A/N: Fallout, oh how I've missed you. These will mostly be fun little one-offs to keep the writing juices flowing, as writing for Fallout is like a zero stress environment for me. As opposed to Mass Effect, where it is almost impossible for me to write short little fun things without going off on tangents.
If you have no idea what "Flock of Vandals" is, you can skip ahead to the story. If not, please read the rest of the blurb.
In case you're worried that this means I'm moving on from that story, don't be. Don't ever be. I'm not dropping that story. Ever. I got thrown for a loop by one of my writing professors, for a good reason, and had to take a step back and reevaluate what I've been doing, and how to do it better. I have no idea when the next chapter will be up, but I promise you that you'll see a significant improvement over the first three. I take storytelling, in regards to my own writing, extremely seriously. The context is irrelevant. It has to be to the absolute best of my ability. End of story.
Anyway, Bethesda, Obsidian, Black Isle, Interplay, whatever, owns many parts of this and that and all of it. Enjoy!
"She sure is taking her sweet ass time in there...not sure if I should be worried, and go in guns blazin' like a psycho'd up cazador, or hopeful that she's killing those fuckers real slow," mused Cass, poking out from the street corner to take a quick peak at the Silver Rush. "Cut some tendons here, few veins there, let 'em sprawl out and bleed out..."
The Courier had been gone for around an hour, leaving her, Veronica, and ED-E just outside the Atomic Wrangler. Half because it had things, and people, to keep them entertained, and half to make sure Cass didn't just bury the Van Graffs in lead, or firebomb the building, or try to convince the Brotherhood of Steel to get involved. And a few thousand other ideas she'd made the mistake of openly discussing with her entourage.
She should've just kept her mouth shut and planted C-4 in the security guard's pants. Everything would've been so much simpler.
Veronica cleared her throat, failing once again to act 'natural'. She always stood like a soldier, and was far too pretty to just blend in. Cass had that problem, too. Obviously. "That's a great mental image. Ever thought of writing a book of your colorful, folksy, poetry?" she asked, sounding genuine. "I think it'd sell. There's a market for the 'well traveled' woman. At least I hope there is, because I'd buy it, and then I'd feel really awkward if I owned the only copy."
"Huh. 'Well traveled'? Gotta hand it to you. Pretty creative way to say that I'm 'broken in'. Like a couch. Or boots. Or a whore," countered Cass, very pleased with herself. She knew the other woman didn't think of her like that. Boone might, but he'd been married, or something, so he didn't count. Veronica was a sweet girl, which is why it was so much fun to tease her 'till she squirmed.
"Oh! No, I didn't mean it like that at all!" she stammered, clearly embarrassed. "I actually find your open sexuality inspiring! I—I wish I could be more like you, in that way. It's a lot more difficult for me, for obvious reasons, to even try to...get to that point. Procreation being one of the biggest, and basically the only hurdle. Brotherhood is pretty keen on making babies. Yay. Babies..."
"Pbbth, overrated. Getting knocked up is about the lowest thing on my to do list. Just above 'death by alcohol poisoning', 'captured by the Legion' and 'not killing the Van Graffs'."
The Van Graffs. That's why she was here. That's why they were here. Her, the Courier, that floating robot, and little miss Brotherhood who couldn't blend in with a crowd if she had a stealthboy and a ball gag. Cass smiled to herself, and filed that idea away for later. Not the part about Veronica, though. That'd just be cruel, like shooting the wings off a bloatfly and punting it into a gorge just to see how far it'd go when it couldn't fly. Cass filed that idea away, too.
"Why are any of those things on your to do list at all?" asked Veronica.
"Hush, now. Let me finish my thought."
"What?"
"Shh!"
Rose of Sharon Cassidy was just too clever for her own good. Sometimes. Mostly. Not all the time. A few times. Basically fucking never, if she were being honest. At least she wasn't some old world dirt pilgrim. Whatever the fuck that was.
ED-E made some blips and chirps, so Cass looked at it like she would a person who was speaking. She never had any fucking idea what it said, but it was a neat little robot, so it felt somehow impolite to just ignore it.
Veronica laughed, because of course she could understand it, and covered her grin. "Wow! I didn't think anyone could make so many double entendres with the word ghetto! You're absolutely right, ED-E. Freeside could use a little more...support columns and catalyst infrastructure. Mostly the catalyst infrastructure, but I'm pretty biased."
