New Vegas: Blood Ties

At the risk of perhaps getting pistol whipped or maybe even shot, Carib ran behind Yasmin. She was fast, he was a bit faster. After she rolled over the corpses checking dog tags, he heard a hysteria and freight that he didn't think was possible for this woman. She seemed so cool, like ice - but he supposed everyone had their breaking point.

Whoever this Evan was, it was someone she cared a great deal about. Family? Father? Lover?

It didn't matter. He rested a hand on her shoulder and it was warm and comforting. There would be time to ask what this was all about, for now, Carib did what perhaps was the most human thing he had done since Katja was taken from him.

Getting on one knee, the hand still firm on her shoulder, "Soft... soft.... Easy, Yasmin. Easy." He removed his mask and his hazel green eyes focused on her face.
 
David's expression turned to that of anger, and he walked over to Yasmin and said,"I knew you lied to us. Not only that, you forgot to mention that the Brotherhood of Steel is here. I don't give a shit about who Evan is, but the brotherhood? They could've killed us, which is something I would prefer not to happen to me. I don't need to piss off the brotherhood on this coast as well. I'm watching you from now on, and if one of us gets hurt because of you lying, well, we'll see what happens then. If anybody needs me, I'll be looting these bodies. I call dibs on the least damaged suit of Power armour."
David walks over to a nearby corpse, and starts taking off the Power Armour. He was angry at Yasmin for this. She was willing to put everybody in danger just to get to this Evan. This wasn't how it was done in the enclave. David thought back to his time in the Reapers, and then returned to the issue at hand. The enclave were Genocidal maniacs but at least they took care of their own.
 
Yasmin didn’t really register David yelling at her. She barely felt Carib’s hand on her. But it was something to go to, and she needed it. She buried her face in his shoulder and started sobbing. It’d been years since she’d broken down. The previous time, it’d been finding out Evan was joining the Brotherhood. She’d argued with him and punched walls then when he left she sat in the bath and sobbed, waiting for the day he’d be sent to hunt some raider party down and it’d be her. The time before that….Her father.

She searched her heart as she clung to Carib. This was devastating, but….It didn’t feel like when her father had died. Evan couldn’t be dead. She’d know it. He was just not here. She cried out a bit more of her sheer relief then pulled back wiping her eyes. “He’s stil-“

Bullets started raining down on them, one grazed a strip out of her thigh. More bounced off the armour of the BoS that David was trying to remove, more at the rest of the party. It was coming from the barn.

Yasmin’s blood began bubbling in her veins. Fiends, she could tell from their drug-fucked voices. They’d know where he was.

“Leave one alive.” She growled out at the rest while she popped a CatEye and pulled out her assault rifle. They were high and it was now nearly total darkness. If she could not get shot again, this should be easy. She tossed a CatEye to Carib and propped the Brother she’d lost it next to in front of her as cover.

This was good, this was familiar and had brought her back. Gun fights, rugs, hiding behind dead bodies. This was her, not a crying wreck. She was pissed off with herself and with Evan for her losing it, and in front of this team too. But she’d take it out on these sacks, then figure out what to do from there. Get information on the way, have a huge fight with the team, maybe lose some or all of them. That didn’t matter. She had solid leads as long as one of these Fiends breathed, and she’d get him back. Then punch him in the face for making her cry twice.
 
Carib donned his Ranger Helmet and took cover. The Light Machinegun was probably garbage against anything in BOS armor or the like, but he knew it did well against soft targets. Still, he would have hoped for one in .308.

Laying prone, he lined the iron sights and fired short bursts into the barn. He saw a muzzle flash and one round bounced dangerously close to his right arm. He didn't flinch. Good. The training and the calm was there. More fire came his way and they missed. Carib just focused on the muzzle flash he could see and fired in that direction. There was a cry and another.

The belt ran dry. Resting the weapon down, he motioned to David to give him cover as he bounded toward the barn, his Carbine in hand. She only needed one to survive, the rest could be taken care of.
 
Tom had stared at Yasmin the entire time she had dotted from body to body, obviously this was not an ordinary bunker, watching Yasmin, someone who was as cold as her, be rocked by this. Tom was not going to allow this to happen, he was not going to allow this mission to fall apart.

Tom turned to the Fiends, time slowed down, Tom pulled back the bolt on his rifle. One straight through the head, the next who leapt up from cover blew through the throat. Tom turned around shooting one in the leg then again in the shoulder as he fell over. Tom swiftly turned around 'Keep one alive Tom, you want this you want to keep one alive'. Tom saw another one aim in between two wooden slats, bang, in the eye. He was sure there was only one left.

Tom looked towards Yasmin who had also been firing upon the enemy, "Let me at the survivor, i'll show him what he gets".
 
More Fiends appeared at the windows and door. There was definitely a bunker there, they wouldn’t have all fit in that barn. Yasmin ripped two apart with bullets, being careful to not hit Carib.

“How about we wait till the rest are dead first, Tom?” She yelled over the gun fire.

