Heart and Claw Update(final)

Here are the last 5k words for Heart and Claw... sort of. I'll be going back and ironing out the grammar, adding and removing parts as needed, but I'm gonna take a few days to focus on my mental health. jk I'm fine, just a little worn out after all the deathclaw action. Ebooks will come after editing is done, and revision will be posted gradually on scbmstories. Of course, feedback door is always open so if you have suggestions, throw them my way.

***

“Oh, I wasn’t just talking about him.”

Pearl opened her mouth to speak, but instead she loosed a cry of pain, fresh blood spurting out of a wound that had suddenly appeared on her neck. She buckled, as if a dumbbell had been placed on her shoulders, twirling on the spot as red marks appeared on her neck. Hendrix stepped out of the way of her whipping tail, Pearl snarling in anger and confusion. Cooper raised his rifle, but he couldn’t see anything, his eyes darting frantically for the source of her pain.

She swiped her claws about like she was swatting at an errant fly, Cooper watching in disbelief as her hand connected with something solid above her head, something that his eyes couldn’t see. A hiss that wasn’t from Pearl called out, the deathclaw ramming her backside up against the wall as bite marks appeared on her arm, then her face.

Reaching up above her head, Pearl seized at something, her hands clenching over a distinct mass. She wrangled with the air, tossing what appeared to be nothing to the ground, but the thump of an impact convincing him otherwise. The deathclaw stamped on the spot with her digitigrade leg, her talons digging furrows into the floorboards as she missed whatever it was.

Realisation flashed in his eyes, Cooper whipping about in alarm, peering down the sights of his laser rifle. He could hear that hiss again, low and menacing, but he couldn’t tell what direction it was coming from.

“Call off your pet!” he snarled, turning his gun on Hendrix. The old man didn’t even bat an eye – he knew they wanted him alive, and that Cooper wouldn’t fire.

Pearl’s shoulder twisted unnaturally to the side, her face scrunching up as two puncture marks appeared on her bicep. She swiped down her torso, but she missed, her figure hunching as the invisible mass crawled over her backside. She threw out an elbow, but that also missed, Pearl throwing herself to one knee as the scales on her thigh were pierced.

Cooper held his sights over Pearl, watching as she spun and wailed on the spot. He couldn’t bring himself to squeeze the trigger, not without risking hitting Pearl. She was bleeding so much, her many bullet wounds now joined by these fresh bites.

She cried out as the thing attacking her bit down on the spot between her horns, but rather than try and swipe at it, instead she flipped herself over, planting her dorsal spikes into the wooden floor, some of them caving inward.

Dark blood appeared on a handful of her spikes, impaling into the gut of the invisible creature. A sourceless yowl filled the room as Pearl twisted her shoulders, goring the creature. She flipped onto her front, pinning the creature down before it could slither away.

Cooper was able to make out an outline of a torso as Pearl held the invisible thing down, the thing flailing so much that even Pearl almost lost her grip on it. She bared her teeth, her chops parting as she rammed her head between her hands. The hissing took on a wet quality as she gored it on her horns, more blood appearing on their sharp tips. Pearl gave her head a pointed twist, ensuring the kill, pulling her head back to decouple her face from the hidden mass.

The creature lost control of its invisibility, its canine-like body appearing in Pearl’s arms. The nightstalker’s tail rattled once more before going still, the beasts head rolling back as it bled out. Its body wobbled as Pearl let it go, shutting her eyes as she rose to a crouching position, her breath coming out in ragged gasps.

“Not… cool,” Pearl muttered. “Not cool at all.”

She was on Hendrix in a moment, grasping the old man by the throat, lifting him into the air so that their eyes were level. He kicked out his legs as Pearl flexed her other hand, her claws glinting as the light from the muzzle flashes outside caught on them.

“I’m getting pretty thin on patience right now, Hendrix,” Pearl snarled, blood dripping down her left eye. “I was hoping we could be a little more civilized, but you clearly want to do this the hard way.”

“D-Do what?” Hendrix sputtered, grasping at her hand, which she squeezed a little more tightly over his neck.

“I want information,” she demanded. “And if I even get a whiff of a lie, I’ll do things to you that’ll make your pet’s death look like paradise in comparison. I’d ask you how that sounds, but you don’t have much of a choice, do you?”

The choking sounds Hendrix made were horrible, and he gave Cooper a pleading look, but he just shook his head. This was Pearl’s time, and he wasn’t going to intervene.

“Talk,” Pearl snapped. “When you captured me, how did you know where I was? Was it sheer dumb luck that you stumbled upon me of all deathclaws?”