ED-E did that thing again where it talked without talking.
"Nope. Just made it up! I'm glad you liked it," smiled Veronica.
"No, please, do keep having your private conversation," scoffed Cass, taking another look down the street at the building that would soon be on fire. "I'm all ears about Freeside and sex, or something. Can't follow you, ED-E. Get a voice module installed, or something. If fucking Protectrons and Sentry Bots can do it, there's no reason you can't."
ED-E beeped and whirred and whizzed and did other crap like that.
"ED-E says that both his hardware and software are proprietary, so basic RobCo parts wouldn't work. He'd need something custom made, which isn't likely to happen any time soon."
Cass frowned. "Well, okay. I guess going to Mick and Ralph's and prying one out of the old robots is out the window. Dammit, Freeside isn't worth the cement it wasn't even built on."
Freeside was a ghetto, name not withstanding. Buildings were crumpled, the sick and dying scurried about the lifeless streets, desperate for a fix, some food and a decent lay. To Cass, that was just any other town, but Freeside had one very important difference. It was two blocks away from the biggest sack of glitz, glamor and wealth on the fucking planet. Only a wall, maintained by dumb looking robots with TVs for faces and stupid wheels for legs, kept the rich and snooty types from the drugged up and hungry types.
Well, all of that shit and the Van Graffs. The Kings, too, she guessed, but all that hair gel made them a blur in her mind. She just didn't give two shits about gangs as cultish as that one. The way they all looked the same, even more than the Fiends, didn't sit right with her. Kings of what? she'd asked them. They didn't have a fucking clue. Sure wasn't Freeside, 'cause they wanted it independent.
Piece of shit hypocrites, every damn one of 'em.
Cass really didn't care about the 'class warfare'. She just hated that the wall was there at all. What's gambling without all the dirt and grime? New Reno was a shithole, but it was an honest shithole. It knew it was a shithole, and didn't try to hide all the shit or the holes, which were mostly asses and snatches, respectively. Mostly. Vegas, on the other shitty hand, just lied to itself, swinging it's big floppy dick around like it was the only dick worth seeing.
Out in Nevada, maybe. Then again, the Mojave Outpost had it's fair share of dicks that were well worth her time. Which meant that Vegas was, as she'd always known, full of shit.
"I wouldn't say that, Cass," said the Courier as she jogged over to them. Her duster swept up an apt amount of dust off the concrete, dirtying the otherwise spotless breast plate of her Desert Ranger armor. She noticed, very quickly, and frustratedly wiped the dust off her chest. "If the Strip wasn't actively starving them to death, it'd be a pretty cool place."
Cass sneered at her. "What? Where the fuck have you been? We've been sitting on our hands for over an hour out here, and I've had to listen to these two make conversation that I can only half understand."
"Cass. I wasn't done."
"Oh, sorry. I'll hold off on being pissed 'till you're done, then."
"Good. I was going to say that Freeside would be a pretty cool place..." The woman tossed her a bright red toy pistol. "...as long as we burn these bastards down. I just saw a woman murder her lover, in cold blood, just to prove a point to a client." She turned to Veronica, grimacing. "I also got some pretty powerful incest vibes from the two who owned the place. So there's also that."
Veronica screwed up her face in disgust. "Eugh! Gross! Why would anyone even do that?"
Cass lazily looked over the toy pistol, curious as to why the Courier had given it to her. "I dunno. Boredom, maybe? Sure as hell was reason enough for me."
The Courier, Veronica and even ED-E stared at her.
"Oh, get the radscorpions out of your butts! It's a joke! I don't even have any brothers or sisters!"
The Courier only looked at her with wider eyes. "...maybe that's why her dad left-"
"Shut the fuck up what is this thing?!" she snapped back, transitioning seamlessly to the toy pistol. She waved it around in front of her.
"Stop! Don't do that, it's probably fragile! It's a laser designator for an orbital space laser."
Cass deadpanned. "An orbital space laser."
"Yup. Apparently, that's what HELIOS One was actually for. Go figure."
