"Hey Amigo," Esteban said as he looked to a small gap in the fence where a coyote must have chewed his way through the wire mesh and slipped between the boards and sheet metal. Marcus pushed off the dirt with the butt of his rifle and to his friend's eyes. "Qué tienes en mente?"

"Dunno Esteban," Marcus said as he began to stand up brushing some of the dirt off of himself. "Just seems so quiet now that Caeser is dead and the NCR have control of the dam, I just have a feeling that the Legion isn't done."

"We know they aren't," Esteban spoke as if he knew what Marcus was thinking of the entire time but Marcus didn't dare try to ask any questions. "The Legion fits to their Icono, the Bull. They are arrogant, foolish, and the easiest to predict. Caesar dies and some Legate takes the position, when they die another one steps up, its predictable."

"Your right on that," Marcus began to move forwards once more. "Thousands of men fight for the Legion and the NCR and right now the money is on the NCR but a year ago I would have put it on the Legion, partly because our supply chains were and still are spread out to the point that almost all of them are unprotected, they get stalled at trading posts, and because we have taken so much territory we can't seem to control all of that territory."

"You are using we and ours again," Esteban said as he caught up to Marcus and he felt his ears get a little red. "Is this because you want to go back?"

"What," Marcus looks at Esteban.

"I have been watching you hombre," Esteban sneered with a fatherly feeling coming off of him. "You sit there late at night in your shed cleaning your service rifle, your old black armor. When we are out on patrols, and scavenging runs you look around as if we are all soldiers. You miss being a Ranger."

Marcus stopped and he looked to the ground knowing what Esteban said was true. He missed it, yes he nearly had his head taken off a few times, he had to stitch his leg up in the middle of a firefight, carried a lot of men back to field hospitals because they couldn't walk themselves. But what he missed the most was the men and women he served with. Now here he is, a thirty five year old man with a wife and four children living in a decent community.

"One thing I never understand," Esteban continued placing his hands on his belt and tucking his thumbs behind it. "Why leave when you could have easily put in another ten years, and why leave NCR territory."

Marcus narrowed his eyes to the man he calls friend and Esteban must have taken notice as his hand moved slowly to his gun. Esteban is one hell of a character reader and his suspicions normally help the group out on runs avoid danger, "Marcus."

Marcus looked at his friend then turned going back to securing the fence. He heard the hammer of Esteban's .44 and Marcus instantly out of trained instinct ducked forwards and pivoted himself while dropping to one knee bringing up his brush action rifle. The .44 barked with a loud roar and Marcus heard the bullet fly past him, followed by three more shots. Marcus brought his rifle to bare and aimed it Esteban's chest, "The fuck do you think you are doing Cabrón!"

Marcus finally realized what was going on. Esteban had his revolver pointed to the fence indicating he wasn't after Marcus, and he only said Marcus's name to warn him. Marcus quickly pivoted left aiming in the general direction to see two Radscorpions charging full speed at them while a third was writhing around behind them on it's back.

Marcus put his forehand onto his knee to steady his aim and he squeezed the trigger to his rifle letting the .45-70 round soar. The round met it's mark while his shooting hand thruster forwards ejecting the round from the rifle and pulled it back into place feeding a fresh round into the chamber. The closest Radscorpion screeched in agony as the round tore into it's carapace and into the mutated arachnid's body making it stagger. Marcus repeated this three more times before standing up slightly into a crouch and back pedaled quickly. Esteban fired his last two rounds into the same Radscorpion but the creature the size of three dogs still came.

The Radscorpion thruster it's right claw at Marcus' foot trying to grab him or take off his leg. Marcus lifted up his leg and went to take another step back but he fell into the canal with ankle deep water in it. When he splashed down the butt of his rifle clattered on the dirt and rolled out of his grip. He knew better than to reach for it as it would leave an opening and he had a giant arachnid to deal with before hand. He grasped his .357 on his belt and drew it as fast as possible along with his Bowie knife. The other Radscorpion was thankfully chasing after Esteban but that still left the seriously pissed off Radscorpion to Marcus. The beast approached him and launched it's tail at him giving him time to lift his torso and avoid the stinger as it harmlessly struck the canal's bed then retracted. The arachnid tried twice more before Marcus turned his torso to get a decent swing in on the tail. He aimed for the barb and surely his knife met it's mark in between the plates to the scorpion making it squeal in anguish. He roughly pulled the blade back and the serrated side did it's magic completely severing a good chunk of the tail. He saw the bug wench it's tail back still screaming and Marcus saw the barb was loosely flopping around no longer fully attached but as a hunk of meat barely on. That was taken care of but his next danger was the Scorpion trailing about. Quickly Marcus brought his revolver up and fired two shots into the Radscorpion, only one penetrated the beast in one of it's many eyes making it scream one more.

