Winter crouched, concentrating as hard as he could on arming the powerful bomb that he had constructed through slight diligenc- oh who was he kidding, he just strapped some C4 into a ball of metal. He already had the thing wired up well enough from before, and didn't quite require to check the wiring. He pulled the trigger connection wire on the bomb, to bring it out, and then connected it with the secondary charge wire inside.

He prayed that it wouldn't explode on the spot, as the wires connected, and sparked to life. The timer's flashed up inside, showing in red, a type of analog clock. It began to tick, slowly, but surely.

He ran out, and tapped Whisper on the back. "Lets go, now. And I mean now. Don't you fucking dare try anything, we don't have the time for that." and moved forward. He didn't wait for an answer, because he knew she wouldn't have much to say to him about that.

They only had around five minutes till detonation, which was just about enough time to reach down to the sewers, and get some distance, but it was still a concerning matter. The explosion could possibly collapse the sewers, or the soldiers could be genre savvy enough to check down here. So many variables in the plan. But there wasn't much else he could do, and they were running out of time.

Only four minutes, and forty five seconds later, he was dashing through the disgustingly wet sewers. Winter had an old world watch he'd borrowed to keep the time, and he was staring right at it, as he ran through the circular sewers, towards the Enclave base territory. He counted down verbally, so Whisper could hear, although he'd have preferred to have let her be surprised. Oh how he hated her. "NINE, EIGHT, SEVEN, SIX, FIVE, FOUR, THREE, TWO..." he spoke audibly, and loudly, getting slightly nervous "Annnnnnnnd one! Detonation!" he said once, before the shockwave hit, and the tunnel shook violently, throwing dust and dirty water everywhere.

That was one hell of a signal, and they weren't gonna be missing it any time soon!

With the explosion of the NCR's communication tower, the Enclave Forces moved in. The NCR were scrambling to try to figure out what happened, but by the time they had workers on sight they were too late to realize it was a diversion. The steel gates of the facilities were blown to pieces as the Enclave's heavy weapons and vehicles stormed the area. The Rangers managed to down a few soldiers at first, but they fell to the Enclave's counter-snipers and artillery. Archangel rode inside an APC instead of charging alongside the other soldiers, but she was still able to observe the battlefield through Ada. The dark storm hid the movements of the little robot as he swooped down from the skies, electrocuting any unlucky soldier it crossed or knocking them off their elevation with a surprise attack. As she predicted, the only true threats came from the rangers themselves or the rare few bands of NCR soldiers who managed to get into some sort of organized group. Their service rifles couldn't do much against the standard Enclave Power Armor on their own, but using Armor-Piercing bullets and firing as a squad turned them into a meat-grinder. But nothing a well placed explosive couldn't break down.

Archangel allowed Ada to go on it's own as she went into battle. The Enclave cleaned up the interior fairly quickly, leaving only pockets of resistance bunked down into small rooms. They were going to be difficult to take out, but they would die like everyone else. Archangel arrived to one of the last stands, a ground of twenty NCR soldier's laying automatic fire into anything that even stepped foot into the hall. Loading a High-Explosive round into her gauntlet, Archangel popped out of the corner only for a second, long enough for her to aim and fire her bomb. By the time she ducked back into the corner bit of blood and gore was launched down the hall. "Clear them out before they can reorganize!" A few of the heavy armored soldiers charged through, their plasma rifles melting any stragglers and survivors. Archangel followed through, casually shooting any NCR soldier regardless if they were trying to fight back or surrender. The NCR may had laws and customs for war, but the Enclave weren't going to follow them. She certainly wasn't.

But not all things were so simple. As Archangel and some of the others stormed through to clear out any pockets of resistance, they stumbled onto a horrific sight. Not crimes against humanity or something that made the NCR cross the moral event horizon. Archangel and some of the others managed to get into what looked like a medical wing. They had expected the sick, the injured, the infirm. Archangel was already prepared to deal with them, loading a new clip of bullets into her pistol. But as she executing the wounded beggars, she came across one woman who didn't seem to try to ask for mercy. She just stared harshly at her. Archangel aimed her gun at her, and noticed something off. The woman was pregnant. "Of course." Because even in the military men and women still had unprotected sex. Archangel didn't think too much about it, and simply shot her in the head. For good measure, she shot the woman in the womb as well. She and the others continued to create a path of destruction, and ran into another situation. Just as men and women created babies, those babies turned into children. They had managed to capture a small group of five, though Archangel began to question how or why they were here in this military base. Though it's not like the NCR were warned of the attack, or knew of any hostiles in the area capable of actually doing this much harm to them. The children were scared, tears rolling down their face. "You know what your mission is." To make her point across, she killed four of the children and had to reload her pistol when the last one tried to make a break for it. "Do not let her escape!" The soldiers chased after her as Archangel continued to the next point. She had to fight back the urge to break down and cry. She was in Eagle Squad now. She made her peace. God help them all.

The vault dweller continued forward, but soon found herself alone. She didn't worry, but she knew better than to think that she could take on the entire facility herself. Carefully she began to sneak around, noting the odd silence. Just a moment ago the air was wild with the buzzing of energy weapons and bullets, but now that was a distant memory. She pondered if she had died to suddenly that she hardly even realized it, but such thoughts were put on hold when she hear the sound of wheels grinding against the ground. She saw a broom closet and quietly entered, hiding herself until the noise went by. Cracking open the door she saw that it was a sentry bot with a Minigun and rocket launcher. "So the NCR did have some. Must have tried to deploy them at the last minute to help their forces." Archangel was tempted to take over the machine right than and there, but unlike her the machine might have been working with another robot, or it's handler. What she needed was some backup. She needed Ada.

Topside, Ada assisted the Enclave take out the rooftop snipers. Only by the time it was too late did they realize that Ada was a threat. She bobbed and weave, dodging their bullets but able to still go on even when taking a solid shot. The eyebot moved quickly and eliminated the rangers with robotic efficiency. But as she continued her assault she picked up Archangel's distress signal. Ada's master required her assistance. Dropping what it was doing, the eyebot routed out the quickest route to her master. And that was through a window.

Not what Archangel wanted. She had hoped that Ada would have been more stealthy, but instead it crashed through a window of all things. At least it distracted the Sentry Bot. Archangel needed to act quickly, before the noise attracted the wrong kind of people. As the two bots battled, Archangel charged towards the Sentry Bot. She jumped onto it's back and opened up it's Combat Inhibitor. Others would destroy the Combat Inhibitor to frenzy the robot, some smarter would try to just shut down the robot. But Archangel had the know-how and the technology to alter the Combat Inhibitor's targeting parameters. Connecting it with her Pipboy, she quickly uploaded a new set of targeting parameters to include Enclave personnel, but not the NCR. This didn't guarantee that her fellow Enclave wouldn't try to gun down the Sentry Bot since it still had NCR colors, but for now it was her ally. And not a moment too soon.

Just around the corner was two NCR Heavy Troopers. They wore Brotherhood Power Armor, albeit, without any power. It was basically just the hull of their armor, the servos and hydraulics removed and replaced with more padding. It was almost as crude as bandit metal armor, though at least it was made of tempered steel instead of scrap metal. Nonetheless, those who wore the armor was physically strong, strong enough to use Light Machine Guns. Not wanting to test her Armored Vault Suit against their bullets, she dived behind her Sentry Bot when the NCR soldier's opened fire. Ada flew over the Sentry Bot and shocked the two soldiers, giving the Sentry Bot just enough time to reeve it's minigun. It mowed down the two soldiers with little trouble, and Archangel managed to survive no worse for ware. "Right than. We're not done yet. Ada, scout ahead and disable any robot you come across. Go ahead and destroy any turrets, but you are not required to engage against enemy soldiers. Leave that to me and the Sentry Bot." Taking out her Disintergrator, Archangel and her group of robots moved through the halls and to their next objective.

BOOM! The tower came crumbling down, and just as suddenly, the attack began. Venom watched as the tanks rolled forward and men began their assault. Bullets, lasers, plasma, missiles, and whatever other horrors the Enclave decided to throw at the enemy. His first mission had been missed, and this one? It was time for the show to begin. He reached over and pressed a button on his armor, and immediately jerked, as he felt chemicals forcefully inject themselves into his bloodstream. One after another... He felt stronger, faster... He wasn't really, this was all something the human body could already do. However... The body had certain limiters, restrictions, to keep itself from ripping apart. These chemicals simply... Lessened those. He would feel sore, and probably hurt like hell at the end of the day, but with the stim-packs that would also inject themselves into his flesh, he'd survive. Just another part of the job...

He started running alongside the men, alongside the vehicles. He was part of the first attack, the hammer that would shatter the bear. His assault rifle came up. Pop. Pop. Pop. Three rounds, three hits. The men he'd shot were on the wall, raising their rifles. They stared at him for a minute, before suddenly collapsing backwards, hitting the ground with a loud thud. So it worked, the venom worked. Excellent. He ran in, firing off individual rounds with terrifying accuracy. Every shot brought down a man, no matter where he was hit. That was, until he found one of their heavies. The savaged armor, marked clean of the brotherhood symbols that it once belonged to, bringing a missile launcher to bear.

Venom watched the missile come flying at his position, and time seemed to slow down. Two of his rounds had already bounced off his heavy armor, another would simply waste ammunition. He'd need to try something else. Meanwhile... When had he started sprinting? The ground shook behind him, and a sharp pain suddenly flew through his cheek as a piece of shrapnel blew through the armored glass of his helmet. Jerking it out, Venom glared at the man reloading his weapon, putting a new missile into the weapon to be fired again. Bingo. His assault rifle came up, and another shot was fired. The heavy infantryman would've laughed if he realized what had happened. As it stood, Venom had moved too fast for him to really catch it. His weapon came up, and then his gun went of- A second explosion rattled the earth, centered on the heavy. His bullet had hit its mark, slamming into the missile straight down the barrel of the launcher, setting it off inside the weapon. So sad, that was a nice gun too.

Then it came to the clearing of the base itself. He went in alone, as the men fanned out around him. The battle was ending as quickly as it started. The building he chose was small, simple. A barracks, almost empty now. Inside, he found a few men, clutching assault rifles, firing at the door he was entering from nearly instantly. Ducking out of the way, his combat armor taking a round to the shoulder, though doing its job well. These men didn't even have armor piercing rounds. They had barely looked to be eighteen, and he smirked. They wouldn't expect this. Over a window went a flashbang, going off with a loud bang, before Venom ran in the door again, his assault rifle coming to bear. One, two, three, four. Four boys holding service rifles fell, their bodies shutting down as a single round from Venom proved his namesake. He was about to turn and leave, when he heard a whimpering. A crying. Another survivor?

