Chapter 11: You May Call Me V

VAUGHN

I walked through the sliding metal doors and found the two young men sitting in chairs around the room. One had short jet black hair and was tapping his foot incessantly with an impatient face. The other had longer brown hair in a ponytail and was simply leaning back with his eyes closed in almost a meditation state. Both men stood up when the door closed behind me.

As the Paladin in charge of the mission they were to take part of, I felt I should introduce myself and try to make them feel welcome, as well as understand the importance and purpose for their... Relocation.

"Hello. My name is Paladin Julia Vaughn. As of right now, I am your commanding officer. If you have questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to ask me now."

I waited patiently for a few seconds as they stared at me. Finally, the one with the ponytail spoke.

"Hello Paladin Vaughn, I'm Quentin Vandour and this is Heath Conos. I imagine you have a file prepared for both of us already?"

I wasn't quite prepared for that kind of greeting, but I figured I should just roll with it. Better to be intellectuals than savages.

"Yes I do, but often enough the files leave out the most important parts."

"Yeah?" Conos said.

"Like what?" He asked.

I smiled and flopped down into the nearest seat.

"What's your favorite food?" I asked light-heartedly.

They looked at me oddly and shared a glance.

"Er, what?" Conos asked confusedly.

"Your favorite food. I'd like to know. You're my subordinates now and I want to know everything about you! Everything you're willing to share I'll listen to." I said, leaning back and stretching lazily.

The best way to earn the respect of your subordinates is first to empathize with them, then awe them, and then show a willingness to sacrifice for them to show how much their service means to you.

"Well, okay," Conos began.

"Quent and I grew up together. We lived in the same run-down town and when we left we partnered up as mercenaries. Our folks trained us in the basics of survival and fighting, but we had to figure out most of what we know ourselves. That's our little tale, now what's yours, Julie?"

I cocked an eyebrow at his nickname for me and sighed before relaxing once more and quickly telling him how I was born in the wasteland and picked up as a young orphaned eleven year old by a Knight on patrol. His squad took me in with the Elder's permission and raised me to be a valuable member of the Brotherhood, and the values that we all live by.

I told them how I had difficulty grasping the Brotherhood ideals at first, but due to the harsh conditions of my childhood I had a strange fascination with it and didn't reject them out of hand. I told them how one day a single member of my squad, my family, had returned from a mission and retold the tale of how they took up camp under a ruined pre-war highway bridge.

She told me how a Raider gang with missile launchers and high tech gauss cannons jumped them and collapsed the bridge, and crushed all of them underneath. Those who had their helmets off at the time were lucky and died instantly under the rubble, but those who did have their helmets most likely starved or suffocated to death in the dust and the dark.

I told them how after that, I no longer had any trouble believing that pre-war technology was dangerous in the wrong hands: and the only safe hands were ours. My dedication and stubbornness kept me alive through thick and thin and got me to where I am today: a Paladin under the greatest Elder in the Brotherhood. After I finished my story I looked at them and found them staring at me.

"What?" I asked.

"Nothing, nothing. It's just…wow…" Conos said, at loss for words.

"We have seen many things and heard many stories in our travels, but after hearing a story like yours and seeing how positive you are despite it all, and the only reason being your belief in the Brotherhood and its ideals…" Vandour said, looking at the floor.

Then he looked at Conos, and they exchanged glances. Conos nodded lightly and Vandour closed his eyes in silent acceptance. Conos looked back to me with a determined gaze.

"You have our support." Conos said.

I was surprised to say the least.

"R-really? You trust the Brotherhood just like that?" I asked unbelievingly.

"I wouldn't say we trust the Brotherhood specifically, but we will trust you. If you trust the Brotherhood then more power to you. But we follow YOU, not your organization."

FIVE

"Down with the tyranny!"

"Kill the oppressors!"

"See the true terrorists in office!"

"Come here bitch!"

All around me were rioters, protesters, and looters destroying storefronts, breaking windows, and lynching governors. The politics of it didn't concern me at all. I was just upset about my god damn bike.

It was sitting in a garage covered in a tarp where I have been spending the last few days trying to fix it with what parts I could find in the ruined streets. There was a shop where I could find all the parts and tools I needed, but sadly it was on the other side of town and I could only make so many trips there.

Still, it had a few things left that I needed. And the store owner was still there, fending off as many looters as he could. At least, he was when I left him.

As I approached there was a rioter who held a Molotov in his hand and was preparing to throw it through the shop window. I grabbed it from his hand as he threw it and slammed it into his back, setting his jacket ablaze. He hollered and screamed as he rolled around on the ground, trying desperately to be free of the stinging flames. I flexed my black gloved hand and looked at him with boredom.

