Plot Twist!

Barely an hour after leaving Goodsprings we came across an annoying event that happened at the beginning of nearly every playthrough of Fallout New Vegas.

"P-please can you help me" a red-haired man in ragged clothes approached us begging for help!?

He sprinted towards us like his life depended on it and fell to his knees with tears streaming from his face.

"Are you alright" Yoruichi worriedly kneeled down and placed a hand on his shoulder "What do you need help with?"

"I-It's, my girlfriend" he sobbed out "She's trapped up on that ridge surrounded by Geckos! I can't help her, she's been trapped up there for days! She'll die if she doesn't get water soon! P-please save her! I have 100 caps here you can have them as long as you save her!"

"Where is she" Yoruichi asked as a steely look appeared in her eyes?

"U-up passed the collapsed radio tower behind me" he whimpered "Once you're passed it turn right... they're at the top of the trail!"

"Don't worry we'll definitely save her" Yoruichi stood up and looked up at the nearby mountain. "Let's go" she didn't even give me a chance to respond before jogging off towards the tower.

I groaned since I already knew how this would end up but, followed after her regardless.

The man who just cried for us to save his girlfriend was named Barton Thorn. He was a scavenger who tricks the Courier into clearing away the Geckos along the ridge path before backstabbing them so that he can steal the supplies hidden at the top.

Normally when I met him in the game, I just gunned him down the moment I saw him since there was no point in doing his little quest. Especially since there wasn't even anything good at the top of the hill anyway just some bear traps and random loot.

But, I couldn't do that this time since I would have no way of explaining myself to Yoruichi if I did.

Which was annoying since I had no idea how long this little detour would take. We only had a couple hours until sundown and I'd prefer it if we made it to Primm before then.

Still, it wasn't all bad though.

Because I could grind some Exp from the Geckos in our way. I'd already noticed that in general there were far more enemies here than there were in the game which was both a blessing and a curse. It was good because it would let me gather Exp and Level up far faster than normal but, that was only if I could actually deal with them in the first place.

So, a relatively weak close-combat oriented enemy that lived in packs like Geckos was exactly what I needed right now. As long as I was careful, I didn't think there would any problem farming them for exp. Especially since from what I remembered there would be a lot of them up ahead.

After catching up with Yoruichi we found the path behind the radio tower that Thorn told us about and began the long trek up.

"You know this is most likely a trap" I shook my head at Yoruichi who still had that same determined expression on her face?

"Maybe" she responded never taking her eyes off the path ahead "But, I'm not willing to take the chance that it isn't."

"You really are way too good of a person" I sighed.

"That's a good thing though right" she glanced at me?

"Yeah" I laughed "But, it's probably going to get you killed one day if you're not careful."

She shrugged "Better to die a good person than live as scum."

I raised an eyebrow "Look at you getting all philosophical."

"Nothing like that" she stated "I'm just trying to what I think is right. Even if this is most likely a trap if we left without at least trying to help first, I'd always wonder if an innocent person died because of me."

"Wow" I blinked "That's pretty noble for someone who's only been around for two days."

"Two and a half days thank you very much" she smirked!

"Fair enough" I nodded having quite a bit of respect for her. "By the way" I spoke up "What exactly is our plan here? We just ran ahead without asking for basic information like how many Geckos there were or what this so-called girlfriend was doing up here in the first place."

"I did kind of jump the gun there didn't I" Yoruichi sheepishly scratched her head.

"It's fine" I let it go "After all you're only two and a half days old so it's understandable to make a mistake or two. Anyways let's just repeat what we did at the springs earlier, I'll whittle them down from a distance and you deal with the ones that get close. How's that sound?"

"Sounds great" she answered brandishing her Machete while I switched out my Varmint Rifle for the 10mm Pistol.

It was an easy choice to make since it could hold nearly the twice ammo the Varmint Rifle could and easily fire six or seven shots in VATS. Making it a much better weapon for dealing with a large crowd of weak enemies.

Over the next twenty or so minutes we fought our way up the ridge while fighting off several packs of Gecko. There were always five or six of them in a group but, what I found interesting was that more than half of the Gecko that attacked us were young immature Gecko that were barely half the size of their adult counterparts. In the game the Young Gecko's were just a weaker variant of Gecko that sometimes appeared to make the game world seem a bit more alive.

But, these were actual babies that were still growing up.

That combined with the sheer number of Gecko around made me wonder if we were approaching some kind of nest.

"Be careful Yoruichi" I warned "There might be a LOT more of them than we expected. If I'm not wrong, there should a nest up ahead."

"How many are we talking" she frowned while stepping over the corpse of a beheaded Gecko?

"No idea" I shook my head "But, probably a lot. There's also a good chance we'll run into some stronger Gecko variants like the Gecko Hunter that are far bigger, stronger, and faster than a regular one."

"Do you think we can take them" she asked?

"...Maybe" I hesitated a moment before grabbing something from my backpack. "Here take this" I handed her my Grenade Launcher along with a couple 40mm Grenade Rounds. "If we get surrounded or see a huge group use this to blow the crap out of them!"

