Chapter 12 - Help From Strangers
[Last night]
It's been an hour after Tom fainted, even his friends were all with him, he still felt alone, probably because it's too quiet. Chalk had been sitting by the trailer, his pistol at ready, looking for anything dangerous. Nothing had happened so far, although being safe was top priority, Chalk started getting bored.
"Maybe I can scout around the camp?" he thought as he stood up.
Chalk shook his head, "No, what am I thinking? I can't leave my friends here." and returned to his sitting position.
Another hour passed, still nothing, not even any wild animal approached. Usually around this time, he was either sleeping at his lovely camp, or scouting with his people.
"Just look around the camp, I think it will be fine if don't leave to far." Chalk stood up again. "Let's be quick."
Chalk started sneaking around the camp, keeping a low profile, then he arrived at the General Store and thought, "Maybe I can finish the task myself, save time for my friends." but before he could open the door, he heard something , but before he could react, a bullet hit his back. It was painful, thankfully, it did not hit anything vital. There's no way he could hide in the store now, so he decided to flee, but no matter how fast he ran, he could not outrun a mongrel, it bit his leg and let out a painful grunt, couldn't let the enemy knew his position, he took out his club, and bash at the mutt, it didn't even budge, so Chalk had no choice, but to took out his pistol and shot a few bullets at its direction. The mongrel was dead, but his pursuers must have heard the gunshot. He got rid of the mongrel, it bit quite deep, and have no time to tend the wounds, he need to escape now. He then found a cave, even he knew caves were not good signs, it was his only chance to live.
Entering the cave he spotted a clear path on the left, and a path full of spikey groves, but after all these scout works he done, he became quite perspective, he managed to see a little path that he could squeeze through. Without a second thought, he attempted to went through the groves. Being poked by the spikes was not the major problem right now, so he gritted his teeth and kept on going.
Then, he heard a clear clanking sound, immediately after, immense pain coursed through his leg to head. Looking down, he stepped on a trap while still in the groves. He cried, but without any sound, then bent down and tried to release himself. He was exhausted, he used all his strength to open the bear trap, in the meantime, poked by the nearby groves.
Few attempts later, the trap was opened and he couldn't stop bleeding. The pain made him dizzy, but he thought, "It was either this, or being tortured by White Legs scums." he kept on going despite being crippled. And finally in the end of the path, he found little space and a wooden door, but it was locked. He sat by the door and took out anything that could help him treated his wound. He didn't have time to gather ingredients for meds, so all he got was some healing powders, bandages and few bottles of water.
After tending his wound with those meds, wrapping the bandages around it. It's still hurt like hell, but at least it was under controlled, for now. All these actions and blood loss exhausted him, he wanted to sleep, but he needed to stay alert. Even this place was quite well hidden (Not in the actual game though.), what if those bastards found him somehow?
"So tired..." Chalk thought, but before he passed out only one sentense came to his mind
"I'm sorry..."
==========================================================================================
Meanwhile, three White Legs tribals pursuing a lone Dead Horse tribal, they followed the trail of blood left by their prey and ended up at a cave entrance.
"What are we waiting for? I want to slice that Dead Horse into pieces!" tribal B said while playing with his tomahawks.
"Are you serious? Caves are bad news man..." tribal C started to shiver as he looked at the myserious cave.
"Don't tell me you believe in those degenerates' bad omens." tribal A gestured at the last two words.
Tribal C simply nodded, tribal A facepalmed and tribal B was just getting more slice happy.
"Ugh... Fine! You stay out here and guard the entrance. Kill anything that is not us." tirbal C let out a relived sigh.
"Let's get that son of a bitch." tribal A then headed in to the cave with tribal B.
==========================================================================================
[Back to present]
"Zach, let him go!"
Zach released Tom from his grasp, still riding on Tom's belly. Crossed his arm and pouted like a child.
The other figure knelt down next to Tom, "Jeez, you alright?" and checked if anything was fine.
"What the fuck...(cough) is wrong... with your friend!?" Tom asked, still dizzy. He examined the guy next to him, he wore a white shirt with a black leather vest and brown military jeans, but the most distinctive was that he was wearing a NCR 1st Recon beret."Also, can you please?" using his angry gaze to point at the big boy sitting on him.
"Oh!" the figure chuckled, "You heard him Zach." Zach unwillingly stood up, becoming even more grumpy.
"To answer your first question. Big boy Zach here loves jumping off high places, he thinks its funny. And Zion has plenty of them. But last time he landed... he landed on his head." the guy said. "Oh, let me give you a hand." he reached out his hand.
