Fallout, With Heart and Claw Update

4k words.

“And these have to be wolf tracks, right?” Pearl asked, her cloak bunding around her feet as she crouched in the snow. Cooper spent most of the day teaching Pearl the basics of tracking game as they followed in the pack’s footsteps. He’d never had the opportunity to pass on his skills to another, there wasn’t exactly an abundance of students, and while it helped pass the time, it also made him feel good to know that Pearl wouldn’t be lacking for food once they eventually parted.

“Good job, see how large the prints are? Easy way to tell a mutt from a wolf, as mutts are way smaller. How old do you think they are?”

Crisscrossing over the tracks the deathjaws had made was a set of canine prints. Cooper had no intention of following them, but it did provide a nice opportunity to test Pearl’s skills.

“Well, it must be newer than the pack’s prints, or else they’d have diverted, they wouldn’t have given up a tasty snack. The snow looks disturbed here, so I’d say… a day, maybe less.”

“I’d go even lower than that, but you’re right,” he said. “We could probably find it, but the wind’s blowing the way it went, it’ll smell us before we see it.”

“By us, you mean you, right?” Pearl joked, holding a hand up to her nose. “If metal could rot, that’s what you’d smell like.”

“I don’t exactly live in a bathing house, Pearl,” he replied annoyedly. “At least not yet.”

“Where is your home anyway?” she asked, the two leaving the wolf prints behind, Cooper examining the beast’s prints before replying. The pack had stopped to rest at around this point, Cooper guessing they were maybe two days old at this point. He was making good progress.

“You slept under it last night,” he answered, gesturing at his bedroll. “I’ve slept in motels and inns when I’ve got the cash to spare, but I’ve spent as many nights in this bedroll as I’ve had hot meals. I travel too much to call a place home.”

“What about NCR?” she asked. “You grew up there, right?”

“Yeah, but… it’s changed a lot over the years. People squabble over every acre of land nowadays, especially after the brahmin trade opened up, and the taxes started rolling in. If you couldn’t afford to keep up with the fees, the council would seize your house and toss you into one of the publicly owned inns. That’s what happened to my parent’s home after they passed. That was when I was… eighteen, nineteen, maybe.”

“And that’s why you’re risking your life now?” she asked. “You hope to buy back your childhood home with the reward?”

“No, they knocked the house down years ago, now a Brahmin Baron lives on that spot, last I checked.”

“That’s terrible,” Pearl muttered. “A lone hunter with no place to call home. No wonder you’re out here, putting your life on the line in order to live a life of vice in Reno. You’ve never had the chance to settle down.”

Her words couldn’t help but inspire a measure of shame in his chest. People often claimed to want to be able to live as he did, out in the wild, away from the taxes and laws and raiders, but they never truly appreciated the fact that living by oneself didn’t just shake off all responsibilities. Cooper still had to pay for things like books and equipment, which needed constant maintenance that he couldn’t sustain without bartering for goods. To live in a community was to be privileged, and Cooper wanted in on it.

“I think you’re reading too much into it,” he said. “I’ll have all the money I’ll ever need soon enough anyway, just need to keep going.”

“And what if you fail?” Pearl asked. “what if your armour and weapons aren’t enough to take down the pack?”

“Everyone dies,” Cooper said dismissively. “if this pack is my match, then that’s all there is to it.”

“You could turn back,” she suggested, but Cooper shook his head.

“I’ve come too far to back down now, and I gave my word I’d see this through, both to Hendrix… and myself.”

***

They spent the following night much like they had the last, this time Cooper a little less hesitant to lay down with Pearl, knowing her robe would keep him comfortably warm during the plummeting temperatures of the night. They woke up early and increased their pace a little, every step forward bringing them closer to the pack.

With the proximity of Omega drawing closer, their conversations dwindled, the tension palpable after Cooper deduced the prints were only a day or two old at this point. The pack must have slowed down considerably after clearing out from the lodge, lacking in energy after being fed scraps during their capture, maybe.

Pearl kept herself occupied with his handbook, asking the occasional question or needing him to elaborate on one of his handcrafted notes, but on the whole it seemed she’d caught onto his lessons very well, maybe even a little better than he had back in his youth…

“You’ll be confronting the pack sometime tomorrow,” Pearl began, she and Cooper sitting round their fire. “They’re not far off now, you go any further and they might pick up your scent. This could be the last chance you’ll get to back down.”

“Still doubt I can do it, huh?” he asked, prodding the embers with a stick. “Who’s the expert hunter here, me or you?”

“Expertise doesn’t guarantee success,” she replied. “You’re going up against way too many unknowns, can’t you see that? Plans never survive contact with the enemy, as they say.”

