[center][color=tan][h3]Courier 6[/h3][/color]
[b]Level 2[/b] - (2/20) EXP
[b]Location:[/b] 1-1, Lower Canyon
[b]Word Count:[/b] 987[/center]


Laughter echoed through the canyon, a joyful, gleeful mocking laughter. Or maybe it only felt that way to the Courier himself due to circumstances preventing him from catching sight of his target. The infernal bomb lobber, or lobbers as it was looking to be, knew well enough to stay out of sight. Bombs required minimal aiming with their area effect, making the canyon outcroppings perfect for those little assholes. 

Grumbling in (temporary) defeat, 6 took to paying more attention to the immediate surroundings rather than the higher ground. He felt no surprise that the rest of the creature army went into full retreat (so he knew they at least had no relation to the ghouls of his own world, who would attack ceaselessly with zero regard for their own well being), and even less surprise that Death had chased them deep into the inclining path. The scythe-wielding warrior soon vanished from the Courier’s viewpoint thanks to his own great speed and agility, but the Mojave mailman could still make out a few corpses left behind.

Suddenly a new explosion rocked the ground from nearby, not close enough to harm him directly, but close enough to pelt him with small rubble from the debris. [color=tan]”Ow ow ow ow ow!”[/color] he shot off in rapid succession, recoiling somewhat before realizing something. [color=tan]”Wait, that didn’t hurt at all. Huh.”[/color] Still high on jet, he failed to make the obvious connection, or what would have been obvious under normal circumstances: that his NEMEAN sub-dermal armor had come back online. 

Shaking off the non-revelation, Courier 6 grit his teeth and charged forward, spurred on by the continued growing explosions nearby. Every couple seconds he would activate his V.A.T.S., not to take aim or queue up shots, but to scout for more of those bloody mines from above. Thankful that the jet gave him more stamina to work with, avoiding the things had become child’s play. He’d just activate his system for what would be about a third of a second in real world time, scan the path ahead, deactivate, and adjust his trajectory accordingly. Being the team player that he was (sometimes) he even called out the mines to Zer0, just in case the invisible assassin was behind him or otherwise not perceptive enough to spot the individual explosives.

[color=tan]”Mine there!”[/color] he shouted, pointing with his left index finger. [color=tan]”And there, by the black rock!”[/color] he continued, zigging and zagging his run. Eventually he came upon the crowd of goblins and bokoblins running from the friendly fire of the explosive-users, and thankfully the fleeing monsters had no eyes in the backs of their heads.Yuck, could you imagine? 6 could imagine. Mutations were [i]weird.[/i] At this point, it was only a matter of staying just far enough away that none of them noticed he was behind them while the set off all the traps. Any traps they didn’t set off he could still locate using his V.A.T.S. perception technique (should he trademark that one? Yeah, definitely). As much as he wanted to finish the lot of them off, they could still easily swarm him, break through his sub-dermal armor, and kill him with sheer numbers. Death hadn’t thinned out the crowd [i]that[/i] muc-hey wait, where the [i]fuck[/i] was Death?!

[color=tan]”Death you fucking asshole, where’d you run off to?! If you ran away I’ll shove a Nuka-Cola Quantum so far up your ass your vomit will glow in the dark!”[/color] Oh wait, maybe yelling just behind the thicket of monsters in tight quarters with bombs raining from above wasn’t the best idea. Realization dawned on the Courier only a second after he made the mistake. [color=tan]”Aw shit.”[/color] Well in his defense he had just taken a heavy hit of jet. That excused him, right? … Right?

As a number of the goblinoid creatures took notice and turned to see the Courier mere feet away, he grit his teeth in determination. Two run for him with reckless abandon, forcing him to bring up his Ratslayer rifle. [b]Bang! Bang![/b] Two shots, two heads that exploded violently. Damn, it always felt like this thing was either weak, or caused way more damage than it had any right to do. Well seeing two of their kind get brained did nothing to dissuade more from coming in, though thankfully a great many still valued their lives over the possibility of violent explosion. The Courier saw his chance, and he took it.

In a crazy, dangerous, and hopefully totally awesome stunt, he charged forward at the goblinoids, rifle up. The ones that came for him he sidestepped, ducked by, and rolled passed, butting them with his Ratslayer as he went by. One was beaned in the face and disoriented, another hit in the knee and toppled over. Then he made it into the thicket of creatures still running away and they took immediate notice. For such simple-minded monsters, their ability to multi-task running and clawing at the human was something to be admired. More he dodged, more he slammed the butt of his rifle against, more he charged forward, hoping to get ahead of the group entirely and escape the canyon incline. Yet the Courier was not as fast or as agile as Death was, and avoiding every attack was impossible. 

A spear jabbed into his side. A claw raked against his back. A jagged-not-quite-sword tore into his arm. His duster was, thankfully, more durable and protective than it looked, and his newly reactivated armor implant most definitely helped in the situation, but could he survive to the end? Could he find the assholes lobbing bombs and put them down as promised? That was the only thought on his mind: killing those jerks for their cheating ways.