Radiance Ch 03

Radiance Chapter 3: The Enemy of my Enemy.

The two groups stood staring at one another for what felt like an eternity but were in reality about thirty seconds, "Errr they're not attacking us, what do we do Wisp?" Seven said in a hiss out the corner of his mouth never taking his eyes of the two gigantic reptiles before him.

They stood about seven and a half feet tall, though one seemed to be slightly taller and broader than the other, the one on the left had dark tan and black coloured scales while the one on the right as lighter bordering on green and brown, the left one had a narrow waist with an absolutely solid-looking stomach and chest, it literally looked like muscle on top of muscle that lead up into huge shoulders.

The shoulders led into very long arms that lead down to its knees on its digitigrade legs and its huge hands were tipped with vicious looking claws that were standing ready to cleave the first person the move in two.

Atop those broad shoulders was a stout and thick neck on top of which sat a very unusual head, it had sharp looking fangs protruding from its maw, two vertically slit golden eyes that were surprisingly expressive for an animal currently showing both a look of confusion and curiosity.

Above these sat two huge curved horns that emerged from the rear of its head and curved around to eye level with fiercely sharp looking points that looked like they had been filed to increase their sharpness.

The second one was slightly smaller though not by much, its legs were thicker especially around the thigh area, her his were much more flared and its waist was pinched giving it a kind of hourglass shape, its stomach was again utterly solid with incredibly prominent abdominal muscles but here's where the major difference came in, it had two swells on its chest that to Seven's eye looked rather like breasts though he couldn't see any sign of any nipples so it was kinda hard to tell.

The shoulders and arms were the same as well long, thick and muscular ending in giant hands tipped with vicious claws which he guessed gave them their rather terrifying names, the creatures head was slightly different from its peer as well its horns rather than simply curl around from the back of its head seemed to go through a spiral on both sides of its head with the tips stopping just at its jawline.

Its eyes were different as well, unlike the other one this one's eyes were bright green though much brighter than the flecks and swirls of green on his scaly hide, more like bright emerald green.

"We are not attacking you because you are not attacking us," the one with the green eyes said in a surprisingly light and feminine voice making Seven's mouth fall open.

"D-D-Did the animal just talk?" he exclaimed before Wisp could clamp a hasty hand over his mouth to prevent him jamming his foot any further into it.

"Who are you calling an animal!!?" the green-eyed one roared so loudly that it echoed down the tunnel.

In the distance, a ghastly howl and groaning rose up behind Seven and Wisp and both the Deathclaws lifted their heads to look over the pair's heads, "What is that?" the yellow-eyed Deathclaw asked in an incredibly deep gravely voice.

"I think your friend woke all the Ghouls for about a mile up," Wisp said her robotic voice sounding annoyed.

"Do not blame me! Blame the idiot human here who cannot tell the difference between an animal and a sentient being! Here's a clue animals don't speak!" the green-eyed Deathclaw snapped huffily.

"Sister," the yellow-eyed Deathclaw said and Wisp glanced at it.

"I beg your pardon?" Wisp asked.

"Sister, you called her my friend, she is not my friend she is my sister, I am Ven and this is Visa" the yellow-eyed Deathclaw clarified.

"Well nice to meet you both but I think we'll have to leave the greetings slash Mexican standoff for a moment as I believe we are about to have a whole lot of really pissed off Ghouls to deal with" Wisp exclaimed turning her back to them to look down the tunnel.

The headlamp in the centre of her face lit up the tunnel ahead and even before they came into view of the light what looked like little red jewels twinkled in the darkness beyond making Seven's heart freeze in his chest, they were ghoul's eyes.

"Oh fuck that's a whole lot of company!" Seven exclaimed as the first of the Ghouls began to reach the edge of Wisp's headlamp light cone.

There was a loud whining noise from Wisp that Seven already recognised as the capacitor for the laser mounted in her head charging up the Visa and Ven moved forwards and were now standing alongside them looking into the cone of light at the oncoming Ghouls, "If you could help us out with the fight here it would be much appreciated, ferals really don't give two shits who or what you are, human, robot, deathclaw, all the same to them, so what do you say to a temporary alliance for the moment?" Wisp said without turning her head.

