Radiance Ch. 53

"No auntie don't he's with us!!" Ven yelled in a panicked voice.

"NO DON"T HARM MY MALE!!!" Visa yelled in a purely panic-stricken voice which seemed to distract Vess for the single second that was required for Seven to lift his hand up.

Vess flew off her feet and hung in the air like a giant claw-shaped Christmas decoration hanging from an invisible tree, she scrambled, swung, kicked and swished about her massive tail thrashing about.

"What the hell is happening to me!!? What have you done to me vile human!!?" Vess bellowed.

There were three echoing roars as the other three claws saw their mother disabled so easily and before Visa or Ven could act they rushed forwards and a single second later the three of them were air swimming right alongside their mother.

"Auntie Vess, Lemet, Lia and Passa please meet Seven, the leader of our group and Visa's lifemate," Ven said and all four claws froze solid before slowly swivelling in the air as Seven rotated them so they could look at their beloved ones leaving four tail ends facing him as they all stared at Visa.

"Your what now?" Vess exclaimed and Visa sighed heavily and stepped up to Seven's side before leaning on his armour.

"My lifemate auntie, this human has changed my entire world and showed me a truth I never knew but could now never let go of," Visa said in an equally proud but also embarrassed voice, like a child who was scared to stand up for what they believed in but was doing so anyway.

"And she's not the only one auntie," Ven said and with the deftness, only an apex predator could muster he plucked the invisible shape from the ground next to him and hugged Gregory tight against his chest as his cloak disengaged, though how he'd seen him was a mystery, Seven had no idea he'd slipped out of the room they'd been hidden inside of.

"And there's more to auntie, just wait until you meet the others," Visa said pressing on her advantage while Vess's mind struggled to comprehend what her niece and nephew were dropping on her.

"M-M-More? What do you mean more?" she exclaimed as Seven slowly and gently lowered the startled and confused claws back to the ground so they could stand free on their own two feet before he gave a shrill whistle and on cue, the entire group began to emerge from the buildings and moved to stand with Seven in a show of unity and force.

"W-W-What is this?" Vess exclaimed as her ultra-sharp eyes began to flick between the gathered member of the mismatched group.

"I'd really love to sit down with you and give you a full explanation honoured matriarch Vess but right now we are very short on time, there is another group just like yours being moved not far from here and we intend to free them as well, but I swear this to you honoured Alpha after those poor enslaved claws are free we can sit down and I will explain everything to you," Seven said and Vess's largemouth visibly dropped open.

"T-T-This human speaks with honour! To a Claw!" she exclaimed and looked to Visa and Ven for an explanation

"He knows our ways and not only embraces them but embodies them, please auntie he speaks the truth, but you do not have to take his word for it or ours, let his and this wonderful group's actions speak their truth for them, come with us and see for yourself then we can sit down and we can explain to you what we have seen," Ven said and the large matriarch alpha claw growled and glanced between her niece and nephew and then she nodded her large horned head.

"Very well I will trust you human but only on the advice of my niece and nephew but if you step one foot out of line human I will end you" Vess growled and Seven instantly saw his group begin to square up and flare up at the threat on his life but he held his hands up to the sides to calm them.

"Understood honoured alpha Vess," he said and she nodded her large head.

The claws all varied quite drastically in their scale patterns and colours, Vess herself had red and black tints to her predominately green scales, while the others all had mostly greens and yellows well all apart from Passa who was as white as snow with blue swirls which really made him stand out.

"Blue leader to blue two what's the status of group two? over," Seven asked via the radio.

"They have stopped, think they try to contact another team, seem worried, over" Runs voice replied in a hushed whisper.

"Roger that we're moving into ambush site two, stay with them and call in if they adjust their trajectory over and out," Seven said.

"Roger that" Runs replied and Seven turned to the team.

"Think those fuckers have noticed that their friends have gone radio silent, so we'd better pick up the pace," he said and they all nodded and began to jog quickly down the debris-littered street heading for the other building where they had planned the second ambush.

They reached the buildings and split the team up just like last time except for this time they had four more rather large claws to hide among their number, the four large claws followed Seven and his half of the team into what had once been a shop of some kind, it overlooked a large T junction and Seven had predicted that the Enclave soldiers would come down the road that fed directly into the junction before heading left which would take them towards the underground labs that the team were yet to hit.

As predicted about ten minutes after they had arrived and set up which honestly felt like an eternity when you had four anxious claws hanging over your shoulder double-checking on every single move you made, but thankfully just as Vess was about to drive Seven nuts with her continual shadowing the Enclave team came into view.

"How do you intend to free the innocent claws?" Vess asked in a gruff voice.

"Simple we take that vile tech they have bolted onto their heads and we fucking turn it off and then we let natural claw justice be served upon those fucking armoured tail holes, but first I'm going to level the playing field, it's just not good manners to hunt something that can only fight in close quarters with high powered weapons now is it?" Seven said smiling darkly within his helmet.

