Radiance Ch. 45

"Riss hit them with a warning rattle over," Seven said and just after he released the button he actually heard the loud rattle from under the bridge which worked beautifully scaring the four of them out from their cover as they realised that there was something dangerous in there with them.

"Now," Seven said into the radio and all around the group of four, his group appeared with their weapons up.

"Hands up!! Get your hands up where I can see them!!" Seven yelled and instantly the four figures realised that Seven wasn't bluffing as two angry claws, two super mutants and numerous humans appeared all around them not to mention the large Arachnakai that landed out of nowhere right in front of them and to everyone's surprise, began throwing balls of sticky webbing at them before yanking the strands causing them to spin and wrap themselves up in them instantly immobilizing them.

"What the ever-living fuck is that!!!?" one of the hooded group yelled toppling over as they tried to pull away from Malakai who simply stood there and watched them all fall down like a row of dominoes.

Seven strode over and patted the smiling Arachnakai boy on the shoulder, "Good job dude nice thinking" he said making Malakai's smile widen.

"Tell my little fluffy love spider that if scares me like that again I'm using his fucking silk to tie his bloody legs together," Wisp said over the radio making Seven chuckle and shake his head.

"Think you scared you, girl, with that jump," Seven said and Malakai flushed and baulked.

"Oh shit I always forget humans don't realise how far Arachnakai can jump, guess I got some apologizing to do huh?" he said and Seven patted him on the shoulder again and then turned his attention back to the now immobilized group on the floor and the first thing he noticed was something that instantly changed the nature of his approach, the four of them were shaking with fear.

Slowly he crouched down onto his haunches as best as he could in his power armour, "Take it easy we're not going to hurt you, this is just a precaution until we know who you are and why you were following us, we don't mean you any harm" Seven said.

'Could have fooled me smooth skin" one of them said in a deep rough voice which to Seven's surprise had an oddly feminine tone to it.

Smooth skin?" he said quizzically glancing at Malakai who just shrugged, Seven identified the speaker and reached out to gently and slowly pull the hood back to reveal something that surprised him, the second speaker was a female Ghoul.

"See something you like smooth skin?" the female Ghoul said sarcastically looking at Seven.

"Look you can just let us go you don't need to do this man, we weren't hurting you we were just curious because of your group that's all, I mean how often is it you see a group of smooth skins walking around with two deathclaws, two super mutants and whatever the fuck that is?" the first of the group who spoke before said and Seven pulled the speaker's hood back to reveal a male Ghoul.

"HE is an Arachnakai and HIS name is Malakai and HE happens to be MY friend, call him a thing in front of me again I dare you," Seven said coldly making the male Ghoul flinch and the female glare at him.

"Real tough guy with a gun in a metal suit huh? Real hard man threatening a defenceless restrained Ghoul!" she spat glaring at Seven and out of the corner of his eye Seven saw Visa flare-up and take a step forwards but he quickly held up a hand and shook his head making both Ghouls glance where he was looking and both went wide-eyed when they saw the angry claw girl bearing down on them.

"Easy Visa it's alright I got this" Seven said and the big Claw glanced at him and nodded before returning his glare to the grounded Ghouls.

Seven decided to put on a show for them and he stepped out of his armour and stepped around in front of it so the Ghouls could see him, he could see the female's bright ruby red eyes tracking his every movement with curiosity, he held out his hand and the female Ghoul floated up off the ground.

"Whoa!! Hey, what the fuck is going on!!?" she yelled in both fright and alarm as she looked down at the ground below her while kicking her legs.

"I don't need the suit to hurt anyone, or the gun, if I wanted you dead you already would be, I am not your enemy unless you make me be," Seven said calmly and to his surprise, there was no pulse of pain in his head as he placed the woman back down on the ground again before turning around and climbing back into his armour again.

"Who the flying fuck are you smooth skin?" the woman demanded looking up at him as he repowered his armour again.

"My name is Seven and this is my family," he said gesturing to all of them around him.

"Pretty strange family but then from a guy who calls himself Seven what can we expect really?" the female Ghoul said.

"I don't call myself anything it's my name the only one I got, who the hell are you to judge me?" Seven said.

"You forgot the because you're a fucking Ghoul part," the woman said and Seven shrugged.

"What the fuck has that got to do with anything? I don't care about that, seems you got more of a problem with me being human than I've got with you being a Ghoul" Seven said flatly.

"No shit Sherlock maybe because all fucking humans like you do is fucking kill everything and everyone you see who doesn't fit your fucking ideals, if it isn't the fucking Brotherhood then you racist Enclave fucks" she spat glaring at Seven's power armour.

But before he could respond Visa finally lost her shit, "How fucking dare you!! Who the fuck do you think you are!!?" she roared at the top of her lung making all of them jump and every one of them jump a mile into the air.

"Holy shit it can fucking talk!!" the male Ghoul said with his mouth hanging open.

"SHE can do a lot more than that and I would choose your next words very very carefully because that is the woman I happen to love and I stopped her tearing your head off once I won't a second time, so please continue to tell me how racist I am given the nature of my group and FYI just because I'm wearing Enclave power armour doesn't mean I'm with the Enclave because I couldn't have possibly stolen it from them now could I?" Seven said folding his arms over his metal chest.

