Adora couldn't believe the sight before her. The land was almost barren, with sand covering everything, and what wasn't covered in sand was charred and broken, as if a massive explosion engulfed everything. It was hot too, extremely hot. Doc Mitchell's House sat on a hill that overlooked a small set of buildings. But the height of the hill paled in comparison to the mountains ahead. Ugly looking birds hovered over the area, silently observing the land below them. But Adora felt like their eyes were on her, as if waiting for her to become their next meal.
She shook away the dread that the landscape forced upon her, and walked down the hill toward the small town. Her feet went from dirt to asphalt as she walked onto the road in front of a pair of buildings. The first had a sign on the roof: Goodsprings General Store. Now she knew where to get supplies. The second had a mix of neon lighting and painted letters to make the sign. Prospector SAL0ON. There it was, hopefully Sunny Smiles would be inside.
Adora walked up onto the porch, past another older man sitting in a chair, and into the building.
Now, Adora didn't know what to expect upon entering the building. She was unfamiliar with saloons after all. But she was almost positive saloons didn't have guard dogs waiting at the front door.
Just as she entered the entrance hall, a good sized dog bared its teeth and began growling at her. Adora flinched in surprise and backed away cautiously. A woman standing next to the dog grabbed it by the collar.
"Cheyanne, stay." She ordered, and the dog immediately stopped. The woman then turned and smiled sweetly. "Don't worry, she won't bite. Unless I tell her too." Adora seemed only slightly comforted by the notion.
"R-right." She quickly cleared her throat before continuing. "Um, hi, You wouldn't happen to be Sunny Smiles, would you?"
The woman nodded, Adora sighed in relief. "Great, Doctor Mitchell said that you could teach me to survive out here."
Sunny raised an eyebrow, leaning back on the pool table behind her. "But… wouldn't you already know?" Adora blushed and rubbed the back of her head.
"I'm sure I would, but… I don't… remember much… about anything, really. I just woke up this morning in his office." Sunny's eyes widened.
"Wait, are you the person that was shot in the head?! That Victor brought in?"
Shot?! "Uh, no, not that I know of." Was she shot? Why didn't Mitchell tell her?!
Sunny thought for a moment. "Alright, then. Follow me out back. I want to see your shooting skills before we do anything." With that, she grabbed two rifles from the gun rack on the wall and made her way to the door. Chayenne followed, staying close to her owner. As she passed Adora, she gave a lopsided grin. Adora couldn't help returning it as she followed the two outside.
"Well, here is all of your stuff, Courier." Mitchell said as he handed his patient back his stuff. "Still don't know why you don't use your real name." Courier rolled his eyes before covering them with a pair of sunglasses and holstering his 9mm pistol.
"If we were better friends, maybe."
Now it was the Doc's turn to roll his eyes. "You saying friends don't pull bullets out of each other's skulls?"
"Which I do appreciate, Doc. Thank you." Courier said as he grabbed an object from the table. "As well as this Pip-Boy." He looked at the old man. "You sure you don't want this?"
The Doc raised his hands in front of him. "No no, I have no use for it now. You'll need it on your travels." Courier nodded, then placed the vault dweller's device on his wrist. Once the latch clicked shut, the machine whined to life. Thousands of pieces of code swam across the screen before the animated image of the Vault Boy appeared with a thumbs up. The Pip-boy blinked before several images appeared. His STATS, Inventory, Map, Radio, and dozens of other features that he was going to figure out once he hit the road.
"All set then." The Courier opened the door and stepped outside. "Have a good day, Doc." He said as he left. Mitchell watched him go before closing the door. The young courier made his way to the center of town, where he could see the General Store and the Saloon. He chose to head into the saloon before grabbing supplies. Hopefully, someone knows who shot him and where they went. After that, he'd grab supplies and head out to find the bastard, and pay him back in kind.
As he approached, he saw two people exiting the saloon, along with a dog. One of them had two small rifles in her hands, while the other followed closely behind. For a moment, the courier stared at her, noticing her blonde ponytail waving in the breeze. He watched them disappear behind the saloon, then headed inside.
Sunny led Adora to the back of the saloon, where several empty bottles were already lined up on a fence. The two walked a short distance away from the fence before Sunny handed Adora one of the rifles.
"Here, see those sarsaparilla bottles on that fence there? Use this and try to hit a couple o' them." Adora looked at the rifle in her hands, unfamiliar with the function of the weapon. She turned it several ways before grabbing it in a way that made her comfortable. Her hands wrapped around two sections of the weapon. One wrapped around the wooden underbarrel and her other hand grabbed the stock. Her index finger slid right into the trigger guard and curled around the trigger itself. Sunny watched this happen before intervening.
