The Adventures of Kazdin Willow: Adventures in Mount Zion
By FalloutGuy1986
DISCLAIMER: I do not own things. If Fallout was mine I would be a rich man, and I am not. So therefore Fallout, Bethesda and all other characters, companies, locales…and Mr. Chompers are all the property of Bethesda, The greatest game company ever…Of All Time.
A/N: Hey everyone, I am new here to and this will be the first story that I write for you all. However, this is not the first time I have written a story or a fan fiction in my life. I have been writing for most of my life and I think I have gotten pretty good at it, but I'll let all you wonderful readers decide that.
As for this story, I am sort of going backwards in the series of events of this timeline. The story I was going to upload first is called The Adventures of Kazdin Willow, Brotherhood of Steel. However, the computer I am using to upload these things is a newer model than my home computer and it needs a special download in order to translate my word processor to the newer model and yada yada yada. I will eventually upload the prequel, for lack of a better term, but I need to figure it out.
I've got multiple chapters finished for that one, just gimme some time. Anyway, let's forward until the end of the vanilla game, where Kazdin is a Paladin in charge of a newly independent New Vegas and this is her first time travelling out of the Mojave. Please, please comment and enjoy!
CHAPTER ONE: Separation Anxiety
"I'm sorry young woman, but I cannot allow you to travel until you have less than 100 pounds on you. It's a matter of survival." Jed insisted, breathing a nasally sigh through his nose.
"But sir, it'll take me months to lose that much weight. I'm only 150 pounds and it's all muscle, see?" Kazdin asked, bringing up her arms and curling them, showing the bulge of muscle that was forged through her trials all throughout the Mojave Wasteland.
Jed looked incredulously at Boone and Veronica, standing to either side of the ditzy Texan. Veronica was trying hard and failing miserably to hide a humorous grin, while Boone shook his head, a wry smile on his own face.
"She does that, but you get used to it." Boone said.
"Listen, sweetheart," Jed began slowly, as if speaking to an overgrown child,
"I mean the weight in your pack there cannot exceed 100 pounds. I know you got a strong back or I would make it 75 pounds, but I simply can't risk you passing out due to lack of oxygen, understand?"
Kazdin nodded, the light of understanding shining in her blue eyes. She grinned and opened her pack, rummaging around for things she could live without.
After a few minutes she unloaded enough miscellanious junk and unneeded weapons into the foot locker at Jed's feet. The forboding dark cave that the trio found themselves in weighed heavily on Boone. His great love was going off into the wilderness, but he would defend her if it drew his final breath in the fight.
Kazdin looked back to Jed and he nodded. He picked her pack up off the ground and judged its weight and pronounced her ready. She turned back to her friends.
"Alright, guys. Let's suit up and get underway." Kaz drawled. Her friends nodded, but Jed held up a hand.
"Sorry, but I can't let your friends come along." Jed said apologetically. Boone's eyes narrowed and Veronica's smile froze. Kazdin suddenly looked shell shocked at the realization.
"Sir, these are my best friends, my companions. We have travelled everywhere together. This would…This would be the first time we had been apart for more than a few hours." Kaz said, crestfallen.
"There's no way we are leaving her. She is my fiancee and the last woman I left behind for more than a night was killed. I have to travel with her." Boone spoke, his normal whispery voice rising in volume as he folded his thick arms.
"I don't mind staying behind if I have to. I'll sure miss you, though." Veronica said, hugging her best friend.
"Now, I ain't making light of your troubles, son. But I can't have you going along. This caravan is booked and the more people we have here, the bigger a target we are. Now I must insist, that if she is to go along with us at all, then she must come on alone." Jed said, resolutely.
Boone looked as if he would rather argue than submit, his face turning a disturbing crimson color. Kaz calmed him with a soft, warm hand on his broad shoulder.
"I know this sucks, Craig. I am nervous, and even a bit scared to go off to this new world without my man, but it looks like I have to." Kazdin said, soothing the big man.
"I don't see how one more person on this team would be a big deal." Boone said, the anger leaving his voice to be replaced by worry. Kazdin kissed his rugged lips for a few seconds, a chaste kiss when compared to their usual tongue filled lip locks. She separated, but left her arms cradling the big man's neck.
