Fallout: Fury Blood

Chapter 147: Homerun!

Contusions of fire burned across Delta Dune.

Clay-Crawler stormed through the distraction, soldiers flurrying to douse flames and evacuate wounded. He was relying on luck alone that the Red Doom hadn’t burned the Minutemen barracks, where Deadskull was.

If he had killed them...

The thought spurred him on.

She swooped high above, terrorizing the night skies. An explosion in the Prydwen’s hull had drawn her in like a moth to flame, relieving the camp for the time being. The raider seized the opportunity with renewed vigor. Most mistook him for any other soldier in power armor, glancing over his clan paint and ornaments in the panic and shadows.

All was black and red. Night and blood. Darkness and fire. Death and rage. On a poetic plain he was riding the dragon, mounting her destruction, invincible in her shadow.

The Minutemen barracks were visible just ahead. Through the fiery glare obscuring his power armor helmet, he levelled his riot shotgun at any movement impeding his progress. Nothing had challenged him once the Red Doom made her appearance. Would he pull the trigger if he had to? Would he kill Brotherhood, Minutemen, and clan members?

All for his destiny?

The soldiers were rushing freed slaves from the tents toward the Brotherhood bunkers for shelter. From the cover of a burning tent Clay-Crawler spotted Hang-Cock, the Ghoul leader, pointing and shouting in his grating voice.

“Hurry it up before that flying bitch brings the whole damn airship down on us! Cait, the fuck are you doing? Forget about the weapons depot, place is one cinder away from lighting all our asses up! Codsworth, stop loitering and do something, would ya? You got limbs, use ‘em to help move the wounded! Piper, sorry doll but gotta pull gender roles here, help Curie with the medical supplies. Dogmeat, you’re a good boy but for fuck sakes, shut up!”

Dogmeat. He would be guarding Deadskull with his life, like Whisper had told him to. Clay-Crawler tuned into his barks from somewhere inside the barracks tent. They hadn’t evacuated Deadskull yet.

Someone bumped into his rear.

“The hell are you doing, soldier!?” The voice belonged to a Brotherhood man in power armor. “If you’re not on evac detail then get your ass up to the forward battlements, we got unidentified bogeys incoming.”

The Red Claws or Dark Bloods? Turning, Clay-Crawler cringed inwardly, knowing the man would peg him.

“Clay-Crawler? The fuck have you been? We sent out search parties for you and everything.”

A vertibird spiralled down to it's combustive doom somewhere inside the camp. A thicket of screams and shouts chased it's demise.

The man clamped a metal hand around Clay-Crawler’s forearm. “Doesn’t matter. Help me with this!”

Momentarily dragged, Clay-Crawler had no choice but to follow the Paladin into the fray of the crash zone, away from the Minutemen. Bodies on fire were stumbling, flailing out from the buckled craft, their shrill cries melding in with the overall delirium of the night. He and the Paladin were charging into the fires when a boom and ungodly groan overhead made all cower down.

The Red Doom was riding the Prydwen’s ass, tilting the airship unnaturally and unsustainably. The strain of metal and crashing structural integrity was the sound of hordes of gods screaming. All eyes shot skyward to watch the battle unfold, slews of fire from the dragon’s maw chasing after strafing vertibirds as machinegun fire, rockets, and gauss rifle fire slammed into her scaled hide. She batted away many projectiles with the armored membranes of her wings, but dark swathes of blood whipped the air where she was struck.