It was a curious sight for prospectors, nearby troopers, what few inhabitants remained or even passing caravans. The ruins of Boulder City, torn apart by the NCR to claim victory five years ago, were once more the theatre of a ferocious battle. The sound of gunfire resonated, carried by the wind of the barren landscape. Fearful travelers would quicken the pace for a settlement whereas more opportunistic inhabitants of the desert instead set out for the city, hoping to claim discarded weapons and other items. Lastly, some carried on, remaining unfazed by the gunfight. Those were all too common across the desert, after all.
Meanwhile, in the ruins themselves, the fight was still ongoing, both sides struggling to hit one another amongst the ruins. Max couldn't tell who was winning, for now, busy as she was not dying. After the death of the first Khan, she had to admit that she lost track of who was going down and who was shooting who. She'd hear screams of pain and sometimes would see a Khan fall down with a scream, but she wasn't sure if it was by her doing or if she whiffed all the shots and someone else got lucky. What she could perceive is that the screams were more numerous on the Khans' side, and the positioning of her targets indicated that they were retreating for the ruins, as if hoping to continue the battle from a safe point.
"Reloading!" Screamed Emma, making herself heard over the screams of the gunfire. "There's a Khan on the roof on your left! Shoot him!" Max did as she was told, too caught up in the moment to consider showing mercy and noticed that one of her enemies had decided to buy some time for the rest by running to the roof to blast at the troops using two sub-machineguns, hoping to cause enough confusion and chaos to get the others moving. That, or he had taken too much chems and was blissfully unaware of his suicidal tactic. The young woman shot at him, assisted by a dozen panicky troopers. The initial bullets had done well in killing him (even though she once again couldn't quite credit herself for sure) but the sheer barrage of ballistics blasted his body three meters backward anyway. She heard Emma laughs.
"Good one, Max! Keep your head down though." A few bullets whizzed past them, courtesy of some vengeful raiders. While they were a bit exposed, the soldiers all around them were far too numerous for the Khans to properly focus on a target. Concentrate on one trooper or spot, and the rest of them would shred your body to pieces regardless of the success of your own shot. Their enemies were veterans of the Wastes, loyal to one another and tough, but the numbers were simply not on their side for this one. And going by what she saw a few times while aiming, the Khans' guns were prone to jamming and quite dirty.
It was a testament to their toughness that they hadn't been killed yet, considering the odds, but yet more and more they were being pushed back, leaving behind the corpses of their comrades. Some of the bolder troopers even advanced unto their old positions, though all of them were quite careful in avoiding the house where the hulking man had taken residence. She thought of him briefly before her brain yanked her mind back to the most important task at hand: Not getting shot. To Max's surprise though, Emma decided to stand up, even as the bullets still roared, and took a few bursts of her own.
"What are you doing?!" Asked Max, unwilling to see her friend die, but opting not to pull her down, since it could distract her.
"We're pushing them back! So that means we need to take positions to get a piece of the action! C'mon!" Emma daringly leaped over the cover before sliding down the dirt and debris. She kept herself steady despite it, shooting at the Khans during her descent and somehow avoiding their bullets by miracle. Upon reaching more solid ground, the soldier acrobatically jumped off the mound of debris and maintained fire, downing at least two of the remaining Khans who hadn't yet fled to their improvised fortress.
"YOU KILLED THEM!" The remaining Great Khan raised his rifle her way, and Max, who was still perched up there, took some action of her own with her remaining bullets and shot at the enraged warrior. None of her bullets reached his head but they clipped him in the leg and torso. The man fell backward, as a hail of bullets from the other troopers put a more definitive end to his threat.
"Thanks, Max!" Said Emma, motioning for her friend to come down as well. Caught in the action, the young woman looked down at the slide, shook her head, and instead descended through some awkward steps, the old-fashioned way. Her lack of proximity to the frontlines, distance from the bulk of the forces, and unnoticeable manner of descent granted her safety from the enemy fire since the Khans were focusing it on a good bulk of the approaching forces. Emma waited for her and didn't approach yet, though it was obvious why: Now that the troopers were closer, it was much easier for the trained warriors on the enemy side to start hitting their targets, as some particularly overconfident soldiers discovered upon being cut down by them.
But still, for every NCR soldier that fell back, five more took their place and kept the pressure on, forcing the Khans to back off into the ruins right as Max reached her friend. That, and their weapons were starting to hit their limits: As they fled, some of the Khans had to throw them away, finding them worthless to lug about.
"What do we do next?!" The corpses littered the street at their feet, but the young woman yet paid little heed to them. Her heart would bleed for the victims of the firefight, Khans or not, but her mind wanted to first ensure that its owner would not end up joining these corpses in the first place.