"This is Ty's place. Ya don't fuck with Ty. And ya don't fuck with me." I said to him before walking into the store.

The moment the door closed shut behind me and rang the little bell above it I ducked to the floor as a blossom of dust and wall showered over me.

"Ty, it's me!" I called out.

"Fi?" A strained old voice croaked out from behind the counter.

"Is that you you old British dog?" He asked with light humor in his voice.

"My heritage is English you daft sod! And you're one to talk, calling me an old dog."

Ty's withered smile came from around the corner as he hobbled over to me with a lever action shotgun in his hand, his arms spread out to give an embrace.

"Ah ha ha ha! Fi 'ole boy it's good to see ya still alive in all this." He said as he moved to hug me. I held up a hand to stop him and instead clasped hands with him in a firm handshake. I was never really one for hugging.

"Diddo mate, and I see you still got this place under quarantine in all this mess."

He smiled and waved me towards the counter with his shotgun.

"Heh heh, yeah I'm doin' alrigh'. Can't complain. All these sorry youngsters with their guns and their Molotov cocktails runnin' about makin' a havoc here an' there; I'm gettin' right tired of it. Just can't let an old dog lie, eh?" He rambled as he shuffled back behind the counter.

I looked around the store and saw that nothing was missing. No looters set more than a foot in this shop before being cut down. Ty was an old man who survived the wasteland for over sixty years after all, and you should always fear old men where the young die often.

Ty was a man in his early sixties, with gray strands of hair around the sides of his head and a headset made of junk and scrap with different sizes of glass lenses suspended over his left eye. He wore a dirty light blue jumpsuit under a black leather blacksmith's apron. He had adapted a lever action shotgun into a short cane for, "practicality" he called it.

He hobbled over to his counter and rummaged around for some spare parts and pushed boxes of scrap across countertops. He opened a drawer and withdrew a flat rectangular box covered in dust. He gingerly brought it over and set it down on the counter.

He blew some of the loose dust off the top and used a rag to wipe off the rest, revealing the contents through the clear plastic lid.

Tools of all sorts and sizes sat neatly organized in their little cubbies. I grinned and dug through my knapsack for my caps. A withered old hand rested on my arm and I looked up at a smiling Ty.

"Take it lad. Not many people like you left in this world, 'specially these days." He says sadly, looking at his store window and the chaos outside.

"You take this an' get the hell outta here, ya understand me 'ole boy? You get going an' get out while the gettin's good."

I smiled at him and rested a hand over his on my arm, giving it a light squeeze.

"Thanks Ty, I mean it. If there were room for two I'd take ya with me back to base, but…"

"Ah I 'ppreciate it Fi, but my old bones were born in this town, and by God they'll die in this town. I run a little junk shop in the middle of god damn nowhere and that's how I like it."

He looked out the window again and paused before speaking.

"If I didn't have long before I certainly don't now. So get goin' lad. Don' worry 'bout sorry old me. I'll see my wife soon enough." He said smiling at the picture of his deceased wife, Ivy.

I nodded silently and turned to walk out the door. The bells chingled as the door opened and closed, leaving me standing in front of the burning streets. I looked at the rioters to my right and threw my hood up as I speed-walked to the garage. A couple of protestors had cornered an attractive young red-haired woman and were about to have their savage and most likely unnecessarily violent way with her. I grabbed my black and copper colored .45-.70 revolver from behind my waist and slid the barrel up next to one's head.

I pulled the trigger and the bullet flew straight through the rioter's head and planted itself firmly in the head of his buddy. The third one looked at me with shock as I spun the revolver and planted another bullet in his groin and his chest. The girl stopped screaming after I did them in. I reached down and grabbed a 10mm pistol from one of the corpses and tossed it to her. She caught the weapon in both hands and looked at me, confused.

I resumed walking down the sidewalk towards my safehouse.

Once I got there I threw the door open and set the tools down on the workshop table. I moved to the corner and grabbed my gear off the coat rack. I slung on the brown leather chest holster with my .45 pistol and bowie knife in it. Then came my thigh holsters for my twin revolvers in a crossdraw style, each revolver being a .45-.70 with black and copper furnishings. I clipped on bandoliers of bullets in an X on my chest and set a belt full of speed-loaders on my waist. I slung on my dark red leather duster which had a large black V on the right shoulder mantle. I grabbed my large brim black cowboy hat with a dark red band around the center and set it on my head. I reached into the collar of my shirt and pulled a black mask up over the bottom half of my face and barged back out the door.

