Saracen Saul fell back down to the canyon floor. The impact on the rocks knocked the wind out of him. Moments later he blinked opening his eyes, slowly regaining consciousness.

He reached to his ear and felt that most of it was gone. Sticky blood was all over his hand. Then he sat up and glanced over seeing that the flag lay in the dirt nearby. Why he had hit the rocks and the flag the dirt was a matter of karma.

"Thanks Eddie." He coughed still trying to breath. The ribs of his back hurt terribly as he wheezed. "I think I hurt myself." He said sounding dazed.

It took him another minute or two to recompose himself but soon he was on his feet and had recollected his ghoul-smashing shovel.

"We got us two flags. Let's go see what more flags we can find." He had recovered but his throbbing head made it hard to focus.

Come on old boy. Been through worse scraqes than this. Remember that time I accidentally shot myself with a spasm gun? That took the think out of m'er skull alot quicker.

He just stood there staring at his team mates with a concussed glare.

Tom had started to lower Saracen back to the ground before the radscorpian had hooked on with his pincer. If Saul had dropped any farther, his arm would have been ripped off, so Tom was forced to hold him up as he was attacked by the radscorpian. He had started trying to move Saracen's feet onto his shoulder so he could throw his knife before Eddie blew off its tail. Tom scrambled to get a grip on Saul before he fell onto the rocks. After he stood, Miller walked over and checked his ear. It was mostly gone, and it was still bleeding, but he'd live. He pulled out his knife and held Saracen's chin forcing him to look straight ahead and pulling him back into a shadowed part of the canyon. Tom started tilting the knife back and forth to catch the sun. The light bounced off and shined in Saul's eyes. "Don't blink." he said as he looked into his eyes. His eyes took longer than usual adjust to the light flashing in his eyes. Tom let go of him. "You have a mild concussion." Miller said and grabbed the flag and stuffed it inside his clothes along with the other flag. "Alright guys, we gotta step it up." he said and started forwards.

Mark decided to throw rocks at the Albino Radscorpion eyes in an attempt to blind it and get it away from Ren. This caused it to get an interest in Mark instead, forcing him to run as the sacrificial lamb.

Nathan sighed at Mark as he started lobbing rocks, there was not exactly a wise way to go about fighting a gargantuan scorpion hand to hand but Nathan got the feeling that whacking it in the head with rocks would not make it merciful to whatever the creature caught. "Isn't this thing big enough for it to have a blind spot on the top of its shell?" Nathan asked mostly to himself. Looking back at the current threat Nathan took the breath that he had been holding for the last twenty seconds and calmed best as he could, Nathan was waiting for the opening he knew would come when the scorpion made its next full stride. The scorpion moved swiftly aiming to slice either Mark or himself in half and made an angry clicking noise with the occasional gurgle, the ghoul watched with anticipation as the scorpions front left leg drew into view with a motion born of months practice Nathan shot three times in the narrow opening he had found.
the aim was true.
Unfortunately Nathan's gun was not, two of the three shots veered completely off course with the third one chipping into the scorpions joint with most of its momentum spent on the creatures armor.
Nathan though to himself for the hundredth time "I really miss my 44's" the ghoul then started running, like he should have earlier, and frantically searched for some means to escape this mess. To the left of him Nathan spied a small cave with a precariously balanced stone right near the entrance on a ledge Nathan had his idea. "Mark!" Nathan shouted while fleeing in terror from the massive scorpion "lets lead that thing over to the cave on the left!"
"Ren!" Nathan shouted in the general direction of the girl "Get up to that ledge and knock the boulder over!" Nathan continued while pointing at the rock he meant. It was a dumb plan but the only one Nathan could think of at the time, He morbidly thought that perhaps something worse lay in wait at the cave but there was little choice in the matter.

Relief overwhelmed Ren when the radscorpion stopped chasing her. She quickly climbed up one side of the canyon, trying to stay above the stinger's reach. The others were in trouble though. Nathan yelled out to Ren pointing at a cave with a rather large boulder above it. She couldn't hear everything he said, but from the gestures and words she caught she knew what to do.

