Radiance Ch. 98

Chapter 98: Painting By Numbers.

"Pity the handsome one went and got himself killed don't you agree brother?" Yui said throwing a tennis ball against the wall of the MCV over and over again as she leaned back into her chair.

Number 8 or Phillip as he'd chosen for himself sighed heavily and leaned back in his own chair, "I've told you not to call me that, just because we are part of the same program and now team does not mean we are related," he said in Fuller's voice making Yui laugh, Yui was not her real name or at least as far as they knew but a name she had herself chosen while in confinement.

Yui caught the ball and turned to grin at him, "What's wrong brother ashamed of our little fucked up family are you?" she asked and he scoffed.

"Not at all we are the pinnacle of creation and we are going to prove it by taking down the renegades and it will be our efforts that finally propel the Enclave back into the seat of power that finally pulls this country and maybe beyond back together," Phillip said perfectly reciting the spiel that had been hammered into his brain so hard every day that it caused an itch in his mind if he even so much as thought about questioning it.

"Yeah yeah I know but sometimes I do wonder, what if we are wrong about them you know?" Yui said quietly glancing around to make sure they were not being observed but the two soldiers from the ESF were in the command room monitoring both the sensors and radios while the rest of the team was in the field.

Phillip looked up from his maps where he had been trying to plot out a projection for where Seven and Three's team could show again from all the reported sightings of them from the civilian populace as well as other sources.

"That's dangerous thinking and you know it's forbidden Yui do you want Dr Chalmers to have to do another attitude adjustment on you?" he hissed in a quiet voice.

There was a sudden flash and the tennis ball in Yui's hand caught on fire and she began to throw it at the wall again as if nothing was wrong with it while it basically drew a large figure of 8 in the air in the smoke trailing off it.

"I don't need my attitude adjusted Phillip it's just a question nothing else, I know the importance of our mission and our role you don't need to keep reminding me," she said sounding pretty irritated.

"Sorry I just don't want you to end up in the chamber again," Phillip said softly feeling a tremble pass through his body at the mere mention of that place let alone the memory of it and a flash of anger chased the shiver that was aimed at number Seven and at number Three because it was because of their selfishness that Dr Chalmers had built the place in the first place, it was the price of their betrayal.

Yui sighed heavily, "I know Phillip and I didn't mean to take it out on you I just wonder these things sometimes you know?" she said softly as she summoned a ball of water to flow over the tennis ball extinguishing it before she evaporated the water into steam and continued to bounce it.

"Yeah I know and yeah I do wonder myself sometimes too but we have to trust our betters Yui, they know what's best for us and the country, they are trying to save everyone and to rebuild the place, we know the sacrifices that have to be made so that peace and order can be reestablished," he said and she nodded.

"So is it true they are going to send you into the Railroad tomorrow?" she asked and he nodded.

"Yeah they are out right now capturing that woman who trained Fuller she's gonna tell me everything I need to know and then tomorrow I'll take over for her, then we can properly learn what happened out there and hopefully pick up from where Fuller left off before he got himself killed," he said and Yui nodded sighing heavily.

"Was a shame he got himself killed I kinda liked him he was pretty and he didn't give us the same looks as the others," Yui said squeezing the ball in her hand and making the rubber flex and squish.

"Yeah I know what you mean," Phillip said remembering the distrust and disgust he'd seen in the eyes of his so-called teammates ever since they'd arrived.

"I don't want to be looked at like I'm something nasty someone stepped in and has to scrape off their boot Phillip I mean what's it going to take to show these people that not only are we on the same side but it's our job to protect them?" Yui said and Phillip shrugged.

"Maybe they'll believe when we take down Seven and Three," he said and she sighed heavily and breathed on the ball in her hand freezing it solid before setting it on the desk now frozen into a squashed shape.

