20 Mission Complete

"Welcome to another episode of know your mutants! Best friend Tabitha is here in the studio with us to talk about this topic that affects us all."

"Thank you, Rhonda. Today I'd like to talk about a subject very near and dear to my heart, the nightkin."

"Ohh, you must know a lot about nightkin best friend Tabitha seeing as how you are one."

"That's true Rhonda. I am in a unique position to speak to the natural superiority of my kind! And our story begins as most do with the Master, our glorious leader who once created the super mutants! But, something nagged at him he could do better! He could make better! And with that stroke of brilliance the nightkin were created!"

"And what exactly makes the nightkin superior to your average run of the mill super mutant best friend Tabitha?"

"Well, I'm glad you asked Rhonda. For starters instead of that disgusting piss green color most super mutants are, we nightkin are a dashing shade of blue! We've also mastered the use of a powerful piece of technology known as the stealth boy which allows us to move about unseen!"

"That's completely fascinating best friend Tabitha, Is there anything else you'd like to add?"

"Did I mention WE ARE BLUE!"

"Absolutely incredible best friend Tabitha! You've truly enlightened me about the abject superiority of the nightkin race! But, there's one last thing I'd like to ask before we go. Is there any truth to the slanderous rumor that all nightkin are slightly crazy from overuse of psychologically damaging pre-war military technology?"

"None at all Rhonda."

"And there you have it Utobitha, nightkin your benevolent overlords, who are most certainly NOT crazy. Well be back after this."

" ♪ ♪ ♪ Play the guitar. Play it again, my Johnny ♪ ♪ ♪"

"Well... that was interesting" commented Yoruichi as we listened to Black Mountain Radio.

"Yeah" I agreed "That Tabitha is completely insane but, at the very least she's entertaining."

"Is what she said about stealth boys making you go crazy true" she asked worriedly.

"It is..." I admitted "But, you don't really need to worry about that. You need to spend a completely insane amount of time invisible for it to begin to effect you. It only happens to nightkin because nearly all of them have a phobia about being seen and try to live their entire lives completely invisible."

"That's a relief" Yoruichi sighed "Because I really like using that thing."

"How much power does it have left anyway" I asked "You've been using it a lot."

"Only about 20%" she pouted.

"That sucks we'll have to try and find a way to recharge it because it's been insanely useful so far, especially in your hands."

"Hmm" Yoruichi perked up? "Hey, I think that's our target" she pointed into the distance.

Narrowing my eyes, I struggled to see what she was referring too. But, after taking out my binoculars I saw a small concrete underpass in the distance along with several small creatures skittering about.

"Looks like it" I responded "We should be careful and approach from downwind, ants have a really good sense of smell. If they notice us too soon they might call for reinforcements and make our job more difficult."

Leaving the main road, the two of us circled around south through the desert to try and crept forward trying to get the drop on the ants. As we approached, I realized that the ants really did deserve to be called giants.

The worker ants alone were the size of large dogs while the more powerful soldier ants were almost as large as a small car. And it wasn't just their size that made them intimidate each of them were also covered in spikes along their backs and had razor sharp mandibles strong enough to crush solid stone.

A quick count told me there were around a dozen or so ants in the area, there were nine worker ants around working together to dismember the corpses of several radscorpions along with three soldiers watching over them. It would be tough, depending on how tough their armor really was. But, it seemed doable as long as we could take out the tunnel before any more arrived.

Speaking of which.

The tunnel wasn't very hard to find. The ants had torn a massive hole through the concrete and asphalt right in the middle of the road and formed it into some kind of anthill.

"You think you can do it" I whispered to Yoruichi from our spot above the overpass?

"Easily" she grinned understanding my meaning and reaching into her bag and grabbing the C4.

And with one powerful throw tossed the lump of explosives through the air where it flew in a perfect arc before landing in the entrance of the anthill and disappearing from sight. However the sudden noise seemed to attract the attention of the ants who lifted their heads into the air and began madly waving their antennae around.

"They've found us" I jump as several of the ants dropped their work and started heading in our direction.

"That's fine they're already too late" Yoruichi laughed while flicking on the detonator.

Grabbing the rifle from my shoulder I began firing on the ants. I didn't use VATS since I realized I was starting to rely on it far too much and needed to put more effort into saving it for emergencies. Though it wasn't like I really, needed it to hit right now Since the ants sheer size and predictable movements made them easy targets.