I walked down the streets with a strong sense of purpose, my spurs clicking as I walked. I approached the first group of rioters and drew. Shot two of them in the backs of their heads, and as they crumpled the rest of them turned to face me.

I stood alone on the street and spun my guns in my hands, pointing the barrels to the sky and thumbing back the triggers. I looked up at them over my mask and jerked my head, daring them to make the next move.

They roared in anger and hate and charged me with bats, bars, molotovs, and what say you. I shot a few molotovs before they were thrown and set many of them on fire. The rest I started plugging one to two at a time, occasionally spinning the revolvers in my hand as I searched for a new target. Every bullet tracked expertly through at least two targets and brought down several men at a time. I kept count of my bullets and stayed planted in my spot as I gunned down the rioters.

Three, three, four, four, five, five, and down. My guns now empty, I started pistol whipping them and spun around sliding my gun barrels and the bottom of the grips into heads, jaws, necks, and wrists. A thrown axe planted itself in my shoulder as three more charged me.

I left it there and endured the pain long enough to drop the guns, slide out my knife, and cut the tendon of a rioter. After that the knife met home in a neck, then slid past a throat, and was thrown into another's forehead. I followed the movement from my throw and pulled the axe out. When I spun back around I hefted the axe at the one who threw it and buried it in his chest.

A pouch on my belt held all the stimpacks I needed to deal with the axe wound. After the pain was dulled and the wound started clotting I retrieved my guns and reloaded.

I shot, stabbed, bashed, and broke my way to the town hall, the center of the rioting. The whole point of them rioting didn't matter to me. But they overthrew their leaders in a matter of days and this "revolution" has lasted weeks. Now it was just an excuse to do whatever the shit they wanted. Soon enough it would turn into a town of raiders.

And Ty wouldn't be able to live the rest of his life in peace.

I marched up the steps and barged through the door, leaving piles of bodies behind me. I walked through the front doors and quickly took cover behind a stone pillar. A volley of bullets tore and chipped away at the pillar as I waited for the idiots to waste more of their ammo. I listened close and when I heard a click followed by a lack of gunfire I drew my guns. I heard men cursing as they fumbled to reload as I rounded the pillar and put a bullet in each of their heads. I walked up the stairs as five bodies slumped and rolled down the stairs.

I shook out the empty casings and replaced them with bullets from my bandolier. A man emerged from a doorway with a shotgun. He hip-fired and missed by a wide arc as I spun out of the way and shot him between the eyes; sending his eyes in two different directions from his head. I smelled a man's fear nearby and readied my gun.

He tried to swing a machete at my head from around the corner, with the intention of taking my head off. I caught his blade with the barrel of my gun and shot him center of mass with the other, sending him crumpling to his knees. Things progressed in much the same fashion as I made my way to the top floor of the hall.

I turned a corner with a man stuck on my knife. I raised my gun and shot another rebel as the body slid off the knife. A door flew open and I threw my knife at it. The rebel with the light machine gun literally walked into its path and fell to the floor firing his gun at nothing, choking on the steel in his throat as well as his own blood. I reloaded then put away my revolvers before picking up the LMG and resting it against the floor like a cane. I listened and heard five heartbeats that would probably belong to armed men. I also heard the frantic beating of about seven or eight women. Based on their smell they were terrified; probably not armed. Most likely used as meat-shields for the men.

I readjusted my hat and lifted the LMG. I aimed slightly up so the shots would hit the ceiling above them and held the trigger. Several high pitched screams came from inside. I heard the click of a hammer being pulled back and dropped the gun, flattening myself to the floor.

Shots came through the wood door and plaster walls above me. I listened for the click of empty guns but the gunfire stopped before I did. I got up and grabbed the body of a rebel and set him down face up with his feet facing the door. I set my hat on his face and the LMG by his legs, setting it up to look as if I had died.

I clambered up the walls to rest above the doorway. I waited for an obscenely long minute before the door opened ever so slightly. I heard the whimpering of a scared girl and heavy breathing of a large man. He came from behind the door into the hallway, his eyes on the dead body in the hall. He was a large man who looked to have more muscle than fat on him and the girl had long brown hair and fair, but bruised, skin. His arm was wrapped around her neck and was using her as a shield as his other arm kept a gun trained on the body. I reached down and softly closed the door behind him.

I unsheathed my knife and dropped behind him. He heard my boots hit the floor and turned just in time for his forehead to meet my knife. I buried it up to the hilt before yanking it out, and the girl couldn't help but scream. As his body fell I grabbed the girl gently and held her by the waist. I breezed us through the door the light machine gunner came from and dropped us to the floor as more bullets breezed though the walls. I held a finger to her lips and she froze, her eyes wide and locked on mine. She nodded slowly and I got off her. She moved to huddle under a desk in the corner as I moved to the door and got above it again.

