Chapter 9: They Continued to go That-A-Way, but we didn't.
AN: This chapter really has nothing happen in terms of main story progress. This server to more flesh out characters and the relationships between them, test my chops when writing a specific type of scene, and also be a chapter that didn't require me to actually play the game to get inspiration for. This makes the second time since I've started this story that I have lost a save file that this is based on do to mod issues. Apologies for taking so long to update, but some issues came up that took a bit of priority, on the bright side, you get a nearly 5k word chapter out of it.
Realistically, nothing interesting should've happened on our way to Nipton at least, we'd cleared the roads and the NCR should now be confident enough in their position to at least maintain the place.
I was wrong.
That is how we have ended up in a gunfight with some Jackal gang members around where we saved Willow. On the plus side, we are both better armed and armored than most of them. On the downside, they outnumber us 3:1. We're in the Nevada Highway Patrol Station, and we're currently fighting while surrounded.
When we left Primm, we had thought that we could make it to the Mojave Outpost before nightfall, but had forgotten quite how long it would take us to walk it, so we camped out in side the station for the night. The station itself seemed easy to defend, and ED-E was more than capable of watching the door and alerting us during the night if anything decided to come in. Throughout the night nothing happened, and I had woken up early enough to make some coffee for the girls, as they all love the stuff, despite the fact that I don't. There was a coffee machine here and a quick use of a fission battery got it up and running to make a couple pots. They were enjoying their caffeine based breakfast when ED-E began to play his combat music. I figured he'd seen a gecko or an ant, and had made my way to the window to investigate while everyone else drank. Outside I'd spotted 15 Jackal gang members, heading toward Primm, probably hearing that the powder gangers had been dealt with and thinking they could take the place while it was weak. They did however turn this way, as they thought that the previous residents of this place (the jackals who attacked Willow) were still here.
A few shots from me and ED-E from the windows let them know they weren't welcome, and then the war started. By the time that everyone had finished drinking and had taken positions. Ghost and Willow took mine and ED-E's placement by the windows, and began firing at the gang members. I had pulled out my shotgun and took my place a few feet from the door, enough that my spread could cover all of it, but close enough that I wouldn't catch Ghost and Willow with it. ED-E took his standard position of right behind me, with his laser trained on whatever I could see, hovering enough over my head to give him clear shots without risking injury to me. Delilah, has taken her position farther back, packing up our things and making sure that if any of us get hurt, we can treat it easily. The arguably best thing about having two 'medics' in our little group, is that we always have extra medical supplies, as we just seem to hoard them for 'just in case'.
The fight itself was pretty disinteresting, our position gave us plenty of power over them, as we had extreme amounts of cover and they had none. Ghost and Willow proved their sharp shooting prowess by taking down 6 of them apiece, while me and ED-E had taken down two in our initial assault. One of them had been dumb enough to rush the door, and was immediately killed by a laser blast and shotgun shell.
We immediately took to looting the bodies for anything interesting. One of the gang members happened to have some 'Merc Adventurer Armor' in Delilah's size, and she took to wearing it, saying that having the extra pockets and protection it offered was good, that and she said it looked good on her. I agreed. I also found a Colt M4A1, which I immediately swapped out my Service Rifle for. It uses the same ammo, but this one has the option of being single shot or automatic, which I enjoyed. I offered up the service rifle, but no one seemed interested enough in it, so I placed it in my storage trunk. Willow saw me picking up their weapons and examining the craftsmanship before loading them in the trunk and asked me something. "You seem to like weapons a lot, why don't you just collect them?"
"I don't plan to use all of them, I do like to look at them all, and each has its own various uses, but I can't conceivably use every single one." I say, looking at her.
"Yeah, but you love these things, you could keep them in storage and just admire them, not to mention that you'd probably end up with the biggest single armory in the Mojave." She says, pushing.
"That does sound like fun, and it would surely keep me busy, it'd also give me something to do in my down time and just fix these things up." I say, looking at the weapon I'd just picked up. It was a Makarov, a weapon I find personally disinteresting, as it is not a particularly powerful handgun, but I would like to fix it up and keep it, just because I don't have one.
"Go ahead and do it then, I'm sure that you'd like some goal beyond finding your package, and I think a hobby might do you some good." Willow says, before helping me pack the trunk.
