Chapter 58: On a Wing and a Prayer.
Passa was nearly bowled over by Ven as he charged down the corridor in hot pursuit of a small fast-moving but barely visible blur and he leapt back in wide-eyed surprise as his cousin charged past him.
"Sorry cousin!!" Ven called back over his shoulder before he heard a human yelp followed by a lot of loud giggling, moments later Ven emerged from one of the side rooms that Passa hadn't explored yet only now he was carrying the young-looking black-suited human man on his shoulder.
"Now you are going to learn that your actions have consequences pretty human, I'm going to teach you the meaning of claw punishment!" Ven growled and the young man gigged and propped himself up on his elbows and Ven's hand seeming squeezed his rear end.
"Oh no being punished by a big bad sexy claw boy whatever am I going to do?" the man called Gregory said in a playful voice and Passa cocked his head curiously, was this man seriously not fearful of Claw justice? he was braver than he looked, a lot braver.
The pair vanished into a side room and mere moments later there came the sounds of human howling, Ven must be really punishing the little human hard he almost felt sorry for him, well that was until the large strange spider boy showed up taking him by surprise.
"Those two at it again!? They really can't keep their hands off one another, can they? Hi, I'm Malakai, by the way, we really haven't had the chance to talk yet" Malakai said offering him a hand in that odd human sign of greeting.
Passa shrugged, when in another's nest you did as they did so he took it and shook it making the spider boy smile at him warmly, "Excuse me what did you mean that they cannot keep their hands off one another, does this Gregory fight back against Claw justice being acted out upon him?" Passa asked glancing at the door that Ven had carried the little human through and was boy the sounds coming out vigorously disciplining him, there were a lot of odd-sounding slapping noises coming through it.
Malakai chuckled softly making Passa growl and turn his attention back to him, was he mocking him? if so he was a lot braver than he looked to mock a proud Claw to his face, he might not be an Alpha like his mother or his cousins but he was still strong enough to defend both his and their honour.
Malakai seemed to notice his irritation, "Forgive me I'm not laughing at you just at what you said is all, Ven is not hurting or striking Gregory, hell he'd tear anyone who laid a single unwanted finger on him limb from limb let alone what he'd do to anyone who ever dared to try and harm him let alone actually do so, those two love each other to the end of the ends of the universe, never seen two boys as in love with one another as those two, so no he's not hurting him, the gruff act you just saw was them just playing around is all, I know it can be kinda strange to the uninitiated but you kinda get used to it real fast the more time you spend around this group trust me on that one" Malakai said.
Passa raised an eyebrow at him questioningly, "B-But those sounds, that is unmistakably the sound of scale meeting flesh, he must be striking him!" he protested and Malakai chuckled again making him irk again.
"Well I guess you're kinda right in that sense but it's not exactly his hand he's striking his flesh with," he said with that soft chuckle again.
"I do not understand?" Passa said sounding as confused as felt and Malakai scuttled up to him and laid a hand on his shoulder and while Passa flinched slightly the touch was not aggressive or unfriendly.
"I can see that, come on let's take a walk I've been meaning to measure you new claw guys, up anyway, need to get you guys some armour rigged up, sure as hell not letting you guys walk into that lab we're going out to attack without my patented heavy claw armour keeping the bullets away from those scales of yours, hell I get the feeling half the human girls around here wouldn't forgive me if I let you get dinged up," he said gently guiding him away from the room where Ven and Gregory had gone in to.
"Heavy Claw armour?" Passa asked and Malakai nodded.
"Yup, make the stuff myself, came up with it when we attacked Paradise falls, turns you guys into walking talking tanks, you think a claw is scary a claw you can shoot down is even scarier," Malakai said proudly and Passa looked at him in amazement.
"You can protect us from human weapons!!?" he exclaimed and Malakai nodded.
"It doesn't make you bulletproof exactly but it stops all but the very heaviest of calibres though you still have to watch out for both plasma and laser weapons though I got some ideas on how to deal with those bastard things, something involving polished ceramic maybe?" Malakai said sounding thoughtful.
It turned out that the only room that they could use was a room just off the lab that Timothy and Shauna had been using to defeat the claw control helmets, "What is this place?" Passa asked looking around at all the strange human glass objects that seemed to come in all shapes and sizes, there were beakers and flasks of different sizes linked together with large tubes.
"Chemistry lab, do me a favour and try not to touch anything along that wall, I know our scientists tend to come through here when there's a big find that they want to analyse and I know one of our teams pulled something pretty big about a week ago and I don't know what or even where it is, so do me a favour try not to mess with anything ok?" Faith said hanging the large key ring that she'd used to open the door back on her belt.