"Okay, so what you want to do is keep your finger off the trigger unless you intend to shoot." Adora nodded, removing her finger from the trigger. "Next, is when you load the weapon. You need to open the action like this." Sunny used her own rifle to demonstrate, pulling back the bolt before loading five rounds into the chamber via a stripper clip, then closing the bolt. Adora copied the motion, loading a fresh clip into her weapon.
"Good, good. Once that happens, flip this switch." She used her thumb to flick the small switch on the end of the bolt. "Now your safety is off. Remember this rule, safety on, trigger free, unless you plan to shoot." Adora nodded in understanding.
"Alright, now take those bottles down." Adora grinned and readied her weapon. She placed the stock against her shoulder and fired. The shot went wide, hitting the wall behind the targets.
Sunny laughed a little before walking up. "Small tip, aiming down the sights helps." She aimed down her rifle sight and fired, striking dead center on the bottle. Once more, Adora raised the rifle to her shoulder. This time, she aimed down the sight and fired. The bottle at the end of her sightline exploded into shards as the 5.56 round cut straight through the middle.
"That's it, try hitting two more." Adora grinned as she aimed at the next bottle. One shot, one kill. She aimed at the last bottle standing. One shot later, and it was pieces on the floor.
Sunny patted her on the shoulder once Adora lowered her rifle. "Nice job." She said before turning to her. "I'll set up a couple of more and we can learn how to fire from other positions." Sunny went over to grab more bottles from the ground and place them on the fence. Adora couldn't help but feel proud of herself.
Some time went by, and Adora felt like she made progress. Sunny taught her how to fire from multiple positions, how to clear a jam after one happened during practice, and was given a weapon cleaning kit, and a repair kit. After taking out three more bottles while crouching, she stood up and smiled at Sunny.
"Congrats, Adora, you passed the Sunny Smiles' School of Shooting."
"Thanks, Sunny. You're a great teacher." Sunny waved her off.
"Oh no, I'm just experienced." She looked away in thought for a moment before facing Adora again. "Tell you what? How about a proper test." Adora raised an eyebrow. "Trust me, the things out there are going to be way different from sarsaparilla bottles. It'll be easy. I got to take care of some Geckos that are nested up by our water supply." Adora didn't seem sure. "And to make it worth your while, I'll throw a few caps in."
Caps? Was that money around here? Adora did remember that money was needed for all sorts of things, like supplies. A few caps could get her some food, at least. That made up her mind, not to mention the fact that this did seem like a good way to test her skills. "Okay, let's go."
Sunny smiled. "Alright, here's some extra clips. You might need it." Adora gladly took the extra ammunition, storing them in an empty pouch on her belt. The two women and their dog made their way from the back of the saloon to the large water tower down the road, a new mission ahead of them.
Inside the saloon, the Courier was working on a small radio at the bar. Trudy, the saloon owner, had information on the man who shot him, as well as the direction they were heading. In exchange, he promised to fix the radio that the man's cronies had destroyed on their way out. It was a simple fix, replacing some of the broken components was easy with his skill. Within minutes of being handed the device, he managed to change out the wiring, replace the broken components, and reattached ones that were dislodged when it hit the floor.
With a satisfied smile, he closed the latch on the back, placed it on the counter, and flicked it on. The radio buzzed as lights flickered on, and music began playing from its speakers once more. Trudy looked at the radio in amazement.
"Wow, I think it sounds better than it did before." She turned to the Courier. "Thank you." She then reached under the counter. Courier watched her arms move around, as if waiting for something to pop out and kill him. After a few seconds of rummaging, Trudy pulls her hands out and drops a small bag on the counter. Courier reaches for it and shakes it. It jingles like caps.
"There, a little something as thanks." The man stared at the bag for a few seconds, then lightly tossed it back at Trudy, who caught it with a single hand.
"I'll take a bottle of whiskey instead." Trudy looked at the bag, then the Courier.
"Alright then, one bottle of whiskey, it is." She turned and grabbed a bottle, not noticing the door slam open. Everyone else inside the saloon did, however, and looked to the door.