Most of the troops also stopped at the edge of the ruins, pacing back and forth impatiently. It was understandable, really: Whoever charged would have to go through the lines of defenses erected by the Khans. And while the NCR still had the overwhelming numerical advantage, no man or woman would want to willingly throw themselves into the meat grinder for the sake of victory. Someone would need to take charge, and Emma did it, running behind cover once again and pointed at the roof.
"Some of you, check for Private Ackerman! He's up there!" Quite a lot of the soldiers proceeded to detach from the main group, seeing this as an opportunity to hopefully skip the final part of the battle. Emma very swiftly grabbed one by the collar as he ran by, pulling him back in a swift motion of her arm. "Some of you! The rest goes with me! We're going to go Bitter Springs on their asses."
"They've still got weapons and maybe traps up there! We'll get massacred charging in!" A few more gunshots rang out, felling some of the idle soldiers and prompting the rest to scatter like a hapless swarm of radroaches. At least three Khans were shooting down via windows, earning themselves some more NCR blood thanks to their favorable positions. Max winced upon hearing the cries of her dead comrades but had to remain behind cover as the bullets whizzed overhead. Emma, in contrast, didn't emote one single bit. As more and more soldiers began taking cover or hanging back, the shots lessened in intensity.
Still, the Khans' weaponry proved less than ideal again. More often than not, a brutal barrage of bullets would end right before it could start to tear into a stranded trooper, sometimes forcing one of the other shooters to delay their side and cover for their reloading ally. Their angles could also cover only what was below them: Some soldiers ran back to their home position and were spared from any further retribution.
"Yeah, they've probably got traps up here, but stalemates are boring," Max witnessed, amazed, as her friend reached for her belt to pull out an explosive. Unlike the round-shaped grenade, this one was thin and long. "I'm going to throw this. It'll explode and stun them. Police used it back in the old world…" A bullet crashed right back Emma as she spoke. "… Throw. Make boom. They unhurt but very stunned. We charge in and kill them while they're reeling from it. You good?"
"But what about the traps?"
"Fuck them! I'll run through every trap they've put up there if it allows these pussies to follow us in battle! On the count of three, I'll throw it! And when I run in, you'll follow me?!"
"What?!"
Emma primed the grenade and prepared to toss it, waiting for a lull in the shooting spree. The shooters were getting more conservative with their shots but saw a brief lull as an opportunity to reload. "One!"
"W-wait! You want me to charge into a building full of angry thugs?!"
"Ye, reload. Two!"
"But-"
"Nothing bad will happen to us, got it? Follow my lead and blast the bad guys with your rifle, dammit! The fight only stops when they're all dead! Three!" Emma got up, ripped the pin off, and lobbed the grenade right at the Khans, managing to send it past the one on the middle. It was a risky tactic since it could easily be thrown back, but the sudden bright flash of light in the building and confused screaming proved Emma right. But the woman didn't even wait for it to implode before going in: As soon as she had thrown it, she grabbed her rifle and ran at the building, ready to storm it by herself. Almost on instinct, Max ran after her, while still in the middle of an awkward reload. In the previous times, reloading had been easy because she was standing still and not under any particular pressure. Having to reload while running already proved a much tougher challenge, and that was out of the stress of the civil war going on in her brain: Her adrenaline struggled to fight back her urges of ditching Emma entirely and abandoning what seemed like a suicide mission. Behind her, shots rang out as the Khans in the windows were finally in a position to be disposed of.
The adrenaline won out in the end. Emma was her friend after all. Harsh at times, brutal in dealing with her enemies and a bit aloof, but she'd taught Max what she needed to survive in the wastes and meant well. Rewarding her efforts by fleeing was definitely ingrate. Pragmatic in a cold way, but Max knew that she'd be tormented by the guilt for the years to come. Instead of wasting more time on the rifle, the young woman ditched it entirely and grabbed one of the two pistols she was carrying on her person, choosing the 9mm model since it was less cumbersome than the 10mm that had been gifted to her a few days ago. The regret of abandoning a useful weapon almost made her go back to fetch it before she noticed that a dozen of troopers, galvanized by their charge, were now preceding her and likely stomped it all over anyway.
The dark-haired woman kept ahead of the troops while Max slowed down slightly to better fit in instead, though she kept ahead of most of the soldiers. "CHARGE!" Bellowed Emma, to further bolsters her allies. A few Khans emerged their way, but weakened as they were by the flash grenade, they were easily felled by several bullets and stomped all over by the NCR stampede. A few bullets nonetheless barely missed Emma herself, which made her head left.
