New Vegas: Sheason's Story

Men and ladies! Boys and girls! Prepare to be astounded, bedazzled, and otherwise stupefied! I'm your host, Three Dog, master of ceremonies! And this... is Galaxy News Radio! We've got Bob Crosby, Billie Holiday, and the first lady of song herself, Ella Fitzgerald, all lined up in the next hour, but right now we've got the incomparable Louis Armstrong, bringin' us a little story about "Mack The Knife."

Doubt.

There were a great many thoughts roaming about inside my head at the moment, but the one thing that seemed to override everything else was an overwhelming sense of doubt. The assassin hadn't reacted at all when I tried to talk to her. No reaction from my name. No reaction to the name "Tuera," either. I was mentally going over all the other encounters with her over the last two months... And I was starting to question whether or not I'd actually heard what I thought I'd heard during our fight on the rooftops.

All the connections I'd made in my head, pointing to this assassin being Tuera... had I just imagined all of it? Was I wrong? Hell, most of the connections I was thinking of came from dreams brought on by familiar phrases, anyway. I had no proof, one way or another... It's entirely possible that this assassin wasn't Tuera. Maybe I really was just chasing ghosts, like I told Emily a week ago. Maybe... I just wanted it to be true.

Maybe I just wanted to see her again.

Click.

"Are you sure this is going to work?" I asked, trying to force myself away from this train of thought.

"Oh, absolutely," Chris looked up from his work, grinned at me and gave me an enthusiastic thumbs up. "I had Proctor Bowditch cook up these restraints for me a while back. They're made from adamantium – it's the same kind of metal they used to make Pip Boys! These things could survive a nuclear blast at ground zero without a scratch!"

"Let's not test that out," I deadpanned.

Click.

"There," he said, stepping back from his work and clapping the dust from his hands. "That should do it."

The assassin was still unconscious after being zapped by the Compliance Regulator. Her arms were held behind her by a set of heavy manacles that completely encased her hands in metal. There was another pair of restraints holding her feet in place – also completely surrounding them with metal. We still hadn't unmasked her yet.

Part of me didn't want to.

"Oh, wait! Hang on." Christopher pulled out a small remote from one of the pouches on his belt and flipped the switch. There was a loud humming sound, followed by a metal CLANNGGG! as the two restraints slammed into one another. He turned to me with another thumbs up. "Electromagnet!"

"... How often have you done this?" I asked, just a bit put out by how readily prepared he was for this particular situation. He shrugged.

"A few times. Enough to know that she's not going anywhere. I mean, unless we pull off that helmet and discover that she's been Harry Houdini this whole time! But since this isn't an episode of Scooby Doo, we should be fine."

"Riiiight..." I said, not really understanding what he was talking about. I shook my head, trying to get back my focus. "Good. I don't want her getting away before we can question her." I turned and looked at the pile of weapons and gear we'd collected from her before Chris brought out the space-age manacles. "And you're sure we can't use any of this?"

"In all likelihood? Probably not," Chris regarded at the pile of weapons and tools. "The Enclave has started booby-trapping a lot of their equipment with DNA scanners. If someone tries to use it and they're not the owner..." he mimed an explosion with his hands. He then started chuckling to himself. "It's possible they started doing that after I kept stealing their toys."

"Alright. I still think we should take it with us, just in case. Just... make sure we keep it away from her." Chris nodded. I turned away, tapping the side of my helmet and checking my Pip Boy to make sure I was on the right frequency. "Hey, Yes Man? You reading me?"

"Hi there!" the chipper AI buzzed in my ear. "What can I do for you today?"

"Is there any place in the Lucky 38 we can use as a makeshift prison?" I asked, watching as Chris picked up the unconscious assassin with one hand and tossed her onto his shoulder like she was a ragdoll.

"Oh, sure!" Yes Man said, without even a second's hesitation. "There are a few holding cells underneath the tower, if I'm reading these schematics correctly. In fact... it seems like there's a whole wing underneath the casino dedicated entirely to security..." There was a surprisingly long pause. "It looks like there's a section labeled 'supermax.' Does that help?"