"Your friend is an idiot." Tom stood up and patted the dust from his pants.
"I can hear you!" yelled Zach.
"Zach may be an idiot, but... who am I kidding. He's dumber than a brick." the man laughed. Tom also chuckled a bit.
"Anyway, I'm Mike, Zach's butt buddy, and now his nanny." the man answered.
"Tom. I was in the middle of rescuing my friend from those White Legs savages, and..." Tom stared at Zach angrily.
"Hey! Park Ranger Zach saved your ass back there!" Zach yelled.
"You're trying t-" Tom sighed, "Whatever, I don't have time for this." he picked up his revolver. "Thanks again, Mike. And do please, keep an good eye on your KID, alright?"
"You got it! If you need help, we'll be at the ranger station up there, okay?" Mike pointed at the ranger station's direction.
"Yeah, thanks." Tom replied. "I guess..." he murmured.
Mike patted Zach on the back, "Alright Zach, let's go back figuring how to fix your head." and both of them went towards the cabin.
Before Tom entered the cave, he recalled the skill that Zach, and despite Mike's light-hearted manner, he still looked like a decent combatant. But considering Zach's mental state right now... He sighed. "Fine... Maybe I do need some help."
"Hey, guys!" Tom ran towards the duo. "I could use extra guns."
"And we're glad to help, right Zach?" Mike tapped Zach's arm with his elbow.
"Yeah... I guess..." Zach answered with a irritated face.
"Thanks." Tom gave a little smile.
"What do you want us to do?" Mike asked.
"Mike, what can you bring to the table?" Tom asked.
"I have this." Mike took out his carbine. "And I think I am quite okay with this."
"What about Zach?"
"I not sure about present Zach, but he WAS a gun nerd." Mike said.
"Well then, here..." Tom took out the hunting shotgun and a few ammunition he found at the fishing lodge and handed to Zach. "I hope you make good use for it."
Zach took the shotgun, mood lightened up a bit. "Park Ranger Zach appreciate your donation! But, don't think you can escape punishment after this!"
"Riiight... So, my friend was presumed to be hunted by those White Legs bastards into that cave, and we're going to save him."
"What does your friend look like?" asked Mike.
"Do you guys know what the White Legs looks like?" Tom asked in reply.
"Yeah." Zach and Mike answered in unison. "Dumb people with dumb hair." Zach added.
"Good, he wears a hat, but he's still kind of bald without it. Is that clear?" Tom was kind of satisfied when he saw both of them nodded.
"Here's what we gonna do. Mike, I want you to come with me. And Zach, I want you to sta-"
Zach was shocked, "Stay!? You think Park Ranger Zach not good enough!?" and started to get furious.
"No, please let me finish..." Tom tried to calm him down, and it didn't seemed to work at all.
Mike put his hand on Zach's shoulder to try comfort him, "Come on, Zach. Let him finish." he said.
It was quite effective, Zach took a deep breathe. "Fine. What do you want Park Ranger Zach to do?"
Tom sighed with relief, "Listen, I still have friends in the General Store over there. The door is locked, but they still need someone to guard them." he said.
"It's only fair that Park Ranger Zach protect your friends since you gave me the cool boomstick."
"Thank you, Zach. I really appreciate it. By the way, we have a safety code, it's 'Apple Bloom'. You got it?"
"No worries, Park Ranger Zach kicks butts." Zach said and went towards the General Store.
Mike waved at his friend. "You take care, Zach."
==========================================================================================
In the General Store, Applejack and Fluttershy were still trying their best to find all the 5 lunch boxes after Tom left, but they only found 4 so far, there was a locked drawer inside the only other room in the store, they thought it might be in there, but they have no way opening it, so they decided to wait for Tom to come back.
Resting beside a wall, Applejack stomach growled, "Right, we haven't eat anything. Fluttershy, let's check how many food do we have?" Fluttershy nodded, but when they tried to reach for their saddle bags, only to find out, they had left their bags in the trailer.
"Oh no! what are we going to do?" Fluttershy started to panic.
"Calm down, Shy. This is a general store, right? It has to have food in here." Applejack said.
Calmed down a little, Fluttershy nodded. "Yeah, let's find what we can eat."
Few minutes after, they gathered what seemed to be food in the store, and both started checking what was edible. Most of them had faded, so it's hard to identify.
Applejack started browsing the pile of packaged food. "Let's see here... Fancy Lad Snack Cakes, looks like cupcakes to me... Sugar Bombs, ah think this is a box of cereal... looks fine so far... Oh! Dandy Boy Apples!" She squinted her eyes to look at the sentence in the back, "Apples so good they never go bad, that's hardly believable. At least, ah can try some apples of this world."
