For reference, the courier is not insane, precisely.

But on top of being an accomplished liar, she's a pretty good (terrifying) actress.

Or perhaps that's just what I want you to think.

South Vegas Ruins

The basic idea of how to take on Cook-Cook was pretty simple. Get in, kill him, and get out.

Of course, there was a lot more to it than that once the courier's group reached the outskirts of the Fiend leader's territory. With Boone crouched in the shadow of a blasted ruin to get a better look at the Fiend camp, cracked binoculars in hand and a bottle of Cateye nearby, they decided to outline their plans.

After talking to Little Buster, Pretty Sarah, and Major Dhatri, it was clear that Cook-Cook used a flamethrower or other incendiary for his main weapon, while the Fiends around him tended toward shotguns and low-quality rifles when energy weapons weren't available. And given the lack of caravan traffic around southern Vegas because of Fiend presence in the first place, Arcade probably had the only plasma pistol within at least a square mile.

And then there was the matter of that brahmin that Cook-Cook seemed to be very fond of. None of them doubted for a second that Meda would send someone after it—when it came to her enemies, she preferred to prey on their weaknesses whenever possible. Otherwise, it seemed like the majority of her strategies were formed around Lily flattening the opposition with heavy weapons of all types.

"So, we only have a couple ways into Cook-Cook's camp without getting instantly set on fire." Meda said, resting her chin on her open palm. She stared at the map outlined on her Pip-Boy for a while, thinking hard. "And out of all of us, ED-E's about the closest to fireproof since he's basically a giant flying metal eyeball."

ED-E beeped in apparent disapproval—he was much more than a flying metal eyeball.

"Or you could just let Boone and I see if we can make Cook-Cook's head explode from a safe distance." Arcade suggested, once again acting as the requisite sanity for the courier's crazy battle plans. Not that they didn't work, but they tended not to take certain things (like danger) into account, absolutely certain that each member of her group could flawlessly pull off their part.

Not that they'd failed yet, but Arcade thought it was better to be safe than sorry.

"Unfortunately, I want Major Dhatri's bounty, which means the head needs to be intact. Caps are caps." Meda said, shrugging.

"Might I remind you that we get more caps for selling your spare machetes after you've already swapped out the blades and handles six times and are held together with duct tape?" Arcade was also obligated to point this out as quickly as possible—if the courier was going to call him on being evasive, he had no problem returning the favor. Particularly since now she had a very nasty bit of blackmail if she ever needed to keep him in line.

"You can, but it's not going to make much of a difference to me." Meda informed him. She frowned, drumming the fingers of her supporting hand against her cheek. "Look, I'm obligated to take him out. Not because of caps—like you said, I can get those anywhere—but because I had to talk Corporal Betsy into going to get an actual therapist and make sure Ten of Spades didn't blame himself for what happened."

"Still, we need a better plan to go about this." Arcade insisted, because, while he agreed with the courier's motivation, he also realized that the likelihood of them all getting killed was also fairly significant if they didn't have some kind of strategy. When you got down to it, only three members of their party of nine had more-than-human durability, and two of them didn't have opposable thumbs.

"Yeah, well, I'm open to ideas." Meda said, shaking her head. "Because I've gotten about as far as 'rush in and kill that motherfucker.'"

"I figured as much." Arcade muttered.

"Veronica's going in close as usual, right?" Cass asked—she was about fifteen feet away, peeking over the edge of a blasted wall that might have once been brick. She and Veronica had elected not to join the planning session, if only because there was no real point in watching the courier stare at the Pip-Boy map for fifteen minutes.

"Do I sound like I want to have her set on fire?" Meda demanded.

"Kinda!" Cass retorted.

"Shut up." And just like that the courier was back to frowning and looking over her Pip-Boy while ED-E floated around and scanned for incoming Fiends. It was always possible that they could be overheard to soon—they all remembered Ten of Spades' account of how Cook-Cook had ambushed the pair of First Recon snipers originally. It never hurt to be careful.

Speaking of, wasn't ED-E acting a little oddly?

"What about using Lily to mow down the Fiends with the Avenger?" Arcade suggested.