"We'll split! Hunt them down and kill them! I don't want a single Khan to return to the canyon!" She immediately headed left and quite a lot of the troopers followed her along. Max, owing to her position ahead of the rest, instinctively became the leader of the other half. Which meant that unofficially, she was in charge of a dozen men and women with families and dreams of their own. As luck would have it, she remained numb to this realization. The panic of the charge was still ongoing and the young woman was sure that without the adrenaline to keep her up, she'd collapse entirely out of sheer terror! It was her and a few brave soldiers against some blind yet very angry and armed maniacs.
"FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK Follow me! Huh, shoot them or something!" She ran to the right, struggling to navigate the mound. It was mighty yet so… frail like it'd collapse on them at any moment. Both defenders and attackers were forced to move around various holes or circumvent debris if they wanted to make any progress, and the swirling dust caused by the stampede did no favor. But the Khans were still reeling from the sudden flashbang and had troubles navigating their treacherous surroundings. Not that this was much of an advantage for Max and the others, who had to be swift yet careful.
Two stumbled their ways downward to meet their attackers, barely recovering from what they had been exposed to. Remembering the methods taught to her by Emma, Max raised her pistol and shot at him, aiming for the chest and pressing the trigger four times to amplify her odds of shooting something. It wasn't the fanciest of tactics, but the projectiles pierced the Khan's chest in their entirety nonetheless thanks to her proximity to him and focus, and he fell over. The other one was taken down through the usual NCR way of using a wall of bullets to kill stuff, taking him down before he could even try to avenge his fallen friends.
Max took a brief glance at the bleeding bodies but quickly looked away and advanced forth, as some of her allies had to discard their now empty rifles to acquire the Khans' weaponry. Directionless as she was, the troopers started to disperse across their section of the building, each finding a door or hole that they thought wise to investigate without warning the rest. This caused the already small group to somehow further disintegrate as they progressed, a fact that Max only discovered when she turned to check and saw naught but two troopers, including… "Nolan!" Glad to see that another one of her friends was around, the young woman slowed down slightly, allowing the other trooper to catch up and eventually surpass her. "So glad you're here!"
"You run fast! I've been trying to-WATCH OUT!" Max instinctively ducked before looking ahead of herself, right at the third trooper. A Khan had emerged from nowhere to attempt to angrily behead her with a swing of his machete. In the confusion, the NCR soldier ducked beneath the blade, or rather, threw herself to the ground in a panic and miraculously avoided death… very briefly. Having seemingly recovered from his earlier bout of blindness, the man raised his blade overhead, preparing to thrust it downward to finish off his enemy while she was still recovering from her initial dodge. However, Max raised her gun as he was preparing and quickly shot her entire clip at him. Though her aim was slightly lesser than normal because of the panic, enough bullets lodged themselves in the Khan too made him fall on his back.
"Nice reflexes!" Nolan said as Max walked over to the downed trooper to help her stand to her feet. "We should be clear. There can't have been that many Khans in the ruins."
"I hope so. I'd rather not need to…" She glanced at the man's corpse, sighed, and looked at her fellow soldier. "… Are you alright, private?"
"A lot better than I would've been if you hadn't stopped him. Thank you!" The young soldier looked at the corpse, more specifically, the machete it wielded. "... You got him good the-" A shape slammed into the younger woman and sent her sprawling feet away from Max, who backed off and raised her pistol. Before she could even press the trigger, a swift hand grabbed the gun and yanked it to point to the ground, easily overpowering Max even as she tried to use her two hands to wrestle control away from it. In the confusion, the newcomer pressed the trigger a few times, even though she'd be shooting nothing but the dust by this point.
Click click click click
The two adversaries briefly froze, in a manner that would seem almost comical. The intruder recovered first, however, and slammed their elbow into Max's nose, causing her to reflexively let go of the weapon to clutch her bloody nose. This granted the Khan full access to an empty gun, which wasn't too useful unless the enemy planned to whack Max to death. Luckily for her dignity, the person instead took the gun apart in one fell swoop, reducing it to its mere components in a mere second. This gave Max the time to see that her enemy was a woman about one head and a half taller than her. She had no weapons on herself, thankfully, but her nose could attest that her muscular arms were not for show. "Nolan!" She cried out, hoping not to face such an enemy by herself in close combat.
"I'm on it!" The young man, taken aback by the sudden intervention just as much as Max was, immediately aimed for the Khan, but the attacker had expected this, rushing for cover within the ruins. Cursing at his inability to hit his target, Nolan took a few steps to approach Max, who was adapting to the pain of a broken nose. "Max! You alright?"
