So, here's the deal. I'm going to update when I can, there is no set deadline for each chapter anyone as it seems I can't keep to them. I once again apologize and ask your forgiveness for the EXTREME lateness of this chapter. Anywho, as the title suggests, you'll actually get to see some violence in this chapter! Yay! I must warn you though, this is my first time writing any kind of violence so, if it seems bad, that is because I am inexperienced at this. If anyone has any pointers for me, leave them in a review for me... Please? One more thing: the song that goes along with this chapter is 'Hero' by Skillet.

Chapter 3: Ghost Town Shootout

Sunny, Damian, Cheyenne, and Ringo ran out of the gas station, heading for the saloon with Cheyenne and Sunny in the lead. When they drew near, Damian saw the town had moved some large boxes, a few motorcycles, and piled up a bunch of bags of grain for cover in front of the saloon, with Vlad loading a clip into his service rifle when they arrived. Sunny set up behind a motorcycle with Cheyenne at her side, aiming her varmint rifle down the road out of town. Ringo ducked behind a cart near the general store and Damian got behind a wagon in front of the saloon with Vlad. As Damian pulled out his varmint rifle, he called to Sunny, "How many did you say there were?"

"I counted twenty, including Cobb."

"Say what?!" Vlad gave a shocked look to Sunny and Damian, "They must really not like Ringo."

From behind the cart, they heard, "That's very reassuring..." from an anxious Ringo.

"So, counting you, Vlad, Trudy, Pete, Ringo, The townspeople, and me, there are ten of us versus twenty of them." Damian said to Sunny, "We are armed with, what, pistols, a couple rifles, two revolvers, and a handful dynamite that we all have to share against a variety of guns and melee weapons and enough dynamite combined to turn this town into a crater? Piece of cake."

Vlad turned to Damian, "You're that confident in us?"

"Are you not?" Damian questioned.

"Sorry if the odds aren't in our favor."

Pessimist. Damian thought at Vlad.

"By the way," Vlad said, "Pete came through with the dynamite," He handed Damian one and tossed another to Ringo, "throw those on my say."

"Do you see them?" Damian asked Vlad.

"Haven't seen them yet." Vlad replied, "Sunny, you're the one with the binoculars, how close are they?"

Sunny looked through her binoculars, which were around her neck, and called back, "They're walking to us, it might be a while."

Damian heard Vlad sigh in exasperation and mumble, "And now we wait… I don't particularly like waiting."

Damian looked around at the townspeople. They all looked nervous, some even throwing accusing glances at Ringo, but they were ready to fight. The waiting was hell on everyone's minds and the tension in the air was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. Damian realized that the Powder Gangers had a huge advantage over them. They were outmanned, outgunned, and under-experienced, well, Goodsprings was at least. I have to protect these people, Damian thought to himself, if we don't win this, they will all suffer.

The gangers were finally close enough that you could see the wicked grins on their faces. A powder ganger in the middle of the group pulled out a dynamite stick and lit it, but before he could throw it, Vlad shot the dynamite, making it, as well as the ganger holding it, explode. The force of the explosion knocked the others to the ground. Most quickly got to their feet and took cover behind large rocks, picket fences, and others objects large enough to cover a person, but some were still too dazed.

While the gangers were recovering form the blast, Ringo, Damian, Vladimir, Pete, and Sunny all took out their dynamite and lit them. Vlad yelled, "THROW!" and everyone threw the dynamite at the grounded gangers. They ducked behind their cover for a few seconds until they heard a chain of explosions, at which point they looked up to see the dynamite turned three gangers into bits and pieces of flesh, most of it still flying through the air.

Then, all hell broke loose. Both sides opened fire on each other with most of the bullets missing because the ones who shot were inexperienced but Vlad and Damian were hitting their marks almost every time, both getting head- and body-shots that were equally lethal. This guy has obviously had training. Interesting. Damian thought to himself.

At this point Victor finally arrived, taking his time rolling in from his shack. "Eat lead, varmints!" Victor yelled as he lit the gangers up with 9mm rounds from his machinegun-arm. He was able to kill two of them and wounded a third, but then Cobb and two of his men jumped out tossed lit dynamite at Victor. The dynamite bounced and rolled to Victor's wheel and he leaned forward to see the fuses rapidly shortening. Victor was only able to say, "Well, crap…" before he was blown ten feet high. He crashed to the ground, lower half practically gone with bits and pieces of wiring and metal fall down around the lifeless pile of metal.

