//------------------------------// // Chapter 13 // Story: Fallout New Vegas: Unexpected Friends // by Sleepyted //------------------------------// The upper floors of the Bison Steve were probably worse off than their lower equivalent. The wooden floor having gone darker with old age and stains covering its surface, random scraps of paper scattered every now and again. A sparking Nuka-Cola machine against the wall to the girls left, its sparks bouncing off nearby walls. Adjusting her grip on the incinerator Anne turned to the right and began to walk down the hall, Twilight close behind with her 9mm pistol floating besides her head. Barely after turning both of the companions stopped mid stride as a convict did the same on the other side of the room. Nigh instantly the convict’s arm shot down to his holstered pistol and with as much speed a bullet lodge itself into his stomach and a large ball of fire soon after. Burning fuel covered his body as he let out a scream of pain before falling down limp. Anne looked over the weapon in her arms, smiling happily as she looked over the slightly battered tool. “You and I are going to get along swimmingly.” She said, stroking the side of the weapon. “Are you… talking to that thing?” Twilight asked uncertainly. “If I’m friendly with it it’ll serve me better.” Anne replied, whipping off some of the dirt built up on the weapon's surface. “I don’t think it’s alive.” Twilight said, her eye being drawn to the left where a locked door was. “Hey, there’s a door here.” She finished, walking over to it. “Let me see.” Anne said, following her. Anne crouched down as she looked over the lock, resting the incinerator against the wall as she hummed to herself. Twilight looked on as Anne pulled out a screwdriver and a small pin. “What are you doing?” Twilight asked. “I’m picking the lock.” Anne replied, putting the bobby pin into the top part of the lock and the screwdriver at the bottom. “How do you do it?” “Well, I need to arrange the pins on the inside of the lock and while I do that slowly twist the screwdriver to see if it twists and if not, move the pin around till I find the right positioning.” She said, small clicking sounds coming from the lock. Twilight watched as Anne constantly moved around the pin, it starting to bend unnaturally before it snapped with a soft crack. “Shit.” Anne muttered under her breath. Reaching into her pocket she pulled out another pin and began to work again. In the end it took seven bobby pins to open the lock, the broken pins scattering the wooden floor. “Ah ha, I knew I could do it.” Anne exclaimed, stretching her back as she stood up. “How many more of those pins do you have left?” Twilight asked worriedly. “Three.” Anne replied blandly, enter the room. “Hello, what do we have here?” She finished. The room itself was small, very small, it was more of a broom closet than a full-fledged room. In the room there were only two sets of shelve, one holding a first aid box and the other set holding doctor’s bag and to the left was another first aid box on the wall. Anne immediately grabbed the doctor’s bag and began to stuff it into her larger bag and while she was doing that Twilight looked through the first aid boxes. Once Anne was done Twilight held out to her a bottle of purified water and an oddly shaped needle which had three different chambers filled with chemicals. “Nice find Princess, I’ll just put this into the pack and we’ll continue on.” Anne said, holding out one of her hands. Twilight floated the needle and bottle into Anne’s hand before Anne put them away into her bag. They did another quick look over of the room before they both left, Anne picking up the incinerator as she exited through the door. The only doorway that continued forward split of into two ways, one to the right that runs into a dead end caused by a collapsed roof and the other way connecting to a sharp corner. Anne stomped around the corner while Twilight followed behind worriedly, gun still at the ready. Turning around the corner the two saw a smoking convict leaning against the wall, a pistol in his other hand. Before either one of them could do anything the convict dropped to a knee and fired a salvo of four bullets at them. One of the bullets hit Anne directly in the shin, causing a small metal ‘pang’ before bouncing into a nearby wall. But even though the bullet didn’t penetrate the armor it did cause her leg to jerk backwards half a foot and making her loose her foot and stumble into the wall while all the other bullets missed and hit the wall behind them. While this was happening Twilight sent her own barrage at the convict. The first bullet went wide, hitting a light on the wall and shattering its light bulb into shards of glass, the second one found its mark in the convicts arm and the final one impacted with his skull with loud squish as his brain