21 Upgrades

After planning out what I wanted to do I went back to our campsite to wait for Yoruichi since I couldn't actually do anything yet.

Glancing up at the sky I saw how cloudy it had gotten and felt a cool breeze blow by. Realizing how nice the weather was today I decided to lay my sleeping bag out and take the opportunity to grab a quick nap. Everything had been happening basically none stop ever since I woke up in this world and I felt like I'd earned a good rest.

Knowing it was basically safe here in the base I quickly nodded off and had my first restful sleep in what seemed like ages.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Wake up you bum" I was startled awake by the sound of something heavy landing next to my head.

Calming my startled heart when I noticed it was just Yoruichi returning I quickly checked my Pipboy for the time and saw that a few hours had passed. Next, I turned my attention to the large duffel bag she'd tossed to the ground.

"What's that" I asked?

"All the stuff you asked for obviously" she crossed her arms.

"Really" I blinked? "How much of it did you manage to find?"

"Everything" she looked smug. "It took some doing but, I got everything on your list."

I just stared at her in amazement for a moment genuinely impressed since I'd given her a fairly big list. I already expected her to bring back most of the materials I needed since that was all simple stuff like Wood, Leather, and different kinds of small metal parts like screws and springs. But, a lot of what I put on that list was fairly rare and the only reason I added them was just for the off chance one of the merchants here had some of it. Things like Fiber Optics, Ballistic Fibers, and precious metals like gold and silver.

I quickly shot her a thumbs up and grabbed the duffle bag and started rifling through it. And found that there was a decent amount of all the materials I needed even the rare ones and looked up at Yoruichi again a bit worried.

"How much did all of this cost" I asked?

"Not as much as you'd expect" she shrugged "I managed to use my feminine wiles to haggle a lot of the merchants down. It wasn't hard since a lot of them were already desperate to unload their wares after being stuck here in the outpost for so long even if it meant selling at a loss."

"That's good" I nodded glad she got such a good deal.

"So, what do you need all that stuff for anyway" she asked?

"It's a surprise" I grinned "But, trust me you'll love it!"

She eyed me suspiciously for a moment before shaking her head and glancing at her Pipboy.

"It's almost dinner time" she noted "Come on let's go to the mess hall and get some food."

"You go without me" I hefted the heavy duffle bag onto my shoulder with a grunt. "I have something more important to do."

"You realize you still owe me dinner right" she deadpanned?

"Trust me you'll enjoy my surprise way better than whatever crappy meal I could buy you here."

"It better" she left in a huff!

"Wait" I realized something and called after her!

"Yeah" she raised an eyebrow?

"Give me your weapons, I'll fix them up a bit."

"You know how to do that" she questioned?

"Of course" I pounded my chest "Just leave it to me!"

She looked at me suspiciously again before shrugging and giving me all her weapons and leaving me on my own while she went to eat.

After that I almost couldn't contain my excitement as I waddled my way back over to the workbenches while carrying a massive amount of supplies and weapons! This probably could have waited until after dinner but, I was completely out of caps and wanted to avoid the embarrassment of needing Yoruichi to pay for the meal I was supposed to be buying her. She'd never let live it down!

Regardless I was here now and could wait to get started!

First up I transferred everything into my Pipboy and felt my sweat drop when I saw that I was only a few pounds short of exceeding my carry limit. It was insane how much stuff Yoruichi managed to acquire in such a short time.

Putting that aside I got to work upgrading our guns. I couldn't do a lot since I had no crafting perks but, that didn't stop me from giving them larger magazines, more comfortable grips and stocks, as well as a few other miscellaneous changes like adding actual scopes to our rifles so we wouldn't be forced to make do with basic iron sights anymore.

On my guns I focused on adding mods that lowered the weapons AP cost because that seemed like the best way to improve my combat efficiency. For Yoruichi's guns I gave her recoil reducing mods while also giving them an improved rate of fire, since she was already ridiculously accurate and liked to use her rifles like a machine gun.

As for the grenade launcher the only real thing I could do with it right now was adding a slightly longer barrel to extend it's range. Though I did notice there was an interesting upgrade I could get that would let me turn it into a double barrel grenade launcher which sounded awesome! Unfortunately, I could only get that if I started putting points into the Demolition Expert Perk which increased explosives damage. And that wasn't really my priority right now so if would have to wait.

Next up it was time to craft up some new weapons for us!

There weren't very many things I could make that would actually be useful right now but, there were still a couple. Like a double barrel shotgun that was twice as good as the single shot caravan shotgun I already had.

