"Are those...trees?"
"What?"
Yang pointed to the green stippled brush strokes she was seeing in the distance, west of their campsite on the edges of Bonnie Springs. "Over there! I think those are trees."
"We've already seen trees, Yang," Weiss dismissed.
"No! I mean, living trees! Like ones with real, green leaves in them." The blonde brawler handed the binoculars to her teammate. "Look, Weiss-cream! Green leaves and bushes, too."
Weiss surveyed the location herself and, with a gasp loud enough to draw in the rest of their friends, stammered that there was indeed a literal oasis further up the dried creek. Ruby zoomed ahead, snatching the binoculars from her teammate and perching herself on a rock several paces ahead. She was giddy in seconds.
"Water, guys!" the reaper squealed. "I see water!"
"Water?" Nora echoed excitedly.
"Real water?" Jaune asked.
"Clean, non-irradiated water?" Blake inquired.
Ruby took a second sweep and nodded. "Yep! Water. Like a pond. A really big pond. With bushes, shrubs, and trees around it. I can see bighorners too!"
"Alright, that settles it," Yang declared cheerfully, shouldering her pack and the pushing up half of her sticky mane under her cone helmet. "We're heading over there right now."
"We could all stand to be hydrated," mused Pyrrha with her Garand snuggled between her arms.
Ren hummed along, clicking shut the straps to his backpack that housed much of his and Nora's supplies. "It'd be nice to clean up after ourselves as well."
"A drink, a bath, and a maybe even a little swim?" listed Nora with Syrup nuzzled against her boot. "It'll be just like Cottonwood!"
Velvet held up her hand. "Shouldn't we be heading for Vegas? Why the detour?"
Heads turned to the sophomore.
"Come on, Velvet," cooed Yang, throwing her arm over her shoulder. "Think about it! Refill your canteen at a natural spring? Have some real leaves ruffle your skin? Maybe dip your head in a cold, crystalline pool? Imagine the clean water of Goodsprings except it's a lake."
"If you wanted that, you should be heading to Lake Mead then."
"You're no fun."
Velvet sighed. "Fine then. I could use a refill. Go wet your feet if you feel like it but I'm for reaching Vegas before dusk."
"Or Red Rock Canyon," posited Blake. "It's an NCR settlement but it's safer and more populated than the city ruins."
"Better hope there aren't any troops there," grunted Nora.
With another collective decision made, the two teams shouldered their weapons and packed up their camping gear. Weiss's compass identified their bearing west, allowing Ruby to take point on their trek towards the oasis. The sight of living trees, shrubbery, and lush greenery growing over a burned down building outweighed the thought that this may be too good to be true. In the months that they had been trekking across the Mojave—or rather Clark County—such a sight was rare and far more welcoming than the concrete rubble jungle that was New Vegas.
Blake and Velvet became hesitant as they got close, though. And for good reason. They could hear something moving around up ahead and they were damn sure it was not the bighorners that Ruby had spotted.
Definitely not just bighorners. And definitely not cazadores. But still just as bad.
The girls stomped their boots down hard on the giant mantises that had emerged out of the greenery; once on the head and once on the abdomen as Six often emphasized (and once demonstrated to that nightstalker that one time). The bugs were already dead but they needed to be sure. That inevitably left them with muck and grime on the soles of their boots, sticky innards that had to be washed away or manually peeled off.
Good thing there was the pond, right?
Not quite.
Tick. Tick. Tick-tick-tick. Tic-tic-tic-tic-tic—
"You have got to be shitting me," Yang growled, nearly hurling her raving Geiger counter into the water. "It's irradiated."
"So much for a break."
"Or a drink."
"Or a bath."
"Or a swim."
"Look on the bright side," Ruby chimed in. "This place can't be that bad. The bighorners are drinking from it."
Heads turned to the mutated bovines perched on the bank across from them. Half were lapping up the water while half were staring at them...or mainly at the infant deathclaw that was licking away the bits of crushed mantis from the heels of Nora's boots.
"Ruby," Weiss chimed in. "Have you been checking our dosimeters lately? We can't risk absorbing any more rads. We don't have enough meds to detoxify."
"Maybe we could get something off the trees," the reaper bargained. "I think I can see some fruits up there."
They traced her pointing finger to the California junipers growing on the pond's edge, some branches hanging directly over the water. Sure enough, amid the leaves dangled more than a handful of the honey-colored bulbs. Or some of them looked like dried honey...except there wasn't a beehive anywhere. And honey did not have a shade of green. Was it even honey?
"Sis, as much as they look really appetizing, I don't know what the hell they are and that worries me," Yang countered. "These plants—these trees—grew out of this pond. They might as well be irradiated."
"Well, it's not like we're all at risk of anything too serious."