That's when her face brightened up, "You know what you're right Phillip I'm going to show them, I'm going to take down number Seven and Number Three myself and then they'll have to believe!!" she exclaimed and Phillip laughed and then looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

"All by yourself huh?" he said obviously joking but she simply nodded and he truly couldn't tell whether she was joking or not.

"I admire your dedication to our cause Yui but you gotta be smart about this, Seven and Three might be renegades but they are powerful and you know it, you've seen first-hand what the pair of them can do from the reports we've read and the photos and videos we've seen, you saw Seven's resilience training videos the same as me, the man can take punishment like none of the rest of us can and he's gotten stronger since he became a traitor," he said.

"I know that but....." she began but Phillip cut her off.

"And then there's Three, if she gets into your head what are you gonna do pop your own head off and shake her out?" Phillip scoffed and Yui snarled but he could see her thinking that one over.

"I'll figure something out," she said finally and he snapped his fingers and pointed at her.

"Exactly, we need a plan on how to deal with those two properly otherwise we are gonna be in a world of shit up to our necks, those two are no joke Yui they aren't training dummies or captive Deathclaws or super mutants, you can't just throw lightning at them and hope they will sit still while you do it like a chained up super mutant, you need to be smart, you need to be cunning," he said and Yui looked at him thoughtfully before nodding.

"I can do that," she said and before he could say another word she got up and headed off to her bedroom making Phillip sigh, that girl really was going to be the death of him.

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Yui lay on her bed with so many thoughts swirling through her head clashing like two armies in her skull, on one side there was her loyalty to the Enclave to the people who had given her not only life but these amazing gifts and on the other, there was the plethora of questions that kept sneaking through those battle lines to hit her when she least expected it.

Like she kept wondering why Seven and Three had done it.

Why had they escaped and run away from this life?

What was in it for them that they'd give up on being the instruments that rebuilt a country and saved its people from themselves, that restored order and peace to this great place, what could possibly be strong enough to lure them away from that?

She kept remembering the face of Seven in her head and more than once the face of young Corporal Fuller snuck into her mindscape as well, she was actually rather sad that he was gone, he had been the only one on the team who had actually spoken to them with actual kindness and respect in his voice rather than the false graces the others gave out of suspicions and fear, well she'd show them all who was the true child of the Enclave soon.

The next day the team dragged in the woman that called herself Mouse, she'd been the one who'd trained Fuller and evaluated him for acceptance into the Railroad, she was unconscious when they strapped her into the metal chair in the interrogation room though Yui knew that there really wasn't going to be much of an interrogation going on and to be fair she was actually kinda looking forwards to seeing their faces when they saw the true extent of Phillip's power, this was going to be quite a show.

The woman who called herself Mouse struggled against the restraints of the chair, "Hey you fuckers let me go!! Who the fuck do you think you'll are doing this to a person off the streets!!" she yelled as the team including Yui watched through the one-way mirror.

Phillip entered the room and the woman glared at him, "I don't know who the fuck you think you are but when I get free I'm going to......" she began but she fell silent as Phillip simply walked up to her and placed a hand to the side of her face, almost immediately her eyes rolled back into her head and she began to convulse and froth at the mouth.

Not a minute later Phillip let go of her and before their very eyes his entire body morphed into an absolutely perfect replica of the woman in the chair, so perfect was the copy that his clothes now hung off his much smaller and lighter body, "Thank you for your co-operation citizen I'll be sure to put this information to good you, I'm sorry about this I truly am just know your sacrifice is for the good of our country and will help to bring peace to our fine nation," Phillip said in Mouse's voice exactly one second before he raised the plasma pistol in his hand and fired it reducing her to a pile of smoking green goo in the chair.

Each and every one of the ESF soldiers were stunned to silence all staring at him through the glass, eventually, the leader of the group spoke.

"If he could do that the whole time why the hell did you guys let me send Fuller in there to get killed!?" she demanded turning to glare at Yui.

"Simple we did not know who the players were or who to target, now we do," she replied flatly glaring right back at her.

