[b][color=00a651]The Strip, Iron Foresters Mercenary Company (Omerta Family Affiliate) [/color][/b]

	“Shit……that’s alotta caps….”

	The slack jawed face of First Sergeant Billy Crow of the Iron Foresters stared down in astonishment at the sack of caps that his Commander had just thrown down on the table in front of him. He’d never seen a simple guard job pay so well before, and it hardly seemed real to him. He had to reach out and touch the caps just to be sure - he needed to feel that metallic clink as they ran through his fingers.

	As he reached out his hand was slapped away by his Captain, Ronald Bauer, who looked down at him sternly,

	“Don’t touch what ain’t yours, this belongs to the whole company. So you don’t get to rub your dirty mitts all over it.”

	“Sorry boss,” Crow replied sheepishly, “Just…caught me off guard is all. Is this really what we’re getting paid to stand guard on the Strip?”

	“No….it isn’t….” The Captain replied with a smug grin, “It’s half...”

	“Get out…be serious.” 

	“I am, I told you coming to Vegas was going to be worth it. These people are more loaded with caps than they know what to do with. With this kind of money, we’ll be set for a good long while..maybe even be able to settle ourselves down properly with a steady pay if we play our cards right.”

	“There’s got to be some kind of catch though, right? Like they want us to clear out a den of Deathclaws or something holding up a trade road?” Crow asked only half-joking. 

	“No catch,” The Captain shook his head, “We guard the Strip, occasionally take care of the local yokels that wander too close, and otherwise just look tough in that shiny Mk2 combat armor of ours. Speaking of which...I tell ya, hitting that Brotherhood cache outside Springfield was the best decision we’ve ever made for drawing in business.”

	“Riskiest you mean, nearly cost us all our heads. I still have nightmares about those Behemoth robots chasing me down, ” Crow retorted.

	“We’re alive, ain’t we? Most of us anyway….and besides - that gear has hooked us up with a few great contracts. This one included. People see the armor and they go googly-eyed over it - doesn’t matter if it's actually ours or not.”

	“Well I’ll be the first to admit it…when you’re right you’re right, “ Crow replied as he shook his head with surprise, “Was a hell of a gamble to come out here too….but this sure as hell beats dodging rad-twisters and Brotherhood Patrols for mesley caps back home.”

	“Trust me,” Captain Bauer said with a grin, “You’ll thank me once you’re set up in a nice suite at Gomorrah for life. Besides, what’s the worst that a place like Vegas can offer, huh?”


[hr]

[b][color=9e0039]Maurice and Paulie - Omerta Thugs - Taking Care of a Rat[/color][/b]

[i]Collab with [@tundrafrog1124] who wrote description of the Green.[/i]  

	“Quite your squirming Tony or I swear to Christ I’ll thump you another one,” Paulie shouted as he struggled with their condemned prisoner. 

	“This shit was easier back in my day,” Maurice quipped as he looked to Paulie and the two stoic mercenary lackies that served as their escorts, “If a guy was a rat you’d whack him then and there and be done. None of this complicated execution bullshit. Hardest part was the cleanup, not the wackin’!.”

	“Yeah well, you know Fat Dom’s style,” Paulie shrugged, “He’s gotta make his point, right? Let’s just make this fast and get back to the strip. So quit complaining’ will ya?” 

	Maurice and Paulie were escorted to the remains of Westside There, at the edge of the Green they left the mercenaries and headed in, dragging Tony with them. He was gagged and bagged to stop his whimpering and pleading. They looked ahead at the vast hazy darkness under the canopy of overgrown streetlights and ruined walls. Together the Omerta thugs waded into the thick vegetation, stepping over creeping vines and plodding through grass and weeds that reached chest height. Maurice held Tony at gunpoint while Paulie cut the way forward with wide sweeping arcs of his machete. They had only walked a few meters but the Green pushed against them slowing their progress and fell in behind them as if they had never been there. Before long the three men were lost in the mist and thick growth. The humid night air was punctuated with the hum of insects and croaking calls of creatures unseen.  

	“Shit this place gives me the heebie-jeebies,” Paulie said as he looked around at the almost entirely alien landscape that stretched out before them, “What the hell is all this? I knew this place was bad, but I didn’t know it was like this….”

	“I don’t want to think about it too hard Paulie,” Maurice replied through gritted teeth, “I ain’t no botanist, and I don’t get paid enough to ask questions about mysterious vegetation that grows faster than my Old Man’s nose hairs, capeesh?”

	“What the fuck are we looking for again?” Paulie asked as he kept slicing forward with wild machete swipes.

	“A tree numbnuts,” Maurice retorted, “But honestly anyplace we can tie this sack of crap to is good in my books.”

	“Well….what about right there?”

	Maurice looked to where Paulie pointed: a tree growing out the wall of a ruined shop. The rubble around it was covered with a soft bed of moss and stippled with fungi. Gnarled and twisted with spotted gray bark the tree appeared far more ancient than should be possible. Deciding this was as good a place as any, the two Omertas tied their prisoner to the trunk. So wide across was the tree that they could have bound five men to it and still had room for more. They pulled the bag from Tony’s face and the man blubbered some kind of pleading through the gag in his mouth. 

	“Was that? Sorry I couldn't hear you,” Paulie joked.

	“See ya Tony, ya goddamn rat,” Maurice said as he spat at the ground beneath the condemned man’s feet, “Have fun being lunch.”

	“What else did Boss want us to do….didn’t he say something about seeing what gets him?”

	“Fuck that. Let’s get the hell out of here. We’ll just make something up,” Maurice said, throwing his hands in the air, “I ain’t staying in here any longer.”

	Maurice and Paulie walked away, trying to find the path they had made. In desperation they hacked wildly at the Green in order to cut a way out. In between sweeps of their machetes they heard a rustling of the vegetation as if a great wind blew through the understory. 

	At once a terrible quiet descended upon them. The men froze and though every molecule of their being screamed at them to run, they turned slowly back to where they had tied Tony. The man was staring at something in the canopy. The Omertas followed his gaze but saw nothing. They looked back at Tony and he looked at them and then in a shuddering of leaves and branches he was gone. With preternatural speed a creature larger than what should be possible grabbed the man and lifted him into the dark canopy with the ease that one might pick a small piece of fruit. 

	“HOLY MOTHER OF……WHAT IN THE HELL WAS THAT?!” Paulie shouted in pure fear.

	“MOVE YOU IDIOT!” Maurice yelled back, “RUN FOR IT!”

	The gangsters ran wildly, tripping and crawling and sprinting out of the Green. They ran past the mercenaries waiting for them and didn’t stop until they felt the glow of the Strip lights upon them. 

	Together they looked back and though they saw nothing, they still thought they could feel themselves being watched.