Ch. 14 Encounters

*BANG*

Colton whips his head around and sees Cass loading a shell into her shotgun with a body laid out a few feet away from where it's shoes are. Cass flicks her caravan shotgun closed and Colton looks back down his scope.

He turns back to the building and sees the 2 running at him.

*pew* *pew*

They both die like the rest…. Except the one that is swiss cheese thanks to Cass.

He Che's know the place and doesn't see anybody else.

"Damn, I meant to leave one of them alive to question them" Colton reprimands himself.

Cass stands up and walks over to Colton. "Do you think that's all of them?"

"Maybe? Probably. I didn't see any others" Colton reloads his rifle swiftly. "But let's be careful and make sure, then we can loot the bodies and surroundings"

"Not sure what you're hoping to find, but sure" Cass looks at the three corpses Colton had made. "This is gonna be an eventful first day"

"It always is apparently" Colton shakes his head as he remembers saving Chloe and co.

Colton checks the dilapidated and destroyed buildings. He doesn't find any gang members that are alive. But he does find where they were sleeping. They also had a radscorpion that was half cooked. It wasn't very appetizing.

But I'm the last ruins he found a small ammunition's box.

"Hey Cass! Come look at this!" Colton picks it up and brings it out.

"Can you lockpick it? I'd rather not shoot one of these things open. Hear a guy blew his legs off doing that once" Cass remembers a story she heard from a soldier.

"Yeah, give me a sec" Colton takes out a small box containing a few bobby-pins. It takes him a few seconds and he gets it open.

"Look at you, making it look so easy" Cass lightly punches his shoulder.

Colton looks at Cass. "That's because this one 'was easy'. Some are harder"

"Whatever, just open it! This is the most exciting thing I've done in weeks. Well…. No, definitely more exciting than those soldier pricks" Cass wants to see what kinds ammo they got their hands on. Sometimes this is worth more than its weight in caps.

Colton's eye twitches. "I'm not gonna have to check your for any STDs will I?"

*SMACK*

Colton nearly busted his forehead open on the corner of the ammo box after Cass smacked him.

"The fuck do you think?!" Cass shouts.

Colton looks at her. "I think that I'm not gonna answer that question"

Cass is about to smack him again but he hurriedly opens the box.

Inside the see many, many, grenades.

Both of their eyes go wide at the sight. They don't look broken or faulty at all and are relatively clean.

"Dibs" Colton says and shuts the lid.

"The fuck does 'dibs' mean?" Cass asks with a confused look.

"Dibs is the right to share or choose something. Basically you say dibs, and you get to keep that thing that you call dibs on. There are many rules about dibs. Like who, what, where, when, and why. All affect dibs. An example would be right now. I call 'dibs' on the grenades. That means that I claim these for my own and get to decide how to use them. It also-"

"Just shut up! I think I get how it works and it sounds like brahmin shit"

"Do you mean smell?" Colton asks.

"Did I smell you talking or did I hear you?" Cass narrows her eyes at Colton.

Colton holds his hands up. "Fair enough…. Say, you said you were decent with explosives. Ever used a grenade?"

Cass looks to the side. "Not…exactly. Again, dynamite sticks were what I'm used to"

Colton facepalms. "Whatever. I'll be keeping these for emergencies. And we might be able to use them against the giant ants on our way back"

Colton grins behind his hand covering his face. Just thinking about all the exp he would get from destroying the nest and completing the quest.

He moves his cloak and reveals his satchel made of Deathclaw leather. He stuffs the many grenades inside.

"I've been meaning to ask, is that Deathclaw leather? Your hat and purse, I mean" Cass mocks him.

"Very observant of you Cass, and yes. Was the last things my parents gave me before I left Home" Colton runs his fingers over the satchel and remembers the words printed inside the hat. "Anyway! Lets loot the bodies, then we can get going. We aren't getting any closer to Nipton while we're here"

Colton and Cass loot the bodies. It's mostly ammo that they had on them. And they take the melee weapons just because.

They make some small talk before Colton starts singing and dance-walking again.

They can see the smoke still rising in the air as they got closer.

2 hours pass and they're almost to Nipton, about 45 minutes away. They can see a portion of the town, but not much besides it was still on fire.

*bang* *bang* *bang* *bang* *bang*

They both hear gunshots from up ahead and off the road. They look at eachother for a second before Colton turned his radio off. After he did so, a woman with a unique purple hairstyle approaches them. She seemed to be in a hurry and came from off the road. She wasn't wearing much, but he recognized what she was wearing. It was raider clothes. Although, just barely enough to cover her important bits and boots.

She came up to Colton and Cass, her 10mm pistol holstered on her hip in plain sight.

"Oh thank god! Did you see that? That guy was going to kill me!" The woman says as she stops in front of Colton.

"Would I be correct in assuming you were the one that fired those shots?" Colton puts his hands on his hips. But his cloak hides that his hands are actually on his holstered pistols.

