored breathing coming from the helmet, but otherwise she seems unconscious
“Come on – let’s get you out of here.”
The Prince calls over a nearby raider and the two begin carrying Teekhup to safety up on the hill.
As the last of the Assaultrons fall to the War Pigs and the Vertibird, Magpie checks the wound on her arm. Thankfully the bullet had just nicked her, there’s no shrapnel to remove. It hurts like fuck though. She rummages in her bag for some pain relief. Finding half a bottle of vodka, she takes a swig, and pours some of the rest over her wound. Wincing, she rips some cloth from her t-shirt and ties it around her arm. This is nothing she can’t handle. What’s another scar?
First posted on the Vultures Discord
Words and pictures: The Warlord, The Condor, The Eagle, The Crow, Distant Prince, Teekhup, Special thanks to MEKS and Gamer_Girl of FSM