New Vegas: Blood Ties

Mark takes another big breath and holds the air, then very slowly begins to release it, blood pressure should be at it's lowest by now. This is it, with the ghoul's head right in the center of the crosshairs mark starts to slowly increase the pressure to the trigger. His face was completely inexpressive, every muscle on his body relaxed, the carbine's butt firmly pressed against his shoulder, his left elbow resting on the ground and his left hand supporting the weapon's weight, the only thought on his mind was to keep those crosshairs centered on the ghoul's head. Suddenly a crack sound is emitted by the weapon, a slight recoil is felt in his right shoulder, and less than a third of a seconde later, the ghoul's head expelled brains trough the air. Mark experienced the satisfaction of a perfect hit.
 
Brad sat down on a rock next to Tom. His plasma rifle ready to fire, just in case a few ghouls scrambled up the cliff. It was tense, but also a little boring waiting for the snipers to finish or a ghoul to find it's way up here.
"There'd better not be a reaver with those guys."
He'd heard stories about those reavers. Though as deathclaws, but they could also throw some kind of glob of radioactive goo that could easily kill an unexpecting traveler. These were creatures of nightmares.
 
Tom breathed in, aligned the iron sights with the ghouls head, one more breath, Tom pulled the trigger. The noise from Gregory was deafening, it wasn't exactly a high performance rifle. The bullet tore through the ghouls neck, completely severing the head. He watched as the glowing ones body staggered about for a couple of seconds without it's head, it then proceeded to fall to it's knees and slump to the ground. Tom took the rest of his breath, that was sorted.

He looked around a bit more with his iron sights, ah, dead ghouls, people had definitly been here before. Wait, if people had went this way before, maybe more than Yasmin knew about this pre-war bunker. He was looking forward to this conversation with her tonight, he was going to try and learn as much as he could about this.
 
Carib let off slow bursts. He wanted the groups to be as controlled as possible with machinegun fire. He knew he wasn't even using the finest ammo, but surplus worked and he watched one glowing feral down in a ragged heap, probably not even aware that one bullet had knicked its spinal column and rendered its lower extremities to jello.

Carib didn't really know of ferals wandering out in the open. Down south in what was once Camp Search Light and the surrounding environs was thick with ghouls. A lot of rads.

"I wonder if there are any tunnels. They don't usually come out in the day. Something is drawing them near. Or they have a hole some place." He wanted to ask Yasmin if the bunker they sought was irradiated or near a significant radiation source. If so, they would have some hard days ahead.
 
Yasmin got up and slung the sniper rifle back onto her back and carefully went back down the ridge.

“We should go check them out for anything of value.” She said rummaging around in her bag for the RadX. Glowing Ones still emitted after they died and she didn’t feel like getting rad poisoning. Plus she was desperate to see if there was any signs of who killed them, though she was positive she already knew.
 
Carib followed close enough, though he kept a five meter distance, the LMG at the low ready. If anything came at Yasmin, he would give it hell. It was how units operated, covering eachother. He didn't have to tell her watch out for the irradiated glowing ones, she was after all a big girl. Everyone had enough rad-x though Carib didn't see a point in looting the ferals. Sometimes bottle caps, trinkets and sometimes human flesh was present on them. Carib didn't care for the latter.

"I got you covered." It was the only thing he said.
 
Yasmin looked over her shoulder and smiled. She nodded her thanks and kept carefully going down to the valley the ghouls were in.

She was glad to have Carib at her back. Out of all of them, he was the one she was getting along with the best and trusted he’d keep her safe.

A dark thought drifted into her head about how he’d react later when they reached their destination, but she shook it off as they drew closer to the corpses.
 
Mark puts the the weapon back on the safety mode. "I'll pass." Looting every kill is probably like a reflex reaction for survivalist in the wasteland. But he was not getting anywhere near those bodies, besides, having all the supplies he needed for the trip and a fortune waiting to be found, the prospect of searching worthless irradiated bodies seemed ridiculous. Mark was a bit different from most people in the Mojave, the years of prosperity by the NCR back in the west made him the kind of men that gets his money from a paycheck, and his supplies from a quartermaster, let the looting for scavengers.