"Yeah..." I said, watching as Chris tossed the unconscious assassin onto my Corvega's backseat. "Yeah, I think that'll do nicely. Get one ready to receive visitors." I continued turning around as I spoke to Yes Man, and saw both Cass and Fawkes standing next to the Lone Wanderer's hovercraft. Both dogs were underfoot; it looked like Dogmeat and Roxie were fighting over a bloody chunk of deathclaw meat. A severed deathclaw head was lying on the ground nearby, as well... and it reminded me that I needed to ask Chris later if he knew what those metal helmets were all about.

"Hey, big man?" Cass said, gesturing at the massive yellow super mutant. "I'm kinda curious about somethin', an' maybe you can answer."

"Yes?" Fawkes said, plucking the half-finished cigar out of his mouth and raising a hairless eyebrow.

"Not meanin' t'be rude'r nothin'... but..." she began, leaning against the side of the "101" decal on the nose. "What's with all th' nonsensical bullshit Chris keeps spoutin'?" Fawkes coughed several times. That was the unmistakable sound of a man presented with an embarrassing subject.

"Ah. Yes. That." He cleared his throat again. "You must understand something about Christopher... He is..." he paused, running a massive, scabby hand across his bald scalp. "When it really matters, you can count on Chris to deliver. He's skilled, resourceful, intelligent, and demonstrably indestructible. I trust him with my life – and have done, many times, in fact. If not for his assistance, I would be locked within the bowels of Vault 87 to this day. But... I admit, sometimes he can be a bit..." He paused again.

"Nuts?" Cass offered up helpfully. "Crazy? Loopy? Utterly bonkers? Out to lunch? Moonstruck?"

"I was going to say eccentric," Fawkes said with a nod, cutting her off before she got too far. "But yes."

"Has he always been like this?" I asked. Fawkes opened his mouth, but no sound came out. He screwed up his face, apparently trying to think of how best to phrase what he wanted to say. And then, the question was answered for us.

"No, not always," Chris answered, walking up behind me. "Life was a LOT different for me when I first stepped out of the Vault. It wasn't until Point Lookout that things got interesting." He smiled broadly and waggled his eyebrows behind his mirrored shades. Cass just looked confused.

"Point... what? Point Lookout? What is that, issat a place'r somethin?" Chris nodded.

"Yeah, it's a swamp south of DC, off the coast of Maryland. Chock full of rednecks." He leaned down, and pointed at his forehead with the pinky finger of his robot hand. "You see this scar?" Cass and I both leaned in to get a better view – and sure enough, there was a surprisingly large scar on his head that I hadn't noticed before. It looked like a letter "C" and most of it was hidden underneath his hair... But now that I could see, it was quite large. It also happened to be in almost exactly the same place on his head as the scar from Benny's bullet was on mine.

"Oh man, that's a doozy..." Cass elbowed me in the ribs. "S'almost as big as some've yer scars!"

"Yeah," I nodded. "Almost." Cass snorted out a laugh.

"You see, what it happened was," Chris continued with a chuckle, standing up straight again. "I went down to Point Lookout and was shanghaied by a pack of tribal rednecks. They gave me this really nasty hallucinogen they called 'Mother Punga,' and while I was completely off my face, tripping balls, they carved out a chunk of my brain. And you know what? Nothing has really been the same since!" He laughed, scratching the side of his head with the scar. "I still have the chunk they took out, actually. I keep it in a glass jar of embalming fluid, right next to my bobblehead collection!"

Cass' face was a mixture of horror, disgust, and bewilderment... but I just started nodding.

"You know, I can sympathize," I shrugged, tapping the side of my helmet. "I actually got my entire brain scooped out by mad scientists, recently. I just carried on without it for a week and a half. I mean, I eventually got it back, but running around without it didn't seem to bother me none." Chris smiled at me again, slapping me on the shoulder.

"Lucky for us, we didn't need those bits!" He said, grinning broadly.

"I guess not!" I agreed. The two of us started laughing. Fawkes, on the other hand, let out a sound that seemed to be a mixture of a heavy sigh and a groan.

"Oh, man. No wonder you two seem to get along so well..." Fawkes snorted, trying to stifle a laugh himself. "You're both brainless."