“N-No,” Hendrix gasped. “Th-They told me you were in the area.”

“Who is they?” Pearl asked, leaning so close her horns brushed Hendrix’s temple. “You keep being vague and this will be a lot more painful for you than it needs to be.”

“I don’t know!” Hendrix replied, Pearl’s hold on him loosening so he could speak. “They didn’t give me names, and I didn’t ask, they weren’t the kind of people I wanted to press for details. Said they were looking for something, some subject, gave me a description that you fit to the letter.”

Pearl’s expression shifted. Now she was more worried than angry, though her fury quickly returned. “These people, have you told them that I’m here?”

Cooper’s heart sank. Hendrix had nodded.

“How do you contact them?” Pearl asked, exposing her teeth in either anger or fear, he wasn’t sure.

The old man pointed at the far end of the room, towards the terminal. Pearl glanced at it, then returned her fiery gaze to the old man.

“Cooper,” she said, her tone a little softer. “if you wouldn’t mind, please.”

He nodded, walking over and pushing the chair aside, hitting the power button on the boxy device. He waited for the BIOS settings to scroll by, the green tint of the screen casting half the room in a sickly light, and then a small window with two lines appeared, a flicking cursor awaiting his input.

“Wants a password,” Cooper announced. Hendrix told him a string of numbers, and after typing them in, a loading bar appeared. After it filled, a small startup menu occupied the screen. The options were settings, system, logs, and status. He tapped the arrow keys until he highlighted logs, then hit the enter button.

A couple of messages dating back for about a month popped up, all of them directing and receiving from the same user, according to the labels.

“Got some messages here from someone called… Private Astley,” Cooper said.

“So much for no names,” Pearl mumbled, giving Hendrix a look. “Read them out to me.”

“Lodge, preliminary report on subject. Use caution when engaging, target is highly elusive, but will attack if cornered. Subject reported to be active in the northeastern quadrant of California, estimated to be hiding in the many remote, abandoned locations to the far north of VC. Last seen traveling in isolation. Height: 280cm. Weight: 622 lb. Pink and white complexion. See below.”

There was a picture attached to the bottom of the message. In it, a pale deathclaw stood in the foreground of a whitewashed, featureless space. Pearl looked younger, a lot younger, her features less weathered, her hide oddly iridescent without all the gunshots and wounds she’d accumulated over her years in the Wastes.

“Don’t remember anyone taking a picture of me,” Pearl said. “Creepy. What else?”

“Next one’s a reply from Hendrix. Mister Astley, your report was invaluable, subject has been secured, currently sleeping in one of my cages. Told you the tranquilizer worked. I’ll let you keep the container if you want, though I’m a bit confused as to how you’ll transport it? You’re not using one of those flying contraptions again, are you? Please forewarn me if that’s the case, the animals were spooked for hours after you left last time.”

“Reply from Astley a day later. Lodge, confirm subject’s identity. We cannot risk sending a retrieval team unless there is complete certainty, we draw enough attention from the province already. You will be held accountable if fuel and resources are wasted.”

“Hendrix a few days after that. Mister Astley, the situation has changed. I don’t know how it did it, but it got out, but rest assured I have my best people working on finding it. Updates to follow.”

“Hendrix again. Update: sent out several teams into the valley, and one of them found something. Only one of the four guards returned, who claimed that a hunter I hired is working alongside the subject, and that said subject can speak. I chalked that up to delirium, you would have told me if it could communicate. Sending out another two teams to detain it, updates to follow.”

Cooper placed his hands on the desk. “That’s it,” he muttered. “Astley has to be Enclave, and he knows you’re definitely here.”

“Fuck!” Pearl snarled, pointing an accusing finger at the suspended Hendrix. “You’ve doomed me! Years I went without drawing attention to myself, now I’ll have vertibirds buzzing me any day now! Why couldn’t you just couldn’t leave me alone?”

She was choking him harder with every word, Hendrix’s face turning a worrying shade of purple. Just when Cooper thought she might suffocate the old man, she relented, her nostrils flexing as she sighed.

“What if we told them you’re dead?” Cooper suggested. “I can send a message right now, all we’ll have to do is play along.”

“Wouldn’t work,” Pearl grumbled. “they’d want my body recovered, and they’ll come back. Fuck knows what they’ll think when they see this mess we’ve made.”

Cooper wanted to do something, suggest anything, but nothing came. The cat was already out of the bag, and they’d be hard-pressed to convince her former captors to drop the search thanks to Hendrix’s messeges. They’d been very lucky the Enclave hadn’t turned up the moment they’d been told she was caught.