"Umm, AJ?" Fluttershy called while holding a can.
"What the matter?" AJ came next to Fluttershy.
"I think these are meat." said Fluttershy, pointing at another packaged food. What she was holding was a can of Cram, and she was pointing at a Salisbury Steak. There were a few of them in the pile.
"Hmm... What about giving them to the rats?" Applejack said.
"Good thinking, so they won't starve and need to go out facing more danger." Fluttershy said, and walked toward Pixie, she was laying next to her husband and her kids, with Chump by their side acted like a guardian of some sort.
"Mrs. Pixie, we found some canned meat for you. Now you don't have to go out and risk of getting in danger." Fluttershy said.
"Oh, that's very nice of you, dearie. Mind bringing them to me? As you can see, I'm kind of occupied." Pixie said with of bit of embarrassment.
Didn't notice at first, Fluttershy saw Pixie was breastfeeding her children, she blushed a little. "Oh, of course. I'll be right back."
Fluttershy grabbed as many food as she could with of her foreleg, since her wings were still recovering from the coyote attack. But, it's still a little to much for her to handle. Didn't even bother to ask, Applejack helped her carrying the rest of the packages. Fluttershy gave her a warm smile, and both of them put the foods next to the rodents.
"Be careful, don't eat the package itself, especially this one," Fluttershy pointed at the Crams. "they might make you uncomfortable."
"Thank you so much. We're so lucky to have you here." Pixie said.
"Oh, by the way, do you need help feeding your husband?" asked Fluttershy.
"You're too kind, but I think I'll manage." said Pixie.
"If you need anything, just call my name." said Fluttershy.
Pixie nodded and kept on feeding her younglings. And the mares went back doing their business, managing food.
"So, do you think these are edible?" asked Fluttershy. "From what I heard, they might be contaiminated like the creatures in this world."
"We don't have much choice now, do we?" Applejack sighed, "Might as well get a full check-up before and after going back to Equestria." Applejack said as she managed to open a Dandy Boy Apples, there were three apple on a stick covered in syrup, she sighed again, "There goes nothing..." and digged in.
As soon as the 200 years old food entered her mouth, she immediatly spitted them out. "Bah, what the hay is this? This ain't apple, this is worse than those made by Flim and Flam!"
"Umm... Maybe you're too harsh on it. Let me have a try." Fluttershy reached her hoof out.
"Ah warn ya, they're awful." Applejack passed the packaged food to Shy as she took a box of Sugar Bombs from the floor.
Fluttershy took a bite on the syruped apple and chew for a bit then swallowed it, "I know you have a high standard on apple products,AJ. I think this is not that bad, but compared to your apples, it's a huge downgrade." she said as she took another bite.
Applejack sighed,"Thanks Shy, maybe you can have those apples. Ah'll try these Sugar Bombs instead." she managed to bite a little hole on the box. Take a look inside, "Yep, those were cereals alright." then she connected her mouth to the hole, gribbed it with her teeth, lifted the box up, and pour some cereals in her mouth. She took a few bites, swallowed them, then she froze, with a deadpan expression.
"AJ, what's wrong!?" Fluttershy waved her hoof in front of AJ, trying to get her attention. As she began to worry, she noticed AJ's pupils were getting bigger, then she started shaking. This didn't calm her down, so she embraced AJ, "It's okay, AJ. I'm here." then she heard AJ whispered something.
"Too... Sweet..." was the only thing Fluttershy could comprehensed, but she realized that AJ was in a sugar rush. She then took the cereal box from AJ and looked at its ingredients.
"Holy Celestia! This cereal contains more sugar than anything Pinkie Pie ever made!" she looked around to find something to stablelized AJ's blood sugar, but could only find a few bottles of water left by Tom on the store counter. Without hesitation, she opened a bottle with her mouth then started slowly pouring water in AJ's mouth. Minutes passed, she noticed AJ's pupils were getting smaller, and her expression slowly changed back to normal.
Fluttershy hugged AJ, "Oh, sweet Celestia, you're okay." sahe said.
AJ hugged back, "Thanks Shy, I bet even Pinkie can't handle those sugar, sweet Celestia indeed." she joked.
"Jokes aside, that cereal contains tremendous amount of sugar, even these apples are a bit too sweet for me." Fluttershy said picking up another packaged food. "Maybe we should read all of their ingredients before we eat those stuff."
"Agreed. But I need a rest, still feeling dizzy from that sugar rush." AJ said then getting into a sleeping position.
Fluttershy nodded, and began to worry, "Tom, Chalk, I hope you're okay, we need you two."
