It didn't take much convincing from Dhatri to get me on the bounty trail. I was always short for caps, and I could think of no better way to collect than tracking down some ne'er-do-wells and checking one more problem off the list. Considering what Dhatri told me about them as well, they most certainly qualified. After taking a rest, Cass and I got to work.

All the bounties were Fiends, unsurprisingly. At least it made finding them a bit easier, since they tended to stick to the lower west side of Vegas, near Vault 3.

First on the list was Violet. From what I gathered she raised and bred dogs. For whatever measure a drug addled nut-case can 'raise' or 'breed' animals anyway. At the time when we took care of her, the fiends still hadn't pieced together who'd been around for Motor-Runner's death. So that gave us an opportunity to get fairly close to her before we did the deed. Good thing too, since Dhatri wanted us to, of all possible things, chop their heads off for proof. At what point having to decapitate someone became the only means of verifying their death, I have no idea.

Regardless, it gave us a better idea of who we were going to be killing before getting to the nitty gritty.

The first thing she did when she saw us was to bark like a dog and threaten to feed our 'meat' to her dogs.

So naturally, she was butt-fuck insane.

It only got worse from there, too. As far as terrible people in the wasteland go, someone trying to kill you and feed you to their pets is pretty standard. You might even consider them a good owner, if it weren't for the whole 'trying to kill you' part.

Next on the hit parade, however, was Driver Nephi. A fiend who, if I understood Dhatri right, treated his subordinates like meat-shields so he could get in close to the enemy and cripple them with a driving iron. Dhatri hadn't been clear on what happened after that, but given he said something to the effect of people being 'collared', I had to assume they either died or got sent to Caesar. Complicating things further, he was fast and knew how to take a hit. So Cass and me needed to come up with a way around that. The easiest one we had, was to enlist some of Dhatri's battalion, First Recon, to provide fire support while we drew Nephi's attention. They apparently had a score to settle with him anyway, and were willing to help. It worked surprisingly well, Me and Cass had little trouble poking holes in Nephi's boys while the man himself was trying to eat potshots coming from half a mile away.

At least, it was working well until one of the snipers got lucky and blew the top third of Nephi's head off.

Dhatri still accepted Nephi's head, mangled as it was, thanks to a testimonial from the trooper that shot him. But we got a little less than half the pay of the full bounty for it, which sucked.

Last up was the worst of the bunch though, Cook-cook. Who, as it also turned out, was that dirty looking mofo I'd seen when we'd left Vault 3 after dealing with MotorRunner. Cook-cook was also apparently one of the worst pieces of human trash to ever appear in the wasteland. I didn't have a lot of specifics, but apparently the most recent heinous act on his otherwise massive laundry list was raping one of Dhatri's immediate subordinates. Both repeatedly and with the likely intent to turn them into stew afterwards.

Apparently, he was also an excellent cook. Bastard.

Problem was, by that point we'd succeeded in pissing off the fiends to the point that even their drug dried brains figured out the whole 'khan drug dealer' bit was a sham. We could've tried assaulting the area around Vault 3, and we'd probably kill quite a few of them, up to and possibly including Cook-cook. Of course, doing that was probably also going to kill us. Which would've been problematic, since I really wanted to be able to spend the cash I was earning. Trying to sneak in and kill him quietly wasn't a completely viable idea either. If he managed to get the drop on guys like the ones in First Recon, I couldn't count on him being dumb enough to not watch out for someone trying to do the same to him. On top of that, if I got caught, I'd be fighting the army of fiends anyway, which would just defeat the purpose.

But after a little digging, I managed to come up with something: Cook-cook had a- um… 'pet' Brahmin named Queenie. He loved the thing; I mean really loved the thing. Apparently, there were stories of him going completely berserk if people looked at her funny. Before he promptly roasted them to cinders. Maybe not uncommon behavior for a fiend, but a tad strange nonetheless.

So rather than waste precious time, lifeblood, and ammo trying to fight any army of fiends for a single bounty, Cass and me got smart. I took one of the litany of rifles I'd collected, a carbine of some kind or another, I think, and set up with Cass in some ruins not too far from where they kept Queenie. The plan had been to Kill Queenie, have Cook-cook lose it, then get butchered by the rest of the fiends for being a fucking nut-sack.

It didn't go like that.

At all.

I wasn't surprised when he'd managed to torch two or three fiends. But when he doubled that number and continued hunting for more of them, then I was surprised. Even from our vantage point amongst the ruins, Cass and me could see the fires blazing over the walls surrounding Vault 3. Cook-cook lived up to his moniker and torched the whole fucking place.

