章 44: Chapter 44: Rumble
Prepared to move and involve ourselves in the fun, I wordlessly signaled to gramps via a hand signal and we quickly poured into the rocky space the next second and slaughtered the molemen fighting the giant black and orange-colored lizards. The instant we had mopped up the molemen defenders, we switched our sights to the giant approximately 5-7 foot tall and 25-35 foot long lizards, my robots were busy holding back.
Spooling my 7.62mm minigun fired off a burst of rounds at the head of the nearest reptile. As the rounds impacted the Giant Gila Monster's head, they initially tore holes into its scaley defenses before traveling beyond them and sinking into its flesh.
No more than a couple of seconds later, the casings of the many rounds I had just fired off clinked and clattered onto the cave's floor. That was soon followed up with a thump sound of the now deceased monster's body hitting the hard stone floor.
With that lizard swiftly dealt with, I repeated that same burst four more times, effortlessly dispatching the rest of them.
That was easy.
Thinking the battle was over, we began wandering over to the corpses of the Giant Gila Monsters to take a look at them. As we were nearing them, I heard and felt a rumbling through the cave floor. Looking to where I sensed the rumbling originated from, a massive black and orange draconic looking head poked into the cave from the exit.
I didn't expect to see a Colossal Gila Monster this early on in my life. But they're basically considered a massive threat, so I better handle it quickly before it releases a poisonous breath attack.
Not wanting to start my next life so soon when I've yet to really accomplish much of anything in this one, I let my minigun go, leaving it to rest against my abdomen while I retrieved the only weapon that would be help me here in this given situation besides having my robots swarm it and self destruct themselves on it.
Making the Carl Gustaf appear in my hands from my item box, I hastily set it up on my shoulder and said. "Gramps, fall back. I got this."
Gramps, seeing the 84mm shoulder-fired recoilless rifle poofing into existence from thin air, immediately started high tailing it out here at his fastest possible speed, getting out of the way of the back blast zone along with all of my robots. With my comrades out of both possible kill zones and the pseudo dragon ramping up to unleash a deadly venomous breath attack, I took aim at its dragon-like head and waited for the perfect moment.
A brief moment was all it took for the right moment to appear, thus with my time to shine, I adjusted my aim to its open maw and pulled the trigger, firing the HEAT (High Explosive Anti Tank) round I had preloaded.
*BOOM*
Back blast firing out the rear of the Carl Gustaf, the round near instantly hit my desired target and when it did it blew up and sent the creature reeling back with blood pouring from its massive maw as it released an incredibly loud, pained roar. Whilst the gargantuan flightless black and orange lizard was dealing with the massive injury I had just dealt it, I brought the weapon down from my shoulder and pointed it at the ground.
Opening the rear of the Carl Gustaf, I removed the spent shell and slid in an APDS (Armor Piercing Discarding Sabot) round and closed the back of the recoilless rifle. Locked and loaded, I shouldered the weapon again and saw the lizard retreating from the exit.
"Where are you going, big guy? The fun is just starting!" I said aloud while pursuing the massive lizard out of the cave and into the wasteland.
Stepping beyond the underground for the very first time since I've been born in this world, I took the sights in and scanned my surroundings while making sure I kept more than enough attention on the Colossal Gila Monster.
As I was making sure I wouldn't become a red smear on the ground, I saw I had stepped out from the cave onto a rugged and a relatively flattish area located in between two mountains that were covered in massive pine trees and numerous other species of foliage that had also undergone mutation since the bombs.
Looks like I'm in a valley and the coast appears to be clear except for the massive creature in front of me.
After making that discovery, I returned my full attention to my current foe. Getting a good look at the entire beast, I could help but be impressed by the colossal creature's size. However, as impressed as I was, I still took aim with my weapon, this time locking onto the Colossal Gila Monster's eye.
It's too bad I have to kill this Colossal Gila Monster. It would've been cool to have a creature that basically looks like a land dragon, but I have no way of doing so, nor do I have the ability to explain how I got my hands on it. Not to mention, even if I did somehow manage to tame it, how would I bring it into the undercity?
I sure as hell can't bring it through the cave system with the beast being at least two stories tall and ten stories long… Sigh, unfortunate as it is there is no way I'll be able to make this creature mine therefore I might as well put it down and at least get a sizable amount of exp out of it.
Not too happy that I couldn't tame it and get my very own dragon, I pulled the trigger, firing off another shell.
