Guidance of the Lost
Chapter 1
Bodies danced and stepped in the dusty distance. Seemingly dragging something behind them. It didn't look normal. Then again nothing really looked normal in the wasteland. Jenny adjusted her scope to hopefully get a better look at what this group of people were dragging behind them. Raiders of some sort. Or perhaps Mercs. It wasn't easy to tell at this distance. But they were dragging what looked to be a body. This was one of those few moments Jenny wished she had practiced her sniper skills. She was more of a melee fighter. Give her a good axe and she could slaughter a whole group of people with no issue, now shove a sniper rifle in front of her and she couldn't even take down a radroach. Taking in a deep breath of her cigarette. The woman stubbed out the butt and chucked it aside. Standing up, she grabbed her sniper rifle and tossed it over her shoulder an with another heave she pulled out her trusty proton axe and started running right towards the raiders, or mercs or whatever the hell they were. Jenny didn't care at this point. She had been through hell and back. Shot in the head, had her brain removed, sided with the NCR and fought at the second battle of Hoover dam and officially casted the Legion out of the Mojave. Now the woman was spending her "retirement years" picking off stragglers in Colorado. She still took the odd job as a Courier for old time sake but she wanted to be done with the politics. Ulysses taught her a hard lesson when it came to getting involved. So she kept a low profile these days.
Ducking down low to the ground the woman had snuck up as close as she could to the group of mercs as she could before they caught sight of her. Wearing black was always a dumb decision in the middle of the desert but Colorado got cold and black was a easy way to feel warm. Dumping her rifle off of her back. Jenny snuck up behind one of the mercs and swung her axe. The energy blade slicing right through his skull like butter. The smell of singed hair was never appealing and still to this day she never got used to it. That was when she was knocked down to the ground. Her axe kicked away from her hands. One of the mercs punched her squarely acrossed the nose causing a sickening crack.
She saw red.
Taking the punch, Jenny felt the blood pooling up in her sinuses and pouring down her nose. Standing up slowly she sneered a little and jumped the merc who punched her. Slipping a knife from her boot, she buried it over and over into the side of his neck, causing him to quickly bleed out. Standing up from his body the woman turned herself around to find one woman holding a pistol cursing a bunch of expletives at her.
Ugly words.
What a waste of breath.
Gritting her teeth, Jenny took her knife and tossed it right at the woman's head. The sharp knife buried itself deep into her cheek causing the woman to fall to the ground. Walking over to her form. Jenny kneeled down and pulled her knife out of the woman's mouth. Her own blood dripping off of her face. The woman gave a big grin to the merc.
"Really!? Point a gun at me!?" Jenny laughed. She was losing her mind.
The woman reached up and wrapped her hands around the woman's throat and squeezed tightly on her windpipe. She could feel the blood struggling to pump through her veins. The merc woman began struggling under her tight grip.
"The last man I choked out had a slower death then you" Jenny snipped. "Consider yourself lucky".
The merc stopped struggling as her life faded away. Jenny took a deep breath in and reached up to her nose. Her fingers wrapped around the broken bridge and with a swift crack the woman reset her nose back into the right position. A small whimper escaped from her lips. Hopefully it would stop hurting so much now that she no longer needed to mess with it. But it will certainly swell. Spitting some of the blood out from her mouth, movement caught the old courier's eye. She finally turned all of her focus on the very being that was struggling on the ground. Stepping over to his side, the poor fool had managed to get his legs free from the ropes so he stood up and began backing away from her. His arms still tied tightly behind his back.
It was like the woman's whole demeanor softened. The killer look in her eye had almost immediately disappeared. Holding up her hands she tipped her head a bit.
"Easy there cowboy. I'm not here to hurt you. I saw them dragging you around like a damn cart from back there. I don't really believe in slavery so I came to set you free. Are you ok?" Jenny asked. Her voice had grown gentle.
"Why do you care? I'm just a ghoul." His voice trembled.
"Look. I don't care if you are a ghoul or a super mutant or even a damn intelligent deathclaw. I am not here to hurt you and frankly I can't stand to see others mistreating the innocent." Jenny frowned a bit.
"Can I at least untie your arms?" Jenny asked
The Ghoul stood there looking a bit confused and conflicted at the same time. She could easily slit his throat if he gave her the chance to. But seeing how quickly she took down the group of mercs. She would have no trouble taking him down regardless. Even if he did run.
"Yea… yeah I guess.. So.." the ghoul nearly whispered.
Jenny nodded. Keeping her arms up she walked over to his side and reached over, her fingers worked over the tight knots letting them loosen and drop from his hands. She slowly backed away from his side keeping her own hands up.
"The name is Jennifer. I work for the Mojave Express as a Courier. Well from time to time. You can call me Jenny if you'd like." Jenny gave a brief smile hoping to break some of the tension.
