The Point of No Return.
By: Randicore
The lone wanderer sat there staring down the scope of his sniper rifle. He was seeing what the Enclave patrol was up to. Killing them was an option but he would like to see what happened first, after all, even Enclave are human.
The Enclave commander started to look around the desolate landscape as if searching for something. Looking at the Tesla armor coated unit the wanderer noticed the soldiers were skittish, incredibly so. He checked his pip-boy for transmissions; he had a brotherhood scribe hook it up to intercept Enclave Radio messages, and heard the officer speak.
"Alright, you are all here to do one simple task. Kill the Lone wanderer. The man is a menace and needs to be put down."
The officer turned back towards his troops,
"I selected you personally by your combat records, and don't ask to go back to your old squads as long as the wanderer lives, this is the squad you are now with."
So that is how it's gonna be.
Jason breathed in deeply his sights slowing to a still. He exhaled and then fired. The .308 round covered the distance in about a second, the Officer taking the round in the side of his head causing it to explode in a red matter cloud.
The Enclave soldiers dove for cover, hiding and scanning for the sniper. This is when Jason worked best, The Chinese stealth armor bending the light around him, hiding him from all but the closest observer. He slinked closer to the small six man group placing his feet carefully so as to not disturb the soil.
As Jason Neared he drew his Trench Knife and picked an Enclave to kill. Deciding on the one carrying the Gatling laser he snuck around to the soldiers blind and undefended behind, getting close enough to hear the gentle hum of the armor's cooling unit. The wanderer took his Knife and with one quick motion plunged it into the back of the soldier's neck, grabbing the body and its gun before it clattered to the ground. He dispatched one more soldier before they found the body, the whole ordeal lasting under two minutes.
"Shit," One of the Enclave Muttered, staring at the first body and the expanding pool of blood beneath it., "We have a man down."
The soldier looked over the body checking the armor for the rupture that would point to a bullet entrance.
The wanderer choose that moment to de activate his stealth field and he tapped the Enclave on the shoulder grabbing his plasma rifle as he turned.
"You had best get out of here," was all the wanderer said, he had learned in his time in the wasteland that silence was often more threatening than words. And it proved true once again here, as he watched the soldier turn and run his comrades shooting questions his way over the radio.
That will keep them shaken for a while
And with that Jason turned to walk home.
This is the way he had lived for the past six years.
Meanwhile in the Mojave
Veronica was worried, not just the normal worries of food, chores, and how to sucker punch the next fiend she came across, but about the courier. It had started about six months ago when he had told them about a transmission for a "scientific theater" and had told them he planed to go. Boone had immediately rejected the thought of going alone as close as it was to the remains of Nipton, Lucy had told him to have fun and that Antler and her were not that interested and would stay and "Watch the odd clumsy people outside," and ED-E had beeped and flown to his side. The only people to ask why had been herself and Arcade, Arcade asking to come along and herself asking what would be playing, just to make sure that he wasn't going to do something stupid and this was only a cover story.
The Couriers reply was quick to both of them, Arcade could come and an old Science fiction theater movie about a place called Big MT was being shown. Veronica relented realizing that he was being truthful.
They didn't see him for a month.
Arcade had rushed back with ED-E and said how they had come across an odd piece of equipment that looked like a satellite that was projecting a picture of an eye on the old screen. The Courier had walked up to it to examine it and in a flash of blue Vanished.
When the Courier had come back he had seemed different, instead of a smug grin on his face like he usually wore he had a hollow look. Sunken in eyes and a grim slash formed by his lips. He hadn't said a word to any of them just walked into his room strait across from the elevator and closed the door with a slam. The next day when he came out his smile was back but it seemed gentler but the eyes never went back. When asked what had happened he had dismissed them with a wave of his hand and said he would say when he was ready.
So she snuck into his room.
He had gone to pick up some food from one of the many farmers who had surplus and had told them he would cook tonight.
She was shocked by what she found. The first thing that stood out to her was the new weapons crate in the room that had appeared since she last had been in there and her eyes had snapped to the blue power fist on top of it.
When she picked up the fist the set of armor sitting next to it, which she had considered another suit of combat armor he had taken to cannibalize for parts, had yelled at her, "Don't touch that you thief!" she had jumped and dropping the fist back to its original starting position, and taken a step back. Within moments Boone had flung open the door and had his old hunting rifle aimed at her. She slowly turned to show him it was her and it took him a minute before he slid the rifle back to its holster. By this time the others were there staring at her, Raul chuckling slightly at the scene while Lucy hummed something to herself and muttered something about antler teaching bad habits.
Boone scanned the room and asked a question quick and to the point, much like himself, "Who yelled about a 'thief'?"
"That would be me," the armor said in its odd metallic voice causing Arcade to jump startled and trying to hide it, "She was going to steal that saturnite fist next to me!"
"How are you talking?" was Raul's question seemingly fascinated by the armor. The look on his face Veronica had only seen once before when the courier had tossed him an old salvaged power helmet to tinker with in his spare time.
"Saturnite fist?" was veronicas question.
"yes it's a saturnite fist made at big MT by those useless Lobotamites," the armor told them.
"Wait big MT is a real place?" Veronica asked while Arcade muttered, "What was that about a lobotomy?"
The Armor has told them everything, when the Courier had put her together, helping him fix up the AI's, and getting his brain back.