“I-I could help you,” Hendrix whispered, breaking the silence. “I’m the only one with access to that terminal, I could tell them I’m cutting all ties, say you escaped and killed too many men for us to recover.”

“You do realise you just gave us your password?” Pearl asked, shaking her head. “I can’t believe you’d think me stupid enough to even consider leaving you alone with a way to contact the Enclave.”

“Then take my terminal!” Hendrix said. “Destroy it if you want, it’s the only device they gave me.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Pearl said. “You’re on the Enclave’s file now. They’ll find you. They always do. I… I didn’t want it to have to be this way, Hendrix,” she added, her tone suddenly shifting. “I hoped I could just ruin your operation and be done with you, but… I don’t see any other option but one.”

“Wait, please,” Hendrix begged, her implication not lost on him. “As one thinking being to another, you must understand I was only doing what I had to do to survive. You’re not just a thoughtless animal, I see that now. I won’t bother you any longer, just let me go.”

“It took me days to convince my best friend to see me as more than a beast,” Pearl began, giving Cooper a glance. “but it takes you all of two minutes? I don’t believe you. I can’t. I’m sorry.”

She shut her eyes, Hendrix starting to plead as she clenched her hand around his throat. There was a gut-wrenching crack, Hendrix’s head jutting at an odd angle, his words cutting off with a breathy sigh. His limbs relaxed, dangling by his sides, Pearl placing him on the floor with a surprising amount of care, shaking her head as she stared at his corpse.

“There was no other way,” she muttered, giving Cooper a somber look. “… right?”

“Sorry, Pearl,” he said, walking over and placing a hand on her arm. “It had to be done, letting him go would have just made things worse.”

“Yeah,” she said, not sounding very convinced. She straightened up before continuing. “There’ll be time to feel bad for myself later. Right now we have to deal with the Enclave. Let’s have a look at those logs.”

She took up a spot in front of the terminal, getting on her knees so she was low enough to read the screen. The sounds of fighting beyond the window were dying down, Cooper looking out over the pen while Pearl clicked at the keyboard. He could see some of the pack dashing through the yard, along with a few other critters. There was a giant green mantis, its purple wings flittering as it dodged out of Matriarch’s way, its head twisting at unnatural angles. There was also a few brahmin, and what looked like a radscorpion in the distance. There were dead people and creatures everywhere, and it looked like the guards had abandoned the lodge to get clear of the loose animals.

“Wait a tick,” Pearl said, clicking her fingers. “We might not be able to get the Enclave off my back, but maybe we can throw them off it for a while.”

“How so?” he asked, walking back over to the desk.

“They’re a very secretive organization,” Pearl explained. “The Enclave operate in the shadows, making sure to capture or kill anyone who stumbles upon them, and keep their outside contacts in the dark about their true identity. See what this Private Astley guy says here? We cannot risk sending a retrieval team unless there is complete certainty, we draw enough attention from the province already. I’m pretty sure that means he doesn’t want everyone seeing a vertibird flying to and from their bases without a great reason. Those things aren’t exactly discreet.”

“So what do we say?” Cooper asked. “We could tell them that it wasn’t actually youwho was captured, but that might read off as suspicious, Hendrix suddenly backing off after all this effort.”

“We tell them that some other organization has gotten involved,” Pearl said. “Say NCR or something has sent an armed group to investigate the area, and has set up a camp nearby. The Enclave wouldn’t dare showing themselves to a powerful group like them, or at least, that’s my hope.”

“Wont they ask why the NCR’s here?”

“Then we say we don’t know. It’s not up to us to ask questions, that’s what Hendrix basically said before.”

“Okay, that might buy some time,” Cooper admitted. “but Hendrix already told them you got away. You’ll never be safe if we can’t somehow reverse that.”

“I don’t see how that’s possible now,” Pearl sighed. “Best we can do is hope this made-up NCR squad keeps them out of the area for a while.”

“What if we said you were somewhere you aren’t?” Cooper suggested. “Tell them you were seen heading north, or west, out and away from the mine, and that trackers lost sight of you going somewhere like, the Glow or something.”

“Good idea!” she replied. “Alright, help me word this message, these keys are too small for my fingers.”

They spent maybe twenty minutes thinking and planning on a reply to the Enclave, Hendrix and his pet nightstalker starting to permeate the room with a foul smell. They were careful to make sure their message sounded like something Hendrix would say, using his prior messages as reference. Once they were both satisfied with their reply, they typed it all out in full, and what it said was this:

Mister Astley, teams reported subject is heading northwest in relation to my lodge. Highly elusive indeed. Ordered one team to track at a distance. No sign of the hired hunter my guard claimed was working with it. Apologies for the delayed response, it’s been getting popular around here these last few days. A group of President Tandi’s guards was patrolling the road yesterday, apparently the Republic has heard rumours of ‘flying metal birds’ and are investigating. Must be your aircraft. They appear to be settling in for the moment. Updates to follow.

