Radiance

Radiance Chapter Four: Ok Boomer.

Ven Silently opened the door at the top of the stairs and poked his head out, "What do you see brother?" Visa hissed from the rear of the line swishing her long tail back and forth accidentally swatting Seven around the head till he ducked the next couple of swishes, she merely glanced back at him and gave him a somewhat evil grin.

"Looks clear but the smell of gun powder is far stronger up here so we need to be very cautious, it is also still light out," Ven said.

"Then we should wait untill it gets dark, one let alone two of our kind are going to stick out like sore tails trying to move through a human encampment in the middle of the day," Visa said and there were nods of agreement all round, so silently as he could Ven close and resecured the door leading to the surface.

The group retreated down the stairs and began going through the shelves again to see if there was anything they could use that they may have missed on their preliminary search, unfortunately, they found nothing of any use to them in the long run, but they did find some things they could use to bed down for a while, at least till it got dark.

"Do you think the Enclave have entered the tunnels yet?" Seven asked sitting back on a small pile of near destroyed old clothing that he'd found to make a kind of seat.

"I'd be surprised if they haven't but the sheer length of the tunnel and the presence of the dead ghouls will give them pause for thought," Wisp said and then that's when Seven had an idea.

"Hey wisp you said you can become non-corporeal when you leave your body right?" he said looking at the Assaultron who was now sat between the two Deathclaws opposite him, Visa was still sticking quite close to him despite there being no immediate danger, seems she did take these honour bonds very seriously indeed.

"That's right, so?" she asked curiously.

"Well if you left that assaultron do you think you'd be able to scout on ahead for us? I mean if you're non-corporeal anything up there couldn't really hurt you right?" he said and the assualtron scratched its metal chin in a very human gesture.

"Actually your right about that, well save for high levels of rads or a strong EM field both of which could disrupt my bonding, but yeah I could do that, good idea Seven, not just a pretty face who can throw tunnels at people after all," she said and with that, the assualtron seemed to utterly power down and go limp.

A moment later a little white cloud poured out of the gaps in the metal and floated around the room, every set of eyes tracked her in disbelief, she literally looked like a miniature cloud you'd see in the sky, fluffy and white, 'Simply incredible! I would have never imagined such a creature to exist!" Visa exclaimed obviously resisting the urge to swipe a claw through the fluffy white cloud floating silently next to her, then with a surprising burst of speed Wisp shot upwards into a vent and was gone leaving Seven alone with the deathclaw siblings.

"So Seven tell us about yourself, we told you of our history so please do us the same courtesy," Ven said looking at him intently while his sister nodded to his right.

"Well umm I don't know what there is to say really, I guess Wisp filled you in on us being from the skyship too right?" Seven said looking between them.

The two deathclaws nodded in unison, "Well honestly I don't remember anything before waking up there, if that is due to me being made by the Enclave or simply because they erased my memories I cannot say, but what I do know is I never intend to go back, I will die first, as brief and as scary as this freedom has been it is still far preferable to life there, at least here I am not tortured or abused on a daily basis" Seven said and the deathclaws nodded again.

"Indeed I believe I speak for my brother as well when I say we feel the same way, we will die free rather than return to being slaves awaiting a fate worse than death at their hands," Visa said and ven nodded his full agreement.

"What did they want with you guys anyway do you know?" Seven asked curiously.

"We do not know the full extent only bits and pieces we overheard in passing but we believe their final goal was to turn us into some form of utterly obedient and possibly mindless shock troops that they could use in an assault role, sending us in ahead of their troops to massacre those they deem enemies, though in reality I'd far rather join with their so-called enemies whoever they may be and massacre them instead" Ven snarled and his sister nodded.

"Tell us what did they do to you up there?" Visa asked curiously.

"Well I was under the charge of a fucking sadist called Doctor Rebecca Chalmers, she seemed to utterly revel in causing me any kind of pain, she was utterly obsessed with finding out the extent of my ability and pushing it beyond every limit she discovered, for instance shooting at me with any projectile weapon she could lay her hands on and making me stop the projectiles, but hearing what you've just said I have no doubt that we were destined for the same fate as you guys in the end," Seven said bitterly.