“I can’t go back, even if I wanted to,” he replied. “I’ll either go back to NCR a rich man, or not at all, and that kind of risk suits me just fine. What about you?” he added. “it’s going to get much more dangerous from here on out. I’d start moving to the Abbey if I wanted to save time.”

“I’ll join you for a while longer,” she said. “Once I know where the pack is, I’ll know where to avoid on my return trip.”

The implication that she thought he would die tomorrow wasn’t lost on him, but he shrugged it off, pointing at the handbook in her lap. “Fine. Don’t stay up too late reading that, we’re moving at sunrise.”

One more uneventful night and a few hours walking through the dawn later, and the pack’s footprints started to change. The tracks began to snake away from one another, overlapping with older and new ones, the latter of which moving in the direction Cooper had come from. The land was flat here, dozens of trees dotted about in every direction, the empty spaces between the mountains making Cooper feel exposed.

“We’re getting close now,” he muttered, Pearl watching him as he unslung his rifle. “Call out if you see anything.”

“Will do,” she whispered back.

They stalked between the trees, the constant wind sweeping curtains of snow into the air, obscuring the horizons. With the lack of hills present to buffer the gale, the wind swept across the plain unfiltered, Cooper shivering beneath his armour as he pushed on through the sparse forest.

Everything around him was pure white, except for the occasional rocky overhang adding a splash of grey to the scenery. Even the trees had taken on a muted hue, as if the snow itself had been absorbed into the bark. It was getting on in the day, and they’d been walking since sunrise, but they couldn’t afford to stop, not out in the open anyway.

The wind here had swept most of the original tracks away, but it seemed there were plenty to go by around here, the pack must have found someplace to hold up nearby if they were overlapping so much. Cooper was constantly turning his head, checking to make sure nothing was sneaking up on them, every creak of the branches keeping him on edge. Even in his experience, he’d never hunted something he’d never actually seen before, just how accurate had his assumptions been? He’d find out soon enough…

“There!” he said. “Something in that mountain up ahead.”

He kneeled behind a rocky outcropping, Pearl joining him as he peered out into the haze. When the powder cleared, the foot of a mountain gently revealed itself through the gloom, maybe a hundred meters away. Near the base of its sloped body was a splotch of darkness, surrounded by a framework of wooden planks. Below it was what looked like a pair of metal lines built into the ground, leading into the darkness beyond the mouth of the cave. It looked tall and wide enough to accommodate a caravan with one of Hendrix’s cages on top of it, more than enough space for Omega…

The prints led in and out of the entrance, confirming his suspicions. He wasn’t too sure about their sleep cycles, but hopefully the creatures had taken respite during this windstorm.

“I believe we’ve found Omega’s den,” Cooper said, turning to his companion. “You should probably get out of here, Pearl, I’d hate to see you get caught in the crossfire if things start to get hairy.”

“You’re going in there?” she asked, as though it wasn’t obvious enough to her. “Cooper, that looks like a mineshaft to me, they’ll tear you apart in those tight hallways.”

“This ain’t my first den,” he said, his armour creaking as he shifted his weight. “I’ll take the den one quarter at a time, then place mines on the spots I’ve already cleared.

“You’re still thinking of them as simple beasts,” she grumbled. “What if your conventional tactics don’t work? What if they’re not even in the den right now?”

“Then I’ll mine the entrance, and let them come to me.”

“You act like this will be trivial,” she continued, her sleeves crossing over her chest. “I haven’t known you for very long, but I’d hate to see you die because you underestimated these creatures.”

“I stopped being afraid of death a long time ago,” Cooper replied. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to be reckless. I know more about these things than you do, Pearl, I’ve hunted beasts my whole life, you don’t have to worry about me.”

“Then, I guess your course is set,” Pearl said, an air of finality about her as she rose to her feet. “Hey, why don’t you walk me to the Abbey? It’s only a few days, and the pack’s not going anywhere.”

This might be his last chance to back out of the job, but no, he’d heeded all the warnings, and it was do or die, and he figured he should just go ahead and do.

“I’m sure you’ll manage without me,” he said, swearing he could see Pearl’s shoulders sagging beneath her robe. “It was nice meeting you, Pearl. Maybe I’ll stop by once I’ve got my reward, buy you a book or two?”

“Or the whole library, with that kind of money,” she replied. “I’ll hold you to that, Cooper.”

She looked like she wanted to add something, but instead she leaned down and gave his pauldron a pat, her glowing eyes meeting his for a fleeting moment. As she turned around to leave, she stopped abruptly. “Oh! I almost forgot.”

From her sleeve she produced his handbook, holding it out to him. He looked down at its bright cover, and then shook his head.

“You keep it,” he said, Pearl recoiling as though he’d said something absurd. “I’ve memorized that book from back to front.”