"Now we're talking" her face lit up as I handed her the high explosives! "First you give me a Stealth Boy and now a Grenade Launcher" she giggled "You really know the way to a girl's heart, don't you?"

"Don't get too attached to it" I smiled "I'm going to be wanting it back after this is over."

"Party pooper" she sulked and slung the Grenade Launcher over her shoulder!

"Don't be so dramatic" I fired my pistol to the side killing a Gecko that tried to sneak attack me while I wasn't paying attention. "Though speaking of which" I narrowed my eyes at her "When were you planning on giving me back my Stealth Boy? It's been more than a day since the battle, and you haven't even tried to return it?"

Yoruichi suddenly stiffened up and turned away to avoid my glare.

"That's what I thought" I smirked happy that I finally managed to get one over on her.

"Look I'm sorry alright" she huffed still facing away but, I could still see a tiny bit of red on her cheeks "I was planning on giving it back... eventually but, it's just being invisible is SO COOL! And I wanted to enjoy it a little longer before giving it back, okay."

She rooted around in her backpack for a moment and pulled out the Stealth Boy.

"Here" she said handing it back to me.

'Damn it, now I feel bad' My heart sank as I saw the defeated and embarrassed expression on her face.

"Just keep it" I sighed and pushed it back to her "I was planning on letting you keep it in the first place. If I really wanted it, I would have asked you to give it back this morning at the Saloon."

"But-" she tried to say.

"It's fine" I interrupted her "You'll get way more use out of it than I would. I prefer using guns so even if I used the Stealth Boy the second I fired a shot everyone would know I was there anyway. While you're good at close combat so you could use it to stealthily assassinate an entire group of people before they even noticed anything wrong."

"So, I can keep it" she looked at me with her big doe eyes?

"Yes, you can keep it" I turned away not able to keep her gaze.

"Alright" she fist pumped with an evil grin her doing a complete 180° in an instant! "Thanks" she punched me in the shoulder before stuffing the Stealth Boy away and running off before I could get another word in!

I just stood there in silence for a moment while it dawned on me that I had just been played.

"That bitch" I whispered before raising my gun to the side killing another Gecko.

Looking up ahead I saw her happily hacking her way through a group of Geckos stupid enough to cross her path.

I grit my teeth and ran after her "I've changed my mind! Give me back the Stealth Boy!"

"Too late" she stuck her tongue out "No take backs!"

"Damn it" I cursed and joined her in the massacre while she cackled like a madwoman!

Though truth be told I wasn't actually all that angry and actually felt a lot more relaxed than I was before. I started to get a bit anxious when I realized how many enemies we might be facing but, now I was completely calm and focused.

I briefly wondered if she did that on purpose but, shook my head and decided that this was just how she was.

We kept pushing forward up the hill and just like I guessed the number of Gecko we were fighting continued to grow while several Gecko Hunters that far larger than the regular kind started to show up. We actually ended up killing nearly 100 total Geckos before the top of the ridge was finally in sight. We'd killed so many that I'd actually run out of ammo for my 10mm and had to switch to the Caravan Shotgun. It could only hold two rounds at a time but, was fairly quick to reload and extremely strong able to put down even the powerful Gecko Hunters with the massive slugs it fired.

As we got closer to the top a spinechilling screech rang out and an enormous Gecko nearly 8 feet(2.5 Meters) tall ran out from behind a rock outcropping and charged us! The thing had obviously heard all the gunshots as we approached and finally decided to come out and defend its territory.

Acting on instinct I entered VATS and saw that the creature was called the "Gecko Matriarch" and knew that it must be the leader of this group of Gecko. Down by her feet an army baby Gecko barely larger than her foot scuttling around.

"Yoruichi" I called!

"I know" she replied dropping her Machete and grabbing the Grenade Rifle slung over her shoulder!

While she was taking aim, I entered VATS again and focused on the creature's legs. It looked strong and I doubted I could kill it easily with my shotgun. So rather than try I decided to cripple its mobility by going for the legs making it easy for Yoruichi to play it to death with the Grenade Launcher!

"Bang! Bang!"

The two slugs from my shotgun landed on the Gecko Matriarch's left leg causing her to tumble over.

"Raaaa" she screamed bearing her massive fangs at us!

"Thump" Yoruichi fired a grenade that landed just of two the side of the creature sending a ploom of blood and dust billowing out!

The Gecko Matriarch screamed in pain while dozens of her babies were blown to pieces!

To my surprise she actually struggled back to her feet after tanking an explosion to the face and rushed towards us completely ignoring the severe wounds covering her body.

"Its hide is too thick" Yoruichi screamed while retreating back down the hill!

I grit my teeth quickly reloading the shotgun and entering VATS once again. I could only fire two more shots like this, so I needed to make them count!

The Gecko Matriarch's scales were so thick that I wasn't sure how much damage my shots were actually doing so instead of going for the legs again I aimed for the head. Giant Gecko had the habit of charging forward with their mouths wide open, so it seemed like a good idea to shove a couple bullets right down its throat where there was no armor.

"Bang! Bang!" My bullets rang out that landed right in the Gecko's massive mouth! Blood spurted from its fat tongue, and it started thrashing around in pain as it choked on its own blood!