"I like the sound of that" Passa said and Vess nodded her large horned head.

"As do I my son, as do I" she growled deeply.

Just like before the pulser did its job beautifully, as soon as Timothy switched it on the four claws just stopped dead and began clawing at their heads which made all four of the now free claws reach for their own heads reflexively, stroking the still attached helmets as they did.

"Pop goes the weasels," Seven said and just like before he popped the fuse like things in the helmets and once again the response was spot on, the claws froze for a moment which gave Seven just the opportunity he needed to wrench the now panicking humans guns from their hands and pitched them up and into the building where the others were waiting to collect them, they really were starting to build up quite the collection of repurposed Enclave tools now.

The screams of the Enclave soldiers echoed down the empty streets as the now freed feral claws laid into them and in only a matter of seconds, the four human Enclave soldiers lay in heads as dead as the stone they laid upon, the four feral claws looked up at the hole in the wall where Seven now stood watching over them, but rather than attack they simply looked up at him as if they understood on some kind of level that he was the one responsible for their freedom.

So rather than rush to enter the building and attack him they simply regarded him and Seven who knows thanks to both his beloved claw girl and Ven had a pretty damn good understanding of both claw mentality and body language gave a polite and respectful bow to the four feral claws which despite their feral non-sentient nature they seemed to understand and they returned it, before turning tails and heading off into the city at a run, obviously happy with their newly returned freedom.

Seven suddenly felt a massive clawed hand slap down on his shoulder and he felt both the weight and strength of it as it impacted his armour, he was turned around forcefully but not aggressively, he found himself face to face with Vess who was regarding him with a deep-seated curiosity.

"I have never met a human who understands claws as you do," she said in her deep gravely voice and out of the corner of his eye, Seven could see Visa twitching and hopping nervously from foot to foot as she worried over the prospect of her aunt hurting the man she loved.

"Let's just say I have had a very good pair of teachers in the woman I love and her brother, they taught me about your society and what it means to be part of a pack," Seven said reaching up to slowly remove his helmet so she could see his face.

"It's true auntie, Seven here even paid his respects to an entire nest of fallen and butchered claws, making sure that they would be together in the afterlife, he used that power of his to lay fallen hatchlings with their parents and made sure that their bodies would not rot by burning them all in the human way so scavengers would not have their way with those once proud claws, he is everything we have said and so much more, all of these people here are good, we are trying to build something good, something wonderful where no more are people seen as just claw, Ghoul, super mutant or Nightstalker but as people, worthy of the same respect and love as any human and trust me it is working," Visa said proudly.

Vess turned and looked at her niece curiously before turning back to Seven, "Let us get those fucking accursed helmets off you and then we can sit down and talk, I don't want there to be a single chance that those Enclave bastards could somehow regain control over you" Seven said and Vess growled deeply at the thought but then nodded her consent.

"Let's head back to the safe house, more of those tail holes may show up so we should get out of here while the getting's good pretty sure those fuckers are going to be pretty pissed when they realise their enslaved claws have gone and their teams are fucked" Seven said.

"Agreed, let's head back, I'll call our teams to keep an eye out for more of them roaming the city and to watch out for the four ferals, with a bit of luck they'll cause those Enclave fucks a few more headaches before they make it out of the city and back into the wastes where they belong," Faith said.

So with that the team packed up and returned to the safe house with their four new claws in tow, the four of them stuck close together among the strangers as if made nervous by the vastly different faces around them, but Seven had hope in his heart that they would soon see that there was indeed a future for them among them and who knew maybe after seeing what their way of life had to offer maybe some new human and claw love would be born, or at the very least a kind of understanding between them just like existed between Ven and Visa and their humans.

Once the group were back in the safe house Seven led the claws down to the labs where he, Timothy, Gregory and Shauna set to work removing the helmets from them as painlessly as possible which considering they were effectively bolted onto them was pretty tough but thanks to their two expert engineers they managed to figure out how to do it using Seven's power to their advantage while thanks to a dose of a very very watered down version of Malakai's venom which had been worked up by Shauna to make a surprisingly powerful local anaesthetic, though it did take some serious convincing by Visa to get the four claws to agree to the injections given they watched it being made.

But once they did it really helped them as Seven removed the bolts and then Malakai stitched them up making sure their wounds were cleaned up, but finally the claws were clean and clear and then Seven and the others took them down to the mess hall where they were given some food that Ven had been busy preparing for them and boy did they need it because no sooner had they laid eyes on the spread than they just dug right in showing that they had mist likely been somewhat starved to make them even more aggressive.

Seven sat down with the claws and they watched him carefully and curiously as he sat among them and ate, he could see that his lack of fear completely confused them, "Ok Seven I do believe it is time that we had that talk now don't you?" Vess said as she used her long claws to pick her large sharp teeth clean and Seven who was now out of his power armour nodded.

"I do believe so, come on let's go sit down in the lounge and we can hash this out," he said and with that, the group all moved to the lounge, oh boy this was going to be an interesting little chat.