Hector Mendoza looked through a pair of binoculars at the city of New Vegas from a distant hill. He had heard of it before and had even learned of it in Pre War books and anything else they had on the old world back in Vault 101. This was the city that for the most part, had not taken nearly as much damage as the rest of the cities in America and the rest of the world during the Great War of 2077. There had been stories of such things told by caravans in other cities but he had not been to many of them as most of them were halfway around the world. Here, however, the city was almost entirely intact aside from some minor damage that had been done by the missiles two hundred years ago. The air stunk as Charon lit a cigarette.

Hector looked over at the ghoul and rolled his eyes. "Come on, man do you gotta smoke that crap now? Pretty sure cigarettes are bad for you. Well...I don't know if they're bad for you but they're still bad for humans."

Charon snorted. "Calm down, kid its my last smoke. Last one in the pack. I won't be able to find anymore for a while I'm sure. The last several; caravans didn't have them so they probably won't out here either."

Hector looked at the city still bewildered at it and said, "So this is New Vegas. The place they talk about making a fortune all over the country. Maybe they can provide insight as to how they were able to stop most of the missiles? That aint what the Brotherhood sent me here for but I think i could help them out a lot if i find that out."

He looked over to Charon and asked him, "Hey amigo, are you a pre war ghoul? I don't mean any offense i just wondered because i know ghouls can't reproduce. So obviously you couldn't have been born this way, right?"

Charon took a puff on the cigarette. "Permission to speak freely, boss?"

Hector shrugged. "Go ahead, I'm not like your last boss remember? I'm gonna be as fair to you as possible so long as you respect me I'll do the same. That said, speak your mind ,homes. I'm all ears."

Charon blew smoke. "Why are you smoothskins so judgemental? For all you know the radiation out there could have changed me. There's more than enough of it going around after the Great War. Humans poisoned the planet forever. So your old world government's fuck up is what created guys like me and everybody else in the Underworld and the Ninth Circle. No, i aint a damn pre war ghoul. You would have had to have asked Carol about that but its a little late for that now don't ya think?"

Hector held up a hand. "Whoa, easy Charon nobody is judging here it was just a question. I'm Salvadoran myself ya know, right? We faced plenty of discrimination back the Pre War times. We still do. Even when we had flesh on our bodies so what does that tell you?"

Charon took a drag, and without hesitation said, "It tells me humanity is truly an ugly thing. That the souls of a human is uglier than a ghoul is. You're all right and all, Hec, but so many humans have fucked the world up. Chinese government, American government, i don't really give a damn. Their own selfishness costed everybody else their lives."

Hector shrugged. "Well, we're going to try to reverse that. I'm out here because once and for all, its time to put the petty differences between the West Coast and East Coast divisions of the Brotherhood Of Steel. Word is, Raven Rock wasn't the Enclave's last stronghold. They got a lot of cities they're still in back East and the irony is, its in the thirteen original colonies, just like we learned about in school. All up and down the Eastern sea board."

Charon coughed violently and then said, "So what do the BOS want with your scrawny ass? Haven't you done enough? You got fresh water in the capital wasteland for the first time in a long time. That's a hell of a thing to do, kid. It's that Elder Lyons, isn't it? You've got the hots for her."

Hector rolled his eyes. "Bullshit, I do. I just believe the Brotherhood Of Steel are good people. I want to do what I can to help. Besides, if the Enclave is going to try to set up out here in the Mojave we need to put a stop to it."

Charon took another drag and blew the smoke out faster this time. "Kid, the Enclave aint been in the Mojave for a long time. I should know! I've been here before. I saw the start of the war between the Brotherhood and the Enclave. Personally I can't stand either one of them,"

All though Charon had sometimes given the impression that he hated humans, and even that he disliked Hector, in truth he was comfortable around him. Unlike the others in the past who had held the Underworld ghoul's contract, Hector treated him as an equal wanting only that he contribute and do his share of carrying.

They had traveled to the Mojave Wasteland using one of the older models of Vertibird they had taken from the Enclave in a battle aided by Sarah Lyons. Though Hector usually only paired up with one companion at a time, he still had them all with him. Each person would wait and live on the necessities that the vertibird had. In a sense, it was both a motel and a vehicle. This would be his home base, among others if possible but nonetheless the primary one. Back at the Vertibird itself, Jericho, a former bandit and a current other companion, kept watch , a Chinese Assault Rifle lay across his lap.