Both deathclaws looked at her curiously, "Hmmm what do you think sister?" Ven asked in his deep gravelly voice glancing at her.

"I will agree but only if the human apologizes for calling me an animal," she said huffily, obviously she was going to hold on to that one for a while.

"Alright fine I'm sorry ok?" Seven said looking nervously between the Ghouls and the angry deathclaw female.

She folded her long arms over her chest swells and shook her head, "Not good enough! Say it like you mean it!" she said.

"Errr guys? Hate to cut the way of what is obviously going to be some free entertainment here but those Ghouls are getting awfully close and once I fire this laser of mine they are gonna crash on us like a wave of shit! So how about this, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, kill now and Seven apologizes later!" Wisp said sounding rather antsy.

Visa huffed in annoyance, "Fine! But I will collect my apology from you human, count on it!" she growled Seven glanced between her and her brother.

"Don't look at me human, Visa is a claw of her word and I'm not stupid enough to get in her way" he said darkly, Seven tried to swallow the hard lump in his throat, oh boy this was going to be fun.

Wisp couldn't hold it any longer her capacitor had maxed out and all around her head red electricity crackled showing the capacitor was beginning to overcharge, she released it, a sharp red beam lit the whole tunnel briefly as it shot from her head and she panned it left to right quickly before it expended its energy.

The beam cut down the first row of the rotting shambling creatures heading towards them leaving a smoking, glowing gash on everybody it touched, most of them were cloven clean in half by the powerful assaultron laser, some had even been reduced to smoking piles of ash in its wake.

Instantly there was a howl of outrage and the others following behind their now toasted friends charged towards them with reckless abandon, "Here we go!" Wisp yelled and no sooner had she spoken than both deathclaws leapt into action.

They charged forwards kicking and slashing as they went, the rotting desised ghouls that leapt at them were sliced and diced by the deathclaws powerful claws and seven definitely saw how they'd come by that name, those claws of their cut clean through bodies like they were wet tissue paper.

Wisp began firing her head cannon in a single shot mode which basically involved her part charging and releasing quickly, it was nowhere near as powerful as beam mode but it meant she could control the shots and not accidentally hit the death claws in the middle of the scrum of ghouls.

Blood, guts and viscera flew in every direction with every swipe or kick of the death claws, they were like killing machines and Seven watched in utter awe as visa spun on the spot with her arms outstretched and sliced six ghouls utterly in two at the chest, sending a thick spray of dark blood outwards to coat the tunnel walls.

As she finished the spin she noticed the cowering, defenceless human watching her and she merely flicked her head and tail as if to say, 'You like the show human? I'll be getting that apology from you'

Seven felt as useless as a chocolate teapot, he had no weapons to defend either himself or his companion, he was stood at the rear simply watching as Wisp and the two deathclaws massacred the seemingly never-ending crowd of ghouls, he desperately searched around himself for even something as feeble as a pipe with which to defend himself with, but there was nothing in the tunnel save for the gravel that surrounded the old rusted rails and that's when it hit him, of course, the gravel!

As he looked back he could see the two deathclaws were beginning to get overwhelmed, for no matter how many they cut down more simply joined in the fray, it was the same for Wisp, for everyone she shot two more joined, he looked down at his feet again, oh boy this was going to fucking suck big time, but he had to do it.

Seven free of his collar had full control over his gift now, so reaching out his hands to his sides he tried to clear his mind and he focused on what he wanted to achieve, he felt those invisible tentacles reach out from his body to touch all around him and he instantly felt the pain begin to throb and pulse in his skull and the more he exerted the stronger it got, but he had to do this, he had to.

Seconds later he was ready, "Everyone hit the deck!!" Seven yelled at the top of his lungs and both deathclaws and Wisp glanced at him.

"Oh, shit get fucking down!!!" Wisp yelled as she realised what he was going to do before throwing her metallic body to the floor with a crash, both deathclaws looked absolutely stunned but taking their lead from Wisp they threw themselves into sideways dives away from the ghoul brigade and landing nose down in the dirt.

With an almighty roar of effort Seven unleashed and quite literally threw a cloud of gravel down the tunnel at ballistic speed.