The first part of the drive back to Vegas was pretty uneventful. Because Christopher and Fawkes seemed like they could help us with this problem, they decided to stick with us for the time being. And that was especially good, considering that the unconscious assassin sprawled on the backseat of my Corvega meant there was no space for Roxie. So, the two dogs were riding with Chris and Fawkes in the Roadkill – along with all the gear we'd confiscated – and I was leading the way back to the 38. We didn't run into anything between Quarry Junction and Vegas. No Fiends, no Legion patrols, no cazadores, no deathclaws...

So, of course, everything was bound to go wrong eventually. We managed to get almost all the way to The Strip front gates before things went completely sideways.

"Heads up," I said, slowing my Corvega to a crawl.

"Wait, what?" Cass turned around in her seat to look out front; she'd been kneeling backward in the passenger seat for most of the ride, pointing the Compliance Regulator at the assassin tied up in the backseat. Just in case. "Holy... fuck me, man. What's with th' crowd?"

Ahead of us, a massive gathering of folks were impeding our progress. I couldn't tell exactly how many there were – mainly because I couldn't be bothered to count – but it was enough to completely block off Vegas Boulevard. It looked like they were all clustered around, looking at something...

"Something's wrong," I turned off the car and stepped out. "I'm gonna go check it out." I pointed at the assassin. "Make sure she doesn't go anywhere." Cass nodded.

"Don't worry 'bout a thing, this bitch ain't leavin'."

"Hey, what's the holdup?" I heard Chris off to my left; the Roadkill was floating along next to my car, and he was standing up to get a better view.

"Not rightly sure..." I said, glancing at the crowd over my shoulder. "Could be trouble. Wanna check it out?" He didn't even wait for me to finish before hopping out of his hovercraft. I smiled under my helmet, and the two of us made our way to the crowd. We didn't get more than five feet before somebody noticed us.

"Hey... uh..." a man in a check shirt stepped away from the crowd and started stammering. "You... are you that... you're that Courier, aren't you?" I nodded. "Maybe... maybe you know what this is? It, uh, it fell out of the sky..."

"It what?" Chris and I said, practically in unison. I don't know what he was thinking, but I know for certain the bottom of my gut had fallen out. The two of us muscled our way past the crowd, until we finally got to the center...

"What the fuck?" I said aloud. A large non-descript metal cylinder, about three feet high and a foot across, was buried in the asphalt. The ground around the strange device was scorched, and several pieces of broken road were scattered about the place, lending credence to the statement that it fell out of the sky... but other than that, there wasn't anything readily identifiable about the device. I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but this – whatever it was – wasn't it.

"Oh, no," Chris breathed out next to me. "No, no, no, no, no..." I looked over to him and he was staring straight up into the sky. "Of course... it just had to be a cloudless day, too, didn't it?" Chris grabbed me by the shoulder. "All these people are in danger. We've got to get them away from here! Now!"

I looked around at the crowd of people surrounding us. It didn't seem like any of them heard what he said – or, if they did, they didn't care. So, I did the first thing I could think of to clear the crowd: I pulled out Roscoe, and fired three shots into the pavement. Within seconds, everyone started screaming and the crowd scattered.

"Alright, what next?" I asked, quickly holstering Roscoe.

"Guys?" Cass stuck her head out of my car. "Th' fuck's goin' on?"

"Well, if it's just the one, then we still have time..." Chris just kept looking back up at the sky. "When the third one hits, things are –"

There was a loud, screeching whistle from behind me, followed by a heavy thud. Everyone turned in the direction of the sound, just in time to see a large cloud of dust and smoke begin to pour out of a nearby side street, amid the screams of panicked Freesiders.

"We're running out of time!" Chris said, the undisguised panic evident in his voice. "FAWKES! Get the Roadkill out of sight!" The super mutant nodded, shifting his bulk from the mounted gun into the pilot seat with surprising ease. Roxie leapt out of the way, and bounded over to my car, hopping inside. The hovercraft closed up and when it started floating away, Chris turned back to me. "We're gonna need guns, and fast!"

"Well, we've got some –" I pointed at the Corvega, but Chris shook his head and cut me off.

"We need ALL of the guns!" He shouted at me. "The biggest guns you have!" I nodded, snapping my fingers as if I knew what he was talking about. I didn't, obviously, but I was rolling with it, because this was starting to worry me. Cazadores? No problem for this dude. Deathclaws? Piece of cake. Whatever was about to go down had him well and truly spooked, and that didn't seem good.