"No probs Faith and thanks, don't worry we're only going to use the seat over there and the bench, Is that ok?" Malakai said and Faith nodded before disappearing again with her current chaperone in tow.
Passa followed Malakai over to the large strange looking human seat that the large spider boy indicated, "Ok take a seat big fella I'm just going to start taking some measurements so I can start this off" Malakai said and Passa obliged by moving over to the seat and after a bit of wiggling his sizeable frame into the narrow seat but he finally managed to get himself into place.
Malakai told him to wait while he went and got his tools and he vanished out of the room to scuttle back to his room, while he was gone Passa couldn't help but looked around at all the odd human stuff all around him, it kind of reminded him of some of the stuff he'd seen in his time with Enclave well before they put that vile helmet on his head anyway, all of his memories from the time with that thing bolted onto his head were very fuzzy, like he was trying to look at them through heavy mist or maybe a rainstorm.
That's when he noticed a large case that was sat on the bench on the far side of the large room, he raised himself up out of the chair and stalked over to it, the case was covered in Enclave markings that recognised from his time with them, infact the bench was covered in what looked like stolen Enclave equipment and tech, it appeared that the Ghouls who apparently ran this place that they were using as a nest had really been busy.
Passa couldn't help but feel a sense of smug satisfaction at these people hitting them and taking their stuff, after all, they had done to his pack and others he felt that they deserved any and all injustices enacted upon them, in fact, he'd go as far as to say that they were not injustices at all, they were justices.
Claws are naturally very curious beings to the point where they make cats look positively cautious, add sentience and a thirst for learning and knowledge on top of that and sometimes it can be a recipe for disaster.
Passa had always been like this ever since he was a hatchling both his mother and his elder sisters were forever chasing him around as he got himself into all sorts of mischief like the time he got himself stuck in a mole rat burrow because he'd wanted to know what was in there, that time his sisters had decided to leave him stuck in there for an hour with his lower half stuck in the air sticking out of the ground like a scaly tentacle, one that when they finally did finally pull him out he found that they'd painted rings around his tail so they could use it as a moving target to play claw hoops with old tyres they'd take from some scrapped human vehicles.
Leaning down to look at the large metal case he noticed two large clasps on the front that seemed to connect to the large cylindrical corners of the case, he knew that Malakai had made the Ghoul woman called Faith a promise that they would not touch anything but since he had made no such promise himself he didn't think it would be so bad if he simply took a look in the case, it wasn't like he was a thief who planned to steal their spoils, he merely wished to know what it contained.
Reaching out with one of his Claws he managed to flip the latches on the front from their closed to their open position, as soon as the second one opened there was a loud hiss from each of the cylinders in turn before like screws the wound themselves upwards and out of the case making him jump back in alarm.
The case split in two with a sharp hiss and the top slowly ascended upwards away from the bottom half revealing a foam laid inlay, sat in the middle of the spiky foam that was obviously designed to protect the contents there was nothing but an odd metal sphere.
"Huh, I was expecting something far more impressive than just a ball," Passa said cautiously reaching out a claw tip and tapping the metal sphere which by the odd ringing it made when he tapped indicated it was slightly hollow.
He reached in and very cautiously removed the sphere letting it rest in the palm of his hand testing its weight, for something that was so small it was surprisingly heavy, "Passa!! What the hell are you doing Faith told us not to touch anything!!?" Malakai's voice yelled from the doorway suddenly making the big claw boy nearly jump out of his scales and he snapped his hand shut on the sphere before he dropped it.
"I-I-I was just curious! I wasn't going to steal it or anything! I just wished to look!" he exclaimed defensively as he spun to face the large spider boy who was standing just inside the doorway holding his tool bag.
"I didn't say you were going to steal anything but Faith said this stuff could be dangerous! And those are fucking Enclave markings on that case! There could be anything in there!" Malakai exclaimed scuttling right up to him.
"There wasn't anything dangerous there was just a metal ball, here look," Passa said holding out his hand and opening it to reveal the metal ball which to his surprise seemed to now have glowing yellow seams that were blinking on and off.
"Huh it wasn't glowing before," he said looking at it curiously.
Suddenly the colours changed from yellow to green, "Subject analysed, DNA match found and confirmed, the subject appears to have twenty per cent damage to DNA strand, this is most likely due to excessive radiation exposure, both reptilian and avian DNA has been detected correcting damage would require strand realignment with a compatible match, scanning database please wait............... have now confirmed DNA repair is possible using compatible mammalian DNA molecules beginning procedure, nanites programmed and now being administered" the odd sphere said in a surprisingly feminine human-sounding voice.
