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

"That would explain why he had the ammunition case," Annabelle says with a nod. "Do you want me to carry it?"

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"If it won't slow you down," says Ellen. "I can handle it otherwise."

Regardless of who winds up carrying it, Ellen murmurs a few final words over Theo's body and nudges the door to the next floor of the Statesman open. She glances ahead, right, left-

"Left is blocked. Ahead has a collapsed ceiling. Tongue monster right."

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle nods and stows the ammunition case somewhere in her pack, so she has both hands free for the rifle.

She's solemn but watchful as Ellen says her piece over the fallen man.

"Business as usual," Annabelle says dryly. "That thing won't be blocking our way for long." Mr. Sniper Rifle is seeing lots of use today.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Just keep that trigger finger ready," Ellen says. "They're never-"

"WE! ARE! THE! FUTURE!"

"-alone. Your choice of target," Ellen says resignedly, and opens fire on the rearmost of the two greenskins who've stepped into the hallway behind the tongue thing.

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle would be tempted to sigh a bit herself, but she's busy firing on the greenskin in the front.

When she hits him, his body will fall backwards, possibly hitting the mutant behind.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

You know, if there were maybe two more of them, it'd be a game of Flaming Mutant Dominoes. Unfortunately it's just a couple of flaming bloody mutants, and the one on the bottom's howl of "GET OFF ME!" is quickly replaced by "PAAAAAAAAAIN!", right before his voice gives out.

From:

aeons_crackshot

"Thankfully, they're not blocking the hallway," Annabelle says as she reloads the rifle.

She steps around the corpse that's still gently burning, "I'm guessing we keep heading this way, at least until we find an intersection."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Normally I'd be scavenging the corpses for ammo, but we just don't have time," Ellen says, wrinkling her nose at the smell. "Dogmeat. Put that down. You don't know where it's been."

The dog whimpers and drops the... whatever it had picked up. It's best not to ask.

"An intersection, or a stairwell that's not blocked off," Ellen agrees. "The one we were in wasn't passable any farther up from what I saw, and we've still got a ways to go. See anything promising- any signs, or anything?"

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle peers down the hallway, looking for anything of potential interest. In the distance is something that might have once been a sign with directional arrows painted on it.

"I think I see something down that way that looks like a sign," Annabelle remarks.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"Let's go, then," says Ellen. "Oh, man, I wish I had a Stealth Boy..."

The hallway is dim, but there's light in a few of the rooms, and that and the Pip-Boy light make it possible to spot a few of the explosive traps the Rangers must've set along the way. The traps are the most prominent danger as they approach the sign; it's got directions to the Alfresco Lounge Rooftop Restaurant on it...

"TIME TO KICK SOME ASS!" Ellen's armor suddenly roars. The chatter of a supermutant's assault rifle splits the air from behind them as she spins around in surprise.

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle would swear when the sound of the assault rifle splits the air, but there's no time. No time to think at all, just act.

Years of combat experience send Annabelle lunging toward Ellen, tackling her and rolling to take the impact from the ground with her own back instead of Ellen's poor ribs. Bullets pass through the area where Ellen's head would have been, if she was still standing...

Once they're both safely down, Annabelle rolls a bit to free up her arms and the sniper rifle comes up. "TIME TO MEET YOUR MAKER, GREENSKIN!" she shouts as she fires.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

"uk!" says Ellen, or something like it. "ARGH!" says the mutant, clear as day. BANG says the rifle, and BANG says the rifle again, and finally SPLAT! says the mutant's head...

This educational moment has been brought to you by the Children's Radio Workshop. Thank you for teaching your children the sounds of the Wasteland!

From:

aeons_crackshot

Once the mutant is dead and the area is clear, Annabelle is free to worry about Ellen. Her torso is complaining about the impact, but she's gotten through fights with far worse injuries. "Are you okay?" she asks, concerned. "I had to get you out of the line of fire in a bit of a hurry..."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen's grimacing, but she nods. "Good enough," she says. "Thank you. We should... we should get going. Not much time."

And if the sign is to be believed, the Alfresco is one more flight of stairs away.

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle nods in agreement. "You're more than welcome," she says with a small smile.

She'll make her way toward the stairs, keeping an eye out for trouble.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

The stairs themselves don't seem too- oh, no, wait, tripwire there, hanging bunch of grenades there, okay maybe the next flight of DAMMIT proximity mine, it's okay, Ellen's got that disarmed pretty quickly, where the hell is the-

Ah. Right. There. The door.

Sounds like one whale of a gunfight going down on the other side.

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle is rather thankful that Ellen managed to disarm all of those, as she likes having all of her limbs.

She hears the sound of the gunfight easily enough. "Do you want to open the door, or shall I?" she asks. "We can pull the same trick we did earlier, I think."

What the mercenaries will make of Ellen and a woman who's thoroughly coated with blood is anyone's guess.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen holds up one finger and extracts a tin can with 'DANGER' scrawled across it in greasepencil from her pack. "You open it this time," she says. "I'd like to try one of these. It, um, might leave some scattered radiation- I've got extra chems if you need them- but it's supposed to be a great explosive."

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle eyes the tin can warily for a moment. "Let's see what she can do," she replies with a small smile. She may need those chems later, if this works.

"I'll open the door in three, two, one..."

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

FA-THOOOOOOOM!

No... no, that's not quite right. How do we convey the explosion of a Nuka-Grenade properly?

FA-THOOOOOOOOM!!!

... that's gonna have to do. Well, that and the soft showering splatter of mutant parts as the blast wave from the Nuka-Grenade fades.

From:

aeons_crackshot

Annabelle is actually stunned into silence for a moment in the wake of that. "That's.....impressive," she finally concludes, faintly.

Hopefully, none of the Rangers got caught in that.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Ellen's too busy goggling to answer. Fortunately, a man's voice calls out, "Hey! You! Whoever that was! Get your asses up here before every supermutant in the building comes to find out what you just did!"

From:

aeons_crackshot

"I believe that's our cue to go on over and say hello," Annabelle says with a wry smile.

If need be, she'll poke Ellen a bit to bring her back to the present before she walks in the direction of the voice.

From:

aaaaaaaagh_sky

Won't be necessary. Ellen shakes herself off and clucks to Dogmeat.

The voice is coming from the raised center of the Alfresco Lounge; getting there necessitates walking around part of the building, then up a broad, easy set of mutant-part-strewn stairs. At the far end are three bedraggled figures in olive-green armor. One's a woman with short brown hair and thick black eyebrows; she's got a hefty-looking minigun at her side. One's wearing a combat helmet and a pair of what the US military used to call BCGs- 'birth control glasses'. And the third is taller than the other two, with a crewcut and a harried expression; he says as the women and dog approach, "Name's Butcher. Good to see a friendly face. Are there reinforcements coming?"