Something warm pooled in her boot and for a horrifying second she thought she’d pissed herself. With relief she felt the heat of a bullet through all the adrenalin. Thank god, she’d only been shot in the leg again. It was embarrassing enough her first few gun fights when she was still a teenager, it’d be so much worse now.

She took cover again to reload. Her hands looked ghostly in the blue shade the CatEye turned everything.
 
Being strung out on psycho chems had their advantages. They boosted human reflexes, cast aside reason and could turn weaklings into supermen. However, the withdrawl, the lack of abandon didn't make for very smart fighters.

One Fiend found that out when he got shot in the noodle. He might have been beefed up by buffout and psycho, but when the brain switch was flicked off, it didn't matter.

Some charged out with pool sticks and baseball bats. Carib just switched the selector switch from semi to full auto and sprayed from the hip. Some went down easier than others. One woman was on her knees gasping as the bullets had probably punctured her lungs. Carib slung the weapon and grabbed his tomahawk. She looked up at him, her eyes so glazed over, it was almost a pity. Here she was on her knees, hands weaponless, fingers trembling and with glazed over eyes. It was a pity indeed. The tomahawk came down into the top of her skull. Bone and flesh parted. When she went down, Carib placed a boot on the small of her back and yanked the blade out.

He got near the door when more shots rang out and felt something push him back. It was the armor but Carib didn't feel like testing the theory, he dived for cover.

There was mad laughter and hauling inside the barn. A lot of Fiends.

"Come on lil Piggies!!" One shouted to Yasmin and her Crew. "We got somethin' for you NCR boys. We saw the Ranger."

Carib smiled, I guess from a distant his gear did look standard NCR veteran Ranger. If they looked closer, they'd notice the trench coat and armor had gotten a different more sinister look.

One Fiend was poking his rifle outside the door. Carib just grabbed it and pulled one handed. The Fiend went sprawling. Before he could get barrings, Carib brought the buttstock of his carbine on the back of his head. He went down like a sack of potatoes.

That was the prisoner Yasmin wanted. The rest were fair game. Grabbing the man and slinging across his shoulders he ran towards Yas' position while Mark and the rest gave suppressive fire.

Rolling him off his back, Carib laid the Fiend at her feet.
 
Mark saw the rotting corpses encased in the distinctive armors, for a moment he feared the worse, but no more Brotherhood could be seen at the distance. His sense of smell was not wrong after all, although he wondered if he really smelled that or he just assumed it, since most of the times you smell something in the dessert is actually a rotting corpse.

Tired, Mark started to slowly walk to were Yas and Carib were, taking his time to look around, he had no idea of what was happening, but he figured he was going to find out soon enough. Before he could get the rest of the team, a shooting started.

"Shit!"

Mark, rushed to the nearest cover and peeped from a corner with his weapon sight se see what was going on, the fires was coming from the barn and was pinning Yas and the others down. He then left the backpack on the ground and started to flank the barn. During the whole shooting the fiends have seemed to ignore him.

Nevertheless, he went for cover to cover, whatever rock big enough for him to hide behind. Not remaining more than four seconds outside cover, sprinting in zig zag, and never going our of cover from where he was expected to, sneaking to another location behind the cover before starting to sprint again. He was breathing fast and heavily, covered in sweat, both from the physical stress and the excitement of the situation, a bullet could hit him at any moment. Sometimes while behind cover he was able to hear how the bullets hit the rock he was behind.

He soon made it to a position of advantage near the barn. The occupants did not see him coming, they seemed more worried about Carib who was now charging in their direction. He could se a weapon coming out of one of the windows, so he sticked to the barn's wall, got near the window and tossed a grenade in.

The grenade went off, and the barn went silent for a second, those who were not killed would be stunned, hopefully for Yas some had survived. It depended on where they were inside the barn when the grenade went off. Killing them all seemed unlikely, but stunning them may buy Carib some time to get inside.
 
David moved towards the Barn, hoping to quickly finish off the Fiends left alive. He couldn't see at first, due to it being dark, but the explosion lit up the farm building. David moved to the Barn door, and then motioned for somebody to come over to him, so they could breach the door. He didn't like the idea of taking on several raiders, especially ones with reputations like the Fiends.
 
The explosion made Yasmin jump, not expecting it. But the gunfire ceased her way, the Fiends more concerned with the men who were swarming their barn.

She kept her gun aimed at the barn, just in case, while using one hand to take off her belt and making a loop that could be tightened and slipped it around the unconscious Fiend’s neck that Carib had dropped at her feet. It’d had been the first gift she’d gotten in a while and she’d been reminded of when her lover used to bring her people as gifts.

There were only a few Fiends left and all the men were focused on them, so she wouldn’t be needed to wipe them out. She stayed crouched down and thought. ~What’s the best way to wake this piece of shit up? Pouring something on him? Breaking a finger? Should I stay? They are pissed. I could disappear. But what if Evan is inside? Fuck.~

She made sure the belt was tight around his neck and waited for the fight to finish before waking him up.
 