This time, they kicked the door open. A hand clutching a .357 revolver appeared from the doorway and aimed down the hall. I dropped and landed beside the gun and thrust my knife into his neck. He gave a shocked gasp as I lifted him up and tossed him on top of another gunner. I slid my gun from its holster and shot the gunner across the room and then shot the gun hand of the man behind the desk, who screamed and began shouting obscenities like a machine gun.

The gunner I had pinned to the floor with the body threw his dead comrade off him and attempted to raise his gun, but I ended him before he could even get up.

In all the chaos the men had lost their grips on the women, who had flocked for corners or the door. I looked around and saw they were mostly unhurt, aside from some bruising on their faces, arms, and necks. One short-haired brunette was clutching her leg with tears in her eyes while her friends tried to comfort her, despite them being in similar states of despair. They had obviously been treated like sex dolls and play things.

It enraged me.

I stormed up to the last man standing (or rather sitting) and yanked him up from his chair. He cried out and held up both hands, well, hand. Singular. The hand I shot was missing several fingers and had a large hole through the palm. Blood started to pool down his arm and stained his shirt. He looked at me with tear tracked eyes and fear and terror rolled off him in pungent waves.

He looked like prey.

I walked him over to the balcony and threw him onto the railing. I reached down and swung him over the railing by his feet. He cried out and fell to the ground below, breaking against the concrete steps leading up to the metaphorical castle he had seized.

A crowd had gathered by now and was working on moving and looting bodies. A few people saw me standing up there and stopped what they were doing, as if they were expecting something from me. One by one more of them halted their proceedings and watched me silently.

This kind of stuff was never my forte. I turned on my heel and walked back in the building. I found the girls all huddled together, trying to treat each other's wounds. They flinched and looked at me in fear when I approached. I pulled my mask down off my face and knelt down to bandage the brunette's gun wound.

"It went clean through. Stay off it for awhile and you'll be fine." I said. She nodded nervously as I put a stim in her leg.

"H-hey…" I heard a small voice squeak out. I turned around and saw the long-haired brunette I had saved in the hallway standing next to the red-head I had saved in the streets.

I raised an eyebrow at them.

She cleared her throat and said a bit louder.

"H-hey!"

"What?" I asked.

"What…what do we do now?" She asked me. I looked at her and then to the rest of the girls. I pointed to the balcony.

"Lead them."

"W-what?" She stammered.

"I said lead them." She looked to be at a loss of words and didn't know what to do or say.

"I-I don't know what to say! I don't know what to do! I-I-I…"

"Do you think they care?" I asked her.

"What?"

"They just went through probably the shittiest 'revolution' in human history. They saw a man they didn't like get dethroned by a man they ended up hating more. Do you think they care if you don't know what to say? Just do it."

"B-but I…"

"Do it."

She stopped talking. The girls all shared glances and held hands. They got up and made their way over to the brunette and the red-head. They whispered to each other and then went silent.

She looked at me one last time before walking towards the balcony. I got up and walked to the doorway, the crowd of girls parting for me like the Red Sea. I picked up my hat and dusted it off before setting it back on my head as the girl started talking to her people.

I honestly didn't care what happened to this town or how it would be run. All I cared about was an old friend getting the right to live the rest of his life in some modicum of peace.

I went back to the safehouse and started my final repairs to my bike. It took me a few hours, but it was finally ready to get back on the road. I opened the garage door and pulled it out to the road.

My bike was a custom job built by me and Two. It used an old Lone Wanderer base with four wheels as to the original two. The wheels were special, thick tires meant for extreme off-roading and were spread apart and raised the bike further off the ground, making it a perfect vehicle for smoothly riding over the cracked and destroyed roads.

I set my hat in a large pouch in the back and grabbed a pair of motorcycle goggles. They were resting on my forehead and I was doing one last inspection when the brunette showed up with the red-head.

"Hey." She said.

"What?" I asked.

"Thank you, for making this possible. For, well, everything." She said with a soft smile.

"Don't thank me. I didn't do it for you or this fucking town." I said.

Her smile faltered, but she didn't frown.

"Then why did you?" I got on my bike and put the goggles over my eyes.

"To help a friend."

With that I revved the engine and sped off down the road, leaving the girls standing behind, watching me leave. It was an unnecessary distraction and not to mention a waste of ammunition, but at least Ty would get to run his little junk shop in the middle of god damn nowhere.