Zephyr awoke with a start. He looked down, saw that he was stripped to his underwear and his undershirt. Zephyr couldn't believe how bad that went. He was supposed to keep Cobb alive, to learn how he had acquired that pistol.
Next to him was his rifle, This Machine, along with his silenced 9mm pistol, and his katana. His armor was nowhere to be seen, though his armored vault suit was folded nicely next to his bed.
"You're okay!" squealed a happy voice and Zephyr turned to see Emily, the girl that he had saved just the day before. Or was two days? He had no idea on how long he had been knocked out. His chest burned as if a fire was being lit over and over.
"How bad is it?" he asked seriously. Emily just laughed easily, before stopping herself.
"You're okay. The force from the .357 fired at you bruised your rib cage, though no long term damage. Your friend, the Brotherhood fella over there, is okay, though he lost the armor cause the power pack was destroyed. Its sitting in Chet's shop, just like your armor. He's doing his best to repair, least he could since you saved his store," Emily told him. Zephyr nodded, though his neck burned. What the hell had happened to him?
"Where is Sunny? Ringo? Alexander?" he sputtered suddenly. All he remembered was his katana slicing through Joe Cobb.
"Sunny and Ringo are fine, stimpacks healed them up quickly. Alexander went with Joshua to scout near the prison, make sure that no Powder Gangers are in the area. Though the prison is lit up like a bonfire," Emily responded curtly.
"How come I'm in the bed? What happened?"
Emily sighed. She went on to explain how he had collapsed. He was fine by all medical standards, but he had spent the night in Doc Mitchell's. He had been sleeping for thirteen hours before he awoke. Zephyr then politely asked Emily to leave so that he could change and the blushing girl bolted out the door, leaving a smirk on the Courier's face.
Zephyr looked at the armor, a vault suit that had the number 13 stitched in yellow. Taking the jumpsuit, he easily slid into it, as if it was a second skin. Letting the hardened leather plates slid over his most exposed areas, he harnessed the rifle onto his shoulder and placed his pistol in his hip holster. His sword was sharp and dangerous, the way it was supposed to be, and he placed on his back. The heavily armed Courier stepped outside, letting the fiery sun bathe him in light.
Nodding to Victor, the mono-wheeled robot, he approached the Prospector's Saloon. Scattered on the ground was dried red blood, all from yesterday's gunfight. The town was like a ghost town, only two townspeople out, attending to the Bighorners.
Entering the Saloon, he saw Trudy, her arm in a sling because it had been broken and there had been no doctor's bag to fix it easier. She had a gigantic smile on her face when she saw Zephyr.
"Hey, if it isn't the stranger himself! Pardon me for saying, but I never got your name!" she said sweetly. After all, this man had saved her town from being overrun by a bunch of unsavory figures.
"Name is Zephyr. I need to ask you a few questions, concerning the men that arrived here after I was shot," Zephyr explained and Trudy's face soon grew stern.
"Was a city slicker, all dressed in a checkered suit. Was with a bunch of Great Khans. Those Great Khans, one of them knocked over my radio. Well, he went on and on, buying drinks, though he never paid for his own. Got the whole bar drunk when he spoke with one scary looking fella. Went through Quarry Junction, and they were afraid. I would be to. Place is crawling with creatures. Anyway, they said they were going to Primm. Just follow the highway and when you see that vast roller coaster, you know you've made it."
"You know the man's name?" Zephyr pressed and the woman nodded her head.
"One of the Khans said his name is Benny. They left town almost a week ago. Now if you need me, I'm going to go and use the bathroom. Good luck with whatever you have to do."
And then she left to go use the restroom, slipping from behind the counter. As soon as she left Zephyr left as well, heading out the front door, when a single shot rang out. Zephyr immediately ran for cover, his hand already going for his rifle. Leveling it against the burnt carcass of the motorcycle he was right behind, he aimed at the source of the shot.
Two men were running back, occasionally turning around to fire, with one man firing a tri-beam laser rifle, the other with a varmint rifle. Both were clad in leather armor, when two more shots rang out and one slammed into the varmint rifle armed man. Zephyr recognized the tri-beam laser rifle as Alexander's and ran forward, going a little low in order to present a smaller target.
As more shots rang out, he saw four men dressed in brown, with metal plates covering their chests and a two headed bear drawn on it. All of them wore helmets with goggles on it and all were armed with rifles known as service rifles. All of them fired a 5.56mm round and were semi-automatic. Alexander was helping who Zephyr presumed to be Joshua up, while firing his tri-beam rifle. Zephyr adjusted his sights on one man and squeezed his trigger.