Seeing that my attack was effective Yoruichi who had just finished reloading copied my idea and fired a second grenade that struck dead center on the enormous Gecko's jaw blowing its bottom jaw clean off!

After that the massive beast finally collapsed to the ground dead and Yoruichi while the remaining babies surrounding it scattered.

"Phew" I took a deep breath trying to calm my pounding heart "I was not expecting that!"

"Tell, me about it" Yoruichi wiped the sweat from her brow. "I know you and Sunny told me about the kind of monsters that existed out here but, it's hard to believe something like that was living so close to Goodsprings."

"That is pretty strange" I walked closer to examine the corpse of the massive Gecko Matriarch. "You'd think someone would have mentioned it to us if they knew this thing was living nearby?"

"Maybe they're like bees" Yoruichi wondered aloud?

"That actually makes sense" I nodded. "This thing was like a Queen who laid eggs and raised new Gecko while her children went out and gathered resources for her. If it's like that it makes sense, why no one knew she was here. The people in Goodsprings might have known there was a nest here but, not that a monster like this was inside."

Standing back up I turned towards Yoruichi with a serious look "We should be careful. If there's a Gecko Matriarch there might be a Patriarch too, so until we know for sure we can't drop out guard."

We both reloaded our weapons and I handed Yoruichi a few more Grenade Rounds just to be safe.

Going forward around the rock outcropping that the Gecko Matriarch sprang out from we saw a small cave dug into the cliff face. Weapon ready we turned on out Pipboy lights and entered the cave.

Inside we found more tiny Gecko babies running around but, we just ignored them since they weren't a threat and didn't attack us.

The cave itself ended up being nothing more than a small tunnel leading to a large open chamber filled with clusters of eggs and scattered bones. After confirming that there weren't any other threats nearby, we quickly searched the cave for any loot but, didn't find anything of value other than the few Glowing Mushrooms lining the walls. They weren't worth that much but, were a decent crafting ingredient so I grabbed them anyway.

As we exited the cave Yoruichi frowned.

"This doesn't make sense" she said "Where's the girlfriend?"

"I told you this was most likely a trap" I shook my head "I mean that guy said she was trapped up here for days. How could anyone possibly have hidden from that massive Gecko for that long without being killed?"

"I guess your right" she sighed.

I felt bad that she was deceived like this but, it was better for her to learn not to trust people so easily in the future.

"You see that stuff over on the ledge over there" I pointed to the highest spot on the ridge where a pile of random junk lay. "I bet there's something up there he wanted and used us to clear the way" and stopped momentarily looking back down the path we came from "And any moment now he's going to climb up here to try and ambush us."

She sighed again before walking up the pile of junk on the hill "I guess we should go see what was so valuable that it was worth risking our lives for."

The scene at the top of the hill was almost exactly the same as it was in the game. There were several triggered bear traps scattered around the path leading up to a beautiful scenic overlook that gave an incredible view of the desert below. And at the end of the path lay a rusty footlocker filled with random loot, a charred skeleton collapsed in a chair, a ratty mattress, and even battered old refrigerator.

It was obvious that whoever the skeleton in the chair was had lugged all this stuff up her prewar to enjoy the view but, unfortunately died when the nukes dropped. Or maybe he actually survived the initial detonations and came up here to die and watch the ashes fall when he knew the world had ended.

It was actually kind of depressing to think about, so I decided to ignore him and move on.

"It's kind of disappointing isn't it" I turned to Yoruichi after she opened up the footlocker to reveal nothing other than a rotten old piece of leather armor.

"Definitely not worth killing over" she shook her head.

"Maybe but, you can't underestimate how desperate the desert can make people" I agreed while walking over to the old fridge. "After all, if you're hungry enough you might even be willing to eat whatever rotten garbage is in here."

Grabbing the handle, I already braced myself for the rotten stench I was about to unleash. But, I didn't stop since there might be a few Nuka Cola or Sarsaparilla's inside and I was kind of thirsty.

"...What" my mind short-circuited as I opened the fridge and saw what was inside!

"No way" Yoruichi gasped!

Lying curled up in the fridge was a young blonde woman clutching a gun against her chest. She looked incredibly skinny and if it wasn't for the slight rising and falling of her chest, I would have assumed she was dead.

"There really is a girl" I stared dumbfounded as Yoruichi rushed up and pushed me aside to check on the woman.

"She's still alive" Yoruichi stated after taking a moment to listen to her heartbeat but, she's incredibly dehydrated! We need to give her some water now!"

"R-right" I snapped back to reality and grabbed one of the canteens from my Inventory and handed it to Yoruichi.

"Here, drink up" she whispered to the woman whose eyes cracked open slightly at the sudden stimulation and carefully held the canteen as the woman slowly gulped down the water.

I just watched in shock not believing that the woman was actually real! I was so confident before that this was just a trap because of my foreknowledge from the game. But, if something as insignificant as this was different what else might have changed?

A looming sense of dread started to grow inside of me, and I got the feeling things might not have been as simple as I thought. And I never expected things to be easy in the first place!"