Radiance

Chapter 32:Greener Grass.

Seven was rather enjoying the feel of his brand new armour, he had to admit that the Enclave soldiers really had it cushy, these things were top tier, it was just so much comfier than the two previous models that he'd occupied and it also just felt more secure.

He also noticed that Visa was looking for weaknesses in it, she every so often that would tap various places on it as if analysing whether her claws would go through it, but it seemed to be keeping his bored claw girl entertained so he turned his attentions to their newcomer who was still sat in the middle of the Vertibird cabin with his legs folded up under himself still looking like a spider-shaped furry loaf of bread.

It was not hard to see that young Malakai looked nervous as all hell he was sat wringing his hands, "You ok kid?" Seven asked and the young Arachnakai looked up at him and blinked all six of his eyes at the same time as he looked at Seven.

"Y-Yeah I guess so, just a little nervous is all," he said softly twitching his mandibles as he spoke and Seven nodded.

"Yeah I can see that you don't have to worry you're safe with us, we'll take good care of you and hey just think of this you'll be the first Arachnakai to see the things you are gonna see, you'll be the first of your kind to travel to the other side of the country," Seven said smiling inside his suit but also trying to project that smile through his voice as he knew the helmet covered his face.

The young Arachnakai male seemed to think about this and his black eyes seemed to brighten up quite a lot as that realisation hit him, "Yeah Seven's right kid you'll be alright and no matter what comes your way you got us backing you up and standing at your sides now ain't no one gonna hurt you ever again, not with us around cos trust me if they want you they going through us first or more accurately we're going through them" Ven said flicking out his long claws to emphasise his point while fixing Malakai with a warm smile.

"And trust me no one kicks more ass than my Ven and his sister, well except for maybe Seven there that dude is fucking scary when he gets angry," Gregory said from the cockpit.

Malakai looked utterly amazed at this as Ven clapped him on the shoulder, "But why? Why would you do that for me? You don't even know me, not really, we just met" he said looking around at them all.

"SSSSimple Malakai, you are like ussss and now you are one of ussss and in the sssshort time I have known thissss group I know that it protectssss itssss own, we sssstand for each other becausssse no one will sssstand for ussss, sssso now we sssstand for you too," Riss said beaming at him and flicking her tongue at him.

Malakai looked absolutely amazed but also he looked actually rather emotional, "Wow I never imagined that I could meet people like you, but I always hoped I would, but a group like this is something I always dreamed of, humans and non-humans together as one but I didn't find that group, they found me," he said.

Seven nodded his head in full agreement, "I never imagined that I would fall in love with this sexy slab of Alpha claw next to me but there is nothing in this world or life I would not do for her or try my hardest to protect her from" he said rubbing Visa's huge arm and she looked at him with a huge smile.

"And I would have never imagined in a million lifetimes that I would ever look at a human the way I look at Seven, but from the moment he came into my life I knew he was different and that he was special and the more I looked at him the wore I realised that he is a beautiful sentient and before I knew what was happening I fell head over tail in love with him, now there is no person I will ever deem more worthy to have at my side and to share my whole self with, because he accepts me for who I am, every part of me, good and bad," she said leaning over and wrapping that huge arm around her male.

"And that's beautiful, the fact that you found each other and didn't just kill one another on sight is nothing short of amazing, in my experience, humans really don't tend to react to well to creatures who don't look like them, hell they don't even tend to react too well to creatures that do look like them," Malakai said a little bitterly and Seven nodded in agreement.

"Trust me I know, we've seen enough raiders and we've been running from a group called the Enclave this entire time, that's who we were fighting when your home got burned down," Seven said.

"Who are the Enclave?" Malakai asked curiously twitching his mandibles towards Seven.

"The would-be rulers of the country, a kind of shadow government, they want to control everything and everyone, they want to be in charge of everything and they'll attack or destroy anyone who stands in their way, me, Visa, Wisp and Ven escaped them by breaking out of their airship, they've been chasing us ever since, well more specifically me and Wisp they just seem to want to kill Visa and Ven and that is something that I will never let happen because I swear this before all of you if they so much as scuff a single scale on my beloved one's beautiful tail I will unleash a hell the likes of which these so-called people have never even dared to dream about upon them, " Seven said with such power in his voice that Visa looked like she might tear up before hugging him tightly.

