Hollow Point: City Streets

Setting and Purpose: Cold, dark and full of hidden dangers Hollow Point is a city that is not t be shrugged off by out of towners. The weak are quickly consumed by the lurking cutthroats and clever traders of the market place. Players best watch their step and can post here when traveling about the streets of the underground city.

The streets of the market are crowded but most locals clear the way as Grimm, Bacon and Mongo make their way through the marketplace .

It had already been a long pit stop and Grimm was looking forward to getting on the move once again. He knew that stopping in town may bring down trouble on their heads but alas that was a hazard of the trade and he was not about to let "Lug" slip past him not with a such a lucrative bounty on his head. As much as he pissed and moaned about The Rust Devils they at least paid their contracts and that was well above what most clients of his tried to pull when he took their contracts.

"So what do we do with others? The NCR and that lump of shit from the JMC?" asks Bacon.

"We'll haul em back to base. Let 516 and his blonde friend cool their heels in the brig." Grimm says flatly.

"7th Flag and NCR?"

"Debrief, resupply cut and them loose." Grimm states as he moves through the crowd heading towards the garage.

"That's all? I thought we would at least tax them or..I dunno something?", ponders Mongo brushing past the foot traffic.

"You don't approve, Lt?" questions the Warchief stopping in his tracks.

Mongo stops and smirks a little, "No, it's not that. I mean they technically crossed a line on that treaty right? Why are you giving them a pass?"

Mongo did have a point surprisingly enough, the NCR technically was stepping into his neck of the woods looping in his mercs without his knowledge and that was enough to leave a bad taste in his mouth, even more so with Mouse, Hogwild and Captain Hotshot involved. Whatever move this was it was reckless on The NCR's part and whoever put it together did a piss poor job from the get go. His entire rescue operation had used a sizable amount of manpower and while slaughtering legion was a pleasure, he did burn a lot of resources making it happen. Resources he could not afford to lose with the legion threat pushing in on his borders. On top of all that he knew Flintlock would be pissing in his ear about the political damage this would shovel up onto her desk. He felt his trigger finger start to twitch.

Mongo notices this and takes a step back until Grimm takes a moment to calm himself down.

"One objective at a time. Let's regroup with the others and get out of this toilet." he says clenching his fist by his side. He then begins to walk towards the garage with his MP's in tow.

The sight ahead of them slows their pace down to a halt.

Grimm sighs already smelling a shit show from where he was standing. He watched D-Day look franticly around the area raising his arms up at rambling to the group of Dukes and other travelers. The raving is soon silenced as Hogwild delivers a swift right hook to D-day mid rant. D-day tumbles to the ground hard.

"Ahhh..shit." Grimm frustratedly exclaims to himself marching over. He was in no mood for whatever malarkey was taking place.


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"Hollow Point Garage Street side"

The group stands over D-day as he lays pavement on moaning. Spitting out a tooth he crawls forward stopping as he looks up seeing the boots of The Warchief standing in front of him.

"Get up off my deck. Now.", orders Warchief Grimm. His glare hidden behind his old aviator sunglasses.

D-Day looks up at him and quickly stands up pulling himself to attention.

"Sir! I uh..the prisoners..are..assembled...I mean...the non combatants..I mean.." D-Day stumbles over himself trying his best to pull his words together,
he swallows hard already regretting his response before uttering it from his lips. "516 sir, he's...we lost him."

"What do you mean you lost him?! It's not like he's a pack of fucking smokes!" Grimm fumes now getting in his face.

D-Day grows even more tense as the Warchief's temper grows worse.

Bacon and Mongo now both take a step back.

"Get your shit and bring him back here. Now.", Grimm orders.

"Yes sir!", D-Day quickly rushes off to grab his things scrambling together a few available Dukes standing by the convoy.

Grimm looks at the rest group standing in front of him all still in their gear-less uniforms and prison rags. Grimm's trigger finger begins to twitch once more as he slowly paces, eyeing down each member of the group as he walks by.

"Someone better start talking..."

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"Hollow Point Garage Street side"

Which was precisely the moment the Warchief realized there was someone else missing that D-Day hadn’t accounted for. His growing frustration wasn’t helped when he turned and began shouting, “Fahren-,“ only to stop short off as he finds himself facing the soldier yet again, a tremor in his voice, and a folded scrap of paper in his hand.