"No!" Sunny would've ran to the dead robot if it wasn't for the gunfire flying around her.

Damn it! Damian look away from Victor and over to Cobb who had a triumphant, evil grin on his face as he dove back behind cover. Damian reloaded his rifle and took aim at the ganger next to Cobb. Damian put a bullet right through the man's head, wiping the cocky grin off Cobb's face, and putting one on his face.

He was into his third clip when Damian saw a shirtless powder ganger wielding a baseball bat jump out from behind his cover about ten feet away and howled into the wind with rage. While the Goodsprings townspeople were focused on the gangers actually firing back at them, Damian turned his attention to the ganger in question and emptied the three bullets left in the clip of his rifle into the man's chest while the bat-wielding maniac charged and showed no signs of slowing down. Great… He's using Psycho… Fucking perfect... Damian thought to himself. When the maniac reached Damian, he swung down with his bat with all the strength of a super mutant. Damian lifted his varmint rifle to block the attack and, when the weapons collided, the varmint rifle shattered. With what was left of the butt of the gun in his right hand, Damian swung up at the rage-filled man, smacking him in the face and breaking his nose. While the ganger regained his composure, Damian jumped to his feet and, dropping the remains of the rifle, prepared for the next attack.

The ganger was pissed off that this cowboy hadn't died yet and the fact that he broke his nose just made matters worse. The psycho in his system fueling him, the insane ganger took another downward swing at Damian, aiming at his head, and hoping to splatter his brains all over the sandy dirt of Goodsprings. Damian saw the wild yet clumsy attack coming and slid to the left to dodge the bat and reached far into the left flap of his duster with his right hand, seeking the hidden sheath, and gripped the hilt of his hidden weapon. Before the ganger could register that he missed (probably due to the psycho), he dropped the bat. The confused man looked at his hands, wondering why he had dropped it, only to find two stumps where his hands used to be. He barely had time to realize that his hands were still gripping the bat when his entire world went black. In one fluid motion, Damian had flipped his weapon around backwards and stabbed it through the handless man's back, running straight through his heart, killing him instantly. The body slumped to the ground lifeless, fresh blood glistening off Damian's Machete Gladius.

Damian looked back at the battle to see about half of the Goodspringers were dead or pretty damn close where the gangers were also half-dead, but that still left them outnumbered. "Alright, enough of this shit!" Damian said, his voice filling with anger and frustration. He switched the machete to his left hand while his right hand pulled out his revolver. Without a second thought, Damian started walking straight at the gangers and shot three times, each hitting a surprised ganger in the head. At this point, they were smart enough to duck behind cover.

As he kept walking, Damian noticed Vlad had joined him in pushing the Powder Gangers back. This provided confidence to what was left of the town militia and they all began moving forward in this "walking charge" Damian had started. He saw a ganger stand up in an attempt to get a better shot at him, but Damian put him back on the ground with a bullet to the ganger's knee. The crippled man tried to curse at him but Vlad shot him in the heart before he could say much. Damian took aim at a few more Powder Gangers, but they dove behind cover before he could shoot them and ended up wasting the last two bullets in his magnum. The gangers figured out Damian was out of ammo and they jumped up to kill him and were promptly peppered with bullets from the townspeople.

Now there was four Powder Gangers left, including Cobb, who could see clearly that he had severely underestimated Goodsprings. Well, two of them at least. Cobb thought the best course of action at that point was to get the hell out of there, so he got up and started to run. Damian saw Vlad knock over a ganger while sprinting after him, leaving Damian with the three grunts left.

