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Heart and Claw

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Cooper trudged through the ankle-deep snow, the powder emitting a watery-blue light that made the entire landscape look like some kind of polluted ocean. The glow was subtle, especially this late into the night, but his Geiger counter was starting to ramp up, the little ticking sound suggesting he better hurry it up before he started walking around on three feet.

His leather boots dug furrows into the snow as mounted the next dune, the disturbed dust staining the leggings of his cargo pants, also made from leather. His upper half was clad in a metal chest piece, the rusting metal catching the light of the glow as he shuffled between two decaying trees, the skeletal branches shaved clean of their leafy coats long ago. The armour trailed down to his wrists, the plating segmented near the elbows, so it didn't limit his range of motion. It had burned a hole in his pocket to pay for the custom fittings, but with a bit of luck, money wouldn't be an issue for much longer.

He pulled his hood over his face as a strong gust of wind hit him from the side, kicking up a sheet of swirling snow and making things hard to see. When it cleared, he was greeted with a vantaged view of a valley, the adjacent humps of earth winding towards the horizon, the ground littered here and there by a few patches of trees just barely clinging to life, the monotonous glow of the powder broken up by a solitary building in the near distance.

It had a triangular roof, a single chimney rising from the sloped tilework, a little plume of smoke curving into the sky. A deck extended out of the left and right sides of the main structure, held aloft by maybe a dozen wooden pylons with concrete bases, just made visible by the dim, yellow lanterns attached to the corners of the walls.

As Cooper approached it, he could make out a few more details. Sprouting from the sides of the lodge were piles of junk - rubber tires, crates, wooden planks - all of it stacked on top of each other in a haphazard pile, though there was a method to the madness. It was all arranged to form a wall maybe five meters high, parts of it covered over with wire meshes, the occasional barbed wire sprouting from the top. The junk formed a perimeter wall that encompassed both flanks of the building, likely wrapping around and meeting on the other side. There was an opening near the middle, with wooden crates stacked here and there to provide the defenders a strong position to ward off frontal attacks.

Speaking of defenders, a pair of humans stepped out into the open as he waled up onto the adjacent road. It wasn't exactly a road, but more of a track that had been carved out through overuse. Cooper could see footprints in the disturbed snow, animal prints, even the long strips left by wheels. Caravans, if Cooper had to guess.

"You the guy from NCR?" one of the defenders called out, his face capped by a woollen toque. He had a lot of winter gear on, but Cooper could just make out the glint of an armoured vest between the zipper of his coat. He was pointing a hunting rifle somewhere between Cooper and the ground. His counterpart was similarly geared, though they were carrying a submachine gun, aiming it right at Cooper's head.

"Mister Hendrix asked for me," Cooper replied, the guards lowering their guns at the mention of the title.

"Boss's waitin' inside," the guard informed him, gesturing with his rifle for him to follow. The other guard eyed Cooper warily as he stepped toward the gate, the ornate design of the lodge drawing his gaze up.

The roof slightly overhanged across the front façade, casting the slatted windows into shadow, Cooper noting there was barely a scratch on the pieces of glass. Even the wooden logs making up the faces of the building were pristine, the oakwood sitting perfectly flush against the glass panes. It felt like this place had been plucked straight out of the Old World.

"So is it true?" the guard asked, Cooper following him up to the porch. "You the waster who took down thirty fire geckos with just a ten millimeter?

"It was actually nineteen," Cooper replied, adjusting his collar. "And I mostly used frag mines. Wasn't cheap, had to sacrifice half the bounty just to make it work.

"Won't have to worry about tight funds here, the boss is sitting on a pile of cash. Hell, I get paid just as much as I did back when I was running with caravans, and I get to sit around a gate all day."

The guard pushed a pair of double doors open, holding them so Cooper could walk inside. "So what's the job?" Cooper asked, the humid air of the lodge warming him through his armour.

"Hendrix wants to give you the details himself, but I'll give you this," the guard added, bringing his voice down to a low, conspiratorial tone. "You'll need a lot more than frag mines for this, these ain't geckos you'll be dealing with. I'll go tell the boss you're here."

The guard sauntered off, Cooper rubbing his cold hands together as he surveyed the spacious interior. The lobby was wider than it was longer, with the far wall occupied by a long bar flanked by shelves stacked with differently coloured bottles, a pair of men giving him the side-eye as they sat at the counter. Tables were arranged throughout the open-planned space, and a balcony ringed all four walls above him, maybe half a dozen doors visible above the wooden railings. Two wings branched off to the left and right, connected to the lobby by doorless arches, the guard who'd led him inside disappearing into the one on the left.

All of this was cast in a yellow glow by an impressive chandelier hanging from the ceiling, the hundreds of little glass shards sparkling as they caught the light of several smaller lanterns placed throughout the lobby. There were tall glass display cases lining the left and right walls, Cooper moving over to the closest one and craning his neck up at what was being kept inside.

Standing within the glass tube was a suit of armour, but not just any kind. The suit was bulky, easily twice the mass of the average man, the limbs and torso layered over with steel plates thicker than Cooper's arms. A black, slatted visor peered back at him above a set of respirator tubes, the helmet stencilled with the letters T45 above the left brow.

It was a suit of power armour, one of the more common variants found throughout the Wastes, though that wasn't to say they were easy to come by. Most of the pre-war suits had been hoarded away by the Brotherhood, a group of tech-crazed humans who kept all the best toys for themselves. Cooper had only ever tested out a frame like this once before, but the nuclear fusion core that powered the armour was damaged, and gave up the ghost an hour after he'd started up the suit. It had been a pretty fun sixty minutes, though.

The gate guard returned before he could investigate the other displays, the man jerking a thumb down at the left wing. "He's ready to see you. Watch where you step, though, Bessy's around."

The guard returned to his post without elaborating, Cooper shrugging his shoulders as he moved to where he'd pointed. This wing of the lodge wasn't as spacious as the lobby, but no less impressive. A cobblestone fireplace dominated the far wall, the gentle flames sizzling over a row of logs casting a warm glow over the room. Bookcases lined the walls, the shadows made harsh by the light of the fireplace, the number of pre-war books easily in the hundreds, Cooper resisting the urge to pluck one off a shelf at random. He'd spent most of his younger years reading the teachings of the Old World, and he never went anywhere without a few on hand.

There was something on the floor in front of the mantle that caught his attention. A giant, furry mat stretched from one wall to the other, not quite long enough to cover the entire breadth of the room, but very close to it. Cooper blinked as he picked out bulges in the mat, the texture shifting into very hand-like shapes, the digits tipped with long, black claws.

A bulge on this side of the mat drew his gaze, and he realised this was no mat at all. A pair of creamy eyes watched lifelessly at some far point behind Cooper, the skin below it tapering out into a long muzzle, capped with a dark nose. Mangy fur draped over a splayed set of powerful jaws, the neck flattening out into the rest of the skin. It was a yao guai coat, a deadly predator that hunted man and beast alike, reduced to a carpet.

There were two seats atop of this exotic rug, and one of them was occupied. A man maybe a decade or two older than Cooper peered across the room at him, his body clad in a crinkled green suit, the kind Cooper had only seen the rich types in New Reno wear. He wore a pair of dress shoes, and there were gold and silver rings on some of his fingers. He would have looked right at home in the Bishop's Shark Club.

Although getting on in his years, the man had a calm, collected voice, weathered by many years of thriving in the Wastes. "Not another step, Mister Cooper," he said, holding up an authoritative hand. "if you value your legs."

At first he thought it was a threat, but then Cooper heard it, a muted rattling sound filling the room. He looked down, noticing a slight shimmering in the air by his boot, his instincts warning him there was something right in front of him.

As he watched, the shimmering began to solidify, the tapered end of a tail defining itself into his vision. The appendage wound up to a pair of backwards-shaped legs, sitting flush against the hind of a long, serpentine body, the legs ending in four, padded toes. The torso was covered over with fur in places, and scales in others, a winding neck narrowing into a long muzzle. A pair of green, reptilian eyes with vertical pupils scrutinized him from below a pair of fuzzy ears like those of a dog, Cooper's eyes drawn to the two long fangs protruding from the tip of its mouth. If a dog and a snake had a baby, this was probably what it would look like. Cooper reached for his pistol, but the older gentleman spoke up before he could draw.

"Relax, Bessy," the man in the suit said, snapping his fingers. The strange creature stopped producing that disturbing, rattling sound, turning its winding neck to look at its supposed master. The man beckoned to it, and the creature stood up, winding between the legs of a table, and disappearing again. When Cooper blinked his eyes, the creature was visible and by the man's side, laying down to nuzzle itself against his smart shoes.

"How'd you tame the Nightstalker?" Cooper asked, warily approaching the man.

"Oh, Bessy isn't tame, hardly any of my animals are, she's just been around long enough to know she'll get fed if she behaves. Isn't that right, darling?" he added, reaching down to scratch behind Bessy's ear, who crooned in reply.

"You have more?" Cooper looked around warily, wondering how many Nightstalkers he'd passed on the way in.

"Don't you know who I am?" the man asked, quirking a brow. "The Hendrix business is known throughout the west coast as wildlife traders. If you've ever seen a pet, be it dog or cat or whatever, it's likely travelled through this very lodge."

"I deal with wildlife in other ways," Cooper replied. "I'm not gonna be your handler if that's why you sent for me."

"I'm aware of your expertise," Hendrix said, leaning back in his cushioned chair. "A bounty hunter, equally adept in hunting man and beast. People have taken to calling you the Tracker, from Reno to the Boneyard you've accumulated quite the reputation for solving problems."

"Always hated that stupid name," Cooper grumbled.

"Nevertheless, it's your tracking skills I wish to purchase, not your animal handling ones, though you should consider it, keeping the wastelands beasts in line can be just as thrilling as hunting them. But I digress," Hendrix muttered, shifting through his coat to produce a cigar and a lighter. He shielded the flame as he lit it, taking a small puff. "You see, some of my stock have managed to escape the lodge, and I need someone to find them."

"Sounds simple enough, what's escaped?"

"Straight to the point, aren't you? I chose you well." He took another draw, speaking around the cigar in the corner of his lips. "We'll get to the matter of details in time, but answer a question first. What's the most dangerous thing you've ever hunted, Mister Cooper?"

