Afton glanced down at the dead bandit before looking back at his companions, "Alright, let's loot these guys and move on." he bends down to start searching the man for his possessions when time suddenly grinds to a halt...

[WELCOME TO LEVEL 21] ​​

...

"Huh... Maybe this guy was worth more EXP than I first thought?" he mutters to himself, having not expected to level up after only these few bandits.

He wouldn't be able to get a Perk this level, but he was given skillpoints to use... Wait, now that he thinks about it, isn't he able to max out his Medicine skill?

...

Well, he'd definitely be doing that, but what skill should he level up after that? Science? No, he still felt slightly paranoid that the Legion would be sending assassins after him. Hm, on that thought, wouldn't upgrading his Sneak skill allow how to recognise stealth better? It wouldn't just increase his abilities to sneak, but also to spot other people sneaking.

Nodding to himself, he immediately placed the points in Medicine and Sneak.

[Medicine Skill maxed, Perk gained! : Miracle Maker]

[Miracle Maker] : A fatal injury to yourself can be instantly healed once a week!

...

That is completely broken. Afton could now survive a bullet causes his head to explode with this Perk alone... Of course, it'd only work once a week, but he sincerely doubted he'd allow that to happen to him within such a timespan.

With that done he clicks confirm and time resumes again, Afton squinting due to the pain of knowledge burning itself in his mind. He closes his eyes for a couple moments and waits it out, the other's not noticing as they loot the bandit corpses.

Half an hour later the trio had looted everything worth any caps from the bandits. The bodies were piled into a heap at the side of the road, whether or not someone would deal with them was anyone's guess. The group didn't want to waste any resources to burn or even dig them a shallow grave, so it'd be up to the NCR to get rid of them before pests started infesting the road.

Afton marches over to the barricade as Karl and Boone watch. The sun was still beating down on them and supercharging the former-Brotherhood of Steel member. Once he reached the scrap metal wall he gave it a hard kick, sending a good portion of it falling over.

It hadn't even been welded together, simply propped up against one another in order to stop the group from riding past on Dirt-Bird. Afton easily shifted it outta the way though, his 10 strength wasn't for nothing after all... Right now he literally had peak human capabilities. No matter how hard someone trained, they'd never be able to get stronger than him. Getting equal strength? Maybe, but it'd still take a lifetime of training and dedication.

Once the barricade was outta the way the group slipped through on Dirt-Bird and continued their journey. But, it didn't seem like they'd be getting to the Gun Runners without trouble stopping them every step of the way.

*Bang! Bang! Bang!*

The sound of gunfire could be heard off in the distance, and Afton was debating whether or not it'd be worth checking it out. If it was a large scale battle they could just wait until it was over and pick up the remaining loot. Or, if it was smallscale, they could clean it up themselves depending on who was fighting.

"You guys think we should check it out?" Afton asks the others.

Karl nods, "Yeah, might be some folk who need help. This close to New Vegas has a lot of Fiends wanderin' around, wouldn't sit right with me if we didn't atleast makesure nothing untoward was happening."

"Untoward? Having a gunfight isn't 'Untoward?" Afton retorts dryly.

Karl just shrugs, "Kid, in the Mojave a gunfight is like invitin' your family over. No one wants it but they feel obligated to come anyway." he states, causing them both to chuckle, Afton could sware he heard Boone laugh too... But, if the man had then he'd buried it under his facade quickly after.

"Boone?" Afton inquires, wanting to know his thoughts.

"Might as well. I'll stay behind you and watch your back, try not to do anything stupid."

Afton nods, "Right, well I guess we're taking a detour then." he says, steering Dirt-Bird into a side road heading west from the highway.

As they approach the noise just gets louder and louder, eventually the group can spot a grouping of buildings. One that seemed to be patrolled by robots, probably a RobCo property judging from the specific robots... As well as the "RobCo sign placed at the front. Across the street from that were a group of three buildings that had dirty-looking people stood atop it. All of which were shooting at a small group of NCR soldiers that were hiding behind sandbags down the street.

Afton drove Dirt-Bird up to them after the Fiends seemed to lose interest in wasting ammunition on the hiding soldiers. "Yo." he says simply, giving a small wave as they give him a confused look.

"W-what? Civilians you need to leave this area now! The fiends have taken up position on those buildings over there and are firing at everything that moves!" the Sargeant of the group commands before peeking over to check on what the fiends were doing.

Karl just hops off of the bike and walks up to him, "Don't worry son, we're just here to help. We're mercenaries after all."

...

"You can help? Thank god. I thought we'd be stuck here for days waiting for reinforcements... We can prevent those fuckers from running away, but taking them out is beyond us right now. We have a couple rangers who went in to do it, but one is already dead, and the other is heavily injured. Look." he says, handing Karl some binoculars.