Each of the gangers in front of him wielded a different weapon. The closest held a golf club (really?), the middle one had a stiletto, and the furthest was lying dazed and flat on the ground, holding onto a single shotgun. As the first charged him, Damian flipped his gun around so he was holding the barrel, and when the ganger reached him, blocked a horizontal swing from the left with his Machete Gladius. He pistol-whipped the ganger across the jaw and then slashed the ganger's throat. He brought his attention to the knife-ganger who tried to stab him in the gut, but Damian stabbed his arm and smacked him in the face with his revolver. Damian spun the ganger around in a reverse head-lock, putting him between Damian and a now standing shotgun-ganger. The ganger chose this moment to shoot and ended up turning the helpless ganger's chest inside-out. Damian threw the corpse at him, knocking him back down to the ground, and proceeded to place the machete between his own teeth in order to reload his .44 magnum with a speed-reloader from inside his pocket. As Damian clicked the gun's cylinder back into place, the re-downed ganger got the corpse off of him but then had his brains splattered on the ground by Damian who had removed the Machete Gladius from his mouth.

Damian looked over to where Vlad was and saw him on top of Cobb, trying to stab him in the throat with a combat knife, but Cobb's arms were not letting the knife any closer to him. Damian took a second to aim and then shot Cobb through both arms, allowing the knife to plunge into Cobb's neck. As Vlad stood up, combat knife in hand, Damian spun his Magnum around his finger and holstered it. "We did it Vlad. We took care of the Powder Gangers." Damian called with a smile.

Vlad nodded, "Yes that's all nice and such but," he pointed his combat knife at Damian menacingly, "tell me why you have a god damn Legion machete."

Damian stopped smiling, his eyebrow rose into an intrigued look, and he thought, It's good to see I'm not the only one who hates the Legion with a passion. "I take it your against the Legion?" Damian replied.

"They killed my sister. So yeah, I want to kill every single fucking one of them!" Vlad nearly yelled, his grip tightened on his knife. "You still haven't answered my question."

"I took this from the corpse of a Centurion who used it to kill my father." Damian replied calmly, "I plan on using it to kill Caesar."

Vlad's eyebrows shot up, "Really?" he smiled as he sheathed his knife, "That makes me want to join you in killing those Legion bitches."

I might have to take him up on that.

Ringo and Sunny jogged over to the two. Ringo spoke first, "I can't express how thankful I am that you helped me. This is all I can give right now but it's the least I can do." Ringo placed a small bag of caps in Damian's hand.

Damian nodded happily, "Happy to assist."

"Oh sure, leave out me and almost all of Goodsprings." Vlad said, sarcasm evident.

Ringo laughed, "Don't worry, I won't forget about Goodsprings. I'll figure out a way to pay you all back somehow."

"Well I don't know about you guys but I think it's about time we celebrate." Sunny interjected. Damian smiled and nodded in agreement. Sunny glanced at Vladimir for a moment, "You gonna join?"

Vlad scratched his chin. "I never miss a celebration, but I'll be late for this one. I have something to do."

Sunny shrugged, "Alright, let's go then." Damian and Ringo followed her to the saloon. As they walked by, Damian saw that three of the townspeople had died in the fight and they were laying side-by-side, each with a white sheet covering them. Easy Pete had been shot in the leg and another settler was wounded in his arm but they were both bandaged up. As Damian walked into the saloon, he thought, You can't save them all I guess.

Easy Pete and two others followed the trio into the Prospector's Saloon where the settlers' families were waiting. As the townspeople rejoined their families, Damian sat down at the end of the bar. Trudy was already serving drinks to people and, when she got to Damian, she handed a large bottle of whiskey to him and said, "This is for helping us, Damian, and don't worry about paying for it, it's on the house."

Damian looked at the wine bottle-sized whiskey, "Thanks Trudy!" Damian said with a smile, "This thing will probably last me a couple of days."

Trudy gave him a confused look, "That should last someone at least a week…"

"True, but I'm not just anybody." Damian uncorked the bottle and took a large swig from it. He savored the bitter taste for a moment and then swallowed, feeling the fire-liquid burn down his throat. This is what he loved about whiskey, that and the eventual buzz you get from drinking a lot of it. Here's to you mom and dad. Damian took another drink of his alcohol.

After a few minutes of people celebrating and getting drunk, the crowd started cheering, "Go, go, go, go!" over and over again. When Damian looked down the bar, he saw Sunny and Ringo each had eight shot-glasses of vodka lined up in front of them and were racing to see who would finish first. Ringo was visibly having trouble drinking straight vodka that fast but sunny was blowing through them. Sunny won with Ringo still left with three more glasses. As punishment, Ringo had to finish the vodka and listen to Sunny's bragging, after which the crowd dispersed back among the bar.