The black mass of small stones that he'd been holding in suspension above him shot down the tunnel like a lethal cloud tearing through everything in its path, the ghouls caught in it was not just run through they were utterly torn limb from limb as the small projectile stones blew through them like musket balls, as one the entire crowd just fell apart.

Blood, guts and viscera were utterly everywhere, it was like Seven had just dumped a gigantic bucket of foul-smelling chum right into the centre of the tunnel, there was not a single ghoul left standing, but then nor was seven himself.

The pain tore through his skull with the fury and force of a hurricane forcing him to his knees as he cradled his head in his hands and shirked in pain, "Holy fucking shit that was awesome!!" Wisp exclaimed getting to her feet and dusting herself off, but then she noticed the downed Seven.

"Fuck! Seven? Seven are you ok!? she yelled her metallic feet clanking as she ran across the stones and dropped to his side.

Both the deathclaws raised themselves up and looked around at the scene of utter devastation before both looking at one another in utter confusion, then towards the human and his robotic companion.

Visa was the first to her feet and she stomped over towards the downed human with a mask of fury painted over her face, "What in the name of fuck was that!? How did you do that!? And do you have any idea how dangerous and fucking stupid that was!? You could have killed us all with that little stunt!! Answer me!!" she roared before Ven came up and placed a hand on her shoulder trying to calm her.

"Sister clam yourself, we're alive, they are not, that is a victory," he said his gravelly voice sounding soft, but Visa shrugged him off, she was still in rant mode.

"Answer me human!" she yelled and Wisp snapped her head round to face the angry female deathclaw.

"He can't! Using that ability of his to that level almost cripples him with pain temporarily!" she snapped, her robotic voice echoing down the tunnel.

"Ability? You mean it wasn't a human weapon of some kind?" Visa exclaimed the shock replacing the anger in her voice along with a helping of confusion.

"No not a weapon, an ability, both Seven and I escaped from an airship that was run by the Enclave, a group of megalomanic elitist fucks, they were doing all sorts of nasty fucking genetic experiments on us and on others as well, both myself and seven were in the program, we have no memories of who we were before or what they even did to us to make us this way, or if we even existed before, for all we know they made us on that airship, but that's besides the point, they basically tortured us every single day so I hijacked this body and I escaped and I took Seven here with me," Wisp said angrily.

Suddenly the anger was gone out of Visa's stance, her shoulders slumped forwards but then she rose up again, "Hijacked that body? You mean to tell me you're not actually a robot?" she asked sounding confused and Wisp shook her metallic head making the torch beam zig-zag across the tunnel.

"Not really no, I'm a human, but I'm different," she said with a huff.

"Different how?" Ven asked this time in his gravelly voice.

Wisp sighed heavily, "Each of us in the program has a unique ability, the result of a genetic abnormality they created by exposing us to various things like radiation and strains of something they call FEV, I can't really give you all the details as they were locked away in files that not even I could crack the encryption on, but what I do know is that there were hundreds of us, whittled down to but a handful in various locations scattered around America, there were a total of ten aboard the airship, we don't have names we have numbers, I'm number three and he's number seven," she said.

"But he called you Wisp?" Ven said and Wisp nodded.

"yes because that's a name I chose for myself after I realised what I look like when I leave my flesh and blood body, you see my ability is to become a non-corporeal entity, a being made of nothing more than loosely connected particles suspended in an energy cloud, in that state I can pass through walls or simply fly around, but I can't communicate, but what I can do is interface myself with any electronic device, it's like it becomes a part of me, the only organic one I could interface with was my body which was essentially crippled, you see thanks to all the lovely shit they did to me, I was a quadriplegic, meaning that I was paralysed from the neck down, so I decided to say fuck it, I fucked the retraining collar they put on me to prevent me using the ability when I wanted, broke out turned off the life support to my flesh and blood body to prevent it being used against me and jacked this assaultron, then used it to bust Seven out of his personal little hell" Wisp said.

"Then the cloud of stones......." Visa began and Wisp nodded.

