Chapter 156: Executed
After freeing himself from the trap Afton became more aware of his surroundings. Immediately noticing a wire leading to a shotgun trap not too far from him. He was lucky he trod in the bear trap instead of getting shot point-blank with a shotgun... Not only would it hurt like a bitch, but the Fiends would know of his position as well.
Shaking his head, he continued along the alleyway while keeping an eye at where he was going. He did make sure to cut the wire to prevent himself from triggering it if he needed to quickly retreat.
Though, one good thing did come out of him stepping into a bear trap... He noticed a ladder that had previously been concealed by trash and scrap metal. It'd lead to the roof where the Fiends were holed up.
He didn't want to waste any more time, both Boone and Karl were at risk if he waited any longer. Gripping the ladder he slowly and silently made his way up. Peeking over to check there weren't any traps laid at the top.
The Fiends were all on the other side of the building firing towards the Sergeant and towards the REPCONN building where Boone was currently at.
Afton pulls himself over the side of the building and takes cover behind some scrap concrete. Boone had apparently taken out quite a few of them, and most were too scared to even peek at the sniper now, instead just electing to blind fire in the general direction... Not a smart strategy...
Afton quickly checked Lucky and That Gun, making sure there wouldn't be any problems before he entered combat. He pulled out and laid some extra bullets on the floor so he wouldn't have to struggle pulling them out of his pocket later.
With everything secure, he popped over his cover and activated VATS. He'd kill those closest to him first, it'd prevent the group from rushing his position and allow Boone more opportunities to take them out if they attempted it.
[John Wick Style is in effect]
Closing VATS he started shooting, the drug-addled freaks movements were random and spontaneous, making it rather hard to judge what they'd do next. Due to this only eight of his eleven shots actually struck true, eight going down with a spray of blood as bullets enter their skulls. His three missed bullet's only managed to hit non-lethal areas. One thing was for sure now though, he had their attention.
"F-fuck! There's one of them on the roof! Jessie!? YOU BASTARD!" one shouts after realising their friend had been killed.
Afton quickly reloaded his weapons as the sounds of the Fiends panicking continued. One stood and started sprinting over to his position, but he was put down by Boone almost immediately after they left their cover.
The Fiends were terrified, as well as enraged by what Afton had done. They'd considered themselves in the optimal position, but hadn't expected someone to get around all their traps.
"FUCKING NCR PIG, TAKE THIS!" one shouts. Afton peeks over and uses VATS, his eyes widening as a grenade is about to sail past his head.
Holy shit was the only thing he could think. Luckily time was frozen otherwise he'd have been blown up... He might've survived with his [Miracle Maker] Perk but it still wasn't optimal... Honestly, he was surprised by how badly he'd reacted to a grenade getting thrown at him... Bullet and knives? Fine. But this? He'd frozen up.
He took a couple moments to compose himself in VATS before deactivating it and grabbing the grenade out of the air.
[Scare a humanoid shitless. 38/50]
The Fiends gape at him as he tosses the grenade back, most immediately jumping into action and either throwing themselves to the ground, or off of the roof. One didn't seem to realise the danger he was in and got the brunt of the grenade, shrapnel tearing his body apart in a bloody and brutal fashion.
While this was happening Karl had been sneaking over to try and recover Ranger Morales', he'd just reached the man when a Fiend throws themselves off of the roof and lands in front of him. Their leg broken from falling badly.
They spot Karl and quickly try to point their rifle at him, but the former-ranger just kicks it away and stomps of their face.
"Howdy, nice to meet you son." he says coldly as he points his .44 at their face.
"P-p-p-please! I have a fam-"*BANG!*
Karl holsters his gun after dispatching the Fiend and looks over the Ranger. they had a few bullet wounds, one in the stomach while others just in his limbs. The only dangerous one was the gutshot, he'd probably need surgery to get that fixed... He'd try to do some on the spot first-aid, it'd be good enough until Afton got there and tended to the man.
"You still awake Morales'?"
"Y-yeah..." the man grunts through the pain.
"Good, we're gonna get you outta this. Just hold on until then."
With Afton he'd just put down one of the other injured Fiends who'd been caught by the grenade's shrapnel. There was two left, both stabbing themselves with some kind of drug and charging his position.
Afton shot at them but they blocked their faces with their arms while ducking and weaving. A few bullets blasted holes into their limbs, but the Fiends didn't even slow. Seems whatever they just took prevented them from feeling pain?
He quickly holstered Lucky and drew his knife at a Fiend jumped over his concrete cover and tried to punch him. The punch was easily blocked but Afton was more worried about the pistol they were trying to shoot him with.
In a melee controlling your opponent weapons was imperative, especially if they had a firearm. He sliced their eyes with his knife and dipped behind them just as the other Fiend started unloading their own weapon. The bullets hitting Afton's makeshift meat shield.
He quickly fired back with That Gun, putting a bullet between their eyes now that they weren't making themselves a hard to hit target. The Fiend he was using a hostage tried to break out from his grip, but his 10 Strength was simply too big a hurdle to overcome.
Afton slit their throat and threw them off of the roof once he confirmed that the other Fiend was dead. Wiping his forehead as he tried to calm his breaths.
That, was one hell of a fight.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Niggross
Niggross Hope you bois liked the chap, if I missed anything please let me know. Thanks!
If you like my content or want to read ahead please go to https://www.p.atreon.com/Nagross, I'd appreciate it.
Chapter 157: Saving Private Ry-Ranger Morales
With all the Fiends dead the situation quickly settled down. Afton looked over the side of the building and spotted Karl trying to tend to the injured Ranger while the man kept spouting random things like "I'm sorry Christina" and "I should've listened to you."... Perhaps the blood loss was making him delusional? If that was the case then he'd need to start working on him soon before he starts sleeping forever.