When she got to the point of him getting his brain placed back into his body everyone but Lucy started to shoot questions, mostly about how that wasn't possible, and Causing suck a ruckus that everyone couldn't hear the gentle ding of the elevator opening behind them.
They finally stopped talking over each other one by one as they noticed the Courier, veronica looking away like a kid caught with one hand in the cookie jar. The Courier gave her a look that she had only seen him give some of the people in freeside, the very one that had caused a few muggers to run screaming from him.
She admitted he did look rather intimidating at the time with the Veteran ranger Combat armor. The only thing that she could focus on was the hat that he had always worn on his head, a suave gamblers hat that he had found on a corpse in a fridge.
"I said I would tell you when I'm ready but it seems that you were too curious," The courier asked in a quieter voice than she had never heard him use, "So go ahead ask your questions."
The only one that was said after a few moments of silence was spoken by Cass, "Did you really lose your brain?"
The Courier had sat down before continuing, "Yes, I lose my brain, heart, and spine. After a while I got my brain back." He took off his duster and the top of his combat armor and showed them the scars from the surgery. Veronica could see a bit of a blue glow coming from his spinal column.
"The spine and heart are bullet proof as when as parts of my skull," He said his right hand touching the dime sized scar above his left eye, "The spine makes me stronger and the things almost indestructible."
"I see why you didn't want to talk," Had been Cass's only response. They had all lost something, Boone his wife, Cass her Father and company, Raul everything he had known before the war, Veronica her family's acceptance, Gannon his old Enclave friends, Rex The King, The Courier His memory. It was the way of the wasteland. Everyone had something they didn't want to bring up.
A couple weeks later, The Courier had gone out again, this time they knew where he would be going. Zion a Caravan company had a job offer and the Courier was going to go. As usual he left with ED-E. The week later he Returned with some now equipment, and a gift for her. A power fist very ornately decorated with a few feathers in it. He told them all what had happened confident that he had saved the Native tribes by killing off the white legs; the only person to question him was Boone about the old Letagate that he had run into.
A few more weeks had passed and he got a transmission about a casino opening, none of them had heard of it and they wished him luck, the only thing he never seemed to have. He had set off light wearing some reinforced Leather armor and that old ragged hat of his, only a laser rifle for company.
Two weeks later they almost killed him.
The Courier never wore a helmet it was always that hat perched on his head. It had been like that for the year that they had known him.
So when the elevator opened and out stepped a man with his head in a security helmet and assassins armor on with a BAR strapped to his back, Boone had jumped him.
They hadn't seen him use any weapon but energy weapons. He had always used Either a Fully modified Laser Rifle of a Gauss rifle, never his fists of a gun.
Veronica was impressed with what he had learned.
As Boone slammed into him from the side The Courier had Rolled with the his popping back up and turning fists raised, that's when She had gotten there The Ornate power fist had swung at him only to be caught in an odd Bear trap weapon that looked like it had seen heavy use, the fist smashed the top of the bear trap off before the Courier had rolled away and flung off his helmet.
He didn't speak to them for three weeks. It wasn't because he didn't want to it was because he couldn't. He had opened his mouth to talk only to have a raspy cough come out with a bunch of a red smoke, he had clutched his throat and had stumbled into his room hacking up an off residue into one of the pre-war shirts he had. Arcade had tended to him for the whole three week period.
Once he could talk he had told them all to get into his room to show them something. It was what he had gotten from the casino, Four Gold bars sitting in a small stack on his desk. He had told them everything from the odd companions he had to the fight with father Elijah and Christine.
After that he had become darker more dangerous and less forgiving to his enemies. Veronica was used to him let a few Legion or fiends or raiders walk away with a few lessons learned, but not anymore, he was Slaughtering groups to the last man, making a point to kill everyone and everything that got in his was. It was horrifying to watch.
Then he changes farther, it started when he got a trans mission from a man called Ulysses about his past, and he started preparing, the first thing he did was buy a sniper rifle, a new one from the Gun Runners Arsenal, he took that rifle and started to use it to acquire new tech, armor guns everything he thought he would need, then he set off to the divide wearing his veteran NCR Ranger Combat armor.
ED-E had kept them informed of everything as it had happened, they sat in the Rec room they had listening and waiting, a few times they lost contact due to ED-E fainting a few times the robot with the Courier being damaged too much, and they heard it all, the most terrifying thing was the end. Not because Nukes were aimed at them, or the long battle with Ulysses but the last words the Courier had said.
"ED-E think you can hack this?"
ED-E played a log
"No I'm not Going to let you sacrifice yourself,"
ED-E had Beeped asking how he planned to stop the Nukes,
"I can't but I can change where they will hit, and the Legion had this coming."
There was a finality about it that they didn't understand, why would the Courier who had done nothing but good every chance he had, to the point where he saved Benny's sorry hide Launch a Nuke on an inhabited area.
What has happened to you? Veronica though as she heard The Courier run from the missile silos, and felt the blast Minutes later, watching the Mushroom cloud expand signaling the death of men, women, and children in that area as well as the death of any improperly prepared people that examine it.
You're not the same person you were when I met you.
He had come back that night wearing Riot Gear with the Anti-Material Rifle slung on his back. He had traveled alone since then.
Well I hope you lie the first chapter. This is more to show what my Courier looks like and I will get to the lone wanderer as soon as I can this is a Courier and Lone wanderer fic so this is manly to show there attitudes. Please tell me if I screwed something up. And constructive criticism is welcome, I won't read it if it is just an insult . I'll get chapter two out soon.