nukaworld | Nothing like boots on the ground.

Nothing like boots on the ground.

Who: Paladin Danse & Nora
Where: Sanctuary Hills
Summary: After Danse speaks to Nora about helping her with her duties as a Minuteman.

What: Danse is ready at the crack of dawn, and seeing he was not the best sleeper, he was well ready long before hand. And with a good supply of fusion cell ammo for his laser rifle, and his X-01 power armor that is always well maintained, Danse was just waiting to hear where it is both he and Nora would go. And like a good soldier he is standing there besides his defense post keeping watch over the settlers who have long since retired for the night.

It is a peaceful night without a drop of neither rain nor one of the famous radioactive storms that blew in from the Glowing Sea. And as he waits, Danse looses himself to the twangy sound of Johnny Cash singing about those Folsom Prison Blues that play on his radio. And as quiet and normally unnerving a night like this is, Danse seems to welcome in. He can allow himself sometime with his own thoughts, and allow himself to try to figure out everything that has happened to him since his banishment from The Brotherhood of Steel. And if he is to keep his sanity, Danse needs not only to keep his mind busy but also to try to figure out this new life as a synth out.

So there, he stands without his helmet on at the Sanctuary Sign like he promised. "Now watch this be a day where Garvey doesn't have work for her to do." He mutters aloud to himself, and he cracks the knuckles of his power armor.

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"That makes two of us. Never have been one for sneaking around. Always been an all guns blazing kinda girl." Only, until she left the vault she was never actual guns - more a brash, blustery attitude. The good, old days.

"One day it'd be nice to pass by this place and not be greeted by a pack of ferals," Nora murmurs as she makes her way towards the main building.

"I thought you were a lawyer," says Danse, with a jovial voice. And he stops by the door, and he waits for Nora to open it. His head turning around, as far as it can to make sure nobody was going to corn hole the two of them. It is when The Commonwealth is quiet like this is when Danse begins to worry.

But he thinks on what she says about the place being a haven for the ferals. And he looks at the doors with a stern look on his face. "I've been wondering the same myself. How can we keep the places we clear out from being overran.” The answer is obviously an easy one, settlers making use of these places. And a place like Olivia and The Training Grounds ought to make for a great place for people to settle.

"I was. Always good at being able to shout the loudest, make the most noise." She grins back at him. No, stealth was never her strong suit. Smarts and loudness were her thing.

The Training Grounds would definitely make a fantastic settlement - it's already pretty well secured, the walls and roof are mostly intact, save for the gaping hole in a few of the floors. It's better than some of the crapholes they've turned into settlements, that's for sure.

"Maybe we should look into setting this place up as a home for some of the folks out there needing a safe place." Nora takes down another ghoul with her gun. "... After we clear it out, naturally."

Danse was figuring the settlers could make good use of the bunker buildings, and clean out the bottom floors inside of the wooden structures. But he does have to wonder exactly how safe these buildings are for anyone to occupy.

"Or we can move people from other settlements, this way the ones we have established aren't over crowded." Danse quietly suggests, but it isn't long before their conversation is interrupted by some cranky ghouls who were rudely awaken from their naps.

It is something they were expecting to run into, so Danse's laser rifle was at the ready with a new fusion cell loaded. "Anyway, it looks like we woke someone up from their nap. How about we send them back to sleep, permanently!" He grits his teeth, and he fires off a shot at the ghoul and vaporizes him. And this of course wakes up his other buddies, and especially the ones who were asleep by the big gaping hole near the desk.

Grrr! Raaaar!

"As long as our settlers don't object to being moved. After all, the settlements are as close to home as some of these people have ever had." Uprooting and moving some place new isn't everyone's cup of tea. Some are just happy to tend their crops and carve out their little corner of the world.

They'd have to do some major work to get the place livable before even considering sending folks to live here though. Water, food, power - just for starters. Not to mention defense.

Before any of that though, they have to get rid of the cranky ghouls. And Danse is doing a grand job. Someone enjoys eradicating ghouls a little too much. Nora takes another shot, wiping out another feral.

Danse pushes closer towards the stairs of the outpost, and he shoots at another ghoul as it flails its arms at him. And he has all but forgotten about the settlement for now, either out enjoyment of shooting down the ghouls or to make sure the ghouls do not manage to corner them.

His face is stoic and he edges up the stairs one foot at a time. And he lowers his rifle as he looks into the one room off to the side of the receptionist desk. And there is more reason behind Danse's silence, and that is the body of the fallen member of Paladin Brandis' team that is still in the room.

And he hopes there are not ghouls still inside of the room, and if they're still in there, he has a small gift for them. His hand slides behind his back, and he pulls out a fragmentation grenade. He pulls the pin, and he throws it into the room. There's an explosion, and the all too familiar sound of what was once a ghoul in the room.

