First of all i would like to thank jsypster1 for the idea. I would also like to say that i have no intention of copying jspyster's story Desolation Ed, and that the only similarity between the two is that it's a crossover between EEnE and Fallout. I can't help it...you can fit the setting of EEnE anywhere. If you are not familiar with Fallout, i suggest you check out The Vault Wiki and search for the things i name ( eg. NCR, Caesar's Legion). Check them out under Fallout 3 and Fallou: New Vegas, as those games are the setting of this story. Enjoy
THE ROAMING RANGER
War. War never changes. And still, 200 years after the nuclear war that reduced the world to a dried, mutated wasteland, people refuse to admit their mistakes. War is still very much extant. The war for survival. The war for power.
The slave army, Caesar's Legion, bent on expanding their slave empire on the Mojave Wasteland, their greed and cruelty surpassing that of any fiend who walked the wasteland.
The New California Republic, intent on spreading their borders on the same land, in order to rebuild their strenght, much of which was lost in countless and costly conflicts.
And the city of New Vegas. The jewel of the Mojave, wanted by both.
But one man's war will stand above the war's of the rest. His personal war. His war with injustice. His war, his crusade to find his friends. This is his story.
CHAPTER 1: Hoover
February 5th 2277
Boulder City, Mojave Wateland:
The wasteland echoed and trembled from the disastrous boom that rattled the late twilight day.
In that moment, it was as though every sound in the Mojave Wasteland ceased to exist after the orchestra of explosions and human screams began their terrifying symphony. It's audience was a large, menacing cloud of dust and stone. A terrible trap for the mighty Casear's Legion, now used to deadly result's.
Their best warriors now buried under the crushing mounds of earth and stone.
A NCR 1st Recon unit soldier lifted his head to survey the carnage. As the dust cloud that shrouded the dead lifted, he saw what carnage they inflicted upon the slave soldier's of the feared legion.
Bodies. Everywhere. Not an inch of ground was left bare as piles of limbs and pools of blood coloured the ground.
Bodies were tossed about by the explosion as if they mere ragdolls.
The tide had turned. He was alive. He won the lottery. They all did. The lucky few.
He glanced at his friends. Their faces were the faces of inexperienced soldiers thrown in a meat grinder. They were dirty, bloodied and burned from the seering sun of the Mojave Wasteland. They were barely soldiers, and yet they were alive. They had become warriors. Christened in blood and fire.
The first taste of blood is always the most bitter one.
Next to them the exact oposite. The elite Heavy Troopers with their fancy armor and miniguns, and their smug and arrogant behavior. The High-School jocks of the army. And the more friendly NCR Ranger's, the idealistic NCR soldier, clad in their grey military armor, grey rodeo jeans, gas masks and long bown dusters. Brave, resourcefull, strong and loyal.
Several call's broke the eerie silence of the battle. Amidst the rubble and bodies, a bloody one armed centurion rose, screaming for help and calling for his slave soldiers to come to his aid.
A sad and horrifying sight to see. There it was. A human being, yet he was his enemy. Killing a man that did no ill to him.
Most people at this point would freeze, there were many like that, but there was no time for pity or philosophy right now. Soldier's were trained to think about the lives they took later, and hey... this was the Caesar's Legion.
" Nothing but a group of cruel, mindless, remorseless fiends who only deserved to be wiped of from the face of this fucked up Earth. " was how their commander described them.
The NCR trooper rose his service rifle, ready to send the wounded centurion's brain on a free journey to the sand of the Mojave Wasteland. Just as he was about to pull the trigger, the centurion's head exploded in a horrifying display of human anatomy. A NCR Veteran Ranger did the job for him. A ranger this trooper knew all to well.
The commanding officer shouted, his mighty voice booming across the battlefield:
" Let's go boys! Escort these bastards to the gates of hell! ATTAAAAACK! "
Adrenalin and pride boiling through their veins, the 1st Recon Unit and the NCR Rangers charged over the sea of boulders and gave chace across the destroyed road after the retreating Caesar's Legion, towards the ocupied Hoover Dam.
Legionaries retreating over an open wasteland were a perfect target for the ranger snipers and the troopers. Some legionaries tried to shoot back, but to no avail. The snipers did what they do best. Their bodies were left to rot in the sun.