"I feel the same for you, my love, if they should ever harm you I will teach them the meaning of claw vengeance and I will personally show them exactly why they call us Deathclaws," she said.

"Wow that is incredible, I wish I could ever find someone for myself like you two have," Malakai said looking between them both.

"Ha stick around kiddo I'm sure Seven will work his magic on you, I'm sure there's a nice human girl out there right now looking up at the sky and wondering why a nice, handsome spider boy can't just drop out of the sky into her life who can wrap her in the web of his love," Ven said patting the young Archkanai on the shoulder.

"Magic?" Malakai asked and Seven sighed heavily as Ven grinned at him.

"This lot seem to think that I'm some sort of living human non-human good luck love charm," Seven said.

"That'ssss becausssse you are, you promissssed me that you would help me find myself an open-minded human for me to love, no ssssooner did you make this promisssse to me then we find my Runsssss and now look, he issss my hussssband and I am hissss wife, you kept your promisssse to me and I will be forever grateful," Riss said happily drawing Runs into a tight hug wrapping her happily rattling tail around her male.

"You promised to help me find a human who would look at me the way you look at my sister and lo and behold Gregory comes into my life so not only did you find a human that was open to look ata claw but you found a human boy who would look at a claw boy, nothing short of a miracle there in my opinion and now that beautiful man is all mine and I will die for him in a heart beat, so like it or not Seven you are the non-human human love guru, you might not think you are doing anything but you are setting an example by being so loud and proud with your love for my sister, you never try to hide it and you ain no way ashamed of it and rightly so, but I believe that rubs off on others that have the capacity to be like us, they look at you as an example of what they could have if they only open their mind and hearts then they too could have themselves a sexy claw boy just like my Gregory here," Ven said making Gregory laugh from the front seat.

"And a nice humble and modest one too," Gregory said.

That's when Seven heard a whispered voice drift through the back of his mind, "God he's pretty, why the hell is he so pretty?" it said and Seven baulked for a moment before he realised he was hearing Wisp's thoughts and a smile cracked his face under his mask, that's when he felt Wisp baulk as she realised he'd heard her.

"You know Malakai I think Ven's right, stick with us and I just have this real sneaky suspicions that a pretty, Archnakai loving human girl will just show up, don't ask me how I know just call it a hunch, its sort of like a little voice in the back of my mind telling me this will be the case," Seven said and while Malakai looked surprised but hopeful the others around him clicked onto the veiled meaning in Seven's statement and smiles began to pop up around the cabin as they got what he'd really just said.

That's when alarms began to blare around the cabin that was so loud they could easily hear them over the engines, "What the hell is that!?" Seven exclaimed.

"Everybody hold the fuck on!! Something's locked onto us and I think it's a fucking missile launcher!!" Gregory yelled.

Seven grabbed hold of his seat and reached behind him and grabbed hold of the harnesses behind him and jammed it over his suit before ensuring that Visa was able to get into hers, all around the cabin everyone was doing the same just as Gregory began to start pulling sharp turns.

Malakai began to slide across the cabin on his knees before he sprung to his feet and slammed them onto the floor using the spilt toed feet that had incredible grip pads on them to hold him in place as the Vertibird banked sharply.

Quick as a flash he pressed his abdomen to the floor and he used his spinnerets to anchor his silk to the deck plates before lifting it and grabbing some of the strands and balling it his hand like a kind of sticky snowball which he then threw up into the ceiling creating a second anchor there.

Infact as Gregory was jinking around Seven watched in amazed silence as the young Archnakai just kept throwing these silk anchors around the cabin at incredible speed, infact it wasn't just the cabin he was sticking them too but to everyone in it including Seven himself but before Seven had a chance to question it there was a loud whoosh and a massive bang from their right side that send a huge shockwave through the whole place.

