Damian continued his sprint through the Mojave until he spotted a demolished pre-war bus, he jumped in through one of the windows and lie there until he heard voices outside of the bus's shell.
"Where could that legion bastard have gone?"
"I don't know sir, his footsteps vanish at the road."
"Errgh! Look, I'll take half the men and head up the road and you take the other half and search down. We're bound to find his trail eventually."
Damian holds back a sigh of relief in the fear of alerting the guards of his presence.
After waiting three hours in the bus and viewing the first rays of sunlight poking through the deteriorated shell of the bus, Damian still hears no sign of the guards.
He cautiously peeks from the window in search of any threats. After determining the coast is clear, Damian lowers himself back into the bus. He realizes if he continues wearing his legion garb the Mojave will make quick work of him.
With a new priority in mind Damian climbs out of the bus, putting his officers helmet in his pack and deciding to continue cutting across the Mojave instead of risking a run in with the patrolling guards on the road.
After hours of marching through the dessert, Damian finally decides to take a drink of his precious water. He reaches into his pack and scrounges around until he feels his fingers make contact with the lukewarm plastic of his water bottle. He unscrews the cap and takes a small drink in an attempt to conserve his limited supply, the water goes down with a slight burn which he's not sure if it was from the radiation or the bottle baking in the desert sun.
Either way, he didn't care. He just needed to wet his throat and prevent himself from collapsing under the heat of the sun.
Today seemed to be an unusually hot one, Damian was used to the desert heat, but now that he's thinking, when he was in the legion they had ample water from the colorado, and Caesar ensured they always had portable shelter to prevent his legionnaires from becoming heat casualties. However in his current situation, all he had was a dingy bottle of water, the occasional shade of a cactus, and dark red armor that drew every bit of the suns heat that it could.
After taking his last sip of water Damian removes his shoulder pads in the hopes of cooling himself off and lightening his load, but within minutes of running out of water, Damian collapses under the intense and tiring heat of the sun...
...He awakens in a dirty and dusty room, he looks ahead and sees two people in business suits standing over a small table talking about something Damian is not quite sure of.
"Well what if we try auction him off at the gommorah?"
"Are you sure anyone would want to buy a legionnaire as a sex slave?"
"Don't think of it like that. This man has a strong jaw, a chiseled body and some nice scars. I'm sure we will have no problem unloading him, man or woman, he could appeal to either."
Damian with a bewildered look on his face exclaims.
"No way in hell you're auctioning me off as some prostitute!"
The businessmen wheel around surprised to see their captured victim conscious!
Damian looking into the faces of his captors quickly makes some observations, the one on the right was in a grimy white suit and was probably the muscle of the operation, he had light brown hair and green eyes, with a slight scar on his right cheek.
The man on the left of the duo was an older man, he had grey hair with light streaks of blonde running through it, his skin was leathery and dark, but he was obviously of white descent. He had a pair of bifocals on and his white suit was in much better condition than that of his associate's.
The pair began to walk over to Damian.
Damian started to thrash before realizing his hands and feet were bound together. The man in the grimy suit pulled out a straight razor and flipped it open-suddenly there was an explosion and men in NCR correctional facility uniforms started pouring through the smoky hole in the wall.
Damian recognized these men as a nuisance gang known as the powder gangers.
Damian took advantage of the opportunity. He saw the man dropped his straight razor in the shock of the moment, so Damian threw himself on his side and eeked his way to the razor. He managed to get a light hold of the blade, then contorting it with his hands and finally cutting the rope, (along with knicking a few of his fingers).
Damian surveys the room he sees the older man on the ground not moving while the other man is taking pot-shots at the powder gangers with a 10 mm pistol, Damian crawls to the man on the ground and quickly searches him.
He finds a .375 revolver, a note and a handful of .375 rounds. With that he promptly crawled to the back of the shed, stood up just long enough to charge at the wall and bust through the rusted tin, he was surprised to see he had busted through the tin without cutting himself all to hell. But he didn't have time to celebrate this minor victory, he started to run looking back at the shed as it erupts into flames from multiple sticks of dynamite going off at once. The force of the explosion knocks Damian off his feet and he begins to topple down a nearby hillside.
Damian awakens moments later to find a lone powder ganger timidly standing over him with a single barreled shotgun aimed closely to Damians face.
Damian allowed the instinct he developed in the legion to take over, he reached forward grabbing the barrel of the shotgun and pushing it to the side, the powder ganger pulled the trigger firing into the ground beside Damian, but Damian couldn't care less as adrenaline had completely taken over at this point. He pulled the powder ganger towards him and delivered a swift punch to gangers face. He reeled back in pain giving Damian the opportunity to gain control of the shotgun, he reversed it before realizing it was out of ammo, the powder ganger started to get back on his feet but Damian threw the shotgun, hitting the ganger in the side of the head giving Damian just enough time to draw the .375 and put it blankly to the gangers face.
Damian hesitates as he tries to resist pulling the trigger, fighting to overcome the urges that had been what got him through his time in the legion. Damian holsters puts the revolver loosely into the sheath that once held his machete and runs off in the direction opposite of the flames.