Visa and Ven looked at one another both obviously sensing something of a kindred spirit in him, "We sympathise Seven, they too liked to experiment on us, seeing just what it was our hides could take before being pierced, seeing what were more resistant to energy, radiation or flame, they did terrible things to us both" Visa said quietly and Seven felt an odd compulsion and before he knew it had happened he realised he'd reached out and laid a hand on the big female deathclaw's massive hand.

She seemed both shocked and surprised by this gesture but she didn't pull her hand away immediately, simply sat looking at it in astonishment, meanwhile, Seven was surprised by how soft her scales actually felt, for something that could punch through armour they were surprisingly soft and warm, maybe they had a way of hardening them before combat, "You have my sympathies guys, trust me I know how it feels to be a lab rat" he said.

Eventually, Visa's senses caught up with her surprise and she pulled her hand away and cradled it as if he'd hit it with a hammer or something, "I am no rat! I am a proud claw!" she snorted.

"Sorry I meant no offence and it's a human expression, it means test subject basically against your will" Seven clarified apologetically and this seemed to cool Visa's temper.

"Very well then you are forgiven as I believe your sentiment to be sincere but you should choose your words more wisely human many claws would not be so tolerant as I," Visa said sounding proud and Ven snorted to her side and she shot him a death glare.

"There are many words I could imagine in relation to your Visa and I wouldn't blink twice, tolerant isn't one of them, maybe crazy and tail used in the same sentence perhaps......" he said before she cuffed him across the horn again making a solid

thowk

noise.

"For the last time I am not a crazy tail!" she huffed angrily.

"What's a crazy tail?" Seven asked curiously.

Ven grinned a fang-filled grin at him, "A claw that has lost so much of their senses that they lose control of themselves and usually attack everything on sight, the give away of this psychosis is they tend to lose control of their tail for some reason, so it swishes around behind them completely at random making their movements jinky and erratic because they can't use it for balance, they tend to lash out at everyone and everything in range, remind you of anyone?" Ven said his grin becoming shit-eating as he ducked the incoming swipe.

"I am not a crazy tail," Visa said her voice sounding sulky as she went back to cradling her hand that Seven had touched and he found himself with an odd need to cheer her up, like picking up on her slight sadness made him feel bad and before he knew what in the name of hell her was doing words were blurting out of his mouth.

"Well I think Visa has a lovely tail" he blurted before he could stop himself and both deathclaws snapped their heads round to face him so fast their horns made a slight whoosh sound cutting through the air.

"Y-You do?" Ven stammered in disbelief and Seven instantly knew he was fucked, the words were just meant to cheer her up but instantly a little voice in the back of his mind reminded him how littraly Deathclaws seem to take things.

Visa stared at him her eyes narrowing dangerously as she scrutinized him as if trying to see the deciept, "What is lovely about it?" she asked in a low dangerous sounding voice that screamed lie to me human and I will smell it and gut you for it.

Seven swallowed hard, I-It's very luscious and thick and looks very powerful" Seven stammered saying the first things that came into his head as he braced himself to have to possibly use his ability to fend off the blows that would rain down on him.

But they never came, instead, she seemed to draw her self up and cocked her head in a surprisingly regal pose, "Hmmm it seems this human has far better eyes than we thought dear brother and despite having no memories he certainly knows a fine claw specimen when he sees one, he certainly has a very good eye for fine quality tails and recognizes a claw who takes pride in their tail, thank you Seven I will take your truthful and well-observed compliment with humility" Visa said coiling her tail around herself as if to show it off and Ven huffed shaking his head his mouth still hanging open.

Before ven could formulate what would have obviously been a witty and probably crazy tail related rebuttal there was a soft whoosh above them and the little cloud that was wisp reappeared floated around the room once in a circuit and then shot back into the body of the assaultron again powering it up.