He saw the shape of a boy, clutching his hands behind his head, sobbing to himself about what was happening. "Oh god..." He wasn't even a man yet. No, the NCR recruited early in age. It kept the bears numbers fat. The boy looked up for a brief moment, tears glistening on his cheeks. Venom could see the fear in his eyes, and if the boy had drank anything that night, he likely would've pissed himself already. Sighing, Venom looked from left to right, before working out words in quick succession. "Go out the back, try not to get seen. Go, and you'll have a better chance of living." He didn't stop to hear the boy leave, exiting the barracks himself.

A gunshot sounded itself off from the rest, and he turned around, noticing an enclave soldier, holding a rifle, the boy falling to the ground, a hole where his left eye used to be. "Guess you missed one, didn't you?" A voice came over his comset. The bastard was in his squad, the one he had been leading.

"Guess I did." His words were cold, as he cut off the comms to his helmet entirely. If someone wanted to talk to him, they could very well do it in person, or they could go fuck themselves. His assault rifle added to the fray again, though he clenched it much harder than before. If he'd paid attention, he might've even noticed one of his teeth crack from the pressure he was putting on them. No, that wasn't how the bear should be killed, bringing down boys pretending to be men. That wasn't how it should be...

Mangled by the Chimeras encroaching on the airport, yawning holes opened up in NCR's wall scattering rubble and bodies onto the battlefield. The powerful machines carved paths through the terrain, crushing rock and toppling trees as they went. Fire from the patrols on the diminishing walls did nothing to stop them. The ground would continue to shake and the NCR would continue to feel the wrath of their cannons until none were left standing.

Golem wasted no time cutting his way into the main entrance. The proton axe was a hot knife through butter in the flesh of those brave enough to stand before him and those not fast enough to get away. Bullets formed a chorus singing as they dented and grazed his hulking armored body and shield. He felt like the center of attention. Flattering. Deep booms from the rifles of the enclave sniper teams rose above and steadily drowned out the ringing of the enemy's guns. He breached the broken defenses keeping an intense watch on his surroundings. A man in uniform came up on his side. He lunged. Rifle fire exploded for only a moment. The man's head rolled among the rubble. Many more flooded into face the Enclave. The bodies began to pile up on the asphalt. Hellfire troopers left corpses, NCR installments and ancient structures ablaze as they pressed through the parking complex toward the large building. Under the intensifying rain eerie wisps of steam and smoke drifted into the atmosphere. It was an incredible spectacle. Golem pulled his shotgun. The blast was near silent with the hundreds of executions being carried out on every side. The runner's back burst into bloody chunks before he hit the ground. A spectacle that would never make it into the history books.

By the time he had made his way down to the first floor loading bay and hacked the first hole through the barricaded doors a dozen other armored soldiers had gathered there after finding their way through the thinning resistance. Heated battle still echoed on the parking level above but down here felt almost serene with the dark and the muffled noise. The layers of the barricade were splintered and peeled back by the Enclave until the doors themselves began to come off their hinges. Inside the sounds of men shouting, leaders barking orders and sprinting feet could be heard.

"We'll clear the building from the bottom up and leave guards posted so nothing gets out through lower levels." Golem ordered, "Stay clear of the doors. Sounds like there's a lot of 'em in there. Gonna be desperate too."

The twin door on the right came crashing to the ground after a loud CRACK, torn down by one of the troopers. Through the voices and movement of the enemy troops inside they could hear something strange. A high-pitched whine and a growing low whirring. What little was left of the entryway, and one of the Enclave soldiers who lingered too long from cover, was immediately disintegrated by the ballistic hail of a mini-gun. It seemed the bastards weren't going to make this easy for them anymore. Whoever was wielding that weapon wouldn't be able to keep up this rate of fire forever, but all the same they had a job to do and Golem wasn't too keen on waiting around for the enemy to simply run out of bullets. After shouting a quick order one of the Enclave soldiers un-clipped a frag grenade and lobbed it into the entrance. There was shouting. A deafening blast. Smoke and dust burst from the opening and the barrage of fire slowed and ceased. Showtime. Golem turned on the power to his riot shield and with it bashed the heavily damaged left door the wrong way off its hinges and began the assault.

The dust and smoke had no chance to settle. The NCR gathered to defend the first level of the rotunda were wounded, dying or blinded. Popping bursts of fire from rifles echoed around the circular multi-level space striking flesh, splintering concrete and shattering glass. Most of the men here had no chance to defend themselves as the brute charged them, bringing a glowing blade down on them out of the haze. They weren't what he was after though. He needed to find out if the gutsy hero with the heavy artillery was still alive and figure out where that gun was so nobody else would get any bright ideas. The low whirring of the mini-gun started up again somewhere to his right across the room. Bullets slammed into the interior walls and pillars behind him. He ran. They followed. They were catching up.

"Get down!" someone yelled.

Debris from the impact of the 5mm rounds was clinking off the back of his armor as he made a wide arc, sprinting toward the source. Again, they couldn't keep this up forever, but Golem couldn't outrun the fire for much longer either. He was getting close. The percussion muted all other noise including his heavy footfalls and fast breathing. The synthetic fibers of his body strained against the speed and power. He kept his shield up. Bullets began to scream and burst into flame upon pummeling the energized metal. Red-yellow flames all too close to him. Brilliant muzzle flash. It's wielder turned full force on the Golem that came over him. The power threatening to tear the shield to bits. Screeching. Blinding light. Molten steel. Blade crushing into flesh and bone.

The mini-gun hit the floor, the red barrels continuing to strike and bounce until it came to a full stop. It's master was an unrecognizable mess after having his skull, neck and part of his chest split in half. Golem pulled the axe from the body. There was a hitch in several of the joints of his power armor when he moved. Examining the damage he found several holes ripped through his right side and arm. No pain though. The building shuddered. There was a heavy groaning behind him that kicked of a loud cracking, crunching, tearing, and snapping. All at once part of the structure gave way sending up plumes of dust and just as it had started to clear. Golem shielded himself and called out to the remaining Enclave squad when the cacophony silenced. Most were still standing. After the dust cleared Golem was left looking at a large chunk of what used to be the second floor balcony twisted and broken on the ground in front of him. The sign attached to it remained mostly intact. Welcome to Boise. City of trees. Welcome indeed.

The force cleared out the rest of the rotunda easily. They quickly moved up to the second and third levels of the core of the building and cleaned up any survivors. Golem made his way down a hallway and into the concourse the damaged armor still bothering him but not enough to slow him down much. More bodies as well as a smattering of destroyed automated defenses littered this area. A few Enclave men remained here and there searching for survivors. It seemed the NCR had been using at least part of the area for medical purposes. Even the people here hadn't been spared. Golem could help it. He slowed his pace a bit as he walked by an unusually tiny body. The dead eyes of the child stared up at him. Vacant. He looked away and pressed on. Don't think about it, he told himself.

He spotted Archangel and group of salvaged bots only moments later. He had discovered them after a small skirmish it seemed. She was giving orders to an eyebot before continuing forward. Snapping into a slow jog to catch up with them put more even more strain on the compromised joints.

"Archangel," Golem called her attention, "Need some back up?"

He walked beside her and checked out his armor again. Thin streams of blood had started to trickle down the inside of his arm and down the side of his torso. Great.

---

By the time anybody spotted him they were as good as dead. The massive explosion that had brought down the communications tower only minutes before had been their cue to take down the men lining the rim of the wall. Without them those walls weren't a defense any longer. They were a cage. The attack had taken the Rangers by surprise and they were only able to lay down a thin line of fire on the Enclave troops that swarmed their stronghold. Over his fellow Eagle Claw members he kept special watch. Easily distinguished from most of the other Enclave, he caught a handful of them as they made it through the outer defenses and made sure none of the NCR got too friendly with them. Not that they needed his help but it paid to have each other's backs. Ginger was fully expecting more enemy forces to show up to the party and take the place of the patrols falling left and right to the team of snipers and the devastating destruction wrought by the Chimeras. He was right. The NCR had numbers but they were unprepared and ill equipped for what the Enclave had brought. One. A pulse of electric blue tore a Ranger to shreds. Two. The same proved the NCR's "power armor" to be nothing more than fancy tin cans. Three. The sniper fell off the high perch and out of his sights right when he pulled the trigger and the charge sailed through the air only to collide with a runway some distance ahead. A runt of a bot dashed through his cross-hair. He recognized it as the little eyebot Archangel had brought along on the flight.

You little shit, he thought to himself with a smile.

Between the snipers and the eyebot the heights of the walls became a deathtrap and more of the enemy took to the ground fighting back or trying to escape. It was a bloodbath. He suddenly found himself happy to be watching the chaos unfold from a distance rather than be down in the fray with the others. Up here he could keep his calm and do the most good. Bare-handed slaughter and battle-glory be damned. The NCR numbers coming his way thinned out of existence, they eyebot vanished and Ginger set his sights on what he could see of the tarmac. Several derelict planes were scattered here and there, but from the look of the people running toward them he began to wonder if they were as non-functional as he first thought.

"Targets are heading onto the runways," he whispered over the comms, "Looks like they're heading for some planes out there. Can't confirm if they're in working condition but they should be 'secured' regardless. I'm gonna move this squad to a better vantage point." He was getting antsy. They had been in one spot far too long for his liking and he was beginning to feel the NCR knew they were here. He gave the command to the squad to leave the building through their escape route. The rain was coming down harder now and would help conceal the move. Luck was on their side it seemed. Before he could finish that thought an explosion rocked the lower floor of the building. The traps.

Dammit he hadn't heard a single noise coming up on them. The squad flew down the fire escape and hit the ground running like bats out of hell. Now he could hear footsteps and voices entering the building behind them, hushed though they were. He knew better than to hang around and listen in. The surrounding buildings and overgrowth provided excellent coverage, but his nerves were still on edge. With a low voice command he switched on the stealth option of his armor. He needed to disappear before he could think about killing the sons-of-bitches, but kill them he would. A complex of dilapidated office spaces rose up on the next block. Perfect. Inside the hallways and rooms and cubicles twisted and turned and spiraled around each other like a maze. Even better. They would have an excellent view of the airport from the upper levels and more than adequate cover from the men on their tail. Ginger was hoping they would try to follow them in. There stealth would be on his side. He sent his squad top side, secured the first floor and contacted Deathstroke.

