Afton had almost finished the group of undercover soldiers, he blows the head off of one who's currently on their knee's pleading for mercy. As much as he'd 'like' to spare them, he'd rather the NCR not know that he was responsible for their deaths. Even if the people who sent these men after him could probably infer that it was him.

He slowly turns towards the last soldier who'd dropped their cattle prod in fear, they try to reach for their weapon but fumble and drop that as well... They try to back up but their foot gets caught on a rock, causing them to fall onto their ass, looking up in despair at Afton as he approached. ​​

"Now, seeing as you're the lucky survivor, I'll be needing you to tell me who put you up to this." he states, holstering his gun and taking out his knife instead.

Sergeant Robert J. Hess meets Afton's eyes and shakes his head, "I'm a loyal soldier, you won't get anything outta me." he says, his voice trembling slightly at what he knows will be his end.

Afton smirks at him, "That' fine, that's fine... All it means is that I get to practise my technique, I wonder if it'll be more or less painful to torture someone with a single arm?" he mutters to himself loud enough for the soldier to hear.

Robert pales, he'd read Afton's file and seen the brutal public execution he'd committed against two slavers... Needless to say, he wasn't going to willingly stick around for that. He grabs a handful of sand and throws it at Afton's face, before dragging himself to his feet and running in the opposite direction.

Afton had seen this coming and simply turned his head as the sand was thrown, pulling out his pistol and shooting the man's kneecap as he tries to run. He waves over to where Anja is and gestures for her to come to him, he might as well teach her some thinks about torture and interrogation.

A few hours later :

Afton wipes his forehead with his sleeve and nods at his work, the soldier was nothing but a puddle of red blood, flesh, and piss. Honestly, flaying the skin from someone is much. much harder than it looks. Just as disgusting too as it would happen.

He glances at Anja who he'd had assisting him in this venture, he was surprised to find that ghouls could be sick... She looked so green he'd almost mistaken her for a glowing one. Apparently she didn't appreciate my approach to 'torture first, ask questions later', she couldn't really complain though since he'd gotten all the information he wanted.

The NCR soldiers were sent by the OSI, or more likely in his personal opinion, Doctor Hildern. The man acted too kind, and too interpersonal. It had been a drastic change from his almost disinterested tone when they'd first met. That had soon changed when Afton's rather, unique physiology was revealed.

He knew greed when he saw it, but it was strange to see greed in someone's eyes when looking at your body. Was that what it felt like to be obsessively desired? Women sure had it rough in that case.

Yes, he knew something like this was probably going to happen when he accepted Doctor Hildern's job, and that was why he got a contract written, no point springing a trap when there was no reward after all. However, now he had a 'public' reason to be aggrieved with the NCR, which would cushion any negative actions he might take against them in future, allowing him to argue his case and potentially sway anyone who was sitting on the fence.

It was also helpful to know your enemies. The OSI had agreed and funded this operation, meaning that the entire organisation needed to be dealt with, or at least, compensation was required if they wanted to get into his good graces again.

He smirks to himself, if they wanted to study his physiology again then he'd need them to pay an arm and a leg just for a drop of blood. He wasn't worried that they'd somehow use the research against him, as it was incree~dibly unlikely that their research would amount to anything. He wasn't just saying this based on personal opinion of the supernatural system attached to his Pipboy, but also his 100 Medicine Skill professional opinion.

Shaking his head, as much as he'd like to kill Doctor Hildern as soon as possible, it was best to leave him as a scapegoat for future endeavours.

He turns to Anja "Feel confident in torturing people in my absence?" he asks semi-jokingly.

The green-looking ghoul shakes their head, "No... I would rather not to anything like this again..."

Afton shrugs, "You can wish that all you want. Doesn't make it any less likely to happen though." he says, before beginning to loot the NCR soldiers. "Help me pack this stuff, I wanna get into the Vault by today!"

Anja sighs and takes one last glance at the barely alive soldier who was heaving struggled breathes before doing as she's told. While she might have accepted this job, she hadn't thought that brutal torture would have been part and parcel of it.

Soon enough Afton and Anja had stored most of the weaponry, supplies, and other valuables the NCR soldiers had so graciously left behind. He thinks for a moment about burying the corpses before shaking his head, that was a lot more effort than he was willing to give, so instead he just dragged the corpses away from the entrance to prevent creatures from gathering there later. With that, he straps the extra backpacks of loot to Dirt-Bird before driving into the canyon entrance towards Vault 22.