"We didn't bring it." Meda replied.

"Baiting them and then having myself, Raul, or Boone kill them as they come out of the ruins?" He wasn't even sure why he was bothering anymore.

"Better." Meda was still frowning. "Though I wonder if…"

ED-E chose that moment to beep loudly and smack into the back of Arcade's head. Yep, the robot definitely had it out for him.

"Oh, son of a bitch." She was looking at ED-E, too. But her frown had become a scowl and she was standing all of a sudden, looking between her Pip-Boy and the open plain that was the buffer zone between their hideout and the Fiend camp.

And the Fiends were out in force.

CRACK! Apparently, from his vantage point about twenty feet to their right, Boone had made a decision. And without a silencer, too.

"Ambush." Meda hissed, picking up the fire ax she'd taken for the raid. "Arcade, I don't know if you know anything about flanking, but—"

"Done and done," was his reply—after retrieving a multiplas rifle from the Followers' safehouse, it was really more a question of positioning than firepower. And if he moved fast, the Fiends wouldn't be able to get a clear shot before he vaporized their torsos.

"Good. Go." Meda gave him a quick nod and vanished into the shadows.

Well, since the situation had gone completely to hell, it was time to scatter and improvise.

Standard operating procedure, really.

None of them were really helpless, even when caught by surprise. Part of the reason they'd managed to survive as long as they had was because each and every member of the courier's traveling band of do-gooders was an expert in their field. And while that might have given the impression of them being specialists in repairing broken items, or in hacking computer terminals, or even administering medicine, it really came down to combat.

And from Arcade to Veronica, they had all the tools necessary to make use of their deadly skill. The courier had gathered thousands of caps for pretty much just that exact purpose.

Twenty Psycho-dosed Fiends was going to be a cakewalk.

THUD. CRACKCRACKCRACK.

Lily flattened one into the ground on her first swing, slashing repeatedly to make sure he wasn't getting up anytime soon. Raul had her back, effortlessly shooting one incoming Fiend right between the eyes. They worked best when they were paired together—while Raul had about as much of a knack for melee as a deathclaw for waterskiing, Lily was a monster in close quarters who could easily keep the relatively-fragile ghoul from getting squashed or shredded.

KA-CHAK. CRACKCRACKCRACKCRUNCH!

And then there was Cass, nearly stationary because Veronica was running around crushing skulls in T-51b powered armor and Cass was there to make sure no one got past her. And since her new favorite was drum-fed and she had more shells than she knew what to do with, the Fiends were about to get a taste of lead and Legion coinage.

CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.

Meanwhile, Boone was trying to keep from going for the head and failing, as the headless corpses in his killzone would attest. Arcade reloaded his multiplas rifle and, after jamming another energy cell into place, covered the approach from the stairwell and south window. Boone took the north and east sides of the building if only because there wasn't that much wall left to provide cover otherwise. And given the dead Fiends everywhere, they were doing pretty well from their vantage point.

Below, ED-E zoomed around the battlefield at what used to be rooftop level, firing on any hostiles caught out in the open. Rex snarled, letting the robot lead him to new opponents and flinging himself at any Fiend that dared think he or she was tough enough to take on both a former Enclave eyebot and a cyberdog that was once the favorite warhound of Caesar himself.

FWOOSH.

And then Cook-Cook made his appearance. The courier didn't.

It wasn't that any of them were really all that afraid of the Fiend leader. Hell, the Fiends themselves didn't even like the guy. But when their fearsome leader showed up, it was like the Psycho-addicted raiders got their second wind.

Cook-Cook, despite expectations, was a normal-sized man who dressed in metal armor and smelled fairly terrible. He was also batshit insane, had a laugh that would have made even the courier pause, and proved all of their assumptions correct when he arrived at the building both Arcade and Boone were taking potshots from. He proceeded to aim his incinerator up the staircase and set the upper floor on fire.

And not coincidentally, the edge of Arcade's labcoat followed suit. So, after he'd scrambled to get it off and succeeded, Boone rolled it into a ball that was still on fire and threw it at the Fiend leader's face. Then both of them fled the roof entirely. Boone jumped and made sure to tuck and roll, while Arcade climbed down with as much speed as he could manage. He, after all, didn't feel like cracking his skull on the concrete in addition to nearly being set on fire.

