Sorry for the late update. This may be how often I update until things settle down a bit, but you don't want to hear about that so enjoy.
"How are you feeling, sweetie?" At some point Nova had walked up to the bar and started talking to me. I would've noticed if my head didn't feel like it was being split open with an ice pick. "Stop talking… now," I said through gritted teeth.
Gob came back with my fifth bottle of water and a punga fruit. "That's the last thing I want Gob," I spat. Staring at the bulbous light green and red spotted fruit I felt what was left in my stomach coming back up. "C'mon, bud, the vitamins are good for you." He set the water and fruit down then walked away.
I heard the toilet on the left side of the bar flush. Amata came stumbling out from behind the ripped up curtain. She looked almost as green as the fruit in front of me. She sat down beside me and let her head fall with a smack onto the counter. "Hungry?" I said groggily, offering her the fruit. She took one look at the food before getting up and sprinting back into the bathroom.
It was almost funny. I took a bite of the fruit and immediately regretted it. I followed Amata into the bathroom. When we both finally pulled ourselves away from our respective sink and toilet she looked at me smiling, "Karmas a bitch, huh?"
"Shut it," I grumbled.
We sat back down at the bar, and I looked at my Pip-Boy. "Damn it's already two in the afternoon." I grabbed my coat of the wall and with Amata leaning on me as we walked outside. We started back towards my house.
Suddenly something dawned on me about our fight with the behemoth. "Hey, what was with you and that rifle before?" "What do you mean," she grumbled. "I mean you hit a grenade on that behemoth while he was walking towards us. Most wastelanders would have turned tail and ran, not to mention someone fresh out of the vault."
We were passing the atom bomb now, Cromwell was already preaching to a small mass. "Okay first, I wasn't just out of the vault," she was standing on her own now and walking beside me. "I had been following you for a while. Secondly," she sighed, "When you first left and I found out about how the vault used to be open I started training myself." Now I was really interested, "What kind of training?"
"Anyway I could. You left that old BB gun of yours so I started some target practice. I was able to get plenty of hand-to-hand experience arguing with Butch," she was smiling at the memory. "So wait," I said, "You mean to tell me you got those nerves just from shooting targets and fighting wussies like Butch?" "Of course not," she said, a hurt look crossing her face, "I shot at Butch too." We both laughed at that.
Then I thought crossed my mind as we reached my front door. "Hey," I said opening the door. "Yeah?" "You mind showing me what you learned out there." "Um, sure but how? I mean I don't want to hurt you or anything." "Don't worry, I've got it covered." She looked confused as I walked inside and went to an old chest in my living room. I lifted the top and brought out two pairs of thin leather gloves, two ripped up padded helmets and a couple of round rubber discs. "What is all this?" she asked the confused expression still there. "I found this old sporting goods store and, in a couple of magazines I found, you use this stuff for practice fighting. I also found a bunch of old holotapes on fighting if you want to watch any of them."
She looked inside the chest and saw all the tapes, each of them labeled with what style of fighting they taught. She turned to me and asked, "What are those for?" pointing to the little rubber disks. "Mouth guards, incase I hit you in the mouth your teeth won't fly out." She threw a light punch at my arm before settling back down next to the tapes. She turned to me again as if to ask another question, but I was already pulling another device out of the box. It looked sort of like a radio, but there were metal grates over two silver disks. A few buttons on the front said things usually found on holotapes: play, pause, skip, and stop. She stared at the device for a few moments, then began looking it over for a spot to insert a tape, but found none. I almost laughed as I pushed down on the top, and the lid sprang open. Inside was not a place for a holotape, but something circular and flat. I pulled a plastic case off of my bookshelf, popped it open, and took out a shiny disk that I placed inside the lid before closing it again. I pressed play and almost pissed myself laughing at Amata's reaction.
Music like no one in the wasteland had ever heard before erupted from the speakers. There was a guitar but not like what you hear these days. It had power and obviously an electric amplification. The sound was rough and intense and was accompanied by a singer with lyrics and a voice that would upset anyone in the wasteland, a drum set, and an electric bass guitar. It wasn't really surprising that no one had heard it because people mostly just heard big bands with brass and orchestral songs that made almost no sense, I guess this wasn't much different except a smaller amount of people and a different style of singing and instruments.
"What is that," Amata yelled, covering her ears with her hands. "Music," I yelled back. "Sounds more like someone caught in a trash compactor." "You're just not used to it yet. It's called rock."
I paused the music to let her recuperate. "How come I've never heard of it?" she asked after a while. "Probably because the Overseer got rid of everything like this in the Vault." "But its not just in the Vault," she continued, "you never hear that on the radio out here." I'd been trying to get Three Dog to play some of this music and asked why he hadn't before. He said it was because they never found anything like that before, so I was probably the only person in the Wasteland to have anything like this. "They've never had the choice. In case you haven't noticed, music libraries are the last things on people's minds right now."
"I guess you're right," she said dejectedly. I started to shove all the furniture out of my living room into the kitchen and anywhere else it would fit. "So," I said finishing up, "are we just going to discuss music or are we going to see what you're made of." She got up and snatched the gloves and helmet away from me. "Sure, but its gonna be the other way around, I'm going to see what you're made of." I slipped the gloves and helmet on and stuffed the mouth guard into my mouth. Then I turned to her, wiped my mouth with one hand and said, "Bring it on."
For about the next hour we fought. I finally got Amata used to the music; she even seemed more pumped up by it. My shoulder was still sore, luckily it hadn't broken so I could still practice at least. Now I had watched every one of those holotapes at least twice, and I had been out in the wastes for a long time now. Yet somehow Amata managed to beat me a few times. The only answer I could get from her on how she did it was, "Maybe you're just distracted." Thinking back maybe that was true, seeing as before we started she ran off to Moira's and picked up some "work-out clothes." Apparently that meant low cut tank top and "short" shorts. I swear she did that on purpose. All I had was some old ripped up t-shirt that, at one point, had some band logo on it and some faded basketball shorts.
We finally finished up and she sat on the couch while I grabbed some aqua pura from the kitchen. We sat down for a while to try and cool off. I took a sip and looked over at Amata as if to say something, but involuntarily stopped. The image in front of me was really, um nice. She was taking a drink while pushing out her chest, the sweat glistening and the uh… water… dripping. I almost had to slap myself to stop staring; luckily it looked like she hadn't noticed.
We sat in silence again as we finished our drinks. Finally she broke the silence saying, "So did you get a good look?" Okay she noticed, but why not go a little further I thought. "Just wish I had a camera." She laughed as she got up and stood in front of me, then she stooped down and crossed her arms. She pushed her chest out to a completely unnecessary distance, but it was an amazing view. "Did you want another look to make up for it?" she said innocently. "Now you're just cheating," I snapped back, trying as hard as I could to look away.
The first gunshot ended the moment before the first of the screams could even begin. We were both on our feet and I sprinted towards my gun cabinet. I grabbed two 10mm sub-machine guns, a double-barreled shotgun, a box of shells, and four 10mm clips. I threw the shotgun and shells to Amata and slapped a clip into each gun. We turned towards the door, nodded to each other and ran outside.