Armor piercing bullets ripped through the exoskeletons sending yellow blood flying everywhere.

The ants finally reached the wall of the overpass and started scaling it upwards to us when the C4 finally went off. And unlike dynamite which exploded with more of a deep booming sound the C4 was like a bolt of lightning that struck in an instant and disappeared just as fast.

The entire ground shook and I was knocked off my feet as chunks of rock started raining from the sky.

As the seconds ticked by the aftershocks of the explosion finally receded and I was able to assess the situation and was shocked by what I saw! The entire underpass had collapsed, and massive chucks of concrete and rebar were scattered everywhere! As for the anthill, it was just gone with no trace of it or any tunnels visible at all!

"Wow" Yoruichi gasped! "That was awesome! I didn't expect it to be nearly that strong!"

"Yeah, me either" I shook away my shellshock and quickly used VATS to try and confirm the locations of any remaining ants.

But, only saw two or three scattered around all with missing limbs and crushed shells. I guess the confined nature of the underpass multiplied to force of the explosion completely destroying the ants in the process, while also directing it up and away protecting us in the process.

Raising my gun I quickly put the remaining ants out of their misery and claiming their Exp.

"Well, that was way easier that I expected" I sighed looking over the devastation.

"I know" Yoruichi crossed her arms "That Ranger Jackson made these guys out to be such a big deal too! I'm actually kind of disappointed."

I shook my head "We're just lucky you had such good aim and the C4 was powerful enough, otherwise this would have been way harder."

"That's true" she nodded "They did look pretty tough. I can't imagine what having to fight hundreds of them."

"Yeah, and don't forget every single one of them is covered in natural armor making regular firearms completely useless against them. Taking all of that together it's not hard to imagine how a group of ants could completely destroy a caravan."

"I guess we should head back now" Yoruichi kicked a rock "There's no way the ants are digging their way through this anytime soon. If we hurry, we might make it time for you to buy me lunch."

My eye twitched and I decided to ignore the last part of her statement "We've been going pretty much nonstop since we left Goodsprings. So, it might be a good idea to take a bit of a break and relax the rest of the day once we return."

"Sounds like a plan" she agreed.

Before we started back, I took one last look over my shoulder towards Nipton and frowned seeing that there was still an absence of smoke. I didn't actually want all the people in Nipton to die but, the fact things weren't happening according to my expectation was starting to worry me. Still, it wasn't like there was anything I could actually do about it and decided to stop thinking about it and cross that bridge when I come to it.

The trip back to the outpost was uneventful and we spent most of the time listening to Tabitha rambling in between songs. Though it was a bit unnerving when she brought Raul out and threatened to kill him. Luckily the ghoul was clever and managed to convince the nightkin to spare his life for now but, it sounded really close.

I sighed, yet another thing to add to my to do list.

I couldn't really in good conscience leave him up there to suffer but, I wasn't really in a good position to go and save him right now either. Since Black Mountain was one of the most fortified places in the entire Mojave since it was defended by an army of super mutants and nightkin.

So, even though Raul was a potential companion saving him would have to wait until I got my hands on some more firepower.

Soon enough we arrived back at the Outpost and sought out Ranger Jackson who was busy communicating over the radio with someone I couldn't identify. We waited patiently for him to finish before informing him that we've completed the mission.

"Really, now" he crossed his arms? "I didn't expect y'all to get it done so quickly, wish my men showed half the initiative you do. Anyway, what's the exact situation out there" he asked for confirmation?

"The tunnel's destroyed and all the ants were killed" I explained "Though I'm not sure how long it'll stay that way since there's nothing stopping the ants from digging everything out again."

"That's a problem for the future" Ranger Jackson shrugged "For now I'm just glad I'll be able to start sending caravans out again."

"Now about our pay" Yoruichi motioned?

"I don't recall saying anything about payment" Jackson adjusted his hat "Since I'm not allowed to contract any mercenaries here at the outpost, though I might have 'accidentally' lost a requisition form or two" he motioned to a large duffel bag full of supplies sitting nearby.

Yoruichi catching the hint grabbed the bag and Ranger Jackson quickly ushered us out being far more cautious than I felt was necessary. But, then again it wasn't my job on the line.

Anyway, once we were back out the two of found a quite place to ourselves and checked over our loot.

