An Arctic Wolf on the Prowl [Under Planning]

Seeing the grenade roll towards him, he had but a single thought in his mind.

Stupid fuck! Run!

Coyote barely got back behind the wall as the grenade went off, the searing shrapnel catching him in the meat of his left thigh. rolling behind cover, the searing pain bringing the hardened veteran to his knees.

"What the fuck, you son of a bitch?! I'm trying to fucking help you, and that's the fucking thanks I get?! I know the combination to the goddamn safe, and you say fucking hello by trying to fucking kill me?! What is your major fucking malfunction?! I'm unarmed and not a fucking threat. In fact, all I want is to fucking move on towards Rivet City. If you don't mind, I'll trade you information for my fucking life. After that, I honestly don't give a shit."

Coyote looked down at his leg... Fuck... I'm losing blood bad... He quickly improvises a tourniquet out of surgical tubing and a screwdriver. Lucky he didn't lose his damn leg, but three pieces of frag caught him in the thigh. He blocked out the pain in his mind and dug the pieces out with his fingers. Definitely impromptu, but what the hell. Beat bleeding to death internally. Quickly pulling a needle and thread, he began sewing his leg back up, hoping the shithead who threw the damn grenade would listen to him...

Alec regained control of himself. He was a Knight Sergeant, a leader of troops, a solid soldier, a man trained in the ways of tact and intellect. His killing desire for Mark was nothing compared to his duty. Alec still had his mission and by god he was going to do it. His head was still swimming from the strikes to the head he had received. As for the rest of his physical condition, when had he last slept? Ate anything? He couldn't recall. Which was generally a sign that it had been too long.

Alec shook his head as an explosion and an erruption of gunfire met Coyote’s unapproved entry. Alec watched the plume of dust fly through the door jamb and the Reapers move out to flush the ex-Brotherhood sniper out of hiding.

Alec looked over at Adan. Adan seemed even more messed up by their condition than he did. When the explosion and gunfire hit, Adan had begun screaming to himself, about himself. It was then that the Knight Sergeant began to worry. He had to get his comrade under control, whether he liked the man or not didn't matter. He was still a Brotherhood soldier, no matter how unsavory or how much of a coward the man was and they were still not in a friendly or safe environment.

“Adan. Stow that shit. Knock it off soldier. You may not believe in yourself or that you have a snowball’s chance in hell of redemption but that doesn’t mean you give in. This will blow over eventually. Hold it together until then and we will talk. I’m not gonna leave you alone in this. You are not the only one who fears they’re losing their mind.”

Alec put a hand on Adan’s shoulder. It was both a reassuring gesture and a way of helping convince his own battered mind that everything around him was still solid and real. He felt some measure of strength and self worth return to him, he could still care for other and do what he thought was helping. It was a good sign.

(Mark's staying in his cell for the time being, so skip me please)

(Skipping Endicott. When you're online, post and I'll edit if need be)

Coyote looks up to see the barrel of an AR-15 at point-blank range.

Aw shit… Well, I guess it’s been a helluva ride…

“And I honestly don't give a shit about you. Where we come from, when someone locks you in a cell, you stay there until someone lets you out. Especially when they're threatening to kill you. But alright then. Let's try this one more time. Where is the armory. Guns. Weapons. Food. That's what we're here for. If I don't like your answer, you get the bullet. If I do, you get the stimpack. And then you get to go right back and sit in your cell until I say you can come out. Deal?”

Coyote sighed, the blood gently oozing from his thigh, the stitching almost done. He’d sewn wounds blindfolded, but now he had to do it with a gun in his face. He quickly sewed the wound shut and then quickly tied it off.

“The combination’s 7-27-6. Third room on the left from the main room. The door’s a timed safe, meaning you’ve got thirty minutes to look in and clear out before it locks for 24 hours. Safe wasn't touched, save by me for my needed ammo. You need it, it’s in the military pack in the main room. As for food, it’s in the kitchen. Main fridge has a bucha shit. Fridge has a two-tumbler padlock on the door…”

Coyote spits tobacco juice on the open wound, then winces in excruciating agony.

“Can you do me a quick favor before you decide? Could you cut the string on my open wound? Don’t want the sumbitch to get infected…”

Just then, the two explosions went off. Someone else was here…

“I know I haven’t given you a single iota of a reason to trust me, but I have a seriously bad feeling that those goons I erased had friends who will likely put bullets in all of us. I know you guys can handle yourselves, but those people out there need all the goddamn help they can get. Tell you what: since I’ve been good to you so far, giving you all the info I got, let me help them stay alive. After that, if you aren’t satisfied, kill me and let them go. I’m just an old war dog with nothing left but my skills with a gun and what little Brotherhood training I had. We got a deal?”

Coyote extends his hand, offered as a handshake. John can see the honesty in his face, hear it in his words, and read it in his body language. He’s not a threat; he’s just a man willing to give his life to keep people far more deserving of it alive.

Alec twisted around on the couch and listened more closely to the explosion. It was hard to do when Adan wouldn’t shut the fuck up like he’d asked. Plaster rained down and dust trickled from the walls and ceiling. Thomnas began looking around and muttering at first, but getting louder as he decided a course of action.