They headed up a dirt path and walked down it. They headed around the side to see if there was a way through the city or a way they could get in. There was a door that seemed to lead to the glitzy city. As they headed down the hill toward the entrance, Hector was surprised as several heads popped up. They were dirty wastelanders and they had guns drawn on them. Those who did not have guns carried various weapons such as pool sticks and knives. There were eight of them in all. They were dressed in what looked like barbaric clothing. They reminded him of the raiders back home in D.C. but somehow they seemed worse. Dirtier.

A woman with brown hair and a viking helmet had a twisted grin on her face. She was a petite Caucasian and she was dirtier than the inside of a grave. She had a laser pistol aimed at Hector's waist line. "Give up everything you got, meat sack! Down to your underwear or I'll blast you into a pile of ashes!"

Another raider, an African American wearing Raider armor grinned revealing several missing teeth. "Lori, can i kill the mutant? i never met a live zombie before! I'd like to put him back in the ground where he belongs."

The woman, Lori, glanced at her comrade and then back at Hector. "What's it gonna be?"

Hector slid back his 9mm. He didn't want to move too suddenly. This woman was clearly a chem addict as indicated by her pupils the size of a boulder practically. Charon blew smoke in the face of the raider who had the gun on him, a .357 Magnum. He said, "My flesh is rotting as we speak an it probably can't get any worse than that yet my breath still smells better than yours...what's your excuse, smooth skin?"

The black man hit him with the side of the gun and growled, "I aint gettin talked down to by some abomination! A freak of nature!"

Charon grunted from the blow yet he had still held onto the little bit of the cigarette butt he still was finishing. "You're right. I think we're past words," With that Charon flicked his butt into the raider's eye and the man screamed and stumbled back and Charon managed to get the sledge hammer he had been carrying ready and he swung, hitting the man in the chest. The man grunted as his ribs were broken.

Hector backed off, firing his 9mm and he hit two of the Raiders. One of them refused to go down and had armor on that caught a few of the rounds. Hector had already discharged five shots from the gun.

He aimed again and fired and sent a round punching through the eye of the raider in front of him, a bald man with a goatee and a tattoo on his head. He turned on the other he'd wounded so far and unloaded five shots on him. All five hit him in the torso. The Raiders fired back but Hector had returned to cover and Charon had killed the Raider who had mocked him by bring the sledge down on his face, crushing his skull.

The others, he swung wildly at before they could get off a shot and they backed up sustaining injuries so he joined Hector behind the boulder he had taken cover behind. Charon armed his shotgun, the same one he had always carried on him. He fired blindly from around the side but hit nobody. Hector came out from cover and fired two shots at the gang leader before ducking back to cover.

He heard a yelp of pain and knew he had hit her at least once. He had to reload. He did so from the cover of the rock. She fired at him with the laser pistol wildly. Hector felt sharp pain shoot through his arm, and he knew he had been hit once. He fired drawing a bead on the homicidal bitch and he hit her in the side, a round lodging into her left kidney. Another round hit her right in the collar bone on the left side.

He fired again at the wounded woman and shot her right between the eyes. The round blew right through her skull and brain matter stained her bloodied corpse. Charon dispatched of the last of her goons with the shotgun. He's like a surgeon with that thing... Hector thought.

Charon spotted one of them trying to escape, a man who was limping. He had a broken arm revealing a compound fracture due to Charon's handiwork and he had also take some shotgun pellets in the back of his left leg. He was literally on his last leg. "I didn't mean it, man! It was Lori's idea! Just trying to eat! The Mojave's hell to survive these days!"

Hector aimed and fired shooting him three times in the back. The man collapsed howling in pain. Hector looked at him growled, "So is the rest of the world. You picked the wrong people to try to rob asshole," He raised the 9mm to finish him off but Charon put his hand on the barrel. "Hang on, kid. He aint worth an extra bullet. He's a dirty chem addict and to top it off he's so dirty he's making me look sanitary. Just leave him to his fate. To rot out here."

It was true. He was dirtier than a dead brahmin and he had a sword fish hair style which probably had been washed about as much as this man man howled, "Come on, guys...! Have some fuckin mercy...!"

Hector coldly replied, "You wouldn't have shown any mercy if it was me in your place. I doubt you would have spoken up to that bitch of a boss of yours either in my defense. I'm gonna leave you to the Wasteland and all its wonderful nature. If you're lucky some other junkies will find you and patch you up. To kill you would still be a mercy. Only question is, will the sun kill you, or your wounds?"

He walked away and as they put distance between themselves and the bloody mess they had left, Charon asked, "Permission to speak freely, boss?"

Hector rolled his eyes. "I told you already, yes! Now spit it out."