Yet, somehow, he still came out of it alive.

By that point though, he'd completely run out of ammo and his armor was little more than scrap. Cass blew his kneecaps out and I took his head off with a fire axe. He got off easy.

On an unrelated note, I also filched his recipes. Making the mental note to swap out his 'meat' preferences for Brahmin, big-horner, or something else where applicable.

After that though, we hoofed it back to Dhatri and collected the last bit of pay.

"Son of a bitch." Dhatri said, looking completely surprised but not at all displeased. "I didn't think you'd actually be able to do it."

"It's not that big of a deal." I said, passing off Cook-cook's head. "Any jack-ass could've done it."

"Yeah, but you're the jack-ass that did, so thank you."

With that, he deposited the remaining caps into my hand, which promptly deposited them into my coin purse.

"There wouldn't be any chance of you having a few more bounties hidden away, would there?"

"Ha, no, though if there were, I'd give them to you." Dhatri chuckled dryly "The four fiends you've bagged were the ones giving us the most trouble. Anyone else beyond that isn't my concern at the moment."

"Damn, well I guess all good things come to an end, right?"

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"Mm, sorry to say. If I had anything else, I could direct you towards, I would. Especially since I'll be having to move my unit to Forlorn Hope now that the Fiends've been handled. Afraid that'll be the Colonel's call from here on."

"You sure you've got nothing for me then?" I asked "Doesn't even have to be bounty hunting, maybe you just need someone to look into something for you."

Dhatri just gave another dry chuckle. "Well, I do need someone to talk to one of my subordinates, but I don't think you'd be qualified for it. As for bounties, NCR has a bureau for that back west. But it hasn't gotten established here yet, due to some of the issues you've helped clear up…"

A thought occurred to Dhatri, and he pulled out a slip of paper and scrawled something onto it before holding it to me.

"What's that?" I asked

"The coordinates for a local contractor." Dhatri answered "There're a few private firms here in the Mojave that have handled most of the heavy lifting while we work to get the bureau established. This one has a good reputation if you're interested. Would probably pay well in the meanwhile if you're waiting to hear from Hsu."

"Hmm… I'll keep it in mind." I grunted "Thanks."

"Don't mention it." Dhatri nodded "I gotta go rouse the troops. Take care."

With that he turned and walked off towards the barracks outside the McCarran concourse. Seeing no need to stand around, I turned and headed towards Cass. She was sitting on a bit of debris on the path leading from the concourse to the main gate.

"We make out good?" Cass asked

"Something close to fifteen hundred." I said, holding out some of the money "You want your cut?"

"…Nah, you can hold onto it for now. Not much I'd spend it on anyway."

"Aight, just tell me when you do."

I put the money back and held out the slip of paper Dhatri'd given me. I explained the situation to Cass and marked the coordinate down in my pip-boy before ditching the slip.

"So, what's next?" Cass asked

"Not too sure." I shrugged "Kinda want to keep making money, but I've got no clue when Hsu's going to come calling."

"Sounds like a problem you need to figure out." Cass said smirking.

"Mmm… Tell you what, I'm hungry." I said, heading for that gate "How about we call it a day and head for the 38?"

"Figure it out in the morning?" Cass asked

"Something like that."

"Heh, sounds good to me, I need a shower anyway. Just being near that last Fiend felt like I was rolling around in the mud."

"He was certainly a dirty one, that's for sure… Still though-" I took out Cook-cook's recipes and began reading them over. "His recipes seem solid."

"… Please tell me you aren't actually considering trying them."

"Why not?" I asked "Swap out some of his choices and they're still serviceable."

"…"

"…Don't you look at me like that."

…

"-isappearances continue to baffle police." A voice squawked from nearby.

I slowly popped my eyes open, and made sense of where I was. It took a moment because everything was off angle. But I could recognize the makeshift bunk bed that was in my line of sight. Except I didn't understand why it was set at a vertical ninety degrees, or sticking to the wall. Or how the bodies lying in them were staying so easily in place.

Then my bleary mind caught up to the rest of me and puzzled out that I was just lying on the floor.

"In other news-" The voice continued, it was a woman's "Local nightclub and hide-away 'The Cave' caught fire late yesterday evening and burned into the early hours of this morning."

'The cave?... Is that what that place was called?'

I gave a small groan of discomfort and began picking myself up, coming to my hands and knees for support. A small look around confirmed my suspicions, I was in my teammates' room.

I did a quick recall about how I'd gotten here just to make sure I hadn't finally cracked. A quick mental re-run had me dragging Yang into the room and hoisting her up onto her bunk, then feeling exceptionally tired and the floor looking very comfortable.

