11:23 PM
October 24th, 2281
NCR Correctional Facility
The man made another lunge at the woman, attempting to force the knife attached to his scoped rifle into her abdomen. With finesse, she wrapped her hands around the barrel of the gun and pushed it to the side, the attack missing entirely. In the time it took him to recover she delivered a sharp right hook, knocking the man back, while jerking the rifle away from him with her left hand.
With the gun now in her possession, she held it at her waist and charged forwards at the stumbling man, refusing to stop even as the makeshift bayonet sunk fully into his skin. Finally, she drove the man into the railing of the watchtower, and with a squeeze of the gun's trigger he was sent careening over the edge. The woman looked down at the falling man, waiting to ensure he was dead after he had bounced off the cold ground and remained motionless and quiet on the sand, his body twisted abnormally.
Kassandra let out a sigh of relief, but did not rest. Her work here was not yet done and, as she positioned the gun on the top railing and aimed through the scope, she only further reinforced her own will with thoughts of what the Powder Gangers she had been hunting for the last few days had done to their victims. They had this coming, all of them.
One was hiding behind a building, but not well enough, his hands visible from the corner. Kassandra took a breath and held it. One shot removed his hand, drawing him out into the open as he held the wound and screamed in pain. The second shot silenced him.
She repeated this process for every Powder Ganger here. Whenever she began to run out of ammo, she'd refill the gun with one of the many compatible clips she had picked up along the way. This therapeutic cleansing of the Mojave's living sins granted her some much needed time to think.
Six days ago in Goodsprings, a courier was shot twice in the head for the contents of the package that she was delivering. In the dead of night, her body was dug up by a local Securitron and brought to Doctor Andre Mitchell's homestead, where it was discovered that the Courier lived yet and where she was saved through the miracle of modern medicine.
Bang. As another convict fell victim to her relentless crusade, the woman remembered how the hunt had began. Powder Gangers in Goodsprings. Harassing a wandering caravaner, so she put them in the. Courier left town shortly after.
Initially, she was headed to Primm to find the man who had shot her in cold blood. Return the favor. Along the way, got sidetracked by a wealthy number of discoveries and attacks. Three of them being Powder-Ganger related.
The woman freed Primm of them. She had enough of the self-emancipated convicts. Changed course and headed for the Correctional Facility, where the convicts were. Getting in was easy. Turns out walls and fences aren't very resistant to dynamite. Courier shot her way through the cell blocks. Didn't bother with the Administration building-That problem and the watchtower to it's north were dealt with when she took out the supports of the latter, which led it to topple over and crush the former. Moved on to the southwest tower. Picked off the survivors before she headed into the Visitor's Center.
Now she stood before the door. From the other side, she heard whispers and squirming as whoever was within planned and moved about. They were ready to attack whoever walked through that door, Kassandra knew. Couldn't just walk in, guns blazing like before. She had to be smart.
In one of the two bandoliers crossing her chest were three green, egg-shaped objects made to fit into just one of a person's hands. There was a lever going down the side of the device, and hanging from the gray top was a ring. The woman grabbed the fragmentation grenade and held the lever down, pulling the ring off. She lightly placed her hand on the doorknob into the building, not applying any pressure.
Though there was a chance that it was unlocked, she wasn't about to risk the probable chance that it was not, and alert her presence to everyone within. Instead, she lifted her hand from the handle, took a few steps back, and threw her shoulder into the side of the door where the lock was located, bursting it open. As soon as the door flung open the Powder Gangers starting firing, but it was too late. Kassandra had already tossed the grenade in, and retreated back outside the building, closing the door and hiding against the wall directly next to the entrance. She watched as thin streaks of yellow and gray burst from the door and taking wood shards with them, the realization of what she had just done not hitting them until only a moment before the explosion.