"We've taken up position a few blocks away," he whispered, "Someone came up behind us. Didn't get a visual, but we'll be ready for 'em this time. Keep your eyes open."

One of his squad alerted him to movement on the ground outside the building. He set up at a window facing the direction the target were spotted, still cloaked and scanned the area for them. The squad member spotted them again and this time so did he. Rangers. They weren't trying to escape, instead coming up on the squad's new location. Unbelievable. He counted four in total and had that number confirmed by the eyes in the floors above. Ginger singled out one for himself and assigned the rest to three other members of his squad.

"They haven't spotted us yet. Take 'em out on three," he ordered.

There was a hiss followed by three mechanical scrapes.

No time to react.

The ground shook. Grenades slammed into the base of building. Flames and shrapnel tore through half of the first floor. The entrance to the building slumped and collapsed from taking sections of the floors above with it. A gaping hole opened up in the side of the building raining rubble below. More grenades followed. More chaos. When the onslaught stopped the the lower floors were charred and skeletal. Concrete was strewn around it's base. Small fires smoldered. The remaining supports trembled.

Clean up was going well so far. The NCR was loosing moral and their defenses were weakening. The Enclave continued to put up a strong offensive, but now also began to take back their own injured soldiers to get treated, assuming that anyone was hurt. They were also beginning to take prisoners, but not for bargaining. It was just that it'll be easier to dispose of them if they were executed near a trench to throw the bodies in. Archangel now had two sentry bots protecting her as she sent Ada to find more machines and report back to her. Soon someone called out to her; it was Golem. More help would always be appreciated. "Always. I've gotten message that our ability is needed below the sub level. There seems to be some sort of subway tunnel down below. The NCR had sealed the entrance to prevent infiltration, but now they plan to us it to escape. Normally it's nothing that the usual grunts can't handle, but the NCR's elites are gathered down there. Rangers, Heavies, specialist, seems like they wanted to make sure their best could get out to fight another day. Obviously you and I are going to have to change that."

Archangel and her robots, along with Golem presumably, went off towards the location were they were needed. It was easily spotted by a line of enclave soldiers dragging out their wounded. Giant dents and dismemberment made it obvious that those Rangers were packing the Hecate II rifles. The constant firing of what sounded like light machine guns also told her the reason why none of the soldiers managed to get through was due to suppressing fire. "Great..." They'd need a plan better than just sending in their hardiest soldier through the grinder. Even the two sentry bots wouldn't last going down the hall. And the sharpshooters on the other end would be more than ready to blast off her arm if she poked her head around. This would require some stealth, or maybe... "Golem, down this hall is a large group of the NCR's strongest soldiers. Their heavy armors are laying down suppressing fire with their light machine guns making it impossible for us to go through the hall without facing a hail of bullets. But they also have rangers keeping an eye out for any of us trying to post around the corner. Short of running out of ammo, I don't think they're about to clear out until they can reopen the subway entrance. Any suggestions on how to get to them that doesn't require a martyr?"

The Bear was one of the first to respond to the explosion. Latching onto one of the APCs, he rode it towards the gate, the light gatling laser easily held with his free hand as the wave of Enclave soldiers careened towards the compound. Once they were close, he leapt off of his ride and made his way in. In the courtyard, the dark night air was lit up by a stream of lasers coming from Bear, decimating any who were unlucky enough to be in his sights. Walls were singed and the soldiers of the Two Headed Bear were blasted to dust, and more than a few allies were injured as they tried to pass by the Bear. Once the bullets finally stopped plinking off of his armor, he allowed his trigger finger to lift. A squad of men formed around him, and the great power armored beast made his way towards a door that had been mostly blasted open.

A foot slammed into it, sending shattered remains raining into the hallway. Footsteps faded as troopers ran from them, and Bear sent his men after them. He preferred to work alone, or with men he trusted. And with Eagle Claw separated, there was no one here to trust. Once the men were down a different hallway, and the sounds of gunfire and laser shots were sounding in the distance, he began working his way through his own path. It was mostly bare, many of the troopers, young and old, all gone the outside of the building to fight the assault. That was fine. The battle could wait. His real prey were the ones in charge of this facility, the ones who gave commands. The communications tower was down, but that would not stop short range communications between the troops and their commanders. What would break their moral more than hearing their generals and captains screaming as a Bear ripped them apart, and then being told that no mercy would be shown to them either? Beneath the helm, a savage grin spread over his face, and over the comms of his team, a throaty growl ran through their heads.

As he turned a corner, a few bullets slammed against his side. Big, thick bullets. A grunt escaped him, and he turned to see a sniper with a rather large rifle getting up to turn the corner. Bear merely turned his gun on him, but missed him by mere centimeters, the wall behind becoming a torn, scorched mess. Hurrying as fast as he could, he skidded to a halt as a few gunshots came from the hallway. Where his head would have been, three bullets, two small and one large whizzed past. He groaned in annoyance, and glanced around. There were a few doors around him, one into the wall that connected to the hallway he would have gone down. Opening the door, it opened into a large room, with a door connecting to the other hallway with the soldiers. He walked through, heavy boots clapping against the floor, likely causing worry in the troops who he was likely passing. Once he neared the door, he positioned himself, placing the barrels of his weapon a few inches away from the door. After a few seconds of silence, the weapon whirred to life, and a stream of laser fire decimated the door. A scream came from behind it, followed by spouts of ash and hardened blood as a body fell in pieces behind the door. There was a loud shout and some footsteps. The Bear leapt from the room and turned to face the fleeing men, and gunned them down.

A low, rumbling laugh echoed through the comms as he stood over the bodies, cloth burning while ash and blood spewed from the wounds. He turned back on his way, and continued. In the distance, he could hear gunfire. It seemed that the fighting had come into the building at last. That hadn't taken long, but it was both good and bad in Bear's eyes. Pro: He'd get to use his weapon more. Con: It would take him longer to reach his quarry. Small, dark eyes peered out from behind the orange lenses of his helmet, eyeing the corridor apprehensively. There were surprisingly few people here. He expected more guards in the deep parts of the main building. As he was beginning to doubt his sense of direction, a familiar whirring sound caught his ear. He was just able to double back as a stream of small bullets fired past him, the loud banging of a minigun coming from the side. He reached up and turned off his comms, and got as close to he could to the corner as he could now that the minigun had stopped firing.

"That's a nice gun you've got there!" Bear called from his cover.

There was a moment of silence, followed by the enemy speaking. "Thanks! Looks like you've got one of your own!"

"Yes, well, mine is more suited for shooting lasers rather than bullets! Enclace really likes their 'advanced' tech."

"Nothing beats a good ol' bullet, though!"

"Disagreed! Explosions will always be better than a bullet! And not only that, but can a bullet do this?" As he said that last syllable, he rounded the corner and open fired on the soldier. Laser fire was met by gunfire as the two opened up on each other, the steam of bullets denting the Bear while the lasers melted sections of the other man. Both roared at each other, but after a few seconds, the other fell as his ravaged, salvaged armor fell before the might of superior firepower. The Onyx armor held up though, proving once more the superiority of Enclave equipment. The door he was guarding was now open for savaging, and the Bear did so with gusto. The large double doors burst open, and he was met with pistol fire from a group of revolvers. The Bear didn't even flinch as the bullets clattered to the ground, and he was faced with six men. He gently set down his gatling laser, and retrieved his own pistol, a plasma defender, from the holster at his hip. Three shots later, there were three corpses on the ground. A bullet skidded off the skidded off the side of his helmet, and as he turned to fire at him, the second embedded itself into his left lense. The breath caught in his throat for a moment, then his finger tightened on the trigger, and the fourth man was brought to the ground.

Before the other two could make another move, he roared, "Stop!" The pair froze, and the Bear kept his gun trained on them. He motioned to a table and a set of chairs. "Sit. You will not be harmed if you comply." He doubted either believed him, which they shouldn't, but they made their way to the table and sat. He held his free hand out to the elder of the two. "Your revolver, please," he requested. Slowly but surely, the man placed the pistol into Bear's hand. The man holstered his plasma defender, and then emptied the revolver of its rounds, except for one. He spun the cylinder around, and then slapped the gun on the table and spun it. When it came to a halt, the barrel pointed towards the younger of the two. Bear made a motion for him to lift the gun, and then said, "Place it to your head and pull the trigger. If you live, spin the cylinder, and then give it to your friend. The one who doesn't die gets to go free." The younger man opened his mouth to protest, but before he could get a word out, the muzzle of Bear's pistol was placed against his forehead. "Unless you'd prefer me to just kill both of you. This way, at least someone gets out alive to warn your people." The man gulped, and placed the gun against his head.

His hend was shaking, and he shut his eyes tightly. As the trigger pulled, both of the officers flinched as a click was the only sound produced. A sigh of relief went through the younger one, who Bear moved behind as the revolver was spun and handed off to the other. A similar process went through, a moment of hesitation, a hand raised to the head, and an anticlimatic click. Though, this man had more nerve than his younger compatriot. His hand had been steady the entire time, and he looked Bear in the eye, glaring at the bullet that half stuck out from the lense. The gun was spun and passed on thrice more, and then a fourth time back to the older man. Both were sweating profusely from the stress, while Bear was grinning like a madman behind that faceless helm.

A steady breath escaped the elder officer, and the barrel of the gun was placed against his temple. Three seconds passed, and then the trigger was pulled. The bang! of the gun seemed to shock both Bear and the younger officer, the silence of the room broken at last. His head flew to the side and his arms went limp, the pistol clattering to the ground as his body fell out of the chair and to the ground. The younger one didn't have time to celebrate his victory or lament the death of his friend, though, as the cold, metal hands of Bear clamped around his head. With a savage jerk, the bones of his neck snapped and separated, and the lifeless body fell forward to lay on the table. The Bear then went to the dead officers and rummaged around until he found one of the short range radios. Holding in the button, he shouted in:

"The Bear of the South is no match for the Bear of the North! Your two heads will do nothing but confuse each other as The Great Bear rips their throats out with tooth and claw! The NCR is doomed, and the Bear of the Enclave will have no mercy as it runs you into the ocean! I am coming for you, and you will fear the name of the White Bear!" The radio was tossed to the ground, and a heavy foot crushed it to bits. He then turned on his own comms, and cleared his throat. "I believe I have cleared one of the command rooms. Someone tell me where to point my gun now. I still have some energy left, and I hate to waste so much."

