Hired Gun Turned Fun

County Crossing Confessions

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It's been about three weeks now, since the day we first met and I decided to fork over 250 caps to my new hired gun companion. A lot has happened in that short amount of time.

He's been by my side as we cleared out a few places for people to settle, set up supply lines, and has watched me build the small communities from the ground up.

We have also had some very close calls against countless hordes of ghouls, mutants, mirelurks, Yao Guai, raiders and everything else in between.

Almost two weeks ago, he disclosed to me, his situation with the gunners. I was trying to find some better quality armor and perhaps a gun too if I was lucky, before we would head out for Mass Pike Interchange.

I was feeling ill-prepared about taking care of this side-quest. MacCready had informed me previously about how the gunners had an Assaultron amongst their ranks, not to mention Winlock had a suit of Power Armor.

In the meantime while scouting for my desired upgrades, we were staying occupied with managing settlements and allying with new ones, to strengthen the Minutemen's influence.

One of the first truly touching moments MacCready and I had as friends, was after a particularly difficult quest. We were tasked with clearing out a nearby ghoul-infested location, to gain the trust of settlement County Crossing. Doing this would persuade them to join the Minutemen.

The nearby location was the National Guard Training Yard, which was a pre-war military outpost. We started by taking out the turrets mounted on the outside. This was an excellent chance for me to practice my new sniping skills that I'd picked up from being around MacCready.

It took me about double the bullets as him to destroy my turret, but I was just glad that I actually managed to do it. "Nice job" he complemented me with a grin as we headed towards the front doors.

We silently made our way in and were only a few steps inside, when ghouls started getting up all around us. "Ferals!" I heard MacCready shout. We fired bullets into their rotten flesh as they begun to approach us.

They were dropping slowly but there were a ton of them inside, including a bloated glowing one down on the lower level. As soon as I noticed this, I quickly injected myself with Rad-X as a precaution. I then switched to my heaviest hitting gun, my hunting rifle, and fired into the glowing one's head. You gotta go, ASAP.

This immediately made me a target, it charged while emitting a horrible smell. I dodged out of the way and reloaded my magazine clip before it lunged at me again.

I fired at it's head again but it refused to slow down, swiping at my head and upper body, knocking me off my feet. I rolled away and tried to get up, but another ghoul had ran into me and was now trying to swat and bite at me.

I was quickly getting overrun and a dark thought flashed through my mind. This is it... I didn't get my baby back... I'm so sorry, Nate... I failed.

'Bang!' suddenly the ghoul's head exploded as I heard a loud shotgun go off. "Run!" MacCready yelled at you, as he stepped forward and aimed at the glowing one.

'Bang!' he fired off the other barrel and reloaded as quickly as he could. You leapt up while the glowing one was distracted with it's new target, MacCready. Once steady on your feet, you helped him shoot the irradiated beast dead.

The air had finally stilled, you both realized that you were safe now. He ran over to you and wrapped you up in his arms. It was a tight embrace, filled with worry and relief. You stood there in shock briefly, then gently hugged him back, rubbing his shoulder with your hand.