Chapter 5: One step into hell

Authors Note: Thank you all for you reviews. I enjoy your feedback and support towards my story and the respected characters. I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own Fallout New Vegas.

Freeside was not as clean and stable as the Strip of New Vegas. Its inhabitants consisted of the Followers of the Apocalypse, who wanted nothing more than to help those who needed it. They were highly respected in Freeside. The Kings are a gang that overlook and secure the peace as best they can in Freeside. The Van Graff family, are dealers in energy weapons and are the shadiest of the bunch. The Misfits just try and stay away from them, unless Zachary needs some bits and bobs for his new weapon he's been working on.

The Atomic Wrangler was another story all together.

Skye and Mike were blowing their caps on the tables. After losing most of their caps before finally breaking even they decided to call it quits. They left the player room and went to the main room to find Noah and Drake. Mike looked over at the bar and spotted Noah finishing off a bottle of whiskey. The two walked up behind Noah, Mike smacked him in the back, making him spill his drink. Noah looked at Mike with an unpleasant look.

"What have you been doing?" Mike asked as he and Skye sat next to him.

"Killing as many brain cells as I could." He chuckled. "What about you?"

"Just finished blowing our caps on tables," Skye looked around the ratty club. "Where's Drake?"

Noah pointed his glass over at the staircase. Skye saw Drake stepping down the stairs while fixing his shirt and straightening his coat. Noah stared at him with a blank expression.

"Where the hell have you been?" He asked. "You said you were going to find us some work."

"I did and it turns out there isn't any." Drake said optimistically. Skye looked at her pip-boy and was confused since that happened over an hour ago.

"It took you an hour and a half to figure that out?" Skye asked.

"No and it certainly didn't cost me one hundred and fifty caps." He said with the look of shame across his face. "Anyways, um Noah, do you have any leads for work?"

"Yes, a girl came in asking us to find her friend in vault 22." He said as the group had left the bar and into the streets of Freeside. "She is a scientist at camp McCarran. Angela Williams, she wants us to find a ghoul by the name of Keely."

"An NCR doctor is paying us to find a ghoul?" Mike chuckled. "What is she a slave?"

"No a helper or something." Noah chuckled. "I know I was as surprised as you guys. I guess she has a heart of gold."

"So what do we need to know about the vault that is so dangerous?" Drake asked.

"Only that anyone who goes out in that area has never been seen again." Noah stated.

"My money is on the cazador's." Skye mentions as she punches in the coordinates on her pip-boy. "That far west is buzzing with those big poisonous bastards."

"How much for the job?" Mike asked.

"800 caps." Noah said, "It is a simple job, plus who knows what else we'll find at the vault."

"We'll we haven't had any real work that paid cash like this." Skye said. "All we've had were simple guard duty jobs around freeside and jobs fit for a courier. It's your call Drake."

"Let's do it." Drake said as he unlocked the door to their building. "It'll be nice to actually get our hands dirty."

"That's the spirit." Mike said as he followed his friends into their headquarters.

The king's used this place a as one of their flop houses before the misfits came in and offered them a slice of their profit. It was a mutual relationship. They pay them caps and they can use their place. They would need to find their own place soon, but it needed to be fortified. It couldn't be some shack out in the desert or in a small town like good springs or Primm. The damn NCR and Legion were making it hard for mercs to set up shop anywhere.

They found Zachary tinkering away at something at his little workstation. He looked over at us.

"We got work?" He asked.

"Vault 22." Drake said.

Zack nodded and picked up a flamethrower and a few incarnating grenades. Drake rolled his eyes and grabbed his riot shotgun and some food and water. Skye grabbed her anti-material rifle and a lunchbox full of caps. Mike stacked up on meds and Noah grabbed some additional ammo. After doing a complete check on their equipment they all made their way outside of new Vegas and North West to Vault 22.

There were two problems when it came to going north. One was the cazadors, they liked the open planes since it had the most food of wasteland critters and such. They also traveled in packs and if you got swarmed it was over for you. The other problem was the rumors surrounding Vault 22.

