AN: Another chapter done, and another seed of the courier's story is sown. As always reviews are appreciated and feel free to flame the hell out of it if you do so desire.
F3ARSOM3: Extremely glad you enjoyed it as of thus far. I did try to keep it as original as possible because the cookie-cutter is a real problem here. And I swear if I see another Fcourier/Boone or Flw/Charon I'll kill someone. I mean really, it's insane how many there are. Anyway, rambling done, thanks for reviewing and do enjoy the show.
"Truth is sweetheart, game was rigged from the start." Staring down the barrel of a 9mm, hands bound behind her back. That wasn't the way she imagined going out, not that she'd ever thought it over in the first place. Hell it was only a week and a half ago she'd gotten a life to begin with.
The two men flanking him, Great Khans they called themselves, were skittish as a Coyote in a Deathclaw den. Probably junkies, on another power trip. When one jumped st the sound of a rock tumbling down a hill she swore he about pissed his pants. "Lets get this over with Benny, place ain't right."
The man in the checkered suit looked about ten seconds from shooting the bodyguard instead of her. Keeping the gun trained on her head he turned towards the jumpy guard. "Will you grow a pair for once in yo-" the suit was cut short as a lance of red light shot forth, striking the Khan dead center of the chest.
Six felt the heat off the laser as it lanced by her head, and apparently so did Benny as he jumped back like he'd been burnt. The gun in his hands fired off its payload, grazing the side of her head. The Khan crumpled like a wet noddle and the silent one off to the left screamed an incoherent battle cry and jumped forward into the shallow grave that had been dug in front of her. Benny meanwhile hauled ass over the hillside behind the wooden tower leaving the wheezing burnt body of a Khan behind.
Thanking the gods above they didn't tie her feet together Six lurched forward and stumbled to her feet. Her head was pounding from the blow to the head she received walking from the saloon, and a trickle of blood was running down her neck but damn it all if freedom didn't feel absolutely great. Two seconds, that's how far she was from salvation. Two measly seconds were all she needed to leap that fence and return to wherever she was before. Two seconds it took for all that hope to come crashing down around her.
9mm rounds scattered dust around the makeshift foxhole the silent Khan was hunkered in. He jumped up ready to empty his SMG into the bastards that dared challenge the Great Khans. Too late did he realize what it was he was up against. Greeting him at the edge of the grave was a glaring red cowboy's disembodied face. And projecting that face, an eight foot securitron, Gatling Laser recharged and ready to rock and roll. He blinked as the whine of the engine spooling up sounded the calling of the Reaper.
Red death leapt from the rotating glass lenses, burning through leather and wool like it was paper, searing the flesh beneath. Life fading from his eyes he started his final descent, almost laughable that he would die in a grave he'd dug himself for some nobody courier. His back his back hit the edge of the pit and weather it was fate or just the divines above toying toying with their playthings, Six was just making her break for the fence beside him. A subconscious reflex in his arm tensed his fingers, the trigger depressed and the gun came to life. Raining hot lead just where Six was jumping for.
The Courier never saw it coming, one second she was free and the next hot pain was raked across her back. Six pricks stabbed across her back and up her neck. In the final moments with her face in the mud there was no pain, only a face. One face, her light, in the wasteland, Christine. In those precious seconds she relived that night at the outpost. The pains in her back slowly started to lose feeling as her body went numb, all seven… seven? There was only six bullets, but seven pricks of pain. As fatigue overcame her she could only pray, pray to a deity she couldn't be sure even existed, that she'd find Christine again.
Doc Michale was a retired vault medic. He wasn't a doctor or surgeon, hell he barely could wield a scalpel anymore. The most he did on the week by week circuit was hand out band-aids for the lizard bites that these townsfolk managed to rack up on their trips to the well. So when the town's newest robotic inhabitant barged through the door with some half dead girl he'd never seen before, well he was at a loss for words that was for sure.
But as luck would have it she was stronger than most, the Five bullets he could dig out went without a hitch. The last… He personally hadn't a clue as to how she was still breathing. The shot had struck the back of her skull, the bullet fragmented, saving her life but now. She was lucky to even be alive, he figured leaving the lead wouldn't do any more harm that had already been done, so he stitched up her wounds and turned in. For the third time in one night. He really needed to set office hours so people would leave him alone at night.
The Courier awoke in a hospital bed for the second time in a few weeks and this time she was in considerably more pain. Thankful that it was still dark she slid the blanket down off her chest, and found she was all but nude underneath. She was beginning to think doctors were just looking for reasons to undress her, but as memories of the previous night crawled their way out of her subconscious she found she could've cared less that she was naked.
