FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The Gräuel are blood thirsty, nocturnal predators that will prey on anything they can kill and eat. In the past, they have even clashed with the Lebensjäger and Combine. While they are as vulnerable to standard munitions as anyone else, Ultra Violet light quickly proved to be far more lethal. Because of the frequency of occurrence of Gräuel outbreaks, many companies now manufacturer Ultra Violet Weapons & Ammunition, which are carried in outbreak zones alongside traditional armaments.

While Eos ran off to get the truck, I started looting the corpses. Insurrectionists always had some good shit on them. For starters', the combat rigs that they wore were slightly modified versions of IOTV plate carriers known as TV Rigs. I could compare them to a second backpack. The main change of an insurrectionist TV Rig over an IOTV is that a TV Rig, instead of having the normal solid nylon backing that an IOTV has, a TV Rig had gel padding on stress areas, such as your shoulders, and the entire back of it is covered with cooling mesh, like what you find on some models of three day bags. TV Rigs are cooler to wear on hot days, though they're almost a pound heavier. The stitching on the ones they wore was second to none, designed so they wouldn't pull away from the face of the vest when switching pouches frequently. I owned a lot of rifles and a magazine fed shotgun, so I switched my pouches a lot, ergo, a years old TV Rig that I still wore to this day. That was one. The second, they always had copious amounts of high end ammunition on their persons. Most people run seven magazines for a 30 round combat rifle, so six on their rig plus one in the gun. The average insurrectionist might carry ten on their person, one in the gun, then if you were lucky enough to kill one with a ruck on their back, you might find an additional ten magazines worth of stripper clipped ammunition. Now, if that ammunition was 5.56, 7.62 or 5.45 depended on where you happened to find yourself in Occupied Space, but on Keiturn, everyone and their brother used all three of those, so these guys were running a mix of Mk-47's, Mk-54's and regular M4s. The four that had come inside were running M4's, and from the looks of their Rigs they had just left their FOB because boy did they have some 5.56 on them. 300 rounds on one, 270 on the other, and 300 on each of the two that Eos had shot, none of that was including the ammo for their sidearms, plenty of that to go around. Two of them were carrying standard M67 fragmentation grenades, six between them, so I refilled my own supply and threw the rest into protective cases and placed them in my ruck. Chem lights, small MRE's, those filter canteens that only they carried but everyone loved, water filter straws, medical supplies and various other combat gadgets and loot. One or two Insurrectionists could set most for a while, Eos and I had just killed ten of them.

"Eos, dude, I'm just thinking about how many credits that those Depot guys are gonna pay for all of this stuff once we get back to town."

"We'll keep the best stuff for ourselves though right?", he asked.

"You're nuts if you think we're selling that launcher", I said, "come get some loot for yourself before I take all of it. I will too."

"Not like you have a strong enough back to carry all this shit", Eos said, I heard the truck pull up and stop for a second. I heard a side gate click open and seconds later, I saw the truck back in and stop. Eos killed the engine and hopped out, "save me a TV Rig and an M4."

I reached off to the side and grabbed one of their rifles. More widely than not, the I416 was considered to be a cheap knock off of the HK-416 or MR556A1. However, compared side by side, the differences between the HK and the Insurrectionist guns often just came down to the finish, HKs being anodized, while the Insurrectionist guns were parkerized, then coated in a really thick, desert tan lacquer paint. I liked the Insurrectionist guns much better than I did HK, for a number of reasons.

"I416", I said tossing Eos his new rifle, "that's a nice one too, got an ACOG on it."

Eos caught the rifle one handed, slinging his M24/30 and beginning to inspect it. He seemed surprised when he first looked through the optic.

"Good lord, the eye relief on this scope sucks!", he commented, "How do you use these damn things Art?"

"Same way you use the Ultra Zoom."

"At least the Ultra Zoom won't come back and hit me in the face when I fire", Eos commented, checking the rifle's mag.

"Bro, I've been shooting ACOG's for a long time, never gotten hit in the face by one, shotgun's come close, but even that's never quite managed to come back far enough to pop me."

"I'll take your word for it, I'll probably put an Elcan C79 on it though."

"Whatever floats your boat Eos."

