We arrived at the gate, and outside of them were five men, all riding dirt bikes. The one in front pulled his helmet off and revealed a rather rugged face. He didn't look too old, maybe twenty five, but his eyes held decades worth of experience within him. He had a scar stretching from the top of his left eye, to his head, covered mostly by his hair.
"Jay! Baby, baby, baby!" Lilith screamed out before running over and jumping into his arms
"Hey lily pad. you miss me?" A deep, rough voice, bellowed out.
"You know I did, my lovely man." as she swarmed him with kisses all over his face
"Get a room!" One of the other guys said, as the four laughed together.
"Yeah, but before that, introduce us to your friend." Another called out. That's me isn't it?
A couple of them called out saying "Such a beautiful sight. My name's Crow. Yours?" I was kinda flustered by all the attention, but managed to respond barely "Uh, it's Carly."
"Carly huh? Call me Goon. It's a pleasure to meet you." another said to me.
"How about you four go perv somewhere else!?" Lilith called out, yelling at the four
"What? We're just making friends" Goon replied
"I don't wanna hear it! Go!" Lilith said as she stomped towards them
"Sheesh. Alright, alright." Another said, and they all collectively walked off.
"Rivet City, we're home!" One of them screamed out as they walked on.
Lilith sighed and looked to Jay "Chop is gonna come pick your bikes up in a minute. How about you go wait for me at my place? I'll welcome you home in just a minute."
He smirked and kissed her before walking off. As he left he looked at me and nodded his head. "See you later." His grizzled voice sent chills down my spine. Lilith was still mesmerized, watching as he walked off, eyes filled with hearts. Wait a minute, she said Chop was gonna pick the bikes up. I heard David say that name when he met with Sarge.
"Hey Lilith, who's Chop?" She snapped out of her trance and whipped her head over to me
"Huh? Who? Oh! Yeah, chop. He's our mechanic. He's got his garage over in a safe zone nearby, not too far from the farms. " She said, composing herself from her love trance
"Wow. I know I just got here, but you all just keep surprising me. There's so much here."
Lilith smiled and laughed "Yeah. David was quick to unify people and give them a purpose. He was the link that kept everyone together. I could never thank him enough for what he's done. But I'm gonna fight for him till I drop dead!" she said with a big smile, while flexing her arm. "But hey, I'm gonna go hang out with Jay. I'll catch you later, beautiful!" She said before blowing me a kiss, turning around, and running off.
She's adorable, in her own kinda way. Well, now it's just me. What should I do? Should I sleep the day away? I feel like I could still use some rest, honestly. Maybe a bath, first. Fuck, that actually sounds really nice.
As I walked through the plaza, a group of soldiers came blitzing through, geared up, towards the gate.
"Carly!" A familiar voice called out to me. I turned and was greeted by Toro "Hey, we're heading out. We've got a call about a couple of crow's nest by the farms. You wanna come?"
I could tell he was in a hurry, so I didn't have much time to really think about it "Uh, yeah. Yeah, I'll go."
He smiled and said "Alright. Let's go kill some crows." I followed behind him to the gate where a couple trucks were waiting for the MK'S. We hopped on the back of one and were on our way. "How long is the drive to the farms? " I asked Toro, as I sat across from him
"It's about twenty minutes." He said and shrugged.
"Will they be okay on their own for that long?" I asked, genuinely worried for them
"Yeah, another MK called and told us he found a couple of nest, so there wasn't any immediate danger, but that's why we're heading there. We wanna make sure that doesn't happen. The farms are essential, yah know. And we don't want people dying. You seen a Crow recently?" He asked. I shrugged and nodded my head no
"Well I'll be the first to tell you, they're a problem. much bigger than you remember. Let's hope we haven't disturbed the nest. David has this guy called The Pyromancer, that's gonna meet us there. Dude's scary as fuck. No one besides David knows anything about him, really. I've never even heard him speak. And he even rejected David's offer to join the MKE'S." he said, his eyes full of what seemed to be a mix of being impressed, yet fearful
I laughed and gave Toro a playful shove "Scared of the Boogeyman, huh? Don't worry, I'll keep you safe. "
"Haha, very funny. You just wait till you see him. Won't be laughing then." All of a sudden Toros radio went off, a voice screaming from the other end "The crow's! Hurry! The crow's are here!" Everyone on the truck looked to Toro as he tried to radio back "How many are there!? Hello!? Hello!? Damn it!" Static was the only response. Toro shot up to the front of the truck, hitting the top and saying "Step on it, fast as you can!" The rest of the ride was silent. I guess everyone was mentally preparing for what we were running into. But no amount of preparation can really make seeing shit like this easier, can it? We arrived and everyone hopped off the trucks to assess the situation. It was bad. The first thing we saw was a Crow easily the size of a large dog, picking away at someone's stomach. We didn't even have time to process that before it looked up at us, guts hanging from it's mouth, stained crimson with blood and let out a caw, more reminiscent of a roar. It spread it's wings, and they easily spread eight feet across. Like a chain reaction, the trees rustled, the sound of birds filling the surrounding area.