“S-sir… I don’t know how it happened. I swear he was here the whole time. Maybe it’s just a joke…” D-Day trails off as Grimm snatches the paper from his hand. He unfolds it, brow creasing behind his aviators.  

Dear Grimm,

I hope this letter finds you well, though I’m sure the Private is in a somewhat more difficult position. As I’m sure you’ve been informed, 516 has wandered off into town. It really isn’t D-Day’s fault, he seemed very busy at the time, doing something or other. What that was, I couldn’t say, but it seemed to do with basic level math.

However, since he and everyone else seemed otherwise occupied with their own thoughts and tasks, I’ve taken it upon myself to track down and retrieve our wayward clone. As he is in NCR custody, and as the Dukes do have an interest in him, it seemed only appropriate, given that Hotshot and Flintlock agreed to invoke the Joint Operations Clause. I’m sure your Captain has filled you in already, so this will come as no surprise to you.

I’ve taken the liberty of borrowing some of D-Day’s equipment, as they weren’t presently in use, and I found myself improperly attired for the situation. You know how it is with Romans. You have my assurance that everything will be returned in as close to the same condition as it was found as possible.

Inimitably,
Mr. Fahrenheit

D-Day’s face pales as the Warchief looks up.

"I can just picture that son of a bitch smirking" Grimm thought to himself reading the letter.

He takes the letter and balls it into his fist then takes a breath trying to calm himself.

"Joint...Operation....." he says to himself, that trigger finger of his starting to twitch once more as he turns around to face the group, zeroing in on Flintlock and Hotshot.

"We'll be having words. I assure you of that..." he says with a growl in his voice, pointing at the two.

He then lowers his arm, "Vash..."

Vash steps forward, his lieutenant rank sitting upon his military beret. His hair is short and is sporting a pair of makeshift dirty eye glasses. His olive drab uniform is outfitted head to toe in custom armor and military gear straps. A smoke dangles from his lips as he makes his over, exhaling one last drag and tossing it aside then positions himself front and center standing at attention. "Yes Sir, Warchief?"

"Arm up the rest of the group." he gives them all a once over as he strolls by, giving a stern look to Captain Hotshot as he passes then stops in front of Flintlock sizing her up. He pulls away the bloody cloth covering her gunshot wound, it's been treated pretty well but still is not looking up to par. He stops noticing her hiding a flinch. "Have a medic take a look at Flintlock. That wound needs cleaning...", he then turns back to face Vash. "One we are re-fitted, take the tank, the convoy and the men. Report back to base and await our return. Don't use the main roads, Legion is bound to be on our asses.  Leave "The General" behind and we'll meet you there in a few days."

"Yes sir!" Vash turns and looks at the rest of the men. "Alright, you heard the War Chief! Mount up! We roll out in twenty mikes! Let's go!"

The Dukes snap to it, everyone moving to their positions quickly. The Dukes Medic, wearing a rag tag assortment of medical tools on his gear harness over his blood stained olive drab uniform, goes over to inspect Flintlock's gunshot wound.

Grimm walks over to the massive tank and is handed his gear bag and weapon. He places it back down in front of the group and calmly begins to load his shotgun.

"Since Mr. Fahrenheit is the only one here who has the brass to go after "our" missing HVC (high valued clone)..not to mention disarming one of my guards in the process." He shoots a glare over to a terrified D-Day. "It seems only right that we merry few back up him. Now..." he loads his last shell and chambers the round.

"Lets go get our clone back.", he calmly announces placing his shotgun machete hybrid over his shoulder.

"Captain Hotshot, Captain Flintlock. Get your shit and report to my office." with that he strolls off to "The General", his personal vehicle.

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A small detachment of heavy armed Dukes march over to the group with two large crates in tow. They place the boxes down in front of them and open them up, they are filled to the brim with Guns, Various sets or armor, light and medium, and a variety of hand to hand weapons.

"Boss said you guys need to re-outfit. I assume you know how to use these?", one of the Grunts asks the group, he glances over uneasy at the sight of Cherno Bill and his Yuo Guai. He adjusts his gaze back to the others shaking it off.

