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Grace let out a few chuckles after checking herself. She was glad that her armour had held up well and knew that anti-cougar armour would be worth looking into. She was relieved that her first encounter had only left her with a bruise and wasted no time in putting her armour and jacket back on. She was used to bruises and knew that it would take a few days to fully heal. Though, the noise that was still occuring in her ears was a bigger issue.

Wasting no time, Rick drew the flare gun, pointed it skywards, and fired. He hurried into cover with the others, and eyeballed the camp to see where the threats were.

At the sound of the two gunshots from the cave, Chris nervously gripped his pistol tightly and pointed it forwards.
Raiders!?

He saw the cougar run out of the cave and was surprised, but relieved that it wasn't human.

As Rick let off the flare, Chris' heart began to beat faster in anticipation of what was to come.

Grace was able to get her armor back on without incident. Like Rick and Lester her hearing was starting to level out again.
----
Rick fired the flare into the air, the red smoke flew skyward and burned it brightly. He knew it would be a few minutes before the cavalry would arrive. Anderson fired off a shot. "Don't let them through the cave!" Anderson shouted.

Looking down on the logging camp it was hard to make out details with the naked eye but Bravo squad could see over half a dozen raiders making their way towards the lower cave entrance.

Luke took a deep breath. "Here's to a good rest. One way or the other." he said grimly. He would prep himself and take the first good shot he could at the first raider to draw close enough.

"I probably shouldn't but what the heck, if I'm fighting the end of what seems to be a war, I may as well take advantage of it." Grace commented as she loaded up the classical Song, Ride of the Valkyries. She knew it was a bit odd but it had been sitting on her pipboy for a long time and rarely played the library of songs that she possessed. She had scavenged some, been given some and aquirred them over the years. It was always handy to have something to pass the time. "Right. Vault 115's redemption begins now!" She declared whilst raising her hatchet in the air. She knew she would probably get some looks and it sounded far better in her head. She shrugged her shoulders and prepared to follow rick.

Rick patted his waist to do an inventory check, as he calculated his next move. We have to play to our strengths, and use what we've got...

"Defensive positions. Hold your fire until you can see muzzle flash, or the outline of them. Don't shoot me. Once the noise starts, I'll be on my belly, so keep your aim at torso level." The Black Cat brandished a frag grenade and a flash grenade--he passed the latter to Lester.

"If you still hear a commotion after the 'boom', toss that sucker in the cave and light them up."

He placed down his repeater and SMG--they would only get in the way.

With haste, Rick stepped into the cave, as light on his feet as he could. He entered the inky blackness, and attempted to find any recess in the cave wall, or a wide spot where he could hide out of the way. Rick would go no further than where they had encountered the cougar, though--as with before, he did not want to find himself falling down a 10 foot drop.

Anderson and Sophia each fired off another shot at the raiders below.

"Group heading north! I still have a la-" Anderson began but was interrupted by a bullet which hit him somewhere in the upper body. He collapsed the the ground but most members of Bravo squad were to far away to assess his condition. "Sniper! Get cover!" Sophia screamed. She crawled behind a nearby and stuck to the ground. Unfortunately it was the only one of its kind, apart from it the cliff face offered little cover to protect from shooters stationed below.

Bravo squad couldn't help but feel exposed standing by the cliff. If they wanted protection from the sniper they'd either need to collapse to the ground away from the edge of the cliff, head into the cave or go back towards the treeline. Jan ran into the cave.
---
Rick was unaware of the commotion going on outside. He made his way back to the opening in the cave where he'd encountered the cougar. Feeling around on the edge of the wall he walked forward a bit and then crouched down so he wasn't standing directly in front of the path back outside. It was still to dark for him to make out what lay further ahead.

Pulling the pin out of the grenade but keeping the lever firmly clenched, Rick looked and listened for the raiders to approach. He would cook it, then lob it into their midst when they came into range.

Luke ducked down as soon as he saw Anderson go down. "Dammit!" he shouted, looking for a way out. He wanted to go to Anderson as soon as possible, but to go to his side close enough to examine him would put himself and anyone who would help move the man in mortal danger.

"We have to fall back! We're too exposed!" Luke advised to the others.

Chris became increasingly nervous as the raiders began to approach the cave down below.

He was crouching, still gripping his gun, and listening intently to all the instructions being shouted out, when Anderson was shot.

"[&@%!]!"

Chris' instincts told him to quickly go over to the wounded man, but thankfully his common sense and self-preservation told him to stay put.

He dropped flat to the ground and then shuffled on his belly away from the cliff edge, his eyes darting about in a futile attempt to see the sniper.

When Luke shouted about falling back, he looked at him to see where he was going to go.
"Where?" He shouted to him, as he faced the cave with his pistol awkwardly held forwards.

Grace followed Rick whilst keeping low. "Make every shot count!" She told the others, mainly out of habit. She prepared to open fire on any raiders that came into range and would aim for their torsos. She knew that armour of raiders varied. Sometimes, they were surprisingly strong. Others, her magnumn killed them. But she always aimed for the biggest part of their bodies though, she was used to her shots being followed up by either a barrage of SMG rounds or a shotgun blast. This was a rare occurence where she was working with people she didn't know and their styles were unknown.

Luke scanned the area as quickly as he could. "Get away from the cliff edge, get down and out of sight!" he shouted out, following his own advice once he announced it.

Seeing as Chris had already done the three things Luke instructed, he stayed where he was.
At the moment, he could do nothing more than wait.

He took a quick glance in Anderson's direction to see if the man was moving.

