Disclaimer: I Don't Own Anything Within The Fallout Universe, It Belongs To Said Company, Bethesda, And All I Own Are My OC's

'One Is Enough, Two Is Tough'

Arc began walking down the hill while he looked over the few buildings he passed, each having no real purpose other than to serve as a purpose of housing except for two other buildings sitting next to each other and another building which by the looks of it was a small school house, but it looked long abandoned with part of the gates surrounding it torn down while the rest stood, rusted and worn down by the passing sands of time, leaning in different directions. As he passed the small school house, he came to a stop. The building that has now had eyes on was the 'Goodsprings General Store' he thought it would probably be a good thing to first start looking for information and to gather up some supplies some supplies while he was at it.

Walking up to the front of the store, he could hear some faint rustling and the sound of shattering glass sound coming from the building next to it, the sounds emanated from one of the windows that was slightly opened, but he paid no mind to it.

He went into the store and was met with a few seconds of a cool breeze that wafted over him, then someone greeted him. "You looking to buy some supplies?" said the man behind a damaged counter.

"Well yeah, maybe some food and drink as well if you have any also could you point me where I can find Sunny Smiles around here?" Arc replied. The man waved Arc over and he followed suit and held out his hand.

"Names Chet, welcome to my humble, yet not so humble store. . . in its current state that is, but it'll suffice for now. Sunny Smiles is the blonde girl in the over at the Saloon next-door, that's usually where she hangs out around if she's not hunting all day with that annoying mutt of hers."

Arc was a little put off by Chet's attitude towards Sunny Smiles, but he had yet to meet her himself. "So, what'cha lookin' for? Besides the food?" Arc held out his pip-boy and went onto his notes list showing Chet the list of things he need that Doc told him what would be useful out in wasteland.

- Radaway (10), Rad-X (10), and Med-X (8)-

Chet, nodded left to the room in the back of the store then returned minutes later with an armful of the things in one hand, and a clipboard in the other. Arc was glad to see Chet had a good stock the things he requested.

Chet set the supplies down on the counter. He started to point and write back and forth between the items and the clipboard, after a few moments of waiting, Chet tapped on the clipboard and wrote down one last thing.

"All of this will bring your total to. . . 300 caps." Arc eyes widened at the amount, "Well, now isn't that something. . ." Arc said, Chet wasn't surprised at all. He just merely grinned at the remark.

Damn cheap bastard, I really don't think I'll be coming back here anytime soon if the prices for these few things is really that high!

Arc thought inwardly, but ultimately let out a sigh of defeat, seeing how he wasn't going talk him down to a reasonable price.

Even with that thought he still had a feeling that maybe this was worth the amount in the long run, so he pulled down his bag and pulled out the container with the caps and counted out the amount he owed and handing them over to Chet.

"Well pleasure doing business with, come back anytime." Arc just merely nodded, grabbing the items, placing them into the bag and leaving the store with only 42 caps left.

Damn, looks like I forgot to consider food. . . maybe I should've bought less to get both. Well now that's not important now, Time to go meet this Sunny Smiles.

Arc made his way towards the Saloon moving around the old prewar bikes towards the door. He let inhaled deeply and let "Well here goes nothing" he pushed open the door to the saloon, but as soon he set one foot inside, he went flying right back out the door, and with nothing to stop his fall, he landed hard on the old wooden walkway losing of his breath on impact. Arc laid down there for a few moments, slightly wheezing and coughing, he groaned and finally caught his breath again, as tried to sit up to see what or whom flew into him.

He felt he his hand on something soft, or someone for that matter. He looked down to see some woman smaller then him, but somehow able to knock him down. He thought for a moment about who this was, but looked down and had realized that his hand on her rear end and she was lying on him with and her head lying flat on his chest.

"Hey, lady you ok there?" he groaned after no response or movement from her, he rolled her off gently and stood up dusting off the some dirt from his clothes he then looked down at her and his breath slightly caught in his throat, she was quite a sight to look at, even if this wasn't the best of moments to even think about this kind of thing about someone who he didn't even know, especially after they just flew into you, but his brain thought otherwise.