A metal plate forged by the metalworkers in the Boneyard couldn't stop a .308-06 round. Not even close. The round slammed into the metal plate covering the man's chest and exited out the back, the man's heart attempting to pump blood despite there being a hole in it. The man, who was perhaps a sergeant, maybe a private, dropped dead to the ground, his service rifle falling from his now dead hands.
The other three men spotted Zephyr and focused their efforts on him. He was perhaps twenty yards away now, covering Alexander and Joshua, and they fired all at the same time, bullets kicking dirt and rocks. Zephyr winced as a bullet grazed him but he kept chugging on, his rifle firing. Two shots went wide, but the next one dropped another man, this time with a bullet going through his knee, and the man cried out in pain. He was then silenced when Zephyr shot him through the throat.
The two other men continued to fire, though their accuracy was way off. Zephyr darted from left to right, his shadow moving with him as he was dancing, and he was soon right in front of the men, and he dropped his rifle and drew his katana.
The first man dodged swiftly to the left as Zephyr swung to the right, narrowly escaping the blade. The second man was not so lucky. His head and a plume of blood went sailing as the blade made contact with flesh and easily went through with all the force that Zephyr was putting behind the blow. The man slumped to the ground, dead as can be. The first man, a brute of a human, screamed with anguish as he swung his rifle like a club, slamming it straight into Zephyr's shoulder. Pain exploded that raced throughout his body and he screamed, before fighting it off and he quickly drew his pistol, and emptied the entire magazine straight into the man's chest. Six out of the thirteen rounds didn't penetrate, for the rounds were subsonic, and four only broke through the first layer of the metal. However, the last two entered and exited out of his right lung, collapsing it and blood started to pour into it. He went down, dying as his life force exited his body.
Zephyr panted. Only hours after he had killed, he had just killed four men. He couldn't understand why Alexander couldn't kill these men. He was a Brotherhood of Steel Paladin, whatever they were, whatever he was, and he could easily have killed these men. But he didn't. That was strange and Zephyr was pondering it when Alexander came back, his tri-beam laser rifle scanning the horizon. Zephyr looked at the man and asked one very simple question.
"Why couldn't you kill those men?" he asked and the former Brotherhood of Steel Paladin looked at him with surprise. Alexander was tall, even without his power armor, around six feet two inches, had sandy brown hair, which was quite different from Veronica, had blue eyes, and paler skin than most, has he had spent most of his time underground and in power armor. He looked down in shame before answering.
"I didn't have my power armor on. We have a HUD installed in the power armor, allowing for us to be extremely accurate in our shots. As we fight in our power armor a lot, I didn't spend a lot of time on unguided shooting," Alexander said shamefully. Zephyr could feel it and felt sorry for the man.
"How come you didn't have much experience with shooting without your power armor?" Zephyr pressed. If he had to forge on with a man who barely knew how to shoot, he was going to die very easily. He wouldn't do that.
"In the Brotherhood, after Helios One, we weren't allowed to go out to the outside. Only people in and out were Paladins and specialists. I was always in power armor, always had the assisted shooting. It's like V.A.T.S. Just not as advanced. The Brotherhood is an isolationist organization and we like to horde technology," Alexander explained. Zephyr was receiving a flood of information that made his head spin. Helios One? What the hell was that.
"What was Helios One?" Zephyr asked. He needed information, information he desperately craved. He didn't realize until know that he knew almost nothing of the outside world. Nothing of what was happening in the beautiful and dangerous wasteland he was in.
"Helios One is a solar power plant. It produces power by absorbing the sun's light. Anyway, a few years ago, an Elder, that's our boss, by the name Elijah decided to occupy it instead of the Dam. It was nigh near suicidal, and we took a lot of losses holding it. I was a Junior Paladin, just freshly promoted, when we had to cut through the NCR lines to get to Hidden Valley. We sliced through them though we lost six Paladins and three Knights. I survived and got promoted to full Paladin," Alexander spoke, his voice a deadly whisper.
"NCR? Who the hell are they?" and Alexander's face went pale. He looked to the direction of the four men on the ground, dead. He started to curse.
"Son of a bitch! Zephyr, the NCR is the most powerful faction in the entire wasteland, spread from here to the fucking sea. You just wasted four of their men. If they find out, they can have bounty hunters and Ranger squads from here to Baja on your ass for the rest of your life."
Ranger Stella O'Neil of the New California Rangers looked through her scope. Each area of the Mojave Wasteland was assigned a Ranger, and she reported to Ranger Station Charlie. However, she and her unit were assigned near the former Correctional Facility, but Stella knew that there, the correctional stuff going on was hard labor. She and her Rangers were all patrol rangers, dressed in the brown combat armor that Vault City made, and had made plans upon plans to take out the prison.