Eos and I stripped the four bodies inside of every bit of loot they had, their guns, their ammo, their food, water and supplies. We loaded it all into the truck, agreeing that we would search through it in more detail once we could be fully assured that the area was safe. We weren't quite sure what we were going to do about the Control Unit and the Marksman, who we'd dropped in the street. If there were more around, they'd be camping those bodies for sure.

"How you wanna play the Control unit?", I asked.

"Dunno", Eos said, "we could toss smoke grenades out, drag the corpse into the building and loot it there."

"Smoke would make good cover sure...but it might draw more attention than we bargain for once it billows out."

"Mmmm", Eos thought for a second, "how frisky are wee feeling?"

"Depends."

"Well. You can just drag them one at a time back to the house, and if someone gets a hit in, as long as it ain't a lethal hit, I can just get the green on and get you up."

"Neither option is very attractive", I sighed.

"Well we gotta figure something out 'cuz there's some nice gear laying out in that street right now."

I sighed, "I'll just go get him and drag him back."

"I'll keep you covered from here, gimme a second to get into position."

I crouched down by the door, keeping my MK-47 in my shoulder. I couldn't help but wonder where our Dinosaur might be, because Control units never went where there weren't Dinos. There had to be one near by.

"In position Art", Eos called over the radio, "I'm seeing some movement at the end of the street, looks like at least a couple of contacts."

"Anything big enough to be our Dino?", I asked.

"Not that I can clearly see, it's too dark in that house to..."

A crack echoed out from the end of the street, sounding like a suppressed AK variant. I ducked back inside the door way.

"Was that aimed at you!?", I asked.

"Nope", Eos noted.

Now the AK was running off on full auto, joined by some suppressed semi auto battle rifle. Just listening to it, whoever was running it meant business.

"What does that sound like to you Art?", Eos asked.

"Battle rifle for sure", he mused, "could be an SR-25, seems a bit loud to be just a 7.62 though. More like the Mauser."

"What do we know that's Semi auto and shoots 7.92 Mauser?", I asked.

"Not much comes to mind besides some of the Northern Block stuff, FG-42, Gewher 43, Hakims...what else is there?"

"Those AR-792's that Mauser was building a few years ago", I suggested, "I suppose it could also be someone with an MG-34 or 42."

I heard a string of six gunshots, followed by a volley of un-suppressed full auto fire, clearly coming from down range of where our first two unknowns were posted.

"Sounds like whatever the hell they're shooting at is shooting back", I noted, "Eos can you see anything?"

"I don't see jack dude", Eos said, "it's too dark in that house to see inside, there must be another group of Insurrectionists down there."

Peeking out, I brought up my ACOG, I could see flashes of gunfire from inside the house. There were at least two armed contacts inside the house, plus whomever they were shooting at. A pause in the gunfire was quickly followed by a much louder pop. Now, whoever was in the house was throwing grenades, and there was now a third gun going off with the AK, something with a short barrel, was going so quick I almost couldn't make out the individual gunshots, followed by another volley from whatever battle rifle one of our unknowns had.

"The hell is going on over there? What are they shooting at??", I asked.

"I dunno", Eos said, "there must be a whole other group of them over there."

I was debating if I wanted to get involved or not when I saw another group of Insurrectionists flanking around the side of the house, they had a second Control Unit in support. Guess we found our Dinosaur.

"Control! Control!", I barked, "flanking around contact point house 200 yards, right side, back window!"

"I got 'em! I got 'em!"

Eos fired two shots, the first one hit the Control unit in the hip, forcing him to drop his launcher and slump against the wall. The second shot hit him underneath his arm, the force of the bullet pushed him against the wall and made him bounce off, he didn't move again after taking the second hit.

"Got him! Control unit down!"

"I'm moving up to reinforce our unknowns", I said moving out of the front of our house with the Mk-47 on full auto, "if it doesn't have a tail kill it."

I rushed out of the house, moving up to the car where I had killed the one Insurrectionist as the ones down range took notice of me. Eos fired a third shot, which I saw kill one as I ducked behind the car. Bracing off of it by forcing the barricade stop of my Mutant into the body panel, I sighted one in and fired a six round burst. I couldn't quite make out how many of my shots landed on the target, but I saw a spray of fluid out of the back of his vest and he went down. I shifted my aim to the other target there who was focused on where Eos was shooting from, in time to see the window shatter and a Human stick his entire body out of the window just to totally hose my target down with either a really short barreled rifle or some kind of SMG.