"We're close-ish to Goodsprings anyway, we could make it in around two hours, why not just offload some of your collection in the Gas Station? We need to fix the place up a bit anyway, and they should probably get introduced to our home base in the Mojave." Delilah says, looking up at the sun. It's roughly mid-day, we'd lose another day of travel, but it might be worth it. I also have something that's been on my mind lately, and there's someone in Goodsprings I need to talk to about it.
"Well, if everyone is okay with it we can go, I'm not in a gigantic rush, it's unlikely that one day is going to matter much in the long run." I say, looking to the girls for approval. They all give their consent and we make our way back to Goodsprings. This time our journey is rather peaceful, the only thing we even came across that was any amount of hostile was a radroach, and we just left it alone.
As we re-entered Goodsprings we immediately took notice of a large group of people gathered on the porch of the saloon, we decided to investigate.
"What's all the fuss about?" Delilah asks, having lived in this area the longest she knows these people more than the rest of us.
"There's some guy in the saloon, we don't know who he is, but he's giving Sunny quite the stare down, and not in the way that Ringo fella did." One of the settlers say, concerned for my friend I step into the saloon.
"Been waiting for you, Courier." A man says, he wears a long coat that goes to his ankles, and underneath it lies a tactical vest. A cowboy hat sits on his head, and a revolver protrudes prominently from his hip.
"And you would be?" I ask, tensing up, something about this guy doesn't seem right to me. Delilah, Willow, and Ghost have stepped in behind me, and the soft whirring of ED-E eases my nerves ever so slightly.
"Name's unimportant, I'm here though for one simple reason. Legion's put a nice bounty on your head, and I intend to collect, but I'm different from most bounty hunters, I like to look my victims in the eyes beforehand." He says, rising from his position at the bar. He towers over me, definitely mutated somewhat as he's over 7 feet tall, and he's not scrawny from what I can see of his physique. "I challenge you to a duel, me and you, unarmored, fists only. You win, you can do whatever you like with me, I win, I cash the bounty on your head, and your little bitch posse leaves me alone." He says, with an expression on his face that makes me want to punch him. That may also come from the fact that he called MY girls bitches.
Wait my girls? What?
Shaking that thought away I am hesitant to take his challenge. He's got advantage over me in both reach and weight, and given how he made the challenge, probably in experience as well. A thought occurs to me as I ponder his challenge, I might be able to turn this to my favor. "I'll accept your challenge, but we are going to use knives, first person to take a fatal wound, or be put into a position where a fatal wound would occur loses, you can surrender, but I know I won't." I say, throwing my idea down. Delilah, Willow, Ghost and Sunny all look at me and give me a look of worry.
"I'll accept your terms, if your little posse of pussy will… entertain me for a night after I win." He says, I see red, but the girls tell him that he's on, before I can even tell him to go do very inappropriate things to himself. "We'll have our little battle tomorrow morning, in that empty Bighorner pen behind this saloon. Hope these girls can keep me entertained after you die." He says, before cackling and walking off, I turn to the four girls in the room, my group and Sunny, and ask why on Earth they agreed to his terms.
"That guy needs put down! You can beat him anyway; I've never seen anyone handle a knife like you can!" Willow says jamming her fist in the air.
"I agree, and besides, we can make sure you've got an edge on this clown." Sunny says, before putting a hand on my shoulder. "You helped me help Ringo, who I love very much, I'll help you."
"Well, guess there is no backing out of this. Let's unload at the gas station and then I'll need to get some practice in." I say, before making my way out of the saloon. All four of the girls follow me, and we make it to the basement without issue.
Unloading all the weapons I want to keep proves trivial, and displaying them is easy enough with a series of pegs and shelves that line a separate offshoot room that also contains several lockers. On display are several weapons that I've amassed over my adventure, sorted by type and maker. I'll make sure to catalogue all of them one day, but I've got more important matters on my mind. Taking a moment to unpack all of the various other supplies that we don't need from storage, including all of our stock of Sunset Sarsaparilla and Nuka-Cola, which gets loaded into a vending machine that I got working to refrigerate them. I grab my knife, a sharp clip-point straight blade with a solid gripped handle, and make my way to another room that we found in the basement, which appeared to be for breaks pre-war, but now houses a training dummy the girls made with some scrap while I was arranging my guns. We spend about two hours trying to get my skills to be as good as they can be, with Delilah giving me tribal tips Uncle Sulik gave her, and Ghost attempting to recall her ranger training techniques. We also manage to find a book on knife self-defense, and I pour over that until I've pulled everything I can.
