Fallout: Fury Blood

Chapter 95: I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire

*WARNING*
Gore and violence. Lots of action. And by lots I mean LOTS.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Nightfall.

Kelly scoured the canyon tributaries in a raging tempest before the sun had fallen, searching the waters for a secret passage into the Bleeding Abyssal. It didn't take her long to find it after a red feathered arrow burned across the deepening sky to guide her way. The Red Claws were watching.

She ran after it until she reached a narrow, almost nonexistent path, slipping between hanging vines of poisonous redshade thorns that failed to prick through the material of her vault suit. The vines veiled the entrance to a secluded cave no wider than two of her abreast. There, a water pocket glinted in the dying light.

The swim was callous on her straining body. Her lungs begged for air sooner than she was prepared for, and several times she came close to drowning before rising up to an air pocket that just skimmed the surface beneath the rock, pressing her face to it in search of a precious breath. The ordeal took her back to that pool of oil and blood in the quarry, though the chems had pushed her through that sludge well past the normal limits of the human body.

When she finally breached the surface to a low hanging passage, she was trembling with exhaustion. Any strength she had replenished while waiting atop the canyon had been burned off. Pawing along the rock ceiling to move into the shallow waters, she eventually came to a two foot ledge that lifted her up into the dense darkness of the cave. Even pulling herself out of the water was an effort, her arms frail with weakness and legs struggling to flip her clear of the water.

She ate and drank the water collected from the waterfall, treated herself with a stimpak, but even that failed to perk her up from burn-out.

I can't do this dead on my feet.

I'm going to fail and die.

All of this, the journey, the pain, the horrors, for nothing.

The tide of war will shift. Maxson and the Brotherhood will turn to last resorts. My son and the Institute will gain a foothold. Humans and synths will die on both frontiers.

And Danse will be caught in the middle of it all...

The Jet in her soaked bag called for her like the insidious whisper of a demon. At once, Kelly tried to rebuff the desire, but it was more demanding than ever. She didn't even need Nate's influence to convince her it was her only option left. If she was to storm this outpost like a furious wind from hell, she had no choice. It was do or die.

She clinched the inhaler in her hand, stared at it murderously, and brought it near her mouth. "Fuck it." The inhale was an explosive river of ecstasy, fragmenting through her airways and into her bloodstream with a ravenous velocity. The pure boost of adrenaline awakened every nerve ending into conduits of electricity, vibrating out from her core into every limb. The rush in her head washed her slate clean of burden, sharpening and heightening Kelly's senses to a plane of candescent clarity.

She stood. She walked. Weapons were drawn and loaded on the move, each click of metal loaded leaving her with a growing thirst for the blood each little morsel could conjure. Aptly prepared, she fluttered her fingers as she walked, keeping them flexible for the upcoming gymnastics of death her hands were soon to wield.

Light and sound spilled in from the caverns ahead. Raider roughhousing, the sounds of brawling and fucking. Just as suspected, Kelly squeezed out from under low hanging rocks to spy on the sparring session below in a makeshift dug-out pit. Ringed around the session were a modest amount of spectators, most watching the sparring or the dancers with a leisurely calm while sipping on blood-laced beverages. These scantily clad dancers cavorted to low, seductive drumbeats, moving in an artful way for their acoustic garments to chime in with the music and add subtle touches of treble. They reminded Kelly of oriental belly dancers.