"HERAAAAAH!
The ghouls roared like beasts with raspy voices and charged at us with mouths wide open and arms out stretched.
"BANG!"
"BANG!"
"BANG!"
"BANG!"
"BANG!"
I drew my new pistol while Boone and Jess slung their riffles off their back before we all fired simultaneously. I got off two shots that popped holes in the foreheads of two of these charging ghouls while Boone landed a throat shot and Jess two messy shots to the chest of another. My target and Bonne's all went down like puppets with their strings cut but Jess's stumbled slightly before continuing the charge.-
"You take it." I said casually as I patted Boone on the shoulder.
"Hmph." He snorted before expertly taking out the ghoul.
When this small pack of ghouls was taken care of we moved forward and Boone stopped to crouch down and examine the wounds of the ones I shot with a serious expression.
"You have training?" he asked impressed.
"Self taught actually. Truth be told i'm not actually that good, it's the suit that makes me dead eye accurate. Has eye tracking aim assistance built into the visor and arms." I said with a chuckle.
"Dangerous thing to share so freely." he said with narrow eyes.
"Not like it matters. If push came to shove what this suit can do would be the least of anyone's problems." I said honestly.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Jess asked worriedly.
"It means that this armor isn't my greatest weapon. If I ever needed to reveal the real thing may god have mercy on whoever pushed it that far because I certainly won't." I said seriously.
"What is it?" Jess asked curiously.
I rolled my eyes(not that she could see that) "Not much of a trump card if I told you what it was. Besides it's more fun to make it a surprise. Your jaws will hit the floor if I ever bust it out." I said with a chuckle imagining it.
I wasn't worried about them figuring it out early either as there was no way in hell they'd guess magic cards. It was such a wild fucking power that you just wouldn't think about it without point blank evidence. I was a little disappointed they didn't even try though. There was no guessing at all from my companions. They simply shrugged and moved on.-
'No fun at all.' I thought with a sigh.
We continued following the road into the gaps in the sheer rock walls and came across something interesting. It was a tall blue skinned ugly muscular corpse with metal scrap strapped to it in various places and a complete lack of hair. It also lacked lips of any kind.
"Ooooh, a Nightkin! Not often you find these, at least not in any way that doesn't end with you dead by something you can't see." I said eagerly as I started patting the corpse down.
"Must have been part of the Masters army that scattered across America. Heard of them before but never seen one myself until now." Boone said seriously.
"Most people don't see them at all for a single reason, this." I said as I found the thing I was after.
"Is that a stealth boy? Those are rare. NCR was looking into trying to crack the technology before I left. An attempt at putting together a stealth unit." Boone said with slightly wide eyes.
"Yep, Nightkin were the Masters elite stealth units. Problem is however that long term exposure to the stealth fields cause schizophrenia. This is especially bad for the Nightkin because they all share a pathological desire to remain unseen, like an addiction to invisibility. This means they never turn off the devices and get REALLY aggressive when the ones they are using finally burn out and they don't have any extras. Nasty combo." I said seriously.
"Sounds like a type of curse. An addiction to the very thing that is driving you insane." Jess said with a hint of sympathy.
"Maybe but don't feel too bad for these things, they aren't better than normal supermutants that see humans as inferior creatures. There are exceptions of course but most of them are more likely to kill you on sight than they are to talk to you. They also have no compunction about making human kebab." I said and her sympathy dried up immediately.
"That's all good but what killed this one?" Boone asked gravely.
"Looks like plasma rounds. Look here at these carbonized bits. And from the way this thing is sprawled I'd say it probably fell from the crosswalk up there. Bet we'll find the killer there." I said leaning on my meta knowledge a little.
We headed up to the crosswalk which had been slightly fortified with a gate and scrap walls. I spotted the hazy air a bit ahead and held out my hand.
"Adam, thermal vision." I said firmly.
My vision swapped from the normal state to one of gradients between black, blue, red and white. As I expected I saw the hotter than normal shape of the invisible Nightkin that was waiting to ambush us ahead.
"I can see you Nightkin. We mean no harm but will defend ourselves if you attack us." I spoke up loudly and watched the hot hulking mutant tense up and take an aggressive stance.
"Die Puny humans!" It screamed and charged at us with it's weapon in hand.
I didn't hesitate to raise my pistol and unload the cylinder into it's head. Unlike with the ghouls the first bullet didn't instantly kill the thing but I wasn't counting on it to. The F.E.V or Forced evolutionary virus might have scrambled this things brain and basically made it an idiot but it made it's physical attributes monstrous. Skin hard as thick tanned leather, superhuman strength, hardiness and bone density. And an almost total immunity to radiation.-
My first bullet hit the thing dead center on it's forehead and broke the skin before crumpling on the skull. The pain of it only made it angrier but it's rage vanished as the consecutive bullets struck the same exact spot and finally punched a hole through it's skull before rattling around it's braincase. No matter how sturdy these mutants are they died just like anything else when you destroyed their brains. There was no amount of evolution that could change this fact without entirely abandoning the human body structure.