"Cass!" I said, turning on my heel. "Take the car back to the 38, and have Yes Man lock up our guest." I tossed her the keys, and she caught them with a nod. "Then get Stripe and Sasha, have them get here as soon as possible. Tell him it's a Code Green. They'll know what to do." I popped the trunk on my car and pulled out the anti-materiel rifle, the Jury Rigger, and as many grenades as I could carry.

"Are you sure?" Cass asked, with worry in her voice. "I mean... it's the middle of the day. You sure you want Stripe out in the open?" I shrugged, slamming the trunk shut.

"Well, Chris did say we need the biggest guns we have. Now go! We probably don't have much time before..." I paused, looking back to Chris briefly. "... whatever is about to happen." Cass paused for a second or two, but eventually nodded, sliding past Roxie and into the drivers seat. The Corvega roared off down the road, and I turned back to Chris; he was talking into his Pip Boy.

"Sally! I've got an enemy Deep Strike incoming, get the Winter Contingency prepped and ready to go!" he said, fiddling with one of the knobs. There was a burst of static, and suddenly I heard a perky young female voice.

"Roger Wilco, Captain Cosmos!" the cheery girl said, amidst a hail of static.

"Not the time, Sal! Just do it!" His Pip Boy beeped, and he started scanning the rooftops. "You better find some cover, before they arrive... if you can flank them, then we might have a chance..."

"Flank who?" I asked. "You still haven't explained what's going on!"

There was another screech, followed by a thud that was just as loud as the one before. Another dust cloud started billowing out of a street to our right. Behind us, the first metal cylinder started humming and hissing; I looked back just in time to see the top pop open, revealing a spinning, flashing yellow light.

"We don't have time! They're going to Deep Strike into this location any second!" he said, shoving me away and making his way to a nearby alley. "Get to the rooftops, trust me!"

"What are you gonna do?" I asked, pulling out the grapnel. He let out a single nervous laugh.

"What do you think? Draw their fire, of course!" He seemed to have a bit more of his usual confidence back, because he ducked behind the corner and pressed a finger to his mouth. The top of the cylinder continued opening up, and suddenly a bright yellow laser shot into the sky; similar lasers appeared from the landing sites of the others, creating a pseudo-pyramid shape made out of lasers.

PKCHOONT!

By the time I reached the roof and took cover behind one of the parapets, I was letting out a string of curses. My hand had gone for the button on my belt only to realize that it wasn't there – oh, for FUCK sake! I was wearing the Gun Runner armor, because I had been expecting a straight up fight! Of all the times to leave Sue behind! No wonder she was quieter than usual, she wasn't there!

The crack of a sonic boom filled the air, and the lasers disappeared... but the light didn't. All along the street, ethereal lights started flickering in air just above the road. When the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end, and I could smell the ozone even through the gas mask, I knew instantly what was going on. The street seemed to warp and bloat with so many teleport signatures ripping through the fabric of space and time all at once. The shadows began to take shape, each arrival punctuated by a crack of yellow lightning: ten... twenty... thirty...

Within seconds, the street was filled with soldiers and robots. Most of the figures that had arrived were humanoid robots. I had to do a double take – at first, they looked like the robots I'd fought in the Big Empty when I squared off against the power mad ZAX. But then I realized they were much more heavily armed and armored. There were bigger figures among the new arrivals as well – bigger because they were wearing power armor, and all of them were carrying energy weapons. Even from this distance, I could see important details sticking out on their helmets: yellow eyes, horns on the side, a beak-like covering where the mouth should be...

Enclave. These soldiers were Enclave! How is that possible?!

Of course, all the robots and power armored Enclave soldiers were bad enough, but there was one figure there that seemed to dwarf them all. If I thought Chris and Fawkes were massive, I was sorely mistaken – this dude was practically a walkingmountain. He towered over the other soldiers in power armor, and I couldn't tell if all the extra bulk (and height!) was from the heavy armor he was wearing, or what. But I do know that he wasn't armed with an energy weapon like the other soldiers and robots. He was carrying a massive warhammer that must have been longer than I was tall, and he had a truly ridiculous metal tower shield strapped to his other arm.

