Paradise Regained

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The door opens, once again, into the dusty bright of a November day in the Capital Wasteland. "That's the city walls up ahead," Ellen says, nodding to the lumpy concrete rising in the middle distance. "And those of you who haven't met her already- my companion in the power armor is Star Paladin Cross, of the Brotherhood of Steel."

Only after everyone from the Bar comes through does the figure in silver-grey power armor and full-face helmet turn and dip its head in greeting. "Welcome," says a muffled female voice. "Thank you all for coming."

Comments

[aeons_crackshot]

"You're more than welcome," Annabelle says with a grin. This kind of thing is what Annabelle does.

She eyes the lumpy concrete walls as she readies the sniper rifle. "Do you want me to take out anybody in particular to start with?" Like, say, whoever might be manning the walls?

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"The two men closest to the mouth of the kill corridor would be a good idea, I think," Ellen says as she pulls her helmet on and locks the seals down. "Near the gate. I don't really like the idea of letting them know which way we're coming in from, but they built their walls so there was only one way in and out, so..."

"Our advance woman said they're wearing body armor, but no helmets," Cross adds. "I'm sure you can figure out what to do with that information."

[aeons_crackshot]

Annabelle gives Cross a sharp, predatory smile. "Oh, I'm sure," she drawls, chuckling. "Two cadavers coming up," she adds, moving to give herself a clear shot at them. (Considering the range on the sniper rifle, this isn't very far away at all.)

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

The forward fellow, the better-armored of the two, is seated in an old Formica chair behind a half-height wall of sandbags. The other is about fifteen yards behind him, between another such wall and a fifty-five gallon drum of ... something... that happens to be on fire. It's probably best if people don't look in that drum later.

[aeons_crackshot]

Tsk, tsk. Sitting right in line with one another like that? That makes it almost too easy.

One breathe to line up the shot, a heartbeat longer to pull the trigger. A round capable of piercing lightly armored vehicles speeds through the air with a CRACK. Annabelle intends to put the bullet between the eyes of the better armored fellow and through the skull of the man standing over the burning drum behind him.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Slavers are tough, and strong, but they're also only human. Unlike the greenskins of the Capital Wasteland, one bullet is really all it needs to send both men's heads jerking in Annabelle's direction thanks to the jet propulsion effect created by their exit wounds.

There's a third man in the kill corridor, but he's around the bend a smidge; it may be hard to hear him screaming profanities.

[aeons_crackshot]

Annabelle waits, hoping that the third man will come out just a little farther. Unfortunately, the screaming man doesn't seem to be quite that stupid.

Her trained eye scans the area for anything that can be encouraged to fall on him, or, failing that, a good angle for a potential ricochet shot.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Well, let's see. The walls are mostly concrete, with the occasional patch of corrugated steel or scrap metal. There are a few hulks of pre-war cars with all the interesting bits (you know, the explosive atomic power plants) removed; they're stacked up in twos and threes off to the left near the turn in the corridor. There's an awfully high steel wall with an additional several feet of fencing on top....

[aeons_crackshot]

Hm. As much as Annabelle would like to drop a car or three on him, that would make getting in rather difficult. The fence, on the other hand, shows promise.

CRACK! At first, it seems as if the shot has little effect. Then, gravity takes over and the fencing comes down directly on the third man's position. We hope, for his sake, that the fencing doesn't have too much in the way of sharp pointy bits.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

Well, no, not so much the sharp and pointy. On the other hand, that's heavy stuff. The gentleman on the ground is named Forty, for the number of men he's killed; it would appear that he's not likely to be changing his name to Forty-One today....

[aeons_crackshot]

Only forty? Psh. Annabelle couldn't tell you how many people she's killed. Partly because keeping a head count is a little morbid, and partly because it's a much larger number than forty.

Annabelle nods in satisfaction as the third man goes down. "The three in the corridor are down," she calls out to Ellen and Cross. "Two definite kills and a probable third on the fellow around the corner."

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"All right," says Ellen. "Cross and I are the most heavily armored, so we'll take point. D0G, you can press forward as soon as we're in an open area with enough room to see around you."

She takes a deep breath; this is not a thing she had ever wanted to say, but... well. She's been thinking about this ever since Tyler spoke with the Little Lamplighters. And she's not seeing much of an alternative, even by pre-war military standards.

"I don't want these people to be a threat to anyone ever again. I don't think they know what an honorable surrender means, considering what they do with their prisoners. I don't have time for prisoners and I don't have John-117 here to put the fear of God into them, so... anybody who isn't wearing a slave collar is fair game. Unless you see them drop all their weapons and strip to their skivvies, assume they're still armed, even if they're running away. The slave trade in the Wasteland ends here."

She'd rub her face if she didn't have her helmet on. It's bothering her greatly that right now, the only quote she can remember that's providing any comfort at all isn't Biblical or poetic, but one that Mr. Brotch told his history class came from Genghis Khan in Samarkand:

I am the Scourge of God. Had you not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you.

Not something you want to feel good about thinking.

"Everyone ready?"