The great communications tower came plummeting down, like a red dawn in the night, the lights that lined the dish started to crash to the earth and smash into the ground. The attack began before the great bear could even move to find out what happened. The first cannon shot from the Sherman tank behind, silencing the rain that fell onto his leathery skin and deafening his ears, made a massive hole in the stone wall. As one, the squad split up and ran forward. The woman he had picked out before, she dropped her sniper rifle as soon as she lifted it to aim, noticing her comrade next to her have his head blown off by a rival sniper, as well as two more. She turned from the wall and dropped down. He ran on all fours, sprinting ahead of the pack and into the fire. Bullets bounced off of his super strengthened skin. He came to a stop at the hole, lights shining onto him from the spotlights in the base. Standing twice, no, three times that of a man. NCR emptied magazines of their pathetic service rifles into him, but the most they did was tickle him. He took an aggressive stance and roared, the blood-cry piercing the sound of the gunfire and the Sherman tanks breaking through the wall. Many NCR started to drop their guns to run, but they were not fast enough.

He jumped forward, putting his enhanced legs to use and catching a trooper. He used a single claw to rip through the man's stomach and spill his guts over the ground. He screamed as Scissors dropped him to the ground with a thud. Leaving his kill there to die like a dog, Leinhart raced forward into a newly formed group of soldiers. Though they had grabbed shotguns from the armory in the short time they were given, they were no match for Leinhart's vicious claws, tearing through their flesh like tissue paper, he rended them, destroying the morale of anybody that dared see the bloodbath. Just as he was about to execute the last one, a 50. Caliber bullet pierced through his shoulder and out the other side. He yelled as pain tore through his arm and turned to look at what shot him. It was the NCR Ranger from the wall. His bloodied maw formed what seemed to be a smile in the flashing thunder as he dropped the soldier he had in his claws and started to sprint at her. She was not his first kill, but he would break her.

He jumped from side to side as he sprinted, narrowly avoiding her shots as he closed the distance. She dropped her intervention and switched to a .45 pistol and began firing. Though the bullets pierced his skin, it was not enough to truly harm the deathclaw. He brought the back of his claw to her body and knocked her back. She dropped her weapon and was left defenseless as he slowly approached her. She tried to scoot away and yell for help, but to no avail. He sunk his entire claw into her stomach and lifted her up. She screamed as blood started to seep from her mouth. He lifted up his spare claw and removed her helmet so he could see the terror in her face. She tried to fight, she reached for her knife and plunged it into his arm, but as she tried to rip the blade away, it snapped in half. She screamed again and threw the handle at Leinhart's face in a useless attempt to resist, but it did nothing. Her pupils widened in fear, but her eyelids started to flutter as most of her blood was being drained out of her body. She was fading fast, her teeth were bloodied, her lip stained, and her body weak. He let her die slowly, fading out of existence like a light in the dark. Once she was gone, he used his free claw to snip her dog tags off of her neck and let them fall into his vest pocket. He then let her slide off of his claw and to the ground. Those around him looked to see that the NCR Ranger Captain had fallen, and now either ran forward to avenge her, or run for the momentary safety of their bunkers. No matter, they would all fall. He had no communications device in his skull. If he did, the rest of Eagle Claw would have heard his maniacal laughing as he stepped forward to continue the slaughter.

_______________

Now for the fun.

His first target was one he picked out as a captain of the troops. A sergeant maybe, he didn't care. As the soldiers of the base ran away from the explosions of the wall and the attack of the very capable deathclaw, a leader of some sorts was brought down by a high-powered bullet to the knee. The NCR man dropped to the ground, skidding on the stone ground for several feet before coming to a stop. He was near the barracks now and soldiers ran to his aid. He reached out to grab the hand of one of his squadmates, but just as they clasped, the head of the soldier splattered onto his uniform. Two more came but they too fell as the leader had fallen to a sniper's trick that had survived the war. He yelled for other soldiers to run, but they mistook his warnings for cries of help and soon, the leader was surrounded by bodies. He tried to crawl away, but a final bullet to pierce his elbow and sever the arm made him finally give up. He reached for the pistol in his thigh holster and took his own life before he would let anybody else fall.

Just as he was about to continue the murderfest, He froze and turned slightly. Hearing a sound behind him. Another crunch heard over the rain and he reached foward, grabbing the barrel of his sniper rifle and rolling over. He swung and connected with a ranger veteran just about to slit his throat. He set the rifle down and sprung to his feet, launching himself into hand to hand combat with the soldier as Ginger started to yell about NCR coming after them.

The veteran had recovered quickly. He took a punch from Deathstroke easily and reutrned one. Deathstroke's mask flew off and the rain splattered into his face. It didn't slow him down as the second punch from the veteran was countered by a yanking the arm forward into several quick but powerful rabbit punches to the stomach and chest followed by an uppercut to the jaw. The veteran stumbled back and tried to recover, but Deathstroke was faster, being on the man in a flash and twisting him around. He wrapped his arm around the Veteran's neck and flexed his arm, crushing the man's neck in one swift motion. He dropped to the ground dead, leaving Deathstroke to pick up his now cracked mask and to take the communications headset out of the dead Ranger Veteran. He switched off the voice and just listened. They spoke of a plan and how it was in motion. "What plan..." he whispered to himself, they then said that the reinforcements were already on the way. Then it hit him and he contacted Ginger. "I'll catch up with you soon, back to the group by any means necessary, NOW. Warn them that they knew of the attack...warn them to pull back now! I'm going to make sure that this squad never makes it out of the city. I'll create a hole for you to get out. Move quickly and don't wait up."

As he finished, he disabled his communicator and grabbed a small bundle of grenades from the Veteran and his sniper rifle. It was unharmed from it being used as a club, thankfully. He held them in hand as he leaped across the rooftops, sprinting to a good location to see where Ginger and his group was. Finding a good street, he set up again and took aim, picking off several veterans as they started to prepare what seemed like several sentry bots to storm the place. "Cowards. Too afraid to storm the place themselves." He shot one of the sentry bots in the back and it started to go berserk, firing its laser cannon all over the place and causing a ruckus. There was Ginger's hole. Now to draw the soldiers to him.

Ada came back to Archangel with some information that could prove useful to clearing out those NCR piled into the subway tunnel. There were ventilation shafts all throughout the airport that, now that the power has been more or less knocked out, would allow someone as big as Ada to move through and possible drop an explosive device. However the navigation would be difficult with Ada's AI, requiring Archangel to manually control her. "Golem, Ada has found a way to drop an explosive onto the NCR camping down the tunnel. It'll take some time, but when she drops her payload I'd need you to go into the hall and hit them hard, hit them fast, before they can regroup so we can send the rest of the troopers to clear them out. But first, I need to make sure Ada has a good present for our friends from the west..." Archangel ran off from position and headed towards the kitchen area, which she knew the position of thanks to Ada.

In the kitchen the enclave were already moving the bodies of those who were killed there. Archangel largely ignored them however and began raiding the refrigerator for a certain drink, before she got what she was looking for; A Nuka Cola Quartz. After getting that, she took some Abraxo Cleaner and Turpentine from a cleaning closet, emptied out a can of pork and beans, and fashioned herself a powerful explosion; a Nuka Cola Grenade. "Alright Ada, let's do this."

Ada zoomed through the ventilation shafts. Archangel was safely in the kitchen navigating Ada through her pipboy. She took many twist and turns in the pitch blackness, only able to prevent Ada from crashing into the walls thanks to an overview of the map and Archangel's own quick reflexes. Soon enough Ada reached the location as the sound of gunfire was deafening. "Bottom's up!" Archangel yelled through Ada as the eyebot smashed a grate and dropped the grenade that was taped to it. the grenade armed as it fell, giving Ada precious few seconds to escape the blast. Seconds passed with no sound, before a loud, violent, and blue-colored explosion erupted from the subway entrance. It killed most of the NCR bunker in the tunnel, wounded the rest to be picked off by the enclave. Once Ada was safe from the blast she went into the subway room through the grate it smashed, attacking a few of the NCR soldiers that were still breathing.

Archangel felt that it was a mission accomplished, but things were never so simple. As she was leaving the kitchen and heading towards the tunnel, a metal arm swung out and hit her in the face. caught off guard, she was nearly knocked out, but managed to say consistence long enough to take out her Laser Rifle. She didn't get to keep that for long either though, as soon a super sledge hammer knocked it out of her grasp, nearly tearing her arms off as well. It was yet another NCR heavy trooper. Judging by the lack of a helmet and damage to her armor, she was a survivor of an attack, and looking for blood.

Archangel backed away from the trooper and took out her pistol, knowing that it won't do much against her armor unless she gets a lucky shot to her head. So she activated her VATS, using it to help her pop two to the trooper's head, and one to her left arm, which had no armor as it seemed to have fallen off. Much to her displeasure however, only one of her bullets hit the trooper's head, and even than it was a grazing hit and not a direct hit. She did, however, managed to shoot the trooper's arm to drop the super sledge. Archangel was going to have to take the chance and closed in, firing the remaining bullets in her gun at the trooper. The trooper dropped her hammer to guard her face, causing none of Archangel's bullets to really do any damage. It did however give her a chance to close the distance for her Ballistic Fist. Loaded with a breaching round Archangel punched into the trooper's chest, shooting the round into her armor. The explosive broke through the armor, and sat just right above her chest. It'd take just a few more seconds before it exploded, and in the mean time that meant furious fisticuffs between Archangel and the trooper.

Archangel tried to get another punch in despite not having the chance to load another shot into her gauntlet, but the trooper was quicker on the drawn. She knocked away Archangel's punch with her wounded left arm, bring her armored right up to slam it into Archangel's head. Archangel covered her head with her left arm, causing her pipboy to take the brunt of the attack. It withstood the slam, even if Archangel was a little shaken up. But not she had little time before the bomb went off inside of the trooper, so Archangel dropped low to the ground and swept the trooper's feet from underneath her. The "Ranger Takedown". Archangel legged it as fast as she could, just barely enough so that only a few bits of the trooper's exploded corpse rained her on. Her severed head flew into the air in front of Archangel, landing at her feet. Archangelpaused for a moment, looking at the severed head. It was so ugly, and yet... It was Archangel's creation. reaching down to the head, she looked into the trooper's eyes. She didn't' notice it during the fight, but the trooper's eyes were a yellow gold. "How mysterious..." Archangel than dug her fingers into the trooper's eyesockets, cracking the skull a bit to make enough space for Archangel to remove the trooper's eyes. A little trophy of the encounter. Archangel put it into a sealed container with the rest of her collection before she picked up her damaged Disintegrator and headed back towards Golem's position.