“What? Oh, no, Cooper, I couldn’t accept this…”

“You need it more than I do,” he replied. “When we met, you were out of food. You shouldn’t have to ever go a night hungry again as long as you follow my notes in that book, Pearl. I want you to have it.”

“Seriously?” she asked, clutching the handbook in her arms. “Look at me, the new owner of Cooper’s first edition hunting guide.”

“I usually call it a scrapbook,” he chuckled. “but, I like that name better.”

She lingered there for a moment, then came over and hugged him from behind, bending down so she could reach him. Her robe enveloped him, Cooper feeling the flesh of her bust yielding against his armour, his cheeks burning as she nudged her head against the side of his helmet.

He felt a tinge of disappointment at not being able to return the gesture with his arms holding his gun, the feeling only growing when Pearl parted, beginning to walk back into the snow the way they’d come.

“Thank you, Cooper. Take care.”

“… You too,” he said, watching her vanish into the white haze, her silhouette soon fading. A part of him felt the need to follow her, but he had to remember his mission came first, and soon his thoughts turned solely on the den, where his ultimate goal was hiding.

Taking a moment to check for movement, he vaulted over the rock, moving cautiously towards the entrance of the den. As Pearl had said, the mouth was the entrance of what appeared to be a mine, the rough walls held in place by wooden supports, grafted onto the rock to form supportive wireframes. The wind screamed down the passage, shaking loose a few errant pebbles rough walls.

Cooper stepped over the tracks trailing out of the cave, the metal strips buried beneath snow in places, the servos in his suit echoing down the mineshaft as he stepped inside.

The tunnel went deeper into the mountain for a ways, before abruptly turning to the left, Cooper using his headlamp to cut away the shadows, the light of the sun losing its influence on the turn. He turned to look back out over the snowy landscape, stooping to one knee as he fished inside his pack, withdrawing a bundle of landmines from the front pocket.

These weren’t the typical fragmentation mines that was common throughout the Wastes, but a more personal invention. Spike mines would send out a spray of rounded bullets in an area, crippling anything that triggered the blast. These mines tended to maim rather than kill, but that didn’t make them non-lethal. From all accounts, Omega would need a lot more than spikes to be brought down, but if any of the pack was outside right now, the blasts should warn him of anything coming up behind him.

He placed one to the left of the tracks, another on the right, and one more between the rails, priming them with a flick of a switch. He placed another one down further inside, ensuring that even if they somehow missed the first three, the fourth would certainly detonate.

His back secured, he took a deep breath as he plunged into the mine, his headlamp providing a pool of light in an otherwise pitch blackness, the shadows so strong he couldn’t even see his feet. Cooper prayed his lamp would see him through until he was done.

As he neared the bend, the texture of the ground shifting from snow to gravel, he saw more evidence of Omega pack’s presence. The rail lines bolted into the ground were scratched, chunks of the steel scored clean away, as though a beast with claws had come and gone many times. He was starting to wonder if power armour would be enough to protect him.

He proceeded around the bend, shifting his head out of the way of a few errant planks dangling from above. He could hear flowing water from somewhere nearby, could this place be the source of the river he’d been following?

He soon came across an intersection, the path splitting into three directions, each passage framed by more support beams. Here would be a good spot for a spike mine, but the rotten wooden supports gave him pause. The last thing he needed was to trigger a cave-in and be trapped in here with these things. Maybe mines weren’t such a good idea after all…

He picked the passage going left, the gloom so oppressive his headlamp could scarcely penetrate a few meters in front of him. There seemed to be a layer of moisture clinging to the walls, the sheen reflecting the light of his headlamp. The water source must be nearby, perhaps right above his head.

The passage turned into a corner, Cooper aiming his rifle around the bend from the safety of the wall. His favoured weapon wasn’t designed for close quarters engagements like this, not that dealing with these pack animals in the confines of these tunnels was very appealing to him.

The suit’s servos echoed eerily down the tunnels as he shouldered his rifle, bringing the syringer to bear and checking the dart tray. Time to see if the tranquilizer worked on these beasts, if it didn’t, he’d have to resort to the sword.

He walked deeper into the tunnel, and he soon passed a minecart toppled onto its side, its wheels clogged with dirt and rust, Cooper shimmying around it. It was so quiet, his heartbeat audible in his ears as every inch of revealing shadow threatened to hide one of the beasts.

As he spied the tunnel branching into a junction ahead, he heard it. He stopped, the motors in his suit sounding very loud in the ensuing silence, occasionally broken by a drip of distant water. He held still, straining his ears, waiting for the noise to repeat.

Then, a solitary footstep, loud and heavy, coming from ahead of him. He shone his headlamp that way, but the light only reached so far, the tunnel as dark as the maw of a monster.