[aeons_crackshot]

"I'm ready," Annabelle says with a nod, switching to her pistols.

An angel of death, come to carry out the punishment of the unrighteous and free the innocent.

[hallelujahpilot]

Trudy also nods, rifle in her hands. Her RDA rifle, not the laser: That one is slung across her back until she can see what the terrain is like, see what needs blowing the hell up.

"Ready," she says, and she is. She's good with black-and-white, we're the good guys and we're gonna make sure that the bad guys ain't ever going to move again. It's a familiar righteousness, as familiar and welcome as the weight of her body-armour.

It's a good fight.

(she's missed being in a good fight)

[g00d_d0ggie]

D0G isn't big on abstractions. He keeps Alyx safe and does what she tells him. Alyx told him to listen to Ellen, and Ellen says the people in the compound without collars all need to die. That's good enough for him.

D0G gives Ellen a nod and a thumbs-up.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

"Good D0G," Ellen murmurs. "Dogmeat?"

Her own dog whufs once and waves his tail. Ellen glances to Cross, who nods.

"All right," Ellen says. "Let's move."

The kill corridor was designed to make the Paradise Falls entrance easily defensible, but it was also designed to make moving human beings in and out a simple task. Anyone who can get around or over the sandbags is going to have an easy time. And as far as the gate goes, well... D0G knows how to deal with gates.

The wall of rubble that blocks off the base of the guard tower on the other side bears a sign reading WELCOME TO PARADISE FALLS - STOW YOUR PIECE. There are several grim-faced people, two men and one woman, in varying degrees of leather and polyceramic armor ignoring this admonition in favor of charging towards the newcomers with assault rifles at the ready.

[aeons_crackshot]

Charging is not the brightest move ever. Especially not when you're charging someone who can make the laws of probability curl up in a ball and whimper.

Annabelle opens fire with a machine pistol in each hand, aiming to put bullets between the eyes of two of them at once.

[hallelujahpilot]

Trudy? Is not so stylish and slick as Annebelle. But she was trained to do this, and it's like riding a bike. Put on the body-armour and the memories come back. As the group advance, she settles the rifle against her, aims at the woman, and fires. One, two, three.

They aren't moving as fast as viperwolves, and if she misses, well. There goes her free time as she goes back to the range.

[g00d_d0ggie]

The slavers' bullets ping off of D0G's chassis as he gallops forward. Unless they're lucky enough to shoot him right in the optic, none of the shots make a damn bit of difference to the robot.

These particular slavers are not lucky.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

There are going to be a number of dead slavers very quickly. They really weren't ready to go up against Annabelle. And the woman, well, Trudy settles her score right quick.

But there are others, and some of them are scrambling up on furniture or fencing rather than charging, and some of them are taking cover before firing. And the man in the guard tower? He's spinning up his minigun. You don't forget a noise like that, no you-

"DOGMEAT!"

... well, okay, there's at least one slaver who really didn't expect to get hit in the face with fifty pounds of snarl, but still.

[aeons_crackshot]

Fifty pounds of snarl that is likely to end in his throat getting ripped out.

Annabelle certainly recognizes the sound of the minigun spinning up, so the man in the guard tower is moved to the top of the kill list.

The big problem with a weapon that has to spin up before it's ready to fire, is that you can't fire it while it's spinning up. Annabelle shifts one pistol to put a bullet between the tower guard's eyes before the minigun finishes its warm up routine. The other pistol sends a snarling man in leather armor to meet his Maker.

[hallelujahpilot]

Annabelle's dealing with the minigun, so Trudy just lets her do it. There are other slavers to deal with. She aims, and fires, but that little knot of people behind that fence? Are really starting to annoy her. They actually know what they are doing.

"Cross! Cover me for a sec." Bullet-rifle over her shoulder, laser-rifle off and ready and fire.

God, but she kind of loves this weapon.

[g00d_d0ggie]

The complex is a knotty maze of walls and fences. Getting through the place could take some time.

Or it would take some time, if they didn't have D0G with them. He rips through the metal barriers as if they were made of tinfoil.

[aaaaaaaagh_sky]

This is not a good day to be the minigun man, no. Not at all. Hopefully someone will- oh, he fell forward instead of backward, okay, he won't be falling out of the tower after all....

"Covering!" answers Cross. Trudy's laser is the fourth beam of red light to lance through the air; Cross's current weapon of choice is a Gatling laser, after all. Nobody's going to get a clean shot off at Trudy thanks to that thing.

As for the fence? The knot of people behind it is in for a world of pain. So are the two gentlemen just past them, one yellow-bearded and the other grey-haired. However, their pain may take longer to reach them, given that they're each about six and a half feet tall and wearing spiked metal armor far superior to the others' leathers.

We wish we were kidding about the spikes.

[aeons_crackshot]

"Why the hell would you put spikes on armor?" Annabelle asks rhetorically as she turns to fire on the two gentlemen. They can see, therefore, there are weak spots in the form of the visors in the armor.

If nothing else, she may 'encourage' them into the path of D0G, or Trudy's laser gun. Her accuracy and rate of fire may seem a touch unreal to outside observers.