Noah had told the group that any merc who had ventured to Vault 22 had never returned. As they walked Skye was curious and asked Noah.

"How do you know how dangerous it is, have you been there?" She asked.

"No, I mean we sent scouts and such, but we never actually made our way inside." He explained. "There were too many rumors surrounding the place." He cleared his throat. "One night, me and some friends stopped at Boulder City on our way back to base, and while we were there this guy busted in through the doors looking like hell. When we asked he was traumatized, said that the plants started to come to life and ate his damn friends."

"Shit and we're going in there?" Skye asked, her stomach started to twist and turn in panic. She jumped when she felt Drake's arm wrap around her shoulder.

"Hey don't worry about it." He reassured. "We're packing serious fire power, Zack has fire power and Mike is carrying a few fire based ammo on him. We'll be in and out before nightfall."

Skye smiled and nodded. "Okay." Drake tapped her shoulder and pointed towards an open plane. She squinted and noticed three cazadors buzzing around a dead Brahmin. Skye pulled out her rifle, kneeled down and took her aim. In a few seconds all three cazadors were torn apart by her rifle, each one had their head blown off.

"Great shooting kid." Zachary chuckled as he walked past her. "Bitches love cannons."

"Hey!" She snapped as she changed her clip.

Everyone else ran on ahead. They took out a few Cazadors along the way ran into a warehouse that was a thieve hideout. Drake tried to move past them, but they were fired upon before they could even make it past them.

Skye picked off a few with her rifle and Drake and Zack took out a few of them from the inside with their short ranged weapons. The rest tried to flee, but Mike and Noah picked them off with little effort.

"Well that was productive." Drake said as he picked up a 9mm pistol sitting on an end table along with a box of bullets. He threw the bullets at Mike who threw a few boxes of cram at him. They made a good bit of gear and meds before continuing on to the vault.

They traveled through the cliffs and rocky slopes until they found the old run down vault covered in a foundation of plants and flowers. The group was in awe, never have they seen real plants like these before in their lives and all in one place. Zack and Noah's eyes were instantly drawn to the welcome sigh. The rest of the group soon followed and read the words 'Stay out! The Plants Kill!'

"Well my feelings about this place went from bad to horrible." Skye said in a shaky voice.

"Ditto." Zack said as she raised his flamer.

"Hey keep your heads okay, let's just go in, get the girl and get the fuck out." Drake said. "Mike, Noah since you two are armed with the same guns, I'll have you two on point and clear the corners. I'll follow up behind you and Skye, you stay in the middle and Zack you'll cover the rear."

"Got it." Everyone said. Mike and Noah aimed their guns and shot down the giant mantis that were sneaking up on Drake, who jumped back and fell on his ass when he saw them. When they all fell dead, everyone laughed at Drake's unfortunate state of being covered in mantis guts.

"Looking good boss." Mike said, helping his leader up before stepping through the open door of Vault 22.

The two did a quick sweep and saw nothing of threat or value. "Clear." They said as the rest followed. When they made it inside they were greeted by the foul smelling air of the old world. The small entrance had no additional rooms or anything high of value so they moved on.

They made their way down multiple stairs and through many flower covered hallways and found nothing worth their time. When they found a lab they tried to enter, but the door was locked and there was no way of picking it. The same thing happened to a few other doors as well. Skye let out an angry grunt and kicked the door.

"Dammit, how the hell could this Keely girl get lost if all the damn doors are locked?" She looked back at her team. "Any thoughts?"

They all slumped against the walls trying to figure out something. While everyone was thinking, Drake saw an old Nuka-cola machine and cracked it open. Fortune smiled on them as he grabbed four colas and a quantum along with five discarded bottle caps.

Drake passed them to each of his teammates and they each popped their caps off and handed them to Skye. Every little bit counts. They clanked their bottles together and consumed their sweet drinks.

They all grunted at the sting of the cola hitting their throats and tried to come up with a way to gain access to the vault. They all stood in silence in the corridor and waited for a solution. That was when Drake got an idea.