“Shit. . Shit. . . Alec. It was Alec right? You fought with us at GNR. . . You uhh. . . Get your gun. Now. Shit."

It was all Alec needed. First things first though.

That laughing had to go.

The Knight Sergeant sprung across the room and grabbed an ancient roll of duct tape off of a desk. He then ripped the pillow case off of a bed next to the desk. He raced back across the room in a couple of bounding steps and kicked Adan onto his back. He stuck his gloved hand in the man’s mouth and ignored the gurgling wet laughing and cries from the old man. Alec roughly balled up the ripped up pillow case and unceremoniously stuffed the fabric into Adan’s mouth. He pulled the man up by the handle on his chesplate and propped his leg under the crazed man. With both hands he wrapped the tape around and around Adan’s mouth and head. Finally with the laughter muzzled he yanked the man to his feet using the same handle and shoved him across the room onto the bed.

“Shut the fuck up. Lay there and don’t get shot.”

Alec ran into the lobby where his equipment was, just as the first explosion bit into the concrete wall of the police station. Thomnas yelled something about rockets. Alec donned and cleared his helmet and reattached its hoses to his armor. He locked the seal in place and gathered his weapons, slotting his pistol home but keeping his rifle and knife, one in each hand.

Another explosion rocked the building and this time a chunk of heavy plaster broke free and fell near where Banjo and James were sitting. The two rolled out of the way awkwardly with their hands bound. Alec looked to the wall to see that a head sized hole had been punched through it. Alec looked and saw a vast multitude of Super Mutants outside, gathering around the station. Several were armed with the rocket launchers that kept eating away at the thick walls.

“Thomnas, I’m letting the others go and arming them. Shoot them if you want to fight off the mutants by yourself or do the smart thing and let them help. Those mutants are intent on getting in here. It makes no sense to leave warm bodies tied up and ready to be shot to shit.”

As if to punctuate what he had just said, another rocket impacted the wall and a whiffling noise could be heard. Banjo moaned and fell over, blood running from his nose. He sat back up quickly though. Alec turned around and said

“Shit, pressure change.”

Alec ran over to Banjo and cut his bindings first.

“Banjo. Those rockets are fucking with the pressure in here. You need to get out of this room or you will be killed by it. Go down. Down to the basement. Let Mark out, he’s a murderer but I cannot allow him to just wait to be killed by these mutants. Then find the entry to the sewers in the old plumbing chaseway under the building. It’s listed on the blueprints of the building over there on the wall, apparently right before the war, this place was state of the art and had just been built or something. Doesn’t matter. You just need to go.”

Banjo stood and ran over to his weapon while Alec cut James lose, Banjo threw James’ weapons back to him and made for the basement door out of the room they were in. At this moment, Calhoun, Winters and Whitehall burst through the door into the room. Another explosion went off and more chunks of concrete rained around them. The fist sized hole had become several times larger and it was clear to the new comers what was going on.
The already damaged double doors splintered and blew inward into the building as a rocket impacted there. Alec watched Thomnas spool up his gun and fire into the plume of dust billowing in the entryway. His bullets found their targets and he was rewarded with several cries of pain and rage. Super Mutants ignored the lead death being spat at them and three ducked into the room, only to be ripped apart in a grisly spray of blood and gore. More pushed past them, inadvertently kicking severed limbs and ruined corpses around and trampling the bodies to offal. Alec joined his fire with Thomnas’ and others joined in as well.
Another rocket finally brought the wall down and the full scope of the attack was revealed to them. A massive force of Super Mutants was gathering outside, clearly more than a hundred hulking freaks had converged on their locale. Adan’s screams where heard through his gag and Alec turned to see his eyes almost completely filled with red and blood streaming down his face from his nose. Several blood vessels had burst and the blood in from his nose was indicative of pressures exerted on his head.

“Fuck! Someone throw his ass out of here. Downstairs, put him downstairs! The pressure is killing him; it’s getting worse each time a rocket hits. The next one will pulp him if he isn’t moved.”
James and Calhoun removed themselves from the firing line and dragged the man to his feet. Adan was pushed towards the stairs leading to the basement. James led the older man down and Calhoun returned to add his bullets to theirs.
Alec looked through the hole in the wall in time to see the first wave of Mutants trying to crawl in. a grenade flew past him, from one of the Reapers, and landed in their midst. A crumpled WHUMP sounded and a fan of extremities took flight. So far they had maybe killed ten of the beasts and more were still coming. Alec knew they would die if they didn’t leave soon. He yelled over the gunfire, his audio emitters turned to their highest setting.

“We need to escape through the sewers under this building. Banjo is already on his way there. But we can’t risk them following us when we do it. We need to bring this building down on top of them when we escape! The blueprints are on the wall over there. Some grand opening shit, I don’t know. The support stanchions are outlined in red. There are eight. Rig those and the weight of the upper floors will bring down the house in a big way.”