"The Mojave?" The ghoul looked down at his hands, rubbing his raw wrists. He was visibly confused over this news.
"Yeah, well actually you are in Colorado right now. Where are you from?" Jenny pried a bit, a frown sinking down on her face.
"The east coast." He whispered.
"Fuck, you are far from home." Jenny's frown sharpened.
The ghoul just stood there rubbing his sore wrists so Jenny took that small opportunity to go and grab her Proton axe. Stepping away she walked over to her trusty weapon and picked it up, pulling the strap over her shoulder and allowing the weapon to sit comfortably acrossed her back. Turning her form back over to him, she took a step back in front of him. Hoping to not look anymore intimidating to the poor ghoul. Her frown slowly returned back to her face.
"Do you have family?" She inquired.
"No."
"A name?" The woman sighed.
"Gob." The ghoul looked up at the woman. His eyes showing how tired her really looked.
"Well, it's nice to meet you Gob. If you need I can take you back home. It's not like I really have anything else to do. Or at the very least you can travel with me for awhile until your able to get back on your feet and settle somewhere. I know of some places in the NCR which would be safe for a Ghoul." The woman offered.
Gob didn't say a word. Reaching up the ghoul had brushed some of his patchy brown hair out of his face before looking at the woman and giving her a small nod.
#
The night was quiet. Gob ended up spending his time in the far corner of the woman's makeshift tent. Jenny was outside spending her spare time writing in her journal. Chewing at his bottom lip, Gob slowly made his way out of her tent and sat acrossed from the woman. She hadn't bothered to start up a fire yet. Maybe she was far to in her head to realize it was growing cold out. Her watched her put down her journal and pack it away in her travel bag. That's when her eyes met up with his, a gentle smile growing acrossed her sunburned cheeks.
"Hungry?" She broke the silence.
Gob was always hungry. For a good portion of his ghoul spent years he had been hungry. Always being starved by his "employers" or a more proper word was owners. Yet here was this woman who came from the middle of the desert, not only saved him, offered to travel with him until he felt like he could settle down again but she was now offering him food. Gob had not known this level of kindness since the small amount of time he had spent with the Lone Wanderer so many years back.
"I…..I wouldn't mind.. Having something to eat.." Gob whispered hoping she wasn't making this into a joke.
Jenny didn't respond. Instead she rose to her feet and stepped out from her camp. Gob heard some rustling around behind the tent until the woman made a "awww" sound and then made a return. She was holding a few skewers of what looked to be cooked mole rat meat. Sinking back down to her spot, she held out the 4 skewers of meat for Gob to take. No words were spoken but there seemed to be a silent conversation going on between the two. Gob slowly reached up and took the skewers out of the woman's hand and ended up giving her a slight thankful nod. Jenny only smiled in return.
Leaning back onto the palm of her hands, Jenny released a very soft sigh, her eyes closing. A small haze and settled in her mind so it was time to try and relax to clear it. She had battled this ongoing haze problem for years at this point. Having her brain removed in the Big MT didn't do any favors to this issue. The woman wasn't able to remember half of that time still to do this day but she at least eventually got her answers. Her last companion Raul had helped her through the worst of it. Oh how she missed Raul.
"Look I know we are still strangers at this point Gob. So why don't you sleep in the tent tonight. I'll sleep out here for the night. So that way I can hear anything sneaking up on us." Jenny broke the silence.
Gob looked up at her, his eyes filled with a bit of nervousness. He nodded a bit as he continued to eat his mole rat meat skewer.
It was good to see someone so famished looking eating Jenny thought to herself. The woman stood up and stretched out her arms, rolling her shoulders a bit. Looking down at the ghoul she gave him a brief smile.
"Goodnight Gob"
"Goodnight Jenny."
Authors Note:
Hey everyone. So it's been awhile since I last wrote anything. I might be a tad rusty. My last computer died so I ended up losing everything as well as all of the programs I wrote on. But I have everything fixed now. So I am back to writing. So I just wanted to say I guess this story is a bit of a sequel to 'The Diary of Courier Six'. Naturally I abandoned that fic before it got too far along. I tend to write a bit better when I have more creative freedom. I honestly didn't know where I wanted to take it. So let's just write a sequel to the unfinished fic instead. I've been wanting to write a fanfic involving Gob for a long while now but just couldn't come up with something original in lines of Fallout 3 that really wasn't done before. So let's just go ahead and get this poor ghoul mixed up in my Courier's shenanigans after the events of New Vegas. I won't go too much into detail here as the story will bring all of this up. So if you want to get to familiarize yourself with Jenny I would suggest reading 'Diary of Courier Six'. I go into great detail some about her "brain haze" moments. But I will be sure to write some of that into this story as well for those who don't read it. Thank you all for the support. Happy Reading!