Mangled by the Chimeras encroaching on the airport, yawning holes opened up in NCR's wall scattering rubble and bodies onto the battlefield. The powerful machines carved paths through the terrain, crushing rock and toppling trees as they went. Fire from the patrols on the diminishing walls did nothing to stop them. The ground would continue to shake and the NCR would continue to feel the wrath of their cannons until none were left standing. Golem wasted no time cutting his way into the main entrance. The proton axe was a hot knife through butter in the flesh of those brave enough to stand before him and those not fast enough to get away. Bullets formed a chorus singing as they dented and grazed his hulking armored body and shield. He felt like the center of attention. Flattering. Deep booms from the rifles of the enclave sniper teams rose above and steadily drowned out the ringing of the enemy's guns. He breached the broken defenses keeping an intense watch on his surroundings. A man in uniform came up on his side. He lunged. Rifle fire exploded for only a moment. The man's head rolled among the rubble. Many more flooded into face the Enclave. The bodies began to pile up on the asphalt. Hellfire troopers left corpses, NCR installments and ancient structures ablaze as they pressed through the parking complex toward the large building. Under the intensifying rain eerie wisps of steam and smoke drifted into the atmosphere. It was an incredible spectacle. Golem pulled his shotgun. The blast was near silent with the hundreds of executions being carried out on every side. The runner's back burst into bloody chunks before he hit the ground. A spectacle that would never make it into the history books. By the time he had made his way down to the first floor loading bay and hacked the first hole through the barricaded doors a dozen other armored soldiers had gathered there after finding their way through the thinning resistance. Heated battle still echoed on the parking level above but down here felt almost serene with the dark and the muffled noise. The layers of the barricade were splintered and peeled back by the Enclave until the doors themselves began to come off their hinges. Inside the sounds of men shouting, leaders barking orders and sprinting feet could be heard. [b]"We'll clear the building from the bottom up and leave guards posted so nothing gets out through lower levels."[/b] Golem ordered, [b]"Stay clear of the doors. Sounds like there's a lot of 'em in there. Gonna be desperate too."[/b] The twin door on the right came crashing to the ground after a loud [i]CRACK[/i], torn down by one of the troopers. Through the voices and movement of the enemy troops inside they could hear something strange. A high-pitched whine and a growing low whirring. What little was left of the entryway, and one of the Enclave soldiers who lingered too long from cover, was immediately disintegrated by the ballistic hail of a mini-gun. It seemed the bastards weren't going to make this easy for them anymore. Whoever was wielding that weapon wouldn't be able to keep up this rate of fire forever, but all the same they had a job to do and Golem wasn't too keen on waiting around for the enemy to simply run out of bullets. After shouting a quick order one of the Enclave soldiers un-clipped a frag grenade and lobbed it into the entrance. There was shouting. A deafening blast. Smoke and dust burst from the opening and the barrage of fire slowed and ceased. Showtime. Golem turned on the power to his riot shield and with it bashed the heavily damaged left door the wrong way off its hinges and began the assault. The dust and smoke had no chance to settle. The NCR gathered to defend the first level of the rotunda were wounded, dying or blinded. Popping bursts of fire from rifles echoed around the circular multi-level space striking flesh, splintering concrete and shattering glass. Most of the men here had no chance to defend themselves as the brute charged them, bringing a glowing blade down on them out of the haze. They weren't what he was after though. He needed to find out if the gutsy hero with the heavy artillery was still alive and figure out where that gun was so nobody else would get any bright ideas. The low whirring of the mini-gun started up again somewhere to his right across the room. Bullets slammed into the interior walls and pillars behind him. He ran. They followed. They were catching up. "Get down!" someone yelled. Debris from the impact of the 5mm rounds was clinking off the back of his armor as he made a wide arc, sprinting toward the source. Again, they couldn't keep this up forever, but Golem couldn't outrun the fire for much longer either. He was getting close. The percussion muted all other noise including his heavy footfalls and fast breathing. The synthetic fibers of his body strained against the speed and power. He kept his shield up. Bullets began to scream and burst into flame upon pummeling the energized metal. Red-yellow flames all too close to him. Brilliant muzzle flash. It's wielder turned full force on the Golem that came over him. The power threatening to tear the shield to bits. Screeching. Blinding light. Molten steel. Blade crushing into flesh and bone. The mini-gun hit the floor, the red barrels continuing to strike and bounce until it came to a full stop. It's master was an unrecognizable mess after having his skull, neck and part of his chest split in half. Golem pulled the axe from the body. There was a hitch in several of the joints of his power armor when he moved. Examining the damage he found several holes ripped through his right side and arm. No pain though. The building shuddered. There was a heavy groaning behind him that kicked of a loud cracking, crunching, tearing, and snapping. All at once part of the structure gave way sending up plumes of dust and just as it had started to clear. Golem shielded himself and called out to the remaining Enclave squad when the cacophony silenced. Most were still standing. After the dust cleared Golem was left looking at a large chunk of what used to be the second floor balcony twisted and broken on the ground in front of him. The sign attached to it remained mostly intact. [i]Welcome to Boise. City of trees.