"Got a Human in that house", I called to Eos, "Check your fire."

"I saw him check that target", Eos said, "dude means business whoever he is."

"Moving up!", I advised.

Breaking from cover, I tucked my rifle close to my body and ran as fast as I could towards the house to the window the Human had broken out, announcing my presence as I approached. Course, not like they heard me over the amount of gunfire currently erupting from inside.

"Coming in through your window! Check your fire!"

"Friendly on our nine!", a male inside the house yelled.

Just inside the house, I was greeted by the human. He was dressed in loose fitting olive drab fatigues with his sleeves rolled up, the MOLLE II Fighting Load Carrier he was wearing was set up for the MAC-10 he that was folded up on his hip, likely what I heard dusting targets a moment ago, as well as the Mauser AR-792 he was currently locking a magazine into. His identity was concealed by a brown neck gaiter and olive drab poncho he was wearing as a cape. The Insurrectionists out front were currently laying into the house with full auto fire, and from the distressed female on the other end of the Human's radio, were landing their shots on their intended targets.

"Damn! They fucking shot me!", A female shouted from upstairs.

"Type of injury!?", the Human asked.

"Left arms worthless!", She panted, a burst went off upstairs, and the Insurrectionists outside mag dumped her position. She came back over the radio again, I heard her body hit the floor.

"Charlie", she was gasping now, "dude...I'm hurt bad!"

"Eos! We've got wounded! I need you here!"

"Rodger! On my way!", Eos said.

"Hey! Go give my buddy a hand upstairs!", the Human asked looking back at me, "please!"

I nodded and turned towards the stair case at the end of the hallway. I barreled up quickly as I could, turning off into the home office the stair well lead directly into, and then into the bedroom that the doorway at the back of the office opened up to. Sat up against the side of the wall of the bedroom with an AKM across her lap, was a female Keteran with snow white skin. She had four or five holes in her left arm which was shattered to the point it was bending in some pretty unnatural ways. There were no fewer than six hits in her right thigh, no fewer than five holes in her torso, two of which I could tell had punched through the back of her plate carrier. She was struggling to breathe, but I wasn't sure if it was from damaged lungs, or just having been smashed by five bullets to the plate. She had maybe two minutes to live if Eos couldn't get here.

"EOS!", I said into the radio, dragging her out of the room out of the line of fire braking into my IFAK to try and staunch the blood pouring from her thigh, bullets must have hit her femoral, "We've got grievously wounded here!"

"Coming in through the window", Eos said, "where you at in this house!?"

"Directly up the stairs to your right!"

I heard some heavy pounding up the stairs and Eos burst into the room, throwing his rifle over his shoulders.

"Hold on I got her!", he said crouching down beside me.

Eos held out both his hands, bright, neon green light began to emanate from between the threads of his gloves, swirling around his hands with little particles flying off like embers from a fire. The light then began to swirl around the wounded Keteran. Little, blindingly greenish white light flew out of the bullet holes that riddled her body like hundreds of little fireflies as the wounds closed up, as if she'd never taken the hits to begin with. The light faded as quickly as Eos had conjured it, the Keteran took a deep breath, rolling over on her side and coughing for a moment before picking her rifle back up.

"Good shit brother!", She smiled at Eos, "thank you! Charlie! I'm up!"

"Good! We still got at least six targets down here!"

The three of us filed downstairs, we found Charlie with his rifle braced against the door way, peering out through where he was looking, I could already see one Insurrectionist attempting to try and get a sight line.

"I see one out there behind the red Chevy Silverado! Forty five yards!"

Charlie fired one off, the cloud that exploded forward from his rifle's suppressor was quite obnoxious, making me feel like he might have been running the 7.92x75 TPI Magnum, one of the most highly sought after loadings of the Mauser ammo on the planet. My Kar98K did the same thing when I ran that ammo through it.

