No one was sure of Derpy's past. She was a Package Courier with the Mojave Pegasus Express. That was all that anyone in the area knew. She didn't like talking about where she used to live, only that the nukes had destroyed the settlement she was from and that she was lucky to even be alive. Doc Mitchell was patching her up in his office when she had woken up after being found near death's door.
There were still flashes going through her mind. Of the man in the checkered suit, the ones that were with him. and something about a Platinum Chip. She had been hired to deliver to the New Vegas Strip. Someone wanted that chip for something important and was willing to pay over 2000 caps for its delivery. His voice still echoed through her memories and dreams.
There was more to it though. She always heard the same song over and over as well in her mind. It was a prideful kind of broadcast, something that she felt safe listening to. Her mind drifted back to the man in the suit's voice again soon afterward. Her desire to kill him started to flare up.
"Guess you made your last delivery kid, must have been an eighteen-karat run of Bad luck," He paused to light a cigarette as he pulled something from his checkered suit coat. A pearl and snakeskin-embossed Nine-millimeter pistol that had an image of the Mother Mary engraved on one side of it," Truth is the game was rigged from the start," and with that Derpy jolted awake to find herself inside of someone's makeshift doctor's office. She placed a hand to her head and could still feel where the bullet impacted her skull. She'd find out later that he in fact shot her twice in the head, and she somehow survived it.
In the confines of her own mind, she found herself back there again, in the room with all the computers. It felt safe there like she was part of something greater than herself and that she'd have to answer the call again soon. She understood that the Platinum Chip was important and that she had to recover it to finish the job, but there was something else. She had to remember her original promise. The promise to restore something more important.
The promise of a better future. And now she was alone again in the darkness that was consuming her mind right now. She had to recover her memory, that's all that mattered right now. She started to open her eyes to get a better understanding of where she was at. She heard a calm voice speak to her at that moment.
She heard this voice ask if she was alright. She didn't know what to say so she just stayed silent for the moment. She let him speak to find out where she had woken up and maybe find out who was responsible for what happened to her. The Chip. She also had to get it back somehow. It had become important to her and she needed to retrieve it.
"Whoa, easy now," he said. Given everything he had been through in life, this was easy in his eyes. He helped her get her bearings first," You've been out cold for a week or two. Let me help you sit up now, and take it easy." Most in Goodsprings knew he had been a traveling doctor for a spell or two. He just went where his help was needed is what he always told them.
This one in front of him was a bit of an enigma, to be honest. She had been found up in the Cemetary near Goodsprings by that Securitron that was always roaming the town. Victor was his name. he had told the Doc that something just told him to check up there and that was when he found her in a half-buried shallow grave. He'd been witness to a lot of things, she was really something else. How many had he patched up in his years as a wasteland doctor that could just bounce back like nothing phased them.
It was almost abnormal when he thought about it. His mind then drifted to the robot with a face, Victor was the name he remembered it telling him. He just happened to be there at the right time to dig her out of that grave. The more he thought about it the more it was like he was programmed to head up there and take a look. Grounding himself in the present he guided his new patient over to the couch and had her sit down. Time to get to work he told himself. There were a few question he had to ask her.
"Now let us see if we can solve something, do you remember your name at all?" It was a pretty standard question to ask someone that had just survived being shot in the head.
"Yea, it's Derpy," she told him. Huh, an unusual name he thought after she told him that. Not quite what he'd of called her if she were his daughter. But a name is a name as far as he was concerned. She took his hand as he helped her up off the bed. She had been found in some old armor that looked Pre War, but it was decided that she should be given something more accommodating for her size.
"Alright," he pointed to the corner of the room," walk over to the Vigortester and see if we can get a good reading on skills," It was simple, walk over and take a test to see how affected her memory was. She Got up and walked over to it as if nothing was wrong. She was a strange one he thought. Who just gets up and acts normally after being shot like that? There was something about her that seemed a tad off to him. But he just chalked it up to not having enough Sleep.
"Btw, i found this up next to the water tower, i understand it might be yours," he said as he directed her to the kitchen. On the table was some scratched-up Pre war armor and what looked like some kind of assault rifle with parts scattered around it.
"Yea, this is my stuff," she said as she reassembled the carbine and put her armor back on. The armor reminded him of those dusters with the metal chest pieces that the NCR Rangers wore on occasion. This was different though. On the chest piece, there was a faded eagle with the letter E on it encircled by a wreath of stars. Before she left he asked her what the lettering on her armor might have meant.
"All I remember is that it spells out West Coast Enclave," Before she decided to say anything more on the subject she was already gone.
"Well, that's mighty interesting," Mitchell said after she closed the door to his house. He had heard about them out near the Boneyard several years ago. During the war with the NCR the remnants of the Enclave had just up and disappeared. There were rumors that they had been recalled to Capitol Wasteland. Maybe it was best to put those rumors to rest and keep an eye on her.