The amount of fight the NCR still had left was thrilling in a twisted way. Perhaps they knew there would be no surrender to their assailants. Only a quick death. But if that was the case retaliation on this level was akin to suicide. They must uphold the notion that it was better to go down fighting. However, the sad truth of it all was in the end the manner in which they chose to die would make no difference.

Though, encouraged by the challenges he was being faced with today, Golem wasn't sure how to approach the situation the soldiers, Archangel and himself had found themselves in. Traipsing through the death-trap of a front entrance was out of the question. Enemy fire and ally bodies were all that awaited them there. He frowned while playing with other ideas. Subways had multiple access points for loading, maintenance, and-- It seemed Archangel's little robot had the same idea. He listened to the woman's plan intently and nodded in the affirmative when she had finished.

"I can do that," he said shifting his weight and getting ready to attack.

He watched Archangel's back as she left. No messing around. He knew he would need to decimate the NCR before they had time to even recover from the shock. To aid him he gathered the Enclave soldiers gathered nearby and briefed them on the plan. Then they waited.

For less than a second the shock wave of the explosive crushed the air around them. To others it would have been stupefying. To them it was like a starting gun. Armored, faceless demons stormed through the tunnel while the debris still fell and ashes still cleared before the blood from NCR wounds could begin to flow. The Golem lead the charge. Many of the the survivors of the initial blast did not even see them, too stunned to react to a series of sudden deaths. Surprise could bring even the best soldiers to their knees and it was reducing the best the Bear of the South had to offer to nothing. After the assassinations and uproar settled down Golem sent scouts further down the tunnel and moved through the fallen to remove the heads of any still breathing. Blood slicked his armor. He began to wonder if there were none who could oppose him. If there were none who could oppose the Enclave.

Archangel came into the tunnel looking a bit worse than when she had left.

"Your plan went smoothly," he welcomed her, "at least on our end. I sent scouts down. Haven't heard back yet. We should push further down and make sure there are no loose ends."

---

Ginger braced himself in a sturdy corner of the building until the explosive onslaught ebbed. His ears were ringing. He couldn't see anything save for what the modules in his visor pointed to and outlined for him in the smoke and fire. The rubble piled up around him. Their hiding place was in shambles. Too bad for those obstinate, devious, lily-livered, cheeky bastards he was still alive. He wished he could spit on their graves... though he knew they would never get any. All's fair in love and war supposedly.

Carefully, he risked looking around a bit hoping the sensors in his helmet would pick up signs of the enemy surrounding them. The ringing in his ears was fading just enough for him to hear yelling over the comms from his squad and Deathstroke, yet it took him a few moments to register the meaning behind their words. He ordered his squad to find a way down the building without killing themselves and confirmed Deathstroke's orders. Wait for the opening. Every couple seconds he was picking up blips of movement here and there most of them blinking in and out of the scope of the sensors.

Gunshots were being fired. There was yelling. There was chaos out there. But at least visibility was returning. He hunkered down and lined up his sights on the shapes beyond the broken walls. Lasers blasted brightly in all directions. Bullets whirred past. Still waiting but dying to pull the trigger or run. Staying put was a death sentence. He tensed. And nearly took the head off the Enclave sniper who landed behind him followed by a barrage of fire. "Stop!" he hissed when Ginger whirled to face him, "We're down. Well... Most of us. Lost one in the attack. Orders?"

"Damn shame," Ginger took up aim on the skirmish again emotion absent from his response, "I need to get word back to command."

He pressed his lips together. He didn't know what the boss intended to do by himself against the Rangers. The sound of a rifle thumped through the air and was followed by a wild spread of laser fire, most of it in the wrong direction. Not that he doubted the man's abilities but taking off and leaving a member of Eagle Claw behind who just so happened to get killed didn't sound like it would go over well back at Eagle Point. Now he could see it and his equipment confirmed the rogue sentry bot mowing down it's allies who were now desperate to take it out. If he got back to command alive he wanted to keep it that way. Time to go.

"Follow me. Don't slow down. Don't get shot. When we get out of sight spread out and keep an eye on things. Help out if you can, just make sure Deathstroke doesn't get himself killed. Got it?" Got it.

One of the sentry bots still in working order turned on it's defective brother. Now or never. He gave the word and they were gone, racing out from under the NCR's grasp a midst a hail of wild fire. Cover came quickly in the city but it took several minutes before the three remaining snipers risked splitting off from the group.

"Stay in comm range of each other," he reminded them. He continued sprinting through the wrecked buildings alone.

Before long he was back in familiar territory. A battlefield pock-marked with craters from grenades, missiles and bullets and littered with human remains and broken equipment. As his cover broke up and became sparse he powered up the cloak on his armor. For obvious reasons he was edgy and he didn't want anymore of those NCR dicks catching a glimpse of him. Up on a ridge almost completely hidden from view he made out the location where several high-ranking officers were stationed with scouts, runners and lookouts to keep an eye on the operation's progress. He didn't stop running until he got to them and was breathing heavily.

"HEY!" Ginger couldn't be bothered with formalities when calling the attention of the first officer he saw, "We've got a problem. NCR rangers knew the location of our sniper squads. One of Eagle Claw and a few snipers are holding down several of them not far from here," he pointed in the direction he had come from, "We need to send in back up and alert the rest of our men. There's no telling what else these sons-a-bitches know."

Even here he kept watch on his surroundings. These days he was forgetting what it was like to feel safe.

---

The beams of light on his helmet that pierced the darkness were barely of any help this deep into the system. Golem still hadn't heard back from the scouts he sent down. It was entirely possible they had simply gone out of range with the Enclave scrambling communications. He seriously hoped so. The silence on the comms as well as the silence that seemed to physically surround Archangel and himself was becoming too heavy for comfort. On the bright side the logistics of a quick escape through this route were looking far more complicated than he had expected. Without decent gear, light and knowledge of the layout of this place the going would be slow for any NCR caught down here. Ancient clutter and waste both man-made and natural filled the floor of the subway obscuring the tracks. Ahead a demolished train guarded the path. There had been no branches in the subway thus far meaning this was the only way out. They would need to go around the broken machine and the fit was a tight one. Golem clenched his teeth.

"I'll go first," he told Archangel, "Keep an eye on the rear and if that bot can see anything in this we might want to send it on ahead."

The things he was doing for the Enclave. His heartbeat was picking up as he maneuvered between the train and the tunnel wall, but all be damned if he would ever let it show. Moving as quickly as he could in order to get this over with he kept the lights on the ground directly in front of him. A bloody gauntlet thrust itself into the beam out of the black. Golem paused. He directed the lights up the body which was crumpled and contorted awkwardly where it fell in the narrow passage. It was Enclave armor. One of the scouts. He got to the head which rolled back sharply to stare at the ceiling with dead eyes. The helmet had been removed. Forcibly from what he could tell from the scrapes on the face. Under the man's body blood pooled. His throat wore a fresh slit from ear to ear.

"Damn it!" he cursed while snapping the soldier's holotags up, "Found one of those scouts. Need to move faster."

With little ceremony or respect he kicked the body out of the way and stumbled over it. Soon they reached the end of the train and sweet, sweet open space. He stretched his arms, one stiffening from the bullet lodged in it, just to reassure himself there was room to move out here. He thought he heard something rustle down the tunnel. Golem quickly moved his light to and from every corner. Strange shadows cast themselves in twisted forms under the light only becoming mundane when one truly focused on them. However, no signs of movement or life. Now it became silent again. It wasn't right.

The subway took a sharp turn further up blocking visual of anything that might lay beyond. They pressed forward. Until Golem saw something small, metallic, disc shaped and disturbingly similar to... But focusing on the object in question revealed it to be merely to be a rusted hubcap. Damn the dark and damn this place. He breathed slowly as they continued on, trying to take the edge off his nerves and remain ever calm. Again another hubcap caught his eye because the stupid things looked so similar to... but no. This time it looked exactly like... A landmine. Great. He warned Archangel of what stood in their way now. He could disarm them, but it would slow them down and he was beginning to feel his near limitless patience slip. They couldn't allow anyone to get away.

As he neared the first mine he heard the same rustle as before. But again, the beams of light guiding them revealed nothing. KRA-KOOM!

Something slammed into his back. Hard. The force was enough to unbalance the brute and send him to his knees. He wasted no time wheeling around, hurling his axe in a wide arc to split whatever had hit him. But he only split the silence which immediately filled itself back in. There was nothing behind him. Somewhere something was here though. Someone was with them. Even more terrifying was the little red light blinking away only a few feet away from him.

"GET BACK!" he yelled.

Golem lurched away just as the mine burst.

It shook the tunnel and left the old walls trembling even in the aftermath. For the brief moment the blast lit up the area he thought he saw a human form crouched on the roof of the train.

"Twenty eight...twenty nine...thirty...thirty on-two-three. Fuck out of-" He stood up from his sniping spot again as once again he was flanked and he used his rifle as a very expensive club, smashing the butt of it into the face of yet another NCR Ranger that had snuck up on him. Stunned by the strike, the Ranger didn't even see the fist to the adam's apple followed by a quick execution, snapping the neck. Deathstroke took the sequoia that was in the Ranger's thigh holster and took aim at two more that just burst out of a rooftop door and put them down before they had a chance to do anything. He let out a deep breath as he let the lifeless corpse of his meat shield ranger drop to the ground. All this running with his damn short legs wasn't getting him anywhere. He just hoped that Ginger could have warned command in time. He turned to pick up his rifle but when he bent over and grabbed it, it was stuck. He jerked on it but it didn't budge. That's when he saw it. A Camouflaged foot exit stealth and appear slowly. His eyes trailed up the tight but musclebound black suit that made up the woman that uncamouflaged in front of him. She obviously wasn't NCR and something told him she wasn't Enclave either. When the de-camoing effect reached her head, it revealed a black helmet with a red visor built in, all part of the suit. His brain told him to attack her, but his gut said to play it nice. He intended to listen to his gut. "Nice suit...going to guess that you aren't here to take me on a date." Her voice was militaristic, yet soft. Even though it was slightly distorted by the communicator in the suit. "Not yet, pretty boy. I am here to tell you something though." "And that would be?" "X7-90875" Everything went black.
____________________

This wasn't an assault against a base. It was a massacre. The NCR stood no chance. Right and left, Whisper slaughtered with Winter at her back. Her rifle was doing good work, ripping through Ranger armor and power armor alike. 12.7MM rounds were badass to say the least. The two moved into a small bunker that was on the outskirts of the base. They intended to clean up everything that wasn't caught by the Enclave soldiers. The second they stepped into the bunker, they heard shuffling. Like rad-roaches after you expose them to light. The room was dark, but it wasn't that hard to find a light switch. The second they turned it on they revealed a storeroom. Boxes and shelves all over the place. Though it would have been smart to split up and speed up the looking, the NCR were against a wall and were liable to try anything. They stuck close to each other, searching every inch carefully. They made their way to the back of the room, finding nothing but old cans of spinach and Salisbury steak. But then they heard it again, in the corner. A scurrying. They looked to find a child, a little girl. She was black haired, shoulder length, large brown eyes, dirty, a small raggedy coat on. She was hugging herself against the wall, terrified out of her mind. Though they both knew they should spare her any pity and kill her, something about her just made them lower their weapons and approach. Winter was the one to get very close however, Whisper looking over his shoulder. He squatted down to face height and lowered his scarf. "Hey there...." He said in a soft tone. "Don't worry, we're not going to hurt you. Do...do you want some chocolate?" She looked up behind teary eyes and asked "P-P-Promise?" "Cross my heart" He said and held out his hand and in it, some chocolate.