"One in the skull, works every time", Charlie rose from his spot and pushed out to the living room of the house, the rest of us following . In the street, I counted five Insurrectionists, they were aggressively pushing towards us and made no hesitation in beginning to mag dump the front of the house. I dove to my stomach, placing myself behind what seemed like the thickest part of the wall, and reached into my vest for a Frag, which I began to cook.

"Frag on the advancing group!", I announced, blindly tossing it out the window with only as much force as I figured I would need to land it a few feet in front of them. Evidently, that frag landed pretty close to where the Insurrectionists were positioned at because the gunfire instantly quieted, and a brief moment later, the explosion was followed by Eos laughing.

"Nice frag brother!", he laughed.

"Did I get 'em?", I asked, a bit hesitant to stand up.

"Yeah, five down", Charlie said.

I stood up, about 15 yards from the building, all I could see was a pile of mangled corpses from where the grenade had detonated.

"One of my better throws", I noted. I took a deep breath, "you guys all okay?"

"Yeah, thanks to y'all", the female Keteran answered, "man are we lucky you guys came along when you did. Thanks for saving my ass by the way."

"Not an issue", Eos said, "we try and help when we can."

"Well if that's true", the human said, "we could use some more goodwill. We're in kind of a mess here, if you couldn't tell."

"Please", Eos said, "what do you need?"

"A month ago, the Insurrectionists attacked our town. After four days of fighting, we set out with 20 survivors", The Keteran began, sitting down on the couch, "two days ago, there were eight...Now it's just us three. First it was the Gräuel in Sherfield, now it's the Insurrectionists here."

"Three?", Eos asked, "do you happen to have a Dinosaur with you? Only reason I ask because we've killed two Control Units today."

Charlie nodded, "yeah. Vivian. She's hiding out back, not currently combat effective."

"What's wrong with her?", Eos asked.

"Control unit", Charlie said, "they came for her late two nights ago. Caught her with no armor on, direct hit from a launcher."

"If she took a direct hit with no armor, it's a miracle she's alive at all", Eos stated, "Where's she at now? I can help."

"I've got her out back", Charlie said. He lead us through the kitchen and out into a fenced in back area, underneath an olive green gray tarp with some leaves thrown up on it was one of the smaller Allosaurus I'd seen. She must have been just over 28 feet long, and looking at her, maybe she was 14 feet tall when she was standing. She was currently under an electric cooled blanket, and it made me sick to my stomach when Eos pulled that thing off. Her body was sunken in, burned and scales were peeling off everywhere. I suspected that the good majority of the bones in her body were broken or shattered, the way that her body seemed to be caving in on itself. Given the airway currently shoved into the back of her throat, I imagined the majority of her respiratory system had been damaged in when she'd taken the hit. A good piece of her skull was missing, covered as best as her friends could manage. Somehow, she was still alive, just barely.

"So, she's an Allosaurus, and she's a Rex, but she's a Mini Rex? I see. No wonder she's still breathing", Eos said. He placed one hand on her shoulder, the other on her stomach, despite the fact she was clearly unconscious, you could see her relax, "barely. I can't believe she's still alive. How long has she been like this?"

"Two days", the Keteran said, "We've been calling, for two days, trying to get a Veterinarian to come out and help us. Please...tell me you can help her. She doesn't deserve to die like this."

"I imagine your pleas fell on deaf ears.", Eos said. The Sauress began to glow a bright greenish white, little sparks flying off her body like a million fireflies as Eos channeled his Veil abilities to relieve the broken Sauress of her pain. I'd only seen a few injuries that presented a real challenge for Eos. When we were younger, he'd been trained in his element by a truly great master. However, this Allo was a lot bigger than the Keteran he'd just saved, and she was hurt far worse to top it off.

"Arggh", Eos growled, beginning to mutter a prayer in his native language to the Great Star as he stayed on it. The more he focused, the brighter the light grew.

Ten minutes. It took Eos, a master of the Element of Life, ten minutes, to pull this Dinosaur back from the brink. As soon as the light vanished, Eos fell backwards into me, heat was radiating through his gear and he was breathing fairly heavily. I gave him a gentle shake, laughing when I did.

"Damn bro! That was awesome!"

"Thank the Great Star! I can't believe I pulled that off!"