Marcus got on his feet once more and he looked at the Radscorpion with fire in his eyes and hope that Esteban had the other one distracted and the third was still rolling about or dead. He had to make a quick decision, run or fight. Marcus chose to fight and he ran towards the Radscorpion so it wouldn't have time to think and he side stepped around the beast bringing his revolver to it's right claw only to have it sweep at his stomach knocking him onto the ground a few feet away and blowing all the wind he had into his lungs. He still managed to keep a grip onto his weapons and he brought the revolver up. Marcus squeezed off two round again into one of the legs and the Radscorpion screeched but in a blur it was reaching one of it's claws to his head. Marcus instinctively rolled out of the way but the sharp claw still raked across his thigh and tore his jeans and flesh like it was a nice mutton to fillet. Marcus hissed in anger and he jammed his revolver into the beast's eye before pulling the trigger twice more finally killing it but the corpse fell a top of him.

Marcus flopped down breathing heavily as the weight of the arachnid bared down on him and pinned his waist and legs down. He looked right and saw the Radscorpion that was chasing Esteban charging at him at full speed! Hurriedly Marcus shook the empty shells from his revolver and slipped fresh rounds into her. He drew the hammer back and fired off three rounds only to watch them bounce off of the beast. He fired until he was out of ammo watching the arachnid come closer rearing it's tail up. Marcus chose to look the creature in the eyes as a final act of defiance while he waited for the barb to impale him.

The Radscorpion began to thrust forwards with it's tail and Marcus waited for it but for some miracle he heard a deep robotic voice, "Target Acquired!"

Marcus watched a dark army green object ram the arachnid with it's arms sliding underneath the bug then it flipped the Radscorpion into the fence breaking some wooden supports and began to knock down the makeshift barrier due to the weight of the Radscorpion and the force it was thrown at. Marcus looked at the robot before him slack jawed in disbelief. It was the raw unarmored form of Eva's pet project named Virgil. The legs were that of a salvaged Security bot, the arms were the same but severely altered so it would have two three fingered hands, a rack that looked like a few bits of armament could go there. The left arm had a circular blade inside the arm that looked like it would swing downward and up so it would be before the hand and used as a slashing weapon. The right arm had a retractable blade from the looks of it. The torso was rather plain and of her own design to hold an fusion core and other things he couldn't recognize, but the real eye catcher was the Assultron head, "Are you al-l-l- ight mister?"

Marcus blinked as he looked to the war machine in confusion, "Yes?"

"Pologies sir," The robot spoke with a garbled mess of different accents and hiccups in it's voice as it's head began to glow red as the assulton's head laser. "Miss Eva has y-y-y plete me," the circular saw came out and began to spin as the retractible blade also jumped forwards. The Radscorpion was on it's feet and it snapped it's claws then began for Virgil. "En garde!"

The Radscorpion was the size of a big horn but Virgil had maneuverability and he rotated past the claws and with his right side blade cut off the barb of the tail, retracted the blade and with the same hand grabbed onto the tail. The circular saw swept low and took out two legs tearing them apart from the main body and the Radscorpion screamed in anger and tried to turn but the one leg couldn't maintain the strain. Once again the circular saw stuck the enemy at the tail as if Virgil was testing the armor of the bug then started to cut a square into the back of the arachnid. Virgil grabbed hold of the loose carapace life and tore it off before aiming it's head to the square. A red beam erupted from the head and went into the square burning a hole straight through the bug and into the dirt until the bug stopped moving. Virgil then vented it's built up energy before saying comedically, "Barbecue anyone?"

Marcus chuckled and shook his head as the machine rolled over to him. It lifted the corpse off of Marcus and when Marcus was free of the corpse and laid his body back eyes locked onto his thigh being cut open. No bone was showing and the artery was missed but the wound was still bleeding a lot. He reached out and grabbed each side of the four inch slash and put pressure on his wound, "Re-you ok mister?"

"Probably but that is a lot of blood," Marcus said feeling a little woozy. "Don't suppose you have first aid knowledge."

"Negative," Virgil leaned forwards radiating heat from it's head. "Will you die?"

"Dunno," Marcus looked around and he saw Esteban was in a tree climbing down, and six figures were on their way over. He looked to the fence and saw Cliff and his son sprinting with Henry in tow. He blinked heavily as he heard footsteps pounding up to him and faded voices as they put pressure on his Megan's called his name. Marcus groaned as his eyes fluttered shut and beneath him the ground gave way and he felt he was flying.

Chapter two, whoot! Thanks for reading this guys and I really hope you enjoyed the story so far. I always thought the Radscorpion was one of the most brutal and underrated, almost on the level of mudcrabs from the Elder Scrolls series. Don't be afraid to message me or leave a review for me, I would appreciate it. Chapter three will be up soon as well and it will feature one of my favorite characters I have made. Once again thank you for reading and have a good day!