Other than that, I only made two more weapons both of which were for Yoruichi.

Thinking back to how awesome she was while taking on all those ghouls with the machete I knew I had to make her a proper sword. And there was actually a surprising number of options to choose from.

Like the basic Chinese officer's sword from the base game, and the Assaultron Blade a weapon added in the Automatron dlc, the steel sword which was literally a just weapon ripped straight from Skyrim that I bought from the Creation Club, and the katana from Fallout 3 that I downloaded from a mod.

It was a tough choice since all of them were super cool looking especially the assaultron blade but, I ended up settling on the Katana since you know Bleach not to mention that I thought Yoruichi would look badass swinging it around. And the irony that I was making a sword for the one character in Bleach who didn't actually use one wasn't lost on me.

Lastly a made her a combat knife to assassinate people with for when she was sneaking around in the future.

With that done it was finally time to move onto our apparel.

I ended up making a new backpack for Yoruichi since she was still struggling with the rough leather hand me down one that looked like it might fall apart at any moment. And the cool thing about the backpacks I could make was that they could actually be upgraded to give a bunch of useful effects.

Like patches for instance, I could add a patch to our backpacks that would give of +1 to any special attribute I wanted! And I ended up putting the American Flag patch on my backpack which gave +1 to Endurance and put a Police one on Yoruichi's which would give her +1 to Agility. Those were both of our strongest points and I was really curious to see what she'd be like with a massive 11 Agility. That is of course if the things I made actually effect other people in the first place but, since she was already considered my 'Companion' I was optimistic it would work.

I could also add different kinds of gear loadouts to the backpack which also had their own unique effects. Yoruichi's ended up with the Explosives/Sleeping Bag combo that gave +5% explosives damage and +10 carry weight. The sleeping bag part was normally just aesthetic and didn't actually do anything in the game but, was useful here since I remembered her mentioning my nice sleeping bag since hers was all old and worn out.

As for mine I decided to go with the Medic add on since it actually gave passive regeneration which was insane! I had no idea how effective it would actually be but, more healing was never bad.

Lastly, I changed the color of both of our backpacks to desert camo for obvious reasons.

I was starting to run short of materials at this point but, still had enough cloth to make a few extra pairs of clothes for both of us. I originally wanted to make two complete sets of upgraded leather armor but, just didn't have the supplies for it. So, this would have to be enough for now.

I couldn't wait to see the look on Yoruichi's face when I showed her all of this.

I knew this was basically telling her that there was something strange about me and that I had superpowers but, I never expected to be able to hide that from her forever anyway. I wasn't going to tell her about my abilities just yet, but I also didn't really care if she found out on her own. Since she'd probably just think it was awesome and be a bit jealous. Thinking of that I was actually a bit eager for her to find out so I could rub it in her face.

Before finishing up I thought of one last thing I could make and used the tiny bit of leftover steel I had to create a bunch of steel caltrops which were little metal spikes I could throw down for enemies to step on. I literally never used them in the game but, figured they could be useful here. At the very least it certainly wouldn't hurt to throw a couple of them down if I'm ever being chased again like I was in Primm.

With that I was finally done and took the time to remove all our awesome new weapons from my inventory and move them back into the duffel bag.

Hefting the bag back onto my shoulder I headed back out into the base and was about to go meet Yoruichi in the mess hall but, saw her tending to a small fire at our campsite in the distance.

"Hey" I waved as I approached.

"Hey" she responded angrily tearing a bite from a stale looking piece of bread and just looking all around pissed.

I sighed and plopped down next to her and took a moment to enjoy the gorgeous scene of the evening sun setting behind the shadow of New Vegas in the distance before opening up the can of worms sitting next to me.

"So, what's wrong" I braced myself and asked?

"Nothing" she grumbled "I just got into it with some bitch in the mess hall and am in a bad mood now."

"Really what happened" I probed already having a sinking feeling since there were only a handful of women here in the first place and I really hoped it wasn't who I thought it was?

"Okay" she swallowed the last bite of her bread "So, there I was just minding my own business buying my food. When this drunk chick starts heckling me from the bar! Apparently, word of how I smooth talked my way through most of the caravans in camp got around and she took offense to that for whatever reason." Yoruichi hmphed "Then the crazy witch started babbling how I was just a gold digger and that I'd never compare to a hard working caravan woman like herself."

