"Hound Dog" belongs to Elvis Presley, his estate, and anyone who happens to also own the rights to the audio.

South Vegas

"You ain't nothin' but a hound dog,
"Cryin' all the time,
"You ain't nothin' but a hound dog,
"Cryin' all the time,
"Well, you ain't never caught a rabbit,
"And you ain't no friend of mine…"

"Please turn that off."

"But ED-E has great reception here!"

"Not the point."

Traveling with the little Asian woman was one of those eye-opening experiences you only had once, Veronica thought.

This was mostly because she'd apparently decided to go on a one-woman crusade against the Fiends a while before Veronica had met her, only to pick up a First Recon sniper, an eyebot, and a Brotherhood of Steel scribe before ever getting close to the bastards. So, then it was a bit of a traveling circus show. Or something. They just needed a dog that shot laser beams from its eyes and they were all set.

Still, they were on their way now. Even if the subject of radios had set her and the sniper to arguing.

Yup, this was a lot better than just hanging out at the trading outpost, even if she apparently didn't know what the Brotherhood was. At all.

"Okay… Boone, you should hang back a bit." Meda said when they arrived at the outskirts of the first Fiend leader's hidey-hole. Veronica tried to remember which one they were supposed to be hunting, but it didn't seem to matter much. "ED-E goes up front to draw them out so you can blow all their heads off."

"And me?" Veronica asked.

"Punching them to death?" Meda suggested. "You and I go up close and take apart anyone Boone can't get in the first two minutes."

She was so absolutely certain they would succeed that Veronica had to laugh. "So, no walking into the gates of Hell yet?"

"We'll get around to the Legion eventually." Meda replied. "Okay, on your marks…"

In the end, it was two kills for Boone, one for ED-E (somehow) and two each for Veronica and Meda, with the scribe punching Driver Nephi's head off with one well-aimed blow. A couple of the other Fiends had knife marks everywhere—probably Meda's doing.

Meda crouched over Driver Nephi's headless body for a minute, grabbing the man's signature golf club and giving it an experimental swing. She grinned. "Boone, is there still a bounty on this guy's head?"

"Yeah." Boone replied, walking up to survey his work.

Meda paused as though something had just occurred to her. "…Crap, now we have to figure out where it went."

All in all, it was a good day. Sure, once they got to the nearest NCR outpost there was a bit of haggling over the exact price of the head of a dead man, but that was kind of fun, too. Veronica got to see a corporal argued down by a woman half his size, and followed Boone around the camp as the various troopers stood around in awe and/or worshipped the ground he walked on.

Sure, a couple of them tried to hit on her, but you couldn't have everything, she supposed.

The next week was calmer—wandering Freeside (which was at least less dangerous than the radscorpion-hunting spree Meda had suggested first, even if Boone was annoyed) led them to the Kings. And a robot dog, which Veronica spent a lot of time petting. He was adorable, in a scientific abomination sort of way.

But that wasn't the highlight of the day.

Meda had actually stopped dead in her tracks on the way to Mick and Ralph's, listening to ED-E's radio the whole time, and said, "Where do you think we can find a piano?"

Boone's totally blank expression was hilarious. "…What's a piano?"

And they spent the rest of the day looking for one. Veronica had no idea why, but it was fun spending the time with a pair of mismatched goofballs. Well, one goofball courier and a sniper who might have had his sense of humor surgically removed (which was odd, since Meda was the one with still-healing cranial scars).

Fun times were to be had.