He takes a deep breath, and he brings his focus back to making the training grounds into a settlement. "We've all have had to move. And I'm not suggesting that we break up any families at some of the more crowded settlements. But making use of places like this would be to both of their benefits."

Even with all her experience since her big thaw, the sound of a frag grenade detonating still makes her jump - even if she's the one pulling the pin, but especially when someone else is pulling the pin.

She catches her breath and pushes on ahead, watching her step to make sure she avoids any rotten or broken floor.

"It's definitely something to consider."

It isn't the sound of an exploding grenade that gets Danse; it is the pitter-patter creepy ghoulish feet that send shivers down his spine. And there are plenty of the shambling undead to make Danse's skin crawl.

And Danse as continues to make sure nothing comes up from behind Nora's flank, the growling and pitter-patter of ghoul feet can be heard from above them in one of the rooms. "I think it might be far better than constantly coming to the same place over and again." He doesn't want to admit, but this is something that can make even the most veteran soldier become lax and find themselves overwhelmed and in trouble.

"I'll let you be the one to bring it up with Preston once we get back to Sanctuary." Nora turns to smile at Danse, but it's at that moment that a ghoul from the floor above decides to slither through a gap in the floorboards and drop onto Nora all flailing and growls.

This sudden drop also causes the floor below Nora to give way. On the plus side, the pile of rotting ghoul corpses breaks her fall. On the not so plus side, she seems to suffer some radiation damage from her new ghoul cuddle fellow. She manages to put a bullet in it's head and tries to gather her senses.

"I'm not sure, how my standings are with Preston," Danse charges in the direction of where the fell collapsed, and he peers down into the hole where Nora fell along with the ghoul. His geiger counter is picking up the high levels of radiation, and he goes to carefully jump down into the pile.

"This is absolutely disgusting," Danse cringes from under the helmet as he steps on the bodies of the fallen ghouls. He still clutches his rifle in his hands, and he goes to check on Nora.

"You okay." He firmly asks her, as he offers out a metal hand to pull her out from the horrors and of course to get her out before she takes in too many rads. He has some rad away, but the stuff isn't without its drawbacks. The last thing he wants to see is Nora end up getting sick in the process. But he still breaks out the syringe, and he offers it out to her.

Hey. He should try laying in a pile of ghoul corpses and goo when he hasn't got power armor to protect him from the rot - oh, the stench is going to linger. At least the rotting pile of flesh saved Nora from injuring herself to severely. She'll have a few bruises in the morning, but nothing she can't handle.

"Ugh. Yeah. I'm good. Nothing a shower won't fix." She grabs hold of his offered hand, yanking herself up onto her feet. It never ceases to amaze her just how much the metal hand of his power armor dwarfs her small, delicate hand.

"Save the rad away for later. We still gotta finish clearing this place out and I reckon I'm going to suck down a few more rads before we're done."

He is damn careful with making sure; he doesn't hurt Nora when he helps her up from the pile.

Danse has been there, done that, and he's been swarmed by ghouls before and nothing ruins a day other than a glowing one. And somewhere in the pile of rotting ghoul, the faint glow of the highly radioactive ghoul can be seen struggling to get up. "Let's get going before that down there crawls up from the pile of his dead friends."

And they are both going to need a shower; Danse isn't exactly going to let that ghoul continue to hang out in what might be a new settlement.

She's tougher than she looks, Danse. Good job too since most things in the Commonwealth want to kill, maim or eat her. She should probably wear her power armor more than she does, but even the most finely tuned set is still clunky and much harder than just walking. Plus, trying to get ghoul goo out of the hydraulics is never fun.

"A glowing one? Thought today was going too easy..." They've come this far, might as well make glowing juice out of the bastard before they leave. Feral ghouls are bad. Glowing ones... Ugh. Nora hates them.

She slips a frag mine from her pack and slides it into the pile of rotting corpses. It'll be bye bye ghouly if it crawls up over it. "We might want to get back..."

Oh, he's well aware that Nora is tougher than nails, but Danse is still hardwired to look out for those under his command. And she's not the only one whom the Commonwealth wants to devour. And with his time well spent in The Capital Wastes, Danse took his fair share of lumps to the head and was Super Mutant Enemy number one outside of the mysterious vault dweller from vault 101.

"Either that or I need to get my Geiger counter fixed, but I know that cloud of glowing radioactive gas from anywhere." Danse doesn't hesitate to step back from the pile, and the last thing he wants to do is getting caught in the middle of the blast from the mine.

"You don't have to tell me."

The ghoul continues to shuffle from the pile; a cloud of radioactive horror swarming around its glowing decayed body fills the room around them. It begins to shamble towards the two, and it has no idea that Nora placed a mine in its way. It shambles forward, growling and spitting up until it steps on the mine. And with a big explosion, and ghoul corpses flying in a number of directions the tougher than normal ghoul is crippled. It isn't dead, but Danse won't waste time when it comes to putting a laser bolt in to its head.

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Nothing like boots on the ground.

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