*BOOM*
The round was a direct bullseye and as soon as it struck; the sabot destroyed its eye and pierced right through as if it never existed, penetrating into its skull and, hopefully, its brain. Unloading the spent shell and loading another APDS round, I waited to see if it would drop dead.
As I was waiting around to see if that was enough to take out this final boss tier creature, gramps and robots came rushing out of the cave behind laying fire onto the beast. With the introduction of the new attacks, the reptile continued to roar in pain and thrash about.
Gramps and my robots weren't dealing all that much damage with their laser weapons due to the enormous lizard having incredibly thick scales, although my crusader could have if I had allowed it to use its missile pods. So, not wanting to drag things out any further than I needed to, I took aim at its other eye like I had done the day prior with the Moleman King and fired, destroying that eye too.
This round didn't cause it to collapse either, so as the Colossal Gila Monster struggled, I unloaded the spent shell and rapidly loaded another APDS round into the 84mm recoilless rifle and shouldered it. Now that its sight was out of commission, I moved onto the next vulnerable location I could think of and aimed at the ear of the beast.
But as I was lining up the shot, the beast suddenly rolled. My target out of sight, I patiently waited for it to enter my sight once again and the very instant it did, I took my chance and fired at the lizard's proportionately small ear.
The round launched from my recoilless rifle and struck the beast's ear and I suppose because of the angle I shot it from; the beast passed away almost immediately. Although not before struggling to release one last pained roar and finally collapsing to the not so arid ground of the Nevada wasteland. One of the few positives the state of Nevada has experienced since the nuclear war and most of the human population across the planet being turned to ash.
As I was changing out the expended APDS round for a fresh HEAT round, gramps and the robots came speeding over from the short distance they were laying into it from moments ago.
Gramps arrived at my side as I was returning the loaded Carl Gustaf to my item box and commented, amazed at what had just taken place. "I can't believe you took that Colossal Gila Monster down. Do you realize what you've just done?"
"I do. I near single handedly took down an apex creature of the wasteland that could easily flatten many wasteland settlements and towns all on its own." I responded, still irked that I couldn't make the poisonous dragon like lizard mine.
Gramps, hearing my response, was surprised to hear the unhappiness in my voice, so wanting to find out the cause, he asked. "What the hell could you be upset about after taking down that monster?"
"Well, for your information, I wanted to tame that creature and turn it into my pet/mount. However, given the circumstances and my current capabilities, that simply isn't realistic nor possible. So, my chance to have my very own pseudo dragon has disappeared, hence why I'm not all too happy about the kill."
The old man was astounded when he found out why I was bummed out and remained silent as I left him behind and walked off in the direction of the pseudo dragon's corpse with an idea in mind.
The chance to obtain my very own dragon hasn't completely escaped my grasp, just need to see if it was female and if it was carrying any eggs. Hopefully, it was and has at least a single fertilized egg for me to take home with me, so I can still have my dragon one day. I'll just need to spend a lot of time raising it from birth to do so.
Not losing all hope, I continued my stride to the massive reptile's body. Upon reaching it, I started inspecting it to see if it was the correct gender first and as luck would have it; it was indeed female. Prerequisite met, I moved onto the next step and turned the focus of both of my thought processes to my perception field and began scanning its body with my now enhanced perception field.
Though not before issuing a new order for my robots to keep a close eye on the surrounding environment. You never know what the wasteland will throw at you next when you aren't paying attention, so it's never a bad idea to be overly cautious.
As my robots were keeping a close watch on the area, I used my focused senses to peer into its body, searching around the general area of where the eggs should be if it was carrying any. It took a couple of minutes, but I eventually found what I was searching for with my enhanced perception field.
Oh, thank god it's carrying eggs. Let me check and see if they're fertilized.
Directing my focus to the five black and orange eggs it was carrying, I inspected them closely to see if they had an embryo developing and indeed one of them did just not the other four, sadly. My future pet/mount located I upholstered my gramp's old combat knife from my war belt and reinforced it as much as humanly possible with the qi like aura from Martial Weapon Master.
With the knife reinforced and emitting a white glow with a slightly reddish tint that it had gained recently, I approached the area of its body that I needed to go slice through to reach the eggs. Now where I needed to be, I looked at the armored scales and attempted to route my knife through its flesh after getting a few of them lifted.
Unfortunately for me, its skin and flesh were extraordinarily durable and dense, thus the process I needed to go through to reach the eggs was going to take more than a few minutes.
An hour and a half of digging my way through its dead but still plenty warm body, I made it to where the eggs were located. Careful as to not damage the one I wanted, I sliced my knife through the red bleeding flesh and retrieved the five foot tall egg after re-holstering my hand-me-down combat knife.