"… The last time I bled this much from the nose, I was eight. It was at a track team matter. I outpaced most of the competition but a stupid rock made me fall and… I'm fine," She had no way of knowing how bad her nose looked, but there was too much blood going down her face to be optimistic about it. She simply hoped that she wouldn't end up unable to breathe and die. It'd be bad for her if that were to happen. Nolan advanced towards the downed soldier while observing his surroundings as Max spoke, careful of what could emerge from the darkness.
"I don't think you are. But c'mon, let's group up with the others! That Khan's not like the others and I'd rather take her on-"Before he could move on further, the woman came right back at him at obscene speed and tackled him in the back to hurtle him forward. Taken off guard by the sheer swiftness at work, the soldier let go of his rifle and crashed into the ground, apparently breaking a few ribs in the process if her hearing was accurate. Nolan set out to get up, sparing only a light grunt to his injuries. As he was attempting to recover, the woman walked his way. Her stride was cold yet quite fast: In mere seconds, she'd have reached him!
She walked past Max in the process, giving her nothing but a cold stare, without even bothering to turn her head. The Khan doubtlessly wanted to see if Max would pull out another gun or a weapon to intervene, and was ready to take measures to stop her if it happened, but the sheer dismissal at hand convinced Max of something else: After their initial bout seconds earlier, the raider had dismissed her entirely as a threat, all too easily deprived of her already-useless weapon and reduced to begging for help after a single blow from the enemy. And that awoke something in Max. Something strong yet stupid, at the idea of being so easily mocked and dismissed by an enemy in the middle of a fight. And while it was her first time experiencing such rage, it felt oddly familiar to her.
She could've pulled out her gun (not that it would've done much good with the Khan watching her) or even attempted to retrieve the machete, but Nolan would be reached and killed if the latter option was attempted. So Max instead decided to run in and ram her shoulder against the Khan's back as hard as possible, in a bid to topple her and give Nolan more time to recover and fetch his rifle. Well, that was the rational part. The irrational part of Max simply wanted to show that raider scum that muscles and a certain size difference do not necessarily ensure victory in a melee fight!
The woman begged to disagree! As soon as Max went in, she had already spun around and lightly stepped out of the way, allowing the NCR soldier to ram thin air with her shoulder. Seeing an opportunity to strike back, the attacker put up her knee to let her inexperienced foe run against it, without the need to even swing it at her enemy. She also accomplished a rapid sweeping motion with her right arm, but Max was too distracted to pay any heed to that.
Struck in the left rib and guts, Max canceled her charge and immediately took a few steps backward to gain distance. But that wasn't fast enough: In less than a second, the Khan was already right in front of her, fists at the ready. The trooper half-remembered Emma's instructions and raised her arms before squatting down, to better protect her face and torso.
Unimpressed by the defense put up by her enemy, the Khan grabbed Max's arms and pried them open with ease before applying a crushing grasp on her forearms. Before any attempt could be made to retaliate, as feeble as it would be, she raised her left leg and slammed it into Max's chest with great strength, smacking her into the ground on her back. It had been two mere blows, but her ribcage was more broken than Boulder City itself and that steak from earlier felt ready to be spilled out again. The pain itself had shut down her pride-induced aggression from seconds earlier, leaving nothing but panic behind.
The Khan threw another look her way resumed her earlier walk: Nolan was still on the ground, Max's distraction hadn't lasted long enough for him to get back up yet. Seeing his distress, the soldier put her fears aside and moved to get up as well, coughing as she did. "H-hey, you fuck! You…" She coughed again and didn't feel too reassured when blood escaped her mouth. Her enemy once again ignored her. "… You fight well. But guess what?! You've got fists, I've got a gu-" She reached for empty air, which Max only realized mid-boast. Her trusty 10mm pistol had gone missing, or rather, had found a new master within the hands of the tall woman. Had it been stolen during their short bout? She put that aside for now. The thing that mattered, for now, was that the gun was in the enemy's hands. And instead of immediately taking it apart, the woman simply held the gun up and pointed it at Nolan.
Blood spurted out of the young man's right side, somewhere below his right shoulder, and he fell back to the ground, limp. Unconvinced, the Khan raised the gun but first chose to wheel around in anticipation of an immediate attack on the back. But for once, fortune was on Max's side: The enraged young woman was much swifter than anticipated and her desperate tackle finally proved itself successful, pushing the Khan off her feet before slamming her into the ground with great force. To her surprise, the gun simply fell off. The private didn't even try to fetch it though, instead pressing her temporary advantage by straddling the Khan to pummel away at her with a series of punches.