"Benny." She growled, that name was one she wouldn't soon forget. Those Khan bastards got what they deserved but if they died then that meant whoever had killed them was responsible for her being there, "Just racking up the debts from these people." She thought as she remembered the others that had aided her so far.
The room she was in now looked more a bedroom than operating room. Medical equipment was scattered about for sure, but it was more… homey than her previous awakening had been. Her clothes were neatly folded, resting on an end table at the foot of her bed, and a folded piece of paper resting on top of them.
Wondering what the hell it might be she thought to sit up and retrieve the scrap of paper. "AAHHH… FUCK!" A pained yelp was followed by more incomprehensible explicitives. The reason for witch was simple. The fucking holes in her back had not yet healed, and proved that point by shooting intense pain all up her spine.
Giving up on the note for the time being Six turned her attention to the bandage wrapped around her skull. It was a simple bandanna, in all likely hood it was just being used to keep pressure on whatever wound was currently pounding away at the back of her skull. She reached up to adjust it to keep her hair from getting pulled out by the headband. Her fingers brushed the course fabric and the word spun…
-Flashback-
It was raining, the cool autumn air just barley below what was accepted as reasonably comfortable. The water was running between rocks, like raging rapids carving their paths down the mountain side. Her hands were stuck into the pockets of her duster to ward off the bite of the cool air. The from them was retrieved a plain scrap of fabric almost recognizable as a head band.
Looking into the well worn and slightly stained fabric she saw out of place stitching, easily identifiable as tally marks. Thirty six was the end total count of marks in the band. Quickly she brought it up and tied back her hair with practiced ease, like a glove fits a hand this seemed tailored to her.
Then she swung the rifle around off her back, so light and balanced she almost didn't feel it strapped around her back. The scope caps came off and the bolt slid like clockwork. The smell of gun oil still in the action was accompanied by the metallic clack as she slid it shut and locked the 30-06 bullet home. The weapon was well maintained and had definitely survived it's battles well.
Like an extension of her body itself she shouldered the rifle and sighted her target. Down the steel and glass tube was the head of the most feared animal in all the wastes. Its demonic horns and gaping maw of jagged spears it used as teeth identified it as a Deathclaw. And a female as well, the neck was thicker and its head was slightly more bulky than that of a male. The crosshairs drifted up and left, accounting for the wind and bullet drop off on instinct and practice alone. Her finger squeezed the trigger and the bark of the rifle echoed across The Divide. The white trail of the tracer slicing through the air was easily visible and she watched the round fly into the skull of the creature and the subsequent plume of blood spraying the sand behind it.
The rifle seemed to move on its on accord as the bolt flew open at her hand. A puff of smoke wafted out with a spent shell casing as a fresh bullet was rammed home. This second nature cycle took less than a second and in that time a new target was in the sights. Male Deathclaw, smaller than the female, but that only meant it was faster. Intersecting lines drifted past its demonic features and without hesitation the rifle coughed again, spitting another lead slug through the air and into the monsters throat, tearing arteries and spraying the ground beneath.
The bolt slammed home again, and again the report of the rifle sounded the end of a beast's life. Five times the woman repeated the motions, five dead bodies strewn over half a mile away.
From beside her a voice made itself heard to the world for the first time since the executions had began. "Five huh? Why that's a new record isn't it? Showoff."
The woman lowered her rifle and looked over at the voice. She was a mere child, at the age of eight. Clothes of prewar overalls and a sleeveless blue shirt covered the girl. She was always there after the hunt, weather she followed her up there or followed the gunfire was a mystery, but what was clear was that she was fascinated by it all. The creatures that she hunted, the military precision with witch they were dispatched, and the woman herself. "It's not showboating when its survival. Now come Jessie, your friends are probably worried sick about you."
-End Flashback-
Six's hands froze, grasping at the cloth bandage, tears brimming in her eyes. Silent as the wind she breathed a hoarse whisper, "Jessie." The girl, no longer just a ghost of memory, now flooded her mind. Memories shared with her, like a daughter would mind her mother. Nothing beyond those moments between the two could be recalled, but her name and person behind her were all too vivid at the moment.
Six was lost enough to not take notice of an elderly man entering the room and taking the seat beside the bed. "Ahem," he cleared his throat, gathering her attention as he did. "Glad to see your still breathing.
AN: Decided to end it here, just cause. You all know what happens next, next chapter will skip a considerable amount of time. Or not, depends on how I feel. Drop me a review and give me some thoughts.