Charon was blunt. "Me and Jericho were talking on the ride over here, kid. Something about you has changed. I mean he told me you had your darker days. Like blowing up Megaton? Then he said that you started to change. Started acting less like a wasteland thug and started helping people. You even freed some slaves from Paradise Falls and delivered the Lincoln Memorial into the hands of freed slaves. You did just as much good out there as bad. You were hated for a while for some of the stuff you did but then people thought you were all right when you turned a new leaf."

Hector sighed and stopped in his tracks. "If you have a point, Charon, make it."

Charon told him, "You turned your life around for the better. I think your dad might have had something to do with it, right? At that point I was with you, remember? You put off the Project Purity stuff to help other people around D.C. out. Then you temporarily let me go so you could return to Vault 101. You survived the showdown with the Enclave and the explosion even. We all figured you for dead," It was true. Every last one of his companions had known this. When he wasn't scavenging he had confided in them.

Charon crossed his arms. "Something happened, didn't it? You were out to do good. For us ghouls and smooth skins alike. That was why you didn't put the FEV in the purity filter. So why the change? Ever since you came back from Alaska and all those other places you went to it seems like you started to go back to the way you were. A cold hearted killer. I maybe a contract killer and a ghoul but I can't say I enjoy it. I used to be human...once. You shouldn't take your humanity for granted."

Hector just continued walking and Charon followed. His voice dripping with sarcasm, Charon remarked, "You're such a deep conversationalist, boss. You really pour your heart out. They just don't make em like you anymore."

Hector ignored the comment. He knew the answer to Charon's question and conviction but the last thing he wanted to do was talk about it. Still, in his mind he thought of it. Amata... He missed that girl...no that woman. She had grown up in the vault with him and he had hoped he and her would one day be together. He had royally fucked up any chance he had of that ever happening. Then again, he was not sure he had done anything at all and yet he was still blamed for it. For starters, when his father had left the vault, Amata's father had a scientist and friend of the family named Jonas shot and when Amata gave him a pistol, he had promised himself that he would not kill the Overseer as it would be wrong by Amata even if he was a murdering bastard himself. He had his own men beat his daughter to get answers from her on Hector's whereabouts.

Hector had killed two security guards and had also killed the Overseer. He had promised himself he would not but he had done so anyway in the heat of the gunfight. Amata had been enraged by this and for a long time was angry with him. Later on, he had come to find that the vault was being run still when she had reached him in a beacon to his pip boy. Her new overseer and her were at war and the overseer had the vault officers at his disposal and Amata had the younger residents ad the gang known as the Tunnel Snakes on her side , opting to allow the vault to be opened in case residents needed supplies but still, they would continue to live there. Even after he had saved everybody from impending disaster she still had said he had to leave as there were still a lot of hard feelings about what had been started just from his own father leaving. Plus he had killed another man even after attempting to communicate without violence, because he had killed the previous leader, good ol' Mack had tried to kill him and instead was killed himself. Amata had been grateful to him for saving the Vault from impending disaster but he had killed again to do it. "You're a hero...and you have to leave," She had told him.

Now he was in the Mojave Wasteland. I'm here to forget my troubles while i can. Plus help the Brotherhood Of Steel. At least finally, the factions that fight each other don't anymore. Thanks to those assholes at the Enclave...He thought one last painful time of Amata Almodovar and then forced the thought from his mind. As they made their way to the entrance of Freeside. Charon had found a pack of cigrettes on one of the dead bodies of the Fiends they had killed. "Jackpot! Say you were right, boss! This is the city of good fortune!"

Hector looked at him and said, "You mind if i bum a smoke from you, man?" Charon seemed puzzled by this. "You don't smoke, Hector. I know you don't. You've been on my case about my own smoking like you were an around the clok wife!"

Hector knew he was right but he wanted to get the woman he loved off of his mind and even more than that, to not be in a bad state of mind. he just shrugged. "I just started."

Charon handed him a smoke and then lit it for him and lit another for himself. The ghoul cackled, "All right then. Cheers! To your health!" They opened the door to Freeside. Here goes...

That's it for the first chapter sheeple! haha JK I meant people! I am making my first attempt at a Fallout fic so go easy on me please!I will take constructive critics but no flames! As for typos i will try to get them when i can but on spell check, they can only be correct so much a lot of the time they aren't. So yeah in conclusion, I basically thought I'd be cool if the Lone Wanderer was in the Mojave Wasteand and if he got to take some of the companions with him using the older model of the Vertibird as a home base or a place to leave them kind of like the presidential suite in the Lucky 38 is Fallout NV.

So this will take place partly before, during and after the events of Fallout New Vegas but for sure after Fallout 3.

Please read and review! No flames!