Ren leaped off the canyon face, rolling across her shoulder to spread out the impact. Then she took off into a sprint towards the cave, giving the Albino Radscorpion a wide berth. As she reached the wall the cave was on she began climbing up the slim ledge leading to the boulder. At one point the ledge disappeared, Ren quickly tossed herself towards the other side. Her hands caught the edge, and she pulled herself up. The Scorpion was approaching the cave, Ren began to push on the boulder. Slowly it creaked and gave way, falling from above. The Scorpion could not see the boulder falling above it, and it didn't know when it died either. Its innards sprayed from it's mouth, legs, and wherever the shell cracked.

"You guys okay?" Ren yelled from above the cave.

Mark said, "Yeah, I am now." He took a look at the Albino Radscorpion and said, "I figure the reason they're so powerful and agressive is to compensate for standing out like a beggar in Tennpenny Tower. Too bad it's not intact enough to make more armor."

Nathan looked from the scorpion to his clothing, the creature had quite literally hacked up chunks on him, looking at one of his sleeves to see a large loop of what looked to be green intestine Nathan muttering in disgust.
"Thanks" Nathan shouted out of the cave,and immediately regretted it as a fragment of scorpion goo slid onto his lips. With an odd noise he coughed once and looked over to Mark.
"I'm going to hope that this one stays dead on the first attempt." The tone he used could of parched a lake.

Tom flipped over a dead ghoul to grab the next flag. He tore the white part off and shoved it inside his clothing. His knife was holding up nicely, and it surprised him with its durability. He looked to the next flag before glancing up at the spartan spectators. He didn't like the look of them. They looked like the raiders at the Pitt who shot down into the Hole. He turned back to the rest of team three. "How many of these things do we need again?"

Saracen Saul plodded along with sore shoulders, blood dripping ear and slight dizzyness.

"How many we got? Three? There should only be five so either we are winning...or something is dreadfully wrong." Saracen Saul was watching the Slavers also. The crowds had lost a little enthusiasm it seemed. He could just imagine Saint giving orders to wrap things up.

"We need to find the other teams and make sure we have more flags. Compare notes." Saracen Saul told Tom and Eddie. "If we are winning there is no need to tell them. Our flags are hidden. Let em bicker amongst each other."

He sat down for a moment letting the other two get ahead of him. He had stared death in the face when that little red radscorpion had suprised him. Either that or the blow to his head had started him thinking. He wasn't sure what but it was certain he would already be dead without the effort of his teamates.

It is just the heat getting to me.

Then he stood and trotted along to catch up to Tom and Eddie.

"See anyone?"

(Where is everybody?)

Tom shook his head and headed forward. He knew they would be coming up on the others soon. Miller didn't know about Saracen, but he would wait until someone fired on them until he attacked. He didn't want to have innocent blood on his hands.

OOC: right so I'm going to be gone for the next week unless I get luck and land on some internet access where I will be staying , not likely, my teammates can use my character as they wish until I return.
....if they are still here that is.

Nathan wiped his scorpion hide sleeves on the back of his jumpsuit pants and walked back into the searing heat of the grand canyons day, the raiders above him hollered, most of them disappointed that, the damned ghoul as he heard them say did not die to the gargantuan scorpion. "We ought to move out," Nathan spoke suddenly "No telling what this corpse will attract."

"You're right.", Mark said as he got up, "Let's hope there's nothing like that thing, out here waiting to scavenge."

The crowds had gradually begun to simmer down. The heat of the day and the earlier violence and action had tapered off to long periods of silence and to eventual conclusion. Saracen walked with his team wondering how this would all end.

"I don't see anybody, how about you?" He asked his teammates.

Here and there were splatters of ghouls that had been obliterated earlier.

"We must be close. Keep your eyes open. They could be waiting in ambush for us." Saracen Saul had a splitting headache. Maybe that was part of his concussion. He wasn't sure but that and the lack of events had him irritable and cautious.

"Never know if Saint is gonna call it a day. That could be bad if we have failed to amuse his customers."