"We're hit!!!! We've lost our right engine!! Everyone hold the fuck on we're going in hard!! Even if I don't make it know that I love you, you lit up my life and I don't regret a single second with you, you are my heart, I love you!!" Gregory yelled as the whole vehicle began to spin.

"I love you too!!!" Ven yelled over the incredible din as the Vertibird span faster pushing them all into their seats, Seven turned to Visa but before he could open his mouth to say the same thing to her there was a tremendous crash and everything just went black.

The first thing Seven became aware of was a crackling, fizzing noise that seemed to invade the depths of his mind, this was followed by what sounded kinda like a voice shouting down a tunnel.

"Seven, Seven wake up Seven" it called from far away.

"Huh? Who?' Seven said in a hazy fuzzy way.

"SEVEN WAKE THE FUCK UP!!!" the voice bellowed from what sounded like right next to his ear and he snapped awake with a start and a gasp of breath.

"Holy Shit!!" he exclaimed as the shock hit him.

"Oh thank God was beginning to think you'd never wake up, we gotta get out of here Seven before the fuel tanks go up like a bonfire with all of us inside it" Wisp exclaimed inside his skull.

Seven lifted his head and to his amazement found himself dangling in the air in the middle of the Vertibird cabin, as was everyone else, it seemed that the seatbelts had done absolutely fuck all upon impact with whatever the fuck it was they'd crashed into but it appeared that Malakai's web anchors had saved all of them because right now all of his friends were dangling in the air anchored to various surfaces by sticky strands of woven silk all looking like puppets with the strings cut.

Malakai himself was hanging about three feet in front of Seven with his legs splayed out and six strands anchored to various parts of his body, he looked like a spider sat in the centre of his web waiting for a fly to catch, turning his head Seven saw Visa dangling by her tail and a second thread that was anchored to the spines on her back.

A surge of fear hit Seven and the adrenaline that came with it woke him the rest of the way up in an instant, "Visa!!" he exclaimed reaching out to the dangling claw and grabbing hold of her, to his pure relief as he touched her his suit instantly popped up a heart rate monitor on the HUD to show him that she was indeed still alive, it appeared that his suit had some kind of life signs detection suite among its plethora of sensors, he was really going to have to sit down and have a go through what this new suit of his could do.

It took Seven all of five seconds to realise that bringing their new friend along with them had been an incredibly good choice, the young Arachnakai had just saved all of their lives in one go if his panic reaction hadn't been to anchor everyone and everything together using his web then they would have most likely all died on impact as they'd have either gone bouncing around the cabin as their seatbelts and indeed seats tore free of their mountings or just been thrown clean out of the vehicle, but the young Arachnakai's quick thinking had saved them all.

"Visa! Visa wake up sugar tail!" Seven said shaking his big claw girl until she began to stir.

"Uggghh just five more minutes, I'm having a nice dream" Visa groaned.

"No time for dreaming girl we got to move or we're gonna burn to death," Seven said harshly and Visa's head snapped up on her neck and her eyes went wide.

"Where the fuck are we!? What's going on?" she exclaimed struggling against her unseen bonds that were holding her swinging from the ceiling which used to be the rear wall of the Vertibird.

"We got shot down, we crashed, Malakai saved us with his webs, stuck us to the bloody walls and saved us but we gotta get the fuck out of here before this thing goes up in flames!" Seven exclaimed and Visa's head snapped around to look at him.

"You're not hurt are you!?" she exclaimed and Sven shook his head.

"No, webs and suit did their job, not even a scratch if this damage indicator is anything to go by, I'll give the Enclave this, they really know how to build power armour," he said looking himself over.

"Never thought I'd ever owe those bastards for anything but if their suit saved my male then I must be grateful" she growled darkly.

"Honestly I think it was more Malakai's web that did it, but come on we can figure it out later, right now we have to get everyone the fuck out of here," Seven said and with that, he reached over and tried to remove the webbing from Visa's tail though he did have to admit it did have her dangling in a rather erotic pose with her tail up.

