Radiance Ch. 103

A stream of gushing water flowed out of the newly made hole and Visa stepped into it letting it wash both the dust and blood from her armour and scales, rivers of cloudy red water flowed off her and pooled on the ground at her feet.

"Ahh much better damn that stuff doesn't half stick to your scales and I don't know if it's because it's so full of chemicals but it fucking stinks," Visa said stepping out of the water stream with her scales now dripping wet and gleaming in the silver moonlight like they'd been polished.

"Well let's go meet our new friends shall we?' she said and Seven nodded leading the way over to the slave quarters where he could already see a face pressed against the upstairs bars looking out at the chaos that had engulfed the town.

Seven snapped the door clean off its hinges before stepping inside having to duck his head slightly as he did, immediately he could see that it was like a shanty town within a shanty town in here.

The slaves contained within the building had simply strung up things like fabric and bits of cardboard to section off little spaces for themselves, even as he took his first steps into the building Seven could see curtains snapping shut and twitching as if those flimsy pieces of cloth would either magically shield them from any intended violence or would somehow teleport them to a dimension where they were safe from the invader's wrath.

"Good people please do not be afraid, we mean you no harm, quite the opposite actually we have come here to free you," Seven said loudly his voice carrying throughout the building thanks to the amplifiers on the speakers of his helmet.

He instantly began to see faces peeking out from behind the curtains and cardboard dividers as they regarded the strange pair that now stood in their midst, "You don't need to fear us good people I know we look scary but we will not hurt you we only wish to free you from these bonds that these vile people have imposed on you," Visa said loudly her voice making people shrink back in alarm.

"Do me a favour and go and collect the woman from the commander's place, perhaps she can help here," Seven said and Visa nodded before heading off out of the door again.

Seven stood there silently watching the curious faces peeping at him from behind their curtains, he wondered how this must truly look to someone in their position, two very unlikely strangers and one a non-human at that bust into the camp, fuck the place and then raiders running it up seven ways from Sunday and then say they are here to free them, it must all smell pretty fishy.

A couple of silent and tense minutes later Visa returned with the now-dressed woman in tow leading her into the place and Seven could see pretty much every set of eyes dart to her and more importantly her lack of a collar.

Suddenly a young woman poked her head out from behind a tatty orange curtain and looked her up and down, "R-Rachel?" she exclaimed and the blonde woman from the commander's office smiled broadly.

"Julia!" she exclaimed and the woman burst from behind the curtains and threw her arms around her.

"Oh, when they dragged you off I thought I was never going to see you again! Oh but here you are safe and sound, my big sister is alive!" the woman called Juila half yelled half sobbed.

"Yeah you can thank these two for that, that fucker Spiker had some pretty vile plans for me, well I won't go into details I'm sure you can guess what he intended to do to me but these two saved me, they burst into the place and before any of them knew what hit them they were all dead and they were freeing me, they even got that fucking collar off, see?" Rachel said pointing to her whitened neck.

"T-They freed you!? But why? What do they want?" Julia asked glancing up at Seven and Visa.

"I don't know but I know that they don't want to hurt us, hell the deathclaw lady can even talk, they said they have a safe place nearby and that they intend to free everyone here," Rachel said but Seven heard a note of scepticism to her voice which to be fair he understood quite well, how often was it that prayers got answered and a benevolent group of strangers burst into your life with goodwill and noble intentions burning in their hearts?

"Look I know it's kinda hard to stomach or believe but honestly we don't mean anyone any harm, we just have a serious problem with raiders and especially the slave-taking variety, both of us and more of our group have been where you guys are now, we've all been captives and slaves held against our wills and had horrific things done and forced upon us, but we were lucky and able to free ourselves, now we make it a point to pay that luck forwards where ever we get the chance to, to help people just like us regardless of who or what they are," Seven said gesturing to Visa not in an unkind way but t simply make his point.

"Myself and my brother Ven we prisoners of people we call the Enclave, they did horrific things to us and my packmates and turned us into mindless killing machines but we were able to escape them when Seven and another of our friends Wisp broke out and we met up with them later on and decided to help one another, soon we realised we could use our collective strengths to do some good for normal people out there, Seven and Wisp showed Ven and me that not all humans are bad, that there are good, kind decent humans who would not treat us like mindless beasts to be exterminated, but as fellow sentient living beings just like them, then it became so much more than that, now we offer the same hand that was offered to us not so long ago, come with us now and be free good people, let us show you what it looks like when the strong stand for the weak and what they can truly accomplish together," Visa said.

It seemed the appearance of the now-freed Rachel and Visa's heartfelt words inspired the people around her and like meerkats cautiously coming out of their burrows they began to emerge all around them, slowly coming over for a better look.

"First things first let's get those fucking vile collars off you all, so please people line up and present yourselves to me and I'll take those bloody bombs off you, never again will you wear your lives around your necks like this," Seven said beckoning Julia towards him for a demonstration.