He took a moment to reflect over the years, flashbacking to the weeks of travelling interspersed by fights ranging from trivial to brutal. Mantis', geckos, raider gangs, yao guai, hunting and killing had become his life ever since he'd struck out on his own, but there was one encounter worthy of recalling to Hendrix.

"Have to be the Fire Ant Queen that burrowed in next to Junktown," Cooper said. "Big bitch had dozens of bodyguards."

"Not a bad trophy, not bad at all," Hendrix mused. "Ants never relocate their burrows, however, that makes them easy to predict. What I want you to find is anything but predictable." He leaned forward in his chair, fixing Cooper with a hard look. "I've watched this beast tear apart soldier ants like they were made of tissue paper, but it's not its vicious claws, or its innate ability to shrug off superheated flames that makes it so dangerous. It's the way it thinks," Hendrix said, tapping his temple with a finger. "Devilishly clever creature it is. It doesn't fall to its primal needs like the instinctual nightstalker, or the predictable fire ant, this creature knows when to be patient, and when to strike. Subject Omega as my men have taken to calling it, is the perfect predator, that's what makes its recovery so invaluable to me."

"Recovery?" Cooper echoed. "You want me to bring this thing back alive?"

"Not just it, but several others of its ilk that escaped as well."

"You're painting a pretty grim picture, Mister Hendrix," Cooper said. "You're asking me to track down a whole pack of these creatures, these things you claim to be more smart and deadlier than anything else in the Wastes, and bag them?"

"I'm aware of how it must sound, Mister Cooper," Hendrix replied, Cooper blinking at him. He'd expected assurances, or maybe even some threats, but instead the older man just leaned back in his chair, like he'd expected him to be hesitant. "I know I ask a lot from just one man, but I wouldn't have brought you all the way out here if I didn't think the Tracker himself could pull it off, or at the very least, point my men in the right direction, as we have no idea which way Omega went after it broke free. You would be paid for your time, of course, and as my people would tell you, I can be quite generous to those who are helpful."

"... How generous?" Cooper asked, his age-old vice rearing its head.

"Three thousand caps for Omega's recovery," Hendrix said. "Half that if you can find where it's gone, and five hundred if you just want to pick up the trail and let my people handle the rest. If you'd prefer NCR money or some other currency, we can exchange it for an equal amount."

Cooper whistled at the generous reward. He'd only been paid a thousand for that ant queen's head he'd mentioned. "You're throwing a lot of money around for this 'Omega'," he noted.

"As I said, apex predators like Omega are worth their weight in gold to the right buyers, and it took a lot of resources to secure several of them, I'd rather not let all that effort go to waste."

"I'll take a look around for tracks," Cooper said after a bit of thought. He'd found dead trails hundreds of times before, it would be a nice haul of caps for an easy job.

Hendrix leaned back in his chair, a relieved smile on his weathered face. "Splendid," he said. "I'll show you to where we held it, come Bessy."

The nightstalker wagged its reptilian tail as it followed Hendrix to the door, the man stopping to retrieve a cape hanging from a rack, Cooper following him back into the lobby.

He was led around and behind the bar, the two men there still drinking and chatting away, though they did stop to greet Hendrix as they walked by. Frigid air whipped at Cooper's long hair as his new employer pushed a sliding door on the far wall aside, the two of them walking out onto a porch.

Snow and woodland stretched out before the rear of the lodge, the junk wall Cooper had seen from the front ringing around maybe an acre of land in a rough circle. The right side of the yard was occupied by a long, two-storey shack, definitely hand-crafted judging by the rickety supports and the glassless windows. It was surrounded by a tall metal fence, the gaps between the bars wide enough for a human to squeeze through them. This fence extended into the majority of the yard, dividing the space into walkways and secluded coops.

"This pen is where we keep our more dangerous animals," Hendrix said, waving a hand at the area as he leaned on the railing. "We have automated turrets set up every twenty meters, guards every thirty, and they're rotated out every night at one o'clock."

"What's that building over there for?" Cooper asked, gesturing at the handmade shack.

"That's the processing kennel, caravans load and unload stock from there. We were a day off from sending Omega through before it snuck out. Its holding pen is this way."

Hendrix grabbed a lantern off a nearby stool, trudging out into the snow, Cooper following behind. Sections of the pen were walled off by metal fences, breaking up the area into several smaller spaces, the occasional gate allowing the handlers to corral the different animals without having to get in close.

Within these pens were things that looked like bird cages, only scaled up tenfold, with colourless tarps draped over their tops, the plastic ruffling in the breeze. It was obvious these were intended to protect the occupants from the cold weather, but what exactly these occupants were was impossible to tell without getting inside the coops.

"This is the one," Hendrix announced, the pair coming to a stop in front of a series of storage containers twice as tall as Cooper was, and just as wide. There were seven in all, sitting flush against the west side of the junk wall in a neat row.

Hendrix gestured at the first one along, Cooper's eyes widening as he appraised the cage, though calling it that wouldn't do it justice. The container looked sturdy enough to withstand grenades, with the sides and back wall made from planks of wood, which were layered over with metal pipes on the outside, arranged like a mesh. The front frame of the container looked like it had been welded to the main body, the steel brackets melting into the underlying wood.

The thing looked sturdy enough to keep a yao guai in heat contained, if not for the giant hole occupying the middle of the front side, the interior of the container visible as a pond of inky darkness, despite the lantern's light.

"How big is this Omega?" Cooper asked, running his hand over the breach in the cage. The wood was splintered at the edges, the reinforcing brackets snapped clean apart under what must have been a tremendous amount of force. The bend in the wood appeared to curve in a convex direction in relation to the cage.

"About nine feet tall," Hendrix answered. "And maybe eleven from head to tail."

"May I?" Cooper gestured for the lantern. He held it out as he stepped through the breach, the hole wide enough his shoulders didn't even graze the edges. The lantern's yellowy glow created a small circle, cutting back the darkness of the cage as he moved inside. The smell of musk was strong enough to make Cooper pull his scarf over his mouth, the man crouching down to examine the floor. There wasn't a single hair or scale in sight, but the textured ground caught his attention. The floor was layered over with a smooth, almost rubbery material, dark gray in colour. Cooper noted that even the walls of the cage were protected by this odd fabric.

He stepped out into the open air again, handing back the lantern and asking Hendrix about the cage's inlining.

"That's Kevlar," Hendrix explained. "It's the only material aside from reinforced steel that can withstand a slice from Omega's claws. We thought our yao guai cages would be enough to hold it, but it seems I was wrong."

"You got that right," Cooper replied, turning his eyes on the metal mesh that enclosed the container. The pipes that should have lidded the container were instead lying in the snow, suggesting something powerful had busted clean through it. "So it punched straight through the wood and freed itself. Any witnesses?"

"Jade, one of my guards, took the afternoon shift the night Omega escaped. She traded places with the night guard, and when she turned around, the cages were empty. She's up there now, if you want to talk to her."

He pointed up at the wall, where a small ladder led up to a platform overlooking the cages. A woman was standing there, her back to the cages, an assault rifle clutched in her gloved hands as she looked beyond the wall. Next to her was a rotating gun, mounted on a set of custom-built legs built into the wall's roof, the barrel swivelling back and forth across the pen.

"Sure, couldn't hurt."

Hendrix called up to the woman, and she climbed down the ladder, her boots splashing the snow as she stepped off the last rung. Her leather jacket creaked as she sauntered over, her pale skin contrasting with the dark material. Her raven-black hair was tied up in a ponytail, the woman flicking it aside as she addressed her boss.

"You called me?"

"This is Mister Cooper," Hendrix began, waving a hand at him. "He's here to recover Omega and its pack."

"Considering it," Cooper corrected

"Of course, my apologies," Hendrix replied. "Jade, why don't you go ahead and tell him what you saw the night Omega broke free?"

"Just like any other shift, really," Jade said with a shrug. "Critters were sitting tight in their cages, still out cold from all the tranquilizer we pumped into them, could hear their snores from up there." She pointed a thumb over her shoulder at her post. "Marcus came over to relieve me, we got to chatting, like always. Next thing we hear this bang." She clapped her hands, letting her rifle hang in its sling. "We turn round, and there's this blur, going down the line and snapping off all the cage lids, fucking thing was peeling off the wood and metal like it was canned fruit! Marcus starts firing, he's always been trigger-happy, but he's barely gone through half his mag before the whole pack's scurried off into the dark."

"The turrets didn't shoot them?" Cooper asked.

"Nah, they kept out of its line of sight. Stupid things are only good for things out in the open, easy to avoid if you're smart. And Omega's super smart," Jade added. "You ask me, that thing remembered when Marcus comes up to swap places with me. Best chance it had to get out."

"Which way did they go?" Cooper pressed.

"Back of the pen," Jade answered, jerking her head at somewhere behind him. "All of them was walking in single file like, you know? Omega at the head, juvvies at the back. Too dark to see much else."

"They didn't just jump the wall?" Cooper asked, turning to Hendrix. "You said Omega was nine feet tall, this wall would be nothing to a creature that big."

"That's true," Hendrix replied. "Perhaps it was aware it would make an easy target if it took the most direct escape? There's not much cover on that side of the wall, it would be cut down by turret fire before it got very far."

It was a bold assumption, but if that was the case, this Omega was a lot more intelligent than Hendrix gave it credit for. "That's everything I needed," Cooper said, nodding to Jade. "thanks."

"Good luck, Cooper, you'll need it."

As Jade climbed back to her post, Cooper walked down the line of cages, noting the damage to the rest of them was far less superficial. Like Jade had said, the lids on these cages had been torn right off the hinges, rather than being shredded from the inside like Omega's container had. The slabs of wood were laying right where Omega had left them, Hendrix telling him he'd told his people to treat the area as a crime scene while they waited for Cooper to arrive. They'd been thrown away a fairly good distance, giving Cooper a good idea of Omega's strength.

"Did Omega damage any of the other pens?" Cooper asked, noting the scratch marks on the Kevlar in the last cage along, whatever was held in this one must be feistier than the others.

"No, just these ones," Hendrix answered. "it did leave a trail of destruction before it slipped away, however. I'll take you there, if there's nothing else you need?"