Only for a bunch of Paladins from somewhere to wipe them out and burn the place to a crisp. It was a job she and the Rangers respected and they had been trailing the mysterious stranger that helped them. She had her cowboy repeater, modified with a faster reloading lever and a custom telescopic scope, and was observe said man waste four of her comrades in arms. She was shocked to watch him destroy an entire squad that easily. She knew that the common infantryman was not much of a marksman, but this man just did something that every legionnaire dreamed of doing.
She wanted to press the trigger and end the man's life, but she couldn't. The man looked familiarly, as if he had passed by earlier. It had been only a week since anyone had passed by Ranger Station Charlie to head to the Mojave Outpost, then to Primm, then to Goodsprings. She now recognized this man. He was courier, a war veteran from some country to the north of California, and he was now a fugitive if she decided to report this to Camp Golf. Four men killed.
She had been trailing the squad of infantry pukes, for she had yet to receive a new assignment from Camp Golf. They were newbies from Primm, having seen the tall man's tri-beam laser rifle, asked him about it and then the firing started. There were six of them before two of them were turned into ash by the tall man.
"Bravo moving into position," her radio chattered and she saw two of her four man squad move in closer, their trail carbines in their hands. They were crawling within yards of the road, heading straight for them. Her other squadmate was right next to her, acting as her spotter. He was a good man, around the age of twenty-six, a new Ranger from the school in Shady Sands. Eighty percent of people who tried to go through Ranger school washed out. It was a testament to the rigor and hardships of the post-nuclear world.
"Bravo, hold position," she ordered and the two Rangers stopped and looked at the hill she was on, just right above the main road. She waved and the glint of the scope caught someone's attention. She quickly said an oh shit before said two men ran back, their weapons in their hands.
"Bravo, move in and capture. I repeat, move in and capture. No harm is to be done. Capture them. Quick and clean," and the two Rangers nodded before the smell of ozone was apparent to all of the world. A crack of electricity and her two Rangers were as invisible as the moon in the day, only visible to the most astute of all observers. She followed them with her rifle, and fired two rounds into the man's cover, forcing him under. However, she underestimated the man's resolve, for he poked his head out and followed the glint from the scope and fired twice, rounds going wide both times, but he forced Stella to quickly move.
"Motherbird, this is Bravo. We are about twenty yards away. Permission to use non-lethal weapons," the radio crackled and she quickly grabbed it.
"Permission granted," she said loudly and she could swear she could hear the smiles of the two Rangers. Soon another crackle of electricity was heard and she heard the cries of pain through the radio. She saw the two Rangers emerge victoriously, dragging two bodies, before heaving them over their shoulders.
"Mother Bear, this is Motherbird, requesting a pick-up. I know that any Vertibirds we have are in Baja or in Northern California, but I have two prisoners that just wasted six infantrymen and I'm eight miles from the nearest outpost. Need a lift."
She waited for a few seconds and soon the radio crackled as the NCR High Command headed by General Lee Oliver debated over sending one of their precious helicopters. The Mojave Army Command only six helicopters, all of them were for VIP transport and fire support. They were all old models, called Huey IIs by the old archives, and had served in some conflict in the Middle East.
"Motherbird, this is Mother Bear, permission granted. ETA about six minutes," and the radio cut off. All she could do was wait.
Six minutes passed and she looked overhead. Passing right over them was a Huey II, colored desert brown, with two light machine guns poking from the sides of the chopper. She had watched an old movie once and couldn't pass up the chance to say something.
"GET TO THE CHOPPER!" she ordered and the three other Rangers obeyed, one of them swinging his rifle in order to cover them. Four men piled out of the copter, dressed in brown combat armor, all armed with marksman carbines with silencers at the end of their barrels. They covered, watching as the townspeople started to assemble. Over twenty were there, all of them...young, old, and others. All of them were armed, and one was armed with a long barreled sniper rifle. However, they knew they couldn't save the saviors of their town unless they wanted to be slaughtered by the NCR Special Forces. One machine gun was trained on them all times as the eight NCR soldiers and the two prisoners piled back into the helicopter. The single rotor copter took off, heading north to the former airport that all helicopters were based at.
They had no way of knowing that Caesar's top men were looking at them, observing of them one. There were several of Caesar's spies, and Vulpes Incultas was the most capable of them. They were the most deadly men in the Emperor's forces, and they would carry out his will. Spies, especially from that insufferable woman, Juno, have spoken of the man's abilities. He had wiped out the most dangerous gang in the Mojave second only to the Khans and the Fiends. Only the Powder Gangers in Primm where going strong, but his spies in the NCR noted that the Army was going to be spending the men that were supposed to clear out the prison to clear out the town.
He looked to the shortwave radio right next to him. He spoke into it, saying very few words.
"Picus, free those degenerates."
And the wolf's son was working on a plan already.