@austen-mcallister just squeaked out a yes and gave a thumbs up to the not-so-jolly green giant.
Don't scream. Speaking those words, Strong was already confident he had found the quickest route to explaining a difficult problem.
The dank super market they are in, with half its bulbs buzzing and putting out light, has been fitted with more than just working electricity: tucked above are several automated turrets β motion didn't seem to trigger them, but a loud enough sound did. Strong had found out personally when, urged by rage by the first mounted sentry ignoring his presence, he yelled a call to battle. The blind turrets did not ignore Strong then.
After patting the face of Austen (the majority of his head, really) the super mutant walked on as if forgetting him altogether. Pushing past him, and through some crumbling structure that was once wall and out of sight.
The yells that carry through, that come not long after, are human in nature β more than Strong perhaps, and more eloquent certainly. A set of three distinct voices, calmly exchanging tactics to preserve their lives. Calm even as they fail to do just that, as the number of speakers go down to two, then one β Strong's only contributions are the wallops of heavy blows and heaves of air to land them.
The young vault dweller had gotten roughly acclimated to the outside world. Every vault was an experiment of some sort, at least where he had hailed from. The extents of them, however, had not been well-known to him before the vault he was in had gotten hacked by a particularly clever group of raiders that had managed to pilfer a Pip Boy from a different vault dweller from an entirely different Commonwealth. Austen had escaped, barely, and had thus gotten the worst introduction to the Wastes that one could imagine.
But he was alive. His friends? Family? He didn't know. He'd just ran to save his own hide.
As the Super Mutant enveloped the entirety of his face and head with his green hand, he couldn't stifle the squeak that came out. Luckily, it didn't seem to care or even notice the frightened human. Wide eyes watched as Strong walked off, leaving the young man in the long abandoned aisle of what might have once shelfed cereals and oatmeal.
Austen winced, as moments later he heard the sounds of combat, and meaty thuds that could only be described as flesh meeting flesh. Willing to gamble he'd be safer with the mutant rather than alone, he followed...but only after the sounds of combat had ceased.