Cooper couldn't find any evidence to help hone in on his quarry, save for the strong stench in Omega's cage, but that wasn't much to go on right now. He nodded, and Hendrix ushered him towards the rear of the pen, Cooper looking down to see dozens of tracks printed into the snow. There were boot marks, hooves, talons, paws, all less than a day old. Whatever tracks Omega's pack left were too muddled for Cooper to pick out.

"Where were you going to send Omega?" Cooper asked as they walked. "You said before you were going to send it off before it escaped. Where exactly?"

"Does that matter to your investigation, Mister Cooper?"

"No, just curious as to who'd want to buy an apex predator."

"Plenty of groups are interested in the Wasteland's wildlife. The Followers of the Apocalypse like to keep topped up with venomous samples to develop antidotes, and there are many fighting pits out east that like to test their mettle against the Wastelands toughest predators, just for sport, but Omega specifically? It is the magnum opus of all creatures. There's this organization that's willing to part with a lot of caps for Omega's capture, but they weren't all that eager to say why. Too many questions spoil the broth, as they say."

"How'd you capture it and its pack?"

"The same way I secure all my assets. You see, when I discovered this lodge, there was a cache of Etorphine and Ketamine locked away in the basement - immobilizing agents used back in the day to sedate big game," Hendrix explained. "I took sampled to the chemists in New Reno to have them mass produced, but they weren't quite designed to bring down the kind of animals we have on Earth today, so we had to make new, specialized agents unique to each category of animal. It wasn't cheap, but the creation of the new compounds paid dividends once business was up and running. Who says we can't create something new out of the old?"

"Pretty self-sustainable," Cooper noted. "How many doses did it take to bring down Omega's pack?"

"Enough that we could have brought down a family of yao guai twice over. They were still somewhat conscious when we loaded them onto the caravans, and the men were uneasy the whole return trip, and I couldn't blame them. Omega was the most aware out of all of them, I swear it watched me the whole time as we brought them here."

"You go out on the hunts yourself?"

"Have to find ways to keep my eyes sharp. And there's nothing better than that feeling you get when you corner your target after a long time tracking it down. You know what I'm talking about, Mister Cooper."

There was a wood and metal stockade built into the far side of the junk fence, the unhealthy squeak of rusty hinges filling the air as the gate parted at their approach.

"This gate was found broken when the alarm was raised," Hendrix said, gesturing at the stockade. "As you can tell by the noise."

Beyond the gate was open space, more of the vast wilderness that Cooper had seen from afar stretching out before him. The terrain flattened out for a ways before transitioning into rolling hills that blocked out the horizon, the dark trees contrasting against the cold blue sky.

Beyond this point, the junk fence was replaced by something a little more familiar. Wooden posts were hammered into the snow every couple of feet, with angled boards connecting them, like something one would see at a farming settlement. The two fences splayed out to either side, stretching across several more acres before looping back around, disappearing too far into the haze for Cooper to judge the distance accurately.

"Here's where we keep our more docile creatures," Hendrix explained. "Brahmin, dogs, livestock and the like. Plenty of room to graze when it isn't snowing."

"A lot less security here," Cooper added. He could see a few mounted turrets down the sides of the fence, but they were few and far between compared to the pen and the lodge. "No surprise Omega escaped this way."

"Are you implying there's a connection?" Hendrix asked, raising a skeptical brow. "How could it know to come out here? It had never seen the lodge before, and we kept it locked in the cage the whole time."

"Maybe it took note of your defences on the way in, you said it was awake when you were bringing it back."

"You're starting to see how intelligent this thing really is, Mister Cooper. Having said that, our grazing fields aren't entirely unprotected. Come look at this."

He led Cooper down the length of the junk fence to the right, where a small metal box stood inside the wall's shadow. The metal was arranged into a mesh, with gaps big enough to fit one's fingers through. Inside it was a large machine with a plume of smoke rising from one of the exhaust pipes jutting out of its side, the motors and pipes protected by metal casing bolted into the chassis. Laying beside it was a man in oil-stanned coveralls, his arm buried up to the wrist in the machines guts.

"This is one of our power generators," Hendrix said. "See the copper wire trailing out of the top? That cable winds down into the ground, which travels the entire length of the fence, powering the pylons we've set up on the posts. Those things will shock anything that gets too close. It's enough to keep the occasional nightstalker away, at least until..."

"Until Omega fixed that," Cooper finished for him. "Destroyed your generator, did it?"

"More n'that!" the man in the overalls grumbled, fixing Cooper with a glare. "Damned animal didn't just cut the wires! It made off with the rotor, too! Irreplaceable, that thing was!"

"Our generators are powered by solar," Hendrix added. "We have panels on the roof of the lodge, but its connected by underground conduits as well, and Omega didn't go digging for them, it just took out the part and knocked the fence out of commission in one go."

"As if I needed more proof that this thing's smart," Cooper muttered. "So it took out the generator, then booked it out of here, no sweat."

"That's the most likely scenario."

"How long ago did you say this was?" Cooper turned his gaze towards the frozen landscape, watching what few trees still stood out there shake in the breeze.

"Ah, it would be four days back when Omega made its move."

"I don't know why you bothered to send that messanger for me when you did," Cooper said. "Your Omega's long gone by now."

"Not necessarily," Hendrix said. "You see, Omega may be viscous and resourceful, but it's still a cold-blooded creature, and like most of the animal kingdom, it cannot travel very far in the heart of winter. I have also been led to believe its den is right here in the valley somewhere, as we tracked it passing from north to south a couple of times before we captured it."

"Can't your nightstalker go sniff it out?" Cooper suggested.

"Bessy's tried, but one sniff of Omega's scent and her tail goes between her legs. She's gone a little soft now that I've spoiled her, isn't that right, girl?"

Bessy appeared by the man's foot, simply appearing in one moment and hissing contentedly as Hendrix scratched it behind its furry ear. The idea that this thing could just appear at any time made Cooper uneasy.

"If only she could talk," Hendrix continued as Bessy wandered off into the snow. "she'd point us in the right direction, save us the trouble."

Cooper hunkered down next to the generator box, seeing various human tracks muddling the ground around it. He thought there might be evidence of some creature, but too many of Hendrix's people had walked through here for him to be sure.

"I'll go poke around," Cooper said, standing up. "see if I find anything."

He left Hendrix with his grumbling engineer while he stalked into the night, scrutinizing the ground for anything out of the ordinary. More boot prints suggested the guards had combed the grounds already, but despite his personal beef with the nickname, they called Cooper the Tracker for a reason.

He soon came across the electrified fence, the boards standing a little higher than Cooper was tall. At the top of each post was a smooth, white ball, surrounded by a winding spool of copper wire. Yellow electrodes poked out of the sides of the sphere, suggesting that the stored electricity would lance out at anything that got too close.

Just to be on the safe side, Cooper tossed a rock at the pylon, moving closer when the stone wasn't electrified. He still kept his hands clear from the fence just in case as he ducked beneath the barrier, adjusting the strap of his pack as he headed deeper into the wilderness.

A crow flitted out of a tree as Cooper passed beneath its branches, keeping the fence to his left as he circled the lodge's property. Omega could have cleared the fence from any direction after it knocked out the generator, so there was a lot of ground he'd have to cover.

He could see his breath wisp out in front of him as he distanced from the lodge, the crunching of snow the only thing to break the silence. He came across a set of tracks after a couple minutes of searching, but frowned when he recognised the paw prints belonging to a canine. The mutt had circled the fence for a while before looping back into the wild, too afraid to get any closer to the pens, like Hendrix had said.

It took another ten minutes of searching, but the next clue he found was much more promising. He was towards the very rear of the fence in relation to the lodge when he came across an indent in the snow, maybe ten or so meters away from the formerly electrified perimeter. There were no human footprints nearby.

The wind tugging at his hood, Cooper crouched down, checking the area for movement before examining the snow. There were several divots here, as if someone had fired cannonballs at this specific spot. Cooper didn't have to be a genius to know something heavy had created these imprints. He drew an imaginary line from here to the fence, judging the arc to be very much possible for nine foot-tall creatures with a good run up.

He moved over towards the treeline, his canteen clapping against his hip as he scanned the snow, eventually coming to a stop by the base of a tree. Piles of snow had gathered on top of the lowest branches, Cooper's presence disturbing them as he placed a hand on the wood.

Three long scars marked the trunk, trailing from left to right, the splintered wood wide enough that Cooper could have fit his fingers inside the gap between. If the marks had gone a few inches deeper, this tree would be lying in the snow. No wonder the cages had been lined with inches of Kevlar, the claws on Omega must be truly massive.

Keeping the fence at his back, Cooper moved further away from the lodge, and soon found a set of tracks he'd never seen before. There were three, pointed toes capping a long, thin heel. The print was huge, bigger than a yao guai's, and there was an identical one about two meters ahead. This thing had very long strides.

There were also a few handprints, five digits a piece, the palm uncannily similar to a human hand. There were also little piercings in the snow above each digit, likely the result of the claws burying into the earth for leverage. The talons on these things had to be just as long as his arms, if the theory was correct.

Whatever had come through here had been running on all fours, judging by the displacement of the hand and foot prints, but it wasn't alone. Several other identical tracks surrounded this one in particular, slightly smaller in comparison, but the size gave him pause. He could gauge that the smallest packmate had to be no less than seven feet tall, and the biggest to be nine or ten, probably Omega itself. The tracks wound up the incline, and Cooper followed them, noting that there were seven sets of tracks in total, sticking close together.

As he reached the top of the small hill, a patch of colour drew his attention. A fern in the process of dying had been splattered with drops of red, Cooper pausing to lift one of the stained leaves. The cold air temperature had frozen the blood solid, falling snowflakes giving it an icy sheen. Perhaps this Marcus had managed to land a shot or two before Omega escaped.

The tracks continued down the incline on the other side of the hill. Coupled with them, and the blood, Cooper didn't think it would be too hard to track down the pack. A conflicted expression grazed his face as he stared into the distance. He'd already secured five hundred for finding the trail, should he push his luck and take the job? He had a rough idea of what he was up against, and he was already jumbling ideas on how to deal with these things in his head, but there were seven of them, including Omega. Taking them all down wouldn't be easy, to say the least.