"That's kind of mean but, doesn't sound too bad" I responded hoping this was all just a misunderstanding since I was pretty sure she was talking about Cass.

"She didn't exactly say it in such nice words" Yoruichi grunted "Personally I think she was just jealous I'm hotter than she is. I think I heard someone call her Rose of Sharon Cassidy, more like Rose of Shitty Cassidy if you ask me!

"Oh" I sighed seeing the chances of recruiting Cass fading away. Who knew she was such an angry drunk? "What happened after that" I asked?

"I knocked her ass out and left before she had a chance to wake up" she finished.

I stared at her for a moment before bursting out into laughter! I probably should have been more upset about losing my chance to recruit a new follower but, honestly it didn't bother me that much. She was always my least favorite of the companions anyway and her Perk Whiskey Rose was only okay and all it really did was make you immune to the negative effects of alcohol and temporarily raise your damage threshold. Which sounded good but, was completely useless to me since I actually hated alcohol and didn't really like the idea of getting wasted every time I started a fight.

Shaking my head, I turned to Yoruichi "If your still upset I think I might have something that'll cheer you up!"

"Is it your mysterious surprise" she snorted?

"Yep" I grinned and unzipped the duffle bag before pulling out her new sword.

"WHERE THE HELL DID YOU GET THAT FROM" her eyes widened!

"Made it myself" I smirked enjoying the dumbfounded look on her face as I passed her the blade.

"Bullshit" she stated unsheathing the sword and running her finger along its sharp edge "You were barely gone an hour! There is no way you could have made something like this in that time."

I shrugged "Whether you believe it or not doesn't really matter, I just want to know if it's a good enough gift to get me back into your good graces. Because I'm broke as hell right now and don't have the caps to buy you anything."

"I'll think about it" she grinned while rising from her seat and giving the sword a few good test swings.

"If that's not enough how about I sweeten the pot" I reached down and grabbed her new backpack?

"Okay, seriously" she deadpanned "Where are you really getting all this stuff from, because there is absolutely no way you made that out of the crap I gave you."

"Even hear the phrase don't look a gift horse in the mouth" I asked while tossing her the bag?

"Nope" she shook her head and smiled putting her sword down to check out her new back/sleeping bag combo "But, I guess in the end it doesn't really matter where you got it from because I trust you we're partners after all."

'Damn it' I blushed and turned away I wasn't expecting her to get all wholesome like that out of no where! I swear this woman always knows exactly how to mess with me!

"Anyway" I shook off my embarrassment and zipped the duffle bag open "There's a bunch more stuff inside here, I upgraded most of our weapons and made us a few new ones as well."

"Sweet" she dropped the backpack and rushed over to take a look and her jaw dropped as she looked through all of my not so hard work! "...I take what I said earlier back" she looked up at me. I REALLY want to know how you did all this in the time it took me to buy dinner."

"Too bad" I stuck my tongue out at her "I'm not telling."

She narrowed her eyes "You know I'll find out eventually, right? No matter what it takes I'll make you talk."

"Probably" I smiled and agreed "But, that's half the fun! It'd be too boring if I just told you how I did it. So do your worst."

"I'll make you eat those words" she laughed darkly!

I felt a cold sweat down my back.

Crap! Did I just make a terrible mistake! All I wanted to do was tease her a little bit as payback for all the times she did it to me and maybe make our journey a bit more entertaining! But, now I had the feeling I just brought some sort of great disaster on myself!

Coughing into my fist I decided to move on "A-anyway what do you think of the upgrades I made to your weapons?"

"They're really good" Yoruichi inspected her modified hunting rifle "It'll be a lot easier to take out any raiders we come across now that I have a larger magazine and an actual scope on my gun."

I nodded "Iron sights are really only good for close and medium range combat but, in a massive desert like this most fights will probably take place super long range at least at the beginning."

"I just wish we had some more explosives" she finished looked through the bag and sighed.

"Yeah, sorry" I apologized "I didn't really have the skill or materials to make us any good explosives but, I'll definitely get some later on. I know how much you seem to like blowing stuff up."

She crossed her arms "You say that like you don't enjoy it too, I saw excited you were when we blew up that anthill earlier."

"Fair enough" I agreed. "Anyway, there's also a few extra pairs of clothes in there for you as well as an awesome combat knife so go ahead and enjoy."

The two of us spent the rest of the evening getting acquainted with our new equipment and having a bit of relaxed conversation. Just enjoying the relative peace of the camp before we most likely headed back out into the irradiated wastes tomorrow for more misadventures.