"I didn't fire first!" She shouts. "It was that guy! We were just talking and he suddenly pulled his gun on me and tried to shoot me"

Colton looks into her eyes. "And you didn't get shot? Even though he caught you by surprise? That's lucky"

She nods. "Very lucky. We were talking about bottle caps that had stars on them. He said they were pretty rare and asked if I had any. I showed him one I found a while back. Been my lucky charm. But when I showed him he shot at me. Do you know what they are? Or do you have any? They look like this" The purple haired woman holds out a blue bottle cap with a white star on it.

Cass narrows her eyes. This whole thing is off. But she'd bite. "I've got one. What's it mean?"

"Oh, I don't really know. Besides being rare, not much else" She shakes her head and puts the cap away. "I should get going. Think I need some time to myself"

"Alright" Colton just walks around her. Cass takes a longer route around the woman. She kept her eyes on the woman but turned around for a split second to see what Colton was doing.

When she looked at Colton he had turned around and fired his pistol. Cass turns around and sees the woman holding her 10mm pistol as she bleeds from a hole where her left eye used to be. "Damn, that was a close one" Cass says after swallowing her saliva. She'd of just blasted the woman if it was just herself, but she decided to follow Colton's lead. At least now she knew the woman was actually a bad person. But she'd rather not have risked it.

[ 1/50 Shots through the eye of a person ]

Colton was intrigued. It specifically said through the eye. And of people only. That explains why his other shots on the animals and 'people' didn't count. Although he'd beg to differ on one or two previous shots. Apparently the system was very precise about what counts.

"Check what's on her body. I'm going to go find the body of the person she had fought with. Either stay here or get somewhere safer nearby if anything happens" Colton holsters his gun and begins walking off the road from where the lady came from.

"Sir, yes sir" Cass sarcastically responds. She then searches the woman's body. Cass took the 10mm pistol and 10mm ammo. It wasn't much, but enough for just under two magazines worth. And then there were 9 of the stupid star caps. And that's all she had on her, besides her clothes.

Colton had to search a little bit. But following a blood trail to the body of the dead man wasn't hard. The guy had 5 bullet holes but was still moving. And when Colton checked his 10mm pistol he found the guy hadn't gotten a shot off but had managed to run away. Besides the gun, ammo, and clothing, there was a Journal.

The journal was named Tomas's Journal. Apparently the guy's name was Tomas and the girl's was Jacklyn. They met up at the previous town this guy was at after he got paid turning some scrap in. They traveled together for a while and Tomas fell for the girl. He even had a lucky necklace, but there wasn't one on his corpse. Colton will keep this tale in mind while traveling. Who knows, maybe Cass would stab him in the back.

He went back to Cass and saw her sitting beside the now dead Jacklyn.

"Find anything?" Cass asked.

Colton held up the journal. "Found the guy she was talking about. Apparently they traveled together but she tried and succeeded in killing the guy. My guess is over the stupid star bottle caps"

Cass pulls out a string with 7 star caps on it. "You think this is his? She wasn't even wearing it"

Colton nods. "This journal says something about a lucky necklace. Apparently it wasn't very lucky he died because of it. You wanna keep them?"

Cass chucked the necklace at him and reached into her pocket for 2 more and threw those as well. "Hell no. If they were willing to kill eachother for them I'd rather let you deal with them"

Colton caught the 9 bottle caps. "I'm going to assume you're giving these to me because you don't think I'll die carrying them. And not because you think that they are cursed and will kill the person holding onto them"

"Sure. And I'll give you any I come across as well" Cass says as she stands up. "And there wasn't much else. Just her pistol and ammo"

Colton begins taking the caps off the necklace and pocketing them. "Let's be in our way then. I'm getting a bad feeling from this"

Colton didn't bother turning his radio on. The two walked in relative silence until they got a clear view of Nipton.

Or what was left of it.

There was a fence around the place that had cars or busses turned on their sides to act as a fence. Then there was a whole in the fence where the road led to. There were two red flags with a golden yellow bull on either side of the entrance.

Cass scowls. "Legion"

Colton hasn't seen any Legion before. But the stories from his parents and NCR soldiers don't paint them in any light at all. They're a bunch of sexist rapists, among other things. He looks into Nipton.

"Who won the lottery?! I did!" An ugly looking man came running out of the town.

"Powder Ganger" Cass comments. This causes Colton to be a bit confused. 'We're the Powder Gangers and Legion working together?' He thought.

The man was wearing glasses and pants, no shirt. And he barely had his shoes on. "Smell that air?! Couldn't you drink it like booze?!"

Colton looks at the man. "What lottery?"

The dude looks at Colton like he was stupid. "What lottery?! THE lottery. Are you stupid? The only lottery that matters. Oliver Swanick won THE Lottery! Hahaha smell that air!"