The Sauress woke up shortly after Eos backed off. She started to cough, gagged on the air way, then moved her head down far enough to pull it out, coughing and hacking while she did. She seemed a bit panicked as she glanced around, showing off her teeth and growling.

"Gah! Fuck! What!?", she hissed, rolling onto her stomach, posing for a strike.

"Vivi! Vivi!", Charlie said, 'Vivian!"

The Dino looked around frantically for one more second before she calmed down.

"You're okay girl, you're okay", the Keteran reassured, "Easy, easy."

"Ugghh", the Dino groaned, falling back to her stomach with a thud, "what just happened?"

"You took a Control Unit hit, almost directly", Charlie explained.

She looked around again, "okay...so...where's everyone else?"

"Dead", Charlie said pausing for a moment, "they're all dead."

Vivian moaned a very...depressed animal like moan, "how long was I out for?"

"Two days", Charlie said.

Sighing heavily the Dinosaur asked, "so...who do I owe my life to now?"

"The Carrier", the Keteran said, "don't feel bad, I do too."

"We owe them both", Charlie said, turning to me, "never got your guy's names?"

"Artemis", I said. I pointed to Eos, "this is Eos."

"I'm Charlie", the human said, "this is Tessa, and Vivian."

"Nice to meet you guys", Eos said.

Vivian smiled widely, "nice to meet you too!"

"Guys...listen", Charlie slung his rifle over his back, pulling down his neck gaiter so I could see his face. He looked like he was about my age, had a well kept red beard that worked well with his green eyes. There was a scar tracing across his face, a light one, looked like a Gräuel might have scratched him at some point, "I know we just met...and you said you were glad to help? Well...you did, and owe you our lives, so", he reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of credits. He tapped them in his hand, I could see the discomfort in all their faces about just forking over this money. Seemed like it might have been their weeks, hell, maybe their months haul, "I know...I know it's just about nothing, but it's the only I know to say thank you."

"Charlie, I can see the pain in your face. Keep your haul bro", I insisted, "we didn't do it for money."

He sighed, placing the credits back in his pocket. Now, I really wasn't sure what he was thinking, "hey...sorry. I'm used to everyone being in it just for themselves."

"Yeah we don't roll like that", Eos assured, "we just try and help where we can."

"Sooo...if that's the case", Vivian said, "do you guys have any plans?"

"Not immediately", I said, "we were gonna spend a few days looting out here, long term we're trying to formulate a plan to cross Infamy Bridge and get out into Plains country. We're hoping to find a place to live out there."

The three of them exchanged looks.

"You know guys", Tessa said, "We've all got pretty much got the same ideas going on. We're headed for Plains Country too, so it might be a good idea to stick together from here out, I've heard some bad things about the area around that bridge. Flooded with Insurrectionists during the day, and then Gräuel at night."

"Most of those stories are true", Eos said, "we've met people from Plains Country who come out here to try and earn some money, and they all told us crossing that bridge was the most dangerous thing you can do."

"Yeah, operating in that area will be a lot easier with two extra guns and a Dinosaur, especially one as tough as Vivian seems to be."

"Aww. You guys are making me blush", Vivian giggled.

"You learn to ignore her", Charlie said, "she's always like that."

Eos chuckled, "We'll take your word for it. Guys feel like helping us grab some loot?"

"Always", Tessa said, "how much we talking?"

"We killed a group of ten right before y'all's fight broke out up here", I said, "Control Unit, Marksman and eight infantry. We've only looted four of the ten."

"Charlie, didn't you say your rig was feeling light?", Vivian asked.

"Yeah, real light", he answered, "I'm running out of eight millimeter Mauser."

"We're outta food too", Tessa said.

"Yeah, there is that" Vivian agreed, "I don't think I've had anything to eat since we left town."

"Neither have I", Tessa said, "stomach's tearing me apart."

"If it's food you need, we got plenty of that", I said, "Cans, MREs, snacks. We have it all."

"You have it all Art", Eos said, "I just catch something when I'm hungry."

"You guys seem like good friends", Charlie noted.

"Yeah", Eos put his arm around my shoulder, "we've known each other since we were old enough to put faces to names. We do pretty much everything together, we're pretty much brothers."