'Yep, sounds about right.'

I finished picking myself up and stretched a bit, cracking and popping all the joints that'd settled into place from lying on the ground. M A cursory glance at Yang showed I'd even tucked her, like a gentleman.

"Police have presently declined to comment or release information regarding the blaze to the general public. However, they have stated that the club's owner, a one Junior Xiong, has not yet been located and is wanted for questioning."

The mental fog cleared enough that I finally figured out where the voice was coming from. There was a scroll set on the bookshelf between the two beds, closest to Yang and Blake's bunks, the window above it trickling sunlight in and beginning to brighten the room. I also pieced together that the woman was talking about what'd happened last night. Or at least the results of it.

Rather than risk the newscaster, who I was fairly sure was Lisa Lavender, saying something she shouldn't; I voted to get up and figure out how to silence the Scroll. My body was notably piqued at my decision to keep moving, but once I was in motion it made no indication it was going to shut down on me. Most of my wounds were scabbed over, and I could vaguely recall bandaging myself up after we got back. I took care not to draw too much attention to us on the way back either.

Part of me had to hope I either hadn't bleed too much on Yang, or had bothered to clean it up if I had. That was an explanation I wasn't prepared to give.

I ambled to the book shelf, and tapped at the scroll like a caveman, trying to imitate how I'd seen everyone else do it.

The glassy screen lit up for a moment, displaying a flashing array of numbers. It took my brain a second to identify it as a time stamp, and was probably some type of alarm.

That was getting annoying. I needed some coffee ASAP.

At my touch though, the voice cut out and the scroll reverted back to a different screen.

"Six?" A small voice asked.

I looked to my left and watched as Ruby, dressed in a black tank top and half covered by her blanket, sat up in her bunk and looked toward me. She looked to be half-asleep still and a bit bleary as well.

"Mornin' tiny." I grunted, twisting to my left and cracking my back and shoulders.

"What're you doing here?" She asked, groggy.

"Fell asleep on your floor… I think."

"… Why?"

I shrugged, "I was tired."

Snowflake made a groaning noise and looked to be stirring, a glance back over my shoulder said Blake was doing the same, but much more peacefully. Part of me wondered if she hadn't woken up first and was just mentally steeling herself. Faunus were supposed to have really sharp sense, if I remembered correctly.

Regardless, I was taking it as my cue to probably take off before everyone was completely cognizant.

Right up until Yang made a noise that reminded me of a deathclaw's death rattle, and pushed herself up from her bed. Her movements were slow and jerky, she began to open her eyes and a look of searing pain shot through her face.

"Mornin' to you too, sunshine."

She pulled her pillow over her face and clamped down tight, rolling over in her bed and away from the window. She made a sound I could equate to being given by someone who'd received a thorough kick to the head.

I could empathize, hangovers suck.

"What happened last night?" Ruby asked, still not too clear headed.

I looked back over to Yang for a moment, and noticed she'd pulled the pillow away from her head enough to look at me. There was an inquisitive gleam to them. I figured she wouldn't have had much idea what'd happened after Junior drugged her. But I'd also counted on having more time to digest it myself or come up with something, which I could guess I wasn't going to get.

So I told the… 'Technical' truth.

"… Got into a little scrape with the club's owner." I answered after a moment's debate. "'Handled it, then enjoyed the rest of our night… may or may not have burned the club down."

"Again?~" Ruby whined "Yang, you promised dad that wouldn't happen.~"

Yang made a muffled sound that was somewhere between groaning and vomiting.

"… I feel like I should be surprised, but at this point I'm not." I shrugged "Anyway, last day of break girls, classes start up again tomorrow. I suggest you make the most of your day."

I turned and ambled towards the door.

"Where're you going?" Ruby asked.

"To make the most of the day… and get a shower."

"But-"

I walked out of the room and started towards my closet. Building momentum as I moved. I had some things to take care of today, but not a whole lot of time to do them. As such, it was time for a game plan.

First on the list: Take a shower. I felt like shit.

…

A tense disquiet settled over the room of team RWBY following the Courier's departure. All four of its occupants were awake and gaining further cognizance with each passing moment.

With a huff, the heiress of the group sat up in bed and turned to sit on the edge of it in her pale nightgown, her hair unruffled and reaching past the small of her back. She pinched the bridge of her nose and looked to the golden brawler across the room from her, who was still mostly obscured by a pillow.

"… So, Yang." Weiss said slowly "What did we learn?"

"…"

With little more than a groan, Yang recovered the rest of her face and rolled back over in bed.

Weiss gave another aggravated sigh. "Perfect."