Neither of them saw it coming. The little girl grabbed his hand and pulled herself into a hug, but quickly after, a loud beeping sounded. Winter acted with lightning fast reflexes and kicked Whisper in her hip as hard as he could while restrained by this little devil. She was thrown back a little. Just as she looked she saw him say "Goodbye." Before becoming engulfed in explosive fire. Whisper was thrown back across the room by the powerful explosion, ending up impacting against a wall, but that didn't stop her. She got right back up to her feet and ran into the epicenter of the explosion. "WINTER!" She yelled. But no response. She found her way back to the corner and found the crumpled heap of the man against a wall. His dogtag stuck out on his chest. His skin was charred and severely damaged, bones were sticking out in random places from the force of the explosion and a good chunk of his left leg was vaporized. Much of his scarf remained wrapped around his neck. His face was brutalized, just as charred as his body and parts of it was missing. His eyes were still intact and were staring blankly. She knelt down and grabbed his dogtags and said a few quick words before using her hand to slide his eyes shut and mouthing "Goodbye, Winter." before standing using her comm to contact the squadmembers in range. "Whisper reporting in...Winter...he...he didn't make it. Child bomber."
____________________

Leinhart heard heart the message from Whisper and just knowing that a squadmember was killed by these NCR bastards sent him into a bloodrage. He didn't hold back, didn't try to be elegant in his killing. He simply started to kill as fast as he could. But it wasn't fast enough. Multiple communications started to come into his built-into-the-ear comm, all of Enclave starting to panic and yell about something coming from the horizon. At first he didn't understand how they could see on the horizon, but then he heard it. He looked up just as they flew over. The great Bear's Jet Bombers. The deathclaw scrambled for cover as the bombs started to drop. He barely made it into a building as it was starting to be blown apart. He made it down stairs to join archangel and Golem to warn them of what was happening. Before they knew it, there was another pass. Thankfully for the squad, reinforcements were inbound.

Unfortunately for Archangel, her Disintergrator was too badly damaged to be used reliably. She had to settle for a much less impressive Tri-Beam Laser Rifle she took off a fallen Enclave Soldier. The black boxy weapon was much smaller than what she was used to, as well as weighing less. She supposed that the compact shape would be helpful for exploring the lower reaches of the air port, however. As Archangel followed Golem through, she had Ada serve as her eyes outside. The space was already cramp enough with Golem's large frame in the way, no need for them to be hitting Ada in the middle of a firefight.

As the two continued on, they found more corpses within. NCR at first, but than a few of the scouts as well. But most of them didn't seem to die from mere bullet wounds; their throats had been slashed, or a knife rammed between the slits of their armor. The work of the Rangers, no doubt. They were slithery opponents now that they had their backs against the wall. A few more wards in and Archangel immediately noticed the landmine. So did Golem, and being the point man he tried to go forward and disarm it for them. But as he moved forward, a dark figure dropped from above. Archangel barely got a glance at it, but she could tell it was a Ranger. She fired her rifle at the shadow, but all three bolts of laser missed, before the figure retreated into the darkness. Sensing that they would be facing the enemy in close quarters, Archangel loaded her gauntlet with a special around; unlike the other explosive rounds that she could fire at range only once, this one was capable of being used multiple times before she needed to load a new round. The range was pathetic, but in close-quarters her enemy would feel as though a grenade just blew up on them. Which is what would happen.

And not a moment too soon. Golem shouted for her to get back just as the mine blew up, but she saw moments before it did a frag grenade being thrown towards it. A clever trick, and likely what killed the other scouts. Golem's body absorbed most of the shock and shrapnel. At the same time however, a shadowy figure jumped down from above. Another Ranger, who was going to use the chance to finish the two of them off. But Archangel was just starting. She fired a blast from her rifle at the figure, all three of them hitting his chest armor. It caused him to grunt in pain and flinched, which gave Archangel another chance to fire a blast, this one scorching his face clean off. He died screaming and Archangel activated her VATS. Darkness or not, she could target her enemies no matter what the visibility level was. In VATS she spotted two more figures down the tunnel, one that looked to be a trooper and another ranger. The trooper was setting up another mine while the Ranger had his scope on the two Eagle Claw operatives. Archangel fired four shots; two hit the trooper and killed him. The other hit the ranger, but only on the shin. The last one hit the mine. The explosion kicked up a lot of dust and debris, and she wasn't sure if the blast killed the Ranger. From one of the bullets that whizzed pasted her head, she guessed no.

Exiting out of VATS Archangel took cover and she reached into a pocket. She always carried some chems with her, purely for combat purposes. She had some Cat Eye that would help immensely for the next new moments. Just than she saw another figure moving through the darkness behind her, and she just about fired when she noticed ti was the deathclaw. If it weren't the the headgear on him and his somewhat tattered vest, Archangel would have thought she had run aground with a case of horrible luck. She just about called out to him when the entirely tunnel shook from a massive explosion. "What the hell!?" This was the work of something much bigger than just a landmine. Turning towards the Deathclaw, Archangel shouted at him over the sound of the explosions. "Leinhart, what the hell is going on up there? The Enclave aren't trying to bomb the NCR out of the place with us in it are they!?"

"I am afraid the situation is quite the opposite Miss Archangel. The NCR is retaliating with their bombers," the deathclaw reported.

A second tremor rattled the floor beneath their feet followed by a low popping noise. Along the wall next to them ran a freshly rent, jagged split through the wall either end of which could not be seen.

"We must leave immediately," Leinhart turned back toward the entrance of the tunnel.

The small group barely made it to the broken train before the bombs above grew more intense and started drowning out most other sounds. The tremors became violent. The ground destabilized. Then a cacophony of falling stone and twisting iron blasted through the tunnel. The train lurched and slammed into the ceiling before breaking apart. Tons of rubble crushed down on the far side of the car flattening it to nothing more than scrap metal.

"Move!" the deathclaw's words were marred by a fearsome animalistic roar. Nobody risked sticking around any longer and the three of them sprinted down the dark corridors and scrambled over the debris and tracks. Golem tried to keep an eye out for targets and more mines but the scene was chaos. "There is a service exit not far from here. I will clear our path!" Leinhart called over the noise before taking off into the darkness. Faster than and more agile than any human, and perhaps more reliable, Golem nodded his agreement and kept running with Archangel in tow.

Gunshots were fired further up and instantaneously followed by screaming and then nothing. Coming up on the scene all Golem had time to make out in his lights was blood and ribbons of flesh coating the walls and ground. It would seem Leinhart had found the rest of the NCR and moved on. He was glad to have the creature on their side. A minuscule spot of dim light shone into the tunnel up ahead. Splintered blocks of stone crashed in behind them as the subway collapsed on itself. They were a hundred yards away. Golem felt a block of concrete hit the floor right behind his heels and nearly lost his footing. Fifty yards away. Rubble fell along side them now in a series of near misses. Ten yards. Eight. Nine. Leinhart bolted through the door way. Just before they hit the exit Golem grabbed Archangel around the waist and leaped into the door frame hitting the far wall upon landing. A massive concrete slab slammed down behind them and blocked off the escape for good.

"Go!" Golem pushed her up the stairs and into the light following after her.

Out of the frying pan and into the fire they ran across the pitted, shattered and burning tarmac toward shelter. The tail end of the first wave of bombers passed overhead now and finished dropping their payloads. Not one of the NCR seemed foolish enough to come out into the inferno and face them, but that was to their advantage. A bomb ruptured the terminal spewing flames and molten steel into the air and smoke into the atmosphere. Glass burst from all windows including the upper reaches of the control tower. The newborn flames licked at and spread slowly to everything in their reach. Other gaping holes had been torn throughout the sprawling building but it seemed to be holding together as best it could. More bombs fell but less seemed to be hitting the airport itself and more fell beyond the NCR's wall. Though it was not their true target the bombers did not have the preservation of the base in mind. Better destroyed than in the hands of the Enclave it would seem.

Leinhart slid into a bunker along with the others until the first wave was out of sight, "We must get back to command. It is high time for us to be leaving I should think. Come, we'll make our way there through the parking level. Quickly, in case more bombers follow which I am most sure they will."

"Let's go then," Golem grumbled, "There is nothing left of this place." He lead them out of the bunker and back to where the Enclave were hunkered down. Rather where he hoped they were still hunkered down.

Two months later....
Two months since that attack on the great bear of the west. It was a massacre....

Hundreds died that day. The "Commanders" would say that it was a success, but there are hundreds of souls that won't be returning to the north to kiss their sons and daughters as they drift off to sleep, hundreds of husbands and wives that won't be making love to their spouse. A pure. Fucking. Massacre...and I missed the whole thing.

I was knocked out, captured by...somebody. Can't even remember the phrase she said to me. Woke up a kilometer away from the battle, drunk as shit and not able to breathe until I dislodged the wet towel on my head. I had dragged myself back only to find the remnants of the battle. The NCR had done a lot of damage. The airport was destroyed. Completely fucking useless. They knew about the attack ahead of time. An informant in the ranks telling them of troop formations, weaponry, how to counter it. A mole. Bombers had come in and dropped missiles and bombs, everything short of a damn nuke. Ancient weaponry was destroyed, any NCR inside the airport was wiped out. The buildings demolished. Parts of the squad made it underground, but a couple didn't make it.