But scaving was what he was going to do, once he got to that base, just because the prize was so good he would only need to do it once.

"No more contacts...?" Mark looks around, then he sits on the gorund and takes off his helmet, he was wearing it ever since the team left the strip, he wasn't on an NCR outfit for him to wear his beret and the helmet had welcome extra protection, both from damage and from the sun, yet it was a bit uncomfortable and heavy after wearing it for too long. He places his helmet on the ground by his right, then places the carbine in a way that the butt touches the ground but the barrel rests on the helmet, to prevent the dirt from getting to it. Then he pulls out his canteen an starts taking zips of water. His forehead is covered in a muddy sweat, a mix of sweat and dust. Mark then cleans his gasses with some water and a cloth, the desert dust wasn't too kind with them. When he was wearing his glasses and the helmet with the goggles on it's top he looked like an authentic four eyes... literally. He then puts some water on the cloth and wipes his face. The simple pleasures kept the morale up and made him feel more human.
 
"I'll pass too. Best thing I ever found on a ghoul was a spork."
 
Tom looked over to Brad at the comment about the cuttelry he had found on a dead ghouls body, "Hey, don't put down sporks, in the Caesar's Legions fight pits back east, they take all of your weapons off you, but they never expect a spork to impale a fight pit champion through the throat, no rules, my favourite", he looked back at Brad, hoping he would be pleased that one of the members on the team had managed to take out seven rounds of the fight pit with fists and a spork, hoping that Brad would take into account that the opponents had proper melee weapons, not a scoop with a point like Tom.
 
"Well in a world where cutlery production isn't the biggest priority, a spork is like gold. And Tom, you did not fight through 7 rounds of gladiator combat with a spork. They give you a blade. Fists I could believe, but a Spork? "
He smiled and turned and shot a glowing one corpse. He looked at the others, and said,"Double Tap."

(I put the last line in purely for reference, if you get it)
 
(Awesome reference XD)

"Okay okay, if sporks are that important to you. Anyway, I don't have any rad-x on me, so I'm not risking the radiation in hopes of finding an oh-so-useful spork."
 
Tom shot a look at david, okay maybe he was lying, "I'll be honest the spork only got me through the first two rounds, after that I disarmed a challenger and kept the knife, turns out knives help a lot when the other guy ain't got a clue how to fight", Tom was slightly embarassed but these things were right by him, in this sort of world, being embarassed wasn't the worst thing that could happen to you, Tom looked back at David, "So, did you fight in any legion pits, I got captured when I passed through Arizona, I had to fight for my freedom" Tom was curious, he wanted to know how david had managed on his trip west, considering Tom hadn't seem him for so long, Tom turned around to fire at some ghouls and just before he pulled the triggered, no ghouls, all of them had been killed by the group, they must've been caught by shock.

It was starting to get slightly dark, it must be getting close to night, Tom thought to himself, 'Hmmm, the closer the night gets the quicker I get to speak to Yasmin about what I saw in Gomarroh and those previously dead ghouls, maybe I could get some actual information out of her if I be polite, that sort of thing works on people, maybe if I started with small talk, or maybe I could ask her about that burn on her neck, she better tell me something, or I might just leave this one way trip'.
 
Yasmin and Carib had almost reached the ghouls when a shot ran out and the glowing one corpse got another hole in it, making her jump several feet in the air. She whipped around and saw David putting down his weapon. She glared as she pulled out her sniper and shot a rock just next to him, reminding him that there were people down here.

“Asshole.” She growled to herself.

(I got the reference. I love that movie. But to someone who doesn’t get it and is near the dead ghouls, the humour is wasted ;) )

She approached the ghouls and heard the rads counter going off on her pipboy. She pretended to be interested while looting the corpses, finding nothing of interest apart from some caps and a spork, which she tossed away.