But before Fluttershy could check any other packages, she heard something with her sensitive ears, footsteps...
==========================================================================================
On his way to the General Store, Zach was still in a grumpy mood, "Guard duty, not fun. Why does Ranger Assistant Mike always gets to have fun?"
Standing at the front door, he turned his head, nothing was in sight, "Quiet, need more action." Zach thought and proceed to knock on the door.
On the other side of the door, the rats cowered in the corner with Chump standing in front of them, Fluttershy started to freak out, she tried to calm the others, but didn't know what to do next, if it was Tom, it's fine, but she couldn't tell who that was. She couldn't risk letting others know they were in there, so she tried to stay quiet.
There were no responses, so Zach decided to knock a few more time, "This is Park Ranger Zach. Anyone copy?" he said still with his idiotic tone.
"A park ranger?" Fluttershy thought, "This human out there, he's a ranger here? Can he be trusted? Why does he sound like that?" so much questions popped out in her head.
Still got no responses, "Park Ranger Zach is here to protect you, Tom's order!"
"Wait, did he say 'Tom's order'?" Fluttershy wanted to trust the person outside, but he still might be someone who had heard of Tom and tried to use it to get close to them. She then remember they have a safety code, if he really was sent by Tom, Tom would told him the code. She decided to remain silent.
Zach was getting annoyed, before he barged in with force, he recalled something about a safety code. "Is the code 'Apple Boom' or 'Apple Broom'? Grrr...thinking hurts."
Seconds had passed, Zach finally figured out, "Tom told Park Ranger Zach about something of a safety code. 'Apple Bloom'!" he said confidently.
Fluttershy gasped, he knew the code, so she finally whispered out, "Did Tom really send you?" she asked.
Upon hearing a voice, a female one, and a rather cute one, Zach's mood got a drastic change. "That's right ma'am, Park Ranger Zach is here to guard this establishment under Tom's order."
"Thank you, Mr. Zach. My name is Fluttershy." Fluttershy was relieved, "It's a pleasure to have you here." she said.
Zach chuckled. "Park Ranger Zach thinks that too."
After the conversation, Zach started his guard duty. Guard the door for a few minutes, and patrolled around the store, then repeat.
"Fluttershy, who's that on the outside? Are we in danger?" asked Pixie.
Fluttershy came next to the rodents, "Someone sent by Tom to protect us, he's friendly." she answered.
"For now." Chump added.
This made Fluttershy uncomfortable, but Chump was right. All of them didn't know about Zach, so they still needed to be cautious.
==========================================================================================
Tom and Mike arrived at the cave entrance, the cold breeze, the gloomy atmosphere could make anyone want to avoid this place as much as possible. But it didn't bother Tom, for he had explored so many caves in the Mojave plus the one near Dead Horses Camp. He checked on his companion, and he still seemed pretty chill.
"Let's move out. And try to stay quiet, okay?"
Mike gave a confirmed nod.
The interior was dark, the only light sources were the glowing cave fungus spreading around. And it was so quiet, the sound of their footsteps felt like gunshot on the outside. Tom wanted to go faster, but he couldn't risk of getting spotted. Then the team was greeted by a face full of thick groves, didn't know if they were able to get through this, they also didn't have time to get rid of them.
On his left, there was another way that was clearer that went deeper into the cave. So, to the left they went. There was a little opened space to the left on the path, what they found a blood trail from the deeper of the cave that led to... A single spore carrier was feasting on a dead White Legs tribal.
Without thinking, Tom took a few shot at the creature, but it didn't kill it. It let out a horrible grawl and turned back to strike, but before it could hurt Tom, it was gunned down by Mike.
They both checked on the White Legs tribal, he got a lot of tears on him, and lost one of his arm, and burned marks here and there.
"Monsters from Vault 22..." Mike said as he looted the tribals weapon, a trail carbine and its ammunition, and handed to Tom.
In the corner of the open space, they saw two things, a dead spore plant. On closer inspection, it got several bullet holes on it, probably killed by the tribal they saw.
"We must hurry, Chalk could be in great danger if he is in this damn cave with those spore fuckers! Screw sneaking, come on." Tom then sprinted into the deeper section of the cave, with Mike behind.
This time, they arrived at a larger space with huge rocks and stone columns, the first thing they saw were three giant spore plants sitting on the second level, several various sizes of spore carriers feasting on something that looked like... human carcasses!
Tom gasped, his rage bursted out like an erupted volcano, then let out a piercing shout, and started blasting at the monsters with his revolver. It's not very effective to blast shots with a six shot revolver, and with this blinding rage, he couldn't even aim nor reload properly, so he took out the war club chalk gave him, and started smashing.