"Whoo I keep forgetting how liberating that feels, ok so I got a good look around above us, the bad news is we are pretty much smack bang in the middle of a very heavily armed human encampment, they have some serious hardware up there, heavy weapons, artillery you name it," Wisp said and the others looked at one another nervously.

"What's the good news?" Seven asked.

"There aren't a huge number of them, they might be well-armed but they aren't large in numbers, I was able to both scout us a way through that should put us in the clear in the dark and I was also able to briefly take over a potectron they got moving stock around and wire it to take some choice items from their stock room to put to one side for us on the way out, so once we lift them we can get out of here, but we are going to have to be really fucking careful, they got a huge minefield surrounding the place as well as spotters who can call in strikes from some pretty big guns they got but if we're sneaky and quiet we should be able to slip passed them this assaultron's sensors will easily pick out the mines so we can avoid them, I also noticed that they also have what looked like pretty big anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers" Wisp said happily.

"Err how is any of that last part good news exactly?" Ven asked.

"Elementry my dear Ven, big ass anti-aircraft guns means a no-fly zone, means no Enclave able to fly over without being shot out of the fucking sky, well assuming they still work obviously, they certainly had missiles for the launchers though, plus something tells me that someone who goes to this kind of level to secure their little slice of the shit pie is going to defend it to the hilt, so as soon as those Enclave fuckers pop their ugly armoured heads out of this hole I seriously doubt the locals will take too kindly to it and also doubt that the Enclave will be quiet about it," Wisp said.

Visa began to nod as she realised where Wisp was going with this, "So we use the locals to our advantage, use their cover screen to prevent the Enclave spotting us from their air and force them to fight each other while we cover our escape" she said and Wisp pointed at her and nodded.

"Now you got it!" she said happily.

Ven rubbed his chin and nodded approvingly, "Ok I like this plan, it's slightly risky but it's the best we have, once we're clear of the base where do we go?" he asked.

"Yeah I thought about that too, now my first instinct was to make a run right for the mountains but it occurred to me that that essentially is suicide as we have no idea where we're going, plus we don't have supplies for any kind of lengthy trip, so I programmed the protectron to deliver at least a couple of things they shouldn't miss that should help us out for now, but our first order of business is to locate a place we can lie low and then stock up before making a run out of here," Wisp said, both claws nodded in unison.

"Wisp is right, food and water will be scarce in mountain terrain we need to gather supplies for such a trip but we will also need a safe place to lay low, we should also not linger in this place too long as I highly doubt the Enclave will give up their search easier, we must put as much distance between us and them as we can," Visa said and her brother agreed.

"Alright then, now we have a plan, let's wait till nightfall and then make our move, once we've retrieved our little care package and escaped this place we can decide where to go and what to do next," Wisp said and with that, the others decided to get some sleep while the assaultron remained on guard.

When Seven woke up a few hours later he felt an odd pressure on his chest and legs like he was tied down and his heart instantly felt like it had begun pumping ice water around his veins, his first instinctual thought was that the whole thing had been a dream and that the break out had never happened, that he was still in Dr Chalmers lab on the table, but when he lifted his head to look down his body it wasn't straps holding his body down, it was Visa.

Seven froze as still as a stone, stiller infact, how in the name of hel had he not noticed a seven and a half foot couple of hundred pounds of scaled muscle, teeth, claws and attitude had managed to roll over and grab him without him noticing was beyond him, was he really that heavy of a sleeper?

She was laid somewhat sprawled over him with one huge leg pinning both of his like they were trapped under a steel girder, his chest and arms were pinned by her massive left arm which ran right across his chest and had hold of his right wrist in her massive hand, it kinda felt like one of those band restraints that they used to secure his chest when they had him strapped to the table on the skyship.

Turning his head to the left he was presented with a very close up view of her scaly face, she looked surprisingly peaceful when she was sleeping, granted she still looked as dangerous as ever but this was the first time he'd truly been able to study her features close up without feeling either intimidated or embarrassed into looking away.