As a test, Ghost recommends that I spar with her, and put everything I've learned to the test, saying that if I can take down a ranger, there's no one I can't defeat. We agree to keep the sheathes on our knives, but treat each blow as though it were as severe as it could be. We start and immediately she rushes at me, I roll back and throw her before swinging myself back onto my feet, I recover and find her still on the ground, so I decide to try and capitalize and move to strike at her, she parries with her own blade and goes in for a stab, I manage to catch her arm and force her to drop her weapon, I kick it away as I sweep her off balance and push my body weight into her knocking her to the ground, a knife pressed to her neck tells her that she lost.
"Not bad Mr. Angel, you took down a ranger." Ghost says, before standing up and patting me on the back, "You realize that that might not work on your opponent tomorrow? He's a lot bigger than I am, that throw will do you some good, but you might not be able to push him down."
"Yeah, I know, but why did you call me Angel?" I ask, I know my name is similar, sharing the same root if that old book I found on names is any indication, but no one has ever called me that before.
"From what the girls have told me when you aren't around you're some paragon of virtue, and given how close it is to your name I figure Angel is a good nickname for you, I'm Ghost anyway, so I figure everyone in the group having something similar would be pretty good." She says, dusting herself off.
"Well, I guess that's fine if you want to call me that, nothing wrong with it I suppose." I say, turning to look at the other two girls, "What do you think?"
"I like it; you are my guardian angel after all!" Willow says, she'd been taking to saying stuff like that recently, saying that God sent me to save her. I know all about the pre-war Christian religion, and know that the New Canaanites in Utah follow it, I'm not personally a believer, but I'm not going to step on someone else's.
"While I'm not as excited as Willow is, I think it works." Delilah says, before blushing ever so slightly.
"Well, it's getting kind of late, and I'm tired. I'm going to be fighting for my life and so that way you guys don't have to 'entertain' that guy." I say, shuddering as I think about what he'd do to them.
"You'll beat his ass and then you can do those things to us!" Willow says, before letting out a small noise.
"What'd you say?" I ask, having missed the last part as she'd mumbled it ever so slightly.
"I said to beat his ass so he can't do those things to us!" Willow says, with a blush on her face, after I accept that she lets out a sigh, and looks to be relieved. I wonder what's going on in her head.
"Well, night girls." I say before making my way to my room. I remove my armor and put on a set of pajama pants and a t-shirt that I'd found. I was getting ready to lay down when Delilah and Willow come in. "Hey, did you guys need something?" I ask, concerned, they have this look on their face that doesn't sit well with me, it's almost like they are guilty, but also very worried.
"We've got something to tell you, but we need you to do something before we do it." Willow says, taking a seat on the edge of the bed.
"What is it?" I ask, looking at the girls.
"You need to beat that asshole tomorrow, I don't care if you kill him, but you can't let him kill you." Delilah says, "I'll patch up anything that happens to you, but you need to try to avoid it."
"I didn't plan to let him win." I say, confused as to why they thought I wouldn't give it everything I had.
"Well, if you beat him, and I think you will, we'll tell you something that means a lot, but we need you to promise us something else." Willow says.
"What do I need to promise you?" I ask, these girls are making me nervous.
"That no matter what happens after we ask you, we'll still be friends and travelling companions." Willow says, and Delilah nods.
"What would make you think it wouldn't? Short of you guys suddenly becoming horrible people I don't think I could stand to leave you guys." I say.
"Good, now do you mind if we sleep in here with you tonight? We want to make sure you realize you've got something to fight for tomorrow." Delilah says.
"If that's what you guys want." I say nervously, I'm going to have two very attractive girls in my bed, and they are wearing some clothing that I find very attractive, they are both wearing a tank top and spandex shorts that volleyball players used to wear pre-war, this would be another guys dream, and honestly it's mine as well, but I don't want them to think me to be some kind of pervert.