Golem, Winter, Wraith. Gone. Command just brushed aside the pieces and put in new ones. Pah. Didn't do anything to fill the hole. Said that they had recovered Winter and was keeping him alive, but that was a lie to Andrew's ears. Wraith had sacrificed herself to save more lives, stealing the Lewiston base commander's private chopper and flying into battle, missles and lasers creating a lightshow in the sky as she personally chased down the bombers. They weren't able to defend themselves, they hadn't anticipated air-to-air combat.

The last bomber knew he was going to die, so he baited her into a near loop and turned his engines off, dropped the last of his armament to the base below, and Colided in mid air with wraith, turning the black sky orange for a few minutes. Fucking Golem though...the guy was vaporized saving Archangel, ran out and shoved her down a flight of stairs as she was being ran over by her own fellow soldiers running for cover. The second she hit the bottom the stairs, she had looked up, a broken arm and leg from the fall, and watched him be enveloped in light as he tried to run down the stairs. All that was left was his shield. Anybody that was above ground when the rest of the bombs hit was vaporized. Complete mission failure.

As for Andrew, something happened to him when he was out. He found out after he made it back to base and debriefed with the commanders that his skin didn't react to touch anymore. No rash, no itching, no need for a suit anymore.

Over the last two months, strange things had been happening. It's like he had gone through strength training all over again, he was stronger, a little faster, a better shot. Hell, he'd been able to use a damn assault rifle without it hitting him in the face. It was glorious.

As for the others, well, he wasn't sure. The deaths of Golem, Winter, and Wraith took their tolls. Everybody could admit that. If Phoenix's death wasn't enough for them to fear death, theirs definitely was. Golem was thought to be damn near invincible, but that idea was shoved out the door. Whisper hadn't been herself, she wasn't really worthy of "Whisper" anymore, she was more talkative and friendly lately. She tried to support the others on her back, metaphorically. Offering what little advice she could and being a friend. The uppers didn't like her being friendly, but she showed them her favorite finger and did it anyway. Andrew had to admit, it was admirable. The second he tried to fight against the uppers he'd get shot in the head.

He sat in the cafeteria, Eagle claw camp still a wintery, cold, tit of a base. Blizzard smashing the mountain on the outside and the heat of the fire was his only companion on the inside. It was nice. He felt at home. Leinhart came in through the double doors, Bear and Whisper with him. Coming for evening chow. Rumors were flying about the base about an incoming mission, their first in nearly half a month. Showing the rookies the ropes of an actual combat mission. They had to throw in newbies to try and fill the ranks a bit. The secret of Eagle claw leaked out and now new cadets from all over with armfulls of combat experience came to try their hand. Not many made it through, but it was nice seeing fresh faces around here.

Though the blizzard. Hardship provided strength, and a blizzard was certainly a hardship... Right? Maybe he should've worn his armor... The environmental inside would've kept him warm, and he'd instead be training his strength to carry the bulky suit about. A month, that's how long he'd worn it. Every time he put it on, the needles poked in. He trained with stimulants, as he trained with armor. He was becoming addicted to them. They gave him strength, helped him overcome the past. Isn't that what everyone here wanted to do? Overcome the past?

Black heavy boots, done up tightly, came past his ankles, disappearing into a heavy pair of jeans. A blue that faded into blackness of their own, they were of a high quality, thick, and above all else, warm. Well, as long as he wasn't stupid like he was being now, walking in a winter storm. Further up, he wore a longsleeved shirt, some dark red. Though, you couldn't see that for the thick coat over top. Wool on the inside, it'd been made before the war. How it'd ended up in his hands was unknown, but it was in quite the garment. Hands stuffed in the pockets, he made his way to the cafeteria.

Click, clack, he walked on in, boots clicking with each step. He still didn't know the squads official opinion on him... They'd never seemed to take to him, but that was alright. He could work as a team, he'd keep them alive, he'd made sure they knew he was valuable! A tray was retrieved, filled up with various foods. A scoop of mashed potatoes, a few slices of ham, gravy poured haphazardly over both. A biscuit lodged within the potatoes, he dragged back his lunch, or was it dinner? One could never really tell, when it was so dark and stormy outside. He dragged over the tray, deciding to... Socialize.

First, though, he poured himself a drink. Whiskey over the rocks, in a tall glass. Nothing else stirred in, aside from a shot of lemon juice and a shot of lime juice. Then he sat down by Andrew. "Hey there." Shedding off the winter coat, Devon folded it up neatly at his side. His arms had a dozen tiny scars, pin-pricks from where the needles jabbed into his skin when he wore the armor. "How's it been? We haven't talked much."

Almost two weeks. Two God damn weeks. It was maddening enough when they were only waiting days between missions. Regardless, Tristan always found something to do with his time and that had become even more true as of late. Loss, pain, death, failure. They meant he wasn't good enough. After Idaho and after every mission in the months following he found that there was always something about his performance that could be better. He could always have been more steady, more accurate, more watchful, more focused, more decisive, faster, stronger.

Sweat began to drip into his eyes as he delivered a rapid succession of blows to the heavy punching bag that hung from the ceiling. Every combo he had learned in training needed to be perfected. Every strike needed to go exactly where he wanted it. Each one had to be harder than the last. It had been the same with basic drills and on the shooting range. Every time he pulled the trigger it needed to be a bulls-eye. No matter what the distance, the direction, or the speed of the target. No matter how terrible the wind or snow. No matter how tired he was. Until that happened he would never be satisfied with anything. Sand started to leak from the bag and dust flew into the air with every vicious blow. Tiny rips started to form in the tape where it had been patched a thousand times over. His knuckles were starting to leave blood behind and his muscles were burning. Punch. Upper-cut. Elbow. No. More. Failures. He threw the last one so hard the chains that held the punching bag screeched against the steel beam they wrapped around as their load swung dangerously. A gap-toothed grin formed on his face... Until he saw the sand absolutely pouring from the rip he had made in the side of the bag.

"Woops..." He looked around to make sure nobody had seen that before haphazardly sticking yet another piece of tape over the damage. That was plenty of practice for today.

After hitting the showers his stomach growled and he suddenly felt weak. Uhg. I could eat a brahmin. Without wasting anytime he got dressed, threw on a tattered old bomber jacket and sprinted into the raging blizzard. The pain of such cold hit him immediately. Fuck. Okay. Do it for the food. He would never understand how anybody could ever get used to this. Tristan scrambled into the lodge and slammed the door behind him to keep any of the snow or wind from getting inside. On his way to the buffet he tried to brush most of the snow out of his hair which was still somewhat wet from the shower and was now somewhat frozen. Stupid cold. Stupid snow. Stupid blizzard. The irritated grumbling stopped almost immediately as the intoxicating smells of alcohol and food washed over him. After grabbing a tray he went to work trying to decide what to eat. Might be a good idea to get a little of everything... Just to be safe.

It only took a few quick glances around the cafeteria to figure out exactly where he was going next.

"Hey!" Tristan smiled and gave a quick nod to Andrew, "Devon! What's up?" he slapped the man's shoulder firmly as he walked by then sat down to join them with an overflowing tray of food and a glass of scotch. He didn't wait for responses before shoving the first bite of steak into his mouth.

"Stay on your feet, maggots. You already lost Jackson, are you going to lose Annabeth too!?" Lucy shouted over the storm and wind as a small group of four potential Enclave recruits trudged through the snow. Well, three and a dying body. Another drill that Lucy put the group in; bringing the body of one of their dying allies through hostile weather to their check point. And dying wasn't a figurative thing either; she just shot Annabeth in the gut twice and now she was bleeding out. If anyone else would have done it they would have had a fight on their hands, or at least a sever punishment. But Lucy was part of Eagle Claw, and this was their training. If they couldn't make it, than they weren't Eagle Claw material.

But the recruits did not have it easy. Never did. They wore only their fatigues, barely sweat pants and a t-shirt by now. many where frost-bitten, tired, and snow blind. The only thing guiding them was each others footsteps and Lucy's commands. Occasionally she would take out her pistol and shoot it into the air if she felt that the group was getting to complacent. Or at them if she felt they were going too slow. One of the recruits dropped, and she went to check his vitals. He was dying too. "Man down! Are you going to leave him behind now or do you think you have what it takes to save him?" A question that the recruits had to seriously consider. under normal circumstances, of course they would try to save him. But right now they could barely save themselves, and they're already hauling away one near-dead body. They couldn't manage to bring another. They didn't say anything, as their actions were their answers. They kept moving forward, leaving the dead man behind as they tried to reach their destination.

Sometime later Lucy entered the mess hall. Snow fell off her thick black enclave jacket. Her face was a bit red from the heat building up in her face, but her expression would make the blizzard outside look like ice cubes. She said nothing as she walked towards the food buffet. Many of the staff were quick to do as she said or getting out of her way, though she had to admit, she wasn't sure why they did so. They always acted respectful when she was in Eagle Claw, but now they seemed to be... Fearful. She didn't know why, but it hasn't caused any problems yet. Taking off her bloody gloves Lucy got her meal: a hamburger steak, filled with cheese with a sunny-side egg on top, drizzled in gravy. Served with a side of mash potatoes, broccoli, asparagus, shredded cabbage, and two wedges of carrots. And of course, a pipping hot cup of black coffee with a shot of liquor and a lemon squeeze. She took her meal to the same table as most other Eagle Claw members sat at, but as usual she sat a certain ways away, like she was only there because that's the table she usually sits at. She wasn't sure how the others thought of her. She didn't really talk to them, and when she did it's usually only on missions to rely orders, give advice on the current situation, or offer her assistance in the form of covering fire. Though admittedly, her no-nonsense attitude was made much more glaringly obvious. She did once killed a recruit outright when they were messing around with a (Not live) grenade. When asked why, her answer was "Because I'm not going to let that mistake happen again." Eluding to her first mission were Golem tossed Bear a Plasma Grenade.

Lucy ate her meal slowly and silently. Her glasses were getting fogged up with her heavy breathing, so she took them off to eat. ADA joined her soon. To observers it looked like ADA was a mere Eyebot, but that was a deception that Lucy plans to keep a secret. Not many are aware of the D347-TP models, and she wasn't about to talk about them. One last thing she did was reach into her pockets and put on a small headset earphone and played a song off her pipboy directly into her ear.

The weeks had gone by slowly after their last mission.

Little had gotten done, in the eyes of Bear. The others had trained, some had even taken up training the recruits. Alexander, however, had done little more than sit around and watch Dimitri work. "Claw", some of the recruits called him. Some of them just wouldn't ever get used to not calling them by squad names, even if Dimitri technically wasn't part of Eagle Claw. Alexander didn't think much of the men and women that the Enclave had brought in for training, and even less so of those that actually managed to get through whatever harsh training they had to go through. To him, none but the original squad were worthy of what it meant to be in Eagle Claw. Leinhart and Devon, they were exceptions. He respected them, as much as he hated to admit it.