She had dark ruby colored hair, skin an unusual dark pale, his eyes began took wonder down over her chest, he couldn't help but look over her body, how her curves shaped nicely through the leather armor even if the armor was an odd sight with two shoulder guards instead of the common single strapped one

What the hell? I don't think this is the time for this. . . something is wrong with my head. . . most likely a side effect from being shot in the head.

Her eyes were closed, he could see that she was still breathing, chest slowly and steadily rising and falling, but then noticed that there was a small deep gash on her arm.

It was bleeding out a slowly dark red and another running up the length of her forearm stopping at her elbow on her other arm. He gently picked her up and moved her towards the left side of the saloon towards the farthest of the old wooden chairs in front of the saloon window. It provided some cover for her from being shot, or being attacked by whoever caused this inside, but exposing her to the outside desert wilds of the wasteland outside, but it will have to do for now seeing no other option.

Quickly after place her down in the chair, he reminded himself to come back and help the unconscious woman, he looked towards the saloon door moving in quickly, but then coming to an abrupt halt to see inside to see a man, wearing a black full body vest with 'NCRCF' written on the back over a long sleeve blue shirt with the pants to match and black shoes, inside holding down another a woman by her neck bent over on the bar counter. Another man in overalls was on the ground soaking in blood with three bullet holes to his back while his eyes were dull and void of the life that once had shown through them.

The woman's dress covered in blood smudges, ripped at the shoulders, and blood on coming from her mouth and nose. The man had a gun down on her temple, and a blood soaked knife in the other. She was struggling to get loose from under him was she struggled to be loose by jerking and kicking to get free, but then froze when he spoke in a cold harsh tone.

"I'm DONE being nice. If You don't hand Ringo over soon, I'm going to get my friends and we're going to have some fun with the lot of you, they've been itchin' to get their hands on some fresh blood, then we'll raze this town to the ground leaving only the smell of burnt flesh and another dead town swept under the dirt of this hell hole wasteland, GOT IT?!"

The woman on the bar could do nothing but nod, as she did so, he slowly moved the gun away then gave a swift knee to her stomach. She stumbled over coughing up blood while groaning from another source of added pain. He stood over her, chuckling to himself, he knelt and used the knife to lift her head, starring into her strained soft eyes, then asked "See, that wasn't so hard was it? Now Then, where in this shithole of a town, is he hiding out at, huh?"

The woman was reluctant to answer at first, but he turned the knife so it was now sitting across her throat, which sent her nerves up high. Just as she was about the to answer, she looked away from the man's eye and saw an axe come into view behind him, Arc, unknowingly on instinct, took the axe from his belt and silently walked up behind the man, having had enough of his ruthless brutality that was being or had been inflicted upon people in the bar.

"Hey pal, what's your name?" Arc asked, causing the man jumped up in surprise then regain his composure as he turned and answered Arc, "Joe Cobb, What, we got some kind of a problem?" waving his knife around the scene.

"No, no problem at all, because I already have a solution for it," Cobb scoffed at the reply. "What is that supposed to be some kind of a thr-," Arc didn't give him the time, as he swiftly swung his marked-hand axe down on Cobb's neck ending him with only gurgling coming from his mouth, crimson red blood spewing out of his neck over Arc's jumpsuit, dropping his knife and gun then falling onto the ground.

Cobb struggled while choking on his blood, trying to grab at his neck to stop the bleeding, but it there wasn't anything he could do but struggle and soon his struggles ceased. Cobb's arms dropped to the wood floor board and his eyes dimmed out staring into nothingness, now he was just another corpse for the wastes to take.

Arc stepped over Cobb's body to woman on the floor, "You alright there?" he offered his hand to the woman on the ground, at first she didn't take his hand, but he reassured her he wasn't going to harm her at all, after a moment she accepting his offer of help.

When she had finally managed to stand up fully she spat out more blood, while attempting to rearrange her dress, and wiped off the near dried and fresh blood, only some of it swept off most of it smudged in, but she was more concerned about who this person was then her ruined dress.

"Thanks for saving my ass just then, names Trudy, looks like this town just got itself dragged into the middle of something we shouldn't have anything to do with."