Damian chuckled to himself and took another couple gulps of whiskey and, when he looked back, he did a double-take and nearly spit out his whiskey. Ringo had been spun around on the bar stool, his back leaning against the bar, with Sunny on his lap, sticking her tongue down his throat. That was… sudden. Shaking his head at the two lovebirds, Damian returned to thoughts of his family in Arizona.

Vlad walked in through the back door of the saloon and stared at Sunny and Ringo as he walked by them, bewildered that the unlikely couple would already be dueling with their tongues like they were. He said, "Sorry to interrupt your philosophical meditation but I would like to talk to you." and sat down next to Damian.

Damian looked over at Vlad. "What's up?"

"I don't think I showed as much appreciation as I would have liked for helping us out, stabbing you in the neck isn't really the reward I'd expect from a stranger that needed assistance." Vlad explained.

Damian had to laugh at this, "Got that right."

"And since you're planning to assassinate one of the most powerful assholes in the history of the Mojave you might need this." Vlad said as he pulled out a revolver with engravings on it and placed it in front of Damian on the bar. "It's called the Ranger Sequoia, only a handful of people own it, most of them are in the NCR. Think of this as a payment or an apology- whatever helps you sleep at night."

Damian was amazed at how the intricate carvings on the gun made it so… "Deadly looking…" he muttered.

Vlad nodded, "I've tried it on a Deathclaw before… well a dead one. I'd say its damn good for taking one of those down even though I never really tested that theory. And I really don't want to either."

Damian grinned at the humorous comment, "I like revolvers, and I find them very reliable." He picked up the revolver to check it out. The handle sported a golden bear (symbol of the NCR rangers) on it's hind legs, around and on the cylinder there were swirls and roses, and there were words on the barrel. On the right side, it said 'For Honorable Service' and, on the left side, it continued 'Against All Tyrants'. He also noticed that it didn't have any ammo in it.

"Oh and did I mention that I don't have any spare ammo for it?" Vlad asked.

Damian's grin was wiped right off at this comment, "Fuck…"

Meanwhile, the lovebirds had really gotten into it and were feeling each other up quite roughly. Their forcefulness caused them to be unbalanced and they ended up slipping off the barstool. When Vlad and Damian heard the large thud nearby, they both looked over to see the two lying on the floor looking like they were wondering why the world had just flipped upside-down. Damian and Vlad both found this immensely entertaining and couldn't help but laugh and let out a series of snorts. Sunny and Ringo quickly got to their feet and briskly walked out the front door, Sunny practically dragging Ringo.

"I totally want to see the 'morning after' of that situation." Damian said still laughing.

Vlad, with a little more of his composure regained than Damian, called, "Hey Tru-!" before he could finish, Trudy slid a bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla to him and Vlad grabbed it off the bar, "Thank you!"

After a couple more hours of partying, drinking, and talking, Damian tiredly told Vlad, "I think I'll need to find a place to sleep now…"

Vlad glanced over at Damian. "I can help with that. I have an old trailer next to my house. It has a bed. I don't use it so you can sleep in there tonight."

Damian nodded back, "That'll do, thanks."

Vlad waved it off, "Yeah whatever." He said as he walked out of the bar with Damian following, "If you need anything you can knock on the door but I'll probably be sleeping like a rock- so you might as well not try." Damian soon discovered that Vlad lived in the house directly behind the saloon. Not only did it have a large metal trailer next to it, the property even had a small maize field. Although Damian would have liked to, he was too tired to crack a joke about the garden. Instead, he stumbled over to the trailer, half-empty whiskey bottle in hand. He went inside, and laid down at the end of the giant tin can for a restless night of sleep.

So, it seems Damian might be dual-wielding revolvers in the future. And who is this family he keeps mentioning? Anyone hooked yet? *wink* *nudge* Anyway, I'll try to post more often in the future, leave a review if you liked the chapter and, if you didn't, tell me why in a review, but go easy on me. Also, check out yousaidwhat's chapter that he'll have posted soon. If you don't know about it yet, the story is from Vlad's point of view and will allow you to see what happens in his own adventures in the Mojave.