He leveled his syringer, but then another footstep gave him pause, this one coming from back the way he’d come. He was surrounded, had these beasts sniffed him out the moment he’d entered the den? He doubled back, trying to move as quietly as he could wearing the heavy armour. The footsteps weren’t getting faster, but they were inching closer. His only choice was to use that minecart to hide. He’d been told these things were fast, and he couldn’t risk taking on two at once.

He moved back to the minecart, inching over to the side the bucket was facing, kneeing inside it, pausing to listen to the footsteps. They were drawing close enough that he could hear the pebbles being kicked up by their feet. The cart was just big enough to allow him to squeeze inside it, Cooper holding his syringer at the ready, the gun shaking in his hands as he waited.

It only just now occurred to him that his headlamp was on, the lamp would give him away. He reached up to switch it off, grimacing as the little following click bounced off the walls. His world turned into darkness, so much that he couldn’t even see the outline of his visor he was peering out of.

The footsteps were now chased by a quiet huffing, one of an animal scenting its prey. Did these things have the ability to see in the dark? They must have, Cooper praying they didn’t see his boots laying in the gravel.

The pair of scenting animals were meters away now, close enough that each footstep seemed to pound on the rocky floor, Cooper’s helmet shaking against his head. The beasts sounded like they were snarling through their chops, deep and powerful, Cooper sensing their menacing presences approach the minecart.

He held his breath, nearly releasing it when there was a loud clang, Cooper looking up to see a hand sliding against the rim of the cart, directly above his helmet’s cranium.

Each finger was as long as his hand, covered in fine, brown scales, their arrangement reminding him of a serpent’s body. Each finger was tipped with the biggest claw he’d ever seen, easily doubling the length of each reptilian finger, the claws ending at a wicked points. The hand was conjoined to a dark, towering mass that was leaning over the minecart, Cooper resting his finger on the trigger of his gun.

He could feel the beast start to haul over the minecart, the metal creaking under its immense weight, its snarling taking on a strange rhythm as it neared its kin, the other beast responding in kind. Once there was room, the second beast wound its way around the minecart, this one not deigning to place a hand on his hiding place, perhaps because it was smaller and could squeeze through.

Small or not, the beast was incredibly tall and powerful, its sheer presence enough to inspire a primal dread inside him. Cooper’s chest began to tighten as he refused to exhale the breath he’d been holding, peeking over the lip of the cart, his eyes starting to adjust to the darkness. The one going back the way he’d come had horns on its head, the little points scraping against the stone on the ceiling. As it rounded the corner, he thought he could make out what looked like a tail protruding from its rump, the appendage arcing around the corner for a moment as the beast disappeared.

The other one was too absorbed into the darkness for him to see it, but its footsteps had grown faint. Still there, but lowering in volume, Cooper sighing as quietly as he could as he rose from his hiding place, thanking his stars the beasts hadn’t smelled him out.

He readied his gun, mustering up the willpower to follow the beast moving away from the entrance. He’d have a better chance taking it by surprise while behind it, he just had to be wary of any others that could be wandering around.

He set off after the thing, keeping his headlamp off, as he couldn’t risk shining a light and giving himself away. He used the sound of its own footsteps to help guide his way, Cooper holding a hand out so he didn’t bump into anything. The thing veered off to the left, and he strained his ears to their absolute limits before following it around what felt like a turn.

The passage opened up into a chamber on the far side, the ceiling extending maybe ten or so meters above his head. There were wooden platforms hugging the walls to the left, joined to the floor by rickety staircases, likely used as spots for miners to access mineral deposits before the Bombs. Running through the middle of the floor was a river of trickling water, illuminated by shafts of light slipping through cracks in the ceiling.

Sitting in the middle of the chamber was a hunched figure, its back to Cooper, his heart pumping as he tried to examine it through the gloom. He could see several small spikes that looked like thorns running down the length of its massive spine, the breadth of its muscular shoulders wider than his power armour. It was leaning over the little stream of water, Cooper hearing it slurp loudly at the liquid. His eyes had begun to adjust to the dark, but without the lamp he couldn’t make out much more detail.

He levelled his syringer, his movements microscopic, worried that any sudden moves might alert the creature. He eyed the contours of the chamber with his eyes, confident he’d caught the beast alone. The tunnel behind him would provide a good bottleneck if the beast alerted its packmates, now was his best chance.

Exhaling a shaky breath, he pulled the trigger, his patchwork weapon filling the chamber with the sound of pressurized gas, three red-feathered darts soaring towards the creature, impaling it just above the base of its tail.

The beast stirred, whirring around and glaring at him with a pair of creamy, grey eyes, flashing with wild fury. Rather than unleash a bestial roar, it twisted its torso around like an uncoiling snake, climbing to its feet. Its eyes towered into the air, the creature near twice his height, beginning to walk towards him at an almost leisurely pace.