"Spread out and find him!" the monster of a man bellowed out as he strode through the Enclave troops; they all got out of his way, like they were afraid he was going to step on them. "The surveillance drones say that Vault pest should be around here somewhere..."

"And they'd be right!" Chris yelled back, stepping out from the alley and walking calmly to the center of the boulevard. Most of the troops raised their weapons, but didn't fire just yet. The huge one just kept walking forward, and his booming laughter echoed off every wall.

"Ah... my old enemy!" He bellowed, raising up his warhammer and pointing at Chris with the top of the hammer. "You cannot hide from me!"

"Who's hiding?" Chris shot back, adding: "Pansy!" The huge armored man roared with anger.

"MY! NAME! IS! PANZER!" he yelled back, lifting up the hammer and grabbing it with both hands. The top of the warhammer opened up, revealing a large-bore gun barrel. The muzzle flash of the missile firing out of the end was like a pound of exploding C4. It was such a distraction, that I almost didn't notice the faint blue shimmer around Chris...

I didn't have much time to notice anyway, because the next thing I knew, there was a massive explosion filling the street where Chris had been standing. The street was torn up by the fireball, sending shards and shrapnel flying in every direction.

"What th' fuck..." I muttered, keeping low under the roof wall. I needed to get into a better position – to escape, if nothing else. There's no way anyone could survive that...

"OPEN FIRE, YOU IDIOTS!" The giant – Panzer, apparently – yelled. "He's –" I didn't hear what he was, because Panzer was cut off by the sounds of a rapidly firing gatling laser. I peeked over the wall, and saw a figure walking out of the giant cloud of smoke billowing out of the crater in the street where Chris had been standing. A set of bone-white T-51b power armor was slowly walking forward, blasting everything in front of him with dozens of bright red bursts from the gatling laser in his hands.

I stand corrected. I guess there was a way to survive that.

I readied the anti-materiel rifle along the edge of the roof, and watched as the street below was filled with fire. Every Enclave gun had turned on Christopher, sending dozens of bright blue bolts of energy his direction; as soon as he was clear of the smoking crater, he just stood still, sending laser blasts back at them.

Amazingly, he didn't even seem the least bit affected by the withering plasma fire striking his T-51b over and over and over again. And if it wasn't for the rusted hulk of a broken car behind him being hit by all the stray shots – swiftly turning it into molten swiss cheese as a result – I would've thought those plasma blasts were as effective as a molerat fart. Of course, his gatling laser didn't seem to be doing much good, either...

I took aim and fired. An explosion slammed into the head of one of the power armored troops, taking his head off and sending the body flying like a ragdoll – and taking out a few nearby robots with the explosion. I managed to get a total of three shots in before they finally figured out where the fire was coming from, and redirecting some of their plasma fire my way.

"WHOA! Time to go!" I kicked off the parapet, diving for cover deeper into the roof and making a break for it. I barely got a few feet away from the plasma ripping up the side of the building before I heard a buzzing sound above my head. I looked around, trying to find the source. A black shape was screaming through the air, flying straight at me; it reminded me of one of those jet fighters in an old war movie coming in for a strafing run...

"FUCK!" I dove out of the way as fast as I could, dropping the anti-materiel rifle in a panic. Just in time, too: there was a loud bark of weapons fire, and the part of the roof where I'd been standing was ripped to shreds, showering me with shrapnel. The aircraft buzzed directly over my head and kept going. By the time I looked up, it was coming around for another pass. It almost looked like a really big boomerang, except it wasn't spinning through the air like you'd expect...

PKCHOONT!

"THIS IS A STUPID IDEA!" I yelled as the grapnel pulled me through the air directly for the flying wing. The spike was lodged in the side of the wing, and when I landed on it, the whole craft started spinning wildly out of control through the air, blaring warning klaxons at full volume. I shrugged the Jury Rigger into my free hand, fired at the opposite wing, disconnected the grapnel, and kicked off the aircraft. I started falling, but kept sight of the craft just long enough to watch it dive into a tailspin and explode in midair.

I looked up (technically 'down,' since I was falling head-first at the time...) and took aim with the Jury Rigger at the mass of Enclave troops. I wasn't that high up, and I was falling fairly quick, so I only managed to snap off three LAER beams. I shifted my weight around, trying to right myself, and seconds before I hit pavement, the jets in my rocket boots kicked in.