Emma would've probably done a good job at it. She would've known the places where to strike to better keep her momentum going or would've maybe considered going for the eyes or throat immediately to inflict fatal damage. But Max had forgotten the finer aspects of fighting taught to her by her friend. One of her allies was seemingly knocked out, the other had been shot, and no one seemed to be coming for them yet. Should she fall, then their enemy would be free to finish them off with the various weapons laid about on the ground! It wasn't a time to think profoundly about what to do next or aim precisely: Max instead sought to fix a problem by hitting it as much as she possibly could, flailing at the Khan's face to kill her before she could kill them back.
Her enemy made no move to initially defend herself, even though she probably could have done so easily. Instead, she defaulted to staring at the young private. Her brown eyes set upon her enemy, never blinking once despite the countless punches thrown her way. She'd be hit hard enough to bleed from the mouth, repeated impacts would leave small purple bruises and her head moved with every strike, but she never ceased staring, no matter what. It was like a threat: Max was not worth the acknowledgment before, but she had now earned a Great Khan's full, undivided attention. And retribution was right around the corner. But she'd first let the soldier have her minute of free shots before dishing out a counter-attack.
Max continued her attack with desperation, finding herself unsettled even as she was the one winning the brawl. But no matter how hard or often she struck, to the point where the blood on her knuckles was hers almost as much as it was the Khan's, the latter would simply not die or fall unconscious. Doleetle eventually stopped swinging her fists, taking a brief pause to catch her breath. The Khan once again didn't move a muscle. "… Mediocre, Republic dog," Max looked down at the woman and saw a slight smile appear on her bruised face. "You would lose to Jerry in a fight, you know?"
"… I don't know who Jerry is, but he must be kinda tough then," Replied Max, failing to conceal the shakiness in her voice. Her breathing was raw, filtered through wounded lungs and a broken nose, and moving a single bloody finger to point down felt like a triumph. Her somewhat blurry sight allowed her to see that the Khan had tanned skin and a total absence of hair. "Because you're the one with a face full of bruises right now."
The Khan remained silent and briefly looked away from Max, towards a cowering Nolan. The young man was pressing his two hands against his bullet wound in a bid to control his bleeding. The widening red spot beneath them certainly cast a grim probability of his method working out. "… Well," She looked back to Max, smirking smugly. "I haven't got a bullet in me!" The brown-haired youth frowned and didn't dignify that with an answer. With disturbing swiftness for one of her nature, she instead immediately applied her hands on her throat, hoping to choke her out. Her opponent just laughed at that, again. "That your first time choking somebody out?" After receiving no answer, the woman sighed and lifted her hands to wrap them around Max's throat.
It was like being trapped between two slabs of metal. Instinctively, Max drew back from choking to try to pry her hands away, but the Khan's grip alone overpowered her feeble attempts at saving herself. It took her a moment to notice that the woman was sitting up, unbothered by the weight of a full-grown adult on top of her, but her darkening vision was doing her absolutely no favor. With a roar, the woman lifted Max up to better slam her straight into the ground. Max yelped, but it came out as a barely-audible grunt. Panicked, she raised her arms to scratch her eyes out, but the raider kept herself barely out of reach, smirking at the desperate effort.
"I've become a grown woman only after withstanding a beating from my group." The Khan sounded calm, barely sounding like she was outputting any effort in choking a woman. Max flailed her limbs some more, failing to hit anything as she clawed away with her arms and swung her legs to try and hit the Khan in the back of the head. Her reach was lacking for the latter, and her killer cared very little for the claws marks on her bare arms. "My friends, my family, my lover, walked up to me and gave me hell for over ten minutes. I could not plead nor defend myself, and the ritual would end only after their satisfaction."
Max's world was spinning around that woman as she struggled. Bright flashes of light bloomed all over her vision before making way for dark spots, that were growing bigger and bigger with the second. She struggled as she had never done before to try and break away, but it was futile: With every passing second, her motions grew weaker, and the enemy's grip only became stronger.
Before long, she couldn't even feel the Khan's flesh or the dust all around her. Numbness took over as her movements became duller and slower. Bitter cold seeped into her body, much more vicious than the Mojave sun ever would be. She's killing me! She thought, over and over, in a belated manner. Her dimming vision focused on the Khan's eyes. The developing tears, the darkness, and the previous blur made it hard for Max to truly see anything further than her own nose, but she could see her enemy's eyes as she watched her die. They were once again unblinking and with their positions reversed, they had taken an expression of absolute murderous glee.
