EDIT: 12/6 - A friend pointed out that I never specified what Konata was wearing. Her clothing is now 'specified' in her introduction.
She was blinded by the sudden brightness when she walked outside. It was high noon in the greater Las Vegas region, and rather hot outside along with the brightness of the sun in the sky. Kagami stumbled her way out of the doctor's home, still a little uneasy on her feet after being bed-ridden for so long.
When she made it to the street, she took a few looks around. Goodsprings looked a lot like a town out of an old western, with only a few modern and post-apocalyptic touches. In short, the whole town was a mess of deterioration, like most other small towns out in the wastes.
After looking around for a while, Kagami noticed a blue robot that of a make she'd never seen before. When it saw her staring, it approached her.
"Well howdy partner! Might I say you are looking fit as a fiddle!" the robot spoke in a cowboy-like drawl.
"Uh... hello?" Kagami cautiously replied, "You're Victor, right? You brought me back here?"
"Yes ma'am," Victor said, "I'm always ready to help out a stranger in need."
"How did you find me?"
"Last night I heard a bunch of men who looked like bad eggs raising a ruckus. After they ran off, I brought you back here to see if you were still alive and kickin', and it turns out you were," the robot drawled.
"Thank you very much for your help, Victor. Good-bye." Kagami bowed as she thanked the robot.
"No problem. Happy trails!"
She watched him as he rolled away, still curious about the model of robot. "Never had any like that back in the Capitol Wastes," she thought, "Seemed a lot more friendly than the robots I'm used to."
Spotting the saloon the doctor mentioned, she made off in its direction, passing by what appeared to be a general store. She decided to check back there later to see if they had any weapons or clothing she could buy.
Inside the Saloon, she saw no one. She took a seat, and a moment to relax. She desperately wanted to think the situation over, worried about what she was going to do to start replacing the gear she'd lost, what to do if she ever ran into the man who shot her, and what to say to Konata about all of this. If she could ever find Konata again.
She noticed a man and a woman walk into the room she was seated in. The two were discussing something about a man named Ringo.
"If you don't hand Ringo over today, then me and my boys are going to burn this whole town to the ground," the man threatened.
"We'll keep that in mind. Now if you aren't a paying customer, I'd prefer if you left. Right now," the woman replied in a tone dripping with annoyance. After the man left, the woman turned to Kagami.
"You must be the one that some people 'round here have been talking about, the one that old Doc Mitchell was treating. I'm Trudy, welcome to my saloon," the woman kindly greeted her.
"If it's not rude to ask, what were you talking about with that guy?" Kagami asked. In her opinion, it was a good idea to start making friends in a town like this.
"We've been pulled into some mess that we never wanted to be in. A while ago, some trader named Ringo showed up. Claimed he was the survivor of an attack, and had some bad men after him. He wanted somewhere to hide out," the woman explained. "I don't think anyone thought he was actually being followed, so we gave him somewhere to hide."
"Could you maybe tell me where he is?"
"There's an old gas station on the hill. He's been staying in there."
"What's the town going to do about that man and his threats?"
"That man is Cobb, and he's a member of the Powder Gangers," the woman told Kagami, "Some people in town would be willing to help Ringo out, like Sunny, but he hasn't asked for help."
"Powder Gangers," Kagami thought, "They don't seem like the 'friend-making' kind of group."
"Where's Sunny?" Kagami asked Trudy, "The Doctor told me to look for her here so I could talk to her."
"She just went out on a little errand, to get rid of the geckos that have been bothering people as they go to get water. If the Doc wanted you to talk to her, he probably wanted you to get some practice in with a gun after what happened."
Kagami nodded in agreement, some review would be a good idea before getting into a fight.
"Say, you wouldn't happen to know anything about the men that shot me, would you?" Kagami asked the saloon owner.
"Not much, other than that they were a bunch of freeloaders who wanted a few free rounds. My guess is they were headed to the Strip. Heard them mention it before one of the jackasses broke my radio," the woman ranted.
Holding back her urge to tell her that she didn't care about how they were bad customers, she stole a quick glance at the radio that appeared to be undamaged. "That's probably easy to fix," she thought, "I might be able to repair it so I can afford a weapon."
"Want me to take a look at that radio?" Kagami offered.
"Sure would, a saloon just isn't the same without music. I can probably spare a few caps for you if you can fix it," the woman remarked.
Waiting for the woman to turn away, Kagami opened the case of the radio. Nothing was actually broken, only jostled out of place. "Anyone with half a brain could fix this thing," Kagami thought, "I don't want to take advantage of her, but I need those caps."
She spent a moment making sure everything was secured where it was supposed to be, before turning the radio on to test it. When the sounds of music carried out through the room, she turned back to Trudy.
"Thanks for fixing that for me," Trudy said with a grin, "Here's 50 caps for your trouble."
Kagami nodded to the woman in thanks before heading out to check on this Ringo fellow the saloon owner told her about.