"You know how important this is. As the Super Awesome Mayor of New Vegas, or S.A.M.N.V. for short, it is super important for me to expand our borders and get to know our neighbors. I have to go. And you have to let me go." Kazdin reasoned. She could see he was backing down by the second.
"I just… don't want to lose you the way I lost Carla." Boone said, heaving a sigh of slow resignation.
"You won't Craig. I'll be careful and take care of myself so I can come back and see you, baby. I promise." Kazdin replied softly. They kissed again, this one longer than before as the trio said their goodbyes. After what seemed like hours she turned away from her friends and smiled at Jed.
"I'm ready. Let's get going."
The walk back to the Lucky 38 would normally be filled in with small talk, but as Boone and Veronica, trusted friends and confidantes of the S.A.M.N.V., trekked across the dry Mojave wasteland, eyes wary for enemies of peace, they were both lost in thought.
They both knew how important Kazdin's travelling would be and they both knew that there would be more in the future.
Kazdin had received several messages on her pip boy pertaining to travelling to faraway lands for one reason or another. It seemed as though after the courier became the Super Awesome Mayor, she had no end of summons from Nevada's neighbors seeking audience or inviting her to loot surrounding areas with the promise of providing more wealth for her kingdom.
Kazdin had first been invited to the grand opening of the Sierra Madre casino, a job offer that she had received shortly after exiting Doc Mitchell's home with a freshly stitched head wound. She had decided then that if she wasn't ready to track down one man, then she sure as hell had no business travelling to the Sierra Madre and trying to crack the vault.
Later when she and her friends were touring the wasteland, she decided she did not have time, but she would eventually find out what all the fuss was about.
That was nothing compared to the messages she had received after she had kicked the noisome NCR from her region. She had received messages inviting her to the Big MT crater to befriend the big brained robots who resided in the former mountain's laboratories.
She had been summoned by an 'old friend' to reach into her past and find answers.
And she had been lured to Utah in what both Boone and Veronica knew was a much needed attempt to get in touch with allies at Mount Zion. So many needed help and it would take many months for the courier-turned-mayor to complete all of those tasks, barring the risk of danger of course.
"You know she will be alright, don't you Boone?"
Boone smiled at Veronica's insistence on calling him by his last name, even as Kazdin took to calling him by his first name. Something about how she always liked the name Craig.
"I can only hope. Who knows what she will run into in Utah. It has been forever since I've been there, but even back in my younger days Zion was no picnic." Boone muttered.
"But this is the woman who stared down Tabitha, fought the Legion AND the NCR in a nearly impossible war to take control of Hoover Dam right before killing the so-called unkillable Legate Lanius and a dozen of his power fisted guards. I wish I could punch like that." Veronica said, triumphantly listing the former courier's achievements.
"Not to mention the survivor of two head shots." Boone added to the queue of impossible odds that Kazdin had faced and overcome.
"Exactly. Do you think a few Yao Guai, green geckos and tribals will put her down?" Veronica mused aloud. Boone shook his head.
"Let's not forget, she had some help. An army of protectrons and two of the finest soldiers in the Mojave." Boone said.
Veronica grinned at the subtle compliment of her abilities. Had it been only months before that the two first met when he had been a brainwashed sycophant of the NCR and she a proud but opinionated loyalist of the Brotherhood of Steel?
The former scribe knew that when the two first met, she was just short of loathed by his beloved NCR, and therefore he hated her as a result. But through the courier's relentless - and oftimes hilarious- rehabilitation of the two, Boone and Veronica became more than friends. They truly loved each other and thought of the other as irreplacable.
"Well, way to make me blush, Boone." Veronica said with a splash of crimson on her cheeks.
"If you didn't know how I felt about you already, you must be deaf." Boone said with a half smile.
"Pray tell." Veronica said, staring up at him.
"Veronica, don't ever doubt my love for you. You are a treasured friend. I know that no matter how many times I apologize, I can't ever truly make up for how horribly I treated you." Boone said, stopping midstride to explain his feelings for the former scribe.
"I forgave you though." Veronica said, a look of sweetness in her eyes at Boone's kind words. She knew he was the quiet one of their trio, and when he stopped to explain emotions she knew she had better stop and listen.
"Someday, I might even deserve that forgiveness." Boone whispered. The two friends shared a smile that lasted until they reached the Lucky 38.