"I stood. For over ten minutes. They beat me until I was covered in bruises, broke my bones, but I never yielded. And as soon as they told me that it was over, I knocked one of my attackers unconscious," The woman snarled, her lips stretched into a monstrous smile. "It's how we Khans do things. It's harsh, but it'll toughen you up for what's out there. They don't have that in your Republic, don't they? When a thousand of your soldiers die, it's because they've been too coddled! They can't handle the brutality of the world, no matter how hard they try to drown it under their old-world laws!" She leaned in closer and closer with each word, confident that Max would be too weakened to put up a proper defense at this point. "I'll die tonight. The rest of you will see to that. But I'll drag as many as I can down to hell with me, and we'll have first rows to greet Kimball and Oliver, you facel-" As her world became pitch black, Max gathered all her remaining spite and power into a final lunge at her enemy's face with her head to viciously bite down on the woman's nose.
With the kind of power that only came to desperate warriors, Max held on as much as she could as Standing Stone, or whatever dumb Khan name she had, shrieked in surprise and let go of Max's neck to try to pry her head off. Determined to do as much damage as she could, minor as it'd be, Max's jaw held strong. And when the Khan warrior finally grasped her head to pull it back, a chunk of her nose ended up torn off in the panic. Blood sprayed forth from the mutilated body-part, showering the young soldier in hemoglobin. She'd have smiled, but the effort had truly taken away whatever strength she could still have brought to the fight. She was instead content to let the result of her attack speak for itself, keeping the bloody chunk lodged in between her teeth.
The raider woman took a brief pause to contemplate the damage and did a pained smirk, looking down at Max. "I'm almost respecting you for that, you know?" With that, she got up and walked to her downed enemy, eager to finish the fight. As her death approached with great stride, the defeated soldier had a sort of light-headed feeling. As if the entire situation was merely a nightmare, and she was going to wake up in McCarran, or Novac, or even the training camp. But still, images flashed before her.
Her first steps, with her enthusiastic father standing right beside her, his hands placed to hold her if she were to fail.
Meeting her little brother, and the feeling of jealousy for the first time, upon realizing that she'd now be competing for the parental love.
The nice man who took care of her baby brother and herself while Dad was "seeing some friends", and the way dad suddenly returned, telling them that their mother had decided to stay with those "friends" for a little while.
Meeting her little posse of friends. In hindsight, she realized that she didn't know a lot of those jerks. Would they recognize her name on the memorial?
Growing up. Not believing in "The President" anymore or Dad for that matter. Going to those classes only to be ordered to stick to prospecting. Clashing every night with her father over trivial matters, in front of her little brother.
Her first boyfriend, hidden from a then-absent Conrad and her Dad. The first kiss and flirts, like a game, before things, turned a bit sour.
Going from job to job, drifting aimlessly. Not wanting to be a Prospector, but wishing to do like her brother and see more of the world, devastated as it was. Maybe see a bit less of Dad, too.
"I'm sorry, Conrad," She thought, serenely watching her death coming with not much as a twitch. "Sorry, Nolan. Sorry, Em. Sorry Andrew. Sorry, dad." The Khan raised her arms, ready to deliver the killing blow... And then something sharp pierced through her chest, stopping her mid-motion. Well, Max wouldn't know, at that range. For all she knew, Standing Stone simply stopped doing any sort of motion for a while before dropping her arms. Only then, after ten uncomfortable seconds, did she fall over to the side, those damn eyes still wide open. Over her corpse stood the private from earlier, who had been knocked out at the beginning of the fight. The weapon of the crime, a bloody machete, held in her right hand.
"Bitch." Concluded the private, after searching for some fitting last words to throw at the Khan on her way to hell, before letting the machete fall to the ground to kick up some dust. She wearily approached Max, bearing a nasty bruise on the right cheek, and helped her to her feet, keeping a steady hand on Max's right side and wrapping her left arm around her shoulders. Max spat Standing Stone's chunk of nose away and turned to her ally.
"… How's Nolan?" Asked the trooper, her slurred speech barely coming off as a whisper through her strained throat. But who could blame her? Her nose was squashed and several deep purple lines ran over her throat. The mere act of breathing felt like utter agony to her, as if something was raking her throat. And she suspected that it'd only get worse later on. At least, an optimist would contemplate, Max would live to heal those injuries. But a pessimist would simply answer that she'd live to get even more of those.
The realist would simply tell the other two that at least she didn't get shot at.
"I'll manage… Don't trust me to walk to McCarran though." Her vision was still worryingly blurry, and she heard words as if they were said miles away from her, but she was pretty sure that voice belonged to Nolan. Max smirked.
But then it dropped a little. She'd almost died, she pondered. And while she had met that near-death with serenity, the battle high that had allowed her to mutilate her enemy's nose and accept her death was wearing off fast. Those eyes of her were carved into her memory. Malice-filled orbs that remained wide open even in death. Had she the courage and stamina she would've gone out of her way to close them as if to spite the woman who had come close to killing, but she was devoid of both. All that mattered was finding a nice doctor, a nice bed, and sleeping it out. "Are you okay, Max, Ortega?" Nolan had gotten a little closer, and Max realized that he had torn away a bit of his sleeve to makeshift a little tourniquet over the bullet wound.