[/i] Welcome indeed. The force cleared out the rest of the rotunda easily. They quickly moved up to the second and third levels of the core of the building and cleaned up any survivors. Golem made his way down a hallway and into the concourse the damaged armor still bothering him but not enough to slow him down much. More bodies as well as a smattering of destroyed automated defenses littered this area. A few Enclave men remained here and there searching for survivors. It seemed the NCR had been using at least part of the area for medical purposes. Even the people here hadn't been spared. Golem could help it. He slowed his pace a bit as he walked by an unusually tiny body. The dead eyes of the child stared up at him. Vacant. He looked away and pressed on. [i]Don't think about it,[/i] he told himself. He spotted Archangel and group of salvaged bots only moments later. He had discovered them after a small skirmish it seemed. She was giving orders to an eyebot before continuing forward. Snapping into a slow jog to catch up with them put more even more strain on the compromised joints. [b]"Archangel,"[/b] Golem called her attention, [b]"Need some back up?"[/b] He walked beside her and checked out his armor again. Thin streams of blood had started to trickle down the inside of his arm and down the side of his torso. Great. --- By the time anybody spotted him they were as good as dead. The massive explosion that had brought down the communications tower only minutes before had been their cue to take down the men lining the rim of the wall. Without them those walls weren't a defense any longer. They were a cage. The attack had taken the Rangers by surprise and they were only able to lay down a thin line of fire on the Enclave troops that swarmed their stronghold. Over his fellow Eagle Claw members he kept special watch. Easily distinguished from most of the other Enclave, he caught a handful of them as they made it through the outer defenses and made sure none of the NCR got too friendly with them. Not that they needed his help but it paid to have each other's backs. Ginger was fully expecting more enemy forces to show up to the party and take the place of the patrols falling left and right to the team of snipers and the devastating destruction wrought by the Chimeras. He was right. The NCR had numbers but they were unprepared and ill equipped for what the Enclave had brought. One. A pulse of electric blue tore a Ranger to shreds. Two. The same proved the NCR's "power armor" to be nothing more than fancy tin cans. Three. The sniper fell off the high perch and out of his sights right when he pulled the trigger and the charge sailed through the air only to collide with a runway some distance ahead. A runt of a bot dashed through his cross-hair. He recognized it as the little eyebot Archangel had brought along on the flight. [i]You little shit,[/i] he thought to himself with a smile. Between the snipers and the eyebot the heights of the walls became a deathtrap and more of the enemy took to the ground fighting back or trying to escape. It was a bloodbath. He suddenly found himself happy to be watching the chaos unfold from a distance rather than be down in the fray with the others. Up here he could keep his calm and do the most good. Bare-handed slaughter and battle-glory be damned. The NCR numbers coming his way thinned out of existence, they eyebot vanished and Ginger set his sights on what he could see of the tarmac. Several derelict planes were scattered here and there, but from the look of the people running toward them he began to wonder if they were as non-functional as he first thought. [b]"Targets are heading onto the runways,"[/b] he whispered over the comms, [b]"Looks like they're heading for some planes out there. Can't confirm if they're in working condition but they should be 'secured' regardless. I'm gonna move this squad to a better vantage point."[/b] He was getting antsy. They had been in one spot far too long for his liking and he was beginning to feel the NCR knew they were here. He gave the command to the squad to leave the building through their escape route. The rain was coming down harder now and would help conceal the move. Luck was on their side it seemed. Before he could finish that thought an explosion rocked the lower floor of the building. The traps. Dammit he hadn't heard a single noise coming up on them. The squad flew down the fire escape and hit the ground running like bats out of hell. Now he could hear footsteps and voices entering the building behind them, hushed though they were. He knew better than to hang around and listen in. The surrounding buildings and overgrowth provided excellent coverage, but his nerves were still on edge. With a low voice command he switched on the stealth option of his armor. He needed to disappear before he could think about killing the sons-of-bitches, but kill them he would. A complex of dilapidated office spaces rose up on the next block. Perfect. Inside the hallways and rooms and cubicles twisted and turned and spiraled around each other like a maze. Even better. They would have an excellent view of the airport from the upper levels and more than adequate cover from the men on their tail. Ginger was hoping they would try to follow them in. There stealth would be on his side. He sent his squad top side, secured the first floor and contacted Deathstroke. [b]"We've taken up position a few blocks away,"[/b] he whispered, [b]"Someone came up behind us. Didn't get a visual, but we'll be ready for 'em this time. Keep your eyes open."[/b] One of his squad alerted him to movement on the ground outside the building. He set up at a window facing the direction the target were spotted, still cloaked and scanned the area for them. The squad member spotted them again and this time so did he. Rangers. They weren't trying to escape, instead coming up on the squad's new location. Unbelievable. He counted four in total and had that number confirmed by the eyes in the floors above. Ginger singled out one for himself and assigned the rest to three other members of his squad. [b]"They haven't spotted us yet. Take 'em out on three,"[/b] he ordered. There was a hiss followed by three mechanical scrapes. No time to react. The ground shook. Grenades slammed into the base of building. Flames and shrapnel tore through half of the first floor. The entrance to the building slumped and collapsed from taking sections of the floors above with it. A gaping hole opened up in the side of the building raining rubble below. More grenades followed. More chaos. When the onslaught stopped the the lower floors were charred and skeletal. Concrete was strewn around it's base. Small fires smoldered. The remaining supports trembled.