And yet, from this opportunity came a prize that set his mind wondering. He could do anything with that kind of money, he'd no longer have to scrounge through ruins for trinkets, or craft his own ammunition, he wouldn't even have to do either of those things if he so wished, as long as he lived to collect the reward. One never gets far without taking risks, so his father had said.

He turned back to the lodge, the sounds of clattering turrets and muddled conversations reaching his ears as he neared the junk fence. Hendrix was still waiting by the broken generator, the older man leaning off the wall at Cooper's approach.

"Any luck, Mister Cooper?"

"Blood trail, up on that hill over there. Tracks move north into the valley. Perspiration's low, so they should keep for another few days."

"I knew hiring you would be worthwhile. The five hundred is yours. Let's go back inside, the cold's doing hell on my bones."

"Gonna need someplace to tinker in peace," Cooper added. "and if you got any spare ammo to sell, I'll put the five hundred towards a restock."

"Oh?" Hendrix asked, turning around. "Does this mean you'll take the job?"

"It does. I'll also need someplace to put my head down, been walking all day."

The older man's expression was reserved, but Cooper could tell he was pleased at the news. "Of course, of course, anything you need you are welcome to take. Come, we have a workshop in the east wing that should suit your needs."

***

Cooper followed Hendrix back into the lodge, the warm air quickly staving off the cold. They moved into one of the many doorways leading off from the lobby, Hendrix plucking a hanging string just inside, a lightbulb illuminating a garage. It was filled to the brim with crafting benches littered with weapon parts and supplies, the walls lined with shelves stacked with components and tools. It was a pretty tight fit, but Cooper could make it work.

"I have collected hundreds of weapons over the years," Hendrix said proudly, gesturing to one side of the garage, where the barrels of guns were sticking out of several bins stacked against the concrete wall. "Automatics, rifles, pistols, a few launchers as well. You are free to take whatever you wish."

"I thought you said you wanted these things alive?" Cooper asked, placing his pack on the nearest workbench.

"Although I would like to have all my assets returned to me, it is Omega that really matters. The rest you may deal with as you see fit, as I have no doubt they'll get in your way as you hunt down my prize. Wound it if you must, but keep in mind I will reduce the bounty appropriately."

"I prefer my own gear, but thanks for the offer."

Cooper peeled off the sling over his shoulder, setting his rifle down next to his pack. Every part from the muzzle to the stock had been jury-rigged from a different weapon, no two parts quite alike, the rifle custom-made to tailor to Cooper's needs specifically. It was very compact, almost stitched together at a glance, but he had only experienced a handful of jams in his long years in the Wastes, and he wouldn't trade it for anything.

He also placed down his sidearm from his waist holster, a bulky ten millimeter. This was one more streamlined, the black paint chipping away in places. He'd been using this model since he was a kid.

"Might need something to replace this, though," Cooper admitted, brandishing his final weapon. It was a machete, the blade dulling towards the point, the metal failing to catch the light of the overhead fluorescents. "Doubt it'll penetrate the skin of Omega's hide, from what I've seen."

"Yes, you'd barely do anything superficial with that," Hendrix noted. "Wait here, I'll fetch you something more appropriate."

Cooper was left alone for a few minutes, and he rummaged through the ammo boxes stacked on one of the shelves, soon finding one marked as 7.62. He was loading the bullets into the magazines for his rifle when Hendrix returned, two weapons clutched in his blemished hands.

The first one was a sword, with a silver hilt and black cross guard. The blade was thicker at the base, tapering into a wicked point at the tip.

Hendrix flourished the blade, his movements surprisingly practiced for one of his age, holding the blade out horizontal as he thumbed a little button built into the handle. Arcs of blue energy danced up the blade, the sharp metal glinting as Hendrix sliced the sword through the air.

"Stun-baton meets sword," Hendrix explained. "There's enough juice in this thing to drop a man, it should help you stun Omega or any of its packmates that might get in close, though I wouldn't recommend that happening."

He cut off the electrically-powered blade, offering it to Cooper, who gave it a practice swing, listening to the blade whistle through the air. "What about that one?" Cooper asked, gesturing at the other thing Hendrix was carrying.

He held it up, and at a glance, it looked like a bunch of pipes and brackets welded into the shape of a gun. A long, bronze barrel made up the majority of the weapon, with two branching pieces of lead pipe capped with bolts welded onto one end, creating the most uncomfortable stock he'd ever seen. Between these two pieces was a small gas tank, connected by a rubber pipe to the trigger well. A tray jutted out of one side of the barrel, flanked by a little pressure meter that also looked like it had been welded on.

"This is a syringer," Hendrix explained. "it uses air pressure to fire these tranquilizer darts." He held up one of said darts. It looked like a needle, with a point on one end, and a cluster of red feathers taped onto the other. "Inside each one of these darts is enough sedative to knock out a yao guai for a day. From my experience it takes five darts to knock out Omega, and four for its packmates. It's quick, quiet, perfect for hunting and capturing."

Cooper took it, the thing as big as a submachine gun, but as light as a pistol. He noted that the loading tray could hold six darts before needing to reload. "No safety latch?" Cooper asked, careful to aim the barrel away from himself.

"Don't worry, my chemists have developed the agent to work on irradiated blood only," Hendrix said. "Still, maybe take a bit of Radaway before you set off, just in case."

"I'll do that." He set his new weapons down, his hands on his hips as he examined his new arsenal. "I'm gonna need a few bags of fertilizer if you've got any spare," Cooper added.

"We've got plenty to go around now that it's winter. May I ask why?"

"Ammonium nitrate goes up when exposed to a bit of heat," Cooper replied. "Might be able to cook up some frag rounds or some mines."

"You seem well-versed in chemistry, Mister Cooper."

"Mom was a bit of a bookworm, passed it on to me."

"I'll have someone fetch a bag or two. Do you need assistance while you work, my men can help speed up the process."

"Explosives aren't the kind of thing you want to rush, I'll be fine."

"Can I ask how you plan on approaching this task?" Hendrix asked. "You have a rough direction on where to go, what do you plan on doing if you find them?"

"If they're hibernating in a den somewhere like you said, I'll be able to get the drop on them," Cooper said. "If they're out in the open, I'll pick them off at a distance, and mine up the place in case they get too close."

"I see, mines may work on the pack, but I hope you haven't started underestimating Omega's intelligence already," Hendrix said, shaking a finger at him. "It learned to avoid the fence, I doubt it will fail to notice your traps. It may wait in its den and make you come to it."

"If that's what it takes, then so be it. I'll assess my options once I find it, this isn't my first den-walk."

"You won't last long in close quarters with Omega," Hendrix muttered. "Your metal vest couldn't take a single swipe of its claws. You saw the cages."

"That's what the sword's for, said so yourself."

"You'll need a bit more than that if you want to stand a chance, expert or no. I have a suit of power armour I can lend you for your hunt, it should be adequate enough for your task."

"You're just giving me power armour?" Cooper asked, exasperated.

"Lend, not give. You know how much I need Omega back, Mister Cooper, and if I don't invest in you, you're sure to fail, and Omega will be even harder to track down."

And the reward will go to someone else, Cooper thought, but instead he said: "I guess you've got suits to spare, that T45 in the front looks sturdy enough."

"What? Oh, that old thing? No, no that hasn't been powered in years, I'll get you a more used model. That being said, don't count on it lasting more than a handful of attacks, Omega has claws longer than your arm."

"I'm aware. Unless you got any more info for me, I should get to work."

"Of course," Hendrix said with a curt nod. "When you're done, come find me in the dining hall upstairs, the nightshift will be switching soon and there'll be plenty of food to go around. I'll have the armour ready in the morning for you."

"Appreciate it."

Hendrix nodded, moving through the door. Three thousand caps, Cooper thought as he leaned on the bench. Three thousand for one more den, and he'd walk away a rich man.

***

When Cooper had sufficiently stocked up on mines and fragmentation rounds, using the fertilizer Hendrix had provided, he cleaned down his weapons with some oil, and then made his way back into the lobby, asking someone for directions to the dining area. Hendrix hadn't been lying when he said there was food to spare. About ten guards were sitting around a giant table, digging into trays of pre-war delicacies, Hendrix beckoning for Cooper to take his fill. There was Salsbury steaks dressed with creamy sauces, sweet roll pastries for those who liked sugar, along with refreshing carbonated drinks. It wasn't anything like the bland, scavenged foods Cooper was used to eating, and when he voiced his praise, Hendrix explained that he had cooks on hand that paired Old World cuisine with locally grown fruits and vegetables. It was no wonder all these guards were content sitting guarding animals pens all day.

The cherry on top was the roasted mirelurk sitting on a spit above another fireplace, the juicy meat sizzled to the point where every bite was laced with a flavorful amount of salt, the sound of cracking shells filling the room as the attendees plunged into their hearty meals.

The men and women spoke at length of their latest caravan runs, Cooper quizzing them about the threats they faced out here, protecting live goods. Raiders were few in far between, especially after the would-be thieves realised their cargo was just as dangerous as the men guarding them. They in turn asked Cooper about his exploits, and the state of the west coast, as their caravan runs took them more and more to the east. They were particularly interested in hearing about NCR's plans to annex the whole coast, starting with New Reno, but the guards were hesitant to accept that anyone could wrangle a hold on the vice capital itself.

Once the feast was winding down, Hendrix had one of the guards show him to his room. It wasn't more than a box with a bit of furniture and a bed, but the mattress was soft, and it was private, Cooper drifting into a light sleep as he pulled the covers over himself.

***

Cooper pulled at the straps of his pack, weighed down by his new weapons and his crafted tools, his faced warmed by the morning sun as he trudged into the main pen. He felt refreshed after the uneventful sleep, his belly still full from last night's feast, ready for the long days of hunting that awaited him.

Hendrix was waiting for him by one of the side gates, and as he approached, the barricade opened, revealing a caravan trundling through the gap. Two pairs of brahmin hauled along a flatbed mounted on a set of giant wagon wheels, a wireframe cage resting on top of the makeshift wagon. Inside it was a sleeping yao guai, tranquilizer darts jutting from its furry hide. It was snoring lazily, its exhales so deep and gruff Cooper felt the instinctual urge to steer clear of the caravan. He didn't envy the guy who had to sit up on the driver's seat and direct the brahmin.