Trying to break Malakai's threads was like trying to snap steel cables, it turned out Arachnakai silk was incredibly strong, it took Visa's claws and Seven's Telekinesis to break them, they tried waking up the others while they worked but it seemed that everyone was a fair bit more stubborn than Visa about returning to the waking world, so the pair had to do it themselves.

Thankfully, according to Seven's suit everyone was alive and breathing and from what he could see other than a few bumps and bruises they were unharmed, while Visa cut them down with her claws Seven smashed his way out of the side of the Vertibird through the door that wasn't completely crushed in on the right side.

It took his Telekinesis to do it however as even with the power armour he couldn't budge it so he was forced to utterly tear it free like he was winding the lid off a can of tuna with a key, once it was out of the way he began grabbing people starting with Ven and dragging them outside.

It appeared that the Vertibird had crashed into a building of some kind and by the view, through the hole it had punched in the side of it they were incredibly high up, like a skyscraper or something, but right now he was more focused on getting his friends to safety rather than admiring the view so once Ven was clear he went back for Gregory who was hanging upside down by his legs and hips, it seemed Malakai's webbing had stopped the young human from going headfirst through the windshield and either being crushed under the craft or falling to his death.

It took the pair of them only five minutes working together to pull their friends to safety out of the craft with Visa cutting them down and handing them off to Seven who carried them out of the large room that looked like it might have been a conference room once and into another room across a hallway where he laid them all together behind a nice thick table.

The last one to come out was Malakai himself due to how many threads were securing him and his size it took both Visa and Seven to carry him with her holding up his abdomen and legs while Seven held up his top half, they carried him on his back so his eight legs wouldn't drag on the ground as they went, though with all of them curled up the way they were he kinda reminded Seven of the dead spiders he'd seen littering the various place they'd been.

It turned out that their exit had not been a moment too soon because with a loud whoosh and what sounded like a loud pop the Vertibird went up in flames though fortunately the blast seemed to free the stuck vehicle and launched the burning wreckage backwards out of the hole sending it plummeting down into the streets below.

Both Visa and Seven stood looking through the hole the Vertibird had made and into what appeared to be a city below them, there was a sprawling cityscape stretching out in every direction around them.

"Where do you think we are?" Visa asked and Seven shrugged before pulling up his map from the Pipboy.

"If I had to guess I'd say Washington DC but I can't be absolutely sure," he said.

"The capital wasteland as you humans call it, I can definitely see what they call it that from up here, look there you can see where one of the bombs hit," Visa said pointing off into the distance where a large crater was very obvious.

"Well I suppose it doesn't really matter where we are as long as we're alive and together, but honestly I'd like to get everyone up and moving before whoever shot us down shows up," Seven said.

Visa nodded, "For once I actually hope it was the super mutants," Visa said and Seven glanced at her curiously.

"Both me and my brother have been here before and there are a lot of groups vying for some form of power and control here, you have fuck knows how many human raider factions, then you have the super mutants who are trying to take over the place, you have the Ghouls both feral and non who live here and finally you have the Brotherhood, I remember seeing them around here in force but we stayed far away from them and never really knew who they were until we found that bunker of theirs where you got your first tin suit, now I know who they are," Visa said glancing back at Seven.

Seven sighed heavily and nodded, "Seems we've crashed right into a hotbed of shit then," he said and Visa nodded.

"Yeah, this place is not going to be a fun walk in the wastes by any measure of the imagination," she said.

"Wisp do me a favour while we try and get the others up and about can you run a scouting mission and see if you can find anywhere relatively safe for us to stay nearby and also scout out if there are any hostiles inbound," Seven said.

"You got it and do me a favour while I'm gone, take good care of spider boy in there, I'm calling fucking dibs on him before you go kicking over any rocks and inadvertently finding any more hopeful non-human lovers hiding under it," Wisp said making Seven laugh as he was so utterly not expecting such a bold confession from the non-corporeal girl in his head.

"You got it I'll make sure he's looked after you got my word," he said and with that Wisp poured out of his head and shot out of the hole to take a look around.