The door to Dimitri's lab swung open, and in stepped Alexander. The normally braided beard was trimmed down, now a neat, short cut. It still covered the majority of his face, but he was told that now he looked more professional, and less like a tribal. His hair was still cut in the same, short fashion as usual, making him look more like a drill sergeant than an actual soldier. His boots smacked heavily on the ground as he entered the room, but the good professor kept his eyes - or whatever he had behind those lenses - firmly locked on the project at hand. Alexander peered over his shoulder, narrowing his eyes to see through the flying sparks. What laid on the table was a human shaped hunk of metal, coated with wires and circuitry. Dimitri's project, had been since Idaho.

Alexander had been a little side project, something to distract him when he wanted some down time. Not just the fact that Alexander could vaguely reminisce with him about the good old days, but for the fact that Alexander wanted a bit of an edge over the competition. Beneath the skin of his right arm, and most of his hand, wires and metal had been weaved into the flesh and around the bone, augmenting his strength and the steadiness of his hand. He was coming to Dimitri for a checkup, though nothing felt out of place. Wasn't even sore or tingly anymore, like it had been for weeks since he last worked on his arm. Alexander took a seat, and idly chatted for a while about everything and nothing. Dimitri listened, or ignored him, Alexander couldn't tell. The cyborg worked silently as the man talked. After about an hour, Alexander took his leave. Dimitri paused for a moment, gave him a wave, and went back to work. His only acknowledgement that he'd even known Alexander had been in the same room. This room may as well be Dimitri's own little world, for as much as he leaves it or even thinks about things beyond its walls.

Alexander entered the dining hall with Leinhart and Melanie, whom he'd met up with on the way, though he hardly spoke to them. They were both friendly enough - the latter of which seemed odd to him, as quiet and as suicidal as she had been before - but he wasn't much into exchanging pleasantries with anyone, even his sqaudmates. Not feeling too particularly hungry, he instead decided to indulge in one of his guilty pleasures: Hot chocolate. He wasn't sure what exactly it was, or where the Enclave got it, but it was absolutely delicious, and there wasn't anything that could keep him from it if he craved it. It was almost like he was addicted to a drug, if it were comparable. Once he had his mug, he made his way to the Eagle Claw table and sat, his weight shaking the table a little as he settled in. Not a word was said, only the gentle sipping of his chocolate.

It felt good to be privileged.

"An accent here...wind blowing there...a sea crashing maybe, ooh, a single tree up the back...a couple vibrant pinks, blue? Nah, blue would disappear against the armor...yellow however..YES! Oh man this looks so good!" "What are you doing, Miss Briess." Melanie jumped, permanent markers and stencils flying into the air and to the floor, she turned around, using her body to cover whatever was behind her back, facing Leinhart. They were in the armory and he was standing in front of her, his arms crossed, nearly double her height. "Uh...just...fixing up an armor! Yes!" "Step aside, Miss...what...what did you do to Tristain's armor? It looks..." "I, uh...made it nice!" There was a Vibrant pattern on Tristain's black armor now, Japanese in style, using the multiple points along it as "wooden posts" in the light blue sea as they crashed up against it, a large pink Sakura Tree running up the back, mixed in with the light yellow and pink touch ups all around the armor. "Command will not enjoy this." "They won't have to know!" "I will have to wash it." "It's in permanent marker and stencil. "...Extensively." "Oh please don't!" She clasped her hands together and looked up to him, grimacing. "He'll love it, I know it!" "Hmmm" "Um...I'll talk to the other squads about capturing a brahmin and sending it here!" "What tactical advantage does this palette have?" "Uhm...blind our enemies with beauty?" He placed an armored hand onto his gigantic chin, considering what to do. He put shrugged then. "Good enough for me. If command asks, I will say that it was burned in and that overall it does not affect combat performance." "YES! Thank you! Don't tell him though. It's a surprise." She came in close for a hug before running out into the blizzard storm. Leinhart shook his head and picked up the actually rather fetching armor. While most of the darkened parts of it were gone, it probably wouldn't effect his cloak. Just make him look...snazzier. Not like it made a difference. Between a floating eyebot, a deathclaw, and a giant carrying a Gatling laser, a redhead with a colorful suit of armor could blend into a blackboard.

Joining Melanie and Bear in the messhall, he picked up his usual: Everything, and sat somewhat near the others. Close enough to hear them yet far enough that they won't be hit by a chicken bone.

"Well hey there, Slugger." Ginger sat down next to Andrew and noticed the blood on his knuckles. "Another day at the gym? What hole is this, fifteen? That reminds me." He turned towards Devon and held out his hand. "Fifty credits, sir. Told you he would come in like he just got into a fight with a metal wall and won." After retrieving his credits from Devon, he got up and grabbed some carbination and food, a steak like Tristain and a side of cheesecake. He returned to find his seat taken by Melanie, whom was delightfully chatting with Tristain. "Out of my seat, Whisper." "Doesn't have your name on it!" She looked at him and glared. "Actually it does. You've stolen my seat enough times that I carved it in there. Look." She got up to look and he yanked the seat away from her. She glared at him and he shooed her away so she could get her own seat and bring it back. He sat back down and leaned back a bit. "You guys see that we got a couple new recruits today? Lucy over there was running them through their "warmups" a few hours ago. Let them know where they were. Poor sods."

Melanie pulled up and sat down with a small sandwich. "Who were they again?" "Shibuya "Frost" River, and Lucius "Thunder" Vaughn. Shibuya is a spy that returned from a four year hike in NCR territory so she could be placed into Eagle Squad and Lucius is...well." His voice grew a little sadder as he remembered Idaho. "He's our new pilot." "I thought we were going to keep the robotic one?!" "As did I." Said Leinhart from a nearby table. "Nah, he's an Ace that has the training like Winter, but with a better shot and robo-eyes...Oh, speak of the devil."

Two fresh faces entered the hall then, Shibuya, dressed in her black enclave uniform, and Lucius, an overcoat and shiny lights. Andrew waved and pointed toward a table that Devon quickly pulled over. They were reluctant, but they sat down and exchanged handshakes. "Uh...hi. Not sure I met you four before." "Andrew, A.K.A. Deathstroke that trouble maker there is Melanie, A.K.A. Whisper, the big one over there is Leinhart. It's easier to remember than "Scissors", trust me. Bruisy mcbag-punch here is Tristain, or Ginger. Finally, this is Devon, or Venom. I prefer Carnage myself, but that's an old comicbook that only I'm a fan of apparently. The lady over yonder is, well you know her, she tried to kill you already. The last one is Alexander, or Bear. "

"Pleased to meet you." She said, a little blush on her face as she was nervous. Borderline super famous spy among the Enclave. Espionage, assassinations, document forgery, erotic visits, sneaking around. Yet she was still a virgin Introvert that didn't like crowds. "Say-la-vii" She said to herself.

Devon was taking a bite as Tristain sat down, his eyes locking on the bloody knuckles. Damn it, maybe Andrew wouldn't not- 'Fifty credits, sir.' Shit. Sighing, he reached into a pocket and pulled out the money, handing it over to him reluctantly. In reality, the money was nothing compared to their salaries. Being the best of the best did have its perks, after all. He had more than enough money to comfortably purchase ammunition and whatever chemicals he needed for his cocktails... That reminded him, he'd need his injections after dinner. The jitters hadn't set in yet, but they'd come soon enough. They always did. No, he'd need the stimulants, than he'd work himself. Harder, faster, the pinnacle of mankind.

He boredly watched Melanie and Tristain argue, eating throughout that time, rather enjoying his meal of ham and potatoes. The thick white gravy had soaked into both parts of the meal, and the biscuit provided a rather soft alternative whenever he wanted something else. Otherwise, a delicious meal. Perking up at the mention of Lucy, one could swear Devon growled out. "Is no one going to stop her? I must wonder if it turns from training to sadistic pleasure when you start shooting the recruits, to test the others. Yes, we took shots in our training, but we weren't shot for no reason. It was punishment, not a fucking exercise." His voice was angry, as his eyes locked upon Lucy and her own bloodstained hands. "How many do I have to tend to today. How many died, or have wounds that not even I can fix. How many shots of fucking Arsenic am I delivering today, I must wonder?" His hand gripped the table, the knuckles turning white from the strength in it.

After losing so many at the slaughter of the airbase, two of the Eagles, one of them an actual friend. Well, closer to one than any of the others here. He didn't consider Devon a 'replacement.' He didn't consider him poison to the fresh wound of Phoenix's death. So, when he had seen Lucy turn so... Violent towards their new recruits, whom he felt something of a kinship towards. They were replacements, yes, but hadn't he been one? That's the bit that got him. They didn't sign up for this. No one signs up to be shot in their training. He barely paid attention to the talk of two new squad mates. A pilot and the legendary spy. Interesting, they did need a new pilot, but the spy...? That was interesting. He heard their tones, and his lips curled down into a heavy frown. So quick to judge replacements. So quick.

Glancing up, he realized their table was full as the two new ones approached. Dragging over a nearby table, adding in space, he sat down and forced a smile as they were all introduced. "I'm not called Venom from your damn comic. I'm called Venom because of my poisons." It was an age old argument between the two, but one Devon was determined to win. "If Lucy hurt you, come visit me later if it's not urgent, I'll get you fixed up. I'm the teams medic, one of the best, and I don't approve of Lucy's methods enough to let her have fun." Looking around, he'd wait for the other one to introduce himself, along with the rest of the squad, and normal conversation to resume.

As the conversations took a turn for the more serious Tristan busied himself with eating as much as he could as fast as he could and listening carefully instead of talking. He set down the fork, licked his teeth, glanced at Lucy and clasped his hands under his chin before looking Devon right in the eye.

"If they can't make it here," he began in a quiet tone, "then they won't make it out there. Frankly we don't know how much longer any of us will make it out there. That's Eagle Claw, that's the wasteland and that's life. It isn't easy, it isn't pretty, it isn't 'fun,' and it sure as hell isn't fair. It's just sad fact. So you can either enjoy what you've got left or bitch and whine and be miserable. Nobody's gonna stop you."

"But!" Tristan straightened up and smiled at the newcomers, "Bad dinner conversation! Congrats on 'graduating,' we're glad to have you two in the family, enjoy the free booze and all that."