Cook-Cook shrieked in rage and pursued.

He wasn't really as fast as Arcade or Boone, either. Between the metal armor and the weight of the incinerator (where each of them was carrying their weapon and only that), all he could do was fire at targets who didn't have the stupidity necessary to travel in a straight line.

And when Cass and Veronica arrived to take him on, Cook-Cook got a pair of shotgun blasts to the torso. One was courtesy of Cass and her riot shotgun, while the other was from Veronica's ballistic fist. Cook-Cook went down with a gurgle, though he wasn't dead yet.

But that didn't do anything about his fellow Fiends, who were moving in gleefully while Boone and Arcade were out of position. There were a few too many for Cass to take on without using Veronica as a human shield first.

Boone dropped into a crouch and steadied the barrel of his anti-materiel rifle to give fire support. They could all hear ED-E's happy beeping closing in to reinforce them, along with Rex's barking, which meant that they just had to avoid being shot to death for a few more seconds…

Then, out of nowhere, "Zip-a-dee-doo-da, zip-a-dee-ay, my oh my, what a wonderful day…"

Everyone looked up (except Boone, who killed a Fiend while the rest were distracted).

Standing on edge of one of the other wrecked buildings, which Arcade distinctly remembered not liking because the staircase had been demolished, the courier waved at everyone with her left hand. In her right was a pair of brahmin heads. Cook-Cook gave a high, nearly animalistic whine.

"Hey, Cook-Cook, wondering where Queenie went?" Her grin stood out as a white crescent against a face completely covered in blood. "Funny thing, fire axes don't seem designed to be used on stuff at shoulder height, so it took a while longer than I would have liked…"

Cook-Cook howled in fury, surging to his feet and aiming his incinerator at Li, who by then was already moving. She dropped the heads and ducked to the side of the first blast, shouting, "Everyone, move!" Then she ran off, leaping from second floor to wall to another building entirely, with Cook-Cook in pursuit.

Boone's rifle gave another loud crack and a Fiend's head exploded. Just like that, the fight began again.

Arcade's multiplas rifle melted another Fiend's arm to his shotgun. Cass caught one Fiend off-guard and blew his head into a fine red mist. Veronica barreled into another two and punched them to death. ED-E flew in through a gap in the roof cover and a Fiend caught fire. Rex hit one at throat level and took him down. Raul and Lily appeared from the next street over and the slaughter began in earnest.

The next Fiend—the last one standing—caught fire from an incinerator blast as Cook-Cook went berserk, launching fireballs at anything he could see.

Then Li leapt off the ruin she'd been climbing and landed on his head, feet-first. There was a blur of violence that no one could follow. Her fire ax hacked his incinerator to bits and the pilot light was stomped out, and she finished the wild attack with one booted foot planted on his back.

It was only much later that her companions found out what she said to Cook-Cook in his last few seconds. Apparently, Boone had picked up lip-reading at some point.

"Three down, one to go."

The ax came down and it was over.

Several minutes later:

Thud.

Cass nudged the fallen courier with her boot. "Li, get up."

"Mrflble," was the mumbled response, and she didn't move.

Veronica took the opportunity to poke the courier with a stick. Well, at least she was having fun. "I didn't know you could have Psycho crashes."

Arcade rolled the semiconscious woman over and checked her pupils, which were even wider than normal. They still contracted when he aimed a tiny flashlight at her face, though. "I think it's more a question of Psycho crossed with Turbo."

"…And her heart didn't explode?" Cass said in disbelief.

"Guess not." Arcade shook his head in disapproval crossed with disbelief. Lucky didn't quite explain the courier's success. This was ridiculous.

Lily ended up hauling the courier back to the Strip with Raul, Arcade, Veronica, and ED-E while Boone, Cass, and Rex reported back to Major Dhatri about the bounty. Two hundred and fifty caps was not nearly enough money for Cook-Cook's head, but at that point no one really cared. They would in the morning, but in the meantime they just wanted to get back to non-hostile civilization, and did so.