The bell above the door gave its tinny, cheerful ring as Case and Milla stepped back into the shaded interior of the General Store. The air was thick with the scent of old wood and gun oil, a sharp contrast to the ozone and cordite they had left behind at the springs.
Chet looked up from his ledger, leaning his elbows on the counter with a practiced, neutral expression. "Back already? I didn't hear a lot of shooting, though that one burst sounded like a whole squad was up there."
"Fire Geckos, Chet," Case said, leaning against a display of cram cans. "Nasty ones. Almost burned Milla's head."
Milla didn't wait for an opening. She stepped forward, planting her hands on the counter and looming just enough to make the merchant blink. "Almost? Chet, those things were breathing fire on the town's water supply. If Case wasn't the fastest shot in the Mojave, you wouldn't be worried about ammo prices—you'd be worried about being roasted in your sleep."
Chet cleared his throat, his eyes shifting between Case's calm demeanor and Milla's intense scowl. "Well, now, I appreciate the help. Truly. And like I told Jacob, I've got that bulk 5.56 ready for you at a fair discount—"
"Fair?" Milla interrupted, her voice dropping into a dangerous, low vibrato. "We just did the work of a full mercenary detail for the price of a 'discount'? We aren't charity workers, Chet. We secured your town's lifeblood. Clean water is worth a hell of a lot more than a few caps off a box of surplus."
Chet wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, his bravado finally beginning to fray at the edges. "Now, hold on, I'm a small business—overhead is high, and the roads aren't getting any safer—"
"And we're a small team with very large guns," Milla countered, her lips curling into a sharp, toothy grin. "How about this: you give us the bulk 5.56 we agreed on, and throw in a few crates of .308 for the 'trauma' we just endured up on that ridge. Call it a consultant fee."
Chet let out a long, weary sigh—the sound of a man who realized he had officially been outmaneuvered in his own shop. He looked past Milla toward Case, searching for a more reasonable voice or a shred of Ranger professional mercy. Case didn't say a word; he simply gave a slow, rhythmic nod of agreement, his eyes cold and steady.
"Fine, fine," Chet grumbled, his shoulders slumping.
He disappeared behind the counter, grunting as he hauled up several heavy, olive-drab crates. They were marked with the unmistakable stamp of the Gun Runners—high-quality, factory-pressed .308 and 5.56 military rounds.
Case pushed off the display case, the weight of the new supplies a welcome addition to their inventory. He offered a thin, sharp smile. "Pleasure doing business with you, Chet. Keep the springs clean."
The two of them stepped out of the store into the mid-afternoon glare, the bell chiming a final, defeated note behind them. Case carried the heavy Gun Runner crates, the weight straining his muscles, but he barely noticed the effort. His mind was elsewhere.
He glanced sideways at Milla, who was whistling a jaunty tune, looking entirely too proud of herself. How did she pull that off? he wondered. In the game, Chet was notoriously stingy—the kind of guy who would only offer basic leather armor to help the town defend itself against a literal army of Powder Gangers.
Yet, Milla had just talked him out of high-grade military surplus like it was nothing. He couldn't help but wonder what her "Speech" skill looked like on a character sheet. It had to be pushing eighty, at the very least.
Case put the crate on the back of the jeep. It wouldn't be stolen, and it would be enough to supply the rangers for a week or two. The total rounds in those crates were in the thousands, might be 5,000 rounds in total, at the very least.
Sure, people with a minigun would chew through it easily, but for Case, who merely used his service rifle, it was more than enough. After all, at most, he used two hundred rounds, not thousands of rounds.
He wiped his hands on his trousers, glancing at the "Gun Runners" stencil on the wood. He knew that in a few years, this much 5.56 and .308 would be worth a fortune in caps—enough to buy a small house in the New Vegas ruins.
"You realize," Milla said, hopping into the passenger seat and kicking her dusty boots up onto the dash, "that if we get flagged down by an NCR patrol, they're going to ask why two Rangers are hauling enough brass to supply a battalion. They'll think we're starting our own private army."
"Then we'll just tell them we're very, very bad at aiming," Case grunted, climbing into the driver's seat and turning the ignition. The engine turned over with a deep, throaty growl that vibrated through the floorboards. "Besides, the NCR hasn't pushed this far north yet. We've still got time before their red tape smothers the Mojave. Let's head home while the road is still ours."
He shifted the jeep into gear, the mechanical clunk feeling solid and satisfying. As he pulled away from the General Store, he glanced one last time at the quiet buildings of Goodsprings. In his mind, he could see the future—the chaos, the Courier, the fire—but for now, it was just a peaceful town in the rearview mirror.
"Five thousand rounds," Milla mused, leaning her head back and closing her eyes against the dry desert wind. "Even for you, that's a hell of a lot of weight. You planning on missing a lot, or are we starting a war?"
"I think you'd make a great NCR diplomat in the future, Milla," Case replied, a smirk playing on his lips as he steered the jeep onto the cracked asphalt of the main road. "You've got a gift for making people see things your way. Mostly through fear and logic."
"Hahahaha, hell no!" Milla added a laugh, the sound carried away by the rushing air. "I am not great behind a desk. Well, unless I'm sneaking into a desk to steal something for the Rangers. That's about as much 'paperwork' as I can handle. Give me a shotgun and a trail map any day."
Case glanced back at the heavy crates, their olive-drab paint shimmering in the heat. "Seriously, though. These are worth a truckful of caps. Nicely done, Milla. You saved us months of scavenging."
"Don't get used to it," she teased, pulling her scarf up over her nose as the wind picked up.