New Vegas of the Dead

by RagnartheSemiGreen

While clearing the ghouls from the REPCONN test site, the Courier is surprised by the sudden and unexpected arrival of a collection of heavily armed high school students, who are about to be plunged into a completely different post-apocalypse. Rated M for character death, violence, and other forms of human misery. Also, foul language.

2. Chapter 2: Kohta

Author Notes: As before, I have no claim to either Fallout: New Vegas, or High School of the Dead. Also, many thanks to my new beta, Drgyen, who edited this story for me.

Name: Kohta Hirano

Level/Karma: "Dignitary"

Strength: 4

Perception: 6

Endurance: 3

Charisma: 5

Intelligence: 7

Agility: 7

Luck: 5

Traits: Four Eyes, Trigger Discipline

Perks: Swift Learner, Rapid Reload

Skills:

Barter: 13

Energy Weapons: 25

Explosives: 35

Guns: 55 (tag)

Lockpick: 15

Medicine: 17

Melee Weapons: 11

Repair: 35 (tag)

Science: 35 (tag)

Sneak: 25

Speech: 13

Survival: 9

Unarmed: 9

As the survivors fled the overrun Takagi estate, the Humvee's wheels bumped and skidded as the car slalomed back and forth around crashed cars and other debris. Kohta could still make out the silhouette of Matsudo, waving a last goodbye before returning to the hopeless last stand. As the military-grade vehicle veered around a corner, the mechanic brought a heavy wrench crashing down on the head of one of THEM.

Kohta turned forwards in the gunner's space. Below, inside the Humvee's interior, he could faintly hear the sobs that Saya was desperately trying to suppress. Kohta sighed, before blasting one of THEM out of the way. Only this morning, a lifetime ago, safety had seemed so close. He had woken in a real bed, without having THEM clawing at the windows. It had almost felt like his old-life, prior to the infection; in fact, it had been almost too much like his old life. Aside from his friends – Kohta still felt a warm glow deep inside whenever he remembered that he had friends – nobody had treated him with any respect.

The adults, who had cowered behind the Takagi's strong arms and mighty walls all through the apocalypse, had tried to take away his weapons, had tried to castrate him, to return him to docility! What right did they have, those cows – Kohta realized that his fingers were twitching around the rifle cradled in his hands. After taking a few cool down breaths, he looked out along their path, as the Humvee headed towards the highway. He closed his eyes and took another deep breath. Just as he began to exhale, a peculiar sensation came over the teen.

For a brief, yet eternal, moment, Kohta's eyes were both closed and open. He could see all, from the vast interstellar spaces to the madly rushing, yet perfectly ordered, electrons orbiting atomic cores. His body hurtled across centuries and miles, yet never left the Humvee's hatch. His body was torn apart, yet left whole.

As abruptly had the bizarre experience begun, so it also ended. The disoriented Kohta, still staggered from the godlike sensation which even now faded from his mind, had no recollection of closing his eyes back on the bridge, and thus felt a perfect moment of terror as he hurtled through the air, restrained only by the turret's straps as the Humvee skidded across a floor. The moment of ephemeral absolute terror was almost instantly blotted out by the impact wave produced by the Humvee running into a wall at 45 miles per hour. Kohta was nearly thrown clear of the vehicle, saved only by the webbing that tore patches of skin from his legs. His eyes flew open as he screamed, before both his eyes and his mouth filled with concrete dust, as the ancient wall finally gave up the ghost, and partially collapsed. To his right, a rocket – wait, a rocket? Where had that come from? – fell from the heavens, slamming into an oversized desk.

"This must be a dream." Kohta stated, as no other explanation could possibly begin to make sense of the last minute. As the echoing silence in his ears faded, moans and cries of pain reached his ears. Looking down through the hatch, Kohta was briefly stunned by the sight below him: all of his friends were sprawled throughout the Humvee's interior. In a moment of clarity, a trickle of blood dribbled down a cracked pane of glass, next to Rei, whose forehead had begun to bleed. Shizuka lay underneath the bent steering wheel, curled into a fetal position. Saeko, more alert than the rest, had already recovered from the impact, and had begun clambering over her seat to reach her still-stunned friends. Takashi rubbed at his right arm, before looking around, trying to figure out what had happened. Alice wept on the floor, as she cradled a badly scraped and bruised head, and tried to stand up straight. Zeke, his small mass more affected by the sudden stop, had been thrown by the force of the crash against a door, and whimpered in pain. Even from his elevated position, Kohta could see that his back was broken.

"Saya?" He whispered for his angel, his idol. "Saya?" Louder this time. "Saya!"

