Trembling with anticipation from the pills, Nellis repositioned himself over the crate and took two shots—one at a bothersome raider, who was peaking around the corner, and he at least made that shot somewhat—pow, right in the arm, he celebrated to himself.

He then put Denman in his sights, cocked the hammer, and fired at him—“Raider scum,” he huffed, praying his shot had been true this time, before ducking into cover. He wondered how the others were doing, and smiled at how great Winston was with a shotgun. Perhaps if he ever got it in him to practice, or lift weights, or do whatever Winston did to get that big, he too would be able to toss buckshot around like a total bad ass. Alas, he was just skinny, 'kid' Nellis.

[chance/dam]

fQdl1IZ_1-10 1-5

edit: he did it but someone else can narrate that with maybe one final auto-hitting awesome kill shot? 1-10·1-5

As the man in the armor finally toppled over, the rest of the raiders shrieked in unison and fled the field of battle, leaving the victorious group of misfits with their prize. And a sudden silence, punctuated only by the patter of rain on the roof overhead. Clearly, the thugs thought a rad storm and endless hordes of ghouls easier to survive than Winston and the others!

"Pry 'im outta there," Winston said as he limped up to the fallen Raider boss. "Budge up, pal." Once Cassius would move, Winston grabbed the release valve and twisted it, causing the armor to hiss and release the man; casually the giant grabbed him out and dropped him to one side, then gripped the frame and heaved it up to its feet.

And while Winston picked at the remnants of the armor, Denman himself, beaten and bloody and minutes from expiring, took a wheezing breath. "Up 'ere," he coughed, raising an arm to gesture limply toward the far corner of the warehouse, where a locked room waited. "Keys in... pocket..." The indicated room, a supervisor's office back in the old days probably, was the only place Ronnie or anyone else could have been stashed in here.

He joined the others as they glowered down upon Denman, and he released his face from his mask, covered in sweat. “Jerk,” Nellis said, holding his aching chest with a slight, buzzed grin. From there, he decided to toddle after Gladys and see if this Ronnie kid was alive—he was the whole point, right? He gave Cassius a look, wondering what he would see or who he would recognize in that tiny office.

[sorry guys!!]

Wandering back, Winston saw Ronnie was alive. Good. Mission accomplished, and all that. Now for their payday!

The power armor was useless to Winston, what with the frame being too damn small and all that. But there was bound to be chems in a place like this, considering the previous owners and all. He went back to Denman, and granted the man the brief mercy of a quick death by stomping his head in.

Then he went back to rummaging around, trying to turn up anything useful. "Gather up the dead guys," he called to the others, as he started doing so himself. "Make a pile. Should scrape up a decent haul."

He was happy Ronnie had been found, safe as he could be, even if he was tore up a bit. Nellis stood back and let Cassius tend to his companion, before he encircled Denman, and then slunk out toward the fringes of the room where the other dead raiders lay. He collected a few bullets from the bodies, and from the floor where they had been carelessly tossed, and stuffed his satchel and pockets with as much as he could find.

Once Gladys had pulled out caps, however, he walked over to her; she tossed the sack to the floor, caps skittering across the cement. He looked around, and assuming no one could be truly a scholar of math in this era, he simply took it upon himself to separate them into what seemed to be equal parts. “Oh, wow!” he exclaimed, “that’s a lot. Where’d he get all that?” he knew, though, ransacking farms and hard-working people.

“No thanks,” he said to Gladys when she lusted after the rifle, and patted his pistol. “Honestly, nothin’ here is any use to me, except the caps,” he said, “but . . . I think this might be it, then, now that Ronnie’s found.”

Nevin rubbed nervously at the back of his neck, and leaned into one leg to support the biting pain in his chest. “Thanks for the thrills,” he said, “nice to meet all of you. Maybe we'll find ourselves in another adventure, one day.”

Working quickly, Winston gathered up the dead Raiders and hauled them to the center of the warehouse, dropping them in a heap to be searched in a few minutes. Once the last was brought back he went through them, coming up with bullets and chems and some caps. Finally he found a handful of shells, which fit his shotgun, so he pocketed those, as well as the chems and caps; the others could take the bullets, if their weapons held them.

As far as weapons, nothing but cheap pipe guns and lower-end gear, the best thing being Denman's own gun. Winston wasn't a marksman, and he wasn't a spray-and-pray kind of guy; he preferred to see it in the hands of someone who could put it to use, rather than endure his clumsy attempts at marksmanship.

When the caps came out he ambled over, watching Nells divvy it up. Shrugging, Winston bent down to one knee and added the handful of caps he had scrounged up to the pile. "Even split," he muttered as he counted the caps himself. Rather than go one cap at a time, he stacked them into piles of ten and lined those up, his fingers quick and deft in contrast to his typical slow lurch.

"...400 caps," he announced eventually. "Four of us, that makes 100 each." He grabbed his hundred and stashed them in his pack, then laboriously stood up again. "Rifle's no good to me. Power armor won't fit. Gonna take the plates off and use them on mine." He glanced from face to face. "Any objections?" He doubted they would complain about some cocked-up bits of power armor being scavenged, though, not when the frame itself could be used for proper PA later.