Veronica crossed her arms. "Yeah. Go figure that it took you all of thirty minutes to unlock the secrets of the place that half of my brothers fought and died for. I don't know whether to think the Brotherhood is full of idiots, or you're somehow more brilliant than Elijah."
The Courier scratched the back of her head, looking guilty. "I don't think it's either of those things. The NCR did most of the work repairing the place, and the Followers of Apocalypse actually figured it out long before I got there. Right place, right time."
"That tends to happen to you a lot, doesn't it?"
"I try not to question it. Makes the bullet part of my brain hurt."
ED-E chirped.
"That makes way too much sense," said the Courier, chuckling.
Cass sighed. "Orbital. Space. Laser. You're shitting me."
The Courier shook her head. "Not even a little. Point and shoot, and this big blue beam will fall from the sky and blow up whatever you were aiming at. It's really handy!"
"Oh, fuck yeah it is." Cass's eyes lit up at that. She turned around aimed the designator at the Silver Rush. "Burn my people to ash, huh?" she whispered. "Karma's a bitch, and payback is too." She fired. Nothing happened. The toy did nothing. She slapped it and tried again. Nothing.
"If Arcade were here, he'd call that thing a war crime," said Veronica.
"Oh, of course, and I'd agree with him. It's a good thing none of us are enlisted in a military that is actively fighting a war, isn't it?" said the Courier.
"I...suppose that's true..." Veronica was silent for a moment. "It's a little scary how easy it is for me to agree with you about that."
"It's called chemistry, I have it with everybody."
"Wow. You're awfully humble today," snarked Veronica
ED-E beeped and clacked and hummed.
Cass feathered the trigger a few dozen times. She scowled, huffed and gestured to the Silver Rush. "Hey, think your stupid toy is broken because those fuckers aren't burnt to ash or didn't explode or whatever this thing does."
"Little of both. Did you turn off the safety?" asked the Courier.
Cass inspected the gun and grumbled as she disabled the safety. "Thanks. Are we safe here? Shoulda asked that before."
"Yeah, we're fine. Probably. Just shove it in your pocket and head on into the Wrangler when it hits. I don't want House getting all pissy over the orbital space laser."
Cass aimed and fired. "Yeah, sure." The gun screeched, crackled and beeped for a few seconds as a weird series of images flashed across the display. "...what the hell? Is it supposed to-"
A massive pillar of blue light slammed into the Silver Rush with meteoric force, disintegrating and obliterating everything around it in a gut wrenching explosion. The four of them were catapulted straight into the Atomic Wrangler.
Cass landed right on top of the Courier, and could only hear ringing. And her heartbeat. Which was good. Her head felt like an alarm clock, just ringing and ringing and ringing and-
"Cass," giggled the Courier. "You top me any longer and I'm going to start thinking you're sweet on me."
Cass looked up, groggy and disoriented as all hell. She saw Veronica, pulling herself up out of a pile of smashed slot machines, and ED-E, wedged halfway into the stage left wall. She looked down at the Courier, grins and all, and it all became clear.
"I need a drink."
A/N: I have the biggest crush on Rose of Sharon Cassidy. She's just the best. She really, really is. Getting inside of her head for that pseudo-tangential vulgar thought process was incredibly fun. If she seems more pissed off, irritable and appears to be speaking faster here than she does normally, keep in mind that she's still in her blood feud with Crimson Caravan and the Van Graffs. Hell hath no fury like Cass without her whiskey, as the saying goes. It's not that relevant to this context, but she's pissed because people fucked with her, so there you go.
As for the Courier, just assume she took both the "Black Widow" and "Cherchez La Femme" perks. I'm not gonna characterize any of the player characters more than a few jokes or comments, so this in no way means they're gettin' together. Ideally, they won't be there at all.
The Courier's "It's called chemistry, I have it with everybody." is a stolen classic Jeff Winger line from NBC's "Community". Specifically, "Paradigms of Human Memory" Season 2, Episode 21. With a Speech of 100 and a Charisma of 10, it's also true.
Lastly: Fallout 3 has been out for 6 years, and NO ONE has chosen this as a fic title?! There's like 3 Fallout 1/2 characters in the selection boxes, which isn't cool. I wanted to put Frank Horrigan in there...
Don't forget to drop a review, if you're so inclined. Box is right there, below this sentence. Can't miss it.