"Y-You love a deathclaw!?" the woman exclaimed trying to look between the pair in shock.

"Got a fucking problem with that Ghoul?" Visa snarled menacingly.

"Well I err umm no I guess, so hang on you mean you're not with the Enclave?" she said a lot calmer now.

"What gave it away? The gorgeous talking claw girl or the giant fluffy spider boy? Or maybe it was the Telekinesis? Please enlighten us oh wise Ghoul of the bridge?" Seven said sarcastically making Ven snort a laugh.

"You been hanging around me too much Seven you're going to make my Gregory jealous," Ven said with a toothy grin.

"You wish brother dearest and keep talking like that and I'll tell your human you're flirting with mine," Visa said making Ven baulk and glance back up at Gregory and Wisp on the Red Rocket.

"Oh, shit umm Malakai you think you can go and retrieve those two before they begin to think we're leaving them up there?" Ven said and Malakai turned on the spot squatted low and with a huge surge of strength from his surprisingly powerful legs leapt high up into the air fanning his legs out as he went, he landed on the side of the rocket and scuttled up to retrieve the two snipers from it before leaping back down landing with pinpoint accuracy back in the space he'd left in the group.

"Here you go one human for you and one sexy Robo human for me," Malakai said as Ven plucked Gregory off his back and Wisp simply wrapped her arms around her man's back showing no signs of wanting to get off him.

The Ghouls watched this in stunned silence before Seven turned back to them, "So shall we start over again now? Or do you wish to continue spitting vile accusations at us?" he said.

Both the Ghouls whose faces they could see looked both surprised and rather a bit embarrassed, the female nodded silently and Seven hoisted them all up onto their feet telekinetically before using it to tear the silk away from them, 'Right let's start over but before we do let's get out of the open, we were waiting for two members of our group at the Red Rocket, incidentally, the same two who found you lot watching us" Seven said and both Ghouls looked confused.

Seven whistled and made a hand gesture to Runs who melted out of the shadows next to the bridge taking an arrow out of the nock of his bow and placing it back into his quiver while Riss simply decloaked right next to the group of Ghouls scaring the shit out of them.

"So that's who made the rattlesnake noise fuck me I thought there was a radrattler under there, thank fuck for that," the male Ghoul said breathing a visible sigh of relief.

"Radrattler?" Seven asked curiously as Riss gave the group a fang-filled smile.

"Yeah real nasty two-headed snakes that you find around here, a real pain in the arse, their venom ain't strong enough to kill a Ghoul but it can still put us down for a day or two," the guy said.

"Bite from him or her will put you down for a lot longer than that" Seven said indicating Riss and Malakai who both gave him fang-filled smiles making him baulk slightly.

Seven's group led the group of Ghouls into the Red Rocket and the other two pulled their hoods down to reveal another male and another female, though out of the four of them the two that been identified first were in the best condition, maybe they were younger or maybe they were less affected who knew but both of them still had all of their hair and teeth which was a real rarity for Ghouls or certainly for the feral one's they had seen, though this was the first time they had met sentient ones so maybe it was more common with them, Seven had to admit that the pair weren't all that bad looking for Ghouls, they didn't have skin peeling off either.

The two groups both sat down facing each other on the floor and Seven sensed a tension in the air so he decided to go first, "Ok so as you know I am Seven and yes it is my name, it was the number the Enclave scientists gave me in the lab myself and Wisp there broke out of when we were 'guests' of theirs while they experimented on us, that there is my life mate Visa and her brother Ven who is life mates with Gregory there, both of them were also guests of the Enclave in the same lab we were, now Wisp is mated to Malakai there he's an Arachnakai boy who we met on our travels, this here is Shauna and Raymond they are smart and gendered supermutants we met here in DC, this is Shepherd, Cho, Spectre and Brandy they are from DC as well and last by no means least this here is Riss a lovely Nightstalker girl we met up north just outside of Nevada and her husband Runs-With-Nightstalkers from the Zion valley and yes we all know its an beautifully ironic name, so now you know who we are how about you tell us who you are?" Seven said pointing to each of his team in order before gesturing to the Ghouls in front of him.

The first female he'd seen was the to answer him, "Well I'm Faith, this here is Markus, Joan and Kevin, we're all from Underworld we were just out looking for salvage to bring back so that we can trade then we saw you guys and buy that armour we figured that you were some kind of Enclave capture group or something" she said.

"Not quite infact we are currently investigating reports of claws being used as slaves by the Enclave in the area," Seven said.

"Oh? What's your beef with them then?" Markus asked and Seven looked at him with a raised eyebrow which he could see now that he had his helmet removed.

"I'll give you two big scaly clues," he said a little sarcastically.

"Oh he has definitely been spending too much time around you lover claw," Gregory said with a snorted laugh.

"Well we might be able to help you out there," Faith said and Seven looked at her curiously.

"Oh?" Seven said curiously.

"Listen we got no love for the Enclave, to them we are just undesirables well no that's too generous, insects would be a better word to be exterminated on sight, so if you guys kick them in the balls it helps me and mine, so then if you get free the claws and either get them out of there or turn them on their fucking masters works for us either way, so how about it interested?" Faith said.

Seven glanced around his group and nodded, "You bet" he said.