Deacon sat in the top of the church tower, polishing his sunglasses until he heard the door on the roof of the museum open. He quickly put his shades back on and crouched down, making sure there would be no possible way that they would spot him from his vantage point.
He breathed quietly and tried to listen to the conversation on the neighboring rooftop.
"Are you sure you know how to work these things? Just because Nate knew doesn't mean that knowledge is transferred to you-"
"It's not just because Nate was in the army. I know machines and this is just a machine you wear. Do you know all the parts it's made of? Do you know the lifespan of a fusion core? What about the molecular structure of the metal used to make the frame light enough to maneuver in?" A female voice answered. Probably the blue-haired vault dweller. He had seen a set of power armor on the roof near the crashed vertibird. Were they thinking of using it?
These vault dwellers were not typical sheltered people. Too bad the other two had either ran off or died. What interesting new variables they played.
"Fine, I'm sorry. I'll go downstairs and help you from the ground." The man answered and he could hear the door opening and closing once again.
Deacon peered up from the top of the church and watched the woman enter the suit of armor. The inside of the frame looked a little snug for a woman her size, but she managed to fit inside and move the limbs with ease. She ripped the minigun from the vertibird and went straight into action once the raiders on the street spotted her as she walked up to the roof's edge.
He watched, amused, as she let herself fall from the roof, hopefully landing on her feet. The suit made a giant crash as the heavy metal hit the ground, but like all suits of power armor, it protected her from any damage.
He couldn't see what was right in front of the museum, but he assumed from all the yelling and gunshots, an intense battle was going on down below. He could see farther down the street where a few more raiders walked towards the battle, joining in the fight. Not like they could do any good though against a power-armored vault dweller.
He watched as she made her way down the street, gunning down any raider in her way with the minigun, the raider's bodies being torn to shreds by the high-speed bullets pelting into them. Deacon could hear the thuds of her walking in the suit and the high-speed whirring of the minigun in her arms. Until everything stopped. He strained his eyes and could tell that the raiders had all been taken care of, but the bloodshed and the fighting had stopped so abruptly that he felt it just couldn't be over.
A giant thud echoed out from all the streets, similar to the sound of her dropping from the roof, but this time it was lower and had a depth to it that seemed to rattle his nerves. It wasn't the vault dweller that had made the noise.
Another thud rang out and he unconsciously leaned forward, trying to find out its origin. He could see the two vault dwellers in the street, looking around as well. Until, finally, it arrived.
A large metal covering in the street burst open, the thudding noise now the clanging of the heavy iron clambering onto the concrete. A monster larger than a truck climbed out of the hole and let out a roar from deep within its scaly chest.
"Shit," Deacon drew in his breath as he watched the creature exit from below and spot the two vault dwellers in the street. A deathclaw. One of, if not the most, vicious mutated creatures in the wasteland.
It lumbered towards them, its spiny back hunched and it's long arms almost dragging across the concrete. It smelled blood. It leaned down and nudged the body of a raider with its snout, licking at the puddle of blood pooling out of the corpses. Those dwellers could die.
He sighed and rubbed his temples. All of his recon for nothing. What had become small ounces of hope for new allies had turned into a few more victims of the wasteland. He should just get out of there while he could. Maybe even warn those inside somehow about the monster in the street.
He turned to look once again. He had to see what happened next.
The Deathclaw sniffed the air and looked directly at the two in the street. It snarled and licked its teeth with its long tongue. It started walking towards them and picked up its pace, ready to hunt live prey.
He heard the minigun whirring up again and the woman in the power armor actually started to shoot at it! He couldn't believe it! A vault dweller, new to the wasteland, taking on the most fearsome creatures yet. Maybe she was just dumb- it's not like she knew the lethality of the creature.
The rain of bullets coming from the minigun only seemed to anger the beast, even if one or two managed to lodge into its thick scales. It launched itself at her, throwing her back a few feet. The man started to run. A smart move, Deacon thought, as the other dweller didn't have the protection the woman did.
He ran, but it only caught the attention of the Deathclaw who then turned to the moving target, as the woman was struggling to stand in the heavy armor.
"SHIT!" He could hear the man scream, even from where Deacon was hiding on the roof.
The woman managed to catch onto the tail of the beast as it tried to catch the man, slowing it down for a few precious seconds that the man needed in order to escape.
It turned around to claw at the woman, but she had lifted up her minigun from the floor, and with one hand, she held onto the trigger, shredding the high-speed projectiles straight into the deathclaw's face.
It staggered back, screeching and shaking its head, it's vision clearly impaired. It reached again, blindly now, and threw the minigun out from her hands and into a wall seven feet away. She wouldn't have any time to reach it now. She pulled a pistol out from a compartment on her leg but her single shots had no effect as the monster charged into her, pushing her back into the ground. It stepped to the side, accidentally smashing her wooden pipe-pistol into small pieces, beyond repair. She screamed as it clawed into the armor's shoulders, picking her up from her upper body and slamming her back down again onto the pavement.
The power armor could only do so much protection.
It hit her again and again and suddenly one of her arm pieces fell off, exposing the frame. It clawed again at her arm. She must have pulled her arm to her chest to avoid the claws that slipped through the underlying framework since Deacon didn't her scream from agony.
It leaned down and ferociously bit onto the helmet, and the metal starting to bend within its jaws.
Suddenly, the man who had run into the shop next to her for cover lept out, a large double-barrel shotgun in his hands. He aimed at the Deathclaw who was trying to gnaw her face off and shot, the large bang ringing out into the street.
But he had missed. At such a close range, the shell had not exploded right into its face but had careened into the top and side, ripping off one of its horns clean off.
It swiveled towards him and before he even had the chance to raise his arms in protection, it swiped at the man.
The man was actually lucky to not have raised his arms, Deacon recounted. If he had, then the weak flesh and muscles of the arm would have been completely ripped off, either painfully stripping it to the bone, or ripping off the whole limb altogether. He was lucky. Not many survived an attack by a Deathclaw.
What did happen to the unfortunate dweller was his face. His whole face. By slight chance, the man had happened to lean back, anticipating the retaliation. He didn't seem to lose any eyeballs, or at least from what Deacon could tell.
The man was thrown back a couple feet only to land in the dust, face down and writhing on the floor, undoubtedly in incredible pain and shock.
The woman reached for the shotgun and drew it up from below the monster's face, shooting once more into the deathclaw, this time hitting the jackpot. It blew straight through underneath the chin and up into its skull, and parts of brains spurted out of the fractured top.
It collapsed down onto her and she cried out, frantically trying to get out of the bloody mess above her.
Deacon relaxed a bit in his seat, letting go of his tight grip on the ledge that he hadn't noticed until then. Was this what watching pre-war movies were like? Because as sick as he admitted, the whole fight was an incredible scene to watch!
He observed the woman finally free herself from below the beast and run towards the man in the ground, who clutched at his face, still crying out.
She hoisted him onto his feet and carried him back towards the museum entrance, yelling out for the settlers inside to help her.
Deacon started to pack up his small assortment of items into his bag and holstered his pistol he had hoped he didn't need to use against any stray raider... or Deathclaw.
He stood, still crouched, and started descending the spiral staircase from the steeple of the church, ready to find a new place to collect information on the new group of vault dwellers. No matter the answers he would find, he knew that whoever had those two on their side would have an advantage.
ns 15.158.61.5da2