“It’ll have to do,” Pearl said, reading it over one last time. “I kinda want to put ASSHOLES or something at the end there, but that might give us away.”

“Maybe,” he said, smirking at her. “You want to send it, or will I?”

“I’ll do it,” she said. She brought a claw over the enter button, the icon flickering over the send command. “Feels weird talking to the Enclave again, even if its indirectly. Not really looking forward to a reunion.”

“It won’t come to that,” Cooper insisted. In truth he didn’t know what would happen after they sent the message, but he wanted to reassure Pearl in any way he could.

She gave him a grateful smile, then clicked the button. Their impersonated message was transferred after a small delay, appearing at the top of the log section. That was it, the ball was out of their court, and the fight was over for the moment. Pearl leaned on the desk as though suddenly overcome with fatigue, Cooper reciprocating as he plucked his helmet off, taking in a breath of fresh air.

Something metallic in the corner of the room caught his eye. It was a silver box stood on a set of four tiny legs, the front side of it built like a door. Tilting his head, he made his way over to it, seeing that instead of a traditional doorknob, there was a circular dial labeled with over a hundred numerics.

“Hendrix’s safe,” he muttered. He tried putting in the password for the terminal, but the code was too long. “Wonder what’s inside it.”

“You keep forgetting you have a deathclaw on tap,” Pearl said, waving for him to stand clear. She walked over, slipping a claw into the groove in the door, slicing the lock apart like it was nothing. The safe swung open, Cooper leaning over and peering inside. What he saw inside made his veins flood with excitement.

Green bundles of notes held together by rubber bands occupied the top shelf to capacity, crammed all the way to the back wall. The number 100 was stenciled into each corner, with President Tandi’s youthful face donning each bill. The lower shelf was similarly brimming, but instead of paper notes, there was several bulky bags tied at the necks by hairy strings, their contents bulging the linen outwards.

Cooper reached down to drag one of said bags out, finding himself needing to use both arms to lift it. He undid the knot in the string, folding back the neck, Pearl’s amber eyes widening as she peeked inside.

“Am I crazy,” she began. “or is that like, a whole Nuka Cola factory’s worth of caps in there?”

There had to be a hundred caps easy on the first few layers alone, and there were maybe half ten bags crammed into the safe. The paper money already outdid his promised reward money that Hendrix had offered, but this was just absurd. Had this come straight from the Enclave, or was this simply Hendrix’s treasury? He’d never know, nor did he much care anyway.

He took out a handful of caps, letting them trickle through his gloved fingers, clinking as they fell back into the bag. He’d never seen so much wealth in one place before, and his thoughts were already rushing with the possibilities that were now open to him.

“Looks like you got what you wanted after all,” Pearl said, Cooper glancing up at her. “All the reward money and then some. You could buy back your parent’s place, heck maybe the whole block with this kind of cash.”

“There’s an idea,” he muttered, transfixed as he pulled another bag from the safe.

“I… I guess that’s it then,” Pearl added, rubbing one of her horns absentmindedly.

“What do you mean?” he asked.

“Well, you’ve accomplished what you set out to do,” she explained. “your life as a hunter is over. You could hire out the Bishop family condo with all this, and those New Reno women will crawl over each other to get to Mister Rich Guy Cooper.”

“Having a bunch of consorts would be a nice way to live,” he admitted.

“I’m happy for you,” Pearl continued. “You get to live out the rest of the winter in a heated building, surrounded by your own kind. Don’t know how you’re gonna manage to bring all this to the city with you, those bags look heavy, but maybe the joy of being rich will give you the willpower.”

“Pearl… I was happy even before finding all this money.”

“What? But-” He silenced her with a peck on the chin, the power armour allowing him to just reach her if he tiptoed. He chuckled at her bewildered expression, Pearl blinking at him. “Y-You talked so much about getting your fortune, I thought this was what you wanted?”

“I’m not denying the money’s a good bonus,” he admitted, resting his hands on her wide hips. “But I guess my priorities changed over these past few days. You asked me once if I saw you as more than just a beast,” he continued, Pearl grinning at him as he began to stumble his words. “and I do, I… I like you, Pearl, more than anything. I’ve been worrying for so long on what kind of person that makes me, but after all that’s happened, I don’t give a shit anymore. I guess what I’m trying to say is I… I think I’ve fallen for you.”