The power-armoured woman simply huffed and glanced at the rest of her troops, "Fine we're taking him to err her fuck whatever IT is back to the Railroad, you stay fucking here and you two you're on guard and radio duty," she said pointing at two members of the team briefly before stomping off with the rest of them in tow.

Yui felt a grin spread on her face, oh that had been glorious now Phillip was going to show them exactly what their kind could do for the Enclave.

It was much quieter around the base without Phillip or the others about, the two that had been left behind who was the tall black man everyone called Sarge and the Texan guy locked themselves in the command centre pretty much leaving Yui to her own devices, so she decided to head outside for a breath of fresh air and a bit of walk, she knew she didn't have to worry about Phillip as mimicry was what he did hell he'd actually managed to convince the entire team that he was her for a day already playing fuck with their heads by her walking into a room before she walked out of another one, it was actually kinda funny in a cartoonish kinda way.

But she still couldn't help but worry about him sometimes, he was just so lost in his dedication that sometimes she wondered if he ever had any real thoughts of his own or if they were all programmed, after all, he'd spent more time in the chamber than just about anyone of the rest of the Numbers.

As she was walking through a patch of trees to find a place to sit and look up at the moon she heard something behind her or rather she heard something fall silent, as she turned around she saw all the lights of the base had gone out and the place was in complete darkness, just as she was about to head back to see if she could jump-start the generator the was a heavy thud that sounded like a suppressed gun shot or rather like a suppressed Geaues shot.

For a moment she stood frozen wondering if her mind was playing tricks on her or at least she did until the satalite dish that sat atop of the Vertibird simply exploded in a shower of sparks and collapsed in on itself indicating the shooter had hit the mountings holding the dish in place, this was no accident this was an attack, they were under attack!!

Yui began to run full tilt back towards the base but as she reached the perimeter wall she heard a series of heavy thumps directly ahead of her that she realised were high-velocity shots hitting the Vertibird or rather by the smell that sharply hit her in the back of the throat the vertibird's fuel tanks.

Her brain barely had enough time to register the smell and the situation and it was a pure reflex that saved her life and that made her surround herself with a shield made of water that absorbed the vast majority of the explosive force from the fuel tanks of the Vertibird going up.

But there was still more than enough energy to send her cartwheeling through the air right back as far as the trees again which she hit with enough force to jar her brain into a bowl of porridge in her skull.

As she sat helpless and her vision swam she saw the flames of the base burning and dancing high into the night, she saw the two powerful armoured figures come running out of the now burning base to not only be hammered by automatic weapons fire from multiple directions but not only that but as they tried to evade the incoming fire they ducked for cover only to run smack bang into what appeared to be a giant spider's webs which were strung up in the areas that proved the only cover out here.

The sticky and nearly invisible webs wrapped them up and held them tight while they were peppered with shots from the hidden shooters, the last thing she saw was a giant Deathclaw covered in what appeared to be some kind of armour that was lit by the flames of the burning base walk right up to the two stranded and defeated ESF soldiers and stab them both with his claws, that's when everything went black.

When Yui awoke the first thing that hit her was the bitter and acrid smell of burning plastic and scorched metal, as she sat up and her swimming vision corrected itself the first thing she saw was the smouldering remains of the base that had been their home for the time that they had been here.

She shakily forced herself to her feet and began to limp towards the remains of the base, the first thing she encountered what the bodies of both Sarge and Tex, though for some reason the pair hadn't just been left strung up like that had been last night, someone had actually not only cut them down but removed their bodies from their now ruined armour before wrapping it in silk cocoons that made her instantly think of death shrouds.

The pair had been laid inside the outer perimeter out of sight of the outside and she couldn't help but wonder why their attackers would do such a thing, no raider would ever treat their victims with such care and respect and then she froze as another memory slapped her hard across the brain, the Deathclaw!

She had seen an armoured Deathclaw who had ended both Sarge and Tex by stabbing them right through the titanium plating of their chest pieces, that's when she realised that this had all been a set-up, it had been a well-thought ambush.