"I got it." He exclaimed, the rest of his team looked at him expectantly. "The Overseer's office. It has access to the whole damn Vault. I remember seeing it in a brochure from Vault 21 back at the strip." Everyone started to remember.

"That's right, if we can get access to the Overseer's office, then we can unlock all of the doors." Mike said.

"What if the computer is damaged?" Noah stated. "Or what if the damn thing needs a password."

"I can fix it and hack it." Skye said smugly. "I am from the Brotherhood, we practically feed on tech."

"And knowing those old bastards from the old world, they probably have the password named after something historical like Nevada or Hoover Dam."

"Alright people, let's get cracking." Drake grinned as he tossed his bottle on the ground and shattering it to pieces. He packed the quantum away and Skye looked at him confused.

"Aren't you going to drink that?" She asked as they walked pass some plants.

"Hell no, quantum is the nastiest thing ever to be invented." He snorted.

"He's not wrong." Zack chipped in. "I drank one of those once and my pissed glowed for a week."

"Nice." Mike snickered.

"Well that's what you get for drinking a beverage with isotope in the mix." Noah chuckled.

Everyone else shared a laugh except for Zachary, not because he was embarrassed, but because he thought he saw the bushes in the corner of the hall move. His thoughts kept going back to that sign outside.

"Hey guys, do you think that the plants here are really alive?" He asked, his hands gripped the handle of his flamer tightly. Noah just let out another snort.

"Come on, plants coming to life and killing people?" He asked rhetorically. "The poor bastard that I ran into in Boulder City is probably the same guy who wrote that on the sign. It's gotta be the mantis's. You saw how well they blended into that grass. They had Drake fooled into thinking they were just plants."

"Still, giant mantises are nothing to joke about." Drake said. "But I can't see them taking out a well-armed group of mercs, surprise attack or not."

"Yeah, something is defiantly off." Mike warned. "I feel like I am being watched."

"Let's just get to that office." Drake said. "It's in the common area."

Zachary and Skye felt more and more uneasy as they made their way down the stairs and into the common quarters. They both checked their Pip-boys for any signs of activity and their eyes widened in horror as they stepped onto the balcony overlooking the lower floor.

Drake was currently looking at the vines growing through the ceiling and winding on around the rails. He reached his hand out and poked one of the roots. He jumped when he heard Skye shout at them.

"Guys, we have to get out of here!" She shouted. "We've been so dense. The goddamn plants are alive!"

Before Drake could react he felt something grab his backpack and pull him over the railing. He fell backwards and landed on his back. The wind was knocked out of him and his vision was temporarily blurred, but he was able to see the ugly green humanoid hanging on the large plant vine.

He quickly grabbed his riot shotgun and fired on the ugly bastard blowing him to pieces. The monster let out a choked growl before falling on the ground next to him.

"Drake," Noah yelled. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," He said. "This thing grabbed me, I got it though."

"What is it?" Mike asked.

Upon closer examination, Drake saw that this thing had the form of a human, but the spike on its back and the moss covered skin were completely inhuman. It didn't even have any eyes. Drake jumped when he heard another growl. He looked over at a classroom and saw another one of these things crawl out the door.

"Skye, how many more are there?" Drake asked, aiming his gun at the monster.

"A lot more."

Drake shot the monster dead and a few more that followed after him. Up above, Noah and Mike fired their carbines at the monsters on the adjoining bridges that led to the other side of the room.

Skye covered Drake with her rifle as he reloaded his shotgun. Zachary went back the way they came and wasn't surprised to see more of the little monsters scurrying down the hallway. He let out a battle cry and unleashed a stream of fire on them. The hallway made it very easy to burn them all down. He was so busy taking down the ones in the hall he didn't see the one sneaking up behind him.

He felt the monster climb up on the fuel tank on his back and he tried to shake it off. He quickly back up against the wall and crushed it between the wall and his fuel tank. He felt the weight drop off his back and he quickly turned and pulled out his trusty revolver Lucky. The creature took a swipe at him, but he skipped backwards and put a bullet in its head.

Back down below Drake was burning through his shells too fast. His bandoliers were empty and he was loading the last of his spare shells into the drum magazine. He was still standing in the main corridor and was slowly backing up against the wall as the creatures advanced on him.