"Shitshitshitshitshitshitshit!" Kazdin cried out, burying her head between her legs under the meager cover provided by the medium sized rock she found herself behind as bullet after bullet rained out over her head.
She looked left and right and choked back a sob that threatened to reveal itself. Her caravan had been slaughtered by the White Legs tribals in an ambush and she was the only survivor. It had taken a long time, but she had managed to kill five of her would be assassins, but four still remained.
She noticed that the tribals had very good armaments for a rather uneducated people group. Kazdin shouted fire as she rained lead down range over the top of her meager shelter from her tactical Marksman Carbine. She managed to kill one more tribal before another volley of deadly bullets raced her way.
Kazdin was surprised momentarily by a tribal man running up to her holding a spear, but as she managed to dodge the sharpened steel appendage, she pointed her rifle at his head and pulled the trigger. He hit the ground without a head.
Two down, two to go, Kazdin thought. Raising her carbine for another volley. As she brought the sight up to her eye, she activated her VATS mode and slowly picked both tribals off in the matter of seconds.
She slumped to the ground, her back to the craggy stone as she rested her head and breathed deeply. She gazed around her at her fallen comrades and couldn't stem the tears anymore. They flowed from her eyes at the tragic loss of life she saw around her. It was cruel. It was unfair. It was life in the wasteland.
Still crying softly to herself she rose up, brushed the dust from her combat leggings and moved to loot the corpses of her fallen friends. She missed even Ricky, who seemed to have it in his head that he MUST go out of his way to hit on her.
His advances, although at first clumsy and annoying, soon became more of a funny pasttime where he would flirt with her and she would rebuff him and when he would least expect it, she would flirt with him or make a becoming gesture only to rebuff him again when he would pull up close for a kiss. It was cruel. It was unfair. But it was their custom and she would miss him truly.
Kazdin moved down the little path leading to the edge of a canyon, which was crossed by a solitary wooden bridge that looked to be in rough shape and around 200 years old itself.
One false step… Kazdin mused to herself. It was already dangerous as all hell and she had a promise to keep with her beloved fiance. And a city to run, but she had priorities.
Kazdin crossed the bridge only to hear a shout and to be hailed by more gunfire. A white hot bullet passed through her shoulder and she fell away with a grunt before pulling herself behind an alcove of rock and pressing her hand against the painful wound. She cursed and squeezed her eyes shut.
After a few moments, the gunfire stopped and she heard the footsteps of a lone warrior approaching her hiding spot. She pulled her combat knife and prepared herself to lunge at whomever found her lying there, her blood flowing.
The footsteps came closer and closer and she held her breath and lunged at the approaching figure with her deadly steel unsheathed.
Her next memories were seeing the stunned expression of a young –perhaps eighteen year old- tribal, and feeling the crash of a fist into her beautiful face and the swift movement of feet to put her to the ground.
Promise broken Craig. I am so sorry. Kazdin thought as unconsciousness beckoned her and finally won, her head lulling and her hand falling from her oozing wound, threatening to puddle on the ground.
Craig…I love you… Were her final thoughts as her eyes became unseeing.
A/N: Alright, everyone, cliff hanger. I have to say, I had a hell of a time thinking up what to put on this site as my first contribution. I wanted it to be something you probably haven't seen before and I wanted it to be entertaining. I have had an amazing time writing humor these days and I wanted to mix humor with action and adventure.
There are a few differences in my courier that you will notice in other author's couriers. First of all, she can be mean as all hell, but she can be ditzy to the point of childlikeness at other times. When I was designing the character I wanted someone who was different than every other courier I've seen in fan fics. Most of them are badasses who are awarded nearly godlike qualities.
Mine is reluctant, a woman who was shot in the head and her brains scrambled to the point of her social awkwardnesses and because of her fear of Benny, actually did not want to go after him until Sunny Smiles forces her to in book one.
Also, after she takes over New Vegas she takes to calling herself the Super Awesome Mayor of New Vegas rather than courier, yet another example of her adorable ditziness.
Also some next chapter goodies. The return of Mr. Chompers! To those who don't know, you'll see right quick who Mr. Chompers is. Also, Boone and Veronica quell an uprising.
Very soon, I hope, I will start putting up Kaz Willow Brotherhood of Steel. Thanks for reading and as always, please rate, review, comment, favorite, etc. etc. Love you guys.
FalloutGuy1986