Standing in the doorway was a man dressed in rugged security barding, with a black bulletproof vest to match. He scanned the tables and counter, making more than a few patrons look away in fear. Only one stared back at him. He was wearing a black stetson with goggles on top, leather armor, and had a messy thin beard covering his cheeks. While he wanted to deal with the punk, Joe Cobbs had other business to attend to. He walked inside the bar area, and looked at the woman who just placed a full whiskey bottle on the table.
Joe walked up to the counter and slammed a fist down on it, gaining Trudy's attention. The saloon owner glared at him when she realized who that fist belonged to.
"Joe Cobbs, what are you doing back here?"
Joe gave her a look as he stood straight up. "You know why, Trudy. Where is he?"
Trudy's face didn't change, devoid of any emotion except annoyance. "If you're here for Ringo, you're out of luck. He still hasn't left town, and you know the agreement-"
"Fuck the agreement!" Joe reached for his magnum, intending to show her just how done he was, when he heard a click. From behind Trudy stood the man in the leather armor and black hat. In his hands was a clean and pristine 9mm pistol, its barrel was trained on his head.
The Courier glared at Joe Cobbs as his hand hovered over his holstered magnum. His own 9mm was trained on the sucker's large head. "I wouldn't try, I'll empty this clip before you even get the barrel up." He growled. All eyes were now on him. His gaze shifted to Trudy, who was somehow still calm about all this. She simply walked around the edge of the counter to Joe Cobbs. Courier never took his aim off of the gang member.
"You agreed, Cobbs. You'd wait until Ringo left town and leave us alone."
Cobbs looked at the Courier for a moment before gritting his teeth. "That was a week ago, Trudy. We're tired of waiting. That fucker needs to pay for what he's done."
Sunny Smiles and Adora entered the saloon with triumphant grins on their faces, and gecko corpses in their hands. They managed to take out the nest by the water tower, and kill off ones that were attacking a local woman. After that, Sunny taught Adora how to cook the meat, as well as a quick lesson on making basic healing powder from local plants.
Adora now felt confident that she could survive out here.
"I'm done being nice." A voice said darkly. Their mood dropped immediately as they caught more of the conversation. "If you don't hand Ringo over soon, I'm going to get my friends and we're burning this town to the ground. Got it?" Adora looked over at Sunny, and she was livid. Adora may not have known Sunny for that long, but she had a feeling this was a face she didn't make often.
The two walked into the bar area, and there they saw a man in police barding staring down at Trudy. Behind her stood a man in leather armor pointing a gun at the man.
"We'll keep that in mind." Trudy said calmly. "Now, if you're not going to buy something, get out." The man glared at her, then at the guy pointing his gun at him. Afterwards, he slowly turned around and quickly left the building. Sunny's glare never left him until he was out of sight. Once gone, the mood in the saloon quickly changed. Everyone went back to their drinks, the man holstered his pistol, and Trudy walked back behind the bar.
Adora looked at the doorway for a moment longer before looking at Sunny. "Who was that?"
Sunny took a deep breath before answering, trying to keep her anger in check. "That was Joe Cobbs. He's a member of the Powder Gangers." Adora gave her a questioning look, which made her clarify. "Powder Gangers are a group of thugs that escaped from the NCR Correctional Facility."
"Yeah, apparently, no one told the NCR Higher-Ups that it's a bad idea to give prisoners explosives. They used them to break out and over-power the guards." Trudy added.
"Well, why was he here?" The man with the black stetson asked as he sat back down at the bar. Trudy stayed silent for a moment, then spoke.
"About a week ago, a trader named Ringo comes into town. 'Survivor of an attack,' he says. Bad men coming after him, he needed a place to hide. We figured he was just in shock, so we gave him a place to lie low. We didn't actually expect anyone to come after him." The man stared for a second, then stood up.
"So, where is this Ringo?" Within a flash, the man was tackled against the counter by Sunny, Cheyanne growled at him. Adora could only watch in shock as the normally nice woman suddenly goes ballistic on this stranger.
"If you plan on turning him in, you got another thing coming!"
"Hey, hey, hey, relax!" The man yelled. "I'm not gonna hurt him! Get off me!"
"Sunny!" Trudy bellows, grabbing the woman's attention. "Let. Him. Go." Sunny stares for a moment before she relents and stands up. The man stands up and dusts himself off before fixing his hat. After a few moments of everyone catching their breath, Trudy turns to the man.
"He's hold up at the abandoned gas station up the hill." He nodded and grabbed his things before stepping away.
"Thanks, I'll go talk to him." With that, he made his way to the door. Sunny and Adora watched him leave, one with suspicion, the other with uncertainty.