[color=00aeef]FRIEDA RICHTER[/color] - Clinic -- mid-morning

Ace looked at his hands and then back up to Frieda. "Ummm...well..." He scratched his head.  Frieda pursed her lips while she waited.  Finally, he mumbled, "super mutant attack..." 

Frieda narrowed her eyes.  "What?"

He looked up at her, "Its a super mutant attack...but before you whig out and freak out or something... Rook is fighting them... and... and... so is another mutant..."

[i]"Before you freak out," he said.  How obnoxious.[/i]  She wanted to say something acerbic, but bit her tongue as Arthur appeared from upstairs.  He and Ace exchanged a few words about how the ghoul came to be in his particular condition.

"There's nothing to be done I'm afraid...if there were even the slightest chance of saving him, he'd required advanced medical technology and supplies that I couldn't even remotely hope to have here. Best I can do is give him a shot of Med-X to dull the pain a bit and ease his passing."  Arthur's face expressed the hard truth with little other emotion.  Frieda nodded.

"Sorry you wasted your time," she said to Ace, reaching over to clap him on the back but pulled back at the last second, electing not to touch his blood-soaked clothes.  Her ears picked up what sounded like loud, rhythmic thudding and the screams of a familiar voice.

[b]"DEATHCLAW!  RUN!  RUN!  RUN!!!"[/b] Brandy was bellowing, over and over again.

"Deathclaw?" Arthur's eyes grew wide, "But how..."  He leaned towards one of the old church windows just as Brandy tore past with the huge mutated lizard-like creature on her heels in pursuit.  Brandy looked like she'd been running for some time, her cheeks were fully flushed, sweat streaming down her face and neck.  Frieda and Arthur both turned in unison to see what was chasing her.

"HOLY!" Arthur cried out as stumbled backwards from the window and fell to the floorboards. He glasses went skating across the wooden boards, but thankfully didn't break. His hands were shaking with fear as they patted around the ground.  Frieda's face paled as huge creature thudded past, fixated on its prey -- Brandy.

“ACE, FRIEDA, WAYLON, BARNEY AND WHOEVER THE FUCK YOU ARE YOU.” Steve shouted out as he reached the town centre and jumped though the diner window “WE GOT DEATHCLAWS INCOMING.” 

"How heck can we stop that thing!?" Arthur yelled desperately from the floor.

Frieda's eyes flicked around the floor and landed on Arthur's glasses.  She quick-stepped over to them, picked them up gently between two fingers, then knelt next to the doc.  "You let me worry about that, all right?  I've encountered these, before.  Not...from the ground, mind you, but..."  She cleared her throat.  "Just let me worry about it.  You need to stay safe, and stay alive.  These things move fast, but only when you draw their attention.  Stay low, and stay quiet."  Frieda took another survey of the clinic.  "Get behind a closed door, maybe your storage closet?  Just stay inside and stay quiet.  It'll keep them on the outside and hopefully from destroying your space."  Her expression turned grim.  "Chances are, you're going to be fairly busy after this whole thing is done."

"Everythin' all right in here?" Barney called from the door, holding his rifle and looking around.

"Yes, it's fine," Frieda called back.  "Get out there and help take down that huge one."  Just as she finished saying that, at least two smaller deathclaws ripped past the clinic.  "...or one of those ones."  

She looked over to see Ace hovering by the door.  "What the -- get out there!" Frieda directed, pointing off in the direction Brandy took.  She watched both men retreat back into the fray, then turned to the trembling doc.  She and Arthur exchanged a look.  She remembered, suddenly, that her old dog tags were still in her back pocket.  She pulled them out and placed them into Arthur's hands.

"[i]If[/i] something happens to me, you're the only person, right now, that...well, you know.  You're the only one who knows."  She swallowed, then nodded.  "Now go get out of sight and stay alive."

Frieda dove down against the wall beneath the window and pulled off her sweatshirt.  It was bad enough she had to face these freaks on the ground, rather than from the air in a fully armed Vertibird, she didn't want to be weighed down by any extra bulk.  Gunshots seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, echoing through the walls of the clinic and outside.  She pulled herself up just enough to see some kind of fight happening within the diner.  Something large and covered in armour was walking away from a smoking pile of dead deathclaw, marching straight past the diner and clinic both, on the path of the large deathclaw.  She'd decide whether or not that was a threat, later.

Frieda crept along the wall back towards the doors of the ancient church and pushed them closed, before crouching beneath the next closest window.  Sounds of a struggle entered her ears, a couple moments of quiet, then the slow approach of feet larger than a human's.  Fear and dread turned her veins to ice, but she forced herself to stay focused.  The clinic -- Arthur -- was counting on her, and she'd be damned if she didn't stick to her commitment.  She readied her pistol and looked out, just in time to see a smaller deathclaw than the one that had torn past, shuffling through the streets, shaking its head occasionally as though it had already sustained some injuries.

[i]Their heads are weak spots, but they're hardy assholes,[/i] she thought to herself, pulling up as many memories of tactics that she could muster.  [i]Gotta keep it from running after you, first.[/i]

Frieda steadied her pistol, desperately trying to ignore the fact that her plasma gun was hardly on the same level as the huge automatic turret guns on the Vertibirds.  The deathclaw didn't notice her there.  It shook its head, again.  

[i]Steady, Richter...steady...the moment you fire, it's gonna charge.[/i]  She aimed at its bony right ankle when she noticed some old world trash cans sitting out plainly in front of one of the houses just behind it.  Frieda squeezed off one shot, causing a loud crash to echo as it fell over into the street.  As hoped, the deathclaw stopped, straightened, and turned towards the sound, exposing the back of both ankles.

Frieda fired two shots into each ankle.  Both bolts hit the left but only one hit the right.  It didn't matter -- the deathclaw roared in its anger and pain, wobbled on its left leg, and fell to the ground.  Frieda rose and continued to fire on the creature all up its leg, into its ribs.  It rolled over and  launched itself off its wrists towards the clinic and Frieda.

"Shit!" she spat, ducking herself down and scrambling past the doors to the other window.  The deathclaw, despite its deep injury, pulled itself into the window.  Frieda popped up and leaned out of the next one, reaching out and aiming again at its ankles.  Out of shape and out of practice, the recoil of her fire caused her to lose her balance completely and tumble head first out of the glassless pane.

She fired off the last few rounds of her charge, each landing into the deathclaw's side and abdomen, searing into its flesh but only marginally wounding it.  "Stupid fucking things have to have fucking tough fucking skin --"

[i]"SHUT THE FUCK UP AND TAKE IT DOWN, RICHTER,"[/i] roared her brother's voice in her head, snapping her back to her focus.  She'd ruminate later on why a memory of some drill decades ago would come up, just then.  Frieda centered herself, pulling another charge cell from the back of her belt, loading it, and taking fire just as the deathclaw was nearly over her.  It snapped its head down to bite her, but her enhanced reflexes were just a little sharper.  Her plasma was fully in its mouth, and she pulled the trigger three times, until the bolt shot out the back of its head.  Blood, bone, and other spew sprayed down the front of her body and into her face, causing her to gag as its dense, lifeless body fell forward onto her, pinning her to the ground.

Frieda scrambled and flailed beneath the dead mutant, unable to free herself from the awkward way it had fallen onto her on the ground.  "Good thing you told the doctor not to come out for any reason, Richter, [i]real[/i] great idea."  She simply couldn't maneuver herself to a position with any leverage.

"Huh...help?  Help!  Anyone?!"

The fight raged on, elsewhere.  She sighed, realizing she'd just have to wait until the worst of it had passed before anyone came to her aid.