Nodding as Tom prepared to breach with him, David waited a few seconds, and then kicked in the door. He fired 3 rounds into a fiend, causing the raider to fall to the ground, barely alive but in much pain. He then shot another in the torso, and when the man hit the ground, he fired again to make sure he didn't get up. He had expected these Fiends to be tough, but he had no idea they were so drugged up they could take this much of a beating and live. He looked around, seeing nobody was in view, and took a quick look at Tom to see how he had done.
 
Mark quickly scouted the area around the barn, to see if there were any fiends outside or fleeing. No one was there. He then approached a widow and yelled.

"Clear outside!"
 
Brad sprinted toward the barn.
"I'll just do a some quick body checks. They might have stims."
 
Seeing that all the fiends were dead, David started picking through through a body. He found a cowboy repeater and 12 rounds, some Pyscho and and an empty syringe. He left the barn and waited outside.
 
Tom looked around a bit, the adrenaline of the fight had gotten to him, he wandered over to a helmeted Brotherhood Paladin, dead on the floor. Tom picked the dogtags off the ground near by the body:

Name: Gregory J. Brown
D.O.B: 02/03/2256
P.O.B: Mojave

Tom squinted as he read the dogtag, Tom knew the name, Greg had helped Tom in Denver when the shit had hit the fan. To be fair it wasn't only Greg, but Greg was the one he remembered the most. It didn't strike Tom as a terrible thing, Tom barely knew the Paladin, but somehow it got to him.

Tom got up from the body, "Leave the bodies will you, this squad...they deserve to be left alone".
 
A shrill scream ran out as Yasmin snapped the Fiend’s finger back, breaking him out of unconsciousness. She pulled out a tin of fixer and stuck the needle deep into his leg, emptying it. A few seconds later as the drugs cleared from his brain, he began screaming louder. Yasmin yanked on the belt, tightening it around his throat like a choker collar.

“If I were you, I’d save my energy for talking. Who knows how long I’m gonna let you live.” She snarled between her teeth at him.

“Gimme some psycho and I’ll tell you what you want.”

“Tell me what I want and I’ll give you some psycho.”

“No, no, no, I need it, I need it now!”

She kept the belt held with one hand and punched him in the face with the other. This’d be a two hand job. She looked over at Carib, who’d brought the Fiend to her, and seemed the least likely to try to kill her once she was done with the Fiend.

“Carib, can you come hold the leash to this dirt bag for me? I might need two hands.” She looked back at the drug addict who she was couching next to. “And his smell is getting to me.”

He spat at her face but missed and got her shoulder, so she rammed her shoulder into his nose with a wet crunch.
 
Carib tightened the straps around his hands, jerking them in a painful position. If he needed to add some torque, it wouldn't take much to break the man's arms. Carib held him still.

"Now see what happens when you spit at a woman? Hmm. She breaks your nose. And if you do it again..." Carib withdrew the scout knife he kept on a back sheath, "I use this to play dentist." The blade was touching the hard bristles of hair around his mouth. He gently pressed the tip against his cheek and saw the pin prick of blood.
 
Mark was still in the barn, checking the damage done. He realized that the group Yas had put together was not one of amateur fighters. Everyone was able to work as a team and get the job done, everyone knew what to do, and no one needed to give direct orders, they acted like a team that had fought together before. Mark even suspected if some in the crew had been part of a military organization before.

Yas was not able to do much, as she was injured early in the battle.

Where are Carib and Yas anyway? Mark thought.

He then went outside and watched them at the distance, he then looked trough the scope on his carbine to get a better look. It looked like they were torturing one of the fiends. Mark could expect this from the others, but now Carib was pulling a knife at the fiend. He hoped that he was just trying to scare him, but it looked like Carib meant business. What was happening? Carib wasn't the kind of person that would torture someone just for money. Mark did not have a lot of sympathy towards the fiends, but that was not the way things were done, there were limits, you can't go down to the same level than those ruffians.

Mark started walking to where Carib and Yas were.
 
Yasmin crouched down eye to eye with him. He probably couldn’t see her too well because of the darkness, but every feature of his was clear and blue.

“Where are the rest of the Brotherhood soldiers?”

He gasped and gagged with the belt cutting into his throat.

“Speak while you still can!” Yasmin half snapped half yelled and pulled out her own knife.

The Fiend jolted and looked back at her, glancing between her and Carib. “You don’t look like soldiers.” He struggled out. “How do you know there were more?”

Yasmin raised the knife point to his eye. “I. Just. Do. Now tell me, where are the others.”

His eyes crossed to look at the knife and he started choking again. She nodded for Carib to tighten the belt. “In there!” he screamed out as best he could. Sweat began pouring from him. The fixer hadn’t lasted long, this guy must have been a heavy user. He was about to go into withdrawal.

“Where?!” Yasmin snarled.

“The bunker, under the barn! We took them in there and killed the rest after finding out what’s going on!” He yowled. “Gimme psycho, I need psycho!”

Yasmin screamed out in distress at the death of the soldiers and plunged her knife into his side. She pulled it out with a slight twist and stood up, looking heatedly at Carib. “Kill him. Do it quickly and painfully.” She started walking towards the barn. “I need to go find his body.”
 
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