Multiple panicked screams, all drowned out by a very quick bang and then going silent all at once. The door slowly fell from where it stood, charred on one side. The only noises left were the pathetic whimpers of injured prey. Kassandra unholstered her stocky 10mm pistol, stepping into the doorway and passing through, into the building. Before her was a scene of chaos.
Blood and gore dripped from the ceiling, and a cursory glance revealed charred flesh, torn skin, and multiple shattered bones stuck to the roof. One of them had leapt on top of the grenade, it seemed. To protect his allies. Lotta good that did anyone, Kassandra thought to herself as she noted the burnt and bleeding corpses scattered about the room.
There was once a table and receptionist's desk, but they had been blown to bits, though behind one especially large wooden chunk ran out a man, aiming his weapon at the Courier. He was too slow, however, and dropped to the floor with a bullet in his head and a filled gun in his hands. Another man was crawling, his legs decimated, towards a still-remaining piece of the counter. He reached up and tried to grab a red monkey wrench upon it, but Kassandra took quick aim and separated the man's hand from his arm, his wrist no longer a tangible object.
He howled in pain, dragging himself away and towards the far wall. Kassandra lifted her gun to end the Mojave's prisoner overcrowding problem, but was grabbed and placed in a chokehold from behind, a sharp and constant pain ripping into her shoulder blade. She saw red and lowered her gun, firing it behind her once. The chokehold stopped as her attacker gasped stumbled backwards, the gunshot going through her torso. Kassandra turned to face the woman, lifting her weapon at her head and pulling the trigger.
Click.
The Courier groaned and threw the gun at the woman, knocking her further back. Kassandra lifted her arm to her shoulder, wrapped her fingers around an object lodged in it, and forced it out, ignoring the pain. She looked down at a bloody, makeshift shiv formed from some type of sharpened bone and a screwdriver handle. There were tiny edges indented into the blade, making it serrated. Rather than focus on the fact that this thing was just inside her shoulder, however, she took priority on giving it a new home: The woman's throat.
The wasteland warrior grabbed the Powder Ganger's hair and forced her head forwards, while she drove the shiv handle-deep into her throat, prior to forcing it to the right with such strength that the bone blade broke at the center. Scowling, Kassandra let go of both the broken weapon and the woman's hair, both dropping to the ground. Back to business.
She looked to the end of the room at the now handless man sitting against the wall and cowering, tucking his injured arm into his jacket and holding his intact hand up in front of his face as he begged to the woman. With no bullets left in her guns, the merciful thing to do here would have been to spare him. After all, he had certainly learned his lesson.
The scar on Kassandra's forehead served as a reminder of how far mercy had gotten her. She creeped towards the man, stepping over a corpse or two as she kept eye contact and refuse to break her stride once, not even as she reached for and grabbed the wrench on the countertop. When she finally broke her gaze, it was to stare down at and admire the utility.
She appreciated the irony. A tool, once used to create, now a weapon of destruction.
The man continued to beg, even as Kassandra came to a stop before him. He looked up at her, tears streaming down his cheeks. Finally, as his gaze met hers, he saw the coldness in her eyes and knew there would be no forgiveness.
The first hit immediately broke his arm, and Kassandra heard the satisfying crunch of a bone splitting in two. As the man's arm fell to his side she smiled at the fragments of white poking out from the skin, and the Powder Ganger's screams felt like music to her ears. She lifted the wrench again.
All good things come in threes.
The first time the wrench came down on his head, it didn't kill him. It simply fractured his skull, Kassandra could tell by the sound, as well as leave a gaping wound, blood squirting from the top of his head.
It didn't kill him the second time either, but it did split his skull and squeeze an eye from its socket, dangling by the retina. By this point, the man's screams had been reduced to an incomprehensible blabber.
The third hit reduced the blabber to silence. As the no longer identifiable corpse fell back against the wall, Kassandra stepped back and admired her handiwork. The room had been painted red with the blood of all that was wrong with the Mojave, and she couldn't help but feel as though this was just the first draft of her masterpiece.