"Yet," Blake murmured dryly. The Mojave sun was getting to her and despite being from Menagerie, the heat was still a pain.
Ruby paused to check the readings on her own dosimeter. She herself had low isotope levels but with Weiss being the absolute paragon of caution, she had to mount an argument if only to vindicate their trek all the way here to this burned down ranch.
"Rad levels are low on me," she announced.
The others did check their own readings and likewise concurred: no one was at definite risk of anything serious. Not yet.
"Man, this sucks," Nora groused. Even Syrup groused with her. "Ain't that right, boy? So much for an oasis."
"If we're we won't find use for the water, then perhaps we can forage around it," Ren suggested.
"What's there to forage?" Weiss snorted.
Velvet shrugged. "Edible leaves? I've hand bites of mint before and they kept me going for a few hours."
"Hate to burst your bubble, Velvet but I can't see any mint anywhere. No barrel cacti or honey mesquite either," Jaune reported. "Except for those berries up there, I don't see much we could gather without having to go all the way back out into the desert."
Pyrrha leaned over to her partner. "Jaune, I don't think those are berries."
"Crusty honey?" Yang guessed defeatedly. "Mutfruits? Mutated mango?"
"It does look appetizing," Ruby drawled.
The group eyed each other. Six had often said that vegetation that had managed to grow and flourish out of irradiated soil was largely safe, having absorbed a majority of the dangerous isotopes to mutate into something safe and beneficial. Perhaps the big, bulging, slightly misshapen 'fruits' dangling off the branches were as clean and healthy as banana yucca.
Said branches stretched directly over the water. Which meant someone had to go up there to get them. Because goodness knows no one wanted to wade into an irradiated pond to gather fruits shot off a tree. And also because Blake was the only one among their number who was nimble enough and the most experienced at scurrying up thin, bendable trees much like how a house cat would...
"You guys suck," she muttered as she approached the closest malformed California juniper.
Now, it had been a considerably long while since the cat faunus had had to live off the land. When Blake abandoned the White Fang, by extension she largely abandoned the outdoorsman practices that was part of daily life there. She had acclimated greatly to the urban landscape which meant having to relearn much of the tricks that kept her alive and on the move in the wilds.
There was also a major difference between the wild forests of Vale and the dry, merciless expanse of the Mojave Desert. Not to mention, she was assailing a precariously shaped juniper in surplus combat fatigues. Not really the type of clothing she wanted to be wearing when assailing trees the way she naturally did.
That was why her original attire was tailor-suited to match her agility and flexibility. That and all she carried on her person was Gambol Shroud. Not a combat harness laden with twenty pounds of equipment, a service rifle hanging off her shoulder, a sidearm strapped to her hip, and Gambol Shroud. Granted, she dropped most of it back on the ground but she did not like how Yang was sitting close to her stuff with a hand digging through her satchels and pouches.
"You can do it, kitty-cat!"
"Careful! I think I heard that thing creaking!"
"Nice hiney!"
Oh shut the hell up, Blake mentally screamed. Yes, she was a cat faunus. Yes, she could climb up trees. Yes, she was nimble, sleek, and sneaky. Yes, she was aware of her blessed posterior so stop bringing attention to it, Nora!
"Do I have to put a glyph under you in case you fall?"
Fuck off, Weiss. "Do you want to eat or what!?" hollered the cat faunus.
That seemed to shut them up.
Except for Yang who, in addition to pilfering her gear for a dumb joke, saw a ripe opportunity for her big, dumb mouth. "Hell yeah, I do! Move that ass and get us some sweet, juicy, filling booty!"
Blake resisted the urge to gnaw at the bark she was wrapped around. Gods, these spare trousers she bought from Chet back at Goodsprings were making it so hard to inch around—
Rip!
"Well..."
"Shit..."
"What a view..."
Growl. Yes, she heard Syrup let out a very un-predatory growl.
"Perverts," hissed the cat faunus.
"Says the pot to the kettle," Weiss sniped.
Blake scurried further up the branch, carefully twisting around to hide her lower half in the canopy. She made a mental note to switch immediately back to her own pair once she got down. In the meantime, she crawled to where she needed to be; just close enough to grab a handful of...
"Uh...these don't look like what I think they are," she announced. The rough texture of these 'fruits' made her hairs stand on end. They didn't seem right but they were soft, bulbous, and—thanks to the Mojave heat and how tired she was—attractive.
"Can you see anything else, then?" Ruby barked back.
The cat faunus glanced around, trying to recall the differences between various berries and nuts and conifer leaves and which among them were edible and hallucinatory. Of course, with half the group pestering her to hurry up (and other half vocally doubting her ability to forage while endlessly poking at her rear end), she threw discernment to the wind and ended up indiscriminately grabbing as much as she could before climbing down.