She approached the gas station looking at the weapon she'd bought from the general store. The owner had told her that the weapon was a Recharger Rifle. She wasn't really sure how it worked, but it apparently charged itself for use. Laser and plasma weapons were always her area of expertise, but they were expensive and hard to maintain back in the Capitol Wastes. Despite costing her everything she had, it was still quite cheap.
Entering the gas station, she was immediately greeted with a gun pointed at her.
"Who are you? What do you want with me?" the man asked, sounding on the verge of panic.
"I'm not looking for a fight," Kagami coolly replied, trying to get the man to calm down.
"If that's true, then I'm sorry about the rude introduction. You just surprised me when you barged in like that," the man apologized to her, "How about we start over. I'm Ringo, maybe you'd like to play a friendly game of Caravan?"
"Uh, no thanks. My name's Kagami, by the way. I heard you are on the run from what sounds like a gang," Kagami said, interested in hearing Ringo's side of the story.
"I'm not afraid of them," the man said, as if trying to convince himself rather than her, "I've got a better position if they try to attack anyway."
"What'd you do to get them so mad at you anyway?"
"My caravan was ambushed by a group of them. They just started shooting, so we started shooting back. I killed a few of them before I ran, so they probably want revenge."
"Maybe I could help you out?" Kagami offered. If the town's people supported Ringo, helping him out seemed like a good idea. She was never really the kind who went out looking for trouble, but helping others out was something she always tried to do.
The man was about to say something, but he stopped and took a good look at her.
"Maybe," he said, "If we had the town on board. Otherwise, the odds don't look too good."
"Any suggestions on who to talk to about getting support?"
"Try Sunny, she's been rather helpful to me so far."
Kagami nodded and left the gas station.
"I need to find Sunny," she thought, "Hopefully she's back from that errand she was running."
Heading back to the saloon, she saw two figures clad in Leather Armor walking down the road toward her with rifles on their backs. She immediately recognized the shorter one with blue hair.
"Konata?" Kagami asked loudly at the pair.
Konata snapped her head toward Kagami and in a sing-song voice asked her, "Did you miss me, Kagami?"
It took every bit of her existence to keep from shouting at the other girl in anger and instead walk toward her.
"Could you be serious for once? I was worried about you," Kagami huffed. "I was kind of expecting this to be the other way around," she muttered.
"I got all my worrying done on the first day I came here," Konata said in her ever cheery voice.
Kagami just stared blankly in her direction. "I... I don't even know what to say about that," she deadpanned.
"By the time I found out you'd gotten yourself into trouble, that doctor said you were already going to recover," Konata replied defensively.
"Gotten myself into trouble?" Kagami's voice was almost a yell, "This whole thing is your fault you know! If it weren't for that stupid job you took, this never would have happened!"
"Look on the bright side, Kagamin," Konata said, a sly grin appearing on her face, "We get to go on another adventure now!"
"That would be the typical you, refusing to take something like this seriously."
"I don't mean to interrupt your reunion," the woman at Konata's side spoke up, "But I don't think we've met. You must be the one that Victor found out at the graveyard."
"Yeah, that would be me. If you didn't catch it, I'm Kagami. Are you Sunny, by any chance?"
"Yep, that's me," Sunny replied.
"I was told I should talk to you," Kagami explained, "Doctor Mitchell wanted me to see you. Trudy said that it was probably about retraining with weapons after my injury."
"Meet me behind the saloon, we'll be sure to get some practice in," Sunny nodded as she replied, and headed off to the rear of the saloon.
The two girls watched her walk away before turning to each other.
"Did you actually manage to find anything on your little treasure hunt?" Kagami asked, sounding slightly upset at her.
"Eh, not really," Konata sheepishly answered, "I made a few caps though, but it really isn't much."
"Sorry about losing everything we had," Kagami mumbled as she turned away, "I know how important some of those things were to you."
Kagami blushed lightly, and almost leapt up in surprise when Konata hugged her. "Aw, you don't have to feel bad Kagami! I can find new loot, but I could never find a new you."
"Uh, yeah, whatever," the blushing girl replied in a hurry. "We should meet with Sunny so I can get some practice. I might need it more than we think," she informed the smaller girl as she worked her way out of her grasp.
The two walked to the back of the saloon to see Sunny leaning back against a fence in waiting.
"Sorry to keep you waiting," Kagami said instinctively. Even though the world was a rough place and they hadn't kept Sunny waiting very long, it never killed to be polite.
"Alright, I know Konata's a great shot, and she said you were good too, but a bullet in the head might have changed that," Sunny stated, sounding as if she hardly believed that the girl in front of her had been shot less than a week earlier. "I want you to stand over here, and just try shooting some of those bottles off the fence."
Kagami glanced at Konata, who was almost trembling with excitement. "Some things never change," she thought as she took aim at the bottles.
She shot six of the nine bottles down in seven shots. Her beat up Recharger Rifle was to blame for the miss, but she was still afraid that she might not be able to get it working again if she took it apart to fix it.
"A real monocled falcon, aren't I?" Kagami said to herself.
"What was that?" Sunny turned to look at her when she spoke.
"Uh, nothing." Kagami dismissed quickly.
"You sure you completely recovered?" Konata asked in a tone that told Kagami she was looking for something to tease her about.
