Chapter One - Crazy Bitch

"Hold still," she says as the syringe breaks his skin. Her eyes were scanning the carnage that lay before her. "But keep on talking."

"This is stupid. If you are going to help me, then help me. Im not jumping through any more of your hoops, you crazy bitch!" the bleeding man growls through gritted teeth. The Med-X was starting to take effect, however, and the pain was decreasing slightly.

She sighs. "Alright, have it your way." Her eyes still scanning the grisly scene, she takes a step away from the dying man. "I've lessened your pain as much as I could.. Have a nice rest of your life." Another step.

"Wait," he whispers. "I'll talk. Help me."

Without a word, she takes another step away. Then another. A fifth. She bends down and picks up a knife from a pool of mud made from blood and sand. A short while ago, she watched as that very same knife came right at her throat.

Right before the blade touched her skin there were two explosions and a shower of blood. Where the knife had been, there was a bloody stump of what used to be the raider's arm. That man now lies next to her, armless, and with the left side of his head blown off completely. As she wipes the knife on the dead man's clothes, she draws her lips tight together. "Pretty what a shotgun can do at pont-blank."

She walks a bit further and finds a big muscular man, topless, drowning in his own pool of blood. This one was killed before he even had a chance to react, with a single bullet right through the bridge of his nose and out the back of his head.

She tries to lift his weapon, but it was way too heavy for her. She drags it instead. Struggling with the weight of the heavy weapon, she places the grip on the dying man's hand. He looks at her as if she was asking him to pet a Deathclaw. She could practically feel his agony radiatiing from his face. This is the man who saved her life, perhaps at the cost of his own.

"Squeeze the trigger," she commands. The man grits his teeth and stifles a scream as he struggled to accomodate the pushy woman. Suddenly, A roar of blue and yellow flames erupts from the far end of the Flamer. "Keep it going," she says. she walks toward the flames and thrusts the blade into the stream of fire."

"Well?" She yells over the roar of the fire.

"Fuck," the man says through clenched teeth. "you are one crazy bitch!"

"Stop calling me that, im about to save your life." She yelled back at him, pulling the knife out of the fire.

He sniggered. The irony was not lost to him. A sharp pain flashed from his gushing wound, causing him to grunt and let the trigger go. Suddenly, it was silent.

"My name, my REAL name, is Chance." he says, gasping for air. He let the flamer go and his hand fell to the ground. He couldnt even lift it if he wanted to. "Thats what my parents named me when i was born."

"Okay, Chance. Theres a chance that this is gonna hurt," She said to the gaping hole in his stomach.

"What is?"

Down went the red hot knife, biting into the man's flesh. He could smell his own skin being burnt.

He screamed for an eternity before he was swallowed by the darkness. But not before he was able to whisper "Crazy bitch" one last time.

Hours after the sun sets, Her voice wakes him. He is next to a raging fire, yet he is shivering, and could not move. "We're over here!" she yells. "Took you two long enough. We need to get this man to dad right now."

"Damn it, Jule.." he hears some stranger say as his strength leaves him. He goes back to sleep.