"Over here! A voice called out. We looked, and from a nearby greenhouse, a door opened, and someone was waving us in. We all ran over, rushing inside. After taking a moment to gather ourselves, Toro asked "How many people are, Uh, dead?" The room was filled with about ten people, men and women, scared, crying. Someone stood up and tried their best to answer "There's at least seven or eight people, including the soldiers that were here. They were trying to defend us while we ran in here." They answered to the best of their ability, speaking through fear
"Damn it!" Toro yelled out. He kneeled down and put his head in his hands. It looked like he was thinking pretty hard on what to do.
I didn't really know what to do, so I just asked "Are you gonna be okay?"
"Huh? Oh, yeah" He said, looking up at me "I'm just thinking. I didn't get a good look, but from what I saw, there's gotta be at least thirty of them out there. We've gotta hold out until the Pyromancer gets here. He'll take care of them. We can't just leave all of them to him, though. We've gotta thin out the numbers. We'll split into two teams, one goes left, the other guys right. Distract, and eliminate as many you can. I'll lead one group, Carly, you're in charge of the other."
"Me? Are you sure?" I asked, pretty, surprised that he chose me
"Hey." He said, and put his hands on my shoulder "You've got this. This isn't the time for questioning yourself. You didn't make it this far by pure luck. Now let's go kill some crows." He was right. Even if I didn't fully believe in myself, I had to cast that aside for now. This is bigger than me. I picked up a rifle, and stood tall, nodding my head to Toro.
"Alright. Let's do this." He smiled and headed for the door. Before opening it, he gave one last comment "If you've got a God, I hope you already prayed to them. Because it's too late now." He said and burst through the door. We split into two, and headed our separate ways. It wasn't long before you could hear gunfire going off. Toro's team was first to run into crow's, we weren't far behind though. A Crow hovered above us, letting out Menacing caw. I picked up my gun and fired about five shots. The bird dropped, but he wasn't alone. Five more showed up right in front of us. I fired. Killing one more.
"You guys waiting for an invitation? Well here it is. Shoot! " I said to the soldiers. Shots rang out past me, hitting the crow's. All of the ones in front of us were taken out. From behind I could hear Toro and his team still exchanging fire. I turned around saw crow's flying all around the sky. There were even more than before.
"Incoming! " A soldier on my side called out. I turned around and more of them had shown up, heading right for us. We started to fire, but a few made it through the bullets. One of the crow's rammed right into the girl next to me, straight into her chest. Before I could even realize what happened, she was on the ground, blood spurting from her mouth as she reached out. I could see tears forming in her eyes as she desperately called out "h-help me" I lost it, and I started beating the crow with my gun. I kicked it off her and beat it to death. It was too late for her, though. When I turned back around she was already gone. My mind was going crazy. The sound of bullets flying everywhere, and crow's filled my mind.
All I could do was pick up my gun and keep firing. I hit a few, but it just seemed like every time we killed one, another showed up. It didn't help that a few more soldiers got taken out. Things were looking bad on Toro's side too. I tripped over a body and fell flat on my face, when I looked up, I was face to face with a Crow. My gun had fallen too far for me to reach in time. It crept closer and I managed to get back up, slowly moving towards my gun. It followed me closely, I didn't have much of a choice.
I jumped towards the gun, but wasn't fast enough. The crow slammed it's beak on the ground right in front of my gun, narrowly missing my hand. I jumped back, falling on my ass. I scrambled backwards as the crow cocked it's head sideways, cawed, and moved closer.
So this is how I die, huh? A stupid fucking bird? The crow spread it's wings, and was about to lunge at me, when it was suddenly engulfed by a stream of fire.
I looked over and it was him. The pyromancer. He stood tall, in what I can only assume was a flame proof suit, covered head to toe. He had a flamethrower, but from the quick glance I got, it looked built into the suit. The streams of fire came straight from his hands
"Sorry I'm late" A deep voice called out, through the mask. I honestly could barely understand him through the mask, but before I could say anything back I saw bird come flying towards him, just like the other one did the girl earlier.
"Behind you! " I called out. He turned around and grabbed the crow by it's beak, ripping it in half and threw it to the ground. Without any hesitation, he kept going, burning the crow's one by one.
I pulled myself up to my feet and by that time Toro had made his way over. "We'll only get in his way. We need to round everyone up from the greenhouse and start heading back." no argument from me there.
The remaining soldiers hurriedly got everyone on the trucks, before getting on, I looked back again.
He was still burning through crow's with ease. Toro put his hand on my shoulder and said "Don't worry about him. I've seen him take on bigger and badder. No way he'll let crow's take him out." I hopped on and we drove off, making our way back to Rivet City.
The ride back was filled with dread, we lost almost ten soldiers. We secured the farms back, though. Well honestly, if it weren't for the Pyromancer, we'd all be dead, so he secured the farm.