When loading his last shell he flinched when one of them jumped at him and ended up dropping his shell just so he could shoot at it. He was left with ten shots in his gun and these things were coming out of the wood work.

"Drake, what are you doing, run!" Skye shouted as she clipped another one of the creatures.

Drake's only option was to go into a side room, which looked just as bad as bad as the corridor. He quickly reached behind his back and grabbed a grenade and tossed it into the room, after pulling the pin.

It went off and by the sound of it, took few of them with it. Drake quickly rushed in and sealed the door behind him. He opened fired on a couple more that were still holding on, but it cost him his last few shells. One charged at him and he quickly smacked it with his gun before pulling out his .45 and shooting it in the head.

Noah and Mike were laying down suppressing fire, but they just kept coming. "Reload!" Noah said as he quickly changed clips, while Mike covered him. Zachary was trying to load his flamer, but he panicked when he heard the hiss of gas. One of the creatures had punctured the tank.

Furious, he quickly discarded the weapon and switched to his multiplas rifle. He turned the green monsters into green goop and made his way over to his friends. Noah was about to reload his gun, when a plant snatched around his gun and yanked it out of his hands before tossing it away.

Noah panicked when he saw the monster smile at him with razor sharp teeth and drew his 10mm handguns and blew it to bits.

"Noah!" Noah looked over at Skye who was also using her handguns to fend off the creatures. "Drake is trapped he needs help!"

"I'm coming!" He quickly jumped over the rail and down on the lower level. He aimed his handguns and unloaded all of his bullets at them.

Inside the room, Drake quickly pulled off his back pack and reached inside for the 9mm handgun he grabbed earlier. He fired both handguns at the creatures and quickly rushed out to help Skye, who was now chopping away at them with her machete after dropping one of her guns.

Zack and Mike had finished clearing the top floor and quickly ran down the stairs to help their friends. Mike pulled out his .44 magnum and shot another living plant that was handing above Drake's head.

Meanwhile, Noah's guns were empty and he was backed into a class room. Two creatures were slowly approaching him. He had to be quick as they have proven to be sneaky and fast. He reached behind him and gripped the handle of his sawed-off shotgun.

Before he could pull it out, he felt sheer pain through his right ankle. He looked down and cursed himself for not noticing the large bush behind him and the monster within. He pressed the barrel against its skull and blew its head off before turning and shooting another one in mid-air.

He tried to reload, but he was quickly tackled to the ground. His armor had protected him from its claws, but it was snapping and biting its way to Noah's throat. In his struggle his eye had caught sight of Drake's discarded shotgun shell.

Acting fast, he quickly pressed his boot against the creature's chest and kicked it off. He quickly grabbed his gun and the shell and loaded his gun. He smacked it across the side of its head before blowing its head off.

He quickly loaded his sawed-off and ran out of the room and into the corridor. Drake picked up Noah's carbine and handed it to him. Noah muttered a thank you before leaning against the wall and slumping down to the floor.

"What the fuck just happened?" Mike snapped. "Why didn't we see them when we came in?"

"We did, they were hiding in plain sight." Skye muttered. "Seriously, the sign the rumors, they were all true. We gotta get out of here."

"No," Drake said. "We have a job to do and we are going to do it."

"Drake, it isn't worth it." Mike said. "We came here expecting to fight a few rad roaches and drifters. Not goddamn abominations!"

"We have a job to do." Drake enforced. "A girl hired us to get her friend back and that is what we are going t do." Everyone looked over at Noah when he let out a loud sigh.

"Dammit, Drake…guys, the girl was a secondary assignment." He said with a guilty expression. Zack narrowed his eyes at him.

"What are you talking about?" He asked. Noah shook his head and stood up, cringing in pain from his monster bite.

"Upstairs in the Overseers office, we can catch our breath and I can explain everything."

Everyone eyed him as he limped his way up the stairs. Drake felt uneasy. What was his friend hiding from him? He wondered as he stepped over the many corpses of the plant monsters.