Fighting the urge to drool, Hogwild leaps towards the crates and begins to dig through them. He bypasses the armor in search of the biggest, loudest hand cannon he can find. After a brief search that leaves a spray of weapons, armor, and ammo around him, Hogwild finds a trust Smith and Wesson revolver. After testing the weight and the sights, he holsters the weapon and slaps together some light chest armor.

Before stepping away from the crates, a glimmer of light catches his eye. A serrated bowie half, starting to show signs of age through rust and scratches and half buried in the dirt of the street, beckons to weary Duke. Hogwild picks up the knife almost reverently before approaching the War Chief and saluting.

"War Chief Grimm. What are your orders?"

Warchief Grimm leans against his Humvee enjoying his smoke. He exhales a long stream of smoke as he sees Hogwild standing before him.

"Hogwild, you are going to play escort to Captain Hotshot and Flintlock. You keep an eye on both of them and keep them out of trouble. I want 516 found and back here ricky 'fucking' ticky. Leave him unspoiled if possible, he is to come to me directly, the NCR is not to question him until he and I have had words. Understood?", Grimm commands.

He takes a moment tossing away the butt of his smoke.

"Now, want to explain to me how you found yourselves in Flagstaff?" , he asks his Sargent at Arms.

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"No sir, I do not. But I'll do my best anyway."

Hogwild attempts to explain the cause of events that led the Dukes from their revels in New Vegas to their decidedly dangerous train ride and downright depressing capture. Then, upon reaching the gladiatorial portion of the tale, Hogwild wraps up with "and the with the rest, you should be familiar."

Hogwild gnaws on a piece of jerky he was able to swindle off of a street vendor.

"Your timing was impeccable, sir. For a minute, I was afraid that our fate completely lay in the hands of the crazy Texan and his pet bear." Hogwild eyes the pair warily.

"Should we roll loud and mighty through the streets to flush the clone out? Or should we do it more 'clandestine'?"

"We move quick and quiet. Don't give him the chance to slither off into the shadows."

He takes a moment to light up another smoke.

"You find him, you bring him to me. I want to be Oscar Mike by the time Legion realizes we are here."

Axel Violet uses his foot to tighten the rope to its tightest capacity. "You know, it is almost like I miss these days peasant."

"That's my word!" 516 rebuttals back at the ever confident Violet.
"I don't think you get to HAVE words. Unless they are the ones I want you speaking. So you are telling me that these fellows of yours are here to protect you? I have doubts that you are of any use to any of them larger tribe folk. I'm not a stranger to the ole billy goat gruff bamboozle. So why don't I take you bottom side and get these answers out of ya? Maybe see why the hell these folks are even interested in you or traveling with you. Now... it won't take much to..." Axel starts to run the axe down 516's chest piercing his chest armor mildly.

"WE ARE GOING TO A MINE WITH A MAP!" 516 blurts out in panic
"A wha...."
"A map!" 516 states falling over in his rope bound body. He wriggles over to the wall like a awkward worm during a crow feast. "There is a great mine. I came to hire you damn buffoons to join me in great conquest. To take this mine filled with treasure and use it to become the most POWERFUL of forces in these pitiful wastes!"
"Again, this billy goat gruff shit is really getting on my nerves."
"Why else would they keep me alive? Why else would they keep me arou.." 516 is then cut off as Axel grabs his.... mask? To silence him.


"Someone is coming. From here on out, you are silent until I get you back to the abode. When we get there, we learn about this 'map.'" Axel rose pulls 516 deeper into the alley ways with his bandit brethren. A sort of morale is coursing through them that maybe this time, 516 might be telling the truth.

A detachment of Duke grunts move down the alleyway, they all cover their sectors approaching tactically and quietly. The lead grunt stops in his tracks and signals for the squad to halt. The Dukes move to the walls as the Lead Grunt steps forward taking caution with each step, his rifle raised in front of him.

He stops in his tracks and turns to his left sighting his aim down dark alleyway that Axel and 516 had previously stepped into. The shadows keep them hidden to the Grunt's gaze.

"Contacts?", whispers one of the grunts leaning against the wall of the alley.

"Nah,..must have been a rat", The lead Grunt announces lowering his rifle. He signals to the rest of his crew to move out. They all begin to move down the growing maze of alleyways continuing their search for 516.

"I fucking hate 516." one of the grunts declares as they round the corner.