"Bleed, fight, eat, breathe", I shrugged, "Hell, if it gets cold we share the same sleeping bag."

Charlie laughed, "where you guys hiding out at? The Insurrectionists trashed our Semi and Dino trailer, so, we're not getting anywhere without a vehicle."

"Right now we're just kind of stopping at whatever shelter is reasonably intact once the sun goes down, living out of our Tundra. We've got it hidden behind a house at the end of the street. We got room for you guys, but if we're gonna stick together, then we need to find a new Dino Trailer."

"Come to think of it, we passed a Andrew's Super Store this morning on our way in", Tessa said, "and it's like...30 minutes or so down the road. We didn't stop, but I noticed that they had Dino trailer's out front, some nice one's too. No telling what else is in there and, it's only one thirty, so we got an easy 12 hours of day light left, you guys up for a raid?"

"Always", I said.

"What are we doing right today that we haven't done ever?", Eos asked, turning to head back towards the truck, "today's gonna be insanely profitable."

We spent maybe a half an hour looting the Insurrectionists that I hadn't turned to mangled meat with the grenade,and from that, our new friends were able to put themselves in a much better position than they were in. Turned out they had almost nothing left. Their armor was shattered, they had almost no ammunition remaining, no medical supplies and no food. I decided to leave Eos with them and take the risk to not just go back and get the truck, but to loot the Control Unit and Marksman that Eos and I had killed during our fight. I brought the truck around first and parked it near where Eos had dropped him. Paying careful attention to my surroundings as I stepped out, I grabbed the dead CU by the back of his armor and dragged him around the side of the Tundra. With all his armor, his launcher tied off to his body, and the added weight of his ruck, this corpse must have weighed north of six hundred pounds, so I wondered how these Control guys could get anything done. Going through this guys gear was like Christmas, for a couple of reasons. The first was because all his heavy armor was just attached to a TV Rig he was wearing underneath, which in turn meant that I could wear his armor, which looked like it was my size. Further inspection of the armor revealed that yes, it was in fact my size, good, that might come in handy later. His ruck contained an I-454, the Insurrectionist M4 that took the 5.45 AK magazines. I didn't have one of these yet, though I had a 5.45 AK and plenty of ammo. His ruck had four frags in it, some flash bangs, a nice length of rope and some really nice food and more of those filter canteens. He also had 5 cartridges for his launcher, the charger and the tool kit to work on it, that in an of itself was a hell of a score. Now, Control Unit launchers are rather coveted weapons, for a good reason. They come with two firing modes, which alters the highly energetic ball of super heated plasma that the launcher fires. I wasn't sure quite how it worked, I just knew that white plasma met that all your friends were dead, and blue plasma meant that your vehicle and everything in it was dead. Having it around would make for an easier time should we be unfortunate enough to run across a group of Mechanized Insurrectionists, out in Old Country, that was more likely than I'd care to admit. The Marksman carried pretty basic stuff as far as the Insurrectionists were concerned, however, they did carry 7.92 Mauser rifles, and this guy had plenty to go around. I loaded all of the stuff into the back of the truck, making a mental note that this shit needed to be desperately cleaned and organized and then headed back to the others. I found Charlie and Tessa busy repacking magazines, while a now unbandaged Vivian was on her feet, kind of just looking helplessly into the back room. She was entirely too tall to enter the building, and she seemed somewhat depressed about that fact.

Now that she wasn't covered in bloody gauze, I had a good look at her colors. She was mostly white, like Tessa was, with jagged black stripes running across her back and underbelly. She also had bright red scales on her feet that ran almost all the way up to her knees, with the same story on her arms, except the red on them ran all the way up. She had spikes along the ridges of her eyes, which met at about the base of her head, then ran all the down her back and tail. They looked like they were supposed to be sharp, but at a glance I wasn't entirely sure. She took notice of me shortly after I entered.

"Hey Artemis", she asked.

"Yep?"

"Mind giving me a hand with my armor?", she asked, "Charlie and Tess are busy and Eos doesn't really understand how it all goes together."

"Nope. Not at all."