Getting down to the ground via the ladder he rushes over and kneels beside the man while his hand rifles through his Deathclaw leather bag in search for medical tools. "What're his injuries?" he quickly asks.
"Some shots to the arms and legs, and one bad one in his gut." them man calmly lists off.
Afton lifts some of the bandages Karl had applied and spots the injury, that'd definitely need surgery. It seems to have breached his intestine, bacteria will infect the wound soon enough... He retrieves some high potency alcohol and pours it over the wound, cleaning it off dirt before he plunges his tweezers inside in search of the bullet.
Most doctors wouldn't dare try this without a whole team supporting them, as well as an x-ray to get the general idea of where their target was, but Afton isn't an ordinary doctor anymore. As if his tweezers were magnetic he pulls it outta the man. He looks over the bullet to make sure it hadn't shattered and leave any shards behind, once he was confident he doused the wound with alcohol again and injected a stimpack into some key areas.
He made sure to inject it into the intestine first to allow it to heal completely before moving onto the destroyed muscle surrounding it. In the game stimpacks would heal different amounts depending on your Medicine skill, that wasn't because they improved though. It was simply because you got better at applying them.
Once Afton was done, all that was left of the deadly wound was a pink spot of skin where the new flesh had grown. He'd still be sore tomorrow, and he may shit some blood, but he'd live.
Afton looks down at the man who seemed to be coming to his senses, stimpacks didn't just regrow muscle and organs, but assist in the production of blood. "You alright?"
Morales looks down at his wound and slowly nods, "Wow... You're crazy doc. Didn't think I'd make it through that, not even my Implant could've healed such a wound." he says, laying his hand back into the sand, clearly exhausted.
"Impant?" Afton asks, with his medical knowledge he knew implants existed, but he hadn't expected anyone to be selling them in the Mojave... They are a notoriously difficult thing to credibly give to people, even before the Great-war they only had a 70% chance of working and not being rejected...
Morales nods, "Yeah... My wife Chrstina was worried about me and managed to convince me to get one... It was called moncyte or something? Supposed to slowly heal my wounds, obviously it didn't work on that one though."
"Monocyte?" Afton asks, getting a nod from the man.
"Yeah, Monocyte breeder I think she called it... Doctor Usanagi charged an arm and a leg for it though."
Doctor Usanagi? Strange, wouldn't have thought any eastern names would've survived the Great-war, with all the anti-communist robots going around trying to exterminate 'foreign spies' he was surprised they hadn't changed it... Though, he did find it quite funny that even 200 years in the future after the apocalypse, Japanese people still kick the shit out of Westerners when it comes to academic studies...
"You know anything about this 'Doctor Usanagi' Karl?" he asks, wanting to know more. Getting a couple Implants didn't sound too bad if he were honest.
Karl shrugs, "A good Doctor but makes most of her caps by selling those Implants... 4000 caps for one last I checked." he says.
4000 caps each? That makes sense, it isn't easy to recover the specific parts for each one... If Afton were honest then he'd say that the price was more than fair, especially with what she was supposedly providing.
"Alright, we should get you back to the Sergeant... Karl, we'll come back and loot the Fiends later." he says, picking Morales up in a princess carry.
"Hey, not that I'm being ungrateful or anything but... Could you carry me over your shoulder or something?" Morales asks, clearly he felt emasculated at being carried like this.
Afton gives him a kind smile, "No."
The man just grumbles in response to Afton's refusal to put him down. He and Karl eventually reach the NCR soldier's position. The area was riddled with bullets from the earlier fight, but no one seemed injured, the plan had worked flawlessly.
"Sergeant, we've brought your boy back." Karl says from the side, from the side Boone was slowly walking towards them from the REPCONN building, a satisfied look on his face.
"Ranger Morales, are you alright?" the man quickly asks while looking him over.
Morales sighs at being treated like an injured child, "Yes, yes, I'm alright... Now can you put me down? I think I can stand on my own."
Afton shrugs and lets him down, the Ranger stumbling and having to be caught by the Sergeant as he loses the strength in his legs.
"Yeah, nice one princess." Afton snarks, causing the ranger's face to go red with embarrassment.
Afton was waiting to retort to any response the man was going to give, but time abruptly froze as soon as the Sergeant got a good grip on the ranger.
[WELCOME TO LEVEL 22]
Huh, didn't think those Fiends were enough to level up... Maybe saving Morales was a quest? Whatever.
Afton just dumps all his new skillpoints into Sneak. It'd definitely proven useful while he was sneaking up on the Fiends, and would likely give an extremely overpowered Perk once he maxed it...
Looking at the Perks available he frowns at the lack of options again... This was becoming a trend, the further he progressed the fewer Perks appeared... Was it like this in the base game or was he just unlucky?
[Spray and Pray] : Your attacks do 75% less damage to companions. Afton wasn't sure what to make of this Perk... It could potentially be overpowered depending on how he used it... Imagine strapping an explosive to one of his companion's chests and sending them into an enemy fortification. The explosion would likely leave them alive while killing everyone else, though, he felt uncomfortable just thinking about it.
He wasn't heartless and appreciated the people travelling with him. Karl was already a prominent figure in his life, he may be his best friend as well... As weird as it sounds to have a best friend who could probably be your grandfather...
CREATORS' THOUGHTS
Niggross
Niggross
Hope you bois liked the chap, if I missed anything please let me know.
Weekly Power Status
200+ Power
Ranking 
9 Power
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