The Hoover Dam, was retaken after several hours of fighting after the demoralised Legion was routed and then picked of by NCR snipers. Seeing that their main force was blown to pieces, their officers and best warriors dead, the remaining Legionaries retreated, suffering many casualties, leaving the dam that their master so desperatley wanted.
Despite this herculanean victory, there was no rejoicing. The NCRs were busy with counting, and finding the dead and identifying them.
107 sons and daughters of the NCR fell that day at the First Battle of Hoover Dam.
A squad of bruised and tired rangers were returning to their camp, Camp McCarran, later that night after the battle. They walked slowly across the now empty Wasteland.
Night was falling, and the howling of the coyotes in the distance did not even startle the rangers, who only continued their monotonous pattern of walking across the cracked asphalt road. In the distance, the welcoming and seductive lights of New Vegas beckoned any fool weak enough, or stupid enough, to try his luck at the tables.
That blasted city cost them 107 men.
None of them were in any kind of mood for chit-chat. They lost many friends and companion's that day.
Much of the eerie atmosphere of the night was broken by cheery songs eminating from one of the rangers portable radios.
" Heartaches by the Numbers " wasn't exactly the song you would want to hear when 107 of your friends and loved ones are now buried underneath radioactive soil, free for any grave robber or critter, so the radio was silenced.
One of them took it harder more than the rest.
The best ranger of them all. Stronger than a Deathclaw, sharper than a man with 360 vision and more resourcefull than 20 rangers combined.
When he first arrived, he applied for service for food. Soon they saw his prowess in battle againts raiders and fiends, despite his seemingly absent minded nature. He was a good shot, brave and eager to have a weapon in his hand. It wasn't to long before the rangers saw potential in the young lad.
" Not particulary inteligent, but he'll do... " they said
He, at 16, became the youngest ranger in NCR history. They thought him how to snipe, how to feed of the Wastes, how to thrive and survive. When there was a task to be done, he would be the first to raise his hand, thinking it as " adventure ", acting as if living in a post- nuclear wasteland, filled with mutated beasts and raiders was a good thing.
Nevertheless, at 21 he already became a veteran, knowing the Mojave Wasteland like the palm of his hand. Literaly. The Pip-Boy 3000 on his left hand was of enormous help, so much so that many rangers think that he " Got it easier then the rest of us with that fancy doo-dad on his hand. "
A living urban legend with 278 confirmed sniper kills, 504 with every other kill he made with any weapon he had at the time. A role model for every soldier in the NCR. A true symbol of a Ranger.
Yet, no one knew who he really was.
He arrived with a caravan of half-dead and starving refugees from The Capital Wasteland 14 years ago.
He was barely alive, like the rest of the caravan. Bloodied, dirty, sweaty, 5 of them dead, half their ammo spent fending off radscorpions, Talon mercenaries, bandits and other beasts of the unforgiving wastes.
He was given simple directions to the nearest outpost. Since he was a child he was given permision to have food and drink without having to take the NCR citizenship test. An act of compassion from an NCR Trooper.
Compassion. Something this legend stood to protect. Compassion for everyone who was suffering. Helping the needy and endangered. The creed of the NCR Ranger.
" Vanquishsing the evil force of doom upon us, like so many mosquitoes on a hot summer's day! " as he would always put it, flabergasting everyone in his vicinity who had the ability to hear. That was him. Strange and random. Unusual for a Veteran Ranger.
They only knew him by his nickname that he kept saying over and over again when he first arrived, along with hardly coherent babble about "Super Mutants " and " buddies ". He told him his real name, but no one really used it. His nickname was much more fitting to his character.
The nickname stuck. The ranger by the name of...
" Hey Lumpy... you O.K. buddy ? " one of the rangers asked the famed ranger. He had been silent for most of the walk back home, wihch was strange and a little unerving, considering the fact that he just couldn't stop talking. Strange for an legendary ranger, but, then again, he was everything but ordinary and, some might say, normal.
Stoping in his tracks, his ripped and dirty duster flowing in the wind, the ranger turned and sighed.
Removing his battered ranger helmet, revealing the tired, dirty and scarred face of a chinless, mono-browed 28 year-old Ed.
" Well... you know, not really. "
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