Arc turned around and gripped onto the axe handle, freeing it from Joe Cobb's blood stained body with a wet squelch, shaking the fresh crimson from it and giving it a few test spins, he tied the axe's strap back to his side, then turned around back to Trudy.

"Nice to make your acquaintance Trudy, names Arc. So. . . .I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that this Joe person over here, I just killed, isn't the only person looking for this Ringo guy is he?" Trudy looked at Arc, now seeing he wasn't involved with the now dead Joe Cobb, and let the slow sadden smile show the crept from her lips.

"Yeah, 'bout a week ago, Ringo, comes into town. Survivor of an attack on his caravan, he says. Bad men were searching after him and he needed a place to hide. We figured he was just in shock, which shows just how wrong we were, so we gave him a place to lie low for a while. We really didn't actually expect anyone to show up and come here looking for him."

He was slightly confused by that and wanted to find out more on the situation from Ringo himself. "Where is this Ringo guy now?" Trudy hesitated for a second, but then answered "He's holed up at the abandoned gas station up the hill, near Doc's house." That's when he remembered

Oh, right, almost forgot check back on the other girl.

Turning quickly on his feet he made his way towards the saloon door without another word to Trudy, but as he was about to leave she stopped him. "Wait. Look. I'm grateful for your help and all, but this town needs someone like you now. Cobb's crew, the Powder Gangers as they are known around these parts of the waste, after they took over the prison, knows that he came up here looking for Ringo and now that he is dead. . . they'll suspect something isn't right. . . If he's a no-show. . . They'll be comin' here lookin' for blood."

Arc started rubbing his chin in thought for a minute before nodding to Trudy, "Alright, then, but I can't defend this town on my own, what just happened there was on instinct and luck, and I couldn't stand watching what he was doing."

He paused for a moment and came up with another plan of action, "If what you say is true, then you need to get as many people as you can that can fight, get some cover setup at the front of the saloon, and send someone to come find me if they come sooner than forty minutes."

Trudy, let go of a breath she didn't know she was holding, now relived that he wasn't just going to leave them to their fate of unknown torture and death.

Arc reminded Trudy forty minutes to get any able bodies as a defense against an assault on the town, Arc was then out the saloon door, but then paused remembering the injured girl, looking over to his left to see that she is just the way he left her, except that she wasn't. . . she was gone, with only a small dripping blood trail in the dirt terrain turning off toward the direction he originally came from.

Arc began to panic a little, putting blame on himself for not thinking more clearly and wondering what had happen to her, even though he didn't know the girl he still blamed himself for not taking more caution in making sure that it there were no potential threats around. Arc pushed back that thought of fault and began to follow the blood trail with a quickened pace.

He found that the trail had moved up towards the gas station Trudy told him where Ringo was holding up at, hiding away from the Powder Gangers.

The blood trail ended at the door leading inside the gas station, there he stopped and heard muffled yelling, clanging of metal falling to the ground, then a shot went off inside the building, then a long silence swept by for a moment, then turned into the sound of shuffling.

Arc made his way towards the door, he reached for the door knob, but it came towards him, then out in the middle of the doorway, out came a woman and the other person bleeding from shoulder, to which Arc could only assume was Ringo and the fact that his head was down, over her shoulders being dragged, Arc started to move towards her, but then heard the pullback of the gun in her right hand aimed right on him. He looked at them and saw it was the same woman who flew into him. She bore right into him with hard bright yellow eyes the face of a scowl daring him to make the wrong move.

"Who. . . .the fuck. . . .are you!?"

~Yeah Chapter 2, Finally Out, If Anyone Was Confused On The Armor Description For Her, She's Wearing The Wander's Armor From Fallout 3!, There Clears It Up, Hope You Enjoyed As Much I Enjoyed Writing It, Also Looking May Be Looking For Beta Reade For This Story To Correct The Grammar Mistakes I've Probably Made, Will Let You Know When. Good Day!~

~~As of 3/3/15, Chapter 2 and it's fully revised. trying to add much more realism to it, and it is a better read then it was previously! Drop a review and let me know what you think! ~~