Raven and Alara descended the stairs of Rose Manor down onto the first floor, Alara's head bowed low in embarrassment as her cheeks burned red. She peeked up at Raven, her voice small and embarrassed as she said, "The things you had me do last night… they were so embarrassing. Especially that cat outfit… I should have known you were going to bully me the second I put it on."
Raven let out an amused laugh as they stepped onto the first floor, her tone teasing. "Don't be so naive, Alara. You know exactly how frisky I can get when it's just the two of us alone at night. You knew I'd bully you, especially in an outfit like that. I think next time we should go back to the bunny outfit… or maybe something even better. Some red lingerie, perhaps?"
Alara shot Raven a sharp glare, narrowing her eyes, but her pout only made her look even more adorable. "You're a big meanie! I'm going to ignore you now. Hmph!" she snorted, crossing her arms in timid defiance.
Raven raised an eyebrow, as a sly smile formed on her lips as she retorted to Alara, saying, "Oh really? Alara, you want to ignore me? Then I guess you don't want that tank I've been working on for you. I have three of them inside of the system space, and one of them has your name on it. With a few modifications, it'll easily hit 98 miles per hour, and that's without the rockets on the back. We can take it out for its maiden voyage in a few days when we deal with the Red Blood Raiders."
Alara's eyes went wide, her feigned irritation dissolving in an instant, replaced by pure excitement. But then her expression softened into concern as she stepped closer. "Raven… are you okay? You mentioned the Red Blood Raiders and what they did to you in your last life to me before… Do you want to talk about it? You went through so much trauma before you were reborn."
Raven waved her hand dismissively, shaking her head with a none shalont tone of voice. "No worries, Alara. I'm a perfectly normal member of society, and I'm totally mentally stable! I just do what everyone else does: suppress my issues and emotions by compulsively focusing on you. That isn't Yandere behavior at all, so no worries."
Alara broke into a laugh, her face brightening. "Oh, that's a relief, Raven! I'm the same way. I obsessively hyper-focus on you and everything about you. Even sometimes, feeling the urge to murder anyone who gets too close to you, but I manage to control it. I'm sure you're the same!"
They both laughed, the sound echoing strangely in the hall, each of them silently acknowledging the darkness they shared and finding comfort in it with each other.
After calming down, they exited Rose Manor and made their way to Raven's vehicle workshop, set up a couple hundred feet away from the house. Raven showed Alara inside, revealing the massive tank she had pulled out from the system space as a gift. The midnight-black tank loomed over them, over 20 feet long and 9 feet wide, standing over ten feet tall above them.
Alara's eyes lit up with wonder, as her excitement bubbled over. "I can't believe your actually working on a tank for me! When did you even have time to do this with everything else you made me do last night?!"
Raven gave her a knowing look. "You'll never know. No, but seriously, I had some of Sanctuary's robotic drones handle the preliminary work after a few quick instructions from me. There's still a lot of work left to do, but it will be finished soon."
Standing proudly next to the tank, Raven continued explaining. "With this tank, Alara, you can drive through anything and be completely safe. With its triple-reinforced armor plating—nothing short of a ballistic cruise missile will even be able to dent it. You could drive through a building and drive away unharmed. And with you inside this Tank and me alongside you, we'll always make it home in time for our… nightly activities."
Raven paused her speech, as her eyes gleamed with wicked satisfaction. "Of course, it still needs armaments. Once it's done, it'll be a true killdozer. So we need to name it."
Alara smiled, her eyes glowing as she said. "Why don't we call it the Hellraiser? Because everyone who sees it will know they're going straight to hell after it destroys them."
Raven burst out laughing, slapping a hand on Alara's shoulder in satisfaction. "The Hellraiser it is!"
After leaving the workshop, they returned to the Ironhowl X4, reappearing on the same road they were just on three hours earlier. But for the two them, nearly a full day has already passed about fifteen hours, to be exact has already passed by inside Sanctuary. They are now rested and ready to continue their drive.
They continued driving for another hour toward the NYS Civil Defense Communications Center Bunker. When they arrived, they pulled up beside a rusty, overgrown chain-link fence that surrounded the neglected government facility.
Raven eyed the bunker, noting how completely abandoned and forgotten it looked. Perfect. In a world that has lost so much knowledge, a place like this would be overlooked and dismissed as worthless due to the fact that nothing works here.
They parked and stepped out of the Ironhowl X4. Quickly spoting Momma Jean lounging around in a foldable patio chair, her shirt still dusted with her signature cheese powder, looking as if she just finished another bag of processed cheese snacks.
Momma Jean stood up, stretching her body as Raven and Alara approached her.
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