"A lot better now that I ran that bitch through."
"I'll be fine, gotta give me… a week first." Max attempted a chuckle but strangled herself a second into it. Wincing, Nolan also wrapped an arm around her and pulled out his pistol before walking down the destroyed building. He and Ortega briefly talked, but their words were distant to her, even as they stood so close. All she thought about was that everything that she'd been told of the Mojave by people had been correct: Emma, Nolan, even those drunkards, they all were right. It was really "kill or be killed", with absolutely no room for mercy. Just those eyes, that she thought of whenever she closed hers and that stupid ritual she talked about, where they would gather together and beat one of their own until they were satisfied… Savages. Bloodthirsty savages, the bunch of them. And she doubted that the Fiends or Legion would be much better.
More and more soldiers emerged from the ruins, joining up with them. Some of them looked especially shocked at the wounds that the trio exhibited, their own fights with the Khans having apparently gone smoother. Emma, especially, was approaching at a right pace, her victorious smile fading into a worried frown. "What the hell happened in here? Shit! Let's get you to a doctor!"
"Yes, please. I'm gonna need… a thousand Stimpaks, erg." Said Nolan, allowing three healthier troopers to pick up Max, though he walked close to her to keep guard.
"I'm fine. It's just a big bruise." Ortega rubbed said big bruise and glanced about. "… But if you've all got some ice for me, I'm taking." Emma brushed her off, instead heading to accompany Max. The young woman had taken some of the worst damage, after all. Still, she smiled reassuringly at her concerned friend.
"I'll be fine, Em. Don't look so… worried, we won, right? Where's the hostage."
"Yeah. We're still searching for some Khans, but it seems like we killed them all. Gilbert… they got her before we could get in, but we made them pay." She glanced at the building. "That place's a giant tombstone for those chem-addicts now. I said that'll teach them a lesson but obviously, Bitter Springs didn't!"
"… Yeah. I…" Max grew quiet, seeing an outpour of soldiers walking into the ruins. Certainly to track down any remaining enemy, which the young woman now didn't mind. Instead, she glanced past them and at the medics that were gathered near the entrances of the ruins, not too eager to go in since they were only armed with syringes and stimpaks. Upon seeing the wounded soldiers, some of them still rushed to get to them first. "Oh, thank fuck for the doctors!" Emma said nothing since she could see a bit farther, and those who were rushing for the wounded were not all doctors.
"The Coyote Courier! Could you please tell us about everything that leads to the firefight?"
"Radio New Vegas! Would you mind telling us everything that went down during the firefight?"
"The Californian Sun! Please, pose for the camera, soldiers! You're about to make a lot of your countrymen at home proud!"" Max only vaguely registered the closest reporter and did her best to do as ordered, weakly raising her hand and thumb while simultaneously smiling. Doing so must've finally hit a sort of boundary in her stamina, however, because seven seconds after doing that her eyes rolled over and she almost fell, being narrowly caught by Emma and one of the doctors.
"Don't interfere with the field medics!" The reporters only briefly backed off to allow the unconscious Max and Nolan to be carted off, as several more doctors rushed in to get to the wounded. Emma watched her colleagues go and grimaced at the enthusiasm of the journalists over what had just transpired. She had to acknowledge that it was a good victory, though. It'd help the morale back home if they saw what had transpired. Raiders came in, messed with the Bear, ended up bitten. What more could they ask for? As several of the healthier soldiers walked past her, some of them turned to the scientists to deliver some eager interviews or even pointed her way, apparently meaning to credit her for her leading during the last moments of the battle.
It'd be a good occasion, but it would wait. Before she could be called upon, Emma turned around and ran off to a particular portion of the ruins, where the former leader of the group had hunkered down before being promptly destroyed by the "negotiator". Emma jumped over the inert mass of gore that used to be a man before slowing down to better carefully approach the room and its single occupant. The NCR soldier leaned into the doorway but didn't quite enter, instead contemplating a Courier in his natural habitat: Currently busy stabbing a dead Khan in the chest over and over with a broken fork. "WHERE IS PLATINUM CHIP?! WHERE?!"
The entire room had been turned upside down while the two main forces outside battled. It had also been smeared in a copious amount of blood, far too much when there had only been two or three persons in it before the Courier's entrance. He was likewise covered from head to toe in it but didn't seem to be terribly mindful of that.