became mush. Once she managed to get her footing secure again Anne saw that the convict was dead with skull reduced by a large amount. “Well, at least we minimized their numbers.” Anne said, shaking her slightly aching leg while Twilight looked at her with a slightly green expression, swallowing down her bile in her throat. No sooner did she say that three convicts came running around the corner at the end of the hall. “I spoke too soon” She finished under her breath. As quickly as she could so she wasn’t slow to the draw again Anne fired as quickly as she could with the incinerator, large balls of burning fuel spraying down the hall. The closest two convicts got it the worst, fire covering most over their bodies while the other one ducked back behind the corner he came from before the fuel reached him. The two burning convicts stopped after a few moments as their hearts stopped from the strain. The untouched convict stuck his head around his cover and fired his varmint rifle once before ducking back. Meanwhile Twilight dove back behind the corner they came from while Anne stood in the open, firing a ball of fire every so often to keep the convict in cover as she slowly backed up to get to Twilight. Anne quickly took a position next to Twilight as she reached her cover. “I think I we might need to lay down some heat on these guys.” Anne said, peering around the corner as she saw four new convicts burst from the doorways, firing at the top of Anne’s head. Anne quickly pulled her head back, wincing as dried plaster cut into her face. One of the larger piece reopened the wound above her eye. While Anne was rubbing away to blood that was going into her eye Twilight floated her gun around the corner and fired blindly down the hall. “Shit!” A voice yelled. “The gun’s possessed!” They continued before letting out a yelp of pain and falling to the ground with a bullet in his knee. “Y-you okay Anne?” Twilight asked worriedly as she looked at the bleeding Anne. “I’m fine Princess.” She replied, wiping away some more blood from her eyes, smearing red across her forehead before hefting up her incinerator. “But now I’m going to have some fun.” She said with a wicked grin. “We’ll bash up the place, burn off their face, and I’ll have fun.” She sung madly, turning her head and giving Twilight her grin. “Ah we-a blaze the fire, make it burn dem!” The crazed woman jumped around the corner, her finger twitching on the trigger of her weapon and spraying balls of burning fuel all down the hall, still singing. “We bash up the place, burn off your face, you should run.” She yelled over the screams of agony. “I end your life with da fire.” Twilight looked around the corner to see that Anne was still shooting fire down the hall, the walls, ceiling and floor were hardly visible from the inferno that was raging, and Twilight could even feel the heat from across the hall. She could faintly see the crisp bodies for the convicts scattered down the hall, no bullets coming at them from them. “Anne!” Twilight yelled. “You can stop now!” Anne stopped firing, the evil grin still on her face as she looked at her handy work. The roof at a thick layer of black smoke covering it and staining the old plaster, the walls almost entirely charred with only a few of the original cream brown color and the floor which was once covered in stained and rotten carpet was now reduced to crumbling charcoal, looking rather unsafe to Twilight. And what made Twilight’s stomach churn were the smoldering bodies covering the floor, the smell of their burnt flesh filling the hall. Twilight did her best not to gag at the sight of the black and flakey skin but she couldn’t stop herself from empting her mostly empty stomach again, little more than bile coming out this time. “If you’re going to chuck every time we kill a bastard I’ll have to blindfold you.” Anne said offhandedly, whipping away blood that began flowing down into her eye again. Twilight was still hunched over with her mouth open while letting out little gag sounds as small bits of stomach acids came out. “W-who came up w-with something so-“ Twilight was cut off as she began gagging again. “I ain’t got a clue, but it’s effective.” Anne answered, looking at the bodies of the roasted convicts. “Now come on, let’s look the place over, it’s starting to smell.” She finished, turning and walking down the hall the away from the bodies, seeing that a wall stopped it after two doors. Walking down to the last one Anne brought back a leg and gave the old wood a hard kick, the rusted lock giving little to no resistance as it flew open. The room much like the rest of the building was in shambles. The ceiling above the bed had given way and covered it almost entirely, only a little bit of the frame still showing under the pile of old wood and plaster. At the bottom on the bed was a wooden dresser with