Fallout: Fury Blood

Chapter 89: Metal Man

The green hand plucked the clue from the sand, where it had rested near the fringes of red grasses. The green hand rolled the clue over meaty fingers, curious. A fumble, and it was nearly lost through the cracks.

"What did Gnashbone find?"

Turning a shoulder on his prying brother, Gnashbone brought the clue to his nostrils and took in a deep sniff. Human blood.

"Gnashbone keeping secrets!" The accusing outburst from his brother had Gnashbone rearing his way to bare a jaw of teeth.

"Mine! My precious! I found it! Not for Bonegnash!"

Big Brother Bonegnash foamed at the mouth and lumbered at Gnashbone, his height and breadth overshadowing the smaller brother. Spittle launched from his muzzle.

"We are super mutants! We are brothers! We are the future! Gnashbone will share with his brothers or his brothers will eat him!"

Butting heads, the two brothers snarled and snapped at each other for a good display of might before the smaller brother was forced to back down or be quashed by the whole troop barking the alpha on. It was always this way. If he tried to stand up to his big brother, the other brothers would beat him back down and leave him hurting for days.

Sullenly, Gnashbone presented the small clue for all brothers to witness. "Chems for stupid, weak humans. Little blue lady steal our kills. Steal our fun. She go this way, leave trail of trinkets."

The brothers gathered around the empty syringe on show, pushing and shoving to sniff it in turns, latching onto the scent of blood it fostered.

Bonegnash glowered over Gnashbone, the peeling flesh over his teeth tugging back to the flare of his nostrils. "Little blue lady too small for meal. One snack for Bonegnash. No meat left for brothers. Waste time hunting."

"But she kill our meat! Hunts raiders and leaves meat to spoil and rot in sun! Little blue lady must be hunted!"

His mutant brothers let out a spate of consensus. "HUNTED! HUNTED! HUNTED!"

Bonegnash, his dominance under threat, stepped into Gnashbone, blowing hot air from his maw. "Bonegnash said NO! Not want meat of little girl with chems in blood! Want to eat little Gnashbone instead!"

Eat him? Gnashbone glanced around at the other mutants, grunting with their alpha now, their prior consensus all but forgotten. It enraged him. It always did. Bonegnash was a stupid brute, and the only reason the others followed him was because he was the largest and strongest.

An ancient, human memory squeezed through the twisted maze of his mutated brain. What was that saying? It's not the size, it's how you use it...

That was it! It must have been about strength, something Bonegnash used to get his way, all day, every day.

He couldn't take it any more!

Lunging for his bigger brother, Gnashbone threw the syringe and pushed his fist into Bonegnash's pelvis.

"It's not the size, it's how you use it!" he howled into the strike.

As his brother howled back in outrage and bent into the unexpected pain, Gnashbone wrapped green fingers around his bulging throat, barely hearing the goading chants of the brothers over his own screams.