The Enclave troops were having a hard time tracking me. Honestly, I can't really blame them – I'd angled my feet so that I was skimming along horizontally, a few feet above the ground. The world managed to slow down long enough with VATS for me to line up one good shot...

The blue LAER hit the first robot square in the chest, and just kept going. It hit another. And then another. It cut through five with one shot, blowing them all to pieces, before finally stopping at one of the dudes in power armor, blasting him in the gut and knocking him to the ground.

The jets in my boots cut out, and I skidded along the pavement, carried along by my momentum for several feet. I pulled out the grapnel gun again, but before I fired, I managed to catch a glimpse of the action going on at Chris' end of things.

The Lone Wanderer was still standing his ground, firing his gatling laser at the swiftly advancing Panzer. The lasers hit the behemoth's tower shield, and seemed to bounce off harmlessly, letting the giant close the distance a lot quicker than his bulk would suggest... and then he swung the hammer. There was a massive ringing sound of metal on metal, and the next thing I knew, the set of white T-51b was flying through the air! Chris slammed into the side of a building with a crash of flying brickwork and masonry, disappearing entirely into the newly created hole in the wall.

I couldn't focus on that now – I had more immediate concerns. One of the nearby robots had noticed me and was trying to draw a bead with the two pistol-sized energy weapons in each of its hands.

PKCHOONT!

I fired the grapnel at the ground next to the robots feet, flicked the button to let out as much slack as the cable would allow, and activated my jet boots. A pair of blue plasma bolts sliced through the air near my head, and I started skimming along the ground, weaving in and out and around all the robots and power armor troops. I just kept hold of the grapnel, ducking and bobbing and weaving, until I finally felt the cable run out. I angled my boots and the jets let out a fresh burst of power...

The line snapped taught, taking a good ten or eleven Enclave with it. The grapnel spun up, and I shouldered my rifle as it drew me back in the way I came. One of the robots was trying to get back on its feet... but I grabbed it by the head and dragged it along for the ride. The grapnel finished pulling me back, I smashed the metal head into the pavement; I rolled back onto my feet, and tossed the headless robot into a pair of power armored soldiers. I threw it as hard as I could, and all that resulted was a broken robot against a pair of distracted soldiers.

"Get him!" one of them yelled... and then the plasma grenade I'd rolled at their feet detonated, consuming them both in a ball of green fire.

"Made you look," I smirked under my helmet, shrugging the Jury Rigger back into my hands. "Now, where is – WHOA!" I dove for the pavement, because something large, metal and bone white was flying my way. Chris' T-51b sailed straight over my head, and I looked back up in time to see Panzer running after him.

"GET BACK HERE!" He was charging like a deathclaw, and ended up taking out two of his own soldiers who weren't quick enough to get out of his way... and I was directly in front of him. I leveled the Jury Rigger as quick as I could, flicked the fire selector to the 'Pulse' setting, and fired.

"GYNAH!" The blue streak of lightning hit him square in the chest, and he came to a halt. Lightning arced and crackled over the metal of his armor... and then it seemed to shift, funneling itself into the shield on his arm. "Ahhh... Project CIRCUITBREAKER? HAH!" He snorted derisively, slamming the bottom edge of his shield against the pavement; the whole shield glowed and hummed blue, crackling with lightning. "You'll have to do better than THAT!"

Oh, balls.

He reared back with his hammer, and brought it down with terrifying speed. The jets in my boots had already kicked in, and I was above him, firing blue LAER beams at him. The electric lasers hit his armor, but didn't seem to do much... except annoy him.

"Stop buzzing, insect!" He swung his hammer around, pointing the gun barrel in my direction. The jets in my boots cut out and I fell, just as he fired another rocket; the explosion from the muzzle flash blasted me like I'd been hit in the chest, and it sent me tumbling. I hit the ground, but I knew I didn't have time to waste. I looked up, and sure enough, the edge of that tower shield was headed straight for my face.

The jets in my boots fired, and I started skidding against the ground. I flew back, towards Panzer, and ended up going straight through his legs, just as the shield slammed into the road and turned it into rubble. I managed to fire off a few shots up into his undercarriage, but I didn't expect them to do any good... and before I could get too far, he swung his hammer around again.