"Was seven's ability, he's telekinetic which means he can influence the world around him just by thinking about it, imagine it like having an army of invisible hands at your beck and call, he can do something as simple as move a pencil around on a table, or something as devastating as what you just saw, pick up a cloud of gravel and throw it at ballistic speed into an oncoming enemy, but for him, there's a price to pay, from what I could understand of the medical record of his I saw its kinda like overexerting a muscle, it tears it and damages it, but then over time it repairs itself stronger allowing it to be used with greater effect, so in short every time he does something like that it's going to make him stronger than before by a little bit, but then there's the price, mind crippling pain, the moment he unleashes it he's effectively temporarily crippling himself like this, so cut him some slack ok? Yeah he can jam his foot royally in his mouth at times, but he just effectively stuck his head into a vat of boiling water to save all of us" Wisp said her voice becoming tender at the end as she gently squeezed the crippled human's shoulder.

Visa huffed and was about to say something in rebuttal but then a leg that had been left standing on its own decided now was the right moment to fall over and she glanced at it and closed her mouth again, that kinda power could not be denied, so instead she settled for making a humph noise before saying "I'll still expect my apology from him when he recovers" in a rumbly voice.

Ven turned to Wisp, "Don't mind my sister she gets grouchy when she can't think of a smart thing to say and add on top of that she's a crazy tail and well yeah" he said before being cuffed over the back of the head with an audible clack of claws on horns.

"For the last time, I am not a fucking crazy tail!" Visa snarled angrily and Ven chuckled.

"See? What did I tell you? Total crazy tail behaviour, hitting her own innocent defenceless brother" he said grinning before dodging the next intended swipe.

Wisp watched all this in utter amazement before shaking her head, no tome to worry about crazy tail Deathclaws right now, they had to get moving and get out of here, so leaning she scooped Seven up into her mechanical arms and stood up.

"Where are you going?" Visa snapped noticing the robot had lifted the now near unconscious human into her arms.

"We're getting out of here, not going to be long before more of those fuckers show up or worse the fucking Enclave, so we're leaving" Wisp replied.

"Oh no, you don't! You're not leaving us behind! I want my apology from him for calling me an animal! Come on Ven we're going too!" Visa snapped and fell in step with Wisp, Ven just looked at the robot and then at his sister and then at the robot again and finally just shrugged with a heavy sigh before falling into step as well.

As they walked Ven began to talk as he obviously didn't like the awkward silence, "I guess that third pod we saw out in the desert belonged to you two then huh? " he asked making Wisp shoot him a curious look.

"Third pod?" she asked and Ven nodded.

"Me and Visa were aboard as well, they had us locked in the pens down by the storage hold, they captured us somewhere near a place the humans call DC, wiped out most of our pack before rounding up the survivors and splitting them up, fortunately, they kept me and Visa together, as much as she's a crazy tail she's still my sister and I love her, plus honestly I don't know what I'd do without her," he said adding the bit at the end when he noticed the glare and the cuff winding up.

Visa chose just to snort instead and looked at Wisp, "My knucklehead of a brother is correct, we were part of a pack of what humans refer to as sentient deathclaws though I will admit to utterly hating that name, I have never killed a sentient that did not wrong me or mine in some way, unlike a lot of their kind who seem to utterly revel in it" Visa growled jerking her head towards the still incoherent seven.

"Yeah we've seen all sorts of them, from utter crazy tails dressed in leathers and spikes and even skulls of their own kind who seem to revel in just murdering for the sake of it, to those who dress in those tin suits they call power armour armed with weapons that can launch projectiles that vaporise everything into dust, then they have the gall to call us Deathclaws, we only kill to defend ourselves or to eat and we only eat creatures not other sentients, all we wanted was the right to exist and to be left alone" Ven growled darkly his sister nodding in agreement.

Wisp couldn't argue with that one, "Yeah I can feel you there, honestly, it's all we want too, just to be left alone to try and scratch out whenever semblance of a life we can in this world, to live a life free of pain and fear as best we can and not to be locked in a cage-like an animal and tortured every day just to see what makes us tick" Wisp said her voice dripping with venom.

Visa let out a huff and glanced at her brother, "It seems we have far more in common than I would have imagined robohuman" she said and Wisp glanced at her.