"Mister Cooper, your armour," Hendrix said, grabbing his attention with a wave. His employer gestured to a hulking suit of armour behind him, Cooper nodding his approval as he appraised the powered armour. It was a set of T51, a more advanced variant compared to the one displayed in the lobby, the armour designed to be thicker and more durable, without sacrificing mobility. The barrel chest piece and the angled pauldrons were painted in lime green, one of the shoulder pads emblazoned with a faded star of Old America, while the rest of the suit was as white as the snow at his feet.

It was a clear foot taller than Cooper, the limbs exaggerated proportionally to accommodate the heavy plating. There were a few dents and scratches, and the left leg looked like it was being held together by tape, but it was still an imposing sight, and would serve better than his current armour.

"Replaced the fusion core with a fresh one this morning," Hendrix said. "It'll keep you going for months, not that I hope your hunt will take that long."

He watched as Cooper placed his possessions on the ground, stepping around the suit until he was behind it. In the middle of its metal backside was a giant valve, Cooper reaching up to twist it with his gloved hands. There was a clunk, and he brought his arms clear as sections of the torso started to part, the suit moving of its own accord to splay out its metal limbs. Like a blooming flower, the armour parted with a series of mechanical whirs, exposing the humanoid wireframe the suit used as a base.

With the suit opened up, he placing his hands on the shoulders, Cooper stepping into the suit, securing his hands and feet into the awaiting limbs, the frame spacious enough to accommodate his outfit. Once he was braced inside, the suit moved again, defaulting back into its previous state as it sealed around him, the plates compressing against his back. Cooper felt like he'd just experienced a growth spurt, the ground appearing far below him through his fibreglass visor, the air leaving a coppery taste in his mouth as the helmet filters recycled the air. He gave his now metal fingers a flex, his gauntlets mimicking his movements with little electric whirs. Gone was all that apprehension from the night before, he felt like he could drag Omega back with his bare hands.

"Shouldn't have any trouble hauling all that gear around," Hendrix said, the man looking tiny through Cooper's angled visor. He picked up his weapons, clipping them onto the hooks on his waist and thighs, his pack weighing practically nothing in his powered arms. "You picked up your rations, yes?"

"As much as I could fit in my pack," Cooper confirmed, patting his bag with his hand.

"We could provide you with a pack brahmin if you need the extra space," Hendrix suggested.

"No, it would just make me a target, and slow me down. I always travel light anyway."

"Then I've given you all that I can," Hendrix said with an air of finality. "Remember, the pack is secondary here, though I'm willing to pay you three hundred for every one that you spare. Omega is all that matters, and just a reminder, any damage you do to it will result in a penalty or forfeit to the bounty."

"Capture and return, I got it," Coopper said, his voice taking on a tinny quality as he spoke. "You want me to lug them back to the lodge myself?"

"While that might be possible with the suit, there's no need." The old man brandished a bright red sidearm, handing it to Cooper. "This is a flare gun," he explained. "once you've neutralized Omega, fire it up into the sky once a night, and we'll send a caravan to pick you up. Skies are clear enough that we'll see you for miles."

He handed a box of flare charges over, Cooper storing it in his already bulky pack. "If there's nothing else, I wish you good hunting, Mister Cooper. Omega is more cunning than anything I've ever seen, not that I need to tell you at this point. When you see it, don't hesitate."

"I never do."

***

The morning sun cast the sky in an orange sheen, the occasional strip of light fighting its way through the overcast to warm the plates of steel overlapping Cooper's body. The wind was soft and constant, the only thing to be heard aside from the shifting servos of his suit as he crested the rough terrain. The occasional hardy tree and shrub broke up the sterile, powdery landscape, the peaks on the horizon muddled behind a haze of falling snow.

The power armour made the going easier despite its added bulk, every stride of his legs assisted by the built-in electronics, his metal legs easing him through the bumpy landscape. It had been a few hours since he'd departed from the lodge, but he was already starting to feel nostalgic for the company of the small community. He had to keep telling himself he would never want for companionship again once he claimed the reward for Omega's capture, he just had to stay focused on his task.

He had picked up where he'd left off the night before, following the sets of tracks leading to the northwest, finding that the pack had swerved to the east after distancing from the lodge. After a good bit of walking he stopped, planting an armoured knee in the powder to examine the tracks, breathing recycled air onto his visor He wished there was a setting to turn off the helmet rebreathers, the metallic quality of the filtered air was leaving a literal bad taste in his mouth.

No longer was the pack dashing along on all fours, the sets of prints coming along in pairs, rather than quadruples. It seemed like these things could walk along on two legs as well as four, maybe they only used their forearms for when they had to move quickly?

The tracks wandered down to a flowing river between two hills, the peaks stabbing up into the sky on either side of him like giant knives. The prints suggested they'd stopped to drink, and Cooper decided to indulge himself, swiping his Geiger counter over the flowing water, the little machine staying quiet. He twisted off his helmet and refilled his canteen, the water cooling his throat as he drank. Usually he'd have to dilute irradiated water with Rad-X pills, but the Bombs must have gone a little easier on the wilderness out here.

Where the pack had gone next was confusing, Cooper noting that one of the tracks had split off from the rest, heading in the direction of the river, the water washing the prints away as they approached the bank. It wasn't very deep, so Cooper waded into the waist-high water, keeping his pack and weapons above the waterline as he crossed. The tracks picked up again on the far side, winding into the trees.

He was conflicted. Should he track down this lone packmate, or follow the more numerous group? Judging by the prints, this lone animal wasn't the biggest, and likely wasn't Omega. The bonus Hendrix mentioned was tempting, but in the end Cooper decided to let it go, one loose animal wouldn't bankrupt him.

He traversed the river once again, and followed the plentiful tracks upstream, wondering why one of the beasts had decided to separate. Even animals knew there was strength in numbers, maybe Omega had turned it away?

He wouldn't figure out much speculating, so he pressed on, his suit clanking loudly as he fell into a light jog. The exercise would help keep him warm, as the cold was already starting to make his fingers go numb.

It was around midday when Cooper stopped for lunch, leaning against a tree next to the river to munch on a piece of mutfruit Hendrix's people had supplied him. Soil-grown foods spoiled fairly quickly, especially in the more irradiated air on the coast, but the cold would keep his rations preserved for a little while before they spoiled, though he was starting to miss having a warm meal in his belly.

As he dug into his snack, he noticed there was something up ahead, standing on four legs by the riverbed. It had a mange-ridden coat providing little protection for its pinkish skin, a long tongue extending from its muzzle to lap at the water. It was a mongrel, and a fairly large one at that, a bit less than a meter tall and just as long from its head to its tailless hind. Cooper stopped chewing on his mutfruit when the canine extended its head high, aiming its muzzle in both directions before settling its dark eyes on him.

It bared its teeth in a snarl, froth drooping from its wet teeth as it began to gallop towards him, Cooper's heart starting to race. Then he remembered with a start he was wearing a suit of armour designed to stop bullets, and he calmed himself, the mutt closing the distance rapidly as he reached for his array of weapons. Should he try out the syringer? No, he'd be better off conserving the darts, maybe the sword? He'd rather not get his armour dinged up before he faced off against Omega, mongrels had sharper teeth than people thought. Rifle it was, then.

Pulling it by the sling, he shouldered his rifle, the mongrel close enough now that Cooper could hear it panting. He fired from the hip, the bullet connecting to the dogs shoulder and blowing its forelimb clean off, the micro-explosion ringing out across the valley like a bomb. Cooper had forgotten he'd loaded his rifle up with explosive rounds before he'd set off.

With a whimper, the mongrel face-planted into the snow, skimming along in the powder for a few feet before settling, a pool of red spreading around its corpse. He pulled the loading bolt back then down, cursing himself for wasting his precious frag rounds on a mutt. At least he knew they were working as intended, not that he needed the assurance, he'd been doing this kind of work his whole life.

He considered skinning the mongrel, but the time it would take wouldn't be worth the tradeoff for food, and dogmeat was notoriously smelly. Mutt chops made him gassy anyway, so he left it be, scooting round the animal and journeying onward.

***

Night had fallen, Cooper losing sight of the distant rocky mountains as the dreary light of dusk lost its strength behind the overcast. His helmet was equipped with a mounted headlamp, and he reached up to turn it on, a pool of yellow light cutting back the darkness wherever he turned his gaze, illuminating the patches of snow interwoven by the occasional rocky outcrop.

The land began to grow uneven, Cooper slipping on the slick surface of a stone more than once on his journey, the power armour saving him from twisting his ankle. It soon became too dark to rely on the headlamp alone, so Cooper decided to make camp for the night.

He set about collecting some kindling, which was in abundance thanks to the trees toughing it out here. There was no need for an axe, Cooper chopping the branches off with his metallic gauntlets, a little like the Shi martialists in San Franciso. He picked a spot at the base of a hill to protect him from the wind, then made a circle of stones in the snow after digging a small hole in the powder. Using his trusty lighter, he blew on the smoking embers until a fire was going, Cooper turning his eyes toward his pack as he warmed his hands.

He had a portable tent stuffed into a bedroll, but the thing was just barely big enough for Cooper to fit inside, and trying to cram inside it with his armour on would be pointless. He considered leaving the suit unoccupied for the night, but if some opportunistic animal decided to make a meal out of him, getting back into the armour might not be possible.

Instead he used his bedroll as a pillow, propping himself up against the nearest tree, holding out his metal hands to the fire. Better to just sleep in the armour and get his body used to the suit. It wasn't comfortable, Cooper shifting from side to side as he struggled to get some rest, the cold ground below his legs seeping through the armour if he stayed still for long, but he'd camped out in the open long enough that he could push most of the problems aside.

Just a couple more rough nights, and then he could buy a portable house with all the wealth he'd get from Omega's bounty. No more pitching it in the cold, or renting board at dingy inns with rotting pillows, he'd live like a king of the Wastes, he just had to suck it up for a little bit longer.

With that, he fell into a doze, dreaming of piles of caps surrounded by billowing snow.

***

The tracks continued to follow the stream, the water winding gently from side to side, Cooper's suit clunking as he walked along the bank. He stopped to refill his canteen again, freeing his long hair as he removed his helmet to drink.