They take positions on either side of me and cuddle into my sides as I wrap my arms around them, while this is nice, I'm having difficulties keeping my composure. I decide it's best to just sleep and use that as an excuse if anything happens, as it is the truth.
Morning comes and I find both of the girls still asleep, however they are now laying their heads on my chest and having their bodies run parallel to my sides. While this is a sight I very much enjoy, and I wouldn't want to disturb them, my arms are asleep and I have a knife fight to go to. I shake them awake and say that we need to get up. They make their way to their rooms to get dressed as I do the same. I leave my armored clothing here, and merely take my khaki cargo pants, combat boots and the white T-Shirt I'd become so fond of, as well as two holsters, one on my chest that holds my main knife, and one on my leg, that holds a few smaller throwing knives. I'm decently accurate with them, but they exist more for distraction than anything else. With the girls each ready, we make our way topside to see a crowd forming around where me and the bounty hunter are to fight, he's waiting in the middle of the area. I get my first good look at him, and I'm slightly scared. He still towers over me, and is as large as I had imagined he would be under that coat, looking like one of the legion praetorians with his massive tree-trunk arms, he also has incredibly long hair that reaches his lower back, and a scar that travels across his face. His eyes are closed currently, but a smirk is present.
"I'd honestly thought you wouldn't show up, figured you'd go running scared." He says, opening his eyes.
"Sorry to disappoint, but I really don't like you, and can't wait to kick your ass." I say, one thing I've learned is that when dealing with strong opponents, you should always exude confidence, even if you don't have it. This puts them off their game, makes them think you have a plan or strategy that negates their advantage over you.
"Confident are we?" No, I'm not. "Well then, ditch your bitches and enter the ring, we've got a score to settle before I score." I don't know if this guy is doing this just to make me mad, or if he's just a dick, bit it is working, I'm furious and want nothing more than to choke this guy to death with his own penis, but I manage to control myself and my nerve.
I enter the ring and the match begins, he runs at me, knife at the ready, and I dodge to his left. He stops and turns around, before flipping his grip on his knife and running at me again, instead of a charge like last time, this is more to close distance. He swings and I parry with my blade, before I kick him in the knee. He chuckles before bringing his fist down on my shoulder. It hurts, but I don't give him the satisfaction of a reaction. I take my knife and quickly slash at his arm, I manage to cut him deep, deep enough that he's definitely feeling it right now, as he howls and glares at me. I brings his knife back down and I catch it with my own. He's stronger than me, and his height advantage gives him the benefit of gravity, but I know that, and can use it against him. Shifting my weight slightly, I pull my knife away from his, and watch as he stumbles slightly from all of the force he was pressing down on me with. He charges again, and I roll back and flip him over me, he manages to cut my leg on the way, but he does end up on the ground behind me. I stand up, my leg screaming at me to not move and jump on his stomach, this winds him and makes him lose his grip on his knife, I kick it away, and he throws a punch at me, knocking me to the ground. I too lose my knife and he's placed himself on top of me, trying to pummel me into the dirt. I close the distance between us, knowing that he can't get any good hits in at such a close distance due to his long arms. I'm essentially wrapped around his torso right now, and contemplating what I should do. I try to roll him, but he's so much stronger than me that I can't do it, and my attempt earns me a nice hit to the back of my head. I then have a plan, and it's so crazy that it just might work. I throw my body weight to the ground off of him and he staggers just a bit, I then grab a handful of dirt from the ground and throw it in his eyes, while simultaneously throwing him off of me. He gets off and clutches his eyes and I grab the knife closest to me, which is mine. I throw one of my knives into his leg and he screams a knife blade to the neck proves his loss.
"Well I'll be damned you beat me." He says, lowering his arms.
"You made me mad enough to want nothing more than your head on a platter." I say, pushing the knife closer to his neck.
"Well, I promised, so go ahead, do it." He says, accepting his end with a certain coolness that I hadn't seen in an adversary.
"Answer some questions for me." I say, not giving him an option.
"Ask em'." He says.
"Why were you after me?"
"Caesar's got a huge bounty on you, I wanted the money, and didn't want to disappoint him."
"Are you a legion soldier?"
"Was, left the main army because I didn't want to end up like Joshua if I lost. I decided to offer my services elsewhere as an assassin, and Caesar decided it was acceptable."