"Really, it's nothing. And I'm completely fine as far as I can tell," she replied in a hurry, not wanting to deal with any teasing at the moment.
Konata changed her focus between Kagami and the bottles a few times before saying, "I think you should try using VATS."
Kagami stopped herself before activating it. She slightly lowered her weapon, and asked, "Is that really a good idea?" Kagami thought for a second, "That system used a few implants, and if they were damaged, this could end poorly..." she trailed off, not wanting to think about what could happen.
"It's better to try it out now when you have help available instead of when we're fighting off bad guys," Konata pointed out.
Time almost came to a standstill for Kagami, and she opened fire on the remaining three bottles. To her audience, it looked like she shot them at almost the same time. Coming out of VATS, she was hit with a wave of dizziness.
Almost losing her balance, she groaned, "Was it always this draining?"
"Well, you didn't like using it as much as I did," Konata remarked, "So I don't think you got used to it like me."
Kagami sat down where she was standing. It wasn't that she couldn't stay on her feet; it was just that she was hit with an over-whelming desire to not be standing. She nodded from her spot on the ground as the dizzy spell began to fade away.
Still sitting, Kagami leaned back so she could look up at the woman next to her.
"There's another reason I was looking for you," Kagami started, "It's about Ringo."
"Oh, that would explain why you seemed so eager to get back into things. He's in a bit of trouble with the Powder Gangers, but he doesn't seem to want any help."
"Actually, he sent me to ask when I offered to help. He said I should try to get the town on my side for the fight."
Sunny nodded, "I'm in."
"Just like that?" the other girls asked simultaneously.
"Yeah, those Powder Gangers seem like they're going to be trouble to us eventually, might as well deal with them now. People like them aren't exactly the kind that'll hold up their end of a deal, so I don't trust them to leave us alone if we hand over Ringo."
"Four people still isn't that many, since we don't know how big their forces are going to be," Kagami commented.
"I'll try talking Trudy into getting some of the others in town to help out," Sunny offered.
"I could talk to Chet, and ask him if he'll lend us some supplies for the fight. On top of that, Kagami might be able to get some medical supplies from the doctor if we need them," Konata said excitedly.
"Have you two always done things like this?" Sunny looked at the two of them questioningly.
"Let's just say we've got quite a bit of experience dealing with 'unsavoury' groups," Kagami said, rising to her feet, "We should meet up at the gas station, the Powder Gangers are probably going to make their move soon."
"Any luck getting help?" Ringo asked as Kagami entered the gas station.
"Well, Sunny's on our side, and I talked Doctor Mitchell into helping us treat any injuries that might happen," Kagami said.
"That's great," Ringo replied. He was about to say something else when Kagami cut him off.
"We're just waiting on Sunny and my partner, Konata, to get back. Sunny was going to talk Trudy into getting some other people around town to help out, while Konata said she would try to get some supplies from the store."
Before Ringo could reply, Konata entered the room wearing a pout.
"I couldn't talk him into it," she whined, "Why wouldn't he help out the town? I bet he's just a no-fun coward."
Kagami rolled her eyes at the shorter girl's complaints, and assumed that the box of 5.56mm ammo in her hands was something that she bought with whatever caps she had. "Either way, we're just waiting on Sunny to meet us before we take our positions."
A few moments later, Sunny came in and announced that she was successful in rallying support.
"They're coming in from the southeast of town, about ten of them." Sunny informed the group as they exited the gas station.
The people helping from the town were set up to ambush the gang as they passed by the shops. As the Powder Gangers approached the saloon, the townspeople opened fire. It was less of a gunfight and more of a slaughter given how the men were equipped, but Konata and Kagami both managed to kill a few of the would-be bandits.
"That was a letdown," Konata said in a tone of disappointment. Kagami couldn't help but agree, though the group might have been a challenge without the help of the town.
Ringo spotted the pair and started in their direction.
"I know you didn't ask for payment, but it's the least I could do after you offered to help," said Ringo, as he handed the pair some caps. "It was Crimson Caravan funds, but I think you really deserved it. If you're looking for a real reward, you could head up to our HQ near New Vegas and ask around about it. Maybe we'll see each other again if you ever go there."
Ringo headed off out of town and the girls waved him farewell.
"Not too bad for your first day back in the game," Konata said with her signature grin, as she stooped down to take a cowboy hat off one of the bodies. Placing it on her head, she turned to Kagami and asked, "Where to now?"
"If we want to get to Vegas, we should head south to Primm," Kagami recalled what someone had said to her, "Apparently it isn't safe to go straight north from here."
"Why the sudden interest in New Vegas, Kagami? A while ago you didn't seem too eager to get there," Konata noted playfully.
"The men who shot me were apparently headed for Vegas," Kagami remarked, anger welling up in her as she remembered the man in the checker-print suit. Every time she pictured him, the idea of revenge became more and more appealing.
Konata's playful expression faded as she nodded, knowing full well why Kagami wanted to get on the road. She felt some anger towards the man too; he almost took her Kagamin from her.
"To Primm?"
"To Primm."