Ranger Jackson might have been a bit weird but, at least he wasn't stingy with our pay. Aside from a lightly used Service Rifle which was basically the fallout version of an AR-15 he also gave us about three clips of armor piercing 5.56 ammo, 2 weapon repair kits, and even a couple box lunches for our troubles.

There weren't any caps unfortunately which was something I'd completely forgotten about but, that was fine since I mainly only wanted to buy some new weapons and ammo anyway.

The two of us talked and decided I would keep the service rifle since she already had her hunting rifle and grenade launcher and didn't really need anything else. While I was still stuck using a regular old varmint rifle. The service rifle didn't actually do that much more damage then the varmint but, could store four times more ammo and fire in a three round burst letting me get more damage out in a quicker time.

After dividing out the loot the two of us sat down to eat the lunches we were paid with.

And even though they weren't anything too special they were actually quite delicious. Instead of the homecooked meals we've been having everything in the lunch boxes were actually salvaged pre-war foods. There was a jar of preserved cranberries, some dehydrated mash potatoes, and small can of pork and beans.

It was actually one of the most filling meals I'd had since I woke up on in this world and kind made me a bit homesick.

I didn't really have any close friends and family there due to various reasons but, damned if I wasn't missing the creature comforts like fresh food, working A/C, and not being brutally murdered by horrible nightmare creatures.

Anyway, after our meals were over the two of us talked about how we were going to spend the rest of our days.

I wanted to go and find out if the base had any workbenches, I could use to upgrade our stuff. While Yoruichi decided to go around to the various different caravans to see if she could find anything useful or interesting which gave me an idea.

I already knew Yoruichi was super charismatic and a good haggler, so it was a no brainer give her some of our extra guns and supplies to try and sell them for the extra cash. Other than I also gave her the caravan deck Ringo gave and spent a bit of time teaching her the basics of the game. I was no good at it myself but, had a feeling that with her skills and luck she'd be able to make bank playing against all the caravans here. It wouldn't even be hard to convince them to play either given that most of the people here were already bored out of their mind and that Yoruichi was basically a supermodel.

And I could tell Yoruichi felt the same given the feral grin she had on as I explained what I wanted her to do. I was actually a bit scared she'd win too much money off of them and had to remind her not to overdo it and cause a scene. I didn't want to have to explain to Ranger Jackson why Yoruichi caused shootout in his base.

Finally, I also gave her list of supplies I would need to upgrade our weapons and armor as well as fix ED-D up once we made our way back up to Primm.

With that done I ruefully sent Yoruichi off into the world with the feeling that I'd just created a monster. But, that wasn't important now since I needed to find the bases maintenance area. I knew it had to have one since what kind of military base didn't have a place to repair and maintain weapons?

Luckily, it wasn't too hard to find and I arrived at a small shed hidden behind the barracks after asking a couple soldiers.

It wasn't the best setup considering this was an important NCR base but, it was perfect for my needs. It was isolated and out of the way which was exactly what I was looking for since I didn't think it would end well if people saw me materializing guns out of thin air.

Checking around I got even more excited when I saw that the small shed actually had all three major types of crafting bench! It had the regular one which would allow me to make anything I wanted! As well as also having dedicated weapons and armor workbenches too which would let me and all sorts of mods to our equipment!

I didn't actually have any of the resources to do any of those things right now but, that wouldn't stop me from checking my option and finding the most cost effective way to upgrade our equipment once I did.

Thinking about it our gun situation was actually as good as it could be right now. We had two relatively powerful long-range weapons, a grenade launcher, and I had the 10mm pistol for close range combat while Yoruichi had her machete.

We could use a bit more firepower but, unfortunately I couldn't make any of the really good guns yet since I didn't have the Gun Nut Perk. And even if I did I wouldn't be able to make ammo for those guns because that required a chemistry station something that didn't exist here at the Mojave Outpost.

So, any increase in our damage output would mostly be down to whatever upgrades I could put onto out existing guns.

That being said I could add a few things to our arsenal.

Like switching out the caravan shotgun for a double barrel one or making a Yoruichi an actual sword and maybe a good combat knife to go with it.

Not to mention there were plenty of things I could do for our clothes and armor!

I could add all sorts of modifications to them that would increase their defense against certain types of damage, make us sneakier, reduce fall damage, and all sorts of other useful things! I could even add some mods to our backpacks that would actually give us boosts to our Special Attributes!

All of that would have to wait until later of course, assuming Yoruichi brought back as many supplies as I was hoping she would.