"Why shouldn't I kill you right now?"
"Because it'd be a crime to all the bitches of the world." That sentence sealed his fate.
After my knife severed his carotid arteries I leave him to bleed out, limping my way to Delilah.
"Think you could stitch me up? I can't quite do it alone." I ask, the knife cut me on the back of my calf, not it a place I can self-suture.
"I'll think about it." Delilah says with a laugh as she pulls out our medical kit and gets to work.
"Well, I won, so what did you two want to tell me?" I ask, while Delilah cleans my wound.
"Well, we have developed feelings for you over the time we've been traveling together, both of us want you and neither one of us wants to give up, Ashley gave us some advice before we left Primm, and we've thought about it, so we decided that we would like to share you." Willow says, holding my hand.
This is a lot to take in. I thought they were acting a bit differently around me than they did around others, but I figured it was because we travelled together. "Do you guys really want me? I mean I'm a wimp who is terrified of ants and scorpions, on a mission to talk to a guy who shot me in the head because he took the package I was meant to deliver, I'm not exactly the best 'boyfriend' material." I say.
"Yeah, but we love you for it, life in the wasteland is pretty short, and we don't want to regret not taking our chance at love while we had it. It took that guy threatening to take you away from us before we could say anything." Willow says.
"So, what do you say lover boy?" Delilah asks, having finished with my leg.
"If you guys want this I want you to be happy." I say, and they proceed to hug me, and give me a deep kiss each.
"I promise that you won't regret this, we love you so much that we can't stand the thought of not having you in our lives." Delilah says, holding my arm.
"Now there is just one other problem." Willow says, looking at Delilah.
"What is that?" I ask.
"Well, we're pretty sure that there are others who want you, and now that it's open that you are okay with a polyamorous relationship, there might be others who want some of you." Delilah says, sighing.
"I think that they should have the same chance we did, we fell in love with him, and we decided that we loved him enough to share, I'd be willing to share with someone else if they love him as much as we do." Willow says, and Delilah nods.
"I just want everyone to be happy, if I can make that happen, that's great." I say, trying to stand up on my leg. I manage, though it hurts to put too much weight on it.
"You'll need to let that heal for a few days, so I guess we're staying a bit longer." Delilah says.
"On the plus side, you know have two girls who will be sharing your bed the entire time!" Willow says happily.
"You girls have no shame." Ghost says, looking at them.
"Maybe so, but we love the guy, and we think he's worth it." Delilah says, winking at Ghost.
"Well, at the moment, I need to go talk to someone about something, you girls can do whatever you please, if you need caps, just come find me, I'll be at Pembroke repair." I say, before limping my way over there. All three of them follow, with Delilah fussing over my leg. As I make it to the shop, I hear Paul and Dean arguing over something, but I knock on the door. Paul greets me this time.
"Hey friend, come on in, what's going on?" He asks, motioning me inside, we head to the workshop portion of the place and see Dean working on the truck again.
"I was going to offer you two a job, if you would be interested." I say.
"What have you got for us?" Paul asks, looking at me with interest.
"I see that you've been working on that truck, if you manage to get that up and running I'd like to get you guys to do another one, and then get a trailer attached to it that I can haul, I'd like a faster way to travel across the wasteland, and a comfortable way for everyone with me to travel." I say, laying my cards on the table so to speak.
"Well, that's a pretty big project, we've been working on this one for a couple of weeks, and we're almost done with it. Just need someone with some know-how on nuclear engines to make sure that this won't nuke us when we try to fire it up. You find us someone like that, and a truck and trailer, and you've got yourself a deal." Paul says, reaching out his hand for me to shake.
I shake it and say, "I'll do my best, I'll see if I can find someone, there is a truck in the garage of the gas station, and a trailer by the pumps that no one lives in anymore."
"Well then, once you send that guy our way, we'll use this truck to haul that stuff here." Paul says, before excusing himself back to his work.
"Why do you think we need a truck?" Willow asks, looking confusedly at me.
"Being able to go to and from places quicker than walking will be incredibly useful, and it means that we'll be able to visit our friends more often." I say, before making my way outside.
I look at Goodsprings and for the first time, I don't see the town that saved me, I see my home.