Backtracking through the bleeding tunnel I carved into the Colossal Gila Monster's flesh, I popped back out of the corpse after a minute, my armor covered head to toe in blood and other bodily fluids.
"Alright, I got what I wanted. Let's head on home." I said happily, with my future companion in hand.
"Guess you got your dragon in the end, huh, kid?"
"Yup."
"Good luck trying to convince your parents to let you keep it when it hatches."
"Thanks, but I won't be needing it since I'll be keeping this little guy in the foundry."
"Up to you."
My reward for putting that monstrous foe down in hand and things wrapped here, the bunch of us returned to the cave to continue the original mission. After setting up a bunch of demolition charges and moving to a safe distance away, I handed the egg to two of my multibots to hold and activated the detonator. Following a large booming explosion, I went and checked the destruction when the dust and debris had settled somewhat and things were mostly safe.
As I had expected, the cave exit was completely sealed, thus I turned right round and led the way to the foundry, with my companions following directly behind me in their combat formation. The return journey was especially uneventful and whatever molemen we encountered were a whole lot fewer in number, making it obvious that all the killing we were doing was causing their population to dwindle.
Back at the foundry, I sent everyone inside with only the egg and I remaining behind because we both needed to get cleaned off. A couple of minutes later, a few of the Multibots came back dragging hoses and, as soon as they were close enough, they commenced the washing.
Several minutes passed before both I and the egg were clean as a whistle, but the second we were, I headed inside with the egg to the armory while the robots were setting up one of the many rooms in the foundry into an incubator.
Placing it on a stainless steel table in the armory, I took my gear off and stowed it away. Finished here, I headed to the planning/relaxation area to take a break with gramps and Alice. Right as I was coming through the door, Alice was going to race over and give me a hug. However, seeing the precious cargo I was carrying, she stopped mid step.
"Ohh, so this is the egg you retrieved from that enormous gila monster. You really plan on keeping it?" Alice inquired.
"Absolutely, this guy's mom was a Colossal Gila Monster, so why wouldn't I want one of my own when the opportunity is right there? Also, if I raise this little guy well, it could be used to protect my family and friends when I'm not around. Adding to that, I don't think there will be too many that would want to deal with a colossal draconic looking lizard that can fire off poisonous breaths."
"You do have a point… Well, you'll have no complaints coming from me. It's actually quite exciting imagining that we'll have a pet that's basically a dragon, although a flightless one." Alice responded with a glimmer in her blue eyes.
"Right."
Whilst gramps was passed out on one of the many couches, Alice and I sat on another a decent distance away from him so we wouldn't disturb him.
Shortly into our conversation, she asked. "Do you mind if I hold on to it for a moment?"
"Sure, it's very heavy, though."
Carefully handing the black and orange egg to her, she immediately felt the weight and placed it on her lap. With the egg sitting on her lap now, she looked it over curiously and ran her finger over its pretty smooth surface.
"I can't believe how large it is. It reminds of those dinosaur eggs we read about in our younger years."
"Mm, it does indeed resemble them quite a bit."
The two of us talked about the dragon to be for a bit before she was content with looking at it and tried to hand it back. But due to its weight, she struggled, so I easily removed it and placed it over on its own couch since it was really much too big to be on the couch we were sitting on.
We chatted for a while about what Alice had learned so far today before she asked. "You plan on returning to the cave system to close up another exit, or is that it for the day?"
"No, that's it for today. The old man is already passed out napping peacefully, so I'd rather just pick things back up tomorrow."
"You want to spend the rest of the day with me, then?"
"I was planning to get a weapon design churned out." I said, instantly causing her to look saddened.
"But I suppose I should take a break from work every once in a while to spend some time with my partner, ain't that right, babe?"
"Nn, that's right, you should, darling." She followed up sweetly and smiling happily.
Now that I forwent my original plan, I spent the rest of the remaining time until we needed to show up at home with Alice. The first hour and a half we spent cuddled up together, watching an old pre-war movie we had yet to watch in the connected theater room. When it ended, my robots had finished preparing the incubation room, so with the egg needing to be moved to its new home for the foreseeable future, we made our way there.
A relatively short walk later, we deposited the black and orange egg in the temperature controlled room. Satisfied with the preparations my workforce had made, we returned to the planning slash relaxation area and spent the remaining time we had left coming up with ideas for weapons and other robots I may want to produce in the not so distant future.
…
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