aaaaaaaagh_sky | Museum Station

Annabelle will no doubt recognize the cast of the sunlight and the thin dry feel of the air when she and Ellen emerge at last from the reeking Metro tunnels. They're on the opposite side of the Mall from last time, though, and the steps up on this side aren't anywhere near the same- they're rusted, corroded, two-hundred-year-old escalator steps, frozen in place with the weight of time and decay. "I don't hear too much from here," Ellen reports, "but I'm all out of Stealth Boys, so we'd better be careful. There might be mutants."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle is looking forward to seeing if the High Explosive Armor Piercing rounds have a greater effect on the mutants than normal ammunition.

One of the mutants is about to get a round between the eyes if Annabelle can possibly manage it.*

*If Annabelle can't manage it, it's a safe bet that no one human could.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Wow.

Mutant eyeballs sure do fly an awfully long way when high explosive is applied to the center of their skulls.

From:

aeons_crackshot

Yes, yes they do. In defiance of the laws of probability, one of the eyeballs splats itself against a wall not terribly far from Annabelle's head.

Annabelle cackles slightly at the effect, "That's much better. It's just not right for something to take two shots between the eyes before it expires."

Annabelle reloads with more of the same, and will hopefully repeat her previous pattern of one shot, one kill. Ideally, she'll take out whichever mutant looks to be the biggest threat.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"GONNA! SPLATTER! YOUR! URrrrrrrrrgh," is the last thing the next mutant says; ironically, given what happens to its skull, the word was going to be brains. And the third one Annabelle goes after, well, that one was screaming about eating her arms when she's dead. That's not going to happen any time soon.

Mind you, now the humans are shooting at them, but that's okay. Dogmeat is tearing into one of them and Ellen's doing her best to shoot the others without hitting her dog.

From:

aeons_crackshot

"So much for gratitude," Annabelle says dryly. If there are any remaining mutants left, Annabelle will take them out with the rifle and the HEAP ammunition.

Otherwise, she'll switch to regular ammunition. (Using HEAP ammo on a human would be a waste, really.) One of the humans goes down with a shot between the eyes, and that bullet passes through him to hit his buddy in the hip.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

When the shooting stops there's one human left alive, and mostly he's alive because Ellen's got a firm grip on the scruff of Dogmeat's neck. "You know," she says to the downed man, "this is really getting old. What is wrong with you people?"

"A contract's a contract," the man says with a grimace. "A thousand caps ain't nothing to sneeze at."

From:

aeons_crackshot

"Worth dying for?" Annabelle asks, voice and expression sharp and predatory. "Because that's what you'll get, if you're lucky."

Annabelle has had extensive experience with supervillains and other similarly scary characters, and she's trying to bring all of that to bear to scare the hell out of this particular mercenary.

"There are many more...unpleasant fates in this world than a bullet between the eyes. I would suggest that you remember that," Annabelle says with a vicious smile as she idly runs her fingers over the handle of the ripper.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Can't I just buy you people off or something?" Ellen says. "Seriously, now-"

The man's eyes go to the ripper in Annabelle's hand before he looks back to Ellen. "You couldn't afford it," he says. "It ain't just the contract any more. Commander Jabsco's throwing in his own money to match it. You've taken out too many Talons. He's not going to stand for that."

Ellen sighs. "Okay, Mr. Tenpenny being behind it was bad enough," she says. "Who's this Jabsco now?"

"Commanding officer of Talon Company. And if you think I'm gonna tell you where he is-"

"Annabelle," Ellen says, cutting him off, "I really want these people to give up and leave me alone. Suggestions?"

From:

aeons_crackshot

"Getting rid of the Commander and Mr. Tenpenny would probably be the most efficient means," Annabelle replies. "If there's no money, there's no incentive to come after you."

"Or we could just kill them all, but that would be rather time consuming," she adds, smiling at the mercenary. It's not the friendly kind of smile.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen nods. "I was afraid of that," she says resignedly. "Okay then. I'm guessing your boss didn't tell you about Mr. Mills and how he was going to eat your livers if you kept bothering me. He's not here right now. I am."

The Talon mercenary sneers. "Oh, please. We all hear the way Three Dog talks about you. You wouldn't."

"No," Ellen agrees. "I wouldn't. But I know where to reach Reilly's Rangers, and they owe me a couple of favors. And there's Three Dog, too- not to mention the traders I know out there. I'm willing to bet somebody on that list knows where your headquarters are, so you'd better go back there as soon as I let you up and tell your commander that he'd better spend that reward money on some armor before I arrive."

"That's it?" says the man incredulously. "You're not gonna-"

"Annabelle, take his gun, and all the guns you can find," Ellen says. "Pick the weakest-looking one of the bunch and give it to him along with enough ammo for him to load it up completely exactly once. Take any supplies they're carrying and give him one stimpak and one dose of Rad-Away and Rad-X each. If he can make it back to headquarters with that, Jabsco gets his message, and if he can't, nobody can say I didn't at least give him a chance to try."

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle grins at Ellen's speech to the Mercenary. Ellen is getting rather good at this heroing business, in Annabelle's biased opinion. "I can do that easily enough," Annabelle tells Ellen.

She turns again to the mercenary, "For the sake of your health, you'd better not give me any trouble." Ellen's instructions will be followed to the letter.

"I would suggest you save a bullet, just in case," she tells him with a grim smile as she finishes carrying out the instructions.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

The mercenary ends up with a .32 pistol in bad repair. He glares at the gun, gives Ellen a filthy look, and flips both women the finger before staggering off into the ruins.

Ellen shakes her head. "They're starting to be a problem," she says as he goes.

From:

aeons_crackshot

"Only starting?" Annabelle asks with a grin. "I think you handled that very well, Ellen," she adds with a pleased smile.*

"Now that we've cleaned up some of the rubbish, we can get back to our original objective."

*They grow up so fast.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"It was one thing when they were trying to hunt for me," Ellen says. "It's something else when they're doing another job- whatever this was- and turn around and start whaling on me. The city's bad enough..."

She shakes her head. "Anyway. Yes. Let's get into that hospital."

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle nods in agreement. "Do you want me on point, or playing rearguard?"

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"I'll take lead this time," Ellen says. "I don't think we want anything in front warned that we're coming because my suit started yelling about an enemy creeping up behind us."

The sewer access door, fortunately, is easy to get open, and the space beyond is dry. It's just going to be a bit of a slog from here.

From:

aeons_crackshot

Sewer slogging isn't something Annabelle is looking forward to, but she'll deal with it.

"Good point," Annabelle says with a grin. "If we're lucky, we'll get through this mess without raising too much of a ruckus."