Dinosaur armor was drastically different from any other armor out there, even the Energy Neutral stuff the Entombed wore. Not only was it set up very differently due to body contours, but it was formulated and constructed with nothing but protection in mind, more similar to vehicle armor than anything else. Vivian wore a suit that completely covered her body from the very edge of her nose to the tips of her tail. Now, Dinosaur helmets were forged from a blank of Chobam armor, pounded out to be mostly universal within a single species of Dino and all the sizing information was engraved on the right side of the helmet underneath the rather insect eye looking lens shield, above which was a mounting system for Night Vision or some kind of magnified optics. The helmets resembled modern high cut helmets in shell material and like most these days had an IR Identifier built in, but that was where the similarities ended. Vivian had a nice, expensive looking helmet that clearly had been custom built just for her. It consisted of four pieces, the top head piece that covered from the top of the jaw line, wrapped all around the upper head and had a vented shield over the head ridges for passive cooling and stretched from the tip of the nose to the base of the back of the head. There was a cut in the forehead of the helmet, where she had placed her Firestone, Veil Stone and two Casting Gems. The second piece protected top of the lower jaw line, curved downwards to protect her softer under jaw and base of the neck and locked together via a joint at the base of the head, which allowed her to still open her mouth and use her teeth. The other two pieces were made of a flexible rubberized and padded carbon fiber material with plates of Chobam attached to it that flexed with her neck. The top part ended at the base of her back, while the bottom part ended at the base of the chest. Both pieces attached via a quick detach lever to the plate carrier. These were not your typical carriers, they were mostly hard, with careful attention paid to the cuts, webbing placement and measurement hardware. It wasn't normal in that it was hard plates riding in a soft carrier. Rather, it was hard plates, riding in a semi-hard, rubberized carrier that came in three distinct parts, the base layer, a sort of Under Armor body glove that was made out of very breathable, comfortable and thick material, over which went a Multicam shell constructed of a rigid carbon shell with a rubberized outer coating for spall reduction, with the mounting hardware integrated into it. The mounting hardware came in three parts as well, the carbon shell had pins in specific locations which fit through holes in the plates so it could be bolted down against the shell, the remaining space that the plate sat on top of was covered with some super-industrial grade Velcro that you needed a couple of guys to help overcome when the plates needed to be pulled off. It offered mounts on the helmet, paws and tail for blades, also made of Chobam material, that enabled the wearer to tear open armored cars and Vivian had elected to mount the upgraded claws on her feet and could make short work of any vehicle she could get on top of. This armor traded everything for protection and comfort of the wearer, the trade off was that she needed extra help to take it off and put it on, and it took a while with just me to help her.

"Is that everything?", I asked.

Vivian checked both her sides, then underneath, "yep. I'm good to go, waitin' on you all now."

I stepped back inside the house, "how's everyone doing?"

"Just repacking magazines", Charlie said loading several rounds into a magazine for his Mauser

I sat down on the couch, "You know, we heard you in particular shooting from up the street, weren't really sure what you were running."

Charlie grinned, grabbing his Mauser AR from behind him and bringing it around. You could tell just by the grin on his face, that rifle was his baby, just like my M4 was. His rifle was built on a branded Mauser receiver with really high end looking barrel that was bull profiled all the way down, threaded on the end to accept muzzle devices and suppressors. A York Equipment Group suppressor that read "York Dead Air-Suppressor-Rifle. 7.92x57 Mauser-TPI rated-Restricted, No Government Use". The MLOK rail he was using was a Midwest Industries Gen 3 rail that was fifteen inches long, leaving a good chuck of his rifle's fluted 26 inch titanium barrel exposed. His optic of choice was a Trijicon TA648MGO with an offset mounted RMR, finished to match his firearm in a brutalized olive drab green gray and yellow net camo type finish. He used a Magpul PRS-2 stock, K2 Grip and angled AFG vertical foregrip. It was clear that the rifle had seen it's fair share of battles, and Charlie still seemed just as proud of it as the day he finished the build. I also didn't fail to notice the rifle was both, burst and auto fire capable.

"It turns heads wherever we go", Charlie smiled, "because not only is it a Mauser made AR-792, but it has a TPI Magnum rated barrel on it. Besides my MAC-10, this is the most valuable piece of equipment I own."