She had surprisingly feminine qualities to her face, like the shape of her eyes was much finer than her brothers, as was the shape of her jawline, her horns almost looked like she'd been polishing them as well as sharpening them so they looked like they would shine under direct light, her maw was less pronounced as well, all in all, she wasn't what he could call ugly really, infact he'd got as far as to say there was actually something rather beautiful about her, though he got the feeling that the vast human populace would probably disagree with him on that point but then he wasn't like the vast majority of the human populace now was he?

Slowly Seven tried to wiggle himself free from her grip and that backfired rather spectacularly because just as he thought he was going to be able to loosen her grip just enough to be able to break free she made a soft snuffling noise and instantly tightened her grip on him pulling him in even closer, infact she pulled him partway under her now.

Seven could feel her chest swells against his left shoulder and a massive thumping pulsed through his entire body, it took him a moment to realise that it was her heartbeat he was feeling.

She also moved her massive head so that it was now resting on his shoulder and chest, oh he was fucked beyond all words, suddenly he felt a strange itch on his neck like he was being watched and he looked to his right, there he found Ven laying on his stomach with his biggest shit-eating grin plastered on his fang-filled maw.

Seven mouthed the word 'Help' to the surprisingly clingy female claw's brother and Ven gave him a wink and a rather large thumbs up, but somehow this filled Seven with an odd sense of dread.

"Hey Visa, time to get up, stop molesting your new human toy and get your lazy tail up will you?" ven said loud enough that even though he was speaking in a quiet voice, in the silence it felt like he was shouting.

A shot of cold fear ran down Seven's spine and less than a moment later two strikingly bright green eyes opened and looked at him in what would have been sleepy adorableness, well you know if they hadn't belonged to a seven and a half foot killing machine with a bad temper anyway.

Visa's face went through a whole rainbow of emotions in less than two seconds, first confusion, then shock, then surprise, then anger then something he couldn't identify that could have been wonder before speeding back to anger.

"What in the name of fuck!!?" she exclaimed rather loudly and she utterly flung Seven out from under her with enough strength to send him skittering across the floor and into a shelf unit back first sending a bolt of pain up his spine and knocking the breath out of him.

Less than a second later the huge female deathclaw was on her feet and looming over him, "You dare defile the sanctity of my sleeping nest human!!?" she snarled angrily her claws extending to her sides while Seven tried to stop his head spinning.

"Actually sister you defiled the sanctity of his sleeping nest," Ven said and you could actually hear the smile in his voice.

"What!? Impossible!! I would never enter the sleeping nest of another without an invite! And never with someone I barely know and is...is...is well human!!" she snarled angrily and somewhat accusingly.

"Actually I hate to contradict you there Visa but your brother is right, watched the whole thing happen, hell I can play you a recording if you like," Wisp said suddenly, she'd been so silent thought the whole thing that Seven had almost forgotten that she was even here.

The huge angry female claw whirled on her axis to face the assaultron, "What!?" she exclaimed and before she could say another word an image appeared on the wall, it was what looked like a kinda grainy night vision recording of Seven asleep on his pile, it showed Visa slowly slowly slowly creeping closer to him with every movement untill her large hand brushed his side, now while he didn't move she certainly did, shimmying over to pull him into her and herself into him, it ended as she woke up.

The large female deathclaw stood there watching with her mouth hanging open obviously searing for the right words to say, "I think you owe someone an apology dear sister, your pet human is innocent and you are the guilty one, if you'd wanted a cuddle you should have asked him first" Ven said in a tone that blatantly said he wasn't going to let her forget this any time soon.

Visa huffed but it was obvious she was both shocked but also bound by the same honour that she had forced that Seven himself had upheld, she turned and offered him a hand to lift him to his feet, he accepted it and after she lifted him she used her huge hands to dust him down, "My apologies to you Seven, I miss judged to the situation and it appears that I have wronged you and invaded your sleep nest without invite and hurt you in response, I offer you my deepest apologies and ask your forgiveness" Visa said with what sounded like genuine sorrow in her voice.