Anderson wasn't moving. Another shot from below hit off the rock Sophia was hiding behind. She looked at Anderson and then over at the rest of Bravo Squad. She started shaking her head. "More of them going north! They'll be here in a few minutes. You need to head for the trees!" Sophia shouted.
---
Jan and Grace made their way into the cave and went down the corridor to the opening which housed the cougar. The music and light continued to come from Grace's Pip-Boy.

Now that the opening was lightened up they could see the ceiling was a couple meters higher and the opening itself was an oval about 10 meters in circumference. On the far side of the opening, where Rick was facing, there was an archway of sorts leading down and water trickling past. It looked like a path which lead lower into the cave. Once Rick could see the lights coming from flash lights and could hear people moving on the far side of the archway he threw his grenade. It bounced off the wall and rolled down the rocks, towards the group of raiders.

"What in the goddamn...?" He heard a coarse voice exclaim just before the grenade exploded.

Ducking to avoid any shrapnel, Rick looked up to see Grace lighting up the cave entrance and scowled. Better not come closer. Might draw the survivors' fire at least.

Rick drew his pistol, and waited. He wasn't going to reveal his position if there were survivors--whom he couldn't even see--and if they were already dead, he wouldn't waste the ammo.

"Turn that music off will ya? I can't hear anything with it on." Jan shouted making his way over to the archway at a cautious pace. Rick and Grace couldn't hear any movement either, at least not over the sound of the music. Keeping his shotgun in front of him he came to a stop about a meter in front of the archway when suddenly a burst of flame flooded the gap and came flying out. Jan fired off a shot as soon as he saw the fire but was soon engulfed by it. The huge burst of flame extended out several meters from the archway. Jan let out a bloodcurdling scream, the likes of which Grace had never heard and Rick hadn't heard in decades. He dropped his weapon, collapsed backwards to the ground and began rolling around. The burst of flame was still coming and the light from it flooded the opening which had once housed a cougar.

"I will not. I don't get a chance to play it and it adds class to wiping out raiders." Grace saw flame ahead and next thing she knew, Jan was on the floor after letting out a scream. "FlAMER!" She shouted as she retreated. She knew shooting was going to be hard on account of having little to no time to line up a shot without opening herself up to being toasted and the frag could cause an unwanted cave in if it did more then just kill the source.

"Flamer!" Grace screamed as she ran out of the cave, loud enough for everyone but Sophia and Rick to hear, the music was still quite loud. However as she emerged from the cave she could see everyone else was lying prone on the ground.

Grace went prone as she made her way towards the others.

Rick felt a fire burning within as his comrade fell to the terrible flamer. Put Jan out of his misery. --Give away your position doing so. --Run. --Hide, jump the [&@%!] as he passes. --Stay put, don't die. Thoughts and adrenaline both raced as the Black Cat made his decision.

He waited, and hoped to remain hidden. Chances were good that the murderous leader of the Restless Dead was more focused on Jan and Grace than on checking his corners. Rick eyed where the flames were coming from, and if there were others still following behind him.

The blast of flame continued for a couple more seconds before stopping. Jan's rolling became a lot weaker and soon ceased altogether, small fires continued to burn on his torso and legs. The flames from Jan illuminated the area around the archway. And that small amount of light allowed Rick to see his flamer wielding foe step out of the darkness with a metallic thud. He was about 6ft tall, wearing heavy black metal armor and a wielder's mask which covered the front of his face, a leather strap at the back keeping it on. The medium sized fuel tank was located on his back and Rick's keen eyes were able to spot a holster for a side arm around his waist a second before he stepped forward away from the light. Rick was hiding in the darkest corner he find, trying to remain completely still.

Rick thought that maybe this could be Yama, the leader of The Restless Dead whom Chandler had told him about. The raider began whistling 'Dixie' the second he stopped his burst of flame and continued it on his way through the cave. Rick didn't see anyone else come through the archway, the raider walked past Rick, seemingly unaware of his presence and reached the tunnel which led to the outside world. The natural light coming from the far end of the tunnel made him once more visible to Rick.

Grace crouched as she made her way from the cave towards the others to avoid being toasted whilst trying to keep herself out of the crosshairs of the sniper. She rapidly turned off her pipboy.

Rick walked in Yama's footsteps, light on his feet--he watched his footing carefully. It wouldn't do to trip over a rock, or Jan's corpse.

When he closed within about a foot of the monstrous figure, Rick raised his pistol, and fired off rounds at the back of Yama's head.

Grace was already next to the majority of those outside, with the exception of Sophia and Anderson who were further away. She turned off her Pip-Boy and the light and music coming from it stopped.

"Cavalry's here!" shouted Sophia. With that a pair of trucks burst through the palisade, while they couldn't see them lying prone, those outside the cave could hear a heavy amount of gunfire coming from the camp below.
---
Rick fired three shots, the first hit the back of Yama's head as intended, the second the cave wall and the third the front of Yama's armor. As soon as the first bullet hit him Yama the ghoul let out a beastly growl. Acting seemingly out of instinct the ghoul turned around and slammed his flamer down on Rick's face. The force of the blow knocked the rebel down and he landed on his butt. It also caused him to drop his pistol, the weapon landing by his side.

Right away Rick could tell the attack had broken his nose, warm blood gushed over his beard. "Should have stayed home American!" Yama screamed in his rage. His stance was rather wobbly. While younger members of the group may not have recognized it, Rick could tell the man had a Japanese accent. "You'll be a lesson to the rest!" Yama was blocking off the tunnel to outside, there wasn't much hope for Rick to squeeze past.

"R...i..i..i...i...c...k" Rick heard an extremely faint voice coming from behind him. "R....u...u...u...n"