“Nothing here.” She said to Carib and Moved on to where the other ghouls were. She didn’t bother looting them, just inspecting. Whatever had killed them had had some serious fire power. She grinned as she saw the marks. It looked like them. Hopefully there’d be nothing but good signs. At least, until she found whatever had gone wrong.

“Alright,” She said, walking up to Carib. “Let’s go back. It’s getting dark. We should find somewhere high up to sleep.”
 
As Mark hears a shot hitting nearby, not seeing where it came from and during the "magic hour" that hour where the lighting is the worse for visibility he immediately thinks as well as screams: "Ambush!" On a fraction of a second he takes the rifle right next to him, goes to prone and starts using suppression fire down the cliff. "Where the hell are Yas and Carib? They must have gotten to them! Keep firing!" Mark empties a magazine firing at the general are where the shots came from.
 
"Shit, must be a legion patrol! Tom turned around to where Yasmin and Carib where, "Take firing positions!!!", just before Tom cracked off a shot to where he thought the fire was coming from, and reloaded the second round as dynamically as possible, he wasn't going into any slave pits again. he fired the second shot, damn, it only hit a rock.

Tom squinted, wait, he could only see Yasmin and Carib. Tom looked over to Mark, "Mark, Mark! Stop firing, there's nothing there to shoot at, calm down it was just Yasmin, don't know why she done it, but there is no one here to shoot at!" Tom could sympathise with the NCR's Military, he thought to himself for a couple of seconds, 'Poor bastard, the legion must've gotten to him', Tom had heard the tactics the legion used, and they weren't exactly clean slated ones.

Tom put his hand on Mark's shoulder, "Are you okay?" Tom was genuinely concerned for Mark, 'This guy must've been through a lot, fallen comrades comes to mind'.
 
David smiled as Yasmins shot whizzed past him and hit a rock. He was suprised as Mark started firing. He ran with Tom, hoping to help him. He stayed away from mark, knowing full well how much of a danger he could be. As Tom put his hand on Marks shoulder, David took out his pistol, and aimed at Mark. The man was edgy enough to fire at a simple noise. He was probably traumatised enough to kill his own comrade. David had seen it in many soldiers, enclave and enemy. Some whimpered in a corner, others killed themselves, the rest all went crazy and killed others. That what was happened if you didn't get captured by raiders. So he wondered what men who were captured by the Legion.
 
When Carib and Yasmin got up on the hill with the rest of the group, he felt like scolding her on to never turn your weapon on a comrade, but saved it. It seemed the message had gotten across. He looked at Mark. The man was shaken, and he couldn't blame him. The Legion didn't play nice. Carib knew from experience and so did so many others.

"No Legion. Just ghouls," He looked at the group, "I suppose someone fired pretty close to Yas and she fired back a warning shot.... something that in the future I trust won't happen again." He gave a stern look to both Yasmin and the group.

He looked at Mark, "You okay, Mark?"
 
"Fine!" Mark experienced a mix of anger, fear and baffling. The heart still beating like it wanted to get out of the chest, adrenaline saturating his body and a strong bitter taste in his mouth.

It didn't matter the bullet hit only a rock, Mark knew the buzzing sound of a bullet ripping trough air very well. During training, he had only experienced it once, when he had to go under barbed wire keeping his head down while they fired continuously over their heads. But even then he knew it wasn't real, because it was all staged. But in combat, every time he herd that sound people around him started to die, and his brain learned to associate this two facts only too well.
 
David says to carib,"I'm sorry. I fired a shot at a ghoul to make sure it was dead. I guess mark didn't react to it becaus I was further away. Little girl Yasmin here couldn't stand the noises, so she decided it was best to fire a shot at me, despite my shot being aimed at the ghoul. I'm sorry if this agitated Mark."
He turned to Mark, putting away his pistol.
"I'm sorry man, you should've told us your past with the legion. I suggest we move on, these added gunshots are going to bring more to our position."
 
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