"I thought the the way the suppressor was blowing hot gas felt familiar", I noted, "My Kar98K does the same thing with the TPI Magnum. I bet that thing's fun to shoot."

"Yeah", Charlie smiled, promptly clutching his stomach, "awww...that hurt."

"You know if you guys are hurting for something to eat we can cook lunch before we set off for this mall."

"Yes, absolutely yes", Vivian chimed in, "my stomach is turning itself inside out."

"I don't disagree", Charlie said, "but we could just wait until night fall and have something bigger then. Besides Viv, anything that's gonna make you stop hurting is gonna take a minute to cook, and probably wipe out Eos and Art's stock."

"I ain't had nothing to eat in like eight days. I'm starving!", Vivian whined.

"I'm sure you are. I am too, but I doubt Art or Eos have anything in their truck that's substantial enough to feed you. That market might."

Vivian sighed, "fine, we'll do things your way."

"You guys need ammo?", I asked.

"I don't suppose the generosity extends to about 120 rounds of 7.92 Mauser?", Charlie asked, "I have one magazine left."

"I just looted about 200 rounds off the Marksman I killed a bit ago", I said, "you're welcome to it."

"How much do you have in reserve?" he asked, "ain't trying to poach your stock."

"I have about 250 rounds. Now having said that, Eos and I both have 5.56 guns that we're more than comfortable with, we have thousands of rounds of SS1110, we're not hurting for ammo, I assure you."

"No, if you only have 250 rounds I'm not trying to poach.", Charlie sighed, "well...next town we run across I guess I'll have to have some overnighted in. Cause I ain't got no bullets."

"Charlie, take what I have, and then when were done here, we can head back to Siren City", I suggested, "We've been living there for the past couple of months, they've got a pretty big Depot there. There's one lady that works there that can get you just about whatever you want, about as fast as you want it and she gives good prices on whatever you're trying to sell. Eos and I pretty much only deal with her."

"Never been to Siren City myself", Charlie said, "I grew up in the back woods of Old North Country, papa always said to stay away from people from the city, weren't any good. I was 15 years old before I held a rifle that didn't have wooden parts on it. I thought he might disown me the day I brought home the parts kit for the Mauser."

Eos shrugged, and laughed his trademarked laugh, "I've got you beat by eight years. Today was my first gun without wood parts."

"You lying sack of shit", I piped up, "you use my guns all the damn time."

"Ha! Hahaha! Hahaha! You lose!", Eos laughed, "I didn't say today was the first day I've held a rifle without wood parts, I said today was the first I owned one."

"You can tell these guys share the same toothbrush you know that?", Vivian piped up, "just by the way they talk to each other. Are we gonna keep fucking off here or are we going on a raid?"

"Let's go on a raid", Charlie said using his rifle to push himself up.

As we were walking out the door, Eos piped up, "Hey Art, didn't you say you had an ammo card on you?"

"I do actually", I dug out my deck and fished out the card. A rather stiff, brass and copper hued, slightly greyscale card that felt metallic in hand, the only real way to tell that it was an ammo card was the fact that there were rather detailed engravings of a 9mm round, 556 round and shotgun shell. The card,with just a little bit of pressure, turned to white dust in my hand. Right on que, Tess pulled the magazine out of her AK and checked it.

"7.62x39 BP", she said rocking it back into place, "I approve."

"That must have been a good one", Eos said popping his magazine out, "nope, still running R9806."

"Still 123 grain FMJ steel cased", I checked my magazine.

"BP must have been the last thing you fired out of it", Charlie said checking the magazine in his rifle, as well as others on his FLC, "yeah, these are all full of TPI."

"Cool. Good ammo all around", Eos said, "so where's this store at?"

"It'll be a good thirty, forty minute walk from here", Tessa said, "took us about 20 to get here after we passed it. It was a big ass store too. Huge, gargantuan building, must have been three or four stories tall."

"Right off of the hallway", Charlie said, "so, guns up, cause we're not gonna be alone."

"Just so ya'll know", I said, "Eos and I don't kill it just because it moves, ya feel me?"

"Yeah we feel ya", Tess said, "we don't either."

"Okay...let's go on a raid."