She looked at Rachel for reassurance and the blonde woman simply nodded and smiled before guiding her younger sister over to Seven who pulled out the defuser and simply placed it to her neck, once the LED fizzled out he telekinetically popped the collars locks and pulled it free discarding it with a heavy thud on the floor that made people gasp.

"I-I-It's gone! I-I-I'm free!" she exclaimed feeling her now bare throat that still bore the same white ring around it that her sisters did.

"See?" Rachel said and instantly the crowd swarmed towards Seven but a loud snarl from Visa froze them in their tracks and all eyes turned to the massive Claw girl in alarm.

"Form an orderly line, good people, we are not going anywhere till everyone one of you walks free, my beloved one will get to you all I promise," she said loudly.

"You know if we ever do manage to get the world back to some semblance of order and stability I think I've got the perfect job for sentient Claws to do," Seven said to Visa as he began to work on the line of people stood snaking around the building before him.

"Shock troopers and special forces,?" Visa said proudly puffing out her ample chest as she took up a proud and noble pose.

"Close, club bouncers, don't think I've ever seen someone get people to form an orderly line quicker in my life, hell I think you might actually be able to herd drunks or even cats," he said with a chuckle that grew louder as she cuffed the back of his helmet with a metallic dong.

"Smartass," she huffed.

"You know you love me," Seven chuckled with a grin under his helmet.

"Damn right I do human boy," Visa said flashing him a toothy grin.

It took Seven the better part of an hour to get all of the collars off and as much as he would have liked to keep them to use the ordinance he decided that a display of goodwill to those they had held ensnared for so long was in order, so with another creative use of a plasma grenade Seven used the pile of collars to blow the gates of the compound into fucking orbit to loud cheers and whoops from the now freed people.

"I won't force you to come with us people that's not what we're about if you wish to take your journey elsewhere then we will simply wish you good luck and farewell, but if you do wish to come with us you are very welcome to do so, we have set up a safe haven nearby that we have set up to house people like yourselves while we work to make the entire of Nukaworld safe for everyone, the last thing we want is for anyone to get retaken by the slavers still roaming these lands, plus I would not recommend staying here as it will only be so long before the raiders from their main hub send out people to investigate what happened to their food supply, so I offer you a choice people, walk your own path or follow us on ours but please choose quickly we cannot linger for long," Seven said addressing the crowd of what had turned out to be fifty people.

The vote was unanimous all fifty chose to follow Seven and Visa, so Seven instructed them to clear out the food stores and to grab any remaining weapons from the dead raiders they could carry as well as anything like water for the journey ahead.

Once they were done with Seven and Visa helping where they could the group set out into the park with Seven leading the way while Visa followed up the rear and watched their backs, it was not a tremendously long walk to Dryrock Gultch but the terrain was not kind.

Fortunately, they did not encounter any resistance on the way there and other than the odd roaming animal the walk was quiet and uneventful, once they arrived Seven introduced them all to the Sheriffs guarding the place and gave them strict instructions to guard these people and to keep them safe against the raiders they'd now been programmed to repel, Visa thought it might be a good idea to get some of the Gatorclaws to come over here and set up a little outpost of their own to help beef up the security while also doing wonders for the relations between the two species an idea what Seven fully endorsed as he'd noticed during the walk that while people had been rather nervy of her at first they'd swiftly warmed up to her as she spoke with them.

He figured it paid into the mindset of we always fear the unknown, Visa had been an unknown a talking deathclaw, but now that they'd spent time with her and seen for themselves that other than the aesthetics she was truly no different to them on the inside people had began to warm up to her rather rapidly.

If it had been that easy with her then there should be no reason that the same shouldn't be true of the Gatorclaws as well.

So while Visa remained behind to help the newcomers settle in Seven headed back to the Safarizome to meet with his other comrades and the Gatorclaw pack Alphas to discuss this with them.

As it turned out the Gatorclaws were more than happy to send some of their numbers over to help the people out, they were all for anything that would help their people to live in peace with their human neighbours they also thought it might be a good chance to show them the best places to hunt and fish around the area so they could help the newly freed slaves become self-sufficient and Seven saw an opportunity here in the sense that the freed slaves might be able to teach the Gatorclaws how to farm, the land around the Safari zone was certainly fertile, this could lead to the potential for future enterprise between the two with Gatorclaw grown fruits and vegetables ending up on the tables of humans all over Nukaworld.

He also took the time to check in with Shauna and Timothy to hand over the radio transceiver so they could start to work on trying to work out a way of jamming it, though he did get a chuckle out of Shauna grumbling to him that she had new found respect for Visa's suffering about wanting to peel her human out of his tin can given that Timothy kept slipping back into his every time she had her back turned.

All in all the plan was really starting to take shape now and they were starting to gain momentum, all they had to do was keep it going and hope that they'd be able to weaken the outer ring of slave towns before the radiers really started to realise what was happening, with a bit of luck they'd have the drop on them with a much larger force than they anticipated, but the real question was, would their luck hold out?