Chapter Text
It was an unusually hot day in the Commonwealth. It wasn’t anything like the Mojave desert after the rainy season was over, but once you got away from the scorching deserts and more in the eastern hills, you got a bit more accumulated to the cold. So the fact that it was fall (judging based on some local vegetation’s seasonal changes) and it was this hot was a bit odd and unexpected to say the least. A brunette woman with a scar over her right eye raised her hand to remove her cowboy hat and used it to fan herself a little, eyes remaining on the road ahead of her as she lay in wait for her target. Her army green duster jacket provided little aid in this heat, but it was better than nothing. A creature resembling a dog with a snake-like head, tail, and scales accenting its body looked up at the woman because of the movement, its tongue flicking out for a second.
“Not yet, girl. I’ll give you the signal,” the woman replied warmly to the critter, stroking it behind its ears, getting a happy tail wag back, the rattle on the end of its tail making a small noise.
The sound of people approaching from around the bend caused the duo to stop what they were doing immediately. The brunette raised her sniper rifle to observe closer using the scope, confirming the group was indeed a small raider party.
“Right on time,” she grinned maliciously, readjusting her aim to get a headshot on the guy at the back of the group.
Her aim was spot on and the guy was dead before he hit the ground. The other three began to scatter, one of them running in the direction they came from, out of sight around the bend. The brunette made an annoyed click noise but instead was focused on the remaining two.
“Stanky, get the one on the left,” she commanded, the creature moving immediately, growling loudly as she ran at the man.
“What the hell IS that thing?!” he screeched as he backed up and tried to get away.
He didn’t get far as Stanky hissed loudly, jumping and biting him hard in his thigh, her large front fangs making deep incisions in his leg. He screamed and howled in pain, the bite’s potency increased by the animal’s poison. The other raider started to ready his measley switchblade to try and attack Stanky while she was busy tearing up the other man’s leg. He wasn’t given a good opportunity though, as a gun clicked loudly from behind him, causing him to freeze in place.
“How’s about y’all tell me where you were goin’, and maybe I won’t go on ‘n kill you. Your pal there’s got maybe another minute left, possibly two if there’s not much poison in him,” the brunette said flatly, one eye glaring at him from under her hat with more malice than the raider expected.
“You little bitch! How dare you do this to us?!” the raider spat as he turned to look over his shoulder at her, the pistol now firmly placed against his head.
“Pfft, how dare I ? It’s not like y’alls pathetic lil gangs can stop me, I do what I want. And what I want is information. I want info on Diamond City, NOW,” she pressed, growling louder as it was obvious she was fed up.
“That’s IT?! You killed my brother and have me at gunpoint over THAT stupid place?!? It’s in Boston, you literally can’t miss it, there are SIGNS,” he yelled, anger rising more and more as his volume increased.
“Thanks, that’s all I needed,” she replied with a fake smile before shooting him, point blank in the back of his skull. “You good, baby girl?” she asked Stanky, the animal looking up from her snack happily, blood and pieces of torn flesh still adorning her muzzle.
The raider she was chewing on had gone into a paralytic shock before dying so his face was permanently twisted into one of pain and torment. Not that the bandit wasn’t expecting the sight, nor was she put off by it. Was a usual sight at this point, and it told her Stanky was healthy since she could still produce and excrete poison.
“Alrighty then Peach, to Boston it is,” Peach said to herself, the raider who ran off before approaching casually with a cocky smirk on her face.
“You’re going to Diamond City, huh?” she asked simply, expression never changing as she crossed her arms expectantly.
“What about it? Got somethin’ I should know?” Peach muttered, glaring at the last raider standing, hand hovering over her pistol instinctively.
“Let’s just say...your reputation precedes you a bit, and I have a potential job for you,” the black haired woman grinned, giving off a vibe that made Stanky’s hackles raise a little.
“What’s it pay and what do you want?” Peach sighed overdramatically.
“2500 caps, more if you can gather some info for me before taking out the man I want dead,” was the response she got back.
“....You have my attention,” Peach smirked, relaxing a little finally, but not completely since Stanky was still on alert.
“There’s a certain detective in Diamond City that caused me and my old gang some major trouble a couple months past. Get some dirt on him that I can spread across the Commonwealth, then kill him, and the 2500 caps, and a bonus, are all yours,” the woman replied sweetly, Peach pondering this proposition for a bit before deciding.
“Alright, guess I have more than one reason to head there then. Now git outta here, Stanky hates you for some reason and she needs to eat more of this guy. Hope you weren’t attached to these two,” Peach said with a small hand motion for the stranger to leave.
“They were mere fodder for the Commonwealth wastes anyway, not to worry,” the woman said as she brushed it off, turning and vanishing around the bend once more.
Stanky watched her go and still looked uncomfortable even after the two were alone with the dead guys.
“I’ll kill her if she becomes a problem, sweet girl, don’t worry,” Peach soothed, Stanky glancing back before finally seeming to accept it was safe and going back to the meaty leg she was still working on.
“First the new recon mission for the Institute, and now a merc job? Geez, what makes this Diamond City place so special anyway?” Peach thought aloud as she sat on a large fallen tire from a truck that’d crashed hundreds of years ago. “Least you got some meals out of it and I get money,” she said to Stanky, who only looked up for a moment before taking another large bite off of the corpse.
“This detective guy better be worth it too, some of these fools want me to kill gang leaders or whatever and that’s so much easier said than done,” Peach thought aloud, deciding to clean up her sniper rifle a bit while Stanky slowed down, indicating she was almost done.
Peach paused for a bit before deciding to tear up the brainless guy’s shirt a bit and take some meat as morsels for Stanky later. Never know when she’d need something to chew on or if she’d ned a treat or two for being such a good girl. Peach’s hunting knife made the endeavor much easier and she had a couple pounds of the poisoned raider’s opposite leg meat wrapped up within a couple minutes.
“I’d hate to be the fool that tried to eat this if someone else got their mitts on it,” Peach laughed as Stanky cleaned herself up a bit and was ready to travel, albeit at a gentle walking pace since she needed to digest her large meal.
“Diamond City better have a good place for both of us to eat too,” Peach sighed as her stomach complained at the idea of food.
She couldn’t (and refused to) join Stanky in eating human flesh so she was more likely to go hungry unless they found a gas station or settlement that had food in it still, or if Stanky helped her hunt and didn’t poison the carcass by mistake. Peach had accidently ingested enough of Stanky’s poison that by this point, it would just make her brain feel foggy and her limbs cold. An unpleasant experience but a bearable one. Peach chewed on some homemade radstag jerky as they walked down the uneven four lane highway, which helped a bit for now, but she knew that an actual meal would be best for her in the long run.
The hot sun relented a little as it began its daily descent, and the strange duo from the western deserts continued the long trek deeper into the area known as the Commonwealth.