"There's nowhere you can run, mutant!" he growled as the impact knocked me off course again. I reached out with my cybernetic hand, digging into the asphalt with my fingers to try and slow me down. "Just make it easy on yourself and DIE!"

HONK! HONK!

"What?" Panzer looked up, apparently as caught off guard by the sound as I was. Sure enough, the deuce was barreling down the road at top speed, smashing through the last few robots as it drove straight at the power armor monster with the warhammer. Panzer snorted, and leveled the gun in his hammer, firing it at the truck. The ground under the two and half ton truck exploded in a shower of fire and debris, knocking the truck up onto two wheels. It just kept right on going, spinning around like whoever was driving had yanked on the handbrake...

The flaps on the back of the truck exploded outward, pushed aside by a pair of massive claws. Stripe roared louder than any of the other explosions all around us, leaping out of the truck with claws outstretched and mouth open wide, sailing through the air straight at the dumbstruck Panzer.

"WHAT – " Stripe hit the monster with the force of a freight train, and Panzer went skidding against the pavement, his boots tearing up the asphalt like it was made of mud. Sasha swung the minigun around, barking and firing directly at Panzer's face. Sparks started flying everywhere, but the minigun bullets didn't seem to do anything except bounce off harmlessly. Stripe kept clawing and biting and snarling and pushing...

SLAM!

"ENOUGH!" Panzer yelled; Stripe was pushed back several feet after being hit by the tower shield, and he dug his claws into the road. Electricity hung in the air between them, floating and sparking like embers from a fire. Stripe reared back on his haunches, letting out a roar that shook the street and lunged at him again.

"I SAID!" Panzer grabbed his hammer with both hands, and shoved the handle up underneath Stripe's chin to keep him at bay. "ENOUGH!" Panzer shifted his weight, and smashed Stripe in the side of the head with the tower shield. Stripe faltered, the side of his head slamming into the pavement..

CLUNK!

I sent a mass of holorifle cubes Panzer's way to try and get his attention. It slammed into the side of his head, but wasn't quite enough... and then a barrage of red lasers slammed into the back of the armored metal monster. Chris had pulled himself out of whatever rubble he'd landed in, and was firing his gatling laser again. I switched the fire selector, and stared firing more LAER beams at his face. Sasha was yelling incoherently, still firing the minigun. With all three of us hitting him at once from three different directions, he finally started to stumble away from Stripe... and gave my pal the opening he needed.

"DIE!" Stripe lunged upward, slashing with both sets of claws. I stopped firing – because I didn't want to hit Stripe – but kept advancing as the massive metal monster was knocked back. Chris was advancing as well, the barrels on his gatling laser glowing red hot. Panzer looked around – finally realizing that he was the last one standing. Stripe snarled and roared again.

"You can't win, Pansy," Chris mocked, his voice slightly distorted by the filter on his power armor. "It's over." For half a second, nobody moved.

"Emergency recall!" Panzer bellowed. "My coordinates!" The air around him warped and bloated, yellow lightning ripping up the fabric of reality.

"NO!" Chris and I both yelled. He fired his gatling laser, I fired off a pair of LAER bursts, and Sasha barked out with minigun fire... but none of us were quick enough. There was a crack of ozone, and none of us hit anything.

The noises of more thundercracks sounded off around us. I spun on my heel, Jury Rigger at the ready, because I was half-expecting reinforcements... but instead, I quickly realized I was hearing exit teleports. There were a half dozen bolts of yellow lightning that I could see, and most of the bigger remaining corpses in power armor – and the teleport homer that had started this whole mess – vanished with pops of ozone and electricity.

"Damnit!" Chris growled in frustration. "They always do that..."

"AND STAY OUT!" Sasha yelled. "This is our town, пизда!" Stripe roared again, adding another layer of punctuation to Sasha's bellowed Russian. Chris looked over at Stripe and Sasha, and let out a single, tired laugh.

"So..." he panted heavily, letting the gatling laser in his hands hang loose. "A deathclaw, huh?" I nodded, taking the time to catch my breath as well. Chris laughed again. "Okay, I admit... I didn't see that one coming."

"Well," I shrugged, resting the Jury Rigger against my shoulder. "You did say you wanted the biggest guns..."