As he popped the cap on the little bottle, he felt the muscles in his shoulders tense up. Cooper knew when he was being watched, he'd been stalking man and beast his whole life, and it was easy to tell which side of the hunt he was on, and right now, it seemed he was balancing both sides.

Something was coming up from behind him, the little tremors in the earth suggesting it was heavy. He looked back down the stream the way he'd come, placing his helmet back on as he scanned between the trees, his eyes soon resting on movement.

There was a figure plodding along the stream, bundled up in what looked like the world's largest cloak, the fabric bundled up over a set of hunched shoulders, tapering up into a baggy hood. The sleeves were as thick around as his bedroll, the figure placing its arms against its chest like it was praying. The giant cloak left a huge smudge in the snow behind the figure, the fabric dragging along behind it like the hem of a wedding gown.

Cooper narrowed his eyes as the figure drew closer, aiming with his rifle as it came within a stone's throw of him. They had surely seen him, were they planning on marching right up to him without so much as a greeting?

"That's close enough," he called out, lining up his scope with its chest.

The figure stopped, cocking its hooded head at him, as though surprised to see him there. "You been following me or something?" Cooper asked, gesturing at them with his gun.

"Yep," came a gruff reply. The voice had a husky, feminine contralto to it, deep enough that Cooper could feel each syllable in his bones. It gestured to the ground with a billowy sleeve, Cooper looking over to see his own, blocky footprints in the snow.

"Why?" he asked, faltering a little at the offhand reply.

"Wanted to find out who was shooting up the place," she replied. "You out here hunting for game?"

"You could say that," Cooper said, shrugging. "What about you? You always come running every time you hear shooting?"

"When I need to find a bit of excitement, sure. That was an explosive round, wasn't it? Heard the sound barrier break. Quite unusual to find a hunter with that kind of firepower."

"Quite unusual to find someone else out in the middle of nowhere," Cooper shot back. "What's your business out here?"

She eyed his rifle, which he was still training on her chest.

"I'm just a traveler, I'm on my way to the Abbey."

"Taking a bit of a detour, aren't you?" he asked, narrowing his eyes at her. "Roads through Vault City still work, last I saw."

"The ones clogged with raiders? Yeah I think I'll take my chances out here. A lady traveling by herself draws the wrong kind of attention, if you catch my drift."

"You look like you could lift a car, doubt you'd have trouble with raiders," he noted, gesturing at her bulky frame. She was nine or ten feet tall easy, though it was hard to judge her exact size with the cloak.

"You'd be surprised how often Mutants get jumped out on the road. Peple think we're not so tough after the Master died."

"You're a Super Mutant?"

Cooper didn't know the specifics, but Super Mutants were humans who'd been exposed to some sort of special irradiated virus that turned them into big, green killing machines, at the cost of their mental aptitude. There had once been thousands of them infesting the west coast, but after their leader was assassinated, the legions had dispersed into the Wastes, and were rarely seen in the more populated areas.

"That'd explain why you're so... big," he muttered.

"Some silver tongue you have, stranger," she replied with a chuckle. "But yep, that's me, got skin so thick I'd give your explosives bullets a run for their money. That's not a challenge by the way, please don't ruin my favourite robe."

She didn't seem like a threat, and she wouldn't have approached him so brazenly if she'd wanted to attack him, so he lowered his rifle, the Mutant relaxing as she shifted on the spot.

"Sorry about the gun," he said. "You know which way the Abbey is, yeah?"

"Same direction as you, conveniently," she replied. "You wouldn't mind if I tagged along, would you? The way is cold, and I could use some company."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea," Cooper said. "I'm hunting a pack of dangerous animals, you might spook them off."

"And that tin can suit of yours won't?" She planted a long arm on a hip, gesturing at him with the other. "You're lumbering around like a rhino in that thing, could hear you from a mile off."

"Rhino?" he asked, giving her a confused look.

"A creature from before the Bombs," she explained. "Big, heavy, thick horn on the front." She mimed at her forehead.

"Weird," he replied. "but I guess you have a point. Can't guarantee we'll be walking all the way to the Abbey, but you can come along, just don't make too much noise."

"I'll be as silent as a rat," the strange woman replied, bringing her voice down to a mock-whisper. Truth be told she was unusually quiet for such a large creature, only the subtle thumps of her steps giving her away in the first place.

"This way, then," he said, slinging his rifle over his shoulder. He continued up the stream, his new companion hurrying to catch up to his side. She was even larger up close, Cooper having to crane his neck back to look her in the eyes, not that he could even see her eyes, her thick hood got in the way.

"I'm Cooper by the way," he started.

"Pearl," she answered, turning her head down at him. "What's with that look? It's better than what the Master gave me. Grunt doesn't roll off the tongue as well as Pearl does."

"Guessing you're from the coast, then?" he asked, making small talk. "Haven't seen many _pearls_in my day."

"You could say that," she replied, Cooper getting the feeling that she didn't want to elaborate further. "So what're you hunting, exactly?" she said, gesturing at the tracks in the snow. "Must be some pretty dangerous game if you need to use a suit like that."

"Escaped livestock," he explained, seeing no harm in indulging her. "There's a hunting lodge a ways south of here, and some premium goods got loose. The proprietor hired me to hunt them down."

"Kill or capture?"

"Either or, except for the biggest one. Mister Hendrix wants his 'Omega' alive, said it was his magnum opus of goods."

"Sounds exotic," Pearl commented. "You a hunter by trade, I'm guessing?"

"Taken hundreds of bounties in my lifetime," he said. "Humans, animals, but nothing like this, this Omega is part of a pack of clawed reptiles that can shred through steel and shrug off bullets."

"And how are you, alone, going to take on a pack of them? Not with just that peashooter, I hope?"

"No, with this."

He pulled off the syringer from his belt, holding it out for Pearl to see. "This thing fires darts full of tranquilizer, I've been told just three does is enough to bring down one of the beasts."

Pearl didn't seem that impressed, in fact, she snorted, beginning her next sentence with a girlish giggle. "That old thing? It looks like a toy gun!"

"Only way to bring Omega down without killing it," Cooper continued, ignoring her comment. "Less painful than a bullet too, at least I think so."

"How considerate of you," she muttered.

"I'm considerate of the reward," he answered. "Mister Hendrix will cut my pay down to scraps if I bring back damaged goods, but I may have to resort to that if this thing outwits me like it did to Hendrix's people. It figured out how to bust through a cage that was padded with materials resistant to cutting, then knew that the fence was electric, and stole a valuable part off a generator to make sure it couldn't be easily repaired."

"Doesn't sound like mere livestock to me," she said. "It must be an intelligent creature, aware of its surroundings."

"Beasts aren't aware," Cooper insisted. "they can be as big and clever as they want, but Omega is still a wild animal, it'll make a meal out of anything it sees if it's hungry."

"How many has it killed?" she asked.

"None, as far as I know, it avoided every guard on duty when it escaped."

"Why would a wild animal not rip into the first man it saw once free?"

"Who knows?" he asked with a shrug, his suit whirring. "It's smart, but we'll see how much that helps it with a bloodstream full of sedatives."

***

The midday sun shone down on the pair as they crested a hump of snow, barely a measure of warmth filtering through the rolling clouds. His towering companion walked alongside him, hopping deftly over the occasional outcrop without breaking her stride. She was pretty limber for such a stout Mutant.

"How'd you get into the whole hunting business?" Pearl asked, turning to watch him hop over a tree root.

"By accident, really. My home, Shady Sands, was being harassed by a mantis sneaking into the coops at night to eat the brahmin. I happened upon the insect one night when I was out with some friends, shot it clean through the head. Next thing I know, the bounty on it was mine. It was a pretty profitable career at the time, so I learned how to find tracks, locate nests, things like that from Old World manuals."

"You're from NCR, then?" she asked, cocking her head as she examined him. "That's a long way to walk for a pack of escaped livestock."

"I said the same thing when Hendrix's rep approached me. I was in the bar when this guy in a suit turned up, asking for me specifically. Told me about how his boss had a problem I could solve, and said the reward would be more caps than I could ever hope to spend."

"And you believed him?"

"I was skeptical, sure, but then he straight up paid for the drinks of every single patron, including mine. I was a little more inclined after that, and now Hendrix has offered me three thousand caps for Omega's return. Couldn't pass it up."

"You said hunting was a profitable career," Pearl said, her cloak dragging through the powder as they moved down the slope. "What changed?"

"NCR did. As the population grew, the security around the borders did too, and before long every ant, gecko and mantis in a twenty-five-mile radius had been culled, and the work was drying up. Had to start taking jobs for hunting people, since we humans started to outnumber the animals."

"Did you pick and choose who you killed? Or was no price too small for you?"

"Well, I... I'm not a raider in disguise, if that's what you're getting at," he replied, a touch of uncertainty in his tone. "Plenty of people wanted a few deadbeats roughened up, debts collected. Paid well, but that kind of work wasn't for me."

"Nice to hear you have some standards," she commented. "Is it easier or harder to hunt humans compared to animals?"

"The skills translated better than I'd thought, the biggest problem is that your targets like to shoot back."

"You don't seem all that bothered about killing people."

"The whole world died once already, killing raiders and deadbeats is pretty trivial in comparison."

"I suppose that's one way of looking at things."

They continued on for a few minutes in silence, the wind whispering through the grooves in his helmet, Cooper eventually breaking it. "How about you, Pearl? Tell me something about your time in the Master's army."

"A lot of it is... fuzzy," she replied, the sound of scratching reaching his ears as she lifted a hand to her face. "I remember there being a strong sense of love, and devotion, but after the Master died, everything got replaced by a kind of... emptiness. I wandered the Wastes as a confused mess for a while, until I came across a place called Gecko. They welcomed me with open arms, even after they discovered what I was. Guess the Mutants didn't expand that far north."

"And, do you remember anything about being a human?" he asked. "Mutants are former humans, right?"

"Remembering that far back would be like trying to hold melting snow in my hand," Pearl said. "But, whoever I was doesn't matter now, I'm me, and right now, _me_can use a break."

"We have been walking for a while now," he relented, his stomach rumbling beneath the power armour. "Let's find some place out of the wind."