There was another that had just gotten into town that said they were looking for someone that matched Derpy's description. Maybe they knew her and could uncover something about her past. Mitchell noticed that it was almost 3 in the afternoon. Time to hit the saloon he told himself. He stopped by around this time to see how Trudy was doing and to keep Sunny Smiles out of trouble. That girl and her dog were good for keeping out the critters that were known to live in the wasteland.
While traveling the roads to better get an understanding of what had happened Derpy came across the town of Nipton. It was too quiet for her tastes. As she approached she spotted someone off in the distance. A man came running up to yell that he had just won the lottery.
"Lottery? What the hell are you talking about," she said. He looked at her funny before speaking some more. He seemed a little too happy as far as she was concerned.
"The Nipton Lottery, Hell yea!! I'm a free man!" And with that proceeded to run down the road and as far away from the town as he could possibly get. Good for him Derpy thought to herself. As she got closer she looked up to the Symbol of a faded Golden Bull stamped across a sea of red. They are the flags of Caesar's Legion.
"Oh god," she thought, they are moving closer and closer towards the dam. She pulled out a sniper rifle and peered through the scope to count seven or more Legionnaires and two guard dogs. What Doc Mitchell and others didn't know was that Derpy was more than just a Mail Carrier. She was one of the deadliest sharpshooters in the Wastes. A faction that she had been a part of years ago had shattered when their command structure collapsed after a war against the Brotherhood of Steel. She and a few others had survived by playing dead as a patrol walked by them and didn't bother to make sure they were actually dead. That was several years ago in the Capital Wasteland.
Out there she was free. Free to make a name for herself and make the wastes a better place than they had been left two hundred years after the world ended. She got into a crouching position and took cover behind a wrecked truck that was parked off to the side. She let her rifle do the talking for her as three Legion recruits hit the ground, struggling to stay alive.
The others began to split up in a vain attempt to search for whoever had done this. They fell like flies as 4 more rifle rounds tore into their torsos. By the time she was done, there were only 3 left, including Vulpes Inculta. He was supposedly Caesar's best agent and he just watched as a single figure dispatched the so-called elite troops that had been with him for years.
For the first time in Vulpe's life, he was actually afraid of another person. Someone that outdid him when it came to stealth and subterfuge. He looked down the street to see someone holster a Sniper Rifle onto their back. If he wasn't gripped with fear he would have charged at them with his Ripper in hand. But he couldn't muster the strength to pull it out from its sheath. He started to back up towards the Nipton town hall as the figure began walking down the street towards his location.
When they got closer he noticed that they had their hand on a Ranger Sequoia. They closed the distance before he could even get up the stairs and through the door and signal for reinforcements at all.
The air in Nipton was tense as multiple shots rang through the air. Vulpes watched his entire battalion of Legionaries drop to the ground. A lone figure stood at the end of the street clad in the darkened armor of an NCR ranger Veteran. As the figure approached he tripped on the Stairs to the Nipton town hall. His eyes filled with terror and fear as he asked this person what their name was. "Oh me? I'm Courier Six, and I'm the last thing you'll ever see."
One more shot rang out as Vulpes hit the floor dead. Derpy knew that she'd be on their hit list now. There was no doubt about it. She had to be ready for the moment anyone from the Legion could show up under the orders of Caesar to take her head. Just one more thing to add to the growing list of concerns that she'd have from now on. Her training was what had kept her alive then, and it would benefit her now more than ever.
"Ok, according to my Pip-Boy there's an Abandoned Shack nearby. Huh, Maybe i could turn into a home."Home, the one thing she really missed right now. Being able to lay her head down and not worry about anything at all sounded really good to her. The place had a bed and some workbenches she could use. it also had a bathroom near the back. After cleaning up the mess that was left on the floor by the previous owners she settled in. She rigged a shotgun trap and aimed it at the door just in case someone tried to get and rob her or worse.
As she lay in bed another memory came to her. She was in that old armor of her's but she was somewhere else, somewhere very far away. There were others with her, she was giving them orders to advance on a derelict building. The sounds of laser fire could be heard all around them. They were being fired upon by the Brotherhood of Steel. One of the soldiers next to her took a laser strike to the chest and arm before dropping to the ground. She yelled out for a medic, but before one showed up Derpy jolted out of bed.
"Ow, there it goes again," the mare thought to herself. She had to take a few doses of Med-X just to dull the pain now.
All of these years later, she still felt the pain in her left arm. She had been shot there with a laser rifle sometime ago and never really healed properly. There had been times when she should have been killed and yet she just got up like nothing had fazed her at all. What none knew was that Derpy had a parasitic being inside of her. It cleansed her system of radiation and healed her when near death. In the off chance that she did "die", the creature that shared her body could produce a full on clone of it and herself.
After making that shack her new home, she still traveled to Goodsprings to drop off the stuff that she had scanvenged from nearby wrecks. The caps were decent and were enough to pay off her tab at Trudy's bar. This trip there was a stranger sitting at one of the tables. At least they were a stranger to everyone but Derpy.
