Amor Vincit Omnia by @constellation-consultant & @themarchingchemist
The full moon hung above Freeside, illuminating places not already showered in neon light with its own beautiful glow. Outside of the Silver Rush, the solitary guard that stripped potential customers of their personal belongings prior to entering the establishment fought to keep himself awake. While walking around in his elliptical pattern, he would occasionally become startled by invisible threats, and ready his laser rifle in response.
“Fuck you! Show yourself dammit!”
Arcade was observing all of this through a pair of binoculars Mars had given him. He sunk back down in their modest pile of rubble, obviously annoyed.
“A jet addict gets access to better rifles than all of our outfit in the entire Mojave. Unbelievable.”
Mars shrugged and then readied his own plasma rifle, ensuring that its MF Cell had enough charge at least for what he was about to do next. Once ready, he peeked his head above ever so slightly, just enough to see the guard still pacing about. When he felt confident enough that he could plant a bolt of plasma in his body in one shot, Mars shifted his position so that he was now looking through the iron sights of his plasma rifle, his right index finger ever so ready to pull the trigger.
The guard had reached the extreme leftmost point of his path and began to turn back to make a path to the rightmost point. While turning, he noticed a faint green glow in the distance. It wasn’t a neon sign – the only ones still active were either being used by the Van Graffs or the Atomic Wrangler across the street. What was it?
Mars had noticed that the guard had stopped in his sights….and was trying to find him through the rubble. It took a second before he realized that the guard was attracted by the glow of plasma in the rifle’s barrel.
One swift motion of his fingers and Mars’ rifle spat out a glowing toroid of plasma down the street, towards the guard.
The guard, still trying to find the source of the neon light suddenly saw it pulse brightly, and the color seemed to glow brighter and brighter, as if it was coming closer to him.
“What the fu-“was all the guard could muster before the plasma bolt hit him. His right arm and leg were torn off by the blast, and the rest of his body melted from the heat of the plasma into a small pile of red and green goo. His laser rifle was tossed far from his former body, landing near a pile of rubble beside the Silver Rush. Had the ammunition of the tossed rifle been hit directly by the plasma bolt, it would have been a more explosive death for the guard.
Satisfied by his marksmanship, Mars nudged Arcade, who was watching him the entire time, and motioned for him that it was time to actually assault the Van Graffs.