The sane step would be to simply shoot the lunatic in the back of the head, but before Emma could consider that option, the Courier glanced back at her and got up in an instant. For a man clad in such heavy metal armor, he looked very comfortable with his movements, like it was made of much lighter material. And as he arrived in front of her, she only began to realize that he really was about two whole feet taller than her. "Can't find PLATINUM CHIP! Kill you if you don't tell me where it is!" He spat, his saliva thankfully contained by all that fabric he had on his face. She couldn't see his eyes, through those thick black goggles of him.
"… You mind giving me a recap? I'm new to this situation." Emma stood still as a statue, her hands folded behind her back.
"… Ambushed by them and… man in ugly white suit. Lost PLATINUM CHIP! Kill men! But don't find Chip! Need it!" She could ask him why he'd need that thing, but answering that question looked hard enough for him already, so instead, she nodded.
"A man in a white suit? With… squares on it?" He nodded energetically, and she couldn't contain her surprise. When she asked him if he had been involved, it was as a way to test Benny and get him to lose his cool in front of the impressionable Max. But that he'd be involved in shooting such a guy? The man could waltz into a community of Super Mutants and be accepted without trouble! That city folk was sure brave or stupid. "… Yeap! I've seen him! He's headed to Vegas… s. Big city in the distance with the white thing. He leads The Tops."
"… Vegas?" The Courier tried to glance past the buildings to spot Vegas, only to growl when he predictably failed to view through from his position.
"You'll find it soon as you leave those ruins. It's a straight walk from there. Get in there, give that creep hell, alright?"
"… Not for you. For me." He snarled. "Give me order again. I kill you."
"Oh, I wouldn't want that. I'll be out of your hair," As she said that, and stepped out of the way, he checked the top of his head before departing, as if wishing to see if she was really in there. Oh boy. "Have fun killing Benny!" The Courier grunted, and walked away, ignoring the NCR personnel gathered nearby now that he had a target and a location. A few soldiers glanced at him on the way past but decided that they had a better fight to pick.
Emma waited for him to leave entirely and then sighed heavily, placing her back against the doorway to avoid outright falling down. "Fucking hell… The Mojave's getting crazier and crazier with every year."
…
A NEW BITTER SPRINGS? A CONFRONTATION BETWEEN THE GREAT KHANS AND THE NCR SEES YET ANOTHER BLOODSHED IN FAVOR OF OUR REPUBLIC!
Pictured: A wounded yet enthusiastic patriot gives her best smile to the camera! "Just gimme a crutch to beat 'em to death with!" joked the tender young woman before being carted away.
(…) The enmity between the Great Khans and the New California Republic is only a century younger than the Great War. Once threatening, these dirty raiders have since long been neutralized on our soil, but have continued to crop up over Nevada. The Khans have continuously failed to realize the shifting dynamic of power between our great nation and them and continue to pick fights with our gallant troops (…)
(…) During the Bitter Springs Accident, the cowardly Khans sent their women, their children, and their elders to the battle and quietly fled during the confusion of our brave troops. They did not get this chance in Boulder City: Our reports suggested the total annihilation of the gathered Khans in the area, in fact! It doesn't appear that these "Great" Khans are the tough warriors they believe to be! (…)
Colonel Moore has called to the squashing of the Powder Ganger rebellion and the Battle of Boulder City as dire warnings to the enemies of the Republic. "Soon, Caesar will run out of human shields." She confessed. "And he'll get a bullet to the head."
A FRONTLINE COMBATANT GIVES HER OPINION OVER THE MATTER!
Private Varzi has told us her feeling about the battle. "It wasn't too hard. The Khans are (censored), the whole lot of them. I've led my fellow privates once, and I'll do it again against all the enemies of democracy and freedom to be found in the Mojave. Caesar and Lanius will find themselves neck-deep in the blood of their subordinates… and I'll put their heads under. Promise."
…
Chapptterrrr 9 is out! What did you think of it? I hope that Someguy won't mind me for using the newspaper featured in NVB II! Oh and by the way, I'll keep it strictly canon. I doubt Marko or Russel will show up, for instance, or at least they'll simply be names, you know?
I'd like to thank Xcom-anders for his reviews. I appreciate your input very much! Once again, reviews of all kinds are greatly appreciated for my fic. It helps me see what I did wrong, what I did right, all that stuff. So keep it coming!
I plan to make more scenes featuring the Courier later, but he's not gonna be much of a focus. It's still gonna be Max and Emma's story (feat others). However, I'll perhaps show some snippets of him at the end of some chapters, to show how he deals with DLC stuff or canon characters. What do you think? Don't hesitate to answer if you'd like.
See you next week!