Chapter 455 - Not The Time For Football...

Veronica leads the group out of the bunker straight into the fight again. In the distance, she could spot Afton moving around with some difficulty, but looking fine nonetheless. Unfortunately, the small group had already attracted the Legion army's attention, a few groups splitting off from the larger whole and attempting to apprehend them.

Of course, there was a less honourable reason for this... The Legionaries would rather take their chances trying to capture this group than fight Afton, even with specialised equipment they'd still failed to even scratch him, leaving the situation pretty hopeless.​​

Veronica stands at the front of the group as a human shield, but even with this there were bound to be injuries... Only Tamia, Anja, Boone, ED-E, Dogmeat, and Veronica were actually combat-able... Everyone else was either too exhausted, injured, or lacked a suitable weapon.

Veronica tears a large piece of scrap metal from the shack and uses it as a shield as she shoots her plasma pistol with her other hand. The slow projectiles are relatively easy to dodge, but in the heat of battle, a few are struck by them causing large portions of their bodies to melt into green goo as they scream in agony.

The teleportation coordinates were locked on the other side of the camp, so the group would have to fight off the attacking units before they'd be able to safely exit... Veronica wishes Afton were able to help, but he was responsible for holding off the larger portion of the army as it is.

She gives a shout as she smashes the makeshift metal shield into a Legionary, the shied strikes them in the skull and literally dents it, either causing death or permanent brain damage from the attack.

ED-E was still floating above them all, providing covering laser fire and drawing a bit of attention towards itself from the spectacle... Using laser weaponry so broadly was literally like having 'kill me' written on your forehead... Fortunately, his relatively small body and ability to hover made him incredibly difficult to hit, especially for the Legionaries who were barely good enough to call themselves 'militia', let alone soldiers.

The group reaches the halfway point by slowly pushing back the opposition, they were making good progress, but that didn't stop a few people from acquiring more injuries... A few of the women had receives glancing shots or actually shots, nothing lethal luckily but it was only a matter of time if the fighting continues.

They were closer to Afton's position now, which was actually a negative as more Legionaries were attracted towards them... A couple were actually carrying grenade launchers with them, causing Veronica to grimace, the scorch marks on her armour were from those bastards... Even with the armour, getting hit straight on still hurt like a bitch.

Veronica kills the first guy wielding the launcher with a clean shot, but the guy next to them just picks it up and continues where they left off. Firing a grenade at the group.

Veronica leaps forwards and smacks it with her shield causing the grenade to explode. The force of which disintegrates the metal leaving her holding nothing... The shards of metal, fortunately, hadn't hit anyone in her group, but she was still left without a means to defend against the next attack.

Boone blows the head off of the next guy using a grenade launcher, but not before they get off another shot... Again, Veronica intercepts it and is launched backwards from the explosion, she groans as she lands and checks her forearm where she'd blocked the grenade and spots a large, scorch mark that was slowly slightly red.

Despite her best efforts, however, more grenades are shot at the group, ignoring Veronica as her armour proved too thick to be harmed against this type of weapon... But that did not mean everyone else was resistant...

A grenade falls short and kicks up shards of stone and dirt, killing one of the women as they attempted to protect their child. Another is about to fall directly in the centre of the group by Boone somehow manages to shoot it out of the air, the shrapnel still harms a couple people but it's nothing too serious...

The last grenade is fired at the injured, time seems to freeze as everyone watches the grenade fly through the air with a trail of smoke behind it. Tamia attempts to get everyone clear of the area but accidentally drops Karl as the man forces himself out of her grip. He pushes her towards the woman helping his daughter as he falls and forces himself towards the grenade.

"Karl you fuckin'-" Tamia exclaims but is cut off by an explosion.

*BOOM*

Karl manages to intercept the grenade and attempts to punt it away like a football... This, of course, was a terribly stupid idea. Were he not wearing full combat armour under his Deathclaw leather duster, he'd have instantly been killed by this...

Whether fortunate or not however, Karl survives... Albeit, with incredibly serious injuries. The man is thrown back towards the group after absorbing most of the explosion, both legs missing as well as his left hand.

All his wounds were bleeding profusely and no one seemed to know what to do in the moment... Veronica gets back up and charges at the men wielding the launchers to stop any more grenades from being fired while Tamia leans down to examine Karl.

"You fuckin' fool!" she shouts as she spots his legs, or lack thereof... Half of his thighs had simply vanished, along with everything below them. The flesh of his legs looked as if it'd been made into cheese-strings and half-bitten off the bone. The wound was squirting out blood at an incredible rate, and Tamia couldn't help but think that Karl was done for.

"Fu-argh!" Karl mutters as he looks down at his own injury, he looks back up at Tamia, he doesn't dare look at his daughter who's standing not too far away. The look on her face in this moment would probably break him.