"Aren't these a little too green to be berries?" Weiss noted, eyeing a particularly oval bulb larger than a head of barrel cacti.
"Oh, don't be picky," Blake snorted.
"Yeah, that's what Six says," Nora added. "You sure you're not turning into him?"
"She does spend an awful lot of quality time with him," Ruby added.
Yang snickered. "Heh, more like giving him back rubs after a bad hangover. Ain't that right, kitty-cat? I mean, you did show him your new nightie, right? You know, the one at Mick and Ralph's that you just had to buy because it was just purr-fect for your reading sessions?"
The B in RWBY groaned.
"These don't look like mutfruits," voiced Jaune, rolling around his share. "I know we can't have much choices out here in the desert but...isn't this supposed to be purple? And is it this...rough and...squishy?"
"It smells off," Velvet added.
"Feels rather calloused," Ren noted apprehensively.
"Gods, if Six was here, I'd help him shove these down your throats," Blake hissed exasperatedly.
"You guys know that dude's a cyborg, right?" Yang raised. "He must have some kind of like iron liver or something that filters out all the nasty stuff."
The cat faunus twitched. "Quit your whining and eat up."
"Sheesh, calm your tits, kitty-cat," grunted her partner.
"I don't mean to be rude," Pyrrha interjected. "But...are you sure these are, uh, edible?"
"This again? Ugh! If you don't want it, you can go dig through the bushes over there," Blake barked, now stressed from the heat, the bugs, and the fact that she was thirsty, sweaty, hungry, stinky, and forced to forage for her picky friends.
Gods, was this what Six felt like when he was feeding them?
"You mean you saw something over there that didn't involve climbing up trees?" Nora raised.
"You know what? Give me that!" The cat faunus snatched up someone's share and proceeded to take a big bite off of it.
Everyone leaned in close to watch Blake chew angrily at what they all thought were mutfruits. Except, it turned out not to be a mutfruit. To their horror, what had been budding off of these oasis trees were actually bundles of mantis oothecae.
They quickly fed it all to Syrup while Yang rubbed circles over Blake's back as the latter regurgitated into the irradiated pond.
"Aww, it ain't that bad, kitty-cat."
"I just ate, ugh, bug eggs, Yang!"
"Not the first time you had that, right?"
"I wasn't that desperate to live off of that crap!"
"Hey, on the bright side, at least you're hungry for lunch."
Blake eyed her partner. She did not like how wide Yang was grinning. "... What's for lunch?"
"Uh...boiled eggs?"
And the cat faunus went back to heaving.
Six moved as fast as he could.
He bought very little from the traders in the underground. Once on the surface, he kept a steady pace, avoiding the sun as much as he could—there was too much reflective material on him. He only took what he needed as he maneuvered through the South Vegas ruins, leaving behind a trail of cadavers that would be the boon of the next scavenger to walk these parts. With the Fiends largely scattered to the desert, the only hazards to worry about were petty raiders, wasteland predators leeching down from the mountains, or NCR troops gone AWOL because they gambled their asses off at the casinos.
And it was as he was hiking over the crumbled concrete hill of a collapsed multi-story that he first caught the lone covered Dodge following the streets west. The NCR army truck moved at a moderate pace, rumbling over broken sections of highway and slowing down to carefully carve around corners and tight turns.
Who do we have here and where are you off to?
The Courier maneuvered rapidly through the rubble, pushing his abused body to the limits until he found himself a comfortable spot on the second floor of one of the concrete apartments on the outskirts. From here, he saw the Dodge weave out of the ruins into the open desert highway. He counted four heads bobbing around inside. It was hard to tell who exactly they were but that did not matter in the moment.
By now, they were too far for him to intercept them and, even if he tried, he could not outrun a vehicle. So he sat back and watched as the car disappeared behind the mountains. He would catch up with them later.
A single squad headed west, seems like. So much for drawing away the NCR from his rendezvous point with the kids. Four troops. Could be grunts, could be rangers.
Six had a feeling they were going to be a problem later down the line. If they did and they couldn't be paid off, then James would have to write more condolences to more families in California.
ORIGINALLY DRAFTED: January, 2019
LAST EDITED: May 19, 2020
INITIALLY UPLOADED: May 19, 2020
NOTE: As I continue to write this, I'm learning more and more about how radiation actually works and the like. Granted, I'm not going to be much of an egghead about it but I feel the need to at least get the science right...even though the way I'm portraying it seems a bit off. Eh, at least writing this story prompts me to study things I should've been paying attention to in class.
On a side-note, I didn't notice that particular physical feature of Blake until after seeing so many memes about it. I guess I'm part of the demographic that just doesn't really see it. But hey, I'll run with it anyway.