"Baka!" A hand slapped at his dangling legs, and a great pressure that Kohta hadn't even registered lifted off his chest. He hadn't failed! His dearest love wasn't gone! Looking down, he could see her heavily bruised (but still beautiful) face glaring back up at him, though poorly-hidden relief dominated the petty annoyance in her darkened and swollen eyes.

Gradually, the group crawled free of the broken steel compartment, Takashi gingerly carrying Zeke. As the teens, nurse, and child stood beside the wreckage of the vehicle that had carried them so far, they gazed at each other, shock and consternation plainly written across all faces, even Alice's. Suddenly, the group noticed the sound of many feet hitting the ground – and approaching. This noise, so awfully familiar to those present, perversely made Kohta feel more at home in this strange new place. A little fragment of home was here! True, that fragment had destroyed all they had ever known only days previously, but anything familiar was welcome.

While the other party members began to pull weapons out of the vehicle's rear compartment, Kohta's trained ears began to pick up a subtle difference in the approaching footsteps: Instead of the usual shamble that THEY used, the footsteps were clear and distinct, and, more troubling, were moving at increasing speed. Running around to the rear of the crashed Humvee, he frantically grappled to get his AR-10 into position. As he swung around the footsteps crescendoed as a horde of decaying, yet still animate, bodies flooded out of a partially collapsed hallway. Screeching and clawing, the horde rushed across the open space towards the Humvee, only to meet a wedge coming the other way. Led by a sword-wielding Saeko, Takashi and Rei plunged into the horde. Kohta, already a combat veteran at age sixteen, dropped into the coldness of the professional soldier, and began choosing his shots. To his right, Saya yelled incoherently at THEM, before opening up with her mother's Luger. Professionally, Kohta worried about friendly fire, but realized that training Saya would have to wait.

The rifle recoiled back into his shoulder again and again as reanimate after reanimate fell to his bullets. He could feel a wide smile growing across his face, but refused to be distracted from his prey. As he reloaded, changing out magazines, he took the opportunity to crouch, placing the rifle on the edge of the shattered desk, for greater stability.

Line up shot, pull trigger, compensate for recoil.

Line up shot, pull trigger, compensate for recoil.

Line up shot, pull trigger, compensate for recoil, and reload. Repeat.

As Kohta changed out his third magazine, he realized that he was fighting nearly side by side with Saeko, whose snarl resembled his slasher grin. Steadily but surely, the fighters were forced to give up ground.

Suddenly, he heard a loud wail to his left, followed by a high-pitched scream of pain. Turning from the targets in front of him for a moment, Kohta was horrified to see Rei, pulled off balance by a rotting hand tangled in her long auburn hair, stumble forward. A particularly fast ghoul slammed past her bayonet and grabbed her by the lapels of her tattered and stained uniform, yanking her back into the horde.

"REI!" Takashi cried out the name of his childhood friend before rushing after her, using his shotgun as a club. Saeko followed Takashi and her sword moved faster than Kohta's sniper eyes could follow. THEY fell back before the desperation fueled attack, as Kohta and Saya shot any ghoul who approached the pair of melee fighters.

Takashi bent down briefly, and Saeko made a fighting retreat, keeping THEM off their leader's back, as he lifted the fallen Rei in a fireman's carry, and staggered back behind the desk.

Kohta reached down for another magazine, and realized that he had only one more. To his right, he heard repeated clicks as Saya attempted to coax another bullet out of a dry pistol. To his left, Saeko was clearly tiring, her swings becoming slower, though no less deadly. Takashi was behind him, yelling at Rei, telling her to stay with him. Shizuka had climbed down from the roof of the vehicle, where she, Alice, and Zeke had taken refuge, and began to try and stop Rei's bleeding. The humming in Kohta's ears grew louder, until rational thought was obliterated. Plunging back into the cold, analytical sniper persona, Kohta vowed to make every shot count. Taking a last look at Saya, he slammed the last magazine home, and opened fire.

Suddenly, a new source of gunfire opened up from behind and to the left of THEM. Chancing another look away from the shrinking horde as he dropped another body, Kohta saw a welcome site: a young woman wearing battered and scuffed leathers, thumbing shells into an old-fashioned repeater. Even as he watched, one of them turned away from the besieged survivors and charged the woman. Without missing a beat, she pulled a hatchet out of her belt with her free hand, and slammed the sharpened wedge through the neck of her attacker. As the reanimated corpse fell, she released the embedded hatchet, and began to fire into THEIR backs once again.

Seized by this chance of survival, Kohta began to laugh, great belly laughs of mixed relief and bloodlust, which didn't disturb his deadly accuracy. Within moments, the ruined lobby was cleared of THEM, leaving the blood-soaked and wearied group staring across a charnel house at the mysterious woman, who glared right back, chambering rounds as she did so.