Even Mike was a bit terrified by his action, but he was calmer to take more precised shot with his marksman carbine. There were two thing that needed to be dealt with, the spore carriers and the giant plants. He wanted to help Tom, but he couldn't let the giant plants unload free damage to both of them, so he turned and shot at the plants, and that did the trick, he got the plants attention, they started spitting acid at his location, so he took cover behind a rock, and took chance to shoot those plants.
Adrenaline coursing through Tom's veins, like mixture of psycho and med-x, he struck every spore carriers he faced, and ignore every attack he took. His brute force could take out a small size spore carrier with one to two hits, but the bigger ones... those were a bigger problems. Not only they took more damage, they also deal more damage. But in this state, he couldn't give a damn, so even the bigger ones were smash into paste by his club.
After the spore carriers were dealt with, when he was about to check on what those fuckers were eating, he took a giant spit on the back from a spore plant on the first level. Thanksfully, his clothes took most of the damage from the acid, but it still contacted with his skin. The pain from the chemical burn was excruciating, but he took it like a man and he injected himself with a stimpak, then charged at the plant with his club.
The plant spat out more acid at Tom, but the acid projectiles weren't that fast, so he could dodge them horizontally. When he was face to face with the plant he swung at the plant, and the plant tried to bite him with its giant claw like jaw and spat acid at the same time. He smacked the plant's upper jaw, got spat again on his left shoulder, then he smacked its lower jaw, only to staggered it and left its jaw opened.
"Tom, dodge!" Mike's voice spreaded through all of the cave, he had dealt with the three giant spore plants on the second level.
Tom immediately dodged to the left, then he saw Mike threw a frag grenade in the plants mouth, the grenade fell into its stem via a big hole in its jaw. Seconds later, the giant spore plant exploded and green goo splashed onto Tom and everywhere neared it.
After the loud explosion, the cave fell silent, the combat was over. Tom's adrenaline faded, and pain started bursting out. But instead of dealing with his injury, he ran toward the human carcasses, and checked its belongings, but Chalk's hat was nowhere to be found, then he noticed the corpse's clothing, it resembled a White Legs tribal's clothing. In a moment, his relief was stronger than his injuries, then he blacked out, and crumbled.
==========================================================================================
Meanwhile, on his third round of guard duty at the door, Zach sensed something in the air, something hazardous. His expression turned serious in a blink. Swiftly tilted his head, he avoid a tomahawk to the face, it hit the door instead.
Noticing something struck the front door, Fluttershy and the rodents started to panic. Again the baby rats hid behind their mother and father, with Chump in the front. Applejack was still in deep slumber, but Fluttershy needed to woke her up.
"We're under attack, tell anyone in there to take cover! Park Ranger Zach guarantees your safety." Despite still speaking like an idiot, Zach actually sounded serious right now.
In a distance appeared five White Legs tribals equipped with different weapons, two with melee, three with firearms. The ranged ones, gave covering fire for the meleed ones.
"Everyone take cover! Over here!" Fluttershy shouted. "Applejack, WAKE UP!" she violently shook Applejack with her hooves.
The rodents then proceeded to sprint towards the counter, with Chump dragging Chip with his mouth.
Applejack barely woke up, "Huh, uh? What's going on?" she asked still feeling drousy.
"We're under attack!" Fluttershy yelled.
Applejack was woke by the alarming answer. "WHAT!? Are ya serious?"
"Quick, behind the counter!" Fluttershy said as both mares ducked behind the counter.
"Tom hasn't return. What are we going to do?" Applejack asked.
"Someone came to us after you fell asleep, he said he was sent by Tom to help us, he knew the safety code." Fluttershy answered.
"Who's 'he'?" Applejack asked.
"Park Ranger Zach... When we had our first conversation, he sounded... umm... not smart. But, when we're under attack, his attitude changed, feeling like a living 'Hazard'." Fluttershy said.
Applejack felt mixed with the response. "Let's hope he will always on our side."
Zach couldn't be more excited, despite bullets had started flying toward his direction, and some of them hit his armor. He made sure his hunting shotgun was fully loaded, held it with one hand, and took out his knife with the other.
"Finally some ACTIONS for Park Ranger Zach!!!"
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"Step one, about the economy"
.......
"CONSTRUCTION WORKER ZACH DOESN'T KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT THE ECONOMY!"
Isn't it like, whatever you do in this DLC it almost doesn't matter because of the nuke'em everything DLC that comes later
11481746
It's a minor DLC, with some minor foreshadowing for the Nuke'em all DLC.