They soon came upon a jagged outcropping of limestone, shaped like a giant tooth that poked up out of the snowy blanket, Cooper and Pearl putting the stone between them and the direction the wind was coming from. They sat down to rest, Cooper watching as Pearl's excess cloak piled up by her feet, the Super Mutant shifting from side to side to get comfortable.

He rummaged through his pack for one of his ration parcels, untying the hairy string and producing a leg of roasted mirelurk, leftovers from the night in the lodge. He reached up and removed his helmet, setting it down in the snow, Cooper feeling Pearl's eyes playing over his features. He had long, fair-coloured hair that was in dire need of a cut, as well as a bit of matching stubble on his chin, interrupted by a thin, faded scar trailing over his left cheek. Maybe it was the fact she was hidden beneath that cloak, but her lingering stare made him a little self-conscious.

Soon her eyes played over his meal as he brought the seafood to his lips. It wasn't as good as it had been during the feast, and was colder than ice, but it sated the grumbling of his stomach and left a lingering taste of salt in his mouth.

"I thought hunters were supposed to share the spoils of a kill?" Pearl asked, Cooper raising his brow as he watched her eyes sparkle, doing a double-take when he realised he could see her eyes. They were large and bright, the same colour as the setting sun, the two points slightly lidded by the top of her hood.

"With _other_hunters, maybe," he replied as he chewed. "Didn't you bring anything for your trip?"

"I ran out," she explained, though calling that an explanation was being generous.

"So will I if I start sharing," he said, Pearl continuing to watch him eat in silence. Cooper sighed, handing her the rest of the leg, his companion swiping it from his extended hand. She lifted her long sleeves to her head, her large eyes disappearing behind the wooly fabric, Cooper hearing the muffled sound of chewing.

"Don't start thinking I'm giving out Super Mutant-sized rations," he chided as Pearl laid her arms out on her knees, apparently done eating the leg, bones and all.

"If I start to feel like eating you, Cooper, I'll let you know," she chuckled, Cooper looking up at her in alarm. "Relax," she added. "Mutants don't eat people. Actually that's not true, but I'm an exception. Humans are too stringy anyway."

"How would you know that? You just said you're an exception."

"It's easy to tell what kind of flesh something has. Take you, for example," she said, her eyes returning to view as she looked him up and down. "Humans are mostly sinew, but you're a little different, bit more muscle on you I'm guessing, given your... demanding lifestyle. Can't tell much more with that tin suit of yours."

"Unless you feel like giving me food, Pearl, the armour stays on."

She laughed at that. It had been so long since he'd had a travelling companion that could take a joke, it was refreshing.

"So you're heading up the Abbey, right?" he asked, crossing his arms over his metal chest. "Biggest library in the Wastes, so I've heard. You like books?"

"Oh yes!" she replied with an enthusiastic nod. "They wrote so many interesting things in the Old World, stories of mythical creatures, ancient figure biographies, pre-Bombhistories... I like to check the Abby every now and then to see if they've stocked anything new."

"Prefer reading manuals and guides myself," Cooper said. "things more practical than that... made up, theoretical stuff."

"Just because something's not practical, doesn't mean it's useless," she defended. "Theoretical stuff inspires ideas, and without ideas, there'd be nothing to apply your skills to. Don't tell me you've never stayed up late reading a nice romanticnovel?"

"I've lost sleep to actually useful books, like this," he said, Pearl watching as he rummaged through his pack. He pulled out a thin pamphlet, the bright orange cover drawing his companion's attention. The silhouette of a hiker was printed onto the front, a walking stick clutched in one of its hands.

"A Scout handbook?" Pearl muttered. "I've seen a couple stocked on the Abbey's shelves, never read it before..."

Shrugging, he handed it over, Pearl taking the handbook gingerly from his hands, like she was afraid of damaging it. She opened it up to a random page, bringing it up to her hood to read. "I like the font," she cooed. "The margins are little out of line, but... what's this?" she asked, turning the cover over so he could see what she was looking at. "Did you cross this part out?"

"Yeah. That bit's completely incorrect for surviving the Wastes."

"But you vandalized it!" she pouted. "That's history you're erasing."

"Hey I corrected it, see the little box in the corner there?" He pointed at his personal note scribbled into the margin, Pearl grumbling as she read off the words.

"I _guess_that's okay, but you could have made a copy and kept this one pristine. The people at the Abbey would fine you if you defiled their books like this."

"Guess I don't feel as strongly about them as you do," he admitted.

"Books are precious, they are mediums that those in the past create to teach lessons for the future. It's a shame that hardly nobody outside of the Abbey was even tried to inherit the art of creating more for the Wasteland."

"Maybe I should make one," he chuckled. "Maybe call it, Cooper's Guide to Getting Rich."

"You're joking around, but that's not a bad idea. You have a modern skillset on hunting, and you might gain some valuable insight if you somehow manage to take down this pack of yours."

"You don't think I can do it?" he asked.

"Not with that dented armour and needle gun of yours," she said. "Not to paint you a grim picture or anything, but something as tough and clever as what you've described would need several armoured-up hunters."

"We'll see about that. I've taken on whole packs of critters by myself, I work better alone."

With their meal done, Cooper got to his feet, his armour creaking as he collected his pack. As he led the way, he turned to see Pearl was reading his handbook as she followed after, shielding the pages with her cloak to protect it from the snow.

"Wow, these notes go into great detail," she commented. "Did you learn all your skills from this?"

"Mostly. A few old timers from Shady Sands threw me some tips, but yeah, pretty useful thing. That handbook's saved me a lot of trouble in the past."

"Do you mind if I keep it? For a while, I mean?" she added. "I've always wondered how humans hunt for game, Mutants generally just wander around and shoot anything that moves, there's no finesse."

"Sure," he said, getting the feeling she was beaming at him from beneath that hood. "Just don't break it, and don't pull the pages by the corners, it'll rip."

"I'll be careful, pinky promise."

***

It wasn't very long before Pearl's investment in the handbook became an obsession, and she started begging Cooper to teach her the finer details of hunting and tracking, and he eventually relented after a while. It was almost endearing in a way, seeing this giant Mutant solider enraptured by his words, eagerly quizzing him as the hours ticked by.

"But how do you know the pack came this way?" Pearl asked, gesturing at the ground around them. "We haven't seen any tracks for at least an hour now."

"It's only natural to assume they'd keep following the river," Cooper replied, waving a hand at the water on their left. "It's a source of food and water, obviously, and animals tend to stay close to them during the colder months. Ah, see that?"

As if to prove his point, there were prints in the snow ahead, trailing out of the water, exactly six sets of them. Cooper took a knee in the powder, hovering his hand above a print he knew to belong to Omega. "Looks like they trudged through the river at some point, maybe to bathe, or..."

"Or throw off pursuers?" Pearl suggested, hunkering beside him. Even on her knees she towered over him.

"That's a bit of a stretch, wouldn't you say? Most animals aware enough to know they're being hunted would either flee, or turn and fight."

"But this Omega isn't like most animals, true?"

"Yeah, you're right about that." He peered closer to the tracks, chewing his lip in thought. "Looks like they stayed here for a while, we're only two or three days behind them."

"How'd you figure that?"

"These prints are softer than the ones I was following yesterday, and there's a bit of disturbed snow behind them, see? Tracks will start to freeze after a couple days, and that hasn't happened yet."

"But you haven't even touched them!" Pearl replied. "How can you know if they're soft or hard?"

"I've been doing this for a long time," he said, his pauldrons creaking as he shrugged. "It takes time and practice, but you learn to pick up the little things."

"I see, I see." Pearl turned to examine his handbook, splayed out in one of her hands. "You have a pen?"

"Penicil, yeah." He fished through his one of the pockets. "Why?"

She didn't answer, taking his pencil and flipping to the back of the handbook, beginning to scribble on the blank page. How she managed to write with that giant sleeve in the way was anyone's guess.

"Hey!" he said, reaching up to grab his handbook. "What are you doing?"

"Making you a new section," she answered, easily holding the handbook out of his reach. "You have nothing in here about this pack, so let's change it!"

"Oh, so when I write in it, that's vandalizing, but not when you do it? That sounds fair."

"I'm _adding_to it," she insisted. "And unlike you, I know how to write in a straight line. Now let's see, we'll need to give this pack a name. Any ideas?"

"What about... Omega Pack? Simple, straightforward."

"Okay, okay." Pearl jotted down the name, tapping the pencil against the handbook as she thought. "What about the species itself? Any distinguishing characteristics we could base a name off of?"

"Well they've got some pretty wicked claws on them, maybe something about that?"

"I thought you said you've never seen the pack before? Let me guess, you can tell by the tracks?"

"Yep, see the little indents in front of each toe?"

"No?" Pearl said, leaning close enough to the ground she could have licked the snow with her tongue. "Oh wait, now I do. You have some pretty keen eyes, my man."

"If they have talons, they probably have claws, as well. Witnesses as the lodge said so as well. Won't know anything else till I find them."

"Let's recap. They're resilient, clawed, incredibly dangerous and deviously clever. Let's call them..." She paused, then raised a triumphant hand after a moment of thinking. "Oh! What about... killerclaws! Eh? No good?"

"Too on the nose," he said.

"How about deathjaws? Assuming they have big, nasty teeth of course."

"Sure, use that. And since you're writing, jot this down too: Deathjaw: carnivorous, reptilian, natural predator, pack mentality. Height, maybe nine to eleven feet from head to toe. Weight, roughly..." He glanced closer at the print. "Six, seven hundred pounds."

"Fat thing," Pearl commented. "You can tell by how deep the tracks are, right?"

"Yeah, that and the cages they were kept in. Think that's everything I know about them so far."

"You forgot about their intellect," Pearl added, pointing the pencil at him.

"Write keen," he said, but Pearl shook her head, her hood swishing.

"I'm gonna put... diabolically keen," she said, Cooper rolling his eyes as she jotted it down. "There's a word you don't see often."

With their lead rediscovered, they set off once more, the sun beginning to lower in the sky, turning what patches of the sky visible into strips of gold. Pearl continued to add things to the deathjaw part of the handbook, but he was too focused on watching for movement to ask her about what she was writing down.