He watched her cheeks flush into a shade of crimson, her smile not born from teasing, but of relief.

“I guess I can be pretty annoyingly insistent,” she chuckled, her laughter coming out a little more forced than was natural. “I was worried too,” she continued, brushing his cheek with a claw. “I kept thinking that once we took out the lodge, you’d be on your way. I almost didn’t want to bring it up, like I’d jinx it or something. What about your dreams of living in a city?” she asked. “I like my den, but it doesn’t hold a candle to an apartment block.”

“I’d be willing to make a few sacrifices if it means staying with you, if you’ll have me,” he added. Pearl answered by wrapping her arms around him, the servos in his suit whirring as they compensated for her weight.

“O-Of course I will! This whole time I’ve been trying to get you to stay with me, and now you’re asking for permission? You’re such a tease, Coops…”

Her thighs opened, encompassing his waist on both sides as she pushed against him, guiding him up against the wall as she leaned over, pressing her mouth against his own. He battled with her forked tongue for a while, Pearl pulling back to peeper his face with quick kisses, Cooper chuckling as her organ tickled him.

“And, for the record,” she added between pecks. “I love you too. Yes!” she exclaimed, pumping a fist. “I finally got to say that to someone other than the mirror! Feels amazing!”

“Just wait until the pack here’s about this,” he said, his words muffled by her bosom as she pulled him into her chest. After holding him there for a few minutes, she gave him some room, turning to peer out the glass.

“The pack, right,” she said, a twinge of worry creeping into her voice. “Let’s go check on them, we’ll pick this back up later, count on that.”

-xXx-

Cooper and Pearl shared a sigh of relief as they walked out into the pen, seeing that all members of the pack were accounted for. One of the laborers had a few gunshot wounds on her arm, and Matriarch had what looked like bite marks on her chest, but that was the extent of their wounds. Cooper ducked back inside in search of a medkit, returning to patch up the deathclaws once he located one.

As he dressed Matriarch’s wounds, the beast nibbling on the bandage, pausing when Cooper chided her, Pearl motioned for the pack to gather round, switching to their language as she started to speak. Cooper guessed she was explaining to them what had happened to Hendrix.

He looked around the area as she gave them the news. The pen was like an abandoned battlefield. Broken fences were strewn everywhere, sections of the outer wall partially collapsed from where the escaped wildlife had barged their way to freedom. Some of the turrets were utterly destroyed, with only their mounted legs still standing on the vantage points, the guards must have managed to get some of them back online during the attack. What guards that had managed to survive were nowhere to be seen, and Cooper doubted they’d ever come back after the show the pack had given them.

“Heads up, Cooper,” Pearl said, and before Cooper could ask, the runt of the pack barreled into him, nuzzling her horns into his chest, his alarm quickly fading as he returned her embrace.

“Guessing you told them I’ll be sticking around?” he asked, the runt squatting by his foot, her tail wagging happily.

“They’re as happy as I am,” she informed him, standing head and shoulders above the pack as they gave him warm looks. “You’ve grown on them in the short time we’ve spent together, even this one here was worried she’d have to say goodbye.”

Pearl patted Matriarch’s shoulder, the giant deathclaw looking away, perhaps sensing she was the subject of the conversation despite the language barrier.

“That’s… somehow adorable,” he laughed. “I was thinking,” he added, gesturing at the lodge. “It’d be a waste to let all that furniture in there go to waste. We should bring some of this stuff back to the mine, spruce up the place.”

“Suppose we should decorate it if you wanna live there long-term,” Pearl replied. “And those bookcases would look damn fine in my room.”

“We should see about transporting Hendrix’s terminal as well,” Cooper continued. “I think it has its own battery unit, so we should be able to just pick it up. We can keep an eye on it for when the Enclave replies to us.”

“Let’s worry about that later,” Pearl said. “Right now I just want to lay down and sleep for a solid day. But first…”

Without warning, she picked him up, shaking him from side to side as she hugged him to her bosom, Cooper’s feet dangling over the ground. He felt her scales thrum as she purred happily.

“Just had to get that out of my system,” she murmured. She placed him back on the ground, but the moment she freed him, Matriarch took her place, nuzzling him from the left side. Not wanting to be left out, the runt took up the right, and the rest of the pack soon joined in, subjecting him to an overwhelming, but no less pleasant group hug.

“I’ve got my mate,” Pearl said, snickering as he avoided catching himself on their spikes. “I’ve got my pack, and our hunters are gone. I’d say that’s a pretty good outcome, all things considered.”

“Best job I’ve ever taken,” Cooper said, Pearl’s throwing her head back, giggling as the pack pressed in all around him.