Alec felt certain his plan would work, especially after all the ordnance the Reapers had liberated from the armory; he just needed the others to listen to him and enact it. He hoped they would listen. If not, they were fucked. As if to prove his point, the next wave of Mutants came on in earnest.

Mark had been calmly sitting on the cell bed, peacefully day-dreaming about the time he head carefully cut the skin away from a man's chest, so he could see a living body actually work. The ribs were sort of in the way, and he only lasted a bout half a minute before he died, but for those thirty seconds, Mark had actually seen a beating heart, lungs pumping air and muscles contracting and relaxing as the test-subject had writhed ineffectually in his restraints.

His peaceful reminiscence was interrupted by a series of explosions erupting from upstairs. Mark stood up, curious and walked silently to the stairs. He did not climb them, but listened carefully. He could hear more thumps of explosives, outside of the police station Mark decided. He could also hear Coyote cursing and a metallic voice warning him. So the idiot had gotten himself caught. Mark had not known the Reapers for long, but he knew that Coyote was a dead man.

Another explosion rocked the building, showering Mark in dust and making him turn towards the sound sharply. He smiled coldly. The building was under attack. Another huge cascade of dust showered onto the doctor as a second projectile smacked into the building. Then a third. Mark decided it had to be Super Mutants, no-one else in the area he knew of could have that many missile launchers. He retreated slightly, and took a seat at the table in the middle of the room.

James and Banjo suddenly came down the stairs, leading a blood-soaked Adan. Mark raised an eyebrow quizzically.

"Who taped his head? Never mind, lay him down here. Go and get my satchel please, James."

James simply walked away without saying a word, but after a few seconds, Mark's satchel landed at the bottom of the stairs with a thump. Mark went to collect it, and was mildly surprised to find his Plasma Defender inside. He slipped it into it's holster, and placed his satchel on the desk. He used a scalpel to carefully cut at the tape, then peeled it off of Adan's mouth. He used water and a towel from the linen closet to wash away the dried blood, then made Adan keep the bloodied towel in case he started to bleed again. The old knight was in a strange mood, "perhaps the old fool's mind has finally snapped" Mark though sourly. He decided that Adan would be alright for the time being, he left the remain of the bottle of water next to him, told him to sip it regularly, and crept carefully up the stairs.

The large yellow corpses piling up by the door proved that Mark's assumption was correct. Coyote was scooting his way towards the stairs as quickly as he could, obviously he had injured his leg. Mark stepped forwards quickly and grabbed Coyote under the arms.

"I will require your assistance" Mark said through gritted teeth as he dragged the soldier down the stairs. His arms were almost numb by the time he reached the bottom. Mark grabbed a chair and placed it a metre or so back from the stairway. He helped Coyote to sit on it, then gave the man his Plasma Defender.

"Watch the stairway, would you Coyote? Like a good dog" Mark's face remained blank as he knelt down to examine hiss injury. He had already sewed it shut, and Mark didn't like the man enough to check the leg properly. If he missed some shrapnel, it was his own fault.

Mark returned to the table to monitor Adan.

"Adan? Can you hear me Adan? How do you feel?"

The world seemed a crimson red now. The tape might've muted Adan's disturbing laughter, but on the inside he was still laughing; still smiling. But what did he find so hilarious, so worthy of a passionate fit of laughter such as this? Truthfully, even he doesn't know. The pressure from the explosions outside bursts the veins in his left eye and red sticky blood dripping down his forehead (which had been hit by debris) was clouding his vision. Another explosion, another burst vein. Internal ruptures were occurring due to the pressure, and eventually his left ear drum burst like a balloon. But his right ear... it rang like continuous church bell, and his headache felt like a chainsaw slicing through his central cortex.

James and Banjo came to his rescue, it seemed. Although he tried to thank them, his breath was sacred and something to be spared. The journey down the stairs felt surreal, like something from a bad LSD trip. Adan's schizophrenia had been dormant and mild for a long while now, but the overpressure and stress was bring it on. James' face looked like a myriad of spiraling psychedelic patterns and Adan felt like he was split in half; one half traveling upward and the other half traveling downward. Once he reached the bottom, he seemed to believe himself to be within a TV advertisement (although he'd only ever read about them in books). It was an odd feeling, depersonalisation on a massive scale.

Who'd of thought his healer would be Mark. Adan felt angry; enraged, but he didn't have the strength to throttle him right now. Adan saw his gun be tossed down the stairs as one of the Reapers followed on from James and Banjo and Adan clutched it tightly. The Devil spoke to him.

'Adan? Can you hear me Adan? How do you feel?' he mumbled, although it repeated itself in Adan's head like a demonic chant

With a huge intake of breath beforehand, Adan spoke: 'I can.. barely hear you.........'

Mark's face was cold, even though Adan appeared visibly weaker than normal

'How... how do I feel..? I feel *intake of breath*.. just fucking great, you fucking psycho... I treated you like a.. *laughing fit*'

Mark grinned with an evil grin, almost as if he liked the fact that Adan was insulting someone for once. Adan grinned too, laughing gleefully with all his might and strength. The multicoloured slug telephone box was laughing too, as was the tequila berserker in the corner. Adan found it odd that Mark didn't laugh.