broken glass windows on it, nothing could be seen inside. To the left of the door was a metal table with a wooden top, said top had a broken green lamp, a telephone, empty bottles of whisky and burnt out cigarettes. There was a book shelf with the only remaining books falling off and destroyed. At the other side of the small room was a bathroom, a sink, bath and toilet covered in dust and stains. Anne let out a sigh and left the room, moving onto the next. She opened the door much like the first one, with the bottom of her metal clad boot. The room was almost inaccessible, the entire roof having had falling and taking the room above with it. Everything was destroyed and made a large pile in the middle of the room. Anne left the room and went down the hall where the convicts came from, stepping over their bodies. Twilight, having finished her throwing up teleported after Anne as she didn’t want to go anywhere near the bodies. This hall was exactly like the other, dirty carpet, flaking wall paper, crumbling roof. The first door to the left was opened and was totally blocked up with rubble, nothing could be seen. The next room was destroyed, but not entirely, the roof was angled in such a way that one could walk up it to the floor above. Deciding to look into that later Anne continued to walk down the hall, walking past a sparking Nuka-Cola machine. The next room had nothing of note in it so they moved onto the next, turning the corner to another hall. “This is starting to get repetitive.” Anne observed. Busting open the next door the pair saw a burnt skeleton knocked over in a chair, blood staining the carpet under its head. On the table it was once sat at was a note, which Anne picked up and read aloud for them to hear. “Mister Petersen. If you want to see your wife alive again, bring the cash in small unmarked bills to the Bison Steve on Tuesday.” She read. “So they were a ponynapper?” Twilight asked uncertainly. “It sounds like that, and it looks like he got his just deserts.” Anne said, looking distainly at the corpse before walking out of the room, Twilight falling soon after. The next two doors were boarded off and blocked so the only one left was at the end of the hall. Kicking at the door Anne found it didn’t budge. Trying again came up with the same results. Sighing Anne crouched down and pulled out her screwdriver and bobby pins. “Um, am I aloud a try at this?” Twilight asked, knowing what Anne was about to do. Anne turned her head and looked at Twilight, smiling internally at the thought of something she could tease Twilight about her being better. “Sure, here.” She said, smiling as she held out the items. Looking at the lock Twilight didn’t grab the tools, instead letting her magic flow into the lock, a soft click sounding out. Hoping that was good Twilight twisted the handle and pushed the door, it opening with a soft squeak. She looked at Anne who was still holding out her lock picking tools too dumb fuddled to know what to do, her idea of picking on Twilight going out the window. “Umm, Anne, you okay?” Twilight asked. Anne blinked a few times, standing up and putting away the bobby pin and screwdriver and walking into the room. “Yea. Just didn’t think you could do it.” Anne confessed. “Gee, thanks for the vote of confidence.” Twilight deadpanned. “No problem.” Twilight let out an annoyed sigh as she followed Anne. The room was slightly larger than the others, but still in no better condition. On the room’s bed was a skeleton wear the remains of a blue dress, blood staining the mattress under its neck. With a sad sigh Anne walked further into the room while Twilight looked at the body sadly. “There’s another in here.” She heard Anne’s voice call from the bathroom. Twilight went to her friend and saw a skeleton was in the bath, an arm dangling out the edge and over a small puddle of dried blood and a pile of needles, none used, and a small knife. Anne knelt down and picked up the drugs from the floor before putting them into her pack. “I think I know what happened.” Anne said, looking down sadly. “What?” “They were probably once a couple, sharing a room on a holiday or something, hoping to get rich in Vegas probably. Then either two things happened, one is that the atomic bombs came and to spare his love the pain he slit her throat while she slept and came in here and cut his wrist and bled to death, dying before the atomic heat killed them. Or the other is the man got doped up on drugs and killed his girl, not wanting to live with himself her killed himself, I prefer the first one to be honest.” Anne said sadly. “At least she died peacefully.” Twilight tried to reason. “But he would have known he was the one to end her life.” Anne pointed out. Twilight let out a sad sigh, walking out of the bathroom. “Now, let’s get to the next floor, I for one think this floor is bone-chilling.”