She looked up at the scorched and melted satalite pylon and saw the damage from the high-velocity round that smashed the mountings severing their communications with either home or the rest of the team.

The next set of rounds had been aimed at the fuel tanks of the hidden Vertibird puncturing them and causing an explosion that not only crippled their only means of escape but set the whole remainder of the base they had set up on fire and forced those inside out into the open.

As the two soldiers had run out of the main gates they had run right into the line of fire of multiple concealed shooters which even in their power armour had forced them to take cover only to find that the cover had been laced with webbing that had immobilised them and left them helpless and trapped for the Deathclaw to close in and finish them off without any kind of return fire, it had been a perfectly thought out and executed ambush that had cut them off from home completely, no comms and no escape.

That's when it hit her, this was not the work of raiders, this was the work of Seven's team, they were the only ones outside of the Brotherhood who had the know-how, the skill, the motivation and most importantly the balls the openly attack them like this but how in the name of hell had they known that they were here?

Yui stood there with her head swirling with questions until something clicked in her head, they had waited to hit them until the base team was at its weakest which meant that they knew that not only were they there but what they were up to!

Yui's breath hitched in her throat as she realised the significance of this, they were not the hunters as they believed, they were the fucking hunted!!

Before she even knew what she was doing Yui summoned a swirling flame to her and surrounded her body with it creating a swirling updraft as she channelled the air into the flaming funnel.

Thanks to her rather light frame it didn't take much effort to create an updraft strong enough to lift her, the tricky part was actually aiming herself, she kinda had to create a narrow tunnel-like one of those pneumatic tubes that people put a message in a can into and had it shoot along the pipe to another point where someone collected it.

Using this method she had discovered that not only could she fly but she could move at rather incredible speed covering massive amounts of distance in next to no time at all, to anyone looking up at her from the ground she would appear like a small flaming meteorite screaming across the sky as she focused her abilities to reach the rest of her team to warn them and most importantly, to warn Phillip, she had to reach Phillip.

But it seemed fate had an odd sense of timing that day, she could hear the gunfire even from as high as she was and looking down she could see them far below her, but what she saw wasn't Seven and his team, what she saw was a sea of power armour.

For as high as she was it looked like a silver and black bullseye, with three black vertibirds circling it, the black centre was her team, it appeared they were under attack from the Brotherhood of steel and they were vastly outnumbered and surrounded.

Anger flashed through her and she focused it into her power feeling it moving through her chest like a tingling until with a scream she aimed her hand at the nearest Vertibird and sent a bolt of brilliant blue and white lightning into the back of the engine facing her.

The engine promptly exploded in a shower of flames and burning shrapnel causing the Vertibird to spin out of control as the pilot fought to try and control the decent, the two power armoured gunners jumping clear and onto the rooftops of a nearby building as the bird spun over it before slamming into the side of another building and exploding.

"Raaaaahhhhh fuck you!!!" Yui screamed sending another bolt at the next one much with the same result except no one survived this crash as the bird slammed right into a tall high-rise building before dropping straight down like a burning brick.

The third Vertibird figured out where the fire was coming from and the door gunners aimed up and fired on her but the heat from the cyclone of flame keeping her in the air was way too hot for the lead bullets that hit it melting them to slag before they got anywhere near her but maintaining not only her flight but her focus for this long was sapping her energy rapidly if she didn't end this fast she was going to black out and wind up falling from the sky like a dead bird.

Far below her Yui could see the muzzle flashes of her team diminishing one by one by one, the constant barrage of fire from the Brotherhood was overwhelming them and they were losing people, Yui's mind raced on what to do, on one side her loyalty to the Enclave screamed at her to fight the enemies of the USA and to attack the Brotherhood but on the other her loyalty to her friend and what she considered to be her brother given that he was truly the only one who could understand her or what she was screaming at her to save him instead.