"Let's say you bring down this Omega Pack," Pearl began. "Whatcha gonna do with the reward money? You could buy stacks of books with three thousand caps."

"And spend my days reading till I died? Not a terrible plan, but I think spending it all so I can live like a saint in New Reno would be better."

"New Reno?" she scoffed. "the shittest little city in the world? Or was it biggest little city? I can never remember. You're just going to blow it all on their cheap moonshine and hookers?"

"Why not? They've got heated rooms, soft beds, and New Reno women aren't cheap."

"I'd never buy_a night with someone," Pearl said. "Making love is about connecting with someone you care about, it's an act where _passion is the goal, not the other person's wallet."

"You've been reading too much poetry," Cooper said, feeling a little more insulted than he should have. "People like me, we go on the road for days, weeks at a time without any human contact, we don't have the time to go on dates and woo someone we like."

"Sounds like an issue of skill, rather than a lack of time," Pearl replied, Cooper hearing the grin in her voice.

"Well... it's not like I have a ton of practice out in the wild," he said, stretching his shoulder awkwardly. "And I'm never in one place for very long, so nothing really... develops."

"Is the little hunter feeling lonely?" she teased, Cooper feeling his cheeks warm beneath the helmet. "Don't worry, Cooper, I'll be your friend."

She leaned over and bumped shoulders with him, the blow hard enough to send Cooper reeling, even with the power armour.

After a bit more walking, the fading light soon reached a tipping point, the snowy hills plunging into shadow, Pearl watching as he clicked on his headlamp. Cooper had done plenty of long walks in his time, and so had Pearl apparently, his companion not uttering a single complaint as they trekked late into the night. When the parting clouds eventually revealed the twinkling carpet of stars, Cooper decided it was time to rest.

"Let's get a fire going here," he declared, setting his pack down between two trees.

"Won't the flames attract predators?" Pearl asked, looking around as though she could sense the wildlife. "The pack will see us if they're nearby."

"Animals are scared of fire, and if the pack comes... I'll have you deal with them."

"I'll take the whole reward if that happens," Pearl said. "No joke. I'll go get some kindling, I saw a dead brush over there."

Cooper set a ring of stones on the ground after clearing the snow, and before long, Pearl returned with a pile of sticks in hand. The little branches poked into her cloak, and it took a bit of effort to free the bundle, but she soon succeeded in tossing them into the pit, Cooper flicking his lighter on once everything was in place.

"You hungry?" he asked, blowing on the embers until they were blazing healthily. He fetched a strip of salted mirelurk from his pack, chucking it to Pearl.

"Thank you," she said, catching it in a sleeve, the two going quiet as they had their dinner. Once she was done, Pearl extended her arms above her head as though she was yawning, Cooper noting her orange eyes were shining in the gloom, almost seeming to sparkle as the firelight caught on them. "About ready to hit the sack myself," she said. "You?"

"Guess so," he said, swallowing down the rest of his meal. The servos in his suit whirring, he fell on his rump, his helmet tapping against the tree behind him as he settled in. "G'night."

"You're going to sleep like that?" Pearl asked, Cooper opening an eye to look at her. "What about your bedroll there?"

"Too small for the armour," he explained.

"So take it off, it can't be comfortable lying down in that thing."

"And if something sneaks up on us while we're sleeping?" he shot back. "I need to be ready."

"Suit yourself," she said. "No pun intended."

Dropping onto her side, Pearl bundled up the excess rolls of her cloak as she splayed out on the snow. Once she was still, the cloak draped across her stout midsection, conforming to the curve of her chest and hips. Cooper took a shameless eyeful, the helmet saving him from being caught staring.

"Where's _your_bedroll?" he asked. "You know, you're traveling pretty light for someone going all the way to the Abbey in the middle of winter."

"We Super Mutants don't need to carry hundreds of things around like you humans do," Pearl replied. "That being said, I couldn't imagine you lugging around this robe, even with that armour on. Thing ways a ton."

"What's with the cloak anyway?" he asked, lifting a gauntlet at her. "Looks like you're walking around in a giant ass curtain."

"Robe," Pearl corrected. "And I learned the hard way that people tend to start shooting when they see a Mutant on the horizon. I had to hide what I am, hence the disguise. Stitched it together over the years with every bit of cloth I could find or buy."

She began to brush and pick over the fabric, clearing it of stray snow, Cooper noting the series of stitches located around the shoulders. The robe was actually several smaller cuts of cloth, he realised, the slight discoloration forming squares in the outfit, joined together by either giant, knitted threads, or lengths of tape.

"You made it yourself?" he asked.

"A little, usually I pay a tailor for when it gets tattered. The kind men at the Abbey do it for free, but I'm not always in the area."

"You ever take it off? You've had that hood drawn all day now."

"Trying to get me out of my clothes, huh?" Pearl joked. "Tell you what, I take mine off, you take off yours."

"Nice try, but I'll pass."

He thought he could see disappointment in those glowing eyes, but Cooper soon closed his, clearing his throat as he settled into his metal bed. "I'm turning in now. Good night."

"I thought sleeping out in the open isn't good for humans," Pearl said, Cooper sighing as he once again opened his eyes. "Perhaps I should come over there, share our body heat? The cold could kill you."

"I'll be fine," he insisted, but the metal backside of his armour was already starting to go frigid, the snow working its way through the cracks in his armour. He wrapped his arms around himself, but that did little to ward off the cold, and just made him more uncomfortable than he already was.

Pearl didn't add anything more, the silence allowing Cooper to drift into sleep.

***

Cooper awoke to the sensation of his teeth clicking together, his already groggy vision made dimmer by the powered helmet he was wearing. He felt like he was encased in ice, every inch of his skin numbing as the cold permeated his core. He extended a stiff arm to pull himself towards the fire, but the dammed pit of stones was just a pile of burnt wood, not even a single plume of smoke trailing from the embers.

He breathed out a sigh of icy air, turning his eyes towards the dark mass piled up on the other side of the firepit. Pearl looked like a bundle of discarded clothes, the occasional shift of a limb and her heavy breathing giving her away. He didn't know how she could survive such temperatures with just that cloak, and lying against the snow no less, but she was his only option if he didn't want to risk going into hypothermia.

He shuffled along the snow on his hands and knees, finding that the cold had frozen his legs solid, his whole body developing a nasty case of pins and needles. When he reached her billowy cloak, he gave it a tug, his companion grumbling to herself as her hood turned to peer at him.

"Mm? Cooper, what is it?"

"P-Pearl, I need your cloak. I'm freezing," he complained through gritted teeth. He didn't need to tell her twice, he was hunched over, his armour clanking about as he shivered in the frame beneath it.

"You poor thing," Pearl cooed, holding her arms up like someone about to deliver the biggest hug. "Come here, give Pearl some sugar."

Before he could protest, she seized him by the pauldrons, turning him round so that his back was to her. She splayed out her cloak, creating enough room that he could lay down without touching the snow, the material already a hundred times warmer than his previous spot against the tree.

He felt her hand on his arm encourage him down, and the next thing he knew, Pearl draped her cloak over his helmet, the world beyond his visor blocking out and turning to wool.

"Hey! Quit it!" he complained, trying to free his helmet from the cloak. It was in vain, though, Pearl grabbing at his arm and keeping him still as she shuffled around behind him. Even with the servos in the suit, her grip was so much stronger than his own that he couldn't break free.

"Keep still," she demanded. "I'm making some... readjustments. Ah, there we go."

He felt more of her cloak drape over his midsection and legs, already the warm confines blocking out the cold, the material as plushy as a quilt. After a minute, his shivering ceased, the body heat they made creating a cozy pocket of warmth inside the cloak. She pulled off the part that was obscuring his vision, Pearl chuckling as he frowned at her over his shoulder.

"You're making me cold with that tin suit of yours," she murmured, her chest pressing up against his back as she scooted closer, Cooper just able to feel steely muscles through the armour pressing up against him. "We'll need a little more insulation if you're not going to take it off. Let's see..."

She reached behind her, and when she turned back, his bedroll was in her grip. She shook it out to its full length, then placed it on top of the both of them like a blanket. It wasn't much, but they needed every bit of help if they wanted to trap the heat in. Soon the feeling in Cooper's hands and feet returned, his body relaxing as he pulled the cloak tighter against his chest.

"No wonder you keep this thing on all day," he said. "You could cook a steak with all this heat you've trapped in here."

"You're doing most of the work, actually. You humans can push out a lot of heat with those tiny bodies of yours."

He could feel even the armour start to warm up as the temperature inside the cloak rose, Cooper feeling her warm breath on his neck as she settled against his rear. He wasn't alarmed by her presence, they'd been traveling for a fair while now that he didn't see her as a threat, but her presence, her sheer size, was enough to inspire a touch of alarm in his chest. Armour or not, she was twice the size of him easy, and strong enough to overpower him, even if his muscles hadn't been frozen.

As he started to drift off, her felt her hand roam down his arm, picking at the segments in the armour, apparently intrigued by their design. "What are you doing?" he mumbled.

"Checking out my sleeping-buddy," she replied, oblivious to his discomfort at having his personal space invaded. "I wonder if you're as big as you are now, under all that getup."

"Well wonder another time," he said, jerking his arm away, a useless gesture considering he wasn't about to leave anytime soon. "I can't sleep with you getting all... touchy."

"Are you always this grouchy with women you sleep with?" Pearl teased.

"I'm taking you up on your earlier offer," he defended. "I'm not... sleeping with you.

"Oh yeah, that's right, you haven't paid me for my services. My mistake."

He was too flustered to form a cutting reply, and once again Pearl laughed at him, so close he could feel every huff resonate through his bones. He shuffled as far away from her as he could without leaving the cloak behind, resting his helmet on his arm as he tried to steady his breathing. He could feel Pearl's legs resting against the back of his own, her huge thighs resting against his armoured rump. The texture of her body was lost behind their respective clothing, but he could tell she was as tough as rocks, her muscle mass appropriate on such a large creature. He wondered if she could toss him like a softball, armour and all.

She seemed to constantly shift back and forth, despite her slow, deep breaths suggesting she was already dozing off, but Cooper wasn't in the position to look, and he didn't want to be rude and ask her to stop, not after she'd been kind enough to offer him warmth. He closed his eyes, tiredness soon taking him.