"Ok… Oliver Swanick, are you a Powder Ganger?" Colton wants to make sure. He doesn't know how Cass could tell by pants alone. But he guesses that if he was sure his caravan was destroyed because of them he would memorize their apparel as well.

"Powder Ganger? What? I mean, yeah, used to be, sure" The guy seems to be out of it but comes back down to Earth a bit. " But not no more! Powder Gang is small-time, man! I'm a winner! I won the motherfucking LO-TTER-Y"

"Are you alright? You don't seem all there, what happened here?" Colton tried to get the man to talk.

Oliver looks into the distance behind Colton and Cass. "Are you kidding me? Never felt better!" He replies in a rude and condescending attitude. "Stop bothering me, will ya! I won the fucking lottery! Now fuck off! Win your own fucking lottery!"

Oliver walks between Colton and Cass like he owns the place. It takes everything Colton has not to blow his brains across the sand of the Mojave.

But he just lets the waste of air walk. Not like he would make it far. And there's only the Mojave and Primm to the West and North. Both can kill the idiot.

"Why didn't you blow his brains out?" Cass asks in a low and pissed tone.

"What would the point be? He has nothing to survive the journey to the Mojave Outpost, and Primm is even farther. There's plenty of things to kill him on the way to his destination, and let's say he does make it to the Outpost or Primm. They can just kill him on their own" Colton explains as he turns back to the town.

The red Legion flags move in the wind, putting the bull on full display.

"Whatever" Cass folds her arms in frustration.

Colton turns to her. "Don't get your panties in a twist, we're going in and I need your head clear, or as clear as it can get"

Cass glares at Colton. "Let's hear those words when we aren't just outside of Legion destruction" Cass knew how to pick her fights. And fighting Colton on this was childish, mainly because there could be Legion troops waiting inside. But they have to find out what happened.

"Gladly, now stay behind me. Who knows what will be inside" Colton makes his way into the town.

As soon as Colton gets closer to the town he sees heads mounted on spikes right behind the entrance.

"Fucking shit" Cass comments, slightly disturbed. But not much.

Colton wasn't sure how to feel about this. He didn't like it, but he didn't feel much else.

He continued in and saw building still on fire. But most were already done burning or were left intact. Just before the main road down Nipton there was a Nipton Trading Post. Across the street were houses that looped around town.

If Colton continued down the road there was a pile of burning trees and tires. Then the road would continue to lead out of town to the East.

Before turning down the main road Colton decides to double back to behind the town. There was a metal fence that surrounded what seemed to be a trailer park. It was still a part of Nipton.

Cass followed Colton, she also didn't particularly want to run straight into the town. They circled around and entered the trailer park through a break in the fence. Colton shot five small Brak Scorpions. Basically just radscorpions. The silencer was able to muffle most of the sound and he hoped nobody would try to seek out what made the noise.

Cass and Colton explored the trailer park and scavenged what they could.

They didn't find much. Just a few dead bodies with nothing on them, some lottery tickets, a bunch of junk like empty tin cans, and some prewar clothing. But nothing special all things considered. Not even any ammo for the laser rifle.

Colton looked at Cass as she held an old carton of cigarettes. "At least that's more valuable than this" He holds the laser rifle. "Anything else you find?"

Cass shakes her head. "Nothing. Just some lottery tickets"

Colton looks towards the town. "Let's search the houses around town. There might be something before we jump straight to the town hall"

Cass puts the cigarette carton in a bag. "After you fearless leader"

They search a few houses and find some minor ammo and junk. But they take it anyways, not like the town would need any of it.

They get to the house opposite of the Trading Post and look at it. It was nicer looking than the others. Colton walks in and the place definitely seems of higher quality.

He moves to the right which seems to be the living room and bedroom of the house. Cass moves to the left where the kitchen is.

He searches the living room and there's nothing. He enters the bedroom where there are 3 beds, a cabinet, and wooden shelves with burned books filling it. The bathroom had nothing either. At least the other houses had some medical supplies and chems.

But he did find a single star bottle cap. He pocketed it and put them with the rest, he now has 10 total. He wonders what they are used for.

He finds a brief case under a bed in the corner. He opens it hoping to find something good but only finds a cherry bomb. Which yes, is more junk.

"Jackpot!"

Colton hears Cass shout. He makes his way towards her and sees her in front of an open fridge. She looks over to Colton and smiles and waves him over.

He moves beside her and looks inside.

Alcohol.

Just a bunch of alcohol. He wasn't sure what he expected but this wasn't it. He looks to Cass. "You can take them, but no drinking until we get to the Outpost"

Cass didn't wait for Colton to finish before she started to put them in a different bag they found. "You don't need to tell me, I don't wanna be drunk while fighting Legion troops….. actually…."

Colton turns around. "Don't answer that. Hopefully we can get through this without even confronting anyone else….. besides finding survivors I mean"

Colton and Cass leave the house.

And the sight they see isn't a pleasant one.

"How the fuck could we miss this!?!"